What else am I doing these days besides kvetching about my job. I am currently undergoing some aryuvedic treatment from a friend of mine who is studying to be a practitioner, and needed 10 volunteers to practice on.

She told me I was 48% kapha, 28% vata and 24% pitta. I am what they call a tri-dosha. I am on this new diet because she diagnosed me with a vata and kapha imbalance. I cannot eat cold foods, which is weird because this means no salads or cold sandwiches. This makes lunch very difficult for me since I usually eat a salad or a sandwich for lunch. I also am supposed to give sticky rice, but I can eat barley and basmati rice. I made barley rice last week and was surprised how much it tasted like regular rice. It's just hard to find barley rice at restaurant in downtown San Francisco.

For grains, I can also eat amaranth, brown rice, buckwheat, quinoa and wild rice. My friend thinks I might have a wheat allergy, which would suck because wheat is in everything. She told me I don't have to avoid it completely because I think that would be impossible. I knew someone who had a severe wheat allergy, and she basically couldn't eat out at a restaurant without freaking out because there wasn't anything there for her to eat. At Trader Joes I found two wheat free breads, spelt and kamut. Kamut is very dense, but spelt is not too bad. I'm not really supposed to eat oatmeal, but my friend said I could eat hot oatmeal for breakfast because it was better than eating cold cereal or the Balance bars I've been having for breakfast these past four years. I'm supposed to avoid corn flour as well, which bums out because this means no corn or flour tortillas!

The other food I'm supposed to be concentrating on is veggies. I cannot eat raw veggies. They have to be cooked. I can eat artichokes, beets, carrots, cauliflower, fresh corn, green beans, leeks, mustard greens, potatoes and tomatoes. I have to avoid my favourite veggie which is eggplant, which is okay because I haven't been in an eggplant eating mood for awhile. But no asparagus, sweet potatos or yams. I really like yams.

My friend says once my body gets back in balance I will be able to eat whatever I want, but until then I have to try to follow the new diet as best I can. I'm hoping the aryuvedic treatment will lead to some weight loss. My friend's first client lost 70 pounds, but she was very strict about her new eating rules. I am finding it hard to eat hot meals at lunch. I am so craving salads right now. But I know I have to change my eating habits. I feel so fat and all my clothes are tight, and I don't want to buy new clothes again.

But it's so hard to be healthy when I feel stressed out, and being in a job I don't like is a big stressor in my life right now. I am so whiny and unhappy these days.