Yuri: That’s pretty cool. And, I mean, this is something that really interested me because, you know, I’ve worked with a lot of people of different ethnic backgrounds, and I’m not a huge advocate of wheat, for instance, but I’ve noticed that a lot of people of Italian background are fine with refined pasta…at least some of the people that I’ve worked with.

Many of the athletes, who are, you know, Italian, a lot of soccer players and stuff and, you know, looking at their diet profiles and noticing, like, a lot of wheat, a lot of bread, a lot of pasta, and for them they seem to respond, you know, decently well to it compared to other people who might be, you know, of Northern European descent or Southeast Asian descent.

So, it’s really interesting to see how, you know, the same nutrients, the same foods, as you said, responds in different manners in different people, which is really fascinating.

Andrew: Sure, sure. The example I give, Yuri, to a lot of clients who, you know, just want the very basics of metabolic typing—they don’t wanna dive into the science of it.

It’s, “Hey, I have a busy life. I have kids, I have a job, I have a wife, I have a husband. I have things going on in my life. Tell me what to eat, but explain a little bit why. Why am I making this commitment to my nutrition and going, you know, a complete one-eighty-degree turn and incorporating these different foods?”
I explain to them and it’s said ’cause most people, believe it or not, take—well, you would know—take better care of their car than they do their bodies. No one that I know puts sand or salt water into their car; they put fuel.

And many people know the exact octane that should go in there. Is it high-grade? Do you need medium-grade or does it run better on low-grade? So, if you’re gonna give that much attention to your automobile, which you probably consider very valuable, why would you put the wrong fuel in your body?

In other words, if that Northern Italian man can have some pasta, yet someone else from Ireland, you know, with an Irish background, is eating that, gaining weight, feeling lethargic, then you’re putting the wrong fuel in your body, and you need to know what goes in there.

Like you said, it’s sometimes difficult to self-assess when your lineage isn’t that clear-cut; you have parents that are mixed, you know? There’s multi race in your background. So, again, get tested and find out what foods are best for your body and how they behave. That’s definitely an example I would give for somebody.

Yuri: Interesting. Also, is there a correlation between metabolic typing and, for instance, the blood-type diet? So, you know, if you’re O-positive, you should be eating these foods and avoiding these foods. Is there a correlation or has there been research that’s looked at a correlation between the two?

Andrew: Yes.

Yuri: ’Cause I know a lot of people are always asking, you know, “I’m B-positive or O-positive. What should I be eating?” So, these are thoughts.

Andrew: Yeah, Dr. D’Adamo wrote a book called Live Right for Your Type and also a follow-up to that, which was called Eat Right for Your Type. He based a lot of his findings on blood typing, and we give plenty of credence to that but not too much.

What I believe in—and others who teach metabolic typing—it isn’t necessarily what you should eat based on your blood type; it’s more what you should avoid. When I go over clients’ reports, if they’re able to get their blood type—if not, I’ll take that for them—we get a small list—it’s pretty small—of restrictions based on that.

Not to get too deep into it, but there are lectins in food that mix with blood, and it’s kinda like, you know, the opposite sides of Velcro when it gets into your bloodstream and when you’re trying to digest it.

So, certain foods just are gonna be difficult to assimilate or digest if you’re eating them and they conflict with your blood type. So, there is, like I said, some importance to it but not too much.

Yuri: Interesting. So, in general, why is it that you think that most people have a tough time eating healthy consistently?

Andrew: Wow, that is, that’s an incredible question, and that’s something I have asked myself and kept myself up many nights thinking about, whether it be a particular client, whether it be society in general. I would have to say—let me give you another example, and this is probably gonna hit home with a lot of people.

Statistically, as of two years ago, fifty percent of Americans will have one form of cancer in their lifetime, which is absolutely mind-blowing to me. So, half of the population will have cancer.

So, if somebody said to me, for example, that, “You have cancer but it’s a hundred percent curable. All you would need to do is eat these foods and stay regimented in your nutrition. If not, you’re gonna have to suffer the consequences,” you’d better believe I am going to go as far as I need to go to drive and get those foods.

If I have to go to a farm, if I have to eat a hundred percent organic, raw, whatever it is, if I have to do detoxes, I’m going to do that, ’cause I know exactly what the consequences are.

The trick is, we aren’t given those kind of second chances a lot of times, okay? The warning signs are there.
So, your question was: What causes people to veer from these diets and not stay consistent with it?

I think, first, people need to understand what food is and what a nonfood is, okay? I’m gonna borrow a quote from Paul Chek when he describes, you know, a nonfood as something taking more energy from you than it delivers, okay?

It takes more nutrients to digest, you know, that food, whether it be through nutrition, vitamins, minerals, enzymes than it delivers. So, it’s kinda like a bank account, where if you’re taking out more money than you’re putting in, you have a negative balance.

So, if you’re putting a food or, you know, a nonfood in your body and it’s drawing from you… People have to understand that. If you are putting something in your body and it is taking—you know, if you put an Entenmann’s cake, you know, or some cookies in your body, that delivers zero nutrition, not to mention it takes vitamins, minerals, enzymes, water to get rid of it, to detoxify it.

So, the opposite of that is: A food is something that delivers more vitamins, minerals, energy, enzymes than it takes to remove from your body. So, once people have a good idea of what a food is, of what a nonfood is, I think they have to respect how powerful food is, okay?

What good food can do for you and what a bad food cannot do for you. And at that point it’s acceptance, so why don’t people stay on these, you know, healthy diets or someone who is doing real well kind of veer off from it? There’s emotional reasons. And, Yuri, I’d love to give you an exact answer.

This one thing, it’s just two things, but I think it’s, again, like I said, understanding food, accepting it. In other words, if you have goals, you’re gonna make those strides to eat and put the right food in your body.

And the third, going about it with the same vigor, the same importance as you would if someone told you you were sick, you were dying, or you were gonna suffer some consequences if you don’t live your life this way. This is something I take serious, as serious as serious can be, and this is something I try to instill in my clients.

I’m not trying to scare ’em; I’m trying to tell them that the importance of food is, it goes way beyond taste, and it goes way beyond aesthetics. So, that may not be the answer you’re looking for.

And there’s a whole other emotional reason, you know, emotional eating and so forth. It’s deep and if I could answer it with one response, I could probably retire.

Yuri: We’ll leave it as the eighth wonder of the world.

Andrew: Exactly.

Yuri: No, but it’s good to get your insight and seeing, you know, from your experience what have been some roadblocks, so that’s pretty helpful. I guess along those lines, what would be three tips you would give somebody to stay on track with a healthy diet?

Andrew: Okay, and that’s another great question too. I think the first thing you have to look into is: If you don’t know what you should be eating, you have to get yourself that information.

I believe wholeheartedly and practice metabolic typing, so I’m gonna be a little biased, but if you don’t have access to a metabolic practitioner for some reason—although you can work remotely with somebody—or at least a very, very good holistic nutritionist, find someone; find someone immediately.

We hire people all the time to do things that we don’t specialize in, whether it be build our house, fix our plumbing, teach us throughout high school, universities, and beyond.

At our job we have a boss and coworkers that are gonna show us things that we can’t do yet, and once we’re able to, we can pass that on to somebody else. So, I think the old adage “You must give away what you have in order to keep it” holds true.

So, hire somebody, get somebody who’s gonna motivate you, stay on top of you, and show you, “Hey, this is what you’re going to eat, these are the times you’re going to eat it, and if you hit a roadblock, I’m gonna be there to help you through that.”

If you’re traveling, “Hey, this is what you’re gonna bring with you. This is how you’re gonna order healthy when you’re out and you can’t get to your kitchen.” So, you know, someone once said to me, I remember I was going to get a lawyer for a situation I found myself in, and I kinda questioned him.

I said, “Do you really think I need a lawyer for this?” He looked me dead in the eye and said, “Well, if you were getting heart surgery, would you perform it on yourself?”

I said, “No,” and he goes, “Well, you’re not a lawyer; you’re not gonna defend yourself nor should you.” And he made a lot of sense; so, go hire somebody.

The second thing kinda ties into what I just said: planning. You have to make nutrition, what goes into your body—as important as anything else, but in order to make it important, you know, to take that action, it doesn’t take that much time throughout the day, and a good practitioner will show you that.

So, the planning is much less than work. If you’re working an eight-hour day, you’re dedicated to those many hours Monday through Friday, so what I tell people to do is plan a day of shopping once a week, twice a week. Okay, that’s it.

Go get your food, plan, package, bring it with you. Cook it ahead of time, cook a little bit more than you need so you have leftovers. Work it into your schedule, make it an intricate part of your schedule, and hold it at such a high regard that you would never, never miss a day of shopping, you would never miss your mealtimes or your cooking.

And the third one is—something totally psychological—you need to believe in the approach you’re taking, in that if you’re not seeing results today, it will come. If you’re diligent about it, if you’re putting the right foods in your body.

I’ve told everybody, I’ve never ever, ever met an overweight person who ate the right foods, ate high-quality foods, organic foods, and that were overweight. It’s just not there.

When you’re eating metabolically appropriate foods, you’re eating high-quality foods, those people look good, perform good, they have high energy, so you need to believe in it. Just have that acceptance that this is going to work and it’s gonna be worth it in the long run.

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Stay tuned for PART 3 of this interview coming your way tomorrow!