My Carnivore Journey


#1

Good Day Everyone

Starting the carnivore diet tomorrow the 1st of April, I am 39 years old now. I have been reading about it for a year or two but did not find the motivation to stick with the diet.

I suffer from an auto-immune disease called alopecia, since the time I was 8 years old. I have two kids and a beautiful wife and need more energy for family life and work.

My goal is not to cure my auto-immune because I have lived with it for far too long to care. My goal is weight loss and higher energy levels for my work and family.

I intend to eat tri-tip beef, beef liver, salt and water. Posting here to document my progress and for assitance if needed.

Great forum and glad to be here. Thank you.


(Alec) #2

@Lupo Well done and welcome aboard the carnivore bus. I hope the ride is as smooth and fruitful as the one I have had in the last 15 months. I think it will be.

Please do lean on us if things get tough. Come on in and post to the monthly carnivore group on here… we love to help folks if they need help, or just share stories and what we are eating.

My main bit of advice: eat when you are hungry. Always. Never get hungry. If you are, eat! Also, take some pics of you right now… ie the before pics. You may not like what you see, but you will be pleased you have that as a starting record to compare with down the track. I promise, it’s worth it.


#3

Welcome! I want energy and weight-loss too! I have experience with carnivore but I stray away all the time and almost never do it 100% and it’s fine, I just need to stick to it a tad better. And my timing needs improvement too.

You do a super strict style, wow, I couldn’t do that, don’t need it but it should be effective for multiple things! Even if you didn’t mention specific health goals (if low energy doesn’t count as one) and even if you don’t even see anything that could be improved, maybe they will. I always felt quite healthy but when I lowered my carbs, it still got better. But I still have lowish energy. Of course, multiple things may be wrong in my life, it’s not all about the woe and if carnivore didn’t give me energy until now, it won’t but who knows, maybe longer term and more proper may help…?

Good luck!

I LOVE getting hungry, isn’t that normal? I eat almost immediately (usually. I have reasons not to eat when hungry sometimes but it’s usually after a meal, not before) but I miss hunger when carnivore takes it away for several days, that’s disconcerting! And it doesn’t even help with fat-loss as I only don’t have hunger, I still get the “need to refuel” weakness and dizziness, losing focus and that’s worse than hunger. But it’s good if the body tells us, the mind to eat, isn’t it? (Why it doesn’t just use the fat on us? No idea. But maybe I am unfair as I only have this when I haven’t eaten since 20 hours or something. Still. Why I can’t do EF on carnivore?)


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #4

Let me add my welcome, too. As Alec said, please keep us up to date with your progress. The carnivore diet involves quite an adaptation, especially when coming directly from the standard diet. Many people come to it after time on a ketogenic diet, and even then they still have to adapt. My point is not to discourage you, rather that it’s great you are willing to make the effort to change, and please give it plenty of time before deciding that the new diet is not for you.

You are right not to pin any hopes on the diet’s ability to restore your hair. A low- or zero-carb diet promotes metabolic health and can improve quite a few conditions, but they are all related to insulin-resistance (and on carnivore, the removal of plant toxins) and I doubt you can expect reversal of an auto-immune problem. (I’ve known a few people with alopecia, but never knew it was an auto-immune disease. Do they know what triggers it?)

In any case, it’s good to have you on the forums, and I hope you’ll stick around and let us know how you’re getting on.


(Cindy) #5

My husband and I have both been carnivore for the last 3 months after 5 years of solid keto. He also has alopecia - lost every hair on his body when he was 42. He had grown a lot of it back, and then with the covid vaccines, which we need at our age, he lost most of it again. Nothing works fast with alopecia, and like you, neither of us care if he gets his hair back again, but still, it’s always a sign of improved health when his hair does grow back more. So I’m watching and waiting to see what carnivore does over the next few years for his hair. As far as energy and health go, we’re still in the up and down stages, with super energetic days, and some lower energy days. But after so many years on the keto diet, eating all the WORST plant foods, we’re both LOADED with oxalates. So it may take as long as 3-4 years to clear all of those out.

Be sure to eat plenty of fat. We’re finding that we do have to limit our dairy to small doses, except for butter, which we both eat liberally.

Since I have osteoporosis in my family and I’m a very small 68yo woman, I eat an oz of cheese eat day and take calcium citrate with it - which also helps clear out oxalates.

Good luck to you! Keep us posted on how you do!
Cindy


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #6

Getting enough protein will help, too, since bone is actually calcium in a protein matrix.


#7

Hello Lupo, and welcome🙂You’ve certainly found the right place, a great and supportive forum. My WOE is much closer to carnivore than keto, as I eat grassfed beef and lamb. Very recently I added grassfed organ meats to my health arsenal, and the taste of the beef liver (surprisingly sweet) is already growing on me. But I couldn’t eat it on its own, I pair it with 3 or 4 of my pasture eggs, as they mask that sweetness well. I’m not as strict as you as I drink a couple glasses of raw grassfed milk, enjoy eating KerryGold butter, and also a tiny amount of raw, wild honey in the mornings. It’s kind of a morning ritual, a nice way to wake up and I only have quarter of a teaspoon.

I don’t have alopecia, but I have the auto immune skin disease roseaca. As I finally gave up the antibiotics I were taking for it to heal my gut, I don’t look great at the moment. But I am determined to stay off the antibiotics and fix my gut, the skin is the barometer to one’s internal health. I have a lot of healing to do, and it takes time. I also have come to believe my lipoedema and lymphedema is an auto immune condition, which appears to be getting better. Like you I am looking for more energy, but I find walks are very good for this, and fresh air. Though my energy levels remain consistently low, my body is feeling infinitely better on my mostly carnivorous WOE: beef, lamb, raw milk, grassfed butter, and raw honey. When I was on a HC/LF WOE I was slim, but I’d snack constantly for energy, I’d have one blood sugar crash after another, dizzy spells, lightheadedness, massive brain fog, I’d take the steady if somewhat low energy I am experiencing on this WOE over that any day. But I believe, when the body has a lot of healing to do, that healing takes energy and while the body prioritises this, your energy levels may be lower than you wish. But, so long as you have the sense your body is healing, for instance one of my body’s healing signs is the dry skin on my hands is gone and they are smooth, another is better and deeper sleep, and I’ve had sleep problems all my life. I personally am not after weightloss, but the benefits and the healing, which requires patience, we can’t heal the damage done to our bodies over the night. If I were you though I’d keep a progress book, not just for noting weightloss, but for noting the benefits and signs, however small, of healing.


(Cindy) #8

Knowing how much protein to get is harder than I thought it would be though! I’ve searched carnivore forums, NIH, medical research universities, etc, and the recommendations vary from 0.4-1.2 grams of protein daily per pound of body weight. That’s a wide range! Before I started on the carnivore diet, I wasn’t even getting 0.4 grams per lb of body weight, so I’ve upped my protein to that. It feels like a LOT of protein already compared to what I ate on keto. But should I go higher? I’m at a good weight, 110 lbs, 5’3", age 68. I’m very active, work much more than full-time still, get plenty of exercise every day.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #9

You should eat enough meat to satisfy your hunger. Then don’t eat again until you’re hungry again. You should not eat to a target.

Dr. Phinney is concerned about how much protein carnivores eat, since a lot of them end up eating around two pounds of meat a day. But that amount seems to be right for a lot of carnivores.

However, while a lot of carnivores mention how much they eat, it is almost always in the context of “This is how I ended up, but you should do what works for you.” So don’t be surprised if your body wants a couple of pounds of meat a day, but also don’t be surprised if it wants less, or more.


(Cindy) #10

Wow! OK. I come from many years of very little meat, so I’m gradually edging up. But this does help. :slight_smile:


(KM) #11

for someone your size who’s not specifically focusing on protein, a minimum amount of protein would be about 40 grams. Very lean meats and fishes are almost 1/3 protein, so you could probably get away with a 5-6 ounce serving. That is lean meat, so you’d want to be adding in plenty of fat from some other source for satiety.

I’m not suggesting this unless you’re overwhelmed with the volume of fatty meat necessary to meet the protein requirement, but chicken breast covered in cheese sauce, tuna steak swimming in butter, etc. is another way of meeting the protein requirement if a mountain of fattier meat is sinking you.


(Cindy) #12

Thank you for the feedback, Kib1. It’s working really well for me. I’m eating 50 grams of protein per day most of the time, then filling in with fats up to 1000-1300 calories. One meal per day in the morning only. I would never have believed I could maintain this kind of diet, but carnivore makes it so much easier.


(Rossi Luo) #13

Welcome, you will find out how magical the keto diet or carnivore is in just a few months!