Summary: Shan talks to Dr Shawn Baker, a doctor, athlete, father, and proponent of a carnivorous lifestyle. Dr Baker is a world-class athlete, with several titles of Championships and National Records to his name. He has managed to break three world records after turning to a full carnivore diet. He talks about this diet in detail, about its nutrition and health benefits. He talks about the sleep benefits he has received from the diet and an overall feeling of well-being. His upcoming book contains in-depth information about adapting and living a Carnivore diet lifestyle. KEY TAKEAWAYS A conventional doctor who has done a lot of work in Orthopaedics talks about his work beyond that. I trained as an Orthopaedic surgeon in the United States. I definitely was a conventionally trained allopathic doctor, MD. I did that for a number of years, quite enjoyed that, and had some interesting experiences. I practiced military surgery, spent a lot of time doing war trauma in places like Afghanistan. I have been a nuclear weapons officer, and an athlete for most of my life. I was World Champion in Highland Games for the Masters Class, All American Masters Athlete Track and Fuel Athlete, I was National Record Holder and Powerlifter. So I have had a different background than a lot of people. In my 40s my health started to go not in the way I wanted it to with regards to putting on weight, blood pressure, metabolism and so forth. Despite the fact that I was still training intensely, being in athletics I started running in issues with health, nutrition, lifestyle and that's what has brought me to where I am today, nearly a decade later. Journey around nutrition. You learn about vitamin nutrient deficiencies, you learn the basics about macronutrients, amino acids and essential fats. In medical school, you don't really get much as far as how nutrition potentially has a role in mitigating, treating or even potentially curing certain diseases. You are told people eat junk food, they eat too much, you're lazy, no exercise. That's the kind of background information you take away from medical school. As I came to find out with myself that nutrition has a much greater role in not just maintaining some healthy body weight but in every single disease process we deal with. In even acute diseases, nutrition plays a role in healing surgical patients. Nutrition plays a tremendous role with chronic diseases, and even some genetic disorders seem to respond to nutrition. Nutrition led to carnivorism. That was being objective about what was going on with my personal health. It was experimenting to see what actually works for me and be open enough to explore what things are out there and what things I can try. It was not like one day I decided I'm gonna eat a bunch of meat. This is an evolutionary process. It took 7, 8 years. I was never happy with a low-fat diet, I was hungry constantly, never satisfied with the food. Therefore I thought this is not sustainable for the long term. With my desire to compete athletically I started to look into the potential benefits of animal source nutrition. I started looking into how the weightlifters and bodybuilders had done it. I came across a community of people who were doing a carnivore style diet. They have been doing it for close to two decades. They were seemingly doing extremely well in exhibiting vitamin health and had no medical issues. I thought I would try it for a short period of time, for a couple of days a steak and eggs diet. In late, 2016 I thought I would do it for 30 days. I went back to my standard diet after 30 days and after a day or two, and I did not feel as good. I felt fatigued, I felt pains started to come back. So I went back to the meat-based diet. For me, it is 98% meat, some eggs, a little bit of dairy, seafood. It's been almost 3 years now since I switched to a carnivore diet, and my athletic performance went up. I could see an 8 to 10% increase in power output. Without any changes in training, I was able to set three world records shortly after I turned 50 years of age as a full carnivore. 30 days of an all-out carnivore for the first time. My blood pressure was normal, I just had a mild headache for about a week to 10 days. My digestion was wonderful, no problem with bowel movements. It was a very pleasant experience, great energy. I saw the mild aches and pains I had to go away. How is your sleep in the carnivore diet? I fall asleep usually within 10 minutes. 90% of the time I sleep straight through without interruption for about 6 to 7 hours. I generally always wake up before the sun comes up. I wake up naturally and do not usually require an alarm clock. As a part of the community, I have realised that your sleep quality improves and your sleep volume drops by about 10 to 15%. The Carnivore diet is deficient in carbohydrates and essential vitamins like Vitamin C, how do we make up for that? When I wanted to do this I was curious about this as well. You will see a number of potential deficiencies around this diet. There is no role of fibre in this diet. With Vitamin C we know there are some transporters across different cell membranes. In a higher glucose environment, Vitamin C is competitively inhibited and therefore we see less absorption of Vitamin C. We also see that interestingly human red blood cells do have the capacity to actually recycle Vitamin C which is something that not many people are aware of. One of the major function of Vitamin C is that it is an antioxidant. In low carbohydrate states our antioxidants systems particularly things like glutathione are regulated. We may obviate some of the need of antioxidants of the Vitamin C by regulating around systems in a low carb diet. Also, Vitamin C is very important in the function of carnitine which is part of the fat cycle. When we are ingesting carnitine we have actual transporters in the gut which can take up full carnosine. It is a misconception that we can only take amino acids, a number of di and tripeptide transporters that are contained within our gut. The other function of Vitamin C is when we don't have sufficient Vitamin C relative to our needs, we start to develop symptoms of scurvy, bleeding gum problems, teeth falling out, sores and cuts won't heal. This is all due to the collagen synthesis. If we look at Vitamin C's role in collagen synthesis, it helps to take proline and lysine, hydroxyproline and hydroxylysine. In meat-based diet, we are getting that in ample amount. Even a steak has 3% of its content as collagen. There are all kinds of compensatory mechanisms. Quality of meat. If you are trying to make a diet of salami and spam, you are going to fail. You need to have fresh primal cut meat or maybe ground beef. Vegan movement supposedly saving the planet. As a cynic, I see this plant-based movement has been co-opted by these processed food companies. They are trying to greenwash or health wash their products because they contain plants in them, but really they are these cheap ingredients that are highly profitable. A typical day in Shawn Baker's life. I eat a fully carnivorous diet. I am 6 foot 5 inches and about 240 to 250 pounds. I am putting away a close to about 4 pounds of food a day. I take two meals a day. If I want to lose weight I will eat a little less and if I want to put on weight I will eat a little more. Usually, it is breakfast and an early dinner. 95% of my food comes from red meat, typically I eat steaks and burgers. I would eat eggs a couple of times, I might eat seafood a couple of times, I have a little bit of dairy here and there although for me if I eat too much dairy it turns negative. I try to limit that. The nice thing is I do not have cravings to eat other kinds of food. New book by Shawn Baker - 'The Carnivore Diet.' It's going to be a lot of peoples' first exposure to carnivorism. I talk about my background, and then we go into the theoretical stuff, the evolutionary, historical stuff, and the science behind it. We talk about some of the success stories, and then how to implement a diet. I do talk about the general philosophy and some of the psychology that goes behind it. Absolute favourite meat dish of Shawn Baker. I am pretty partial to rib eye. I think the reason for that is if we look at human evolution, humans went through this evolutionary process and somewhere around the period of homo erectus they became very good hunters and they became very good at killing things like mammoth, elephants and so on. That was their food of choice. Those animals had a lot of fat and that fat led to human brain development. That is why that appeals to us. Humans got very good at killing those animals and once our easy source of energy went away, now we have to compensate that with cuts of meat like cows. Best Moments "Nutrition has a much greater role in not just maintaining some healthy body weight but in every single disease process we deal with." "Nutrition plays a tremendous role with chronic diseases." "I was never happy with a low-fat diet, I was hungry constantly, never satisfied with the food." "Without any changes in training, I was able to set three world records, shortly after I turned 50 years of age as a full carnivore." "They are trying to greenwash or health wash their products because they contain plants in them, but really they are these cheap ingredients that are highly profitable. " "If you are trying to make a diet of salami and spam, you are going to fail." "Your sleep quality improves and your sleep volume drops by about 10 to 15%." VALUABLE RESOURCES Learn more about the Carnivore Training System Order ‘The Carnivore Diet’ by Shawn Baker, MD Follow Dr. Shawn Baker on Twitter ABOUT THE GUEST Shawn Baker Shawn Baker is a doctor, athlete, father, and proponent of a carnivorous lifestyle. Notable achievements: - Bachelor Of Arts University Of Texas At Austin - Biology 1989 - Doctor Of Medicine Texas Tech Health Science University - 2001 (Graduated With Honours) - Completed 5 Year Orthopaedic Surgical Residency - University Of Texas 2006 - Chief Of Orthopaedics Kirtland Air Force Base - Chief Of Orthopaedics Luke Air Force Base - Chief Of Orthopaedic Trauma - Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan 2007 - 600 Surgeries - Lead Surgeon Of 12 Provider Orthopaedic Surgical Group Private Practice Until 2016 - Nuclear Weapons Launch Officer USAF X 5 Years - Distinguished Graduate US Air Force Officer Training School - Nuclear Weapons Combat Commander Of The Year 90 Operation Group 1996 - Luke Air Force Base Air Force Athlete Of The Year 2010 - Semi-Professional Rugby, Cambridge New Zealand (played In Waikato Premiere League And Faced Off Against Several New Zealand All Blacks) - Selected All US Air Force And Combined Military Services Rugby Squads - All Western USA Rugby Select Side - Texas Rugby Select Side - 1st Place Texas Strongest Man (300lb Class 2004) - 5th Place USA Strongest Man Contest (North American Strongman Society) (300lb Class) - American Record Deadlift 772lbs (350kg) Natural Association Of Strength Athletes (pure Division - Lifetime Drug-Free Class) 2000 - Sub-master World Record Deadlift 738lbs World Association Of Benchpress AndDeadlift - Masters American Record Deadlift (40+ Category) 711lb USA Powerlifting 2007 - Highland Games US Invitational Masters National Champion 2009 - Highland Games Masters World Champion 2010 - USA Track And Field Masters All American Status Discus, Weight Throw, Superweight Throw 2009 - Set Concept 2 Indoor Rowing World Records For 1min (40+) 100m (50+),1 Min (50+), 500m All Of This Accomplished As A Life Time Drug-Free Athlete ABOUT THE HOST Dr Shan Hussain is an author, general practitioner, health coach, wellness advisor and ambassador to the World Health Innovation Summit. As Founder of The Health Studio and a medical doctor of 18 years, he has a special interest in health promotion and disease prevention. He works with individuals and organisations to help naturally improve health in a sustainable, holistic manner. Dr Hussain has developed several coaching and mentorship programmes designed to help reverse the symptoms of many stress-related health problems. His best-selling book, 'The Big Prescription' serves as a guide for readers to learn about evidence-based holistic health practices that create the foundation of his work. HOST CONTACT METHOD Dr Shan Hussain Connect with Dr Shan Hussain through his website at http://www.thehealthstudio.net. If you would like to support our Podcast, please visit our Patreon page at www.patreon.com/enduringhealth Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/enduringhealth See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
