She Went From Vegan to Carnivore Overnight — Here’s What Happened | Bella Ma (Steak and Butter Gal)

**Jesse Chappus** (0:00)
Coming up on today's show.

**Bella Ma** (0:02)
I ended up eating up to five pounds of beef in a single day, and eggs up to 48 eggs in a day. One stick of butter a day at least, because I was hungry for it. When I was vegan, I constantly felt like there was this gray cloud over my life, and I was just constantly very unhappy, stressed, and anxious over nothing really at all. But what happened after six years was I lost my period. I wrecked my skin, I felt horrible, I had brain fog. I got into Juilliard when I was vegan, but that was not because of my vegan diet. That was sheer willpower. I white knuckled my way through those years to get into that school, and when I got in, I burned out. I crashed and I burned.
Within that first bite, I truly felt like I was coming back to life again. I literally did no salt carnivore for four straight years. Every time I experimented with salt, I felt like crap, tired and lethargic. I felt bloated and puffy and just heavy. Didn't really feel as good as no salt carnivore until I became genuinely happy. I wake up and I'm not chasing things to feel happy. A lot of humans don't even realize how great they can feel because they are living in a world that's filtered by the brain fog that they're getting from all of the carbs and the seed oils and processed foods they're eating.

**Jesse Chappus** (1:19)
Bella, before going carnivore, let's go way back and talk about the state of your health.

**Bella Ma** (1:24)
Absolutely. So before I went carnivore, I was six years into my vegan journey. And I initially started the vegan diet because at that time, I was 17 years young. And like any other 17-year-old girl, you start wondering what's going on with my body. I'm starting to gain weight. My body is changing. I have my period. I don't truly understand what is actually going on inside. And because I was also a pianist, and I was studying to be a classical piano performer, I was frequently competing in competitions, doing after school performances. My whole world revolved around music, piano.
And I noticed that my concert dresses were starting to fit tighter and tighter. And so my immediate thought when I was 17 at that time was, oh my gosh, I need to lose weight. This is wrong. This is bad.
And so I went online. And that day when I went online to search for how to lose weight, Freely the Banana Girl popped up. I don't know if you are aware of this person, but that day she popped up. She was flaunting her six pack and her figure. And she was saying that if you eat a raw till four vegan diet, you could lose weight super fast. Raw till four is basically eating fruits and vegetables raw. You don't cook it, you don't steam it, you don't touch it, you just eat it raw. And when 4 p.m. hits, you get to eat as much cooked starches as you want. Still needs to stay vegan, so rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, steamed veggies, all of the above. And you could eat as much as you want and you will lose weight.
So I was like, well, this sounds doable because I love fruit and I love rice, being an Asian. And I tried it and I did in fact lose weight. But because I stopped eating the seed oil, the takeout, the fast food, obviously I lost weight initially. And because I was young and I will say the vegan community, they're very good at making you believe that the vegan diet is in fact the best diet in the world, not just to save the planet, but also for humans, I fell into the trap into believing no, no, this is going to work if I just keep going for longer and longer and if I just stick to it.
And I stuck to it for six years, but what happened after six years was I lost my period. I wrecked my skin, I felt horrible, I had brain fog. By the time I was six years into the vegan diet, I got into Juilliard for my master's degree as a pianist, and I was really struggling because the competition at that school is unreal, and I was feeling stressed every day because my brain fog wouldn't go away. I just felt like I couldn't actually get the practice and the work in the practice room done because I had brain fog and I couldn't focus. So I think that was the last straw was, man, I just felt like I couldn't be the student that I wanted to be. And being on stage, I had got anxiety attacks before I walked on stage. I started having memory slips. And so it wasn't just my health, it was also my performance as a musician. That really made me wonder, I don't think the vegan diet is going to work any longer. I lost the period, I got a blood test. My doctor sat me down and said, you are extremely deficient in a lot of things, B12, vitamin D.