Carla heals Hashimoto’s and is off all thyroid meds on a Carnivore lifestyle

Carla’s Background and Early Eating Habits

Carla has never been a person who ate the Standard American Diet. Growing up in the 1970s, her mom experimented with eating vegetarian throughout her childhood and teen years.

Later in her twenties and thirties, Carla said she continued to eat what most people consider healthy. She ate a lot of chicken and vegetables. She even joked with her husband when they married that she didn’t know how to cook a steak and never tried because she ate so much chicken.

Carla’s Health Struggles and Elimination Diet

Carla had her fourth child at thirty-seven and said she experienced a very rough recovery. Her hands and wrists began to hurt so much that she struggled to hold her new baby.

Around the same time, her mom was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease. Her mom’s doctor explained that the disease was hereditary and that Carla and her siblings, who were experiencing various symptoms, needed to give up gluten.

Carla says initially giving up gluten helped her body. She even went on to have two more children. However, she replaced gluten with other high-carb foods such as rice, corn, and potatoes. The catalyst for her health problems occurred in 2012 when her adopted son died at two years old.

Carla says the stress of the grief and loss caused her adrenals to go haywire. She began losing her hair, and her menstrual cycles became very heavy.

At that point, a functional doctor she worked with suggested she stick to an elimination diet. She was allowed to eat meat, sweet potatoes, rice, and lots of vegetables. Carla says though she lost weight, her energy tanked. She brought her bloodwork to a friend who is a nurse.

Her friend was shocked that Carla had not been officially diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease. Carla then fired her previous doctor and began working with her friend to balance her thyroid.

Trying the Autoimmune Protocol Diet (AIP)

Carla began taking medication specifically for her thyroid and was starting to feel better. Then around the age of fifty, her body began to go through menopause, and her hormones tanked. She started looking into the Autoimmune Protocol Diet (AIP).

She says she went all in on the AIP diet, which includes a lot of fruits and vegetables and a small amount of meat. Still, she did not feel well.

Discovering the Carnivore Diet

At the end of 2017, her son heard Dr. Shawn Baker on the Joe Rogan podcast, and she began to learn about the carnivore diet. Her son had been suffering from food allergies and migraines since the age of four.

When he started the carnivore diet, Carla thought it sounded crazy and couldn’t believe he was only eating meat. However, within a few months, he went off all his medications.

Carla began experimenting with the carnivore diet in early 2018 and, that summer jumped fully in. She credits listening to Kelly Hogan and Jordan and Mikayla Peterson as wonderful sources of information. Carla says her first month of living the carnivore lifestyle was tough.

She experienced leg cramps and very intense sugar cravings. However, after the first initial month, Hashimoto’s symptoms she had been experiencing decreased, and she gained enough energy to run a 10K race.

Benefits of the Carnivore Diet for Carla and Her Family

Carla says after approximately eight to nine months of living a carnivore life, she cut her thyroid medications in half. A few months after that, she cut her pills into quarters. Carla’s husband also started following the carnivore diet in early 2019 after seeing how well Carla and her son were feeling.

Today Carla mostly eats beef, bone broth, seafood, and coffee. She has experimented with adding foods, such as avocados, but doesn’t see herself genuinely returning to her previous ways of eating.

She says her advice for anyone looking to get started is to “give it six weeks and go all in.” She says she is proud that she has shared her story with others and has been credited by other women for showing them something that has changed their life.