Just Eat Meat: How the Carnivore Diet helped heal my Crohn’s disease

If you had told me even 1 year ago that today I would leave the house without even thinking about using the toilet, I would have laughed at you.

You see, I have Crohn’s disease. I was diagnosed with this unending digestive disease when I was 6 years old (I’m 32 now).

For those of you who are familiar with Crohn’s, you have my respect.

For those who aren’t, lets get you up to speed real quick. Crohn’s is an autoimmune disease that aims at the digestive system. Instead of the smooth autopilot system that we humans have to digest food, our guts become a warzone. Eating is painful. Digestion is painful. Pooping is painful (especially when you’re pooping 20 times a day). And on top of that, we don’t “look” sick.

I hear the words “irritable bowel syndrome” and laugh.

One problem with a disease like Crohn’s is that there is no cure. The conventional MDs don’t have one. Neither do the alternative practitioners. After a while, you get fed up with doctors and the the convoluted medical system (I’ll tell you that story later), and try to find other options.

One of those options is diet.

When eating makes you sick, you stop eating.

One of the first things you learn with a digestive disease is that some foods are absolutely off-limits.

I love blackberries. They are one of the most delicious foods on this earth. But it doesn’t matter how much I love blackberries, because if I eat some, they will shred my gut.

We know that the food we eat impacts how our bodies feel.

Dietary interventions are one of the most popular alternative treatments because they are effective. There are many, many testimonials out there from people who have turned their lives around by changing what they eat.

I got inspired by those stories.

So starting in 2008, I decided to get serious with my diet. At that point, I was still on high-powered meds, but I could tell that their efficacy was starting to fade.

I hoped that fixing my diet would turn things around.

Some of the diets that I tried are:

• Gluten-free
• Gluten-free/sugar-free
• Paleo
• Specific Carbohydrate Diet
• A personalized diet based on an IgG food sensitivity test
• Low-FODMAP
• Autoimmune Paleo
• Eliminating nightshades
• Keto

Some of these diets were really fun to try. I made my own yogurt on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and lost a bunch of weight while in ketosis.

However, none of these diets helped my body to heal fully. Usually there was a burst of improvement at the beginning, but then the initial “high” would wear off. My health would dwindle back to normal. Or sadly, it would get worse.

Obsessed with the idea that food could heal me, I kept removing foods from my diet. No more honey. No more raw foods. No more fermented foods. Any time I saw food in the toilet, I cut it out.

At one point, I was eating about 5 foods in rotation.

That sounds crazy, right? I was desperate.

I can hear you say, “Diet isn’t enough! There’s a whole load of other factors to autoimmune disease like stress and exercise!”

This is true.

During this time, I tried a few more things.

Supplementing with probiotics

When I was 18, taking probiotics improved my gut health so much that my doctor decided I didn’t need surgery after all. Probiotics help your body digest and make use of fiber. Adding them to a vegetable-filled diet (or simply eating fermented foods) can be a huge health win.

Lifting Weights

I took a weightlifting class in college to make sure I was lifting with proper form. It was a fun way to play with toys and build muscle, and I loved feeling strong. However, weightlifting was too much stress for my body. My menstrual cycle shortened, and I was worried that it was building up too much extra inflammation that would lead to a Crohn’s disease flare-up.

Taking herbal antibiotics

Despite what you might think of “herbal medicine,” herbal antibiotics are a powerful way to treat bacterial overgrowths. Plants like neem, garlic, grapefruit seed extract, and Oregon Grape kill many kinds of microbes. I still use a GSE nasal spray when I get sinus infections, it’s that good.

Trying out intermittent fasting

I took up IF when I tried out the keto diet. My preferred method was a 16/8 fasting window, where I would drink only coffee for breakfast and eat a big lunch and dinner. It was very effective for weight loss, but not for healing my gut. During my keto days I lost my menstrual cycle completely, so I knew it wasn’t a sustainable lifestyle choice.

None of these approaches solved my problems. In fact, some of them even contributed to my downward spiral.

At this point, I had no idea what to do. Nothing was working. My guts were so angry and inflamed that I had to time meals around my commute so that I didn’t get stuck in traffic without a bathroom nearby.

It was bad.

The true secret to healing

What I know now, but didn’t know then, was that I was dealing with a few interconnected health issues:

• Crohn’s disease
• Small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO)
• A leaky gut
• Dyshidrotic eczema

Any one of these things takes time to heal. All of them together is a overwhelming, like trying to design and paint a giant mural all at once.

It took a lot of detective work, but I finally figured out the root cause of my symptoms, and how they all worked together to cause me pain and misery.

This was not a fun time in my life, but I grew stronger each and every day. I decided to get healthy, no matter how much I had to uproot my life and change my habits.

What I learned during the process feels like a secret. It’s the opposite of what you’re led to believe by pharmaceutical ads and diet books. But I will tell you what it is, because I believe that everyone has a right to be healthy.

The truth is, food doesn’t heal you. Medicine doesn’t heal you.

YOU heal you.

Except in rare cases, our bodies are programmed to function perfectly. Our bodies want to function perfectly. Our bodies figure out creative ways to keep functioning even when we abuse them by constantly drinking soda or getting only 4 hours of sleep each night.

When your body gets the things that it needs, and when it stops being subjected to things that it doesn’t need, it will start to heal.

Your body will heal itself. Your job is to give your body the tools and environment that it needs to do the work.

There is no other way.

Eating meat doesn’t heal you, but it sure does help.

Let’s back up to my food journey. In early 2017, I was at my wit’s end. I was an emotional mess and stressed out at work. My diet consisted of maybe 15 foods. My Crohn’s was controlling nearly every aspect of my life.

I figured that SOMEONE out there had the answer, so I dove back into the research.

One avenue that I hadn’t explored was juicing. So I watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, and revisited the Wahl’s Protocol. Both approaches favor eating lots and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, so many that you’d need to make your own juice to consume your daily quota.

I was about to order a juicer when a chance encounter on Twitter pointed me to the carnivore community.

I’m not going to say that discovering the carnivore diet saved my life, but it was pretty close.

That’s not to say that I immediately bought half a cow to put in my freezer. I had a lot of questions. Don’t we need vegetables? Will I get scurvy? Isn’t fiber necessary? Is this diet allowed?

No, no, no, and absolutely. I won’t bore you with the technical details now, but human beings can survive and THRIVE on an all-meat diet.

When you don’t have to digest and metabolize plant food, your nutrient needs change.

• Researchers like Amber O’Hearn look at the science to find out why this diet works.

Many people around the world are discovering this way of eating.

• The Zeroing in On Health facebook group is a good place to meet people and ask questions.

The carnivore diet has helped people heal from arthritis to nerve pain to even things like cystic fibrosis!

• Lots of healthier people send success stories to Meat Heals

As for me, I cannot describe to you the absolute, joyous RELIEF I felt when I realized I never had to eat a vegetable again.

Never would I stand in the grocery story, trying to guess if radicchio had FODMAPS. (If you’re wondering, the answer is yes.) Never again would I have to carefully vet restaurant food and hope that they could cook something that was on my “approved” list. Never again would I writhe in pain after a meal.

I was FREE from my quest for the perfect diet.

But I thought you said there was no cure for Crohn’s disease?

You’re right, my friend. There is no cure. I am not healed. (Yet.)

Two weeks after I started the carnivore diet, my skin tolerated sun better. Four weeks in, I decided to start a major project – sensing that I finally had the energy to see it through (and I did). A few months in, I started to see signs of normal poop.

That’s not to say that everything was perfect. Not even close.

My second week as a carnivore, my colon failed me and I had an accident in the middle of my commute – one of the worst days of my life. Even eight months later, it felt like my guts were broken all over again.

It was then that I discovered that eating cheese and drinking coffee, two “vices” I decided not to give up, contributed to my ongoing battle with SIBO.

When I quit them, I could tell a difference.

I had to give my body a chance to heal.

So far, my carnivore diet plan has been working.

I don’t worry about food, I just eat meat and free-range local eggs. I drink lots of water, and try to get enough sleep.

My guts have calmed down – they’re no longer reactive, jumpy, and nervous.

I meet friends and dates at restaurants without knowing the menu, knowing that I can order my usual – “just steak on a plate, please.”

I don’t worry when I run errands, because I can trust my gut not to have an accident.

Yes, there’s still a ways to go on my healing journey. I have yet to poop a perfect poop. My eczema is still active. The last gasps of SIBO are still being eradicated by my immune system.

But for the first time since I was 6 years old, I have confidence in my body. The trajectory of my health is finally going up. Now, I trust my gut.

As a carnivore, I can live my life.

 

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