Stefania's Journey to the Keto-Carnivore Diet

Being Italian, Stefania was raised on pasta and described her relationship with food before finding the keto-carnivore diet as being very poor. She says she always felt chubby, even though she wasn't obese, and often found herself stress eating. She even battled anorexia and bulimia, establishing a pattern of disordered eating that would follow her for years.

From Vegetarian to Keto: A Decades-Long Health Struggle
Stefania became a vegetarian seventeen years ago, believing this dietary approach would improve her health. She found out she carried a gene for celiac disease and gave up gluten, hoping this elimination would resolve her ongoing health issues. However, Stefania still found herself experiencing excruciating stomach pain that seemed to persist regardless of her dietary modifications.

The situation became more concerning when she discovered a lump on her throat that ended up being attached to her thyroid. At that point, she says the doctors didn't ask many questions but proceeded to remove 80% of her thyroid, a drastic intervention that would have lasting consequences for her metabolic health.

Following the thyroid surgery, Stefania was put on thyroid medications and, for ten years, slowly increased the dose of medicine to battle the symptoms she experienced from her compromised thyroid function. She often felt exhausted and struggled with energy levels throughout the day. Her doctor told her to try going vegan, suggesting this might help with her ongoing health challenges.

Stefania eliminated dairy from her diet but consumed many highly-processed vegan shakes and a significant amount of soy products. While she lost weight on this approach, it wasn't in a healthy way. Most of the weight she lost was muscle mass, and Stefania began to feel depleted rather than nourished. The processed nature of her vegan diet likely contributed to further inflammation and digestive distress.

After experimenting with the vegan diet and experiencing its negative effects, Stefania went back to eating vegetarian. It was during this time that she received a diagnosis of Hashimoto's disease, an autoimmune condition affecting the thyroid that explained many of her ongoing symptoms. This diagnosis prompted her to begin researching alternative methods to treat her disease beyond conventional medication.

Through her research, Stefania found studies suggesting a ketogenic diet might help with autoimmune conditions. She began to follow the keto diet while maintaining her no-meat lifestyle, essentially following a vegetarian ketogenic approach. During her seven years on the keto diet, she saw some improvements in her health but still experienced the same excruciating stomach pain that had plagued her for years.

The Benefits of the Keto-Carnivore Diet
The breakthrough came when Stefania discovered Dr. Shawn Baker and began listening to his teachings about the keto-carnivore diet. At the time, Dr. Baker challenged his listeners to try the diet for 90 days, so Stefania decided to experiment with this completely different approach to nutrition. For the first time in ten years, she ate meat, marking a significant departure from her long-held vegetarian beliefs.

Stefania says the first four days were tough as her body didn't know what to do with meat after such a long period of avoidance, and she experienced severe constipation as her digestive system adapted. However, after four days, something remarkable happened - her stomach issues that had persisted for years simply disappeared. The transformation was so dramatic that Stefania described the almost immediate energy she felt as "someone turned the power on."

She told her husband she felt like a Duracell battery and could keep "going and going," experiencing sustained energy levels she hadn't felt in decades. This wasn't just a temporary boost but a fundamental shift in how her body was functioning and processing nutrients.

Initially, Stefania only ate chicken, with some beef and eggs added to her daily intake. She also gave up her beloved coffee, which she said was the hardest part of the entire transition. The elimination of coffee was particularly challenging given her Italian heritage and the cultural significance of this beverage in her daily routine.

Today, after learning that she often feels hungry after only eating chicken, Stefania focuses her diet exclusively on beef, mainly ground beef as she prefers its texture over steak, and eggs. She did eventually add back coffee to her routine as well. This simplified approach to eating has become her sustainable long-term strategy for maintaining optimal health.

Stefania says friends and family have asked her how she can eat the same things daily, expressing concern about the apparent lack of variety in her diet. However, she finds it relatively easy and has discovered that her body thrives on this consistency. She even craves eggs, indicating that her body has adapted to preferring these nutrient-dense animal foods.

Overcoming Food Addiction Through Keto-Carnivore
Stefania says her biggest win has been transforming her relationship with food, something that had been problematic for most of her adult life. Before she found the keto-carnivore approach, her sugar addiction was terrible, and her "cheat days turned into cheat weeks," demonstrating the powerful hold that processed foods and sugar had over her eating behaviors.

The addictive nature of her previous diet kept her in a cycle of cravings, binges, and guilt that undermined her health goals and contributed to her ongoing digestive and autoimmune issues. The high-carbohydrate, processed foods she consumed as a vegetarian and during her vegan phase likely perpetuated inflammation and fed the very conditions she was trying to heal.

Nowadays, Stefania says if she "cheats," it means she has a few extra eggs or eats a bit more than she usually would. This represents a complete transformation in her definition of dietary deviation - from processed foods and sugar binges to simply eating more of the healing foods that support her health.

She has not strayed from her keto-carnivore approach and credits this way of eating for changing her health and breaking her food addiction. The elimination of processed foods, sugar, and plant compounds that were likely triggering her autoimmune responses has allowed her body to heal and her relationship with food to normalize.

​The keto-carnivore diet has provided Stefania with the metabolic flexibility and stable blood sugar that eliminated the cravings and food obsessions that had controlled her eating for years. By focusing on the most nutrient-dense, bioavailable foods available to humans, she has found a sustainable approach to eating that supports her autoimmune healing while providing the energy and mental clarity she had been seeking for decades.

Disclaimer: These testimonials are from people who shared their success stories on keto carnivore diet which is Revero’s nutrition therapy method. They are not from actual Revero patients. Clinical results are not guaranteed and outcomes are specific to each patient.