I have a gluten intolerance and a suspected problem with dairy and how it makes my blood sugar nuts. When I first started eating Paleo, I went back and forth. I was a weekday Paleo-eater for about a month until it finally clicked that I was feeling horrible Monday through Wednesday or even Thursday because of eating gluten, etc on Saturday or Sunday. Now I eat 100% Paleo, but I still have a treat day/meal - they're just paleo treats.

There are actually a lot of people who do it 80/20, or 90/10. I was never a vegetarian, but I've never liked meat. I also grew up with a constantly-dieting mom during the height of "low-fat" as a solution, so it was a huge switch. But I feel SO much better.

Only downside is that I'm not losing weight. But I recently figured out that I was probably netting about 800 calories a day, so...that might be why. We'll see. Good luck! Feel free to friend me if you'd like!

Maybe it will just take you a while to get fully on board. Before going paleo, I made other transitions: I stopped eating fast food, white pasta and breads, and sodas. After all of that, it wasn't hard at all for me to transition to paleo.

If you really think about it, bagels aren't really that good. They're just large hunks of bread that are so dense, it hurts your jaw to chew and are often dry; it isn't as enjoyable as we make it seem. Maybe thinking about small things like that and slowly taking away things like breads until you feel comfortable jumping on board would be beneficial for you.

Sometimes going by the KISS method (keep it simple silly/stupid) makes life a whole lot easier! I've found if I eat every 2-3 hours, I don't crave the bad stuff. It takes planning and organization - but when you plan and organize when you aren't hungry, you tend to make better choices. I have also found if you have a meal plan laid out (e.g., you've planned every meal and you have the ingredients at hand), you tend to follow it. If I know I've planned for grilled chicken and a veggie, the last thing I want to do is eat something different - because I've already started to crave what I planned. Personally, to me, there's nothing worse than having built up an expectation to eat something and then having it switched at the last minute! ("Nooooo... I don't want italian, I was craving mexican!!" :sad: )

I am trying to make this something I can do for the rest of my life. I try to make good choices at every meal, but when my son wants to make brownies, I understand my personality will make me slip and have one. I don't punish myself, I just keep on plan (THAT SAME DAY.. I don't think "ok I blew it, I guess I'll have 10 brownies"). For example, yesterday, I had a brownie - but combined with good choices for the rest of the day, I was still under my limit of 50 grams of sugar and 100 carbs. No harm, no foul. Was it 100% primal or paleo - uhh... no, but that's o.k. too. Not being perfect everyday is o.k. When you strive for perfection, you are truly striving for failure. No one is perfect all the time.

Going hard core on ANYTHING (unless it's for health reasons) is unsustainable. Find what works for you that you can do in the long run. I found eating "clean and simple" makes it easier for me, instead of trying to make a bunch of fancy paleo/primal recipes. So, basically, my lunch/dinner meals mostly consist of some sort of meat with some sort of steamed or roasted veggie or sweet potato. Period. Snacks are very basic and natural (nuts or a piece of fruit). I don't worry about carbs normally, as long as they are natural (obviously days I choose a sweet potato over brocolli, my carbs are going to be higher - but I refuse to stress about it).

I'm doing Tim Ferriss' Slow Carb diet, which in a nutshell is Primal with beans and no dairy or fruits. You also get one cheat day a week where you can eat whatever you want in any quantity you want. I actually usually end up doing a cheat meal instead of a cheat day.

I had no problems at all eliminating grains and sugar. It means I can eat more meat!

My nerd in me needs to quote Yoda... "Do or do not, there is no try"

you got this.

My nerd in me needs to quote Yoda... "Do or do not, there is no try"

you got this.

Lol! Win.

start planning for February to be the month I cut out grains and sugars, might keep dairy right now, as I think it will be easy to get rid of later.

Honestly, I'd cut sugar first, then worry about the rest later. Sugar (at least to me) is an addictive substance that causes cravings for other c.r.a.p. It takes a good 3 days to get it out of my system, but once it is gone, it's amazing how many other cravings go away as well - breads, chips, crackers. If you can get off sugar, the rest seems to be smooth sailing. And for god sakes, if you get off it, stay off it. It's 10x harder to get back on after you've slipped than to just pass up that one temptation. If you ever learn a lesson from someone else, that's one to take! :drinker:

I did it all at once, just because I have no concept of moderation...the second I "cheat" with pasta or something, I'm going to eat 3 plates of it and want more carbs an hour later. I had a hard time with withdrawal, it's so embarrassing, but I literally cried because I wanted sugar so bad lol. A lot of people have better success doing it slowly, (www.nerdfitness.com has a great article about it!), like not buying milk 1 week, replacing your dinner grain with a veggie the next, and so on, baby steps. Whatever works for you!

I take 2 steps forward and 1 step back quite often, but I'm far closer to being 100% then I was a month ago. Sugar is my only struggling point. I have to be gluten/corn/peanut free, and giving up rice/beans was no big deal. I also have to be mostly dairy free, I can only handle a very small amount and don't miss it at all.

But it gets easier and easier every day. I find now if I have a day where I eat non-paleo and induldge my sweet tooth, I feel horrible that day, and usually the next day. Its easy to remember that feeling and hold onto it for the next time I decide I *have* to have a chocolate bar or a Pepsi.

On Thanksgiving, I read through a lot of the Bulletproof Exec blog, which recommends eating a stricter form of Paleo. I kept seeing this word Paleo and vaguely knew it meant "eat like a caveman," but had no idea what it really entailed. So over the next week I read tons about Paleo online and everything made perfect sense. It took me about another week to kick the daily cereal for breakfast/turkey sandwich for lunch, but I did.

In some ways, I've been working my way towards Paleo for a while, in that I rarely to never ate junk food/fast food/etc, didn't have a sweet tooth, but I fully believed whole grains were good and would refuse to eat any standard supermarket bread (usually containing HFCS and worse), instead going for the more expensive sprouted grains loaf. If I hadn't stumbled upon those blogs, I would never have known whole grains were not all they were cracked up to be. How could I? The propaganda is so wide-spread. It never would have occurred to me that my super-healthy whole sprouted grains wheat bread and daily apple were the causes of my blood sugar fluctuations.

I'm doing Whole30 right now, to see if dairy is having a negative effect on me, and I'm kind of looking forward to cheating at the end of it, as an experiment to see if a slice of fresh (delicious) Italian bread makes me feel like crap. I still want foods like that. I was obsessed with bread and bread-like things even though I wouldn't allow myself to eat very much, and do miss my daily bowl of cereal, but I don't have crazy cravings. And my blood sugar "issues" appear to be fully resolved.

I jumped in fairly quickly and DEFINITELY felt overwhelmed at first, and I'm still figuring it all out. You should take it slow. Make small changes in the right direction and before you know it you'll be 80% Paleo, or whatever your goal is. The more you read about how bad typical SAD foods are for you, the easier it will be to stop eating them. Good luck!

Like ichorica said, education is the first step. I must have purchased a dozen or so Paleo books before I even started eliminating foods from my diet. That helped a lot in making me feel prepared. Then I started taking foods out one at a time. First, I cut the fast food and soda and got into the habit of cooking for myself and drinking water. Then I cut processed foods completely. No more cooking from boxes! Next to go were sugar, grains, and legumes. By the time I did that, I had a whole stockpile of recipes and I felt very prepared to give them up. I'm still eat some dairy, but as of Feb 1 I'll be fully Paleo.

Do it any way you feel comfortable though. Start by cutting out the food that is the easiest for you to let go of. You'll be amazed at all the food choices that open up for you!

My wife and I had been doing 'Clean Eating' for a year and hadn't been getting great results (decent but not great).

I read up on MDA and thought I'd give it a try. I did one meal without grains, and then my wife decided to come onboard and give Primal a try as well. The next day, we threw away or gave away all non-primal food in the house and just did it. Haven't really looked back since (though we definietly have had cheats - but at home we're always 100%).

You just have to do it. People are too scared of making changes. Give it a go for a solid month and see if it's for you.

If you really think about it, bagels aren't really that good. They're just large hunks of bread that are so dense, it hurts your jaw to chew and are often dry; it isn't as enjoyable as we make it seem. Maybe thinking about small things like that and slowly taking away things like breads until you feel comfortable jumping on board would be beneficial for you.

I like this approach. I stopped drinking mountain dew a while back after I found out it had vegetable oil in it :noway: I just couldn't stop imagining myself chugging a big can of sugared vegetable oil after that :laugh: So I made the switch to tea and water.

I participated in the Whole30 Challenge, www.whole9life.com. The community and principles really made it simple to get it started and motivated to keep going since you were doing it with a whole bunch of people. It's been great, and a good foundation for the rest of my life!