More about the method

Nutrition is a complex topic and perhaps one of the most controversial areas where even professionals have vast differences of opinion on how to eat healthily. 

The more someone immerses themselves in this topic and the more information they have, the more chaos they will usually have in their head. This is because, in addition to general nutritional recommendations, one textbook or an expert claim that it is the right and healthy way to eat, while the other textbook or expert discusses just the opposite. Many times, even educated practitioners cannot navigate these mazes of nutrition, so what to expect from a lay person who just wants to lose weight or live a healthier life?

 In addition to the complexity of the diet, it is also a very dangerous area as what and how you eat has a huge impact on the functioning of your cells, thereby your health, energy levels and body shape. IMPORTANT: Various studies have also shown that what you eat and drink has the greatest impact on whether or not your body develops the dreaded cancer.

 Nutrition affects the foundations of our body. Your cells can build from the nutrients you supply them with. Each of your cells have their own metabolism. If your body does not get what it needs at the cellular level , its energy supply will be reduced. If a cell's power supply decreases, it will not be able to perform its functions properly. 

Plus, your cells are constantly dying and rebuilding. If the vitality of a cell is low, degenerative changes can occur in it during the reconstruction processes. This means that  the cells leave the unity and abnormal proliferation may develop. The following figure illustrates very well what is affected by our diet and how the body is built from it. 

Template diets should not be imposed on people, for example to eat according to paleo or vegetarian. Your unique genetic code and lifestyle preferences determine what is a good and healthy diet for you. 

Why aren’t we the same for our nutritional needs? 

This is due to the fact that humanity has historically settled in different climate zones where, in order to survive, people had to adapt to specific environmental impacts and food sources in specific areas. These affected their homeostatic systems such as the nervous system, digestive system and hormonal system. Significant differences developed between man and man. 

Let's look at some examples of this. 

What do Eskimos eat? 

Mostly fish and seals, so their diet is quite rich in proteins and fats. They have no access to fruits or vegetables. Nevertheless, they do not produce diseases like the average European or American man. Why is that? 

Because their body has adapted to this lifestyle in order to survive. 

Now let's look at another example. 

What do Indians eat? 

Mostly vegetables, fruits, cereals and seeds. Interestingly, there are also many more healthy and fit people there. So if we compare these two extreme examples, is there a difference in their eating habits? 

Yes. A huge one. 

So which one is the healthy way? Of course, both are healthy for those individuals. Moreover, in modern civilization, man has overcome distance, with the result that ethnic groups belonging to different types of nutrition have begun to mingle with each other, resulting in the emergence of many subtypes. It also follows that the key to a healthy diet lies in individual characteristics. 

To find out which foods are right for you individually, we basically need to look at 5 areas in the functioning of your body. 

• Autonomic nervous system 

• Oxidation system 

• Nutrition type and dominance 

• Hormonal system

• Individual sensitivities by blood type
 

1. Autonomic nervous system 

The first area is the autonomic nervous system. The auto nervous system is the part of the nervous system that we cannot consciously control but independently takes care of the regulation of many processes in our body. It basically consists of two parts, sympathetic (active) and from a parasympathetic (passive) side. The following figure clearly shows which side regulates in our body:   

Our body always strives for balance, and the autonomic nervous system works well when both sides are equally strong and balanced. While these two parts of your nervous system are trying to balance your body, many things still affect it. 

Nutrition is one of the strongest factors affecting both the sympathetic and parasympathetic sides. If we are not getting the right nutrients and their correct proportions, we can very easily upset this balance. 

In addition, genetically one side (active / passive) may be stronger in the first place. The point is to always strengthen the weaker side, because that is when we will achieve homeostasis and be in balance. 

Nutrition affects the autonomic nervous system, and vegetative nervous system orientation partly determines the correct way of nutrition for the individual. 

In terms of nervous system orientation, we basically distinguish three types: 

• Sympathetic 

• Parasympathetic 

• Balanced (mixed) type

Each type also has structural and psychical characteristics, so we can also find out what diseases we are more prone to.

2. Oxidation system 

The second area is the oxidation system, the cellular metabolic processes. Each cell with a nucleus has its own metabolism. The essence of the digestive system approach is how fast you convert essential macro nutrients, which are proteins, carbohydrates and fats, into energy at the cellular level. For those who have this process basically fast, they are the so-called “fast-burning”, for those who have this process going slow, they are the so-called “slow-burning”. 

We can even talk about a third group whose process is already in balance they are the “balanced, or mixed” types. Also at the oxidation system level, it is important that the energy production process is in balance. If it is too fast this process should slow down, if it is too slow you should speed it up. This is also influenced by the nutrient composition of foods and nutrient ratios. 

3. Nutrition type and dominance 

From what has been described above, it turns out that everyone has a nervous system and an oxidation system. To find out what type of diet is the best for you, we need to compare whether the nervous system or the oxidation system dominates your metabolism. This is called the principle of dominance that will determine your basic type of nutrition. 

And why is that good? 

Because, depending on what type you belong to, we can determine which foods are beneficial, which are neutral, which should be rarely consumed, and which are the food sources for your body to avoid.  

4. Hormonal system 

The third area to consider is the hormonal dominance. 

Scientists have discovered that consuming certain foods affect your body’s endocrine hormone-producing glands. Hormone-producing glands produce the hormones your body needs to regulate and balance your physiological processes from growth and development to digestion and reproduction. 

Hormones act as a kind of chemical message mediator between individual organs and tissues. Therefore, it does matter whether the hormonal system of our body is in balance or not. Our diet also has an effect on this. In this regard, we highlight four hormone-producing glands: 

• Pituitary gland

• Thyroid gland

• Adrenal glands

• Ovaries

Individual characteristics also determine which of your four hormone-producing glands is your dominant one. (Of course, men only have three.) This also brings physical features of the body that affect where and from which kinds of food we gain more weight. 

Everyone has one, sometimes two, in rare cases, three dominant hormone-producing glands can be identified per individual. 

Why is this important?

Because if you consume foods that stimulate your dominant hormone-producing gland on a daily basis or in larger amounts,  that gland will produce more hormones. This, in turn, triggers a temporary good feeling in your body, giving an energy boost. 

However, these foods can also be addictive and have a decisive effect on your desired reactions. If you eat too much of them, you are overloading your dominant hormone-producing gland. If the hormone-producing gland is overloaded, it will go into underactivity after a while because it gets exhausted by overproducing the relevant hormones. 

When these glands are exhausted, they are unable to produce the right amount of hormones. 

The hormonal balance of the body will be disturbed, which has an effect on digestive processes among other things, is a major cause of obesity. Plus, when a hormone-producing gland gets exhausted, it sends messages to the brain to give your body even more of those types of food which stimulate that particular hormonal gland. 

If you give stimulant food to the body, the hormonal glands will not be able to function optimally, but craving for these kinds of food will continue to grow. The vicious circle closes. 

So you better avoid these foods as well because it is very easy to get used to consuming them regularly and it is terribly difficult to quit them. 

Everyone has a metabolic type, and everyone has at least one hormonal type. Based on the metabolic type, you can feel deep inside what is good for you, but because of the hormonal type, you want foods that are not advisable for your type, because they can cause obesity and hormonal problems.  

5. Individual sensitivities by blood type 

Blood type affects cellular metabolic processes only by 8-10%. So there’s truth in it, but it doesn’t have to be applied so rigidly at all. 

We therefore use it for the so-called fine-tuning. We know that if someone has already learned about their metabolic type and their hormonal type, which are the foods that can still cause problems due to individual sensitivities by blood type. 

As we personalise the diet to the individual, these risky foods are weighed separately for their effects on the client. Everyone can have individual sensitivities to certain foods. The good news is that all of this can be established by finding out your metabolic type. The individual sensitivity given to each food is called food intolerance.  

Further things to consider

In order to get an itemised list of foods that will help you navigate what’s good for your body, you need to consider your individual characteristics by nervous, oxidation, hormonal, systems and the blood type. Further to these factors it is important to talk about the condition of the pancreas which is also an endocrine gland that plays a very important role in the energy balancing of the body. 

The pancreas produces insulin and glucagon, which keeps glucose levels in the blood in balance. If we overload it, it will also get exhausted and will not be able to produce the right amount of hormones to regulate the body’s sugar balance. This will result in an imbalance and the development of diabetes. 

The use of the glycaemic index is very popular today, suggesting the blood sugar-raising effect of carbohydrates. The public consciousness is to consume foods with low glycaemic index (GI) if possible. This is the basis of a very fashionable carbohydrate reduced diet. However this method is not the best way forward.

Not only should you consider how much a particular carbohydrate-rich food raises your blood sugar levels, but also how long the high blood sugar level lasts. This is called glycaemic load (GL), which is an improved version of the glycaemic index. 

By measuring the body’s carbohydrate tolerance, we can map how stressed your pancreas is. If it is overloaded, the carbohydrate tolerance index will be low. If your carbohydrate tolerance index is low, you should immediately relieve your pancreas and meet your body’s carbohydrate needs with foods that have a low glycaemic load rather than a glycaemic index. 

If you do this in time, the unloaded pancreas will start to regenerate and return to normal functioning, meaning you will be able to produce the right amount of insulin and glucagon to help optimize your body’s sugar balance. 

If someone has a low carbohydrate tolerance, they should largely choose from the category of carbohydrate-rich foods in the list of foods that have a low glycaemic load. By examining the 4 factors, you can compile a detailed list of foods according to your genetic and unique characteristics, based on which you can find out which foods are beneficial to you based on your metabolic balance, have a neutral effect, or are rarely consumed or even avoided.