Well, I came down a not-so-traditional path...perhaps off the beaten path one might say. I began my college life as a student in dietetics. Yes, I was a former follower of the eat less, move more, carbs are great, 6-10 servings of grain a day, food pyramid crowd. But admittedly, during my studies, I didn't see a whole lot of success in many patients in the hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities I worked in. So I dropped the dietetics major, and began my own research.

I've also always had issues myself eating grains. Corn, wheat, oats, you name it, it gives me IBS like symptoms. I tried the high fiber, low fat diet I learned about in school to no avail. I tried a high fat, atkins style diet to no avail...mainly because I was still eating soy and dairy. In comes my research about Paleo...I decide, well what the hell, I'm not doing so great on Atkins, might as well give it a shot. I found Mark's Daily Apple while googling Paleo stuff, got the free Primal downloads and a whole host of other links from his site. It's been a Godsend. No more IBS like symptoms. None. And so many great recipes from sites like Everyday Paleo, Paleofood.com, and Rubies & Radishes. I find the blogs with other people's real life experiences and food journeys so helpful. I haven't bought the books, because I found Mark's Daily Apple and the Primal freebies to be so easy to understand. Plus Google is my friend, ya know?

I'm right at the beginning of the transition...I've been eating paleo, but I'm debating whether I want to do paleo or primal...I ordered "The Paleo Diet" a week ago...Still waiting for it to come in...I ordered "The Primal Blueprint" today...Obviously still waiting for that...

I google things before I ask here...I have read a lot of the blogs, but I find researching on the internet to be overwhelming...IDK, I have ADD, so I need to have the whole, page turning, re-reading, highlighting thing going on...I also find it more conducive to going back and refreshing what I have learned...

I think I will find the books most helpful, mainly for the above reason, but I will get back to you ;-)

After vegetarianism caused my health to collapse, I went into hardcore study mode and researched EVERYTHING on nutrition. On every nutrient, every mineral, every antioxidant, etc. But once I began researching various foods and human nutrition, I began seeing a pro-meat and animal products trend. Everything I read just kept convincing me that animal foods are incredibly good for you and the evidence against that is virtually non-existent. Eventually, after I reintroduced animal products back into my diet, I came across the Paleo diet.

1. I geeked up on glycemic index and the calories of everything eaten and done. I lost 50 pounds in the process. About a year after this, passionate and irritating paleos showed up on a weight loss forum, mostly plugging daily apple and Taubes. I realized that at my level of daily activity and meat consumption I was already living somewhat ancestrally.

2. Books of value are Naipaul's A House for Mr. Biswas (long term drawbacks to bad vegetarian diets) and Catalhoyuk (how people lived and ate 10,000 years ago), as well as a visit to Lascaux cave (all meat - no carrots).

I read all the posts on Mark's Daily Apple. Then I read a bunch of other blogs and listened to a few weeks of Paleo Solution and some other paleo podcasts before I started coming to paleohacks.