Dr. Shawn Baker Podcast
Eating Disorder Had Her Malnourished, Then She Wen All-In On Meat | Dr. Shawn Baker & Kyndall
Hey guys, this is Swank Grill, he's up to 1,500 degrees to grill the juices, steaks you've ever tasted in as little as three minutes. At 1,500 degrees you get the perfect sear and create a delicious crust on both sides of the steak. This grill is made in USA and uses the exact same technology as the world's best steak houses. My mom is a fabulous baker and she would occasionally make cupcakes and I remember eating that cupcake and then eating the wrapper because I just had such cravings for sugar. I was eating one apple a day or about half a tub of cottage cheese a day while playing water polo while surfing with friends after school while running on the treadmill downstairs in our garage and I just became so malnourished. I was so desperate for nutrients, I have dreams about food, sugar, you know my whole next day would be like when can I get my next fix? When I was dealing with this eating disorder it was like I wasn't as present, I didn't want to be in pictures, I didn't want to run around and chase my girls. All I cared about was when can I get my next fix? Here I guess a success story of some nature I imagined, kindle thanks for doing this by the way I appreciate that. I guess we'll just start out you said you're out in Tennessee which is a lovely part of the country. I guess tell us a little about your background what kind of stuff do you do and tell us how things started? Yes, I am 32 years old, I am a stay at home mom to three beautiful little girls. I was born and raised in Oceanside, California, I grew up in your typical, low fat household so we were raised on egg whites and skim milk, grilled chicken breast, huge salads. My dad is a colonel in the Marines and my mom was a teacher, both of them were just in killer shape, my sisters are very tall and lean and I was more of a chubby sister and I always had a cradings for sugar, I was always hungry, I never felt like I had to eat enough. Even at a young age I would take food and I would hide it, I would count out how many snacks or whatever we had in the cabinet and if there was just enough that I could take some and then hide it in my room. And as I got older I just continued to realize wow, I am really loving this sugar. My mom is a fabulous baker and she would occasionally make cupcakes and we were allowed to have one and I remember eating that cupcake and then eating the wrapper because I just had such clavings for sugar and as I continued to grow and then at puberty I lost some of that baby fat and I noticed that I was getting more attention from my friends and from some of the high school guys, so my brain, the first thing I thought was I'm getting this attention now, if I lose more weight, I will continue to get more attention. So I would drastically cut my calories, I was eating one apple a day or about half a cup of cottage cheese a day while playing water polo while surfing with friends after school while running on the treadmill downstairs in our garage and I just became so malnourished. I was so desperate for nutrients, this anything I could get my hands on, I would just binge and just a gorge myself full of these foods and then to get rid of that uncomfortable feeling and all of the guilt from eating that, I would purge and it just really turned into this snowball of a eating disorder that at times I felt like I had control over and then there were other times that I knew for sure it was controlling me. As I got older, my parents got divorced, we moved to Tennessee, while I was in college, I met my husband while still dealing with this eating disorder and restricting. I had tried so many different ways to get rid of this eating disorder. I had tried more of a plant based approach with all of the great smoothies and huge salads, I tried a moderation approach of just trying to eat everything. I had no self control, I could not do it. I tried gluten free, none of these options worked and so if I husband and I, we got married, I still did not tell him anything about this, we were going out to eat all the time and I was, we were happy, we were in love, we were just really enjoying each other and I was gaining weight. So I really ramped up the restricting all week long, 10 and 8, 900 calories a day and then on the weekend it was just a full binge in secrecy and then I would purge and start back over on Monday. It was a video cycle, husband has no idea, we get married and I'm pregnant, we have three beautiful little girls and after I have them, I am breastfeeding and I am not hurting because when you're breastfeeding, you also speak hurting but I was still busing and just dove deep into this emotional eating, 10,000 calories a day just diving into this also dealing with some postpartum depression. My husband, we own a family business, he worked so hard in such long hours that it was really just me and home by myself and I was diving into food to get rid of these postpartum depression feelings and then once my middle daughter, she had turned one, I remember being in the kitchen and shoving six cupcakes in my mouth while my family was in the other room and I thought, I have had enough of this, this was five years ago, I've had enough. This is embarrassing, this isn't me, I'm done. So I got on the internet, I found Dr. Berg and I jumped into the keto train. I did the Atkins approach with all of the Adstyn products and stuff and then I moved more toward a cleaner keto, huge salads, lots of low fat dress or full fat dressings and grilled chicken breast and I eventually lost 77 pounds in nine months and then I started restricting again and on the weekends I would then binge and then I would purge. It was just like I had never got rid of this eating disorder, I had never fully nourished my body and it was years of doing this ago and finally I was so desperate for change. I remember just getting on Instagram and just typing in keto and different things would pop up and how to deal with sugar cradings and I saw Bella from steak and butter gal and she was eating sticks of butter and I thought that is crazy but I'm intrigued, I want to see what this is all about and it was so scary at first just seeing eating this delicious fatty red meat, everything that we had been taught not to do and I just I took the leap of faith and it is my third time making carnivore my lifestyle. The third time was the charm for me, I have put my eating disorder in remission, I have not bended, purged or restricted enough 100 days, let me just get perspective on that because 100 days is a little bit three months, how long had you been able to go ever because you said sounds like you were a teenager when the first started until you're not in your 30s so for the 15 or so years you've been dealing with that was as long as you've ever gone prior to that. Three, two weeks? Okay, so yeah, okay, so that's definitely a change and if you'd mentioned growing up on the low fat, your dad's and Maureen probably very disciplined, everybody's low fat exercise and that can certainly work for some people but you probably were trained that yeah cut the fat off your meat, don't eat red meat, mostly chicken and stuff like that, is that fair to say? 100. Yeah and so how much was there like, what were you thinking, I'm gonna eat all this kind of when I first did this diet, I was joking that I'm obviously immediately gonna have a heart attack within the first two weeks, I'm eating all this meat, did you have some thoughts of that like hesitation oh my god something bad is going to happen and if so what were you worried about? Yes, I was, I was scared, I was genuinely scared because it just goes against everything that we've been taught, everything that is on TV, everything that the doctors say, so it was scary at first but I just was so desperate for change and something that would hopefully help me and I had heard so many stories from other people that had gotten such great results through eating a carnivore way, I just dove in, I did a ton of research, I watched a ton of your videos, a ton of Dr. Barry's and Dr. Chafees and I really just felt like this is what I was supposed to be doing. I was the experiment, I did the research and I dove in and the first two times I tried a carnivore way of eating, I did it the wrong way and I- Okay we'll explain that because I want to, I'm interested to see because you said it's the third attempt and so what was it, what were the wrong things you felt you were doing? Restricting, restricting my calories and I went- Okay, yeah. Yes I was not eating enough fat, I still was slightly scared of it and my diet ring, my diet ring was telling me, you cannot have this, do you know how many calories are in this? You cannot eat this way and so I would just restrict and yes I did lose some weight but I would white-knuckling the entire time. I did have some positive results from that but I was full, I would make the choice to fall off the wagon because I was so just hungry for nutrients, I was not feeding my body enough. How long did you, on those prior two attempts, how long had you made it before? It was just like a decision sustainable for me and I guess that is one of the biggest heiress people make is just thinking that this is a restrictive diet and I need to cut off the fat and restrict calories and that's certainly not the way to start this diet, I can tell you that. At some point, utilize that as a tool but starting that is often a recipe for like your head not success, having hunger all the time which is what you don't want to have to deal with all the time. Yes, though I was eating probably 900 to 1,000 calories, maybe 1,200 and just leaner and trying to fast at the same time. It was just not a good combination and the first time I lasted about three weeks and then the second time I lasted about a month and a half. Okay. You said husband, no idea, you're out there binging and purging and I guess you've been pretty sneaky about sneaking off to the bathroom and just whatever. I mean, did they have, because a lot of people, they have teeth problems every time they vomit all the time and hurt their teeth. I actually talked to dentist who had the same issue for years and every type of having her teeth and again, carnivore literally cured her, I've seen this, I've seen your story over and over again, which is interesting with eating disorders because a lot of a lot of quote unquote, "disordered eating" or eating the sort of, they treat that with this sort of, I think, an awful approach where they force feed people like junk food to say, "Hey, you got to be able to eat everything in out moderation that are no bad foods." Clearly, there are some of the foods that we consume right now are just not even, they're not fit for human beings, they're not even fit for dogs in my view. Did you, so you said you'd gain, I guess after pregnancy, you'd gain some weight, you were able to lose it again, where were you starting at, body-wise, body composition-wise, I don't know if you weren't sharing that, where you started carnivore and then what have you been able to have maintained so far? 217 pounds. Okay. So, and you're not like six foot five or nothing like that, so you probably, so probably a little too much weight there, yeah, for sure, okay. And so, what happened after? To address the teeth thing, I do not have any teeth issues. I am very meticulous about my teeth and I used to be a dental assistant, so I know exactly what to do, so I just was prepared and it was, I was very sneaky. I had just figured out exactly how to do it. I had hidey holes around my house where I could keep food that no one would ever see and I would just binge while my girls were asleep and I would get that five minutes of a dopamine hit, blood sugar hit, and then 15 minutes later, I would not have that anymore and I would do it every day for a very long time. Do you think the desire to binge affected your lifestyle and, well, hey, girls, why don't you go to bed early tonight or something like that so mom can go binge? Was that ever stuff that they kind of affected what you did or didn't turn down events or it's because I'd rather stay home and binge, or was that ever something that didn't have that much power of you? Yes, it did. We was on nine acres and my husband has two huge shops in our backyard, so he can just walk back and forth to work and I remember that if he ever came home into our house during the time that my girls were down to their quiet time, I would just be like cringing because he was taking my binge from me. He was taking this time from me where I could just emotionally just dive into this food and just let it take over this big monster that was just started this morning telling me planning out my day where I was going to eat, where I could go and get things to stock up, what sounded good, and he would come and disrupt that and it would make me very angry. Yeah, I'd be like, why are you here? Why are you here? Don't you go back to work? It was awful. It was like a totally different person. So you're obviously doing interviews now, so I assume he knows now at this point unless I would assume unless he doesn't listen to podcasts, but so what was, did he ever suggest yeah, I knew something was going on was he just totally oblivious. Were you such so good at hiding? Totally oblivious. Totally oblivious. I sat him down at the end of last year and I was just telling him I'm like, I am at my wit's end. I am so desperate for help. I need support. I don't know what I can do. I tried everything. I am drowning in this eating disorder, this mental load that I am carrying all on my own that nobody knows about that I'm holding in, this guilt, this shame, the self-woeing of not being able to control myself and these cravings too that were just waking me up in the middle of the night, I have dreams about food, sugar, I start my whole next day would be like, when can I get my next fix? And I know I've always been an incredible mother, but when I was dealing with this eating disorder, it was like I wasn't as present. I didn't want to be in pictures. I didn't want to run around and chase my girls. All I cared about was when can I get my next fix? And I also was hiding this food from everybody because I didn't want my girls to eat it, but yet it was okay for me to eat it. But I told my husband the latter part of last year and he was supportive, but see, he doesn't have any of these issues and for someone who doesn't deal with food or sugar addiction or an eating disorder, it's really hard for them to be able to relate. So he was supportive as much as he could be. He knew that I was really at rock bottom and he's been supportive ever since. How did that play on you mentally? Were you depressed about it? Was there anything besides were you able to cover that up to or was it taking a toll on you mentally? I did have a some postpartum depression and then that kind of when I dived into more of the emotional eating aspect of my eating disorder, but for sure, because it was like I was anxious and excited to have this binge, but after it happened and my blood sugar came back down and I was looking in the mirror and I'm like, this isn't me, who is this person? Doing this, abusing my body with these foods that are so terrible for me. And then after I would binge and then purge, it was like I had a headache and I felt dizzy and my blood pressure was all out of whack and my blood sugar was all out of whack and I felt terrible, it was so up and down and there's an anxiety about dealing and trying to be in a sick social situation where there was food, there was triggers. It's just so nice not to have any of that anymore. What kind of foods were you typically binge, like sweets and dessert type foods or what kind of things were you typically using? It was totally sugar, all about the sugar. And I remember too, even during the week, I would map out bakeries and I would call them and see what they had in stock so I could make up some excuse to go and pick it up. But when I go, I'd tell my husband, oh, I just got Isla a little tight cookie, but really that wasn't the reason I was going. I was going to fulfill this addiction that I had to sugar. When you felt that addiction, I guess obviously once you started getting through puberty and losing weight, but it may even started younger than that because my mom was baking and making good foods and you're eating wrapper, it tastes so good. What do you think your other sisters didn't deal with this? Do you think there's any particular things that you can think of that were different? I don't know, they might just be wired different. One of my sisters did deal with some addiction issues, but not food related. I'm not really sure. I don't know if it was just because maybe I was the chubbier sister. So I just felt like I was hungry all the time and they were not ever. And I just really dove into the sugar and the emotional eating aspect of it. It really snowballed. Yeah, the estimates I've read I've seen seem to suggest about 14% of the population deals with some sort of food addiction type of thing and it's one out of seven people. So I don't know if that how accurate that number is, but it's probably not far off. So you said you're 217 when you start carnivore, you get over your fear of eating this awful red meat. This is instantly going to kill us. We've all been brainwashed and believing that. So tell me how the first period of time went out of the first couple of weeks to months go with this. Well, actually with like 217, when I first started keto and then I had lost that 77 pounds and then from there it just up and down, up and down, feeling less, the restricting and then the binging and then the purging for a long time, tried carnivore, you know, for that first couple of weeks. And then I did about six weeks and I did lose quite a bit because I'm restricting so much. But this time around when I was just so, I was in so much despair, I just was like, I have got to do this. I got to put my foot down and that's really why I started my social media with mainly for accountability. Like the very first video I posted, if you look at it, it doesn't even look like me. I'm like, I can't even look at the camera. My face is so swollen from the day before of binging and purging. And it just has, I told myself, I am not going to restrict. I am going to do this the right way. I'm going to nourish my body properly. I'm going to eat until I am full and I'm going to track my food so that I do not under eat. Okay. And so I got those probably scary to do that for the beginning of the first time. I would imagine, is that fair to say? Yes. It really was. Dr. Baker, I was so desperate. I know I keep saying that word, but I just was done. I had to put my foot down. I said, you know what? I had thought I'd do this for my girls. I've got to do it for my health, for me, for my family. There's just no, there's no other option. I am doing this. I know this works. I know that my body is craving these foods. I know that I am a mountain nourish to don't have any nutrients that I need. And I know that by eating this way, I can get everything I need. What was your husband? Obviously, when you're eating carnivore, it looks weird. Like I see you to say, we're as a salad, we're just wearing the rice, we're as a potato, whereas the normal stuff you would see in people's ears at your dinner table, how accepting was a family? And I guess obviously maybe, I don't know if your daughters are too young to really notice. But how did that play out? Was it like, just do what you're doing and hopefully it works or? My husband was concerned at first. He was. He has never been a vegetable lover anyway. A lot of the vegetables that I used to buy in bags of salad would often rot. We would just wouldn't eat it. My girls were never really crazy about them. And it's funny how much kids pick up on things. My girls knew immediately when I was eating this way, how much better I felt. And they wanted to eat the same way. They are solely animal-based and I'm so proud of them. They love meat, they love sardines, they love butter. All of this wonderful thing, I love helping me in the kitchen. They love going with me to pick up pasture-raised eggs and they love learning about food. And I always explain to them the ingredients list, and that's why we eat this way. I involved them in this and they know which foods make them feel good and which foods make them not feel so good. So they're, I'm just so proud of them, but at first it was a shock to everybody. And I had some explaining to do, but everyone has been very supportive. Yeah, I just was taking a peek. It looks like your Instagram carnivore kindle there. I see cute little girls, I look like one of about like two or three-ish to six or seven. I don't know how old they are, but it's something, something like that. They look like they're still pretty young guys or young girls rather. Do they? They are. Yeah. So they can tell, that's something like my kids, as soon as they can read and understand, I don't know how food makes food effects, how you feel. And it's important to understand and then know what foods are there and how important it is, because a lot of people just, a lot of people don't do that with their children. Unfortunately, they just feed them whatever they like, whatever's cheap, whatever tastes good. But by the end of this, they shut up and they don't complain, but that's a really not a very good way to do it. Let me ask you, because I think this is a fair question, negatives, or have you had any negative issues with this diet so far, either short term, long term, or is it all been pretty much positive? It is all been very positive. The only thing that I can say that was a little bit negative was oxalid dumping. I did have some of that. That was not very enjoyable, but also all. I think I just feel so incredible and I have so much joy for life, especially after feeling how I did before dealing with this eating disorder. And I just, I can't stop talking about the carnivore way of eating. I'm so passionate about it. It has healed me so much inside and out and now it's just working so well with my girls. I'm just, I'm so proud of that and I'm being the example store them and showing them. Look at how great mommy feels. And they notice all the time, they're like, wow, mommy, you can, you're sprinting faster than me. You're chasing me around and I can pick them up as real love and they notice everything. And I just feel like, like I said, the only thing I've noticed was just the oxalid dumping in the first two weeks that did not have super great workouts. Okay. Fair enough. And I'm just looking. I see you've got meat and eggs look like a few little blueberries there for maybe for the kiddos and obviously have you noticed the kids change a little bit since you switched their diet a little bit and I don't know what they were eating before, but can you notice the difference in their behavior, how they feel, how they express themselves? My girl didn't always had a broad palate and they do love meat, but before it was like lean chicken breast, it would cold the fast, the steak. And now they fight over the fact on the rib eyes and they fight over the butter. It's like on the cutting board, they can dip their steaks that they love all of that. And I have seen some changes in them for sure. They are not snacking anymore. They don't want to snack anymore. They eat a large amount at meals and they have energy for days. They're sleeping well. I find too that they aren't as irritable, but they just see if there's not that irritability like there was before when they'd get more tired or fight with each other. It just seems calm, stable moves and my youngest daughter, she's three when she was a baby, she had really severe eczema. And we tried so many different stairways and things to get her eczema to go away. She eventually grew out of it mostly, but if she has anything that is not animal based or carnivore, she will get a flare up the next day. So we've really tried to make sure that our girls are eating 90% animal based carnivore all the time. We do not control them. If we go to a birthday party, they can choose what they'd like to have there, but they're smart girls. They always go for the meat option first and they know what makes them feel good and what makes them not feel so good. So they limit that as well. Yeah, it's so good that when kids understand why they might remember not feel good, even adults, we don't even realize that. I know there's people who will wake up one morning, they're like their elbows hurting. They're like, maybe I slept on it wrong, or maybe it was because I opened that jar three days ago or so they can't figure it out. I'm like, maybe it was a damn garbage you ate for dinner last night. You know what I mean? Think about that. And so, yeah, it's good to teach those kids that stuff very early on. You said in times past 900 calories, 1200 calories and half a serving of cottage cheese and apple, some ridiculously low amount of food, how much do you eat now? It seems like it keeps you wait stable or keeps you out of wait where you're happy with. How much are you eating now, typically, on a day? Anywhere from 2000 to 2200 calories a day. And I do track just to make sure I do not under eat because if I do under eat, I do not feel good. I do not sleep well and I don't want to feel lightheaded or anything like that. But just being like, you have to change your mindset. You have to change your mindset from the diet mindset. You have to understand that you are nourishing your body with all these nutrient-dense foods and to eat until you're full. And that's another thing, too. A lot of people will ask me, do you still have that like binge urge on carnivore foods? And I don't. But my sins, I just feel satiated and I know that I'm full and I can stop and if I want more, I can always go and get more. But I've actually lost this last 100 days. I've lost 24 pounds and gone down three pant fives while still eating 2000 to 2200 calories a day. Yeah. And that's probably the appropriate amount of food for you. It's like, it'll be a little light for me because I'm not perfect for the person. So that's great. You can find a way that you can eat too because my belief, and I think it's probably an accurate belief, is that if you are on a diet where you're constantly hungry or you don't enjoy the food, you're just never going to be able to maintain that. So it sounds like you found something that not only allows you to eat to some level of contentment, but also you enjoy it. I assume, how do you, a lot of people, because a lot of people say, I could never give up my ex-wives. I could never give up pasta or bread or salad or whatever it might be. Do you find missing those things or do you find that you crave those things anymore or is that largely a thing of the past for you? Dr. Baker, it was life or death for me, I cannot moderate. I cannot have any sort of sweet or carb at all. So for me, an all or nothing kind of personality, very type a folk, you know what, that's it. I'm done. I will never have another bite again because of all of the baggage that it comes with. It is not worth my food freedom and my peace of mind. I don't ever want to feel the way I did before, though it's not even an option. I did have some sugar cravings that first week, and though they aren't fun, but I just changed my mental state, and I said, you know what, food is fuel. Food is not entertainment, food is not a warm hug, food is not to reward myself or punish myself. It is fuel to nourish my body, and that's it. You use the word there that some people think might be counterintuitive because you said freedom, food, freedom, and a lot of people say, well, my God, this guy is a foot restrictive. I don't have the freedom to eat. What do you mean by freedom? Where does that, how would you describe that? For me, the way I describe it is I have control over what I put in my mouth. I have control over what I eat. My eating disorder is not controlling it. I have control, and this is what I choose to eat. When I eat this way, I feel incredible, and when I was eating the other way, before ultra processed, standard American diet, plant-based, gluten-free, I didn't feel good. Now that I can eat and fully nourish myself and feel full, and have a productive life, that is food freedom to me. Yeah, fair enough, and a lot of people, I've heard that from a lot of people because with the criticism, it's so restrictive, but it actually tends to be freeing from the sort of just intrusive thoughts about food. I guess if you were binging, you're probably thinking about food most of the time. I would imagine I'm either hungry, or I'm thinking about hiding food, or I'm kidding. Has it taken a lot of that pressure off of you? Oh, so much. It's like 500 pounds off of my shoulders. It was such a heavy ball and chain, just carrying this around and having it be a secret to my family and to my husband's, it was so overwhelming, and the amount of guilt and shame and self-loathing I had for treating my body this way. God says our body is a temple, and I was abusing my body. And to not have that anymore, and to just not have to think of it, I was telling my husband the other day, I said, "You know what, I felt like food was just everything. It was ruling my life. I'm constantly thinking about food. I was spending so much time thinking about food, and was it as present with my girl or my husband?" And my eating disorder was ruling my life, and I don't ever want to go back to that. For me, nothing will take that away, that peace of mind. You said you felt desperate, you had this sort of compulsion to binge and purge, and you couldn't figure it out, and you felt desperate on that. And obviously it seems like it's helped significantly, which I again, I've not seen many times. Have you noticed other things that were maybe unexpected when you wanted this to like some people just noticed weird things like, "Oh my God, my, I never, I never hiccup anymore." That's one thing that I just don't hiccup anymore, that's weird, but anything you didn't expect to die to work on that maybe it's worked on? I actually have not hiccuped in a hundred days, but I've noticed that my senses seem heightened. I still like my sense of smell, it's very heightened. I can tell if something's different or off when I walk in the house. I still like it dead, my mental clarity is so sharp. Just being able to talk with you and just answer every question back to back and not have any brain fog, or trying to remember what I'm going to say, or what. No, I, it's just the mental clarity is so huge. Yeah, fair enough. And let me, I guess you'd mentioned earlier that when you first started your lean meats and restricting fats, and you saw like Bella, my friend's steak and butter gal, she actually lives about 20 minutes from me, so I see them not infrequently, but I don't eat, I don't eat six of butter. This doesn't work for me, but I, for some people it does. Are you still, what does your diet look like from when you started versus today as it changed any, or is it pretty much been consistent from the beginning on this thorough attempt that you had success with? I really focus on fatty meat. I do have three meals a day because fasting for me is a little bit of a trigger with the restricting, so I don't mess around fasting at this time. I know it works really well for a lot of people, but for me, I'm a three meal a day gal. In the morning, I'll have about three pasture rate eggs and a little bit of butter, and I'll have some sugar-free bacon, and then about six hours later, I will have a fatty ribeye or a chuck-eye steak with some ground beef, and then for dinner, I'll have something similar to that. I do incorporate a lot of seafood. My girls do let seafood be what sardines and well-cost salmon, so do include that, but it's funny, the first time I tried carnivore, I craved butter. I never ate sticks of butter, but I would get like a pat of butter, and I would just eat that. If this time around, I do not want it like that at all. Now my six-year-old, she could take a bath and the grass-fed butter, but for me, this time around, I actually don't really want it unless it is on top of a steak, maybe just a small amount, or mixed in with my scrambled egg. Okay, fair enough, and do you, as far as frequency of eating now, is it like twice a day? I must be one of twice a day. Do you have a meal pattern that you fall into? I do. I eat three times a day. Breakfast is typically my smallest meal, which is crazy because we're always told that breakfast is supposed to be the biggest meal of the day. I do work out. I lift heavy weights three times a week, and then I also take a fun little bar class with some friends on Saturday, but I work out fast. My eating window is typically from about eight o'clock until 6.30 at night, and I'll get my workout in. I usually give it 4.45 in the morning. Okay. When you work out, do you go to a gym or get something at home, or how do you typically do that? I work out of the gym. I go to a Y, and it's really close to YMCA, close to our house, and I love it. Was it something where you always work out? First of all, you said your dad was a marina. I assume he worked out. I've been working out, guys, since I'm 57, I've worked out since I was 13. My kids see me all the time. They know that I'm dad's in the gym working out because I train at home, but is this something new for you, or is this something you've just often on done over the years? No, I've actually done it for a very long time, and before, when I would work out, I never had the confidence like I do now. I would show up, and I would just be bloated, and I wouldn't feel good. My gym clothes were so tight, and I'd just walk around the gym, pick up a few dumbbells here or there, do the leg press, but now when I go, I'm so confident. I'm proud of my body. I love my body. I'm proud of myself, of what I have accomplished, and I go in there, and I lift some heavy weights, and I'm trying to put on more muscle, and it feels good. I'm happy to do it. It's not a chore. I wake up, and I want to do it, because I want to treat my body right, and by lifting weight and exercising and cleaning my muscle, that's for what to do. Yeah, I saw you do some dead lifts, some squats and dead lifts, and some basic functional heavy lifts, which is great, I think, for just about anybody, more male, female, young, old. Doesn't really matter in my view. What about your husband? Has your husband, like, has he, like, said, "Hey, let me try this carnivore thing?" Or is he still, I don't know what he eats normally, but has he been impacted anyway by you? Because I don't know who does the cooking around the house. Obviously, I do most of the cooking at our house, because I'm always cooking steaks and my wife. She wants your shit back. She's a little mad, except I forgot to make her stay this afternoon when she came home. So I didn't hear, I didn't get a text, so I thought he saw I got to cook her a steak here in a little bit. But what about that? Does he participate in the carnivore diet in some fashion or no? No, I actually do all of the cooking, so 90% of our meals are carnivore or animal-based, and he does eat that. But he does typically eat a standard American diet, and I've tried the dogmatic route. It does not work. I did that the first time around, and he was pushed back. So he is his own person, and I'm hoping that he will come to the light sometime soon. But I think, by being an example and just showing him how much this way of eating has benefited me, I think that one, the long ones, make a huge difference. Yeah, I think that's what it is. You just be the example. And within my family, my spouse, I never forced her, but she eventually came to it after watching me do this for six or seven years and finally said, "Okay, let me do this," and she actually loves it. She actually feels so much better and must be one of those things where you just be the example, because you're right preaching never works, because particularly if you're too close to something, because they know all the mistakes you've made, and it's okay. I'm going to watch you for a while. Do you guys have pets? I thought, I think maybe you got pet chickens or something. I don't know. Do you have animals or something? I saw some chicken feeding going on with your kids, I think, maybe. Yes. One of our dear friends, she has a pasture raised, or she has petriated eggs that we buy from her. She had those friendliest, sweetest chickens, and my girls love to go and hold them and kiss them and get the egg down and learn about how chickens are fed and what their natural diet is, so that's something fun that we do every week and they love to be all involved in. My girls love chickens, but if we're going to do it, I want to do it right, and right now, just don't at the time. Yeah, fair enough. What about... Here's why I get this criticism often, and you're feeding the family of five to three little girls and growing girls who probably are eating a decent amount of food and probably will obviously eat more as they get bigger. Expense? Is that too expensive? What do you say to that? I actually am saving money eating this way. If you even knew the amount of money that we were spending on ultra-processed junk and also the amount of money that we're spending on going out to eat and buying the dessert and going to the... They're getting cookies and all of the fruit and vegetables that we would buy and then would go bad. Now, my girls still do eat lots of fruit, but I know the amount they eat and we stick to a lot of berries and we don't waste those, and also we have blackberries in our backyard, so I still in the backyard, I ticked those, but we save a ton of money by eating this way. It's really crazy. So much money. Yeah, I heard... Like I said, unless you're eating prime rib-eye steaks every day, which most people can't afford, ground beef eggs, that many people I've talked to, particularly in the U.S., now some places in Europe and some countries where meat is more expensive, they struggle with that. But in the U.S., certainly not a problem. And you said you grew up in Oceanside down there in San Diego, and now you're in Tennessee. I assume it's pretty easy, and you don't have any difficulty sourcing food, and it sounds like it's pretty easy to do, correct? Yes, it is. And another, just to add on to what you were saying, is we... I do try to buy grass-fed grass-finished, but it is a lot more expensive, so we do still buy a lot of groceries for me, and it is so much better for you than 99% of the other garbage that's in the grocery store. My girls love it, and I've also learned how to make a killer steak. So when I first started eating this way, I overcooked things, and it didn't taste as great, but now I've got it down perfectly, and my girls love it. We love our steaks really rare, and I make it in the cast iron skillet, and they're fighting over that rib-eye or that shut-eye steak. That's a good skill to have. That's one of the things that, you know, and I think I grew, and I feel bad about saying this, but my mom is actually here, staying with us, she's 81, she's out visiting. I grew up, flew her out, hang out for a couple of weeks or so. She was an awful cook, she was an awful cook. I grew up, and I'm a big guy that liked to eat, so I was like, "Man, she used to tell me food was a waste of money," and I was like, "What are you talking about? I'm hungry." No, you can never starve me or anything like that, but she just wasn't a very good cook. So I don't think I ever had a good steak until much older in life, and to expose your kids to cook, because I think a lot of kids grow up not liking it because they feed them like, "Oh, it's got to be cooked to death, and all the fats got to be cut out." So you're eating basically shoe leather, and if that's your impression of what steak is, most people don't want that, but then you get something that's tender and succulent and fatty and juicy and delicious. That's a whole different ballgame. That's a game changer in my view, so learning how to do that. So your technique, as you said, cast iron grill, do you guys reverse sear? You cook it in any kind of butter or anything like that, what are you doing? Let's see, let's see, you describe how you cook. How would you cook the ideal steak, and what would it be first of all? I don't even know what cut you prefer. I really love ribeye, but the grass-fed grass fish ribeyes are more expensive, and we are a huge fan of the Chuppai steak. They're like the half the cost, or half the price, and they're super fatty. So I take that, and I season it with a little bit of salt, and I will let my cast iron skillet get very hot, melt some butter in there, sear it on one side, let it let it let it get that nice crust and baste it with the butter, and then slip it over and do the same thing on the other side. I have my meat thermometer because I do not want it getting over 115F Fahrenheit, and I just take it out and then take whatever's left in that cast iron skillet and just drizzle it on top. My girls are just like running to the cutting board to dive in. You're like licking the plate or something like that. The meat thermometer is I think that a must-have, if you want to hit precise temperatures and be consistent on that, because that's great. That's awesome. What about other things? Has this, because now you're freed, you said you're no longer tied to these crazy food urges, probably freed up more time for you. Has it changed your life in other ways outside of just what you eat? Has it made you like I'm going to pursue health in other areas as well, or is that just pretty much what you've done already? I've changed quite a bit as my habits. I used to associate the couch when my girls would go down for the quiet time with bingy. We do not have any food around the couch on the couch. I do not sit on the couch and eat. This kind of going into social media and sharing my journey with something that I wanted to just talk about and get out and it was healing for me and just to support anyone else who may be going through this. So that was a venture, something that was out of my comfort zone, but just really weight listing. I love that. We have a boat, so I have started wakeboarding and I'm actually pretty good at it. That's something that we do a lot that I would have never done three months ago. There's so much more confident and I want to go out and socialize more and just help and support other people who are thinking about eating the carnivore way. We made the conscious decision to go on social media, which is a, it's definitely there's a double-edged sword. There can be a lot of negative, negative in whether, and there clearly is, but what has been your experience, obviously you're sharing this quote unquote "weird way of eating" that a lot of people, a lot of people don't like for whatever reason. Some people are offended by it. Some people think you're doing something dangerous and it's like, "What do you care like? You're a total stranger to me. I just pray. Surprising how many people have an opinion on what someone else eats and like it's any other business." But what has been your experience so far? No, I do actually get a lot of hate. A lot of people comment and say that I should be put in jail or that I am abusing my children by feeding them meat. This is so wrong and CPS should be called and all of that can sometimes be texting, but getting a lot of the ponative, other people who are supportive and who are inspired by me or who inspire me, those people make up for it. The other women that I have helped or just been supported to get in my tips and tricks, the different things that have worked well for me and just getting their responses that make it all worth it. Yeah, you've got your kids and meals there and I assume they're eating some fish, they're eating some dairy products, they're eating some fruit, they're eating some eggs, they're eating some meat. I don't see where anybody could be critical of that. I could see if some of them only eating these kids red meat and they're purely carnivore and even there's kids that do that and they end up generally doing fine, but you're not even doing that yet people are criticizing you. Obviously, you've got three girls and you said you grew up in a household with sisters and while they're young now in another seven, 18 years, they'll start running into that teenage time where you developed your eating disorder. How do you think, do you have any, are you thinking like how I advise my girls to not fall under this trap? Obviously, hopefully giving them a background of good nutrition so they're not sugar addicts in a way. What are your thoughts on that? Do you ever think about your daughters falling into this, say one of your three daughters turns out to be the fat kid and are the chubby kid and now they're like gravitating towards sugar. Do you ever worry about that? I do and I think by being the example and educating them on why we eat this way and I haven't shared with my girls that I haven't eaten before, but I don't think they'd even understand really completely what all that means. But by showing them how great I feel and how great they feel and we are thriving eating this way. So I think and they get older, they will have that foundation of knowledge of these foods that make us feel good. This is how we're supposed to be eating even like my three-year-old, we went into Walmart yesterday and she said, "Look, Mommy, look at all the cookies over there. We don't eat those. Those aren't good for our body." Like they just pick up and they're sponge, they know how much better I feel and how much much more happy I am. They can see that and I say to by just supporting them and also giving them the experience to try things that maybe do not make them feel good. They learn from that. My oldest daughter is eight and she is so smart. She knows that if she eats candy that she's going to get sick, so she will make the conscious effort to not have any. Yeah, and it's tough today because it's even more and more to look at. I think the stats on kids is now 70 plus percent ultra processed food. That's just horrifying. And then of course, statistics with one in three kids in our pre-diabetic and one in two percent of them are obese and it's just horrifying and how many of them have mental health disorders. It's shocking how badly we are letting our kids down with this food. I tell people because it's really easy to play the, oh, I want to give these kids love by cooking them chocolate chip cookies, but are you really, is that really the best expression of love because that's not what happens when this kid becomes a sugar addict or becomes depressed or becomes a pre-diabetic. That's not a loving act in my mind. That's really, sometimes it's a harder thing to do. So, hey, look, I don't want you to eat this stuff because I love you and I'm trying to look out for you and understand it and obviously with as they get older, they get more and more insight. Now they're going to do what they do. You can't control them every step of the way, but you've just got to give them the framework to at least do what you can to teach that because most people, most kids, they have no idea. Most people don't have any idea. They just buy whatever tastes good and whatever's the cheapest in many cases. Convenient. Yeah. Convenient. Yeah. Convenience is the other. Convenience is a word that's conveniently killing you. Is it worth it? And in my mind, it's not certainly not that I, you know, I grew up as a kid who ate the cereal and the crap and I survived fortunately. And I think I would have had the things that affected me as I got older in the life I probably wouldn't have had to deal with and fortunately I figured out how to change that. So it's not too late, but better to not have had to deal with that in the first place. So what do you have any sort of aspirations and goals and plans as you think as you sell look, I'm starting. I'm able to do more things I am. I'm not tied to the seating disorder anymore. What are you thinking about the future for yourself or family or use case of stay home mom? Obviously that's a full time job. And do you have any kind of personal? This is what I'd like to do with my life type of thing. I think for me, just changing my body composition and just adding muscle is something I'm really working on right now, but I love carnivore recipes. I like the simple one or two ingredient easy mom recipes. So I have a great time coming up with those and making videos of those and making videos of what my girls eat. A lot of my followers love seeing that because they want to follow and suit and try to find those kind of options for their kids as well. Just being an example that way and supporting others who are interested in eating a carnivore way. And I wanted to talk about something really quick that you were just talking about. Also a huge thing for us is being outside for our kids. We try to be outside as much as possible and showing them that mommy gets up early and goes to the gym, not to be skinny, but to be healthy, to put on muscle for my bones, for my body, to keep my body healthy. They love to swim and being active, really limiting screen time and just having them outside, exploring and using their imagination and me being out there with them being the example, I think is really crucial too so that they can see, "Oh mommy's doing it." So we want to do it too. Yeah, like I said, kids are going to do what you do, not so much what you say so you got to set the example and I think that's, gosh it's so important. They see you sitting on a couch, eating garbage, staying on your phone all day. That's what they're going to want to do and that's what they will do and if you say don't do that and they look at you and you're literally doing it, it's like, "How does that line up?" So they're smarter than we think, they pick up everything. As far as, oh I was going to say, exercising, because how old is your oldest? She's like what, seven or eight or something like that? She's eight, yeah. She's eight. Okay. I'll just share my personal thoughts on that. I think as soon as a kid can start to run, they can start in the gym, as soon as there's so many things they can do in a safe way and those kids that start out actually strength training, prepubescent, five, six, seven, eight year old kids, actually turn out to be much better athlete. This is something that gives them the, because they're so plastic at that point. They're laying down muscle fiber types and tissue, collagen properties that become more bouncy and springy and faster. It's funny, my kids are, I had them jumping and all kinds of stuff, they're just athletic things and now they're just tremendous athletes and I think that translates into just an overall generally healthier lifestyle. What about your sisters? Because you mentioned you had a couple sisters, they were always skinny. Are they aware are you doing this crazy carnivore thing and do they have they weighed in on that or has there been any kind of family like she's a nutty sister. She's always been weird and just let her do her thing type of thing or are they affected by this? They are actually very supportive. They both do not eat this way, but they're very supportive. They have seen the changes and they also for until the latter part of last year didn't even know that I had been carrying this secret for most of my life. They didn't know. Luckily saw the ups and downs of my weight and some of the anxiety and depression maybe I'm little bit, but I was so good about just hiding and all from everybody and internalizing it and now not to have to do that. I have to like that I just have so much joy, just so much joy for life, joy for taking the trash out just overall so happy because I do not feel what I did and I don't have this huge secret and a mental load anymore. Yeah, a lot of the people that have been in the obesity space for many years or food addiction space will say she's been doing this for a few months and the regression to the mean is pretty common. So let's see what's going on in three years from now. What do you feel? How do you feel? Has this been so transformative to you? Do you feel like I'm good because some people will, I see some people where they fall off the wagon so to speak and like there was some tragedy in my life. Someone, my loved one died or I lost my job or I was in a car wreck or something like that. Do you feel like you are resilient to those types of things? Obviously, God forbid any of those bad things happen, but they do. So things come along. How do you think? Obviously, you can't know for sure, but do you feel different somehow and because you done the plant based diet, you've done the calorie counting diet, the moderating diet and this seems to be different for you, right? Yes. I think that it is because my brain is nourished that my body is nourished that this is the way I want to eat. I now can handle my emotions properly and I'm not leaning into food to comfort me or to punish myself that now I use it just as fuel and I have thought about those things and how I would react to them, but my utmost just important saying for me is my mental health and I will not let anything affect that, that I have to have that in order to be my best self for my girls, for my husband and for me. This is my life. I don't want to go back to the way I was eating before us to one bite of anything. It's not worth it. There's so much that comes with it. I cannot moderate, I haven't had it. I have to abstain and I don't have the desire to eat any of those things anymore. I am full. I am nourished. I'm sad. It's fine. I don't want any of that stuff. And also, I have a carnivore. It's important to be prepared and for me, if I know I'm going somewhere where there could be a food trigger, I will always go with a full belly of fatty meat and I will brace things with me if I feel like I need them, like when we go out on the boat on the weekends, I will bring four or five burger patties, support friends if I want something crunchy when we're going out to friends a bit about sandwiches and shit. I am just prepared so that I'm never in a situation where I will have to eat those things. Yeah, I was going to ask, there's one thing, a lot of people vacation messes them up a little bit. And Kennel, we've blown through an hour. This is great. Thank you for doing this. Let me just two questions. One, if there's anything else we didn't get to talk about that you want to share, that's great. Or if not, just, can you remind us your social media? I know I take Instagram is one carnivore kindle, but any social media you want to share or anything else we left out think that I've shared my story. I think it's just so important to take your health in your own hands to do your research to listen to stories, to be the experiment and then be the example for others. That's something that I have really had just so much healing through eating this way. And so I'm just so happy to talk about it. But yes, my Instagram is carnivore kindle. I do have a YouTube, but I'm not as active on there. I would love to become more active on there at that Kendall's carnivore channel. Thank you so much for having me on. Thanks for sharing. I appreciate it. Awesome. Good luck to you and your kiddos and everybody.