My wife and I became vegetarian back in 1992, then advanced to vegan and ultimately macrobiotic. There was no internet back then, so we were limited to books and the folks in that community. It was for ethical reasons at first, so I gained weight, because I ate nothing but french fries. Later with Macro we focused on health, and I lost a lot of weight and actually felt good. But when we heard that both the wife and daughter of Macro guru Michio Kushi had died of cancer, and discovered the same about the guy who owned the Macro restaurant we frequented, red flags started to go up.

Around 2000 we discovered Sally Fallon/Weston A. Price, which led to other info, which ultimately led to my first attempt at low carb in 2004. Fell off the wagon and started back in 2009 and still living paleo.

Our advantage is that while we become passionate about whatever we delve into, we are always questioning, always seeking the truth, and that continues. If truth is your ultimate goal, you'll find it. The way I see it, with all of the information available on the internet today, those whose paradigm (lifestyle, political, etc) has become a religion will be unable to find truth.

I was vegan for 3 years, mostly because I thought it would help me look good naked (Aka "animal rights!") So glad I finally found paleo. Still avoid CAFO meat cause it's disgusting, but don't mind murdering grass-fed ruminants. They're just so damn tasty.

A lot of us. I was even a raw low fat vegan for a while. I got better.

See also these earlier conversations.

http://paleohacks.com/questions/5720/how-many-people-here-started-as-vegetarian-vegans http://paleohacks.com/questions/3643/what-led-you-down-the-paleo-path

I was vegetarian a few months in my teenage years, and vegan for a whole month a few years ago. I was at the Ancestral Health Symposium last weekend, and during Denise Minger's presentation, she asked for a show of hands of former vegetarians; there were a LOT! Glad paleo is working so well for you! :)

I was vegan for a decade.

Then I was vegetarian for three more years, until I read four hour body and did slow carb and lost 15 pounds.

After struggling with it morally, I gave paleo a shot and felt absurdly healthier and lost 10 more pounds.

After a decade of veganism, the 30 day Paleo challenge didn't sound that daunting.

I too had a vegetarian "phase". I was vegetarian for 3 years, starting with being vegan for about 6 weeks. Trying to be vegan, I felt like I wanted to die every day. Constant bloating, digestive problems, aches and pains, no energy, etc. I was constantly craving foods and eating a lot of extra calories all the time.

I started adding in foods to see what would help, and in retrospect (knowing what I know now about nutrition), it was all protein and animal fats: eggs, cheese and seafood. I called myself "vegetarian" even though I ate these things.

This diet kind of worked for a while, though it was a hassle to find eggs and seafood for most meals. I learned (the hard way) that I need protein with almost every meal. If I skip protein, I get onto an energy / blood sugar roller coaster. I did this for a couple of years, thinking it was "normal", but in retrospect I was probably doing damage to my body.

Finally one day I was playing volleyball and a friend of mine was grilling london broil on a grill. I just couldn't take my eyes off of it. When he offered me some, I ate about a pound of it, and felt like someone had given me a shot of go-fast juice. I had great energy for the rest of the day, rode my bike home, slept great, and have been an omnivore ever since.

I was vegetarian from 14-20 and vegan for a year after that. Vegan made me so fat, I'm still recovering 17 years later. I thought if I could still get fat being vegan that I must just be biologically determined to be that way... hah.

I was a Vegetarian/Vegan dabbler for about 8 months or so two years ago... didn't take long for me to get the signals loud and clear from my body and my horrendous mood swings that those were NOT the diets for me... UGH.

My husband and I were both macrobiotic, then mostly vegan for about 2 to 3 years in our mid-twenties. I gained about 20 pounds and was diagnosed hypothyroid? I don't think it's a coincidence.

Wow.. I was only vegan for a year and that felt like an eternity lol. For me, giving up meat was easy... it was the animal rights stuff that was just too exhausting for me. I still believe in animal rights.. I don't eat CAFO meat and such (unless eating out, who knows where that stuff comes from lol).

I was vegan for 33 years (since I was 15). I had no idea that my issues were due to veganism because I basically didn't know anything else. In one sense it was a big decision to go Paleo, but in another sense, there was something so natural about it. And it was certainly confirmed when the first meat I ate was a wonderful filet mignon from Marin County grass-fed beef. It melted in my mouth (and apparently in my gut, too, because I never had any issues).

It only saddens me to realize that I could have felt so much better so much earlier in my life.

I was vegetarian for 4 years and dabbled in veganism. I DID lose weight as soon as I switched, but I think that's because I switched at the same time I went on a deployment. I'm 5' 5 1/2" and got down to 114, which was way too thin for me. I ended up evening out and staying between 120 and 125 for the rest of the time as long as I worked out (which back then was treadmill or elliptical for 45 minutes five days a week and then full-body weights on the machines 3 days a week - and these weren't heavy weights). I had 18% body fat and was in good shape and thin, but I got sick every year for the holidays. Never failed, if it was Christmas or Thanksgiving (or sometimes both), I had a stomach bug that had me on the toilet and hugging a trash can.

I quit my vegetarianism in Fall 2010 after a friend introduced me to crossfit and paleo. I'd love to say I jumped straight on the paleo bandwagon, but I didn't. I just started eating meat again (and all the crap that came with it... aka fast food) and got up to 140 by the end of my spring semester and couldn't put my wedding ring on because it was too small. I've started eating a paleo diet a few times and the farthest I got before was 11 days, which were an awesome 11 days. I'm on day 4 now and always love the drop in water weight in the first few days, but I'm hoping to go for the whole 30 this time and after that eat a mostly paleo diet with crossfit workouts.

I never felt like I was lacking when I was vegetarian, at least not until close to the end. I didn't really miss meat, but I think now that's because my parents cooked everything well done, so there wasn't much flavor in the meat I had growing up. After having my first medium-rare steak, I don't think I'll ever go back.

I was vegetarian and vegan too for a long time, and also did low fat raw vegan (fruitarian) diets in an effort to cleanse (of about 20 lbs haha) and be enlightened...all I was was moody and psychotic with a tummyache...

i was a vegetarian for about 20 years; vegan on & off, but not for long stints... i could never stay away from cheese for very long.

I still avoid CAFO stuff.

I was eating mostly vegetarian (but never really identified as a pure vegetarian) for about a year, then started doing raw vegan, lasted about a week when I was incapable of sustaining the manual labor I was doing at the time. I added in raw eggs and noticed improvement immediately so I was like screw this, started searching around the net and voila.

I was a vegetarian for many years, and a vegan for a few.

When I became a vegetarian, I thought it would magically make me slim. Big disappointment there! When I became a vegan, I thought that would surely be the answer, and I would be perfectly healthy and perfectly slim. (Because cheese = fat = fatter me, right?) More disappointment!

Paleo has been a godsend for me.

I became vegetarian at age 10 due to ethics and a large vegetarian peer group (best friend, sister, cousins etc), at age 18 I literally woke up one morning with clear certainty in my mind that my diet was preventing me from being healthy. That day I started eating meat and I never looked back.

I was vegetarian for 2 years then switched over to veganism for 2 more years... gained soo much weight in the process! even during my organic-eggs-eating-vegetarian years :( I felt like i was never full, so i ate huge portions, and yet get hungry so easily after. I didn't realize it was a problem with the food i was, or wasn't eating, i just thought it was me emotional eating, so i kept going with the vegetarianism. I thought incorporating smoothies/ more veggies and fruits into my diet would help with the weight loss, but to no avail. Now i have decided to go back to meat eating, especially organic meat. I am happy to say that I have never felt so mentally-aware and energetic! Don't see much weight loss yet but hopefully that will come naturally in the near future! i just know i wont be going back to veganism anytime soon!

Yup. I think we all have a mindset that makes us want to be healthy, but our preconceived notions say veganism/vegetarianism is the way to do that. And now we know better!