I intended to start this journal a bit earlier- I am on day 4 of going cold turkey with Paleo and the last 3 days have been relatively unpleasant.

As I said in my introduction thread this isn't my first ketogenic rodeo.
I was weight training last time which mean I was looking more at macros and food quality didn't really get a look in.
I did the Dave Palumbo cutting diet, it is totally brutal- basically meat and fat with a tiny amount of carbs.
I still can't eat whole earth peanut butter since I did it two years ago.
I was also doing a cheat meal once a week.
In 8 weeks I lost about 10lbs of fat.

My goal is to get down to around 200 lbs.

I am currently about 230 lbs- down about 7 lbs in 4 days, but that is mostly going to be water- so as far as I am concerned my fat loss starts now... or nowish at least.
Fat loss isn't my main goal of the diet though- I have a long standing wheat allergy and want to see how Paleo deals with that as well as for general health.

So as I said, I am now on day 4 and most of the unpleasant symptoms have gone.
I had headaches, nausea, low energy levels and such- nothing too bad but I think having done this before (and a more extreme version of it) made it easier.

So far today my diet has been:

Breakfast:

200g of turkey steak, based in a bit of olive oil & grilled
Large salad (tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, salad onions) with a few nuts, dressed with balsamic.
Banana

Lunch: Left over stew from the previous evening, 1/2 a peach.

Afternoon snack: small handful of nuts and the rest of the peach from before, some greek yoghurt (less than 100ml)

Dinner:
200g steak, large salad, asparagus.

I feel pretty great all things considered.
My exercise routine is pretty good- I workout in the gym a couple of times a week, walk/hike a lot, walk the dog, cycle 20-30km twice a week.
It has always been the diet that has been the struggle to sort out rather than the exercise side of things.

No photo's for now.
I will post some another time.

Anyway... thanks for looking in.

Hmmmm... so this is interesting.
I had a piece of 90% Lindt dark chocolate - about 20g in total (or 1/5th of a 100g pack).

Now an hour later I have really bad neck & shoulder pain, my whole body feels terrible though.
I don't know if correlation = causation here but it is quite intense.

Maybe I had too much?
Or should I be avoiding it altogether?

Judging by your body's reaction to the chocolate, avoid it.

It's best when your new to the diet to be strict with yourself and stay as Paleo as possible. Once it's been a month or so, you can then see how your body reacts to some non-Paleo foods. There are quite a few people here who are ok with dark chocolate. I personally avoid it as it's not Paleo and it taste pretty damn awful to me