Ectomorph Description: • Skinny • Super-fast metabolic rate • Finds it difficult to build muscle Diet • 6-8 meals a day • High-calorie diet with a good amount of carbohydrates • Can take additional protein shake Workout • 45-minute workout, 3-4 times a week • Squats, deadlifts, bent-over rows and kettlebell snatches

Are you fighting depression each time you buy a size XL dress? You’ve tried everything from living on boiled cabbage to morning walk pacts with your neighbour. But while she looked trimmer after a month, you didn’t lose an ounce. Before you smother your disappointment with chocolate tarts, you may want to consider the missing link — your body type.

There are three main body types: Endomorph, Mesomorph and Ectomorph. An Endomorph has a round, soft body, short limbs with fat thighs and upper arms but slim ankles and wrists, and a flabby abdomen. This body type has a slow metabolic rate and finds it hard to lose weight. Ectomorphs, on the other hand, are thin and fragile, with a low muscle mass. They have long limbs and small shoulders that tend to droop; building muscle is tough for them. An Ectomorph’s metabolic rate is super-fast.

Lady Luck’s favourite child is the Mesomorph, the body type blessed with the hourglass figure (in females) and the V-shaped torso (in men). Mesomorphs are athletic, gain muscle easily and need very little effort to maintain their weight, thanks to a fast metabolic rate.

Most people are a mix of two body types, such as Ecto- mesomorph or Endo-mesomorph. An Ecto-mesomorph has more muscle mass than an Ectomorph and finds it easier to build muscle. The Endo-mesomorph has a heavier frame than the Mesomorph, gains fat more easily and has shorter limbs.

Mesomorph Description: • Broad build and good bone structure • Lean look • Loses fat and gains lean muscle fast Diet • 4-6 meals a day • Balanced diet with a little more carbs than protein and essential fat Workout • 45-60 minute workout, 4 times a week • Bench press, barbell lunges, tricep kickbacks

Determining body type: Experts can determine a person’s body type by just looking at them, says Preetom Mukherjee Roy, fitness and nutrition advisor at Gold’s Gym, Alipore. However, he uses the InBody 230 machine to chalk out a fitness schedule. The machine gives him details like fat deposits, lean muscles, body mass index (BMI) and basal metabolic rate (BMR).

Shedding inches: Anwar Wahhab, owner of Awe Fitness and a strength coach certified by the Poliquin International Certification Program, advises that an Endomorph should work out for an hour, five days a week. The schedule would involve running 400m at a 5-km race pace at the beginning, middle and the end of the workout. In between, do crunches, squat thrusts with jumps (burpees), push-ups, squats and lunges. Cool down with light jogging.

The squat imitates sitting on and getting off a chair. In the burpee, you go from a squat position to a push-up one by planting your palms on the floor and thrusting your feet out, come back to the squat and jump up. The lunge has you stepping forward with one foot and bending the knee while the other leg bends at 90°.

Beefing up: An Ectomorph responds better to short and intense training periods. Fitness coach Ranadeep Moitra recommends a 45-minute workout three to four times a week. It would include squats, deadlifts, bent-over rows and kettlebell snatches with heavy weights (in low repetitions), and one to two minutes of rest in between sets.

Endomorph Description: • Round physique • Short limbs, small hands and feet • Very slow metabolic rate • Finds it difficult to lose weight Diet • 6 meals a day • Low-carb diet. Needs to have lots of fruits and vegetables and some lean protein Workout • 1 hour workout, 5 days a week • Crunches, squat thrusts with jumps (burpees), push-ups, lunges

For the bent-over row, you bend from the waist, pull the barbell towards your navel and lower it. The deadlift has you bending from the hips as you lower the barbell and then straighten up. In the kettlebell snatch, you swing the kettlebell (a strength training instrument) up, it rotates in your hand, and you then lower it.

Roy rules out cardio for Ectomorphs but includes free-hand exercises and core-training with the Swiss Ball. He also adds free-weights and strength training with heavy weights and low (six-eight) repetitions.

Fine-tuning: For Mesomorphs, Sumana Dutta Burman, fitness expert, Karma Gym, recommends a 45-60 minute, four-day workout. This would focus on different muscle groups — chest and back, legs, shoulders, triceps and biceps — on separate days. So while the bench press (pressing up a barbell from chest to eye level while lying on a bench) and cable cross over (pulling your arms together, as if hugging someone, while holding the pulleys of the crossover machine) target your chest and back, barbell lunges exercise your legs.

Work those triceps with tricep kickbacks (bend your elbow and extend it straight back holding a dumbbell) and your shoulders with lateral raises (hold the weights at the side or front of your body, raise your hands to shoulder height and lower them).

According to Tapas Kumar Dikpati, centre manager of Talwalkars gym, Alipore, Mesomorphs can do a 60-65 minute workout, four to five days a week — a 5-minute warm-up, 10-15 minutes of cardio, a 30-minute full-body workout, 10 minutes targeting the abs and 5 minutes of stretching and cooling down.