A US Army Infantry Soldier Heals Back Pain and Completes First Marathon After 8 Months of a Carnivore Diet

Mission Carnivore Episode 11: Join me as I interview a former US Army 11B and find out how he lost weight, healed his back pain, and began running again, successfully completing his first marathon after only 8 months on the crnivore diet and training for just two months.

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 and am now down from 280lbs to 232lbs with lean muscle. 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 got another episode of Mission Carnivore. In this one, we have Stephen James, former army infantry guy who served actually joined right before 9 11 and then got activated and went active duty. Anyway, he's recovered a lot of his physical ailments through the carnivore diet and actually started running and Actually ran his first marathon six months. I think after starting the carnivore So we'll talk about that and he's also going to be starting youtube channels. We'll talk about that too All right. So let me bring him in and let him introduce himself and we'll get to know steven. Hey steven

James: 0:39

How's it going, man? You're live Good. How are you?

Larry: 0:43

Good. So Steve, why don't you just tell us about yourself a little bit like where you're from, where you grew up, what you do, what you did in the army, that kind of stuff, your service. I

James: 0:54

grew up in New York state, upstate New York right up there around the, along the Mohawk river, essentially grew up mostly as a normal kid. I love doing sports. I was really big into running in high school, track, cross country all that, those sports really broke me out of my shell cause I was a shy kid, but when I got into running, I became like a completely different person, a lot of people would

Larry: 1:16

say. I was a runner too. I ran my mile and two mile. I used to run a lot of distance and my son actually runs cross country and mile and two mile and 8 8 80, which I ran to 8 82, which I hated. That was, that's gotta be the hardest race because it's not a sprint, but it's not distance. So you just gotta be fast for two quarters. It's tough. Oh

James: 1:35

the 800 meter,

Larry: 1:36

800 meter. We did eight 80 back in the eighties. I was in, I ran in the eighties, so it was yards. But yeah, 800 meter. That's a tough race.

James: 1:43

Yeah, that was my, my, that was my specialty race. That was what I did best in.

Larry: 1:48

Yeah. That's what my son does too. He runs the 800 and he runs cross country and then the mile and two mile too. So, you enlisted, you said, it looks like a service you enlisted in like 99

James: 2:00

or 2000, right out of high school. I graduated year 2000, but I had talked to the recruiter. Before I even graduated high school and my friend coached me into doing it. He was like, yeah, I talked to this guy. And next thing you know, I'm signed up with the army or national guards, army, national guard.

Larry: 2:18

So were you one of those guys that you don't think you were ready for college? Cause I know I wasn't, I went in right out of high school too.

James: 2:25

Yeah. I didn't think I was ready either. Yeah. Something like that. I just, I was already looking because I was actually, it looks funny enough, I was looking at joining the Navy when my friend talked me into joining the Army National Guard instead.

Larry: 2:38

Yeah, I actually started in the Navy. I joined the Navy in 1984 and went on nuclear submarines, fast tech submarines, and I was a nuke. I ran the nuclear power plant. So that was my background. I was an engineer and I did six years in the Navy. All the way up to the gulf war and we were in an arctic expedition boat. So we did with all spec after special operations, we were going against the soviets because the burning wall didn't fall till 89. The soviet union was still a threat, especially, 84 to 88. It was really high speed stuff. So we did the high speed, low drag missions. It was pretty cool. And then when when the planes hit the buildings, I never planned to go back in the military, but when nine 11 happened, it changed everything. And when the war broke out, but no three, I went back in. So

James: 3:25

go ahead. Yeah. So I'll try to fast forward ahead a little bit here. I went to basic training for Benning, Georgia, the fun time. Fast. Yeah. 11 Bravo. Yep. I think I was told I was one of the last, one of the last rotations through that had the hard basic training before they like started making it a lot easier for everybody. I had the 50 mile road march and all that fun stuff to

Larry: 3:48

do in it. Wait, you didn't have a stress card that you could pull out and

James: 3:51

no. I had no stress card We got smoke. We get smoked for hours sometimes. Right. No reason at all. I don't know. You remember the front back goes? Oh,

Larry: 4:01

yeah. Oh, yeah.

James: 4:03

And I think that destroyed my wrist, but luckily Carnivore resolved that.

Larry: 4:08

Oh, just being in the sand pits, man. Doing the freaking mountain climbers in sand pits. I remember doing that forever. Yeah. Oh, my God. That's terrible. But, you know.

James: 4:17

Yeah. Finished that. No problem. Got home. Actually, I should say, I went into basic training. Like 130 pounds, I came out 180 pounds, put on a ton of muscle weight but then fast forward further, 9 11 happened. My unit got spun up and, Hey, you're going to Iraq. Yeah, no, no, no. It's just a, first we went and we went down and supported in New York City. We'd like to Took up like guard

4:43

posts

Larry: 4:44

and stuff. The airports and all that. I remember when, yeah, around the

James: 4:47

airports, subways and whatnot. We did that for a little while. And then we're said, Oh, now we're going to Iraq. And we went up to four drum in the middle of winter, did our train up to go over the desert. Yeah. So that was great. But while we were there, we basically, my, I don't know what the reason was it for, but for some reason they graded our performance and my company in particular did. Much better than the rest of the companies in our battalion, our National Guard Battalion, which is why we got separated from our National Guard unit, and we were attached to the Big Red One, our 1st Infantry Division. And that put us in a different place when we went to Iraq than the rest of our Guard unit. We went up to Samara, while the rest of our unit was down near Baghdad.

Larry: 5:34

Okay. And then how long

James: 5:36

did you serve? I did eight years in total. Six active, two

Larry: 5:41

inactive. Okay. And and then when you got out I'm sure you had the litany of things that we all get, the PTSD, the injuries, the, or all the things start piling

James: 5:51

up, right? Yeah, for me, I, we saw a lot of nasty stuff while I was over there. When I was over there, it was like just after, I think Saddam was saying it. I think that's the one had just been found in his whole hiding captured. So it was pretty pretty rough in a lot of areas over there. When I was over there, we had a lot of casualties. We unfortunately even had a few deaths in my, in my company. One of the guys, unfortunately a really good friend of mine. But yeah, when I got back, I can't say PTSD really hit me. Too hard. It hit a lot of my friends hard, unfortunately, because I knew some guys that actually committed suicide, unfortunately but that was never something that really affected me though. Talking about it gives me a little jittery. So if I'm shaking a little bit, cause yeah it's there.

Larry: 6:42

Yeah, and I think it manifests different for each person, but it's there for anyone that's experienced stuff like that. And I talk about the reason I started this channel is, I've lost more people. I know I wouldn't say they're all friends, but people I associated with through suicide and combat in my career, and I did for years. And, it's just a fact. I think anyone has done a long time in pretty common nowadays. Unless you were like some frontline infantry Ranger, company got caught up, but in the rest of the army, it's pretty normal. So you get out and then what'd you do when you got out? You went to school or started? Yeah,

James: 7:17

First of all, I went back, I got back to work. I just picked up a job at a Walmart distribution center. Local one that's around where I live, just to pay, help pay the bills and transition out of the military. I was still doing guard a little bit, but I didn't stay, I was at the end, near the end of my guard tour by the time I got out of Iraq. So I think I only stayed in a couple more years. And then I was doing the EMACs but from there, yeah, I basically was just on my own. I rented a room from one of my friend's houses for a while, living pretty much primarily on the SNAD diet for the longest time during that whole time. Didn't really have any issues back then. Then I started school shortly after that. I got my bachelor's degree in computer science. And then I got a job working for the state as a software programmer, I maintained all the software for deployment of motor vehicles in the state of New York. The software that's used when you go into the office, not any of the web applications, this is the stuff that you go up, you talk to a person, that person is using software that's, registering your car or giving you your license or

Larry: 8:24

whatnot. So you do all the backend stuff. For the the guys that are working or the front end for them, but back in for civilians. Yeah. Yeah.

James: 8:32

Yep. Yeah. And,

Larry: 8:33

so I actually worked in, law enforcement for five years. And I stood up a 911 call center. So I'm a Linux sysadmin and Unix sysadmin. I can do some coding, but I'm not like you. I just, did some JavaScript stuff and, you know, basic stuff, okay, so you do that and then what's happening to your body? Are you getting further outta shape? Are you exercising? Are you,

James: 8:55

yeah, I mean I think it came on fairly gradual for a while for me, like me and my brothers, we all had say like almost like good genes for staying fit and thin. And it took, it didn't, I didn't really start. Getting that metabolism slowdown that everyone seems to get until I'll basically turn 40. Okay, but basically from 30 to 40, it was like a Very gradual thing for me. But by the time I was in my mid to late thirties, my back pain was the biggest thing for me. I w I still really wasn't overweight. I don't even think at my worst, I was that heavy most I'm 60 tall. And the most I got up to was 217 pounds.

Larry: 9:36

Yeah, it wasn't too much, but you had inflammation. That's what your problem was. Yeah,

James: 9:41

I had a lot of inflammation in my back and I was basically living like almost every day with pain in my shoulders. It felt like I was walking around with two knives stuck in my shoulder blades at all times, most of the time. Yep, and sleeping was really rough. I could only sleep five hours a night, most nights, because my back would hurt too bad after a while from laying in the bed.

Larry: 10:07

Yeah, I know. My back would be the same way. And in fact, since I'm an I. T. Guy, I would switch and use my mouse left handed and left my arm rest to get my back to rest because my right would start hurting so much. So I would switch hands and I got good at using my mouse left handed too. So I can use my I'm ambidextrous with the mouse. Yeah, it's same kind of thing at that back pain is just persistent and it's cruel man. It changes your, your attitude. Like I would be, I would get, I would just not be a happy person because my back would be hurting all the time and I would just, it changes everything. It really does. The quality of life is

James: 10:41

amazing. For the longest time I thought it was my chairs that were causing me, because around that time it was the whole, the virus we won't mention came up and I was working from home a lot sitting in the chair and I thought my chair was causing me to just constant rise and back pain that was sitting so much. So I ended up spreading probably like two to three grand going through different chairs trying to find a chair that didn't hurt my back to avail. Nothing ever, fixed my back, at least from chairs. Anyways.

Larry: 11:11

Okay, and then so that was your reason for trying carnivore. But you said you were doing something else before you went carnivore, right? You were doing keto or something or?

James: 11:19

Oh, fasting. I started out with intermittent fasting, essentially. Okay. I stumbled upon this guy. I think his name is Dr. Sten Ekberg. I think he was really big into fast. He was a keto guy, but I didn't really, I don't even read it. I don't think I even registered that he was keto. He just talked about fasting. I was like, Oh, that sounds cool. I don't, I can try that. I just don't eat food for a couple of days and you lose weight. And it did work for me. I started eating healthier. I, it was those like salads with lots of meat and whatnot, but, rice and veggies and whatnot. Yeah. But I was still having donuts and other things like that. I'd run to a local gas station. I got my exercises that I buy some donuts and coffee but anyways the fasting so I would go I started out, I'd fast for a day I think I got up to about three days and I did that for about Three months before I found stumbled on a carnivore video. And I had lost about 30 pounds doing it. It worked well for me, just like just making my body start to burn its fat through not eating food and then despite it was tough though, because. When you're eating carbs, trying to fast, I'll tell you after being cardboard now for about a year and a half, it's so much easier fasting on carb than it's hundred percent the carbs.

Larry: 12:43

Yeah. You're just addicted and you're managing your addiction and then you're depriving your addiction and then you're refeeding it. It'd be like a, an alcoholic taking three days off drinking and then getting a bottle. You know? I mean, it's it's crazy, but that's what it is. And it is an addiction and it's pretty serious. We were just talking about this yesterday. that this is the superior and the easiest diet you can do because you don't manage that addiction. You get rid of it and that's the only way to do it. Even keto is you're still managing, you're still feeding that addiction, even if it's 20 grams of carbs or 40 grams of carbs, doesn't matter. If you're addicted. So, yeah, I agree. This is way easier.

James: 13:19

So, I got about three months in, doing the fasting. I was like, oh cool, I'm losing weight. But, at that same point, my back pain was going up and up and up. I think it was adding all those extra vegetables was like, just bringing my back pain up more and more and more. So, I was like, what's going on? It's great that I'm losing weight, but I'm in so much pain. I don't even care. Yeah. So this one time I somehow a carnivore video came into my feed on YouTube. And I was like, it was like something like what would happen if you ate nothing but hamburgers for a month? And I was like, okay, let's see what happens. And basically The guy, it was this Dr. Stenekberg guy, and he does these experiments on himself

Larry: 13:58

essentially. Oh yeah, I know that guy. I know who you're talking about. Yeah, I've seen the one where he ate just eggs

James: 14:04

every day. Yeah, he does eggs and all those things. He does like bacon too. I know who you're talking about now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So basically He takes his blood work before, and then blood work after. And basically all of the health workers got better doing meat only. I was like, yeah, okay. And I love meat. I've always loved meat. So I was like, sounds good to me. It wasn't even a hard choice for me. I was like, I'll try this. So I started August, 2022, late August,

Larry: 14:30

and what was carnivore for you when you started? You said meat only, but I mean, what, what did you actually eat? What did you avoid? How'd you do, how'd you start out with carnivore

James: 14:38

and how was mostly probably hamburger. It was probably mostly the BB and E beef butter, bacon and eggs for the most part. Okay. With some steaks, excuse me.

Larry: 14:51

Yeah. I love all the steaks, but I don't eat them very often. I usually eat ground beef

James: 14:54

way more. Yeah. I eat a lot of ground beef. Like these days I go to the butcher. I can buy 10 pound bags of beef. I have burger molds that I can mold out two pounds of burgers and half pound patties each. And I just put them in the freezer. I have 20, I make 20 patties per week, essentially. And that's what I can eat.

Larry: 15:13

I've just started eating more eggs because I've been reading about well, it will egg yolks are, they have a lot of the same nutrients that your organs do, and I don't like eating the organ meat at all. And then the other thing is if you eat a full egg, the whites and the yolks, and you get the pasture raised one, it actually raises your testosterone. Oh, if you eat it in the evening. So I've started eating like four, four to six eggs an evening. Yeah, I pretty

James: 15:36

much have four to six eggs every single day. There you go.

Larry: 15:40

Yeah, you're doing it.

James: 15:41

I run in a running club. So on Saturday mornings, I will have the rest of my people in my club are having their waffles and pancakes. I order eight eggs and two sides of bacon Nice, but yeah, they must give you some looks, huh? Yeah, everyone's used to it now. I'm trying to make it Like a signature meal there. I keep ordering it over and over. All the waitresses know my order. Now at this point, I don't even have to tell them what I'm going to get because it's the same thing every time. But yeah, going back to when I started carnivore. It was tough though, right in the beginning. Cause I started carnivore late August and then like second week of September, we had a previously planned one week trip to Disney world. So that was rough trying to stay carnivore while I was down there. So I did find some restaurants that had some good steaks and I got so many weird looks going up to the, cafeterias. And when I was asking for Nothing but eggs and bacon. Cause that was the only thing I could get for breakfast. There was eggs and bacon and they're like, you don't want your, they thought I was weird, not the waffles and pancakes and all that other stuff. I was like, no, just eggs and bacon. I did do coffee still at that time. Yeah. That's one thing I had kept in for a while. I don't do coffee now, but I do. Do coffee for a while. I eventually, I just slowly weaned myself off of that. Essentially the coffee. I switched over to a decaf because I got tired of dealing with the caffeine headaches. Yeah. And then I did decaf for probably four, maybe four or five months. And eventually I just had no interest in coffee anymore. Just dropped it all together.

Larry: 17:19

Yeah, it's funny. We were talking about that too, how like addictions kind of just drop away. Not even addiction, just like even habits. Like I don't drink like I used to. I was talking to another soldier the other night and he quit smoking and he just ran out of cigarettes and didn't buy new ones and just like, I don't need them. It's weird. Like you just don't need them. Right. So same with me without bottles. Like I used to get a bottle every couple of weeks, and now I

James: 17:40

don't, yeah, I've never smoked, but I used to like drinking my mixed drinks a lot casually. I don't do that nearly as much now as I used to. I joined another runner group, actually, they call themselves the Beer Runners. So they'll do a run and then drink beers after. I was doing that for a little while, but eventually I was like, no, I just don't feel good doing this. I still was like, I'll come join you for the run. And Neil socialize while you guys can drink your beers. I'll just chill.

Larry: 18:08

Just drink some sparkling water so you can have something in your hand. So you started this carnivore and then after a certain amount of months, you started feeling better. The pain went away, right? And then what happened after that? Like, how long did it take for your body to start where you noticed your pain started changing?

James: 18:25

Oh, my back pain was gone within like a month. It was just gone. It was funny. I was like, okay. This is working. It was rough too. I realized I was addicted to sugar bad. That was rough. And then I did have the whole loose school that switchover process for a while. That took, I think my intestines were a little more messed up than I thought even. Yeah, you probably

Larry: 18:50

had a leaky gut for that. And now it's healed up and operating properly on a good, healthy biome. That's meant to be. What about you're running, started running again after

James: 19:01

that? Yeah, surely about six months, but for that, yeah. The back pain went away. Then as I was saying, I used to not be able to do push ups because my wrists were so messed up from all that basic training, front, back, go stuff. I think in the month of November, one of those 3, 000 push up, whatever, November challenges or something. I did 3, 000 push ups through the month and it was like easiest thing I ever did. 100 push ups a day, 30 days, it was like no problem. Okay, Carnivore is doing something for me here.

Larry: 19:31

Yeah, I healed up. I healed up so many things. Some things won't because there's damaged tissue, but in the areas where everything's intact, the arthritis has gone. The strength is back. Mobility is back. All that stuff. I

James: 19:46

had some of the, I had a little bit of the arthritis stuff and probably some of my joints. I definitely had some of that. I had one issue with my right arm where if I held it up or it would go completely numb and I also had an issue where like I couldn't sleep on my right side at night. I'm generally a side sleeper and I couldn't sleep on my right side for probably three years and I had gone to the doctor's to see hey, I got this thing in my arm I don't know what to do about it. Can you help me? All he basically is like unless your arm goes completely numb. There's nothing we can really do okay But that resolved itself within probably two three months of carnivore So now I can sleep on my right side again Actually, I'll look at my wife once in a while, if I want to, while she's sleeping on the other side of the bed. I had some bowel bleeding that, before carnivore, that went away on the carnivore. I actually did some experimenting with trying to bring things in here and there. I found out it's basically, I think, oats that causes the bowel bleeding. If I eat any oats, I immediately start having blood in my stool. Wow,

Larry: 20:50

that's pretty

James: 20:51

amazing. So I don't I, so I pretty much have to avoid anything that's oats related. What about allergies? I didn't have any food allergies that I knew of. Um, or like

Larry: 21:02

allergies to trees or ragweed or anything like that. You didn't have any issues like that because I used to have terrible allergies and they cleared up

James: 21:07

completely. Yeah, I don't think I had any allergies though. I used to get colds much worse than I do now. Now, if I get a cold or something, it's more of it just feels like a. Like a nuisance in the background, then you're full blown sick and out of it.

Larry: 21:23

Yeah, my colds when i've been sick, they've been shorter for sure much shorter. In fact Sometimes I think I just feel off for a day and then i'm back to normal the next day I think that would have been a full blown sickness if I had not been carnivore I think some of those might have been just like Because your immune system runs at full optimal power when you're on carnivore. So I think it really works well at fighting

James: 21:46

diseases. Definitely. Yeah. So I'll try to go forward. So after probably three, four months of. Carnivore. My body, I lost more weight. I think I got to some point where I was down about 40 pounds in total, including the fasting. And then I plateaued for a little while. I think it just, I don't know why. I was actually happy where I was at. And then all of a sudden one day, decided to drop another 20 pounds. I don't know. I think I hit an optimum nutrition level at some point, maybe. I don't know what it was. But I plateaued for a while and then suddenly out of nowhere, I dropped another 20 for it. So now I sit at usually mid 160s is where I sit all the time now. It's not changed from that in the past year. That's

Larry: 22:33

great for running. That's a perfect weight, man. You're not putting a lot of stress on and you can move quick. So, I think the body as it goes down and plateaus and goes down and plateaus, it's just like healing stuff up and it's prioritizing. And then it gets to, it does get to the optimum level and your diet changes too. Like how much food and when I eat, all that changes for me. I mean, it all changed. From when I started. Yeah.

James: 22:53

Yeah, I definitely eat it quite a bit. Say like I maintain my weight, but I usually, I'm probably normally consuming about 3000 plus calories a day most days and just how much I eat. And how old are you? Uh, 42. Oh

Larry: 23:09

yeah. You're pretty young still. I was, shoot, when I went to Warrant Officer Candidate School, I was 45 and I was still eating standard American diet, although I did keto to get ready for that. And that helped a lot with the energy and the ability and losing weight, but I never had the healing. I was always in pain and, I can't imagine what it'd been like to have been carnivore in the military. It would have been great. Yeah,

James: 23:31

I think that all the time. I was like, I wish I could go back in time to meet my teenager self and kick myself right in the butt and say, you need to do just eat meat. Don't do anything

Larry: 23:40

else. Yeah, exactly. My son did it for the summer and then he ran the cross country fall, a cross country season. And every race was a PR and he went from being like, I don't know, one of the slower guys. To the fifth fastest guy on the team and actually placed in a race and and knocked, two minutes off his two mile time. That's a lot, on a mile. Yeah, he

James: 24:05

said he just doesn't

Larry: 24:06

get tired. He just like runs and just, and now he's even faster. Now he's he made the track team and we'll see how he does. But he's actually dropped off the carnivore wagon though, cause he lives with his mom, we're divorced. And so now he's eating more of a standard American diet when he's with his mom and with me, I give him, I let him do some keto. It's keto vore, no, no seed oils, no sugar, but he can eat. Like some so the primal catch up and I give him some stuff like that. I'm not,

James: 24:35

I have a son too. My son's eight years old at the moment. Oh that's great. He, and he's really big into running like me. He's like top three, usually in most races for his age group. He's really good. He tried to do carnivore like me for a while, but. Like you, my wife has no interest in carnivore

Larry: 24:53

whatsoever. It's hard when they go to parties to like pizza parties, everyone has pizza parties, right? And then the birthday parties, cupcakes and all that, and they bring them to school. So they're always loaded with sugar, which, you don't want to be antisocial and it's pretty social food, in America, food is very social.

James: 25:08

So one funny thing, like just mentioning pizza, I used to think I could live on pizza for the rest of my life. Yeah, people love pizza. I haven't eaten a pizza since I went carnivore. Me neither. But I used to eat probably probably, I used to buy the frozen Red Baron pizzas. Yeah. I'd eat like sometimes four a week. One of the

Larry: 25:26

worst things you could ever eat too, for your body. I would, you should go look at the ingredients and see what's in those things. I used to eat them too. And those Tonito's pizza rolls, a little piece. Oh, my gosh. I need those for football. Those got to be the worst food you can eat.

James: 25:40

Got to be. Yeah. I was like, I was, I used to brag. I was like, oh yeah, I could stay thin and eat these like 1700 calorie pizzas. No problem. Eventually it caught up with me. Probably.

Larry: 25:52

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My, body started changing my forties. And you're lucky you don't have to go through this, but it stopped responding to the exercise like it used to because I knew what my body responded. Like I did through my whole life. And then in my 50s, it just didn't respond. It was like, man, when I hit 51 52, it's just, it was a brick wall, man. I'd work out and nothing seemed to change. And then I just, yeah, until I went carnivore, which that was last year. So I went carnivore when I was 56. yeah, 56. And now I'm 57. I'll be 58 in May. And my one year car anniversary is March 22nd. So right before my birthday, I'll be there you go.

James: 26:32

I remember you saying you're coming up on it. Yeah. Get into Yeah, so when I got about six months in the carnivore, one day I just felt like, I think I can run again. I just, like a feeling came over me. I was like, I think I can try running now. Because I had tried running over the previous 20 years because I hadn't been, I hadn't done really much running at all since high school. And I had tried several times over the years to get back into running, but always something I'd have a foot issue would come up or I'd have, or in my 30s, it was a lot of, mostly back pain that would bother me. I couldn't run. it felt like my back was falling apart while I was trying to run. But yeah, after six months, I was like, I think I can run. So I went and found a local running group, joined them and just went out and started running and and I was doing well. I started to get back in the swing of things pretty quick, much faster than I thought I would anyways within. Two months of starting to run. I signed up for a marathon, ran the marathon, completed the marathon. Wow. It wasn't the fastest marathon. I did it in five hours, but you still

Larry: 27:37

finished though. That's great. But I still finished it. You never done one before, right?

James: 27:41

And I had never done one in my life. I didn't even, I didn't even do a half marathon. The biggest race I've done was a 15 K, which is a 9. 3 miles. That was the longest race I've

Larry: 27:50

ever done. I ran a half marathon when I was training for Warrant Officer Candidate School. I did run a half marathon. And that's when, I was still, I was in my early forties.

James: 27:59

Yeah, that's a tough, it was definitely tough. I hit the walls that people talk about. We're running marathons. My legs definitely got tired, but I managed to pull myself through it and finish then I, kept on running after that I did a trail marathon in August. Not long after that. And then I ran another marathon. So I've done three marathons so far since I've been in carnivore. Just, I should say, just since I started running marathons in general I actually have another marathon coming up in less than a month. Now I'll be going down to Pennsylvania to run a marathon. That's cool. I'm expecting to run it in probably. I'm trying to, I'm going to be going for qualifying for Boston Marathon, and I think I have a really good chance of actually running a three hour, 15 minute and qualifying for Boston, I think. So I'm going to be shooting for that.

Larry: 28:47

So now that you're full carnivore and you've been doing these marathons and training for them, do you hit the wall still? Or do you

James: 28:53

just cruise? No, not so much. No. I did hit a bit of a wall on my third one because I ran it and I didn't realize I had COVID when I was running it, it depleted, I felt great. It was the funniest thing. I felt great until I didn't. I actually, I should say, I actually ended up collapsing and passing out because of dehydration just because of the COVID leading my water faster than I could drink it and I drank water throughout the whole marathon. I passed out a half a mile short of the finish. It was rough. Didn't deter me though.

Larry: 29:27

Uh, do you follow any of Tim Noakes stuff? The runner's lower, okay.

James: 29:33

Yeah I definitely I've watched a lot of Tim Noakes stuff definitely low carb. I'm experimenting more now lately with going into a long run fasted. Yeah. So like this marathon coming up, I'm gonna probably stop eating food. I'll probably have my last meal Friday night, and then I run the marathon on Sunday, so I'll be about a day and a half fasted. That way I know my body's gonna be running completely off its fast doors. He's

Larry: 29:59

big. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. I was watching a video where he's talking about that fast state running. Yeah. And I do my workouts in the gym fast and I never get tired. I just ran out of time. It's I'm looking at the lock. I go to

James: 30:13

work, yeah. I've started experimenting with that already. Cause I've been training up for this marathon. I've done a number of 20 plus mile runs over the past couple of months and I've run them faster than I feel best when I run them fasted. Yeah. Like I'm doing an 18 mile run tomorrow morning and I'll be and I've been fast and I'm in a fasted state right now. I haven't eaten anything in over 24 hours right now.

Larry: 30:37

Let me ask you about your mental health. What mental health things have you seen or changed that you've experienced or recognized

James: 30:45

through your yeah, like I said earlier, I don't. Think I've had any, I don't think I really had any issues with ptsd, TSD per se, not that like shows, unless I really start talking about my experiences over there. Yeah, I don't think it really came up. I was always very, you know, pretty, levelheaded or, I don't know how to describe it. Just I've never had depression. I don't, I find it hard sometimes to understand it just because I've never had it. Yeah. I mean, I wish I could just so I could empathize with people a little better. I just don't know what it means. I've never really had that depression.

Larry: 31:19

What about it? What about mental clarity anxiety,

James: 31:24

motivation, clarity, yeah, mental clarity, definitely improved. And just being alert and more aware, especially after I got off the coffee and not needing the coffee anymore. I, when I wake up in the morning, I'm ready to go. Like I don't need anything. I'm ready to go right out the door. Oftentimes I'm up at four 40 in the morning to go do my. Four plus mile run.

Larry: 31:45

Yeah, for me, I my mental clarity, but also like my motivation level and my confidence level went up. A couple of things changed. My confidence level, just because I lost weight, I felt young again. So I was more confident in everything I did because I just felt like I was more capable. So that, I would say that's mental, it's not, that's mental health changes. Also, I definitely have more,

James: 32:09

honestly, I definitely have more confidence to just, I remember that when I was at 217 pounds, I didn't really show the weight that well, but I was definitely, Always walking around with my gut sucked in, trying not to have that, like you have my shirt popping out a little bit, the little got showing just now, to wear shirts and just the completely flat shirt drop. It just definitely boosts your confidence as a guy, I think.

Larry: 32:34

Yeah. Oh yeah. And then there's a couple of things too, that I was re I was reading some research on fasting and this is a fasting mimicking diet, right? Carnivore, put your body in a fasted state. Although not fully fasted, like when you fully fast like you're doing now, you're really going into fasted state and that changes some chemistry, but being in a fasted state mentally, the addictions drop away the ability to, and they used to treat in the 1930s. They used to, in the 20s and 30s, they used to treat alcoholism and opiate addiction with fasting because they knew it helped people drop, drop those addictions, and I think that's something.

James: 33:14

Yeah, I was, yeah, definitely. I think I, when I dropped my coffee, caffeine addiction, that went away real easy because I was still doing a lot of the fasting at that point, and it just felt so easy to get off the caffeine when I was fasting.

Larry: 33:27

And you probably weren't even looking to quit that, right? It's not like you were like, oh, I got to quit this. I'm sure.

James: 33:32

Yeah, mostly I didn't like drinking coffee just because I like to taste the coffee for the most part, but I hated dealing with the caffeine headaches because it's like, it almost demanded you to keep drinking it, but I didn't want to always keep drinking it because of the stupid head because of the headache. I wanted to I just wish I could drink coffee. And not have the caffeine addition. That's why I went to the decaffeinated for a while But eventually I think I just lost interest in altogether in coffee.

Larry: 34:00

Yeah, and it's expensive too. It's not cheap habit It's really not.

James: 34:03

When you start definitely over a year I used to stop at the shop on the way to work every day and buy like a 2 coffee. It's like 14 bucks a week and it adds up after a while.

Larry: 34:16

Heck yeah, it does. And then the coffee you buy at home, cause you probably had to have some at home or do you just buy it on the road?

James: 34:21

I pretty much only drank coffee when I went to, went into work. I didn't drink several cups a day, but that's probably why. I got annoyed with dealing with headaches all the time. Yeah caffeine because that's one thing that I should say I should mention that to you actually In terms of mental clarity. I used to get headaches and migraines all the time me too. Before part of work and then because I was I would pop I popped ibuprofen like candy for both my headaches and for my back pain, even though it didn't really do much for the back pain, but I did it for the headaches. I was taking the max dosage of ibuprofen you can take a day, a lot of days. And that stuff's not very good for you. From what I've seen some studies and people talking about that. I haven't had a single ibuprofen since I went carnivore. I don't get headaches anymore. Unless I'm experimenting with something I shouldn't. Now I like it. If I have a little sugar and my body, I have too much, I'll get a little slight, like slight nuisance headache in the back of my head saying, Hey, you should stop eating that.

Larry: 35:22

Yeah, your body really tells you. I think it's so sensitive because when it runs clean for a while, it just shows how bad this poison is. And we've just basically, our body was so jacked up that you could, you didn't really notice it, but it was always there. And. Yeah, it's just, it's amazing. I was so sad that we were lied to and they came up with these. Crazy dietary guidelines and what's safe and what's good to eat and I thought I was eating healthy. I'm sure yeah I was

James: 35:49

not when you were mad, but I was pretty mad when I found out like I was like I wish that why didn't I know about this sooner? I was too mad that I can just resolve my back pain So easy because actually it was one thing I should mention Like I had been going to my chiropractor to help with the back pain. It didn't really help the back pain, but It helped for like a day right after you did the whatever this massage and Adjustment cracked all your bones when I'd feel slightly better and then it'd be come back the next day But you would tell me I had a lot of inflammation in my vertebrae. Really? Yeah He said that's why I was having the pinched nerves. It was swelling up my vertebrae around the back of my neck and spine so I went back and actually saw him probably 10 months after being carnivore, and he said all the inflammation in my back was gone that he had previously seen. And he could tell

Larry: 36:38

by feeling it? Or did

James: 36:39

he like Yeah, apparently he could tell it by just feeling it. Wow. So I was like really surprised. He was actually really excited because he was telling me. that he does a low carb. He doesn't do like carnivore, but he does like a low carb diet and he was saying low carbs really good for you, but he, I guess I was like, wishing he didn't mention that to me before I would have tried it, but I guess he, he doesn't like most people aren't very receptive to trying stuff like that. So he doesn't talk about like diet as a way of getting rid of your back pain. Cause I said, I want carnivore. My back pain went away. And he's like, Yeah, I can feel it literally in your back. But

Larry: 37:19

you're right. Most people don't want to talk about that. Or if they do, they're just they want to justify their diet or, defend what they think. Even though it's not scientifically, it's proven it's not. But it's crazy. I talk about that. I'm a single guy. So when I go on dates, I always run into the three hills people will defend to the death and this religion, politics and diet. Those are the three. And if you vary on those. You're probably not going to be a good match because that's foundational stuff.

James: 37:46

Yeah, I've tried to convince some of my family to do it, but none of my family they're like at this point They're like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we see he's doing great things for you, but it's not for us like it But it is for you. It should be for you my dad's I

Larry: 38:01

mean my sister and my brother are doing it. My dad's the same way. He didn't want to hear about it. And then he watched that video With Chris Kenobi on seed oils and sugar and cancer and all the diseases of the West, right? The modern diseases. And then he calls me and he's like, yeah, that guy had some good points. And he goes, I got to watch that again. And I'm like, okay, good deal, dad. He finally looked at it and then he wouldn't look at it for the longest time. And then he's like, but I'm still going to eat my Hellermann's main mayonnaise. And I say, well, dad, that's okay. But at least now it's informed consent before you thought that was healthy. And I did too. And now, you know, it's not so, you know, I'm good with that.

James: 38:40

Yeah. Yeah. When I first started, I had to listen to my family tell about how, they're like, I can't, they would avoid all fats because they thought the fat was like, what's clogging their arteries. Yeah. Unfortunately my mom thinks eating fat clogging their arteries, but the sugar is okay for some reason. I was like, no mom, the sugar is what's clogging stents?

Larry: 38:59

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny cause no one. Talk to you about your diet when you're eating pizza, right? They're like, Oh, he just, he's just eating Oreos. He's just eating ice cream, whatever. And it's like,

James: 39:10

okay, no big deal. Yeah. Now I'm the weird one. You know, I'm in the shape of my life. Pretty soon probably be qualifying for a Boston marathon.

Larry: 39:21

Yeah, that's amazing. I'd love to, Hey man, I hope you do qualify. And then maybe we can get back after your marathon. You can tell us about how it went. That'd be fantastic. So, tell me about your sleep quality. As you said, you couldn't sleep on one side before now you can obviously but

James: 39:36

yeah, I can sleep both sides now either way on my back. The one thing I noticed is definitely clear is my think my nose is clear. I used to have trouble. I used to be a sleep with my and breathe through my mouth, which dries out your mouth and does a lot of bad things to your teeth. I think. Since I went carnivore, I have reduced swelling or congestion in my nose or something. So I can sleep and breathe through my nose all night now without issue. I don't, I'm pretty sure I don't snore anymore. I used to snore.

Larry: 40:03

Yeah, I think that's part of the allergies that that I used to have. They're gone. I can actually breathe through both my nostrils for a deck for two decades. I couldn't breathe through one nostril and I used to go to doctors and say, go in a hot shower and do this and breathe five times and breathe five times and it never cleared. But on this diet,

James: 40:19

you know, clear your nose even faster you take an ice cold shower instead of a hot shower because that forces your, all of your, that's one thing I like to do too. I like to take ice cold showers and ice baths. I'm into that stuff too, but it forces all your veins to open up fully and blood flow goes everywhere. And especially in your nose, like I can take ice cold shower and everything just drains out of my nose. That's cool. But yeah, where were we? Sorry, sleep got off topic. It's alright. Oh yeah. Sleep. So yeah I can breathe through my nose, sleep. I can sleep. I don't generally sleep up to eight, 10 hours, but I can, if I wanna now it doesn't bother my back anymore to do that.

Larry: 40:56

How often, often do you typically sleep? Because I only sleep about six, six and a half now. And I, I feel like, yeah, I probably

James: 41:01

only sleep six to seven hours most nights. That's comfortable for me, but I can sleep more when I want to. Yeah, I

Larry: 41:09

feel I wake up like you. I'm sprung out of bed, like ready to for action. Let's go do something. It's

James: 41:14

crazy. Usually I have one long, I usually sleep like five hours, the solid where I'll go to bed. And I won't wake up until five hours later, and then I'll usually have a bathroom break at once during the night, and then after that it's usually I sleep a couple hours at a time, but it's still good sleep. I go right back to sleep, no problem. Unlike these days, I'd have trouble getting back to sleep or my back would be in too much pain to be hard to get back to sleep. I used to have issues with overheating the bed. I don't know if I got I would, I'd have to get up and literally get out of my bed and go sit in a chair somewhere for a little while, do something until the bed cooled down because I'm like a furnace apparently, but that's not much of an issue anymore. I haven't had that issue where I like overheat the bed and have to get out and let the bed cool off. Hey, how

Larry: 42:04

about sweating? Do you sweat as much as you used to? Cause I, my body temperature control is much better than it used to be. I used to sweat like a, at the drop of a hat. And now. I got to work out pretty hard to sweat.

James: 42:15

Yeah. I don't think I sweat as much. Right now I'm running in the winter, so I'm not sweating much at all right now. Yeah. I'll hit it cause I'm running out there and sometimes single digit weather. I think my sweating is definitely a little improved. It's definitely doesn't smell as bad. I know my body odor is much better than it used to be. Oh yeah,

Larry: 42:32

me too. That's cool. All right. Let's talk about your motivation. And this is not, well, it is kind of easy, but I mean, what, what's your motivation what is your why? Is it to keep running? Is it to be around for your kid longer?

James: 42:45

Definitely keep running also because I feel great. I have the, heart rate monitor on my watch and I have the, like the resting heart rate of a Olympic athlete now. It's like, yeah, but I'm not an Olympic athlete yet. I scared the doctors. It's like my heart rate, my heart rate is so low. I get down to like the low forties and actually one time last week, my watch thought I was throwing up emergency. I actually dipped down into the like upper thirties, just how relaxed I was or something, I guess, while I was at work. But yeah, it's just like to keep that like the good health. I had a CAC score done at some point and I was a zero, so I was happy about that considering all the pizzas I used to eat. And how long have you been part of it? Two

Larry: 43:33

years now, right? Is your second year?

James: 43:35

I'm going on to my second year. I'm working through my second year. I'm probably one, one year, seven months in approximately, something like that, probably around there. Of course, I have to stick to it. If I start, I've experimented, tried to eat other things outside, tried to bring things back in, and I just end up getting the back pain comes back if I try to add too much sugar back. Because I tried doing low carb ish for a little low carb experiment for a while, where I brought in things like raw dairy I was doing yogurt Stuff like that, but yeah, I can do some but if I start having it too much that brings in too much sugar And I started getting the back pain. It will come back. So I basically have to stay pretty low carb to no carbs Okay

Larry: 44:21

for the most part. What about cravings? Do you notice cravings come back when you add too much sugar to or no?

James: 44:26

I don't think I get too much of cravings. I'm one of the rare, I'm more of a moderator. I can have a sweet thing here and there if I want, and it doesn't bother me. I don't get cravings to eat more of it. I feel lucky in that because I can have some of that stuff with Geraldo. Sometimes I will do it when I shouldn't do it. And maybe that's a craving that I'm just not recognizing. I don't know. But right now I'm being extremely clean right now. Just baking beef, butter, bacon and eggs right now because I want to be optimal strength for that marathon that's coming up. But I will sometimes I dip towards like the keto board side. I have a little bit here and there to try to bring back mostly in terms of like spices and Low carb condiments about as far as I go. I was doing trying, I for a while, I tried like bringing, just to appease my mother-in-law. I tried eating broccoli and stuff for a little while. It didn't seem to bother me, but I didn't care to eat it. doesn't

Larry: 45:27

taste, it doesn't taste great. I wouldn't look forward to that. Yeah. I do some seasonings too sometimes and like I make stuff for my son. There's a pumpkin spice keto soup. That I make for him. And I have some of that. Sometimes it's got like sausage in it, but it's got seasonings in it. It's got like different things, yeah. And it tastes good. But I don't eat a lot of it. I just like to have a little bit. But again, my whole relationship with food's completely changed. It's not an entertainment anymore. It's more like a function. Yeah. Like you I'm going to the gym. I'm trying to get best results I can. So. I try to eat pretty clean.

James: 46:00

Yeah lately I think I'm basically through with my experimental phases now at this point. I've tried reintroducing a few things here and there that I could, just to see what would happen. But every time I do, I, I regress essentially. So I I know I gotta tell myself, I know 100 percent carnivore is the best. So I just gotta stick to that, essentially.

Larry: 46:20

Yeah, I think part of the carnivore journey is learning your body and how it responds, because everyone's in N equals 1, right? I mean, there's general rules, like, okay, we should all eat meat, we should not eat vegetables, but each person has a little bit different reactions based on where they're at. Like, you look at Michaela Peterson, I don't know if you know, Jordan Peterson, Michaela Peterson, she can't eat. I can eat, right? And you probably can too. So it's just each person is a little different.

James: 46:48

Yeah, I eat. Yeah. I generally, I think it's called what age? My I age my steaks usually before I cook them. Yeah. I'll take them outta the bag or freezer. I'll salt them. Yeah. On both sides. And then just let'em sit in the fridge for a couple days and they just soak up all that salt. They taste amazing once you cook them on the grill.

Larry: 47:08

Yeah, I agree. And what's your favorite steak? Is it ribeye?

James: 47:12

I honestly can't say that ribeye is my favorite. I like ribeye. If I go out and eat it, I think I just, I gotta get, I gotta get a hotter grill. I think, I don't think my grill is good for cooking ribeye. I like a really good sear. I actually really like sirloin, even though there's not as much fat. But I put tons of butter on it when I do have the sirloins. I like butter and I think you mentioned sour cream. Sometimes I'll do that too. Yep. I like sour cream a little bit with my eggs sometimes. It's

Larry: 47:40

a good condiment. Yeah, I do that. I do that. And then when I went now, have you ever done the frozen ribeye in an air fryer?

James: 47:48

No, actually, I got to get it. I got to get an air fryer. I don't, we had an air fryer, but it got recalled to like my wife got rid of it and took it back or something. So I don't got an air fryer right now. I got to get

Larry: 47:58

one that goes to 450 because that's the magic number. I think 400, you can do it at, but 450 is just superior. And my son loves nothing more than our ribeyes in the air fryer, 450 frozen, right? You freeze them and then you throw them in there after you salt them and the salt sticks to it, then you air fry it. And it takes about 20 something minutes, but I tell you the outside is so crispy. It's got that and then the ends are a little bit done. They're like kind of burnt ends. They're good though, but then when you get in the middle, it's all medium rare, right? So it's

James: 48:26

perfect. Yeah, but I know the I didn't mention sirloin, but the sirloins I get, I don't know, the farmer, I can, I go to a local farm. I've been getting the sirloins that they have these really big. Long strips of fat on them. They leave the fat right on the sirloins a lot of times So, I mean i'm definitely getting the long strips of fat I think

Larry: 48:45

they call it a fat cap when it's like on the outside like that. Yeah,

James: 48:48

you know,

Larry: 48:50

that's really good and All right. So i'll tell you what we're coming up on we're 55 minutes So what i'm going to do is i'm just going to give you the floor and if you were talking to other veterans like your buddies I don't know if you keep in touch with them or any veterans that might be watching this may be curious about carnivore what would you tell him or first responder? What would you tell him? What advice you give them if they wanted to start or if they want to check this thing out, would you tell him to be a carnivore and why?

James: 49:14

Yeah, yeah. I definitely reach out to any of them. Tell them, you know, especially some of them. I think I mentioned in some of your chats before, you know, I'm in a Facebook group With all my fellow soldiers that were in my company. Yeah and sometimes they do reach out for help when they're having some mental health issues. And I, we meet once a year for a big barbecue and I think this year when I go meet I am going to try to put the carnivore bug in some of their ears and be like, hey We're at this, we're at this barbecue. If you just ate the meat and not all the sides You'd be feeling much better. But yeah, I would tell them basically what it's done for me. Because I know a lot of them, a lot of my fellow soldiers aren't in shape anymore, unfortunately. They're I see they're not in the best of mental health occasionally. I just would like to see them get better and not have to reach out for help. Maybe they'd be the ones if they started it, that could be the ones helping other people, if they, cleared up their mental health issues.

Larry: 50:17

I think I say this a lot that you know, we, in this society, we are the warrior class, whether you're first responder or military. And we're taught to suck it up and drive on. So a lot of them suffer in silence. They don't want to complain. They don't want to go to doctor. They don't want to go, to a therapy for the, you know, an analyst or something. They just want to, they want to be better, but they don't want to take it to other people. And I think this is the one thing that you can do that doesn't cost money. You don't have to join a program. You don't have to tell people you're doing it. You can just do it at home and self manage and that's the magic for me. And for, I think for a lot of veterans is. Hey man, what do you got to lose, right? Where you're not like where you're at now, just change to meet for four weeks and see what happens. That's all you got to do.

James: 51:00

Yeah, just switch to me for, one month, try a good shot, you know, if you can 90 days, because I think a lot of the times 90 days, but even a month, I saw most of my, I saw a lot of results just in one month for me.

Larry: 51:16

I think in the first month I saw a lot of pain go away and I saw my mental clarity change and my confidence and I lost 26 pounds in the first month. I did, and that was, that's huge for mental, for I felt probably better. and then of course the ne think you have to go 100 carnivore. I really do ab and your body's like done you still may not be full your body's fully onto th new habits are being deve 30 days if you just do 30 days and be strict on it.

James: 51:50

I think you actually I actually had to drop eggs for a while. I think I had a issue with eggs for a little while So I dropped them for probably about three four months and then it was just doing meat and then eventually I reintroduced them And I was fine like a histamine Reaction. Yeah, maybe so I had to heal a bit more

Larry: 52:11

That, that happens. And I was watching Judy Cho and she does, she has an interesting channel because she, I don't know if you know who she is, but she's a daughter.

James: 52:18

I know her. I watch pretty much every carnivore.

Larry: 52:22

She does a lot of one off cases, right. Where people are like, I can't eat this. And then she does research and find out why this one person, she takes on patients and find out why they're having this. And then usually they get past it. If they've been on carnivore, they adjust their diet like you did, and then they come back. She's even said like the histamine reactions to. Chicken or pork can go away because that could be part of the carnivore transition. And then later you can bring back in. Although I really don't miss pork other than bacon. Yeah, I don't miss it at

James: 52:51

all. I don't do much pork other than bacon. I do love my bacon, but that's pretty much the only pork I eat. Occasionally I might have a sausage.

Larry: 53:03

I used to love a smoked pork chop. It was really juicy and it's smoked properly like in a restaurant and I haven't done my own, but I used to do pork chops too. And I haven't done those. When I was keto,

James: 53:12

I did them. Yeah. I was always before carnivore. I was always kind of like, other than bacon, I was always like anti pork because it had a lot of fat. Uh, I was a picky eater. I always avoided the fat before carnivore. Yeah. Now I'm just like, the fat just melts in your mouth. And I'm like, why did I avoid this?

Larry: 53:34

Now let's talk real quick about Your youtube channel that you're starting up or you haven't started yet, but you've got it reserved, right?

James: 53:40

Yeah, I kind of reserve the youtube channel at some point. I'd like to Just start up thing maybe talking about Myself and you know carnivore in terms of running. Especially lately i've been experimenting more with fasting and running i've also started dipping myself and my toes into something called dry fasting where you don't drink water or eat

Larry: 53:59

I've dry fasted before. Yeah, it's pretty amazing Like you're yeah,

James: 54:05

yeah. Yeah My one i'm i'm my body's running on metabolic water. I think that's what they call it. Yeah I did that today. I just got off of a 24 hour dry fast And I'm going to, I was sipping some water because I don't really want to do 18 miles dry pass it just yet. I'm working myself into that. But yeah,

Larry: 54:26

that's good stuff. So I think a channel like that would be very valuable because you can share your cold plunging, your cold shower techniques, all this, this is really important stuff for athletes. I have another I don't know if you saw another interview with Dave Saunier, who's he's a long distance bike bicyclist. So he does like a hundred mile rides all the time and stuff. And he's a lean mass, hyper responder. I S I suspect you probably are too. You probably, I don't know if you had it checked out, but

James: 54:52

we didn't talk about blood results. I, I did, I had my blood work done one year after carnivore and I was so ready to have that argument with my doctor about my cholesterol being high, but my cholesterol actually went down like 30 points.

Larry: 55:05

Okay. So you're not a mass hyper

James: 55:06

responder. Apparently not. I had the best cholesterol numbers I've ever had in my life. I actually, I was hoping my cholesterol. But it was like one 70 something total. Yeah. I whip out like, you're perfect. You're good to go. I was like, okay, sure.

Larry: 55:22

I wanna whip out the number needed to treat. Like, do you know the NNT on that doc? Uh, you know, what's the relative risk? Yeah. What's the absolute risk? Can you tell me? And if they can't tell me that stuff, I just wanna, I mean, I don't wanna be cruel, but I wanna like hammer'em and say, you guys, you need to be the expert here. I shouldn't be telling you this stuff. You should be telling

James: 55:37

me. Yeah. Yeah. My HDL was way, way up and my triglycerides are way, way down. That's great, man. And I, I had never had my HDL, my hcl l had always been low and my tri I'd never had optimal hcl l before carnivore. And mine was too, this was the first

Larry: 55:54

year. Yeah. Mine was too. They were always telling me to eat like, I don't know, almonds and stuff. Like, Hey, you gotta eat, or avocado and stuff. Like, I like. And I thought I was, but it was just, I wasn't eating enough meat. So, well, uh, cool. So MaetarianRunner will be a channel in the future. I am pretty confident when it is, let me know. I'd love to feature it on my, uh, on my, and you can, and also I have a hump day hangout, you can always. Join if you want to talk carnivore stuff or talk running,

James: 56:22

you know on the trip. I'm like get me into it a bit more I've enjoyed coming into your home day channel and just chat and I was talking about running and fasting and stuff I think a couple weeks ago

Larry: 56:32

On there when it's hard for me to catch all because so many chat. There's so many. Yeah, I so I probably missed it but Yeah, you can, you can feel free to always join. And if you just, I'll send you an email with the Calendly link, just like it did for this, and you can just register if you want to join one. And talk so you can be a guest. All right, well, I'm going to drop you out, man. Thanks for stopping by. It's been great. It's a great conversation and I'm looking forward to seeing me Terry and runner down the road.

James: 56:59

Yeah, me too. And hopefully I get on. I just gotta get us started.

Larry: 57:03

Yeah, it's no big deal. If you need help, like picking editing software and stuff, I've got a lot of great stuff I use. It's free or they have paid versions that are really good. Makes life easy. So I can help you out with that. Yeah,

James: 57:14

no

Larry: 57:16

problem. I'm going to drop you out. Stick around for a minute. We'll say goodbye after I drop, say goodbye to all the folks here. Okay. Sure. Yep. Okay. All right, guys. Another awesome interview. Just love talking to Patriots, fellow veterans and first responders who've gone carnivore and hearing their experience and how it's changed their lives. If you're interested in carnivore diet, check out some more of my videos. I've got a starter series of videos that'll help you start up. Or if you have a friend or loved one, who's a veteran or first responder, share that with them, let them know, Hey, this might help you guys, you know, or it's, it's definitely not going to hurt. So I recommend you check it out or share it with friends. And all I got to say now is stay strong and overcome carnivore soldier out.