Ex-Vegan (4+ Months): Plant-Based Diet Ruined My Health And There Was Only One Way To Fix It

Watch on YouTube · 2018-11-09 · 20 min

0:00 Introduce yourself if you want to and talk about when you got into veganism and why you got into it and what happened. Okay? Sure.

[video] 0:13 Okay. My name is Jacob. I'm living in Australia. I decided to first go vegetarian in 2010. I was in a relationship with a woman who was very spiritual and into new age stuff and as you know like veganism is quite big in those communities. So at the start, you know, I just started to open my mind to the idea that, you know, like meat came from actual animals instead of just any other food product. You know, it was kind of eye opening for a bit there because obviously we're kind of disconnected from it. You know, we don't see the animals getting killed and all that. And, you know, I started to see movies like Earthlings and stuff like that. So it really turned me off for a while. So I decided to go vegetarian. I was a big time athlete back then. I was playing basketball a lot. And basketball was very important to me back then.

[video] 1:04 It wasn't long though, a few months into being vegetarian, that my testosterone started to go down quite a lot. I lost my competitive edge.

[video] 1:14 And I started to feel quite depressed. And I thought that maybe I had to go even further and go vegan. So that's what I did. Even though I had a craving for eggs and things like that, I decided no. all animal products are bad. I'm going to go vegan. I was so hungry all the time. I was just eating salads and all this bullshit. And it was just, it was awful. You know, I was losing a lot of weight, lost a lot of muscle. And I noticed I just got really sensitive, just mentally and emotionally very weak. If somebody would yell at me instead of like fighting back, I would just be like, oh, my feelings are hurt. And I was like, What's happened to me? This is not normal at all. And I remember we went, I went with my girlfriend, we went on a holiday to Hawaii. And I was in a really bad place. I was so depressed. And we went to see a naturopath.

[video] 2:11 And this naturopath was telling me, man, like, of course you're feeling like this. You're drinking soy milk. You're not eating meat. Of course your hormones are going to be awful right now. You need to start eating meat. I recommend you eat a steak tonight. Just see how you feel. I thought she was wrong, but I tried it. I said, all right, I'll eat a steak tonight. I ate it, and I'll tell you what, I felt pretty good that night, you know. Me and my girlfriend definitely, sparks came back. But, you know, the conditioning was so strong. The next day, we were just like, no, no, no, we're going to go back to vegan. That's the right way to be because eating meat is wrong, you know. And it's kind of like being on this moral high ground that we felt we had being vegans, you know. And, yeah. And there was a lot of vegans back there in Hawaii at the time. We were in Maui and it was very easy to find other vegans. So it was easy to fall right back into it.

[video] 3:03 Fast forward a few months, you know, back home and, you know, I started smoking weed very heavily because my brain chemistry was just screwed. I didn't want to play basketball anymore. Didn't really go to the gym much. When I did, my workouts were very, very short. I just didn't want to be there. And I remember just one day I was just playing video games and I turned it off and I walked up to my girlfriend. I just broke down in tears. I was so sad. I told her, I was like, I don't know why I'm so sad. You know, I'm vegan. All these other vegans, they say they're all so happy and healthy, but I've never felt so miserable in my life. And, you know, she tried to talk me out of it and stuff, but she couldn't. I was just, like, when I say depressed, like, I've never felt so bad in my life. And I didn't know why. I didn't have any reason to feel like that. And so, you know, she was just watching TV. I left. I walked into the room.

[video] 4:03 I barricaded myself in. And I'm a type 1 diabetic. I've been since I was 8 years old. And I decided to barricade myself in the room, took out some insulin, and I tried to overdose on insulin. I passed out. she realized what was going on and police came broke down the door paramedics came in they saved me this was back in 2011 after a while I got out of hospital and stuff and I still didn't realize I just didn't know that diet could do this to someone I had no idea it took me a long time before I realized just how much food really impacts us and so I was still on that diet for a while, but my sex drive was shot. My girlfriend didn't respect me as a man anymore. And it was sad for her. She started to, you know, like, obviously, like, when a man loses sexual interest, like, the woman's going to start thinking something's wrong with her.

[video] 5:02 And so it started to affect her. And after a while, you know, she broke up with me. And I went into a very, very dark place. So when we broke up, I remember my body was screaming for me. It was really screaming for it. And I thought, you know, I spent so much time, like, being one of these vegans that went around telling everyone else to be vegan, that meat is bad and all this stuff. But I thought, let me just try it. I'll just try eating meat again. And I know I'm going to feel shit, and I know I'm going to be right about the vegan diet, that it's good. So I decided to do it the cheap and easy way because I was hungry one night. I just said, fuck it. I'm going to go buy a pizza with all the meat on it. And I ate it, and I swear it was not, like, an hour or two after I ate it, I felt my testosterone going back up and I felt like my manhood started coming back and I was like, oh man, I can't, this is not a placebo because I didn't want this to happen. So I knew I was wrong.

[video] 6:02 I no longer was avoiding meat, but I was not going out of my way to chase it because the subconscious conditioning was very, very strong. So I just found myself avoiding it still. I had a few eggs, a little bit of chicken here and there, But I never went out of my way to buy red meat, you know, unless I went out and bought a kebab or some McDonald's or something and there's some beef in there, which is, you know, obviously overcooked or whatever. And fast forward a few years, so 2016, my health was getting really, really bad. I was always trying to play sports and get healthy again, but I just couldn't do it. I wasn't eating very much animal products. I was eating a really shit diet. And...

[video] 6:44 I was getting really sick all the time, so I went to the doctor for a few blood tests, tells me my kidneys are not working properly. So it says that I might be in the early stages of kidney disease, which about 50% of type 1 diabetics get it. And by this stage, I'd had diabetes for about 19 years. So I thought, yeah, that's it. You know, I've got about five years left to live. I'm depressed anyway. Who cares?

[video] 7:14 So I was getting sicker and sicker and sicker and, you know, I was having all the symptoms. I was peeing at strange times and all kinds of stuff that come along with, you know, bad kidneys. I started doing a little bit of research and I looked into the keto diet. And, you know, because obviously all the problems that come along with type 1 diabetes happen because of bad blood sugar. And obviously a keto diet is very good for your blood sugar. So I tried it. I had some blood tests two months after I was on the keto diet and doctors were like, your kidneys are fine now. They seem to be operating just right. So there you go. I felt cool. All right. So slowly got off the keto diet again, was back to eating a lot of carbs and a lot of bullshit. But the keto diet taught me the value of fats and not to fear meat, which was great. Um,

[video] 8:10 So that was very early in 2016.

[video] 8:16 However, throughout this time for the last 10 years or so, I'd had a really bad problem with my neck. I'd had this sort of like a pinched nerve. It's called occipital neuralgia. And it's this nerve that goes from the base of the neck up through the skull and behind the eye. And when that would get pinched, it was like my whole neck and my whole brain would hurt. And it was the worst pain you could ever imagine. I mean, I've had broken legs, broken arms, all kinds of stuff. But, man, nothing compares even close to this kind of pain. And so I was looking for anything to get rid of this pain. And I tried chiropractors and physiotherapists and everything that you could try, I tried it. And then... It came to about July, July 14, or it was about July 12 or something that Jordan Peterson was on the Joe Rogan podcast, and he was talking about the carnivore diet. That was the second time I'd heard about it. The first time was from Sean Baker.

[video] 9:13 Now, when I'd heard Sean Baker talk about it, I believed him, but I was too lazy to do anything about it. But by the time I heard Jordan Peterson, I was desperate, so I tried it. I said, all right. I'm going to do this carnivore diet and I'm pretty sure I just had this feeling in my gut that this was going to fix my issue. And within one week, that pain slowly started to phase out. And I no longer felt the nerve pain anymore. Within one week, I had it for 10 years. One week, gone. And I thought, this is phenomenal. And that pain was so bad that I didn't dare to get off the diet because if I started eating that bullshit again and I got that nerve pain, nah, I'm just not doing it. So, Stayed on it for a bit. Now, I had a few friends. I'd seen them literally the week I started the diet. I'd seen them. Then I didn't see them for a whole month. When I saw them a month after, so mid-August, I remember my friend, she told me, she goes, you look different.

[video] 10:13 I said, what do you mean? She said, you look stronger. You look healthy. Like, your skin is glowing. You look like you're full of life. And I told her, I was like, yeah, I'm eating different. It's carnivore diet. It's amazing. Said, wow, that's cool. And then I remember moving house and joining a new martial arts gym because I train in mixed martial arts now. And I was going against the head coach there and he was just, he was amazed. He said, how are you so strong? Like you've got, for your weight, your strength is unbelievable. And before that, no one ever told me I was that strong. But what happened was within two months of me going on this diet, my body fat went from 12% down to about 7%. And I gained about 5 kilos or about 11 or 12 pounds of lean muscle mass without really doing much. You know, my body just transformed. And I felt really strong, full of energy. It was just, I've never felt this healthy.

[video] 11:12 And now I still train there now. And guys tell me, they're like, man, I've never seen anyone in your weight class who's as strong as you. So they put me up against guys in bigger weight classes. And they say, man, that's kind of weird. I don't tell anyone at the gym because I think, you know, Either they might not believe me and kind of like having a bit of an affinity joke with them, but if they ask, I do tell them. So, yeah, you know, like the carnivore diet, man, it's really changed my life. First, I was just on the muscle meats, but then I started looking into, you know, finding the carnivores on YouTube, such as yourself and Frank Tufano and other guys, and started hearing about the organ meats. And then I noticed that when I started eating the organ meats that My health really, really, it was just like, it was like a vitality that I feel inside me that just grew. And, you know, I was always into like spirituality and consciousness and expanding it and all that sort of stuff. But there is not one thing I've ever done spiritually that has ever compared to this diet because, I mean, it's just literally exactly what my brain needed.

[video] 12:12 It's literally a consciousness expanding diet. But it sounds strange to people because everyone associates that kind of a an effect with the vegan diet. But the vegan diet was the complete opposite. The vegan diet made me snappy, made me irritable, made me depressed. And I started eating this way and my brain just felt like it's turned on for the first time. I'm calm, I feel peaceful. I've never felt this emotionally stable in my whole life. And I have many reasons to be depressed. My life is not all sunshine and rainbows right now. I've got a lot of problems, but They're just not affecting me. I just feel like I've got so much mental fortitude now that I did not have before. And that's something I was not expecting from this. I was just saying that just to fix my bad nerve. But, hey, I'll take it.

13:04 When you were a vegetarian, did you eat eggs and dairy?

[video] 13:09 I didn't really have dairy, but... Because my girlfriend got me onto the soy milk. She said, oh, it'll be healthier for you. And like the dumb idiot I was back then, I just listened to her, didn't do any research for myself. I did crave eggs. I remember just any time I could smell egg and bacon in the morning, you know, because it wasn't just us two living at home. Oh, I wanted it so bad. I really wanted it. But I said, no, no bacon, but I'll just have the eggs, you know. And I was doing a little bit better when I was eating that way. But And eventually I got rid of the eggs because I kept telling myself, think about the animals. Think about the factory farms and all that bullshit that goes along with it, you know. And I felt guilty doing it. So I gave it up eventually. And that's, man, things went downhill really fast for me after that. And, you know, the big problem with that vegan and vegetarian diets is that you never satiate it.

[video] 14:06 You know, there aren't enough fats to keep you full, so you just have to go for the carbs. And a lot of the time I was trying to eat healthy, and then one day I would just binge and just go buy pizza or something. But I was just so damn hungry, my stomach just took control of my brain and said, fill me up. You know, and that's what I did.

14:22 Did you have a lot of digestive issues?

[video] 14:26 Um... Not that I recall, but looking back on it now, I definitely did. But it was mainly gas and things like that. But people take that for granted. People think that farting all day every day is normal. But obviously, now it's not because I never fart anymore.

14:42 Yeah, because it's linked to depression. That's where it comes from, the gut. That's why I asked. Did you have any other health issues that you maybe forgot to mention? Anything with the teeth or anything like that?

[video] 14:56 Yeah, right after, so about a month or two after I got off the vegan diet, I had a tooth crack. And I was only about maybe 21 or 22 at the time. So that tooth, I lost a piece of it. And then eventually the whole thing went. And then the other side went because obviously I was relying on that side to do all the chewing. So yeah, now I'm missing two teeth. And my teeth were not bad before I went on the vegan diet. And it didn't take long for them to go. So yeah.

15:23 Hmm.

15:26 What do you think is the future of veganism? Where is it heading?

[video] 15:32 It's hard to say because I'm seeing so many people come out with their ex-vegan stories. But at the same time, I'm seeing so many people rush into veganism. And the thing that vegans have got on the things they use to recruit people is they use emotion. They're using these documentaries and they're showing the factory farming and they never show the good farming. They never show the free range animals. They never show free range hunting or any of these things. But at the same time, there are so many people who try and feel like absolute shit. And, you know, I have a lot of friends who are vegetarian and I just smell how bad their breath is and how weak they look. And they look awful. And they look at me and they're like, man, you look so strong right now. Like what what's changing you? It's hard to tell them. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't because they just think you're fucking crazy. How do you I don't think the question so much is where's veganism going? It's almost like. How do you decondition people? How do you condition people to realize that nothing is superior to animal products? Nothing.

[video] 16:30 And the fact that we're all being conditioned to go for plants and high-sugar fruits, that's suspicious. So where is it going? I think it's going to follow something similar to what's happening in politics now, where the left and the right are going further and further away and becoming more and more polarized towards each other.

[video] 16:52 Vegans are getting more and more crazy. They're going into steakhouses. It happens here in Melbourne where they go and they protest. People are just trying to have a meal and they can't because they're getting harassed by vegans holding up their stupid signs and shit. And on the other hand, we've got other people such as ourselves who are going completely off the fruit and veg and predominantly eating just animal products. So it's definitely a big split. It's a big schism that's happening.

17:18 When I go and eat meat at vegan festivals, then they freak out. But they think that it's fine to do it at restaurants where people eat meat. Crazy.

[video] 17:28 Yeah, I was pretty inspired by that video. I was like, I'm going to wait for the next vegan festival and try that myself.

17:34 Yeah, I'm sure there's many in Australia.

[video] 17:37 Yeah, veganism is getting very big here in Melbourne. I definitely might have an opportunity to try what you've done. But if anyone pushes me the way they pushed you, I'll probably kick them in the head.

17:50 Yeah, if they attack you, you can defend yourself.

17:55 Do you regret veganism now and this whole thing or do you just see it as an experience in life?

[video] 18:01 It's definitely was an experience. I don't regret it now because I guess where I am now, I can't believe how good I feel. Not only do I feel better than I've ever felt, I feel better than most people will ever feel in their life. And that's very rare for somebody who's had diabetes for over 20 years to say something like that. So, all the experiences I've had in my life was worth it if it led to where I'm at now.

[video] 18:31 I don't regret it. I do wish I had my teeth back. I wish I didn't have to go through what I went through with that girl and all that, but Sometimes lessons are painful and that's it. As long as I learn it, it was worth it.

18:48 Anything else you would like to add? Any experience? Something you learned from it? Anything you want to say to vegans? Anything special?

[video] 19:00 I would like to tell people that, especially vegans, that are very sure about their way of eating. If you don't feel absolutely amazing and you're sitting there and you're relying on supplements and all this stuff to try to feel better, maybe this is not the right way of eating. If you need supplements, I mean, I used to have a lot of supplements. I still have a bunch of them that I don't even use anymore. You know, I quit coffee, I quit smoking, I quit all these things when I started this diet because I realized I didn't need anything anymore. But most of the vegetarians and vegans I know are addicts in some way or they're depressed in some way.

[video] 19:37 they need supplements or whatever it's just like if you're really like this is this really the right way to eat if no human society has ever been vegan before is this really the natural way that humans are supposed to eat and when i was a vegan i was sure that this was the right way to eat and i was completely delusional and you don't really know if you're delusional or not until you try to test your point of view. And the only way you can test your point of view is by starting out, is by eating animals again, eating meat again, and see if you feel better. I mean, really, if vegan is the right way to go, this is what I did. I started eating meat and I was like, to prove to myself, I'm going to hate it, I'm going to feel shit, and I'm going to go right back to vegan because I'll feel better. And I proved it to myself that I was wrong. And I guarantee you, if you are a vegan and you're thinking about eating meat again, try it and see for yourself Do you want to feel better or do you want to feel worse?

[video] 20:38 And that's it.

20:40 Well said, man. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. No worries, man.

[video] 20:45 Thanks for having me. Cheers.