Understanding Your Body Type

Posted on 30. Nov, 2009 by Becky in Love Your Body

Any mother can tell you that having children will help you get to know your body better.  As you watch your body change and grow with each passing week, learning about your pregnant body becomes a most fascinating and all-consuming pastime.

Then, with the endless poking, prodding, pushing, and pulling that accompanies your labor and delivery, you feel that you have lost any sense of embarrassment or modesty where your body is concerned.

Finally, as you move forward into the day to day battles of motherhood, you enter a whole new chapter of learning how your body recovers, where it loses weight first, and how it regains its shape.  Certainly childbirth can change your body from what you knew before.

As I have gone through this learning curve three time now, I think my problem tends to be with setting realistic expectations.

I stubbornly cling to a certain “magic number” that I want the scale to say, or a body shape that I want to have.  I work my butt off, only to feel discouraged when the scale reads 1 or 2 pounds over that magic number, and the curve I’m trying to get rid of stubbornly stays put, seemingly regardless of what I do.

Why is my body being so uncooperative?

Recently I learned about 3 basic body types:  Ectomorphs, endomorphs, and mesomorphs.  While there are countless variations on each body type, understanding which category you fit may help you realistically know what to expect from your training program.

“Your body’s structural blueprint is determined before you are born…your basic structure will always remain the same.  This is a tough fact for some people to accept.  But if you’ve spent a lifetime–and a fortune–trying to achieve a body for which you are simply not designed, we think it should be a welcome relief from frustration.” (the Fat-Free Truth, p.31)

Ectomorphs:

• Long, wiry & narrow
• Delicate bone structure
• Have to work hard to gain weight
• Long-distance runners, ballerinas, basketball players, runway models
• Calista Flockhardt, Cameron Diaz, Chris Rock

Endomorphs:

• Soft, curvy, & pear-shaped
• Hips are wider than shoulders
• Have to work hard to lose weight
• Jennifer Lopez, Oprah Winfrey, Cindy Crawford

Mesomorphs:

• Big-boned & muscular
• Shoulders may be wider than hips
• Have a “medium build”
• Sprinters, soccer players, tennis players
• Madonna, Jennifer Garner, Russell Crowe

Once you come to terms with your body type and find some real-life examples of what your “best body” will look like,  you might find it a little easier to forgive yourself for not looking like Kate Moss.  Be your own kind of beautiful!