What kind of shape are you in right now?   What kind of shape do you want to be in?  No one can say what the perfect body image is.  That is a personal thing.  After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder or so they say. 

When women look at the “beautiful” people in fashion magazines, they are led to believe that the ideal body image is to be skin and bone. Women will generally look at these images and hope to achieve the same look.  The thing is that these images belong more in medical journals under eating disorders than they do in our psyche as something to aspire to.  Often these models are considered clinically obese despite being so thin.  They have so little muscle mass that their body fat percentage is actually quite high.

It isn’t much different for men.  When they look in fitness magazines, they are often looking at images of professional bodybuilders that, aside from having rare genetics, also use massive amounts of drugs to obtain their look.  Too often, young men in their teens end up taking various types of anabolic enhancing drugs to build their bodies only to damage their own hormone production.

The problem with both these body images is that they are generally not healthy images and cannot be obtained through a healthy lifestyle.  In recent years, there have been some changes that we have seen in some magazines.  Some women’s fitness magazines have come out showing healthier body images.  This applies to some of the male fitness magazines also.  Instead of seeing anorexic women, we are seeing fit athletic women and instead of seeing 300lb bodybuilders, we are seeing lean athletic men. 

I am not saying that you have to look like a fitness model in order to have a healthy body image.  Your body image is up to you.  After all, it is how you want to see yourself that is important.  Look at yourself as a blank canvas and your training and nutrition as your paint and brush. 

This is where I come in.  I am providing you the tools (the paint and the brush) and you are providing the canvas and the goal. No matter what body image you want to obtain, you now hold the tools in your hands to get there. 

Body Types

We should talk about body types.  Knowing what kind of body type you are will help you to determine what approach you need to take in order to achieve your fitness goals.

There are three major body types: Ectomorph, Endomorph, and Mesomorph.  Everyone falls into one of these body types.  Just because you fit into one of these categories, doesn’t mean you are forced to follow the general pattern it sets for you.  Through proper exercise and nutrition, you can still transform your body to look whatever way you want.  Keep in mind, your body type is still going to play an important role in the way you workout and eat.

• Ectomorph:

  A thin person with a lean physique and a little muscle.  The ectomorph generally has a hard time building muscle but can shed body fat fairly easy.  The ectomorph usually has a fast metabolism.

The ectomorph is typically known as a “hard gainer”, someone who will have some trouble putting on lean body mass.  They are going to have to focus very hard on eating enough food and working out with weights at a high intensity. 

Generally the hard gainer should stay away from cardiovascular training if they are trying to gain muscle.

By the way, I am your classic ectomorph and have a heck of a time building and maintaining muscle.  But trust me, if I was able to transform my body as significantly as I did, anyone can.

• Endomorph:

    A heavyset person with a predominantly round and soft physique.  The endomorph generally has a hard time losing body fat.  Often they are able to build muscle easier than an ectomorph but not as well as a mesomorph.  The endomorph usually has a slow metabolism.

The endomorph isn’t the hard gainer that the ectomorph is.  They will require a high intensity training program.  Since they generally have a hard time with excessive body fat, they will generally have to keep a close watch on their diet.  The food should be nutrient dense but not calorie dense.

Cardiovascular training can often help the endomorph with their weight loss goals.  Since they have a greater amount of body fat, the amount of fat to lean body mass lost while performing cardio will be in their favour.

• Mesomorph:

    A person whose physique features a powerful musculature.  The mesomorph generally has an easy time building muscle and an easy time losing body fat.  In my opinion, the mesomorph won the genetic lottery.  The mesomorph usually has a moderate metabolism.

The mesomorph can almost gain muscle by reading a muscle magazine, they can train at a lower intensity and still progress quite well.  However, the higher the intensity, the greater the return.

They can choose to perform cardiovascular training if they wish to aid with fat loss as it will speed up the fat burning process with minimal effect on lean body mass.

So, now you should know what body type you are.  No matter what body type you are your body consists of the following components: body fat, water, and lean body mass.

I will break each of these components down so we can understand them better.

Body fat

(BF) can be found in many forms, either intramuscular (within the muscle), around organs and subcutaneous (under the skin).  We want to lower BF levels while dieting more than any other component. 

The BF that is most noticeable to the eye and the fat most people wish to shed is the subcutaneous fat.  This fat smoothes out our appearance causing us to lose all muscle definition and can cause ripples under the skin called cellulite.

 By working to remove this subcutaneous layer of fat, we can transform our body into the toned body we once had or wish we had.

BF is caused by more calories being consumed than required for maintenance levels. It is not necessarily caused by consuming fatty foods.  The media has lead us to believe that by consuming low fat products, you will not get fat.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  Many of these products contain the same amount of calories as the regular products and these products are usually loaded with sugar and/or sodium.  Too much sugar (carbohydrates) can cause us to get fat just as much as too much fat being consumed.  We will discuss this point later.

It is believed that most of our fat cells are developed in our childhood back when we used to find some change and chase the Ice Cream Man down the street.  That is when we laid the foundation for our body’s future.  Those fat cells just sat there for years while our furnace of a metabolism burned every calorie we consumed. 

Then one day our body slows down the growing process and we notice that these fat cells start to expand.  That is how it works.  It isn’t necessarily our body making more fat cells but our existing cells expanding.  They fill up with the excess fats and glucose in our system little by little until one day you look in the mirror and stare at your Mom’s thighs or your Dad’s spare tire!

This is why plastic surgeons say that you won’t get fat again after lyposuction.  They remove the vast majority of fat cells in the problem area.  No new cells form there so you don’t have to worry about getting that spare tire again.  Sounds great doesn’t it?  Well, not quite.

In the absence of all these fat cells, the remaining ones all over your body take up the slack.  If you continue on your same diet as before, you may not get the spare tire back but you will have that fat accumulate elsewhere. 

For instance a man can have lyposuction on his midsection and a few months later be back at the surgeon’s office because he has developed breasts.  This wasn’t breast tissue but the fat cells around his chest expanding.  Now all the women reading this are thinking, “ get lyposuction on my thighs and get a free breast enlargement!”  Not so fast.  You don’t know where that fat will end up.  You may just get ankles as big as your thighs!

I am not knocking lyposuction.   It just isn’t a miracle cure, and it is only for those that have truly achieved all they are going to with diet and exercise. Don’t believe what you see on those surgery shows either, 90% of the time when the Doctor tells the patient that they need lypo they usually can still lose a lot of fat with PROPER diet and exercise.  Remember, the Doctor makes money off you and will very rarely turn you away. Even if you did get lypo you still have to change your lifestyle or you will end up regaining the lost fat… elsewhere.

Water

is the main component in our bodies.   It makes up a large portion of our lean body mass.  Water retention can also be manipulated by our diets.   Many factors can cause us to retain or deplete this essential element. Even though water is essential, retaining water can cause problems.  Retaining too much water can increase blood pressure as well as have many other negative effects. Too little water can be even worse!  Sounds confusing doesn’t it?  Well don’t worry, it isn’t.

Simple things like controlling the amount of sodium we consume can make a huge difference with water retention problems.  This is one of the reasons people with high blood pressure are put on a low sodium diet.  Conversely, too much caffeine can cause us to dehydrate; acting like a diuretic.

Since we are working on our appearance here, I will mention that retaining water (which most of the time is represented subcutaneously) like fat can smooth out the appearance of even a very tone muscular individual, making them appear fatter than they actually are.  It is important to find the proper balance of water to lead a healthy lifestyle. 

The more water you drink the less you will retain, sounds weird I know, but the body is a weird machine.  If your body is fed a constant supply of water, it will flush all excess water out keeping you in balance.  What is this magic amount? Well, it varies but a good place to start is about 4 litres a day.  The more you sweat during the day the more you will require. 

When you are working out, it is a good idea to drink about 1 litre over the course of the hour if you are sweating.  Even slight dehydration will affect your performance.  So every 15 minutes or so, drink some water to help keep you at your best.  After working out, it is also important to rehydrate.   Generally, the water in your post workout shake will suffice.

Lean body mass

(LBM) represents pretty well everything in our bodies other than fat.  Like I stated earlier, water is actually included in LBM since it again makes up such a huge portion of our body.  LBM also includes all tissue in our body.  It basically represents our muscles, bones, organs, tendons, etc. This is one component of our weight that we want to remain the same while dieting or if we are lucky, to go up.  That’s right.  It is a good thing to gain weight if it is LBM! “How?” you ask.  Let me explain. 

LBM weighs twice as much as fat therefore if you were to lose 20 pounds of fat and gain 20 pounds of LBM, you would look 10 pounds lighter even though your weight has not changed.  The major benefit to anyone trying to lose BF is that LBM burns calories! 

As a matter of fact LBM is the reason we eat.  Fat uses no calories to just sit there, and BF is a by-product of excess calories.  LBM requires calories to fuel it for your daily activities.  Activities such as exercising, typing, reading and even sleeping!  The more LBM you have the more calories you burn in your sleep.  Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? Even when we sleep, our bodies are producing heat, working on processing our macronutrients, and just keeping up with normal bodily functions. For every pound of muscle you gain, you require an additional 50-100 calories a day to maintain it.

Bottom line: the more LBM you have the more your body has to work to maintain it.  Hence, the more you get to eat and the easier you lose the unwanted fat. 

Preserving LBM while losing BF is a goal we should all have.  It is very easy to lose 10, even 20 pounds in a month to get ready for that class reunion or family get-together.  The problem with this type of weight loss is that it is just that, WEIGHT LOSS.  Over that month of extremely low calories, we will drop mostly water and LMB.  Sure some BF will be lost too, but it will be far less than these other two components combined. 

You will also find that once the big day has come and gone you will go back to your normal diet and will gain weight very fast.  The weight you gain will be the lost fat, the lost water, and some new fat.  You will notice that I didn’t include LBM.   Chances are, it isn’t coming back.  Even if you follow a resistance weight training routine on a regular basis, it may take some time.

When this weight gain reaches your original pre-diet weight your body composition will have changed from its pre-diet BF percentage to a higher BF percentage.

Body Composition

(body comp) is something that many diets ignore.  Most probably because it will make your results on the diet look bad in the end.  The body composition is the only true tool to chart your progress whether your weight goes up or down.

What is a body composition?  It is basically tells you what your body is composed of.  It tells you what your percentage of BF is, versus your percentage of LBM. 

The lower your BF percentage is the better.  Well… to a certain extent.  We have basically two types of BF, essential fat and storage fat.  A man’s essential BF requirement is a minimum of around 3%.  This essential fat protects organs from trauma as well as being required for normal physiological function.  Women on the other hand require approximately 12% BF.  This is due to their sex-specific requirements for breast tissue and the uterus.  Storage fat is excess fat.  This is usually found subcutaneously and is the fat we want to try and shed.  We don’t want to get rid of it all.  Even though it isn’t essential, we should have some storage fat to fall back on if need be.

You don’t have to worry about falling below safe BF levels.  Even though it has been intentionally achieved by professional and recreational bodybuilders, as well as other athletes for competitions or aesthetic reasons.  This is only achieved with extreme dedication and a fine tuned diet.  In some cases, the use of drugs including diuretics and thyroid medication were used to get people to such low BF levels.  I seriously doubt that anyone could casually get this low, not without knowingly trying to get there or being genetically super lean.

These extremely low levels should not be maintained for any extended period of time as you would inevitably have some negative effects.  Usually anyone who knowingly achieves this low level stays at it for only a few days and then returns to safer levels.  I would imagine the average man or woman would be VERY happy with their appearance long before these super low percentages were achieved.

The charts below will show you what category you presently fall into.  This will help you determine how far you have to go as far as fat loss to reach your fitness or body image goal.

Men

Women

So as you can see by this chart, it isn’t necessarily what you weigh but “what you’re made of” that matters.  If you are just trying to improve your health you should be aiming to fall somewhere in the good to excellent level.  If you are trying to have a body that could appear on the cover of a fitness magazine, you are going to have to be in the single digits for a man and the low teens for a woman.

You are probably wondering how you find out what your body composition is.  Well, there are a few different methods. Three common ways to have your body composition tested are Hydrostatic weighing, Electric Impedance and Skinfold Method.  All these methods have their pros and cons.

• Hydrostatic

  (being weighed while submerged in water), is obviously something you would have to have done at a large gym with a pool or a medical centre. 

You are weighed twice, once on land and again while submerged in water.  Since fat floats, there will be a difference in the two weights.  These two figures are then compared and your BF percentage is revealed.  This is considered one of the most accurate methods for finding your body composition.

• Electric Impedance

  (an electric current is passed through your body) test is usually accessible at most gyms.  As a matter of fact, there are many scales on the market now that are quite affordable for home use too.

The machines are quite reliable and the test can be as easy as getting on a scale.  An electric current, don’t worry you don’t feel anything, is passed through one side of your body and is read through the other.  The computer then analyzes the amount of water and tissue it encounters and compares that to your weight figuring out your BF percentage.  This test is generally reliable for the average person.  If your BF level is very high or very low, it is not as reliable.

• Skinfold Method

  (calipers are used to pinch your skin and measure the millimeter thickness of the fold) can be done with relative ease at any gym. You can also buy calipers for home use.  Some areas that you need to pinch may require assistance.

Calipers are used to measure the thickness of a skin fold at various areas on the body.  The sum of these measurements is compared with the age of the person having the test done and an overall BF percentage is determined.  This is a regression equation that determines these results.  This equation may not be suited for every body type to incorporate things like, if you have more muscle than an average person your age or gender.  However, it is still a very valuable tool.  Knowing how many millimeters that each skin fold measures can tell us exactly what parts of our bodies we are losing subcutaneous BF in. This may aid us spot reduce through diet manipulation or supplementation.

I prefer the skin fold method myself.  It’s a simple method and is generally accurate.  With the added benefit of being able to monitor specific subcutaneous fat loss on any area of your body, it’s my personal choice.  This feature makes it very useful for someone at a low level BF who trying to focus on spot reducing while maintaining muscle mass.

So as far as your body image goes, it’s up to you.  If you are trying to get into better shape all you have to do is bring your body composition into a healthy range for your age.  If you are trying to build a real stand out physique, then, you are going to have keep on working until you are happy with what you see in the mirror.

Speaking of that, many people are never happy with what they see in the mirror, no matter how much they improve.  Some experts have a real problem with this.  I, however, don’t.  The way I see it, as long as you are trying to make continued progress in a safe and healthy manor, there is nothing wrong with this ongoing quest to build your perfect body.  If it results in starving yourself or taking in massive amounts of drugs to go beyond your genetic potential then, I do, however, have a problem with it.

I would like to give you a little tip as you travel down the road towards a better you.  Don’t compare yourself to others.  Always look back at how far you have come.  We are all different and improve at different rates.  As long as you see an improvement, you are on the right track.  The best way to chart this progress is to take a before picture.  This picture should be taken in a swim suit to show as much of your body as possible.

Eventually if you hit a plateau and start to get frustrated or get off track and take a few steps back, you can look back at this picture to see how far you have come.  Another good thing about having a before picture is that it isn’t always easy for us to see our progress since we are looking at ourselves in the mirror every day.  When dieting to get lean or add lean mass, I like to take new pictures every few weeks in the same lighting, same pose and swim suit then compare. 

So good luck achieving whatever body image you wish, as long as it is safe and healthy.