Carnivore isn't paleo. There is no culture that is 100% zero carb. Even the Inuit living in the high polar regions, a neolithic settlement, eat some plant matter. I've known so many people who have fallen into the carnivore trap and end up insulin resistant with food allergies, and with adrenal fatigue (Hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunction). I've gotten large amounts of of flack for disliking carnivore, but I just can't support it. A few dude who have been eating this way for a couple of years do not prove anything about the safety of this diet. "The Bear" has had a heart attack and he shows his ignorance of basic science by blaming it on broccoli he ate as a child.

I know way more people who have done badly on this diet and it's going to give paleo a bad name despite the fact that it's not paleo. Matt Stone has in particular has made a career out of such people. I have lived in the Arctic and while I ate meat in the winter, I would also eat large amounts of greens, berries, and mushrooms in the spring and summer.

Then there is the issue that you are Asian, and there is some genetic evidence that Asians are better adapted to carbs.

Frankly, the fruit allergy thing is more worrying than weight issues. Health trumps all and weight isn't always an accurate indicator of that. Weight can be an indicator of epigenetic changes, environmental toxins, and the way you were raised.

Either way, you are my size when I started paleo and I think it would be possible for you to slim down. My family in total has lost 95 lbs on this diet. My strategy is three meals: vegetable meal (with seaweed and some tubers), fish with large amounts of supplemental fat like coconut oil/ghee/butter meal, and grassfed ruminant meat meal. Every couple of days a pork meal can sub for any meal.

No eggs (digestive irritant), no coconut milk (digestive irritant, though I've been able to add in small amounts, coconut oil is OK), no poultry (omega-6), and limited nuts-mostly macadamia. Butter and ghee are allowed. 100 grams of carbs a day. I would supplement kelp if you don't like seaweed. It's basically the Okinawan diet before they had Malthusian crisis and it got misinterpreted as a low-fat diet- their diet was yams, seaweed, goat, greens, and pork.

I would exercise only twice a week until you start feeling better. Exercise can help with stress, but sometimes it is stress. It also does make you hungrier.

There's my advice. It's controversial.

My initial thoughts/recommendations/questions:

You are working out WAY too much in my personal opinion. 3 days of crossfit, 3 sets of sprints, and 2 hours of swimming and biking? Honestly, I would drop the sprints and swimming/biking immediately.

I would also decrease the amount of protein from animal sources, and REALLY crank up the saturated fat from butter/pemmican/coconut. Avoid all fruit (other than avocado), and nothing but GREEN veggies.

Remember the body has a decent sized insulin response to protein, it might be time to give that pathway a break. I'd try this for 2 or so weeks, and see where it puts you.

Are you still training for a triathlon? If so, you will have to decide on your end game and goals and stay the course. But my initial thought on trying to redo body composition and train for the holiest of endurance events, will REALLY peak your cortisol levels on a regular basis. Higher cortisol levels, the more fat you will retain.

Are you getting enough sleep as well, and whats your rest schedule that you follow?

Being a tri-athlete is probably not healthy long-term, but Brad Kearns did a great post on MDA about endurance training while living primal/paleo ( http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-blueprint-endurance-training/ ). The fact that you are not reaching your body composition goals is most likely due to chronic inflammation and high cortisol levels. You're certainly over-training, as others have noted.

My suggestions:

1. Drop the crossfit and the tabatas altogether.
2. Incorporate your interval sprints into your swim and bicycle sessions. Interval training will improve your times--if you don't overdo it.
3. Keep your heart rate below 70% of your max between sprints to prevent "chronic cardio" ( http://www.marksdailyapple.com/chronic-cardio/ ). According to Sisson and others, chronic cardio raises your cortisol level and generates free radicals.
4. Do brief sessions of heavy lifting once or twice per week (squats, benches, rows) to keep your muscle mass and growth hormone levels up.
5. Get plenty of sleep.
6. Try intermittent fasting (IF), discussed on previous threads (eg., http://paleohacks.com/questions/3/intermittent-fasting ).
7. Good luck!

This sounds like classic adrenal fatigue to me. Based on your lack of carbs, excessive workout routines and symptoms I have to think that adrenal fatigue would be a possibility. Remember that the adrenal's can also affect Thyroid function. Personally I would take a period of reset from all workouts. Burned out adrenals can take months to repair to normal, or almost normal operation. Mid term start supplementing with Vitamin B Complex, and Natural Medicine to boost of assist the function of the adrenals.

Here are some symptoms of adrenal fatigue.

1. Excessive fatigue and exhaustion, chronic fatigue
2. Non-refreshing sleep
3. Sleep disturbance, insomnia
4. Feeling overwhelmed or unable to cope
5. Craving salty and/or sweet foods
6. Sensitivity to light
7. Low stamina and slow to recover from exercise
8. Slow to recover from injury or illness
9. Difficulty concentrating, brain fog
10. Poor digestion
11. Irritable bowel syndrome, IBS
12. Low immune function
13. Premenstrual syndrome
14. Menopause symptoms
15. Low blood pressure
16. Sensitivity to cold
17. Fearfulness
18. Allergies,
19. Frequent influenza
20. Arthritis
21. Anxiety
22. Irritability
23. Depression
24. Reduced memory
25. Low libido, sexual drive or interest
26. Lack of lust for life and/or food
27. Excess hunger
28. Low appetite
29. Panic/anxiety attacks
30. Irritability, impatience, quick to anger

Humans are omnivores. I don't think it is right to see paleo promoted as "low-carb". Fruits and vegetables should be eaten in abundance. The focus of paleo is not restricting carbs, but not eating grains, which is something that all hunter-gatherer cultures have in common, whether the majority of their calories come from meat, or from plant foods. Humans do not need a certain ratio, but humans do need a balance of (the good kinds) of carbs, fat, and protein, instead of being deficient in any of the three.

For example, there is a common practice among paleo dieters of drowning vegetables in butter because it is perceived that the addition of fat makes the vegetables healthier. This is false and promoting this practice is in fact very counter-productive to weight loss. if you constantly add a lot of butter to your food you will become dependent on its taste and flavor rather than growing to appreciate the flavor of the vegetables. When I was vegan I liked to add lots of margarine to my food, and I became fat as a result.

It's not that carbs or fat makes you fat. It is mainly, and I do not apologize to anyone who refuses to accept this, an issue with how many calories you are eating. This is why we see tremendous weight loss success on both low-fat raw vegan and zero-carb carnivore diets, despite how extremely different they are from one another.

Add more fruits and vegetables, avoid high-calorie toppings/condiments, and control your portions so that you are eating less. If you can't do that, you could always exercise more. Michael Phelps eats a huge amount of food, the reason he is not morbidly obese, is because of how active he is.

One reason for the weight gain(Robb Wolf touched on this in one of his podcasts) is that your gut may be healing and you are only now fully absorbing the nutrients that you have been ingesting. When you remove all of the gut irritants (gluten, grains, legumes, nightshades, etc) there is a possibility of weight gain, even though your insulin sensitivity may improve. This is just another possibility to consider, if you're gaining most of the weight in you're belly region may indicate a cortisol issue, in which you'd need to get certain things under control. Your high training load, you may need to reduce it even further(I know this is hard). Make sure you're getting plenty of sleep, 8-9hrs/night, and try to reduce the stress in your life. Hope this helps!

Let me recommend before you go to your doctor and ask to be tested for hypothyroid, PLEASE spend a couple hours reading through the Stop the Thyroid Madness website. Most docs have only the most basic (and pretty useless) knowledge and training on thyroid. They usually order the TSH test -- the thyroid stimulating hormone test -- which test they admit is often inaccurate, and ... oh yeah, it's NOT measuring thyroid hormones at all! It measures the pituitary hormone that is sent out to prod the thyroid to work. (Imagine if you will, the pituitary if the farm wife yelling out the window that lunch is ready. The docs say, if your TSH is "normal" (she yelled), then that proves the 'farmhands' have been fed (i.e., the thyroid has gotten the message AND acted on it. This is very often NOT the case!) Stop the Thyroid Madness has a list of the tests you need, and how to understand the results, and even a letter to take to your doc to invite him to accurately test and treat you, if you need it.

Well well well worth your time!

Good luck!

6 hours of sleep with a 3 hour nap is not the same as getting a good night sleep. You should be getting 8-9 hours of sleep or more, preferably during the darkest hours of the night, in a completely pitch black room. Also make sure your stress levels are under control. These two things are very important.

As for diet, you should be focusing on getting yourself back to health and not worry about weightloss right now. This means don't restrict carbs, but keep carb intake to yams / sweet potatoes rather than fruit to control fructose intake. Other than yams / sweet potatoes, eat lots of greens like kale, chard, etc.

Keep up your fat with those sources, it sounds like you are doing pretty well. Make sure you are drinking adequate amounts of water.

Keep out all the potential allergin / inflammation causing paleo foods (nightshades, nuts, seeds). You may want to even look at cutting out eggs for now.

Have you looked into a possible iodine deficiency?

Hold off on the workouts for now. Just walk around or do some light hiking to stay active.

Are you getting adequate sunlight daily, and if not are you supplementing Vitamin D? If so, how much are you taking? What about fish oil?

I am 5'4 so only a little bit taller... my goal is to achieve 120-ish, at the moment I weight 145 so much more than you, but I would not call myself "chubby". I have just a little bit fat around midsection and legs I would like to see gone. Is there a chance that you have unrealistic goals for your body? Are you too focused on weight instead of health and general "look" (can you see strong muscles, defined lines? do you have a healthy, but not too thick fat cushion?)?

I think the body may be really confused when we change too much too often. Most of the times you can see health results only after months, the system needs to have the time to get used to new way of eating/living. Sudden weight lost is not a signal that "finally something's working" but might be a signal of body's shock, some unbalances that cause the lost.

I would focus most on being and feeling healthy, strong and energetic. And let the body figure out what is the optimal weight for it.

edit: oh, and also - if you are a hard core athlete, you must be pretty well muscled-up. Which means that you should weight more to show it! you are not one of the "skinny fat" ones.

Perhaps your "bodyfat setpoint" is broken, leptin resistance or another cause.

Intermittent Fasting and forced Calorie control worked me me to target fat, then when I was at my desired weight I let go

once I started gaining, I simply IF a few days until back to target weight. Much later now, I feel my system is repaired and I only eat when I'm hungry

So many people are quick to eschew the low-fat approach to losing weight but based on my experience with low-fat/higher carb paleo and low-carb paleo I've been most seccesful with the low fat approach. I don't think low carb works for everyone so you just have to do with whatever works for you.

My wife is Japanese and tried low-carbing once and she just wasn't able to tolerate not having rice in her diet.

I have also gained weight (fat) eating mostly paleo/low-carb...and it coincided with a lot of muscle gain as a result of a regimen of heavy lifting (and eating). It appears that with the added muscle my body is comfortable with some extra fat to support it. Given your workout regimen, you likely added some muscle as well, and it may be that you need more fat to support your increasingly muscular frame.

In short, although we are eating "naturally" as best we can, some of the workout regimens many of us subject ourselves to may not be so "natural." My body likely wasn't made to support the kind of muscle that I have put on it, so it needs a little more fat to compensate. I think if you stop killing yourself to lose these few pounds, you might start feeling much better.

Good luck!

HyperCortisol? Addisons?

Crossfit and heavy dietary changes are stressful

Potentially Also undiagnosed celiac? I'm suspecting that I've developed celiac or a stronger intolerance now, as even miniscule amounts of wheat set me off, feeling sick and glutened

The strenuous workout schedule has probably been slowly draining your adrenals. It sounds like you are nearing complete adrenal exhaustion, especially with the orthostatic hypotension (lightheadedness upon standing). For adrenal and thyroid support, you might try Natural Sources Raw Adrenal and Raw Thyroid supplements. Both are made from dessicated pig organs and have been useful for my adrenal exhaustion and hypothyroidism. For fatigue, you might also try D-Ribose and L-Glutamine.

Perhaps this will be of use:

http://www.plantpoisonsandrottenstuff.info/content/elimination-diet.aspx

Also:

Dr. Kurt Harris':

http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/2009/8/27/how-to-lose-weight.html

or Peter Dobromhylslkyj's

http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/search/label/Weight%20loss%20when%20it%27s%20hard%201.

Dr. Kwasnieski's Optimal Diet ratios for losing weight and his recommendations of eating eggs, bone broth and offal have been very helpful for me.

Peter Dobromylskyj explains a good deal about Dr. Kwasniewski's dietary recommendations.

I follow Dr. Harris' list for what to avoid:

http://www.paleonu.com/get-started/

Hope this helps some.