good post Azi
in that every time carnivores ‘graze’ like that it means their meal is off.
so grazing is a sign of an issue on fat/protein balance for sure for each of us. good info to mention on this lifestyle.
HEY GUYS I STARTED MARCH INTO MARCH CARNIVORE NEW THREAD…jump on when ya can!!
Chicken doesn’t satiate me at all even with all the skin… But I will experiment with some leaner pork one day… While not going too low with fat as I need calories and it wouldn’t be a good idea to eat 400g protein (I have no idea if I could do it. I probably could once but I am very very sure that I never did. I automatically stop before 250g even on my highest-cal, hungry days).
What is that when I just get satiated super quickly, after a few bites? I had that yesterday. I ate 5 meals between 16:30 and 23:00, it was annoying 
I think my food was good, not too lean, not too fatty, I just couldn’t eat much at once. WHY I have this sometimes? Normally I can eat well but sometimes I have these zillion tiny meals… I don’t even know what should I do, eat some super dense bites to boost my calories? But dense food probably doesn’t satiate me longer term either, i.e. I would get hungry anyway… But maybe less… Oh well I will focus on my first meal better… I still don’t wanna track often, it’s bothersome and probably doesn’t help anything at this point.
Blimey I drifted off to sleep quite quickly last night but awake ever 2 hours and restless in between. Up at 4.45am for work. Stair runs done, bath and at work for 6.45. Did 8 hours today. Now off till 15th yay.
Got home at 4pm and had first meal of day which was cheese and chicken wings and a bit more cheese.
Oh shock of all shocks … drum roll lol
well it can go 2 ways. Only you know which one fits your issue.
1 is that you are just not really hungry at all. You are more nourished, your body is healing well, you are doing ok and finding that your body hormones and more are truly balancing out and even tho your mind is kinda saying eat, your body once you start eating is saying, nah, you don’t need this…so we end up kinda grazing our way thru the day with smaller bites of food and THIS is an OK thing.
2nd is that you are not nourished well. Your body is needing something. Even tho you can’t eat much you still are finding that need to eat all day long cause your body is sending that signal that it needs something but you aren’t sure what that is ya know. But mostly people can feel this…I can feel it when I shift off my 2 meals per day and when I start to graze I know I need to go and eat a big ol’ ribeye steak and hoof it down.
I think you are number 1 because you said you are getting satiated very quickly. That usually means you kinda wanna eat a little, but aren’t truly that hungry and just eat small thru the day to satisfy your body in a way but this is an OK thing.
number 2 when we graze and feel under nourished we usually have that gnawing feeling of ‘needing something’ but not sure what it is and we should eat bigger and fattier then.
but the way you posted, I think you are in that number 1 category and it is a normal flux. It comes and goes like you said 
I think you are A-ok
Hi Fangs - thanks for the callout and thinking of me
@Juells - happy to give suggestions if you decide to take the leap. Offhand, start with either cow tongue (pressure cook for 80 minutes) or heart (bake in over at 350 F and 5-10 minutes a side depending on thickness) as they are normally available, easy to prepare and relatively tame for the pallet.
@Shinita well, it can take awhile to get over any side effect of adaptation but it will hopefully be worth the trouble. I haven’t seen any kind of plan that promises to reverse inflammation, except this one.
Your crocus pics are so sweet!
Today is day 55 and very little D, I tried a pure protein day to give myself a bit of a break. Got some smoked turkey breast at the food store, smoked just yesterday. I should smoke a turkey breast myself - it was quite good but mine would be better.
At lunch we had sous vide chicken that I started lastnight and cooked 9 hours. So tender! I just ate the 2 wings. Put a tiny amount of mayo but it didn’t do much for me.
Tonight, more of the smoked turkey. So hardly any fat today and who knows, I might get a few hours uninterrupted sleep tonight!
@Fangs - and the beat goes on… The whole process starts with providing care, then taking charge of her passage, picking up ashes, managing the funeral, the house, the stuff, the estate. With us, I did the physical care, then visits and the ashes and funeral and stuff, my sister did the house and the estate work. It is a lot! And now, we’re suddenly the older generation.
Blessings, we’re all with you and thinking of you. You will get to the other side of this!
thanks so much JJ!!! I see the other side, just gotta walk thru the crazy to get there
I am in all control of mom and dad’s ashes cause both brothers don’t care…in that we don’t require a ‘memorial’ service and all that so I am the one who will handle Dad and Mom on my terms, and both brothers said do whatever we want, we don’t need to be there etc? which is fine, but I feel like that final closure in my hands is a very good closing I require and I will do just that. Appreciate your kind thoughts!!
@Fangs ours was similar in that my sister and younger brother are in the NW with no desire to come back to Texas or revisit Mom. My brother in Tucson came, and SO many people attended the memorial at the vets cemetery, even though it had been 10 months since her passing. It was heatwarming to say the least. The pastor from our little ranch church came and spoke about chrysalises and butterflies, and I had the 2 musical people from there playing and singing, then Mom treated all the guests to a fine dinner. So what if my sister and brother wouldn’t travel? Pah. We had wonderful closure.
So, question: carnivore cookbook (Carnivore 2022 by John Davis MD), which I’ve read in the past few days, includes many spices and herbs, like a hamburger/egg/cream/cheese bake with taco seasoning, several dishes with fresh rosemary and thyme, garlic, etc.
I’ve been very careful to keep it to just salt. What do y’all think and do about this issue?
Ham and eggs for BIL before his departure this morning, so I had a little breakfast. Not usual. They have left for the airport.
Later we’ll have chicken.
No D (or anything) since the night before last! Maybe too early to judge. Day 56 so dadgummit, I feel like it’s time.
those are 1000% about you and not one other person in that if a some suit you then great and as you tip toe longer, your wanna have a condiment taste will change.
I loved burger with some taco meat seasoning thrown it for like 2 yrs and then it was omg I hate it now and dumped it.
our condiments for taste work for us for a bit, to get us ok on a tough lifesyle change til we personally might find it works against us.
remember, taste is taste in a shake of a spice mix etc…it is not your meal in any way.
so do you on this one for what it takes on taste but always be open to change and more as you feel on it all.
NO D, hmmm your keep on keeping good thoughts to go now ! maybe a adaption/heal change coming, hope so!
Let’s hope D is over! Or at least gets more rare or something.
I always thought being strict is the best if you are fine with it… If one can handle spices and feel miserable without them, I would think adding them is a good idea, at least until it changes.
And in between… Up to the person 
Spice is like coffee to me on carnivore: plant so not actually carnivore but if it helps… But my default attitude is only salt is that works. It usually work. I can’t imagine why I would add anything to my roasts - except tasteless chicken, I add spices to that but almost never eat it. If my meat needs spices, it’s probably not good, tasty meat. Or I just miss something fancier, I like stews but don’t need them very often.
As we know here some people gets basically SICK when adding even these little plant matter, they clearly should avoid that.
I loved garlic (rarely used it) but I lost interest after my first garlicky roast, ew. I prefer raw garlic but what could I use it for? Maybe some traditional meatball thing I actually never make…
I don’t see the charm of herbs except for some non-carni dishes with tomato puree.
But if I need to eat lots of scrambled eggs for some reason (I don’t but sometimes I like the other simple egg dishes even less), I tend to add something that contains spices. But a good lard and more meat than eggs when I am bored with eggs should handle it.
But each to their own! I am okay with spices in carni dishes, I have problems when they start to use sweeteners (and I have very very close ties with sweeteners, I just don’t consider them carnivore AT ALL. it’s almost like honey, it’s opposite carnivore to me). It would be soooooooooooo easy with sweeteners But I have a mission. I often fail the “no sweetener” rule of mine nowadays (it was easy in the beginning) but not always as I would do if I would allow them. I can’t train myself without properly strict rules and I definitely don’t allow sweeteners on my default woe even if my default woe isn’t or won’t be exactly carnivore.
Spices often has sugar in them, by the way. One should be careful - or ignore the super tiny amount as I do that with some of my sausages (proper ones don’t have any but you know food industry and I can’t stick to anything close to carni without any sausage ever).
But we often can’t be super strict. That’s for people who can gladly eat meat without problem forever. I need more variety. And I am sure the tiiiiiiiiiiiny little things I allow on my default woe don’t harm me. (And anyway, it’s better than abandon very low-carb - or even the impossible “forcing myself into strict carni and suffer for long and possibly all my life (not physically but still)” other route.)
As Fangs wrote, we easily can lose our interest in spices and other stuff. I doubt I ever will if it’s the amazing paprika, how anyone can live without it, I hardly can imagine… But garlic didn’t last any time and I have a ton of herbs I can’t do much with as it’s a completely pointless stuff to me. And I am just an on/off ketoer still. But having carni times still changed me. But maybe I am a simple one and never really needed spices with my meat, I just never made meat before carni. It’s possible as I started to eat meat without complicating it with much spice. Meat has meat flavor, it should be enough with some salt… Most of the time.
@Fangs @Shinita thanks so much!! Y’all answered my question SO quick!! I have been seeing that people respond differently and this is not a Bible class LOL… it’s an evolution. I really appreciate you!
Another interesting thing is that my coffee is changing. I went down to a 5 oz grand lungo with no cream, then would drink a little and ignore it, and now, a plain lungo (2 oz) with 2 or 3 oz hot water added. Anything stronger and it’s just unnecessarily bitter, any more volume and I’ll lose interest after a few sips. So now it’s more like coffee-tea, lol
Things are called the ‘Spice of life” for a reason. I season the heck out of everything. All the spices, just nothing sweetened. Always have, always will. I don’t worry about it. And I don’t think anyone is going to revoke my official carnivore badge over it. Lol
I semi-accidentally (I had leftover sponge cake dough where I used gelatin, I think I will stop that) made a coffee egg jelly 2 days ago… I didn’t even add all my dessert spices just a bit vanilla and a hint of cocoa and it was almost a perfect little dessert. I ate sweets galore lately (not compared to my old days but… at least compared to my carnivore-ish days?) and still, I was borderline okay with my unsweetened coffee dessert. And albeit my coffee isn’t particularly bitter, it is coffee… Still. It was okay. Not exactly sweets but a nice treat.
It’s amazing that my training stays with me even if I ignore it for a while.
I am very, very stubborn about training myself out of sweets but it’s not so easy. At least I don’t really miss it on carnivore as long as I am not bored with my normal food, it’s a big help. But I don’t even want to fall back if something happens… I want to have a choice.
I think you’ve had some good answers so far.
I did the same as you; went salt-only. I thought about it for a long time, and then I decided against adding anything back in, figuring that I’d already done all of the withdrawal - and I didn’t want to accidentally add something back in that triggered a weird craving in me.
Most of all, I was very focused on trying to get my satiety signals in check. I figured that it would be harder to overeat plain meat than it would be to eat meat that had a spice rub to make it ‘tastier’.
So those would be the major considerations for me - do I think there’s anything in the spice rubs that could trip me up (e.g. look for hidden sugar etc)? And, do I think that changing the taste of the meat will affect (positively or negatively) how much of it I can eat?
But most of all, you should consider whether you want to make that change. Would it make sticking to carnivore easier for you in the long run? Do you think you’ll enjoy your meals more and feel happier? Then go for it. If you’re worried about it setting off cravings or messing with your satiety signalling, then maybe hang back.
Good point…. I don’t use spice mixes… almost always have some sugar or it’s cousins. But I sure go for my basil, and rosemary, and oregano. I don’t have any issues with cravings, thankfully. If I did, I would back off for sure.
Thank you @robintemplin, @Septimius, @Shinita. Those are valid considerations, and also provide some wiggle room. Getting a meal in a restaurant, just a “plain” streak or hamburger patty for instance, you’ll probably eat some other spices or herbs besides salt, but like @Fangs says, it’s just a shake of seasoning, makes very little difference.
So I think for now and at home I’ll keep doing what I’m doing at least till I know for sure I’m adapted.
Someone said, I’m an experiment, this woe is something I’m trying on to see what the results are on my body. So I’ll keep the controls as regulated as I can until a preliminary result is evident… Then I’ll make taco casserole, lol, and I’ll recognize how it affects me.
Meanwhile, NO meds now (from 3), just the basics, Mg, Vit D, 5-HTP, melatonin, probiotics. That right there is major.
