Heart to Heart with Hads
Welcome to Heart to Heart with Hads, the podcast where we dive deep into living a healthy, badass lifestyle that challenges the norm. Join me, Hads, as I share stories that have shaped my journey toward becoming the best version of myself, defying expectations and embracing big goals—including my pursuit of bodybuilding. As a young person navigating a world filled with stereotypes and expectations, I'm here to inspire others to break free from the typical 20-year-old narrative and forge their own path. Throughout this podcast journey, I'll bring on guests who have played pivotal roles in my life, sharing their wisdom, experiences, and perspectives. Get ready for candid conversations, valuable insights, and a whole lot of inspiration to live authentically and fearlessly. It's time to open our hearts, challenge the status quo, and embrace the journey of self-discovery together. Welcome to Heart to Heart with Hads, where we dare to be different, pursue our passions, and live life on our own terms.
Heart to Heart with Hads
Why You're Still Skinny Fat (And Exactly How to Fix It)
Ever caught yourself thinking, "I'm not overweight, but why do I still look soft and flabby?" You might be experiencing what fitness experts call "skinny fat" – a frustrating state where you appear thin in clothes but lack muscle tone and definition underneath.
This raw, honest episode tackles the skinny fat phenomenon head-on, breaking down why so many people (especially women) find themselves trapped in this body composition limbo despite regular workouts and seemingly clean eating. The truth might be uncomfortable, but it's exactly what you need to hear if you're tired of feeling soft, undefined, and lacking the shape you desire.
We dive into the shocking statistics: up to 30% of normal-weight individuals have high body fat paired with low muscle mass, and after age 30, you can lose up to 5% of your muscle per decade if you're not actively strength training. These numbers explain why so many people feel disconnected from their physical appearance despite maintaining a "normal" weight.
The solutions are refreshingly straightforward but require a complete mindset shift. You'll learn why your current approach – under-eating, excessive cardio, improper strength training – is working against you, and exactly how to fix it through proper nutrition, intentional resistance training, and recovery strategies that actually work. This isn't about quick fixes; it's about playing the long game to transform your body composition permanently.
Whether you're struggling with a puffy belly, flat glutes, poor strength, or just feeling "soft all over," this episode provides the roadmap to finally build the strong, defined physique you've been working so hard to achieve. Stop chasing a smaller version of yourself and start building a stronger one. Your future self will thank you.
Ready to transform your body composition for good? Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it, and take the first step toward building real strength today.
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Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Heart Tire with Hats. Today we're talking health shiz. Okay, you hear me. We're talking about why you're still skinny fat and how to fix it, how to stop being skinny fat, how to stop feeling skinny fat. Okay, let me guess. Let me just guess for you right now.
Speaker 1:Okay, you work out, you eat clean, but you still look soft, skinny, like puffy looking and have no shape. You have no glutes, you have no definition to your shoulders, you have no definition to your hand. You literally just look at like a, you're like skinny and you have like fat on you, but you're, but you're still skinny. So you think that you're fit, but, but you're really not and you secretly don't feel comfortable in your shorts, your tank tops, your bathing suits, because there's no muscle there. You're just flabby and just fat. You're not overweight, but you're simply not toned either. So we're to break down why this happens and, most importantly, how to actually fix it for good. So what is like? What is skinny fat really mean? To me, skinny fat is lower muscle mass, but higher body fat. You're metabolically unhealthy and visually you just you look soft. You look like you're small and lean in clothes, but you feel soft and squishy without them, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it's for real, like we're just we're being for real here and I'm calling it out. So some common symptoms that you may have for being skinny fat puffy belly, no muscle tone, literally flat glutes, poor strength, bloating and fatigue. The list goes on. Like this is what it looks and feels like to be skinny fat, and you probably got here for a multitude of different reasons.
Speaker 1:So we're going to break it down Now. It is going to be a little bit of tough love here, but it is going to be the absolute and honest truth. So don't be offended. But if you're offended, then that maybe means you should just take some action, okay, so number one is you're under eating. When you're under eating, your body is not going to build and put on muscle or even have any sort of muscle at all. It's going to be burning through the muscle. If you not eating, you're not feeling your body in a way that's going to be able to maintain muscle mass. Number two you're probably overdoing it on the cardio. You're walking so much and cardio doesn't just mean hit like I, it can mean walking. Just overdoing it on anything that's really not related to training, resistance training inside of the gym. If you're overdoing it on cardio, it's also going to burn through your muscle and also, like prolonged hit, high intensity interval training or cardio, is going to have a negative response on your cortisol levels.
Speaker 1:And number three you're the reason and another reason why you're skinny fat is because you avoid lifting heavy and you avoid lifting heavy and you avoid lifting with intention. You go through the muscle. I took the muscle. You go through the motion. I don't really think a lot of females out there know how to properly strength train to where they're actually building muscle, to where they're actually recruiting and contracting the correct muscles and not just going through the workout just to just to say they burned calories.
Speaker 1:There's been numerous times where I've watched people inside of the gym just go through a like, do a reverse lunge and not even get the full range of motion. Okay, drop your ego here, drop the weight, get the full range of motion, slow down your tempo and actually do the exercise correctly. Because if you're just going through it and not actually being intentional about what you're doing and knowing how to lift weights properly, for one you're gonna get yourself hurt because you don't even have the muscle to be able to lift the weight properly, and for two, you're not. You're simply not going to build muscle like that's. It's just not going to happen. Like there's no stimulus there, there's no muscle, and that leads to no shape.
Speaker 1:Another thing, too, is you're not prioritizing the right kinds of food. You're not prioritizing protein plus nutrients plus an accurate amount of carbs and fiber. And I'm sorry, but if you're not tracking your food and if you're just eating salads with chicken and you think you're eating good enough to feel muscle gains, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not. Sorry, I hate to break it to you. And you're probably neglecting your recovery and your sleep. And if you're neglecting those things, then inflammation. That leads to inflammation and poor body composition.
Speaker 1:I said what I said. It's all true. I hate to break it to you. Okay, first of all, I also second of all, actually I do want to talk about some statistics that I found. That shook my mind. Okay, up to 30% of normal weight individuals have high body fat and low muscle mass. This is called normal weight obesity, aka skinny fat. More than 50% of US adults do not meet muscle strengthening guidelines. Without resistance training, muscle naturally declines, starting at age 30. That's so young. You can lose up to 5% of muscle per decade after age 30 if you're not actively strength training, leading to higher body fat percentage, and even if weight stays the same. Truth bombs. And let's just even talk more Diets that have a good protein intake, increased muscle mass retention during weight loss, up to 40%. So even if you're trying to lose body fat, if you're having a protein intake that's at a good spot, you're going to see more progression.
Speaker 1:Excessive cardio, especially without proper fueling, leads to muscle breakdown, which is catabolism. There's two different things. There is anabolism, which is you're building muscle, your metabolism is good, everything's firing so good, you have proper hunger cues, you're building muscle. But whenever you're doing excessive cardio, you're not fueling yourself properly, you're under recovering. That's catabolism. We want anabolism. So if you're in that catabolism state, you're going to just worsen your skinny fat features. Sorry about it. Another thing too is if you're someone who consistently is struggling with cortisol, the stress hormone. Cortisol, we all know, increases your abdominal fat storage and breaks down muscle tissue and chronically elevated. So if you're stressed the hell out all the time, do not expect to look like you build muscle or you have muscle and some more little facts about how we're going to fix this crap. Okay, this, this is important. This is important.
Speaker 1:Number one you need to eat more. I mean, I think a lot of females probably under eat now, some overeat, which is even another big issue but under eating, um, we need to eat more, and when I when I mean more, I mean especially protein. A lot of a lot of women do probably under on protein, but I do think also, too, there's such a big stigma around protein, so we need to be careful about how much we're actually consuming. A female that is 120 pounds does not need to be eating 170 grams of protein. Okay, 120, 120 or 130 would be sufficient enough. Okay, all right, let's just let's just clear the air there. 25 to 35 grams protein per meal.
Speaker 1:You need to also try to time your carb intake around your training. You should have majority of your carb intake of the day before and after your training session, specifically, and especially after, because you want after, because you want to help replenish those glycogen stores that have been depleted from training. And this only works, though, if you're training right, Like I talked about it in training. If you're training like someone who doesn't know how to work out. You're not going to be able to see progress. So what I highly recommend is getting a coach so that they can literally tell you exactly what to do inside of the gym and you can actually know how to train properly. Me, thank you.
Speaker 1:Anyways, focusing on the type of foods we're eating, as well, it needs to be nutrient dense foods. I'm'm just going to list off every single food type of food I eat. I eat oats, I eat blueberries, I eat nuts and seeds to support my hormone health. I eat eggs, I eat beef, I eat sweet potato, I eat carrots, I eat chicken, I eat avocado. I'm missing some things. I'll eat a banana. I'll eat red potatoes. I'll eat I mean, these are all the things that I eat inside of a day and they're so nutritious. I'll eat a piece of sourdough, I'll have some honey. These are things that are going to help build up muscle. I'll have protein powder. Like all of these things I will eat in one singular day. Like you have to eat real food. I'm not talking a salad with chicken and cheese and other little toppings. That is not it, ladies, that is not it. Okay, all right, we're done talking about the food thing, because I could ramble on and on about that.
Speaker 1:Okay, step number two we're training for muscle. We're not just going in for a movement, for a quick little calorie burn on the Apple Watch. No, three to four strength training sessions per week. These are intentional. You're feeling the muscle that's being worked. You're not going through the motion. You're not going in rounds and circuits and blah, blah, blah. No, get strong at the lifts. Track your weights so that you're getting stronger, but you're also doing them intentionally and your form looks immaculate. Video yourself, and I can guarantee you a lot of you will be looking so freaking silly. Focus on your compound lifts squatting, hinging, pressing, pulling glutes, shoulders, your posterior chain chain. Get your posterior chain strong and everything else will come up with it. Get stronger over time. I can't stress the importance of this. We're not going into just getting a quick little freaking workout. No, you're building muscle to muscle. You have to lift more weights. Okay, let's freaking go.
Speaker 1:Number three is walk. Just focus on walking. We don't need to overdo it on the cardio. Replace your freaking HIIT sessions in excessive cardio with just simply walking. Get outside, get some sun, get in nature, put your feet in the grass. I'd rather you do that than step on the Stairmaster and go until your freaking lungs collapse. Okay, come on, be for real B-F-F-R, all right. Number three Progressive overload. I've already said that. What am I? I'm going off my notes here. We're on step three. But the second thing about not overdoing the cardio is we're like we're wanting to support our metabolism, and supporting metabolism is we're going to walk and increase our meat, but also, too, we need to reduce stress.
Speaker 1:Reducing stressors is something that's huge. You need to freaking manage your trauma and your issues without that with a dysregulated nervous system. Good luck, good luck, good luck, good luck. Okay, we're going into recovery now. Seven to nine hours of sleep Non-negotiable, and I'm talking about not waking up in the middle of the night either. If you're dealing with waking up in the middle of the night, then you need to message me as soon as possible. You need to let me coach you and we need to fix your issues. Okay, thank you. Bye, manager stress. You know everyone's like oh, manager, stress, manager stress. No, for real manager stress, because it will kill you silently. I've witnessed this crap firsthand on myself and with my clients.
Speaker 1:And stop skipping rest days because you're like oh my gosh, I need to go part of my gallery so that I can eat this food. Stop, literally quit. Stop right in your tracks, okay, and the last thing be patient. Be patient, play the long game. It's a journey. It's a journey. It is not a sprint. It's not going to happen overnight.
Speaker 1:Muscle building takes time and consistency and being dedicated and committed. Skinny fat If you're skinny fat right now getting toned is going to require consistency and months and years of effort, not weeks, not weeks. Not weeks, not weeks, months and years. Okay, and I'm just going to leave you with a couple, a couple statements too. You don't have to be staying in this skinny fat zone like there's a way for you to get out of it. You just need help, and I will help you do that. And you're not. You're not broken either. You're just misinformed. There's such a information overload out and I think it creates a lot of stress for people and that can cause a lot of different issues Just not knowing what to do and then getting stressed and getting overwhelmed, and then you're just like, oh F it, I don't want to do anything at all.
Speaker 1:So another thing, too, is when you feel your body properly and you train and you recover on another level level. You're gonna build the body you've always wanted you. You really, really are. It's just gonna take some time. So stop chasing smaller you, skinnier you, and start chasing stronger, because stronger is what's gonna make you look like a mother, freaking hot, milf, badass, whatever you are, dog mom, I don't know, um, whatever it is, whatever it is, you gotta make it happen. You gotta make it happen. You gotta get stronger. All right, all right. That's all I got for you guys. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and share it with somebody who needs to hear it. All women of all ages need to hear this episode right now. All right, see you guys. Bye.