Paleo For Three Weeks

Well I have been living the Paleo Way for three weeks now.

Like when I went gluten free I've had withdrawals, side effects I guess of removing the sugar, grains and dairy from my diet.   The first thing that happened was during week one.  My mouth filled with ulcers, it was really quite painful but settled down after a few days. Then at week 2 my psoriasis decided to flare up.  Mainly on my legs and particularly behind my knees.  It was so very painful and extremely itchy!  It was driving me crazy, waking me at night and was becoming rather unbearable.
A week on, it's almost cleared up and I'm starting to feel like the withdrawal and elimination of all of the build up of toxins is finally coming to an end.

Having this sort of reaction, these sorts of withdrawals, just cements the lifestyle even more, of what these things were doing to my body and that this is the best thing for my body.

So what benefits have I found so far.   The biggest benefit for me so far is weight loss.  I've lost 5.5kg in 3 weeks.  This is fantastic.  Now weight loss is not what living a Paleo lifestyle is all about.  It's about health and feeding your body the right nutrition.  But weight loss for me is something important to me at this point.  It's something that I need to reduce my blood pressure and reduce the risk of having another vertebral artery dissection (torn artery).

The other most significant benefit I think is the reduction in cravings, craving sugary foods, craving grain filled meals.  A meal was not a meal for me without some bread (gluten free of course but still grain), rice, pasta, something filling and starchy.  Only thing is, they were filling for about half an hour and then I'd be hungry and ready for more.  That has all stopped.  I eat a meal and I have had enough for hours.  I can often skip a meal.  I find that I am now eating when I'm hungry, rather than eating three set meals a day.  The meals I'm eating are a decent size too, no more counting calories, I eat until I'm satisfied and then again, when I'm next hungry.  I've been finding that I'm sleeping better and I'm not waking up tired like I was.

I will have some blood tests soon to check my iron levels and cholesterol and other things.  Will be interesting to see how they are.  I'm hoping that this diet will heal my gut and heal my absorption problems that I have had for years.  After about 5 years living on iron tablets (yes, little iron supplements like Spatone, were no where near strong enough to keep my iron levels up), it will be nice to be off those and finally get my iron and get my body to absorb it from food.

Time will tell.