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“I’m already skinny. How do I get rid of my pot belly without losing what little weight that I have?”
What do you do if you’re skinny, but you’ve got a gut? (Being skinny with belly fat is sometimes called being skinny-fat.)
The standard advice given to regular, bigger folk with a pot belly is to eat less food to lose weight.
Not only is that advice not very helpful, but if you’re skinny and follow that advice, that may make you much too light while feeling even weaker and more tired.
This is because most people become weaker when they eat less. For a non-skinny person with much more muscle to begin with, it doesn’t matter to them as they won’t notice losing a bit of muscle.
But for someone that is skinny with a belly, they need to hold onto as much good weight from their muscle mass, as they possibly can.
So, there are three problems we’re dealing with here:
- being skinny
- having a pot belly
- postural issues that could be causing a protruding belly
The good news is that you can solve these issues all at once, and you can do it fast.
It’s possible to radically overhaul your body in just 30 days—with results so good that random people on the internet will scream out “steroids!” when they see your before and after transformation photos.
But first, we need to understand how we ended up here, skinny with a protruding pot belly, to understand what to do to fix it.
Why I was skinny with a protruding pot belly
I was twenty-three years old, and even though I was a young man, Iwas not a glowing example of health. I was 6 feet tall (183cm) and weighed 130 pounds (59kg), making me dangerously underweight. I had chronic tendonitis in both arms, and I was missing a patch of hair in my beard (alopecia). And even though I was dangerously underweight, I had stubborn fat covering my stomach so I had no visible abs and my t-shirt stuck to my belly.
I was skinny because:
- I was not eating enough protein daily. Protein is a category of amino acids, and these amino acids are the building blocks of muscle. When you eat a lot of protein, that is one of the main ways of activating “muscle protein synthesis.” Muscle protein synthesis is the process of taking the protein you’ve eaten and directing it towards building muscle. Your body will always use the protein you eat first for the critical processes. So if you don’t eat enough protein every day = not enough muscle.
- I was not challenging my body with resistance. I wasn’t challenging my muscles, so they didn’t need to stay the same size and strength, let alone become stronger. The odd hike or going snowboarding once or twice a year wasn’t enough to tell my body to keep my muscle, let alone build some more. Lifting weights is a form of creating resistance for your muscles to fire against. Even someone’s body weight can be enough resistance for beginners (see our free bodyweight workout here.) Resistance training is another way to activate “muscle protein synthesis,” the process of building muscle. Plus, it’ll ramp up your appetite to make you eat more protein.
I had stubborn fat on my belly, even though I was underweight, because:
- I was too “sedentary,” meaning I was too inactive, and that builds up visceral and abdominal fat. Since the age of 14, I was either sitting at the computer or gaming all my waking hours. (I ran a gaming website with a small team in my free time, and my summer job during high-school and university was working as a web designer.) Research shows that the more inactive we are, the more fat build-up around our organs, known as visceral fat (study). This is the “bad” kind of fat, as opposed to the subcutaneous fat, the fat that sits underneath our skin. Inactivity is also linked to having more fat on the abs. Moving more, like walking, also improves blood flow, which can help mobilize fats in more stubborn areas, like the gut, to get used for energy.
- I was eating too many processed foods. I was always eating chips, cookies, and drinking soda pop like Coke and Dr. Pepper. My body seemed to adapt my metabolism (sometimes called non-exercise activity thermogenesis or NEAT) to make up for my low-level of physical activity, so I didn’t become overweight. On top of the processed carbs I was eating, I was also eating a lot of processed fats as chips, made with vegetable oils, and those are more preferentially stored in the belly (study). So even if I wasn’t overeating to the point that my weight was increasing, many of the foods I was eating ended up at my belly. Plus, eating processed foods meant that I wasn’t getting enough vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and fibre for my body to work properly and feel good. Not feeling good = not moving. It would become a vicious cycle. Many good foods like seafood, garlic, fruits, and berries, contain anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidants, and pro-heart health compounds.
- I had bad heart health and worsening insulin resistance due to my diet of bad foods. Stubborn belly-fat and fat at the neck has now been linked to developing heart disease, diabetes, and chronic inflammation. When you eat processed foods, it slowly starts to pack on stubborn fat, specifically at the belly. Skinny people can also get this “bad” type of fat at the belly and neck.
I had a protruding belly, due to bad posture, because:
- I was skinny. Skinny people have weak core and stabilizer muscles that don’t have the strength to hold the body properly. When the pelvis tilts forward, this pushes the belly out, and this is called lower cross syndrome or anterior pelvic tilt.
- I sat too much. Our bodies adapt to our activities. A swimmer will develop a body with elevated shoulder blades, and a baseball pitcher will get flatter collarbones/clavicles. Someone who sits too much will adapt to sitting. So even when they’re standing, it looks like they’re sitting. Their pelvis tilts forward due to tight hip flexors, the way it would be while they sit. For that person to stay balanced as they stand, their upper-back will need to round forward, with their head coming forward. This is called forward head syndrome or nerd neck, and it can cause all sorts of neck pain. Not only that, but it can also make your jaw drop and pull back, due to stretched muscles, giving you a weaker jaw appearance in the long-run.
The road map to fixing being skinny with protruding pot belly Fat
- Overhaul your diet to include more protein and mainly whole foods. The protein will give your body the building blocks it needs to build muscle. The nutrition from whole foods will ensure that you feel your best, helping you to move more. A realistic goal is for 80% of what you eat to be real food that you prepare yourself, allowing yourself up to 20% to be more processed. My favourite types of protein are grass-fed meats, seafood, and bone broth.
- Start doing resistance training like lifting weights. Your own body weight may be enough to challenge your body to grow bigger for a few weeks—you can see our free bodyweight workout here. Eventually, once you’ve built up some muscle, you will need to use weights to continue to push your body to get stronger. You can get a free lifting workout here.
- Become less sedentary and get outside for a walk in the sunshine. This will help with insulin sensitivity, allowing the foods you eat to either help build muscle or to get burnt off and used as energy. This will also help with cardiovascular health that will help with blood flow to burn that dangerous visceral and abdominal fat. It’s hard to care about cardiovascular health today if only helps some distant version of you avoid a heart attack in three decades. So here’s a more immediate reward. If you’re a man, better cardio health will help with erectile dysfunction and could help protect you from crown balding (vertex balding, study). If you’re a woman, better cardio health will help with sexual arousal, satisfaction, and orgasm (systemic review).
- Do the right postural breathing drills to reclaim your tall, straight posture faster. Postural drills can speed up getting your natural, tall, posture back. For example, if you’ve been sitting for a while, your abs will be weak, and your ribs will be tilted up, and your stomach sticks out. Learning how to breathe from your diaphragm, exhaling to get those ribs down, will help you to feel your abs turn on (See this video from Marco for an idea). Over time, breathing properly will help to flatten the look of your stomach through postural improvements. (Walking more and a good resistance training program will also help with your posture.) Lastly, posture seems to have some sort of relationship to diet, so improving your diet may also help you stand taller.
How to put the skinny belly-fat roadmap into actionable steps:
- Eat 0.8g of protein per body weight pound. No, that’s not a typo. You will need to eat enough protein to live (create red blood cells, hair, skin, organ regeneration), and then even more protein to build muscle. This will help you get more strength and feeling unstoppable. For example, a 165-pound man might want to eat 30-40g of protein with every meal for 30 days. We help teach people realistically accomplish this, even with the smallest stomachs.
- Challenge your muscles with resistance training, like lifting weights, 3x a week. Many people try to do resistance workouts on Monday–Wednesday–Friday at the same time of day. A good workout will also teach your body good movement patterns, which will strengthen your postural muscles.
- Walk 10,000 steps a day (and try to get most of your steps outside.) Sitting isn’t bad—but always sitting is. I’ve found it helpful to have an objective goal of how sedentary I’ve been. There’s nothing magical about 10,000 steps aside from the fact that it’s in the range of what a healthy range of movement is every day. After buying a cheap but accurate $20 pedometre (step counter) and doing 10,000 steps daily, I’ve felt much healthier, more energetic, and the stubborn belly fat finally melted off. The first week of hitting 10,000 steps every day was difficult. The second week I was starting to feel energetic, and the third week, I was trying to find ways to keep this up for good. Walking more will also challenge your body to become more efficient at walking—meaning you’ll become more upright and develop better posture. Instead of your body adapting to sit better, it’ll start adapting to walking better. As for walking outside, bright light has been found to help with cardio health (study), and you’d get all the benefits of some vitamin D production (study, article). And if you eventually want to get bigger and go from being skinny to average in weight, walking and moving more as you eat more is one of the key ways to prevent fat gain as you gain muscle.
- Certain foods might help speed up results. For example, garlic can help with heart health, improve nitric oxide signaling, lower blood pressure, and boost the immune system (study, study). But even for the biggest garlic fan, it’s difficult to have some during breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So, you could take aged garlic as a supplement in pill form to get all the benefits without needing to prep and cook it all the time. In another example, drinking green tea is a healthy daily choice. Research shows that the compounds in green tea will help improve insulin sensitivity, burning fat, and blood flow. (study, study, study)
There are many other reasons for someone to struggle with stubborn belly fat. One reason could be not getting enough sleep or watching a bright LED TV late at night, which will negatively impact your hormones like melatonin. (Everybody needs 7–9 hours every night. If you want to see a quick hack, check out this guide on blue blockers.) Another reason is that added fluoride and chlorine in water can affect iodine and copper levels, leading to thyroid problems. Make sure you filter your shower and bath water and drink spring water if you can—or filtered water at the very least.
But focusing on the fundamentals will get you the bulk of the results.
- Eat more protein, like lean grass-fed meat and seafood, and real unprocessed foods
- lift weights
- and walk enough everyday (particularly out in the sunshine)
“But I do exercise…”
And if you walk, jog, or bike but don’t lift weights—it’s time to add lifting in.
If you lift weights but don’t walk or move enough—start walking outside.
Lastly, you need to improve your diet to include real food. You can’t out-exercise a bad diet.
They’re different types of exercise, and both walking and lifting are needed for a truly healthy, muscular, and lean body.
If you want a free workout, sign up here and I’ll email you a lifting workout you can do at the gym or at home with a couple of dumbbells. It includes some daily step and walking goals as well.
Free Full Body Lifting Workout (And Steps/Walks)
Summary
- Skinny people with protruding pot belly fat should not follow conventional weight-loss advice, since eating less food will make them weigh even less and weaker due to muscle loss.
- Common reasons for people to become skinny is:
- Not eating enough total protein to support muscle growth
- Not doing resistance exercise, such as bodyweight resistance training or lifting weights
- Common reasons for someone to have belly fat even when they’re skinny is:
- Being too sedentary (inactive), which builds visceral fat around the organs and abdominal fat.
- Eating too many processed foods, which stores at the belly.
- They are in the early stages of developing heart disease and diabetes due to their diet and lifestyle
- Common reasons for someone’s posture to make their belly protrude even further
- Being skinny, which would make their core and stabilizer muscles weak.
- Sitting too much, making their body adapt to sitting, so when they stand their belly pushes out, and the head moves forward for balance
- The roadmap for fixing fixing the skinny-fat belly for good:
- Overhaul your diet to eat more protein and mainly whole food (instead of processed food.)
- Eat 0.8g of protein per bodyweight pound that you want to weigh
- Begin resistance training
- Become more active and less sedentary
- Try walking 10,000 steps every day, no breaks, for thirty days. Do it outside as much as possible.
- Do simple breathing and postural drills for faster results on the protruding belly posture issue
- It’s your choice whether or not to look into supplements that support heart health, improve insulin sensitivity, and are naturally fat-burning
If you’d like more guidance on this topic, be sure to join the Outlive newsletter below and check out The Skinny Fat Fix program.
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