JJ Virgin says diet alone creates a "skinny-fat" look. Real body composition needs three things: enough protein and the right carb-fat balance, resistance training plus some HIIT, and quality sleep. Skip any one and the whole plan fails.
Diet can make some initial big shifts, and then it will leave you high and dry. If you look at people who've tried to maintain their weight through diet alone, they are the ones that get skinny fat. The diet needs to be there, but in order to create long-term sustainable appropriate body composition, it's the exercise. There's one other piece though. Like, when I look at this and go, "We need to totally improve your body composition. If I could only do 3 things, what would they be?" It would be the diet shift. It would be resistance training and a little HIIT training and sleep. Because all bets are off. We could be eating protein first, getting the right amount of protein in the diet, doing the right amount of carbs and fat for you, doing your resistance training, adding a little HIIT, and you're not sleeping well. It's not going to work.
