The DNA Diet

The ability to design one’s very own personalised nutrition regime using digital devices makes losing weight these days less about guesswork and more about genetics. Sasha Sandher finds out more.

Keto, Paleo, Atkins, the cabbage soup diet – we’ve all tried extreme diets in the pursuit of losing weight. Despite ordering copious amounts of exercise equipment and signing up for as many online classes as possible, confinement to my residence during lockdown saw me add to the scales more than I ever have before. Initially, I tried to take the ‘easy’ way out with crash diets (in spite of my better judgement). I would lose weight quickly, albeit unhealthily, but put it on when I resumed a regular diet. I realised I needed to map out a proper nutritional journey to achieve weight loss with sustainable results.

The diet industry is worth billions globally, and there seem to be experts everywhere professing their top tips all over Google. What struck me was how generic the advice was –  our bodies come in all shapes and sizes, we have different health issues, our lifestyles grossly vary – yet the advice never reflected this.

The one consistent message was that too much fat around the midsection can lead to diabetes and cardiovascular risks. It’s indicative of visceral fat – fat that has accumulated around your organs – so keeping this in check is vital for your health. It is said that “abs are made in the kitchen” and “you can’t out-exercise a bad…