Carnivore Ray: 92 Lbs Fat Loss, Mental Health and 460,000 Followers

My very special guest, Carnivore Ray, explains how he has been experimenting with his diet by following the carnivore lifestyle for a year. He shares how he has received various reactions and opinions, but ultimately, he believes that experimenting and being open-minded is important for one's health. He also mentions his bloodwork results and how they have improved. Ray is a 26-year-old man who has been following a carnivorous diet for about a year. He initially started this diet as an experiment due to various health issues and was surprised by the positive results. Recently he decided to add fruits  to his diet to see if he could still maintain his good health. While he experienced some benefits, he also noticed negative side effects like increased joint pain and inflammation. 
He first heard about the carnivore diet through a podcast by Joe Rogan featuring Jordan Peterson. He was intrigued by the benefits mentioned by Peterson, including improved mental health and reduced knee pain. He decided to give the diet a try and within the first few days, he experienced weight loss and improved mental acuity. He continued to follow the diet and ended up losing a total of 92 pounds. Most people who criticize the carnivore diet become more open or change their minds after seeing the positive effects on the person following it. Briefly Coach Stephen explains why the HBA1C metric is flawed as it doesn't consider that red blood cells last longer when following a carnivore, keto or low-carb diet. He believes the best indicators of how you're doing is your fasting glucose, insulin, and C-peptide levels.

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Transcript

Carnivore Ray Transcript

Summary

My very special guest, Carnivore Ray, explains how he has been experimenting with his diet by following the carnivore lifestyle for a year. He shares how he has received various reactions and opinions, but ultimately, he believes that experimenting and being open-minded is important for one's health. He also mentions his bloodwork results and how they have improved. Ray is a 26-year-old man who has been following a carnivorous diet for about a year. He initially started this diet as an experiment due to various health issues and was surprised by the positive results. Recently he decided to add fruits to his diet to see if he could still maintain his good health. While he experienced some benefits, he also noticed negative side effects like increased joint pain and inflammation. 

He first heard about the carnivore diet through a podcast by Joe Rogan featuring Jordan Peterson. He was intrigued by the benefits mentioned by Peterson, including improved mental health and reduced knee pain. He decided to give the diet a try and within the first few days, he experienced weight loss and improved mental acuity. He continued to follow the diet and ended up losing a total of 92 pounds. Most people who criticize the carnivore diet become more open or change their minds after seeing the positive effects on the person following it. Briefly Coach Stephen explains why the HBA1C metric is flawed as it doesn't consider that red blood cells last longer when following a carnivore, keto or low-carb diet. He believes the best indicators of how you're doing is your fasting glucose, insulin, and C-peptide levels.

 Transcription

Speaker 2

[00.00.01]

 Hi there and welcome to another interview. Today I've got the fabulous carnival ride with me and I'm going to ask him the same question. Ask absolutely everybody. Hey, Ray, why did you become Carnival? 

Speaker 1

[00.00.12]

 Stephen, great to meet you. Yeah. Um, I well, I first heard about Carnival watching a podcast of Joe Rogan in Jordan Peterson, and I love both from Joe Rogan I find very entertaining Jordan Peterson, somebody that when I hear him talk, I just admire his brain and light years past mine. And so I usually got to slow it down. And they they're both talking about the benefits they've experienced. You got Jordan talking about how him and his daughter Michaela and a slew of health issues, autoimmune issues and depression and I mean just everything to the nth degree, just very severe feelings of any possible issue that somebody could have. They had at times tent and the depression piece in particular really resonated with me. And so you have them who are bedridden for months at a time with depression. And, you know, I've I've struggled with depression from an adolescent age, never bedridden. But, you know, bad enough that life feels horrible. Right? And so I'm thinking, well. There's no way this is real. But if it is, it's it's pretty dang cool. And then, you know, Joe Rogan's talking about how I think he had some sort of pain in his body, went away. He lost weight pretty quickly. I think he lost some £12 in a month. And I'm £295 at this point, so I definitely have weight that I can afford to lose. And I'm thinking, this sounds nuts. There's no way this is actually healthy. But if somebody like Jordan Peterson's willing to talk about it publicly, I don't I don't think that's a man that would talk about something so controversial so flippantly. And so I figured I'd try it. I didn't think I'd stick to it. My genuine thought is that I would attempt it, and within the first few days I'd cheat. I'd have some ice cream or, you know, whatever, a box of pizza or fill in the blank with whatever kind of food we got here in America. And I'd try it. They won a feel normal. I'm enjoying the food. The food's really good. They do. I feel normal, not good, and I'm bad. Day three I wake up and I get out of bed. And my knee doesn't hurt. And I've had knee pain for over a decade. I had 60% of my meniscus removed. And I'm talking. This is the first time in 12 years that I've climbed on a bed and didn't have a single bit of pain, and there were days that were, you know, better than others with that knee pain, but I didn't have any pain. I did this with my knee, lifted it all the way up. I'm like, no, something's what? What's going on here? And so I noticed that was kind of cool. I'd get to the office and I start working, and I keep working, and I keep working, and I keep working, and I am dialed in. You would have thought that somebody gave me some kind of stimulant that said, hey, this is going to allow you to use your full brain. And what's crazy about that? I'm somebody who has always thought brain fog was not real. I thought that's a word that people made up, that if somebody has a short attention span, they're just going to claim that it's this. And it's kind of just somebody that lacks willpower or motivation. Well, for the last two months prior to feeling this, this day, I just I couldn't focus. I'd grabbed my phone, open Instagram, closed it open TikTok closed, open Facebook, closed it, reopen Instagram, close it, reopen Instagram again. I was just on Instagram. I couldn't do a task at work longer than 60s. And I'm not. I think I got up from my desk, from my office this day once to go use the bathroom and it dawns on me probably six hours and I'm like. Should I go for a walk or something? What's going on here? Mental acuity. Really nice. But the mental health. As somebody who has struggled with depression from a very early age, I just felt good. There were no there were no issues in life. And if there was an issue, I could fix it. And if I couldn't fix it, it wasn't mine to worry about. And so most of the experience, the experience is the benefits that I've had from carnivore. I experience some very early on now, the weight loss. I think I'd lost maybe £5 at this point. I felt skinny, no, no inflammation, no bloating, no nothing. I definitely was not skinny, but I you you couldn't convince me otherwise. I felt very skinny. And day three of carnivore. Well, fast forward to my 30 day point, which, gosh, only a handful of times in life have I stuck with a diet for 30 days without some kind of cheat meal. I'm down £35, which is incredible. Now I'm a big believer that you can lose weight doing just about anything. Okay, I think carnivore, it's very easy to, um. I've lost a lot of weight before doing a whole foods diet. 40% carbs, 40% protein, 20% fat. It was not this quick. It was five, £10 here, £510 there, and a lot of working out. I was working out, doing carnivore. £35 is just so much weight to to lose. So then thinking this is insane, like, I gotta, I gotta tell somebody about it. So it's the downside. The carnivore. You can't not talk about it. And so I made this video and I'm thinking, you know, next to nobody's going to see it. I share it with my personal Instagram and I share it with TikTok, which I'm at this point, I don't post on TikTok. TikTok's just something to watch. Funny your educational content. And the video ended up getting some million views. And I'm thinking this is crazy. You know this. I've never had this happen before. Wow, cool. I've got, you know, 5000 followers. That's wow. And. I keep answering people's questions because a lot of people are intrigued. If this guy lost £35, I'd love to lose £35. How'd you do it? Would you eat? How'd you feel? You know, is there anything I can do or can't do? What can you drink? And I just kept answering those questions and kept answering. And the longer I did it, the more I learned from personal experience and just from people reaching out and sharing their own experience, and then through doing more research and, you know, finding different accounts and, okay, okay, this this is why this happens and that's why that happens. And in total, I ended up losing like £92. And so I went from I went from 295 to I'll be anywhere between 203 to 210 depending on the day, depending on how much I eat, you know, the prior, the prior week. But it's been the first year that I've gone since having mental health issues, and that developed around 11 or 12 years old. And I've taken in a depression successfully before. And when I got to a good place, I got off them and it just came right back. And the knee pain had the surgery of 14. I'm 27 now. It's been the first full calendar year, 365 days, where I didn't have a single bit of knee pain and I didn't have a single bit of depression. And for anybody that's struggled with either of those two things to go an entire year without that, that's nuts. That is it's bonkers. And so it's one of those things that what kept me talking about it is that it's changed my life so much. And I'm very thankful for that. Not just outward, but inward, just who I am and how I view life. It's changed me so much that considering that when I look at other people's testimonies, mine's nothing. People with lifelong ailments and and diseases and issues that they've tried every pill known to man and no doctor's been able to diagnose or whatever. They're spending thousands of dollars a month just to, to fill their prescriptions. And all of a sudden they hop on this crazy doesn't make sense. Controversial diet. And they feel better, or it goes into remission or it's gone. That's it would be a crime against humanity to not talk about it. And so that's a little that's a little backstory behind me, behind my carnivore journey. 

Speaker 2

[00.09.05]

 Fabulous. Yeah. That um, I understand what you're saying because compared to some stories, your story doesn't seem spectacular. Magnificent, you know, life changing. But. But it is to you. And that's the thing. It matters to you. Mental health is a serious issue. Depression is a serious issue. And new pain. See, people might be watching this and oh, that's nothing. If you have it every single day, you don't realize how tiring it is, how it restricts you, and you know you're only 27. Imagine if that's another 30 years in your heavier and you know, it's more inflamed and all that sort of stuff. I mean, I'm 60 and and I have, you know, got over many things once I started low carb even at 50. But since I've been coaching, I've seen people off dialysis. I mean, I now have a kidney sort of protocol where people come to me and they're like, I'm stage five. Can I do anything? I'm like, yeah, you can actually do something. And we do the success story. So I get what you're saying. And you'd be surprised, though, that, you know, you think, well, one of those videos is very popular, but others are just sort of there, whereas somebody losing £90 and someone very real like yourself with a couple of things. And maybe people find that more believable and that gets, you know, that gets more views. Because what you just said, you cannot not talk about it. It's really hard to not do that. Um, because it is so miraculous. But the majority of people don't believe it. So when it's really too good to be true, they literally don't watch sometimes because they think that they don't even give it the light of day. They don't give it 30 days or whatever. What about your friends and family? Were they really skeptical? Were they against what you were doing or were they supportive? 

Speaker 1

[00.10.47]

 I live in Nashville, Tennessee, which it's known as the Music Capital of the world. Despite being known as the number one job provider there is health care. So I have a lot of friends that work in health care, and carnivore is very counter intuitive and contradictory to health care and what they're taught in school. And so, yes, I heard it from every single angle that what you're doing is bad. This isn't healthy. Just have a have some fruits and veggies. What can you do. You know. And oh that went on for for months. And then I'm down £70 and it looks pretty good right. Feels pretty good. Maybe there is something to this. Almost every single person. Actually, I ended up getting blood work done in that, that that changed the last person's mind. But almost every single person had either flipped their stance on it or was just more open to it. Whether they whether they came to the conclusion that, hey, this is great long term or at the very minimum. This can be a very useful tool in the short term, and ended up getting bloodwork done. And one of my buddy's wives. She's a very caring person, and she was convinced that I would drop dead if I didn't have some kind of fiber and antioxidants. Fill in the blank and would just never hear. It got to a point where it's like, it's not even fun being around you anymore, because this is all you want to talk about. I don't care, but this is, you know, it's the only thing that you want to talk about. And at my one year mark, I did having bloodwork done, and I shared it with social media, and she was thrilled with it. And so it's it's been funny to see the this is really bad to maybe it's not so bad to hey how do I how do I if I, if I wanted to do this, how would I do it. Um it it cracks me up. It gives me a tickle. Yeah. And I like what you said about your friend His wife was a caring person. Because this is what I try to get across to people. When people are down on the kind of diet, more often than not, is coming from a good place that is misinformed rather than from just out and out anger or being malicious because your friends want you to look great, don't they? They want you to be healthy. And if they truly believe that fiber is essential and you're not having any, they're going to worry about you and they're going to do everything. So, uh, you don't know me that well. I'm. I spent over a decade with a private blood testing lab doing labs for people, so I'm really interested. What was he looking for in the bloods that would prove her right? And what actually happened that proved it 

Speaker 2

[00.13.43]

 proved you right, you right, and that could stop or worrying. What was it? 

Speaker 1

[00.13.47]

 Yeah. I did a number of tests from glucose to a full comprehensive panel, um, testosterone and did cholesterol. I did all of it and everything. My cholesterol and then my, my creatinine was just a little bit high, but everything was in completely normal range and, or exceedingly. And, you know things that you want low just at just about as low as they could be. And so you compare that with just about most humans, at least in the United States. That's fantastic. Bloodwork the cholesterol. I know why I'm thrilled with it. You know my HDL. I think it's 8083. My LDL, I think it was one 173. And then triglycerides were like a 5053. Wow. That was good. Yeah. And I was thrilled with that. But, you know, people see total cholesterol or they see LDL and see he's going to he's going to croak, he's going to die. And I just have to agree to disagree. Yeah. And to be fair, I would like to think I'm a rational thinker. If a doctor, which there's been, there's been many of them who will use my content, uh, to create their own content. They have backing to talk about this. I don't I have my own experience and I have the experience of thousands of others, and it's all anecdotal. And so that'll forever be the crutch that people will lean on that, you know, he doesn't know what he's talking about. That's a fair statement. I have zero credentials to talk about this kind of stuff. But at the end of the day. They did a lot of research, paid a lot of money to do the research and be told what's true. And I did a lot of research for free and came up with my own conclusions, which I wish. I wish that was the end goal for for folks that go into that profession is, hey, here's here's how you research and come up with conclusions on your own. 

Speaker 2

[00.15.58]

 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the biggest problem in the world right now when it comes to health care is and I know you're not going to understand this when I first started, but you will by the end is evidence based. They say it's evidence based and it's all based on studies and trials right now. In the old days, before the 1950s, it was clinical experience. What you observed, observation was really the key thing. So I'm a specialist practitioner in obesity and diabetes. I have an honours degree in physiology and health sciences. I've studied this for a long time. My first five years in rehab with real people and working with diabetics. The standard of care. Let them down, absolutely let them down. And everything that I was told was patently not true. And the only patients that were doing well in my practice were the ones that were ignoring me. Now, after five years, I had to wake up and that is clinical experience. That's however you want to word it. Anecdotal, but if you've got 1015 people coming in every month and they are the ones doing the best and your evidence based research 

Speaker 1

[00.17.07]

 says they shouldn't 

Speaker 2

[00.17.09]

 be. Well, after a while you've got to say to yourself, what I've learned is, yes, it's really that simple. And and if if I look in, say, Britain, which is where I'm from, obviously, if you know what I mean, right out London. Um. 

Speaker 1

[00.17.25]

 We never used to have many diabetic people. That was it in the 80s, even in the 80s. We would still call it late onset diabetes. It wasn't diabetes type one, type two. Although, yeah, obviously those things exist, but it was unusual and it was always late in your adult life now. 

Speaker 2

[00.17.43]

 That's that was the reality. Now the reality is that children are getting it. So something's changed. And it isn't the science. 

Speaker 1

[00.17.51]

 It's it's. That's right. What is right is looking at people, looking at actual people. So I think this anecdote thing is the thing used by the pharmaceutical companies to, to beat down people that say, well, I don't need your medication because I reverse type two diabetes by reducing my carbohydrates, which, you know, I have over a thousand people have done this. 

Speaker 2

[00.18.14]

 Now that's data, actually, that becomes data. Um, I don't present them as case studies or as clinical, uh, 

Speaker 1

[00.18.22]

 you know, case studies or anything like that. I mean, obviously I have their bloods and I have their own testimonies and before and after pictures. The Western aid price, you know, when he was going around looking at why people were healthy, he used photographs and he said photos are worth a thousand. You know, one photo is worth a thousand words. And he's got photos upon photos of people really healthy teeth, saying they don't even brush their teeth. Look at these jaws. They're fabulous. Well, that's that's convincing. So I, I I'm with you. 

Speaker 2

[00.18.54]

 Just personal experience. You know, you can be a PhD and an idiot, and there are plenty out there. So I'm sorry to say that. I mean, that's why I didn't go any further than my honours degree, because I just thought, actually, what I learn with real people makes much more sense to me. It's it's what the end goal is, isn't it? I mean, that's the whole point. The end goal is to be healthy. 

Speaker 1

[00.19.16]

 And I completely agree. And even if we do want to classify something as anecdotes, when you talk about, like you said, okay, you have over a thousand results just from yourself and there's countless more out there. I promise you, there's countless more. Mhm. Sure. It's anecdote. Sure. We haven't sat down and done a peer reviewed case study on this, but anecdotes are suggestive of something and anecdotes are what leads us to study something. And it infuriates me that this hasn't been looked at more, that it's just dismissed. It's just, well, no, it's bad because of this. And yet I assume that we would agree quite a bit that even the studies that do exist on, let's say, red meat, red meat is bad for you. Is that what was in those studies, you know. How well were those studies crafted? And, you know, was there any ulterior motive to those studies? And it is seeing how many people it's helped in seeing how many people are just blatantly against it. I, I get it initially, I think when somebody first hears about it and has a harsh reaction against it, I think that's completely logical. That that was my own conclusion when I first heard about it. But if you just sit and do just a little bit of research through research, I think many would come to the conclusion that at the minimum, okay, I don't know if it's a great long term, but at the minimum, this this could be really good short term. Yeah. 

Speaker 2

[00.20.50]

 Yeah. And I think that 

Speaker 1

[00.20.53]

 that's 

Speaker 2

[00.20.53]

 that's how I live. I mean, it just seemed like common sense when you look at fruit and veg, for instance, and it's all earthy and, you know, it's in a sort of wicker basket and it's covered in greenery and all this, oh, that's got to be good for you. That has got to be good for you. But of course, what we're forgetting is that even if we take fruit, for instance, it is now a hybrid. It is not the fruit, even 50 years ago. You know, the nutrient deficiency in food since the 1950s has been studied left, right and center. Um, you know, things like calcium declining from 1930 to 1980, in veg down 20%, iron down 22%, potassium down 14%. I've just got the figures in front of me. You know, if you look at the Department of Agriculture data of 43 garden crops from 1950 to 1999, reliably there have been declines in six nutrients in all foods protein, calcium, potassium, rien, iron, riboflavin and vitamin C. So you can get this 

Speaker 1

[00.22.03]

 everywhere. You can get the actual, um, details about fruit and veg. I've lost lost mainly most of the nutrients, and one that hasn't that much is grass fed beef that's still there. It's just it's very nutrient dense and it is good for you. You mentioned studies that say red meat about is bad for you, but. Well, I've actually taken part in one of those studies because I wanted to see it firsthand, because I'm one of those people that I want to know before I talk about these things publicly, I want to know. So I signed up for a study. And, uh, I did that questionnaire, and when he asked me if I ate red meat, I asked the person there, the adjudicator sort of guy in the white coat with the clipboard, what? I do eat red meat. Yeah, I do, but I don't eat processed meat. I don't eat hot dogs. I don't eat hamburgers. So is there a place on this questionnaire where I can do that? 

Speaker 2

[00.22.57]

 And no, no. Absolutely no. All of that is so that basically most studies do actually say like any, any red meat, whatever, it's in like pizza. And that's definitely you can look at the study in depth and you'll find that red meat, they never study fresh red meat. They never study it. 

Speaker 1

[00.23.16]

 Yeah. Um, so anyway, I don't want to get into that. I, I really wanted to do a story, but, I mean, you brought that up, and I think maybe your viewers have never seen me before, and I know what I've got to say as well, but, uh. Right. So you have done this for a year and you've seen these remarkable improvements. You've got you know, hundreds of hundreds of thousands of followers. Now, I believe, you know, which is great. So it shows that it's resonating 

Speaker 2

[00.23.43]

 and you're getting people saying, oh, it's work for me. So, um, what's currently going on in your life when it comes to carnivore? Yeah. So recently I've started I've started experimenting of adding in fruits. And really the heart behind this is just kind of how I've talked about carnivore from the beginning. I think there's a few percentage of people that, hey, they need to do carnivore, otherwise their life's completely in shambles. Now, I think the vast majority of humans, if not all humans, would thrive carnivore. But it is far as, hey, we have to be in, you know, we can't ever do anything else. I just don't think that's true. Clearly, if somebody can live 70 years on a standard American diet, it's not true. You know, you know, I'm not. I'm not advocating for that, is I? I lived a good portion of my my young years on the standard American diet. It's not worth it, you know, it's not worth the the palatable food. But I kind of just wanted to demonstrate what I've said from the beginning of, hey, if you did this, did it for a month, did it for a few months, developed a baseline for feeling really good because most of that do it, at least for I would say ideally three months. I always say one month. Try it for a month because as humans were just so. We can't wrap our minds around doing something for three months without ever having a cheat, which is just mind boggling. And I used to be one of those people, but I wouldn't tell them if you did it for this period of time and then if you just slowly added foods in, okay, today I'm just doing strawberries or today I'm, I don't know, some carnivores do cheese, some don't. But I'm going to include cheese or milk or she'd try the veg. And if you did it slowly and kind of just identified okay, I feel better. I feel the same or I feel worse. If I feel better, the same. And this is a food that you want to keep and keep it in. You know, there's certain foods that that light up our tastebuds that bring people joy. Food is a social thing. And so if somebody can I use this example, you ever walk into a bakery? It smells amazing. It smells really good. If somebody thrives eating fresh baked bread, I would say eat the bread. Like if you physically, mentally, emotionally feel really good eating bread and you enjoy that, that's a joy that hey, experience it. My goal is not to convert the world to carnivore. I sleep no better or worse if there's more or less carnivores in the world. You know? I know what's worked for me and I know what's worked for many others. But for me to have said slowly add foods back and slowly add foods back in. And I just hadn't done it at this point. This is a self experiment of. Hey, do I do I feel better adding fruits and or honey? Or eventually I'll do grains. And what I've experienced so far, so so the foods of that. And just to give you the backstory, it's been honey, it's been kiwi. It's been avocado, strawberries and raspberries in among among week two of this. There's been pros and cons. So so the pros I'll start with the pros have experienced first thing growing up. I remember hearing people say I'm craving something sweet, I'm gonna have a piece of fruit. I remember thinking to myself, this person's nuts. Yeah, like fruit. Sweet. But it's not. It's not this or, you know, it's not. It's not ice cream. It's, you know, it's not a piece of cake or pie and biting into a piece of fruit after an entire year without consuming any sugar. Holy smokes. This is candy Same, same with honey. And so there's this sense of joy that the food brings in that I would say that's a pro or that many people would consider a pro, um, going to restaurants. There's a lot of times that restaurants just won't let you substitute one of their sides for more meat. It's you got to order the whole meal and we'll bring you a, you know, a quarter of it. And that's, that's your that's your plate, but you're paying full price. And so yeah, restaurants will let you substitute whatever the site is for their fruit. And so somebody who's very frugal, I hate spending I hate wasting money that. That makes me feel like I'm not being scammed. When I'm sitting down in a restaurant. So there's that. And then the third pro I would say is that it's just fun. It's just kind of it's fun. I guess it ties in with that, that first that first pro of the joy you experience. You just it's it's fun to have a diverse style. I'll say that. And this is coming from somebody who loves carnivore. Like, I, I can eat a bowl of ground beef and eggs every single day and be content for the rest of my life. You throw in a rib eye steak every once in a while. Holy smokes. Life is good. Life's real good. But being somebody that's loved carnivore, some get bored with it. I've loved it from day one. I would say it is fun having sweeter whole foods in there. I have experienced some cons as well though. And so nothing. Nothing major, you know. Nothing that if I'm just an average person enough. I haven't experienced anything that ooh, I can't have this. I'm not in shambles, that my depression hasn't crept back in my knee pain still gone. I haven't experienced any of those. But as somebody who loves to steward his time very well and very intentional, with time, we don't get more time. Each second that goes by. It's never coming back. And so I want to do everything. 

Speaker 1

[00.29.55]

 The most efficient way possible on carnivore. That happens every aspect of life. You are efficient and it's one of my greatest joys of carnivore is that I can go work for 12 14 hours straight if I need to and be just fine. There's a few things that kind of disrupt that, including including the fruits and honey. So far. So number one, my meals are smaller, but I eat more often. Strict carnivore all eat once or twice a day. And I love it because it's it's just so simple. Eat for ten 15 minutes, then boom, back to whatever you need to get done versus including these fruits. You really, I guess you'd call it an animal based diet would be kind of the the coined term in today's world, but having to make time to eat three, 4 or 5 times a day. Wake up. Okay. I'm hungry, go to the gym. I feel like I need to eat before the gym. That's another thing. I love working out fast too. I've done that forever. Carnivore especially thrive working out fasted since including these fruits. If I don't eat something before I go to the gym, I feel just dead, like I need to consume my energy right now. It's not just free flowing in my body, but after the gym. Okay, I'm hungry again. It's lunchtime. I'm hungry again. I could do another snack. Okay. Dinner time. Okay. Should I have a couple more fruit pieces of fruit before bed? It takes up so much time of just eating, you know, three, 4 or 5, six times a day. So there's that piece, bowel movements, which some people would say TMI, but I've had I don't know how many people messaged me about this very thing, so I'm sharing it myself. Carnivore. Great bowel movements once a day. Very very regimented routine. This time of day I go including fruits three times a day. Again, not the end of the world. It's not, you know, something that should make somebody's quality life go up or down. But as somebody who just is really intentional with stewarding his time and wants to be efficient with everything, I find it really annoying. If I'm working in okay, gotta go to the bathroom for the second time today. Okay, kind of go to the bathroom for the third time of the day. Drives me nuts. And then the I would say this is the biggest one that makes me excited to get back to strict carnivore. As somebody who's active and really likes to work out. UN strict carnivore. I won't say I never get sore, because there's times. I mean, I got to really push myself to feel some kind of soreness, but for most of the time I don't really get sore. And then when I do, it's just not that bad. You know? I'm not bracing myself to, you know, sit on the sit on the toilet, sugar. Holy smokes. Every every muscle in my body aches. And like, I didn't even know I had these muscles like, well, why am I saw. And I believe it's strictly the sugar. And so that that piece right there gets me excited to go back to carnivore. But if I'm the average person and going back to why I'm doing this experiment, for some people living an efficient lifestyle 24 over seven, they don't care about that. And that's okay. Nobody I don't think everybody has to think the way that I do or try to maximize everything like I do. And if I did think that, best of luck to me, because that's just not going to happen. There's a lot of lazy people in the world. Some people they just want to eat and be fat and be happy, and if that's their goal, but they still wanted to feel good. I would say what I've experienced so far for the average person, I'd probably keep these foods in. And then my my theory is I'll eventually get to grains, you know, stuff like that. I'm thinking that's where I may experience need pain again, I may experience, okay, what's going on? And do I need to do some counseling or something? Um, just a theory. I could be wrong, but. I tell you, it's very funny to see the internet react, because I thought I've been clear, which you can never be too clear, but I thought I've been clear about how I would do carnivore. You know, if somebody was curious about doing it and, and it's just the slowly adding feeds back in and every platform has responded kind of differently. TikTok see carnivores bodies adding fruits back in Instagram. Surprisingly very supportive of just curious about this experience I experiment Facebook. This guy's done. Don't eat fruit. Don't eat foods bad. You're going to get fat again. And just watching the responses of everybody it's it's comical and it's reminder that you truly can't please anybody. And I guess what I eat really impacts other people's day. It's crazy, isn't it? How um, where did some people are to opinions? Because you're very clear that it's an experiment. I was sort of glad that you were actually into it when, uh, when I realized that you'd book this interview, that you'd started it because you have feedback now. And that's the point, isn't it? I mean, that's the whole point. If we'd have done this interview and you're about to go into it, you'd have nothing to say, and you wouldn't have pros and cons, and you wouldn't have things for people to ruminate on. So all those platforms, all those people are just they're looking for an echo chamber to back up their opinion. They're not saying, hey, this guy's open minded. He's doing something he doesn't necessarily know is going to be good or bad because he wants to know, after a year, a carnivore and resetting his levels of inflammation, blood glucose, insulin, whatever. How were these things affect me? Which is which is a brilliant experiment. And it's really that simple. It is an experiment. I coach a lot of people and, um. You know that the first thing they say is, I don't really want to give up coffee. I was like, okay, right, okay. There's a lot of carnivores drink coffee. Um, and they don't get much grief for it. Coffee is not an animal. It's not carnivore. But they also drink water. But that's not an animal. And they have salt. That's not an animal. So people pick and choose what is going and what isn't. All right. So you're going to choose the your carnivore journey to have an avocado right. That's not an animal. But that's going to make you happy. And uh, the coffee's going to make you happy. I'd rather you be 95% carnivore and stick with it, 

Speaker 2

[00.36.49]

 because you can have these 2 or 3 things that you really feel like you need. And you can always, you know, uh, reassess it six months down the line. Do you really need these things? Do you really want these things? Are they beneficial? You can experiment like you're doing, um, 

Speaker 1

[00.37.03]

 or you can give up completely, you know, and and that's the worst thing to say to somebody, because if you're wedded to being strict carnival, you know, or a lion or whatever it is, and that's the be all and end all, which I totally understand for people like, you know, autoimmune conditions. If you look at Michaela Peterson, for instance, I 

Speaker 2

[00.37.26]

 think being a strict as possible is obviously life changing for her. So possibly I wouldn't experiment if that was my client. But I think for, like you say, the average person. You know, if you visit Italy and someone says, oh, there's this woman. She's been making pasta for 50 years, it's the best pasta. And you're you're in Tuscany, in Italy, and you don't try that pasta. Well, you missed an experience that maybe would have been the best pest you've ever tasted. It doesn't mean you're going to go home and have tons of pasta. So I think it's about living your life and being open minded and accepting. I mean, I cringed as you saw when you mentioned grains because I think fruit and honey. And then that step to grains might be very interesting. 

Speaker 1

[00.38.11]

 Uh, 

Speaker 2

[00.38.13]

 I it scares me. I don't really want to experiment myself anymore. I've done all the experiments, and I think I would really struggle because porridge was my downfall. One of my downfalls, or oatmeal, as Americans call it. Um, you know, I was, uh, just for people that don't know me. That's from your channel. I was an advanced personal trainer. I actually trained someone to get to the Olympics. Um, not the the Olympics now, but, you know, in my 40s and 50s, who was a type one diabetic, that's how I got involved, because the diabetes specialism and also the advanced personal training certificate, and I was really active. I'm not saying that to show off. I was really active myself, except, you know, a soccer player. I've won a tennis tournament. So I was moving lots. I was running three times a week. All those medals are for running. And I was still getting chubbier and I'm still pre-diabetic. And I was doing, you know, I should have been the poster boy for the food guidelines because I was having grains, I was having skim milk. I was having freshly squeezed orange juice, fruit and veg, and I was getting tibia pre-diabetic, lower left quadrant pain, coronary artery calcium scan of 639. You 

Speaker 1

[00.39.23]

 know. Wow. Now, uh, you're pretty young. I mean, I'm nearly twice your age. And 

Speaker 2

[00.39.29]

 the longer you do these things, the more it accumulates. So, for instance, with the bloods, 

Speaker 1

[00.39.37]

 um, 

Speaker 2

[00.39.38]

 you can spot someone's going to be diabetic. Not by their blood glucose, actually, by their background insulin. So you could be looking at your blood glucose monitor. And this is for this is for people maybe for yourself actually. Right. I don't know if you even thought about this, but your blood glucose could be perfect and you could be saying, hey, eating fruit and honey is great. Look at my blood glucose. It's fantastic. Yeah, well, what's your insulin doing? Um, normally when we go back over data, we can see a trend. So someone's blood glucose is is pretty good. But in the background, the insulins need to do that is higher and higher and higher and higher and higher and higher. And this is maybe over 15 years. And then the pancreas just cannot produce that amount of insulin. So the insulin production drops and the blood glucose goes up. Wow. This person is possibly diabetic. So you could have had that 15 years ago. You could have predicted it. So I think. These experiments are fabulous, you know. Fabulous. I really take my hat off to you. And by the way, I love the t shirts got Butter Boy written on it, which is good merch. Um, and I think people getting angry don't understand because you're, you have now already as a very fit, reasonably young person doing carnivore for a year, giving us some pros and cons that will help people are wow, you know, and and also you're not wedded to this way of living. You're not making tons of money out of recommending fruits or honey. You're doing it as an experiment. And you found some things that, you know would put me off as well, because I like working out. So a body aches would make me go. What if there's only like a few weeks and it's bought? And this is true when I have experimented, when I bought fruit back, um, even some dairy I bought back a couple of years ago, I bought back yoghurt and wow, it really impacted my muscles because I don't cope well with dairy, liquid, dairy that is cheese I do all right with. So yeah, it it does light up the internet when you do something. I'm not a fan of fruit and honey. Everyone knows that. Who knows my channel? Uh, I think long term 

Speaker 1

[00.41.36]

 it's probably not the best thing to do, but a little bit. If it's going to keep you carnivore, then I'm all for it. I'm. It's just. I think it's the degree, like, you know, you're eating more often, so you're raising your insulin more often. Yes, meals are smaller, but you're spiking your insulin more often, which is not the greatest thing to do. But I take my hat off to you. I think it's brilliant what you're doing and being so open and transparent. And look at us, we're talking about pros. You know. I love what you said. Fruit is not pie. Fruit is candy. That that's the other thing. Your sensitivity to sweetness when you're carnival. Wow. That goes through the roof. And I can give your viewers a real, you know, your followers. They might have heard this. You know, before I did low carb, I could not eat dark chocolate. It was like, how on earth can anyone put that in their mouth? That that has nothing going for it? Nothing. It's horrible. And and now my you know, if I have a square of dark chocolate, it has to be 90%. Must have virtually zero chocolate, uh, of sugar and remain. And it's sweet. You know, it's really sweet. If someone says, oh, this is 85%, uh, 

Speaker 2

[00.42.50]

 this can't be too sweet for you. It it actually is. So you become much more aware of how sweet things are. And. Yeah, that fruit is really, really sweet. Isn't it really 

Speaker 1

[00.43.00]

 sweet? It's incredibly sweet talking about the the insulin. So. I decided to do this maybe a week ago, but whenever I finish this experiment, I'm going to have bloodwork done again, because with, um, with the results that I had gotten, my insulin, um, probably can't see this well, but on a scale from 2.6 to 24.9, I was a 5.7. Yeah, I don't think I can see it. Okay. Very thrilled with it. Very, very low. And C-reactive protein. Uh, C-reactive protein. Was it a 0.22? The lowest was within the, um, something that quite a few people had issues with. Um, and these are people that are reaching. I mean, really just reaching. Um, was that my my hemoglobin A1? C was at a 5.5, and, uh, at least in the US, 5.7 is considered pre-diabetic. Yep. And there was one other area. Apart from the cholesterol, I think it was glucose. It was. On a normal scale of 65 to 99, I was in 96. And the reach that the, you know, the people that are very anti carnivore see he's almost pre-diabetic. It's about to get bad. It's about to get bad. And I'm looking at my metabolic health, which is phenomenal according to this blood work for granted. I'm somebody that thinks that multiple bloodwork reports is a true indicator of health. I don't think one, this is the only bloodwork I've ever had done, and so there's nothing for me to reference it to, whether it got better or worse. I'm going to confidently assume that it had gotten better. Considering there's a history of diabetes in my family, and considering that I was obese and just carrying around a ton of extra weight, considering I. I wasn't binging on fruit, but I was binging on pints of ice cream. I'm assuming that my hemoglobin A1 C is just now finally getting into normal ranges. And so again, I don't know that this is. This is a guess. This isn't a factual statement, but if I had to wager who I was one year ago, I bet I was pre-diabetic. It makes absolute sense to me. And so I'm curious to see what will happen to my bloodwork introducing these foods. 

Speaker 2

[00.45.42]

 Yeah, I mean, the HPA onesie is a very, very poor marker, especially when you're low carb keto carnivore. Uh, just explain why. Um, it's a calculation, and it's based on an assumption of how long your red blood cells last. It's not a direct measurement as such. Um, a much better marker of how you're coping is fasting glucose, fasting insulin and C peptide. That is the thing. So people with a continual glucose monitor that I coach will always say I don't get it. When they first meet me, they first deal with me. I don't understand. My continuous glucose monitor shows an average, but my HBA one C is higher. And I say that's because it's a flawed metric, because it's 

Speaker 1

[00.46.24]

 it's thinking that your red blood cells are going to last X amount of days, depending on which lab you go to. And you can prove that your red blood cells are lasting longer on carnivore. You can do what's called a reticular site count, and that proves that your red blood cells are lasting longer. And that complete throws out the HBA onesie, which is why you get the anomaly of somebody who's got very low glucose, very low C peptide, very low fasted insulin, has an artificially high HbA onesie. When I first did my phlebotomy, you know, like I say, because I did the private bloods for over a decade, you actually are told if someone's hemolytic anemic, which is your red blood cells, die too soon, you have to ignore their job and say because it's artificially low. And this is how you know, I I'm a great believer in joined up thinking. So I was already told this officially. Not many people know that the normative ranges in Bloods are not based on carnival, keto, low carb, or optimal health. They're just normative ranges based on people in the in general, 1840 to 65% carbohydrates, and there's no nuance to it, none whatsoever. So anyway, my thinking was, I remember that, you know, the hemolytic, anemic people. I had to say your HBO and say, we can't use because your red blood cells are dying too soon. Well, what would be the opposite? Well, your red blood cell was living longer than the calculation would give you an artificially high HBA one C, so we need to ignore it. And that's the fact. That's that's an absolute fact. You can prove it with the reticular site count. The other thing is what the HBA one C isn't measuring is the damage and the glycation from fructose. So with fruit for instance uh, fructose because of the fructose and and many other things, there are 11 times more glycoprotein and they produce more fat in the liver, which is why we've got this prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Because that fructose and anything that's sweet and potentially toxic, the body will make into fat. That's 

Speaker 2

[00.48.25]

 what happens. So the whole diabetic thing. 

Speaker 1

[00.48.28]

 Um, I'm going to now make sense of all the diabetic symptoms and you'll go, oh, this all makes total sense. Unbelievable. Thirst is one of the one of the signs. If you're out there and you don't know if you're diabetic, the first thing is you will be very thirsty. Well, that's your body being smart and saying, right, we've got this, uh, concentration of sugar in our blood, which is too high. Let's dilute it. Total sense. Right. So, yeah. So you drink a lot of water. What's the next thing? When you drink a lot of water, you excrete it. So you have this very toxic substance in your urine, which is the actual definition of a translation of diabetes mellitus is sweet piss. I mean, that's how they used to test in the old days where if your people on your channel don't like swearing, I don't really, but that's what it translates to. So the body, you drink a lot, you dilute it. You have too much, uh, blood sugar. You're going to excrete it out. Your body deals with blood sugar in all these different ways. And people say, well, why? Why do carbohydrates turn to fat? Because carbohydrates are sugar. They're toxic. So the body's really smart. It turns it to fat. Same with the HBA one. See? It's it. You have to just think about what is the logic of it. Well, the logic is it does this reading. 

Speaker 2

[00.49.42]

 But instead of saying here's a reading. 

Speaker 1

[00.49.45]

 How long did you red blood cells last? So we can then sort of, uh, adjust it to, to give you some sort of reference range. They don't do that. They just say you're in this high. I'm not saying to people ignore it, but definitely know why it goes up. There's also reasons why your blood glucose on carnivore goes really high. This isn't about me, by the way. Um, so if you want to come back or you want to talk to me in private about it or get me on your channel or whatever, I'm happy to go through all this. I did write a book about it, by the way, if people are interested. So the guide to blood tests in the context of this way of eating, um, the normal ranges, the ones that are always controversial or all the ones that are calculated. So once we calculated LDL, calculated EGFR, the filtration rate of the kidney, you mentioned creatinine that goes up because that is a waste product of protein metabolism. Don't any nursing website. And uh, notice I didn't say doctor's website, but if you go on any nursing website that deals with phlebotomy and they talk about your EGFR going up, the first question they say to ask the patient is, do you eat a lot of protein? Nothing. So it's known that protein will increase creatinine. Uh, and like I say, I've had so many success stories of people with kidney problems and also taking a different test. So if you feel like your filtration rate is reflected badly, get the cyst that in C test. And that will make a difference because that's a proper measurement of filtration of your kidney. It's a blood's really sorry. Uh, at this point triggered me a little bit. As you can tell. Um, bloods are not the be all and end all, but you. You finish with the best thing. It's about clinical presentation. How you feel. I've had people with perfect bloods in inverted commas. And at the end of going through the bloods, I say, how do you feel when they say absolutely terrible? Oh man, I can't sleep. I've got aches and pains such and such, or I can have someone come in and they can have, 

Speaker 2

[00.51.44]

 you know, the worst bloods allegedly, that you've ever seen. And they say to me, I feel better than I did when I was 20, you know, they're like 45 or something. Oh, wow. I'm getting close. I haven't been able to get into it for ten years. I just can't believe the energy I've got. My brain fog is gone. Some bloods there. I'm not knocking them that. They are a very good tool for, uh, diagnosis of many things, but but biohacking, they are certainly not, but certainly not in this space. So, um. Anyway, I haven't been for a long thing there. Sorry about that. Right. I love what you said about the blood work, too, where you'll see people that, you know, according to standards that, okay, their blood work's not good according to these, this set of measures, but they feel better than they've ever felt or they feel, you know, decades younger than they actually are. I can't tell you how many people that have told me because I've said that to I feel better than I've ever felt. Well, that doesn't mean you're healthy. Okay. Fair. But I'd still rather feel this way. If I was the opposite, you gave me perfect bloodwork, but. Hey, Ray, we'll give you perfect blood work. But you got to be depressed for the rest of your life, and you got to have some really bad joint pain for the rest of your life. I'd say no, thank you. 

Speaker 1

[00.53.03]

 Yes, but I actually, in our community, I run a small, a small sort of kind of community with my co-host Richard Smith. And one of the people had the question virtually what you just said. We did a live Q&A and it said, what would you rather have perfect bloods, but feel real bad, 

Speaker 2

[00.53.21]

 or feel real good and 

Speaker 1

[00.53.24]

 have very bad bloods? And I said, you've got to think about this differently. I'm not ducking the question, but I'm telling you, if you feel really good, your bloods aren't bad. 

Speaker 2

[00.53.36]

 You're being told they're bad. Yeah, those bloods are suitable for your body. The chronic. You can't ignore certain diseases and conditions, genetic conditions and stuff like that. But for 98% of the population, that holds true because I've had people that are Allegedly hypoglycemic at working in the forest, you know, moving logs around. Well, not hypoglycemic, they have. They operate with lower blood sugar. And there is more to the slightly raised glucose that I don't want this to be about me. So maybe you would do it 

Speaker 1

[00.54.12]

 right. Yeah. Or we can talk later. Doesn't matter. 

Speaker 2

[00.54.16]

 Well, I mean, I'll touch on it then. I didn't want to take the thunder from you, but your blood glucose. 

Speaker 1

[00.54.22]

 What? Um, insulin and the receptors do is they speed up the entry of sugar into your cells by about 10,000 times. All right, but you don't actually have to have those receptors. But it's incredibly slow, and we wouldn't do very well. So you get what's called diffusion. One of the things happened when you eat this way you have lower levels of insulin. You have lower levels of uh, glute for transporters, uh, translocated to the membrane. They stay inside the cell. So we have slightly higher levels of glucose because all of our mechanisms are taking a day off. They're just relaxing. If you did suddenly eat, um, some fruit. 

Speaker 2

[00.55.04]

 Wow, you're so phallic. Response goes, wow, this is this is sweet. Your tongue goes, wow, this is sweet. And you get a reaction. You absolutely get a reaction from your pancreas, and you get the insulin that is appropriate 

Speaker 1

[00.55.17]

 for the sweetness. And that's what's gone wrong in the modern way of eating, is you get a ton of sweetness which is hidden. So you take like a McDonald's milkshake. I'm sure neither of us would. Well, why do they add salt? They add salt to a milkshake to make it less sweet, but the sweetness is still there and the sugar is still there, so they add salt to it to make it less sweet. Well, just think about that. When that gets into your body, your body doesn't go, oh, this is great. There's not much sugar because that salt is hiding it. It just goes, all right, here's some salt. We're going to move that over there. Oh here's some sugar. Wow. That's in the bloodstream. We've got to we've got to deal with that. And this is it. It's all about getting getting back to Whole Foods Getting back to to eating things that we're meant to eat. You know, 

Speaker 2

[00.56.10]

 that's unadulterated, you know, like an apple, for instance. You took that fruit. If you get it from a supermarket that was peaked over a year ago in my supermarkets. And I've got this from the food growers themselves, from PDFs of of their practices. Well, that's not fresh. 

Speaker 1

[00.56.25]

 That's not fresh fruit. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. They're in controlled environments and with gas and, uh, you know, different things, uh, a coating put on them. Oh, yeah. I've, I've done a video about fruit and veg, and I used all the producers details to give you the facts. So like pears, I think the average was eight months from being picked to actually being on the supermarket shelf. Well, I've got an apple tree, and I have no compunction telling people this. I will pick an apple. I'll eat an apple. I would not from a supermarket. What happens within six weeks? The, uh, alleged nutrients that are in that fruit will have gone 

Speaker 2

[00.57.01]

 within six weeks in that controlled environment. So, um, anyway, uh, looks like you're gonna have to watch that video 

Speaker 1

[00.57.09]

 And when we're done. Yeah. And that's that's the thing. If I was a hunter gatherer and I went past a a bush that had blueberries on or blackberries, I would eat them. There's nothing wrong with that. That's that's fine. That makes sense. There's a scarcity of food. Why would you not eat them? Yeah. Makes no sense to ignore food that is free and there for you to give you a little boost of energy. But boy, that that's not going to be there 24 over seven, 365 days a year. That's going to be seasonal. It's going to be based, you know, what fruit it's going to be based on where I live. Mhm. 

Speaker 2

[00.57.48]

 So there's there's so much nuance to all of this. I mean fruit and honey is not a 24 over seven 365 day fruit in the first place. 

Speaker 1

[00.57.57]

 Right. 

Speaker 2

[00.57.58]

 Um so yeah. But right. Let's get back to you. So what do you see yourself doing? And do you really think you're going to be brave and try grains in the future? For the experiment. Yes. Now I. I'm really not looking forward to it. The fruit's been fun to experiment with. Okay. To not have any severe adverse reactions. Again, it did have some cons, but those aren't life changing. Cons. The knee pain I dread the idea of ever having joint pain without good reason again, because for over a decade I just thought, oh, this is early onset arthritis. And you know, maybe at 40 or 50 years old, I'll have a knee replacement. That's what doctors told me. It was diet inflammation gone within three days. And so the idea is that coming back now, I'm I am I do take comfort in the idea that okay, if it did right back to carnivore goes right right away again. That's a that's a strong comfort pill for me. The mental health I'm excited about that, even if it is just for a few days of yeah, I feel horrible. I'm going to stop this immediately. And then I experience, you know, brain fog or depression and or knee pain for a few days. I'm not excited about those few days. And you said that you were a porridge person and oatmeal person. I've never loved oatmeal hot cereal. You know, it's another thing that we'll call it here in the States, but. I'd rather have a bowl of ultra processed cereal. You know, that's. And those aren't the foods. All experiment with that. That is not at all. That is not at all my intention. I'm strictly experimenting with whole foods because I believe that at the minimum, if somebody's not going to be carnivore or at least predominantly meat, eat whole foods, pick rose or, you know, bark shouldn't be nothing on barks but moose or, you know, if it fits a living thing, eat that. And so I am nervous strictly for the advert, the potential adverse side effects. But I'm just I'm excited to get back to carnivore. It's just so much more simpler. It's also very cost effective, which I think is funny. And I've said this from the beginning. I've been saving money eating carnivore since adding fruits and vegetables. It's freaking not vegetables, but it is expensive. It's expensive. I've gone to the grocery store probably five times in the last. What? We can have two weeks of doing this. Some more time out of my day. It's annoying. If I want it fresh, you know I want it, you know, quote unquote organic or, you know, get the high quality, high quality fruits. You can't just buy a whole bunch and, you know, leave it sitting out on the counter. You got to continually do it. And so I'm I'm very excited to get back to full carnivore. It it just makes it makes life simpler. I'm excited to get back into my, my gym training schedule and not feel like I am overly sore and everything. I've even just moving around or sitting or even just sitting right here. I feel like I need to go stretch my legs. We've only been talking for an hour. That's 

Speaker 1

[01.01.27]

 not a carnivore. I can sit for hours on end. Not that anybody should, but I can if I need to. And yeah, I the soreness is the biggest thing that makes me excited to go back. 

Speaker 2

[01.01.41]

 Well, Ray thanks so much for sharing your story. I really appreciate it. 

Speaker 1

[01.01.46]

 Of course.