Victoria is a native of Paraguay currently living in Florida. She tells her health story and how she has been getting members of her family, both in Paraguay and the US, onto a species-appropriate diet and turning their health around.
Bradley lived off of a high-carb diet for most of his life. Despite a very active lifestyle in the military, he always struggled to keep his weight down and suffered from back injuries and sciatica over the years for which he had to receive surgery at 28.
On his last deployment overseas, he experimented with fasting and keto before transitioning almost completely to carnivore by the time he came back home. Basically, he came around to doing the exact opposite of the Army’s nutrition advice and ate all the red meat and eggs he wanted. The result was that he pretty quickly lost 20 pounds and the lingering sciatica he had from his laminectomy surgery, something he thought he was stuck with for life, completely disappeared.
Freedom from pain has allowed him to lift weights on a daily basis and he is stronger and sleeps better at 32 than he ever did in his teens or 20s. He only wishes he had discovered this diet earlier in life so he could have avoided a lot of annoyance and anguish.
Coach George C grew up in Queens, NY, and studied engineering at Cal Berkeley, going on to work for multinational corporations in Asia after graduation and then starting own business at 30. Currently he resides in Chengdu, China (2nd-tier city known for hotpot and pandas). He has previously owned businesses and worked in China’s major cities. He has been a business owner in food and food services and a gym and has worked with fitness clubs as well as schools. He has a long-term interest in fitness and nutrition.
In 2019, Treflyn decided to turn his back on the way that he had been eating and living. He had always had a tendency to put on weight. And like most people, he had managed to lose weight but also to put it on again. Since he has been on a one-meal-a-day regime, he can say that it has changed his outlook on getting healthy by understanding what makes him gain weight.
Along his weight loss journey, he met Dr. Joanne McCormack who is an advocate of the Low Carbohydrate Diet, as a result of this he started running multiple weekly support group meetings for her.
I found carnivore after these health issues: Gall stones in 2016 (removed via “flush” I found online), a perforated colon in 2020 and Bell’s palsy episode in Jan of ’22 after bro had stroke last year.
Found carnivore through Jordan Peterson/Joe Rogan. Dr. Shawn was one of the first I found who was doing this as a lifestyle. Other carnivore/keto favorites are Ken Berry, Bart Kay, Anthony Chafee. First thing I realized was that educating myself was required for success as the tide of ignorance is hard to dismiss if you don’t know your shit. Spent around 1500 hours learning since February.
First 3 weeks sucked. Health benefits overall have been unreal:
I consider myself a lifelong student (whether in school or not), and love living in a time where so much info is literally at our fingertips. It is a great time to be alive for anyone who tries to think for themselves. I think most carnivores I’ve seen fall into this category. Carnivore is a way of being healthier and not an ideology (for most).
Most important things to me are family time with my wife and girls, making music, learning and growing as much as my pride allows, and helping make people smile or even think, all while learning to be me and what that even means.
After a buddy’s recent heart attack (who is a few years younger than me) I am really becoming less and less afraid to share this way of eating (NOT A DIET) with anyone who opens that door a crack. I truly feel it’s saved my life.
Rebecca and I are now especially concerned with the eating of our seniors, as she recently took a position in a nursing home and sees first-hand the dangers of the food they are fed (ie using sugar as “comfort” food instead of poison).
Keto and carnivore have changed my life beyond anything in my wildest/hopeful dreams. I was introduced to Keto, or should I say re-introduced to Atkins, by a coworker who had lost a noticeable amount of weight. Because it came from a woman’s magazine I really wasn’t on board with it and felt the need to research it. Keto has benefited my life way beyond weight loss: I have a few auto immune diseases, I’m insulin resistant, and I’m obese.
After about three months research I started keto in January 2018. I stayed below 20 total carbs. Weight loss was slow, but weight loss was not my number one priority after having done the research to learn how to manage my auto immune without meds and lower my A1c and my fasting insulin. In August 2018, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and went back to YouTube and the books to learn about keto and cancer. The most valuable thing that I learned was sugar is cancers favorite fuel. I oncologist does not agree with me on this but I don’t need his blessing. Not throwing him under the bus, he is very open minded and one of the few MDs on board with me and Keto.
I had a bilateral mastectomy and 27 lymph nodes removed on the right side. The chemo protocol was Taxol and Adriamycin + Cytoxin. Pretty mean shit. Of course, I had all the side effects that go with chemotherapy from hair loss to vomiting and loss of appetite, but my overall health was far better because I existed on a diet of pastured eggs, olives, avocado, liverwurst and Swiss cheese. I know that sounds like pregnancy kind of food but it kept me in really good shape. My plan was to eat two meals a day for the three days leading up to chemo and then I would fast for 2 to 3 days following chemo. I did use an electrolyte replacement. LMNT had some really good flavors that agreed with me or I would just have sea salt in water.
Unfortunately, I could not finish the second chemo protocol because I developed bilateral pulmonary embolisms and was 80% on room air. So, I missed the last two treatments of Adriamycin Cytoxan. My oncologist was confident that I would do well even though I had also opted to skip radiation. I was taking an aromatase inhibitor from July 2019 through August 2022.
In July 2019 I was told that my cancer was gone. I would have to do 10 years of the aromatase inhibitor which prohibits the body from making estrogen from testosterone. My cancer was HER++. Estrogen loves fat and now I became more focused on getting rid of my excess body weight. Visceral fat secretes all sorts of things that also make you sick. I was sarcopenia & post menopausal and could not even do curls with a 2 1/2 pound weight!
Luckily, I live alone and I’m not tempted by other foods and I started to learn more about the carnivore diet as the extreme elimination diet. As a sidenote, I have suffered from depression since childhood and was hopeful that this would help manage depression. I knew I was low in protein and wanted to get my protein only from food: I do not eat shakes or snacks or bars. I might try Ben Bikman’s Hlth Shake (more to come on that.)
At any rate, I did not gain weight during Covid and I am probably down around 80 pounds. I weigh in Measure once a month but I just have a simple bathroom scale so I don’t live and die by that number. My A1c is 5.1 and my endogenous insulin is down to 11. My goal is to get my A1c into the high 4s and get my endogenous insulin below 5. My endocrinologist is not on board with any of this; therefore, I simply lie to her. I did ask for Metformin though during chemo because my A1c shot up to 6–insulin was sky-high, too.
This spring I enrolled in a breast cancer study for patients with metastasis. I learned that my cancer has metastasized beyond the lymph nodes. I was gutted. It is liver Mets and obviously there’s nothing that can be done except to take the oral chemo and a shot (IM) as long as I can tolerate it.
I’m having a very hard time eating anything. This is where I think I’m going to consider Ben’s shake. My blood glucose is fine and I still have ~30 pounds to go and could certainly fast, but I miss eating something besides the electrolyte. I’m very strict with the diet it’s more than lifestyle now because it’s part of my medical protocol.
Shawn, thank-you so much for being on YT & cutting through all of the BS. You may not know how much we, or at least I, rely on you for guidance because it just can’t be found in the local community and these doctors have their head so far up their arses. One doctor asked me if I were challenging her medical degree with my Google degree. WTF?! I told her I am with the patient 24/7 and am the one who ensures compliance. I won’t do anything that I don’t understand, and I’m sorry I don’t have some type of a medical degree.
Thanks for going against the grain.
I’ve been chubby almost all my life. I’ve lost weight but unable to keep it off. In October of 2016, at the age of 57 I had a mindset change and became motivated to be healthy enough to enjoy my future grandkids. Family history was not good; my father died in his sleep at 61 (clogged arteries) and mother died of heart attack at 78. My oldest brother had double bypass at 60 and is now on dialysis. My other three brothers were on medicines to control blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar. One of them has since died of multiple Myeloma. Another brother has adopted a low carbohydrate diet and is off most meds.
My cholesterol was at 230 with A1c of 5.7. I joined Weight Watchers at 159.5 lbs. I am 4’11”. The points system was based on a low-fat diet and nothing was off limits in proper portions. It took me 18 months to reach my goal of 124 lbs. This gave me a BMI of 25. I was pleased with the loss but my cholesterol and A1c did not go down. Over the next three years I struggled to maintain 124. My husband was on the same journey as I with cholesterol of 240 and A1c of 5.8.
In September 2020 we retired and relocated to Fort Worth, Texas to be close to our daughter and son-in-law who were expecting our first grandson. We started watching several YouTube videos in which doctors, nutritionist, and others spoke about the benefits of low carb, keto, and carnivore diets as well as intermittent fasting. We became persuaded that the food pyramid was junk and could be the cause of metabolic syndrome. Our annual labs showed no change in our cholesterol or A1c. Statins were recommended but we both rejected this option.
In November 2021 we started a low carb diet and intermittent fasting; breakfast of eggs and meat at 11am and either a large salad (with meat) or steak & steamed vegetables at 4pm. It was easy and I was amazed at how satisfied I felt. We had labs done after 3 months. My weight dropped 6 lbs., my A1c dropped to 5.5 but my cholesterol was 270. My doctor strongly encouraged me to take a statin. I refused and asked about other options to gauge heart health. Her answer was to take a CT heart calcium score test. My husband and I both had the test done. My score was 6 and my husband’s score was 0. These results confirmed two things for me; 1) cholesterol level is a poor indicator of heart health 2) a low carb, keto or carnivore diet is much better for me than low fat, whole grains, and seed oils.
Other benefits we experienced over the last year is better dental health, my childhood skin fungus has vanished, my husband has no more skin tags, his athletes foot issue is gone, his acid reflux cured, and his eye floaters are reduced.
An avid athlete, firefighter Danny Smith would work out twice—sometimes even three times—a day. In 2016, after a few bouts of what he thought was gastritis, he went to the hospital on a day he was experiencing particularly acute symptoms. He was admitted right away, and while the nurse was asking him about the situation, Danny passed out. The next thing he remembers is being jolted awake by an electric shock to the chest. Looking up at a room now full of people, he realized he had just been defibrillated. His heart had stopped for seven whole minutes. The doctor informed him that he had suffered a major heart attack at only 39 years old.
Diagnosed with familial hypercholesterolemia, Danny suspected another culprit as well—his diet. It was most certainly a wake-up call, and he was willing to do or try anything to make sure it didn’t happen again. Encountering only vague dietary advice from his primary doctor, he decided to give veganism a try. It lasted only a year—Danny never feeling well due to achey joints and a lack of energy—and culminated in the painful tearing of his ACL.
As he started doing research on his own, Danny observed that the guys at the firehouse on the keto diet were looking and feeling pretty good, so he jumped on the bandwagon too. As he continued searching for answers, he kept seeing carnivore pop up, and since he gravitated towards meat while eating keto anyway, he decided to take the plunge and give it a try. “I went on the carnivore diet, I was like—‘I’m never looking back. I feel so great.’ Everything was getting better!”
Now 45, Danny has been doing carnivore for two years and feels fantastic. His cholesterol numbers are all in a healthy range, he enjoys better stamina and muscle gains at the gym, and his heart doctor says he’s in such great shape that he only needs a yearly checkup. His diet consists mostly of beef, with Danny regularly enjoying ribeye steaks, beef ribs, burgers, bacon, eggs and the occasional piece of cheese. He was also able to shed some extra weight he had been carrying around—dropping from 245 pounds to a healthy 180 pounds.
On top of all of this, Danny has experienced extraordinary mental health benefits as well. The shock of the heart attack left Danny reeling with PTSD and major depression, so he started seeing a therapist. “Two weeks into the carnivore diet, I told my therapist, ‘I don’t think I need you anymore, because I’m not thinking the same way as I was.’ And I didn’t need him anymore—and that was only 2 weeks into the diet! The depression really got better—the PTSD…was totally gone.”
Now, Danny enjoy plenty of energy to train, spend time with his family, and play the bagpipes at firefighter events. He may enjoy the odd piece of cake at his children’s birthday parties, or an occasional beer with friends, but he says he really doesn’t crave those things anymore—and is happy to share his story with the hopes that it will help others too.
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