This summer I did something most would find unthinkable, preposterous or just downright crazy; I gave up all sugar, grains, dairy and any type of processed food, all in the name of good health. Gone became my morning bowl of cereal and my Friday night pizza. No more bread. No more ice cream. No more pasta.

Suddenly, all of the foods I loved eating for so long were eradicated from my life. The Paleo Diet replaced these delicious things. The Paleo diet, or even better, the Paleo lifestyle, means eating simple and naturally like our Paleolithic ancestors did: just meat, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. That’s it.

If you are an avid user of Pinterest as I am, you may have seen some Paleo recipes pop up at some time. The popularity of a natural foods diet continues to grow as more people experience the rewards of eating like a caveman; both weight loss and health improvement.

What started out as another one of my “diet experiments” that random week in the summer, ended up truly changing my relationship with food and ultimately with my body. Getting rid of sugar from my diet especially affected me. Before I became Paleo, I ate sugar everyday, sometimes even in every meal. It hides in most of the food we eat. In fact, I believe sugar stands as the culprit behind all of my past “diet experiments” gone wrong. I harbored an actual addiction to sugar. I even went through withdrawals from the evil substance the first week I went on this diet.

I spent days extremely low on energy and experienced bad headaches, all because I was craving this “drug” I kept putting into my body from the time I was little. After that awful first “detoxing” week, I really started to receive the benefits from a diet where I ate only natural foods. I no longer faced the guilt-filled carb and sugar binges where I would eat everything in sight (sometimes when I wasn’t hungry) and then fall asleep for 12 hours. My skin cleared up and I felt healthier in general. I’m still not a morning person, but waking up became so much easier. Best of all, my cravings for sweet treats disappeared. I no longer remain under sugar’s spell.

But some days become hard and my willpower to resist “The Enemy Foods” diminishes. In all honesty, staying on this diet proves one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done. Persevering becomes especially difficult when family and friends constantly eat the very things I can’t have. I learned to become pretty creative, though, like substituting zucchini noodles for pasta or eating lettuce wraps in place of taco shells. I even brought a fruit bar to a birthday party to avoid eating cake.

Yeah, I mess up. Yet each time I mess up makes me realize why I love eating this way; I feel so much better when I’m not filling my body with garbage. To me, this diet isn’t about being completely and perfectly healthy 100 percent of the time, but more about learning how eating nutritious and healthy foods can truly “heal” you and provide you with the nourishment your body longs for.

 A lot of people debate about the unwritten rules of Paleo, but personally I think as long as you are eating the main foods, the little things are up to you. Paleo prevails as a customizable diet, which I think causes it to work long term for so many people.

Through this diet I grew to believe Hippocrates was right when he said, “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.”