Metabolic Typing
Do you eat to fuel your body, or do you eat based upon some internal belief system, in spite of what your body is attempting to communicate to you?
As an athlete, you have high expectations of performance, both on the field, and off. You expose your body to high levels of physical and mental/emotional stress in training and in competition. The last thing you want to experience is your body and/or mind not living up to those expectations.
Regardless of your sport or activity, you want, you need, to set yourself up for success. The foundation for this success, and health in general, is nutrition.
Your body consists of tens of trillions of individual cells. They make up the muscles that move you and the brain/nervous system that communicates with those muscles, along with everything else which allows these systems to function together.
The health and function of these cells is paramount. These cells don’t require direction. At the DNA level, they contain a health program that is just waiting to execute and manifest. What they require is the trigger; the material, or fuel that drives the machinery contained within.
That fuel is derived from the food you eat. I am referring to nutritional building blocks; amino acids, sugars, fatty-acids, vitamins, minerals, trace elements, phyto-nutrients, enzymes, etc. When your cells have access to the appropriate kinds and amounts of nutrients, they can function as designed and flourish.
Consider how much time, energy and resources you have devoted to training, memberships, equipment, coaches, etc. Regardless of whether you are a novice or pro, you are asking more of your body/mind on a daily basis than most. You have to support the habit to ensure your goals and dreams come true.
Now that I have your attention, let’s get to the important information that you want to know. What should I eat?
I hate to say it, it is not that simple. There is no one perfect diet for everyone, but everyone has a perfect diet unique to them.
Consider the number “diets” today; Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescetarian (fish, no other meats), Kangatarian (Australian vegetarian plus kangaroo), Cookie diet, Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach, Ketogenic, Beverly Hills, Subway, Kosher, Seventh-day Adventist, DASH, Gluten-Free, Paleo, Low-FODMAP, Blood Type, Fit for Life, etc. The list is huge and continues to grow.
What do these all have in common? They all claim to be the right diet for you!
What else do they have in common? They lack consistent short-term, much less long-term results. You have seen this in action. You and two friends start the same diet. One responds immediately, feeling energized, improved focus, and they become leaner. Your other friend feels nothing–no better, no worse. And you feel worse, definitely worse. Your energy tanks, you can’t think clearly, and you may be getting a bit softer and slower.
Same diet, three different results. The problem is not you, it is the diet. It is does not elicit the same response in multiple people because of biochemical individuality.
If you consider the people around you, what do you notice? Everyone is different! There are psychological differences, external physical differences, internal physiological/biochemical differences even differences in cellular metabolism. We are as unique on a biochemical or metabolic level as we are in our fingerprints!
There never was, nor will there ever be, another person alive exactly like you.
If there exists infinite diversity in metabolic individuality, how is it possible that there exists, one diet that is right for everyone? Common sense, much less practical observation, proves this true.
You can look to the past, specifically the work of Dr. Weston A. Price (Nutrition & Physical Degeneration, 1939). Dr. Price travelled the world investigating indigenous populations. He discovered multi-generational, active, healthy, long-living populations free of chronic disease (cancer, diabetes, CVD, mental fragility), even cavities, each thriving on tremendously varied diets.”
The Masai subsisted on a diet of pure protein, mainly meat, blood and milk with up to 300g/day of fat. This is very similar to the Inuit, whose fat rich fish and blubber diet included practically no vegetables or greens.
The Aborigines, on the other hand, ate a diet high in carbohydrates and protein, but extremely low in fat. Their neighbors, the Maori, ate a high protein, low carb diet, mainly fish, fatty pork, kelp and roots.
Southern Europeans were largely lactose intolerant, while the Samburus of East Africa managed to consume some 10 liters of full-fat milk a day.
Eating real whole foods, grown or raised the way nature intended is important. These populations also thrived without modern supplementation. As a side note, this research was performed before the influx of harmful synthetic toxins, fertilizers, pesticides and other manmade chemical concoctions. Plus, modern society bombards us daily with stressors never experienced before.
What is important is recognizing that there exists no one whole food right for everyone, nor is there one whole food wrong for everyone. The key to success is understanding the nutritional requirements your body (cells) requires and meeting those needs.
The following describes compares “your perfect diet” to modern dieting trends.
Your perfect diet sounds pretty good, but does it exist? Actually, yes! What I practice personally and coach to my clients is a method of eating developed and fine-tuned by Bill Wolcott over the past 40 years. It’s called Metabolic Typing® (MT). Bill’s method is the true Metabolic Typing® as noted by the ® mark. Don’t be fooled by imitators.
What’s unique about MT is that it’s a method of eating according to your body’s genetically determined needs. Bill’s work is not only his own, it is based upon the shoulders of many giants in the nutritional and wellness fields such as Rudolph Wiley, Emanuel Revici, Melvin Page and Roger Williams to name a few. I have included a list of resources at the end.
Metabolic Typing® can create an environment where you:
Lose unwanted weight (fat) and/or gain wanted lean tissue
Improve mental clarity and cognitive function
Reduce mental fragility (anxiety, depression, quick to anger, etc.)
Reduce inflammation
Increase energy levels
Slow the aging process
Balance hormones
Decrease digestive complaints
Enhance immune function
Improve physical performance
Strengthen your body’s natural defenses to life’s daily stressors
A body/mind that has accomplished the above is more than capable of performing at a high level, and more important, it can recover in a timely manner and do so time after time.
You may be thinking, “This sounds too good to be true!” and “Why haven’t I heard of this?” It is unfortunate that, in spite of Bill’s efforts, word has not spread to the degree it is needed by society. But the principles are showing up in modern research, just not referred to as MT. Allow me to offer a few examples:
We have a NY Times article published December 18, 2018, “Is There an Optimal Diet for Humans?”
National Geographic published “The Evolution of Diet: Could eating like our ancestors make us healthier?”
There is this report from the Genetics Society of America (July 13, 2016) through Science Daily, “Your best diet might depend on your genetics.”
This last piece is from TedX, “What is the best diet for humans.”
It should be obvious that modern “dieting” is not hitting the mark. If you get the results you want, even short term, it is more due to luck than it being based in science.
Ask yourself again,
Do you eat to fuel your body, or do you eat based upon some internal belief system, in spite of what your body is attempting to communicate to you?
Bruce Fife, CN, ND said, “All disease starts at the cellular level.” The opposite is also true. So does health. Health starts at the cellular level!
Regardless of your health challenge or performance issue, any treatment or protocol must embrace the fact that the underlying causal factor is a cellular one. As everything in the body is composed of cells, dysfunctional cells equal a dysfunctional organism no matter how you wish to look at it. A dysfunctional organism cannot perform at elevated levels for any period of time without repercussions.
The human body requires nutrition. The purpose of food is to act as a carrier to get the needed nutrients into the body. The purpose of eating is to get that food into the body. We can take this further and consider the implications of poor digestion, poor absorption (“leaky gut”), even poor assimilation from previous damage and exposure to toxins. While I can and do address these concerns, eating appropriate real whole foods for your genetically-based nutritional needs is step one.
You can’t out-exercise or out-supplement an inappropriate diet or lifestyle. At best you can postpone the inevitable, but you can’t prevent the inevitable!
Food is Foundational. Food is far more than just calories and even the nutrients contained within. Eating according to your Metabolic Type® can accomplish many great things:
Restore functional efficiency
Achieve peak performance
Obtain optimal health
Unfold genetic potential
Food is our most powerful “drug”. Every food contains hundreds of known biochemical compounds. By eating, we “medicate” ourselves, two, three or more times every day. Food is also a dual-edged sword. Does it act as our “medicine” or our “poison”? The right food can heal you, while the wrong food can kill you. Food is foundational in determining whether we manifest health or disease. It is a primary component for adaptation to stress and building and/or maintaining health. The wrong food is also a primary stressor in the failure to adapt which leads us to manifest disease.
Do keep in mind that disease or the signs and symptoms of health challenges, are not the “problem” that requires treatment. Diseases and symptoms are actually just the outer, superficial expressions of the cellular dysfunction. It is the person that has the “disease,” not the “disease” itself, that must be treated.
Metabolic Typing® makes sense out of all this and more. In simplest terms, Metabolic Typing®
Analyzes, evaluates and interprets objective physiological and biochemical indicators along with symptomatology (“body language”)
Uncovers the basis or cause for degenerative conditions
Reveals unique responses to foods and nutrients in each person
Allows for the specific design of individual-specific (not disease specific) protocols to address metabolic individuality and optimize health
Without identifying and understanding one’s Metabolic Type®, making predictable, reliably effective food selection is not possible. Any success of a therapeutic protocol or any diet for that matter, is mostly due to chance, not objective predictability.
While this may appear complicated, in reality, it isn’t. You already make daily choices regarding what and how you eat. Metabolic Typing® supplies a more concrete reasoning behind those choices. Change is inevitable when you alter the variables, in this case, food. Basing those changes on science, research and actual field tested results greatly increases the likelihood of success.
Here is a peek at what you are going to discover and learn during the Metabolic Typing® program:
What your Metabolic Type® is, how your body breaks down food and utilizes it for energy and to drive cellular function
What the best, most appropriate foods for your metabolism (type) are
How to plan and build meals that support your metabolism
How to ensure optimal blood sugar management
How to fine-tune your diet, taking advantage of the innate wisdom inside you
Learn about “Program Enhancers” that support, stimulate, and assist healing
Learn about “Blocking Factors” which impede healing
How to enjoy eating without guilt and negative consequence
Background Resources
Metabolic Typing® was created and implemented by Bill Wolcott over 40 years ago. It is based upon his observations and the research of other great minds. References can be made to the research of:
George Watson’s - Nutrition And Your Mind . Harper and Row, 1972
Rudolph Wiley’s - Biobalance . Life Science Press, 1989
Emanuel Revici’s - Research in Physiopathology as a Basis of Guided Chemotherapy . New York, 1961
Francis Pottenger’s - Symptoms of Visceral Disease . C.V. Mosby, 1919
Melvin Page’s - Degeneration-Regeneration . Biochemical Research Foundation, 1949
Weston A. Price’s - Nutrition and Physical Degeneration . Price-Pottenger Foundation, 1945
Roger William’s - Biochemical Individuality . Wiley & Sons, 1956
Royal Lee - Protomorphology: The Principles of Cell Auto-Regulation . Lee Foundation, 1947
Gerson, Max - A Cancer Therapy . Dura Books, 1958
William D. Kelley - The Metabolic Types . Kelley Foundation, 1976
Disclaimer: Michael Olesky, Transformational Health Coaching, Personal Training and the Healthexcel System of Metabolic Typing® does not treat disease, but rather seeks to build health and balance body ecology through a non-specific metabolic therapy, i.e., properly evaluating, identifying and addressing each person’s biochemical individuality, thus unleashing the body’s natural, inherent and powerful capabilities for restoration, rejuvenation and radiant good health, preprogrammed into every one of the body’s 10’s of trillions of cells - a state far beyond that of being merely free of disease and symptoms.