Articles
Can Skinny People Get Type 2 Diabetes?
Skinny people can get type 2 diabetes, but it’s uncommon, and you can cut your risk down to almost nothing. Perhaps more importantly, the same lifestyle that prevents diabetes will improve almost every other aspect of your health (and appearance).
Marco has a degree in health sciences (BHSc) and is a certified nutrition coach. Cassandra is a registered nutritionist. Our specialty is working with naturally thin people, and we’ve been doing it full-time for the past 15 years. Of the tens of thousands of skinny clients we’ve worked with, almost none of them have struggled with insulin sensitivity or type 2 diabetes.
However, we wanted to be extra certain, so I spoke with two experts who specialize in diabetes: Dr. Karl Nadolsky, an endocrinologist, and Danny Lennon, a nutritionist on the Advisory Board of the Sports Nutrition Association.
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How Many Meals Should You Eat Per Day While Bulking?
Bodybuilders used to think that they needed to eat seven meals per day while bulking. They thought that if they didn’t eat often enough, their bodies would shift into “starvation mode,” which would cause them to gain less muscle and store more body fat. Some of them would even wake up in the middle of the night to have a protein shake.
Now that intermittent fasting is becoming popular, that idea is starting to die out. Instead of eating seven meals per day, it’s common for bodybuilders to experiment with eating as few as 1–2 meals per day. But there’s a problem here, too. Going through periods of fasting slows down our muscle growth. (A couple of new studies also found that fasting can affect our hair.)
The good news about intermittent fasting becoming more popular is that there’s now quite a bit of research comparing different meal frequencies for muscle growth.
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The Best Breakfast Recipes for Bulking: Quick, Easy, and Healthy
I’m a naturally skinny guy with a small stomach, and I wake up without much of an appetite. If I force down a big bulking breakfast, I tend to feel sluggish for a few hours. But if I skip breakfast, I fall behind on calories, and my stomach is small, so I have a hard time catching up later.
So, what I like to do is start with a light protein shake. Super quick, easy, and healthy, and I feel light and fresh afterwards. Then I give my appetite some time to wake up, and I have a smoothie or a snack a couple of hours later. That’s how I built all of my muscle.
I’ll give you both of those recipes, and then I’ll give you some other classic bulking breakfasts that have been popular with clients over the past 15 years.
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Intermittent Fasting May Cause Hair Loss: Research Explained
I was excited about intermittent fasting when it first started becoming popular. I don’t have an appetite when I wake up, and I love the feeling of black coffee on an empty stomach.
It didn’t work very well for me, though. I’m a naturally skinny guy with a small stomach and a smaller appetite. I started falling behind on protein and calories, and my afternoon and evening meals became uncomfortably large, which left me feeling sluggish. I also got acid reflux.
I have quite a few clients who enjoy fasting, though, so I keep up with the research. So far, it seems to have a neutral effect on health and fat loss (study). It seems to have a slightly negative effect on muscle gain, but mostly because fasting makes it hard to eat enough protein and calories. If you can eat enough, you’ll build muscle just fine.
This latest study is strange, though. It seems that intermittent fasting causes hair loss, at least in some people, under some circumstances.
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Does Turkesterone Improve Muscle Growth? (Explaining the Scam)
Turkesterone is one of the most popular (and infamous) muscle-building supplements on the market. Joe Rogan, More Plates More Dates, and Vitruvian Physique have all discussed turkesterone’s benefits. Most famously of all, Greg Doucette touts the benefits of his turkesterone supplement (Turk Builder) several times per week to hundreds of thousands of people per video.
At first, the claim was that turkesterone could boost testosterone production, boosting muscle growth. However, there isn’t any research showing increases in testosterone. Also, it doesn’t bind to the androgen receptor, so you wouldn’t expect it to increase testosterone (study). When this came out, there was a marketing pivot. Now, it’s said to promote muscle growth via other pathways, such as stimulating the production of more IGF-1, increasing mTOR. More on that in a moment.
To get to the bottom of this, I started by speaking with Dr. Eric Trexler. He’s got a doctorate degree in sports science, has published over 30 strength and hypertrophy studies, and studies metabolism at Duke University.
We also have a few studies to review, including two new human trials on turkesterone.
And then there’s the drama: the scams, scandals, and redemption arcs.
We don’t sell turkesterone. No affiliate links.
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How to Build an Aesthetic Physique
Most men want to have an aesthetic physique. Few know exactly what that means. For example, when they guess the degree of muscularity women prefer, they’re off by thirty pounds (study). Many have a deeper misunderstanding, failing to connect their appearance to their fitness and strength. Some shun aesthetics, mistakenly thinking it’s superficial. Others are superficial on purpose, thinking it’s the best way to become attractive. That’s never as convincing as the real thing.
We’ll cover the attractiveness research. We’ve spoken to some of the study authors. We also went deeper, testing our hypotheses by conducting our own surveys. We collected thousands of responses for each: survey 1 and survey 2.
But be warned: this article is long. If you don’t want to read the whole thing, here’s a simple trick to improve your appearance: have a drink. It will boost your aesthetics (to yourself) by 50%. This is called “The Reverse Beer Goggles Effect,” also known as Beauty is in the Eye of the Beer Holder (study). It’s not a perfect solution, but it will save you twenty minutes of reading.
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How Muscular Should You Get? Ideal Male Body Weight & FFMI
I want to give you an idea about what body weight you should aim for. You’ll know exactly how much more muscle you should build, and exactly how much fat you should lose. You also know how heavy you should get when bulking, and how light you should get when cutting.
We’ll cover it from a few angles, going over the ideal BMI for your health, the amount of muscle women find most attractive, what men think looks the best, and also what’s best for different performance goals.
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Do Girls Like Skinny Guys? (Survey Results)
I surveyed a thousand women to see if they like skinny guys. In the first survey, I used photos. In the second, I used my own illustrations.
I’ve also been through all the research, including speaking with the lead researcher on the most influential paper that studied this.
And I’m a naturally skinny guy who’s bulking up. I have my own experience of dating (online and in person) while skinny and then while in great shape.
Let’s go through all of it.
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The V-Taper Physique Myth
When most guys think of the most attractive male physique, they think of a V-taper body shape with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. That isn’t wrong. There’s quite a bit of research showing that men with broader shoulders and narrower waists are more attractive.
The V-taper physique isn’t a myth. Rather, there are myths surrounding the V-taper physique. Those misunderstandings ruin what it symbolizes, destroying its aesthetic appeal.
The mistake is assuming you can improve your physique by emphasizing certain muscles, such as your side delts. This is the opinion held by quite a few experts and influencers, including Dr. Mike Israetel, Dr. Macken Murphy, TylerPath, WanHee, and many other influencers with many millions of followers (as shown in this video).
It’s true that building bigger side delts would give you broader shoulders, giving you a greater shoulder-to-waist ratio, and thus technically giving you a more pronounced V-taper, but I’m not sure that’s the best way to improve your appearance.
Let me go through the research, show you some interesting results from a survey I conducted, and explain the logic.
If you read the article and disagree with me, post a comment. I’ll answer it. I want to get this right.
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The Best Bulking Programs for Skinny Beginners in 2025 (Reviewed)
To find the five best bulking programs for skinny beginners, we surveyed our 26,000 naturally thin newsletter subscribers. Most of them have tried several different bulking programs, some of which worked, and many of which didn’t.
We’ve also bulked up ourselves. Marco is naturally skinny, he has a degree in health sciences, he has over a decade of experience as a full-time strength coach, and he’s helped a wide variety of clients bulk up, ranging from everyday skinny guys all the way up to college, professional, and Olympic athletes.
I’m naturally skinny, too, with over 15 years of full-time experience helping over 15,000 skinny people bulk up. We live and breathe this niche. So, we’ll offer our own wisdom here, too, when we can.
Note: Our bulking program was rated the most highly, but that’s because we surveyed our own newsletter. We aren’t reviewing our program. We’re much too biased, obviously.
Note: There are no affiliate links.
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