The Viagra diet: Forget those little blue diamonds, I'm 62 and have the sex drive of a 20-year-old - here's how I did it without pills
There comes a time in a man's life when he reluctantly admits defeat over his dad bod, accepts his aches and pains and waves a bittersweet farewell to his sex drive.
Not in Phil Escott's case.
The father of three, 62, refused to accept the 'manopause'. Seeing other men his age succumb to weight gain, erectile dysfunction and chronic pain, he instead made a radical - and controversial - change to his diet.
In the process, he has lost a whopping 40kg (88lbs or 6.3st) and he's chasing Detta, his partner of 19 years, around the bedroom almost daily.
'I'm 62 and now have the sex drive of a 20-year-old, and it's purely down to what I eat,' my friend Phil tells me.
Phil is following what is commonly known as the carnivore diet - but in his case I like to call it the 'Viagra diet' because of the transformative effect it's had on his virility and libido. For the uninitiated, the carnivore diet eliminates all vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts and seeds and includes only animal products.
Think meat - especially red meat - as well as eggs and, occasionally, dairy.
Forget the proof being in the pudding, it's the protein that Phil has to thank for his new body - and roaring sex drive.
Seeing other men his age succumb to weight gain, erectile dysfunction and chronic pain, 62-year-old Phil Escott made a radical - and controversial - change to his diet. He embraced the carnivore diet, eliminating all fruits, vegetables and legumes and only eating meat and dairy
Forget the proof being in the pudding, it's the protein that Phil has to thank for his new body - and roaring sex drive. He is pictured left in 2011, when he was a vegetarian; and right in 2018 after he reintroduced meat to his diet, but was not yet exclusively carnivore
When the musician was in his late forties, he tipped the scales at almost 110kg (242lbs, or 17.3st), which was clinically obese for his height of 177cm (5'10).
Phil tried various diets over the decades, including vegetarianism, veganism and keto - a type of low-carb, high-fat fad diet. With each different approach he would lose a few kilos here and there but didn't see any real changes.
His weight continued to fluctuate - and to make matters worse, Phil was suffering myriad health issues. He would wake up in agony with crippling arthritis, his hands and body searing in pain, which forced him to give up his beloved passion of drumming. This affected his income because he made money from gigs.
But it was his lacklustre love life with his girlfriend Detta, 52, a registered nurse, that depressed him the most.
'I'd always been quite randy as a young man, but that desire started to peter out in my forties. My energy levels were low,' he tells me.
'The more body fat I put on, the less interested I was in sex.
'I hated my body and I didn't have much confidence. I was embarrassed of my man boobs and had no energy. The last thing I wanted to do was jump into bed. It was more of a pathetic shuffle.'
In addition to his low libido, Phil, who hails from the English town of Skelmersdale, was also dealing with a string of health issues that were affecting his quality of life, including a fatty liver with cysts, kidney stones, psoriasis, IBS, depression and psoriatic arthritis, which is the painful swelling of joints.
'People think arthritis is just creaky joints, but no, I couldn't even get off the sofa,' he recalls.
Phil used to wake up in agony with crippling arthritis, his hands and body searing in pain. Now he claims to be completely pain-free thanks to his radical diet. (He is pictured alongside a friend in 2015 when he was vegetarian)
'I was embarrassed of my man boobs and had no energy. The last thing I wanted to do was jump into bed,' says Phil (pictured left in 2013 and right after changing his diet)
'It's a horrific systemic inflammation that left me in suicidal pain just sitting there on the sofa without moving. I was 40kg overweight and heading for disaster.'
And here's the shocking thing: Phil thought he had a healthy diet. In fact, on paper, he couldn't have been healthier.
'I'd been a proud vegetarian for most of my adult life, switching to veganism in my thirties, then a raw vegan [diet], living on juices and fruit,' he says.
'All that did was make me lose muscle and gave me brain fog and kidney stones, which I believe were caused by oxalates in all the leafy greens I was eating.'
But Phil, who practised yoga and meditation at the time, thought he was living a clean-living, clean-eating spiritual life.
'I believed it was "unholy" to eat meat. I was 100 per cent plant-based, twice-daily fresh juices and lots of legumes. I thought I was superiorly healthy and even wrote books about eating a purely plant-based diet,' he explains.
Yet, despite owning a gym and working out most days, the weight piled on and his health took a downturn in 2010, leaving him unable to play the drums. He could hardly walk because of his pain - and that was when things turned south in the bedroom.
'I realised the days I wasn't eating veg I felt better, so I gradually stopped eating them entirely. My daily food intake was fatty meat with tallow for lunch and dinner and I instantly I felt better,' he says. (Phil is pictured in 2021 after adopting the carnivore diet)
Dr Chaffee (pictured), who has been nominated for a role in Trump's Make America Healthy Again campaign with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., says that despite cholesterol being vilified, it actually has many benefits - and one of them is that it is a precursor to your sex hormones
Phil tried the keto diet, which slowly reintroduced meat into his diet, and while he saw results with weight loss, his health issues remained.
It wasn't until he read a book by Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride called Gut and Psychology Syndrome that promoted a mostly carnivore diet to stop inflammation that Phil decided to eliminate all plant-based foods from his diet.
Pretty soon, his diet consisted solely of meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
'I realised the days I wasn't eating veg I felt better, so I gradually stopped eating them entirely. My daily food intake was fatty meat with tallow for lunch and dinner and I instantly I felt better,' he says.
Phil believes it was the 'harmful pesticides and natural toxins' in fruit and vegetables that were causing his inflammation and gut issues.
Dr Anthony Chaffee, a registered medical doctor and advocate for the carnivore diet, who sees patients in his private practice in Perth, isn't surprised to hear this.
'It's not uncommon at all for men, and women, to regain their sex drive on the carnivore diet,' he tells me.
'I saw a 72-year-old male patient recently who tripled his testosterone levels in just a few months by eating meat; he told me he felt like a teenage boy again.'
Dr Chaffee, who has been nominated for a role in Trump's Make America Healthy Again campaign with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., says that despite cholesterol being vilified, it actually has many benefits - and one of them is that it is a precursor to your sex hormones.
'Carnitine, which is found only in meat and animal products, increases the number of testosterone receptors on your cells, making the levels you have more active,' he says.
Amelia Phillips, a nutritionist and exercise scientist, warns the carnivore diet can dramatically increase LDL cholesterol and triglycerides to a dangerous level
'This can normalise the ratio of estrogen and testosterone in both men and women, and progesterone as well. Typically, we see even older men raise their levels naturally by 30 to 40 per cent in as little as three months.'
But the carnivore diet - widely regarded as a fad diet or even a 'troll diet' designed to rile up vegetarians - has been slammed by health experts.
Dietitian Hayley Stathis calls it 'ridiculous' and says she would never recommend it. She adds that, contrary to claims it reduces inflammation, it actually makes it worse.
'The carnivore diet is a ridiculous idea and an extremely dogmatic approach that I would never advise anyone to follow,' she says.
'Without vegetables and fruits, people aren't getting enough fibre which causes issues with digestion and gut microbiome.
'The diet lacks antioxidants and has been shown in many studies to promote inflammation and increase the occurrence of kidney stones, gout and some cancers.'
Phil says this hasn't been his experience. Not only did his weight stabilise, he claims his inflammation disappeared and he is no longer in pain.
However, he believes that it wasn't eating meat that stopped his inflammation, but rather cutting out all vegetables.
Phil claims he hasn't seen a doctor since 2012, has come off all his prescription medication, and insists his blood tests show normal parameters - despite a slight rise in LDL cholesterol, which he claims is 'healthy'.
Not so, according to nutritionist and exercise scientist Amelia Phillips, who explains the carnivore diet can dramatically increase LDL cholesterol and triglycerides to a dangerous level.
'This can increase heart disease risk and considering heart disease is the number one killer of Australians, understanding where your risk levels sit is very important before embarking on carnivore diet,' she says.
But the number one question Phil gets when he tells people of his meat-only diet is not about his heart, but his bowel movements.
'People assume I have constipation with only eating meat, but my toilet habits have never been so regular. I go once in the morning and I am done. I don't need to wander around the shopping centre looking around for a toilet for an emergency poo at McDonald's,' he says.
Phil has a son, Tom, 35, from a previous marriage, as well as two children with Detta, daughter Amelia, 16, and Peter, nine. All three are now largely carnivore - but his youngest is particularly enthusiastic about it.
'If something is too extreme and cuts out whole food groups like vegetables, then avoid it at all costs,' dietitian Hayley Stathis warns
'I go to school for parents' evenings and all they say Peter is amazing, aces every class, is so athletic - and we believe it's all down to his diet,' Phil says.
'I'm 62, the missus is 52, we are supposed to have defective kids at our age, but the more carnivore you go, the better the kids get, in my opinion.'
Phil is such a strong believer in the carnivore diet, and so renowned in the alternative diet space, that he now offers one-on-one consultations online.
He is also the founder of the 100% Carnivore and Beyond Facebook group that has 20,000 members, and appears on Dr Chaffee's Zoom meetings for his How to Carnivore 'school'.
And while Phil - and Detta - reap the benefits of his higher sex drive, Phil says he feels sorry for single women his age who are 'left stranded' with unhealthy men with flagging libidos.
'I talk to female friends my age - they can't find a man who doesn't have a big belly and dad bod, and most of them can't get it up,' he tells me.
'I'm the only person I know my age who has a flat stomach and a huge sex drive and it's effortless.
'I used to dream of abs, and worked hard in the gym to get them, but it never happened until I started eating [only] meat.
'It doesn't matter how much time you spend at the gym, 99 per cent of the problem is in the kitchen.'
But dietitian Hayley urges people to use common sense when it comes to nutrition.
'If something is too extreme and cuts out whole food groups like vegetables, then avoid it at all costs,' she warns.
Phil, however, is determined to stay carnivore.
'I believe that people should make their own choices with what they eat, but the idea that somehow eating meat is bad for the environment or unspiritual has got to go.'
- If you plan on making any major dietary or health changes, it's important to consult a GP for medical advice beforehand
