When I was in my junior year of high school, I decided to go paleo. For those who don’t know, paleo is a diet that is basically eating as cavemen did. I did the diet for around three months and lost around 20 pounds from doing it.

The main reason I did the diet was because throughout junior year my diet was completely terrible and consisted of mainly Panera mac n’ cheese for dinner most nights, and lots of bread. At this time my father was doing the diet so I figured I'd have someone to help me out with what I needed to know, food wise. By far this diet was one of the most difficult things to do in my life.

To do paleo, you need to cut five aspects of food out of your diet. Those five things include no gluten, processed sugar, grains, dairy, and legumes. I was ready to give up after three days to say the least. Although, the biggest thing I gained from this experience was reading the labels of food for everything.

Reading labels made me realize the amount of things that I wouldn’t want to go in my food, I actually eat very often. Being paleo also made me develop an intolerance to dairy products and some gluten products. This kind of sucks, but also I’m glad at the same time because I don’t eat those foods in large amounts anymore.

Going paleo also made me much more aware of my health, and made me want to be a healthier person overall. While I do love carbs, there are other ways to get carbs other than bread and pasta.

For breakfast on this diet, I usually ate fruit. My favorites were bananas, pineapple, and honeydew. Sometimes I would have bacon and potatoes with it but usually it was fruit with black coffee. One of the biggest things that changed in my life at this time was my coffee order.

Previous to being paleo, I ordered coffee with two creams and two sugars, which isn’t too unhealthy but it could’ve been healthier. At the beginning of the diet I would order coffee with almond milk but eventually moved to just drinking coffee black.

For lunch, I usually ate lots of vegetables, usually green beans or carrots, potatoes, and either chicken or pork. One thing that made this diet bearable was that I could still eat potatoes, which are super high in potassium. Potatoes are my favorite food group, I could eat them in any form they are quite a versatile food.

Another thing that made this diet bearable was that I didn’t have to calorie count. Calorie counting was a really difficult problem I had with other diets that made them seem impossible to do. With paleo I just ate until I was full and didn’t over eat.

What I had for dinner varied; sometimes I ate a salad with balsamic vinegar as dressing. Other nights I had similar things to what I ate for lunch. I got protein from eating lots of chicken because I don’t really like other meat.

My experience with this diet was overall very good and I was happy with myself after I stopped doing it. It's definitely changed the way I eat two years later. Instead of drinking whole milk I usually go for almond or coconut milk. Almond milk is even higher in calcium than regular milk.

Other things that I do now as well is that I read the labels of absolutely everything I buy for food and I try to buy organic when possible. Although it is not the most cost friendly thing to do, I definitely feel better eating foods that are processed, which is what matters in the end.

Some benefits that I experienced from doing the diet was obviously the weight loss, but also I found that I slept better and longer at night when I didn't eat foods high in sugar. My skin also got much clearer because I cut dairy out which is linked to making your skin more breakout prone.

If you're looking for a diet that will give you quick results without having to calorie count I definitely recommend paleo.