Profile For Brett Aquila

It's not that difficult to figure out why "powerful forces" seek to discredit this diet and dismiss it's seemingly glowing results.

This is the key to understanding why people often vehemently oppose eating carnivore. Look around at our society and imagine how much money the food and medical industries make convincing us to eat too much of the wrong foods and keeping us in poor health.

If everyone suddenly discovered how to eat properly, it would completely wreck those industries and a long list of heads would roll when society started asking questions.

Yet, who benefits financially from spreading the truth? Almost no one! Hell, I've lost several members of this website by promoting this way of eating and haven't made a nickel from it. It sent me in the wrong direction! You wind up getting attacked from every angle. So there's a huge profit incentive for industries to promote unhealthy eating and to keep us sick, but there's almost no way to counter that by profiting from telling people to eat meat and eggs.

I have had a significant reduction in gas and bloating.

Yap, that "rot gut" thing Turtle mentioned disappears quickly when you stop eating carbs, especially veggies.

I'm going to give this diet an honest effort

I love it! Report back often and let us know how it's going. I'd love to hear about it!

On the menu for this week:

I smoked a pork loin, chuck roast, and salmon yesterday, and have the leftovers all packaged up ready for reheating in the truck. Additionally, I have 15 boiled eggs and some cubed steak fried in bacon grease.

I cooked up another pork loin and some cheeseburgers the other day. I have swordfish and cheeseburger on the menu tonight! Yesterday was my day off from eating.

The fact that I go 48 hours without eating once every week, and almost 24 hours without eating almost daily, without any loss of energy or feeling any different at all really shows how stable my health is and how well my body has adapted to burning fats for fuel by eating this way.

Brett, have you ever read anything by Sally Fallon?

I had never heard of her, so I reviewed some of her stuff using AI. It seems she basically says to eat meat, eggs, and dairy, and if you want to eat some other stuff because you think it helps, you can if you prepare it right.

She seems to be on the right track.

She reminded me of something I've always noticed - people can not accept a simple answer to what they believe is a complex problem like human nutrition. People think our bodies are so complex that proper nutrition must be complex. But I'm always looking for what I call the simplest effective solution to any problem. In our case, eat a huge pile of fats and proteins once a day. That's it. It works flawlessly.

But people can't accept that. There's no way you can eat a big pile of beef every day and be healthy! It freaks people out. They just won't accept it. Even Joe Rogan, one of the toughest dudes ever, said he felt the best he ever did in his life on carnivore, but he was afraid to eat that way. He just couldn't trust it.

So you'll find a ton of nutritional people now who are "almost carnivore" and "mostly" eat that way. But they'll always throw in a few little things like "you need fermented foods for better digestion" or "a little fiber helps you poop better." I don't know if they just feel the need to complicate things so we perceive their expertise as valuable? I don't know.

But I do know there are examples of simple solutions all around us.

Millions of vehicles all over the world run on the exact same gasoline. You don't need custom gasoline solutions because each car is built differently or they have different genetics or they're operating under different circumstances. Gasoline for one and all. That's it.

What about cows? Cows eat grass, they poop, poop grows grass. I mean, it's that simple! There's nothing more to it.

Over the years, I've seen attitudes progress as cynics watch more and more people have success eating this way. They've gone from, "You're insane and you're gonna kill people!" to "Ok, so 'one guy' felt a little better eating steak. Doesn't prove anything!"

Now we're at the point where even the "professionals" are admitting, "Ok, it has worked flawlessly for years for thousands of people and it has even reversed a long list of diseases, but....but......but....."

...and then they throw in a few of their little custom exceptions to the rule like "ya gotta eat rhubarb for better eyesight!" or "chic peas help regulate your thyroid!" or some weird thing no one could ever prove anyhow.

Slowly migrate to a diet based on proteins and fats. Give it three months. If you run into problems after those three months, then work through it. Don't forecast gloom and doom and push yourself away from the solution out of fear. Give it a try. Then you'll know.

Chief Brody tried to post. I deleted it. He said I likely would. But I'll sum it up:

To paraphrase:

I don't like you, Brett, and I'd like to prove you wrong, but I've done no work of my own and I have no proof of anything, so I'll just criticize you a few times and leave a link to a random article on a random nutrition website that says carnivore probably won't work because "science."

Thanks, Chief Brody.

So many skeptics, so few willing to do the work.

For those who are interested, here is a new video from Dr Shawn Baker, the face of the carnivore movement that discusses things you must know if you're interested in eating carnivore:

Some highlights:

• Eating carnivore includes meat, fish, eggs, and dairy
• You should try it for at least three months, with one month dedicated to transitioning away from carbs and onto fats and proteins
• Most processed foods are not even food, and affect us like a recreational drug
• You may need more fluids and electrolytes than normal. Processed foods and vegetables often have added salt and make you retain water. You must replace that salt and water by drinking more than usual. You may experience diarrhea only in the beginning stages of transitioning until your body releases the extra fluids you retain and get used to the increased fat intake. That will not last.
• You will poop way less than you used to. You are not constipated. You're eating properly now so there is far less waste. This is good.
• Most people eat twice per day. Many of us eat only once at dinner.

In the video he does not mention how to transition to it. Slowly reduce the amount of carbs you eat with your meals. Eat larger amounts of meat and eggs, smaller amounts of everything else. Take about one full month to slowly transition to the point you eat at most two meals per day, preferably within 6 hours of each other.

Wow, Turtle. I did not have "Turtle going one-meal-a-day carnivore" on my bingo card! I thought you were just the next person in line to take a shot at me. When I saw your name on this thread, I thought, "Wow, even Turtle has had enough of me talking about this." But I'm obviously thrilled to hear the news!

I mentioned my wife to show the health contrast, anecdotal as it may be, between someone who prefers fats and proteins versus someone who prefers vegetables.

We are way beyond the anecdotal stage or the fad stage with eating carnivore. It first became known about seven years ago when Dr Shawn Baker called it the carnivore diet. There is a small army of thousands people who have all had the same earth-shattering results eating this way for years now, which is not a diet, but simply the proper way to eat.

5+ years ago I would have said we're getting anecdotal evidence or it's a fad. Not anymore.

After a year and a half of the veggie business, yes I did lose a little bit of weight, like 15lbs. but I had never felt worse in my life. I had a daily dose of what I would call "rot gut", just a queasy or upset feeling in my stomach. I was sluggish, and seemed to have progressively less energy

This is why I'm insisting that people stop talking about it and try carnivore. Once you experience the way you feel eating properly, all doubt will vanish. You'll never need another explanation about nutrition or waste your time in debates.

Notice, also, that everything Turtle experienced in his life pointed him toward eating meat. We're all born this way. Every kid on Earth loves meat and hates vegetables. It was not until people started confusing us with their advertising gimmicks that we lost our way. But the truth is instinctual. Our bodies know what to eat.

I would say "rot gut" is the perfect description of life on vegetables. All that fiber, which we can not digest, clogs our system. Along with that comes the garbage people put on vegetables like salad dressings, nuts, seeds, and fruits. It produces a ton of gas, which leaves us feeling bloated and having to go to the bathroom a lot. Your energy stays low because your body is trying to digest all this garbage and wants you to rest while it does that.

So you wind up bloated and gassy, lethargic, and just feeling crappy because you filled your body with useless fiber and things your body can not digest while ingesting nearly none of the nutrition you need. It's a disaster.

I also had to visit the hospital for the first non-accident, an appendectomy. Coincidence?

Man, I'm sorry to hear that. Since there's no way to prove that eating the wrong way caused it, we'll throw this one on that gigantic pile of anecdotal evidence that always seems to point in the same direction.

All the vitamins and nutrients we need are in the very thing that we were designed to eat: ANIMALS!

Just getting this on a t-shirt doesn't seem like a strong enough message. I might tattoo this on my forehead.

I've been mostly OMAD (one meal a day), which has its own separate health benefits

Fasting is almost as important as eating the right thing in the first place. Even if you're eating vegetables and fasting, you're giving your body a chance to clean itself out sometimes. But when you combine fasting with carnivore, you're now eating properly and allowing your body time to process the food, rebuild itself, and clean up afterward. At the same time, you're becoming more efficient at processing fats for fuel, which is the ideal way for the human body to fuel itself.

I can't describe how heartbreaking it is to go through life watching everyone around you suffer with obesity, illness, and depression when all they have to do is eat steak and eggs! Then, when you tell people the great news, you're treated like an outcast! It feels like I'm living in the Twilight Zone. I have the best possible news, and no one wants to hear it.

I hope more of you step up to the plate and give Carnivore a shot. I suspect there are more of you out there who are considering it, but you're not too excited about admitting that here after the reception the others have given me. I understand. But I encourage you to keep going down the path to carnivore. You may have noticed, as I have, that the only person who agrees with me so far is the only one who actually put in the work and tried it for himself. Hopefully more of you will report back with some exciting results!

I too follow a meat diet out of choice, no vegetables, few fruits, milk and water

Excellent! I see you figured out the carnivore thing, and it works for you as well. Glad to hear it!

Yes, guys, you're right. We're all built differently. I understand that. It's adorable that you thought I couldn't grasp that. But as a 5' 7" bald Italian, I can assure you I've considered what it would be like to have the genetics of Brad Pitt. But I was trying to avoid having what I felt was a pointless argument because it has no bearing on what we should eat.

But then I realized you're helping me break through some of the confusion and prove my point, so I'll use your point (we're all built differently) to prove mine (we all thrive on the same diet).

Navypoppop is in his 70s and has difficult diseases he deals with. His diet is almost exclusively fats and proteins.

Davy and I are 53 and athletic. Davy has a sugar condition, I do not. Our diets are almost exclusively fats and proteins.

Mikhaila Peterson is a 22-year-old woman. From a very young age, she suffered from severe juvenile idiopathic arthritis, which led to her needing hip and ankle replacements by the age of 17. She was diagnosed with severe depression, OCD, and type two bipolar disorder. Mikhaila also dealt with chronic fatigue and idiopathic hypersomnia. Her diet, which consisted of only meat for over 7 years, reversed and cured every single disease she had. All of them. So again, her diet is exclusively fats and proteins.

Eddie Hall - 36 years old - 6' 3" and 385 pounds. Literally the strongest man in the world, a world record-holding athlete. Eats carnivore diet. Fats and proteins.

Dr Jordan Peterson - non-athlete, 61 years old, suffered from severe gum disease, severe depression, weight issues (he lost 50 pounds after going carnivore), and other immunological problems. After going to a pure beef diet, every last symptom was cured and he says he has the same physique he had in high school.

Dr Shawn Baker - 57 years old, world record-holding athlete, 6' 4" and 270 pounds. He's the best-known person in the carnivore community. He really put himself out there to share his findings with everyone. Has eaten pure carnivore for over 7 years, almost exclusively beef. Still sets world records at almost 60 years old.

Hugo Wood, an elementary student suffering from Kabuki syndrome, has had a dramatic reversal in his symptoms after eating a keto diet, which is almost exclusively fats and proteins. His mother called it "nothing short of a miracle". Fats and proteins.

I could do this all day. We can talk about people of any age, race, gender, lifestyle, or condition, and everyone thrives on a diet based on fats and proteins. Every one of them.

So guys, thank you for forcing me to deal with the fact that we're all built differently. I was trying to avoid confusing people with things that don't matter, but it allowed me to demonstrate that everyone from sedentary old men to world record-holding athletes to little boys and young women with terrible diseases all thrive on a diet composed almost exclusively of fats and proteins.

Now the question is....what will I have for dinner? I have salmon, country-style pork ribs, chicken breast, and burger ready to go. I'm not sure what I'll have, but I don't think I'll be able to choose just one.

I'm 57 and I'm lean and healthy

I love it! Man, I love to hear that!

I keep my snacks down to just fruits and meat sticks that I get from a local meat store

Remember, though, that fruits are not good for you. For instance:

Coca Cola: A standard 12-ounce (355 ml) can of Coca-Cola contains about 39 grams of sugar.

Orange Juice: A 12-ounce serving of 100% pure orange juice (unsweetened) typically contains around 28-33 grams of sugar, depending on the brand and type (with or without pulp).

So that "healthy" orange juice has the same amount of sugar as Coca-Cola. Of course, "nutritional experts" (they're advertisers for the orange juice industry in reality) will tell you they're "natural sugars" so it's ok.

Baloney

If I was babysitting someone's children and I gave them a Coca-Cola for breakfast, the parents would have me arrested. Then they would give their kid a glass of orange juice instead, with that same criminal level of sugar in it, but feel really good about themselves.

Sorry folks, but we've been lied to for generations. "Eat your vegetables" and "healthy fruits" are two of the biggest lies ever told. These are advertising gimmicks, not the science of nutrition.

I've noticed even here now, there are a LOT more FAT Filipinos running around. More so in the big cities, where the Western fast food places have overbuilt.

I've seen stories about that, how populations all over the world are growing fatter as Western food becomes more commonplace in their society.

I would submit that given the evidence that DNA is the building blocks of us, and there are limitless combinations of those building blocks, it would be more accurate to say that we are assembled differently.

Yes, but I could say DNA is composed of atoms, and all atoms of a particular substance are identical, so we're all built the same. But these are pointless arguments that prove nothing, which is why I'm trying to get people to focus on experiencing the benefits of eating properly instead of arguing about it.

Once a person feeds their body properly, they will know the truth on a very deep level and no attempt at confusing this person will be effective. Once you've gained that wisdom through experience, you will no longer be led astray by people who are confused because they haven't experienced it for themselves.

I say this to everyone - you simply will not know the truth about nutrition until you experience it. The more time you waste arguing with people instead of taking action for yourself, the longer you will suffer. Be a scientist in your own life and run the experiment. Then you'll know.

I'd be willing to wager also, that again using us based on the same age and fairly athletic as well as fitness as an example, that if we were to perform the exact same muscle loading tasks, that our muscles would grow at different rates, burn fat at different rates, metabolize the nutrients at different rates, all with the same intake and content of food.

This has been borne out many many times in many studies and real life experiences. Thus the logical conclusion is that we respond to nutrients differently according to our genetics and environmental factors.

Caloric demand will fluctuate based on activity level, but the type of nutrition you need will not. Proteins and fats are the building blocks of the human body. That's what we need. It doesn't matter if you're an athlete or a couch potato, your body needs proteins and fats. The athlete will need a larger quantity of fat and protein than the couch potato, but they will not need to eat different foods or have a different nutrition plan.

So an endurance athlete, a powerlifter, and a couch potato will all eat steak and eggs every day, but they'll just eat them in different amounts, depending on their caloric needs. Your body can self-adjust to your caloric demands if you're eating proteins and carbs, so there's no need to count calories or regulate portion size. Everyone can eat a plate full of steak and eggs until they are full every day and they will maintain their proper weight and excellent health.

at one time I did carb loading as many others for a couple nights prior to events. I never had conclusive proof of it benefitting or detracting performance. Hydrating and actually staying away from carbs seemed to help the most because of the reactive hypoglycemia.(a genetic factor).

You admit that you ate a lot of carbs and that you have had sugar problems for a long time, yet you don't seem to realize that the intake of carbs caused the sugar problems. Instead, you seem to think it's because we're all built differently.

I say the excessive carbs caused your sugar problem over the years, and getting off the sugars and carbs will fix it. It has for tons of people. Again, you have to do it very slowly to prevent detoxing too quickly, but once you've made that change, the sugar problems will go away.

Remember, I was given the same bad advice over the years and I went down the carb path many years ago myself. I never felt like I should have and I had problems controlling my weight. Once I went down the correct path of eating proteins and fats, I realized immediately it was the proper way to eat and all of my problems went away. I've never struggled with my performance or my weight ever since, and that was years ago.

Experience it and you will know.

I tried Atkins when it was it came out, but I got all the worst side effects. It wasn't for me.

Low-carb diets are for you. They're for everyone.

The problem is that almost everyone who tries changing to a low-carb diet does it too fast and makes themselves sick. I did it myself several times. They call it the "carb flu" or "carb crash" in nutrition circles, and it's called "bonking" in fitness circles. You feel extremely lethargic. You can hardly get your head off the pillow, and you keep thinking you just need a nap to get your energy back. You can't think straight and you feel so weak you can hardly move.

You're addicted to carbs, like a drug, and your body is detoxing. It's an ugly process if you do it too quickly, just like it is with drugs or alcohol.

Imagine an alcoholic saying they tried going sober but had terrible side effects, so sobriety just isn't for them. You would instantly know they detoxed too quickly is all. Well, the same goes for removing poisonous foods from our body. It takes time. It's a process. If you rush the process, it will be very ugly for a while. Eventually you'll come out the other side, but most people don't stick with it long enough once that happens.

If you have a carb crash, throw a baked potato in the microwave for four minutes and before you even finish it you'll feel like a million bucks again. Then go back to eating a small amount of carbs with your meals and wean yourself away slowly.

I did a walking marathon a few years ago and I had to frequently eat while I was doing it.

You had to get those carbs to keep going, am I right?

Back in the day (in the 80s and 90s) everyone used to do "carb loading" for sports. The night before a big race or game you had to eat a huge bowl of pasta and bread. Before the event, you drink a bunch of sugary drinks. During the race, you need your sugary Gatorade. Everyone thought you would perform best by fueling yourself with carbs as often as possible.

What athletes figured out over the years is that your body runs best on fat, not carbs. You can only store a tiny amount of carbs, but you have an endless amount of fat, even if you're super skinny. Even the thinnest people in our society often have weeks worth of fat storage they can tap into.

That's why I did all of my long endurance training days in a fasted state. I wouldn't eat for at least 12 hours before the day started, and I wouldn't eat all day in the mountains. The guides I hired to climb with me were always blown away that I would go into the mountains for 8 - 10 hours without any food. My coach would have to explain to them that I've done it for years.

In fact, many of my coach's other athletes changed up their diets after hearing that an ordinary dude like me can do long days without food, day after day, and perform great. People didn't even think it was possible, so they didn't try. Once they realized it worked, they made the switch.

I could eat any amount of carbs, junk food, healthy food, didnt matter, I'd burn it all the same.

You didn't gain weight no matter what you ate, but the food you eat doesn't all burn the same. The body uses different chemical processes for storing and burning carbs vs storing and burning fats. You needed fuel during the long race because your body wasn't properly adapted to burning fats, not because you're built differently. If you removed carbs from your diet and trained that way, within a few months you'd easily walk that marathon without any calories whatsoever and feel way better than you did when you did it eating carbs.

It takes time for your body to become properly fat-adapted. Once you get there, you realize that's how our bodies are meant to perform.

So we're not all built differently, we're conditioned differently. Once properly conditioned, we're all very similar. Certainly some people will gain weight easier than others, that sort of thing, but our bodies know how to regulate fats and proteins properly, so someone who gains weight more easily will self-adjust and eat less than someone who burns fat more quickly.

from the sounds of it the folks he was talking with were basically espousing a mostly carnivore diet as well

Considering the overwhelming evidence, I'm not sure what choice they would have if they wanted to be taken seriously. You can no longer deny it. Thousands of people have eaten almost nothing but meat and eggs for many years now and we have the best health of anyone in our society.

People have reversed diseases and conditions like cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, arthritis, and more by going carnivore. Many of us are athletes as well. You wouldn't perform well or recover well if you weren't getting the nutrition you need, and you certainly wouldn't reverse disease.

Like my former coach said, athletes and coaches figure out what works many years or even decades before scientists can figure out why. We conduct experiments, we get the results, and then we know what works. We don't care if science can explain it or not, because for us it's all about results, not explanations.

People get hung up on the explanations instead of trying it for themselves. We need more action and less talking when it comes to nutrition. It doesn't take long to figure out what works.

Something that clearly shows up over and over, that many of us have said is that there is no one size fits all diet or solution. Genetics and environmental factors play such a large role in how we react to nutrition and physical work.

We are all built the same. We all get the nutrition we need from fats and proteins. We all have the same organs, nervous system, hormones, circulatory system, immune system, etc. Genetics plays a role in some ways, but not in such a way that you'd have to create different diets for different people, assuming they are healthy. If you're born with a genetic defect, that's different.

We are all in different places right now because of how we've eaten and exercised in recent months and years, not because we're built differently. If everyone slowly progressed from where they are now to where they should be with regard to fitness and nutrition, you would find that all healthy people react to food the same way.

Think about cars. You have all different manufacturers building wildly different engines, yet they all run perfectly on exactly the same gasoline. People are all designed to run on fats and proteins. There are no healthy exceptions.

Someone who exercises very hard will need to eat more than someone who doesn't, but they still need the same nutrients to be healthy, and those nutrients come from proteins and fats.

This idea that each of us is different and therefore needs different solutions is another example of health professionals marketing themselves.

"Diet is not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. You need a health professional like myself to analyze how you're different than everyone else so I can give you a custom diet made just for you. Only a professional like myself can help everyday people like yourself know how to eat." - every nutritionist

Again, total baloney. Transition to a proper diet of fats and proteins and you'll be healthy. There are no exceptions.

I have a guess that most, meaning we'll more than half of drivers, struggle with being over weight and probably did so long before they set foot in a cab. It's just their body type, it follows the numbers of population in general. Few of us are naturally thin and wirery.

I come from a short, fat Italian family. Half of my relatives look like Danny Devito. I eat a huge pile of fatty meat every day until I'm stuffed, and yet I'm lean. I could easily gain 50 pounds by pigging out on all the wrong things. But I challenge you to find a carnivore who is struggling with their weight, especially if they're eating one meal per day.

One big problem is that the food industry has tricked us into eating way too often. If I can train as hard as I do and get all of the nutrition I need eating one meal per day, so can everyone else. We're taught to eat all the time, which is absurd. Eating three meals per day seems completely ridiculous to me. I don't even eat twice a day. Heck, I don't even eat every day! I skip Mondays! And yet I'm rarely hungry or full. I feel about the same all the time, which is how it's supposed to be.