Metabolic Typing for Optimal Wellness
Years ago I stumbled upon the work of Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez (1947 - 2015). He was a physician best known for his unconventional approach to cancer and chronic illness, using nutritional protocols rooted in metabolic typing.
His work and outcomes were highly successful. In a pilot study funded by the NIH in the 1990s, his cancer patients showed better survival than those receiving standard chemotherapy.
He also put great focus on the emotional, spiritual and moral aspects of healing, maintaining that true, deep and lasting healing were not possible without seeing illness as a doorway to deeper faith and self-understanding.
Central to his protocol was metabolic typing. He built upon the work of Weston A. Price and Francis Pottenger and Dr. William Kelley, who all studied diet and lifestyle effects on health outcomes.
He believed that every person has a unique autonomic nervous system (ANS) dominance - sympathetic vs. parasympathetic - that influences diet, supplementation and predisposition to certain diseases.
The metabolic types are grouped into 3 categories, with sub-types within each category.
Sympathetic Dominants (often lean, tense, prone to stress) thrive on a more vegetarian, alkaline diet
Parasympathetic Dominants (calmer, colder, prone to fatigue) need more animal protein and fat
Balanced Types fall somewhere in between
Nutrition and supplemental protocols become very individualized depending on where you fall in your metabolic typing.
>> Click here for a brief test to determine your Metabolic Type <<
This is a very condensed version of a much longer and detailed questionnaire. I did the test and got the same results as I did with the more detailed one. I will include a link below to the Nicholas Gonzalez Foundation if you are interested in taking the broader test. **Please note that I am in no way affiliated with this foundation.
This is likely the future of medicine. Very individualized protocols based on the inherent physiology and the biological script that we each were born with; like a nutritional DNA that determines whether our bodies need more protein and fat or more plant foods and carbs.
I was unsurprised to find out that I am the most carnivorous of all of the types; a true Parasympathetic Dominant that does best with fatty, red meat, full fat dairy and very little carbohydrates.
Years ago when I was in a minor Crohn’s flare and was just beginning to become interested in nutrition, I decided to try vegetarianism, hoping that this way of eating might help me feel better. After 3 months of eating a vegetarian diet, with proper food combining to get all of my amino acids, I felt like hell. In fact, I had never felt worse.
I had lost weight, when I was already thin enough, my energy levels plummeted and I couldn’t think straight. My husband and I were out for dinner with my sister and her husband and they insisted that I order meat. “Noooo,” I said, my eyes drooping and my back slumping in my chair, “I can’t…I’m a vegetarian now.”
They promptly ignored me and ordered me the chicken. I remember taking a bite of chicken and actually feeling happy for the first time in 3 months. It tasted SO good. Within about 20 minutes of finishing my meal, I felt like somehow had injected me with liquid sunshine.
I had come alive again. I felt amazing.
And that was it for my days of vegetarianism.
Of course nutrition is always just one piece of the puzzle, but its an incredibly important one, in my humble opinion.
Give this a try and see how you feel.
https://thegonzalezprotocol.com/