One-size-fits-all diets are a great place to start your health journey. But we are all unique so certain foods that may work well for you may not work for others.
What have you done to personalize your diet? What worked and didn’t?
Intermittent fasting.
1g of protein per pound of body weight, 0.7g of fat per pound of body weight, any combination of protein, fat, and carbs thereafter.
Mostly whole foods.
Those are just what I have found for work for me over the years.
I go to sams and buy the same basic food every week. Tuna, salmon, rotisserie chicken, chicken breast, ground Turkey, ground beef or steak, eggs. My carbs are rice, oats or sweet potatoes. I buy fruit/veg like berries, apples, spinach, asparagus, cucumber, squash. I make a lot of Asian style sauces. But it’s all about consistency. I workout 6 days a week also. I definitely believe I am in the best shape of my life.
I work out 6 days a week so I eat more protein and take a multivitamin to be sure I do not sweat out all minerals. Probably it is not really needed.
I just eat enough veggies and protein, make sure I get fish regularly. Furthermore it’s just a question of staying within kcal budget. I guess that’s the most personalized: eat what your body needs and not too much or too little
After some experimentation, I’ve discovered my body does not react well to beans/legumes and nuts. They’re usually recommended for the fiber, but my body just doesn’t react well to them. I try to get my fiber from veggies and whole grains instead and my body tolerates those sources a lot better.
For me, I realized that seafood works for my body type than any animal product. I found out that every time I consumed milk, whey protein, or chicken, I would feel lethargic and take afternoon naps all the time. So through trial and error, I would consume beef for a three days in a week (lunch and dinner), and I would just take mental notes on how I was feeling and eventually, I settled on seafood because I would feel so much better mentally, physically, and my energy levels was constant throughout the days without the crash.
Seafood is a very broad category, but my main ones are salmon, shrimps, tuna, mackerel, and cod. I changed from whey protein to plant-based pea protein (Orgain) for my post-workout shake. I do and try to eat a lot of vegetables each meal as well.
I also do a 14-16 hour intermediate fasting depending on my schedule, so I skip breakfast. The reason behind this is because if I eat breakfast, I feel tired when I start working and when I skip it, my focus tends to be much better and I am mentally sharper until 12pm - 1pm.
I do sometimes eat junk food and drink alcohol here and there, but I can recover quicker than ever before because I know which foods fuel my body the best.
This is the most successful personalized nutrition study to date:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26590418/
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In brief, this study says that a major component of the human body has been neglected for years in nutrition science. Indeed, the gut microbiome has been shown to be a mediator of glycaemic control which is a determinant for many diseases (diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular diseases). So if you want to seriously talk about personalized nutrition, you should know what you’ve got inside. The good news is, that the gut microbiome is modifiable by proper nutrition (high fiber, probiotics), the bad news is that all other diets not taking the impact of microbiome into account may be qualified as fad….
Experimenting, labs, learning my body’s response when I eat something it doesn’t agree with, learning a lot.
I tried from vegan to carnivore and these days I follow my body. In general I do a low carb diet, from 0g to 100g or occasionally higher. I eat meats, fish, dairy (though limited to fermented yogurts or cheeses such as Gouda or parmesan), veggies (though I rarely consume certain ones and vastly prefer others), berries and occasionally nuts, fruits and rice. I also always cook most of my veggies otherwise I’ll feel really unwell. I also avoid seed oils. Even before I knew anything about nutrition I didn’t buy or like them. I also like to try and eat a bit more in season, so my carb intake will be higher in summer overall, especially with exercise, but lower in the dark cold months.Oh and I fast daily everywhere from 12h to 26h on average. Depends on how busy I am and most importantly how I feel. Some days I’m ravenous, other days I don’t really feel like having much.
What didn’t work was a lot of things when I was trying out stuff, but most notably a vegan diet. Carnivore also failed over time. Initially I felt amazing on carnivore and I healed my gut a bit, but then I started feeling worse and worse and nothing I did helped, at the same time high carb also makes me feel awful, hence after experimenting I learned that around 50g carbs was my sweet spot, but if I veer off in either direction for a a day or a few days it’s still fine. 🙂