We’ve all seen them heck you might even have met some, what am I talking about, I’m talking about skinny fat people, super models and vegan spring to mind as an example. Super models are the bag of bones walking down cat walks which the average woman is killing her self trying to look like, Vegans are people who don’t eat meat but take it one step further by not eating anything that comes from animals, eggs, cheese, milk they don’t even wear a leather belt. On the outside to most people they look great, but to me I see an unhealthy person.
In the medical world, skinny-fat is known as Sarcopenia, a condition marked by muscle and strength loss in people of otherwise-normal weight. High fat percentage raises risks of diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, and other ills. You would be better off slightly overweight but more muscular.
By looking skinny their body composition could be totally out of balance, body composition is a measure of the lean tissue and of the fatty tissue that makes up your body weight. Your body is comprised of many tissues – fat, bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, organs and lots of water. A healthy body composition is determined by the percentage of fat versus lean muscle mass. Ideally it is best to keep fat lower and lean muscle mass higher. An altered body composition arises when the percentage of body fat is too high. The most common cause of a high percentage of body fat is excess fat, although a loss of bone, as in osteoporosis, or a loss of muscle are also forms of altered body composition.
Being overweight is sometimes used synonymously with an altered body composition, however, excess body weight is not a definitive assessment for altered body composition, just as thin is not synonymous with fit and healthy. Because I’m a bodybuilder my body weight is considered outside of a healthy reference range, but my body compositions may be optimal due to the high amount of lean muscle. Muscle actually weights more than fat, I hardly ever weigh my clients if I put them on a weight loss plan that includes lifting weights, stepping on the scale will only frustrate them. Your eye doesn’t lie, judge your progress by how your clothes fit and feel, what you would rather, gain a pound but loose three inches of your waist or loose a kilo but not loose one inch.
One of my members would come into the gym every day and run a marathon on the treadmill, she was getting skinnier and skinnier but her body fat was getting higher and higher, she was turning into a skinny fat person. The problem was that she' wasn’t burning fat any more she was burning muscle, the body doesn’t know how long you plan to do this so it kick in it survival instinct it started to horde its most precious commodity, fat.
I mentioned Vegans early, Vegans have the same problem, but through their eating habit, they to are getting skinnier and skinnier but also getting fatter, Why? Simple really they’re not consuming enough protein to hold on to muscle. They are losing muscle and holding on to fat.
I rather weigh 100kg with muscle and have good shape, then weigh 80kg with no muscle and no shape.
