Author: Nicole Kat

Let’s talk about anxiety. The amount of young adults feeling some form of anxiety is at an all time high today. I have experienced a direct relationship between the foods I consume and my anxiety that I believe is important to share. I have dealt with some crippling anxiety in my life. The anxiety I would experience at times would completely shut me down. I would crawl into the fetal position while my muscles spasm, my heart racing, and my stomach aching, thinking I was going to be sick. It made me feel like I was going to die. Sounds dramatic, I know! If you have ever dealt with this type of anxiety then you know what I’m talking about. I always thought, if there was SOMETHING that could help with this (other than medication) I would try it in a heart beat.

Fast forward to when I started carnivore officially in April 2020. One month into it I realized and said to Taylor “wait, where did my anxiety go?” He laughed, I laughed and really we didn’t think anything of my new relationship with food. We both thought, well you must be way more accepting of covid and these “unprecedented times”. Oh okay… interesting how my crippling anxiety was relieved during one of the MOST stressful times in history, only ONE MONTH into changing my diet by cutting out sugar and carbs. I was elated! As far as I was concerned I would keep doing carnivore for the rest of my life since it had cured my anxiety and stomach issues within a month.

So I thought wow, my anxiety is gone. It really never came back until the cheating… We decided to go to Utah and Idaho to visit friends in October and November. I’m not going to lie to you, sometimes I cheat, however I will say, I am very strategic about it. I don’t like to go completely nuts or else I get pretty sick (on the toilet for hours) but I do like to have some things I wouldn’t normally eat. While in Idaho for three nights in November the cheating wasn’t too awful, I maybe had 1-2 drinks per night and limited my sugar intake but definitely had some carbs here and there. In Idaho, my stomach was killing me, it seemed like all my stomach issues were back since I wasn’t sticking to carnivore so I understood that. However, out of nowhere my anxiety (whilst on a relaxing vacation without any worries) came back TENFOLD.

For the last two nights in Idaho, as my head would hit the pillow to go to bed, my body would start shaking uncontrollably. It would start as a shiver and then just get to the point of making it extremely difficult to walk. I thought to myself “hm, so this is how I’m going to die?” I knew in my head I wasn’t having a seizure since this had happened before but let me tell you, shaking to this point is one of the scariest experiences I have encountered. There wasn’t much I could do, tried to breathe and decided to take an anti anxiety pill I sometimes use for flying. I was staying at a friends house and Taylor and I decided not to tell them just because we didn’t want them to worry and this had happened before. However, this time, the trend had become more obvious as to what was triggering it.

The shaking fits weren’t unique to Idaho, they had happened in Utah in October and then again 2-3 times at home prior to that. The only thing these incidences had in common was it only happened when I wasn’t sticking to carnivore/keto and ate sugar, carbs, and gluten. In Utah and Idaho, I cheated here and there, ate sugar, gluten, etc. The times it happened at home were also times we had friends over to celebrate a holiday or birthday where what do you know… yup, eating sugar, carbs, gluten. The theme was consistent… food was causing this. It proved to me how poisonous and toxic some of our foods can be and what havoc they can reek on one’s body.

I had a visit with my doctor after our Idaho trip. She was legitimately concerned I hadn’t tried to set up something sooner since this had happened a couple times before. We went over the shaking, my diet, any other symptoms that might be going on, work, etc. She asked a MILLION QUESTIONS and dug deep. I actually got a little scared. At the end of our visit she recommended two things: 1. Stick to carnivore since that seems to work well for my body and 2. If the shaking were to happen again she recommended taking one of the anti anxiety pills that I sometimes use for flying and if that doesn’t help to go to the hospital. I told her I won’t likely go to the hospital but we agreed to avoid the common denominator, bad food.

I’m hoping that sharing my experience with anxiety and my experience with anxiety being relieved and cured by the carnivore diet can help someone. I can’t imagine living my life with the anxiety I used to have and I am so thankful to have discovered a way to relieve it. Food isn’t just food, it can have an awful effect on your body. I strongly believe that sugar and processed junk is the real enemy here. To live a happier life with less issues (including mental and physical ailments) we should limit our intake of sugar and processed foods.