Featured Image Credit: Jam Press
Topics: Food and Drink, Health, Vegan
Ella Scott
A former raw vegan has revealed how her health improved after she took up the controversial carnivore diet.
Followers of the carnivore meal plan tend to exclude vegetables, fruits and other carbohydrates from their diet in favor of seafood, meat, eggs and water.
Due to the elimination of most plant foods, the diet can raise cholesterol levels and increase the risk of impaired kidney function, says Howard E. LeWine, MD of Harvard Health Publishing.
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However, there are some health benefits to the intense diet; potentially jumpstarting a weight-loss program and improving your blood sugar regulation. Though it is not recommended.
One woman who claims to have felt the improvements is Laura Sliazaite - a former strict raw vegan who previously struggled with joint pain and bleeding gums.
Before 2014, the 39-year-old admitted suffering from itchy skin and low vitamin levels after living a meat-free lifestyle for 13 years.
Due to being a self-described food ‘obsessive’, Sliazaite wanted to know whether her diet was the root of her problems.
So, she began to re-introduce various food groups back into her diet; eggs and dairy first before fish and meat.
Sliazaite then challenged herself to complete a month on the carnivore diet.
Speaking about the early days of her experiment, the IT specialist told What’s The Jam: “After the first of the 30 days, I started feeling so amazing, full of energy, and my digestion was better.
“I decided to do 100 days, and by the time that had finished, I knew this was going to be my lifestyle.”
Sliazaite claims her colleagues ‘laughed’ at her when she first took up the carnivore meal plan as she would eat ‘a lot of butter and a lot of meat’.
She added: “I get a lot of bad comments on Instagram saying I will soon be dead, I will clog my arteries, I will die from a heart attack, and that I’m ruining my digestion.”
However, Sliazaite hasn’t allowed the trolls to dissuade her from continuing the controversial diet - mainly due to its continued ‘health benefits’.
“I feel the carnivore diet changed something in my brain,” she explained.
“My sleeping issues completely disappeared, so now I touch the pillow and I am out, and I wake up before my alarm - whereas before I would barely sleep three hours a night.
“I had eczema and body itchiness my entire life, sometimes so bad it felt like my body was on fire - this has disappeared.”
The Londoner further claimed that her 'body shape has improved' since she ditched the veggies and that her digestive issues have 'gone'.
She said: “My hair has never been more shiny, and even my eyesight has improved.
“My energy is always stable now - I don’t have the dips where I need a snack or get coffee.”
Interestingly, Sliazaite also claims that her bank account has felt the benefits of switching off from a raw vegan diet.
She alleged that before becoming a meat eater, she would routinely spend £100 ($130) a week on nuts, berries and greens.
“Before starting the carnivore diet I thought it's going to be quite expensive, but I spend way less money now," Sliazaite revealed.
“I do my grocery shopping once or twice a week and I get lots of steaks, lots of beef mince, organic eggs, some cheese and double cream for my coffee.”
She added that her grocery shop now costs around ‘£50 ($64) to £70 ($90) a week’.