Hi Mark,

First of all, thank you for ALL that you do. This lifestyle has truly changed my life – I am forever grateful!

I started Primal/paleo the day after Thanksgiving 2010. I have since lost 45 lbs. and feel better than I’ve ever felt in my life.

I grew up in a home where we ate pretty “healthy”. We didn’t go to fast food restaurants every day, we ate normal portions, and ate our fruits and veggies. When I hit my early teens, my parents started following The Zone diet, which then led to a mostly paleo lifestyle, which they continue to this day.

I went quite a different route.

I started using the money I earned from allowance or a job on food. Fast food, ice cream, candy, cakes – if it was horrible for you, I ate it. I couldn’t get enough! This is how I chose to deal with things emotionally. I continued this way through junior high, high school, when I graduated and got a full time job. I was constantly on the newest diet plan – would lose a little weight, still feel awful, then give up and gain all of the weight back, plus more.

By the time I started working full time, I had developed asthma, food allergies to corn, soy and every outside allergy known to man, AWFUL aches and pains, had symptoms of anxiety and depression, and was sick (or felt sick) almost every single day. I would dread waking up in the morning, because I knew how bad I would feel. I thought to myself, “I’m never going to heal”.

I went to multiple doctors, tried multiple medications to ease my pain – nothing ever worked. It just went downhill from there.

As my parents (pictured right) sat and watched me go through this painful experience, they would tell me over and over – “you need to change the way you eat”. I completely ignored them, of course, arguing that the “medication will eventually work”, or “this diet will eventually work, just wait”. Or I would act completely offended and say, “What?! You think I’m fat?! How could you say that?!”, slam the door and grab a meal with a huge diet coke at my favorite fast food restaurant.

Years pass, all of my symptoms worsening, and still trying to ease my pain with food, diet coke, medication and diets. Around this time last year, I had just started Quick Weight Loss Center, which created a completely new set of weird health problems (heart palpitations, my fingernails and toenails thin as paper and more). A few weeks into the QWL diet, I was up to 170 lbs at 5’2″. When I stepped on the scale and read that number, I burst into tears. This was the heaviest I’d ever been.

I finally decided to do something about it.

I went straight to my parents, asked then how they eat and exercise and where/who they get their information from – I quickly picked up “The New Evolution Diet” by Art De Vany, went to MarksDailyApple.com, read every entry, bought one of your cookbooks and the rest is history. (BTW, my parents are both now in their 50’s and look/feel absolutely incredible. They’ve been right this whole time?! Impossible! 😉 )

I can’t believe how amazing I feel 45 lbs lighter (and still going), NO asthma, NO aches and pains, NO medication, NO stomach pains, NO illnesses, barely ANY outside allergies, I actually LIKE exercising – did I mention I can actually wear really cute clothes?! I tell everyone I can about how life-changing this really is. I can finally live! Finally!

Thanks so much for your time – my husband and I are doing the 30 day challenge and are loving it, of course! Again, thank you for all that you do!

Lindsey

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