The Power of Metabolic Typing® - Reaching Your Holistic Health Goals With Your Body As An Ally
Hello, I am Julie Donaldson and I am a clinical nutritionist with functional health training. I specialize in restoring balance in complex, chronic and acute health conditions. I welcome you to peruse other articles that may be of interest to you in your health investigation!
“I thought I was doing myself the biggest favor with committing to a “plant-based” diet...and then I discovered what was happening to my adrenal glands, my pH, my cholesterol (too little is not a good thing) and my immune system. Years of struggle came to an end when I started working with Julie and practicing with my Metabolic Type®. We have a brand new me! (and my husband is ever-so-grateful!)”
The only nutrition plan that works effectively and over time is one that is personalized for the needs of your body. At True Nature Health Consulting, the foundation of your nutrition and holistic health programs center around you and your unique metabolism. Whether your health goal is to recover from chronic health issues, balance metabolic systems, lose weight, balance hormones, conquer food cravings, eliminate brain fog, have more energy, optimize digestion & elimination, or to simply improve upon your existing health, your nutrition plan must be tailored to your individual and unique requirements.
Metabolic Typing® will determine what an orange does for you
What is Metabolic Typing®?
Would you be surprised to learn that an orange creates an acidic pH shift in one person and an alkaline shift in another? The same is true of a steak. Metabolic Typing® (MT) is the science of food and its highly specific and individualized effects upon our bodies. MT incorporates functional and genetic requirements for each of us, such as rates of cellular oxidation and autonomic nervous system function. Personality, eating habits, and our homeostatic stabilization are also factored in. Each type leans in different directions and requires different primary nutrients in order to balance (yes, balance) pH, speed of metabolism, nervous system function, electrolytes and blood sugar.
There is no effective one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition, and through the practice of MT, we take the time and attention to identify your needs through this incredible comprehensive assessment. We then apply the results in a personalized plan for you.
Just as Inuit people thrive on a diet of protein and fat, equatorial tribal people thrive on a high carbohydrate, plant-based diet. As each of these tribal communities live close to their needs and to their lands according to what works for them, their rates of disease are very, very low. Inuits consume only meat and blubber, and have no cancer of heart disease.
In a global world, many of us have evolved into blends of varied tribal genetics and have our own unique requirements. Your Metabolic Typing® result places you on that spectrum and gives you the real-world daily tools to optimize and manage your personal health.
MT is the premiere system of individualized nutrition in existence today. It is precise, accurate and time tested over many decades. MT creates a strategy for building and maintaining holistic health. It does this via the optimization of ATP production. ATP is produced in the final stage of the Krebs cycle, where your nutrients are processed. In the final stage, the mitochondria of your cells complete “respiration”, generating ATP. Here is how the whole process unfolds as you eat and digest:
Digestion
Food is introduced into the oral cavity. The breakdown of proteins, fats and carbohydrates begins with saliva.
Chewed/swallowed food enters the stomach. Gastric juices further digest the food.
Complex carbohydrates are broken down into glucose and other byproducts in the intestines. The glucose is absorbed by the walls of the intestines and enters the blood stream. Amino acids and fatty acids from proteins and fats are also diffused through the plasma membrane to be absorbed by the cells of your body.
Cellular Respiration
Blood with oxygen from the lungs and glucose from the intestines is pumped out to the capillaries where the oxygen and glucose diffuse into individual cells.
Inside each cell, a chemical reaction called glycolysis splits the glucose molecules and produces enzymes and energy-carrying molecules called ATP (adenosine triphosphate). (ATP is the "gas" to every one of your body's trillion cells.)
The Krebs cycle steps use some of the enzymes produced by glycolysis to produce additional enzymes, more ATP and carbon dioxide.
The enzymes produced by glycolysis and the Krebs cycle enter the electron transport chain and produce a large number of ATP molecules. The final hydrogen reaction products combine with oxygen to form water.
Elimination
The carbon dioxide and water diffuse out of the cells into the blood stream and are passed back to the heart through the veins.
The blood is pumped through the lungs to eliminate carbon dioxide and through the kidneys to eliminate surplus water.
You’ve heard the saying “one person’s food is another person’s poison”. In fact, your body’s nutritional requirements are as unique as your fingerprints. When you eat by the proper design for your needs, your energy output is maximized. You can equate this with having adequate stores of gas and oil in your car engine - without one of the other, failure will occur. When you push your body to heal without a proper reservoir of energy, it will backfire. Your body prioritizes its energy expenditures to save your vital organs and will shut down other “pushes” to do this, often with negative reactions that force you to stop your healing protocol.
If you follow “diet dogma” promotions on the internet, you’re bound to get lost and confused with the myriad of crazes and fads. There is dizzying array of these, each purporting to be “the one”, perhaps with some researched benefits, yet none is right for everyone. It is important to know that research never, ever isolates for total individuality. Thus, its results, especially in the nutrition field, must be taken with a grain of salt.
When practiced correctly, Metabolic Typing® answers the confusion and ends your diet debate. By choosing MT, you are specifically addressing your body’s own unique metabolic fingerprints, as well as the scientific metabolic processes involved in energy production in your body.
You and I likely need different diets
At the most fundamental level, you are what you eat. Food is the fuel that feeds your metabolic engines. Essentially, we need to understand that no two people require the same type of fuel - foods needed to build, maintain and sustain health are unique to you and to your body.
There is tremendous diversity within Metabolic Typing®. Beginning with a road map, we will find your personal territory. At True Nature, I function with a strong clinical nutrition approach backed by decades of practice and success. I have consulted with thousands of clients, creating a foundational pillar that is specific to needs, not guided by symptoms and food bandaids.
With your MT assessment, you will learn not only what to eat but what not to eat. You will learn that certain foods change your pH balance in a way that is different from what they do to someone else. You will learn how to adopt the MT as a lifestyle, not as a diet. And as you grow with this, you will have ever-increasing awareness and intuition about your nutrition. This is what sustains us across a lifetime of eating.
Through personalized functional testing, you will also learn what blocking factors may be preventing you from achieving your goals.
Finally achieving your health goals begins with MT
People who eat in harmony with their personalized needs will meet and often exceed their health goals.
While the mainstream would like to sell every single person “a” way to achieve health, the truth is that we all achieve it via approaches that are unique to us. This takes time and personal attention to develop. It is an “old-fashioned” curated process. Trying to do a quick approach advised for the masses will fail every time, unless you are in the tiny percentage that it fits for coincidentally!
You know that gut health is paramount to your overall health. You have both a genetic MT and a genetic microbiome - and they fit together like a hand and glove. When they match up, your gut health is strong and conversely, when they don’t match up, your gut health is compromised. Specific colonies in your digestive tract depend upon the right balances of the foods that support them.
Is MT like the blood type or gonad type diets?
No. Your Metabolic Type® is based upon the most essential metabolic systems of your body. These metabolic systems are the key regulators of cellular metabolic energy production and utilization:
Your rate of intracellular oxidation
Your autonomic nervous system functions
Decades of experience demonstrates that your blood type actually has little to nothing to do with what foods you should be eating. Your blood type may slightly influence certain food sensitivities, but my experience is that blood type is not usually a very significant factor – perhaps sometimes when one is either significantly overweight or underweight.
What about Paleo or vegetarian/vegan diets?
Your Metabolic Type® defines how efficiently your body will metabolize protein, fats and carbohydrates. This means that we will have the specific information about what any other type of diet “trend” means for you.
I understand (and have made similar choices in my life prior to MT) that many people make dietary decisions based upon emotions and ethical considerations. I do everything in my power to honor these, yet if we truly want to heal, we need to give our bodies what they need. I’ve seen countless negative biochemical responses to long-term use of diets that are not a fit for people’s needs. The arguments for the diets are powerful and they insinuate that anyone can and should benefit from them, but this is not based in science nor in the precepts of biochemical individuality.
Your body’s Metabolic Type® and genetic-based nutrient requirements should be the deciding factor for how you nourish your body.
Metabolic Typing® is the first step to creating a body/mind that is your biggest ally
Many people who have adopted Metabolic Typing® programs have stated that they have always known intuitively what they should feed their bodies but neglected to follow that intuition because they were so confused by all of the conflicting diet dogma that exists online.
What would it be like to have your body/mind as your greatest ally…a source of comfort rather than chaos…a source of confidence rather than confusion and frustration?...a springboard for adventure and energy into all the areas of your life? Just IMAGINE!
The end result of all nutrition, good or bad, is the production (or lack thereof) of ATP. When your ATP production is optimized, yourlife as a whole is optimized! The relationship between body and mind affects every part of your life…your strength and flexibility, your relationships with loved ones, your work, your beliefs, and your successes…your essential way of being in the world. All of these things come down to how you feel and (I know that you know) there is a direct correlation between what you eat and how you feel. Metabolic Typing® and the programs offered through True Nature bridge the gap between science and nutrition, and between your food and your life.
No matter what your age, health status or level of activity, MT will change your level of well-being. Bring your whole body/mind and your willingness to this table! And I’ll give you the right personal blend to enjoy every moment of the 2.0 version of you! Welcome to the new foundation of health.
Contact me at Julie@truenaturehealthconsulting.com for more information and to begin your journey today. I offer holistic telehealth services and include family meal planning where needed.