Yuri: Hey, guys, Yuri Elkaim here, and with me today—I’m looking forward to this one, actually—I’ve got a good friend of mine, Andrew Stearns, who’s a fellow holistic nutritionist and trainer out of New Jersey.

We met each other a couple months ago at a Mastermind meeting, and I’m looking forward to picking his brain today because he’s got some really interesting views on nutrition, especially when it comes to metabolic typing and kind of holistic, naturopathic views to helping you, you know, live a lot healthier through food. So, with that in mind, Andrew, are you there?

Andrew: I’m right here, Yuri. How are you?

Yuri: Great, buddy, thank you for joining me today. I’m looking forward to this. I guess before we get into, before what I wanna throw at you, why don’t you tell our listeners a bit about your background, you know, where did you come from, and, I guess, you know, who you help?

Andrew: Sure, sure. I’ve been in the wellness industry for about fourteen years now professionally. I started off as a personal trainer; I trained a lot of athletes. I trained myself quite a bit as an athlete; I played football, baseball, basketball.

And I admit it: I’m a former recovering body builder. Even though I didn’t compete, I took a lot of the misinformation out there, applied it to my nutrition, and fell into a lot of the pitfalls that I see people falling into with regard to eating foods that are marketed very heavily, eating foods that are cheap.

When I came across metabolic typing, it wasn’t necessarily to provide or help clients reach a certain goal; it was to help me. And the ego deflation that happened when I’m supposed to be the expert on health and performance had to go see a nutritionist to get myself truly healthy, it was necessary.

But once I did that, I went through the schooling, the process with a person by the name of Dr. Dennis Passante, got registered as a holistic nutritionist who specializes in metabolic typing, and that’s something that I share with each and every one of my clients today.

Yuri: Nice, very cool. So, for those who are unaware of what metabolic typing is, can you explain that?

Andrew: Sure, sure. I’ll do my best. Metabolic typing, simply, is customized nutrition that’s appropriate for you. Metabolic typing recognizes that nutrients behave differently in different people’s bodies, and through a series of tests, we can find out what your metabolic type is or, essentially, what foods are gonna be best for you to perform, look, and feel, you know, the best that you can be.

So, there’s a series of tests that we look at different control centers of the body; for example, the autonomic nervous system, the oxidative system or, simply put, your metabolic processes. Metabolism is the word thrown around a little too loosely, but what goes into your metabolism is what we take a look at.

Yuri: Interesting. And I would, from my experience I think some people get the term metabolic typing with body typing mixed up, so are you talking something differently than the endomorphs, the ectomorphs, and the mesomorphs just so that people are clear about that?

Andrew: Certainly, certainly. Now, the body-type diet was introduced by Dr. Abravanel, which, you know, a brilliant person, and he based nutrition and body, you know, diets based on body types, similar to what you said about the person who looks like the athlete, the pear, the apple, and so forth, just to simplify it.

Not to take anything away from Dr. Abravanel ’cause we do use some of that body-typing information in our practice, but it goes much deeper than that. Whereas some of those nutrition approaches fail, such as Atkins diet or a one-size-fits-all type of approach, we incorporate that into it, but yes, metabolic typing is completely different from that, although we do borrow some information that he was able to uncover.

Yuri: Cool. And I guess,  the metabolic approach can also partly explain why some people that are following the same diet get very different results. Is that correct?

Andrew: Oh, and you said it, Yuri. That’s a great comment right there. The example I give people is the Atkins diet. It’s very familiar and to a lot of people, it’s very sexy.

You know, eat all the fat and protein you want, and lose all this weight. And that’s true for some people, but rarely do they keep it off; not to mention, thirty, forty, fifty percent of the people who both see no results or gain more weight on it.

So, that clearly tells us that one size does not fit all; it doesn’t even work with clothes, much less something as complex as your body inside and out and your nutrition. So, when it comes to a one-size-fits-all diet, it’s only gonna fit a small percentage of the population and usually not us; nor is it the healthiest way to approach, you know, your health and your life.

Yuri: Interesting. So, how does somebody go about, is it possible to self-assess what your metabolic type would be? You mentioned a couple tests you guys do. How do you get assessed to determine the type of metabolic type you are?

Andrew: Sure. Now, here’s the real simple way to do it. I’ll forewarn you: This is a little tongue-in-cheek, but if you step outside of your house and every single person in your neighborhood or your tribe looks like you—okay?—then you probably wouldn’t know what your metabolic type is.

In other words, if there’s a group of people here going on a hunt and eating indigenous foods, if you don’t have adequate transportation to get anywhere else in the world, then yeah, you know what you should eat ’cause your ancestors have grown up on that land, in that area for hundreds if not thousands of years.

I’m kidding about that a little bit, but the people listening to this audio program right now, reading this, that’s not us, okay? I live in New Jersey, in the United States, so unless I’m Native American, one hundred percent, and I can trace everything back to those ancestors, I’m probably gonna need different foods to have optimal health, to avoid disease, to perform at my best.

Metabolic typing takes into consideration genetics, takes into consideration, again, what your ancestors ate and what you should eat, but we live in a Melting Pot society. I believe you’re in Toronto, Yuri; like I said, I’m in the United States. If people are listening to this in the U.K., in England, you need to go through this testing. How do you do that?

Well, obviously, like I said, if you’re listening to this, you have some questions, and the nutritional requirements aren’t as clear-cut as they are for some people—unless you’re an Eskimo, unless you’re a tribe in South America.

So, what you can do is get an advisor. If you go to the metabolic-typing Web site, which I don’t have on me, you can look for an advisor in your area. What you can also do is by the metabolic-typing book and read up a little bit about it.

It has a mini test in there; not to take away from any advisor, but if it’s something you really wanna get your hands on quickly and do a little research on, you know, just do a search for metabolic typing, get the book, read up a little bit about it, but I would definitely urge you get somebody, a nutritionist, an advisor who specializes in this and can take you, you know, hold your hand through the process.

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Stay tuned for PART 2 of this interview coming tomorrow.