Another Carnivore Thread

[Fangs]

here’s a good reminder how we roll on zero carb

[Polly1]

I like the infographic. Thanks Fangs. I am mostly relaxed carnivore at the moment with occasional forays into meat-based keto.

[VirginiaEdie]

Yup, I’m a relaxed carnivore. I like my seasonings and I do eat some berries, lettuce, and onions on occasion.

[Ticaloc]

When you do get a GF she will love you more because you won’t fart much. She will think you the best sleeping partner she’s ever had

[SecondBreakfast]

Posted this on another thread, but it’s such a cutesy-carnivore dish…
What led up to this was completion of a 72 hour fast last evening. Decided to make a “treat”. Don’t get me wrong here- I didn’t make cupcakes or anything sugary. Instead, I made meat-cakes. And bit of swiss cheese on top because its yummy.

[Shinita]

I do anything in the picture but strict carnivore (even when I skipped dairy and spices, I had eggs and tea) and I have carbier days too but those should be the exceptions (and they are almost or totally meatless. It’s usually pointless and a waste to eat more carbs when I have meat).
But I am still a newbie and next month will be the first one with surely enough meat (in the second half, at least). I still will heavily depend on eggs but that’s fine.
And who knows what comes later?

It’s simpler to say I do my best to do extreme low-carb, plants don’t matter, they are just usually carby. So I end up with many dirty or almost carnivore days but I have proper ones too. All are good enough for me.
I would eat most of plants way earlier than using much heavy cream… I am very careful with lactose though not as much as in the previous years, they are too tasty and mostly harmless in tiny amounts Tastiness and joy from food are extremely important factors in my life.

Another important thing is that my weekly average net carbs should be low even if I have carbier days. My body handle a bit more carbs for a short time but I need to be very low before and after to feel right.

So my almost-carnivore something (it’s more than a fling but not a lifestyle yet) is just a side effect of eating extreme low-carb. I don’t have any serious problems with plants and I could live without meat for decades but as I need very low-carb and enough nutrients, no wonder I added meat and pretty much though not completely avoid vegetables now (most of my carbs on my old keto came from vegetables).

After 3 dirty carnivore days (my very problematic last week had lingering effect) I am pretty well and satiated, I started my ZornFast. Me being me, I have no idea how long it will be but almost surely over 48 hours and hopefully close to 72 or more but I can’t predict my hunger. I surely will wait until some real, not strong (there is no chance for that) but stubborn or annoying hunger or need for refuel.

I was 11 stones this morning so I will see smaller numbers than ever in the last several months. Not like it matters much, of course but it will be still nice.

[barefootbob]

I’m relaxed only as regards decaf coffee and alcohol so I guess I’m kinda strictly relaxed.

[barefootbob]

I was a veggie for a couple of years and almost needed a warning label because of the gas… yeah, now when I do it’s surprisingly funny… kind of like “where did that come from???”

[Shinita]

I couldn’t do a longer fast, oh well. I had a cute, very fatty carnivore dinner (carnivore is last year’s news, I go for the PKD fat:protein ratio now even though I won’t do PKD itself I am not there yet but I am not in a hurry) - and it made me so very full! I have no problem with eating a very fatty meat now. If it’s raw, smoked ham, at least. I can’t get bored of it but as it’s smoked and salty and expensive, I don’t eat much of it. It’s a wonderful treat. Well, I ordered a similarly expensive guineafowl but it’s something special! And a rooster, yay! I buy whatever the farm offers. I won’t run out of meat soon and I get some nice variety now.
I have way too much meat (and bones) where my first and second thought is soup… I think I need to find some recipes.
I wonder if I ever have eaten rooster…? Well, it’s almost chicken just harder, right? No idea, really. It is edible, though (except the breast unless I am starving or don’t care) and it’s the important thing.

[Fangs]

I had a cute, very fatty carnivore dinner

Cool, I don’t know if my meat is cute as a descriptive word, but I like reading you had a cute meal LOL

Hey Shinita, what are your goals, I don’t remember. I mean are you wanting to lose some lbs, or just eat healthy and find your best way of eating thru life that suits you best? Just wondering cause heck I can’t remember if you mentioned any of this on your personal story at all.

[SecondBreakfast]

Rooster is tougher, absolutely. For those, and any older hens that have developed muscles and aged, the crock pot or pressure cooker are the best methods I’ve found for making the meat more tender and edible.
For the years that I’ve butchered chickens, and ended up with a few tough ones- pressure canning that meat is also a viable option for tenderizing and preserving. It’s cooked via the pressure canning. So, you can open it right up, drain it, and use for a Keto chicken salad, or a hot dish.
You could kill two birds with one stone (pun intended), and just cook it with water and salt in a slow cooker, eat the meat, and use the broth as a drink during fasting.

[KetoSnaps]

When you do get a GF she will love you more because you won’t fart much. She will think you the best sleeping partner she’s ever had

I used to be married to a farter.

Still married to the same guy, in fact - but when he turned keto in September last year it deactivated the fart switch…

…apart from those evenings when he’s been non-keto snacking during the day!

‘Carb day’? I say.
‘How on EARTH do you know that?’ comes the reply.
‘Because !’

[VirginiaEdie]

Alright people. Trouble shooting time.

Every once in a while, I will get really sleepy after a meal. I mean sleepy like I was drugged. It typically happens after red meat. You all will probably say the meal was too high in protein and not enough fat, but the problem has happened after eating beef brisket (which was pretty darn fatty) and it happened again this morning.

This morning I ate two fried eggs cooked in bacon fat and about 5 ounces of ribeye slathered in baconaisse. A short time later, I was nodding at my work desk. This does not seem to be a crazy, high protein meal. I believe it should have had enough fat.

The other day it happened after lunch. I ate a 5 ounce hamburger (with organ meat mixed it, that does lower the percentage of fat) with baconaisse and a can of sardines packed in olive oil.

Is it too much food? More protein than I think? All suggestions appreciated. This did not happen to me on keto. I never had after meal slumps on keto.

[Shinita]

I meant it was tiny, not what I usually eat in a day So, cute because small things are usually that. But it was cute because it had my beloved ham anyway

I want to lose fat too already, it’s important but probably not my main goal with this and anyway, I am very patient after stalling for 8 years (small bumps happened but I usually kept my weight, no matter how carby my diet was. it never was high-carb again but I had my moments. months, once). I love to try out things. I felt healthy enough on high-carb too but low-carb had great benefits, keto had very little except fat adaptation, that’s cool. I still can imagine things getting better, I don’t have much energy, for example. Carnivore was instantly better (except the subtle nausea in the first days but that’s no problem even for me and I am not patient with any problems. if I feel significantly worse, I stop things), Perfect Satiation (if someone knows what it is like to starve after a huge meal - I mean, way over our daily energy need, they probably understand why it’s a great thing, I would sacrifice things for this! and I don’t need to, it seems), good food, being SIMPLE! But I still can complicate things if I want to. Tracking is very easy as I only have a few staples and almost nothing else. I never wonder if I should eat more as I very clearly feel it. I don’t need to think about my eating window, I won’t overeat even if it’s big and sometimes I need it big due to my tiny meals, they happen on carnivore. It’s a bit like OMAD again, my OMAD meals were small compared to my big ones not on OMAD - but that’s actually a problem. On carnivore I get hungry later and eat without a care.
But it was very very short term yet, I am curious what will happen later. I keep finding some benefits, not health and well-being just making my life easier and simpler… That’s good too.
I am not very good with too much restrictions longer term so if I feel I don’t need something, I relax my ways. And there are money too, to some extent, food is important. And my taste. So I never will know what true long term carnivore is but it’s fine with me.
My main goal is keeping my carbs extremely low in average. Plants are fine for me, it seems as long as the carbs don’t add up. They tend to, that’s why (dirty) carnivore as default should work best.

And now I totally will try the 2:1 fat:protein ratio because I am curious and it seems doable. I started with 1:1 and it was odd to eat fatty protein without all the plants, especially raw vegetables, I ate raw vegetables with everything including fried vegetables… But of course I quickly developed fat eating skills on carnivore too, I am good at that. I was always super bad to eat little fat… I try to keep my fat intake low enough since near a decade. But I have no chance with carbs, they raise my fat intake, it’s an inevitable thing in my life. The less carbs I eat, the less fat I eat and the more satiated I get. I just couldn’t skip my veggies before but it changed. So I got big benefits already but I am curious about the future.
I will experiment with loosening my actual diet, of course… I keep my net carbs low most of the time and try things.

So… My goals are the same with all woe: health and feeling right, having fun and eating nice things, fat-loss. In this order, I think. I don’t want a badge or label, I never will be strict enough for that for longer term.

I decided not to order beef next, we use the car for the fowls and it costs money, my SO complained (we almost never use the car) and it’s not like I particularly like beef, I see I will get bored of it again before I eat this ~8lbs. I will buy some pork, the allegedly local farms stuff in a hypermarket, that will do for now. But if I will be super lucky, the farm I frequent will slaughter pigs next, it happens sometimes.
And of course, we will have fish. And the fowls but they aren’t big. The rooster will be young, they wrote. I looked up recipes for both birds. There is a style for cooking meat, its originated in the area I live in, its name shows that too. It has red pepper, of course, sour cream (both are very frequent in Hungarian meat dishes), a little mushroom and onion. It’s okay in my own woe. Using vegetables and mushrooms like this never cause a too high carb intake.

[Shinita]

I’ve read recipes… We definitely will use our pressure cooker as we do with beef! We never liked to cook for several hours if we could get away with it and we always could. A big pressure cooker was a must, my Mom only had a tiny one, rarely used. But we mostly ate vegetarian food or tender chicken.

I don’t like simple boiled meat, I finally got fowl with SKIN, that must be crispy (if possible) and beautiful! So I will bake some parts, I almost can’t imagine another fate for the thighs!
Boiled fowl is too lean for me anyway (maybe people use fatty sauces…? I never did). But it’s a nice starting point.
Soup is nice but we will have so much in the next week already… I need to free some space in the freezer for the birds and some of those must become soup.

I had no idea what pressure canning is so I looked it up… Oh, that’s my one and only favorite preservation method! I use it for everything, well, vegetables and fruits and mushrooms, easy and good, without adding anything.
I’ve heard about canned meat before but it’s a very unusual idea around here. Not like it matters to me, it sounds useful especially with a small freezer space. We don’t have long blackouts, fortunately but this space problem is a bit stressful sometimes. And another one (especially the old one we can get free) uses energy. It’s still a very new idea to me but there is a first time for everything…
Thank you for the tips! My Grandmom had chickens but I was little, I just remember cleaning it (I don’t know if there is a specific English word for it, probably), not my favorite chore but dissecting birds and mammals was always interesting to me.

[Fangs]

This can easily be normal for some.

As our bodies change, even with time on plan, at some point ALL of us carnivores have this sleepy time. Mine was darn near devastating but I just got thru it.

I was zero carb all the way. Ate well and good and enough fat and normal and well into about my 7-8th month feeling wonderful…then BAM! I woke up one day and was like you. After eating I could not keep my eyes open. I had to nap, no choice truly. Then any food I ate I got tired and more tired. I asked zero carbers for help and they said many hit this ‘time in their changeover’ and they believe it is ‘just healing going down’ and answer was keep the faith! So I did nothing but handle the exhaustion. About 3 weeks later I went to sleep dog tired and barely could function and BOOM I woke up feeling so darn good with new energy and all. I felt fab. I also think toxins of different kinds dump at different levels and more, I felt ‘very reset to good health’ after this episode. No one ever gave me more info but to hold strong and just relax, nap, eat well and keep plugging along. It worked LOL…doing nothing worked HA

I really felt like a ‘re-set’ button was pushed in my body. It was a strange new wonderful feeling after I got thru the slumps. It takes time tho….longer on plan you may go down a bit and recover to wonderful and go down a bit and then BAM ya never go down again. I have never had that trouble again in all the years doing carnivore…knock wood…so far LOL

I hope that helps some, doesn’t say that much but zero carbers do go thru this on their own timelines as their bodies change to heal.

[Fangs]

I meant it was tiny, not what I usually eat in a day So, cute because small things are usually that. But it was cute because it had my beloved ham anyway

LOL…ohhhh cute meaning tiny, ok I get that HAHA I loved you using that word cute

Sounds like you got some nice experimenting going on for yourself and finding your path on how you kinda want to settle in for a long term good plan for yourself. All any of us can do, find what works best for us

so going with pork instead of beef. If you can get it from a local farm do they butcher it as you ask, you know get the cuts you want or is it already packaged in cuts. Just curious, sometimes with local farms you can get the cuts the way you want them done.

[VirginiaEdie]

Thanks. I will keep calm and carnivore on.

[Shinita]

Unfortunately, I don’t hjave a farm for fresh pork, there is only the hypermarket with its “local farmers” section. I like to buy things directly, personally, seeing the animal themselves… What it will do for now, I won’t eat it often.

Today I cycled a bit, just to the shop of the pig farm and back! (They only sell living piglets at the farm, it seems.) They have a little selection of smoked pork and lard. We tried some white sausage (we agreed we prefer the ones with red pepper but it wasn’t bad), lard with… I totally can’t google that, well when they render the lard, there are little, tasty crumbs. I don’t like the very fatty, very expensive, crunchy but usually not meaty at all end result - or byproduct if lard is our target… But I like if the lard has those brown little morsels as they make it more tasty. And this shop sell the lard rich in them cheaper! Smoked pork hocks (my vocabularity expands learning the English names of animal parts, I never needed them before) cost little too especially compared to the farmer’s market and I trust this farm more as I know something about it (and saw cute videos about the piglets. they have various ones! I love the very brown ones, my SO calls them “roasted pigs” as they have the color of a nice piglet roast already. But there are spotted ones, striped ones, Mangalitsa pigs with wavy red fur… And boring white or pink ones but it doesn’t matter when I eat them). Pork hocks are nice and useful too, my SO immediately bought some beans during the way home, this part is traditionally in bean dishes. We bought a pretty big one, it will takes some time to eat it… But it doesn’t spoil quickly (we don’t have a proper, dry and cool place to store, it’s in the fridge).
I still prefer fatty ham but they didn’t have that now. I am very pleased right now. It seems I can handle about 2 pounds of beef per month before I get bored with it. I imagine it will improve a bit and some organ meat may help too but I prefer a nice variety if I can’t eat pork all the time (or salmon, that would be nice too. pork and salmon, with the occasional mutton and chicken. we will see what I can do about it in the future).
Fatty (but still meaty) pork parts has better ratios for me too. I experiment with way more fat than protein now. It works this far. I don’t do 2:1 like the guys who do PKD, I don’t have the energy need for that and I fortunately don’t need a low-ish protein intake, I would be doomed. I feel good with much protein but I don’t want to eat an unnecessarily high amount. If I want high protein, I eat it just fine but if fattier food works just as good, it’s a better idea for me. I still don’t like to eat much added fat but fattier meat, that’s nice. I needed my 1-1.2:1 ratio in the beginning, now I can raise it. I was so stuck with 65-70% fat, I like that I can be more flexible, I surely will need it on my high-calorie days. Maybe I wrote about it before. But as my normal food is some modestly fatty meat, eggs and cheese and while I like fatty dairy and lard, I don’t want to eat them galore, I wouldn’t go very far in the near future. I did 76-78% fat when I ate very little, started with fat only and continued with my fattiest protein sources. It was a nice experiment but it wasn’t a normal day.
But now I know that I don’t actually need high protein (=almost surely more than enough for my body) for satiation. Good. I had different experiences before but maybe that was due to carbier days in my near past. But probably it matters how much fat source without a significant amount of protein I use. I have too little data at this point and even I am too complex, there are so many factors affecting my satiation. And my body is usually quite predictable, I have a vague but well working formula for my satiation (not separating protein and fat), it could be way worse.
It’s kind of a hobby, experiments and figuring out how my body works. But I still eat with a pretty relaxed atttitude and I obviously don’t force things. ZornFast became OMAD to me but there is no problem with it if it’s what my body liked now. I waited for hunger (and a bit more as long as it wasn’t bad), it’s useful now and then, it never was my thing and sometimes I miss hunger when I never meet it for weeks. Once a year even strong hunger is fun, maybe it’s not the best word, whatever, it is partially that. But it’s hard for me to get strong hunger well-fasted, I may need to eat way before that for some other, even better reason.

[Ketodaisy]

Here’s where I sit lol. carnivore for the most part with a small amount of cheese once every couple weeks and local raw honey medicinally, as needed lol