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What is Metabolic Typing?
The Cutting Edge of Nutrition; or why we are all different
If you have ever sat at a restaurant or on
a park bench and just watched all the people
going about their day, one thing has to have
struck you: we're all incredibly different.
People come in such an infinite variety of
shapes and sizes it is amazing we only have
five or six different sizes of clothing that
fit most of us. Yet when you read diet guidelines
either for loosing weight or just being healthy,
they always have the same basic recommendations
for everyone. Sure, if you want to lose weight
it will suggest cutting calories, but does
it makes sense that everyone needs the same
basic nutrition?
Metabolic Typing explains why one medicine works well for some people but
not others. A scientist does a study on the
effects of one new drug. Some get better,
others don't and a few get worse. There's
a simple reason why this occurs: we are as
different on the inside as we are on the
outside. Another way to say it is that we
all have individual biochemical needs because
foods and medicines affect us all differently.
This means that while one food makes
a person
feel good, it makes another person
feel crummy.
"One person's food is another's
poison"
is more true than you may realize.
But if
this is true, then how does one go
about
figuring it all out? By taking a simple
Metabolic
Typing test in the book "The Metabolic
Typing Diet" by William Wolcott
and
learn how to eat according to one's
own individual
biochemical needs. Once you do this
you will
be able to alter your diet and fuel
yourself
more effectively than ever before.
Take the Test
The book,
The Metabolic Typing Diet by William
Wolcott, offers up a painless test
to determine
if you are someone who does best when
eating
more protein, more carbohydrates or
a mixed
diet. Then it gives you strategies
to further
fine tune your macronutrient ratio
(percent
of carbs, protein and fats) to find
your
best mix of foods. This is the "Basic"
level of typing, or
take an online version available from Dr. Mercola.
There is a whole program
set up to do Intermediate, Advanced
and Comprehensive
level typing administered through qualified
advisors. Since November of 2001 when
I began
working with my advisor, a Ph.D. Nutritionist,
that my life and health have been significantly
improved and as an athlete I have truly
seen
the benefits of eating what is right
for
my own body. Benefits include:
- Controlling cravings
- Eliminating hunger between meals
- Increasing physical energy
- Eradicating mood swings
- Increasing sense of well-being
Unfortunately whenever someone mentions
"diet,"
most people immediately think about
having
to count calories, eat smaller portions
and
leave themselves unsatisfied after
a meal.
They expect to have to cut out foods
they
love, suffer through cravings all day
or
eat some strange excess combination
like
six egg whites and a plate full of
spinach
leaves. That isn't a healthy diet;
it is
torture and a failure waiting to happen.
Guess what, if you eat what your body
needs
to function well, you won't have to
count
calories or suffer cravings. Considering
the huge variety of vitamins, nutrients
and
enzymes your body needs to operate,
wouldn't
some type of balanced meal make more
sense
if you want it to find it's optimum
weight
and level of health? Doesn't it make
more
sense to figure out what types of foods
and
in what mixture your own body needs
to run
optimally? You can do that through
"The
Metabolic Typing Diet."
Your body's feedback
"Diet" really is and should
be
about the foods you eat in order to
stay
healthy and energized. If a particular
diet
leaves you lethargic, or in an athletic
sense,
unable to fully apply yourself to a
workout
and recover well, then it really isn't
a
proper diet. How could it be? Would
it be
reasonable to assume that a diet leaving
you feeling poorly would also be healthy
for you? When you suffer an injury
your body
is giving you feedback about its condition.
Illness, fatigue, sleeplessness, low
energy,
you name it. Feedback is something
your body
gives you whether you listen or not.
Doesn't
it make sense that how you feel day
to day
or even hourly is feedback about your
body's
overall condition? Isn't it reasonable
to
conclude that your body will give you
feedback
if you don't fuel it properly? Paul
Chek
said that, "a headache is not
an aspirin
deficit." Feedback indeed.
There are a lot of scary nutrition
tips from
people telling everyone to eat a fixed
macronutrient
ratio such as 70% carbs, 15% protein
and
10% fat. Worse, I recently read an
article
that said never eat protein before
a race.
As someone who knows he needs a higher
protein
ratio, if I ate like that I might as
well
not bother rolling to the start line.
And
what about this classic: "eat
a low
fat diet." The problem with these
and
every other statement like it is that
they
ignore the fact that we are all different,
come from a huge variety of backgrounds
and
have individual and unique biochemical
needs.
What works for one person, may not
do anything
for someone else, but can make still
another
person worse.
Just because you put food in your mouth
and
chew it doesn't mean you're putting
the right
foods in that your body needs. If you
owned
and cherished a Ferrari, would you
buy the
cheapest gas you could find, or pump
diesel,
leaded or unleaded gas in it depending
on
whatever was convenient and then expect
it
to run well. If you expect your body
to operate
as efficiently as possible, doesn't
it make
sense to give it the best quality foods
in
the right mixture that it needs? Get
on the
cutting edge and eat according to your
biochemical
needs through a Metabolic Typing diet.
Rebuild
your health to what it was designed
to be.
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