How body shapes can affect your ability to lose weight and keep it off

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In my last few blogs I have talked about a lot of reasons why people cant lose weight and keep it off.  One of these reasons is body shapes.  Over the next few days I am going to blog extracts of my book on weight loss, WHY?WEIGHT, which explains in great detail all the differences.  Can you work out which one you are?  The extra body shape I talk about is from the Liver Doctor as she finds this one in her clinic all the time.  It is absolutely fascinating and explains a lot about why some people can eat what they want and how some people (like me!) just look at food and put on weight.

Sometimes the fonts and size change when inserted from Word - sorry about that!!  I will start listing the different types tomorrow

DIFFERENT BODY TYPES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON YOUR WEIGHT

Genetics and build

When you look around at the population you see that people come in innumerable different shapes and sizes.  This is partly due to genetics but also to do with build.  Some builds can lose weight (or even have trouble putting on weight) and some builds put on weight just looking at food.  This is not an illusion, this is the truth!

When I first started to research diets and exercise, I came across a very useful book written by Dr Sandra Cabot on different body types.  From her research she then added another body type and this shows how much experience she has with body types and how she understands them.  I have looked at other explanations of the three main body types, but I liked Sandra’s explanation and description of them all, including her new one, so I decided to incorporate her research.  Sandra then recommends diet and exercise to suit your body shape.

I highly recommend Sandra’s website and books as she is not only a diet expert but an expert on liver and hormones as well and suggest you sign up for her newsletter, as it is packed with useful information. Sandra’s website and books are listed in the appended Recommended Reading section

I would have tried to paraphrase Sandra’s descriptions but have decided that I most probably would have taken something away from these descriptions, so what follows is from Sandra’s website.

Although I use Sandra’s explanation of body types, I list Ayurvedic and Chinese body types are well.  You will see that they overlap and if your intuition points you in the direction of one of these other types, find yourself a good practitioner!

Body Frames

Also to be taken into consideration is the body frame – we have all seen people with tiny wrists and ankles and others who are more largely built.  So how much you weigh will depend on your frame as well as shape etc.  Also I know this sounds funny (but you must be used to this by now!) but I think that some people’s bones weigh more than others – I have been the same size as friends but I weigh sometimes more than 2 stone more – so this is my answer to that!

Female Wrist Measurements:
	Height less than 5' 2" (Less than 155cms)		Height 5' 2" - 5' 5" (155cms - 163cms)	Height more than 5' 5" (More than 163cms)
Small	Less than 5.5" (140mm)		Less than 6.0" (152mm)	Less than 6.25" (159mm)
Medium	5.5" - 5.75" (140 - 146mm)		6" - 6.25" (152 - 159mms)	6.25" - 6.5" (159 - 165mm)
Large	More than 5.75" (146mm)		More than 6.25" (159mm)	More than 6.5" (165mm)
Male Wrist Measurements
		Height more than 5' 5"  (More than 163cms)
Small		5.5" - 6.5"  (140 - 165mm)
Medium		6.5" - 7.5"  (165 - 191mm)
Large		More than 7.5"  (191mm)

In the past

Years ago it was recognised that there were different body types and they were categorised according to their shape only. This was before we understood the hormonal and metabolic differences between the body types. Sorry, Guys, if the explanation is a bit biased to the ladies but the descriptions still stand for the well-known types of body shapes, mesomorph, ectomorph and endomorph.

·        Android was called the mesomorph

·        Thyroid was called the ectomorph

·        Lymphatic was called the endomorph

·        Gynaeoid - this body type has not been previously described as it has been developed by Sandra Cabot – it has never been identified before because it is mainly a woman’s hormonal body type and is probably a combination of several other body types.