Anyone eating Paleo/Primal?

I've been going on and off of the Primal diet (basically a variation of the Paleolithic diet) for about a month now, and starting to get more serious about it because I really like some of the results. Has anyone else done this style of eating?

For the uninformed, it's a diet based on the premise that you shouldn't eat anything that paleolithic man, your ancestor, wouldnt' have eaten. So no grains, legumes (beans), processed foods, sugars, artificial oils (canola), artificial flavors/colors, and depending on how hardcore you are, no dairy.

Which leaves vegetables, fruit, meat, nuts (except peanuts), olive oils, eggs, and for some reason butter is also allowed. Herbs/seasonings are of course ok.

It tends to naturally work out to be a low-carb diet but it's not the same as Atkins because it really emphasizes vegetables and you don't count carbs or even calories really. They encourage eating organic as much as possible, and choosing organic grass-fed fatty cuts of meat, and eating the fat.

I can say with certainty that when I'm on the diet, my hunger and food cravings almost completely disappear. I have to remind myself to eat sometimes. I don't get insane cravings for bread or sugar (seriously, when I'm on a standard diet, I sometimes feel homicidal if I can't have a piece of toast with jam RIGHT NOW).

The first 4-5 days on it I feel like cr@pola though. Same kind of sick feeling you get when you start a really low-carb diet. But after that, the hunger is just gone, my body dumps all of its excess water weight (usually ~4lb), and there are zero cravings. My stomach flattens out dramatically, my muffintop disappears.

Only problem is, I have to supplement with potassium iodide (NuSalt, salt substitute) when I'm on the diet because otherwise I get heart palpitations. I also tend to be kind of a be-yotch too, my temper is a little worse than normal and I'm kinda cranky. No real mood swings like with high-sugar diet. But my baseline mood is kinda *****y. People always ask me "...Are you mad at me for something?". Argh!!

Anyway, just wondering if anyone else has tried this style of eating, and if so, what your experience with it has been.

My whole family follows the Noursing Traditions way. That mean we almost always eat organic meats, fruits and veggies in season. However, we do eat dairy in the form of raw milk which I make butter from. We also do not use any artifical oils. I love the results for my family and me now too that I have stopped adding extras. I am tend to stay away from artificial sweeteners too (except for what is in teh Quest Bars!!).

The first few weeks of the post-op diet was torture for my body cause I had to eat/drink a lot of artificial crap to get in my protein. I feel much better now!!

I will look into your diet alittle more.

Congrats!

I eat dairy, and I don't have room for much after protien.  When I do, I eat leafy greens, nuts, etc.

This came up in another discussion re: carbs, and 'low-carb' being unnatural. Grains are ubiquitous in most diets because they are cheap, and you can feed a lot of people with them on the cheap.  Having said that, grains are perhaps the most 'un-natural' food you can eat given the amount of processing required to make them digestible.  Even cows can't digest it properly which is a large reason feed-lot cattle have to be shot full of antibiotics and why they tend to have more 'bad' fat than grass-fed beef.

 I was a vegetarian for years, and when I reconciled myself to eating meat again it was largely due to the burgeoning availability of free-range, grass-fed, beef/eggs, etc.  Setting aside the animal welfare issues associated with feedlots and mass production of meat , it's simply healthier for you. It's now much easier espeically since I live in Florida. I can drive up to Ocala and buy a quarter grass-fed steer or hog, or whatever.   We also have pretty much any local, organic produce you can think of 9-10 months of the  year.

Over the years the "Slow Foods" and "Sustainability" movments have put more emphasis on local, natural foods which is a good thing, IMO. However, there are a lot of people who have limited access to fresh, local foods. 
 

I'm still on mushy/purees but this is something I've been thinking about a lot.  I even wrote a blog post on it today! 

I have done a lot of reading on Paleo/Primal eating, and have spent insane amounts of time over at Marks Daily Apple.  I love what Paleo/Primal teaches, but am still a bit worried about how it will fit into Sleevie McGavin once I move onto solid foods.  Seems like it's pretty much a perfect fit though!

 This type of eating is the only way I can lose weight, and I lose it pretty fast. 

I've cut just about all processed food out of my diet, but got into the bad habit of having either rice or potatoes for dinner, and I feel that this is what's blocking my weightloss. I need to get out of the habit of eating that stuff and go back to the stir fry veggies I used to eat, when I was losing a couple pounds per week. Like you, the first few days are miserable because I NEED carbs, but after that it's easy to stick with it and the bloating definitely goes down.

I haven't noticed a change in moods, except that I'm happy when I'm losing weight. ;)