I am 58 year old female. Was LCHF/keto for several years (inconsistently) until switching to carnivore. Since going CV, I have never gotten my energy back.
I wonder if your fat to protein ratio is heavy towards protein possibly? Eating more fat and less protein with 20-25% protein might fix it if your fat is less than 70%. That’s where I would start. @Ilana_Rose advice?
It is a very energy expensive process to switch over from burning carbs to burning fat. full adaptation can take 3 to 6 months for some people regardless of where you came from. I came from extremely strict keto for two solid years and it still took me over two months to adapt. I promise you the secret is eating more than you think you should be eating.
Thank you for your reply, Elizabeth! I haven’t done any weighing/measuring, so I’ll do that for a week or so to get more clarity on how much I’m actually eating.
That’s good advice! I’ve read many people talk about eating plenty especially at the early stages of CV, but somehow that didn’t actually translate in my own head to ME. lol… I will try again with a more organized approach. I had just been eating until full, with plenty of fat. Thank you again.
Thank you, Rob! I’m a bit terrified of any carbs - even sweet potatoes… I was/am such an addict. But I will consider this if a more organized approach with tracking macros doesn’t work. Thank you very much for your time and expertise.
You might also think back to anything else that happened 2 months ago - new boss or other stress may have you in a down mood. If so, meditation and dealing with the issue directly might bring some relief.
Forcing some exercise back to your old levels and (per @Elizedge) some extra food for a few weeks might prime your metabolic pump and get you non-fatigued.
Or - you might think about whether starting Carnivore started any sleep issues (it is a stress to change diet). If so, you might be able to hang on to Carnivore just by upping your sleep hygiene game.
Like @Elizedge I recommend avoiding all these rendered fats. Get your fat from solid meat fat. Use the fattiest cuts of meat that you can find. I even buy extra beef fat and cook it to have with my meals. It’s very important to my feeling my best on carnivore that I get A LOT of meat fat.
Unlike @Elizedge I do not eat two pounds of meat. Much over one pound starts me feeling lousy and begins to bring on certain health issues.
I started carnivore initially because although keto had helped reduce some symptoms of three major health conditions it hadn’t put them into any sort of remission and I still suffered a lot despite being on pretty hard drugs for them.
However keto had brought a panoply of health improvements that I loved. My energy was great, my mood was intensely elevated all the time, my skin conditions (seborrheic dermatitis and rosacea) cleared up, my menopause symptoms disappeared, and my hunger dried up and I lost a lot of weight.
When I started carnivore I was frustrated by the fact that while the unresolved conditions got better all of the ones that had been so helped by keto reversed. My energy tanked, I was tired a lot, my skin got worse, my hot flashes returned, and I was way hungrier and so ate more meat and I began to gain weight. I didn’t like that I was noticing more hunger and cravings than I’d had previously on keto.
When I checked my ketones I could see that I was no longer in the deep state of ketogenesis that I had been on standard keto. And of course, eating so much meat had increased my protein well past my “keto” macro. So I resolved to try to bring it back down and increase fats to compensate for the fuel difference. At first I used a lot of rendered meat greases such as lard and tallow, but I found that high quantities of these left me nauseated and did not actually help that much with hunger. I then tried only eating the super fattiest cuts of meat that I could find anywhere. This fixed me. So I began to only buy those, and when they weren’t available I just added cooked beef fat.
Eating this way I eat nowhere near 2 lbs of meat a day. I always eat less than one (somedays as low as 1/2 pound, actually) with up to four ounces of added beef fat.
2:1 fat to protein is the PKD protocol that works well for some people, I’m 63 and need much less fat and more protein. I’m losing weight at three pounds a day
Your comments are spot on, Rob. I retired July 1, so while that was a positive thing, it’s a “stress” because my daily routine COMPLETELY changed, and I had to get very proactive to make sure I get some personal interaction with people daily. As well, I had a sleep assessment in July and was prescribed a CPAP machine which is annoying the heck out of me every single night… haven’t slept through the night since I got it. (The doc keeps telling me I’ll get used to it.) And, my confidence waned over the past many months, so I backed off my gym classes. I’ll be addressing all these issues. Thank you again!!
Hmmm… I guess I will have to experiment with ratios. Darn it. I dislike tracking and fussing over food, but I’ll make myself do it for at least a couple weeks until I get a better handle on what works best. Thank you so much!!
This is very interesting! Unfortunately, the fat in/on beef seems very yucky to me, and I cannot eat much of it… I cannot stand the texture, and even the mental concept of what it is bothers me. I’m working on my mental/emotional perceptions of it, but so far that hasn’t changed. Thank you so much for your detailed response. It is really helpful. It’s given me more factors to evaluate.
If you have a regular full face mask - you might try switching to nasal pillows.
It is much easier to get used to in my opinion - only the nose is affected.
With nasal pillows it is easiest to tape your mouth shut with medical tape (cheap on Amazon) and then use tape remover in the morning (also cheap on Amazon).
You’ll sleep like a baby and have no headache in the morning.
I’m 52. The higher protein really did a number on me. It felt like a return to the SAD. I know that a lot of carnivores do fine at higher protein but it’s probably a good idea to tell people that others do not. There is enough variability that 2 lbs of meat a day might set some up for failure. If it hadn’t been that carnivore had cleared up my neurological issues I likely would have bailed on it before I figured out the problem and it was just that it wasn’t ketogenic enough.
