Feelin' 2:30

The past two posts have been on eating based on your metabolic type. Eating the foods that are right for your body’s metabolic type has long-term and short-term effects. Remember, metabolic typing is a holistic healing approach and does not treat symptoms.  The long-term effects of eating right for your metabolic type is that your overall health improves. Sleep, digestion, skin quality, weight loss, better performce and increased vitality are just a few of the benefits. 

But eating right for you metabolic type has immediate effects and can help you fine tune the diet to your body’s needs.

Immediately after a meal, you should feel:
Satisfied – neither hungry or stuffed
Feel emotionally balanced
Good mental focus
Normal levels of energy
No cravings for sweets
No cravings for more food

If you feel this way after most meals you are eating the right mix of nutrients for your body.

But what if you are not? Well here are a few clues to let you know how to adjust your diet.

Do you feel:
Headache
Anxiety
Jittery/hyper energy
Difficulty concentrating
Still hungry even though just ate
Crave sweets
Crave protein and/or fats

If you are experiencing the above, you are probably eating too many carbohydrates.

If you feel:
Lethargic
Mentally sluggish
Heavy gut
You feel full but still hungry
Crave sweets
Crave caffeine

If you feel these you probably ate too much fat or protein.

Choosing foods that are best for your metabolic type is more than just a quick fix diet. It’s about feeling great and performing well each and every day. If you’re an athlete, parent, teacher, accountant, or whatever you do, you need to be at your best. Don’t cheat yourself by eating low quality food.

Eating in terms of being on a diet is about deprivation. Eating in terms of being healthy is about treating your body with respect. You only get one body, one vehicle to take your around day in and day out. It’s your choice how you want it to run.  Carpe Diem!

Well, I am going to try to keep this simple so the details don’t get intimidating. I want you to focus on the excitement of eating foods that are best for your body, not trying to decipher the science behind it. But if you want to know more, my advice is to work with a metabolic typing advisor or read the book “The Metabolic Typing Diet“.

The best way to describe the metabolic types is in terms of fires. A protein type is a big fire, mixed type  a medium fire, and carb types a small fire. Macronutrients can be described as fats being big logs, protein being medium sticks, and carbs being twigs. Metabolic typing is about keeping the fire balanced. (Or achieving homeostasis for your body.)

So you took the quiz and you’re a blazin’ fire protein type.  What would be the best type of wood (macronutrients) for your body’s metabolic fire?  Carbs (the small sticks) would burn to quickly and your fire would fizzle out.  So to keep your fire burning strong and even you need more big logs and medium logs.  Eating a diet higher in protein and fat is ideal for your body to keep your metabolism high and your cravings curbed.  Protein types want to start with 70% of their diet coming from fats and proteins and 30% from carbohydrates.  From here, you need to adjust based on how you feel.   Here is a list of the best foods for a protein type.

Carb types have a smaller fire.  This does not mean a slower metabolism.  It just means that your cells oxidize nutrients differently than protein types.  If you would eat a lot of fat (big logs) you would smother your fire and put it out.  A carb type does much better on a diet that is low-fat and higher in quality carbohydrates.  So putting more small sticks (carbs) on the fire is better.  You’ll feel comfortably full and sugar cravings are gone.  Carb types should start at 65% carbohydrates in their diet, 25% protein, and 10% fat.  Again, this is just a starting point.  You need to adjust based on how you feel.    Here’s a list of foods that are best for a carb type.

The mixed type is tricky.  You need to play around with foods from each group.  You may do better on the heavier meats of a protein type, but need more fruit.  So there is no complete list for a mixed type.  Again, your body will let you know by how it feels. 

But how should I feel?  Well next week I will write about how you should and should not feel after a meal.  And what you need to do to adjust.  Keep track of these reactions and you can begin to figure out what ratios of macronutrients work best for you body.  YOUR BODY KNOWS BEST!  Listen and let it guide you to health.

Or maybe this is your scenario.  You just got hooked on yoga.  You love it and want to become more involved in your practice and increase your health.  Some of your yoga buddies are vegetarians and are lean and healthy.  They feel awesome and suggest that you become a vegetarian.  You meet them most of the way but you do have chicken breast a couple of times a week for dinner.  Healthy food is your focus, but now that you have become semi-vegetarian your sugar cravings are intense.  Seriously, you elbowed someone out-of-the-way at the vending machine so you could get some swedish fish.  You’re also hungry all the time and never feel full or satisfied.  Not good, because you want to lose weight and are getting in a bunch more calories than you need.  But your fellow vegetarians feel so great.  So what’s the deal?  You just beat yourself up for not being disciplined enough to follow the diet.  

Over the years as a trainer I was puzzled on how some of my clients did awesome on a low carb diet and how others did well on a low-fat diet.  How was I to figure out what nutritional approach was best?  So I began to research and stumbled upon the Chek institute and Dr Mercola’s website.  Both these talked about the nutritional/health approach of Metabolic Typing.  Hmmmmm…..Sounds fancy.  So I decided to buy the book the “Metabolic Typing Diet” by William Wilcott and Trisha Fahey.  

What I loved about Metabolic Typing right off the back was that it was a holistic approach.  It looked at healing the body as a whole and not based on symptoms.  Most conventional diets just look at weight loss and restrict calories/foods/and whatever else just in the purpose of weight loss.  Even though weight loss can be influenced by numerous factors such as stress, parasite infections, mercury toxicity, insulin sensitivity, emotional needs and more.  

The evolution of Metabolic Typing is quite historic and began its roots in great classical medical traditions from Greece, Rome, China and India. As Lucretius the Roman healer and philosopher stated 

“One man’s food is another man’s poison.” 

Metabolic Typing is looks at biochemical individuality.  We’re all different and unique, so it’s a one-size-fits all approach doesn’t work.  Now the details behind metabolic typing can be a little overwhelming.  You can be autonomic dominant or oxidative dominant.  Based on those results you can be either sympathetic dominant or parasympathetic dominant or fast oxidizer or slow oxidizer.  And then we can go a little further and uncover more about your unique biochemistry.  

Now there are three metabolic types.  There are the protein types, mixed types and carbo types.  When you find out your metabolic type, you’ll have to fine tune because every metabolic type can vary based on temperature, your activity level and genetics.  

Well, I know what you’re wondering.  How do I figure out my metabolic type?  Well the best way is to work with a Chek Practitioner (I’m one) or a Metabolic Typing Advisor (coming soon).  This will be the best to help you fine tune your nutritional needs.  But in the Metabolic Typing Diet book there is a great questionnaire to start.  It’s a short quiz of 65 questions that can help you determine your metabolic type.  The tricky part is most people have a hard time answering the questions.  Seriously, most people are clueless how they feel when they eat certain foods.  Makes it kinda tough.  But my advice is that if you aren’t quite sure how you feel with certain foods experiment.  See how you feel after eating a breakfast of eggs, bacon or buttered toast?  

There is also some free online quizzes that can help you get a step forward on your metabolic type.  Note, with these online quizzes you may not get the exact type you are.  So take these with a grain of salt.  Have fun and see what you can learn about yourself.  

http://www.lowcarbnz.co.nz/Story/metabolic_type.htm 

 Next week I’ll go into the metabolic types with more detail.  I’ll discuss the different dietary needs of each type so you can see who different our dietary needs can be.  

Strength training has so many positive benefits from improved body composition to functional and structural improvements.

Here are a few reasons strength training is so important.

Our body is composed of fat mass and lean mass. When you have your body fat analyzed they are comparing these two components. Fat mass is less metabolically active and puts a strain on our vital organs. Ideally, we want to minimize our fat mass and maximize our lean mass. How do we do that? By strength training. Lean mass is more metabolically active and can boost your metabolism. Doing this can help you to lose weight or maintain your body weight with less effort. As we age, we lose muscle mass, so it is more important to strength train as we get older.

Speaking of metabolism, strength training sessions also boost your metabolism for the next 48 hours. So basically, busting out some strength exercises will help you burn more calories after the session. (Awesome) Slow cardio sessions do not offer this effect to the extent that strength training sessions do.

Strength training is super great for increasing bone density. Especially lifts that utilize axial loading. (over head) Lifts that load your spine, stimulate osteoblasts to build more bone. If you are concerned with osteoporosis, you better get your lift on.

Strength training also has a much more anabolic effect on our bodies. Anabolic means building up, catabolic means breaking down. Many situations in our lives are catabolic, which contributes to breaking down our body. Can we say stress, poor nutrition, lake of sleep, constantly going, and so many other things keep breaking us down. For so many of us, we have way too many catabolic factors going on in our lives and way to few anabolic activities. Having too many catabolic activities can produce too much cortisol and stress out our adrenal glands. Once we start to stress out our adrenals, other parts of our endocrine system feels the back lash. Other anabolic activities include rest, naps, eating good food, down time, less toxins and more.

Strength training is essential to making postural or functional corrections. Finding the relationship between what muscles are tight and what muscles are weak can add in retraining an area on your body to work more efficiently. If you happen to have rounded shoulders, strength training along with stretching can fix that. Pretty cool!

Many endurance athletes don’t lift. And trust me, I know it’s hard when you have a full schedule. But strength training is vital for injury prevention. When you are pounding the pavement, taking repetitive steps that can take a toll on your body. Now, add in a biomechanical inefficiency and now you have incorrect pounding over and over again. Strength training can help correct that. Also it can help you be a more powerful athlete. When I was racewalking, working my glutes was essential to being strong, fast, and not fatigued in the long races.

And that leads to my final reason, strength training makes you STRONG! I did not say bulky ladies. I said strong. How nice is it to lift heavy objects and not hurt your back? Also, to be able to walk around state fair for hours and not be sore? What about picking up grandkids? You need strength to keep up with those crazy kids. Being a strong human is so great to help make our lives easier and fuller. It stinks to be limited by how strong you are. Sorry can’t go walk up hills on a hike because I get too sore and fatigued. Darn, can’t go indoor rock climbing with my family. Get strong so you do not have any CAN’Ts in your face. This is your life and it is time to live it to the fullest.

Wild workouts are a great way to get strength training in, with fun people, and outside. Wild Workouts will help make your life my functional, enjoyable, and will have you saying I CAN to so many more things.

And the question you should be asking me is “Why did it take you so long?” And I don’t have an answer for you. Over the years that I have been in the health and fitness field, the more I saw that the “conventional nutrition” advise was bunk and confusing. And unfortunately many of us (me included) bought into the mainstream ideas of what healthy eating is. And what happened? Well Americans reaped the aftermath of this by getting sicker, more tired and more over weight.

And the media puts a lot of pressure on us. Heck, their marketing is so good they make high fructose corn syrup look like a staple to a healthy diet.

As I am passionate about finding out the truth about healthy eating and living, I realized that I need to back organizations that support these ideals.

Money is a powerful statement. It’s green energy and can get things moving. Supporting organizations like Weston A Price, joining local chapters, buying direct from farmers, growing your own food, shopping organic and local can make a huge impact.

You just need to ask yourself what’s important to you. Is your health and vitality? Is supporting local businesses? Is the health of your children? Is it having less pain? Is feeling awesome everyday and energetic? Find out your reason for change and let it fuel your fire to make a difference. I know, it may seem difficult to make all these changes at once. But start small. Start with being educated. That’s why I am writing this blog and evolving Wild Workouts and Wellness.

The president of Weston A Price, Sally Fallon is super smart and has tons of research and articles on the website. She has also wrote two amazing books “Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats” and “Eat Fat, Lose Fat”. You can become more involved with your health journey by becoming more educated. Dive in. And if there are more topics you want to learn about, just let me know. I am here to get the word out!

The Weston A Price Website articles covering many topics for you to read. Not up for reading? Well then check out Underground Wellness Radio. This is a great resource to get exposure to many different health topics. The nice thing is that you can listen to this while you’re doing other things. So instead of having the TV on when you are home, listen to a past episode. Or even when you’re working out listen to it on I-Tunes. Put some good stuff into your brain while doing your other daily tasks.

So I am pretty excited to finally step up and support an organization that I totally believe in. Something so small really makes me feel good. And feeling good and being happy is important to being healthy.

How awesome is this?

And where do you go next? Do you buy another diet book and add your collection? Or maybe do you try something different. Maybe you give up on conventional diets? Instead of starving you could feel satisfied. Or heck, maybe you could even amp up your metabolism and weight loss could be EASY?? Wait a second, I just used weight loss and easy in the same sentence, this sounds like an infomercial for some product.

It’s not.

I was the same way when I started being concerned about nutrition. I went on my first diet when I was 15 years old. The cabbage soup diet. (I had a pageant, and of course I felt I had to drop a few more pounds quick.) But from that moment on I was very concerned about food and my weight. So I started to read about and try different diets. At first is was everything fat free. (And of course that took it’s toll. Stories on that later.) And I did mini meals, low carb, vegetarian, calorie counting, weight watchers, and I’ve lost track.  And my library at home can show it. Because of course I own a ton of diet and nutrition books.  Some useful, some that collect dust. 

And when I was in college, I learned about calories in versus calories out. And burn more calories and eat less. That’s how to lose weight. Right?  So of course we think, if I workout for hours (burn lots of calories) and eat only 1200 calories a day I will lose tons of weight.  Oh, I think that’s the premise for a popular TV show.  And of course there’s no metabolic reprocutions at all.  Right. 

And after school when I started training people I bought into this mainstream information. I wrote meal plans and I calculated calories for everyone. I told everyone to eat chicken breasts, lean meats, and fat free products. As the years went on, I started to see the effects of different diets on people and I started to explore different nutritional approaches. And now, I find myself liking a mixed approach. Here are the following approaches that I feel work best when identifying someones nutritional needs to optimize their health and body compostion:

1) Metabolic Typing
2) Gluten Free/Dairy Free Eating

3) Weston A Price/Traditional Diets (Ancient diets)

4) Conscious Eating

Those four combined I think really encompass what I value in approaching nutrition. None of the above deal with calorie counting. All the approaches look at listening to your body and healing it first. Because excess body weight is not the problem, it is a symptom.

I’m not going to go into detail about all the above. Those will come in upcoming posts. But I want to give you a challenge and help you start healing your body.

Now ideally, if you all knew your metabolic type that is where you would start. But if you don’t, then this is what my challenge is for you:

For two weeks rid the following things from your diet:

1) The White Devils: White Flour, Sugar, and Processed Dairy
2) Gluten
3) Artificial Sweetners

What do you add in?

1) Eat all whole real foods. Use butter, coconut oil, and healty fats.
2) Make sure to eat plenty of vegetables.
3) Eat whole eggs and chicken with the skin on. (Well, if you like the skin).

EAT FOOD IN THEIR MOST NATURAL STATE.

Start with this. And see how your body feels. How do you sleep at night? How are your cravings? Don’t worry about the weight loss at first. For many of you, I’m sorry to say but you have had years of damage. You’ve dieted like crazy and you need to heal your metabolism. But trust me, if you get away from a fear of fat and begin to nourish your body. I think you will be surprised how good you feel!

Are you ready for this two week challenge?

It’s summer time and I am not feelin’ cooked vegetables. That’s why all these cold salads rock. Plus, it’s easy just to throw on your plate and eat!!

1/2 head a purple cabbage

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

1 zucchini chopped

3/4 c of gluten free mayonnaise (or make your own recipe coming soon)

1 tablespoon mustard (I like a brown type mustard)

sea salt and pepper

Put cabbage and carrots in the food processor and grate it. Toss these the grated cabbage and carrots into a bowl. Add in the zucchini.

In a separate bowl mix mayonnaise and mustard. Take this mix and add to your veggies. Then add sea salt and pepper.

Enjoy!

Guess what veggies I just got from the farm in my CSA box. Tired of lettuce salads? The try some other chopped veggie versions of salads. This is super easy and quick. Just make it and put it in the fridge for a bit.

1 cucumber chopped

1 cup of chopped tomatoes

2 to 3 tbsps of olive oil

1 to 2 cloves garlic

Sea Salt and Pepper to taste

1 to 2 tbsps of herbs (usually the Italian seasoning is awesome. In this salad I used the herbs I am growing in my house: oregano, parsley and basil)

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Put in the fridge for at least an hour, but a little longer is better so the flavors can mix up.

Other add ins: red onion, diced avocado, or celery. Get creative and entertain your taste buds.

People are frustrated and the idea of being healthy and fit seems like a mystery.  And I empathize with so many people.  I too, used to buy into calorie counting and the millions of diet fads around.  There had to be an easy way to feel energized and maintain a healthy weight. And I tried it all.  Calorie counting, small meals, low-fat, low-calorie, and endless products.  But as I tried and researched different ways of nutrition that’s when I came across traditional eating, the caveperson way.   

So called healthy diets that I had tried in the past always resulted in me starving and struggling to get through the day. And the result a few pounds being shed off that usually ended up returning once I couldn’t take it anymore. Many of the so-called ”foods” we eat today are overly processed and lacking in nutrition.  Diet sodas, microwaved meals, boxed foods, and everything convenient has taken its tole on society.  What can we expect?  We put low quality foods in our bodies and that we should look amazing a feel full of energy.  Please.  And it’s not like we’re treking miles, hunting and gathering our food or building shelter.  We’re sitting at desks all day. 

So maybe we should take a hint from our ancient ancestors who died of animal attacks not obesity.  We need to bring our nutrition back to basics.  The paleo diet focuses on meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts, fats and oils.  Avoiding grains, legumes, and dairy. (However, I do think butter is part of a healthy diet.) 

If you have been frustrated on standard american diet and weight loss programs, why not give something else a try.  Don’t think after 20 failed attempts that the 21st time is going to work.  Think about it…most of the food we find in supermarkets today, didn’t exist 50 years ago, let alone 10,000 years ago just before the agricultural revolution. So do you want to feel energetic, thrive through your days, remain full and satisfied at all times, while eating delicious foods? Then I would recommend that you go traditional caveperson diet and start enjoying foods that nature intended you to eat. 

I’ll be posting paleo recipes on this blog and writing articles to assist you in achieving health and weight loss natures way.  So why not go for it and achieve the body and live the life you always wanted.