The Mistakes I Was Making, and The Messy Truth of My Healing Journey so far
Yesterday, I was about to share my big "before and now" photos for my Carnivore journey so far. Then a memory on Facebook stopped me!
A dear friend had said to me on Saturday night, You need to share your photos; people need to know your story. Well, I have on many occasions over the years. But I decided to share again, as you just never know who it might help.
I often stop myself from sharing, because I do not want it to be all about me, but I also realise my journey is a powerful one and one that I should share, because I am just a normal woman, who has struggled with her weight pretty much my whole life, and severe chronic health issues and autoimmune for the last 7 or 8 years. I also used to struggle with feeling not good enough for society because of it. So, my voice in this world, I realise is important.
Anyhoo, I stopped myself from sharing it last night (Sunday 5th October 2025). Because I had just shared another photo that had come up on my Facebook memories from October 2019, and I realised I needed to tell the real, messy, non-linear story first.
The Photo That Lied
On the surface, in that 2019 photo, I look great. Happy, glowing, full of hope. It was just five months after I'd been in a hospital bed, swollen beyond recognition (as you can see in the photo above), my body shutting down. It was two months after my first eye operation for rapidly progressing cataracts, and I could finally see again. I was also just back from a week in the sun, so I was Sun-kissed and relaxed.
But that photo was a lie. It was a mask, constructed from flattering angles, makeup, and a smoothing filter that my husband had on his phone. It was the face I showed the world while my body was still screaming on the inside. Back then, I would never have shared a "normal," unfiltered photo of myself. I couldn't bear it. It was easier to kid myself on that I looked like the face in the photo.
What you don't see in this picture is the reality behind the smile. You don't see that I'd had to step back from my business for months just to function. You don't see the bone-deep fatigue, the constant pain, or the angry inverse psoriasis still covering my body, that was like having skin that had been tortured with a blow torch. This photo wasn't reality; it was a mask.
A Glimmer of Hope, and a Setback
During the tail end of 2019, I was so full of hope and continued on my newly found healing journey. I had my appointment booked for December that year with the Rheumatology Specialist. I was really nervous about going because I had always and still did just blame my weight. I thought absolutely everything came down to that. I was scared what they would say, I was scared they would try to force medication on me. Like the methotrexate that had been mentioned by my GP.
But what happened when I went to that appointment in the December was completely different from what I had expected. The Dr I saw was very holistic in her approach. I told her what I had been doing and she actually said to me that I was her ideal patient because everything I was doing was correct. I was thrilled and it really spurred me on to do more. She told me to continue what I was doing and gave me some more advice. She also noticed something that had never been picked up before and that was that I was hypermobile. My joints were hypermobile especially in the lower extremities. Hips, Knees, ankles. And she referred me to the podiatry clinic, where it was discovered that I had a slightly shorter right leg. So this was also brilliant as they gave me special made insoles for my shoes. This helped a huge amount with the pain I was in.
This all took place between December 2019 and early January of 2020. Then my health dipped again. I had my second eye operation in January 2020. I hadn’t realised back then because I was not trained in what I am now, that the trauma of the eye surgery, both the first and second ops. That they would send my body into full autoimmune flares due to the stress and fear around the ops themselves. Even though I was trained in Stress management, my understanding of autoimmune at that time was very limited.
Just as I began to pick myself back up a bit, the world shut down.
Lockdown hit. I had to close my salon, a business I'd poured my heart into for two years. I was stressed out of my nut, with no idea where the money to live was going to come from. All that initial healing went completely off the radar. Like so many people, I found myself back in an unhealthy relationship with food and "wine o'clock."
“But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”
― Martin Luther King, Jr.
What followed was not a straight line to health
So, in July 2020, I began again. I paid for help, started another program, and I did really well. I lost almost 5 stone. But it was all about weight loss. It was never about the root cause. And that was always the issue.
But what also had happened was that I had by that stage spent a year or so fully researching nutrition and the autoimmune protocol (AIP). I had also come across the training to become an AIP Certified Coach.
I decided in January of 2021 that I would study the course and add it to my BA Complementary Healthcare qualification and I kinda decided there and then that I would make it my mission to help others who struggled like I did.
As I began studying in Feb 2021 I realised just how little I knew about nutrition and how the human body works, especially in chronic health and autoimmune. I knew I wanted to learn more, so I emailed Active Health Group and set up a call with Richard Johnson, the founder and now my own mentor. I bought the course in the March of 2021 knowing that if I waited until I had finished the AIP Certification that I wouldn’t do it.
The Studying Years
The next four years were a blur of studying, stress, building my business and hitting menopause, where, as many of you know, everything changes completely again. I was still fighting fires, not getting to the arsonist.
Living those studying years, the aftermath of lockdowns and Covid. Trying to still run a hair salon, study and build a business took their toll on me. I also began our home educating journey during these years too, in 2023. At the same time I went in to full blown menopause. Jeez I am laughing to myself even typing all of this, no fricking wonder I was struggling to get well and my health was up and down like a yo-yo. STRESS is not good for us!
Finding Keto
It was in the summer of 2023 I first discovered and began researching proper nutritional Keto. I had reached a part of my studies where I was deep diving into advanced nutritional protocols and keto was one of them.
Just to diverge slightly, I have always and still am a very spiritual person and I believe fully we are shown our path to take, whether we pay attention or not is a different story but I truly believe this. So during these deep research dives and this time of immense studying, I used to spend my evenings watch YouTube. I found it a great way to switch study mode from reading and writing to listening.
One particular night, I had been watching something, can't remember what it was. But when the podcast/video finished, something else came on because I had let the video continue without going to find something else. What came on was one of the biggest catalysts for me to specialise in low-carb nutrition for chronic health. It was a man named Mark Sisson, you can watch one of the many many videos of him being interviewed by clicking here. This particular one was him and Mark Hyman, MD. A great watch.
OMG, I loved listening to him and everything he spoke about made so much sense to me. I couldn’t get enough and watched everything I could find on all of this. Metabolic health, keto, everything. And that has been my world now for the past 2 years or so.
I signed up to join the Nutrition Network founded by Professor Tim Noakes and have been researching and studying low-carb, keto and carnivore ever since. You can watch Tim Noakes and his videos here.
Reflections and Lessons Learned
There is lots more in my other blog posts about my personal journey and you can find them on my Blog landing page.
But as I reflect back over these last 6 years and just how much I have learned. Not just about the science behind all of this, but my personal learning. My learning about me, connecting with myself on a deeper level. Realising that I have lived with food addiction my whole life. And just how long I also have had underlying Candida overgrowth in my body. And I have researched this now in great depth. And it was driving another thing that was holding me back from healing and that was alcohol cravings. I wrote a bit about alcohol and cravings in my post about Candida, and you can read that here.
"Every time you eat or drink, you are either feeding disease or fighting it." - Heather Morgan
Back to Today and the Now
And that brings me to now. To the past five weeks on a strict carnivore diet. This isn't just another diet to me; it's a targeted, therapeutic assault on the root cause that has plagued me for decades, the candida. OMG it all makes so much sense the further into this journey I get. The food cravings have gone now completely. Well the physical ones, and the psychological ones are deffo getting less and less. But something I noticed one day last week that I had not thought of. I no longer craved alcohol. Now this had been something I had gone through many times over the years, especially as a hairdresser and whilst I still worked in the salon one day a week before finally stopping back in July this year.
Hairdessers can be very guilty of either not eating at all (this was me) or having about 5 mins to do everything from eating, having a coffee, going to the loo etc all at once. So for years and years I would often do two 12 hr shifts per week. I preferred to do it all at once and create more days off for myself. And often I would fast these days. At the end of the day I would not just fancy a glass of wine, I would crave it so bad I felt like an alcoholic. I hid those feelings because I felt guilty. I would excuse myself for doing it because, well I just made the excuse that I enjoyed it, I deserved it for working so hard.
What I didn’t know was that I was starving, then feeding the very pathogen that was most likely the root cause of making me sick in the first place. Candida releases alcohol, especially during times of fasting for example. So even when I thought I was doing great on a clean keto diet, I was anything but. It was this never ending cycle of cravings and severe candida overgrowth symptoms in my body. And it was only to get worse.
But anyway, back to today, to now. I am 5 weeks in, 16 lbs down in weight. My skin (the blow torched skin fold bits) is finally healing. It is taking time and I reckon I might be another 3-6 months before it heals completely. I honestly do not know and time will tell. But it gets better each day. What used to keep me awake half the night with the extreme itching is not the case anymore.
The FAT Trap
I do want to share some of my other updates and experiences from the past couple of weeks, as I didn’t write an update last week. After initial success, the first 2 weeks losing the 14lbs, I hit a wall. My weight loss stalled, I even went back up a few lbs again. I was deeply fatigued, constipated, and hit with cravings again so intense they felt like a physical need. I was doing everything "right," but I felt "blugh." (this was between the last 2 weeks).
I knew what I was eating was ok, but I knew something wasn’t quite right. Then I tracked my macros. The truth was a slap in the face: I was under-eating fat by over 70 grams a day. Which I have to say, is quite easy to do in both Keto and Carnivore. Much easier than you might think.
For decades, we've been brainwashed to fear fat. That fear was so ingrained that even on a diet where fat is the primary fuel, I was subconsciously starving my body. My body, perceiving a famine, slowed my metabolism, held onto its own fat stores, and shut down my digestion. It was also very much hindering my healing, because my body did not have the internal fuel or energy to do it. So my skin had started playing up again too.
None of this was a failure of willpower, but it was a tell tale sign, that even me, someone who understands the macros and the importance, that I often need help too. I went to a fellow practitioner and sounded off with my situation and asked for a bit of support as I am just human too and we all need help at times.
So getting back to what was going on with me. The constipation was awful, but it was like I could feel stuff dying, I know that sounds gross but I am so aware of my own body now and even more so this past 6 months because I have tracked and journaled about every single step of the way. It was like the "dying scream" pathogens in my gut were creating this horrid effect again throughout my body.
When I did manage to go to the loo a wee bit, I experienced a massive biofilm purge, a foul, messy, undeniable clearing of toxic waste, the cravings were at their absolute peak. It was the enemy's last stand haha. Those little Feckers, that I kinda picture like red M&M’s with pitch forks and sharp growly teeth.
So I began correcting this fundamental mistake and began fuelling my body properly, the real healing has begun at a speed I've never experienced. This was all about maybe 5 days ago now I think. I massively upped my fats intake and protein as I needed more of that too. But I knew the fat was the biggest issue. Plus I realised I was probably low in magnesium too, so I ordered a magnesium complex and another powder form to help.
Well the difference in the next 48 hrs were profound.
- For the first time in years, I began sweating properly again. My body, finally feeling safe and well-fueled, has switched its engine back on.
- I have really prominent, dark varicose veins on my legs and they are visibly reducing as the systemic inflammation that damaged my blood vessels finally calms down.
- The fungal infections in my ears and on my nails are clearing.
- My dizziness, which I now understand was caused by a decades-long, diet-induced iron deficiency, and other things, is gone.
- I am back to being regular in the loo yippee hahaha as this seriously was not fun.
- I feel brighter and just switched on in my brain. I also feel so much happier in everything.
- I no longer have cravings for either food or alcohol
- My skin is sooooo much better, this is so massive for me as it was so incredibly painful and itchy. Plus it massively affected my sleep, so to get my full nights sleep back again is like a gift from God.
I am healing from the inside out. It's messy, it's unglamorous, and it's the most powerful thing I have ever experienced.
Why I Want to Shout This From the Rooftops
If you had told me, a former vegetarian, that my healing would be found in beef, bacon, butter, and eggs, I would have laughed, and said NO CHANCE. Now, I want to shout it from the rooftops.
I am making my voice heard because the very Dr’s, Health and Nutrition experts and researchers who taught me these truths are being demonised by mainstream narratives.
The mainstream health narrative would have us all believe that the one-size-fits-all Food Pyramid is healthy. I can assure you it is not. If it was, why have chronic health problems escalated so much in the last 50 years since the food pyramid changed? Oh, and you can read more about this in the big fat lies blog post here.
I am sick and tired of being hidden by social media for my alternative to the narrative views and algorithms hiding me behind a wall so deep. I was disgusted to watch a Dr Ken Berry video last week, where he had lots of guests on and every one of them had been labelled as giving out mis-information. All because they help people in a different way than what Mainstream would have you believe. It sickens me to the core.
And what pisses me off even more is that when I talk about my own healing and how this way of living has reduced every symptom I have etc. It is like speaking into a void. People have often looked at me or treated me like I am nuts, or that I was never that ill in the first place. That I do not know what I am talking about.
I am living proof that the healing capacity of a clean, whole-foods, ketogenic or carnivore way of life is real and profound.
My journey has been anything but linear. It has been full of false starts, setbacks, and AHA moments that help me move further fwd. each time.
Every wrong turn led me here. To a place of true understanding.
This is why I do what I do. This is why I became a practitioner. Because I have lived it. And I know, with every part of my being, that true, deep, cellular healing is possible.
And I too am still on my journey. I still have a significant amount of weight to lose, and there will be some out there that see this as me not knowing what I am talking about or whatever! I couldn’t care less now, because I know first-hand what this journey is like. And I research and still study weekly to keep up-to-date with everything in the world of Nutritional Science.
I hope this helps give anyone out there hope.
Hope that healing and improvement is possible, and it does not take doing Carnivore to get started. Click the link at the bottom of the page to see how we can work together on your health.
Much love
Linda
Linda McClure
Cut the Bullshit
In Health | In Business | In Life
Bespoke Branding | Creative Web Design | Nutrition Expert
