![]() Around here, we usually refer to ourselves as “naturally thin.” Our body type is called the “ectomorph” body type, also known as the “banana” body type. There are a number of factors that result in a large variety of body types. So why are we skinny people seemingly so different from everyone else? That’s because our problem isn’t just a pop culture disconnect, it’s that we’re naturally skinny. The goal is to come out leaner instead of just littler. So you could say that the new strength trend is for fat loss (heavy weightlifting and protein + a calorie deficit) instead of weight loss (cardio and veggies + a calorie deficit). Muscle, health and strength are being advertised-which is awesome-but more often than not even strength is marketed at women who want to finish a muscle-building program weighing less than when they started. ![]() This is even true with the “strong is the new skinny” trend. (Not to mention that naturally curvy gals will often be photoshopped thinner.) Since most people are overweight, if not obese, the assumption is that the curves are already there, and we just need to whittle away the fat to reveal them. However, it means that when we read fitness information, we need to be constantly asking ourselves, “Does this apply to me, or is the article assuming that I’m overweight?”Įven when it’s a curvaceous body being advertised, weight loss is still assumed to be the way to get there. Obesity is a far more widespread problem than skinniness, and most people have no issue whatsoever moving the scale up. So it’s understandable that the health and fitness industries now concern themselves exclusively with weight loss. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), in 1960, 13% of Americans over the age of twenty were obese. Nowadays people are consuming around 200 more calories from carbs and 200 more calories from fat than they were in the 70s ( study). Then foods started becoming cheaper, higher in calories, and tastier. Between the 30s and 70s, mainstream weight gain products and marketing campaigns for skinny women were pretty common: Curves used to be a fashionable accessory. Smallness isn’t sexier than strength, but the fact remains that weight loss is the fitness industry’s default. Even women with totally healthy and attractive body-fat percentages are hopping on the weight-loss bandwagon because they assume that smallness is sexier than strength. Part of the reason is that muscle and strength, at least for women, aren’t nearly as popular as skinniness. This can be frustrating because it’s such an uncommon goal. When we’re looking to get healthier, we aren’t looking to trim down, we’re looking to power up. While most people struggle with fat, we struggle with muscle and strength. Most Women’s Workout Programs Aren’t Designed for Building Muscle.So what’s going on here? Why is it so hard for you to gain weight? And what can you do about it? (And if you plan on getting into fights, it might help to build some muscle first.)Īnyway, I’m sure you’ve realized there’s a lot more at play here than how much you eat. In fact, if you go around telling people to “Just eat less,” you may even get in a fight. What most people don’t realize is that telling naturally skinny women to eat more is as silly as us telling an overweight person, “Just eat less-duh!” That won’t solve any problems. Hell, she’d probably even like it (until she got fat). If you tell the average woman to “just eat more,” she’d be able to. For most people, eating lots of food is second nature. It might work fine for most people, but the fact that we aren’t most people is precisely why we’re being given that advice in the first place, and also why that advice is so naive. The common advice we get is, “Just eat more.” And that advice totally sucks. Of all the issues skinny women run into, perhaps the most prevalent is finding it hard to eat enough calories to gain weight. When it comes to fitness, at best we’ll find ourselves slotted into a footnote: “Oh yeah, and if you’re naturally skinny- must be nice-you’ve got a fast metabolism and stuff so, you know, just eat more.” In an era obsessed with getting smaller, we bananas, hardgainers, ectomorphs, string beans, or whatever you want to call our naturally skinny body type-we’re outliers.
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