To the Paleo Folk Here ...

If there's anyone that has been here for a few years, you may recall a user named Johnny Null (roughly two years ago?), who was convinced that the Paleo shtick was complete nonsense. I have returned to apologize for being so very wrong.

I will try to keep this as brief as I can, while still covering the main points.

I had an episode of This Week in Paleo pop up in one of my podcast feeds, one largely centered on consumption of sugar. I was reminded that there's really no good reason to ingest straight-up sugar. I had dropped refined sugar out of my diet in the past and decided to do it again. My wife jumped on-board pretty quickly. This gave me a little nudge to listen to other episodes.

At the time, I had psoriasis on my wrists that would come and go, seemingly at random. It would get bad enough to crack and bleed. My doctor prescribed a topical steroid that did absolutely nothing. The results that people said they were getting by going Paleo was pretty compelling. I decided to go back and re-listen to Robb Wolf's Paleo Solution podcasts, this time without already having my mind made up that it was all BS.

I was rapidly coming to a point of "why not try it?". However, I had already set myself up as finding the whole thing absolutely absurd. I had convinced my wife that it was really baseless. I thought perhaps I could do it by myself and she could later decide if she wanted in after seeing what results, or lack thereof, I would realize. I sheepishly mentioned to her that I was considering giving it a go. She was surprised and didn't quite know what to make of my swing.

That weekend, a dear friend invited us over for a night of pizza, booze, and talking. That night I had very bad stomach pains. Me. With an absolute iron stomach. I was convinced that I should try ("lowish carb") Paleo eating.

As neither of us was really sold yet on the idea, we went in two stages. We decided that on the first of September 2011, we'd knock out gluten and refined sugars for a month. If that worked, we could do the immune protocol/food reintroduction deal that Robb Wolf promotes. Within three days, my psoriasis had healed a good amount. Within a week, my wife's ... digestive issues ... that she's had basically all her adult life was gone. We both began losing bodyfat at a good pace.

To wrap this up before becoming a novelette, I have since determined that my body does not do well at all with nightshades. Peppers or even paprika can irritate me to the point that my psoriasis will return. Using MFP, I had gone from 245# to 175# by counting calories. However, it was a soft, puffy 175#. Very much a "wheat belly" kind of situation. I have since gone down to 156# and now come back up to 165#, all while putting on muscle and still losing bodyfat. I sleep better, I recover better, and my mind is sharper than it's been in a long time. I don't get the energy crunches I used to. I am physically just more capable than I used to be, and I get better results working out just 1-3 times a week than I would get counting calories and kicking my *kitten* 5-6 days a week. My wife is seeing similar results, and is now fitting into clothing that would not have fit her since middle school. Neither of us has counted a thing since going Paleo.

I am not posting this to create a debate. I am posting this because I was completely wrong, and I am publicly admitting it and apologizing.