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

[FrankoBear]

Thirty animal-based eating days hath September. Only thirty. It almost seems unfair. Hardly enough to get into all the nutrition on offer.

Welcome to the ZC carnivore 30-day challenge. Welcome new curious carnivores and welcome crusty old carnivores. It’s time to share stories and solve the healthiness of this type of low carb lifestyle. There is no one way to do it. But there is only one of you. Join us to find a way.

What are your loose goals or expectations for this month?

Write a short message to your September 30 self, and at the end of the month have a look back at where you came from.

Let us begin!

[FrankoBear]

Hey Future Frank, Well, will you look at that. You are much healthier and active than I was at the start of September. Great to see that you got outdoors in the sunshine and fresh air. Some of those aches and pains have disappeared. And you found that animal-based eating groove with 2MAD and mixing up beef, seafood and eggs to get a wide range of nutrition. Nice work.

Oh, and the coffee thing…

[coopdawg]

and welcome crusty old carnivores.

For some odd reason I visualised pork scratchings when I read this!

Enjoy your month!

[Shinita]

Lovely first and second comment, @FrankoBear! It was witty and fun but not surprising considering it’s you!

Short message, me

I came to state my goals for now but my simple meal is already planned too, I just don’t know when I will feel the need to consume it. Or the exact number of my eggs.

1. So, I attempt a carnivore month, again. With more success than ever I hope. My personal record was 2 weeks, a little break and some more time in November of… 2020, maybe? I am bad with time. I had NO normal meat back then, just smoked super salted pork and chicken liver. No idea how I did it, out of pure determination and love towards eggs, I suppose.
   Now I have a waaaaaay better and bigger variety and I changed A LOT.
   I said carnivore but I am fine with carnivore-ish. Still, I try to do things as strict as somewhat comfortably possible (somewhat means I don’t require total comfort and indulging all my whims. I can put some tiny effort into it). I start with not processed (well you understand. cutting and cooking by myself don’t count) meat, eggs and salt ONLY. This is my default and I will add things if I like. I made sure to eat up all my precious dairy (the cheese is Alvaro’s precious dairy, I can ignore it just fine. Ignoring sour cream, cream and quark is harder).

2. I need small eating windows too. 30-60 mins if I can eat properly, up to 5 hours if I can’t do it. 1 or 2 meals but it doesn’t really matter. I will try to skip lunch when comfortably possible.

3. I have zillion other plans not related to eating but I talk about some here sometimes so…
   I want to go back to my proper 2 workouts a week and I don’t know how but I will try to make my chest presses happen too. It’s tricky as I need Alvaro for that and between he and me, we forget or the time isn’t right (I can’t lift after eating)…
   Tiny running would be nice too, my stamina isn’t great, fresh air is nice… I walk in the morning or around noon, usually but want to go out in the evenings too.

4. NO coffee, ever. MAYBE as flavoring, later.
   I had some glasses of nice warm water this morning

I probably forgot things but we have a whole month… I actually want to lose fat now, still not among my first few priorities… I want MORE ENERGY pretty please! Health I already have, of course it always can get a tiny bit better… But I won’t feel it at this point. Or energy actually may be belong to it, loosely…

Oh rules for the WHOLE month even if I manage to go off, I have them too. But it’s not important now and if I am super lucky, long term determined or something, they won’t be even needed. I have a hard time to imagine myself doing a full carni month but it actually should be easy as I like the food and lately I don’t desire carbs ever (maybe I wanna try my fruits. well those are banned for this month, off or not, except maybe a few drops of lemon juice later. not in my first, super simple and pure weeks where I stay away from my worse condiments like pickle juice or that tasty but sugary tomato/paprika paste that is so nice with cheese that I don’t wanna eat either yet). It wasn’t so bad but I wanna write more pure here, no carbs

Oh, 5. I won’t promise short comments as I don’t need sure fail but I plan to report back once a day and not hanging around here all the time… Maybe I make short comments replying to something but that’s it. I hope. I am and will be super enthusiastic and it doesn’t help to stay away or be short but I do what I can.

Good luck and other good things, everyone!

MY morning was a relief… I know I need this, I know I enjoy this better than any other alternative (at least for a while. oh it will be interesting to see what happens after weeks)… I am just not a good enough hedonist and follow bad deal compulsions sometimes. But they have no power over me now.

[Fangs]

Raises hand, I am one of the ol’ crusty carnivores

@FrankoBear
I loved your saying you are coming into Sept better cause of your good August — More great zc power to ya thru this month!

@JJFiddle, you were nice when ya hit the thread, you saying you are even now NICER on carnivore? Wild!!! Weee…too cool, love it.

@Shinita
ohh, glad it isn’t anything about ya being sicky with that energy issue but big humid weather can shut down anyone seasons to change sooner now and hopefully the better weather will zip ya back up? Good luck on your Sept challenge too!!

@MeganNZ
very sorry to hear you are feeling so rough! It seems like a few things have got hold of you. I hope it goes thru fast and you get squared away quicker. I SO get that you are ‘tired of being tired’ or sicky icky in any way. That is one thing that made me also tackle a tough eating change in life. Daily life not feeling great and struggling is something I had to fix also. Stress is a big noose around so many of us nowadays. I can’t handle high stress anymore too. It literally can make on very ill but hang in there and hope you start to recover fast now.

@Karen18
WoooHooo…dont jinx it but better sleep is a great thing to read. your body had to give ya some better snooze time and it did, cool.

----------Carnivore Sept for me is simple. I want to target more burger as my main beef source. See how well I do on it vs. my steaks. Will be interesting to see what goes down.

Since we are surf and turf…I am planning a ‘treat day’ for me. SURF!
Mother in law is doing better gaining back some mobility and strength but she is doing this only cause of her 24/7 rehab care. They are doing a good job with her and she so needed this facility. But she was rifling thru her purse and found a $50 Walmart store gift card and gave it to me. YUP! I am not buying toilet paper or anything else, I am treating me me me me me to crab legs. A big ol’ mess of whatever $50 will buy Plus she found a $20 and 30 gift cards for the dollar store in our area. Woo hoo. She had no list of anything she needed us to buy for her so she said spend this on who cares…ok I will

Burger and pork is my turf and shrimp and a crab treat later will be my surf.

ZC ZEN. When we are ‘in the full zone’ receiving full health benefits and our mind body and soul are calm, in sync, handling daily life in better form. We find ourselves fully content with our lives. We breathe well thru our day knowing the universe will take care of the day if we take care of the mind body and soul, we need to never forget we need to feed our brains and emotions and work on ourselves as we see fit to suit us on what we need out of the universe to improve our lives! Best way to do that…eat well and heal! As we heal physically we can receive zc mental clarity also to help us improve on a total well being level of living. ZC will give this to us.

Let’s just roll Sept. in full speed ahead and see how it comes out

[Azi]

@FrankoBear super starting post loved it. Thanks for starting us off.
Plans for September is to continue to eat to my meter its simple and I’m seeing results in lowered bg.

This mornings blood sugar reading was 93
Followed by breakfast two eggs, 1 flanken rib 1 coffee with egg yolk

Lunch small serving of smoked tritip and steamed flounder in butter x2 (I cooked two lots and ate it since fish is so lean) and a egg yolk coffee

[robintemplin]

Dear Future Robin,
Maybe you followed through and moved your rear a bit more this month.
If so, way to go… you got this!
If not, we saw that coming. There’s always October….

[Shinita]

Oh my hunger, long time to see… You don’t need to be THAT assertive though…

I got quite hungry, only lasted until 2pm because I did my walk just before… I couldn’t appreciate Nature very much except the gull doing impressive acrobatics…
Then my appetite went into the negative and chased away my hunger but my body already set its mind to eating and I stayed weak… So I ate I planned eggs but I wasn’t into them so it was only 1 scrambled eggs and pork! And a bit later the leftover pork and 3 sponge cakes, I had another piece of fatty pork, just like in the left:

Guesstimation says 1200 kcal, protein is around the safe minimum, fat is low and 59%… I stuffed myself (and my eating skills are nothing to scoff at, usually even on carnivore… and even with limited options) and my lunch took a whole hour.

Only pork chuck and butts and eggs and salt! Okay I used some lard but that originally belong to my pork
And I had headache for hours and being miserable today so I had a comfort tea too. As always, I thought about coffee but I reminded myself that

1. It doesn’t help with headache. It did when I was very young but not anymore.
2. I don’t like coffee anymore. (It’s nice here and there with cream but I don’t have cream. And it’s not about joy now anyway.)
   So yay, I avoided it.

540g meat, and 3 eggs. About $2.85. I thought about eating cheaper meat too sometimes (it’s cheap pork but pork so I can go lower)… But it’s still not a big food cost, of course. But I ate little so I expect that.
I pretty much regenerated from my chicken aversion - but turkey costs the same and it’s tastier… Still, chicken is easier to get especially without a big box… Sometimes the hypermarket has a huge bag of chicken drumsticks (maybe thigh too, I don’t care which) I will make some lovely spicy drumsticks… Turkey is tasty with salt but chicken is inferior (and @Karen18 's pretty wings are inspiring, I just don’t bother with tiny wings with their pitiful ends so I use my fav parts. wings are good when the animal is turkey :D). The not super expensive chicken at least but chicken doesn’t even satiate me well alone, I won’t pay almost as much as for deer for it! (The deer price made a big impact on me last time but we still have plenty of stuff to eat so we won’t buy any next week either.)

It was an okay day but I was too hungry to enjoy my food optimally. But it was nice. Tomorrow I plan another stricter day and then I will go into carnivore-ish territory as Alvaro makes rabbit stew! (Wow, this forum has a stew smiley…)
I ate so much pork lately, still not bored but some variety is surely nice. And the rabbit with its weird shape (poor bunny. it has a headless naked bunny shape but my normal meat slabs and boxes have a vaguely brick shape) takes up a lot of space in the freezer and I will need that space soon…

[coopdawg]

Had to grin there!

In these parts, if you follow through (moving your rear or not!) it usualy means a fart has went badly wrong. Commonly known as a sh-art!

I amuse myself…but I do get what you really mean.
Have a good month!

[Karen18]

@Fangs yup I jinxed it alright, last night wasn’t as good as the previous few nights but hey ho all good things … and so on …

No pressure day at work but felt tired and spent too much time doing risk calls that my head was a bit shot by 2om. Ate cooked sliced turkey reheated with butter today instead of chick and it was a nice change. Cane home and ate a couple of jars of pickled mussels. They were the fully shelled mussels I bought at morrisons and refilled the used cycle and mussel jars with them as I had left the vinegar in the jars. Wasnt sure how they would be but they were lovely and very moreish.

Then I cooked rump steak, both sides today as it was yesterdays opened pack, but it wasn’t as nice, a bit too much grissle so I cooked 2 beef burgers straight after.

Sat and read my books, and pottered in garden. There was some dead heading and weeding to do and watering. I am away for weekend tomorrow and didn’t want to come back to have to do it Sunday. Suppose to rain here in Nottingham over weekend but be sunny in Devon where I will be. How good is that x

[JJFiddle]

@Shinita I keep seeing you guys can buy deer meat in the stores there… And rabbit. There are enough destructive deer here, eating my flowers, even walking up on the porch to eat newly purchased flowers at night! It’s legal to shoot them but we aren’t hunters. We’ve asked friends who hunt for some of theirs but they’re not giving it away (or selling it.)
Growing up we ate rabbit. Both my dad and Grampa raised rabbits in the garage so it was frequently on our table. Rabbit gravy! Mmm.
But it’s not sold here. Bummer.
@Fangs funny! I do try to be nice, lol. Glad m-i-l is better, you haven’t mentioned her recently. Laughed out loud at “crab legs for me me me me me” - why not be honest about it! And love ZC Zen. A good read.
@robintemplin Yes! Tickled me. Any month is a good month to move your rear (or not)!
@azi those numbers are sliding right down! That has been my personal mission too since my dad was diagnosed diabetic when I was 14. (I knew even then there was a better way.)
@FrankoBear I join everybody else in thanking you. When you’re away, we all miss you!

At this moment my Sept goal has no choice but- to find time to rest, stay fed and hydrated, and pace myself during all we are doing now (playing and or teaching 6 days/shopping&errands Thursdays). I’m cruising nicely on ZC now (in my 9th month of carnivore), looking for a modicum of variety in foods, and not stressing too much on improvements. I love reading, getting more into science of carnivore, listening to podcasts (@Karen18 there is no better sleep supplement ), trying pure Carni recipes like the ones in the Emmerich’s “Carnivore.” 3rd week we wrap it up here and head back to VA til the 1st of November for a good number of gigs/students there. More reminders to rest and feed and chill as these changes take place.

Yesterday I made a loaf of egg white bread which came out squishy and funny, but good. Next time I’ll sift the egg white powder in, instead of trying to sprinkle it.
Left it to cool too long as I was in a meeting, so it squished. I put the yolks in beds of salt in the fridge to dry (Emmerich), 6 in smoked sea salt and 6 in regular sea salt. They stay there a week and then hang in cheesecloth for up to a year(!). They can be grated on burgers, steaks, etc. received_969003224056683|258x500

This morning at 11 I said, “I have to eat.” we planned to drive 40 min to another town to shop, then wouldn’t be home till around 3.
I cooked sausage and 2 eggs.

We came home this afternoon with groceries and window shades and I started fixing burger for me with some egg white bread in the ghee with the burger, plus his sides - so grateful that he doesn’t need variety! Same ole same ole. Lucky me!

[Shinita]

We have many deers, mouflons around here and quite a few people keep and sell rabbits… The supermarket rabbits are too expensive for something that’s so lean and while tasty, nothing very special. Deer, well that’s special for me even if common…

I am looking forward to my rabbit stew. I probably could live on eggs and pork but it wouldn’t be so fun long term, I do love my variety and spices/condiments/flavorings/etc. even if I don’t use them very often. Sometimes I have an itch and egg and pork with salt just can’t scratch it. It’s not too serious and probably will diminish… I can’t just drink water either. Only for a little time.

And I NEVER got hungry again, it’s so amazing… If I can pull off a carnivore lunch OMAD on most days, it will be brilliant! Skipping lunch always was tricky for me as around 3 I am already ready to have some tasty food, I have just cooked, Alvaro comes home… I still skip it if I am satiated but I rarely am, usually I am not hungry, not satiated at that point but sometimes I am a bit hungry. IDK what exactly happened to me that I don’t get hungry again, maybe the protein is that powerful even with little fat… Or it’s just a phase. Whatever, it’s good, multiple meals (especially that it’s very exceptional when I can stop at 2) aren’t convenient and I eat too much that way. So I go for gently stuffing myself using my limited options now.

Hmmm, egg white bread… I have read about them a lot but it seemed too much work for something subpar, I never had egg white powder anyway. I do tried to do what I could, even made egg powder once… But my sponge cake breads are the best. If I keep them pure white, they are the firmest but they lose all their flavor, obviously… Yolks are needed.
But I will make experiments, sometimes I make some nice sponge cake based things, not into a bread direction though. Quark is good in it. Probably sour cream and dill too…

But I do another dairy-free week first If I won’t miss my dairy. I get variety from my meats and my pure egg dishes (i.e. only egg and maybe salt and lard. but I can add some meat if I want, I just don’t see the point if it’s normal fresh meat. I will add ham powder when I decide to allow it. processed meaty stuff probably comes next week).

It’s past noon and I am sure I will have lunch, my satiation stopped maybe an hour ago? No wonder after a low-cal day. I finished frying the fried pork I had in the freezer, it wasn’t raw anymore but was so pale… Now it’s way prettier, I added some more lard too, it’s lean pork.

Alvaro finished his food yesterday (it’s so convenient when he cooks something big in the weekend and it lasts for 4 more days…) but he says he is fine with some of the pork today I didn’t cook much this week…

[Fangs]

@Karen18
what’s doing in Devon for ya?

@JJFiddle
So you are liking your cloud bread huh? Great. I tried making it many times yrs ago but the mouth feel, that texture, and it couldn’t fool my brain like it ‘was bread’, lol, ya know so I just gave it up. You think maybe it is a keeper for you?

Your pic of it is so nice!

----------food yesterday was

1/2 lb. of bacon
1/2 lb. mini meatloaf and a small chunk of cheddar to nibble with it
big ol’ chicken breast fried in butter

But what got me is I was still hungry cause my hubby GOT MY other mini meatloaf, smashed it down, added all kinds of ICK to it to make his version of sloppy joe. Yea he found it in the fridge, MY back up food…ok, we had a chat HA but I said he was lucky I had that chicken defrosted too so he got off without too much hassle from me. I did a dumb Karen move, I put my other 1/2 lb. mini meatloaf on the fridge shelf, kinda means fair game in a way. IF IT goes in my ‘meat drawer’ it is never fair game so I kinda screwed up that one for myself

I did get hungry even after the chick, not enough anchor food in me but I said to myself in a chat, HEY IDIOT you can survive til morning and eat then LOL Yea some days I gotta remind myself I have it SO darn good in my food and what I did eat was ‘great zc food’ for my day so pony up some backbone and shut up on it

Yes I talked myself out of being hungry cause in reality I really was not considering what I ate for the day…but just having ‘my food taken’ and not available made my head go

but I am a work in progress to chill over it all. Woke up this morning after grumbling late into the night I wanted to eat but had nothing ready, and I sure was NOT gonna cook…woke up not hungry as usual.

So days like that, this ol’ broad has to chill more and just see what food went down the hatch and be grateful for it ya know. Sometimes I make me mad in my thinking just how ungrateful for what great I do have makes me angry at myself kinda! but all good thru it.

Surf/Turf-tember is gonna be a good ride for me I believe.
I feel ‘so all in’ ya know. So ZC Zen kinda. Always happy and grateful for that well being feeling. Things settling, stress level dropping, life doing that ‘back to calm ok’ which is where I always wanna be!

Forward we zc go!!

[FrankoBear]

[Fangs]

@FrankoBear
so feel that funny cartoon!

I gotta check out what I want is a massive rack of ribs and so much King crab legs I am chowing down on as my last darn meal HAHA

funny cause my kid wanted salad last night…she is ‘lower carb’ kiddo cause she ‘learned that from me’ but some nights she is steak and shrimp and I say, a side? and she says none. Some brown rice and chicken and I say a veg more? nope…so she gets it. Spahetti and meatballs and ‘you want that garlic bread ya love’ and nope…cool.

but last night I had to ask hubby to run up to the little store and buy spinach, some romaine, carrots, broccoli, croutons so she could have her salad she was so desperate for cause this ol’ lady ain’t buying veg anymore cause when I do ‘try to anticipate’ when she wants one, I buy all the veg and beg her to eat and nope, then that crap goes in the garbage. to me alot money hits the garbage so I would rather do a ‘salad on demand’ when she wants it then keep throwing so much veg in the garbage. so over that and of course thing she said was…there is NO food in this house! ugh LOL

just rambling cause we had a ‘salad crisis’ last night in this house’

[Azi]

This mornings blood sugar was 94

Breakfast 1 flanken rib 2 fried eggs and coffee

While I was cooking breakfast making coffee all thoughts are on food and all the aroma so out of interest I took a couple more readings …just thinking about food raises my blood glucose haha by the time I took last reading within about a minute my blood reading was already up to 100 and that was without a single bite

[Fangs]

THAT IS SUPER interesting Azi.
body let off hormones or insulin or some cortosil or some? whatever that was all triggered by smell and anticipation…body is so mysterious…what you thinking here?

[Shinita]

Okay, not so bad and I surely am super far from overeating at least…

I had some bites from my currently not tempting fried pork and realized it’s boring. Leanish meat fried usually is, I never put extra stuff (like spices, sauces) on my roasted pork but fried is a bit different. Okay, let’s stop the strictness, come, condiments! 1-2 bites later I had to stop. Fine, I have fatty pork roast! 1 bite later I realized I just can’t eat more meat, doesn’t want eggs either so I cut a slice of cheese with the rarely used but fun carbier condiment… Sponge cakes are fine when there is something to eat with them. I stopped, then I had some ham spread on another sponge cake… Then I remembered my sausages and defrosted one… I managed, like, an 5g bite… And now I can’t eat anything else. But I am not really hungry so it’s okay.

So I STILL can get bored of my food. Too strict days never help but it was ONE!

I still will go back to a stricter style if I will have a mood for some nice roast (so when it’s natural. yesterday was okay too) but now I need a more relaxed approach for a little while. Weekend is coming anyway!

I started to eat at 2:30pm today. And I hope for some cute TMAD. My lunch probably was super tiny, it’s good I had extra yolks

Alvaro never eats my meat, we both extremely respect the other person’s food and ask for permission (except I don’t ask for permission when Alvaro has something nice galore and I want a bite especially not when I cooked it). We agreed on pork for today’s lunch and he still asked me when he spotted it on the counter to be sure (it’s understandable, actually, one can never know if I have multiple kinds of meat and various plans with them). I feel super safe, no matter where I put my food. It’s good. But I could retaliate, of course, you DON’T take the precious food from a potentially hungry fire dragon (that’s me, 1976). But it would bother my tender sensibilities. Well it depends, such acts in certain situations are understandable.

Hmmm, I feel okay now. Surely won’t be hungry for a couple of hours now. Good.

Woke up this morning after grumbling late into the night I wanted to eat but had nothing ready, and I sure was NOT gonna cook…

Oh I so hated that… I learned my lesson and now I have something to eat all the time. Now I have pork chuck roast, tongues, sausages and pork belly in the freezer. As soon as multiple of them runs out, I put some more there… I never know when I will need something else. Like today when I had PLENTY of pork and I didn’t want it.
And I have my spreads and tinned fish too… I always can eat something when hungry.

[Fangs]

I always can eat something when hungry.

very true. if we don’t want our meats and eggs and more then we really are NOT that hungry enough to ‘like stave off peril’ from no food…lol…none of us are there.

mind games come into play about ‘variety and taste’ ya know but longer on carnivore we can bypass this issue, which is a great thing for me cause I was one who can backslide in an instant and get off track and gain thru ‘that wanting variety’.

never saying this is all ever but to me personally and how other zc’ers have verified thru their jorney, that food is not fuel only, cause I have to enjoy my meals but alot of times as we change our brains say WTH? I want more taste, more variety and more ‘other food’ to suit that and that is a TRAP, well it is and was for me…but I saw past that finally…took a while but darn I got there

[Shinita]

I am very sure I always will need variety. It’s what I am. And it makes sense.
If I didn’t want variety this very physically, I still wanted it mentally
Almost all of us here need or at least prefer variety and it’s quite fine. I would be sad being okay with no variety to the point that I wouldn’t even eat various things. I always was super big on variety and trying things as I am very curious.

I can imagine being starved and not wanting any carni food, for someone else, I mean, fortunately I am not that bad. I can get bored of eggs and my usual pork - but SOME kind of meat is still okay for me (and usually some kind of egg dishes). And I keep various stuff at home so I will have something carni to eat any time. I had times when I had to eat carbs as my only options when I run out of carnivore-ish things I was able to eat. (Well it usually wasn’t really “carbs” just sweet pancakes, super low net carbs… But carbs too easily came into play when I was hungry and desperate. I got better. First I never run out of meat as it was a problem too… And then I never run out various meaty items I can eat in a minute or two…)

Taste… Variety isn’t about taste only, it wasn’t today. I had a quite negative appetite towards my main staples. I CAN’T eat in that situation so if I have nothing else, I either force-feed myself (nope) or suffer. Something different is easier to eat. Too bad that when I manage to get bored of my pork, I get bored of almost everything else. It’s super odd and I have no idea why it happens. But it’s not easy to find a food in existence I find okay in that situation. I don’t desire anything at all but it’s fine, I only need something I can eat without joy but I CAN eat it. Today I got bored of everything in 1-2 bites so I needed many somethings but I pulled it off…
I wasn’t right though, I still am hungry and it’s annoying but my appetite is negative so I must low-key suffer. I can’t eat like this and only would force myself if it was worse, like pain. I hate pain. I dislike annoying hunger but that’s not strong enough to overpower my no force policy (it has a reason, it may be in vain).

So today my only goal was eating because I can’t stand real hunger. (I can if I must but I hate it with a passion.)
I tracked since and I managed to eat 1000 kcal, I thought it was less but the spread and lard on the sponge cakes were fatty so added calories easily (and the yolks helped a bit too). But it was a tiny lunch and I am hungry and a bit torn. But no, I can’t eat. So I must be weirdly hungry for a while.
Hunger and negative appetite, I hate this combo for a reason. Oh well. It’s not one of my major problems.

When I am almost satiated and fancy something else? That’s very different. It feels like habit and I can train myself out of that I am sure.