Is it okay to eat a lot less protein/fat on carnivore?

(Susan) #1

I’ve been on strict carnivore for a week and lost 5 lbs!! Yesterday I had 5 eggs and baconaise for the first meal (about noon) and 9 ounces of chicken (w/ 2 tbs of fat) and the leftover 2 eggs for dinner. So I calculate the protein at about 35 g protein + 77g = 112g for the day. That equates to about a pound of meat for the day.

This is the least I’ve eaten over the week of carnivore, but it’s 1pm and I’m not even slightly hungry yet - I’ve only consumed water. I likely won’t be eating 2 lbs of meat today either. I read somewhere that the number one error of newbie carnivores is not eating enough. If I’m ‘satiated’, is it okay to eat a lot less protein and fat than recommended? I think I’ll eat some leftover chicken, bacon and 1 egg right after writing this. I don’t want to go back to work in the garden and notice in 2 hours that I’m famished. Any advice appreciated.

#2

yes you are fine. 1 week in and your appetite will vary alot. thing is your decreased appetite could turn against you a bit ya know in that you are eating alot less, or even if not that hungry, eat something small and you might actually eat more than you would think you ever would LOL

Even when the appetite wanes thru our transition, even if not hungry, if you get a twinge of being a bit hungry listen to just that and eat something…if you eat a little something and find all of the sudden you want more, then eat it. If not, don’t.

Also watch relying on eggs, they just are not the protein packed heavy hitters like real muscle or organ meat is so kinda think a tad more about using eggs as a side dish to more dense meat. Eggs are great and we can eat all we want if we do well on them, but nothing and I mean nothing beats fresh meat/seafood/fish. It packs the punch with all the nourishment we need.

Sounds like you are progressing well and hope you do great!!

(Elizabeth ) #3

actually I think you’re going to wind up either with the rebound or you are going to stop losing weight or you’re not going to feel good and so you’re going to quit eating this way and blame it on carnivore when you are basically starving yourself. The advice is to not wait for what you think are hunger signals, if you haven’t eaten in three or four hours cook some meat I mean meat not bacon like a hamburger or a steak or pork chop and cook it the way you like it and sit down and take a few bites. You might be surprised that your body wants the food. I think the excitement of losing weight is causing you to subconsciously restrict and while that’s going to work for a while it’s going to stop working. You need at least one gram of protein per pound of body weight. Some people need two or more based on underlying metabolic or health issues.

#4

yea agree with E on this…I tell you it is very easy to get super excited and then ‘we just find ourselves’ wanting to eat a bit less literally thru that excitement on plan. I kinda did it also which is why I said if you feel a bit hungry, but not really hungry, try and eat a bit of something, alot of times I would cook up a tiny bite and then find myself ravenous and would have to cook more food when I thought I wasn’t hungry at all :slight_smile: Beauty of this plan, we get to eat and not feel one bit guilty about it LOL

(Susan) #5

@Elizedge, @Fangs
Thanks to both of you. I will definitely take your advice. That’s why I ate something at 1:30 even though I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t have much, but I felt really full when I was done. For dinner tonight I had a third bacon/hamburger because I wasn’t really full after eating two. It’s also why, when I made egg salad yesterday, I made it with 7 eggs and then only could eat 2/3 of the eggs. At the beginning of keto, I lost 20 lbs but then gained 25. I had a blood monitor and was always in ketosis. Fingers crossed that it doesn’t happen again! I don’t ever plan to do 100% eggs, or even 50% eggs for the day, but with 14 laying hens, I’m giving away a lot of eggs. Come to the Big Island of Hawaii and I’ll give you all the eggs you want! Tomorrow I’ll have the left over hamburger before noon, even if I’m not hungry, then supplement with eggs if I want more. Thanks for bringing me back down to the ground. My husband (very very fit) was proud of how little I was eating. I’m not going to tell him that wasn’t the right idea, but I will eat more.

#6

After the carnivores said their thing, I still write my own views about it. I am very sure they work for me but we are different, of course and my experiences are tiny (I can do some extrapolating, though).

112g protein sounds good to me, I don’t know about you but it’s definitely significantly more than what I need (but I eat a bit over it myself, no matter my woe). But you probably know you need more or something…?

I eat the least protein and fat on carnivore (or carnivore-ish), it’s not bad as I normally very easily “overeat” both, sometimes it’s too little but I am a newbie and very rarely could do it this far so I expect it’s temporal. My body never stood low calorie for long. Your chicken and egg day was low calorie and that is usually bad, some people with enough fat reserves may get away with it, surely our health has much to do with it too and if it happens once that is different too… But I would eat more unless if it’s impossible without force-feeding ourselves. Sometimes we just can’t eat more, it may be true for the day or for a single meal. It’s okay to some extent and frequency but one can harm themselves too, hunger and satiation aren’t always reliable guides. I don’t enforce bigger meals though, I love, strongly prefer and almost always have those, that’s my normal but when my meals become tiny, I just have more of them, what else can I do? But fortunately those time never last long.
I don’t know if you wait for some serious hunger or not. I eat without that as my hunger changed with fat adaptation and it keeps changing. I feel when I need fuel and eat even if I feel zero actual hunger.

Being very satiated at 1pm is normal, many people have it. I have it on every woe and it’s 3-4pm for me (on weekdays, at least). It’s perfectly fine IF you can eat enough later.

I don’t know any recommendations I would respect, we are individuals. I know how my body works and how much food and protein it needs and if my food is very lacking, I do steps to keep myself from harm. But I probably always ate more than you and never noticed any weight-loss yet. And my body is very very good at telling me what it wants and needs. It’s useful. We clearly don’t need exactly the same but undereating is dangerous, it just means different amounts for different people. And we have our limits at eating meat too. It’s just super satiating to me and if I get really full, that lasts for more than a day. But I will have experiments in the future, it will be fun.

Good luck, whatever you need :slight_smile: Hopefully you will find your way quickly :slight_smile:

(Scott) #7

Eggs in the morning are fine but I also have bacon and sausage too. After that just eat fatty meat and don’t pay any attention to calories eaten and let your body work it out. Carnivore is not something measured in weeks for the way your body likes or maybe dislikes. It is more like six months to a year to see what it will do. I am at six months on Carnivore and today I am starting to reduce “added” fats to see what happens. By added fats I mean MCT oil in coffee and adding butter to my bacon grease when I cook my eggs. No change to my ribeyes that get dressed with butter before resting.

#8

yea, I get that cause it is ‘the old idea’ of what it takes to get fit but in the end, eating less really just makes one still very unhealthy so…but it sounds like you got a good handle on carnivore and are doing great!

Oh yes I been there with losing great lbs and then re-gaining them, boy there isn’t anything fun about any of that :wink: It won’t happen if you just hold onto zc and just keep eating very well! Keep on going!!

(Elizabeth ) #9

https://www.zerocarbhealth.com/?s=Too+much

(Susan) #10

Wow, that was a great discussion and I’m thrilled to find that web site. I read quite a few articles/threads on that site. I’m going to stop now and go eat breakfast, even though it’s only 9am! I’m hungry. Probably because I didn’t eat that much yesterday. Thanks for the support and the grounding.