A Female US Army Soldier Manages Her Weight, PTSD, & Anxiety With The Carnivore Diet

Mission Carnivore Episode 8: A discussion with Katerina, a 50+ year old former US Army Soldier who took control of her weight issues, and successfully managed her PTSD, anxiety, and depression with the proper human diet. 

Carnivore Diet Planning Guide: https://4343867330708.gumroad.com/l/fqtjv
Website: https://www.carnivoresoldier.com
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/6762077700490092
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

Larry: 0:00

All right. All right. All right. Carnivore soldier coming at you from Austin, Texas. Today, we've got another edition of the mission carnivore podcast, where we focus on veterans and first responders and how they've adopted the carnivore lifestyle and how it's affected them. And today we have Katarina. She's a former army veteran, but I'll let her tell you about herself. Let me bring her in. Hey, Cat. How you doing? Hey, I'm doing good. Good. So welcome. Why don't you just introduce yourself a little bit, like how long you've been on Carnivore, you live, that kind of stuff, what you do.

Katerina: 0:34

Absolutely. I'm Katarina, of course. I started the Carnivore Diet on July 19th of 2023. So relatively recent. I currently live in Colorado, just recently moved from Texas. So I still kind of claim Texas as my home. And what was the other question? What do I do? I'm a program analyst for the department of veterans affairs.

Larry: 0:58

Okay, cool. So you're an army veteran. Did you retire or did you just do a few terms and then separate?

Katerina: 1:05

I separated after about 12 years my oldest son has autism. And if you know anything about the exceptional family member program, it was starting to get really hard to go anywhere. I got out as an E6, a staff sergeant, and I just was getting to the point where I couldn't progress in my career. And it was just a lot better for me to get out, with an autistic child. And so after 12 years, I

Larry: 1:28

separated. And what was your MOS you say in your career field? So I'm just curious, were you admin or? Well,

Katerina: 1:34

no, I started out in combat service support. I was a 77 Fox, which later turned into a 92 Fox, which was have met and patrol basically fuel handling. I spent most of my career doing that, but towards the end, the last duty station that I worked in my. Field. My MLS was Fort Knox, Kentucky, and they had actually I don't know if you would call it disbanded, but got rid of the entire 77 Fox or fuel handlers there on the base, and they had civilians come in to do the job, which was a little funny. Because the civilian doesn't want to get up at two o'clock in the morning and head out to Yano range to field takes. So that was a very short lived, but I worked from that point on until I got out in the pack as a personnel sergeant.

Larry: 2:26

Yeah. So you, so that's where you get your personnel background and that kind of helps you with your VA transition, right? Cause that's what you do in the VA kind of, there's a lot of personnel. Or yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm a program. Oh, program.

Katerina: 2:38

Okay. But still that, that personnel and that type of background is where I segued into working with the VA and I've been with the VA. I got my 10 or 15 year service award for them. Not that long ago, but I've been with the VA for a long time.

Larry: 2:54

Wow. 15 years. That's great. So that's a nice career. It's a good retirement you got going anyway. And then you can buy back years or do they just account this federal service count for.

Katerina: 3:02

You gotta buy back your time in the service, and I haven't yet to do that. I'm getting close to the end of where I need to probably start buying. I should have probably started

Larry: 3:11

a long time ago. Yeah, it's expensive, but it's worth it. That's what I'm doing it where I work too. I'm going to buy back some time. Because I want to have that second retirement and kind of pad it up a little bit binker.

Katerina: 3:20

Yeah. Yeah, I'm working on because you're going to take your high three. So I'm pretty, pretty up there with the federal service, but I want to get up there just a little bit more so that I can get my high three.

Larry: 3:32

Yeah, for sure. That's cool. And in your military life now, you, did you just eat regular food when you're in the military, was that just like, whatever is a chow hall you try to eat kind of healthy, but Or were you on a specific diet when you were in the military? In the

Katerina: 3:47

beginning, I just ate whatever, but I turned to a vegetarian vegan while I was still in the service. And that became a little hard because the chow hall, well eventually, I didn't have to eat at the chow hall anymore because after a while when you move off, off the base and live on your own, but I had become a vegan while I was still on active duty.

Larry: 4:08

And they got vegan MREs. What are you talking about? That's easy now. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I w I remember the nineties, I remember the eighties and nineties and the 2000s, 2010s and 2000, let's see. I retired in 2019. So yeah that's what I remember. Alright, so you converted to veganism while you were in the military, and why did you do that?

Katerina: 4:33

Actually, it was for no particular reason. I was healthy as a soldier, at least up until the end of my career. But my daughter, I had my oldest actually decided to become a vegetarian. You know how they do when they're teenagers. And it just became You know, she was just really passionate about it. And I was like, ah, you know, it's really healthy. And I do remember talking to my PCP at the time and them saying, oh yeah, vegetarian, the healthiest way you could go, you're going to be the best thing. So I did it because of her and then it just became a habit. And I wish I had, like, a motive for it. It just literally was my daughter.

Larry: 5:12

But isn't it funny how we just assume it's a healthy way to eat, but no one wants to? I think if you ask a person on the street, man on the street, whatever, is vegetarianism or is veganism healthy? And 99 percent of people say yes. But why do you eat it? Because I don't want to eat that. Because I don't like vegetables pretty much, or I can't just restrict myself to that. But I think it's just the, that's one of the the lies that everyone's bought into out there. Right? I mean, it's healthy for a gorilla, but you compare our digestive system to a gorilla's digestive system and their large intestine is three times longer than their small intestine. Ours is reversed. Our small intestines three times larger than our long, our large intestine because. They have that extra area in their large intestine to break down fibrous materials that we don't, and they're designed to eat. So they get all lean and muscular, but they have huge bellies and are not fat. It's just a distended belly because they have a huge intestines and we just don't have that. We have a carnivorous or omnivorous. I would argue carnivorous based on the stomach acid digestive tract. So it's just funny that people just assume that because we've been told over and over and over that that is so healthy. Even my dang hockey games. I got, I'm a hockey fan. So I'm watching the hockey games and they're talking about, there's a ad about how hockey's gotten better. Like, they posed the question at the beginning of the ad, has hockey gotten better and then they start saying things that everyone say yes to. And then one of the things they say is kale good for you? Oh, of course that's a yes. Right. So then hockey got better and I'm like, kale is terrible for you. For me it is I think probably good for a gorilla. They probably love it, but it's just crazy. So then So you did vegetarian and veganism for how long?

Katerina: 6:50

It was because on and off I started out vegetarian. I went to vegan and then I went to a whole food plant based vegan. So it was about 13 years total between the three of them.

Larry: 7:05

I think whole food plant based vegan is probably the healthiest of those three. Because you're not doing Oreos and mac and cheese, right?

Katerina: 7:15

The reason why I went that route, though, was I started having health problems. I started putting on weight. I started having a lot of other conditions. Now, what of those conditions were caused from my time in the service? What of those conditions were caused from, you know, just getting old? I don't know, but I started suffering from a lot of. Things that I thought that being the whole food portion would actually benefit me. That part actually happened because of my health and I was gaining weight, which how do you gain weight eating lettuce? I don't know, but you

Larry: 7:50

do. And you probably never satiated either. You're probably always snacking or

Katerina: 7:54

hungry. No, but that's what you hear. That's what you were told by you're in a medical professionals eat a bunch of small meals a day, you know, Three meals a day, couple snacks, that's normal, that's what you should be doing, or at least that's what they tell you

Larry: 8:07

to do. And that's what cows do. They graze all day long and look at their bodies. If you wanna look like a cow graze all day long, right? Oh, I, I did You wanna look like a lion. You eat once and then maybe you don't eat. I look like a cow

Katerina: 8:19

and a gorilla.

Larry: 8:22

Yeah. It's tough. but you were cognizant that your diet, something was wrong in your. That's what you came to the conclusion. And then you went to that other, then you went to the whole food because they're like, Oh, Hey, this, there's something in my vegan diet that's not working because I'm,

Katerina: 8:34

yeah, because vegans can eat Oreos and vegans, they have so many vegan junk food and stuff like that. So I wasn't positive what it was that was causing it. I do know that I have a sugar addiction because you can have that. You can be, you can eat all the sugar you want as a vegetarian. Oh, it's crazy. So I was thinking maybe it was. all of that. But when I became a whole food plant based vegan, then I literally cut all that out and it was still, I still was getting sicker, sicker, sicker, fatter, and fatter, and

Larry: 9:05

fatter. Yeah, I think once your body gets to a certain point, it's like filling a glass of water and then it keeps filling up and then once it gets to the top, it starts overflowing and it didn't matter at that point. You're still adding the bad stuff in, just maybe Not as quickly. So I think someone coming off a standard American diet who went to whole food vegan diet might initially see improvement.

Katerina: 9:26

I did. I actually can admit that initially I started to lose a little bit of weight and I started to feel a little bit better. And then here's my mindset. Oh, this is the best I felt. And so this is obviously working for me until it stopped and then it just was like, I went yay. And then down like this again.

Larry: 9:48

So yeah, that's exactly what I would expect. And Interesting. That's not good that it happened to you, but it's good that you recorded that, or at least, you know, you're a good living record of what happens. And it matches what I would expect. And what were your reasons for trying carnivore? And when did that happen? When did you start when you first hear about carnivore? And what did you think about it initially? And then what happened?

Katerina: 10:08

Without going into the long in depth history of all of my health conditions back in July of 2023, I went to the doctor and I'll make this brief. Cause I do know that I can ramble, but I was again, having a bunch of health issues. A lot of just things were bothering me and I was just still steadily gaining weight. It wasn't like. 20 pounds right away, but it was like every few days just seemed like, a couple more ounces. And I went to the doctor and I asked for help. I asked if she would refer me because I couldn't even get off the couch half the time. My arthritis was bothering me and my fibromyalgia and I couldn't do anything with my family and we were counseling things and I just was starting to feel like this. Burden. And even though nobody in my family said, you saw they were still, you could just see that it was like, oh, okay, well, she can't do that again. So let's cancel. Or my daughter had said something about, oh, well, mom, we can write you a wheelchair to go through the zoo or something. And that was just like really, I don't know, just felt really bad. And then my mom passed away and at a relatively young age, I think in her seventies, and I was just like, Shell shock. And so I went to my doctor and I was like, look, I don't want to die and leave my children at this young age. And I just, I feel like I want to die. I don't want to wake up tomorrow. I think in my mind, how great it would be if I didn't. And that's sickness, and she was like, well, here's the prescription for Ozempic because she did all my labs and you're insulin resistant, pre diabetic, you've got high blood pressure, you've got this, you've got this. And she says, this is the treatment for that. And first of all, I don't know how people afford Ozempic anyways, but number two, that's scary. That was, that's, that drug, you, they don't know what that's doing to people. And I chose to not do it and I went home and I sat on my couch and I, again, struggle from a lot of anxiety and depression. I was crying. I felt so sorry for myself. I wanted to end it. I'm just going to be honest with you. And my little boy had come out and saw me and I was like, okay, no I'm not going to let my kid, try to comfort his mother. So I turned on YouTube and I just searched insulin resistant. I thought, okay, all of these other conditions, I'm old, I'm a veteran. I went through, a G double hockey sticks and back in the military, but I did, you know, all of us did. And. I expect that these are things that are going to happen to me, but there are some things that I could change like the insulin resistant that can be handled by diet. So I just started searching insulin resistance on the old YouTube and I ran across Dr. Berry and I credit him to all of this. I've watched Dr. Berry and another Dr. Berry. And then all of these other YouTubers kept coming up. I saw Anita. The ketogenic woman carnivorous me and I just started watching all of this stuff and that's what did it. I said, you know what? That's the one thing I can try. And I know that the carnivore diet is an elimination diet and I know that obviously something is going on. You don't get insulin resistant for no reason. You just don't show up one day. It's obviously something that you're putting in your body, and I knew that I needed to eliminate everything. And what's the one best elimination diet out there? So I took my butt to Sam's Club and everybody laughs at this, but this is a true story I threw every kind of meat I could find at Sam's Club including oxtail which for the record That was a learning experience, but I threw it all in the cart Larry. It felt so disgusting. It looks disgusting I could smell it. It smelled disgusting. I was just like The whole time, just throwing this stuff in the cart and I took it home. I even filmed what I bought. I said, that's it. I don't have any family supporting me. I don't have any friends supporting me. I'm going to throw this out there on the internet. Somebody is going to hold me accountable. Somebody is going through what I'm going through. And that's how it started. It's Dr. Berry. It was Dr. Berry.

Larry: 14:06

I wonder if that guy, I'm sure he realizes, just how many people he's saved, how many people's lives he has saved. I'm one of them. No, I'm sure everyone does. I'm one of them because I saw Dante Fragno's video, but Dante's just a blue collar Joe. I saw him succeed on this crazy diet. I'm like that's a dingbat. That's crazy. Right. I went and searched and I saw Dr. Barry on it. I already knew him from keto. I'm like, well, this guy knows what he's talking about. This is not some dingbat. This is a southern gentleman that's highly educated and understands nutrition and he switched to carnivore and he's killing it and I'm like, man this is real. And that gave me a knit immediately. I looked at carnivore completely differently because when I started keto in the 2017, 2016, actually 2011, when I was getting ready for one officer candidate school, because I was 45 years old, going to one officer. Candidate school had no business being there. The average age in the class is 22. You were quite the old

Katerina: 14:58

fogey,

Larry: 14:58

weren't you? Oh, I was the oldest in the class. I got to cut the cake with the sword. You know how it is? That's the way it works. So, we get in formation and they're running seven minute formation miles. These guys, they're just jocks. And me and a couple of the old NCOs and the old couple old guard guys that were a little younger than me, but we were being dinged up. We started at the front of the formation and just slowly fall to the back, never falling out. Right? Cause I could run an eight minute mile. That's all I could do. I could not get down below that at 45. That was kicking it for me. And but I tell you what, I did keto to get in shape for that. And I knew that when I did, when I was doing a record PT or when I was doing a school, keto would get me in shape and that's what I did. I'd cycle on and off. And so I had heard about carnivore, but I thought, well, that's crazy. That's just re that's ridiculous. I was like, I didn't even look at it. Cause I just assumed those are just idiots that, you cannot just live off me. That's just my opinion. And who knew? I just really thought that. But when you start seeing the doctors, all the doctors, there's so many, we always list like chafee and, Barry and kills, but there's so many more. There's Tony Hampton there's all these doctors out there. These guys in, in, in Australia,

Katerina: 16:06

oh my

Larry: 16:08

gosh, there's so many doctors that are getting on this and it is a revolution. And They are saving so many lives, but when I, it makes me angry and nothing against your doctor that wanted to give you a Zempik, but that is such an ignorant prescription and diagnosis, completely ignorant. I guarantee you, she doesn't know the difference between relative risk and absolute risk because that's what they're showing on the risk there. I'm sure they're showing absolute risk instead of relative risk and the benefit they're showing the relative risk numbers for the benefit. And you hear about Ozempic, people's stomachs being paralyzed and people dying, dying, dying. I didn't know about that,

Katerina: 16:46

but I knew people's stomachs were getting

Larry: 16:48

paralyzed. People have died now, too. And that's not worth it. But the thing is, I was there. I was where you were at, where I was gaining weight. And I thought there's nothing I can do because I'm eating healthy as I can, right? Thinking that I am eating healthy because I'm following guidelines that USDA put out. It's got to be healthy. And I'm not cheating. And I know keto works, but like when I'm doing regular diet even eating salads and stuff, I'd eat a huge salad. That's what I eat for lunch. I get one of those bag salads. I eat the whole thing. And I'd do that. I'd skip breakfast, eat a huge salad and then eat dinner.

Katerina: 17:20

That was my lunch on the regular was those.

Larry: 17:25

With the dressing. I thought, man, I'm doing healthy. This is good. I'm doing it right. And no matter what I did, I kept gaining weight. I get getting sicker. And if someone had come to me with those MPIC especially years ago when it first came out and there was not all this paralyzed stomach thing, I probably could have been a guy that would have been, okay, I'll try that, you know, so hats off to you for deciding not to, because I'm sure the temptation was there at first

Katerina: 17:48

it was, and I did consider it. However, I'll be honest with you. As soon as the pharmacy told me how much it was, I was like,

Larry: 17:55

what is it like 1300 bucks or something? Or is it

Katerina: 18:01

1500 or something? Every month I couldn't do that. I have an epileptic child that I already pay enough money for his medication. And then, when you think, okay I'm not going to be able to afford this. So then I started looking up, okay maybe it's not the best thing for me anyway. So let's look up some side effects. And then I started seeing all that and I'm like, okay no, we're not going to do that. We're not going to do that because I even went so far as to get enrolled in the move program with the VA. I worked for the VA. I thought, this would be a good thing. And they did the same thing to me that my nutritionist did to me with the whole. literally telling me, don't do this. And the MOVE program, they also prescribed a medication at the end of it. But I even went so far as to get on the MOVE program to see if maybe something could

Larry: 18:45

help me. So now for people that aren't familiar with MOVE program, because there's international people here too, can you just briefly describe what the MOVE program is in the VA? The move program

Katerina: 18:54

is an initiative that the VA had started to help people become more active and eat better to help lose weight, maintain weight or get healthy. So it's like the Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig's of the VA. They do a lot of education on American diet. I'm just going to tell you that right there. A lot of like recommendations of, what to look for in food labels and you know how much they do. It's a little bit different than the 50 50 plate. They do a different plate system and you know how much you should have of everything. And I can tell you that the entire program that, cause I went through the whole program. I didn't want to. Join it and then drop out of it. It's through the VA and, it's just, that's just how I am. But they are pushing carbs, they're pushing vegetables. They're pushing no fat, very little, meat and things like that. Very much the opposite of what the carnivore diet was. And when I mentioned the carnivore diet. I got skewered, like literally they were like,'cause it was like, a video chat video classes. Yeah. And they were like, that's a fad diet you don't want, blah, blah. And then literally the rest of the class, I felt so like self-conscious and embarrassed because they were just like raking me across the coals and the carnivore and how keto and all of that stuff was so bad. Oh man. I wish I had seen studies where it damaged your kidney and your liver. And then I was like, can I see those studies? And then I was like, dismissed. And again, they don't know any different. That's what they're taught.

Larry: 20:36

And that's what they're paid for. And their premise is that we're all doing the standard American diet wrong. There's a healthy way to do it. Like they're saying basically that the, the bad way to do standard American diet is to have Doritos, Coke you know, Oreos. But if you take that out and you just do the veg, low fat, healthy food, skinless chicken breast and all this stuff that you're Yeah, I know. That's disgusting, right? But if you do it, that's the healthy standard American diet that'll work. And I think, There's no red meat. Yeah, no No butter. Yeah. And yeah, it's all margarine. Oh my gosh, that's so disgusting sounding. And

Katerina: 21:11

they push oils. They push healthy

Larry: 21:15

oils. Yeah. And I think this is what's great about that movie Fat Fiction, is they have those three people that eat a ketogenic diet. Not a carnivore diet, but it is a whole food ketogenic diet for several weeks. And they check their blood glucose, check their cravings, check everything. And then they switch them over to a standard American diet, a healthy version of it, not a bad one. They're eating salads and stuff, but and check their craving and everything. And it's just night and day. So it really shows you that. The standard American diet done healthy is not, is completely inferior to a ketogenic diet completely. There's nothing better. So what was your reasons for trying carb? That was it, that you'd seen it, that you saw Dr. Berry, that you were basically not getting anywhere with anything. So that's why you did it. Okay.

Katerina: 21:55

And I knew that the source of some of my problems were food related and there is no better way. to figure that out than to eliminate. And I thought that I would do the carnivore diet for a couple of months or, a month, eliminate stuff and then slowly start to put it back into my diet to see what it was that was bothering

Larry: 22:18

me. Same with me. That's exactly what I came in. I'm like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna do 30 days. And after 30, I said I'll do another 30 because that's working pretty well. And then after 90 days of doing that, I'm like, and I didn't want to bring stuff back in. I'm like, I don't really want that anymore, but I did eliminate everything. And I thought I would bring stuff back in. I thought I would bring some veg in that I wanted. Now, to be honest, I do occasionally make a chili when I have freezer burn meat and I'll put some tomato and some peppers in there, but it's stewed down so much. It's mush. And I think that's what Dr. Chafee says that. That's why old people that we grew up with, our grandparents, we used to cook vegetables till they're mushy because they're taking all the poisons out of them. And that's the way they knew. And they all ate it like that. And I always thought it was because they had bad teeth or something. They didn't want to chew on veggies, but really it breaks it down for you. So your stomach doesn't get as disrupted. I think

Katerina: 23:10

If you would have ate it and then reacted badly to it right away, then you would probably never do it again. But if you could do it in moderation here and there. Yeah, that's okay. That's okay. Don't do what I did over Christmas, though, and completely fall off the wagon,

Larry: 23:23

and No. No, no, no. Yeah. That's not okay. Yeah. I mean That is not okay. When I make my chili, it's once every six months, I go to the freezer, I check for anything that's old and freezer burned, and I throw I don't want to waste any meat. I really don't. And making a chili, I know you can't taste it. It tastes just fine. So, I just throw it in there, make a chili, and then I freeze half of it, and I put the other half in the fridge. That's a really good idea. Yeah, because you don't want to throw meat away. And you can make a chili pretty benign just adding chili powder and paprika and some little stuff, no big deal. So, what were your initial experiences with carnivore?

Katerina: 23:56

Horrible. But how much of that was. transitioning from the standard American whatever diet to carnivore. How much of that was because I was a vegan ingesting nothing but meat? I don't know. My first two weeks of carnivore were pretty harrowing. I will tell you that. I did not have my fat ratios right. Well, the first probably seven days I was sick all the time. I was nauseous. I wanted to throw up. I was in the bathroom doing, God knows what in there. I felt horrible. I then added electrolytes in. And started increasing my fat, which went against everything that I could. I literally just couldn't figure out. I just had such a hard time with that. And then things started just move on to an even keel. Because I didn't know how much of anything to eat. I tried to track it in an app, but the app kept telling me that I was screwing up poorly. So I stopped doing that. And I just, one day I would just. A chunk of butter the next day, you know, and if I was in the bathroom that night, then I knew that that was no good. And it was a lot of trial and error for me. And it was a lot of misery. I do know that I can definitely understand why doing this would be hard, especially if You're going into it completely blind like me. I should have done a little bit more research to combat those symptoms. I could see how it would be very hard because I was sick all the time, but then it was like one day I just woke up and then it wasn't anymore.

Larry: 25:41

So by how long did that take for you?

Katerina: 25:44

I'm going to say about two weeks total. Because I was really struggling that second week with the fat. Once I started adding way more fat in, it seemed like it was easier for me to digest that meat because in the beginning, Oh, I would eat that meat. My stomach would just, it would feel like a rock was in there. And I was just like, and I would force myself. And for a while, the only thing I could eat was hamburger. If I tried a steak, it just felt like it was just a boulder sitting in my stomach. But

Larry: 26:12

What about eggs? Were you eating eggs or did you not like eggs? At

Katerina: 26:15

first, no, sorry, my nose itches. At first, no, but I do, I did add eggs in. We had chickens and it just was kind of weird. I don't know why I had chickens cause I loved chickens, but everybody else ate the eggs, but initially I didn't do eggs. And then I did start adding them in there, but eggs smelled funny to me. I didn't like the smell of them at first. Now I love them. I just eat them all the time. But, it was literally, Larry, it was hamburger meat and butter. I promise you, for seven days straight, that's all I ate. Hamburger and butter.

Larry: 26:48

What about bacon? You're not a bacon fan? Are you? No,

Katerina: 26:49

I eat bacon now, but in the beginning I just, I was struggling with so in the beginning, hamburger and butter was all I ate for about, sorry, the captain here and he's shedding for about seven days hamburger, butter, and then I introduced eggs, bacon steaks, lamb, I really like lamb and then just everything else. And I started just doing all kinds of

Larry: 27:10

stuff at that point. I tell people all the time. Now that say that is expensive, people talk about it being too expensive. You can just do ground beef and butter and eggs and bacon. It's so cheap. You can do really it's

Katerina: 27:24

way cheaper for me to eat this way than it was for me to be a vegetarian or a vegan. And what's worse is I would head by organic. And then that stuff would just rot in my refrigerator. I swear, I'd put it in the refrigerator, turn my back, and it would be rotten. And so I think I threw so much produce away. We even started a garden at the house in Texas to grow my own because it was A, too expensive, and B, because it was like, it's so fast. So I save scads of money by being

Larry: 27:56

a carnivore. Yeah, for me, really the same thing. All right. And then how has this way of eating affected your physical health? And you said you've been on since July? Mm hmm.

Katerina: 28:08

I know Now, mind you, it's not Everything that was wrong with me is not healed, is not gone. But they have helped become, something in my arsenal to help deal with things like my interstitial cystitis, which is a painful bladder. Is it gone completely? No, it is not, but it is not so bad that I'm having to pop all this medication constantly to help with the symptoms. My cholesterol is probably the most astoundingly huge change that I had. My triglycerides at one point were in the 800 and I think it was 816. And what's funny about that is I was eating potatoes and rice and vegetables, but obviously it was turning into sugar in my body. But my triglycerides were so high that they couldn't measure my other cholesterol numbers because the triglycerides make your blood look milky almost. and they couldn't see anything else. And my cholesterol is almost normal. My triglycerides are completely normal. And all my other numbers, you know how you do that percentage of, I think it's the HDL. So they're good. They're great. The one number, my total cholesterol is still what they consider high, but they're no longer recommending I get on statins. My IBS. controlled much better. Do I still have problems? Of course, but the amount of problems that I'm having are just significantly less. And just like the overall pain that was in my body from head to toe, like I have fibromyalgia. I don't suffer from that anymore. And my arthritis seems to be quite a bit better. You know, weather changes and things like that still affect it. So that tells me that there's still inflammation in my body.

Larry: 29:59

I

Katerina: 30:02

know I didn't say that. This isn't coffee though. This is electrolytes. Are you off coffee? Are you off? Not yet. I'm limiting though. I would go through a whole pot of coffee in a day and I'm allowing myself only two cups right now. And this is the Element Chocolate Caramel with just a splash of heavy whipping cream in it. And I'm limiting it because I know it has to be that. So

Larry: 30:25

Yeah, it was for me. And, so here's something I just introduced this week. Because I cut coffee again and all my arthritis is gone. So I'm feeling good. I'm doing my sprints feeling good. I introduced herbal tea just to see if I can get a hot drink and not have a reaction. And so far it's good. I've been drinking rooibos, which is something I liked. I learned when I used to, I went to Africa for a couple of years, I was on and off there. And they drink a thing called rooibos down there. It's red bush is what it means. And it's a great herbal tea, no caffeine or anything, but it's still something hot that I like. So I started drinking that and so far no issues, but it's only been a week. So I got to wait a couple more weeks and see. What happens I do enjoy a hot beverage in the morning

Katerina: 31:08

me too. That's my thing and I just worry about teas because of oxalates that are in so many leafy things That I worry about that because I was already told that I had oxalate crystals in my kidneys and that I needed to limit those in the first place

Larry: 31:27

And see if that's in this because rooibos is made out of the flower petals, I think So

Katerina: 31:31

it may be fine. I just I have a ton of tea I used to drink tea all the time and I have all of that still but I try just but you know a coffee somebody said to me one time that coffee is nothing but a wet bean That's really what it is. It's a water soaked bean and should I get rid of it? I know that I should but like you I like That hot beverage. I even did, and this is going to sound super weird. And I know people are going to judge it, but even one time I wanted something. So I can tell you this caffeine never bothered me my whole life. I could drink coffee right before bed and it never, ever bothered me a couple of times now, which is what also stemmed trying to get rid of the coffee. A couple of times in the last month, I've had extreme. jittery like feeling like really weird and I'm like is this what people are talking about when they drink caffeine and it gets them Like almost like an anxiety like a almost like it was like a wrapping up a panic attack or whatever I felt very jittery very just weird and it was after drinking coffee and I was like what is going on? So one time I really desperately wanted something hot to drink. And I just got a cup of hot water and put a couple of sprinkles of salt in there. And you can laugh at this, a dash of heavy cream. And I drank that and it was like, this is ridiculous. What am I doing here? Because of this comfort, the hot cup of whatever.

Larry: 32:59

I'll be honest. That's what I started with before I started robo. So I had a couple glasses of not no heavy whipping cream, just the hot water with salt. And it was good. And I was like, okay, this is not bad. And. Now I just looked up rooibos. Rooibos has 0. 55 to 1. 06 milligrams of oxalate per cup, which is very, considered very low. Extreme, it says extremely low, and is on par with chamomile, which has 0. 4 to 0. 67. So chamomile has even lower. So you could do chamomile tea. That might be one of the lowest oxalates per cup, but there are oxalates in it. So you are getting some. I don't know what the cutoff is on oxalates. Might be a good question to ask one of these doctors when I interview him next, because, that's interesting. Okay. So that was your physical health. So a lot of your issues got better. Let's talk about your mental health. How has it affected your overall mental health? And you can get in specific as you want. This is for other veterans.

Katerina: 33:53

Well, I have PTSD. I have anxiety. I have really bad depression. I was even diagnosed with panic disorder. And I still have those things that the things that caused them are never going away. So I still have them. I still greatly suffer from depression. It is a struggle for me, but I do seem to manage my symptoms so much better on the carnivore diet than I did before. And there are people that. Say or comment that, it's just chance you're just, that it's cyclic that these things come and go and that you're just in that portion of the cycle and that it'll come back and the depression did over the holidays, but it's winter. It's the holidays, all that kind of stuff. And so I. Still struggle. I don't think that I'll ever be cured of these things, but I think that eating this way has helped manage my symptoms so that I can go out in public. Now I can go to the store. I can't stay. I can't, go to a concert and be like, yay, this is I'm healed. No, but I definitely notice that I'm able to handle things. And I can tell you one thing, my ADHD, yeah. has been massively affected by this change in eating. I have untreatable ADHD because I have a heart condition and I can no longer take the Adderall that I used to take because now I have supraventricular tachycardia and probably coughed from the Adderall from all of those years that I took it. And I noticed that's a huge thing for me because it's really hard for me to stay on task. And I know you've talked to me off of interviews and I ramble and go all over the place really hard for me to stay focused. So that's a big thing for me. And like I said I really truly do believe that it is helping me with my symptoms. I would have told you a couple of ago that it's all gone. I don't have it anymore, but It did kind of come back. It just didn't come back as like it used to, and I've been told by many people that I handle stress a lot better now than I ever did before. Little things that would have triggered me and I would have, spiraled, I don't. It doesn't anymore. I'm much more of an even keel calm, and I equate all of that to this change in eating.

Larry: 36:24

I would say that's fair. I used to have a lot of a lot more regular depression states like and then sometimes it would get deeper. Like I wouldn't just I'd have a day and it would just be like a week. It was just depression, right? And now like Christmas morning, I think I had a little bit of depression. My son was I was here alone with my dog and I just had a little bit until the afternoon. Then it went away and I was like, okay but it wasn't like it was before. It wasn't the same intensity. It wasn't. Yeah. grabbing me and holding on. So I think there's a difference to it. And I really think that you're correct that this diet helps you deal with it better. And that's, when we talk about the 22 veterans a day committing suicide, which is a low number I think it's because the diet that were the standard American diet put moves that fulcrum over and makes, make it easier for people to choose a permanent solution for temporary issue because they just can't deal with it. And I think when you have a proper diet, you can just deal with it better. Life's still gonna happen. Things are gonna happen. You're gonna get sick. You're gonna have bad days. You're gonna have bad news. You're gonna lose friends and family. And when it does, it's not gonna be fun. But you can deal with it better when your body is functioning at its optimum levels. And we're not on the American diet. I think it's just, it's a shame. But Ansel Keys is probably solely responsible for more deaths than Hitler and Mao together. If you look at what he's done in the Western world, Since the fifties. It's terrible. All

Katerina: 37:47

these people are blind. I don't know if you've ever had a panic attack. I've had a few. I

Larry: 37:50

have not. Not a

Katerina: 37:51

panic attack. They're not just emotional or mental things. They are very physical things that are happening to your body. Your heart is racing. Your, it is literally I don't know what it feels like to die, but if I had to imagine what it feels like it, I've had a couple where nine one one's been called, and when your body is already struggling with all of these other physical ailments that are caused from who knows what your diet or injuries or whatever, and then you add that on top of it, it only exacerbates it to become. Overwhelming that people, I understand how people could say enough is enough, I'm going to find this permanent solution, as you said, to this temporary problem, because to live like that with these constant things that you're dealing with, and then you throw a panic attack on top of it. It's yeah,

Larry: 38:48

I

Katerina: 38:50

can see how it's

Larry: 38:51

the closest I came to it because I came close to that decision to make that permanent solution and the closest I came, I've been depressed for a while, like a week straight and it was just, I was going deeper and deeper into this hole and I didn't see any way out. I didn't see my life changing. I thought this is just the way it is and I don't want to be here anymore. That's what I thought. I just, I just. That's where I was. And I got to the point, where I drove to the place, I thought about it. I had everything I needed to do it. And I just started thinking about what the next day was gonna be like, who's gonna find the body? Who's gonna make notifications? Your kids? Yeah. And I was

Katerina: 39:24

Why would you do your son? Because that's what it did. That's what it was for me,

Larry: 39:27

my son. But, and also I was, I don't know if you have ever heard of the casualty notification program. I was a casualty notification officer. Mm-Hmm. for my last year in the service.'cause they want really senior guys in there. So they pick. You know, chief warrant officers, senior NCOs and and officers to do that. And I did the casualty notification and casualty assistance service. So I knew what it was going to be like, I knew what would happen the next day. And cause I've been, and I was like, I don't want that for my son. And that was it. So, yeah, and this diet that, that would, that's so far removed now. I, there's no way I could ever see that happening on this diet. I mean, maybe it can, I don't know, but. It's just I feel so much more equipped to deal with things and like you did when you're doing your diet, just say, Hey, I'm just going to take charge and I can fix this one thing. I'm going to go after it and take things on one at a time. Start working on them. And that's my new attitude. I like to do things like to be proactive on this diet where I was very reactive on the American diet. My couch was my best friend. In fact, I had a custom couch made cause I sat on it all the time. Now it's neglected. I sit on it maybe once or twice a week when there's a hockey game on a watch. That's the only time I really sit on it. And I used to love that couch. I used to

Katerina: 40:37

love it was mine, man. I would spend or just lay in my bed.

Larry: 40:42

Yeah. So I've been there. I get it. Okay. How about your sleep quality? Speaking of bed, has it gotten better or worse? Or what's your sleep quality been like?

Katerina: 40:53

Initially it was horrible because I had to pee constantly. I literally wake up, I swear, a hundred times in the night to go to the bathroom. But I can tell you that if I had, that is a hundred percent changed. I go to bed. And I'll tell you, I've gone through literally every kind of mattress you can think of. All these expensive, the adjustable beds, all of these things because of my back hurts so bad because everything just laying down became such a chore. But lately I've been sleeping very well. I lay down, I do a little bit of reading cause I'm a, I'm an avid reader and so I'll read a little bit before I go to bed and then that's it. I'm asleep and I stay asleep and for a while there I was getting up, but gosh, there was a time change when I moved out to Colorado. Not only did the time go back, but then we also had the, what does that fall back? The time change. So I was losing two hours in every day. So at first I was going to bed like at six o'clock in the evening, but now I can go to bed. I still go to bed pretty early because I start my day around 3 a. m, but that's not my body just wakes up completely rested around 3 a. m Every single day. I don't need an alarm. I pop up out of bed like boom like literally I go and get a cup of coffee because that's my routine. That's my comfort blanket Whatever you want to call it, but I literally I wake right up and i'm very clear immediately I, feel like I could just go immediately get on my computer and go to work. I don't have this like fog about me that I would get up before and I would trudge, and don't anybody talk to me. Don't anybody, until I've had my first cup of coffee and even then like we used to joke at work because I would start work, you know, I started five here, which is six back in Texas and anybody else that will come in. I'm like, you're not allowed to talk to me until seven and then come to me with all your problems and I'll take care of them. And that was a joke. And now I get into work and I'm like, just everything. I'm like, I could just. Yeah. I don't know. I'm getting really good sleep. And I had also noticed I had a aura ring that tracks your sleep, and tells you like how restless you were and your heart rate and all that kind of stuff. And my aura ring was like giving me the 90, 94, 95, you have really restful night and all that kind of stuff. And that was. Completely different. Cause normally it was like, look lady, you need to take a nap because you're not like a 40. Okay.

Larry: 43:28

That's awesome. That's some of the things I like about this diet too. We were talking about earlier tracking, like how many grams of carbs you're doing. You don't have to track anything on this thing. You can just really, once your body starts healing, you can actually trust your hunger signals. You don't have to buy an app. You don't need the sleep meter. You can just trust how your body feels. It's nice to have, but You don't need any of these gadgets or plans. All you have to do is eat BBB and E and try it for 30 to 60 days, right? I

Katerina: 43:56

tried my fitness style and it was constantly telling me that I wasn't eating enough calories or I wasn't doing this or I wasn't doing that. And it was yelling at me all the time. So I was like, this isn't even worth it.

Larry: 44:08

Yeah. And when I was doing keto, I had a keto thing I blow into and an app that I paid monthly on. And it would tell me if I was in ketosis, I started that when I did this. Cause I was like I'm gonna make sure I'm in ketosis. But once you get in, you never come out of ketosis. I was going to say,

Katerina: 44:22

I stopped testing. Cause

Larry: 44:23

yeah, you're always there. I was like six or seven all the time. Boom. Max. I never got that

Katerina: 44:28

high. But some people don't, I did learn that some people don't, but I always, and then I know initially when I first started, I would test, I even had one of those continuous glucose monitors on, but again, this was in the beginning when I was trying to figure out what was causing my issues. I know that I would have that morning phenomenon or whatever it was when my glucose would be high in the morning and I wouldn't being. Ketosis, but I am now, even when I get up in the morning and I test, it's still, it would be low, but I like always in it.

Larry: 45:00

So is that called the Dawn effect? I think that's what it is. Yeah,

Katerina: 45:03

I think it's a Dawn effect. I'm calling it something else. I'm trying to make it out. I don't know, but yeah, the Dawn effect for your glucose is high because it's like ramping up to get your body moving and it's like producing it so that your body can quickly do what it needs to do first thing.

Larry: 45:19

Yeah, for sure. Okay. So let's talk about your motivation. How do you stay motivated to stick to this diet? What do you do?

Katerina: 45:27

I'm going to be embarrassed to hear it and tell you that I didn't stick to it over Christmas. I literally succumbed to an addiction that I'm embarrassed about, but I feel so bad or felt so bad after or any time I have strayed significantly That I don't ever want to feel that way again. I don't ever want to do that again. I deal with enough stuff on a daily basis of things that I'm just going to have to deal with because that's my life now. But I don't want to, those things that I can control, I don't want to do it ever again.

Larry: 45:58

So when you say you felt bad, you mean physically, emotionally, mentally, like

Katerina: 46:02

Literally, I think I'm sure that had something to do with my depression, but, everybody was here for Christmas and there's a lot of change going on in my life. You know about that. And, I'm here with the two teenage boys, which is great. I'm not by myself, but all my family came for Christmas and then they all left and I was all by my, by myself because I have teenage boys. So, you know what they do. They're on their games and computers and they ain't trying to spend any time with their mom. Yeah. And somebody had left a pie in the refrigerator from Christmas that I told everybody to take their crap with them, but they didn't. And I was like, oh, I didn't taste that pie. Let me just have a taste. It'll be fine. One little taste. And no, it's not fine because there's something wrong with the way that my Brain works with sugar and I had a bite and that led to another bite. And then Larry, that led to me. There was two large pieces of pie left. That led to me literally shoving this pie into my mouth in panic attack. Like literally somebody was going to catch me. I don't know. Like I just. I kid you not, the whole time in my brain I knew, don't do this, don't do this,, you don't want to do this, but yet I still did it, and then, I had crackers and all this kind of stuff, and I felt so sick. Sick, like I wanted to throw up sick, sick, like for two days I couldn't eat. I should have just joined Brett's fasting challenge because for two days I couldn't eat anything. I felt so bad and then I just started beating myself up and just how could you do that? And then everything hurt. My hands hurt. My knees coming down the stairs hurt. I couldn't sleep. Literally I made myself. Sick and I made myself sick. Sick.

Larry: 47:43

And then your depression came after that?

Katerina: 47:46

Well, it was already there. That's what started the p in the first place. But I guarantee that, that the meeting up that I did of myself just made it worse.

Larry: 47:56

Yeah.'cause I don't know if you've seen Dr. Chaffe talked about that, that he ate some food at his mom's, not this year, but years ago. Got super depressed after he ate it. And then the next day he was okay again. And he thought let's just try it again. So he tried a little bit more as lamb that had all his herbs on it, rubbed on it. And he took a little bit and he got depressed again. And because he's a doctor, he's like doing an analysis, But that's interesting, right? So yeah, it was a

Katerina: 48:21

trifecta for me I would say not only is it winter and I suffer from that seasonal affective disorder It was the holidays which my mother passed away right before Christmas. So I was dealing with that, too Then you put all that crap out food in there. And so who knows which one was the biggest culprit. But I think all of them together just were a soup of,

Larry: 48:47

And like I said, in the Christmas morning, I was had, I had the blues a little bit, but it went away by the afternoon. I went out and took the dog for a walk and then saw my son. He came in the afternoon. But if I had eaten pie at that point in the morning, if there had been a pie, who knows, it might've took me down. I guarantee you physically. I know it would've hurt my stomach. Because every time I've tried cheating anything, It hurts physical pain in the stomach and just, and then of course arthritis. So it's never, and it never tastes as good as I thought it would. It never tastes like I remembered it. It tastes too

Katerina: 49:17

sweet, too rich, too something, but I thought I cured my sugar addiction because I had no desire to have that pie at Christmas dinner. I didn't eat anything. I did have a few potatoes. I had a little stuffing. I just had a little, but I did it in moderation and I had no desire, but I think you put that along with the pie and as soon as I started to eat it. It became such a thing and like I told, I said, it literally mentally, I knew what I was doing, but I couldn't stop myself.

Larry: 49:50

Subconscious takes over. It's like being an alcoholic. It really is. It's super addictive. The tobacco companies, when they got outed for being addicting people, they bought the food companies and they brought their technology. They basically bring the bliss point technology to make people addicted to foods. Because, it's food, it's good for you, right? So they do that on purpose. And they're expert at it, man. They, know how to addict us. That addiction is lifelong. Yeah. And

Katerina: 50:18

I just recently, again, even for a few days after that, I was eating crackers and now there's probably a ton of stuff in my house, but there was some things and so I would have, Oh, I can have goat cheese. It doesn't bother me. So let me put some goat cheese on some crackers and I'm just going to have goat cheese and crackers. And then I just. I felt horrible. So I've been absent. I haven't even really been doing anything on my YouTube channel or social media or anything because I've just been in this bunk that I couldn't get out of. I would sit in my rocking chair in the living room and I just, that's all I did. I don't know, but that's changed. Does

Larry: 50:53

it feel better after having a conversation and talking? Yeah. Yeah.

Katerina: 50:57

And I actually threw all that crap away the other day. So I'm back to just eating meat, and I do feel better. I do. But it's going to be a process. It's like starting all over again, but it's

Larry: 51:08

super valuable that you experienced it because now you can use that. We do the AAR with yourself and then you can use that to adjust what you do going forward, adjust fire. And then you can also use it to share with others. No other battle buddies that are out there that haven't done it or tell them kind of what to expect. So you can do some good videos on that for sure.

Katerina: 51:26

And this tells me more so than anything else. I cannot introduce those stuff back into my diet. I can't, I guess I wasn't healed completely, but even after I heal completely, I just don't think I can have it. Ever again, I think this is it. I came into the carnivore diet, not knowing that I would stay with it. I came into the carnivore diet, not expecting to lose weight. I literally did it to handle one thing and so many things. Fixed or lessened or whatever on it. But I literally coming to believe that this isn't a temporary thing for me anymore. This is my life now. Thankfully I like steak.

Larry: 52:03

So I didn't know it would even be something you could do sustainably. I had no idea. I thought I could fix a lot of things and lose weight and maybe reset things and then start with a cleaner diet, but I didn't know I could just stay carnivore. And now I do now, the other things that changed. I don't fear getting cancer anymore. I really don't. I don't fear Alzheimer's. My mom died at 67, 10 years older than me now. And of Alzheimer's, I don't fear it anymore. I really believe those are both metabolic diseases. And even if I did get cancer, I know people personally who've managed it with their diet alone. And I'm a hundred percent, like I have so much more confidence now that, and also the confidence of being able to make it through the holidays like I did. And not the only cheats I did was Thanksgiving and those cheats were Dr. Kilt's his ice cream with a little bit of Stevia, very little, some eggnog with a little bit of Stevia, which is all homemade stuff I made, right? So it wasn't really bad cheats. And my sister made a keto cheesecake with an almond flour crust. So I had that. If that's your worst cheats, there's no sugar in it. There was carbs and stuff, but. It wasn't terrible. And I'm past all that. So now I'm back just to normal and I'm doing great. In fact, I'm getting ready to head out to Rudy's to our first in person meetup here in Central Texas.

Katerina: 53:17

Yeah, I wish I was still there. Yeah, I'm pretty excited. I was right there. I lived in Waco.

Larry: 53:23

Yeah, you could have been there. You missed out. Maybe you'll be hosting one in up in, are you in Denver?

Katerina: 53:28

Just north of Denver. I think, uh,

Larry: 53:29

yeah, maybe you'll get one out there sometime. That'd be cool.

Katerina: 53:32

I don't know anybody out here. I have been, I do, I did see that there is a low carb Denver like conference that just happened. I'm going to come to the one in Austin this year, but I did see that there's that, but I just haven't seen anybody like. YouTube or anything like that. Or even followers that are telling me that they're from Colorado. So

Larry: 53:52

you're on Facebook, right?

Katerina: 53:54

I do have a Facebook group. Yeah. Not hugely active. I haven't been active on much of anything lately, but I do have a Facebook group, but I don't have very many followers. I

Larry: 54:04

joined a bunch of other carnivore Facebook groups, and asked them who's in Texas, who's in Central Texas, and then I invited them over to say, hey, I'm going to host a get together. That's how I got people together too. They're not all from my group. Just to, I really want, I think this is all about connecting and meeting.

Katerina: 54:19

I would love to do that. So definitely. And I also think that might help with my depression is being around some people.

Larry: 54:24

Absolutely. Maybe not my

Katerina: 54:26

anxiety, but probably my depression.

Larry: 54:29

All right. So I'm gonna give you the floor for the end of this thing, Kat. Would you recommend a carnivore diet to other military veterans or first responders? And if so, what advice would you give them to start?

Katerina: 54:39

I would especially if they're suffering from so many different type of these conditions, like all of us are. I think the advice that I would give is try it for 30 days, try it for 30 days. Try it for a week. And then when you get to that first week, try it for another week and at least try 30 days. And then, Obviously, do as much research as you can. And I also think that if it were my, if it were me, and I was starting over, I would tell people to do like BB& E, the triple B& E and leave out the dairy other than the butter and go that route. Cause I think I struggled a lot with the dairy and butter and it's just a slippery slope. It's also a very addicting thing. So I think that I would just tell somebody, try it. And see for yourself you are going to experience things that somebody else isn't going to. And just see, anybody can do anything for 30 days.

Larry: 55:34

We know that if you're in the military and you're a veteran or your first responder, you know,

Katerina: 55:40

it's not going to do anything to you. It's not going to hurt you. It's not going to, the only thing that's going to happen is either you just say no, or you start having the benefits from it. And then I have a feeling that once you start it, you're going to continue it. Cause I don't actually know anybody who has started the carnivore diet that hasn't had a benefit from it and hasn't continued it. Now, personally, I'm not saying they're not out there. I

Larry: 56:04

would say that being a military person I like to make a plan and proceed as though success is inevitable. And as Napoleon said, if you begin to take Vienna, take Vienna. So don't do a halfway job at it. If you're going to do it, do it and commit to, 30 days of, hey, I'm just not going to cheat. And either this thing's going to work or it's not, but not because I didn't put maximum effort into it. It's very

Katerina: 56:26

frustrating to me because I have a few people that I talk to that are like, I'm going to do carnivore, but I'm still going to go have this one cheat a week, or I'm not going to cut this out because, that's going to be, you don't want to do that. You don't want to completely deprive yourself. And that frustrates me because that is going to lead to. Failure. And then you're going to say the carnivore diet doesn't work. So if you're going to do it, do it, like you said, do it right. Do it a whole a hundred percent. Do it without the dairy. Do it without all of that. Because it's very frustrating to me when somebody's like, Oh, well I was on carnivore, but yet I went and had, that special coffee drink that I get at Starbucks once a week, or I allow myself a little bit of cheat here. Don't do that. Because then you're going to tell me that carnivore does not work. Did you

Larry: 57:16

see my latest video, how not to fail at carnivore?

Katerina: 57:19

I saw that you posted it, but Larry, in my depression, I haven't been on YouTube. Okay. I

Larry: 57:25

addressed that exactly. You're

Katerina: 57:26

the first that I've been on. That's okay. No, I did an interview with, Meeting Wellness, and I know I was so out of it. I just was, I saw that you posted it. I just haven't watched

Larry: 57:38

it yet. I hate when people say, well, I'm glad it worked for you, but it didn't work for me kind of thing. And I addressed that. Oh yeah. I addressed it, but I'm like here's the deal. If if you and I were to get no an agreement right now, cat, and I put 25, 000 into an escrow account and you had to eat carnivore for 30 days and not ever cheat, would you do it? And I guarantee for 25, 000, you would, because you have faith that there's 25, 000 in escrow account between us. That's going to you. If you don't break the terms. And what I tell them is basically if they won't go, if they won't do this diet, it's because they failed at every diet before this and they think this is the same vehicle. So they bring in failure patterns like cheat days, failure patterns like what can I sneak in? Can I have X? Can I have Z? These aren't animal products, but can I have them? These are failure patterns that they had in every other diet they did. But what they don't realize is they're bringing failure patterns into the first vehicle that's legit. This is the first one. Every other vehicle they try has been non legitimate, even keto. Keto is somewhat effective, but it is only because a, it's not a full version of what we're doing basically. And so I tell them like, listen, if you. You got to get in a deal with yourself and put a 25, 000 check in escrow with yourself and do that for 30 days. And you can do it. I guarantee you would if there was real 25 and here's the funny thing is no one could pay me 25, 000 right now to quit. They couldn't pay me 125, 000 to quit. That would not happen because it might feel so much better. So I think it's just, you check the video out and share it with your peeps that are,

Katerina: 59:11

I think too, if you do carnivore correctly for 30 days, And then you don't put any non animal products in, you don't do the dairy other than butter and you do it correctly for 30 days. And then you come to me and say, it's not for me. Then you at least did it correctly and decided that it wasn't for you, but to immediately decide that it's not for you without ever having experienced it. I just can't get on board with that and the cheat days, I can't get on board with that either because I can tell you, I never came on the counter or diet with the intention to lose weight. I assumed that I would be big and fat forever, and that was okay with me as long as I could get up every day and be with my baby that I was losing all of these years spending time with, and I started driving weight like crazy. I've lost 47 pounds now. Wow. Without trying. Yeah. And when I have too much dairy, I gain weight. When I have too much, cheese, too much, because sometimes I'll do cottage cheese, whatever. If I'm going to have a negative reaction on the carnivore, it's because of that. So I always know, don't put that in there at all. Don't set yourself up for failure because I frequently do this because of it. So that's my advice. Do it, but don't do it. Don't put dairy in there and then

Larry: 1:00:39

decide. Yeah me too. Cutting dairy out when I went lion, cause that's the big thing that was changed. Dairy and alcohol, when they got cut out, I lost 13 pounds in three weeks, additional to what I had lost already. I'm now at 234 pounds. I started at 280, and I'm back to my college. I'm wearing 30 size 36 jeans waist and I was at a 42 so that'll say and it was a 42 tight is what I like to call it because the button was getting pulled, and now I'm like A 36 loose where I could not be a 35.

Katerina: 1:01:09

36 because sometimes like I wear a certain brand of jeans and they're in the numbers. Like men's are, I wear 36s or I used to. And I, this pair right here is a 31 and they're actually huge on me now. And I actually have a pair of 29 that I can fit in that are nice. Now do I have loose skin? Yes. Do I have things that I have to tuck in? I still do. But I didn't come into this

Larry: 1:01:33

just for life, right? And then you started a YouTube channel, so it's meat fueled living. And why don't you tell us a little about that? What you're, why you started it and what it's all about.

Katerina: 1:01:46

I started meat fuel living because when I started looking for things, I saw a lot of young. People out there. I saw a lot of skinny people out there. I saw the medical professionals and they were all talking and they were all great. None of them. They're all wonderful. I watched them all, but I didn't see anybody or at least not very many people like me. I'm 50. I'll be 51 this year. I had all of these certain health conditions and I didn't much. See a whole lot of me out there. And I know that there's a lot of me's out there, a lot of female veterans, that type of stuff. So I thought, let me start this channel. First off, this is going to hold me accountable because I didn't have anybody to support me. And again, it's not that I'm. Complaining about my family because they're all amazing people, but they were not on board with this. And so this became my accountability. Number one. And number two, I wanted to put this out there. I wanted other people to see this is what happens when you're over 50. You have all of these health conditions and you start to carnivore diet. And I thought that my story might help somebody and that they might be able, to see realistically. I even. And I can tell you, I'm a vain person. I never take pictures, below my, whatever. And I literally try to, make myself look every angle, even my YouTube, I get my best side or whatever, because I'm, self conscious of what I look like, but I was getting in my sports bra and biker shorts and I was putting it all out there. Because, and I still do, though I haven't done any recently, but because somebody out there needs to see this, somebody is going through what I'm going through and they're going to benefit from this. I never intended to become YouTube famous. I certainly, it's not my full time job. I have a full time job and I just want to help people. I want somebody to feel as good as I felt and that, that's my goal.

Larry: 1:03:45

Yeah, me too. And mine's mission Carter where this podcast we're doing just to reach out to more veterans and first responders because there's so much power in this, that it's the first actual tool I feel I had in the tool bag that actually works whether, before when I would just basically send out a Facebook post or something, Hey, if you need someone to talk to, give me a call during Christmas or. Veterans day or Memorial day. And it's just kind of like, did it work? Did they see it, and you don't know, but this, you have something like, Hey, you want to fix yourself? You don't have to go to a doctor. You can just try it yourself at home.

Katerina: 1:04:20

I've had a couple people tell me that I was an inspiration to them and that I was brave. And I say that all the time. To me, it's amazing that anybody's even interested in anything that I have to say, but to people to tell me that kind of stuff, like to be supportive and yeah, I have my negative naysayers out there. I do. But even if I never get another follower or, I never make a dime off of YouTube or whatever, as long as I get. Every now and again, you're an inspiration. Thank you. I appreciate, something I know that I'm making a difference. And if I can make a difference in one person's life, one of my brothers and sisters, then I'm here for it. That's what I'm here for.

Larry: 1:05:01

You're an inspiration to me and a battle buddy. So same.

Katerina: 1:05:05

Absolutely. You have been wonderful team.

Larry: 1:05:07

Alright, I'm gonna drop you out and say goodbye to stick around for a minute. We'll talk for a few before. Alright guys, so that was a great talk with an excellent carnivore. She's a former sergeant in the US Army and now she's a dedicated carnivore. Changed her life, changed her physical health, her mental health, and you can do the same. So definitely if you're a veteran, a first responder, check out this diet. Dig in, do research, don't take our word for it, look for other people, look for Dr. Chafee, look for all the doctors out there, Dr. Kiltz, Dr. Berry. But there are plenty of veterans out here too, listen to other shows I have on this channel. I have plenty of other interviews with veterans who has completely changed their lives. So it's not just me, it's not just Katerina, it's a lot of us. And anyway, all I got to say is stay strong and overcome carnivore soldier out.