For the past week I’ve been eating like a caveman. When following Dr. Peter D’Adamo’s popular blood type diet, I supposedly adapted my dietary wishes to the demands of my immune system that evolved 35,000 years ago. For a type O going on the diet, even for just a week, that meant no dairy, no wheat and no morning, afternoon and nightly cups of precious coffee. I really thought I was going to die.

However, Dr D’Adamo asserts in his book Eat Right 4 Your Type that just the opposite will happen. Eating just the foods that we were made to eat should increase energy, strengthen the immune system and promote healthy living. The book explains that modern food pyramids and fad diets don’t work for two reasons: One, they ignore the way our bodies evolved to process food in the first place and secondly, they assume that everyone’s body digests the same way.

It doesn’t end there. According to D’Adamo, not only do our digestive systems work differently, but the antigens in our blood that tell our blood what belongs in our system and what doesn’t can react adversely with certain foods. The book lists foods that each blood type (A, B, O, or AB) should avoid and what foods are beneficial. For type Os, foods like plums, kale and swordfish are on the beneficial list and citrus, avocado, vinegar and pepper, as well as others, are on the avoid list. Everything else just reacts neutrally in the digestive system.

Patricia Felici, a doctor of clinical nutrition and of alternative medicine, in addition to being certified by D’Adamo, recommends the diet to patients who walk in with ailments ranging from heart to stomach problems and has found that switching to the diet makes a big difference in her patients’ health.

“I’ll tell a type B to just go one week without eating chicken and then eat all the chicken they want,” Felici said. “They come back complaining about how tired they felt after eating it again.”

In theory the diet seemed horrible — I was certainly going to miss my nightly glass of milk — but in reality it wasn’t that difficult. For breakfast I usually fried up a small ground beef steak on the stove and had a glass of pomegranate juice instead of orange juice, since it is acidic and therefore a no no for type Os.

I dodged temptations at work and swallowed a pill of journalistic integrity as I briskly walked past the office coffee maker. I eventually converted my coffee cup into a change jar to buy water from the vending machine. If I was hungry, I could reach for easy snacks like pre-cut carrots and grapes.

Lunch also was pretty simple. A salad, meat and vegetables or a sandwich on Ezekiel bread was fine, although I missed having the variety that comes with eating whatever you want.

Topping off the day wasn’t difficult either. D’Adamo recommends that type O’s eat a variety of fish. I mostly stuck with salmon, or halibut if I was feeling adventurous, and refrained from chicken or steak for dinner. Felici recommends starting slowly on the diet, focusing on eating right only most of the time, since most dieters fail when suddenly dropping old eating habits becomes too difficult. In addition, diet followers should get used to scrutinizing labels.

“You have to read ingredients and be aware of everything you put into your mouth,” Felici said.

Now comes the part where I’m supposed to agree with the countless dietitians across the nation who believe that the blood type diet should be as extinct as Paleolithic eating habits. However, I have to admit that I do feel better. Sure, I miss that added jolt of caffeine in the morning and occasionally fight a pasta craving, but for the most part rice and gluten-free wheat products have filled in the gaps. I get through the work day just fine and no longer experience the standard post-lunch slump.

Every once in a while I deviated from the diet and had something crazy like avocado in my sushi or a vinaigrette on my salad. Yet I lived through the ordeal. According to Felici if you only follow the diet 60 to 70 percent of the time, you’ll be just fine.

“The diet is not about weight loss but about having a strong immune system,” Dr. Felici said, “I think about everything I put in my mouth and wonder if it is going to be good for my immune system or harmful.”

Felici claims that following a diet suited to your blood type will not only encourage weight loss and increase energy (both of which I experienced) but also prevent genetically predisposed diseases.

Shopping at Sun Harvest made life on a diet a lot easier, as well as a lot more interesting, since they have a whole section of products that don’t contain gluten and another for dairy alternatives. No, I don’t recommend almond cheese (it tastes more like rubber almonds than anything close to cheese) but sprouted bread and Veggonaise taste almost as good as the mainstream alternative, as do gluten-free ginger snaps.

After all my moaning and groaning, I’ve decided to stick with the diet, as the few times I fell off the prehistoric horse I certainly felt the effects of fatigue and bloating. Although scientists claim that D’Amato’s reasoning needs more scientific support, the science of the diet actually makes sense and explains why I had been so tired and sick lately.

Eat Right 4 Your Type focuses on health first, and according to Felici, weight loss is simply the “icing on the cake.” Besides, it’s a lot easier to talk yourself out of dessert when you’re gambling precious energy instead of calories.

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Kate Cagle writes features and entertainment for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4427. For this and other local stories, visit www.themonitor.com.