Dr. Diet provides the foundation for our well being. In the Chek institute we talk about how everything in life is a choice, and we can make the optimal, suboptimal or do nothing choices. The quality of our food is crucial to sustaining a healthy mind, body and spirit. Dr. Diet teaches us what happens when our diet is deficient, which can be seen as our body’s inflammatory response. For example, some people get gas, bloating, itchy skin, pimples, joint pain, Etc. Whatever is happening on the outside of the body, is usually a symptom of what is going into the body and Dr. Diet gives us our own diagnoses on the foods we are consuming.
Each individual has a unique metabolism, and we must choose foods that are optimal for us, individually. Metabolic typing is one of the best ways to figure out what foods will best be suited for your metabolism, depending on heredity, individual biochemistry and genealogy. A great book to further your knowledge on metabolic typing is The Metabolic Typing Diet, by William L. Walcott. In the Chek institute, we use the Primal pattern diet, which is a condensed version of metabolic typing that Paul Chek created. It is based off of a questionnaire system that helps people identify which foods are best suited for them. There are three specific diet types that come from the questionnaire. The diet types are Polar type, Equatorial type, and Variable type. The Polar type are people who primarily have come from regions where the ground has frozen over during the winter, and must rely on animal foods or as Paul calls it “eye foods”. These people eat a diet of greater than 60% of animal foods, which usually consists of higher fat types of protein, with very limited no-eyes foods (nuts, seeds, root veggies, berries and fruits). The second type is the Equatorial type, which are people who are predominantly from the equatorial regions. This diet consists of 60% plant foods and only eat eye foods depending on their availability. These tropical regions give access to year round vegetables and fruits, and the main eyes foods are fish and shellfish. The last diet type is the Variable type. This type is the mixed type diet, and is an even combination of protein and carbohydrates, depending on what the body needs. To learn more about your specific Primal Pattern Diet, you can buy Paul’s book, How to Eat Move and Be Healthy, where it has all the questionnaires available. I also guarantee that this book will change your life.
One of the best ways to understand how food affects your body is to be fully connected to what you are eating. A few tips are to write or journal all symptoms post meal, around 30 minutes after food is consumed. This will help you understand which foods are right vs wrong for you. An example would be, does this food give me energy, or does this food source give me brain fog, bloating, gas, leading to an inflammatory response. This can help you eliminate foods that are sucking energy from your body versus providing your body with energy. Does that food cost you more energy to metabolize or does it provide you with the energy you need to take on the day. When selecting food sources, always do your best to consume organic food sources, especially from local farms or farmers markets. Our soils, especially in the US are so nutritionally depleted with factory farming, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, rodenticides, that much of our food and crops are mineral deficient and dead. These chemicals also run off into our water supply, which is why it is also crucial to buy and consume clean drinking water, preferably natural spring water. Try to drink half your body weight in ounces of water a day, and even more when you are working out and sweating throughout the day. Do your best to buy grass fed meats, free range and pasture raised chicken and eggs, wild caught fish, and previously discussed organic produce. The western diet has truly ruined many peoples health and longevity, so it is crucial to stay away from the four white devils! The four white devils are white sugar, white table salt, white flour and pasteurized dairy products. If you want to learn more about how the western diet has ruined our society, Weston A. Price is a great source. Weston A. Price was a dentist and nutritional scientist, who traveled the world in the 30s and 40s, studying the diets of native tribes, proving how healthier they were due to living according to their ancestral eating habits. He provides specific studies that show jawlines and oral health, comparing the western diet and the diet that these tribes ate, from the land. The study also proved that once tribes started to get their hands on processed foods, their health began to rapidly diminish. Western society has definitely made food much more accessible, but is it really helping or further destroying our planet?
Just remember, anything and everything you decide to consume is a choice and DR. Diet is waiting to help give you signals to understand what foods are right for you. All you have to do is be in tune with your body and listen!!