This weekend is the prom at Darling Daughter's school. She tells me that most of the junior girls are doing Master Cleanse this week. There used to be a lot of people on the Forum who advocated Master Cleanse. I've never tried it, and I don't plan to. However I'm not going to denigrate it for people who have thoughtfully researched it and use it for a brief time as a part of a long term commitment to improving their health.

However what these high school girls are doing is silly and potentially dangerous. DD says that they started it this week in order to lose weight quickly so they will fit into their prom dresses. "I've lost 11 pounds," exclaimed one girl. DD said to me, "She's kidding herself. She hasn't lost any fat; it's just water weight. She will put it all back on when she eats the big meal that's planned for the night of the prom."

All of the girls are complaining that they feel terrible and are weak. This is not good when they have tests this week that demand concentration.

I know these girls, and like them. I talked with them about dieting when they were freshmen as part of their health class. It's not that they don't know what it would take to have better figures. It's that they do not want to give up their favorite foods, all of which promote weight gain now and which will cause them health problems later in life.

Throughout the year, DD attracts a certain amount of attention with the unusual nature of her BTD lunches. "DD, why do you eat so healthy?" is a common question. The answer should be apparent this week as DD continues to eat in her normal manner, confident that she will look lovely in her prom dress.

Though these high school girls are not interested in changing their life styles to have permanently better health, they do want to look like fashion models for the prom. They are willing to starve themselves for a week to reach that short term goal. It makes me sad that their priorities and their discipline are so misplaced.

I am approaching my 4th anniversary on the Blood Type Diet. When I first started there was so much new material to learn and absorb. It was easier to generalize the rules. I could remember meat is good, vegetables are good, grains are bad. Gradually I began to memorize the beneficials, neutrals, and avoids for Type O. Then I worked on the lists for the two Type As in my family.

One place where my early generalizations misled me was with mushrooms. Based on the first food lists I studied, my interpretation was that most mushrooms were avoid for Type O, and most mushrooms were beneficial for As. When I went to the store, I could never remember which mushrooms were beneficial for them and neutral for me. Even if I wrote the names down, I often found the labels in the store didn't match the labels on my list.

I gave up and stopped buying mushrooms. My husband always loaded up on them at salad bars, and my daughter can't get past the idea of eating a fungus (There's a fungus among us.).

When I started reading the Menopause book, I found out that some mushrooms were actually beneficial for me, at my age. I went back to the store with my list again. I wish I could find maitakes, which would be beneficial for all of us, but I've not seen them for sale locally. I can find portobellos, and I've been buying baby bellos quite often. They are easy to clean and easy to prepare.

My husband likes raw mushrooms. I like them sautéed in a little ghee. Wouldn't you know it - I find a food we can both eat, then I have to prepare it two ways. But that's ok. I chop his half of the mushrooms and put them on his salad, or serve them with raw carrots and radishes. I toss my half of the mushrooms in a skillet with some ghee and let them simmer until dinner is ready. I put them on top of my meat or mix them in with cooked greens.

My daughter tells me that one day she will try them, but "not today."

This from my morning Bible study: So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31. The commentator, who write long before Dr. D. wrote Eat Right for your Type, said, "We should devote the strength which we derive from the bounties of His hand to His honor and in His service. He gives us food; He makes it nourishing; He invigorates our frame; and that strength should not be devoted to purposes of sin, and profligacy, and corruption. It is an act of high dishonor to God, when HE gives us strength, that WE should at once devote that strength to pollution and to sin."

I am a type O married to a type A husband. Our type O son is in grad school as a first year physical therapy student. Our type A daughter just graduated from high school and is getting ready to go off to college. Each of us has different diet and health issues.

At 54 years old, my main interest is building my health and avoiding the muscle loss faced by women my age. My husband deals with a lot of stress and is skeptical of nutrition. He takes medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol. His blood sugar is high, which is an added concern since his Dad had Type 2 Diabetes. My son studies long hours. Neither he nor his roommate have time to cook. I fear he eats way too much wheat and fast food, but he eats lots of vegetables when he comes home. My daughter wants to stay trim and attractive. She is my exercise partner and assists me in the kitchen. How I help my family juggle those issues is the focus of my blogs.

We follow a combination of the Blood Type Diet and the GenoType Diet. I measure as a Hunter, and I identify with most Hunter characteristics. But the finger measurement that separates me from being a Gatherer is just a millimeter. My husband and daughter both measure as Teachers, but their characteristics are a combination of Teacher and Warrior. My daughter and I built a database with the information we have from all of our Dr. D'Adamo books. We took that information and created our own food lists. I call mine the SGBGTD (Suzanne Graham Blood & Geno Type Diet). My husband is starting to follow the Diabetes diet from the D'Adamo Health Library.

Until I was 24 my diet was atrocious. Then I read book on nutrition and became a health food nut. I got processed foods and artificial ingredients out of my diet. Until I was 48 I was rarely sick, had lots of energy, and was happy with my weight. However, I was frustrated by the many contradictions in nutritional research. Why did some studies support vegetarianism (which made me feel awful) while other studies said high protein? Why did some herbs do miracles for others, but nothing at all for me? A nagging problem with heartburn led me to Eat Right for your Type in June 2003. I found immediate relief by eliminating the avoids I ate for breakfast every morning. ER4YT was the logical, scientific explanation for the inconsistencies in the other diet and nutrition books.

I worked as a writer and photographer until my children were born. I now teach journalism part time at a private school.

My favorite nutrition quote is, "The God who created your body, also created the food your body needs for fuel. The closer your food is to the way God created it, the healthier you will be."

My second favorite nutrition quote is from Peter D’Adamo, "For you some food acts like medicine, some food acts like poison, and some food acts like food."

We had lunch with friends after church at a Chinese Restaurant. This restaurant proudly displays an MSG Free sign on the door and on the menus. I ordered beef and broccoli without the sauce. I don't know whether it is wheat, corn starch or salt; but something in Chinese food (even MSG free) makes me retain water. I've decided I'd rather have plain food than fight with the scale.

We were giving one of our friends a ride home about 2:10 when the cell phone rang. Someone wanted to show our house between 3:00 and 4:00. We asked our friend if she would mind if we went home and let the dog out of his crate for a few minutes to get water and run around. She was agreeable. Less than 5 minutes later the phone rang again. Someone else wanted to show the house between 2:30 and 3:30. We raced in, let Rascal out, grabbed a change of clothes, picked up some leaves off the carpet, locked Rascal back up, and left the house. Our friend said we could stay at her house until the realtors were gone.

I started out dreading having our house on the market. I'm gradually developing a sense of humor about the process.

Having the house up for sale has cramped my cooking style. I don't cook certain foods like onions, because they make the house stink. I don't cook many things that have to come out of the oven at a particular time, because a realtor might call and I'd have to leave.

Friday night I had a craving for something crunchy. I realized it had been a long time since I had made sweet potato fries. Though they have to be watched fairly closely while they cook, I felt fairly safe that no one would want to see the house on a Friday night. My Type As and I were watching a movie. When the sweet potato fries were done, I didn't have to share. I had all the delightful crunch to myself.

This has been a busy week with late hours at school every night. My journalism class and I put out the April issue of the school newspaper. I've also been taking pictures of middle school sports. I hope following golfers around the golf course counts as exercise, because there hasn't been time for much else.

I did try a new waffle recipe, which came out so good that I want to share it.

2 cups rye flour

1Tbsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

¾ cup ground pecans

3 eggs (separated)

1 ½ cup soy milk

3 ounces olive oil

¼ cup maple syrup

Mix the egg yolks, milk, syrup, and oil. Add the rye flour, baking powder, salt, and ground pecans. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the batter. Cook in a hot waffle iron.

Our house is now up for sale. That means that at any moment the phone can ring and a realtor can ask us to leave, so the house can be shown to a potential buyer. It also means that every time we leave the house, it must be in model home condition.

This impacts the BTD in two ways. First my stress level - which has been high enough since we started planning to move last fall - has increased exponentially. I think I am a consistent and good house keeper, but keeping a house that you're living in looking like a model home is a lot of work! and a lot of pressure!

Second, I decided that the best thing to do was to pack my lunch every morning when I pack my husband' and daughter's lunches. If I get a call and have to leave the house, I will have something healthy to eat. I won't be stuck grabbing fast food in order to get to school on time. Plus, if I pack my lunch, then I get the dishes finished right after breakfast, and I don't have to re-clean the kitchen until dinner is over.

Packing my lunch has been interesting. Normally I tend to graze in the mornings. I grab a few carrot sticks or a piece of fruit if I get hungry. If I'm cooking one new vegetable to go with some leftovers, I often eat one half of my lunch as I stand at the stove cooking the other half.

Now my lunch is ready ahead of time. If I get hungry, I drink some green tea and tell myself to wait until lunch time. I sit down and read a magazine while I eat. It's very relaxing. I have no intention of continuing to keep a perfect house after we sign a contract. But I hope I do continue to pack my lunch.

Sunday after church we went to a breakfast buffet. It has been a long time, and I had forgotten how unfriendly traditional breakfasts can be to Type Os. The amount of wheat was overwhelming: pancakes, biscuits, gravy, cinnamon rolls, and more. There was plenty of pork as well: bacon, ham and sausage. Of course there were also grits and hash browns.

The fresh fruit table should have been safe, but there were several avoid fruits like honey dew melon. Lots of the fruit, like the strawberries, were swimming in sugar.

Fortunately there was a good salad bar. I loaded up a plate of greens and topped it with scrambled eggs. I usually carry olive oil in my purse when we're going out to eat, but I had left it at home. I used a smaller amount of whatever generic oil was in the oil & vinegar carafes.

Then I saw a bowl of steamed shrimp, still in the shell. The line was long and I just knew they would all be gone by the time I got there. I watched as one by one the people in front of me stood idly by the shrimp not putting a single one on their plates. They were all in a hurry for greasy bacon and syrupy pancakes. I could not understand it! I took a mound of shrimp. They completed my breakfast perfectly.

My Darling Daughter had more trouble finding Type A food than I had finding Type O. She likes omelets, but does not care for scrambled eggs. Shrimp are avoid for her. Though wheat is neutral, she doesn't eat much of it. She has learned to prefer the grains that are beneficial for her type. She ended up with a salad and a biscuit.

My husband got his money's worth, heaping his plate high. DD and I decided that we would have been better off ordering from the menu. There wasn't much for Os and As on this breakfast buffet.