Are you John or Sally? losing weight and how it might happen


#1

This is part of an article that might help some ‘get why carnivore’ does one thing for a person and yet another for a person which can be very different. Just that kind of read where we all might not fit in one or the other cause there are tons of shades of gray area for all of us…but this read gives a good idea of maybe where we fall. Gives us a bit of perspective when someone says ‘why am I not getting benefits’ from carni vs. what I am seeing others getting?

Comments and more welcomed :slight_smile:

From Dr. Kevin Stock:

Carnivore Starting Point
When starting this diet, everyone comes from a different place.
Some people come from a SAD (Standard American Diet), some from Keto, some from decades of yo-yo dieting. Some start the diet with 40% body fat, some with 4%. Some people have gut issues and insulin resistance. Some are “fat-adapted” and others come from years of fat-restrict eating.

All these different starting points impact the transition to a Carnivore Diet and whether someone will experience fat melting off their waistline or the scale tipping in the wrong direction.

John
Let’s say John is a 51-year-old male who has eaten a SAD diet for decades.
He is pre-diabetic, 65lbs overweight, and doesn’t exercise. He decides to experiment with the Carnivore Diet.
In the first 30 days he’s loses over 20lbs. He’s excited.
He decides to extend the experiment another 30 days. Another 15lbs fall off.

The experiment now has an indefinite timeline. All he’s doing is eating meat until he’s full. He prefers ribeye and fatty beef cuts. He generally eats 2 times a day, though occasionally he eats just one, and other days he eats 3 meals. He listens to his appetite.
And 9 months down the road, he’s loving meat more than ever. It’s all he craves. He’s lost over 50lbs of fat and gained over 10lbs of muscle. He looks better than he did at 30. His blood sugar has dropped, and his energy has skyrocketed.
This story is not an outlier. This is common.

But Sally had a different experience…
Sally

Let’s say Sally is a 42-year-old female who has watched what she’s eaten for years.
In the past she’s tried vegan, the Mediterranean Diet, and most recently a Ketogenic Diet. She watches her calories and tracks her macros like a scientist. She does an hour of cardio 3 times per week and some light weights.
She’s gotten some good results with Keto but her fat loss has stalled. She also has an autoimmune disorder that hasn’t resolved.
She saw what the Carnivore Diet has done for John, so she decides to experiment herself.
She follows the diet to the tee – she “eats meat. drinks water.”
Unlike John however, Sally is ravenously hungry. She’s almost embarrassed by how much she eats.
She knows from the “Ultimate 30-Day Guide to Going Full Carnivore” that she isn’t supposed to track calories or macros but eat until satisfied. So she does.
The first 30 days go by and she’s gained 5lbs!
She wonders if she should go back to Keto. She considers staying Carnivore but cutting back on calories. But she remembers the “Warning” section in the 30-day guide she read. No tinkering.

She decides to stick with the experiment another 30 days, because her energy has been amazing, and she’s seen improvements in her autoimmune issue.
Another 30 days go by, and another couple of pounds are added to the scale!!
Sally doesn’t know what to do. She’s feeling better than she can ever remember, but her weight is going in the wrong direction.
What’s going on…?

John vs Sally
John and Sally started the same diet from completely different points.
John was obese and had never restricted a calorie in his life. His diet was composed of junk. A switch to the Carnivore Diet, or any diet, would lead to weight loss. Most people see dramatic improvements in body composition because most people are overweight/obese. They, and the scale, move in the right direction no matter how many steaks or how much bacon they eat.
John had some transition issues. He had some sugar cravings the first couple weeks but easily overcame them by eating more steak. His rapid success led to more motivation and more success.

Sally started off far leaner than John. She also couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t restricting her diet in some way. When Sally was told she could eat as much meat as she wants without measuring or monitoring, two floodgates broke open.

  1. The first floodgate was the mental switch from famine to feast. 2. The second floodgate was the complete nutrition meat provided her malnourished body.

For decades her body wasn’t getting the protein and fat it desired. She was deficient in micronutrients as well as quality macronutrients.
She was malnourished.
And when she finally started giving her body the nourishment it craved, it wanted to get as much of it as it could.

I was a “Sally.”

I came from a restricted Keto diet. I gained weight and fat when I started. My body needed it. My brain needed it.
It can take time for a “Sally” to regulate her appetite, to fix her dysregulated metabolism and hormones, and to “get healthy.”

------so the moral of the story…most of us will fall somewhere in here :slight_smile: but both paths to a healthy internal body is happening for both people. But on personal timelines.

That is why a lot of times you will see a longer term carnivore say to a newbie…keep the faith :slight_smile: Faith meaning your body MUST do internally what it must on its’ personal timeline for the big wonderful benefits that might elude us from the beginning to take shape and be known.

Which is also why ANY AND ALL benefits you do feel…better energy, seeing improvements in any medical situations one might have, sleeping better, brain fog clearing and more are so important. All on the right path forward.

But remember also, some of us must get thru adaption time and put in that true time to detox. We all go thru that to some level and once gone, our bodies start that re-balance and it will do it in the order it will. We truly can’t manipulate our internal functions of how a body must heal inside and on its’ own true path of what it must accomplish to give us external benefits.

I just think this is good info for people to read and get a feel of why we are not all just dropping tons of lbs. fast on carnivore as some experience.

Just a visual of what a person can go thru. This might give someone some clearer info on what goes down a bit when we decide to walk this carnivore path!!


Could weight gain on keto or carni be due to bone density improving?
Zero Carb - Why is my energy so low?
(Polly) #2

Thank you for a very insightful post. I loved it from beginning to end.

I am keto rather than carnivore although my plant consumption has been reduced markedly in recent months, but I was also a Sally. A long time to heal the damage before weightloss became a biproduct of better health.


#3

Agreed. I was the same. I ‘dieted’ like crazy. All the wrong ways and did all those tricks/tips and more…anything to drop a lb. LOL

but what gets me is when ya read about the damage one does do to themselves when the whole time you think you are doing the right thing cause we are always told that? Ugh ya can’t win right? :slight_smile:

Glad it helped. I think when we read things like that we just get a bit more info that might help us or apply to us and we can sync up some thoughts in our minds about what we are doing but aren’t quite sure.

Just keep your keto up in good form and keep doing what works well for you. With time we do heal so much better. All we can do for ourselves, keep on working at better health~!

great post!


(Bunny) #4

An alternate hypothesis or fact?

…And Sally does not realize she may have done more damage to her metabolism then before, she did not cure her condition by simply eating only meat, she only put a band-aid on it, because Sally can no longer tolerate complex carbohydrates or any refined carbohydrates, like she could before when she was younger?

Sally still has intramyocellular lipids or fats stored in droplets inside her muscle cells and in her liver intrahepatically from eating to much fat on a ketogenic diet which is a much deeper condition than visceral fat type diabetes or insulin resistance, so Sally is still in the same boat as She was before, restrictions in her diet is the only thing keeping her from being symptomatic?

So how does Sally actually cure her condition?


#5

Sally does cure her malnutrition.

That is a fact cause protein and fat is all the body requires to survive. Her limiting and eating the wrong foods put her in this situation of being malnourished.

the autoimmune disease they mention ‘sally has’ is unknown.

but eating carnivore as so many real life carnivore eaters have real positive proof from experience of improved health…sally says…She’s feeling better than she can ever remember, but her weight is going in the wrong direction.

So while we both know this is a ‘story to show differences’ from individuals entering into carnivore, we know one fact to be full truth.

The body does not require one carbohydrate eaten for survival. Fact.

Sally begins to control her autoimmune troubles thru no intake of plant materials which probably were an inflammation marker and more. As inflammation lowers the body responds. ‘sally feels better than she can remember’.

This is also a demonstration about weight loss and how it proceeds sometimes for people in carnivore thru real life carnivore experiences and gives some perspective to some to understand it a bit better on where they may fall in some gray areas about weight loss.

Carnivores know it is a healing diet. Not a fast, manipulate the food, tweak and starve diet. So weight loss comes as the body heals in natural order.

Simple as that really.

but SpaceB to warn ya ahead of it all, I ain’t going into total debate with ya cause I ain’t got it in me to bother LOL So that is my response to your wondering on the original post.


(Bunny) #6

An alternate hypothesis or fact?

Sally most likely has broken junctions in her gut or leaky gut from not enough resistant starch in her diet and could probably use some bone broth to seal up that leaky gut causing the auto-immunity or histamine intolerance issues because what ever Sally is eating is going directly into her blood stream and she probably has anti-bodies attacking her own body parts from the intestinal wall barrier being breached into her blood stream?

It is really tragic that Sally believes eating only meat has some how cured her condition. Her condition is actually getting worse; an exploit waiting in the shadows to reveal itself again?


#7

Since you were so specific and obviously we have no clue what Sally has LOL here is some info from the Dangers of Plants:

A helpful way to think of the gut is to think of it as a tubing system made of bricks. The bricks (cells called enterocytes) are attached by mortar (tight-junctions). This brick wall is very selective of what it lets in. In fact, it’s job is to only let “good guys” pass through while keeping the “bad guys” out.

Lectin proteins are big, bad guys. Way too big to squeeze through the mortar of the brick wall (i.e. tight-junctions between enterocytes). But lectins are “sticky,” and they connect to the wall. Once connected they tell the wall to open up (release zonulin which then causes the “mortar” between the “bricks” to open). [r]
While sticking to the wall, these big lectin proteins start doing damage by blocking vitamins and nutrients from getting access through the wall to the inside. [r]
But that’s just the beginning.
“Leaky Gut”
After the message (zonulin) is sent, the mortar (tight-junctions) between the bricks (enterocytes) pry apart. This creates a breach in the wall and the big lectin proteins can get in. [r]
And not only the lectins, but other dietary and bacterial compounds that aren’t supposed to be allowed in, can get through the brick wall.
For example, parts of bacteria called lipopolysaccharides (LPSs), which are “bad guys” (endotoxins), can slide on through to the inside.
We now have a situation where foreign invaders have gained access to the inside and can invade in to the lymph nodes, glands, and blood stream.
Just like any break in – the body’s alarm goes off and an immune response mounts and inflammatory cytokines stimulate battle.
This breach in the wall of the gut is often referred to as “leaky gut.”
And the attack is on.

Now after that I can say ‘many things’ are so much improved and controlled (hate that word cured mostly) on carnivore. People 2-4-8-15 years eating this way say it all the time. And it isn’t just 6 people or so LOL it is tens of thousands easily…so…proof in the pudding?

ok I debated a little :slight_smile:

SpaceB it is cool you believe your beliefs firmly. I know I do and will hold dear to them as you. So we best agree to disagree cause you and I don’t and won’t ever have the same outlook on nutrition in any way. Hey that is the spice of life tho. But this will go on forever with back and forth LOL again, I can’t do all that. Not worth it to me.

Nice thing is carnivores know where to find the right info. Know what science to follow. Want this lifestyle and agree with the core values and more. No one is going to change a carnivores mind on that truly with this back and forth.

For all people either accept carnivore or move onto another plan. Everyone has that total free will option in life. But carnivores do have hard science on this and belief systems in place as others do so…pick your poison :slight_smile: and run with it.


#8

Excellent post, Fangs. I’m a Sally so I’m just taking it one day at a time. Actually though, while I wait on my body to continue to heal, I am enjoying the freedom (including free time from the kitchen) of this WOE. Hubby and I watched football games last Sunday eating Canadian bacon, so tasty and so easy.


#9

Renee I love your attitude truly!!!

You are so upbeat in trying new for you and you find the great in it.

Canadian bacon while the football games are on…I like it!!!

Yes we all fall somewhere.
As with all who try low fat/low kcal/regular lc/keto into carnivore. We all start and we all can learn.

While we know where to go and what is good science behind what we are doing to help ourselves, I sure agree that little bit of understanding on what it took others to get there, like for a plan like carnivore, info we read about from others helps us in our patience and more.

heck when I learned all this stuff I had my jaw hitting the ground some days. I thought how in the world? How can that ever be? and when I let it happen, all good comes but most of my best realizations where thru time on plan and I gave it just that…and experiences from those veterans who been there, done that :slight_smile: