Strict and health giving carnivore is also a wrestle with oneself at the start. Meat, salt, water.
Getting down and dirty carnivore is easier and can get you a real taste for the healthy lifestyle.
What is your challenge this chewy June?
Bring your stories. Share your successes and discoveries. Pose your questions. Find you have the strength to lift someone up who seems a little bit down. All welcome, even just to say, “Hi.”
Interesting it was only two years ago that carnivore diet on this forum was more of an exploratory 30 day challenge than a lifestyle commitment. I would say that’s a change, with so many here now saying they’re carnivore for life.
I’m more of a lurker, still. Some days I think the challenge is just what I need, some days it still makes me uneasy to avoid so many natural, varied foods that didn’t seem to bother me. I’m thinner than I used to be. Am I healthier?
The 1st posting in the Zero Carb/Carnivore threads, found in the Food section, was Jan 2017. No clue how many postings there were before that and the forum folks decided to give us nutters our own section 
Yes. Staying with what works for the individual. The fun is discovery and learning from how we all approach it. 
Last month I had some really good body responses with going very clean carnivore. Not totally clean, as it was still a bit dirty with butter and eggs with the meat, salt, and water. But I felt really good for that few weeks challenge. I might try it again.
I think one of the Carni doctors have a version of it they have as a prescription … butter, meat, bacon and eggs?
I remember stepping on-board and meeting @Fangs in 2019/2020.
I reckon it is good to go back through the archives and find one’s own posts to reconcile that person then, with where we are now. Is that a helpful thing to do?
Well not very much has changed for me. Since i started Carnivore Nov '20 i have pretty much stuck with it throughout. I would say the only changes i make are the occasional cheese in/cheese out as i get too addicted to it and noticed a small weight increase, if only a pound or two…still too much for me as 2lb soon becomes 4 and so on. I never came into this woe to lose weight … more for health, management and ease and that is still the case. I still love eating in this way as it is the most simplest and sustainable way i have ever eaten.
I notice that more and more places are happy to deal with this peculiar woman,when eating out which ii think is largely due to feeling very relaxed about going into new cafes and restaurants and making sure i have a big fridge/freezer crammed full with meaty goodies in case the restaurant doesn’t make the grade 
My daughter and son–in-law and my dance partner companion are all so used to my woe and took it all in their stride when i first started (though i am sure they didn’t expect me to still be chewing meat 4 years on!)
With my daughter i think it was just a case of "Oh Mum’s on one again!
but that’s fine. I eat for me not for anyone else, my life, my health! 
Well carnivore isn’t much of a challenge for me since it’s just a way of life now. It’s as natural to me as breathing but I will accept a challenge.
I will abstain from all dairy except butter. I’ll fight you for butter. 🧈🥊
I don’t even remember so well what was my dietary life years ago… But I still do on and off, of course, I don’t think it ever will change but some things do change.
I can’t say anything about June yet, I mean, it’s not like I can have carnivore plans. It’s June. My MAJOR multi fruit season. I never do even keto (with its 40g net and unlimited total carbs) on June, ever.
But every year, I am lower-carb in June I suppose. And this year… Eating fruit every day is almost the last thing I want. So… I will squeeze some/several carnivore-ish days into this month too but this weekend, I am still off. I will be somewhat strict next week on workdays and then it will get easier as we finish picking and canning A TON of fruit. We have a big amount. May was still safe despite all the fruit in my garden (strawberries, not my favs) but June always was the most impossible month to do keto let alone carnivore(-ish). But, again, I try to have some proper days every week. And there are my fat fast days, they are almost always carnivore. And my last two planned one didn’t happen but I blame the lack of proper amount of meat the previous day, I won’t make that mistake again.
Right now I have some great fried pork. The 70/30 “scrap meat” thing, I trimmed it and fried it and the fat content is just perfect! I just need to do something with all the remaining fat (with some meat because 1. it’s impossible to take them apart properly 2. I love meaty scratchings). Scratchings are great for fat fast - but I can’t use up much lard. I will make sausages then. Two birds with one stone, I like sausages anyway, now and then, not in big amounts… And that way I can enjoy this very affordable, very enjoyable stuff more often!
But I bought some pork shoulder too, if it’s too fatty, I will add some green ham and all will be well… But it doesn’t look too fatty so I will roast it tomorrow.
We had a big shopping today, not in the city but in a nearby town… We had some nice cheese, not the usual ones, one of our other, pricier favs went on sale and we picked up quite a few, half-hard cheeses don’t spoil easily… I got some bacon ends too (3 packages, why to be shy…) and even some canned fish though it’s not carnivore and I mostly use it for emergency and Alvaro’s pizza… I feel ready for some highly enjoyable carnivore-ish days next week. I actually forgot it is already June but it wouldn’t matter anyway.
Good luck! Even if it’s not luck but you know, this is the saying…
I will eat butter, various cheeses, cream, sour cream, milk, cream cheese, quark, milk, hopefully mascarpone and probably other items in June and I would feel totally miserable without any of them. I probably will use milk powder as well, useful item. It’s just as good eating all alone as in my childhood 
But I usually put it into my coffee when I don’t want to open a new box of cream or milk as it would disappear quickly then…
I should quit coffee. But it’s zillion times easier to say than to do. On most days, I can’t even bring myself to try. Sigh. I try to get better at it.
IDK if things will get more carnivore for me in the future. I really love my remaining non-carni items. I have baking phases (though I can bake carnivore things too), I still occasionally get bored of meats (though I suspect I can handle it now with a fat fast day and the biggest meat variety I can get. so it’s not a proper excuse anymore)… But unlike when I went off keto in the past, my carbier/plantier days are almost never nearly as enjoyable as my carnivore-ish ones (while they last. if I would be forced to do carnivore all the time, I probably would have very bad days - until I would sort it out, I suppose, my hedonism is serious when in a pinch. but as I willingly do it, I typically enjoy it, with the odd day with low level joy, it happens, it’s normal and there is no problem with it really rarely. I can handle 1-2 not stellar day food wise just like I can handle 1-2 rainy days. we are at 2 rainy days now and I want my sunshine tomorrow. we had some today but we had lots of rain too).
But until it will be clear if things will progress as far as carnivore goes, I can work on my fasting and food obsession. It’s a good attitude for my off times anyway, more fasting makes them way better and healthier.
I go away until I can bring nice carni photos and reports about at least almost carni days. But I have my supplies, poor fridge is quite full… So I give it a shot next week. Tomorrow I will taste Alvaro’s chicken breast curry. Chicken breast was on sale and Alvaro loves it. I don’t but if it gets cooked in some flavorful sauce(? not really but some wet stuff), even chicken breast becomes edible, maybe a tiny bit even enjoyable! But my pork is better and he uses a lot of vegs (mostly one of my remaining favs but still) so it isn’t worth it to do more than taste it. I have my pork and it’s fatty enough this time 
Oh and I realized I can fry my crustless quiche, no need to bake it Frying is quicker and works for smaller amounts too. I happen to have a more eggy and dairy rich phase at the moment but I think I wrote it lately, it may be more eggs and dairy, it is still not nearly as much as in the past. I should focus on meat, mostly. And that is my desire and plan for the next days. I will have such a big variety! I picked up another package of chicken heart so my stew will be bigger!
I actually started abstaining from dairy a couple of weeks ago and this is the first week that I’m not having any cravings for yogurt after a meal. 
Yogurt is the one I don’t often want 
And never did before I discovered Greek yogurt! But sour cream is better. By the way, I finished the mistakenly bought 12% fat sour cream. It was so super low-fat, it felt almost like curdled milk first! Or non-Green yogurt. Odd as its fat content is way higher than those… It’s probably the shock of not getting what I want, I am very used to 20% sour cream (we have 25% too but it’s rare and I don’t really need that, 20 is fine). And 12% is NOTHING like that.
So, I had a lovely, meaty carnivore-ish day yesterday, finally! I ate at 17:30, it was an OMAD day. No photos as I was hungry when my food got ready but I ate a tiny leftover fried pork, some roasted pork shoulder and a moderate sized chicken quarter. I didn’t enjoy my meal as much as usual but it was fine as I had no appetite anyway, moderate hunger and a HUGE need for calories. Why can’t my things being synchronized? The food should have been enough but I was still hungry so I ate more pork shoulder. It only was roasted for about 2 hours despite being a big slab so it wasn’t quite ready yet but I cut off some outside parts. I need to cook the inner parts more (I used the air fryer for the original portion, it fit into it with the chicken just fine). And maybe make it more interesting in the process…? But maybe not. Pork shoulder is the odd cut that is super easy to eat in big amounts (except I hold back, less so on OMAD though) while I don’t like it so very much.
Do I write too much about my meats I wonder… And I only have a few pork cuts, I really don’t know why I can’t stop at some point… But it is a nice topic And I ate little meat in the previous days compared to my normal level so I was more enthusiastic about meat even if I didn’t eat what I really like. As I wrote, it wasn’t needed. I think it was a very unusual day where I didn’t want much joy from my food. Normally I just tolerate a less enjoyable meat, it’s fine occasionally but now I really didn’t feel a need for something better. Not like it was bad, the chicken skin was a bit crunchy (it was better last time…), the pork was fatty enough… And I had a slice of Red Leicester cheese too. It was on a big sale and we like it. Alvaro more than I but it’s fine and variety.
Dairy wise I ate… cheese, butter, milk, sour cream and quark. On a heavily meat oriented day. Sometimes I plan to limit my dairy items to 3 kinds only… I tend to get carried away. If I had an opened box of cream, I would have eaten some of that too. I have that now but I run out of milk
Tracking. Due to pork shoulder, my fat intake is anybody’s guess (protein too but to a smaller extent) and the chicken is inevitably a guesstimation too. But I do what I can without overcomplicating things (it wouldn’t make my guesstimation much better at this point. I did weighed things and thought in the past).
Oh so that’s why I was hungry after my first plan, it was 110-120g protein only…
So, I ended up with ~140g protein and less fat than that. 7g carbs, I didn’t overdo dairy and eggs, after all
670g meat, a tad less than 1.5 pound, very normal for a meaty but moderate day. (I mean, I only ate once and as little as possible. I was kind of hungry for 2.5 hours afterwards, I blame the chicken. And the low meatiness of my previous days.)
So, after all this meat today I should be able to do a fat fast day! Lunch skipping is almost essential for that but it’s my plan for June anyway. I can’t expect eating as early as 3pm and not eating too much (though it can happen on meaty carnivore days with the leanest meat possible for me. but where is the adequate joy in that?). I really had enough and want to lose fat now. I start to see myself disgustingly fatty. (It’s just me, of course, I don’t have this with other people even if they have many times more fat. I am only 80kg, some short women looks fabulous with this weight, sadly not me with my round head and fatty belly. it was a small miracle I tolerated myself this far, not like I could do much about it but more than what I actually did… I never was pretty and never was vain. I just want to feel good and my belly can be ignored most of the time but it wore me down, eventually. anyway, health. and showing off the muscles I will have one day).
By the way, muscles, I did my half workout yesterday (arms and shoulders, my priority but I start with those as they are the small muscles, they should come first). One day I will be able my full body workout on the same day. It usually don’t happen in the same month… I try to get my stuff together regarding that too. Last time I had a serious muscle ache but not this time, I like my muscles get used to the strain very quickly. I usually only have a serious ache after neglecting my workout for a while. I even had biceps ache and that almost never happens. My triceps is the whiny one But the ache never annoys me, I am just happy I did my workout and it’s never too bad.
The next, last part will mention fruits but it’s a big part of my life now, it’s canning season at the moment and I wondered about my changes.
Ignoring our fruits (even my favs, even if it’s not in any other way, only fresh) is ridiculously easy (well it’s only day 2 but still, it’s unusual for me in June). Not even accidents happen while picking a lot (well, a lot for me, Alvaro does it more seriously but I wanted to help a little)! I totally lost the ability to indulge “much”. Much is a tiny fragment of what many other people do. I don’t know how to feel about this but it’s quite fine this far.
Thankfully Alvaro does most of the picking, it gets old very quickly, no matter how pretty and healthy the fruits are (and they have no thorns! I probably will avoid the blackberries this year, I never liked them. they never fail to prick my finger and embed the thorns in my flesh if I am more than a minute around them). But we start to run out of cupboard tops… I always wanted a pantry but it just couldn’t happen. Maybe one day I get a big “pantry cupboard”, maybe I can fit one somewhere… I have too few corners, sadly, for various reasons. Like doors, lack of walls and stairs.
Foodie pics recently as i haven’t posted for a few days!
Monday late afternoon/evening I went for a lovely long walk n talk with my daughter and l’il munchkin Freddie it was like going back to the lockdown walks we did and it felt great then plenty snuggles while helping mum to Burp him…which is Daddy’s job but he was at a Golf competition.
Both yesterday and this morning I went to CrossFit…yesterday i ran there and back and today i ran in and then did a fast walk and bus back while chatting to one of the CrossFitters. It’s good to talk.
Keeping off all the cheese and having just one or two black coffees in the morning…everything else pretty clean as usual.
My fat fast day (well, not quite, it was only 83% fat but I didn’t want to force things and wanted to experiment anyway. my plan was 87-88% but things happened…) went well! I ate around 6pm, another OMAD day! If we don’t count a really tiny cream in my way too many coffees… I had more creamy coffees but with my meal and they were creamier than the average one. It is a fat fast day, after all and I was hungry (not like cream helps with it but I have a not so smart and very hopeful part in me and sometimes it gets the wheel. but there is no harm in that so my other parts don’t fight it). I love my hunger now, nice and soft. Even my after meal hunger wasn’t bad, it wasn’t so much hunger today, rather lack of satiation and borderline hunger? Not what I like but I quickly got satiation, probably in an hour. Not bad from a low-cal kind of fat fast day! It’s amazing how different it is when my fat percentage is very high (and my protein is little, I may not be so good with 2000 kcal and 60g protein… But I will try it one day! Or 1500 kcal and 45g protein so I will have room for a lot of more protein without eating way too much).
My food though not all. But most of it. My coffee rarely looks that light but it’s always very week and if I happen to put much cream into it, it gets like this. It’s not even truly much cream but more than a few drops.
My cheese whisp was prettier in real life I so love the lattice it makes even though the crunch is the first and taste the second. I do like pretty things and appreciate in food, I just don’t expect all my food to be pretty:
The bacon is 3.2% salt according to the label. Insanely high… I usually handle it up to 1% (but some salty items must be way lower like roasts or liquids). I don’t know how much it lost with the fat (I couldn’t help it, it lost some and I didn’t eat that, that’s the main reason my percentages went down) but plenty remained. I probably got my usual 5g salt today despite the tiny meal (volume/weight wise though I tend to call a 1000 kcal meal tiny anyway. especially on OMAD)…
Yolks help a bit but I only had one. Later I ate another as I was still hungry. But the saltiness was unbearable so I ate some watery low-carb vegs, that helped. I don’t do pure carni days nowadays anyway, it’s not that season but maybe next time I rather add eggs (and remember not to salt them) as they help too. I thought about sour cream (my other good helper when something is too salty) but it would have been too fatty.
Or I just don’t base my day on this thing. It wasn’t so great anyway, at least alone. Eggs would do it good.
The butter felt amazing, I had a bite when already hungry at 5pm, I could have snack up a lot then
I plan to keep these fatty days but I will need some other items. It’s good I have pork jowl, it’s the ultimate fat fast day, 90% will be super easy with it, I LOVE the stuff. And I don’t even need to cook it.
A fatty grill sausage is lovely but I am bored with the usual kind, I will buy some “Bayerish” ones soon. If it has no paprika, it’s always called “Bayerish” here. I looked up the true Bayerish sausage, it’s nothing like that. Oh my, that thing is truly white!!! And it has veal too, wow. Ours is pork, obviously and a bit darker. It has an odd spice mix but it grew on me. It’s good I am not sensitive to spices. It would be just one 60g sausage per week for my fat fast! My other fat fast day(s) will use something else.
Or maybe I should make my own sausage without paprika but it would bother me. If I make one, it must have a lot of paprika, how could it not…? But we will see. I do have other spices I should use for something and I never know what for… We both use little spice except when Alvaro makes curry. We don’t even use much paprika, it’s mostly for stews, meatballs and seitan but we rarely make those.
I probably still have a ton of dried herbs too but there is a reason I don’t use them, I don’t get anything extra from them. My dislike towards almost all green leaves is serious But I liked to have them for some dishes I don’t make anymore…
I made sausage only a few times (and only once I put it into intestine as I lack any tool for it but it makes a sausage proper) and I never used any herb in it as I use my sausage mix and it’s perfect.
[…]
It’s the next day. I have managed 2 OMAD days, wow. But now I really fancy a lunch, I have pork and chicken and eggs, I miss eggs at this point. I don’t know how long I can make fat fast-ish days though it’s good for taking a break from meat… Processed meat is different.
So today I eat to my heart’s content and maybe I will go for a lean day tomorrow. As lean as I can, not truly lean, obviously I already have my organ stew plan, I just grab some leaner pork, boiled eggs with more whites than yolk and try not to indulge in whipped cream too much… I won’t whip the cream yet, that helps a lot
So I may eat in 2 hours… That would be nice. @Karen18’s photos look especially tempting right now… They are pretty anyway but I almost look at them like I have thought about food after 4 days of fasting once (I wasn’t hungry yet but I was kind of obsessed with the idea of food at that point).
It seems the rainy days are finally over. It’s humid now, I felt hot during my walk despite the not very high temperature and being dressed for summer.
I was in no mood for photos but my pork shoulder was so pretty Kitchen shots, it’s a small wonder some of them worked, there was little light and I did nothing with the ISO, I wanted to eat already…
My cheesy scrambled eggs, still in the pan (the - mixed - cheese was poured on top after it got ready and the leftover heat did its job):
It felt as if I could wait if I wanted (I didn’t want to) but when I took the first bites, I felt I was hungry! I made chicken too but didn’t eat it. My other food was better. I enjoyed my pork shoulder this time but it got a lot of extra cooking, first in a pan (soaked in its own old liquid) then in the air fryer. I love my air fryer.
I had creamy coffees too, I still made whipped cream and it’s not possible to resist today… 
But after my last 2 days I can indulge a tiny bit I think. I don’t go crazy but it’s definitely not a low dairy day for me.
Yesterday I made two pounds of lamb liverwurst and grilled up the kidneys, heart, spleen and testis of that same lamb. All excellent fare.
Bacon and egg sandwiches today.
Used paffles instead of chaffles. Still off the dairy.
The paffles look good Maybe I should use my waffle mold again (only one side will have the pattern but good enough). The shape of my food matters too!
I had chicken and sausage for dinner and ate my quark quiche buns too. 556g meat and plenty of other food. And very much not carnivore due to my snacks, I shouldn’t be surprised but I plan a pure carnivore fat fast day for tomorrow, I have great items for it. And I try to be more careful in the future (without noticeably restricting myself, of course). I feel good but of course I do, I just need a strict day and some more carefulness in the future but it’s not easy in some circumstances. And I don’t do hard when it’s about my diet. Still, I am evolving. Right now I stubbornly squeeze in carni and close carni days, no matter the season. I can’t do it every day but I don’t have periods where there is no chance. Last year it still wasn’t the case. June always was my worst month for carnviore/keto/low-carb. And I am not so great in my best months either. Still a long way to go. I am against the stupid decisions and compulsions, not when I feel justified to go off as that is the better deal or it’s just inevitable. But I can’t force myself, things must happen pretty much naturally, with some helpful deliberation.
Guesstimation says 160g protein and more fat than that… Yep, I did indulge in all kinds of dairy, fatty or not. Mostly fatty, this day was cheesier than normal and very, very creamy. (I could have eaten WAY more so easily, of course…)
I need such days sometimes.
Oh my there’s not time to write! But without posting I can’t find the June thread!
Bopping along here as always and faithfully ZC. When I get a chance I will write!
Here’s my lunch from today -
Broke the rules and had an amazing breakfast.
Carnivore got dirty with dairy = Cheese.
I went to the fridge to get eggs to make breakfast. It’s a men’s share-house here in the city. My brother and I. The cardboard egg carton felt a bit light… there was only one egg. And that was ear-marked for Billie the Labrador’s dinner!
I rummaged at the back of the fridge shelf and found ghee, butter, an old double cream 200g Brie wheel and some slices of English ham.
So I pan-fried a wheel of brie in butter with ham slices. It was too delicious. Straight to the only sometimes breakfast list. I bought more eggs today.
Back in the 1980’s I was taken to a fancy French restaurant by my boss. We ate ‘sweetbreads’ which were calf thymus pan-fried in butter, and we had French camembert deep fried in a sauté pan in butter (it had a breaded coating).
If you find an old, mouldy brie at the back of the fridge you can pan fry it in butter to resurrect it (in an emergency).
