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Evan E reverses ankylosing spondylitis on a carnivore diet

November 30, 2022 No Comments

Ever since Evan was young, he had an insatiable hunger that caused him binge eat, in addition to his other daily struggles of ADHD, OCD, brain fog and fatigue. When he turned eleven—embarrassed by his heavy frame—he decided to go on a diet. Following the conventional wisdom at the time, he started eating a low-calorie/low-fat diet, full of lots of “healthy” whole grains, seed oils and tofu. He lost 30 pounds, but describes his body composition as “skinny fat ” at the time. He also couldn’t help noticing that he was a lot weaker than his fellow classmates. Using sheer willpower alone, Evan struggled with yo-yo dieting and calorie counting throughout high school, but it wasn’t until he entered college that the real trouble began.

“Out of nowhere,” Evan says, “I became incredibly depressed, anxious and suicidal.” He tried exercising daily to combat his negative feelings, but saw zero improvement. Exasperated, he turned his focus to his diet, and in his research experienced the cognitive dissonance that goes along with learning that animal fat is an important part of the human diet, while also simultaneously being the main driver of heart attacks and cancer. In the end, the “experts” won out, and Evan persisted in following their low-fat/high carb recommendations—to no avail. “I just felt worse and worse—I wasn’t getting better at all.”

After years of declining health, a defeated Evan began binge drinking and eating candy to deal with his frustrations. He eventually was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis—an autoimmune condition that runs in his family that affects the spine. He would go on to gain 40 pounds, and when hospitalized with bruises all over his body, nausea, diarrhea and night sweats, his doctors told him that his symptoms were most likely psychosomatic.

Finally, in 2020, one of his friends—who happened to be on the carnivore diet—invited him over for a steak. After eating it, Evan was surprised by how satiated he felt, and ended up not eating for the rest of the day. He woke up the next morning still feeling full, so he decided to give the carnivore diet a try. After the first week, Evan had lost ten pounds, and while he didn’t feel great—he didn’t feel terrible either. “Within the next two weeks, all of a sudden my depression and my anxiety had vanished, my Ankylosing Spondylitis had gotten 90% better, the numbness in my hands was gone, my bruising started going away, my asthma went away, my heartburn went away, my digestive issues went away…my libido came back—pretty much everything you can think of went away within two or three weeks.” He also noticed a remarkable improvement in his ADHD and OCD symptoms. “My whole outlook on life is a lot different: I’m a lot more motivated, a lot more friendly, outgoing, happy. So, pretty much, everything for me has changed.” His friends and family all agree. “I’m not the same beaten down person that I was before.”

Victoria improves health on low-carb diet

November 26, 2022 No Comments

Since 1975, Victoria has divided her time between her native Paraguay and the United States. Coming from a long line of family members who were active and healthy well into their late nineties, Victoria became concerned last year when—at 66 years old—she felt she was losing energy and generally not feeling her best. Not keen to go on medication, she decided to do some research to see what else she could try, and when she came across the carnivore diet—it was advice that sounded vaguely familiar. “My God,” she said, “My grandfather and my father used to eat basically meat. A lot of meat in the morning…beef with a lot of eggs. My father passed away this year in January and he was 100 years old, and he could do everything by himself. He was a little slow, but he could bathe and eat by himself, walk—and his mind was so clear!”

Victoria decided to take the plunge and go fully carnivore. The result? Her psoriasis disappeared and she ended up losing 32 pounds! Her son, who was considering a plant-based diet at the time, saw his mother’s transformation and decided to give it a go. An avid athlete and fighter, he was able to heal many of his past injuries and is feeling fantastic. Her daughter was a bit more wary, but as Victoria was doing the cooking, she inadvertently signed up to do the carnivore diet too! Initially, her daughter experienced terrible hives, but after a few days her body calmed down and she has since experienced the same life-changing results as her mother. They both believe that it was her body releasing years of toxins, which surprised Victoria considering her family always ate high quality organic food in the past. Victoria says to people who are transitioning from a standard western diet to expect some detox symptoms when going carnivore, but encourages them to press through and keep going.

Another family member that experienced relief on the carnivore diet was Victoria’s 84 year old aunt, who was able to go from using a walker, to using a cane, to not needing any mobility aids whatsoever. A great reminder that you’re never too old to try something new, or to give your body the opportunity to heal.

Now, Victoria’s meals take 10-15 minutes to create, and she’s delighted with all of the extra time she has to do other things. At 67, she is on no medication, and has recaptured the boundless energy that she had been seeking just 9 months before.

Victoria’s story reminds us that the carnivore diet isn’t a new way of eating, but a return to what people in many different countries considered perfectly normal not so long ago. Whether she’s taking part in barbecues in Paraguay or eating ribeye steaks in the United States, Victoria feels amazing and is happily spreading the word far and wide. “Try it for 90 days—it won’t kill you—but it can change your life!”

Paul Manages Type 1 Diabetes As An “Accidental Carnivore”

October 9, 2022 No Comments

Paul and his wife live in Oklahoma. He is 66 years old, and when he was 62, he was eating a standard American diet with “everything in balance.” He developed a problem with insatiable thirst, urinating very frequently, craving sweets, and losing weight. Paul discovered that he was a type 1 diabetic after experiencing a severe thrush infection (a yeast infection which often occurs in the mouth and throat). His blood glucose was over 400, and he was put on insulin therapy. He was told to follow the American Diabetes Association recommendations of 50 grams of carbohydrates per meal, with fruit juice or fruit permitted, and this “failed miserably.”

Paul’s blood glucose levels were a “rollercoaster,” and this left him unable to work. The brain fog and emotional instability made it impossible for him to do his highly technical engineering work. He found that following the ADA guidelines made it impossible to stabilize his blood sugar using his insulin prescription.

On one visit, Paul says, “I was irritated with my wife when she made me go to the doctor, so when they came in to check my blood sugar, I told them they couldn’t check mine until they checked hers, and hers was 325. She was a serious Type 2 diabetic.”

Paul began studying online, trying to find a way to cure his wife’s diabetes. He found several high-fat low-carb influencers as well as Dr. Shawn Baker and the carnivore diet. “This different take on nutrition and health that nobody even knows is out there is the best kept secret on Earth.”

He had already stopped eating plant-based foods because he didn’t like them and thought they were “a pain in the butt,” before he learned of the carnivore diet. Effectively, he accidentally became a carnivore.

Paul’s insulin use has significantly decreased since starting the carnivore diet and now only covers the glucose that is released by the body as gluconeogenesis when eating proteins and balances out the morning cortisol release. His blood sugar is far easier to control, staying between 70-120 without excursions above or below that. Paul’s A1c, which measures the stability of blood glucose, is between 4.9 to 5.1, the same as someone who is not diabetic.

He has also been able to resolve the diabetic retinopathy that had occurred when his blood sugar was very high. His peripheral neuropathy in his legs, feet, hands, and arms has also completely resolved.

Paul says, “I did not even understand that I had emotional issues before this happened. I didn’t even know I had it. It’s gone! I’m a happy person, a well-adjusted person.”

He tries to help others understand how to better manage their diabetes, as he has, and gets frustrated by the spread of misinformation. “When I hear people talk about ‘saturated fat causes insulin resistance, that’s why you have to be a vegan if you’re a type 1 diabetic’ I come unglued.”

Lily healed from inflammation and digestive and skin issues on a strict carnivore diet

October 9, 2022 No Comments

Lily is a self-avowed anarchist living in Mexico. She was featured in an HBO special about the anarchist movement, and her carnivore journey is also chronicled in that special: “You can see the progression of me from my pre-carnivore very sickly days until, you know, now, where I’m more or less healed from a lot of the stuff that I dealt with.”

Lily and her boyfriend stayed engaged in the anarchist community, eventually moving to Mexico, where a large group has formed. This choice, however, would lead to her boyfriend’s murder later.

When she and her boyfriend moved to Acapulco, they were planning on participating in the anarchist community. What they found, however, was that “it was a bunch of rich snooty vegans, and something not mentioned in the series that is actually a big part of the conflict that happened within the community (the conflict is covered but not this specific part of it) was the opinion of the people that were running the event at the time, and running the community…that you couldn’t be an anarchist and still consume animal products, that it was inherently violent in nature.”

Lily and her boyfriend got into a situation where they were processing marijuana that they bought from the drug cartel into oil, which they sold to “gringos.” When they started growing their own marijuana and cut out the cartel, her boyfriend was murdered.

Lily was eating a standard American diet with “emphasis on junk food because that’s how I was raised” and was nauseous most days, “having to sit down and calm my stomach,” was dizzy all the time, and had “horrible migraines that would put me to bed at 7 p.m. every day. She had IBS, and felt “like I was falling apart.” She was “covered in open sores from chronic cystic acne.”

When Lily saw the Joe Rogan interview with Dr. Baker, she says, “that’s actually what got me to give it a try.” She “practiced strict carnivore for almost 2 years, with about 6 months of the lion diet to deal with inflammation, nervous system inflammation, chronic digestive issues, and horrible skin issues. This was from about mid-2018 to early 2020, which was during the filming of the HBO series The Anarchists.”

Her carnivore experience shifted the Acapulco anarchist community away from dogmatic veganism, and many members are now carnivores.

Lily has found great relief from her acne, IBS, nausea, chronic diarrhea, and constipation, and she has better energy. Her depression is gone, as is her joint pain. She still has some anxiety and tension headaches, but she attributes this to her stressful life choices.

She has been working on reintroducing some foods back into her diet while remaining vigilant about not returning to the ill health she had earlier. Her diet is still heavily meat-based, and she is “Still very much a believer in carnivore being good for healing the body and for determining specific trigger foods.”

Lycia and Family Heal On Carnivore Lifestyle

September 22, 2022 No Comments

Adam has been a personal trainer for over 10 years. He has been through “some tough times” that have left him “feeling I’m in the best place in my life.”

Adam had “a lot of acne” when he was young. Looking for relief, he tried Accutane, which “made my skin absolutely terrible. Three months later, he developed psoriasis.

He developed a love for bodybuilding, and his psoriasis completely healed within 30 days of starting his bodybuilding diet, no longer drinking alcohol or eating fast food. “That was amazing to me… how my skin improved from improving my nutrition.” His diet at that point included some meat and vegetables, and “a lot of white rice.”

At age 30, Adam was diagnosed with a non-seminal germ cell tumor, “a five-inch mass in my chest. One night, I started having chest pains from a deep breath I taken, and all of sudden it just would not go away.” An emergency room visit “basically determined that it was some type of lymphoma, so right there just completely changed my life.”

Adam endured four rounds of chemotherapy and open chest surgery to remove the tumor, all within a six-month period.

After another brief heart scare, and having fluid drained away, things seemed like “smooth sailing” until his psoriasis “just came back with a vengeance, covered my legs, my arms, my chest, my head, everywhere. During his chemo for the tumor, Adam’s psoriasis had completely gone away.

He decided he had to learn how to solve his problems himself because all of his medical providers just kept “over and over again prescribing me things that I just knew weren’t going to help me.”

Adam’s search led him to a vegan diet, which he followed for two years, “making vegetable smoothies, and trying a grape diet for three weeks.” On the vegan diet, Adam “lost 20 to 30 pounds of muscle, started getting just super fatigued…I had testosterone of a 90-year old. Everything was going downhill. I was thin, I was frail, and the biggest thing was my psoriasis was absolutely inflamed to the wazoo.”


One of Adam’s friends encouraged him to return to bodybuilding, as it was “the last thing that had worked.” Within days of adding meat back into his diet, “my skin started to improve.”

He says that “The difference is night and day.”

Adam recently competed as a bodybuilder and “did a carnivore styled prep, that consisted of high fat, high, protein, and zero carb. It was the best stuff I’ve ever been, best I’ve ever felt mentally and physically.”

“My stool is normal, …When I was vegan plant-based going to the bathroom was insane. I had hemorrhoids and it was the stool was hard, it was ridiculous. Every time I went to the bathroom it was a struggle; I’d be in pain.”

His psoriasis has improved so that he now estimates 3% coverage instead of almost 100%, and his cancer has never returned.

Allie Manages Her Son’s Non-Verbal Autism

August 17, 2022 No Comments

As a young woman, Allie Morgan battled issues that ran the gamut from IBS, seizures, migraines to bipolar disorder. After a series of health setbacks landed her in the hospital, she reached out to an uncle who had been managing his diabetes with a low-carb diet, and after delving into the literature herself, she took the plunge implementing a carnivore-based diet—and has been thrilled with the results ever since. Besides shedding the extra pounds she had accumulated since high school, she was able to get off the copious amounts of medication that she had been taking for years. “I remember talking to a friend of mine, and looking her dead in the eye and telling her, ‘This is the first time in my life that I feel like I’m a normal person with normal moods.”

Allie’s health transformation isn’t the only dynamic carnivore story she has to tell. The journey of her then 4 year old son’s autism and subsequent transformation is enough to make any parent sit up and take notice. Allie says that while her kids at home did eat small amounts of sugar and white flour, they were rare treats and mostly crowded out by healthy proteins and fats. At that time, she considered her son as having high-functioning autism—but everything changed when she went on a trip for ten days and left her kids with their loving (but high-carb/low-fat eating) grandparents.

When she returned, she found her son had completely shut down—rocking back and forth, unable to make eye contact and completely non-verbal. Initially thinking it was a typical meltdown, it wasn’t until she got back home that she realized that it wasn’t, and that he had regressed to being unable to function or communicate at all.

“I gave myself 20 minutes permission to just melt down and cry because I think every parent deserves to just have at least 20 minutes to react to a diagnosis. I chose the carnivore diet because I knew it was the complete way to eliminate everything that he could possibly be reacting to.”

After three days on the carnivore diet, her son started coming out of it, returning to the level he was functioning at before the visit. To make the transition slightly easier, Allie allowed her children a small almond and coconut flour cookie for dessert. She also designed her son’s meals around his favorite meats—eggs, bacon, sausage and chicken. The doctors had told Allie to expect significant developmental delays, but after just 27 days on the diet, her son potty trained himself, and has since started to learn to read all on his own.

“I was hoping to get back the child I had before, and what I got—doing a more restrictive diet—was an even higher functioning, happier, more social child…there’s a lot of times that you can see where he’s had some problems, but we actually have to tell people he’s autistic now— because they don’t even notice.” Now age 7, Allie’s son is enrolled in public school—happily learning in a classroom with regular students.

When asked hypothetically if she was encountered with a world where meat intake was restricted—Allie says the quality of her son’s life would be destroyed. “After doing the research that I’ve done, and just seeing what nutrition the body actually requires—and what the sources of those particular types of nutrition are—the only thing that I found that basically has every single component that you absolutely need are animal-based products.”

Jon heals from gut issues, fatigue, and arthritis

August 3, 2022 1 Comment

I was a raw vegan/fruitarian for 7 years. I was actually an influencer in that community and offered health consultations helping people heal chronic degenerative diseases using a fruitarian diet and now do the same thing but now recommending an animal-based diet/carnivore. I’ve actually helped many in the short term heal cancer, arthritis, skin conditions, etc. But I watched the same people including myself start to degenerate trying to maintain this diet in the long term. I’m a certified detoxification specialist and online iridologist.

For the last 1 1/2 years of the 7 years being vegan mostly fruitarian/raw vegan I developed major gut issues. Gi pain and digestive problems and blood sugar issues. This was also very common with my clients that were long-term vegan.

The more I continued to eat a high-fiber diet the more I continued to degenerate. Skin problems, gut pain, malnutrition, and depression.

I started having cravings for eggs and I mean intense cravings. My instincts told me to eat them and to adopt a mainly carnivore diet to heal my gut. I listened and it dramatically changed my life for the good!!! In only 3 months I can proudly say I have no more gut issues!!

I’ve been on a mainly carnivore diet for 4 months now. My muscles came back, testosterone came up. Consistent energy. Zero gut pain. No constant gas and zero bloat and no more depression!!! And I feel like the 25-year-old bull I once was at 37!!!

I will send you a pic of how skinny I got as a fruitarian 5 years ago and what I look like now on a zero fiber 90% carnivore diet. The only plant food I consume living on an island (koh Phangan) in Thailand is fresh coconut water out of Thai coconut which does not cause me any issue at all.

This photo here was when I was super emaciated at 105 lbs when I was 100% fruitarian the other pics were when I was high raw vegan towards the end of my vegan journey. I was still very skinny and underweight at 120 lbs.

My diet now is muscle meats, liver, and coconut water.

Thank you so much for doing this interview with me and im hoping to bring more awareness to people especially the fruitarians and raw vegans that are in denial like I was and have major eating disorders.

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. 

James gets off all psych meds on a carnivore diet

August 1, 2022 1 Comment

Hello,

My name is James. I am 27 years old and have suffered immensely from mental health issues since I was 6 years old. I was diagnosed with ADHD and put on psych medication in kindergarten. I also was depressed as a child which progressed as I became a teenager. When I was 17 I was diagnosed with Bipolar and schizo affective disorder. I am now 27 and have been hospitalized due to manic episodes over 200 times. I was told I would never live a normal life and always have to be on medications which caused obesity due to elevating my insulin and blood sugar.

I came across the work of dr. Shawn baker and dr. Chris Palmer. I began intermittent fasting and eating carnivore and within 2 weeks my lifelong depression lifted. I also lost 25 pounds in those 2 weeks. I went from 270 pounds to 245. I had metabolic syndrome (high blood pressure, triglycerides and blood sugar) and my labs have all normalized. This is just the beginning of my journey and I am so grateful. I have been on this diet for 1 month and plan to do it for the rest of my life. It’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle. I also check my blood ketones daily to make sure I am in ketosis, usually between 3-5 ml. All of my mental health issues have been put into remission as well as my life long psoriasis that covered my face and scalp.

Thank you Shawn Baker for having the courage to speak the truth. You have saved my life and the lives of future generations by sharing this knowledge. I plan to share my story to try and help heal others who are needlessly suffering. There are no words to express my gratitude.

Ex-Plant Eater Josie Defeats Ulcerative Colitis

June 26, 2022 No Comments

When Josie stumbled across a PETA tent at the tender age of 13, she was so moved by their content that she became a vegan overnight. Fast forward ten years later, and her health was going downhill—fast. After being admitted to the hospital multiple times, she was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis—a painful inflammatory disease of the digestive tract.The next four years she desperately tried to find a cure within the parameters of a vegan diet, but it eluded her. Finally—after years of suffering—she started to wonder if the vegan diet she so ardently believed in might be the problem.

Initially diagnosed with diverticulitis in her early twenties, Josie’s symptoms manifested as blood in her stool, fatigue, urgent diarrhea multiple times a day, and a constant low-grade fever. Six months after that, she found herself hospitalized with potassium levels so low—that had she waited even one more day—the doctor said she could have died. Josie was put on prednisone, which helped keep her symptoms at bay, but as she continued to tinker with her plant-based diet to heal herself—a flare-up would inevitably follow.

Four years later, a death in the family coupled with the sense of an impending hospitalization forced Josie to reckon with the idea that perhaps veganism wasn’t for her anymore. Throughout the years, her doctors rarely discussed her diet. Ironically, one actually told her to steer clear of meat and dairy—reinforcing her preconceived notion that they were bad for her health. Within a month—one month—of reintroducing animal products to her diet, her ulcerative colitis symptoms disappeared. Now, healthy and brimming with vitality at the age of 27, she extols the virtues of an animal-based diet on social media, happily sharing her story of transformation—and sounding the alarm bell to anyone considering a vegan diet.

Never the type to criticize those who ate meat around her—Josie admits it was still a bit uncomfortable telling her family and friends she was no longer a vegan. “It was hard in that sense because it was kind of admitting to everybody that I was wrong, because including animal products in my diet again healed my colitis.” Josie says her family and friends were understanding and compassionate, and any hate she receives these days is from vegans who are unhappy with her newfound message of “meat heals.”

Another incredible side effect that Josie experienced on the carnivore diet? She says her mental acuity and self-esteem are through the roof. When asked if she would ever consider being vegan again, her answer is an unequivocal “No!”

“Seeing the way that my life-threatening autoimmune disorder has reversed itself…and every other health issue that I’ve had has completely turned around…I can only determine that this is my natural diet.” She hopes her story will be able to help others who may be going through similar health struggles. “People who shared their ex-vegan story…it helped me when I was considering not being vegan anymore. That was what made me want to share my story.”

Article by Jennifer McDowell

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