I almost didn't get up and go to Taekwondo today, I turned off my alarm when one of my kids woke me up at 3 am. I still happened to wake up, and couldn't quiet my mind again, so I got up and loaded the kids in the car, with smoothies in hand, and we made it. I was afraid I'd still be too weak, but we mostly worked on technique (rather than core-strengthening torture), so it worked out well. I did have to put my knees down a little sooner than usual when we did a little core strengthening of holding a pushup position, but overall it was good.

My son also went to his class after mine, and did much better than he has for a while. Ever since the hornet incident he's more inclined to be in fantasy than reality, and has had trouble focusing. He's also worried about his first loose tooth and starting kindergarten next week. The other problem he's had lately was that when I was sick I let him play xbox as much as he wanted...not good for getting back into reality.

I still have a couple sore spots in my throat, so I've been making lots of egg drop seaweed soup http://www.dadamo.com/typebase4/recipedepictor7x.cgi?1049. It's very soothing and nourishing. I like to make it hot and sour.

Smoothies are on my mind today. My throat is still so sore that I can hardly handle solid food. My body feels much better and I got a good night's sleep last night, but I feel like my throat is attempting to do a spontaneous tonsillectomy.

Before taekwondo I usually just feel like having a smoothie for breakfast. Apricots, almond butter, rice bran and rice milk (with a little veggie glycerine) make for a satisfying smoothie. My kids don't like the texture of it, but that leaves more for me. Today I didn't feel like almond butter either, with my throat, so I used 3 frozen apricots, about 5 frozen cranberries, rice milk, v.glycerine, cinnamon and a mild cottage cheese. I'd prefer ricotta, it's smoother, but I only had cottage cheese. It was tangy and good. I think I'll call it my Thanksgiving smoothie.

I often have a simple green tea smoothie, as an energy drink, though it doesn't have quite as much substance: ice cubes, powdered green tea, v.glycerine, and rice milk. Ricotta works well in it too, but cottage cheese might be too tangy for this one.

I found a new organic energy drink that is sweetened with agave nectar. I don't see much use for pre-packaged energy drinks in my life, but it's nice to see improvements in them. When my workouts are never more than and hour, I have plenty of time to make a smoothie beforehand and eat a meal afterward. I do sweat plenty in that hour, so I may consider adding a little sea salt in there somewhere, though I have developed such a taste for salt, that I probably get enough.

After taekwondo I always shower and sit in my infrared sauna, to reduce sore muscles. Hmm, maybe I should add a pinch of sea salt to the water I drink for sauna-ing.

Taekwondo is going well. My feet and ankles have been sore this week after years of using them only for walking on. All kinds of little muscles are sore. A couple months ago I could hardly flex my toes, but that is changing. I love having a workout with definite goals, where I can see my progress and learn how to do new things.

I had a little sore throat before my last class, but went anyway, as it's not uncommon for me to have a morning sore throat that goes away. I was able to keep up with the class just fine, and was in for many sore muscles from it. Then my whole body got sore on top of all the sore muscles, and by Friday I was having spells of feeling very horrible. I was taking everything from the supplement cabinet that I could think might work, but it wasn't helping that much. So I went in to the doctor and she was very impressed my the looks of my throat, and I quickly found out I have strep throat. I'd been meaning to go in for a while for mild, though painless, symptoms of a UTI, and sure enough, I had that too. So I'm taking a strong round antibiotics now, to cover both infections. This was the first UTI I've had since 1999! Back then they were exceedingly painful, even with only a trace of infection, so this one took me by surprise.

I get strep every couple of years, and it always hits me harder than any flu ever does. Even though my sore throat wasn't all that terrible yet, my body felt absolutely lousy. Today my sore throat is worse, and I can see now that it looks sick, whereas before it just looked a little red. My body, however, feels quite a bit better. It's a good thing that I have lots of polyflora, I'll need it.

Last week I finally, officially, irrevocably, weaned my youngest. He'll be three in November, and was only nursing once a day, but now that is done. So I ordered some new supplements, the Genotype Gatherer formulas. I never took the time to find out if I could take them while breastfeeding, I just took the more conservative option and waited. I'm excited to start taking those once they arrive. My gatherer traits have become more obvious to me over the last few months, so I'm looking forward to balancing them out.

With the release of The Genotype Diet, and the excitement that comes with that, the skeptics have also become excited. The lack of double-blind placebo-controlled study is one of the criticisms they start out with.

First off, many popular diets don't have a similar study done on them. Yet, because they never claim to be scientific (many are written by laypersons), they don't get this criticism. People try them if it sounds doable and see what happens. There's often no harm in that, as most foods and most exercise plans are quite safe. Some may be dangerous in the long-term, as they often drastically reduce whole categories of calories (fats or carbs, usually) but they often aren't done for the long term. For BTD and GTD to be based on science, and science that many scientist and doctors are not expert in, has invited a lot of criticisms that the layperson-written-diet-book hasn't.

Secondly, science is based on observations, some of which are decades in the making, as in BTD and GTD.

Thirdly, double blind studies are expensive, and have to have some big dollars behind them. Especially when you consider the number of variables involved in testing 6 types, or more (if you test BTD with Secretor Status instead). Most companies and organizations with enough money to fund that type of study would have their bottom line threatened by the success of it, as it steers customers away from those things that make them those big bucks (such as pharmaceuticals or processed foods).

Fourth, all the diets Dr. D'Adamo recommends are healthy and balanced, and full of a variety of whole foods. They steer us clear of many processed foods, which over time are proven to be dangerous. While skeptics may consider his ideas dangerous, his diets are certainly not. Many good ideas, even truths, were once considered dangerous.

Fifth, all studies that do exist have a percentage of success and failure. If the success rate is 80% (which is probably much higher than any regular diet's success rate) there's another 20% who see poor results from the diet. It is still classified as a success, but what of those who fall into the minority? How do you account for those? Too often they are swept under a rug, deemed insignificant. The same problem exists for studies done on pharmaceuticals, they don't work for everyone, and my fail miserably for a small percentage. (They are also moving toward more individualized targeted drugs, based on genetics and individual detoxification pathways.)

*Another sucker-punch a skeptic will throw in, is to imply that it's all about making money. Selling books doesn't really make that much money. And last I checked, there were no D'Adamo frozen meals being sold in the grocery store. (I wish there were, that'd be great, but it is not the direction Dr. D'Adamo is going in.) It's healthier to prepare your own food from whole ingredients, and all you really need to do any of the diets is a book. Dr. D'Adamo's books can be checked out from the library or purchased used. If anybody has financially benefitted from my choice in diet, it has been local and organic farmers and free-range ranchers.

So if I am in a minority, and the medically established diet, or food pyramid, doesn't work for me, where does that leave me?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it was not until I gave up my top avoids/toxins based on blood type that I lost any weight. When I follow the diet, I lose weight and improve health, when I don't, I don't. Cutting my calories way back, cutting my fat intake back, and exercising 10-12 hours a week did not lose any weight. (Low carb made me feel like a ball of sludge, so I didn't try Atkins for long, I admit.) So I am a cluster of anecdotal evidence. Meaningless by the reasoning of skeptics. I however, don't consider it meaningless. Stupid to try anything out of the realm of medically proven double-blind-studied diets? Well, I don't think so. I could have waited for more evidence, but if I had I wouldn't have the life that I do. I would have been subjected to numberous double-blind-studied pharmaceuticals, such as Vioxx, Phen-fen (sp?), antidepresants, continued repeated courses of antibiotics, NSAIDs, Tagamet, cholesterol-lowering drugs, etc. We all know where some of those "safe" solutions have led some people. Instead, I follow the right healthy diet for me, and rarely have to take many prescriptions or over-the-counter drugs.

I don't consider anecdotal evidence to be meaningless. Evidence and observations are still part of the scientific method, last I checked.

Be sure to check out Dr. D'Adamo's responses to other criticisms here.

Just a blog to update you on the bees. My son is doing fine, totally back to normal physically, but a bit skiddish of most multi-legged critters.

I took the "bees" into the local extension for identification, and after some deliberation and second opinions, it was determined that these are hornets, not bees. They sure fooled lots of people, including some professionals, into thinking they were bees.

We had another pest control man come out after these bees charged my husband again (he escaped quickly enough). He laughed at me for running when one of these little bee imposters came out, because it doesn't look scarey. Then it charged him, and a couple others followed. He escaped a sting with some well-timed swats of the hand, but it was the closest he's ever come to getting stung. After retreating he went back out to spray it, and doused it with their stuff that usually kills instantly, but it was unphased. So they will be back again with a new plan of attack this week.

So, bees are still bees, and will generally mind their own business, but look out for these imposters.

Meanwhile, we've been busy bees at home getting the garage finally cleared out. We had a yard sale, hauled a couple loads to the dump, and donated the rest to Deseret Industries. We didn't make any big bucks at the yard sale, but it was worthwhile. We made almost as much by returning all the things we didn't use and had forgotten to return to the home improvement stores. I still have a few things to sell on eBay, but the garage is looking good. We hung up our bicicles and strollers, and everything is getting into shape pretty well. That's just the first step in getting our whole house organized, but it was the hardest step. I'm afraid my husband's work ethic rubbed off on me though, and I skipped too many meals, and ate too many processed foods over the course of the week. So, a few steps forward for house clutter, but backwards for body clutter. Sigh.