The Metabolic Typing Diet: Customize Your Diet to Your Own Unique Body Chemistry [Paperback]

William Linz Wolcott (Author), Trish Fahey (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

People are unique in more ways than we can see. Stomachs and other internal organs come in many different shapes and sizes. Digestive juices, too, can vary dramatically from one person to another. Thus, according to author William Linz Wolcott, founder of Healthexcel, a company that provides metabolic typing for individuals, it stands to reason that different foods have very different effects on different people.

Wolcott believes that tailoring your diet to your body's particular quirks--metabolic typing--will improve digestion, circulation, immunity, energy, and mood. To determine your type, he has you take a 65-question test (the questions range from nose moisture to how you feel about potatoes), then place yourself in one of three categories: protein type, carbo type, or mixed type.

The protein type is instructed to eat a diet that's 40 percent protein, 30 percent fat, and 30 percent carbs. The carbo type gets 60 percent carbs, 25 percent protein, and 15 percent fat. And the mixed type should consume 50 percent carbs, 30 percent protein, and 20 percent fat, although this type has to play with the ratios a little more to find the optimal mix.

Although The Metabolic Typing Diet is based on information from researchers the majority of the public will never have heard of, Wolcott makes a strong case that it's all based on common sense: most of the dietary problems we have come from ignoring the foods that make us feel satisfied and energetic in favor of ones that we feel we're supposed to eat, or foods that we eat in desperation because our last meal left us hungry or lethargic. If we just eat the foods that make us feel right, Wolcott argues, we'll never feel like things have gone horribly wrong. --Lou Schuler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Metabolic typing is a huge step forward in the field of diet and nutrition, and this book is essential for anyone interested in optimizing their health by exploring their own biochemical individuality."
--Sherry Rogers, M.D., author of Wellness Against All Odds


From the Hardcover edition. -- Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (January 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767905644
• ISBN-13: 978-0767905640
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (119 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #7,877 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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  Books > Health, Mind & Body > Diets & Weight Loss > Diets > Weight Loss

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

208 of 209 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Follow up on January 2002 review, June 7, 2004

By	Marlon Familton (Bellevue, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Metabolic Typing Diet: Customize Your Diet to Your Own Unique Body Chemistry (Paperback)

I've now been on the program since November 2001. Two-and-a-half years later, I'm absolutely convinced without a doubt that eating according to what your body needs is the way to go. There are some wacky negative reviews that are quite perplexing. It appears some people need 200 scientific double blind studies certified by the FDA to be believable. Give me a break . . .

Use your common sense. Wake up and eat a typical breakfast. Cereal & milk (carbs/sugar), toast & jelly (carbs/sugar), orange juice (sugar). Then an hour later ask yourself, how's your hunger & cravings? How's your energy? How's your concentration? How your mood? The next day eat the same, but add two scrambled eggs and cut out the OJ. Ask the same questions. Many people would feel better an hour later. Why? Added protein. How much should you add? That depends on what your body needs. Should everyone just add protein? Nope, we're all different. That's the whole point, but some people feel apparently feel threatened by this simple concept.

Who thought of it first? Who cares! William Wolcott has used about twenty-five years of data to help you zero in on a starting point; the rest is up to you.

As an endurance athlete (cycling coach), I can tell you that fueling your body is a huge key to success in sports. On the program I started eating more food, but better quality (whole/natural/organic . . . if I can't pronounce it, I try to avoid it). The result was dramatic. I've had clients follow the basic plan in the book and loose weight, but weight loss isn't the only goal. It is really a nutrition book, not merely a weight loss book. The nutritionist who I consult with always says that it is about "rebuilding your health."

Anyone who knows anything about physiology will tell you the body is an amazing and complex system that always strives for homeostatic balance. This program is about helping your body achieve that goal by fueling it with the macronutrient ratio (percent of carbs, protein, and fats), that is wants.

If you think this is about eating mostly animal protein, you're wrong. That is the Atkins diet; that some people do well on, some people don't change and some people do worse on. What explains that? Biochemical Individuality. How then do you figure out what to eat to balance your body? Eat according to YOUR OWN body's needs. Eat according to your metabolic type.

"Nothing is more important to your health than something you put in your body several times a day, every day of your life."

Want some common sense articles? Go to the chekinstitute.com site and look through the articles relating to eating. You want a more comprehensive plan? Buy Paul Chek's "How to Eat Move and Be Healty!"

If you want more detailed information about eating, check out Mercola.com. Buy Dr. Mercola's new book, "Dr. Mercola's Total Health Cookbook." Though I think his plan is sometimes more difficult, check out his credentials and tell me his opinion isn't worth considering.

If you want a wake up call, start reading the news about degenerative diseases, obesity, etc. There is a claxon bell ringing. If you don't hear it yet, you will.

What ever you do, don't let people with their own negative attitudes prevent you from spending $10 and having the chance to improve your life in dramatic ways. Rebuilding your health to be the best you can be is a journey and this is a great first step. The risk? $10.

530 of 544 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The real story behind The Metabolic Typing Diet, October 16, 2003

By	Brett Bauer (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Metabolic Typing Diet: Customize Your Diet to Your Own Unique Body Chemistry (Paperback)

Having read all of the negative reviews on metabolic typing diet, I would like to shed some light on the criticisms of the book. I have, off and on, been studying customized nutrition for the last decade of my life. There are two critical questions to ask with regard to diet: 1) Is there a one-size-fits-all approach that works for everyone? And 2) If not, what is the best approach to customized nutrition?

To answer the first question one has to go no further than reading one of two books. Upon reading one of those books the open minded reader has no other rational conclusion to draw than the fact that everyone is unique and therefore there is no one-size-fits-all approach. The two books are Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston Price and Biochemical Individuality by Roger Williams.

The answer to the second question can be found by looking to see who has researched all of the available data on customized
nutrition and put together a program that the average person can follow. William Wolcott is by far the leading authority on
customized nutrition. He has read all of the recent discoveries and has also read what the pioneers in the field have written. In
addition, he studied under William Kelley (a pioneer in the field of customized nutrition). He has come up with the most
intelligible, comprehensive system available today for people to discover their metabolic type.

I am sure by now you are trying to reconcile the conflicting reviews on the book. Some criticize the book for lacking science or evidence for what is said in the book. Others say the book is excellent. I think a great deal of confusion lies in the assumption that his critics are making regarding the book's intended audience. His intended audience in the book is the masses of people in America. Those masses typically aren't very analytical or scientifically minded. If he had written the book to the scientifically minded he would have alienated a much larger audience, the average American. When I first read his book I was relieved to find that it was so easily understandable to a layperson. Yet when I dug deeper into William Wolcott and his organization Heathexcel I found the tremendous amount of science behind his work was second to none.

I highly recommend this book and believe the information in it to be absolutely life changing. If I had to choose this book or any other ten books combined on the subject of diet I would choose this book hands down. The book is worth every penny you will pay for it and more importantly it is worth the time you will invest reading it. There is more information on his web site healthexcel.com.

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386 of 395 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I use it in my healing practice, October 18, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Metabolic Typing Diet: Customize Your Diet to Your Own Unique Body Chemistry (Paperback)

Let me state up front that I am not undertaking the Metabolic Typing studies, nor do I intend to, just am incorporating into my healing practice the protocol of what is undoubtedly nutritional wisdom that many will benefit from. I am a registered nurse with a specialty in nutritional studies. Unlike the few reviewers who gave the metabolic test to their friends to take, and discovered they were all the "Mixed-Type" metabolic profile, I have used this method in my healing practice and so far have found the opposite: That the Mixed types seem to predominantly come from those who hail from Mediteranean or Oriental/Asian ancestry, and that there were a significant number of Protein types, whose predominant ancestry hailed from Northern Europe. I have come across only one Carb type so far, an individual whose ancestry is in tropical climates. So far the clients following their metabolic type diet are losing fat when they do follow it, (per skinfold caliper testing and inches lost) and gaining weight and feeling symptomatic again when they consume too many foods from the other meal plans for the other metabolic types. (Mostly when Protein Types are eating foods better suited to the Carb Types, and fail to consume enough protein on a regular basis.)

The book is well written, not difficult to follow at all, is designed for the lay-reader, and I have also followed up and bought the books by the other researchers whom Dr. Wolcott mentions either inspired his interest, or who started the ball rolling a century ago in this direction. Some of Dr. Wolcott's work is incorporated in Ann Louise Gittleman's nutritional works as well, and she cites him as one of the sources for her advocating increased protein in her "Your Body Knows Best" book. Her Fat Flush Plan also incorporates increased protein, though is not a spin-off of either any of the meal plans here or of any of the higher-protein and fat diets like the Atkins diet. ALG is another well-respected nutritionist in the field.

Current research is continuously showing that people can lose weight and not increase their cholesterol levels or blood pressure when following a higher protein meal plan. This means that for those whose metabolic type thrives on this type of diet, they will do fine following a plan for that. For those whose metabolic type thrives on a higher carbohydrate diet, there is a meal plan for that too, of course. The mixed type can eat from both plans, but there is tons of valuable information about how foods are metabolized, how different nutrients react in different people.

I did not find the research either skimpy or underreported. The change in diet is not so radical for those who typically eat what their cultural group or ancestors typically ate. Many ethnic groups eat what their families ate for generations.

The USA nutritional information on which they based the food groups block of years past, and the food pyramid currently in use, is from studies of an African tribe who did not display cardiac disease. Their diet was about 60-65% carbs, and little fat, small amounts of protein. It was assumed that Americans would thrive on this type of diet, but most Americans at that time hailed from Northern European ancestry, and we began feeding the nation too many carbs, too many flour-foods, (pastas, breads, refined cereals) and of course combined those flour foods with sugar, cakes, cookies etc. What this book shows is that many indigenous groups eating high fat or high protein diets, also have no cardiac disease, or diabetes, or cancer, as long as they are following the diet of their ancestors, within reason. When these indigenous cultures come to America, or begin eating a diet similar to the Western influences of increased carb, sugar, and flour, they too develop diseases similar to the rates of Americans.

We grain feed our livestock, rather than range feed, so that the meat contains far less Omega-3 fatty acids, and it is the Omega-3s that signal the brain that the satiety from a meal has occurred. Consequently in the US we consume far larger portions of meat that still do not provide a sense of fullness. Luckily there are farms now devoted to range-fed livestock, poultry, eggs, and bakeries producing sprouted-grain and whole grain products.

Dr. Wolcott's method is just the tip of the iceberg for getting people onto a healthy nutritious regimen for themselves and their families. The whole food industry needs revamping, and parents and educators need to become involved so that nutritious food can be served to our children at home and at school, as they will be the ones to ensure that the food industry makes progess in the future.