Hi all! I've been looking for a board that cuts out dairy and grains for a while I don't know if I'm quite all paleo but I suspect I'm fairly close. I am 29 and have suffered from asthma and allergic symptoms for most of my life, and just recently learned of the connection between allergies and milk/wheat. I have been milk/wheat free for 1.5 weeks now, and then today ate some pizza with my family-big mistake! This pretty much confirmed to me that I need to avoid milk and wheat ingredients for the forseeable future. Right now I eat meats (try to stick with grass fed, organic when possible, limit processed meats), eggs (we have our own chickens), veggies except corn and potatoes, all fruits (I've been eating dried fruits too), nuts except for peanuts, I do allow a very small amount of sugar in salad dressings (a natural one with rice vinegar, sesame oil, and a bit of sugar) and Mrs Mays nut bars which have rice sweetener on them but are free of other allergens. I have also been eating a bit of 70 percent organic dark chocolate-probably not kosher paleo but I have a hard time giving that up I have noticed a decrease in my asthma and rhinitis symptoms over the past 1.5 weeks and hope to make it more so in the future. Side benefit is that I have shed 5 pounds even with eating a large amount of nuts and some dried fruits and avocados-of course I have been trying to eat less red meat and more turkey/fish because of anti inflammatory benefits, don't know if that made a difference or not. I take algaecal, fish oil, b complex, E and milk free acidophilus every day. The algaecal has high vitamin D in it. Are there others who have noticed decreased health symptoms with this way of eating, and have you ever had to battle any weight gain if eating too many nuts or fatty meats? Thanks!
Becky

Hello and welcome!

I'm glad that you are finding positive health benefits in only one and a half weeks of changing your diet! I found a similar thing happened to me. I was really lethargic, suffered from migraines and regular headaches, bloatedness and digestive problems which started clearing up almost immediately after cutting out wheat and sugar on the recommendation of a nutritionist. I did my own research and when I came across the Paleo diet, it just made a whole load of sense to me. Within a few weeks of adjusting, my migraines and headaches had completely disappeared and my digestion problems were a thing of the past!!

I'm not too knowledgeable about supplements, but I sometimes take chromium, fish and flax oils, coenzyme q-10, spirulina and a probiotic, on the advice of my nutritionist. I also take magnesium after reading about it on these forums in order to make calcium intake easier. I'm sure there are many people here who will offer their experience and insight on the use of supplements, and there is also a separate forum dedicated to supplements!

Being on low carb diets, our energy comes from the fat that we eat, and if you eat until you are satisfied then there should be no problem about weight gain. Nuts on the other hand can cause some people to stall some of the time, so I recommend keeping a food diary and seeing how your body reacts to nuts (and other foods) because it's an individual thing.

Anyway, I'm glad you have discovered the way of the paleo!! Good luck on your journey to health

Sounds like you are on your way to paleo.

Fat will make you lose weight, not put it on, so don't worry about it. My wife and I have shed weight, with no exercise. We eat a lot of red meat, nuts and fat.

We noticed a huge amount of health benefits from going paleo (it stopped asthma, migraines, stomach aches, joint pain, etc, etc). We go a bit further than most though as we believe that supplements are not required (most do you no benefit). We also avoid nightshades and sweeteners (including honey and stevia). The only exception is a 86% chocolate that we have while our supplier of 100% cocoa chocolate moves premises.

First off, Welcome.

As for negative effects of eating too much fruit or nuts, my goal was one more of weight loss, since I have always been pretty healthy. What I would notice is that if I ate too much fruit or too many nuts, my weight loss would slow down or stop, or I would even temporally gain a little more weight. At the core the principle of calories in calories out still hold. The cool thing about paleo is there is far less snacky eating. So basically if you just eat until you are full and don’t eat more, you should be good. I find it really easy to do that on Paleo, but if I add a bunch of fruit, berries or honey, I tend to eat too many because its easy to do so. Since my goal was weight loss, I limited the amount of those things. But in maintenance mode I can eat them just fine.

As for health benefits.
More Energy
I don’t seem to get as much congestion when I get a cold, and because of that I barely notice if I have a cold. No clue why I would have less congestion, it just seems to be a side effect for me.

In addition, I don’t take any supplements. I kind of believe that if my way of eating is really natural and healthy, I should not have to take a supplement. If I find I am not getting enough nutrition in something, I just eat more of it. I usually find this out simply by cravings.

Fat seems to be beneficial to losing weight, it's the carbs that really hold one back. I do paleo with unlimited fat but if I don't limit the starches or fruit then I gain or stop losing weight.

As far as health benefits, yeah huge ones. My autoimmune conditions are much more manageable now.

I'm probably 90-95% paleo. I drink coffee, sometimes have low sugar chocolate and so on. The test for me is my gut and what really brought me to this diet. I was having so many issues with digestion.

I do take supplements, especially vitamin D3 since it has been found to be so crucial and we get so little in N. America (latitude and sun, etc). I'm not outdoors all that much either, so I figure I'm probably needing the supplements. I take a few others, like fish oil, because I'm not a big fish eater and Omega-3's are pretty crucial. But I'm older, have some health issues so I feel that supplements are a good idea for me.

Congrats on finding some health benefits! I hope it gets better and better for you.

Welcome!

I'm on the "what Ruth can tolerate" diet. This means no gluten, no dairy (except butter), and no legumes. I do better when I'm 100% grain free, but I'm still working on that one.

I hang out on the Paleo forum because here I can get away from discussions about soy flour and wheat gluten based "breads" and cream cheese based desserts. I'm not too interested in debating whether or not a specific food item was eaten by cavemen, but rather on what foods I can eat without ill effects.