“Everything We’re Told About Food Is Wrong” How Carnivore Fixed My Weight and Anxiety | Jenny Mitich

What if everything you were told about eating was backwards? Jenny Middich reclaimed her health, energy, and identity by going all in on a way of eating most people still see as extreme. But when you're battling chronic symptoms, emotional burnout, and food confusion, sometimes the most radical thing you can do is simplify. In this episode, Jenny shares her unapologetic story of healing through animal-based nutrition, what it's really like to raise a family on meat, and how trusting her body broke her free from food fear, chronic pain, and the wellness hamster wheel. I really like exposing people to the different diets out there, but specifically like on a personal level, like where someone really did have a life change, they— where this diet not only has become their brand, but really healed them. So I'd love you to just Start there. Like, what was going on that needed healing?

Yeah, so I initially came to carnivore to lose weight, but I had so many other things, uh, heal in the process. So, I have twin boys, Max and Harry. They're now 4, but when I was pregnant with them, I gained 70 pounds, and I was already overweight when I got pregnant. So, the day I delivered, I was 242 pounds. I was huge and miserable.

Wow.

Very tough pregnancy. I had a lot of swelling in my wrists and feet. I just could not get enough food. And, this is pre-carnivore, so I was standard American pregnancy all the way. And, I think that carb roller coaster was why I felt hungry all the time because of the blood sugar spikes and dips. Cut to about 6 months later, I'm trying to lose weight and it's coming off really slowly. I was trying with just the standard 1,200 calories, fruits and vegetables, lean meats, low fat, and it just wasn't— it wasn't coming off. Very, very, very slowly. And my husband, he had lost about 130 pounds using keto and water fasting a few years before we met. So he was acquainted with a ketogenic diet, and he had found— he came to me because he had found Dr. Ken Berry's videos on YouTube, and he brought these videos to me and he said, honey, I'd really like to try carnivore. I want to take it to the next level. Would you be willing to do the carnivore diet with me? And, at that point, I said, absolutely not. There's no way. That's crazy. How can you only eat meat? How can you get all the nutrients you need only eating meat? So, I said, hard no. But, he and I continued to watch those videos occasionally after we put the boys to bed at night. So, over the next 6 months, I continued doing what I was doing and having a lot of issues with it, wasn't losing a lot of weight, and continued watching these videos. And finally— What was the trigger? Got to the end of the year, I'd only lost 20 of the 70 pounds, and I was still feeling like crap. So, I said, you know what? Screw this. I'm going to try carnivore for 30 days. I had been wearing a continuous glucose monitor for about 3.5 months at that point just for fun because I love data. And, I was really curious to see what would happen to my glucose. It wasn't pathological. I think if I had stayed on that path for another 20 years, it probably could have turned into prediabetes or type 2, but I was low 100s on the average. So I did.

How were you eating again? So you weren't eating keto like your husband at the time. You were just eating not even standard American, what, slightly low carb or?

Oh no, not low carb at all. I mean, I was probably, I was eating a ton of fruits and vegetables.

Okay.

Chicken, lean meats, not any gluten. I'd cut gluten years before. I was eating what a lot of people will call as healthy. Okay. But not necessarily low carb though. Oh no, no, it was not low carb. I was probably eating 300, 400 grams of carbs per day in the form of fruits and vegetables. It was very high carb. Yeah, interesting though.

But, it is still what you— like what you said, it still is what people would say is healthy.

Yes.

You weren't eating like the fast food kind of stuff. You weren't going crazy with the desserts. You were just eating real foods, but not necessarily thinking about the amounts of those real foods, just kind of eating till you were satiated, it sounds like.

Sure. So, I was following the Noom diet. So, the Noom app was a psychology-based app and it went through and kind of taught you to have a different relationship with food. And, they scored foods based on color. So, green, yellow, and red. All the green foods were fruits and vegetables. They were all like, if it has high water content, you can eat as much of it as you want. Yellow foods were going to be a little bit more like the lean meats and things. And, red foods are just all the foods I eat now, ribeye, butter, all of the stuff with lots of fat. So, that's of how I was eating. And sure, it would work for a week, but then I'd be starving because I'm not eating enough food. I'm eating so much sugar in the form of fruit that I would just be like on a glucose roller coaster. So, yeah, I was eating a traditional healthy diet, what I thought was healthy, and it was not great.

So, then you went down the Ken Berry rabbit hole, which is a great hole to go down.

Yeah.

And then, you You started 30 days on carnivore. And, what did that— before you go into what happened, what did that look like? So, what were you eating?

That's a really good question. A lot of beef, bacon, sausage, eggs, butter, and some chicken pretty much. But, I had a hard time the first month. I was not very happy. So, I honestly looking back now, I'm almost 3 years carnivore, I honestly can't remember much besides the Severe keto flu and oxalate dumping that I went through that first month.

Really? Okay. So, you were unhappy. So, what did that look like? What did oxalate dumping look like?

So, I didn't know that I was oxalate dumping until about a year later. So, the first month on carnivore, did it. I was miserable, fatigue, and lots of diarrhea. I thought it was keto flu the whole time, but it was a mixture of both. I ended up losing 8 pounds, and my glucose went from the low 100s on average to the low 80s on average that quickly. I started feeling better around week 6. But, as far as oxalate dumping, I think it felt like the keto flu. I just had severe fatigue and diarrhea that lasted 6 weeks.

For those that don't know what keto flu is, can you explain it?

Sure. Keto flu, it's basically carbohydrate withdrawal. When you drop your carbs down to basically zero or go low-carb if you're doing keto, your body releases a lot of water weight. And, with that water go electrolytes and you feel like you have the flu. It's like fatigue, diarrhea or constipation, it depends on the person, headaches, anxiety, sleep disturbances. There's so many things that go along with it, but typically, it only lasts like 2 to 3 weeks at most. So, 6 weeks was a bit extreme. And, it wasn't until I read Sally Norton's book, Toxic Superfoods, about a year later that I realized I was eating so many high oxalate foods, James. Like, everything I ate was high oxalate: sweet potato, quinoa, dark chocolate, kiwi, raspberries. So many of the foods that I ate every single day for a year were high oxalate. So, I suffered. It wasn't great.

Can you talk about— because there's going to be people that don't even know about the oxalates. And, I know it's a hot topic in our circles, but can you elaborate on what that is for people that don't know?

Yeah, sure. Oxalates are just plant toxins, like little crystals that are only in certain foods. They're not in every plant, but in certain ones, there, there's higher levels. And our bodies are built to withstand a little bit of this. But if you're eating a sweet potato every single day, if you're eating spinach smoothies every single day, those oxalates can start to build up and store themselves in your system where they don't belong. So then if you stop eating all oxalates, your body's like, ah, I can take a break. And it starts to try to release these from your system. But, when it does that, if it's too fast, it makes you feel terrible. And yeah, I think oxalates have been— I feel like there's more of an understanding of them now because of Sally's book. But yeah, I had no idea what they were, what that was before I started carnivore.

And so, that process of that dumping and just you feeling really fatigued, how long did that last?

It was 6 weeks that it was really acute.

And then, what happened thereafter?

I started, like, feeling a lot better. You know, I finally started to feel what so many people experience when they go on an ultra-low-carb diet, a lot more energy. I didn't have to eat as often, a lot of food freedom. And, that's when I really started to see a lot of the other improvements in my health besides just weight loss. And glucose improvements.

Yeah. So maybe you can talk about some of those improvements because I want to, I want to make sure that we kind of speak to the elephant in the room. Like, you're not a health practitioner, you're not a nutritionist, you're not someone who's studied these things in a university. What you are is someone who wanted a change in their lifestyle and their body and started to go down these different paths, referring to people that are experts in the field. And saw huge benefits, saw huge gains. And so, you just kind of kept going. But, I know you also kind of have a data, you know, you're kind of a data nerd, or for lack of a better word, I mean that with affection, of course. But, like, you're someone who likes data. So, you're not just going about this in a laissez-faire kind of way.

Oh, no, definitely not. So, I'm a huge dork. I love data. So, I do a lot of blood work, DEXA scans, continuous glucose monitoring, ketone monitoring, arterial scans, And, that was just for fun. But yeah, my degree, my bachelor's degree is in management finance. I had just kind of stumbled into the world of nutrition in 2015, 2016 when I heard Mark Sisson on a Joe Rogan podcast. And then, I bought all of his books and just devoured those. And, I've been reading and doing research on it myself just because I have a passion for it since then. So, yeah.

But, he's more paleo, right? So, did you—

Sure. is what his whole shtick is. But yeah, it started there. And then, I read more into keto, read more into all this stuff. So, I was acquainted with it before I started carnivore, but I had never really given it a fair shot. I had never really tried the diet. I was trying to be more whole real food and moderation and things like that. And, that just never really worked well for me.

So, What was your rock bottom moment though, that just made you question everything you were taught about food? And it sounds like there's the, of course there was the moment that made you go like, hey, I want to lose weight. And of course there was the keto flu moment of when you did start to make a change, but was there that, did you, I mean, did you have a moment where you were like, oh my God, everything I was told is wrong and like what I'm doing His revolution? Like, did you have that moment, and when was that?

It's a really good question. And, what first comes to my mind when you ask that is when I read Nina Teicholz's book, The Big Fat Surprise. So, in that first month or two that I was on carnivore, I read that book as well. And, I think I had gotten it as a recommendation from one of Barry's videos. I can't quite remember how I got there, but man, when I finished that book, Mind blown. And then I moved on to The Great Plant-Based Con. I think it's Jane Buxton. That book, wow, incredible. Both of those books, just highly, highly researched, excellent references. And it really kind of peeled back the veil for me on like, wow, I did not realize that the dietary, like the food pyramid and all that stuff wasn't really based on science. I didn't realize that I shouldn't be eating fruit. If you're just eating fruit on its own, your body can't recognize the difference between fruit and a candy bar. It's sugar. All of these things that I just, I don't know, I had never known. Also, fat is not the enemy. Saturated fat is not going to give you a heart attack. Just things like that. Yeah, that was a big aha moment for me after reading those books. And, I think it kind of also lit a fire under me because I was so angry. I was just like, Why have we been told this for so many years? And now so many people are sick, their metabolic health is terrible. How did we get here? So, that kind of really lit the passion for me, and that's why I started sharing about the carnivore diet on my YouTube channel.

Yeah. And then, you started getting a large audience from that. Clearly, people are hungry to better understand how food affects their body, what diet to follow. I mean, I guess that's been true for a while. I always ask the question, well, Why are we, you know, the only species that's looking to someone else to tell us what to eat? Like every other species just eats, right? They instinctively know. So, you know, why did we lose our instincts? What's happening? Sometimes I think it's just because our brain is so big. We complicate things beyond what they need to be complicated. But you're like, did you, have you ever historically dealt with any food issues when you were younger? Like, Has diet culture kind of been, and potentially like just feeling, you know, not good in your body, has that ever shown up in your life before the moment where you made these changes?

Oh, sure. Yeah. I grew up, I'm a classic sugar addict. So, in our house, we had like every really good sugary cereal. We always had the different snack cakes and things like that, chips, candy. I'm a big like Sweet Tarts, Lemonheads, Nerds kind of gal. So that's just what I ate growing up. I didn't— I don't know, I guess I had the pressures of being thin, but I was always pretty thin in school. Once I got past like 5th grade, I was bullied for being overweight and having terrible acne in 5th grade. And that has kind of—

That's a horrible age to start getting because that's when you start developing and stuff.

That's right.

You already feel like people are looking at you, right?

Yeah. It was terrible. I mean, that has carried through. my entire life. So I, yeah, I think I, I had that. I self-medicated. I had depression and anxiety starting around 13, and I self-medicated with drugs and alcohol. So I was deep into that in my teens and into my mid-20s before I got clean and got out of that whole world and really started. And even then, I was still smoking and drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and drinking, you know, I wasn't doing drugs anymore. It wasn't until my early 30s that I really started to figure out like, oh, I should probably be paying attention to what I put into my body if I want to feel good.

Yeah. It's something that people think is such a rudimentary idea, but I mean, I didn't learn it till I was in my 20s. I know people that still haven't learned it, you know, and they're in their 50s. You know, or they're just learning it now, you know. So it's, it is, it's, it, we assume it's such an easy concept, but it really isn't. It's not obvious that food affects your health. I mean, that's why so many people, when they have health issues, they go to the doctor. They don't go to their nutritionist, right? Or they don't look at what they're eating. They go to the doctor because they're not connecting like what they're eating is a cause for their immune issues. Because you're, because you did have issues.

Yeah.

Or I'm saying issues because food and body images, you know, our body, because food and, you know, your body, and you mentioned the shaming because that was prevalent for you. What I find interesting is that carnivore is an extremely restrictive diet. I mean, really, The opposite end is plant-based. That's also restrictive. So I'm not highlighting carnivore. Any diet that has a very specific dogma and a very restricted, like you can't do this, is going to be restrictive. For some people, restriction in itself is, is kind of, you know, resonates with them as like, oh, this is reminding me of when I was bulimic or when I had these other food issues. So, so Has that ever come up for you when you've gone down this path of questioning whether are we designed to be so restrictive?

I never had any kind of issues with food in that way. I had a friend that was bulimic and I tried it one time and I was like, this is terrible. I want to eat food. So, I've never had that issue. My issue, I can eat, I can eat. And, I like sugary stuff. So, that's kind of where my path went. As far as carnivore being restrictive, yeah, I mean, if you're restricting your food intake to just animal products, it is going to be a lot less food than you're normally eating. But, what I've found with carnivore is it's freeing and simplifying because I have a lot on my plate. And, if I can just eat some burger patties and a steak and some eggs for the day and be done, It has just made my life so much better.

It is pretty amazing. Like when you, when you have that simplified eating ritual, like the eating ritual is simplified, it's so amazing in that way. 'Cause you're right. You know what to eat. And I think more importantly, you're satiated, right? Yeah.

I mean, I only have to eat once or twice a day. I woke up this morning. I'm doing an N-of-1 experiment where I'm only eating McDonald's burger patties for 10 days. And, I did before and after blood work indexes is what I'm measuring. And, I had 5 burger patties in the fridge ready for me because I've been really hungry the past few days and I've eaten more of the patties. But, this morning, I woke up, I didn't even need to eat one. I was just good. And, my ketones were good, my glucose was good. I've still not eaten. And, what time is it? 2 o'clock, almost 2 o'clock. And, I'm fine. So, I'll probably just eat dinner and be good to go. I don't have that hangry feeling that I would get when I'm eating carbs where I'm like, I have to eat now or I'm going to pass out or beat somebody up. I don't have that anymore. That's gone.

What are you doing right now? You said it's McDonald's or—

So, I'm doing an N-of-1 experiment where I'm only eating McDonald's quarter-pound burger patties for 10 days.

Interesting. And, what is the N-to-1? I've never heard of it called that.

What is that? N-of-1. An N-of-1 experiment is just where you're doing an experiment of what— with one person, just my— on myself.

Oh, okay. That's interesting. I've never heard it said like that. That's interesting. And so, you're doing it with McDonald's patties specifically, and it's just the meat, right? It's obviously, it's nothing else.

Yeah.

Why McDonald's specifically?

So, I think a lot of people think, oh, you can't eat McDonald's or Wendy's or whatever when you're on carnivore, but you can. There's— you can do the patties. There's certain things that you can do to get things à la carte. And, I still get a lot of comments on my YouTube channel like, oh my God, you're eating burger patties from McDonald's, blah. So, I like to dispel myths with my N-of-1 experiments. So, one of them is going to be this one where I'm showing the blood work before and after, DEXA scans before and after, continuous glucose monitor data throughout, and just showing what happens when that's all you do. I've done this with sardines. I've done where I ate 100 cans of sardines in a month And, I tested my mercury levels because that's another question I get often on the YouTube channel. It's like, if you eat sardines, your mercury is going to go up. And, it's like, actually, no, it's very low mercury fish, but you have to show people, take them through why that doesn't happen. And, I like to show with data, hard data. So, I do these probably once every couple of months. I'm doing some N-of-1 experiment to show something or educate in some way.

Oh, I love it. That's so cool. What did you find from these experiments or just from your, from your interaction with people in, in your community? What do you find are some of the biggest myths out there about food in general? I mean, obviously it's carnivore slanted, but, you know, just kind of in general around the trending nutritional habits these days, like, hmm, that's a really good question.

I mean, I get a lot of comments or questions about cholesterol. Like, what does carnivore do to your cholesterol? I did a sugar diet experiment in the summer because sugar diet was popping off earlier this year, and it was like everybody wanted to try it. So I did it for eight days, and it was terrible. So I had a lot of questions and comments around that that video, like oh, it really works for me, blah blah blah blah blah, or other people being like ooh, that didn't you know this is why it didn't work for me. So I get a lot of comments around that. It seems like a Overall, I feel like there's a lot of confusion around food in general, just like what is healthy, what is not. And the common myths are just like red meat is terrible for you, it will make your cholesterol go up, you're going to have a heart attack. A lot of questions about like, oh, if you only eat meat, aren't you just constipated all the time? Or aren't you— on the flip, aren't you just farting all the time or having diarrhea? Like, it's a lot of confusion around what this diet actually does for your metabolic health and how you react to it.

Well, let's address a few of them. So, if anyone's watching this for the first time and learning about carnivore, and they may have those kind of questions, so I'll just fire a few off and maybe you can give some short answers. But, one is like, so do you get constipated on carnivore?

You can in the beginning. In the beginning of carnivore, the first month month and a half, a lot of wild things can happen to your digestive system. And, that's where I think this pops up. But, for most people, after that adaptation period, your bowel movements become regular every day, every couple of days, or something like that. And, there's some things you can do to address constipation if it does come up.

Any concern about the— what about fiber? Is there any concern about not having The fiber in the diet, have you ever checked your, you know, your gut level? Have you ever checked the gut for any leaky gut, anything like that, to see if the lack of fiber is, you know, decreasing your good microbes or anything like that?

I have not done any stool testing or anything like that. Usually the question with fiber that comes up is like, if you don't have any fiber in your diet, how do you go to the bathroom? A lot of people just think that it just stops moving. But, the thing is, is when you're only eating meat, it's still moving through very easily as well. And, a lot of people, when they cut fiber from their diet, they have a lot less digestive distress. It can actually cause harm to your intestines, fiber running through there, because it's not digested. Your body doesn't need to use it. It can't use it, so you're pooping it out. That's not necessarily a good thing. You want your body to be using as much of the, you know, food that you're intaking. That's why a lot of people have less bowel movements on carnivore because their body is utilizing all of what they're putting into it. It's actually breaking it all down. So, you have less fecal volume, which can then be confused for constipation, which is different.

Do you find that on carnivore, like, are you eating a certain percentage of fat? Are you— is there a concern of eating too much fat or too little?

Yeah, yeah. I think it's going to be different for everybody. For me personally, I usually settle around like 65% fat to 35% protein, or like 70% fat to 30% protein, which I think is pretty normal if you're just eating ribeyes and burgers and eggs and bacon and things like that. Some people need to go higher fat. Some people need to go lower fat and higher protein. It just depends on your goals and what you're trying to heal or weight you're trying to lose, whatever you're trying to do.

Have you found— have you experimented at all with different parts of the animal, whether it's incorporating organ meats or just non-ribeye pieces of the animal and seeing how your body responds to those?

Yeah. I like to eat nose to tail as much as possible. I personally do not like the taste of liver. So, that's where I love your Eat Pluck because it allows me to get organ meats when I don't like the taste as much. But, it's hard. It's hard for me to get into the organ meats. I will admit I haven't done as much as I probably should.

Do you notice a difference when you do get them in?

Yeah, I definitely feel less fatigue, and I just feel a bit brighter. I have— it's so funny because I have frozen pancreas, heart, liver, and a few others in my freezer from White Oak Farms in Georgia. So, it's grass-fed, really clean. I just haven't been brave enough to To cook them yet.

Yeah. Oh, well, I could help you with that. What are you— well, that's a good question actually, is like, so that's another thing that probably comes up for people is like, but it's so expensive eating carnivore. So how are you kind of combating the expense? It sounds like you're doing what, meat shares or CSAs or something?

So I have a few things. No, we don't, we don't do that. I honestly buy a lot of conventionally raised meats. I get a lot of meat sent to me for free because of the YouTube channel, but I also find deals. So, I'll go to our local grocery store, Jewel, and once a week, they have an awesome deal on meat. So, last week, it was $3 a pound ground beef, 85/15 ground beef, which, I mean, beef is crazy right now. So, that was a great deal. I picked a bunch of that up. A few weeks before that, it was 99-cent chicken wings. Which is amazing. So, I bought up 30 pounds of, well, 30 packages of that, more like 2.5 pounds per package. I get the whole ribeyes or the whole sirloins from Costco, and I cut those up myself because those are about, let's see, right now it's $18.99 a pound for ribeye precut at Costco in my area. I can get the whole ribeye for $13.99 or $14.99 a pound.

Yeah, you could save a lot.

Yeah, a ton of money. So, I like to do it that way. I also, anytime I see a sale like that, I pick up the meat. I have 3 freezers in my house that are literally stuffed with meat right now, and I need to stop buying meat and just eat what I have.

But so you're not concerned? Because that's another question people have is like, you know, what about quality? Like, is it supposed to be 100% grass-fed? Um, it doesn't sound like that's— it's more the price and just getting the meat in for you that, that takes priority. Have you noticed And, you said you've been doing carnivore, strict carnivore, or I say strict, but have you been 100% carnivore for 3 years?

3 years. I mean, short of my little N-of-1 experiments like the sugar diet, I was not carnivore obviously for that. But, my overarching lifestyle for 3 years has been carnivore, yes.

And, you haven't noticed any change like difference of eating? Because I know you get exposed to obviously White Oaks is grass-fed. So, So, you're getting sense from grass-fed. Do you notice any difference in your satiety, your hunger levels, your fatigue, anything like that?

No, I really don't. But, I haven't given it a fair shot. I have it in my mind that I'd love to do an N-of-1 experiment where I just eat grass-fed, grass-finished meats for a month. And, I'd love to test my omega levels before and after and a few other markers just to kind of see what the difference is. And also, qualitatively, like, do I feel better? I do a mix. So, I'll get sent some stuff, I'll eat some organic of this, some conventional of this, all in one day. So, I haven't really given it a fair shot of just doing organic, mostly because it is very expensive. And, I eat a lot. I'm a volume eater. So, I'd have to live Like on the streets, I think if I, if I did organic meat all the time.

You'd either have to be naked and not buy any clothes to, you know.

Exactly.

Yeah. What, so let's talk though about some of the test result differences you saw since you're, you're a data, data geek, as you mentioned. So, so what kind of quantifiable changes have you seen in your energy, your labs, skin, mood since going carnivore?

So many. So, I think the biggest thing that changed for me besides the weight loss, I've lost 50 pounds, my glucose has dropped significantly. It's in the 70s to 80s now when I am strict carnivore as opposed to low 100s. Mental health improvements. The anxiety and depression that I self-medicated with drugs and alcohol in my younger years, it's completely gone. I used to have an emergency prescription for anxiety attacks that I'd have to take a couple times a week. I do not have that prescription anymore. That all went away around month 3 or 4.

Wow.

Skin. So, I'm going to be 42 in March, and I used to be a heavy drinker. So, when I was 32, my skin didn't look as good as it does now. It's just much brighter, clearer, and it's just, I think all the collagen and meat that I'm eating is just really helping with that. As far as blood work goes, yeah, drastic improvements. My triglycerides dropped significantly. They're now between like 30 and 60. My HDL is very high. It's in the 80s to 100. My LDL cholesterol is interesting. So, I've done so many experiments with LDL cholesterol and trying to illustrate how easy it is to raise and lower LDL cholesterol. And, my cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, for the past like 6 months has been really low. Like 60 to 80. Whereas, earlier on in carnivore, it was like, I think at the highest, 275 or something like that. I had the lean mass hyper-responder triad, which I don't have right now. It's so interesting how that all kind of ebbs and flows.

Do you have a hypothesis around it?

I think it has to do with the amount of fat that I was consuming. If you eat a really high-fat diet, high-fat carnivore diet, your LDL tends to drop just because you're getting a lot of energy from, from the food that you're eating. If you do a lot of fasting or lower fat, you can see LDL go up. But I, I don't know, this one has been wild for me the past few months. I can't quite pinpoint it, but that's one of the great things about measuring and doing all these blood tests. I'm taking blood like once a Wow. So, I have all this data I can look at and just kind of— it helps me to think deeply about this topic and helps to feed my curiosity of learning more. So, there's always something interesting that pops up when I'm doing blood work. hs-CRP, systemic inflammation marker, that one is super low all the time. You want it to be under a 1. It's like 0.19 or something like that. I've seen a ton of improvements in vitamins and minerals. Just across the board, great. And then, when I look at DEXA scans, my visceral fat right after I— well, no, about 9 months after I gave birth was at 2.24 pounds. And, I am now between 0.5 and 1 pound of visceral fat. It varies depending on the scan. So, that's great.

Wow.

You want 1 pound or less of visceral fat. So, I am there. And, you can see it in my numbers. On paper, I look great.

Great. So, you have no reason to change things up because the body's responding. It's giving you clear indication that what you're doing is working. We had Emily Penton on where she talked about how, you know, going carnivore helped to solve her, you know, MS issues and even like her bipolar stuff. And, And it's incredible learning about her recovery and her, the changes that happened from it. You as well. And there's so many others. What would you say though is like, what's surprised you the most though? Is there something that's surprised you the most about going down this path? And maybe even like, 'cause you're parenting on carnivore as well. Like, are you, are you, are your kids eating carnivore?

Yeah. So, they eat an animal-based diet. So, they'll have some fruit. I do gluten-free mac and cheese with them occasionally, but they eat meat at every meal. So, this morning, I found some turkey breakfast sausage that was on sale at the store. So, I was like, let's try this. They ate it all. I'll do a pound of bacon in the morning. And then, they love all-beef hot dogs from Costco, steak. They love steak. I'll make them little ground beef bowls with Primal Kitchen ranch on the top of it. They love that little cute— and put it in a ramekin for them. Yeah, they eat a lot of meat. And, I think that is reflected in their height. They're very fit. They're just sturdy boys and very smart. Wow. They started reading at 2.5, legit reading. They're 4 and they read better than our 7-year-old nieces. So, it's incredible. I think it's Meat is such a great fuel for growth and for intelligence. So, yeah, I'm happy we started them on it at 1 because we started when they were 1. So, I'm so thankful that they are going to be able to grow up with this nutrition because I sure didn't get that. My parents didn't know any better. We just ate standard American classic processed foods, but the boys won't have to do that.

Well, I think that's what's so intriguing about your story is because you're, you're in many ways like you are representative of so many people out there, right? Like you, you were doing things the way that you were taught. They weren't really that different. You were seeing similar ailments to what people are seeing, probably not thinking about the fact that these were coming from the food you're eating. And then you started to realize they were. So your journey in many ways is the every person's journey, which is, I think, what's so powerful about your story because hopefully people can see themselves in you. I mean, to that end, what would you say to the mom who's exhausted, inflamed, and still clinging to green smoothies and oat milk because she thinks it's healthy?

Yeah, yeah. I would say just give carnivore 30 days. I never thought I was going to go beyond 30 days, James. Like, I just was going to give this a fair shot. And now, I'm at 3 years. I've lost 50 pounds. I have no pain, none, unless I eat something with gluten in it, and then it instantly comes back. It's interesting. And, as a mom of twin boys, I work full-time. YouTube is my full-time job, and I have to balance everything else with life, try to have some self-care, try to hang out with my husband, try to read some books or whatever. I have a lot on my plate, and carnivore has just made my life so much easier. So much easier. I'm operating at a much higher optimal baseline. And, when you have a million things on your plate, you got to be there. You can't be operating down in the gutter. That's where you're starting. And, so many moms out there are doing that. So, I say just give it 30 days, give it a shot, see what happens. My book has a complete full starter guide that will walk you through every step of the way. And, YouTube is It's full of free videos and I have a ton of videos on it. So, the information is there for them. And, I think give it 30 days and see what happens. I think you'll be shocked. Yeah.

You mentioned your book, so please share that, The Complete Carnivore.

Yes, it's right here. Yes, it just came out on November 4th. So, it's a complete in-depth guide to the carnivore diet and it also has 80 carnivore recipes. So, it's 2 books in 1. I endeavored to write the encyclopedia for the carnivore diet. So that is what I tried to do, and I think I accomplished it. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

It's very robust. I was— yes, you graciously sent me one, and I was shocked at like how robust it is. It's not, it's not thin. It's not like just a glossing over of these concepts. It's like you go in depth into everything.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I wanted to share everything that I have learned over the past 3 years. You know, I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning of carnivore, and if I would've had this book, I wouldn't have had to go through any of them.

Well, what's the— what's a big mistake that people make that you think if they heard you say the answer now to not do it, that would help them?

Sure. There's 2. There's 2 that I would change if I started carnivore today. And, the first would be having electrolytes on hand. I did not have any and I felt like crap. Day 2, I had to put salt in just water and just drink that, and it really helped. But then, I had to wait a few more days to get my electrolytes in the mail. So, whatever electrolytes you use, just have something on hand. Make sure it doesn't have sugar in it. Just make sure it has sodium, potassium, magnesium, all of the trace minerals you need because it really does take the edge off of the keto flu. The second tip would be if you've been eating very high carb, like a lot of high oxalate foods or just high carb in general, it's in your best interest to ease into carnivore. You do not have to go cold turkey. Now, for me, I just I just did because I'm stubborn and I'm— that's kind of what I do. But man, if I was starting again today, I would've probably taken about 8 weeks to ease into it, and I would've slowly eliminated one high oxalate food at a time because that would've avoided most of the pain that I encountered, and it would also minimize your keto flu. In chapter 3, I believe, of this book, I have a gradual carb reduction guide that walks you through 4-week gradual carb reduction. And, you can make that longer or shorter if you need to, but there's just no reason to have to suffer as much as I did. 6 weeks of diarrhea and fatigue, most people wouldn't be able to go through that. And, they shouldn't have to. So, that's kind of the 2 biggies.

That's great. Those are great tips. What would you say— I'm just so curious about this because Something that's coming out a lot more around sort of, you know, the ancestral or Paleolithic times is, is there's some more data coming out now that we weren't necessarily like dogmatic about any specific diet, you know, that we were, if anything, we were opportunistic. Like, so if it grew wherever we were, we, and it was Had nutrition to it, we would utilize it. What I hear you saying is like, yeah, you are being specific about carnivore, but it doesn't sound like you're so extreme cuz you even mentioned you're using Pluck, which has seasonings in it, right? So, and then you're also eating different species. So you're, what would you say, what are you allowing in versus, you know, Because there are different levels of carnivore. And so, what level are you at?

Sure. So, I am not the carnivore police, and I think it all depends on why you came to carnivore in the first place. For me, I came to carnivore to lose weight, and I have been able to use seasonings. I use Primal Kitchen ranch dressing and buffalo sauce. I don't have to restrict that much, and I still see a lot of benefits. So, I think people just need to figure out what works best for them. I totally agree with you on the humans as opportunistic eaters. That's why we're here today because we can eat anything. Does it mean we should? No, of course not. But, I think our ancestors would have taken advantage of whatever was available, but there was a lot of caveats to Seasonality. Where in the world were you? Was it a region that has a 2-month summer or was it a region that's summer all the time? That really depends. It helps to— your genetic makeup, where you came from is going to influence how you respond to certain foods. Pesticide load. They didn't have pesticides in ancient times. So, that's something we have to think about that they There's lots that go into it. So, yeah, I just want people to find something that works best for them where they feel their best and they're able to live a healthy long life. And, if that means they're using some garlic powder or your Eat Pluck seasoning with their meat or they're having some salads or they're— just figure out what works best for you. That's kind of my philosophy.

Yeah. And, it almost sounds like it's like— and, don't be afraid to go away from the norm because doing something like carnivore or animal-based or something like that may end up resulting in you feeling incredible. And, but you just don't know it until you try it.

Right.

If you could erase one health rule from society forever, what would it be?

I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is this whole 1,200 calories is enough food for an adult of any kind. That's all of the, you know, diets out there are all like, oh, 1,200 calories a day. Like, that's not enough food for an adult. That's enough food for a child. So, that's probably what I would erase.

Nice. What— and how would you— how would they replace it? Like, would they— would you recommend they just follow their body, or what do they— what is their barometer?

I mean, I think when I'm recommending food to people, I think meat-heavy diet for everybody, but you can also include whole real foods. So, if it has an ingredients label that's this long, you shouldn't eat it. That's not real food. Once in a blue moon, sure, as a treat, but that's not meant to be eaten every day. Meat-heavy, fruits, vegetables, lower oxalate, lower lectin. Try to keep away from the toxins, the plant toxins, and things like that, and you'll be in pretty good shape.

What does a treat look like to you?

That's a good question. Oh, man. I'm actually going to make these this weekend. I'm going to make a Christmas version. I'm making my carnivore ice cream sandwiches. So, I don't do a lot of dairy, conventional. I can't do conventional dairy because I have Hashimoto's. So, I can't do gluten or conventional dairy. I do raw dairy, and I just got a shipment of it from Miller's. So, I'm going to make, I think, an eggnog and a gingerbread What do you use for the sandwich part?

Panko?

Pork rinds? No. So, in the book, it is my cottage cheese flatbread that I then add things to. So, you can do chocolate, cocoa powder to make the chocolate one or cinnamon to make the cinnamon flavor one. But, for this, I need to do eggnog spices and then gingerbread spices that I'm going to do for the the cookie part. And then just my normal— I might do eggnog ice cream. I don't know. I might even do some peppermint. The world is my oyster. That is my go-to. I love that.

That's great. Eggnog ice cream is so good too. Yeah. Um, thank you so much for coming on here. Anything that, you know, I haven't asked that you were like, oh, I'd really like to talk about that?

No, I think you, you're a really good interviewer, so you covered it all.

Okay. I just want to make sure because I know that, you know, I know that there can be a lot of things that come up for people when we talk about any diets. Like I said earlier, they could see them as restrictive and then that can bring up stuff. And I think if anything, what you're showing is that, hey, first of all, it doesn't have to be as restrictive as you think. And, you can still find a balance that fits for you, but you do have to make a choice if you want to see change.

Yeah. I think the choice is, do you want to live a healthy life? Do you want to feel good? And, that needs to come first, and then everything else kind of peels away. And, when you prioritize on that, everything else falls into place. And yeah, carnivore doesn't have to be restrictive. I have 80 carnivore recipes in my book that will make you feel like you're eating the best, least restrictive diet on the planet. You will not feel restricted. I promise.

That's great. So, last question I ask my guests this every time. If you could wave a magic wand and bring back one ancestral practice, what would it be?

Oh, circadian. Getting up at dawn and light Artificial lights. I think we have gotten so out of sync with our circadian rhythms, and I think that causes a lot of issues.

So, you would want to get up early, get some sun, and then obviously not be inside with the artificial lights so much?

Yeah. And, I also think it would be great if just as a society, we followed the rhythm of the sun more. Because now, with our phones, emails, we can just be on our phones or watching a screen at all hours of the night. And, we shouldn't be doing that.

Do you try to counterbalance since you said your main job is doing YouTube, which is obviously, you know, in front of a screen? Do you find yourself struggling for the balance, or have you found a way to balance that?

I'm still working on it. I'm still working on it. I get up with dawn, I go outside and get that morning sunlight in my eyes. I've gotten contacts that don't block UV. I have stopped wearing sunglasses. I'm still working on the light Like, that are shining at my face right now. I need to do more, like, amber-red-colored lights at night. And screen is hard, but I'm working on it, and I think that everybody should be working on it too. Sure.

Yeah, it starts with awareness. That's great. Well, thank you so much, Jenny. So, where can people go to find you? Like, you, you have your book, but you also do one-on-one coaching, don't you?

I do. I do. All of that is on my YouTube channel. So, go over to Jenny Minett on YouTube and everything is linked there. My Instagram, TikTok, coaching hours, t-shirts, the book. And, if you want to just look up the book, you can search on any online bookstore, Amazon, Barnes Noble, Books-A-Million, Blackwell's if you're international, and you can find it there.

Excellent. And, I highly recommend, we'll put the other books you mentioned in the shownotes as well because Nina is awesome. Her book is so great. I mean, every book you mention is is really great. And of course, check out Ken Berry stuff. Ken's a friend and he's— his stuff is fantastic. And there's so many more, um, which Jenny is either interviewed or talks about on her channel. So definitely check out her channel as well. Thank you again, Jenny, for joining, and thank you for just sharing your journey. I, I love highlighting people's health journeys. I think it's really important to support— it's really important for people to hear Because I think it reminds us that this is a choice and we, and there's so many different options out there and the key is to try them and see what works for you, that your body's not going to lie and that you just got to listen to your body and let it tell you what's working or not working. So I'm so glad this is working for you.

Thanks, James. This was awesome to be here. And yeah, also out there, people listening. Like, you're not alone. We're all going through this together. So, you know, find one of us, listen to our shows, check out the YouTube channels, and you will see that you can do this.

Yeah, excellent empowerment. Thank you so much, and, uh, thank you all for joining us. This is all about staying curious, everyone, and, um, carnivore is working for people, and I highly recommend checking it out. And finding the rhythm that works for you, not feeling forced to just only doing it one way, but, but making it work for you. But I guarantee if you're not thriving, there is a diet out there that will support you in thriving. So please be curious and seek it out. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a message, comment, share it. Make sure you let us know what's working and/or what's not working because we want to know. what you'd like. Thank you again for joining us on Everyday Ancestral. Remember, be curious, stay curious, and be kind. Take care. Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You could find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's E-A-T-PLUCK.com. Tpluck.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.