My husband bought me a GPS system for the car because I am somewhat directionally challenged. Although I like the GPS and how it can get me from here to there in almost a mindless manner, I still find that I need to know where I am with a map. So I need both the GPS and a map to navigate to places that I'm unfamiliar with.

The last time I needed to get to an unfamiliar place I ended up being detoured due to road work. As I approached the detour I could feel my heart quicken thinking, " How the heck will I be able to manuver this new obstacale?". Like most GPS's mine takes awhile to compute a new route so I slowed down hoping it would find a signal quickly before I had to decide to go left or right at the fork in the road before me.

I headed to the right praying I had made the right choice. Finally the GPS found a signal, and that annoying women with her British accent informed me that I had made the wrong decision. Thankfully I was able to easily turn around and correct my direction. As I drove in the car I thought about adaptability and how, over the last year, I have made a consious effort to be more adaptable. To be willing to change direction even at the last minute. Being adaptable has made a big difference in my life.

When I began the blood type diet it was very simple, I was an "A" and my diet was clearly outlined in Eat Right for Your Type. I figured like every other diet "guru," Dr. D'Adamo would write one defining book for people and I would follow this the rest of my life. How wrong I was! Not long after Eat Right was published, Live Right for Your Type came out and introduced the idea of secretor status. Finding out I was a secretor didn't change my diet much but I know that for those who discovered that they were non-secretors (nonnies), it did. Dr. D'Adamo then went on to write The Health Series books, which target specific diseases, changing once again the food choices of some who suffered from these diseases. Then the Genotype diet hit the shelves. I think this was the hardest to adjust to. I was now an A Warrior and lost some of the foods I was eating weekly. I had already experienced the shifts in my diet over the years and trusted each step Dr. D'Adamo had taken me on. Though it took me a few days to understand my Genotype and the changes in my diet, I knew that Dr. D'Adamo had figured something else out in regard to my individual needs and I needed to pay attention. I have taken things even further with a computerized diet plan called a SWAMI (Serotyping With Advanced Modifying Influences) which generates a diet designed specifically for me. This personalized plan is based on some interesting measurements, family information and personal health history.

I read the forums on a regular basis and I see people constantly struggle with the issue of Dr. D'Adamo changing the status of foods with each diet even though the person is the same blood type. People come to the forums confused about how a food can go from a superfood to an avoid, within the same blood type.
If you have trouble, think about it in this sense: As a baby you had certain diet requirements, as a teenager you had another, then as you age and your stomach acid decreases you need yet another. I think most of us can see that each stage of life requires an adjustment in calories, fat and vitamins. As people age you can even see how they chose different foods, your grandmother does not eat the same diet as she did as a teenager.

Now apply the Genotype diet/SWAMI to the same person, and you will begin to understand that the SWAMI is dynamic and adaptable. It will move you through your life and change as you grow older.

I realized this as a friend of mine and I discussed her pregnancy. She has a professional version of SWAMI that is available through practitioners. She had one SWAMI for getting pregnant, another while pregnant and yet another while nursing the baby.
Each time some of her food values changed, and she adjusted knowing that the baby was getting the best she could give.

I have not rerun my SWAMI in a few years but wonder what changes it would reveal. I am now entering perimenopause and my body will have different needs. What a wonderful thing it is to know that as my body changes all I need to do is rerun my SWAMI to meet those needs. Amazingly, adaptable.