Allison lives near the Appalachian mountains in western Maryland. She had heard of the meat-based elimination diet about six months before trying it, but was “super resistant to it. I was like, ‘there’s no way, I can’t eat this way, boring’ but when I hit rock bottom, what I felt like, I said ‘I’ve tried everything else; I’m gonna do it.”
In The Beginning
Allison was always used to being “on the go, on the move” despite having been “sickly” since an early age. She says that “in high school, it really flared up; I never made it through a single year without getting a medical waiver because I’d missed more than the allotted days.”
Allison went through college “with a box of tissues all the time” as she was always feeling congested. “No one could ever tell me why I was always sick like this.”
Menses and Cysts
After she started getting her menstrual cycle, Allison also developed golf-ball to baseball-sized chronic cysts on her ovaries. She later learned that refined sugars would trigger the cysts.
Medicines for the cysts caused her anxiety, leading to more medications.
Acne
Allison had cystic acne her whole life and assumed that this spectrum of problems was normal for women.
The Vegetarian Years
As a teenager, Allison gave in to peer pressure and became a vegetarian for about seven years. After becoming a paramedic, she was exposed to different peer pressure: “luckily in my first year there, the guys kind of shamed me into eating some steak and bacon, and I thank them to this day for that.”
Weight Issues
“I gained weight as a woman. I’m entering my 20’s and I’m starting to gain weight…low-fat everything, skim milk, whole wheat pasta, ground chicken instead of ground beef, and I got nowhere. I couldn’t understand; I was eating low-fat everything and working out really hard.”
Despite cooking all of her own food, using fermented foods and sprouted grains, and freshly baked bread, Allison continued to have trouble maintaining her weight and avoiding symptoms. She began developing rashes and low-grade fevers, and her acne got worse as well as her gut function. Her doctors tried eight different antibiotics, plus steroids, over just one year.
Alpha-Gal
In 2021, she was also diagnosed with Alpha-Gal, which causes a red meat allergy.
From Chocolate to Carnivore
After a chocolate binge and weeks of suffering in 2022, Allison decided to commit to following a carnivore diet, though she initially ate only chicken and turkey because of the Alpha-Gal. After three months, she no longer tested positive for the allergy and began adding red meat.
“I have a healthy three-day cycle with no pain, no bloating, no acne. No doctor ever told me that my cycle wasn’t supposed to be hell week once a month.” She sleeps better and has better energy, and her weight is stabilized.
“I’m addicted to feeling good now. I don’t eat for social or emotional or addiction reasons anymore. I eat just to nourish my body, and that’s it!”
