The first place that I started my health journey was by looking at and changing my regimen and nutrition.
In other words I began to look at what foods I was eating, according to my body typology, the combination of foods I was eating as well as looking at special supplements and organ support or detoxification processes that where specific to my body and the problems that I was struggling with.
One of the most important things to do if you are interested in taking care of your health is to know and understand your body and how it functions for you according to how you treat it. In other words what you put in or on your body affects you in some way.
Lets start by looking at understanding body typology first.
Body Typologies have been seen for centuries, simply look at Ayurvedic medicine which stems from India over 5000 years ago. Every individual has a unique body type that stems from your inherited make up as well as environmental factors; like blood type, glandular dominance and metabolic rate and so on, which are all determining factors in what foods your body truly requires for proper energy and maintenance. As an example, I tended to struggle more with adrenal and pancreas deficiency issues, both of which originated from my parents own physical issues. Thus as you can see they can be inherent, like blood type or they can be developed over the life via improper nutritional choices that puts a stress on the gland or organ system, along with mental and emotional stressors. As well as the inherited factor, I was also born in to a very stressful home life where my parents where in constant conflict, which caused constant threat of survival on my part. I was constantly feeling their stress, fear and panic which caused me to quickly require too much use of my adrenals and thus an overproduction of cortisol, which over time burned out my adrenals, leading to constant fatigue, headaches etc. As well my mother had been given cortisol shots as a teenager to control her severe allergy symptoms. The toxic load of cortisol over time had also caused a great deal of stress on her Adrenals, thus her body passed on this weakness to her children and me in particular. The pancreas weakness was inherited from my father's family lineage who all had and whom many died from diabetes.
There are many different typologies when it comes to diet and nutrition. I won't go through them all and please feel free to investigate as many as you feel compelled to. The point I would like to get across is being able to understand your own physical body and systems and how you may be out of balance according to the symptoms/problems you may be experiencing. Once you can come to know what systems you are having problems with, then you can go about finding ways to restore health to those particular organs or glands and help your body return to a better state of health. As well learning about how your body works on an individual basis and finding the proper food sources that your body enjoys and thrives on will go a long way to helping you live a fuller more qualitative life.
Lets start with Glandular typing and take a quick look at that system. As I stated earlier we all tend to have a dominant gland that stems from inheritances and how your body is designed to metabolize food types. Dr. Abravanel's Body Type Diet book goes over this more extensively, but the basic points of the glandular type system is to find out which gland you tend to lean on the most in order to understand how its over use will affect you. There are 4 types in this system, the Pituitary, Thyroid, Adrenal and Gonadal type.
Characteristics of each - notice the cravings because cravings are due to your bodies dominant gland looking for another "hit" of its drug/food that over stimulates it, but this is not what the body needs in the long run for true health and balance.
Pituitary types - because this gland controls all the other glands it tend to gain weight in small amounts all over, face, arms, torso, hips, butt, legs, they tend to get a pudgy over all look. They do not have any huge distinguishing body shape other than they tend to have a larger than normal head, but the rest is of average height and build. They tend to crave dairy and fats to stimulate their energy centers. These types need to eliminate dairy and bad fats from their diet and add more proteins and vegetables to balance their energy better. Also eating regular meals and eat heavier early in the day since this is when they are most active and reduce calories and amounts of food as the day goes on, so eat a light supper.
Thyroid types - these people tend to be normally tall and slim or slightly built, your classic swimmers body. When they gain weight it tends to settle around their middle, spare tire look, and stay slim in their limbs even buttocks and hips may remain slim. Their energy levels when out of balance tend to be either high or low. That is because they crave sugars, starches and caffeine, thus the quick hit of sugar that comes from these food types causes a rush of energy into their metabolism, but the energy is unsustainable and so drops as quickly as it rises leading them on a viscous cycle of carbohydrate bingeing to keep up their energy. Thyroid types need to eliminate as much processed carbohydrates, sugar and caffeine as possible and eat smaller meals more often through out the whole day, in order to take the stress off their thyroid and allow their body to get back in to a more balanced flow of energy through out the day instead of the constant ups and downs.
Adrenal types - tend to be strongly built, solid and muscular, built more for power than speed. Thus it can be hard to tell if an adrenal type is gaining weight. The one area where they tend to gain it the most is the abdomen, that big hard belly of the dead-weight lifters! Adrenal types have high energy and quite often can go without eating for long periods of time, they tend to not eat in the morning and wait until 11am before feeling the need to eat. They also tend to eat large amounts at one time as well, they have a "healthy" appetite. They crave rich and salty foods like meat, cheese and butter. They very rarely crave sweets or desserts. These types do extremely well on a more vegetarian diet, lower protein foods, and like all types no processed carbs! Also eat a small breakfast and lunch and eat a heavier meal at supper, with at least 4-5 hour breaks between meals, no snacks.
Gonadal type - generally this type is only seen in women, probably due to all the phytoestrogens floating around our environment, causing an imbalance in our hormonal systems. Gonadal types tend to be more shapely then most, larger breasts and along with this larger hips and buttocks. They tend to crave hot, spicy and greasy foods, like thai and Indian food along with craving alcohol. Thus the need to eliminate over spiced foods, red meat, fatty foods along with alcohol will go a long way to help these body types to loose weight and feel more energized. Like the Adrenal type it is best to eat lightly for breakfast and lunch and have your larger meal at supper, and give your body time to process between meals as well, minimum 4-6 hours between your meals.
Another thing to remember is that no one should eat past 8 pm since every ones body needs time to slow down and get ready for a good nights sleep in order to allow the systems to bring in the maintenance crew and heal and repair the daily damage.
These are some basic ideas for you to think about this week and decide which one fits you best and make some simple changes to see if it helps with your energy and weight.
Next week I will continue looking at body typology with a look at Blood Typing and how it also affects us as individuals.
until then live fully, be well and enjoy the moment!
Andrea
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