I was way liberal with my diet in December. Between the tropical vacation, the death of a family member, and the holidays, I rediscovered that I am an emotional eater.

Instead of holding to the straight and narrow path, I ate delicious goodies. Cheese, dark chocolate, gin & mineral water, a spoonful of guacamole, and coffee coffee coffee.

Nothing too horrible (God forbid I eat a blueberry!) but definitely a lot o things on the “no” list.

Everything was delicious. I regret nothing.

I will say, however, that on the other side of things I can feel the inflammation creeping back into my brain.

• My bowels hurt, when they didn’t before.
• My brain is foggy, when before it was fine.
• My mood is down, my sleep less efficient.
• Overall no bueno.

Time to return to the path.

January is World Carnivore Month. That’s cool.

To me, it is January.

I’ll go back to my life after a season of indulging in treats like cheese and dark chocolate and gin. Time to eat clean and healthy for a spell. (And spend some time trying out my new Cuisinart Griddler, which is replacing my beat-up ol’ Foreman grill.)

Many positive things entered my life when I decided to try eating only meat and other animal products.

Yes, being a carnivore has helped me stop craving sweets and binge-eating carbs. Yes, being a carnivore has given my body the environment it needs to heal from over two decades of autoimmune disease. Yes, being a carnivore has given me more energy than I’ve ever known, which has led to more travelling and more time in the gym (hello, muscles!).

It could be easy to paint the carnivore diet as a magic cure—the holy grail that you’ve been searching for that will cure all your aches and pains, make you feel younger and healthier, and cause the sun to shine on you even in the rain.

Some people on the carnivore forums spin those tales. They claim that their lifelong ailments were cured in a few days, or that they lost a bunch of weight without trying, or that their depression lifted or whatever. Maybe this was their experience.

In my experience, healing takes time even when you’re eating a strict diet. Change is difficult. Results take time, and optimizing requires lots of trial and error. Even under a new paradigm, you have to test and change your assumptions. Other people’s promises don’t always apply to you.

The thing about life as a carnivore, is that it’s just that: life.

I wake up, I go to sleep. This way of eating does not exempt me from needing rest. In fact, it has underscored how much I need a full night’s sleep. Without the “buffer” of carbs and the luxury of copious amounts of coffee, lack of sleep shows up quicker.

I pack my lunches and cook dinners after work. Carnivory does not supply me with hot meals on command (I wish!), nor does it mean that I never think about food. Sure, eating this way is a lot simpler, but I still have to figure out when prep meals for the week or what I’m going to eat if I’m going out somewhere. Now that I’m somewhat established, I’m finding that it’s time to become more adventuresome with eating—time to try out the organ meats and “off” cuts that I have been avoiding.

I struggle with stress. One thing eating like a carnivore taught me is that one does not simply solve all problems through a dietary intervention. Sure, diet can solve a lot of underlying problems, but it can’t solve everything. Moving forward, I need to learn to manage stress. If I don’t, no amount of clean eating can help me.

I still need to exercise. Abs or no abs, diet doesn’t provide the benefits of exercise. I still have to do the work, whether its with calisthenics on my living room floor or with free weights at the gym.

And I still monitor my portions. Despite what some people say, we don’t all need to eat 4lbs of ribeye every day. I didn’t start losing weight until I made peace with eating much less (and waaaay less fat than I thought). These days, I eat roughly 1 – 1.5 pounds of lean meat per day, plus a few extras (like beef sticks, coffee, and a little cheese).

For years, I searched for a “magic bullet” that would make all my health problems disappear. For a while, I hoped the carnivore diet would be that solution.

But the real solution—the real thing that being a carnivore has taught me—is that there is no magic pill. There’s no quick trick to getting what I want. No holy grail.

The real magic comes from doing the work—from learning what my body wants, and needs—from making the mistakes and recovering from them. The answers are in me—they always have been—I just need to stay on the straight and narrow path instead of straying looking for shiny magic answers.

My body has everything it needs to heal. I just need to stay out of the way.

If you’re trying out the carnivore diet this January, welcome! This is a great way of eating.