I have always been completely fine with a balanced meal of meat and vegetables, but now that I’m on carnivore to try and mend some health issues like low thyroid, no energy, weight, and a few other things, it’s gone in a strange direction.
I’m a 34 yo mother of four children. Tried Keto, but never felt that satiated feeling I was promised, and desperately needed, as I’m prone to constant hunger and binge eating.
Well, I’ve now experienced for the first time in my life, an amazing satiated feeling of being full, on carnivore. Sometimes, I’m simply not hungry in spite of having fasted for 18 hours.
However, this is becoming an issue in a way. I’m so averted to the meat I’m eating now, that I’m tempted to fast indefinitely instead. And much of the time, I do.
I’m having diarrhea, heart palpitations, weakness, acid reflux, you name it. I’m not sure if it’s simply the newness of the diet or not. It’s been two weeks.
Is this aversion to meat normal? I make myself sick just thinking about having to eat another piece of bacon, sausage, or pork. Has anyone else dealt with this aversion?
Carnivore: developed an aversion to meat
I am no doctor, but I have heard that fasting can adversely affect your thyroid function. The standard treatment for hypothyroidism is to give a synthetic version of the T4 hormone. Most people respond well to this. A lot of old-school doctors will not treat you until your eyebrows are missing. You can find the classic symptoms online. If you think they apply to you, tell your doctor that you have the classic symptoms and ask her or him to give you a 45-day supply. Even if the test shows borderline only. I do recall that there is a temperature protocol where you monitor your temperature for 30 days or so, and it has been shown to indicate an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism)
I actually do take my temperature every morning for the purpose of Fertility Awareness. That’s how I found out I have a thyroid issue. Not to mention the complete lack of energy. My temperature is not within a normal range.
I’ll just say that I’m not interested in medications. I’m trying to heal naturally.
Thank you for your thoughts.
I’ll try to eat more, as I really don’t want to be fasting.
I fully understand your reluctance to take medication. Some milder cases resolve on their own. However, if it does not resolve, it can lead to more serious issues down the road.
Note: I don’t know anything about thyroid. But some of these (palpitations, weakness) could be caused by lack of salt or other minerals (magnesium, potassium). I’d first up the salt content by a lot and see how that goes. Magnesium next. Potassium last.
Acid reflux is a weird one. (I only get this with carbs.) Do you have apple cider vinegar you can try for that? Just some in a bit of water.
Are there other meats you could try? Ground beef, beef roasts, deli meats, turkey, fish, seafood, chicken, duck, etc.?
No shortage of people have their Thyroid numbers go to hell with long term ketosis, I’m one of them.
On the feeling satiated, many will claim that keto fixes that, and again, for SOME it does. For many (throw myself in there again), it doesn’t.
Don’t beat up the fasting, I did, lost a ton of muscle, slowed my RMR and took over a year to fix it all.
For normal people when you basically eat ONE thing all the time…YUP!
Yup. You do need to eat fish and all kinds of meats and dairy an egg dishes and keep it varied.
I know that very very very well!!! I mostly got used to meat at this point but I had this in the first years of on/off carnivore-ish! Once I even got a sudden vegetarian period, a very short one. I jumped to carnivore from vegetarian keto and I never in my life ate much meat but I was a vegetarian or super close to it (a few non-vegetarian dish per year) for a long time. I love pork, always did but it still needed some time to get used to.
Fortunately one doesn’t need to eat just meat on carnivore. At least I could handle all the others. I ate my usual amount of eggs (about 7 a day), lots of dairy and organ meats are very different from “normal” meat and they helped a lot. I heavily depended on processed meats too (I mean, they were vital for me to stick to carnivore or anywhere close, I still ate little of them). Things got tricky sometimes, I went off then. I can’t handle being super hungry but not being able to stomach any carni food. I am pretty creative though when it comes to my food and joy so I kept up the variety I badly needed. I still do but that got better as well. The base of my carni days are very simple and about the same nearly all the time. I just add a little this and that, pâté, sausage, cottage cheese, crustless quiche, I do have variety and it helps tremendously.
If you have some reason to eat meat only/mostly, can’t you try to eat various meats? There are so amazingly many options, even if you avoid the majority of it (like I do. most meats are too expensive for me, I dislike most of the lean ones, we don’t even have many kinds of seafood here…) and they aren’t even remotely similar in many cases! When I was bored of pork, I ate turkey or liver. I could add some sauce if I had problem with the leanness… I still couldn’t have done it without my eggs and dairy but maybe I could have if it was about starving, I don’t starve if I can help it… Not healthy. I manage to eat something without gagging somehow.
I can easily imagine such a situation as while these aren’t the same, there are similarities. What about fish or fowl or some non-fish seafood or some organ meat? They are all vastly different from any pork.
We need to eat. No matter if you don’t have hunger, I often don’t have it for several days, I still eat a lot as I have to in order to feel right.
Eating when satiated is trickier, thankfully I don’t need to do it, I can but it feels wrong and remembers me of my overeating wild times.
Eating with negative appetite - is plain impossible for me (but normal people probably rare have this state while hungry. it’s kind of normal to me 
) but hunger always wins soon, appetite raises to zero and I can work with it. We shouldn’t need hunger or desire to be able to eat. We must eat even if it doesn’t come perfectly naturally and smoothly, even if it brings no joy. It’s sad but we need our nutrients even then.
I am almost 4 weeks. My GI has been messing me up and I’ve been having a LOT of not-feeling-good-at-all days. They suck…it sucks…but it gets better and I feel like I’m finally turning a corner. I’ve had a couple days where my energy was just crazy and felt so good. I’ve, unintentionally, lost 10% of my weight as well, which I needed.
I don’t want to shill a product but there are electrolyte drinks loaded with sodium and magnesium and they helped me. Easy to find them on Amazon or wherever. That’s not super relevant to your case but for me it was something that was missing even though I was salt-bombing my food.
I don’t know what to say about not wanting to eat meat, I started frying uncured salami and mixing it in w/ground beef and eggs. It made the kind of plain meat taste much better.
I think this is overstating things. The only thing for me that was low was reverse T3, which according Amber O’Hearn is used for carbs, so it should be lower on keto/carnivore anyway.
The only way to verify or test your statement would be to take many people, put them on keto, then compare what happens with a control group. Over the course of say, 10 years, which is what I’ll be keto on 1/1/24.
And even then, we’d need a few thyroid experts come in and discuss the results, because normal doctors have no clue about the thyroid.
You want that low, Reverse T3 is anti-thyroid.
Can’t remember the last thing she said that made me shake my head and wonder why she was giving advice on anything, but you just gave me a second thing! Reverse T3 is deactivated T3, it makes T3 useless and unlike T4 can’t be converted back into it’s active form.
Doesn’t even remotely take that long, anybody that’s tracking can very easily correlate their T3 dropping, TSH riding, and fat no longer burning off at the speed they’re earning, or at all.
Even easier, and more enjoyable for anybody that needs to burn fat off that’s doing everything right and can’t, take T3, and watch how fast it comes off. TSH low and T3 higher is always preferable.
Hi Carissa. Sounds like you are a busy mom. Listening to women’s health podcasts with episodes with Dr. Jaime Seemen who is an obstetrician and gynaecologist is a good way to fathom some of the complexities and nuances of women and dietary health.
In terms of thyroid, there are many complex hormonal interactions involved. I read many women benefit from low carb with healthy wholefood carbohydrates in thyroid repair protocols. So, carnivore may not be the best best choice in that regard.
In terms of fasting and extended fasting, satiety is good. But not eating enough food and getting enough nutrition in non-fasting phases is a big concern, especially with low thyroid that needs correcting.
Yes, I have found that constantly eating the same cut of steak can lead to palate fatigue. Carnivore does present a variety of animal-based foods. Mixing marine based animals (seafood) with land animals on a big plate is delicious. Steak and Shrimp for example. Smoked kangaroo tail and oysters, yummy. Adding variety with organ meats such as liver, even as a pate, or mixed in a terrine may open one’s eyes in surprise.
I am taking kelp tabs for iodine…don’t know if it would work for you but my dietician suggested it for my low thyroid.
I am not a doctor either but how describe what you are trying heal sounds very much what my daughter has. She has been … eventually, diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) she has been trying for a baby for over 3 years and has had to go through fertility clinic. Only after 3 attempts has she finally got pregnant, currently about 8.5 weeks and there is no guarantee she will carry full term. Please google PCOS as Doctors are not very good at diagnosing. My daughter had to change her Dr and fortunately found one that would take her odd and numerous symptoms seriously, in turn putting her in touch with a medical researcher who was researching into PCOS. My daughter would never have known about PCOS if she hadn’t met an old friend for a walk and mentioned how she was feeling. Her friend was diagnosed too late to get pregnant and urged Sian to pursue it.
I hope you don’t feel offended or think i am suggesting you have PCOS but if you haven’t already looked into this possibility it may be worth your while doing so x
Prof. Bikman says that PCOS is one of the symptoms of insulin resistance/hyperinsulinaemia, so a ketogenic dietly helps greatly, by lowering insulin. In fact, I remember that it was a standing joke among the women on the forum when I joined six years ago, to be careful if you didn’t want to get pregnant after going keto! “Keto babies” are apparently a thing–who knew?
Well she changed her diet to include more meat which as you say was not dissimilar to Keto but i couldn’t quite get her to go full carni, she likes her veggies too much. If i go on too much about all the toxins in plant food she will ignore me lol. She is like me, O Pos so is ancestrally a hunter gatherer. I moved to carni without batting an eyelid lol