Hi
Whats the general opinion of the blood type diet and the science behind it? He supports low carb for type o but thats as far as it goes... He also disallows lots of different food types for seemingly unkown reasons; maybe i've forgotten why, havn't read his book in a while.

The paleo diet makes most sense to me, but adamo says no to foods even the paleo guys say yes to (like cauliflower). Do you think theres any basis in this?

Thanks for your time
andy

I used to work with someone who swore by that darn book. I took a look at it I think the whole thing is a crock.

The way it is written, he makes it sound like if you eat one of your disallowed foods, you are practically going to keel over and die because of some blockage or interruption that the food causes. His sweeping statements about what is allowed or not allowed depending on blood type just don't bear out in the real world.

In the real world, most people don't think twice about their bood type, much less eat based on some crazy theory. Don't even get me started on how he attributes personality traits to the different blood types. To me, his stuff reads more like a horoscope/zodiac chart/fortune teller, where anyone who wants to find a connection to what he is saying can find it in any of the blood types even if it is the "wrong" one.

I think that the blood diet works for some people for a few reasons:

-People following any plan, especially a highly-regimented one are highly focused on what they are eating. Just paying all that attention to what you are eating often leads to better eating habits.

-Many people have food allergies that they do not knonw about. Those whose blood type accidentally disallows their allergin, will feel better and proclaim the science valid instead of just lucky.

-Placebo effect. If this doctor tells (prescribes) something to you which is supposed to fix all your ailments, you will often make yourself feel better without the help of the prescription.

In all fairness, I'm not completely 100% sure about abosuluely everything that Dr Atkins says either, but most (95%) of it makes sense or has already been proven to me based on my personal experience. I like the appetite suppressing nature of ketosis and the tasty foods I get to eat. I also better understand the evils of sugar, especially high-fructose corn syrup. I understand a lot more about processed grains too. Basically though, the diet comes down to eating less calories than you burn. I lost weight rapidly before by excersizing a lot and eating mass quantities of mostly salad and beans. My weight gain after than came from years of little exercise and a high-calorie, fairly low-fat diet; sure carbs are where the calories came from, but it was my fault for eating too many calories. Atkins keeps my stomach from grumbling and puts me in a situation where I must force myself to get my calories up instead of forcing myself to keep them down.

After I've lost the weight I want to lose, I'll probably have a lower carb diet than 99% of the people out there, but it will probably be more for the fact that I like lower carb foods better and that my weight and exercise are more important to my health than the evil fat in my diet that I used to think was wrong to eat. I've already made some decisions and changes in my life that will allow me to maintain a more active lifestyle, which will make fretting about calories in any form less of an issue. Getting off my lazy butt helps more than any magic diet.

Over the past 4 years, I've read posts on a number of boards from people who tried the diet that the book recommended for their blood type. None of them posted great success. I agree with ChirsCat: any diet will do some good.

Hi,
Call me open minded but I think that ERFYBT makes a lot of sense.
That's why a lot of these diets including Atkins works for some and not others. I follow the Go diet and get my allowed foods
from the ERFYBT lists and I'm not even that strict about it.
I've gone from a size 10 to 6 in aprox. 3 months and I don't
exercise.
Three people in my family are sommerizing and all have
taken off a lot of weight but I know others that its done
very little for. I saw Suzanne Sommers on a live show the other
day and she's not looking her slinky self anymore.
greentea

I have a sister-in-law that was vegetarian for several years and ended up being in very poor health because she had deprived herself of protein (the right one's) for too long. Now her physician has placed her on the ERFYBT, however she has had to modify it so much because so many of the foods that were suppose to be the right ones for her do not agree with her stomach. Why even be on it?

Hi,
That's a good question for her doctor....
Maybe it has something to do with the poor health issues
she's suffering. Having been a vegetarin myself I know it took awhile to reintorduce some foods.
greentea