What Is Ectomorph?
Let us see, if you can have pizza or spaghetti dinner with no ill effects, then you are an ectomorph. Such individuals can easily take care of the carbohydrate among the various body types. Most health experts feel that ectomorphs have a higher sensitivity to insulin for processing the carbs.
However, ectomorph body types lack muscle mass. This means they would have to increase the protein intake along with the strength training plan. Most health experts feel that the ideal diet for people having an ectomorph diet would be a high amount of carbs (which is around 45% of calories) and proteins ( which is 35% of calories) and lower in fat (around 20% of calories).
Does the Ectomorph Body Diet Works? Are You an Ectomorph Body Type?
If you are an ectomorph, then you would be having a special ability. Your body will not gain weight easily. Sometimes you might meet such people who are thin, tall, etc doing workouts in the gym, and most of the time they are males.
Such people are trying to gain muscles and getting stronger. Some nutritionists feel that it might be somewhat related to genetics as certain people even without dieting or doing exercises end up with the ectomorph body.
Do you know some genes clearly help in slower and faster metabolism? Furthermore, such metabolism-revving genes are commonly responsible for the thin body frame. Certain people have even seen that even though they eat a lot, still they will not gain any weight. Sounds great and ideal in history, still such kind of unhealthy diet will have a drastic effect on your health. Hence, irrespective of what your weight might be or the body mass index (BMI), you are still in the line of having an unhealthy diet pattern.
Are Ectomorph A Certain Kind of Body Type?
The influence of the body of an athletic during their performance clearly shows the major correlation among the two. Various studies were conducted to find out the correlation between body type and athletic performance. One research showed was conducted on certain marathon runners in Kenya, where 14 top male runners were researched.
The result clearly showed that the dominant trait of these top-class marathon runners was ectomorph. Shockingly, the characteristics of endomorph and mesomorph was very much less. Keep in mind that the body type that individuals have would easily influence the susceptibility to various heart-related diseases.
The major reason for this is since the amount of muscle mass and body fat possessed by individuals will show the chances for creating or leading to higher blood –pressure, cholesterol, and other major health-related issues. In addition, fat leads to the production of adipokines but the muscles lead to the production of myokines.
Various research was conducted to find out the role of adipokines and myokines in many hypertension and hypertension-related complications. This clearly states that the protein and hormones created by body fat and muscles can sometimes regulate the blood pressure of the person.
Ectomorph Body Type Diet
Regarding ectomorph bodies, people having them would often get tired while working out. This is especially after hitting the gym regularly compared to their peers who have other body types. Well, the major reason for this is that such people stop their workouts and lose their motivation as soon as they see no changes in the results.
Frankly, they stand and stare in front of the mirror and think twice when there is no visible difference compared to their previous body image. Here the clue to this mystery is through the food that people consume. This goes a long way in determining the whole well-being and even ones that involve achieving an excellent physique.
Here the natural way of gaining weight is through the consumption of food that is filled with a good amount of calories, especially the ones that can burn off the fuel through daily activities. Of course, this might be simple as it might seem, but it is still a tricky one for ectomorphs.
The major fact to keep in mind is that the individual in this category would have to ensure that they are consistently overloading and providing their body with required food and this won’t mean that they have all the rights for consuming anything. Here eating is necessary to get the required results. Keeping that in mind ectomorph body must show the need for keeping their body healthy and try to increase their muscle strength.
The following are the essential nutrients they would need –
Carbohydrates
Due to the presence of high sugar content in certain carbohydrates, various nutritionists often discourage their clients from consuming a lot of them. However, these are the most required and necessary food components for the ectomorph.
Here there are two major kinds of carbohydrates to focus on. One is metabolized or faster broken down one and whose metabolism takes huge time for processing. The fat burning carbohydrates contains white rice, white bread, and sugar. The slow-burning carbohydrates are harder to digest and are foodstuffs like brown pasta, brown rice, potatoes, and wholesome bagels.
The first type of carbohydrates is easily available for the human body in usage and is commonly found in the form of glucose using insulin. However, if the individual does not use this produced glucose as he or she is not involved in any activity, then it gets stored in your body as fat.
Most importantly, the slow-burning carbohydrates will not break down immediately or easily. Here they would be supplying the body with the required amount of glucose at a slower rate, ultimately providing a steady source of energy for using activities that help in building muscles.
Fats
Like carbohydrates, fats are necessary for the growth of muscles in ectomorph. Keep in mind that for ectomorph, not all the fat is evil as some of them will help in regulating the amount of testosterone.
Individuals who are ectomorph should be watchful regarding the kind of fat that they are consuming as highly saturated fats like the ones from animal products will block the arteries and will lead to heart-related risks. Furthermore, they can easily see the increase in the levels of cholesterol.
Now the best kind of fats is those which are rich in Omega 6, Omega 9, and Omega 3 and that too in proper balance. Certain great examples of food rich in these fats are flaxseed oil, olive oil, fish, and avocado.
Proteins
Proteins are one of the best and significant macronutrients. They contain various components that are necessary for building muscles and the body as a whole. You can get the best proteins through various foods like chicken, turkey, eggs, lean steak, fish, and protein shakes.
Once you can understand what ectomorph should have for a meal, you need to understand the necessity of the perfect diet. For understanding and evaluating how many calories any individual needs to have for a day, such ectomorph needs to measure their weight in pounds and then try to multiply it by 17.
For example, if the individual is weighing around 174 pounds, then the caloric requirement for each day would be around 2,958. For conversion of this number in terms of food composition, the person should consume somewhere around 370 grams of carbs, 320 grams of proteins, and roughly 67 grams of fat. Such amounts should have to be distributed throughout their breakfast, lunch, and supper.
How Can You Gain Weight Using Ectomorph Diet?
Now keep in mind that any ectomorph who is planning on improving their physique must not simply dwell on the kind of body type and take it as a hindrance. It would be better if you could approach the required body goals using a well-thought method and this is not necessary for being challenging or hectic.
Here the basic approach is by dwelling too much on the kind of body type you want and trying to gain that goal or purpose is called body typing. Here this mostly applicable and suitable for sportspeople and athletes wanting to improve their performance.
Plus, it will be great for individuals that find it tough to get their required better physique and body type. They can even consider the ratio of fats present in the muscles as the major key consideration. For understanding the best diet for ectomorph, it is necessary to have a good understanding of the fitness rules and nutrition.
Some of the steps that ectomorph male and females would have to follow are –
Consuming Whole Food Consistently
Various whole foods like freshly harvested fruits and vegetables, legumes, beans, fresh meat, whole fish, poultry, nuts, whole grains, seafood, and seeds will help in achieving the required healthy body. Keep in mind that whole foods contain various health benefits for our human body when compared to processed food.
Eating fresh and wholesome meals can simply help in getting the correct amount of fat to muscle ratio. Of course, any individual will not become overweight or underweight while they are consuming proper whole meals.
Do not Be Hurry in Consuming Your Food
Sometimes attending various things and rushing to work might be the major reason why ectomorph often rushes in hurry in consuming their meals. However, it can be better if these individuals take time when it is mealtime.
Such practice will really help them to become aware of how much they are consuming. When people try to adopt this practice, they will slowly get in tune with various things that they can select from and eat like taste, flavour, texture, and temperature. At such a point, they can easily learn in appreciating their meals, and sometimes it might feel awkward when consuming it at a snail pace.
Eat till You are Satisfied
It is common for people to consume food only when they are hungry, and they only stop eating when they have reached the stage of maximum satisfaction. As per the makeup of many types of body types, there are various rules for gaining the required point of satisfaction with any meal.
When it concerns ectomorph, whose major aim is to build muscles and gain weight, it is better to break from the basic satisfaction scale.
Workout Plan of Ectomorph
As soon as the ectomorph can have a good understanding of his or her diet, the next big thing is to ensure that this composition is made proper use of. Here it means getting bigger and great muscles and for that, they need to have a good workout routine.
When it concerns the workout of an ectomorph, it is commonly centred on the big lifts. Such lifts will need the usage of huge strength, and this will make sure that the muscle tissues are properly engaged.
Here it can be better if individuals do not just try to overstress their body by doing a huge amount of workouts. Frankly, the whole-body workout must have a lot of muscles activities and programs. For example, a simple bench press will help in developing the triceps, chest, shoulders muscles, and core.
Some of the exercises are –
Chest Exercises
There are various chest exercises that individuals having ectomorph can do like incline bench press, decline bench press, bench press, dumbbell incline chest press, dumbbell decline chest press, dumbbell chest press, etc.
Compound Exercises for Legs
These consist of various kinds of exercises related to back squats, front squats, hack squats, goblet squat, stiff-leg deadlift.
Isolation & Auxiliary Exercises
This consists of exercises like dipsy, hanging knee raises, preacher curls, standing shoulder press, triceps rope pull, calf raises, walking lunges, etc.
Compound Exercises for Back
Here, ectomorph, people must do exercises like dumbbell single-arm row, barbell sumo deadlifts, pull-ups, and barbell bent-over row, etc.
Wrapping Up
Like most of the body types, ectomorph needs certain diets and exercises. These must be followed by caution and properly to gain the best results.