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1:04:27 · Feb 15, 2023

Reversing Disease and Diabetes with the Carnivore Diet!

Joey Penfold, known as Carnivore Joe, shares his extraordinary transformation story of losing over 150 pounds in just over a year on the carnivore diet. Starting at over 400 pounds with multiple health complications including type 2 diabetes, uncontrolled high blood pressure, and degenerative arthritis throughout his joints, Joey was facing a life-threatening situation that required drastic intervention.

The discussion reveals how Joey's health markers dramatically improved within months of adopting a meat-only approach. His A1C dropped from above 7 to 4.9, blood pressure normalized from 160+ to 120/70 without medication, and his testosterone levels returned to normal ranges. Beyond the physical improvements, Joey experienced complete resolution of depression, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms that had previously made him nearly housebound.

Dr. Anthony Chaffee explores the ripple effects of Joey's transformation on his family members, including his mother's reversal of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and stage 4 renal failure, his son's 75-pound weight loss and improved academic performance, and his wife's ability to reduce anti-seizure medication by half. The conversation also covers practical aspects of carnivore eating, including sous-vide preparation methods, dry-aging techniques, and the psychological shift from viewing the diet as restrictive to understanding it as truly liberating from the restrictions of chronic illness.

Key Takeaways

  • Carnivore diet can reverse type 2 diabetes within months - Joey's A1C dropped from above 7 to 4.9 in approximately one year
  • Weight loss of 100+ pounds occurred within the first 4 months on carnivore, demonstrating rapid metabolic improvements
  • Blood pressure normalized from 160+ to 120/70 without medication after switching from plant foods to meat-only eating
  • Mental health improvements including resolution of depression, anxiety, and PTSD can occur alongside physical healing on carnivore
  • Family members can experience health improvements including reversal of fatty liver disease and kidney failure when adopting meat-based eating
  • Sous-vide cooking at low temperatures for 24 hours can make tough cuts like chuck roast as tender as prime rib
  • Dry-aging meat using simple salt and rack methods improves flavor and texture without expensive equipment
  • Physical mobility can dramatically improve - Joey went from maximum 2,000 steps per day to walking 26,000+ steps at Disney parks
  • Carnivore Bar Sponsorship and Introduction
  • 400+ Pound Weight Loss Journey on Carnivore Diet
  • Reversing Type 2 Diabetes and High Blood Pressure
  • Mental Transformation and Family Carnivore Conversions
  • Blood Sugar A1C Improvements and Testosterone Recovery
  • Family Health Success Stories - Kidney Disease and Seizure Medication
  • Overcoming Sugar Addiction and Fat Avoidance Mindset
  • Debunking Cholesterol Myths and Cancer Environment Theory
  • How Carnivore Diet Saved My Life from Depression and Disability
  • Human Evolution and Natural Diet Philosophy
  • Paying It Forward - Spreading the Carnivore Message
  • Steak Preparation Tips and Sous Vide Cooking Methods

This is an auto-generated transcript from YouTube and may contain errors or inaccuracies.

hey guys just want to take a second to thank our sponsor carnivore bar I don't promote many products because honestly all you need to be healthy is just eat meat and that's what you should do but if you're hiking or road tripping or stuck at work and you want something nutritious that is just meat and fat and possibly salt if you want it the carnivore bar is a great option I like this product not only because it is pure meat but also because I really want the carnivore Market to thrive as well the more we support meat only products the more people will make meat only products and this will bring this into the mainstream so if this sounds like something you'd like to check out then take a look and use my discount code HTC to get 10 off which also applies to subscriptions giving you 25 off total all right thanks guys hello and welcome to the how to Carnival podcast we're joined Again by Dr chafee Dr Anthony Chaffey the plant free ND Dr chafee welcome yeah thank you very much good to see you likewise and we've also got Joey penfold known as carnivore Joe on Instagram here Joe welcome thank you thank you for inviting me to be here our pleasure so Dr chafee and I know Joe really quite well because he was part of our carnivore challenge for a few months and Joe is a has had a lot of success but he's also a big personality and was good at firing everybody up keeping keeping the troops on track um and he does at ease into the X3 as well so it's going to be great to dig into to Joe's carnivore story so uh Joe Jonah kick off um with explaining how you came to be a carnivore uh well um it it really kind of started uh where I've been been on Carnivore now for just a little over a year so January was my anniversary to to that uh but prior to that uh um I had struggled a lot with uh with weight uh pretty much my whole life where I had to if I was not in the gym working out uh a lot um I I would gain weight very easily and and have a hard time keeping it off um I have a degenerative arthritis and a lot of joints I have a fused left ankle and uh arthritic and Joints my knee both my knees my hip my back all my vertebrae in my neck uh uh from an yeah fairly early age and uh which made moving around uh pretty difficult um you know to do the type of exercises that I felt like I had to do in order to be able to uh to keep the weight off um and uh pretty much spiraled to the point where uh I got over a year ago I was had gotten to my heaviest that I'd ever been which was over 400 pounds um and I just uh I got tired of the doctor telling me that uh that I was killing myself I'm gonna I'm gonna die um you know I had type 2 diabetes high blood pressure I was on the maximum dosage of blood pressure medication that he could give me and it still was uncontrolled uh you know um low testosterone but anytime that would give me erogenous testosterone in order to correct that my blood pressure would spike even higher and I'll uh just all kinds of medical problems uh you know and as I mentioned before the arthritic condition and uh when I and I had had success prior success with Atkins and uh ketogenic type diets you know low carbohydrate diets so that's where I kind of scratched the surface there in about a year ago it started started digging a little bit and I was like you know there's got to be more to this and um and then actually be honest with you I ran onto one of your podcasts with uh Dr chafee and and then uh dug a little deeper and seen some uh how uh some videos from Sean Baker Ken Berry Steak and butter gal Bella uh you know just it just went down the rabbit hole really I was like uh I was very open to it because I was like you know what I mean um and I've said this before to many other people because they they're like well it's just so hard to do that uh to stick to something like that and it was just uh I had to it was mental for me uh I had made all the excuses in the world uh you know my family is is skinny they they don't have to eat what you know what I eat or I mean you know they can eat whatever they want and they don't they don't gain any weight you know so it's not fair you know I I can't eat the same I can't eat what I need to eat because they all eat everything else and get away with it and I was like no that's an excuse it's it's actually a BS really um because it doesn't matter what they can eat and get away with and what I you know uh if I want to live if I want to be healthy then I know what I need to eat and uh and you know uh just basically my my body is going to go where my mind tells it to go where it leads it and I have to be stronger mentally and more focused on what I need to do in order to be able to get there and basically that's where it started and I Contin I just basically started eating you know carnivore meals uh um you know while everybody else was still eating the bread and the sugars and everything else I mean they'd all eat it right in front of me and I just like you know what I don't care because I eat that stuff and it's going to kill me and uh and I kept doing that and probably after about the it was pretty close to about the four month mark on Carnivore I had lost over 100 pounds already wow it's a quarter of your body weight a quarter of your buddy right in um in four months no it's coming off a little bit slower now and I still I'd like to lose about another another 45 50 pounds somewhere around there but uh but I feel I feel amazing um you know a lot of people ask me they say uh you know how do you feel on it and and uh how does it how does it work and and I always telling myself so you know I mean I'm I'm gonna be this is my last year in my 40s um I'll be 49 in a few uh in a few months and uh I'll uh I actually feel better than I did when I was in my 20s so awesome uh no more low testosterone issues uh my I reverse my type 2 diabetes same off of all my blood pressure medication came off of the metformin the you know all that stuff so I I don't have to take anything anymore I do I do from time to time still take Advil from you know because of the arthritis but the inflammation markers were so low that that's very rare um it's usually whenever uh you know we have a weather event or you know something where the pressure changes and my my cause me some discomfort uh getting around so I'll maybe take a couple Advil in order to be able to try to try to limit that and uh and be able to be a little more mobile yeah and um so you always improved dramatically your your health has improved Maggie just how you feel and and you said your testosterone is up and what are your your uh blood sugar and hpa1c and what are all those doing now well when I was diagnosed with type two it was it was above seven A1C uh and then um uh I recently checked it it was probably about three weeks ago I checked it and uh it was like 4.9 perfect um that's really good yeah yeah um you know my my blood pressure has come down to uh at any given time it's about 120 over 70. um so it's dead perfect you know where uh with medication it was still it was like 160 you know uh it was it was quite high and that was with medication and it was with the higher dose of medication as well yeah so um how uh it you know there were days that I couldn't even hardly get out of bed and I don't have those days anymore um you know I'm down to about I was like I said I was a little over 400 pounds I'm down to about 250 now wow and how um I've been pretty consistent there for a little while and uh but I did I know you mentioned X3 and I do like using that but I kind of fell off the wagon there for a little while with that uh during the holidays uh you know Thanksgiving and uh uh and Christmas time frame got a lot of family members that were visiting and uh you know and then we were traveling as well so we we kind of I kind of fell off of that but I I challenged you guys to uh another 30 days on the x-bar uh you know so tomorrow will be day three on that so we're back back in full swing on that and and I knew we were going to talk about it so I did a session just before this because I feel guilty which I was like yeah I'm back on the train so yeah I did did a push session was great nice good deal awesome yeah I have not but uh I plan to plan to get on that um yeah I sort of got out of the Habit as well just because I've been on call like literally every other day so every other day I'm doing like a 36 hour shift to do 36 hour shift and I I go to sleep that night and I start another one the next day and um and then like over the weekends it was like 48 hours and then my normal shift on on the Monday so it was um um uh you could call those excuses but uh yeah you're good yeah but it but it is something you know I liked it when you when you said that because that you know that that inspires me and motivates me as well you know uh because I guess let's do this I'm like all right yeah let's do it and then you know I I have something to work towards as well and I have something that I'm I have to keep myself uh you know honest with and it's like well you know we're all doing this and like I'm not going to be the one to shirk out on it so you know I appreciated that as well oh yeah yeah that's awesome oh wow but uh yeah no you know I wouldn't call what you've got going on excuses yeah I've worked in the medical field uh uh years ago I was in cancer and hematology as a nurse and then uh also uh also worked for the VA uh I'll uh as a front office LPN style you know with uh with some of the clinics and stuff like that and handling some uh paperwork and uh you know with patients and things like that so I know what you guys go through and the hours and the shifts that you do and stuff like that and uh especially for you being you know in in neuro uh I've mentioned to you before my wife has a congenital hydrocephalus so uh we have a a neurosurgeon that we see regularly for her and a neurologist uh just to make sure that everything is good with her VP shot and uh and the anti-convulsant medication and she has to take yeah so yeah the thing with shunts as well is that they they usually tell you when they're there's something wrong yeah they get wrong they go very wrong and then you just have to do yeah very very quickly very quickly it's happened uh it happened five times while she was pregnant with our son our son 17 years old now yeah so um there was a time where we thought we might actually lose her and him you know all that time for him so it was very difficult so yeah I'm very very glad that uh that was it they were able to help so that's good yes yes yeah so yeah well good um well that's great I mean you've made massive massive improvements you said all these other people are eating just all the other things uh what are they doing now have they sort of taken your lead and seen that this is you're not going to kill yourself you're not going to get gain weight you're actually improving your life and your health what's funny is so um the first person to convert was my mother uh she lives in Tampa with my sister but uh and I'm in Destin Florida so we're about seven hours apart but um she was diagnosed probably about two years ago with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and also with um uh stage four renal failure and um oh since when she saw how well I was doing on Carnivore and it's probably after about three or four months um and I kept telling her I was like you need to stay away because she was like she kept showing me that she was eating all these all this fruit and this honey and stuff I was like Mom you need to you need to stop that's not going to help your liver you know you've got you know that's you're in a you're in a spot right now and that's uh you know I keep hearing from from Dr chafee I keep hearing from Sean Baker from Ken Berry we need to stay away from that fruit that's bad stuff and uh uh especially especially with fatty liver disease you know you're just compounding things you know so uh so she actually quit and started eating a meat-based diet and uh oh um and then as she uh she actually saw Improvement the sores that were on our skin from uh from having a uh from renal failure uh went away and the next time she went in for her Labs her kidney uh kidney Labs came back normal and that was within I think that was within two months yeah a better nephrologist was freaking out you know because like yeah yeah it was like um did we get this diagnosis wrong yeah no um you know so um so that that was her story and she's lost a few pounds but not uh not anything really dramatic like like my change was is she strict Carnival I you know I don't know because I don't I'm not there with her all the time I mean she sends me pictures of you know lunch with steak or you know eggs or whatever it is and I think she's uh she's pretty much on the on there but my sister is not and my uh my sister's husband is not as well so living in a house with other people that are not and not following it I I would suspect that she occasionally partakes and some other things um but she's she's doing better and uh and you know like I said that doesn't have the issues with her liver or with her kidneys anymore all of her arthritic condition she was telling me how she could barely make it up the flight of stairs in the house uh before and now she goes up and down all day long without any issue at all uh and she's in her 60s uh you know so um but uh Ben my son uh so he uh he dropped probably about 75 pounds uh going on Carnivore so he switched to carnivore uh and he dropped about 75 pounds in in about two to three months and uh you know I had acne issues all of that went away um you know grades in school improved about confidence level went through the roof I mean he just he totally changed right yeah he was this little gamer kid that didn't want to do anything and then now he's he's interacting socially with other children the other kids his age and uh wanting to do things and you know get involved in sports I mean it just it it changed him dramatically and now he's uh we've got a membership both of us at Gold's Gym and he goes up there regularly to work out and I'll go with him sometimes most of the time I use the X3 because I started throwing around some some free weights uh early on and I end up end up hurting my arm uh you know um so I just like the Bands a whole lot better because it's it's a little I get a good workout in and I don't have to worry about hurting myself with the free weights um you know and stuff so so I stick with that and I think that helps with my joints as well so yeah um the other person that was on that switched over was my uh wife she switched to a carnivore diet and she's now able to she's able to cut her anti-convulsant medication in half wow well she started having so she switched carnivore and our carnivore and was feeling better and actually she went from so 24 plus years of marriage and two kids and now she's back down to what her High School weight was wow 113 pounds now nice let's see that so and she's loving it right um and then she started experiencing some symptoms uh from the medication that she was taking it just suddenly started as a result some tingling in her hands and uh and then also some hearing loss because of the carbamazepine that she was taking um and so we had determined that that was uh that might be a result of uh the ketogenic type diet that she didn't she was no longer requiring as much medication anymore and since lowering the medication the symptoms of subsided and she's feeling a lot better now so that's correct my daughter is uh the uh the hard one went over because she is a a sugar addict she's very thin and she feels like she can eat whatever she wants and doesn't have to worry about it however she did have a little bit of a wake-up call the other day when I did an A1C for her and and I said uh yeah uh you're you're not you're not pre-diabetic yet but you're you're getting there you know I think hers was uh like uh 5.6 something like that so for her I mean she probably weighs about uh I mean she's still I told her I said you're still technically in what they consider normal uh but you're on the upper side of normal um and uh you you know if you don't want to have these same kind of issues later in life you probably should start cutting back a little bit on that stuff and she will from time to time she'll say I'm going to switch to carnivore on I'm going to do that and she'll do it for about two hours and then then she's got to go have her Starbucks uh caramel macchiato or whatever it is that she has yeah just sugar bombs liquid sugar bombs drugs let me get you yep sugar and caffeine you know I'm still working on it yeah well look I mean you're setting a great example you know and the people around her are are getting better visibly she has it in her head she knows that you know this sort of stuff is going to catch up with her in the end and you know it's just you just that's how you do you just you just slowly work away at it and you don't push too hard because they'll automatically push get push back and uh you know but yeah you can you can always try things like hey why don't you you tried for a month and one you know we'll have some sort of reward system at the end of this you do this you know after a month if you stick to it you know we'll do this or something like that or um and you know you can always control what's in the house as well and just you know if she's there there's just there's no other options apart from you know what you what you want and if she wants to go out and get something she has to go out and get something in it and it just makes that a bit uh more of a normal thing in a normal environment for her to be in and then just sort of starts feeling better and seeing the contrast and then you know you just slowly wear down like a like a rock at the beach you know just waves crashing in just get her eventually you know I want to do that now um she knows not to call me and ask like if I'm going to the store she knows not to call me and ask me to buy anything that I mean yeah I'll just which she'll ask me something I'll be like uh that's I won't buy that toxic stuff all right that's not gonna happen and then uh and she'll be like oh my God everything's toxic dad she got a massive head start on say yourself Joey because she's she's you can tell she already knows that Carnival is good or carnivore is is healthy it's just whether she thinks it's worth giving up the sugar to be healthy as far as you know how many so many people start from I don't know what health he is right you know at least she acknowledges that's that's the way to go ultimately oh absolutely yeah yeah so yeah I think it's um well it's good that that you know it's in her head anyway and I'm sure she's making different choices already and cutting things back you know even though she's doing some things I I would um I would be willing to bet that she's eating more meat and eating less of that crap as well even if she's not sort of doing full yeah she is uh she's uh she when she eats out or well she doesn't eat here very often because I don't I don't buy that stuff on my fridge and my freezer is full of meat and eggs and butter and that's the way it is that's living um two refrigerators I have one out in the garage for my dry aging and then I have uh the one in the in the in the house and they are their carnivore fridge that's what they are yeah like um if I if I was a kid and I saw that fridge like that when I was a kid that would that would have been my dream fridge you're like yes you know that that's one of those you know kids always look in the in the refrigerator you open the refrigerator and it's packed it's just teeming with stuff they're like there's nothing to eat everything's just ingredients you know like that's what it always is that's what she says to me I get home from work and she's like yeah there's nothing to eat in your fridge I said there is all kinds of things to eat in the fridge everything in there can be eaten everything in there you know it's like what you mean is it's not full of toxic sludge yeah you know oh uh and uh so she'll go to she'll go to Chick-fil-A and get get chicken nuggets or something and I'm like yeah I mean it's meat but it's fried in seed oil and all kinds of other girls you know the stuff is going to cause a problem you know um every time I'd be looking through the ingredients it was just like it was just planted vegetables and dishes and that and like I was just like digging through and like okay where's their actual food finally find like a packet of steaks like stuffed in under like 500 different things like okay fine I'm fine I can eat this and I and that's what I always naturally did if I couldn't find a piece of meat it was like there's just ingredients what what am I supposed to eat you know if there was a steak hamburger eggs because she used to I was I used to barbecue an awful lot and it's before I was I mean I've always loved eating you know steak and uh ribs and you know Hamburger and stuff like that but you I grew up and you you marinated that stuff or you added seasonings and you know all these other things that were problematic and didn't know any better but that's just the way that we were raised and uh then um and she we're not when I would do it that way when I would use it on the smoker or do whatever she was all about it she was my she was my my carnivore kid um she's 19 now and it's uh and it's pastas and sugars and Breads and everything and it's like I'm like girl you gotta you gotta kick that stuff to the curb unfortunately it's also a fashion thing for some women for girls you know it's like you know oh they get the pasta like Italian style or like you know plant-based is such a fashion thing as well smoothies all that sort of stuff like you know Starbucks for them they you know they think it's feminine but you know you have a look at what it does to your hormones and how it changes your body and it's the the least feminine or cool thing you can do oh right absolutely and they also sort of think about the low fat I mean that's been so ingrained in people's heads and um you know that's one of the things that you see in different like psychological socio-psychological sort of studies is that is that women do tend to listen to these guidelines and recommendations more they seem to be more less risk-averse you know whereas a guy be like you know like oh you shouldn't eat steak because it's bad for it and be like no if that like I'm gonna eat this steak I love this you know and like they're gonna do that and they're gonna smoke and they're gonna drink and they're going to do all these other sort of you know high risk sort of things as well problem is that you know steak is not high risk that's actually really good for you but you know it's um it's uh that's what's been told to all of us that that fat is bad and then therefore meat is bad and so as on an average obviously everyone's individual but on an average uh women and girls do tend to listen to those recommendations more uh they're less risk-averse so they say okay this is what I'm supposed to do I'm going to do it which is great in a lot of ways except when they're being lied to about about what they're there's what's actually good for them now like in this case and so you see a lot of people uh women especially really fat avoidance especially through their teenage years when they're when they're trying to be you know slim and and they're just sort of noticing you know uh you know boys and things like that and they're just they're like they want to be attractive I think I'm not going to eat that because I don't want to get fat and it's so stuck in their head and I think that's where a lot of Eating Disorders come from as well but then it's you know once you've once you've hardwired that into people it's very hard to break you know you really you really have to do you really have to see very hard evidence like if someone just told me like oh yeah just eat me and this and I mean I heard of Atkins I heard of all that at the time it I was just like oh okay I guess people are sort of doing that what changed me was when I saw just like hard evidence like this stuff is toxic this has poisons this has hundreds of carcinogens in it my screw that I'm not touching that sort of stuff you know and so I needed I needed you know a hard reason to radically change what I was doing too you know because I was taught that this is just how you eat and even then I was still sort of eating lower fat sort of stuff and you know more recently saw very strong evidence that you know if that's actually good for us and and the cholesterol and fat sort of thing was it was a big charade and and you know so but it took me it took very hard evidence to convince me as well but that's why I'm so convinced you know because I did hard evidence so I think also it can it can you know you can um convince people like your daughter with hard evidence but it can take that because in her head in her mind what you're doing is insane you know even though she's seeing the results in in front of her eyes and your blood tests and your weight and everything else is getting better you know so that's probably starting to like get some cracks in the dam but um you know seeing just actual like just hard evidence like at some point you know she'll need to be convinced if she ever wants to actually try this for herself so um you know it's very hard to undo all that oh absolutely it is absolutely it is um they're I have uh I have friends that that think I'm crazy they're like uh I think that the you know the cholesterol is going to kill you're you're you're going to clog your arteries up you're gonna uh you're gonna have a heart attack you know this and then the other and I try to uh explain to them you know I said you know look up the Minnesota coronary experiment you know um just look into it you know look into the recent studies in in as early as 2022 saying that saturated fat had little to nothing to do with our uh our overall cholesterol you know um you know and and that uh that all of our hormones are they're the backbone off of off of uh off of cholesterol um that our brains function better you know everything you know it's I don't think and I'm maybe it's a stretch but I don't think it's a coincidence that we have an uptick in things like Alzheimer's dementia mental health issues um I think that they're probably directly correlated or tied to the fact that we've been ingrained for the last however many years and years and years to go low fat and cut cut cholesterol and do do these things that that are horrible for us uh you know without a doubt yeah definitely how um I think that uh it's probably has a lot to do with the the Cancers and and things like that that we deal with too the the seed oils the sugars the inflammation in our bodies uh um you know I've read the I mean I I love it when you interview the doctors that have the books and stuff like that because I'll buy them and I'll talk to them and I'll read them and learn more about it you know um uh the uh Professor sea free you know about the uh I'll uh you know cancer be in fermentation and and then the depleted deuterium you know and stuff and which by the way you you had mentioned on one of my Instagram posts about that about how how it made me feel and um I I'm on a I'm on a regular subscription with them that's that that you know for light water they yeah delivered every now and then and we do a little Purge basically and and and do it and I actually do feel a difference uh in just in the way that I feel right after drinking about you know two liters of that um my I just feel it's not like I have a whole bunch of I don't know it just where I should have been really tired I wasn't you know it wasn't that I couldn't go to sleep or that I had ungobs amount of energy or anything like that but I just wasn't I wasn't tired you know I just wanted to keep doing whatever it was I was doing at the time which I think was reading um and I was like you know I usually reading a book puts me asleep to be honest with you I never really liked reading books um I think up into graduation I had only read one novel and that was Jaws and you know and uh and since being carnivore I read several books uh I've uh you know I think that that has a lot to do with mental Clarity and I'm just opening up my horizons I've recently bought a guitar and decided I was going to learn how to play Les Paul uh you know and have picked up on that and my son wanted to learn how to play two so he got a got a bass guitar for Christmas and we're we're practicing and playing together on that and yeah I mean the the renaissance man he's going to be a watercolor painting he's going to be right here [Music] don't tempt me I probably will uh no I um I've always been um like I'm a jet I always joke as I'm Jack of all trades master of none right I graduated from high school went into the Navy uh when I got out of the Navy I uh I got into trade school and became an iron worker I built put put together superstructures for buildings uh welding and carrying around a lot of iron heavy iron and working on bridge decks and and stuff like that uh then when I got out of that I went and uh worked my way up from a bagger to being a manager of a grocery store and Retail and about every three years I have to hit the reset button and learn new trade apparently I've been a truck driver I've been a chief of police I've been uh you know I've been a nurse I went to school got my degree uh with for that then got bored with that after about three years went back to school got my post certification for uh for being a sheriff and stuff like that so it's ingrained in me I I have to constantly be challenged no um so um when it was when I was sedentary and wasn't able to move around much because of the pain and inflammation that I was in and the weight that I was it uh it really was depressing for me um and I had a lot of a lot of depression and anxiety and um uh couldn't be around a lot of people uh you know PTSD uh you know and large crowds and and things like that and since losing the weight and uh being able to move around and you know and everything all of that stuff ever since ever since I started eating steak it's all gone better so because you started eating the only thing you wanted to eat anyway it's for me anyway what I'm supposed to eat right yeah exactly um you know but uh you said uh you said Carnival save your life is that um yeah is that legit you and expand on that no that's that's absolutely legit um you know uh like I said over 400 pounds diabetic sedentary not able to move around yeah uh you know when I did get up and walk around probably about the maximum that I could get in was about 2 000 steps in a day which really and that was the Max and then I and then if I did that I couldn't walk the next day that's how bad it was the pain the inflammation um I was uh you know uh at at one point I was very very depressed and uh oh um and stuff never um I don't want to say never ever considered uh you know taking my own life because that had to happen uh uh at a point in my life but uh but later when I when my children were around then it was uh I knew that you know from from what I had learned uh previously in the medical field and with depression and anxiety and suicidal Behavior was that uh children of parents that commit suicide are more likely to commit suicide than themselves uh and um and then I could never um I could never Envision what I would put my family through you know um and then I kept it kept going back to that that is a permanent solution to a temporary problem and if it's a temporary problem then I need to get off my ass and do something about it wow that's a great insight and um I'm glad that you you came by it you know because not everybody has that realization unfortunately or at least not in time um now that's that's something that uh someone said it was um that you know they talk about how this diet is restrictive and people say that how can you only eat one thing and it's very restrictive I don't want to be just eating that that one thing I would be I feel so limited but you know what uh one person goes by thankful carnivore um says is that you know eating meat is not restrictive eating meat is very liberating having major depression is is restrictive you know being 400 pounds and not being able to walk 2 000 steps in a day without being crippled the next day that's restricted that's literally restrictive you know type 2 diabetes and and all these other health issues those are all restrictive having to be beholden to 13 different medications every day or your body's just going to shut down that's restrictive being able to eat meat has actually lifted so much weight and burden you know off of off of your lives in all of our Lives it's the least restrictive thing in the world it's it's the most freeing thing and it I think that your story is is so illustrative of that and as thank you very much for sharing that that must have been well I'm very glad you're out of it and it's been a very very difficult time to go through yeah I mean there were some uh there were some dark moments and uh you know thankfully my mom my wife I'm very very supportive and always been there for me my children they didn't know as much about certain things until later you know like I said we have a 19 and a 17 year old and uh and they know a little bit more about the anxiety and things like that because you know at a certain point it became necessary to say you know the reason why we're not going into that large crowd of people is because I'm it won't be good you know kind of thing and uh you know um the biggest thing that really um fired this up and got me to a point where I decided to stop making all the excuses because I had made them all um uh was I took my family to Disney uh a little more than a year ago and that's one of the pictures that I had show as a before picture because I'm standing there with my father-in-law and the only reason I'm standing there you don't know it but there's a scooter that's to the right of me and it's not in the picture because I framed it out but I had to use that to get around I couldn't couldn't walk the parks I couldn't ride some of the rides with my children you know my kids and everybody were really excited to be there they'd walk on the scooter could only go so fast and a lot of times I was lagging behind and stuff like that and I decided right then and there I wasn't I was going to come back to Disney and I was going to do it with my kids and we were going to be I was going to be able to ride the rides and I was going to be able to walk and I was not going to need a scooter and um I'm thankful to say that I've been to Disney multiple times now with my family and I have not needed the scooter and in some cases I've walked more than 26 000 steps in a day jeez nice Joey that's awesome yeah I um I think the last time I went to Disneyland it must have been I don't know 20 years ago but um I I remember seeing this guy and he um he was there with like a group of people and he was on one of those sort of little scooters that the Disneyland provides but the guy was like you know 20 something I remember just we were just sort of chatting or whatever because I I was actually on crutches I had broken my leg so I had like a pass to like go through if you don't have to stand in line and things like that yeah and so I actually went went through the back which you you probably got to do as well uh which is great you skip every line you actually go you enter through the exit you just go up and you have to ride as many times as you want so I thought that was great I did all of Disneyland like in two three hours I did every single ride multiple times it was great uh whereas normally you're waiting an hour just to get on one of these things and um Magic Mountain didn't do that that was that bummed me out because I love the rides on on Magic Mountain like more but they didn't much do that but I met this kid and he was um and he was saying and he had one of those scooter things I was like talking to him and I was like oh you know what happened to you he's like no I was just I just I just didn't want to walk all this way I was just sort of just tired so I just asked for a scooter and they just gave me this this pass you know thinking that I was disabled so he's just rolling his scooter around because he was just just lazy you know just wasn't feeling like walking and he had like like seven people he was with and he was just riding a scooter and he just he just wouldn't walk it's kind of funny but he ended up getting uh getting the uh the the skip the Line pass as well so it ended up working out for him so everyone knows I'm just gonna I've just ruined it forever yeah yeah yeah that was gonna be a cue out the door for example there's gonna be this uh a bunch of people going oh you're just lazy now you know lazy lazy or just everyone's gonna figure it out and I'll get the uh to skip the Line pass and just bring crutches to to well when that happens then the standby line will go down right you'll be able to go into the standby line goodbye or they just ruin it for everyone they were like you're a liar you know I want to see your x-rays yeah I want to see that broken bone I want to see the broken bone yeah so um but no yeah we have uh we had a disability access uh in order to be able to not have to uh stand for very long but but the way they had it set up was for us was is that uh it was basically a virtual cue so we would sign that we would go on the app and say that we wanted to do it uh at whatever time and then uh and then we would have to we couldn't return before that time to ride the ride and uh how uh so we would probably we we technically would still wait the hour or two hours or whatever it is um but we would show when we would show up we'd only have to wait like five minutes so yeah but they they they adjust it periodically that may go away at some point and they'll replace it with something new but yeah but we did I did I did I got to ride several rides and enjoyed that I ride the right I wrote all the roller coasters with my kids and um you know uh one in particular I guess was the Avatar ride flight of Passage you know the first time I tried to ride that they they kind of lock you it's kind of like a motorcycle that you're sitting on in a way and they lock you in by putting this back brace up there but I was too fat for it to lock into place and when they tried to push it into place it cracked my back and oh uh and they were like I was like yeah this isn't gonna work yeah so I had to get off and let my kids ride without me yeah and that was that was a big moment for me I was like you know um I want to ride this ride and I want to ride it with my kids so I went back and I guess it was two months later after doing doing carnivore and I was able to ride it and I enjoyed it and it was great you know every ride since then it's been getting better and better because I'm getting smaller and smaller yeah yeah sometimes you you need to hit rock bottom right it sounds like that was it for you yeah it was that was my rock bottom I know there's people that get lower than that and whatnot and I know there's a lot of people out there that you know they still need to hear hear the message you know about it and that's one of the reasons why I try to talk to as many people about it as I can and try to motivate people even in my family um about it um you know uh one of the things that I said to my father-in-law recently was is you know how because he asked me he's like well what what about bread what about this what about that I said well nature is natural mankind is the only animal on earth that's confused about what it needs to eat I said seriously I mean it's I know it's cliche to say nature is natural but you know you know uh elephant as an elephant's not confused about what it needs to eat you know uh you know there is no other creature on earth that's confused about it and uh you know and there's a very very real scientific evidence to back up the fact that we are intended to eat meat and uh you know um and you know it's not a coincidence that when we start eating meat or eat you know a meat-based diet where that's all we're eating uh that the problems that we're dealing with uh um tend to uh tend to go away you know I mean uh one of the things what I was going to say was one of the things that I uh that I heard from an instructor when I was in uh in school for uh for m a was for medical assistant was um that uh you know she wanted to know what we thought about cancer and and why everybody when I was a kid growing up when uh you you might run into somebody that did not have cancer touch their family um as I got into high school that was not the case you everyone knew someone and it had touched their family in some way or another and then by the time I got into college they uh they were like um yeah why is it that cancer is so prevalent and she made it she made a comment she said we're either doing it to ourselves or it's in our environment and uh makes sense and that's it we're either doing it to ourselves or it's in our environment and I'm going to go with we do it to ourselves yeah when we make our environment yeah we're making our environment worse you know and um but yeah but it is environmental right I mean it can't be genetic right genetic factors in it making more more or less susceptible but the cancer rate since 1980 have tripled okay that's not that's not genetic you know like anyone who studies population genetics uh we've ever actually taken College genetics would understand that you know and um uh that's uh when you look at the equations for population genetics like you see unless you have some sort of crazy mass extinction or you know the Mongol horde comes in and just wipes out and ravages and and uh you know and rapes and pillages the whole area you can't actually change uh you know the the genes and alleles by by any significant degree the percentage continues to to stay the same despite the growth or shrinkage of the population right so you get more population you'll get more you know um you'll get more in total but as a percentage it'll be the same right and but that's not what we're seeing you know we're seeing uh you know a tripling of the rate of cancer not just the total numbers of cancer you know so and people say oh well we're screening earlier so we're catching it like right okay so yeah we're catching cancer so it's not turning into like you know full-blown stage four cancer like do you think that just just we catch it early and and if we didn't catch it earlier it would just go away on its own like no it's going to get worse I mean people just don't think so what we're doing screening should be catching things so so there's just more numbers because we catch them like same numbers it's just we're getting them early yeah before they're easily to be to before they're you know it's it's noticeable that they have this but if you don't touch it if you don't if you don't treat it then you know it just gets worse right right you know and so you know when you look at animals all animals basically you know um they they absorb and they run on fat and protein that is what they run on right and so you know the herbivores that can eat uh plants and they can turn plant material into fat and protein they do that other animals can't do that you know so carnivores are these animals they can't turn fiber into fat and protein because they don't have the stomachs and the rumen and the different you know bacteria I mean they can get some of the bacteria but they don't have the the physical setup for that bacteria to to eat that fiber in in large enough quantities so they can actually get through it and you can subsist on the on the fat that they produce because that's what they produce they produce uh saturated fat and protein when they're breaking down the fiber and then dying you know that's where the protein comes from so everything runs on fat and protein and we don't have the ability to turn plant material into fat protein right you need to turn you know plant material into animal material we are animals you know we need we need to have the building blocks for animal tissue right so you can eat another animal that has animal tissue and herbivores can do this too and you actually see herbivores do this sometimes eating other eating other animals but they also have the ability to turn plants into animal tissue and that's the whole point you know you still need to turn this food substance into yourself into animal tissue and we don't have that ability we we simply do not have the ability to turn fiber into human animal material we can get some things we can we can make it work but it's not great it's not bioavailable it's not optimal and it comes with a lot of horrible things with it yeah yeah and as incomplete nutrition like you're never going to get enough nutrition you're never going to get proper essential nutrients just by eating plants and so you we do have to eat meat and in fact we can only eat meat and we can not only Thrive but we can Thrive optimally by just eating meat and but that's all animals all animals just need fat and protein and certain vitamins depending on their their species and we are part of that you know we aren't able to get that from Plants we aren't able to turn plants into what we need absolutely so Joey you've had all this success completely literally saved your life lost or lose weight what's what's next and and what's the mission uh right now the mission is uh like I said for my own personal goals is I want to lose probably another 45-50 pounds um uh I'm currently doing the next 30 days with you guys uh on the carnivore challenge which um thank you for having me I appreciate that thank you John I like I like paying it um but the other other part of my goal there is just paying it forward right um uh like with the books and things like that whenever I read them and I uh get something out of them I I will pass those along to other people that are interested in and uh we have a contractor that's here that showed up in November and he was uh he was he was heavier than I was at my heaviest and um I had noticed that I was that I was cooking steaks for that day uh while he was over and he asked me about it and I showed him I told him I said yeah we're actually supposed to eat this this so aren't you worried about cholesterols and no I'm not not worried about cholesterol you know I'm looking forward to it yeah so I um but I told him um I told him about it and he seemed interested and the next time he was out uh I had Sean Baker's book and carnivore diet and I had already read through it and highlighted all the things in it and pretty much memorized that book and I bought books for everybody that was in my you know family that was interested and sent those to them and uh and whatnot but I had lit this book out a couple of times already to other people that were interested in it and I just uh he was interested so I handed it to him and I said here I want you to have this you seemed interested in it you were asking about where to get it and here's here's the book it's it's highlighted but it here it is you know he said well um I'll get it back to you I said no don't worry about it I said I already have the information from it I already know what I need to know from it I said if you get something from it great if you if you want to pass it on to somebody else then great too you know just Pay It Forward right and I just try to pay me for it too and I was like no I don't want your money man just uh you know get something from it I saw him again yesterday because he came back out for uh some work that we're having done on the house and he had lost a ton away and I asked him I said so uh how are you doing on that and he goes as well I need to get back on track I kind of fell off a little bit in the last few weeks but none of my clothes fit anymore and I said well that's great and he said I said uh he says I don't weigh in myself on the scale so I couldn't tell you exactly how much weight I lost uh but uh but none of my clothes fit anymore um I'm getting ready to not have to be on medications anymore the skin tags that I had on my that were coming up all over the place are disappearing uh he said several several girls at the office are now doing the carnivore diet and they're they're passing the book around and this and so I was like well that's awesome I mean I couldn't ask for more right you know um that's fulfilling um because I you know it saved my life and if I can try to help someone else and and maybe they can have the same result uh or maybe maybe the message gets sent to somebody else that's at the same low spot that I was at and and try to try to pass that on in any way that I can try to help somebody I want to try to try to do that so that's those are my that's my goal um now now I think and maybe maybe my calling now is that uh that I just uh I just want to try to pass that along I've got a real good friend of mine from high school um that um had bariatric surgery several years back but and and she had lost a lot of weight um and and did really well but uh uh she had a lot of vitamin deficiencies and uh all kinds of things uh that were as probably as a result of that that procedure uh have a more difficult time absorbing those uh those vitamins and nutrients now and the type of diet that she was still eating um but I convinced her to give carnivore a try for the last 30 days and she's been doing it for about three weeks and she said she's never felt better she's sleeping better at night she's she's got way more energy during the day she's gave up caffeine um you know just all kinds so I mean it's uh we have a we have a mutual friend who happens to be vegan um well at least she used to be friends with me on Facebook but when she saw me posting a lot of things on about steaks she ended up blocking me or unfriended me so uh but what was funny is is that while my one friend was talking about it um on her Facebook posts about how she was doing cardboard and she was feeling better and eating more butter and all this other stuff the vegan friend that we have decided to comment on there about how she could help her lose weight by eating carbs and bread and pastas and fruits and vegetables and I can help you do it and good luck he says no I think I'm going to stick with carnivore for a while yeah good what's the thing I mean like yeah you can you can lose weight eating anything really but you you have to do it in unhealthy ways you know and you're gonna be eating unhealthy things you know so even if you are eating carbs and sugar and you're losing weight because you're you're seriously restricting uh calories and and essentially starving yourself uh is that is that good is that a good thing to do are you getting are you getting proper adequate nutrition are you getting all the nutrients you need are you excluding things that are harmful to you uh so you can it's not about losing weight it's not about you know looking a certain way it's about being healthy you know and and being you know you know a moderate body fat percentage and a certain body composition is is a general indicator of overall health but it but it actually is not one-to-one you can get that look simply by uh you know doing well you can do that by by doing things that are harmful to you so it's it can be a sign of good health but is not it is not necessarily good health because you can you can do unhealthy things to get there like starving yourself and you're eating things that are less optimal but right so that's that's not the point the point is to be healthy you know yeah only when she was having to have uh a couple of iron infusions a month you know Jesus I mean seriously you know and now and now she's not having to do that anymore yeah uh you know she even she started taking so much so that she she got herself a sous-vide as well you know so that she can she could I just find it super easy to do um I like the dry age stuff but um but buying meat and bulk uh like this last week I bought about 85 pounds of New York strip from you know bought a case of it from Sam's and that will last us for about a month and a half two months uh because I will I'm I basically I cut up all my own steaks and then I freeze them individually and then in the morning before I get going I'll take it and stick it in the sous-vide and by the time I get home it's ready to go on the uh the Blazing bull van for red 1500 degrees sear it on both sides and you're done Presto change your easy peasy and uh how right now actually so I did a New York strip today and then um as soon as I got done eating that I went ahead and I stuck a chuck roast in the sous-vide so that'll Sue be for 24 hours and then that comes out about as tender as prime rib um the next day and I'll sear it up just like I would a steak and just salt it and go and me and my wife will just when we get done doing what we're doing tomorrow get home probably about 10 or 11 o'clock and you know sear that on both sides and uh and then sit down we don't even put it on a plate we just cut it up on the cutting board and sit down at the table and eat it off The Cutting Board yeah so we enjoy the hell out of that and it's just it makes life a whole lot easier for us as well um you know we don't have to say what are we going to have with the steak you know it's the mistake yeah another steak yeah yeah okay uh I mean if if we're having something with the steak it it might be some butter you know that's it that's the side item butter yeah yeah that's always people ask me is this thing so you have a steak and you know what do you have with it I'm like another steak yeah yeah exactly exactly you're just eating something it's different when you eat fatty steak a lot of people have only had like you know Well Done dry lean steak and so you and so you do need like you do need sauce with done but it's just such a shame because it's nowhere near fatty enough yeah no I call that beef jerky Yeah well yeah and and that's another thing with you know you know like you know girls and women they a lot of them say well I just don't like red meat I just don't like steak and I haven't had a good steak well that's it because the the most they're they're fatter verse so they want the really lean ones so they always go for like like a filet mignon and then they say like oh you can't have it undercooked because it's bad for you because you'll get some sort of you know you know you know sort of you know antivirus or something like that and then so they say yeah cook it well done so you get this this filet mignon which which has no fat and now they cook it well done it's just like it turns into a hockey puck you know it's just like well of course you don't like steak I don't like that steak that's terrible but you know you ruined that thing that poor thing died for you to live and you've destroyed it you know you've desecrated its body you know so like don't do that you know that's one step away from being ground up and put into capsules so that you can say you had steak pills yeah yeah that's what that is yeah and I think it'd be more enjoyable that way too you know and so you know but that's the thing then you cook an actual steak with fat and you know it's it's medium rare to rare and they just go oh my God you know like I had no idea and I've I've had a lot of people have that reaction oh I just don't really like steak like vegans you know who I've ended up converting and they're just like okay I'll try I'm like well I just don't really like try this one you will like this one like this will be the best steak you've ever had and like okay sure it is like oh my God like that that actually is and you know because you know they're just not cooking it right you're destroying it and so you know makes a big big difference how you how you prepare it oh yeah absolutely and I started dry aging with the umai dry bags and but then when I saw how you did it with just salting them setting them on the racks I started doing that um and I would do that even with Chuck I would buy that and cut cut my own steaks from that and then put it on the rack and it just it made all the difference in the world um you know I didn't start suvian until November and that just for me it makes it super tender and then if you've got a way to get a really good crust on something you know then I mean it really really makes a difference yeah 100 um all right Joey well it's been a pleasure to have you on here man how can people how can people find you ah they can find me at uh underscore carnivore underscore Joe on Instagram oh yeah and uh you know uh they'll have to send a request to follow just because uh I did um I started touching the nerve of some vegans and they started trying to attack me personally so yeah so all those vegans that watch our show guys don't forget yeah it's gonna be a thing really exactly so um just to you know to keep the social media uh civil and not have to argue with somebody uh on on the internet um you know I just went ahead and switched my deal over to private so anybody that wants to follow me can but uh but I they have to approve their request before yeah you can't have vegan in your name unless it's like X vegan or something like that well I do uh I do look at the profiles when they when they at request it's an exclusive Club yeah it is it is you gotta you gotta like to eat meat yeah very good all right Joe we really appreciate it and um thank you so much anytime you guys come to Destin you come here to Florida man we'll we'll cook it up sounds good have a good one
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