Good job everyone. Some impressive stories. Here's mine:
About three years back, I injured my knee playing basketball. It got to the point where I couldn't do any sort of cardio, so I just started lifting. Built up quite a bit of muscle, but I couldn't do a whole lot of cardio (up until then, my only cardio had been baskeball, and I hated biking or using the machines in the gym, so I just avoided them altogether). At this point, I got a desk job working at UCLA. I started biking to work and taking my lunch, but I still continued to gain weight. To put things into perspective, I'm 6'0 tall and 230 pounds at this point. About a 36-37 inch waist. Not obese, but definitely unhappy with my appearance.
I eventually quit that job and started working for a Santa Monica grocery delivery service, which consisted of carrying loads of heavy groceries up staircases at the behest of wealthy trophy wives. Not a bad gig, and I got some decent exercise out of it. Still, though, I wasn't losing much weight. I was still eating the same type of stuff: whole grains, lean meat, a fair amount of beer, vegetables, the occasional foray to a fast food place, Thai food, sushi. To most people, my diet was fairly healthy.
Then I got a dog, and started researching the best dog food available. It turns out that the best possible diet for a dog is one that mirrors the dog's evolutionary history. At the genetic level dogs are still basically wolves, so I started feeding him raw meat and bones. Up until this point, I was feeding him IAMs or Nutri Max or something, a "decent" mid grade dog food. He would get sick and throw up and was generally unhappy and unhealthy. Once I started feeding him raw, though, he was in perfect health. Good teeth, shiny coat, no digestive problems to speak of, good temperament. I got to thinking: what if what I was eating was "evolutionarily" wrong for me?
I looked into it and discovered something called the Paleolithic diet. It basically says that, genetically, we're still the same hunter-gatherers that, for tens of thousands of years, subsisted mainly on meat, nuts, roots, vegetables, and fruit. It wasn't until about 10,000 years ago that agriculture came around and people started eating grains, dairy, beans, and legumes on a big level. The population exploded, but so did health problems. If you look at modern hunter gatherers, they have incredibly low incidences of cardiovascular diseases, cavities, diabetes - pretty much all the diseases of civilization. But when you introduce these same people to a Western diet, health problems start to pop up. The Inuit, for example, ate a diet incredibly high - by Western standards - in animal fat (whale, walrus, etc) and cholesterol but rarely suffered from heart disease.
So anyway, I started on this diet. I ate pretty much eggs, beef, chicken, fish, vegetables (broccoli, squash, lettuce, carrots, onions, everything really), loads of nuts, fruits, and I cut out a lot of dairy (except for cheese, cause - c'mon, cheese is just awesome). I avoided all grains, rice, starches (like potatoes), excess salt, refined sugar. I cheat of course, and I'll have cream with coffee or tea and the odd bite of bread or whatever, but by and large I'm pretty consistent.
Just doing the diet, I began to steadily drop weight. Having started a little over a year ago, I dropped to 200 pounds with a 33 inch waist. I ate basically whatever I wanted, and after a short while I stopped caring about grains and bread. For a lot of people, they need some sort of heavy carb to feel "full," but that goes away. Now, if I eat a plate of rice or something, I feel like shit - not guilty, but physically weighed down and unhealthy. I also lifted, but - again - I had the knee issue, so I pretty much stuck to doing body weight exercises: pull ups, pushups, body weight squats (sometimes while holding my 60 pound dog), dips, burpees. I very rarely get sick, and I feel happier and more energized than ever. I had had a problem with depression, and my marriage had been suffering, but ever since I started this new lifestyle I feel like a new person. Got a job I loved (actually writing for
marksdailyapple.com, a Primal diet blog), and made it through the death of my father almost unscathed (it was tragic, of course, but I'm dealing with it really well). So it hasn't just had an impact on my body, but also on my mind.
I guess I just feel like I'm eating the way evolution designed us to eat. It just feels right, and I have loads of anecdotal and scientific evidence to reaffirm my decision. If anyone's interested, I can point them to some very interesting stuff. It's worth a shot, at least. Worked for me.
