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Nicole D Is Her Best Self On The Carnivore Diet

June 18, 2022 No Comments

I am an aspiring Revero Health Coach. I began the Carnivore Diet July 1, 2019 after giving Keto a try to rid myself of recurring infections such as mastitis and UTI’s. Little did I know, my left kidney was holding on to a larg calcium oxalate kidney stone.

 

3 months in to Carnivore the stone tried to exit and got stuck in my ureter. It caused a back up in my kidney which began leaking. I became septic and had fluid on my left lung. Of course all the doctors and some of my family urged me to stop eating so much meat because they all believed a meat heavy diet would further damage my already failing kidneys. I had a decision to make and all I could do was listen to my body. My instincts told me to tune them out and keeping going.

 

It took me almost 3 months to recover from my kidney situation, but recover I did and even though my left kidney has permanent damage from the stone, I was upgraded from 6 month Nephrology appointments to 12 months. In addition to overcoming kidney stones, Carnivore has also helped me lose weight, put my Hashimotos Autoimmune symptoms into remission, and has received me of my arthritis pain.

Cindy gets off blood pressure medication on carnivore diet

May 6, 2022 No Comments

My name is Cynthia (Cindy), I’m 63 years old (almost 64) and am about 5’4”.  I got married in 2004. My husband is Type 1 Diabetic-diagnosed when he was 2, and he also has Cervical Dystonia, diagnosed in 2016.

I had been morbidly obese most of my adult life, had high blood pressure since I was a teenager, trying diet after diet, losing and gaining over and over.  After meeting and marrying my husband, things were great, but my weight was on the rise yet again.  In 2006 I was at just under 300 lbs.  I started researching Gastric Bypass surgery, went to all the meetings, had all the testing done.

 

After serious thought, and discussions with my husband, I decided to go for it. There is heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure in my family history and was told through this weight loss I would benefit greatly with the weight loss.  So, in May 2007 I had the surgery on a Monday went home on Friday and right back to work. Was told to have NO protein the first week post-op. Then to start with 100% whey protein drinks. 


I followed this faithfully, then could start eating, but had to puree my foodd if I intended to do so. Then after about the 3rd week I could eat food. Was told to switch to whole grain, wheat or dark breads, brown rice, whole grain pastas and sweet potatoes instead of the white bread, white rice, etc.  By May 2008 I had lost about 85 lbs, felt great, was told I no longer needed my blood pressure meds.  

 

Due to how I was eating, and I admit I added some sweets back in to the picture, weight started on the rise. At some point I also found out I had osteopenia.

Fast-forward to 2012, both of my knees were killing me, my back was hurting, was told I had arthritis in both knees as well as my back.  Cortisone shots work for a while, then time for another. I remember getting a series of injections of something else instead at one point. Nothing was working. I had my right knee replaced in 2014 after having lost about 25 lbs. so my surgeon would agree to do my surgery. 


That went great, no problems at all, weight again on the rise still sticking with what I was told after the gastric bypass on what to eat.  Still battling with my left knee, in October 2017, again after having to lose some more weight I went for my left knee replacement.  That one didn’t go so smoothly.  There was a spot that wasn’t healing. My surgeon grew very concerned and brought me back in to surgery and did an I&D and sent samples to be tested for infections.

 

Nothing showed and again there was a spot that would not heal.  After immobilizing my leg and a lot of soul searching and discussion with my surgeon I went in for another surgery, this time and I&D and Poly Swap.  This time instructed the lab to extend the amount of time to watch for infection of the samples given.  I wound up with two infections, one a staph infection, I don’t recall the name of the other. I had to go on IV antibiotics for 6-7 weeks, then another 6-7 months on oral antibiotics.

Finally on the mend, things were starting to go great, then a lot of swelling in my legs, feet and toes started occurring continuously.  I was sent for a bilateral deep vein ultrasound, both legs, got the diagnosis of Primary and Secondary Lymphedema. This was later in the year of 2018, scared me ridiculously. 

 

In the beginning of 2020 my sister had been researching diets and found Keto. After a lot of persuasion and persistence I owe her a lot!!  I started on the Ketogenic way of eating on September 27, 2020, weighing in at 269.9, and never looked back.  I had a great doctor at the time in NH where I was living.

 

After about a week into the diet I had to go in for a check-up and requested he do an A1C check, among all the other bloodwork I have as a post gastric bypass patient.  It came back at 5.8 which worried me even though my doctor wasn’t too concerned since he knew I had just started Keto and had already dropped about 20 lbs. since my previous visit to him. 


In January I bought a home test kit and checked my A1C, went to 5.0.  Right now, I am at 179, off my blood pressure meds, no more back pain, was just seen by a rheumatologist, due to having osteoporosis (diagnosed in Sept., 2021), was told my spine is good. 

 

I have also recently seen a cardiologist for some episodes I have randomly with rapid heart palpitations (200bpm) and am presently on a 30-day heart monitor (until May 4th). He told me after getting an abnormal EKG of  Left Ventricle Hypertrophy  that was due to the many years of high blood pressure.

Since starting Keto, I feel soooo much better and through a lot of experimenting, I feel being more Ketovore works for me, if not Carnivore.  Occasionally I will have a small salad, or a little broccoli, or other Keto-approved vegetable, but love meats, eggs, and of course bacon.  I have found that to be where I need to be more often.

Thank you for taking the time for me!

Cynthia

Coach Charity’s improved pregnancy experience on a carnivore diet

May 6, 2022 No Comments

Charity is a carnivore coach, who previously was a vegetarian for over 10 years, “super super grain heavy, super bean heavy.” She was experiencing severe gut issues, and “had chronic constipation for three solid years. Every single day I dealt with this.”

She would also get hangry, very emotional and sweaty when she was hungry, as her blood sugar dropped.

Vegetarian
While Charity was a vegetarian, she “was a group fitness instructor, so I was teaching a lot of these high-intensity interval training classes” and also exercising herself at other times.

Charity now realizes that she wasn’t feeding her body properly. “Halfway through my pregnancy, I was hit with this sudden, uncontrollable craving for ice, and I don’t normally like ice!”

Pica
Charity learned that this is called pica, which is a craving for a non-food item. In her case it was ice, but in many cases it can be something harmful or toxic. “I learned that it was a symptom of anemia, so in the third trimester, when they tested my blood again, I was severely anemic.”

Her blood sugar levels were unstable, and she gained 35 pounds before giving birth.

Vegetarian Birth
“I was in early labor for five days.” After five days, she went to the hospital, but her labor had stopped “so I had to be put on pitocin to keep it going…16 hours later, on pitocin, I delivered.” Afterward, Charity hemorrhaged, and lost a lot of blood.

“That really put me behind on a lot. My milk didn’t come in for four or five days, I was super gray and sallow in the hospital, I was not able to walk around.” It would take a month for her to recover, and then she had pelvic floor issues as well.

Vegetarian Low-Carb Keto
Two years later, Charity and her husband decided to try low-carb, and then keto, but remaining vegetarian made it a challenge. After some research, she decided to eat meat again, and realized “I loved meat, and I was starving!” She gradually became completely carnivore.

Charity liked the simplicity of carnivore, and decided to stay with it. Her gut problems all resolved, after years of problems, and her blood sugar stabilized.

The Carnivore Baby
Charity’s iron levels actually rose during this pregnancy, and she only gained 20 pounds. “I felt amazing; I didn’t have that depleted feeling that I had had…my blood sugars were way more stable.” Her labor and delivery were straightforward, with three hours of early labor and then being 50% effaced at the hospital. She did not hemorrhage.

After the delivery, Charity was “up, a little sore, a little tired. It was crazy, really, the difference, my coloring, I was able to walk out of the hospital instead of in a wheelchair.”

“I couldn’t believe how vital and strong I felt, even though I had just birthed a whole human.” Her milk was normal, and she experienced no pelvic floor problems.

“It was like night and day, a completely different experience!”

Dunja healed Hashimoto’s and Alex healed perforated colon

May 6, 2022 No Comments

My name is Dunja. My husband Alex and I been on carnivore diet since August 2020. In my case helped with Hashimoto’s, joint pain, dark spots on skin and gout. My husband had 14 different autoimmune issues and almost all are gone since switching to carnivore.

Tia gave up her love affair with carbs on a carnivore diet

May 5, 2022 No Comments

I was heading down a bad road with lots of health problems my cousin and dear friend pushed me to change my life. To look at my illness as a carb addiction. He found Dr. Cywes to help me.

It has been a lifestyle change that has been the hardest thing I have ever done. My main goal was to reverse my type 2 diabetes and adrenal insufficiency, hypertension, and uric acid levels.

I am off about 20 medications including 160 units of Humalog by insulin pump and 50 units of Lantus each night. 200 mg metoprolol tartrate and 40 mg of lisinopril for blood pressure, triglyceride medications 145mg tricor, 300mg allopurinol, lovaza and 40mg previstatin. Predisone to make cortisol for my adrenal insufficiency or I could die I was told. CPAP for sleep apnea. Non Alcoholic Fatty liver disease that I was told I really could not do anything about.

Through the years I have had numerous tumors removed, including a radical hysterectomy and the removal of the right adrenal gland with a tumor. I went septic from a large kidney stone stuck in my ureter because of high levels of uric acid. Acute pancreatitis from taking 20 lipase pills a day.

 

I am currently under the care of a bariatric surgeon through telemedicine (Dr. Robert Cywes). He has gotten me to look at carbs as an addiction like you would alcohol or drugs. I know if I go back it could kill me so I take it seriously and am very passionate about this journey to wellness.

I have been eating LCHF Lowcarb High fat for 4 years now. If I would introduce carbs back in without my insulin it would be very harmful so it helps me to stay on the path because I have fear of carbs now. It has changed my life. I do cry sometimes about not being able to eat certain things but have a big support system. Like people here at home yell, “NO you can’t have that!” Then I want to pout and feel sorry for myself.

I eat mostly all animal products. Dr. Cywes suggestion to fast 16/8 was a game changer. Eating 2 meals a day. No snacks as it would be an emotional event for me to snack. I have gone from a size 22 to an 8 and I try to walk at least 30 minutes each day to keep my blood glucose number good. My A1c was an 8.1 when I started and it is now a 5.1. My triglycerides were at 300 and now they are at 59. My blood pressure is great now with no medications. My uric acid levels were as high as a 9 at one point but down to a 4.6 and have eliminated the allopurinol.

It is a struggle every day and it has not been easy but well worth it. ♥️ If it works for me I know it can work for many more. I no longer take any of those medications, have no more fatty liver and no diabetes and my uric acid levels are in the normal range. LCHF Keto/ Carnivore lifestyle has healed my body.

I was told I would be on all those medications for life. Life changing! We need to spread to word far and wide. 

 

Thanks for listening and hope this will touch someone’s life.

Darren lost weight, gained mental clarity, and eliminated cravings on carnivore diet

May 5, 2022 No Comments

Over the years, Darren has had more than his fair share of trials and tribulations. When he was 19 years old, he was in a severe car accident that broke his back, crushed his pelvis, and put him in a coma for several weeks. Doctors predicted that he would never walk again, but miraculously, Darren defied the odds and proved them wrong. Still, there were lingering side effects after experiencing such a serious injury, including chronic pain and inflammation. Years later, Darren would go on to experience another accident—a terrible fall—breaking his arm in 16 different places in the process. Thankfully, he was able to recover, and kept active over the years by working out at the gym and keeping up with his favorite sport: martial arts.

As he approached his fifties, he steadily gained weight and wasn’t able to be as active as he wanted to be. His diet, he admits, was all over the place, and gut issues began to crop up as well. His wife decided to start doing the keto diet, so he joined in too. Not long afterwards, he was listening to Joe Rogan’s podcast and encountered Dr. Shawn Baker discussing the carnivore diet. “It immediately resonated with me. I’d always been a big meat eater, but I didn’t know there was an actual term [for it!]” Even though Darren ate a relatively large amount of meat when on a ketogenic diet, his plate still included lots of hardy vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower. The thought had never occurred to him that they could potentially be the culprit, and after reading Shawn’s book, Darren went carnivore the very next day. The results, he says, were instantaneous.

His stomach problems disappeared, his arthritis pain greatly diminished, and he was no longer experiencing rollercoaster-like energy dips throughout the day. He also lost 60 pounds and lowered his blood pressure! Darren did have some constipation during the initial transition period when going carnivore, but blames it on eating primarily leaner cuts of meat at the time. Once he added fat back into his diet, everything was fine.

“Everything’s improved—my mental clarity has improved, my sleep has improved—just absolutely everything…Physically, I feel great!” Darren acknowledges that he still has his fair share of aches and pains due to his previous injuries, but the arthritis and joint pain have decreased so significantly, that he feels like he has been given a new lease on life.

Nowadays, you can find Darren online as a carnivore coach for Revero. He says that if someone like him—with all of the health challenges he has faced over the years—can experience healing on a carnivore diet, anyone can! He deters people from becoming too dogmatic about it, as he enjoys other animal products besides beef, like cheese, pork and salmon. Mostly, he wishes to see people find the same freedom from pain and injury that he himself has experienced. “They can change their life, just by what they’re eating.”

 

John reduced A1C to a healthy range, reversed digestive problem on a carnivore lifestyle

February 21, 2022 No Comments

John is sixty-three years old and says he has weighed over three hundred pounds twice in his lifetime. John says for many years, he didn’t eat well. In 2001, he entered a competition that required him to lose weight. While preparing for the competition, John followed a vegan diet and lost sixty pounds. John says he received many compliments from the people around him for his weight loss, but he felt like garbage. The vegan diet had him eating a lot of tofu and plants, which his body did not tolerate.

John goes on to describe that while the vegan diet did little for his health, it did teach him discipline. He had to learn how to go to restaurants and social gatherings and find foods that suited his diet. John then started a new job that had him working and thus eating late at night. He says his new eating schedule wreaked havoc on his metabolism and caused him to regain forty-five pounds in nine months.

In 2014, John had hip replacement surgery. John then developed spinal stenosis and had back surgery a few years later. When John had his back surgery, he weighed 296 pounds. Around this time, he started learning more about foods and their connection to inflammation. John began following the paleo diet, which then turned to the ketogenic diet.

John lost twenty-four pounds between the two diets without any exercise. During this time, his sleep also improved, and some other health issues he had been having, such as an elevated A1C, became normal. However, John was still struggling with his digestion.

John had been listening to Mikhaila Peterson, a carnivore diet advocate, and she referenced Dr. Shawn Baker. John began looking into Dr. Baker’s work and found his interview on the Joe Rogan podcast. John was intrigued by the carnivore diet and began following it in September 2019.

John says initially, his version of the carnivore diet was a variety of meat, eggs, and lots of butter, avocados, and olives. John describes eating a lot of fat and says one would assume his cholesterol would have been through the roof. However, when he saw his doctor two months later, his cholesterol had improved.

John also started to see significant improvements in his digestion in just a few short weeks– something that he couldn’t accomplish with the paleo and keto diets. He also noticed his energy improved, as well as his mobility.

Today John says he eats three meals a day. His day includes one-and-half to two pounds of beef per day– mainly hamburger patties. He also eats tri-tip steak, bacon, and butter. On his carnivore journey, John learned that eggs affect his digestion, so he no longer eats them. After listening to Judy Cho, a nutritionist specializing in the carnivore diet, John decided to try adding aged hard cheeses to his diet, which has been going well.

John is a member of Revero and loves the platform because the people “are true and honest.” John says he is grateful he can heal his body with nutrition, not medication– something you often don’t see with someone his age. John plans to continue following the carnivore diet because “what’s strong survives.”

 

Bruno improved blood sugar, triglycerides, joint pain, stiffness on a carnivore diet

February 15, 2022 No Comments

Bruno has been struggling with his weight for most of his life. He describes struggling with a sugar and carbohydrate addiction and says by the time he was a teenager, he was obese. While in his early twenties, he suspected he had hypothyroidism. He took his concerns to his doctor, who responded, “that’s a condition for women.” Still, Bruno kept pressing his doctor to test him. His doctor finally agreed, and just as Bruno suspected, he did have hypothyroidism. He said his doctor had to call him the next day and apologize for not believing him.

Bruno describes yo-yo dieting for many years. However, by the time he was in his mid-thirties, he had reached 450 pounds and was on several medications for gout, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar. In his late thirties, Bruno started seeing a doctor who suggested a zero-carbohydrate diet that included eating meager amounts of fat. Bruno followed the diet and, in just six months, lost over 150 pounds.

However, the low amounts of fat put a lot of strain on Bruno’s heart, and he had a heart attack at the age of forty-two. Bruno ended up with three stints in his heart after his heart attack. Three years ago, Bruno discovered the carnivore diet, which was different from his zero-carb diet in that it required Bruno to eat more fat.

Bruno says his experience with the carnivore diet for a few years was like a plane skidding on a runway while trying to take off. He would stick to the diet for a while before he found himself binging on sugar and carbs. The covid pandemic made Bruno feel he needed to control his sugar and carb addictions. He knew individuals with a history of diabetes and heart problems were more likely to have complications or even die from covid, and he didn’t want to become a statistic.

Bruno had a one-on-one meeting with Dr. Shawn Baker in May 2020. Dr. Baker encouraged Bruno to persevere on his journey with the diet– even as he still struggled with gout. Bruno says his motivation helped, but then Bruno found himself falling into emotional eating after having to put his dog down in September 2020. Bruno says he tried to modify his diet but kept falling off and binge eating.

After four months of feeling out of control, Bruno says he finally accepted that modifying his diet was impossible. He needed to abstain from certain foods forever to improve his health. At that point, Bruno says his life turned, and he hasn’t looked back.

Today, Bruno is experimenting with the lion diet, a term coined by carnivore advocate Mikhaila Peterson. Bruno says he eats ruminant animals, salt, and water. Through his experimentation, Bruno has learned that his body doesn’t process pepper, an oxalate. He also says he has learned cheese and bacon are a trigger for him through this process and plans to eliminate those indefinitely.

Bruno has lost 120 pounds in eighteen months. He says his weight loss hasn’t been fast on the carnivore diet, but it is consistent. Bruno no longer struggles with gout, and his blood pressure and blood sugar are under control. He also describes losing inches from his waistline and gaining muscle mass.

Bruno plans to lose another seventy pounds and wants to continue building more muscle. Bruno has had a long health journey, but he is thankful for the awareness gained through his meat-based diet. He knows what foods work for him and says, “I am no longer controlled by food.”

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