Have you ever thought your genes were fighting against your weight loss? Maybe you can remember as a child hearing people tell you that you had “big bones” or for my fellow guys out there maybe you spent a lot o time with mom in the husky section of the kid’s clothing store. Well there is something to be said about how your body type affects your weight and what you can reasonably expect from a weight loss journey depending on your body type. Let’s look at the three body types and see if you can find where you fit.
· Mesomorph – if you are a mesomorph you are the envy of your gym, basically your body builds muscle quick and easy and you will have well defined shoulders and chest that is larger than your waist. You will keep fat on evenly throughout your body. Think of the natural athletes you know. I would say there really is no reason for you people to be overweight, I mean come on a few trip to the gym and a somewhat reasonable diet will take off any extra weight you may have allowed to gatherer. However be warned that meosmorphs who do pack on extra pounds do have a very high risk of heart disease so make sure you mix some cardio in with your weight lifting.
· Ectomorph – ectomorphs are slender by nature, in fact these people have a hard timing putting weight on no matter what they eat! (I know, we all want to come back as ectomorphs) Ectomorphs typically excel at cardio but struggle to put weight on. They will often hold any weight they do manage to put on in the belly area (think of the pregnant man look, skinny guy with a big belly) and with their small structure they can’t hide weight well at all.
· Endomorph – endomorphs like me are best described as round if you are a guy or curve if you are a woman. We tend to keep our weight in the lower part of our bodies most of our weight is centered either in the belly area or the hips and thighs (belly for me, lucky me). We have a real, real, real easy time putting on weight and we are the group most likely to be obese. Now for the good news our fuller frames allow us to carry our weight better and nobody looks better when they trim down to us endomorphs (think of it a female endomorph who slims down has an hourglass body). We do have a higher rate of heart disease and have are at high risk of knee and ankle injuries because of the stress the extra weight puts on the joints. While we will never be thin, and most likely won’t become muscular mesomorphs when we do thin down we tend to look the most naturally healthy, not over pumped with muscles and not rail thin.
Now for some confusion; most people are a combination of more than one body type. For example I am probably 75% endomorph and 25% percent mesomorph (and absolutely zero ectomorph) but when you know what your dominant type is you can form realistic expectations from your health journey. I don’t expect to look like Stallone in Rambo anytime soon, but once I took the bulk of my weight off I did fill out a suit damn well. So if you are a Mesomorph hit the weights since muscle building is second nature to you but also get some cardio in no reason to drop dead of a heart attack after you put all that work in. If you are an Ectomorph get your cardio on! You can take it easier on the weights since it won’t make the noticeable changes you are looking for. If you are like me and are primarily a Endomorph set reasonable expectations of what you want your body to look like, combine weights and low impact cardio and stick to a low calorie diet and you will soon look amazing, natural and healthy.
