Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto, savage.com.
And today I've got special guest Valerie Smith on the line.
And this episode we go into some pretty dark territory.
She has struggled with multiple physiological and psychological
conditions from a very early from very early on childhood,
including anorexia, OCD. She's heard voices, she's
struggled with so many things. She's had multiple surgeries,
osteoporosis and she was able to reverse all of these symptoms
via a well formulated ketogenic carnivore diet.
But it wasn't without struggle. I mean multiple decades
struggling with anorexia got down below 80 lbs and just all
the implications that that brought on.
And she was very transparent, very honest, very vulnerable
with this conversation. So let that be known here at the
onset, but it is a very meaningful conversation.
It's incredibly inspiring to talk to people such as herself
who have overcome such odds and totally turned their life around
and has now made it their mission to help others do the
same. So I have utmost respect for
Valerie and what she's been able to accomplish.
I'm incredibly excited for what her future holds and I have no
doubt that you will take something from this
conversation. So without further delay, sit
back, relax, enjoy the conversation with Valerie Smith
and we are live. Valerie, how are you?
I am great, Robert. How are you?
I am doing wonderfully, wonderfully well.
I'm excited to be chatting with you because you have overcome
quite the obstacles over the past several years and you've
done so with a properly formulated ketogenic carnivore
diet. Can you just kind of run through
that list of diagnosis that you had and just kind of get a
listeners a little glimpse as to what are we going to be diving
into? Sure, Since the age of 12 or 13,
I had developed over the course of several years until the age
of 4866 or 7 diagnosed mental illnesses.
I had schizoaffective disorder, which meant that I had audible
hallucinations and voices screaming at me 24 hours of the
day. The only escape I had was sleep.
I had clinical severe depression.
I had anxiety and panic disorder.
I also was diagnosed with OCD and at the beginning as a young
teen, it was what you would expect it to be.
It was body checking and counting and muscle flexing
equal on both sides of the body and everything was just the
obsessive compulsive part. And that led into exercise
addiction and purging addiction that for me encompass exercise
and small and swallowing bottles of laxatives.
And then as I got older and I tried to not starve, an offshoot
of OCD rose its head and I was diagnosed with cutting and
trichotillomania, which is hair pulling.
I would pull hair from my scalp and my eyebrows and my eyelashes
and so those would morph back and forth.
When I would try to be, quote UN quote better and eat what they
wanted me to try to eat, then I was not an act of starvation.
And then the cutting and the and the hair pulling would become
more severe. And then when I would relapse
and go back to starvation, then the cutting and the hair pulling
would subside. So close to 40 years, all of
that went on. And of course the culmination of
of all of that overreaching was the anorexia.
And for most of those 40 years I I was weight restored for a
couple of times. But for most of those 40 years
I'm 59 and I was less than 80 lbs, which is abmi of about
11:00. So I I I shouldn't have
survived. I should not be here.
And I am so thankful that I am and I had a lot of physical
illnesses. Also that I did not expect to
heal through a ketogenic carnivore diet.
I was hoping for my mental state to be a little better.
Anything was better than where I was.
I was at the end of coping and I was ready to go to sleep and not
wake up anymore. I was.
I know I 40 years of white knuckling through this and
feeling myself go further and further.
A descent into madness. You give up hope.
So I was hoping to be just a little bit better because there
was nothing left to try. I'd been inpatient in mental
wards in eating disorder units. I'd been to bed with the
concoction of canola oil and high fructose corn syrup and soy
that gets put through a feeding tube.
I had seen over the course of 40 years, 45 doctors, including
twelve psychiatrists, and you know, I did all the traditional
treatment that I was supposed to do in order to eat better.
And that also included thirteen different psych meds, you know,
off and on over the course of those years.
So there was nothing left for me to try.
But I knew that there was something wrong in my brain.
I knew that there was something broken in my brain and my last
ditch effort in 2017 was to try to find someone or something or
some information that would help me to address it from the
standpoint of the mental illness and brain and not just what was
being pushed on me. You know, if if you can eat the
pizza and the cake, you'll be better.
If you put weight on by eating the pizza and the cake, it will
be better and it will go away. And that never proved to be
true, so. You were how old when all this
started occurring? I was 12.
I was a really, really anxious and sickly child.
I was diagnosed with an ulcer at 12 and I was also home from
school for about 8 weeks with mononucleosis and a lot of
tonsil issues. So I I was I was really not
well, even before the mental illness symptoms became stronger
and the anorexia took over and the drive to starve took over
and I was officially diagnosed with anorexia at 14.
But no think things weren't great before that either.
Prior to that diagnosis and prior to you noticing the the
mental implications, did you have any adverse implications
any any type of psychological struggles in your early
childhood like when you were you know, growing up preteen, like
any anything that was apparent as it could be an issue or was
it pretty normal for the most part?
It was anxiety and depression. There was a lot of anxiety
around my home life, around feeling like I was not good
enough, that I was not worthy, that I was not going to be good
enough in school, that I wasn't going to please my teachers
enough. And there was a lot of
depression. And I couldn't as a young child.
I couldn't put my finger on it of of why.
I mean, I I had family around me that loved me and cherished me.
But I think the when you have, when you have something in your
life that's that's not going well.
Even if you have 9 or 10 people surrounding you with love, the
one person that rejects you that should give you unconditional
love, and in this case was my father.
That kind of clouds over everything else.
I had a very strained and estranged and tumultuous
relationship with my dad, who left our family when I was 3.
And I think that life event made me feel less than and it it it
caused depression, it caused sadness and a feeling of
unworthiness, even though there were other people in my life
that were present and and loving do.
You have any siblings by chance? No, I don't.
I am an only child. My mother planned on having more
children, but the the relationship that she had with
my dad was very emotionally and verbally toxic and that really
scarred her and and she just never went back to feeling like
having more children. Do you think at that young age
you were able to connect the dots between that event of your
dad leaving and the development of the the psychological
implications? Or was it disconnected your
mind? I didn't understand it then.
Definitely not I I understand it now, being on the on the
complete opposite side of that dark tunnel.
I can look back on it now and and connect the dots, you know,
My family thought they were doing a good thing by consoling
me when my father would not show up to see me when he promised
that he would. They thought they were doing me
a service by telling me that he did love me and that I was
important to him. But in a child's mind, that gets
twisted. They said that to me, but what I
heard was he's perfect and you're not good enough and
that's why he had didn't come to see.
So I think if they would have been honest with me and just
just said, your dad's not acting right right now.
Your dad is not being mature. He's not being a responsible
parent or a responsible adult. This is not on you.
This is on him. I think that messaging would
have been received better and I would not have internalized the
way that I felt as being worthless.
But like I said, that's all things that I look back on now
that I can process as a healed person.
It was not anything that I understood back then.
Do you feel like the starvation and the anorexia was your
attempt of symptom being able to control something in your life?
Yes, I couldn't control my my, my life did feel very out of
control. My home life, my school life, my
social life, my brain at that point was already not well.
And so I began to think, well, there's one thing I can control
is what I eat. The one thing I can control is
what I put in my mouth. And there was also a small part
of me. Even though I was not
overweight, there was a small part of me that thought that if
I lost weight, that at 1213, fourteen years old when puberty
is starting and my dad is not in the picture and and he refuses
to be. Maybe if I lost some weight that
boys would pay attention. So you know, that was the the
innocent part of where it started.
And what when you started minimizing your intake, like how
did that unfold in the beginning?
Like did you, did you notice any adverse physical implications
from that early on or was it much more gradual?
Like how did you go about reducing your intake?
What were you eating on average in the beginning?
And then what did that wind up tapering down to all?
Right. Well, in the beginning it it I
ended up being very secretive and manipulative in order to
accomplish this because I was a child and I was living at home
with with a single mother who cooked.
And so the easiest ones to try to get away with was breakfast.
You know, I'm late for school or I have, I have got to have time
to do my hair and I'm not going to have time to do that.
You know, I'll be fine until lunch.
That was the first one to go and that was the easiest 1 to get
out of and then the next one to go was at lunch.
You know, my family wasn't with me.
I could basically try to get away with what I could at school
and it got to the point where I would either go sit in an empty
classroom where no one knew where I was, or I literally
would go into the the school restroom and sit fully clothed
on the toilet with my feet up on the toilet and lock the door.
And no one knew that I was in there for the lunch period.
So that's how I would get out of not doing lunch at the
beginning. You know, I would just sit in a
cafeteria with everybody else and tell everybody that I wasn't
hungry or that I didn't like what was being served or I
forgot my lunch at home because I had packed and and forgot it.
And that only worked for, you know, a little while.
People started to question because I was dropping weight.
So those were the first two meals that went and and you
know, then I would try to be quote UN quote, normal at home
at supper, whether it was with my mom or my grandparents who
lived right across the street. We spent just as much time there
as I did at home. And for a while you know that
that's a couple of months it went like that.
I I eliminated the first two meals and still had supper with
my family. But it began to be impactful.
Then also because I was addicted to starving, I was incessantly
counting calories and I had already cut out all protein,
animal protein and meat and fat and was down to just vegetables
and telling my family that I was going to be a vegetarian.
And so at at supper, the first thing to go was the portions of
meat. And I would still eat the
vegetables. But then that quickly morphed
into just a resistance to eat much of anything, you know, push
things around on my plate, take a bite or two, say I didn't feel
well, you know, I'm just not hungry.
I had a big lunch. And of course, those lies
started to come to surface because they they knew by what I
was looking like that that couldn't be true, that I wasn't
eating because I wasn't hungry. There was no way that that could
be be true, You know, between the ages of 14 and 16, I had
dropped from 140 lbs down to about 110.
And it was at that point that my mom said, we have we have to do
something. We, you know, you have to do
something and and I would beg and plead and say, oh, I'm going
to do better, you know. But at also at the same time I
spent a lot of time crying, a lot of time in distress at 1615
and 16 was when the schizoaffective voices started.
And I I literally could not cope even though I did not want to go
inpatient. I I did not know how to make
this stop. When you were when you were
minimizing your intake, I mean, I'm assuming you were pretty
hungry at times, right? Like would you allow yourself to
eat at libitum and then that's when you started purging or how
did that unfold? Now the purging with the
exercise and the laxatives, that was a mindset where I just, I
have to get whatever I ate out of me.
I I I I wanted to feel empty. I wanted to fade away and not
feel anything in my stomach. I wanted to look in the mirror
and be skeletal and I it's it's awful to verbalize that now, but
that that was that was how I felt.
I my life surrounded self punishment, not self-care.
I I hated myself, I hated my body, I hated my mind.
I I hated everything about myself and I just just kept
eliminating more food. And at that point, when I was
put in patient, that's all I was eating was spinach and celery,
maybe a rice cake. That was when they started to,
you know, those crazy things came out.
And when my stomach would growl, of course, at the beginning, I
just, I would either ignore it or I would drink a bunch of
water or coffee or tea or diet pop to fill my stomach, to stop
it from growling. I did that early on, and then
after you have so many years of starving, your body doesn't send
that, that Grayling signal anymore.
That signal, it knows that it's not going to get anything.
It finally gives up. So I got to a point where my
stomach didn't growl and I felt powerful when I was fasting.
I felt powerful when this energy would would kick in, kind of
mimicking what we do now with intermittent fasting.
But there was never a ton where I would break my fast and and
feast, you know, I just kept feeding on that high, of being
hungry, being empty. You know how many days I could
go without eating. I kept a food diary.
I, you know, I still have them. I look at them every once in a
while. They're in a box under my bed
year after year and and just it just shows you know I would
count calories down to the absolute bite and you can see in
these journals of you know going from 1200 to 800 to 500 to the
goal of and I bet I can get down to less than 300 and you know it
just kept going until I would get down to less than 100
calories you know cup of spinach and a few stalks of celery.
And I know I still felt guilty for eating that.
And you didn't like the way you looked when you were that gaunt,
necessarily, right? Like, like people that have
struggled understanding those that suffer from anorexia, A lot
of people think that they prefer that look, but that's not
necessarily the case. From what I've gleaned and
talked with people, it's more so you just want to have that as a
badge of honor for for having that degree of control, right?
Yeah, part of it for me. I also had body dysmorphia and
so when I would look in the mirror I saw someone that was
very obese and so it was hard for me to trust anyone telling
me that I was too thin. I sometimes would take pictures
and try to see if having a picture in front of me instead
of me looking in the mirror, if that would make a difference.
And it did sometimes, but at the same time that the body
dysmorphia was going on. I because of the self hate, I I
was addicted to seeing how much skeletal I could reach.
How how you know, how many bones could could show up.
It was it. And you're right, it was a it
was a badge of honor. I knew it wasn't attractive.
I knew it wasn't a beauty, but it was a badge of honor when
when I would, when I was able to look in the mirror and see what
I truly looked like sometimes. Most of the time I couldn't.
But when I could or look at a picture I was shocked of of, you
know, different bones that were sticking out that definitely
should not be. And what were some of the the
physical implications that were resulting from this?
I mean, I'm assuming you lost your cycle pretty early on into
this and you're probably suffering from all types of that
ones. Yes, yes.
I lost my menstrual period at 14 and it did not come back until
my first weight restoration at the age of 27.
So there was, you know, I completely stunted puberty
completely for 13 years. And the initial energy that I
felt years into it of course turned to extreme tiredness and
fatigue and gut issues, IBS and and thyroid issues and stomach
pain and bloating from being so sarcopenic and and the muscle
wasting and the and being so skeletal.
And then I began to have hormonal issues.
Because of the low weight for so many decades, all of my hormones
were deficient and I was diagnosed with several physical
ailments that had to do with with the connective tissue.
I was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos syndrome, which which was
painful and I had osteoporosis, full blown osteoporosis.
And as the decades went on that was that was difficult.
I had five fractures within five years and I spent those five
years, a lot of it in bed. It embraces in casts and the
bone pain that goes along with that is just excruciating.
And and then I had female issues Because of the hormonal
deficiency, I was diagnosed with severe vaginal atrophy and a
painful condition called bulbodynia.
That was just pain all the time. I had bladder issues and I was
diagnosed with interstitial cystitis.
Very, very painful in in every part of my body.
And because of that many decades of being skeletal, I I not only
lost all of the muscle externally, you know, to look at
me, I also lost all the musculature internally.
And I had a devastating one of several, not the only surgery
that I had from medical complications from malnutrition,
I had about four. But one of the most devastating
was when I couldn't hold organs in place.
You know, anorexia holds the highest mortality rate of all
mental illness, 20%. One in five die and even if you
survive, the medical complications, the older you get
are just devastating. And So what happened to me,
actually, exactly 14 years ago today, I would have been
discharged from the hospital after this surgery that I had to
have my organs since they could not be held in place.
There was no muscle, no musculature.
I had multiple organ prolapse and it took three surgeons
coordinating their time in the operating room at the same time.
Three different specialists 2 patch me back up my uterus and
my cervix and my bladder and my colon.
They all prolapsed internally and when I would stand up they
prolapsed externally and it was a very painful, devastating time
for me and for my family. Waiting for the surgery was
difficult because it took time for them to coordinate the
surgery and I was still an act of starvation.
I was still very, very ill. This was 2010.
I did not, did not embark on on the healing that I have now
until 2017. So I was.
It was, it was devastating and so I had to have this surgery.
It was a 12 hour surgery and it was it was very difficult.
I had to have my uterus and cervix removed.
They had to figure out a way to put my bladder back in place the
best that they could. And I had to have 18 inches of
my colon removed and then have it be reattached and
resectioned. And they they there was nothing
to kiss, really awful. But there was nothing that they
could attach it to internally. So they sutured it to my
tailbone internally to keep it from prolapsing again.
And recovery was long, was supposed to take six or eight
weeks and it took me a year because I wasn't feeding myself.
I was not putting anything in my body that was going to rebuild
or nourish me. I was eating celery and drinking
hot cups of chicken broth trying to stay warm.
So recovery was was very long and very difficult and I'm
thankful every day that everything that I've gone
through today I'm in fantastic shape that I was able to embrace
this journey. It took some time, but I was
able to embrace it and and jump all in in order to attain
absolute complete healing of every ailment that we just
talked about. All that whole list.
When you had had that surgery, did you feel like what you were
doing up to that point obviously was not conducive to your health
'cause you said you were still, the recovery process took so
long because you were still pretty much following the same
dietary protocol and the starvation.
Like was that not enough of a wake up call for how deep you
had allowed yourself to go to flip that switch?
Or where was your head at post surgery?
Yeah, That's a great question and I talk about that a lot.
I mean, you would think, you know, where's rock bottom, you
know, you know, for 40 years. You would think along the way,
oh, this has to be rock bottom this, you know, this has to be
as far and as low as you could possibly go before you turn this
around. The issue is, is the mental
illness. You literally cannot turn this
around. I had been weight restored on
what no one had ever brought up food before.
Of all the doctors that I had, all the psychiatrists, all the
hospitals, they all pushed a plant based diet.
They all said that it it doesn't matter what you eat or what you
don't eat, but the healthy way is to do it through carbs.
And so they pushed pancakes and muffins and bread and oatmeal
and pasta and you know, all of those things.
And the mental illness is so strong.
And the couple of times that I was weight restored on those
foods, my mental illnesses got worse.
So I I was very averse to attempting to put weight on
again as a sole reason to just put weight on because I knew
that I would be in more agony in my brain.
I I was worse when when those times were that I was weight
restored. And I understand it now because
my brain wasn't getting what it needed.
The mental illnesses cannot be healed unless you're giving it
the nutrient dense foods to make the over 100 neurotransmitters
in your brain so that you have cognitive function that there's
nothing for your body to make those neurotransmitters with.
If you're not consuming amino acids from animal products,
those are the building blocks for the brain.
And if that's all you're eating are vegetables and and a cup of
pasta just to keep your weight at a certain level, there's
nothing in that that's going to heal your brain.
And so I I felt hopeless. I'd already been there, done
that. And I knew that that was not the
answer. I knew that that was not going
to make me better. That was not going to make my
brain work better. And at those times, were you
noticing the the voices that you were hearing kind of amplify
even more? Yes, yes, that was.
That was when I would literally pray to not wake up anymore
because my only escape was sleep.
If I was awake, those voices were screaming at me and it does
not turn off. This is a level of screaming and
hate, akin to a action movie, where someone is torturing
someone else and they're blaring lights and music and and
violence to try to get someone to confess something.
That's what this felt like in my head all the time, 24 hours a
day. It would not lessen, it would
not stop. And it's it's a horrifying
existence. And were those voices, were they
audible, like you were able to understand what was being said?
Could you understand who was saying them?
Like how did that manifest itself?
Yes, they they, they were messages.
And for me, I mean, I can't speak for anyone else that's
been diagnosed with schizoaffective.
For me, it was a male voice and sometimes it was messaging when
I was driving and it it would tell me to drive off the road or
over the overpass. Sometimes it was messaging that
paranoia that people were after me and that I needed to hide
that I needed to lie and manipulate and tell stories.
It was it was insane. I mean that's that's the that's
just the definition of of insane and the the messaging was very
audible was it was just like you and I talking right now and it
was violent and hateful and very mixed up at times, but
completely audible complete you know as if someone else was in
my head talking to me. What was your OCD doing
throughout this chapter? It would ebb and flow.
The the cutting and the trichotelomania was the offshoot
of OCD That was the strongest at that point when those reared its
ugly head, the the, I don't want to call them minor symptoms
because when someone's suffering from OCD, even incessant
counting and body checking and checking of locks, that's not
minor. I don't mean it in that sense
because that's it's very life disruptive no matter what, no
matter how it manifests itself. But those initial types of OCD
that I had as a young teenager, those subsided when the cutting
and the hair pulling those years took over.
So you know, I had OCD from the age of 12 all the way up to 48,
but it manifested itself. It showed itself in different
ways. And the cutting and the hair
pulling, Was that just a desire to feel something, anything,
even if it was the pain? The yes, the cutting.
That was one of the schizoaffective voices that
would make me addicted to the cutting.
One of the voices would tell me that that I needed to cut my
arms and my legs and watch, watch the blood run out and and
and it told me that I would feel better that that release, that I
would feel better. And for a moment in time when I
was doing that activity, it actually was true.
There was a a release that I would feel probably the same
kind of instant relief that's short lived when someone who is
bulimic and they they purge and they vomit that you know the
five second or five minute relief of getting all of that
out of your system. And of course it doesn't stay
that that that high feeling doesn't stay.
But that was what I got out of it and and it was the same thing
with the hair pulling. I was very ashamed of both of
them and and I went. When I went out I had to cover
the best I could in order to try to pass.
So that meant putting liquid face foundation that women
normally use on their face. That that meant putting that on
my arms and legs and letting it dry in order to try to cover it.
And the same thing with my hair. I had to use products to make it
appear that I that I didn't have bald patches and fake eyelashes
and fake eyebrows with makeup to try to mimic that I had
eyebrows, and the same with the eyelashes, and that that
activity was another one that I could not stop.
I would get up every day saying, OK, I'm better than this.
But this is crazy. I, I, I, I commit to not doing
this anymore and it never worked.
It's it's not a decision of the will.
It is not a activity that you are choosing to do that you can
walk away from. This is a it's embedded in a
neurological physiological condition in your brain that
drives you to do this, and you can't walk away until that root
cause healing happens in your brain, your nutrition.
I battled it for years and years and years and felt shameful that
I could not control my hands. That you know, I have control.
You know why? Why am I doing this?
But by the time I would go to bed at night, I would have, you
know, I would have, at some point during the day had some
sort of cutting or hair pulling session.
And I would go to bed feeling defeated and wake up the next
day and start again and promised that I wouldn't do it again.
And it just did this day after day, year after year, six months
into my healing when I was finally getting enough nutrition
from animal foods with the elimination of everything else
that had anti nutrients in it blocking me from absorbing
those, I was able to look at those activities.
And it wasn't an act of the will anymore.
It was me looking at cutting and hair pulling and being able to
say to myself, this doesn't serve me anymore, this is awful
and I don't want to do this anymore and I've not done it
since and that was six years ago.
So it has nothing to do with your will, It has to everything
to do with the neurotransmitters in your brain.
What was the catalyst for you discovering the animal based
diet and and wanting to give that a shot?
Like, how did you become aware of that as a potential outlet
for you in the first place? Great question.
Yes, In 2017, I found a couple books at my local library.
That was when I just at the very, very beginning, the very
little peek of thinking maybe there's something that I can,
maybe there's some supplement I can take.
Because I wasn't open to eating any food.
I thought, well, maybe there's supplements I can take to help
my brain. So I came across these two books
by an author named Julia Ross, and her two books were called
The Mood Cure and The Diet Cure. And in those books she described
some of the very beginning research that I found about the
brain, about serotonin, dopamine, GABA, acetylcholine.
You know, all of these different neurotransmitters that if they
are deficient will cause you to have cognitive issues, mental
health issues, anxiety, depression.
So that was the the very, very beginning point.
And because a little bit of a light bulb went off, because her
approach to replenishing those amino acids and
neurotransmitters was to animal foods.
And that's when I had to take a look at myself and say, OK, I've
tried everything else could this, this sounds kind of crazy,
but I don't have anything left to try and I'm not going to make
it another year at 78 lbs. At 5 foot nine, my family's at
their wits end. I I cannot do this any longer.
I was so cold all the time, full and filled with these fractures
and, you know, facing what was, you know, what was the next
operation I was going to have to have?
That was a little bit of a light bulb moment because that was the
very food that I had not consumed in 35 years.
I had not had a bite of meat and egg, certainly no fat for 35
years. And I began to ponder on that
could this actually, could this be something, could this
actually be something to this? And so I I kind of set out to
explore, but I also kind of set out to prove it wrong.
But this couldn't actually be something.
And so at that time, about the latter half of 2017, we, we live
out in the country, in rural Ohio.
And we had just gotten our very first smart TV and very first
link of the Internet. And I was introduced to YouTube
and that was when I found the two foundational doctors that I
will forever be grateful for. Doctor Georgia Eid and Doctor
Chris Palmer, who are both board certified psychiatrists who are
using ketogenic and carnivore diets to heal mental illness as
a root cause healing back then there, you know, now they have
books out that they've both written books on, you know, all
of this research that they've done for 10 years.
Back then there were some writings that I found online
from both of them hinting to the fact that they were curious and
wondering if these were the building blocks to having good
cognitive function and could be an answer to, you know, anxiety
and depression and and much, much worse than that,
schizophrenia, schizoaffective, bipolar.
And there were a few Ted talks and a few interviews with both
of them where they were talking about this.
And of course, it tied into what I had already read by Julia
Ross. And by the by January 1 of 2018,
I had decided that this kind of made sense and I need to try one
last time. So I did.
And it's very different for someone coming from anorexia to
do this. I was not trading plates full of
the standard American diet or even home cooked food plates
full of, you know, potatoes and vegetables and pasta for a
ketogenic carnivorous diet. I was back down to 78 lbs at 48
years old and that's all I was eating was spinach and celery.
So this was this was a difficult Rd.
I will never forget those beginning days of me sitting at
the kitchen table with one ounce of fat free chicken breast, one
ounce 2 tablespoons and literally crying, weeping, tears
streaming down my face while I'm trying to chew this up and
swallow it while the voices are screaming at me to not eat this.
It was hard. It was the hardest thing that I
have ever encountered. But I put myself on a plan.
I I'm an organized, researched person.
And so I I I put myself on a trajectory and a plan that I
told myself that I was going to do this every day.
I was going to eat this one ounce of chicken every day, and
I was hoping that in a week or two I would get used to it and I
would double it. So this was this was my plan.
This was my form of reverse dieting.
And that's what I did. Some weeks it was a week and I
thought, I think I can increase it.
Some weeks it was 2 weeks, but somewhere in between that one
week and two week mark, I was able to double it.
So I would go to 2 ounces of chicken and then 3 ounces of
chicken. And I just kept going and I had
gotten up to 7 or 8 ounces of chicken and I looked forward to
it. Now it it tasted good.
I wasn't noticing anything mentally or physically yet,
because that's still a very small amount.
But I was enjoying it. And at that time, about 3 months
in, that's when I found Doctor Shawn Baker and Doctor Ken Berry
and Doctor Anthony Chafee. And so I built upon what I
already knew about the brain. And then I started binge
watching their videos and that's when I decided to switch from
chicken to beef. Doctor Ken Berry would talk
about that. All meat is great, but there's a
superiority in nutrition in beef.
And so of course I did it the only way I could.
I switched from fat free chicken to 96% fat free ground beef.
But I did it. I I, you know, I I traded equal
amounts. I was able to go straight into 8
ounces of ground beef, and at the six month mark I had gotten
up to 12 or 14 ounces of ground beef, and I was noticing some
changes. I was noticing that I was less
anxious, less depressed. The brain fog was starting to
clear a little bit. The screaming voices were still
there, but they were like they were in another room with the
door closed. They were softer, and that is
the first time in my entire life since they started that they had
ever rung true. There was no treatment, no
medicine. Nothing had ever made those
schizoaffective voices diminish until protein and fat.
And so at that point I was able to switch from the ground beef
to whole cuts of meat that I would cook in the crock pot,
like Chuck roast that has the connective tissue that has the
fat profile. At that point I knew I wasn't
going to be able to eat tallow. I wasn't going to be able to eat
little fat bombs or or butter or anything like that.
It needed to be in the meat if I was going to be successful
because I was still too fearful of straight fat.
So I was able to do that. So I switched to Chuck roast.
I ate pounds and pounds and pounds of it and when I got to
the to the £1.00 a day mark at about nine months in, more
things were healing. The depression and the anxiety
were completely gone. At that point I had already been
able to walk away from the cutting and hair pulling.
I was also noticing some physical issues that were
changing. I I had not had any new
fractures, I had not had any new joint or overextension pain from
the Ehlers Danlos syndrome and at at that point I would
consider what I was doing, the Lion diet.
I had eliminated the vegetables 'cause I was starting to learn
about oxalate toxins and I knew from the overabundance of
spinach and celery that I had eaten over the years that I
probably had issues with that I I didn't know what would get
better or what would heal. But I'm so thankful that I I did
that elimination type of diet because that's when I discovered
all of these physical issues heal completely from going off
of the high oxalate vegetables and at the 12 month mark
everything was gone. Sorry, I still lose it
sometimes. At that one year mark, I had not
gained a pound yet. I was still 80 lbs.
So that's my big pill I will die on is that weight restoration
does not equal mental illness Healing metabolic health equals
mental health. Not what weight you are.
So at that one year mark, everything that I listed was
gone. The schizoaffective voices were
completely gone. My brain is calm.
It is sane. The only thoughts that are there
are my own and and the thoughts that are there are filled with
overflowing joy every single day.
There's no anxiety, there's no depression.
Everything is gone. And I've I've worked hard the
years since, putting myself on different protocols to heal the
osteoporosis, which I have done. I do not have osteoporosis
anymore and I've suffered with it for 30 years.
All of those other female issues and hormonal issues are also
gone. I do not have vulvodynia.
I do not have interstitial cystitis.
I don't have bladder pain and severe vaginal atrophy.
That was all fat, nutrient, fat related, That was all saturated
fat, The building blocks of cholesterol that not only feed
your brain but also regulate your hormones and allow you to
have the levels of hormones that you need.
The testosterone, you know, even in women we need it not as much
as men, but we need it in order for everything to work right.
So at that one year mark, everything, everything was was
completely gone. And I stayed silent about it for
quite a while. I prayed that the time to get
involved, the time to speak out, would be shown to me clearly.
At that point, I was following the doctors that helped me on
Twitter, but I had never been on social media before except for
that, and I just used it to read.
I had never posted anything. And Doctor Sean Baker put a
tweet out at one point years ago and said, do you think this type
of diet, this way of eating, this ketosis, this high animal
product diet could help mental health?
And the overreaching comments were that's crazy.
There is no way that your mental health is impacted by whether or
not you eat meat. And that was my answer to
prayer. That was when I knew I needed to
get involved. At that point, I was two years
healed and I had gone through a little bit of, I wouldn't say
anxiety, but just worry that all of this would come crashing
down, that the rug would be pulled out from under me and I
and I would get symptoms back again.
But month after month, I finally was able to release that and
acknowledge that this is permanent, that nothing's going
to be taken away from me, that this is my permanent healing,
and I can live in freedom. I can reclaim and redeem the
years of isolation and the years of illness with my husband, who
has stood by me for 32 years and has only had the wife he has now
for six years. So it's been absolutely amazing.
And so I got involved online and started posting tweets about
this. And that was when doctor Nick
Norwitz contacted me to ask me if I would be willing to do the
documentation it took to be involved in a case series, an
anorexia case series using an animal based diet to heal the
mental illness. And I was all in.
So I did, you know, did the work and the documentation, working
with him, going through interviews, providing him with
what he needed to feature me in this case series.
And then when that came out in June, I had to remain anonymous
until it came out. And when it dropped into the
Journal of Metabolic Health. I always knew that when it was
published that I would reveal myself and hope in hopes that I
could help someone else. And having it documented in a
medical journal is is helpful in the sense for skeptics
sometimes. But I've, you know, I've just
been very active on Twitter and Instagram and through gracious
podcast hosts like yourself to be able to share my story.
That's all I want to do is be a voice and and be a a line of
hope. If if I had had someone all
these years, tell me that if you just take the chance that
there's there's no one beyond hope, there's no one beyond
healing, that you're not too far gone.
No matter how many decades you've suffered.
That with some time and effort you can truly heal your brain
and truly be free, not just manage the symptoms, not just
survive and live the rest of your life still being
disordered. Because that's what the doctors
finally got to with me. They finally said this is
permanent. You know, there's nothing more
we can do for you. And that's not that's not true.
And so I tried to tell everyone that I can every single day
through phone counseling from those who reach out to me.
I I counsel about 8 or 10 people a week.
I get so many direct messages of people who have been failed by
traditional treatment, just like me who who are desperate to try
anything to be better. And I post about it every day
that there is real hope there is real 100% permanent healing if
you'll take that first step and and go on this journey.
Well, I am so glad to hear that you did not give up and that you
kept fighting and that you had the courage to try this animal
based diet as a last ditch effort.
And it worked and you stuck with it for the year, which
compounded into two years, now six, I guess.
Yeah. And now it's been 6 and so
years, 336. Those, you know, the first two
years were were healing and getting comfortable and eating
in abundance. The last four years have all
been about rebuilding my body composition.
Being free in my mind has now allowed me to work on
rebuilding. I've put on 45 lbs of muscle
through weightlifting. I weight lift every day, seven
days a week, upper lower body split.
I have a 30 LB Weight vest that I know.
I worked up from five years ago, had 5 lbs of sand in a backpack
and I now you know every year when it got easy I would
increase that. Now I've got a 30 LB weight vest
that I that I do squats and lunges and stairs with and power
walk and I'm not addicted to exercise anymore.
This this exercise is about firing up brain chemistry
feeling good as good brain chemicals with endorphins and
it's about building muscle and shape.
I I love being able to change my body composition and build
muscle. You know, my arms and my legs
and my butt. And now with the level of food
that I'm eating, because I'm now eating 3 lbs of meat every day,
which I have been for the past four years.
Yeah, I want to pick your brain on that and I would love to know
what your what your diet looks like now.
OK, so it took a while to work up to that.
It's still that reverse dieting technique.
It's still, you know, you don't just go from one day eating an 8
oz portion to the next day eating 3 lbs of meat.
You would be so full that the next day you would sabotage your
efforts and then not eat at all. So it has to be a targeted thing
of building each meal, adding a few more oz, and then when your
stomach gets used to it and you're not quite as full
anymore, you do it again, you add some more.
So you know, it took me a year to go from 1 LB to 3 lbs.
The reason that I did that is my goal was to reverse
osteoporosis. My goal was to reverse all of
these hormonal issues. And your bone is 50% protein,
Not many people know that. And so part of reversing
osteoporosis is eating enough protein eating in abundance, not
just enough for your basal metabolic rate to function your
organs and and lay in bed that you're not going to build
anything that way, you're not going to reverse anything that
way. If that's all you're eating is
enough to maintain life. You have to eat in abundance.
And I find that a lot of women under eat and then they don't
heal. Even those in the carnivore
group that I counsel, they'll come to me and and I'll say
let's talk about what you're eating on a daily basis.
And they're not eating enough to get to a place of healing.
They're only eating enough to sustain life.
And so this, this was my reason. This was my targeted attack.
I wanted to get to a place. I wanted to see what I could do.
I I was excited for the first time in my life to lift weights
and form, shape and see muscle on my body.
So what I'm eating now I was I was strict the first few years
and I would consider it the lion diet.
It was you know beef, salt and water and and then I I played
around with different things to see what helped and what
hindered. So what I'm eating now is 2 lbs
of it is always beef. It could be steak, it could be
ground beef, it could be Chuck roast, it could, you know, be
some sort of of beef. The third pound is whatever I'm
hungry for. I I base it off of off of that.
If I'm hungry for salmon or cod, then that's what I have.
If I'm hungry for ham or chicken, that's what I have.
I eat twice a day, so I've got a, you know, a pound and a half
approximately at each meal and I feel like I've got the best of
both worlds. I don't advise anyone starting
out to, on purpose, intermittent fast.
You need to eat when you're hungry and this has led me into
what I currently do. I feel like I've got the the the
best of both where the intermittent fasting.
I like working out and lifting weights in a fasted state.
I feel very high energy during the day in a fasted state, but
it has nothing to do with starvation.
It has nothing to do with restriction.
When I get hungry, I feast and now I'm discovering what I did
about vegetables I I finally gave them up.
It's just not worth it to me to be in pain.
It flares up my IBS and my digestive issues.
You know, even with green beans, asparagus, you know things that
that should be OK, but for me they're not and it's just not
worth it to me to be in pain for two days afterwards.
I want to feel great every day, but fruit doesn't bother me.
And so along with my 3 lbs of meat, I'll usually enjoy a
little bit of blueberries or melon in season that I can buy
at the farmers market here locally during the summer.
You know, whatever's in season and it it.
I know a lot of people can't do that because it fires up
cravings or because of their health conditions like diabetes.
They can't do even fruit sugar. But for me personally, I have
experimented and I know that it doesn't.
It doesn't lead me anywhere. It doesn't lead to cravings.
It doesn't lead to pushing out the meat and eating more fruit.
It doesn't lead to any kind of disordered issues.
It doesn't lead to going off playing and then eating
something else. I I I live in freedom.
And sometimes that involves a glass of Merlot wine.
Sometimes that involves a a bite of somebody's homemade dessert
at Thanksgiving. So I I just live my life in
freedom. But the, you know, 99% of what
I'm doing and consuming on a daily basis is is the 3 lbs of
meat and a handful of blueberries.
And that that the beef that you're consuming, is that like a
fattier beef, like are you tracking that at all?
I have tracked it in order to to know for myself what I'm eating.
You know, I I have chronometer and I have I have tracked it.
Of course I needed to do that for the case series.
I needed to provide that to the co-authors on the case series to
show what I was currently eating.
And yes, the I'm I'm very high protein and moderate fat.
That's what works for me. I've tried all the different
ratios, I've tried high fat and it and I end up very nauseated.
I end up with indigestion and heartburn and just a a queasy
feeling in my stomach and I get very full, very fast on super
high fat and then that keeps me from getting the protein in that
I need. So for me personally, I know
high fat has has been a tremendous healing for so many
people and it is the right way to go if that's what works for
you. I advocate for not telling
someone what they should eat, but coming alongside them and
helping them discover what way works best for them.
So you know, this, this, this works the best for me.
I eat over 200 grams of protein a day, probably between 150 and
200 grams of fat. So it's, you know, kind of 1 to
1. And that's where I feel my best.
That's where I have vibrant energy every day, you know, and
and able to continue building muscle.
That's where I feel the best in terms of digestion, sleep, all,
you know, all those different components that are affected by
what we. Eat.
I love it. I love it.
I feel like this message needs to be broadcasted for sure,
because there's so much that is left unsaid when it comes to
nutrition's implication on mental health and well-being.
And for me, like I used to struggle with OCD really bad.
And I look back on it now and I think so much of that was tied
to what I was consuming back then.
And there's just there's just so much misinformation out there
about what you have in control, how how what you eat dictates
these neurological functions. So to be able to hear your story
and see how far you've come at such a young age to where you
are now, being able to put that weight on in a healthy manner,
just simply doing, you know, the real things, eating the real
foods and not following these traditional Western medicine
protocols and all the farmer they push like it.
It's empowering. It's it's incredibly empowering.
It's inspiring because this, this is something that like I
said, it's not really talked about.
People don't talk about this that are suffering from it.
They they become somewhat reclusive because there's
embarrassment around it, there is shame around it, there's
uncertainty around it, and they just feel trapped as you felt
trapped. So to be able to live your life
with freedom and empowerment like that is that is a message
that anybody would benefit from hearing.
Yeah. And that's that's why I speak
out every day because I I'm an open book.
I I can talk about any subject anybody wants to talk about.
I have no shame. I have no embarrassment over my
past anymore because it has made me who I am today.
And I know that the things that I struggled with weren't things
that I chose, they were things based on a neurological
imbalance. So there's there's no reason to
be ashamed. There's no reason to be
embarrassed for any kind of mental health issue because it's
it's got a physiological root cause and it can be fixed.
Yeah. And I mean, I have to applaud,
like you mentioned, Chris Palmer and Georgie Eade.
I mean, they're doing incredible work in this field.
They're changing countless lives.
And so many people in the space are people that are just sharing
their stories as you have is changing lives.
I mean this, this is what needs to be said.
I mean, people need to know that there is a healthy outlet out
there for them to find that peace, find that freedom, and to
truly heal and recover. Because, I mean feeling trapped
to the point where you just would rather not wake up like
like that is life is finite. Life is too short for that to be
your norm, for that to be your existence.
I'm so glad that you didn't let that become your final chapter
or your reality. Like, you pushed through that
and now you're taking what you learned from that experience and
sharing it with others. And that's, I mean a lot of
people are very, it's hard to be vulnerable.
It's hard to open up and share. But once you have something
that's so transformative, as you have, it's like you can't help
but share. Because you know the depths of
hell that you were in and experiencing on a daily basis.
And to be able to save somebody from that by simply sharing your
story is the single best thing you can do with your time.
Yeah, that's what I vowed when I finally, when when I was
completely healed and I decided to get involved, I vowed to
myself that I'm going to spend the rest of my life sharing this
because I don't want anyone else to go through what I went
through. And if I can be of any help to
anyone at any time, day or night, that's what I'm going to
do because we are up against big food and Big Pharma and
nutrition guidelines that are really harming people.
And you know, I've tried changing things from the top
down. I went to dietitians, I went to
hospitals, I went to eating disorders units, trying to share
my story, trying to share that the the three ingredient tube
feeding ingredients cause more anxiety and more brain
inflammation. And you know that can we change
that to something, you know, something else for those who
need tube feeding? And I was, I was just met with a
brick wall. They would not speak to me.
They would not acknowledge that anything like this was even
possible. You know, I went back to some of
my doctors and and was hoping that they would be open to
seeing this as an adjunct treatment along with those who
are helped by medication. And I was met with hate and
bullying there also. And so I decided I I can't
change it from the top down. I have to do it person to
person. I have to do it from where I am
and reach as many people as I can along the way.
It's been amazing to put some posts out there or some
interviews out there and actually hear back from Chris
Palmer and Georgia Eid themselves.
It makes my day when when they send me a message and and they
they tell me that to keep sharing my story that that I'm
I'm helping others and that's that's my whole mission for the
rest of my life. I love it.
Well, that is a that is a admirable mission, for sure.
And I've got no doubt that you're changing people's lives
in ways that you don't even realize and will never realize.
But you're doing it for the right reasons, and you're making
a difference, a meaningful difference, a meaningful impact.
And I can't thank you enough for just being as transparent as you
have today and sharing that story.
And you get so much to be excited for.
You get so much life ahead of you.
Now. I'm I'm, I'm excited for the
relationship between you and your husband, for him to be able
to experience this new side of you now going forward.
I mean, there's nothing but bright, bright things ahead for
the both of you. Yes, I agree.
It's been amazing for just simple things that people take
for granted, which I don't take for granted anymore.
I mean, I used to dread the holidays.
I I would sit and cry because Christmas and New Year's were
dark, because I I couldn't. I couldn't go to parties.
I couldn't go to normal places and feel at ease and so and so
the the the things that people take for granted, going out to
eat with your husband. We didn't we we gave up and
didn't do it for years because it was torture for me.
And so of course he didn't enjoy it because he's sitting across
from a woman who's you know who's making fists because I'm
so anxious and I can't even make myself eat the plain broccoli
that I ordered and that that's not a date night.
That's that's not anything enjoyable with your spouse And
so we're having a really really good time the last five years
just enjoying each other's company in freedom and and going
out on dates and and of course me making friends with the
servers so this they bring me bring me a big stake.
So yeah, it's it's been life transformative for sure, for
both of us. Well, I'm super excited for you,
Valerie. I'm.
I'm excited for you. I'm excited for what the future
holds. Again, I can't thank you enough
for being as as vulnerable and transparent as you have today.
I know that that takes courage for sure.
Where do people go to find out more about you and just follow
along on the journey and just dive deeper into your world?
Well, I'm most active on Twitter, but I'm also on
Instagram so people can reach out to me on both platforms and
my handle for both is the same. It's Valerie Ann 1970 and the
the Ann has an E on the end, so it's VALERIEANNE and the number
1970, which is the year I was born.
So you know that's where I am and reach out to both places and
I respond to every direct message, every reply on my posts
on both of those platforms. I have previous interviews that
I've done that people can watch and hear my story, but that's,
you know, that that's where I'm most active.
Awesome. Well, I will certainly link out
to those. Make it easier for people to
find you and follow along. Valerie, if there is ever, ever
anything I can do to help in any way, anything I can do to spread
this message, anything I can do to help you personally, by all
means, please don't hesitate to reach out and let me know.
I am so thankful for you, Robert May.
I've followed you for a long time.
I've, I've watched your podcast, I've, you know, used the
inspiration that you provide for my own weightlifting, for my own
body transformation, and it's just been a dream come true.
To be able to be on your platform and and to talk with
you, it's just surreal. Well, the honor is truly mine.
It really is. I mean, I, I, you and I both are
doing this for the same reason. We want to help people because
we have been helped, because we have.
Been in a dark place and seen the line on the other side.
And that's a compelling story that is making a difference.
And it's it's coming from that grassroots movement from the
bottom up, not the top down. So every interaction, every
communication, every podcast episode, every, every message
that we put out is an opportunity to to help somebody
for the better. So by all means, keep doing
exactly what you're doing, Valerie.
OK, I will. And you too.
I'll do. It I've got no intentions of
changing, so we'll we'll make a difference one person at a time.
Yes, one person at a time. Thank you so much and have a
wonderful day Valerie all. Right.
You too. Bye, bye.