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
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.
- 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 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 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!!