What is the best diet & exercise for your body type? (Part Two)

Want to know how to eat and workout for the best results for your body type?  In our last blog we identified the 3 distinct somatotype body types:  Please read Part 1 first if you have not already done so.

Once you have worked out your body type, use the information below to help fine tune your nutrition and exercise plans to get the most success with your goals whether they consist of weight loss, increased muscle or body sculpting.

ECTOMORPHS

Nutrition

SOURCE:RODALE WELLNESS

• Stay hydrated with plenty of fresh plain water
• Eat natural unprocessed foods
• Avoid drastically cutting carbs (eat enough vegetable carbs)
• Eat adequate calories to facilitate lean muscle growth (Don't use the excuse of having a faster metabolism to eat junk food as this does nothing to grow muscle)
• Eat plenty of broccoli, cauliflower, avocado, chicken, turkey, oats, brown rice, coconut oil or ghee, nuts, seeds and nut butter. 

Fitness training

• Focus on gaining strength
• Dont overtrain - dont overdo aerobic activities if your goal is to increase muscle and tone
• Ectomorphs tend to excel at cardio and avoid or do minimal weight/resistance training.  
• To increase muscle mass, increase strength and sculpt an ectomorph type body use heavy weights and body weight exercises
• Train 3 times a week to allow lots of recovery days to give muscles a chance to repair and grow.

MESOMORPH

Nutrition

• Stay hydrated with plenty of fresh plain water
• Eat natural unprocessed foods
• Watch overall food consumption as Mesomorphs tend to overeat as they feel its relatively easy to loose weight
• Include lots of healthy fats such as avocados, butter, olives, oily fish etc

Fitness training

• Try sprint training (build up to this if new to running) as its great for fat loss and muscle building
• Train 3 times a week to allow lots of recovery days to give muscles a chance to repair and grow
• Target multiple muscle groups each training session
• Pilates is great for mesomorph body types

ENDOMORPHS

Nutrition

• Stay hydrated with plenty of fresh plain water
• Eat natural unprocessed foods
• Watch carbohydrate consumption (especially later in the day) (try to get your carbs from vegetables as opposed to processed carbs such as bread, crackers, biscuits etc)
• No food within 3 hours of bedtime
• Fill up on protein at each meal and include loads of vegetables/salad
• Eliminate sweets and reduce alcohol
• Snacks if eaten should be smaller than the size of your palm
• Have a high protein and fibre breakfast such as an omelette of eggs, spinach, red peppers and spring onion

Fitness training

• Your goal should focus on burning fat whilst increasing muscle to gain a lean and toned body
• Train at a high intensity with little rest between sets to burn stored body fat
• Avoid long periods of sitting, exercise for 30 minutes a day (7 times a week) with two of those sessions using heavy weights/body weight exercises and one session being a HIIT session

With the above guidance you can take your nutrition and exercise to the next level and may see results faster and better then ever before.

If you are interested in knowing more about your body type and how we can help you achieve the best results please get in contact.

The building blocks to a better body.........

There is definitely something to take away from the 'Three Little Pigs' children's fairy tale and its not just for children. Children's stories are often written in a way to teach them valuable lessons with characters making mistakes thus helping children to translate them into real life situations.

In the story, the first little piggy was a little bit lazy and grabbed at the first thing he could to build his house. Unfortunately straw isn’t great raw materials for building a house and so the wolf ate him. This is like the person who grabs at the first sugary treat before stopping to think or eats processed foods at every single meal. Yes it gets the job done and you fill you stomach but in the long run the lack of nutrients will keep you constantly craving food and the body will just keep sending you hunger signals.  This little piggy did not put the time and effort into building his house much like those that don't take the time for exercise.  Even those of us who are extremely busy can learn to incorporate exercise into our daily lives so there really is no excuse.

The second little piggy built his house out of wood and yes it was stronger than the straw house, but the wolf still managed to blow the house down and eat the pig, it just took a little more effort on the wolfs part. The second little pig is like the person who still eats processed junk food BUT is “exercising” so its ok?? To some this might sound ok as the exercise will 'burn off' the junk that they are eating. If only it was as simple as that.  

The body constantly needs nutrients to build and repair and get stronger and the fuel that you supply it with and the exercise that you give it will ultimately make up 'You'. If you keep putting the junk and poor quality foods into your body and deny it of all the nutrients it needs and deny it of exercise, it simply WONT be able rebuild you a better body.  Simply put, you cannot out exercise a bad diet, or expect to do well on a good diet with no daily exercise, the two truly go hand in hand.

So that leaves us with the third little piggy who was the one who took his time, put the effort in and sourced the best materials and built himself a house of bricks and eventually outsmarted the big bad wolf. He kept it simple and built a house that would last for years.

To truly build yourself the best, strongest and most robust body (to keep that wolf at bay) does it not make sense to give it the best raw materials (nutrition) possible and the movement (exercise) that it needs and craves?