Should Skinny Fat Indians Build Muscle or Lose Fat First?

Summary

In this video by South Asian Strong, the unique fitness challenges faced by skinny fat South Asians are addressed. The video delves into the genetic and hormonal factors contributing to the 'Paradox of the Thin Fat Indian,' where individuals may appear lean in some areas but accumulate extra fat around the abdomen. The creator outlines a three-phase transformation program focused on body recomposition, stubborn fat loss, and muscle building. By understanding the biological background and employing strategic training and dietary adjustments, South Asians can achieve a balanced physique that emphasizes both muscle gain and fat loss. The video offers practical strategies for determining the optimal calorie and nutrient intake based on individual body composition, training experience, and age to facilitate a healthier and fitter body.

Highlights

• Explore the 'Paradox of the Thin Fat Indian' due to unique hormonal and genetic traits. 🧬
• Body recomposition is the recommended approach for South Asians: losing fat while gaining muscle. 🏋️‍♂️
• The video presents a structured program to tackle unique fitness issues faced by South Asians. 📈
• Achieving 12% body fat for males and 22% for females is a key goal in phase one. 🔥
• Transitioning into a lean bulk is advised once optimal body fat levels are reached. 🌟
• Phase two focuses on removing stubborn fat and achieving the best possible physique aesthetics. 🌟
• South Asians should manage pacing in muscle gain to maintain achieved results. 🕒

Key Takeaways

• South Asians often have a skinny fat body type due to genetic adaptations for famine survival, making fitness goals unique. 🍚
• Focus on body recomposition to simultaneously build muscle and lose fat, rather than traditional bulking or cutting. 💪
• The three-phase program includes body recomposition, targeted fat loss to shed stubborn areas, and strategic muscle building. 📊
• Understanding personal body fat percentage, training level, and age is crucial for tailoring a fitness strategy. 📏
• Proper nutrition, including a higher protein intake and adjusted calorie consumption, is key to effective change. 🍗
• The process involves calculating maintenance calories and understanding when to be in a deficit or surplus for optimal results. ⚖️
• South Asians must be cautious about switching to muscle gain phases too early after fat loss to prevent unwanted fat gain. 🚫

Overview

If you've ever wondered why South Asians often have a 'skinny fat' physique, it comes down to survival adaptations. These genetic quirks help in energy storage, athletic endeavors, and the different responses to nutrition and exercise. It's referred to as the 'Paradox of the Thin Fat Indian,' which can be addressed with the right strategies. 🧬

The comprehensive transformation approach involves three phases: body recomposition, eliminating stubborn fat, and careful muscle building. The target is to maintain a healthy balance, reduce unwanted fat, and promote muscle growth by understanding genetic and physiological needs unique to South Asians. 🏋️‍♂️

The strategy revolves around personalized nutrition and training that considers one's body fat percentage, training experience, and age. By using a calculated deficit or surplus, one can effectively recomposition their body. The precise focus on protein intake, calorie levels, and strength training can help South Asians achieve their fitness goals efficiently and sustainably. ⚖️

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction The chapter 'Introduction' discusses the unique health and fitness challenges faced by South Asians, specifically regarding whether to focus on muscle building or fat loss. It introduces the concept of the 'Paradox of the Thin Fat Indian' which refers to the distinct physiological conditions, including hormones, proteins, and epigenetic factors, affecting metabolic health in Indians. The chapter highlights these complex issues impacting the South Asian community.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Skinny Fat in South Asians The chapter discusses the phenomenon of 'skinny fat' particularly prevalent among South Asians. This condition is characterized by having thin limbs and face, with excess fat around the midsection. The underlying reason for this physique is linked to evolutionary adaptations due to frequent famines in South Asia, leading to higher fat storage for energy and reduced muscle mass due to its metabolic cost. The chapter hints at upcoming solutions to address this issue.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Conflicting Fitness Goals The chapter titled 'Conflicting Fitness Goals' discusses the challenges faced by individuals who are both under-muscled ('skinny') and have excess body fat ('fat'), a common scenario for South Asians on a fitness journey. It highlights the confusion resulting from conflicting advice in the fitness community about whether to focus on muscle building (bulking) or fat loss (cutting) first. The chapter explores why relying solely on one of these methods can be problematic.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Body Recomposition Strategy The chapter discusses strategies for body recomposition, specifically addressing individuals based on different body types. For those who are naturally skinny or have the ectomorph body type, the mainstream advice is to focus on bulking up and building muscle. While doing so, it's normal to gain some fat, as long as it happens proportionately. The text hints at discussing strategies for individuals with heavier body types as well.
• 05:00 - 08:30: Phase One: Body Recomposition The chapter focuses on body recomposition, specifically aimed at losing fat while maintaining or gaining muscle. It highlights that for people with a lot of body fat, this approach can also lead to significant muscle gain due to the energy stored as fat. However, it notes that the 'skinny fat' body type may not see a complete transformation with this method.
• 08:30 - 10:30: Phase Two: Stubborn Fat Loss The chapter 'Phase Two: Stubborn Fat Loss' discusses the unique body type that combines characteristics of both ectomorphs and endomorphs. People with this body type tend to be naturally skinny but have a tendency to store fat, particularly in the midsection. This dual characteristic is attributed to genetic adaptations meant to survive famines. The chapter warns that while bulking might increase muscle mass, it could also result in gaining excessive fat, particularly around the waist.
• 10:30 - 15:00: Phase Three: Muscle Building In 'Phase Three: Muscle Building', the focus is on overcoming common body transformation challenges faced particularly by South Asians. The chapter discusses the inefficacy of exclusively cutting or bulking, especially if not dealing with a high body fat percentage. Instead, it recommends a balanced approach of building muscle while also losing fat as part of the overall transformation strategy, previously outlined in Phase One. This phase emphasizes continued muscle development in the overall body transformation journey.

Should Skinny Fat Indians Build Muscle or Lose Fat First? Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 if you're South Asian you face a unique problem when it comes to your health and fitness should you focus on building muscle first or losing fat so why do you have this problem because you probably look like this this is a story of hormones proteins and epigenetic flickers the physiological conditions that make Indians different when it came to metabolic disease this phenomenon is referred to often as the Paradox of the Thin fat Indian Gren need here from South Asian strong if you're South Asian you probably have the typical South Asian
• 00:30 - 01:00 body your arms legs and face are skinny but around the middle there's a little bit extra I covered the reasons why South Asians almost always have a skinny fat Physique in my last video but basically it's because we adapted to survive the frequent famines that happen in South Asia for thousands of years which caused us to develop adaptations to store a bit of extra fat for when times were tough as a reserve energy source and also to have a little bit less muscle because it's metabolically expensive in this video we're going to talk about how to fix this to start with let's understand the problem the problem with with being skinny fat is that you
• 01:00 - 01:30 actually have two problems the skinny meaning you're under muscled and the fat meaning you have excess body fat especially on the abdomen now the issue with having both of these problems at once and something that causes a lot of confusion and frustration for South Asians on their fitness journey is that you don't know which one to focus on at first and this is because you've been told that you only have two tools at your disposal in the fitness Community these are muscle building phases commonly known as bulks and fat loss phases commonly known as Cuts so why is doing either of these alone problem
• 01:30 - 02:00 because they're conflicting goals let's say you're naturally skinny and not South Asian or skinny fat the mainstream advice which will work well for you is to bulk up and focus on building muscle during this time you might gain a bit of fat which is normal and expected during a bulk but this isn't a big deal since you have a typical ectomorph or hard Gainer physique where you're naturally skinny everywhere and have a tough time building muscle but when you do gain body fat it happens in a balanced way proportionately all over your body or instead let's say you're naturally heavy
• 02:00 - 02:30 set it would be clear that you need to focus on cutting fat first and on a typical cut your main goal is to lose as much fat as possible while maintaining any muscle mass you do have and maybe adding a little for natural endomorphs with a lot of body fat to lose this is a great option because not only will you lose body fat with all that extra energy stored on your body you'll most likely end up building a significant amount of muscle along the way now the problem with your skinny fat is that neither of these approaches will result in a complete transformation which for others would be ideal why
• 02:30 - 03:00 because we have both the hard gaining characteristics of ectomorphs meaning we're naturally skinny and don't have much muscle to begin with and also the fat storing Tendencies of endomorphs meaning we normally have a little bit of extra body fat and gain fat a little bit more easily especially on the midsection these characteristics which are usually at opposite ends of the Spectrum in most populations often occur simultaneously in US due to our unique genetic advantages to survive famine so if we decide to bulk we may increase our muscle mass but we'll end up gaining even more fat around around our waist
• 03:00 - 03:30 and if we decide to cut and are not at a very high body fat percentage we will lose fat but we won't build much muscle along the way and we'll just end up looking skinny all right so if we can't cut or bulk what should we do I like to break the transformation process for South Asians down into three phases designed to overcome the three common issues South Asians face when it comes to their body transformation goals the first of which is the need to both build muscle and lose fat simultaneously rather than focusing on one alone we will accomplish this in phase one of the
• 03:30 - 04:00 sou Asian strong transformation program through a process called body recomposition body recomposition is an alternative to traditional bulking and cutting routines where rather than focusing on either fat loss or muscle building you focus on both simultaneously with the goal of improving your overall body composition which is the ratio of fat to lean mass you have in your body AKA your body fat percentage now I'll get into the exact details of the phase one plan later in the video but for now know that there are three ways of achieving this the first is by reducing your fat Mass while maintaining or slightly increasing your
• 04:00 - 04:30 lean body mass resulting in overall weight loss basically a fat loss phase the second is by reducing your fat mass and increasing lean body mass at the same time resulting in little or no overall weight change what most people think of as recomposition and the third is by focusing on increasing lean body mass while minimizing fat gain and increasing your body weight overall also known as a lean bulk which approach you take will depend on a few different factors that will combine to determine the overall amount of calories or food food you will be consuming during your
• 04:30 - 05:00 recomposition now the goal of phase one is to ultimately get you down to around 12% body fat if you're male and around 22% if you're female this is the point at which most of your excess body fat will be gone but for most of us there will still be a little bit left remaining around the abdomen now at this point you'll look and feel great but the mistake most people will make once they get to this level of body fat is that they think their transformation is complete but for most of you at this point you'll now want to build more muscle and this can cause an issue because if you switch to a pure muscle gaining phase a AKA a bulk you're likely
• 05:00 - 05:30 to gain a little bit of fat along the way for most other populations doing a bulk to about 15% body fat wouldn't be a big deal but for us it is due to our skinny fat prone genetics self agents tend to store extra fat on our abdomen and this is where you'll start to gain it all back if you bulk at this stage which I'm pretty sure you won't be happy with why don't look all right you look like melted ice cream this leads us to the second issue South Asians face on their transformation Journey which is that they tend to stop their fat loss phase to too early this leads to gaining
• 05:30 - 06:00 back fat mass in the worst areas and as a result we're unhappy with our physiques every time we try to build muscle to overcome this you're going to need to get a little bit leaner which is why phase two of the South Asian strong program is stubborn fat loss the goal in this phase is to get down to around 9 to 10% body fat if you're male and around 18 to 20% if you're female now I don't recommend staying at these levels longer than a few months and your body will actually make it hard for you to get here in the first place which is why we'll use a few handy strategies you may have heard to make the process easier
• 06:00 - 06:30 these strategies however will be used in moderation and at a minimum effective dose to make the process sustainable and easy to implement now at this point you won't have any stubborn fat left and aesthetically you'll be in the best shape of your life the only caveat being that unless you've done a proper muscle gating phase in the past most of you will feel a little bit too skinny and will want to build more muscle which leads us to the third issue South Asian's face while trying to transform which is bulking up too soon after the fat loss process and doing this too fast this is why phase three the muscle
• 06:30 - 07:00 building phase has two parts the first part is a short reset and maintenance period which will teach your body to stay lean longterm by letting your metabolism establish a baseline around your new body composition more importantly you'll get used to maintaining this level of leanness with your dietary habits so that you don't binge and reverse all your hard work this should last anywhere from 4 to 12 weeks and will also allow you to find out your new level of food intake needed to maintain your weight that you can then build off of for your next phase the good news is since you're no longer trying to lose fat you'll be able to eat
• 07:00 - 07:30 more at the level of your maintenance calories then once you've gotten used to staying lean it's time to build as much muscle as possible while gaining minimal fat this is known as a lean bulk the goal of part two is to slowly build muscle until you get up to the level of body fat you were at at the end of phase 1 which is around 12% if you're a man and 22% if you're a woman to accomplish this year rate of weight gain should be between 1 to 1.5% of your body weight per month which is about 1 to 2 lounds depending on your experience level with resistance training now it's important
• 07:30 - 08:00 to note the faster you gain weight the more likely it is that you'll gain more of that weight as fat which is why we limit our rate of weight gain to that amount overall this phase should take between 3 to 6 months at which point your transformation will be complete congratulations you've lost fat built muscle and permanently change the way your body functions and looks not only that but you've also learned everything you need to know to repeat this process and keep improving now I only covered each of these phases briefly and we'll go into much more detail on phases 2 and three in later videos but the to start let's go over the exact details of your
• 08:00 - 08:30 body recomposition plan as mentioned earlier the goal during this phase is to improve your body composition which is the ratio of fat to muscle in your body this will happen through either of two ways reducing your fat Mass while maintaining your muscle mass which is basically a fat loss phase or reducing your fat mass and increasing muscle mass at the same time which is what most people think of as a recomposition in most cases will aim for the second strategy But ultimately which approach you take will change based on three factors your age your body composition and your training experience the part of
• 08:30 - 09:00 your program that will change based on these factors is the amount of calories or food you will be eating for your recomposition we'll start by figuring out your training experience if you've been resistance training consistently for at least 6 months and meet three out of five of these strength standards we will consider you trained however if you have less than 6 months of training experience or do not meet these strength standards we will consider you untrained the reason your training experience is important is because untrained individuals will experience something called newbie or beginner game gains in the first 6 months to 1 year after they
• 09:00 - 09:30 start resistance training where they will gain both muscle and lose fat no matter what they really do meaning even if their diet and training isn't optimal they'll still get good results in fact if your body fat is high enough even a traditional cut or fat loss phase at a calorie deficit will result in significant muscle gain that said we want to take advantage of this period and squeeze as much as we can out of it with the right training and nutrition following the right program that uses the most powerful and well researched training and dietary strategies will allow you to make the most of this period and this is crucial since you'll
• 09:30 - 10:00 never really get this opportunity again there's an example transformation of someone who had never strength trained before and lost 50 lbs while gaining muscle in only 6 months of the South Asian strong program once you're pass the beginner stage and meet both the required strength standards and at least 6 months of training experience you can now consider yourself a trained lifter and should modify accordingly it is still very possible to both build muscle and lose fat but you just have to take a more careful approach now this approach whether you're trained or untrained will be further modified based on your body composition AKA what percentage of your body is fat to determine your body fat
• 10:00 - 10:30 percentage take a look at these charts and then take a look in the mirror and see which category most closely matches with what you see if you're surprised by the number know that the electric scales many of you have at home are typically inaccurate and so you shouldn't rely on these to figure out your body fat percentage now that we've figured out your body composition and training experience we can combine these with your age to figure out the best dietary strategy for you to achieve body recomposition let's start with those over the age of 18 if you're between 15 to 20% body f F and you're considered untrained you will be eating at your
• 10:30 - 11:00 maintenance calories and if you're under 15% body fat you will eat at a slight Surplus in both cases this will continue until you reach the criteria for being considered trained your maintenance calories will be your TDE or total daily energy expenditure which you can use any calculator online to figure out or you can estimate by multiplying your body weight by 15 assuming you're lightly active now technically at your maintenance calories you're not supposed to be losing or gaining weight but since you're new to training you'll start to gain muscle and lose fat at the at the same time without having to change your
• 11:00 - 11:30 overall food intake and this will occur even in a small calorie Surplus the only thing you will likely need to do as a self asan to get the best results is optimize your macronutrient intake by eating more of your diet as protein and less as carbohydrates to figure out the exact macronutrient split for you check out the free quiz at South Asian strong.com now if you're over 20% body fat you will be eating at a 10 to 20% calorie deficit meaning 10 to 20% below your maintenance calories which should result in a weight loss of about a half PB to 1 lb of weight we since you have
• 11:30 - 12:00 so much extra energy stored on your body much of this will go towards building muscle and you'll be able to achieve body recomposition even while losing weight overall now let's talk about what to do if you're considered trained by our standards no matter what your body composition is you'll be eating at a calorie deficit this means overall you will be losing weight because fat loss will be pretty much impossible without weight loss the rate of weight loss will be higher the more body fat you have to lose and lower the leaner you are and as such your calorie deficit will be larger or smaller in general body recomposition
• 12:00 - 12:30 gets harder the leaner you are so you have to take a less aggressive approach if you want to build muscle while losing fat it's important to note that the best way to ensure this is to make sure you're using the right intensity and getting stronger every workout during your body recomposition phase now let's talk about what to do if you're under 18 years old feel free to skip this part if this doesn't apply to you if you're under 18 it means you're still growing and no matter what your goals are you need to take this into account and be more careful so that you don't put your development at risk if you're under 20% body fat and untrained you will be in a
• 12:30 - 13:00 calorie Surplus to support both your muscular development and overall growth and since you're untrained you will lose body fat at the same time if you're above 20% you will eat at maintenance and also achieve recomposition using the extra energy stored on your body now if you're trained your targets can change based on your goals if you're lean I would recommend eating at maintenance in order to maximize muscular development and overall growth until you're 18 years old and technically you should also achieve recomposition as you get older if you're in the 15 to 20% range and not
• 13:00 - 13:30 comfortable with your level of body fat and want to lose a little bit of fat a slight calorie deficit might be in order but if you're comfortable eat at maintenance and you should still recomposition slightly as you get older and will gain more muscle this way lastly if your body fat is higher than 20% you are most likely okay to eat in a calorie deficit without compromising your growth and development due to all that extra energy stored on your body overall no matter which category you are in make sure to increase the protein content of your diet and reduce carbs if
• 13:30 - 14:00 you're eating a typical South Asian diet now those are all the guidelines you need to achieve your body recomposition no matter where you start and how you progress an important thing to remember is that your recomposition strategy will change throughout your transformation as your body composition training experience and even your age change let's say for example you're a 20-year-old man at 20% body fat with no training experience you would start at maintenance calories until you reach three out of the five strength standards and 6 months of training experience at which point you may have 15% body fat
• 14:00 - 14:30 and are considered trained so you would then switch to a 15 to 20% calorie deficit until you reach the overall goal for this phase which is around 12% body fat for men at which point you would move into a stubborn fat loss or muscle gaining phase to get even leaner or build more muscle so now you have an overall strategy for your complete transformation from skinny and fat to lean and muscular and all you need to do is fill in the details such as the workout program you're going to use to build muscle and the foods you'll eat to lose fat I'll cover all these details in future videos so please like And
• 14:30 - 15:00 subscribe and if you have any questions please leave them in the comment box below if you're like R though and want to get started on your transformation right away go to transform. agstrong docomo transformation program where we give you a step-by-step plan to fully transform your physique while only working out three times a week and still eating the foods you love the program is delivered via a mobile app and short eour that cover all the details of your training and nutrition plan with video demos for each exercise daily meal plans
• 15:00 - 15:30 sample recipes and more that's it for this video if you want daily examples of how to eat exercise and live to best support your health and fitness goals as a South Asian you can also follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok at South Asian strong thanks for watching and see you next [Music] time