Food Is Medicine: My Journey to the Metabolism Plan
By Defender Contributing Writer Gina B.
I’m an analytical person, and I’ve spent years trying to figure myself out. I’ve always been athletic, conscious of my food intake and dedicated to health and fitness. I’ve also always had about 10-15 pounds that I would love to get rid of by any means necessary. The struggle is real!
The road to health and a great body is not always linear, and it’s easy to get discouraged when you’ve been eating 1200 calories a day and working your butt off on the elliptical machine, but the scale reflects a 2.5 pound gain overnight. What’s that about?
Because I’m always the exception, never the rule, I knew that I needed a personalized approach, which is why I’m loving The Metabolism Plan by Lyn-Genet Recitas.
Rewind to Nearly 2 Years Ago . . .
I was complaining to a friend about how I ate one meal and gained three pounds in a day, and she suggested that I read The Plan — the first release by Recitas. My friend, a fellow analytic, was impressed with the author’s credentials as a holistic health practitioner and sports nutritionist, and her years of data collection.
I was reluctant. Yes, The Plan was a New York Times best-seller, but I had previously been duped by books that have appeared on that list. While all of my friends were radically dropping tonnage by following the strict tenets of Atkins or The South Beach Diet, I was a sobbing emotional mess when I would catch a glimpse of a morsel of bread or a grain of rice . . . with no weight loss results. When I was a strenuous cross-fitter, doing hang cleans and thrusters like I was getting paid, the muscle maniacs in the Box were touting the Paleo Diet, which was more harrowing than 12 consecutive sets of 50 pound kettlebell swings.
I did my research and found that The Lyn-Genet Plan is more of a diagnostic than a diet, and geared to finding the foods that cause inflammation in our bodies. By removing and reintroducing suspect foods over a 20-day period, followers of The Plan are able to determine the best nutrition while avoiding foods that result in the negative effects of inflammation. If left untreated, inflammation can cause health issues prevalent in the black community, such as diabetes and estrogen dominance, which can lead to breast cancer and the ever pervasive fibroid tumors.
Finally, something made sense!
I bought the book and visited www.lyngenet.com for more information, as suggested. I went so far as to get a phone consultation with Lyn-Genet herself, which was time and money well spent. She was very impressive – extremely knowledgeable and passionate about nutrition. According to Lyn-Genet “When you’re gaining weight or feeling depressed, or if you’re not feeling optimally, that’s your body saying ‘I love you.’ Maybe you’re eating foods that are attacking your moods or your body. If you eat strawberries and your knee starts hurting, you think ‘my knee hurts.’ But maybe your body is really telling you to stop eating strawberries.”
Lyn-Genet stresses that we are each special and unique individuals. “A specific diet might work for 70 percent of people, but what happens when you fall into that 30 percent? We’re better off following a bio-individual protocol, which allows us to learn our bodies and determine which foods we react to.”
I was surprised to find that the alleged healthy foods are sometimes the most reactive. Who knew that, in some people, weight gain could result from eating oatmeal, cauliflower and tomatoes? Who knew that it’s possible to lose weight while eating french fries and dark chocolate or drinking red wine?
Fast Forward Back to Present Day
In her latest book, The Metabolism Plan, released in January of this year, Lyn-Genet guides us through a test of food and exercise, as well as a measurement of thyroid function. While The Plan is awesome reading, Lyn-Genet suggests that interested parties go directly to The Metabolism Plan.
I spoke with Lyn-Genet about her new best-seller. Her research has found that exercise adds a new complexity to our health goals. The wrong exercise can cause as much inflammation as the wrong food. Surprisingly, according to the author, “you can gain, instead of lose weight from exercise. Some women perform optimally with only eight minutes of exercise a day, while others require an hour. It’s very individual, and you have to figure out what’s right for you. The worst thing you can do is to stop exercising altogether because you’re not getting the results that you want. Exercise relieves stress, and the more stress you have, the easier it is to put on weight.”
For more info, visit www.lyngenet.com. Enjoy your journey. Love your body!
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