Like everything in life, from- running a business to running a home, successful food programming is about coming up with an effective daily management system. Learning how to eat for your metabolic type may take a certain amount of paying attention to your meal patterns, but it will soon become just another one of your daily routines, one that will make all others easier to manage, causing you to be a more effective individual. The results that you will see within weeks—weight loss, greater energy and performance levels, fewer moods swings, and better sleeping patterns—will inspire you to continue. The implementation of this plan within your life can truly help you to achieve the youthfulness and longevity all of us seek. Unlike fad diets that leave you feeling” hungry, nutritionally restricted, and irritable,
This will be accomplished in four easy-tofollow steps:
- Determine the average amount of calories you eat per day.
- Establish a caloric number representative of your active basal metabolic rate (ABMR), the amount of calories you need to support your normal b^ody functions and daily activities. Using these two caloric amounts, you will then be able to:
- Determine at what caloric temperature your metabolism currently functions and how far you are from your ideal metabolic temperature of 100 degrees (ABMR). This will enable you to:
- Establish a daily caloric intake that will stabilize your metabolism, match your metabolic type, and act as the foundation for future weekly food patterns.
Once you have established your Foundation Food Program, I will show you how to move forward from week to week, adjusting your food choices as your body changes and your metabolism heats up, becoming more efficient at burning fat as energy and utilizing nutrients appropriate for your metabolic type.
Initially, as you calculate your correct daily caloric intake, chances are you will discover that currently you are actually ingesting fewer calories than needed to properly repair and maintain your body and reduce body fat. I will show you how to use the charts provided in part II of the book to gradually raise your caloric intake of foods specific to your metabolic type until you have increased your metabolic efficiency to 100 percent (100 degrees). At this point, the amount and type of calories you are ingesting will accurately match your active basal metabolic rate, and all of your physiological processes will be operating at peak efficiency. When this happens, you will be able to lose weight by burning excess body fat and be able to repair and build lean muscle. As we shall see later, there is a very small portion of the population whose metabolisms are more efficient than 100 degrees— bodybuilders or elite athletes who carry a much higher percentage of lean muscle on their frame than the average person. But for most of us, 100 percent metabolic efficiency (100 degrees) is our ultimate nutritional goal.
Your Foundation Food Program (first week’s menu) will not be too caloricalLy different from your current food program. It is primarily designed to stabilize your metabolic temperature and eating patterns. It was not designed for substantial weight loss. Future weekly dietary protocols will be built upon this foundation. These later weeks will move you toward the proper percentages and amounts of foods you should ingest daily for your metabolic type. The result of this will be fat loss, muscular repair, improved digestion, better sleep, stable moods, and increased energy.
It is unsafe and unhealthy to move directly from your current eating habits into a radically different program suited for your metabolic type. Your body would naturally resist such a drastic restructuring, and the results would be digestively and metabolically traumatic. For example, if you are fat-andprotein-efficient, ideally 50 percent of your calories should be protein to keep your body in optimum condition. But if for the last ten years you have been eating a mostly vegetarian diet containing a high percentage of carbohydrate foods, such as breads, cheese, rice, pasta, and potatoes, and only 25 percent protein, you couldn’t suddenly increase your protein intake to 50 percent and still remain healthy. Your body would have difficulty adjusting to this 100 percent increase in protein and would possibly develop conditions such as constipation, gastritus, gall stones, exhaustion, restless sleep, difficulty in concentrating, anxiety, and mood swings. If you suddenly went on a highprotein, low-carbohydrate diet such as the Atkins program, the results would be the same. Your body would resist this drastic nutritional shift and experience the symptoms described above. Instead, your food programs will gradually change weekly, at first resembling a caloric structure not unlike your current food pattern. As each week passes, the new menu structures will more closely resemble your metabolic type and ideal caloric scenario. These patterns will shift weekly, in 10 to 15 percent increments calorically and nutritionally. As your body responds to these food programs, you will not only lose scale weight but you will also see your body composition change. You will gain lean muscle and lose fat. Since fat is four times the volume of lean muscle tissue, your goal will be to weigh as much as you possibly can per square inch, but to take up fewer square inches of space. In other words, to “take up less room in the room.” Remember, this food program is not about “always being right.” It’s about doing the best you can, paying enough attention to your food plan to improve weekly. If you attempt to follow this program to the best of your ability, you can do no wrong. The simple effort of making good choices about the foods best suited for your metabolic type, and trying to eat them consistently, will be a breakthrough from your old nutritional habits. It will teach you to take responsibility for the food choices you make and to remember that you need to stay well fueled to lose weight. Once you have
worked with this food program for a few weeks, you will find that even your “worst” eating days are better than your “best” days under your old eating habits.