Getting fit and healthy is a tawdry, tedious affair. All that pain; only a smidgen of gain. Imagine if the way you were going about it was wrong? All those press-ups and oily fish for nothing.
Several companies are now offering to analyse your DNA to tell you how your genes would prefer you to work out. You spit into a test tube, post it to some unfortunate man in a white coat and then, a couple of weeks later, get your report. Next stop: physical perfection.
Because the idea of pointless press-ups is horrific, I decided to try it. And because it’s difficult to know how much of a DNA fitness report is hokum, I decided to try it twice. Would two companies analysing the same spit come up with the same results?
I began with DNAFit, which you can now get as a £159 add-on to your David Lloyd gym membership. A fortnight after I sent off my gob, I was asked to attend a session with the DNAFit practitioner in Beckenham, southeast London. He would help me "achieve my genetic potential" by talking through 34 pages (!) of results. It was a nerve.racking experience. A man called Kieran knew more about my body than my GP does. He had diagrams and graphs to prove it.
An hour later I emerged with all sorts of genomic revelations. I'm better suited, for instance, to endurance running to press-ups. I am predisposed to ligament injuries. The report also suggested I have a "very high" recovery speed, that can't be right. I still have shin splints from that half-marathon I did in 1996.
It was even more specific on food. I'm lactose-intolerant. I should avoid salt like a slug. I need extra vitamins A, C and D, but not B. I should eat a lot of oily fish, but very little gluten.
By the time we were through, Kieran had devised a whole new approach to training and diet, and I was going home to a life of Mediterranean cuisine, soya milk and long runs.
Is it all hokum? Two weeks later the second analysis arrived. IamYiam charges a whopping £387 for a detailed DNA analysis. It then hooks you up with lots of wellbeing experts to cater for your less helpful genes. On the hokum front, the good news is the two reports had quite similar results. The bad news? Not quite similar enough.
IamYiam agreed, for example, that I was lactose-intolerant, that I should focus on endurance training and that salt was my enemy. It disagreed on matters of vitamin B, antioxidants and omega-3.
So I'm left to experiment, which I could have done without the DNA analysis. I've cut out lactose and I think I feel better for it. I've cut out gluten and I don't think it's made any difference at all. I've given up press-ups and started running again. No idea if it is helping.
In short, I'm tinkering away until I find the right answer. All this poking around in my genes has given the tinkering some focus, but getting fit and healthy remains a tawdry and tedious affair.
I began with DNAFit, which you can now get as a £159 add-on to your David Lloyd gym membership. A fortnight after I sent off my gob, I was asked to attend a session with the DNAFit practitioner in Beckenham, southeast London. He would help me "achieve my genetic potential" by talking through 34 pages (!) of results. It was a nerve.racking experience. A man called Kieran knew more about my body than my GP does. He had diagrams and graphs to prove it.
An hour later I emerged with all sorts of genomic revelations. I'm better suited, for instance, to endurance running to press-ups. I am predisposed to ligament injuries. The report also suggested I have a "very high" recovery speed, that can't be right. I still have shin splints from that half-marathon I did in 1996.
It was even more specific on food. I'm lactose-intolerant. I should avoid salt like a slug. I need extra vitamins A, C and D, but not B. I should eat a lot of oily fish, but very little gluten.
By the time we were through, Kieran had devised a whole new approach to training and diet, and I was going home to a life of Mediterranean cuisine, soya milk and long runs.
Is it all hokum? Two weeks later the second analysis arrived. IamYiam charges a whopping £387 for a detailed DNA analysis. It then hooks you up with lots of wellbeing experts to cater for your less helpful genes. On the hokum front, the good news is the two reports had quite similar results. The bad news? Not quite similar enough.
IamYiam agreed, for example, that I was lactose-intolerant, that I should focus on endurance training and that salt was my enemy. It disagreed on matters of vitamin B, antioxidants and omega-3.
So I'm left to experiment, which I could have done without the DNA analysis. I've cut out lactose and I think I feel better for it. I've cut out gluten and I don't think it's made any difference at all. I've given up press-ups and started running again. No idea if it is helping.
In short, I'm tinkering away until I find the right answer. All this poking around in my genes has given the tinkering some focus, but getting fit and healthy remains a tawdry and tedious affair.
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