WHAT!!!!! Nothing but Meat??

It’s 1:30pm on a regular Thursday afternoon, home from work, snacked on a handful of pretzels and wallah, it’s nap time! What the hell is happening to me? This isn’t right. I should not be tired and napping at 1:30pm and I need to get out of this horrible habit!!!

It’s been almost four weeks since that day and my most current attempt, at transforming my life into something better.

Lets go back a month, when I, while trolling YouTube for political videos, found Jordan Petersen. Jordan Petersen is a pod caster/ You Tuber and whatever else you may call him, who opines on a variety of topics, and on this day he was talking about his experience with the Carnivore lifestyle. Petersen found the Carnivore way of life because of his daughter who had been struggling with devastating arthritis. At a young age she needed, I believe, hip and knee replacement and doctors had no idea how to slow down or stop the progression of her arthritis. Desperate to save her body, she took one last leap of faith and chose to change her way of eating. She researched the Carnivore lifestyle and figured what had she to lose since nothing else was curing her.

It turns out that she found the healing properties she was seeking in an all meat based diet., which put her arthritis in remission. Now I know that this sounds crazy and also against everything we have been told about eating meat and how bad it is for us, but it intrigued me enough to start researching this on my own to see what it was about.

But first, a little background on myself and my nutritional lifestyle. I am a 63 year old male who has been fighting my weight with dieting, almost my entire adult life. I thought that I finally found some success when 20+ years ago I discovered P90X and breakfast. Those two things were the main reasons I remain today some 25 lbs lighter than I was prior to that last diet and exercise regimen. Although I have been very happy that I never gained back my weight that was lost, I still continued to fight weight gain, sometimes fluctuating 10 lbs more then finding my way back to my “normal” weight. So where am I going with this you ask? Well after falling asleep on that chair, I finally had a moment of clarity. I realized that the past 20 years I have never felt healthy and found myself almost always in a fog with low energy. I had been wasting so much time in a chair instead of taking advantage of working less and having more free time then in my youth. I had enough!

On Sunday, four weeks ago, I changed my eating habits and took the dive into Carnivore. After watching an endless amount of people swear how their lives were changed by giving up processed foods, sugar and pesticide filled vegetables and fruits, I was all in. This is my journey:

Day one: I began slowly by cutting out what I could the first day even though I went to breakfast with a friend. The idea is to eat nothing but beef, eggs, butter and bacon. Some carnivores also include some dairy, hard cheeses, fish and all other meats. The real key though is to get a pretty balanced amount of protein and fat with every meal. Basically the protein heals and nourishes and the fat satisfies you so you are never hungry. Fat as it is, is very important in maintaining and having success with this lifestyle.

When I began this journey I started documenting everything that I have noticed about my body and the changes, good and bad. I have to say that in the first two weeks, the worst thing is the diarrhea that you will experience due to the changes in diet and how your body doesn’t have any fiber to absorb all the extra fat. The good news is your body rejects more fat than it can absorb. Since you only produce so much bile, the body will not store the extra fat but it will expel it. It takes some getting used to and some have a worse time of it than others but everyone I watched on video stated they got through it pretty easily. Other than that I had experienced dizziness and feeling lightheaded especially while playing tennis and perspiring. This I would find out was due to the decrease in electrolytes in my diet, so I made adjustments based on what others recommended and it soon passed. The good though, far outweighed the bad. Here’s a LIST of what changed for the positive in as little as three days, and thru the first two weeks.

1. Weight loss of 10 pounds
2. Eczema condition on my elbows began to regress and heal
3. Sleeping better with less or no tossing and waking up
4. No more inflammation of my legs, hands and joints
5. Blood pressure back to normal numbers
6. Craving more water
7. No more cloudiness or brain fog but complete clarity
8. Energy that makes me feel like I can run through a wall
9. No more mood swings but generally always happy
10. Skin feels nourished and never dry
11. NO CRAVINGS FOR ANYTHING SWEET( this one is paramount!!!)
12. No body odors
13. No more tight hamstrings( which I ALWAYS had)
14. My bicep tendinitis that had plagued me on and off for two years is gone.
15. Probably more that I can’t remember without checking my journal.
16. and finally, less expensive shopping list and easy menu..lol

That was just the first two weeks… I am in my fourth week as I write this and I can’t say enough how incredible I feel. The biggest thing about this lifestyle is you are hardly ever hungry and never crave anything. After just a few days, the sugar craving goes away and the fat in your diet keeps you so satiated that you hardly ever look for your next meal. I have gone periods of between 12 -18 hours of not eating because I had no desire or hunger to do so. This is not done purposely but only out of lack of being hungry.

From what I am led to believe, you go into a state of Ketosis whereas it burns fat off your body in between meals which in turn keeps you satisfied and thins your waistline in the process. Whatever it is it works. All those videos I watched for two weeks prior to trying this Carnivore lifestyle proved true. My past dieting and lifestyle never produced such great affect on my life. I am feeling healthier than ever and have so much energy that sometimes I don’t know what to do with myself.

So where do I go from here? I don’t believe I can go my whole life without eating ice cream, sweets or bread, which I love, but I do believe that I can sustain this lifestyle even with the occasional cheat day in there once in awhile. Honestly my goal was to try this for a week and see how I felt but now that I am in full blown Carnivore mode I have no desire to go back. The last thing I need to do is get my blood work done to see if my vitals are still in line or better than what they were prior to Carnivore.

One last thought. If you are suffering from chronic anything, whether it be tiredness, skin condition, IBS or something else, you owe it to your self to look into this lifestyle. You will be amazed at how many people have hopped on board that have benefited with better health and a more productive life from just changing what they put in their bodies.

Just one man’s opinion

The Regular Guy

• disclaimer.- I am in no way endorsing or promoting this Carnivore lifestyle to anyone but merely stating how this change has affected my life and how it may perhaps, affect yours. Do your homework and always consult professional advice and guidance when making life changes.