I’ve always focused on body measurements over bodyweight and here’s why:
Bodyweight doesn’t accurately reflect body-composition changes.
You can stay at the same bodyweight but see a massive change in body-composition.
I’ve seen this over and over again in my clients and today I’ll show you an example of my Norwegian client Andreas.
He came to me after being skinny-fat his entire life.
Being skinny-fat affected every single area of his life but most notably his dating life due to the insecurity issues brought on by his body-composition.
He was also depressed and tried to overcome this by going the traditional therapy route for a year but had no results.
Similarly to me, prior to following the right type of training for our body-type, he had trained on and off for nearly 10 years, trying to do heavy barbell programs such as Starting Strength and even doing lots of cardio but no matter how much weight he added to the barbell or how much cardio he did, his body-composition didn’t change.
Being about to hit age 30, he decided that it’s time to attack the root cause which is his unhappiness with his body-composition and we did it together in just 14 weeks.
In the picture at the top of this post you can see Andreas’ 14 week transformation.
During these 14 weeks, Andreas’ bodyweight barely changed.
It went from 110 KG (242 LBS) to 109 KG (240 LBS).
However both his arm and shoulder measurements increased significantly while his waist measurement dropped a total of 9 CM (3.5 inches) and hip measurement dropped 6.5 CM (2.6 inches).
This was done while following a balanced diet plan where he always felt satiated.
We didn’t cut carbs or follow any extreme diets that break down your endocrine system such as the ketogenic diet.
Here’s one of the emails I received from Andreas at the beginning of the coaching process:
Still feeling energized and motivated on this diet, I feel like I could continue with it indefinitely. I haven’t felt the need to binge since starting with SFT. No cravings either, because I’m full all the time. I can’t imagine how my body will look in 6-12 months time. Thanks for the help so far, and I hope you had a good week!
And here’s a recent email:
Hey Oskar,
I updated the Excel sheet. Worked out 4 times this week too.
Progress like always, and I can’t remember the last time I had this little body fat without starving myself. It’s still so surreal that I can eat until I’m satiated, and have this progress I’m having. I feel so much better now than I did a couple of months ago, and it’s only going to get better. In a couple of months I can buy clothes I actually want to wear, and not because they hide the right places. I can be with family and friends in the summer without a shirt on, if I want to. Only good things to come!
Hope you had a nice week!
Best regards,
Andreas
His strength on the key bodyweight exercises also increased.
Being very tall and lanky, he had very low starting strength levels on the bodyweight exercises at 0 chin ups and 8 push ups.
After 14 weeks, he can do 3 chin ups and 21 push ups with perfect form at almost the same bodyweight.
Keep in mind that he’s a heavy weight at 109 KG (240 LBS) and is very tall at 192 CM (6’3″) height with long arms, therefore doing 3 full chin ups is a very good strength level.
And given his rapid progression so far, I’m confident there’s a lot more to come.
I want to emphasize if you’re feeling depressed or your romantic life is non-existent and being skinny-fat is the root cause then no amount of going to psychologists or denial is going to help you feel better.
You have to attack the root cause which is your body.
Be proud but stay hungry!
Oskar Faarkrog, ISSA Certified Trainer
Read my free 50 page guide "The 2 Phases of a Skinny-Fat Transformation"