For Shaun, a registered land surveyor and business owner from the Waikato region of New Zealand, life was busy, active, and outwardly normal. Growing up playing rugby and skiing, he had always considered himself athletic. But over the years, desk work, casual habits, and standard modern eating began to take a toll.
By his early 40s, Shaun carried a substantial physical burden:
- Creeping Weight & Puffiness: Standing 5’7″, his weight climbed to 120 kilograms (264 pounds).
- Early Metabolic Signs: Subtle warning signs of insulin resistance had begun years prior—starting with sudden vision changes during a university exam that later required corrective lenses, followed by chronic facial puffiness and lethargy.
- Persistent Joint Remnants: Decades of rugby injuries, including an un-rehabilitated knee trauma from his 20s that limited deep flexion, flared up regularly.
The pivotal wake-up call came in 2019 when Shaun’s father died following a stroke brought on by poorly managed diabetes. The family endured a traumatic week watching him pass away in palliative care.
“My dad had diabetes, went to his doctor, managed it, and then one day had a stroke and died,” Shaun recalls. “It was dreadful. Shortly after that, I looked at where my own health was heading and thought, I am not going to let that happen to me.“
The Failure of Conventional “Health Foods”
Determined to overhaul his health, Shaun initially leaned into conventional advice. After helping establish a local CrossFit community, he began training consistently, but weight loss remained sluggish.
Assuming plant-heavy eating was the gold standard for vascular protection, Shaun launched a high-vegetable diet. He even installed a kitchen in his surveying office to prepare fresh vegetable and potato lunches for his staff.
The outcome fell flat:
- Persistent Inflammation: His joint aches and rugby injuries remained sensitive and stiff.
- Cognitive Drag: Instead of steady energy, the high-vegetable regimen left him battling persistent brain fog.
- Sluggish Body Composition: The weight simply would not budge in proportion to his intense gym sessions.
While spending mornings in his sauna researching cardiology and metabolic disease, Shaun encountered the biological rationale for animal-based nutrition. The concept that red meat—long vilified by mainstream health guidelines—could function as an optimal human fuel source was startling. After examining the biochemistry, he decided to test a 30-day strict carnivore elimination protocol.
From Lingering Pain to the Top 0.1% of Athletes
Within two weeks of eliminating plant irritants, seed oils, and carbohydrates, the shift was unmistakable: his brain fog lifted completely, and the baseline inflammation in his joints smoothed out. Shaun transitioned into a strict lion-style carnivore diet (beef, salt, and water) for nearly two years before settling into a long-term animal-based framework consisting of three 500-gram steaks (Scotch fillet/ribeye) a day.
The performance and health turnaround over the subsequent years proved exceptional:
- ACCELERATED RECOVERY & CAPACITY: Removing dietary carbohydrates and antinutrients drastically reduced muscle damage and swelling. Shaun progressed from training three days a week to sustaining five to six high-intensity sessions weekly without chronic fatigue or overtraining.
- STRENGTH MILESTONES IN HIS 50s: Rather than slowing down with age, his strength escalated measurably. His deadlift steadily climbed from a difficult 180 kg (396 lbs) up to pulling 240 kg (529 lbs) in his 50s.
- REHABILITATING CHRONIC INJURIES: Free of systemic inflammatory triggers, his decades-old damaged rugby knee progressively regained functional mobility, allowing him to perform heavy, full-depth squats, Olympic lifts, and high-volume gymnastics.
- QUALIFYING FOR THE CROSSFIT GAMES: Defying the widespread assertion that high-volume functional fitness requires heavy carb-loading, Shaun competed across the global Open, placed 1st in the Quarterfinals for his age bracket, and ultimately qualified for and competed at the CrossFit Games in San Jose—securing his position among the top 0.1% of master athletes worldwide.
- COMMUNITY IMPACT: Alongside his wife Jillian, Shaun expanded their local gym and launched powerlifting clubs, helping older and previously sedentary members rebuild strength and mobility through progressive barbell training.
Redefining Aging at 55
Now approaching his mid-50s, Shaun operates with the work capacity, mobility, and physique of an elite competitor decades younger, completely free of the metabolic decline that claimed his father.
“I spent months forcing down high-vegetable lunches, dealing with brain fog, and struggling to recover. Cutting it all out and eating a kilo and a half of steak a day didn’t just drop the weight—it eliminated my joint inflammation and took me all the way to the CrossFit Games. You don’t have to break down as you get older.”
