How the Carnivore Diet Saved This Life, an EMT/EMS Story

Mission Carnivore Episode 2: An EMT/EMS becomes metabolically ill, depressed, and suicidal before finding the carnivore diet. How the carnivore diet saved this life by healing him physically, mentally and emotionally. 

Shawn White's Contact Links
https://www.youtube.com/@IntentionalCarnivore
https://www.facebook.com/groups/carnivorouscommunity
intentionalcarnivore@gmail.com 

Carnivore Diet Planning Guide: https://4343867330708.gumroad.com/l/fqtjv
Website: https://www.carnivoresoldier.com
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/67620...
Discord Server: https://discord.gg/eqyzCqtwgd

I'm a retired US Army Chief Warrant Officer living the carnivore lifestyle since March 22nd, 2023. I lost 30lbs in the first 90 days, and continued my weight loss beyond that losing another 14lbs in the following 60 days. I have become much healthier, both physically and mentally in the process. If you’re seeking a sustainable and effective weight loss method, the carnivore diet might be the answer you’ve been looking for!

Join me as I give a military veteran perspective on the carnivore WOE, find great recipes, learn tips and tricks, review carnivore movies, and gain insight on practical ways to fit the carnivore diet into your life! If you follow me, I'm going to be your "Battle Buddy", setting you up for success!

Prepare to be motivated and inspired as I share my success story, offering valuable tips and insights for anyone ready to embark on their own weight loss journey. Don’t miss out on this incredible transformation – hit that play button and let’s dive into the world of carnivore diet weight loss!

DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor and am not giving medical advice. This is simply a channel about my experience. Please consult your own physician if you have questions or concerns about nutrition, weight loss, or your conditions.

Transcript

0:06

All right, all right, all right. Carnivore Soldier coming at you from Austin, Texas. Today, we have the second video in a series of mission carnivore, and this series is focused on veterans and first responders and how the carnivore diet has affected them. Today's guest is Sean White. You might know him as the intentional carnivore. I'm going to let him tell you about himself right now. Welcome aboard, Sean. Hey man, I appreciate you having me on and allowing me to come on the channel and share my story and, means the world to me, man. I love being able to, to share it and hopefully help people who find themselves unknowingly where I was not too long ago. I appreciate it. That's awesome, man. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself first and then we'll get into. You know, the carnivore story, but just tell us about yourself. What's your history, your background, all that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I'm Sean White go by intentional carnivore. I'm 40 years old been married for 21 years to the same person. Yeah, I have a 15 year old son and a 12 year old daughter. I spent the last. Up until the time I found Carnivore, 12 years before that I spent in EMS. Most a lot of that time as a paramedic and the rest of the time as an EMT. Before my time in EMS, I was I did construction and basically anything else I could find that would make money and allow me to support my family. And I live in the backwoods of South Carolina. So, You know, that's basically where I'm at, man. You know, I live middle class. I have two degrees, one in science, applied science, one in theological studies. Wow. And yeah, so that's basically the gist of it, my friend. So I have no degrees. I got like half a degree and then I started making too much money to go back to school on the civilian side after I got out of the first tour of the military. So. I never finished and I kind of went back a little bit and actually I did before I became a chief warrant officer. I looked at becoming a chaplain and I started a theological degree. Basically I was going to get my degree in religious studies and then get an MDiv and become a chaplain until I found out that chaplains in the post Clinton era, weren't allowed to pray in Jesus name. I'm like, what? You have to pray in God's name. And I'm like, and I didn't notice that. Because, you know, you don't think about it when you're in service, but men going to services really started bugging me. Like, really? Like I said, what if I'm a chief warrant officer? Can I pray in Jesus name? They're like, yep. I'm like, cool. That's what I'm doing. They just locked down the pastors. It's crazy. Absolutely. And my goal, even though my degrees have only ever cost me, I don't know that other than the time in EMS. You know, I got a little bit of a bump in pay for having a degree. Other than that, I've never really been able to use my degree for a whole lot. You know, I just had them, you know, so I think they've cost me, you know, time. But I can say this, honestly the information that I learned. And in school has helped me tremendously. The degree itself didn't, I don't feel like, but the information helped me along the way. Well, yeah, all I degree does for me as a, as an employer, like when I'm looking at it is this person can show up on a schedule and get tasks done. They were approved that for four year period. And then the other thing it does, it teaches you how to. Actually research, right? And people like ridiculed people during the last pandemic over, you know, do your own research, but I can tell you what we used to call that reading. Like I grew up, we had the world book of knowledge. You didn't have the Internet and doing your own research meant to go into your encyclopedias and trying to figure out how to do a paper, you know, how to study something. So, you know, I, I can't believe what has happened on the internet lately with people ridiculing someone from like I, so when I was in college, none of the technology I'm right now, I'm a wireless network architect and none of that technology existed in 1990, 1991, there's no cell phones, there's no wifi. The internet didn't even really exist for most people. So it's like, you know, if I didn't do my own research, I couldn't be doing what I'm doing now. So it's, it's pretty crazy. It's amazing. It's all, I was just gonna say, it's amazing how fast things are progressing and the more technology we have. The further we move away from people being able to use the logic and, and basic human questioning rationale that they got us a lot of the way to, to where we are. So it's, it's critical thinking, right? It's logic and critical thinking and people lose that and they just go to feelings and, and Twitter headlines or something. I don't know. There's no real deep dive into anything anymore. And I'm all about the deep dive, man. That's what. I mean, that's what the carnivore was for me. It was a rabbit hole for sure. And feelings, feelings are as far as I say, when I say that, I mean, in society today, feelings are like, I feel this way. No, you, you believe that way. You don't. Your feelings are not the main, main objective of this conversation, but it make its way there. So I digress though. No, it's true. It's true though. Okay. Well tell me a little about your service. You said you're an EMT and EMS. So what's the difference between those and give me more detail on. on what that was like. And just tell me about your service. Okay, absolutely. Sure. Yeah. So I started out as a driver and just basically taking people to their doctor's appointments before I was any, even at EMT for a little while. And then a couple of months after that, I've decided, man, I have got to get a bump in pay. You're making seven entry level jobs, 7, 8. I can't support my family on it. So I went to school, you can get your EMT certification in about six months to a year. No degree. And so that's like your first entry level to EMS work. Whenever I was doing, taking people to their doctor's appointments, it was for private service contract stuff, Medicare, Medicaid, things like that. And so I decided, man, I, you know, I just kind of wanted to do the EMT thing and go. up my education, give me more opportunities and allow me to help people on a different level. And so I did that. I went, went at night, six months, got my certification as an EMT no, no degree at the time and, and started working as an EMT. And then as most people do, just trying to climb that ladder, I guess you'd say But what I've quickly realized is that EMT is so entry level in EMS that, you know, it's what we used to call a dime a dozen. EMTs are a dime a dozen. They, you know, as long as you got a butt in a seat, you know, they'll hire an EMT and when they get tired of you, they toss you out and they got another one. lined up to fill your spot. So, to make myself more, I guess, lucrative or an asset, I felt like, you know, it's going to give me more skills, more education to get my paramedic, but I had transferred out of the private sector, private ambulance service and taking people to their doctor's appointments over to a county service where we were actually, you know, running only emergent calls. And so to be able to do anything in that setting, you almost have to be a medic. Versus an ALS call, which is an advanced level call versus a basic level call. And your EMT basics, they do amazing stuff. They do a lot of stuff. And a lot of times they step outside of what they technically are supposed to do by, you know, standard protocols in an assistant assistant rate or role to assist their medic. But I wanted to be able to, you know, have the knowledge to back up what I was doing and be able to help. On a different level, I guess you'd say. And so I started, I was working full time for a county service, you know, over 40 plus hours a week, married, as I mentioned earlier, and started going to school at night. I had one day a month off and this was 2000. 14 ish, 15, somewhere in that neighborhood. And I was going all the time. I had one day off a month. I never hardly saw my family. I never hardly slept. It was quite insane. And so for, and that went on for three years till I finally got my degree. And it almost did me, I think that was probably the beginning, that time period was the beginning of like pushing myself way further than I needed to go. But that's what I had to do. I felt like, and it was what I, my passion, I thought at the time, and I love being a medic even when I became a medic. So three years in, I got my, I graduated and got moved up from a basic EMT to a paramedic. And the rest of my time from, I guess about 2015 ish, uh, 16 to 2019 I worked as a paramedic. And then as you're well aware, you know, right there, 2019 and when Covid Covid hit. Yeah. My health had been had deteriorated by that point years and years and years of bad decisions. I was over 400 pounds Had lots of metabolic issues and so it started all accumulating and it created basically a I guess you would say a perfect storm because you got COVID coming in. You have my health, depression and everything else on top of it. So that's kind of where I was at. And, and your depression speak to that a little bit. That was that well, what contributed to that? Was it just, was it your schedule? Was it your health, a combination of a lot of things? What was it, what you were doing on a daily basis? Cause you're always seeing people in distress or, I mean, was there, tell me a little about that. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think it was a combination of a lot of it. Number one, my, your schedule's crazy. I, I had just spent three, basically three years trying to balance a full time day shift. I work, uh, 6 30 to 6 30, 6 3 AM, 6 30 PM during the day on a rotating three, uh, Two on, two off, and every other weekend. And so, you know, working that schedule, trying to balance that with going to school full time during the day, because they didn't have a part time. Associates degree program for emergency medicine, you know, paramedic level. So I was trying to balance all that. Run my calls, you know, and seeing all the, the horrific things that our first responders and, and, and different services see on a daily basis and try to balance a family. I still had two kids and a wife at home who, who needed daddy and, you know, and, and husband. And you know, I got a brother, I'm a son, I have all the same responsibilities and then. Trying to balance all the other stuff at first. So I think it was a perfect storm in just multiple ways and it just compounded. My health was bad. I've been a pre diabetic for 25 years and you know. At the same time until it becomes so bad, I have to deal with it. I'm like most other people, even though it was, I was in healthcare, you know, Oh, well I can do, I'll deal with this later. You know, I've got hypertension and matter of fact. I remember going into work one day and annually every year, as most other people understand, you have to get a physical done to renew your insurance benefits. And so I went in and the, the, the nurse practitioner that was doing the assessment to renew our discount or whatever it was for for our benefits, took my blood pressure and it was like 210 over 160 and she said, uh, you. You can't, I'm pulling you. You can't go to work. I said, well, I'm already clocked in. I just ran down here before I got on the truck so you could do this. I'm already on the clock and I got to go. You know, she's like, you're not going to work. I cannot let you work. I'm, I'm calling your supervisor right now and letting them know you're about to have a stroke. And I knew that with that kind of blood pressure, I'm not senile, you know, I knew better, but that's just the mindset you're in, man. You get to focusing on what you got to do and trying to get it done. And I just neglected myself for so long, ending me up in bad health. the depression, seeing all the things and everything added up, man. And that's, that's where I ended up. In 2019, like I said, it came to a matter of fact, in April of 2019, I lost my job as a paramedic over, over 400 pounds, hypertension, gout. And who knows what else because I wasn't regularly going to the doctor like I should have been and, you know, ended up losing my job. I couldn't, I, nobody wants a medic showing up on their worst day ever who can barely drag his tail around trying to help them. I mean, I get it completely. Right. Yeah. So depressing. I mean, that's another thing that added to the depression and everything else, man. You know, I worked so hard to get to this level. And then lose it all because I let myself go so far that I couldn't couldn't do it, you know, I mean, you don't have to answer this. You don't want, but did you ever have thoughts of harming yourself around that? Absolutely. Yes. For 3 years after I lost my job from 2019, I didn't work for the after I lost my job at the county service. I didn't work for the next 3 years. I laid on the couch. I let myself go even further into the depression and the hopelessness. That's the way I describe it because that's the only thing I can, I can relate it to is just hopelessness. I laid on the couch, I wouldn't work. I would sleep. I would get up, I would take a nap and just sink further and further down until I had gotten to the point that I could not even take a shower without sitting on the side of the tub to bathe myself, I'd be out of breath. You know, I was miserable. I was isolating myself and I honest to God did not care if I woke up the next morning and if I could have justified to my children and my wife. Through letter form, why I was ready to not wake up the next morning or, or suicidal thought, you know, is what I was having. I probably wouldn't be having this conversation with you today. I just couldn't lie. I've always been a person of faith and I would, even during that time I was a person of faith and I prayed and asked God, you know, why do I feel this way? Why even turn to, why are you letting this happen to me when I know it really wasn't him? At all. But, you know, if it wasn't for my faith in my family, man, there's absolutely, I don't know where I'd be. Honestly, that's what pulled me out of my out of my situation, too, because I was in a situation not as bad as yours physically, but mentally and emotionally where I, you know, driven to the place I was gonna do it. You know, I was already I was. And then I started thinking about who's gonna find me. And what the next day is going to be like. And then I thought about my son. I was like, I can't do this. And luckily I, you know, I wouldn't be here either. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, and before that point, whenever I had soldiers commit suicide in my unit, which happened a lot. In fact, I've, I've known more soldiers who have committed suicide than have lost lives in combat. You know, and in a career, I think it's not, that's not a, that's pretty typical, I think if you've been in a long time and it's sad and once you get there though, so I never like before that, before you got to that point, you probably never fathomed that you could ever feel that way. But I mean, for me, I was always wondering, like, why would people get, why would they do that? And then I finally got to the point where I saw it and I was like, wow, I understand now it can just be a fluctuation to it's a passing. It's not, you know, it's a, it's a permanent solution to temporary issues. What it is. Absolutely. And, and I used to... Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, I, I just said, I used to think people were selfish who did it. I was like, how could they do this? How could they put that on their family? How I used to think a lot of things. How could they let theirself go that far without getting help? I just didn't understand it. And until I got there myself and lived through three years of that hell. I thought a lot of stuff about depression. I thought, you know, we'll just go get some medicine if you've got to, or, you know, all the things that people think and like, you don't know, you, I never suspected that I would end up there. I was, like I said, I was a person of faith. I was in healthcare. I had a great family. I still have a great family. You know, I did have some traumatic stuff as a child with my father leaving and things like that. But I mean. I never could have imagined that I would end up in the spot that I was but I think most people, nobody would choose to end up there, and everybody, I believe, would do something if they saw it coming, and it's almost like it's a slow creep until before you realize it. It snaps on you and then you're, it's almost like you're a captive to yourself and you don't understand how to get out. You look for ways to get out. You, all the things that people go through to try to get out of that situation and nothing works. And then you just, the longer you sit there, the worse it gets. You know, and then you start adding on top of that, you start feeling like you're the problem, like you did something wrong or all these things in that may not may or may not be true at all, you know? Yep. And, and there's like a myth in the military or I don't know, not a myth. There's a perception, like, especially people from outside the military. When I talked to him about suicide thing, I'm a retired vet. They're like, Oh yeah, all the stuff those guys have been exposed to. Of course, you know, they're going to be suicidal. And that's a myth because. The majority of our suicides are people who have never deployed. So that tells you right there that PTSD is a contributor, but it's not the driving factor. I'm sure you, as a medic, have been exposed to probably more trauma than even a soldier has done one tour, typically, you know, because you see it every day. I mean, and you see all kinds of crazy trauma. And terrible things. And that's got to give you some PTSD, too. And PTSD is a contributor, for sure. One of the things the Army found in their studies, was that there's, the contributing factors for most suicides are relationships. Money factors and legal issues and then self medication or drug issues and those are like primary drivers And those don't depend on you being deployed or being even having a PTSD situation, right? I mean So my theory is that those things have existed forever I mean those are not new those have existed since mankind has existed People have had legal issues since there's been a society right and relationship issues since there's a relationship so I mean And money issues since there's money. So there's no, there's, this is not new. What, what I think is new is driving the suicides, especially on veterans and first responders is the diet change. Because now we, we've got a brain that's not functioning properly. And then we throw all that stuff at it and you can't clearly think, and you know, you've been there. I have too. You can't make rational, proper decisions because your brain's in a fog and it's not working right. That's my opinion anyway. I know there's no scientific basis behind it, but I really believe if you look at like the suicide rates of active duty, uh, in world war two, I think it was five per a hundred thousand and then you get up to Vietnam and it jumped up to 17 to 18 per a hundred thousand and then you go to these wars and you're at 29 to 30 per a hundred thousand and these are active duty, right? And so you see a gradual slope up, but what else happened during that time period? Well, we came out with food standards and processed foods were introduced to our diet. I mean, maybe, you know. It may just be coincidence, but I don't buy it. I think it's not right. So yeah, I don't, I don't think it's coincidence at all. I think most of the mental health problems that we're seeing, not only in society as a whole, but in with the military, with first responders and otherwise is contributed to the food that we consume. And dude, I even, I think it goes further than just by accident. I think it's actually something that's Bits. That's purposeful. I think that people are easy to control whenever they're weak and sick. And so, but I digress on that, you know, as far as, you know, we could go into that or not, you know, whether you want to or not, I don't know. But I feel like when you have a strong. Healthy population. It's for the industries. They don't make as much money. The pharmaceutical industries, the, you know, the food industries who are, are controlling a lot of the studies and also, you know, the lobbyist and whatnot there, they pay big money to get where they're at. They're not just going to allow people to eat. change their, their ideas, whether it's right or wrong. So, you know, there's a lot of benefiting hands out that don't want to see the truth come out. So, you know, then we have the FDA, which is so interesting that it's both food and drug and those air hand in hand, right? Because one's getting you sick and the other ones Treating the symptoms of you being sick, and they're both paying for the FDA, which right? No conflict of interest there at all, right? It's so maybe it's a coincidence. Yeah, another coincidence just happened, right? It's just ridiculous, but Well, anyway, so tell me about where, where you were at the point you decided to try carnivore and what you saw and what you thought, like, what was the process? Okay, absolutely. Yeah. So, like I said, 2019 lost my job, spent the next three years in depression, anxiety, PTSD hypertension, gout, non alcoho I'd been diagnosed at that point with type 2 diabetes, non alcoholic fatty liver disease. I, I've had shingles twice, but I mean, it is, I told my wife, I guess, I'm, I'm getting all of these things out of the way that you, you see most senior citizens have in at 39 and 40 years old. I guess I'm going to check out early because, you know, I've never heard of somebody my age having these things and you know, it is, it is common sometimes these days, but Nevertheless, three years, just depression, not working, laying on the couch, staying up. and you know, whatever, whenever I was awake, not being a very able to be a very good husband, not being half of what I needed to be for my Children. And just losing hope and sense of direction and everything else. And most of what I would do was lay on the couch and listen to podcasts and YouTube videos and things like that. And. So one day I was listening to Joe Rogan and Joe Rogan had an interview with Rhonda Patrick. Uh, neither one of them are very, Joe's tried carnivore. He, I think he's a little more into carnivore nowadays. But he's, he wasn't a huge advocate for it at the time and Rhonda Patrick definitely wasn't either, but their discussion was pretty, neutral and it was a great on the issue and it just got me to thinking. And I had tried so many other diets and ways of eating and, and whatever that, I mean, what was I, you know, I had never heard of this, you know, carnivore, ketogenic way of eating. I'd heard of keto. I related it even at the time I said. Ketoacidosis. Are you serious? Like it sounds the same. It's not the same if you do your research, but I hadn't heard of it, you know? So their discussion triggered my thoughts. It was amazing what Joe was saying he experienced. So I just, I was like, man, I've never heard of this thing. I want to know about it. So I did YouTube video search, and who did I fall into this crazy Dr. Ken Berry of all people. Right. And I said this doctor should know better, man. He's a physician. He's been in the ER. He's got over 20 years experience. How in the world is he saying that this eating like this can cure all these issues that he's saying? There's no way that's accurate. But the more he talked and the more I listened, I knew enough about the anatomy and physiology and, and the medical side of what he was saying. I'm like, he's spot on with so much of this stuff. I don't know anything about nutrition. And so I just kept listening to him. He's a very personable. He's his energy just fills the room. Right. And the more I listened, the more sense he made. And I was like, if it can do what you say it can do, I want to be a hundred and 90 pounds in, and I'm over 457 pounds at the time, so I tried it. A year, uh, actually October of 2021 for 30 days. It was the dirtiest version of carnivore, keto ish, whatever you want to call it. I still had salsa, still had some sugar, but it was so drastically different from what I had been eating four and five times a day, the footlong Jersey Mike subs and whatever else, two liter Dr. Peppers a day and things like that. That. Even the dirty version of Carnivore was so drastically different that it changed a little bit. I could tell there was a difference. And I knew that it was something I needed to try. But I also was realistic that... There's no way that I could hold to any kind of a diet through Christmas and Thanksgiving and New Year's and my birthday. And, you know, I'm a Capricorn and Valentine's day and all the things. So it became that kick the can down the road. I'll start tomorrow kind of deal. Until one day, man, April the 17th to 2022 was the day that changed my life. There's nothing special about the day. There's nothing, you know, that stands out. I have no answer for what's different about that day. It just happened to be the day that I got sick and tired. I knew that I could not keep going the way things were going in my life. that had been changed a little by the carnivore diet for that 30 days. And that was something I needed to do. And today was the day I don't care about tomorrow. I have today and that's the day I grabbed a hold of carnivore and I've never looked back. That's awesome. Yeah, Kim Berry is also a Southern gentleman, which is nice, you know, so it's easier to relate sometimes if. You're from the same area. Oh yeah. Yeah. When I did it, I, uh, like you, I found some weird guy on YouTube, Dante Fragno and watched his thing. And I was like, no way this is real. And then we checked the video later and it was, I was like, okay. And then I found Kimberry, but I had actually done keto before and he was keto before his carnivore. So yeah, when I had done keto, I was active duty and I was like, I'd, I'd cycled keto to get into shape for workout for a PT test. Physical fitness test. And then I would cycle back off, you know, because I think I'm going to stay on keto this time. But then I started introducing keto bars and stuff and all the stuff that says keto on it, even though it's sugar, you know, so I always fell off every year. And then I saw that he had started talking about carnivore. So that really convinced me, okay, well, he switched to carnivore. That's legit. And then I found the other doctors, you know, Dr. Chaffee, Dr. Baker. I'm like, wow, that's pretty crazy. So then I said, well, either this is complete BS or it's the truth and there's only one way to test it and I can't half step, I'm just going to do it. So I, like I talk about Cortez burning his ships with the 600 soldiers when he got here. I burned my ships. I emptied everything out of my, pantry and my fridge that wasn't carnivore except for a small shelf for my son because I wasn't forcing him. Yeah. And I, uh, I said, I'm just going to do this. And it's, it's either going to work or it's not, but it's not because I didn't try it's because it's a scam. And then if it's a scam, it didn't work. If it worked, then, then there you go. So that was my, outlook. I was like, I'm going to prove this thing right or wrong. And it proved me, it proved me right that it worked. It's pretty amazing. And one of, one of the big things that, that intrigued me even more is Ken Berry was, Dr. Berry was not trying to sell me a program. He was not trying to get me hooked on some kind of pill. He wasn't saying I had to go out here and run 10 miles, which I couldn't do. I couldn't stand for longer than 30 seconds without this around the side at nerve area, the back of my legs going numb and I would fall over, right? Yeah, there was no, I had been out of work for three years. I couldn't afford a program. I couldn't afford a pill. I couldn't afford these little, have your meals shipped to you every week and eat this little bitty bull crap that people try to sell you, you know? So he wasn't saying that it wasn't, there wasn't a supplement that I had to take. There wasn't some gimmick string behind, you know, whatever it was. listen, you need to eat beef, butter, bacon, and eggs for 30, you know, 30 to 90 days. That's all you eat. It's as simple as that. Eat until you're satiated and you know, don't worry about the scales, the, all the things, just focus on eating beef, butter, bacon, and eggs. End of story. It's no harder than that. And you know, we can talk about the other issues that people come into it face and later or whatever, but. At the time, I was in such a dark and deep place, psychologically, physically, and everything else, and isolated. I can't emphasize that enough. You know, that. I was, I was grasping for straws and that was the first thing that I came across that made sense in somewhat that I had not ever tried because all the other stuff I knew SSRIs only, you know, I'm not telling anybody stop taking their SSRIs. If you're on medication to help with your depression, I'm not telling you to stop taking it. I'm just saying that I had seen so many examples where it didn't help people. That I was like, forget that, I'm not doing all that stuff. And I grabbed a hold of what he was saying, and it was 100 percent on point from, you know, the whole time. So, and I'm extremely thankful for that. Yeah, me too. Uh, so we got the next thing now, you can, this is when you actually did embrace it. Hey, I'm going to do this. What was your initial experience? Did you talk about the first 30, 60, 90 days, maybe like what happened and, and just how you felt and, you know, just go ahead and tell us. Absolutely. Yeah, man, I was super skeptical, you know, even going into it here and all the things and as good as it sounded, I was still skeptical too, because I'm like, there's no way, like. It sounds too good to be true. I'm old enough to know better than if it sounds too good to be true, it possibly is, but here I am, let's go. Me and my wife would talk about it. She was skeptical as well, but here I am. I'm, I'm done. I'm going for it all in, you know, and so right away I could, I could. I had, like I said, I did the 30 days, so I knew there was a little something to it. But I started out strict, like I had, I found out the sauces, a lot of the sauces, there's 90 different names for sugar, you know, all the carbohydrates, even garlic. Garlic has a little bit of carbohydrates in it, even eggs for that matter, but as long as you're getting animal products, they're not going to detrace mineral, trace carbs in those things. You know, I'd done the research, I'd listened to them the whole time, and so I started out. You know, about a month in, I started noticing, dude, I have not thought about killing myself. And it was that dark to where it was an everyday thing for me. But coming out of the other, on the other side of it. It was like, hold up. I have not just broke down in tears today. I have not, you know, contemplated doing what I had contemplated. I hadn't thought about my plan. I hadn't thought about the letter. I hadn't thought about, you know, what my family was going to think when I was going. None of that stuff. And I, and I was like, that is, it's amazing. Like, I, my mind is clearing, like, just that I realized that alone, just kind of smacked me in the face, like, something's different, you know, it's, it's amazing. And I found my way after Ken Barry into, uh, my brother from another mother started a group, Larry from Carnivore Quest, uh, has started a Facebook group, Carnivore Quest Community. And basically like a support group, encouragement, those kinds of things. And I found my way in there even before I found the YouTube channel, because Ken Barry said that community is, is huge. Right. And so I was in that group just watching, reading. I didn't comment a whole lot, but there was people in there talking and encouraging other people and all the things, so, you know. I started, I finally got to the point where I started feeling good, but they would have challenges also, like every month, and the first one that I took part in was in June of 2022, and it was the beef, butter, bacon, and eggs, because I had been doing just regular carnivore to that point. Because there's no way I could ever just eat beef butter, bacon and eggs. Right? Right. And so they were saying, Hey, we're going to do a BBB and E challenge for the month of June. And I was like, well, 30 days, man, I can do anything for 30 days. You know, it is what it is. So I started out and I got hooked. I was like, man, I from a guy who did not even like state before coming to carnival, I would rather just have a hamburger. Uh, you know. started eating steak, started eating shrimp, salmon, those things. And then when they went into that challenge, I went beef, butter, bacon, and eggs. And it kind of the camaraderie between the people in that group, you know, we would talk every day. Whenever I switched over to beef, butter, bacon and eggs, it wasn't. But by the end of that challenge, I felt so amazing. I actually made the comment and I could probably even go back and find it. I wish I could, I might actually go look after this conversation. But I mentioned to the people, I said, I'm going to start encouraging people until you guys are sick to death of me and I wasn't working at the time. I had, you know, I spent all my time in the group, even became the first moderator of their group. Back, you know, May, June time period, but I just started encouraging people, whether they deserved it or not, whether they asked for it or not, whether I felt like they needed every comment I'm, Hey, good job. Way to stick with it. Something to encourage other people. And I started finding that the more that I did that, the more my confidence built, the better I felt because listen, man. Seeing other people successful and, you know, adding to that will always increase your position. There's plenty of room for everybody to be successful. You don't... There's no secret about you getting there and having to maintain your spot. There's plenty of room for everybody to be successful. And some people, like myself... Just need somebody to believe in them to help them get out of spots. And so that's how it was for me. And I noticed that my depression was lifted. You know, I had, I started building more energy. July comes around and the challenge was walking. As I mentioned a while ago. I couldn't stand for longer than 30 seconds when I started this right because I, I call myself like the tipping goat, I would be up for 30 seconds and then I'd start feeling the back of my legs going numb. And if I didn't sit down, bam, I'm falling over. Right? I'm 457 pounds and I'm 5 foot 9. Okay. I was, I was bigger around than I was tall. You know, but by that time we started that walking challenge, I said, my goodness, if I don't do something with this energy I've got stored up, I'm going to go crazy. I took off the walking and I, the first day that I did that, I made a video. Never intended for anybody outside of that group to ever see it. If I knew that people would see it, I probably would have never posted it or made it, but I was getting rid of my phone up and I didn't want to lose that video down the road. So I uploaded it on my little YouTube, which is on my YouTube channel. Now I don't know. Maroon, you know, burgundy color shirt. And it was the first day that I did that walking challenge. And I ended up posting it and I'm so thankful for that video, man, because it still pushes me to this day to go back and look at that time period of my life and seeing like the, what to me was the first day, like I could see that I'm, I'm grinding dude. Like my mentality is on point. Like I'm, I'm doing this thing, you know, but I w I was, I was in. I remember making the video and being like, you know, speak it into existence. You know, you're going to make it stay strong and keep pushing forward. And if I can do this, then anybody can do this. And that became my message, man. Is it almost like my war cry? I guess you would call it because I know for a fact where my mind was at that time and the things that I've seen over the last year and a half, I know for a fact that if I can do what I have done, that there's not a soul out there that cannot do this. Yeah, that's awesome. I, I'll have to go check that video out. I have a lot of energy too, especially now. And I've looked for ways to use it. in fact, yesterday. I put a video up of me doing sprints at 57 years old and pushups. I do 10 pushups and sprint up a hill and then walk back 10 pushups, sprint up a hill. I did five iterations. There's 93 degrees outside and I felt off. I felt it's the first time since I was in college and I feel like an athlete. I feel athletic. My body does. And so it's pretty impressive. I mean, at my age, I never thought I would ever feel that way again. I had no clue six months ago. that I'd ever be able to sprint in my life ever again, or that it would feel so good. Uh, so it's, it's, this thing is an amazing thing. And it's funny because, you know, being a Christian or even if you're not a Christian, you can believe it. Yeah. But I mean, you can believe if you're not, you can believe that natural food is superior to manmade food or God made food is superior to manmade food. Either way you look at it. Man made food in every instance is at best, it's just an imitation, a cheap imitation. And at worst, it's an abomination. It's a poison. And I think we have the worst for the most part in our diet. And none of us know it. We think we're doing the right thing because man made institutions are also telling us that. But, uh, I think when you, when you test that theory and you eat the real food, just whole foods in general, even if you just got rid of all processed foods, seed oils and sugars. And, and process wheat, you would, that would be the test. That's all you need to do. Just test that, uh, carnivore is the cleanest and it's the best ketogenic diet, but you can do a keto diet with other, other things as well. And it's, it's still effective, but for sure, uh, you know, it's, it's the real deal and I challenge anyone who's just looking into this, test the theory, test it on yourself, don't, you know, read about it and then just go test it. And that's, it doesn't take long. It, this thing's so rapid. I don't, I don't know how long yours took, but. My, uh, apparent changes I could tell in the first 10 days, huge difference all the way around my mental, physical. everything. Allergy is going away. This crazy stuff that you don't even think about. Uh, it's just an amazing thing. Oh, absolutely. And the thing too is like, I'll talk about the weight because that's the hook, right? I lost about 45 to 48 pounds the first 30 days eating clean carnivore. And, you know, like I said, I was four, 457 pounds that I know of because my skills at home said error. There's no way that I could read them. I had to wait till I went to the doctor. And as I mentioned, I did that month in October. I think I was closer to 500, 470 to 500 pounds. But I was 457 pounds when I went to the doctor. And so that's the number that I use. And like, I was, and it was absolutely insane. I was like, Oh my goodness, the weight just started coming off like crazy. And, you know, like I said, even better than that, the, if I had to pick one thing that I would say I would trade it if nothing else happened. Except for the depression being gone, the whole thing was worth it to me. If I never lost, you know, if, if the, if I was still working on the weight, if it was slower, if the diabetes and all those things whatever the depression by far, hands down is the absolute best thing that had happened to me. Because. It was, it was all encompassing. It, it affected not just me, but every area of my life, my wife, my children, my mom, everything, I couldn't work. I couldn't function, you know? So absolutely. You know, and I, and I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to jump ahead on your question. So, oh no, it's okay. This is fine. We're just rolling. Yeah. I mean, the mental health is, is what this is really about anyway. Like same with me. Because it's not just depression. It's motivation. It's optimism. It's planning for a future. I had no plan for the future. None. I was like, I'm just gonna hang on to health as good as I can and just decline the rest of the way out. That's what I thought. And I look at my, my mom died, young, 10 years older than I am now, 67 from Alzheimer's. And my dad, he's hanging in there, but he's in a lot of pain and he moves really slow and can't do a lot of things. And I'm thinking, well, that's what I got to look forward to. Then I see Dr. Chaffee with Maggie and Maggie's 83 jumping fences and wrangling bulls. I'm like, dang, that's what I'm going to be doing. She, I know I, I ain't going to, I'm going to be doing pushups and sprinting. You know, I'm going to be, I'm going to be moving and I don't get sore. It's amazing that the arthritis going away. And I mean, when you get older, you'll know that. Well, maybe you won't because you're a carnivore. So you never have to experience what I did, but it's not good. You know, anyway, so yeah, so the mental stuff, uh, the optimism, uh, I mean, I think that's all part of that depression. Maybe it's all the same thing, like the depression goes away and it's replaced by an enthusiasm and optimism and desire to go do something instead of just sitting on the couch. Like I was big time into sitting on the couch. I don't even watch TV. I turn off my cable. I don't have, I don't care. Yeah. I'm the same way. I haven't, my TV has been cut on two times in the last six months. I think one of those times was for my daughter. She had a little friend stay the night with her and they wanted to watch something the next morning when they woke up, they cut the TV on. And before that. Uh, I invited Larry Burkless, you know, my buddy from Carnivore Quest over to the house. We had steaks and he was going to show me a YouTube thing and I pull, I cut the TV on connected to the YouTube. We saw the YouTube thing and then once it was gone, I cut it back off. I don't want, it's a big screen TV. I don't watch it. You know, I've got too much other stuff. I think that confidence level. you gain from the so many different areas of your life, along with the proper nutrition being added to your body, causing your brain to function better, your heart to run better off the ketones that your body starts producing from eating this way. I think it just like that perfect storm that ended me up in three years of depression and Trying to figure out a way out. I think that a lot of people find that giving yourself the proper human diet, the proper nutrition that we, I believe, you know, that we were designed to eat versus the fake toxic crap that we keep ingesting into our systems creates another perfect storm and our body is extremely efficient at taking the proper diet, the proper nutrition that we need and fixing a lot. If not all of the issues that we face, it's not going to fix every circumstance that you face in your life. It's not going to automatically get you a 10 percent raise on your annual income. It's not going to get you 20 percent off on your taxes. It's not going to be your chauffeur to the, to the prom for the kids or whatever, you know, it's not going to solve every issue, but it's going to give you what you need to function optimally in the situations and circumstances that you face, whatever that is. That's funny you say that because that's exactly what I was going to bring up. So you just hit my, you stole my thunder, but that's what I was going to say. So since you hit your goals and, and, and healed and you're, you're still doing it, but since you, you know, had the majority of your healing done and got back to normal, right? You're back, you've had stressful days and problems come up since then. And you can, it's the way you handle them when I do, I mean, when they handle, they, they're just completely different than it used to be. It's like, oh, okay. And it's not fun and it's, but you, you can handle it now because your brain's actually functioning. And that's part of my thesis too, that, you know, after experiencing myself, that's like, I know it's anecdotal, but it's not just me. Cause I've got other veterans I've talked to and they say, yeah, I handle things much better now, stress, traffic, driving, all these things that used to be driving me crazy, you know, I'd get so angry driving. And now it's like. Yeah, that guy's a jerk and I'm just gonna not, I'm just gonna ignore him and keep going. I mean, it's, it's just different. Uh, I can't, I can't describe it. All I can say is you need to experience it to believe it. That's all I can say. Absolutely. 100%. And, and the thing too is for anybody, whether it be a veteran, first responder, whatever, if you're watching this, no matter when you're watching this or anybody who's lived with depression, PTSD, anxiety, metabolic health issues to be going through that. And I'm sure that you can bring many people on and testify. I hope you get a bazillion stories just like this one of people who have come through those times. We need to showcase as many as possible. But they can testify to this, like, to come out of that and to, to know what it was like to be there. When you start reflecting and seeing where you came from, you have developed a mental toughness. And, and for me personally, I quit making excuses because I had an excuse, man. I had an excuse for everything and I would try my best to find the best one I could find and I would use it, not just with other people and instances, but I would tell him I would start believing my own lies and my own excuses, right? Until finally, it's like, I love David Goggins. He's like, be hard. Quit letting you listen. Stop listening to your B voice. You know, you got to put that down. And I think that that sometimes we need we have to do that. You know, I have to say, listen, man, quit making excuses, take responsibility for your decisions, good or bad, accept the, you know, what you've done, and move forward with this, and reflect on how far you've come, because there's absolutely nothing that I face, as far as the circumstances are concerned, that's going to be anywhere close to what I lived with for three years. And so I used the same thing that got me out of that position, which is one, my faith in God, and he delivered me and gave me strength that I did not possess in and of myself. And I used the proper human diet and nutrition, physically wise, to thrive. And I used those same two principles in every situation, no matter what it is, because that's what got me out of that situation. And nothing that I face is going to be as bad as that was, right? Yeah. So no matter what comes my way, I've got a mindset that I can face anything. I can do anything and I can overcome anything. That doesn't mean like you said, it's not going to be hard because it is going to be hard. I'm not going to have every single answer, but, I can thrive and I can perform optimally and I can survive and I can analyze the situation with a clear head and I'm energized. I'm not sleepy all the time, all those things. Yeah. To face it way better than I ever would have even before the three years of depression beforehand. Yeah, it's a, and the other thing is a lot of people are afraid of failing because they failed every diet just like I had before they came here. And so they just don't believe in themselves. That's how you build resilience. Like Rocky, right? You gotta, you gotta be able to get knocked down and get back up. Resilience is failing as an opportunity to get back up and learning the skill on how to get back up. And how to get back up quickly. So yes, you go to a birthday party. You ate cake. Great. That's behind you. Drop it, get back on that horse and ride. Like you never fell off, right? Like no one saw you fall and keep going and don't beat yourself up. You know, you're gonna fail. That's okay. Failure happens, but that, as long as failure is a learning experience and it builds your resilience. You stop becoming that person that fail and you start becoming that person that gets up whenever they, they stumble, right? And that changes your character. So that's a, an opportunity to build resilience, as part of it. And you need to be able to fail. You have to do the reps. You can't read about resilience and become resilient. Yes, failures are stepping stones to get you to success. I've got 20 years of failure after failure after failure, and I have one great success that on the carnivore diet that I get to talk about a lot, but people don't see the 20, 25 years of failures of trying this diet and that diet and this thing and that thing and failing and failing and failing. And, you know, but like you say, it's stepping stones. Use your failures, the stepping stones to get to success. All right. So how do you stay motivated to stay on this diet? Isn't it restrictive? Uh, it's the, a lot of people probably view it that way. Yeah. I eat ribeye steaks and eggs with butter and salt and motivation man follows action every single time. And I put enough action in at this point in the journey that I feel so good eating this way that I don't ever want to change. It keeps me going back to it because if I do have. Something that's not a ribeye or ground beef, uh, eggs and butter. I can tell, you know, I had built into the system. I said, well, I don't know if I can do this originally. So I said, well, I'll have one day a month, which I started after about four months that I'll eat something off plant and it'll be keto because Dr. Berry said. If I cheat on carnivore, I cheat with keto, right? And if I cheat on, you know, ke devore, if I cheat on ke devore, I cheat with keto so that I'm not going back to the standard American diet. So that was my plan too. And I always love Mexican food. So if I couldn't do it anymore, I was at that breaking point. I'm gonna have Texas fajitas. And so once a month of starting about month four-ish, somewhere in there, I said, you know what, once I must have Texas fajitas once a month,'cause I love Mexican food. And I would, I would go one time a month and have it. And it would stall out my progress with the weight. It would, you know, all these things, but it would also remind me, stay focused, man. I would get enough for one meal, not enough to carry on for six weeks. And it was just enough to say, Hey, look, this is going to hurt you. This is, you know, whatever. I don't know if it was a psychology thing or what it was, but it happened to work, you know? And so I, you know, I did, I had it, but feeling so good. Remembering and trying to stay focused on how I was not too long ago, seeing the looks on my wife's face, you know, seeing me smile and active in her life, seeing my Children look at me and not have that disappointed like he's, you know, he's just gonna lay on the couch. He can't even hardly interact with me. Things like that keeps me motivated. Things that I remember that it. It's not just about me. I have a family to lead. I have responsibilities. I have people that I'm influencing and I've already wasted plenty enough time not being the man that I should be wrapped up in my own problems, my own metabolic issues, my own depression. And, you know, it is real. It's real circumstances. It is something that a lot of people face. It's not an excuse for me to not be who I'm supposed to be though. Okay. That's, that's great, man. And one last thing, uh, we're wrapping this thing up, but, I know you've already touched on this, but if you could expand a little bit, I'll just give you the floor. what advice would you give you? Have you already recommended that first responders and military veterans try this? What advice would you give them on how to start? How to start eating this way? I would say the best thing that you can do is investigate for yourself. And as he said earlier, the best way that you're going to be able to do that is take, take 60, take 90 days, eliminate all this stuff. And, and try it for yourself at the end of that 60, 90 days. If you're, if you've eaten carnivore, strict carnivore and you feel worse, okay, send me a message and you know, let me know, Hey, I feel I've done it for 90 days. I feel horrible. Everything in my life's worse. Thanks for nothing. You know, I'll take that and I'll, you know, I'll apologize. How about that? But I feel like I'm, I'm extremely confident and I know what it's done in my life and. Most of the people in my family eat this way, despite me not trying to proselytize them with it. Because they also saw the effects it had on my life. And there's countless thousands of other people who are finding out the exact same thing. And my heart goes out, my brother just retired from the military about two years ago. Facing a lot of the same issues that I face. outside of the physical stuff. And so my heart, my family was a military family. I wasn't in the military. I was, you know, paramedic. So my heart goes out to the military and I, and first responders and all those who are selflessly sacrificing their physical selves, their mental health, their families are sacrificing for them. And it's definitely something that needs to be addressed going forward in our country. It needs to be a bigger issue, and I feel like one of the absolute best things that you can do for your health and yourself and that we can do to help you is to get the message out about the carnivore way of eating, because it made such a drastic change in law, and I feel like it will for anybody who tries it. Yeah, absolutely. Well said. One last thing. How can people get ahold of you? Yeah. So, uh, intentional carnivore on YouTube and Instagram. We had, I've created a private community group on Facebook called carnivorous community. I'm still involved with. carnivore quest community, any of those ways you can, you can get a hold of me. Intentional carnivore at gmail. com is my, my email. Yeah, I can't get to every one of them, but I try to, I will read them eventually and try to respond to them as I get them. But you know, that's the best way to get ahold of me. And if you can't get ahold of me and you need to talk to somebody, please get ahold of somebody. Yeah. And, and you can always get ahold of me too, uh, email or, you know, you've got my information in the, in, in the links below in this video. And I'll actually put, Sean's, contact links in there as well, so you can get ahold of him. Well, Sean, thanks a lot. It's been awesome talking with you. You're a real inspiration, a great story. And I know you're making a difference in a lot of people's lives. And I thank you for being on the show. Thank you for having me, Larry. I appreciate that brother. And, and I hope, you know, I want to see all of us successful. I want to see you successful. Like I said, it's, it's dear to my heart as well. And I wish you the best. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to come speak, speak to your crowd, my friend. All right, man. Well, I'm going to go ahead and stop the recording here. And I just want to say, stick around. We'll talk for a few minutes afterwards. Okay. All right, cool. All right, guys, that's the end of the presentation. All I got to say is stay strong and overcome carnivore soldier out.