Marcos improved strength, stamina, and recovery on a carnivore diet

Introduction

I’m a 50 year old former athlete. I’ve started Karate at the age of 12. It was brutal back then but somehow I decided to endure and, before I knew it, I was hooked.

Retirement and Weight Gain

I started entering tournaments in my first year and at 15 I was training 6 hours per day. Before 18 I was doing 8+ hours of training everyday at the dojo and with the Rio de Janeiro team and at 22 I was winning in the national championships.

I’m not a tall guy with only 5ft 5in height but even though I was very lean my weight was 187 pounds. I used to eat everything in my way in huge amounts without never getting fat due to extreme long training sessions.

Though Karate can be very rough and we did get hurt a lot I was healthy as one can be, very strong, fast and never got tired. I looked good and life was easy.

After several years as a professional athlete I had an accident while training and broke my jaw in 2 different places. I was submitted to a surgery where they put my jaw back in place and hold it with a titanium wire. I had to stay still for 2 months with steel wires around my teeth. It was at the end of the University and I was offered a job as character animator in a famous studio here. I took it.

I’ve got back to training as soon as the doctors let me but now, instead of training 8 hours I was sitting 8 hours drawing and only training 1 hour a day. My career as an athlete was over. I kept teaching, training and weight lifting and even training Judo, as well as other Martial Arts, but never with the same intensity as before.

After 30, without the brutal daily training and with the huge food consumption I started to gain a little weight. Then I got married and started working even more hours every day while exercising less and less until I stopped completely for some time.

At 40 I was sedentary weighting 260 pounds. I knew I was going to pay the price for that lifestyle and started to “eat healthy” and started training again. I did loose weight but I always get some of it back again. In time I was able to intensify my training and started to feel pain in the joints afterwards. I thought I needed to increase my strength and started weightlifting again.

At 49 I was in good condition. I was lifting really heavy weights, fighting bigger and younger guys. I had good stamina and I did several 5 min rounds daily. With all that, I kept struggling to maintain my weight and though I was eating paleo and went keto for some time, the weight I lost always seemed to come back to me again.

Seeing an Endocrinologist

I was doing everything right, according to common knowledge, and wasn’t getting the results everyone would expect. I went to see a doctor. An endocrinologist famous for the results he achieves with his patients. He interviewed me thoroughly and took almost all my blood for testing and came with the news: “You f**d up your metabolism!”

My hormones were good for my age and the testosterone was “very good” according to him, but he wanted to give me hormones to fasten things up.

I said no.

The only thing left to do, he said, was to increase my metabolism and intensify my workouts. I had just turned 50 and despite my physical condition was way better than 10 years earlier, it was very hard to lose weight or even avoid gaining even more.

I turned 50 in December 2017 and though I felt stronger and with good stamina, but paid a heavy price after every intense training session. I realized that one, or even two, heavy intense short training (40 min) sessions per day were better than long lighter ones.

Discovery of Carnivore Diet

I’ve discovered this way of eating (WOE) in 2018 after dieting for 2 months without great results. After digging thoroughly for 2 weeks, I decided to give it a try on February 10th and started to see the results at once.

I like meat. I always did. But to see at last that I don’t need anything else is simply perfect!

The weight started to drop since the first week. The bloated belly emptied away, and the joints began to feel better. After 1 week, I felt migraines for 2 days. I even felt feverish for one night, but I kept myself on track…

Everything was different afterwards.

The rest of the month was smooth. After 50 days, I got my blood tested, and the numbers were all better, though they were never bad. The testosterone levels went even higher, and I feel great.

After 100 days, I am 40 pounds leaner, and I don’t think I lost muscle. I feel stronger, and my stamina increased. I’m punching harder even with less weight, and despite the fact that I never lost flexibility, I can kick higher, faster, and with less effort. One training session every day. Some days I do it twice a day. One extreme and intense, the other more technical and less demanding.

I have no cravings. I haven’t had any vegetable fiber since the first day. Just some seasoning such as peppers, dry garlic powder, and a bit of sea salt in my meals. I drink only water, an occasional black unsweetened coffee, and, at home, I make yerba mate infusion. Nothing else.

I usually have 1 to 1.3 pounds of meat once a day. If I go hungry after the evening training session, I take some Bacon and eggs, but normally I eat only once.

My mind is sharp as it can be. No joint pains or digestive issues. I’m never tired, even after long training sessions, and I sleep like a rock. I’m still losing weight, and I feel the testosterone may be increasing even more…

I hope to lose another 15 or 17 pounds by June 23rd when I’ll be tested for 5th Dan.