I was vegan for over 7 years due to health reasons (the mad cow scare terrified me), and then I learnt of how our food was being raised so I stayed vegan for a very long time. I did well on that diet, but I didn't like how many processed foods I was eating. I did feel cleaner, though. I definitely started getting into the organic craze at that time. It's never really left me, but I am now able to source foods that aren't labelled organic due to financial reasons, which are perfectly healthy otherwise.

After five years, I started looking at the American Livestock Breed Conservancy (http://albc-usa.org/) and found that I wanted to help preserve these dying heritage breeds. I spoke with my family and my friends about how I wanted to have a farm after I graduated and raise my own food. I'd been gardening for years, but raising livestock would be entirely new. I also wanted to support local agriculture, but I wasn't ready to take that step for a while.

I started raising my own meat and eggs a year ago, and started being paleo about two and a half months ago, I think? I still eat beans, though. They don't seem to cause such an issue with me. I haven't lost weight, but I look leaner. I love having small-scale livestock around. It makes me feel useful and it's something I can manage whilst attending university full time. My husband and brother take turns slaughtering, and I butcher the carcass of the rabbits and chickens. I am terrified of prolonging their deaths unnecessarily. Although, I am with the animal throughout the entire process. I guess that's my story in a nut shell. I have a lot of Brazilian friends here who do both paleo and crossfit, and I started talking with them about it after I tried out a diet similar to paleo. It definitely took me a while to start eating meat again. It was so weird at first and felt sticky.

I was vegetarian for 13 years and in that time dabbled with veganism and being a raw foodie. I started eating meat when we started raising our own animals (when I am in the US, I only eat my animals). Checking out the paleo style of eating because my husband has had intestinal problems for years. That said, I still eat yogurt and a bit of cheese becuase I raise dairy goats (also sheep and chickens). Rice on occasion. No wheat (not for 3 weeks now). lots of fruits and veggies. All this has not been a big departure for me from my normal mode of eating. I do not eat processed food and havent in many many years.

I went Paleo because I'd learned I had food intolerances (the big 5) and was suffering from extreme weight loss.

My blood test that revealed I was low in fat-soluble vitamins, B12 and a whole lot of other problems. It's not a radical shift at all, unless you did veganism because you don't wanna hurt animals (I couldn't care less about animals when I had big time hives all over me). It's just an other interpretation of eat whole foods...

I think it is important to respect every possible diet out there. I understand vegans aren't very friendly towards paleo followers, but I also notice quite some mockery on this forum when peatarianism is mentioned. My professor recently told me people have the tendency to generalize everything, including their own experiences, and unfortunately he's right.

I was raised vegetarian, 27years, two months ago i was heading towards eating vegan, but also had the intention stop eating bread. I lost too much weight and came across paleo, i liked the idea, i was eating like it but without meat and fish, so I decided to start eating meat and stop all grains and most of dairy (i eat 10%fat greek yoghurt and goatcheese). I feel great!

Constant stomach problems were really the main motivation. I became willing to try just about anything to get rid of them. I tried different types of veganism, like raw veganism, but they just made a lot of problems worse.

I was vegan for a few months mainly for ethical reasons before learning of the importance of eating meat. I have no qualms about free range meat now though, the benefits of killing these animals out way the negatives. A healthy human can do much more to help the world than an unhealthy one can. Besides that fact I'd still be willing to kill animals to live a healthy life.

I had been contemplating GOING vegan, but hadn't actually adopted such a lifestyle, when I found out about Paleo/Primal...And it made much more sense. Glad I never tried going vegan or vegetarian in the first place!

I wasn't recovering fast enough from workouts as a vegetarian (usually strict, not lacto-ovo - i don't use the vegan label since I wasn't doing it for ethical reasons). I ran 5 marathons as a vegetarian and never had issues - didn't have weight problems either, obviously. But the day I started crossfitting, I realized something was missing. I could not recover from my workouts.. it would be a week and I'd still be limping around, cringing in agony. My husband and I were also a little soft around the middle despite the chronic cardio.

Realizing the potential we had with crossfit, we knew that diet was a huge part of the puzzle. We broached the idea of experimenting with paleo/primal and finally made the jump one fateful night at a AYCE korean BBQ restaurant. We've been primal/paleo since November 2010 and haven't looked back. I've become a stronger runner (I've won 2 5Ks since) and my marathon times have improved -- who knew sweet potatoes and almonds would be just as effective has clif shots and gu's

I was very lethargic after four years of total vegan, and seemed to have persistant belly fat (about 20 pounds) - despite eating pratically the ideal (prescribed) vegan diet (and calories below my supposed needs). I didn't have the energy or desire to exercise, and wasn't active in pursuing my life goals. I felt very passive all around.

I am testing out meat and paleo, but far from 100%. My body seems to be recompositioning itself with little effort, and I am happy to exercise.

Matt

p.s. Also - Steve Jobs getting cancer worried me. He ate vegan - which is supposedly a "cancer fighting" diet - most of his life.

I go into a lot of detail on my personal journey from vegan to paleo, and the many realizations I had along the way, on my website, where I conducted a 30 day trial of paleo a year ago, after many years of cycling back and forth between vegan and vegetarian and raw foods:

http://www.my-healthy-eating-secrets.com/paleo-diet.html

If you're only going to skim, be sure to check out Days 1, 6, 10 and 29 - these are my personal favorites...

This is not an answer (sorry) but rather a question. In my culture people do not really know what "vegetarian" is. People who are "vegetarians" are considered kind of mental or crazy. I have never been a vegetarian, and I would never even think about becoming one. I have always been totally against vegetarianism.

I have known a lot of Americans who were vegetarians. The thing that really bugged me is how proudly they would say, "I am a vegetarian (or vegan)". As if they are better or know something others don't know. I would respond, "You know, it is not really healthy, your body needs animal protein, especially B12 that you cannot get from any other food sources" they would look at me as if I am some kind of a nutcase. The thing is, I was saying this in a nice way and we were on friendly terms.They would never answer back, but I could see that they were not buying into that.

So what is it about vegetarianism that is so different, that makes it almost like a cult?

Oh, and I posted it somewhere else, but I think this is a good place to - have you ever watched/ read "The Vegetarian Myth"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNON5iNf07o

Bacon???????????

It was deteriorating health... anemia, depression, weight gain, hair loss, serious skin problems, etc... Paleo fixed practically everything.

I thought being vegetarian was the healthiest choice. After 14 years go vegetarianism with low energy, hair loss, IBS, leaky gut, dermatitis and many other problems I found out about the Paleo diet and switched immediately. After 4 months, most of my symptoms have gone. But still recovering. I know anyway vegan people (having a moderate life, not so busy) who are ok but it didn't work for me.

Michael.

I was vegetarian after I turned 20. Something snapped and meat started to gross me out. I had a lot of food anxiety around that time, and being out of my moms house where food was always prepared for me didn't help.

I ate vegetarian and off and on vegan for a few years. Toward the end of it I got really tired, had worse than average acne, started gaining weight, suffered awful depression and anxiety and ppl would comment on my skin and hair not looking good. I finally went to the dr. and found out I had anemia, despite taking iron everyday. He basically said to start eating animal protein again or to continue and get sicker.

I started with salmon and felt better almost immediately. It was a hard transition because i was so turned off by eating a dead critter, but i knew it was making me better. I flopped around for a while until i got pregnant, then I binged on whatever.

So, my kid is 6 now. Me eating a regular American diet has not allowed me to lose the baby weight. I was tempted to go back to vegan since most of my friends have gone that route to lose their baby weight (or juicing but after one day I thought i might faint), but after researching I found paleo. It has everything i want from a nutritional and health stand point. Plus so far the results have been great.

I tried vegetarianism dozens of times, and always lost weight (bad for me) and became weaker. I only tried veganism once, it made me so unbelievably weak. Even though I did tons of research and in theory got everything I needed! My body needs meat. Like you say, it's all about health and trying to get healthier.

I experienced horrific symptoms, in just a few weeks, of experimentation with a pure vegan diet: weight gain, especially around my hips and stomach, lethargy, inability to run the 3 - 5 miles I normally do several times a week, depression, lack of motivation, etc. The worst thing of all was severe stomach and intestinal pain that simply would not go away, no matter what I did.

Before trying Vegan I was using the Zone diet combined with Intermittent Fasting (IF). That was working quite well for me, but I couldn't shake the persistent acne or the last five pounds that was hanging on. I tried Vegan just to try to address those things.

I think the effectiveness of the Zone diet is compromised by their use of dairy products. Within days of coming off vegan and onto paleo, my energy and attitude have skyrocketed, my skin is amazingly clear, and I don't feel like I am carrying a 20lb weight between my rib cage and my hips. I'm sold.

Vegan might work for some folks, but most definitely not me, and my body told me so!!

One word: Acne.

After 2 1/2 years on a vegan/near-vegan diet, my acne came back with a vengeance. I had very, very large cysts that were painful and stuck around for months. It completely mystified me at the time, but I see now that I had developed a leaky gut due to my over-reliance on grains.

I was also suffering from chronic digestive difficulties, flatulence, weight gain, and very low energy levels. Brain fog and a tendency toward mild depression were also an issue, though I didn't notice any of them at the time. My body had begun to shut down. Since going paleo all of these problems have resolved themselves. In fact, I feel better than I ever did pre-paleo.

As for dealing with your family, OP, I think you're taking the right tack. Just quietly go about your paleo business and never, ever give them grief over their diet. The only way they'll ever "convert" is if they lead themselves down the paleo path. I was cracking jokes about paleo people up until a week or so before I made the jump myself. Stick with it and you just might peel off one or two of your family members.

my digestive disease came out of remission when i started fruitarianism. i had been doing well on veganism for 4 years prior to that, but the fruitarianism is what did me in. i think veganism in itself is a great diet/lifestyle for anyone who can stay healthy on it. paleo hasn't fixed my digestive disease like i had thought, but it's not as bad as it was when i was following 80/10/10.