Metabolic Typing - Eat Right for Your Body Type (and Genetic-Ethnicity)

Thirty years after Dr. Weston Price realized that there was no ideal diet Dr. William Kelley built on this idea and concluded that a person’s metabolism was influenced by two genetic components. The first is what is referred to as ‘Autonomic Nervous System Dominance’. Essentially, the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) helps you burn energy and the parasympathetic nervous system helps you conserve energy. Depending which one is dominant will help determine your metabolic type.

The second component is ‘Cellular Oxidation’. This is the rate that you convert what you eat into fuel. If you are a fast ‘burner’ or oxidizer you need to eat a high protein/high fat diet because they burn slower. If you are a slow oxidizer you need to eat mainly carbs (not breads, cakes and potatoes carbs—vegetable carbs!) and you need to eat less protein and fat because you convert what you eat into energy slowly.

The metabolic typing diet has three ‘metabolic types’: Protein Type, Carbohydrate Type and Mixed Type. To determine which type you are I would highly suggest reading the above mentioned book. There is also an array of quizzes online as well as information to help you determine which metabolic type you are. ‘Typing’ yourself has now evolved into assessing cravings, energy levels and symptoms that can be seen in the eyes, skin, tongue and other parts of the body to assess what diet a person should follow.  

I am a Protein Type which means I do best on a high protein/high fat diet (good fats like advocado, butters, coconut butters and seeds and nuts!!) and some carbs. Who knows if I pulled my Native American ancestry when it came to genetics as ‘Protein Type’ diet is similar to the ratios of many native American groups. It is interesting that Protein Types who are not eating properly suffer anxiety and fatigue.  Who knows how much of my ‘anxiety disorder’ as a teen could be attributed to my low fat, vegetarian diet that I followed for most of my adolescence and into my twenties. Since I switched to a high fat/ high protein diet, I have never felt more mentally stable!

Below is a quick overview of the three ‘Types’. Please do not use this as your only tool to assess what ‘Type’ you are. I will provide links to a few great websites that might better assist you. 

Protein Types

Protein Types utilize fats and protein quickly. They tend to be an energetic bunch, who can be talkative and outgoing and they may be prone to anxiety, nervousness, and fatigue. They might have an overtired energy that they don’t recognize as fatigue.  They usually struggle with low-calorie, low fat diets and may suffer related health problems as a result. Protein types are hungry more often and do better to eat several small meals a day. They also usually crave salty, fatty foods like French fries, chips etc.

What should Protein Types Eat?

Meals should be 50% protein, 30% fats and 20% carbohydrates (non-starchy veggies). Starchy vegetables have too much sugar for Protein Types and may add to anxiety or restlessness. Eat oatmeal or quinoa instead of your whites (rice, potatoes, pasta) to balance your blood sugar.  

Carbohydrate Type

Carbohydrate Types require a healthy variety of carbohydrates. Personality wise they can be sometimes considered perfectionist and organized, yet sensitive. They tend to crave sweets over salty food, but don’t give in! Your craving means you need healthy carbs like fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Carbohydrate Types have weaker appetites and often have a caffeine dependency. They are more likely to struggle with their weight and part of their weight might be emotional overeating due to their sensitivity. Their weight acts like an emotional buffer from the rest of the world. These individuals often have a caffeine dependency in order to keep their energy levels up. They might do best on three meals a day because they are slow burners.

What Should Carbohydrate Types Eat?
Carbohydrate Types should eat meals that are comprised of mostly veggies, fruits and whole grains (70% carbs) and only 10% fat and 20% protein. Protein and fats can come in the form of lentils, beans and nuts. Carbohydrate Types do best on low-purine meats such as light meat. Substitute coffee and colas for green teas or matcha tea.

Mixed Types
Mixed Types are right in the middle in terms of being oxidizers and they usually have a moderate appetite and cravings for both sugar and salt. These Types usually do not struggle with their weight, but like Protein Types they can be prone to anxiety, nervousness and fatigue. 

What Should Mixed Types Eat?

Mixed Types do best on equal amounts of protein, fats and carbs—that means 33% of each for a meal. Mixed Types should eat a combination of low and full fats as well as high and low purine (dark meat and white meat) proteins. Basically Mixed Types do fine as long as they vary their diet and follow the 33% rule for fats, protein and carbs.

Links - The Metabolic Typing Diet

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/your-metabolism-type-diet

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/02/01/metabolic-typing-diet.aspx

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/02/26/metabolic-typing-part-three.aspx

http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/MetabolicType.htm

The Book – The Metabolic Typing Diet

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Metabolic-Typing-Diet-Customize/dp/0767905644

Eating and Your Ancestry

So back to ‘what should I eat?’ Firstly, if you are eating a diet comprised of mostly processed foods and sugary and salty snacks then switching to a clean foods diet is the best start you can give yourself. What does this look like? Fresh fruits and vegetables (or lightly steamed/roasted), nuts, seeds, organic meats if possible, but unprocessed, uncanned meats for certain. Limit your consumption of dairy to greek yoghurt, cottage cheese and the occasional treat. If you eat breads I would highly suggest consuming whole grain breads, preferably wheat and grain that is not genetically modified such as Ezekiel bread (more about this another time). 
 

How do you know if food is processed? Well as they say: ‘if your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize it—that is something to consider.’ Next, read the labels and packaging. If you can’t pronounce the ingredients they are a chemical *%$ storm and will make you fat, bloated, sick and moody.   

My other suggestion would be to get your hands on the book “The Metabolic Typing Diet” by researcher William Wolcott. This diet is based on seventy years of nutritional research. Dentist, Weston Price was the grandfather of this diet. In the 1930’s he did expeditions around the globe and realized there was no ideal ‘one size fits all diet’. He discovered that genetics, ethnicity, climate, local produce and environment all influenced the ‘ideal diet and health’.

This concept that what is good for one may be unhealthy for another is only logical. Let’s face it we all have different genes and some of these genes and our ‘make-up’ are a result of hundreds or thousands of years of evolution which is linked to the climate in which our ancestors lived, what was available for them to eat during particular seasons and what our overall physical lifestyle would have been. Dairy might be healthy for you, but a friend of mine has a casein allergy (milk protein). As a result she had ulceration and inflammation in her intestine (AKA - Colitis). Having removed casein she is 100% healed!! (Removing one allergen is not necessarily a cure for everyone.)

Up until the early 1900’s the Inuits were reported and studied because of the non-existence of cancer in their society. Heart disease and diabetes was also unheard of even though they consumed a high protein, high fat diet (whale blubber) and ate very little vegetables and virtually no grains. The cancer, heart disease and diabetes statistics changed within a few decades with the introduction of sugar, refined flours and alcohol. In contrast, people living in tropical climates usually had a higher vegetable and fruit intake and lower protein intake and yet they were just as healthy as the Inuit because they as well were eating right for their 'Type'. Their genetics had adapted and evolved to the climate and the food it provided over the course of hundreds or thousands of years. Therefore, some of the foods from a traditional Inuit diet might be so foreign to someone who is let’s say African, that they might experience an auto-immune response because the immune system might perceive this ‘food’ as a toxin or foreign substance.

I know you might think well maybe the answer is simply eating clean. All of these cultures ate clean, organic food right? This is true and eating clean is by far the best start possible but it’s not the only factor. Lactose intolerance is a perfect example of this. Individuals of North European descent and some people from certain areas of Africa tend to have a much lower rate of lactose intolerance because they tended to be from herding cultures. Asians on the other hand who didn't traditionally consume dairy have much higher rates of lactose intolerance.

Likewise, the high incidence of diabetes and alcoholism among Native Americans is linked to far more than a social problem. ‘Hidden’ food allergies, meaning not anaphylactic or presenting as a serious skin rash, plays a huge role. Before contact with Europeans, Native Americans had never consumed such grains as wheat, barley and oats.  As a result their body is more likely to struggle to regulate their blood sugar levels from the continuous consumption of grains that their descendants had never been exposed to since they lived mostly off corn, beans, squash, wild game and nuts.

Not only does this explain the high incidence of diabetes among Native populations but new research is showing that what you crave the most may in fact be what you are allergic to. After repeated exposure to an allergen what follows are cravings and addiction. The symptoms of withdrawal is your body craving another adrenaline rush. Adrenaline is secreted to deal with the foreign substance or allergen and while the allergen hurts your body, your brain loves the adrenaline rush. Also interesting to note is that alcoholism is lowest in countries where grains have been consumed for thousands of years (Italy, Greece and Africa). So in that sense one could have a genetic predisposition to diabetes or alcoholism but only because they are essentially eating poison as far as one’s body and ethnic-genetic make-up is concerned.

You don’t have to a rocket scientist or a nutritionist :) to know that someone from say Asia eating a Canadian diet might face certain health problems because their genetics had evolved to digest and metabolize foods that are traditional to the regions in which their ancestors lived for thousands of years. This certainly gives ‘culture shock’ a whole new meaning.

More in the next post about how to determine your ‘Type’ and what to eat.

Healthy Eating – Where Do I Begin?

This seems to be one of the most confusing aspects about health at the moment. There seems to be so many opposing philosophies on what is the ‘natural’, ‘original’ and ‘perfect’ diet for humans. What is more confusing is that each diet is backed by research and science to justify why eating this particular diet guarantees optimum health. With all of these options how can anyone be sure on the right way to eat? There are advocates of vegan diets who claim that we are not designed to eat meat. Then there is the recent Paleo diet that eliminates grain, dairy and beans and consumes enough meat to make any vegan break out in hives at the mere idea.

Diet is a controversial issue these days. It can be as risqué to discuss as religion. It is amazing how fired up some people get if you tell them you have decided to eliminate gluten or dairy, or that you eat dairy or that you only eat unpasteurized dairy. There’s the belief that no vegan can possibly be healthy and there are vegetarians who believe meat eaters are destined for heart disease and cancer. These days people defend their diet choices like that of a chosen religion and condemn others who choose another ‘way’ as being misguided; a diet different from one’s own is often viewed as ignorant and a guarantee to failing health.

For years, even as a nutritionist, I was confused as to what I should be eating. How much meat, how much protein? Were potatoes the root of all evil or unfairly labeled? After all they did sustain the Irish for hundreds of years.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers but what does make sense is the simple truth that there is no one ‘perfect diet’. Why? Because just as alternative medicine recognizes that each person is different, so then must our dietary needs be different as well. This might not seem very reassuring at first. How then can we begin to know what our individual body needs?

My first suggestion would be to listen to your body. The more you pay attention to how your body reacts when you feed it certain foods the more you will know what nourishes and what depletes your health. Pay attention to such things as mood, energy, digestion (heart burn, cramping, constipation, diarrhea), sleep, general well-being and for women changes in hormonal fluctuations and increased or decreased symptoms of PMS.

In my experience most people can’t sustain sudden and major changes in their diets or in their life. I really think baby steps is the way to go unless you feel totally committed, are an unusually determined person and/or are willing to not beat yourself up too much if you fall off the proverbial wagon. For many, small changes and small successes in healthy living will take you farther in the long run than a complete lifestyle overhaul fueled with an overzealous mania about how great life will be now that you are healthier and thinner. This latter approach is often met with feelings of complete worthlessness if you ‘fail’ and then followed by more self-destructive and unhealthy habits to numb negative feelings.  

For myself, it took five years of falling off the wagon and getting back on to completely eliminate white sugar from my diet. It took two years of failing and re-starting to commit to cutting out gluten (the odd time I still slip) and about ten years to stick to a generally clean eating diet with virtually no processed, fried or packaged foods.

So don’t be so hard on yourself! Healthy eating is a journey like anything else. Surely, you don’t expect to master a marriage or a career when you first begin. Hopefully, you realize, with a career, as a parent or with a hobby that it takes years to learn how to do it right and to figure out what works and what doesn’t. It took me years to figure out what to choose at restaurants, food courts and family socials. It took as many to know what to snack on when I had certain cravings instead of giving into them. Now while my sometimes slightly-less health dedicated husband snacks on nachos and cheese I am quite content eating cucumbers with a side of olive oil and garlic dressing or hummus. I have learned enough times that I will feel worse opting for the nachos and I feel less bloated, guilty and energetic (and sleep better) when I eat something nourishing. But this took years of failure, effort and practice. So please don’t give up!

If you change one thing about your diet to be healthier then that is a success and a step towards health.Don’t underestimate those small changes. Someday they will be huge! The small successes will motivate you to challenge yourself further. The small failures will show you where you went off your path and help you to pay attention so that you don't fall into the same traps again. You will learn to pick up a new trick to avoid the same slip-ups again. Again it might take ten of the same slip-ups before you realize how to really avoid it or you may need to get fed up enough not to allow it to happen again. The secret is patience and the challenge is being gentle and having forgiveness for yourself. 

As Winston Churchill once said, “ Never, never, never give up.”

Genetics - Your Body is Not a Lemon!!!

I know my last post appears to imply that everyone’s disease is their fault and they are all to blame. This is not what I believe for one second. In fact I think it is unfortunate that we have been sold the ‘it’s your genetics’ deal because this thinking has left us with a sense of powerlessness over our health. It is therefore no wonder that we adopt a passive attitude towards our health when we are told biology takes priority when it comes to our bodies. We are left feeling helpless.  Of course there are genetic factors that come into play, but it was Dr. Oz who assured us that our destiny is 10% our genes and 90% our lifestyle.

This means that if you don’t have a congenital abnormality but heart disease runs in your family you are not doomed. If you eat a heart healthy diet, exercise regularly and manage stress through relaxation methods you will likely have a healthier heart than people who don’t have a family history of heart disease but have a less than healthy lifestyle. The problem with ‘bad genetics’ usually happens for most of us when we have certain genetic predispositions and carry on like everyone else eating the SAD diet (Standard American Diet) and what I like to call the WAS lifestyle (Work, Anxiety and Sleeplessness).

Unless we have a rare dominant genetic predisposition most of us can turn off those genes or manage them quite well if we live a healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, what more and more research is indicating is that sometimes bad genes aren’t the real cause of diabetes, arthritis, heart disease and cancer. Bad diets run in families as do hidden food allergies, poor lifestyle habits and family dysfunction (STRESS). The CDC (a very conservative organization) has actually stated that about 80% of illnesses are caused by stress. They even go as far to say that this is a moderate estimate!

If genes were all to blame these health problems would have existed for centuries. But that’s not the case. They existed, but they weren't the leading cause of death. In the early 1900’s 1 in 33 had cancer.  By the 1950’s it had risen to 1 in 16 (this was when refined grains and processed food was introduced to the world), by the 1970s 1 in 10 had cancer and today it is 1 in 3. At the beginning of the 20^th century, heart disease was responsible for fewer than 10% of deaths. Today it is the second leading cause of death in Canada. Similarly, Type 2 diabetes was unheard of in the past as it still is today in populations that do not eat refined and processed foods. Today diabetes is on the rise--even Type 2 diabetes among children is reaching epidemic proportions. Bad genes or bad lifestyle? You decide.  

In the last few decades we have been given Passive Health Care on a silver platter by some well meaning people (and other not so well meaning people) who assure us we can trust them. Unfortunately, we’ve gotten sicker. But if we focus on blame we are still not focusing on the cure: Prevention. This is about growth from the naïveté that we ever expected processed food to be equal to the Earth’s Harvest.  How did we ever think that mass produced farming could ever be equal to locally grown organic food? How did we ever think that adding chemicals to our food supply (and everything else for that matter) would ever be anything but a recipe for disaster?

We have learned what happens when we don’t question what is going into our food. We are each responsible for our health. Responsibility has gotten a bad rap as being a boring, burdensome thing, but if taking responsibility for our body means a healthier, happier life then that is empowerment! 

Active Health Care is responsibility. Active Health Care is empowerment. If we want to feel better, we have to choose better, we have to eat better and we have to live better.  

To your own journey towards Health!


In Health and Wholeness,

Lorraine

Active Heath Care - An Age-Old Idea

It is no secret that people today are more unhealthy than they have ever been considering our overall economic affluence. If you listen to the radio or watch the news, there is always a new statistic about how diabetes among children is increasing, that cancer is now the leading cause of death and that 1 in every 50 children are autistic. While it is tragic that such a prosperous country is so unhealthy, I also believe this ‘national health crisis’ is the precise reason why there is a resurgence of health conscious people. The natural health industry is exploding. Now that is something to hope for.

People are slowly, but finally waking to the fact that they are the drivers when it comes to their health. Not only are they choosing healthier foods to eat, they are even questioning the Canadian food guide, they are asking what is in their food as well as how it is processed and packaged. We as a people are realizing that we are largely the creators of our health. This wild and beautiful idea of taking responsibility for your health has a name and it’s been around for awhile; it is called Active Health Care.

Obviously, we all know smoking is not a great way to avoid lung cancer and eating at McDonald’s each day is not heart healthy. Yet the idea that serious diseases like cancer or heart disease is anything but a result of the ‘genetic lottery’ never occurred to many of us until now. We believed health or disease happened to us and the doctor would take care of our health—or lack thereof. This is Passive Health Care. Seeking out professional advice or treatment is one thing. But when we do not take an active role in nurturing the unique and individual needs of our bodies we are setting ourselves up for a life of chronic health issues. When we teach Sex Ed to students the common mantra is ‘Your body, your responsibility.” We need to remember the same is true of overall health—not simply avoiding STI’s and unplanned pregnancies.  

Several years ago I was doing some research about health care in the 1930’s and this is where I came across the terms Active and Passive Health Care. I was amazed and inspired to read how much our philosophy towards health care has changed. In the 1930’s, people regarded health as one of the great blessings in life and one which needed to be protected dearly. Health was prayed for and offered as a blessing constantly, whether it was a short journey, a wedding toast or a New Year. Watch the old movies or read any historical fiction and you will quickly see how closely one guarded their health. Before the mainstream medical community came into power in the 1930’s, the prevailing philosophy was that the individual was the main caretaker of their health and they had to have an active role in their own healthcare. They sought out a doctor only when they had exhausted all of their active healthcare tools.  

Before free health care was readily available throughout Canada a doctor’s visit was extremely costly for most people. More than that however, people took more responsibility for their health because they understood that not doing so could cost them their job (in a time when there were no unions or social assistance) and they could therefore lose their house, their farm, everything they worked for, even their children—not to mention their life. Children and young adults alike could die from a seemingly innocent illness like a flu or cold if they did not take care right away. If they had a cold or flu, they stayed home and rested up instead of going out. They didn’t have the luxury of modern medicine, its antibiotics and other medical advances to fall back on.

Taking responsibility for their health was their only choice. I used to volunteer at a home for the elderly. If you have ever had the privilege of spending any amount of time with old people you will have heard (sometimes annoyingly) their snippets of precautions not to go out with wet hair, to make sure you wear a hat, to stay in and rest up instead of overworking yourself and to make sure you eat your vegetables or your chicken soup. What seems like unnecessary fussing and paranoia to us was precaution, responsibility and common sense to them. As an advocate of Active Health Care I can now appreciate that the elderly have a wisdom, a sense of personal accountability for their health that I had never considered as a child or young adult. I had been raised in the generation of Passive Health Care, as had my parents generation--but to a lesser extent.

As far as most of us are concerned health is really not something that we think about—until it is failing. Most of us view health as a random ‘happening’.  If we come down with a flu or cold many of us carry on (taking our Neo Citron and Gravol) knowing if things get really bad we can always see our family doctor or visit the emergency room at no additional cost. Unfortunately, we don’t just have this attitude with minor things like the cold and flu. We have this attitude with all matters of health today. Most of us don’t worry about becoming deathly ill because the fact is that most of us don’t die prematurely.  No, it seems today we have a different beast. We become chronically ill.  We have a vast array of disorders that were practically unheard of until recent times. Ask any elderly person if there was the epidemic of auto-immune disorders in their time. If you don't find them to be a reliable source of information. Look at the statistics. These days it seems everyone has something, whether it is IBS, Crohns, Diabetes, MS, Lupus, Fibromyalgia, Autism, Infertility, ADHD, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome—need I continue?

Thankfully, we are at a crossroads and many of us are choosing Active Health Care as we buy real food over processed food, choose Yoga and Zumba over TV and practice preventative measures instead of running for the cure. We are learning that it is no accident that as our food became more processed and our lifestyles more toxic our overall health as a nation declined as well. It seems that the old dead Greek philosopher, Hippocrates, from centuries ago had something right when he said “Let food by thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”