Weight loss plans seem to come a dime a dozen, and many give a one size fits all answer for everyone. The problem is not everyone’s the same. We all have different genetic predispositions, different body types, and most importantly different taste buds. What’s more, many have been brainwashed to believe all healthy food is good for them. This couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s a new school of thought going around where not everything that is “healthy” is healthy for you! Lyn-Genet Recitas is one nutritionist from this school, and quite possibly the pioneer of this way thinking!
She is a New York Times best selling author who has written critically acclaimed books: The Plan, The Plan Cookbook, The Metabolism Plan, and The Metabolism Plan Cookbook.The books had so much success that two of them, The Plan and The Metabolism Plan are written in over 15 languages and she has been featured on Dr. Oz, CBS, NBC, Fox News, Fitness, Women’s Running, Marie Claire, Elle, and Prevention. With a plethora of client success stories and testimonials to the success of her methods, it is no wonder she is at the top of her field and continues to stay there.
To top things off she has opened up her restaurant in Harlem, Lyn-Genet’s Kitchen which I have had the privilege of dining at, and I hope that things will return to normal after this Covid-19 Pandemic subsides so I can make another trip there for some healthy, delicious food. We got a chance to chat about her success as an author and it was an eye-opening exchange, to say the least. I learned so much and I’m sure I will continue to do so. Enjoy this interview, and please be sure to pick up a copy of her book on Amazon, and check out her website to learn more about her, her work, and her restaurant. You won’t be disappointed!
You’ve written four books that have all been successful, selling many copies all around the world. How long had you been studying and working in nutrition before making the leap to being such a successful author?
I think for any of us that are successful or that do what we love it’s often a lifelong journey. It may not be a direct path but eventually, it all coalesces into our success. I started as a baker at the age of 14 ( which is 41 years ago ) working in an African restaurant and a health food restaurant. I started studying herbology at the age of 18 and Chinese medicine at the age of 25. During this time I was always studying nutrition but was also successful in the restaurant business so it always kind of kept me from making nutrition my sole focus.
I was lucky enough to work with Keith McNally and open Balthazar in 1997 and Pastis in 1999 two of the most successful restaurants in its day. I met every celebrity and every chef and while in the beginning it was super fun (don’t get me wrong this was a blast) by the time I was three years into it I just felt like there was something more and being in the restaurant business just felt a little hollow to me. So I decided to leave it all behind and concentrate on nutrition full-time. I opened up a little holistic health center in Harlem and that’s where all the magic began.
What was the process for writing your first book and how long did it take? Did you find that it was easier for the following three books once you had done the first?
I say it’s thanks to the BlackBerry, and some of you might be too young to even know what that is (Laughs), but it’s thanks to the BlackBerry that I was able to formalize the diet that has helped millions of people worldwide recover from very serious diseases because I was helping them identify the foods that were causing their inflammation.
Inflammation is the basis for every single disease, premature aging, and obesity, and yes, while we know that unhealthy foods can make you sick and overweight, no one was discussing what I was finding. Healthy foods like strawberries, salmon, oatmeal, cauliflower, and beans can be the very reason why you’re packing on the pounds and getting sicker each year.
So from this little holistic health center in Harlem, I started to have all these magazine editors coming up to me asking for help. Word kept spreading and one day one editor in chief was brave enough to say “I don’t care how crazy this diet sounds I’m gonna let all of my readers know about it” and that’s how it all started. Within days of this article, I was booked up for a year, within a month I had a book deal with one of the largest book publishers in the world.
I always knew that I can write a great email, but writing a book is a completely different kettle of fish especially when you’re dealing with science and disseminating controversial information. At that time very few people were talking about inflammation, and almost no one was talking about gut function and its effects on your immune system as well as on your mood. Now all of this is recognized as gospel but then everyone thought I was a witch doctor. Could eating healthy foods make you sick and depressed? “Crazy!” everyone said!
What are some of your most fond and maybe not so fond memories from the whole process of bringing these books to fruition?
Writing a book is tough but there is nothing tougher than working with an editor, dear Lord they will drive you crazy so if you are ready to write your book just be prepared to write it again and again and again… and then five more times…..AND THEN FIVE MORE TIMES AFTER THAT… and just try to not lose your temper because you are going to want to kill them I promise you this. And nobody looks cute in orange!
It seems more and more people, myself included, are looking towards nutrition as a way to stay healthy and live a healthy lifestyle as opposed to just running to the doctor. How important is a well-balanced diet for one’s health and what are some of the ways it can improve health and prevent illnesses?
As I discussed or touched upon briefly earlier chronic low-grade inflammation is the basis for every single disease so when you identify and remove what’s causing inflammation for you your body rapidly heals.
You see your body always wants to be in a state of homeostasis that’s in a state where it’s constantly repairing. However, before we had stores like whole foods (Laughs) we would often have a limited food supply so when we would find food our body created this great trade-off. Divert some energy from healing to digestion so you could rapidly assimilate the nutrients and you would live another day, that is, of course, a good day. But due to many factors, some of which is the environment that we live in, the chemicals we are exposed to and the fact that most of us are not biologically adapted to living beyond the age of 30 or so, our bodies’ ability to digest food can slow as we age.
This means that the diets and foods that worked well for us in our teens and our 20s might start to cause some problems in our 30s, and by the time we’re in our 40s and beyond they can start to cause serious diseases like type two diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. These are all byproducts of inflammation. An inflammatory response can last for 72 hours so if you were just eating a few healthy foods like say that egg white and spinach omelet or that Greek yogurt and it’s causing inflammation for you, you could see quickly how it would be easy to pack on the pounds and become sicker as you get older.
I like your philosophy that there is no ‘right’ diet for everyone, there is just the right diet that works for you. Do you find that people tend to feel less pressure when they realize they don’t have to change their diets according to some standardized guidelines? Are some people shocked to find out what they can and cannot eat?
The exciting thing is when you identify and remove the foods that cause inflammation for your body, your body does what it wants to do which is heal.
So one of the reasons why my books have become so popular worldwide and published in over 15 languages is that it’s a self-help tool to help people identify the foods that are making them sick and I have the most wonderful testimonials of people being able to put serious autoimmune diseases in remission like lupus, multiple sclerosis, people with chronic depression no longer suffering from that, and in fact, the investor in my restaurant I helped to get through stage III breast cancer.
So yes food is an integral part of you being at your healthiest and because we eat every day there is the potential of you eating foods that you think are working for your body when in fact they’re doing the exact opposite.
One of my favorite stories as a woman who said, “Lyn, I love you. I found out it’s the strawberries that were making me fat and sick and not the cheesecake!” Obviously, she’s not eating cheesecake every day and it’s part of the diet that she has developed with finding the foods that work for her but that’s an example of how we often cut out the foods that are fun and instead try to plug in these foods that are “healthy“ and in fact are anything but healthy. That’s why one of my tag lines is “-there’s no such thing as a healthy food there is just what’s healthy for you-” and it’s chemistry, not calories, that will get you the health and body that you want.
In addition to your successful career as an author and nutritionist, you have also opened up a restaurant in Harlem which emphasizes healthy eating and has a diverse menu for omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans alike. What made you want to open up this restaurant?
It’s hard to answer this at this time with Covid causing us to close down like so many other restaurants and businesses, but I wanted to have a restaurant that reflects the diversity of NYC serving healthy comfort food. To create a vibrant restaurant community that reflects my community in Harlem, a place of warmth, laughter, and health. A place to share information, art, music and outstanding food and service. A place to call home.
I for one definitely felt the love when I went to Lyn’s restaurant and again I hope it opens again soon along with all the restaurants in New York. When we get through these rough times be on the lookout as we will be back to revisit Lyn and talk more in-depth about her restaurant, Lyn-Genet’s Kitchen!
Photo by Krista Njapa
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