The shift will happen almost immediately. For me, I was feeling quite awesome within the week ... and I ate a very good diet of real food before. Dropping out the grains, beans and pulses was the winning formula; I retained dairy intake.

Many people do suffer some problems in the first few days - headaches, lack of focus, nausea, tiredness, chills and even ravenous hunger. This will depend on where you start from and are all related to coming off your previous diet.

Your body resets and very quickly, you'll be on your way to a long, fulfilling and truly healthy life.

Fat loss, if that is you goal, will happen quite naturally thereafter - it's excess carbohydrate which makes you fat. The fat balance from paleo foods is good to go without weighing or measuring - just eat and enjoy. Couple the dietary change with moderate activity and you'll feel fantastic!

Jump in ... do it for four weeks, do it as pure as you can for that period and see if you want to continue.

It's not a religion - it's your life. Feel free to eat off trail occasionally.

Good luck ...

You've led me into some of the things I was going to say initally, but thought it might be too much information, initially.

I think that feeling of being very real, very true to the human frame is because of a true release from modern life and modern living, into natural homeostasis. I'm glad you said the words ... "homeostatic distruption". Break free and become real. J calls this "Live in Freedom ... Live in Beauty" and it is absolutely the core of paleo living.

Yes, living ...

Paleo is much more than a diet - as I said above, it's about your life.

Live ... eat ... play ... sleep ... love.

What we ingest, how and when we ingest it is core to our being. We must eat. Eating right is half of the battle won against a modern world which would have us dietary slaves to the corporation who define our meals by what they can make the most profit on.

Now that we don't do much activity as a species, we need to invent ways of exercising. Again, follow the money - gyms, essentially. I don't do that - I walk in the evenings, whatever the weather, whatever the conditions over the beautiful landscape I live in ... and use that time to de-stress from a conventional 9-5 job. I get so much more out of my evenings by doing that.

I don't mind my 9-5 job - I work for England's NHS (National Health Service) and see that as very much an altruistic job, one which benefits everyone ... whatever the discussion around that might be. If I didn't spend my working hours doing that, I'd work for my own ends ... which is different to "working for yourself".

From this growing discussion, I hope brynnsweet can see how paleo eating ("Predator eating", as J and many of us here would refine it) leads to a change in lifestyle; a change in outlook. Yes, we devour! Yes, we savour! Savouring can mean taking the time to enjoy a sunset and can mean concentrating on intense hunger between meals over a skipped, or missed, meal.

For guys, that sense of realising the alpha male within us is truly liberating. For women, it is equally important.

Awesome! You're on your way ...

Hey all!  Long time, no talk.

Which, is fine.  I went on a cross country trip.  No job?  No worries, eh?

I
came back to my copy of the Gnoll Creedo, which, I'll admit, I tore
through, because it was fantastic!  I'm so happy I was able to come home
to it.

I'll admit, I cried at the end.  No, not at the predictable place, but at the VERY end.

Thanks for writing it!

And whooping with laughter every so often.

Occassionally wondering how stupid the human could be that he couldn't have SEEN IT before she told him.

It now lives with me in my bag...  I hear a rumour about T-shirts? 

I've got a Gnoll in the works.  And I had to laugh about Aiden's inability to find a chest height Gnoll terrifying.  Because, that's what I'll be!  I'm only 5'2" but I've been told that I'm imposing and terrifying in my own right.  Even at my height and 250 lbs!  WTF?

I kind of want to do haouka because there's simply not enough scary where I would be costuming.

I already have two suits, a porcupine, and a bat, so, we'll see!

Thanks for the warm welcome, J.

RE to the PS:  Every so often there were things that she would cover that he wouldn't understand, that even the barest scrape of an Animal Person KNOWS.  It's just Things We Know.  It was strange how he couldn't See IT.  IT.  Everything.  From the concept she was talking about, to the ones she hadn't yet covered.  It's like he was standing at a presipice, and instead of seeing it for what it was, he would simply say "it's too dark"  of COURSE it's dark! 

Sometimes the things I say don't make any sense either...

I'm going to be actually building my Gnoll after I shed some weight.  The less fur I have to buy, the happier I will be.  At the moment, I need roughly six yards to make a full suit. (That's for someone 5'2" and size 44 pants)  I already know the colors I'm using, I just need to design the fur pattern, and find a proper fur for the face.  The problem with the one I'm going to use is that it's a fantastic and warm tan long, but once you shave it down it turns solid brown.  That'll look good in some spots, but not the look for the face that I want.  Or, I may just ask someone who's done Gnolls before to do it.  Course, that can get expensive...  Over twelve hundred for the artist I want...and I don't have a job at the moment!  Ha!

To the drawing board, I suppose.  I've also got an anthro hyena in the works.  Though, she's already well designed.

Stick at it! If you've ventured from the path, well ... that's paleo, in times of lean, "needs must" as we say up here in northern England. Find your feet and find the gold.

Enjoy the rest of TGC ... there's a quickening of pace in the second half of the book, but do and don't get carried away with the pace. Go with it, get carried along, but savour each second.