The Creaky Cavewoman

I've been eating like a cavewoman, in tune with my Type-O-ness, for about six weeks now. I'm not sure of the exact start date, but it was after my birthday and before I started entering things into my iPod, so .. let's just call it 6 weeks. That would make today the start of my 7th week. It's actually very interesting that, for the first time ever, I don't have a 'day 1'. My new diet does not have a birthday!

Usually, starting a diet, or even a 'this is not a diet' diet, requires an extensive ritual of planning, a shopping expedition, purchase of a fresh diet (or non-diet) journal and a last-minute, never gonna do it again, pig-out. This time I had the aching, arthritic hip and no time to piss around. It was fast-forward, or fast-backward, to a far less modern way of eating. Perhaps Kek and I are the new Betty and Wilma? Note the absence of carb bloat. Those dino-burgers really did wonders for the hips.

I'm noticing some changes in my body. My weight dropped a kg and then I fell out with the scales and decided to take a break. It's not the scales, it's my mental brain. My weight fluctuates up and down all the time and it's great when it goes down, but when it goes up, I have a bad day. I find myself thinking about my weight all day and feel like I'm living for the next morning when I will undoubtedly be lighter. At the moment, I don't want distractions, I want focus. So, unfortunately there will be no weighing for a while and I haven't got any tasty numbers for the kilogram voyeurs, sorry. I do have numbers though! I'm tracking my calories, sort of, just keeping it in the region of 1700-2000 in order to, again, not have a bad day due to uncontrolled munching. Yes, it IS still possible to have a mad calorie blowout on caveman food. Or maybe that's just me. I can turn any meal into an extreme eating experience. So far, I'm feeling tighter around the middle, which is a good thing, and my hip is definitely improving.

I've been doing yoga in between my TT workouts and there is a particular pose called the crocodile twist (see pic) which was hell on my arthritic hip when twisting to the left. It was so bad that I really couldn't do the pose properly, and couldn't hold it at all. I tried it again three days ago and braced myself for the biting pain, but it didn't come. I had a severe ache, it did hurt, but it wasn't the grinding awful pain that I'd had previously and I could do the pose and hold it. I also tried sitting legs crossed on the floor and again, I can do it now. It does ache, but it's not impossible like it was six weeks ago. I'd call that progress. It's certainly not dramatic, but I never expected it would be. So, I'll be persisting with my no nightshades, no dairy, no wheat, no crap, Betty and Wilma diet and in about 10 years I should be ready for the cirque de soleil! Stay tuned!

Creaky joints inc.

I may be a 21st century being, living in a world of convenience food and computer inactivity but, as yet, my soul does not live in a bio-jar. My body, so says Dr Adamo, is full of ancient genes that prefer to get up in the morning, hunt down breakfast, gather a few bits of grass on the way back to cave and then do it all again later. Failure to live in tune with my caveman DNA will cause my body to rebel with decreased immunity, stress related disorders, increased fatness and other problems, such as stupid arthritis.

A month or so ago, I started off with a hiss and a roar on the Arthritis - fight it with the Blood Type Diet book. The force was with me. When I studied Psycho-cybernetics a few years ago I learned that human motivation basically boils down to pleasure and pain. We are wired to gravitate towards pleasure and away from pain and out of the two, the drive to avoid pain is the stronger. As a food related example, when I had kidney disease, eating or drinking certain foods, or too much of any food, caused intense pain. For the six weeks before surgery I ate practically nothing but veges and eggs, no motivation required. It's an aversion reaction. Now, I've got the same thing with the arthritis diet. It's easy because I have a strong motivation - avoiding arthritis pain now and in the future. And besides that, it's just not a hard diet.

The idea is, basically, to avoid foods which can cause a negative reaction with my blood group, which is type O negative. This includes most grains (especially wheat) and legumes, acidic fruits, most dairy products and certain random veges like cauliflower and potatoes. I'm not exactly sure how this blood sensitivity has been determined but I'm looking into it. It seems to be some sort of serology, testing blood plasma against antigens. As long as the whole thing is not based on dodgy 'muscle testing' then I'm ok with it. It makes some sense in my pea-brain that blood type is important to individual biochemistry. Look at how strongly the human system reacts if, for example, transfused with the wrong blood type! I also discovered that Dr Adamo has gone further into the new field of Nutrigenomics with The Genotype Diet and had to investigate it. The Genotype Diet refines the four Blood Types into 6 Genotypes and it's a slightly complicated procedure to figure out which one you are. You have to measure your body parts to figure out such things as which is longer, torso or legs? upper leg or lower leg? index finger or ring finger?. You examine your fingerprints, the shape of your head and your jawline for clues and then at the end, you may or may not know which Genotype you actually are. In the end, I was confused, still not entirely sure if I'm a 'Hunter' or an 'Explorer', so I decided to go back to the standard old Blood Type Diet. At least I know I'm a type O negative. In my opinion, if you are thinking of discovering your Genotype, then it would be helpful to get some lab tests done first. In particular, you should know your rhesus and secretor status. Secretor status refers to whether your blood type can be detected in your saliva. 20% of us are 'non-secretors' and this becomes important when nailing down your Genotype.

After a couple of hairy weeks adjusting to the lack of carbs and caffeine, I'm beginning to feel quite perky. I had to brainstorm how to make this work in the real world, or at least, in MY slightly crazy little life. My next post will be about the nitty gritty of daily life as a wheat-free, nightshade-free, dairy-free, potato-free healthnut (nuts are ok). I've invented some compliant snacks, which consist primarily of rice protein and nut butters, and embraced food substitutions all-round. I have not been counting calories because I knew that in order to tighten up the food options, I'd better let something give or my brain might short-circuit and I'd find myself inside out and living in the freezer because that's where the icecream is. In terms of results, I'm quietly optimistic. I was not expecting to notice anything for at least three months, but there has been early progress. Certain movements that were painful, such as lifting my leg into my jeans, are now painless and that makes me say bwahahaha to stupid arthritic joints. Also, the scales have finally made it off my blacklist by telling me nice things like 'you look great, Sara. Have you lost a kg? Why YES you have'. Perhaps they want to be my facebook friend?

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Tomorrow, a real blog post where I shall reveal all as regards the success, or otherwise, of my creaky joints/blood type O diet so far :)

Enough of the giant carrot?

Sorry, I seem to have accidentally gone all silent and non-bloggy, also the Sana newsletter for May appears to have .. er.. not happened. There are several reasons for all of this slack behaviour, among which, I am fighting off some nasty flu. Also, I am getting older. You know that thing that happens every year, when you have to reprogram your profile on the digital scales because you're no longer 'post 35 again, but have ventured into 'post 35 again again'? Yeah, that was me last week.

However it's not the getting older that has been distracting me, nooooo, it's the fact that I have fallen in love with my getting older present, an ipod touch. As well as doing all the regular stuff that an ipod does, like hold your music and vids, this little gem also has wi-fi capability and I can surf the net, check my email, update twitter and browse youtube, right from MY OWN HAND. It's a rather serious addiction. I found myself considering updating my blog from my ipod touch but, although that would be fun, it would also be quite time consuming as the touch pad is much slower to navigate than a regular QWERTY, expecially for a pitmans trained touch typist.

One of the sites I've spent countless ipod hours on lately is Dr D'Adamo of the Blood Type Diet. I've decided to give it a whirl as the dietary plan for my just started Turbulence Training Challenge. I'm a big fan of 'suck it and see' - a term which we use in taste formulating of dietary supplements, practical if not always pleasant!. The blood typing idea may be a load of kooky wooky, but it can't hurt to give it a try. In reading through the recommendations for type 'O', it seems very similar to the type of eating that I was doing on the Metabolic Diet. Unfortunately, when I did the Metabolic Diet, I threw my brain out the window, ate heaps of fatty meat and full fat dairy and drove my cholesterol up to more than twice the upper end of healthy. This time at least I have some smarts. I'm not going to attach any extremist interpretation to the recommendations and nor am I going to freak out if I accidentally or purposely eat an 'avoid' food. I'm also still doing Eat-Stop-Eat mini-fasts on a sort of random basis. I'm not sure I can say that I'm doing Eat-Stop-Eat proper because the whole idea behind it is not to be doing some wacko nutrition plan on regular eating days, but.. meh. Sometimes you've just got the let the inner obsessive loose, it's one of the perks of advancing maturity. As long as it's all fun and nobody gets eaten, what's the harm?