Question 9How important is understanding a

person's psychological makeup when prescribing a dietary change? Is

success in the mind or a function of individual endocrine makeup?

Fat Loss Roundtable With The Experts

Layne Norton How important is understanding a person's psychological makeup when prescribing a dietary change? Is success in the mind or a function of individual endocrine makeup?

“Understanding how someone's metabolism responds to manipulations in macronutrients is very important.

What works for one person, might be disaster for another. ”

Alan AragonHow important is understanding a person's psychological makeup when prescribing a dietary change? Is success in the mind or a function of individual endocrine makeup?

“It's nearly impossible to truly understand a person's psychological makeup when designing programs. Success & the motivation to succeed is determined by a combination of factors.

I always emphasize that if you're making progress you're succeeding. Focusing on the "ultimate" goal while overlooking the milestones of progress that occur along the way is a bad approach.

Often, people's "ultimate" goals change and evolve as they progress. ”

“ I would say very important.

My diet consults begin with a thorough questionnaire where I get a feel for an individual´s behavioural aspects. That tells me a lot about what meal frequency and macronutrient composition will work best for them.

It has nothing to do with blood types or Wolcott´s metabolic typing, but you tend to see that the introverted, high-stress, (over)analytical/cognitive, endurance types do better on carbs and higher meal frequencies - whereas the extroverted, thrill-seeking, explosive-impulsive sprinter-types do better on less carbs, more proteins and fats... Obviously many will have some of both but still be dominant in one direction.

I scale things according to activity level, bf% and training modality (carbs scale with high-intensity training volume, fat intake with bf% AND low-intensity cardio volume) and can design a pretty damn good starting point for most.

The weekly progress report takes care of optimization part, once we see how someone responds to the diet.”

Borge FagerliHow important is understanding a person's psychological makeup when prescribing a dietary change? Is success in the mind or a function of individual endocrine makeup?

“Sticking to a diet is a psychological as much as a physiological battle, people often fall down is having the self discipline and strength to stick to a plan.

There are some steps you need to follow.

1. Know exactly what you are going to eat and drink before the start of every day.

2. Have that food available and ready to go (don't rely on getting your favourite salad from Marks and Spencer as that will stop the day they run out).

3. Eat the food on your plan

4. Give yourself credit for sticking it your plan.

There are lots of other issues about people's responses to food. Often overweight people will use food as a reward, I've trained hard today so i deserve that chocolate bar.

Often food will be used to help alleviate stress, I've had a hard day at work, the Mrs is giving me grief, sod it I'm going to have a couple of beers.”

Gavin AllinsonHow important is understanding a person's psychological makeup when prescribing a dietary change? Is success in the mind or a function of individual endocrine makeup?

“Both – where the mind goes the body will follow and the mind will go places faster if the hormonal and neurotransmitter network is properly balanced. We look at neurotransmitter deficiency and address this using amino acids.”

Matt LovellHow important is understanding a person's psychological makeup when prescribing a dietary change? Is success in the mind or a function of individual endocrine makeup?