Yes, this diet does have a catch. page 3

[Leida]

I could never understand what people see in pizza. All the "Italian" dishes they make here in America have that weird combination of cheap cheese, bad fats and rancid tomato sauces that coupled with bad breads and horrid deli meats or cheap chuck beef is probably enough to bend a Terminator in two. I guess maybe I just cheat on the wrong foods to cause me any illness. I remember that the first and only time I tried KFC chicken at the ~age 24 and I was sick on my stomach for 2 days.... I grew up outside North America, and what people here seem to consider treats worthy of cheating are like... WHY? Pizzas, lasagnas, meatballs with tomato sauce, battered fried items, I find them just not tasty at all. Salty, greasy, yucky kind of greasiness, you know, sour too, from tomato sauces. The only time I wanted McDonald's fires was when I was pregnant. For a while I had a taste for McNuggets, but after having them stale a couple of times, way back when I was nowhere near paleo, I stopped wanting them.... Fast food just tastes bad to me, I dunno why.

I cheat on jam, home-made ice-cream, chocolate, PB, a jelly bean or a gummy (though not lately, I find them totally disgusting) and for the most part - fruit. I was just making ice-cream yesterday and licked some of the doulce de leche I was making for it from the condensed cream, and I was shocked at how unappealing it was. When I was growing up, we used to dip white bread into condensed milk or smother doulce de leche over it and mom and I could polish away the whole can. Jams also starting to disappoint even home made ones. I just not finding the kick from the sweets like I used to, apart from fruit.

I did not even cheat on bread lately, but before pumpernickel used to be a huge downfall (with mustard....) and from grains buckwheat and millet. And I don't even want that any more after carbing up on rice for Ultimate Diet 2.0.

Fruits, nuts and cheese, those are basically the only thing that I eat for pleasure nowadays. My biggest problem is still overeating & being hungry, so I guess, I really need to work on *seriously* dropping fruit.

Because, I guess, if you consider being unnaturally hungry 'a hurt', the fruit hurt me... right? Crazy? Hypochondriac?

[sbhikes]

You know at one point I realized that almost everything I ever ate was a combination of bread, cheese and tomatoes.

Pizza: bread, cheese, tomato sauce + toppings
Burritos: tortilla, cheese, salsa + beans
Tacos: tortilla, cheese, hot sauce + meat
Spaghetti: pasta, cheese, tomato sauce + meat or meat balls or something
Hamburger: bun, cheese, ketchup + meat and toppings

At one point I thought that if all I did was stop eating bread, cheese and tomatoes in all forms I would get healthy. And I tried it for a while, too but like most things, I didn't stick to it.

[Leida]

So, you think that eliminating fruit is not going go well for me? I have the same suspicion to be honest, but that's the only thing I did not manage to cope with. I think I am getting better, at least I am starting to find fruit a little less appealing. Until watermelon comes out of the fridge on a hot-hot day. Argh.

[Figlio di Moros]

Leida, where did you grow up, and where in America do you live? I assure you, not all of America has such horrible "Italian" food, though most Italian-American foods aren't exactly on my plan nowadays. A properly prepared pizza is a work of art, and the same can be said of pasta sauce or burger. However, if all you exposed yourself to before going Primal was cheap fast-foods and chain pizzerias, of course you were gonna find it a bit lacking. Also, keep in mind most of us grew up on those foods.

As for being sensitive to foods we used to rely on, perhaps. I had some pizza(not even great pizza, unfortunately) a month, month and a half ago, had the same problem as the OP. I don't touch bread and I don't touch pasta, so I'm figuring it had to be gluten. There's the possibility that our gut fauna have changed, since we no longer eat the same foods, thereby causing us discomfort. There's also the possibility that the foods we don't eat, we don't eat for a reason, and we lost tolerance to gluten, lectin, etc.

In the first scenerio, feeling a bit full for a while after eating seems reasonable. The second, I'd expect we'd see bigger reactions, like lethargy, diarhea, gut pain, joint pain, weakness, etc.

[Artichoke]

My doctor says it's psychosomatic that we feel ill after eating things that we perceive to be bad for us. I'm totally unconvinced by that.

I feel sorry for anyone who has grown up on fast food and processed food, myself.

[magicmerl]

In unrelated news, we got rid of our TV, and I now get mesmerised by ads on a TV at someone else's house.

I've lose my 'resistance' to tune them out.

[JMack383]

I am scared to death to cheat. My sister cheated on the diet and experienced severe stomach pains and ultimately went off the diet. I have outlasted all of my "competitors" so far.

[dragonmamma]

If you decide the ability to consume former favourites is more important to you than feeling good, then there's absolutely nothing stopping you from abandoning Primal and going back to some variant of SAD that works better for you.

Well put.

I can get away with eating crap for about a day and a half. After that...stinky gas, bloating, bad skin and an expanding waist-line.