How Not to Die: Carnivore Diet for Beginners
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s start with two thousand (and a couple thousand more actual words below).
The Big-Man in the Mirror
In January 2023 I left the gate to my front yard unlatched while unloading groceries. My dogs got into the front yard, sprinted past me and toward the open gate. I was too slow to respond, so out the gate and down the street they went. I took off in full sprint after my dogs—my three hundred pound frame smashed step-by-step down the pavement. I watched helplessly as my dogs ran into traffic, gasping breathlessly “come back.” A car narrowly missed my 6 year old smooth-brained lab-shepherd mix; my hound was already half a block ahead of him. I continued after them, sucking air like it was a huckleberry milkshake and flailing my arms like I was ordering another pitcher of beer and round of cheese-fries. A few dozen paces later, I finally caught-up to my lab-shepherd as he meandered blank-mindedly in a neighbor’s yard. “Oh, there you are. What an adventure we’re having!” his face said, as I continued gasping for breath, my heart pounding in my throat as I feebly held onto the scruff of his neck. I might pass out. My hound was a mere three houses down, but I couldn’t muster the energy to run any more. Fortunately, she’d stopped running and was simply baying at some cocker spaniels who had all come to the front window of their home, “Come out and play! We’re free!!” I waddled toward her while clinging to my shepherd—she turned to bay at me, “don’t die now, fatty!”
The distance covered in this episode was literally less than a city block. An embarrassing nothing of physical fitness was required to recover my dogs, and yet it took thirty minutes for my heartrate to recover and my breath to return to a baseline of “obese-on-the-brink”. Never again. This can never happen again.
Later that day, as I inhaled a basket of fries and consumed a pitcher of beer at the bar, I made a plan. It was the same plan to get healthy that I’d made in the intervening years since my early thirties. I’ll cut back on drinking, I’ll go for hikes, I’ll eat less. That lasted for, like, a month. Then I was back to old habits. The excuses piled like a heap of loaded nachos: work is stressful, I just need some comfort; just one more beer. Diet starts Monday.
Four months later I had another critical moment of self-reflection, literally. I had just purchased a new truck after closing a huge industrial real estate sale. Time to buy “the thing” that will bring me joy. I went out and purchased a nifty mid-sized truck and relished the glory of my success. Then I discovered what a challenge it was for me to climb up into the cab—overcoming the 2” standard factory lift felt like I was scaling the Berlin Wall. I could see my massive frame, hoisting itself into the cab in the reflection of the gunmetal silver paint. This is a really bad look. To complete the package of stereotypical middle-aged “cool” fat guy, I thought of purchasing a pair of Pit Vipers and driving around with my high-beams on all the time.
I was supposed to be in the prime of mid-life—instead I was pushing 300lbs and hefting it around like an over-stuffed piece of carry-on luggage on Spirit Airlines.
Crash diets, carb counting, magic pills—I’ve tried them all. Nothing ever worked. And over six or seven years I’d rubber-banded my way from 205 to 225, from 225 to 245; then during covid I reached 265, then 285, 290+. Next stop: death. And very soon, fatty.
An unexpected moment of crisis—or vanity—that exposes the perils of being dangerously unhealthy ought to be humbling. Between nearly losing my dogs and being the fat guy in a new truck, I decided something must change. Might as well be on my terms, instead of having those terms imposed by circumstance.
On Being a Fatty-Boom-Batty
I am not a doctor. This is not medical advice. I am, however, an expert in the art of being a Fatty-Boom-Batty. The term fatty-boom-batty could be my favorite turn of phrase by comedian Tim Dillon to describe a significant population in America. According to the CDC, 40% of the U.S. population has a BMI of 30+ and are considered “obese,” while 10% are “severely obese,” or, more appropriately, fatty-boom-batties. I was definitely in the latter category at the time of my decision not to die.
Everything is harder when you’re a fatty-boom-batty—you’re playing life on “difficult” setting all the time. I fully reject the notion that you can be healthy at any size (a notion that my loving, wise, accepting-of-the-outcasts wife has touted). I was dying and I knew it. I couldn’t walk my dogs up a slight incline at my favorite trails without gasping for air. My unironically gifted fitness watch would ring the alert, “you’re dying, fatty” at every quarter-mile interval. My heartbeats per minute would accelerate to the red zone with mild exertion. In work settings, I’d generate an instantaneous flop-sweat if the ambient temperature was over 55 degrees. Inflammation in my knees and hands made the most menial tasks (mowing the lawn, carrying groceries, lifting a beer to my lips) a miracle of cardiovascular and muscular capacity. This could not go on. I’m sure I lost real estate listings while sweating profusely during a presentation; I’d breathlessly state, “I’m the best person for the job,” while the client’s face said “yeah, but if this listing goes longer than two weeks, will you still be here?” No promises, just sign the contract.
I didn’t become morbidly obese by eating “unhealthy” foods. I rationalized my decline in health based on the premise that I hadn’t been to a drive-thru in ten years. Instead, in the lead-up to starting carnivore, my YouTube algorithm was full of cooking channels. Over the last decade I have honed some serious culinary skills, becoming proficient in the art of braising, sauteing, caramelizing, smoking, grilling, rendering and flambéing. They joy I felt while serving my friends and family a culinary experience like that of a top-tier restaurant was something I took pride in. But instead of earning a Michelin Star, I was becoming the Michelin Man.
It didn’t matter if everything I ate was organic or pasture raised, it was still junk—and too much of it. Avocado-oil fried organic corn fritters? Junk food. Homemade BBQ sauce slathered onto brown-sugar crusted ribs? Junk food. Tallow-fried organic potatoes? Junk. Delicious, organic, junk.
If my journey up junk food mountain resonates even just a little, then it doesn’t really matter how you reached the summit. Stress eating, competitive eating; beer connoisseur-ism; the path to destruction is aptly wide. Who doesn’t like the beautiful array of options provided by the Standard American Diet (SAD). If you’ve consumed SAD your whole life, and have become a fatty-boom-batty, then the solution to curing a life of extreme consumption, must be equally extreme: An elimination diet that can help put your life back in order.
After weeks of struggling to get into my truck, The Algorithm must’ve heard my resting breaths-per-minute through my microphone and connected with the actuary tables—it served up a couple videos on some fellow fatties-turned-fit who preached the Gospel of Carnivore: eat meat, lose weight, don’t die. Hmm, interesting. No carbs to count, no points to tally, no special menus, no mail-order lunches? So down the rabbit hole on this subject I went. Plants are trying to kill you? Aren’t vegetables healthy? Doesn’t red meat causes heart disease? And what if this actually works?
In July 2023, I started the carnivore diet, thinking “I’m either going to die immediately (and to the surprise of no one) or it will work as advertised.”
I followed Ken Berry’s advice: eat until you’re comfortably stuffed. I didn’t deprive myself, I made sure I never “felt hungry.” In the first month, I lost 20 pounds. Well that’s nice. Instead of looking like a Goomba from the 1990s classic of cinematography, Super Mario Bros, I started to look like, well, a more proportionally balanced Goomba, I suppose. I am a writer after all—if I were pretty, I would communicate via Instagram instead of Substack.
Now, after nearly 14 months and 100lbs, I’m sharing my experience because the Carnivore Diet literally saved my life and gave me back a vitality and optimism about longevity I thought was gone forever.
One Month Challenge: Beef Bacon Butter Eggs
The practical motivating questions for doing carnivore are more important than anything. Forget about the aesthetics of losing 50+ lbs. Obviously you’ll look better. But what if you need to be healthy? What if you need to be helpful in a crisis? Could you carry someone you love? Lift a heavy object? Sprint 100 yards from an active shooter (shoutout to the American Dream)? Are you someone who can be relied on, or are you dead weight?
If the answer to any of the above is “obviously not,” then I propose a singular challenge. For one month you must commit. Nothing will happen if you aren’t strict for one month. My once-upon-a-time-vegetarian wife did carnivore for thirty days—she hated every waking moment—but she did it in solidarity with me. I found her one night standing in front of the refrigerator, with literal tears in her eyes because all she wanted was a piece of locally-produced organic gluten-free toast. She did it, you can do it. If you’re a fatty-boom-batty like I was, you’ll probably lose a bunch of weight instantaneously. You may feel a lightness and clarity of thought you didn’t think was possible. And you’ll likely realize everything you ever knew about food and nutrition is a lie.
What about calories-in, calories out? Not in my experience. The laws of thermodynamics being applied to nutrition could be one of the most pernicious paradigms of dieting in general. What you eat matters more than anything; fuck the Twinkie Diet—the quality of food is more important than the number claimed on the “food product” package. When I started carnivore, I was eating thousands of calories of high fat, high protein foods daily. The weight was melting off at such a precipitous rate, coworkers started tiptoeing around conversation about whether or not I had cancer (or had become addicted to meth). To my knowledge I have neither cancer nor a meth addiction.
So, one month. Beef, bacon, butter, eggs. No exceptions, no cheating, no corner cutting. Beef, bacon, butter, eggs. Eat until you’re comfortably stuffed, then stop eating. Eat again when you’re hungry. Don’t overthink it—don’t count calories, don’t track macros, don’t weigh your food. Four foods: beef, bacon, butter, eggs. Eat till you’re stuffed, then stop. One month.
Caveat emptor: the first two or three weeks are going to suck. There’s no two ways about it. Some people get the “keto flu”—you may feel lethargic and generally ill for several days. And a lot of gastrointestinal distress, we’ll say, will inevitably accompany the first few weeks. You may feel the need to go, suddenly. Trust that feeling like your wardrobe Depend(s) on it. It is a dramatic shock to the system, but you’ve been doing worse to your body your entire life. Don’t lose hope, after a few weeks your gut flora will acclimate.
After that, modify the diet if you want to, but I recommend sticking to the golden rule of beef, bacon, butter and eggs. Treat a piece of fruit like a double-fudge sundae—it will slow your progress quickly. Treat a piece of cheese like dessert in the beginning. These rules saved my life. Only break them when you’re capable and in control. Start at the beginning if you fall off the wagon and catch yourself mid-bite of your fourth slice of pizza “just this one time.”
The carnivore diet is not for everyone, and it’s a major social sacrifice, since most of our culture revolves around the experience of food consumption. Ordering plain hamburger patties in front of clients at a lunch meeting was very awkward at first, especially when my jawline was still connected to my torso. “I’m doing this to be healthy.” I’d say. “Lol,” would be their facial expression as they mouthed the words “oh, interesting.” That was in 2023. Now they say, “I’ve been thinking about trying carnivore, what do you need to start?”
There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there from carnivore purists: only use salt (meaning no spices including black pepper), don’t drink coffee, don’t drink tea, eat once per day, blah blah blah. Maybe they’re right, but do what you can commit to. I drink a lot of coffee, with half-and-half; I eat fruit occasionally and cheese regularly. If you can’t stick to the overarching tenets of carnivore, because it’s already extremely restrictive, then you’ll fail, go back to the trough of slop, and consume SAD until you’re dead.
That said, you should never consume the following food products.
Grains. Yes, all of them. Wheat, corn, rice, “ancient grains,” buckwheat, schmuckwheat, quinoa, “healthy grains” and “diet grains.” No more grains. Not a little, not at all.
Seed oils. The only fat you should consume is from animals at first. After a month, you can introduce coconut (if you don’t have adverse reactions). Olive oil sparingly. Avocado oil sparingly. You don’t know how bad you feel until you stop consuming seed oils, and they’re in everything.
Added sugars. If the bright-colored container your “food” comes in says “high fructose corn syrup” or “agave nectar” or “sustainably harvested organic cane sugar” or some variation of those phrases, you don’t need it. It’s not food, it’s a poisonous dopamine hit.
A life centered around cooking elaborate meals was a major part of my perceived identity. It’s how I connected with the people I loved. Of course I could’ve been more balanced. I also could’ve been a doctor if I had the discipline and intellectual capacity. But there I was—fat and dumb. Now I’m just dumb.
Carnivore has changed my relationship with food forever, in a way that no other approach has. If I do “cheat” and eat something SAD and delicious, the following day, I’ll feel it. Inflammation, fatigue, elevated heartrate. I go back to beef and eggs and all of that goes away. I don’t need a medical degree to recognize that I have more energy and feel better when I cut out 90% of the Food Pyramid. It just works.
Again, I’m not a doctor. I’m just a guy on the internet, who listened to some other guys on the internet. I haven’t been under 200lbs since I was 23 years old. Today I’m 195lbs, and my blood pressure is 110/70—your mileage may vary. I got my life back.
If you’ve tried everything else and you’ve lost hope that things could improve, what more do you have to lose?