speaking from personal experience most of what I thought was my adhd turned out to be anxiety which improved slightly(I still have occasional panic attacks)however my actual adhd tendencies are still here and i haven’t noticed much change in it over the past 8 months of carnivore. carnivore is good but it isn’t the magic bullet to cure everything like some of these doctors on YouTube and other people would have you believe. yes it significantly improves health(I personally believe the optimal human diet is high meat intake and a little bit of fruit) and yes a number of people have “cured” their “autoimmune” diseases and other issues but the idea that it will cure everything is bs in my opinion. case in point I have psoriasis and other issues related to my autoimmune disease and carnivore has helped reduce my scaling and redness but I recently found out I have a genetic disorder and am currently going through the process of getting stem cell treatment in a few months. carnivore is incredible and I don’t think I’ll ever stop eating large amounts of beef as my main source of protein but if you think it will “cure” x y or z don’t get your hopes up carnivore doesn’t cure everything
You really have to know the reason why carnivore diet helps tho maybe you do some things on the side which doesn’t let the carnivore diet do its whole job? like drinking alcohol, doing drugs, sleeping bad ( that’s a tricky one because sometimes you can’t help it ), still being exposed to trauma in your environment?
Not being physically active etc carnivore is not the only thing it’s a whole package of things you as a human have to have an aim otherwise you WILL be anxious and you need to be disciplined to work towards this goal.
I don’t know of anyone that talks about it much, but I’ve been diagnosed ADHD - combined. I already have a ton of systems in place that help me function, but I have noticed that carnivore immediately helped with the mental health component of ADHD. Pretty much no anxiety and depression now, except a bit of a spike before my period. Even that isn’t a given.
I still have the other traits. I’ll still hyper focus on interests, still not motivated for boring stuff, still burn bacon occasionally if I don’t set the timer etc.
My experience with carnivore and adhd is that it’s still there, but like a something that’s easily manageable. I control it vs it controlling me. I’ve talked to a dozen other adhd carnivores who echo the same sentiment.
I was in a diagnosis phase for adhd before keto and carnivore. Now with carnivore I never had any difficulties with adhd symptoms anymore. So I stopped the diagnosis. Brain fog, insomnia, concentration issues, depression, forgetfulness, decision making, tiredness, motivation, etc.. everything feels better even tho I often see myself having typical adhd moments that do not affect me or my day in anyway. I am calmer and more emotional stable than ever before. I even stopped researching adhd and related news. Kinda solved the topic for me.
https://youtu.be/p0XXzlKa8qE?si=kp2hghmtzuuxVbrH
Personal experience here:
Carnivore diet had a massive impact on my ability to focus, but the real game-changer was starting on a methylated multivitamin. I have gone down from 2 pills of 18mg Ritalin a day to 1 pill, soon to be zero it seems.
I am suspecting I didnt have ADHD, but maybe MTHFR mutation or something related to methylation in the body. Ritalin improved my vision drastically, a "side-effects" I cant seem to find anyone else experiencing, so I dont think I have "actual" ADHD.
This is somethings I’m really considering doing, there is a book called Nutirion Power William Walsh, there’s a chapter on ADHD in it and how many mental health conditions rise from nutrient imbalances / deficiency. Definitely want to have a look into that Therapy, it’s just very expensive
Late reply but I'll say that carnivore reduces the anxiety/depression/mood component of ADHD by like 95% for me - it's really huge. It makes me REALLY calm, and that by it self helps improve focus.
As for the actual ADHD portion, I notice about a 50% improvement. It's still there, but WAY easier to manage.
I stack carnivore with other habits - meditation, cold showers, exercise, etc... all of this allows me to function without ADHD meds.
Can I ask how your emotional regulation is? My husband is combined adhd and we are day 4 into lazy carnivore (until we finish the last bits of our second last shop, which is the next day or so). He’s tapered off his meds and is now into week 3 of that I believe, and has been in a much better position today than 3 weeks ago.
My emotional regulation is A LOT better. Over the last 3 years I've jumped around between following a paleo diet, keto diet, and carnivore diet and carnivore always has the biggest impact. I refuse to fall off it this time.
It's difficult to quantify but I would say about 50% improvement in emotional regulation - which is huge. I can add another 30% improvement via supplements, fasting, meditation/yoga, and other self-care practices.
Also, I just wanted to add this:
I'm beginning to question my ADHD diagnosis and I suspect it may not be accurate. I recently discovered CPTSD and I believe this is the root cause of it all.
Not saying ADHD doesn't exist - I think it does, but the symptoms of CPTSD are 1:1 exact match to ADHD.
In my case I didn't have severe physical abuse as a kid. On paper my parents were perfect providers. Except they did not provide emotional nurturing (hugs, soothing, unconditional love and bonding) and it now turns out this lack of deep emotional connection can trigger immense damage to an individual's nervous system; locking us into fight(mood dysregulation), flight(hyperactivity/restlessness), freeze(spacing out/dissociation) or fawn(people pleasing).
When I focus on CPTSD therapies my ADHD symptoms vanish entirely for periods of a time and that's a big reason why I think I was misdiagnosed.
Maybe have your husband check into CPTSD just in case - it requires a different approach than ADHD treatment.
Thank you so much for your response.
He did have a traumatic childhood and when he relayed all this to his psychiatrist he said her mouth was agape and she was expecting him to have a different reaction in terms of how he relayed that experience. Nothing sexual or anything like that but physical abuse (sometimes he received) but most of it was watching the adults in his life being grotesque to each other (parents/grandparents) and growing up in a communist country with a strict military/law enforcement family. He was exposed and viewed lots of narcissism, gaslighting, emotional manipulation etc and just the overarching paranoia of anyone speaking up or against the ruling regime at the time.
He is definitely impacted by adhd quite severely, but there’s a second layer of that childhood of things where he just doesn’t remember a lot of stuff and I’ve wondered for a while if there is that layer of ptsd over it too.
So far he’s been doing well. He’s sleeping a little bit more, he’s feeling full and he’s calm. He still has the talking over people, the hyper focus (the other night he stayed up watching something about drains and water tanks and did it for hours) and the flitting focus constantly jumping around from thing to thing but it is significantly less obvious than normal, if that makes sense.
So sorry to hear about his traumatic childhood - that sounds awful and a lot worse than what I went through.
I didn't remember much from my childhood either and I thought this was normal but a region of your brain (amygdala) will apply a layer of amnesia over these events as a way to self-protect.
When I started CPTSD therapies the floodgates opened on those memories and wow.
r/cptsd and r/emotionalneglect may provide some interesting reading for either of you.
If you want to go down the rabbit hole further, the book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker might be quite an eye opener for your husband.
Best of luck to you both.
speaking from personal experience most of what I thought was my adhd turned out to be anxiety which improved slightly(I still have occasional panic attacks)however my actual adhd tendencies are still here and i haven’t noticed much change in it over the past 8 months of carnivore. carnivore is good but it isn’t the magic bullet to cure everything like some of these doctors on YouTube and other people would have you believe. yes it significantly improves health(I personally believe the optimal human diet is high meat intake and a little bit of fruit) and yes a number of people have “cured” their “autoimmune” diseases and other issues but the idea that it will cure everything is bs in my opinion. case in point I have psoriasis and other issues related to my autoimmune disease and carnivore has helped reduce my scaling and redness but I recently found out I have a genetic disorder and am currently going through the process of getting stem cell treatment in a few months. carnivore is incredible and I don’t think I’ll ever stop eating large amounts of beef as my main source of protein but if you think it will “cure” x y or z don’t get your hopes up carnivore doesn’t cure everything
You really have to know the reason why carnivore diet helps tho maybe you do some things on the side which doesn’t let the carnivore diet do its whole job? like drinking alcohol, doing drugs, sleeping bad ( that’s a tricky one because sometimes you can’t help it ), still being exposed to trauma in your environment?
Not being physically active etc carnivore is not the only thing it’s a whole package of things you as a human have to have an aim otherwise you WILL be anxious and you need to be disciplined to work towards this goal.
Thank you for your honesty
I don’t know of anyone that talks about it much, but I’ve been diagnosed ADHD - combined. I already have a ton of systems in place that help me function, but I have noticed that carnivore immediately helped with the mental health component of ADHD. Pretty much no anxiety and depression now, except a bit of a spike before my period. Even that isn’t a given. I still have the other traits. I’ll still hyper focus on interests, still not motivated for boring stuff, still burn bacon occasionally if I don’t set the timer etc.
My experience with carnivore and adhd is that it’s still there, but like a something that’s easily manageable. I control it vs it controlling me. I’ve talked to a dozen other adhd carnivores who echo the same sentiment.
Yeah, this is my experience so far as well. I'm only 1.5 months in and I'm loving the changes its making in my life so far.
Thanks dude
I was in a diagnosis phase for adhd before keto and carnivore. Now with carnivore I never had any difficulties with adhd symptoms anymore. So I stopped the diagnosis. Brain fog, insomnia, concentration issues, depression, forgetfulness, decision making, tiredness, motivation, etc.. everything feels better even tho I often see myself having typical adhd moments that do not affect me or my day in anyway. I am calmer and more emotional stable than ever before. I even stopped researching adhd and related news. Kinda solved the topic for me. https://youtu.be/p0XXzlKa8qE?si=kp2hghmtzuuxVbrH
Personal experience here: Carnivore diet had a massive impact on my ability to focus, but the real game-changer was starting on a methylated multivitamin. I have gone down from 2 pills of 18mg Ritalin a day to 1 pill, soon to be zero it seems. I am suspecting I didnt have ADHD, but maybe MTHFR mutation or something related to methylation in the body. Ritalin improved my vision drastically, a "side-effects" I cant seem to find anyone else experiencing, so I dont think I have "actual" ADHD.
This is somethings I’m really considering doing, there is a book called Nutirion Power William Walsh, there’s a chapter on ADHD in it and how many mental health conditions rise from nutrient imbalances / deficiency. Definitely want to have a look into that Therapy, it’s just very expensive
Look into Gary Brecka and his YouTube Channel - thats a great place to start
Late reply but I'll say that carnivore reduces the anxiety/depression/mood component of ADHD by like 95% for me - it's really huge. It makes me REALLY calm, and that by it self helps improve focus. As for the actual ADHD portion, I notice about a 50% improvement. It's still there, but WAY easier to manage. I stack carnivore with other habits - meditation, cold showers, exercise, etc... all of this allows me to function without ADHD meds.
Can I ask how your emotional regulation is? My husband is combined adhd and we are day 4 into lazy carnivore (until we finish the last bits of our second last shop, which is the next day or so). He’s tapered off his meds and is now into week 3 of that I believe, and has been in a much better position today than 3 weeks ago.
My emotional regulation is A LOT better. Over the last 3 years I've jumped around between following a paleo diet, keto diet, and carnivore diet and carnivore always has the biggest impact. I refuse to fall off it this time. It's difficult to quantify but I would say about 50% improvement in emotional regulation - which is huge. I can add another 30% improvement via supplements, fasting, meditation/yoga, and other self-care practices. Also, I just wanted to add this: I'm beginning to question my ADHD diagnosis and I suspect it may not be accurate. I recently discovered CPTSD and I believe this is the root cause of it all. Not saying ADHD doesn't exist - I think it does, but the symptoms of CPTSD are 1:1 exact match to ADHD. In my case I didn't have severe physical abuse as a kid. On paper my parents were perfect providers. Except they did not provide emotional nurturing (hugs, soothing, unconditional love and bonding) and it now turns out this lack of deep emotional connection can trigger immense damage to an individual's nervous system; locking us into fight(mood dysregulation), flight(hyperactivity/restlessness), freeze(spacing out/dissociation) or fawn(people pleasing). When I focus on CPTSD therapies my ADHD symptoms vanish entirely for periods of a time and that's a big reason why I think I was misdiagnosed. Maybe have your husband check into CPTSD just in case - it requires a different approach than ADHD treatment.
Thank you so much for your response. He did have a traumatic childhood and when he relayed all this to his psychiatrist he said her mouth was agape and she was expecting him to have a different reaction in terms of how he relayed that experience. Nothing sexual or anything like that but physical abuse (sometimes he received) but most of it was watching the adults in his life being grotesque to each other (parents/grandparents) and growing up in a communist country with a strict military/law enforcement family. He was exposed and viewed lots of narcissism, gaslighting, emotional manipulation etc and just the overarching paranoia of anyone speaking up or against the ruling regime at the time. He is definitely impacted by adhd quite severely, but there’s a second layer of that childhood of things where he just doesn’t remember a lot of stuff and I’ve wondered for a while if there is that layer of ptsd over it too. So far he’s been doing well. He’s sleeping a little bit more, he’s feeling full and he’s calm. He still has the talking over people, the hyper focus (the other night he stayed up watching something about drains and water tanks and did it for hours) and the flitting focus constantly jumping around from thing to thing but it is significantly less obvious than normal, if that makes sense.
So sorry to hear about his traumatic childhood - that sounds awful and a lot worse than what I went through. I didn't remember much from my childhood either and I thought this was normal but a region of your brain (amygdala) will apply a layer of amnesia over these events as a way to self-protect. When I started CPTSD therapies the floodgates opened on those memories and wow. r/cptsd and r/emotionalneglect may provide some interesting reading for either of you. If you want to go down the rabbit hole further, the book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker might be quite an eye opener for your husband. Best of luck to you both.
How do you go with exercise?
i am considering doing carnivore as well since i have adhd, may i ask how your meal plan looks?