Better late than never... :)
My boyfriend has been paleo since before we met, crediting it with eliminating the bipolar episodes he used to suffer and enabling him (in conjunction with carb back-loading, ironically) to take full control of his weight. I've always been slim and felt fit, but was nonetheless interested by the health benefits described in the literature I was made to read! I have since become 99.9% gluten free and have to report that my physical and mental energy levels have risen enormously - no more struggling to string a sentence together at the end of a 5 hour teaching shift!
I still eat white rice, rice noodles, rice cakes and sweet potato, usually after training, since carbs of this nature are good for muscle retention and recovery. I also refuse to be without cake, so cook one per week, usually with gluten free/almond flour and, of late, dextrose as a sweetener if required (glucose - more useful to the muscles than the fructose of cane sugars), and have a bread maker in which I make gluten free bread which I store in the freezer as a treat - never as the bulk of a meal. Plus cream, yogurt and cheese! We recently invested in a Vitamix machine, which I HIGHLY recommend for ease of creating lovely things to your particular specifications (including 30-second ice-cream, with cream of choice, dairy or otherwise, or semi-raw, piping hot soup in 6 mins... it's magic!), whatever your diet.
I thought it might be worth outlining some key principles of paleo here, since it may be confused with other the diets mentioned above. *Disclaimer*: I'm no expert, just an enthusiast!
1. Grain AND legume(beans, lentils, chickpea...)-free, with a particular emphasis on being gluten and whole grain free. This is because whilst grain husks technically do contain most of what is potentially nutritious about the grain, they also contain antinutrients and toxins.
2. No hydrogenated or otherwise processed oils and no E-numbers, artificial sweeteners or vague additives - generally speaking, avoid all processed foods.
3. Use coconut (for higher temperature) or olive oil for cooking and dressing food - especially avoid rapeseed and sunflower oil, which contain excess omega 6, counter-acting the omega 3 sorely lacking in the modern diet.
4. If consuming dairy, chose fattier products where possible, which are lower in sugars and in lactose, to which many are unknowingly intolerant, and higher in that which most effectively fuels and satiates us over extended periods of time - fat.
5. Freely [within reason:)] consume: vegetables, eggs, nuts, seeds, meats (preferably from well-kept, grass-fed animals who haven't been pumped with antibiotics! We order in bulk direct from a paleo-friendly local farm for amazing prices) and fish (wild-caught ones from further down the food chain, like mackerel, are best, to avoid chemical contamination)
6. try to eat some fermented products like natural yogurt, kombucha, kimchi, etc., which are beneficial to the gut, replicating some of the natural effects of our less sanitary food-consuming past.
I'm sure there are many points I've missed!!
Xx
