What Is It and How Does It Work?
Biohacking your diet means crafting a personalized nutrition plan to suit your unique needs. Let’s explore how it works and if it’s truly effective.
Nowadays, it seems like everything comes with a hack — whether it’s for cleaning your kitchen or making the perfect grilled cheese. Lately, there’s been interest in hacking your way to a perfectly tailored diet based on your unique physical makeup — an approach known as biohacking.
Nowadays, it feels like there’s a hack for everything — from cleaning up your kitchen to crafting the ultimate grilled cheese sandwich. Recently, there’s been a buzz around the idea of biohacking, which involves customizing your diet to match your individual physiology.
Does this cutting-edge, tech-assisted diet method add up to better health? We’re separating hack from fiction.
Unlike some diet plans, there’s no single biohacking diet. A biohacked diet is more of a concept than an exact roadmap of menus, macronutrient tracking, or calorie counts.
The idea goes that each one of us has unique nutrition needs based on factors like genetic makeup, environment, activity level, health conditions, and more. When you can identify your own needs, you can create a diet that meets them. It’s the ultimate in personalized nutrition.
Sooooo… how do you go about supporting your one-of-a-kind body with food? The biohacking process isn’t as complicated as you might think. Try these strategies.
Experiment with elimination
If you’re struggling with health issues that could be food-related, an elimination diet might be your biohacking ticket to symptom management. This process of cutting out potential offenders, then slowly adding them back in, helps reveal any foods that don’t agree with you.
It’s best not to go it alone, though — try an elimination diet under the guidance of a doctor or dietitian.
Keep a food journal
One of the best ways to track your response to foods is also one of the simplest. Consider keeping a journal of foods you eat, plus any physical (or even emotional) reactions you notice on any given day.
Over time, patterns may emerge. You may realize that certain foods or meal timings cause consistent outcomes. Maybe there’s a food additive that seems to make you bloat, a snack that helps you recover faster after exercise or a caffeinated drink that keeps you awake at night. Based on what you discover, you can tweak your diet.
Consider genetic testing
Your DNA could hold the keys to your best diet. Nutrigenomics is the science of tailoring nutrition based on genetic makeup. Research shows this field holds promise for treating various health conditions (like diabetes, obesity, and mental health disorders) with bespoke diet plans.
Want to know how your genetic predispositions could direct your diet? Ask your doctor about nutrigenomic testing. A simple blood test might shed light on eating right for your genes.
Use tracking tech
Wearable devices provide minute-by-minute insight into your health status. When you’re looking for accurate info on your health needs, the right wearable tech might be worth the investment.
Continuous glucose monitors, for example, show how your blood sugar responds to specific foods, pedometers and athletic apps measure your calories burned on a run, and smartwatches monitor everything from your heart rate to the quality of your sleep. Use devices like these to guide your dietary choices in real time.
If there’s one thing nutrition science has shown us in the last few decades, it’s that there’s no one-size-fits-all diet. Biohacking offers a path toward discovering what works for you — not your neighbor or random strangers in a research study.
By tailoring your diet to your own body, you may experience greater results for weight loss, disease management, and overall well-being.
There’s wisdom in trusting your intuition around what your body needs — but it’s also possible to rely too much on DIY nutrition. Some elements of biohacking your diet could lead you astray.
Through food journaling, for example, you may discover you temporarily feel an energy boost after eating processed snacks. It might be easy to interpret this as “my body needs more KitKats and Takis,” but evidence-based nutrition science would beg to differ.
If you go the biohacking route, just remember to temper it with established health guidelines — and talk to your doctor or a registered dietitian if you have questions about implementing a personalized diet plan.
In our crystal ball of health trends, we foresee the future of dietary guidance, including more biohacking. There’s certainly evidence that personalized nutrition yields positive results. For now, you can get ahead of the curve by analyzing your body’s needs and creating an eating plan that works for you.
