One of my favourite books.
In 16 years it’s safe to say I’ve had, learned and changed a few ideas about training and nutrition. I am astounded how much you can continue to learn and how the pieces of a much bigger puzzle slowly fit into place with time. With many holes and gaps in ideas and concepts still remaining I am excited to express and implement a few more. Let me explain myself.
In 1994 when I really started to take weight training seriously, I entered my first contest that year, I somehow was enlightened about the Glycemic Index. The GI basically is a chart of foods and explains what time period it takes for them to begin to breakdown in the stomach and illicit an effect on blood sugar. As you know a rise in blood sugar causes insulin secretion controlling many major hormonal processes in our bodies. Continual consumption of processed foods which tend to be high glycemic are one of the leading causes of Type II Diabetes in North America today. So back then in my mind the intelligent thing to do was try to consume lower glycemic foods, well lower glycemic foods do not tend to be the most exciting foods on a menu. Broccoli, seeds, asparagus etc.
Some time later I continued to learn that combining protein, fats, and carbohydrates altogether greatly changes the glycemic index of all the foods and allowed for a much greater variety of foods. So my ideals shifted to educating people that it is always wise to consume these three elements together. It was about this time that I found a book by Dr. Barry Sears called Enter The Zone. The Zone was one of the many lower carbohydrate and moderate fat diets of this era. I was fond of the zone as it wrapped much of my nutritional knowledge together to where it made sense. Balance and proper food ratios with meals always comprised of some protein, carbs and fats is still likely to get many of you heading towards your goals. But then there is that other group, the group of people that seems to struggle no matter what. Many of you are probably these people, the ones constantly on the hunt for new answers.
Over the past several years we have continued to experiment, everything from high protein ketogenic diets (Atkins is an example) to low fat diets of yester year. All of them work, sometimes. Recent research is leading me in new directions. It’s very apparent that we are all individuals with very individual body chemistry and yet science and medicine is still very much a bunch of statistics. Example, when someone is deficient of say calcium we are told to supplement calcium. Well the truth is you can have two people deficient in calcium for instance and one will require supplementation of calcium while the other will need a completely different mineral to improve the absorption and usage of the calcium. The individual requiring the other mineral taking more calcium could even worsen the situation. You can imagine while I am learning more about this basis of nutritional individuality how curious I am, and how confused I am.
The last two years have been remarkable in terms of developing new knowledge about understanding the relationship of specific foods and their effects on our body. This science is called Nutrigenomics, the study of our gene response to food. Even Dr. Sears so many years ago recognized this in a quote I seen from his book, “some people can eat piles of carbs and never gain an ounce, its in their genes.” One of the best books I have found on this topic, I was so intrigued I am currently finishing their level 1 certification, is call the Metabolic Typing Diet by William Wolcott. Metabolic Typing provides testing, ideas and answers for choosing what foods and combinations you should eat to look and feel better. Together the science of metabolic typing and nutrigenomics provide strong evidence that many serious conditions such as Type II Diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome and cardiovascular disease have a strong connection to the foods we eat and can be controlled, stopped and possibly reversed if we begin to decipher our own individual body chemistry.
