The phases

Step by step to health and vitality

The Metabolic Balance program is based on four phases. The duration of the phases will depend on the individual health goal. This is especially so for the strict phase (phase 2) which can be individually adapted to your needs.

This is the preparation phase which lasts for 2 days. On Day 1 you have a digestive cleanse using the right method agreed with your practitioner. This is usually using a magnesium supplement, psyllium husks or natural laxative.
The strict phase lasts for 14 days. You must stick closely to the plan during these 2 weeks. It can be challenging to focus on the rules – but it will be so worth it!
Even in “Phase 2 with oil” you must adhere strictly to your plan. However, you will also have occasional treat days. We definitely see that those clients who adhere closely to their plans for an excellent sustained period of time with no excuses have the most long-lasting success. Your metabolism seems to gain excellent resilience and forgive little lapses much better the longer it has to stabilise itself first.
In Phase 3, quantities are slowly increased and new foods are tested with the support of your practitioner. Here, clients often discover that they no longer react to food the way they usually would. You will find your taste has changed. Now that they have the chance to try them out again, many are no longer in the mood for sweets, burgers and processed foods.
This is the retention phase of Metabolic Balance. Now you should know how and what you can and like to eat. Here 80% of the successful clients adhere to their plans and 20% follow their own paths.
We at Metabolic Balance are absolutely convinced that nutrition for our body should be as clean and natural as possible. The more food has been processed and the more additives have been added to it, the more likely it is that it will negatively affect us.
This is why Metabolic Balance recommends natural foods, as fresh as possible, bought locally from sustainable sources.

Exchanging (swapping) meals

Breakfast is breakfast.

That’s the most important rule. Breakfasts may only be varied with other breakfasts. For example, you may only have eggs for breakfast if they are listed as a breakfast in your personal plan. Otherwise you have to do without an egg at breakfast.

Eggs are suspected of increasing the tendency towards inflammation when they are eaten for breakfast, but are more easily tolerated when eaten for lunch or dinner.

All other meals may be interchanged, provided the quantities are adjusted accordingly. At noon you should have 10g less protein than in the evening. This means that those who have 125g chicken on their plans for lunch, but prefer to eat it in the evening can eat 125+10 = 135g chicken. A fish portion of 130g, on the plan for the evening, should be reduced to 130–10 = 120g.

Carbohydrates

Wholemeal rye bread

How much wholemeal rye bread can I eat?

  • It’s in your plan. The information is calculated in slices of bread.
  • A slice of wholemeal rye bread should weigh 25g.
  • A slice of wholemeal rye crispbread should be 10–15g.
  • You don’t have to eat all of the wholemeal rye bread on your plan. However, the amount on the plan must not be exceeded.

Please – eat only sourdough wholemeal rye bread. i.e. no yeast!

Unfortunately, many rye breads in Kenya & East Africa also contain wheat, you need to double check. Your bread should be 100% rye flour without any other flours!

Suitable items:

  • Wholemeal rye bread
    This consists of rye flour and rye meal plus peel.
  • Whole grain rye bread
    This mainly consists of coarse-ground rye (shot).
    Ask your (organic) baker or health food store. You should find out for yourself how important it is that your bread contains neither wheat, sugar nor yeast. Nowadays, that’s nothing out of the ordinary anymore. There are many allergy sufferers who, just like you, enquire first before they accidentally eat anything that might not agree with them.
  • Wholemeal rye bread – crispbread
    Please check whether the crispbread you wish to buy is really pure wholemeal rye crispbread. There are now many varieties that contain other flours or that have been baked from or with extract flours.

Not suitable:

  • Mixed rye bread
    Ordinary mixed rye bread has soft crumbs. It usually has a relatively high proportion of wheat and rarely has any whole grain content at all. However, it’s usually baked with yeast – even if it’s called “sourdough bread”.
  • Wholemeal bread
    Look at the package or ask your baker. Most wholemeal breads are not wholemeal at all. They are baked with flour extracts, a little shot and often with oil seeds. Most of them contain yeast and very often molasses or other colourings, flavours and sugars.
    What you are looking for is pure wholemeal rye bread, which is made exclusively with sourdough.
  • Pumpernickel
    Most pumpernickel loaves are mixed with molasses, a sugar syrup that gives them their dark colour and sweet taste. In fact, pure rye pumpernickel is also available without this added sugar, but pumpernickel is not suitable for the Metabolic Balance diet. Its slightly sweet taste is the reason for this ... during the baking process, sugar is formed and this could lead to the sugar trap.

What is sourdough?

Sourdough is a fermenting dough that acts as a natural baking agent. Baking with sourdough requires skill, experience and time, which nowadays has led to sourdough hardly being used at all for baking. We are thankfully seeing more Sourdough breads increasingly available in Kenya & East Africa.

Be aware though that some breads that claim to be sourdough are often only an additive for breads that are otherwise yeast-raised.

Why sourdough (long fermentation) – and no yeast?

  1. Sourdough and its long fermentation breaks down the grain and phytic acid more effectively. Phytic acid is suspected of binding minerals to itself that are not beneficial to the body. Sourdough-baked bread tastes great, is healthier and easier to digest.
  2. Rye takes a long time to become bakeable and the long fermentation with sourdough gives it this time.
  3. Longer freshness and resistance to mould.
  4. Taste and aroma substances are formed.

When yeast is added, these processes are greatly accelerated, but to the detriment of the quality of the bread and its digestibility.

Why does Metabolic Balance only recommend wholemeal rye bread?

In the case of wholemeal rye bread, your metabolism has the time to break down glucose from the starch. As a result, the insulin level only rises very slowly – unlike what happens with “fast carbohydrates”, it doesn’t skyrocket only to drop sharply again and make you hungry.

Fast carbohydrates stimulate carbohydrate metabolism and blocks the fat metabolism. Wholemeal rye bread ‘fills you up’ better than other breads and it also contains more fibre.

Flour type

The type indicates the proportion of husks and outer layers of the grain remaining in the flour. The higher the type, the darker the flour and the higher the proportion of husk and surface layers.

There are rye flour types of 1800, 1370, 1150, 997 and 815. For comparison, wheat extract flour, i.e. ordinary household flour, is type 405.

Fruit

  • Please ... never mix fruit.
  • Eat only one kind of fruit with each meal.
  • Eat a different fruit with each meal. 
  • Eat an apple a day.
  • Always eat fruit as part of your meal, but never in between.

If you have dried fruit on your plan, you can exchange it for fresh fruit in the ratio of 45g dried fruit to 120g fresh fruit. Vice-versa (substituting dried fruit for fresh fruit) is definitely not permitted. In general, eat only the fruit specified in your plan.

Salad and vegetables

You can exchange and mix salad and vegetables.

Vegetables that are not on the plan may not be eaten. By the way, potatoes are not considered to be vegetables. If potatoes are appropriate for you they will be listed as a starch on your plan.

Proteins

  • Start each meal with a bite of protein.
  • Please eat only one type of protein per meal.
  • Please eat each type of protein only once a day.
  • Never mix proteins, neither within the group (2 types of meat) nor among the groups (e.g. meat with cheese).

Special features of the soya group

Products from soy groups 1 and 3 can be eaten on the same day, but not at the same meal, because they have a different amino acid spectra.

Soya is divided into the following groups:

  • Group 1: Soya beans, soya milk, tofu (also smoked)
  • Group 2: Soya yogurt
  • Group 3: Soya seedlings, Soya sprouts

Fish and seafood

These are two separate protein groups. This means that on the same day you may have a meal with fish and a meal with seafood.

You’re not allowed to mix them during meals though, for example you can't eat fish with prawns. The quantities of fish and seafood should be identical.

Other protein groups

  • Meat (incl. ham, dried and smoked meat)
  • Poultry (all feathered animals)
  • Fish
  • Seafood
  • Dairy (cow) milk products (cheese, cream, yoghurt)
  • Sheep, camel and goat milk products (cheese, cream, yoghurt)
  • Mushrooms (only oyster and shitake mushrooms, all other mushrooms are considered to be vegetables)
  • Eggs
  • Nuts and seeds
  • Seed sprouts
  • Legumes
  • Tofu

Fats & Oils

In phase 1 (cleansing) and the following 14 days of the strict phase 2, adding oils is not allowed. After the 14 days, however, it's important to include them.

Anyone who has never tried healthy delicious oils before will now discover a new world. There is an incredible number of oils, each with its own different merits – and almost all of them have their own taste.

How much oil can I eat?

3 tablespoons per day should be the minimum. Experiment. Many of our clients also consume more oil and feel great afterwards.

We recommend that you include at least 1-3 tablespoonfuls of linseed oil per day. Linseed oil contains omega-3 fatty acids and is the star of the recent research into the prevention of diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. However, reliable studies are not yet available.

Frying/Roasting

Please ... never heat cold-pressed oils. They will lose their taste and the value of their ingredients. We recommend native coconut oil or ghee for frying. They have a high smoking point and hence are highly heat-resistant.

Seasoning with oil

If you’ve only used oil for salad dressings and frying up until now, a new world of taste awaits you. Many of our clients season with oil. Some add a teaspoon of poppy seed or nut oil to their yoghurt in the morning. Others sprinkle a little chilli oil over their recently sautéd fish. Just try them out and see what you like best.

Selecting oils

Please make sure that the oil you use comes from organic (bio) dynamic cultivation. Many harmful substances are fat-soluble, so they remain in the oil and are able to enter your body. This also applies in particular to pollutants from plastic packaging.

Please make sure that your oil has not been chemically filtered.

Oil loses its quality and taste when exposed to light and air. This is why quality oil manufacturers make sure they use closed systems. So if you buy an oil made by hand in a small ancient oil mill with open millstones during your holidays, you may have not necessarily bought the best possible product.

On the other hand, even small dedicated oil producers bring their harvest to highly-professional closed presses and produce an oil of excellent quality. The size of the manufacturer does not in itself allow conclusions to be drawn about the quality of its products.

Also pay attention to the packaging of your oil. Light and air should not be able to enter the package. Always choose an oil in a glass bottle.

Omega 3 and Omega 6

Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids have vital functions in many metabolic processes – and these functions influence each other. Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids are the basis for the formation of hormones, which in turn are indispensable for metabolic processes, such as blood clotting, inflammatory processes and cell renewal. A deficiency in Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids leads to growth disorders, skin changes and susceptibility to infections.

However, the body cannot produce them itself, so they have to be supplied from our food.

Omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) are found abundantly in fatty sea fish such as tuna, mackerel, salmon or herring. Those who do not like to eat fish have vegetable alternatives such as linseed oil, hemp oil, walnut oil or rapeseed oil. Linseed oil, with an alpha-linolenic acid content of 50%, is one of the richest sources of this important fatty acid.

Among others, Omega-6 fatty acids include linoleic acid and arachidonic acid. Linoleic acids mainly include sunflower oil, thistle oil, maize germ oil and wheat germ oil, but there are many more.

Herbs and spices

Garlic, ginger and fresh herbs may be used in natural quantities even if they are not explicitly listed in your plan.

The situation is different with onions, however; they count as vegetables and may only be eaten if they are on your food list (see your vegetable section).

Lemons may only be used if they are on your fruit list, but lemon gratings can be used in small quantities. Please ensure that you use untreated lemons!

Coffee

Whether or not you want to drink coffee is ultimately up to you. Many clients decide to give up coffee altogether during their change of diet and stick by their decision. In fact, coffee is not entirely uncontroversial in terms of its cultivation and its ingredients as far as its effect on the body is concerned.

But if you do decide to drink coffee, drink it only at mealtimes or immediately afterwards within your meal hour. If possible, do not drink coffee between meals.

Do not count the amount of coffee you drink as part of your water quota.

And please ... don’t add milk or sugar to your coffee! At the start, some clients are not keen on black coffee, but almost everyone gets used to it very quickly and often later lose their taste for milky coffee.

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