Join me, Carnivore Soldier, as I interview Carlos Flores. Carlos is a trained physical therapist from Austin Texas who turned his health and wellness around through adopting the carnivore diet, adding a renewed energy level, vitality, and positive outlook.
Strap in for a great story!
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!
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.
Join me, Carnivore Soldier, as I interview Carlos Flores. Carlos is a trained physical therapist from Austin Texas who turned his health and wellness around through adopting the carnivore diet, adding a renewed energy level, vitality, and positive outlook.
Strap in for a great story!
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!
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.
And I remember my wife and I were watching something funny and I was slouching the couch, super tired, and my hands were on my belly. And we were watching this funny and I laughed so hard and I thought, holy crap, those are my abs. My abs are there. I can't see them yet, but I can feel them. And I've never, ever have done that before.
Larry:That's pretty awesome. All right, all right, all right. Carnivore Soldier coming at you from Austin, Texas. Today, we've got another interview for the Carnivore Way podcast. And this is a fellow Texan, Carlos Flores. And I'm going to bring him in here and let him introduce himself. He's from the same area I am, the Austin, Texas area. Let's bring him in and bring him to the stage. Hey, Carlos. Good morning. Good morning,
Carlos:Larry. How are you?
Larry:Great. Hey, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I guess we could just start off. If you could just introduce yourself, tell us about what you're all about, what you do, where you're from, and maybe some of your carnivore story. That'd be great.
Carlos:Okay. Hi. Good morning. My name is carlos. I am a Practicing physical therapist here in austin texas born in new york in 1980 And then moved down here with my then girlfriend my wife now in 2007 and we've been here ever since And so for the past 44 years i've been overweight. It was just a matter of how overweight Some years better than others as a child had a belly. As a teen, some of it melted away being a teenager, teenage boy, very active still eating whatever I wanted, but the weight was coming off in my growth spurts, put on some muscle. And then in my mid teens, 15, 16 years old, I packed on a lot of weight. And during high school and lost a few when I went to college and typically up and down, up and down through my teens and twenties, I will lose 10, gain 10, lose 15, gain 15 which was pretty, pretty easy back in those days, right? I would run a couple of miles cut back on the sugar I was drinking or eating and, uh. You know, weight would just slide off of me and sleep was fine. Everything was fine for my twenties and for a little while there. And then my up and downs. Instead of coming as a straight line, it was trending upwards in my late 20s and my 30s. During this time, I've had asthma ever since I was an infant. And, uh, trying to cut calories and move more, of course. I knew sugar was a problem. I've always known that. And so, instead of abstaining from it completely, in my 20s, I was able to moderate. at a time. So my favorite drink in my twenties wasn't alcohol. It wasn't beer. It was orange juice. So I knew that for every couple of oranges I had, I had to add in another cup of water. So little tricks like that helped me out tremendously to lose the weight and keep the weight off for, but let's say six, eight months out of the year. Then Thanksgiving and Halloween would come, Christmas would come, my birthday would come around, you know, cakes and hamburgers and such being in New York, you know, pizza and wings. So it was easy in my twenties, relatively easy to pack on the way, but then lose that same weight. My thirties came around, not so easy. So not only did my fat burning ability slow down, but my ability to moderate my sugar also significantly decreased. In my twenties, I was able to go six to eight months cutting the sugar by at least 50%. And I thought I did very well. And my thirties is that went from months to a couple of months tops in which I would feel better. You know, back pain would go away, brain fog would go away and feel pretty good. And then that started to decrease my ability to moderate and then my 40s, it just wasn't there. So to back up a bit so I lost a few pounds before my wedding in 2010. Not sustainable, but I was working with a trainer and he had me on a very high protein, very low carb, very low fat. Diet for about three months. And I felt okay. Energy was kind of low. I looked great. And my ability to go to the bathroom wasn't there. That was very difficult. And this is before I knew anything about physiology. This was, I was an accountant back then. So I didn't know how the body worked really. I didn't know that decreasing the fat back then was doing more harm than good. And of course, if you look at my wedding day and then a week later, like at the end of my honeymoon, you were looking at two different people. When I just went on my honeymoon, it was beer, burgers. More juice fries, just, you know, wine went to us to Napa Valley in California, for those who don't know, that's a wine country, it's, and just pack down the pounds very fast, and so, and that wasn't, it wasn't easy to do that, to lose that weight, so I dreaded doing it again. I just told myself, okay, well, I'll start tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow. And then 2012, I ate a vegan diet from that January until that June. And I did very well. Because I was eating this standard American diet two years before that, but the entire, my entire life before that, so going from processed foods, going, I remember, Larry, I remember that night I had a bag of Whataburger and I just threw it away and I said, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. And then I, next day made a small meal, strawberries, lunch had some beans, some salad. And then so on and so on for five to six months, and I did pretty well. I felt good for the first three or four months. I looked pretty good with my clothes on. I would never take my shirt off because I was just so, I was really flabby. I lost a lot of muscle by doing that. And it got to the point where it just wasn't serving me well. And so I stopped and also I hate vegetables. So it wasn't another diet that was not easy, but it worked. Well, I thought it worked. So, it did because my goal back then was very superficial. It was I want to get down to 180 and I almost made it. I went back on the standard American diet after that. I went back on meat, chicken and steak. Definitely of course more carb, more fat than protein. Cause, you know, red meat's bad for you. So, if you're gonna have protein, have fish and chicken breast.
Larry:Lean chicken, right.
Carlos:Correct. So, that was 2012. From 2012 till about, till last year, January you know, tried moderating my sugar. I tried not eating so much junk food. I knew, of course, I knew that wasn't good for you, but I made the mistake of telling myself I was going to be, I was in whatever diet I could think of Southeast diet, if you remember that vegan, vegetarianism Atkins. I would put it in my head. I'm going to start tomorrow. I'm going to start tomorrow. Yeah, of course, what's always on the horizon, but never shows up, right? It's tomorrow. And then I got into the habit of binging before tomorrow, because this is the last time I was going to have what a burger. This was the last time I was going to have Dairy Queen. So let me just pack it in, enjoy myself because tomorrow. My diet's going to start and just absolute mental gymnastics every weekend, right? Because it
Larry:sounds like an addict.
Carlos:It was, and it took me a while. And so that was a great epiphany. I had the summer of 2022. I was going home from work and I was working at a skilled nursing facility. So what we used to call a nursing home. And Larry. People in wheelchairs stuck in bed. Why? Dementia, diabetes, heart disease and just heavily medicated, heavily medicated dementia. And I knew it. I knew what was causing it, right? These people are having packaged cookies and chips from the vending machine. They did a great job of keeping alcohol off the premises. Oh, by the way, here's a can of soda and a piece of cake with your fruit cups and your tiny piece of chicken with your meals. So I saw this and I knew it was my future, I knew it was my future. It was that cliff. I saw it in the horizon, my foot on the gas. And I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't know how to stop because I, because while I was thinking this, Larry, on my way home, I'm drinking a can of Dr. Pepper.
Larry:Yeah,
Carlos:it made me feel good. It was a long, stressful day. Most days were long and very stressful. People are great. The patients were great. Residents were fantastic. The staff was top notch. It's just a hard job. No matter sure. It's not a good environment
Larry:to be in every day. It's tough. I gotta break in and ask you some questions real quick. I'm gonna make a comment first that, you did talk about carbohydrates and sugar being a problem, but I think we have a double whammy that, that, and you touched about this on being vegan. When you get rid of processed foods, you're getting rid of all the trans fats, the seed oils and that is, I think when you add that with the sugar, that's our real problem. I think if you did the sugar independently of all these trans fats and all these seed oils, it wouldn't be nearly as long term detrimental. Not that it's good, but it's like more of a short term poison and addiction. The addiction is still strong, but I think the long term damage, I was just reading about it the other day, that these seed oils, these omega 6 linoleic acid has a 680 day half life. in your body. So it means that the seed oils we've been eating with all these fried foods going to what a burger, right? Getting fries wherever you go, whatever you eat that's fried or any packaged Protein bars that have seed oils in them or chips that have seed oils in them. Those are going to stay with you for at least six years. Once you stop taking it and continue to damage your mitochondria. So that is a huge problem. So like even you and I, like we've been carnivore for over a year now, right? Yes. But we still have a long road to get that linoleic acid out of our system. We're still detoxifying and the mitochondria is still being damaged and the cell walls and the DNA are still being damaged by this poison. But I, you said several times. This was unsustainable, several times you said, on, this is any diet you tried in the past, including veganism, obviously. What made it unsustainable to you?
Carlos:It was the calling of the convenience of the junk food. I can, it'll take me five minutes to walk to Whataburger right now. There's one around the corner. from where I live. And so to go there before work, I'm stressed before I go to work because I know what type of day I'm going to have. Or it was that stressful or more so on the way home and I would pick a bag up of fries and a humongous Dr. Pepper, of course. So it was really the convenience. And nowadays you have our apps, which you can have Chick fil A waiting for you at your front door. So it really was a convenience factor. And I'm just, I'm going home, I'm driving by Sonic, I'm driving by Whataburger Pizza Hut. Yeah. And just things that are just calling your name once you're addicted to that food, once you grew up on that food. And my, my parents did their best. They, whenever I. Burger King or McDonald's, they always said, no, we let it sometimes, but you know, once I got older, I started working. I had my own pocket change and I would go myself. It just, that was just a vicious cycle when I was a kid and it just never stopped. I would take breaks in my 20s and 30s. I would take breaks from those foods, but they're always there. They're going to be there for a while. And, I just, I didn't know how to stop. I didn't know how to stop. And every diet I tried worked for a little while. I wasn't happy on them. So for years and years and years, I said three things. I just want three things. I want a diet that will leave me full, a diet that I like, and a diet that has me, that has some good energy behind it. And none of the previous diets did that. They maybe hit on two of those points, mostly just one. It was, that's why it was unsustainable. I knew I needed at least those three cover. And the day I started all this I was going to that same job. And before that, I knew I had to change. I was so desperate. I threw my ice cream and I threw my ice cream in the garbage.
Larry:And that's a big step.
Carlos:Yeah. Yeah. In the garbage.
Larry:Yes.
Carlos:Oh yeah. And I just said just make a meal, just meal prep for one day, just one day, because I really here and there, if you meal prep for the week, you're golden and I said, I don't want to do that. That's just too much work. I'm going to burn my entire Sunday, prepping, let me, okay. One day, just do one day. So I said, I did that. So of course chicken breasts and a crock pot. No butter, some salt, and some roasted broccoli. Salt, no butter, of course. And no olive oil. Let's just do high protein, low fat, low carb. Okay. I did it. I packed it up, went to work. Proud of myself. I said, well, let's skip breakfast. So you can make sure you finish this for your lunch if you skip breakfast. And So I did that, and of course, morning was stressful, lunchtime came, opened up my container with my chicken breast and broccoli, and I said these words, Larry, I said, I can't do this. This
Larry:is
Carlos:horrible. I know it's good for me, quote unquote, but I can't do this. I have an entire afternoon waiting for me, and I'm just going to go back to the vending machine if I eat this, because That's not going to satiate me and I don't like it. I know I'm supposed to, Larry. I'm supposed to like this food. I just don't. So I had, my time is running out for my lunch hour. I ran to the nearest barbecue joint Smokey Joe's. And I said, okay, let's go get some, let's go to some barbecue and rethink this thing. But talking to myself, you cannot have soda, bread, or the sauce. You can have whatever else you want. You cannot have those three things. I said, okay, compromise. Let's do it. Let's go. And then I did,, I told the employee there, gimme a pound of your fatty brisket. Bri brisket, yeah. Gimme some broccoli covered in cheddar cheese. And then a glass of water. And that was it. I said, okay, eat this. Go back to work. Think about dinner later. So we'll figure it out later. Just do this. If you have no sugar, there's no carbs, no soda, just do it and get back to work. And I did. I ate all the brisket, I ate so much so, I never touched the broccoli. I said, I don't want that, I'll have my vegetables later and finished my water, went back to work. And then while I was at work, I'm thinking, wow, I'm not tired. I'm not lethargic, I'm not grumpy, I'm not moody, holy cow, I feel really good. I feel fantastic. And I said, yeah, it's because you didn't have any sugar. And I stopped there. I said, okay. Well, of course you feel, but of course you feel really well, you didn't have any sugar. You're not crashing. Okay. So I'm away home, still feeling good. And then I didn't, my wife was out of town, so I had no one to cook for. And so that was typically a fast food night because it was just convenient. And I lied on my couch, and then I realized. I feel pretty good. I don't want to take a nap. Bedtime is around 10, 1030. I can make it, just keep yourself busy. My wife's not here, you know, just keep yourself busy, figure out what you want for dinner. Oh, I'm not hungry. And I said, okay I'm lying on the couch. I have my phone in my hand, open up YouTube and Larry, no joke, Dave Mac's channel pops up. I'm on YouTube. I have no idea how.
Larry:If you find value in my content and like my channel, please like and subscribe and click the notification bell so you see my new videos as soon as they come out. Also, please share this and other videos on social media, especially to veterans and first responders, who, as I say in many of my videos, are often suffering in silence. You never know who's hurting. And a video like this might just turn someone around. So please go ahead and share it. And thanks for your viewership and your support.
Carlos:It is. So I said, okay. And pulled up Dave Mack. He says, talking about the residual symptoms of his stroke that he had in the nineties when he was a kid his limp was gone. His knee pain has gone, his belly shrinking, and he's sleeping so much better, but only eating meat. And cheese and water, and that's it. And I thought, there's no way. Right. There's no way he's doing this. What's his angle? What is he selling? He wasn't selling a damn thing.
Larry:Right.
Carlos:Of course, I watched that. I watched another video of him interviewing someone else. Same results. Then of course, Barry came up, Jay Fee.
Larry:And they're MDs, so now you have like, okay, I've got medical doctors telling me this now,
Carlos:right? Yeah. And, and I understood the physio, I don't understand the biochemistry yet. I understood the physiology and such and how it works. And and of course, my favorite videos are just the civilians, you know, the stories. Yeah. And, I just couldn't believe it. So I said, okay tomorrow I'll go back to barbecue during lunch, get some more brisket and see how I feel.
Larry:And yeah, I gotta say, in Texas we're blessed that we can just go get barbecue on any corner and just get fatty brisket. It's very normal. And if you're not in Texas, I'm sorry, you need to move here or open up a barbecue shop.
Carlos:Oh yeah. That like the best barbecue in town is at a grocery store. How about that?
Larry:At B
Carlos:said, you know, that's where I met last time.
Larry:Yeah.
Carlos:And, that was January of last year. And of course, Larry, of course, it's all about the weight, right? It was all about what the scale says. What I noticed before I lost an ounce of weight, that every morning for months, I was waking up with really bad back pain. And I thought it was my belly pulling my back, my lumbar, to an extension position for hours at a time. And I thought that that was a cause. So that was about two 50 back then when I started this prop up my belly seeping on my side so that it would give some relief to to my back. And right before I lost an inch before I lost an ounce of weight, my back pain was gone within three days.
Larry:Yeah. So many so crazy how much stuff goes away. It's. Well, it's obviously the inflammation. Because I had so many Injuries that just went away like my back injury that I had from the 90s that I couldn't lift anymore now I'm doing deadlifts Like I was in college, and it's crazy. There's no pain. I started out doing deadlifts really light because I was afraid I would reinjure it, but there's no need to be afraid anymore. I can just lift like I used to. It's, it's amazing.
Carlos:Yeah. And so now you're taking yourself out of a vicious circle of junk food and feeling miserable and then having more junk food to make you feel better for 20, 30 minutes tops. Right. I was removing myself from that and putting myself into the great circle of feeling better, sleeping better, realizing that this food, fatty meats, and dairy once in a while, eggs of course, it was satiating me, I liked it, and it was giving me fantastic energy. the three tenants that I was looking for for years.
Larry:Three plus. Cause then you found all the other stuff, right? Because those are the three you're looking for and they're there in abundance, but now you probably find other stuff.
Carlos:And absolutely. And I think most people can, most people on this way of life can say that, yes, it was the way that was my, primary objective, you know, it's accomplished a certain number of the scale. And then once the ball gets rolling, it's distant second, maybe, maybe even a third after the pain, after the depression is gone at the dental.
Larry:Yes.
Carlos:Yeah. And it's thinking the weight was just a symptom of your overall health. And then this allows you with a clear mind and feeling better to take a big step back and say, Oh. The way it was just a symptom, right? And all these other issues with their compounding it, making the way worse, but it was never a fundamental problem. The way eating the proper food is and what it can do to help accomplish losing weight amongst many, many other things.
Larry:Yeah. And the way it's huge it's the big sexy thing because everyone's chasing that because the way you look, it's what you feel about yourself, all that stuff. But like you said, once that weight starts coming off. There's so many other things I say, you know, come for the weight loss day for the non scale victories, because that's where everything is really at. And for me, I felt like more, more like a man. Once I lost that weight, I felt more masculine. Like I was, I could handle manly duties better being physical, being proud of my physique being, I didn't have that for years. And it's when it comes back, it's like, wow, I thought it was gone forever. I thought that was just. I was gonna be an old man that was just like, on the decline. And you're pretty young. You're only, you're in your forties, right? 44, you say? So that's still pretty young. I wish I would've found it in my forties because I remember I went to Warnoster candidate school when I was 45 and Warnoster candidate school is highly physical. It's a tough school. And I was the oldest guy in the class, I think. And most of the guys were in their twenties, 22, 23, they were pilots. Coming in, I was this old guy who came back in and I remember doing keto to get ready for my for my school. And I did regain some of that feeling, that physical athleticism of the masculinity feel, but that was not sustainable. For me. Keto wasn't because I was like managing my addiction. I was still eating 20 grams to 40 grams of carbs a day. And that to me, now looking at it, is like giving an alcoholic. One shot of whiskey a day and saying that's all you can drink. And trying to manage alcoholism that way just doesn't work. You have to abstain completely if you're an alcoholic. And for me, I had to.
Carlos:Yeah. And it's funny when people ask me, family, friends who are close they asked me, are you ever going to have a piece of chocolate cake again? And you're going to have ice cream. And my favorite dessert of all time is my mom's cheesecake. It's perfection.
Larry:And real New York cheesecake. Okay. Got it.
Carlos:She, I don't know how she does it to this day. I come close, but never close enough. But people ask me, what about mom's cheesecake? And I tell them, I have all that stuff whenever I want. Never, I never want that stuff. And when it does come, when it does come up and I want a piece, I think I'll be okay because. Because of what's waiting for me on the other side probably a rough night's sleep, but what do I do to get back on plan? I'm going to have bacon and eggs. That's fantastic. I'm totally okay with that. No more counting calories. No more trying to run 4 or 5 miles. So that the stress of getting back on the diet, that stress is gone. Absolutely gone and that's a humongous plus when you're on this side of the fence and when you've adapted to this way of life, that when I do have a beer and when I do have maybe some ice cream, how I will be okay whenever, if that day ever comes, I'll be okay.
Larry:Yeah. And like I said, I think the sugar, I used to think sugar was the culprit. Sugar is one of the culprits, but it's not the major one. The major player is the seed oils. So as long as you're keeping that out, I mean, if you slip up on something else, like I had alcohol this weekend with a veteran that came over and we had some bourbon at my place, but my, this bottle of bourbon I have, I've had since Thanksgiving, it was given me as a gift on Thanksgiving and it's not done yet. And it's like, man, that would not have been the case. Before this way of eating. And I've read that the scientists are pairing sugars, salts, and the seed oils to get that bliss point to make you addicted, and that's why French fries, when I grew up were three ingredients. There were salt, potatoes, and lard. That was always in a French fry. Now McDonald's has 19 ingredients in their French fries. And that's because they're designing them to be addictive. And same with Chick fil A and these companies, 66 to a hundred ingredients in a Chick fil A sandwich, ridiculous, right? But this is because they're designing food to make it addictive. And I think when you cut the seed oils out, if you do expose a little bit of sugar, now some people can't do any, which I respect, but if you did, it's probably not the end of the world. Like you said, next day. Eat eggs and bacon really fatty breakfast and then just drive on like nothing happened And a lot of people can get away with that. I wouldn't recommend doing that or making a habit But it's much easier to manage. I think once you've been on especially after a year
Carlos:Absolutely. And my mom isn't using 20 ingredients. She's using right by tops for that. Yeah.
Larry:My sister actually for Thanksgiving, we had a corner for Thanksgiving. She made a keto cheesecake. So it was sugar free had a, I had some sweetener, maybe allulose or something. And I don't know what she used. And then the only thing that was, she had some almond flour crust. That's the only thing that was like plant based everything else is pretty much in the, in the sweetener. Everything else is. Just I guess cream cheese and whipping cream or whatever they put in there. I don't know what they put in there. I don't know what she did, but it was pretty clean. And I ate some of that, man. It was really good. Probably not up to your mom's level of good, but. It tasted fantastic. It was a great holiday, treat that I don't do every day, but it was fantastic for holiday.
Carlos:Oh yeah. And if you keep it in line of what we're doing, I think we'll be okay.
Larry:Yeah. Let me ask you how is your perception of your job changed since you work with people all this time? You're looking through a different lens now, right? When you look at people. Totally
Carlos:different lens. So tell me
Larry:What that's like being a physical therapist, right?
Carlos:Yes. And you feel helpless. You feel, I can I'm no longer there at that environment.
Larry:Okay.
Carlos:Bye. The clinics where I am now, it's the same issue. Not to that large of an extent. They're not in a wheelchair. They're not bed bound.
Larry:It's not a hundred percent. It's like 90%, right?
Carlos:They're on their way. They're on their way. I know what their future holds. So teach them how to move. I teach them how what's bothering them and how to fix it with us. And then at home. But then I just tell them, you want to stay away from pro inflammatory foods. And I had a patient a few, a couple of months ago in his 80s. Really good shape. He cycled all the time. Until his hip really started bothering him. And he said that was his main goal. To get back to his bike. To get back to his bike. And I said, okay, and 80 years, 80 years older, and he asked me, I asked him, I was like, well, what is your breakfast, lunch, and dinner look like? Can you explain to me the main ingredients? And he tells me, he goes, you know what, you are the first healthcare practitioner to ever ask me what I eat.
Larry:Wow.
Carlos:My doctor and nurses, they've never asked me what to eat. And I'm assuming so that he's in pretty good shape. He's, slim good leg muscles, of course, because he cycles all the time. Cognitively, he was perfectly fine. And I'm assuming his blood work was fine or else they would have asked him. He was, his hip was so inflamed that I had to explain to him, there are certain foods that we take and that we intake, we think we're perfectly fine, which normally would be, but in someone's state of an inflammatory state, and at best, they're not helping, and at worst, they're exacerbating the situation. So I, that's pretty much as far as I can go into, I can't tell him what to eat. And I told him, I'm not a nutritionist, I'm not a dietitian, but here's what this food does to us. On a normal day and hear how it makes things worse when we're hurting
Larry:And then do you tell them? What kind of foods are the point like vegetable oils, sugar? I guess in general terms
Carlos:in general terms and tell them it's a physiological fact that Too much sugar causes glycation. Too much high fructose corn syrup causes fructation. And and of course the big one is that we don't need carbs.
Larry:Yeah.
Carlos:We don't, if you're, I mean, maybe if you're doing, if you're running a hundred mile marathon, maybe, that's not my world. But someone who's cycling every day in his eighties trying to get back his quality of life, get back to his his exercise routine and his habits. And then you and I working our jobs, we don't need carbs,
Larry:right?
Carlos:That blows people's mind. And most of them don't believe me. And I don't argue with them. I just let them know that if we're feeding up, if we're healthy and our levers are functioning properly. Then we get all the glucose we need from our liver.
Larry:Right.
Carlos:And tell them how ketones work and how our brain prefers a mix of both. And that if And I tell them I haven't had a vegetable since January of last year. So over almost 500 days, I haven't had a vegetable and I haven't had a piece of fruit. Nor bread, nor rice. And they look at me and they say, but you look so healthy. Well,
Larry:yeah,
Carlos:I am the healthiest I've ever been. And just give me, and it goes to show you that the beef, butter, bacon, eggs sometimes a heavy cream with my coffee, not every day. I said, it's all I need. And I'm pretty sure that according to physiology, that's all any of us need.
Larry:And when you talk about getting the carbohydrates from your liver, you're talking about gluconeogenesis, right? That we just basically, our body knows to make just the right amount of carbohydrates. It's amazing. Let us do what we need to do. It's almost like we were designed or evolved that way. Almost, right?
Carlos:How about that? We're here after hundreds of thousands of years for a reason.
Larry:Yeah. You think about like you were, you just looked at that food when you were eating foods that you didn't like. You're like, I can't do this. If we, if our ancestors who were just going off instinct. Had to survive off food they hated we would have a small population if any, right? We'd be like, oh, I can't eat. I don't want to eat. I mean they would die, right? So it's got to be you know, they have sexual reproduction gives you pleasure and eating foods that you like, you know That's what this that's how we that's how our ancestors became a big population and became a successful species So it's just like logic like there's no way we had to eat You Garbage or man made food because it didn't exist to be healthy or supplement vitamins. Cause they didn't exist. They had to be in your diet of what you were eating or count calories. Yeah. Yeah. Calories, right. Get you like a pawful or a handful okay, I'm gonna need this much of this meat and that's it. And then I'm going to restrict. Yeah, it's ridiculous. That's never happened.
Carlos:And with the older patients in their sixties and seventies they, of course they seen it. They've seen 40 years.
Larry:Yeah.
Carlos:When I said, what do you think that is? They go, I don't know, too much fast food. Maybe. Once we were told about the food pyramid, and it was presented to us, whole grains, and then brown rice on the bottom, fruits and vegetables and eggs, and then lean meats. The third, lean meats no, steak maybe once a week. And butter sparingly,
Larry:low cholesterol and vegetable oils instead of fat animal fat. Yeah.
Carlos:Yeah. And I'm thinking, okay, so I tell them and what you and I have learned that, okay we listened and we complied. Okay, we, our consumption of red meat went down, our consumption of dairy and saturated fats went down. Okay, fantastic. What has gone up? I don't have to tell you this. What has gone up? Everything ever. All of our modern medical illnesses have increased and including in addition to the prescription of medications to help us with our cholesterol. So, all this is going up, and our health care costs have gone up and I think there's no way to prove that. I understand just stepping back and looking at it as an illogical adult. Okay, something happened there. There has to be a relationship. Between what we were told to do, what we did, and how we are doing 40 years later.
Larry:Yeah, there's direct correlation, and correlation does not make causation, but there has to be correlation for there to be causation, right? So if there is causation, there will be correlation. So you can look at it that way and say obviously we've introduced seed oils, we've introduced sugar, we've introduced refined wheats, and since we did, all Western diseases have skyrocketed. All. And it's not that we're detecting it better now. We weren't detecting Alzheimer's or the people weren't living because now people are in their forties and fifties are getting Alzheimer's that never happened. You can't say we just didn't detect it. No, sorry. That's not going to fly. Kids that are eight years old and have diabetes, type two diabetes, that was adult. Actually it was, did they call it, they called it adult onset diabetes, I think back in the day. And now it's non fatty liver disease or something. I don't know what it is or not a fatty liver disease, but it was yeah. So type two diabetes was not something that ever happened in kids. And now it's all over the place. Not because they're playing games, not, not happening. That's not it.
Carlos:Yeah, for sure. And now, in a bit of a little bit of irony in that regards, I do play my PlayStation and now when I play, my attention is so much broader and I'm able to play longer and better because I'm so much healthier. What do you play? What game?
Larry:What do
Carlos:you like to play? Call of Duty.
Larry:Okay. First person shooters. Cool.
Carlos:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Mostly. But other games as well. And and when people ask what, and this socially, when I tell people that I'm most of my life, I've been overweight, it was just a matter of how bad it was. And they can't believe it. They look at me and they say, you look like you've been healthy all your life. I go, no, this, the state I'm in, this is still new to me.
Larry:Yeah. Right.
Carlos:I look in the mirror in the bathroom and I go, whoa. What happened to you to this day? Almost, I know
Larry:I feel my face when I put my hand on my face and I feel my jaw line. It's like, wow, I do that several times a day because it was so inflamed now. When I do this, I can feel my jaw and I couldn't. I mean, it's weird, right?
Carlos:Another thing is, so the size I am now and the condition I'm in now, I reached back at Halloween. So from January to end of October. I did most of my work, and I remember my wife and I were watching something funny, and I was slouching on the couch, super tired, and my hands were on my belly, and we were watching this funny, and I laughed so hard, and I thought, holy crap, those are my abs! My abs are there. I can't see them yet, but I can feel them. And I've never, ever have done that before.
Larry:That's pretty awesome.
Carlos:Couldn't believe it. And Thanksgiving came around, Christmas came around, you know, a little bit more on the food, still protein and fats, but a bit more than usual. But now they're about to make their debut probably in the next month or so. And I, I cannot believe that at 44.
Larry:Yeah.
Carlos:I could never, ever in a million years think that something like that would happen. Never a priority, never a goal to have abs showing, but there it is. They're right there. And it's a nice icing on the cake maybe, but it was never a goal and it's one of those things that non scale victory, you never thought it would happen and once it did happen, you go, Hey, this is pretty cool.
Larry:So you can you go into some of the non scale victories and the mental and physical just that you've experienced and share that with us and how your wife might notice a difference too, not just how you noticed.
Carlos:Her first comment to me was. It's about not too far in, maybe six or two months, six weeks or two months in, she goes, you're aging backwards. My eyes cleared up, the bags under my eyes were gone posture was getting better because my weight was no longer, bringing me down and moving easier. So of course, sleeping, but sleeping better was no longer snoring. She says I've gone to snoring so now she can, now she, Used to check on me if I was alive because I was so quiet. Making sure I was still breathing. So then my attitude improved because I felt so much better. My crankiness was gone. Stress, the stress is always there. This diet is not going to do anything about external factors, but your ability to deal with them is just tremendously increased and improved so that you can take that five seconds to respond. More productively, more properly to whatever negative stress is coming your way, whatever problem presents itself and so as far as my attitude, that's gone pretty well. Anxiety and depression have gone way down. I can't remember the last time I was really anxious about anything. And can't remember the last time I was depressed about anything. That bad crap happens, but and that's even in that situation, you'd be able to take a step back, allow yourself to be upset, allow yourself to be cranky about that, and then, but then look at it, move forward, move on and look at it. Okay how can I avoid that in the future? What could I have done differently? Really? Just being more really productive, healthy about it. No longer dwelling. You mentioned something a few minutes ago about, I wish I would have, Discovered this in my in my forties, when you went back to training two years ago, I would have said the exact same thing every day. That would have been my mantra. I wish I would discover this, in my twenties or my thirties. I don't I don't do that at all. I just thinking, I'm thinking, I'm grateful that I found it at all. And right. I'm feeling good now. Never. And if anything, I can look back in my twenties and thirties and my teens and I was very unhealthy. I can look back at it and say, hey, you did the best you could. You're good now, so that's just that means that future is just going to get better. I'm only going to improve X, Y, Z, because I am so much healthier in such a better place. My gum stopped bleeding when I brushed and when I flossed.
Larry:Yep.
Carlos:Headaches are gone. Back pain was gone. As I mentioned before, Doug. Digestive pains were gone because, as much junk food as you eat. That never goes down smoothly, but you don't care because, cause your diet is going to start tomorrow. That's why it was no big deal.
Larry:How about allergies? Do you have allergies before? That
Carlos:was never an issue. Really. I had one, my first January here, a Cedar fever hit me really. You're
Larry:lucky that you don't have allergies then. Yeah.
Carlos:Was that was never, yes, I did look out on that, but I was, I made the mistake of, Feeling fantastic about three or four months in, and I stopped taking my prednisone for my asthma, thinking I was good. I'm not on any medication, I'm healed, screw the inhaler, I'm done with it. And I was pretty, that was a pretty terrible mistake, very ignorant, because that week I didn't sleep at all because I couldn't breathe at night.
Larry:So,
Carlos:so my asthma is still there, and since I've had it with it, since I've had it since I was, two months old, I'm okay. It's better. It is a lot better, but it's still there. And so if that takes another two or five years, that's fine. I'm in no rush. I've had it for over 40 years. It's gonna do what it's gonna do. If everything else is fine and that's still there, I'm okay with that.
Larry:Yeah.
Carlos:And so and then going back into my twenties and thirties of how I was able to moderate My intake of sugar and junk food. I was running a lot with lifting weights here and there I was running a lot. So my blood pressure was always good. My sugar was always good But if anyone who watches dr. Beckman professor Beckman glucose isn't the story is the insulin So I have no idea what my fasting insulin was doing while my glucose was good. It was probably pretty terrible. I'm gonna guess so in my So in 2022, everything started getting worse. Very fast. My blood pressure climbed A1C climbed, fasting glucose climbed everything. Oh. But my PA said, just watch your diet exercise more. You're okay because your cholesterol is fine. And I didn't believed her. I said, okay I'm okay, but I feel terrible. I know I have to stop. How do I do it? And so from summer of 2022 to January of 2023. I was really working on it in the background. How can I stop it? I know I have to. I just don't know how. And that one fateful lunch of having nothing but a fatty brisket.
Larry:Yeah.
Carlos:Opened my eyes to that, to how I could lose weight, quote unquote. But then the Nazca victories, as you say, they just kept piling up on each other and to where I just, I couldn't stop. And the compliments were nice from friends and family. Of course they were concerned. Yeah. Yeah. My mom especially. And I just said, Mom, I was on my way to being type 2 diabetic. Therefore, I'm on my way to heart disease or stroke or both. Pretty than pretty much dementia. So now I'm miles away from that. And so cholesterol is high. I'm okay with that because it's from what I'm reading and from what Dr Barry teaches us. It's it's not even a top 10 risk factor,
Larry:right?
Carlos:And smoking, drinking, you know, it's actually
Larry:protective hyper high cholesterol can be protective in a lot of issues. Like stroke, heart disease. So
Carlos:that's what that's what our. If that is the building block of ourselves.
Larry:Yeah,
Carlos:I'm okay with that.
Larry:Yeah So your wife now, do you have a family besides your wife or do you have kids or anything?
Carlos:No Just have a cat and a dog in the background here
Larry:Okay,
Carlos:if you see me distracted because I
Larry:saw the cat running around so your wife Has she embraced any of this wave eating or do you guys eat together the same kind of food or just do whole food? or what's
Carlos:Yes, so more, more Whole Foods. So thank you for bringing that up there. That reminded me of a very important epiphany I had while I was putting my plan together in 2022. So, okay. It used to be embarrassed about it. Now I can laugh about it. Larry, my go to every day was Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream mixed with peanut butter M& M's. And so it was just, it made my teeth hurt. It was so sweet, but I didn't care. I just wanted it that, you know, diet starts tomorrow. And so instead of bringing the small bag of peanut butter M& M's, I would bring, just whatever the largest bag I could find, I brought that home and put in our pantry. And then my wife would sneak some in. No, that's fine. There's plenty of them. Go ahead. And then one day she said, Can you please stop bringing the big bags of peanut butter M& Ms and just have a small one just for you? I go why? And she goes, Because I can't stop. I can't help myself if they're there. If I see them, I'm going to reach for a bag. And I don't want to do that. And I thought, Then in my mind, I thought, You know, You dick. Your behavior is affecting the person you care about the most in this world, negatively. So you need to stop. You need to figure out what's going on and how to stop it. She's not, she's doing more keto. She's doing great. She's looking fantastic. So because I know and what helps, I'm not bringing home ice cream. I'm not bringing home candy. If she wants a bottle of wine I'll bring it home for her. We don't drink that much. We really did. If she wants a small Sunday from Sonic, which hasn't happened, I can't remember the last time that happened. She gives me a text, okay, if you're on your way home, if you pass by Sonic, which I do every day can you bring me home a little Sunday? And that's very rare, but that's the only time that that type of food is in this house. And so she has benefited by not having that food around, not attempting to, to. Eat it.
Larry:Yeah,
Carlos:it has helped her and she, of course, she was concerned about what I was doing in the beginning, but she sees the benefits now I'm doing. I took a CDC score. CC scan last year. And I told her it's a perfect 0. And so she's benefiting as well, and she sees the improvements is making and she has questions. I answer them. And she has questions about, you know, why does fat not make us fat,
Larry:right?
Carlos:You know, and I said,
Larry:we have fat phobia. Yeah. Program that way.
Carlos:Tell my sister. And I tell my niece, her daughter that it's my opinion, Larry, you may disagree, but if you look at the old movies when you were younger and I was a child, uh, monster squad. I loved Goonies, you know, the fat kid was kind of funny.
Larry:Yeah.
Carlos:Stand by me. Odd. Yeah. And it was funny. It was odd. He was always a good guy, sometimes a bad guy, but you never saw fat girls in movies. They were never a character. And then you look at the commercials. When I was a child, it was always geared to the low fat, nonfat foods from cereal companies such they were always geared towards the women. Women are always in the commercial. And I noticed that once I was sick and I stayed home. watching TV, really boring TV with soap operas and game shows. They were all diet related, fat free, and the women were always in the commercials. So I tell my wife, I tell my sister, I tell my mom, I tell my niece, that you women were targeted since you were girls. Boys can eat whatever they want. If we're fat, we're funny. We'll go, we'll build some muscle in the gym.
Larry:By
Carlos:the time we're 16 years old, we're fine. But you girls cannot have an ounce of it or you're, that is because that is unacceptable. And I don't think I might be totally wrong here, but from my memories and from what I'm seeing today, that unfortunately women are targeted. So I tried to explain to her that to that, the more fat we have from animals, the less of the seed oils and artificial processed garbage we're going to have because it satiates us and it helps us with our hormones, especially if you're a woman. And when I do talk to people about this, I think, in my opinion, that And our way of eating, I think women benefit the most.
Larry:Yeah, because they need it the most. And because they've neglected the animal fats the most. Yeah, so let's jump to your greatest challenges with carnivore. You've had some challenges, I'm sure. What have they been?
Carlos:Yeah just maybe the social aspect. People think you're crazy. They think, you don't know what you're talking about. And I never push on anybody. I always ask, answer the questions. Always, always. So, someone I haven't seen in a couple years they just, they talk to my wife and ask, is Carlos okay? Is he sick? He's lost so much weight. He looks good, but he's lost so much weight so fast. Is he okay? A couple of other friends asked me if I had gastric bypass surgery or if I was on those weight loss medications. Thanks. Wow.
Larry:Ozempic and all that. Yeah.
Carlos:Wow. And he goes, no, he just eats meat. And so concern in the beginning some jabs here and there. And as far as humor goes for my family they'll serve me a big plate of pancakes jokingly. And then and then they see more improvements, further improvements in my behavior, attitude, energy. Yeah. Physical looks, and then the questions come, well, how are you able to do this? Why is this, why, how can you not have any vegetables? I don't like vegetables. And as far as I'm concerned, I don't need them. And if I develop Rickets or what have you because of a vitamin deficiency. I'll address it then. That's not my priority. It's not my priority right now. And then just respect. They're just very respectful. I've never butted head with anybody. They ask me questions and I answer them as best as I can give them your video or give them Barry's video, your channels and such. So if you have questions these videos are very long when they talk to people, veterans and normal people, civilian. It's pretty faceted stories, but we all have our stories and the benefits, no matter what the ailment is, the benefits are always there. And I kind of just say, Hey it's not the end of the world. So you don't have to do what I'm doing. And then I think that the sweetest piece of irony amongst this whole thing, in my opinion, is that they asked me how can you do this for so long? It's so restrictive. And I go, no, I'm free. I am free of the confusion, of the noise, of do this and do that, counting these calories, eating fruit before you work out, just all that noise is gone. Because when I go to the grocery store, I am no longer justifying buying ice cream because I'm not going to have fruit for dinner, or as a side for dinner. I'm not going to have I'm not going to buy potato chips because I'm not going to have any carbs during lunch, during my lunch. So that's going to be my carbs and the healthy potato chips, whatever the hell that means. I would justify all of it and be very stressed about it. And then see my grocery bill climb and climb and climb because of the fruits and vegetables I'm going to buy if I buy 50 bucks worth. 40 of those fruits and vegetables are going in the garbage.
Larry:Yeah.
Carlos:I'm not going to get to them. Because I had my junk food. So now I go to the grocery store and if it's just for me, if I'm shopping just for me, I go get my eggs and get my bacon and steaks and leave. Oh, and by the way, I am walking my, the closest store to me is a Randall's and I always have to walk through the cereal aisle to get to the meats. I have to walk through the potato chip aisle to get to the eggs. That stuff doesn't faze me anymore.
Larry:Yeah, you don't even see it as food, right? You see it as like, I don't even know what it is. It's like, what is frankenfood? Yeah, I
Carlos:do tell people that, from Chick fil A to Kellogg's to McDonald's, they don't have the best chefs in the world, they have the best chemists in the world.
Larry:That's right, engineered foods.
Carlos:Just to get your money, that's it.
Larry:So lastly before we close up, what's the most unexpected thing you experienced with carnivore? What's the thing that blew you away the most if you were to look back on your journey? It's the fact that it's so easy.
Carlos:It's when a few people have seen me after my made most of my transition, I they look at me and they go, wow, I'm so proud of you. Good. I'm so proud of you. You must have worked so hard and it wasn't that it wasn't difficult at all. It really wasn't. The cravings came and went in the first two weeks.
Larry:Right.
Carlos:And that's, of course, that's another common question. That how to deal with the cravings. I talked to a butcher yesterday giving me my rib eyes. And and I said, I just had bacon at the ready. Every day. At my counter. If I wanted to go to Randall's and get ice cream, I had my three or four pieces of bacon. Then I can get ice cream. And I never wanted it. So as long as I, my, my deal with myself in the first two or three weeks was that you can have your Chick fil A, you can go get your ice cream only after you eat your bacon your steaks and your eggs if they're there. You finish those, you can go and get whatever the hell you want. And I never wanted anything because I was so full and because I was feeling really good. It was the first two weeks were okay. They were very difficult. They weren't easy, but now I look back at it. This is the easiest thing I've ever done,
Larry:right?
Carlos:And I couldn't taper down my carbs. I couldn't you said you were managing an addiction. I couldn't do that anymore. So I said, no, I gotta rip the bandaid off. I have to go all in just to try it. Again, I gave myself a day, then the next day it became easier, and then the next day it became easier. And I look back at it now, talking to you now, it's been the easiest thing I've ever done.
Larry:Yeah, I like to say it's, it's hard the first couple of weeks, but it's simple. And then it becomes super easy. That's all the only way I can explain it. You're an autopilot. It is. So in closing, why don't we, I'm just gonna give you the floor. What would you say for someone who's interested in watching this video that, that hasn't done it, but they're interested in, The experience, the benefits, like how would you get started?
Carlos:I would say no. At the, are you, have you reached a point where you're honest with yourself? Are you able to moderate your sugar? Are you addicted? What are your weaknesses and what are your habits? And if you can look in the future, what, what can, what do you see as your barriers, your speed bumps, your hurdles, and then tailor your plan to that? I knew that I would want soda, Dr. Pepper, and fast food after work. I knew I did. So I just had food with me all the time extra food, or I told myself, you have to go home and eat, then go get your junk food if you still want it. So just be honest with yourself. There's no shame in that. There's no shame in our addiction. It's not our, to a large extent, it's not our fault. Then we've been programmed since we were children to buy a certain type of food and stay away from other certain foods. So just be honest with yourself and just take it really just a day at a time. And if you slip up and have a chocolate bar after you had beef, butter, bacon, eggs and chicken and some dairy, some cheeses. That's fine. If you were better than yesterday, you were on the right track and just please, by all means, please don't be perfect. No, just be better.
Larry:Yeah. I think it's a, it's definitely a process of becoming a carnivore. Like when you start, like when I started, I was snacking a lot because my body was used. My body's hunger signals were completely broken when I started. So I was just always snacking and half the time it was just emotional snacking, I think. And, the other half of the time was just my, I didn't understand my hunger signals because they were broken. So I would always think I was hungry when I really wasn't. And then once, but that clarity comes later, right? After you've been like, I'd have a pound of bacon fried up every day. That's what I did. I put it in a bag in the fridge and I'd take it with me in the car. And that way I would just eat bacon. If I had that hunger thing come up. And then after the first month that went away, I did not fry a pound of bacon every day after that first month.
Carlos:Yeah.
Larry:And now I do it every now and then I'll get, I'll just get up. If I want a snack, I'll fry some bacon or something, or put some in the fridge and get it. And that is still a great snack, but it does, it changes. Everything changes. When your hunger signals get working, you can trust your, you can trust them. You can trust your body and just eat when you're hungry.
Carlos:That's a beautiful point. That was a great point. Thank you for bringing that up. You are your signals are so jacked up right now that if I'm saying it's easy, but if you're a week or 2 or a month into it, and you go, when does the easy part come? It's coming your body is adjusting. It's fixing itself. And that's not going to be an easy that is not going to be an easy process, but if you just give it the right tools supplies. The new foundation will be light, and you will start feeling a lot better if you can stick with it.
Larry:Yeah, that's great, man. Well, listen, Carlos, thanks for joining me this morning. It's been great. I'm going to drop you out and say goodbye, but you can stick around. We'll chat a little bit afterwards. If you have time and then I'm just going to say goodbye to the folks and we'll continue. Have a great day, man.
Carlos:Okay. Have a good day. All
Larry:right. That was a great discussion. Another excellent the carnivore way podcast interview. With Carlos and man, he just had so much to share. It was fantastic. Another fellow Texan, uh, love meeting these guys. We met at actually one of my meetups in person, and he just had such a great story and some great pictures of his before and after you wouldn't believe it. You'll probably see it in the video or you'll see it on the thumbnail. But anyway, all I got to say guys is thanks for joining stay strong and overcome carnivore soldier out.