Curing Epilepsy, Depression, Anxiety and Powerlifting on a Carnivore Diet with Nate Klipfel!

[Music] everyone this is uh dr anthony chafee i'm here today with another episode of plant free md and i have a special guest today nathan who is a personal trainer and a nutrition coach and has had a very interesting personal story and relationship with his uh health and mental well-being as well on a keto and then carnivore diet nathan thanks so much for coming on thank you for having me i really appreciate it yeah not a problem um well why don't you start by just just telling us a bit about yourself and telling us your story and the things that you had to sort of go through and and the benefits you found through nutrition yeah so i um i started all this i guess it's close to close to 10 years now is when i first started with keto and kind of actually actually learning about health my my family was always um well my dad was never healthy and my uh my mom uh always tried to be healthy but she had she's very old-fashioned and she read all of the typical you know lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grains and uh and that's what she read all of those books so she was convinced that you know that's the way to go so that's how she raised my brother and i um and so i just always assumed that low fat more plants less meat was always a good thing fortunately i was never able to give up meat so i think that's the only reason i didn't go way off the rails but yeah so about uh well i i had a i've had a seizure disorder um it cropped up probably about sixth grade i think um somewhere around 11 ish years old was the first time i i noticed auras is what i would get um they were very few and far between when i was younger um but then as the older i got the more frequent they became and the more debilitating they became until they eventually when i was in college led to a grand mal seizure and almost killed me um in about in 2010 i believe that was and that was when i was first started on a slew of different medications they had i mean they were all kind of anti-seizure meds some of them were also doubled as antipsychotics you know i had dept capra depakote seroquel lamectal all the all that crap um none of them ever worked uh they sometimes kind of controlled the auras but they still never stopped them from happening um and even then the longer i was on the medication the less and less they seemed to control them and the worse my other symptoms started getting where i started feeling like an alzheimer's patient i uh i was still in college i was trying to graduate my undergrad with uh psychology and philosophy degree um and so i was really struggling mentally and it was making me depressed i i couldn't think straight it was awful um and so i was fortunate enough uh to meet a buddy who referred me to his doctor who had been researching this great doctor in la i've been researching this for years um and so he said why have none of these neurologists ever put you on a ketogenic diet that's the first thing you should do for seizures yeah uh i had no idea what it was and so i tried it out and lo and behold two months later i'm off all my medications i'm completely free of caesar horace for the first time in my life and i feel i i actually lost uh 30 pounds i i was bodybuilding at the time um and i i was in the mentality of the you know have to eat every two hours for your metabolism and constantly chug down protein shakes and bars and everything uh but after going keto i uh i dropped 30 pounds and then uh i remember i was working at a gym at the time as a assistant manager and they were they started asking me what steroids i was taking i swear i'm not i'm not taking anything guys like i literally just changed my diet and nobody believed me of course yeah i never do yeah yeah they never do this they still don't but um yeah yeah i'm sure um so yeah so after that uh i was like okay that's that's pretty significant that these doc you know brilliant neurologists couldn't figure any of this out they didn't even bother trying to look into diet and this completely fixed it in two months along with also resolving my uh i had a fatty non-alcoholic fatty liver at the time because growing up i loved fruit and as i'm sure a lot of people who follow you know you know fructose goes straight to liver so um yeah just constantly having smoothies as a kid was more than enough to accumulate there and that also totally reversed yeah were you eating a lot of other exogenous sugars and added sugars or is it mostly just fruit um i actually i mean i i of course ate crappy food too you know i highly processed stuff uh but it wasn't i was i was always kind of health health conscious about it it wasn't constant you know donut nuts and cookies and ice cream and all that because of how my mom brought me up i was always trying to okay well i can have those things you know every so often but for the most part i gotta try to eat my my healthy choice meals and my you know frozen low-fat whatever the heck it was that i was getting from the grocery store um so it was all i mean it was all highly processed but in my mind it was the better version of that yeah well it sounds like it sounds like you know less less sugar added sort of things the only reason i ask is because you know some some people try to argue that you know the fructose and fruit won't affect you the same way and of course it will you know you'll get a bit less of it because there's there's fiber and fruit but certainly the fruit juice is like that fructose is fructose is fructose and if that if that is getting in your system it will act the same in your system and so that's that's a good you know uh you know firsthand illustration that uh you can certainly run into problems and even at a quite a young age too getting getting uh non-alcoholic vaguely what i call it fructose fatty liver disease um and uh yeah so it's interesting sorry i didn't mean to derail you there but yeah no no no no no you're fine yeah and that's a perfect point now i mean i was only and i was never the reason part of the reason that anotherologist looked into diet was because i've never been overweight i've never looked like i was unhealthy i was a skateboarder for 16 years i was always lean um i had i had started working out in high school so i started building muscle then so i always kind of looked like i was in shape but uh that's the big misconception that doctors tend to have unfortunately is that just as you look okay it doesn't mean you are yeah so yeah so after uh after cutting all that out and starting to feel so much better i i started looking into diet and researching into it a lot more um and even during that time that i was keto although it helped me recover from a lot of a lot of that stuff um i was still very very much food addicted i think a big part of that was from uh the fact that i went into that bodybuilder atmosphere and i i basically gave myself you know orthorexia and a food addiction from that constantly tracking every single you know macro and micro and calorie and all of that um and it was it was years uh struggling with the food addiction i would um again still doing the bodybuilding i would have my weekly or bi-weekly cheat meals where i would let myself just go crazy on donuts and candy and ice cream and whatever i wanted um and of course i would always feel miserable afterwards after doing keto that that was kind of like my saving grace there because it made me feel so good that once i binged on those other things after enough times doing that i started to kind of really wonder why the hell i was doing it to begin with because i felt so terrible when i did it every time um so that's what finally led me down the road of well what happens if i just stop doing that and what if i what if i just start trying to get the things only the things that are actually nourishing me and nourishing me the most and that's when i start i stumbled across people like dr sean baker and ambro hearn and uh like doctors opiate clemens and karen zinn a lot a lot of those sorts of people i don't think karen sins too much on the carnivore side but um that was where i started i started watching some of their symposia and their presentations and uh and sean baker was a was a big one for me because i'm like okay well this guy's in his 50s he's got powerlifting world records he's got rowing world records he looks jacked he's like six five and 240 pounds and he still has abs and he posts videos of himself eating five pounds of steak and no bloating at all i'm like okay this is there's something to this so that's when i first started experimenting with a full full carnivore um and i was also doing one meal and one meal a day at the time just because i was trying to support a business and really really struggling financially so i couldn't actually afford to eat more than that in fact i even i even ended up doing uh three meals a week for a little while where i would have one meal on monday or no it was one meal on tuesday thursday saturday and sunday so it's four meals a week and i wouldn't anything else yeah uh yeah that was about all i i all i could afford for a uh a good few months there um i was trying to help help the gym get off the ground and that yeah that was a tough time but yeah but it it got me through you know i uh the only things i was able to afford at that time were ground beef and eggs uh you know i got a pack of 60 eggs for five bucks and uh two of ten pounds of ground beef for twenty bucks uh bad yeah yeah yeah so 25 25 bucks a week fed me uh took me pretty well um that's why i was able to handle it despite working like 19-hour days six seven days a week um that that experience kind of made me realize a couple of things number one okay there's something really powerful this diet because if i was not doing this i would very very likely be either insane or dead right now um yeah and and i was still during this entire time i was still able not only to work out um but to do incredibly intensive workouts and uh and that's when i first started competing in powerlifting and uh my uh well technically my my very first competition would have set a bunch of state records but i didn't realize that it was a it was not a drug-tested competition until afterwards um and then after that my my next competition was like a few months after that and i broke all the state records in the drug tested category um and then i've done that three other times since then each time i've competed and the the biggest change for me though was really in in the last about in the last year um when i finally made the commitment to say okay i'm just swearing off all all plants all sweets um because i even even starting carnivore i i still had that sweet tooth i would still struggle with i mean i knew i couldn't do any of the you know processed crap but i would sometimes get some bunk fruit sweetener and make my own little fat bombs or whatever it was um and pretend that they were healthy um but it was it was keeping my addiction going and so this last year or so um was my the first time that i have ever in my life had true fruit free true food freedom excuse me um and so now i'm every day is uh i i go to the butcher i i just started loving beef bacon uh beef belly it's nice delicious so i i mean i season everything exclusively with salt now i have about two ounces of liver a day um i have 10 12 ounces of bone broth every day uh usually one maybe two meals each day just because that's all i really feel that i need yeah i don't get hungry outside of that and uh the biggest thing though is conquering that food addiction which was lifelong and of course resolving a seizure disorder that supposedly couldn't be cured um and and then also all of my mental health issues that i struggled with from being insecure uh having tremendous anxiety and depression um partly from the drugs that i was on from the seizures partly from just life stressors um working 19 hours you know all those sorts of things uh but it's it's truly incredible and i i really cannot understate or i guess i can't overstate the uh the value of of what eating just meat salt and water has done for me yeah well i mean and that's and that's uh a fantastic shortage that come through and i think that that's um really important to bring up the seizure seizure issue because that that's something that you know like you say you know you met this doctor and said why haven't they not tried you on a ketogenic diet that should be the first thing they do and i agree why would you why would you just jump straight into uh medication some people say well you know it's really difficult to control what someone eats but if i give them this pill that's easier to manage um seems kind of lazy to me you know and it's just like you know if if you find that you're having that difficulty with a patient then you know sure you know go to plan b but um you could you can at least try that and and i think the problem is because we've focused so much on the pharmac uh pharmacogenetics sort of uh treatments of these sorts of um issues we've actually forgotten that we've been using a ketogenic diet for nearly 100 years to treat epilepsy and intractable epilepsy there are certain kinds of epilepsy that don't seem to be as responsive uh to ketogenic diet however you know those are the ones you can target with medication and and or surgery you know because uh you know i don't i don't know if you had it do you have a diagnosis on what type of epilepsy that you had they never actually gave you the the official diagnosis was an undiagnosed seizure disorder yeah so yeah yeah um you know from from the literature you know it does seem to suggest if you if you have sort of you know focal area of like temporal lobe epilepsy that this isn't uh as uh [Music] you know benefit ketogenic diet wouldn't be as successful with that i haven't seen it one way or the other uh with patients you know but um i haven't i haven't specifically uh you know because i i don't treat seizures specifically that would be neurology side of thing you know by the time we get to them where they come to us you know we're doing uh you know they've tried sort of everything and thrown the kitchen sink at it they hopefully have tried diet and if um if there's a focus then you know we would be looking to resect that focus from from generally the temporal lobe and so that's when by the time i see them uh they're already at that that stage of like this is sort of their last port of call but um it's it is something that i think a lot of people have for just forgotten or maybe not even learned in the first place but it's absolutely in the literature johns hopkins still uses it today uh from when i i've read a paper from them a departmental paper uh that they put out a couple years ago talking about hey this has been going on for a long time and yeah we still do it and here's a you know case study with 60 people on it and it showed very good results you know and um you know uh i think uh was that what was that um documentary uh um yeah stat a documentary uh no absolutely fantastic yeah and obviously he did you know one and two and then he's done beyond impossible which is also fantastic and and in those he uh one of one of the stories he talks about as a hollywood producer i forget the guy's name but his son had really bad epilepsy he was on tons of medication had gone through surgery surgeries didn't go so well had complications thereof and then all of a sudden someone mentioned keto and it's just gone no oh yeah i think it was uh it's jj abrams i'm pretty sure oh yeah okay that sounds that sounds right yeah and uh you know and that's the thing it's just like these are these are obviously this guy is not shy on cash he's going to be going to some of the best people in the world uh you know especially in you know the la area you're going to have fantastic institutions and fantastic doctors and yet you know we've just been so focused on treating these things with drugs that you know just don't even think about these things anymore maybe it's just like oh yeah that's sort of an antiquated way of doing this but the real treatment is the medication where really if this is if this is helping if the dietary changes are helping you're actually addressing the underlying condition as opposed to just you know putting a seal over it you're actually you know fixing the problem and um so you haven't had have you been just completely seizure-free since going keto or did you have some issues and years ago or almost almost 10 years i think it was 2013 that i first experienced so so nine years not a single not even one instance of a seizure that's awesome yeah i was yeah i um some people that i've spoken to who who you know had had very bad epilepsy um they found even even uh some plan that like even coffee would be a trigger for them like they had to be pure carnivore before they they were able to get rid of seizures and uh even just yet drinking a cup of coffee bam had a seizure and um yeah or even taking like caffeine you know and so as they they described it for themselves they were like caffeine is a neurotoxin you know like this stuff you know kicks off seizures uh and hitting him anyway and so uh yeah that's that's incredible what you're talking about you know depression and anxiety um this is something that you know we do hear a lot um and there and obviously there are different different mechanistic reasons for that um quite a lot of people get get benefit just going keto and get it upping their meat and upping their fat and cholesterol and with our studies showing that increased cholesterol uh increasing your ldl cholesterol is actually protective against depression and suicidality but i've certainly noticed in a certain subset of patients including myself that even just greens and even even if you're on a ketogenic diet that's great but even like greens and and different vegetables and plants that don't contain carbohydrates and you're still getting a lot of fat and and cholesterol that this can actually be a trigger jordan peterson is a famous example of that you know it wasn't until he dropped uh salads that uh that he got got rid of his very you know sound crippling depression and anxiety um did you have a similar experience to that i i was fortunate i think in in that um just just being keto resolved so so many things for me that um i i wasn't or at least i didn't notice sensitivities for a long time um and and i was kind of going through the process of healing while i was doing keto but yeah absolutely i will say that once i finally got rid of all of the plant products completely um there's a marked difference it's something that i know you you know brett lloyd um and he talks about effortless daily happiness and uh that was something that was kind of foreign to me i've had little i i had had like little bursts of oh i feel really good right now and i i had kind of had that throughout my course of keto but there was never a sustained feeling of elation i guess until it was probably it hit me like about i want to say 21 to 30 days into just strictly meat salt water um that was when i had that light switch just kind of flip in the brain where i was like oh that's what he's talking about with that for this daily happiness i feel amazing all the time yeah so yeah that was that was kind of the end to all of the um anxiety depression issues that i'd had uh they were slowly they had been slowly on their way out and i mean you know my wife was was huge and instrumental in in helping that as well of course um but uh but they they they were still there and able to be triggered i think if a certain incident happened or if something that was particularly aggravating occurred i i could see them like resurging but now uh even with all the crazy stuff going on on right now that could very easily have triggered those things in me in the past i'm i'm easily able to just brush it off and say i know i'm doing the right thing i just keep doing what i'm doing yeah yeah that's awesome yeah and i i definitely feel a lot better too um you know i i um i was a pretty angry young man you know growing up and i don't know i can't i can't blame all of that on uh on plants because even you know because i was i was carnivore for a number of years playing rugby and like just because of i had there's a lot of things going on in my childhood and upbringing that that we're not happy um uh i was i was able to focus that on on the rugby field and that's why i i think i had a lot of motivation and drive to to work as hard as i did um and to play as hard as i did because obviously very very physical uh you know it's a collision sport it's not a contact sport you know you're trying to you're trying to kill people yeah i certainly was yeah i was yeah like um he was watching like the old old nfl films things like with the nfl crunch course one of my all-time favorite uh films we should watch it like before uh games all the time just to get pumped up and uh that deacon jones was like a hall of fame uh defensive end and you know he he would say you know it's just like you know he would you know try to you know just take people's heads off he's just like he's like you know you get this body you know 275 pound body you get it up to 4.5 speed you know you get a good angle on them they should go to the hospital and that's what i tried to do every time because i put him in the hospital and you know you come around me i'm gonna tear your damn head off and uh it was just i would just get so charged and and then he was talking about you know dick butkus and he was saying just like now that man tried to put you in the cemetery not the hospital it just went off on it and that was that was just what i did i just i really tried to go after it and um you know and just the uh a lot of that a lot of sort of you know pent up anger you know went out onto the field and i remember one of my teammates just looked at me and said you know there's a lot of people that play with with anger but you just play with pure hatred don't you and i was like yeah i was like yeah that's pretty accurate you know um but at the same time when i was off the field i was i was same as i am now just very chilled out like things did not bother me you know i if someone something would have to be very serious for it to to upset me and um you know i just i just wouldn't get get bothered by these things and um and so that was that was you know just thinking back on it probably very helpful for me to get through some some of the harder times in my life um that were very very difficult and and you know god knows how how that would have affected me when i was you know more emotionally labile uh when eating plants and i certainly noticed notice that now i mean things slip in it affects me it affects my mood and obviously i'm more sensitive to it now because i've just been away from it for longer and i can see the contrast but yeah i've definitely noticed a big difference um i was also going to say so obviously you have you have some some big records in powerlifting um this is something that that comes up and i i tell i tell people my own personal experience with athletics and and carnivorism um but i find that i have to keep sort of you know sort of reiterating that you don't need carbohydrates to to be a high performance athlete and um it sounds like you're you're sort of in that that same camp what has been your experience have you have you you know felt that you you would do better with carbs or how do you how do you feel on that so yes this the power lifting is is a really interesting thing because um i love i i love powerlifting because of the atmosphere every every single person there is super supportive everyone's there just to beat their own records they don't care about anybody else they just want to do better than their own best um and so it's it's always a great atmosphere in that sense it's also hilarious to me that um the competitions usually last somewhere between eight and 12 hours they're they're very long i mean all you're doing is squat bench and dead lift uh and you only get three attempts for each but there's so many you know there's 60 70 competitors with a lot of these and they have to switch out the weights and cycle through so it takes a long time um and so i get to see what they're all eating and it's all gummy bears and sour worms and donuts and starbursts and just all kinds of crap and because they all think that i've got a cardboard my lip you know my lips and so my i i was just very pleased that my first competition was right after that period where i had about eight weeks of doing the uh only eating four meals a week um and my first competition i was actually 42 hours fasted when it started um and i told one of the other competitors who was actually in my weight class uh that i was doing that he's like oh man you better you better get some food and you're going to bunk out yeah yeah and that's when i hit my my highest ever squat at the time and then um and then i also broke my highest ever deadlift that same day on my fourth attempt because i my third attempt was a state record so i got to try for a fourth and i oh wow i broke it again oh oh damn nice yeah of course uh like i said i i had misinterpreted the amount of records because it was it was supposed to be a drug tested me um but i guess it was not and so it was my second meet that i actually fully broke all the records but uh nonetheless i i just thought it was hilarious that this guy was expecting me to just collapse on the on the platform and yeah when i i beat all my records um and and i've done that every time i've competed um most most of the competitions i was somewhere between 16 and 20 hours fasted that's actually when i feel best for lifting my heaviest i don't i even even eating carnivore i don't actually like to have a a large meal before before lifting super heavy i feel much cleaner when i'm at least 12 or 16 hours fasted so yeah so i've done that for each competition and i consistently outperformed myself each time um and yeah i have no need i don't feel like i need carbs there was one point at which i was debating like oh i wonder if maybe i just had a little bit of like fruit or something during one of the meats maybe that could give me a little boost at the end but um no i uh i really don't feel like i need it at most if i if i really felt like i needed an extra boost um i brought a bone broth with me and i sipped on that with a little apple cider vinegar and that'll uh that and then salt of course i'll always use some salt before lifting heavy okay um and that's that's a big big booster for me but yeah people were looking at me like i was crazy yet did that did that guy who uh commented and said you were gonna pass out did he come up to you after did he did he recognize that uh you actually outperformed uh you know probably him and a lot of others obviously set a state record so that's uh you outperformed everyone in that regard uh everyone for the day i mean it's you know it's it's a nevada state record so it's not like uh nevada's not quite as competitive i would say it um as as some other like california's got a much bigger powerlifting scene um so i probably couldn't compete with some of those numbers to be fair but uh but yes i did outperform and uh he he very quickly kind of clammed up because this is i was just trying to kind of meet people a little bit there and uh and and actually market for the gym that i was that i was helping to to run um but yeah he kind of clammed up and kept his distance after after he saw me i had a squat performance yeah well yeah if he was smart he'd come up and talk to you and say okay what's your trick what's going on you know maybe there's something to this and um you know i guess that's that's the thing people want to be uh you know they don't necessarily want to have the right answer they just want to think that they're right for some reason i i don't you can get both you know it's like it's uh you know if you're actually right you can also you also get to think you're right yeah which is fun um and the scary the scary thing to me was that um it surprised me that that none of uh none of these guys saw their future so that's all of the judges and uh and a lot of like the meat directors and everything a lot of them are former you know world record 800 900 pound lifters who were gods in their day every single one of them is morbidly obese now you know i i mean all all complete respect for the guys the and and and girls do that and they're they're incredibly impressive but you know some of them couldn't stand up the entire day because they have trouble literally standing yeah is it how much weight they've gained because they they never stopped eating like power lifters even when they stopped powerlifting you know it was just crazy the gummy bears and donuts yeah yeah exactly you know i um you know to your point of playing fasting i always found that i performed better on an empty stomach always i would never eat the day of a game or a match you know even when i was i was wrestling um maybe i'd eat breakfast i'd always feel like [ __ ] if i did and so i would i would always you know even if it's like you know you're 16 hours and you're wrestling six matches throughout the day like i would just i wouldn't eat the entire day and there's a lot of all these other people just eating and eating eating and i just found that that i just felt way better when i didn't do that and certainly with rugby i just never i you know i often wouldn't eat the the night before i often uh didn't like eating dinner like maybe i'd have something during the day but i often i was getting sort of late at night i'm like oh i don't know if i i don't know if i want to eat this close to a match and i would uh yeah so i would be you know sort of yeah 16 24 hours fasted most games that i played and i wouldn't yeah i would never take in sugar or anything like that and i would always feel much much better for it and the times that i broke away from that i've always regretted it every single time i've regretted it um i was talking to um uh to dr john uh uh jaquish who did the x3 bar i don't know if you've seen that but like the rubber band yeah things and uh and he was saying that there were studies showing that to replenish your your liver's glycogen you you really only need 20 grams of carbs and like and and or your muscle glycogen like you'll replenish your your muscle collection i should say uh with just 20 grams you know so these people just just just taking in just tons and tons and tons of carbs and sugar it's it's just complete overkill you don't need that and so and i'm sure that's in the in the context of a mixed diet already you know because like if you're you know you're just going to deplete your glycogen more easily on a standard when you're just eating carbohydrates period you know because you you when you're on a carnivore diet or even a ketogenic diet just metabolically your body is constantly replenishing your glycogen like you'll use your muscle and liver glycogen and then you'll you'll fill it back up right away given given a bit of rest and um i don't know when you sort of get into your your lifting program but like for me i've noticed uh on carnivore i just don't wear out you know i mean i can i can force myself to if i like just don't give myself rest i sort of started doing like the the serge nubery sort of a approach you know where he just does like just 30 seconds rest in between sets and he's just doing like 12 sets of 12 he's just just trying to kill himself and then just like a you know 60 second rest uh on when he's doing legs um and i can you know i can i can you know obviously i'm going to have sort of diminishing uh you know reps and after that but i find that if i if i do give myself adequate rest in between sets you know like you know a couple minutes or something like that to where you know i feel ready to go again i can just keep going like i can just i can just do as many sets as i want the the one time i really put that to the test was was probably two weeks into being on carnivore this last time like sort of five years ago and it was you know i just wasn't getting sore and i was just like well why why is that am i just you know just working out like a little [ __ ] or something i'm just not pushing myself or like what because you know i just been you know in you know in the refugee camps in bangladesh you know doing humanitarian work for a few months i had not seen a gym in months and so you know and i did a heavy leg day i did a very heavy leg day that i would have done you know during my professional uh career where it was like you know like 12 sets of very heavy legs doing different things and i just wasn't sore you know and i was just like well well i didn't really wear myself out i wasn't like really you know jello legged at the end of it so you know maybe i just didn't didn't push myself hard enough and so i did the same circuit the next time around in a few days and i did those sets of those 12 sets and then i just said okay i'm just going to keep doing squats until i just wear myself out and i just started doing squats i gave myself a rest i i rested for a few minutes and you know i made you know when i was ready to go again i went and i was just listening to uh thomas sowell book um i think i think was wealth poverty and politics great book highly recommend it and um and i and i just didn't i just did set after set after set after set after set i i did another 20 sets of squats oh my god yeah and like and and i just came to the realization like i could i can literally keep doing this the whole whole night like my legs are fine as long as i give myself a few minutes rest you know i'm sure if i just i'm not resting yeah yeah yeah i mean you'll run out um but i could then rest and just do it all over again um you know so and i was you know on the first set i did 15 reps on the last set i did 13 reps you know and so it was like it really wasn't much of a of a of a decline and but i just sort of looked at it i was just like well you know i'll just call it here because you know i've been here for four hours and i've got [ __ ] to do you know and so i sort of kept it there but you know i you know since then you know i was i was um you know just sort of lifting and playing rugby and uh i i just i cap myself at 20 20 sets and then so i was just doing 20 sets of bench 20 sets of shoulders 20 sets of of um you know dips 20 sets of squats 20 sets of dead lift and that just is this is what i did so and i just you know just just beast it out but you know i had three four hours a day to work out at that point because i was i wasn't um you know constantly i wasn't doing 130 hour weeks at the hospital um what about you how do you notice your your workouts being affected what's your what's your routine at the moment so that that was another i i i also played around with how much how much can i handle because it was incredible what a difference it was i i remember even um before before my my first powerlifting competition i wasn't you know i was still kind of on and off experimenting with carnivore but not really um and i would i think i was still having a cheat meal every so often then um of actual regular sugar sometimes um usually i would try to make the cheat meal more like a keto cheat meal but even then it would still devolve sometimes but i remember when i was doing that um if i did a max squat bench and dead lift all in one day i was toast for multiple days like i would have to kind of slowly recover and try to recap all of that um and just recently i i started just because i i had so much energy i just started adding on to it so like i've had days now where i maxed my squat bench and deadlift in like 20 minutes and they were new maxes that i'd never hit before brand new um and then i kept going and i was like okay what else can i max and so i did some barbell hack swat maxes that matched my deadlift i did sue mo deadlifts i did trap bar deadlift max i did uh overhead press max barbell romacks and then i still wasn't satisfied so i i even did some uh just to just to try it uh some bicep curl barbell max and uh skull crusher barbell max and then i even um i have a client who's uh she's already broke in all of her own world records and powerlifting and so she got bored with it and so now she wants to learn the olympic lifts and break records there too so i've been learning the olympic lifts with her and so after the biceps and triceps i was like okay well let's see let's see about my olympic lift max and uh and then i broke my snatch and my clean and jerk maxes all and so that was like 10 different maxes in one day um yeah and i i was by the the most amazing part was by the end of it i still felt like i could have kept going like i could have just found more exercises to max on and and the funniest thing to me was that i i posted this uh i had posted it on like tik tok or something and somebody commented like well those aren't your true maxes i mean i've never done them before like maybe maybe if i did them separately i could have done five more pounds on each of them who knows but like gotta admit ten different maxes in a span of 90 minutes that's not something that that somebody who's not on carnivore could do i think no i don't i don't think so yeah and uh and that's just the thing like it's it's really next level stuff here like it's not it's not small difference it is a massive massive massive difference and then after that you know let me ask you were you sore the next day or two days after no no no i i woke up the very next day and lifted again totally fine you should have been crippled you know you know most people would be crippled and you know and certainly you know that that 12 uh set circuit that i did on legs the i learned that circuit from uh some some of the linemen at the university of washington that i was lifting with um you know years and years ago and uh and i i lifted with these guys they were big dudes they were like twice my size and they had been doing this this circuit for a long time was a very very heavy uh intensive circuit and i hadn't really been working out that much of that time but i was actually in shape i'd been running a lot and then doing a lot of sprint work so my legs were strong and and so i was able to keep up with these guys and i just really you know pushed myself and uh i was i was crippled for two damn weeks it was two weeks i was just i could not walk i was absolutely in agony and i lived on the second story thank god i didn't live higher than that unless i was living in college and uh it was absolute agony getting up and down those stairs it would take me you know several minutes to just just eek my way up this flight of stairs and i was just in so much pain all the time it was two damn weeks out walking so slow and deliberately and um and i remember i and then when i came back from from bangladesh i did that same damn workout and so i was really expecting myself to be you know just buggered from that and i you know i wasn't and that's why i was like all right well you know i didn't feel as hot you know just as as wiped out as i normally do so you know that's why that's why i went and took it to next level but like you know that that was the thing i wasn't sore after that either and and a friend of mine called me the night that i did it was 32 sets uh and they're like hey you know we should go you know hike up you know mount sydamar which is a you know mountain in in uh washington state outside of seattle and it's it's like a good you know three plus hour hike just straight up and it's just switchbacks just the whole way up it's just four and a half miles of switchbacks it's miserable it's awful height you know but it's uh it's a good workout and you get a good view at the top and um and uh you know like hey you know we should do that tomorrow and i'm like easy yeah i i may have just done something very stupid and i mean i may not be walking for the next couple weeks let's just see how i feel in the morning next morning i was fine you know i felt like i could do it again i was walking up the stairs i didn't feel like i'd done anything i started taking the steps two at a time and you know i sort of feel my hand like yeah okay yeah there's you know something happened there you know i can you know they're they're they're not sure but there was there was a difference you know was like oh okay yeah some work had been done i was like great let's go hiking hiked up this big ass mountain you know came down you know it was like this you know long several hour hike up and down and i was like i feel great it's time to go back to rugby you know and i yeah and i went that that night to the um you know my team which is the seattle saracens as now uh uh part of the the major league rugby uh with the seattle sea wolves it's all sort of uh same same organization and so i went went to train with with the the sea wolves and the saracens that night and i was just you know i hadn't trained in months and months and months and i hadn't really played the season before so it's not like i was in shape before i went to bangladesh and i was i was you know i was i did not look in shape because i was not but i was at a dead sprint the whole time and i was able to i was able to keep up with these guys who had been training training for months and i felt great and the next day i still wasn't sore the day after that i still wasn't sore i could tell my hamstrings were something like like yeah you know you know there's some some healing to do done a lot of work but you could do it again but eventually you're going to tear something that was that was sort of the impression that i got and um two days after that i i would i met a friend at starbucks and were just sort of catching up since i got back in town and um i was just like all right well let's see let's see what coffee does to me you know let's see if i can have coffee had one cup of black coffee and within 20 minutes my hamstrings were sore my back was stiff and i'm going oh i could actually feel it stiffening up in real time and i was just going what's happening what's going on is that am i just imagining that and it's just getting a little worse and a little worse and eventually i'm just like stiff and sore and and that stayed with me for two days after that and so you know that's why when people say it's like oh what about coffee i'm like i don't touch it you know that's not that's not anything i want you know and um you know but but that's the thing people don't get this i mean this is this is just an insane uh hack you know and like but it should just be normal life you know but people think that just being sore and miserable and taking you know several days to recover or longer is normal it's not normal um i you can push yourself there are there are limits but man are they so much further than than people would believe like i i just stopped i just stopped having rest days so i just started i started doing like the 20 sets of everything just back to back to back to back to back to back to back after a couple weeks of that i went down to do the bench and i've been doing 20 sets of bench like every goddamn day and that's that doubt and i go on all of a sudden i'm like oh oh that hurts oh what the hell is going on there i just you know i just had it was developing like you know tendonitis you know and uh in my pec and it was just like oh that's gonna stop and so you know eventually you can just you can just injure yourself but i was never sore like you would get after working out and so i had to sort of you know take it take it a bit easier from there i'm like okay all right so i'll do sort of like my three-day circuit have a day of rest and then do the three-day circuit after that but whereas before i was just going straight through i was not taking any days of rest um i was basically doing like the same workout every other day sometimes every day and and to a high level and it's just eventually that was that caught up to me but um yeah you know so uh there is a limit but like normal human beings and even professional athletes would be very hard-pressed to get there you know if you've got four hours a day just to lift like an idiot and um you know just and do it like an idiot where you're just you're not giving your body any chance to recover eventually you'll you'll hit a limit and and that's basically it you know that i found you know uh you know barring you know doing something inappropriate and like you know injuring yourself you know which actually actually just wearing out the muscle it's very difficult um yeah so have other people in your gym started taking this up obviously they can see that you're you're you're cracking your personal best you know ten times a day and um you know and then and then back in the gym the next day you know they must be taking notice of that yeah it's actually really cool i uh so i mean i i train a i train my clients out of out of the gym that i go to i'm a i pay rent to the gym um and i kind of work there as a contractor [Music] and i i i can't i can't necessarily say that it was uh directly from my influence but the owner himself ended up uh trying out an animal-based diet back in october of of this last year and and he's uh he's gone wild with it now he's he's eaten liver and he's doing all this kind of stuff because he just it made him feel so amazing um and i i hope that that i played a part in that i mean he didn't specifically mention that he just told me that uh that he was he's he's heard all of this hubbub about about this animal-based thing so i'm gonna try it out for a month and we'll see what happens but yeah he's a he's a big believer now and i i got a couple of people coming up to me uh one was really cool is a guy who i would always see in the gym every single day uh great guy i totally thought he was in his like i don't know 40 late late 30s early 40s maybe i mid 50s apparently and um and he he was telling me that oh yeah man i i love seeing your stuff like i've been carnivore for 20 years now like it's it's the life it's the way to go um and he's he's always been the guy who he was always in the gym first thing in the morning he was the most friendly guy he always said hey hi and always knew every single person in the gym had so much energy um and so yeah that was that was really cool to just see that and i was like oh of all the people that were gonna turn out to be carnivores the guy with the most energy in the gym yeah which is really cool um yeah and so i think a lot of people are are starting to to take notice um especially people that i've done powerlifting competitions with who were starting like one one guy was even asking me like man i i maxed out my squat and i'm done for for a couple of days like how the hell do you handle doing seven nine ten different maxes in a day yeah eat meat drink water yeah don't don't be a little [ __ ] [Laughter] you didn't mention something that i found interesting you said you take salt before you do a heavy lift have you um what's that what's the idea behind that and um and what have you noticed have you done with and without and and what have you noticed so i don't i don't always do it um i i do it when i've had a longer than typical fast and if i really like i know i'm gonna be really trying to push push myself and i want to have that little extra kind of um the reason i started doing it uh was a couple of things number one the sodium is a natural vasodilator so it's supposed to help with oxygen flow water flow blood flow to the muscle um but i had also read a big fan of dr james to nicola antonio in a lot of his work and so i just read his book the salt fix and an immunity fix and that was something that he suggested he said you know best pre-workout that you'll ever do is not the crap that you'll buy on the shelves you just take some redmond real salt down a little palm full of it and drink some water and then you're good to go and i and i i will say that i notice i notice a significant difference especially when i do it after being fasted for a little bit longer um but even even times when i you know i'm only fasted for eight or ten hours um i'll still notice a difference it's just i already have a good deal of salt and electrolytes in my body so i don't think it's as big of a difference um but yeah yeah it's it's definitely uh it's not i mean i used to use all the pre-workouts and all the crazy amounts of caffeine and everything when i was younger and so it's not it's not that same kind of like i'm gonna bounce off the walls and try to kill somebody maybe energy but it's it allows me to to push beyond just that little extra um yeah and i feel so much better i feel so much cleaner it's not like a that like nervous caffeine energy i used to get you know yeah yeah it's a tingly niacin sort of uh yeah i always yeah yeah yeah um yeah that's one thing too you know people ask me about like you know bcaas uh which i actually found like when i was eating just a normal diet and competing that was that was a absolute game changer for me you know i after like um you know obviously i'd be fasted but you know i i would you know play like a whole like sevens tournament or something like that and uh you know you play you know you know seven's rugby it's you know it's very tiring you're just you're just it's it's just attract me you're just you're just dead sprint the whole time and you're you're hopefully nailing someone at the end of that sprint and so you're putting in you're putting in a lot of effort um and i found that you know getting to the into the finals um you know if we you know if we did well generally i played on teams that did do well and so we would we would be playing more games than other other teams and and against better competition getting into the uh finals your everyone's just pretty much just worn out at the end of that you know when i was doing that carnivore obviously i had i had a huge advantage and i was doing that early on um but you know since then i you know i was i was just needing more normal diet but still you know 78 of my my intake was was still meat i was always very i guess they call it hyper carnivore which i think is is a bit of a misleading term but yeah it's uh i think just not eating anything except meat is hyper carnivore but yeah that's whatever people people uh have named it that so uh that's what they're referring to so i was i've sort of been hyper carnivore since birth but um you know i was eating other things uh out of sufferings in some in some instances and and and i found that when i was you know taking some of those bcaas right before like the final it was like i was like fresh as a daisy i was just just back to normal um since going carnivore again i've actually found the opposite i've actually found that it just it really took away from me um i don't know if that's just the certainly the artificial sweeteners can can do things that you don't want i try getting bcaas without artificial sweeteners it tasted like actually drinking vomit and so that's not something i'll be doing again um and then you know so i started taking like maybe the capsules with the bcaa so i don't have to just taste that filth um but i just i just didn't notice it uh giving me uh the same boost in fact uh you know i i found that i actually wasn't working out as well as as i was before you know did you have what were your experience with uh that all that yeah so that that was the really really interesting thing for me is you know especially coming from a bodybuilding background i i did all my research i did all of the supplements i used whey protein and i casein protein and creatine and bcaas and uh essential aminos and i used all of it and a lot of it did help especially the the combo that was huge for me when i was bodybuilding and just doing keto but not con war was um was an amino acid complex the one that i liked was always the optimum nutrition essential amino acids just because they tasted good and and they had a little bit of caffeine in there and mixing that with creatine was a huge boost for me and it really helped my workouts then when i started experimenting with carnivore i noticed taking all those things did absolutely nothing for me like i could take them and um you know in in the same amounts or even in greater amounts than than i was before and i was like why is why did this just stop working and uh and then the more i looked into it i was thinking well i'm pretty much almost exclusively eating beef and so i'm getting crazy amounts of creatine and uh l-carnitine and all of the amino acids and everything that could have given me the energy anyway so adding more on top isn't really going to do anything for me you know and so yeah so now i i it's it's so nice to be free of all of those things because i there were times where it gave me such a boost that i was like okay well i can't even do a workout unless i have my creatine and my caffeine and my aminos and my this and my that and um yeah now i i saved god i was probably spending five six hundred dollars a month on supplements alone you know back then um and it was never i never took steroids or anything like that it was it was always just you know various protein varieties of supplements but um but it racks up a huge bill you know and it's that's that was the biggest thing for me i was like you know if i'm only eating meat especially with the prices of everything going up all the time and inflation like i'm going to get broke real quick but no i found the opposite i i started saving more money than ever because i only eat once or twice a day and um sure i eat two to four pounds of meat in that time but um but when that's literally the only thing you eat you've got you've got no food waste you are full all the time so you can regularly do 48 72-hour fasts just because you're not hungry um and yeah i and then i don't have to waste money on supplements and other crap that sits on a shelf for months and then gets tossed out when it expires you know yeah yeah the food waste thing is huge you know like like produce doesn't you know fresh produce does not stay fresh very long where i've got i've got meat in there that's it's probably been in there for two months you know like actually and uh because i wet age them and then i and then i dry age them you know and um or dry brine them i guess so it's not the same as aging uh but they last you know they last a long time and so you know i just i just buy a big big stock of meat and then and then that's it and obviously you know it's even better to you know try to source a cow or something like that then it's really cheap i was able to get a cow grass-fed its whole life and it was 10 years old which i think is an absolute secret that people should really be aware of the older the cow the better the taste hands down it has so much more just beefy goodness and i think it's probably a lot more nutrients that's where that taste is from because you're you are you know that's what taste is you're you're tasting chemicals and that that positive taste is like these are good things for you and i noticed that i got like i had like a new york strip a prime new york strip from costco great cut of beef and then i had like the new york from this 10 year old cow you know and and i was just like doing taste test so the prime was very well marbled obviously the the grass-fed one very very lean you know because that's you know grass-fed cows are just just lean beasts and um you know because it's the carbs that make them fat and then you know bodybuilders and things like that and anyone else who eats carbs you also get intramuscular fat and so maybe your muscles will look bigger they won't be bigger and they won't be better and so when i'm eating this and and you know the fat's like very dark yellow that's how you know it's actually been eating grass it's whole life and certainly up to the end and i was eating the the prime one from costco and i was just like oh man i just love this diet i love eating meat this is such a good steak god it's so great and then i tried the the older cow and i was like yeah man this is just so good and it just tasted just you know really really good too and then i sort of you know had a couple more bites and a couple more bites and i just sort of naturally lingered on the on the grass-fed one and then i was just like all right well let's try the the the costco one again i had another bite i could not taste it there was there was no flavor there's no beefy flavor it tasted rich because it had more fat that was it i could not taste any beef flavor it was so overpowered by the flavor that was in in the older cow and i was like right well that's that's it for me then and you know maybe that that doesn't appeal to a lot of people it definitely appealed to me i absolutely loved it and i felt super charged like i it was like it was like you know just drinking energon cubes you know if it catches that reference like uh yeah yeah he's just it's just just pure energy just getting this in your body and i just i just felt just jacked and uh and just hyper stimulated and i just wanted to go do things and you know kill more meat and eat it you know and um you know so yeah i found that that was really great and you know because because older cows are not uh that marketable you know because they're you know they're generally breeding cows or dairy cows they're not bred for their meat and so uh because they they get a bit more tough as they get older um people think they're like oh well you know that's not it's not very good so they're just grind the whole thing up into hamburger meat such a waste such a waste uh the hamburger meat was fantastic it smells fresh it's almost like like it doesn't smell like grass or citrusy but it almost smells as if it should it almost smells like this this bright smell like oh what is that it's it's weird it has an amazing smell and and um [Music] it just you know it's if you overcooked it i could see it getting a bit tough you know but when you if you just sort of rare medium rare the muscle meet the fat was perfectly fine the gristle the connective tissue that that was like you know whale bone like that was like i don't know what happened to that but it just turned into just just you know like some sort of rock art statue and uh but at the same time it was really easy just to pick that out because you're not chewing it you're not eating it and you just just take that out and then you're just eating the fat and the meat and so it's actually very easy uh to to just get the parts that you want anyway um but that would that was it and um so you get it i got it for much cheaper i went directly to the rancher and just said hey this is what i want you know if you're if you're if you're calling one of your older cows from the herd like i would like it you know i'd like to you know get it you know sort of butchered normally and so he he did me a deal because he he wouldn't get very good rates for it because he would just it would just be hamburger and so he he sold it to me for less than he would sell you know uh a one or two year old steer um but more than than he would get just for the hammer me so it worked out well for both of us it was like two bucks a pound oh my god yeah for for the best beef i have ever had in my entire life well i'm sold yeah yeah yeah and uh you know getting by the whole cow you know right but you know i was i was happy to do that yeah you get a deep freezer you just do that and we sort of split it up you know a friend of mine got a quarter my brother got a quarter and i got a half and and you know uh uh you know share that with my parents uh when i left they just sort of kept it and um you know so that was perfectly fine and yeah and you can just you just flash freeze that stuff and you've got you've got food for the next year or two you know and it's good it's really good and so you know that's why i think now when these you know craziness with the beef prices and these weird things that these um you know beef manufacturing or meat manufacturing uh uh places have just been had weird accidents and been destroyed there's like 12 of them in the last like you know several weeks i don't know what that's about but it's very strange and then like 120 000 pounds of beef just like just got recalled i don't i don't i don't know how that works you know for for a possible e coli but you know they do these things in batches and then you you test something from a batch and say okay this batch is contaminated bring it all back um i may be wrong but that sounds like a big batch and yeah and uh so you know is that is that just from one batch or was that from several batches and they just they just pulled them all um you know for for some some other reason because they linked it to that or something i don't know but that's a lot of meat and uh you know i i'll co i'll cook it like just give it to me that's fine yeah you know i'm not you know i'm not too worried about that but um yeah so that's yeah that's a great treat you just just get it just get a cow and just put it in the freezer and then you can just sort of wait out this nonsense for the next couple years yeah and sort of do that um you know what your one question uh actually i did have just it's sort of an aside uh you were talking about monk fruit sweetener that's that's something that i heard before what the hell is that is that is that actual like fruit sugar is that some sort of like artificial thing or what is that yeah i guess it's the from the uh what's the plant called it's like the lao lao guan now gone plant it it's some some specific uh plant and i i guess they uh they extract the sugar from it or where you whatever the sweet aspect of it is in the same way that they do like i think with sugar cane i don't know a whole lot about it but it's um it the the reason i was using that was because you know back when i was keto uh was that from the research i had seen there uh even stevia was having you know it wouldn't spike your blood sugar but it could still have like a 20 insulin spike and uh and all of the other sweeteners were a similar thing even erythritol which was the supposedly most innocuous one um could potentially still cause a rise in insulin and supposedly monk fruit was the only one that both didn't affect blood sugar and didn't affect insulin um and it was kind of cleaner you know all-natural whole food source ish so that was that was what drove me to it um but i mean i still i think all of those things are exactly the same the second if you're a sugar addicted person or a sweets addicted person the second something sweet passes your lips you're done pouring yeah yeah so so the monk so it's some sort of artificial whatever plant sweetener but it's not but it's not technically sugar is that right or fructose yeah yeah it's a zero calorie sweetener yeah sort of thing yeah yeah yeah i don't know you're glad i'm awake yeah yeah you know i i you know work with different people and you know just just to try to help them and uh not even as a as like a patient or anything and sometimes you know as patients if people want like formal consultations but um i've noticed several people telling me that that kicking the artificial sweeteners is one of the hardest things that they've had to do and one of the most difficult things that they find um that they that they have to do and then some of them have still haven't done it um and because they're just still struggling and and um uh that's the thing you know with uh you know keto has keto and paleo and all sorts of their great ideas are going right in the in the right direction i totally agree with that but then with anything you start looking for cheats um if you're if you are looking for a cheat you you already know you're not doing it right oh this is a you don't need to cheat you just just just do the thing and and do it well and and you should be fine um and so like a cheat or you want the sweets you want the keto cookies you want all that sort of stuff so you're going to use you know almond flour and you're going to use monk fruit or stevia you know it's this is you're not you're not tricking anyone and you're certainly not tricking your biology and your biochemistry and you're not going to trick millions of years of evolution and um you know so you know just just eat what you're supposed to eat and and you'll find your treats elsewhere you know just have just you know have feeling amazing be your treat and not having you know uh you know poor performance and poor health and and then poor appearance you know i was i was talking to some guys that you know they were you know doing keto stuff and they were basically really just close to carnivore and they had great results and they were you know leaning out and getting muscular and feeling really great but then yo keto cookies come out you know this oh i can do oh this is fine this is fun and and they started you know putting on weight and you know the muscles started sagging and um you know it takes a while before you sort of see that that what you're doing to yourself and there's always there's always the um you know the out that people have like you know when when uh fat was first vilified in the late 70s early 80s and that whole craze i remember when i was a kid there were all these products that came out that were fat free and therefore they were good for you so it's a cheat it's a hack you can have this fat free cake entamons that it was a whole brand that was a fat free coffee cake and desserts and there's candy isles with fat free candy in it and you know i was just a kid but i wasn't dumb you know look at that and uh you know my mom i remember she she saw intimates for the first time she's like oh my god fat free coffee cake she she got two of them these things were just it was just cake with frosting all over it i was looking at it i was like okay that may not have fat in it but there is no way it's good for you you know and and that's the thing so you know the these these keto cheats or call them carnivores or whatever um you know yeah they may not have carbs in them but there is no way they are good for you and um you know so i don't i don't know of any carnivore cheats i don't know if you would try to do that because you know yeah i tried it all yeah yeah yeah yeah when that when i was starting well that's the interesting thing too is that um like you said i i i'm wondering now just hearing me talking about this and talking about the other thing i i'm thinking about my own experience and wondering it might have been harder for me to kick the artificial sweeteners than it was to kick the original sugar to begin with because once i once i was keto like the better i felt i was like well sugar makes me feel like crap i don't i don't want that i'd rather just have a keto snack instead but then when i started experimenting with carnivore it was so hard to not want that that sweet and uh and that keto snack and like i said i even made carnival i made carnivore donuts that were like all was like eggs and and fat and collagen and uh and then i sweetened it with like uh with monk fruit or something like that and um that's funny and you know i thought i was i was hacking you know my my system but the real problem was just that the the only thing that saved me from that was meat salt water and then once i started doing that that's when i started finally realizing oh wait now whenever i have these little sweet things here and there i'm starting to feel just as crappy as i did when i would have the sugar and the the real sugar and uh and and sometimes i i felt even worse i would get like really bad bloating and cramping and farting and just you know making my wife miserable [Laughter] and so at a certain point she stopped allowing me to have someone she's like i don't want to deal with that you know so um but yeah that was how that like it that that was my my final step of realizing that okay when i actually just do need salt and water i don't have any of those issues yeah yeah and i know that that brings up a good point you know people talk about like you know like you know people take a lot of you know protein shakes or uh bodybuilding or whatever that protein for it's it's a gross term but um you know uh having any problems with that nope i i do not like it see it's um i i've been completely useless i last farted yeah yeah yeah no i'm serious like it's it's probably been months like i i mean obviously i still have like regular bowel movements i still have regular everything but um but yeah i don't like i remember being very worried many times that i was going to [ __ ] myself on a deadlift [Laughter] or a squat and getting very close multiple times and so now i don't have to worry about that um that's funny yeah yeah it's it's very nice yeah i um you know the thing i noticed is it says it's really artificial sweeteners especially like the the sugar alcohols like strawberritol xylitol those things are disgusting and they just they just want harm to come to your body and like you know so they go through and it's just like it does something with your gut bacteria that makes these little bastards go into overdrive and the the swamp stench that these things cause errors is just abhorrent and um you know i i remember my roommate in uh medical school he got this um you know he was a um [Music] you know he was he was uh you know into lifting and things like that but hadn't really really formally gone after sports and and lifting and so uh when we were you know we were good friends and so we would go to the gym together so i was getting him into like a really you know rigorous lifting program and so he was getting actually quite jacked and so he started you know getting supplements and um and uh uh then getting um he ended up getting this stuff it was like the ronnie coleman pre-workout stuff and something that was in this thing just destroyed his guts because like within 20 minutes of of taking that stuff it was you just couldn't be near the guy it was just the worst thing ever and it just it was immediate and there were other things that had you know artificial sweeteners and this had no protein so that that's that whole protein myth away uh is just there's just i was looking at is just tons of these sugar alcohols and and um oh my god it was so bad so bad and uh yeah so that's that's what i've noticed as well it's not the protein um you absorb the protein you know your body takes in the protein so that that's not going to cause a problem it's the it's the sugar alcohols that your body has no idea what to do with and so they get to your gut bacteria and they just oh there's just carnage actually yeah yeah i remember with the the the online online reviews of the sugar-free gummy bears yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah those are great i love those oh yeah yeah so someone just sent me one of those another one um recently actually it was a guy had on on the show phil scott was funny they sent me this thing this thing was like you know it was a couple chapters yeah i mean it was it was it was a very involved period of this person's life and it was very well done yeah you know and he peppered in there he was just like you know he was talking about you know the aftermath of this and he was talking about how like you know he's never looked down in more of a shame fear of a broken toilet except for this and he was putting parentheses and i'm someone who uh once clogged george clooney's toilet you know true story like i was i was like where's that story like what the hell is that it was like oh that's a story for another job where dude i don't know where you live like i can't hear this again like this is where you live now like i need to hear that now you put a link or something you know but yeah no it's absolute those are absolutely great yeah because they're just violent they're violent you know and and that's one of the things too when people go carnivore they'll say oh i'm just having horrible diarrhea almost always they're still um drinking coffee and using artificial sweeteners for their coffee and both of those things are going to be bad news when it comes to the bathroom and um and that's just everyone knows that you know like my brother used to call coffee poop juice you know i was like oh which is gross and uh but um you know but that's the thing and and so a lot of people you know find that they have they have loose stools and it's just like well no that that's you know you're you're still you know uh you're still eating some plants and those those things are going to get you and then the few people that are just doing just meat and water who are still having loose stools you just pull back your fat you know you just have you just eat a little less fat and and that should be fine um great well nathan i i know that it's late over there so i i'm conscious of your time i don't i don't want to monopolize your night because i know you're you're up early um is there is is there anything else you'd just like to say to cap it off and give people some inspiration to uh you know sort of you know better their health and and uh in any you know medical or fitness sort of way yeah um the the the main takeaway of anything from anybody listening to minds my story is i i would just hope that that you kind of get two things from it one um try it just just try 30 days 60 days whatever you can handle just just try it once the worst that can happen is is you don't like it or that it's something you can't sustain or whatever and then you go back to eating whatever you were eating but it is absolutely worth it for anyone who's not been bitten by one of those weird ticks that makes you allergic to me it's absolutely worth it for anyone besides those people to to at least try um and and then two um trust trusting the process um because i can't tell you how many times i've had talks with brett um you know i'm a member of the sean baker's site the rivero rivero health um used to be the meat rx and and i go to these meetings a couple times a week and i can't tell you how many times i hear these amazing stories more amazing than mine from people with you know multiple sclerosis and cancer and hashimoto's and all of these things that are supposedly incurable who say who will say like if i had only gone 30 days or 40 days i would still have this disease and after 90 days it disappeared you know so like if you if you trust that process and you feel the healing happening and you keep going with it it's never ending your life just gets better every day it's crazy yeah well said and uh yeah i've certainly noticed that as well you know especially for the autoimmune issues those just go away they just go away you know and so anyway anyone's suffering from autoimmune issues or anyone anyone that anyone knows suffering from autoimmune issues you know really do uh encourage them to to try this because it absolutely just changes everything you know there are a lot of famous stories like kyla peterson uh and and others but you know i've had patients and i've had you know i've had patients of mine and i've had um friends as well as many many many many people uh you know approach me uh online uh you know just through the podcasts who have had crohn's and ulcerative colitis and they get a biopsy they start and it's you know shows that they have it and then go on carnivore and a few and you know three months later they get another biopsy it's gone it's just gone you know and they're off all the medications and uh you know doctors you know in traditional medicine they're not going to tell you this even though there are studies showing that i know i did a a video on autoimmune diseases and i went through a lot of the research that we had on this current research as well as research going back to the 1800s with dr salisbury um you know they don't know these things it's just not taught and yet a fasting mimicking diet or an elemental diet right now has been shown more efficacious for treating crohn's and ulcerative colitis than steroids it gets people out of flare-ups better than steroids keeps them in remission longer and you know you have people that you know had had two groups they had a you know a fasting mimicking diet group you know just ketogenic diet group uh kept people out of um uh from having a flare-up for on average 51 weeks contrasted that with a carbohy control group that had you know was still eating carbohydrates their average uh remission was zero weeks okay this is a big difference you know and so you know this this it just it just makes a massive massive difference and but they won't tell you you know i've i've i've told the story but you know when i was rotating through a general surgery rotation you know we had a patient that i was consulting on that you know the the gastroenterologists at the hospital were saying oh this patient needs you know we've exhausted our or our medical uh you know medical treatment you know we we think that they need surgery so sort of assessing them for that um and there's something like i really don't want surgery i really just don't because with crohn's you you're just chasing your tail you have these areas that just flare up they don't go away you can't get them settled down and so you chop that bit out and then another part happens you chop that bit out and chop that bit out and chop that better get out you you get into trouble very quickly you know and i mean just just the risks of surgery alone compounding um and uh you know the adhesions and scar tissue in your in your abdomen making every single surgery successively harder and and more complicated and and and then you just eventually you've cut out so much bowel that you just you can't absorb food properly you know and you're screwed for the rest of your life and they're like i don't want to go down that path you know i would like to avoid this and i was like look you know there there are studies and there's data to show that you know you can actually really affect this disease through diet and i was like i'm not telling you what to do i'm not telling you have to do this um and i'm not telling you that it'll cure it but this is just here's the research here are the resources and i just i just gave them lists of things to look up and like you check it out yourself and just see what you think and if you want to try it do it you can always get surgery you know that's not off the table you're not you're not banned from the club you know we're still friends you know and so you know if if you try this and it works great if it doesn't and you want surgery we can do surgery you know they i had i had these bastards threatened to to like knock me into the medical board because i was saying like like these are these are published studies you know like this is evidence-based medicine and why don't you know about it like you are like i don't i don't treat this this isn't my specialty this is your specialty why the hell don't you know about it why haven't you been addressing this you know just like the neurologists who who just never figured out that you know a ketogenic diet or or even better a carnivore diet can help with with uh you know you know severe intractable epilepsy why why don't you do that there there are there's a century of evidence published peer-reviewed evidence showing this and so it's um you know it's something that people unfortunately have to take upon themselves because you know the doctors that know about these things are growing but still far too few and so you know it's just a matter of people getting the message out there and telling their friends and telling their family members and sharing videos like this with their friends and family to say hey you know there's something that you can do that's great all right nathan thank you so much for coming on i really appreciate it we sort of we showed you this last last second got in touch and then just and it just uh did it so i really appreciate that that was it was absolutely wonderful hearing your story i think that would be you know something that's very uh inspirational and um and encouraging for people especially people dealing with uh you know serious issues such as such as epilepsy so i really appreciate your time thank you so much and i'm honored to have you have me on so thank you again yeah you're very welcome all right we'll chat to you soon buddy you have a good night yeah [Music]