My skinny-fat secret
I may look slim with my clothes on, but when the shirt comes off, my upper body tells a slightly different story
Whenever I tell my close friends about my latest scheme – to lose a substantial amount of weight by December — the consensus seems to be this: “But you look fine!” At times they are more generous, commenting, “You’re not huge at all!” After a lifetime of eating what I want, I may look slim with my clothes on. When the shirt comes off, however, my upper body tells a slightly different story: I am what GQ calls skinny-fat.
Since my reflection in the mirror already articulated how woefully pudgy I had become, I didn’t need a doctor to inform me that I was a touch heavy for my height and build. But a licensed professional advising me to shed six to eight pounds was, perhaps, exactly what I needed to spur me on to finally do something about my rapidly expanding midsection.
For most of my teens and early 20s, I was the definition of lanky. After about three years of serious gym training, I was able to bring my weight up from 138 lbs. to 152 lbs. of mostly lean muscle, which was better suited to my almost-5’11” frame. I was buff but not frighteningly so, and my clothes hugged my body just right.
Falling off the treadmill
Somewhere along the way, I fell off the treadmill, so to speak. A job at a world business newspaper, along with gigs as a freelance magazine editor and columnist, made time for regular exercise scarce. Instead of sweating it out with kettlebells after a long day at the office, I thought, an hour-long nap seemed the more delicious alternative.
From being able to vault pedestrian barriers and scale low-enough walls in a single bound, my version of parkour suddenly involved balancing a big bowl of nachos on my belly as I binge-watched The Mindy Project. I was a daredevil only because I was risking my health. The clincher came when, at our annual physical exam at work, I was told that my blood pressure was slightly higher than normal due to stress.
While I was, in no way, a viable contestant for The Biggest Loser, I viewed shedding the excess poundage as a challenge. Like most lightly built men in their late 20s and early 30s, the enemy was visceral fat, the fat that surrounds the internal organs and the kind, most likely, brought about by years of junk food, aerobic inactivity and lack of sleep. The cuts I had worked on so hard to achieve vanished – duh – and my torso looked like it was melting. The solution had to be threefold as well.
Threefold solution
First, I cleaned out my fridge and eliminated everything I shouldn’t be consuming in the first place. I started eating just like when I was on a weight gain program, only this time my meals were smaller. Fortunately I’ve never really been into potatoes, pasta or rice – white or brown — so avoiding those wasn’t going to pose much of a problem. But I am a huge fan of anything sweet, on the one hand, or anything salty and crunchy on the other. That had to change. Though it’s painfully clichéd, I’ve increased my intake of fresh fruit and vegetables — kale, especially — and filled my diet with quality protein such as egg whites, tofu, and lean chicken.
Next, I returned to the gym after what seems like an eternity. This time I enlisted the help of a personal trainer to realize my fitness goals: to whittle my waistline, to increase muscle mass and to improve my strength and endurance. Hiring a professional to design a varied workout regimen that confuses one’s muscles, I suppose, is one way to avoid hitting the dreaded training plateau as I did in the past.
Last, I taught myself to get enough sleep. In the past, I got by on six hours a night and it’s this deprivation that affects the secretion of cortisol, one of the hormones that regulates appetite. Admittedly, it had a lot to do with silencing the voices in my head and managing my anxiety.
SEEING RESULTS
It has only been less than a month since I decided to make myself over and I’m already encouraged by the results. Aside from a slimmer figure and improved metabolism — as if someone used the Pucker tool in Photoshop and aimed it at my midsection — I’m a lot less cranky now than I used to be. At this rate, according to my trainer, I should have a summer-ready body by January.
What I’ve gleaned from this process so far is that sometimes it’s okay to let your body go. The important thing is that, one way or another, you’re able to get it back.
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