Subject: Why you should get lean and stay lean… Forever.
(1) Skinny-fat men often have very low testosterone levels. (Male hormone that enables you to build muscle mass). This issue can be fixed with a high testosterone diet plan, dietary supplementation, good sleep and regular exercise.
(2) When you bulk for too long (past the point where your abs are visible), the following things happen inside your body:
- Estrogen (Estradiol/E2), the female hormone, increases.
- Estradiol binds to androgen receptors.
When this happens, your free testosterone has less androgen receptors to bind to. In other words, bulking up for too long makes your free testosterone useless and thereby muscle gains are harder to come by. Combine this with the fact that your nutrient partitioning is better at healthy body-fat percentages (8-15%) and you not only have a body that has a hard time using food for muscle building but also a body that lacks the ability to build the muscle mass.
(3) When you get fat, you create fat cells. These fat cells are “ready” to be filled up when you are in a caloric surplus, and they NEVER go away. That’s why ripped skinny-fat guys regain their love handles in a matter of days when they “go off their diet”. The fat cells are always ready to fill up. All you can do is reduce their size through a strict caloric deficit and regular exercise, but once you fall of the wagon the fat returns.
(4) If you’ve been skinny-fat or fat for a long time, you may have man boobs. In some cases, these man boobs will still be there after you diet down and lose fat. When I lost 60 pounds back in 2011-2012 I got lean for the first time in my life, had a visible 4 pack, no love handles when sitting down and a body-fat percentage close to 8. Despite that, I still had man boobs. Later I found out that my man boobs were not directly caused by being fat, they were glandular tissue and not fat tissue. The glandular tissue is a result of rapid fat gains in puberty which led to a rapid increase in estradiol (female hormone) and guess what happens when you have too much of the female hormone estradiol and too little testosterone… You get man boobs. Not regular man boobs caused by fat, but REAL glandular tissue that can only be removed through surgery (unless it’s recent, then lifestyle changes and estrogen blockers can revert it).
(5) After reading the 4 points above it should be crystal clear that a large amount of skinny-fat and fat men have hormonal issues that must be addressed before the word “bodybuilding” is mentioned. As a skinny-fat guy you should fix these hormonal issues through a healthy and balanced diet that enable you to shred the fat in a sustainable way, a simple and progressive strength training routine and regular high quality sleep. Once you’re lean, healthy and strong you can start thinking about “building your aesthetics”.
Be proud but stay hungry,
– Oskar Faarkrog
Other Parts
- Part 1: Training
- Part 2: Muscle Gains
- Part 3: Diet
- Part 4: Weight Loss
- Part 5: Aesthetics
- Part 6: Expectations and Body Image
- Part 7: Skinny-Fat Men
- Part 8: Skinny-Fat Women
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What is your opinion on using Estrogen blockers to eliminate feminine fat storage on hips?
I have no experience with these, but I would do my best to lose it without. Don’t play with hormones unless you’ve exhausted all natural options.
The human body does not create new fat cells unless you become morbidly obese, this has been proven by science already. Why would the human body need to create more fat cells, when the ones that you have available still have more than enough space to be filledup, it doesn’t make any sense, it is only after you get so fat (very obese) where your fat cells are so full with energy, that they cannot longer hold anything more, and the body create new fat cells. This doesn’t apply to the average joe between 18 and 25% bf lmao.
The number of fat cells your body has is genetic, and is determined at the end of adolescence, gaining more weight after this, will only increase the size of fat cells, but not the number. If that was the case, then all bodybuilders would get billions and billions of fat cells with each bulk.
Also, this is also why liposuction is such an amazing procedure, because it is the only thing that removes fat cells, basically turning your problematic area, into a non problematic one
Also, just because a person is skinny fat, doesn’t mean he will have gyno. The legit gyno which is glandular mostly happens to teenagers due to genetics, their hormonal profile is screwed due to genes, and it just happens, it has nothing to do with being fat, eating like shit, being sedentary, in fact, there are people who are fatter than these gyno kids, and don’t have glandular gynecomastia, and all they have is pseudo gyno, which is just fat, not gland.
In other words, gyno is either caused by shitty genes, or using roids (again also caused by shitty genes). why? because there are people who use tons roids (zyzz for example), and never develop any gyno whatsoever, while someone else only does one cycle, and gets glandular gyno, in the end, it all comes down to genetics.
Keep in mind most of my readers are skinny-fat teenagers so much of the advice is targeted at them. As far as I understand, teenagers can create new fat cells, and that’s why bulking is a terrible idea for someone who is 13-19 years old and skinny-fat.
You can’t compare experienced bodybuilders with the average skinny-fat guy. Experienced bodybuilders take drugs, are usually older than most of my readers and have a much greater amount of muscle mass.
I have never stated that all skinny-fat guys have gynecomastia. I just stated that a large amount have. How do I know? Because I’ve consulted with +1000 skinny-fat guys of all ages and an estimate would be that roughly 25-30% have gynecomastia. That’s way above the average of the population.
And why do you create gynecomastia? Most often because your estrogen levels are elevated in your teenage years. And why are estrogen levels most often elevated? Much of it is genetic, but a big part of it is also your lifestyle and how much body-fat you carry — skinny-fat guys carry a lot of fat, thus they often have elevated estrogen levels and are more prone to create gynecomastia in their teenage years.
I believe that on a basic level we agree on most things, but you have more insights into the “science part” and you’re a strong believer in genetics determining everything. I believe that while genetics are important, you can make drastic changes to the way your body works by making the right lifestyle changes. My testosterone levels increased by 120% just by changing my diet and training habits. This didn’t change my genetics, but I highly doubt I would have gotten gynecomastia if I ate properly, trained properly and stayed lean throughout my teenage years.
I simply dislike when people say that, one should be careful with bulking because you will create more fat cells.. The average person has nothing to worry about making more fat cells, and everything to worry about eating more calories than they realize, that is how people get fatter.
Your main concern with bulking/gaining fat shouldn’t be making new fat cells, it should be developing stretch marks and loose skin, which cannot truly be fixed without surgical intervention. That is the main reason to not get fat in the first place.
If you get really fat, you are very unlikely to develop new fat cells, but you will develop loose skin, and even if you get a tummy tuck, you will still have the huge ass scar for the rest of your life, to remind you of your mistake. Heck, you don’t even need to have the legit loose skin that you see in pictures, even simply gaining 20lbs of fat, will drastically reduce the quality of your skin, and even though you won’t be able to see it, and it won’t look like the loose skin in the gogole, the quality has decreased considerably, and when you try to cut to see your abs, it wont look as good as if you never got fat in the first place
Does animal stak increase testosterone