Carnivore Won't Fix Your Gut. Here's Why.

If you pressed on this video, it most likely means that somewhere along your health journey and in the pursuit of trying to fix your health and your gut, you went carnivore because you heard from someone that it would magically fix your gut and fix all your problems. And honestly, probably at first it felt amazing. The bloating went down, brain fog probably improved, you had more stable energy, less gas, less bloating, less food reactions. To begin with as well, and for the first time in years, you felt like you finally found the the answer. This is it now. Now we're onto something. But then something weird happened a few weeks later, maybe even a few months later. All the symptoms started to creep back in: constipation, histamine reaction, skin problems, fatigue, sleep issues, joint pain, food sensitivity. And now you're stuck thinking, wait. If carnivore is supposed to heal the gut, why do I actually feel worse now? And this is exactly what I've seen with so many clients. Guys that came from carnivore, low FODMAP, ultra-reactive or restrictive diets, cutting out more and more foods. And almost every single time, the problem wasn't that they needed more restriction. The problem was that they never rebuilt the system to be able to process food in the first place. So that is exactly what I'm gonna break down in this video. I'm gonna explain exactly why Carnival works initially, but why it sabotages everything long term. I'm gonna explain exactly what you should be doing instead, step by step protocol to exactly fix your gut health without just focus on the surface level problems, but actually focusing on the root causes and actually finally fixing it for good. Now first, I want to say something very, very important. Carnivore can absolutely reduce symptoms short-term, and there's a reason for that. Because when you go carnivore, you instantly remove processed foods, seed oils, gluten, artificial ingredients, emulsifiers, junk carbs, and hyperpalatable food. And of course, symptoms will improve. You massively reduce inflammatory load overnight. Here's the problem: symptom reduction is not the same as healing. That's this distinction nobody talks about. You didn't necessarily heal the gut; you just removed a ton of inputs your body was reacting to. And for some people, that creates massive relief initially. But then the second phase starts, and this is where people start to get confused. Confused. Before we dive in any further as well, if you're new to the channel, first of all, welcome. My name is Lucas. I'm just a regular guy from Stockholm, Sweden. Over the last five to six years, through trial and error with my own health journey and with my old own health problems. I've just dedicated all my time and effort to try to fix all those issues. And all I do on this channel is break all the lessons and learnings down for myself and from working with hundreds of hundreds of clients as well, and put them into actionable implementations and breakdowns and protocols for you so you can walk away, steal it, implement it to your life, and see the benefits from it. So let's continue. This is the exact pattern I keep seeing. Guys go carnivore, feel amazing, then slowly become more reactive over time. And the reason is the ecosystem never got rebuilt. Your gut is not just a tube, it's a whole ecosystem. And ecosystems require diversity, resilience, balance, and proper nervous system signaling, proper motility, and proper digestion. But when you stay ultra restrictive for too long, a few things start to happen. This is the classic thing. Now, these photos probably doesn't represent this, to be honest. I just copied, copied the photos from another presentation. But the classic statements are Carnivore in the beginning, you know why do I feel so good? Feel amazing. Finally, I think I've cracked the code. My gut is finally working. And then a few weeks in, month in, what's starting to happen? I feel even worse than before, right? I didn't change anything. I'm still doing the same thing, but suddenly I just feel terrible. We should probably switch switch this around, but you get the point. And this is exactly exactly why. This is what you're what's happening to you when you go carnivore first. Your microbiome collapses. You stop feeding large parts of your microbiome, especially the bacteria that produces short-chain fatty acids, supports the gut lining, regulates inflammation, maintains gut resilience. And this is where people start becoming more food sensitive, more reactive, more constipated, and more histamine sensitive. Not because carbs are evil, but because the system completely lost flexibility. So this is like, we have to think about this. Your gut thrives on variety. It thrives on feeding the microbiome a lot of different inputs and a broad spectrum of inputs, so it constantly has to adapt. When you ultra-constrain it, what happens is your gut is completely going to shut down because it already knows the inputs that it will be given. Therefore, the microbiome doesn't have to stay firing. It can just kind of come down in gear because it already knows what it's going to be provided with. And this is the massive problem with doing this long-term. This is the problem with ultra-restrictive diets. This is also one of the reasons why I never preach like a classic meal plan, eat the same thing every single day. I preach all my clients massive amounts of variety for this specific reason. We want to give our microbiome a very broad spectrum of inputs, of course healthy, good seasonal local inputs, right? Yeah. We're never supplying any quote unquote garbage and shit, but a broad spectrum of inputs to actually be able to keep our microbiome happy. So this is the first thing, the first problem, and this is how we want to think about it. You know, broad spectrum, a lot of inputs so that we are, let's say, you can kind of view this as how, you know, we can talk if this is a, if this is like a right or wrong or right thing, but like how vaccines are intended to be. You supply a small dose of something to be able to build up resilience towards it. On paper, this is what it's supposed to do, right? And we can argue if this is whatever, good or bad or whatever, right? Small dose, build resilience. This is how we want to think about food. You want to supply small doses so that you build up the resilience. You know, you therapeutic dose in the beginning to build up the resilience, right? That is how our gut microbiome Adapts. The second thing that happens with carnivore is that the nervous system gets even more dysregulated, and this is the big one nobody talks about because a lot of people doing carnivore already have chronic stress, nervous system dysregulation, poor sleep, high cortisol, overtraining, and gut dysfunction. Then they go zero carb, hyper restrictive, and high stress biologically, and the body compensates by running even harder on stress hormones: adrenaline. Cortisol, sympathetic activation. Initially, that can feel good— more alert, more stimulated, less sluggish. Long term, the nervous system gets even more dysregulated, and now digestion gets worse again through different pathways. And this is exactly what I've seen with clients as well. You know, we know this— one of the key inputs when it comes to digestion is being calm, being rested, being, you know, in the rest and digest, in sympathetic state. If we are, or in a parasympathetic nervous system state, if we're constantly activated, we're not going to digest the food. I'd argue you're better off eating a fucking McDonald's but being chill, grounded in the sun, compared to eating a grass-fed steak rushed between meetings under LED light, super fired up. You know, it doesn't matter that you're eating the best of the best quality. Your body, like that best of the best food, can still cause gut dysbiosis, leaky gut, SIBO, SIFO, a bunch of different problems. So that also confirms and states that there's more to eating than just what we eat. It's about what we consume and what we digest and what our body can do with that that actually matters. Third, once again, which ties into this, digestive capacity actually gets weaker. When you avoid foods long enough, you don't build resilience, you often lose it. And now This is where the random food sensitivity starts to pop up. Things that you, you could eat always, you could eat 10 years ago, no problem. And now you can't eat rice. Rice causes reactions. Rice causes joint pain. Fruit causes, causes flare-ups in your skin. Potatoes causes joint pain, whatever it might be. Not necessarily because these foods are bad or toxic, but because the system became so fragile that these simple inputs become Like toxic to the state you're in right now. That's how we want to see it. That's a completely different thing. And then the biggest mistake everyone makes— most people approach gut like this in the beginning: what food do I need to remove next? This is how we view it. But the question, the better question, is why is my system reacting to everything in the first place? Because your gut is so connected to not just your brain, but stress, sleep, nervous system, hormones, circadian rhythm, inflammation, movement, recovery, toxin load. So in order to fix your gut We have to look at all these variables. We can't just focus on the food that we're eating and expect to fix the gut if we're not focusing on stress, if we're not focusing on sleep, if we're not focusing on nervous system, hormones, circadian rhythm, inflammation, movement, recovery, and toxic load. We're never gonna properly fix our gut for good because the roots are all in here. It's like deep down and connected to all these different variables and pillars. So everything has to be looked at and connected when we actually want to fix something for good. And this is why 2 people can eat exactly the same food, food and one reacts horribly while the other one feels amazing, right? It's not always the food, it's the condition of the system receiving the food. This is completely— this completely changed how I approached gut health when I started to understand and look into this. How could I get bad reactions for something that I've always been able to eat, and then just from one day to another I couldn't tolerate any dairy, right? This was the case for me. I started to question everything, started looking into everything, and understood that there was more to the equation than just like The first thing for me was just cut out all the dairy, right? This is the rookie mistake that I made back in the days. Maybe I've got lactose intolerant from one day to another was my initial thought. But yeah, long story short, obviously it was not the food itself that was the problem because now I can eat dairy perfectly fine, right? It was all other variables that had completely collapsed and then that manifested in dairy sensitivity for me, which caused massive gut problems. Right? So how do we actually fix this step by step? Exactly what we should be doing. Well, first of all, we have to stop over-restricting. The goal is not perfect digestion tomorrow and removing every food forever. The goal goal is to lower total stress load while rebuilding resilience. So stop chasing perfection, removing 50 foods, and hyper-analyzing every single symptom that keeps the nervous system stuck in survival mode. If we're constantly thinking about it as well, that's doing ourselves a very bad disservice. Step 2, build a simple foundation. For 2 to 4 weeks, keep meals simple, right? Build meals around protein— beef, steak, eggs, chicken— carbs— potatoes, rice, fruit in moderation and seasonal as well, sourdough for some people if you can tolerate it— some cooked veg— carrots, zucchini, squash as an example. Every meal should have protein, carbs, and cooked veg and potentially fruit if you can tolerate. Simple, repeatable and easy to digest for you. So have a build a base, simple base and rock that. You can almost view this as a I don't want to say elimination diet, but like a base diet, a reset diet. You have the solid base when your bowel movements start to get solid and and they're predictable. That's when we can start to experiment, start to add in stuff, start to do different things. Then fix the nervous system. This is non-negotiable. If your body is stuck in fight or flight, your, your gut physically cannot heal properly. Impossible. Before meals, you should be doing everything you can to calm down. 5 slow breaths. Never use any phone while sitting down. Never watch something whilst you're eating. Sit down, relax, ideally outside, grounded. And daily action steps to hit on top of that is obviously sunlight in the morning, walks after meals. Reduce overstimulation and have a better sleep or morning and also sleep and wind-down routine. Most gut healing protocols completely ignore this huge mistake, and this is the biggest variable. When all clients come to me, the biggest focus point we take is this over. This is like this is massive sauce I'm putting on because literally this this changes the whole game. This actually allows your gut to heal. So being dialed with calming down and eating in a good environment is literally the most powerful input you can ever, ever do and get. Obviously, I have, you know, step-by-step exact protocols in this inside my coaching program that explains exactly how we should be doing this and how we should be putting this to practice. But for you guys listening here, please, the one thing that I want you to take away is just like eating in a calm state is more important than the food you have on the plate. You, you can't even imagine how many times I see this from clients getting problems with good food and then not getting problems when doing the right inputs even with bad food. It's insane. 4th step, we have to stop destroying recovery. A lot of guys with gut issues are overtraining, underrecovering, overstimulated, living on caffeine, then wondering why digestion is terrible. Well, your body cannot prioritize muscle growth, performance, gut repair, detoxification whilst constantly stuck in survival mode. So temporary if needed. Reduce training. Stop annihilating yourself. Prioritize recovery quality. It's not just about— or how I— the simple framework that I always use is stress hard, recover harder, right? So if you think about it, how much stress do you have? Well, if you have a— if you know that you run a business, you have employees, or you have a high-demanding job, just like the more you stress, the more you need to recover. So the more you stress from all those other variables, probably the the less you should train. I train 2 to 3 times per week, right? I don't do any more than that. And it's simply because I don't think that I have the capacity to recover from more. So why would I ever do more when that is just going to basically— it's like shooting myself in the, uh, shooting myself in the, in the, in the foot. So it just doesn't make sense. But we'd rather start lower on the lower end, and then we can scale that up. Right. 5th step is to rebuild tolerance slowly. The goal is not to stay restrictive forever. The goal is to gradually rebuild flexibility. That means when you have a solid base and foundation for a couple of weeks and bowel movements start to get predictable and consistent, we want to add in foods back therapeutically and strategically. We want to improve digestion capacity. We want to improve resilience. We want to improve motility, improve nervous system regulation. Because true healing means that your body becomes less reactive over time, not more fragile. Once again, step-by-step protocols and exactly how we should implement this is saved for all my coaching clients. So if you're interested in that, we can— you can check that out in the description. But once again, I want you to take this, this 5-step process. We have to stop over-restrict, build simple foundation, fix nervous system, stop destroying your recovery, and rebuild tolerance slowly. And this is exactly the process and the step by step that I take with all my clients. And some of the recent situations that I wanted to share with you here today is we can take John here as an example who came to me a couple of weeks ago. So John had been struggling with his gut for over 20 years and been trying to fix it, which is just absolutely insane. One of the things that John had tried that was one of the best things he did was carnivore, right? Carnivore felt fantastic at first, but then everything got worse. But that in the short term got him so much relief. And yeah, that was just one of the things that really, really worked. For 20 years, John has been trying to figure everything out. He's been going to naturopaths, doctors. He's been trying everything. Imagine having 20 years to try to figure something out. Just a few weeks in, this is a few days ago, John sent this. So from having 20 years of issues and pain and just a shit show. We have this. Feels like I'm heading in the right direction. At least that's how it feels. I want to again smaller portion in the future. Biggest one is that we have solid bowel movements. This is unusual for me, and I'm thrilled to see it. I always knew that it was a sign of healthy digestive system. You couldn't quite figure out what to do in the past to fix it. Feels like I'm definitely heading in the right direction with the gut health. Abdominal pain seems to be getting better also. A few weeks in, what we've done here is completely took the— taking the focus off solely the gut and focused on the whole system. This is what creates results, and this is what no one has ever done with you. Everyone has always focused on your problems on a surface level, on a surface level, right? Your gut, okay, let's look at the gut. Your skin issues, okay, let's learn. You know, you go to a dermatologist, they look at the skin, right? No one has ever looked at the whole puzzle piece and put everything together, and that's exactly what I do with my clients. Same thing here, Luke, a few days ago. Two months in the program, completely fixed acid reflux problem. He couldn't even eat or go after after eating his food without getting acid reflux and getting almost this puke feeling and just being bloated. You see the transformation on top of that as well, and and as a byproduct of that, physique has completely improved in just two months, and then obviously energy levels through the roof as well. Here's another one from Lucas that he sent over this morning actually. Yeah, years of chronic stress, anxiety, rushing destroyed my gut motility and led to problems. Here, hard reset as I told you, or not hard reset but like good base. Slowly reintroduce. Boom. Eating full variety in diet again, my body gut can handle everything. Biggest lesson: nervous system determines gut health and gut health determines nervous system. Loading is not normal. Natural guys, get that in check. So these are just a good example. So once again, this is exactly why I take the approach that I take with all my clients because of the fact that you're not just gonna get these results, these crazy results. I show time and time again, my clients get the most insane physical results. It's not even why they come to me in the first place, right? It's to fix problems like this: gut, stress. Whatever it might be, right? But as a byproduct, we get absolutely insane results because when we unlock true health, a good physique always comes natural as a good or as a byproduct of that. Let's take Blake here as an example. 105 days between this, right? This is not just from the training and nutrition that we create these results. Same thing with you, well, business owner from Sweden. We're not creating these results in four months by just having perfect training and perfect nutrition. Of course, it plays a part. But it's dialing in the gut, it's fixing stress levels, it's fixing stress management, it's fixing hormones, it's fixing sleep, it's fixing all these small little things that creates the big masterpiece. And this is the thing that I wish someone told me in the past as well, because when I started my journey, the only thing that I was focusing on was just the surface level solutions— training, nutrition, right? Didn't focus on the gut, didn't focus on all these other things. But when I finally understood that those things actually are a lot more scalable and actually plays a bigger role when it comes to your results, Everything changed, and listen, like to finish this up as well. It's not like I'm anti-carnivore. If we go back to the topic, for some people, short-term elimination can absolutely help, right? It absolutely can. But elimination is not the same thing as rebuilding. That's what we have to understand. And the guys I work with who finally heal and fix their gut almost never do it by restricting harder. They do it by rebuilding the ecosystem. Regulating the nervous system and restoring digestion capacity and then improving resilience on top of that. That's the difference. So if this resonates with you, drop a follow if you haven't, if you're new to the channel, and if you're interested in working with me one-to-one, you can check the first link in the description. You'll be speaking with my right-hand man, Anton. We'll just get a better understanding of where you're at, your health, or with your health, understand your issues, understand your bottlenecks, and see if the Superhuman Protocol, which is my one-to-one coaching program, is Potentially something for you. This is not just for you if you want an average training and nutrition plan. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is for you if you want to take away all the decision fatigue from your plate. You just want to fix your shit. You want to fix your gut. You want to fix your stress. Whatever it might be, and you don't have time to mess around and do the wrong thing. You want clear implementation, and you want results. If that's you. You know exactly what to do. Thanks for watching, guys. I'll see you in the next one. Hope this was helpful.