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Email me joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com before midnight on Monday. Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now, while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less. Today on the show, though, we're not going to talk about money.

We're going to talk about that rich life, but in a non-financial context. Specifically, we're going to talk about weight loss, fat loss, more importantly than weight loss. Today's show is part one of a two-part series. Today is called 50 Pounds and Counting, where I'll share with you a little bit of my story where I have lost over 50 pounds in the past months and some of the lessons that I'm learning along the way.

Let me just take a moment to frame this show properly for you so that you understand, so that you can decide whether this is a good investment of your time to engage in today's content. As we approach the end of 2019, this is a time of year when many people think about the success that they've experienced over the past year, and they lay out some of their ideas for the success that they hope to experience in the next year.

And for many of us who are fat, every year we think about how fat we are, and we'd like to be less fat. And in that process, though, it can be difficult to understand exactly what to do. And I want to share my personal experience with you, especially if you are a pretty fat person, to help you with just some things that I have found helpful.

And I do this because it fits my personal philosophy. One of the components of my personal philosophy is we as individuals need to be open with what we're doing as individuals so we can help other individuals and not always from a place of expertise. Let's begin with my expertise.

First, what am I not? I'm not an academically educated nutritionist or a doctor or a personal trainer. Now, I'm a widely read layman, but I'm not an academically educated person. I have zero formal credentials in this area. I don't have a six pack. I'm working on it, but I have a belly and love handles and am overweight.

But I am a fellow journeyer. I have lost 50 pounds or more, and I know what it's like to be fat for all of my adult life. I understand how frustrating that is. And I understand the psychology of that experience, and I also understand how nice it is to be less fat than I once was.

And from that place, I want to just share a little bit of my experience in hopes that it might help you, most importantly, if you are very fat. That's my only goal. Now, I can't even be 100% sure that I won't get fat again. All of the data and studies indicate that the vast majority of people who get less fat become more fat down the road.

Now, I've got a strong plan and very strong motivation not to be there, including even recording this show on subjects that are difficult for me to talk in public. I don't like to talk in public about things that I'm not really good at. It hurts my pride, but I'm doing it partly to be on the record publicly in front of 25,000 people to say, "Hey, this is what I'm experiencing, and I will not be fat.

I'm going to become totally not fat, and I will be totally not fat for the rest of my life." That is my personal commitment. I will have a flat stomach for the rest of my life and never be fat again once I fully get rid of all this fat.

That's my personal commitment, and I'm happy to make it publicly. But of course, we all know that I could fail. So I'm not an expert, but does that mean that if you're fat, you shouldn't take a few minutes and listen? This is a major fallacy, and this is a huge just personal pet peeve of mine, that because of the increased access to experts, many of us have adopted the philosophy that we should spend all our time listening to either self-described or ascribed experts.

The problem is some experts can be useful, but some experts really not. In the money space, I thought a lot about this because when I started talking publicly on the microphone, I had to deal with, "Am I worth listening to?" Because I wasn't a millionaire when I started. Still not a millionaire, doing my very best, still not there.

I'm not financially independent. I have a show every day where I talk to you and I say, "How to become financially independent in 10 years." I ain't there, working hard on it, making good progress, understand how to get there, but I'm on the journey. And so you think, "Well, I should listen to experts." But the problem is some experts are useful and some experts are not.

Now I think we should study experts, but a lot of times you can't relate effectively with experts. If someone's deeply in debt and they're struggling with overspending, studying Warren Buffett's wealth plan probably isn't going to help that much. Warren Buffett has never experienced compulsive spending or emotional shopping. Warren Buffett has been rich from the time he was 10 years old.

Go read his biography, biographies. I read Snowball a number of years ago, I guess that was his officially authorized biography. But the dude had tens of thousands of dollars in high school from paper routes. He has never not been rich, never. So that's really useful because you want to study that as the ultimate model of wealth building and the ultimate investor, et cetera.

But it's hard for him to give advice based on personal experience that would help somebody who's deeply in debt, struggling with credit card debt. Better for you to ask your neighbor who has paid off their credit card debt how they got out. And then once you get out of credit card debt, then say, "Let me study somebody who saved a few thousand dollars.

Let me study somebody who's bought a few investment houses." And along the way, study Warren Buffett and see what's applicable to your life. And that's one of the most frustrating things, especially when it comes to being fat and weight loss, is that sometimes people give advice that's just totally disconnected from your personal experience and they don't understand what you struggle with.

And I've been there. And so I'm not trying to build any kind of brand. I just want to share with you some of what's been working for me. And if that's helpful for you, great. If you're super fat, I would encourage you as somebody who's gone through all kinds of diets, who's been a yo-yo dieter, who's been fat, who's been less fat, who's been more fat, who's been less fat, I'll share with you some of the success that I've had recently, how some of the success that I've had recently has come more easily than it ever has before and has been more sustainable than it ever has been before.

So if that piques your interest, listen on. First, few minutes of backstory on my story so that you can understand where I'm coming from and potentially relate. All of my life that I remember, I have been overweight. I've always been fat. And almost all of my life, I have never understood why.

And that to me has always been a point of frustration. I can vaguely remember at one point in my childhood where I didn't have a big fat stomach. But by the time I reached middle school, I had a big fat stomach. Now there have been times where I could clearly identify why I was extremely fat.

One of those times, for example, would be middle school. The first time in my life where I ever ate industrial processed food was when I started going to a formal private school. And they would have things like pizza Fridays. Well, as a family growing up, we almost never ate pizza.

But I would go and get pizza every Friday. And they had a milkshake machine. Well, we never had milkshakes at home. We never went out to eat to McDonald's and got milkshakes. But now they had a milkshake machine where I could buy a milkshake. And I would buy the nasty junk food.

And I got really fat in middle school. Then in between eighth grade and ninth grade, I got super motivated because of being so fat to lose a bunch of weight. And I lost about 60 pounds following an Atkins style low carb diet at that time, which worked wonders for my confidence as an eighth grader, worked wonders for my personal self-confidence going into high school.

But I was still fat. During college, I don't remember all my weights during that time. I think in middle school, I was 270, dropped down to probably 220 or so, but I was still fat. And then in college, I also ate junk my first year. Access to the cafeteria and all the junk that was in there, I got as high as 320 pounds and lost weight, worked out, did different things, up, down, up, down, up, down, et cetera.

But basically since college, so going on, I'm almost 35, so basically 15 years-ish, my weight has always been right around 300. Sometimes as low as 280, 270 for a time, sometimes up 300, 320, et cetera. It's basically always been around that set point of 300 to 320 pounds. And what's always been annoying to me is I've never quite understood why my weight seemed perpetually stuck there.

Because an honest analysis, an objective analysis of my food intake would indicate that, in my opinion, it should not have been so high. Why do I say honest objective? Well, I've kept food diaries over the years. I have read widely in the areas and I've wondered, "Why on earth would my weight be this high?" Growing up, we never ate standard American diet, processed food.

My mom always cooked from scratch. I don't know, 5% of the time she would buy a lasagna from Sam's or some kind of prepared food. But for that vast majority of time, always cooked from scratch. We had salad every single night. I was so sick of salad when I got married that my wife and I just stopped eating salad for a few years because I had so much salad growing up.

But even my wife and I, we always cook from scratch. We never buy packaged food, ever. There have been a few times in my life where I knew I was eating a bunch of junk. Middle school, early years of college, there was a time where I used to eat a bunch of fast food, which is obviously junk, and I got really fat there.

But for years, I've not done that stuff. And so what's always annoyed me was, "Why on earth would I be so fat?" I would keep food diaries and calorie counts, et cetera. Never understood it. And I wondered, "Is there some kind of hormonal issue? Is there some kind of weird, wacky thing that's wrong with me?" I have no idea.

But point is, I was fat. Now along the way, I've never been unhealthy, which one of the big misnomers is that fat necessarily equals either health or non-unhealth. And in my opinion, or my observation, understanding, they're probably not directly correlated. Some fat people can be fairly healthy. And in fact, some people become very unhealthy when they lose weight.

It's my understanding that fat is often used to absorb and to store a lot of toxins in the body. And so one result that some people experience when they start losing fat is their fat cells release all these toxins that have been previously been bound up by the body and it causes problems.

Those problems can be from acne to more severe substantial problems with mercury being released in your blood or whatever. And so sometimes skinny people are far less healthy than some fat people. But by all objective markers, I've always enjoyed really good health, which is a real benefit, a real privilege, just a real blessing.

I've never struggled with that. Even all the biological markers, the blood pressure, the cholesterol, all that stuff have always been really good for me. I have the highest rated premier life insurance for whatever that means. And I've got a great family history. I've got long-lived grandparents, essentially no disease in my family, which has really been a blessing to have that kind of health along the way.

In addition, being fat has really never hindered me all that much. I've always been able to engage in all of the physical pursuits that I've wanted to engage in. I was fat and I ran a half marathon. I've lifted lots of weights over the years. I'm not that agile or nimble on a soccer field.

I've never been particularly agile or nimble. Athleticism doesn't come naturally for me. But I've really never been hindered by anything. So for the most part, I've largely just simply set it aside. But along the way, I'm simply sharing this to know that, to share with you that if you're somebody who says, "I'm fat," and you're frustrated by that, but you're not quite sure what to do, I've been there.

And I find it so frustrating when everyone has ideas and everyone has tips. And for me, one of the most frustrating subjects in the world of study is to try to work your way through, suppose it, what it means to live healthy. If any of you, there is so much opportunity for someone to cut through all the nonsense, but I'm a reader, I'm a studier, and I'm a fairly educated person.

And I find the subject of health science to be the most frustrating, annoying subject in the world to work your way through. I have read books and found competent, seemingly knowledgeable, skilled doctors who would say everything under the sun. I've read books on longevity. I've read books on veganism.

I've read books on, what's the thing? The alkaline acid. I read "PH Miracle" by Dr. What's-His-Name years ago. I've read, and I remember back when I used to listen to Tony Robbins and Tony Robbins would talk about, he was a big proponent. I think he still is, I don't know.

But early in his career, he was a fruitarian. Then he changed his stance on fruitarianism. I think he still teaches veganism, vegetarianism, and PH stuff. I used to buy Tony Robbins greens from him to change my blood alkaline balance. I've read books from low-carb people. I've read books on, I've done the Whole30.

I've done healthy eating. I've done Standard Thing. I've read all the stuff. And it's so frustrating when you go through this and you can line up these 20 different people who all seem so smart and so knowledgeable and they've all got the perfect answer, but they all say exactly the opposite of what everyone else says.

I still don't even know where to go on any of that stuff. Which is why I'm just sharing my experience. I have no idea what's right. And all along the way, I started studying the science. I started studying the surveys. I found out how thin so much of that research is.

And I'm not sure what to say. But the point is, it's really frustrating. When you're fat and you feel like, "Okay, I'm an intelligent person. I should know. I should be able to work through this. I should be able to figure this out." And you're fat and yet you can't seem to get anything to work.

That's a really frustrating place to be. So over the years, I've largely just set it aside and ignored it. But recently, a few things did happen that changed. And again, I'm just sharing my story. If you can pick something useful from it, fine. But I'll just share what it is for me.

I can't identify necessarily one thing. But one thing that has obvious... A few things that I want to share with you. One of course is age. I'm almost 35. I turn 35 next year. And in considering that, obviously with that being one of those milestone birthdays, I realized a few things.

Number one is simply that if you look at people, it becomes harder and harder for people to stay skinny as they get older. The body changes, metabolisms change, et cetera. And I guess I did realize that, "Joshua, if you're ever going to change, it's not going to happen when you're older.

It's going to happen now. It'll never be easier than it is now anyway." I always believe that anybody can change no matter what age. But it's never going to be easier than it is now. And obviously, it would have been easier at 25, but whatever. Now today is the first day of the rest of my life.

So it's never going to be easier than it is today. So that's the first thing. Another thing though, there's been some big changes for me personally over the last few years. I'm going to pause for just a moment and share this, especially as something I've learned for you in case you're younger than I am.

But I didn't expect to experience such dramatic changes in my own personal maturity as my time went on. I was always a fairly mature person, even when I was younger. I was 18 going on 80. My friends used to joke. But and that's partly just due to the good training that I received from my parents.

But I still had a lot of the struggles, the juvenile struggles that a lot of people had. But over the last five years, my life has changed dramatically. I don't know necessarily what to ascribe that to. Part of it could of course be chronological age. And I believe that there's simply something due to the chronological passage of time that affects you.

But I personally am unconvinced that that accounts for all of it. I think for me, a big component has been being married and being a father of several children. I go back and forth on this question. I've wrestled a lot with it, looked for kind of academically studied answers, never found any good ones.

So I just have anecdotal experience from my own experience and my observation. But I think being a father has changed me. And I don't mean that in some kind of dumb way, but just it's made a dramatic impact on my life. If I think over the last five years, the last five years have been some of the most fastest and biggest personal growth years of my life.

I've always been a personal growth person. So I can chart times where I've grown personally. But the last five years have been some of the biggest personal growth years. And yet the last five years for me have been some of the lightest intentional personal growth practice years that I've ever had.

Stopped reading most self-development literature, stopped reading most personal development literature. And yet I've grown immeasurably. And I personally am convinced that a huge factor, not the only factor, but a huge factor has simply been my children. Because it's forced me to change in ways that have been transformative for me.

I could give dozens of examples that I've charted in my own life, being a fairly self-aware person. But as I observe, I have very good friends of mine who are exactly my age. I've known them since high school. But they're on a different life course. They're on the more modern life course than the life course that my wife and I are on.

Unmarried still at 35, unmarried, no children, etc. And to me, the difference in the trajectory of our lives, they've largely just seemed kind of stunted. Kind of just stuck in this perpetual adolescence where they're still struggling with the same things they struggled with 10 years ago. And I don't.

And I think a big influence, a positive influence for me has been children. Now, I don't think that that's necessarily a... I don't think you have to be stuck. Singlehood is not a death sentence to perpetual adolescence. People who are really focused can become mature and forward-thinking. Marriage and children don't by definition produce that.

And you can be married and have children and just not advance, right? There are lots of people there. But for me, it's just been a tremendous catalyst for positive change. My confidence has grown immeasurably. I simply don't struggle with any of the stuff I used to struggle with. And it's not due to fixing it with self-development.

Just became irrelevant. One of these days, I want to start a success course. Because one of the things that's happened for me is the vast majority of success literature and personal development stuff that used to just light me up has become totally irrelevant. I read it and it does not connect with me at all.

And I can vividly remember how when I was single, it just, "Wow, this is so great." Today I look at it and it doesn't connect. And maybe there's people out there who do success for married men, but I don't know. There's a totally different experience of life. And part of that, though, did relate to just my personal confidence.

The weight largely became meaningless in terms of external approval. But it did become very meaningful that I really fear having fat children. It's one of my deep-seated fears. My real psychological fear. I do not want to have fat children. And thankfully thus far, we don't have fat children. But it really bothers me.

It would really bother me to have fat children. I don't want fat children. And yet, how can I be a fat father? Really bothered me. If not having fat children is that important to me, then how can I be a fat father? Bugs me to no end. I really don't want a fat wife.

Really I've always been blessed to not have a fat wife. But if I don't want a fat wife, then how can I be a fat husband? How does that line up? It's gnawed on me, but not have quite known what to do over the years. Then of course also, there's all the normal fat person stuff of clothes and wardrobe and all that stuff.

But then a big thing also is I've got significant ambition for some areas that I want to work in in coming decades in public. Some issues that are really important to me. And it's really bothered me to have this image of myself standing on stage and being fat, especially with regard to men.

You'll notice that I always speak directly to men. I know there are women who listen to my show. Great, I'm glad to have you if you're a woman. But I really care about men. And one of the things that bothers me to no end is it's very hard for men these days to find masculine spaces where men can speak like men and can be treated like men.

And I've lost all interest in the... I've grown so annoyed with the mass feminization of my own home society and home culture. And so I just have no interest in creating feminine spaces or being involved in feminine spaces whatsoever. But yet one of the things that to me is interesting is that if I want to talk to men, I want to command the respect of men.

And one component of commanding respect from men is not being a weak, fat slob. It's possible in some areas to command respect from men, even if you are a weak, fat slob. But you will command far more respect from men if you're not a weak, fat slob. And it just really bothered me because being a weak, fat slob has never been who I've ever seen myself as.

I've never been weak. I've always been a little bit fat, but not sloppy fat, not hugely fat. Most people say, "Joshua, you're a little bit fat, a little bit overweight," but never been that much. But it's really bugged me, really, really bugged me. And more importantly is that I just started to feel this deep conviction that it's just simply not honoring to God, especially being a Christian, being as loudmouthed as I am, I just developed this deep conviction that this is not honoring to God.

And that was the thing that ultimately changed my mind, was coming to just a conviction that it is not honoring to God for me to be a weak, fat slob. And I don't know how to articulate that for you. I don't think that God is first and foremost judging you for being fat, but what right do I have if I behave like a glutton?

I've never really been a glutton, but still, same thing applies. How can I be a glutton and talk about character? Because no matter what, when you're fat, people wonder, "Are you a glutton?" Certainly maybe somebody has some kind of problem or some issue or whatever where, that way, but you have to wonder.

You wonder, "What does this person do?" How can I talk about discipline, about character, about fortitude, and me be a weak, fat slob? Just really bothered me. And it came to a point where the Lord just pricked my conscience. I couldn't do it. I couldn't take it anymore. And the thing that was different than ever before with yo-yo dieting, whatever, just for me, I came to the conviction, no matter what, I don't know exactly what to do.

I don't know what I'll have to do. But whatever I need to do, I will do it to not be a fat slob. And I'll do it no matter how long it takes. That was the conviction I came to. And the only way I can articulate, I can't be certain that I will follow through.

How can I predict the future? But unlike the previous 15 years of wondering about that, I just came to an absolute unshakable dedication, an absolute conviction that no matter what, I would simply do whatever it took, however long it takes. So I still don't have flat stomach, but I became convinced that no matter what, no matter how long it takes, I'll do it.

And no matter how I got to eat, no matter what I got to do, I'll do it for the rest of my life. I don't know how you get there. I wish I could tell you. I wish I could tell you. I don't know. I don't know. Those were some of the factors that influenced me.

But I don't know how to coach someone else to get there other than just to share my story and say, you got to think about it yourself and come to your own position. So where I started was with a ketogenic diet. Now being a widely read layman on these subjects is my opinion and observation that probably the most effective weight loss protocol was a low carb and/or ketogenic diet.

And so I said, well, I'll just do that. Is that absolutely the best no matter what? I don't know. I don't know. But my observation is that there's lots, there's been very high levels of success. Due to my success in losing weight on a low carb diet in the past, I figured I will do that.

And so I just simply started. I started eating a ketogenic diet and I didn't even have the slightest bit of temptation to not due to that just personal conviction. And so for the first couple of months I was on a ketogenic diet. I don't know the exact weight that I started out because I didn't have a scale.

There's a lesson in that that's important that I haven't had a scale for the last couple of years. I remember traveling, living in an RV and a scale just didn't seem like a valuable use of space in an RV and then traveling across the world. And when you got 50 pound suitcases to move your family, a big scale doesn't seem like a high priority.

So I don't exactly know where exactly I started, but probably in the range of 300 to 320 pounds. And now I'm under 250 pounds. So over 50 pounds lost. I do know I've gone from a size XXL shirt to a size large shirt. Well tiny bit snug, but it'll be not snug in a few days unless I can pop my muscles out bigger.

And I know that I've gone in about six inches on my belt. So there's real evidence and down 50 pounds, six inches on my belt and from a XXL to a size large. So I did a ketogenic diet for the first couple of months. And I will say this, of every diet that I have read about and/or tried and/or studied, I'm convinced that a ketogenic diet is one of the most doable long-term diets.

I'm not here going to get into the science of it just to be a silly waste of time, but it's just really, really livable. We're basically we eat meat and vegetables. It's really livable, but you can live really luxurious living on that kind of diet. I'll talk in a moment about diets, but because I think it's a big deal is having something that you can do for the longterm.

But after about a month and a half of ketogenic dieting, somebody asked me, "Have you ever heard of the carnivore diet?" I'd never heard of it. And I started being a researcher, I started looking into it and I was pretty shocked at what I found. The carnivore diet, just the very simple concept is that you basically eat meat and nothing else or meat and eggs and dairy.

You eat like a carnivore, meat, eggs and dairy. And what's noticeably absent is any form of carbohydrate, any form of grain and any form of fruit or vegetable. You eat meat, eggs and dairy. And as I would guess, it sounds to you, that sounded super shocking and super unhealthy to me.

But I started to dig into it. I started to dig into people's experiences and stories on eating a carnivore diet. And I was really amazed by what I found. I started, I stumbled across Jordan Peterson's interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, which is probably the most famous story that's out there of a carnivore diet because of Jordan Peterson's popularity.

Then I stumbled across his daughter, Michaela Peterson's story, just a crazy story that she had of tremendous health issues and how ultimately she experienced tremendous improvement in her health because when she finally went to eating only meat, in her case only beef, beef and water. I started reading about it.

I started finding all these people's stories. I thought, "Yeah, this is interesting. Let me test this out." So since September 1, I started eating an exclusively carnivore diet. Since September 1 up until yesterday, Thanksgiving Day, I only ate meat and eggs and had a tiny bit of dairy here and there, not a scrap of vegetable, not a scrap of bread, not a scrap of anything except meat and eggs.

And for me, meat and eggs and a smattering of dairy here and there, for me, that has been an awesome experience. Now obviously it's been good for my fat loss, which is great. When you're eating zero carbohydrates, that seems like a really good way to lose fat. It's also been good for ...

talk about that in just a minute. It's been good for my fat loss. I've lost a lot of fat. More to go, but I've lost a lot of fat. Along the way, I have done some exercise, a moderate amount of exercise. I don't know how to judge my athletic performance without carbohydrates.

I do know this is a big debate in athletic spaces, which I have no interest in weighing into. I have felt much more athletic now than any time in the past, but because I have no baseline to drive it on in terms of how much my muscles or my body thrives on carbohydrates versus no carbohydrates, et cetera, you can try that.

If you're an athlete, you can debate that. There are athletes who need carbohydrates for optimal performance. There are athletes who don't use any form of carbohydrates for optimal performance. I can't tell you about that. All I know is I feel great, and I have done a lot more athletic performance than any before.

I do quite a bit more exercise now, which has been good, and ramping that up even more, especially as it's easier now that I have lost quite a bit of fat. One thing that is hindering, when I was younger, I used to be able to run easily even though I was pretty fat.

But as I've gotten older, it's been much harder to run in terms of the impact on my knees, and I felt worse when running and whatnot from being heavily, really fat, which obviously is pretty obvious, but it's one thing to know it intellectually. It's another thing to experience it.

So now that my body weight has declined, it's becoming easier to do many of those things. I want to share with you just a couple of things about the carnivore diet for you to consider. First, I don't know, just as preamble, is this the healthiest thing long-term? I think there's a lot of evidence that actually probably is, or at least that it is extremely healthy.

The thing about not eating vegetables sounds super weird, and as a vegetable lover and a lifelong vegetable eater, I'm not convinced it'll always stay on the carbohydrate diet. But it seems apparent to me that there are at least some people out there who even vegetables make them sick, hardcore cases like Michaela Peterson.

But I'm not saying skip vegetables for good health. You can try that for yourself. What I do know for me is that I have felt great even without eating vegetables, just eating purely meat. I've felt great, feel great, have great things in my head, didn't really have any sicknesses that I can say I had any problems with.

I don't feel necessarily all that much better from eating just meat than I would have with meat and vegetables. So I'm not personally opposed to vegetables, but I think it's worth testing out. Here's what has been a big benefit to me about the carnivore diet. I have found that eating a pure carnivore diet has been one of the simplest and easiest to stick to diets that I have ever done because it is so exceedingly simple.

Now I've done ketogenic diets in the past, and I think ketogenic diets can be extremely successful for weight loss and for good health, including vegetables. I think I'll probably go back in the future to eating some vegetables here and there. I don't know what I'll do long term, what to figure out once I reach my weight loss goals and figure out what's required to sustain that.

I don't know that. But I do know that a lot of times figuring out all those details can be tough. And when you're trying to count your macros and count your carbs and figure out, okay, well, how much of this can I have and how much of that, it can be really challenging.

Whereas the carnivore diet is the ultimate simplicity. It basically works like this. Eat meat, any kind of meat you want. Eat different kinds of meats to start with at least. There's the whole nose to tail carnivore movement. Eat nose to tail, eat whatever kinds of meats you can. Eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full.

And that's it. And don't put anything, don't put any bunch of sugary junk on your meat. Just eat meat. And that diet is one of the ultimate in simplicity, which means that it's so simple that it can be stuck to fairly easily. I have, so since September 1st all the way through Thanksgiving Day yesterday, I have only eaten meat.

And one time I ate a small bowl of peach cobbler. It was a couple of weeks ago and I was feeling a little deprived, looking forward to Thanksgiving. It was right there. Had a moment of weakness. I've never in my life gone three months on a crazy strict diet and only ever cheated on that diet one time.

Now your experience may not be mine, but I've found it one of the easiest diets to stick to because the rules are so elegantly simple. The other thing that's been wonderful about it is how easy it is to stick to, especially when traveling and in almost any circumstance. If you just say, I just eat meat, everything becomes simple.

You go to a restaurant, if they have steak, you order steak. If you're hungry, you order two. Or you order hamburger patties. Or you order whatever kind of meat they have, it's just meat. And if there's not meat available, you don't eat. One of the huge benefits that I have found from experience with eating a low carbohydrate diet and a ketogenic diet, once your body gets into ketosis where it stops burning the sugar in your blood for energy but starts to burn ketones for energy, it is so helpful for your appetite.

Where basically your appetite completely changes. Instead of being hungry all the time, like you are on a low calorie diet where you're eating small meals five times a day and you're just constantly hungry, it's frustrating as a big man, you're just hungry all the time, you're irritable all the time, you can't stick to it, you always want to binge, etc.

Your appetite moderates. Now it takes some time to work into, but your appetite moderates. And that is awesome because it makes fasting a whole lot simpler and a whole lot easier. And it almost feels like a superpower. Where at this point, I usually still, because of years of cheating at social gatherings and things like that, if I know I'm going to be someplace where it's going to be hard to exercise self-control or I know they're probably not going to have good options, I'll make sure to eat something before.

But even so, because your appetite so totally changes, it becomes easy to skip a meal or two or three or four or five or six. And that radically transforms your experience with trying to stick to a diet. That to me is one of the most understated benefits of being in ketosis and basically living in ketosis because it, again, it feels like a superpower.

When everyone, I've flown a bunch over the last couple of weeks and in an airplane, I just don't eat. I don't bring anything with me. I just don't eat. And it feels like a superpower. When everyone else is scarfing down the chips and the whatnot, you just feel, "I don't need it.

I'm not hungry." It's not necessarily a matter of willpower. I drink black coffee or I drink carbonated water and I don't eat. And again, from a lifelong fat person who has always loved to eat, that is awesome. It feels really, really good to not be just stuck eating all the time.

Now there's a big debate in the carnivore ketogenic diet world whether or not calories matter. I think they probably do because there have been times where I've eaten excessively meat. I've eaten excessively and I haven't lost much weight. I think it's because of excess calories. I do think calories matter, but what I believe is that if you eat a low carbohydrate diet, you're going to lose more weight and it's a lot easier to eat a low calorie diet when you're in ketosis than when you are hungry all the time.

So that's my opinion. You can try it for yourself. But for me, that ability to fast has been really useful. One of the biggest problems that I have had over the years with diets is trying to figure out how to eat in a way that would fit my ideal family schedule.

So growing up, we were always a three meal a day family. And growing up, we always, as a family, we always had breakfast together. We'd have lunch together a lot of the time. My mom, usually my dad would be away at work, but I'd be home with my mom.

And then of course we were in school and didn't have lunch together and we always had dinner together. That's always the normal schedule. And I saw the value of that growing up as a child. And so in my family, it's always been the same way. We always have breakfast together.

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I love breakfast food, can happily eat it all, love that. And then we always have dinner together. So it's not rare for us to do it. It's not one night a week. It's seven breakfasts together a week, seven dinners together a week.

It's just how our family structures. And I've never wanted to be the weird, the odd man out, just not eating. But the carnivore has given me the ability to do that, where at this point I've stopped eating breakfast. I know for many people, when they stop eating breakfast, contrary to what we were taught in the early 2000s about breakfast is the most important meal of the day, I've become convinced that's probably not true, that a lot of people, when they stop eating breakfast, they lose weight.

So for me, I've stopped eating breakfast and I drink black coffee in the morning, start my first meal around, well, sometimes noonish, although many times I've gone just to the one meal a day model. One of the things, just interesting diets I've tried over the years, and by the way, I don't think you have to try carnivore.

There are many things that can work. I'm just sharing my experiences to encourage you and say, give it a shot. But a long time ago, after I read Jacob Lund Fisker's book, actually, Early Retirement is Extreme, he alludes to something, I think, Orie Hoffmeiler was his name, a guy wrote a book called The Warrior Diet, which advocated for eating one time per day, but eating whatever you wanted during that time.

And his idea, his defense of it was that basically, you know, warriors are hunters, you don't eat all, graze all day. You go out, you hunt all day, you're hungry, and then you feast at night. And so his basic diet was eat one time per day at night, and eat one time per day at night, and start with a salad, then eat whatever you want, eat whatever you want, eat as much as you want, eat even dessert if you want at the end of the meal, eat whatever you want, but just eat one time per day.

And basically, the idea is if you're eating one time per day, you can't actually overeat just eating one time per day, because it's really hard to take in that much food at once. I used to do that when I was a financial advisor when I was single, and I lost some weight at that time, and I found it to be an incredible boost for my work, because I saved a lot of time.

The problem that I found with it was one, I was hungry a lot, because I was still eating carbohydrates just one time per day. Two, it was bad for my social calendar, I did a lot of social lunches and entertaining when I was a financial advisor. And then number three, when I got married, I wanted to have breakfast with my wife.

And so, reinstituting that meant going back to eating multiple times per day. Well, since I quit eating carbohydrates, it became much easier for me to fast and to eat one meal a day or eat during a compressed eating window of four to six hours per day, the intermittent fasting approach as well.

So it's just been a lot easier. So let me just wrap this up with saying, that's been my experience. I've lost 50 pounds, again, double XL to large shirt size, six inches into my belt. And I have found this past, I don't know, four or five months, six months, I guess, not six months yet, but probably three to five months, I have found it to be one of the best and easiest things that I've experienced that's led to weight loss, muscle gain, and just feeling better.

I think that the carnivore diet is going to be the biggest diet trend of 2020. The momentum that it is gathering is huge. The stories that people are sharing are tremendous. One of the things that's been wackiest to me to read about, and again, all this stuff, the carnivore diet by definition, by all accepted academic research, sounds very bad and unhealthy.

And there are lots of articles and whatnot against it. But what you find if you look into it is you find tons and tons of stories of people for whom it has been a tremendous boon. And one of the things that I'm most fascinated by is tremendous improvements reported by many people in mental health.

If you go out and you look for stories on the carnivore diet, one of the themes that you hear again and again is people saying, "Oh, it cured my depression, cured my anxiety, et cetera." That was one of the things that Jordan Peterson talked about on his show on Joe Rogan.

I've seen that corroborated by the personal experience of other people as well. And so I didn't have mental problems before, but I do feel great. I feel better than I've ever felt. Yesterday, I decided to go ahead and eat Thanksgiving foods. It was the first sugar I've had and first carbohydrates I've had, and I felt like junk.

Now, how much of that is due to carbohydrates versus the enzymes in my stomach being adjusted to meat, I don't know. But all I know is I was happy today to go back to fasting and happy today to go back to just eating meat because it's been a great thing for me.

So I want to close out this personal narrative with just three major points. Number one, why am I doing this show? Well, as you can tell, I'm not trying to defend the carnivore diet as the ultimate way of eating. That's not my job. I don't care. I know that I'm doing it now.

Maybe I'll change in the future. All I know is I think it's a good way, and I see lots of people defending it, and I think that their arguments are as good as anybody else's. But of course, you have a night and day conflict with the vegans. The vegans and the carnivore are hard to get any more not vegan than me.

I can't imagine any diet that's more offensive to a vegan than the one that I eat. So my point is to share my story, but to use it as potentially an opportunity to encourage you. Don't quit. Don't quit. I have quit. I have wanted to quit. I have quit.

I've been fat for years. I wish I'd kept pushing harder in the past. The psychology was hard, right? You do something, you fail. You do something, you fail. You do something, you fail. You do something, you do something, and fail. I've been there. I've experienced that. And if you're frustrated because you've failed on every diet you've ever tried, I just ask you, don't quit.

The only way you ultimately fail is when you quit. Take a breather and try something new. If you've tried 10 diets, if you've tried 20 diets, if you've tried 30 diets, and you've done them and you've lost weight and you quit, just don't quit. I observe that there are two kinds of people in the world.

There are kinds of people that take what they've gotten and they sit down and just take it. And there are kinds of people who say, no, I'm going to keep doing it. And I'm speaking from a place of psychological exuberance. You start to get a little success. You start to see some changes in your body.

It's exciting. You start to see muscles come out where only flab was before. You start to see a lot less fat where there was a lot more before, and it's encouraging. But it takes months to get there. But the point is, don't quit. Don't quit. So just recognize that there are lots of people who've been where you are.

If you're fat and you're frustrated and you're thinking, okay, well, January 1, I'm going to do something. If you've been there and you're frustrated, don't quit. Don't quit. Keep working on it. Now, try whatever you think is going to be effective. If you think eating a fruitarian diet is going to be effective, go for it.

I don't think it's going to be effective, but too much sugar, bad for you, et cetera. Go for it. If you think eating a vegan diet is going to be effective, go for it. I don't think it's going to be good. I think it's going to have all kinds of health problems and whatnot, but hey, that's not my fight.

But if that's what you think, go for it. If you want to try what has been helpful for me over the last months, and there are many people who are experiencing it, try it. It doesn't get any simpler than just to say, eat meat. That's it. Meat, eggs, and a little bit of dairy here and there.

You want to be really safe, eat only meat and eggs. If you've got all kinds of health issues, just eat beef. It's really good. I missed this earlier when I was saying. One of the things that's so nice about the carnivore diet is it's so satiating. So I drink black coffee in the morning, around lunchtime, two o'clock, whenever I get hungry, I have eggs and bacon, and then for dinner I eat beef.

I make steak, steak or roast beef. I can eat that way happily seven days a week, and it's been great. So satiating and filling, it's nice. I need to get a little bit more fat on my diet. I do find that if I don't get quite enough fat, I probably need to get more fat, but figuring out how to get that with good animal fats is challenging.

The point is, don't quit. If you're getting to the end of 2019 and you're reflecting back on the last decade and you're fat and you don't want to be fat anymore, do whatever it takes to reach out to somebody and to try something. The internet has been a tremendous boon.

One of the things I love seeing, I love the work that Diamond Dallas Page does, where there's so many super fat people who get his stuff, and there's this wrestler and he does this yoga and dieting thing, and there's so many wonderful transformation stories. If you're frustrated and you're annoyed and you're fat, don't quit.

Do whatever you've got to do to reach out to somebody to try something. Go on YouTube and just start doing nothing but filling your brain with transformation stories, watching people go from fat to skinny. Go on Instagram and subscribe to Instagram channels of people going from fat to skinny, and start listening to real people, just like I've shared my story here.

I'm not a coach. I don't have a business in this. I'm not a trainer. Just one fat guy, one less fat guy to another. Go and find things that are inspiring. Whatever that first step is, take that. Whatever you think will work for you, don't quit. Keep looking. Be the kind of person that when the doctor tells you it's terminal, go get a second opinion.

Don't be one who takes what you or anyone else says about you. Be the kind of person who doesn't quit, no matter what. Number two, I wish I'd tracked a little bit more. I will release a standalone and less personal show on this subject, but I should have had a scale a long way.

It was a major mistake that I didn't have a scale and wasn't weighing myself. In the same way that it's stupid to not track your finances, it's stupid to not track your weight and your biomarkers. My mistake, I was wrong. I wish I'd had a scale from day one.

I wish I'd gone and done detailed measurements from day one. I didn't want to do it because for me, that would have felt, that felt like, I didn't make it a priority because that felt like, "Okay, I'm going to go on a diet again. I'm going to track my progress." Having been on and failed on so many diets or been on and done for a while and then quit and then gotten fat again, it just felt like doing it.

Whereas for me, it just came to a place of no matter what, I don't care what the scale says. All I know is that this way of eating should in time produce results and so I'm just going to do it. I had absolute determination and so that was why I didn't start tracking.

But I do wish now that I'd taken more pictures and done that. I didn't even bother taking pictures. I would say this, consider trying carnivore diet. If you've struggled with fat loss, go into a little research. Sean Baker, who's a big guy in this space, just wrote a new book on it.

There are a couple of people out there. In tomorrow's episode, you'll hear Jack Spirico talk about his low-carb journey. He's putting out some great stuff. I invited him on because he's fantastic on this, doing a lot of good stuff and a ton of resources. So try a low-carb, a ketogenic diet and then consider going all the way with carnivore.

Go watch some YouTube videos, find some stories. Meatheals.com is one website that I think Baker maintains. Go and find something and try something. I think the carnivore diet is going to be the biggest trend of 2020. We'll check back in a year and see if that's the case. But of course, here I am trying to help it be a good trend.

I know it's been good to me. I have no intention of quitting and I don't want you to quit either. It is insane that in 2019, so many of us die from easily curable diseases. Type 2 diabetes, 100% curable. So many heart issues and all this stuff, these things are curable.

And yet so many of us die from this stupid stuff. It's you and me, not be those statistics. Our children need us more than that. Thank you for listening to my story. Hope this has been helpful and encouraging to you in some way. Just simply wanted to share it as fodder for your mind.

And we'll get back to financial planning on Monday. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I hope I helped you with some ideas and some encouragement and inspiration to help you achieve your goals faster, living a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

As we go three things. Number one, I teach a number of premium courses found at radicalpersonalfinance.com/store. Courses that I have designed and written to help you solve some specific problems. Go and check those out at radicalpersonalfinance.com/store. Those courses contain ideas and strategies not otherwise released here in the free podcast.

And you can find those at radicalpersonalfinance.com/store. Number two, I offer a limited amount of private consulting and coaching work. If you'd like details on how to talk to me privately regarding the details of your specific situation, email me joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com and you will be able to get in touch. I'll share all those details joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com.

Number three, catch up with me around the web, Facebook and YouTube. I'm at radicalpersonalfinance. Twitter and Instagram at joshuasheets. Follow me on those platforms if you are active there for some additional content not found here in the podcast. Thank you so much. the podcast. Thank you so much.