Metabolic Typing - Interview
- By:Craig Burton
I feel very fortunate to introduce and interview Sally Taylor, diet therapist and metabolic typing advisor as we delve deeper into the concept of an individual approach to food.
As a diet therapist how important is metabolic typing (mt)?
MT is essential to my practice. I use it as a starting point with all clients. I call myself a Diet Therapist as opposed to a Nutritionist because it reflects the tremendous importance I put on getting the diet right. Unless clients are willing to modify their diet there's no point in their consulting me. Anything else they do will simply be nibbling at the edges of the problem. I'm not prepared to take on clients who really just want a list of supplements to buy or foods to avoid. That is an allopathic nutrition approach - it treats symptoms without correcting the underlying problems. Diet Therapy is a holistic approach that ensures the body is given all it requires to build health and vitality from the inside out. Many people, doctors included, still don't understand that it is literally true that we are what we eat. Food is the raw material we consume to constantly build, repair and replace every cell in our body. It is a waste of money to spend a fortune on nutritional supplements or gym membership if one continues to eat nutrient deficient and damaged processed, convenience foods!
Is there such a thing as a healthy diet?
Yes, absolutely, but not a standard one that can be prescribed across the board - the panacea everyone is looking for doesn't exist. The exact recipe is different for everyone, depending on their MT. The balance of macro and micronutrients required by our bodies to operate at optimal efficiency depends on our genetic inheritance and individual stressors. There are clear basic principles that apply to everyone though: eat organic, whole foods (as close to nature and as unprocessed as possible - ie fresh, raw or lightly cooked), drink plenty of water, avoid toxins such as alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine, drugs; and ensure you get adequate daily doses of sunlight, fresh air, exercise, and around 8-hours of quality sleep a night.
What makes MT different from Atkins, Zone, GI, low fat diets?
These diets work for some people, some of the time, and they address some of the issues contributing to weight gain or poor health in some people. The difference between those popular diets and MT is that MT is not "a diet" in the sense that we generally use the word. It is not something one does for a few weeks to lose a few pounds, and then returns to old eating habits. It requires a commitment to a complete lifestyle change. Metabolic Typing is a clinical methodology for identifying the right basic diet for clients, and fine-tuning it to suit their specific biochemistry. Implemented properly, one cannot "fail" on the Metabolic Typing Diet, because it is actually an educational process that teaches clients to listen to their body's signals and adjust ratios of carbohydrates, proteins and fats to suit their unique metabolism. An individual's precise nutritional requirements are dependent on their particular interaction of genetics and environment.
In recent years controlled carbohydrate diets such as Atkins, Zone and GI have become popular, despite flying in the face of orthodox advice, because they do work for millions of people. The reason being that they are all concerned with limiting the amount of carbohydrate eaten. Most people, including athletes and active children, eat far too much carbohydrate, in the form of processed, convenience foods. Even if they have already cut out cakes, biscuits, puddings, chocolate etc, they continue to fill up on what they have been told is healthy forms of carbohydrate, such as breakfast cereals, bread, potatoes and pasta. Man is simply not designed to eat this much carbohydrate!
Research has established that stabilising blood sugar levels and reducing insulin output is essential to health. We have two metabolic pathways for generating energy. The one everyone has been concerned with is the process of burning glucose as a fuel. It is a very immediate source of energy, as it can be taken directly from our blood stream, having arrived there as the breakdown product of all digestible carbohydrate, and be stored in our cells in the form of glycogen (the human equivalent of starch). However, once the cells and glycogen stores, mostly in the liver and muscles, are full, glucose excess to requirements is converted to glycerol and fatty acids and combined to form triglycerides. This is the substance that produces body fat. Triglycerides are laid down in fat cells as an energy store. However, the fact that is commonly overlooked is that we can and should also be using fatty acids to produce energy, but we cannot burn our stores of fat when blood glucose or insulin levels are high, which they are pretty constantly for many people.
As for low-fat diets, which have been recommended by Governments and the medical professions to reduce obesity and heart disease for over 30-years, time has shown that they don't work for the majority. In the three decades since these regimens were adopted as official policy in the US and UK we have seen a huge increase in the incidence of obesity, diabetes and CVD. These concepts are explored in detail in 'Dr Atkins' New Diet Revolution' - a book that I recommend everyone interested in their health reads, together with his lesser known title 'Dr Atkins' Age-Defying Diet Revolution'.