Why are Overweight individuals able to build muscle and lose fat but skinny people aren't?

Newbie gains! When people are not in shape, they have beginner gains. The longer you've been training, the harder it is to make gains.

It actually IS possible to gain muscle and lose fat depending on a number of factors. Scientific research says there are 5 types of trainees that can succesfully Body Recomposition:

1. New Lifters (Newbie gains) - see newbie gains post from Marc above.

2. Overweight individuals - excess fat makes up for a caloric deficit when fueling muscle growth.

3. Detrained athletes - those coming back from periods of non-training, athletes in off season etc. They experience fast muscle growth due to "muscle memory".

4. Enhanced Athletes - those who take steroids are more primed for muscle growth, and combined with cutting compounds can see massive muscle growth and fat loss. Make sure you do thorough research and understand the ramifications if you go down this path.

5. The sub-optimally trained athlete. - In the last 5 years or so a number of studies have come out in support of the idea that even long time lifters can often have poor nutrition and training programs. Whether they are not adequately fueling their bodies for muscle growth or fat loss and do not train with the volume or intensity required to elicit a muscle building response. It is not uncommon to put these trainees under strict programs both nutrition wise and training and see massive results over 6-12 weeks. This has been shown in many types of lifters and collegiate level athletes.

If you found this interesting, I wrote more in detail on each category over at https://peakthriveperform.com/body-recomposition

Hope this helps,

Sean

Peak Thrive Perform