[Greg H]

Hey Tom!

Sorry for the slow response. Things got nuts around here and I missed your post. I'm not sure I'm a good one for recommending diets: I tend to incorporate a lots of ideas I pick up here and there, though only if they strike me as common-sensical. What strikes me as common-sensical is usually stuff that makes sense if you think about what the diet of humans might have looked like as hunter-gatherers and early agriculturalists, when our food was shaping us as a species more than we were shaping our food. (I think I picked up this idea from Bill Phillips' Body for Life, among other places.) I'm skeptical of diets that seem like they are the product of too much theorizing.

So, what I've done since being diagnosed is a real hodge-podge. I gave up alcohol, because my transplant doc told me to. That probably accounts for more of the weight loss (which has been 30 lbs.; I'm aiming for 15 more). I eat less than I used to -- but more frequently. Bigger breakfast and supper; two small meals in the middle of the day.

I eat less meat and more vegetables. And I eat much, much more fruit. Servan-Schreiber in his book Anti-Cancer talks about a French study that found significant reduction in breast cancer among women who ate a wide variety of fruit. I figure having lots of different anti-oxidants running around inside me is a good thing. Which fruits tends to vary by season, though I use frozen berries in my smoothies. I plan to freeze my own blueberries in the next few weeks, as well as the wild blackberries I gather in the neighborhood.

We have a garden, so, particularly in the summer, we have lots of fresh, organic vegetables. We have chickens, so I eat a lot of eggs. I also have chicken in the freezer that I raised myself. I plan to start getting my beef and pork from the growing number of local folks who are raising these in the older grassfed and pastured tradition; I'm working on a source (and on making room in the freezer!)

I don't eat a ton of grains, but go for whole grains when I do (except for jasmine rice, for which I have a weakness).

Despite not making meat the centerpiece of everything, I still make it a point to get plenty of protein.

I drink lots of green tea, lots of water, two cups of coffee every morning, and no soda at all. I have 2.5 oz of 85% dark chocolate most every evening.

I exercise an hour every morning -- a combination of stationary bike and strength training (weight bench and dumbbells).

I've just started tracking my food and fitness using MyPlate at livestrong.com, because I've decided to get down to 165 and lose the remnants of my paunch.

That's all highly disorganized, I know. But it's where I am at the moment.

I have a high tolerance for other folks' choices on all this. One of my daughters is a vegan; the other is a dedicated carnivore with a taste for good wine and cheap beer. As Michael Pollan says, human beings are capable of existing pretty darned well on a wide range of diets -- including mostly walrus blubber. The only diet known to be truly toxic to humans is the standard modern Western diet.

On the other hand, those of us with weird bone marrow probably need to be a little more attentive than the average Joe.

Hope all is going well for you -- it sounds like you are doing fantastic.

Take care!

Greg