How do your clothes fit? I find that muscle on a small -ish frame can really mess with the scale.
Also managing RA with lifestyle/ diet here.
Antihistamines put weight on me, so check your scripts and OTC stuff that could be interfering. I also put on weight initially on carnivore, and meds were definitely a factor.
I wanted to write about pork and this topic is the best for it so…
I am quite happy with pork choices here in general but I just couldn’t find the usual scrap/sausage meat lately and got low at lard (though I have bacon fat now. I don’t call it “lard” as it’s very different from my normal lard I make). The 70/30 one, containing pork shoulder, pork chuck and green ham. Wonderful stuff. I am sure Interspar has it, I just almost never visit those hypermarkets as I need to go much further for them. But it’s time to do it. I don’t even remember when I had proper scratchings last time (I had something similarly crunchy but it was very meaty).
I am fine using almost zero added fat, it’s a big problem for Alvaro now as his desserts are heavily based on coconut oil and we run out of it and our order got delayed. We (mostly I as I am familiar with working around the absence of certain basic items) need to be very creative now (and he handles life without chocolate very well, I wouldn’t have thought as he eats the stuff 2 times a day). Cooking is easy especially when it’s meat (or scrambled eggs) as I have bacon fat, bacon, pork belly, pork jowl…
The fried pork jowl I have bought isn’t nearly as great as the normal, cooked and paprika covered pork jowl so I will stick to the latter. The skin is softer too, better to make meatballs, it’s nearly impossible for me to ground a tougher skin. I usually use the borderline melting skin of the twice cooked smoked pork hocks, that is sooo good.
I eat the rest of my pork shoulder today, make sponge cake and quiche before dinner and tomorrow will be green ham day again. I give the leanest slices the chicken breast treatment (just with cream instead of the usual milk, I have opened the 5dl low-fat cream now. 20% fat, I mean as I don’t go below but this was on a big sale and I have a few dishes where it’s not that important if it’s whipping cream or not… or who knows, I am not very familiar with low-fat cream. in the worst case I use it for coffee and soup, it’s extremely watered down there anyway) so I expect it to be very, very good. Coating the slices is a bit troublesome with lots of dishwashing but it’s such a nice variety and not THAT bad that I do it sometimes.
Yay for managing the RA! 
I’m so happy you’re having success! What lifestyle changes helped?
Why yes, both meds are possible culprits for fat gain, look at that! One is insulinogenic, maybe that accounts for the rounder face.
But some is muscle, too. Bench press doubled. Waist is the same but hips are a couple inches bigger. Stretchy pants and dresses only…
And then hope that whatever you have shows up.
I have one of these:
It only analyzes a limited amount of stuff, like Afib, but you could take your ECG, print it out, and take it to a cardiologist.
I was going to get a book on how to read these, because mine is never one of the few rhythms this will detect. I mainly have a left bundle branch block, which used to be rate-related, but now occurs all the time. The device can’t tell me what that is, but my doctor can. I figured it can’t be too hard to figure out how to read these, for a limited set of what I’d need to read.
I’ve been looking at those. What’s been putting my decision off is just that it says it detects Afib, Bradycardia and Tachycardia and my inner 14 year-old wise ass says, “I can diagnose Brady- and tachycardia with my wrist watch. Why get the fancy EKG?” I see now that the description on Amazon says it will tell you if you have a normal sinus rhythm - which must rule out a lot of other things. Your bundle branch block, or instance. My wife had one of those at an annual exam a year or two ago and they sent her to a cardiologist. He basically said, "no big deal. Come see me if it gets worse. "
Does it give you some sort of summary? Something like, “you had four Afib events in the last minute and and all other beats were normal”.
Do you have to subscribe to a service to get anything useful out of it?
Lifestyle.
For one, I changed jobs.
Carnivore, of course. Gut health. I’m judicious with things like steroid, and I can’t do NSAIDS.
Feet are a big thing for me, so shoe choice. Strength training … slowly.
My RA is a close cousin to regular RA (palindromic). It doesn’t deform the joints, but flares sometimes seem random. My mom has regular RA, so I’m at risk for progressing to regular RA.
ETA- I do do some floating IF, but not with calorie restriction. It does help with anxiety and symptom management.
Staying with 2MAD, eggs, bacon and butter for breakfast, tonight it was steak for dinner and two fried eggs cooked in butter and salted well. I have had lamb chops recently as well.
The thing with the steak is that I go and buy a big lump of meat and then carve the steaks out and package and freeze them. It halved the cost to do it that way.
I have lost about 5kg water weight (7kg total) 4 inches off my waist circumference in these few February weeks. Those things are tracking as expected. Physical activity is a challenge as the medications for low blood pressure and low heart rate work against moving around. I get out in the sunshine, cleaning birdbaths, walking the dog (the best exercise device), or tracking cockatoos in the forest, or watering the trees and strawberries.
Mixed news on the heart imaging. Good heart function. But the top two chambers have dilated severely because I wasn’t responding to heart episodes and work stress well. So, I need a good stint of time of low blood pressure and low heart rate. My heart rate today was averaging 54bpm, as low as 48bpm. My blood pressure at the doctor was 118/74.
So, it’s clearer now. I need to achieve some goals with nutrition and rest. Gentle movement and good sleep. The eating is finding its rhythm and satiety.
People who are worried are saying that the very low carb way of eating has done this (heart problems) to me. I agree with them. If I had been eating a standard diet I would have got a lot sicker in quicker time, rather than having the resilience to work too hard for the last 4 years. On balance, I reckon I’m at a better place than the alternative.
Easy to stroll down at the coast. Warm, humid summer evenings.
@FrankoBear Wishing you the best with your rest and recovery! What a beautiful coastline…
@beannoise I’m definitely on the comfy shoe train also! Do you do high fat carnivore for the ketones, or is it more about avoiding things that maybe trigger flares? Intestinal permeability or a sensitivity of some other sort.
Yes, lol. All of those things. I just started adding in some enzymes, so I’ll let you know how that goes.
Staying on 2MAD as we enter March. I’ve been away, berating and fighting my selves.
Was having heart issues weekly. Triggered by hot summer weather, sweating, possible times of dehydration, and not finding the right limits for physical activity. But I just got through two weeks without relapse. Consciously making the effort to salt food but have gone off beef bone broth for a few weeks as it makes me feel queasy. Latest problem was this past weekend for about 24 hours with a heart rate variation between 50 and 150. When it’s high it is AFib, but it’s in constant variation. The result in the patient is my blood circulation doesn’t function with the faulty pump. So, for a day or so I am disabled from most everything.
Eating eggs for breakfast sometimes with bacon. I still have coffee in the morning. Despite heart rhythm problems, there’s my addiction. I have carved up another section of beef into steaks and picked up some lamb chops. That ruminant red meat makes the second meal, sometimes with eggs, sometimes with a tin of oily fish.
I feel good for the eating and find myself in better trim after February.
The plan here is to find heart rate stability in ever increasing time periods to allow my heart anatomy to reverse remodel with the normal beats. Once that is evident on medical imaging. Then I’ll add in structured exercise sessions.
The stroll road at the Western edge of the property.
The weekend was rough. 72 hours of heart palpitations. Likely triggered by too quickly increasing physical activity when I should be focussing on a stable heart rate by not doing that. Came out with bad heart pain for 24 hours - likely Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) - but in my heart. It’s scary and can feel like a heart attack (technically I guess it is). I control the soreness with paracetamol or aspirin.
Back to square 1. Heart rate is back to 48 - 60bpm in a regular rhythm. I feel tired and need a good rest day. Today I went out in the sunshine for half an hour. Looked at plants and cleaned the birdbaths.
2MAD - eggs cooked in butter, sometimes with bacon, sometimes with a small amount of cheese to break fast. I can’t throw off at least one coffee. Then second meal has been a tin of oily fish (mackerel), ruminant red meat, and eggs cooked in butter. Drinking rain water. Salt to taste.
I wonder if this way of eating is killing me?
@FrankoBear I suffer with tachycardia and ectopic beats. Sorry to hear about your suffering.
For me strict keto/carnivore causes increased ectopics. If I up my carbs a bit 50grams of veggies and the odd Apple or blueberries settle things down for me. I take 160mgs of propanolol a day.
I am a long time member of this forum and have followed your journey.
Maybe just maybe a few low carb veggies may be worth a try😋
Thanks Jimbob. That is good advice. Appreciated. @VirginiaEdie Edith has also been a good and strong advisor for that adjustment for some people. It fits in with electrolyte retention and the hormones that control water inside one’s body. That’s a complex system to overlay the insulin understanding. But Professor Bikman gets me closer to understanding it.
After some info review, I have added fermented veges and have tried an apple on some nights after dinner. This is bad to write in this carnivore thread. So, I might take it to a different thread for the sake of the clean carnivores. But I get quite strong sweet carb cravings, if I eat fruit. In amongst this I need to reverse a return to lipo-obesity that was a consequence of untamed stress/compulsive eating, in bursts and, through parts of 2024. That part of the plan is going along steadily well. Trimming down well by staying on an animal-based well formulated ketogenic diet plan. It’s amazing how well things work when they are done properly.
@FrankoBear I’m just back from a desert trip. It took a small handful of carbs (Rice Chex), water, and electrolytes to resolve dehydration after a 10 mile hike.
Do what you need to do.
Sorry to hear you’re still struggling with heart palpitations. Have the changes you’ve tried helped at all? I think there’s quite a few people lurking in these threads that include some small amounts of plants for their own varying health reasons 
strict carnivore’s a good starting point but everyone’s individual needs are different and we can adapt as we learn what works for us. I remember (I think it was you) you struggling with what you thought was oxalate dumping, and taking a lot of magnesium was helping you back a couple of years ago. I’ve probably given too much info here, but I wanted to add my journey of coming off strict carnivore to heal my heart rhythm issues. I can concur that some mindful carb inclusion has helped, whether it’s the actual carbs or how those carbs influence serum electrolyte levels I don’t know. I also take magnesium glycinate still and notice my heartrate is slower and more stable when I do.
I started suffering from episodes of tachycardia and heart palpitations this summer. I had been back on strict carnivore for a couple of months and it was triggered by drug, medication and alcohol toxicity (hence why I’m six months sober) but the full on chest pain and afib was terrifying. Reading your post about the pain you’re still having made me clam up a bit.
Like @Jimbob, I also had to increase my carbs to settle my heartrate down. After I went totally sober (caffeine was triggering both tachy and palpitations, as well as worsening my electrolyte problems on carnivore, I ended up in the emergency room convinced I was having a heart attack after having a diet coke 
), I stopped having severe episodes but still had some tachy and palpitations every day; my heart rhythm didn’t stabilise until I added mashed potato and peeled apples to my diet.
I kept the rest of the carnivore stuff, meat, butter, and goats milk, but still got bouts of chest pain and palpitations until I came out ketosis and aimed for 100-150g carbs a day. The reason I did mashed potato and peeled apples and like 1-1.5l goats milk as my carb sources is because my gut was inflamed from the alcoholism, and any signficant source of insoluble fibre triggered gut spasms and I was able to link the gut spasms to heart palpitations and spikes in heartrate.
After about 6 weeks on ‘higher’ carb, my system seemed to calm down and I stopped having heart episodes except for the occassional spike in panic related to med withdrawal (a separate issue) and I was able to go back to keto. I now get 18g carbs from 300ml goats milk (high in potassium) and supplement magnesium. I am too scared that my heart issues may return if I go lower carb or cut out the goats milk, as I am too scared to risk low potassium or magnesium issues, so no experiments for me for now, while I can I get my potassium from an animal source at home and remain mostly carnivore (I eat a small amount of cucumber, courgette and leeks as the fibre seems to help my gut and prevent gut spasms which can still trigger palps for me), if I travel I will eat more green veg for potassium or take an electrolyte supplement.
That was a super long winded way of saying I agree that including some carbs may help. If you want to remain carnivore, I highly recommend full fat goats milk as a super source of potassium (200mg/100ml and 4.3g carbs/100ml, it also contains a source of animal fibres, oligosaccharides, that our guts can ferment into fatty acids to boost ketone production). If you want to remain in ketosis you can add up about 500ml, for 1000mg potassium and 22g carbs. When I was in my acute healing phase and not restricting carbs I drank about 1.2litres a day, for 2400mg potassium and 52g carbs.
I hope you find some relief whatever you try
Edit: Also, on coffee addiction. The only thing I finally found that weaned me off through the cravings was roasted dandelion root, ground up using a coffee blade grinder, a tsp powder brewed in an aeropress (using the inverted method so you can leave it to brew for 2mins) like you would make a coffee, then pressed into a mug with a heaped tsp of melted butter. Viola. 0%caffeine “coffee”. A bit of a faff to source the stuff, but it got me out of my addiction!
Checking back in to the thread i didn’t achieve most of my january goals but I am on track with tapering off my antipsychotic medication so that’s a big win for me and my priority is just keeping my health stable while I do that. Down from 12.5mg olanzapine start of jan to 5mg start of march, next goal is to be down to 2.5mg start.of april.
I had grand plans to fast and lose weight, but my body can’t handle the stress of forced fasting during med withdrawal, so my adapted goal has been to keep my body stress as low as possible by intuitively eating to satiety and get plenty of rest and go for a walk 6/7 days and do a couple of sun salutations before bed/in the morning. When I first stopped forcing fasting and stopped limiting food my size increased a bit from 33.5inches waist to 35.5inches, but it has remained stable for the last two and a half months, despite me eating like 3000calories a day (I don’t seem to be able to provide steady energy from my own bodyfat on the meds, so I have to eat all the butter and ghee or my energy and moods are crazy unstable), so I’m taking weight maintenance as a win!
I’m also not constantly hungry on this lowered dose of the meds, so another win
Currently eating the same rough plan: 4 eggs, 40g butter, 150ml goats milk and a chunk of cucumber for breakfast; 50-100g cheese snack if I get hungry, or roast beef slices rolled up smeared in butter with a couple of olives; 400g beef/pork/lamb chicken, 40g butter, 200ml stock, and approx. 40g each leeks/courgettes, 150ml goats milk; 120ml double cream for dessert if hungry (once or twice a week with 80g low carb berries).
I also successfully reintroduced courgettes, olives and lowcarb berries, and my poops have been so much better. Also able to tolerate black pepper without it triggering my cannaboid issues, but I lost my taste for it so I can take it or leave it. It’s good to know I can have it for when I eat out. I guess I may have to wean myself off these threads soon as I’m settle more towards AIP keto rather than carnivore. I guess I still feel an affinity for carnivore as I still follow the ethos of “animals for food, plants for flavour and fibre” and 22g of my 25g daily carbs come from animal sources (goats milk, eggs, double cream).
Also nothing to do with keto or carnivore, but I went to the induction for volunteering at my local park. Which after being a total hermit through addiction, PTSD crisis + drug induced psychosis, hospitalisation, bad breakup with my addict ex and moving back in with my parents to get sober, is a big step towards recovery and healing. Next step, be brave enough to go to my local AA meetings so I can make some more moves towards building a sober community.
No. I honestly can’t believe Berry, Chaffee, Kiltz, Baker etc etc etc would lie to everyone.
It’s not magic but IMO it gives us the best chance of healing.
I do this, question this way of living. It’s doesn’t help when the whole world thinks we are crazy. Let them eat sugar and chemical rubbish.
Thanks for the community support messages. Things are back on track. No heart problems this past week. Life becomes focussed when the task is 60bpm.
I have that problem where eating animal-based keto delivers blood ketones, and that triggers the psychological urge to be physically active. I walk the dog and try to catch the sunset in my eyes as part of the sleep and heal plan.
Another trip to see the South Africans at the biltong shop looks imminent, they also have the bulk beef that I can break down into steaks. I do like cutting my own steaks.
Continuing on 2MAD. Eggs +/- bacon cooked in butter when I get hungry at about lunch time. That morning coffee is still there (calling me). Then dinner at about 6pm is ruminant red meat, usually a streak, or ground beef, eggs, pan-fried halloumi, and I’ve added some Kim-chi along the lines of Dr. Sean O’Mara’s way of eating advice.
Another inch has disappeared from my waistline. Sleep is good. Sunny days. I’ll try to stabilise this course. Unfortunately, I am human.
The problem is there tends to be, I will call it survivor bias. People for whom the diet does not work, they stop doing it and you never hear from them again. People for whom the diet does work, the survivors, they stay around and promote how great it is.
I’m not a fan of Paul Saladino, but… he did recognize that carnivore did not work for him and loudly proclaimed it to the world instead of keeping it hidden. The problem with Paul Saladino is that he is a black or white kind of person and because carnivore didn’t work from him, he now thinks keto and carnivore are bad.
It is easy to think that because there are credentialed influencers (and I consider Chaffee, Baker, and Berry as influencers even if they do have MD after their names) who find success from carnivore, we think if we are having problems we must not be doing it correctly, we must be doing something wrong. But that is not necessarily the case. It probably means it is just not right for us.
I know that we evolved to eat meat, but we are far from our primitive roots. In the past 10,000 years or so, some members of the population developed a mutation that allowed them to drink milk beyond the infant stage. What’s to say that some of us don’t have a mutation that allows us to handle carbs or possibly even require some. Or maybe it’s not a mutation but our epigenetics that make some us not be capable of following a completely carnivore diet.
People like to hold up the Massai as the poster children of the carnivore way of eating, but they drink milk. Milk has carbs in it. They may be mostly carnivore, but they are not zero carb.
