Do you know what foods are best for your body? I spent the last year doing scientific observations of the foods I eat and how they affect me to determine what I should be eating. However, I just discovered a multiple-choice questionnaire to determine nutritional typing, which I’m recommending to everyone.
While body types fall into a continuum, it’s easier to conceptualize three main body types: people who can eat a higher-carb diet, those who can eat a moderate-carb diet, and the rest of us who should eat a lower-carb diet. However, the needs of individuals in each group vary widely, and the latest research shows that this is based on your body’s reactions to insulin.
The multiple choice questionnaire requires some thought about what satisfies your hunger at each meal and how a certain meal might leave you needing a snack later in the day, which could possibly suggest that you didn’t properly nourish your body’s particular needs during the main meal. You may, in fact, need to make some of the meals listed in the questionnaire and keep a diary of how you feel and if you get hungry between meals to know how to answer the questions. But this is a worthwhile endeavor. Knowing how your body reacts to protein, carbs, and fats is essential to maintaining weight and good health; no one-size-fits-all eating plan exists.
I took the questionnaire, which gave me a result of “mixed type.” This was surprising since my own observations showed my body requires more protein and fat with lower carbs. Therefore, I figured I was on the borderline between mixed type and protein type. That I could believe! This illustrates the limitation of this questionnaire because it doesn’t provide a continuum score of where in the mixed type group I fell. Also, of course, the questionnaire results are only as good as my answers, which were not necessarily quite correct.
After several days of thinking about the questionnaire questions, I took the nutritional typing questionnaire again with the result of “protein type.” My body does require a good mix of meat, fat, and vegetables, which I knew, and the foods need to be low in starch. (Months ago I, for the most part, eliminated grains, legumes, and potatoes of all types, and bananas.)
After answering the questionnaire and getting the results, you can download a very nice document, which outlines the three types (veggie, mixed, and protein), shows the types of foods you should eat, and gives tips for each type along with meal plans.
Determine your nutritional type. It’s well worth knowing what your body’s needs are. Start the questionnaire.