Well, I haven’t posted anything since I started on the Atkins Diet, which actually didn’t last very long. I gave it “the old college try,” and lost quite a bit initially, only to have the weight creep back up — even though I was following the diet, and going even lower carb (more meat and dairy). And I wasn’t feeling well. So, I basically gave it up, and went back to my old way of eating. But I haven’t been enjoying that very much, either — it’s been better because I just fix what I want to eat, but I haven’t been losing anything — but I’ve felt better on it than I ended up feeling on the Atkins Diet.

In the meantime, my mom has been on the Blood Type Diet, and she has lost over 20 pounds (over the course of 3-4 months), and she says she just feels better. I’d read a bit about it, and rejected it because the guy bases it on the theory of evolution, which I reject. Then last weekend, our church hosted a series of lectures on creation, and the lecturer and his family (I’ve known his wife for years) stayed with us. This lecturer, a doctor who goes around speaking on the scientific basis of creation and the problems of evolution, swears by the Blood Type Diet. He and his wife tell me stories about how they were before they went on it, and the process by which they became believers. [He also said he could give me the scientific reasoning apart from evolution why it works.] So, I got kits to type my family’s blood, and also ordered The Genotype Diet, which should be coming in soon.

After typing their blood, I got online to see what each blood type should eat, and what we should avoid. Fortunately, I only have to keep up with two types — my friends have three or even all four types in their family! And a lot of foods are both on the “beneficial” and “avoid” lists for both types (although a lot of foods are “beneficial” for me and “avoid” for my husband). I think I can do it without a problem. I won’t be able to eat tomatoes (which I don’t like anyway, except in things like ketchup, spaghetti sauce, pizza, etc.) or wheat, but in a lot of ways, once you cut out one of the “avoid” foods, that lessens the temptation for the other “avoid” foods. For example, cutting out wheat means no bread, no pizza, no pasta, etc. (except for specialized foods like “rice pasta”) — so no pizza crust means no pizza sauce and no sausage and no pepperoni and no cheese. In a way, it would be harder for me to eat pizza without meat and just vegetables than to just say “no pizza at all.”

But this is going to be tough for my husband. He has already bemoaned several things on the “no” list that he can’t have, or should have only occasionally and in moderation (particularly things like pizza, sausage-biscuits, Italian beef sandwiches, salsa, etc.). The funny thing is, he even looked longlingly at the corn I ate at lunch today, and he’s not even a big corn fanatic! I guess now that it’s on his “avoid” list, he wants it. But I don’t think he noticed that coffee is on his avoid list, and this is the point that is going to be most interesting to me. I’ve long wanted him to give up coffee, because I didn’t think it was good for him (oddly enough, I can have it, although I can’t stand the stuff!), and he has even said stuff in the past about going off of it, but just has never managed to do so. I don’t know whether I should tell him now that he can’t have coffee (for fear he will just say he won’t do the diet at all), or if I should just let him figure it out in the morning when I don’t have coffee ready for him. Or cereal bars. I’m not really sure what to fix for breakfast in the morning — he can’t have oats, wheat, dairy, or pork, so there goes oatmeal, biscuits, sausage, bacon, waffles, muffins, etc. Like I said — this could get interesting!