If you're eating wrong for your body type, you may never reach your maximum potential.
Are you an ectomorph, mesomorph or endomorph body type? Are you carb tolerant or carb intolerant?
If you're not sure, then this could be the reason your last diet failed, or why your results have fallen short of your expectations.
To maximize the results of your diet, regardless of whether your goal is fat loss or muscle gain, you must adjust your diet according to your body type.
You inherited a certain body type, just as you inherited a certain hair, eye and skin color. When you look at how important genetics are in athletic, muscle building, fitness or fat loss endeavors, it may seem like the only guaranteed way to physical superiority or extreme levels of low body fat is to choose the right parents.
But even if you think that mother nature dealt you a bad hand, you can take consolation in the fact that success in fat loss is not determined purely by genetics. Most of the factors involved in burning fat are totally under your control.
You can acheive fantastic results, regardless of your genetics, as long as you recognize and understand your body type and then adopt the proper nutrition and training strategies for YOUR genetics and not someone else's.
Super-Charging Your Results By Understanding Your "Somatotype"
In the 1930's and 1940's, Dr. william H Sheldon, a professor from Harvard, became engrossed in the study of human body types. As psychologist, it was Sheldon's main intention to find out how body types were related to temperments such as introversion and extroversion.
As a part of his extensive research on the subject, Sheldon developed a three part classification system for body types known as SOMATOTYPING.
Sheldon identified three distinct body types:
- The Mesomorph
- The Endomorph
- The Ectomorph
The ectomorphs are the lean, skinny types, They are usually very thin and bony, with fast metabolisms and extremely low body fat.
The mesomorphs are the genetically gifted types who are lean, muscular and naturally athletic.
The endomorphs are the fat retainers. Endomorphs have a round body shape and large joints (they often call themselves "big boned") and they usually have great difficulty losing body fat.
There's a good chance that if you struggle with fat loss, you are an endomorph or you are at least partially endomorph.
The Plight of The Endomorph
Many people who are training hard but still struggling to lose body fat have an endomorph body type. An endomorph is someone who is genetically prone to store fat easily due to various issues with hormones, metabolism, behavior tendencies and or energy expenditure.
If you're an endomorph and you mess up on your diet, the surplus calories are almost certain to go to fat. Even when you're in a caloric deficit, it seems like the fat goes down at a painfully slow rate.
Endomorphy also describes a certain body shape and structure: endomorph body types are usually, but not always, large-framed with medium to large joints.
Of all the three body types, the endomoph body type may seem the least desirable one to have if your goal is fat loss. It's frustrating sometimes. No matter what you do, it seems like you're at a disadvantage.
While there are genetically-influenced disadvantages to having the endomorph body type, the good news is that even if you're an endomorph you can burn fat and get as lean as you want to be. An endomorph body type is not "bad." There are no good or bad body types. Is your eye color good or bad? No, it simply is what it is. It's what you inherited.
There are countless examples of endomorphs who were once overweight or obese and who went on to become super lean. What they did was to simply understand their body type and adjust their nutrition and training accordingly. They understood that they couldn't copy someone else's diet and expect the same results unless that other person had the same type of body.
Metabolic characteristics of the Endomorph
The endomorph body type doesn't necessarily refer only to outward physical characteristics, although Sheldon's somtatotyping system originally referred to body structure alone. More recent advancements in body typing such as the Heath-Carter method, take into account internal (metabolic) characteristics as well.
From a metabolic perspective, the endomorph body type sometimes has varying degrees of carbohydrate sensitivity and insulin resistance. Pay close attention, because this is an important point. If someone is metabolically carbohydrate intolerant due to a genetic tendency, then high carbohydrate diets are not the preferred choice for fat loss goals as they will stimulate excess secretion of insulin and glucose will be partitioned into the fat cells more easily.
A nutrition strategy for the carb intolerant endomorph then is to immediately clip the processed and refined carbs from the diet, particularly white sugar and white flour products. These concentrated carbs will be much more problematic for endomorphs, while the ecto and meso's seem to get away with it a little bit more.
The best solution for the endomorph body type is a moderate carb diet as baseline, for example a 40-40-20 split of protein, carbs and fat. For those particularly carb intolerant, taking the dietary fats up to 30% may be even better, producing a 40-30-30 macronutrient split.
From the baseline diet, the endomorph must carefully watch body composition results and adjust the carbohydrate intake according to the results. For some endo's a further drop in carbs may be called for and in the extreme cases a small handful of them may find they are best with a diet which is even lower in carbs and higher in healthy fats.
An Individualized Approach to Nutrition is the Key!
The variation in body types may influence the ratios of macronutrients (the percentage of proteins, carbs and fats). This is one of the reaons that I provide a moderate carb, balanced diet, a semi-restricted carb diet and a low carb diet all as part of my Burn The Fat, Feed the Muscle (BFFM) program. Burn The Fat is not one diet because one size does not fit all. It's three diets, each one designed to suit the goals and body type of each individual.
Another aspect of your diet to consider is the degree of compliance you must use. usually, I'd recommend a 90-10 rule, which means follow your diet strictly 90% of the time and then 10% of the time, eat whatever you want. Some genetically gifted mesomorphs and ectomorphs can seem to get away with being much more lax on their diets, with 80% compliance or even less and they never gain an ounce of fat.
The endomorph on the other hand, must follow a strict compliance rule. They can't seem to "get away" with frequent indiscretions without paying the price. If you're an endomorph this requires developing a high level of nutritional discipline and a strong desire to see improvements in your body. You gotta want it.
There are many other techniques an endomorph can use to radically increase the results of their fat loss program, including special alterations to the training program. Training is a lot like nutrition, if you train wrong for your body type, you get less than optimal results.
After reading these descrptions of the various body types, if you think you're an endomorph and if you'd like to learn more techniques to improve your fat loss results, then I invite you to visit the home page and learn more about my Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle program.
Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle is one of the few programs in the world that devotes attention to metabolic individuality and body typing for maximum results.
In particular, you'll want to look at chapter 5, titled, Metabolic Individuality and Your Body type: Doing Your Best With What You've Got.
I know many people get frustrated with their less than optimal genetics, but I guarantee you, genetics are not a reason that you don't reach your goals. You only fall short of your goals if you fail to adjust your program according to your genetics.
Whatever you have, you have to make the most of it and you can do that by applying the Burn the Fat techniques. They've worked for tens of thousands of others and they can work for you too. Learn more by visiting the Burn The Fat home page here: www.BurnTheFat.com
Train hard and expect success,
Tom Venuto, Fat Loss Coach
Author of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle
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