Many of the above, plus my arms don't fall asleep at night anymore. I've read that this can happen with celiac's, and since it runs in the family I'm going to try to get tested next week. Try, because I only consume incidental amounts or none at all, so the tests might come back false-negative.

My itchy toes cleared up for good. (So long, Lamisil!) All the skin tags gone but for one underarm and one under bra strap. All the neck tags are gone, yay! I'm rarely achy. Restless leg syndrome much much milder.
Rosacea gone.

Emotional resilience is the most surprising for me. I am much less likely to get upset or irritable.

A new thing that is interesting for me is an improvement in vision. Or at least a decrease in prescription for my contact (I go monovision with only one contact as my close vision is best with no alteration). The highest it has been was -1.75 and now it is down to -1.25. It has become an annoyingly flimsy piece of saran-wrap to get in the eye, lol. Fortunately for me I do the month-long extended wear so I only have to deal with it once a month.

I feel like I am hunting when I prepare food in the kitchen, I run downtown as much as I can get away with, I wake up at frikkin' 3:45 and stay awake and energized all day, I feel generally more observant and alive, and my state of mind feels more resilient. IN short, I'm a much happier, more highly functioning camper.

I've had 3 moles that have gotten smaller, flatter and lighter... Neat.

razor burn is a thing of the past as is runny noses. those are some of the unexpected consequences.

This one's quirky but big for me. My teeth don't hurt anymore! My teeth had been sensitive to temperature for years. No ice water or hot tea for me - everything had to be lukewarm or my mouth would ache.

I addressed the issue with my dentist who sold me a $20 tube of toothpaste that was supposed to help. It didn't - nothing changed and I continued to use the "sensitive" brands of toothpaste.

On top of the sensitivity, I had issues with grinding my teeth and receding gums. I wore a mouthguard at night, and was supposed to brush my teeth in a certain way to avoid hurting my gums. Nothing ever made a difference though! Every dentist visit I'll hear that my gums are getting worse, I must not be wearing my mouth guard (I wore it every night!) and I'm going to need some surgery to graft gum tissue on.

Now, without grains in my diet, I don't grind my teeth, they're not sensitive to hot or cold and my gums are looking better than ever. I've been craving ice water and I can chew the ice with no problems. I don't even use toothpaste anymore. I use a locally made "tooth soap" with clove and orange oil about once a day, although some days I'll just floss. My teeth are white, my breath is good and I have less plaque than I ever have. And my teeth just don't hurt anymore!

I'm headed to the dentist tomorrow for my regular check-up, so we'll see what the "official" word is on all this.

Hi Nick, Stopping dairy cleared sinus congestion for me. Also, I rarely get head colds or headaches anymore. These used to be weekly afflictions, especially in the witner. No dairy equals no bloating and the extra weight in my middle is gone. Plus my skin is much improved. One piece of cheese and a few days later I'd have a zit to show for it.

Cutting out dairy has been the best part of Paleo for me :)

Cara

Before I started Paleo I was dairy-free due to lactose intolerance. Since going Paleo, I've noticed my temperament had changed drastically. I've always been easy to anger, quick to aggression, generally very impatient. I always thought it was hereditary, but up to the day I cut the gluten I was like this. Since a few days after going gluten-free until now, I've noticed that it's significantly more difficult to get me going and angry. (This is a pretty significant feat considering I answer phones and the people on the other end are not the easiest people to deal with) I was always pretty easy going, minus the hot temper, but now I think I would be perceived as even more so. I don't mind my new temperament- I think it's great, but I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the gluten-free, since it was obviously present still when I was dairy-free.

i no longer have a fear of heights!

I've become much less tolerant of BS and prefer to get to the point with everything. I prefer people to be direct with me and vice-versa. It's amazing how many people can't read basic body language. He or she says one thing, but his or her body is saying something else entirely. Just say what you mean!

The biggest surprise to me is that my eczema is completly gone, and I have battled with it since I was 11 years old, and now I'm 25. My skin looks better, my mom even noticed and asked what I was doing. I dont have to use any more steroid creams, wear jeans when its 108 degrees outside, or explain that "weird stuff is on my arm or leg" and that its not contagious!

-Haven't had to the need to blow my nose in 5 months.

-My lifetime nervous habit of playing with my hair, twirling it constantly around my finger, is completely gone. I didn't even realize this until months into the diet.

-My posture is entirely different. I stand straight when walking, without even thinking about it, rather than crouched over.

This is totally strange, and my husband thinks I'm giving paleo too much credit, but I SWEAR that I'm less off-key when singing my children's bedtime songs since I started paleo. And I also believe that it worsens noticeably when I "cheat."

I've also had a lot of the more health-related improvements people have mentioned: less dandruff, no gas, etc.

My perimenopause symptoms have completed abated. I am back to a much younger body age- in comparison to the rapid aging that I was experiencing. Also my lifelong battle with obsessive compulsive disorder has COMPLETELY ended. That is almost like science fiction to me. That has been a part of my life for so long that I can not believe that it could really have been that simple all along!

from the stuff I didn't expect - the way my arms look now. I have serious muscles. my back can serve as anatomy lesson. ok, maybe not exactly... but I do have nicely visible muscles in my upper body (the butt and abs area are still waiting to lose fat, so muscles can be visible).

energy was really beyond what I expected.

and I guess also the joy of eating foods I considered earlier "greasy" or "heavy" :)

The little white dots that have always (31 years old) been on my fingernails for as long as i can remember? Theyre completely gone. Havent seen one in months.

Almost no gas (burping, farting). Prolly due to my own inclination to go pretty low-carbohydrate kind of on top of paleo, but i think paleo in general would lead to the same result.

A greater sense of calm and...readiness to do stuff throughout the whole day? Hard to explain, and I feel like its so hard to really judge yourself like this that its almost pointless to mention. But i really do feel that i have no strong, sudden, flashofthemoment impetus to do things (read that as a good thing), but rather a very nice, equal, steady, kind of alertness or readiness for anything from doing a set of pullups, to moving a bunch of kegs, to walking the dog, to reading a book at any time. No spikes - maybe thats the way to put it.

I get to randomly shout '...like a cave-man' in a similar way to that internet joke '...like a boss'.

Besides the "usual" effects, there's:

I no longer wake up with at least one of my limbs asleep every day (disappeared immediately upon going gluten-free)

No seasonal allergies (except for my eyes in certain seasons, unfortunately)

An incredible reduction of smegma accumulation in my lady-parts (at the risk of TMI... I think it would take a week of grunging around in the back country with absolutely no hygienic measures to even come close to what I used to get a few hours after bathing)

I haven't needed my happy lamp to correct a circadian rhythm disorder and minor SAD so far this winter. Black-out curtains plus Vitamin D in my morning cream&coffee is much better than a light-triggered headache from an electric-blue light box glaring in your face for a half hour first thing in the morning

No farting!

An old knee injury went away. If I mess up and ingest a small amount of gluten, it swells so badly that I limp.

A bundle of joy due to arrive in six months!!! Took 8 months of trying after going gluten-free. Makes me wonder if birth control up until then was utterly pointless - and every form of BC I've used has caused severe health problems at one point or another.

These aren't 'small and quirky', but certainly unexpected. (I'm not sure we can attribute all of the changes we see posted here to the Paleo Diet. Perhaps other explanations---overall improved lifestyle/behavior that comes along with Paleo eating? However: I don't care, I'm not going back to eating SAD, ever):

-I used to get terrible hand/wrist numbness from using the mouse/key board while working. Since going paleo (March 2010), hand wrist/numbness = gone, no pain, no numbness...just incredible. No change in work load, work environment, etc. If anything, the work load has increased.

-Huge change: Seasonal fall allergies (and allergic reactions in general) way down. We had a particularly wet Spring, Summer and Fall where I live so I was expecting an absolutely horrendous Fall allergy season (I've had Falls where I was barely functional/held upright by large doses of medications and dealt with sinus and ear infection after sinus and ear infection)...this fall, nothing, clear as a bell on minimal (and reducing) amounts of medications...the allergy problem is something that I've been dealing with since I was 2 or 3 yeears old (I'm now 43).

-My wife, who's allergies are worse than mine and is only 'partially' Paleo (still hanging onto that morning bowl of 'Super Colon Blow'---not sure anyone remembers the old SNL skit?), reports the same thing: allergies (that have caused not just suffering for her, but life threatened visits to the ER) way down.

-Oh ya: I also dropped 38 lbs and added a bunch of muscle without having to kill myself to do it.

43 is the new 23 by living Paleo

Is it okay if I ask if the respondents typically consider themselves strict paleo? I changed my diet considerably several years ago and have experienced many of the changes discussed in the comments, but I eat cheese, raw milk and yogurt on a daily basis, no grains and otherwise whole foods. I'm curious to learn how much stopping dairy (for those who don't have obvious lactose intolerance) took people to even further changes.

• Way less farting
• Getting a tan real quick
• Better voice
• Ability to concentrate better
• I sleep better (pre-paleo I sometimes had to wait 3 hours in bed before I started sleeping, now I sleep within 20 minutes)
• Less facial hair! Woohoo! I can't stand upper lip hair. And I hate shaving.

For me, that's already enough to keep eating like I'm eating, to keep doing what I'm doing. I'm never going back to SAD and I'm damn proud of it :).

Way too many things changed for me to list here, I've written a blog post showing the effect Paleo had one me within 6 weeks: http://eugenia.queru.com/2011/10/14/6-weeks-with-scdpaleo/

My tonsils got so large when I was around 4 that I've had problems with sleeping, snoring and tonsil stone since. My mom took me to a doctor because even my voice had changed. The reply was that I was trying to be cute. This morning I checked in the mirror and they have halved in size. Maybe food allergies?

My mood is much better- however, this could also be due to having taken up meditation. I'm also much better-looking- I think I developed a slight intolerance to grains and dairy over the last couple of years, that just made my eyes a little puffy, and I had no idea why my eyes had become all small until I gave up grains and dairy!

Some small ones :

• Emotion control : in the past, when something weird happened I immediately freaked out, had a high voice, etc. Now I'm more calm about that.
• Laziness : if I'm not working, I'm ashamed of myself. It used to be the opposite. While this could just be a change of mindset, I'm old enough to realize that that doesn't happen in 2-3 weeks.
• Sleep : while my sleep is still far from perfect, when I was on gluten, I had to wait 2-3 hours before my body decided to sleep.
• Fear : I used to be afraid of tons of things : the dark, heights, ... Now I don't have these panic attacks anymore.
• Concentration : I'm not sure about this one, but it looks like I'm able to concentrate better which enables me to debate things more easily.
• Butt : smaller butt. Which is nice cuz I'm a guy.
• Eyes : they used to look dull last year, but now that I don't have hypoglycemia episodes anymore, they shine, and that boosts my self-confidence like nothing else does.
• Mouth : the inside of my mouth is pink. It used to be red.
• Mind : when I read a book, I'm able to remember most of it with not that much trouble. This is awesome.

There are so many other things, and I'm glad I wrote them down. If I ever doubt about my own lifestyle, I'll read this again and slap myself on the head.

I am much less fearful of wooly mammoths!

Seriously,

• lost 10 lbs. in 3 weeks (about 6% of my body weight) without eating less.

• sleeping longer/sounder

• more energy and focus

• enjoying all the foods that have been taboo since the late '70s

• Most of all... the satisfaction of being able to resist being herded into unhealthy lifestyles by self - interested organizations, scientists, corporations, and government officials.-

--

This is the third week of eating paleo for me. I didn't start cautiously, I jumped right in and went from eating a vegetarian/vegan diet to 100% paleo. I don't weigh myself, but almost daily someone I know asks me if I'm losing weight. Also, my dermatitis has gone away completely (no more antibiotic cream necessary). But by far the best thing has been SLEEP. I used to be the lightest sleeper ever, waking up 2-5 times a night. Now, I fall asleep at 10pm and can sleep right through to when my alarm goes off at 8:15am.