This ONE Diet Mistake was Destroying Her Heart
In a Nutshell
Reena Alawalia shares how her invisible struggles with anxiety, depression, night eating syndrome, and an eating disorder—fueled by high-carb, low-fat diets, excessive cardio, and undereating—persisted despite looking thin and fit, until carnivore (high-protein, high-fat meat-based eating) eliminated food noise, cravings, and symptoms without exercise. She critiques medical oversights ignoring diet's role in mental health, dementia (like her dad's FTD), heart plaque, and insulin resistance, urging whole unprocessed foods over processed keto products, calorie counting, or pharma reliance. Key advice: Women especially must eat 1,800+ calories of fatty meats like ribeye to avoid thyroid issues, binging, and metabolic shutdown for optimal health and longevity.
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One of the most dangerous myths in medicine is that if you look thin and fit, you're automatically healthy. The host discovered they had plaque despite appearing thin and fit. In this episode, they sit down with Reena Alawalia, host of the Primal Podcast, to discuss how a picture-perfect life can hide internal issues. For those whose labs look fine but relationship with food, body, or brain tells a different story, the conversation offers clear, practical ideas for taking back control without self-criticism.
Reena has never been overweight or obese, which she says is a more difficult problem because it's invisible unlike obesity. Growing up, she experienced anxiety, depression, OCD. Doctors prescribed SSRIs and recommended behavioral work but never mentioned diet, exercise, or light therapy. Nothing improved.
Reena developed an eating disorder from overexercising, obsessed with body image. At 18, she ran on the treadmill for over an hour to burn calories. Her diet: large bowl of Wheat Bix cereal (Australian cereal) with skim milk every morning; baked beans on toast after running; three Wheat Bix with brown sugar in the afternoon; chicken breast with flatbread in the evening. This was high-carb, low-fat.
She had night eating syndrome: waking up fully conscious at night, unable to control behavior, eating a full day's worth of food. Next day, shame leads to overexercising and repeating the cycle. Advice at the time (20 years ago): do cardio, exercise a lot, eat low-fat (not yet counting calories). Low fat didn't fuel her brain, worsening issues.
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