Episode 168
Martin Pytela:What Your Food Cravings Actually Tell You About Your Body Type
Martin Pytela:
What Your Food Cravings Actually Tell You About Your Body Type
Ever wondered why your friend thrives on a keto diet while you feel terrible without carbs?
In this enlightening episode, Martin Pytela, CEO of Life Enthusiast, reveals the science of metabolic typing and its profound impact on autoimmune health.
Learn how your body shape, food cravings, and energy patterns hold crucial clues about your unique metabolic type. Discover why timing your meals according to your type can transform your mood, energy, and sleep quality. Whether you're struggling with autoimmune symptoms or simply want to optimize your diet, this episode offers practical insights to understand what your food cravings are really telling you about your body's needs.
From pH balance to endocrine types, uncover why one-size-fits-all diets often fail and how to finally decode your body's unique nutritional language.
In this enlightening episode, Martin Pytela, CEO of Life Enthusiast, reveals the science of metabolic typing and its profound impact on autoimmune health.
Learn how your body shape, food cravings, and energy patterns hold crucial clues about your unique metabolic type. Discover why timing your meals according to your type can transform your mood, energy, and sleep quality. Whether you're struggling with autoimmune symptoms or simply want to optimize your diet, this episode offers practical insights to understand what your food cravings are really telling you about your body's needs.
From pH balance to endocrine types, uncover why one-size-fits-all diets often fail and how to finally decode your body's unique nutritional language.
First Aired on: Dec 2, 2024
Episode 168
Martin Pytela:What Your Food Cravings Actually Tell You About Your Body Type
Martin Pytela:
What Your Food Cravings Actually Tell You About Your Body Type
Ever wondered why your friend thrives on a keto diet while you feel terrible without carbs?
In this enlightening episode, Martin Pytela, CEO of Life Enthusiast, reveals the science of metabolic typing and its profound impact on autoimmune health.
Learn how your body shape, food cravings, and energy patterns hold crucial clues about your unique metabolic type. Discover why timing your meals according to your type can transform your mood, energy, and sleep quality. Whether you're struggling with autoimmune symptoms or simply want to optimize your diet, this episode offers practical insights to understand what your food cravings are really telling you about your body's needs.
From pH balance to endocrine types, uncover why one-size-fits-all diets often fail and how to finally decode your body's unique nutritional language.
In this enlightening episode, Martin Pytela, CEO of Life Enthusiast, reveals the science of metabolic typing and its profound impact on autoimmune health.
Learn how your body shape, food cravings, and energy patterns hold crucial clues about your unique metabolic type. Discover why timing your meals according to your type can transform your mood, energy, and sleep quality. Whether you're struggling with autoimmune symptoms or simply want to optimize your diet, this episode offers practical insights to understand what your food cravings are really telling you about your body's needs.
From pH balance to endocrine types, uncover why one-size-fits-all diets often fail and how to finally decode your body's unique nutritional language.
First Aired on: Dec 2, 2024
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode:
Ever notice how some people thrive on a high-fat diet while others get energized from carbs? In this episode, I talk with Martin Pytela about metabolic typing and how understanding your body's unique needs can be the key to managing autoimmune symptoms. Martin shares his journey from chronic illness to discovering the profound impact of metabolic types on our health, and how this knowledge transformed his approach to healing.
Introduction
Martin Pytela is the CEO of Life Enthusiast and an expert in metabolic typing. After struggling with mercury toxicity and its devastating effects on his health, he discovered how different body types respond uniquely to foods. Today, he helps others understand their metabolic type to optimize their healing journey.
Episode Highlights
The Two Main Metabolic Types
Understanding whether you're an oxidizer or autonomic type is crucial for your health journey.
- Oxidizers are alkalized by fats/proteins and acidified by carbs
- Autonomics are alkalized by carbs and acidified by fats/proteins
- Your type determines how foods affect your mood and energy
Understanding Your Endocrine Type
Your body shape and structure can indicate your endocrine dominance and optimal diet.
- Thyroid types tend to be slim-limbed with potential for middle weight gain
- Adrenal types often have athletic builds and prefer savory foods
- Pituitary types typically have even fat distribution and benefit from organ meats
The pH Balance Connection
Your metabolic type influences how foods affect your body's pH levels.
- Excessive alkalinity can lead to lethargy and depression
- Too much acidity can cause irritability and anxiety
- Finding your optimal pH balance is key for emotional stability
Food Timing and Your Type
When you eat certain foods matters as much as what you eat.
- Morning food choices set your pH balance for the day
- Your type determines your ideal breakfast composition
- Sleep quality can be affected by evening food choices
Testing Your Metabolic Type
Simple food tests can help identify your metabolic type.
- Observe your response to a high-carb meal
- Notice how you react to fatty foods
- Track your energy and mood after different meals
Notable Quotes
The important learnings, right? Once you know your endocrine type, you know how you gain weight or lose weight, so you don't have to worry about it.
Martin Pytela
If you want to stay up late, eat steak and lots of olive oil in your salad. But if you want to sleep, don't do that... but that depends on your type.
Martin Pytela
Other Resources:
Other Resources:
Connect with Martin Pytela
Connect with Martin Pytela
Watch this interview:
Watch this interview:
Episode Transcript
Martin Pytela:[00:00:00] The adrenal types favor savory foods rather than starchy foods. And they put on weight by eating fats and lose weight by eating salads or carbs. Whereas the thyroid dominant are gaining weight by starch and losing weight by fat.
Martin Pytela: The third one is the pituitary. They usually crave, creamy things. Whipping cream, ice cream, creamy stuff.
Martin Pytela: And to them, their health food is salad, but the most healthful thing to them is organ meats.
Julie Michelson:[00:01:00] Welcome back to the inspired living with autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michaelson. And today we're joined by Martin Pytela, the founder and CEO of Life Enthusiast. He's a respected functional medicine expert and metabolic typing coach whose mission is to restore vitality to you and the planet.
Julie Michelson: In today's conversation, we're talking about metabolic typing and how it can help support mood, weight, energy, and overall health. Martin shares his experience and wisdom regarding how we can create individualized eating plans, as well as how we can compensate for living in modern society in order to support optimal health.
Julie Michelson: Martin, welcome to the podcast.
Martin Pytela: I feel honored to meet a compatriot, somebody who [00:02:00] has a lot in common with me.
Julie Michelson: We do. I know I just promised you I will only keep you here a lot of time, but I'm very excited for our conversation. And I would love for listeners that aren't familiar with you. I would love for you to share a bit of your own health journey and how you entered this functional medicine world and, um, have become a trailblazer.
Martin Pytela: Right. Well, to genetics, I have poor methylation, and, uh, I grew up in Czechoslovakia in a fairly rural setting. My father was a veterinarian, so I ate well, although not according to my type, but that's another story. Um, and then, uh, when I was 24, I decided to leave the Prison and left for Canada and there about three months in on a sawmill job.
Martin Pytela: I was working physically I was a [00:03:00] strong 24 year old and then I had my insurance paid for by the Union that was You know unionized shop. Everything was beautiful. I went to a dentist and I said I haven't had a checkup in two years I'm here and the first question out of their mouth was do you have insurance?
Martin Pytela: And a silly me. I said, Oh, yes, I sure. And then then the next thing was, Okay, let's do x rays. And then on the x rays, he showed me how terrible my teeth were and how they needed replacements. And then he said, Well, you can have the silver fillings. They're included in your insurance, or you can have the white ones.
Martin Pytela: They cost extra. And, uh, I didn't know any different. Sure. Well, silver is fine. I don't care what it looks like. He withheld the detail that it came with mercury. It's a bonus. Yeah, it's a bonus. And so, there, there started my decline. I was a pretty sick [00:04:00] 25 and really sick 35 year old. And it was My body couldn't cope with the mercury.
Martin Pytela: And so I started going downhill. My main symptoms were the physical structure going to hell. Yeah. Back problems, carpal tunnel, plantar fasciitis, back going out all the time in major ways. Like I would spend weeks crawling on the floor.
Julie Michelson: Oh goodness.
Martin Pytela: Armchair to the toilet and back because I couldn't stand up.
Julie Michelson: Oh my goodness. Yeah,
Martin Pytela: sleeping face down on a rocking chair because I couldn't lay on my back.
Julie Michelson: Wow. And then not from a traumatic injury, this just from decline. Yeah.
Martin Pytela: All just going downhill. And of course, I had no clue. I grew up in a doctor's family. I believed in science. Dad and I discussed chemistry.
Martin Pytela: Koch principles, or I think they're called postulates and stuff. And you know, I watched him go do vaccinations and all that mainstream [00:05:00] stuff. Right. So he believed in science. Sure. So it took me a while to give up on first the surgeons. Then on the chiropractors and then on the naturopaths and I tried all kinds of stuff esoteric all the way
Julie Michelson: and nothing helped
Martin Pytela: Well, it all helped right the chiropractor would put me back in alignment But my discs were weakened by the toxicity so I would lose the alignment Sometimes in a week sometimes in two days sometimes on the way home from the adjustment So I would go in every day Maybe twice a week to get myself put back together and it's a maintenance thing.
Martin Pytela: Sure. Sure. None. I had allergies. I went to the naturopath They did the allergy test and said well you have allergies eliminate foods. I went to the doctor. He said we have Sudafed And I said, Will that heal me? He said, No, you'll be taking it for the rest of your life. I think
Julie Michelson: when, [00:06:00] when we hear those words, it's time to run.
Martin Pytela: Which I eventually, I was really not wanting to admit that all of them were wrong. But in the end, it came to this. They were chasing symptoms. They would, they would see the symptom, they would try and adjust it or tweak it or whatever. Not one of them asked what's the cause of it. And somewhere along the way, I had a hair trace mineral analysis done, and I remember puzzling, why is the mercury high?
Martin Pytela: Yeah. Finally, years later, once I dove into the books, I mean, I read a lot. And so eventually I figured out that it was the mercury and, and I found zeolite, which was phenomenally effective at binding and getting it out of me. I also used humic acid, fulvic acid, and then I found a doctor who formulated a free form.
Martin Pytela: amino acid formula, which [00:07:00] corrected or compensated for the broken gut, right? Once you have mercury, you have a broken gut, leaky gut. And so that's, that's why the allergies and other things came by. And then finally, about 10 years in, I had this. You cannot carry on like this. I was getting suicidal. Really?
Martin Pytela: I'm just dark moods. Not not really ready to do it, but just sure.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Martin Pytela: And, uh, what else now?
Julie Michelson: That's a lot. It was just through your own research and reading or because you did get the, the. Um, hair analysis done because I think even today, even with podcasts and biological dentistry and much more readily available information, people don't necessarily connect the dots between amalgam fillings and mercury toxicity and chronic illness.
Martin Pytela: Yes.
Julie Michelson: Right.
Martin Pytela: Yes. Yeah. [00:08:00] To this day, they deny the connection. Yeah. Sure enough, the people who are not poor methylators, which is about half of the population, are coping. Not well, but coping, right? I was totally in the not coping.
Julie Michelson: Right.
Martin Pytela: And so that's how they get away with. pretending that everything's fine.
Martin Pytela: It's not us. It's you. Gotcha.
Julie Michelson: Cause it's not everybody. Yeah.
Martin Pytela: Yeah. Therefore, therefore it's not the thing, right? That the mainstream medical approach, if you can find an exception, it's not us. Yeah. Yeah. So then, then, uh, well, anyway, I figured it out. I did the amino acids, they started compensating for the defective digestion.
Martin Pytela: So my discs strengthened. So I no longer had this wobbly spine and by the time I was 45, I was pretty healthy. And About that time, that was 1999, I [00:09:00] decided to go rural, and that forced me to, um, start making a living, and out of desperation, I thought, what do I know? Well, I know how to build a website, and I know how to make money.
Martin Pytela: a lot about chronically ill people. So let's put that together. And sure enough, I stopped being a management consultant and I became a health consultant.
Julie Michelson: Amazing luck, lucky for everybody that found you and has found you. Um, and it is, it is so interesting. It's very rare that I interview someone who, you know, doesn't have a personal story that brought them to To functional medicine or call it whatever you want, but but to root cause medicine and and healing modalities that you might not find at your PCP's office.
Martin Pytela: Yeah, maybe it takes a major disaster to propel us, the desperation of necessity, to give [00:10:00] up on the mainstream ideas and just break out into somewhere else. Right. I mean, you did it yourself, right?
Julie Michelson: Oh, yeah. Same thing. After 11 years of decline.
Martin Pytela: My limit was about 10. You were quicker than
Julie Michelson: me. So I, I want to share one of, one of the things that, that your journey has led you to is becoming an expert in metabolic typing.
Julie Michelson: Which is something I, we have not talked about on the podcast before, so I'm excited to, for you to share your knowledge with, with listeners. So what does that even mean? What is metabolic typing?
Martin Pytela: There's quite a bit of history, but back in 1987, Bill Wolcott finally put together the fact that there are two dominances and humans are one of them.
Martin Pytela: And it's sort of like left handed and right handed. Like if you have, uh, if you are a right handed person, right hand dominant, your [00:11:00] guitar is going to be played this way. But if you're a left handed dominant, you're going to be playing it this way. Which is similar enough, but you have to have the guitar strung differently for it to work.
Martin Pytela: Well, in this metaphor, we have oxidizers and autonomics. An oxidizer dominant person will be alkalized by fats and proteins and acidified by carbs. And the other one, the autonomic, is reversed. He's alkalized by carbs and acidified by fats and proteins. And what this means is the following. If, as you drift with your pH toward alkalinity, you start with getting up late, putting things off, procrastinate, And then deeper in, um, that would be maybe despondence, just really not getting things done and starting to dread.
Martin Pytela: And then way down is depression. Pull the sheet over the head and say, I'm not getting up today. I [00:12:00] just can't face the world.
Julie Michelson: Wow.
Martin Pytela: Now, acidity, acidity is different. With acidity, you get up early and you get a lot of things done. Like you're fire firing up. But your social graces are not so great. You tend to be argumentative, interrupt people, cut in, uh, drive aggressively, cut into traffic, all the way to road rage.
Martin Pytela: And then, and in the extreme situations, we have people In rage, if it's externally expressed, like attacking others, or in anxiety, internally expressed attacking themselves, reliving their past, I should have, I shouldn't have a this and that, or imagining future, just imagining all the horrible things that will happen if this then that.
Martin Pytela: So that's, that's anxiety territory. So let's, so some people are variable. Women, [00:13:00] women can be variable in their cycle before ovulation, after ovulation, or sometimes some people are intraday. Like the morning is in one mode and evening is another mode, but most people are stable. And so in the oxidizers, we have people who are overly acidic that are known as fast oxidizers.
Martin Pytela: or overly alkaline, they would be known as the slow oxidizers. And so you're out there in the extreme, but you would like to live in the middle, like in the middle of those
Julie Michelson: extremes don't sound good.
Martin Pytela: In the middle, you're flexible. You can, you can be kind, but aggressive as needed. Whereas if you're out in the corner here, You only go aggressive.
Martin Pytela: You have no other option. You're just so ironed. And if you're in this corner, you're just passive and accepting and don't get much done and stuff like that. So, if you happen to be waking up acidic as a fast [00:14:00] oxidizer, the worst thing you can do is eat a carby breakfast. Because you're going to take yourself way out into the far edges of your dysfunction.
Martin Pytela: So you need to be eating a breakfast that's the good old farmer two eggs with a piece of something fleshy.
Julie Michelson: Right? Yes.
Martin Pytela: You don't make a good vegetarian as a fast oxidizer. Now, as a slow oxidizer, you wake up somewhat depressed, and the only way you get out of it is with carbs.
Julie Michelson: Interesting.
Martin Pytela: Right? Because the vector that drives the oxidizer is pointing toward acidity with carbs.
Martin Pytela: So if you're already out there in alkalinity, you need that to be normal. Whereas if you wake up as a slow oxidizer and you eat something fat like that, Farmer breakfast to get depressed. You get nothing done that day. Wow. So now we flip [00:15:00] that the other one is the autonomic this and the autonomic system.
Martin Pytela: We know it quite well. It regulates all the Non-function. What, what, how do we call it? It regulates the stuff that we usually don't have to pay attention to. Like heart digestion and stuff. Breathing.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Martin Pytela: Anyway, the sympathetic side is the acidic side. The, uh, parasympathetic side is the alkaline side, but now if you wake up as a parasympathetic, you must eat fatty things to get normal, whereas starchy things will take you over the edge.
Martin Pytela: Like, imagine Ernst Hemingway as a parasympathetic, and he starts drinking. The more he drinks, the more depressed he gets. That's the story. So that's, that's the, that's the whole thing of learning about pH, how the internal [00:16:00] fluid pH and how it affects your mood. People who are overly acidic will be speedy and will be really smart, but really abrasive.
Martin Pytela: Whereas the alkaline people, they are It can't think clearly.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, brain fog slow.
Martin Pytela: Yeah, yeah.
Julie Michelson: And so we, if we, once we learn about ourselves, we can use food to help balance.
Martin Pytela: That's it. So we do a carbo push and we do a fat push and we watch our responses. So I give myself a carbo push, something stupid like a bowl of cereal with a banana on top.
Martin Pytela: Well we can, we can try just plain alcohol. The really amusing part is going to a party where alcohol is served and you will start seeing where the, uh, oxidizers are getting louder and more. Aggressive and they get into arguments and possibly into [00:17:00] physical altercations like they just really take it on whereas the autonomics they are drifting into alkalinity.
Martin Pytela: So first they are jovial and friendly. Then they are oversharing. No, no, first they say things that they wish they hadn't. And then finally they fall asleep.
Julie Michelson: Wow. So it's not just The alcohol. It's that impact.
Martin Pytela: It's the color which is affecting the pH, which is giving rise to the behaviors.
Julie Michelson: Interesting.
Martin Pytela: Yeah.
Martin Pytela: So that's the, that's a cool test. If you don't do
Julie Michelson: the alcohol push for breakfast, guys,
Martin Pytela: are a person who has used alcohol, you will probably know which type you are, where you fall, how you have reacted to that.
Julie Michelson: Gotcha. And what about for those that might change throughout the day? You know, I would imagine that's a little tougher to figure out.
Martin Pytela: Yeah, you could have a response A in the morning and response B in the evening. Okay. They're, they're rare, but it does happen. [00:18:00]
Julie Michelson: Okay.
Martin Pytela: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Wow. Just curious. And I, I guess the cycling women, it makes sense that may, you know, there's certain times of the month where women, not all women, many women need more carbs.
Julie Michelson: Yes. Um, and so that's, that's really fascinating.
Martin Pytela: So that's genetically predetermined essentially. Wow. Okay. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Wow. Interesting.
Martin Pytela: So, so this, this is the testing, right? So you can do some CARB test somehow, and how you respond is either by becoming more aggressive, which is this side, acidic, or more dopey or docile, which is the alkaline.
Martin Pytela: And then you can reconfirm by doing the opposite test. Take a spoonful of coconut oil and just eat that straight up. And within 20 minutes you'll have your answer. It's either calming you down or it's making you irritable. Interesting.
Julie Michelson: So I'm like, I want to play. Yeah, absolutely. [00:19:00] Actually, I probably don't have to play because I don't, I don't feel well when I eat a lot of carbs.
Julie Michelson: So
Martin Pytela: which, which not well, right? Are you not well because you're anxious or are you not well because you're depressed? Depressed, probably.
Julie Michelson: I don't know. I, for me, I mean, I, I get inflamed, so.
Martin Pytela: Yeah, you don't even go there. I
Julie Michelson: know.
Martin Pytela: You can try overdoing the fat.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Well, I, I, I was keto for several years in my healing journey and felt great.
Julie Michelson: So I, I think I know for me, I do better high fat, low carb. Um, but it's, yeah, that's interesting. It all comes down to really paying attention and listening to who's body.
Martin Pytela: And so there are some people who are more stable, their base is kind of wide, meaning like a sumo wrestler with feet fight apart and crouch down, I'll be [00:20:00] hard to push over.
Martin Pytela: Sure. Whereas if I stand on one, one foot with my eyes closed, all you have to do is push with your finger and I'm off. So there are some people who are stable and some people who are quite easily moved. It won't take too much of a difference. Right? Like a one spoon of price may be all that takes you from Soso to Okay.
Martin Pytela: Or from Soso to not. Okay.
Julie Michelson: Right. Wow. Interesting. And so you're, you explaining it to us kind of by, by mood and, and behavior. Um, I'm guessing this also impacts us in other ways.
Martin Pytela: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Satiety is a function of how well you have combined fats, proteins, and carbohydrates on your, in your meals.
Martin Pytela: If you're hungry early, or if you're craving starchy, or if you're whatever, that's just all imbalance in your meals that you [00:21:00] can correct.
Julie Michelson: Wow. So back to those macros, they, they matter, huh?
Martin Pytela: Yeah. For example, um, uh, the overly acid people will end up with cancer that's of the closed tumors like breast cancer or colon cancer or ovarian cancer or prostate or that sort of thing.
Martin Pytela: Whereas the overly alkaline people will get, uh, leukemia or myelomas or the, the non tumor forming cancers.
Julie Michelson: Interesting. Not
Martin Pytela: that I'm guaranteeing you that. No, no, no. But you will be way more likely to get ill if you are mismanaging into whatever territory, right? Like the, the out, outer reaches are less stable and more likely to manifest problems.
Martin Pytela: So bringing it to the center is a good policy.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, well, and I mean, that's always tends to be. [00:22:00] I mean, sometimes we can visit the edges, but living in the, I always say, you know, it's back to foundational, um, which is, is so fascinating. How did you and how did you get into? Into this. Yeah.
Martin Pytela: Back in 2012, 2010, somewhere around then, I found the book by Bill Walcott and I read
Julie Michelson: it.
Martin Pytela: And it, it just was, just like a lightbulb went off. That's why the books that I was reading about You know, back then, most books were written for sympathetic dominant people, where they would write these books where they were saying protein is acidifying and fat is acidic and the best thing you can do is carrot juice.
Martin Pytela: Well, it works for some people. Gotcha. You have Max Gerson who saves people from cancer with his carrot juice and coffee enema policy. [00:23:00] Then there was this woman, Johanna Budwig, who, from Germany, who invented this, uh, mix of flax oil with cottage cheese. Which is fats and oils, right? And she was curing cancer with that.
Martin Pytela: And then, then a woman calls me up and she said, I went to the, uh, something Institute starts with an H. I can't think of the word right now. They are, they're healing people by going raw food, vegetarian. Yep. And, um, after three weeks of that, she was on her deathbed. So I said, well, now you know that is not your way.
Martin Pytela: You need to go buy yourself a salmon and cook that and eat that with a salad and call me in a week. And sure enough, right?
Julie Michelson: She was not a raw
Martin Pytela: foodist vegetarian. She was a Well, and so there are these three main [00:24:00] adaptations. Coastal, inland, and farming. Right? The hunters In cold climates, let's just say Norway, you would be eating dried cod and fresh salmon and reindeer.
Martin Pytela: You would have growing season compressed into about 90 days.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Martin Pytela: North of 60, there's not a whole lot of summer. So then you have these coastals like Germany, England. Whatever. Most of those people were fishing back actually in Europe back in up to maybe 1800. There was a lot of salmon in the rivers.
Julie Michelson: Oh, interesting.
Martin Pytela: I read a report. From where I grew up, Czech Republic, and the, the, what's their name? The servants were protesting that salmon be served no more than three times a week. [00:25:00]
Julie Michelson: Oh, wow. Right. Interesting. Yeah. It's kind of like organ meats. Like, you know, that was.
Martin Pytela: Okay, so let's dive into this one. So, uh, there is this thing called endocrine dominance, which we also determine in, uh, the metabolic typing test, and there are three major ones, thyroid, adrenal, or pituitary, and women can also have, uh, ovarian dominance.
Martin Pytela: In men, all men are testosterone drive anyway. Anyway, the thyroid dominant person would be slim limbs, like, you know, I'm one of those. You can put my hand or my fingers around my wrist. Slender arms, slender legs tend to put on weight in the middle. So if they dysregulate, they end up looking like a big belly with stick legs.
Martin Pytela: If they,
Julie Michelson:[00:26:00] if they dysregulate.
Martin Pytela: Yes. Yeah. Otherwise, if they do regulate, uh, men look like basketball players, volleyball, women look like the Victoria's Secret models, leggy trim, you know,
Julie Michelson: may not be busty though. They might just be
Martin Pytela: slender. Some are quite busty. Some are not. Yes. Yeah. Um, the adrenal types. Um, they're dominant.
Martin Pytela: Well, they favor savory foods rather than starchy foods. So their health food. Oh, and they put on weight by eating fats and lose weight by eating salads or carbs. Whereas the thyroid dominant are gaining weight by starch and losing weight by fat. So a thyroid dominant person on a keto diet is skinning. A, uh, thyroid dominant person on a keto diet is gaining weight out [00:27:00] of style.
Julie Michelson: Wow. Interesting.
Martin Pytela: That's why we have all these different diets. You have to pick the right one.
Julie Michelson: Right. People ask me all the time. Well, you know, well, what do you eat? I'll just eat what you eat. And I'm like, well, but you're not in my body. Yeah,
Martin Pytela: exactly that. And so, so, um, the third one is the pituitary. The fat distribution on a pituitary is Pretty even, like Cabbage Patch Doll or, or Pillsbury Doughboy.
Martin Pytela: So you have fat ankles and fat knees and, but it's just straight up. They are not that common, but you find them. It's usually the typical nerd kind of visage, larger head, curly hair, uh, legs are X shaped. These people tend to be supremely smart. And they, uh, they usually crave, um, creamy things. Whipping cream, ice cream, [00:28:00] creamy stuff.
Martin Pytela: And to them, their health food is salad, but the most healthful thing to them is organ meats.
Julie Michelson: Ah, okay.
Martin Pytela: To them, organ meats is health food. So we now have this thing called purine. Purine is a protein that's richly present in the organ meats and red meats. And some types do better with it than others.
Martin Pytela: Thyroids, they don't do well on that. They do better on fish than they do on red meat. But if you are a fast oxidizer thyroid, you probably can handle all the red meat that can come your way. And if you're a pituitary, again, I don't know, fast oxidizer, you should be on a diet of raw liver and cooked tongue.
Martin Pytela: The highest pure
Julie Michelson: foods
Martin Pytela: are brain, liver, kidney, heart, tongue. In the, uh, plant world, [00:29:00] it's, uh, cauliflower, asparagus.
Martin Pytela: In fish world, it's sardine, anchovy,
Martin Pytela: a few others, but I would have to dive into the list to say it straight up, but
Julie Michelson: Interesting. And so the connection, is there a connection then with, you know, if we're talking purines and meats and organ meats, then immediately I think of, you know, the people that would tend to get gout easier. than other people?
Julie Michelson: Is that related? Yeah,
Martin Pytela: the thyroid types are more likely to get gout if they stay on red meat. They will probably do better on more vegetarian and the lighter, like, you know, whitefish. Gotcha.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Martin Pytela: Wow, so that's that's me. I am one of those. I'm a sympathetic dominant. You can hear me talk. I'm talking quite aggressively, right?
Martin Pytela: That's my natural acidic modality. [00:30:00] I can kind of, well, you know, I can slow down, but it's, it's a put on. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Disingenuine. Yeah. Just be, just be you.
Martin Pytela: Right. Whereas I would expect you to be more on the pleasant, friendly, jovial, yet easy side. Right?
Julie Michelson: Mm hmm.
Martin Pytela: Yes. You have the look of it. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Martin Pytela: So we can guess and we can just say, okay, I'll have to live with it.
Martin Pytela: That's me. So if you are a thyroid dominant, you'll lose weight with fat. Yep. If fat makes you depressed, now you're a depressed skinny person.
Julie Michelson: No, not good.
Martin Pytela: You need to find the, the edge. Yeah. Okay. Find the balance where you're eating just enough fat to make you not gain weight, but not so much that it makes you feel Whatever.
Martin Pytela: Right. You can be a skinny bitch, right? Which is. You can
Julie Michelson: be.
Martin Pytela: Which is the [00:31:00] opposite, right? That's, that's, uh, the autonomic thyroid combination.
Julie Michelson: This is fascinating to me. I always love, I was so excited to learn from you today.
Martin Pytela: All right.
Julie Michelson: It's great.
Martin Pytela: Okay. So that's, so now the overlaid over top of it, right? The rules that must be followed. Do not eat refined foods. No refined grains, no refined, um, fats, what are they, plant oils, no refined salt, no refined sugar, no dairy that has been pasteurized or homogenized.
Martin Pytela: Just don't do it.
Julie Michelson: Amen. I remember as a kid thinking it was so, so strange. My family was in the dairy business and by the time I was growing up it was, it was all homogenized and pasteurized. Yes. Amen. And then I remember when they came out with ultra pasteurized, my, my dad was like, you know, we've already ruined it enough.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Martin Pytela: The three month can [00:32:00] of milk, lots of milk, right? It will last three months.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Pytela: When I was a kid, um, the milk would go bad by the evening and it would always separate, right? Like we do the regular thing, but I learned since that. There are two kinds of cows, northern cows and southern cows. The southern would be called buffalo.
Martin Pytela: And so they're typically in India or southern France, southern Italy. And so dairy made with milk from those is way friendlier to the human than the northern breed like Holstein, Jersey, and so on. The unfortunate thing is that The Holsteins and Jerseys give, have a better yield. They produce more butterfat.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Martin Pytela: So they are preferred by the dairy industry, but shouldn't be. Yeah. The other day I saw, I found Mozzarella Buffalo in Boston. My favorite. Right? Love it. [00:33:00] Right. And so those of us who don't have the genetics to handle the Northern cow, we can handle the Southern cow. Yes. And if we can't handle that, we should be able to handle sheep or goat.
Martin Pytela: Right. Right. Right.
Julie Michelson: Yes. Those are my sheep, goat, and buffalo. That's where I, that's the zone I live in.
Martin Pytela: Right. So I have this client, goes to India, eats all the paneer she wants, comes back to America and eats paneer and breaks out.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Well, I, I have, you know, I know people with the diagnosed celiac that can enjoy pasta in Italy.
Julie Michelson: You know, what we've done in this country to our food system is, is horrifying.
Martin Pytela: I was in Italy, uh, hosted by a naturopath, and, uh, there was nothing else other than Italian bread and pasta to be had. So, I thought, well, it's three days, what the heck, how bad can it get? Nothing happened, right? I was fine. Isn't [00:34:00] that wild?
Martin Pytela: I cannot touch it. Don't do it here, yeah. I'm asking him, and he says, Grano, that's the Italian for grain. Uh, He says, Oh yeah, we grow it. It's regulated. We grow it to the old Roman standard. It still is the four foot tall Durham wheat. Not the dwarf and it's not fertilized. It's not Treated with herbicides, pesticides, you name it.
Martin Pytela: It's just organic to the 2, 000 years ago standard. Amazing. And what's interesting? Americans were so proud to have raised the protein level in their wheat to 13 percent. The Italian. Look at us
Julie Michelson: now.
Martin Pytela: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Martin Pytela: Yeah, I cannot touch it. And yeah, it's, it's, I'm, I'm a broken person.
Julie Michelson: No, you're not. It's the food system that's broken.
Martin Pytela: Oh, darn.
Julie Michelson: It's not you. That means I'm broken too. And I do not identify.
Martin Pytela: I called myself a [00:35:00] broken jar. I've been glued back together. But I'm not as good as new.
Julie Michelson: That's, that's, that's where they make art with that in Japan, right? Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. The
Martin Pytela: injuries just fill it in with
Julie Michelson: gold. Do you think this is totally an opinion question, but I'm curious.
Julie Michelson: Um, you already mentioned the higher gluten content, what we do here, but, but do you think that the glyphosate Plays a big role as well and why we have such a gluten intolerance wheat intolerance
Martin Pytela: Okay, two things that are Antibiotics that we have in our system that we don't understand our antibiotics chlorine We put chlorine in water to kill dangerous microbes but when we ingest chlorinated water It's the nuclear explosion all the way down to the end.
Martin Pytela: The second thing is glyphosate was originally patented as an [00:36:00] antibiotic. I did not know that. Here's how it works. It actually kills the microbes that are facilitating the nutrient uptake at the root of the plant. So it doesn't kill the plant. It kills it to get nutrition. And it, it doesn't burn. It just withers, right?
Martin Pytela: And it withers because it starves. So, when you put these transamounts of glyphosate in, it is antibiotic, and that's the effect. Therefore, you are essentially creating a leaky gut effect or microbial dysregulation, which takes you all the way onto the autistic spectrum, and, uh, that's.
Julie Michelson: And autoimmune. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: I mean. That's
Martin Pytela: the story of glyphosate. It's horrible.
Julie Michelson: And it's. Everywhere here. I have a good friend who lives in Iowa. When she comes to visit me in Colorado, if it's in the summer, the first thing she wants to do is go to a lake because she won't get in the water [00:37:00] in Iowa because it's, you know, it's just, yeah, that's the horrible
Martin Pytela: thing.
Martin Pytela: This, this thing is water soluble. Yeah, when you put it on the field and it rains, it dissolves and it goes into the ground. So it, it poisons the, poisons the wells, poisons the ditches, poisons the surface water, which is the rivers and lakes. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. So, again, back to this learning how, you know, your metabolic typing, um, and understanding, you know, we're looking for middle of the road.
Julie Michelson: We want to be balanced. Yeah.
Martin Pytela: Yeah. The important, the important learnings, right? Once you know your endocrine type, you know how you gain weight or lose weight, so you don't have to worry about it. Once you know your metabolic type, you know how to, for [00:38:00] example, go to sleep, right? Like, if you are an autonomic, Things that slow you down are carbs, and things that wake you up are fats.
Martin Pytela: So, if you want to stay up late, eat steak and, uh, lots of olive oil in your salad. But if you want to sleep, uh, don't do that. Wow. I don't know what to recommend. Maybe a banana or two shots of whiskey, if that's your thing.
Julie Michelson: Or create really good routines and,
Martin Pytela: you know. Right. And so, but if you're an oxidizer.
Martin Pytela: Vice versa, right? You're going to be falling asleep on pushing fat. So if you are not going to sleep, if you're staying awake, it's probably your pH that's too acidic. Figure out some way to tilt it. But you need to know your type to do it right. Otherwise you'll do the wrong thing. And you recommend
Julie Michelson: people experiment with it.
Martin Pytela: Yeah, you must. Start at breakfast because you [00:39:00] will have the rest of the day to correct it. Right? Like if you make yourself acidic by taking carbs, your antidote is a fat, you can go into the fridge and fix it.
Julie Michelson: Interesting. Well, you, I, you know, you're convincing me. I, I tend to lean toward the carbs for breakfast is just not a great idea.
Julie Michelson: Um, for some people it is,
Martin Pytela: there are healthy carbs there. You can find Oh,
Julie Michelson: yeah. Yeah. I just, you know, I, I've, I've met so many people who come in and they're like, I eat healthy. I have oatmeal for breakfast. You know, I don't know why I have diabetes and, and I can't lose weight.
Martin Pytela: Okay. Well, so. For
Julie Michelson: them.
Martin Pytela: Probably a fast oxidizer and you should never ever touch carbs in your life. including fruit.
Julie Michelson: Right. Yeah. But I will, you, you're going to make me gentler. I just actually [00:40:00] read an art. I didn't read the article. I saw the headline and I was like, what, um, about, you know, eating this fruit at bedtime. Well, now I'm trying to remember what it was going to cure.
Julie Michelson: I can't remember. It was, I didn't read it, but You know, there is a time and a place, um, and working with clients to regard, especially around sleep so that it is fascinating to put it together that,
Martin Pytela: you know, for example, myself, right? I'm a sympathetic dominant. So I wake up early and I wake up ready to go and the longer I don't eat, the more acidic I get.
Martin Pytela: So I'm by 2 p. m. If I don't eat, I'm pretty bitchy. So
Julie Michelson: hangry.
Martin Pytela: I could start me with a watermelon, put some grapefruit on later, and then maybe some apple and maybe a banana by 11, and then I'm ready for lunch.
Julie Michelson: Interesting.
Martin Pytela: Right. So just, and there's a, there's a [00:41:00] cascade to fruits. You want to, water is early and the.
Martin Pytela: Thickest later.
Julie Michelson: And why is that?
Martin Pytela: Oh, just digesting.
Julie Michelson: Okay. So start out gentle.
Martin Pytela: Yeah. Start, start with a, um, I don't know, grapefruit or an orange, if you're going to eat that and then graduate to apples later and whatever. But you can have a fruit salad, I don't care.
Julie Michelson: Interesting. And then you're adding in your proteins later in the day.
Martin Pytela: Right. Yes. Oh, interestingly. So, for example, for the thyroid types. They, uh, they do best on three same size meals in a day, and each meal should have some protein, which is challenging. Like I just recommended my meal to be fruit. And yet, I should be eating some protein, so. Uh oh. Break your rules.
Julie Michelson: Well, I mean, again, the rules are general, right?
Julie Michelson: And then we individualize.
Martin Pytela: Right.
Julie Michelson: Um, [00:42:00] so what about.
Martin Pytela: Sorry. So the, uh, the thyroid types tend to be craving starchy things in the evening if they didn't have enough protein throughout the day.
Julie Michelson: Ah. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Pytela: I can just visualize myself at 8 p. m. looking for some cookie or something, some, something sweet, starchy anyway.
Julie Michelson: And that's your signal that you didn't get enough protein.
Martin Pytela: Yep.
Julie Michelson: Interesting. And what about like the adrenal types? Do they have a meal pattern like that?
Martin Pytela: They like savory. They get seduced by sausages and bacons and uh, just meals that are cooked and rich. Okay. And they gain weight on, on fat and lose gain, lose weight.
Martin Pytela: Weight on carbs. So they're sl, are they in the minority?
Julie Michelson: Are, are they in the minority kind of or no?
Martin Pytela: To describe the person. Men are built like a weightlifter, a linebacker, just [00:43:00] gotcha. Bare shoulders, deep chest. And women, mostly you'll find them in gymnastics, like, uh, Okay. I don't know, uh, Johnson, what's, what's her first name?
Martin Pytela: Shawn Johnson, she's,
Julie Michelson: Uh huh.
Martin Pytela: Already now, or,
Julie Michelson: Is she really? Oh my gosh.
Martin Pytela: What's, uh, this, this recent one, gosh, can't think of her.
Julie Michelson: Oh, I had it and now it's gone. Anyway,
Martin Pytela: um, she won the most decorations. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Okay, amazing.
Martin Pytela: Miles is the last name. Simone,
Julie Michelson: Simone, thank you. Yeah.
Martin Pytela: Anyway,
Julie Michelson: Together we can, we can do it.
Martin Pytela: Classic. compact, deep chest, strong limbs, all of that. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Interesting. Fascinating. So if, if we're working on healing, um, because just from living on the planet these days, even if you didn't get amalgam fillings or you don't have your finger on exactly [00:44:00] what tipped you over the edge into chronic inflammation, I'll say just across the board.
Julie Michelson: Um, this sounds like a really important step for healing.
Martin Pytela: Yes. Well, I, I, I'd say that illness stands on four pillars and that's toxicity, malnutrition, stagnation, and trauma. And these days I add to trauma electromagnetic frequencies, all the Wi Fi stuff that you can't see. There's this concept or this system called voltage gated calcium channels.
Martin Pytela: And the millimeter waves are triggering all of your cells to start flooding with calcium. And calcium is the signaling molecule for fight or flight, stress side, the stress side of the autonomic system. It's balanced by magnesium, [00:45:00] so you need to supplement magnesium if you're living in a Wi Fi world.
Julie Michelson: Which is everybody, so just period, you need to supplement with magnesium, period.
Martin Pytela: Yes, yes. And, uh, But trauma is in, um, uh, concepts in your subconscious that, that all should be dealt with. I don't think we should get into it too deep here today, but definitely work on finding ways to deal with all that.
Martin Pytela: Stagnation is a miserable thing. We are sedentary creatures and should not be. When you don't have How do I say this? We are, uh, a dynamic balance creature. I inhale, exhale, I, uh, uh, ingest, excrete. I interact with the world all the time. And I must create movement. And so, for example, when you walk for 30 minutes a day, you don't get constipated.
Martin Pytela: Right? Well,
Julie Michelson: and if you think of our [00:46:00] lymphatic system, it requires movement
Martin Pytela: to work. Supremely important, otherwise you're turning into a swamp.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, and you feel like a soul, too.
Martin Pytela: Yeah, yeah.
Julie Michelson: You do. You do. So, yeah.
Martin Pytela: Okay. Well, then, then what else? Uh, oh, yeah, the malnutrition, of course, the industrial food is presenting us with these highly processed, super seductive foods that pretend to be nutrition, and, um, the general idea of calorie rich but nutrient poor is too common in the processed foods.
Martin Pytela: Yeah. The malnutrition happens at the tail end of eating in fast food restaurants or restaurants in general and buying groceries as we are presented them.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. And boxes and bags. And yes. Yeah. So
Martin Pytela: we need to compensate for that. You need to push the pigments, the [00:47:00] rainbow foods, and you need to even concentrated foods.
Martin Pytela: We actually have a business. I'm, I'm the CEO of a company called Excella Foods. where we manufacture these superfoods. So those are high. We
Julie Michelson: can compensate for what we're getting. Yeah. Amazing.
Martin Pytela: Just a little detail. For example, the mineralization of vegetables today are or is about 10 percent of what it was 150 years ago.
Martin Pytela: So now you would have to eat 10 pounds of broccoli to make up what your grandmother got out of a pound of broccoli herself.
Julie Michelson: It's incredible. I'm hoping that regenerative farming will start taking hold now.
Martin Pytela: Heck yeah. I am so hopeful. I'm so hopeful now. Yeah. I'm hopeful that Kennedy gets his way. Yeah. And we'll see changes in how things are done.
Martin Pytela: Both in big food, big chemistry, big uh [00:48:00] Pharma. The name, all of the large business, all the
Julie Michelson: big, big blank.
Martin Pytela: Yeah. Well, I'm hoping that money will be taken out of politics and, uh, outcome merit will prevail over whatever the heck we have right now.
Julie Michelson: And the beautiful thing is we, you know, I know, we know the body can heal and they've also already proven.
Julie Michelson: And so can the earth.
Martin Pytela: Yes.
Julie Michelson: So hopeful is the word. That's, that's the word.
Martin Pytela: Yeah. Okay. So the last of them is toxicity and there's plenty of it. Think of volatile organic compounds, all the smelly things that are presented to you. Um, some of them you can't smell like formaldehyde from the laminated flooring that you just put in your house or, or the vinyls and whatever else that's gassing off in your nice new car.
Martin Pytela: Those things. You know, the people with our [00:49:00] genetics should never buy a new car. Yes, true. Two years, three years, that's how long it takes for it to just gas off.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. I know. I love that. You said all the smelly thing. This is, I am very rarely have I ever had anybody say, can you smell that? You know, and I haven't like been way ahead of them.
Julie Michelson: And it's, it is, I believe a sign of, you know, being a poor detox or, and, and having I did something I work on all the time is yes. She talks. Yeah. So
Martin Pytela: I, I am using zeolite every day. It's a binder, it binds the VOCs, it binds ugly plastics, and it binds ugly metals, so.
Julie Michelson: And you use it away from other supplements and things?
Martin Pytela: No, I just take a capsule of it with my morning drink, which has chameleon salt, iodine drops, and, uh, what the heck else, oh, humic and fulvic. And [00:50:00] zeolite. That's my insurance policy every morning.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, which is, it is so important. I think we have, not I think, we have come so far from our natural state and nature that we need to supplement with certain things.
Julie Michelson: We need to be, make conscious choices about, about things to compensate for the world we live in. Wow. So I think that that's brilliant.
Martin Pytela: Yeah. I mean, the same thing. You put on an extra jacket if it's cold outside. Well, living here now in the industrialized world, there are no exceptions. You probably have to take the zeolite because you are getting toxins.
Martin Pytela: I mean, you're, you're in traffic and you're the metals that are in the brake pads of the automobiles. Are wearing off every time somebody steps on the brakes
Julie Michelson: and
Martin Pytela: the rubber that's wearing off on the tires and the exhaust that's coming on from the engine [00:51:00] and so on.
Julie Michelson: Like, all you have
Martin Pytela: to do is just get in traffic.
Martin Pytela: You're inhaling it.
Julie Michelson: Or if you live in farm country, you know, then you need to, your neighbors are using things you might not like. Your body may not like.
Martin Pytela: Two billion tons a year in the United States. That's insane.
Julie Michelson: That's crazy.
Martin Pytela: Not tons, two billion pounds.
Julie Michelson: It's still crazy.
Martin Pytela: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's this much is too much.
Julie Michelson: Amazing. You've already given us so much to think about, but what is one step that listeners can take starting today to improve their health?
Martin Pytela: Well, the one thing is pay attention to your moods and then look back what you ate an hour earlier and how the balance was. Was it more fatty or was it more starchy?
Martin Pytela: And start fiddling with that.
Julie Michelson: I love it. I love the, you know, just something that most listeners haven't been doing. So I think that that's fantastic. And where is you, and we'll have all the links in the [00:52:00] show notes, but where's the best place to find you for people that are listening on the go?
Martin Pytela: Yeah, through the website, life enthusiast.
Martin Pytela: com. We are on media, uh, L I F E N T C O on YouTube and Telegram and X, we're, we're there.
Julie Michelson: Love it. Amazing. Martin, thank you so much for your time and your depth and wealth of knowledge that you shared with us today.
Martin Pytela: Yeah, it's a real pleasure talking to you. Thank you
Julie Michelson: for everyone listening. Remember you can get the show notes and transcripts by visiting inspiredliving.
Julie Michelson: show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
​[00:53:00]
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Martin Pytela
Martin Pytela, a respected functional medicine expert and Metabolic Typing coach, whose mission is to "Restore Vitality to You and The Planet." With over 12,000 clients coached since 2011 and over 60,000 students enrolled in his Udemy courses, Martin has a wealth of knowledge to share on topics such as healing trauma, managing stress and anxiety, weight loss, metabolism, longevity, mindfulness, gut health, and overall health.
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