Jordan Peterson’s Diet (extremely low carb):
Meats:
- turkey
- beef
- chicken
- lamb
- duck
- wild game is fine too, elk, moose, etc.
- wild salmon
- tuna – check the ingredients! Get stuff that’s just tuna and water and perhaps salt.
- organ meat – chicken liver tastes the best I find
- wild herring – check the ingredients!
- wild sardines – check the ingredients!
Veggies:
- lettuce
- arugula
- arugula microgreens (arugula sprouts)
- cucumber
- swiss chard
- seaweed –check the ingredients! this is hard to find without soy and other things. The brand I’ve linked to is safe and really tasty
- cilantro
- collard greens
- broccoli
- spinach
Fruit:
- olives – check the ingredients! see my olive post. be super careful about which brands you buy here too, many have preservatives and flavours and dyes.
Vinegar:
- apple cider vinegar – try to get the organic stuff so there aren’t dyes and flavours added
Oils:
- coconut oil – get unrefined. And try to avoid the Nutiva brand. It’s everywhere but it doesn’t taste as good, and I’ve had ones that have gone bad before.
- olive oil – make sure your olive oil is pure olive oil. Sometimes it’s also soybean oil!
Spices/Seasonings
- salt
- pepper
- turmeric
Mikhaila Peterson’s Diet (Zero-carb Lion Diet):
Beef
Salt
Soda water because I’m a princess
Dad doesn’t tolerate carbs well. He’s cut out sweet potatoes, parsnips, and carrots and is down to JUST meat and greens. Those of you who have been following for a while may see changes from the original diet here. The original diet is what worked for me pre-pregnancy. For whatever reason, I lost the ability to tolerate any carbs (so any vegetable) after/during pregnancy. It took me about 6 months to realize what was going on and then switched to all meat (Dec 2017). Dad may be going zero-carb soon. He can get his mood to a 7-7.5/10 with the above diet but I don’t think that’s good enough. Zero-carb is easier, and there don’t seem to be any downsides. Currently symptom-free and thrilled about it. I also love steak.
You have given me a lot to think about… Thank you for sharing your experience. My wife is experiencing severe food-related reactions that we are going to treat with diet. Your experience has been of great value to us.
Have you read Dr. Gundry’s “The Plant Paradox”. He lays out the reason why some plants have toxins that make our immune systems over-react.
I heard about your blog on Joe Rogans podcast interview with your Dad. (I’m currently addicted your Dads work!) I was wondering if you and your Dad are in Ketosis from this diet? Have you ever tested it with the Keto Strips? Did you do any blood work before and after? I’m wondering how your HDL/LDL is looking. Thanks so much for your work here, it’s fascinating!
I’m going to test my HDL/LDL next doctors appointment so I can write a post about it (and out of curiousity). So keep posted for that! As for ketosis, we’re always in ketosis. We use the keto strips 🙂
I’m bipolar 2 with a tendency toward long deep depression and very light mania. I have taken many different meds during the past 15 years… None seemed to work consistently. I also suffer(ed) from a myriad of physical health issues; high blood pressure, severe back pain, body aches and pains, fatigue, anxiety, panic attacks, gout, skin issues (rashes, peeling skin on face, weird sores), sleep problems, sensitive stomach (pain and diarrhea alomst every morning) etc etc etc.
During the past 3 years I went through a process almost identical to what you have gone through. It started when i had a stomach Illness that hinted to me that my diet had a way bigger impact on my mental health than what my doctor’s ever told me. I noticed that whenever I had a stomach problem of some sort, all of my physical and mental symptoms went haywire. I began reading anything and everything about mental Illness (studies, books, articles, YouTube videos, etc). I studied this stuff during every free moment I had, I was obsessed to say the least. Soon after I started researching, my wife got pregnant, so I was also Inspired by the fact that my wife was pregnant and I was about to become a father, I wanted to get myself in order to be the best dad possible
All my studying resulted in me embarking on a mission to figure out what diet is best for my physical and mental health. I made a vow to not stop experimenting on myself until I figured it out. I have tried almost every diet in the book; vegetarian, vegan, raw vegan, microbiome, South Beach, Atkins, banana diet, keto, zero carb, bulletproof, fruit only, fasting, intermittent fasting, juice fasting, to name a few. I kept a detailed journal of every single thing I put into my body, down to herbs and spices. I concurrently tracked and recorded different biomarkers, like skin issues and the severity of my pain. I also tracked my mood and my duration of sleep. I got periodic blood tests and checked my blood pressure often.
Where I’m at now is the best place I have ever been. My experiment is still ongoing, but I have settled into a diet that combines intermittent fasting, longer fasts and keto. OneNote about fasting is that it’s well known in history and the Bible. Almost every religion incorporates fasting. It makes sense too… After a 2 or 3 day fast, you can completely wipe out your bad gut bacteria. Even a 1 day fast helps.
I have recently considered stopping my daily intermittent fasting and just eating keto, then fasting once a week. Then fasting for 2 or 3 days once every month.
One cool trick up my sleeve is that whenever I start to feel a little bout of depression, anxiety, or panic, I just stop eating for a day or two. The fast can be tough, but it wipes out my depressive symptoms within those 1 to 2 days.
I’m really excited for you and your dad. It was only about 1 month ago that I found out about your Dad. I started watching his stuff and, no joke, it’s changed my life. After a couple weeks I saw a YouTube video where you and your dad were interviewed. Your experience with both mental and physical health seemed to mimic mine. Then I found out about your diet blog and was intrigued by all the similarities between our experiences and research. Needless to say, you and your dad have another fan for life. What you guys are doing is having an enormously positive impact on people’s lives. I also feel that you are on the right track to finding the root causes if mental illness.
I really apologize for the extremely long comment. I felt that I had to share my story, that it might reaffirm that what you are doing and the results you are acheiving are not just isolated to you and your family. I wasn’t sure how else to contact you.
In closing, thank you so much for what you are doing. I’m going to try contacting your dad to say thank you too. You guys are changing people’s lives for the better. Good luck as a momma!
First, I realize you are extremely busy and I don’t expect you to respond my ramblings lol. I also hope you don’t see this as me trying to hijack your blog or thread. I’m just trying to back up your experiences and let other readers know that this works!
Hopefully my ramblings offer you or your readers some new ideas, tips, or things to look out for. It took me a LONG time to figure some of these things out. Some of the effects of different foods have been extremely difficult to figure out. If anyone is interested in the other things I have found, please ask. I’m always willing to share. I am very active on a few subreddits sharing my experiences in the hopes of helping others find their own answers to their health issues.
In my previous comment (novel) I forgot to mention that the combination of Keto and intermittent fasting has completely erradicated 95% of my physical and mental health issues. The last 5% might just be the result of the fact that I have a hard time adhering perfectly to my diet long term. When I cheat on my diet, I can definitely feel it but I can usually withstand 1 small cheat meal per week without many Ill effects. It’s a slippery slope to try allow cheat meals though. The longest I’m able to be “perfect” is about 2 weeks. I’m hoping to acheive perfect long term adherence.
Your blog has given me a few new tips and tricks to experiment with though. I didnt realize peas were legumes lol. I was making a mistake eating peas… I had come to the same conclusion about legumes, but I didn’t fully research all the foods that were actually legumes. You have also inspired me to strive for perfection in my diet.
In my dietary quest /experiment I have made note of quite a few “cause and effect” relationships, such as “nuts often cause me irritability the following day or two”, and some theories regarding digestion and how it affects us…
One example of this is that I have noticed that it takes different foods different amounts of time to manifest their effects. For instance, the effects of refined sugar effect me almost immediately, whereas the effects of starches can take 2 – 3 days to feel / see. My theory is that different foods (or different substances within each food) are broken down at different points in our digestive tract. Some foods are broken down in the stomach, some are broken down in the large intestine, and some in the small intestine. It’s either that, or that the biological process’s in our body that process every food’s nutrients take a different amount of time depending on what the nutrient in the food is.
My little theories are based on my own experiences and experimentation but they also factor in all of the amateur research I have done over the past few years. I can’t really say that they are MY theories, they could just be theories that I have seen and affirmed through my own research.
I don’t claim to be an expert, I’m not a doctor, I’m not a nutritionist, but I have done and am still doing a comprehensive elimination diet. I have learned a lot about my body’s reaction to different foods and I’m still learning new things almost every day. I encourage EVERYONE to try, it’s the best and most impactful thing I have ever done in my life!
Good post Ryan, I have also come to that same conclusion about the variation in delayed effects of certain offending foods. It makes things so hard to diagnose. It’s simple but it’s hard.
I read where banana skins over areas of psoriasis really helped, so I offered this tip to a friend who has bad psoriasis and he was amazed at the relief he got.
Thank YOU for sharing. I grasp every little bit of info I can get on one’s experiences etc. I have become a lifelong fan of the Petersons and their help through downright truth telling and no facades.
Ryan…please look into Amber O’Hearn a Carnivore blogger and researcher diagnosed with Bipolar 2 who had been on a multitude of drugs without success. A nine year veteran of Carnivorous eating – mostly beef and water – and no longer needs meds. She is a prominent Spokesperson in the Carnivore Community and frequent guest on podcasts.
My diet is very similar to your dad’s diet and it took me a couple of years to get there. It’s very interesting to see that he came up with pretty much the same result as I did regarding which foods he can and can’t eat. My body negatively reacts to legumes as well.
I still eat nuts and pork but might try to remove those from my diet. I was wondering if he might also be reacting to apple cider because of the histamine (I do). I found that apple cider can easily be replaced with malate (that’s the acid from the apple without the histamine). You just put a little bit of the powder into the water and use it instead of apple cider.
Additionally, for your diet, I was wondering if you have tried collagen powder (Hydrolyzed Collagen Powder from pasture raised beef). It’s a good source for essential amino acids and helps restore the gut. I feel like this has helped to reduce my symptoms somewhat over the last couple of months.
I use omega-3 supplements (Fish Oil), but there are also vegetarian sources or sources made from krill. I feel like omega 3 is extremely important for a happy (and healthy) brain as well.
If you are looking for an additional boost of energy on the keto diet it’s extremely important to eat enough salt (I use Himalayan salt). It looks crazy to people when you sometimes add 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon of salt to a Liter of water but on the other hand the other people get a lot more salt through bread. So that’s important.
I can also strongly recommend C8 (which is part of coconut oil that can be used by the brain) for energy and focus. Not necessary to take it all the time when you are in ketosis because it’s very similar. Definitely good if you want a boost for exams or a workout.
All the best.
Hi Mikhaila,
I’m just getting into all of your Dad’s are your hard work. Joe Rogan is where I learned about you. I’m proud of your success and the impact your family is having on mine and others. Good job!
Leave a comment