90 Day Journal. I need your support

mentalhealth
depression
#1

Hello All,

Firstly I understand this is self indulgent and I hate to ask. I like to do things by myself but I’m in a rut and I’m going to need some support. I fully believe zero carb can change my life, restore my health and increase my potential. So I’m asking for your support and encouragement to get through the rough adaption and answer my questions along the way. I’m going all in. When I say that I mean it. I just need a bit of a fellowship along the way to counteract the social pressures of every day life. So here goes…

90 Day thread. Full Carnivore. Meat & Water. Bone Broth when I have the time. Butter when I’ve got no other sources of fat. Otherwise nothing else.

Why?
Well…

  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Mood Swings
  • Fatigue
  • Brain Fog
  • IBS
  • Chronic Constipation
  • Insomnia
  • Libido
  • Carb Cravings
  • Joint and Muscle pain
  • Bulimia
  • Sensitive Teeth
  • Weight loss and control
  • Endurance Running Performance
  • Theres others I’m sure!

I feel it’s important to define your why. I can refer back to this now. I have managed a 26 day stint once already. Saw great improvements in all areas and then fell into the trap of thinking I’m feeling great, I’ve got a family celebration. A glass of champagne and some chocolate won’t do any harm. Here I am 4 weeks later suffering worse than before without anyone who understands the struggle.

So I’m calling on the ZC family and maybe newcomers will benefit from reading a honest 90 day journey in the process. I won’t let you down by having an avocado at the weekend. I believe all plants can be toxic to some people.

Thanks for reading. A lot of you have already provided some fantastic information and support to me. I’m asking for a little more.

(Elizabeth ) #2

I’m zero carb over 5 months, after 2 years successful Keto. Have you joined or looked at zeroing in on health and zero carb Health on Facebook groups? The admins there and some of the veterans have more than 10 years experience not only for themselves but coaching hundreds and perhaps thousands of others to be successful.

#3

Hello all. Finally got home from travelling and committed to strict meat and water on Thursday. This is Day 4. Wow it’s hitting me. I’ve got good measures in place to get through this first 30 days. Stomachs turned today. But I’d rather it this way than my chronic constipation. Fatigue and cravings are quite strong. 4 days is pathetic but it’s probably the worst it’s going to get. At least I hope. Body odor has changed for the worst.

Also my stomach is constantly making all sorts of noises. I think this is something more Chronic internally that I’ve had for years. Seems to make digestion a problem and malabsorption. Hoping it’ll heal in time eating this way. Noises are crazy. Keeps me awake at night.

Thanks @Elizedge. I’ve requested to join the group and have been reading a lot of your contributions. Think it will help. Recently listening to Dr. Jordan Peterson on Joe Rogan gave me encouragement as well.

Haven’t helped myself by having to play a game of football (soccer) yesterday. Pretty zonked for it. Also having to buy mince beef because of affordability but just craving a good steak. Kind of sick of steak.

Questions:
Do people eating all of the rendered liquid fat and have no problem with it?
Do people find salt induces lethargy? I suspect it does for me.
Will bone broth help in the adaption?
Any thoughts on the stomach? I’ve taken Betaine HCL with Pepsin and it’s had little to no effect. Even getting up to 11 capsules.
Experiences with Body Odor and why I might notice the change? If it’ll pass?

That’ll do for now. Thanks for any musings and your support.

(Chris) #4

Hey! Glad to hear you started.

Questions

  1. Not always. But if you’re talking mince, eat it in a bowl with a spoon and pour some of the fat over it. You’ll be able to eat a bunch at first but then as you become sated you’ll start to want the fat less and less, then you can either drain each spoonful or switch to a fork.
  2. Not certain. I think you should experiment with no salt, less salt, more salt and see. Also, too early to tell since you’re not adapted to all meat yet.
  3. Yes, usually due to the electrolytes and massive nutrition. Homemade or don’t bother.
  4. Give it time to work itself out. Don’t drink anything for an hour before and after eating and see if that helps.
  5. Different people report different things. My armpits are producing pheromones 24/7 nonstop. I stopped wearing deodorant though as it really irritates me. If you don’t like my stink, go away. :smiley:
#5

Thanks Chris,
Watched Shawn Bakers live Instagram feed just now and he advises to just keep eating and eating and eating during adaption. I must have gone through 3-4 lbs of beef yesterday. Seems a lot for me but did eventually quieten the cravings. Don’t want to gain wait though as that’ll effect my motivation. I’ve got small goals to start with this. I’m hoping by 2 weeks I’ll be over the worst of the cravings and withdrawal and then symptoms of fatigue should slowly improve.

(Chris) #6

Don’t look at the scale - one of the major things that’s going to happen is you will naturally build more robust muscle and bone tissue- this is denser than fat, so less size of it will actually weigh more than the same size volume of fat would. The number on the scale may creep up- but that’s a really terrible indicator of actual fat loss. Give your body time to heal, before you worry about weight.

#7

Day 8. First week done. Down 7.9 lbs (3.6 kg) which I assume mostly to be water weight having had some heavy carb days prior to starting.
Current weight: 173.5 lbs (78.7 kg).
Feeling good. Day 5 into Day 6 everything changed. Felt stronger and muscle fatigue etc. went away.
Sleep is still disrupted and having to pee at least once every night but I’m getting off a lot faster. Stomach is 6/10. Settled but not passing easily and still a lot of noises all day long. Mood is stable and getting better every day. Cravings still coming and going but much less. Depression getting more and more faint everyday. Pretty much all positives.
Eating mostly 50/50 grass fed/conventional beef. Bit of lamb. Bit of liver. Have bought fat trimmings from local farm and enjoying then. Some wild game I bought didn’t seem to sit so well with me so I won’t be eating that again. Completely removed salt from my diet and feel a lot better for it. Cramps gone away and much less lethargy after eating. Got some bones to make some homemade bone broth this week. Also my body odor seemed to improve once I went more conventional and less grass fed.
Up to running 4 mile again and playing for my football (soccer) team 3 times a week. Felt much better in last nights game compared to last Saturday. 50 press ups a day. Reached 20 Strict today! Couldn’t do 2 three months ago. The rest dipped knees. (I don’t have any upper body strength). Golfing most days. Good week! Next goal is 14 days.
Questions:

  1. Gas? Everyone says it goes away on Carnivore. Not for me yet. Assume it’s just adaption.
  2. Bacteria Die Off? How long does it take?
#8

Im on day 8 of zero carb. Feeling pretty good. Im doing this mainly for weight-loss. seem to have problem moving the needle. Some things I experienced:

1- Lost 4 lbs in the first 5 days, I don’t think its water since I was pretty low carb before.
2- Ketones are high, this morning reading was 3.4 and I’m usually at ).0.6-0.8.
3- BG not much difference with regular keto.
4- BM is less.
5- On day 5 I experienced extreme fatigue and I decided to have 20 grs of carbs (sweet potato). I felt better right after. Zero carb again until today.
6- The meals are mostly grassfed beef in form of rib eye or ground beef. I agree with everyone about satiety and also a good time to find out about other hidden food allergies. I had an egg yesterday and I feel like I reacted to it.
7- I’m not doing any sweeteners or dairy. I think my gut needs to get better and I need to be in maintenance mode before I do that.

Maybe take Digestive Enzymes? Zypan is a good one.

How do you know you’re having bacteria die off?

(Chris) #9

Expect to gain if you’re coming from less nourishing food. Scale by itself is useless without getting a look at bodyfat% vs. lean mass. Fat is lighter than the same volume of muscle, bone or water.

#10

Agree, I gained weight when I started keto.

#11

Such a radical change to diet, especially eliminating all carbs, sugars and fibre will completely change your gut biome and kill a lot of bacteria in the gut. Also I suspect I have a bacteria overgrowth so it’s inevitable. But I think it usually happens in the first 2-5 days.

I’ll look into some digestive enzymes. Reintroducing some salt as my heart arrhythmia has returns. Had previously gone. All interesting stuff. Just wish these cravings for sweet stuff would disappear. Doesn’t help the weather is so hot in the UK at the moment.

#12

Im also experiencing arrhythmia, thanks for the reminder for more minerals. I am doing this from ketosis so not a huge cleanup just not eating green veggies.

#13

Today I woke up with high ketones and high blood glucose. Is this normal?

My ketones on regular keto days are usually 0.6-0.8 and highest on fasting was 3.6 and today it was too high to register on my device, and 15 mins later it was 5.5.

My BG is usually 90-105 (Im not diabetic), and it goes down during the day. Today it wasn’t able to read and kept giving error messages, but after a few tries it was 124.

Is this concerning?

(Peter Schmitt) #14

This can happen in adaption. Another possibillity is, that you gonna get a cold. This can also lead to high glucose and high ketones.
Apart from that : not all need more minerals. Personally, I do better without any added salt or minerals.

(Elizabeth ) #15

could there be a problem with your machine or your strips. Because having problems with both those numbers reading could indicate some error with that. Just a thought.

#16

That’s interesting Peter. Is that something you did straight away? Or were you adding salt through adaption and then removed it afterwards? Also do you mind just telling me how long you’ve been Zero Carb and a bit of your story. Always fascinates me and helps with the reinforcement during this initial period.

#17

Thanks Peter, I don’t feel like I have a cold or anything else. Still a mystery.

#18

Highly Unlikely.

(Peter Schmitt) #19

I started carnivore at march, 25. Coming from strict keto, I dropped salt from begin. I had a very intresting ( adaption - ) week, in which I lost around 4kg of water. After that week, I got them back and felt better than before.
Last year, at 18. august, I went keto because of several health-issues. It was a test, because I had still serious problems with my digestion ( before, I tested out many other things ). Because of my problems, I was down to around 50kg with 1.87m. Keto solved my health-problems, but I was not able to gain more than 5kg, regardless of how much I was eating.
In march, however, I first heared about carnivore. As I red this testemonial : http://meatheals.com/2018/03/21/filip-nilenius I wanted to test it. I did the science and then went in. Since then, I gained 6kg of weight and feel better every day.
I do my carnivore not the Shawn-Baker-way. Honestly, I first did not notice him at all. I orientated more on Amber O’Hearn and Frank Tufano. And I still have a ketogenic ratio ( I’m usually around 165g of Protein and 345g of fat a day, with traces of carbs from liver ). During elimination-process, I also found out that I have problems with eggs, but can handle dairy very well. So, my diet consists from meat ( diffrent races, all organs included), full-fat cheese and sometimes a bit of sausage ( without any fillers ).
Hope this helps you.

#20

Very interesting. Digestion is a big one for me as well. I listed all mine at the top of this thread. If you can relate to any of the others and have seen Carnivore improve them I’d love to hear so, just for some positive reinforcement.
I think I will end up dropping salt slowly again. Just seemed a lot along with football, running, golf etc. Hard to keep up in this first week. Today is Day 10. Feeling pretty good though. I’m also trying to do a stricter Keto Carnivore. I buy fat trimmings from a local farm and cook them up on their own. Think it helps in a lot of areas.
Did you say you were 18? If so thats a very early age to be putting your health as a top priority. Maybe you meant August 18th