These two aspects of the problem are very different and must be treated independently of one another. In this article I will tell you about diet, the part of the most important problem from my point of view. And not only because my mother always told me I had to eat more.

This is because in our Western world where the main weight problems of the population revolve around obesity we ectomers, lean or whatever name we are given, are aberrations. And even when reading articles about bodybuilding we often talk about us at the bottom of the page “for ectomorphs that have a fast metabolism, remember to eat more. Eat carbohydrates, lots of carbohydrates. ”
This advice to “eat more” works very well for most people, but we are not like everyone else , which is why this board often seems naive. I mean that for the majority of people, eating a lot and gaining weight are two things that go naturally together. If you tell an average man to eat more, he will gain weight . It will probably take fat, but it will gain weight. And he will certainly love it!
Few people know that for ectomorphic people, gaining weight can prove to be really very complicated.
Eating more is simply difficult. First of all, our body has more difficulty in overfeeding than other people. Second, virtually all approaches to bodybuilding are geared towards weight loss , programs are created to reduce appetite. And thirdly, even if we manage to consume a surplus of calories, our metabolism adapts quickly.
By trying to eat more and lift more weight, we often see irregular and insufficient results. Ironically, it is often the leanest men who have the most potential in terms of muscle mass.
Our body type allows you to see extremely fast results, especially when you begin bodybuilding. Taking 1 kilo of muscle a week is quite possible when you are ectomorphic and start an intensive training program .
But lack of appetite can actually hinder these results. In this article we will discuss the metabolism and physiology of ectomorphs as well as the notion of appetite. We will see how to boost one’s diet, develop muscle mass and how the approach differs from those of “normal” people. In reality we are very advantageous over others, it is enough to know how to exploit these advantages.
Read: Nutrition and weight gain
Different physical objectives
I am not a neuropsychologist, so I will be the first to admit that appetite is above all a psychological notion. No one else writes about eating and weight gain in ectomorphs, so we have to do it ourselves.
The first thing I have done is to subscribe to scientific journals that analyze studies carried out on the sensation of appetite and satiety. The more I advanced in my research the more I realized that naturally lean people were virtually absent. There have been few studies on weight gain since the Second World War when famine was raging in Europe. Nowadays, the favorite subject of this kind of study is obviously obesity and overeating as well as the means to avoid it. And this is not a bad thing – obesity is a serious problem that is widespread in our society – but it also means that we must constantly ask ourselves whether these studies concern us or not.
This can be very confusing.
Most of the approaches to fitness , nutrition and strength training are based on the principle that everyone needs to lose weight. During my first attempts to develop my muscle mass, I lost weight – even when I used programs that needed to develop muscle. I attributed these failures to my lack of potential. And today, with twenty kilos more, I realize that all these vain efforts were due in part to a lack of understanding. On the contrary, we have immense potential.
But this lack of understanding was rather logical. For example, you have certainly already read articles about fasting at intervals – where you drastically reduce the number of meals you take each day in order to gain muscle while remaining dry. Few people know that this kind of diet program is meant for people who have a huge stomach and an ogre appetite. As these people are used to eating very rich meals, it is not a question of limiting the size of meals, but their frequency. Martin Berkhan, the creator of LeanGains, and arguably the most fervent supporter of this type of diet, is known for his insatiable appetite and his love of cakes.
Reducing the frequency of meals while increasing the amount of food they provide helps people to consume fewer calories (in total), but this type of diet is totally unsuitable for ectomorphs. The goal of fasting at intervals is to eat fewer calories without going crazy – but we already do this naturally. We have to get to the exact opposite – easily and without much effort increase the total amount of calories we consume.
Perhaps you have already heard about Paleos diets – in these diets we avoid consuming seeds, beans, nuts and fast foods to become both thin and muscular. This approach works perfectly for most people, but it is a restrictive approach to nutrition. It is a diet specially designed to eat less easily . Again, we must reach the exact opposite! Limiting the list of foods we eat is really the last thing to do. *
If you are allergic, certain foods are too expensive or you really do not like them, do not panic, it does not matter. The benefit of a non-restrictive approach to your nutrition is that once you understand the basic principles of nutrition you can eat as you see fit. A healthy and balanced approach to food is very flexible. If you opt for a herbal diet, prefer the paleo diet or try the fasting at intervals – no problem.
Since most people eat too much, almost all diets require you to remove food. As we have already tried to eat more, the first thing we need to do is add food to our diet. We have no need to restrict ourselves to any food.
Therefore, since by default most diets are based on the physiological needs of people who eat too much, we will start by learning a little more about our appetite physiology so that we can realistically and efficiently Muscle mass in ectomorphs.
Insulin sensitivity of ectomorphs.
Insulin affects your appetite tremendously. When we eat, our insulin levels increase. As our insulin levels increase, we feel more and more a sense of satiety. This is one of the reasons we stop eating.
Many ectomorphs tend to be more sensitive than others to insulin. That means two things. First, that insulin levels are related to the food we ingest; The more we eat, the higher our insulin levels are. Secondly it means that our bodies are hyper-sensitive to insulin, the higher our insulin levels are and the less we are hungry. No problem when good health and appetite go hand in hand, but this is a problem when trying to develop muscle mass and not eating enough. And we certainly do not risk eating too much, because our bodies regulate our appetite too well.
Stronger guys are generally less sensitive to insulin. As their response is less important, their reaction is different, they can absorb much more food than an ectomorph before they have achieved a sense of satiety.
The fact that they are less sensitive to insulin is a real asset when it comes to muscle development. The more muscle cells are sensitive to insulin, the less fat cells will be. The nutrients will therefore be directed towards the muscles and will be less likely to be stored in the form of fat.This helps to strengthen muscles more easily. It’s a bit the genetic jackpot for the bodybuilding practitioner.
Fortunately, as long as your approach to bodybuilding is reflected, you can improve your sensitivity and your reaction to insulin. Being thin increases your sensitivity to insulin. The practice of bodybuilding increases your sensitivity to insulin. Just like the development of muscle mass. So if you are lean and you have a certain genetic advantage that you put to use for your muscular development you will become a real monster of muscles.
At this point it is probably worth mentioning that the last thing we want to do is diet where your goal is to eat better. Our primary goal is to reduce our sensitivity to insulin in order to gain weight. I’m not trying to frighten you in any way. If you take a little fat, it really does not matter, as you will be able to lose it very quickly.
When I was really thin, I had no abdominals. I am drier today than when I weighed 60 kilos, whereas today I make 20 kilos more (but 20 kilos of muscle only), and I lift weights three times a week. It really does not matter if you do not have abdominals today. If you are thin, even lean, naturally you can easily see very easily.
I do not even care much about being really dry. I spent so much time in my life to be skinny, that today I just want to be massive and strong. For many people, it’s the same, we do not care anymore about having big biceps and an imposing torso rather than being dry and thin. What I mean is that through our natural abilities we We will have a muscular body anyway that will remain dry.
And at this level, having a high sensitivity to insulin is a real asset. But while it allows us to develop muscles while remaining thin and dry, it certainly does not help us increase our appetite.
(Do not worry, I will soon give you tips to stimulate your appetite)
The metabolism of ectomorphs
Many of us, ectomorphs, are like bottomless pits for calories. No matter how many calories we consume, the needle refuses to move on the scale, we can eat tons of food without actually noticing the slightest effect on our weight. Some experts say that most people burn the same number of calories, which means that ectomorphs overestimate the number of calories they consume. So why even when our metabolisms that are similar to calorie ovens are largely filled we still do not gain weight
Simply because the experts are wrong.
Although we burn about the same amount of calories as a normal person while we sleep, when we are active during the day, do physical exercises, and digest food we are much more energy intensive and Therefore in calories.
William Sheldon – the psychologist of the 1940s who invented the terms ectomoprhe, endomorph and mesomorph , describes our type of organism as “restless.” He was trying to link the types of personalities and the different physical ones. Great error. It is quite impossible to “guess” someone’s character according to his physique. All theories of this kind have been swept away.
The physiological characteristics are still valid and can be very useful. You absolutely can not tell who is the person based on his physical appearance, however it is quite possible to define their physical type based on their appearance. Obviously. When it comes to developing muscle mass, this can be extremely important.
And it turns out that Sheldon was holding something when he spoke of “ectomorphous agitated.”
The one where our metabolisms tend to be different from others is at the level of thermogenesis of non-exercise activity (NEAT). It is the calories that are burned during our unconscious activities – such as heat production, just standing, etc.
Most people do not consume all the calories they store, they store them in anticipation of days when they will not have enough food, it’s a natural backup mechanism. But not us. We burn a lot of calories, as if there were no tomorrows.
I never cold, for example. Never. I live in Canada, but I do not even have a winter coat. I do not have a car either, even when it’s very cold I always walk. My friends laugh at me and say that I am a real human oven. I always walk when I’m on the phone, I can not stand still between two sets of exercises at the gym, I kick my foot when I hear music and I just have trouble staying square.
How much does behavior affect my energy use? Apparently enormously. One study showed that a normal person will burn 3% more energy while sitting than lying on his back. Simply add a little agitation (like moving your feet) and you get 54% more energy than a posture released on a chair. This is also true when standing. By standing up, you consume 13% more calories than if you were lying on your back and if you are standing and moving you consume 94% more energy.
During a typical day you will consume 950 more calories if you spend most of your rest time standing and 600 if you remain sitting. And I’m not talking about the energy you consume when you make motions and produce heat, and so on.
Regarding the posture and position of the body, James Levine, the eminent researcher specializing in unconscious energy expenditure, conducted a study with ten obese and ten lean people and observed and measured their postures and movements every Half-seconds for ten days. (This study was made possible by high-tech cameras.) Lean people spent two more hours than obese people in a standing position, and burned an estimated 350 more calories per day. He also found that even when thin people gained weight this was also true, which led him to believe that it was due to a particular genetic inheritance.
For a person of 75 kilos, the difference between burning 2000 and 3500 calories each day is enormous.
And that was just the beginning, you will see that thanks to our exceptional ability to burn calories, we can get a lot if we supercharge ourselves.
The response of an ectomorphous organism to overeating
Different people will respond differently to overeating. In one study, 1000 calories were given more than their daily intake for participants for eight weeks, and they were instructed not to exercise.
By the end of the study, some participants had taken less than half a kilogram of fat while others had taken more than 5 kilos. This represents a difference of almost 10 times the amount of stored fat.
These results have left researchers perplexed for a long time, but this difference can now be attributed to unconscious movements. When supercharging forces any metabolism to accelerate its energy consumption, this is not enough to compensate for the effects of overeating. In ectomorphs, the response to boost-type stimulation is to further increase the consumption of our calorie kiln – producing more heat, moving more, and so on. This mechanism has the consequence of preserving our physique of thin person and therefore does not allow us to take volume .
Once again this stupid advice to “eat more” is absolutely useless. Our metabolism adapts very easily to overeating and this will wipe out all your efforts.
Fortunately, our goal is not simply to gain weight, but also to gain muscle. And that is a goal to how commendable. Most people are jealous of it, and they are right to be jealous. You’ve probably already seen somewhat wrapped people looking to develop their muscles by doing all sorts of cardio exercises. If they do not, they may not see their muscles under their fat. We ectomorphs do not need to do cardio exercises like other people because we burn all the extra calories almost instantly.
With a good diet and good bodybuilding exercises , you will be on the right path to develop muscles of steel. Our body adapts to the stimulus of the workout by giving priority to energy to our muscles before supplying it to our calorie oven. The calories you need biceps are not superfluous calories after all, our body makes sense. It is an incomparable asset that allows us not to store fat, but does not prevent us from developing muscle.
So by combining this ability with our increased sensitivity to insulin, we can eat huge amounts of unnecessary calories and build as much muscle mass as our bodies allow. All excess calories that will not be used to develop our muscles will not be stored as fat, they will go directly into the oven! This allows us to muscle faster than average while remaining slim, without the need to add cardio exercises or always keep an eye on your caloric surplus. However, as with most of these things, it all depends on your type of ectomorphism. Always be vigilant not to reach a point where you will trigger the storage of fats in your body. Everyone tends to grow a little bit,