Assorted Paleo Diet Testimonials

The reason for my writing is that I wanted to mention to you that I belong to a “Paleo­Experimentation” group. I like to think of it as a modern day’s book club for women. It is a core group of three women and we gather at someone’s home and the host is required to pick a Paleo meal that looks interesting and the rest of us figure out the techniques and prepare it. The host supplies all the ingredients, sets the table, and after the meal, all are required to clean up to leave the host with NO mess, as if nobody was there. Since we have some experienced cooks and some novices, it makes it fun since the novices are excited to learn something new and the more seasoned cooks are excited to share their knowledge. Last week was Mediterranean and this week from the Paleo book, we are having Mexican. Husbands/boyfriends are invited, nobody is left out, it just all depends on people’s schedules. Paleo is not passive, here. We are practicing it and making it exciting! From meatballs, to ragouts, outstanding salad dressings, Indian, Italian, Middle Eastern… limitations only exist with one’s imagination.

Anonymous

I just had to write to tell you that I am continually amazed at the number and diversity of research articles you publish. How does someone in the “Dept. of Health and Exercise Science” obtain the time and the funding to travel to Papua New Guinea and Paraguay to study the prevalence of acne in non-Westernized societies!?

I’ve been teaching nutrition for years and admire the contributions you have made. I have always wanted to retrace the footsteps of Weston Price to do a more up-to-date assessment of the dietary systems of “primitive” cultures and their relation to health. It seems you are living the life I’ve always wanted!

I congratulate you on your efforts and your success! Keep up the good work!

David Wolfson, N.D. Natural Alternatives International

I’ve read your book The Paleo Diet and many, but not all of your posted PDF articles. I find your work and those of your colleagues compelling. There is so much we don’t know in the area you are defining. Yours is very important work.

I’m recuperating on a medical leave from NYU after a successful angioplasty and stent – in the nick of time – that opened a total blockage of my right coronary artery, at the end of January, that was precipitated by excessive use of a snow shovel! Hence, I’m more than interested in the papers on your web site for two important reasons: (1) eating appropriately from this point onward; and (2) introducing some of your material into the metabolism section of our biochemistry course. I also teach the molecular biology section as well. Your book will save and extend many lives.

Prof. Gene C. Lavers, Ph.D. NYUCD

I had a thought that I suspect occurred to you as well. I had a patient who at 42 had a baby at home 8 yrs after her last one and had been on Paleo for 12 months prior and described it as, “. . . a very different experience, I told my husband about an hour after that baby was born, my gosh honey, I could do that again. Dr. Sebring, it may sound strange but pushing that baby out was almost orgasmic.”

I don’t know about hunter-gatherers but I suspect they do not have the degree of difficulty modern women have delivering babies. Your research has been of magnificent importance to the health of our small town.

Lane Sebring M.D.

About 20 years ago I also read “Are you Confused?” as part of my interest in nutrition health and sports. Today I have a MSc in Nutritional Science and work as a sports dietitian in River Plata soccer club in Argentina. I ended up with your book after delving into my hobby: physical anthropology.

I have recently read your book and tried your diet for four weeks, feeling great and losing three kgs without physical activity, needless to say I’m hooked and will continue. I was very fearful and skeptical at first, imagine that after several years of brainwashing by the ADA and USDA curricula, pyramids and “research,” I thought that cutting out three food groups amounted to outright quackery and faddism. Then I read Food Politics by Marion Nestle. Coupled with the evidence exposed in your book I went for it.

Sorry to derail you from a likely busy schedule, my sincere thanks and congratulations, keep up the good work.

Anonymous

I keep to the diet, but for two cups of coffee with skim milk a day. My lipids were all good. My level of energy is better (it was good before), yet I sleep one hour more each night. At this point I like it and I am staying on it. Thank you for writing your book.

Anonymous

I would like to let you know how much I appreciate your book, recently translated into Danish. I have just read the book, and I have begun to adjust my daily meals to the Paleo diet – slowly but every day increasing the proportion of Paleo food versus ordinary Danish food.

I have tried other diets, but none with a content so delicious, and which is so obviously natural to eat. One of the things that I have observed during the past weeks after I have begun to shift some of my meals to “Paleo,” is a tremendous reduction of my previous interest in “goodies,” cakes, bread, pasta, and rice. It seems like the craving is gone, and I can walk past any bakery shop without any feelings of loss.

Again, thanks for your book.

Lilli

Your book was recommended to me by a certified nutritionist/pharmacist, who has known me since 1990. May 2001, I was diagnosed with breast cancer-infiltrating, T1, node negative. I had a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation. I was cancer free until March 2004 when it returned to my spine, the L-1 disk. After weekly rounds of chemotherapy for six months at Duke University, followed up with five weeks of radiation, I was finally in remission. Tumor markers on April 8 were 89.6. By December 15 they had dropped to 22.

Every three weeks I receive Herceptin and Zometa every three months. Since December 15 until May 21, we noticed a trend of my tumor markers rising: 22 to 28.4.

After talking with my certified nutritionist/pharmacist, who knows of all the drugs I am on, he recommended your diet. I started it immediately on May 26. My latest tumor marker of July 21 was 26. I am looking forward to the next tumor marker test in early September to see if this downward trend continues. I am convinced that sugar negatively affects my body and probably feeds the cancer. In addition, I have lost 12 pounds of the 25 pounds that I put on due to chemotherapy and radiation. I am 5’11″ and weighed 163 prior to my first cancer treatment in 2001. I am now 10 pounds from my goal.

Thank you for a succinctly written book.

Debbie

I’m 36 years old, and 5 ft 8.5 in tall. I started the Paleo Diet about four months ago. Since then I’ve lost almost 25 pounds, bringing me down to my ideal weight of 150. My blood pressure went from 115/70 to 92/56. I decided to try the Paleo Diet because I read (on About.com) that it may help alleviate depression and anxiety. To my delight, it worked – my depression and anxiety have disappeared. My energy levels are much higher than before. I’m no longer tired throughout the day. My mind is clearer – I can focus much more easily, and my short-term memory has improved greatly. My skin is much smoother and less dry. Another improvement that I’ve found, which is kind of strange to me because I never expected it, is that my shinbones are no longer really sensitive. It used to be that if I barely bumped my shinbones against something, the pain was quite bad. Now they’re hardly sensitive at all.

Scott

Hello,

I am a 61-year-old female and started the Paleo Diet in Nov 2005 and have been on it ever since. I do indulge in some of the forbidden foods such a coffee with half and half, a habit seemingly impossible to break. It gives me the energy to do the things I want to do, and unless you can give me a formula for getting more energy otherwise, I may be in trouble on that one. I also, after experimenting without or drastically less salt, have added my habitual amounts of salt again. But it is a lot, lot less than the typical American diet, I assure you. Other than that I stick to meat, vegetables and fruit. No dairy, no grains, no legumes, no potatoes. I don’t miss any of it. I switched to canola oil.

So I found an organic farmer in Marine County near San Francisco, near where I live and got a hog, a quarter steer and untold chickens from them. The meat is lean and outstanding. I get fresh caught fish and vegetables from the farmers market as well as organic eggs. My trips to the supermarket are now limited to bananas, half and half and a few what-nots occasionally.

I feel good. Some friends say I am the picture of health. At the start of the diet I weighed 145 lbs, now I weigh 130 lbs and have so for months, regardless of what I eat. I am 5’3″ tall. I would like to weigh less, but have not managed to do so. Food always tastes so good.

By chance last November before I started the diet I had extensive bloodwork done and all the important indicators were normal, as they always have been. So my reason to go on the diet was strictly to lose weight.

I did notice though that I never suffer from indigestion ever now. My husband who is on this diet so, eats toast and butter and jam for breakfast, a gourmet lunch with his colleagues and what I cook for dinner. Even so he has gone from a “hiatal hernia” with daily Mylanta and Prilosec to no problems at all. And he has lost at least 30 lbs. I would like to see him eat better though, but he has the mind of a spoiled child.

I suffer from Rosacea and take medicine daily, but have been very sporadic about that lately and seem to do fine. Maybe the diet is helping.

For a while I did experience daily leg cramps. Once I read one of Loren’s papers on potassium and what contained the most I try to get those vegetables most and throw mushrooms into everything when I have them. And as I said earlier I went back to my normal salt intake, well maybe somewhat less, and lately I have not had those cramps. Once I started eating more mushrooms though and increased my stem and leafy vegetables in place of more fruit it got better instantly. Who knows?

I forgot to mention the most important thing: since I have been on the diet I have been virtually free of almost weekly, random, very debilitating headaches. I feel so free and at this point take it for granted! There used to be day where I just would have to stay in bed, because the headaches were so bad and the doctor always said they were tension headaches. Yes, I get very tense neck muscles – the cause of the arthritis to be sure – but I manage that when I can, yet I think it is the diet that makes the main difference.

Bottom line I like eating the way I do and I will never change as long as I have access to the type of food I mentioned.

Christel Belrichard