Eat Right 4 Your Type/Blood Type Diet?

[ruthla]

While this isn't a strictly LC plan, it IS another diet book that claims to be a lifestyle and promote overall health. I have fibromyalgia, and I've experienced incredible improvements when I've identified and removed food triggers; I'm wondering if this book can help me identify even more triggers and help me experience an even higher level of health. So I got Dr. D'Adamo's book out of the library and I have a lot of questions about it.

I'm quite capable of reading past the author's low fat/high fiber biases; basically ignore the "recomended servings per day/week" and JUST take a look at the food lists (and drastically increase the meat, fish, nut, egg, and fat/oil portions recomended and drastically decrease the fruit and grain recomendations.) I can also comfortably ignore his advice to consume soy products as I know that too much soy screws up my cycles.

I have O+ blood, and have lurked on other discussions (on other message boards) about the BTD (blood type diet.) I've noticed that many of the individual foods that don't agree with me (specifically dairy, wheat, and oats) are not recomended for Os. I'm wondering if following the rest of the BTD recomendations for Os would lead to greater health.

But some of the foods Dr. D'Adamo recomends Os avoid are things I eat a lot of. For example, coconut (eeks! How else do I avoid dairy products without resorting to highly processed foods?), coffee (and face the migranes?), cabbage, cauliflower, mushrooms, black olives, and avocados (foods I thoroughly enjoy and have become a staple in LC meal planning.)

I'm also confused about the advice to avoid apples and apple cider vinegar (recomended as beneficial sources of malic acid, which helps fibromyalgia) and pickles. I'd heard that naturally fermented foods, such as saurkraut and dill pickles, were beneficial for gut health, so I was trying to include at least one fermented veggie per day. Is this bad for me? Or does Dr. D'Adamo not understand the difference between vinegar-pickled veggies and lacto-fermented veggies?

[Rosebud]

The trouble with this plan is that it has absolutely no basis whatever in science.

Every time this subject comes up, all of our O members say how well it works (because the plan for Type Os is essentially low carb :rolleyes: ) and those of us As (me included) explain how poorly we do when eating vegetarian (or close to it).

Ruth, I would ignore the nonsense in this book, and carry on eating the low carb vegies of your choice as part of a low carb plan. :)

[Rachel1]

What Rosebud says. The low-carb "Type O" diet is clearly going to work for the majority of members on this board. However, I'm a type AB, and according to d'Adamo, I'm supposed to eat a basically vegetarian diet with lots of grain products and dairy. Clearly that diet doesn't work for me, or I wouldn't be here!

Rachel

[soapluvr]

I followed the type A diet pretty religiously for four years. Didn't do a thing for me that I could tell. Except I was running around feeling hungry most of the time because of the lowfat recommendation. I have to admit that I was a bit brainwashed and it took awhile to get the diet out of my mind and even now when I hear people tell me that they do well on this food or that food I often wonder what their blood type is but I know the diet is mostly bunk. And yes it works for O's. Most of the A's had problems.

[ruthla]

Has anybody, other than Type O, done a modified version of the BTD? Specifically I'm thinking about using his lists of "foods that are good for you" and "foods to avoid" (ie, select veggies from the veggie list for your type, meats from their meat list, the occasional grain or fruit from the grain or fruit list for your type) but selected more fat and protein and fewer carbs?

[Kimsmith]

I agreed with Rosebud, just continue to watch your carbs. I've been on the Atkins low carb diet for 2 months. I've lost 25 lbs so far but have quite a few more to go! I've been using the food journal at http://www.fitclick.com - it counts carbs, calories, protein and fats. http://www.fitclick.com/calorie_counter

[Water Lily]

According to the blood type plan, I should thrive on dairy products. Well, not so much.

Although it is an interesting concept, this diet has no science to back it up.