Super Skinny With A Gut That I Can't Shed. Help?

October 20, 2018 6:36 AM

I am very skinny - thin wrists and skinny legs with a gut. What can I do?

I am very skinny - thin wrists and skinny legs with a gut. My gut looks even more prominent due to my smaller frame. When I lift weights, I easily get larger upper body, but my gut gets bigger too. My legs are also thin which makes me look top heavy. When I cut calories to lose belly fat, I shrink everywhere but my stomach. When I eat, I balloon up again. All of the men in my family have this. What can I do?

posted by kbbbo to Health & Fitness (18 answers total)

This is called "Skinny Fat" or "Dad Bod" and I have YET to see a solution that works.
Some recommend cutting calories and going low carb to force your body to use that extra belly fat as energy, instead of burning the sugars associated with carbs.
Some, like Jason Fung, say that calories do not count, and recommend intermittent fasting to get the various hormones that cause belly fat under control.
My own guess is that the solution will probably be a mix of the above two schools of thought.
I will be watching this thread with great interest to see if others have a solution that is sustainable for a lifetime.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 6:41 AM on October 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

Possible causes for tympanites, according to Wikipedia:

Bowel obstruction
Renal stones
Functional disorder
Overeating
Bacterial overgrowth
Inflammation of the bowel
Blunt kidney trauma
Peritonitis
Menstruation

Inflammation of the bowel is where I'd start. Try the FODMAP elimination diet for a few weeks and see if there's anything you're eating that's doing it.

I am a layperson, I just learned this tympanites thing the other day because someone else I know had a similar complaint as you and then I saw it on Wikipedia when I was looking up meteorism (another name for the same thing) because it was mentioned in a German Commission E monograph for lavender, and I filed it away to tell her about next time I see her.
posted by aniola at 6:56 AM on October 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

If you are skinny everywhere else, I'd say the calorie counting/fat shedding is a red herring. I would guess trapped gas as mentioned above or lose abdominal muscles. I would try doing a focused routine of core work, specifically something like pilates which was created to enforce a long and lean frame (so you aren't going to see any crunches in there.)

As far as food goes, I would try limiting the volume you ingest at any one time and see if that makes a difference. Eat food unlikely to cause gas or bloating, slowly to avoid swallowing air, in small volumes through the day. It might make a huge difference! (Nothing with bubbles in case you didn't know that, it will absolutely distend your belly.)

Lastly, if you up for it, lay on your back and palpate your "gut". Can you feel your abominable muscles? Do they meet everywhere or do you feel gaps? Does it feel like fat (men often carry fat under muscles, so this may not be applicable. Thunk it! Does it feel taut and empty or full and sloshy? I would do this before and after meals and through the day to see if my eating or activity levels were influencing this phenomena.
posted by stormygrey at 7:09 AM on October 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

Well, maybe it's pathological but probably it's just where you guys collect the adiposity. Be happy you're not in my family, where we all grown an enormous, gelatinous second neck around the original one and end up looking like HoneyBoobooChile's mom premiraclediet.

Go nuts on leg day and arm day and don't do core at all, just do a lot of running jumping tennis rockclimbing windsurfing-type stuff that'll strengthen your core naturally. ABOVE ALL do not do fivebillion obliques exercises that do nothing but add muscle mass and spectacularly grow your waist.
posted by Don Pepino at 7:25 AM on October 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Unless it is due to one of the possible reasons identified by aniola, I don't know that there is a lot you can do besides liposuction. This sounds to me like you just happen to carry most of your fat cells in your gut area. There is nothing you can do to selectively burn fat from one area of the body, and you can't remove the fat cells with diet and exercise. You can only reduce the extent to which those cells are filled with fat. Meanwhile, weight loss will tend to deplete all your fat cells to a similar extent. So, to make an example, if 80% of your fat cells are in your gut area and you get down to a very low body fat percentage, you're still going to have a bit of a gut while everything else is extremely lean.
posted by slkinsey at 7:28 AM on October 20, 2018 [4 favorites]

Abdominal liposuction is not a safe thing. If any medical professional offers it to you, run.
posted by bilabial at 7:44 AM on October 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

When you lose body fat, your body draws fat from all over the body, so that the areas with the largest fat stores will take longer to show results than lean areas. One of the best analogies I read is that losing fat is like taking individual sheets off a roll of paper towels. When you first start out, taking one sheet off won’t show much of a difference, but when you get closer to the core, one sheet makes a much bigger difference. Your arms and legs don’t have much fat, so they look leaner a lot faster than your stomach.

If you want to consider a long-term body recomposition project, you can gradually increase your muscle mass and reduce your body fat over the course of a few years. When you’re dieting and lifting to add mass, then your gut will look bigger along with the rest of you, and when you’re losing fat, everything will shrink too, but over time your proportions will change. Your legs and arms will be less skinny and your belly fat deposit will shrink.

Men tend to accrue fat deposits in their belly because of testosterone. Women tend to accrue fat deposits in their butt/thighs/breasts because of estrogen. Women who tend to have higher levels of testosterone gain in the stomach (e.g. PCOS), men who have higher levels of estrogen gain in the hips and breasts. And everyone has a little bit of a bulge in their stomach (unless they’ve gone several hours without eating or drinking) because intestines and food take up space.

So basically it depends on how much work you want to put into all this, but it is possible to change it and people do it all the time. But your weight gain pattern is pretty typical.
posted by Autumnheart at 7:51 AM on October 20, 2018 [13 favorites]

I generally think Autumnheart has it and strongly recommend that, if this bugs you, you start trying to gain muscle, not lose weight. Your body will recomposition and you'll look better. It is completely untrue that the only thing you can do is pursue liposuction. I say this because I know several people with absolutely huge beer guts who have solved this problem through exercise and dietary changes alone! You might not want to put in the time, or you might not have a lifestyle that allows you to get serious about working out and eating right—I'm not trying to hate on lipo here, but please don't think it's the only way.

HOWEVER. It's possible that your posture is also adding to the appearance of a gut, and if you tend to slouch, your gut will definitely look worse. In that case, you should follow Stormygrey's advice. Heck, it might not be a bad idea anyway! Core work is good for you!

If you have a beer belly and don't slouch, doing core work won't make it look better, but if and when you lose the fat you'll actually have abs (hooray!) (The advice is different for women who want to preserve an hourglass figure, but I'm guessing you're just irritated by the big wodge of fat on your belly, not by not having a nipped waist.)
posted by branca at 9:00 AM on October 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

This could be a food intolerance, and for that you're pretty much looking at elimination diets to see what's bothering you.

My real recommendation is body acceptance. If it's not a medical problem, or not a food you can find and avoid, love your body as it is and don't spend your life trying to make it be something it isn't.
posted by bile and syntax at 9:25 AM on October 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

I spent a lot of time time on Keto forums (I was doing the diet for Epilepsy personally), but I saw A LOT of men who got rid of that gut with Keto and Intermittent Fasting. Keto seems to have a strong effect on hormones and the gut microbiome and maybe that's why people had such success. I don't know for sure of course, the research is kind of limited. But from what I saw, it is worth a try if it's really bothering you. Reddit is a trash fire, but their Keto subs are amazing if you want to look more into it. There is also the sub Ketogains which might be even better for you (despite the goofy name.) Of course, Keto may not interest you at all. Good luck either way!
posted by thegreatfleecircus at 10:01 AM on October 20, 2018 [4 favorites]

Are you sure your gut is extra weight? Skinnyfat, "Grover body," also points toward posture problems. I'm thinking this is the case since "all the men in my family" is a red flag to me for habits taught and learned. Is lifting weights the only exercise you do? If so...yeah, you probably aren't exercising your middle, which is important, and will become even more important later on as you get older and are trying not to throw your back out.
posted by rhizome at 11:14 AM on October 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

I also see this mentioned in keto/IF contexts a lot, sometimes also associated with fatty liver (which, if you have it, you should be getting routine bloodwork done to keep an eye on it - you're getting yearly physicals and are asking your doctor about this, yes?) and various high cortisol/adrenal issues.

Talk to your doctor. Get a doctor if you don't have a doctor, if you are at all able.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:13 PM on October 20, 2018

Chances are this is all genetics with no other underlying medical problem causing it. I have the same "issue" and I've had it my whole life. I've been 100 pounds before with noticeable belly fat while my arms and legs were tiny. My father is the same way. Building muscle helps get rid of fat, so your best bet is probably focusing on improving your diet and building muscle. With that said, you will likely never have a beautiful, fat stomach, and there's nothing you can do to change that. It's far more noticeable to you than it is to other people. I promise.
posted by Amy93 at 2:14 PM on October 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

Seconding improving your posture. (Look into Pilates, and the Alexander technique.) Since this body type runs in your family, I wonder if diastasis recti (which is more common in women who've given birth, but occurs across the gender spectrum and can be genetically-influenced) is a factor. There are exercises, but working with the right physical therapist would help.

You've tried cutting calories, but have you tried cutting out dairy and alcohol entirely? Milk gut and beer gut are common-enough phenomena. This alteration in your diet doesn't have to be forever, just until you get the results that you want. When you move into maintenance mode, you'd slowly re-introduce stuff and note any effects on digestion and belly bloat.
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:30 PM on October 20, 2018

Do you walk around with your abs loose? Many athletic people with flattish looking stomachs are actually tensing their abs most of the time. Not sucking in- but flexing them gently. It keeps the stomach tighter and more toned, and makes your posture look good, and keeps your lower back supported. Maybe try that?
posted by pseudostrabismus at 7:17 PM on October 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

Thirding the suggestion to try keto and IF. The fat distribution in your body just happens to be abdominal rather than subcutaneous.
posted by Sublimity at 7:43 AM on October 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

Definitely spend time exercising your core. Tightening your abdominal muscles is good for your overall health and posture. Lots of people have trouble getting started, but a combination of daily crunches, sit-ups and pull-ups makes a noticeable difference for me within a week, and it's visible to me within a matter of about a month if I've fallen off the wagon (which tends to happen around November for me).
posted by aspersioncast at 4:59 PM on October 23, 2018

Fourthing intermittent fasting. I found this thread because I'm dealing with same issue (went through a year of bad eating).
To be clear on IF--I think the key part for fat burning is to be doing intense workouts after the 14 to 16 hour fast. If you have a good aerobic base, you can lose weight extremely quickly this way.
posted by Jon44 at 7:31 PM on August 20, 2019