How the Carnivore Diet Saved My Marriage—and Changed My Life

We'd given up smoking, drinking, drugs, late nights, excess, and all the other sins we’d grown fond of, or at least attached to, in adolescence. We had two beautiful children, a roof over our heads, our sobriety, and a healthy approach to exercise. So why did I still feel exhausted physically and aimless mentally, day after day? Why was Alex, my wife, still so often feeling like a downtrodden, energy-sapped failure? I was cooking what I thought was healthy food for every meal. Brown rice. Chicken. Spinach—all the spinach. My spinach consumption rivaled Popeye the Sailor Man’s. I thought we were in good shape. What was with the 3:00 p.m. brick wall every day? Why, when we had become the “healthiest” people we knew, did we not feel better?

One day, dreading making brown rice, I looked up “how to not be tired in the afternoons.” In seconds, I was looking at the headline i fucking love meat. Down the rabbit hole I went. Next thing I knew, I was watching a video of Mike Tyson talking about his meat-only diet. Before the end of the video, I was in.

Or . . . at least I would give it a shot.

When I was sixteen, I wanted to be a rock star. When Alex was sixteen, she longed “to be taken away by the men in white coats.” She’d had feelings of hopelessness and what she now believes was existential dread from as young as six. Ten years later she was prescribed drugs for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, though she hadn’t been diagnosed with either. The list of side effects of such drugs can run roughly the length of this article, but some of the more prevalent in her case included dizziness, loss of coordination, dissociation, and memory loss.

Those years are foggy for her.

In her desperate mind, being locked up in a psychiatric ward felt like the only way she might get the answers she needed. Trying to fix what she was suffering from—without being sure what it was—felt like bailing water with a colander. She disappeared into painting, shutting herself in a room with the blinds closed, making art through the night, losing her grasp on the concept of time, and losing touch with her people.

She aced the classes she was able to focus on, she was growing up in an adoring and supportive family, and boy was she talented. But the antidepressants, antipsychotics, and antianxiety medications piled up, and not only did they not help, but in her eyes they also made what should have been a bright future—college, friends, a painting career, because she was that good—look like gray doom. More diagnoses: anxiety, depression, ADHD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, addiction, hormone imbalances, body dysmorphia, and eating disorders. But even this is an incomplete catalogue. The majority came with their own medicinal cocktails, each of which involved titration periods and side effects.

Not once did she walk into a doctor’s office for mental-health reasons and get asked about her diet.

In high school, the fact that I was a year younger than Alex rendered me invisible to her. She was living in an endless nighttime squall, and I was in love.

Then high school ended.

Next came Alex’s art-school era, when she was rarely seen without dark sunglasses, a drink in her hand, a cigarette hanging from her lips, and a flowing black cloak of self-loathing. Having grown up in the nineties under the influence of the Kate Moss dictum that “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” she was also trying to shrink herself down to fit unrealistic beauty standards.

A torturous diet of wine, cigarettes, and dust was not, she would realize, giving her the body she craved, and she decided to add new suffering to the regime by joining a gym. At first she dreaded each visit. Every minute on the treadmill felt like an hour. But she was determined to lose weight. So she kept it up, and before long she saw changes. Good changes. The three-mile run that used to take the better part of an hour was now down to thirty minutes. When she stepped off the treadmill, she found herself surfing out of the gym on a wave of endorphins, her face flushed, her blood pumping. Maybe these mood-boosting exercises could replace her vices.

But in true ADHD fashion, for Alex training quickly became a hyperfixation, escalating into yet another misguided pursuit of happiness. She was giving everything she had in order to be the strongest and most physically defined person she could be, because she thought that would make her the happiest person she could be.

The author and his wife, Alex, at a Libertines concert in London in 2022.

It was when Alex was descending into the gym—I was twenty-four, she was twenty-five—that we reconnected and became an item. I made it a point to ask her questions about her favorite albums, books, scary films, anything to get to know her. Her obvious intellect and dark, witty ways captivated me so much that I found myself comparing nearly everyone I met with her. I was so enchanted by her that I was unable to recognize that her approach to training was becoming anything but healthy, even when she began training for (I shit you not) fitness competitions—stage-strutting events at which judges decide whether you look as yoked as you think you do.

Like a boxer making weight, Alex knew exactly how many calories she ate in a day. There was zero room for error. She was buying expensive personal-training plans and following them obsessively, working out twice a day. The food restrictions and training volume came at the cost of all social interactions. I, stupidly, encouraged her. What could possibly go wrong for someone with obvious, heartbreaking body dysmorphia walking on stage in a bedazzled emerald-green bikini, wearing six layers of fake tan so that strangers could judge her physique?

I don't recall how or why the fight started, but I remember how it ended. It was a scorching, airless day in Los Angeles, and my wife and I had set out on an iced-coffee and green-juice run, a blissful, time-honored ritual for pre-kids couples. One moment, we were basking in one another’s presence, talking aimlessly and amiably. The next, Alex had flung herself out of the car before I could come to a stop.

Alex is British. The desire to not be a nuisance is in her blood. I’ve seen her apologize to people who walked into her while she was standing still. I’ve seen her apologize to mannequins. But on this day, she had very momentarily lost the ability to care about causing problems—the obvious one between us and the equally obvious one that was now four cars deep behind us.

I tried to match her pace and pleaded with her to get back in the car. I was desperate to help her. At the moment I thought I’d reached her, as she had paused long enough to close her eyes and fill her lungs with oxygen—as she returned to earth—an abrasive, understandable horn blared from the Acura behind us, sending her marching off again.

I wish I could say this mood swing was an exception, but volatility was increasingly becoming her natural disposition. The more the mood swings happened, the more creatively we tried to solve them. The green juice we were after that very day constituted one of her attempts at achieving equilibrium and health. In solidarity, I had begun to look after myself as well—I knew I had my own issues. We felt that we were getting too old for our youth. Alex wanted to enjoy her life. I wanted to accomplish more with mine. But no matter how many green juices we pounded, nothing stuck.

Then came the day of the almonds.

July 2016, a suffocating, muggy afternoon in our Williamsburg walk-up. There were almonds on the counter. I was hungry, and there they were, looking right at me. So I ate them.

What I did not know was that Alex had to satisfy the diet component of her training plan by eating the required seven almonds at precisely 3:00 p.m. What I could not have known was that there were only seven almonds remaining in the apartment. She had counted them out, and it was 2:58.

The author and his wife at the opening of a Battistoni clothing store in Beverly Hills in 2016.

It happened in slow motion: I tossed the almonds into my mouth, as one does, and just then she walked into the kitchen, saw me, and screamed, “Nooooo!” She cried. Cried for what ended up being three hours. She hurled blame at me for being so careless and selfish, so distraught was she about—in her mind—losing all the progress she’d made. She shouted, “It was all for nothing!” over and over and, through tears, threatened to book a flight back “home” to England.

This wasn’t her. When she was eventually able to talk through the explosion of emotion, she apologized again and again—but she didn’t need to. She explained that the rigidity of her diet had started to dictate her thoughts and feelings. Now she was finding her way, on her own. My last memory of that day is restocking the cupboard and watching her toss a handful of almonds into her mouth without counting them.

She never ended up on that stage in a bedazzled green bikini.

What force brought us together? What force brings any two people together? Shakespeare didn’t know, nor did Neruda, nor Kinsey. Not scientists who study human behavior, not matchmakers who used the zodiac during the Han dynasty or the algorithmic matchmakers of today. Not the generations of pop stars who keep writing love songs. But we find each other, don’t we? We form our bonds. Sometimes the one turns out not to be the one and would have been better off as the none. So what? We keep trying. God only knows Alex and I had made some bad romantic choices before ending up together. But then: Eight billion people crawling over each other, trying to live, achieve, love, develop, thrive, and prosper, and we collided. As a couple, we’re proud of the lengths we’ve gone to maintain the connection we have. We love each other, but more, we love how much we love each other.

Isn’t it a privilege to be a human? To fight for the very bonds we create? To love as hard as we do?

It took us a few more years to find our way to carnivorism. We’d quit all the bad stuff but still felt shitty. Then I found Mike Tyson.

A lot of factors contributed to the decision, mostly our mental and physical health. But it was the sheer savagery of it that piqued my interest. While I have been known to incorporate half-naked bear crawls through icy forests into my workout routine or don three layers of fleece and thermals while working out in the summer heat, I still think anyone can relate. The name alone evokes images of our ancestors hunting down prey and roasting meats over an open fire. I wanted explosive strength and endless stamina. I wanted to look and feel like I was crafted by the hands of the gods, able to face the elements fearlessly.

Who doesn’t?

As a child, I ate without restriction, though processed foods didn’t enter the house. I never understood the pull of ice cream but would Hoover up pints of lemon sorbet like it was my job. I loved making crustless pizzas with a vodka sauce. (If you like the crust, go get yourself a loaf of bread). In college, I found processed foods and made up for lost time. When, in my mid-twenties, I finally discovered “health,” I became a green machine, slathering grilled chicken breasts in pesto, roasting bunches and bunches of broccolini, and choking down the brown rice I had come to believe was a necessity for longevity and health. The large, azure ceramic fruit bowl that had once been the centerpiece of my grandmother’s dining table became my personal salad bowl. Try as I did, I found it near impossible to satiate myself on greens and was continually disappointed by the taste of the rice. I found it hard to trust anyone who told me they liked it. My only goal was to respect my future self, so I kept to my strict diet of leans and greens for years.

If only I knew what I know now.

Alex and I embarked on this carnivore journey together, but her reasons for starting, and sticking to it, are different from my own. What her research suggested was that fat, which for so long had been demonized, could turn out to be her savior. An increase in animal-fat intake leads to a reduction in inflammation. This can manifest in the form of healing skin conditions as well as reducing inflammation in the brain, potentially leading to a calmer disposition. Fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, seed oils, alcohols, and, most important, anything processed can be inflammatory and are not necessary for our survival.

(A quick note here: These statements are not endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration, and you’ll find plenty of doctors and nutritionists who would say I’ve been brainwashed. But you’ll also find many who affirm all of this, and I believe them. I’m living it, and how I look and feel are empirical facts.)

(Another quick note: As long as it’s under 3 percent, the FDA Inspection Instruction Manual allows canned peaches to be wormy or moldy. How about no percent?)

In order to live, we need fat. We need protein. That’s it. Fruits and vegetables are filled with nutrients, but they’re not completely bioavailable—our bodies don’t know how to absorb everything in them. Ruminant meat (from grazing animals) is one of the most bioavailable forms of protein and fat. By eliminating everything else listed above, the body goes into a state of ketosis, burning fat rather than glucose as an energy source. By becoming fat-adapted, the body has access to a larger store of energy, allowing for a longer and more consistent level of energy. The all-meat diet is also celebrated within its community for offering increased mental clarity. Just as the body fat-adapts, so does the brain. Since I started, my afternoon lulls have become afternoon spikes and remain that way right up until I put my head on the pillow. Only then do I conk out like a tranquilized rock.

While my old flame spinach is a brilliant host for an alphabet of vitamins, calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, and folate, it brings with it a high concentration of oxalates, one of several antinutrients and the loose cannon of this health party. In February 2019, Liam Hemsworth was hospitalized with kidney stones. The culprit? “I was vegan for almost four years.” His variety was a “calcium-oxalate kidney stone. It forms from having too much oxalate in your diet. A lot of vegetables are high in oxalates: spinach, almonds, beetroot, potatoes. Every morning I was having five handfuls of spinach and then almond milk, almond butter, and also some vegan protein in a smoothie. And that was what I considered super healthy,” he told Men’s Health at the time. “So I had to completely rethink what I was putting in my body.”

His rethink included copious amounts of meat.

Fruits, you ask? In my thirty-three years, strawberries have become girthier and more saturated in color than could possibly be expected of any fruit observed in the wild. They’re humongous. I don’t believe in strawberries anymore. Through a combination of intensive farming and soil depletion, most fruits are losing what nutritional value they have left, bioavailable or not. A notable 2009 study by Donald Davis of the University of Texas showed “inverse relationships between crop yield and mineral concentrations,” with declines of “5% to 40% or more in some minerals in groups of vegetables and perhaps fruits” between 1950 and 1999. Conversely, sugar content in fruit has increased, which might explain the moreish feeling I’d get every time I ate a pineapple.

As for weight, this carnivorous diet is directed at striking a weight balance rather than losing or gaining. For those who need to lose, the diet helps them lose. For those underweight, the diet brings them to their ideal number. It’s been used to treat both undereaters as well as overeaters. It’s helped put autoimmune disorders into remission. The Standard American Diet (with the fitting acronym SAD) is known for keeping insulin levels spiked throughout the day, resulting in fatigue of the body and mind.

Though not strictly carnivore, the ketogenic diet is a close relative in that it is also low-carb and higher-fat. I’d flirted with keto a year before but found the upper limit of thirty grams of carbs to be restricting. Restrictions and I don’t get along. Weighing slices of apple and eating peanut butter by the teaspoon didn’t provide me the boost of testosterone I was after. I crave excess. The binary and uncompromising rule of carnivore (animal vs. not animal) makes me feel right.

Carnivore and keto diets are being studied as effective treatments for those who suffer from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, diabetes, dementia, and even Alzheimer’s. In 2020 the then CEO of the American Diabetes Association, Tracey Brown, revealed that she’d treated her own type 2 diabetes by leaning into a ketogenic diet. After unearthing all this information, weighing up the benefits and risks, Alex and I agreed to start the next day, April 13, 2024. She was all in. We were committed for thirty days.

I haven’t eaten a vegetable since.

We only eat animal products. Steaks and bacon, yes. Sauces and oils, no. If you’re the type of person who enjoys seasonings, you’re allowed salt. These are the rules of the strict carnivore diet. I’ve become a salt connoisseur, having embarked on this journey using pyramid-shaped flakes of locally sourced sea salt before graduating to the alluring rosé salts hailing from the Himalayas. The diet is extreme but simple. Does it come from an animal? Knock yourself out. Add salt. Roll credits.

We talked about our shared love for cows—and about coming to terms with the fact that we would be eating so many more of these animals we adored. One early weekend, we visited Alex’s mother and her garden (her pride and joy) in Sussex, near the southern coast of England. The morning we left, after a breakfast of eight scrambled eggs and a healthy serving of bacon, we walked to the supermarket and scoured the deli section to prepare a makeshift charcuterie board for the train journey home. We skipped down the aisles filling our baskets with mozzarellas, prosciuttos, aged Parmesans, hard-boiled eggs, slices of cooked bacon, and even a bottle of cream each. Drinking a bottle of British heavy cream in one go felt backward and delicious.

We were kicking our sugar addiction during the first weeks, inspiring us to get creative with our meals. We baked Parmesan-crusted chicken wings, whipped up meat-centric omelets, spun carnivore pizzas using ground chicken as a base and nixing the tomato sauce, and even wrapped a bouquet of bacon roses. I tried my hand at making a chicken pâté, which, though I loved it, was quite a slog for what amounted to be a condiment for steak. I keep wondering when I’ll try venison. I keep thinking that if it tasted as good as beef, it would be as popular as beef. As for offal, I opt for the desiccated variety (that is, pill form).

Up next was what I call the trust-fall stage. Our “How did you sleep?” became “Am I fat yet?” I was eating bacon as an appetizer and more bacon for dessert at breakfast, lunch, and dinner—but I hadn’t ballooned. It was scary eating that freely. Fifteen days in, the weight started falling off. Between days fifteen and thirty, I lost twenty-one pounds. Nine months later, I’ve added ten back but dropped two sizes around the waist. Muscle weighs more than fat, after all.

As the days ticked by and our knowledge grew, we fell into a routine focused around eating ruminant animals. We were eating cow, cow, and more cow. The reason ruminant animals often prevail within the carnivore community is their ability to turn nearly anything they ingest into consistently clean meat. This is down to the four chambers within their stomachs, as opposed to a single-chambered pig, which is more sensitive to bad feed. I think of the ruminant-animal stomach compartments as filters. More filters, cleaner meat. Cleaner meat, healthier human.

We were rooting for each other’s success more than we ever had, about anything, in our relationship. The compounding effects of our increased energy, weight loss, and heightened mental clarity had us exercising more—and more efficiently. We’d push harder in less time. Even our exercise fell into sync and we began giving each other challenges to complete in the gym. Who can wall-sit for longer? Could I do one hundred push-ups before she did fifty? No glamour muscles; we were building real strength. All without being judged while wearing micro bathing suits.

I believe with my whole heart that our meat-exclusive life was helping bring back the twinkle in Alex’s big, beautiful, piercing blue eyes.

Last week, I was stocking up on eggs at our local grocery store. As I set down ten cartons at the register, the cashier gave me a knowing look and asked me what restaurant I was working at that was having a kitchen disaster. I lit up—I do love a bit of smugness—and told her that I was going to eat every last one of them myself, that I eat about twenty on any given day. Cue: questions about cholesterol.

Allow Harvard University to take this one: “Scientific studies show a weak relationship between the amount of cholesterol a person consumes and his or her blood cholesterol levels.” That’s from an article written in reference to a study by Maria-Luz Fernandez, a nutritionist at the University of Connecticut, who described the “need to acknowledge that diverse healthy populations experience no risk in developing coronary heart disease by increasing their intake of cholesterol but, in contrast, they may have multiple beneficial effects by the inclusion of eggs in their regular diet.”

As important to love as cholesterol is communication, and the communication between Alex and me has been much healthier than it used to be. We don’t agree on everything, and I would never expect us to. What we’ve gained is an ability to listen and reason with one another. Our relationship feels synergistic. At various points in our history, I felt I was carrying the weight of our family so that she could focus on healing herself. Maybe I was enabling her. Little things like school runs and dog walks became my sole responsibility. Though we’ve never spoken about it, I’ve noticed that we now trade off or—even better—go together. I certainly never feel bad if I have to ask a favor of her. If anything, I’m saddened by the times I did feel bad. It feels like we’re reliving the early, happy, everything-is-awesome phase of our relationship but as a mature couple. It’s extraordinary.

Alex, who is sitting beside me as I write this, says her issues have not magically vanished, but they’ve become manageable without the aid of stimulants and antidepressants. While the antidepressants staved off some of the depression, they also robbed her of joy. Having never experienced a numbness like that, I struggled to relate to her and found it frustrating when she showed no excitement about the things that consistently make other couples happy. Upcoming birthdays, exciting work projects, even a new apartment did nothing for her mood. It was only two years ago—one year before the carnivore project—that she was diagnosed with ADHD and thrown onto Vyvanse.

At first it seemed like a miracle drug, the answer to life’s big questions. But as her body acclimated, the relief waned, her eating habits became anything but habitual, and her sleep was restless.

Within two weeks of carnivorous eating, my wife tapered off her ADHD medication without any discomfort. There’s still a pillbox lying around somewhere, but she has never sought it. She swapped pharmaceuticals for rib eyes and bacon. Not once has she threatened to move back to England when I’ve taken a bite of her food.

The last time I was ravenous was the day I started this diet. I’m no longer tethered to thoughts of food. Meat fills us up in a way that acai never could. I used to either eat five meals a day, still only scratching the surface of satiety, or be too lazy to go through the schlep of cooking five meals and still feeling hungry. The consistency with which I had to eat seemed unnatural, and yet there I was, in my kitchen again.

In the time it took me to stand from the dining table and walk my plate to the sink, I found room to eat something else. I would eat while I cleaned dishes and then make a snack for whatever the next activity was, especially if the activity was preparing a snack. Now I take twenty minutes to grill steaks and bacon and set myself up for the full day. Why eat thrice when you can eat twice? I don’t feel hungry after a workout. I don’t really feel hungry at all. Take today, for example. By 8:00 a.m. I’d taken down two brisket burger patties, eight crispy fried eggs, and a side of pork crackling. Lunch was a New York strip steak (from a farm that is soon selling us a butchered cow), plus two more brisket burgers. For the past month, I’ve scrapped dinner. The sensation of hunger pangs is no longer one I need to contend with. It’s more like an inner voice telling me it’s time, giving me a new understanding of what it means to listen to your body. And with it has come greater focus for work tasks, like writing this piece.

No longer does Alex’s hangriness wield a tyrannical power over her and, in effect, our house. (Once, a takeout order arrived an hour late missing a side of naan, sending Alex to the bedroom weeping. I didn’t see her until the next morning.) Now we’re grateful to be flexible and casual about the whens, wheres, and hows.

Given the “food” promoted to the masses these days, I would agree that this diet sounds extreme. But as it is debatably the first human diet, there’s an argument to be made that the way everyone else in the world eats now is extreme. Plus, I’d rather be contrarian to popular opinion than to my health. We don’t force our children to eat the way we do, though we encourage it and try to educate them as much as we’re able. We do have two house rules about food: 1) You have to be able to pronounce every ingredient, and you have to be able to picture it. Just because I don’t eat a tomato doesn’t mean that my kids can’t eat a tomato. My kids can pronounce “Pop-Tart,” but good luck with tert-butylhydroquinone, one of many head-scratchers in its list of ingredients. And go ahead, try to describe what that preservative looks like.

2) While we don’t have an outright ban on sugar, it seldom makes its way onto their plates because of how many single-ingredient foods we eat as a family. The two rules have had the effect of taking away our children’s tolerance to sugar. At the odd birthday party or holiday where they get a slice of cake, the difference is staggering. They morph into evil gremlins who hyperfixate on either bursting our eardrums or finding more sugar. My daughter actually once shouted, “I’ll stop screaming if you let me have more cake!”

Just as I’ve become aware of what I ingest, I hope I’ve also become more aware of my wife’s cycle and how to be as supportive a husband as I can. We’d been married for seven years before I began learning about the monthly changes in her body. It became easier to not take it personally when she got touchy once I’d taken the time to figure out what stage of her cycle she was in. I remember once scribbling be nice in big, bold, capital letters, underlined and circled, across an entire week on the calendar because I wanted to both prepare for and be sympathetic toward her emotional ups and downs. Even when her emotions were stable, I wasn’t allowed anywhere near her due to the bloating she was so self-conscious of. Surprise, surprise, the carnivore diet appeared to fix that too.

There are drawbacks. The shame I felt trying to convey what I could eat while on vacation in Italy was immense. First trying to figure out whether the steak I wanted to order would be cooked with oil and, second, asking for it not to be was an experience I would never like to relive. Asking for substitutions and omissions in metropolitan American cities already makes me cringe, but fumbling through it at a local Roman trattoria just felt mean.

We also consistently face doubt. My own mother told me last night that she was going to send me not one but four articles detailing why I was harming myself by eating only animal products. She sent seven, including “7 Reasons I Don’t Recommend the Carnivore Diet as a Dietitian,” “To Follow the Real Early Human Diet, Eat Everything,” and my personal favorite, “Eating Red Meat Daily Triples Heart Disease-Related Chemical.” The final article is referring to trimethylamine N-oxide, colloquially known as TMAO. Published on the National Institutes of Health website, the piece describes how a diet rich in red meat can triple the amount of TMAO in one’s body, which “enhances cholesterol deposits in the artery wall.” Long ago, this would have frightened me, but I don’t fear cholesterol anymore. Having gone down a rabbit hole on nih.gov, I came across this tidbit of conflicting information written by Ghada A. Soliman, a tenured professor of nutrition and director of environmental and planetary health sciences at the City University of New York: “For decades, the notion that elevated blood cholesterol is resultant from dietary intake cholesterol and saturated fatty acids were universally accepted. However, several follow-up studies showed no association between dietary cholesterol (egg consumption) and serum cholesterol, all-cause death, total coronary heart disease, or other heart disease problems.”

We do become more sensitive to the things we’ve given up. I used to inhale pastas, and now I have no idea if I could handle them. Alex ate a restaurant steak one evening and felt sick for the rest of the night for unknown reasons until we tracked it back to the steak and what it had been cooked in—the steakhouse rubbed their meats in oil before searing them. As upsetting as it is for something like a seed oil to sneak into your food and cause a dramatic reaction, it’s illuminating to finally understand the effects they had on our body when we were ingesting them in large quantities on the daily. Just as we don’t want to build a tolerance in our children to sugar, we also don’t want to ingest enough of these ingredients to develop our own tolerance.

So if this diet has so drastically revolutionized our lives, why is it that it took us so long to find it? How is it that if type 2 diabetes can (according to some doctors) be managed with a low-carb, high-fat diet, it’s treated with insulin? If obesity can be tackled with the carnivore diet without feelings of deprivation or starvation, as carnivorism proponents contend, why is it treated with Ozempic?

The fact that primary-care doctors rarely ask what exactly we eat has, if anything, led us to not really trust them the way we once did. Doctors are trained in sickness rather than in health. I find it difficult to accept advice from a general practitioner who doesn’t look physically healthy. I fully support open dialogues with doctors and don’t claim to be any kind of medical expert. But is it too much to ask that my doctor at least not be overweight?

We’ve since figured out that the Day of the Almonds was a result of orthorexia, defined as the obsessive preoccupation with eating healthy food. While the way we eat now is, in some ways, extreme, it gave Alex and me our lives back. No more three o’clock wall, no more tracking macros or weighing meals. We eat until we’re full. It’s given her the psychological balance that she’d been lacking because of the orthorexia. I continue to learn from her. Her ability to keep trying to tackle her issues is one of her finest qualities and one of the reasons I’m not going anywhere.

Eating steaks began as a thirty-day experiment. What resulted bled beyond the confines of a diet into a lifestyle, strengthening my muscles and, much more meaningfully, my marriage. When I went monogamous with steak, I woke up. When Alex went monogamous with steak, it saved our marriage. Will we be carnivores forever? That remains to be seen. What we do know is that it’s completely changed her contentious relationship with food and our relationship with one another. Last Friday, I pan-fried five Parmesan-crusted chicken thighs for my dinner and sat down to eat. Alex, having already eaten her final meal for the day, was cracking away at a jigsaw puzzle she’d been at for a few days. I saw her longingly peer over at my plate of food. The succulence. The steam. The crust. It was all there. I cut off a bite and held the fork to her mouth. She looked at me with those piercing blue eyes and, as though she was trying to write the end of this article for me, said, “You know the way to my heart,” before wrapping her lips around the fork and closing her eyes.