Sometimes you have to laugh. We're trying to sell our old house and keep an eye on the construction of the new house. Our son needs a roommate for graduate school, and our daughter needs a summer job. I'm finishing the last yearbook deadline, and I'm helping my parents deal with their health problems.

In the midst of all that, I broke my toe. My husband and daughter were watching "Everybody Loves Raymond" on TV. I was getting ready to go for a swim. My thongs were in the garage, so I walked through the den barefooted. A scene from the show caught my ear, and I started watching as I walked. I wrapped my little toe around a chair leg and heard it snap.

There's not much to do for a broken little toe except to tape it to the other toes so that it heals straight. Wearing shoes that give good support helps too. Nonetheless, the next morning, it really hurt. I took Advil for pain and inflammation. The second morning a third of my foot was green, and the toe was dark purple, but the pain was less. I took Advil again to keep the inflammation down. Late in the afternoon I noticed that little blood vessels were breaking in both ankles. That was scary. I got on the internet and found out that a lot of things could cause blood vessels to break. Many of them are catastrophic, but one of the simple ones is aspirin or Advil. I put that together with my BTD knowledge that Type Os tend to have thin blood and stopped the Advil immediately. I increased my Vitamin C and bioflavanoids. The breakage stopped the next day and the red marks began to fade.

I've kept a pretty fast pace this year. I was looking forward to slowing down in July. Suddenly the broken toe has forced me to slow down right now, whether I'm ready or not. No more rushing here and there trying to cram one more thing into an already busy schedule. If something on the list doesn't get done, it won't be the end of the world. I can only walk so fast.

As I was doing the dishes tonight I was listening to a CD. I heard the line, "I must tell Jesus. I cannot bear these burdens alone." I laughed. That is the truth!

Every week I resolve to get back to a more regular exercise schedule, and every week there is some excuse. Two weeks ago there wasn't time because my son was home. Last week there wasn't time because of yearbook deadlines.

My Type A husband walks the dog almost every night. I usually walk with him only once a week, because I don't get the kind of strenuous exercise that makes me feel the best when I walk at the dog's pace. However, I've decided that walking is better than nothing. So several nights this week, I took my 3 pound hand weights and walked with my husband and Rascal. It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing!

Tonight I was supposed to swim. The neighborhood pool officially opens this week. But there was rain and thunder all afternoon. When it was time for lap swim, the weather had settled down, but the life guards had closed the pool for the day. Perhaps I'll have better luck tomorrow.

It was sure good to have another O in the house, even if it was just for a few days. My husband, daughter and I returned home from graduation on Sunday because we had to be back at work and school on Monday. Our son had to finish packing and close down the house he had rented, so he came home on Monday. He left again on Saturday, visiting cousins on the way to his summer job at a Christian sports camp in Missouri. He will be a middle school boy's counselor and basketball coach.

While he was home I fixed a lot of Type O food. It was good to cook a leg of lamb and have someone to share it with. One night I cooked a pound of ground turkey and a pound of ground beef. We each made our own tacos. The As had quite a bit of turkey left over, but we Os wiped out almost all of the beef. I cooked portabella mushrooms, acorn squash, artichokes and lots of other vegetables. I didn't try anything new. I just wanted to treat him to some of his old favorites in the few days he had at home.

Of course it was wonderful to see our Strong Son walk across the stage and receive his diploma. Of course we took lots of pictures. Of course we were very proud of him. None of that has anything to do with the Blood Type Diet. However, I will tell you about breakfast at the hotel and graduation parties.

When you are a Type O and you don't eat wheat, you will not find anything for breakfast in a hotel. If you go to a really big breakfast buffet, you might find eggs and fruit. But almost all breakfast food is made from wheat. I always pack my own breakfasts when we travel. I ate in the room, while my daughter and husband went down to see what the hotel was serving. They came back quite disillusioned, and I went to the store this afternoon to buy things that will be better for them for breakfast in the morning.

When you are a Type O and you are on someone else's schedule, be prepared - take snacks. I had tossed a bag of walnuts in my camera bag when we left the hotel this morning. I was so glad I did. We didn't eat lunch until nearly 2:00. I shared the walnuts with the rest of the family, and all of us were content until it was time for our meal.

Our son had been invited to several graduation parties. We went with him to two of them. For lunch we had a taco salad buffet. This suited me just fine. I could build my own without chips or cheese. My Type A daughter could build hers without beef or peppers. For dinner we had Mexican food again. This time it was a fajita buffet. They served both beef and chicken, so all of us had plenty to enjoy.

The food was good, but the most fun was meeting SS's friends and their parents. It was a wonderful, emotional day, filled with awards, laughter, and good-byes.

Our Strong Son graduates from college tomorrow. I'm typing this from the hotel computer center. Graduation is early tomorrow, so this will be a short blog.

We ate dinner tonight with SS and his two roommates. It was a restaurant that serves meat, vegetables and salads. SS ordered meatloaf and green beans. One of the roommates also ordered meatloaf and vegetables. The other ordered talapia. The one that ordered meatloaf ate every bite of his own meal plus half of the talapia. I didn't ask, but somehow I know that meatloaf guy was an O and talapia guy was an A.

I ordered a chopped steak with broccoli, squash, and carrots. The menu noted that the steak came with gravy and mushrooms. I told the server to leave off the gravy. Evidently the chef couldn't bear the thought of sending out a plain chopped steak, so instead of gravy, he topped it with melted cheese. It was a mixture of neutral mozzarella and avoid cheddar. I could have sent it back, but I went ahead and ate it. It was very good, and the vegetables were outstanding.

Progress reports went out at school yesterday. My journalism class is an elective. No one has to take it. You would think that since the students have chosen to be in the class, that they would be motivated to do well. But this semester, such is not the case. I have three students who are in danger of failing journalism.

I thought perhaps I should look at myself and fill out my own progress report.

Regarding exercise, I'd have to give myself a C. Maybe a C+ but certainly a C. Since I started the Blood Type Diet, I had exercised 5-6 days a week. It had been Type O oriented strenuous exercise. This spring, as I've prepared to put our house up for sale, I just haven't always found the time. I've gotten really high quality exercise only 3-4 days a week. I can tell the difference in my muscle tone. I can tell the difference in how I handle stress. Some days if I've worked hard cleaning or packing, I just can't find the energy or motivation to pick up the weights at 10:00 at night.

Regarding eating, I'd give myself an A. Frankly I don't know how my body could have handled the emotions and stress of the past 8 months if I hadn't stayed true to the BTD. I avoid avoids as stringently as I have since I started the BTD. I'll admit that a few nights lately, I've yielded to the craving for something crunchy and eaten too many rice or rye crackers with ghee. But I shun wheat and dairy as ardently as ever, and my meals are still meat and vegetables. When we eat out, I search the menu for beneficials and neutral. I give the BTD credit for the energy I've had to do two or three times the work I usually do in a day. I also give the BTD credit that I never had a cold all winter, and only had one stomach upset.

Regarding cooking I'd give myself a B. I haven't tried many new recipes. I'm probably in danger of boring my husband with too much repetition of familiar and easy menus. I haven't cooked smelly foods like onions and liver since we put a for sale sign in our yard. I miss them!!! I haven't cooked many things that require a long time in the oven, because I never know when the phone will ring and a realtor will be bringing someone to look at the house.

Regarding my spiritual life…hmmm…this is tough. Maybe a B. I've been faithful to personal Bible study and worship at church. I've done all the right things. But my mind has been divided. I have worried too much, and not trusted God enough. I have tried on way too many occasions to seize control. I haven't always been patient or kind, much less loving. Perhaps the lesson I haven't learned yet, is that in times of stress and upheaval, I must rely on God more and myself less.

Regarding blogging, certainly a C-. I've neglected you terribly. I write blogs in my head all the time, and run out of hours in the day to type them in. But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. This busy season of life is drawing to an end. Time to think and time to write will return in a month or two.

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.

I have decided that housework does not count as intense physical exercise. We have been getting our house ready for sale. I've been washing windows, moving furniture, and packing boxes. Though it is physical enough that I often work up a sweat, it is not the kind of exercise that reduces stress and energizes me. When I'm finished, I'm just tired.

Yard work on the other hand in good Type O exercise. Today I mowed for the first time this year, and got a good work out.

Though I have been busy, I have been very diligent about what I eat. I am very much aware that I am under pressure at the new house and at the old house, not to mention that yearbook deadline season has started. No matter how busy the schedule gets, I make time to cook beneficial vegetables and meat. Avoids have been extremely rare.

I went to a birthday party tonight for a friend who has just turned 50. The party was at a well known Mexican restaurant. I knew the food would be tasty, and I knew that the BTD choices would be difficult.

First they brought out tacos. Even from across the room, I could tell that they were loaded with cheese. What do I do? I asked myself. When the waiter put my taco in front of me there was no cheese! Someone in the kitchen had made a mistake, but it worked out for my benefit.

The main course was one enchilada, one tamale, rice, and beans. The corn in the enchilada and tamale were avoid, of course. However corn does not give me the obvious trouble that wheat does, so I decided to eat my dinner and enjoy it.

Temptation was waiting in the form of a beautiful tres leches cake. Tres leches means three milks, and as the name suggests it contains the two biggest avoids for Type Os. Nonetheless, I confess I was considering whether to splurge on my friend's birthday and have a piece of cake.

I took lots of pictures at the party, and I wanted a shot of the ladies who were serving the cake. I got into position, and watched through the viewfinder for the right moment. The lady cutting the cake used her fingers to scoot the cake onto the plate. I didn't have a problem with that - I would probably have done the same. Then she licked the icing off her fingers. That I would NEVER have done. As I watched, she served three pieces of cake, then licked her fingers again. She was in a rhythm, serving and licking. I completely lost my appetite for cake - it was no longer a temptation.

I headed across the room to take more pictures, stopping briefly at my place. "No cake for me tonight," I whispered to the person sitting next to me.

Our Strong Son is back at college. Spring Break is over. He had been invited to go to the beach with one group of friends and to go hunting with another. He wound up staying at home, and as it turned out, that was the best thing for him.

He had been battling a cold for weeks. The week before Spring Break he called to say that his cough was worse, and he was coughing up a little blood. "Get to the doctor," I said. A chest x-ray ruled out TB and pneumonia. He just had a deeply imbedded cough.

I fed him lots of vegetables while he was home. I didn't forbid him to eat grain. (You don't exactly forbid a 22 year old to do things. I trained him right when he was little, and pray for him now that he is own his own) I just didn't fix many things with grain, even beneficial grains for the As.

SS has always been a night owl. He was in bed soon after midnight most of the nights he was home, and I let him sleep in every morning. Nine to ten hours of sleep worked wonders.

The night before he left, I asked about the cough and was delighted to hear that it was almost gone. "I just needed fresh food and lots of sleep," SS said. Isn't that the truth for all of us!

My Honorable Husband has decided to retire when our Darling Daughter graduates from high school. We have always wanted to live near a river or a lake in retirement, so we've bought an acre of land 5 minutes from a river and 20 minutes from a lake. Working on finding the land and planning the new house has kept me from blogging as regularly in recent months.

This week is spring break for both of our kids, so our Strong Son is home from college. Yesterday the kids and I went up to the property. There was an ice storm in January that broke four big limbs in a grove of oak trees. Two of them were on the ground, but two were caught up in the tree branches.

The three of us went to work with saws. Type A DD quickly tired of the strenuous work. She reminded us of her spring break reading assignments and went to the car to study. SS and I, both Type Os, kept at it. He climbed up into the tree and got the broken branches down. I cut them into movable pieces so we could get them away from the rest of the trees and stack them. It was hard work. We were dirty and sweaty. But we both loved it. We worked several hours, stopping only at sunset.

The experience again reminded me of the built in differences between As and Os. It's not just what we eat - it's how our bodies respond to work and stress. SS and I found a deep pleasure in the physically demanding outdoor work, which DD could not understand. If HH had been with us, he would have been hanging around the wood pile asking if we were ready to call it quits yet.

In this two blood type family, I must remind myself that I need strenuous physical activity. When the As don't want to participate, I may have to go on alone. At the same time, I mustn't be critical of them. Strenuous work doesn't benefit them the way it does me. They need exercise, but not the same kind. We must remember to respect each other's different physical needs the same way we respect each other's different food lists.

When we were out of town, my husband picked up a stomach virus. He promptly gave it to me. I didn't eat much of anything for two days. The next two days were a BTD version of the BRAT diet - Bananas, Rice, applesauce, and Toast (Ezekiel bread in my case).

The BRAT diet was useful for getting my digestive tract to slow down. However I woke this morning knowing that I didn't want another day dominated by fruit and grain. I was ready for vegetables and light meats - nothing too heavy or hard to digest though.

For lunch I had salmon, turnip greens, and cooked carrots. For supper I had thin sliced roast beef with black eyed peas and apple slices. It's a start back towards normal.

Tonight I'm tired. We had planned a garage sale for this weekend long before the stomach virus, and I carried on with it. I could go off on a tangent that has nothing to do with the BTD, but I don't understand how garage sale aficionados think. We sold a broken bed frame, a broken clock, and old make up, but no one was seriously interested in the state of the art Norwalk juicer.

We took our Darling Daughter on a college campus visit over the weekend. The choices in the dorm cafeteria seemed better for Type A than they were for Type O. The salad bar was excellent with plenty of choices. The cooked vegetables were green beans and potatoes. We all steered clear of the potatoes, but the green beans were good. The problem was with the entrees. Our choices were lasagna, chicken fried steak, hamburgers, or sliced turkey. My husband, avoiding my eye, took the lasagna. DD went with a large salad. I took the chicken fried steak - no gravy. It's probably been two years since I've had chicken fried steak, and I let myself enjoy it.

On the way home Sunday, we stopped at a fast food restaurant. They had chicken fried chicken livers. In my pre-BTD days I loved them. Now, I saute chicken livers or grill them with onions. I don't know how long it's been since I've had them fried. One of the side orders was fried okra. This was another former favorite. A beneficial, I told myself, in spite of the flour coating. They were indeed delicious.

Of course, I paid for the wheat this morning with two pounds of water weight. Fortunately I can say no to chicken fried steak if there are other choices. Chicken fried chicken livers would be harder to turn down, but there is not a restaurant where I live that serves them. So, I'm safe until I'm traveling again.

I started the Blood Type Diet because nothing I had tried nutritionally or medically gave me relief from GERD. Because I've written about it so often, people sometimes write me about their GERD problems. I was in the car and heard a fabulous radio interview on the subject. Neither the host, nor the guest talked specifically about the BTD, but what they were saying was very compatible. I'll summarize what the guest had to say.

Significantly less than half of the people who seek help for acid indigestion have too much stomach acid. In reality most have low stomach acid. However, their acid level is rarely tested. Instead, they are automatically given antacids or other medication that will lower stomach acid production.

Here is the way he said your digestive system is supposed to work. Food arrives in your stomach and hydrochloric acid is released to continue the digestive process. Your stomach muscle mixes the food and acid. When the amount of stomach acid reaches a certain level the muscle at the bottom of your stomach opens, releasing the food to your duodenum. If things are working properly, the food and acid will be out of your stomach in two hours.

However if you do not produce enough stomach acid, the food in your stomach isn't released. It continues to churn. You eat dinner, and go to bed several hours later. Your stomach is still full of weak acid and food. When you lie down that mixture seeps back into your esophagus, and you wake in the middle of the night with heartburn.

I believe my problems were the result of inflammation caused by wheat and dairy avoids in my digestive system. My symptoms cleared up within days of getting the avoids out of my diet. However, if you switch to the BTD and continue to have GERD symptoms, according to the man I heard on the radio, you might investigate natural ways to raise your stomach acid.