Follow-up to HOW TO FIX SKINNY FAT ONCE AND FOR ALL requested by @tulasdanslos
Unlike skinny fat, which covers a relatively narrow range between "scrawny with a bit of chub" and "chubby but somewhat scrawny in a shirt" and should follow the same general guideline regardless of where on that range they fall, bona fide fatness covers a wide range between "typical dad bod" and "bedridden Jabba the Hutt stunt double". I'll be using clinical BMI categories to differentiate places on the scale, but please keep in mind that this is a spectrum, rather than a list of categories, and you'll likely fall somewhere between one category and another.
Category 1: Dad Bod
You are overweight but not obese. Your BMI is somewhere between 25 and 30. Depending on your lifestyle, you may or may not have muscle underneath your fat. Your body fat percentage is probably somewhere between 23% and 35%. If you're on the lower end of that range, and you have no muscle, you're borderline skinny fat, and might do well to follow my guide for escaping skinny fatness instead. Your fatness may or may not be readily apparent on your face.
Incels with dad bods should aim to lose somewhere between 1.5 and 2 pounds per week and follow a resistance training program according to your weightlifting experience. If you've already been lifting for some time, you probably fall under the category of "strong fat"; you can just keep doing what you're doing while shedding fat, and come out looking pretty decent at 15% body fat or less. If you don't lift, you've been lifting for fewer than six months, or you've been lifting without an effective program based on effective exercises, you should be following a beginner program. You can do whichever one you want, though I recommend Greyskull LP with the arms plugin. As Greyskull's program includes chin-ups, which you're unable to do because of your weight, you would do well to do lat pulldowns with a supinated (palms facing you) grip instead until you can pull somewhere around 20 pounds above your body weight.
You should be doing intense cardio at least 3 times a week.
Your diet should include 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight and a caloric deficit of somewhere between 750 and 1000 calories below your maintenance each day. To estimate your maintenance, multiply your weight in pounds by 15. As you probably have a large appetite, your diet should include lots of cruciferous vegetables and should be low in fat. Any carbohydrates you eat should be mostly centered around your workouts on your workout days, and evenly spaced across your rest days.
If you're "strong fat", don't expect your strength to go up while you diet, but do expect to start looking good at around 15% body fat, or possibly even higher. If you're not, your strength should go up until your body fat percentage drops down to somewhere around 20%, at which point you will be skinny fat, and no longer fat enough to gain much if any muscle in a calorie deficit. In either case, you should keep dieting until you are below 14% body fat.
Category 2: Fat Neckbeard
You are obese, but not shockingly so, as there are millions of people in the western world as fat as you. Your BMI is between 30 and 35. Your body fat percentage is somewhere around 40%. At this point, your face is absolutely bloated, and you might have trouble reaching problem areas on your body when you shower or evacuate bodily waste.
If you fall in this category, you should do the same thing as your fellow fatcels in Category 1, but aim to lose around 3 pounds a week instead, which involves a calorie deficit of around 1500 below maintenance every day. At this point, loose skin is a real possibility.
Category 3: Super Fat Neckbeard
Here be mental illness. Nobody gets this fat without being deeply mentally troubled. Your BMI is between 35 and 40, and you're at the point where your body fat percentage doesn't really matter, though you can assume it's very high. Loose skin after weight loss is very likely, and might require corrective surgery after weight loss. Your thighs probably rub together a lot when you walk, and your feet probably start hurting after a couple hours or so.
You should lose around 4 pounds a week. This requires a calorie deficit of around 2000 below maintenance a day. At this point, you should avoid intense cardio, as you are so obese that intense cardio can do irreparable damage to your joints. However, low-intensity cardio like walking up a slight incline will burn a decent number of calories due to your large mass. You should still be lifting weights just like your Category 2 and 1 counterparts. You should be decently muscular by the time you dip below 20% body fat.
Category 4: Landwhale/Hamplanet
Are you trying to get a heart attack? Your BMI is above 40, making you clinically morbidly obese. Your every waddling step makes the ground shake; you heave and sigh under your own great blubbery mass. Also, despite your best efforts, you probably stink. It's extremely difficult to maintain proper hygiene when the rolls that cover your skin creases are, themselves, covered by rolls.
Your weight loss should be as fast as possible. Don't even bother calculating your maintenance calories. Just figure out your ideal body weight and eat one gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight, plus some cruciferous vegetables to make sure you don't plug your colon. You should also be lifting weights, and doing low-intensity cardio every day. Even with this severe calorie deficit, you should still be able to get stronger because your energy stores are so vast. Expect loose skin, and save up for corrective surgery if you can.
Category 5: Jabba the Hutt's Stunt Double
You are bedridden. Getting on your feet for even a few seconds is a Herculean effort. You cannot weigh yourself at home; you need to use the floor scale at your local hospital made specifically for people like you. To even leave your bedroom, you need a truck, a crane, and a squad of men to load you into the truck from your bed. You wash yourself with a rag on a stick.
This state is not something you can physically sustain yourself. You have at least one enabler making sure you have enough food to maintain your prison of a body, if not more. You are entirely dependent on them. Therefore, you don't have complete control over your diet.
Just stop eating. Not one scrap of food should be going into your mouth. The only things that should be going down your throat are water and whatever statin your doctor gave you to extend your life span by a year and a half. Get to Category 4 as quickly as possible so you can walk and get some control over your life, including your food intake. The good news is you can probably start a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for your corrective skin surgery. You might even end up on TV.
Unlike skinny fat, which covers a relatively narrow range between "scrawny with a bit of chub" and "chubby but somewhat scrawny in a shirt" and should follow the same general guideline regardless of where on that range they fall, bona fide fatness covers a wide range between "typical dad bod" and "bedridden Jabba the Hutt stunt double". I'll be using clinical BMI categories to differentiate places on the scale, but please keep in mind that this is a spectrum, rather than a list of categories, and you'll likely fall somewhere between one category and another.
Category 1: Dad Bod
You are overweight but not obese. Your BMI is somewhere between 25 and 30. Depending on your lifestyle, you may or may not have muscle underneath your fat. Your body fat percentage is probably somewhere between 23% and 35%. If you're on the lower end of that range, and you have no muscle, you're borderline skinny fat, and might do well to follow my guide for escaping skinny fatness instead. Your fatness may or may not be readily apparent on your face.
Incels with dad bods should aim to lose somewhere between 1.5 and 2 pounds per week and follow a resistance training program according to your weightlifting experience. If you've already been lifting for some time, you probably fall under the category of "strong fat"; you can just keep doing what you're doing while shedding fat, and come out looking pretty decent at 15% body fat or less. If you don't lift, you've been lifting for fewer than six months, or you've been lifting without an effective program based on effective exercises, you should be following a beginner program. You can do whichever one you want, though I recommend Greyskull LP with the arms plugin. As Greyskull's program includes chin-ups, which you're unable to do because of your weight, you would do well to do lat pulldowns with a supinated (palms facing you) grip instead until you can pull somewhere around 20 pounds above your body weight.
You should be doing intense cardio at least 3 times a week.
Your diet should include 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight and a caloric deficit of somewhere between 750 and 1000 calories below your maintenance each day. To estimate your maintenance, multiply your weight in pounds by 15. As you probably have a large appetite, your diet should include lots of cruciferous vegetables and should be low in fat. Any carbohydrates you eat should be mostly centered around your workouts on your workout days, and evenly spaced across your rest days.
If you're "strong fat", don't expect your strength to go up while you diet, but do expect to start looking good at around 15% body fat, or possibly even higher. If you're not, your strength should go up until your body fat percentage drops down to somewhere around 20%, at which point you will be skinny fat, and no longer fat enough to gain much if any muscle in a calorie deficit. In either case, you should keep dieting until you are below 14% body fat.
Category 2: Fat Neckbeard
You are obese, but not shockingly so, as there are millions of people in the western world as fat as you. Your BMI is between 30 and 35. Your body fat percentage is somewhere around 40%. At this point, your face is absolutely bloated, and you might have trouble reaching problem areas on your body when you shower or evacuate bodily waste.
If you fall in this category, you should do the same thing as your fellow fatcels in Category 1, but aim to lose around 3 pounds a week instead, which involves a calorie deficit of around 1500 below maintenance every day. At this point, loose skin is a real possibility.
Category 3: Super Fat Neckbeard
Here be mental illness. Nobody gets this fat without being deeply mentally troubled. Your BMI is between 35 and 40, and you're at the point where your body fat percentage doesn't really matter, though you can assume it's very high. Loose skin after weight loss is very likely, and might require corrective surgery after weight loss. Your thighs probably rub together a lot when you walk, and your feet probably start hurting after a couple hours or so.
You should lose around 4 pounds a week. This requires a calorie deficit of around 2000 below maintenance a day. At this point, you should avoid intense cardio, as you are so obese that intense cardio can do irreparable damage to your joints. However, low-intensity cardio like walking up a slight incline will burn a decent number of calories due to your large mass. You should still be lifting weights just like your Category 2 and 1 counterparts. You should be decently muscular by the time you dip below 20% body fat.
Category 4: Landwhale/Hamplanet
Are you trying to get a heart attack? Your BMI is above 40, making you clinically morbidly obese. Your every waddling step makes the ground shake; you heave and sigh under your own great blubbery mass. Also, despite your best efforts, you probably stink. It's extremely difficult to maintain proper hygiene when the rolls that cover your skin creases are, themselves, covered by rolls.
Your weight loss should be as fast as possible. Don't even bother calculating your maintenance calories. Just figure out your ideal body weight and eat one gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight, plus some cruciferous vegetables to make sure you don't plug your colon. You should also be lifting weights, and doing low-intensity cardio every day. Even with this severe calorie deficit, you should still be able to get stronger because your energy stores are so vast. Expect loose skin, and save up for corrective surgery if you can.
Category 5: Jabba the Hutt's Stunt Double
You are bedridden. Getting on your feet for even a few seconds is a Herculean effort. You cannot weigh yourself at home; you need to use the floor scale at your local hospital made specifically for people like you. To even leave your bedroom, you need a truck, a crane, and a squad of men to load you into the truck from your bed. You wash yourself with a rag on a stick.
This state is not something you can physically sustain yourself. You have at least one enabler making sure you have enough food to maintain your prison of a body, if not more. You are entirely dependent on them. Therefore, you don't have complete control over your diet.
Just stop eating. Not one scrap of food should be going into your mouth. The only things that should be going down your throat are water and whatever statin your doctor gave you to extend your life span by a year and a half. Get to Category 4 as quickly as possible so you can walk and get some control over your life, including your food intake. The good news is you can probably start a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for your corrective skin surgery. You might even end up on TV.
