Brian improved anxiety, depression, body composition on carnivore diet

 

Diet:

75% consists of beef, salt, and water.

25% consists of chicken, pork, fish, and eggs.

 

Exercise:

15-30mins of body weight exercises daily.

 

My whole life I considered myself a relatively healthy person. I had never had any significant weight issues, never had any serious health problems or injuries, and had always remained relatively active whether it was by playing sports throughout school or hiking in my free time. My body type had always been what I consider “skinny-fat”, and I always attributed that to my genetics as it seemed that no matter how intensely I exercised I never achieved the results I was after. When I joined the work force and got a desk job I still remained active outside of work, but slowly noticed that my body composition seemed to be steadily declining. I also was discouraged as I considered my diet to be basically healthy. I primarily ate chicken with a lot of rice, but then also at least once weekly would treat myself to foods like chips, crackers, cookies, doughnuts, and pizza as I thought on balance I was eating more healthy foods than not.

 

I had a lot to learn…

 

In October 2016 I developed an idiopathic illness that caused excruciating headaches, debilitating fatigue, muscle/joint pain, abdominal pain/digestive issues, chest pain, heart palpitations, muscle tremors, gastric reflux, among others. I saw countless doctors and specialists locally to no avail, and eventually ended up at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. None of the medical professionals could find anything abnormal or find a cause for all the symptoms. I should mention that in addition to all the physical symptoms I also developed significant anxiety/depression due to not just the pain, but in having no explanation for it.

 

After leaving Mayo and being told that hopefully my condition would just resolve itself on its own with time, I started experimenting with diet out of something like a desperate intuition. I tried gluten-free for a few months without improvement. I tried a plant-based diet for a few months which worsened symptoms. I then came across Jordan (and then Mikhaila) Peterson’s stories about their auto-immune disorders and how they resolved them, or at least significantly improved them, with the carnivore diet. So I gave that a try for a few months and to my immeasurable delight all of my symptoms went away. All of them.

 

After just three months I’d never felt better or subjectively looked better in my life. When I had my health risk assessment at work the technician said I had the best measurements/markers of anyone she’d ever seen. The doctors said, “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.” especially considering my situation over the prior couple of years. On the few occasions I tried reintroducing other foods, all of the symptoms came back. The only “negative” lab values that I had were high cholesterol markers, but after listening to podcasts with Dr. Saladino, Dr. Baker, and others, and also through performing research of my own I’ve come to at least question if not fundamentally doubt our current understanding of cholesterol. I’m suspicious of the guidelines/recommendations for what “normal” cholesterol levels should be and the justification for them, but that’s another story.

 

Through countless hours of listening to podcasts, reading dozens of medical articles, and pouring over the vast array of testimonies of others that have seemingly found themselves in a similar situation to mine, my best guess for what explains my experience in 2016 was that after 22 years of the Standard American Diet (SAD) my immune system finally reached its tolerance threshold and then crashed resulting in the so called idiopathic illness I endured until finding relief these few years later with adopting a carnivore diet.

 

Words cannot express how grateful I am to Jordan and Mikhaila Peterson for introducing me to this diet (and to Jordan also for the other work he does on both the psychological and intellectual fronts which has proven to be most illuminating), to medical professionals like Dr. Shawn Baker, Dr. Ken Berry, Dr. Ted Naiman, Dr. Paul Saladino and many others who are championing these causes of optimizing health using their knowledge and expertise to fortify those of us not as well-versed in the science, and to the carnivore community at large. There is something truly heartening to have found a group of people that are trying to heal, thrive, and support each other using a method that we’ve all come to by one way or another.

 

The journey has just begun, and I can’t wait to see where it leads.