Brian (0s):
Coming up on the Get Lean E Clean podcast,
Anthony (3s):
Plants and animals are in an evolutionary arms race, plants becoming more and more poisonous, so less and less animals can eat them, so they can survive and thrive. And then animals becoming more and more adapted to specific poisons in specific plants so that they can eat that plant or that family of plants and, and survive and thrive. And obviously, anything that can't defend themselves against predation is going to go extinct. And that includes plants as well as animals. And so, you know, we're learning this, but we're learning this in a cancer perspective. So we're looking at carcinogens, and this is 22 years ago that I took this class. And even at that time, they had already discovered 136 known human carcinogens just in brussel sprouts.
Anthony (45s):
And over 100 in, you know, white mushrooms, white cat mushrooms and spinach, kale, lettuce, celery, cabbage, cucumber, broccoli, you name it. Literally given pages and pages of, of just any plant you'd ever heard of that you had eaten by mistake or otherwise. And, and there was a number next to it with a number of carcinogens that had been identified in them. And there, there wasn't a single one under 60.
Brian (1m 8s):
Hello and welcome to the Get Lean ean podcast. I'm Brian Grn, and I'm here to give you actionable tips to get your body back to what it once was, five, 10, even 15 years ago. Each week, I'll give you an in-depth interview with a health expert from around the world to cut through the fluff and get you long term sustainable results. This week I interviewed the plant free MD, Dr. Anthony Chaffy. Dr. Chaffey's an MD specializing in neurosurgery and has been implementing the carnivore diet for over a decade. We discussed the issue with eating plants, along with how to get started with the carnivore diet and some of the tips, tricks in common pitfalls that people fall into when becoming a full carnivore.
Brian (1m 50s):
I really enjoyed my interview with Dr. Chaffy. I know you will too. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy the show. All right. Welcome to the Get Lean e Clean podcast. My name is Brian Grin, and I have Dr. Anthony Chaon. Welcome to the show.
Anthony (2m 6s):
Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.
Brian (2m 8s):
Yeah, we finally got it together. Took a little time, but you know, when you're on different time zones and different days, it gets a little confusing. So glad to have you on.
Anthony (2m 18s):
Yeah, well, yeah, thank you. And I, I apologize on my end. I just, you know, my, my schedule gets a bit, a bit crazy sometimes, and so it's, it's hard to schedule things sometimes.
Brian (2m 29s):
Yeah, it's all good. It's all good. So actually my first full on carnivore on the show, we've had a lot of different guests, and so glad to dive into that. Before we get into that, maybe you give the individuals a little bit of background. I know, you know, you're an MD specializing in neurosurgery, and perhaps how you sort of got into that.
Anthony (2m 50s):
Yeah, so yeah, I mean, I've, I've, like, like you said, I'm, I'm an American medical doctor. I'm specializing in neurosurgery. I've been practicing since 2013 when I graduated medical school. But I left my residency program early for a family emergency. And then I was doing humanitarian work and volunteering in the refugee camps in Bangladesh, helping with the, those who have escaped genocide in Burma. Not everyone know that. But there was actual full on genocide in 2017, September, 2017, where the Burmese government now called Myanmar slaughtered about 200,000 people in a month and a half. And about a million people fled into Southern Bangladesh to escape this.
Anthony (3m 32s):
And there wasn't really, wasn't enough people to help. So I, I, I decided I needed to go and help out with that. So I was there for between 2017, 2018. And then after that, I, you know, was just looking to get back into practice and finish up with, with neurosurgery and get going with that. And so I was just looking around. I ended up deciding to go down to Australia. Cause I had, I had friends here who were doctors and who I had played rugby with previously that, that, you know, really liked it and really enjoyed it, and they wanted me to go down there as well. So I just decided to go and check it out. But, you know, my, you know, my, my, my passion medicine was, was, you know, very broad. And so, you know, I always liked different aspects of things. I, I love neurosurgery.
Anthony (4m 13s):
Absolutely, absolutely adore it. But I, there are a lot of other things I like, you know, just like nutrition and, and health and preventative medicine as well. So I also have a practice in, you know, what we call functional medicine. Preventative medicine as well.
Brian (4m 28s):
Excellent. And my question for you is, I, I noticed on your social media and you talk about being a plant free md, perhaps explain how you came about that.
Anthony (4m 44s):
Yeah, so when I was in, in college in my undergrad, you know, I was taking, you know, cancer biology and I was, I was always interested in going to medical school. That was always the plan. But I was also, you know, an avid athlete. I played, you know, professional rugby for about 10 years before medical school. Took some time off to do that and, and really enjoyed that. So I was always really interested in diet, nutrition, how that affected my body and, and my performance. And obviously in, in just general health as someone who wanted to be a doctor one day. Yeah. And when I was taking cancer biology at the University of Washington in Seattle, you know, I just had an amazing professor who, you know, took us through and actually showed us that actually plants have defense chemicals.
Anthony (5m 29s):
This is something that we actually learned in botany and, and I actually learned in seventh grade biology that plants and animals are in an evolutionary arms race, plants becoming more and more poisonous, so less and less animals can eat them so they can survive and thrive. And then animals becoming more and more adapted to specific poisons in specific plants, or that they can eat that plant or that family of plants and, and survive and thrive. And obviously every, anything that can't defend themselves against predation is going to go extinct. And that includes plants as well as animals. And so, you know, we're learning this, but we're learning this in, in a cancer perspective. So we're looking at carcinogens, and this is 22 years ago that I took this class. And even at that time, they had already discovered 136 known human carcinogens just in Brussels sprouts and over 100 in, you know, white mushrooms, white cat mushrooms and spinach, kale, lettuce, celery, cabbage, cucumber, broccoli, you name it.
Anthony (6m 23s):
Literally given pages and pages of, of just any plant you'd ever heard of that you had eaten by mistake or otherwise. And, and there was a number next to it with a number of carcinogens that had been identified in them. And there, there wasn't a single one under 60, I remember like going through just like, what was the lowest number I could find. There was only in their sixties. There wasn't a single one under that. And I remember just, just, you know, thinking like, this must be a joke. He must be playing around. All of us were doing that. We were looking around wildly like, this, this can't be true. And just look, I was looking for someone who was in on the joke and just like smirking and just like, you know, just giving it away. But there wasn't anyone. And it finally dawned on me like, Okay, this guy's serious. And I thought to myself like, Well, but, but vegetables are still good for you though, right?
Anthony (7m 4s):
And, you know, he just, he just looked at us and he just sort of made this face, and he just said, I don't need salad. I don't need vegetables. I don't let my kids eat vegetables. Plants are trying to kill you. So I was like, Right, screw plants. And I just stopped, I just stopped eating all plants, like from that day on. And, you know, and I went to the grocery store, I was like, What, what the hell do I buy? Like, everything has plants in or is a plant, you know, there's pasta obviously comes from grains, all the, you know, prepackaged food, they all had, you know, vegetables and other things mixed into it. Every, you know, tamales, everything, everything had plants, everything was made from plants or at least had plant ingredients.
Anthony (7m 45s):
And so I was just, I just defaulted into a carnivore diet
Brian (7m 49s):
Because I, that was 22 years. I'm sorry to interrupt you. That was 22 years ago.
Anthony (7m 53s):
That's correct. Yeah.
Brian (7m 55s):
And so you've been car, I'm sorry, but you've been carnivore for that long or you mostly, Yeah. You mostly,
Anthony (8m 1s):
No, well, that day I stopped. Yeah. So from that day on for, for five years straight, I was strict carnival. I didn't, I did not touch plants. I didn't let, and I didn't want to. Right. You know, after the first sort of two weeks sort of, you know, adjustment period where I was just like looking at all the things that I couldn't eat and feeling weird about it, I didn't even miss it. I, I just didn't care. I just felt so good. I felt amazing. And I loved meat. I didn't want to eat anything else. I didn't even look at other things as food. I just, it just didn't even register. And I remember my, my, I was living with my brother at the time, and he asked me to pass some the bread, and I was like, I, where's the bread? I was like, We have bread. Like, I didn't even know we had bread. And he's like, Yeah, it's right there on the counter.
Anthony (8m 41s):
I was like, Where, where I'm looking at the counter, I'm not seeing Brett. He's like, It's right by the stove. It's to the right of the stove. And I, I'm literally staring, I couldn't see this thing. And he's like, It's to the right directly to the right of the back burner on the stove. And I finally was looking at, it was like this magic eye, you know, picture. I was like, all of a sudden it's just this sailboat pops out like, Oh, there it is. There's just this, you know, bag of bread. I, I couldn't even see it. I was like, Oh my God, I guess there's bread here. And I, I gave it to him. So I, it wasn't even on my radar. The only time, the only reason I slipped off of that is because when I went to England, I was playing professional, professional rugby in England when I was 25. I just didn't, didn't have access to meat as you do in America.
Anthony (9m 26s):
It's like, you know, you can go to bushes, you can do all sorts of things. It is more expensive. It's quite a lot more expensive, and you don't necessarily get the same access. And, you know, some of it was bred and otherwise. So I remember like sort of seeing this breaded, you know, chicken and things like that. And I was just like, I was like, Well, is it that big a deal? I mean, it's a plant, but is it, you know, does it make that big of a difference? Like, you know, dose makes the poison. And I sort of just convinced myself that it would be okay to have, you know, breaded chicken and, and, and it, it wasn't okay. I actually felt a lot worse because of that. I remember sort of a couple months in, like thinking to myself, I was like, Why don't I feel as just super human, amazing as I normally do? Like, this is weird. Like, because I, you know, I was just, my, my athletic performance and my fitness just, just went to just crazy levels, you know?
Anthony (10m 8s):
I, I just felt so good all the time and I was absolutely crushing it athletically. And now I'm, I'm sort of getting sore and stiff and gave these weird aches. I was just like, this is weird. I, I, this is not normal for me. And I was thinking like, well, maybe, you know, my 25, I'm just over the hill and I just, my body's just decaying now. And, you know, and I literally thought that, I was like, Well, maybe that's it. I'm just over the hump. But, you know, that, that was the, it, I, I started slipping off. I started eating just, even just a small amount of this stuff actually made, made a big difference. But the biggest thing that it did was it got me out of that, you know, strict aversion to anything plant. And so I started eating a little bit more and a little bit more, and a little bit more and a little bit more until all of a sudden, you know, you know, the, the people you know, it came out with like, you know, Dr.
Anthony (10m 53s):
Furman with the gums diets, so greens, you know, onions, mushrooms, beans, berry seeds, that was that basically pushing a plant-based vegan diet. You know, he, my brother sort of read his book. He's like, Oh, wow, this guy makes a lot of sense. I'm like, Yeah, I don't know. That doesn't really make sense to me. Like, you know, these things have toxins in them, so it's like, oh, it has this one good thing in it. Like, you know, use the example of anti V E G F in mushrooms. Like, Oh, this is really good at, at fighting cancer. And it's like, my initial thought was like, Okay, do you have cancer? Then why are you taking chemo? You know, probably, probably not a great idea. And also there's over a hundred carcinogens in mushrooms, you know, so you don't have cancer yet, you're taking chemo and something that can give you cancer.
Anthony (11m 34s):
So that didn't make sense to me anyway, but, you know, you just, I wasn't thinking about it in those terms or just like, plants are trying to kill me, you know, just not gonna touch these things. And so I just sort of slipped off. And so I started having some salads and even some mushrooms and unfortunately, and, and just going, going off like that. But I, I, I was still very, very heavily meat base and I always felt better eating just a ton of meat. And I never felt bad if I was only eating just meat, like, like guilt wise or whatever. But you just, this thing sort of slipped in. But then it was sort of like five, six years ago, you know, I came across, you know, data information, someone that like, no, humans actually are carnivores. This is just actually the kind of animal that we are. And, you know, eating outside of that, just like, you know, eating, you know, giving an animal at the zoo, something it doesn't eat, it's going to make them sick, is why there's signs at the zoo to say, don't feed the animals.
Anthony (12m 23s):
That's not what they eat. They get sick, you know, but they, but they get the sick with the same things we do. They get obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, autoimmune issues, all arthritis. You know, that's not normal. That shouldn't happen. Animals in the wild don't get cancer. Animals in the zoo fed their natural diet, don't get cancer, You know, dogs and cats do though, you know, because we're giving them something outside of their species and we're getting, we're eating something outside of our species. So I saw that again, and all of a sudden it just clicked in. I was like, that's what I was doing. That's why I felt so amazing because I was living as a carnivore. I was eating as a carnivore without realizing it. And that's why I felt just so superhuman amazing all the time. I was like, right. I knew plants were trying to kill me, get rid of these damn vegetables.
Anthony (13m 6s):
And I, I just, I just chucked them out. At the time, I was only eating like greens and, and some lean meat. I was trying, I was just back from Bangladesh and I was trying to, you know, trim down and get back into rugby, and that's what I was just eating spinach, kale, and broccoli. I was making, like blending them up and keeping the pulp and everything like that in these big green smoothies, which just tasted like death. I mean, they, they were so bitter, so gross, which should tell you something, you know, we, if it's something that's bitter, that's your tongue in your brain telling you, this is something bad in here, don't eat it. That's your natural instinct is to spit it out. It's like a kid would spit it out, you know, because that's what their genetics, that's what their biology is telling them to do.
Anthony (13m 48s):
So how can, why would we have evolved to hate the taste of some of our, of our most nutritious meal? That doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't be bitter, It shouldn't taste foul, but it did. And I, you know, and we overlooked that all the time.
Brian (14m 3s):
Are you, are you still in touch with your professor?
Anthony (14m 6s):
I, I, dude, I wish I actually tried to look him up. Yeah, Yeah. I tried, I tried to look, like I said, I changed my life, you know, and, and, and through me, you know, other people, you know, because I've been able to sort of relay that to other people. No, I, I tried looking back through the, you know, the course descriptions and couldn't find University Washington. No, I couldn't find, I couldn't even find, I couldn't even find the class.
Brian (14m 27s):
Oh,
Anthony (14m 27s):
Wow. So I don't know if they, they kept the records fully back then, or maybe it was just called something, something different. I remember being called cancer biology, but maybe it was called something subtly different and Yeah.
Brian (14m 38s):
Yeah. Cuz that would be cool because to, to talk like that, you know, like you said 22 years ago, I mean, now you're hearing a little bit more in the mainstream, but you know, the whole low carb and keto and carnivore movement. But back 22 years ago, it was, you know, no one was really talking about it.
Anthony (14m 56s):
No, no. Which, which is crazy too, because, you know, botanists have known this forever. You know, we have horticultures who know about all the toxicities and plants and how to, you know, try to, you know, mitigate the poisons. But they, they understand that they're poisonous. They have poisons in them. And, you know, we as a, as a civilization going back, every civilization going back thousands of years have, have understood the inherent toxic nature of plants. And, and you know, this, this is why we have so many different, different techniques and, and ways of, you know, you know, detoxifying and bringing out some of the nutrients from, from, you know, plants mean like corn, you know, is a process called niche totalization, which is, it breaks down a lot of, you know, the toxins and it also brings out a lot of the nutrients.
Anthony (15m 42s):
And when you don't do that properly, you get, you know, you get serious nutritional deficiencies called, called pra, you know, so this is vitamin B deficiency. And this, this actually killed millions and millions of people throughout Europe before they realized what the hell was going and in, in the states before people realized what was going on. But, you know, people in Meso America and, and throughout, you know, the, you know, the Americas, they, they were eating this stuff for a long time because they, they knew how to, how to process it properly. So they didn't have the problems that we did. And then, so we took, you know, the corn and we didn't take the process with it. That's a problem. You know, there's, there's cassava root is, is the third most important source of calories in the third world.
Anthony (16m 24s):
And it has so much cide in it that it will kill you if you eat it. And so you have to, you have to process it to try to get out, leech out some of this, this cine so you can, you can process it properly so it won't be fatal. But at the same time, it still has, has, has cide in, and, and even low doses of cide over time will cause neurological damage and, and thyroid dysfunction as well. So, you know, this isn't, this isn't good. I mean, it's something we can survive on, we can live on if we're in extremity, you know, And, and that's what people have done, you know, in, in, you know, historical times is that, you know, basically the poorer people you had to flesh out your food with, with plants.
Anthony (17m 5s):
And that's why, you know, meat and fatty meat in particular was called rich food because the rich people ate it. And also on average were much healthier, live much longer.
Brian (17m 14s):
Yeah, I was gonna say, you know, for someone that wanted to implement some type of vegetables like fermentation, there's obviously ways to get around some of the antinutrients. And is this something, like, for you, what's a typical day like for you as far as eating?
Anthony (17m 33s):
Yeah, so I, I I tend to eat once a day, you know, when you're eating high. Yeah. When you're eating high density nutrition, you
Brian (17m 39s):
Don't need once a day as much. Yeah.
Anthony (17m 41s):
Or as often yet. I've
Brian (17m 42s):
Tried once. I've tried once and twice the pro, The only issue I had with that is just getting the amount of protein. I mean, I guess if you're just going straight, I'm, I'm, I'm fairly meat based as well. I'm not like a carnivore, but that was the only issue I've had with eating once or twice a day, was just getting that amount of protein in. But
Anthony (18m 0s):
Yeah, well, it also depends on what, what your body wants, you know? So when I'm, when I'm working out, if I'm working out when I have time to, I don't always have time to work out. But, you know, when I do and I'm, I'm working out regularly, I'm working out hard. Cause I, you know, I, I've been playing sports at a high level and, and training to, well, I played professional rugby and I also, you know, trained at a professional MMA gym, AMC kickboxing in Kirkland just outside of Seattle, which was one of the top, I just got lucky. This was one of the top MMA gyms in the world. Some of the top trainers were like a few miles from my house growing up. So it was just, you know, just went there.
Brian (18m 34s):
I do, I do mo Thai, so I love that. Oh,
Anthony (18m 36s):
Do you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did, I did mo thai and pan creation that was a's Creation was in the original Olympic games. And so it's, it's, it's actual like, you know, you know, Greek wrestling, so like, like collegiate wrestling, just based on that, that art form. But instead of working for opinion, you're working for a submission. And so that was, that was actually in the original Olympic gains that would be like, you know, the old ancient Greek fighters, they would all train in this and they would all train in that sort of, that fighting art form. And so that was, you know, so it's, well it's steeped in tradition, but it's, it was also steep in, you know, scientific sort of processes of, of, you know, weaning out, you know, any, any sort of weaknesses, you know, just like, you know, like, like, you know, Olympic wrestling is, you know, it's very, very, very, you know, tight to the technique.
Anthony (19m 25s):
You can try and go in there and do some flashy move or something like that, but you're gonna get rolled up if you're going against someone who really knows what they're doing in, in, in that, in that form. That's sort of the same with pan. It's, it's that this is very, very solid. It doesn't have tricks. It doesn't have, it has just the, the most solid moves, consistently
Brian (19m 44s):
The basics, right. Like the, to some degree, right. You, it's like you, you can get it all fancy, but you stick to the Yeah. The basics.
Anthony (19m 53s):
Yeah. And, and there's a lot to it too. It's just, it's just they don't have, you know, like, so like in, in, we, we would actually go through with like, you know, jujitsu, Brazil jujitsu and things like that. Cause you know, when I was, when I was doing this, when I was, you know, I, I started fighting or training, training to fight when I was 14 on my 14th birthday. This is, this is just before UFC three. So that, that's, that's how far back, you know, I go. But you know, actually there was a guy chemo who was training out of our gym who fought Ken Shamrock in UFC three in the super fight. So they were getting ready to do that. So he was training out in due is huge by the way. Calves were just like size of my midsection. And like, I was just massive.
Anthony (20m 34s):
Just a big old dude, like 270, 280 pound Simone dude. Just
Brian (20m 38s):
Monster. Yeah.
Anthony (20m 39s):
And, but you know, we, we would go through, we would have classes on, on sort of, you know, some of the, the, some of the different things that, you know, Brazil in jujitsu would, would do. And then this is how you, this is, this is how you counter them, you know, And some things, you know, the fundamental thing, you know, in, in wrestling you always have a post, you always have somewhere, someone tries a role. You have, you can push here all sorts of things. You know, in, in jujitsu sometimes they give up their post, you know, it's more of an aggressive thing. You, it's like, you know, defense, you know, wins championships. Right. You know, that, that's sort of how I think about it. And, and you know, when, when you're doing like, you know, traditional, you know, wrestling and penetration, like you always have, you always have your defense in place, you know, Whereas sometimes you, you might do like overextend yourself aggressively to try to, to get something, but it, but it might cost you, you know?
Anthony (21m 30s):
And so presuming jujitsu sometimes has those moves that, that put you in a vulnerable state. But it's sort of, it's sort of like, you know, the big, you know, big risk, big reward sort of scenario. Right?
Brian (21m 40s):
Right.
Anthony (21m 41s):
And so, you know, it really could, you know, get you, you know, home run, but you could strike out as well. And so we, we just went through those things like, yeah, these are the flaws, these are the flaws, these are the flaws, The in the armor anywhere. And, and they're, they're very good, you know, and they, they'll get most people. That's why you have to train and see like, this is how you counter that, you know? But that's what we did. Yeah. So that was pan creation, which I was always loved. It was absolutely amazing. I really wish I would've kept with that, but I felt I didn't have time to spend on, on both rugby and, and fighting. I tried to do both, but I really wanted to fight. I really wanted to fight out of amc. And they just had a rule, Matt Hume, who was the trainer of people follow UFC and things like that, they should know who that is.
Anthony (22m 25s):
That, you know, you had to, you had to sort of make all these special fighters trainings were, you know, three a week in the evenings. And I was like, Look, I'll, I'll come to every single training, you know, starting at, you know, four in the afternoon. I'll be here every single training, every single hour, every single day, except for this one session a week. You know, if I can go, go do rugby, it's just literally just one session a week, you know? And I'll go to every other session, every, he's just like, Look, you know, I, we just made this rule, like, it, it, you know, it's reasonable, but we just made this rule, we can't just, you know, turn around and break it right away. And I was like, Yeah, I get that. And so I, in my youth and stupidity, I thought that meant I, I couldn't train at all, you know, because I was just like, I wanna fight. Cause I could have kept training.
Anthony (23m 5s):
It's just like I, I wasn't allowed to fight out of the gym unless I made every single training. That was, that was rule. Cuz they didn't want, they weren't training, you know, CHUs, you know, they wanted, they were train champions and, you know, so that, that was it. So I ended up just doing rugby, unfortunately, and all the time I look back, I'm like, why? Yeah.
Brian (23m 25s):
Alright. Yeah. So we got off on a tangent, but that's okay. We could probably do a podcast on that. So, question, so routine, so you eat once a day and you're packing in you mainly, you don't do organ meats, Correct? You're just doing regular, just normal meats. Okay.
Anthony (23m 43s):
Yeah. Almost never. I mean, you don't eat organs, that's fine. I think of it as, you know, one thing is a proportion of the cows, you know, the right shirt for it on this one. Yeah.
Brian (23m 52s):
It's a small portion of the whole of
Anthony (23m 55s):
The cow. Exactly.
Brian (23m 56s):
So you're just gonna do it maybe once every few weeks or once a month or something, or every,
Anthony (24m 1s):
Every so often. You know, I, you take down a, you take down a buffalo as an individual, you know that, that buffalo will last you two years realistically, you know, you know, it's only got one liver, right. So it's gotta have one liver for that, those two years. And you know, there, there's certainly, you know, tribes that eat the, the livers and eat the, the organs. Absolutely. And there's others that don't, you know, like they Inuit, they don't, they don't, they don't eat the organs. They would give the organs to their dogs. And so, and especially, you know, when you're, when you're talking about like marine mammals and things like that, and then, you know, polar bears especially, you know, these have such a high concentration of vitamin A that is actually, is actually toxic, you know, So you don't, you don't want to eat too much of that, or polar bear liver, you don't wanna eat it at all.
Anthony (24m 43s):
So I don't, I don't think that you, you necessarily need to do it. If you want to do it fine, I just would, would caution people not to, to really eat it out of proportion. Because again, you, you can get, because it is very, very nutrient dense. And if, you know, if you're not eating carnivore and you're eating sort of a, you know, a lower nutrient diet, then, you know, livers your best friend. You know. But if you're, if you're, you are eating carnivore, then you'll get all the nutrients you need just from the skeletal muscle meat. And so if you're adding in a lot of liver, you, you could actually build up to a level that you don't want. So I, I tend to avoid that. And I eat once a day. Well, I eat, I eat just until I'm full, basically. Right. And if I'm eating, you know, fatty meat, cause I try to get between sort of 70, 80% of my calories from fat.
Anthony (25m 25s):
If I'm eating leaner meat, then I'll, I'll eat more, you know. But if, if I'm eating fatty enough meat and I fill up, then I tend to only be hungry once a day. But if I'm working out, that could easily double, you know. So I normally would eat like, you know, two, two and a half pounds of fatty meat. So it's high calorie intake. Right. And then if I'm, if I'm working out a lot, that could easily go to four to five pounds,
Brian (25m 53s):
What are, what are some, I guess, tips or tricks or, or things for individuals to, if they wanna get started with carnivores? So road they want to go down?
Anthony (26m 4s):
Yeah, I, I, I would definitely think about things in terms of what not to eat just as much as what to eat. Just because, you know, it's not just that, you know, oh, you don't have to eat salad, you can get all the nutrients that you need from meat. It's that, no, you actually don't want to eat salad salad's actually bad for you. Which is weird concept for us to, to take in, you know? But, but it's an important one, you know, and you know, people will, will feel the difference when you get these things out, out of your system. You will definitely feel the difference. So that, that would be one thing. And so my rule is, you know, no plants, no sugar, nothing artificial, and that will go for sauces, seasonings and drinks as well. So really, really trying to get really just down to just meat and water.
Anthony (26m 45s):
Maybe salt the taste if you want. You don't have to. And then, you know, just, just really keeping it as simple as possible. There's all these different rules in these snacks and there's this and that. Just, just eat meat. Just drink water. Just be happy. Like that's all there is, you know? And so try to keep it as simple as possible. This is something that it should be very, very easy to do. You know, because you, you, you know exactly what you can and can't eat there. There's no, there's no gray area. It's just black and white, you know, And, you know, and then also you can, you don't have to worry about portion control. You don't have to count calories, You can just eat intuitively and you just eat until you're full and you just eat until meat doesn't taste good.
Anthony (27m 26s):
And it actually tastes better the more hungry you are. And that's how you can tell, because you'll have to relearn your hunger signals. That's the major thing that people should know about is when you stop eating carbohydrates, you're, your, your hunger signals just change dramatically and go into the, the, you know, the, the reasons why if you want. But, but suffice it to say that they change. And so you don't feel hungry in the traditional sense. And so it's actually very easy to undereat. And so you want to, you wanna gauge it by your taste. So if meat tastes good, that means your body's giving you a positive feedback and saying, Hey, get more of this in you. Eventually it'll actually start tasting not so good. And eventually it'll taste bad and you're like, Oh, I don't want to eat this anymore. So your body's telling you don't eat this, right? It's the same piece of meat cooked at the same time in the same conditions.
Anthony (28m 9s):
Why does it taste different? Well, because your body is experiencing it differently because now it doesn't want those nutrients anymore. So it just tells you when to stop. So you can just eat intuitively. You can eat any time of the day or night, it doesn't matter. The only real reason it matters is if, if you're eating before bed is if you're eating carbohydrates, that'll raise your insulin, that'll block the, the function of growth hormone, which is, you know, it's secreted in its maximal dosages two hours after you go to sleep. So it really screws with your hormonal cycle as well as putting you into a fat storage state. So those sort of the main things is that, you know, just keep it easy, keep it simple. Just focus on meat and water. Don't worry about all the other frills and everything like that.
Anthony (28m 50s):
And avoid, you know, things that, that fall into the category of, you know, plants, sugar, you know, plants or sugar, anything artificial, like artificial sweeteners and coffee. People don't realize coffee's a plant, you know? And so they keep doing that. If you wanna have coffee going fine, you know, it's, it's, you know, one thing out of a thousand that you've cut out, you know. But people do generally feel a lot better when they come off coffee, and especially if they get rid of the artificial sweeteners. Those, those seem to be hangup that, that seem to stall people's progress is the artificial sweeteners, especially like st and other things like that.
Brian (29m 25s):
Yeah, it's interesting. You make the point that it's just as important, the things that you're getting off as it is the things that you're implementing. I think that's what makes it successful. And you know, for some people, I know obviously there's people who do thrive on a plant based diet, so I always like to say, I think there should be some type of self experimentation depending on the individual. Some people can assimilate saturated fats better than others, but either way I think it, it it something that, you know, over time you sort of find what, what works for you. Do, do you have any, do you take do do like blood work every so often or?
Anthony (30m 4s):
Yeah, no, I have, I've never really, you know, cared to for my own interest. I was like, Oh, I don't know what this is because I, you know, I I I trusted the, the fact that, you know, I was eating what I was biologically most appropriate to, and so whatever my bloods were, you know, I wasn't really worried about, you know, micromanaging anything. And I was just like, whatever, whatever my bloods are, whatever my cholesterol is, which is actually good for you, by the way. Sure. It is gonna be what it's supposed to be, it's gonna be physiological. But I have have taken them just because
Brian (30m 35s):
I'm curious about like thyroid and things like that. I know some people have, have had keto have been shown to slow down the thyroid a bit. And I know that not for everybody, but
Anthony (30m 46s):
Yeah, I think there's, there's, there's gonna be a few different reasons for that as well. And, but no, for me, when, when I took, took my bloods actually the sort of the functional medicine, preventative health clinic that I work in now, the reason I work there, because I met, you know, the endocrinologist who was running his practice for 40 years and we're talking about this and we're talking about the carnivore diet, and he got very interested in this because, you know, he'd been using diet and lifestyle changes to help people for 40 years now. So that, that was right up his alley. But, but very different from what, you know, he had here to forethought to be, you know, true. And so he was very interested in that, you know, he saw me and I was, you know, in good shape and, and he said like, well, you know, you look, you look good and you know, you look good for your age especially.
Anthony (31m 28s):
And, and how
Brian (31m 29s):
Old are you, if you don't mind me asking? Yeah,
Anthony (31m 31s):
I'm 42.
Brian (31m 32s):
Oh, so we're the same age.
Anthony (31m 34s):
Yeah. Yeah. So we're same
Brian (31m 36s):
Age.
Anthony (31m 36s):
Yeah. And, you know, yeah. And, and you know, so he was looking at me and he is just saying, Hey, you know, you look, you look great, you know, you look like you're in good shape, but let's check under the hood and let's, you know, let's see the bloods. And so I, I said, fine, you know, Yeah, let's take it out. I didn't really care. I knew whatever they were gonna be, they were gonna be good. And he calls me up a couple weeks later and he said, Hey, you know, we should, we should talk about this Corvo died over a steak sometimes, you know, because your bloods came back and they were really good. And we went through them and, you know, he said to me, we went through a ton, ton of things, you know, deep dive into the hormones and nutrients, minerals, vitamins, everything. And he said that if you took a hundred thousand people my age off the street, then my blood would be number one without a shadow of a doubt.
Anthony (32m 19s):
And so we really started talking about it. He got really interested I into the, the idea of this. And I started, you know, sending him a lot of resources and papers and talking to him about it, you know, at length. And he actually started incorporating it into his practice and putting all his patients on a corvo diet and to help them lose weight and to reverse diseases. So especially autoimmune issues, autoimmune issues just go away. You go on a corvo diet because it's really, is is the plants that's actually precipitating the, the event of these autoimmune issues. And when you remove that causative factor, you know, the effect just goes away. Which, which is sort of the premise of all of my work is that, and a book I'm writing is that, you know, the so-called chronic diseases that we treat nowadays as, as a major part of medical profession are not actually diseases per se, but they're actually toxicities and malnutrition, toxic buildup of species, inappropriate diet, and a lack of species specific nutrition.
Anthony (33m 18s):
So namely, too many plants, not enough meat, you know, And, and so when we implement this in practice, we actually see these diseases just go away, you know? And, and especially autoimmune issues are the most dramatic and, and, and very fulfilling things to watch. I I, you know, Crohn's, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, these things have actually, in the medical literature, going back to the 18 hundreds, have been treated and cured and gotten rid of completely by putting people on a pure red meat and water diet since the 18 hundreds. And as recently as 1975, there were books being written about just that by putting people on a carnivore diet and, and reversing all of these issues.
Anthony (34m 1s):
Which is crazy to me because in 1977, the U S D A said that cholesterol causes heart disease saturated in fact increase cholesterol, stop eating both of these things. And just in a hundred years of medical literature and knowledge just got thrown out because meat's bad because it has cholesterol crazy to me.
Brian (34m 19s):
Yeah. It's, it's, it's a changing time. I mean, I think, you know, podcasts and, and gosh, with YouTube it's like you can, you can definitely do your own research and find out more about all this. I know you guys do, I do do a 30 day carnivore challenge. Right. Is that something you have going on?
Anthony (34m 38s):
Yeah, we do. And it's like a just how to carnivore.com. It's how how we sign up for that. And so, Oh, I see. We try to do is, is just, yeah, try to coach people and help them in a group setting with myself and, and my partner Simon Lewis. And we have like telegram groups. We just chatting with people and talking to them and sending them resources. We have different modules and packets and emails that go out to people on a daily basis throughout the, the challenge. And, and this is just ways so they, they can learn and, and really see, you know, understand why we're doing this, why it matters, why it makes a difference, and, and how to do it successfully. And, and really try that just pure meat and water approach and even get rid of coffee, even get rid of st just all the little things that, that people don't do.
Anthony (35m 24s):
I really think that getting rid of the last 5% of, you know, go going carnivore makes up about 95% of the difference for people. It really makes a massive difference, especially with carbohydrates and sugar because even just a small amount of these, these things will fundamentally derail your metabolic system and your biochemistry and how it functions. Just simply, it will put you into a fat storing metabolism instead of a fat burning metabolism, which will, you will be in all the time on a corvo die. So it makes a big difference. And then we, we have other sorts of ways of support them as well. So, and we, and we've been doing this for like, about three, four months now. And, and it's been, we've been having good feedback and people been having good results and a lot of people saying that, yeah, I've been, you know, sort of mostly carnival, very meat based, but never really got rid of the last of it.
Anthony (36m 9s):
And like, I'm so glad I did because, you know, I feel so much better. My weight just started coming off and, and they started reversing all their health issues. So it's been really nice to see that.
Brian (36m 18s):
Yeah. And I noticed going off a little bit, but you, you do some X three work, It's something that I've implemented. Cause I had, I had Dr. Jake wish on the podcast beginning of last year and, and like with the whole covid thing, I was like, Oh, I gotta do something. So I've, I've really enjoyed it. I now I, I use the X three, I use it intermittently with maybe some traditional lifting, but it's been a, just a huge game changer for me cuz it, yeah. So I'm looking.
Anthony (36m 48s):
Yeah, yeah. No, I liked it too. I, I was actually looking at it during Covid as well because I didn't end up getting it at the time. I actually wish I did, but because I was, yeah, I was really just getting upset, not being able to work out during Covid. But you, I I was so pissed off because I had, I had a whole gym set at home in, in Seattle that I left there when I moved to Australia. I just kept thinking of this perfect gym setup that I had been, you know, when I was, before I went to Australia, when I was getting ready to go, you know, I was in, I was in my, my home gym for like three to four hours a day every day. I was just like listening to like, books on tape and Thomas, so books and, and lectures and things like that.
Anthony (37m 28s):
Cause I just, I just loved Thomas so and so, I just was just listening just, you know, devouring all his stuff. And I was like, I figured this is something I wanted to do anyway, you know, and I could justify working out for four hours if I'm, you know, I'm listening to something educational that I wanted to, to hear anyway. And so that's how I justified it to myself. But I was, I was there for like, you know, three, four hours a day and, and doing rugby on top of that and you know, at that 38, 39. And I felt amazing doing it. And then I was in, in Australia with Covid and no access to any like, gym equipment. I was just, I was moving,
Brian (38m 2s):
Everything was like, shut down. Yeah.
Anthony (38m 5s):
So bad. Yeah.
Brian (38m 6s):
Yeah. Well, this was great. Are there any like, maybe common pitfalls if someone's looking to get into it that you see that, you know, runs true with a lot of people when getting into carnivore?
Anthony (38m 20s):
There can be, sometimes it'll be undereating that's very easy to do. And then you just, you just find they have low energy, they don't really feel good and all that stuff. Well, because you're not, you're not really getting enough nutrition. Your body needs something, or not eating enough fat. Most people think that because they're eating a lot more fat than they've ever eaten before, that that's has to be enough. But in fact, you have to eat a lot of fat, you know, like 70% calories from fat is 50 50 ground beef, you know, 50% fat by, by weight, right? So that, that's a lot of fat and that's just 70%. So I try to hit between 70 and 80%, you know, so I melt butter into ribeyes sometimes, you know, And so, you know, it's, it's a lot of fat and that, that's one thing people can sort of tell if they're not drinking coffee.
Anthony (39m 9s):
You're using artificial sweetness because those can all give you sort of, you know, running stools. But if you are, if you're not eating any of that, you're only eating meat. You can actually tell how much fat you're getting because it's actually the excess fat your body can't absorb that keeps your stool soft. You know, otherwise people say, Oh, how are you, how are you gonna get, how are you gonna move your bowels? You have to have fiber. You actually don't, you actually don't want it. Fiber wasn't recommended to for constipation until like the late eighties, you know, and that was, and that was because we had stopped eating fat, you know, And that's what was keeping everybody regular. Your body can only absorb a certain amount of fat and, and after that it, it sort of has its limit and you have, and you'll just excrete it. And so it's that, that little extra that, that keeps everything soft.
Anthony (39m 51s):
So if you're not getting enough, your body's gonna absorb all the fat things are gonna be dry and hard. So you can tell, okay, I'm not getting enough fat. And a lot of people find that they're constipated and I keep telling 'em, Well, you need to eat more fat. And they're, Oh no, I'm definitely eating a fat. And I was like, Well, by definition you're not if you're constipated. So that's something to think about as well. So the energy levels and yeah, eating enough and just eating, Yeah, eating till you're satiating, eating till meat doesn't really taste very interesting anymore. And, and yeah. And getting in a fat to the point that you're not constipated, those are, those are some things that, that people commonly have, have trouble with until, you know, it's just somebody just, just shows them what's going on.
Brian (40m 29s):
Okay, interesting. And the best place for people to learn more about what you're doing is, I know you're on obviously social media and how, how to carnivore. Well, you tell us you can,
Anthony (40m 44s):
Yeah. Well, yeah. How, Yeah, w you know, just how to carnivore.com, that's, that's where people can go if they wanted to sign up for the 30 day challenge, which, you know, people are more than welcome to do. I have a website that's being built that's just more from an informational standpoint called the Carnivore Life. That's not quite out yet, but it's, it's almost done. Oh, cool. And so yeah, just the carnivore life.com and, and then my main thing is, is YouTube. YouTube, Instagram. And my podcast just, you know, the Plant Free MD is the name of the podcast that's on Apple and Spotify and everything else. And then my website, or sorry, my YouTube channel is just, just my name, Anthony Chaffy, md, which also goes cross platforms.
Anthony (41m 29s):
So YouTube is, is Anthony Chaffy, MD as is Instagram and Patreon. And you know, TikTok horribly is also that.
Brian (41m 39s):
Oh, you're on TikTok? I have avoided TikTok, but
Anthony (41m 42s):
It's so bad. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know, it's, you, you'll put some, some of my little shorts videos on it and things like that and like little, you know, clips from my, my podcast, so I just, I just sort of did, and you know, some of these things actually went pretty viral Yeah. Pretty early on. So like, you know, I had a couple clips, you know, talking about like, just a short sort of one minute talk about how we were, you know, conned about cholesterol being bad for us, you know, and I just did that, and that, that seemed to be do really well. I just went, you know, pretty got pretty popular early on and, and then all of a sudden I have like 12,000 followers on TikTok. I'm like, Oh, I dunno if I wanna do this. And yeah,
Brian (42m 20s):
All nieces and nephews, all my nieces and nephews are following you. Yeah.
Anthony (42m 24s):
God. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian (42m 27s):
Hey, I get it. I mean, being on social media, honestly, if I didn't do it for business, I probably, I mean, it's nice a little bit, but I, I would probably get off most of that stuff, but
Anthony (42m 36s):
I think so, yeah, no, I, I would, honestly, I would, I would dump all of this stuff happily if I was able to, but, you know, but that's unfortunately, that's, that's how you reach people and not unfortunately really, because it does give us a medium to reach people wouldn't otherwise, you know, if it used to be before, you know, if a publishing house wouldn't publish your book or if, you know, a news program wouldn't, wouldn't publish your story or a newspaper, no one's hearing that, right? No one's seeing that, you know?
Brian (43m 4s):
No. Now it's, everyone has a platform, really. Right? Everyone can create a platform, which is good and bad. Right. It could be good and bad. Yeah.
Anthony (43m 13s):
Well, the good part is, is that, that you just turn off the bad ones and be like, Well that's awful. Just don't watch that guy.
Brian (43m 19s):
Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Anthony (43m 21s):
Yeah. Yeah. Least you can avoid it, you know?
Brian (43m 23s):
Yeah, yeah. No, I, Yeah, exactly. You don't have to. Yeah, exactly. You don't have to subscribe if you don't want to. Right. So yeah. Well this was good. I mean, I'm sure we could talk hours and hours maybe when the book comes out we'll come back and chat about that. Yeah, definitely. And glad we connected, so I appreciate, appreciate coming out and sharing our knowledge regarding carnivore and how to get started and things like that. So thanks again.
Anthony (43m 44s):
Not a problem at all. Thank you very much for having me.
Brian (43m 48s):
Thanks for listening to the Get Lean E Clean podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there, and you've chosen to listen to mine and I appreciate that. Check out the show notes@briangrin.com for everything that was mentioned in this episode. Feel free to subscribe to the podcast, share it with a friend or family member that's looking to get their body back to what it once was. Thanks again, and have a great day.
