Laura healed her allergies, asthma, GI issues on a carnivore diet

I was raised with a typical German diet: sugar cereal or toast for breakfast, pasta, rice or potatoes for lunch, cake or cookies as an evening snack, and bread for dinner. Really high in carbohydrates, sugar, low in protein and nutrients. My typical day consisted of 4-5 meals.

Because of my active childhood, I always had an athletic/normal body. I ate this type of food till I moved out from my parent’s home. I went to university, and after one year, I felt really uncomfortable in my body. At this time, I ate not really healthy. At this point, I wanted to change something. 

First Fitness Diet

Going back, I remember my health and fitness beginnings in 2017. Started with bodybuilding and ate a typical “fitness diet “consisting of rice, potatoes, chicken, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products. Following my fitness story for the first time, my diet consisted mainly of high-protein food, low-fat products, and sugar-replacement stuff.

Along my way, I explored the topic of different diets and researched a lot about how food can differently effects our bodies because I suffered from digestive issues, asthma, and allergies.

After reading books, studies, and articles, I decided to go paleo, with a lot of whole, unprocessed foods, fresh fruit and vegetables, no wheat, no dairy, no sugar replacement, and no high-protein fake sweets.

Since then, I lived a paleo-based diet and felt better than with the diet before because of the high ‚fake foods content I’m consuming in this normal ‘German diet. 

In 2018 I achieved my best physique by competing in different bodybuilding fitness shows. During this period of time, I ate a high protein and moderate fat but low till no carb diet. My physique, mental clarity, and overall well-being improved week by week. During this time, I recognized that our bodies don’t need as much carbohydrates and food intake as we think.

In the fitness industry, there are a lot of myths according to ‚a healthy diet ‘. After my bodybuilding competitions, I increased the amount of carbohydrate intake and other foods, which I had eliminated during the bodybuilding diet. The months after it were terrible. After a period of time, I recognized some changes in my gut health.

I felt not good after consuming certain kinds of foods. The most day, I felt like crap. I suffered from bloating, cramps, and gut issues nearly every day. My skin was awful, and my mood was too. For three years, I had a really challenging time, which was marked by numerous health issues, especially GI issues, strong asthma, and allergies.

The Paleo diet helped me to reduce some of my symptoms. Along my journey, I reached my highest weight in July 2019, after one year of bulking. My body weight was 77kg. I held this weight till the end of 2019. 

At this time, I felt wrong in my body and wanted to change something. Since I am young, I am a really athletic person. As a child, I was outside every day, did a lot of different sports, and loved being active. So for me, it was disconcerting to see my body in this physique.

I research a lot according to different fat-loss diets. I knew that cutting carbs would be helpful. On 20.04.2020, I started my keto journey. Coming from a moderate-carb but very low-fat diet, it was completely different from my previous way of eating. 

From Keto To Carnivore

Some of my health issues improved after the transition time by eating a high-fat diet. Especially my energy levels increased, my skin got better, and I felt energized and overall better. Since I was ten years old, I suffered from strong asthma and seasonal allergies.

This year my symptoms were as bad as ever before. I know that many diseases can be fixed with the right diet. Since Covid-19 came around, I used that time at home to research how I could improve my health and fix my symptoms.

My health definitely improved with the ketogenic diet, so I decided that I would continue this way of eating with some changes. Because of the fact that I ate a lot of vegetables, nuts, and seeds, my gut developed some issues again, according to the wide variety of food sources you can use in a ketogenic diet.

For me personally, that’s one of the main negative things about a ketogenic diet. So I decided to make a change and go back to a completely natural way of eating. 

In the first step, I eliminated all inflammatory foods, like nuts, avocados, and eggs, from my daily meals. I read a lot of studies and articles about the Carnivore diet, which should have healing qualities.

I decided to give it a try. I started with a 30-day experiment. In the first month, I tried different meat sources, egg yolks, ribs, wings, etc. I ate three smaller meals per day.

Everything I ate and how I felt was written down in my carnivore journal, where I documented my experiences along the way. After this time, I felt so awesome that I decided to continue this way of eating. Along the way, I found out what works best for me. 

Current Diet

Now I’ve been on the carnivore diet for six months. The baseline of my current diet is 99% beef: organic grass-fed ground beef, ribeye, skirt steak, and flank steak. I reduced my meals from 4-5 to only two meals a day.

In the first months, I tried to figure out what worked best for me. I realized that dairy or eggs don’t feel good on my body, so I limited that completely. Because of my lactose intolerance, I hadn’t eaten dairy before. So it wasn’t a big deal. In the first month, I ate chicken and pork too, but after a while, I felt not as great as only eating beef. 

I eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m satiated. Typically my day starts with my mineral drink (water + salt) immediately after waking up. 

After my morning walk, I eat after an 18-20h fast my first meal. Mostly it’s organic ground beef. My next meal is in the afternoon at 13 -14 pm. In between, I work, go outside, and do workouts.

For this second meal, I eat a steak. Since I’m doing the carnivore diet, I don’t track or count macros. This is something completely new to me because I have tracked and counted macros since the beginning of my fitness journey. Definitely, this is for me like a new freedom. 

Summary of the symptoms which I fixed with the carnivore diet:

• GI issues, leaky gut, digestive problems
• After bodybuilding competition sessions, I had huge troubles
• Felt worse after each meal (at this time, I ate six meals a day)
• Daily bloating, cramps, constipation
• Improvements on keto since I reduced inflammatory nightshade plants (potatoes, tomatoes, etc.)
• Most improvements on Carnivore since I totally removed plants, nuts & seeds
• No bloating (I remember my first entry in my carnivore journal: I feel amazing! No bloating at all the whole day)
• No cramps after eating, no constipation
• Strong daily headaches
• According to my health situation in April 2020, I dealt with strong headaches daily.
• My workout endurance decreased because I couldn’t do any exercises with jumping, overhead, etc. 

I’ve been totally slacking off nearly every day, even in my keto time, which I started in May. The daily headaches didn’t go away after researching today’s point of view. I ate a lot of inflammatory plants, nuts, and seeds, removing this food from my diet; I felt the first improvements my mind cleared up, and the strong headaches reduced day by day. I got my drive and focus back the best thing I felt mental clarity.

Allergies, Food Intolerances

Since 2017 my seasonal allergies have been really bad in the spring/summer months. I have itchy, red eyes, and I can’t wear my contact lenses. My nose got blocked this year because the symptoms were so bad.

I couldn’t breathe deeply, and in combination with my asthma, I dealt with painful breaths. In the transition time to keto, these symptoms didn’t go away because of all the inflammatory plants, nuts & seeds. After I went to do Carnivore and only ate meat, all symptoms were GONE!

Strong Asthma

Because of my active lifestyle and my love of sports, that was the hardest part. I woke up and couldn’t breathe deeply. When I got upstairs, I was unable to breathe slowly. My workout performance decreased. At this time, I used my inhaler three times a day and took asthma pills.

I went on keto in April 2020, but the symptoms didn’t go away. I was searching for other methods to naturally heal my symptoms. After my 30-day Carnivore experiment, I felt the first improvements. I continued this way of eating, and after two months, I was completely off my asthma pills.

After three months, I could breathe deeply without any problems. Last week I did interval running training, the first time I ran without breaks. I couldn’t describe how that feeling was. I was overwhelmed because I could never breathe deeply and run without breaks for years.

Now after six months, I can’t describe how good my health is. I’m off from all asthma medicaments and inhalers. I can breathe deeply. The first time in years, without any issues, even when I’m doing sport. My allergies, strong headaches, GI issues, and digestive problems are ALL gone. 

I got my athletic body back, went from 77kg (169,8 lbs) down to 57kg (125,6 lbs) = 44,2 lbs. This way of eating totally saved my life.