Skinny Girls Still Exist

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On my way back to Denver last week I sat next to a thin young woman who told me that she aimed to gain some weight. We talked throughout the plane ride and she said something to the affect of, “Wow, I didn’t realize everything I knew was wrong. I have so many friends that are skinny just like me.” Really? I forgot about this demographic. You can’t blame me since around 60% of Americans are overweight or obese. Girls typically are wanting to “lose weight” and “get toned” when they get involved in fitness stuff, so you don’t run across too many that are trying to grow.

Women like this need a sandwich

It’s hard for these women like this to actually grow, even if they are “doing weights”. Assuming they get the advice to lift some kind of weight, that advice is followed by recommendations to move 15 lb. dumbbells around a few times a week. I suppose that’s better than sitting on one’s ass all the time, but it isn’t going to help a skinny girl grow.

The principles are the same: get stronger with compound, full body movements and eat to have an abundance of protein and caloric surplus. Squatting, pressing, benching, and deadlifting are the foundation. Skinny girls owe it to themselves to gain weight for the sake of practicality as well as aesthetics. I’m not a woman, but I would think that a woman would want a curvy figure. Squatting and the related exercises help develop this wonderfully.

There are some problems that a skinny girl will run into. She’ll need help understanding why getting stronger will help, and why eating much much MUCH more protein is necessary. Compound movements that help make you strong cause some natural damage to muscle. This causes a lot of disruption in the body as well as in the relevant muscles used. In order to repair and help that muscle grow, an appropriate amount of protein is necessary along with adequate calories. “Appropriate” and “adequate” are much much MUCH higher than what Skinny Girl has been taught, and these fallacies need to be rectified. The gal I spoke with on the plane probably weighed 95 pounds. If she wants to be 110 pounds, she needs to eat like a 110 pound girl. That means she needs 110 grams of protein. I bet she was getting less than 30 grams before talking to me.

Females in general don’t eat enough protein, so having them plan their meals around their protein is the first step. Getting them past that “conventional wisdom” and “social barrier” of not eating a lot of food is necessary so that they will actually get enough calories to grow and…well…survive better. I wouldn’t place any dietary restrictions on a skinny girl if she was trying to gain weight. If after 5 or 6 weeks there is noticable bodyfat, then we can adjust things. But, I’m telling you, if she eats the minimum protein amount and is squatting three times a week, she won’t have any problem with bodyfat.

It’s actually quite simple, but the fitness and nutrition industries have fucked things up so bad, most women are handicapped before they even start their quest of gaining weight, looking better, and feeling better. I hope that we can help change this silly mindset one Skinny Girl at a time…
———-

I know that was boring for a lot of you dudes, but it’s for the best. Hopefully the following video will entertain you. This was on the Friday before the Raw Nationals meet we went to in Denver a couple weeks ago. We had just gotten our rental car and I only recorded two clips, but they are worth watching. Brent is being his usual pain-in-the-ass self, Chris is exasperated by his behavior, Mike is saying random things that don’t make sense, and I generally don’t acknowledge any of it. Oh, and Chris apparently called shotgun right before I turned the camera on. I like how Chris and Brent are bickering from the get-go.

42 thoughts on “Skinny Girls Still Exist”

  2. Very good article about the “skinny women”, and the conventional “wisdom” they all seem to abide by.

    My sister was asking for weightloss advice. She’s about 5’7 140lbs. I told her to gain about 10 lbs. She responded with a “what the hell is wrong with you?”.

  3. i used to want to be a skinny girl but it was so difficult to get there. i have finally realized it’s because it’s just not natural for my body to want to be 125lb. im way more comfortable now, weighing 150lb at 5’4.

    the sad thing is that i now weight about the same as some guys i know….i guess that means i’m big enough to scare skinny guys now.

  6. While i do agree that most girls really need to gain some weight, that girl that Justin posted is perfect for me.

    Someone had to say it.

    Anyways.

    –Justin

  8. I agree with Vamshi 100%, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that girl in the picture.

    1. She’s too skinny. You can’t even hire a detective to find her ass, because it doesn’t exist. You’ll need a ghost hunter instead.

    2. Go Google skinny girls with the safe search off. I didn’t want you all to be horrified like I was.

    3. How much do YOU weigh?

    –Justin

  9. Justin, you didn’t spend much time on the non-aesthetic benefits for women. Personally, I was always very clumsy and weight training has really made me more aware and in control of my body. Plus I can carry a whole week’s worth of groceries to my upstairs apartment, move my own furniture, and carry heavy stuff around at work.

    I hesitate to stay on the aesthetic subject for women because A) I’m not a woman and thus B) I don’t know if women want to hear more about that. I kinda tip-toe carefully with “women lifting weights” subjects because if a girl who has never lifted comes across this article, I don’t want my typical brash and weird behavior to push them away. I’m not going to try and assume I know what girls want or like, I just know what they need to hear.

    –Justin

  10. @vamsy & mdn5002 – Justin likes some junk in the trunk.

    And, come on! No 70s big car in that vid?: http://i28.tinypic.com/13zubmt.jpg

    Junk in the trunk is a bit of an extreme description, but I can dig it. I don’t, however, want to get a girl’s ass confused with a young boy’s ass, because I’m not a 17th century King or present day priest. Bony ass = non-female sex characteristic.

    –Justin

  11. if you click on the pic, there are 3 chicks line up.

    personally, #3 has a set of bombs thats really call out to me.

    Yeah, I considered keeping them in the article pic, but didn’t want to detract from the original focus. #2 and #3 just need to train for a few months and they’d be fantastic, but they are very much more appealing stock than the girl on the left.

    –Justin

  12. Good call Justin. Getting my lady to eat enough protein is like pulling teeth. It’s been four and a half years, and I am finally starting to get through to her. Squats do amazing things to legs and ass though.
    And any single guy that says he would kick that girl in the picture out of his bed, is clearly gay. Sure she needs to squat, but she is not hideous by any means.

    Again, I didn’t want to scare you guys with the hideous. While she would do for the desperate, she is not optimal. I, my friends, am an optimist. I used her because she is a candidate for weight gain via lifting and eating. I bet she’d be fantastic if she partook.

    –Justin

  13. Great post. At our gym we struggle with trying to get the ladies to eat, and to stop worrying about scale weight. And there are always the seriously underweight girls who come in saying they just want to lose 5 lbs. They look at you like you’re crazy when you tell them they dont need to lose weight and that in fact, if they gained some weight they might look, feel and perform better. With an emphasis on perform. I mentioned gaining weight to an underweight female in her 40’s because she was complaining about not being as strong as the other girls (My indicator of underweight is when their knee is considerably wider than their thigh). She told her husband and he was not too happy with me and didnt have anything nice to say. I’ve had debates with other women at the gym, and my girlfriend and other girls about what men/women find attractive. I argue that for the most part, men are not attracted to the emaciated woman. I say for whatever reason, women like the look of emaciated women and this is reflected in publications targetting women specifically, especially fashion type magazines. I tell them to look at the women used in publications targetting men. Usually, it’s a much more healthy looking, curvaceous model. And I’m not trying to be crude by mentioning porn, but I’ve seen one or two, and I know some people who’ve seen a few, and by and large the female stars in pornographic movies are far from emaciated. I’d be willing to bet that more than a few of them squat. I think this is very telling. These productions that are targetting our most base desires probably say a lot more about human attractiveness than those runway magazines. And I hope y’all enjoyed Backyard Psychology with Ryan. Haha. I’ll shut up now.

    Yeah, I bet the porn stars squat quite a bit. It’s just a little bit different than what we do.

    –Justin

  14. great for discussing an under-recognized problem. Until this time, only Sir-Mix-A-Lot would go on record regarding this problem, and then not in the most useful way.

    This is a recurring issue with me and my wife. She is 5 ft 10in tall, and in college she weighed about 110lbs. During that time she had lots of problems with irregular periods and things like that.

    Shortly after marrying me and eating my food, she put on about 20lbs. The menstrual problems went away, and we have two children.

    But, she has terrible, stooped posture, and complains about knee and back pain. It is clear as hell to me that she has weak glutes and hamstrings (both from her ailments and a quick visual inspection) and her upper back is probably weak as well.

    But getting her to believe that this is an issue is difficult. In her mind, she is thin, her BMI is “spot on” and therefore she doesn’t need to do any exercise, which would just make her look like “a muscle woman”.

    any suggestions?

    Yes. Her muscle woman comment blows my mind. Ask her why she thinks that ALL OF A SUDDEN she’s going to become “muscle bound” when she’s spent her ENTIRE LIFE skinny. It really doesn’t make any sense, and I stay calm when I’m confronted with the issue, but it’s one of the most absurd things ever. That’s like going up to a 300 pound chick and hearing her get worried about looking like a gaunt runway model soon. That shit doesn’t happen over night.

    My girlfriend is 5’10” and around 150 to 155 in the early part of her “training career” and is very attractive (I don’t put videos/photos up because I don’t want you assholes oogling her (not you steelcutoats)). She’s much stronger than an average girl and will get pretty strong with time. Anyway, the point is that her and I have talked, and I bet she could weigh 165 (a compromise by me) in the long-term with mostly muscle gain and still look superrrrrb. Your wife is obviously older than my girlfriend, but her situation was clearly a problem when she was younger (the amenorrhoea) and her skinniness is clearly causing problems with her posture and mechanics. The taller you are, the more you NEED muscle in order to improve the lever arms of how your muscles attach and articulate with the joints. The angles that the muscles pull are too acute, and the muscles are too weak, and this is why she has pain and bad posture.

    She needs to squat, deadlift, press, and eat a nice hoagie. E-mail me if you want help, because if I were you, I’d be concerned. Good luck.

    –Justin

  16. Steelcut,

    Start drinking and smoking heavily and when she complains tell her thats how her posture and lack of interest in exercise makes you feel.

    Thats what I did and it worked!

  18. Justin, you shoulda pulled the coach card and kicked Brent to the back seat. Or had Chris pull him out the window when he rolled it down.

    Well, if I wasn’t in the front, then I didn’t care. And I had already been around my friends for about 20 minutes…which means that I was noncomplacent to anything they did.

    –Justin

  21. @steelcutoats My wife had back pain for years. She also got sick easily; every single cold or other bug that made the rounds among our friends made her sick. Since she started lifting with me her back pain has gone away, she gets sic FAR less often, and her general balance and coordination has improved (similar to what keysburg mentioned above).

  22. @DaveN: Interesting, she does get sick a lot. Most references put a lot of familiar stuff (weak immune system, menstrual problems) as symptoms of being underweight.

    Her BMI is about 19.4, which is a hair above what is usually diagnosed as underweight. On the other hand, when last we checked her bf%, it was well above “ideal” so it could be that she has too little LBM despite having a okay BMI.

    but getting her to listen… that’s the hard part

    Good luck, bud. I hope you can get her to listen since you can probably help a good bit. If there is any way I can help, let me know.

    –Justin

  23. hello all. thanks for the good post, justin. i’m a 21 year old lady at about 5’6″ and around 145 lbs. pretty strong and far from skinny. i struggled with an eating disorder all throughout my high school years in the attempt to be skinny. and now that i’m healthy, i’m still paying for the past damage with recurring indigestion and irregular menstrual cycles. i love the strength community and how it encourages women to be strong and independent rather than thin damsels in distress. i’m still getting used to eating my weight in grams of protein. and it gets a little disturbing when i notice my legs and arms are thicker than most of the grown men i walk past every day…but i’ve never felt better.
    what’s funny is that i was eating a fried egg and slab of fried up ground beef while reading this post. i felt so liberated.
    oh…and this friday, watch out for a long list of PRs because i forgot to post last week.

    Thanks for sharing. I’m glad that you are comfortable in your lifestyle and play the part of “ideal strength training gal”.

    –Justin

  24. Justin, I haven’t seen a “comment of the week” in a while… I vote for your comment to user “Ryan” about porn stars squatting. I lol’d irl.

    I didn’t do it when we were in Denver cause I was busy. I didn’t do one this last week because I spent a LOT of time making the videos and write ups from the meet and I was burned out. I’ll have one this weekend, and weekends thereafter.

    –Justin

  25. I have been blessed with a wife that has a flat stomach, and an irregularly large ghetto booty that doesn’t fit her frame. Her favorite lift is squats. I would never settle for anything less.

    This was funny because after I read your comment, I looked left to see your username and it said “boner”.

    –Justin

  26. Oh and just to give the wife another shout out, she’s carrying our first baby (three months along), still only weighs about 120, and just deadlifted 200. She’s my Valeria.

  29. Another chick here who has let go of her once thin, clavically prominent body in favor of a deadlifting, squatting, benching machine.

    I’d post a pic, but I don’t want you meatheads oogling me either.

    lady, you need to slow your roll, i don’t even talk to girls

    – brent

  30. @Justin

    1. I’m not a big fan of the ‘junk in the trunk’ ass. I’d prefer a smaller dainty girl to a thicker one. Girl #2 in the picture in the post is perfect

    2. I agree, half of the girls in the google search look sickly and need to eat something

    3. I’m 6’1” 230lb

  31. Justin,
    Well the squats they do while working are better than no squats at all. Haha. And I still believe they are doing some kind of squatting while not working. That or they just have porn star genetics.

  33. Why dont Cris just pull him out by his traps. With his dobbel overhand deadlift grip he should be able to get a god grip on the mountain traps.

    It looks like a funny gang to lift and train with, and roadtrips. Love the way Mike blurs shit out and nobody seems to care.

  34. Thanks for this, Justin. I’m getting pretty tired of other women looking at me like I’m fucking nuts when I say I’m trying to gain weight. I’m 5’8 and 137 lbs soaking wet, and I’m lean as hell. I’ve probably put 40 lbs on my back squat in the last 8 weeks by doing 5x5s. 99% of the women at my gym don’t get why I’d want to gain right now. Uh, I’d like to deadlift 300 lbs, squat 270 lbs and OHS 200 lbs…soon. How is that hard to understand? The fact is, while all of them appreciate being stronger than they used to be, most of them don’t actually care about being STRONG. Skinny still wins.

  35. I got that part, I was wondering about the “You think you’re so cool because (gibberish).” Perhaps it should remain a mystery.

    “You think you’re so cool because you can pee with your penis,” is what he said.

    –Justin

  36. @Vamshi
    I have to agree with you guys. AC had it right. Who doesn’t want a super skinny girl in underwear? When I’m with a woman I want her to have the same size chest and ass that I do. Of course I don’t want her to be muscular though. When she steps out of line I want to know that she can’t hold her own or take care of herself…thus giving me a distinct advantage to get her to submit to my will. When we go out to eat she will order from the kid’s menu, but will only finish half. Her knees SHOULD be bigger than her thighs and a few missed periods here and there…what’s the big deal? I don’t plan on having children, so it’s fine with me that she won’t be able to bear any with her dangerously low body weight. Above all, it’s a man’s role in society to continue to give women a complex about their weight, let them think skinnier is better. After all, the smaller my woman is the 70’s Bigger I seem!

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