Hello Gman, I hope you are well.
Very often being goal oriented means that you have to picture yourself in the future in a certain place, and if it's a desirable place, to then work backwards to find out what steps are necessary today and in the coming period to expedite your arrival at the desired spot.
Of course it works the other way around too. Since we're all going to be on our deathbed one day, it only stands to reason that we'll have regrets, regrets that we can mitigate if we act beginning today to avoid them. It's an exercise that we should all practice.
Though I'm generally a very agreeable fellow (or maybe I just don't give a sh-t about arguing with people), I greet your suggestion about the carnivore diet with skepticism. Truly, I hate to refer to the wisdom of the decades by referring to my age, but it's true that when you become "older" you have the benefit of many years experience behind you. There must have been at least ten diets in the last 40 years that claimed to solve all mankind's problems; they were all proved lacking in the post-diet years - in fact many followers were ostracized for believing in "such nonsense". I fell victim to this as much as anybody.
I was told at age 41 then I had serious heart blockage and needed a bypass immediately. I didn't want to do it, so I embraced the ultra low fat diet of those days, and the claim that it could reverse heart disease. How intense was my belief? I'm 6'3 and, at that time, a solid 240 lbs. On the diet for two years, my weight plummeted to 168 before I said enough is enough. Bright as I like to think I am, I fell hook, line and sinker for the popular diet of the day. No more.
Nevertheless, I'm intrigued by your suggestion of iodine, which I'm going to dedicate some research to . . .
Feel free to DM me about iodine, if u want. Can definitely fast track ur research. Been researching iodine for years, and try to save the things I feel are worth going over again at some point/ sharing with others if they want to learn more about iodine.
And trust me, what ur saying about different diets over the years isn’t wrong. The difference between the carnivore diet, and all the other proposed diets, is first off, the more research u do into the carnivore diet, the more it makes sense/ becomes clear why it works so well, in regards to all the benefits that come from doing it. Opposed to every other diet, where if u actually understand nutrition and the human body, the more research u do into it, the more it becomes obv why the diet isn’t optimal for humans, and u start to see all the negatives/ pitfalls that come with it.
The second thing that sets it apart is how everyone that tries it experiences the same amazing benefits, short and long term, and how consistent all the anecdotes of people on it are. Opposed to other diets where the anecdotes/ short and long term experiences are inconsistent. Like the vegan/ vegetarian diet, for example. Some report doing amazing, some report that they felt great the first year or two, and some report that they never felt that great on it, and had gas all day, and spent way too much of their day on the toilet.
3rd thing that sets it apart is that with all other diets, there tends to be people that will try a diet, and then eventually continue looking for other options, because they didn’t feel and function optimally on it. That basically never happens with carnivore. Once someone tries carnivore, and learns all about it, they either stay on carnivore, or end up doing a carnivore base with added carbs. But it’s very rare for people to feel and function optimally, while on carnivore, and learn why it works so well, and then switch to something like a vegan/ vegetarian diet. It’s just not gonna happen. But u will find endless anecdotes of people going from vegan/ vegetarian, to carnivore, and never going back to being vegan/ vegetarian. That’s because people are always gonna feel better on carnivore, or a carnivore base with added carbs from healthy sources, over being vegan/ vegetarian. Nobody is willingly going to go from a diet that makes them feel optimal, to a diet that makes them feel less optimal, unless the happiness of eating those foods that don’t make them feel optimal trumps feeling and functioning optimally everyday.
I’ve been researching diet/ nutrition/ human health like crazy since I was probably 13. For whatever reason, I’ve been obsessed with it all since I can remember. Will be 38 this year. And I can confidently say that the optimal diet, for all humans, is either a carnivore diet, or carnivore based diet with added carbs, from sources like fruit, raw organic honey, and raw organic maple syrup, for some main examples. I’m not 100% positive which is more ideal, straight carnivore, and being in ketosis year round, or a carnivore base with added carbs, or a mix of both. Maybe doing carnivore and being in ketosis for a time, then doing a carnivore base with added carbs and using sugar as ur main fuel source is the most ideal balance. That part I’m still trying to figure out.
But at the end of the day, don’t go by what people say, go by the results. And obv there’s gonna be outliers, with anything in life. So when assessing anything, u have to base things off of what the majority of people experience. And when u look at the majority of experiences that people report on carnivore, u’ll see that they feel and function better than they have in their entire life, or feel and function better than they have in a long long time. The carnivore diet is also the best way, diet wise, to become as insulin sensitive as possible, as well as decrease inflammation as much as possible. The two leading causes of most chronic illnesses. Carnivore is also the best way to prevent cancer/ shrink tumors/ cure cancer/ put cancer into remission, as far as diet goes, from all the research I’ve done. I’ve also seen people cure things with carnivore that were supposedly incurable, such as lupus, Crohn’s disease, and multiple sclerosis, to name a few. The carnivore diet is also a great way to cure/ help with seizure disorders. And then I’ve seen it cure mood and mental health disorders more times than I can even remember. It basically just seems like the carnivore diet gives the body everything it needs, without giving it things that mess with it, leaving the body in an optimal state to heal, and when the body is in that state, I don’t think people realize how amazing the human body is at taking care of itself, without the need for outside help/ medical interventions. The body is truly a masterpiece/ miracle. It can only do so much, however, when we aren’t putting the right things into it
And lastly, all it takes is a little common sense/ critical thinking skills, so see that eating animal based is optimal for us. All the forms of micronutrients in animals are in forms that are optimal for the human body, opposed to in plants where a lot of micronutrients are in forms not ideal for the human body to absorb. They need to be transformed into the forms seen in animals first, before we can absorb them properly. Between this, and the fact that plants have all these things trying to prevent us from eating them, it’s just extremely obvious to me that an ideal/ optimal diet for humans does not include foods that have all these things in them that are trying to cause harm to us, once ingested. Yes, plants can also have micronutrients that are beneficial for us, but it just doesn’t make sense to me to eat foods that have micronutrients along with all these negatives, once ingested, opposed to eating foods that have all the beneficial micronutrients that we need, without all those negative things trying to cause us harm once ingested. Animals defend themselves through teeth and claws and poisons they inject, etc, once u get past all those things, and can get access to their meat, the meat doesn’t have things that are trying to cause u harm/ prevent u from eating it. The way plants defend themselves and try to stay alive is through plant defense chemicals/ toxins that negatively affect the health of the host that is trying to consume it. Once u understand this key difference, the decision as to what foods to eat, and not eat, becomes extremely obvious, imo
