What Are Body Types?

Here is an overview of the 5 main body types so that you can understand the basics of your body as easily and quickly as possible:

Endomorph: “Endo” meaning “fat” and “morph” meaning body type. An endomorph has a very high ratio of fat to lean muscle tissue. Their bodies are often soft with loose flesh and they gain weight easily. It seems that no matter what they eat, they gain weight. Their metabolism is extremely slow and, because of that, an endomorph is much more likely than the other body types to become obese.

How this affects your plan:
The endomorph body type tends to retain water very easily. This is due to the estrogen in the body. Estrogen bloats-this is why women can gain 7 to 12 pounds of during their menstrual cycle-it’s just water! Endomorphs have a high proportion of body fat. Enzymes in body fat convert testosterone into estrogen. Therefore, an endomorph should consume lots of diuretic vegetables such as asparagus, cabbage, cucumber, nopales, and other diuretic vegetables.

The endomorph also needs to build muscle. The weight training should focus on high repetition and lower weight. In order to build more muscle, red meat is advisable. Red meat builds muscle more quickly than other protein sources. Weight gain products such as protein shakes and powders should be avoided as they often contain soy. Soy has been shown to produce estrogen in the body as well.

Endo-Meso: An endo-meso body type is a body whose predominant feature is fatty but there is an underlying muscularity. The body has the tendency to be overweight but with a certain thickness, not like the pure endomorph. When the endo-meso body flexes, a hardness to the muscle can be felt underneath the fat-especially in the thighs, neck, and biceps. This means that you have enough testosterone to build muscle but your metabolism is slow enough that you increase body fat fairly quickly.

How this affects your plan:
Because this body type builds muscle fairly easily, it is important not to lift heavy weights unless your goal is to become very muscular or athletic looking. Don’t buy into people saying you need muscle in order to burn fat. There is fat burning muscle and there is sugar burning muscle. The two muscles are only capable of metabolizing the type of fuel (either sugar or fat) that they are designed to. A diesel engine will NOT burn gasoline! Sugar burning muscle (fast-twitch fiber) will NOT burn fat (slow twitch fiber). Therefore, you need to build fat burning fiber. This is accomplished by doing a lot of long distance cardio.

The unfortunately thing about this is that most endo-meso body types are not good at endurance exercise. But, you should become good at it! Become a fat burning machine! The body is excellent at adapting! This is how we have survived despite being the weakest species on the planet. Start by jogging for 3 minutes and then walk for 10 minutes. Then eventually, jog for 5 minutes and walk for 10…evolve your training until you finally jog for 45 minutes to one full hour! Eventually, you will be able to do this! I have seen it hundreds of times working with clients! Your body will succeed at this, especially if you take it in small steps. You can do other forms of cardiovascular exercise but treadmill is the best for becoming a fat burning machine! That is evidenced by looking at long distance runners! They are lean mean, running machines!

In addition to the cardio, the endo-meso body type should avoid red meat. Especially, eating red meat and potato together. Steal and potato builds muscle better than any other food combination. Potato spikes insulin sufficiently to carry the red meat proteins into the muscles at a very high rate. Try consuming fish and turkey as your primary proteins as they are very good for metabolizing body fat!

The endo-meso should workout with weights as well. Because your body produces sufficient testosterone to build that muscle (practically without working out), it produces enough testosterone to aromatize into estrogen and cause weight gain if you don’t use the testosterone. The way to use it is to workout with weights, machines, resistance bands, or the like. Again, very low weight, very high repetition workouts to avoid building mass!

A word of caution for the endo-meso: This body type tends towards exhibiting symptoms of hypoglycemia due to the high level of muscle. Muscle, especially non-endurance muscle, consumes sugar as a fuel source. This means that you may also crave sugar! Your body knows that it consumes sugar as a fuel source more so than fat and it doesn’t quite know how to ask for 4 ounces of sweet potato or a small slice of bread-so, it asks for “something with carbohydrate, please.” and we interpret it as cake…or something sweet! Next time you have a craving for something sweet, go for a potato or fruit. It’ll satisfy your body’s needs just as well (even better)!

Meso-Endo: Again, the primary characteristic of this body type is muscularity but there is a layer of softness overlaying the muscle in the case of the meso-endo body type. The face may even be round while the rest of the body is heavily muscled. Football players often have this characteristic body type. These are fairly rare and very obvious! If you are unsure if you are meso-endo, then you probably are not. You are probably meso-endo, the body type previous to this one.

How this affects your nutrition plan:
This body type does NOT need to weight train! Unless your goal is to look very muscular, you do not need to do any form of resistance exercise. Use it or lose it-and you want to lose some of it! You have plenty! Only do cardiovascular exercise! The best form of exercise for you is slow, long distance walking and eventually trudging. Trudging is like jogging but you are going at a walking pace. You can also do long distance swimming, elliptical, or some other form of cardio but bear in mind, you shouldn’t have any incline or resistance on it. If you decide to use a bicycle or recumbent bike as your cardiovascular exercise, keep in mind what the Tour de France participant’s legs look like. If you don’t know what I mean, look at images of bicyclists legs. Just a reminder-use it or lose it…and the opposite is true as well.

For your food plan, try to alternate meals with carbohydrates and without. If you can, consume protein with a vegetable (like a salad with chicken breast), then the next meal, consume a starchy carbohydrate or a fruit, this will help your body metabolize some of the bulky muscle away.

Endo-Ecto: is an individual whose body lacks muscle tissue, has a preponderance of fat, but whose frame and limbs, while appearing flaccid and fatty, somehow remain thin.
This is a very difficult body type to change if you don’t know what you are doing. It’s also known more affectionately as the pear shape. This is someone who has long, thin arms and upper torso combined with disproportionately wide hips.

How this affects your nutrition plan:

This is mostly exercise related. Lots of long distance walking or jogging will help slenderize your thighs and hips. In addition to the cardiovascular exercise, performing a fair amount of resistance training on your upper body will help bring the proportions together faster. As you slim your thighs and hips, building muscle on your upper body will help prevent you from looking too gaunt. You can also perform resistance exercise on your lower body but avoid lunges, squats, and using heavy weights. You will need to build some muscle but the jogging should help with this substantially. Try to avoid bicycles and recumbent bikes because with this body type, it could exacerbate the thighs very much like the body type example previous to this. High repetition and low weight is once again, your best strategy.

Ecto-Endo: is an individual whose frame may be slight. Limbs, especially the extremities, may be slim but there is a preponderance of fat on the limbs, and perhaps thighs and midsection. The individual in question may often complain of needing to lose weight but is so often met with “You? You’re skinny, stop complaining!” The fat may be very well camouflaged.

How this affects your plan:

First of all, most of the perceived problem with this body type is the lack of tone and definition. Most of the people with this body type believe they are “fat” because they can’t see muscle. In some cases, there is also some excess body fat but not enough for a physician to become concerned. Therefore, resistance training is going to be your new best friend. However, muscle isn’t built out of thin air and this body type typically does not experience hunger the way others do. In fact, most people with this body type say they are never really hungry.

Regardless of how your body feels, you need to eat in order to change the way your body looks. If you can’t eat a full meal at first, start with a piece of fruit or protein. If you eat at least a little bite of something, it is usually enough to get your metabolism jump started. Eventually you’ll be able to keep your food intake high. When that happens, you’ll be very impressed with how quickly your body changes. Don’t be afraid of food. Many people with this body type feel that if they eat, they will get “fatter” and therefore they should avoid eating. Think about this for a moment—this is what you have been doing all along and it hasn’t worked. All you are doing is slowing your metabolism even further and causing your body to consume the little muscle it has! Don’t be afraid of eating-just eat the healthy foods that you know will nourish your body.

Consume carbohydrates at every meal-this will keep your body from consuming your existing muscle mass for energy when it runs out of food. Consume red meat whenever possible and add a little healthy fats here and there, such as avocado, olive oil, and, in your case, a little dairy is actually beneficial. Not necessarily a pint of ice cream, however a cheese stick once or twice throughout the day will help your muscles grow.

No matter what happens, the ecto-endo should stay off of scales! This is only a half joke…the reason I say this is because the body fat you lose will be replaced by muscle. Muscle weighs more than the same volume of fat. Therefore, you’ll be getting leaner but you may not weigh significantly less!

More about body types:
You may also be what is known as a “mixed-genotype” which means, your upper body could be one body type while your lower body displays characteristics of another. For example, a very common mixed genotype is endo-ecto for the upper body and a lower body made up of purely endo. In aesthetic terms, you have a very thin upper body while your hips and thighs tend to gain weight very quickly. That means that as you lose weight, you become very gaunt looking in your face and upper body while your lower body stays disproportionately heavy looking.

The key to balancing the aesthetic differences caused by having a mixed genotype has less to do with nutrition and more to do with exercise and resistance workouts. We offer workout videos based around the needs of each body type. If you have a mixed genotype, you need to incorporate the videos for each respective body type and apply it to that area of your body. We have made this as simple as possible without becoming an expert in chemistry, nutrition, physiology and anatomy!

It’s important to understand that you can change your basic genotype, to some extent. You cannot change your bone structure, but many aspects of your physicality can be changed, and this is very empowering. By applying correct knowledge, perseverance, diligence, and discipline, you can create your ideal body.

I will give you the knowledge that will help to empower you. This is not built on wild imagination and conjecture. I have seen people change their bodies with correct nutritional and exercise guidance, and I have seen people change their seemingly horrific fates into positive dynamic lives, not a few times, but thousands.

Just remember, there is no “more desirable body” than another. This is purely a matter of preference. For example, I know many women who would prefer to look like a pure ectomorph-thin and tall. However, statistics have found that men and women differ in what they find to be the ideal “look” for a woman. There was a study done many years ago asking couples what their ideal body type would be for themselves (women) and what their mates preferred. I found it ironic that the body type most women prefer for themselves has about 10% less body fat than the body type a man would prefer they have.