Setting Realistic Goals for Your Body Type

Before you can set health goals, you have to understand your body type. Because we are all so incredibly unique. Embracing your individual body, no matter how it looks, is the first step to setting goals that help us work toward optimal health. 

The first thing you should do is take this body type quiz. It will help you understand which you have of the three main body types: ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph. Ectomorphs tend to be naturally thin, like the kind of people who can eat whatever they want and stay slim. Mesomorphs tend to easily build and hold on to muscle. And endomorphs tend to hold on to a little bit of additional body fat. 

The important thing to know is that no body type is better than any other. They can all achieve optimal health. This system is just a tool for helping us create lifestyle plans that will maximize our success.

So let’s talk about setting GOALS. No, my caps lock button didn’t just malfunction; GOALS is an acronym. Each letter represents a principle that helps you get closer to optimal health. No matter your body type, these will apply. 

Whether you’re trying to lose weight, gain weight, or you’re already at your natural, healthy weight, GOALS will allow you to arrive where you’re supposed to be naturally. Instead of the stress of setting numeric goals, committing to these five principles, practicing patience, and getting the help of coaching will allow you to easily arrive at your goal over time. When you do it this way, you can sustain your results forever. 

If you’re not reaching the goal that you chose toward your optimal health, then one of these five principles is most likely off. This system can allow you to reflect and optimize, helping you meet your goal.

So let’s get into it. 

Our first principle is G - Get hungry first. Because the first step in becoming an intuitive eater is understanding your hunger cues. You learn when you have true hunger and when you are full. Instead of focusing on what foods you “should” be eating, you tap into your hunger scale and listen to your body, which tells you what you need. It’s worth keeping in mind that this can vary from day to day, especially when you exercise. 

Next is O - Omit two bites. The idea is that when we’re eating and can take about two more bites of our food, that’s a good time to stop. It’s fighting our programming that tells us to clear our plates. Because food is good and we should enjoy it, sometimes we will take more than those two bites, and that’s okay, too. But if you can get G and O down, you’ll have a really good handle on becoming an intuitive eater. 

You’ll understand what your unique body feels like when it’s hungry and when it’s full. Then you can play around with how long it takes you to get hungry again. That’s how you’ll determine how often you should eat. Of course, everybody is different and it’s important to create a plan that fits with your lifestyle. This takes having an honest conversation and deciding what you really want, as well as adjusting your hunger scale for whether you’re trying to maintain, lose, or gain weight. 

A stands for Allowing our feelings. Because sometimes, when we have stressful, overwhelming, or anxiety-inducing feelings, we’re more likely to partake in unhealthy habits such as eating too much when we're not hungry. That’s called emotional eating. 

But if we can allow our feelings and sit with them, we’ll be in a good position to avoid emotional eating. And though it may sound simple, it actually takes a lot of practice. Because feelings like boredom and restlessness are uncomfortable. They require slowing down and working through our thoughts, which doesn't come easily in our fast-paced world. So we use something external, like online shopping, alcohol, and food, to slow us down. That’s called buffering - not allowing your feelings. But on the flip side, learning how to allow your feelings will make you less likely to emotionally eat.

This takes practice and often requires breaking old patterns and habits. You may have unintentionally conditioned yourself to include emotional eating into your routine, like using a snack and a glass of wine to help you relax after work. Trying to avoid that requires using willpower, which leads to decision fatigue over time and giving in to the old habits.

Instead, you have to practice sitting with your urges and realizing you don’t have to act on them - or push them away, either. Instead, you allow your feelings to be there. If you can commit to this, you don’t have to force yourself to live by any other rules. That’s what leads to long term success, even in the face of vacations and parties and restaurants. You’ll only have to rely on yourself and your intuition. Trusting and understanding your thoughts and feelings will set you free. 

The next piece is L - Loving to move. This is referring to exercise to love how you feel, not how you look. Exercise has so many amazing benefits and everybody needs it in their life, especially as they get older. The best exercise for your body type is the one you’ll do consistently. So find an activity you love. 

I also urge you to make strength training a priority. Unfortunately, women face a lot of barriers to strength training: intimidation, lack of education, fear of getting hurt. These are all valid concerns. But there is something so powerful about connecting your mind and body to be your best. 

It’s worth addressing that if your main goal is to see the number on the scale go down, exercise may not help. If you’re like most people who are concerned with their weight, a mesomorph/endomorph combination, you won’t necessarily see a huge drop on the scale when you strength train. You’ll add muscle, but you’ll also be hungrier, which will lead to eating more. But instead of losing weight, your body composition will shift, transforming your body completely. 

So find an activity you love and commit to it, even if it’s just five to ten minutes a week. You’ll feel better and will probably want to keep doing more and more. 

Our last principle is S - Stop perfectionism. Because a lot of people seem to take the all or nothing approach, thinking that if they can’t do something perfectly, there’s no point to doing it. If they mess up on their diet, or if they don’t have time to exercise an hour a day, they think they might as well not do it at all. But this type of thinking just sets us up for disappointment. And when you feel disappointed in yourself, you’re not very likely to follow a healthy routine. 

But it’s important to know that all you can do is your best. The intuitive approach is geared toward long term sustainability. Success isn’t about the day to day, but the overall trajectory to achieving our goals. 

So become aware of your unique body. Set realistic goals. To start, pick one realistic goal that will bring you closer to optimal health. From there, use the GOALS system, which encompasses nutrition, exercise, and the mind work required to succeed. I hope this makes you feel amazing about yourself, because you deserve to live your best life.