I Ate Carnivore for 30 Days | Then Didn't Stop

I ate carnivore for 30 days. Bacon, egg, burger, beef broth, and chicken, all from land. So I had this idea. Wow! Take our leftover smoked chicken, put some of our bacon on top of it. Let's melt some cheese on top of that.

I don't know if it's the cheese or the bacon or the smoked chicken or what, but it is really good. Mmm.

Everybody else is having tacos, so I figured I would have ground beef. Cheese and a bit of bacon. Supper: a bowl of chicken. Arun made this in yogurt, soaked it in yogurt and salt, and then grilled it. It's absolutely delicious. On today's episode of Burn It Up Cooking Show, I'm gonna call it a trio burger. Pound of lamb, about 2 pounds. I'm gonna need a bigger bowl. Bigger bowl. Trio burger. Justin Rhodes trio burger. Bacon. Do I have— yeah. Let's cut this whole thing up into little chunks. Now that I've got me some bacon chunks, I gotta mix all this together. Try burger. Such a dork. What do you want me to do? Mmm. Yeah. Need salt. That's a brunch right there. I was craving fish today, but we also had a bunch of leftovers. And that kind of almost looks like a normal plate of food, betting it back. Mucho comida. Steak and eggs. That's hitting the spot. Scrambled eggs, bacon cheeseburger, and leftover ham. I don't feel sorry for myself right now. Italian sausage and eggs. Smoked chicken. Eggs, whitefish, salmon, bacon, sausage, turkey, spring chicken, beef short ribs. We good.

We good.

I have chronic Lyme disease. I have many symptoms, but probably what is the most concerning that really brought all this on is kind of more recent, like year-ish, pain in my back, like soreness, especially after rest. I get up in the morning, I mean, it feels like I've been in a car wreck or something. So I was just kind of going through life, I guess, uh, not really knowing what to do, and I guess hoping something would change eventually. And then I was listening to this Joe Rogan podcast with Dr. Sean Baker. Dr. Baker said this: If you're healthy today, odds are you're gonna be healthier tomorrow. That was a clip from the podcast on YouTube. I'll leave a link to that down in the description. But that statement hit me like a ton of bricks because I do not feel healthy today. I feel bad today. And so the same reasoning is there. I'm gonna feel bad tomorrow unless I do something. Dr. Baker also happens to be a proponent for the carnivore diet, and this was kind of like the, I don't know, third, fourth-ish time I had heard about this. Rebecca, my wife, had heard about this, I don't know, a year-ish ago and started talking about like it had been doing some really good results for people with Lyme disease. So the carnivore diet and what we hope it will do and what we've seen it do for other people is, uh, lower inflammation. That's probably the number one for us. It's easier to digest. This is really simple food, and I believe Everything that we need to thrive is in this. What does it do for like weight loss? Like, I'm not this— I'm not struggling major with that. It's just, you know, now that I'm getting older, I have to fight quite a bit to keep it off.

Well, can I add to that?

Yes. I believe your weight gain— But what did it promise?

But I believe that your weight gain was an inflammation response.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, to something you were eating, I guess.

You keep talking, I gotta put that—

was causing a problem. And so I heard about the carnivore diet on Instagram from somebody that I followed, Slow Down Farmstead. Unfortunately, she's getting off of Instagram, she's going to a blog, she's going to blog.com. Yeah, and, um, and she's gonna write a book. And it's— she's, um, she just has a different look on things. She Farms very similar to us. She talked about how she had Lyme disease, and then she did all the things. And I feel like we've done a lot of things for your Lyme disease, and it didn't work. And so I found it, and I was like, you should do the carnivore diet. He already eats more meat than your average person, I would say, and enjoys it. Whereas like me, if I tried to eat that much meat, I don't think I could do it. I think My individual body couldn't handle it.

Day 5 on the carnivore diet. Yesterday at the Fourth of July, we had some smoked pork. It was absolutely delicious. Filled half my plate with it, half my plate with beef, ate 2 bowls of ice cream. I made the exception. It was Fourth of July, it's mostly animal. I only had a little bit of maple syrup. I'm not hungry. Are you hungry?

I am.

You're hungry?

Mm-hmm.

Okay. I feel like I'm cooking this, I want to gag. Before I'd be like, I want to cook half this, and I thought, was it the meat? Is it the meat making me want to gag? And I thought, okay, think about peanut butter and chocolate. I'm not gagging, I'm coughing. But yeah, I didn't even feel like eating peanut butter and chocolate. Feeling satisfied. They say that, they say you can get to where you want 2 meals a day. We only eat 2 meals a day anyway, but 1, like, really? I think I might try some of that, but now that I think about it, wouldn't ice cream, if we sweeten it with honey, be all animal? Isn't honey animal?

Yeah, but bees make it. Yeah, just like a cow makes milk.

That's right, like a chicken makes an egg. Now unless I'm getting sick, this is going to be really cool. Because all the diets I've done before— Paleo, GAPS, uh, other crazy diets I've done in the past— I've always been hungry. Always. The only way I've been able to lose weight or whatever is to be a little bit hungry. That would be really cool if like this is full and I'm not just like getting something like a cold or sick or something. I cooked cabbage for the family. Like one of my favorite vegetables. Totally okay, not having it. In fact, I wish everybody would do this diet. We'd never have to go to the grocery store again. Never, never. Day number 6, still don't feel that hungry. Check out that though— smoked cheeseburger, layer of egg, bacon, layer of egg, another layer of bacon. I could have this every day.

Me too.

This is really weird. I've puttered out. I cannot finish it.

I can't either. Can I speak this to Ted?

Day 7. First day of weighing myself since I started. It was 189. I've lost 2 pounds. 2 pounds in a week. And I sort of had a thought. A revelation is that there's a difference between a craving and real hunger. Like, sure, I'm craving chocolate and peanut butter, and the kids are eating— the kids and Beauty are eating like a grain, like a rice with butter on it. Yeah, then maybe I'm like wanting that, but am I hungry? Like, if you're hungry, you'll eat anything, right? Like, depends on how hungry you are. So I'm gonna try to learn the difference between a craving and a hunger. If I'm thinking I'm hunger— hungry, well then I could eat a snack. I could eat a boiled egg. I could get some cheese. I could get a bowl of yogurt. None of my pain symptoms have gone away. 7 days. Day 8, carnivore diet. Bacon and sausage and eggs. I will say I cooked everybody else this— fried potatoes from the farm. It was our first harvest.

How did you feel?

Cut up bacon, onions. How did I feel doing that?

Did that— was that hard for you?

No, no. Was it hard for you to cook them? Yeah.

Do you want to eat them?

Yeah, and there's that chunk of bacon. And yes, I do want to eat them. I crave that. But listen, one thing about that though is, well, we had to plant it, we had to go out there. I went out there and got it. I had to clean it a couple of times, peeled it because the skin is, you know, hard to digest. It was a lot of work.

It was.

This really wasn't that much work.

I know.

So, from what—

I'm seeing that with you on this diet, like— if we went, if our whole family went carnivore, which I don't think I personally could.

It's so easy.

Because I do crave vegetables, and I do believe that everyone's bio-individual and people have different needs, although I've read that carnivore diet is actually really good for people with Hashimoto's, so— I feel conflicted on that, but the other conflict I feel is the fact that— we could have a lot less chores to do.

And you can save it so easily. It stays in the freezer.

I just can't wrap my mind around it though. I just can't wrap my mind around it.

So—

because I, I love, I do enjoy eating meat. I do enjoy it, but my plate, like, our plates are opposite. So my plate has a little bit of meat and a lot of vegetables, and his plate has a little bit of vegetables and a lot of meat. So bio-individually, you have a higher need for meat than I do. So that's why I go back, and I want it— I want to— I want my kids to feel, to eat what they need. I want to go like— I'm, I'm kind of feeling a lot on intuitive eating just in general. Like, we did the GAPS diet, but now we're kind of going away from that, and I'm feeling Like, maybe we just need to do what we feel intuitively to do.

I'm not talking about like eating junk food. I feel like eating peanut butter and chocolate.

Well, then we should look up what's in peanut butter and chocolate that maybe you're missing, and there's other foods that you could eat maybe that would supply that for you. I don't know. Look, what I know is this, is that I want you to feel better. We've read other people's experiences of people who have Lyme disease, did carnivore diet. They saw— they've seen success. We know you have a high need for meat. That's one reason why we produce so much meat. Um, so yeah, I mean, I know that I don't, and our kids are growing, and I want them to feel like they can get what they need.

So here's the thing, as much as I crave those potatoes— here's the thing, as much as I crave those potatoes, if it were just me, it would not be worth it. Because just for the ease factor, just counting in the ease factor, forget like am I feeling better, all that for this discussion. It's so much easier. No greenhouse, no transplanting, no weeding. I know my food eats the weeds.

It's kind of rocking my world in some regards like this.

No go to the grocery store. That's not where I get her, Becky. We'd never have to go to the grocery store again.

I would love that.

Well, I mean, we could commit to just eating what we grow.

Yes.

And that might mean a lot more meat in the winter.

And that's what I'm trying to do, is not buy it. I do want to try to do that.

Short ribs. So we had some leftover short ribs. That's craving. I'm feeling better today. I think I was crashing— I don't know, was it yesterday, the day before? And I lost weight. Like, I'm at, uh, 183. Uh, yeah, and I started at 189, 188. Yeah, so 5 pounds in 10 days, that's encouraging. But no other symptoms, none of the symptoms are going away. I'm still waking up stiff, still got back pain. My feet are killing me right now that I've been cooking for a while. Been doing cream separating today, but, and you know, I'm not obese. But when I was bending over to start the audiobook for the kids last night, Jonah did— Jonah did say, why is your belly so big? I got some dad bod going on and could stand to lose about 15 pounds. So if it does nothing for me except help me lose a little bit of weight, I think that would be telling me something. Well, I met my match. I'm full. I'm stuffed full. I like that feeling. I forgot to set meat out last night. Here's a little trick I learned. If you just soak meat in water, it thaws out much faster. This ground lamb is pretty much thawed out. This was sticking out a little bit down here, so I flipped it. And the bacon has— it's all thawed out in just a number of Probably an hour-ish, hour and a half. My one cheat— raw. It is homemade, homegrown ice cream. The only plant in this is maple syrup, but it's sort of my saving grace. It is so unbelievably sweet now that I've been eating that plant meat for 12-ish days. What day we on? Maple syrup, is that technically a plant? Day 14. I lay in bed last night and I was like, wait, I'm not depre— I don't feel deprived. What's for breakfast? Oh, the leftover ham and eggs. That sounds delicious. And I'm losing weight. The other symptoms aren't necessarily going anywhere, but it's like, what do I crave? Peanut butter chocolate.

Papa's orange still in jelly.

Oh, that's just Haroon. Sure, I would like to eat tacos with the kids tonight at Taco Tuesday, but do I really need that? Like, it's a grain-free Sieta taco, but do I really need that? No, I think I'll be okay. I'm out here at my dad's sweet potatoes. We planted these in honor of my late father last fall. He broke his back said if he gets through this, he's gonna plant sweet potatoes. Well, he broke his back because of old age. He had a number of issues. He didn't make it. He died in November. We planted these sweet potatoes for him, and I think what we can all take away from this— and they're jamming, the sweet potatoes are doing great— I think what we can all take that helps me in this journey my health journey really, of trying to get better, is I'm not, I'm not feeling better. I mean, it's been, it's been 13 days and just like anything else, it's not touching my symptoms. I have a bad disease. I woke up stiff as, as, as, as any bad episode in the past. I woke up super stiff, super bed sore. And it's discouraging and I want to give up. But I keep hearing in my head, "How you feel today is going to be how you feel tomorrow." And then I see my dad's sweet potatoes and I'm like, "Don't give up. Plant the sweet potatoes." It's kind of a bad analogy since I'm only eating meat right now. Hope you can jump through that with me because it's more than about eating meat. I figured this out. It's more about going— I'm not trying to prove or disprove the carnivore diet. I'm just trying to get better, and that's what's most important. If I find something that says Manuel Hill on sweet potatoes, I just might try it. Getting desperate. Italian sausage and eggs. I guess I'm not too worried about the seasoning that's already automatically in this. I mean, It's our season that we provided. I know, I know. I guess it's breaking the rules technically, but I was finally hungry. It's 12:30. I wasn't hungry. And even now I'm just kind of hungry. Is that normal on this, Rebecca?

Yes, I think so.

Today is Saturday. We are on day, I don't know, day 25. I'm feeling pretty good on this and think I could actually do it long-term if I just introduce some things. Onions. What? Onions to go with the meat, like coffee, like she said. Onions, garlic, honey. Uh, a little bit of honey because in the coffee— see, on Saturday I'm really feeling it because Saturday is the once a week I have Bulletproof coffee. It's a little bit of coffee with a lot of cream, a lot of butter, um, and it's kind of special. It's like one thing that breaks up the monotony of my Weeks. I didn't have that coffee on Saturday.

Are you missing popcorn?

No, I don't. I could do okay without popcorn. Uh, so I've listed a few things, plus I'd maybe like to have watermelon every once in a while with the family. Yeah, if I could have sauces and spices on my meat, I could go a pretty long time, I think, on that diet. Oh, chocolate and peanut butter, but limiting it. I think I could go a really long time on this diet, and I think I might. It's helping with my inflammation and it might take time. This is a bad disease and it's gonna probably take more than just a month of super anti-inflammatory, uh, super easy to digest month of eating animal. Just kind of summing up, where are we now? Like, it's over, what now? I don't know. I'm calling it huevos rancheros. Eggs, cheese, bacon, leftover hamburger. Oh yeah, you have to have that to call it huevos rancheros. I don't know, leftover Mexican with some fresh eggs. So it's August 19th, 19 days after the 30-day experiment. I'm still going strong. To sum it up, I would say if I could sum it up with one word, it would be satisfying. I've never been on a diet where I wasn't jonesing to get off of it and ready to just pig out on something like that again.

Eat it.

So I'm very satisfied on this.

Yeah, I knew you would be.

Oh.

You're a very, um, meat eater.

I didn't have dramatic results like step out of bed on the 30th day, my back's not hurting and my feet are not hurting.

Well, so this is the thing. I think for those 30-day diets They're very, um, they're very helpful for people who are going from a standard American diet to something healthy.

Yeah, I wasn't eating junk food in the first place.

Yeah, you weren't. You were eating some veggies.

Yeah.

And fruit with your—

We ain't eating a lot of starch. Y'all eat a lot of starch, I've noticed. And that's really the only thing that we'll crave, like a fried potato, and I'm like, that's starches are not that great for me anyway, you know, right? Fried rice and butter.

I mean, I mean, the more I'm reading, it's— yeah, starches. If I had any major, major health issues that were life-threatening, I would definitely cut out some starch. That'd be the first thing to go for me. I don't, I don't think I could do carnivore. I think everybody has to establish that. You're funny.

You keep saying that.

I do.

If you keep saying that, you're gonna— that's bad self-talk.

I'm not. No, no, it's not that. I just—

of course you can't if you keep saying that.

Well, yeah, but it's not about that. I have like tried to think about me doing carnivore, and I just I just don't think I could.

No pressure. And Dr. Baker was saying in his book— I read the Carnivore Diet— we're talking like 3 months before you can kind of expect any changes. So after the 30 days, I also started making sure I drink a lot of water. Yeah, I, uh, we've got— we found a mobile chiropractor, comes here, and I've stopped sleeping on my stomach. Yes, and I've continued to eat carnivore. And my back isn't hurting in the morning, at least, like that soreness. Mm-hmm. It's not there, so— I don't know if it's a combo of those things or one of those things, but I feel satisfied on this. I'm gonna go strong.

Yeah. Well, I think that, I think, well, we talked about like for birthdays because we have birthdays coming up.

Yep.

Um, you'll, you'll participate in the birthday. Festivities. And I think that's good. I think that that is—

Watermelon with you guys last night.

You ate watermelon that we grew.

The occasional watermelon. Spices, I've had spices.

Well, and you'll have, um, you'll do the, um, ice cream when I make ice cream. So you'll have that with us.

Yeah, and even with some chocolate syrup. Peanut butter, I'm gonna have to give up the I feel like I might have to give up its grip on me. It's got a grip.

It does have a grip.

That's probably not good. But I did see some, like, we got like 7 jars of peanut butter in there and I— oh, saw it. It's got a grip on me.

It just makes me—

I should be able to eat it every once in a while.

Well, I found, I found—

sprouted peanut butter.

Well, hold on, I found an icing that has peanut butter in it so I can make chocolate cake. With some peanut butter icing for you, and I'll make a small cake so that there's not a ton of leftovers, that everybody gets a good piece and everybody gets to try it.

And I don't crave cake.