Back in May, I passed the 1-year anniversary of the day I ate my last vegetable. [yaaaaay.wav]

It has been a surprisingly easy year. My journey from paleo to SCD to SCD/low-FODMAP to SCD/Low-FODMAP/no nightshades to all-of-the-above-but-also-keto was either going to end in me going crazy and eating all the vegetables again (and probably juicing), or in no vegetables at all. I’ve never been happier with a decision.

Mid-May of this year, I could sense that my body was in a healing mode, so I decided to take the final plunge and quit all “zero carb” foods that weren’t meat or eggs. That meant no cheese and no coffee, my last two vices. Even though I had been eating supposedly zero carbs, I experienced SIBO die off about six days in. (Herxheimer reactions are real, y’all.)

Bacterial overgrowths are really difficult to eradicate. You have to be extremely consistent with your food and lifestyle choices. Otherwise, the colony kicks right back into multiply-mode and you’re overrun again.

It’s been interesting what eating just animal products has revealed about my food addictions and the factors leading to my Crohn’s disease. I function so much better without dairy, and yet I have absolutely no self-control with it. There are other carnivores with digestive problems who find it helpful to eat one ounce of cheese per day. I cannot do that.

I suspect the reason why may be lingering intestinal permeability. I still have some active eczema patches which I believe directly mirror the permeability of my gut. When those patches are healed, I may start experimenting with other types of foods again, or adding back some seasonings.

The lack of variability in my diet, however, has exposed the fact that there are other things that contribute to my autoimmune disease. Things that I knew in theory, but that my lived experience now bears out. For example: getting enough sleep and effectively managing stress.

Both of these things are essential for keeping inflammation low, but they’re easy to ignore when the food part of your diet is more on fire. Now that food is pretty much locked down, I can’t ignore the fact that there are other things that I’m doing that contribute to my state of disease.

I know that Crohn’s disease isn’t my fault, but it’s become abundantly clear to me that some of my habits contribute to the development of this disease and its symptoms. Maybe I didn’t beget this in myself, but I certainly contribute to it.

There are things that I never would have learned about myself and my body if I hadn’t gone carnivore. The diet shift has been an essential part of my growth as someone who takes charge of her own health, and has allowed me to see things that I may not have otherwise seen.

At the moment I’m eating mostly beef burgers with a side of shredded beef, some eggs, and some wild-caught salmon. I’ve cut out all pork in an attempt to lose some fat, which makes me a little sad, but I can live with it for now.

There’s some smoked chicken in my fridge, but I can’t decide if I like it or not.

One of the nicest things about carnivory is that I don’t have to make many choices about food anymore. There was a time in my life that I liked making decisions about what to eat, and cooking elaborate meals, but I was also a complete slave to my palate. Now, I keep things simple.

Life is good and the healing is real.

PS. And I should add that one of the greatest side-effects of this diet is that my skin is no longer hella sensitive to the sun. I used to burn in a flash, and one of the first things I noticed last year was that my skin could tolerate a lot more sun–and it sprouted a lot more freckles! This summer, it’s even better. I’ve gotten a few light burns, which have all faded in a few days to something that might even resemble a tan eventually. We shall see–but I love it.