Hi, I’m Ben and I’m Skinny.
I’m not skinny because I am Vegan, I’m skinny because thats just the way my body is. My father is tall and skinny, so am I, its just the way things are. I’m not unhealthy, I’m not starving, in fact, I nourish my body with the best organic fruits and vegetables I can buy and I regularly work on my fitness.
Being vegan doesn’t necessarily mean that you will lose weight and wind up skinny. I have vegan friends who are skinny, ones who are fat, ones who are healthy and ones who are sick. The exact same can be said about my omnivore friends. There are so many factors that determine our body shapes and sizes, certainly not just our diet.
As you may have seen in my before and after picture, I am able to put on weight, at my heaviest point I reached 86kgs. All that extra weight was fat that sat mostly around my belly and my face. This accumulated from YEARS of bad eating, LOTS of fast food, BINGE drinking alcohol, LOTS of soft drinks and NO exercise! Since giving up all of the above, combined with light exercise, my body came back down to its comfortable size of 70kgs, in a matter of 3 months. That was 16kgs of extra fat I was carrying around just because of my lazy, typical western lifestyle. Lucky for me, I woke up to what I was doing, before it got out of control or I ended up sick and on some form of medication, sadly like the majority of western society.
Why do some people put weight on easier than others? Why do others with excess weight struggle to lose it? Why can some people, no matter how hard they try, just not put any weight on at all? These 3 questions all have a very simple bottom line answer. Obviously life style choices have a lot to do with it, but the basics of it come down to what body type you are:
Ectomorph:
An ectomorph is my body type, the typical skinny guy. They have a light build with narrow joints and lean muscle. Generally ectomorph’s have long thin limbs, stringy muscles and tend to not have much width across the shoulders. They also find it hard to gain weight because of a fast metabolism which burns up calories very quickly.
At the gym: Short, intense workouts focusing on big muscle groups are recommended, along with minimal cardio and a large calorie intake in order to gain weight. On the plus side, ectomorphs can lose fat very easily which makes cutting back to lean muscle easier.
Mesomorph:
Mesomorphs are the naturally athletic type with larger muscles and bone structure. They find it quite easy to gain and lose weight and are considered the best body type for bodybuilding, because they are naturally strong which is the perfect platform for building muscle.
At the gym: The mesomorph body type responds the best to weight training and gains are usually seen very quickly. One downside to mesomorphs is they can also gain fat as easy as they can gain muscle, this means they must watch their calorie intake. A combination of weight training and cardio works best for this body type.
Endomorph:
The endomorph body type is round or solid and often referred to as the “stocky” guy. Endomorphs usually have a shorter build with thick arms and legs and can gain muscle and fat very easily. Endomorphs find their muscles are strong, especially in the upper legs. Due to having a slow metabolism, Endomorphs find it very hard to lose fat.
At the gym: When it comes to training, a combination of cardio as well as weight trainging must be used to keep fat gain to a minimum.
Now you know a little bit more about the 3 main body types, hopefully you can see which one you are and use that as a good base to work on the right areas in life to get to where you want to be.
In summary: Being Vegan, won’t make you skinny. Being Vegan, won’t make you fat. Being Vegan, won’t make you healthy.(Remember you can be a very unhealthy vegan by eating bad foods and not exercising) Being Vegan, won’t make you sick.(Unless you eat terribly!) These ways of being are not only determined by your body type, but majorly by your choice of lifestyle. Whether you are vegan or not, your food choices impact your overall being. Absolutely everybody should take part in some form of regular exercise, along with nourishing your body with the best fresh fruit and vegetables you can find. If you treat your body right, it will treat you right!
Wasting time and energy on worrying about how others look or comparing yourself, is not getting you any closer to where you want to be. Remember to always be grateful for what you do have and love your body for everything it is!
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Until next week, remember to eat your veggies!
