Tag: calorie restriction

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Food Addiction is a Bitch

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!

xoxo

~ The Candid CarnivoreShareLabels: carnivorecomfort foodcommunitydietdisordered eatingdopamineemotional healthfood addictfood addictionmental healthsugar addiction

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The Importance of a Carnivore Community: Find Your Tribe

Your Friends and Family…

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. 

xoxo

~ The Candid Carnivore

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MEAT BASED – HOW THE HELL DID I GET HERE?!

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. 

xoxo

~ The Candid Carnivore

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CARNIVORE MISSION: FOOD ADDICTION AND RESTRICTION, WITH A DASH OF HASHIMOTO’S AND A SIDE OF SHAME

Food Addiction and Obesity in Childhood:

I have been addicted to food since I was a kid. I have binged on everything from sliced bread to uncooked hot dogs. One of my earliest memories of feeling shame came from sneaking yet another handful of little chocolates that my dad had brought home and my mom calling me a glutton when she discovered me stuffing them into my mouth while hiding behind my toy box. I remember asking her what that word meant and that feeling when she told me. I was about 5 years old, maybe 4. 

I felt shame, but it didn’t stop me. Rather I think it defined me in my mind. I was the fat kid. Shopping with my grandmother in the boys’ ‘husky’ section of Sears as a girl in 1st grade was humiliating, but I had no concept of diet. My next shameful moment, at about 8 years old, came when my grandfather had bought me a bag of Reese’s Pieces. We were going to go fishing after he closed up his shop, and he told me not to open that bag. That was a treat for later. I insisted I would not open them, thinking to myself how I didn’t even really like Reese’s Pieces. No sooner than he left the room, I opened and devoured the entire bag. Within 5 minutes, he returned and expressed his disbelief and disgust. I literally ate anything and everything that I wanted and would constantly search cupboards for food when I was not even hungry. The food was filling a void that I did not understand at the time. I could go on and on with memories of feeling that shame related to my binging. Maybe I’ll share those another time. 

When I was around 12 years old, my mom said she would buy me some workout clothes if I promised to exercise. You know, the shiny, colorful leotards with the matching headband and leg warmers from the 80s. Yeah, that must have been a sight! But she bought them for me. And that was it. I didn’t keep my end of the deal. I had no idea HOW. Like, ok thanks. I have this outfit, but how exactly do I exercise? No one ever showed me or encouraged me, so I didn’t do it. 

Now, was this all due to the failing of the adults in my life for not putting any restrictions in place or teaching me how to eat properly? Was this something broken in my brain? Dopamine deficiency? I can say with 100% certainty that I did not have a typical childhood. I was born to teen parents. My mother had severe mental and emotional trauma of her own. I’d be willing to bet that it was a perfect storm of a lot of things. 

I’ll skip over the teen years for now. Just know that there was a lot of destructive behavior and I truly believe I’m lucky to have made it through that period alive. 

Anorexia & Bulimia:

As I continued with binging into my 20s, it finally hit me. I was in my apartment searching for loose change so that I could go buy some snack cakes when I realized that I did not have control of my own actions. I felt possessed! It finally occurred to me that I wasn’t really consciously making this decision. I felt an overwhelming urge, but not a thought process. It was as if I had held my breath for too long and felt the overwhelming urge to take a deep breath. You don’t tell yourself constantly, ‘breathe in, ok now breathe out, breathe in…’. You just do it. That’s what eating was like. Mindless, compulsory binging. That revelation didn’t stop me, though and disordered eating from one end of the spectrum to the other consumed my life for more than two decades. 

Around the age of 22, and at approximately 230lbs after giving birth to my first child, I went to the other extreme. I became obsessed with staying under 20 grams of fat. I cheated, though. I rounded up. If something had 3 grams of fat, I counted it as 5. I kept a running tally in my head all day, counting and re-counting obsessively, and then rounding up that number as well. So, when I may very well have had only 7 grams of fat for the day, I was counting it as 20 grams. I lost a lot of weight very, very quickly. There were days when all I had eaten was a small bag of pretzels from the vending machine, a diet Mt Dew, and a bag of light microwave popcorn for dinner. Snackwell cookies and ‘yogurt’, Tootsie Rolls, or Twizzler Nibs were eaten as an additional ‘meal’ now and then. I worked in retail at the time, so I was on my feet, racing around all day. It definitely was not enough food. My manager at the time was extremely worried about me. She pulled me aside one day, almost in tears. Which was really strange because she was a tough lady. Most of my coworkers were a little afraid of her because she was strict and didn’t put up with anyone’s shit. But that day, she told me about her niece who had passed away from complications of anorexia. She saw similar behavior in me. I thought she was crazy, of course. “I eat, Pat. I promise I do!”. I wasn’t lying, really. Or at least that’s what I convinced myself. I was very skinny – and very sick. My cycle had always been irregular, very heavy and very painful. But now it was very light and short. I had blood in my urine at times. I would get extremely sick and vomit at random times. I began over-exercising, teaching 9 – 11 cardio kickboxing classes per week, plus working out at home. I fractured both of my legs due to malnutrition and over-use. But I had lost 112lbs, so I wasn’t about to stop. I maintained my weight at 118lbs for a few years and through another pregnancy. I even kept that weight, or there about, through a seriously abusive marriage, divorce, and into another abusive marriage. But after the birth of my third child, I lost control. The weight crept back up through my second divorce and continued beyond that 230lb mark. 

For Weight Loss, Eat Less Move More…Yeah, Fuck That:

By my late 30s – early 40s I was finally over this shit. I did not want to just exist as a fat lump. I missed out on so much with my kids because I was just so tired all the time. Dusting the living room would wipe me out. My muscles and joints ached, and I could not do any more. After just dusting! 

My youngest had been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Hypothyroidism at the age of 8. Her antibodies were in the hundreds, she had so many digestive issues and had so much inflammation at such a young age. I did a little research, put her on a gluten free diet and – WOW – what a difference that made for her! So I went to my family doctor and asked if this could possibly be my issue as well. He begrudgingly ordered a blood test for my TSH level and antibodies. TSH is the thyroid stimulating hormone and the presence of antibodies mean the body is attacking that particular part of itself. The result was a TSH of 5.5 and antibodies around 180. He told me that my TSH was in the normal range and never mentioned anything about the antibodies. At the time I didn’t even know he included antibodies in the lab work. I argued that my TSH was at the very high end of normal, so couldn’t my symptoms be due to that? He laughed at me. He LAUGHED at me. HE LAUGHED AT ME, and said, “Everyone would like to blame being overweight on thyroid issues, but that’s not your problem”, and he refused to look any further

Bullshit. I called an endocrinologist on my own and told them my TSH results and the experience I had with my doctor, and they brought me in for an appointment immediately. I never went back to that arrogant ‘doctor’. I was put on thyroid medication and also began taking a weight loss/food addiction drug. 

That experience taught me how to advocate for my children’s health and for my own. I researched everything I could before any appointment after that. That research led me to paleo – which helped a lot. That led me to low carb – which helped even more. Which led me to keto – which helped even more, BUT I began to get bogged down in the counting and tracking macros, and keto ‘treats’, and the expense of trying to make SAD foods (SAD = Standard American Diet) into keto-approved versions. Freaking exhausting! Between keto, calorie restriction (1200 calories a day), and the weight loss drug, I was down to 140lbs, working out, and feeling amazing. But I was SO. Freaking. Tired of tracking every single thing and calculating. UGH! Then, I found Dr. Ken Berry, and Neisha Berry, and Kelly Hogan, and Dr. Shawn Baker, and Steak and Butter Gal, and all the wonderful, amazing, brilliant others who have taught me so much! And now I belong to a community where I am supported and encouraged to EAT as much carnivore food as I possibly can to heal my hunger hormones and my thyroid. But it’s also healing my mind, my outlook, my everything. I have gained a lot of weight back doing this. I don’t even care. I feel so good, and I know it will come off again once my body has healed from all the trauma I have put it though. There’s no rush. I’m living now – not just existing. 

So here I am, about to turn 50, and I finally figured it out! I stopped the weight loss medication and I’m happily eating about 3,000 calories a day at the moment. Meat is healing me. I don’t eat any plants, I don’t eat any sugar or processed foods, I don’t use any sweeteners. I eat meat, butter, and eggs. I’m ridiculously happy and energetic, my mind is clear and focused, I do not crave carbs, I have no food addiction issues, and my sleep quality is incredible. From mindlessly eating as though possessed to being able to be around people who are eating pizza and ice cream, and just be able to say, ‘wow that smells good,’ and not be compelled to eat it…. that is nothing short of a miracle. 

More on the whole thyroid, wight loss drug, and some other medications I have had to take in the next post. Hint – I was pre-diabetic, insulin resistant, and could almost grow a beard in 12 hours. True story!

If you managed to get through this ‘short post’ – thank you! While I’m writing mostly for myself, to work through some things, I hope you come back again and that I can help others who may have endured these things in some way. 

xoxo

~ The Candid Carnivore