Metabolism – Metabolism, or the rate at which you convert food into energy, is a third important factor in bio-individuality. Metabolic types can be divided into three major categories. Slow burners don’t require a lot of food to feel full, and often can’t handle large amounts of meat, fat and salt or spice in their foods. They tend to crave sweets, and often do well on vegetarian and high carbohydrate diets. Fast burners tend to crave salty, fatty foods, are frequently hungry and don’t do well on high-carb and vegetarian diets, requiring more protein in their diets. Mixed types have variable or average appetites, and can eat a balance of both carbs and proteins. There are questionnaires available online to determine your metabolic type, or you can just observe how your body reacts to food.

So what can a person do to lose weight and stay healthy, given that no one diet size fits all? Fortunately, there are common principles that lead to sustainable, lasting weight loss, whatever your bio-individual “diet-print”. Some of the things you can do include the following:

Learn to listen to your body – your body knows what it needs to eat and it will tell you if it doesn’t like something. If we just learn to listen to our bodies, we can begin to identify what makes us feel good (light, happy, satisfied, at ease), and what makes us feel bad (too full, sick, groggy, irritated).

Find real food to eat – Michael Pollan writes in his new book In Defense of Food, “eat food, mostly vegetables, not too much”. We have to eat food. It’s not an option. So the trick is in finding real food – food that nourishes, food that is nutrient dense, without additions we don’t need (like chemicals, sugars and salts). When we begin to add real vegetables, fruits and whole grains to our diets, we begin to crowd out less healthy choices.

Drink more water – try replacing sodas, caffeinated beverages and alcohol with plain, pure water, if you want to effortlessly drop 10 pounds. Most Americans don’t get enough water, and many are chronically dehydrated. Water will make you feel full sooner, and if you drink a glass of water about 30 minutes before a meal, it will also help your body break down the food you eat.

Cook at home – America has truly lost the sense of reasonable portion sizes. Add to that the fact that restaurants make foods tastier by adding salt, sugar and fats, and you’ll see the reason that cooking your own foods makes sense. It doesn’t have to be a big production – simple fresh vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins are easy to cook. Add in fresh herbs for flavor and you’ll never miss the extra additives.