I’m On the Lion Diet. Rawr Means Help.
Day 39 without carbs.
Current weight: unknown (scale is packed up like most of my life still and I’m emotionally too fragile to unbox).
Mood: somewhere between “feral cat in a bathtub” and “Kate Winslet in The Reader.”
Breakfast: beef.
Lunch: elk.
Dinner: lamb.
Snack: beef in the shape of breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Let me begin with the basics, darling. I am on what is known as the Lion Diet—which sounds like something Gwyneth Paltrow made up on a juice fast in the Alps, but is in fact quite the opposite. It is not vegan. It is not plant-based. It is not even plant adjacent. It is ruminant meat (think: cows, lambs, and wild creatures with hooves who chew their cud and mind their business), salt, and water. That’s it. No leafy greens. No almond flour muffins pretending to be real baked goods. No cheeky splash of oat milk in my coffee, because—spoiler—I no longer drink coffee.
Yes. I miss oat milk. Yes. I miss being a person.
But you know what I don’t miss? Sugar. Inflammation. And feeding my cancer like it’s a pet I accidentally adopted from hell.
Why the Bloody Lion Diet?
In short: because my cells decided to go rogue, start a little revolution in my colon, and I am no longer available to participate in their toxic rebellion.
Enter: metabolic therapy. The idea that many cancers—not all, but many—run on sugar like it’s diesel fuel. When you deprive them of glucose, they go… well, they don’t throw a tantrum, because tumors don’t scream. But if they could, mine would be wailing like a Real Housewife at a reunion special.
You see, ruminant meat contains zero carbohydrates. Zilch. Nada. Which means my blood sugar stays low, my insulin stays stable, and my cancer doesn’t get its favorite snack. No sugar for you, you mutinous little bastard.
And yes, I hear you asking from the back: But what about fiber?
To which I say: Fiber is a lie. A well-dressed, overhyped, bloating-inducing lie. If fiber were so miraculous, why am I not miraculously healed from my years of kale consumption and probiotic fairy dust?
But... Why So Extreme?
Because I am at war.
And war is not the time for moderation or muffin tops.
My enemy is clever. It uses my own cells against me. It hides in my colon like a squatter refusing to pay rent, throwing wild house parties full of oxidative stress and cell division. Meanwhile, the medical system offers chemotherapy (which I am not currently doing), surgery (which I may still need), and a shrug.
So I gave myself a fourth option: take away what it needs to survive.
No sugar. No carbohydrates. No seed oils. No cheat days.
Just meat. Specifically: grass-fed beef, lamb, and sometimes a tragic hunk of bison that tastes like regret and prairie dust.
And look—I’m not saying it’s glamorous. Gwyneth is not going to show up with a Lion Diet cookbook full of bone marrow crème brûlée and tallow soufflés. My meals are cooked slow in tallow and salt and eaten with the vibe of a prisoner chewing through shame. No charring. That’s a biggie because burning meat can be it’s own carcinogen.
It lacks variety, but it is simple.
And in this season of cancer and collapse, I crave simplicity like an ex I shouldn’t text.
What About Joy?
Ah. Yes. Joy. That thing that used to come in the form of red wine, flaky pastries, and sipping espresso in a sundress on a patio like the world hadn’t gone to shit.
Do I miss it? Of course.
But do I miss feeling bloated, anxious, depressed, and full of sugar cravings and inflammation? No.
Because here’s the weird, twisted truth I’m learning in this raw, salt-stained season: Joy is not always pleasure.
Sometimes, joy is waking up and not being in pain.
Sometimes, it’s remembering a name your brain used to forget.
Sometimes, it’s knowing your body is fighting for you—not against you.
The Lion Diet is not my forever. It is my for now.
It is a line drawn in blood and tallow between me and the thing trying to kill me.
And every bite I take is a whispered “not today.”
A Bit of Backstory:
I was vegan—or, more accurately, cheegan (cheats-on-diet-for-cheese)—for eighteen years. I watched the Gerson documentary in the early 2000s and swore that if I ever got cancer, I’d be going raw plant-based and doing daily coffee enemas like it was my job. But with more evidence coming out that cancer thrives off sugar, I had to look into the science.
From a 2019 paper published in Cancers: "Use of the KD as an adjuvant to cancer therapy also began to emerge. In 1922, Braunstein noted that glucose disappeared from the urine of patients with diabetes after they were diagnosed with cancer, suggesting that glucose is recruited to cancerous areas where it is consumed at higher than normal rates. During that same time, Nobel laureate Otto Warburg found that cancer cells thrive on glycolysis, producing high lactate levels, even in the presence of abundant oxygen. Warburg conducted many in vitro and animal experiments demonstrating this outcome, known as the Warburg effect."
More current research supports this metabolic approach:
Dr. Thomas Seyfried (2014). Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: "Cancer cells rely on fermentation of glucose and glutamine due to damaged mitochondria. Cut the glucose, starve the tumor." (Carcinogenesis, 35(3), 515–527)
Klement & Champ (2014). "Low-carb, high-fat diets can improve survival and reduce tumor size in colon, pancreatic, and glioblastoma cancers." (Journal of Clinical Oncology, 32(3), 339–340)
Clinical Trials: Ketogenic diets are being actively studied as adjunct therapy:
NCT02352896: UCSD - glioblastoma
NCT02286167: Keto with chemo/radiation
Results show better energy, tumor stabilization, and improved treatment tolerance.
Hopkins & Goncalves (2020): "High insulin and IGF-1 promote tumor growth and spread. Ketogenic and carnivore diets reduce both." (Nature Reviews Cancer, 20, 169–183)
Why Ruminant Meat?
Humans have been chasing ruminants with sharp sticks since before we had language. Our digestive systems love this stuff. Our mitochondria throw confetti. Your body recognizes it like an old lover. One you actually trust.
Ruminant animals are those dreamy, four-stomached, grass-chewing, cud-spitting creatures like cows, lambs, bison, elk, and deer. They have a special digestive system that ferments plant material in a microbial rave happening in their stomachs. They break down the cellulose and turn it into fatty acids, B vitamins, and other delicious nutrients so we don’t have to. It’s like they’ve already done the hard work of detoxing the plants for us. Gentlemen. Scholars. Kings.
Beef—especially grass-fed—is loaded with:
Heme iron (the kind your body actually absorbs)
Zinc, selenium, and B12 (necessary for cell repair, mood, immunity)
Creatine, carnosine, taurine (things that help you think and feel and not die slowly from the inside out)
Omega-3s (in grass-fed sources)
Collagen & glycine (especially if you eat nose-to-tail)
Meanwhile, chicken and pork?
Meh. Higher in omega-6 fats, prone to inflammatory imbalance, and raised on god-knows-what in most places. Factory-farmed pigs and poultry are basically soy-fed sadness in feather or hoof form.
Ruminant meat is less likely to trigger food sensitivities, leaky gut, or inflammation—especially when it's grass-fed and finished. It's like the gentle therapist of meats: calm, grounding, emotionally available. Chicken, by contrast, is more like your chaotic ex—it seems safe until your skin breaks out and your joints start aching.
Ruminant meat contains:
No carbs
No sugar
No insulin spikes
Which makes it the perfect weapon in your personal anti-cancer artillery. When you eat only ruminant meat, you’re telling cancer:
"You can either die now or starve slowly, but brunch is canceled, bitch."
🚫 Why Not Other Animals?
Pork – Often fed GMO grains and soy, higher in inflammatory omega-6 fats, and metabolically jank. Yes, bacon is sexy. But your colon deserves more than sexy. It deserves safe.
Chicken – Also omega-6 heavy, less nutrient-dense, and weirdly hard to digest when you’re metabolically wrecked.
Fish – Great for brain health, but full carnivore on fish alone is risky due to mercury and nutrient gaps.
Eggs, dairy, organs – Sometimes tolerated, sometimes not. Ruminant meat is your safe place. Your beefy weighted blanket.
I am eating beef, bison, lamb, venison, goat, and elk along with duck fat, beef tallow, small amounts of butter, salt, broth (homemade not store bought) and farm fresh chicken eggs.
Why Not the Gerson Method?
Ohhh, the Gerson Method—aka the raw juicing, coffee-enema, kale-till-you-drop protocol. A name whispered like folklore in the crunchy corners of the internet, passed down like a sacred scroll from the Church of Celery.
Let’s get into it. Brutally. Honestly. With a dash of bile.
What Is the Gerson Method? Developed by Dr. Max Gerson in the 1920s, the Gerson Therapy is a plant-based, high-carb, low-sodium, low-fat protocol designed to detoxify the body and boost the immune system. It includes:
13 raw juices per day (mostly carrot and apple)
3–5 coffee enemas daily
Massive doses of supplements (potassium, enzymes, B12, thyroid extract)
Zero animal protein, especially in the first phase
No processed foods, salt, or oils
The Gerson Method is high-carb, high-fructose, and sugar-heavy—hello, carrot and apple juice every hour on the hour. For a healthy person? Might feel great. For someone with a metabolic disease like cancer—especially one growing in an organ directly connected to insulin and glucose regulation?
That's like tossing gasoline on a dumpster fire, then doing a coffee enema to pretend you’re "detoxing."
Cancer loves glucose.
Cancer is a spoiled brat with a sweet tooth and a sugar addiction. And Gerson gives it a juice bar and a hug.
No fats. No proteins. Just juice, supplements, and enemas. You are essentially withholding critical building blocks your body needs to regenerate, rebuild, and heal.
Protein? Gone.
Fat-soluble vitamins? Gone.
Strength, energy, satiety? Gone, girl.
The Gerson Method is a starvation diet dressed up as a healing modality.
And for someone already fighting cachexia (cancer wasting), this isn’t healing—it’s a slow euthanasia with a juicer.
Coffee Enemas Don’t Cure Cancer
Can they feel stimulating? Sure.
Can they cause electrolyte imbalances, infections, and even death? Also yes.
You know what cancer patients don’t need more of?
Stress on the liver. Or risk of sepsis via the rectum.
Aren’t we already fighting enough battles without pumping hot espresso into our asses five times a day?
Though mainstream medicine often pushes plant-based diets, there are inherent risks for cancer patients:
Many plants contain lectins, oxalates, and phytoestrogens that can exacerbate gut permeability and hormone imbalance.
High-carb vegan diets can elevate insulin and feed cancer cells, even if “clean.”
I believe Gerson was trying to heal. I believe his heart was in the right place.
But when you’re staring down a diagnosis like colon cancer, you don’t have time to play nutritional roulette. You need something metabolically sound, biologically nourishing, and battle-tested by real science—not just testimonials from someone’s cousin on a juicing forum.
So no, I’m not doing Gerson.
I’m doing steak, salt, water, and a fuck-you to the tumor that picked the wrong girl.
Yours in meat and madness,
A very tired lioness
🦁🧂💧
A blog post by Rachel Smak on grief, loss, and lessons from stage 3C rectal cancer
