Introduction

     Zero Carb means different things to different people. For some, it means only eating meat, for others it means eating anything coming from an animal, including dairy, and no plant matter. Some only drink water, some drink coffee. For me, it means only meat, water and sometimes eggs and butter. Because eggs have about 0.6g of carbs each and butter has about .01g of carb per tablespoon, I do get a negligible amount of carbs some days, but I’m always under 5g of carbs. I do not eat grains. I do not eat fruit. I do not eat vegetables. 

     For the long version, see my About section. For the condensed version, read on.

     When my mom was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer and the doctors said they couldn't save her, I did some research and thought that veganism was the answer to all my problems. Less than a year after going regular-cooked vegan, I went raw vegan, a la "The Hallelujah Diet." It was expensive, required exotic ingredients at times, a lot of time due to food prep, and it left me feeling hungry all the time also. Due to that, I went back to being regular-cooked-vegan after a year. I continued being vegan for several years until I found raw-fruitarianism, a la 80/10/10, which is basically a diet where you eat three meals per day consisting of massive quantities of one fruit each meal (for instance, 30 bananas or an entire watermelon), then a big salad at the end of the day. I stopped being cooked vegan because I was uncomfortable with the amount of processed foods one has to eat to sustain that lifestyle (pasta and tofu, mainly), and I also continued to experience chronic colds, sinusitis, tonsillitis, bronchitis and pneumonia. I followed 80/10/10 for nine months, stopped after I became ridiculously bloated (I was asked several times when my baby was due. I'm not kidding.), developed cystic acne, frizzy, gray hair, fine lines, dry skin, and horrible abdominal discomfort among other things. I then, still believing in the diet, talked to a popular raw food guru from YouTube about it and he said it was detox and to continue. So I continued for several more months. In doing so, all the symptoms that had disappeared over the course of one week NOT following the diet returned... only this time, they were worse. The bloating and pain became worse eventually, the acne came back with a vengeance, I could hardly get out of bed due to extreme fatigue, my periods stopped, I was diagnosed with an extreme B12 and vitamin D deficiency, for which I was giving myself injections for and taking prescription-strength D pills for, among other problems. 

     At this point, I realized I had only ever researched veganism. I hadn't even taken into account the fact that eating meat might be healthy. So I researched the paleo diet, realized that the little relief I'd found in raw veganism was due to not eating grains or dairy, then went paleo a la Whole30, which tells you to eat a palm-sized amount of meat per meal, fill the rest of your plate with veggies, and have one serving of fruit per day. This seemed extremely balanced and most of my symptoms from fruitarianism disappeared within several days of adopting this diet. However, I still had lingering bloating. I was tested for celiac, which came back negative, although I got violently ill every time I ate wheat products. I also became ill when eating gluten free grain products, however. All fruit made me violently ill, so I opted to not have the one serving per day allotted by Whole30. My pain was somewhat better, but as I continued the Whole30 way of eating, discomfort and bloating still continued. I noticed it was worse when I had coconut products, so I dropped those. Eventually, I was only eating plain, unseasoned meat and lots of vegetables. I figured it was the meat, so I went a couple days of only eating vegetables and just got sicker. It was then that I finally considered that perhaps my problem was what I thought was healthiest of all... vegetables.

     By this point, I'd been paleo for almost a year and had been seeing doctors on and off for three years. I'd been tested for everything under the sun, but kept being diagnosed with IBS because they couldn't find anything else wrong with me. Through that diagnosis, I finally decided to look up non-medicinal treatments for IBS. It was then that I came across the low FODMAP diet, which is an elimination diet prescribed by doctors in order to control the symptoms of digestive disorders such as IBS and Crohn's disease. Immediately, almost all of my symptoms disappeared. Then, as the diet recommends, I tried slowly allowing more foods into my diet. This left me with a set of foods I knew I reacted to, which matched up with a disorder called fructose malabsorption. I went in to be formally tested with this, and the test came back positive. My issue with fruitarianism wasn't detox, after all. Fruit makes me ill because I can't digest it. Additionally, a lot of vegetables contain fructose. My favorite culprit was brussels sprouts, which I ate large amounts of daily. I thought I'd had celiac because I reacted to wheat, but it wasn't the gluten I was reacting to, it was fructans that wheat contains, which are chains of fructose molecules. 

     After some experimentation, I had a short list of carbs I could eat without a lot of pain and bloating: carrots, cooked spinach, cooked green beans, white rice and white potatoes. I could have 1/4 cup of one of these per meal, spread about six hours apart. I became worried, however, about the lack of fiber I was getting, and wondered if I’d be ok without vegetables. This is where my zero carb journey really began. I found a group of people who didn’t eat vegetables at all, and a HUGE body of scientific evidence that said fiber actually CAUSES problems like IBS. In fact, for certain digestive problems, like Crohn’s disease, diverticulitis, ostomies, ulcerative colitis and IBS, doctors put patients on a low fiber, low residue diet, which I've learned extensively about in my nursing program. This is because fiber aggravates all of these problems and is widely recognized to sometimes cause them. Very confusing when you take into consideration how much we’re told to eat our fiber.

I decided to go without vegetables for a day. I felt better than I have since I was a little girl. Like ZERO pain. ZERO bloating. I couldn't even remember what NO pain felt like! So, one day turned into two, two became a week… and here I am. I have tried a small amount of vegetables I know I can handle (green beans, cooked spinach, etc.), and I immediately feel horrible. Not horrible compared to the intense bloating and pain I used to be in, but horrible compared to how I feel without any fiber at all. Additionally, I immediately become constipated upon the reintroduction of any fiber whatsoever. Of course, you'd think I'd be constipated WITHOUT fiber, but the opposite is true. I've always had issues with regularity, and this is the first time that I haven't.

     

I am now healthy, happy, glowing, thin, toned, fit, energetic and NOT obsessed with food. NOT consumed with recipes, wondering when I’ll eat next, hunger, constant eating, etc. I have zero cravings EVER. I get hungry a couple times a day, then I eat. I think about food maybe a total of 30 minutes a day while I eat it and prepare it. I am ALWAYS beach-ready. I NEVER have to think about how my body will look if I wear such-and-such or have such-and-such an event. I NEVER have to wear makeup. I sleep deeply, wake up with tons of energy, have great muscle tone with zero effort, have normal bowel movements… I just can’t praise this way of eating enough. I can’t even call it a lifestyle, because my lifestyle is everything I have that diets were getting in the way of before. My lifestyle is being a nurse, being a mom, being a wife and living my life day by day. The way that I eat crosses my mind for a few minutes each day, then I go on with my life. If your diet is your lifestyle, it’s consuming TOO much time! Health shouldn’t be your life, healthy should just be what you are so you can live out all the other parts of your life! Health should be freedom, not an obsession or chains.

I was vegan for a total of six years, high fat raw vegan for one of those years, low fat raw vegan/fruitarian for another one of those years, and I never found the glowing health promised to me. My health got better when I began paleo... a lot better. I still had some nagging bloating, abdominal pain and irregularity, however, which are now totally gone thanks to a zero carb way of eating.

It is my hope that my experience will open the eyes of others to the truth behind fiber and what our bodies actually need, what a healthy diet actually is, digestive disorders and other issues.