The truth hurts
Caution: this may hurt a little if you’re overweight. I’m going to give it to you the way it was given to me, right between the eyes. I grew up in a world where accountability and taking responsibility for my own actions are where my life begins. I haven’t stopped preaching this, and have had to pull myself up by my own bootstraps from many life mistakes. I owned every one of them, so I feel ok speaking this way to anyone else. Let me be very very clear. I am not fat shaming. I am being very real. You’re not reading words from a guy who has been at the top of his health game all of his life. I’ve been there. You’re hearing it straight the way you need to hear it. If it hurts, if it makes you cry, if it causes you anxiety, so be it. I have been there myself. I know the pain. I know the tears. I know the shame. I know the feeling of the day before vs today. Remember, you elected to be here reading these words. How you proceed is entirely up to you.
Before we talk about you, here’s something to consider. I literally just told you I was unhealthy. A long time ago I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in many years. When he saw me, he remarked “What have you done? You’re going to be dead before your kids grow up! Get a hold of yourself Greg–your family deserves it. Your family deserves your best.” I found him later and said thanks to Joe for that day. He helped set me on a course to take action, so I decided to take control. I went on a severe calorie-restriction diet. A couple of months later, I ran into another good friend (or so I thought). He remarked “Wow, good for you! I was getting really worried about you.” This was someone I loved as a dear friend and was like an older brother. I said to him “Just how worried about me were you, Phil? Worried enough to step in and grab me by my shirt collar and wake me up when I needed it? Worried enough about me to tell me the truth to keep me from dying? You didn’t. Instead, you watched me take a dangerous route in my life. I know I’m not your responsibility, but why didn’t you intervene?” We mended that fence I tore down because our friendship was worth it. I learned so much from both of those encounters. How do they apply to your own life? Is there someone you love who needs this same tough love? Is it you? Staring at the mirror is where this begins. Might have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first.
It starts today
You’re a work in progress. You cannot hit the gym or lace up and start pounding the streets if you’re obese without hurting yourself. Why are you putting undue force on your joints if they can’t handle it? I see this daily. Women poured into yoga clothing far too small for them. Men walking and running in clothing they took from their kids’ dresser drawers. I’m not saying movement is bad. I’m saying if all you’re doing is moving, but you still eat the same crap, you’re wasting your time.
If you can’t wrap your head around that concept, understand this: A person I knew for several years was in his early 50’s, hiking in the woods near his home in spring 2023. He wasn’t horribly overweight, but he did have some pounds he didn’t want. He still ate foods he shouldn’t eat, but was staving off the obvious signs of a super large belly and a fat face. He hiked out of the woods after calling 911. He died of a heart attack in the back of the ambulance on his way to the hospital.
You begin with a mindset to change what’s on the end of your fork. You WILL lose weight without a single step on the street or inside a gym if you first take control of the food you’re consuming. Weight loss begins at the plate. As you see and feel physical changes, you’ll know when you’re ready to expend some of that newfound energy. But until then, you can’t outrun an Oreo. You can’t swim laps to work off a beer. All you’ll be doing is setting yourself up for a trip to the hospital if you eat like crap and try to work it off. It may not seem like it now, but believe me, this will catch up to you.
For some, it’s a sprint (must have the beach body by summer or have a figure to show off on a cruise). 
There is no silver bullet to getting healthy, there is no overnight success. There is only consistent effort to make proper decisions.
If you’re taking a GLP-1 agonist drug such as a shot once a week or so, and you’re shedding pounds, you need to be informed about this. You’re taking a drug that is now going to be a lifelong requirement. If you stop, the likelihood of gaining back at least, if not twice the amount of weight, is overwhelmingly strong. Did you know that injection was originally reserved for diabetics who were morbidly obese? When people wanted the silver bullet, the high demand actually prevented those who needed it from getting it because the supply was shortened. Thus the price also went up. Now of course, you may think this is all my opinion, but you must understand, it isn’t. Read/hear about this in the following links:
NPR: Wegovy works. But here’s what happens if you can’t afford to keep taking the drug
When do you begin?
Your day one could begin right this second. Please see your life not as a sprint, but as a marathon. Be purposeful, mindful, and diligent in your approach to health. Accept some basic truths and act on them. Yes, there are quick ways to weight loss, but those can often result in gaining all the weight back because you chose something unsustainable. What you’re going to learn in these pages is sustainable, but only if you’re willing to accept what foods you can no longer consume. Carnivore isn’t a weight loss program. It’s a mindful approach to proper nutrition where overall health is the goal and weight loss is the “unintended consequence.” Think of it this way: you play a sport, and the team may get a plastic gold trophy with a win. But you probably didn’t play to put a trophy in a glass case. You played to win the game. This is your life. You’re playing to win. The trophy is a body you want.
Now, Let’s talk about you
You won’t have to go too far from right here to start learning, or rather “unlearning” what you’ve been taught all these years of your own life. Blame your parents for saying things like “eat everything on your plate if you want dessert!” Blame our dads for being quite adamant to not waste food, “because there are starving people in a third-world country who need that!” Blame the media for shoving down our throats the notion that we need to eat from a food pyramid that was created in 1977 by the US Department of Agriculture. Blame your doctors for not healing you, but instead drugging you to treat symptoms so they can keep you in a revolving door of their income stream. Blame the sugar strategically placed in your foods to cause you to crave more. Perhaps you come from an abusive background where you were a victim of someone else’s horrific deeds. This causes severe mental trauma that some people take to their graves. In this case, I will gladly say the comfort food you’ve turned to was an easy choice to make, and so perhaps a large part of your upbringing or current life is absolutely someone else’s fault. They triggered you.
If you’re not a victim of someone’s abuse, then it’s probably time to consider you can only blame yourself. If you’ve found yourself overweight and unhealthy, you must go back in your life to see what changed about your mental state to allow you to destroy yourself with bad foods. At some point, you must have realized you were eating improperly and knew you had to make a change. Cigarette smokers will hear from others how bad it is for them, and they have the knowledge. To push that knowledge aside is foolish. If you haven’t yet realized how bad most foods are for you, perhaps now you are. I’m not calling you weak and I’m not calling you a bad person. But I am also not going to coddle you and say it’s not your fault, because it most certainly is. If you’re pushing a grocery cart through a store, putting in your basket one of the over 4000 items with sugar in them, that is a choice you made. Diet drinks? Well, perhaps the media pushes the notion that diet anything is good for you, and I can’t blame you for falling for that. Heck, I sure did. Media tells you whole grain is healthy, but you’re going to learn why it’s not. Life tells you to eat your vegetables, have salads, but did they warn you of the harm in those? Did they tell you your body wasn’t designed to process fibrous plant food? Did you put dressing on that salad that may be full of harmful ingredients like sugar, seed oils, preservatives, and more?
Get ready, because as you fall into this rabbit hole, you’re going to be amazed at just how much you have been lied to.
Put Down the Wine Glass or Beer Can
Seriously, put it down, for good perhaps. This isn’t a religious or Christianity approach for me. I’m telling you for health reasons. I expand on the alcohol issue elsewhere, but I can tell you right now, this is harming you much more than you realize. I won’t go into the science weeds in these paragraphs, but will in another post. Here I’m going into the mental side of drinking.
To be healthy, especially to live a Carnivore life, you’re going to have to give up the alcohol. “But I’m not giving up my glass of wine, glass of bourbon, glass of beer…”
Ok, then do yourself a favor, click out of this website, forget you ever saw me, and go about your life, because NONE of what you’ll read on any of these pages will do you any good if you’re not willing to start with the very first issue in your life, alcohol consumption. No matter what any of your friends say, no matter what you hear from the devil on your shoulder, alcohol is NOT good for you, in any way. Joke about it all you want, but it is killing you. When I have conversations with others who approach me at campgrounds, I speak to the fact that I gave up alcohol. When someone replies how they could never do that, I smile and pretty much shut down any further discussions about the lifestyle. Instead, I switch gears to talk about camp life, etc.
If you dare combine a high-fat diet with alcohol, this is a recipe for disaster that will put you in a very bad place. I’m going to hit you with some logic. When you were a kid, you had energy for years, probably very much like your pet dog who can run zoomies until they’re pooped out. You could ride your bike around the neighborhood for hours and never get tired. You could walk, run, play on a swing set, play sports, run around a soccer field, and be so active that you’d burn fat while sleeping. I’d be willing to bet all of the energy came to a crashing halt the day you started drinking, which coincidentally (should be) as an adult.
I see a woman in her 30’s, at least 25% overweight, drinking her glass of wine, yet she goes for salads and grilled meats, and I see her walking on the street overstuffed into her yoga pants and shirt, trying to do cardio to “burn off fat and get healthy.” Bullsh*t. It ain’t ever gonna happen. Same for guys. Don’t even begin to tell me how you’re in the gym, you go for runs with a belly hanging over your waist, and you “eat right” (whatever that means in your world), you walk, you’re in the gym, blah blah blah, if tonight you’re sipping a drink or two.
You can’t outrun poor health by lubricating your body with alcohol. Period. I met a guy at a campground, diabetic, who bragged he could drink beer all day and never get fat, and it never affected his glucose. Well, guess what? He’s still diabetic. Sadly, many doctors, including Doctor Internet, will preach moderation. Ok, here’s another way to look at the word moderation: if I hit you softly/moderately over the head with a stick, you’ll have moderate pain. If I jab you moderately with a needle, you’ll have moderate punctures. If I kick you in the butt moderately, you’ll have moderate pain. How about this…how about no pain? How about zero? If you drink just a little/moderately, you’ll be “better off.” Again, how about “you’ll be forever better without alcohol.” Gaaah, it pains me to read pro-alcohol preaching.
I used to be a bourbon drinker (neat). In fact, after my mother passed, my stepfather and I drank various brands, as he used to be quite the connoisseur. But one day I put all that down and took control of myself. So did he. And today, we are so much better for it. The correct answer for how much alcohol is safe for an alcoholic is zero. The same can be said for anyone, alcoholic or not.
What if you are in the gym 3 days a week? What if you do go running, jogging, or walking every day? What if you do think you’re eating smartly? Yet for some reason, as a woman, you still have a wine gut that rivals a man’s beer gut? What if you still feel bloated, your face is fat, you have 2 chins, and feel run down? Men, what if you still have to buy different shirts to hide your gut? If you’re still drinking, then you’re literally fighting a losing battle. Isn’t it upsetting to know that you’re undoing all the good in a gym by having a single drink? Think of the headway you’d be making if you cut out this one element from your life. I’ll bet after watching this video, you may have second thoughts about any alcohol ever going into your body again.
Your body, your choice, right?
As an adult, you’re likely in full control of your own life. I’m not saying you don’t have help from others, and you may even lead a life where daily assistance is necessary. But if you navigated to this page on your own, I’m going to make the presumption you’re able to take care of your own needs.
As children, someone else was mostly in control of our day-to-day. Our parents or caretakers decided what was best for our food needs. Often, busy families fall prey to quick and easy calories from a box. What I’m getting at is someone else could control what into our mouths. If you’re a parent, you have this responsibility for your children. One day, we kids grew up.
Now at this stage of your life, when you’re hungry, you can swing through a drive-through of your choice, especially when the “McRib is back” or the mint chocolate chip milkshake is on tap at your favorite chicken restaurant. You can stack foods into your own grocery cart, and stuff office drawers and lockers with snacks of your choosing. You can pick anything off a restaurant menu you dang well desire! You’re free to eat as you wish when you wish. With this awesome freedom comes even more awesome responsibility. If you aren’t careful to feed yourself properly, you will only have yourself to blame when you junk up your diet.
How are we to know what’s good or bad? The companies who force big industrial foods in front of you surely don’t help. I don’t know the stats, but chances are the next tv ad you see is for food, and of that, I’d say the majority are unhealthy choices. In 2021, Statista reports over $1.79 Billion dollars was spent on grocery advertising. You spend on average 30 minutes in the store aisles, and the food producers and grocers know this. Look, I love Doritos, Oreos, and ice cream as much as the next person. I can eat an entire container of peanuts all by myself. But that’s not a great way to dine, I know this, and so I have to exercise self-control! Guess what? So do you.
Since your parents aren’t around to tell you how to navigate a menu, the choice is all yours! How to make healthy choices begins with re-educating yourself. Let’s begin with a simple concept: if it doesn’t have a mom, or it didn’t come from the ground, don’t touch it. That simple. We have no Pringles trees. We don’t have lakes or rivers of chocolate mousse. Pies don’t fall from the sky, ok? You know darn well if you eat something that is super sweet, it’s probably going to hurt you in some way. You’ve been educated enough to know that alcohol is harmful, but you probably don’t know how it actually physically harms your body. Until you know how foods work for or against you, then you’re going to fall for the big advertising, the super sweetened foods, the highly processed ingredients, and the most harmful grocery items you could imagine.
If you know smoking is bad for you, yet you smoke, then wouldn’t you admit that it’s your choice, and you know it’s an unwise choice to continue? If you know eating a certain food or consuming a certain drink will make you fat, then why are you doing it? Seriously, I’m asking you right now: why are you doing it? This is where your choices start to matter.
As you read more on this website, especially in the FAQ section, I’ll help guide you to healthy food choices. I am animal protein and fat based, and that’s always going to be the first suggestion. Beyond that, you’ll have more resources to learn, and you’ll have to make the decision all by yourself. Just remember: you’ve got this. You can do it.
Heart, mind, and fork
To summarize all of this, I want to help you understand how to link your heart to your mind, so that when you pick up your fork, what’s at the end of it will help sustain your life and make you a better person all the way around.
This process must begin with self-acceptance. Stare at yourself in the mirror long enough to make a decision that an old way of doing things ends right now. You can put all of your knowledge, wisdom, and experience to work because you are strong enough. Walk to the cupboard, dragging your trash can behind you. Dump everything out of that pantry that is hurting you. If you’re unsure, look at it. Does it have a mom? If no, toss it. Did it get pulled out of the ground or from a tree branch? Dump it. Does it have more than 2 ingredients? Probably needs to be trashed. If what’s on the label doesn’t make any sense to you without Googling it, then toss it, because that’s not meant for your body, period, end of discussion.
Now go to the fridge and do the exact same thing. When this is all done, it’s time to go grocery shopping. The list is short, sweet, and to the point. What can you buy? Visit this page and you’ll start to learn what is excellent for you.
Your journey begins today
This isn’t anyone else’s decision but your own. Face yourself in the mirror. Stop turning to the problems of others, and focus on yourself. You’ve heard the phrase “one day.” One day is today, this minute, this second. Do NOT go to the pantry or fridge to “use up” or consume what’s left. You already know it’s not good for you, so why on God’s green earth are you now, with a greater awareness, going to knowingly shove this into your piehole? Don’t do it. Just don’t. If you’re worried about what throwing away $200 worth of groceries is going to do to your bottom line, understand first that you can go several weeks without food (however you need water daily). So you absolutely will not starve. It could be uncomfortable to go without food (I’ve gone 4 days), but you’ll survive. What if the 9oz bag of chips put an extra pound on you tonight? What will it take to burn off that pound? What if the half gallon of $7 Rocky Road ice cream is what put you over the top, and you find yourself in an E.R. being diagnosed with some illness that can point directly back to poor food choices?
I love you, and I don’t even know you. You are God’s creature, created in His likeness. I want to see another fellow human succeed and thrive! It’s my hope that one day we get to meet, and you take the time to show me how all of your sacrifices saved your life! I’m very serious about this. Nothing makes me happier than to see you took knowledge that I helped impart, and made a great life from it.
So now what?
Below this text I will link the FAQ page to let you begin your journey down the rabbit hole. You’ll have many questions that relate to undoing all the misinformation you’ve been told your entire life, and that’s to be expected. I had plenty, and still have questions, but the basics are going to be covered here. What isn’t covered here will likely be elsewhere, and that’s where the doctors and influencers pages come to play. Enjoy the journey!