This is working, 11 pounds off in less than a month! I've been 99% compliant, with just a pinch of black dot toxin here and there, and one or two restrained restaurant visits, both generally less than once a week. This way of eating feels totally natural to me (as long as I don't compare myself to what every other american eats and puts in their shopping carts!). I don't feel hungry, and I'm not really counting. The more I focus on fitting in all the recommended portions, the faster the weight goes away.

I'll be getting an infrared sauna soon, I'm so excited! It will work without turning the temperature up really high, which will be nice as I don't really like hot saunas or steam rooms (even though they make me feel good after use). I'm looking forward to the detox and the warmth, which sounds like it is a lasting warmth like you get from the summer sun. I get so cold when I'm losing weight, and this winter has been exceptionally winter-ish.

At this rate, I'll reach my goal by summer. I expect that the weight loss will slow down the closer I get to my goal, and then taper off once I'm at my healthy weight. I just love feeling satisfied and losing weight at the same time!

For somebody who spent 3 days debating finger lengths and genotype, I'm glad I just called it a draw and went with gatherer. If I were choosing a type, I'd choose gatherer, even though I was once hoping for another millimeter to show up on my ring finger so that I could be a hunter. I couldn't be happier with who I am and who I'm becoming. Gatherers truly can have excellent health.

I cheated a tiny bit over the weekend, and haven't lost more weight yet (still at -6 pounds). But I threw the rest of the sugared chocolate away, and am going to be more carefult when eating out. We went to an Indian restaurant, and I had to order paneer with a spinach cream sauce. Other than cream, there were no obvious toxins, but I'm sure there were some. Not to mention, I liked it a lot and ate too much!

Moving forward, this diet is powerful, and toxins really do sabotage things.

Sunday I made a nice lamb roast. The recipe was from Cook's Illustrated. You cut the roast apart and trim all the fat and silverskin, and brine it in garlic and salt water for 2 hours. Then you rub the inside parts with parsley and roasted garlic, tie it back together with twine, brown it on the outside and roast it. You reserve the meaty trimmings, and some extra roasted garlic, and chop some onions for making an Au Jus. Without thinking, I used chicken broth, which is probably not the best choice as a black dot toxin. I served the roast with steamed asparagus and basmati rice. It was a nice meal that everyone liked. It was a lot of work to prep the roast, but worth it. My cat loved the extra trimmings, and won't stop singing for more.

Today I made a celery salad, with a lemon juice/olive oil dressing, and added toasted cumin seeds. I served it with cold slices of the roasted lamb. Quite a good lunch.

I will be going to a restaurant again this weekend, but it's pretty safe since all this restaurant has are pizzas and salads, and I just love their compliant arugula salad, so that will be it for me there. No temptation to eat pizza, which would turn my insides inside-out. Part of me is not happy with the choice in restaurant (it'll leave me hungry) but it's better than eating too much of food that's only 1/2 compliant again.

I really was surprised today to see my weight go down another 3 pounds, so 6 total?

I usually weigh after breakfast, so I'm sure there's some fluctuation in there, but wow, definite downward trend. I was drinking a lot of fluids today too.

Granted, I have quite a few pounds to lose, and I was pretty shocked at the number right after the holidays! I am still breastfeeding my youngest, and I have a really hard time controlling my appetite while breastfeeding. I usually have to wean the baby to lose the baby weight. (Maybe that's a gatherer trait, breastfeeding and pregnancy may emphasize the hoarding tendencies?)

I did lose some weight the summer before last, but have been cheating and gaining since, back up to my high weight. I want to get down to lower than my low weight this year (lose 45-50 pounds). Judging by how easy it's been to stick with the gatherer diet, I'm confident that it's possible. I think dairy was my missing link, I craved it so, and now I know which dairy to reach for at those times. It's better than chocolate, if you ask me, even if it is just cottage cheese so far. (I haven't yet found or made any of the other superfood cheeses).

I've never really done calorie restriction, or much counting of portions, etc. I tried calorie restriction before BTD, and reduced my calories more every week, until I got down below 1000 calories and gained a pound! That's when I learned it wouldn't work. I've still had some ups and downs. The first up was general poor health after mono, then I struggled until I found BTD, and it went down. The other two spikes were my two pregnancies. I think that now I may be able to avoid those ups and downs. I wonder how the gatherer diet would affect my pregnancy weight gain? The world may never know...but maybe.

I went out and bought a new digital scale, since I'd only weighed myself on my mom's scale, and my old one, both of which had questionable accuracy. I used a medical one at the gym, and my new home one gave me the same weight...a few days ago.

Today it gave me a lower weight, by 3 pounds. Wow! Granted, some of the weight was holiday weight, which hasn't been on me long enough to get stuck but this is good. I'm eating well, not hungry, and able to be satisfied with less. When cravings hit, I eat some cottage cheese.

When I first picked up Eat Right 4 Your Type, I didn't know my blood type. Mom's a B, Dad's an O, and I really thought I was a B (I wanted that dairy). I also had digestive trouble after eating chicken, so I was sure that I must be a B. I still don't really love chicken, if it's cooked just right, then it's ok, but I often had to force myself to eat it. After discovering I'm an O, I wondered if somehow some B traits had rubbed off on me. Now I am half B, since Bs and Os can be gatherers. It's a welcome change, and it's effective!

I must have more energy, I've felt like being more active, and I've been able to get more done. I haven't fit in a lot of exercise yet, but lots more housework, garage organizing, playing with the kids, and today lots of snow shoveling. It doesn't wear me out, I still have some energy left over when the day is done. As an added bonus I'm not needing as much sleep...I'll take whatever sleep I can get, but I can get by on less when necessary.

Emotionally, I am slightly softer. I'm not able to cover up my feelings, or lose touch with them, like usual. That's a good thing, as I tend to get a bit callous by January, and lose the ability to express myself. It equates to an increased ability to love and enjoy my family, so I'm enjoying it. I've had the tendency in the past to stifle everything inside, with a hard exterior, but that's not the way I should be. Spirituality and faith are more within reach this way, as well. At the same time, my anxiety levels have decreased. I don't know if that has anything to do with diet, but it is unusual for me, especially at this time of year.

P.S. To answer one of your questions, the genotype forum is located at www.genotypediet.com

On the genotype forum for explorers, Dr. D. said this:

"Personally, I have a hard time accepting that something is forever bad for someone who in a state of fitness could benefit from it. "

As an O-nonsecretor and newly discoverd Gatherer, I can fully appreciate that. I was getting in the business of figuring out what food I'd have to eliminate next... was I intolerant of yeast or tomatoes, what was going on? My digestion wasn't improving like I hoped. It was improving, but not like I hoped. I felt, and was observed by others, as unhealthy because there were so many foods I couldn't have. Now here I am, having eaten cottage cheese with my breakfast of all things, and feeling like a whole new person. Clean slate, no digestive trouble this week! Old enemies have become new friends.

It's so much like when I started ER4YT, and I worked into that gradually. Giving up wheat may have literally saved my life, it certainly gave me my life back. O-non helped immensely as well, and helped uncover my next step of gluten free. Those were all big and helpful steps for me, but I think GTD is the greatest of all.

I think I've lost some weight, though I'm not near the scale I used before I started (it's a bit on the lean side)... I estimate from that, that I've lost 1-3 pounds from my post-holiday weight. I'm more happy about not having any gas or diarrhea this week. As I mentioned above, my digestive trouble was giving me trouble (granted, I was eating too many avoids, but the reaction seemed out of proportion to the avoids). It's so nice that for me now, it's easy to avoid the avoids (or toxins) for gatherers, because I have so many filling foods and new foods I can eat. I think I really needed some dairy to feel satisfied, thus the cravings that shot be into toxin-land repeatedly over the holidays.

Next Thanksgiving will be different. I should be back to some rice flour by then (if I'm a good girl), so I'll make a ricotta pie or a quark cheesecake, and won't feel a need for whipped cream on top!

I do have to confess to having a bit of a black dot toxin yesterday, rice...I sweetened some chocolate with agave nectar (a neutral), then stirred in a bit of gen mai cha. As a tea it's probably beneficial, but in this case I ate it, once it cooled, including the crunchy little rice grains in it (I was in the mood for a crunch bar). It was really yummy! Best chocolate I've had in a long time! (even over in toxin-land)

I hope you all enjoy your new identities like I am. Jump into it, take chances, and you'll see what I mean.

It is so weird to have beneficial grains, there were none in the non-secretor O diet, except for essene bread (which has a tad bit of gluten unless you figure out a way to make it yourself, so I didn't eat it). Weirder still to have beneficial dairy, where there were hardly even any neutrals before.

Tonight I made some basmati rice for our family dinner. You can cook it just like pasta, in a pot of boiling water. Rinse it well, soak for 30 minutes, bring a pot of salted water to a boil, add the rice (minus soaking water), return to a boil and cook for about 3 minutes, test for doneness, once it is done, but not mushy, strain it. So, now that I can have cinnamon, I put a cinnamon stick and two bay leaves in the boiling water, as well as some fresh ground cardamom and cumin. If I'd had turmeric and saffron I would have used those too. In another pan I sauteed some mushrooms and turkey bacon (the only meat I had on hand that was thawed, does contain some sugar, but I couldn't let it go to waste). I added peas to the saute pan at the end, just to warm them up. Once the rice was done and strained, add a beneficial oil and the vegetable/meat mixture, maybe a touch of ghee. I ground up a few onion seeds on top of mine to emphasize the indian flavors.

Gatherers also get oats. I recommend the certified gluten free oats, as they are free of wheat contamination. I have yet to experiment with it, but I have some of the oat flour on hand (a beneficial) and look forward to trying it. Most rice and rice flours are now black dot avoids, so I may replace them with oat flour in my recipes and see how that turns out.

I looked for ricotta cheese at the grocery store today, they didn't have any natural or organic brands. Everything they had has at least one avoid in it. I will continue my quest. There's a HFS near here that is big on dairy, so I'll check there. If no luck there, I'll go up to Wild Oats. They should have some nice fresh beneficial fish there too.

I found a recipe for flax focaccia online, and sources tell me it is good (a couple gatherers at the GTD forums have tried it). It is gluten free, and made of beneficials (as long as you use a compliant sweetener and corn free baking powder (see recipebase for suggestions on that).

Today I had scrambled eggs with salsa and a quinoa tortilla for breakfast, a pummelo for a snack (if you like grapefruit you'll love pummelo), cottage cheese and pineapple for lunch, and the basmati for dinner. Some yerba mate and kukicha (twig tea) here and there. I probably didn't eat enough, but I feel fine...usually I'd feel a bit hypoglycemic. It was mostly all beneficials throughout the day, with maybe a couple neutral condiments or spices. I love the new layout of the lists because I don't even think about the neutrals, and there's so much variety of beneficials that I'm totally happy with just those. I've never gone all-beneficial before, but now it's much easier to do.

Another weird thing is that right now I actually feel like exercising, I WANT to exercise. I actually have a little energy to spare, which is not normal for me the past few months. BTD helped me a lot, but I didn't always stick to it (mainly because dairy cravings would send me to avoidland). To me, this is so much easier than the O-nonnie diet. Sure there are some things I'll miss, some "black dot avoids" I'll miss until I can add them back in, but I can't think of what they are right now!

Wow. I could write a blog with just one word today. Wow.

In 1999 I found Eat Right 4 Your Type on a friend's bookshelf and read it at my friend's house that day. It took me a few months to accept it, wheat had been a staple and was believed to be healthy, but over time I realized that I didn't feel too great after eating it. That begin a strange and wonderful journey that has shaped my life and accomplishments since that time. I got my weight and back pain under control, as well as a host of other issues. I got my life back and found the resources to move forward into motherhood. I uncovered my gluten intolerance issues, and helped many family members do the same. I've met many of you here who were also willing to sacrifice favorite foods for better health. I've never regretted taking the leap into BTD.

Now I find myself taking another leap. I was hoping for some changes, and some new foods to enjoy, but I never expected what I found in GTD. I would have hyperventilated, but panic attacks are one of those issues that BTD has helped with. Then I stressed over the accuracy of my measurements, until a few kind souls at the forums pointed out that if they're that close, they can be counted as equal. So I firmed up my genotype determination as a Gatherer. I didn't think I fit the profile, but some of the gatherers on the forum are taller, thinner, and more muscular than I ever am. The diet looks pretty accurate to me, fewer grains and carbs than I have been eating, but I always knew I needed fewer. The surprise was some dairy, but it's a happy surprise. I picked up some natural cottage cheese last night and it sat well with me. Now when I get a dairy craving, I'll know where to direct it. I may have some casein intolerance, but that can change. I'm willing to find out.

I was a bit surprised to not be the the genotype that is a little more sensitive to foods, the Hunter. But I'll happily tackle a gatherer's challenges instead. For gatherers the main cause of problems is storing and accumulating toxins in the fat cells. I've known that I do that, for every time I lose weight I feel grumpy and icky for a while, until I'm done losing the weight. The accumulation can cause a number of health issues, and could be at the root of my hunter-like problems. I've also got the challenge of blood sugar regulation, already knew that, so that fits.

I'm going cold-turkey. I went gradually into BTD, but this time I going all out. I want to see the results fast, rather than testing every tiny part over time, this time around.

It was a big leap into BTD, now it's time for another big leap. I hope you decide to take the leap too... either way, I'll let you know how my journey goes.