Every so often something comes along that totally changes ones perspective or previously held beliefs.

  It started last year with a simple observation and query. As a licensed massage therapist, I have often observed that some of my clients with non-specific chronic muscle spasms and pain would experience complete resolution with increased magnesium supplementation, but that others would not gain benefit or in some cases would even worsen.

  I have had nutritional courses both during my massage training and personal fitness training. These courses were pretty much in line with current thinking in terms of nutrition and healthy food choices. They supported the current trend towards low fat, high carbohydrate diets for everyone. They supported the concept of weight control being a matter of calories in vs. calories burned. These are the principles I have supported in my practice.

 When I began my inquiry into why magnesium would so greatly benefit some clients and make others worse it is no surprise that I had some resistance when I first started reading a book entitled “The Metabolic Typing Diet” by William Wolcott. Wolcott is founder of Healthexcel, located in Washington . In his book ,Wolcott explains that each individual’s metabolic strengths and weaknesses are as individual as their fingerprints. Thus, each person has very individual food and macronutrient requirements for optimal health. The foods we eat (along with additives), the nutrients we get, affect each metabolic type differently. Each food and nutrient can be either acidifying or alkalizing; it can support our energy or diminish our energy. It is not just a matter of eating quality organic foods. It is not the inherent quality of a given food, but how it reacts to our metabolic individuality. It has been shown for example that with certain metabolic types calcium can prevent or even reverse osteoporosis; for others calcium may have little or no effect or even worse contribute to osteoporosis. The individual’s specific metabolic type determines how the body reacts to that  nutrient .

  The new information was making a lot of sense to me. It seemed to answer a lot of unanswered questions I had about diet and nutrition. But before accepting this completely I needed first to follow the list of references. I began looking up the works of Dr. Frances Pottenger (1919), Dr. W.H. Sheldon (1940’s), Dr. Melvin Page and Dr. Henry Bieler , Dr. Watson (1950’s), Dr.Royal Lee and Dr. Emanuel Revici (1950’s – 60’s) Dr. D’Admo (1970). These were the pioneers of metabolic influences in relation to diet and health. Wolcott had studied these men extensively for years when in 1983 he made a major breakthrough that validated and tied all this work together. He termed this discovery “the dominance factor” where he found that within the fundamental homeostatic control systems of the body there typically was one that was dominant. Knowing which system was dominant and how nutrients reacted within this dominance he could predict the body’s response to these foods and nutrients. Over that last 30 years, Wolcott has developed a scientifically reliable and predictable method of determining each

Individual’s Metabolic Type ® and optimal foods and nutrients as well as which foods and nutrients are non-supportive and diminish our energy or actually make us more susceptible to degenerative diseases.

 The Metabolic Typing Diet ® is not a quick fix or fad diet. It is a process, creating a lifestyle that builds optimal health. In the short term people often report: