Thanks to FrankoBear for the inspiration.
All right all… what’s your focus this month? Are you wrapping up some 2024 resolutions that aren’t quite done? Or do you have some other goals to keep you moving forward? Are the holidays stealing your focus? Hopefully everyone will get to share a (carnivore) meal with family and friends.
Regardless, welcome to December. Share your carnivore comments, concerns, and successes here.
Well, yeah, my year of the Dragon wasn’t very successful but it’s until the end of January 
I don’t have deadlines, it’s just a fun extra that it’s my year, apparently. I am a Fire Dragon as I was born in the middle of 1976. The next year is wood snake so I will paint my rock gifts accordingly (I should start already… so not in the holiday mood yet. or rock painting mood. I have bursts).
November was unusually bad. It’s traditionally my best carni month except maybe the first few months especially January unless the December chaos is lingering. Now my problem items lingered especially my number one as usual.
I pretty much give up in the end and that inevitably resulted in a deep desire and need for coming back so here I am. I started on the 2nd and I had an off day yesterday for reasons. I disliked my fatty pork and while I enjoyed my usual lean pork, I just had enough of it too quickly. And I had tempting items. Oh well, it was still a nice low-carb lunch OMAD day…
My normal ones are carnivore TMADs this week. Not eating until sunset is ridiculously easy (except yesterday when I got hungry early. I blame the too little meat in the previous day. I got my macros with many eggs and lots of dairy but they are apparently not nearly as good even for long term satiation. it was my highest-cal day by far and still not effective enough).
I am very good with coffee, I easily avoid having any until dinner at least on most days.
It’s December so it won’t be carnivore but nothing keeps me from having, like, 20 fine carnivore days or something? And not going wild on the rest either.
This far my food joy dropped but it’s fine and it will be better. I managed to buy a strange pork shoulder slab, the fat tastes odd. The meat part is fine. I eat it very, very slowly so I quickly got some nice lean pork, had organ meat (pork tongue! lovely) and of course I have my eggs and dairy too, I don’t feel the need to keep them low as I can’t eat much meat currently so I need them.
I have a small calorie deficit in average (a small miracle from me though happens in carnivore… and now I skip lunch so I am hopeful) and my protein minimalization goes well too.
So, I am pleased, I just want some bigger appetite for meat already, that would help a lot. I REALLY fancied my fried pork yesterday but after maybe 300g I just couldn’t eat more 
I don’t know why. And I couldn’t even look at the pork shoulder. Had some tinned fish though.
Have a nice December and holidays, everyone! (I hope the others pop in later.)
Hey 
popping into the thread to say hi and that I will be lurking. I was part of a few carnivore challenges on here a couple of years ago as part of a two year carnivore stint and have recently started dirty carnivore again after missing the benefits of ketosis.
I’m gearing myself up for going 100% carnivore as my eczema healing has stalled, but am hesistant due to fear of oxalate dumping as i’ve been having anxiety driven heart palpitations recently and don’t quite feel ready to take the plunge. I intend to after christmas, to give my low oxalate dirty carnivore diet a chance to settle as i’ve only been back on it a month. I had a period of high carb sad diet following a stint in hospital and it’s taken about a year to work my way back to carnivore via a few months of low carb paleo.
I’m on a medication that makes me constantly ravenous unless i’m in ketosis, so i’ve gone from a stable 120lbs on carnivore to 200+lbs on all the mashed potato, and after a month on dirty carnivore i’m back below the 200lb mark and my waist has dropped from 40inches to 34inches.
My goals are to work my way back to a healthy and stable weight and size, to heal my eczema, and to be able to come off my antipsychotic medication safely so i can return to work sometime next year.
I’ve been doing keto on and off since 2017 and after my latest slide off of it, have been mindfully paying attention to how i feel off of it, in transition and in stable ketosis. The biggest shock for me was how much better i can cope with tiredness/fatigue and anxiety on keto. I can’t do caffiene as it’s a ptsd and heart palpitation trigger for me, so being able to manage fatigue is a huge benefit and i don’t want to to back to being ravenous and feeling terrible if i get less than 10 hours sleep. Instead on keto i’ve been getting up and going for 2-3 hour walks each morning listening to music or audiobooks.
I know i’m not fully fat adapted yet as i can’t fast longer than 16hours without getting cold and shaky, but i’m only a month in so that’ll come.
Next step is healing my stubborn eczema, which it seems i’ll have to go strict carnivore to do. I do miss the simplicity a bit, and intend to be mindful of how i feel going into my carnivore challenge.
My current dirty carnivore diet is pretty regular. I start the day with roasted dandelion coffee with butter, and have three eggs, butter, 150ml goats milk and an inch slice cucumber for brunch. For dinner I have 1/2-1lb of meat with 25-50g butter, a spoonful of leeks and 150ml goats milk. I take 2x70mg magnesium supplement. The goats milk covers my potassium so i haven’t had any electrolyte issues this time.
Looking forward to joining the carnivore crew and getting some support as i psyche myself up for the long haul. @Shinita your post has got me hungry for pork! I have trouble eating a lot of plain meat, I do find covering it in 50g melted butter helps with getting more down.
Happy holidays all!
@CatHairInMyEyes: Welcome and good luck!
Yeah, pork is amazing if you ask me Even if I get bored of it moderately quickly (just for the meal, when I get hungry again, I can eat more) so I really need my eggs and dairy as well.
I have been tracking - but now I take a 2 day break from it. Now that I am very close to carnivore and skip lunch, my average intake is about 1800 kcal and 130g protein, I stay fat if I eat this much without exercise (somehow I skip my walks except in the weekends… today I really wanted to go out but we got some proper rain that went into snowfall…) but I don’t worry, this week had pork shoulder and cream, I can do leaner. I should do more than one full body workout per week though, this week wasn’t good… I am so lazy in this weather and maybe need a new triceps exercise, the current one leaves my left arm aching for days (and my reps are low with that arm too)!
And I have mild diarrhoea since days and I never have that 
I don’t eat differently from other times… Maybe my body wants me to skip certain items, I have some ideas but it’s hard to limit my eating more… Maybe just for a while. It’s no big deal but still not fun, I am used to having a working body (minus energy).
I am very sure it’s highly individual. I easily fasted way before fat adaptation and carnivore killed my fasting abilities. Well, the extended fasting ones, they were already very weak on keto… I still can have a 3-4 hour eating window, smaller is tricky without carbs.
So it’s not about fat adaptation for everyone. It did help with the type of my hunger, it was great. I hated the sudden sharp attention seeking hunger I had occasionally on high-carb. I shouldn’t have a bad hunger when I am well-fasted (maybe if I fast for very long but I don’t do that), only after I ate something! If I eat, I must eat a proper amount!
I know the problem though thankfully I usually manage a pound of meat, not lately but usually… But it depends on the cut (and the actual slab, they aren’t all the same at all) a lot. And my actual state, sometimes I can’t stop at one pound and sometimes I barely can stomach a third of it (even if I find the meat super delicious), it’s weird. But I have other items and processed meats are easy to eat, chicken too, I love certain organs… We buy rabbits here and there… So I have options. (Ruminant meat could help but I can’t afford it. And sometimes I lament here1 about the low variety and high prices of seafood here. So I barely eat any.) What kind of meat do you eat?
I really prefer them plain (carnivore made me a lazy cook. and some nice pork is so perfect just fried, why to bother?) but some nice soup with cream or stew comes to mind when I really had enough of my roasted/fried meats. I should make some in the near future.
Today I was okay with my pork shoulder for some reason and I was hungry at lunch so I ate a lot of fat in one sitting (well, not a lot but with tiny energy need, it was too much for the too early first meal)… I made my dinner tiny and as lean as I could, I didn’t desire it any other way, thankfully. My freshly fried green ham was very very good and I ate the leanest slices! I came a long way! I had sponge cake with ham or leftover quark and after a long time, I made my fluffy dessert again (“mashmallow” according to the original recipe but it’s definitely not that after I had my way with it). As the lactose free cream reminded me of it.
We had rain and snow today and I am sleepy. Tomorrow will be nicer, forecast says and I will try to cycle a bit, just to the village to get eggs and other things. I wonder how expensive eggs got since last time…
I made salted whipped tallow today. I froze it into cubes. My hope is that it will be sliceable (or scoopable) at refrigerated temperature. It’s annoying to have to work with rock hard tallow when I used to just leave butter on the counter.
Hopefully this will be a nice alternative since butter/ ghee aren’t working for me right now.
I always just leave my fat jar on the counter. Is that wrong? Soft that way, but still solid-ish in winter.
Not bad to leave it out. I render my own and it isn’t very pure. I’m lazy and do it in the oven. It spoils if I leave it out.
I used a little to sauté some beef cutlets last night, and it behaved more like butter (foaming instead of oily). So it’s interesting, anyhow.
It turned out the pork shoulder with the unusual smelling and tasting fat still makes nice scratchings… As time passes, I get used to it. I enjoyed my pork shoulder yesterday.
But I still have some. It’s 7 days old today, I never had roast this old but I wanted to know how long these things (fried or roasted meat) lasts… I googled but they give too short times for everything. And storing roast in 2 hours after cooking, it’s unrealistic, it’s quite hot at that time and I can’t use water cooling like with a pot… It’s good we have complete trust in our immune system, with a reason so we never worry about such things. We notice if something spoils, that’s enough. I surely ate slightly over a month old eggs too (no fridge as it’s not custom here and I don’t have space for that. I have an egg cupboard, it can store hundreds of eggs). As long as they are good, why not?
Sausages have these “eat in 3 days after opening” on them too. Dry, very fatty sausages. The kind people just cut and ate for months in the past when there was no refrigeration… The modern stuff is a bit different and the fridge may be not as good as hanging in an old pantry but it still lasts for very, very long. Some weeks, at least. The other processed meat items are very different and I am glad I have a freezer. I needed Alvaro’s help with the ham as it’s about 300g per package and it’s just a little something here and there for me, I forget about it for some days and it can spoil quickly.
Sometimes even cheeses start to spoil despite we don’t eat it very slow. But tend to have multiple opened packages and some are quite big… We don’t buy 1kg ones but 400g is quite common. But as we eat cheese every day (at least Alvaro, I can skip days now), we notice the problem early.
After seven days pork would give me histamine trouble, but I have trouble with histamine intolerance. When I do cook something like a roast, I freeze in meal-size portions anything we won’t eat in a couple of days.
I think sausages and cheese with the short “use by after opening” is more about what you might add once it is out of the protective wrapping. I should think if those items kept clean and cool, they are fine for many days.
Eggs are pretty obvious when they get old/ go off.
I just use a box but the same. It’s so great this pork shoulder was big and not tempting enough to do it this time, it will be great to have later!
I had no more room in my freezer and it was the first time I couldn’t even eat a part of a really not big slab in a week! But this way I could check what happens. Today it was almost 8 days old and pretty good still! Well, for a pork shoulder, not my fav cut but it was the meat part, not bad tasting and super tender! Hungry me liked it for lunch.
Sausages and cheeses are very varied if it comes to spoiling. There are very soft, fresh cheeses and sausages, of course they don’t last that long. But a quite hard, aged one? I wouldn’t worry about them! 
We don’t eat them slowly enough to spoil!
Though… If it’s grated parmesan that we barely use for anything and only in small amounts… If I forget to make dishes using it, it can go bad, it happened before, fortunately there was very little left at that point.
And the soft ham in its plastic package isn’t so good but if it would be some nice smoked whole ham, that probably would be a different story! Oh I miss seeing such things. I should buy one at some point if I find a good one. But it would be a bit too big for me I fear. I can’t even store it properly here
Yes And if it’s still borderline (as a good egg doesn’t suddenly turns into a bad one), not bad yet but doesn’t seem 100% right… The cats happily eat it. I obviously don’t give them bad eggs but these maybe okay, I probably could eat them ones, they can have those.
I miss sunlight It rained here and when Alvaro came home in the car, it was covered by SNOW! He brought home snow
It will melt, we don’t have frost all day. So it’s not really fun or pretty.
It’s cold here in the uk but not snowing yet! I’ve been eating a lot this week, and had a few carnivore meals here and there, skipping my bit of green with breakfast or dinner to ease myself back to full carnivore.
That’s interesting you mention you struggle with fasting on zerocarb. I noticed that too in the past which is why I include daily goats milk. It also contains an animal source of fibre which makes a huge difference to my bowel movements.
I have a measured glass with each of my two meals which works out at 6.5g carbs for a 150ml serving, which doesnt kick me out of ketosis but keeps me up towards 15g carbs a day by the time you include eggs, and I do notice I can fast more easily and feel less low battery with a small amount of carbs. More than 25g or less than 10g and I start to get sluggish and shaky, 10-25g seems to be my sweet spot for optimal energy on keto. I’m used to being able to fast for 24hrs on keto so i’m hoping i can get back to that as i do notice it helps with good digestion and skin healing.
I am a big fan of stew too! I eat a lot of pork or beef stews at the moment as my mum is doing a lot of cooking over the holidays and she loves the slow cooker. So that’s usually 1-1.5.5kg of pork loin or beef brisket with a tbsp apple cider vinegar and a clove of garlic, sometimes a small leek or chunk of apple for flavour. Then split into two or three portions. I usually add butter when i serve it.
Other meat dinners are chicken thighs roasted in butter (my dinner tonight), fried ribeye with butter, slow roasted lamb, lamp chops, slow roasted pork, or slow roasted chicken. All served with a knob of butter. I don’t add salt typically so get my salt from the butter.
I do cheese sometimes for dessert. Cow’s dairy gives me spots and the munchies so I stick with goats or sheeps cheese. M&S (uk store) manchego is my current favourite and it’s only 0.5g carbs per 100g so if i’m out for the day i’ll often take a wedge of it with me for a meal. After years of histamine intolerance and only being able to eat fresh goats cheese, I appreciate the cheese and don’t take it for granted.
I also have an obsession with fizzy water and drink two or three 500ml sparkling waters a day. As i’m quite low salt I notice I drink an extra half to litre extra of water on days i get more salt either through cheese, pork rinds, cured ham or adding smoked salt to my dinner.
My eczema healing has still stalled so i’m gonna give it until after christmas before i decide if i need to go strict carnivore for a period of healing. Often my skin seems to reflect my gut health and overall inflammation, so i’ll make a judgement call on whether to take the plunge. It’s just fear of oxalate dumping that’s holding me back! I’m under a lot of stress at the moment as i’m just out of a decade long relationship and have moved back in with my parents, so i’m giving myself a grace period where i’m doing the best i can. Going back to dirty carnivore and keto has been a major change already so i’m allowing myself a little more time and indulging in my dandelion root coffee to cheer me up in the mornings is keeping me going during this grieving period, so i can wait on my strict carnivore challenge until the new year.
My weight and waist has remained stable still despite my eating A LOT of cheese and butter this week, and my eczema is stable, so after a very tough year i’m counting that as a win
Hi Alex, welcome back to the thread. My friend takes 100-200mg of quetiapine at night and it gives her insane carb cravings. She finds she needs to be in a moderate-high level of ketosis for her mental health and has to do a real juggling act at night, taking her quetiapine right as she feels she’ll be able to fall asleep quickly. The quetiapine itself caused pre-diabetes in her; it’s known for its awful metabolic side effects.
Hi Megan, I have had similar issues to your friend on olanzapine. I take it at night and it makes me very sedated for about 18 hours. I had to reduce my dose as the original dose 20mg was causing me to be ravenously hungry all the time, even in ketosis, even when i was full to the point of nausea. On 10mg now and the hunger goes away if i stick to less than 25g carbs a day. And I cannot touch sweet stuff even a little or it sets them off, so I do much better sticking to just meat, eggs, butter and goats dairy. Cows dairy brings back the cravings. Once I tried double cream and could not stop eating it so I ate a whole tub with goat and sheeps dairy the satiety seems to kick in thankfully. Even on this lower dose though the carb and stuff my face crabings were insane before i went keto. I would fantasise about fruit and sugary things constantly.
I hate the metabolic side effects of this medication, even though it did wonders as an emergency treatment for my ptsd and psychotic episode. It raised my insulin resistance markers to nearly pre diabetic and I went from 120lbs to over 200lbs in six months. It was crazy and the hunger and weight gain made me crazy, and it’s supposed to be an anticrazy med! I plan to wean off it next year or at least reduce my dosage, when my life stressors have calmed a bit.
I am just super grateful that keto carnivore has turned the cravings off. That’s really awful your friend is still suffering with the carb cravings, the struggle is real and can drive you mad!
Not much of a happy camper right now so have been quiet. Thanks for starting the December thread @FrankoBear.
I think my body has a kind of set point at the weight I’m currently at. I still have about 10kg to lose to reach the weight I’ll be happy staying at, and if I go by the BMI I still have 16kg to lose before I squeeze into the very top of the normal range for someone my height. Anyway, the set point/stall isn’t because I’m almost there.
When I 1st went carnivore I steadily lost weight until I reached the weight I am now then stayed here for many, many months. Then I went off carnivore and SADded my way through life for 5 months, putting on 8kg. I went back to carnivore in February this year, lost the 8kg in about 7 months then for the last 3 months - nothing. Just up and down the same kg again.
I’m usually really anti doing anything involving restriction and removing certain foods - emotionally and psychologically I get panicked and antsy (hello childhood), but I’m fed up and disappointed enough right now to do it. So, what’s going? Cheese and greek yoghurt. I am also measuring and limiting the cream in the tea and coffee I drink. I’m going to do this for 2 weeks and if I manage that I’m going to tack another 2 weeks on.
What I’m hoping for is to break through this stall, but it will also be interesting to see if my chronic pain eases a bit more. My inflammation has lessened on carnivore, and weight loss has also helped re the pain, but maybe the dairy is causing some inflammation too and I’ll feel better only having a small amount. If so I’ll keep limiting it.
I’m not loving the taste of the meats I eat at the moment and enjoy the different kind of taste cheese and plain greek yoghurt provide, but I’m pretty sure I’ll enjoy losing more weight more! Looking “more normal” is so good for my self-esteem and I’m enjoying being out and about with my 2 girls. I took them for a long walk around a local shopping center yesterday, just for a change of scenery, and felt very proud of how nicely they walked in amongst all the noise and distractions. We also did long sits and waits and lots of desensitizing hanging out around automatic doors because my mini rottie girl finds them a bit freaky lol.
My only thought is to make sure you’re getting enough calories.
But I also had a set weight where I stayed for a couple years, then slowly started losing again.
Hi Robin, definitely not undereating. I was for several months then my appetite returned and I’ve been having no problems getting enough calories. Great to hear you started losing again, hope I don’t have to wait a couple of years tho! So many people say “ditch the dairy” when they stall for months on end. Glad I’m finally ready to mostly do that.
Oh I eat lots of carbs even on pure animal food (even without milk and milk powder. I like organs, eggs and dairy so the carbs easily add up) so that’s not the problem… I usually get satiated too easily on carnivore so I get hungry again. There are ways against it but that’s eating according to plan, it’s not so natural… And if I want to fast, I need to eat late to begin with…
24h isn’t too hard if I make my mind I suppose (it depends though, sometimes I easily skip lunch, sometimes it’s not realistic) but I never skipped a day since I tried out carnivore for the first time That would be at least 40 hour fasting. Short but something.
Oh lamb, I am envious, I can’t find lamb anywhere since many months!
Wow! It was always amazing to me how some people can do that (and less when there is totally zero added salt)! I don’t eat much salt but I do need a significant amount for my meat. I use least for roasts, about 1g per pound of meat is perfect. I only feel fine if I eat about 5g salt a day. That’s what, 2g sodium? Much more (happened when I ate too much salted smoked pork as I had few other meat options at that time) and I get salt aversion, less and I feel like eating saltier food… So I can’t go far from this amount. but I know some carnivore just don’t salt their food. I wonder how much sodium they get naturally. They need some too… And meat has very little. Eggs have a significant amount, I feel the saltiness of yolk (it mildly bothers me when I make a heavily yolk based dessert as it gets too salty for me).
And for some reason, it doesn’t matter if I drink a lot, I don’t need to add salt (it’s possible I automatically eat more salty food later though, I didn’t focus on my behaviour and without it, I never noticed anything). But I am fine without sodium for days under normal circumstances according to my old fasts so I am just not so sensitive…? Some people just do IF and need to take sodium in their feeding window!
I know the feeling… And it’s still hard when I get determined, for reasons. Only okay if I am very fine with a generous amount of meat for a while. I love my non-meat items. And they are fine if I don’t eat too much of them… Maybe it’s harder than just cutting it out but as I don’t NEED that, I won’t go that far. No Greek yogurt anymore, I could do that. Cream always finds its way to my life and I should cut it out together with coffee (but 2dl lasts for several days and I don’t open another box when I run out, yay!). And sour cream isn’t a problem for me anymore. Still love it - but only use a little in certain dishes.
Good luck!!!
Mine too on/near carnivore (except when I inhale 400g liver and potentially eat several eggs too) but dairy still kept me fat as I ate too much, even on carnivore. It’s enough problem I prefer fatty meats, finally trained myself to like the leaner ones too (but they are good anyway, well the few cuts I use), I can’t afford all that fat from dairy too! (Especially that I WILL eat fatty meats, I just don’t often base my day on them.) And carbs, maybe they matter a lil bit but my cheese has little (usually zero), still not good, I can overeat it. Eggs aren’t the best either. Pork is the best but I can’t live on it.
And some people have problems with dairy beyond calories/satiation. I don’t think I have.
I had circumstances as a dangerous item entered the house, my life isn’t good, I have no mental strength whatsoever (or care about much) and did some baking… So I try to go back to carnivore (or anywhere close), again. I eat lunch again, probably serious overeating (I don’t eat very much from my viewpoint but definitely over satiation and the meat I eat is fatty as I had leftover pork shoulder and a very nice sauage. and smoked pork hock today, leftover from the fridge so at least without the excessive amount of soft fat it normally has), I expect zero gain as that is my norm but one can never knows.
At least I barely eat cheese. I have whipped cream though but I naturally eat it slowly now! I like some of my training results. And quark is very much acceptable as it is high protein and not very high fat, I stopped eating it with much sour cream at some point.
I run out of my leanish pork anyway but it changed today so I will fry up some tomorrow and it will be amazing (I hope. the last slab was very very good! and it felt just as fatty as it should be. did I change at some point…? possible). And regarding cheeses, we have Cheddar now, it’s quite rare in this household as it’s more expensive than the perfectly fine other favs of ours but it was on sale at some point and this one is fabulous, super flavorful! A tiny piece is enough for me. Of course, Alvaro doesn’t eat it like this… If he consumes cheese, he means business, it’s a main part of his dinner then. While it’s just a tiny but highly enjoyable extra for me.
Thanks where thanks are due. Thanks to @beannoise Bean for starting the thread. I just played with a name for it.
I’m going to chase ketones during December. Measuring blood ketones and blood glucose daily. I’ve been listening to Georgia Eade and the mental health benefits sound like the tonic.
Ben Bikman also had a talk I recently listened too, that posed the question, “Are you eating enough salt to lose weight?” More accurately, "Are you eating enough salt to stay insulin-sensitive?" So, some salt will be a focus as well.
Here is a kangaroo with a trident pattern on her forehead that I photographed last night.
They are edible. But you can see she has a joey. They usually hunt the young males like deer.
