Where the Idea Came From

I’m not going to “blame” anyone for turning me onto zero carb. I’ll admit though, it was a surprise to me when I first heard about it. It’s not exactly what we’re taught, is it?

I bought Tim Ferris’ book Tribe of Mentors for myself as a bit of a pick-me-up. I was looking for inspiration, and it had good reviews. Tribe is a book of advice. Tim sent 11 questions to a bunch of really successful, famous, well-known people, then took their answers and wrote a book. That’s incredibly over-simplified, but that’s what the book is. It’s neat. It’s cool. It’s thought-provoking.

Page 506 started off with a quote:

“Several years ago, following the example of my then wife, Amber O’Hearn, I eliminated all plants from my diet . . .”

The quote was from Zooko Wilcox. I’d never heard of him, but his quote grabbed my attention. I started wondering who the hell stops eating vegetables, and why. I skipped over Zooko’s story about how he dropped out of college and ultimately wound up in the interesting world of cryptocurrency and read the four, short, intriguing paragraphs about why he stopped eating plants. Then, I did a Google search for his former wife, Amber O’Hearn, and discovered her Empirica website. After a bit of reading there and some trips around the internet, I ended up at a Facebook group called “Zeroing In On Health” (ZIOH).

Another thing happened on December 7, 2017 that brought a lot of attention to ZIOH. That was the interview of Dr. Shawn Baker by Joe Rogan on his podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience”. Dr. Baker’s an orthopedic surgeon who lifts weights and who advocates an all-meat diet. I didn’t listen to it, but it was really popular and a LOT of people were checking out the ZIOH group. It took me a while for my membership in the group to be approved, but I’m glad I’m a part of it.

In short, the information and anecdotes presented in the ZIOH group were enough to convince me that I wouldn’t die going ZC for 30 days. So on December 11, 2017, I stopped eating veggies, carbs, and anything that didn’t come from an animal, with the exception of tea and coffee. So far, so good.