Hey gang I was curious to see if any of you ever heard of or read the book "eating for your blood type"? I use to own it years ago ( we let someone borrow it and they moved away and lost track of them, we don't lend out books anymore ) anyway I was reflecting on some of the info that I remember and did some poking around on the internet regarding gluten sensitivity / intolerance and food allergies etc. I have been trying to figure out my body ... post kids and in my 30's now and things are not the same. Like in the last few years I have been getting lost of indigestion / heartburn ....for example oranges give me heartburn but not lemons (turns out that oranges are acidic and lemons are actually more alkaline ?? ) , peanuts and cashews give me BAD stomach aches. So I have switched to sunflower seed nut butter and snacking on raw almonds.Lots of wheat ( as in everyday ) and I am constantly bloated . The biggest thing is serious brain fog most days & bouts of fatigue. My natural doctor prescribed Iron for fatigue incase I am anemic , fish oil , Mega B complex for energy metabolism ( properly converting your food into energy ) , Probiotics and this mega greens powdered drink to balance my Ph levels. I have noticed a little bit of a change but nothing drastic. So I am thinking it's certain foods I am eating?? So... I was comparing the two --- eating for your blood type vs. gluten free diets. My blood type is A and the book was saying that type A's stomach is low on acid (s) , that we should avoid red meat because our body can't break it down , avoid things like tomatoes and peppers . The real shocker was it said that type A's can't handle intense exercise because it actually causes an overproduction of cortisol which stresses the body and makes the muscles produce more lactic acid and basically takes longer to "recover" . I am a swimmer , we race dirt bikes , I was a PE teacher before having kids, so I love to exercise/ being active & this is where I have my conflict with the book. Gluten -- Could it be that I have built up a sensitivity to Gluten and the brain fog and fatigue stem from that? That maybe it is causing all the other symptoms to happen ?? I know Gluten can mess with Diabetics and Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients. I didn't intend for this to be a book.... I typed way more than I meant to type! But is anyone here on the spot either gluten free??... or eating for your blood type?? What were your symptoms and how did things change after adjusting your diet??
I never in a million years thought that me or my family would have to deal with Celiac's disease or gluten intolerance. Last November we found out my oldest ds had Celiacs and then we found out my dh and one of our dd has it too. I then dug in and researched the crap out of it and it appeared that I probably had gluten intolerance. So, as a family we went off gluten. it was HARD!!! I missed breads, cakes, and bakery items so bad! We have slowly been finding alternative bread like things but they are SOOOO expensive and to make them your self is tricky. The symptoms you listed you have when you eat things sounds like you probably have leaky gut and a gluten intolerance. I am NOT a doctor so don't just take my word for it but your symptoms sounds just like mine. Once I went off gluten it was about 48 hours later that I started to feel good again like I used to before I had kids. After 3 weeks I had dropped 15 pounds (without exercise) and I felt so ALIVE! I had no more bloating, headaches, heartburn, brain fog, or SERIOUS fatigue! I felt so full of energy it was incredible! I started to play with other foods as well to see what I was still having a few problems with. I found sugar to be the number one culprit. Once I cut out ALL sugar (even in salad dressings, ketchup, etc) I had even more energy! I lost an additional 5 pounds too! I have slowly been adding gluten free treats with sugar back into my diet and I am starting to feel a bit yucky again (and I gained a few pounds back). I need to get back on track with no sugar. I am still gluten free because every once in awhile I will eat it and I get really sick. Like stomach cramps, headaches, and an all over miserable feeling. If you have a gluten intolerance and you go off it, and then decide to go back on it, your symptoms can change. Mine did. As far as eating for your blood type I never bought into that even though I read the book. I don't think blood type has very much to do with how we should eat or exercise. If you want some info on gluten I would suggest reading "Wheat Belly". I didn't actually read it, my mom and several of my friends did and they told me all about it. This was after I had gone gluten free. I read the book Deep Nutrition and Primal Body, Primal Mind. Deep nutrition is a heavy read. It is not a book you can just breeze through, but it give a LOT of great information on diet. I am not paleo completely, but I notice when I lean more paleo I feel AMAZING. I just can't seem to give up all my food vices or I probably would be paleo. You can pm me if you want to talk.
I noticed you said that your doctor has you taking iron in case you are anemic. I would use caution here. You can have too much iron in your system and it will do things to you like someone who drinks too much alcohol. Most likely this won't be a problem. I just think that maybe they should check your iron levels before having you take additional iron.
Minthia - Thanks for your information ! Very interesting and enlightening. I looked at the Leaky Gut article that you linked to. I went to Whole Foods ( not sure if you have it where you are ) and I looked at their gluten free breads and muffins. I have never really paid any attention to gluten free products before , but was pleasantly surprised to see that I actually had choices. I bought some gluten free bread by the company Udi's . I was expecting it to taste either super dense or kinda gummy. It wasn't bad. The crust tasted a bit dry but totally something I could get use to. For the longest time I would be seriously bloated all day if I ate a full sandwich , then last year I cut back to only half a sandwich and just added more fruits and stuff to round out my meal. But I still would feel bloated ....not much changed there. And sometimes I would even feel like my stomach was heavy/ brick like which then lead to me feeling groggy, sleepy and low on energy. I use to think that it was just becuase my belly was full of food and all my blood went to my tummy to help digest it...... kinda like that feeling at Thanksgiving when you totally over eat and you are so stuffed that you are sleepy/ tired and just want to kick back on the couch. So yesterday for lunch I had a sandwich with the Udi's bread and also today after church. I didn't feel bloated at all. I have a friend at church who has gone gluten free - her major symptom was bad stomach aches within 15 minutes of eating it. Not really any other symptoms but that was enough to make her adjust her diet. So...Minthia I am curious about how this affects kids ? Did you see a difference in behavior with your kids once they were off of gluten? I am curious about my son. I watch the food colorings and dyes and limit that - my kids don't get things with that in it too often ( when eating directly at home where I have control over what they eat ) but like visiting relatives or birthday parties where it's readily available for consumption ... I notice a difference . My son bounces off the walls and does wierd things. And I am also hearing a lot about the dreaded gluten headache as your body gets rid of it and flushes it out of your system. Did that happen to you and how long did it last? I think I will just do my own "experiment" - remove the big gluten items that we eat often . Those would be pasta's and breads. So I am going to buy a couple packages of rice pasta or even corn pasta ( I tried it before and it's not bad) and keep eating the Udi's bread for toast and sandwiches. Minthia should I do this for 2 weeks? 1 month ? What would be a realistic amount of time to really see if this is the culprit? Thanks again for all your insight ! If I need I might PM you. Jamie
Hopefully I can answer some of your questions. I feel like a bit of a rookie with all of this because we have only been gluten free for 6 months. As far as gluten free bread goes Udi's is the best tasting. The crust is a bit dry like you said, but not bad. If you have a Costco they also carry some gluten free bread which I really like. The rest of my family doesn't like it as much because it has seeds in it. It is $8 for 2 loaves. I am glad you already noticed a difference in how you feel after eating gluten free! You should start to see major differences in the next 2-3 weeks. I would recommend not eating gluten for at least a month. Of course that is my opinion, and you can do it for a shorter duration like 2 weeks, but I think that doing it for a month gives you a better feel for how your body is doing, plus you can also see how hard, or not hard eating this new way is. As for my kids, I noticed a HUGE difference in my kids behavior. They normally don't get a lot of treats, or dyes and they eat way less sugar than me. They tend to be ADD/ADHD symptomatic although they have never been diagnosed. Once we went off gluten it was a night and day difference in my 2 with more ADD/ADHD symptoms. I could see a major difference by day 3 of being off. With my other 4 I did notice a difference but it wasn't as big and it took about a week before I could see any changes. Some of the benefits I have seen, is they don't have trouble falling asleep at night, they can stay focused on a task for much longer than they used to. For example, when my oldest had to pick up the living room he could only stay focused for 2 minutes before he would get distracted. Now he can stay focused until it is complete. He is the now the same way with school work. They also seem to like each other better, which is maybe weird, but it was something I noticed. I never got any gluten headache when it was flushing out of my system, but maybe that was because I was drinking nearly 100 oz of water a day for a week. I had heard about them and was told that drinking a ton of water would help flush everything out and prevent me from getting any headaches. As for pastas, not all of the gluten free ones are created equal. We have tried everything out there and some of it tasted so bad we threw the rest away. Our favorites are PastaJoy rice pasta and Ancient Harvest Quinoa Pasta. There is actually quite a bit of food out there that is gluten free. I have found also from talking to my aunt who is a Celiac guru when it comes to info that food that says "May contain Wheat" or "Made is a facility that processes Wheat" doesn't always mean it has gluten in it. She says to wait to eat it until you have a day where you are feeling really good and try the food. If you feel sick or have other symptoms then it probably has gluten and you should stay away from it. I have food a few cereals that say they are "made in a facility that processes wheat" and we haven't had any reactions to them. Of course if you are super sensitive I would only buy products labeled gluten free. Also, did you know that some medicines, otc and prescription have gluten in them? And a LOT of personal hygiene product have gluten as well? I have not yet had to purge my shampoos, deodorants, cosmetics or anything like that because I haven't noticed and symptoms or reactions from using them. I just thought I should mention it though. If you have more questions I would love to try to answer them!
Hmm.. wow that really makes me think about my kids and their behavior(s) . I think I am going to pay more attention to what they eat and maybe how they act not just immediately afterwards but the following day as well. Wow ! You drink a lot of water , thats great ! I have one of those clear Nalgene bottles from REI that I carry with me. It's 32oz and I *try* to drink 2 of them each day. Its my goal , but some days I don't achieve drinking 2 full bottles. So I was thinking I could just PM you but then I thought what if someone else here on the spot stumbles upon this thread and it is actually helpful to them. My thoughts this morning were - I know that gluten is in many ,many items and sometimes disguised within another ingredient. For example we love granola with greek yogurt - I can't go 3 days without it. But, I looked at the ingredients of the granola and the last ingredient was barley malt syrup. This has me suspicious... is barley malt or malted barley syrup contain gluten in it? It makes me want to do more research on the internet. What are the big food culprits that are really sneaky? I know some salad dressings have it. And... one that I never would have thought of.... gluten in elmer's glue ! I was the craft coordinator for our MOPS group when my kids were in preschool. We had a SEVERE celiac girl that required a feeding tube and she couldn't even touch elmer's glue so we had to buy this "other " glue that was gluten free to ensure her safety. Totally crazy , never would have thought. I will try your suggestions of alternative pasta's. I think I won't say anything to my family until after they try it... I know it sounds tricky but sometimes if I mention anything about the food before they actually try it they already establish a bias towards it. Especially my husband !! He is such a steak and potatoes guy !! I have been experimenting with quinoa a bit and some entrees he liked and some he said "please don't make that again " !! I have to laugh. It's a full time job trying to meet nutritional needs, experiment with new recipes all the while trying to meet everyone's personal preferences. I gotta run for now but as I previous stated will prob. have more q's or just want to discuss things. I might just start PM'ing you and phase out this thread. Thanks so much minithia !I 'll check back tonight.
Switching our diet was not that hard. The hardest part was taking EVERYTHING out of the fridge, freezer, and pantry that had gluten and throwing it away! I didn't realize how many things we ate had hidden gluten. FYI...barley and malt or barley malt have gluten. I am on my phone right now but I will go home later and post a link to all the hidden gluten ingredients.
This is very interesting. I think I might start trying to research gluten more. I have bad stomach aches some times and my youngest son does also. My older son has ADHD and Mental defficiancies and I wonder about the affects our food has on us. What other things can cause problems besides gluten? I know my youngest has problems with dairy products.
In my research I found that ALL grains, and soy can cause major problems. Now, we still eat grains but in smaller quantities. I do notice that when I cut all the grains from my diet I feel AMAZING. I don't cut it out of my kids diets because it would be way too hard, but I limit them to gluten free grains for obvious reasons. Dairy is also bad for you, but that is also hard to stop. I have found that even though we have issues with dairy we can eat butter, full fat ice cream, kefir and whole milk. I try to buy raw milk when I can but it is expensive and we go through milk fast. All our dairy is full fat.
I saw this thread got revived again. Minthia I am now also Soy free too. Turns out soy is bad bad news for me . I have been GF & Soy free completely for about 5 weeks now. Just like gluten, soy is in EVERYTHING . I had to find a soybean oil free mayo , salad dressing, swtched to corn tortilla chips as most chips have gluten hidden or soybean oil , soy free snack bars that are also gluten free was challenging! The hardest is soy free chocolate . Most chocolate has soy lecithin. I found some SF & GF rice crisp bars.....taste kinda like a nestle crunch bar. But expensive - at whole foods they are $1.79 . I did not know but some baking powders have gluten in them....I just picked up a chocolate chip cookie mix that is soy free & gluten free. I am curious what they will taste like. Been doing research on soy .what I am finding isn't that good. France has issued warnings about the consumption of soy. Now....going paleo ( grain free & refined sugars free) that is a whole other can of worms. But I have seen success from eating paleo. Our friend lost like 40 poundsv, felt great & started working out. Minthia I have forgotten --- are you soy free as well? Well it will be interesting to see if anyone else jumps in this thread.
I am not completely soy free but I limit it. I did eat paleo for awhile and I lost weight but I finally caved back because the whole family wasn't paleo. I have been able to keep the weight off that I lost though. I have really been thinking of going paleo and starting crossfit again since I am needing a place to focus myself with all the other changes going on in my life right now. I really need to lose about 50-60 pounds to get back to a healthy body weight.
I read the book, don't go for the whole "cave man" thing part of it....but, other than that, I thought the information was interesting. I agree with all the info your getting here. I was gluten-free for a while, and it was interesting to say the least. I did GREAT at first...lost about 30 lbs and was feeling better. My kids & husband were not gluten free and that became an issue. I had to start eating gluten again (my doctor did not like my self-diagnosis - insert rolling eyes here). After 6 months eating it again they tested me and I did not have Celiac. I am still contemplating returning to GF. It's easy to do if you just don't eat processed foods! Most foods found truly in nature are naturally GF (except wheat, barley, rye, etc!). I will say, too, that the time in my life that I felt THE best was when I was following "Fit for Life". It's a hard diet to adhere to most days, but I lived it for quite a long time and was very healthy and at my perfect weight. Not so easy to reintroduce now that I'm 20 years older!!!! I've investigated paleo, but....again...the whole "caveman" thing kinda bugs me. Anyway....hoping you find health and success!!!!
