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Alicea gains muscle and manages mental health on the carnivore diet

November 3, 2022 No Comments

Alicea lives in northern California. She’s 52 and struggled with eating disorders since she was 15 years old. While she was never obese, she still struggled with bulimia, bingeing, and purging. At one point, she got down to 107 pounds, which isn’t much for her 5’ 7” frame. Alicea often thought, “If someone could just tell me what foods I should eat, I could figure this out!”

She grew up believing fats were bad and would binge on chocolate-covered nuts and vegetables, admitting that she was a carbohydrate addict. Alicea also became addicted to exercise as a way to burn off all the extra calories. Her situation is a good example of the saying that “you can’t exercise away a bad diet.”

Alicea did try a plant-based diet but gained weight on it and did not stay with it. She experienced joint pain, anxiety, and depression over the years, and was “on a lot of diet pills, also, in my 30s. I think going off those caused depression too because I was on Phentermine forever.”

In 2014, Alicea weighed 150 pounds and wanted to stop thinking about food while losing some weight. She was “keto for a while… It was helping to some degree.” However, she found that “I was using food and sugar; I was addicted to it, so any emotion that came up, I was still eating it.”

Alicea was “in the keto space” in September 2020 and listened to the Joe Rogan podcast with Dr. Shawn Baker. She “figured I would try it, and I actually hid it from my husband for at least a week, because I thought he, or anybody, would think ‘uh oh there she goes on a crazy, you know, her eating disorders are back and this is nuts’ because I didn’t know anybody in my real life that was doing it.”

She noticed that the more she got rid of sweets, the more “the urges for all the sugar stuff goes away.” In a week or two, she thought, “Wow, there is something here!”

Alicea notes that her “recovery is so quick, it’s like ridiculous.” Her current diet is about 70% fat and 30% protein, and she maintains her weight at 145 pounds, with 18% body fat and good muscle mass. She eats two meals a day, including eggs, pork rinds, eggs, and red meat. She prefers flank steak and tri-tip over ribeye and avoids liver.

Alicea doesn’t have any more cravings and attributes that to “my insulin is really low and I don’t have the carbs coming in for my cycle and hormones to go nutty, and being in 12-step programs, talking my stuff out and not running to food for my emotional release.” She also has had “a lot of counseling in my past, and working on myself” and acknowledges that it did help.

Being carnivore is now part of Alicea’s identity, and she says she “doesn’t see other things as food anymore…the obsession and compulsion is completely gone; it’s amazing!”

 

Kassandra reverses a lifetime of obesity

August 2, 2022 1 Comment
kassandra1-min
Before: a good acne day…
kassandra2-min
Before: forced photo at my largest

My name is Kassandra and I’m 35 years old. My mother and I nearly died during my birth because she had untreated gestational diabetes. She passed out and I was pulled out with forceps unresponsive. I survived in nicu because the nurses taped together two incubators since I was a very large baby. 

I stayed large through most of my life, starting my first diet when I started public school. 

By my mid 20’s I was 270+lbs, and I had PCOS, lipedema, keratosis pilaris, bad acne, and extreme  joint pain. 

Lost 100 lbs in my late twenties biggest loser style. My legs didn’t shrink much but I felt better because I was thinner. 

Then I watched “Sugar: a bitter at truth” by Dr. Lustig and gave up sugar for 3 months. 

10 months the later, I welcomed my first happy accident son into the world. 

I eased up my sugar restrictions but still restricted calories and over exercised. Couldn’t lose weight. Blamed it on the birth control so I stopped it and got another happy accident. 

My second pregnancy had complications because of extreme weight gain and failed glucose test.  Then I tried keto at the permission of my OB and stopped gaining weight. Had a healthy baby.

 

Listened to a bunch of YouTube lectures from keto conventions and heard about carnivore.  I still wasn’t gaining but couldn’t stop binging so I looked up what little I could on carnivore and tried 90 days.  That was over 2.5 years ago. I’m leaner than Ive ever been in my life. No more PCOS, acne, or joint pain. My lipedema is shrinking and reduced a lot. Keratosis has reduced 95%. 

 

I can’t weigh myself because I still struggle with scale anxiety but I’m a S/M (dress size 6/8) and I spent most of my life in XL/XXL so I feel like I have a new body with more energy in my thirties than I had in my teens. 

Nanci heals from osteopenia on the carnivore diet

July 20, 2022 2 Comments

Hello my name is Nanci.  I am 66 years old a mother of 4 with one wonderful stepson and a grandmother of 9.  I was an RN and retired in 2016.  I have been married to a wonderful man for 43 years and for many years has served also a pastor’s wife for over 30 years.  


For as long as I can remember food has been a huge part of my life.  I practiced using it for comfort early on.  I first started a weight loss program when I was in high school.  Weight Watchers.  I weighed 140 lbs and was 5’8” tall.  I have always loved sweets.  I ate homemade meals growing up but also processed foods.  


My weight really started to climb when I started having children in my 20’s.  I got as high as 275 when I was carrying my third child.  I went back down to 220 and through the years crept up to over 300 lbs with the highest being 312 Lbs.  


I have tried over 20 diets in my lifetime but have never been able to stay on them for longer than one month at a time.  The diets were always low fat high carb diets.  I was starving on them.  I have been Carnivore for over 2.5 years that is still unbelievable to me.


In 2016 I retired because my knees were so painful.  I needed knee replacements.  I could no longer work.  I have cerebral palsy so my condition was more complicated and finally went out on disability.  Around the same time I heard about the Keto diet.  Diet Dr was all over the internet so I started following their approach to weight loss.  I also listened to Dr Westman a Cardiologist out of North Carolina and Keto United a group out of West Virginia. 


I lost weight like a rock.  Other benefits were: two weeks into the diet, arthritic pain was gone.  One month on the diet the 3+ edema in my legs was gone and two months into the diet my stasis ulcers were all healed up and I no longer had to wear surgical stockings.  I had a terrible fungal infection under my toe nails and it took two years to heal but that finally is completely gone. 


After a few years I found I could not loose anymore weight on keto.  I know now it was because I was having too much plant sugar and keto treats.  I also enjoyed listening to Dr Ken Berry and Neisha, his wife.  They made keto simple.  Then fortunately for me I discovered Dr Baker on Joe Rogan and he was talking about the Carnivore diet.  So I started listening to him and his VIP guests.


In January of 2020, Shawn started a Carnivore challenge for the month of January and in March of 2020 I joined Carnivore.Diet.  The varied meetings are so informative and the coaches are amazing.  They taught me so much and I soaked up the meetings and learned so much from the coaches and community.  


I initially gained weight on the Carnivore diet.  I was in a panic but Shawn’s platform and the coaching that I received there helped me stay on a steady course.  I learned that often we have to heal from the inside out first and that was certainly true for me.  At the beginning of 2020 I was diagnosed with osteopenia.  


I was also pretty debilitated mostly sitting in my chair at home.  Shawn encouraged me to exercise just a little at a time but to stay faithful.  I would do my very simple workouts while I was involved watching the Zoom meetings.  People were so encouraging. 


Approximately one year on carnivore I had to get down on the floor because I dropped a control under the bed.  I previously would never try to get down on my knees because I could never get up without assistance but no one was home to help me.  


I was able to get down and up again without difficulty, something I had not been able to do for over 15 years.   It encouraged me to stay faithful.  I also had a coach, Stephen Thomas aka The UK Carnivore, who helped target my exercise to help with my specific weaknesses as well as coach me with the carnivore way of eating. 


Just before starting carnivore I was diagnosed with Osteopenia.  I got another dexiscan  approximately two years later and it showed no osteopenia.  I also got a Calcium (CAC) test that shows the buildup of plaque in and around your heart arteries and my score was zero.  I was over the moon. 


When people ask me if I will continue with Carnivore Diet or go back to the Standard American Diet I always answer “There is nothing to go back to”.  I have never felt so good. 

Kelly Heals From Hashimoto’s With Ketovore Diet

July 16, 2022 No Comments

 I’ve always held health and fitness as top priorities in my life; very active and played sports growing up; I continued to lift weights and work out throughout my adult life. My diet has always been a standard American diet with a mixture of “healthy” veggie-based and fruit-forward foods. Never thought my diet was a huge contributor to my health since I’ve always been a petite, fit body type; I was more focused on exercise as the path to health.

From 2019-2020 I began feeling “off” (brain fog, extreme fatigue) and finally got a comprehensive lab panel done in August 2020. The results were that my thyroid hormones were off and thyroid antibodies were very high. I was diagnosed with Hashimotos and went on NP Thyroid, and told to go on an elimination diet, then migrate to a paleo-type diet. I saw immediate health improvement, felt amazing, and eventually decided to restrict myself to no sugar and no grains, leaning more into mostly eating animal proteins.

I continued to feel massive improvements in my gut health, as well as my mental and overall health, with no real Hashimotos symptoms any longer. As I continued to feel improvement in my Hashimotos symptoms, I explored the idea of only eating meat via Dr. Ken Berry and his wife, Neisha, who was able to fully manage her Hashimotos via a ketovore diet. I’ve been able to manage my Hashimoto symptoms and continue to heal my gut issues with this way of eating!

Stephen healed Ulcerative Colitis on Keto and Seborrheic Dermatitis on carnivore lifestyle

February 15, 2022 No Comments

Stephen has been a personal trainer since the early 2000s but says he didn’t learn about holistic healing until his health declined in 2009. Stephen began noticing blood in his stool. The problem progressed until 2010. Stephen sought medical treatment and was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis– or ulcers in his colon.

Stephen says he ended up in the hospital three times for his ulcerative colitis. There were days when he was in the hospital, he could not eat or drink and often vomited. Beyond his ulcerative colitis diagnosis, Stephen also struggled with seborrheic dermatitis, inflammation of the skin, as well as sinus inflammation which he took medications to treat.

After his multiple health issues arose, Stephen began looking into alternative health treatments, including changing his diet. Soon after his ulcerative colitis diagnosis, Stephen followed the paleo diet, which morphed into a low carbohydrate or ketogenic diet. Stephen’s doctors were not supportive of his diet. Stephen was told to eat more fiber and less saturated fats. During his last hospital stay, he even had a doctor force him to eat a cookie before he would allow him to leave.

However, Stephen couldn’t deny that the fewer carbohydrates he ate, the better he felt. After spending some time following the keto diet, Stephen had his bloodwork tested by his doctor, who was shocked to find his ulcerative colitis levels were gone. His doctor told him, “keep doing what you are doing.”

Stephen began to lean in on his health and, in 2013, experimented with an all-meat diet. He says at the time, a local health food store was running a special on rotisserie chickens, so he only ate chicken for a few months– and felt great! Stephen experimented with other diets, including vegan and vegetarian, but says they both made him feel ill. He couldn’t deny that his body felt its best when he only ate meat, so in March 2020, Stephen committed to following the carnivore diet.

Stephen says he usually felt fantastic immediately while eating all meat, including his previous experiments. However, in 2020 he did experience some transitional issues, mainly diarrhea, which he thinks may have been linked to the supplements he was taking at the time. Since then, Stephen has only been thriving on the carnivore diet.

Stephen describes eating one meal daily, usually, after he gets home from work, around nine to eleven in the evening. Stephen loves eating steak, burgers, ground beef, and ground organs.

Stephen is a health coach and personal trainer and has been able to help his clients transition to the carnivore way of eating. Stephen says his advice to his clients usually starts with trying the paleo or keto diet before transitioning to all meat. Stephen says most of his clients come from a background of digestive and autoimmune diseases, and the carnivore diet benefits them.

Stephen is grateful that he has not only been able to change his health but the health of his clients, and he is looking forward to continued healing on the carnivore diet.

Jason’s animal based low-carbohydrate diet and weight training reversed metabolic syndrome

December 30, 2021 No Comments

Jason has been on a journey to optimal health for over a decade. Jason is now a health coach but previously taught biology and is very knowledgeable about human health. In 2009, Jason went to his doctor for a check-up, where he discovered that he was overweight at 254 pounds and had high blood sugar and high blood pressure. Jason says, “I decided then and there I wasn’t going to have those health issues.”

Jason embarked on a health journey that began with eliminating grains and flour. From there, Jason learned about the dangers of seed oils and soon eliminated them from his diet. At this point, Jason was eating a paleo-like diet of fruits, vegetables, and meat. Then Jason started to focus on eating more meat and began to follow the ketogenic diet.

Over several years, Jason lost sixty-five pounds but was still on a journey for optimal health. Because of his background in biology, Jason understood the role certain foods played in his health and started to understand the importance of meat– particularly red meat. In 2018, Jason discovered Dr. Shawn Baker and filmmaker Chris Bell, who are both advocates of the carnivore diet. Jason began to follow what he called a diet that is adjacent to the carnivore way of eating.

Jason uses the example of bullseye when explaining what he eats and why he feels it is essential to consume those particular foods. In the middle of the bullseye is red meat. Jason explains red meat is the most nutrient food with a high source of heme iron and other nutrients. Jason says most of his meals revolve around red meat because he understands its importance for his health.

Jason then describes the first ring around the bullseye contains other non-red meats like fish, chicken, and eggs, which are nutritious but not as nutritionally dense as red meat. Jason says he often eats eggs, particularly liquid egg whites, and enjoys salmon a few times a week. He also says the first ring contains dairy– if an individual can tolerate it. Jason eats cottage cheese on occasion as well as other cheeses.

The third ring contains in-season fruits and lower-toxic vegetables. Jason doesn’t eat many fruits or vegetables but will enjoy them occasionally. He explains that while fruits and vegetables are better than processed garbage, neither is nearly as nutritious as red meat.

Jason also works out twice daily and compares exercising to brushing his teeth. He says, “most people brush their teeth not just once but twice a day.” Jason typically exercises with cardio in the mornings and lifts weights in the evenings. He also likes to take outdoor walks multiple times a day.

Jason is very passionate about health and nutrition. He has even written books on the topic. His first book “Live Like an Athlete” is available on Amazon, and as of this interview, he is currently writing his second book, “Eat Meat Not Wheat.”

Jason says he advises anyone seeking a meat-based diet to focus on protein goals first. He explains that most individuals will feel completely satisfied and less likely to have cravings if they eat enough protein throughout the day. Jason is excited to continue sharing his wealth of nutrition knowledge and looks forward to many years of health and wellness.

Leigh has eliminated her seizures, gained energy and now lifts on a ketovore lifestyle

December 30, 2021 No Comments

Leigh’s life has completely changed since she started following the carnivore diet. Leigh has been suffering from partial seizures since she was just eighteen months old. She says her doctors tried many different medications and treatment plans for years, but nothing worked. Leigh would still have two to three seizures a month. Leigh also struggled with her weight, having weighed 250 pounds at her heaviest. Additionally, Leigh was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and suffered three miscarriages.

To improve her health, Leigh says her then-partner started researching diets that might help with Leigh’s seizures and PCOS. Her partner found the ketogenic diet, which Leigh began to follow. Leigh says initially, she struggled with the “keto flu”– flu-like symptoms usually associated with carbohydrate withdrawals. However, after she got past the keto flu, she began to feel better and lose weight.

To keep the momentum going, Leigh transitioned from the keto diet to a meat-based keto diet, sometimes called ketovore, before finally settling on the carnivore diet. Leigh says again she struggled with the keto flu during her transitions, but her health began to improve like never before.

Since finding the carnivore diet, Leigh has gone from two to three seizures a month to just one minor seizure in a year. Leigh has also been able to treat her PCOS symptoms with her carnivore diet more than she could with any medications.

Leigh has gained energy from following the carnivore diet and now lifts weights and runs. At her lowest weight, Leigh got down to 140 pounds (over one hundred pounds lower than her highest weight). Leigh says she struggled with her diet during the covid pandemic and put forty to fifty pounds back on her body. However, she has noticed that her body fat percentage has not changed much despite gaining weight– just two percent! Leigh believes the carnivore diet has changed her body composition and made it easier to gain muscle while losing fat.

Up until recently, Leigh followed a one-meal-a-day eating plan. She says many of her meals consisted of steak, shrimp, and other meats. Leigh is currently trying to get pregnant, so she is eating more often and increasing her fat intake. Now, she eats a lot of eggs, butter, and heavy whipping cream in her coffee and two to three ounces of cheese every week.

Leigh’s husband and stepdaughter have also joined her on her health journey. Leigh says her husband followed a vegan diet when she first met him. Now he has turned completely around and is a carnivore diet follower. Leigh says her daughter is not a carnivore eater, but she does eat more meat these days, and Leigh enjoys teaching her about the benefits of eating healthy.

Leigh is a member of the Revero community and says she and her family gained a lot of insight from the website. She says Revero is the first place she looks to when she needs advice on products and best practices. Leigh is thankful she found the carnivore diet and is now in more control of her health. She says, “it’s definitely life-changing.”

Doug lost weight and improved weight with his fiancée on a ketogenic and carnivore diets

March 22, 2021 No Comments

Doug is a former football player who was taught to eat more to perform better. By the time Doug was twenty-one, he had weighed nearly four-hundred pounds. Doug describes his previous diet as eating anything and everything. He knew something had to change.

His dad, who works with medical professionals, told him about a doctor he was connected to that used the ketogenic diet to heal. Doug was intrigued and embarked on a “lazy keto” diet (as he called it) that lasted a few years. He says his eating was better, and he lost eighty pounds, but he often ate highly-processed foods because they were still considered “low-carb.” His weight also stalled, and he began to wonder if there were other things he could do to help himself continue to lose more weight.

He then joined the “Ketogains” program online, where he learned about strength training and the dangers of seed oils and other highly processed foods. Doug said the Ketograins program was his first window into the risks of processed food, and he began to understand how even processed foods labeled as “low-carb” can be detrimental to his health. Doug started working out and looked into what he was feeding his body.

Doug also says Dr. Shawn Baker influenced him. He had followed Dr. Baker online, even before Dr. Baker became an advocate for the carnivore diet. Doug was intrigued as Dr. Baker shared his experience and experiments with the carnivore diet. Through his research and learning from others, Doug slowly transitioned into a carnivore lifestyle. He first eliminated seed oils, nuts, and seeds. Eventually, he let go of vegetables, and by July 2017, he was thoroughly a carnivore diet follower, and since then has not looked back.

Doug says his conversion to the carnivore way of life was gradual, so he didn’t experience many issues transitioning. He says he was never really a fan of eating vegetables, so giving them up was easy. He’s even learned to enjoy raw meat and organs.

Doug is very active in the carnivore community. He moderates the “World Carnivore Tribe” online alongside other big names in the carnivore community. Doug even met his future wife, Katie, through the group. He says finding his fiance through his carnivore lifestyle was never something he expected, but when they began talking about their values and health, it was apparent they were made for one another.

Doug is very well connected to many experts in the carnivore community and says he loves sharing his knowledge and experience with others. His advice for anyone looking to start the carnivore way of life is to “experiment.” He says there is no one way to be a carnivore; the most important thing is to “learn more about your body and how to feed it.”

Doug is grateful for all the carnivore way of life has brought to him, including his health and his future wife. He loves that he gets to be so active in the carnivore community, and his future wife encourages him daily.

Michael has benefited from 5 years of Keto and 2 years of the Carnivore diet

February 23, 2021 No Comments

Michael is a Naturopathic student with a history of using ketogenic diets to cut weight for Muay Thai competitions. He had been on a ketogenic diet full time for the previous five years, when he saw Shawn Baker, MD interviewed on the Joe Rogan Experience. He decided to give it a try!

At the time of his interview, Michael had been on the carnivore diet for about a year, with great benefits. He had chronic pain in his upper back and hip that had improved with functional rehab but wasn’t ever 100% better until switching to carnivore. After switching, his pain was gone “Probably in about three days.”

Michael says following the carnivore diet “was actually really easy for me. I’m used to being the odd one out always ‘it’s Mikey, he’s crazy, let him do whatever he wants’ but I’ve been going strong for about a year.” He also noted that his family are hunters and had a freezer full of venison.

Michael did find his diet took a bit of getting used to as far as what was on his plate, saying “It was kind of odd at first; I used to always make just huge meals full of vegetables, very little carbs, maybe tomatoes and avocados, and meat. Cutting out the vegetables seemed a little naked.”

The more Michael learned about the science behind it, the easier it was to understand how it would work.

Michael didn’t use any of the keto junk foods like keto cookies during his ketogenic diet phase but did top off his foods with organic olive oil or coconut oils.

He now eats breakfast once every 2 weeks, but usually fasts until 1 pm, then eats a meal of ribeye, short ribs, or sirloin. For dinner, Michael enjoys a different cut of meat and a lot of butter. His girlfriend makes bone broth from the bones, and also follows a carnivore diet. Michael says that he only eats liver about every 10 days, or when he decides it’s time to.

Michael enjoys raw dairy, as in his home state of Arizona it is legal to buy raw butter or raw milk. He says that he enjoys buttermilk and salt.

Michael fasts periodically, up to eight days, though he’s working up to 10-day fasts. He experiences lots of energy during fasts, some cleansing symptoms, and doesn’t need as much sleep. Michael loses about a pound a day when fasting, and his sense of smell is heightened, which he says is fascinating but also makes food smell better, which is sometimes challenging.

Since childhood, Michael had trouble waking up and would “hit the snooze alarm ten times and take naps during the day. Lots more energy now, no problem waking up at all!”

Michael also notes, “I’ve definitely increased my muscle endurance” and is able to do longer Jiu Jitsu sessions. He will certainly be putting that extra energy to work soon as a Naturopathic Doctor!

 

Filiz went from Keto/Carnivore to full Carnivore Zero Carb life and experienced a new way of being

February 21, 2021 No Comments

Before becoming a carnivore, Filiz was on a standard Turkish diet, which included a lot of meat but also a lot of carbs. She experimented with vegetarian, plant-based diets but felt better eating some meat.

In time, Filiz got started on a carnivore diet because she had three friends that experienced the benefits of the carnivore diet. “Particularly one of them. He lost a lot of weight, and I saw that and thought ‘I want that for myself.”

 

Within a week of her meat-only diet, she noticed no more bloating or discomfort after eating. Previously, she would also wake up in the morning with pains in her gut and would have to rush to the bathroom. After going on the carnivore diet, “Those issues were gone, and that alone was sufficient to keep me compliant with the diet.”

The second benefit Filiz experienced was more energy: “I’m sharp in the mornings, instead of groggy and you know, dragging myself out of bed, which is nice so there’s that mental clarity. And then, before, after meals with carbs I used to feel drowsy. That used to steal from my productivity. No more so-from the moment I wake up until the time I go to bed, just the same, which is amazing!”

On a typical day, Filiz eats beef and lamb and doesn’t eat much fish because she doesn’t find it satisfying. She occasionally eats pork, but finds “I just don’t feel great on it.” She does eat eggs occasionally but finds that if she eats too many she gets a burning feeling in her gut. Similarly, if she eats too much dairy she gets acne again, so she only has a little occasionally when she misses it.


Filiz finds her carnivore diet provides a simplicity that she appreciates, saying “What I like about this way of eating for the most part is how easy it is and how liberating not having to take a long time to, you know, prepare, chop, cut foods or even have to think about your meal until you start feeling a little rumbling in your stomach, yeah!”


She was a “ferocious snacker” before carnivore, and Filiz enjoys “not having to think about snacking every six seconds. It’s great to not have to think about food all the time.”

Filiz found her need for sleep has decreased too. She says, “I was always a big sleeper. I think I sleep about an hour less on carnivore, and if I undersleep for any reason I can still power on during the course of the day within reason, and that’s also great.”

Filiz recommends giving the diet time to work. “My impression is the only people who have gone on carnivore and not decided to stick with it are those who tried it for a short while and get overwhelmed with the transition symptoms, and decide to go back to how they were eating.”

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