The Struggle with Weight and Health Issues
It was November of 2016. I’d had a stressful half decade with lots of difficult situations arising from my business and personal life.
I had always had a problem keeping my weight down, and for the previous 6 months, I had been on a “healthy diet” of porridge and fruits for breakfast, and dry meats such as chicken with lots of vegetables and rice for dinner. Basically as dry and fat free as possible.
I was skipping lunches and breakfast a lot of days as it was the only way to bring down my weight, even though I exercised 5 days a week for an hour. Things like swimming, cycling and walking every day.
I’d got from around 15 stone down to 13 which was awesome, and I looked great. But things were not going so well inside.
Various doctors from the age of 35-40 had issued stern warnings about blood pressure which never seened to go below 140/80 no matter what I did or how much weight I lost. Same for blood glucose which stayed at around 6 fasting, which my doctor told me was prediabetic. And of course cholesterol was high.
I tried including more grains, pasta’s and breads, all wholemeal and made my own spelt flour bread at home. I used only healthy vegetable oils and avoided any kind of saturated fat like the plague. Meat consumption was minimal.
The Breaking Point: Nervous Breakdown
Then in November of 2016 I had a nervous breakdown. It was the most awful hideous time of my life. It started with panic attacks that got worse and worse until I could not cope anymore. I was walking the city all night as I could not go to bed. I could not be in the same room as my daughter. The doctor gave me SSRi’s and I binned them.
Herbal Remedies and Medications
I went on a long mission, researching herbs and spent a year trying to treat myself with Passion Flower, Vervain, Chamomile, Lemon Balm. When I needed to I used diazepam which I sourced myself as the doctor refused to give it to me. It is a better option for occasional use than SSRI medication as not only does it work, it doesn’t require 2 months of use to start working.
The problems continued to grow, until I started having problems urinating. I could not pass urine and ended up in the hospital A&E. They found nothing wrong with me and I realised after some time it was related to the nervous breakdown.
Things carried on for 2 years or more and got so bad I decided to close my business as I could not cope anymore.
My business partner insisted I took a break, which I did. My wife and I left my daughter with my mother and we went to Greece.
Meat Consumption and Symptom Improvement
Now in Corfu, I stumbled across something completey by accident. There was not a lot of vegetables and grains there, but a lot of meat, kebabs and grill-houses. So relucatantly and with concern I was eating very fatty meat, mostly lamb. Some pork.
I started to notice a decent improvement in my symptoms which at first I thought was down to the holiday but in the end I realised was not. Every time I ate a meat heavy dinner I felt better.
So we got back from Greece and I decided to keep eating the same way and used a lot of yogurt, salads with tomatoes and of course lamb.
There was an improvement in my symptoms, the urinating became easier and i felt less anxiosu but I was still unable to handle much, not sleeping and having to run away from simple situations that I could not deal with.
[H2] Ketogenic Diet and Mixed Results
This carried on for a while until my ongoing research let me to stumble across the Ketogenic diet. Worried but desperate for help I tried it.
I had mixed results with it. I did lose a lot of weight but in the end I think I was feeling worse. I kept a diary and as the diet went on I was finding that many days had entries about being very stressed or the urination problem getting worse.
I was eating a lot of vegetables on Keto, mainly because I found myself very constipated if I did not. I was also having to use Flax seeds to stay regular.
There mental problems were not going and I had terrible acne across my back, plus lots of other minor things like joint pains and stuff you put down to being older.
Trying Different Supplements
I’d been buying every klnd of supplement imaginable as well, as I was convinced after my trip to Greece I could resolve the breakdown that had now lasted nearly 3 years with diet. But I did not know how.
I used minerals, amino acids, vitamins, nootropics, you name it. None of them worked well and I had bad reactions to some of them, especially B vitamins and things like Inositol.
Discovering the Zero-Carb Diet
So my research led me away from the risk taking Keto dieters and I came across some proper nutters. The Zero carb people.
There were some pretty wild claims in this community – but I already knew somehow that meat had a part healing effect on me, incidentally only Beef and Lamb, not pork or poultry.
I had been studying and researching and analysing the nutritional composition of the beef and lamb as compared to chicken and pork, desperately trying to pinpoint what it was that was helping me and recreate it with supplements. I failed again and again.
Experimenting with Different Vegetables
So in December of 2018 I decided, with nervousness to try a highly risky diet of just meat and fat.
I think within 3 days my general mood lifted massively. I started to notice the cheeky upbeat way I was speaking with people and how much I was smiling. I felt a lot more relaxed and was able to handle stressful situations and work without freaking out.
And most importanlty I started to notice at least in the daytime I was almost urinating with normal ease.
The tension in my body that was causing so many problems was easing up. The panic and anxiety were lifting too.
Surprising Results from a Routine Medical Check-up
I carried on with this diet for about 2 weeks and really believed it was going to cure me of my problems. However failure struck when I became so badly constipated I could not carry on with the diet.
I went back to lots of vegetables and managed to get my digestion moving but noticed that my anxiety was coming back and the difficulty urinating due to muscle tension was back as bad as ever too.
Discovering the Benefits of Avocado
I went in and out of carnivore and keto because of constipation, I did not want the veg because my nervous breakdown started to vanish without it, but I could not get normal bowel movements without it.
I noticed that in the period when I removed all veg, lots of other little things improved. My skin looked clearer. The aches and pains in my joints i put down to age dissapeared. My feet lost the cracked skin and nasty looking parts. My hair got shinier. My gums no longer bled when I brushed my teeth. The list went on.
My wife suggested I try removing the flax seeds because of the acne on my back and sure enough 3 days later the spots started to dry up. Well they were more like cysts really it was awful. A month later the scars still show although the spots are gone.
So for the past month I have been experimenting with different vegetables desperately trying to find some i can eat to keep my bowels moving. I was really upset to see so many zero carb people saying how much better their digestion was without plants. Mine stops and becomes backed up for days or weeks.
Everytime I introuduced any kind of veg ALL the symptoms of anxiety came back.
I haven’t been able to have a continuous run of meat only to see if it will eventually cure me totally but I can say that after 3 days most of my symptoms lessen by probably 70% which is massive.
I have discovered in the past week that Avocado helps me to go to the toilet, and it doesnt bring back my symptoms like vegetables so I am currently trying out a diet of meat and avocado only and it looks promising. I am feeling good and I feel like if I can stick to this I will eventually be totally cured.
Uncovering the Mind-Blowing Effects
I am still researching, i’ve read a lot of books about plants and I think I understand the mechanism of what’s happening when I eat them, but the whole thing has blown my mind. It’s totally nuts.
Questioning Traditional Dietary Advice
We signed up for a new doctor the other day, and on the form one of the questions was Do you Eat a Healthy Diet (this is lots of vegetables, fruits and grains and low fat).
2 years ago I was trying to follow that advice, now I look at it and think, jesus, the doctors are going to kill people with that advice.
Concerns Over the Vegan Agenda
I think the growing trend of this vegan agenda being pushed onto us is also very concerning for me. It worries me how the enire world, huge nutritional agencies and every healthcare system has managed to get this so wrong.
Oh by the way, one more thing. My new doctor wanted to take my blood sugar and pressure as a routine check they do on all new patients.
My fasting glucose which never went below 6 is now 5.1 and my blood pressure was read at 120/70. I was just shocked. After all the fat and salt I have been eating I was expecting high blood pressure.
Pending Cholesterol Check: Is It Worth Bothering?
I haven’t had my cholesterol checked yet, I am not sure it’s worth bothering really……
Nick
