I’m looking for the best deals on all that Amazon has to offer for carnivore products! From appliances to knives, food storage to the controversial coffee, and anything else I can find that may fit into your mission for better health!
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Appliances
Ninja 12-in-One multi-function cooker: 43% off! I use mine DAILY!
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Food and Drink
Kicking Horse Organic Coffee: 21% off
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4505 Meat Sticks: 20% off
Pork King Good Pork Rind Crumbs: 20% off! I use these in my meatball recipe, to make chick-fil-a like nuggets, and in my carnivore pizza crust! Oh and chaffles too!!
Pork King Good Seasonings: 20% off!
Kitchen Items
Ninja NeverDull Knife Set: 40% off!!
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Digital Food Scale – 27% Off!
Silicone Baking Mats: 46% Off! These are great for reverse sear, baking wings, salmon…
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Over the weekend I was asked if carnivore, zero carb, or low carb can help with fertility and hormone issues.
First, the disclaimer: I can’t guarantee anything or make any promises.I’d bet my life savings, but I can’t promise.
Short answer: YES!
Keeping your carb intake as low as possible will keep your insulin low. Many issues with fertility and hormone imbalance at any age can be traced to a constant flood of insulin. Metformin can help to lower insulin, but this presents two problems from my understanding. 1. It goes back to my analogy concerning diabetics – rather than change your diet, the doctor prescribes another medication. Where if you just reduce the foods that are causing the issue, you wouldn’t need the medication. 2. It simply masks the issue and many women trying to become pregnant do not want additional medications in their system, and therefore the baby’s.
Long answer: YES!
When you consume sugar and carbs, they become glucose in your body. Insulin is released to level things out. If you are having sugar and carbs throughout the day, the insulin and your pancreas never has a break. Insulin is a storage hormone – storing glucose, fat, salt, and water. This is a stressor on your body, also keeping cortisol levels high. Cortisol is a stress hormone.
This is the perfect storm to create insulin resistance. This means your hormones are not receiving the proper signals. It’s like a break in the communication system in your cells. You stop ovulating, or ovulate infrequently. Your cycle may be irregular, you may develop PCOS. All of these things will go against what your body was made to do. With those hormones now being out of whack and receiving no communication, pregnancy loss is also a higher risk.
SO, consuming very low carb foods like berries, spinach, some nuts, etc., will go a long way to reducing your insulin and keeping glucose levels nice and steady. Though carbs are NOT essential even during pregnancy.
Protein’s Role
Consuming more protein will help with muscle support and building another human! Eggs, burgers, bacon, steak, chicken, wings – any beef, pork, chicken, or fish. As we get older, prioritizing protein is even more important. Keeping carbs at a minimum, steady glucose levels, and low insulin, are important to reduce inflammation. Protein keeps muscles strong to protect bones. Low insulin lowers cardiovascular risk.
Fat’s Role
Fat is also essential in healing and supporting hormones in all humans. I’m talking about animal fat – eat the fat on the meat, have some cheese, cook in tallow, lard, butter, or ghee. Healing your hormones and eating to support them is a big deal! Hormones require fat. Every cell in your body requires fat to function properly.
Check out YouTube videos from Kelly Hogan, Neisha Berry, and others who had hormonal imbalances, PCOS, Hashimoto’s, and once they were able to heal, they were able to successfully conceive and have healthy, full-term pregnancies.
This is also helpful information for women who are going through menopause!
Something I recently saw on TikTok really got me thinking. A creator with followers in the millions said something that I felt was really irresponsible. It was disappointing to me. I’ve seen a few creators and influencers post content to this effect recently. A new movement, maybe? I think it’s dangerous.
I guess I get where they are coming from. We should never hate ourselves or hate our bodies. But changing yourself and loving yourself are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes changing IS self-love. In fact it should always be about loving yourself, especially when it comes to mental and physical health. Change should never be to fit someone else’s ideal. It shouldn’t be about punishing yourself, trying to look like someone else or fitting into a certain size.
Words Have Consequences
This creator advised people to ‘just eat the chocolate bunny’, and ‘it’s just food’. She alluded to her own struggles in the past and her relationship to food. Knowing that made what she said even more confusing for me for a few reasons. Maybe she doesn’t know what I know, and definitely doesn’t know me and my struggles. Obviously she isn’t creating content solely for me, and that advice may work for some people. I’m not so self-absorbed to think that my opinion of her post matters to her in the slightest. Actually, I hope it doesn’t because that would be devastating and detrimental to her brilliant creativity. I love most of her content, she’s truly gifted. But I can’t help the way I feel about this specific topic because it is so close to me.
I’m happy for her that she can look at food that way. But so many of us cannot. Not ever. If I were to follow that advice, it would be the start of a downward spiral and the loss of all I have accomplished over the last 15 months. Not realizing that there are a lot of us who have sugar addiction, carb addiction, food addiction, isn’t her fault. But I am here to completely oppose that advice. DROP THE BUNNY AND STEP AWAY. Don’t do it! It is not worth it. Don’t derail your progress in your healing mission. Now if you can eat the bunny and jump right back on track – BRAVO!! I envy and admire you! It does not undo or negate everything you have done so far. Not in the least! But if it’s going to cause you to spiral, or if there is the slightest chance you’ll feel like garbage physically or awaken that addiction… Just. Don’t. Do. It. It doesn’t mean you don’t love yourself. It’s the opposite! Not putting garbage into your body is not deprivation or loathing. It is honor and love.
When Food Isn’t Just Food
The other problem I have with her statement is that idea that ‘it’s just food’. It’s not. It’s a drug. But even more importantly, it’s not actual food! If there are ingredients you can’t easily identify, then it is not food and not fuel. Why would you do that to yourself? Because it tastes good for a few moments? In the throws of addiction, we don’t think about that. Once you wake up and address your addiction it’s a totally different mindset.
Living in Healthy Healing Harmony
While I’m not where I want to be physically, I don’t hate where I am now. I am proud of my progress and finally living in healthy healing harmony with my body. This is not about changing because I hate myself. Really it’s because I love my life and want to enjoy every minute of it, not being consumed with addiction and ailments. I’m not punishing my body for not being what I want it to be. I’m listening to my body and honoring it as it is. I have a vision and goals, yes. However, I’m confident where I am and that took a LOT of healing. Being confident in your skin at any size is wonderful. Complacency, however, if you are unhealthy is not safe.
Triggered by a TikTok Star
I understand the sentiment, but the words chosen to express that idea were irresponsible in my opinion. If you are not an alcoholic, but have decided to just cut back on drinking and tell others to just go ahead and have the beer, take the shot, indulge and don’t feel guilty, just as a general statement of self love and acceptance completely jeopardizes the wellbeing of those who see that message and are alcoholics. If you would never say those words knowing an alcoholic’s recovery may be hampered by your words, then you must acknowledge that there are other addictions that are just as valid in the effect they have on people as well. I am 100% positive, no harm was meant by her words. They still haunt me. Yep, I’m TRIGGERED. This person whose content I enjoy, who seems so loving and who is using her platform to ensure she is doing all she can to put positivity into the world is not in any way responsible for my weakness.
That self-sabotaging bitch in my head though, she’s trying real hard to justify what she heard.
Stay Focused
So how do you stay focused, or re-focus, when you’re battling that voice in your head? Dive deep, my friend. Immerse yourself in all healing things. Whatever it takes to get yourself right. Read, or listen to helpful and positive topics from AudiobooksNow. Join an online community like The Steak and Butter Gang, where you can connect with others, listen to their struggles and their victories here https://sbg-s-meat-up.mn.co/share/KqFp3vyXjBT6w81T?utm_source=manual. Or feel free to reach out to me here, or on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/thecandidcarnivore/. I’d be happy to offer support.
Thank you for your support and your time. I hope my content supports and inspires you – and maybe makes you laugh sometimes.
An often overlooked benefit of the carnivore diet is dramatic improvement in mental health. We carnivores know this to be true, but most people don’t come to this way of eating for that specific benefit. Some do, but most are looking for physical changes and/or healing some medical issues. What brought me to carnivore? A couple of things: disordered eating, weight, autoimmune disorders, food addiction, and just being really fucking sick and tired of counting and tracking every damn thing I put in my mouth. But wait, there’s more…
Cleaning out my home office today, I came across a notebook that I had used for many different things. As I flipped through the pages to see if anything important jumped out at me, I noticed I had scribbled some thoughts onto a couple of pages at some point in the last year or two. Maybe three. There are two entries that caught my eye – and both of them completely shattered my heart. I cried for the woman who wrote those thoughts. The version of me who wrote these things is still here, but she has healed so much since then.
One entry was probably written within the last six to twelve months. It’s a whole blog entry all on its own, so I won’t share it here. It’s very similar to my first blog post CARNIVORE MISSION: FOOD ADDICTION AND RESTRICTION, WITH A DASH OF HASHIMOTO’S AND A SIDE OF SHAME. Food addiction, as I write about often, is cruel and sinister. You need food to live, you can’t just avoid it. That causes a whole other issue. I’ve gone that route, too. I’m better now – thanks to carnivore. I will take each day as it comes, but I have zero desire to ever take that ride again.
Masking Personality
The other entry I found, is in regard to something I am still struggling with. But I am so much better than I was when I wrote this:
“It’s exhausting. Being the person people expect you to be. It’s a lie. Every time I flip the switch it drains my soul. I WANT to be that person – that happy, fun, bubbly person. That person who makes a connection with everyone I meet. Maybe I am that person, somehow, somewhere deep, DEEP inside. But the chains, the weight of not being able to act what I feel, to look how I feel when I want to shut out the world. Sleep. Think. Dream. Plan. Heal. Then maybe I could be that person. But for now, the pretending, on-off, on-off, on-off… it’s torture.”
Masking, in my case, has been a way for me to cope with anxiety and depression. I crave friendships and connection but the thought of social situations crippled me. Holidays with extended family was excruciating for me. I dreaded them from the moment the invitation was extended. Smile, converse, look amused, know you’re being judged but pretend you don’t. Or maybe that part was just in my head. Working with the public was exhausting. Smile and greet people, validate them whether they are right or wrong, pander to them because they might be well-connected. I was always completely exhausted. I’ve done this all my life. But get ready, because the mask is about to come off!
Don’t be scared, it’s not as bad as it sounds.
Unmasking
Trauma gets buried under expectations and layered under the day to day. The pain, ailments, work, family, obligations pile up, covering the initial major trauma(s) and we forget it’s there. Too busy to deal and heal. But your body remembers and acts out in ways we cannot ignore. Once we begin trying to heal the physical problems we have created for ourselves, heal the very cells and nourish each one of them so that we can be whole again, those deeper traumas may be revealed and demand to be dealt with.
Through that healing, I’ve discovered a lot about myself and still am discovering more. I’m recognizing my past traumas, naming them, and releasing them. There is no room for them in my life anymore. I’m removing all things from my life that do not serve me in a positive way – including my government job. That is the place where I have had to mask the most. Even though I now feel I am me again, completely authentic. That authenticity is happiness now and I no longer feel like I’m flipping a switch. I have room for joy. My mind is healing along with my body.
How Does the Carnivore Diet Heal?
A carnivore diet means eating only animal products. So many complex things happen in your body in reaction to what you consume, apply, and inject. Yet, it really is very simple. I think of it this way: we are what we eat. Humans are animals. Humans are not plants, we did not sprout up from the ground. We are not manufactured or made up of lab-produced chemicals. Human cells require replenishment with the correct building blocks. We need to replace animal protein with animal protein. You can’t rebuild a brick house with cardboard boxes or sugar cubes and expect the same stable structure. This seems like common sense to me.
Once your cells are healthy and functioning properly, after all of the clutter that is unusable material is removed from your body, you start to think and process more clearly. When your body and your cells are working congruently, your mind can finally deal with everything it needs to deal with – swiftly and clearly.
Me, Revealed
I am very happy to report, that I am actually a very happy person. I’m removing the mask, bit by bit, and I’m finding that I AM that happy, friendly person. I wouldn’t go as far as saying I’m a ‘people person’, and I still get anxious about social gatherings. but it’s getting easier. It’s not a tremendous effort anymore. I’ve found that the ‘on switch’ is the real me. The off switch was my very sick body attempting to recuperate from any effort I put out and the buried trauma that I had not dealt with properly. I still get tired after a particularly people-y day, but I have the tools to refuel and not shut down at 5pm. I gained the strength to leave my job so that I can earn a certification to become a health coach, and focus on helping others heal so they, too, can live a joyful life.
For several years now, long before I found the carnivore diet – and even before discovering paleo, low carb, and keto – I have seemingly instinctively known that what we eat may be causing health issues. The whole food pyramid and ‘my plate’ graphics seemed off to me. I had no idea why at the time, and it took years of digging into various resources to finally understand that everything we have been taught about diet and nutrition is complete and utter bullshit.
For me, it started with my children’s diagnoses: one with Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism, like me, which led me to researching gluten and sugar; one with ADHD, like me, which led me to the chemical additives in food; and one with epilepsy, which led me to learning about the keto diet. Now it has taken several years, but I have experimented with so many variations and seen so many improvements in my own health. So much information has come to light regarding root-cause and the reversal of diseases and disorders through the elimination of many different foods.
My Carnivore Healing Experience
Brain Fog
The very first thing I noticed when I cut out grains and sugar was mental clarity. I knew then that I was really on the right track. It’s an extremely scary thing to be mid-sentence, speaking to your boss or co-worker or customer, and completely lose the words and thoughts you’re trying to convey. Sure, everyone loses their train of thought once in a while. But this was more than that.
Brain fog is one of many side effects of Hashimoto’s Hypothyroidism. And it isn’t improved upon with medication. It didn’t matter what dose of levothyroxine my endocrinologist had me on, I could not effectively communicate. I was so scared that this was early onset Alzheimer’s or dementia! Come to learn, dementia is referred to as type 3 diabetes and I had been diagnosed as pre-diabetic at one point! More on that at a later date.
I noticed a marked improvement in my mental clarity once I greatly reduced my intake of grains and sugar. Even more so when I started removing all processed foods, including keto approved treats, and began eating only animal products. The elimination of the foods that were harming my body, and therefore my brain, and the increase of proteins and fat – yes, fat! – was the combination my body was quite literally dying for.
Eating Disorders
When we think of eating disorders, we often think of anorexia and bulimia. Those two seem to get all the attention. To a degree, they are almost glamorized. Binge eating disorder is more common than you’d think, and often leads to other eating disorders.
Food addiction and binging began for me at a very young age. I was maybe 4 or 5 years old and can remember sneaking food and hiding to eat it. By the time I was 12 I hated myself and my inability to control myself around food. I was 22 when I became anorexic and was bulimic at age 25. By 35 I regained the 112 pounds I had lost, plus an additional 50 pounds by binging again. Doing what we have always been told is necessary to lose weight, I tried calorie restriction, weight-loss programs, exercise…nothing worked. Until, that is, I stopped eating grains and sugar. Then, the weight began coming off. Dieting, calorie restriction, is disordered eating. Yet that is what we are told is necessary to lose weight.
I continued counting calories and trying to fit into a certain number of macros even while following the keto diet. I lost a lot of weight this way, but my brain was so overloaded and stressed out trying to track everything – and I was so hungry all the time! Now that I am a carnivore, none of that matters. I eat the animal products I want. Counting, tracking, and restricting is not necessary. Meat and fat fuel my body and my brain. I am well nourished and losing weight at the same time.
Insulin Resistance
I am not a medical professional, but I think I understand that insulin resistance is the disorder in which the body is producing insulin with little effect on glucose levels. Glucose levels remain high in the blood and cause type 2 diabetes, which is the need for additional insulin to help the body process the glucose in the blood. The body isn’t able to keep up with the demand. So rather than removing the foods that cause the glucose to rise, we take a pill or an injection.
My endocrinologist told me I was insulin resistant and pre-diabetic and handed me a prescription for metformin. That seems crazy to me. It’s like, if you’re allergic to peanuts, but you continue to eat peanuts and use an Epipen or take Benadryl to stop the symptoms, rather than just no longer eating the damn peanuts. This absolutely blows my mind!
Hirsutism, PCOS, & Hormone Imbalance
Receiving a diagnosis of Hashimoto’s, hirsutism, and PCOS came with prescriptions for each issue also. But I had to learn on my own what each of these things meant.
Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism is an autoimmune condition in which the body produces antibodies that fight off the hormones produced by your thyroid as if they are invading with malicious intent. When in reality, those hormones are necessary for your body’s daily functions – like…well, literally everything. Thyroid hormones are responsible for every cellular activity in your body. Hypothyroid means your body isn’t producing enough hormones. Hashimoto’s means no matter how much thyroid hormone your body is producing, your immune system is fighting those hormones off.
Hirsutism is a condition that causes women to have dark, whisker-like hairs growing on their face – like a beard. This is often caused by hormonal imbalances, like poly-cystic ovarian syndrome, aka PCOS.
PCOS is linked to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. See the pattern here? PCOS results in ovarian pain, bleeding, ruptures, infections, and infertility. Due to not having been diagnosed or treated for all of these issues until I had suffered for decades, my menstrual cycle stopped in my late 30s. Not that I missed it or wanted it back, but that is just not normal!
But, I’m happy to say that PCOS is not an issue anymore. My beard growth has dramatically slowed. And the hair on top of my heads has stopped falling out – another side effect of hypothyroidism, insulin resistance, and hormone imbalances. I attribute this to my body no longer having to try to deal with trying to process ridiculous amounts of carbs and having the much needed protein and fat to heal.
Anxiety, Depression, & Mood Disorders
Anxiety, depression, and wildly fluctuating moods are more symptoms related to everything that was wrong with me physically. I was malnourished even when I was obese. My whole body ached after the smallest household tasks and my brain was so cloudy. Adding more medication was not the answer. It couldn’t be! It was time to start removing things I was putting into my body.
Allow me to give you a recent example. Five months ago I had surgery to repair a small rotator cuff tear. During that time I lapsed back into keto, eating all the Rebel ice cream, because I had an owie and I deserved it, right? See, I’m not always the brightest bulb. And my sweet, loving, attentive husband will give me absolutely anything I ask for. It doesn’t matter if I tell him not to, under any circumstance, give into my request for sweet tastes. The moment I ask, he caves. Sweet tastes are my weakness. And I, apparently, am his. So while I claimed to be a carnivore, I was feeding my addiction, very literally, for sugar.
The fact that it wasn’t actual sugar doesn’t matter. It still lit up my brain’s dopamine response due to the sweet taste. And guess what! I became addicted to that f-ing ice cream! I ate an entire pint of it every single day. Sometimes two pints. It’s embarrassing.
Between the non-nutritive ingredients and being back on the addiction path, my mood tanked. Anxiety and depression were back. Did I ask my doctor for prescription to combat anxiety and depression? Hell no! I knew where I went wrong and I knew how to fix it. Of course it wasn’t easy. But there is no way I will every hand over my power again. That is exactly what some food does to me. It takes my power. When I eat only animal products, all the power is mine. I am in control.
Carnivore, Low Carb, and Keto Resources
So where do you find all the information I talked about? So many places. If social media and group support is what you need, I really recommend checking out The Steak and Butter Gang over on Mighty Networks. You can join here. There is so much love there, so much expert information and support. You won’t regret joining.
If you prefer books, here is a list that I cannot recommend enough. Many have audio versions as well.
Check them out. Let me know what you think. As always, thank you for taking the time to read my little posts. I truly appreciate it!
xoxo
~ The Candid Carnivore
PS: Link disclaimer – I am an Amazon Associate and while there is never any additional cost to you if you purchase via these links, I may receive a tiny commission from Amazon. For the Steak and Butter Gang link, I receive no compensation to promote this group. The coaches and members just bring me joy, so I like to share and invite others to join.
There’s a lot of conflicting chatter about the obesity epidemic and body-positivity. The diet and fitness industries are booming and have been for quite some time. So with so much health-conscious advice and programs available to us, how is it that the obesity rate just seems to keep climbing? Shouldn’t people be healthier than ever? Shouldn’t diabetes and heart disease be a thing of the past if all this advice really works?
Diets are Designed to Fail
Let me share my personal experience with you. Being 5′ 4″ and having been 240+ pounds, 112 pounds, and everywhere in between; having been anorexic and bulimic and having run the gamut of diet trends, restricting, binging, and being completely addicted to food in general as a means of coping with many issues in my life, having meticulously counted calories, fat grams, and carbs, done low fat, low carb, keto, and carnivore…I can speak pretty confidently about this subject.
Both times that I lost a significant amount of weight, I did so by restricting my food intake. It definitely works for weight loss. But it is not, has never been, and will never be, a sustainable way of life. Eat less, move more, right? No. Please stop doing that to your body. Do not punish your body for doing what it was designed to do. There’s so much talk of self-love and body-positivity, but the meaning of those phrases is being twisted. Self-love should not be conditional and body positivity should not take precedence over actual health. It’s one thing to love who you are as a person at any size, but the reality of the actual health of a person of any size – overly fat or overly thin – is something different. The first photo shows me at approximately 240 lbs – malnourished from eating tons of sugar and processed foods. The second photo shows me at approximately 140 lbs – malnourished from eating tons of keto products and calorie restricting. Yes, I felt better about my body and the way I looked in the second photo, but I didn’t feel great. I felt better, for sure. But not great.
When you see an overweight person, it’s easy to assume they are not lacking nutrition. But in most cases, they are. For example, let’s think about Thanksgiving when you eat all the things, not only the turkey but the potatoes, the rolls, the stuffing, the sweet potatoes. You are absolutely stuffed, yet you manage to squeeze in a piece of pie or two, and whatever other desserts catch your eye. A few hours later you’re back at it, picking at the turkey, having another helping of your favorites. And you may actually feel hungry, even though you know your stomach is at capacity. How?
Stuffed but Starving
One Thanksgiving a few years ago, I made sure I stayed keto/carnivore. I had turkey, deviled eggs, and made PSMF rolls. PSMF rolls are a protein-sparing modified fasting recipe made from eggs. I ate until I was stuffed – yet I still felt like I needed more. For the entire month of November, I had been eating beef only. I was satisfied, happy, nourished, and thriving every day. But on Thanksgiving, everything I ate was from poultry. Again, my stomach was completely full after eating so much – including nearly an entire pan of those rolls. After that, I ‘treated myself’ with my favorite keto ice cream. I could NOT stop eating! I literally made myself feel sick because my body was crying out for the nutrition it had been getting all month and I threw it a curveball that day. I love turkey, chicken, and eggs – don’t get me wrong. I eat one of those things almost daily. But I can’t get by just eating those things. I had starved my body of whole nutrition for too long all those years of eating what we were all taught was healthy.
2010: 230+ lbs, malnourished, always hungry
Nutrients > Calories
Chances are that an obese person is not that size because of the whole one-ingredient foods. They are likely eating very processed foods. It’s not really about the calorie content of a food, but the nutrition. It makes sense to me that if you are consuming both carbs and fat, that your body will use the most readily available fuel first – the carbs, saving the slow-burning fat in case of actual starvation. If you have been restricting calories in an effort to lose weight, your body doesn’t trust you. Your metabolic system has no brain or logic. It reacts based on your actions. Or lack of action.
Whether I was eating low-fat, low-calorie, low-carb, or whatever I wanted, I still ate a lot of processed, manufactured food. I always felt deprived, tired, achy, lethargic. When I began my health mission on Carnivore, I started out still using zero-carb sweeteners and diet sodas. While I was feeling much better than I ever had on any other way of eating, there were still times my energy would plummet. Those ‘natural’ and artificial sweeteners were still causing an insulin response. And I still had some minor carb cravings. When I cut those things out, I have consistent energy and zero cravings.
Proper Human Diet
Eating meat and animal products has allowed my body to trust me again. No more glucose spikes and dips. I have nice, level energy and mental clarity that I thought I would never experience. I am now 51 years old and I feel better than I did at age 20.
Addiction is painful, no matter what the drug happens to be.
Food to Mask the Pain
What is comfort food? Does it truly bring comfort? Or does it bring more pain?
If we are talking about the traditional comfort foods, most of us think of cookies, ice cream, cake, macaroni & cheese, maybe pizza and other foods high in carbohydrates. There is a very scientific reason that we feel comfort when eating those types of food. People much smarter than I can explain all of that in detail and do so with absolute authority. But I can tell you that I have learned from those very smart people, and from my own experience, that these foods contain high amounts of carbs. Carbs turn to sugar in our bodies. Sugar creates a chemical response in our bodies and in our brains that trigger a dopamine response. It’s something very similar to getting high and that feeling, in turn, creates an addiction. Sweet taste is several times more addictive than cocaine. Read that again – sweet taste. is several times more addictive. than COCAINE! What? We give these foods to our children! We are literally raising addicts just by feeding them foods from our local grocery stores. (click here to read one study using artificial sweetener and cocaine, as an example – there are several articles on the matter, just search for yourself! Intense Sweetness Surpasses Cocaine Reward (nih.gov))
There is sugar, in some form, in most processed foods. I dare you to grab any food item in your kitchen with an ingredient label – guaranteed there is at least one form of sugar in that item. Maybe more. Sugar has over 50 different names, and food manufacturers will try to fool you as often as possible.
You hear a lot of people say they are an ’emotional eater’, meaning when they are sad, stressed, angry, happy, or any strong emotion, they turn to food. Rather than allowing themselves to feel that emotion, they distract themselves or use the food to cope or celebrate. Doesn’t that sound very similar to how a person with an addiction would respond? In my statement above, replace the phrase, “…they turn to food.” with “…they turn to alcohol.” Or a specific drug. Even when someone says they reward themselves with chocolate or some other food, isn’t that the same as saying they reward themselves with a drink or drug use?
The Culture of Food as a Drug
This behavior is something many of us are taught in childhood. A good-intentioned adult wants to fix what is bothering the child, or distract them from crying, by giving them a treat. This creates a dependency very early in life! Rather than being taught how to cope with or regulate emotions, children are often taught to just cover it up or use some substance, which may start out as sugar or carbs, to create a flood of dopamine in the brain that gives us that feeling of comfort. Maybe, just maybe, this is the beginning of what predisposes a person for drug or alcohol abuse? It makes sense to me. Eating becomes something that is tied to emotions, whether we are eating to celebrate or to mourn. The chemistry of the food creates such an intense reaction in the body that it mimics emotion or masks it. Processed food, carbs, and sweet tastes (yes, even your diet soda and keto sweeteners) give us that dopamine hit that is so strong that real joy and happiness can’t compete. Is this a cause of depression?
The problem is that – and I am not saying it is as simple as this – while lifestyle changes can be made to avoid drugs and alcohol, you can’t avoid food. You can avoid certain foods and ingredients, but it is SO difficult when family gatherings, social functions, and even office meetings often revolve around the very types of food you are trying to avoid. You hear things like, ‘oh come on live a little’, ‘one cupcake won’t kill you’, ‘you deserve a treat’….Would those food-pushers say to an alcoholic, ‘one shot won’t kill you’, or ‘it’s a celebration, how are you not going to drink?’ But most people don’t understand, because we need food to live, that sugar and processed foods are addictive.
Nutrition is the Key
I, and I think many others can attest to this, have found that eating only animal foods reduces or eliminates the addiction to sugar and carbs. Why is this important? Sugar and carbs are not what our bodies were designed to thrive on. The over-consumption of these foods creates constant insulin response, which affects our mood and emotional regulation. Without the constant dips and spikes in blood glucose, and therefore insulin, my mood is fairly constant. I don’t crave that dopamine release that food used to give me.
So do comfort foods really bring comfort, or do they replace true emotions with dopamine, thereby eliminating the processing of emotions and perpetuating the trauma, never allowing the healing or the development of coping skills? In my opinion, processed foods, carbs, and sugar do damage to our bodies and our minds. I know in my healing mission, my body feels so much better. But the healing I have experienced within my mind and my emotions is the most valuable result so far.
Feel free to comment or ask questions about my experiences and let me know if there is any way I can help you on your own healing mission!
So you think a carnivore diet would be boring? Too restrictive? You’d miss cooking? I’m happy to tell you – you’re wrong! Personally, I absolutely love the simplicity of carnivore. After years of cooking for a family of six, trying to plan and budget, making sure we have a ‘balanced plate’ with a main dish plus sides…exhausting!
Save Time and Money with Carnivore
Now my children are all grown and the ones who are still here at home buy and cook their own food. They are most definitely not carnivores. But that’s not to say that cooking wouldn’t be much simpler if they did still depend on me for meals. Coming home after work and tossing a couple of steaks in the air fryer while I feed my dogs, change my clothes, and go through the mail is WAY easier than throwing together a bunch of non-nutritive crap. But, on those occasions – usually weekends – when I have a bit more time and I feel like spending some time on meals, I can always find something incredible to make and devour.
Where to Find Recipes
Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram are loaded with inspiring recipes. Even if you don’t want to or aren’t able to follow the recipes exactly, you can create some pretty impressive dishes using recipes from some pretty talented creators. If they use something you are sensitive to or an ingredient you are trying to avoid, you can always modify, substitute, or omit that part. I ended my first 36 hour fast this morning by taking inspiration from Reid’s chili recipe @thecarnivorouschef and Erin’s homemade version of Egglife wraps @carnivore.diva to make TACOS. My Mexican husband misses some traditional dishes now and then so creators like these guys keep us satisfied. I have zero cravings at this point in my healing mission and have no issue avoiding carbs even when they are literally right under my nose. But I do lean on recipes like this once in a while for variety.
Check out the Carnivorous Chef on Instagram, YouTube, and all the other things. Explicit Warning: His content is straight food PORN. 100% would not recommend watching on a fasting day, if you are the type to fast. 100% would recommend if you think carnivore is boring – this guy will get you drooling and tingly in 0.2 seconds. He’s creative and clever! (use a potato smasher for breaking up meat = brilliant) His links are below! He’s also the genius behind some brand spanking new seasonings that I’m dying to try: the Carnivore Companion.
Repurposed tater smasher = genius
I followed Erin Brooke’s recipe exactly for the wraps and they were perfection. Although, next time I may add a tad more water. I think I just measured a little less than was called for. Find her content on Instagram @carnivore.diva
carnivore.diva’s egg wraps
The inspiration for the taco meat came from watching @thecarnivorouschef make chili. In my version, I did the following meticulous steps:
Bacon grease – you can use butter or tallow or whatever. I just happened to have a pan of bacon grease on the stove. This is just for anti-stick purposes.
1 lb. of ground beef. I used lean, just because that’s all that was available at the store. But I didn’t need to drain it after cooking, so that’s a win for me.
1 lb. of sweet Italian sausage. Again, it’s all that was available. I actually wanted just plain ground pork, but this was a substitution. I’m ok with it because there were no funky ingredients like corn syrup that is often included in sausage.
I tossed in what I felt like was a good amount of the following spices. I usually don’t measure spices. It makes me feel adventurous.
OR…try Carnivore Companion Tacollagen. I haven’t tried it yet, but if it’s half as incredible as the videos the Carnivorous Chef makes, I’m sure it won’t disappoint.
Smash it all together as it cooks with a repurposed Potato Masher like this one. Tada – taco meat!
Yup, carnivore is SUPER boring and restrictive! I inhaled four of these – packed with protein and fat for fueling my…well my very lazy Sunday. But if I decide to be active, I’ll have plenty of energy! As promised, here are the links to the Carnivorous Chef. My new BFF. He just doesn’t know it yet.
As with any major life change, one of the most important things you can do to ensure success is to find likeminded people who will support you. Family and friends can be great – or they can bring you down. They may say they support you, but if they don’t fully understand what you’re doing and why, they may not be the best people to lean on when you are struggling. They may unknowingly undermine your plan. They may fully knowingly undermine your plan while telling you they support you. Either way, no matter what you are trying to accomplish – be it diet, exercise, career change, addiction, or any major life change – you need to find ya self a TRIBE.
Don’t be so independent…
It’s actually imperative that you do. I am not a social person. I am not one who asks for help. I can do it all on my own, damn it! I’ll read and watch everything related to my goal and I’ll do it my own damn self. Yeah!….No. I mean that is totally how I think. I’m stubborn and not all that bright sometimes, but I recently learned something huge. We NEED people. Like it or not. And believe me, I do NOT like it one bit. But when you find the RIGHT people…dang. Well, that changes every single thing.
In my previous posts, I sort of outlined the path that brought me to carnivore. I have been eating 95% carnivore for a long time now. Honestly, I don’t know exactly how long for sure. These last two years have been so weird. It’s like 2020 was skipped altogether and 2021 was a shadow of 2020. It’s been at least of year of mostly animal products with very little of anything else. I finally gave up the keto treats and sugar free sweeteners just a few months ago. Still, something was missing even though I thought I was doing everything right.
Carnivore Community
In November 2021, I gave in and joined an online carnivore community. There are lots of groups out there! There are social media groups dedicated to various interests that are free and available for anyone to join. But that’s the problem I found – anyone can join and cause conflict or give information that may not be entirely accurate or beneficial because it doesn’t cost them anything. People feel empowered to be just plain mean and judgmental, sarcastic and just outright assholes. But the community I discovered is a whole different vibe.
When I tell you I love these people, I mean I actually feel connected. I’m literally tearing up writing this. We celebrate together, we cry together, we support each other in every single way. If someone is struggling, the coaches and the members band together to find a workable solution to whatever that struggle is. I’m an inherently shy person, so I have not yet shared or spoken during the live Zoom ‘meatings’. (Meatings – get it? Isn’t that clever?!) I do post in different areas, though. There are live chat areas, places to just post your thoughts, and those Zoom meatings where you can share in that chat section or raise your hand and talk to the coaches in real time, or you can watch the playbacks.
Let me tell you – I feel so much joy! Maybe that sounds hokey or corny, but there is no more accurate way to describe it. This way of eating = joy. This carnivore community = joy. Having this tribe to support me = joy. Giving support and cheering on those in my tribe = joy. My heart is full and I have direction. I owe that to all the meat and fat I eat and to the beautiful carnivorous souls in the Steak and Butter Gang!
My Tribe
A little background on the carnivore community, Steak and Butter Gang: it was founded by the one and only Steak and Butter Gal, Bella. While Bella’s story looks much different than mine, what she has created in this online community is something I have never seen before. You can check out Bella’s story on YouTube – her channel is here: Steak and Butter Gal – YouTube. She was a vegan for several years with worsening health issues before she discovered the carnivore life. She has since healed many, if not all, of those health problems by eating only meat, eggs, and butter!
Don’t worry, I’m not selling anything! This is not a sponsored post; I get nothing from this except the satisfaction of spreading the benefits of carnivore and hoping more people realize that our food matters. Eating what our bodies were built to process and use matters!
If you’d like to check out this community that I am so head over heels for, you can find them HERE!
It’s not a free plan, but having access to the zoom meatings, the coaches, and the community is worth way more than the $1/day you’ll spend. The value far outweighs the cost! The February group is open now. You won’t regret signing up, but there may be a time where you regret not having signed up sooner!
If you’d like to know more before committing to carnivore or to a group like the SBG, feel free to email me, comment below, or have a look at my Instagram page! @thecandidcarnivore
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post here. Please know that truly – I appreciate you, you can heal yourself, and living is greater than simply existing.
From around 230lbs trying to diet like a normal person, to low-carb/keto, to carnivore in 2020.
In the previous entry, I gave a life-long, chronological timeline of my history with food. I want to take small snapshots of each stage and give a little more detail into each. Now this goes against my nature to do this out of order, but I think my most recent experiences are probably why you’re here.
So did I just decide one day that I would only eat meat? No. But also, yes.
Did I get those results pictured above by being a carnivore? No. But also, yes.
Lemme ‘splain.
In the photo on the left, I was roughly 230lbs. I don’t have any photos of myself at my highest weight and I don’t even know for sure what that number was. Probably somewhere around 250lbs. I didn’t have a scale or a full-length mirror. Just a ravenous appetite, undiagnosed Hashimoto’s, and severe mental and emotional trauma. Though I had tried “dieting” like I did in the days of my anorexia and bulimia, my addiction to food and the damage to my metabolism held my weight hostage.
Paleo
Somewhere around 2013 – 2014, when I had put my youngest daughter on a gluten-free diet for her Hashimoto’s diagnosis, things started to click. I learned, partly due to the enormous cost of gluten-free versions of foods she loved, that maybe we are all better off with just whole, one-ingredient foods. That lead me to paleo. The paleo diet is basically eating only things that existed in paleolithic times. Omitting sugar and processed food and adding some high quality vitamins made such an enormous difference in my life. But I still had a lot of Hashimoto’s symptoms, so my research continued.
Weight-management Drugs
In addition to Synthroid (I’m not convinced really does much as it doesn’t treat the root cause) my endocrinologist prescribed a medication called Contrave, which was a fantastic tool to help me control that impulse to eat everything in sight. It was a miracle, at the time. On paleo, I still had intense cravings and would slip up quite often. But this new medication helped control that. I was truly amazed that I could see donuts from my desk at work and have very little to no urge to eat them. Before this medication, I would have inhaled at least one before I even realized I had left my desk. Food addiction is truly like being possessed. Your brain is on autopilot when it comes to food and yet you need food to live. It’s not like you can avoid food and people who eat. That’s not how this works.
Low-Carb
Around that time, I was also looking at low-carb diets and thinking this may be even better. It was! One of the symptoms of Hashimoto’s for me was brain fog. Now I’m not talking about brain fog as in being a little forgetful, why did I walk into this room, did I take my vitamins. I’m talking about a fog so thick I would forget what I was saying mid-sentence, completely stop talking, and have no idea why the other person is looking at me like they thought I might be having a stroke. Low carb almost completely fixed that!! I knew I was really on to something then.
As for the weight loss, low carb made a dramatic difference in that as well. But I have to admit, it was a whole combination of things that lead me to the 140lb photo above.
1. Low-carb diet
2. Contrave weight-management medication
3. Lifting weights and working out 3 – 4 times per week
4. Consuming less than 1300 calories per day
Would I recommend this combination? Knowing what I know now? No fucking way.
It is not sustainable. Low carb? Fine, do that. Contrave? At $120 per month? Nope. Lifting weights and working out 3 – 4 times per week? Yeah, why not if you have the time? Might be a bit excessive, but it doesn’t hurt either. Calorie restricting? A resounding fuck that. That, my friends, that eat-less-move-more advice is so very damaging! That is disordered eating. Were our ancestors sitting around trying to figure out how many calories they had left in a day? No! Did they eat like crazy every chance they got? Uh, yeah, they did!
So why and how does this work? It doesn’t make sense based on everything we have been taught, right? That’s an explanation for another post. But here’s a hint: your body is hoarding the nutrient-void calories you have consumed and storing them as fat because you’re starving it and it doesn’t know what to do with the garbage you’re throwing down your throat like it’s a living dumpster. Man-made “food” is not fit for human consumption.
Keto – Ketovore – Carnivore
For the last year+, maybe almost two years, I have been eating carnovire-ish. Meaning I had some slips, I used keto-approved sweeteners, some keto treats now and then, some veggies here and there. That was only making things more difficult as far as my addiction to sweet tastes. While I was mostly meat-based, or ‘ketovore’ (keto-carnivore), and I wasn’t eating sugar, the overly processed keto treats (curse you, Rebel Ice Cream!!), even those I made at home, only brought back that intense desire for more. It was best, for me, to eliminate anything and everything that did not come from an animal in its singular form, or at least as close as possible to it.
Counting calories was exhausting and contributing to my tendency for obsessive behavior, too. So that practice had to go as well. Just. Eat. Meat. ALL the meats! No counting, no obsessing, no addiction. Just meat. And eggs and butter, of course.
Today, three months into eating only animal products, as much as I can possibly fit into my stomach, I’m weighing in around 165lbs. And I am way ok with that. I know it will come off again when my body is finished healing. I’m stockpiling nutrition, healing my hormones, and feeling un-fucking-stoppable. Assertive. Confident. Powerful.
How do I know I’m healing?
My mood and my energy are borderline obnoxious – but in a really good way!
My ‘beard’ doesn’t grow in within hours of shaving anymore. For context – I have hirsutism, which means I have a hormone imbalance that causes whisker-like hairs on my chin, jawline, and upper lip. This is typically due to PCOS, adrenal imbalance, or insulin resistance.
I have about 2″ of gray roots and I don’t care – not because I’ve given up, but because I’ve realized that how I feel both physically and mentally are far more important than someone else’s idea of what’s attractive. I feel GOOD, I feel I look good, and I accept myself as I am in this moment. Will I ever dye my hair again? Maybe. But I’m not really concerned about that right now.
I’m actually not really concerned about anything. Again, not because I’ve given up, but because my mental and emotional response has evolved. I have a better perspective now that my mood is better regulated.
No longer taking Contrave – I had to stop when I had shoulder surgery. And let me tell you I healed SO quickly! How?
Less inflammation, that’s how!
Zero carb cravings, zero sugar cravings, increased mental clarity and focus, better sleep…..
This is just the beginning! It took nearly 50 years for me to get to this point. There is no sustainable quick fix for my health. And again, I’m feeling better than I have EVER felt! This is the long game – healing. Stop dieting because you hate yourself and start eating because you love yourself. Your body is made of fat and protein, so give it the building blocks it needs.
