Hi, Heidi! Thanks so much for responding! My most recent "attack" of upset stomach came after I ate sweet potato. I've also noticed it with a combination of sauteed yellow onions and garlic. Happy O eating over the holidays! Lisa

Hi, Lisa! I hope your holidays were lovely!

To review for the readers, the earlier question you had was whether mold in the veg might be the cause of these stomach upsets, since you notice them during the cold season but not at other times. I then had asked if you noticed the problem with any particular food items. Let's look at the issue of mold with the foods you mentioned.

If a sweet potato is moldy (I believe this mold is the fusarium organism), it should show softened spots and slightly furred skin on those spots. Purchase firm, unwrinkled sweet potatoes with no soft spots, and the cooking process will destroy any wandering spores which may be present on the skin (which is removed before eating anyway).

Mold on onions is clearly visible to the naked eye, as a blackish powdery substance on the skin and flesh of the onion. If the onion is hard from root end to top with no swollen areas, if it has a very mild oniony smell, and the skin fits snugly and shows no cuts, bubbling or water staining, it's a good, mold-free onion.

I've never seen moldy garlic, perhaps because of its antioxidant compounds -- or perhaps because I store garlic in its skin in a wire basket in the kitchen. I buy only what I would use in a week or two, and my two-week-old garlic is indistinguishable from its new replacements. I can't vouch for the quality of garlic left in the refrigerator, nor of commercially-available jars of peeled or 'pre-minced' garlic.

These descriptions should help you determine whether the food that gave you a stomach upset could have been moldy. If they could not have been moldy, then you'd want to expand your investigation to include what was eaten with those foods, and/or the fats used in their preparation.

:-)

An A-type friend has a bone spur? What should he do? Happy Holidays Everyone! carolyn(o+sec)

Hi, Carolyn! Tell me more about your friend. Is he overweight? If so, getting down to a healthy weight would be instrumental in slowing bone spur growth and making sure that more do not form in the future.

Whether the spur is in the heel or the spine, he should consult a chiropractor or orthopoedist for spinal adjustments and for help choosing proper shoes and orthotics if needed.

Second, he should be following the A diet closely, including appropriate calcium and magnesium supplementation. If he is taking antacids of any kind, I'd encourage him to stop doing so. The use of quercetin, bromelain, and essential fatty acids are all part of his healing.

He really should see a BTD practitioner skilled in supplementing certain acidifying compounds and monitoring diet and other factors, in order to get this (sometimes long) healing process underway. There are many protocols used in this field which must be tailored to the individual, so it's not possible for me to offer a comprehensive plan for him.

Best wishes to him and to you, Carolyn ~ thanks for being such a help to your friend! :-)

Hi Heidi! My name is Jim Garland I'm a 22 year old A+ secretor.

I have been following the diet for some time now... very strictly. I eat almost all teir 1 benneficials a few nuetrals, and very rarely eat any avoids. I have completed 3 liver/gallbladder flushes now.

Two questions. Passion fruit... benneficial, nuetral, or avoid??

And more pressing... I follow the diet so strictly. Except for the once a month avoid or the portions... Yet... I have TERRIBLY flatulance ALL the time. The smell is truly awful... I also am having extremely irregular bowel movements... few and far between maybe one unsatisfying one every couple of days... I feel terribly constipated most of the time lately...

I drink lemoned water, I usually only consume beverages 2 hours after and a half hour before I eat... I eat ginger root a bitter... I eat about 300-350 calories every 3 hours or so... Lots of raw vegetables... I suspect one of these may be the cause... any ideas??

The only way I can clear myself out is to do a coffee enema... I feel fine for a day after that but it's back to constipated again right away...and I have to do another one... Please list my e-mail addy and any advice would be appreciated! I read your column all the time but have never written in. Thank you so MUCH!! Jim

Hello, Jim! Welcome!

Passion fruit hasn't yet been rated. If you search for "passion" using the form at the bottom of this page, you'll see some other columns in which we've discussed the marvelous passion fruit. :-)

Neither the lemon water nor condiment quantities of ginger root would produce the flatulence, to my knowledge.

Some questions arose in my mind from the facts you posted. First, could you tell me your height & weight? And are you counting calories by weighing the foods you're eating? We don't use calories in this plan, as that approach tends to increase the stress associated with following a diet (thus increasing cortisol, making weight loss and other health goals more difficult to achieve)-- and is unnecessary for success with this plan.

Also, could you describe your menu in detail for, say, a two-day period? That would give me some data on which I might be able to determine what's causing the constant gas. If you could, it would be useful to know how long you've followed the BTD, and what your diet was like before. And finally, do you practice yoga or meditation?

Thanks for offering your email addy, but the reason I don't post information like that is largely because of the automated email addy-harvesting programs which roam the Net looking for addys to rain spam on. However, the readers are free to ask me for your contact info. Since you've given permission, I'll pass your addy to anyone who requests it.

Best wishes, Jim, and please do write back! :-)

Hi there. About 20 years ago, after the birth of my first son, I couldn't get out of a depressed state, or lose 30 pounds I had gained while pregnant. I saw a doctor who prescribed I go on the Caveman Diet, which, as I understand now, is VERY similar to the diet for Os, which I am. I was advised to stay away from high-carbohydrate veggies and fruits, eat NO dairy, NO refined grains and no sugar. The 30 pounds just melted off, without restricting the amounts of foods I ate, as long as I followed the instructions.

Now, I find myself, at age 49, putting the pounds on very easily, especially around my belly. I have pulled my copy of Eat Right for Your Type off the shelf, and am looking at it again with renewed interest since I don't want to be middle aged and obese.

I find it difficult to keep up with the amount of exercise it seems to take to keep me at a decent weight - where I am comfortable in my clothes. I am almost 5'10" tall, and feel really good at 160 pounds, on a medium-large frame. Right now I'm at 182 pounds.

I want to lose the weight, and keep it off, but I seem to struggle mostly with sticking to the "diet", ie, not eating sugar or breads/pastas AND keeping up the amount of exercise needed to take it off and keep it off. I walk briskly every morning for 1/2 hour, and have begun exercising to a DVD every day doing a combination of lo aerobics, weight training and yoga......should I be doing something differently?

Why does it seem so hard to KEEP the weight off, and stick with eating properly AND exercising? Is there some way to jump start myself to see some really great results quickly? And what's with this belly thing? Thanks so much for your help! Diane

Hi, Diane!

I have a feeling that the reason you have trouble with keeping weight off and sticking to the diet in Eat Right 4 Your Type is that you are a nonsecretor.

There are clues to be found in the success you had with the "caveman diet." You ate NO dairy, NO refined grains and NO sugar. The one further adjustment to make there is to eliminate grain entirely for the time being -- that's your jump start. O's don't need grains to be healthy, and they benefit in many ways from not eating it -- particularly in the excess bodyfat reduction department. Eat meat, fowl, fish, a variety of fats (from nuts, seeds, and cold-pressed olive & flax oils) with plenty (4 to 5 times the meat intake) of beneficial vegetables (especially dark leafy greens), and include some unsweetened beneficial fruit daily.

It's a simple diet. Don't go hungry - EAT. Have enough to satisfy you. Drink 1/2 ounce of pure water per pound you weigh, daily, and put a little lemon juice and/or a pinch of gray sea salt in each quart. Drink it at least one hour away from meals. Use the bones of meat, fowl & fish to make broth. Get bone-in steaks, or lamb shanks, and have your butcher cut them so that when roasted, the cooked marrow in the center can be eaten. Use a high-mineral water. These are ancient ways of obtaining essential dietary minerals in their naturally-occurring synergistic combinations.

You're doing plenty of exercise. If you'd like more benefit for less time spent, incorporate two intense weight-training sessions per week (one for the upper body, one for the lower), and reduce the daily DVD sessions to thrice weekly (primarily for stretching and light cardio). Why? Because building active tissue is more quickly achieved that way -- and more active tissue mass (muscle) means more fat-burning. Work out more infrequently, get better results. Pretty cool, eh? ;-)

Health gurus will tell you that disproportionate belly fat developing in a 49-year-old woman is a premenopause issue. I will tell you that, yes, it may well be. Where we depart from the conventional advice is based upon what the ABO plans do TO the hormone balance. When you've been on the proper diet for a while, your body is doing its job unimpeded. I should say, its "jobs," including the endocrine system's return to an unburdened mode of function. That's why the diet and exercise come first -- and I believe when you've found your secretor status and are following the diet best suited to you, much (if not all) of the work conventionally approached with hormone replacement treatments will have been accomplished already.

so ~ give it a go and write back with results & comments! I appreciate hearing from you! thanks, Diane! :-)

Dear Heidi, First I want to thank you for all the help that you give all of us.

Just a quick question. I have tried searching for the answer but no luck. Ryan had an article that I read about Heallix and amalgam fillings. My son uses heallix faithfully but I did not realize that he had some amalgam fillings. Now I can not find this article and he wants to know what it said because he brushes his teeth with the heallix and uses it every day as a preventative and then for problems if needed. Could you please make me a link to that article. Thanks again, Connie from Ohio

Hello, Connie!

The discussion was in a post by Francoise Ouellet, and includes research she did while preparing for her amalgam filling removal. Here it is! and thanks for your patience, dear! :-}