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By the way in case this wasn't clear: this is just an elimination diet experiment on myself, it's not a dietary recommendation to you or anyone else. I do think that some people do better with high carb than others. There are genetic differences that indicate higher carb tolerance in some people, eg salivary amylase copies. Some people have genetic differences that make a low carb/no carb keto/carnivore diet very harmful. There's room for multiple optimal human diets because diet has to be specific to a particular persons's unique biochemistry and genetics.

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Good clarification, for sure. But how to know if your body is one of those preferring/toleratng higher- or lower-carb? Any tests or is it trial and error?

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Also worth bearing in mind that the toxins in plants do the same for us as they do for themselves. They give us the toxins we need to clear our systems of parasites and protection from chemicals and heavy metals. We borrow their toxicity to keep ourselves clean.

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I agree, the famously carnivorous Maori consume tons of different herbs during their meat feasts, probably for this very reason.

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Amen.

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Jan 26Liked by Dr. Syed Haider

I think the key thing about all those "detox" type diets is that you aren't eating processed BigAg/Bigfood junk. If you eat nothing canned, nothing processed, just fresh... just fruit, vegetables and meat, I think you will see the same results. Nothing packaged. Of course, if you have a food allergy, that will have to be sussed out.

It would be interesting to see how healthy all that meat really is - are their vaccinations still in the meat? How did it change the meat? And... sometimes those cattle ate the same junk food offered to us. I've seen dairy cows being fed boxes of left over donuts, oranges, candy....

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The one thing everyone can agree on is avoid processed food. My gut (lol) tells me that all meat is not optimal for my body, but it certainly leads to rapid weight loss and the extra weight is worse than a short stint eating only meat.

Even meat with added hormones has very low levels compared to plant hormone disruptors like phytoestrogens. Vaccines are probably given to most animals. I mostly eat pasture raised, but everything is a set of tradeoffs.

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I try for bison when I can as from what I've read it isn't likely to have any of the meds/vax that cows do.... but... flavor-wise there is nothing like a grain finished cow! Would love to find natural raised pork that has no vaccines.

I like Dr Kelley's idea that the body needs different things at different times and during a health crisis, protein was something the body craved for healing... that was Dr Kelley the dentist, the one who promoted enzymes.

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Jan 25Liked by Dr. Syed Haider

Hi Dr Haider,

What a great article and personal. The part that I'm responding to is the almost last few lines about the higher hanging fruit. I would say those are the ripest fruit of all working on them first they're ready to fall from the tree.

Wondering about your work how to work with you? Or is it just your team as an option.

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author

Yeah I still do 1 on 1 visits for now, but primarily just treating long covid and vax injury as that's what I have the most experience with. Once I take a look at my own genetics I may feel more comfortable helping people with that. The deep dive nutritional workup is available through my website, but it's just a starting point for further tweaking and experimentation because there are often multiple possibilities available when you find an abnormality. Telemedicine is suited to a lab forward approach since I can't meet and examine people, and that can get expensive for most.

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Jan 27Liked by Dr. Syed Haider

Enjoyed the read. I myself have joined in on the carnivore journey and have benefited tremendously!

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Jan 26Liked by Dr. Syed Haider

Thank you for this great article! I'm on my Carnivore diet (mostly beef, water, real salt) I only eat a few eggs or fish once in a while. I've lost 24 pounds since Thanksgiving.

My goal is to get to my good weight which is 140-150 lbs. I'm at 176 as of this writing. I'd like to get my 40 yr old daughter on this who has MS and has been having seizures the last 2 years (after getting 3 covid vaxx from Moderna against my advice).

If you have any advice on MS and a very restrictive diet I'd appreciate it! Thanks 😊

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author

Check out Dr Terry Wahls book on how she healed her own MS. My understanding is she used the AIP diet or something like it. For most people ketosis will probably help.

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Jan 26Liked by Dr. Syed Haider

At the start of the shut downs I signed up to a 6 month journey on AIP diet with the help of Dr. Cole.

I wanted to heal my leaky gut and try to get back to "normal" weight. I started out ay 220lbs 5'9" and age 65. I was able to get to 170 in 2 years on AIP. gradually starting back on one food item at a time to see how my gut reacted. After 2 trial runs at adding back foods, and in the middle of a 5 day water fast, I started gaining weight regardless of the fact I was in ketosis.

That freaked me out and combined with stressing over my daughters health issues, I just dumped the diet. I went back up to 205 and after listening to Jordan B. Peterson 's account of how he and his daughter conquered their serious health issues by eating only beef, water, salt.

So after deliberating for a while I decided to jump in. That was around Thanksgiving 2023. So far I've lost 24 pounds down to 176. I feel good, just trying to keep up with electrolytes as I am extremely fatigued and everything hurts if I don't consume enough Redmond salt and water.

I'm hoping to get my daughter on a very restrictive diet for her MS. We are in very different states right now. I'm planning to get her with me permanently. Because of her issues she cannot even cook for herself anymore. Her father (my ex) is with her most of the time. I truly think this will benefit her if she will trust my judgement. She has primary progressive MS with seizures the last 2 years (after 3 Moderna vaccines- against my advice).

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author

Ketogenic diets can be particularly helpful for brain disorders like MS.

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I'm very concerned that she began having seizures after getting 3 Moderna vaccines 2 years ago. Before that she was getting on pretty well, able to drive, care for her 6 year old daughter, cook, etc. Now she can do much of anything. Maybe wash clothes and do a bit of cleaning. Her father has basically moved in with her to help out. The seizures cause severe aphasia and memory loss. She's 40 and was diagnosed with MS age 26.

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Where to find non vaxed, no hormone, non tainted meat in today's world? Who or what sources to trust? It's getting hard to find non poisoned foods.

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Yes, I have the same problem. All the meat locally seems to come in cryovaced, even whole carcasses that are subsequently butchered and then re-cryovaced. A few years back I bought a cryovaced fillet steak that I kept looking at in the fridge because I did not fancy it. I finally cooked it given how expensive it had been and still did not want to eat it. So I offered it to my dog - that is DOG, not cat - and she reeled back and refused to eat it. (It wasn't rotten - it did smell OK.) I have never knowingly eaten cryovac meat again, and that is all I can get where I live in rural Australia. I can get fresh free range (not organic) chicken, and organic eggs, so I rely on them for my protein intake.

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Can't trust free range either. Putting meds/vax type stuff in feeds and produce/grass seeds. Getting the bioengineered hormone vax crud in everything. Seeds to grow veggies already messed with. Nothing seems untouched or pure anymore.

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Agreed. And unfortunately there is little "road edge" trading going on around me.

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My friend relieved all her symptoms from rheumatoid arthritis within 2 weeks of doing the carnivore diet. Swelling and pain all gone! Her rheumatologist was amazed and ready to stop her methotrexate infusions. I know this is anecdotal. But SERIOUSLY!!!

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One man's meat is another man's poison. I want to see this broken down by blood type. I am type 0+ so as "primitive" as you can get. We apparently have the high levels of stomach acid necessary to digest meat. This way of eating is likely to suit me. I have heard of others who get dangerously constipated (apparently because they do not have the stomach acid necessary to digest all that meat). What's the bet they are A blood types? Has anyone seen an analysis of the Lion Diet in relation to blood type?

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author

The blood type diet only recommends heavy meat to type O, but most people don't give it much credence. Anyway I take your point and agree some people are biochemically sub optimal suited to a carnivore diet. It's not the be all and end all of human diet as some proponents claim.

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Agree, I'm O negative and I've always felt better the more red meat I consume. I truly think blood type is an important part of the picture.

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It works for those who can stick to it and it is not all that difficult.

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Had long covid - started the intermittent fasting a year ago; got down to a weight which I haven't had since I was a teenager. Lost 30 lbs. Gave up grains for the most part and sugar. I can tolerate a tiny bit of sugar food, but it's "playing with fire." I've grown to dislike the taste of sugar in foods now; (added in corn tortillas/ maybe organic wheat in tiny amounts after positive results gained) I had started the grain-free /sugar free diet once before when I was diagnosed with "pre-diabetes" Giving up the sugar and grain immediately made me feel amazing /great; like I hadn't felt since I was 10 years old. The pre-diabetes went away immediately. I've also discovered that my long-standing aphasia bouts can be controlled by supplements. Not sure, in my routine, what is causing the great sleep I've recently experienced. Had been hard ffor me to sleep for more than 6 hours; now sleeping 9 or 10 even some nights. It might be the iron supplements I added with folic acid to correct my potential iron deficiency? Hematocrit was low. (Found that out trying to give blood, per Dr. Syed's advise! ) But it's really an unknown and could be a result of some synergism with the other parts of my supplement routine?

My maternal grandparents were anti-vax at the turn of the century; 19th .c, and my mother believed in the power of nature for healing, to the point she didn't believe in taking supplements, ( nor hardly seeing a doctor); But only in food for nutrients (which I believe is an incorrect stance given our modern condition). But from her I got the idea that dirt or toxins were something that the body adapts to and which makes it stronger. And that "the body" has it's own intelligence and knows what to do. In other words trust your body to perform what "science" would consider unexplanable or a "miracle". I fully believe that nature and our own intelligence ( salute to Dr. Haider) provides remedies and that the healing power of plants (dose important to avoid toxicity) is put there by God in the design of "his" perfect work of creation.

Salute to you Dr. Haider! It's fully understandable that the strain of all you are trying to accomplish and the extraordinary situation of our time would make it difficult for you to keep "rules" of your hoped-for diet. I am so grateful for you and for your work. Glad to see you posting again. CarpeDiem "pluck the fruits of the garden, today. )

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And if you had an ice cream habit then cutting that alone would drop weight...

You may think, who am I to critique a doctor, but I think any good doctor would appreciate a good challenge in the comments. Besides, after Covid, the profession is loathed on par with lawyers and bankers.

Have you tried an extended fast to recalibrate your taste?

I’ve got five 7 day fasts in the rearview and I always come out of it feeling the fruit and veggies intuitively. Gonna be hard to shake that feeling. I love being light and full of electricity.

I just say, for balance, try a fast and then try a heavy green diet.

These carnivore fads are the definition of extreme. The various clever names only glorify eating like a kindergartner. Just a thought, you are what you eat, they say; so then what becomes of a personality if all you eat is meat?!! 🐍

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You gained ever more weight than I did. I thought my 24 pounds was a lot. Good for you for shedding it all. I'm 6 pounds away, but exercising more consistently again.

Cheers.

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Thanks so much, doc, for your candid notes on your personal journey! Very interesting about phytotoxins. Hmm... That's new to me and I will look into it, but I'll take issue with the notion that agrarian communities are less healthy. The five blue zones on Earth are the healthiest, happiest, and live the longest. And most of their diets are 95% plant-based! (See new Netflix documentary "Live to 100".

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author

The Blue Zone diets have been greatly misreported. For example in Okinawa the Blu Zone group eats more meat than their local counterparts who don't live as long. Not really a great selling point for lowering meat intake.

And the whole blue zone concept has taken some flak because birth records are so poor in most of those areas.

As for the California blue zone, secret meat eating has always been rampant in religiously no meat groups.

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I wish that the plant-centric crowd would stop muddling they're food ethics with nutrition. Seems to me that many believe eating meat is wrong for animal rights reasons but instead of pushing vegetarianism on that basis they try to make the case that it's healthier. (I do believe it can be healthier -- for some people, not for all.) Mixing the ethical and nutritional arguments is fundamentally dishonest.

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Misreported?? And your source? I would be very skeptical of so-called "flak." The meat industry is no different from Big Pharma-- exceedingly powerful, corrupt, and threatening to those who criticize it. The Blue Zones' reputations have stood the test of

time, via many examinations I

have followed through the years.

Okinawa? Ha, actually this region is not even considered a Blue zone any longer by some... it's shining light is dying out. Guess WHY?? Yup- Meat/bad diet changes! in the past few years!

"Unfortunately, fast food and

Western styles of eating have made it to the island, and younger generations are no longer reaping the health benefits of eating the traditional Okinawan way." (yes, the *traditional diet, which kept everyone living Very long and healthy, was less than 1% meat OR dairy.;))

Loma Linda, CA - "rampant" secret diet cheating lol? Again I would ask for the source. Sounds like quite the generalization *assumed*... And , honestly, if you want to see the effects of rampant meat eating, look at 90% of our fat-a$$ country, which has amongst the worst health outcomes of any of the first (even second*)-world nations.🤨

Nah. I stand by my guru doctors like Dr. N. Barnard & all members of the amazing PCRM, as well as all the vegan role model iron Man and marathon champs out there: Plant-based diets are the best, ...generally speaking.

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Thoughtful as always.

At your age and with the extra wieght, I politely suggest sprinting backwards instead of forwards. Another great test is to run a backwards mile with no mouth breathing. Backwards is brilliant for knee, hip, and ankle health.

Kino wrote a book on Ashtanga and she had a section on food. There is no food that doesn't struggle against consumption other than the fallen fruit. It gets complicated from there, eh?

Idk about all these diet fads, reggae meat is surely the most toxic though. Roundup/Agent Orange mutant corn fed to tortured, born to die, concentration camp slave animals and then fed to humans? At some point, I have resigned myself that I must simply stop eating one day if I am to exit the matrix.

About plants fighting back... Some highly trained and impeccably healthy yoga types maintain that this is actually good for the human body...

If plants were grown with love and then eaten raw and then resisted digestion, I could see how this strengthens the human.

Just a thought, once you get to your goal with this diet, would you commit to not eating until you've had a raw salad as your first meal?

Another thought is eating for energy (electrical body). What's the one about a frequency (528 hz?) multiplied by the speed of light and then passed through a quartz prism creating the color green? Green is the color of the heart chakra. This energy center is 5x more powerful than any other. Thus, if you want to eat for energy then eat 5x more green food than anything else.

Plus, one vegetable after another has been linked to improved hormonal balance; ie testosterone (celery, brassicas, beets).

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Interesting thoughts. I did mention that I don't think plant toxins are necessarily bad for you, i.e. the idea of hormesis.

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