As a nutritionist I was trained to use a selection of diets according to the situation. “Hello Mrs Smith, please follow this diet to assist your weight problem” or “Mr Jones, follow these dietary instructions to aid your digestion.” I thought I had the answers, all the tools for my trade. But in clinical practice I soon found it did not work. Mr Jones would do really well and his digestion would ease, but the next person with digestive problems would not respond – he might even deteriorate further. The same would apply to Mrs Smith – she would improve, but when her friend came to consult me about the same thing – it didn’t work!

Worse still, I didn’t feel too great myself. As a nutritional student I had adopted many “good” practices – we were taught to “walk our talk” and that meant eating a “healthy diet”. At the time, this was lots of fruit and salads, whole grains such as rice and oats and modest amounts of fish and chicken and organic dairy products. Sounds good doesn’t it? Whilst many of my fellow students did really well, I struggled badly with my energy and at times I crept away to a discreet café and bought myself beef stew, lamb kebabs or bacon and egg! I always felt better. But this was wrong – I felt so guilty, I should be able to do the right thing.

Out in the real world, I found about 50% of my clients did not respond to good nutritional principles. At first I blamed me – I was not instructing them correctly. Then I blamed the client – she was not sticking to the diet! Then I went through a phase of thinking it was all in my imagination – but how could it be – my physical body was telling me otherwise every time I ate. Gradually, the truth dawned -- I began to question what I had learnt. Was it possible some of the nutrition I had been taught was wrong?

And so the search began. Who can answer my questions? Who can help me? I bought tapes, read books, went to seminars. In the end the answer came from a friend. Another nutritionist - tired of eating endless salads and not feeling too good herself, she called me one day and asked if I had heard of Metabolic Typing -- and did I want to join her and attend a training course?

The course was a revelation. Jam packed full of mind-boggling information. And best of all I went on to discover that my Metabolic Type must have a diet high in fat and protein, especially dense protein such as lamb and beef and game meat. I had been right all along!! That was in the year 2000 and I have not looked back since.

I began my training in Metabolic Typing with the late Dr Harold Kristal of Personalised Metabolic Nutrition. More recently I have undergone further training with HealthExcel, William Walcott’s organisation. In my practice, I combine the wealth of information provided by both these schools.

Metabolic Typing in Australia is part of Gold Coast Holistic Health. I relocated to Australia in 2001 and established Gold Coast Holistic Health with my husband, Joyaa Antares (Osteopath).