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Lifelong Commitment of Training

When I say "I lose weight, both muscle and fat very quickly if I don't consistently eat 6 times a day and exercise regularly", most people don't seem to get it. They say that I am exaggerating. According to them there is no way that I cannot gain at the rate at which I am eating. They never get it now do they. Many people at work ask me why I eat so much and so many times, but how can I explain the curse of an ectomorph?

And then there are these other set of people who think it is easy to look muscular for an ectomorph like me. Their argument -- "You burn so many calories so quickly, so you never have to worry about becoming fat and so you can easily gain muscle and every little muscle looks well defined because you are skinny by nature". What they don't seem to get is that it is very hard to gain muscle.And no gaining a little bit of muscle will not make me look defined. No one will simply notice the difference at all. A 10 lb of muscle is not visible to the naked eye especially since most of the muscle gain comes from legs.

And yet there are others who ask me why I don't do any cardio type exercise. Why don't I spend time at many of the physical activities that my friends or co-workers arrange? Simply because I will lose fat and muscle very quickly. It takes a month to gain the same amount of muscle as I can lose in 1 hr of cardio. Very hard to make people understand the problem.

Here are a couple of extracts from the book "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" --
Ectomorphs usually stay close to the same body weight within a fairly narrow range. If they have any weight fluctuations, it's usually in the direction of losing weight, especially if meals are skipped or calories intake is too low. When an ectomorph increases their activity level, they will usually drop body weight and body fat very rapidly -- sometimes too quickly. Exessive cardio is usually counterproductive.

Many ectomorphs begin bodybuilding to fill out their skinny frames. Although ectomorphs will seldom, if ever, develop the massive muscle thickness of the pure mesomorph, with persistence and hard work, most can overcome their body type and build impressive physiques showing excellent muscular definition. However, ectomorphs will usually lose most of the muscle they gained if they quit training or if they allow their calories to drop too low for too long. Without proper ectomorph training and nutrition, they will eventually slide back towards the level of leanness where their body is most comfortable. It takes lifelong commitment for an ectomorph to keep the muscle and body weight up.

Sad, but true story and I am one of those ectomorphs living the story. For ectomorphs, training and eating is a lifelong commitment. Very few people understand this situation.

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