What was your wake-up call? page 2

[Timthetaco]

I was just laying around watching Netflix one day and I found Fathead. Watched it, liked it, started researching low carb. Got linked to MDA from his blog. The before and after pictures in the success stories amazed the hell out of me and the program made sense, so I decided to do it. I'm not a diehard "primal" instead of "paleo" person; I like the concept as a whole, but this was my first introduction to it.

[Chris_H]

Last year, I had tremendous success early on with Weight Watchers, I dropped from 315 to 263 pounds counting my points and doing an hour of cardio per night. The weight loss was easy for about 4 months and then stalled out. I tried increasing my exercise and weighing everything that I ate but I started gaining weight. At this point, I decided that I was going to cut the bread out of my diet to allow more meat and cheese on my "sandwich", I also ditched eating oatmeal for breakfast and pasta for dinner. With the increased fat and grains limited out, I started losing weight again. Around June, I was searching for bread and grain free recipes and found out about paleo and was lent a copy of Mark's book to read by a friend. I would say that my wake up call was the elimination of grains and the side affects of that decision. Sure, it seemed tough at first but now, I have so much more energy and just feel better all around.

[namelesswonder]

I'd gained some weight, felt generally uncomfortable, and was experiencing heart burn. My doctor just gave me pills to try temporarily. They worked for a week, then didn't. She gave me something else that didn't work at all. No effort was made to diagnose the issue. This happened around the same time that she told me to start eating more fiber, so I started to eat oatmeal every morning. My friend runs a paleo site and I remembered her writing about digestive issues, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

[Hilary]

Seeing my reflection in a shop window, briefly wondering who the fat woman was...

[sbhikes]

JoanieL your story was awesome, made me laugh. You have a way with words.

I was struggling with my weight and trying to run it off. I had hiked the PCT and it took me a year for my appetite to subside enough to where I could run without going crazy hungry but the weight wasn't coming off so I was unhappy and struggling to keep my calories under control with dry salads, lean chicken breast, starvation rations. Why didn't it lead to weight loss?

All these guys on the Barefoot Ted Huarache google group were into paleo. They are an extremely angry, rude and annoying bunch so they were not able to convince me that eating bowls of tallow and cracklin's was anything other than disgusting and ready-made for turning you into an asshole. So I unsubscribed from the group after I got afraid one of the guys might actually stalk my address and kill me or something. They were that insane over there. Definitely a turn-off to paleo.

Then I saw Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt's video about LCHF. It made so much sense and he was a nice, gentle man, not an asshole. And not an asshole like Robb Wolff came across to me, or a diet book huckster like Mark came across to me. Plus I could eat tasty food like butter, cream, cheese and salmon. Not just meat and cracklin's, ew how gross. One day of cheese, butter and cream and my insane, out-of-control appetite was completely evaporated. I was sold. I lost weight even without doing any running.

I have not lost as much weight as either I thought or had hoped, though. I thought I had lost 30lbs but really I've lost only 20. I think I will always retain a generous layer of fat. I'm now working on strength. Oddly it seems to make the layer of fat I have inconsequential to my self acceptance and self assurance. Yay for weight lifting!

[Paleobird]

I came to Primal by way of a book called Diet Evolution by Dr Stephen Gundry. This gave me the concept of evolutionary eating. His induction phase is basically paleo which worked beautifully as 30 lbs dropped off. Then his next phase concept is to "evolve" the diet back further until you are basically eating like a gorilla with protein garnishes like nuts or feta on H(huge)AS that makes Mark's BASes look puny. At that point it stopped working for me. So I went looking elsewhere.

I was also looking into the work that Atkins and Johns Hopkins are doing on ketogenic diets and epilepsy but I didn't like all the fake bars and shakes you supposedly need on the Atkins plan. So I went looking for an organic alternative to Atkins.

The two lines of inquiry crossed at MDA.

[Sasha the Cat]

My life was ruled by hypoglycemia and I thought there was nothing I could do about it - figured it was part of being naturally thin. I knew in the back of my mind that I ought to establish some healthy eating and exercise habits while I'm still young, but nothing was really making me do it - again with the being naturally thin.

So my husband came across the site when he wanted to lose some weight. At first, I was all, "That's great for you! I don't need to lose weight. We shall eat primally at home, and I shall continue to eat chocolate croissants for breakfast on the way to work and entire boxes of crackers once there." But as I read more of Mark's blog, I realized it might really help me (duhr!). So I gave it a shot, plowed through a brief but brutal bout of low-carb flu, and holy crap if my blood-sugar didn't level out. It's been such a change. And no, I have not lost weight (my husband has, though!). I do, however, look and feel a whole lot better than before!

So I guess my wake-up call was really things getting better. I was living at the mercy of my blood-sugar, which I hated but thought was just the way I was. Now that I'm free of that, I'm never going back!!!

[Knifegill]

My pet fish. I was reading about what not to feed them and why. Some of the problems seemed eerily like human ailments. I put 2 and 2 together one day and googled "What humans eat in the wild" and BOOM, paleo popped up. Dropped soda and candy before finding paleo, so my 20 glory pounds were already dropped. I was 215 (bloated, zitty, slimy, achy - I walked with a cane at age 25) at my worst, and was stuck at 195 for a long time before I had ever heard about paleo or wheat being bad. I was eating wheat for (yes, the bulk of) every meal at the time, so I decided to change things gradually. Last grain I gave up was oatmeal. Now no aches, no zits, no gut, no gas, no reflex, no snoring, the list goes on. I can't say enough. This way of eating actually made me stop looking forward to death.

[Mike in Virginia]

Primal was a fairly small, though very important, step for me. I stopped eating sugar, corn, soy, most dairy, and bad oils, and started focusing mostly on meat, fish, and veggies, in the mid-1990s on the advice of my allergist. I did not, however, follow all of his advice: the very first words he ever said to me when I walked into his office were, "You need to stop eating wheat." I just couldn't imagine how you have a satisfying lunch without bread or how you could survive an entire week without a pizza. So I blew him off.

Early last year, my 36 inch waist pants were getting tight, and I discovered at the doctor's office that my weight was up to 195. Something had to be done. I decided to follow a link on LRC to an article by some guy named Mark Sisson. After doing that several times, it was clear that the PB was just what I needed. Everything Mark was saying fit in with what the good doctor had been telling me for years.

Turns out they were both right: not only did inches melt off my middle and my energy level and focus improve, but the allergies simply went away. The only time they bother me at all is when I do a really bad cheat...yes, I still do have a pizza every couple of months, and pay dearly for it the following day or two.

[Lizzielou]

I did Weight Watchers and got to my goal weight, then I put it on again.
I did Weight Watchers and got to my goal weight, then I put it on again.
I did Weight Watchers and got to my goal weight, then I started to put it on again.

This time I thought I might try something else because I simply could not face Weight Watchers again. Some people I knew on another forum were doing Paleo so I did some reading, which lead to some more reading and then I got on board too. My weight gain stopped immediately and after 6 months I finally lost some weight. Right now I'm 1kg shy of my goal weight, but not too fussed about that because I know it'll come off when its ready.