Carnivores March into March :)

[Shinita]

My flowers are almost blooming, well the 4 new pansies I bought today totally are I will bring photos later.

I had an offline period again (regarding the forum and YT, at least, I still read stuff on my tablet but I never use certain places there as it’s not convenient), that’s why I disappeared. But I went off anyway, I don’t have meat since some time and no idea when I can get some. All our shoppings happened in small stores and supermarkets (I don’t think the small ones are called supermarket but the supermarkets lacked meat counters too) and it turned out that the first day (Saturday) of a 4 day holiday is problematic regarding pork on sale…The available meat was too expensive with too much plastic or I just didn’t want that cut… I wanted a tiny break anyway for multiple reasons but it got too long when it was inconvenient to go to the small town to visit the butcher so I didn’t do it. I am not determined to buy meat, apparently as I easily could do it if I really wanted. But I don’t even care now, my life is a super big chaotic fail now.
I have no problem with breaks and while I don’t feel the best, it’s quite okay as I went back to OMAD (I only could focus on one thing and it was the most important thing for me). But I kinda need meat very soon as I don’t even try to make efforts, I eat what is easiest and it’s a tad tricky without meat.
Of course I eat many eggs and some dairy and sausage and whatever, I had fish and beef liver but it’s not enough. Now we have a dish made from some brisket, not very much but not carnivore either. I have lots of beef, cheaper cuts but that’s still special stuff for special weekends in moderation. I prefer pork anyway but I am choosy even with that.
The brisket seems a nice but normal beef to me but the dish is some kind of stew, I will be curious what happens when I roast it. I have a tiny bit left to fry on Monday.

It’s interesting to see what I do in this situation I didn’t manage to surprise myself.

As I can’t even try anything, I still drink very many coffees a day. And I don’t like it. I mean, the actual coffees, they aren’t good. Well maybe now as I opened a bag of cream…

Sorry I wrote that much, it’s a compulsion.

Oh the beef liver… I eat it slower and slower but that’s my relationship with organs especially liver. It’s still okay stuff but I can’t eat much of it. It got hard with time but it’s fine, I just eat it even slower. It lasted several days but only one little piece is left… Eggs definitely tempts me more, I ate scrambled eggs from 5 eggs today, I eat scrambled eggs for every day. I had a not carnivore but close enough for me (it was an off day anyway but I don’t work that way, I still mostly eat carnivore dishes) not-pizza with 4 different cheeses on it, that was nice. The crust was almost pure egg, I liked that. I eat much dairy now compared to my normal tiny consumption but without proper meat it’s expected. I can handle it for a while but I prefer very low dairy except once in a blue moon I think.
Interestingly, I can’t get bored with my eggs now. My sponge cake muffins are wonderful, best sandwich breads ever, I eat them with cheese and sausage (just a slice of a dry, tasty one, I had 4 different kinds for a while, only 2 opened package though ;)).

Hopefully I can focus a little more soon (and go and get some meat but I must go to the town. this week wasn’t good for it, only 3 workdays too), carnivore-ish OMAD is trickier. Carbier OMAD was zero effort. No tracking, of course, I have enough problems without that now surely useless thing. So IDK how much carbs I had, not very much but not very low as I prefer. But I didn’t care and hadn’t proper meat (still could have done it better but that’s effort even if not much).

Stupid comment. Let’s talk about spring weather then. March continues to be colder than the really unusually warm February, we heat more… The mornings are frosty and we don’t get 15C like in winter now… But the purple and white flowers came out in the forests (Corydalis cava, it seems. I prefer the Hungarian name, it’s cute)… My daffodils super slowly but start to bloom… Nothing can stop spring now, it’s definitely here. I will stop feeding the chickadees and sparrows very soon, they only get a very little sunflower seeds now, they aren’t even interested much anymore, good. They need to catch insects now.

Still no rain. Okay, we had a little one time but we need much more. Even the big pond got smaller and the shallow places egrets and frogs liked almost disappeared.

When I was shopping, I looked at yogurts. Nope, we don’t have extremely low-fat stuff, it’s 1.5% at least, 3-3.2% is the typical fat content and all Greek yogurt is 10%.

[FrankoBear]

…before adding the fat I used to eat the whole shank…
This is what was left after I was full… @Azi Linda

I love reading these eating and hunger adjustment discoveries. It makes me think that I need to examine more closely the fat and protein proportions as to why my meat eating volume has reduced during the carnivore March. And also in eating order; that interesting mention of eating the fat first before embarking on the meat muscle.

I wonder if @Naghite Michael and @Carnivoor Vic have an ordered way of eating? Do particular morsels get eaten first? I’m also thinking, in another part of my brain, is ordered eating, or eating order an eating disorder? That thought started out as a play on words, but has turned into a curiosity. It’s a bit scary as it sniffs like something my mum may have done in the 1970s to try to lose weight.

Dr. Ted Neiman is interesting to look into in the eating order question. If he eats carb-rich foods, it’s at the end of the meal on the last meal of the day. We need to remember Dr. Naiman is in that area of physique fine-tuning, and protein sparing modified fasting (PSMF), that may not be appropriate for people seeking to initially regain metabolic health. Hmm… more sequential steps toward goals. Thinking about sequences here and if there are correct order of achieving.

My dietary observation guinea pig, Mrs. Bear, is adapting and responding to dietary cues. I do harp on about Mrs. Bear. Well, she still eats some plant foods. Recently she has lost some satiety control doing OMAD ( probably under eating), and it seems related to meal meet-ups with her vegetarian yoga fiends, who are all slinky 20y and early 30-somethings. Please excuse an etiquette slip here but Mrs. Bear is looking at 50 next month… she is going on a Vipassana meditation retreat for 10 days at that milestone - they are full on vegetarian instructors and catering, with quite strict fasting times involved (looks like a starvation protocol, but they do seem to get in to ketosis). Anyway with Mrs. Bear’s plant and fruit eating, we adjusted to 2MAD plan 18:6; first meal no carb (egg and fish), 2nd meal protein first, followed by leafy salad, followed by roast pumpkin, followed by berries, if needed. She says no to vegetarian or vegan foods when chatting to the yoga girls, and has a cup of tea, instead. Structuring the intra-meal steps like this, especially the main evening meal, has seen a regain of satiety signals.

All this takes me back to appetisers before a main meal, and how intrinsically evil that idea is. My gut feeling is that we eat for nutrition and hunger satiety. It seems bordering cruel to feed an insulin spiker (e.g. bread) at the start of a meal to make a person hungry and prone to over eating.

Mrs. Bear in her early 20’s vegetarian.

Mrs. Bear last week, low-carb omnivore (struggling with a vegetarian past and contemporary vegetarian peer group). Mrs. Bear has mud on her face and hair feather because she was leading a “Wild Women” workshop on our property, no Mr.Bear allowed.

[FrankoBear]

(Note to self: In a future post I have to talk about poo and nutritionists, based on my gut flora results on zero carb eating.)

This is @JJFiddle Judy’s photo of carni-digestion support companions.

Below is mine. I don’t have diarrhoea. But I did have a poo test that has led to some self experimenting (and concerned looks from my nurse practitioner nutritionist).

I included Himalayan pink salt and magnesium citrate electrolytes in the pic, as magnesium by mouth needs consideration in sorting out a loose poo situation. I take two 300mg doses of elemental magnesium per day, as I suspect my food environment is low in magnesium, my rain water drinking definitely is, or that I am a poor absorber. I will note that the geology of the lands where I live is limestone-based, calcium carbonate gets into everything, this high calcium environment may get into my gut and interfere or inhibit optimal magnesium absorption.

I think it is important to spin the bottles around to look at and discuss ingredient labels. I’ll follow a random thought at this juncture: probiotics are encapsulated worlds of tiny creatures… are bacteria animals? By taking probiotics are we eating whole worlds of animals?

In the digestive enzymes - take capsule half an hour before a meal (you’d think that would be easy to remember):

1. Protease helps digest protein (made from a fungus) - check, might be helpful in ZC
2. Amylase helps digest starch (made from fungus) - not as helpful in a low starch diet
3. Tilactase … don’t know what that is, reads like a sugar digestor, e.g. lactase to digest lactose in milk
4. Cellulase helps digest cellulose, that Indigestible fibre part of plants
5. Lipase helps digest dietary fats - check, might be helpful in ZC

The probiotic on the right is nutritionist advised as a step toward trying to ‘balance’ my gut flora based on some ‘non- normal’ results. My poo is normal according to the Bristol stool chart. So, the non-normal, @Fangs will love this, is based on normals established from the population of people who have had poo tests… and if the majority of people are either ill, or metabolically dysfunctional, then what’s ‘normal’ is up for questioning. My gut biota results might actually be normal for a carnivore WOE.

The probiotic in the middle (taken at the opposite end of the day) has, at the bottom of the list, Lactobacillus rheuteri. I’m chasing that one as it is often absent in modern human guts, and it is an important gut dopamine producer. I’m after the dopamine. The higher level view is that the bug in my gut might help reduce stress feelings and physiology by producing dopamine. Or maybe I am a dope (amine) for spending the money?

[Azi]

I read Something on Amber’s thinking on eating fat first was because if we start with protein first it sets our bodies up for receiving protein and not fat.
But the few days I did the fat first seemed to have reset my siatety and now I’m eating til full but I’m only eating half of the protein I was, but im def adding fat where as i wasnt adding any before…
When we went keto and cut out the carbs we replace the carbs with fat …
But when I went carnivore I replaced the fats/veg i was eating together like in sauces for veges, mayo, or cheese dishes, with protein/fat in grilled meat so my fat content took a dive… I get that I prob needed to initially to handle the gut changes but I think the mistake I made was when I finally got adapted, I was getting hungry and added more and more protein but no added fats… American meat unless it’s brisket or pichana has for the most part been defatted before it hits the stores so most of what we eat is pretty lean when compared to some other countries meats…
I took some pic off line of nz lamb as example

I can never buy lamb meat with this much fat in the stores I could only wish lol maybe closest would be lamb belly.

[Septimius]

I’m even struggling in the UK. I became really disinclined to add extra fat, but I just can’t get an appropriate amount of fat on the meat because it’s all trimmed to a silly degree.

I’ve found some suet which I’m going to render down, and I’ve gone back to using ghee - but instead of cooking with it, I just eat some at the start of the meal.

I’ve found somewhere that I might be able to buy fat trimmings from - and then I’ll render those down.

But yes, it’s had a major effect on how much protein I can eat. I have been confident of late that I’ve been eating too much protein, but when you’re eating to satiety and you’re still hungry and the meat you have is made up of X composition, it’s tricky to see where to make a change.

Appreciate your response on where to add fat. I started by adding animal fat and egg yolk to soup - and when I realised that made me feel better, I started experimenting a bit more.

@FrankoBear - I think the ‘fat first’ mantra makes sense, and it’s what I’ve started trying to do.

[JJFiddle]

“There’s three things in this world that you need: respect for all kinds of life, a nice bowel movement on a regular basis, and a navy blazer.” Robin Williams

@FrankoBear great post re poo & supplements. I think you might be right about the Morris scale reflecting" average"outcome (or output) but for 65 days I had #7 with this new woe for me, just this week have things started to regularize. 3 days with nothing, then yesterday OMG and I wanted to post it on FB and the New York Times. Didn’t even want to flush it!

The caveat is that for most of this year so far, food has tasted like sawdust and I’m full after 3 or 4 ounces. Suddenly now it’s delicious, I’m hungry and I eat ravenously.

If I didn’t know better I’d say I was getting fat adapted.

I did stop taking probiotics and the keto digest per @Fangs ’ suggestion and that seemed to make a world of difference. Then the bile for maybe a day after that. Now eating a meal is a leap of faith that seems to have paid off. Yay!

Something odd almost from the start but more intense now - smells. Even at first, garlic started being repugnant. Cleaned the fridge last month as it smelled like something had died in there and it turned out to be garlic. Pepper. A horrible smell. Lastnight hubby made himself a deli ham sandwich and I had to leave the house as the smell made me nauseus!
This is very interesting. In 2 weeks time we’ll be back in VA. I’ve been lucky to be isolated out here, I hope I can stand being back in civilization!

Yesterday I sous vided a whole chicken. Didn’t brown or sear it. Hubby only eats the white meat, great for me! I had both dark quarters.
Earlier, eggs, bacon and a small wedge of gouda.

Today Chuck roast and beef heart in the sous vide. Church gig, then playing at the country bar.

[Azi]

I was also struggling with what ratio to follow because last thing I want is to under eat protein
Then I read this article which kind of helped…https://allthingscarnivore.com/the-optimal-fat-to-protein-ratio-on-the-carnivore-diet/
I think I’m also going to try softened tallow on top of meat I don’t want renered fat thats liquid cos it prob run through me but I think if it’s spreadable consistency it might be ok…

[Fangs]

It makes me think that I need to examine more closely the fat and protein proportions as to why my meat eating volume has reduced during the carnivore March.

well it is a very normal path for carnivores. There is a line between what Azi and Septimus and others chat about in ‘our feeling off in some way’ when we end up eating a certain way ya know.

If you do not ‘feel off’ then it is more likely with your body adapting over all that joint pain and who knows what else happened ‘inside ya’ but are healing from now…your eating lower right now could easily be a sign that you are hitting a very nutritional balance in your hormones and body, and you are becoming very metabolically reset back to a natural state…so that little sign inside your head, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it You could easily be walking that path you require right now and your appetite will flip again and change up a bit…again normal for carnivore.

I LOVE your Mrs. Bear story and I love her pictures! I think she is so cute for sure and I feel for her walking the vegetarian walk with her friends, lol. She looks fab in her Wild Woman state and that feather in her hair You got it made FB!

I think alot of those supps you take were because of your sickness/joint pain issue right? it might be smart to wean off certain things again…go as natural as you can. If you dump things, and then feel you need them back, ya can always go back Some people need a few supps for whatever issues but in the end, only off them does one know if ya truly need them.

You are so right. What is real normal? In the world of food today we don’t know, how life progressed and change in our evolution with food, what is real truth science normal for every bodily function? the world doesn’t actually know but I still adopt that life was ketogenic. Then as we socialized in big numbers, only way to feed big numbers was thru agriculture. Then we became a glucose burning body. So for me, I think being a ketogenic first as what life was meant to be, how can we base any testing and more and pretend it is ‘normal’ on a glucose burn body? I just see it all so different now

If one is carnivore and puts in tons of time on this plan, we ‘ain’t the normal’ out there…while I feel we are the normal in evolution of life, we ain’t the normal when it comes to taking supps, being ‘tested’ against tests that reflect a glucose eating body’ and more ya know. Wild and wooley adventure for sure!

@Azi
So agree with what you and Septimius are chatting. Our meat mostly is SO trimmed down. I have that issue also and I feel exactly as you guys do.

Our meat/fat ratio is a key factor for us. When we ‘feel off’ or something just ‘ain’t right’ it is best to up the darn fats and balance back out.

Our fat intake is very important to focus if we feel off or out of whack.
Our fat intake shouldn’t be monkeyed with IF we feel OK and doing fine and happily munching along and all is peachy for us, but darn when we ‘feel that bit off’ and all us carnivores can feel when it happens, adding back in real meat fats is such a great way to handle this.

I did stop taking probiotics and the keto digest per @Fangs ’ suggestion and that seemed to make a world of difference. Then the bile for maybe a day after that. Now eating a meal is a leap of faith that seems to have paid off. Yay!

HIP HIP HOORAY!
I hope you get balanced out now and things start to get very easy for ya in that dept now You sure did your adaption with grace and toughness LOL but I hope you get nothing but better days coming your way!

Are you moving permanently back to VA or this a visit situation?

You had me laughing on the smells I am right there with you. It is amazing how we change our lives, so much of it being effected on this lifestyle

-------------------food changed yesterday. ended up running errands, skipped my opportunity to cook a big old bacon cheese omelet and when I got home later in the day, omg I was so hungry I ate 3/4 lb cheeseburger patty immediately and then I threw 8 big chicken wings into the oven and had to wait! for them to cook, but once done, I hoovered most of them down fast. Got filled fast. My dinner time meal was some salami cause I just couldn’t handle my steak I had planned.

today is steak to start my day. ribeye. nice fatty cut for tonight I got a London Broil to make for family on the grill outside, will have some of that but LB is just not a good cut of meat for me anymore but will hound down some. Will eat leftover chicken wings today too.

food covered. easy peasy ZC way

[Karen18]

Interesting posts … poo, supps, meds, guts, wee trips in the night… we got it all here lol … it is really good we all feel so cool about talking these issues through.

My little cups of day and night !

I used to take quite a number of supps per day including a multi vit thats I am sure I didn’t need cos I had got just about everything covered in the single supp pots! I was sure they were vital and actually may have been vital as my diet at the time was getting very lazy and all I could be bothered with putting together was ryvita a cheese!

I cut loads out around the time of doing keto woe and then reevaluate yet again after going carnivore. Adding and taking away, potassium and magnesium etc. Then just shortly before my Stroke I decided to cut out more stuff which left me with the supps in the pics… magnesium 1 per day, vit B 1 per day and vit D 2 per day and was about to review them again. I was also on the Ramprill for BP. When I had the Stroke I looked up what supps if any i should be taking and blow me down it was the 3 I was already taking! The meds are post Stroke. I reluctantly take them but getting my head adjusted to what the Stroke consultant lectured me on in hospital lol i just know I don’t want to go down that route again, it was a wake up call and if they are likely going to prevent me having another Stroke then fair doos.

Not one medical professional has asked me what my diet consists of. My guess is that it is obvious I am keen on fitness so they weren’t worried, I am sure had i been overweight they would have mentioned something and assumed i ate crap!

As for poo, never had the big D since eating Carnivore, if anything i was more constipated in the first few weeks… I have been fine ever since. I had the big D quite regularly on the standard woe. I have noticed that my poo is better still since not eating cheese this past week or 2. It is never smelly unlike my wee which is a turn around, not all the time but quite often and i do try to think what did I eat to cause that whiff? I think its when I eat something like bacon. Perhaps its because the food isn’t completely pure and untouched if you get my gist.

I do like this forum thread as it really gets one thinking and analysing our day to day way of life.

[Fangs]

Carnivore Diet Protein to Fat Ratio: Why This is Crucial! - Carnivore RX

will stick this over in our zc video section also.

also remember, it is recommended that big dense red meats with fat are key to carnivore…then it is pork and fowl next and seafood last…so fat content in our meat/fat ratio of what we do eat is very important BUT ALSO DO not overthink this step either. We monkey too much, we lose in the end kinda if we go overkill in too much micro managing.

buy big old red fatty cuts of meat, can’t get it, buy extra meat fat packages we can get and add that to our red meats intake.

many things can take from us as in eating too many ‘lean’ items and just adding butter…key is real meat/real fat which is why so many of us carnivores exist on ribeye steaks and more like that

just some zc info for all of us to consider. eat well the red meat to good fat ratio and we truly do not have to overthink any of this lifestyle for most of us.

Tad more info: more complicated read LOL

The Optimal Fat to Protein Ratio on the Carnivore Diet

Azi posted this before I believe…remember what this says at the end of the hoopla, if we eat according to how we feel we need at our moment, we do our best.

[Azi]

I agree… the reason I looked for that is too make sure I’ve got a min target for protein so I don’t under eat it … I don’t want to go from one issue to another…lol so far seems ok but want to kind of just make sure I’m not going from extreme to extreme…

[FrankoBear]

The whiffy pee can be due to ammonia, if our personal protein threshold has been passed and proteins are being broken down and excreted in the urine. It might indicate a time to look at the protein:fat ratio discussed above.

But stinky pee can also indicate other ailments. Some people can smell ketones, and they were important veterinarians and human medical practitioners because they could detect, by smell, if a sick patient was ketoacidotic. Urinary tract infections, that may indicate glucose in the urine, can also cause smelly pee.

Interesting smellservation about poo less smelly and pee more whiffy.

——

Finally got through the baked beef ribs leftovers. Ate it with some sliced, cold, smoked salmon, and a small piece of pan fried sheep’s milk halloumi cheese. Breakfast was 3 pasture fed chicken eggs scrambled with 4 rashers short cut bacon in butter. 2 black coffees with cream 2 hours apart in the morning. All my supplements and medications. Yes, @Fangs they are pretty much all prescribed for the polyarthritis adverse reaction from a specialist rheumatologist and a functional health MD. We’re at the height of the COVID-19 (Omicron) epidemic here. It finally got here in March after 2 years of being pandemic free. A lot of those supplements also double up as reducing the severity of disease with a SARSCoV2 infection. So, I’ll keep on them through the community infection curve. The plan was always to get back to minimal supplements of: salt, magnesium and Vit B3 (effective against a common form of skin cancer old surfers get).

[Fangs]

So, I’ll keep on them through the community infection curve

I feel you on this!

just read on the net ‘another’ variant and those fully vax’d need a 4th vax again…me thinks there is stupid afoot here but since I don’t ‘care about covid research and more’ to the level some do, I just ignore now LOL yea just me on all this.

Plus you are eating very well and seem to be in good spirits and finding your best way forward after recovering more thru that crazy joint pain/icky all over now. Happy for you!

Stinky pee, drink more water. THAT shows signs in stinky pee or dark pee, is your water level is too low for best absorption, expelling etc. of what might build and not be needed. Water is life, we all know that plus it is super important thru lifestyle, location for heat and more, drink and drink is good, never overdo of course, but if we get anything noticable in pee, means we are not drinking enough plain ol’ water.

That is all I drink. I have the best damn pee in the world, OR SO I think that along with the best damn poops

whiffy pee is drink more BUT IF ONE is taking ALOT of supps never think this can’t be a smell factor, it absolutely can be just that so…those on supps can’t put it all to ammonia protein issues ever!!

@Azi
yea so agree. extreme to extreme is never good on carnivore. it can unbalance us very fast plus we ‘feel it’ very fast and that is never good but it sounds like you sure got a lock on finding your best way forward!

[robintemplin]

Mrs. Bear is now my spirit animal.

[Fangs]

yes ‘the Bear’

In the realm of spirit animals, the bear represents strength, courage, confidence, and leadership. If you are always the leader and always have others depend on you, the bear is reminding you of the importance of self-care. You cannot be a grounding force for others if you are not strong and actively grounding yourself.

THAT tells us so much! Take care of YOU and then take care of others and show them the way. Bear cubs stay with the parents A LONG time before they can teach others of their kind the way to survival and longevity on a natural life…I love this if ya think about it full circle

but we so ‘edited nature’ thru human evolution and our involvement of ‘what is right’ vs. nature I guess but that is the course so?

[robintemplin]

@Fangs @FrankoBear
If you are readers, this is a must for you. I read 2 books a week on average, and only keep 100. This one will always be on my short list.

[Karen18]

Haha my pee looks like plain water most days. The smell started when I went keto and has been on and off ever since. I have cut back in water a bit but still drink a fair amount. Definitely not urinary tract infection, could be thr excess protein I suppose. That seems most logical in my case. I think I will start keeping a log of when I get it and what i ate that day. That should help maybe. I don’t see it as a real problem just an observation. In fact thinking about it, if the smell is evident, it will usually be middle of the night and by the morning wee (having had, at the very least, 2.or 3 during the night), it is not evident by the morning wee. So it obviously clears itself by weeing out!

[robintemplin]

I guess this will have to suffice for my contribution this month. just caught a glimpse of myself and actually got out my phone for a selfie. 1 year keto, 8 months carni.

New woman. At 67. Who’d a thunk it?

[Karen18]

Looking really good Robin

[Karen18]

Well I was up at a half decent time. Sleepwise, I gave myself a large enough window of opportunity to get 8 hours or there abouts. Cracked on with the stair runs. Had brunch about midday of the last 2 small packets of pakora spiced chick, heated and coated in melted butter and much nicer than cold. As we know chicken doesn’t hold me but it got me through till about 4.30pm.

I took my friend Raymond to the G/C for a cuppa and chat this afternoon… he did a lot of talking and I could feel my head going and the hot flush n sweats started so when he said he was ready to go … well it couldn’t come quick enough if I am honest. Popped to Lidl for some eggs and home for some dinner. Was getting very close to starvin marvin. I had a load of washing to hang up so stuck some hot n spicy chicken wings in oven while hanging the clothes. I knew they wouldn’t hold me so shortly after eating them I was cooking up a small sirloin and some streaky bacon. Then only about an hour or so later I am fancying some scrambly eggs so cooked up 3 large eggs in butter. Feel okay now.

As you can see the pale blue plate is just a side plate so I guess i didn’t eat as much as it sounds lol … the bacon turned out to be a bit cheapo and didn’t cook as well as the one that I got from the company shop the other day … this one just poured out moisture and the white specks… and I thought it would be okay . The difference in taste is quite evident. May start buying the bacon from butchers in future. I went and bought 2 packs of this one too thinking it was a good one. May stick the other packet in the freezer and forget about it for a while!