How it Began
When I transitioned out of the Army in 2009, I had to learn that it was ok to go see a doctor; and when you saw them, you could actually tell them that something hurt. You need to understand that when you are in the military, particularly in a combat arms type of position, going to see a doctor is never really an option. It is a culture that you become a part of, where people who go seek medical attention are labeled as weak; so you can imagine that in an all-male, high-testosterone environment, seeing a doctor is taboo and you avoid it at all costs. You learn to self-diagnose and self-treat. For a lot of us, it was Motrin [to deal with the chronic pain]. I would take Motrin 800’s by the handful; we called them “Ranger Candy”. I spent almost six years in the Army and during my time in, I amassed a decent list of injuries; broken wrist(s) nine times, broken foot three times, both clavicles broken, four broken ribs, two herniated discs and countless stress fractures, broken fingers, sprains, strains, tears, etc. I also can’t forget the partial hip replacement and bi-lateral tinnitus. As a grunt, the treatment for these issues was to drink water and drive on…with the help of Motrin of course. After I had transitioned out of the Army, it took me a little while to grasp the concept of going to see a doctor for help.
For as long as I can remember, when the weather would change and get cold, every joint in my body would ache. I would have pain in my wrist constantly, which my doctor told me was arthritis, and then I started to get the same pain in my hip. So, I went back to school in 2009 and finished a bachelor’s and master’s degree in kinesiology. I worked in research and rehab with a wide variety of patients as well as working in sports performance and coaching. As I settled down and started a family, I transitioned into my career in engineering…a desk job. This was a new endeavor for me because I had never worked in an office before and I wasn’t familiar with that setting. It was very foreign to me. So I became less and less active. My pain continued and began to increase proportionately with the weight that I was gaining.
I was hitting a very low point. It would take me at least a half an hour to get out of bed. I would try different “diets” and I would start exercise programs, everything from Beachbody programs to CrossFit. I would be able to go strong for a month, maybe two, but would eventually stop because of an injury, pain or scheduling. The only thing I really would do consistently was yoga, which would help a little, but with having a family with young kids became hard to balance time with them and time to find a class. I pretty much ate whatever I wanted in the Army and could manage it because of the amount of activity that I was doing and I felt that same thing would apply to my life now. I would push myself, get results, and then back slide, for one reason or another. By continuing to take my Motrin would work through the pain.
I hit rock bottom. At almost four hundred pounds, I was having chest pain, and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. I have helped people learn to walk again, helped people lose weight and achieve their personal goals; worked and coached collegiate and professional athletes to help them achieve their goals. There isn’t a fitness, nutrition or wellness certification out there I don’t hold and I even taught classes for those organizations…but I couldn’t fix myself. So, I just gave up.
Fat For Fuel
I remember the next day after I accepted defeat and I saw a comedian interviewed on Conan in a YouTube clip. So, like most rational, busy people at work, I searched for more videos with this comedian and watched him on a podcast. That podcast sparked my interest so I downloaded more episodes. On one of those episodes was a person talking about a “keto” diet. I was already a little familiar with it as a means of treatment for epilepsy and cancer, but I didn’t know or understand the ins and outs of it. It peaked my curiosity because this person was a researcher and not a person trying to sell something. I continued down this “rabbit hole” for the next month or so, just listening to other podcasts with people discussing the ketogenic diet, as well as low-carb, high-fat diets. I also began going through PubMed and researching on my own. Everything that I was finding and hearing was telling me something contrary to what I was taught in school, but the science made sense to me. So after a month and a half, I just decided that I was going to try this out and see what happens. I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing, I just did it. My wife, who is a nurse, started to become suspicious about what I was doing because I was, in essence, eating at least a pound of bacon a day, a half dozen eggs, an avocado, and cooking everything in butter. She would tell me that I was going to have a heart attack and everything along those lines and rightfully so, I was not healthy and I was over-weight.
I found switching to a “keto” diet to be easy from a consumption standpoint, but it was less easy to explain (at first) socially. I began to lose weight rather quickly and I felt better. What was amazing to me was how easily I could get out of bed. By the third month of doing this, I could get out of bed immediately after I woke up. I noticed that I didn’t have to hobble around like an old man, but I could actually get out of bed, change and start my day. Exercise began again, slowly, and scaled, but I was starting again. I also started to run on the treadmill and I use the term ‘run’ very loosely; it was more like a trot. This might not seem significant, but when I had to have my hip surgery, the doctor told me that I would never be able to run again and that I would always have chronic pain. A few years later, a doctor at the VA told me that I would always be in pain, after administering a cortisol injection. So there I was, on the treadmill….trotting…and it didn’t hurt (my joints, at least).
After eleven months of embracing a low-carb, high-fat diet, I have lost over 120 lbs and more importantly, I am not in pain. It is winter in Detroit and my joints aren’t aching for the first time that I can remember. I do have to report that I have taken Motrin a couple of times, but that is only because I have begun training for ultra-races [running] and my weekly mileage is starting to get up around 100 miles.
I used to eschew personal testimonies for hard data and research, but I purposefully haven’t included it in this piece. There is a surprising amount of research available on PubMed that explores the ketogenic diet, pain, and inflammation, but I did not try “Keto” because I wanted to use it therapeutically. I tried a ketogenic diet because I had created an echo chamber full of people and resources that were reputable and experienced; who slowly convinced me to give it a shot because nothing had worked for me long-term in the past. Losing weight was my initial hope, but it has been a life changing experience. No longer waking up in pain or experiencing chronic pain was just another by-product of embracing a low-carb-high-fat diet.
Over the last decade, I have amassed a great deal of education, certification, and training in health and fitness, but have never really felt like I have had a platform to share that because of my size and weight. I now feel like I have the platform because of my change. Also, having passed through the VA medical system and the revolving door of prescription pain management. I have watched my fellow vets go through it as well. Health not improving, prescription pain management, and feeling alienated and without hope. I can tell them about research and data about ketogenic diets and chronic pain, but that will largely have no impact. However, if I can share with them my journey, experiences, and successes than that will resonate. It already has on a small scale and my hope is to reach a broader audience of people who are experiencing that same struggle that I went through and show them that change is easier than they realize.
[Editor’s Note: Ben’s concerns about the weather for his first race were justified. They were expecting temperatures in the single digits (Fahrenheit) but at the start it was minus one (-1). Read about his experience here.][Ben Davis: Army Vet – Blog Contributor]