From Rock Bottom to Healing: How the Carnivore Diet Saved My Life | Valerie Anne Smith

welcome to the plantree MD podcast with Dr Anthony chaffy where we discuss diet and nutrition and how this affects health and chronic disease and show you how you can use this to optimize your health and happiness both mentally and physically hello everyone and welcome to the next episode of the plant-free MD podcast I am your host Dr Anthony chaffy and today I have a very special guest Miss Valerie Smith who is joining us uh to tell us about her Story coming to the cornivore diet and her health Journey Valerie thank you so much for coming on it's absolute pleasure to talk to you I'm so honored to be here um this is a dream come true for me I uh you're such a large part of my life and we've never met so it's an absolute honor to be able to be here and talk to you oh well it's pleasure is all mine thank you for coming on so Valerie uh for those who haven't come across you before can you tell us a little bit about you I sure can um my name is Valerie Smith and I am 54 um I am now healed well and strong a metabolic health coach that comes alongside those that are seeking vibrancy and seeking help but I haven't always been this way I have only been this way for seven years prior to that I was very very ill and um I spent 48 long years of my life in extreme illness and so what what sort of um illnesses were you going through at the time all the way back to being a toddler I I don't have any memories of ever being well and so as a toddler I was plagued by anxiety and depression and uh diagnosed with those by the time I was um an early adolescent I had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and anorexia and then coping with all of that as a young teen I was then diagnosed with OCD and that turned very violent as self harm and I was engaging in activities of cutting my arms and legs and tricotilomania which is hair pulling I was pulling my scalp hair and eyebrows and eyelashes so um pled by panic attacks clinical depression OCD schizophrenia and anorexia they very devastating six mental Elm misses that started very very early in life I I don't have any memories of of ever being sane or ever being well yeah wow so so that was going on for throughout your adolescence but also throughout most of your adult life until you said seven years ago is that right yes yes yeah it was um it was unlivable I began to get to the point of just wanting to go to sleep and not wake up anymore sleep was the only escape from the parent delusions and the voices that would scream at me to harm myself and to harm others um these voices that would tell me to drive off an overpass that people were talking about me that I needed to um take out my family in order to stay safe uh it the voices told me that certain foods were poison and if I ate them that I would die and then sometimes it would switch and tell me that I should eat them and that I should die it was just a horrible horrible existence and all of this time up until the time in my 40s I was under traditional treatment I wasn't just managing this on my own I had care team after care team that had me under three or four psych meds for a total of 12 to 15 over the course of those years I was in and out of treatment centers I was in and out of mental Wards I had feeding tubes trying to bring my weight up from 70 lbs using the tube feed ingredients of canola oil and high fruit toast corn syrup and soy six times a day you know I've been through it all I've had a dozen psychiatrists that over the course of three decades would fire me and tell me not to come back that I was treatment resistant and you weren't going to get any better and you just have to accept this you know I I did everything over and over and over again of what you're supposed to do what you're told to do to eventually get help and to be well and none of it ever made a reduction in my mental illnesses none of it ever changed anything I just continued to get worse oh is that a bit of feedback I don't know that what that was there okay um well I'm really sorry to hear that that um that sounds awful were you what was what was life like at the time were you able to work did you have family that was were helping you but how did you just just live a day-to-day life I mean like you said it sound it's unlivable it sounds unlivable it sounds absolutely horrible what what was your your day-to-day life were you able to hold down a job have a family and and interact with people uh at least somewhat normally um in your daily life Each decade got more difficult my teen years um I spent in and out of treatment centers and just trying to catch up at school when I'd be gone for six or eight weeks trying to man manage my family that was distraught over me teetering around 100 lb at 5 fo n and not knowing what to do to help me seeing me go downhill and not be able to stay in touch with reality and also the self- starvation that was that was difficult for me and for my family in my 20s I attempted to go to college and I finally had to drop out after after two years I spent all of my energy trying to be perfect and trying to get good grades which I did but my health suffered even further and the colleges were the the health clinics were alarmed and encouraging me to take a leave of absence that I that I wasn't going to survive and I wasn't my dorm mates were Finding Me blacked out in the sh hour you know I I was just unwell and um after I quit college early 20s late 20s I attempted to work part-time I attempted to um keep an apartment I attempted to um just be normal all the while going to appointments every week and when that didn't work I attempted to Get Better Faster by doubling down and doing it more so you know I had more appointments with nutritionists at hospitals and more appointments with psychiatrists and more meds that they were trying on me to desperately try to make me better in my 30s I was married and a whole set of other suffering is going on because there's unconditional love there between my husband and I but when we took our vows he knew it was going to be for worse you know better or worse and it was it was worse and in sickness and in health and it was so much sickness and then late 30s early 40s after four Decades of this mental illness my physical being my body couldn't take it anymore and I had just extreme amount of medical complications from so many years of starvation so then I was embarking on surgeries and hospitalizations that involved very invasive treatments to try to save my life it it was it was horrible it really was yeah I'm so sorry so what happened what changed how did you how did you get out of that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result and I had already been fired by my last psychiatrist 30 years into this um I wanted to titrate off of the four meds that I was on and he refused to help me I was functioning worse on them than I was off them I was on two for the schizophrenia one for anxiety and OCD and one for clinical depression and it was just it was just a devastating time and because I wouldn't sign a contract with him to to gain 3 lbs a week because I was down to 70 lbs again um he said I can't help you don't come back and I was at a Crossroads you know do do I start all over again do I find another care team do I find another psychiatrist that we're going to do this all over again I Knew by this time this this was never going to work this was I had when I would try to do better my diet of a cup of spinach and a cup of lettuce and maybe a cup of celery and that's all I would eat in a day when I would try to do better I was taught all my life from my care team doing better meant eating a sweet potato with it doing better meant eating oatmeal with that so that's how I would approach being better by the time I got to be 45 years old I had spent 35 years not eating any animal products not an egg not a bite of chicken nothing and by Sovereign I found these two books at the library by the author Julia Ross called the mood cure and the diet cure and for the first time in my life I read of about what the brain needs in order to function optimally that the 100 plus neurotransmitters in our brain require complete amino acids in order for your brain to metabolically function for your mitochondria to function I'd never heard this before I knew about nutrition but I didn't know that the different foods that you pick some are superior to others I was always taught that all I needed to do was eat beans and rice and wheat bread and peanut butter if I felt like I needed protein other than that eat your grains eat your pasta eat your pies and your cakes and your cookies to prove to us that you're not anorexic anymore once you're weight gets up high enough you'll be well you won't be this way anymore and I had done this decade after decade gain a little weight relapse gain a little weight relapse no matter what I weighed regaining the weight on carbs only never made an impact in how I felt mentally never made an impact in the drive to starve and in the anorexia so these two books were groundbreaking to me and I began to wonder if there was more people out there talking about it and so I searched on YouTube for TED talks and I searched online for supportive evidence and that's when I found Dr Georgia Eid and Dr Chris Palmer and what they wrote and what they talked about was the light at the end of my tunnel they were my lifeline to understanding what I needed to do in order to possibly be better even 10% better even 15% better and never in my wildest dreams that I ever think that I would ever be completely 100% well I just wanted to be able to get through the day get through the hour so finding them was groundbreaking to me was of course before both of their books came out this was you know seven years ago but what's in their books is what I found and that research that evidence gave me the courage to try one more time because I was not going to survive another year like this I was 70 lbs I had gone through some very very extensive surgeries in order to save my life and I was faced with more that was going to happen in the future I also found Dr sha Baker and Dr Ken Barry and I found you and I spent months trying to figure out okay this is what I want to do and this is what I need to do but how how do I do this when that's all I'm eating is a cup of spinach and that's all I can allow myself to eat the thought of eating anything else drives a panic attack and would just put me in a pool of Tears on the floor I knew that I needed to do this in an organized way in order for me to make this successful and since I hadn't eaten any animal foods for 35 years this literally was going to be saving my life one bite at a time literally that's all I could do so this is how I started I started with one bite one bite of meat every day until I got used to it and I promised myself in a in a week if I could do that and not sit at the kitchen table and cry for hours which was how how it started that I would double it one bite became two two became three and three became four and so on and so forth this was not an improvement or a healing that magically happened in a week or two that so many amazing people have been able to materialize because they could trade a whole day's worth of food for carnivore or the L diet and make those brain changes make those mitochondrial changes fast this was a slow process for me but I never set myself on a timetable this wasn't back when we said just give it 30 days or give it 60 days or give it 90 days I was in this for my life it was this or nothing there was nothing left to try and so at every thre Monon mark I noticed changes and my family noticed changes and it was just an amazing transformation that I can look back on and every three months there was a reduction in the mental anguish that I had lived with for decades I had never ever experienced a lowering of of any of these symptoms any of these anguished awful problems and yet this was doing it when I took away all of the high oxalate plants that were harming me and slowly replaced that with an abundance of beef and then when I had gotten to enough healing to then except the fatty parts of the beef which took more time because that's the first thing that goes when your anorexic is protein and fat I had to get to a certain level of brain healing in order to to to go on and go to the next step but it incrementally got better month after month after month when I got to the six Monon Mark the screaming voice of the schizophrenia now felt like they were in another room with the door closed they were there they were screaming but for the first time since my earliest memories they were quieting and I would talk to my husband and say what is this what what is happening how can this possibly be the answer but yet here it is this this this is the answer I had to go through a period of anger anger over my life time of everything that I missed out on everything that was sickness and struggle and injury and surgery and it was this all along that this could have healed me if I had known if only I had known when I got to the N9 Monon Mark and the 12 month Mark I had gotten up to over a pound of beef and everything just started to melt away I no longer had to struggle with trying to stop myself from cutting my arms and legs the compulsion to do that the the brain dysfunction that drove me to do that completely disappeared and at the onee Mark the schizophrenic voices that screamed death at me and death towards others was gone completely gone and every feature of my anorexia was also gone the Depression was gone and replaced by feeling like I was In Living Color for the first time in my life nothing was gray anymore everything was vibrant and in lothing color and there was no more anxiety and no more panic attacks there was peace there was a peace that passed all understanding that I'd never experienced before hey guys just want to take a second to thank our sponsor at carnivore bar I don't promote many products because honestly all you need to be healthy is to just eat meat for those times that you're out hiking road tripping or stuck at work and you want nutritious snack that is just meat fat and salt if you want it the carnivore bar is a great option so I like this product not because it's just pure meat but also because I want the carnivore Market to thrive as well and the more we support meat only products the more meat only products there will be available in the mainstream so if this sounds like something you'd like to get behind check it out using my discount code Anthony to get 10% off which also applies to subscri ition is giving you 25% off total all right thanks guys and I used to worry that this was too good to be true that at some point the rug is going to get pulled out from under me and and I'm going to wake up one day and it's all going to be gone and my dysfunction is all going to come back but it's not it's permanent when you heal your brain with a proper human diet when you give it what it needs to heal your brain and your body and just get out of its way take away the things that harm and give it in abundance what it needs to heal it's permanent and you have a brand new life a brand new absolute life and I'm just I'm just so thankful and so grateful and at that point of my healing there are people that come at me and say well the reason that you were better was because you gained weight and I can quickly dispel that because at the one-year Mark when all six of my mental illnesses were gone I still weighed 70 pounds I had not gained any weight yet this was about brain healing that had to happen first my whole life it was the reverse ha teams tried to put weight on first and then tell me that the brain would follow and that's not how it works the brain needs to be healed first and then your life will follow so the second and third year that was my time to rebuild my body that was my time to address the physical illnesses that I was left with because I was still facing a life of more surgeries I had severe osteoporosis I had five fractures within 5 years and I was facing more devastating illness if I didn't figure this out if I didn't do something um my thyroid was a mess my adrenals were a mess all of my hormones had tanked I had had several surgeries because I had lost all of my internal musculature and I had multiple organ prolapses and I had major major surgeries that they weren't sure I would even survive the surgeries I was facing the rest of my life dealing with these medical complications and I no longer was going to accept this doctors told me that my mental illnesses were incurable and obviously they weren't so why am I going to believe them when they tell me that osteoporosis is not reversible that you're always going to have thyroid issues that you're always going to have Interstitial cystitis and badenia and pelvic pain there's nothing that we can do these are incurable I was going to question everything and research everything just like I did with my mental illnesses and I was not going to accept this I was going to figure out a way to reverse this and heal this by still using the lion diet still using carnivore diet but understanding what else my body needed to reverse all of these conditions and I set out on a path and I did those also I'm no longer plagued with osteoporosis my thyroid and all of my hormones are fine I've not had a single fracture in seven years I have no more issues with prolapsed organs I have nothing going on medically at all everything has healed and it's just now an amazing life and I'm just so thankful well that's amazing that's amazing and thank thank you so much for sharing that um is a question I I I've had before or always sort of thought about but I do see people that that go through anorexia and for some reason they a lot of them go in a vegetarian plant-based or vegan sort of approach was there a particular reason you were avoiding meat was it because it was particularly fattening or was it was there a specific reason why you were avoiding meat yourself it wasn't for iology I I told others as a teen in my 20s that I was vegetarian or vegan just to avoid questions that was a way for me to explain how I was eating and to try to to cover up that I was self- starving when I was an early teen in the 70s it was very easy during that time to go off of meat and fat I was surrounded by Propaganda and TV shows and commercials that everything went fat free everything went nonanimal based and everything that I was learning even in school when we would have health class or nutrition class it was all bent towards being plant-based that the best things you could eat were oat and Cheerios and pasta and noodles and rice and so that messaging combined with my own self-destruction of knowing through the self starvation and the anorexia that the highest calories were involved in protein and fat it was a firestorm that combined and and that's what I pushed out first and I'm not unique in that the the experiences that I've had in patient surrounded by other young men and women for decades in them also that was the first thing that they eliminated to take it down to fruits and vegetables and maybe sometimes something like a potato or a grain but it was always focused on high volume low calorie and that was always going to be spinach and lettuce and celery green beans things of that nature and it causes so much malnutrition it's just devastating to your body and the Brain yeah yeah absolutely and I've I mean I've always sort of wondered that that's when you're saying okay you know especially you know some people in adolescence you know they want to fit in they want to be slim they want to be in shape they want to be attractive uh when they're going to school and things like that and if we're told fat makes you fat meat makes you fat they're like I'm not gonna eat that and I you know i' I've seen that before anyway and so that's um that's interesting to me that that's what you went through too that oh okay well that's going to have fat on it want to avoid that and then you just eat this very very poor nutrient um sort of I guess you call it food I don't grass clippings lawn right lawn white you know and um and eat that instead because it doesn't have nutrition because it doesn't have calories because it's it's not food and but it's well you're eating something and so I guess that counts but um yeah that's very very scary that thought you know and that that vilification of meat and just normal nutrition uh scaring people away into something that is so harmful like uh an eating disorder as dangerous as as anorexia like like you said when we were talking before we came on anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental health disorder like it is it is extremely devastating very difficult to recover from and many people don't and that's probably because they're never they're never brought into a proper way of eating if you talk to I'm sure you experienced this but the the counselors that I've spoken to now it's all about you know any food is good all food is fine just eat as much as you want so you're giving them one eating you're trading one eating disorder for another and you're you're playing into this problem they have they don't want to gain fat they don't want to be overweight and you're telling them just eat anything eat cupcakes and cookies and thises and that and then they're putting on fat and they're like don't like that don't want that and they don't feel good either and so just going to go right back into doing what they were doing before which is not eating any of that so that they can at least be skinny and not feel good instead of putting on fat and not feel feeling good and not helping their mental health anyway yes um yeah like you said it's the highest mortality rate one in five it's 20% one in five die and and those that survive you know like me up until my healing we just survive we we just every day wake up and obsess over food obsess over what we look like obsess over whether we have enough bones sticking out obsess over every part of our life because our brain is not functioning properly at all there's no way to stop the OCD there's no way to stop and halt the the intrusive thoughts that we're feeling because the your brain is is stuck your brain is literally stuck in a in a starvation malnutrition mode you should have seen the trays full of food that were brought in patient and what we supposed to eat to prove that we're better enough to go home it was it was prepackaged in plastic huge muffins and pancakes and cakes and pies and cookies and that's what we were told eat this show us that you're better and we'll let you go home and and none of that does anything nutritionally for your brain it it's just causing more inflammation and causing more malnutrition it's it's just horrible and there's there's nothing that's changed I have since gone back and come alongside some young ladies that are impatient right now those who have reached out to me in my local community and I've visited them in the hospital the same three toxic ingredient tube feeding ingredients are still going through their tube feed six times a day and those same trays of food are still being served to them to prove that they're better to go home the protocol has not changed at all they're the the powers that be are still utilizing the same failed treatment and they just keep doubling down and just doing it more they they will never open up to the fact that this is not working that they let these these fractured young men and women go home and they're on the way home they're already thinking about relapse they're already thinking about how they're going to lose what was put on them while they were impatient and they immediately go back to starving because nothing has changed mentally no matter M how long they were in treatment and that's how I was all of those decades there's there's just an insurmountable amount of suffering that goes on between schizophrenia and anorexia and all of these extreme mental illnesses that is just devastating it it doesn't ever get better you just Teeter on on the precipice of being tolerable and trying to smile and trying to get through your day and it's always looming over your shoulder ready to take over again and pull you down and that's no way to live that that's no way for a doctor to look at a patient and say this is all we can offer you that you can be quote unquote better but you'll always be disordered and that you'll always have to deal with this for the rest of your life to in some degree or another sometimes severe sometimes less severe that's a terrible diagnosis to give someone and it's it's not right yeah it isn't and I I really like you know the way that you you know you're you're coming at this which is you know treating mental you know the anorexia and eating disorders in the same way that you would treat a mental health issue you have to you have to address the mental health part of it and it's not it's not good enough to just tell someone hey you're not hearing voices those aren't real you know and and tell me you're not hearing them just tell me you're not hearing them and then I'll let you go okay not hearing them and you like go like well that wasn't work that's the same thing is saying like well just eat the cupcake and we'll let you go home it's like okay I'll eat the cupcake and then I can go home and get back to doing what I was doing it's not it's not actually addressing the issue which is uh it's a mental health issue and it's you're not just going to convince them that cupcakes are good first of all cupcakes are not good so that's stupid anyway but it's it's that's not that's not going to work you're not it's not this is not a conditioning issue this is not an education issue it's a mental health issue and and feeding them garbage and you know prot pretending that oh okay yeah I don't have a problem with that you know how is that going to help I mean that you the recidivism rate is you know nearly 100% you know that soon as you get out of there you go back to doing what you were doing it's very very difficult um so addressing it like that and addressing the mental health part first you know like you said you know oh let's put on weight and then the and then your mental health will come along with it well clearly not and that if you put on weight well then you're you know the only reason your mental health change all because you put on weight well I mean that doesn't even pass the smell test because uh there's a high correlation in concordance with uh metabolic syndrome metabolic disease obesity with mental health issues and like schizophrenia depression OCD bipolar disorder all these issues there's a very high correlation with uh these metabolic health issues and obesity so and and that's the other thing too you say like well you know your mental health issues got better because you lost the weight and your mental health issues got better because you gained the weight which one is it gaining weight or losing weight which one does it you know it's it's um it's not that the thing that helps your mental health also is helping your weight either you know improve and optimize you're just eating real food that's good for your brain last time I check the brain was part of the body and so when you're eating food that can it's good for your body you're getting nutrients for your body that includes your brain and if you're not getting the right nutrients if you're not in the right metabolic state if you're bringing all these very inflammatory factors that come into your body and screw with your brain chemistry damage your mitochondria so they can't function properly in your brain and elsewhere things aren't going to work um I think it would be amazing if they could you know look at the hospital obviously the the food there is just atrocious it's just sugary carbs for every you know breakfast lunch and dinner every single day and if there's meat it's just one little sad lonely piece of dry you know very lean overcooked piece of meat that just looks like foam rubber and probably tastes worse and the rest of it's just sugary carbs and so the tpn you know what we give people for IV uh nutrition is atrocious just tons of sugar and carbs and garbage like that and and then the feeds the feeds are just the same thing why why are we giving people sugar you know like why how is that something that we should be giving in hospitals I I think it would be amazing if you could get um you know Peg feeding for some of these patients um just stuff in Pate or something like that you know just you know just just ground beef and things like that because you you're controlling it you know it's like they they don't want to eat anyway so you're you're tube feeding them feeding through a peg tube and um what if you gave them real food what if you gave them a high fat ketogenic diet carnivore diet um I think you'd actually you could actually resolve many of these poor people's uh mental health issues and eating disorders and all of a sudden they're feeling healthy they're feeling better the mental health is getting better they're saying huh actually steak sounds good maybe I don't need to avoid all that um I think that'd be amazing I don't know if we could ever get that in but you know maybe there's somebody watching who knows somebody who has has in somewhere at at one of these facilities and we can figure out if we can run a trial or something like that because that would be uh that would be pretty amazing and I would bet pretty much any amount of money that we would get far more benefit out of uh feeding just a high fat carnivore diet through a peg than um than they've ever gotten before with those horrible just putting in you know yop play and and crushed up Frosted Flakes through it tube which is basically equivalent it's just sugar and carbs and garbage you know yeah I agree um and and then that takes you down a path of understanding the facilities where where is their ideology and in the facilities that I was in specifically in Ohio um the the core value system coming from the top down the CEOs the people that are on the board those who control the cafeteria and the nutrition they are all stemming from the Seventh Day Adventist Church and so in the hospitals that I was in there was no meat served at all it if there if there was protein on my tray it was like what I said it was peanut butter and wheat bread it was beans and rice that was all that was offered to me and that's what I was taught was proper that's what I was taught all my body and my brain needed to thrive and so you know you we have to affect change somehow from the top down from the top echelons of who is in charge of these facilities and and where their ideology comes from it it starts at the top of being non-nutritious it starts at the very top of starting from a place of malnutrition and that's never going to haveen have anyone gain Health from that it's it's um it's very sad to see you see so many centers and hospitals and and treatment facilities that the Seventh Day Adventist Church funds and operates and so you have to imagine they're really trying they're really trying to help they they have all these programs out there but they are so misguided with what is a proper way to eat and and be healthy due to their religious ideology of of meat is evil it I I I just it's just incalculable how many people they're hurting as a result of this because of their policies because of the people they've influenced policy makers that they've influenced you know being on boards in in who and other governing um you know bodies that that come up with these different guidelines and recommendations for health and then running the different programs for you anorexics and then and then and then telling them they need to be plant-based and vegan oh yeah no no you were right about that one meat is bad meat's super bad all meat all all food is good except except meat yeah don't eat meat you want to it'll make you fat watch out and give you fat and make you give you heart disease it's you know you have you have to wonder because I think I think most of the people involved really really care and they're trying to help people and they're trying to help um you know people in these situations um but they're just they're just so stuck in their ideology that they can't see the amount of harm that they're causing and if you if you look at the success rate of their treatment programs it's next to zero and especially for you know eating disorders and so why would you not try something else why would you keep doing the same thing like you said the definition of insanity is trying doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result so why are they insane enough to think that doing those same things and pushing those same plant-based ideology is going to work now when it's never worked in the past and you know you know the the road to hell is paved with good intentions it's not good enough it's not good enough to have the right intentions you have to do the right things and when you look at your actions and you look at the consequences of of your actions and they are bad you have to stop you have to change and it doesn't matter if it conflicts with your ideology you need to change your ideology because your ideology is bad and so I'm very sorry that that happened but it it it's actually makes a lot more sense now you know seeing that that that a lot of these centers are driven by the seven the Adventist Church and they're again they're pushing this this uh eating disorder of their own which is veganism and um you know I keep seeing that more and more people that are anorexic you know they they go plant-based because oh meat's bad for oh I got to stay away from meat and it drives them into these eating disorders and I know people that um avoided meat a because you know they thought it was fattening and and B um I knew someone with bulimia and they they um went to like vegan salad soup bars and things like that because it was easier to throw up and it was easier on their throat that they would have bread soaked in uh soup and they'd be able to eat that and they say like oh yeah look I'm eating they go to the bathroom and they would a were able to bring it back up uh very easily and it didn't hurt as much as um as other foods that were more solid and um and they're and they're playing right into that and in fact they're promoting it and saying no you should be vegan and plant-based and no no no no no Meats bad I it's I mean it's obviously wrong um and it's very misguided and I I really hope that they figure that out and just look at what's in front of them and realize that what they're doing is not helping it's making things worse hey everyone really really happy to announce a new sponsor for the show and for everybody down in Australia Stockman Stakes who are delivering highquality grassfed and finished pasture raised beef and other meats flash frozen and vacuum sealed to Ador something I've been enjoying a lot of myself recently as well they also have a great range of specialty items such as high fat keto mints and carnivore beef and organs mints with liver kidneys and beef heart as well so use code chaffy today for free order of beef mints or another specialty gift along with your order at Stockman stakes. Au and I'll see you over there thanks guys yeah cuz at the same time I mean look at the amount of illnesses that have skyrocketed within the same framework of the plant-based diet people hopping onto that I mean when I was young I didn't know anyone who had Crohn's disease I now have six people in my extended family that have been diagnosed with crohn's dis disase and they're and they've had surgeries they're on all kinds of of um immune suppressing drugs to keep the inflammation down they're being told to eat more fiber and eat more plant-based and and don't eat red meat and don't eat fat because it's difficult to digest and look at all the other illnesses that are on the rise multiple sclerosis you know all kinds of arthritis issues and look at the rate of autism there are so many skyrocketing Cancers and and autoimmune disorders Hashimoto and Graves disease and pushing a plant-based diet is not only causing malnutrition the amount of anti-nutrients and the amount of toxins that you're overloading your body with it's actually causing harm it's causing illness we're overc consuming you know never In Our Lifetime could we go to the grocery store and buy 10 lounds of spinach and eat it every day you know this this used to be eaten seasonally when you had your own garden and you ate it once or twice in a season and then the rest of the year your body could keate out those oxalates and that you know that's how people ate it was it was mostly meat and fat and with some home Gard vegetables here or there same thing with almonds you know when I was a child almonds used to be something that we'd get a handful of at Christmas in our stocking it wasn't something that you consumed every day in almond flour almond milk three pounds of almonds that you go buy at Costco and eat them by the handfuls every single day we're poisoning ourselves and causing these autoimmune and and skin issue illnesses by adopting these plant-based diets because it's not it's not what we were meant to eat predominantly it's it's not what we were ever meant to have Plates Full of at every meal it's it's horrifying yeah absolutely yeah and and you know whatever whatever people want to say we've reduced red meat by over 33% over the last 40 years and increased fruits and vegetables increased grains increased seed oils increased um sugars and all these chronic diseases have skyrocketed we were the fattest and sickest we've ever been in human history anybody who tries to deny that is a liar and they're trying to sell you something and so it's um it's it's certainly not the meat causing this it is definitely something else and um I'm well I'm very glad that you got out of it I'm very glad that you found uh you know Dr Eid and and Dr Palmer we doing fantastic work I'm really happy that they have their books out now and are getting more recognition for their work um so at this point um you are a health coach and you're helping other people is that what what is the scope of your of your practice is it mostly with eating disorders or is it sort of everything it actually is everything um it has been a wonderful journey to come on um 90% of what I do on a daily basis is actually volunteer um people reach out to me on X Twitter and Instagram and Facebook I get direct messages every day of people reaching out for help and because I frequently post everything that I've healed from and I and I speak to all of those in addition to the mental illnesses I have people that have asked me to be their regular coach on a wide variety of of illnesses some may be for mental illness only but I have but I also have many clients who um are with me to reverse their osteoporosis who are with me to figure out how to work on their thyroid how to work on type 2 diabetes how to work on weight loss how to work on weight gain um it it it's a vast subject and it may even be something that I've not personally experienced but they feel comfortable with me because of what I've lived through and because of what I've healed from I've not personally lived with bipolar but the six mental illnesses that were taking me down that were just as devastating someone you know will come to me with bipolar and say can you help me c can you provide me with resources can you walk with me through this to heal my own brain dysfunction and help me figure out what to eat and what not to eat so that I can come out the other side like you and just like type 2 diabetes I've I've not ever experienced obesity or type 2 diabetes um but because of what I have worked on what I have researched what I have put out there on posts and and the knowledge that I do have behind the science behind it and and I always try to post backup research with everything that I put out there because I encourage everyone to do their own research and not just take my word for it I want you to do your own research I want you to heal yourself I I have a wide variety of those coming to me yeah good yeah good and then so some weird though feedback sorry about that hopefully it's not too too weird for people um as far as um the people that you help you know have you found other people with anorexia or other Eating Disorders have they come to you and have you found other people healing with a with dis approach to um to eating yes yes right um not not only in my coaching but just through speaking out every day on social media um and the interviews that I've done people have reached out to me and um have confirmed yes that's how I healed also so it is so very encouraging to start Gathering um this community that is so supportive of each other that acknowledges the healing that needs to take place mentally within the brain first in order to to go on with a vibrant life and be strong and be healthy and um and be happy and be joyful yeah well that's great well thank you so much for that Valerie that was absolutely amazing it's a it's a really touching story and I'm so glad to hear here that that you're doing so much better and now you know returning the favor and and helping other people as well which I think is is uh is just wonderful um how do people follow you get in touch with you and um either uh help get you as a health coach or or follow you and see more of your work on Instagram and Twitter my handle is both the same on there it's Valerie an 1970 and on Facebook I'm just Valerie Smith and um the coaching platform that I'm on is www.m metabolic health.com and um I am there's a coaching tab on there that you click on that Tab and my picture and my calendar link will pop up and anyone can book a free consultation with me if they want to talk to me I have a lot of people that will book that initial consultation and um they just need a little guidance you know I might not end up being their their weekly or bi-weekly coach they just needed to talk to somebody face to face and and get some some feedback and some resources to get them on their way and um and I'm so happy happy to be able to do that um I just want people to heal so that's how to find me that's great and you have a YouTube channel as well is that right I do I do yes I do um it it is it's small it's it's small and growing I'm trying to devote more time to posting videos on there and of course when I make a video I post it on the other social media sites first and then upload it onto YouTube but yes I'm on there too um and my handle is cured by carnivore there you go awesome well Valerie thank you so much for that I'll put all of those links in the description deson and people can go and uh find you there and I encourage people to do that and please do send this to someone who you think would help them someone with an eating disorder like no one's addressing this no one has any real way of addressing eating disorders and mental health disorders and that's something there's more and more evidence that you can actually reverse major mental health issues like we just heard here today so if someone you know is suffering from one of these conditions please do send this to them and let them know that there is a way out uh Valerie thank you so much it's been an absolute pleasure it's been my pleasure to be here I'm I'm just so honored to be able to talk to you today it was my pleasure thank you everyone we'll see you next time hey guys thank you very much for taking the time out to listen to what I had to say if you like it then please like And subscribe to my YouTube channel and podcast and if you're on YouTube then please hit that little bell and subscribe and that'll let you know anytime I have a new video out which should be every week if not more and if you can share this with your friends that would help me get the word out and let me know that you like what I'm doing thanks again guys