Hi, I recently started the Lion Diet and reached the one week mark a Few days ago. But today I fell of because I freaked out and decided that I had a histamine reaction and couldn’t continue. However, I’m not sure now because the first thing I ate were peanuts and a banana after coming off which are high in histamine and I experienced no adverse response. I was only eating frozen patties while on the Lion Diet which are basically ground beef turned into patties and then frozen. I want to hop back on but I still have my concerns. Any help is greatly appreciated. (Also I got stung by an insect, probably a wasp, the day I began to develop concerns and started freaking out) I also go out in the middle of the day when it’s really hot (100+ degrees) So part of me believes that maybe that lead to me feeling worse. I was experiencing difficulty breathing, tightness in chest, high anxiety, I felt like my mind was racing, slight tightness in throat, and weakness while speaking.
Lion Diet Histamine Intolerance?
It sounds as though you got to the point where your brain was not getting enough energy. That is why the peanuts and the banana helped; the banana, especially, contained quite a bit of sugar.
If you decide to go back on the diet, you must get over the notion that fat is the enemy. It is not. It is the alternative source of energy to glucose, but without the high insulin spike you are trying to avoid. So make sure that your meat contains plenty of fat. Ribeye steak or 80-20 ground beef, or something similar. Don’t fear putting the meat juices on your meat.
Also be sure not to cut calories on this diet. You need the protein from the meat to rebuild organs, bone, and muscle, but you also need plenty of fat for fuel. And the best fats are the saturated and monounsaturated fats that your meat contains. Don’t eat lean cuts. But realistically, you don’t need to go overboard to get enough, because fat is much denser in calories than carbohydrate or protein. So for example, if you were eating 300 g of carbohydrate a day before going on the Lion Diet, it would take only 133 g of fat to give you the same number of calories.
Hey, I was eating 75% lean 25% fat beef patties but wasn’t consuming the fat that comes off the patties while cooking. So it is possible that I wasn’t getting enough fat. But what about the possible histamine issue? I have some sort of rash on my face, I’m not sure if it’s Rosacea or Psoriasis. It seems to closely resemble Rosacea and was really starting to burn/ bother me after eating. I’ve heard that histamine can cause these to flare up but that a damaged/ leaky gut could also be the root of the problem.
I’m not sure what to say, sorry.
The only question I can think of is how were you thawing the patties? Histamines tend to develop as the food becomes less and less fresh. If you thawed the meat and waited a few days before cooking it, then yes, it could have been a histamine reaction. It could also be that the meat was bad before being frozen, but that would be harder to verify. You are right about the peanuts and banana being likely to contain histamines, and those foods did not give you a reaction, so who knows? But it sounded as though your symptoms could also have been from insufficient energy going to the brain, and I thought it a more likely explanation and so started with that. I’m sorry it didn’t help.
I hope you can figure this out, because it’s no fun experiencing the symptoms you describe. It is possible, of course, that a carnivore diet is simply not for you. Gary Taubes, the science journalist, tells of interviewing two journalists. One of them eats a plant-only diet, while the other eats a meat-only diet. They are both in ketosis, and they both say that they eat the way they do only because that’s the diet that makes them feel the best. I don’t understand why the first doctor can’t eat meat, but she can’t. So obviously there’s a lot of room for individual variation here, and we all have to do what works best for us, regardless of whether it’s supposed to work, or not.
Good luck. I hope that someone on these forums who has had the same experience will find this thread and have something more useful to say than what I’ve been able to come up with. Again, my apologies for not being more helpful.
issue can be that your thought it is histamine can very easily be confused with your adaption time. adaption can have all the tags of histamine so to evaluate histamine issues, one must be on the lifestyle alot longer than 5 days and also the key to alleviating histamine from beef is to eat fresh only beef to see if those symptoms lessen, but again, being only 5 days in it probably is all about the adaption change for you.
when we start we are detoxing and alot of toxins will be leaving your body which can produce alot of issues that must clear, they can easily produce on our skin, with it being such a big organ of our body, it can show alot of change while we adapt and the body realigns hormones, detoxes the junk in our systems, starts to repair and heal the insides and alot of times we see this with oxalate dumping and more so skin issues truly are an adaption change many can experience.
I don’t actually do well with wasp stings either. Last time I had one long ago I kinda got sicky icky on my stomach and felt off but nothing for big concern for me but yea ‘I feel them’ too.
your anxiety, breathing issues, weakness and more can be attributed to adaption. I don’t know your personal medical issues at all but for each of us adaption into zero carb can easily be a wide variety of issues coming to the surface each of us need to ‘get thru’ to the other side and again, being individuals it can vary alot on what people do experience.
I came into zc from an extreme lc menu that I was eating for quite a while so I truly had low adaption changes coming into carnivore. But even on an extreme lc menu, I still had adaption issues to content with even tho lessened. Others can experience a wild variety of tough issues but key to it all, stay on the zc plan. Eat very well.
Alot of people wanna ‘see and eat the Lion Diet’ to see how they do on it but alot of people don’t even require the Lion Diet. One can go into a straightforward zc menu, eating beef, pork, lamb, and other meats along with fish, seafood and fowl and do very well and not be confined to a very tight lifestyle like Lion.
Also remember this can carry big adaption. So in 100 deg. heat it is time to relax inside the house in the AC for a bit 
In that while we change and adapt and are very new on this lifestyle, you do need to take care of yourself when symptoms can hit. Be sure you are getting enough salt and keep your water intake good.
hope you do ok. but histamine is eat fresh fresh meat. that might ‘show you’ if it is your beef but again, issue is histamine symptoms and just plain ol’ adaption symptoms can be easily ‘like the same’ so…
wish you the best moving forward.
Histamine builds up over the course of the day. It’s like a rain barrel filling up until finally enough extra water is added until it overflows.
It’s possible your histamine barrel overflowed by getting stung and then eating a number of histamine containing foods, until finally your body couldn’t handle the histamine load any more.
Aged foods/meats are the worst culprits. Make sure you get meat frozen or eaten as soon as possible after you bring it home. I have found (for me) that grass fed meat seems to have more histamine than conventional grain finished beef. I think it is hung longer after slaughter.
Thanks for the reply, I was thinking that maybe the adaption phase just got to feeling really overwhelming for me. I did feel great benefits almost immediately. I struggle with tinnitus and most of it was gone after several days. The inflammation and pain was also much lower than before and when I ate carbs yesterday it all came flooding back viciously. I’m thinking about just pushing through for six weeks and then reevaluating.
Hey, thanks for replying. I think histamine is something that bothers me but I’m not sure. I currently eat only frozen beef patties and am wondering if that will be ok. Before, I was thawing and then cooking but since I became aware of the histamine issue I’m going to start cooking from frozen. The box says they are individually quick frozen so maybe keeping them frozen will keep histamine levels lower and I’ll feel better?
That sounds reasonable. If you don’t put them in the pan on too high a heat, they will thaw out nicely. You can turn the heat up a bit towards the end, if you want more browning. It took me a bit of experimenting, but I finally got so I could start with a frozen patty, get a nice browned but unburnt texture on the outside, and still have a rare or medium-rare patty on the inside.
Yeah, I’m aware that cooking for too long also raises histamine so ill probably need to do this too.
yea, adaption and histamine issues can overlap on what you could be experiencing but I buy my own fresh meat and make burgers and freeze and I cook from frozen ALL the time and they come out just like cooking fresh So yea, no need to defrost and thaw before cooking. I just put a lid on my frozen burgers, start on lower heat and let them steam defrost and then get that lid off and I turn up the heat to char them out a bit on each side and done.
6 wks is a decent amt of time to learn about yourself off carbs, but longer is better LOL but with that time under your belt you truly can get elimination benefits and if you decide to go back and add carbs, when you do you can more seriously see how your body reacts to certain foods and amts of carbs.
Keep on trucking!!! You got this!!!