Today Debbie talks with Bill Wolcott, the founder of Metabolic Typing® and an advocate of the individual approach to diet. Instead of believing that certain foods are good and certain foods are bad, Bill feels that foods are good or bad for you depending on how you’re body uses food, not on intrinsic properties of the food itself. So while certain types will respond best to a diet of protein or fat, others may respond well to carbohydrates. This will depend on the metabolism of the person involved.
He traces back this approach to diet to ancient Indian approaches, notably the Ayurveda. This emphasizes balance and individuality. Under his approach, no disease or disorder is just “normal” either. He is frustrated that we often will simply learn to live with a disorder rather than trying to correct it. The body is designed to function perfectly, and it’s largely through unsuitable diet that our health becomes compromised.
A brief explanation of the different types of metabolism are here. As Bill points out:
- Any MT can be a fat burner or a sugar burner, depending on how efficient their metabolism is functioning – that’s in terms of normal vs. overweight
- That said, note that Fast Oxidizers (FOs) are overly-reliant on and extremely efficient in burning carbs and that’s why they do well on higher protein and fat diets. That is not a bad thing for healthy FOs. They are also of course efficient at burning fat.
- The issue is problematic when a metabolism can only burn sugars and can’t burn fats very well
- Allergies/sensitivities have nothing to do with Metabolic Type (MT). Any MT can develop an allergy (aberration) to any food.
- There is no such thing as “a Paleo Diet” that is right for everyone. Think Weston Price. There is a different “paleo diet” for different geographies and climates. Or said differently, there different paleo diets for different Metabolic Types®
- Ketogenic is a therapeutic diet only – not a lifetime, healthy diet. It is an imbalanced state and not the normal, healthy state for any MT. Slow Oxidizers (SOs), however, have a greater propensity for it as compared to FOs.
For health professionals to find out more, go to his site at http://www.healthexcel.com.