My original comment has found a way to time travel and got stuck on page one, first comment.

I went on the macrobiotic diet in the mid 90s. I started doing the vegan diet in 1990 then decided a few years in to it that macrobiotics was "cooler" thanks to a local macrobiotic center in the hippie dip town where I chose to attend college. A little less than a year in to it I decided I needed to break away from the area/people and go to the NW so I did. Although I got an apartment, a job and met people I was unstable and threatened frequently to kill myself. My mother insisted I come home so I did. After I got home I continued to eat macro but felt I was out of control in terms of my eating/bingeing/life problems. I attracted well meaning souls in to my life who tried to "help" me. I chanted many hours while attending yet another university by the sea; Gilligan's Island we called it. I went to therapy, ate brown rice along with ice cream and Mexican food, developed a skin fungus on my stomach and even for a while tried to sell blue green algae. Anything to get well. My weight gain was not terribly substantial due to good genetics but I did need to lose a few pounds. My mother bought me a picture of a whale at Ross which I cluelessly hung in the house which she bought for me. One day I dropped a book on my toe and the toe nail fell off. I called someone I met in multi level marketing and asked her what I should do. She said I needed to "get in the Zone." I went and bought the book and did it to the letter for a few months. I ate eggs and dairy but no meat or fish. A few months in to it I went on Zoloft due to depression which led to a bipolar flip which caused me to move out of the house and put me on the road for a year. Later in the 90s I found the blood type diet which suggested I eat meat. Naturally I did not do so for another 6-7 years. Now, 15 years later I no longer do the Zone and have genotyped myself as a true Hunter. I eat red meat, fast during the day and feast many nights a week. It is not as easy to push me around as it used to be.

Ugh, where to start? There are too many factors here. Childhood issues with food brought on by weird parenting, mother obsessed with weight, meeting a guy when I was 16 and basically copying his cola and chocolate diet, discovering Animal Rights as a teenager, 15 years as an obese vegetarian including 3 years as B12 deficient vegan....

....I broke down. About 18 months ago. Precipitated by a horrendous emotional upheaval I shall only refer to as The Mistake. I was over 300lbs and suicidal. A non-smoker, I developed a 20 a day habit (now gone, thankfully), and bit my nails till they bled. A bad, bad time. It took me a year to really get over that, and I finally felt ready to tackle my weight problem in about June this year. I didn't feel I wanted or needed to be that fat woman anymore. I started counting calories and exercising.

Being the obsessive that I am, I had to research everything to the nth degree. I identify as a skeptic, a rationalist. As an outraged ex-believer in all things new age and woo (I dropped all that in my late twenties), I like to make sure what I think and do is as scientifically sound as possible, because I was a dumbass, and I'm not doing that again.

My random Googlings on the topic of optimal diet and weightloss kept throwing up Mark's Daily Apple. I dismissed it at first- I wanted hard scientific evidence, not some crank with a fad diet book to sell- more woo. I can't remember where, it might have been MDA, but I read a comment which mentioned the documentary Fat Head. So I watched it. Waaay too chock-full of, for this Brit irrelevant, American politics. The health stuff was great, the government-bashing spoiled it. Too easy to dismiss Naughton as an anti-government crank with an axe to grind. (Not that I mind his politics, it was just ladled on to the point of irritation)

But I persevered, bewildered and incredulous at all these people online who didn't believe in calorie counting. Well how else does one lose weight? As for eating meat, I hadn't done that for years, I am an animal lover, I think it's wrong to take a sentient life, particularly if you've captured and maltreated it first. I'd read all the vegetarian books years ago, I knew what the science said: animal fat is bad for you. It gives you cancer and heart disease and stroke and cooties.

Well. I don't remember how I found out about Gary Taubes. But I watched a talk of his on YouTube, and it blew my mind. I had to watch it about 4 times to really take on board what he was saying, and it just amazed me (I bought WWGF shortly afterwards). Then, in the comments to that video (I think) someone mentioned the Stanford AtoZ study. I found a talk on it, and watched Chris Gardner, a vegetarian, stand up and say that people eating low carb, high fat diets lost more weight and their health markers improved. That was the final push I needed- hearing it from a vegetarian.

There's so much bogus science out there, so much to doubt, that it wasn't until I heard a lifelong vegetarian, someone with a interest in promoting a plant based diet, telling me that meat eaters are healthier, that I would believe it. I could no longer hold on to my old established world view where humans are natural vegetarians and animal fats make you die in terrible pain. It just isn't true. I had been a dumbass again.

So, end of September, I did a one-eighty. Out with the pasta and potatoes, in with streaky bacon and goose fat. Meat tastes weird, I tell you.

I've been bouncing all over the internet with my brain wide open- I told a more emotional version of my story on Michael Eades' blog, I've skimmed through Guyenet's, ran like hell from Mercola, and I just found this blog today, via Hyperlipid. Wonderfully clear writing, thank you. Please, rest assured, people are listening. People like me. I don't know how many ex-woo, skeptic vegetarians who are willing to do a one-eighty are out there, but we do exist! Oh, and this one is 45lbs lighter than she was in June. 🙂

I know I'm coming in late on this discussion, but my wake up call was on Jan 1 2010 (not a New Year's resolution) when I weighed close to 275lbs at 6'. I then started moving more and eating less, but I still ate some of the usual suspects. Eventually, I stumbled upon "Eat to live" by Joel Fuhrman which inspired me to eat more veggies and less meat. Eventually (2 weeks after I started this) I realized I really like meat, so I increased the meat and kept the veggies at the same level. I lost 10lbs. This summer, I stumbled upon CrossFit and paleo and it's been a love story so far. I'm blogging about my experience (link in my name) and I've learned so much more than I expected. Eventually, I stumbled upon this site, and ordered the book yesterday. I can't wait to read it. Keep it up J.

I know this is pretty late - almost 4 months since the last comment! - but it's the first article I've really really wanted to comment on.
It has been a very long journey for me, since finding out I had Celiac disease over a year ago. I struggled A LOT with cutting out gluten. I would be fine for a few months, or weeks, or maybe days... you see where that's going! I recently read another article on this site about how any successful diet must de-emphasize the need for willpower and restriction to succeed, and that was like getting hit with a bolt of lightning. "Restrained eating requires the exercise of willpower to override likes, wants, and the lack of satiation or satiety; the exercise of willpower uses energy and causes stress; and stress makes you eat more. Therefore, a successful diet must minimize the role of willpower." (From the amazing series on what hunger is and why we eat.) My biggest problem had always been that the cravings got so bad I would always justify giving in, then I would feel terrible physically and lash myself with guilt for not having stronger will, which just produced more stress... which BELIEVE ME I do not need in my life! I already work two jobs, am in the process of building a house, and recently lost a family member, so making good diet decisions was taking less and less priority space.
I have tried every sort of diet... counting calories (I can probably recite the formula for basal metabolic rate in my sleep!), limiting carbs, limiting fat, of course removing gluten and learning to cook andbake with all different grains. Some things would work for a while, as long as I had the willpower not to eat when I was hungry, but I always gained the weight back and usually more. I was depressed (I believe due to damage in the small intestine causing low serotonin) and generally angry all the time, struggling to find a way to accept that apparently my body wanted to be 40 pounds overweight.
Then I started reading paleo blogs and bought The Gnoll Credo... and this is easy. I'm still working on kicking the addiction to carbs, but it doesn't worry me anymore. I know I'll succeed. No grains? No problem! No need to count calories or restrict myself from eating the delicious and satisfying meat I've always wanted? Awesome! And the BUTTER! Ohhh the buttered veggies. 🙂 I have tons of energy, eat way less than I used to, and am inspired to actively find sources for local produce and meats - wonderfully easy, since I live in a rural part of the American southeast. Which, I might note, made it extremely HARD to find so-called "health foods" that didn't contain gluten. But eating naturally, I encounter none of those problems.
So basically, what I take from this experience is this: don't fight your nature. Revel in the expression of all those predatory instincts, and most importantly do not try to use "paleo" food to imitate your old diet! Making "pizza" with almond flour and various substitute ingredients to stay technically paleo is not eating like a predator... it's cheating yourself of the wonderful experience of real primal pleasure in food. It won't taste like the pizza you crave, and will only remind you that you aren't eating what you think you want. It's a waste of time. Be joyful in what is healthy, and find a way to distract yourself from what you think you want!