Chana’s Journey to the Carnivore Diet
Chana is located in Israel and has been on a carnivore diet for nine months. Her career was in music education, and she had been teaching as an orchestra director in New York and Pennsylvania since 1973. She also taught string instruments privately and in groups.
From Vegetarianism to Carnivore: Chana’s Diet Changes
She always thought of herself as “into health,” and in 1982, “I decided to become a vegetarian, thinking that was a great way to go with my health because I gained a little weight after my first child, and then a year later I became a vegan and, um, way too restrictive!
I actually felt okay for a while, then in the 90s, I couldn’t pinpoint it, but I wasn’t feeling as well. When I get into these things, I’m very strict. Very little protein and even less fat. You’d spread a little oil on the pan to saute some kind of vegetable, and that’s about the amount of fat you got.”
Every time some health problem arose, Chana would try to further tweak her diet. She now knows that she should have tweaked it by “getting rid of the diet, adding some protein and fat, get rid of the carbs.”
Chana started eating more raw foods, believing that they were healthy for her to eat, and “then I really wasn’t feeling so good,” and she realized this diet tweak didn’t help at all.
Chana tried Paleo, “which helped a little bit but not enough to be ketogenic.” She found out about Carnivore from a friend who was doing it. She thought about it for several months, but her friend wasn’t doing it anymore.
Chana’s Health Challenges and Diagnosis
She was then diagnosed with fatty liver disease and primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC). Chana also had reflux problems for a long time.
Chana started the carnivore diet on her birthday last year. She had problems with her adrenals and hypothyroid, “along with some yo-yo dieting things from the past where I was eating too many carbs.”
The Benefits of the Carnivore Diet for Chana
She has been able to minimize the level of bio-identical hormones she takes, and after six weeks on the diet, her liver enzymes began to normalize. Chana experienced other changes in her blood work, with “cholesterol has gone up to 322, my HDL is 114, LDL is 197.
Triglycerides are 53.” These values reflect some very healthy ratios, such as a triglyceride to HDL ratio well below 1.0. Her reflux completely vanished after six weeks on the diet.
Chana has also seen a big improvement in her energy levels: “I get much more accomplished. Before Carnivore, I was in bed a lot; I was exhausted.” Her weight also went from 154 down to 125 in about six weeks!
As far as Carnivore.Diet goes, Chana feels “it has been a major source of help and camaraderie and community, and it’s really a wonderful platform to be part of because there’s so much support.” She is now a coach on the platform!
