Greetings Ladies and Gents,
     Well, well, I have just recently found this forum, for a close friend/personal trainer has kindly taken me under his wing as his Paleo-apprentice for the past five weeks of this summer.
    A couple of important facts that I have noticed about this diet:
  First of all, I have lost weight at a fairly healthy/normal pace.  At 5 feet 8 inches, I weighed 163 pounds five weeks ago.  This morning, I weighed in at 152 pounds.  That about an average of 2.2 pounds per week, and I'm certainly happy with that rate.
  Secondly, this diet has taught me how to cook!  I mean really cook! As a 22 year-old college kid (in a fraternity), my diet for the past three years has consisted of around 45 beers and the cafeteria hotline every week!  Indeed, the couple of weeks of the Paleolithic diet is a demoralizing week, for you feel as though every food and drink that makes you happy is prohibited.  However, this is simply not the case at all.  After five weeks, I have mademeals from Lamb Vindaloo and Thai Chile Octopi to raw sushi-grade ahi tuna with cucumbers and ginger sticks wrapped in roasted seaweed (I also have cheap meals all the time such as hamburgers, chicken, salad, and whatever spices I decide to throw in).
   Also, without sugar, tastebuds seem to become more sensitive.  The ability to cook has been a fantastic bonus to my experience with this diet.
   Ironically however, this summer I landed an incredible internship with a extremely popular high-end restaurant group.  On the plus side, I am allowed to eat at these incredible restaurants for FREE.  Unfortunately,   RESTAURANTS ARE WHERE THIS DIET GETS EXTREMELY TRICKY!!  When attending a restaurant, you must make the crucial decision as to how much of a "stickler" you want to be to the waiter, and how much you want to adhere to the Paleolithic diet. ALWAYS BE THE STICKLER.  You will feel better about yourself in the long run, trust me.  Now all the bartenders at these restaurants knows my diet and my prohibited foods and oils, and life has been much easier because of it...       
I told myself that I was going to start a diet this summer, and after searching through friends and reading material, I found my metabolism in the Paleolithic era. 
This is an introduction post, and I will begin to post some interesting recipes, my weight changes, and I am about to start experimenting with different weekly exercise regiments.  I look forward to the challenges, questions, comments, observations, and overall healthy weight loss that I hope to continue to see.  Thanks for reading.

Allowing dairy isn't that abnormal. Lots of people do it at first. I did. I even eat cheese sometimes if I can't help it (i.e. it's in a salad or something).

As for the alcohol... well, red wine is probably going to give you the best health benefits. The closest to paleo would probably be some form of hard cider, assuming it's natural. Apples ferment regularly when they fall from trees. Many wild animals are known to eat them. Lots of sugar though.

If you're just losing weight, then hard liquor shouldn't upset your goals too much, assuming it's infrequent. At some point, though, a goal of "losing weight" becomes "being healthy".

Drinking in large quantities does liver damage in the same way large amounts of fructose does. You stopped eating the fructose, so why continue consuming ethanol? Both will cause liver issues, and both will cause an increase in visceral fat. You can (and will) still have a "gut" unless you cut out a lot of the drinking.

If you must drink (well, ok if you must drink, you have bigger issues) then keep it down to 1-2 drinks per day. You're in college so it's tempting to go down a 24 pack of Busch Lite, I'm sure, but that's the worst thing for you. Try to stick to either wine or hard liquor without mixers.

Me, I DO probably have 3-4 drinks a week, so I'm not perfect either.

FIRST OF ALL, I would like to say that I have my own rules with the Paleo-diet.  I allow most cheeses occassionally, heavy cream very rarely, every now and then I will have a splenda-type sucralose alcoholic drink, NO LEGUMES, and I never use oil for any occasion.

Cheese can be in no way paleo; it's a neolithic substitute for meat, just as bread is a neolithic substitute for fruit and maybe fat.  If you want to include cheese in your diet, go ahead, but let's not pretend it's paleo.  Metabolically, bovine milk proteins were never consumed by paleolithic man.

Personally, I like water with my paleo foods, which to me don't need any special accompaniment.  I'd think if you wanted alcohol to go with food, though, wine might be the way to go.

Drinking thread with some useful links and colorful commentary:

http://cavemanforum.com/index.php?topic=1805.0

You are cutting out all the big nasties, and I'm sure you'll see benefit from it. 'Don't Pretend It's Paleo' is a bit of a running theme around here

Quick question, are you getting enough fat in your diet? Lots of new people to the diet do crazy things like throw away the egg yolks, and only eat lean chicken breast without the skin.

Animal fat is great and I urge you to eat as much as possible, as often as possible.

  Yeah, I believe I am getting enough fat,
         From all the hamburgers, eggs, salami (with no additives), butter, and other meats that I consume, I believe that I am getting enough fat.  However, I will admit that it is difficult to believe that eating a ton of fat will cause weight loss.  Despite the difficulty to grasp this concept, I am adhering to the high fat, medium protein, and very low carb. aspect of the diet. 

        P.S. I just watched the documentary "Food Inc." (it's on NetFlix instant watch). Just for fun.  It's entertaining.
       
         Any good recipes for lamb steaks?  Just bought a few at the farmer's market, thanks for all the responses, all of the comments have been very helpful thus far....

There is a thread somewhere on this forum by a guy called Dean, who ran an experiment on himself where his diet was 95% - 100% fat every day and over 5000 calories usually. He lost weight.

I only do about 50 crunches three times and week and eat two solid paleo-meals each day... I know for a fact that I am not at my natural lean body weight, should I continue to see weight loss results with this routine?

  Also, another big question that I have pertains to shellfish (more particularly "Little Neck Clams" and "Oysters").  I absolutely LOVE raw Oysters and raw Little Neck Clams, but I know they are a little high in Carbohydrates.  Will it severely effect my weight loss/ketosis if I decide to eat a bunch of raw clams or oysters for one meal very rarely (once a month)? Any thoughts?

    Answers to any of these questions will be extremely helpful, thank you.