Sports Nutrition -
Answer To Question #4

Question #4:

I’ve heard you and others talk about individualizing nutrition plans for someone’s body type. How does that work?

Answer by Dr. John Berardi:

I classify people according to three body types –

1) High carb tolerance
2) Poor carb tolerance
3) Moderate carb tolerance

These classifications largely determine someone’s dietary needs and what they should be eating for optimal performance and body composition. You see, by matching carbohydrate intake to an individual's physiological carbohydrate tolerance, nutrient partitioning and body composition can quickly be improved.

Here’s how I think about these tolerances:

1) Excellent Carbohydrate Tolerance
Those individuals with excellent carbohydrate tolerance are typically very lean and athletic and can remain so with a fairly high carbohydrate diet. In fact, these individuals usually need a higher carbohydrate diet to function well. Deprive them of their carbs and replace those carbs with more protein and fat and they're sluggish, perform more poorly, and actually carry a worse body composition. So, for these individuals, I focus on helping them choose clean carbohydrates with each meal, typically a mixture of starchy and fibrous carbs as well as good quality lean proteins and a small amount of healthy fats with each meal.

2) Poor Carbohydrate Tolerance
Those individuals with poor carbohydrate tolerance are typically fatter, more endomorphic, and require more physical activity to get lean. These individuals do better on diets higher in protein and fats with a lower carbohydrate intake. Therefore, for these individuals, there are very few or no starchy carbohydrates outside of the workout and post-workout phases of the nutrient timing day.

Their carbohydrate intake outside of these phases, even on off days, should come from veggies, with a small amount of fruit as well. Of course, again, meals are rounded out with lean proteins and an increase in total fat intake. (There’s an opposite relationship between carb intake and fat intake. Overall, if carb intake is down, fat intake goes up. And if carb intake is up, fat intake goes down.)

3) Moderate Carbohydrate Tolerance
Those individuals with moderate carbohydrate tolerance are typically muscular, more mesomorphic, and are naturally inclined to strength/power sports. These individuals do best on mixed diets – something like the Zone (30% protein, 40% carbs, 30% fat). Therefore, for these individuals, we used a mixed dietary approach where the bulk of the dietary carbohydrates are taken during breakfast and during/post exercise while the rest of the diet is rounded out with lean proteins while dietary fat is lower during higher carb meals and higher during lower carb meals.

Of course, this is just an overview of our individualization principles with a particular focus on carbohydrate tolerance. For more info about this, I encourage readers to check out my Precision Nutrition program.

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