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 Carnivore.Diet. 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.”
