From Vegan to Carnivore: Healing Through Food AND the Nervous System — with Natalie Daniels

Natalie’s own story starts almost two decades ago, when she began feeling “off” and, on the advice of medical doctors, went plant-based. What followed was 15 years cycling through vegan and vegetarian eating — including a fruitarian period while living in Indonesia. Her body eventually broke down: six years of debilitating joint pain, brain fog, mood swings, an inability to build muscle, and binge eating driven by how nutrient-depleted she had become.

The turning point came while she was living in India. An Ayurvedic doctor diagnosed her with nonalcoholic fatty liver simply by measuring her pulse — a claim she initially dismissed, until an ultrasound confirmed he was right. He suggested a month of meat broth; she wasn’t mentally ready for that yet. But the seed was planted. Back in Europe, she found the Paleomedicina clinic, went all-in on the Paleolithic Ketogenic Diet, and eventually moved to Hungary for a full year to train directly with the doctors who developed it — writing an 80-plus recipe PKD cookbook along the way.

Natalie brings something rare to this conversation: clinical experience supporting more than a thousand patients through Paleomedicina, including running in-person healing retreats in Hungary and Norway before the pandemic — combined with her own hard-earned understanding that diet alone isn’t always the full answer.

We dive into ideas like:

• A 15-year search that ended in breakdown. From plant-based to vegan to a period of eating almost entirely fruit in Indonesia — and the six years of joint pain, brain fog, and binge eating that followed once her body gave out.
• The pulse diagnosis that changed everything. How an Ayurvedic doctor’s fatty-liver diagnosis, confirmed by ultrasound, eventually led her to the Paleolithic Ketogenic Diet and a year living in Hungary to train with the clinic that developed it.
• What actually makes PKD different from carnivore. The specific fat ratio designed to sustain ketosis, the emphasis on nutrient-dense organ meats like liver, bone marrow, and brain, and why it’s used clinically as a nutritional intervention for chronic disease.
• A client’s Crohn’s remission in four months. One of Natalie’s earliest client experiments — a woman bleeding daily from Crohn’s disease who found sustained remission on PKD before Natalie even had full clinical backing to recommend it.
• “I became allergic to life itself.” Years into her healing, while living in a polluted city and an unsafe relationship, Natalie was diagnosed with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome — reacting to everything from leftovers to the smell of car air fresheners, despite her diet being as clean as ever.
• The realization that her nervous system, not her food, was the missing piece. How returning to meditation, breathwork, and somatic practices she’d let lapse — not another dietary restriction — was what finally calmed her immune system.
• Movement as medicine. Her daily rhythm of hard training four times a week, constant “movement snacks” throughout the workday, and the influence of biomechanist Katy Bowman, who deliberately keeps her dishes on the floor to force natural squatting.
• Favorite breathwork techniques for different moods — from slow, long-exhale breathing to calm stress, to fire breath for energy, to alternate nostril breathing and humming breath as a bridge back to the present moment.
• Her biggest lesson after a decade with clients: the body never responds to a single input alone. Healing means looking at the whole picture — sleep, light, stress, relationships, identity, and food — and finding whichever piece needs attention first.

Natalie’s message by the end of the conversation is simple: relax. The body is meant to heal itself — give it the right input, in whatever form it needs, and it will.

If you’ve ever done everything “right” with your diet and still felt stuck — this conversation is for you.