My vote is for adding some (lots?) carbs back into your diet! If you want to be more orthodox about it, add lots of fruit and tubers. Or come join us PHDers and add white rice.

It's not inconceivable that you will eventually adjust to the lack of fiber in your current diet compared to your previous diet, but the question is why do you need to? Stay off the wheat for now, but add back some starch and see how you feel.

The sweating is a good sign actually. After going Paleo I managed to sweat properly after 20 years of having trouble sweating.

Regarding your IBS-A-like symptoms (constipation/diarrhea Alternate), I think the problem is that you either had a damaged gut flora beforehand that Paleo exposed, or that Candida found an opportunity during your transition to the new diet to indulge itself. I would suggest that you add hard cheeses from goat/sheep to your diet, and do your own lactose-free probiotic goat or sheep yoghurt (fermented for 20-24 hours). Then, try Yogi's Kombucha Decaf tea, chamomile, and Greek Mountain Tea if you can find it (in Mediterranean stores). Also start consuming some local raw & unfiltered honey, sauerkraut, and other fermented foods. Make sure you drink enough water too. This should take care of your bowel problems within a few weeks, as long as you are not battling mutated critters (in which case antibiotics might be needed, get tested at that point).

I'm guessing you are already drinking/cooking with bone marrow broths, eating offal (especially liver), and cooking with coconut oil, right?

According to your previous question (Getting heavier on paleo?), you were underweight in an unhealthy way.

My hypothesis is that I might just be re-gaining some basal muscle tissue that I lost as a vegan now that I'm eating way more protein (I was really, really skinny... not in a good way)

I think your hypothesis is a good one. No doubt you were malnourished.

It turns out that people who have suffered from caloric restriction must go through a period in which they store proportionally more fat than would otherwise be healthy. After a while (at most a year according to this study) body composition regularizes.

My opinion is that your malnourishment, even if it wasn't strictly caloric restriction, has put you in this position where you may have to tolerate being a little on the fat side until your body adjusts and starts taking your new healthy diet for granted.

Therefore, I would not recommend, as others have, to start adding back in starch. I think you should concentrate on getting the most nutrient-dense food you can (i.e. full-fat meat) to most quickly restore your health.

The brain fog and constipation sound to me like symptoms of insufficient fat, or possibly of eating a middling amount of carbohydrates that is preventing keto-adaptation. Can you give us a rough idea of your macro-percentages?

ETA: You might also think about micronutrients. For example, if you are low in magnesium, that could cause constipation and possibly even IBS symptoms.

I'm going to honor your question as asked. About 4 months into ancestral eating, I had a crisis of confidence about it too. I didn't want to go back to my old way of eating, but I finally did.

If you believe there are things you could add to your diet to feel better--and you know what they are--then try them for a week. If you get amazingly better, you were right! If you feel the same or worse, we're back to what many of us suspect--your gut flora are very unhappy and you may have changed too much too fast. You might do better following Melissa-huntgatherlove's suggestions to eat lots of plants and some fish until you feel better.

Now, in my case I got sick as a dog when I tried the old foods and that solved my uncertainty once and for all. I now understand that this happens to be the best way of eating for me. And since no one else mentioned it, my fussy gut is the happiest it's ever been with daily water kefir which also happens to taste delicious to me. :-))

I don't think you're the only person to have experienced more IBS style symptoms when switching to paleo. My personal experience was that I was really sick from celiac disease for about a year before it got so bad I saw a doctor and was diagnosed. Since then, I've gotten seemingly even more sensitive to trace amounts of gluten as I heal up. But if I had switched to paleo before my celiac disease got really bad, I could see going from what I thought were normal bowel movements (type 2, but at least on a regular basis, every few days, even though that's actually constipation) to alternating between extreme ends of the Bristol scale.

This is all speculation, but I think our bodily systems make the best of whatever they're given, and with enough time, can reach a steady state that is manageable. So if you do happen to be gluten sensitive, then with gluten in your diet you could have reached some steady state in response to that, but it wasn't healthy. Now that you've perturbed the system, there's a shakeup and things are all over the place as it's trying to reach equilibrium again. I'd say give it more time to see what your steady state paleo feels like, and then, if you still felt better with grains, then switch back and see how it feels. Make tweaks and give them time (on the order of months). That way you'll find what works for you.

Also, if you felt better on a vegan diet than you do now, chances are your body prefers more fiber and carbs. I'd still keep out the sugar, veg oils, grains and legumes, but eat more veggies. I was surprised to see how meat-heavy your diet is now. The thing about paleo is that it isn't one size fits all. The books you read give a general starting point, but there are lots of tweaks that can be made to fit the individual. In your case, it sounds like a tweak towards more veggies (big ass salad for lunch, loads of well-cooked or fermented veggies with some meat, especially beef and fish, for dinner, and add more veggies to your omelet). I agree with folks above about staying away from difficult to digest veggies, like the cabbage in coleslaw. Sauerkraut is much easier to digest. I guess if I were you, I would think of it more like eating vegan (lots of vegetables vegan, not bread and french fries vegan) with the addition of some meat and sea food.

One last thought: grains include a lot of prebiotics to feed our gut bacteria. There was a study done in non-celiac people who went on a gluten-free diet for a month, and while inflammation was lower, their healthy gut bacteria were reduced. The authors thought the problem was from lack of prebiotics. So add more mushrooms, apples, oranges, and onions to your diet and see if that makes you feel better.

Good luck! Please follow up so we can see what tweaks worked for you and what didn't.

I wonder if you are low on Vitamin D?

It could be simply that you replaced grains/oats/corn with vegetables that are giving you trouble. Actually, most people who aren't used to eating a lot of veggies and suddenly take up raw cabbage and cooked onions are going to have some digestive issues.

I don't know what you were eating as a vegan, whether it was a whole foods diet of mostly vegetables, or if it was primarily fruit and soydogs, but if it's the latter, then you really are transitioning and it's not "paleo" that's making you sick, it's just that you need to grow some gut bacteria so you can digest veggies, and this is something you'd want to do whether you were vegan or not. Take some probiotics, eat some yogurt, avoid troublesome veggies for a time (broccoli, cauliflower, garlic, onions, etc.).

It could be the meat, people always say that vegans lose some meat-digesting enzyme and eating meat becomes nigh impossible. But as a vegan for many years and a vegetarian for many many more, when I suddenly started snarfing down the meat, there wasn't a problem at all, and you were only doing it for a few months, so I doubt it's that.

Sounds like you made an extreme change from vegan to mostly carnivore and your gut bacteria didn't know what to do with the new food. It might be wise to shift to a more plant-based paleo diet and gradually add in meat and fish.

Also food sensitivities to ANYTHING are possible, including meat, cabbage, and all kinds of other things. You might try cutting out meat for a bit and seeing what happens and eating fish instead (or vice versa). A good probiotic might also help.

Fasting is another thing that causes bowel weirdness in some people. Bowel inflammation can also be caused by the sudden disruption of SCFA (short chain fatty acid) production, which are primarily fueled by all the fiber-rich plants in your old diet. Lucas Tafur has theorized that the gut bacteria population will eventually adjust to making SCFA another way, but maybe it doesn't work for eveyryone.

Your problem is that you've been eating Atkins in a Loin Cloth, not paleo. Switch to tubers (2 lbs raw weight is a good start) and meat (1-2 lbs raw weight) and ditch the vegetables as well. 100-200g of liver per week is a good target. Eat egg yolks but not the whites. You're gonna be gassy with the tubers due to the fiber/resistant starch, but it's better than explosive diarrhea. Skip the fasting as well, since it's not at all necessary. Good luck.

I believe a gut makeover is needed. GAPS diet, perhaps?

If you were vegan I can see you needing some help to digest meat.

• Chew your food (specially meat) until it's a pulp (completely unrecognizable) in your mouth.
• Try drinking homemade bone stock when you eat meat. If you don't have a crockpot, make chicken stock overnight while asleep.
• Eat more fat, but add it slowly (maybe less protein, since I see you're not eating a lot of carbs).
• I assume your vegetables are well cooked? If not, they should be. And oh boy, unless you're eating liver and other offal, cooked rare, you need a hell of a lot more vegetables in your diet!

By the way, why are you IFing if you get hungry? That's no good. Eat if you're hungry.
Speaking of IF, I love IF, however, in your case, I would suggest something different: eat smaller meals throughout the day (no, no, no, just listen), whatever amount of meat you eat right now, split it up into smaller meals throughout the day. If this helps your digestion get better, then try less and less meals daily, and see how you do.

About health issues: are you taking any vitamin D3? It's irrelevant if you felt this way while eating vegan. Where are you from, is it Winter right now? Take your vitamin D3 (at the very least 5000 ui a day).

Any chance you're hypothyroid (even with normal labs)? Sweating, brain fog, constipation, no weight loss..!

If you eat any of these vegetables often: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=47 then remove them and see if you'll get better (but you'll probably still need to take thyroid hormones, if you are hypothyroid). Or, make sure they are super, super well cooked.

Edit: To answer your question, yes Paleo is for everyone. We are omnivorous, we can eat meat and vegetables. Some people might choose certain things (fish vs meat for example, certain vegetables vs another ones, or even ignore vegetables if they eat a good variety of offal on a frequent basis) and some people might need to eliminate certain things (eggs due to allergy, avoiding goitrogens due to hypothyroid), it may vary by age and gender (lots of fat for growing children and pregnant/nursing women), but the basic principle stands. It's for all humans.

Now if you want a fight between Paleo and Veganism (I'm not saying you do, just putting that out there), then Paleo wins, you simply cannot be a Vegan without modern intervention like B12 vitamins in a pill, and Vitamin A and D from animal sources. Vitamin A from vegetables is not the same thing. And while your body can make vitamin D from sun exposure, it's not enough. I've also noticed that most vegans eat very low-fat, and fat (specially animal) is necessary for good nutrient absorption. For example, eating vegetables with bacon fat or butter is better than just eating those vegetables alone.

I'd say that you should perhaps allow yourself more time to adjust without worrying about the cosmetic affects. If you were super-lean then gaining a bit of fat right now won't kill you - if you sure it's fat you're gaining? Just concentrate on getting your body up to speed, possibly actually eat more, the broths, fermented stuff, nutrient dense organs and veg. Once you're digestion settles down, you can start looking sensibly at how the diet is affecting other things - but until then it's not really a fair comparison. It should get easier.

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I can count on one hand how many normal bowel movements I've had since starting the diet. I'll go 3-4 days without so much as an inkling to go #2, then I'll either be completely constipated, or I'll have to make an Usain Bolt-esque emergency sprint to the toilet to make sure I don't have an accident in public. If digestion is any indication, I'm as unhealthy as they come.

I've not lost a single pound, and in fact, I've done nothing but get bigger

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1. I've been on Paleo for 4 monthes and I've never had an issue with not being able to have a bowel movement. It's like clock work since changing to the Paleo lifestyle.

2. You say you haven't lost a single pound. Are you exercising? If you are trying to lose weight than you have to do something other than eat less. If you are I didn't notice it in your question.

My thoughts in no particular order.

1) What is your goal? Lose weight? Be healthier? What's your starting point?

2) You say you were vegan 7 months, paleo 4 months. What were you before? Standard American Diet? Vegetarian? Why did you switch to vegan? The hormonal problems? Or did that come after being vegan?

3) Bowel movements. You're not going to have the same number of bowel movements on a high meat diet like you're on. That's normal. All those bowel movements before with vegan was because of all that undigestible stuff you were eating+bacteria. You're digesting almost everything now and don't have as much gut flora. The constipation you are having could be lack of magnesium, so that's something you might want to look at. Also add more fats, or put more vegetables in your diet to get the fiber.

4) Gaining weight. Have you checked your bodyfat? There was an overfeeding study (so not 100% applicable) in JAMA recently http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/307/1/47.short where people were given varying amounts of protein. Low protein gained more fat, lost lean body mass, and lost weight overall. "High" protein gained substantially more lean body mass, gained more fat and gained weight overall. Extrapolating this for you, you could be staying the same/gaining weight, but because it's lean body mass vs fat. Looking only at the scale, you think you're not improving, but you're actually doing good.

5) Sweat. As others have mentioned, this is actually normal. You're supposed to sweat a lot. It's really only in the modern era that people think it's a bad thing. Mainly due to marketing (buy our product now!). I wear undershirts more now, and avoid shirts that highlight it. :)

6) Brain Fog. This could be lack of carbs, maybe push it up a bit with sweet potatoes and the like. Usually the brain switches over to ketones for a big chunk, and that should go away, but you could just need more carbs in your diet. Or you could be sabotaging yourself with the booze (paleo accepted or not, it does interfere with fat burning when in ketosis).

7) IF. Why are you IF'ing? This leads back to #1, what your goals are. In general, you want to do one thing at a time. Switch to paleo, see how things work out, then do IF'ing. If you do a ton of different things at once, you don't know what's helping and what's hurting.

edit - looks like some of these are answered in the other posts after I did this, so you can disregard them as needed. :)