Through personal experience and working with others in the area of nutrition, I have found that there are a number of factors that can determine an individual's personal dietary requirements. Everything from metabolism to your genetics can factor in.

Sound complicated? It can be, but we purpose to make it as simple for you as possible.

Take time now to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to give you understanding concerning your own personal needs. God made you and He made food. He knows exactly what you need to eat to meet your health and fitness goals. We join our faith with yours for God to help you in every way possible.

Low carb, no carb, high fat, no fat.the list is endless for all the diets you can experiment with. Our society, as a whole, basically went low fat several years ago. But, what happened? Instead of getting thinner, we became fatter! I'm sure you're thinking, Marty, if we were eating a low-fat diet, how did we get fatter?Here's how: Instead of eating fat, we started eating low-fat foods that were full of sugar. We weren't eating complex carbohydrates, like fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Instead, we were basically eating junk food.

These low-fat foods, which are filled with sugar and the simple carbohydrates in our body, cause us to produce more insulin-which in turn leads to storing fat. So, eating low fat, high sugar food can cause you to gain weight.

Marketing companies spent millions of dollars convincing the general public that all of these low-fat foods were actually good for us, and creating foods that taste good (because they have lots of sugar). Yet people started getting fat and blaming everything on carbohydrates, but they failed to find out what kinds of carbohydrates were making people fat. Complex carbohydrates don't make you fat unless you eat too many of them. Too much of anything will make you fat because your body will convert it to fat. So what happened? The "low carb" craze. We went from low fat to low carb because we recognized the danger of simple carbs.

If a diet is too restrictive, like a high protein, low carbohydrate diet, your body will begin to feel deprived. Carbohydrates fuel your brain, so if you're too restrictive on carbohydrates and go long periods of time without eating them, a physiological response to that diet will take over. If you deplete your body on a consistent basis of the carbohydrates it needs, it will rebel because of its God-given survival mechanism.

Now, when you go off that diet and binge to replenish those carbs, you're not necessarily going to crave "good" carbs, like whole grains, fruits and vegetables. You're going to get the carbs that are the quickest and easiest to get into your system and ultimately raise your blood sugar level the fastest. What kinds of foods are those? White flour, sugar and junk food. When you eat very few carbs for a long time, you will have these carbohydrate, sometimes sugar cravings, because you've depleted your body from the carbs it needs. We often reach for those in the form of sugar because we think (though falsely) from experience that eating sugar will give us the quickest energy fix.

What is the answer? Avoid restrictive-calorie diets and start exercising. Exercise can turn your metabolism around. Also, eat more whole foods and cut the simple carbs, but keep some of the high fiber and whole grains—a balanced diet of carbohydrates, proteins, fat (good fat) and fiber.
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I constantly pray for wisdom and ask God to show me how to keep progressing higher in fitness and higher in health. Instead of focusing on strict dieting rules, begin to focus on what God says is good. (Genesis 1:28)