From 🍆 to 🐂

I got the bright idea to adjust my diet to exclude all of the animal products that my body loved back in 2014. It was a conscious decision and I was undergoing some sort of spiritual awakening at the time which told me that being vegetarian would make me a more evolved human. I truly believed that back then and the placebo alone was enough to cause me to level up in many ways mentally for a short time. My self-control became hardened, but mostly because I was just starving my body and feeding it synthetics which was equal to being locked in a padded room for years. After a while, it caught up to me and I started feeling like junk and unable to motivate myself to reverse my drastic decision out of fear.

^{This is what I looked like as I made the decision to go vegetarian. I was already unhealthy and very skinny. Replacing my main intake with only plants made it impossible to ever get to a healthy size.}

It was the last week of July in 2014 and I was enjoying the final day of my solo visit to Asheville, NC. I ate one last steak meal at a restaurant next to my hotel and then I promised myself I was going vegetarian to become a spiritual savant. This city just happened to be vegan/hippie heaven, which motivated me to make a change although I originally went for yoga and spa purposes. I had just wrecked my new car during the drive down, which was a pretty terrible experience that may have also fueled me to do something I normally wouldn't have.

It wasn't long before I was a full-on food nazi. I refused to eat all of my favorite foods and continually reminded myself and others that basically everything was poison. Sure, there are a lot of things being given to our population that are terrible for us, but my main source of nutrition? I can't believe I fell for it so easily. It was hard not to since the propaganda is fierce and it was really exploding on social media at the time. I saw all of these people that looked healthy and seemed smart living vegan lives and I thought I could do it too. I eventually found out that everything you see online isn't always true, in fact, it is false the majority of the time.

Let's take a look at some photos from the only Steem meetup I was ever fortunate enough to attend. You may spot some familiar faces such as @lukestokes and @enginewitty. I can remember this group of people working together to provide food for everyone there and I refused to eat pretty much all of it because I thought it was going to infect me with some invisible sickness. Or worse, maybe I wouldn't be able to figure out how to levitate. If only I knew that all humans die and stuffing nothing but plants in my body was a farce. Not only was I a total asshole for refusing to accept the gift of free BBQ (which smelled amazing), but I also was starving pretty much the entire time because we were isolated in rural Tennessee and I didn't bring much food besides oat bars or whatever I was eating. It was tough to bear, but my mind prevailed and ignored what my body was telling it.

^{These photos were taken in May of 2018.}

^{This is right as I began to really second-guess my decision and become worried about my potential future if I were to keep on this same dietary path.}

^{In the end I was actually doing this one-meal-a-day thing where I would eat all of my vegetarian calories in one session around the same time each day.}

^{I think this was because I had become disgusted by everything that I was eating by this time.}

^{I can remember the feeling of how empty my stomach was and rushing to eat "vegan" taco bell afterward because it was the only thing open at midnight.}

^{It was normal for me to gorge myself with sweets since they were "vegan" which increased my risk for diabetes and helped keep me malnourished.}

When I got home I started to research the other side of the story. I discovered https://www.primaldiet.net/ and Aajonus Vonderplanitz. I read his book We Want To Live and became enlightened to new possibilities with animal foods in their most natural form. This leads me to https://www.westonaprice.org/ and eventually https://www.youtube.com/user/sv3rige aka the bluntest raw meat promoter that I've ever seen on YouTube. I made the decision to start eating meat again and eventually work the courage up to try raw meat, organs, eggs, and milk.

^{This is what I looked like after over 4 years of being either vegetarian or fully vegan.}

I knew that I had been eating nothing but crap for a while, so I wanted to set myself straight. I was very selective about what I ate and I tried my best to always have my meat ordered rare. I ate this way for about a week and then tried my first raw eggs and then meat and organs afterward. Eventually, I found a local farm to provide me with raw milk and fresh eggs weekly.

^{This was the first time I had ever drank raw eggs in my life. I was shocked by how easy and tasteless it was. This became an excellent source of protein and other vital nutrients.}

You can see in this video of mine that I start every morning off with four raw eggs. I usually end up drinking down a dozen each day, with both the yolk and whites.

^{One of my earliest times eating raw meat. It brought out animal instincts that I had forgotten that I have. I truly hadn't felt this good in years.}

I ate exclusively raw for about a month or so. Incorporating organs such as the liver, kidney, and brain periodically. Enough time to find my lost vigor. Then I began to introduce cooked foods here and there. In total, I spent about six months experimenting with a mainly raw/primal diet. I ended up drinking raw milk and eating mostly carnivore for well over a year after that. It revitalized me, but it was far from perfect still.

It became harder to easily see my family and friends in our regular meet-up spots. They all still ate whatever and wondered why I was eating this way. I began dating a new girl who was vegetarian, I was able to get her back on animal foods again, but she pulled me away from continuing to eat raw. We eventually split and I didn't fully get back into the primal way of eating. Eventually, my taste buds became wrecked again from sugars and salty food and raw food was hard to get down. Milk and eggs are good no matter what, but I lost the taste for the meat and organs.

Still, I was feeling a million times better than when I was always hungry or sick to my stomach as a vegetarian and vegan. It was a great few years, but then COVID arrived and everything just got smacked out of whack. I went right back to an unhealthy lifestyle with little exercise and lots of work, sprinkled with some animal products. I woke up again recently. It has been a month or two now that I have stopped eating out through the week and have been cooking several steaks daily and occasionally eating some liver. My egg intake is up to a dozen daily and my protein levels are around 150-180g/day. I'm feeling a difference and like where I'm headed.

I have yet to go back to the farm and start getting raw milk and raw butter again yet. Both I feel would be a great addition to my diet, but I just haven't done it yet for some reason. Perhaps I will soon and start to feel my body improve yet again.

I have also been going to the gym 6 days a week for about 6 months now, more on that here. This marks the first period in my life where I am doing strength training and eating meat. It is nice to actually see and feel the results of my hard work, rather than overworking my body and never giving it what it needs to recover. I used to take so many synthetic powders and supplements, never again.

I'm not here to sway anybody to a certain side, but I know where I stand. Raw animal products are what makes my body feel the strongest. I've tried dozens of diets and I know from experience how my body reacts to certain things. You can read whatever you want online, but you will never know for sure until you do it yourself.

I'll leave you with this side-by-side before and after photo where there is a 40lb/18kg difference in my body way. You can be the judge of which version of me looks happier and healthier.

Plants aren’t fully compatible!

When comparing to meat, plants simply lck absorbable nutrients. Plants do not have over 10 micronutrients that human beings require to function at optimum levels. There’s your proof, packaged with the fact that fiber is simply indigestible.

My NFTs: @daltono/nfts