Someone once said that Adam and Eve were placed in a garden with 1000 “yes’s” and 1 “no.”
The carnivore diet is the opposite of that.
So about a year ago we posted about the nutrition and fitness challenge called “75 hard” (where, for 75 days, you 1, stay on a diet; 2 workout/walk twice a day; 3, read; 4, drink a bunch of water, etc etc), and wouldn’t you know one of our elders from church sent out the invite the same time this year and I (Ben) haphazardly excepted the challenge… once again.
The thing about the challenge, at least for our little clique, is not perfection its reset.
Everyone, however disciplined or not, has their ebbs and flows in terms of routines and habits. Sometimes it takes a hard reset to get back on track.
So even though I curse my dear friend for sending the invitation in September (when we are running headlong into the holiday season of snacks and treats over that 75-day period-not to mention kids birthdays and donuts and muffins all from our favorite bakeries), I also bless him for his courage to suggest such a wild (some might call dumb) thing.
Now this post is not about the technical results or techniques of this diet (though if you want me to I will send you my blood work), but its about the lifelong habit of self-denial, self-control and discipline.
I don’t know if its just the simplicity of the diet (like truly nothing’s going in that pie hole but eggs and meat of all varieties pork, chicken, beef, fish, etc) or just the life I’ve built before this of doing hard things/accepting limitations, but once again I am amazed at what you’re able to do when you put your mind to it.
The difference is with this diet the results speak for themselves and you get incentivized rather quickly.
But here is what we want to say about doing hard things:
practice in the little, makes for success in the big.
Now some may say that radically changing your food and beverage habits overnight is no small thing, but ultimately it is a collection of small, every day decisions that when rolled up becomes a massive ball of lifestyle difference.
And again you’ll amaze yourself at what you previously thought impossible!
Take sugar, for example. My lifetime-personal-trainer-friend and mentor Kenny Nita says that we all have to watch out for the 3-5 “white devils:” white flour, white dairy, white alcohols, white sugar, etc. But really if you wanted to radically change your life, and I mean radically-as in stave off inflammation and disease, you might just start with white sugar alone.
But again, how hard is that?! First of all it’s in everything. Second of all it’s a friggin drug. Third of all it makes everything taste amazing!
It’s at this point I should share the reason behind this carnivore diet which for me was inflammation.
If you’ve followed along with our previous posts then you know this last year for me was quite challenging in terms of injury and illness. I was sick or injured more days than I was well, and it shocked me-to my core, I mean even affected my mental health. Again like a pastor friend once said, when it comes to the psychosomatic affects of stress, between the body and the mind there is but a thin line…
Getting back to my original point, if you take sugar alone I would have told you no way, there’s no way I can do that!
But here I am almost 3 weeks later and the only natural sweetener I really ever see is a bit of honey in my tea (which tastes AMAZING now by the way. We went out to dinner last night and I ordered a camomile tea, with a spot of honey, that was either the most expensive, high quality bag of tea I’ve ever had OR my entire system is just becoming acclimated to a diet without artificial sweeteners.)
But enough about the technical-chemical impacts of this amazing diet. Remember I’m not trying to convince about the latest diet fads. What we’re pointing you to here is the power each one of us posses and the fruitfulness a that results when we embrace limitations and discipline ourselves.
If you think this is some secular/naturalistic way of thinking/talking, then think again. Check this out from Hebrews 12, verses 12 & 13
“Now all discipline seems painful at the time, not joyful. But later it produces the fruit of peace and righteousness for those trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but be healed.”
How about that last bit from verse 13: so that whatever’s lame already, will not be put further out of joint but be healed.
Man that’s a powerful reminder. And an important theology too. Because while supernatural intervention is real and still happens today by God’s sovereign grace, most of us are too lazy or too ignorant to embrace the authority and free will that God has already graced us with!
The author of Hebrews says, ‘be a part of your healing man! Use your willpower, pick yourself up and make a straight path!’
I know we don’t all have 11 kids, but we all have a lot to live for. And because we are clear as a family about our values and the legacy we want to leave for our children’s children, making decisions like this becomes rather easy.
What painful discipline is God inviting you into right now? What is one step you can take in that direction? And who will go with you?
Until next time,
-Ben & Rylee
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