"How I nearly cried when I found out I couldn't eat all of my favourite things: tomatoes, eggplant, chilli, capsicum, mushrooms, pepper, capers, olives, chickpeas"

A cry from a new member of the BTD community and can't you tell from the above Type A.

It's difficult at the beginning and we've all gone through the 'what do I eat now' syndrome.

Don't weaken it does get easier.

All the nightshade group of foods including potato is an avoid for us. You have to look outside the square for alternatives. Not all mushrooms are an avoid subject to your secretor status. The normal white domestic mushroom widely available is a neutral, so there is no need to give them up entirely.

Look back through my previous blogs to find Sarah's patented pepper substitute. It really is good.

There are a number of white bean alternatives, mostly neutral that can be used as alternatives for chickpeas, particularly for hummous. If you need a good alround bean for dishes the PInto is the best and beneficial.

When Sue & I used to do dog obedience training, one of the foundations of the training was that it takes a dog 42 consecutive days to learn and imprint a new behaviour. It's the same with food.

The more consecutive days you can go without an avoid the easier it becomes to do without them.

If you're struggling, it's not the end of the world to have an avoid but trust me you do feel better if you dont.