100 Day Carnivore Transformation with Joe Bird!

[Music] Hello everyone. Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Plant-Free MD podcast. I'm your host Dr. Anthony Chaffy and today I have a very special guest, Mr. Joe Bird, who's going to be telling us about his story with the carnivore diet. Joe, thank you so much for coming on. It's great to see you. Hi, Mace. How are you doing? I'm doing great, man. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. Good. All right. For for those who don't know you, haven't come across you, can you tell us a bit about yourself? Right. So, I am a 32 year old man who lives in England. Um, I'm a tattoo artist. I like to keep fit and I am 100 days into the carnivore diet and um yeah, it's it's been a life changing experience for me so far. I can truly say that. Um, you know, it's actually when I look back, I I've tried and failed to go carnival on and off for many years. Um, it was always something I was interested in and I would try it and, you know, I would I would give up. I would give into cravings and I would tell myself, you know, oh, maybe it's not for not for me. Or someone would tell me, oh, you shouldn't do that. It's not good for your health. um it's too restrictive and I would sort of go backwards and forwards between doing it for maybe one week, giving into cravings, binge eating, going backwards and forwards. Um, and then I got to a point just over 100 days ago when you know I guess enough was enough and I wanted to who looks to do a a dietary change is trying to change something about how they feel or how they look. Well, for me it was it was how I felt and how I looked. I wasn't in my best shape at the time. Um, but how I felt, I was, you know, I was tired all the time. I was really not I love my job. It's a passion, but I wasn't feeling that passion anymore. It was becoming a little bit of a drag. My concentration at work was just all over the place. Um, I know people don't like this word, this term brain fog, but like I felt like my brain I was in a constant fight or flight mode. Um, so like I just couldn't focus and I just ultimately wasn't feeling as good as I knew I could feel. So yeah, right. Okay. I I think there's something going on with your audio. It's sort of coming in and out. Um Okay. And so it's Yeah. So it's really quiet and then it'll come on normally and then it'll go quiet again. Seconds. Is that any better? Better now. Yeah. Yeah, I turn on, but I just go through the headphones. Yeah, it just sort of dips in and out like like it it'll be fine and then all of a sudden like couple words in the sentence will just dip out and it'll come back on. So, I'm not I'm not quite sure, but um interesting. All right, we'll just go with it and see see how we go. No, no, it was it was sort of muted and then it sort of come off. It's almost as if your your headphones are like trying to not pick up anything and then when you start talking it says, "Oh, he's talking now and picks it up." I try. You can go off just your your computer mic or that. Yeah. Will you not get feedback from you talking? It's not too bad. Yeah. I mean, sounds like there's maybe a little bit, but um you down a bit. It's probably better better to hear you anyway. I don't need to hear myself. That's all right. Is that okay? Is that better? It's a bit It's a bit muted. Um better. I'll just try without them. Sorry about this. That's all right. Right. How about now? Sure, that one works. Yeah, it's definitely louder. There we go. Okay. So, do I need to go through everything I've just went through or No, I think I think that's fine. I think, you know, most of that that came through. Um, but uh Yeah. So, I think that's fine. Um, all right. So, you know, so you you you know, tried it and sort of came off of it a few times, but now you sort of stuck with it and you've seen how you like it. What what's different about this time than before that made you stick with it? I think you see I started to see my I started to see the way I was treating food the same ways I used to treat um substances in my past. I've had problems with with with drugs and all sorts in my past. And I guess you have to sort of hit some sort of rock bottom sometimes. And I feel like I' I'd just got there where I just decided I wasn't feeling great. You know, some stuff wasn't going well in my life. I wasn't dealing with it well. And I guess I just really decided, right, I'm just doing it now. I think the main thing this time around which was different was this time I went in with a mindset of it was purely for my it was purely for the mental benefits. It wasn't for the physical benefits. I actually even told myself right I don't care if I put on five or 10 kilos in this first 30 days. I'm sticking to it. I will eat as much meat, eggs, and butter as I need so I don't eat any other processed food or carbohydrates. And I think the other times I was trying to go in and use it as almost like a quick fix to sort of drop a little bit of waste quickly. So this time it was purely for the mental aspects of it and I think that's why I stuck at it. Yeah, that makes sense. And well I mean yeah that's the thing too and um and sometimes people focus on like just just weight loss and they maybe it doesn't happen as fast as they want or maybe they lose some weight and they're like oh great but you know they're not necessarily because they're so fixated on the weight loss side of things they're not seeing all the other benefits that they get from it and and so they may not realize just how much of an impact it's having on their life as well. Um and uh so what what are some of the the the changes you've seen your sort of 100 day checkup? So what are the differences now in the 100 days that you've seen? God honestly like the a lot. So I'll sort of talk through. So I noticed about the third day I woke up and I noticed I just felt it's hard to explain but I just felt different in my head. It was just clearer. It was like someone had turned the volume down on the radio in the background slightly. Not loads, but enough enough for me to think, right, okay, this this has given me something to keep on wanting to do. Um, and I did I did get like I did get maybe like two weeks of quite low physical energy where I was I was more tired and I was sleeping a little bit more, but the mental side of it pushed me through that. M and I can remember I've heard a lot of people talk about it, but I can literally remember around about the third week waking up one morning and just sort of like I don't know just looking around my room and thinking I feel different here and it's a very good difference. Um, and yeah, like there was a really big change in between week three and week four, like a massive change where I didn't realize how I didn't realize how bad my actual baseline was. Like, you know, I I I was I was doing everything that I needed to do. My business was going well. My I was training. I was I seemed fine to everybody else. And I guess I seemed like everybody else because I guess most people are on that lower baseline unfortunately. Um but yeah, when it when it cleared I was like this is how I should feel and that was enough to keep me to keep me going and it's it's just it's just keeps on getting better I guess like I just feel very very I feel very playheaded. That's the main aspect. I very very rarely get anxious anymore. Um like it's I just don't It's strange. I just don't get anxious. Um I don't feel depressed. And I didn't think I did feel depressed until it left it lifted, but I would have big mood swings, days of ups, days of down. And when I look back, that was that correlated with the foods I was eating. If I would pick out, oh, I can enjoy myself, eat a load of food, I would feel rotten for two or three days later later, but I would just tell myself, oh, that this is life. This is what people do. Um, so yeah, the mental aspects being very good. Um, much much calmer. Like, don't get me wrong, it doesn't turn you into some sort of monk where nothing affects you. Like that would be a lie. But there's always going to be stresses in life, but I just deal with them from a much calmer, better place. So, I can't say that I don't ever get stressed because everybody gets stressed, but I just deal with it better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And um and also the physical side of it has been amazing as well. Like I've always stayed in quite good shape through my life, but I've always went up and down with my weights. Like up and down 10 kilo a year where I'd get really good shape. I wouldn't be able to maintain it. I would binge. I would go back and my body's transformed in a in a fantastic way. Like I'm I'm I'm in really good shape. I feel really physically fit as well and strong. I've had haven't really had any dip in performance. So yeah. Yeah. Nice. And um you know I I thought it was really interesting what you said that you know your your um experience with with going on carnivore and trying to get off the junk food and you know probably sugar and things like that as well was was similar to coming off of you know other substances. You know I've often said that I mean a these things are addictive. They're designed to be addictive. They're very clever food scientists trying to make this junk food as addictive as possible. A lot of them are owned by the tobacco companies and that's their whole MO is to like get things as addictive as possible so that you um just turn the sound down please all the way. And um and you know get them you get this stuff to be as addictive as possible so that you know people just keep buying their garbage so that they sell more junk and and that people use food in general. It could be junk food. could be anything. Um, in the same way that they use drugs, they say, "Okay, well, you know, this cake, this ice cream, this whatever isn't good for me. I know it's not good for me, but you know what? I enjoy it." And you got to live life. And you know, you've got to enjoy yourself. I hear people all the time say that. It's like, why would you do carbo? You got to live life. You got to do that. You know what? If somebody said that to you with heroin, what you don't do heroin, you got to live life. What are you doing? You know, it's like it's the same argument. You're saying, "Hey, here's something that that you know is bad for you and you're introducing to your body just because you want that hedonistic experience, that short-term gratification in the at the expense of long-term health and happiness." And you know, well, that's not the same thing. It's exactly the same, you know, it's exactly the same relationship with food. So, it doesn't mean that pasta is as bad as heroin. But if you think about it, heroin itself, opiates, aren't actually physically damaging to your body. They're horribly addictive and they they can damage the, you know, the reward centers in your brain and you get horribly addicted to them and then you do things that can damage you using dirty needles, getting infections. But we have people on long-term opiates for decades. They don't actually get physically harmed by it like you do with other medications. And um and so but it's the same relationship, you know, you're saying I I'm just going to eat that. I know it's not really good for me, but you know what? I'm just going to do it just cuz I enjoy it. You know, it's I'm I'm I'm going to treat myself or something like that. And you have to live. All that sort of stuff. But it's it's the same it's the same sort of argument. On the weekends, you're getting drunk. Well, alcohol is not really good for you. Yeah, but it's a weekend. You got to enjoy yourself. Okay, fine. But, you know, you know, doing that occasionally turns into more and then eventually this is going to start affecting your health. And the exact same thing happens with this this junk food that we're eating now. And and just just, you know, just not eating as healthy. And but it's that same it's that same relationship saying, I'm going to do this. I know it's bad for me, but you know what? I'm just going to just and it's flavor. You're not even getting high, you know? I mean, what's the point of that? You know, something tastes numb, you know? Like, give me the heroin. Like, I'll take that instead. Like I would rather I would rather do something like that than than like just just have some chocolate or something ridiculous like that. I mean who cares about chocolate? It tastes you know moment on the hip moment on the lips forever on the hips but also you know diabetes and all these other sorts of things. So you know I just thought that was quite interesting. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. Yeah. So yeah, as like as I have been a drug addict in my past and when you do recover from drugs, you you do have to ultimately learn a lot about your patterns and you know how addiction works, how it feels because if you don't sort it out, ultimately it's going to kill you. So when it come to the sugar, it was it was it it was exactly it was pretty similar coming off. It's like again, you're going to get these mental cravings and you have to find ways to deal with them. Put your put your energy towards different things. Um you know, speak to people about it. you know, a lot of people who get sober off drugs will will go to to to meetings and and all that sort of stuff. So, like the actual physical aspects of it in my opinion for me were were very similar because again an in my opinion an addiction is an addiction. Like it's a very mental thing. like someone who's a gambling addict has just as hard time stopping gambling as someone who is taking a drug which has physical dependencies because the mental the mental pathways in my opinion are exactly the same. Um now the sugar bit coming off processed food and sugar in my opinion from a social aspect is a lot harder than stopping illegal drugs. Now, the reason is um if you're if you're a drug addict um or or even an alcoholic and it's causing an effect to your life and your family members are worried about your friends are worried about you, they're all rooting for you to stop doing it. It's it's a it's a they they want you to stop and also it's not as socially acceptable to, you know, go and just walk around taking drugs all the time. Now, when it comes to sugar, no, a lot of people don't actually want you to stop it and think you're being restrictive when you do decide to stop it, which was hard because you almost get a guilty feeling from the people around you for cutting something out when you know that's the best thing for you to do. And also, it's everywhere. So, it's like, you know, but we'll use heroin as an example because you you mentioned it. Imagine a heroin addict trying to get off heroin when every shop they go in has big shiny packets saying come and get your best heroin here. It would so much harder. Um, yeah. So, yeah, I truly do believe from a societal point, I don't know if societal is the right word, from a society point of view, the sugar is harder because it's such an accepted thing and processed food is so accepted in our society and you're almost shunned for not taking it. Whereas drugs, you're shunned for taking them. So it's like almost opposite even though in my opinion the addiction is exactly the same. So yeah, it it it was hard from that point of view. Um I sort of kept it a little bit to myself this time around because I didn't want people to go, "Oh, you're being extreme all of this um that that you will get." kept it to myself a little bit until I realized that I was going to stick at it and then I started talking about it. I was lucky at the time um this time round my my exartner was actually very supportive of me doing it because she saw the the positive impacts it was having on my life. So that did help having somebody who was supportive in doing it because there was times in the past when I tried to do it and my partner at the time would be saying, "You're crazy doing that. Don't do it. You're being too restrictive." And you know, it's um again, it's we go back to drug addicts. It would be very hard for a drug addict to stop taking drugs if everybody around them was still taking them. So, I can understand why going carnival and cutting out sugar and processed food is really, really hard for people to do when 90% of the people I surround yourself in is doing that and are telling you not to stop. Hey everyone, really happy to announce a new sponsor for the show for everybody down in Australia. It's Stockman Steaks, who are delivering high quality grass-fed and finished pasture-raised beef and other meats, flash frozen, and vacuum sealed to your door. Something I've been enjoying a lot of myself recently as well. They also have a great range of specialty items such as highfat keto mints and carnivore beef and organs mints with liver, kidneys, and beef heart as well. So, use code chaffy today for a free order of beef mints or another specialty gift along with your order at stockmanstakess.com.au and I'll see you over there. Thanks, guys. Well, that that um I mean that's sort of like that like that old school like after school specials at DARE commercials like with the peer pressure to do do more drugs and things like that and you're trying to say hey you know have them back off or just add addicts in general. I mean, there's some it's not everybody, but you know, sometimes it it helps them feel better about their addiction and what they're doing if other people are doing it as well. So, they they'll surround themselves by people that do that sort of thing and they'll sort of click into those groups and you maybe don't talk about that with anybody else and then you go to the people that you know it's accepted and then you know you're more open about it because you feel you know you're not going to get a hard time about it. Um, but also there's that that that that was sort of the um the classic thing is um you know if someone's an alcoholic they they they'll want to pressure other people to have drinks have drinks with them so that they don't feel like they're just drinking on their own because they really want to drink and they don't feel that they don't feel as comfortable just drinking when no one else is drinking. So they try to pressure everybody else into drinking. I feel the same sort of thing with with sugar, you know, and and this junk food because it's it's socially acceptable. It's legal and people don't think about it as a drug, but it is a drug and and they know it's not good for them. Just like, oh, well, yeah, maybe maybe even the extra calories sort of thing. It's just calories you don't need. It's it's just empty calories, which is what the sugar companies said about their own product as a way of sort of actually making it look better than it was because it's actually horrible. It causes disease. It causes harm. causes um um you know, addiction certainly. And um and so then say, "Oh, it's just an empty calorie." That that's that sounds self-deprecating, but in fact, it's actually they're they're covering up a whole bunch of mess that um sugar is responsible for. But even then, if you just, oh, it's just an empty calorie, you know, it's um you're still doing something that you know isn't necessarily good for you. And so having somebody else saying like, "Oh, no. I'm not going to eat sugar." All of a sudden, it makes you feel bad. Be like, "Oh, I'm making a bad decision. and this guy's got more self-control than me. And it makes them feel like [ __ ] I mean, like, well, you know, why are you doing this and not me? Like, it's not that big a deal. Just do it. Like, what's the big deal? And that's sort of it's and you sort of have to ask him, it's like, are you trying to convince me or you? You know, like, you know, if you if you don't think this is is a good idea, maybe you should stop. And if you don't care one way or the other, like, why do you care what I do? you know um but I think it it is sort of like that you know fructose I I think by by classical you know strict medical definition fructose is a drug you know it gives a strong dopamine response to the reward centers of your brain the addiction centers of your brain just like gambling cocaine heroin meth all these things and um you know other things can give a dopamine response a lot of things give a dopamine response it's about the volume of dopamine that that gets pumped in there and the excitatory fashion that that has or the excitatory effect that it has on your brain. If your if your brain cells get when they're turned on, we're always we're all getting low gradede brain damage when we're awake. This is why we have to sleep and you know turn these cells off, you know, recycle these neurotransmitters because it actually damages our our neurons and our brain cells the you know when they're when they're on. And so that's why you have to cycle these cells on and off and different parts of the you know same parts of the brain will sort of go on and off uh to to you know to um you know give other parts of the brain a rest. And so when you when you take something that's going to trip up dopamine or trigger more of a dopamine response like you know cocaine and meth do they keep those cells on and keeps this excited form on all the time and it and it just can't go away. And so then you get the receptors start going down because you're going to start damaging these cells and killing them after a while. So the receptors start going down. That's tolerance. Now you need more and more and more of that substance to get the same effect. And then when you keep doing that, all of a sudden those cells start to die. And now you need to take that substance just to feel human again, just to feel just like normal. Um you have to take something just to bring you up to that because you're just so low when you're not on this stuff. And that's addiction, right? So that's when you're like a full addict and you and you need this stuff at that point. It's not like it's not like you're doing this just because it's a party. It's just like no, I I don't feel well without this. And you have horrible withdrawals and all that sort of stuff. You get the same thing with sugar. You know, there was a study in humans where they did um they looked at MRIs and they gave someone who who didn't have any substance issues or metabolic issues. um they give you know like um you know an aderall or something like that some sort of you know amphetamine and you know on MRI I looked and saw these areas of the brain just light up like a Christmas tree. Then they gave that same dose to someone who was addicted to methamphetamines and that area just barely twinkled. It barely showed up. And then they gave that same dose to someone who's metabolically sick, a sugar addict, etc. Same barely twinkle as the the methamphetamine addict. So, this kills the same areas of the brain as meth to the same extent as meth over time. It may not be as quickly as as meth, but you know, we don't actually know one way or the other, but we know that it does. Um, there was a study in mice um years ago that they did where they had two little paddles and they trained the mice and one of them would give them food. When the light goes on, one will give them food, the other one will give them a little pellet of cocaine, but they can only get one. And so so they have to choose between food or cocaine. And the the mice just kept choosing cocaine and eating the cocaine pellet until they all died, right? And that was how strong addiction was. They they you know they they take the drug over over food and living. Then they put in a third paddle which was sugar. And so they trained was okay this is what you get for each of these things. And life goes on. You only get one of them. They picked sugar over cocaine and food repeatedly until they died. So sugar was more desirable to the mice than even cocaine. That's how big of a response it can give and how how how the reward centers be it taste be it dopamine whatever they're so strong that the mice you know following their their base animalistic instinct or picking the sugar instead of even cocaine which they picked over food. Um so I think that that's something that that is really important to think about and uh and it's great to hear your perspective on that you know um especially from the social dynamic. I think that's really important. Um, is that yeah, you do feel a lot of pressure and uh and and why I mean why why why are people not happy for you to do what you feel is best for your life? You know, I think it's really because they then have that guilt by proxy. They see you doing something that they don't they feel that they probably should do but don't want to do. I remember you said at one point um I know that you Yeah. um voice any any sort of um anything you want to, but um I heard you know when we were talking before, you know, you mentioned that um or no, you had to you had a real and it was really interesting how you said that that um and you sort of mentioned it here how when you're when you're on drugs doing, you know, these illicit drugs, you know, it's just like abstinence is the way you can't moderate. You just need to come off this stuff, right? There's no moderating with an addictive substance, you know, because you start mo, you know, starts moderately and then it become, you know, moderate turns to excessive very quickly with something that's addictive, but with with junk food and garbage and sugar, they're like, "Oh, no, you don't want to like just cut it out. That's too extreme. It's uh you want to do it in moderation." So, you talk a bit about that. Yeah, it you know I've been since doing this I have been thinking a lot about these things and it did I started thinking in my head why why is this why is why is it seen so different for someone who is um addicted to sugar or processed foods? Why why is it treated so differently just because it's that it's this substance compared to all other substances? Uh I mean alcohol is a little bit sort of hit and miss. Some people will say you know you should enjoy your alcohol but but I don't know anyone who would advise an alcoholic to try and moderate the alcohol. There's not many people who would even do that. No one would try and ever advise a drug addict to just moderate that drug use because ultimately it only ends up one way. like they would have tried to moderate it at first because no one no one no one takes drugs. No one, I don't know, sniffs that first line of cocaine going, I can't wait to ruin my life and be addicted to this. Like, no, that that's not anyone's goal. But it slowly over time, like, you know, I'm guessing the the definition of an addictive substance is something that is hard to moderate because if it was easy to moderate, it wouldn't be addictive. Like, moderation and addiction don't really sit well together in my opinion. I could be wrong, but so I agree. And we know that ultra processed foods and sugar is addictive. Like it is. It's you can't you cannot deny it. So why is it so differently? Like it's it just it just doesn't make sense to me. I'm a maybe sometimes too logical. I I think think about things very logically, but it just didn't make sense why like you know you have one thing, you have another thing, you have exactly the same addiction. Why people are telling people to treat one thing in one way and one thing in another way and I will say I don't think everybody is an addict. So there is them people who can go out and enjoy a few drinks on a weekend and it can potentially benefit their social life better and they will never become alcoholics. There's some people who I don't think there's many. There's some people who can go out and take illegal drugs once a month and enjoy it and not become not become um addicts. But there's in my opinion there's a lot of people who are addicted to processed food and sugar. Like it just shows as they from from look at the general populations. Like if somebody gets um lung problems and they're a smoker, you will you will you will say right these lung problems have came from your addiction to smoking. Um, that would be what most people I guess would would say. So, I'm guessing the side effects of being addicted to sugar and processed foods is being morbidly obese and having diabetes. In my opinion, you don't get them without some sort of addiction to these substances because if you weren't addicted to them when you realized you were getting these health problems, everybody would stop. Nobody you I might offend some people saying this but I don't genu truly believe that there's anybody who wants to be of an unhealthy weight. People might try and convince theel that they're happy like that. But just in my opinion and again I don't want to offend anyone but I do truly believe that people don't want to be overweight and people don't want to have diabetes. They've got there because they can't control what they're putting in the body. And if you can't control what you're putting in your mouth even though it's affecting you in certain ways, in my opinion, that is addiction. So, so why do we tell everybody that you've just got to moderate your sugar even though you're addicted? It it it just doesn't make sense to me. And and yeah, it's a I see it time and time again. People are telling like people who are overweight or trying to lose weight, you know, just enjoy yourself a little bit on a weekend, you know, have yourself one treat a night and, you know, they will stay motivated for a little bit and they will do their exercise and reduce their calories and they'll lose a little bit of weight. But it always just goes back to square one most of the time and it that way that that did for me as well. Um, so yeah, I think the way people treat food and tell people to eat food is it's I personally don't believe it's right for for the vast majority of people. Again, like I said, there is some people who can moderate and that's fine. If you can moderate and you can take these things and not affect your health and you want to do that, that is great. But don't treat everybody like the moderators when it's so evident that people aren't. Yeah. No, I I totally agree. And you know the thing is too is it's a bit different because you know we're we're told to to limit drug not even do drugs like hey look this is something you really need to be careful with. I know alcohol you know as well smoking they're like hey look this is bad for you. you're going to have it you need to cut down or you know alcohol as well. you know, even even you'll have, you know, friends, you know, you might be you might be going out with them on the weekend and, you know, that's sort of the the nice thing about sort of when you start breaking from the from the norms in your in your group, people say like, "Oh, hey, what's going on?" You know, like maybe it was it was funny in medical school, uh, one of the one of the lecturers said, "We're talking about alcohol, alcoholism, and how you gauge if someone's an alcoholic and there's, you know, different scoring things." He's like, "Okay, how how do you know if someone's an alcoholic?" and someone's brought out like, "Oh, well, there's this scoring system, whatever." And he was just like, "Well, it tells um do they drink more than you?" You know, it's just like because obviously I mean, you're a doctor for God's sakes. Obviously, you're not going to be an alcoholic. So, whatever whatever you're drinking, if they're drinking that much or less, then that's totally fine. Like, obviously, he was joking. But, um, but that's how sometimes people can see it. And so, like, let's say you're going out on the weekends and you have a group of friends and and you're going out, you know, Friday, Saturday, whatever. But then all of a sudden you start like going out on Tuesdays and they're like, "Oh, okay. Maybe an odd Tuesday here and there." But then your friends like, "See, now it's a Tuesday and it's a Thursday and it's Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday." And then all of a sudden there's like, you know, day drinking on Sundays and things like that. You know, your friends are going to you might have work with you like, "Hey, you might you might want to reel that back." You know, I mean, this is starting to affect you. This is starting to get a bit out of control. You need to sort of have that sort of limit on that. So you have these sort of societal limits even on that and then obviously the hard drugs, the elicit drugs, you know, um people would just be like, "Oo, yeah, really really shouldn't do that." And and you're told and you know that that's supposed to be limited with processed food. I mean, we're being inundated with people telling us that it's that it's fine, that's not bad for you. There's actually, oh, it's actually good. Oh, it's even better for you. All these processed seed oils, it's better for you than meat and animal fat. Oh, all these studies say it's heart healthy. Yeah, I I can tell you exactly how much, you know, you know, you can take that study in $5 and get a drink at any bar in town, you know. I mean, like it's worth nothing, you know, because these are these are um you know, that doesn't um you know, actually show you reality like what what's actually happening when people eat these things. People are getting sick. And you can have a study that says anything, who paid for it, who funded it, you know, how was it done? you know, some survey trial, give people a whole bunch of, you know, surveys say, "Hey, what did you eat last year?" And they try to figure that out and you're trying to give something definite from that answer. I mean, it's just nonsense. These are are junk studies. Medicine is one of the softest sciences out there. It's not even a science. It's an application of certain scientific principles, but it is completely soft. I mean, there's no there's no scientific discipline or rigor that is that is evident in most of the literature in medicine. It's absolute junk. um you can't get away with that in physics. You can't get away with that in you know chemistry sort of things like you have to show concretely what something does and even then they can be wrong. So with that that amount of rigor with hundreds of thousands of um of data points sometimes that's even wrong. And so we think that we're going to get you know that we're going to get accurate answers by doing a survey and trying to ask people to remember every single meal that they've had in the last year and and you try to glean some information off that. Obviously it's ridiculous. But, you know, we're we're we're even told you should limit drugs and alcohol. We're also being told you don't need to limit junk food. That's actually fine. There's obesity is genetic, you know, just take ompic, you know, that um like, oh yeah, you know, it's just it's really the meat. It's really the this. It's really, you know, and it's and so that's even more difficult for people because we're getting we're getting told the wrong thing, too. So, now you try to come off this stuff like, hey, I'm going to I'm going to do a carnivore diet. You get all these little trolls online going, "Oh, that's ridiculous. You're going to die. You're going to get killed." And you know, sugar's not bad for you. I mean, there's there's there's people like um weirdo Dr. Aloe. He's like a I guess he's a cardiologist, but he um he talks about how, you know, cholesterol is the worst thing ever. Sugar's sugar is fine. You know, sugar is not a big deal. And I think he's talking about like Lucky Charms or Froot Loops or something like that. He was like, "But it's some sort of sugar cereal." And and he was like, "A post someone screenshot it and made another post." Um because it's I'm not going to waste my time looking at his stuff, but and it said, you know, what's wrong with this, you know, sugar cereal? It's just food. It's just food. But he rails against meat. He rails against animal fats, these natural natural foods that we've been eating for millions of years. Uh but but you know, sugar cereal, that's food. What's wrong with it? It's just food. Food is food. Food is good for you. Can't be bad. You can't be addicted to food. That's what they say, too. You can't be addicted to food, Joe. It's just food. You can't be addicted to food. It's like, I'm sorry, that [ __ ] is not food. You know, someone says to you, it's like, well, you can't be addicted to food. You can't be addicted to sugar. Sugar is just food. What would you say to them? Well, you can. And you know what? Like, this could be wrong, but my my my train of um thought on this process. So I think we are naturally um we're natural addicts now. That's our brain telling us get this now. And it's normally some sort of survival mechanism to make you feel better. Now again I could be wrong but I do believe that there will have been times hundreds gather um ages when we were eating what we were supposed to do. Whereas if we came across a a beehive with a lot of honey or if we came across a tree with a lot of fruit as a survival instinct, we would have probably tried to eat as much of that as possible and our brain would have said keep on eating it till you can't stop because that is going to give you that little bit of energy to maybe go and get the next animal. So I think it's it's embedded in us to to to want to eat more of these things. Now the problem is so I don't think like you you are I think we're designed to be addicted to it like as a survival mechanism. That's what I think. I could be wrong but the problem is these days we don't need it for survival and it's everywhere. So they are hijacking like a primal part of our brain then just that's just saying survive survive survive survive. You need this to catch your next animal or you will die. But it's so accessible to us now and we don't need it. So like yeah I think I think we are we are made to be addicted to these things but now it's everywhere. we've got to actually get rid of it so we don't end up with health problems because I guess nature would have nature would have um regulated things for us you know like as I say it wouldn't have been around all the time it would have been around maybe one month of the year but we're as a society and we've changed so much that when nature isn't regulating us anymore we're making ourselves so then what your brain tells you to to to survive isn't actually needed in the same way as it used to be. So yeah, I think anyone who says they're not addicted to sugar isn't addictive or food isn't addictive. I I I know it's nonsense. I can't I can't I can't agree with it. Um you know I guess you could even say like steak's addictive like we want to keep on eating it. like it's nice, you know, there is a tendency to eat more meat, but it it regulates itself, but I don't feel like this stuff does like it's Well, no, I I totally agree with you. You know, I mean, you know, people talk about, you know, I talk about how if something tastes bad, if it tastes bitter, you know, that's your brain warning you like, look, there's chemicals that your brain recognizes, says, look, these are bad for you. Don't eat them. And um that's just a normal natural biological response. And it's then it's a fact. I mean, it's not my opinion. That's a fact. And I said, "Well, but you know, kids will eat, you know, give them junk food and they'll just eat that. So, obviously, you know, that disproves that theory." It's like, "Well, no, that's not that's not what I said. I said if it tastes bad, then then there's a problem there. I didn't say if it tastes good, there's no problem there. Just if it's bad." You know, we have these things that are designed to taste good and we get food scientists that taking out different chemicals, changing those chemicals to have a larger expression of flavor even though there's no nutrition behind it. And so that tells your brain, oh, there's something really good coming in. It goes into your stomach and there's nothing useful there. And so you get this this downpouring of this of this stuff because the thing is is your your stomach has receptors that track up to your brain via the vagus nerve and it actually sees which nutrients you have in your stomach. So the vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, it um it uh can actually see those in your stomach and um and that tracks up to your brain and lets you know. So this is why you know eating steak is self-limiting. you're eating that steak, your body wants those nutrients and it's saying, "Oh, okay. Look, we've got those and saying, "Hey, we don't need as much. We don't need as much." And now that taste response actually goes down. And so it's self-limiting. All animals know exactly when to stop eating. How? You know, they don't have PhDs in nutrition. They haven't pulled out their calculators. You know, it's like try working a calculator with a hoof. You know, like it's not going to, you know, they're not they have to have some sort of natural response inherent to them that just tell them to stop like ah it's not really good anymore. and they're not going to go around eating shitty tasting leaves. They're just not. And so you're right. So is that it's actually you touched on something very um uh important here is called it's called an evolutionary trap. You have these things that give that that's good signal, but now it's attached to something that's not really good for you. So it's a trap. So food scientists use these evolutionary trap. They'll get these these chemicals that give that yes that's good signal. Um, but then they change it and they modify it. So it gives an even stronger signal taste but goes away very quickly. So it's not like this lingering flavor and you have to want you want more and more. And the thing is it's not attached to an actual nutrient anymore. So now it goes into your stomach. Your stomach's looking your your stomach track your body tracks nutrients. It doesn't track calories. And so now it's looking for nutrients. There are no nutrients there. And so your hunger doesn't abate. And so that big taste signal, it just keeps coming. It keeps coming. It keeps coming. Where if you're eating a steak, that taste sensation goes down and down and down until it doesn't taste good anymore. And I'm I'm sure you've noticed that. And I encourage people, you eat fatty meat until it stops tasting good because it will stop tasting good. And that's how you know that your body's had enough. Junk food, processed food that is designed to be addictive won't stop tasting good because there's no nutrition behind it. So for that flavor to go down, for for that flavor expression to go down. So it's they're taking advantage of this evolutionary trap. It's just that's really good, but there's no actual no actual payoff. So you keep getting that that hit. Also, sugar again is addictive. You know, this we'd find this in fruit. We'd find this in abundantly in honey. Um the fruit that we're eating now is very different than the fruit that existed 10,000 years ago, 100,000 years ago. I mean even you know a few hundred years ago some of these fruits have been radically changed and as you look at you know people can Google this you just look at the um you know the origin of the original banana or the original mango the original avocado what these things were bred from usually a massive seed and very little you know pulp meat you know the fruit part that you actually want uh and like banana just tons of seeds there's not just much to eat there and because that's the you know the plant wants to move the seed. They don't, you know, that's that's the the um the drive. We wanted the sugar. So, we cultivated these things that have more sugar or things like tomatoes or avocados, whatever, to have more of the part that we want. So, we've bred these things selectively. And a lot of the the sweeter fruits have a massive increase in the amount of sugar that they have, you know, five, six times more or more of sugar in them than they would their natural counterparts would. you know, a little crab apple that would be a natural out there. They're pretty sour. You know, they're not they're not very sweet. Now, you get these, you know, golden delicious sort of things, which aren't delicious at all. They're usually mealy, but, you know, they have a lot of sugar in them. A lot of these these these things will have sugar in them. And um and so you know we've designed these things to be much more sweet and instead of like you said only being available once a month one month a year or a few weeks out of the year these things are ripe and it's going to be self-limiting because there's only there's only so much of it. It's only around certain part of the year and it's not anywhere close to as sweet. You know it might not have even been all that interesting for for people to eat back then. It's not going to be like getting a mango now. mangoes, original mangoes were very fibrous, not very sweet at all and a big seed and mostly seed in there. So, you know, like they wouldn't they wouldn't have been as attractive as they are now. And they certainly weren't available like they are now. Whereas now, you can be in, you know, in Northern England and get mangoes every single day, you know, and why the hell is that? So, obviously that's that's um, you know, that that's going to It would be a departure from how we would have would have normally eaten. And people can can knock it all they want and pretend all they like. But you know what a species has been eating the longest is what is best for them flat out. Well, we've figured out through technology that this No, no, we haven't. No, no, no. That's just yours. That's just your assertion. It's wrong, though. You know, what we've been exposed to the longest is what is best for us. That's a fact. That's a biological fact. And uh people deny that. there's just, you know, science deniers. They're just denying biology or they just don't know. But um, you know, but yeah, so there's evolutionary traps like there's um there's like hummingbirds that like normally they go for these like little red flowers and they're sort of the elongated flowers. So they'll go in there and get some some nectar out of there. Um, for a while they used these um these little sort of fasteners on uh electric fencing in like you know different parts of America like in the Midwest and and it was like a red color. So it was sort of kind of the same shape as these flowers that these hummingbirds wanted these sort of long flowers and also um they were red and so these hummingbirds would come in and so go in like they're they're trying to get nectar and they'd hit the electric fence and they'd die. So it's like killing off all these hummingbirds. So that's an evolutionary trap. That's what they did. They had to change the color of it. They just changed the color and now they weren't interested in it anymore. So it's that same thing for us. These food scientists and processed food companies, you know, start, you know, with the tobacco companies that bought up um Philip Morris and all these places bought up uh these big food manufacturers in the 80s. They became the largest processed food manufacturers in the world. They started trying to make things as addictive as possible. they had huge success with that and all the other processed food companies started following suit and um and they're getting they're taking advantage of that evolutionary trap in us. You know the sugar we would not see all that often. We would not necessarily find just you know um you know beehive every you'd have to like deal with the bees you know you know until we managed fire and figured out how to smoke these things out. That wasn't really an option. I mean, you could die from from the amount of beastings that you get trying to raid uh a hive. So, you know, that's something we had to figure out and you're not going to find it every single day, you know, and so, you know, and especially with the fruit, there's only going to be available certain at certain times. So, we we sort of noticed that as like, okay, this is safe. This is going to give me some energy. This can help me through the winter, maybe, you know, or give me that boost of energy so I can go and get a kill. But now we're just getting it every single day and it hits that evolutionary trap of just eat eat and uh and it's very addictive and um you know and and the unfortunately the food companies are taking advantage of that. Yeah. So um you know it was one thing too I was thinking of you know we were talking about like alcohol and things like that you know even diet can actually help with these sorts of things like like there there are studies with ketogenic diets when when when um alcoholics are coming off of you know alcohol withdrawal and and sometimes you have to be you know in in rehab and things like that or not even rehab in the hospital because if if you're really addicted to alcohol connect the withdrawal can be very dangerous. you know, and so, um, you know, coming off of of heroin, while it's, you know, very uncomfortable, you feel like you have just like the worst flu ever. Um, people say the same thing about if they're heavily addicted to sugar, too. Sometimes they feel like they get a flu, that keto flu, things like that. That can be from withdrawal. Um, but with alcohol, it can actually be dangerous. You can get seizures and you can you can die. Seizures can be fatal. And so they they have to you know give them benzoazipines to sort of you know slow down you know the DTS and um there's certain criteria on you know the nurses or doctors might you know you know be observing them so okay you know if it gets to this point then we're going to give another dose of this and so they did a um a control trial with um alcoholics and um so they had one group on a ketogenic diet and one group just eating whatever and both coming off of alcohol in the hospital. And they found that not only they did subjectively like the people expressed like, hey, this was easier for me. I didn't have I didn't, you know, rating their their um their level of withdrawals and how bad they felt with it. They were rating them ranking them much lower than the other group, but then objectively the keto group didn't need as much bzzoazipines to keep them out of the DT. So they actually detox and withdrew um much more easily and much more readily than than the other group. And I I think that you know um you know then that again that there there's like there's there's the addictive aspects of all of these things and we start getting rid of one it becomes easier to you know get rid of the others and also your your brain sort of working a bit better. you're a bit more clear and you're like, "Yeah, I don't I don't actually need this other substance to, you know, to, you know, play a role anymore. I'm actually good without it." Yeah. Yeah. I I actually find that it's like this way of eating is almost I mean I I personally think it could be very beneficial for a lot of addicts and ex addicts when it comes to drugs for the reasons that you said but also like as a as a relapse prevention because again I can only speak from my experience the times when I went back to drugs in my past when I'd been sober for a bit and I went back to The reason you normally go back to taking addict an addictive substance which you know harms you is because you do not like how you are feeling at that moment and you want to change that that's normally why people will go back to doing bad patterns. So if you can if you can eat in a way where you actually genuinely feel confident and good and happy in yourself like you you know you and you're you're not you're you deal with stress better. You're calmer. If you can put yourself in this position, there's so much less chance that you're going to ever get to that point where you're going to want want to go back and do these other things because you feel like I can only speak from my experience. I I don't want to change how I feel at the moment because I just feel I feel good. Uh, and in the times when I was eating a lot of junk food and and I was sober, I I didn't feel good. And potentially that is one of the reasons why after a while my brain would go, "Right, you feel [ __ ] You feel [ __ ] You feel [ __ ] You know what makes you feel better. Go back to doing these things." And I just I just I just don't have that now. I guess the times like you know I'd been I'd done I'd done years of sobriety and then went back to taking drugs in my past and uh all the times I went back to doing them was because I wanted to change how I feel and now I just don't want to do that. So I think you know I think it's really interesting how there is them actual physical benefits um for like helping alcoholics come off but the the the mental side of how uh eating this way makes you feel I think is a is a really good sort of protection mechanism against falling back into old ways. Hey guys, just want to take a second to thank our sponsor Carnivore Bar. I don't promote many products because honestly all you need to be healthy is to just eat meat. But for those times that you're out hiking, road tripping, or stuck at work and you want nutritious snack that is just meat, fat, and salt if you want it, the Carnivore Bar is a great option. So I like this product not because it's just pure meat, but also because I want the carnivore market to thrive as well. And the more we support meatonly products, the more meatonly products there will be available in the mainstream. So, if this sounds like something you'd like to get behind, check it out using my discount code, Anthony to get 10% off, which also applies to subscriptions, giving you 25% off total. All right. Thanks, guys. Yeah. Well, it's interesting what you just mentioned there, you know, like that that the times you you've just sort of felt like crap, felt like crap, and then you said, "Okay, well, I know what makes you feel good and go to the drugs." You know, we we hear about and and we see, you know, people with like severe mental health issues, you know, like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc. out depression. they they can self-medicate and we we use that term they're self-medicating as in they need medication but they're maybe those medications aren't working so well so they turn to you know elicit drugs and alcohol in order to help something you know make them feel better in some way. But it it could very well be that you know people turn to these things even if they don't have something as severe as that but they just feel like garbage and uh and so they want to try to self-medicate um you know from that angle as well. And we, you know, we do know there's there's more and more research coming out with um, you know, mental health issues such as schizophrenia, bipolar, etc. that um that this this has a reversible nature and that by changing the way you eat, you know, affecting your uh, metabolism, food is a major sort um, way to do that, but it's not the only only thing. So, there's a lot of things that go into it. Um, but you you fix the metabolism, you fix the mitochondria, you fix all these sorts of things. you can actually fix the schizophrenia and the depression and things like that. This has actually been shown in clinical trials now and there's larger randomized control trials being done right now at Harvard and elsewhere which is going to be very interesting to see when those when those come out. But it's it's that's a consequence of largely a consequence of food and and that's damaging your metabolism as well. So, we're changing the food, we're changing the diet, that helps the metabolism, that helps their mental health issues. And you have this large expression something like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, where people there's a lot of people that are homeless because they can't function with their mental health disorder. And um you know, there's a there's a young man named Matt Bazooki. His parents uh own um Roblox, that video game is hugely popular. And so, you know, they're they're very wealthy, but he had very severe bipolar disorder. and he came on to the podcast to talk about it and he was he couldn't function, you know, and the and he had all access to all the best health care and all that sort of stuff, all the best doctors. They're all just like, "Look, this is just treatment resistant. This is just who he is. You're just going to have to, you know, learn to learn to accept him for who he is right now." And but that's that's easier said than done because I mean, you can accept somebody, but you watching somebody that you love hurt themselves and and he would self-medicate. And so he was using elicit drugs. He would go out and he'd be on the streets and he'd be he'd be gone for months, you know, and you know that's very dangerous and he could be very hurt by that. Maybe not ever show up again. So, you know, imagine a parent having to deal with that and dealing with a child that's just you don't know where they are, you don't know what's going on, but you know that they're in danger and you know that that that bad things are happening. Um and um they they got him in front of Chris Palmer who's who's professor at Harvard and doing all these big studies in in psychology and mental health with ketogenic diets and metabolic issues and and it it sorted him out. You know, he's he's off medications. He's normal functioning. You know, he's working with his parents and um and he was he's bright. He's a bright guy, you know, and and he's doing really really well. But that was the thing. Now he feels good. Now he feels great. doesn't need to self-medicate anymore, you know, and uh and I think that that that's a really key point that you touched on is that you don't have to have schizophrenia or bipolar to feel like crap and want to self-medicate and just do something to make you feel better and and drugs and alcohol or are a normal thing, but also so is food and people comfort eat. And so like I feel like crap. I'm just going to get a big, you know, bucket of, you know, ice cream or something like that. I'm going to do something that I know is bad for me, but you know what? I feel like crap and I just need I just need to to treat myself because I need to self-medicate. And it's that same relationship. You know, it's it'd be the it'd be the same relationship as if someone said, "I feel like crap. I'm stressed out. I need a drink." You know, I'm stressed out. I feel like crap. I need some ice cream. It's exactly the same relationship. And because you feel like crap, you go and you try to self-medicate. I think that's a really, really, really good point you made. Yeah, it's um it is it's I you know what like I I don't think it's the only I don't think it's the only reason, but I think our food is a is a big reason. But you know, you say you don't have to have like um bipolar or schizophrenia to to change yourself. But I don't know so much about Australia, but especially the UK, the the suicide rates are just crazy and then and they're rising and and you know, so many people are on anti-depressants or or just depressed. You can tell by speaking they're just not enjoying their life. They're existent. They're not they're not and and a lot of these people don't drink and don't take drugs. So, it's like and and I know there's multiple factors like, you know, your your exercise and your sunlight and your things and screen time and all that, but I think a lot of it is down to people's diets. I genuinely do. I only say that because I know how much it affected me and I guess if one thing can affect one person, why would it not affect others? So like but again it's really hard because people are demonized for trying to change their diet like you know the this mental health thing is a big thing and you want people to talk about the mental health problems and yes people have traumas and things go wrong in their life and which will cause problems and depression but I think people are missing this big elephant in the room where it's like yes every you A lot of people go through traumas and people go through hardships in their life and and they can lead to depression. But I think if you're already in such a bad place, if you're inflamed, if you're not looking after your body, it's going to become so much worse to the point where, you know, you do get your mental health disorders. Whereas if people take a like if people actually genuinely look at their diet and try and sort it out and start feeling better about herself, the things that may the things that may have potentially made them depressed, may not make them depressed anymore. I guess it's all like a slight like I've been reading a book recently um the obstacle is the way and it's all about um your perception on um on on on on events I guess nothing's positive nothing's negative the way one person sees one thing could be negative and the way that another person sees it could be positive and I guess it's the same as one person could say I am depressed because this has happens. Um, and this has happened and that's why I'm depressed. Now, if that person got the hardware working properly, like the brain working properly, their body working properies through eating a proper diet, I believe that can change your perception on things and could help with many people's mental health problems and depression and anxiety by fixing the hardware to be able to deal with life better instead of just not dealing with it and then just being depressed. Do you sort of get where I'm coming from? Mhm. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And um yeah, I think that um you know, it's when we see people have, you know, severe problems with something, you certainly see people have addictions. I mean, it's the same thing like like you said, you know, like if something's going to affect you this way, why wouldn't it affect other people this way? I mean, that that's how we use medicine. That's how we use drugs. We use alcohol. We we we know there's you drink alcohol, you you can you know what you can expect, but we're sort of being gaslit. We're told that that what people are experiencing, what they're seeing and when they're eating junk food, when they're eating sugar and and what they're experiencing, the changes they get when they stop, that's not really happening. No, that doesn't do. No, no, no, no. That's not it. No, you you don't get high when you do cocaine. It's an anesthetic. You know, that's People use it to numb things up. You're crazy. That's cool. what's going on now. We're just being we're just being told that what we are experiencing in our own lives and seeing with our own eyes is it's not actually happening. you know that that takes some balls like to tell people that you know but um you know you saw for yourself you know you had you know massive improvement you know and you and you've dealt with you know you you you know when I talk about food is like we treat it as we treat drugs and these things are addictive now you can't say that you can't say it's a drug but I mean you've just said that it was it was the same or very similar and uh and very difficult to come off this stuff and especially because the social pressure because there are people saying ah It's fine. You know, you're just being crazy. You know, just um you know, just moderate. You know, why why why would you go so extreme and and cut out, you know, something, you know, why why you just have a little bit of it? Not everybody can and not everybody wants to, you know, I' I've I've never had a really like a sweet tooth where I just, you know, just yum up every sort of sweet that's around. I always knew that it wasn't good for me. And and I was just like, okay, well, that's just just sugar. You know, you don't want to just eat sugar. Every now and then have something like that. fine, but I was never I never sort of went after it um like some people do. But who cares? Like now I know that that that's not it's not only just not good for me, it's actually bad for me. And I don't I don't want that, you know? Like I I just I just want, you know, it's like that that old saying that I always thought was a bit stupid was like, you know, my body's a temple. You know, your body's a temple. don't let anything into it that's not that's not good for it. But that that's exactly how I feel now. I don't I don't want to do anything to myself. I don't want to put anything into my body if it's not benefiting me. If it's not benefiting my health and so having something just tastes numb, like that's just not that's just not going to cut it. You know, putting on some seasoning sauces, you know, having some candy every now and then or whatever, that's just not worth it to me. you know, I I I don't want to put things in my body that are harmful. And so, you know, having people, you know, sort of talk down about about you on that, it says more about them than it does about you. You know, it's more about them and their addictions and how they don't want because they they'll feel bad. They feel guilty. They, you know, so you're sort of making them feel bad that you have more self-control than they do that you can just say, "Hey, look, that's not good for me, so I'm not going to do it." And um and they it makes people very self-conscious and it gets them upset because they they feel like you're insulting them. You're like, "This has nothing to do with you." You know, I this is this is my own decision for my own body. I'm not doing this to shame you. I don't care what you do. Like I'm doing this for me. But they do feel a bit ashamed that they're they're doing these sorts of things. And and so if you're doing it, too, it makes them feel a bit less shameful. and and because it's legal and because it's so prevalent just in everything, you know, they feel justified say, "No, no, no, no. You're the one in the wrong. You should be over here addicted like me." Yeah. But also, you you said you said about self-control. Um I feel like obviously that first initial period of cutting the the sugar and the processed food out, you do need a lot of self-control. But for me, once I've got past that that slump of the this has been the I I use significantly less self-control on a daily basis now than I did when I was actually trying to moderate things because like you know, you're giving yourself that little bit every so often. And for me personally, that takes a lot more self-control than just no longer desire desiring it. again like I'll use smoking as an example. You have one person who stops smoking and they don't smoke anymore. Most people who get to that point they will stop to they'll stop desiring cigarettes past a certain point. Whereas if you got that person to just smoke one a week, that would be mental torture for them because it's keeping them addicted. And the amount of self-control they're going to have to use is crazy. And it and now I feel like I just don't even need to use that self-control anymore. As you said, for me personally, the desire to do all of these things like the sweets and the sugar which controlled my life for years, it has disappeared. I do not see that stuff as food anymore. You know, I I work in a tattoo studio and um uh people are always advised to eat a lot of sugar when they get a tattoo to keep the blood sugar levels high. I don't do that anymore, but obviously there is sugar around all the time. I try and tell people not to, but you know, people have to do what they want to do, but there would have been a point where I would have been eating little bits of everyone's food each day. Now I look at people eating these bags of sweets and it just there's there's not part of my brain that goes I want that anymore which is you know it's uh it's it's so freeing and I think like I think if people could actually understand that you can get to a point where your body no longer desires the things that you think you're getting enjoyment from. Um, I think people would potentially be more willing to give it a go. But I feel like when people see people doing carnival, they must be think to think and we think like them and that, oh my god, they are restricting theirel every day and they must get to a weekend and they must have to sit there biting their nails to make sure they don't eat ice cream and they don't eat cookies where I'm like, "No, you you couldn't pay me to eat that now." Like, I don't want to feel like [ __ ] in the morning. Do you know what I mean? It it removes it which is amazing and for me eating this way has been the people think it's restrictive. For me this is the most sustainable because I don't have them cravings. So like having to deal with cravings on a weekly basis by having a a cheat meal which includes moderation and that is sustainable. you're just prolonging a an experience of of of um of withdrawing from something. You're getting it every time. Uh and now it's it doesn't happen. And I can I can see for me personally, this is the first time and I've eaten loads of different ways from my past. Um like you know, training for like kickboxing fights and getting really lean by eating carb, high carb and low fat. And there's not been one way in my past or dying for holidays holidays. There's not been one way of eating my past where I haven't always had an end goal, an end date. When I get to this date, I can enjoy myself or when I get when when we get past this point, then I can let my hair down and enjoy myself. So, I was always craving. I was always thinking about them. Now, I don't I don't look for an end goal anymore. I'm I've never been as satisfied and as content in a way of eating where I'm I get excited to eat the food that I love to eat every day. I got to eat steak every single day. Like it's amazing. It's like a cheat code and I'm not even thinking about, oh, I want this or want that anymore. It's it's like it's a is a really wonderful experience. I get a smile on my face talking about it because it's like it's it's just total freedom from something that controlled me and I know controls a lot of people and like there is a there is a way out of it but people have to listen to people like you and other people around there instead of their friends and all this all this [ __ ] that you're hearing on the internet like you So yeah. Yeah. And and their own addictions, you know, just don't don't give into that or listen to that and say like, okay, well, if I'm if I'm feeling compulsively like, well, I need to eat that, that's probably something I don't want, you know, that's s sort of my rule of thumb. If something starts like milk, like I I I love milk, you know, but um when I drink it and I get like some raw milk or something like that, it's illegal in Australia, which is stupid. and in some states in America, but every now and then you'll have someone will have like raw milk and be like, "Okay." Yeah. And so I'll have some I'll instantly want more and and I, you know, if I have it in the fridge like, you know, I have to like really like control myself like, "Oh, maybe I'll just, oh, maybe I'll just, you know, I'll drink like a gallon a day and I'll want more." And so, you know, looking at that and saying, well, this is um, you know, this is something that's causing a bit of a compulsion compulsion for me. That tells me that that's not something I want, you know, that's not something I'm going to want to have. There sort of this compulsive nature to it, you know, and so I want to I want to avoid those sorts of things. Um, so I use that in that way. I don't I don't give into that sort of thing. I be like, nope, nope. If there's some sort of compulsive aspect to this, it's not what I want in my life. And you know why addict yourself to something like my dad my dad told me about that too. He said he only had you know he only tried cigarettes you know like you know a couple times and one time like he had friend of his had these like you know no filter lucky strikes and this was back in like this 60s or something like that and um and he and he just had one. He had it and he was just like he's like oh no that's that's good. That's like too good. They're like oh okay you want more? He's like, "Nope, absolutely not. I don't need that. Don't need that in my life. I don't need to know that exists and that I like it." He's like, "Absolutely not." Because he didn't want it. He doesn't He didn't want to end up He's like, "What's the end goal here? Are you Are you going to be like, "Okay, I'm just going to start smoking and that's just going to be my life now." Or, "No, I don't want that to be my life." Okay, then don't start in the first place. You know, that's sort of good and enjoyable. Yep. Well, that's something you need to avoid. And um you know, that's sort of what I do, too. I I I totally agree with you. you know, cheat days. It's just a way of of redicting yourself and keeping you you addicted. And you go through the entire week just with all these cravings, just fighting against it. And then as they start ebbing down, you get to the weekend and um and and it could be gone shortly after that. Now you're readicting yourself and you're having it more and you tend to binge more when you have those cheat days. Oh, it's my free day. I can just have whatever. So, if you were going to do that, you at least limit, okay, no, I'm going to have a small portion just on these days or something like that. But it's, you know, it's really best not to do it at all. But then you're and because then you're redicting yourself and now you're going through those cravings all throughout the week and you're just sort of instead of just getting over it in two weeks, you know, you're done, you know, and that's like the difference between people that that actually quit or like people that you like quit smoking, eventually you have to go cold turkey and studies have shown that that cold turkey has a better um success rate. Eventually going to have to even if you get down to one cigarette a day, eventually you're going to have to stop. That's cold turkey, right? And um so it might as well just be now and you get over it. Takes two weeks, stuff's out of your system and that's it. And then there's other other people, you know, I think we all know people like this in our in our lives that they they've been quitting smoking for like 20 years, you know, and um you know, my my uncle um you know, who's a great guy, but he smoked for a long time. And since I was a kid, he was trying to quit. He was trying to quit. He's like, "Oh, he's just cutting down, cutting down, trying to quit." I don't think he quit until I was probably my late teens or 20, something like that. He finally got off this stuff. But he was literally trying to quit for 20 years, you know, or thereabouts. But, you know, that's the thing. You just have to stop. You know, if you you want to get rid of some addiction addictive thing, you got to get you got to stop. And that goes for processed food and junk food and sugar as well because it is addictive. It's the same stuff. Um, I was going to ask as well. So, you're you're you're a tattooist. You're actually quite quite a well-known uh tattoo artist. Um, how's this affected you? Like you said, previously you definitely didn't get support from your loved ones, but now you have a partner that that is a bit more supportive. Um, how has this affected your work? Sorry. Sorry. Go on. No, it was my exartner who one one of them was supportive and one of them isn't. Oh, got you. Got It was my exartner who I was with who was actually I think potentially still on carnival as well but yeah we parted ways but yeah she was she was very very uh supportive of it which was a good Oh that's good. Yeah. Okay. So that's good to have that sort of support. But how has that been? You know being in the in the in the industry that you're in like you're saying it's just sugar everywhere. There's probably a lot of you know substance use as well. I mean how's that in in that sort of um industry? You know what? So, I've I've got I I own a tattoo studio here. So, I've got um like six other tattoo artists that work with me and um they they're quite healthy humans. I've decided to to obviously they're not on carnival, but they they do look after their health to various degrees. Um because the tattoo industry is well known for having lots of drugs and alcohol and stuff. [Music] Um, so yeah, I'm lucky that I'm around a group of people who are supportive and who want to be healthy. I have actually been surprised because um you know even though I'm a tattoo artist and I have one Instagram for my tattooing have obviously started posting about carnival on there and I was a bit nervous about doing it first because it's like am I getting different audiences but the amount of tattoo artists who reached out to me and asked about um we're interested in doing it was quite quite good from a career perspective as well. I also think it's been a a really good thing. Um, like so the style of tattooing I do, it it takes a long time. I I work a lot and I'm lucky I work a lot in a job that I love, but a lot of the days that I do are now now that I'm on carnival, I I can tattoo for 12, 13 hours in one day. Um, now before I was carnival, I was getting to this point where I was like, the long days are gone. You know, I've been tattooing like long enough now that I need to slow it down and start splitting my days over smaller six or seven hours because once it got to seven hours, I could not concentrate anymore. I I literally couldn't. And now the the the focus the focus I have at 9:00 in the morning and the focus I have at 9:00 at night is the same. And I think I think for like uh for like creatives um for creative people or people who are like high focus jobs, it's like a it's such a great tool to have. It almost gives you an edge on everyone else. It's like, oh, like, as I say, I can work 13, 14 hour days now and be totally fine. And in my industry, that does I'm not saying that's healthy, by the way. But if I if I'm willing to spend 12 hours on a tattoo and one the other tattoo artist is only willing to spend six hours because I can't concentrate, I'm the one who ends up producing the better work. And that's my goal to to produce the best tattoos I can. Um so yeah from a career perspective it's been really beneficial and I have noticed increasing um it my me personally my quality of work I think is getting better because I just have just have more energy. I can um I used there was points when I did used to do long days but if I done two long days in a row I was knackered the day after and then that would have a knock on effect onto the rest of my week because I wouldn't do my design work. I wouldn't keep on top my social media and the business side of it because I would just have to rest and then I would go on to the next tattoo. Now I can do it's not healthy. But now I don't know what's healthy, what isn't, but some people would say it's not. But now I can do 14 hour, 14 hour, 14 hour day where I'm not in the house. I can still wake up at 5 in the morning, go to the gym before work, get there at 7, not leave till 10, 11:00, go home, sleep for four or five hours, go back out and do it. And yes, I don't do that every day, but I can do it and it doesn't absolutely knack me. Like I can deal with it, which is which is really good for people who have jobs where they actually want to be able to to work more, I guess. Like I know a lot of people probably don't have jobs where they want to work more, but like I I love the fact now that I can go in and be like, "Right, I'm getting my head down and making a really good tattoo." And if it takes 12 hours, that's okay because it's not going to affect me in a negative way. It's it's it's great. And a lot of my clients as well have been really interested in it. Like I I you know I was really nervous about posting the carnival stuff on my Instagram because as I say I am a tattoo artist and now I'm sort of doing both and I was thinking is it going to have an effect on my tattoo side but you know what it's had the opposite. People the general public are genuinely really interested in it. My clients ask me about it. They all say oh they want to try it. Like it it's it's good to see that people are interested. Whether they try it or not is a different subject, but like Yeah, it's uh it's a good talking point. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It gives you something. I mean, you're there for 13 hours, got to talk about something, you know, like but no, it's good that that that people got interested in it. I mean the thing is is that when when you like you say like we've been talking about you know people are trying to find something to make them feel better because most people pretty feel pretty rubbish all the time and so you know people go to different different lengths to to paper over that but most people are looking most people know they're like I just don't really feel great things aren't really good and then they see somebody you know that you know on social media or that they look up to and they see like, okay, they did this thing. They've had this massive improvement and they've had some of the same issues that I had and that I really want to deal with. Well, maybe that'll work for me. And so, you know, it's just naturally going to be interested. You're just seeing somebody do better and feel better and get healthier. You know, there's there's, you know, that's that's a really positive thing and and can have a really positive impact. And so, I think it's it's great that you're using your platform for that. It's obviously very nervous, you know, do I do I mix these two? But um it's uh it's something that that can help a lot of people too, you know, and and you'll see like you've already you've already sort of seen it in your sphere of influence, other tattoo artists, clients, people are coming to you asking you questions about it. You'll you'll start to see more and more people do this as well. And then all of a sudden, you're going to have people coming to you with their 100 day saying, "This changed my life. I I I can't believe how much better I feel." And you're going to see this sort of grow around you because it does work. It it absolutely works. And so when people start doing it and they start improving their health, they're just going to want more of that. And then they're going to start telling their family and their friends and they're going to their their people around them are going to see them how healthy they're doing. They're going to ask, "Oh, hey, what are you doing? What's going on there?" And it just it just grows uh you know around you and it's it's it's great to see because you know people deserve to be healthy. You know, we talk about what people deserve and they say we deserve to be healthy. you know the natural state of humanity is health. You know some people can be born with a you know a congenital issue or genetic issue and that's very unfortunate but the vast majority of human beings are are genetically designed to be healthy because all life is genetically designed to be healthy unless there's something goes wrong with it and those usually don't last in the gene pool. And so for somebody to be sick, for somebody to be unwell, it means something externally is happening to them because internally we should just for the large majority of people should just be inherently healthy because you know life is is populated by you know the children of the winners, you know, the the species that have succeeded at the game of life that have outco competed all the other uh life out there, you know, and and we're it. So, you know, you can't have an entire species that's sick. It would never have existed, you know, because you're you're coming from points of health. You're not just going to degenerate as like an entire species unless there's like some genetic manipulation and breeding and things like that like we've done with animals and you we made the pug. a pug is never going to exist in nature, you know, that had to be that had to be created and it was bad idea, you know, and like, you know, and um sorry not sorry to every pug owner out there. I'm sure your dog is wonderful, but like that's you know, they they've manipulated that dog's genetics so it's not it's not as healthy. You know, it is not as healthy as a wolf. It's not even as healthy as a Labrador or a husky. You know, it has, you know, serious issues and and that that are very specific to bugs. So that's not us, you know, and so we should be healthy. So we have, you know, our birthright is to be healthy. And we've had that taken away from us by these drug dealers out there that are called, you know, Nabiscoco and Craft and Coca-Cola and and um Nestle. These are drug dealers. These are drug cartels. These are the biggest drug cartels in the world. They're multi-trillion dollar drug cartels. Uh it's just the drugs that they're selling happen to be legal. But that doesn't make them not drugs. I mean, we had the opium trade. I mean that that that financed empires, the opium trade, you know, there was a there was like this big island off the coast of Scotland. I saw a big castle and whole island was owned by this guy and he just he owned the whole thing. He bought the whole thing and um and you know he was a lord up there and that was because of the opium trade. So he he made just equivalent of just billions on the opium trade and they were allowed to back then. And so he he stood himself up and now he's a lord. He owns an island and all this, you know, all these surfs and things like that, castles, because he's a drug dealer. He's a drug cartel. It was legal then. And so these processed foods and sugar, those are this is the modern-day opium trade, you know, and in the future hopefully we look back like, what a mess that was, you know. Thank goodness we age restricted that so the kids don't get this stuff and destroy their brain as they're trying to develop. But um I I definitely think that sugar and that sort of garbage should be age restricted at least until you know someone's 18, 21, something like that and the brain has a chance to develop properly. The body has a chance to develop properly and u yeah sorry you're going to say something. I I think I think when you actually talk about children as well, it's it is actually sad because we are like told and this isn't this is no fault of my parents but like when I look at my sugar addiction it started at a young age and that is because parents are just oh no you know you you you got to treat the kids on the weekend like like you know let them have a little bit of this have a little bit of that And and people are told that's what you do with your children. Like I don't personally have kids, but like I say a lot like you know, oh well, you know, they're a child and they've been good, so give them give them this. Um because and and they're rewarded with processed foods and sugar. It's like I understand that's what everybody does but that is the reason potentially I think that is one of the main reasons why we have a very very sick population because the children are getting addicted from a young age and from no from no from no choice of their own and the thing the thing with children as well is I've seen it firsthand you know They're pure little beings and what the you see things affect them so much different like um you see um things affect the child a lot more than you do an adult and I've seen children without sugar and be nice and calm and you know it's like still a kid but like you know a kid and then I've seen the same child with sugar you know weekends with and that they're a different they're a different human being and um and you know we But people just think it's fine to do that to your kids. And if you don't do that to your kids, you know, you're that restrictive parent. I can't believe you're not letting them enjoy yourself. It's like you don't let them do meth. I mean, what's wrong with you? Yeah. Yeah. Like unfortunately, you are setting your child up for a potential life of addiction. And as we were saying before, how the sugar and processed food is affecting people's mental health. You could be setting your child up for mental health problems like you probably are. And it's sad because that child doesn't know any different like so it's the parents who are deciding to actively do that. Do you know what I mean? It's But I don't again I think it's a big societal thing. I think a lot of people don't don't um don't research this stuff and haven't went out the way to learn about these things and even dismiss it and don't have the education like this haven't listened to the sort of education that you provide and other people provide. So when they do these things and they give their kids certain foods, they're not doing it from a a bad place. They're just doing it because that's what they know. But I think it should we should start teaching people that like no that is not good. Um yeah. Yeah. Well, I I totally agree. Like there's um there was a rock star was a British dude might have been like Eric Clapton or something like that. Anyways, was it was some some big name that you know of and had had drug issues and very bad drug issues. And I remember seeing like a documentary about him. Can't remember if it's Eric Clapton or anyway doesn't matter. Um and they were talking about like well you had a problem with drugs like when did the drugs first start? You started doing drugs here and here. And he said no no my first exposure to drugs my first problem with drugs was sugar when I was a kid. I go I was really addicted to sugar. You know people know and and he was calling it out. He's like no the first drug I was addicted to was sugar. This was decades ago. decades ago that he said this, you know, and um it's just like he's like it's the same thing. I was really addicted to that and then, you know, I went to these other addictions, but it was the same addiction. It was still getting this dopamine high, this this hit that I needed. And that was what he first got addicted to. So, he was saying that, you know, he you know, um from the sounds of it, it sounded like he he thought that he probably wouldn't have been um as as as interested in doing, you know, the hard drugs or the the other hard drugs. um if he hadn't already been addicted to sugar. And so we wanted to keep perpetuating that addiction. You know, I I 100% totally agree and that was exactly the same for me. And as I said, when I got off drugs and I didn't ever want to go back to taking them, that is one of the things that led me into carnival. And I was like, right, I was having a sit down with myself and I was like, right, okay, right, let's get to the start of the problem. Why did you ever want to take drugs in the first place? What was the reason for that? For me it was because I was a really unconfident child and you know drugs give me that little bit of confidence to um you know that that that I wanted at that age. The unconfidence came from being an overweight child and that came from a sugar addiction that that's the truth and yeah I was the same and I don't think I genuinely don't think I would have been led down the path of you can never say never but there would have been a lot less chance that I would have got addicted to um to other substances uh if I didn't have that sugar addiction because I wasn't always searching to make myself feel better because I was feeling bad. And yes, I totally agree. I know people talk about gateway drugs. It is a gateway drug. Like, yeah, because as I went back to that point earlier, if you are addicted to processed food and sugar, you are not going to feel as good as you can. That is just the truth. There's no one skipping around smiling like really happy who's eating 80% processed food. Sorry. It just doesn't happen. in my opinion. And if you are going through your days constantly thinking knowing deep down I feel like [ __ ] I feel like [ __ ] I'm tired. I'm sluggish. I've got no confidence. I don't look good. I feel rubbish. Like like you know that you there's going to be so much more chance that you're going to grasp the other things. And then when them things make you feel better, that's when the addiction starts. So yeah, I think it's a I really do think it is a has a big part to play in it. Yeah. And and and we we you know and the you know the food companies they know the sugar is addictive. That's why the sugar is in everything especially in kids foods. Baby formula you know infant formula has sugar in it. Why why is that? Does breast milk have fructose? No. It has lactose. So it's you know that's a different kind of sugar. It should not have fructose. Fructose is in there because it's addictive and makes them eat more. Eat more. Eat more. And uh and that's really bad for their health. You know, they need to and it's it's not just causing them to eat more, it's causing other issues as well. And I my um you know, my my my fiance, she was saying I was just speaking to her last night and she was saying that um you know, she had some people over at her house and you know, they had food there, stuff like that. You know, we all do carnivore. There's some other stuff there too they had for for guests, but that that was pretty much it. It was just like, you know, big barbecue and had a whole bunch of like, you know, meat and hot dogs and all that sort of stuff. And one of the one of the kids was a child of, you know, one of her friends was started just throwing an absolute fit and was saying it was just like, "I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I want to go. I want to I'm hungry." He's like, "What are you talking about? You're hungry. You just ate like a whole plate of food. You said you were done." And he said, "No, not for that. I'm I'm hungry for sugar. I want sugar. There's no sugar here. I want candy. I'm hungry for candy. I was like, I want to go. I want there's no sugar here. It's like Jesus. And um yeah, l my fiance, she was saying she was like she's like, yeah. I was just shocked, you know. He was just he was absolutely freaking out because he's just so addicted. And it's just like how you and she was just wanted to like point this out to her friend saying like how do you not see how how addicted your kid is, you know, how bad this stuff is and he's freaking out. He's just throwing an absolute fit, you know. It's just like, you know, if you're keeping like a heroin addict away from their heroin, they're like they're just going to lose their mind. They're like, you give that to me, you know. And um that's the same sort of response. We even call it since I was a kid, you know, sugar, you know, people have ate sugar and they called it a sugar high and um and then when kids start freaking out and spazzing out, they're like, "Oh, yeah, they're just coming off of sugar." So, we even use the same terminology that we do with drugs, you know, and and you imagine just being that casual. It's just like Timmy's running around. Ah, Timmy, he's just he's just on his cocaine high, you know? He's just You know how it is when they get on the cocaine and they start coming down and start freaking out. Oh, he's just coming off cocaine. You know, that would horrify anybody if they if they heard someone say that. And yet, it is plain as day normal to to say that about sugar, to observe that about people on sugar and coming off sugar. And we and we just we don't even realize what's what's staring us right in the face that this stuff is these things are drugs and they cause us to get high and they and we come down and we crash and we freak out when we do that because we don't we don't even realize this stuff is a drug. Yeah. It's almost like it's all part of a bigger plan, isn't it? To get people ill and keep them again go back to the the children. It must be hard for parents, and I've seen it firsthand. Um, it must be hard unless you keep your child with you all the time and you're the only person feeding your child. What do people give children? I know myself, I love going to my granny's house because when I went to my granny's house, I got to get what I wanted. She just wanted to give me it because I was a grandson and she loved me, but she didn't realize that she's just feeding me sugar and a feed addiction. And again, I don't know much about Australia, but I'm guessing, you know, you your your child gets a free school lunch at the school. I bet you it's got a load of horrible garbage. Total garbage. Luckily, I don't have children at the moment, so I don't have to deal with it. But it must be really hard for parents who are trying to make a a conscious effort to to to make sure their children don't end up like that when the full world wants to feed that child sugar. Like it's it's it's crazy. Yeah. No, I agree. Um well, cool. Joe, thank you so much uh for coming on, taking the time. really enjoyed that and I think that's a really unique perspective coming you know with your background and being able to relate this in that way and really showing people that this stuff this stuff is uh actually addictive and actually uh needs to be avoided and abstained from uh as opposed to just moderated for most people. Some people yeah whatever you know but uh other people can't and um and a lot of people when they do try to do these things in moderation moderation becomes excess very quickly and they sort of undo all the the benefit that they had. So thank you very much for sharing your perspective and uh and coming on on the show. Appreciate it and thank you very much for doing your podcast. So you were one of the first people who I listened to when I looked into doing carnivore and you know if there wasn't people like you around I don't think as many people would have the confidence to to go against what they are told. So keep up the good work. Thank you very much. Yeah. You're welcome. And yeah it is it is important to get more people out there with you know is another reason I'm glad that you're speaking out is because we need to normalize normal behavior. And eating meat I'm sorry is normal. That is that has been the norm for all of humanity since humans have been humans. We've been eating meat. So, this is abnormal. We're we're in an abnormal time eating abnormal things that cannot be legitimately called food. It's not food. It's certainly not food for humans. And you know, some of this stuff didn't even exist. Like a bunch of artificial ingredients that that are just completely man-made. And so, we're we're doing something abnormal. And so renormalizing normality, you know, at uh you just which is just eating meat, you know, it's it's really helpful and getting more people like you saying, "Hey, look, this is this actually worked for me." I know it sounds crazy, but you know, it seems to be there's something there. And um you know, so that's very helpful. So I I appreciate that. And um speaking of which, where where can people find you and uh and follow you for more? So I pretty much just use Instagram. I do have a Tik Tok, but I don't use it much. But for everyone listening, I only have one Instagram account because I don't have time to run two pages. So, it is my business tattoo page, which is Joe Bird tattoo, but also on there I am sharing um my journey in carnival because as you said, I find it important to share this. So, I'm going to keep on post about it. So, if you want to follow that journey, you can do. Also, if you want to see some cool tattoos, you can do that as well. Awesome. We'll put that in the link in the descriptions and everyone go check out Joe at Joe Bird Tattoo and um and see tattoo or tattoos. Tattoo. No, tattoo. Yeah, Joe Bird tattoo. Perfect. Joe, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure. And um yeah, see you soon. Thanks everybody. Hope you you're very welcome. Thank you everybody for joining. Really appreciate you coming on. If you have someone that you think would uh benefit by uh seeing this or maybe someone who struggles with addiction or the addictive nature of processed food, please do share this with them and hopefully give them some inspiration. Thanks everyone. See you next time. Hey guys, thank you very much for taking the time out to listen to what I had to say. If you like it, then please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel and podcast. And if you're on YouTube, then please hit that little bell and subscribe and that'll let you know anytime I have a new video out, which should be every week, if not more. And if you could share this with your friends, that would help me get the word out and let me know that you like what I'm doing.