Shadowing Practice: I Wasted 6 Months Being Skinny Fat Until I Fixed This - Learn English Speaking with Video

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If you're skinny fat right now, no upper body definition, visible love handles, and don't know whether you should bulk or cut, I wasted 6 months making every mistake possible so you don't have to.

This was me when I was skinny fat, and this is what happened to me when I stopped listening to what the fitness industry told me.

Everything you've been told about fixing a skinny fat body, eat big to get big, prioritize protein and workout every single day, is either wrong, incomplete, or ruining your progress.

In this video, I'm going to show you what kind of mistakes I made, why the normal approach is wrong, use to fix it.

Diet, training, sleep, and the psychological layer that no one talks about.

But before I show you what actually fixes it, I need to explain why the standard advice that you have been following is making things worse.

When I was skinny fat, I followed exactly what the fitness industry told me and it completely ruined my physique.

The first mistake I believed in is following the traditional bulk then cut approach.

You hear things like eat big to get big, eat six meals a day, and put whatever food that you see in your mouth.

But doing that didn't just give me gain fat.

When you bulk incorrectly, two things can happen.

You can gain muscle, but you will gain lots of fat.

And for someone who has a skinny fat physique, bulking is one of the worst things that you can do.

It's a huge mistake that many beginners make, including myself.

This mistake usually comes from another problem, not doing the proper research of your diet and workouts.

Like I said, I literally just ate whatever I wanted.

And when it came to the gym, I thought simply showing up would just with the wrong plan.

I was doing the wrong exercises with the wrong intensity.

I also prioritized my diet over my training when in reality you should prioritize both.

Trying to fix a skinny fat physique without understanding will make you have harder progress to achieve.

Once you actually know how to structure your diet and your workouts, that's when you actually see progress.

The third mistake I made was eating a lot of protein but barely any carbs.

Almost every day I was eating 150 to 200 grams of protein every single day.

I did this because I thought protein macronutrient that builds muscle.

And while protein is important for repairing your muscle cells, I was eating way more than needed.

At the same time, I wasn't prioritizing carbohydrates.

Carbs are just as important as they fuel your workouts supporting muscle growth.

Since I wasn't eating enough carbs, my performance in the gym suffered.

And the reason I made these mistakes was simple.

I didn't know how to track my calories, my macronutrients, and my nutrients.

And all these mistakes taught me something important.

The reason most people are skinny enough.

It's because they don't actually understand what causes a skinny fat physique in the first place.

So let's diagnose the real problem.

An average skinny fat physique usually has little to no muscle definition with a higher body fat percentage.

Because of that, you have a lack of muscle mass and visible fat stores in your body, also known as love handles.

Inside those love handles, there are actually two types of fat found in the body.

There's subcutaneous fat, the fat

higher amounts of visceral fat that means

that you have a lot of fat near your stomach area

and it's actually considered one of the most dangerous types

because it's associated with many health diseases one of the main

causes of visceral fat stores is a sedentary lifestyle with a poor diet even

if you're not overeating barely moving throughout the day

or having little to no exercises will lead to fat accumulation over the course of years this slowly adds up

and the fat this problem.

If most of the foods that you're eating are junk or unhealthy, you're not getting the proper macro and micronutrients for your body.

When your nutrition is unbalanced like this, you will make fat accumulation more prevalent.

Another common cause happens when people do the wrong exercises for fixing a skinny fat physique.

A lot of people rely on large amounts of cardio with little to no resistance training.

Especially when someone spends a lot of time on doing it long periods.

Yes, cardio can help you lose weight, but without any resistance training, you are going to lose muscle and fat at the same time.

This happens because long duration cardio is often catabolic, meaning that it breaks down tissues in your body, including muscle, for energy.

And if you're not doing some sort of resistance training, you are not creating enough stimulus for muscle growth.

A good example of this are long distance runners.

They spend most of their time running and even if they're not skinny fat, they have little to no muscle definition.

skinny fat physique often has little to no muscle definition.

But learning the causes and the mistakes of a skinny fat physique doesn't mean it's over.

In fact, facing the truth is what allowed you to fix it and stay lean all year round.

And I did that by following the right information, instead of the quick solutions that the fitness industry tries to push.

Before we get into the specifics, you need to understand what your goal should be.

If you're skinny fat, your objective is to build muscle and to lose or minimize body fat.

With your diet, please do not bulk.

I will say again, please do not bulk.

Like I said, bulking doesn't guarantee muscle gain.

If you bulk as a skinny fat person, you're just going to gain more fat.

You shouldn't cut right off the bat either.

Because even if you lose the fat, you'll probably just end up looking skinny.

Instead, stick to your maintenance calories and focus on body recomposition.

Body recomposition essentially means that you're building muscle and losing fat at the same time.

Now, it can be hard whenever you're actually fitness pile using a food scale.

And if you want to find your maintenance calories, comment shreds and I'll give you a free website that calculates it.

Besides your calories, we need to know what type of foods that you're eating.

If most of your diet is junk food, replace it with whole foods.

If you like eating McDonald's every day, just switch to a healthier version at home.

If you like eating ice cream, get a low calorie version of it.

But this doesn't mean that you should eat restrictively.

The more you completely avoid certain foods, the more you crave them.

So follow foods and 20 % should be flexible foods.

With your 80 to 20 rule, let's talk about your macronutrients.

For body recomposition, a solid baseline is 0 .7 to 0 .8 grams of protein per of your body weight, 0 .3 to 0 .5 grams of fats per body weight,

and the rest of your calories just should come from carbs.

So if you weigh 150 pounds, that would be around 105 grams of protein,

60 grams of fat, and around of people push the idea you need one gram,

but it's just too excessive.

If you prioritize carbs as well, your workouts will improve.

Now, speaking about your workouts, here is what you should do.

Follow a split that hits each muscle group twice per week.

Full body, upper lower, or upper lower pushable legs are great splits.

If you heard about bro splits, I wouldn't recommend them.

Training your muscles two times a week is way much better than training them one time per week.

Inside your training, your main focus should be progressing on your exercises with high intensity.

The gym is what stimulates muscle growth

but what actually causes muscle growth is mechanical tension meaning gradually increasing the force your muscles use over time.

To do that focus on low volume high intensity training.

For compounds aim for two sets of four to eight reps

and for your isolations aim for two to three sets of six to twelve reps.

To maximize intensity in the gym carbs before your workout matter.

Your muscles rely on stored carbohydrates for energy and meal and just have a meal after.

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That could look like rice, potatoes, and chicken thighs before your workout and steak, asparagus, and potatoes after.

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Not only does this improve performance but can actually help with insulin sensitivity.

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Being active after meals helps your body to reduce your blood sugar and use glucose effectively for energy.

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And lastly, let's talk about your sleep.

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This is one of the most overlooked factors and it can make a huge difference.

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Sleeping less than seven hours per night can diminish your gym performance.

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When performance drops, you get a for muscle growth and fat accumulation can increase.

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Lack of sleep also disrupts your hunger hormones, increasing your appetite and spiking your cortisol, your stress hormone.

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So try to sleep and wake up at the same time every single day.

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Remove things that distract you from sleeping like your phone or eating one hour to two hours before bed.

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Aim for seven to eight hours of quality sleep per night

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and you're going to put yourself in the best position for building muscle and losing fat.

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Okay, if you follow everything I talked about, your calories, workout, sleep, you will fix your But here's a reality that most people don't talk about.

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A lot of skinny fat people already know what to do and the problem isn't just their diet or their workouts.

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The real problem is why you keep going to the old habits that made your physique in the first place.

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Because there's another deep psychological layer that no one talks about.

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You might not be stuck because of the food you eat.

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You're stuck because there's something in your mind controlling your behavior.

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And that behavior often leads to eating for comfort.

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Your eating habits are often just following old instructions.

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you as well.

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I remember looking myself in the mirror thinking that I was a failure

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and I just wanted to give up in my diet and my workouts.

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I would skip the gym, I didn't eat clean, and I just didn't try.

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If you felt this before, I understand where you're coming from, but staying in this mentality will not reach where you want to be.

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So instead of constantly having negative thoughts or emotions about your physique, find the right questions to answer.

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Why does a person I want to become eat and train the way he does?

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How can I become the best version of myself physically?

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even will shape the actions that you will take.

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You can eat well, train hard in the gym, and sleep well but that doesn't mean anything if you're not staying consistent with it.

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What really matters is finding value in those habits and the ability to stick to them consistently.

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It will be a long and difficult journey but you need to remember

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that you're the only person that can change who you are right now.

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Stay positive, stay active, and just stay consistent.

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And if you want to hear how I personally went through this and changed my physique, watch this video where I break down need it.

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Thank you for watching, have a great day.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 135 sentences and 1917 words to shadow. The speech runs for 10:02. The speaker talks fast, about 191 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

muscle /ˈmʌs.əl/ (noun) — A contractile form of tissue which animals use to effect movement.
skinny /ˈskɪni/ (adjective) — Thin, generally in a negative sense (as opposed to slim, which is thin in a positive sense).
workout /ˈwɝk.aʊ̯t/ (noun) — An exercise session; a period of physical exercise.
bulk /bʌlk/ (noun) — Size, specifically, volume.
calorie /ˈkæləɹi/ (noun) — A non-SI unit of energy, equivalent to 4.184 kilojoules, that can raise the temperature of a kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. This is the unit normally…
gram /ˈɡɹæm/ (noun) — A unit of mass equal to one-thousandth of a kilogram. Symbol: g.
meal /ˈmiːl/ (noun) — Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity.
fitness /ˈfɪt.nəs/ (noun) — The condition of being fit, suitable or appropriate.
intensity /ɪnˈtɛnsɪti/ (noun) — The quality of being intense.
habit /ˈhæb.ɪt/ (noun) — An action performed on a regular basis.
accumulation /əˌkjuːm.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/ (noun) — The act of amassing or gathering, as into a pile.
consistent /kənˈsɪs.tənt/ (adjective) — Of a regularly occurring, dependable nature.
layer /ˈleɪ̯ɚ/ (noun) — A single thickness of some material covering a surface.
visible /ˈvɪzɪb(ə)l/ (adjective) — Able to be seen.
rep /ɹɛp/ (noun) — A fabric made of silk or wool, or of silk and wool, and having a transversely corded or ribbed surface.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

talk about (verb) — Used to draw attention to the speaker's characterization of someone or something.
come from (verb) — To have as one's origin, birthplace or nationality.
break down (verb) — To stop functioning.
rely on (verb) — To be confident in.
add up (verb) — To take the sum of; to total.
end up (verb) — To bring to a conclusion.
get into (verb) — To move into (an object), such that one ends up inside it.
go through (verb) — To travel from one end of something to the other.

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 37 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, didn't, doesn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: thigh /θaɪ/, unhealthy /ʌnˈhɛl.θi/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: accumulation /əˌkjuːm.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, tissue /ˈtɪʃ.(j)u/, tension /ˈtɛnʃən/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: intensity /ɪnˈtɛnsɪti/, accumulation /əˌkjuːm.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/, psychological /ˌsaɪ.kəˈlɑː.d͡ʒɪ.kl̩/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, mechanical /məˈkænəkəl/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like muscle, skinny, workout.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if you lose the fat, you'll probably · if you weigh 150 pounds, that would be
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	you've been told · is unbalanced · might not be stuck

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: I Wasted 6 Months Being Skinny Fat Until I Fixed This - Learn English Speaking with Video

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