Hello, ladies and gents Roberts. Thanks kiddo, Savage that comment today I've got special guest at Melanie Thomas on the line. I met her at the keto palooza conference this past year, and I just kind of wanted a little bit deeper into what she's been able to accomplish with the carnivore diet. Turn her whole family are doing Quito and carnivore. She's got two daughters or husbands doing Quito. She's doing a more strict version of carnivore. She's been able to reverse a ton
of health issues. She's totally turned her life around, lost a ton of weight gotten healthier, just everything's much better for her. And I just Want to get a little more back story as to how she accomplished that and what her motivations have been to start, putting her journey out on YouTube and just be out there to help people along with their Journey. So thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I've got no doubt that you will take something from it.
She is definitely in the space producing content and trying to help people for all the right reasons, which is why I really wanted to just get on the podcast. So without further Ado, sit back relax. Enjoy the conversation with Melanie Thomas. And we are live Melanie. How are you? I'm great. How are you doing? I'm doing a wonderfully, well, as well. We met for the first time at sceeto palooza, right?
That's that's right. We met last summer at the keto, palooza in Louisville, where I'm from. And I had the privilege of getting to hear you speak, and I got to meet you and your beautiful. Cool. Wife and amazing little boy. And yeah, it was a great 10-minute conversation that we had. So I wanted to yeah, reach out and talk some more. Yeah. No, it was great. I mean that, we like you said, we spoke for a brief moment after the conference was
actually over. You had some kiddos as well, your husband was there and we were talking and yeah, we started diving into your Mac store a little bit with nutrition doing like carnivore and whatnot. So I kind of want to just Dive into that for the listeners. Can you can you give me some back story as to what got you into the keto carnivore space to begin with? Sure absolutely. So I grew up very you know
standard American diet. I had a lot of health issues that really started surfacing in my 20s. I started to gain weight. I had always struggled with mental health issues, Issues. Since I was a child and I just now, I'm 38 years old. Let me back up a little bit. I had never heard of carnivore. I had never heard of the lion
diet, anything like that. Until I saw a, I guess was a podcast of Joe Rogan and Michaela Peterson and my husband and I were at home, we were watching this show And something just clicked and was like I feel like I need to do this and I had struggled for years with multiple chronic conditions and weight gain my worst condition I would say was I had Interstitial cystitis and it is completely cured. It is gone since I went carnivore. And can you tell The listeners. What?
That is exactly sure, sure. So Interstitial cystitis is also known as painful bladder syndrome and it kind of gets I would want to say under-diagnosed or misdiagnosed because it looks just like a UTI as far as the symptoms, but you do not test positive for having bacteria. So what happened was I would show signs of a UTI as a child and be put on an antibiotic. Without ever checking that I had, you know, bacteria or not. So I have been on more
antibiotics than I can. Even like I don't even want to admit, how many I've probably been on. And, you know, as a result of that, I had terrible gut issues. I had terrible mental health issues, I had, you know, weight gain acne, I had a form of lupus, That affects the skin. I had chronic fatigue. I had chronic migraines and all of this just literally disappeared.
When I went carnivore. The thing that actually that made me say okay I have to tell the world is is when I got to cancel my appointment to. So I was going to see a her I was going to have Hand surgery, I had carpal tunnel syndrome so bad, I couldn't even write. I couldn't even hold my baby and they kept telling me. Well, this will go away after you give birth. And it never did. And long story short, I went carnivore, somehow.
This carpal tunnel was just completely just wiped away. and when it all the helmet start, like, when was the Inception of all the health concerns, Oh gosh, you know, I feel like a lot of its are like, been there the whole time. I just never associated with food with what I was eating and nobody ever said anything. When I would go to the doctor about well what are you eating? No one ever said that because I was always a very thin person until my 20s.
That's when I started to gain weight, I would say you know five to ten pounds a year. So I at my heaviest This was 220 pounds and for people that they're going to look like yeah. But never look like you were ever to have £20 crazy. Yeah, I know, I know it's crazy. And yeah, I, you know, I don't have a lot of before and after pictures because I hated the way I looked for so many years that I don't even have any pictures, but I do have a few and I have a little bit of it on my YouTube
channel, but yeah. I've lost 70 pounds and that just seems like how is that possible? But I think I had a lot of inflammation sitting and just festering on my body. A lot of fluid and obviously fat, but you know, I was eating just straight trash, if I can be blunt. I mean stuff that isn't even food is what I lived on for the first. Thirtysomething years of my life. So it's it's crazy that I'm able to talk to you about this and see it in hindsight. But yeah.
Nobody. Nobody ever caught on to oh you know she's got a UTI every month since she was 23 years old or, you know, I mean, I had yeast infections when I was only 34 years old and that's honestly that's brought on by the Antibiotic. Use to what was your night? Pretty pretty poor from the very beginning like where you just as a child eating pretty, pretty poor nutrition, very poor nutrition, very poor. I was pretty much raised on whatever was really fast and what was really easy and cheap.
And I don't want to like lay my parents or anything but they both worked full-time. I was what I consider a latchkey kid. So it was just my sister and I kind of you know, there'd be days where all I ate that day was a bag of Lay's potato chips and Sprite and that was what I ate. And I remember eating Frosted Flakes every morning, And you know, peanut butter and jelly. It's cool. And I never had, you know, I was
always very thin. So, no one ever thought twice that I wasn't You know, I think it might have been different if I was a heavy as a kid but nobody cared, they really didn't care and we grew up on fast food as well. So I mean, dinner was whatever you could get it Wendy's or McDonald's and pizza. So that's how I grew up. And of course, fat phobic like super fat phobic. If we if my parents did cook they would drain the meat or you know, do Don't eat butter or I don't know, just skim milk.
Everything was skim milk and don't eat eggs. So it's pretty much the exact opposite of what I eat now. Yeah, are your siblings? You said, yes, the an older sister to hear that, right? I do. Yes. My sister Carla. She is 5 years older than me. Yep. Does she eats similar to you now to sheet similar to what she'd always been eating. So, she actually went low carb, a few years ago, and was in the best shape of her life.
And then she kind of like, a lot of people kind of like fell off the wagon and now she just eats whatever she wants. And And I'll say, you know, do you ever think about maybe getting back, you know, getting back the way you were, you know, because you were feeling so good and she's like, no, I think I'm too old now. And I was just like, well, I'm
not that much younger than you. And I had, I mean, I've had two kids even so if you know it, I was just trying to basically say like you can do this, if I could do it, but they kind of look at me. Like, I'm crazy like her and her husband. We went Traveled together a few months ago and of course you know, I pack all my little special Foods, my meats and eggs and butter. And they just look at me, like, good grief, whatever and they don't, they're not mean about it.
But I do have people that are like, overly offended and say things to me about it, and that's a tough one. Yeah, family friends like people take offense, they take offense to the strangest. Things. Like if what you were doing nutritionally speaking is working well for you then more power to you. People should only be supportive of that. But the problem is, I think people just don't get how impactful their food decisions really are.
So they just assume that there's no no no harm, no foul that comes with eating, whatever they give you, where it's just not the case, right? And I try to explain to people, you know, since I've started eating this way, it's just really changed my life for the better. And And I feel so good and positive and like, I can do anything. I told my best friend, even, you know, I said, I, I sleep like a baby. And when I wake up, I'm ready to roll.
Like, I jump out of bed and she just thought, what like, what do you mean? And I'm like, like I feel better than I've ever felt and she just thought that was just. Wow. You know, but she just had a baby and she said well, Well, maybe I'll do what you do after I have the baby. And I said, okay, well, I'm game whenever you're ready. I would love to help you. So that's kind of how I've been approaching it is. If someone comes to me and asks, what can I do then?
I just say, okay, I'll help you. Yeah, I kind of had to learn the hard way, like people don't want your help unless they ask. Yeah. It's very true or not. True. And it's unfortunate, but like you drive a wedge. Against people between people and make them even more. Even less likely to ask for help. If you try to help it strange thing, you just have to let them come to you, totally completely.
Absolutely. And that's a really tough thing to swallow because I am surrounded and I don't know if you and your wife have this issue to, but it's almost like an alienation of you know it's like we don't go out and drink. We don't go out to eat anymore and when we go to parties, we don't like to be out super late, you know? And because we value our sleep and so that I guess it's a
really weird thing to people. And yeah, we should we should be friends for sure because we are the exact same like Crystal and we'll go to like an event that people would invite us to the party in the party starts at 8:00. And I'm like that's literally my bedtime like I don't even want to go. Oh my gosh, I kid you not Robert. We got invited to a party this Friday, the 13th. It starts at 8:00 and it's to
watch Friday the 13th movies. And I literally was like girl like I go to bed at like 9:00 so I don't think we're going to be like yeah yeah they probably would have talking about my kids I'd like know myself. Like I have to get good sleep to be a very productive person. It's funny because like I remember not sleeping I'm not going to bed until very very late like all through college. And I felt at least I think I felt like I was totally productive the following day.
Whereas now if I was to do that I would just be like I would not be productive at all. Like I would I would you know grip my way through the day but I would not be productive. So I'm halfway wondering have I lost some of that resilience and just flexibility or if I just become so much more in tune with what feels good and what feels bad I'm leaning Towards the ladder. At least that makes me feel better. I do think we.
We are more in tune with our bodies when we get rid of the junk and we're more in tune with. Whoa, that makes me feel like crap or that. Makes me feel really good. I'm pretty much able to pinpoint and figure out. Now, what is causing any sort of issue because I have tightened up I diet so well. And I've also prioritize Aged, you know, my sleep and I never realized how important it was to get a good night sleep. And you know how hard it is when you have a baby?
Oh my gosh, you know, for the first I feel like But the first year of my first daughter's life, I don't think I slept more than a couple hours, a night. She was a really difficult baby. So I feel like maybe I'm making up for that lost. Maybe maybe, yeah, because that's a lot.
But yeah. So my two kids are full of energy, like kids should be. And you know, I basically have to be straight with people do. Like I got to go to bed because I got to wake up. At the butt crack of dawn, with these kids because that's they're going to get up at 6:00. No matter what. Yeah, well I gotta be ready to go. What kind of diet are they following? They have anything specific
protocol there. So we do keto for the kids and I do allow like, if they go to some my, my seven-year-old, we just went to a birthday party. I did allow her to have like their party food like the cupcake, whatever. I do allow treats for special events, but once we get home, it's back into, you know, eggs for breakfast. And we do that cloud bread instead of regular bread and then we'll do like chicken, they love rotisserie chicken so I'll try and give them that. What else?
And I know my kids eat fruit. And my husband, you know, he's he do so I mean he's eating asparagus and different salads and vegetables and things like that with his needs and the kids feel poorly after they have the party foods. Like if they eat a bunch of cupcakes or something that they feel poorly afterwards. Absolutely, absolutely. And we talked about it I'll tell my daughter Kate I say you know yes you can have a cupcake but I want you to know.
II, you know, basically, like I don't want you complaining tonight about how bad your stomach because I've told you and you know how that makes your belly feel? She's like, I know I know when I'm like, all right. And that it was like Halloween, for instance, you know, she got the JJ, of course, giant bag of candy.
And I said, all right, you can pick out a couple of things and then everything else has to go, you know, it's Leo mom, you know and I'm like It's okay and then she gets over it you know you think your first I used to think I'm being a mean mom I'm not letting her have all this stuff and like know I'm being a really good mom so I need to just realize like I you know I care about my child. My children's health so much
that. Yeah I just I'm gonna do what I have to do. Ya feel like I'm and I'm very new at this whole parenting thing so I may be totally Speaking out of turn here, but I feel like a lot of the things that parents do for their kids when it comes to like Halloween, like all these Traditions that are centered around food and
candies and sugars. Like it's honestly just like they'll say that they're trying to let them live a little bit, but it's just laziness in my opinion on the parents part because they don't want to have to fight that fight and maybe I get, I'm totally speak out of turn. I'm not be getting some people right now, but I think that's the case because it takes a lot more effort to To have the conversation around, why we don't do that, why?
It's not wise to do that or just have like a better approach to that in and of itself, but it's much easier just so yeah. It's you know, Halloween go get your bag full of candy, you know, knock yourself out indulge and I don't know, I think the whole moniker of you know do this. It's only once a year. That's just a cop-out in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And it's also yeah, you're
right. If I choose to give my kids processed food, it's honestly me being lazy because I don't have time to either go and get the food and cook it. Or I don't feel like like you said, fight them because it is a fight to have your child go to school and they're serving, you know, gummy fruit gummy snacks. And Otto's and all this and I'm like you're not getting any of that and that I think that can feel kind of funny for a kid to be like I'm the only one that's
not eating this. Yeah but at the same time I'll talk to my daughter as if she's an adult sometimes and be like look You know, like right now I have an aunt and an uncle both dying in a nursing home. Both from Alzheimer's, my uncle's dying from early onset Alzheimers and my aunt is dying from regular Alzheimer's, whatever. Both of them. Are my a, what do I want to call this? They're just like, they're
always in my head. I'm always thinking about them when I'm eating or when I'm giving my kids food because I'm so scared of what could happen. If I give my kids sugar, I know that sounds weird but they definitely motivate me to clean up. My ACT clean up my act, as a mom with what? I'm serving my kids, and it's hard for me to see like nieces and nephews being given, you know, really bad stuff. And it's hard to bite your tongue. But yeah, that's I just know.
Yeah, it's hard. It's really hard to see it and I feel like especially when it comes to other members of the family, like, I don't know. Like I've got family members as well that have struggled with Alzheimer's dementia. You know, heart disease like the whole, you know, shebang and not to say that. If they had changed your diet, it would have 100% absolve them of those issues.
But it would certainly have Tim in the better, trajectory to minimize those adverse effects and I feel like, you know, anything that you can do for your own life and the things that you have control over, IE your kids nutrition least in their early years, like you owe it to them, you owe it to you, you owe it to the family to do so and it's hard.
Like, I don't know, like I'm not totally understand, you're coming from because I got family members, whom I love deeply and they scoff at what I do with regards to nutrition, yet, I'm healthier than all of them and that's frustrating because it's like Like you know I want the same for y'all. Like I don't want to be out living my family. I want us to all be healthy together. Yes. And I talked, I told my mom all the time, I don't want to be like, my Aunt Mary and visiting
you in the the nursing home. And I don't want to end up, you know, just being faced with some of these difficult things that I've seen my family members go through while caring for someone with Alzheimer's. And it's definitely on my mind of something that I mean that's probably the scariest thing to think that I could get and my grandmother died with it as well. So, I mean, it's in the family and but it's also Like I think that it's genetic and diet and
I'm leaning more towards. I think it's mostly diet That's just from what I've observed in my own little family. I think that's kind of like genetic predispositions and then diet and lifestyle kind of, you know, unlock the genetic code. So, to speak to make those Snips fire or not. Fire. Exactly. Yeah. When it comes to having, like a grandmother and now, aunt and uncle that have, you know, Alzheimer's is there like a specific?
Memory that burns deep in your mind with like an interaction with them that you just think of instantaneously when you think of that situation. Like of the Alzheimer's stuff. Yeah. Because like a lot of people listening they don't they may not have families within so they like this is a lot of people know somebody that has struggled
with it but some people don't. So like I don't feel like a lot of people realize how much sad so it is so painful for someone to not know who you are and then like my my Aunt, Carol, for instance, used to be the head honcho of my Emily.
Like, if there was a big decision that need to be made, she made it, I mean, she was like the strongest woman I knew, and she used to Take Me Out and because I would cut school and she would take me out shopping and her convertible and just like, just crazy to think that she's this. She's this little like body laying in a bed. That's just waiting to die. And it's like how is that my
Aunt Carol, how did that happen? And I think of my my uncle John and He was a brilliant guy and he had a family business and he was successful guy and he was religious and he declined so quickly. Oh gosh, it was just like, how is this happening to someone who, you know, who lived this life and was productive and a good person? And it's like, it happens. It can happen to anybody and my grandma, she started doing some really crazy things.
I remember, you know, and it finally got to the point where it was dangerous. And so, you know, a lot of people that have dementia will start kind of showing these odd think, like, God signs of cognitive decline, so they'll forget where things are, and then it's like, they forget where they are. And then they forget how How to get back home, or things like that. Yeah. You know, with my grandma.
I mean, we noticed she come home and the car would have dents on it and we'd say, were you in a car accident? She'd say what, what do you mean? Yeah, but things like that, which I know it's not funny but, you know, just Yeah, I hate dementia like I hate it with a passion so there's a big part of my, you know my why is I almost want to like avenge their their deaths? Does that make any sense? Like, yeah, for sure. I was listening to a podcast the other day and I forget who it
was with. But it was somebody was creating a documentary. You all around Alzheimer's and Dementia and how nutrition like I think his mother had it really bad. Yeah. Oh gosh. What is his name is? It wasn't Max live here. Was that him Max? Yes, Max and, you know, his last name I guess we're I think it's like white boxes or little don't forget the title of it, but solving, these little boxes, empty Little Boxes. Yeah. And see little boxes and I watch that trailer and I listen to that.
Pain? Because I don't know if it was on Rogan or if he was on a tee. I'm not sure who's listening, who he was with, but I was listening to that and I watch the trailer for that documentary. And like, if there's anything that anybody can do anything, that we can learn as a society to, you know, hedge their bets, in our favor, to minimize those adverse effects, for people loved ones. Like, I'm all, I'm all in on that because that is, that is no way to go.
No, it's not and You know, I like I said my daughter. So she's in the first grade and I'm the room mom. And so I'll go in and help out with things every now and then I'll just see all these little kids. And I mean, they just they're running around like little bit, just crazy. And I'm thinking good grief, these kids are like Jack on something and you know, they'll be sitting there eating their Cheetos and their juice boxes. All this stuff. And I'm thinking, whoa, what's
going on? You know what? And so, I'm so scared of like, what's going to happen to these little kids when they turn into adults and have all these health issues? And, you know, they have health issues now earlier in earlier, this is starting, and I know that when they eat that way, there's no way that they can give their full attention at school and, and now, Actually processed all this information and so I mean I think it affects learning at the basic level. I really do.
Yeah I would not be surprised about that. Until I mean just simply looking at what school lunches oftentimes serve I mean I remember when I was in the I don't think they've changed my tune. I was a student in, like middle school and high school and it what he's available then was just, it's nothing to write home about and I don't think it's really changed much.
Since then now, it hasn't yeah. So like what I mean, what they're consuming there and then like they just go to the next class after lunch there passed out because they have a massive blood sugar Spike and then it drops. And then they have no bandwidth for, you know anything. I think I was in Spanish class after lunch. And yeah, I don't recall, I don't know any Spanish if that does anything. Oh my gosh. I love it that. Yeah it makes total sense.
Yeah, definitely and I grew up Repeating school lunch and I actually ate School breakfast too because my parents worked really early and so I would 6:30 a.m. I was at school already for there before school care. And and then we had after school care and like I said, you come home and it's late. You just go get fast food because it's easy and we're all tired. So yeah. It's a cumulation of a lot of crap. Definitely for me.
So you and your husband have been doing this diet since you heard that podcast with Rogan and McKenna Peterson and that was that was published what 2019 that, right? So, it was, but we did not start doing this until February, 20 21, gotcha 21. Yeah, yeah, and before that I had been what I would call Tito ish, which is He do most days and then whatever the hell else, I want to do on the weekend type of thing like binge on whatever pizza and ice cream, things like
that. So I never really had, you know,
great results. And yeah I did lose a little bit of weight and but it was never, you know, my dream, my dream goal in my head of having you know, being high Skinny again, that was that was always isn't in the back of my head and I just thought to myself, I'm just stuck at this weight, you know, this is all, this is how I'm always gonna be and after listening to that podcast, with with Michaela Peterson and her talking about fixing her autoimmune issues.
And I know she had terrible arthritis. I thought, well, I could probably do this and maybe it would fix my carpal tunnel syndrome and ever thought it would do everything else, you know. No it fix all these other problems. Yeah it did. And it's like, you know, I swear by it and and like I said my husband's Quito, he is not full quart of water so he does great with it with when he has and and how would you define your for carnivore?
Because I feel like there's so many definitions for carnivore in Quito these days. Sure. So mine is I pretty much eat beef. Chicken shrimp. Eggs and butter and then I do do coffee and I add a little bit of coconut oil to it. Do you push back for drinking, coffee in the corner more space? Yeah, I have a little bit and I even kind of openly say like yeah, I do it. And it seems to be okay for now. If something changes, I'll stop it. But I'm like, you know, the do you drink coffee?
Oh hell yeah okay okay yes that's right. You do duh because like I've seen you you know, you go and you do your your cold plunge and then you have your coffee. But yeah, copies is a very important part of my day. I mean, shoot aren't so that's like the, the time that crystalline that's like the one time that her and I have together is when we're having coffee, it's like for 20 minutes in the morning. So that's like sacred time to
me, that that's so good. It's so important to my husband and I we we both just read this book. I don't know if you've heard of a man up. Have you heard of that I haven't by bade row School Ian, he's an entrepreneur and he's real big on. Keeping your relationship with your spouse. Good. And going on these, you know, one time a week, you go on a date and it's not negotiable and my husband. And I have been saying for years, like, we have to do this. Hmm.
Tonight. Tonight, we're going to go and see a movie. And I swear, I think it's like the first time we've gone out to see a movie in, like, five years. Probably taking the girls with you. No, nope. So now they're like they they got to stay out of it because no matter what we do, it's like, you know, it's so hard to separate from being a mall, you know, and it's like, I need a break sometimes. Yeah. No, totally. For sure.
Yeah, so with y'all starting, you know, keto carnivore 2021, your daughters were how old at that point. Aunt, let's see. My daughter, Kate was like 5 and the baby was, she might have been eight months old, so she was probably just breastfed most of the point Caitlin, probably a little bit of everything. Was that a pretty hard transition for her? Since she had kind of already been ingrained in what she was eating previously? Yes. Yes. Is a very, very difficult transition.
There were a lot of, you know, I'm not going to eat then. It's like, she would just starve, and she would hold out until she couldn't hold out anymore. And then, she would eat what we gave. Ya a bad biggie talking about it. I'm like, oh, that sounds harsh. But yeah, when we would go to the grocery, And she'd be like, oh we gotta get this and we gotta get that. And I was like, no, we don't need that anymore. Sorry and she go, oh, man,
that's like it's okay. We're gonna do some other stuff and then I would just kind of distract her and be like. So you want to go to the park later or something like that and believe me. That's so much more important to her. Yes, spending time with you, then eating some crap food for like two minutes. I think when I get like when Roger gets it's older.
I think I'm gonna like they get frustrated at how heavily these big companies Market to children on food box because I don't really notice it now because it's not anything that I'm
getting for myself anyways. But I think when he gets old enough where he's walking to the grocery store aisles and he's pointing things out, I'll become aware of it more so and yeah, it's crazy how they play on that, you know, towards the children's perspective to get you to buy these things that are just simply not food, even oh It's scary.
It's really scary. And, you know, it's all at that level where they can see it, you know, it's like low to the ground and the colors are just crazy and insane. And yeah, even I tell you what, she did soccer this past summer. And after every game, they would have a snack. And I told her, I was like you're packing your own snack. I was like you cannot eat with their giving. In out because they would give out those multicolored goldfish,
look like red and green ones. I was like, girl, you cannot have that crap. Like, you will have a psychotic meltdown. And she's like, she said, she would yes, believe me, because it is a real thing, like, food colors. She just super sensitive to those. Absolutely, she is a sensitive, if not more to this stuff than my husband. My husband. Are both super sensitive people.
So it's like, you know, you pretty much a double it with her and, you know, and we'll talk about it like, you know, you your your body can't have this stuff. This isn't even real food and she's like, you know, I know, and I'm like, okay, so here's your snack and you can eat that. But, yeah, it's crazy. It's like these kids, they just go to the soccer. A thing so they can get their their gummies afterwards or whatever. It's like, oh no, they're already addicted, you know?
Yeah. Yeah it's wild. I don't even know how I'm going to navigate those Waters because you know kids that they're going to want to do what other kids are doing. And yes, we are. Certainly in the minority when it comes to eating healthy foods, relative to most other kids out there would think so. Yeah, that's going to be tricky for sure, but it's awesome that that you and your husband are both kind of on the same page.
Like I talked to some people Like I've got clients whose spouse significant other are not on the same diet and I can't even fathom that look. That must be just total chaos in the home. And I tell you what I am. So like unbelievably blessed because my husband is like my number one cheerleader, like he told me all along, he knew, I could do it. If he knew that I could get to what I wanted to be and if I didn't have that support, Art.
Like if I was like, okay, my mom and dad like my mom will try to do, he do and my dad will just sabotage it, you know? And I just think Dave, like, I can't imagine if my husband was like here, I made pizza, eat it. Yeah, that would just be, I mean, that would be terrible. So, I mean, I'm so lucky, I've
got someone in my corner. That's always like, Going to back me up. And and now the honestly the struggle is when we do allow our family members to babysit our children, navigating that and explaining like they can only eat the food that we pack them. Do not give them, you know, the pumpkin pie and the Apples and caramel, and whatever they have. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, it's January. And y'all are still getting pumpkin pie.
How do you navigate that? Because I would imagine, oh, God. Can you probably the biggest point of contention with you and other family members? Because of the mean they accidentally? They don't they don't think it makes a big difference and your is deep in steeped in the nutrition as you are. It's like like what do you do? I mean, do they do they do things just to test you? I mean how is that even on full? Oh my gosh. It's almost like.
Okay so for example with my mom we have gotten to a point now where we pack their foods and just say, unless it came out of the bag, they can't have it. Like point-blank, like don't even attempt anything else, just anything? That's in this bag. They can have And that takes a lot of effort to because I'm like, oh man, I gotta pack all this stuff and, you know, it's a lot of work, but it's worth it. Now, my husband's parents, they are going to be a lot slower to
adapt to this. So they're the kind of people that are like, oh, just a little bit won't hurt her and just let her have it. Just come on. And I'm like, no, no, no, we don't do that. Don't do that and she'll literally be cutting a piece of pie and be like, can she have this? And so my daughter's just like, oh please please, oh my, oh my gosh, I have to look like this monster that's like, you know,
absolutely not cannot have that. And, you know, in my head, I'm thinking, you can't have it either, you have all these health problems. Yeah, yeah. That's going to be tricky. I can't even imagine what I'm gonna do in that situation because like, my mom, I could see totally being on the same page. My dad. Not so much, you know, so like,
I don't know. It's so interesting, you know, because I think a lot of people assume that like, your whole family eats like you do and it's just not the case. Yeah. Yeah, definitely not the case. I mean, I'm like the only one I family. Yeah, no, I know that's how, you know, Ben and I are just like these crazy people that do this and And it's like, you know, he told them he's like, you know, Melanie's got this YouTube channel. Oh, really.
What about psycho? She talks about her the carnivore diet and how much it's helped her. Oh, okay. And then they'll just move on and nobody cares. Yeah, nobody cares what I do. Yeah, it's it. It's tough. It's funny. But yeah, it is it's tough. But I know you can do it. If if I can do it you can do it as far as like navigating. These, you know, these kids, you know, trying to get them to grow up understanding like how important nutrition is in every part of their life.
Yeah. Thanks simply being honest and transparent with with the kids, you know like explain to them why we're eating the way that that we do and how it affects them and just being like very, very transparent with my if you do that then hopefully they buy into it. Yeah. Hopefully alleviate some of that tension stress that is bound to Eyes, throw the family get-togethers and Gatherings. Yes yes absolutely.
And you know, my one daughter, she's old enough to have seen me before when I was heavier and social, you know, I'll say, you know, how mommy was heavy and sick all the time. I feel like, you know, you don't want that to happen to you. So we that's why we eat, you know, the way to do now. And so it's just more of like leading by example, you know? No, like your son's going to grow up knowing like oh well this is normal. This is what we do.
And that's the best thing is to just lead, by example.
Yeah. I feel like a lot of people, I mean, even if none of that if we were to throw all this nutritional stuff out the, the window and it was not even applicable anymore, like, none of the researchers there and there was no biological applications like all of that wasn't, you know, a non-issue like if it was just all gone just simply addressing it from the standpoint of If you know what makes more sense as a human being, I don't think the answer
is eating a bunch of Highly processed hyper palatable junk food with no nutrient quality and fancy packaging. That that just doesn't seem like the right common-sense solution, you know. And so a lot of the backlash I get is well, how do you know the people you're listening to? And Grant their medical doctors that I'm following and listening to How do you know that they're right.
And everybody else is wrong and I said you know it doesn't take a genius to step outside and see how fat and sick everybody's gotten. Yeah, you know, so obviously what they were doing isn't working and that's kind of my my thing is just, you know, it kind of reminds me of what you just said, About, let's just think for a minute here, like throughout all the medical jargon everything. And just think what makes sense, do you think we would have been
eating this? It even think about my, my grandmother, she was born in 1920 and I think to myself, what would she have thought? Would she have thought? Yeah, this looks like good food. Or would she say, what is this? Yeah, I remember. Yeah. I like, I remember giving her a fruit roll-up. When I was a little kid and she, she said it tastes like plastic
and I'll never forget that. I mean she was just baffled by like what I was eating and you know she's very German and they did a lot of, you know, liver and the they would eat braunschweiger which is yeah I love ranch wagon. Yeah yeah. So should say that's cooked organ. Meat. That is so good for you and she's right. She was right. There's a lot of things my grandma did and said, is that I'm like, dang she was smart. Yeah, 100%. So you mentioned your YouTube
channel, talking about that. So what what compelled you to start a YouTube channel and start putting your, your journey out there for others to see? um, I feel like it is my duty to spread a message of Hope and healing to anybody out there that's suffering with, especially with Interstitial cystitis because right now, there is no cure for that.
Technically, there's just treatments and tons of pretty painful procedures, things like that and I've had such amazing success Us on this diet that I just felt compelled to share my experience. And then you know my husband kept saying like you got to do a video on this, you got to do videos and I just I would tell myself no no I can't do that. I don't have the setup, I don't have quality camera quality camera with all these other people have and he's like, no, just do it. Just do it.
And I was like, all right, I'm just going to do it and I got so much positive. Feedback that it was just like, wow. Because you know, my friends and family that I'm around, they don't want to have any. They don't want to hear anything about it. Yeah. You could care less and in fact, they think it's crazy. So to experience all these other people out there and hear about their stories of healing, like, it's just unbelievable. What this can do.
And so, yeah, I feel like I have to spread this message that there's a, you know, an option for people to do this. And I don't know if it's a hundred percent going to work for somebody but he'll it's worth a shot because I've been in a really dark place before where I thought I'm going to probably be on disability and never be able to have a job because of this this just you know this condition. Yeah. In front of just Completely be gone is like, how is this possible?
So yeah that's that's something that just ignited, this spark in me that I want to have a channel. And then my next thing is I'd like to write a book and I don't even know how to start but I want to do that. That's on the list. That's certainly good. You can certainly do it. Yeah, yeah. So I just I feel very passionate about it and I want to do this kind of stuff. And, you know, I saw you speak at the keto palooza and a bunch of other awesome people
speaking. And I thought pan, I want that to be me next year. I was I want to be up on that stage talking, well, definitely fine. Yeah, definitely. Don't lose that passion. And shoot the whole reason. I wanted to even get you on the podcast just because like, I could tell when we spoke Like you just had this had a spark in your eye you know.
Like I feel like I mean that sounds like the way that sounds like but like when I first started the dime and it really helped me recover from everything that I was struggling with disordered eating Tendencies. Really - relationship with food all of that. Like I was just so invigorated. I got my life back. I was I was liberated and I wanted to spread that message which is why I start the podcast, which is why I started a YouTube channel and they have any Fancy camera equipment
either. And it's just grown to what it has now. Organically by just simply sharing my journey and I feel like a lot of people especially now 2023, the keto diet has been around for quite some time that the Google trend has come and Fallen. It's not in its, you know, Zenith of popularity as it was back in 2017, 18, whatever that was but there's so many people that are experiencing tremendous benefit from it.
And whenever I come into contact with people that That have that burning passion for it and just fuel compelled to share their story. I feel like it's my responsibility to give them a platform to do that because
that's what's all about. Like you your story is going to resonate with some it's not going to resonate with others but to give you an opportunity to have it touch some people's ears and the right way so that maybe they'll give it a shot themselves, maybe they'll get their life back.
I mean that's that's what song about like this, this organic natural growth of people trying things that are so far outside of the Status quo that it's scary to do so but if they do and it works for them then their whole life trajectory can be changed for the better. Absolutely. And yeah, after we had our brief conversation at keto palooza and you were like, hey yeah, I'll do I'll, you know, reach out to me
and we can do something. I was just like oh my God, I was like this guy doesn't even know me and he's going to just let me like do this like what a good person and my Husband and I just talk the whole way home, like I just can't believe this happened. I'm like, I just talked to Quito Savage and he, he might put me on a podcast like, oh my gosh. And so, you know, some time had passed and finally, I got up the nerve to email you and be like, I want to do it.
I'm ready. So, yeah, by you, you know, just saying those few kind words, it just it propelled me into what I am now and I know it's going to just Get better from here. So I'm very thankful that I ran into you when I did. Yeah. Because I think you know it's like perfect timing is it's really cool.
Well, I'm grateful to have met you as well and everybody in the space, not every most people in the space are genuinely in it for the right reasons and truly do care about one another and they don't have this competitive mentality. It's like a very healthy Community for the most part. So I do Don't think you have any issues, you know, reaching out to people and then being receptive to you and what you're trying to share and say obvious, there's everything I could do by
all means. Just let me know. I'm happy to help because I mean I can tell and I could tell them we spoke that you're in it because you simply want to help people and that's what it should all be about. Thank you so much. I do I want to help people more than anything and I feel so fortunate to, you know, Be able to do this and, you know, I want to do a lot with it. Yeah. I can't believe that. You know, I can't believe I'm talking to you right now in this
podcast, even. So this is your first. This is your first podcast, right? Yes. Yes. There you go. Perfect. Perfect job. You did great. Thank you. Thank you so much, Melanie word people. Yeah, yeah. Where do people go to find out? More about you, subscribe to our YouTube channel and just a little deeper. Into your world. Sure. So I'm carnivore Queen on YouTube and you can check me out
there. I have about 100 videos on there right now and yeah I also have, you know, an email on there and if anybody wants to email me they can do that. And that's all I have right now. I don't have I'm not on Facebook and I'm not on Instagram. Add yet. Yeah. Yeah. On Instagram that. Yes. So that is something. You know what I did? I actually ordered that book crush it.
That you recommended. Yeah. And I'm reading it right now and I'm like, oh gosh I gotta get on Instagram like yesterday and that's like an older book like a lot of stuffs probably dated but the underlying message is 1000% still Rings true. So like right, right. So I think I'm going to do it. I know I'm going to do it. Yeah, I'm going to do it and I'll get on there. Melanie, I am glad to have you in the space.
I am grateful to have that opportunity to chat with you on the podcast and the community as a whole is better for having you as part of it. So if there's ever anything I could do by all means, just let me know. Absolutely, I'll thank you so much for this opportunity. I really appreciate everything and I'm so appreciative of all the content that you put out there, you know, I love seeing how you you and your wife, and as a family, how you go about your day and I think it's wonderful.
It's, you know, you're promoting this healthy. Wonderful lifestyle, that that I think a lot of people need to see. So I appreciate that. And I don't know how to do it any other way. It's just the life that we live. I'm just taking it in one day at a time. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely awesome. Well Melanie, until next time you have a wonderful wonderful day and a great 20 23 ahead of you. Awesome. Thank you so much, Robert. Thank you.