Ultimate Mesomorph Diet, Menu, & Workout Guide (2024)

By: Jeremy Fox, CNC, CPT – Updated: April 17, 2022

You’ve probably noticed that people come in all different shapes and sizes. But, generally speaking, we can categorize people into a few different body types.

One of these body types is the mesomorph. These people tend to be stronger and more muscular than average.

However, being a mesomorph isn’t a free ticket to a spectacular beach body. Good genetics are only part of the equation, so mesomorphs must eat and train right to achieve their full potential.

That’s why I put together this ultimate mesomorph diet and workout guide. So you can dial in your nutrition and exercise to reach your fitness goals.

Body Types 101

Body types or somatotypes are a method for defining human bodies based on shape and composition. In other words,how naturally lean, fat, or muscular an individual is.

In the health and fitness community, we use ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorphto describe the three major body types.

What Is a Mesomorph?

Themesomorph body type refers to naturally muscular people with more angular features. Generally, you have a powerfully muscular build and medium bone structure.

Picture the athletes at a track and field meet as a frame of reference. In this analogy, the 100 and 200-meter sprinters tend to have the most mesomorphic body shape and composition.

Mesomorphs have a metabolic rate somewhere between an ectomorph and an endomorph. Being in that middle ground enables you to gain muscle and lose fat with less difficulty.

However, it’s rare to be a pure mesomorph. Instead, you likely share some traits with either ectomorphs or mesomorphs.

Ecto-Mesomorph

An ecto-meso body type isa mix of ectomorph and mesomorph. Therefore, these individuals tend to be naturally lean but can also gain a respectable amount of muscle.

The jumpers and pole-vaulters at a track meet are typically ecto-mesos. They have long, lean, and muscular frames.

Often it can be hard to tell an ecto-meso from a true mesomorph because they overlap in body shape and composition. However, an ecto-meso has a faster metabolism and a more challenging time gaining weight than a mesomorph.

Endo-Mesomorph

By comparison, an endo-meso isa mix of endomorph and mesomorph. So they tend to be naturally muscular and gain body fat more quickly.

Endo-mesos would be the shot-putters and discus throwers in track and field because they have more mass and muscularity.

Again there is an overlap between this body type and a mesomorph. But an endo-meso has a slightly slower metabolism than a mesomorph, making it a little easier to gain weight and muscle.

Click here to take a simple body type quiz to see if you’re a mesomorph, ecto-meso, or endo-meso.

Body Type Quiz

Mesomorph Body Type Pros & Cons

Being even part mesomorph means you have pretty good genetics for athleticism. However, that doesn’t mean you’ve won the genetic lottery.

In fact, there are downsides to being a mesomorph. Like the fact that it’s easy to be complacent with your physique and not be diligent with your diet and exercise.

Mesomorph Diet Guide

Even for mesomorphs, nutrition is the most significant factor in reaching your fitness goals. As an ecto-meso, I can tell you that it’s still easy to get out of shape if I screw up my diet!

Fortunately, nutrition doesn’t have to be super complicated. With my simple 4 part framework, you canoptimize your diet to achieve your full genetic potential.

Mesomorph Diet Energy Balance

First and foremost, you must nail down your ideal calorie intake based on your fitness goals. That means creating a proper calorie surplus for muscle gain or a strategic calorie deficit for fat loss.

While the concept of calories in vs calories out seems simple, you’d be surprised how many people fail on this step! So here’s a crash course on calorie balance.

First, you need to know how many calories you burn per day. Another name for this is your total daily energy expenditure or TDEE.

TDEE consists of calories burned through your resting metabolic rate, normal daily activities, and any additional exercise. Combined, that energy expenditure equals your calories out.

Next, the key tobuilding muscle and burning fat is eating slightly more or slightly less than your TDEE. The energy you consume is your calories in.

For muscle gain, I recommend a calorie surplus of 5-25% more than you burn, depending on how much fat you can afford to gain. And for weight loss, a calorie deficit of 5-20% is best for burning fat without losing muscle.

Mesomorph Diet Macros

A high protein diet is paramount for any mesomorph looking to add muscle or reduce body fat. But “high” is a relative term and doesn’t quantify your target.

The golden rule in fitness is to consume 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. In other words, a 180-pound person would eat 180 grams of protein per day.

The idea is that abundant protein in the diet provides the building blocks for lean muscle tissue. However, this formula is a vast oversimplification.

To illustrate, consider a 300-pound obese woman trying to lose as much fat as possible. If she follows the rule and eats 300 grams of protein per day, she will likely overshoot her calorie target and gain weight.

Conversely, take a 145-pound skinny guy trying to gain muscle. If he eats only 145 grams of protein, he probably won’t gain much, if any, muscle. Now you can see how this gram per pound approach quickly falls apart.

A better approach is to calculate your protein intake based on a percentage of your calorie target. In my experience, aiming for about30% of your calories from proteinis an ideal target.

Now carbohydrates are a little harder to nail down because the ideal carb intake depends on your activity level and fitness goals. Fortunately, I have a system that adjusts your carb intake accordingly.

Carb cyclingis simply alternating your daily carbohydrate intake based on your activity level. Usually, a “cycle” includes low, medium, and high carb days.

The general idea behind carb cycling is to give yourself more “fuel” when you need it and less when you don’t.

To find your daily carb intake, I use the same percentage-based approach for protein. However, your target changes depending on your workout schedule.

Finally, your dietary fat intake should make up the balance of your calories. So you will have lower fat on high carb days and higher fat on low carb days.

Mesomorph Diet Menu

So far, we’ve touched on calories and macros. Next up, let’s tackle healthy food choices with a mesomorph diet grocery list.

Really, everybody type benefits from eating healthy whole foods. That means eliminating the highly processed foods as much as possible.

Once you get rid of the junk, focus on lean protein, natural starches, and healthy fats. Then combine that with plenty of leafy greens and fibrous veggies.

Click here to see 16 foods I recommend adding to your Healthy Grocery List.

Mesomorph Diet Meal Planner

The last part of the mesomorph diet is your meal schedule. Each meal you eat consists of a certain number of calories and macronutrients. And a meal’s composition has a direct effect on your physiological state.

Therefore, eating specific amounts of protein, carbs, and fat at strategic times in your wake/sleep and workout schedule can produce the desired result in terms of muscle gain or fat loss.

While this nutrient timing won’t make or break your results, it can give you an added edge to reach your fitness goals faster.

Mesomorph Diet Plan

Get a custom meal plan designed for your specific body type and fitness goals. Including a daily meal planner with 50+ recipes for just $17.99 per month.

Customize Your Plan

3 Keys to the Mesomorph Workout

Mesomorphs are fast responders to resistance training. So you might see better results than someone else on the same workout routine.

However, results can create the illusion that a particular training program is working – even if it’s not ideal. And eventually, your progress stalls.

For mesomorphs, the key is continually challenging your muscles. And the solution is a 3 part mesomorph workout routine that keeps your muscles responding.

1. Stimulate Your Muscles

A stimulus is something that elicits a response from your body. Generally, the larger the stimulus, the larger the response.

In the case of resistance training, the stimulus is the stress placed on your muscles by moving weights. And your body responds by building bigger and stronger muscles.

At first, your muscles grow in response to light weights and easy workouts. But over time, you have to increase the stimulus to continue getting results.

2. Incrementally Increase the Stimulus

There are two ways to increase the stimulus in a resistance training workout; load and intensity. And a gradual increase in the loading stimulus is called progressive overload.

The first and most common isincreasing the weight on a particular exercise weekly. For a while, it results in continued strength and size gains.

Eventually, however, your progress slows down. And that’s when you need to change tactics.

Another way to overload muscles is by increasing intensity. You make your muscles work harder through exercise technique, rep range, number of sets, and rest periods, among other things.

And exercise intensity results in a concentrated stimulus of the target muscle, which leads to more growth.

Alternate Between Different Phases

Generally, increasing the load is best for strength gains while increasing intensity is best for muscle growth. But neither approach is best all the time because your body gets used to the stimulus.

Therefore, it’s ideal to periodically change between phases of strength and phases of growth. This way, you tap into your natural ability to respond to training.

Hypertrophy Training Program For Maximum Muscle Growth

While these mesomorph diet and workout tips aren’t groundbreaking new discoveries, that’s kind of the point. The key is practicing the small, easy steps consistently.

With consistency and a little hard work, you can reach your full genetic potential as a mesomorph.

Mesomorph Diet Results

At this point, you may be wondering if the mesomorph diet and workout tips in this guide actually work. And I don’t blame you for being a little skeptical with all the fad diets and fake gurus out there.

So I’m going to show you some real-world results from an actual client of mine. I’ve been working with Dylan for several years now and he’s the closest to a pure mesomorph that I’ve coached. Although I’d say he leans slightly ecto in some traits.

Here is Dylan’s fat loss transformation just a matter of weeks after some minor adjustments to his diet. Most impressive is that he’s 100% natural and has achieved this level of muscularity and low body fat without the aid of performance enhancing drugs.

Plus, this is only a couple of months into Dylan’s contest prep. We still have 13 weeks of dieting to get him in world-class shape. So I’ll post an updated transformation photo in a few months.

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A post shared by Fitness Coach Jeremy Fox (@jeremyfoxfitness)

Customize Your Mesomorph Diet Plan

With the information in this guide, you’re well on your way to reaching your fitness goals and your full genetic potential. But I understand it can feel like information overload and get a bit confusing.

Fortunately, I specialize in taking advanced nutrition concepts and making them easy to understand and follow. And I’ve created a meal plan system that gives you a structured plan. Like a blueprint for building your best body!

So click here to learn more about the benefits of a Custom Meal Plan. Including a more detailed look at how it works and screenshots of the actual plans. Or click below to start customizing your plan right now!

Customize Your Plan

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