My stomach's almost better, just a little sensitive to some foods while healing (such as seeds & nuts which seem to irritate it). That will improve. I don't know if it distracted my immune system or what, but I've had a bad head cold for a couple days now. To deal with the cold, I've been trying hard to stay on track. I read the can of chicken broth I had on hand, and couldn't bring myself to using it, must have had 10 or more ingredients, many of them avoids. So I went to the store and bought a natural brand with just broth and a little fat. Sure tastes more bland, but I adapted. I added salt, garlic and many different spices, even terragon which I usually don't know where to use, but it needed a sweeter herb. Also fresh parsley and oregano from the herb garden, and some sliced deli turkey (the "noodles"). It did the job, and tasted ok. Nothing has tasted great with this cold, though I've been craving spicy food (I've never had trouble with spicy food). I found some compliant hot salsa with just tomato, serrano pepper, garlic and cilantro and salt as the ingredients. It was very spicy and felt good. I used rice crackers in place of corn chips, and only bit off a tiny bit of the cracker with each big scoop of salsa...they're more crunchy than corn chips, thus, it doesn't take as much to get the same 'bite'.

Today I had a moment of weakness, I was super thirsty at the mall and wanted something bubbly; being still miserable with my cold, I caved in and had a coke. Well, that's my coke for the year. Bad.

I did notice how my celiac reaction differs from my lectin reaction. With wheat I have both types, but the rye only gave me the celiac reaction. The lectins in wheat react within 20 minutes and make my joints hurt, then make me irritable/depressed for about 24 hours. The celiac reaction takes at least a couple hours to start up, and is primarily digestive. First sign is gas, then it feels like I have an alien inside me trying to get out, and I won't go on with the description from there! So, I'm gluten intolerant and lectin sensitive, but hey, when I eat right, I'm healthy! A few years ago I didn't think I'd ever be able to say "I'm healthy". Knowledge is power.

I'll be going into my doctor next week to ask him more about celiac disease and see if it needs to be monitored via blood tests, etc. I figured out that doctors only can pay attention to your primary complaint at a regular office visit, so I scheduled this one as a consult, that should help. He's an osteopathic doctor, and quite good at listening, but it's still good to make sure to schedule enough time in advance.

Now that I can call myself a celiac, without reservation, I've been thinking about it more. Of course I still have an unpleasant reminder of the rye down in my belly, so that makes me think about it all the more. I'm trying to trace it back, and I think I remember being about 6 years old with that feeling in my stomach. I thought everyone got stomach aches as often as I did, it was probably at least twice a month. It's a heavy discomfort that combines both feeling too empty and feeling too full at once. Of course there are other symptoms, but I won't go into that, and I've blocked out those details from my memory. Suffice it to say, I wasn't "normal", although I wasn't severe enough to suspect anything.

I was never the typical undernourished celiac, though I do remember once losing 14 lbs, in two weeks for no good reason. I was a teenager then, so I didn't complain.

It is sad that it is so underdiagnosed in America. I've heard that they screen for it in other countries. While the blood test isn't totally conclusive, from what I understand, it would still be helpful for me to have gotten as a routine test. Then, there are those who won't change their diets even if their doctor tells them to. I think that's as much rooted in not wanting to give up something that tastes good as it is rooted in not wanting to be "different" socially. I can certainly understand both reasons, and it is a pain to be 'nutritionally challenged' especially in social situations or at restaurants, but everyone on the blood type diet understands that frustration! Sometimes I wish I could just cut loose and eat whatever I want for once, yet for a celiac especially, it's really not worth it. Living Without magazine sometimes has some good articles about how to deal with it, and points out that having special dietary needs gives other people a chance to help you that they wouldn't otherwise have. For somebody who is self-sufficient, or proud, like me, that's hard to accept, but when I think about it, it is kind especially nice when friends, family, or waiters and chefs, go to lengths to accomodate me. I only wish Campbells Condensed Soups weren't so prevalent in every casserole around these parts. I wish casseroles weren't so prevalent, in general. The low carb craze has helped with that though. More people are on restricted diets, and more food is served as a square meal with the meat the carb and the vegetable all separate...that is such an improvement!

Food diary, and an informative setback.

Today, not the best day, son woke up 3 hours earlier than usual with a cough, and I never caught up on the sleep, though he has. Had a very late breakfast (11 or 12-ish) of some of the bunch of burgers I made in my foreman grill last night, free-range of course) 2 small patties 1/3 lb. I’d guess. On top of mixed baby greens (organic asian blend in a bag: baby red and green kale, baby mustard (neutral for nonnies), baby chard, and topped with Broccosprouts (broccoli (, red kale ( and garnet amaranth (?) sprouts, a recent find at the HFS), all topped with salt, red pepper and lemon juice. The great thing about raw veggies is…you don’t have to cook them… d’oh!

Lunch was not so good, but still avoid free. Made lentil soup (from a can) for the baby, and he didn’t eat much, so I ate the rest (avoid-free). Had a small slice of rye Manna (Essene) bread (I’ll explain that choice below) with almond butter and all fruit avoid-free cherry spread. Then leftover beef souvlaki from takeout (not sure if it had avoids, but it always agrees with me).

Haven’t drank enough: 12 oz. Water, 6 oz pineapple/cherry/pom juice + 6 oz sparkling water, 5 oz sip right.

Ah, yes. I was going to explain my manna bread choice. It is an experiment. You may remember from my earlier blogs that I’m gluten intolerant. Now for the rest of the story…I don’t do well with wheat (of course), spelt, kamut, oats. I was gluten free for a long time due to this, the grains that are readily available are not grains that I can eat. I asked my doctor about it, but as I was already gluten free, they couldn’t accurately test for celiac disease and didn’t need to. He said, besides, the best way to tell if you’re intolerant to a food is to just stop eating it and see the results, so if you already know this, then the tests won’t change anything. I never got around to testing rye and barley, since it’s not like they are easy to come by, you have to seek them out. Lately I’ve started to wonder if maybe I’m sensitive to something else in the wheat and other grains. So, today I’m testing it with one of the safer grain options I could find 100% sprouted rye manna bread. (I know Ezekiel bread doesn’t work well, so I didn’t try sprouted wheat in the manna bread) Maybe rye will be okay every now and then; so far so good, my joints and gut feel fine.

Later…

Eh, no. Definitely reacted to the rye manna. Classic celiac reaction. Diagnosis confirmed. Oh well, I'm sure it was more pleasant than a biopsy. I should have tested rye long ago and confirmed it then, while my former damage was still fresh…of course, it’s only been a couple weeks since the big wheat mistake (the restaurant told me they didn’t have any wheat or wheat noodles in the kitchen, but the shrimp rolls must have come from a different kitchen!) The rye today must have damaged the new cells that were forming after that wheat damage, because it was more severe than I anticipated. I can now say without doubt that I’m a celiac, and I can be more assertive about it at restaurants. Maybe I’ll even order one of those "Silly Yak" t-shirts I saw advertised in the Living Without magazine.

I didn’t eat much else, just a banana, some deflect, and some sparkling water.

I still fume when I hear criticisms about the diet, they don’t use science in the picture, they just use catch phrases like “Choosing a diet based on blood type is as effective as choosing it based on your astrological sign” and the same catch phrase recirculated in the press over and over and over like a one hit wonder.

Ask my cells what my sign is, they can’t tell you, IMO. Ask them my blood type, they’ll shout it loud and clear. Hey, I'm intelligent, I know what I'm doing, I know nutrition, I know genetics and biochemistry (studied biotechnology in college), I’m not easily swayed by trends or the press…I can tell science from hype. I’ve never fallen for any common scam, I don’t buy from door-to-door salesmen or give information to telemarketers, etc. etc.

Ok, so I did buy into the food pyramid. I was even a vegetarian for a year as a teenager (oops! Wrecked my thyroid, bad news for an O adolescent girl!). I’ve tried all kinds of mainstream advice, and it didn’t work. Not for me. Period. You can’t take statistics and apply them to 100% of everyone. So one diet works for 30% of the population, or an average weight loss from a diet or a pill is 8 lbs.; that’s considered a statistical success, print it in the papers then, but what about the other 70%, what about those who brought down the average? Cookie cutter approaches and statistics just don’t work for everyone. Until the press and the powers that be understand that, they will continue to waffle between low-carb, low-fat, sugar-free, this and that, because they aren’t looking for the RIGHT answer. Statistics do nothing for that one person in 50 million that does get hit by a meteor, it’s just playing with numbers, and I’m not just a number.

I figure it’s time to stoop to the level of the press and those who push other diets on people. I’m only half sarcastic here. This diet really helps people, and I want to publicize it.

Marketing Ideas: T-shirts and bumper stickers

“Body by D’Adamo” - muscle shirts

“Healthy Product of 100 Years of Blood Type Science”

T-shirts that tell how much weight you’ve lost in 10 lbs increments: “It works! I lost 20 pounds with Eat Right 4 Your Type. But the best part is… I feel great!”

“Lean, efficient, Antibiotic-Free, Chemical-Free, Free-Range O…ask me about the Blood Type Plan” and similar phrases for each type.

Any other ideas out there? Let's get brainstorming!

I don’t know if it’s because I’m an O, because I’m a non-secretor with such a black and white reaction to avoids, or because I haven’t often dieted in my lifetime (not really a yo-yo dieter, at least not a successful one), or what, but losing weight on the Blood Type diet is really easy for me. Maybe I’m just really patient in that regard…my hair grows out of bad haircuts seemingly overnight, yet it actually takes as long as anyone else’s, I just don’t think about it every day.

For other diets, weight loss doesn’t come at all. The first time I tried to lose weight I thought I had tried EVERYTHING. Very low calorie diets (down to below 1000 calories a day, before I gave up on that), and lots of exercise (2 hours a day at the gym, 6 days a week). But I got NO results from any of that until I tried the BTD. The pounds kept creeping on, even with low calorie intake and lots of working out. It was such a godsend to try this diet! I was about to give up on myself all together. Atkin’s may have worked if I’d tried it, but it wasn’t quite the rage yet, and I didn’t trust it as far as the health consequences of cutting out so many fruits and veggies, and eating so much bacon and cheese. My high weight was 185, and I couldn’t blame it on pregnancy because that hadn’t happened yet. What I could start to blame it on was mono at 19, which started a crash course through bad health…mono, thyroid, CFS, antidepressant mayhem, back injury, etc. etc. I could hardly walk up a hill, or survive on less than 12 hours sleep a night. Of course WHEAT was a major culprit in all these problems, I cannot stress enough how much damage it does to me. (My grocery store down the street now stocks spelt flour! A few years ago I had to order it over the internet. Times have changed. Of course, I can’t have spelt now, but it still makes me happy to see it on the shelf.)

The epiphany moment for me was, after reading Genetic Nutritioneering by Dr. Bland, and Eat Right 4 Your Type, the ideas were fresh in my head. I didn’t want to find out if I had to give up wheat though. One morning I felt pretty good, got up early and didn’t have breakfast for a couple hours, I got a lot accomplished that morning. When I did have breakfast, it was my old breakfast standby of whole wheat cereal. Within 15 minutes of eating it, I had to go back to bed. I felt tired, lethargic, depressed, achy, the whole bit. That’s when I started to take back control of my body. Found a new breakfast of champions, and a new life. I’m stubborn, of course I tested it over and over before teaching myself it wasn’t worth eating. I tested every avoid after that, before I finally am now convinced that all the avoids really are bad news for me, whether or not I feel the consequences right away.

Anyway, the first week after cutting out wheat I lost 11 pounds. This was miraculous and scary, but I loved it! After I reached my goal (140) I did what I won’t do this time…I got lax with the diet. One avoid led to another, and soon I was eating corn and yogurt and dairy again. Gained back a little, gradually. Then I gained 50 pounds with my pregnancy…yikes!. Of course some of that came off in the months after the birth, then I plateaued back at 185. That’s when I gave up my lovely rice bread, corn & dairy, and came back into the diet in earnest in January when I started blogging. Since then I’ve gone down to 160 (or less, I haven’t weighted myself in a few weeks), and I’m still making progress. The first week wasn’t as drastic as it was the first time I tried the diet, as I’ve never gone back to wheat so the change wasn’t as drastic as before. Before January I could sense that things were starting to go awry once more in my body…stomach problems, allergies, getting sick more often, the whole package. That quickly turned around as soon as I got back on track.

So that's where I'm at now. Making progress toward a goal, becoming healthier, getting closer to my physical potential. I still have moments of weakness, I still make mistakes, I'm still learning, but I am very happy with the power the blood type diet has given me over my health and my life! I add my thanks to the many who have thanked Dr. D'Adamo. A big Thank You!