Carnivore ZC SurfTurf-tember! 30-day September Challenge. 2022

Azi · 2022-09-18 20:12:02 UTC

@MeganNZ hope you still here with us not seen you lately

Karen18 · 2022-09-18 20:30:15 UTC

Lovely day today. Went to a Car Boot sale first thing, bought a long dog (big hotdog) just the sausage on its own and it was nice. Then on to Totnes where we walked through the pretty town and up a fairly steep high street where most shops were open. Bought a few interesting looking books. Then stopped at pub for lunch and had ham and eggs.

Moved on to Brixham, a pretty little harbour town and Ben did a disappearing act. Sian set off to look for him and I stayed put in case he returned, which he did eventually, he emerged from the pub next door where he’d run to find a toilet and we noticed he’d had a bit of an accident so we headed straight back to the bungalow and washed everything prior to going out for dinner at half 6. Before going out I had a chick thigh as I was peckish, (lunch was a small meal)

Went to an American style ranch diner with some great Rock n Roll playing all evening. Dinner for me was a
10oz ribeye, prawns and 4 spicy wings, a bit of a glaze but I wasn’t going to fuss over that as it wasn’t smothered in sauce. Best meal of the weekend. The steak was rare as … nice to get it done exactly how you ask for it!

Travel home tomorrow so I hope Ben’s tummy holds out for the long journey!

Azi · 2022-09-18 23:12:27 UTC

First meal was lamb butter and brie mini cheese

2nd meal was the lamb chops butter and mini brie
Plus a coffee…
I’m noticing that my appitite is really dropping back which every one says to expect on carnivore …

Shinita · 2022-09-18 23:28:23 UTC

I found “fake meat” but it was a very proper and real and lovely mushroom, more about it later
Deception is AWFUL, it maddens me.

[yesterday]
I ranted a tiny bit (really, it was short! and dramatic) and deleted it all as I should
I eat more and more every day again, I didn’t need an off day to overeat, it’s my basic skill. My meals are way too tiny so I overeat. Grrrr.

I try it again. I so hate putting much effort into this though. It won’t work anyway, I just don’t do hard, focused things related to my eating. I need to be a free spirit there, well with some training and experiments, maybe. Things just need to be go smoothly all by themselves. And they often do. But then things get messed up.

So I just generally get determined. And expect things to go smoothly in mysterious ways.

[…]
Oh today went well this far, not THAT well, I ate too little in my first 3 meals (in 2.5 hours, it’s not fun to finish my meal and get hungry 30 mins later but it happens sometimes. I blame the lack of proper meat I find tempting right now) but I was satiated until 3pm! It’s good considering how much I overate yesterday on my off but not very carby day… With a HUGE eating window and I mean it this time. 8 hour is huge to me too but it was way bigger.

But let’s talk about food Nothing interesting, I need to go shopping soon… Chicken liver (quick, only 15mins), sponge cakes and very few eggs beyond that… A bit of mouflon (I just quickly fried the little stuff I saved from becoming Alvaro’s dish) but it was still quite chewy so I will just put it into the soup I make soon. Liver got boring quickly so I ate some fried pork butts, not tempting now but I can eat some and it’s super good for satiation.
It would be so great to have a light day after a 200g protein and too much fat day when I don’t have an appetite, I just want to be satiated but it’s not how I function. I can do it somewhat lighter but my 120g protein is probably a must, it’s so tiresome right now. Oh well, I can do it. Oh I had a sausage too, not a good one. Edible but nope. And the dry sausages from this band are quite good, why this one is so inferior? I asked Alvaro to test it, maybe there is something wrong with me, I feel saltiness off too. Maybe labels lie A LOT (swapping 1.8% and 0.1% salt. both direction happened lately according to my tastebuds), maybe I have something weird going on…
[Alvaro said it was properly salty and okay. It’s on me then.]

Sorry, I just can’t communicate normally now.

We had a mixed day, sunshine, clouded, rainy… We had a huge walk! We have found pretty mushrooms, I missed the camera multiple times, I will bring it with me next time. I need to research as I still have no idea about some. But I have found baby stinkhorns (they are spherical), it never happened before, yay! PINK ones I didn’t even know they exist in pink… Phallus hadriani, now I know. They are very fun cut up, we call them “witch eggs”. So my exercise probably will be elevated in the next days, it was a 2 hour walk today. These are exciting times. And Alvaro happily eats up the good ones.
We found many bracket/shelf fungi (didn’t know these terms before), it’s one of my favorite group, they always cheer me up a little (but I found some super pretty chocolate brown ones, they can do more!) and I even know which one is which except one. It turned out that one of my top favs is called beefsteak mushroom in English We call it liver mushroom as it’s very similar to liver, at least the softness and somewhat the color. It’s pretty and super fun, soft like a bracket fungus very rarely is. It was a baby so I possibly can make okay photos of it later! As this one doesn’t stay on the trees almost forever like the normal, hard ones, timing is quite important.

[…]
I did my 4th(?) meal, super tiny again, oh well. Half a sausage, half an egg, one piece of fried pork… It’s a grazing day, apparently. But these will come to an end eventually and until then I still won’t overcomplicate my meals, I just grab something when hungry from my planned plate(s). I have enough variety.

I thought about coffee today as it’s my day 1 without it again… But it’s fine, I am experienced enough at this point and coffee lost a big part of its charm.

[…]
There was no night eating though I did lose my satiation after midnight. Yay!
Smallish eating window with maybe 5 small meals, not good, not tragic.

Pretty good photos today from everyone, mmm…

Naghite · 2022-09-19 00:20:25 UTC

I do not often have a ribeye as part of breakfast, normally that is a second meal food. Two ribeyes today I guess. Here is my first meal

Buffalo heart, beef thymus and liver with homemade bacon and small salmon piece rounded out the meal.

FrankoBear · 2022-09-19 02:02:36 UTC

@Naghite - your plates are inspiring. Are you feeling well and strong?
@Azi and @Ketodaisy I am fascinated about your customised self experimentation and the gaining of good results
@Shinita and @carnivoor2 - sausages, unless home-made are often a risk for unwanted carb fillers.

I’m enjoying all the posts, little windows into people’s lives that hug the carnivore at the core. Great community.

“Fake meat”, what’s in a sausage, and fungus are interesting subjects to chat about and reconcile against animal-based wholefoods such as ruminant red meat where complex biophysiology creates the meat and organs we eat. I’ve been pondering about it after listening on a podcast about astronauts and space travel (to Mars and beyond) that already showed the problems of vegetarian and vegan biases in the nutrition scientists trying to solve the food problems. I made another post about it.

Last night was a plate filling rib eye steak baked in the cast iron oven on a woodfire. Spring rains. Sunshine and sun showers. I do love these transition seasons. I do enjoy this groove at home. Bacon and eggs for noFUN breakfast is the plan. Just having a Monday morning coffee to start the day. Then it’s work at home until driving to the city this evening.

We have a public holiday on Thursday as a day of mourning the Queen, so it will be a short 2-day work week on campus in the city. Thank you Your Majesty.

Yesterday I felt energetic. I created a lot of art and did some gardening, which is instinctive in spring-time. I took Billie the Labrador for a walk at the beach just north of our local beach. It’s 2 bays up the coast. The local council has just made it a dog exercise beach (it always was). I think due to the COVID puppy population boom. As @Fangs will tell ya, if you want a workout have a hike in a soft sand beach. I now have buns of steel. Steel buns are acceptable ZC.

JJFiddle · 2022-09-19 02:12:37 UTC

We are traveling now.
This weekend has been crazy! Winery 3½ hours playing yesterday followed by 3 full hours at the seafood place. Preceeded by morning students… Then getting out this morning for the 3 day drive. We’re both beyond exhausted. Our policy is to take a day to regroup after gigs before travel but our VA contractor begged us to leave a day early. Sokay.
I may have a couple pics of the seafood at the restaurant. The “tower” is amazing.
We had eggs and sausage before heading out yesterday, then I had some raw grassfed burger before the evening gig. I don’t want to get depleted again like a few weeks ago!
Beautiful thing happened lastnight. 2 guys came in about 10 minutes before the kitchen closed and stayed til 11. They are professional BBQ cook-off competitors! They ate lots and lots and offered us some but we were working and turned them down. But as part of their tip they gave us about 20 lbs of BBQ! One bag is very sweet, almost like candy, but one is ribs and the other just smoky, and that’s the one I’m about to heat up in this Texarkana motel suite. Yum!

Seafood Tower at Martinis Restaurant

Naghite · 2022-09-19 02:35:35 UTC

@FrankoBear I am feeling well these days, and yes strong too. Since I added back in beef liver my energy has increased and my weight lifting has put on gains in every workout since. Last week my ketones were substantially higher than 0.5 regularly and my A1C is down into the higher normal range I think (one week is a bit hard to tell) assuming this BG remains similar for next 2 months.

I feel that while I am still learning, I also really feel like I am getting a very sound understanding of metabolics and how to live to best mimic ancestral and evolutionary sound tenets.

Always like your posts FB, even if I do not always acknowledge them publicly.

ElgynsToy · 2022-09-19 08:08:58 UTC

Ahhhh, you’re down in my mother’s neck of the woods : )

She was born and raised in Dartmouth, and moved back there years ago. I love visiting. Really can’t beat the coast in Devon and Cornwall.

True story; it was the VERY steep hill from the town in Dartmouth back up to my Mum’s house that made me realise I needed to do something to get my health back on track. I used to be able to make that walk without breaking a sweat, but when we visited this June, I thought I was going to die a quarter of the way up

Fangs · 2022-09-19 09:07:30 UTC

Yes buns of steel are acceptable on ANY eatin plan

Sand walking. One of THE best ways to work out your body for sure. Miles of metal detecting and hiking on sand I know one thing, it wears me out. If my feet start to feel sore, with achy toes and more, I know I walked long and hard and used many muscles. What a great darn workout tho right!!

WOW, so cool. You sure hit interesting times in your work times

Heading back to VA! safe travels. Wonderful pic of that seafood and I want every bit of it, yum.

--------------busy busy with closing down pool now. trying to get a handle on keeping landscape issues dealt with. I tell ya, mother nature regrows so fast and I am having to handle trees on my horse pasture fences etc. oh, well, good workout and keeps one busy, idle hands right?

today is simple as usual
got big NY Strip steak defrosted. Got some chicken breasts. Not sure if naked or alfredo sauce on them maybe…we shall see which work I want to put into those chick breasts later

ZCing along and wow Sept is now ticking down and heading into Spooky October time!

Shinita · 2022-09-19 10:43:07 UTC

@FrankoBear: I never ever met a sausage with a carby filler yet (except those things we don’t call a sausage but what we fry/bake along with them. they are very visible full with rice, hard not to notice and everyone knows anyway) so it’s not a problem with my sausage.
Mushroom hunting and categorizing(?) is my hobby I couldn’t do since a year at least, I didn’t consider it a food topic though the liver/beefsteak one is edible. But I just looked at it as it was a baby.
I still have a mushroom I have no idea what it is (3 but I am only super curious about one!) and it frustrates me…
I don’t consider mushroom important in any kind of diet we could do as it’s mostly water and some kitin and whatever. Almost no nutrients I guess (I only looked at the protein, negligible) especially in the tiny amounts we find. It’s just a fun element

I am peckish (I like English has such a word, we haven’t. I can’t say I am properly hungry but my body WANTS food pretty seriously, just one step before a temper tantrum. I wait until I can, eating at 10am is the worst idea ever unless it’s REALLY serious), not very surprising considering I must have some huge deficit yesterday and while I overate the day before, it can’t balance it out. Training is important and I can do it now. I came a long way. And it’s not so bad, food just keeps getting into my mind. I will eat some eggs soon Meat wise I have a little of this, a little of that and 5-6 raw turkey necks at the moment. So I went back to eating eggs first. And dropped the lunch skipping idea in the foreseeable future as I can’t eat proper sized meals. I still need to wait for some real urges as eating at 3pm without a need results in a few bites and getting hungry every hour and I had enough of that for September.
But enough of this for a long time, I think I know what to do now and I feel chill.

It’s cold here (maybe not anymore, it’s around noon and it’s a sunny day. but it started quite low) but the radio says a late autumn weather isn’t so bad, some parts in this same very small country got SNOW! What. It’s September! We don’t have that here, we don’t have high mountains… Very unusual.

Cool, the not-sweet part, I mean… But I NEVER will get used to those odd habits there. WHY to put much sugar on meat? I just don’t get it. Who does that? It’s not a thing here but it shouldn’t anywhere if you ask me… I get it that due to its allegedly flavor enhancing skills they put a tiny bit into everything but if it’s very seriously recognizable, it sounds super wrong.
But remembering what people on this forum wrote about family meals, people DO like those things…? Glazed hams and sweet BBQ…
I try to get over this but at least don’t comment it anymore but it’s hard.

Oh, fancy seafood, I never ate things like that, just tiny shrimps and whatnot but those are yummy too. And super expensive. Oh, seafood… I almost regret I didn’t buy the moussels last time but they never were my favs. I find shrimps and crabs more interesting taste wise I always went for those options in Chinese restaurants and Alvaro was the same.

My spirit is fine, my physical energy level is very low though. Maybe I need food. And to find that elusive mushroom somewhere already!

It’s hard to say but it’s possible October is my favorite month. Pretty leaves, good weather (my memory is probably selective but we typically really have wonderful indian summer there), proper temperature for a little run… My terrace will be a mess but it already is. Our huge lindens tree has the time of its life, add rain, strong wind, storms… I tried to tidy it up a bit today but give the tree 1-2 hours, it will undo most of my work… Lovely tree but it wasn’t the previous owners’ best idea to put it next to the house (and I am not into the WHITE slippery tiles either but even when we were in the middle of the serious rebuilding of the house and almost only part of the first floor and the basement was kept but even the doors changed places… so even then, we thought that retiling is just a too big hassle and we never will do that. I need to paint them somehow but what could be permanent enough…? I will think about it more.) Oh my, the gutter, it must be full below/around the tree again…
I can’t mow the lawn as it’s always wet nowadays… At least watering is no problem.
My garden is half decorative, half fruit garden, it’s not that much work. If I can handle the inevitable messiness of the terrace. I will need to move a ton of lindens leaves soon… But not yet. It’s dropping other parts now.

Fangs · 2022-09-19 11:06:01 UTC

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instead of posting my zc meat I am posting my zc meat eater today!
on other couch watching me type. Ahh, he lives better than I do most days…well, darn near all days

Fangs · 2022-09-19 11:37:14 UTC

yea I am an Oct fan, kinda. I get sad losing our hot summer but it is a nice ‘more even’ temp month. Starts the hiking season time for me vs. summer water swim time.

I meant for Spooky…reference…Halloween holiday for me.
time for ghouls, pumpkins, witches, black cats and ghosts
The dead have their day

Shinita · 2022-09-19 12:46:12 UTC

I LOVE losing the horrible hotness of summer (I like nature and sunshine and everything, summer is pretty but it’s too hot. that only works well with the beach. I don’t like the occasional drought… but every season has its good and bad things), it’s interesting you like it much too but as I think about, you like many things, you aren’t just a summer gal and nothing else…

Every day is Halloween to me if I want to (I usually want to) but yes, I do even more now. I will get out our witch hat and kitty hair stuff with the bells from my drawer… I am the kitty, Alvaro is the witch. I am no pumpkin fan but that’s okay too. But skeletons Spiders Mummies, witches, vampires and ghosts!!!
I will make tombstones or did I say that already? I barely did anything in the last years (and had no idea about Halloween before, IDK when I learned about this holiday but not in my first decades, that’s pretty sure) but now I will. I started making small sculptures so I want mini sculptured tombstones. I have a small skeleton, it needs a small one and anyway, I wouldn’t want a big one, harder and costlier to make, where to store etc. And small things are cuter.

I wonder if I can make some drawing for the October thread. Halloween and carnivore, I will need some idea… Well, animals have skeletons… It won’t be too hard. I plan a Christmas one too, IDK if I will be ready to make such a complicated one, I am very lazy and not necessarily confident if it comes to art and usually focus on portraits and my worm characters (I need to change my avatar pic. it’s Dingle but I prefer Dee, his daughter. and I have a cool avatar on a drawing site I barely ever use anymore, it’s similar to me just way prettier and part of it is the black in the eyes, instead of white… and she has a skull hair clip. I have problems with drawing a human avatar for myself without a skull present).

I was hungry for a while, it was a bad idea to start eating without a full big meal in front of me but my lunch slowly gets assembled, I already baked the sponge cakes, the soup in the pressure cooker that took prisoner all my proper meat except the little pork in my pâté, well that is taking its time. But I am okay now. And have a sausage for emergencies. But I want my leaner proper meat first. I had eggs and liver this far.
I really hope that after my shopping I will like pork. I want meat as what else could I eat along with my eggs and meat is convenient when I need much food anyway but I don’t find any of the options tempting at the very moment. Hence my “this and that” day where nothing has a major role, I just have many little courses.

FrankoBear · 2022-09-19 14:18:20 UTC

Can we work Carnivore Buns of Steel into a monthly challenge name?

Shinita · 2022-09-19 15:00:38 UTC

I am definitely not against that, in the contrary, they would remind me that I actually wanted to run again… It’s hard to restart, I never liked to run, I just consider it important. Just a tiny bit every day, to the hilltop and back! It’s such a little distance!

Both the cats and I enjoyed the soup (they just got the fowl bones with little meat and not so little skin on them, the liquid is precious to me). It is a rich soup this time. Finally I am very much satiated Only had a tiny lunch with Alvaro, soup with a bigger turkey neck and eggy coffee. For some reason I felt great desire towards coffee today. 8/19 coffee days in September. I will try to improve the ratio later but as my more recent coffee days include only 1-2 coffees now, I am pleased. I was only against the compulsive procrastinating coffee drinking starting in the morning (it usually lasted until evening or bed time). Now I don’t drink coffee before eating and forget about it afterwards. Good.
Alvaro drinks a coffee once every season. And he just now finished the mouflon dish. I ate up my share in some hours 2 days ago. About 400g tasty mutton isn’t particularly much…

And it seems I misheard the snow, it must have been near but not in the country. Of course the high mountains have it already, that’s not a bit news. But there is hail, that’s not an autumn thing either but a summer one…

MeganNZ · 2022-09-19 16:29:33 UTC

Hi Linda, thanks for checking in

Struggling physically and I don’t know what to make of it. The past few weeks my body is extremely fatigued. Walking up the stairs in my house is hard and I’m just dragging myself about the house. No strength in my muscles and feeling like I have zero fuel in the tank.

My sleep has gotten a lot worse. I have no problem falling asleep, but I am waking every hour, usually to find myself in a lot of muscle pain. I get up to pee and I’m soooo stiff and sore and turning over in bed hurts a lot. I stopped taking a low dose of quetiapine however many weeks ago (atypical antipsychotic prescribed to help me stay asleep better) and have been waking a lot more than usual which I half expected, but now I’m also in a lot of pain at night. No wonder I feel like crap given how I’m sleeping. I’ve ordered a herbal supplement combo for sleep which should arrive today and am hoping it helps - Ashwagandha, Valerian, Passionflower and Lavender Oil.

Also 2 times this past week I have started shaking uncontrollably in one of my many wakings up. Jaw chattering, body shivering violently, limbs moving all over the place. No temperature. Is scaring the heck out of me. Never experienced it before. Lasts about 15 minutes then stops.

The near constant brain zaps are finally starting to settle a bit tho which is such a relief! If they are settling it could well mean they will stop completely.

I don’t track but I really don’t think I am eating too few calories but I’m going to up them just in case. I have listened to the recent interview Kelly Hogan did with Amber O’Hearn and I’m wondering if there is something in it for me.

(1) Why Some People Don't Improve On Carnivore: AND HOW TO FIX IT - YouTube

Amber talks about people who have very low energy, but it seems these people are also not losing weight? I’m still losing weight, averages out to be 700 grams a week over the past 4 months on carnivore, tho it has slowed a little the past month. Not that I’m worried about it, I’m very happy with my progress. She also talked about these people having very low ketone readings, which has been me my entire time on keto then carnivore. 0.4 on my blood ketone meter has been my highest, it’s usually 0.2 when I occasionally measure. I had some bug or something a month or so ago and ate very very little for 3 full days. Only drank water and had one very small meat meal a day and on day 3, after not having eaten for 22 hours my blood reading was 0.3.

Soooo, maybe I’m one of the people who have to limit how much protein they are eating and break it up into 3-4 meals a day and add a lot of fat until my body figures out fat is our new energy source, not glucose. Which feels weird to say given I only eat animal foods! But, from what she said, eating biggish boluses of protein in some people nudges insulin up over time and once you get to a certain level your body you go from a fat burning state back to glucose burning state.

I dunno, what do people who have watched the interview think?

I hate butter, the thought of eating it makes me want to puke. So I went to the supermarket yesterday and bought double cream brie, double cream blue cheese and some more cream cheese - all very high fat to protein. I’ll have to make sure I count the protein grams in these cheeses and make my meat portion even smaller tho. Thankfully I love shoulder pork which is crazy fatty. Plus a very thick layer of fat between the meat and the skin, which is my fav part! Slow fry until everything caramelizes.

It’s possible the bug, or whatever I had a month or so ago, is still lingering and making my exhaustion, sleep and pain a lot worse. In the meantime I’m going to eat 4 meals a day at a 80/20 ratio, keeping my protein to 30 grams per meal, and see how it goes. Eating this way will also increase my calorie intake which may also help.

Thanks for listening.

Shinita · 2022-09-19 18:33:51 UTC

Good luck! It’s problematic when the fat/protein ratio need to be somewhat forcefully changed, but it’s good that dairy works for you and you like fatty pork, shoulders is pretty fatty, yep, there are WAY fattier pork options, of course… I can’t even afford shoulders, I am the opposite, I probably need to eat the leanest meat I can. Not sure as my eating is crazy lately…

Let’s hope we all will figure out what to do and soon at that.

VirginiaEdie · 2022-09-19 19:48:49 UTC

I used to fall for that with things that were listed as sugar-free. Sugar-free doesn’t mean no added sweetness, it just means the added sweetness comes from artificial sweetener instead of real sugar.

I think companies add soy or other fillers to processed meat, such as sausage, to make people think it is healthier.

VirginiaEdie · 2022-09-19 19:58:02 UTC

Are you taking in enough salt? When my sodium level gets too low, I get meandering muscle aches, cramps, headaches, and my blood pressure drops too low. A lot of carnivores say they don’t need extra salt, but I was never able to give it up during my carnivore trial.

Robb Wolf on the Healthy Rebellion Podcast frequently sites low sodium as a reason for poor sleep. He feels when sodium drops too low, it causes a cortisol response which wakes us up.