The first thing you need in a diet is whether it works. The second thing is whether it’s doable!
I feel very fortunate that I happened upon the Blood Type Diet when I was 26, just about a year after I’d had a severe case of optic neuritis and was told I “might” have MS. Before I say anything else, I want to point out that in my book “Game Over, MS,” I whittle down the diet to between two and four foods to avoid for each blood type. That's it. Simple!
The book “Eat Right 4 Your Type,” in which Dr. Peter D’Adamo delineates the Blood Type Diet, says that people with the B blood type (either B-positive or B-negative) have a higher-than-normal propensity for developing exotic autoimmune conditions like MS, lupus, and Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) than do people of the other types – O, A, or AB. And I do have Type B blood, so this diet had some credibility with me right away.
I’ve been following the whole diet strictly for over 21 years, but I know which foods are the most important of them all if you’re just going to avoid a couple in the interest of your own health.
Does the Diet Work?
So the first requirement is that a diet should actually work, and in my case my achy knees started feeling better within just a couple weeks of following this diet strictly. And before anyone says it might have been due to the placebo effect rather than the diet, I actually didn’t even attribute the improvement to the diet at first – I credited the warm weather!
It wasn’t until the weather in the North Carolina winter became cold again, but the pain in my knees didn’t return, that I considered that the diet may have been the cause.
(Huh?! Aren’t I just supposed to lose weight?)
Plus, in another pleasant surprise, the dry skin on my hands suddenly cleared up. I didn’t have to use hand lotion anymore.
And the thing is, when I started the diet, I indeed changed most of what I ate on a daily basis. I had incorporated lots of pasta marinara and chicken dishes in my diet almost every day, but for those of us with Type B blood, chicken and tomato are on the Avoid list. Turkey and beef are fine, though, so I just had to do a lot of substituting.
Because the diet is based on eating to your natural body chemistry, as I thought about it later on, it made sense that my body was responding positively to feeding my cells the way they want to be fed.
Is This Diet Doable?
So the second requirement is whether it’s doable, and I’d have to put an asterisk here. If you’re motivated, then yes – it is doable! But if you’re not motivated, then I’d say no. That’s why I narrowed it down to just two main foods you should avoid per your own blood type, for people who perhaps “don’t believe” that this sort of thing would work – or figure you only live once, so it’s not worth it to go too crazy with concern over food.
I get it.
It’s my experience that men have the hardest time in adhering to a diet, especially on a long-term basis – unless they’ve had a life-threatening condition. It’s also my experience that those with Type B blood, who are most susceptible to MS anyway, are best at adhering to this diet because of the logic behind it. If you want to appeal to a Type B, appeal to our logical side!
How About the Other MS Diets?
Every diet I’ve heard about for MS doesn’t impress me with either of my two requirements – whether it really works and whether it’s doable. And I have to confess, it’s the “doable” part that makes the MS diets not work for me – such as the diets that require eating a low-fat diet or a low-sugar diet, or no dairy. No thanks!
One thing that impresses me about the Blood Type Diet is that chocolate is on the Neutral list for all four blood types! That makes sense, since chocolate is so universally loved. It’s not on the Highly Beneficial list for anyone, but it’s not on anyone’s Avoid list. And those are the three categories for every food, and every blood type.
Have a Healthy Body with Multiple Sclerosis
In “Game Over, MS,” I talk about those two main foods to avoid if you have MS – and hey, I’m not the one who devised the Blood Type Diet, so I don’t have the right to reprint the whole thing! And I wanted it to be doable. So two foods it is. If you want to know the whole list, you can buy Dr. D’Adamo’s book, or even his condensed version of it for your own blood type.
And staying healthy with MS is much more than diet, of course – it’s also staying cool, getting enough sleep, and certain other things to help ensure you stay in balance.
It amazes me that some people with MS have written books about how to handle MS even though they sometimes have “bad days”! I feel that if you still have bad days, you don’t have the right to write a book for others. I don’t have any bad days anymore. Amen.
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