In this vlog, Victor Justin Rhodes shares a day‑long look at how he manages his chronic Lyme disease while living on a farm. He begins by describing his homemade electrolyte mix (potassium chloride, salt, magnesium) that he drinks each morning to support his health. He explains his core nutritional strategy: an animal‑based, low‑inflammation carnivore diet supplemented with occasional spices and fermented vegetables, noting weight loss, increased energy, and reduced back pain. Rhodes recounts a recent vacation where he deviated from the diet, experienced a “keto flu”‑like crash, and then re‑committed to his regimen. He interweaves farm chores—collecting eggs, managing pigs, sheep, cows, and lambs—and highlights how the animals contribute to his food supply (milk, meat, bacon). The vlog transitions to a cooking segment where he brines and roasts a duck, renders the fat, and prepares roasted vegetables, emphasizing the importance of animal‑derived nutrients as medicine. He references a conversation with Dr. Shawn Baker on the MeatRx podcast about satiety and carnivore eating. The day concludes with a detox routine: an Epsom‑salt and Himalayan‑salt bath followed by a sauna session, which he describes as therapeutic. Throughout, Rhodes mixes practical advice, personal health reflections, family interactions, and motivational quotes, presenting his lifestyle as an integrated approach to battling Lyme disease.
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1 teaspoon potassium chloride, half a teaspoon of salt, one of these little scoops of magnesium. Carnivore-friendly electrolyte. Thank you, Slow Down Farmstead. Cheers. Did you do that to pretend they're real? That was real, baby. Real. That's what happens when you drink a quart of electrolytes first thing in the morning. That is my most recent addition to optimize my health and fight this Lyme disease. And y'all know one of the biggest things I do is an animal-based diet. Low inflammation, easy to digest, high in nutrients. When I went on vacation, I cheated. This is my way of turning vegetables into really nutrient-dense animal protein. No, seriously, these were some Frozen vegetables that I don't think we're really gonna eat. Zucchini noodles and, um, some kind of onion. We've got better onions now hanging on our cool room, making a nice little swill for the pigs. Cook that today, turn it off, it's cool enough out here, just leave it, feed it to them tomorrow. That's nature's greatest magic trick. Turning greens or vegetables into protein. Back to my cheating story. Normally, well, since July, I've been eating animal-based, which basically means carnivore, plus a little bit of spices when the family's having spices on the meat, and the occasional fermented vegetable. And I've been feeling great. I've been having more energy, less back pain. And less inflammation. Like, I lost a lot of weight, like 15 pounds. What do you got? What? Eggs! Holy moly, let's do it! The jackpot! They are covered in poop though. Well, we just have to gird our loins and get them out, and then we're gonna have to turn this next nest box sideways to see They're, they're, they're perching in here, so they're getting in. So that would put it— I know, in the— we have a fake egg to just encourage them to lay. Uh, we're gonna have to— see this opening? We're gonna turn it sideways so they can't get in at night and perch. We're gonna do that for a couple weeks until we've trained them. First thing in the morning though, that's got to get turned around. Think you can do it? Maybe. Oh, come on. Hey, what does Yoda say? There's no do, there is no maybe, only do or do not, right? Is that what he says? Yeah. Can you do it? I guess. No, there's no I guess. Can you do it? Maybe. All right, so on vacation Uh, I went all out. Now my all out is other people's diets. I mean, we're talking about tomato soup, grilled cheese on gluten-free bread, grain-free pizza, kombucha— bad boy, bad boy— raw honey-sweetened chocolate milk. It was so good. But I'm telling you, by the end of the vacation, I get this weird kink in my neck, like the up and down kind of My back's hurting worse. I've got this raging headache, and I'm depressed. So on the way home, I'm back on my regular diet, and we're back home feeling depressed, feeling like I'm going through a crash, or maybe I'm going through a Lyme crash, who knows? Because periodically I'll just go through this massive funk. That's part of the symptoms. And we sit down to eat, and I just feel— I feel I think we were gonna have onion rings, but it just didn't work out. But Rebecca's having a kombucha and I'm back on it, and I'm just feeling like I wish I could just eat like a normal healthy person. Like the fun and excitement of the carnivore diet had gone off, had gone away. To be honest, I don't know how I got through. Keep on cheating? Well, I know how. I gained like 8 pounds. Now, it might not have been just from the vacation. I was feeling like crap. Uh, could have been from, you know, the holiday, the Thanksgiving, the kids' birthday. I don't know how I just— I just had to end it. Didn't know I wanted to continue like that. So somehow I pulled myself together and had some self-discipline and got back on my diet. And you know, Rebecca figured it out later, I think I was probably going through what they call the keto flu. When you start eating keto or carnivore, oftentimes like your symptoms get worse, you crash, so to speak, you feel sick. And I think that might what happened to me. But wait, whoa, whoa, this is all crooked. Here, hang on. All right, let's straighten all this up a little bit before it gets too hot. You know what, I didn't want to keep doing chores either, and I just had a 2-week break. I was feeling great. I'd been motivated even on vacation, thinking about a lot, making a lot of plans. I didn't want to do it. But you know what, I think that's the best medicine. The family, the farm, and the business. Those things have to go on whether I feel good or not. It has to get, it has to get done, and that keeps me moving. Oh no, we left the pan. Oh, it's full of poop juice. So this is currently the sheep's water, but they're gonna get moved today. We could, uh, wash it out. I think it might not be— it might be alfalfa juice, but let's just be safe. I wish we had Filavision and y'all could feel how thick this coat is. Holy smokes, you're gonna be just fine in this weather, aren't you? You're gonna be just fine. I think these guys would prefer the cold over the heat. All right, we got it hooked up. Johnny, you're gonna go real slow. Try to go as high up there as you can without hitting that rock, okay? That spot worries me. I know, it's super slick. Don't turn it as hard as you can because that's going to make it even harder. Just slide, Jonah. Josiah's here, let's have him push. He's lighter, you're stronger. Okay, ready? 1, 2, 3. Good job, my man. I guess I'll pull in right there and then we can pull it up tomorrow. Last time we had to get a tractor. Yeah. But this time, maybe 3 people pushing and Sally. Maybe we could winch her too, try it. I want you to look at this area where they're at. This is where we had pigs. Look how green. Now I'm gonna spin you around here and we're gonna look around to where we didn't have pigs. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing. Mucho green. See all that green in there? Pigs helped with that. These cows are mucho important because they give us milk, 8 pounds a gallon, 3, 4 gallons of milk. That's a lot of food. And then they give us a cat— if it's heifer, a cow to sell to somebody else to have a family milk cow. If it's a steer, that's our beef. Right there. Whoops. H for hamburger. And then our lambs, 100% for meat. Uh, hair— haired sheep, they're not wool, so we don't have to trim their hair. And they're pregnant. Nacho, our ram, got these ladies— 5 ladies pregnant. Escalito keeps Nacho company when he gets separated when it's not breeding season. They'll give 2-ish lambs each come March, April. So that could be like 10 lambs in our freezer. Do we need 10 lambs? 10 lambs a year, maybe 6, so then we have a few to sell to help pay for the operation. Remember those pigs out there? That's what I'm talking about. That's where bacon comes from, and bacon goes a long way to make some leftover Indian chicken. More fatty and delicious. And since we have long since realized food is our medicine— it's not just our inner energy, it's our medicine for getting away. Look at that. I'm ready to look at my area. Are you? Put your area— where was your area? Here. Right here? The shoes? Oh my goodness. Oh, that's a piece. You did a good job. They're so straight. And did you do the living room too? Because it looks so good. Mm-hmm. Good job, buddy. Here, give me a hug. Good job, boy. He's doing good. He's a big brother now. You're gonna be such a good helper, aren't you? Some leftover meatballs. We're gonna be eating chicken on a bed of bacon. An egg. You guys got a roll. Lily, how you doing? Good. Sticking with the protein? How you doing, Mom? I'm good. Little snowball? He's constantly getting rubbed, that's for sure. Well, it's the last belly I'm ever gonna have like this, so. Well, that's what you said after you had me. Mommy, you aren't gonna have a belly like this. No, I didn't say that after you. Mommy, you aren't gonna have a belly like this. He was like 2 years old when I was like, I think we're good. Is this the update on— yeah, on Snowball? He's as big as an acorn squash. Yep. How much does he weigh? 2.5 pounds. What? 15 inches long. Wow. Call the Inquirer. This looks like a real cooking show today. I actually set everything out because this video is about my daily health regimen for lime, not necessarily about finding all these ingredients. Now, everything I will say, from the farm, from the farm, not from the farm, from the farm, from the farm. This is a duck. It's been soaked, it's been brining all night long in half a cup of salt to every half a gallon of water. I'm just gonna rinse it off. I didn't rinse it once. And it was crazy salty. I mean, it absorbs the salt and the water. That's the idea of the brine, so it keeps it moist in the baking. But it can get too salty if you don't rinse it off, and you don't— definitely don't need to add salt on top. First thing I'm going to do here is actually cut off this excess fat. Look at this. That's why I like duck so much. It is so fatty. It's probably one of the best birds for somebody eating carnivore because you can raise it— well, it doesn't eat as much grain as a chicken, theoretically. It's got a lot more fat. Looks like we need to rinse it. I don't know if that's the salt or a little dirty from the butchering. I'm going to take this fat I cut off and to cut it into little chunks. I'm definitely not going to waste it. It's delicious. When I was on that MeatRx podcast with Dr. Shawn Baker, I asked him, I said, hey, what do you do— or we should probably cut these in half. I said, what, I said, what do you do? Don't you ever want something? Like, I'm crazy for peanut butter and chocolate. I want to eat a drink of kombucha with the wife. I want to You know, I'm making the kids peanut butter and apple snack in the morning. That would be good. What do you do about that? And he said, get satiated. So basically pig out at your meals and then you're not so hungry. I've mixed it all together, you know, jumbling it all together. I cut the potatoes so they'll cook a little bit better, be a little more, you know, about the same. I don't know, cut them down just this doesn't take as long to cook. Let's do— put the garlic cloves in the duck so it doesn't get burnt and the aroma goes through to the duck. This is interesting. I'm thinking this method is gonna be good because I don't eat vegetables. The family does. And here we're gonna keep them separate. Boom! And so here. Gotta wipe my hand off before I touch you guys. So the duck will cook right here on top, the fat penetrating the vegetables, duck staying elevated, getting cooked underneath. I think this is gonna be a really good method. 375 for an hour and a half, so we'll put it in in about half an hour. Oh shoot, I should have been warming it up. Whoops. Okay, 375. It's only supposed to take an hour and a half. I do have 2 hours, so hopefully that won't— yeah, if we're set back, we still have enough time. All right, okay, it's 10 till we need to get this out. Uh, it looks like it's browning nicely, so let's just maybe measure it and just see if we're on track. We could be making gravy in 10 minutes. Oh, nice looking golden goose. Golden. Let's see if we're on track. 176, 178. I'm gonna let it go for 5 more minutes. Rebecca, you ready to do 5 minutes? Let's do some gravy. 5 minutes? Yeah, I can do that. All right, let's get this thing out. It's time. We gotta rest the duck. We're gonna pour the juices back in there. Beauty got it to a boil. What's that? That's, um, arrowroot. 2 tablespoons. And you put a little bit of water in here. Yeah, just judging, maybe you probably put about 4 tablespoons, and then you mix that with water. Yeah, and you're gonna pour it in there and magic's gonna happen. Oh, you just do a little bit at a time. Some people like to take the fat off of it, but I think I like the fat. And then it thickens. You tell me if those aren't the best roasted vegetables you've ever had. They're gonna be delicious. Duck fat dripping on them. Mick cooked in duck fat. Give us a bite. I'll just take over what all the chick— all the duck people didn't eat. You tell me those are the best roasted vegetables you've ever had. Mmm, awesome. That is always miserable, but you feel so good when you get out. I'm even shivering, and the bath feels really good. And I would sleep so good. Next up, get the sauna warming. That's a detox. Get that going. It's foggy because we're going from cold to warm. Epsom salt bath, 2 scoops of Epsom salt, a scoop of Himalayan salt. Come on now, come on, don't fog up on me. It's more mineral-filled. So after the shower, it's the sauna, one of my most favorite places. You can multi-purpose in here, get a lot of reading done. A quote. I'll end this vlog with a quote from Influence. A man's behavior tells him about himself. It is primary source of information about his beliefs and values. And attitudes. I guess we really believe in optimal healing and health. All right, all right, I'm out.
