Pure Carnivore Testimonial

Rose, Oregon, USA

struggling with weight

Ever since my early teen years, I've struggled with my weight. At five and a half feet tall, I was 150 pounds when I turned thirteen, then 160, up to 180 by the time I was in my early twenties. Every decade the number continued to climb, until at age 43 I was over 220 pounds. In addition to my burgeoning obesity, I had many of the classic symptoms found among populations eating the modern Western diet: buck teeth, nearsightedness, asthma, depression and suicidal ideation, and as I got closer to middle age, increasing joint pain and stiffness (tentatively diagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis, based on blood work).

Moreover, both my birth parents had been obese, my father's sister had been morbidly obese, and at least one of my grandparents was obese. All became fat decades before the 1980s, when the so-called "obesity epidemic" got underway in the United States.

Twice I joined Weight Watchers and counted points for months; both times I gained weight while battling constant hunger. Every few years I would try becoming a vegetarian, but again the hunger would grow intolerable, and I wouldn't lose any weight.

(While no one would ever mistake me for an athlete, I've always had a gym membership and gone at least two or three times a week throughout my entire adulthood-sometimes more. I've done years of aerobics and weight training. I hike, I bike, I walk my dog, often while gritting my teeth through joint pain and lethargy. )

"That's enough; time to get serious."

There were only two weight-loss approaches that seemed to work for me. The first was severe calorie restriction. I'd get up to some weight that scared me (170 the first time, higher each time after that) and decide, "That's enough; time to get serious." This was my regimen: Black coffee for breakfast, an apple and black coffee for lunch, a salad with blue cheese dressing for dinner. On weekends, I'd supplement the salad with a small serving of lean protein and a side of vegetables. And I would work out like mad: an hour of intense aerobics every other day, and an hour of cardio on machines on the days in between. I estimate my average daily intake during these periods was less than 500 calories.

The first time I did this, when I was seventeen years old, I got down to 148 pounds and passed out on a San Francisco bus. After that, I would do it every few years for as many weeks as I could, always watching for signs of feeling faint. They always came at right around the three-month mark. And every time I did this, my starting and ending weights were a few pounds higher than they'd been the time before. And, of course, my weight would start climbing as soon as I ate "normally" again.

cutting carbs the only solution

The other program that worked I didn't discover until I was almost forty years old: The Atkins diet. In four months I lost over forty pounds on Atkins, but my doctor freaked out and told me I was going to die of heart disease and that I needed to stop immediately, so I did. It didn't take long for me to gain all my lost weight back, plus more.

Finally, at age 43, weighing 220 pounds and desperate to not reach my birth mother's weight of over 300, I started working with a certified nutritionist. For five weeks I followed her 1,200 calorie per day low-fat program religiously, this time weighing and recording every single bite I took, never cheating, never wavering, no matter how hungry I was (and I was very, very hungry). After five weeks, I hadn't lost, but rather gained a pound.

After five weeks, I hadn't lost, but rather gained a pound.

That sealed the deal for me. Because I kept such a meticulous journal in her program, I knew that my previous failures had nothing to do with under-reporting or cheating, but that a low-fat diet did not work on my body at all-case closed. .

Now I finally understood that low-carbing was my only hope, regardless of my doctor's anxieties. In April 2007 I began the Eadeses' Protein Power diet, and lost 30 pounds within four months. The weight fell off easily during those months, and I was was able to stop taking my two anti-depressant medications completely. But once I got down to 190 pounds, I stayed stuck at that weight for nearly a year.

pure carnivory

That's when I first encountered the idea of pure carnivory on the Active Low Carbers forum, in the infamous thread started by "The Bear." Despite my initial resistance (I'd been very low carb for a whole year by then-what difference could a handful of vegetables possibly make?), I decided to try it for at least a month.

The results were spectacular and undeniable. Eating only meat, butter, cheese and eggs, and drinking only water, coffee, red wine, cream and artificial sweeteners (including diet sodas), I lost ten pounds during that month, and my asthma inhaler usage dropped from three to four times a day, to fewer than that per week. I stuck with it another month, and my weight dropped into the low 170s.

And then I quit. Why on earth would I do that? My best guess is that it has to do with artificial sweeteners: When a slice of wedding cake presented itself to me, I wasn't able to say no because I still had what some call the "taste for the sweet." Once I fell into the wedding cake, so to speak, it took me over a year to come back to pure carnivory. During that time I stayed in the low 170s, except for a brief stint where I tried raising my carbohydrate intake to around 60g/day, a la Dr. Kwasniewski. That was disastrous: my weight quickly went back up to 180, and my joint pain got much worse. Moreover, I experienced a rapid return of depressive symptoms-crying every morning, and a general feeling of despair. After I dropped back to very low carb my weight returned to 172-ish, and the depressive symptoms vanished, but the joint pain continued at the new, higher severity level.

Once I fell into the wedding cake, so to speak, it took me over a year to come back to pure carnivory.

In September 2009, I decided to come back to pure carnivory, or zero-carbing. This time, thanks to the guidance of some people who've been doing it a long time (especially Charles Washington and the Zeroing in on Health forum), I took it much more seriously as a way of eating for the rest of my life, rather than a short-term fix for a weight problem. I dropped cheese, alcohol, artificial sweeteners and diet sodas completely, and have significantly cut my coffee consumption. Once in a very great while I will put heavy whipping cream in my coffee, but mostly I drink it black. My current diet can be summed up thusly: Fatty meat, butter, egg yolks, water, coffee, and an occasional bit of cream.

It's worth mentioning that I took the advice of ZIOH members and stopped any pretense of exercising.

In four months my weight has dropped to 151 pounds; that's over twenty pounds less than I weighed in September 2009. My joint pain has subsided to the point where it's a mere echo of its former self; only after sitting for over an hour do I feel any stiffness at all. My inhaler usage has dropped again to a couple times a week, and there've been no signs of depression, even during the dark, rainy Oregon winter months. Also, I don't experience hunger the same way I used to. Although I generally eat three times a day, I've skipped meals occasionally because of various demands on my time, and it's not been a problem at all.

Finally, since my joint pain has all but vanished, I'm looking forward to actually enjoying physical activity again, like I did when I was a child. I just bought a new bathing suit, and off to the pool I go!