I have been wanting to try out a carnivore diet for some time. I don't have any particular health goals, but I have a vague feeling that I cannot continue my current diet for another few decades without becoming unhealthy.
Therefore, beginning last Sunday at sunset, I only ate beef, butter, salt, water and espresso (and also the juice of two limes squeezed into water).
I did no real research before undertaking this diet. Someone at TabConf recommend a beef, butter, salt, water diet for 30 days and said that it had made him feel very healthy...whatever that means. It appealed to me.
I was worried about the following;
- that I would feel hungry all the time (I did not)
- that I would have sugar cravings (no cravings)
- that I would not get enough nutrients (possible, but really too short to tell)
- that it would be difficult to feed my family normal food as they were not participating (it wasn't)
Here are some observations:
I started each day with an espresso and only ate a meal in the afternoon/evening. It wasn't too difficult to devise meals where beef was the main course (which is all I had) while there was other stuff for the non carnivores.
Other than the first day, I didn't notice feeling very hungry -- despite eating fewer calories than normal.
By Thursday, I was getting headaches which I guessed had to do with a lack of electrolytes. So I started Thursday and Friday mornings with a full glass of water with the juice of a lime squeezed into it. This seemed to help.
I ended up eating butter on the side of my meat. Normally, I would find this a bit excessive, but it tasted great and seemed reasonable at the time.
Some people say they feel a sense of mental clarity. I didn't feel very different than normal -- just possibly a little floaty or weird. It's hard to describe. Also, I've heard people say that they don't feel as drowsy on this kind of diet and I think I noticed that. It's likely I didn't go long enough to achieve these benefits.
I stopped the diet on Saturday because my daughter made a cake and I was feeling a bit like there was no point to it. The enjoyment of food is a big part of my family life and how we spend time together, and it felt like I was just kind of sitting it all out.
That being said, I plan on repeating the experiment this week. I don't know if there's any health benefit at all to doing this weird extreme carnivore during the week and then having cake and pie and beer on the weekends, but I'm going for it.
Hahahaha yeah I hear ya on diet and food. My love for sugar and savory foods is the reason why I can’t get down to 10% body fat but then again I ask myself once l get there I’m never going to maintain it for very long.
I never took the carnivore diet seriously. If it was as great as Bitcoiners claim then every single professional athlete on the planet would do it. When it comes to human performance look no further than world class athletes and those who are strictly on meat only diet is very very small.
I have done different types of diets during my life, including carnivore, fruitarian, vegan raw-foodism...
I have felt at my best with all these diets. The mental clarity when on raw food/fruitarian was out of this world. With the carnivore diet, I enjoyed the fact I could have a portion of food and not feel hungry for the next 20 hours.
I am convinced that the secret why these diets "work" has not much to do with what you eat, but with the fact that you avoid processed food...
i suspect it's the flesh parasites getting angsty about a switch in eating habits; indeed butter & salt are an excellent combination to help reduce the parasite load & survivability; i wud also add garlic & pepper - lots and often;
But I'm still under the impression that one week is too short to achieve much. Am I wrong about this?
I suspect you’re still gaining metabolic flexibility, eating more protein (which we need as we age because it’s harder to synthesize muscle without a lot of it as we grow anabolic resistant), and possibly learning about the impacts of certain foods.
But yes I’d give it more than a week. Give it 6.
[this is my sole experience, so n = 1]
on a routine basis: no more meat; routine eggs, daily dairy (the more concentrated/thickened the better e.g. cheese & yogurt); buttered bread; fruits & cooked vegetables as daily snacks & fillers; i am still undecided on eating fish again, tho do like an occasional oyster plate; my portions are quite small for my size;
i have not gained nor lost any weight since having gone routinely to a high-class cafeteria 20 years ago, where i ate basically everything and a lot of it - full course meal twice a day, lol; that and i was working out a few days a week, lifting very heavy weights, advanced gymnastics, etc.;
"does anybody really know the secret... or the combination for this life and where they keep it?" - Limp Bizkit
chat, where is my muscle mass coming from, the sun & the ether? 😂😂😂😂😂
i think many men can replicate that, but they do not ever let the researchers near, haha;
caption: the young women from deep Russia are unimpressed by this bare minimum performance; must train harder!
if u pay attention, then after a week u shud be able to learn something new about ur mental & physical states; carnism is a wrong religion, however that type of dietary regimen did help me explore a different state of mind at one time, and i did feel more productive;
if u wanna go faster take 🍄✨
😂😂😂😂😂
really if the core cause i.e. the problem of being unclean is not understood, no dietary trick will last; worshipping ideologies rather than following principles ... can help of course, but not lead to an elightened state; some do indeed achieve it thru a prolonged fast (21+ days) and other wide variety of methods;
If you would to try another study, I'd recommend a whole food non processed week, and see how you fair
I've been doing that for some time and haven't eaten bread or pasta at all and feel much better for it, I've lost my love handles too, finally after all these years lol 😂
I do depart from the strictness to have beer and chocolate for full disclosure 😉
While it could be electrolytes, I'd guess you had the keto flu where you aren't very flexible metabolically yet (burning fat vs sugar) so are adapting to getting your energy from fat and gluconeogenesis.
That's why the weekend carbs are so bad, your system never completely sets/resets.
I did very low carb for years with 6 days on 1 day off.[1] You still get the metabolic flexibility but maybe not as deeply and you certainly miss out on allergen elimination if you're reintroducing them regularly.
I was still chonky but I've mostly been chonky my whole life. ↩
Ah, I think I had understood somewhere that the keto flu was connected to a lack of electrolytes. Thanks for the link. Also, I'm curious that you also settled on a weekly rhythm to your carnivore diet.
I didn’t have a rhythm with carnivore - did it straight for a year. But for many years before that I was low carb paleoish (meat+veggies but not starchy ones+dairy) with a weekly cheat day. There was a guy I followed that was into low carb plus a cheat day. There’s some benefit in cycling carbs in for weight maintenance iirc.
I don't think you broke your diet per se, but rather that you're living a normal life. Don't feel bad about it. I think, as a doctor I follow says, it's not about giving up enjoying things that are truly delicious. The idea is not to carry that burden that some people place on us. A cake isn't going to kill you, but you should know that you have to get back to your normal routine tomorrow. Something we love at home is eating together at the table, so for me it's very difficult to sit at the table and not eat because I want to fast from the afternoon until the next day. And with small children, it's difficult having to explain to them why Dad isn't going to eat, or training them to do the same. So what I do is eat a little. And I'm not too strict about things, always looking for a balance, so as not to ruin that beautiful moment of everyone being at the table.
To hydrate yourself you could add either salt water or lemon water, they are very good.
I don't feel bad. This is the first time i've consciously tried to alter my diet and I'm curious to see how it goes. But I don't think I have much emotional attachment to the idea.
Don't worry, I also think that a mistake I've made, and I think most people have too, is making radical changes—changing your diet overnight, your exercise routine, your sleep schedule, etc. You can simply change things little by little. Changing eating habits you've had for years is difficult, but not impossible. It's better when you do it gradually. Here at home, it's worked quite well for our family. We tried to change things overnight and it didn't go well. Then we started slowly and it's been great! 👌
Well, you're overloading yourself with protein and fats, it sounds like, and nothing to offset it on the carb side. So you're getting lots of long-term energy resources but little in the way of immediate burn that comes with glucose and sugar. Then you're going the opposite on the weekends with the cake. Short term, aside from indigestion and some constipation it probably won't feel like much. However, without some serious exercise, you're probably going to pack on some pounds over a few years of that because it's not getting burnt off with energy and muscle-building otherwise. Then your digestion is taking a beating processing all that meat with little roughage and fiber to make it easier to move, so you're going to likely end up with up with a lot of hemmorhoids, lol.
that sounds bad.
I do run and lift weights, so there's that. but I agree with your assessment more or less: seems like I'm not exactly achieving anything.
What a journey, thanks for sharing! Way to self reflect and push your body forward!