The time is long gone where if you had a paunch ….people would this:
- “Kathe pete ghar ka hai” [ He is from a rich family with enough food to provide]
That belly which was a status symbol a decade back, is now believed to have serious health concerns.
A Skinny-Fat person is thin but has belly fat. His BMI will be in the normal category.
There is some truth to the statement that being ‘Skinny-Fat is more prominent’ in India than other nations.
Here are some of the facts:
- The thin-fat phenotype has been increasing since the past two-decades and is especially prevalent in India points out this study.
- According to this study:
Indian babies are amongst the smallest in the world. This is because people in the Indian subcontinent have faced undernutrition for many generations.
That means low bone density, and lower muscle mass.
For a given BMI, Indians have a higher percentage of body fat and more visceral fat than members of other populations. This thin-fat phenotype is present at birth. So definitely genetics do play a part.
It’s common Knowledge that Indian Diet is predominantly Carbohydrate based—up to 70–80% of total caloric intake.
In the past few decades, there is one more problem with this fact:
Most of these carbs have started to become more REFINED.
There is a HUGE difference between complex carbs and refined carbs and how they get digested in your body.
Without sounding too science-y, refined carbs are higher on glycemic index. They have the ability to digest pretty quickly as they are stripped of fibre content. This causes excess release of insulin. This leads to more fat storage.
Since refined carbs are digested pretty quickly, you feel hungry pretty fast and want another serving leading to overeating which obviously leads to more fat storage.
Refined carbs like white bread, donuts, biscuits etc have some more problems.
They contain high corn fructose sugar and other addictive that can destroy your liver and it’s ability to metabolism fat.
These un-natural substances clogs up your metabolism makes it sluggish. You must have heard people saying that I eat very less, still they gain fat.
This is the very reason.
Indian diets have way less protein
This is pretty common knowledge that being a Indian vegetarian can be challenging, especially if you weight train. More muscle growth needs the building blocks—protein.
A typical Indian meal only contain less than 20g of protein and total protein intake usually is less than 50g.
However, carefully planning your meals and by manipulating the serving size of your foods can cure this issue.
Some tips:
- Always have a bigger servings of Daal, Rajma, Chole. Although they have carbs in them, but their protein content is higher than chapati or rice. Subsequently reduce the servings of the latter. A big bowl of these foods should give you around 20g.
- Include diary products. Paneer, lassi, milk etc are high on protein. Make sure you get around 30g from them
- If you can eat eggs, make sure to include them. Eat 2–3 whole eggs, include few egg whites if you want. This will give you 15g.
- 15g you will get from your carb sources like rice, roti, bread, vegetables etc.
So far: 20g + 30g + 15g + 15g = 80g.
Do this to get another 20g to make the total 100g (which is more than enough for any individual between body weight of 70–80kg for any goal.
Include lot of peas (mutter) 5g
Include a large serving of sprouts 7g
Add almonds and nuts 10g
Add whey protein if you can as it makes life easier.
On paper the above looks good and you CAN infact get 100g from vegetarian diet, but life is messy and sometimes you are short on time and so forth. So protein supplements is just for convenience as it gives you 20–30g per scoop with great taste.
Lastly, Join a gym. Start weight training. Its the best way to add muscle mass to your frame.
My course LEAN-The Ultimate Guide to Skinny-Fat Solutionhelps Skinny-Fat people to intelligently lose body fat by 5-10% and gain 10-15 lbs of lean muscle at the same time within a span of 4 months.
