How to Eat for Your Nutritional Type

According to researcher William Wolcott, there are three main nutritional types: protein types, carb types and mixed types. These three types indicate the macronutrient from which your body most effectively sources energy. Carb types effectively source energy from carbohydrates, meaning that they need to consume more carbohydrates in the diet than a protein type. A protein type sources energy more effectively from proteins and requires fewer carbs. A mixed type needs both carbs and proteins, and must document her health and feelings after meals in order to arrive at the correct balance.

Things You'll Need

• Food journal

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Instructions

Eating Right for your Nutritional Type

• 1

  Discover your nutritional type by process of elimination. This is especially true if you wish to avoid expensive diet systems and visits to the physician. Simply listening to your body after meals can help you find your nutritional type.

  Have your food journal ready after each meal, and document how you feel after consuming particular foods. Note whether the foods are carbs, proteins or fats. For instance, after eating mashed potatoes (which are carbohydrates,) you might record the following entry:

  Food: mashed potatoes

  Type: carbohydrate

  Feeling: sluggish, tired, still hungry for sugar

• 2

  Review your journal and locate patterns.

  If you document that carbohydrates make you feel tired, sluggish or hungry after several meals, you have come closer to finding your nutritional food type. Protein types often feel uncomfortable after high levels of carbohydrates, since carbs affect blood sugar.

• 3

  Plan a diet that incorporates your new knowledge of your nutritional type. If you know you feel more energetic after eating proteins and less energetic after consuming carbohydrates, then begin to shift your meal planning to include fewer carbs and more proteins. For example, you could include more lean meats, cheeses, and nuts in meals and exclude breads, starches, and sugars.

• 4

  Continue documenting your post-meal feelings as you modify your diet. Then, isolate those meals after which you feel the best. These are the staple meals of your diet. They are meals you can reach for and know that your body will respond properly and gain energy.