During my pregnancy with my first child, I gained over 100 pounds. At 5'6", I ballooned from an athletic 160 pounds to 280 pounds. Over the next 6 years, I managed to shed 25 of those through "calorie counting" and exercise. 

In 2007, after my third child was born and I weighed in at 255 to 260 pounds, a friend introduced me to Atkins. She had lost close to 100 pounds on the diet and thought it would be worth a shot. I tried it and immediately lost 20 pounds, but I had difficulty sticking with it. By that summer, I'd gained the weight back. 

In early 2008, I recommitted to getting the weight off. I read up on the principles behind Atkins and decided to create my own plan. Ultimately, I discovered my "breakthrough" of meat, eggs, nuts, veggies and in-season fruits could best be described as the "Paleo" diet. On this plan, I dropped from 255 pounds to 215 in a few short months, and was soon expecting my fourth child. I stayed "Paleo" through my pregnancy and gained only, which I lost plus another 30 by the time my son with 6 months old. By his first birthday, I was down to 170 pounds.

Since the first few weeks of the diet, sticking to it and keeping the weight off haven't been problems. I cook most of my meals at home and enjoy experimenting with new combinations. After a few months, it became as natural to cook a Paleo meal as it had been to open a package of spaghetti. The biggest struggle has always been (and will always be) social events. It's often hard to find foods that fit the plan at a catered event or a small restaurant. 

I'd still like to lose another 10 to 20 pounds, but, after four children, I count myself lucky to be at nearly the same size I was before pregnancy. Obesity after pregnancy runs rampant in my family, so even if I have a bit more weight to lose by the numbers, I think it's a win to be able to zip up pants I wore a decade ago.

CHALLENGES: 
Convincing my children and ex-husband to get on board. Initially, none of them wanted to give up their usual meals.

ADVICE: 
Find places to buy meat by the animal and join a CSA, especially if you're starting your journey in late Spring. It was absolutely essential that I had a freezer packed with beef, pork, chicken and fish, and a fridge full of farm-fresh veggies. I never once struggled with having "nothing" to make for dinner that fit my plan. 

I was a lean kid and an average-weight teenager... 5'10, 130lbs... but I had this tiny best friend wearing a size 0, and I didn't understand that her shorter height meant her clothes needed to be smaller even though we were around the same leanness. Thus began my weight-loss path to obesity, disease and malnourishment.

At the time (early 80s) the diet-doctrine of the day was counting calories and cutting fat. I'd take tomato soup and air-pooped popcorn to school for lunches- skip breakfast, strip the skin from my chicken and eat my salads without dressing. Yuck. At the time I was pretty active- I was on the track team. But I was tired... a lot.

When I graduated high school I began going to diet centers like NutriSystem, Physician's Weight Loss and Weight Watchers. I was probably 10 lbs heavier then. I tried the Stillman Diet, Slim Fast and several others that I don't recall now. I would brown my ground beef, simmer it in water, strain the water out, chill it, skim the fat and them put in back and cook it down again. I had SO many ways of cutting fat it wasn't funny. In my early 20s, I gained weight slowly but rather steadily. By the time my husband and I were ready to start a family I was fat and infertile. We used modern medicine to take care of the fertility but we didn't know the underlying cause at the time.

After our third son was born, I weighed more than ever- 235lbs, I had the most terrible acne, I was exhausted all the time... I'd discovered a few vegan communities online and I decided to give whole-food veganism a whirl. Initially I lost 20 lbs... but over the course of two years, I'd gained it back plus 65 more to top out at 300lbs exactly. I had a dietician and my own doctor guiding me, but I just got fatter and sicker. Besides the weight-gain, my cholesterol skyrocketed, I had severe GERD, metabolic syndrome, PCOS, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Depression and chronic fatigue. I stayed with it longer than I should have, because there can be an undercurrent of shame (from the community) in failing to thrive on a vegan diet- and certainly no lack of folks willing to beat you half to death with the guilt stick.

Anyway- a visit with an endocrinologist turned the tide for me- I sat crying in his office, and he said, "Your diet is killing you." and suggested I start eating meat again and stop eating "white foods" (grains, pastas, sugar, etc) After several weeks of research I started with The Zone, then Atkins, and I lost weight-- but I didn't feel all that great. In doing more research and discovering papers by Loren Cordain and Michael Eades, I finally settled on primitive low-carb. Even though I use the "paleo" moniker, I don't follow Cordain's low-fat advice as my research has led me to believe that primitive diets were quite high in fat.

In the first couple of months, I lost a pound a day. Folks kept telling me it was "water weight" and I'd laugh and say, "I'm down 45lbs, how much water can I possibly shed?!" What was miraculous though was that I was medication free in the first month. The GERD, PCOS, metabolic syndrome, etc were nowhere to be found. My cholesterol came down 200 points, inflammation markers disappeared, my skin cleared up for the first time since pre-adolescence and I had ENERGY. Before the change, I believed my low energy was a natural part of aging, even in my early 20s, and I couldn't believe how good I felt. I stopped getting seasonal colds, the keratosis pilaris I'd lived with all my life was practically gone. My hair and fingernails were stronger and healthier than ever. It was life-changing in so many more ways than simple weight loss.

My diet looks like this:

I eat naturally raised animal foods, pastured chicken/eggs, grass-fed beef, some fish. I eat ALL the non-starchy veggies I want- and a very few starchy foods like tubers (no white potatoes) and squashes. I limit fruit in the same way I limit starches- keeping in mind that they wouldn't have been available to primitive man very often. I eat berries, nuts and some seeds. The only added oils in my diet are olive oil (for cold foods) and coconut oil (for cooking). I also cook in the fats rendered from the meats I'm using.

My only real non-primitive allowance is some raw dairy in the form of cream and cheese. Both are low in carbohydrate and from natural sources- cows/sheep/goats fed their natural diets. I also have a 'free' day once a week, but if there's nothing I'm really craving, I skip it.

CHALLENGES: 
Learning to pre-plan because it can be hard to find paleo-friendly foods while out and about- and finding affordable sources of naturally raised animal foods. 

ADVICE: 
Check out Michael Eades advice for starting or restarting low-carb. Understanding why the "paleo flu" happens when you get started, and addressing those issues makes a world of difference.

I started my first 'low fat' diet when I was 17. It was reasonably effective along with greatly increased physical activity (namely riding a bike 6-10 miles, 5 times a week). For the next 30 years I've eaten low fat and got fatter.  I was always thinking of food, always resisting eating food, always failing to resist food, always lethargic and always guilty - sure that I was the failure everyone else seemed to think I was.  

By my 45th birthday I had gone over the latest benchmark - 200 lbs!  I was actually quite confident about how I looked. I dressed well and didn't avoid the camera. Except this last Summer, if I could get hold of the camera and delete the pictures of me, I would.

Meanwhile my father had been suffering from Type 2 Diabetes for about 10 years. He has been overweight for at least the last 30 years although he was very skinny in earlier life, much like the rest of my family.  I knew, with a BMI of over 30, I was at risk of developing diabetes as well and I was scared to get tested.

One day a random search on the Guardian Newspaper website led me to an article about diabetes which included diet advice, in particular low fat diets. I thought this didn't sound right and most of the comments under the article agreed, suggesting low carb was the way to go.  And then I came across someone recommending Gary Taubes books and someone else agreeing with them.

The science of 'Why We Get Fat' was fascinating and shocking. It made sense to me. It made sense for the first time in my life.  The idea that it wasn't my fault that I was greedy and slothful but the fault of what I ate was extraordinary. It made me realise quite how burdened I was with this self diminishing belief that I was weak and hopeless.

I have to point out that, at this time, I was in a complete state about food. Everything seemed to be on the banned list. The things I ate never 'hit that button' but always left me wanting more. I would sometimes stand in supermarkets frozen in fear about what I wanted to eat, what I should eat and what all the packaging was shouting at me to eat. I mainly ate bread because it was easy and unthreatening but even then, I longed to put butter on it.

When I got to the end of 'Why We Get Fat' I decided to eat low carb, high fat. I looked at the advice in the book (the hardback version) and I looked at a few low carb lists on line.  I made my own CAN EAT/CAN'T EAT lists and was surprised at how many of my favourite foods were on the CAN EAT list.  Fatty food is very tasty, after all.

So far I've lost just under 2 1/2 stones (15.8 kgs) in 3 1/2 months (including Christmas at which I ate two potatoes and a load of parsnips!). It's been very easy. For the first time in my life, food is a non-issue.  I'm never hungry. I never have cravings. If I snack, it's a piece of cheese or some olives and mayonnaise. But I rarely snack. In fact I have to remind myself to eat regularly. I did no extra exercise other than the Tai Chi I was doing once a week and my usual busy life. I look at my plat and can't believe it's good for me but I've lost 6 inches round my waist and 5 round my hips.

I panic every now and then that the last three months has been a dream and I'm still the same person I was before I started eating this way.  I really didn't do it to lose weight but to avoid the insulin toxicity that might lead to type 2 diabetes. However the weightloss side effect is wonderful. I'm not carrying 16 x 2lb bags of sugar around anymore. The only problem is that I've got to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe....

CHALLENGES: 
Eating at other people's houses. Eating lunch at work, although thats been easier than I expected. Not boring everyone around me to death, talking about what I'm doing and how great it is.

ADVICE: 
Read the science, not just the diet info.  Knowing what insulin was doing to my body was answer to resisting carb laden food. Don't look at it as a diet but 'just eating differently'. Have a day off, if you really must, once a month but then completely reign in again. Better to splurge once than drip little failures into your diet every day. Keep a piece of clothing around to remind you how much you've changed when your brain starts playing tricks and tells you you're still as big as you ever were.  Measure instead of weigh yourself (although this can become compulsive as well!) Always remember to look at the total amount of anything you are eating, not the percentage per 100g.  Even a square of dark chocolate is OK if it's 20g per 100g but 10g per square! And vice versa with something that is low carb but you that you can eat 500g in one go.

I went to the library to look for a different book to help me lose weight and found the 'Idiot Proof Diet', a book based on Atkins which I started almost straight away. I felt so well immediately that I had very little trouble sticking to low carb. 

My arthritis disappeared and I love the food. I have researched since then and now eat mostly primal or LCHF. I continue to maintain the weight loss and the arthritis does not bother me!

CHALLENGES: 
Fitting in with family and friends. Now they just now that I'm a bt strange and don't eat grains.

ADVICE: 
Focus on and enjoy the food you can eat and don't obsess over the cake and bread that everyone else is eating

In February of 2010, at 35 years old, I weighed 268 pounds, and my doctor told me that if I didn't do something about my blood pressure, cholesterol and pre-diabetes that I should go coffin shopping. He started to write some prescriptions for me, but I told him, no. I wanted to do this without meds. I had seen what Lipitor did to my dad's legs, and wasn't going to go through that. 

On March 1 of that year I started Atkins. Within 6 months all my numbers were normal! Without meds and without a whole bunch of exercise (just walking 30 minutes a day). I was also down a bunch of weight. 

Well here I am today, at 175 at my goal and feeling better than ever before. Better than even when I was a teenager! And I can now exercise even more!  When I started, the 30 minute walk was breathtaking.  Now I do Crossfit 5x a week and I actually look forward to it!

CHALLENGES: 
Overcoming all the objections of friends and loved ones.  They were all certain that I was going to kill myself with all that fat.  When my lipid numbers improved so dramatically, they all became true believers and no longer questioned what I was doing.

ADVICE: 
My biggest advice is just do it.  Within 2 weeks you will feel radically different and energetic.  Also, do not get hung up on weight.  It will fluctuate.  Besides, weight is a bad motivator because you lose that motivation when you get to your goal.  Instead, focus on health improvements, as they can serve as an on-going motivator and won't get you down on the week you maybe didn't lose or gained a bit.

I had a BMI of 40.3, hypertension and suffered from arrhythmias in addition to GERD, sleep apnea, hemorrhoids, asthma, frequent respiratory infection and sinus congestion. Energy was absent and I was ashamed to be seen by others in public because I could not seem to control my weight, eating behaviors, etc. 
After I became concerned with getting a MI (myocardial infarction) in my sleep due to a heart rate 150 BPM fairly frequently, I started a diet called the Belly Fat Cure. After losing 8-10 pound in two weeks, I was hooked and fascinated. I came across Gary's book GCBC and put a lot of the research to work in my life. All my health problems went away, I went back to school, got my BSN and am working on my MSN (maybe another degree after I finish my MSNEd next April.

Anyway, I would like to write a more thoughtful description of my experience since it has changed my life and will continue to change my life in profound ways. There have been many things learned along the way and more to come. I am glad you are taking this paradigm to another level and hope you touch many untold people suffering from this seemingly intractable milieu of excess weight.

CHALLENGES: 
This is twofold. Initially, getting over my cravings was the biggest challenge I experienced during the integration or action phase of this lifestyle change. The second and more difficult challenge is ongoing due to social pressure and food availability. It has been learning about the healthiest types of foods that fit within a paleo/WAPF/Carb restricted whole foods lifestyle. 

ADVICE: 
Ignore the naysayers, don't worry about how your body responds initially since it is going to be shocked on so many levels, i.e., gastrointestinal, hormonal, and type of macronutrient energy metabolism. The biggest thing one can do is learn to avoid sugar and how to identify foods that are not readily identifiable as sugar but turn into sugar after eaten.

I am a 24 year old woman with PCOS working nights as a registered nurse.  I was overweight basically my whole life until I found keto.  For those of you who do not know, keto refers to a ketogenic diet or a diet of 65% fats/30% protein/5% carbs.  I basically eat meat and vegetables with every meal, usually cheese or some other fat and very limited other carbs (mostly veggie carbs).  I have been on my diet since November 11, 2011.  Today is January 28, 2011.  I weighed in most recently on the 24th and have gone from 190 lbs (at 5'6") to 171.4 lbs in that time.

CHALLENGES: 
I love carbs, I used to live on pop-tarts and cereal and cookies and junk but I've learned to live without them. Plus, there are many great low-carb substitutes one can make.

ADVICE: 
Hang in there. It really is amazing what happens when you follow it.

This wasn't the first time I had gone on a carbohydrate restricted diet.The first time was in 1997 I went on Atkins and ate extreme induction the whole time almost pure protein and very little fats I took the skin off chicken and didn't eat a lot of fatty meats and almost no veggies at all. I went from 325 to 175 in just under a year. but by the end of that diet I felt exhausted and had lost hair and was cold all of the time. I kept most of the weight off for almost 5 years but it was creeping back on 5 lbs at a time while adding most grains and starchy veggies back into my diet. I developed food allergies to most fruits and some veggies so I didn't eat those anymore. I quit working as full time Massage Therapist due to health issues I developed Vertigo and extreme Hypoglycemia.

I was getting Fungal infections every year and the allergies were out of control I was sitting there not able to move due to dizziness and depressed. I started to binge on carbs and gained rapidly till I hit 296 lbs I felt so bad all the time. Sick and exhausted I didn't sleep well I woke up tired I had sleep apnea and I was diagnosed as having very low Vitamin D level and I was pre-diabetic I cut out sugar and was looking into starting the Atkins diet again when I saw the movie Fat Head bye Tom Naughton. It was a revelation on how I had done it wrong the first time I was scared of fat so I had decided to eliminate it also how insulin works and why. 

I made it my quest to find everything I could about it so I got the book Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes and the easier read Why we get fat and what to do about it. Both excellent books I found everything I could see about him on youtube and I saw his video at the Ancestral Health Symposium. I decided to watch all the rest of the videos I was blown away by the idea of the Paleo movement and started reading all the blogs of the speakers, including Nora Gedgaudes. I just finished reading her book Primal Body Primal mind, an amazing book. I am going to eat low carbohydrate, high fat, moderate protein the rest of my life. I am 9 weeks into the Leptin Reset by Dr Jack Kruse and I have never felt better in my life. Not even when I was a teenager. More energy. Better sleep. My lifelong insomnia is getting better and better. I'm halfway to my goal weight and I don't care for the first time in my life how long it takes me to get there!

CHALLENGES: 
Finding places to eat that don't use bad fats in cooking and a good low carb choices.

ADVICE: 
Pre-make meals for when you don't feel like cooking, so you don't resort to going out for something fast and bad for you.

I started gaining weight after high school. Up until then, I was fairly skinny (about 105 pounds), but I noticed that when I ate anything out of the norm, I would quickly and easily gain weight, so I kept my calories extremely low. When I got married, I weighed 150 pounds. I am 5'2". After having two children, my weight was at an all-time high of 194. I had gestational diabetes with my second child. I lost about 10 pounds doing the South Beach Diet. When I added carbs back, my weight loss stalled. 


A year later, I was at a health fair, and the nurse doing the blood sugar testing told me I had pre-diabetes. I was in denial. I didn't believe him at all. Still, I wanted to be sure, so I started taking readings on my old blood sugar meter. It was right. I did have it. I was so shocked and sad. I started following a carb restricted diet. I lost about 30 pounds just doing that, but then I stalled again. I read about something called The Primal Blueprint, so I stopped eating grains of all kinds. It really worked. I lost another 25 pounds or so. I've been stalled since June 2011, but it's been my own fault. Every time I get on a roll with my carb restriction and lose a pound or two, I have a carb relapse and eat pizza or something, and gain the pound or two back. It's been over and over like this. Still, I think of carb restriction as the most successful plan I've ever tried. My husband is not on board with me, and I know that if he were, I could lose the 20 pounds more I would like to lose. I'm not giving up, though. I feel much, much better when I don't eat the carbs. I have more energy, and I sleep better. 


If I eat carbs, then I have headaches, and mental fuzziness. I am also more irritable. I feel like carbs are a drug for me. Anyway, that is my story. I hope someone will benefit from my telling it. 

CHALLENGES: 
Family members who are not supportive, especially when they buy things I should not have. 

ADVICE: 
For me, it is life or death. I don't want to die of diabetes complications or heart disease. These things are rampant in my family. I don't know if I would have changed anything about my diet if I had not been diagnosed pre-diabetic. I just was not wiling to give up the foods I loved, until it became a health issue. If you need to lose weight, please don't let it get to this severe a point before you do something. 

I have a degree in dietetics and a fitness back ground in biomechanics.  I have over 14 years of experience in the fitness industry, and I currently manage Transformation Fitness Center in Edmond Oklahoma. My journey began with a 12 month search for the truth about diet and exercise.  What I found is not what I assumed to be true.  The more I looked, the more counter indications I found to what I had learned in my own degree of dietetics.  The guidelines promoted by the health fields and the USDA might not have the firm foundation I once thought it had. 

I would like to start with myself and show the differences it has made in my life and health.  I have seen my own roller coaster of weight gains and losses.  I have been as high as 217 pounds and back down to 175 pounds, and then to see my weight shoot back up over 200, all of which is tough on my 5 foot 7 inch frame. My ability to over exercise and not over consume calories seemed to be the only manageable possibility.  It appeared I would have to constantly be under even the recommended amount of calories or my weight would soar.  I had my blood work done for health insurance purposes to find my triglycerides and my cholesterol above of the recommended levels, and I was still in my mid-twenties at the time.  I ended up needing my gall bladder surgically removed after dealing with almost ten years of gall bladder attacks.  April 2009 I decided to get serious after my wife Erin decided to try the HCG diet.  I figured I could do something similar just a bit more calories and see if I could get my weight down as well.  I did lose weight, but my strength was decreasing as fast, if not faster, than the pounds.  I decided to research and find a better way to lose weight, without giving up what muscle I had. I stumbled onto what is called the Paleo diet.  It was completely against what I had learned in school, but the information made a lot of sense to me.  Researching well over 12 books, multiple documentaries, podcasts, and video lectures, I felt I had found the key.  Mainstream wisdom would call it pseudo-science or a fad diet.  If this is a fad diet, it is the oldest and most successful fad diet the world has ever seen.  

I am enjoying food, better health, and am at a weight I have not seen since my teens.  My weight is at 170 pounds and I am as strong as I was with forty more pounds on me.  I can eat without all the stomach problems that I had in the past.  No more bloated, heart burned filled indigestion spent after every meal.  My pant size is down from a 34 to a 30, and I dont have to spend hours in the gym to see results.  Usually lifting once to twice a week and running a few times a week.   

Pictures: Before 217 lbs VS After 162lbs

CHALLENGES: 
Being prepared daily so there are no excuses for cheating.  Having the Kids and wife to eat the same way.

ADVICE: 
Knowledge of why it is a better lifestyle.  To much bad advice in the media is a problem.  Being able to convince loved ones of the importance.