The Big Diet Questions
Why do diets work or fail to work? Why do some people lose weight on one diet and not another? Why do different people do well on different kinds of diets? What kind of diet is right for me?
The Body Type Diet answers these questions. It’s not just another peel-away-the-pounds fad. Rather, it is a systematic medical program relating different types of diet to different types of body, so that each person can find the perfect diet, the one that will be effective, safe and healthy.
Where this Program Comes From
Elliot D. Abravanel, M.D. developed the concept of Body Type Dieting almost thirty years ago. As a busy young doctor, he wanted to help his patients lose weigh. But he noticed very clearly that a diet that worked well for one patient did not work at all for another.
In the early days of his medical practice he had two patients, Joanne and Anna, who were friends and decided to diet together. He put them both on a popular diet that was low in fats and high in complex carbohydrates. Anna did beautifully. She not only lost weight, she lost in exactly the spots where she needed to lose. Joanne, on the other hand, did badly. She retained pockets of fat on her outer thighs, which she said she just couldn’t seem to budge. Her face was gaunt. She had terrible sweet cravings and very low energy.
Don’t Blame the Patient!
Doctors tend to blame the patient when this happens, but Dr. Abravanel knew that Joanne was not cheating. What he found was that their bodies were very different. Anna had a strong, steady metabolism with good digestion and little variation in her energy level. Joanne had a very different metabolism. She was livelier than Anna, but had more ups and downs in energy and would “crash” in the late afternoon. She drank a lot of coffee and diet soda, and ate sweets to keep going.
This was the moment when it became clear that the problem was not with the dieter but with the diet. One diet was not going to work for two such different women! Joanne and Anna were different Body Types, and they needed completely different diets. Once he realized this, Dr. Abravanel went on to find the perfect way of eating for each of the four types of metabolism, or four Body Types, that exist in women. He began by developing a different diet for Joanne, unlike the high-carb diet that worked for Anna. Joanne’s new diet was higher in protein, lower in carbs, and eliminated caffeine drinks.
It worked! Joanne began to look healthier. Her face lost its gauntness and her energy improved. More important to her, she began to lose the weight on her thighs. Within four weeks she had reached her weight goal. And five years later she was still at her ideal weight.
