Dieting is one of those nasty little words that conjure up thoughts of self-deprivation, starvation, and general misery. I have often mentioned the statistic that 95 percent of all diet programs fail. Have you ever wondered why such a large failure rate? Guess what, it may not be entirely the fault of the person dieting.
People are very different across genetics, blood types, natural metabolism, lifestyle, even gut bacteria. All these differences make the one size fits all diet programs ridiculous to believe it will work the same across these variations in people.
The general ideas around what we eat are based on a very generalized food pyramid and a well-defined good vs bad food types. Yet who is to say that eating ice cream is bad for one person and but not bad for another person? The thinking that kale is good and bananas are not as good for you simply depend on a person’s biological make-up.
The bottom line is each of us individually react differently to various foods. The distinction between foods and how people react to them crosses every food type and in many cases, we may not even know that we are having a bad reaction to the food we eat every day.
Seventy percent of people living in the U.S. statistically are overweight. The largest single factor for being overweight in the U.S. is diet based. So what can be done to have healthy natural body weight and what are the causes and effects that makes everyone react differently to all types of foods?
The first aspect we need to understand is approaching nutrition on a personalized basis. This will require you to understand your body and digestion much deeper than most of us think about.
Think about the foods that you know make you feel bad. Over the years, most of us have learned to avoid those foods at all cost. But perhaps you need to pay even closer attention to foods that you know cause you weight gain or foods that drain your energy and leave you feeling less than OK. They taste great and you enjoy them, but later you’re thinking twice about what you ate.
Most often the reason some foods leave you feeling tired, hungry and even anxious after eating them is how your body’s blood glucose levels responded to the type of food you eat.
What’s interesting about a high blood glucose response is different people can have very different glucose level responses from the same food. For example, Greek yogurt with slightly higher sugar content will spike some peoples and only cause a normal level increase in others. The flip side of this is rice as an example. Those people who did not see a spike in glucose levels with yogurt eat rice and their levels spiked. Seems odd but does it? If your body processes foods differently than someone else, it may make sense.
So why should any of this matter when we talk about weight gain and being overweight? What’s important is not about a specific diet program, but what foods best fit your biology.
One of the biggest differences between people and what they eat has to do with our individual gut biome. I have been touting good gut bacteria for many years. One of the most defining factors outside of genetics is the roughly one trillion microbes that make-up in our digestive tract.
The spectrum of these bacteria are very wide and each of us is completely unique in our precise gut biome.
There are even programs that you can sign up for that will send a test kit which you place a fecal sample in and they help you define a compatible nutrition plan. One resource for more information is to follow Eran Segal’s research and book.
If you don’t want to go to the trouble of analyzing your poop, simply work on building a better colony of bacteria for your digestive tract. Not only will a strong healthy gut biome help your blood glucose response and help with weight management, it also supports 70 percent of your overall immune system.
For me, my probiotic of choice to keep a very healthy gut biome has been primarily fermented foods, specifically goat Kefir, fermented vegetables such as kimchi and bone broth protein. Reduce sugar intake, eat plenty of raw uncooked foods and reduce your meat consumption.
These simple adjustments can make a huge difference in your gut biome, overall health and how you react to eating certain foods.
The science behind understanding a personalized nutrition regimen is solid. We are all unique with very different body chemistry and bacteria. Dialing in specific foods to eat and foods to avoid based on your biology has been well documented proven to work.
Take the time to know what foods fit your biology and gut biome the best and you can potentially see a major shift your health and natural weight set point.
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Judd Jones is a certified primal health coach and fitness consultant. He can be reached at jjones@cdapress.com www.jhanawellness.com.
Aloha Kakou,
Thank you Mr. Jones for this article.
You say 95% of all so called “health” and weight loss diets fail, and 70% of Americans are overweight…that is not surprising because about almost 100% of diets are “FAD” diets, and are merely passing fads. Many tout weight loss but that does not mean those diets promote actual HEALTH or prevent the processes that become heart and stroke disease, the too many cancers, obesity, and diabetes, Alzheimer’s, etc.
An enormous reason that people need to realize what is keeping them from a successful diet and return to actual HEALTH, and ongoing maintaining of their HEALTH is that more than 95% of the food that the food industry (now called Big Food, like Big Pharm for medical drugs, and Big Medical for hospitals and doctors) provides for us is food that feeds Disease, yes we are being fed food that feeds the very diseases that are shortening ones potential of Life Longevity, that is, are causing an early death.
Plenty people on Kauai are living well into their 10th decade and some their 11th (over 100 years). They are proof of what Life Expectancy can be. So why do so many experience only 3 to 8 decades of life? We should study this small % of Blue Zone People. We should learn from them, and not the doctors of Industrial Disease Care, whose expertise is what pill for which I’ll, symptom, complaint, and medical finding. They even now have pill computers for that.
95% or more of every food on every shelf on every aisle of every Super Market is packed with foods that promote the processes of the killer diseases, again they are, Heart and stroke disease, cancers, obesity, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s, etc.
This is why so many non-drug doctors, nutritionists, researchers, and actual HEALTH promoters emphasize, and really not enough, that we should READ THE LABELS of all of the foods we eat.
It is not good for our Health when we find these in our foods: 60 different kinds of refined SUGARS, Fake FLAVORS, Fake COLORS, PRESERVATIVES, FAKE VITAMINS, MODIFIED FOODS, HIDDEN AND DISGUISED SUGARS, HIDDEN AGRICULTURAL POISONS, FOOD INGREDIENTS PROCESSED BEYOND ANY NUTRITIONAL VALUE, ANIMAL FAT, and even ANIMAL PROTEINS that trigger cancers. Even most of the animals you eat are raised Industrially with drugs, growth hormones for their unnatural weight gain and eventually for your tumor growth, antibiotics, etc.
And many food ingredients are made from the same oil you put in your car, petroleum, made into petrochemicals that are what your food ingredients are made of. Many food ingredients are just chemicals or petrochemicals, that are cheaper to put in your food than real food.
You see we are being provided food to eat that which clearly becomes the cells, tissues, and organs of our bodies…and that food at the super markets is INDUSTRIAL FOOD for us and we are NON-Industrial Human bodies…yes, that is us..we are NON-Industrial living natural organisms, and so if you eat INDUSTRIAL food you should expect to get Industrial Diseases that are treated by doctors and hospitals (Big Medical), who use Industrial Drugs (Big Pharm).
And so basically you are trapped. The only food you are provided feeds the disease processes that eventually produce your concerns, fears, complaints, symptoms, and medical findings, that out of your lak of knowledge steers you to Big Medical where you will be treated with industrial disease care…only…!
And they do care about your disease, a lot, and that amount is covered in your Industrial Disease Care Bill, which America is #1 in the cost of “health” care in the entire Industrial World, but 37th in Quality of Disease Care…not much to tell Mom about, unless you want to scare her.
And before your Industrial Food is brought to your market, here on Kaua’i it has already been shipped unfresh 3,000 to 14,000 miles or 1/2 way around the world from 50,000 acre industrial farms using massive industrial farm equipment, much of it used to spray industrial toxic chemicals like Monsanto now Bayer (Euro Industrial chemical companies) agricultural toxic poison chemicals on the industrial food you will put into your Non-Industrial God Given Body.
Never since the first humans walked the earth were we meant to eat industrial foods.
And all these poisons are meant to make sure some God driven bug in nature does not get the first bite. A bug bite in your food may mean it has no poisons on it.
So forget the diet, just eat the industrial food, they make it easy, easy to shop, easy to cook, easy to chew and swallow, easy to get disease, and easy to go to Industrial HELLth Care.
And it is all Industrially profitable, and why not, paid off fake scientists certify it.
The SOLUTION is, how do you find live, fresh, natural, God Given Food.
From Local on island natural non toxic farms.
America used to have in 1935, 7 million small farms, now there are 2 million.
Kaua’i used to have massive acre coverage of industrial sugar plantations using many chemicals for a processed refined non nutritional food, sugar. Now large plantations are growing industrial seed producing crops, used experimentally for effectiveness of Agriculture poisons, like Glyphosate and Chlorpyrifos, etc.
And Kaua’i County is, by need of tax revenue to “feed” the government workers, killing off the small under 5 acre farmers, by literally taxing them to death, lessening even more your chances to get live, natural, fresh, unrefined foods for your family that actually provide HEALTH for your bodies, the very Health that prevents Disease and HELLth care.
Many existing and all new small farms under 5 acres are having their property tax raised 1800 %. While the tax hike is intended to stop Ag Mansions from getting a tax deal, at the same time the county is shooting themself, the small farmer, and you the consumer in both feet.
Mahalo,
Charles