Category Archives: Mental Health

Wagon Status: Hanging on By My Fingernails

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Oh, oops! Did I make the perfect the enemy of the good again?

Well, it’s been a good three months since I abandoned all my social media friends in favor of healthy dopamine responses and face-to-face connections. It is both a strength and a weakness of mine that, if I think something is worth doing, I will gladly leave everybody and everything behind to pursue it. It is a strength because, if the thing is worth pursuing, I’ve gained the Thing. It is a weakness because, whether I was right or wrong, I’ve just left the safety of the herd. Sometimes that is pretty uncomfortable. (Do go read that post if you want to be reminded of the depths of the covid-madness for a moment.)

Even the correct decisions made in anybody’s life will result in some downsides. When I lost a bunch of weight, I also found myself with a lot of new friends, while some of the old ones (certainly not all) didn’t feel as comfortable with me anymore. Homeschooling definitely makes a difference between us and some people we would otherwise be very like. Eating only meat makes social occasions a little less sharing, food-wise. I can make up for that stuff with tact, but it’s always going to make somebody ask, and then we have to talk about it. I got yelled at a lot during the masking nonsense. Following Jesus is so off-putting to a lot of people that they’ll never even give me a chance to say hi.

All of these things have been worth every social cost to me. But opportunity cost is a real thing to be considered. Not being on social media has had a lot of upsides. I am, indeed, paying better attention to the world around me. I’m happier, generally. I’m also feeling my emotions more appropriately–not numbed to things because I’m just on to the next post after something “affects” me, nor overly interested in things that don’t concern me. Since I swore off scrolling, I have written several blog posts I wouldn’t have had the energy to write before. I don’t know whether to apologize for the posts themselves or be proud, but it’s a fact that I have more to write when I’m not yammering on social media. I’ve transcribed some music and practiced drumming a lot more. I think and hope that my Sunday School lessons are far better thought out without the distractions. I’ve dreamed up some new schemes, saved some money not succumbing to ads, and played a few more video games. I’ve done much deeper research into things that interest me, and finished more books. I even have a book idea of my own, but I tremble to think of that too hard just yet.

I’m finding that, indeed, my mind is very much more my own, and more importantly, much more potent, since I left the Facebook and Social Galactic realms.

At the same time, I have traded something both pleasant and beneficial for all of this really marvelous head-space. I’ve lost interaction with people I really do like, who are far enough away from me that our paths don’t cross. I hate to think I’ll never chat with some of the SG folks again. I’ve learned a lot by just randomly saying ignorant things on there and waiting for the smart people to correct me. I follow a lot of Substacks and blogs, and hopefully won’t lose those good words entirely. But I don’t know what’s on everybody else’s mind to the extent that I did, and that’s a little bit sad.

I’ve also lost touch with some family. I have to drive a while to see most of them. The upside, of course, is that I do sometimes get out and do that, because I don’t want people to think I only like them on social media. To my chagrin, I find that I’m the only one who seems to feel the responsibility to keep in touch that way. Getting off social media means lukewarm people are out of my life unless I see enough value in them to pursue them myself and try to make things warmer. If they cared, I imagine they’d use the phone occasionally. I didn’t start calling it Fakebook for nothing. So that’s really another upside.

I still have all my IRL people. I’m grateful that I’ve not become lonely like I thought I might be. In fact, I’m valuing all the more those real people who have reached out in other ways after finding I’m not on the socials anymore. These are the people who really want to know me. Now I know who they are for sure.

Something else I’ve lost, and this is one that’s really bugging me, is the ability to self-promote. The fact is, nobody is going to promote my blog if I don’t promote myself. I have this blog, a book to write, and a fundraiser that’s running out of time, but I have no way to really put them out there myself. I do have long-time readers stopping by, and the occasional social media share is coming in (Thank you, friends!), as well as search engine traffic, but it is just not the same as I could do for myself.

Alas, nobody comments on blogs. That’s fine! I understand that the internet really has changed since the first version of this blog. I used to have a pretty good readership, with good interaction, but I stopped for enough years to lose most of that. The people who are reading now are at least mostly the same people who were reading back then, so I know you know how to find that comment box and say hi! Please do!

Otherwise, I won’t know what you’re thinking, where I missed something, or where to go next with my posts. The conversational kind of blogging I like to do could make a comeback, if you’d just help me out a little bit! Make Get Along Home Great Again! MGAHGA?

So, am I going to push that big “frens” button now and get back on social media? I was just thinking it through, and I really hadn’t decided until just now, but…no.

Maybe not ever, but certainly not yet. My reasons for going back aren’t really sufficient, when I consider the downsides. I’m jealously guarding my mind from distractions right now. Even if I were to set the rules that ought to keep me from getting back into the sorry state that I was in before, I don’t think it would be very long before I started to fail again. Honestly, I didn’t even write blog posts as much, because my thoughts wouldn’t last long enough. So going back wouldn’t even solve the self-promotion problem!

I am a pea-brain, friends. I can’t walk and chew bubblegum at the same time. If you are not similarly handicapped, I would appreciate a share on your own social media pages.

Whether you link to the main page or to a post that you like, or just drop a comment here on this post, I would love to just know that you’re here, that you find anything here worth thinking about. You can even argue with me, if that’s what you want! You can also subscribe to my rss feed, so that it all comes to you when it’s fresh.

 

Looks Like a Vegan

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Just getting my prediction in there before they catch him, if they do. This is a vegan.

UPDATE: I see the guy they are accusing. He does not look like the same guy. The “revealing” of who he is sounds like a complete fabrication. Though the vegan thing is both a joke and a warning to those who might be tempted to eat this way, this fellow is not the guy they are now blaming. I think we’ll never know who the real killer is killers are. (Actually, I kinda know. You kinda know, too.)

It’s a Dopamine Thing

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The Brain is going to brain.

I guess it’s been about six weeks since I deleted my account with SG, which has been for me a place where I could meet minds that were running along the same track as mine. We in the GAH household are not living much in tune with most of the people around us. IRL, I have to bite my tongue a lot. People, as wonderful as I find them, often cannot understand or relate to the thinks I’m thinking. It was very nice to find a place to be blunt and straightforward, to be able to trust the folks I was interacting with to be the same with me, and to know that most of us were on the same page regarding lifestyles, current events, and most importantly, recognizing that Christ is Lord.

Also, the memes. If you have any good ones to drop on me, please do. I’ve found no better place for memes than SG.

I can’t go any further in this post without expressing my appreciation to Vox Day for rolling up the community and doing so much intellectual heavy-lifting that I’ve marveled over for the last 20-odd years. He and his core group of commenters have really changed the conversation and kept the Enemy on his toes, and I know they’ll continue to do so. I’m digressing a little, and I’ll not go the whole fan-girl route, but thank you, SDL. It’s been cool. I’m still reading.

I had some small issues with SG for some time before I logged off for the last time. I found the community to be heading off in a direction that, frankly, bored me. A few new folks (I’m sorry) dragged down the average IQ. I decided to boost it back up by removing mine. In addition to that, a lot of the people I’d met there and become real-life friends with had either left the platform or communicated more with me in other ways.

I had plenty of reasons to continue to be a member of that community–good folks are still there, there’s still a lot of great, new thinking going on, and it’s stinking fun to have social media with that much honest engagement–but one very compelling reason to leave:

My brain can’t handle the scroll.

At the same time that I left SG, I also deleted my FB account. That was a completely peaceful and pleasant change to my life. Meta is of Satan, and  you need to find a different platform if you’re on it. On both platforms, I daily, hourly even, found myself scrolling down, even through feelings of extreme boredom. I noticed long ago that I had a pattern. I’d sit down to do a thing I really needed to do–the budget, perhaps–and the loop would start. I’d open that legitimately needful page up, do it, check my email, check SG, flip to FB, clear my notifications, respond, realize I needed to be doing something else, do something else in a most distracted and rueful manner, and then just a minute later I HAVE TO CHECK MY NOTIFICATIONS AGAIN!

You’d think I could just tell myself to put that stuff down until a better time; that I could have used a stopwatch, apps that limit screen time, punishments, rewards, anything at all to control my own behavior. I did try those things! They’d work for a day or a week. But I would always drift back into that pattern. I’d lose five minutes here, ten there, just a minute sometimes, and it didn’t seem to add up to that much. My housework still got done, things I’m responsible for still look kinda ok on the outside, but on the inside, I feel awful. I’m foggy. My attention is not where it needs to be. My kids are getting a very distracted version of me. My husband is getting a very distracted version of me. There’s a physical toll to it, as well, since it’s very hard to be as active as one should be while staring down at a phone or at a computer screen.

So when the time came to re-subscribe to the private social media, I went to the page to give my credit card number, and a still, small voice said to me “This is your exit.” So I ripped off the bandaid and abandoned my friends (I do consider SG to be real friends, most of FB not so much) without so much as an explanation. I hate that I left people scratching their heads, but I absolutely can’t handle social media. I don’t think some of you can, either. Not if you find just the right media and right kind of people.

It is impossible to dopamine fast.

Dopamine, of course, is one of the popular buzzwords right now, with people taking “dopamine fasts” with zero internet or entertainment to calm down their fevered brains. I feel sorry for people who need social media to do their work, because it would be very hard to limit it when you have to be there. It might even require a job change to become happy and peaceful.

The thing about dopamine is, it’s not the reward-receiving chemical. It’s the reward-seeking chemical. People aren’t really fasting from dopamine, which would involve not making any dopamine, voluntarily. Your brain is always dopamine-ing, ok? (Dopamine has so many functions beyond this one. Here’s a quick nerdy video on the chemical.) Dopamine “fasters” are simply giving themselves a chance to seek some other, more salutary result. You will always have dopamine. It’s the thing that makes you seek food, sex, friends, and fun. You can’t fast from it. You can only change what you do in response to it.

What I’ve found is that, if I don’t have access to that quick, low-cost social reward, when dopamine revs mind and body up to look for something to satisfy, I end up doing things like improving on a Sunday School lesson, taking the kids for a walk, experimenting with a carnivore-ish oatmeal cookie simulation (recipe and proper apology for even attempting such a thing will be posted sometime soon), coming up with better school plans, reading a book, sitting down at the drums or piano, calling a friend or my mom. You know, living. All that stuff I had to remind myself to do before, I’m just doing. I used to use cigarettes the same way! I know this feeling.

It’s not just a habit. It’s an addiction.

Now, when my dopamine rises, it causes me to do something I ought to be doing. My brain becomes satisfied and calm in the doing. Somebody in my physical social sphere benefits. Instead of “influencing” or placating people who probably wouldn’t even like me if they knew me in real life, I’m getting a real smile and hug and pheromone hit.

I wasn’t even completely wasting my time on social media! That’s what made it so easy to keep doing. Unlike smoking, which benefits no one, I could justify my presence on these platforms. I do think of myself as someone with a way of saying things that can help people sort themselves out. I was learning stuff from people who know more than me about pretty much everything. It kept me in the loop for events. Finding runs is going to get a lot harder.

I think that feeling of success I got from interacting positively with a bunch of people isn’t entirely untoward. I have helped some folks in carnivore and running and Christian groups. But it’s not the way I should be influencing the world right now. Maybe when the kids are grown, or something else changes in my obligations, I’ll go back to the scroll. I shudder to think of it right now, though. I’ll put my useful stuff on this blog from now on, as it does not play the same tricks on my mind. It won’t have the same reach, but it’ll have to do.

I think I’ve admitted all of this before, but addictions being what they are, I’ve fallen right back into the same pattern, time and time again. I cannot be the kind of wife, mother, friend, and neighbor I should be when I have access to some forms of social media. I still have an X account, because I don’t even care enough about the site to go delete it. You might be more into Tik-Tok, or something else, but the result is going to be the same.

Anybody who doesn’t feel this happening in their lives is, of course, free to disregard all of what I am saying. Anybody who can get social media (or other kinds of media) to fit into a manageable chunk of his day, is welcome to enjoy the world any way he sees fit. Just ignore me. But I think many, many of you–especially some of us moms who don’t meet with a lot of adults every day, introverted types, high IQ folks with little intellectual interaction IRL, and people who connect well with others through written media–have the same problem I do, and need to hear a little tough love. You don’t have to admit it right now if you don’t want to, and I am not calling any particular person out. How could I?

The next time you feel that bored, irritable feeling welling up in your chest, turn the media off, but somehow just five minutes later you’re scrolling the same page that made you feel that way in the first place, remember my story.

Kill it. You don’t need it, and it’s hurting you.

If you like this post, you can buy me a coffee in appreciation!

Things Carnivores Say

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That I have never experienced.

Carnivores are always making fantastic claims about what the diet has done for them. And you know what? I believe every single one of them! How could I not? I make some fantastic claims for myself! I’ve healed my allergies (except to ragweed, which reigns champion every fall), asthma (even ragweed doesn’t bring that back), and eczema, lost 60 pounds, cured anxiety, depression, OCD, and a host of other problems! You can read the rest of the blog to hear about all of it. But there are some marvelous benefits that almost all carnivores say they have experienced that I, to date, have not.

I’ve been carnivore for seven years come November, so I’ve been eating this way plenty long enough to say for sure whether these effects are something everybody should expect. I say no. Some of this Meat Magic may pass you by, no matter what other benefits you receive. You may experience the following effects, and I hope you do. Practically everybody else seems to, but I have not.

Thing #1: Carnivores don’t fart anymore.

I hate to lead off with potentially embarrassing information about myself. I know it’s not ladylike, but I still toot. It does not smell bad at all. I never have gas, bloating, tummy pain, or anything like that. But air still puffs out from time to time, especially when I eat butter. In fact, it smells faintly of butter. Sorry if that’s tmi, but it’s true. Butter makes me fart.

Woman covering her mouth, saying oops, with a little green cloud behind her, indoors

Thing #2: Carnivores don’t get sore after a hard workout anymore.

While I am very glad for anybody who is able to say this, delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), is not something I’ve left behind. I don’t know what this means for my health. Maybe I’m doing something wrong. But when I lift super-heavy, I still feel it the next day! I actually like that feeling, because it means I broke past my comfort barrier and really did something. Most people don’t like to be in pain, so I’m happy for those who can still walk upstairs and sit down without groaning the day after leg day.

But I just haven’t seen this for some reason. Still sore, and still happy to be that way!

Thing #3: Carnivores never miss certain foods.

You’d think desserts would be the hardest thing to pass up, having gone off the sugar, but the biggest struggle for me is to not put collard greens in my face. “Well, why not just have some delicious, good-for-you leafy greens then, you freak? You even cook it with bacon!” Because, my friend, something about fiber-rich foods makes my OCD come back with a vengeance! I like having eyebrows, and collard greens make me pull my hair. I know that sounds nuts, but it’s true, and I’ve cheated with leafy greens enough to know for sure that I can’t have that stuff. I do pick out the greens-flavored bacon and enjoy that, though. I can get away with that.

I’m sure other people struggle with certain foods, as well. I’m not above lingering over the dessert table to smell the delicious food, myself. I’ve just gotten used to the idea that these foods are a pleasant memory. I can miss them, but they are dead to me.

Thing #4: Carnivores don’t get sunburn any more. 

This, sadly, is another myth for me. I kept waiting for the day that I would be able to spend unlimited amounts of time in the sun without getting a burn, and it never came. Now, I always just burnt a little in the early summer, peeled, and then had a nice tan the rest of the summer. I never had a big problem with burning anyway. But I do still get a painful glow if I don’t remember to get out of the sun during the most intense hours of the day.

One thing I have noticed is that I don’t burn as much if I don’t sit still. Running at noon in direct summer sun? No problem. Sitting for the same length of time? Burn, baby, burn! So maybe the rest of those carnivores who are not burning anymore are just suddenly moving a lot more than they used to, dodging those slowpoke sun-rays!

Thing #5: The bugs don’t bite me any more.

I’ve heard so many people say the bugs don’t bite them anymore. As with all of these things, I believe them! They’re mosquito-repellent all of a sudden. What a blessing! Amazing things happen when you change your body chemistry so completely. But I’m sitting here scratching this very minute, and so are my meat-heavy children. I dunno. You can form your own theories about why that might be.

How about you, carnivores, and non-carnivores alike? Do you have any dietary expectations that haven’t quite been fulfilled by the way you’re eating right now? Comments are open, and I’d sure love to get something besides spam in here! Let me know!

Also, while I’ve got you here, I’m asking for donations to fund my next run. Help me get to the Black Bear Half Marathon:

 

How’s All that Good Habit Stuff Going?

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I’m so glad you asked!

Remember when I told you I was going to be writing for five minutes a day, whether I like it or not? Well, I did that. I wrote for at least five minutes a day, every day, and hated everything I wrote so much that I never published it. I was bored with what came out of my own brain. I started thinking about why that is. I have lots of interesting (to me, so surely to somebody else) avenues of thought to explore. There’s something new just about every day that I think “wow, that would make a great blog post!” Which I promptly forget to write down, or worse, decide nobody really wants to read anyway.

This is no way to blog, y’all. What in the world could be getting in the way of all these captivating thoughts as soon as I went to put them where people could read them? Well, after a few weeks of careful observation (ha!), I have figured it out. You see, every time I’d sit down with these words that I really do think worth writing, instead of clicking on my wordpress dashboard, I was clicking on these little symbols in my bookmark toolbar instead. Social Galactic, Gab, Facebook, then I’d have to check email, read my RSS feed, then loop back to SG and start it all over again. Round and round I would go until I didn’t have any drive left to do what I’d actually set out to do. I would do the writing, but it never grew into something worth sharing.

This is a habit problem. An addiction, even. It’s very entertaining to talk to people, but social media has become my own 21st century version of 1 Timothy 5:13 “being idle and going about from house to house.” I’m just a hop, skip, and a jump from becoming verse 14, “not only do they become idlers, but also busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they ought not to”. In fact, I might already be there. I hope it’s not as bad as it could be, but I can think of some things I probably ought not to have said.

So I’ve decided to knock that right off. 

Now, I can’t exit social media entirely. Where would I find my clients? And how would I promote those blog posts I must certainly be getting around to publishing soon? I do have some messages to spread that social media is fantastic for, and I do have some genuine friendships that I maintain on these sites. But social media needs to get in its box, and only be let out when I need to take it out.

The reasons I’m telling you about it, dear Reader, are fourfold:

I need accountability. I don’t really desire anybody to ask me, “Hey, GAHCindy, have you avoided the socials enough today?” You don’t have to mind me. But knowing that I told somebody, even people who never talk back or check in, will make me deeply ashamed if don’t stick to it. Shame is my friend.

This is a good example for you, my readers, in breaking a bad habit. I know you have some bad habits. Don’t lie. You might even have the same one I do. Let this post provide you some insight into how you can pinpoint where your failures are getting their foothold. Maybe you have a carb addiction to beat. Notice what it is that’s triggering you to procure and eat sweets every time you think today is the day you’re finally going to just eat wholesome, good-for-you meat and low-carb veggies. I noticed what was preventing me from performing my good habits, and I decided to stomp on that thing. You should do this, too!

It fulfills my daily writing obligation. Since this is what is on my mind, this is what you get. Come back tomorrow for something completely different.

So you won’t think I died or something. A sudden disappearance from social media, especially when you have a really nice little community like Social Galactic, can worry people. No worries! I have not been hit by a bus or anything. I’m just not able to do that stuff so much any more.

If you’ve got a bad habit to kill, you can’t just decide not to do it anymore. I’ve tried to simply avoid clicking the things until I have my work done, and it doesn’t work. The ruts in my brain are too deep to just jump out of! So I am taking some steps to prevent falling into the social hole again.

  • I have removed all of the bookmarks for social media from my browser. I have to type them in every time I want to go to a social website.
  • I also removed the apps from my phone, deleted all of the passwords from the manager so I have to type them in every time. I’m so lazy that that’s a huge hurdle to clear.
  • And finally, I am taking a near-complete fast from all social media for at least a month. I’ll probably check in every couple of days just to clear notifications. I’m already enjoying not just picking up the phone to check in on…what have I been checking in on? Nothing that I need to be checking on! Busy-bodying, is what I’ve been doing!

So anyhow, you guys share this around on your own social media so I don’t have to. See you (mostly on SG) after I’ve got my brain rearranged the way I like it!

 

 

 

Meat is Not Jesus

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It won’t save you.

I spend a lot of time touting the benefits of a meat-heavy diet. I really, really believe in the carnivore and keto way of life! I believe in it so much that I’m spending what little free time I have coaching others on how to change their own dietary habits. While I try to respect other people’s food choices, I’m not at all shy about sharing information with people who appear to be open to it. You might even say I’m a carnivore evangelist. Being a preacher’s daughter, I guess that’s a role I can feel comfortable with.

I haven’t been coaching people on diet for very long at all, but I have spent some time informally helping people in my real life and online figure out how to get to a healthier place with their food. A friend of mine wanted to try carnivore, and I was curious as to what specific issues he was dealing with.

“What do you hope to get out of a carnivore diet?”

“I just want to be happy and well-adjusted like the Petersons.”

Oh, dear. Oh, dearie me.

I often hear names like Jordan B. Peterson and Joe Rogan brought up by carnivores– usually secular ones–as the luminaries who brought them to the Meat Side. Now, I don’t care how a person finds out about carnivore. It’s the best thing to do, no matter why you’re doing it. But I do worry that people who listen to these sources are not just expecting health, but an entire shift in their spiritual condition, just by eating meat. After all, would they even be listening to JBP if they had any discernment at all?

There is a great deal of mental help in carnivore! Let there be no doubt about that. I honestly doubt that Jordan Peterson has adhered very strictly to the diet at all, but perhaps he has. He’s still a basket-case. No well-adjusted man cries as freely as he does. And his daughter has certainly healed her auto-immune disease and her mental state, as well, by eating beef, and only beef. She’s doing very well, but she’s still a hot mess in some other ways, to put it in as non-gossipy a way as possible. Joe Rogan has toyed with the diet and interviewed some carnivore guests, and I’m told he attests to the value of the diet even though he’s not a strict adherent. But he’s literally consorting with demons, OK?

I have myself resolved all sorts of internal angst, the kind that is physically triggered by food, through first keto, then carnivore eating. I highly recommend Dr. Chris Palmer’s book Brain Energy, which gives as good an explana­tion as I’ve seen for why so many who suffer from mental illness find relief with a ketogenic diet. I think there’s probably more to be said about the gut micro-biome, gut permeability, and the vagus nerve, which communicates between the gut and the brain. Brain Energy is nevertheless a ground-breaking book. It focuses more on the ketones than a lot of other things that I think are going on, but explains a great deal. Whatever the reason, keto works. Carnivore works.

I want to say this loud and clear, lest I be found wanting on Judgment Day for failing to give the real credit where it is due:

If you cure all of your irrational fears, all of your anxieties, all of your mental and social dysfunctions, but you still don’t have Jesus, you still have nothing. You might even act like a nicer person, mistreat others less often, or harm yourself less often, but you’re still in your sin.

Conversely, when I had OCD, social phobia, depression, and general anxiety, but I had Jesus, I had everything already.

Now, I know what a skeptic would say here: If Jesus was so great for you, why did it take a dietary change to fix all these things?

If I ascend up into the heavens, you are there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there psalm 139: 8

I don’t know the mind of God, of course, but His word gives me a clue. He let me make my bed in Hell so that he could  show His power to come to me there. Through my weakness I can say right along with the Apostle Paul that:

…there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.

–2 Corinthians 12:-8

You can read my testimony here, if you care for more background.

While I was having a difficult time with some aspects of life, I was learning to lean on Jesus. I asked for healing, but to no avail. Or so I thought. Looking back, I can see that what looked like a dark, gloomy pit was really a quiet nest in which a baby Christian could develop, sheltered from many of the assaults of the world which I likely would not have been proof against, had I found out about the carnivore diet while I was still spiritually weak.

To an unbeliever, this must certainly sound foolish, but I wouldn’t trade my years of mental difficulty for all the meat-induced calm in the world, because Jesus shone into my darkness in a way that I think few have experienced.  Could God have made me all better all at once? Sure! But I needed to be where I was.

For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

–Hebrews 12:6-12

Not only does it not bother me that I didn’t find a path to health for so long, I am grateful for it.

There’s a lot I would never have learned, had my life been immediately made as anxiety-free as it now is. I wouldn’t have been as useful to the work He had for me to do, then or now, had I not gone through a crucible suited to my particular metal. I am undoubtedly a more relaxed person with carnivore, but I am not more joyful. I am not a better person because I eat meat.

I just wanted to take a minute from my meat-boosting to praise the One who really saves. I get uncomfortable if I go too long between reminders that it’s all Jesus.

Submit to the One who created you. Give thanks to Him and bless His name.

Have Thine own way, Lord,
Have Thine own way;
Thou art the Potter,
I am the clay.
Mould me and make me
After Thy will,
While I am waiting,
Yielded and still.

Plain Food

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Healthy kids.

One of my teenagers recently told me of a conversation with his coworker. He was talking about our family’s food habits, and told her that I often serve plain, crumbled ground beef with no seasonings.

“That’s child abuse!”

Now, first of all, it’s not like I’m forbidding my children the use of all seasonings. Salt and butter they have in abundance, and they can usually have salsa, sour cream, worcestershire sauce, or several other condiments they like. But we do eat a fair amount of undressed, un-sauced food, and I do this very intentionally. It is not out of laziness, or meanness, or even because I’m a bad cook. I serve most of our food unadorned out of a sincere belief that this will teach my children to have a healthy relationship with food.

When I first started eating a ketogenic diet, I went into it with the mindset that this diet was just for me, because of my particular health problems. I was still stuck in my old way of thinking, brought on by frequent contact with Western medicine, that my problems were genetic, irreversible, and unique to me, so I didn’t feel that there was a need to drag my perfectly healthy (or so I thought) children along for the ride. I was just trying to keep my blood sugar under control, not change the world.

I continued to make the family’s usual “healthy” foods and just made a little something different for myself. But as I delved more into the topic, and especially as I began to go fully carnivore, the realization set in that sugar wasn’t even the main reason I shouldn’t be eating plants. I began to understand that the principles I was applying to my own health could and should be applied to the health of every human being. I had thought at first that keto/carnivore was going to be just a me thing, but I saw after several months that I didn’t just look better. Not only did I have better blood-glucose levels, but all kinds of health problems had become faint memories, rather than daily realities.

Joint pain, brain fog, anxiety, social phobia, trichotillomania, hidradenitis supprativa, asthma, eczema, seasonal allergies, and probably a whole bunch of other stuff I’ve just plain forgotten were all GONE. (I still sneeze a little during ragweed season.)

Having realized that, I began to accept that my children were also having some of the same problems I was, and likely for the same reasons. Were they really doing fine, as I’d thought? One of my children had the trifecta of allergies, asthma, and eczema, as well as the disturbing beginnings of an OCD (brought on by a viral infection). Another had been showing symptoms of IBS for at least a year. We had already discovered long ago that still another child loses all symptoms and behaviors of autism as long as we don’t include grains and dairy in that child’s diet. What else might I be able to do for them with an appropriate diet?

Seeing all of this, I couldn’t any longer keep my children on even a “healthy” normal diet. While I didn’t take them all fully carnivore, I did begin to make all of their meals heavily meat-based. I allow them no more than two servings a day of either fruit or a starchy vegetable. They can have some leafy greens, though not kale or spinach. I eliminated grains, seed oils, and all refined carbohydrates completely, allowing for seeds and nuts or beans once a week, and only for the children who tolerate them well. For the two with the most obvious problems, we went 100% carnivore for a time. Both of those children are able to incorporate only small amounts of some “safer” plants, though still not daily.

It’s pretty restrictive, and we’re fine with that.

Now, I know (or hope, at least) that my son’s coworker was joking when she proclaimed our plain fare to be actual child abuse. But let me tell you what looks a lot more like child abuse to me:

  • 8 year-olds who weigh 150 pounds
  • teenagers with Type II diabetes
  • children who can’t go more than an hour without begging for a snack
  • children who can’t behave themselves because of food colorings, sugar highs, malabsorption of nutrients, and proteins that are incompatible with the human gut

That, and not thoughtful application of dietary principles, is child abuse. I am certainly not accusing parents themselves (most of them, anyway) of abuse, but our overall food culture is abusive. Because of dishonest science, hatred of self-discipline, and the greed of big food corporations, nobody knows how to eat, or even that food has an impact on all areas of health. That is an absolute shame, and we have to put an end to it. Now, once a person knows he should do something, and doesn’t do it, we might begin to put the blame on that person. It might become abuse, or at least neglect, if a bad situation is allowed to continue.

The foods that I used to serve my children were very tasty. I took a lot of pride in being a good cook. In fact, I inadvertently did to my children with my “healthy home cooking” the exact same thing that wicked big food corporations are still trying to do to all of us. By introducing the biggest and best flavors I could manage–every day, nearly every meal–I was spoiling their palates and their health, and (much worse) setting them up for food addictions later in life.

Hyper-palatability is that quality of sweetness, saltiness, and fat that processed (even home-processed) foods possess. When we eat these foods, that powerful combination of flavor and mouthfeel bypass all hunger and satiety signals that our hormones send when we are hungry or full, causing us to both overeat, and eat the wrong food. Food corporations spend millions, maybe billions, on research finding the best ways to keep customers eating long past the point of satiety, and to keep us coming back for more. Even though the body’s nutritional needs are not being met by these foods, our entire bodies wantonly crave them, and reject plain food in favor of that dopamine high. There’s a word for this. It’s called addiction. My constant attempts to please the palates of my family were creating raging addicts in my home. I had to face that fact and do a hard thing.

I know that sounds like hyperbole, but it is not. They actually acted like a bunch of little addicts when I stopped letting them have the candy and gold fish crackers! They were somewhat depressed, unhappy with everything I fed them for a while, and though they are typically well-behaved, there were a some bad attitudes for a while. Thankfully, it didn’t take them long to adapt. They are children, after all, and very impressionable. After a few months of eating real food, not too fancy, they learned to reject (for the most part) foods that do not nourish them. Kids do want to do what is good for them, but we have to enable them to do it by removing the stumbling blocks in their way.

Don’t we ever have fun with our food? Sure! Our family does still occasionally have food that can be considered hyper-palatable, like this keto or carnivore pizza or carnivore waffles. But I keep these things mostly to special occasions. There’s nothing wrong with having a treat every now and then, but to expect every meal to hit all of those pleasure buttons in our brains is gluttony. Dare I use such a harsh word to describe probably most of the people who are reading this blog? Yes, I do.

American, you’re most likely enjoying your food a little too much, and a little too often. That is gluttony.

Do your children a favor, moms and dads: Give them plain food 95% of the time. Salt it, of course! We actually need salt. But use sauces and seasonings less frequently, and get the processed foods out of your house entirely. It is a hard lesson to learn, but teach your children to be content with meat that just tastes like meat, fruit that just tastes like fruit, and veggies that just taste like veggies. I can promise that if you do this, you will be improving not only your children’s overall health, but their behavior and moods, and even their emotional connection with you and each other. Far too many children who appear healthy but have behavioral issues are struggling because they just don’t have the energy to fully engage.

Help them.

You might fear a mutiny if you do what I did, but you are the parent. They can’t drive themselves to the store and override your decisions. (Well, a couple of mine could have, actually.) If you do not give in to the addictions that you have created, it won’t be long before the crying is over, and your children accept that this is just how it is for your family. I know you love your children. I know how much I loved mine when I was feeding them the exact same way! Now put as much thought and effort into their nutrition as you do into every other aspect of their lives.

If you find that you need help with a transition to a healthier (not necessarily carnivore) diet for your family, get in touch with me on SG or MeWe and I’ll send you a link to my diet coaching page. Or just shoot me your questions and I’ll get to them directly if at all possible.

 

 

Did Keto or Carnivore Heal My Thyroid?

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Could it heal yours?

I mentioned a while back that I was experimenting with easing off of my thyroid medication. I had high hopes that my carnivore/keto ways of eating had finally made it possible for my thyroid to make its own hormones. I’m at the end of that experiment now, and ready to report my results. I’m going to have to back up a ways to explain my thinking and results, though, so that readers can understand why my results are probably not going to be typical. Someone else may have a better or worse chance of success, depending on their unique circumstances.

In my late teens, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. What I really had was a drug problem, intense sadness, and a Jesus-shaped hole in my heart. But I didn’t turn to Jesus until much later. The worldly way of dealing with my failures was to see a psychiatrist, so that’s what I did. The psychiatrist put me on lithium, never warning me that the drug could affect my thyroid function. I was on myriad other drugs, also, and nothing helped at all. I’m not going to go into the story of the next few years, because, to tell the truth, I have no memory of a great deal of it. It was bad, OK? Suffice it to say that Jesus found me, made me whole, and I’ve been clothed and (mostly) in my right mind for about twenty years now.

Praise God!

But my thyroid did not recover. When I cold-turkey quit all the psych meds, I also threw out the thyroid medicine. In my ignorance, I didn’t realize that it was different than the rest of the meds, and I actually needed that one. For about five years, I didn’t understand that I was running on a damaged thyroid. I had plenty of symptoms that I didn’t know were symptoms, but I had fired all the doctors, so there was nobody to tell me.

This is the part where we sit in silence, in awe and wonder at how God brought me through these still-difficult years and gave me two beautiful, healthy children when I should probably have been infertile.

Then, like many post-partum women, after my second child, I found that my thyroid just flat-out couldn’t do it any more. A doctor finally tested my hormone levels, and put me on levothyroxine. That was more than fifteen years ago, and I have been taking that medication every day since then.

Once I started doing a ketogenic, then carnivore diet, I felt better than I could remember feeling since I was a child. My thyroid antibodies, a marker of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, simply disappeared after I cut out plants. I started hearing stories of women with Hashimoto’s being able to regain some thyroid function. But I didn’t just have Hashimoto’s. I also had decreased function from the psychiatric attack on my thyroid. My chances of success were slim, but I had to try.

As I mentioned here, I did everything I could think of, including quitting coffee and taking thyroid boosting supplements, to optimize my thyroid function, and then I (without my doctor’s supervision, and don’t you EVER think of trying this at home) eased myself off my thyroid medicine over a period of some weeks. For about the amount of time it takes for the last of the thyroid medicine to leave your body, I felt normal.

Then for a few more weeks, I thought I felt normal. Maybe a little slow. And then I started slipping more noticeably. I started to gain some weight, even though I wasn’t eating any differently. I was forgetting things, not getting my housework done, feeling cranky and sluggish all the time. My hair dried out, nails became brittle. Exercise became hard, instead of a joy to me like it usually is.

I kept on trucking for a few more weeks, hoping that my brain and thyroid tissue would finally figure it out.

In the end, I finally had to admit that I was not going to make it. These were my numbers about 3 months from beginning to taper off:

Woah!

So, no, carnivore and keto did not heal my thyroid. I’m not able to make it without hormone replacement. Back on the same medication I went.

But here’s the interesting part. There were things that got better, even as my thyroid symptoms got worse. My period (avert your eyes, men) had always been ridiculously heavy and with giant clots, and that actually got better with no meds. I didn’t experience any cycle disruption at all. Perhaps I would have if I hadn’t tapped out of the experiment when I did. My sleep tracker started telling me that I was sleeping better, less restlessly.

The biggest change was that my acne disappeared. For a few years, I’d constantly had embarrassing, ugly, deep red cysts on my face. After stopping the meds, I didn’t even need makeup to go out anymore. I confess, I always felt especially delicate about the acne because I knew many people would blame my carnivore diet for it. I want to be an ambassador for this optimal way of eating, and I knew nobody would want to imitate me with my face looking like that. I had questioned whether it was the diet myself, but I’ve never seen a carnivore besides me have this problem, and I felt wonderful otherwise. I knew it had to be something else. I had never considered that it could be the formulation of the medication itself.

When I went back on Levoxyl, that acne came roaring back. The good news in this for me was that coffee was not the reason I had acne. It was obviously the medication, so I at least got to reacquaint myself with that old friend. Temporarily. We can talk more about coffee some other time.

Once I started thinking through what had happened during my sabbatical from medication, I realized that it was probably some inactive ingredient in the thyroid pill I was taking, and not anything wrong with my hormones, that was causing the acne. So, without fully disclosing to my doctor what a crazy thing I had done to figure this out, I asked her to put me on Tirosint, instead of Levoxyl. It’s pricey, but absolutely worth it to get a medication that doesn’t have any unnecessary ingredients.

I have not had any acne since I switched meds. My periods also got even lighter and my cycle is shorter: 28 days now instead of 34. This is marvelous!

Even though I didn’t succeed at resurrecting my thyroid with the carnivore diet, as many Hashimoto’s sufferers have done, I am very glad I tried. It is not a good idea to just accept long-term medication without trying to find other solutions. There was a better approach for me, and it is possible that I never would have realized it if I hadn’t gone this route.

Carnivore and keto might still work for your thyroid, Dear Reader. Several readers have asked for updates, I presume because they’d like to try this themselves. My friendly, not-at-all-medical advice is to get your diet nailed down for at least six months. Do either grain- and dairy-free keto or, ideally, carnivore. See if your antibodies improve. Then, under your doctor’s supervision–please do not do follow my example and go it alone–ease off the drugs and see what happens for you. I had a history of high lithium intake to contend with, so you very easily could have better luck than I did.

I would encourage anybody with Hashimotos to give it a very studied, deliberate, careful attempt. I’d love to hear from any of you about your own situation!

I’m not opening comments on the blog anymore. Spam and trolls are just too much trouble. You can find me for conversation on Gab, MeWe, and SG.

How To Beat Anxiety and Depression

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Gut health is mental health.

Somebody recently mentioned on a social media site that he had experienced one of those long, dark nights of the soul during which, instead of sleeping, you toss and turn and recall every single stupid or awkward thing you’ve ever said out loud. I’ve had nights like that. Worse than that, I’ve had long, waking days of the same thing. You’re just going about your business and suddenly your mind starts accusing you: I’m the dumbest person ever. How can anybody stand to be around me? I can’t believe I said that!

Not only that, but the anxious mind then takes the opportunity to run a Top 10 (if you’re lucky, it’s only ten) list of your most socially awkward moments ever.

Now, maybe it’s just a function of getting older, but I honestly no longer have any trouble believing that I actually said that, whatever “that” was. You get used to living with your foot in your mouth. You get used to it, but it’s hard to truly learn to let go, isn’t it? I know it’s not just me. Everybody says or does cringe-making things regularly. Not everybody notices it, but most do. So, then, how do they let it go so easily? My gaffes get stuck in my head like a peanut butter and banana sandwich gets stuck to the roof of your mouth!

Surprisingly, for those who suffer from this kind of anxiety, I think it has a lot to do with our guts. No, I don’t mean the socially confident are simply braver than us. I mean that there is a difference in our literal guts, our intestines, that makes the food we eat affect our brains in a unique way. You see, since I started the carnivore diet, I’ve experienced this thing referred to by carnivores who have trod this path before me as the “carnivore calm”. I haven’t had a single 2 a.m. cringing episode since I stopped eating plants!

Almost all plants (and dairy, which I’ll have to address in a separate post) have literally nerve-wracking effects for me. On those days after going carnivore that I just couldn’t resist the asparagus or whatever, I would always notice half a day or so later, I’d get some anxiety again. Not the social kind (that’s really gluten and dairy), but free-floating anxiety. I sometimes get ear worms that seem obnoxiously loud and make me want to jam a crochet hook into my ear to dig them out. I can’t ever just have a nice song that I like in my head. I get to have all of my thoughts drowned out by a 15 second loop of whatever popular atrocity I last heard while flipping through the radio stations. It’s maddening.

Enough days in a row of fiber of any kind, and I become clinically depressed.

(This seems to me a really good place to point out that, in spite of all my anxieties and depression, Jesus has made most of my adult life a productive and meaningful time in spite of all of these hindrances. He’s the real miracle-maker in my life. He gave me the spiritual wherewithal to make it through a lifetime of depression and anxiety and still be a productive and useful person, able to raise a family and work for Him in my own reclusive ways. I give Him all praise and glory for that. And then after all those years of learning to lean on Him, he led me to the physical reason for all these problems that he salved so lovingly for so many years, so that I could move on to the next step in my walk with Him. Give Him praise, people! I never knew what He was doing, but I always knew He knew what He was doing. Eliminating plants and dairy didn’t save me from anything, but it has sure has made me feel better while being saved. OK, back to the OP:)

When I eat zero fiber, I get none of these symptoms. I just hum through my day, clear-headed and happy. I handle stress like a champ. I’m actually having fun!

Carnivore didn’t change who I am. I’m still weird. I’m still introverted. I’m still making mistakes. I still stick my foot in my mouth. I still do stupid things and wonder why I didn’t know any better. But I’m able to forgive myself quickly and move on. My brain no longer stores everything I got wrong today to hate-binge on later when I’m trying to sleep. I’m no longer hindered from enjoying the world by all the negative self-talk that used to try to hold me back.

I’m just so stinking well-adjusted now!

That’s weird, isn’t it? I don’t have all the answers, but I do have a few years of experimentation to share. My depression and anxiety largely went away when I moved to a ketogenic diet, so ketones probably have a little something to do with it. Ketosis does give you a very sharp mental state.

But I also gave up wheat at the same time, and I think that really was the magic bullet for me. Gluten has a deleterious effect on my gut, and thus my brain. I know for a fact, after different experiments adding foods back, that gluten is the trigger for other physical ailments of which I’m now totally free. I probably have undiagnosed celiac disease. I don’t really care to ask a doctor to confirm it.

I have a relative who craved gluten like a drug as a kid, and would only eat foods containing gluten (not hard to pull off in this food environment) and whose mind was very much hampered by the stuff. Gluten exacerbated every stereotypical autistic, and, frighteningly, sociopathic behavior in him. It was my witnessing of this pattern that made me wonder about myself. Gluten is the mind-killer!

Gluten, fine, but how can cauliflower make me feel so bad? To tell the truth, I question this aspect of my condition frequently myself, sometimes to the point where I stop believing it entirely and eat something that’s not meat. And then I invariably find out again. A little bite of something is often no problem, but if I just decide I’m going to start having regular keto food instead of full-blown carnivore, it’s only a matter of a day or two before I start having those same old feelings of anxiety and depression, stress, the little compulsions like over-tidiness, and songs stuck in my head. It has, through some intentional experiments, but mostly mishap, become undeniable to me that it’s the food. Fiber is doing something in my gut–whether feeding the wrong bacteria, making it leaky, or something else I can’t guess–that is throwing off the chemicals in my brain. This could very well be happening to you, too.

Now, I’m sure there are causes of mental illness that don’t originate in the gut. I’m not calling carnivore a magic bullet. But for me it has been almost magical, and it might be worth a shot for you, too. If having a song stuck in a loop in your head doesn’t bother you, and that’s the only symptom you’ve got, maybe you don’t want to experiment with taking plants out of your diet. I miss the plants, to tell the truth. I’d eat them all day long if I could. I simply can’t.

I am not the only person who experiences this. There are maybe hundreds, maybe thousands of carnivores who have discovered this exact pattern in themselves. I didn’t make this up. They didn’t make this up. If you want to hear more, I recommend starting with YouTube videos from Amber O’Hearn or Georgia Ede, then let the rabbit hole suck you in from there. There’s a lot of solid evidence that the Western diet is mentally torturing a number of us.

Now, I have to go lift some weights and then we have a gingerbread house decorating party to host (no eating the houses!), so I’m going to throw this out there mostly unedited. Please forgive any typos, run-on sentences, and irrelevant asides.

Want to discuss this? Meet me on Gab, MeWe, or Social Galactic.