Watching Your Figures

Forget calorie counting. Next-gen nutritionists are using biometric analysis for a data-backed approach to well-being. Jancee Dunn signs up.

In the loftlike Manhattan waiting room of nutritionist Dana James, all is light and serene. Mounds of crystals gleam alongside books such as The Float Tank Cure; the faint scent of a tourmaline smudge spray permeates the air. I have already plowed through 300-plus prompts on James’s Magna Carta–length question-naire (Do you have a tendency to cry easily? Do you have cracked heels? How often do you eat salmon?), but my nutritional spelunking is only just beginning. After I endure two weeks of a no-grain, no-sugar, no-dairy Paleo diet to “clean out my system,” the next step is a round of lab tests to evaluate my neurotransmitter and mitochondrial function, among other things, in order to assess my body’s metabolic processes.

Triple-certified in nutrition, cogitative behavioral therapy, and functional medicine—the buzzy field that examines the interaction between a person’s genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors—James is part of a new wave of experts subjecting clients to a battery of blood, saliva, gut, and urine tests that take personalized nutrition to the nth degree. Practitioners measure things like telomeres—the protective caps on chromosomes that supposedly reveal one’s biological age—to locate the source of an ailment or those last stubborn pounds. For me, it all comes back to a protracted case of shingles and frequent carb binges, which I tell James as she grills me on the exact times of day I eat and sleep. Calorie counting this is not.