You Are What Your Grandmother Eats!
By: Aram Ovsepian
No longer just another catchy phrase or clever slogan, You are what you eat! is now accepted as a too true commentary on the human condition. Physical and emotional. Garbage in, garbage out.
But Im going to rev it up another level and tell you, You are also what your grandmother eats. And hers before her. And hers. And on and on, ad infinitum. Its not really a new idea, but its one that is garnering a lot of attention in the diet, nutrition and fitness industries. And rightfully sobecause its true.
Its called Metabolic Typing and its the missing link between why one nutrition plan works perfectly for Jane but not for Jan. Why Mike gains energy and loses weight while eating lots of carbs, but Mac packs on the pounds and falls asleep right after dinner.
Perhaps Metabolic Typing is also the key to this weeks startling headline on low-fat diets. The largest study of its kind, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, working with 49,000 older women, over a substantial period of 8 years, showed no difference in the incidence of heart disease, breast and colon cancer between the women eating low-fat diets and those consuming regular portions of fat.
OK, so what is this Metabolic Typing and how does it work? Simply stated, Metabolic Typing determines the proper ratio of fats, proteins and carbohydrates that YOUR body needs for YOU to feel, look and perform at your peak. Its what your natural genetic makeup requires to fight disease and even reverse some medical conditions. And its all based on heredityyours. Your genes. From which part of the world your parents originated. What your ancestors ate. Starting to make sense, isnt it?
Lets connect a few dots.
In the early1930s, Weston A. Price, DDS, wanted to learn why Americans suffered from such severe tooth decay and gum disease. So he undertook an incredible journey to study the nutritional patterns of isolated primitive peoplesliving on indigenous foods. These primitive people, from Alaskan Eskimos to Australian Aborigines, tribesmen of Africa to natives of the South Sea Isles and the traditional American Indians, were said to be among the healthiest and most structurally sound in the world. And they were also untouched by the refined and processed foods of modern civilization.
No chips or fries, no hot dogs, chili dogs, corn dogs or Coke. No Sloppy Joes or Cheese and Mac. No pizza, pasta or Philly Cheesesteak and pass the Pepto please. The results, published, with photos, in his ground-breaking book of 1938, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, were remarkable.
While these tribes, from remote areas of the world, followed diets that were radically divergent (although all diets included animal fat, some ate only fish, some only meat; some ate no fruits and vegetables while other diets were primarily plant-based, etc.) they ALL had almost perfect teeth and palettes, well-developed skeletal structures and facial bonesand no degenerative disease! Now thats a dot we would all like to connect to.
Going one step further, once a modern diet of refined sugar, white flour, vegetable oils and processed foods (with preservatives, additives, antibiotics, etc.) was introduced to these remote peoples, tooth decay and degenerative disease became rampant! But when they were, once again, removed from their lifestyle, so were the dental caries and heart disease and cancer and diabetes and arthritis andDOT, DOT, DOT.
Dr. Price presented irrefutable evidence that you are, indeed, what you eat and that you better eat what grandma ate because that is the diet best suited to your genetic needs. Your body chemistry. And your ancestral environment and lifestyle,
By the way, while the dots were scattered all across the world, from humid rainforests to arctic icebergs; and while the Eskimos needed fat and the natives of the tropics needed carbohydrates, and so on, ALL the dots were connected by the devastating effects of the refined sugar, white flour and processed foods of modern civilization. Thats right, no more Twinkies for you - no matter where your parents came from!
Your introduction to the basics of Metabolic Typing (and this is, after all, only an introduction) would not be complete without this important caveat: remember that we live in the great melting pot. Identifying and isolating your exact genetic background is difficult, at best. Body structure and characteristics also helps in the typing but environment, lifestyle, activity level, food preferences and more all play a pivotal role. Most people will need a little technical assistance in learning their true Metabolic type and in creating the ideal diet plan to nurture it.
Being true to yourself and knowing where youre coming from has just taken on a whole new meaning! And it will offer you a lifetime of good health and total well-being.
Aram Ovsepian is a certified Personal Trainer, Corrective Exercise Specialist, Nutrition and Lifestyle Coach. He is available for phone consultations
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