DISCOVER YOUR METABOLIC TYPE
As the ancient Roman philosopher Lucretius once said, “One man’s food is another’s poison.” It turns out, his statement is quite literally true.
There are a number of things one must be aware about regarding their unique metabolism.
In your own experience think about all the contradictory books and articles that you've ever read, aside from making the field of nutrition confusing, frustrating and sometimes downright baffling, have already shown you that this 'one diet fits all' approach doesn't work. And your common sense agrees. You know that you are unique! You know one shoe size doesn't fit all. You know that everyone is as unique as their fingerprints. So, why would anyone ever think that one diet is right for everyone? Or, that what works nutritionally for one person would work for another as well?
Metabolic responses to foods - these are things that are generally predisposed at birth as your genetic makeup. Everything about you is unique - personality, behavior, temperament, external physical traits, internal size, shape, placement and efficiency of all of our organs and glands, and rates of our cellular metabolism. Simply put, our DNA is unique. Of course there are things that determine your own unique metabolic rates of burning energy and your own unique abilities to metabolise different food groups. Here is the #1 thing you must know about proper diet and nutrition: if you learn your body's specific biochemical or "metabolic" type, you will have a much stronger understanding of which foods in what quantities are ideal for you, and you will vastly increase your dietary success. Once you know what tilt or angle your body responds best to, you can take any dietary guidelines and not only pick the best types of food that suit you, but uniquely tailor a diet to fit just right with your own unique metabolic responses. Your body will be more optimally equipped to fight and prevent disease and illness, and you will be on the right path to prevent disease and reach and maintain your ideal targeted weight.
On the other hand, if you don't know your specific metabolic type, you could sabotage your dietary success, because you'll continue to consume foods that you've heard are supposed to do things, however with you they have either the wrong or opposite effect. This is the old misconception that a food is bad. Indeed it may be bad for you - in the terms that it does not produce the result that you wish, however in and of itself that food is not bad at all. For another person it may be the perfect food for that result. It all boils down to your own unique metabolic response to foods.
Everywhere you look, there are contradictions. Your friend tells you one thing. You read about just the opposite in a health magazine. And a hot new bestseller at your local book store says something quite different altogether. In fact, that’s another problem -- wall-to-wall books on health and nutrition, most of which just contradict each other. In other words, everybody has specific types of foods best suited to their own bodies, but without learning your own, your efforts at proper dieting are about equivalent to searching for a needle in a haystack.
That's why, if there was just one thing you could do right now to improve your health and live longer, it is to assess and learn your individualised metabolic responses to foods.
By now, I’m sure you understand, from reading all of the resource material online: There is no such thing as one universally healthy diet, which is why some people succeed on certain diets while others fail miserably on the same exact type of diet. Of course you must first adequately assess and understand not only your goals but your motivations behind them. Once you have done this, understanding your response to foods through your metabolic and hormone systems is vital to success. It is wise to not only read this section but also the sections on glycaemic and insulin index too.
Where Does My Metabolic Type Come From
At any given point in time, there are a number of factors that determine peoples’ unique nutritional requirements, but none is more significant than a person’s ancestral heritage. It’s a matter of classic Darwinian principles of evolution and adaptation, natural selection, genetic mutation and survival of the fittest. Over thousands of years of evolutionary history, people in different parts of the world developed very specific dietary needs as an adaptation mechanism, in response to many unique aspects of their habitats and lifestyles -- including climate, geography, vegetation, and naturally occurring food supplies.
As an example, people from cold northern regions of the world have historically relied very heavily on animal protein, simply because that’s the primary food source available in wintry climates. Thus they have radically different nutritional needs than people from tropical regions, where the environment is rich in vegetative diversity year round.
In a previous era, before the age of modern transportation, cultures were isolated and peoples’ metabolic makeup and corresponding dietary needs were very clear. But in today’s day and age, due to extensive intermingling of cultures, we’ve become a true “genetic melting pot.” In the many parts of the world, including the UK in particular, most of us have many different ethnic and hereditary influences. As a result, few of us have a distinct ancestral heritage or readily identifiable dietary needs.
You, like all of us, were born with a unique biochemistry, and that means there are specific types of foods that are best suited to you. You may be more geared to consuming higher quantities of protein and certain fats for ideal health and weight. You may be at the other end of the spectrum, geared to consuming more complex carbohydrates to optimize your health and weight. Or you may fall in between. These are broad category groupings for the general metabolic type recognised in people in general.
You should learn your metabolic type if you truly want to succeed, for good, at eating properly to fight and prevent disease, optimize weight, increase energy and live longer. Once you understand how your own unique body is metabolising food you will make better choices, feel better and see faster and more rewarding results.
Discovering your metabolic type is the single most important step you can take to adopt the diet that is truly meant for you--a diet that will lead to increased daily energy, improved emotional well-being, a feeling of satisfaction and, of course, optimized health and weight so you live longer.
Generally speaking, eating a meal that is right for your metabolic type should produce marked and lasting improvement in your energy, your mental capacities, your emotional well-being, and leave you feeling well-satisfied for several hours. On the other hand, a poorly chosen meal combination can lead you to feeling hungry, light headed, aggressive or generally just weak and self critical. This is how crucially food affects not only your body but your mental state.
If you are already feeling good, eating should, at the very least, help to maintain your energy level. But if you feel worse in some way an hour or so after eating, such as:
You still feel hungry even though you are physically full
You develop a sweet craving
Your energy level drops
You feel hyper, nervous, angry or irritable
You feel depressed
... then it might be due to an improper combination of proteins, fats and carbohydrates at your last meal. You might be eating the perfect foods for your metabolism, but having too much of one type of food in place of another can easily produce the symptoms listed above. Understanding your insulin hormone and its sensitivity (which is also a unique and individualised matter) also goes a long way to understanding your response to foods. Understanding the insulin index will greatly help you to get to grips with this aspect of your body.
Everyone Has Their Own Unique Metabolic Type
There are many people who seemingly eat a high quality and nutritious diet on a regular daily basis who still seem to be quite sick and suffer general health problems. Even people who have not touched sugar or junk food for years. How can this be? Well simply put - the foods are most likely not appropriate foods for that persons own unique metabolism.
If you are interested in truly optimizing your health, your weight, and your energy -- and in avoiding premature aging -- one of the most important steps you should take is to learn your metabolic type and eat according to it. What may be very healthy for others is not necessarily as healthy for you, and vice-versa, and eating according to your metabolic type is really the only way to ascertain what is really good for you. As you are probably aware by now there is no good. You only have what will produce the result that you are looking for as apposed to good and bad foods. A food is only good in relation to whether it produces what you want it to in your body and mind - this is what constitutes good for you.
To get more of a general idea of metabolic typing, though, consider the following analogy.
Simple Fuel Analogy
Just as food is fuel for our bodies, gas is food for our cars. Imagine for a moment that you have pulled into an exclusive gas station that has secured the highest quality gasoline from one of the world’s leading refineries ... gas that has been screened carefully and shown to be free of anything that would possibly harm your car’s engine.
It would seem reasonable to believe that your car is going to thrive on that high-quality gas once you put it in your tank. But what if you were driving a diesel-powered vehicle? If that were the case, in a few minutes your car would stop running, and you would have a very expensive repair job ahead of you.
The fact that the car stopped running does not imply that the gas wasn’t any good or that your car was defective. It was simply the wrong type of fuel for your car.
Like your car, your body was designed for a certain correct type of fuel ... that is, a certain correct blend of the right food types. The further you deviate from this ideal, the more health problems are likely. And so from this you can see that foods are only good in relation to you and your goals and you alone - as you are a unique metabolic entity. This is why some people who have a very high protein based metabolic type, who go around eating a seemingly healthy vegetarian diet can end up sick and disappointed. Likewise the more carbohydrate based metabolic types are finding that eating a very high meat element to the diet can also have far from the perfect result for their body.
Different Metabolic Types
Once you fill out the questionnaire in the following section you will learn that you belong to one of three general types:
Protein - people who should weight their diets heavily on protein and fats and consume less carbohydrates, especially less grains
Carb - people who should emphasize the carbohydrate portion of their diet and consume less proteins and fats, this does not mean eliminate them
Mixed - people who benefit from all major food categories. It is vital that you learn and understand you insulin response to foods.
We have taken our research based on Metabolic typing groups from Dr Mercola and William Wolcott to classify these groupings.
Protein types do better on low-carbohydrate, high-protein and high-fat diets. A typical ratio might be 40 percent protein and 30 percent each of fats and carbohydrates, but the amounts could easily shift to 50 percent fats and as little as 10 percent carbohydrates depending on individual genetic requirements. Remember these guidelines here tell you that this is how your metabolism leans towards a higher protein and fat to a lower carbohydrate ratio. This is just a general rule of thumb to bear in mind when adapting an already designed athletic diet. In other words - the finishing fine tuning effects you can add to tailor a diet to suit you.
Carb types normally feel best when the majority of their food is carbohydrate. However, just as we only have one word for snow while the Eskimos have many more, we only have one word for carbs while there are actually different types. There is a major difference between vegetables and grains and yet they are both referenced as “carbs.” Again learning more about the insulin response to foods in the Insulin Index section of the web site will allow you to understand more about carbohydrates.
Not All Carbs are Created Equal
While this is technically correct, if one doesn’t understand the practical distinction between grains and vegetables, one is likely headed for a health disaster. It is important to remember that over two-thirds of Americans are either obese or overweight, and nearly every one of these individuals needs to lower their insulin levels.
Additionally, most people with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes also struggle with elevated insulin levels that respond quite well to grain restriction.
Many people have leapt on the Atkins style, low to no carb diet, in order to combat these negative effects of insulin. In other words they have tried to eliminate insulin's effects altogether. This is understandable but can lower insulin sensitivity in the long term. These type of diets are great for some people to shed bodyfat very quickly, and good for some metabolic types all year round.
Understanding Insulin and the various types of carbohydrate and the response of your insulin is the real key to managing your own body.
So if you are a Carb Metabolic Type you will require about 60 percent of your food as carbs, 25 percent protein and 15 percent fat, but this type may need as little as 10 percent fat and as high as 80 percent carbs in exceptional times. If you followed an Atkins Diet you might improve initially but eventually your system would break down because it required far more carbohydrate. Likewise, trying to run a marathon on low carbs is just not going to happen - so one must take into account their activity and exercise variable.
It is vital that people begin to learn the difference in their carbohydrate intake - not only for the look of their physique and the way that they feel but for the sake of people health in general. There is a vast difference between man made manufactured carbohydrates, grains and natural vegetables.
Once a person attains a normal weight and does not struggle with other insulin related disorders, it is actually possible to consume some grains and remain perfectly healthy. Carb types actually can do quite well with grains, but remember this is likely to only be about 15 percent of the population at best.
If your Metabolic Type is mixed, your requirements are generally well balanced between the carb and protein food groups. This is actually the most challenging type to have as ultimately you will have to rely quite heavily on developing your own feedback by answering the questions after every meal. This is where you really should learn to listen to your body and take note of the way you feel in response to the foods that you eat. You will possibly do well to do work with a glucometer that diabetics use, in order to asses your glucose response to foods, and maybe even become very intuitive in regards your own unique insulin output.
Don’t stress about percentages; they are only rough guidelines. And they are there to give you an idea of how to tailor your other diets in order for you to either favourably weight the carbs, proteins, fats or the combinations. Even if they needed to be precise, you wouldn’t take the time or make the effort to eat exact percentages of foods every single time you ate, especially for the rest of your life. This would be an impossible task. However, the figures should outline the general rules for your metabolic type and the food groups you should be consuming the higher quantities of.
Additionally, your activity (exercise program) and stress levels will affect and alter the quantity of food, as well as the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates, you need to feel your best.
Circadian Rhythm
Last, there is also a circadian rhythm to account for. Your biochemistry moves through various phases throughout the day. These rhythms involve your hormonal output, your acid/alkaline shifts, your waking/sleeping times and many other time-based variables. While some people will have a need for the same ratios of protein, fat and carbs at each meal, others will discover that they need very different ratios at the different meals in order to derive optimum energy, well being and performance. Especially when training and dieting to either gain muscle mass or to lose bodyfat. It is generally recommended that you try and spike insulin levels between twice and four times a day, and in general keep your insulin stable. However there is a definite trend to suggest that a person requires more of their carbohydrate source of foods earlier in the day and more protein and fat based foods later in the day.
What is the Solution?
In general, you first start by eating the proportions of proteins, fats and carbs according to your taste and appetite. Or tailored from one of the diets outlined in the nutrition section.
Next, analyze your reactions to your meal and discover how well you did in selecting the right ratios for yourself. This will help you to build you own inbuilt reactive intuitions to your metabolic responses to food. A table to help you do this is provided below so you can take a look.
Finally, if you did not react optimally to your meal, change the ratios the next time you eat that meal and again analyze your reactions. In this way you can fine-tune each meal to the ratios of proteins, fats and carbs that are just right for you. Keeping a food diary or log is near essential in doing this properly.
For example - in order to understand your response to food, say you eat a salad for an evening meal. You have an ample serving of fresh, grilled chicken breast and plenty of green salad vegetables. Less than an hour later you feel physically full, but light headed and famished in general. What went wrong. Well, in many cases, here with this meal combination, the vital macro nutrient of adequate fats were missing. Consuming the same meal the next night with 15grams of olive oil added creates the desired response both physically and mentally.
This Insulin control factor is so prevalent in all of the major successful diets that contain elements of logic and truth - The Zone, Atkins, Massive Eating, Body For Life.
Remember that you should feel terrific one hour after you eat. If you are still having food cravings or your energy level is lower, these are giant clues that you are likely not eating appropriately for your metabolic type.
The Metabolic Type Test
Metabolic typing analyzes, evaluates, and interprets objective physiological and biochemical indicators along with symptomatology in order to define one’s metabolic type -- the specific, individualized, genetically-based patterns of biochemical metabolic individuality that dictate one’s physiological and neurological “design limits” and requirements for nutritional substances.
The metabolic type defines the way in which the body reacts to nutrients. Different metabolic types react differently to the same nutrient. For example, in one metabolic type 100 milligrams of potassium or eating, say, an orange (also high in potassium), will cause the body’s pH to shift alkaline and produce a sedating effect. But in a different metabolic type, the same amount of potassium or an orange will produce an acid shift and a stimulating response. This has been observed tens of thousands of times through both objective metabolic type testing as well as through changes in symptomatology.
Below is a very simple question and answer test for you to begin to assess your own unique metabolic type and then put to use powerful changes and adaptations to your dietary principles in order to maximise your results.
***MIKE - can we do a bit of programming here for the test - with click boxes and stuff like that?****
1. Does a high-carbohydrate meal or snack, one that is loaded with plenty of vegetables, bread, toast, cereals, rice, fruits, grains or potatoes, as the main food source satisfy your appetite, or stimulate it further?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Satisfies Stimulates
2. Do higher-fat meats like beef, lamb, duck or dark chicken meat cause you to lose or gain body fat? Do you look slimmer in the mirror or is it easier for your clothes to fit?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Gain Weight Lose Weight
3. Do you constantly think about food and frequently look forward with eager anticipation to your next meal or what you want to eat?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
No Yes
4. What is your appetite like at breakfast, lunch and dinner?
a) breakfast
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Weaker Stronger
b)lunch
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Weaker Stronger
c)dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Weaker Stronger
5. Does eating something higher in fat and/or protein such as dark meats, avocados, cream, butter or coconuts within an hour or two of bedtime help you sleep better?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
No Yes
6. If you ate a large salad with some low fat meat like chicken breast for lunch (versus higher fat meat like a hamburger), how would it affect your productivity throughout the rest of the afternoon?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Id have ample energy Id become tired and hungry
and feel satisfied.
7. How often do you typically feel the need to eat on an average day?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 - 2 times inc snacks 5 - 6 or more inc snacks
8. How much do you enjoy sour foods like pickles, sauerkraut, or vinegar?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Love them Cant stand them
9. At Christmas or a meal where you eat turkey, and assuming all of the turkey is moist, if you prefer white meat give yourself a 1, if you prefer only the dark meat give yourself a 10, and if it doesn't matter give yourself a 5.
1 5 10
White meat Either Dark Meat
**Calculation**
A score over 60 indicates a Protein Type. The higher your score above 60, the more likely you are truly a protein type.
A score under 60 indicates a Carb Type. The lower the score under 60, the more likely you are a true carb type.
A score between 40 and 70 indicates that you may be a potential Mixed Type. If you scored in this range, you can begin fine tuning your diet.
You Can Fine-Tune any Diet for You
You can start the process of improving your health by carefully analyzing your responses to different foods. After all, your body is the best instrument available to make this analysis. Once you begin to listen to your body and the way it responds to what you do you will be able to control your physique look and how you feel with far greater ease and accuracy.
You can start by printing the Fine-Tuning table below (derived from "The Metabolic Typing Diet" and taken from excerpts from Dr Mercola's website) and using it to help guide you in balancing your ideal ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Fill it out one to two hours after each meal. When you eat the right ratios, you'll only check the "positive" responses. Any "negative" responses will mean that you need to adjust the ratios.
For example, suppose an hour after lunch you felt sleepy, hungry and wanted some caffeine or something sweet. These are clear indications that the ratios at lunch were far from what they should have been for your metabolism. So the next day, eat the same foods for lunch but dramatically change the ratios.
As a result of this change, you will feel noticeably better... or worse. Either way you win. Either you'll know you are on the right track or you will have learned that you need to go in the opposite direction with your ratios. In other words, if you dramatically increased your protein and lowered your carbs and your symptoms worsened, you'll know that what you needed to do at that meal was actually lower your protein and increase your carbs.
Your body knows best--far more than any diet expert ever will. It will always tell you in no uncertain terms exactly how well you did in giving it what it needs, once you learn how to interpret your own "body language." So have fun discovering your own unique needs. You'll be amazed at the results.
Fine-Tune Your Diet table
Food Intake
List all foods & drinks consumed
Fine Tune Your Diet
Today's Date: Place a check to the left of all descriptions that describe your experience 1-2 hours after each meal
Meal:
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
(circle one)
Appetite
Satiety
Cravings Feel full, satisfied Feel physically full, but still hungry
Do NOT have sweet cravings Have desire for something sweet
Do NOT desire more food Not satisfied, felt like something was missing
Do NOT feel hungry Already hungry
Foods Consumed: Do NOT need to snack before next meal Feel the need for a snack
Energy
Levels Energy feels renewed Meal gave too much or too little energy
Have good lasting "normal" sense of energy Became hyper, jittery, shaky, nervous or speedy
Energy tanked from meal-exhaustion, sleepiness, drowsiness, listlessness or lethargy Felt hyper but exhausted underneath
Mind
Emotions
Well-Being Improved well-being Mentally slow
Sense of feeling refueled, renewed
and restored Inability to think quickly or clearly
Some emotional upliftment Hyper, overly rapid thoughts
Improved mental clarity and sharpness Inability to focus or concentrate
Normalization of thought process Apathy, depression, withdrawal or sadness
Anxious, obsessive, fearful angry or irritable
------------------------------------------------------------
History of Metabolic Typing
In modern times, there have been some well-known and many not so well-known medical researchers who recognized the value of addressing biochemical individuality. In 1919, Frances Pottenger, M.D., published his Symptoms Of Visceral Disease, where he established the autonomic nervous system as the basis of metabolic individuality and correlated the influence of various nutrients on the autonomic nervous system.
Dr. W.H. Sheldon, in the '40's, published his famous Varieties Of Human Physique, providing photographic illustrations of his somatotypes (ectomorph, endomorph and mesomorph metabolic types). In the '50's, Dr. Melvin Page and Dr. Henry Bieler concurrently developed concepts of endocrine types and their relationship to various foods. Dr. George Watson, also in the '50's, in his astounding book, Nutrition And The Mind, published his research on the variable influences of oxidation (glycolysis, beta oxidation, citric acid cycle) in different individuals he classified as fast, mixed or slow oxidizers.
In 1956, the noted biochemist, Dr. Roger Williams, published his genetotrophic theory on biochemical individuality, based on his research which suggested that every human being has, because of his genetic makeup, distinctive nutritional needs that must be met in order to achieve optimum health and well-being. Dr. Royal Lee's extensive writings in the 50's and 60's correlated nutritional influences of the autonomic and endocrine systems.
Dr. Emanuel Revici, in the ‘60’s, recognized the critical necessity to address biochemical individuality and devoted his life's work to the development of an entirely new system of medicine based upon the variances between individuals in their catabolic and anabolic influences.
Dr. James D'Adamo, in the '70's, put forth a system of individual classification based upon ABO blood types. In the mid '70's, Dr. William D. Kelley met Dr. Roger William’s call for “metabolic profiling” by becoming the first to apply William's concept of nutritional individuality to computer science in identifying the autonomic types, sympathetic, balanced and parasympathetic.
Further efforts to address metabolic individuality can be seen in current works of numerous other pioneers. Among the more recent who have joined the ranks are Dr. Elliot Abravanel, Dr. Paul Eck, Dr. David Watts, Dr. Rudolph Wiley, and the insightful founder of Nutri-Spec, Dr. Guy Schenker, to name a few.
As the ancient Roman philosopher Lucretius once said, “One man’s food is another’s poison.” It turns out, his statement is quite literally true.
There are a number of things one must be aware about regarding their unique metabolism.
In your own experience think about all the contradictory books and articles that you've ever read, aside from making the field of nutrition confusing, frustrating and sometimes downright baffling, have already shown you that this 'one diet fits all' approach doesn't work. And your common sense agrees. You know that you are unique! You know one shoe size doesn't fit all. You know that everyone is as unique as their fingerprints. So, why would anyone ever think that one diet is right for everyone? Or, that what works nutritionally for one person would work for another as well?
Metabolic responses to foods - these are things that are generally predisposed at birth as your genetic makeup. Everything about you is unique - personality, behavior, temperament, external physical traits, internal size, shape, placement and efficiency of all of our organs and glands, and rates of our cellular metabolism. Simply put, our DNA is unique. Of course there are things that determine your own unique metabolic rates of burning energy and your own unique abilities to metabolise different food groups. Here is the #1 thing you must know about proper diet and nutrition: if you learn your body's specific biochemical or "metabolic" type, you will have a much stronger understanding of which foods in what quantities are ideal for you, and you will vastly increase your dietary success. Once you know what tilt or angle your body responds best to, you can take any dietary guidelines and not only pick the best types of food that suit you, but uniquely tailor a diet to fit just right with your own unique metabolic responses. Your body will be more optimally equipped to fight and prevent disease and illness, and you will be on the right path to prevent disease and reach and maintain your ideal targeted weight.
On the other hand, if you don't know your specific metabolic type, you could sabotage your dietary success, because you'll continue to consume foods that you've heard are supposed to do things, however with you they have either the wrong or opposite effect. This is the old misconception that a food is bad. Indeed it may be bad for you - in the terms that it does not produce the result that you wish, however in and of itself that food is not bad at all. For another person it may be the perfect food for that result. It all boils down to your own unique metabolic response to foods.
Everywhere you look, there are contradictions. Your friend tells you one thing. You read about just the opposite in a health magazine. And a hot new bestseller at your local book store says something quite different altogether. In fact, that’s another problem -- wall-to-wall books on health and nutrition, most of which just contradict each other. In other words, everybody has specific types of foods best suited to their own bodies, but without learning your own, your efforts at proper dieting are about equivalent to searching for a needle in a haystack.
That's why, if there was just one thing you could do right now to improve your health and live longer, it is to assess and learn your individualised metabolic responses to foods.
By now, I’m sure you understand, from reading all of the resource material online: There is no such thing as one universally healthy diet, which is why some people succeed on certain diets while others fail miserably on the same exact type of diet. Of course you must first adequately assess and understand not only your goals but your motivations behind them. Once you have done this, understanding your response to foods through your metabolic and hormone systems is vital to success. It is wise to not only read this section but also the sections on glycaemic and insulin index too.
Where Does My Metabolic Type Come From
At any given point in time, there are a number of factors that determine peoples’ unique nutritional requirements, but none is more significant than a person’s ancestral heritage. It’s a matter of classic Darwinian principles of evolution and adaptation, natural selection, genetic mutation and survival of the fittest. Over thousands of years of evolutionary history, people in different parts of the world developed very specific dietary needs as an adaptation mechanism, in response to many unique aspects of their habitats and lifestyles -- including climate, geography, vegetation, and naturally occurring food supplies.
As an example, people from cold northern regions of the world have historically relied very heavily on animal protein, simply because that’s the primary food source available in wintry climates. Thus they have radically different nutritional needs than people from tropical regions, where the environment is rich in vegetative diversity year round.
In a previous era, before the age of modern transportation, cultures were isolated and peoples’ metabolic makeup and corresponding dietary needs were very clear. But in today’s day and age, due to extensive intermingling of cultures, we’ve become a true “genetic melting pot.” In the many parts of the world, including the UK in particular, most of us have many different ethnic and hereditary influences. As a result, few of us have a distinct ancestral heritage or readily identifiable dietary needs.
You, like all of us, were born with a unique biochemistry, and that means there are specific types of foods that are best suited to you. You may be more geared to consuming higher quantities of protein and certain fats for ideal health and weight. You may be at the other end of the spectrum, geared to consuming more complex carbohydrates to optimize your health and weight. Or you may fall in between. These are broad category groupings for the general metabolic type recognised in people in general.
You should learn your metabolic type if you truly want to succeed, for good, at eating properly to fight and prevent disease, optimize weight, increase energy and live longer. Once you understand how your own unique body is metabolising food you will make better choices, feel better and see faster and more rewarding results.
Discovering your metabolic type is the single most important step you can take to adopt the diet that is truly meant for you--a diet that will lead to increased daily energy, improved emotional well-being, a feeling of satisfaction and, of course, optimized health and weight so you live longer.
Generally speaking, eating a meal that is right for your metabolic type should produce marked and lasting improvement in your energy, your mental capacities, your emotional well-being, and leave you feeling well-satisfied for several hours. On the other hand, a poorly chosen meal combination can lead you to feeling hungry, light headed, aggressive or generally just weak and self critical. This is how crucially food affects not only your body but your mental state.
If you are already feeling good, eating should, at the very least, help to maintain your energy level. But if you feel worse in some way an hour or so after eating, such as:
You still feel hungry even though you are physically full
You develop a sweet craving
Your energy level drops
You feel hyper, nervous, angry or irritable
You feel depressed
... then it might be due to an improper combination of proteins, fats and carbohydrates at your last meal. You might be eating the perfect foods for your metabolism, but having too much of one type of food in place of another can easily produce the symptoms listed above. Understanding your insulin hormone and its sensitivity (which is also a unique and individualised matter) also goes a long way to understanding your response to foods. Understanding the insulin index will greatly help you to get to grips with this aspect of your body.
Everyone Has Their Own Unique Metabolic Type
There are many people who seemingly eat a high quality and nutritious diet on a regular daily basis who still seem to be quite sick and suffer general health problems. Even people who have not touched sugar or junk food for years. How can this be? Well simply put - the foods are most likely not appropriate foods for that persons own unique metabolism.
If you are interested in truly optimizing your health, your weight, and your energy -- and in avoiding premature aging -- one of the most important steps you should take is to learn your metabolic type and eat according to it. What may be very healthy for others is not necessarily as healthy for you, and vice-versa, and eating according to your metabolic type is really the only way to ascertain what is really good for you. As you are probably aware by now there is no good. You only have what will produce the result that you are looking for as apposed to good and bad foods. A food is only good in relation to whether it produces what you want it to in your body and mind - this is what constitutes good for you.
To get more of a general idea of metabolic typing, though, consider the following analogy.
Simple Fuel Analogy
Just as food is fuel for our bodies, gas is food for our cars. Imagine for a moment that you have pulled into an exclusive gas station that has secured the highest quality gasoline from one of the world’s leading refineries ... gas that has been screened carefully and shown to be free of anything that would possibly harm your car’s engine.
It would seem reasonable to believe that your car is going to thrive on that high-quality gas once you put it in your tank. But what if you were driving a diesel-powered vehicle? If that were the case, in a few minutes your car would stop running, and you would have a very expensive repair job ahead of you.
The fact that the car stopped running does not imply that the gas wasn’t any good or that your car was defective. It was simply the wrong type of fuel for your car.
Like your car, your body was designed for a certain correct type of fuel ... that is, a certain correct blend of the right food types. The further you deviate from this ideal, the more health problems are likely. And so from this you can see that foods are only good in relation to you and your goals and you alone - as you are a unique metabolic entity. This is why some people who have a very high protein based metabolic type, who go around eating a seemingly healthy vegetarian diet can end up sick and disappointed. Likewise the more carbohydrate based metabolic types are finding that eating a very high meat element to the diet can also have far from the perfect result for their body.
Different Metabolic Types
Once you fill out the questionnaire in the following section you will learn that you belong to one of three general types:
Protein - people who should weight their diets heavily on protein and fats and consume less carbohydrates, especially less grains
Carb - people who should emphasize the carbohydrate portion of their diet and consume less proteins and fats, this does not mean eliminate them
Mixed - people who benefit from all major food categories. It is vital that you learn and understand you insulin response to foods.
We have taken our research based on Metabolic typing groups from Dr Mercola and William Wolcott to classify these groupings.
Protein types do better on low-carbohydrate, high-protein and high-fat diets. A typical ratio might be 40 percent protein and 30 percent each of fats and carbohydrates, but the amounts could easily shift to 50 percent fats and as little as 10 percent carbohydrates depending on individual genetic requirements. Remember these guidelines here tell you that this is how your metabolism leans towards a higher protein and fat to a lower carbohydrate ratio. This is just a general rule of thumb to bear in mind when adapting an already designed athletic diet. In other words - the finishing fine tuning effects you can add to tailor a diet to suit you.
Carb types normally feel best when the majority of their food is carbohydrate. However, just as we only have one word for snow while the Eskimos have many more, we only have one word for carbs while there are actually different types. There is a major difference between vegetables and grains and yet they are both referenced as “carbs.” Again learning more about the insulin response to foods in the Insulin Index section of the web site will allow you to understand more about carbohydrates.
Not All Carbs are Created Equal
While this is technically correct, if one doesn’t understand the practical distinction between grains and vegetables, one is likely headed for a health disaster. It is important to remember that over two-thirds of Americans are either obese or overweight, and nearly every one of these individuals needs to lower their insulin levels.
Additionally, most people with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes also struggle with elevated insulin levels that respond quite well to grain restriction.
Many people have leapt on the Atkins style, low to no carb diet, in order to combat these negative effects of insulin. In other words they have tried to eliminate insulin's effects altogether. This is understandable but can lower insulin sensitivity in the long term. These type of diets are great for some people to shed bodyfat very quickly, and good for some metabolic types all year round.
Understanding Insulin and the various types of carbohydrate and the response of your insulin is the real key to managing your own body.
So if you are a Carb Metabolic Type you will require about 60 percent of your food as carbs, 25 percent protein and 15 percent fat, but this type may need as little as 10 percent fat and as high as 80 percent carbs in exceptional times. If you followed an Atkins Diet you might improve initially but eventually your system would break down because it required far more carbohydrate. Likewise, trying to run a marathon on low carbs is just not going to happen - so one must take into account their activity and exercise variable.
It is vital that people begin to learn the difference in their carbohydrate intake - not only for the look of their physique and the way that they feel but for the sake of people health in general. There is a vast difference between man made manufactured carbohydrates, grains and natural vegetables.
Once a person attains a normal weight and does not struggle with other insulin related disorders, it is actually possible to consume some grains and remain perfectly healthy. Carb types actually can do quite well with grains, but remember this is likely to only be about 15 percent of the population at best.
If your Metabolic Type is mixed, your requirements are generally well balanced between the carb and protein food groups. This is actually the most challenging type to have as ultimately you will have to rely quite heavily on developing your own feedback by answering the questions after every meal. This is where you really should learn to listen to your body and take note of the way you feel in response to the foods that you eat. You will possibly do well to do work with a glucometer that diabetics use, in order to asses your glucose response to foods, and maybe even become very intuitive in regards your own unique insulin output.
Don’t stress about percentages; they are only rough guidelines. And they are there to give you an idea of how to tailor your other diets in order for you to either favourably weight the carbs, proteins, fats or the combinations. Even if they needed to be precise, you wouldn’t take the time or make the effort to eat exact percentages of foods every single time you ate, especially for the rest of your life. This would be an impossible task. However, the figures should outline the general rules for your metabolic type and the food groups you should be consuming the higher quantities of.
Additionally, your activity (exercise program) and stress levels will affect and alter the quantity of food, as well as the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates, you need to feel your best.
Circadian Rhythm
Last, there is also a circadian rhythm to account for. Your biochemistry moves through various phases throughout the day. These rhythms involve your hormonal output, your acid/alkaline shifts, your waking/sleeping times and many other time-based variables. While some people will have a need for the same ratios of protein, fat and carbs at each meal, others will discover that they need very different ratios at the different meals in order to derive optimum energy, well being and performance. Especially when training and dieting to either gain muscle mass or to lose bodyfat. It is generally recommended that you try and spike insulin levels between twice and four times a day, and in general keep your insulin stable. However there is a definite trend to suggest that a person requires more of their carbohydrate source of foods earlier in the day and more protein and fat based foods later in the day.
What is the Solution?
In general, you first start by eating the proportions of proteins, fats and carbs according to your taste and appetite. Or tailored from one of the diets outlined in the nutrition section.
Next, analyze your reactions to your meal and discover how well you did in selecting the right ratios for yourself. This will help you to build you own inbuilt reactive intuitions to your metabolic responses to food. A table to help you do this is provided below so you can take a look.
Finally, if you did not react optimally to your meal, change the ratios the next time you eat that meal and again analyze your reactions. In this way you can fine-tune each meal to the ratios of proteins, fats and carbs that are just right for you. Keeping a food diary or log is near essential in doing this properly.
For example - in order to understand your response to food, say you eat a salad for an evening meal. You have an ample serving of fresh, grilled chicken breast and plenty of green salad vegetables. Less than an hour later you feel physically full, but light headed and famished in general. What went wrong. Well, in many cases, here with this meal combination, the vital macro nutrient of adequate fats were missing. Consuming the same meal the next night with 15grams of olive oil added creates the desired response both physically and mentally.
This Insulin control factor is so prevalent in all of the major successful diets that contain elements of logic and truth - The Zone, Atkins, Massive Eating, Body For Life.
Remember that you should feel terrific one hour after you eat. If you are still having food cravings or your energy level is lower, these are giant clues that you are likely not eating appropriately for your metabolic type.
The Metabolic Type Test
Metabolic typing analyzes, evaluates, and interprets objective physiological and biochemical indicators along with symptomatology in order to define one’s metabolic type -- the specific, individualized, genetically-based patterns of biochemical metabolic individuality that dictate one’s physiological and neurological “design limits” and requirements for nutritional substances.
The metabolic type defines the way in which the body reacts to nutrients. Different metabolic types react differently to the same nutrient. For example, in one metabolic type 100 milligrams of potassium or eating, say, an orange (also high in potassium), will cause the body’s pH to shift alkaline and produce a sedating effect. But in a different metabolic type, the same amount of potassium or an orange will produce an acid shift and a stimulating response. This has been observed tens of thousands of times through both objective metabolic type testing as well as through changes in symptomatology.
Below is a very simple question and answer test for you to begin to assess your own unique metabolic type and then put to use powerful changes and adaptations to your dietary principles in order to maximise your results.
***MIKE - can we do a bit of programming here for the test - with click boxes and stuff like that?****
1. Does a high-carbohydrate meal or snack, one that is loaded with plenty of vegetables, bread, toast, cereals, rice, fruits, grains or potatoes, as the main food source satisfy your appetite, or stimulate it further?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Satisfies Stimulates
2. Do higher-fat meats like beef, lamb, duck or dark chicken meat cause you to lose or gain body fat? Do you look slimmer in the mirror or is it easier for your clothes to fit?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Gain Weight Lose Weight
3. Do you constantly think about food and frequently look forward with eager anticipation to your next meal or what you want to eat?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
No Yes
4. What is your appetite like at breakfast, lunch and dinner?
a) breakfast
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Weaker Stronger
b)lunch
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Weaker Stronger
c)dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Weaker Stronger
5. Does eating something higher in fat and/or protein such as dark meats, avocados, cream, butter or coconuts within an hour or two of bedtime help you sleep better?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
No Yes
6. If you ate a large salad with some low fat meat like chicken breast for lunch (versus higher fat meat like a hamburger), how would it affect your productivity throughout the rest of the afternoon?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Id have ample energy Id become tired and hungry
and feel satisfied.
7. How often do you typically feel the need to eat on an average day?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 - 2 times inc snacks 5 - 6 or more inc snacks
8. How much do you enjoy sour foods like pickles, sauerkraut, or vinegar?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Love them Cant stand them
9. At Christmas or a meal where you eat turkey, and assuming all of the turkey is moist, if you prefer white meat give yourself a 1, if you prefer only the dark meat give yourself a 10, and if it doesn't matter give yourself a 5.
1 5 10
White meat Either Dark Meat
**Calculation**
A score over 60 indicates a Protein Type. The higher your score above 60, the more likely you are truly a protein type.
A score under 60 indicates a Carb Type. The lower the score under 60, the more likely you are a true carb type.
A score between 40 and 70 indicates that you may be a potential Mixed Type. If you scored in this range, you can begin fine tuning your diet.
You Can Fine-Tune any Diet for You
You can start the process of improving your health by carefully analyzing your responses to different foods. After all, your body is the best instrument available to make this analysis. Once you begin to listen to your body and the way it responds to what you do you will be able to control your physique look and how you feel with far greater ease and accuracy.
You can start by printing the Fine-Tuning table below (derived from "The Metabolic Typing Diet" and taken from excerpts from Dr Mercola's website) and using it to help guide you in balancing your ideal ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Fill it out one to two hours after each meal. When you eat the right ratios, you'll only check the "positive" responses. Any "negative" responses will mean that you need to adjust the ratios.
For example, suppose an hour after lunch you felt sleepy, hungry and wanted some caffeine or something sweet. These are clear indications that the ratios at lunch were far from what they should have been for your metabolism. So the next day, eat the same foods for lunch but dramatically change the ratios.
As a result of this change, you will feel noticeably better... or worse. Either way you win. Either you'll know you are on the right track or you will have learned that you need to go in the opposite direction with your ratios. In other words, if you dramatically increased your protein and lowered your carbs and your symptoms worsened, you'll know that what you needed to do at that meal was actually lower your protein and increase your carbs.
Your body knows best--far more than any diet expert ever will. It will always tell you in no uncertain terms exactly how well you did in giving it what it needs, once you learn how to interpret your own "body language." So have fun discovering your own unique needs. You'll be amazed at the results.
Fine-Tune Your Diet table
Food Intake
List all foods & drinks consumed
Fine Tune Your Diet
Today's Date: Place a check to the left of all descriptions that describe your experience 1-2 hours after each meal
Meal:
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
(circle one)
Appetite
Satiety
Cravings Feel full, satisfied Feel physically full, but still hungry
Do NOT have sweet cravings Have desire for something sweet
Do NOT desire more food Not satisfied, felt like something was missing
Do NOT feel hungry Already hungry
Foods Consumed: Do NOT need to snack before next meal Feel the need for a snack
Energy
Levels Energy feels renewed Meal gave too much or too little energy
Have good lasting "normal" sense of energy Became hyper, jittery, shaky, nervous or speedy
Energy tanked from meal-exhaustion, sleepiness, drowsiness, listlessness or lethargy Felt hyper but exhausted underneath
Mind
Emotions
Well-Being Improved well-being Mentally slow
Sense of feeling refueled, renewed
and restored Inability to think quickly or clearly
Some emotional upliftment Hyper, overly rapid thoughts
Improved mental clarity and sharpness Inability to focus or concentrate
Normalization of thought process Apathy, depression, withdrawal or sadness
Anxious, obsessive, fearful angry or irritable
------------------------------------------------------------
History of Metabolic Typing
In modern times, there have been some well-known and many not so well-known medical researchers who recognized the value of addressing biochemical individuality. In 1919, Frances Pottenger, M.D., published his Symptoms Of Visceral Disease, where he established the autonomic nervous system as the basis of metabolic individuality and correlated the influence of various nutrients on the autonomic nervous system.
Dr. W.H. Sheldon, in the '40's, published his famous Varieties Of Human Physique, providing photographic illustrations of his somatotypes (ectomorph, endomorph and mesomorph metabolic types). In the '50's, Dr. Melvin Page and Dr. Henry Bieler concurrently developed concepts of endocrine types and their relationship to various foods. Dr. George Watson, also in the '50's, in his astounding book, Nutrition And The Mind, published his research on the variable influences of oxidation (glycolysis, beta oxidation, citric acid cycle) in different individuals he classified as fast, mixed or slow oxidizers.
In 1956, the noted biochemist, Dr. Roger Williams, published his genetotrophic theory on biochemical individuality, based on his research which suggested that every human being has, because of his genetic makeup, distinctive nutritional needs that must be met in order to achieve optimum health and well-being. Dr. Royal Lee's extensive writings in the 50's and 60's correlated nutritional influences of the autonomic and endocrine systems.
Dr. Emanuel Revici, in the ‘60’s, recognized the critical necessity to address biochemical individuality and devoted his life's work to the development of an entirely new system of medicine based upon the variances between individuals in their catabolic and anabolic influences.
Dr. James D'Adamo, in the '70's, put forth a system of individual classification based upon ABO blood types. In the mid '70's, Dr. William D. Kelley met Dr. Roger William’s call for “metabolic profiling” by becoming the first to apply William's concept of nutritional individuality to computer science in identifying the autonomic types, sympathetic, balanced and parasympathetic.
Further efforts to address metabolic individuality can be seen in current works of numerous other pioneers. Among the more recent who have joined the ranks are Dr. Elliot Abravanel, Dr. Paul Eck, Dr. David Watts, Dr. Rudolph Wiley, and the insightful founder of Nutri-Spec, Dr. Guy Schenker, to name a few.
