"I am just big-boned. Everyone in my family is big-boned."
"My Mom is heavy. My Dad is heavy. I'll never be anything but heavy."
"My sister has my Mom's lean body and I have my Dad's stocky body, so I will never be lean like her."
You often go through these phrases as people around you quote them a lot or you may have said so.
You wonder how much of a role do genetics contributes in your shape and size?
If your parents are chubby, you can’t help it and doomed to be heavy forever?
Fact is, yes, genes do play a significant role in your body type, shape and size. "Genes tell the body where the head goes and where the tail goes, what goes on the front and what goes on the back," explains C. Ronald Kahn of the Harvard Medical School and president of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.
But we are all different in many ways. Yes, even you. Everyone has different body structure, different cellular reactions of eating or dieting, your strengths and weaknesses varies, and thus all of us have different behaviors that we’re more likely to succeed with.
Three main body types:
EctomorphAn ectomorph has the body type that is most often seen in the pages of fashion magazines. You tend to be long limbed and not particularly muscular.
You can be "skinny fat," meaning you're a relatively low weight and/or small size yet still have high body fat. Ectomorph body considered to be weight resistant body because of active metabolism. Basically, credit goes to your genetic which makeup limits to put on mass.
For lean-mass gain and body-fat loss, as an ectomorph, you need to have good quality fats along with protein intake of 25 to 30 g per meal.
Avoid morning snacking if you can: Breakfast is hearty enough to carry you through to lunch. Plus, if you had snacks in afternoon, keep the written intake lighter in dinner. Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz are the perfect fits of Ectomorph body shape and are maintain it with the mentioned tips.
Mesomorph Mesomorphs are best known as “genetically gifted” can lose and gain weight easily. They find it super easy to build muscle mass, and you are generally proportionally built. They are blessed with excellent posture, as this body structure have long torso and short limbs. Women tend to have an hourglass figure and men are born athletes (All the tennis players, figure skaters and bodybuilders fall into this group).Mark Wahlberg, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jennifer Garner, George Clooney and Sarah Jessica Parker are the famous mesomorphs. To maximize body composition (lean-mass gain) as a mesomorph, you are prescribed to have good quality fats with average carbohydrates, protein and branched-chain amino acid intake on daily basis. Try to have green tea after your meal to digest the food and have your usual predinner and evening snacks.
Endomorph You are comparatively softer and rounder and gain weight even after drinking water. Endomorphs spend their life hearing they drew the short straw. Endomorphs are curvy and chubby like fillet, they keep on counting their body-fat percentage. Once you figure it out, you are endomorph, you know that you were born this way and you can’t help it. It’s a bitter fact you are likely to gain weight very easily. Fats are in your blood and you have the type of metabolism that is not forgiving. But yes, you can win just by making sure that exercise is part of your daily routine. If your metabolism is inactive make it active by eating right and clean. Skip all kinds of snacking and walk is a must have. Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce and even Shakira are endomorphs.
