Undermuscled

I read this neat success story on Mark Sisson's site the other day.  It is about a gentleman who lost a good amount of fat by following Mark's advice.  After the weight loss, this person now weighs 140 lbs at a height of 6 feet tall.

This would seem to be a fairly light weight for his height.  This person is interested in losing a bit more fat, but Mark also directed him to work on building muscle.  And this gets at what I think is an undiagnosed problem in America: that many people are "undermuscled" regardless of whether they have high or low body fat.

For example, in the case of the success story this person probably did not lose much muscle as he lost the fat, since he kept active and lifted weights.  So really in his previous condition, he had two problems: excess fat and insufficient muscle.  He's mostly taken care of one problem but now he has to work on the other.

This is why I think a lot of "big guys" don't really have much muscle underneath, if they'd strip off the fat.  But I think a lot of men in particular like to stay big in this way because the size is comforting.  Unfortunately, a lot of this size is fat and inflammation.

This whole idea occured to me before when I read a story about Gregg Avedon, who is a cover model for Men's Fitness and other magazines.  In an interview, he remarked that his waist is 32 inches at a height of around 6 feet 1 inch.  But he weighs in at 205 lbs.  I myself have a 32-inch waist, and I'm roughly the same height (I'm 6 feet tall).  So what's the difference between Gregg Avedon and me?  His added muscle mass.  (I would think a person's skeleton also plays a role here - some people seem to have a larger skeleton.)

I do think some people have more muscle due to genetics or early exercise patterns.  But like anything else, there's always room to grow.