Yes, I’d say it is. Look at all the things it has restricted from my life: 

In no particular order, here are the things that I don’t have going on at all anymore, as long as I stick to my current way of eating:

• Hidradenitis suppurativa
• Asthma
• joint pain and swelling (never diagnosed, but probably arthritis)
• brain fog
• depression
• trichotillomania (y’all, I have eyebrows.)
• severe social anxiety
• generalized anxiety
• constipation
• eczema
• unexplained recurring skin lesions
• compulsive cleaning (My house is less clean. This is a good thing. Trust me.)
• mood swings
• PMS (I do still suffer fools a little less gladly during that time.)
• Heavy periods with several extra days of spotting afterwards
• emotional eating/food cravings
• overweight

A number of other things have greatly improved, and continue to:

• Hashimodo’s thyroiditis (I’m currently experimenting with no thyroid medication, and it seems to be going well. I’m cautiously optimistic.)
• bunions
• ADHD (I have improved self-control in every aspect of my life, but let’s face it: I’m always going to be a little bit squirrely.)

And that’s just me. For privacy’s sake, I won’t be able tell you most of what has changed for my family as I’ve narrowed down their diets to what works for them, and should work for just about anybody. We’re still figuring some things out. I’ll just tell you that it is 100% true that everything, right down to those old-lady bunions you’re getting, is affected by the way you eat.

Why is restrictive bad? Fences are restrictive, but they keep the bull from goring every passerby, so I’m good with those restrictions. Marriage is restrictive. The yellow lines on the road are restrictive. Lots of things are.

But do you know what’s really restrictive, in a very negative way? Having to fill in your eyebrows with a pencil before you feel ok letting other people look at you. Being stuck at home because of social anxiety. Using inhalers. Paying expensive doctors to give you even more expensive medicines that don’t work. Getting hideous boils that restrict movement and make you just miserable. Being unable to exercise because your energy is non-existent. Being so OCD about the house-keeping that your children don’t get as much of you as they deserve.

Does any of that sound like healthy living to you? Because that’s what I get when I loosen up my way of eating.

My small children often ask me “Could you eat this, Mommy?” and the answer is “Of course! I can eat anything I want. But why would I want something that would make me feel bad?”

You can think of carnivore, or keto, or low-fat, or water fasting, or any other eating pattern as restrictive, but the question for me is, is your diet making you better or worse? Just that, and nothing more, is how you should judge your eating choices.

How restrictive do you need to be?

Very few people jump straight to a carnivore diet, because it seems too far out. For me, it has been a very quick path to health. What consequences you do feel comfortable with? Do you love your raw kale salad so much that you don’t mind suppressing your thyroid function? Is cheese so important to you that you don’t care that it gives you brain fog or constipation? That’s entirely up to you! Do you look at that healthy, tasty, whole grain bowl of oatmeal, and then your out-of-control blood sugars and say “Yeah, I think diabetes is a fair trade for this breakfast experience. Shoot me up with that insulin, doc!”? Fine. Up to you. You are the one that has to live with that choice.

I’m willing to deal with the slightly disturbed sleep I have after wine, so I drink a couple of glasses occasionally. For a while there, I felt comfortable enough with that last patch of eczema behind my left knee to go on feeding my coffee habit. That was worth it to me. But once I found out that coffee inhibits T4 production, I had no trouble letting go of that plant toxin. I’ve eased myself off of T4 medication over the last few months, so I need optimal functioning. I’m now coffee free, and eczema free. Hopefully, I’ll find that my thyroid labs look good, as well. Certainly I feel good–better than I did with the T4, surprisingly. I’ll let you know how this particular experiment turns out, either way.

I listed everything that the carnivore way of eating has taken out of my life, but it really should be stated more positively than that. I have better skin, better poop, no pain, a great mood, better relationships, clearer thinking, better productivity, more fun (FUN! I never had fun before!), fantastic body composition, more stamina, impressive strength for such a little gal, and the emotional freedom to explore the world God made for us.

How could anybody ever call that restrictive?

And other totally appropriate questions. 

I have a minute while my carnivore meatloaf (for which an very easy recipe should appear shortly) is in the oven to discuss a few diet-related things.

When I first switched to an all-meat diet, I would explain that I only eat meat, but I’ve had to change my approach a little bit. Now I tell people that I don’t eat plants. For some reason, the former way doesn’t quite sink in, and nobody fully realizes what I’m saying. It’s like saying the earth is flat. Nobody quite believes you really mean it. The latter way, they seem to understand more quickly. And the comments I get have become every bit as predictable as the many reactions I’ve gotten to having a large number of children. People just can’t help themselves. This sounds insane!

Besides My word, why would you do that?, the most frequent question I get from everybody–whether I’m talking to my best friend or the mailman–is the poop question. As a mother of eight, a dog-mommy, and a chicken rancher, poop has been a going concern in my life for well nigh 17 years now, so I don’t mind talking about it at all. It’s a good thing I don’t mind, because everybody else wants to talk about it. If you don’t, though, close this tab and I promise I’ll try to be more tasteful with my next post. Clearly everybody else finds this to be a steaming hot (sorry) topic, so why shouldn’t I?

Before I talk about poop, though, I want to say this: it is astonishing how personal people are willing to get when they find out you only eat meat. I tell people I’m a Christian, they change the subject. A Trump supporter, either a high-five or a cold shoulder. A homeschooler? Meh. Everybody’s a homeschooler these days. But tell people you only eat meat, and whew, suddenly everybody is your doctor, your psychotherapist, and your mother, all in one convenient package. It’s not worse than the golly-that’s-a-lot-of-kids conversation, but it’s close.

So, poop! Do I? Yes, once a day and quite comfortably, and thank you for asking. Seriously, love the question, stranger.

Carnivores do poop. Typically, they poop just fine. The result is quite diminutive compared to that of plant-eaters because the intestine is able to absorb a far higher percentage of meat foods than plant foods. So much of the meat is absorbed that I’d bet more than half of what comes out is cell turn-over from the GI tract, rather than waste product. (And isn’t waste product an oxymoron?)

The expectation that the current upside-down nutrition advice has set is that you need fiber–indigestible, bulk-building fiber–to be able to go comfortably. Constipated people are always told to put more bulk in their diet. I ask you though, how do you think putting more useless bulk through an already struggling system helps anything? Constipation isn’t, as it turns out, a result of not having enough waste to pass, but of the gut being unable to either process or move whatever is already in there. You should be more selective about what you put in your body, absolutely. Nutritionists have that correct. Don’t select for bulk, though. Select for digestibility.

Digestibility is where meat beats every other food.

I was introduced, to my horror, to something called a “poop knife” yesterday in a carnivore group on MeWe. We had a pretty good laugh, but goodness. Imagine needing to keep a knife in the bathroom so your ridiculous amount of waste can be flushed safely. Guys, if you’re wasting that much, you’re probably not absorbing as many nutrients from all your “superfoods” as you think you are. You’re probably very sick, actually, even if you don’t know it yet.

Don’t spend time playing in the toilet (something I teach my children not to do), hacking your poop into smaller chunks. Back off on the fiber. Eat whole, unprocessed foods, mainly meat.

Now, the poop question isn’t all roses and sunshine. Some people do experience diarrhea in the transition to carnivore. Some people aren’t very happy with their poop for several months, in fact. I have a few thoughts on why that might be for any given person, and how to avoid it, but since we’re all individuals with different needs, I’m not going to bore you with all that. If you try a carnivore way of eating, and you have problems, I think I can help you troubleshoot. (Gosh, the puns nearly write themselves, don’t they?)

All I can say is that, for me, and for at least thousands of other meat-only eaters that I’ve interacted with in one way or another, the poop is fine, and we never have to touch it.

So, how’s your poop? Just kidding. You don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to.

But do ask me anything you like, or give me your very strong opinions about my carnivore/zero-carb way of eating in the comments, and I’ll store up your questions for further blog posts.