When to Use The Metabolic Typing Diet
There’s more to maintaining health than what most people think of as “eating healthy”. Aside from the many food myths which people have unknowingly swallowed whole (which I have illustrated in previous blogs), the general impulse to “eat healthy” needs to be customized for each patient based on both typological and individual factors. I’ve previously illustrated the two primary nutritional typologies which are beneficial for patients (Blood type and glandular type diets), and today I will look at the third typology system, which is the metabolic typing diet, by Wolcott. “One man’s meat is another man’s poison” is accepted as a general dietary principle, and it is the application of the correct typological nutritional systems which turns this general concept into a practical, concrete one which is actually useful in a real-life context. One size does not fit all, although our behaviour more often would seem to affirm this saying than the previous one.
The blood type diet is the most fundamental of the three, and is the one I recommend that patients eventually internalize as one of the main pillars of their diet. The glandular type is the next most recommended dietary typology, and relates more to balancing one’s cravings and weight. The metabolic type sometimes needs to be applied first, before the patient can more fully integrate the first two typologies. It is especially helpful where there is a greater imbalance in the patient’s lifestyle, and their pH level is out of whack.
It is the only way to properly set your overall nutrition levels into your correct range, compared to the usual way of looking at nutrient levels as absolutes (ie compared to a statistical “norm”) rather than as relative to your biochemical individuality. Where the focus in the blood type diet is divided by food group, and then further differentiated for each specific food (apples may be a good fruit for a certain blood type, where bananas are not, for example), and the focus in the glandular type is based on cravings for certain food groups (cravings for sweets, or for spicy foods, for example), the metabolic type diet is applied on the most general personality characteristics, and general speed of metabolism and energy use. Depending on the state of a patient’s health at a given time, they’ll benefit from a focus on one of these types as appropriate.
In the metabolic typing diet, the first differentiation is between body types which are dominant in the oxidative system, versus those which are autonomic system dominant. If the former, then the further differentiation is between being either a “fast oxidizer” or “slow oxidizer”. If the latter, then the patient is either a “sympathetic dominant” or a “parasympathetic dominant”.
A diet predominated by proteins and fats over carbohydrates is reccomended both for fast oxidizers, as well as parasympathetics. A carbohydrate dominant diet is recommended instead for slow oxidizers as well as the sympathetic dominant types. Some people do fall in the middle, and would benefit from a “Mixed Type” diet, meaning a good balance between the protein/fat and carbohydrate diets.
Between the three dietery systems (blood, glandular, metabolic), depending on where the active imbalance is, it may be somewhat challenging to balance out what may potentially be contradictory advice between one system and another. The key is to yield more to the system which represents the greater current imbalance in the patient, and to be ready to shift to the other recommendations as the first imbalance begins to be corrected. Also keep in mind that the blood type is the most fixed (ie your blood type doesn’t change), and the metabolic type is the most variable. The glandular type is more fixed, but can shift somewhat.
Where the blood type diet is the ultimate goal for maintaining long-term health, often the glandular and metabolic types in a patient need to be balanced first in order to fully benefit from the offerings of their blood type diet.