No Angst Animal August - 31 day Carnivore Challenge - 2023

[beannoise]

Costco had full briskets for a good price this week so I cooked off and shredded two of them yesterday. I freeze in meal portion Gladware containers. Even though we’re empty nested, we’re cooking for 4-6 adults in any given week with aging parents + any adult children/ grandchildren that happen by.

Today was a couple of eggs fried with strips of leftover chicken skin (I can’t eat American grocery store eggs, but farmer market/ European eggs seem fine), brisket, leftover ribeye, leftover burger and some pork rinds. Can you tell I cleaned out the fridge, lol? Pork rinds aren’t a normal food for me, but Costco had the ones with cheese crack powder.

I did a hike/ run because the weather is nice. Now I probably should stop procrastinating and go do my shoulder therapy exercises.

Wishes for a good start to the week!

Bean

[Shinita]

Hi folks, I am back again… I try to learn from my weekend, I messed it up badly, had regrets (super rare thing), decided on new rules FOR GOOD (sadly, rules can’t enforce themselves… wait, I would hate that). I felt worse than usual, of course but it was still way better than so many people’s everyday, really not a big deal, I just feel bad to bring it on myself needlessly. The stuff wasn’t even good Just fun a bit, there are textures I can’t resist… I need new recipes even if I can’t do every textures on carni.
(Even the chicken at Alvaro’s Mom wasn’t plain. Sometimes it isn’t. Still mostly meat, it was nice. And no one else wanted the chicken from the soup so I ate it all. As usual )

I have roasted turkey, a tiny leftover not so great but edible pâté (I know what I should try next time, it will be much better I believe), sausage or bacon if I need it… I don’t want to make green ham now. I really will get bored of it if I force it Hopefully I can buy some pork chuck tomorrow. And I have beef in my freezer now.

We bought 2 tiny packets of smoked mackerel!!! -50% sale, it’s rare here but happens and it will be so, so wonderful. We immensely enjoy smoked mackerel each and every time and it’s so flavorful a little goes a long way!
So I am excited about today’s food now.

I need ordering a few things from webshops (like tea. I need my tea. I never will quit coffee if I don’t have some nice tea when I simply need something warm) and I have found some baffling vegan stuff again… Our word for it doesn’t contain the word “pork” so they just use it as it is but vegans apparently have “non-pork rinds” now… When I was a vegetarian, I just ate normal, honest things (and the usual processed things sometimes, that’s not the point and it wasn’t very much)… Much better, no disappointment
Of course, it’s way easier to be a vegetarian but I still don’t understand why people want to emulate things (with something not even remotely similar). I never felt left out not eating meat and similar thing, okay, it’s me. But they still can’t eat what others eat so what’s the point? It feels forced, similar to dieting girls eating some weird cake 3 times a day as if to show off they can eat ANYTHING and FUN stuff… (No, they don’t, I saw recipes.)
But maybe it makes perfect sense to someone not me. Surely I have weird things too according to others. Like my sponge cake buns but they are eggs in fun, airy form, they are honest and don’t want to be anything but whipped baked eggs They still don’t resemble real sponge cakes and it’s fine as I don’t use them as dessert. More like as bread but they resemble bread even less. They just take up the role for me and not at all for Alvaro. We talked about my sponge cakes again and they are just like eggs for him, some protein on top of his carbs. While they are for me what his carbs are for him, a very different role. Normal eggs can’t do that for me, at least not so well. I totally can imagine spreading something on a halved boiled egg in desperation It’s amazing how much an egg can change if we cook it differently.

This morning was COOL.
(And I didn’t go out because I am a miserable zombie in the morn clinging to the kitchen and coffee, not like it does anything better. I aim to change that.)

[FrankoBear]

Had another heart episode yesterday. On plan. But doing paid work on the weekend, which is when I’m not meant to be doing it, and it was a bit equal parts frustrating and stressful.

Today, I’m having a sick day (so I can get some work done). It’s noon and I am going to have some bacon and eggs. I’ve had a bone broth fast for the past 24 hours.

https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/atrial-fibrillation-magnesium-ketogenic-eating-yoga-oxalates/36218/192?u=frankobear

[Shinita]

I’m sorry to hear that, @FrankoBear

I brought a blurrier than usual photo but I just don’t care much. And it wouldn’t help anyway.
I didn’t eat most of the scratchings and only some turkey but I had creamy coffees and a little quark too. It was my lunch, I had smoked mackerel with sponge cakes and half a sausage for dinner.
The ugly brown blob next to the sponge cakes is my way too dry pâté but it was good enough with some butter. The eggs have a little bacon. This bacon end isn’t super salty, I don’t need to be extra careful with it…

I will track eventually but I guess it was a normal day. I missed my usual pork a bit, I just can’t get satiated properly without some subtantial meat, fowl never was so great at it.
The little mackerel was super salty It’s good I have my sponge cake buns.

[Karen18]

Food last couple of days. Mainly cheesy omelettes that were soft and easyish to eat. But you will notice the 2 burgers… those were the leftover ones that i couldn’t eat and the side burnt bits which aren’t in the picture cos i ate them lol so i managed to get squeezed in for an emergency dental appt today. Yesterday was Bank Holiday. In fact the last emergency dental work i needed doing was on a bank holiday weekend years ago. Always the case eh?
Luckily because i had just signed up as private patient the work was free! Though it will cost me later as i now need another root canal and crown. Just as well the pension money came through. He had to drill in and stick anti-biotic in the tooth. Much better now although later on i had to endure a dribbly cup of tea and part of my lip with some cheese! don’t you just hate the numbness! But i was able to eat the burgers without pain yay!

I walked in to Beeston for the appt… 2.5/3m and got the bus home as it started raining.

I am hoping for a better nigh sleep tonight, this weekend has been dreadful. Last night i needed 3 double doses of cocodamol… the last one at 5am. I prayed most of the night too. This morning i didn’t need any more pain killer and felt a bit of a fraud when attending appt… it felt better than it had all weekend! The power of prayer. I asked for that pain to go and it did! There was still infection there which you could see on xray and apparently nerve detached! So i did right to go and have it treated.

We have a big old moon tonight…big n yellow must be a super moon., it’s a very clear sky. I won’t take a pic cos they never look as good as the real thing! I will just enjoy looking at it from my bed

[Geezy56]

@FrankoBear I’m sorry you had an episode. I’m wondering, has this WOE done anything to help your AFib? I’ve been certainly hoping it would help mine.

@Karen18 my heart goes out to you. Tooth problems can be the worst. I hate the dentist or actually, I have a phobia when it comes to dentists. I told my dentist, who is a wonderful woman about 5’ 2”, that I walk through pits full of rattlesnakes, I chase down wild boars with nothing but a knife and I hunt bear with just a stick and string (bow & arrow), all of this with no fear but you young lady terrify me. Fortunately, over the years she has been able to settle my fears. She’s great. I even had a crown installed today.
Good luck Karen and I hope you get to feeling better soon.

[Shinita]

No photo from yesterday, we were in a hurry, helped with making the road better (the lower road, not ours ours is absolutely horrible, a smaller kid easily could hide in the holes at many places… we had heavy rain lately so it’s at its worst and one must be super careful with a car) and I had a horrid day for reasons.

I tracked my previous day, lower than usual protein, maybe that’s why I got hungry early yesterday? Doesn’t matter, I waited until lunch, it wasn’t a big deal. Lunch happened around 4pm, I had leftovers: turkey, tiny smoked mackerel (package says 1.8% salt. NOPE. more like 10%. it was extremely salty, no way it was below 5 even if I can’t pinpoint the actual number), sponge cakes, scrambled eggs with bacon and sour cream, some of my jellied fluff dessert (the new version, 1 yolk, 1 white, 30g whipped cream. and water and gelatin and anise, that’s it).

For dinner at 6, I had more turkey and sponge cake and half a sausage, tiny cheese… Mascarpone too.

I eat too dessert-y now… I try to subtly encourage myself not to. I mean, if I WANT it, I will eat it but I will make attempts to break the habit of always eating dessert too.
Some nice meat usually helps, today I will have pork again. The usual green ham but the fattiest parts, fried, after a multiple day break, I probably will like it.

I hid the coffee so no coffee for yesterday, I didn’t even demand the key from Alvaro when I felt miserable, had a headache and would have liked a little coffee. I can’t make promises about today but I try to behave.

[Fangs]

Got my ducks finally in a good straight row now seems my time is becoming mine again, and yes, I do love that!

year 6. almost 8 months of that gone now and into year 7 I will go. I am beyond myself even knowing the amount of actual years I am on this lifestyle. Loving it to no end ever!!

But I am changing again. Around yr 3-4 I became a very mono eater. beef, beef, beef and some pork and done but then after that period I went more into ‘allowing other’ stuff back again as in making homemade alfredo sauce, eating it with chicken, eating some wings, allowing back in deli stuff, like salami, beef sticks I bought and all. Normal true zc foods but not that other way of eating I did so well on.

I think it was family causing those upheavels in me truly. I mean I gotta cook for hubby and kiddo ya know but now that kiddo is in Uni and doing fab, loving her college life literally in such a short time, well, I have truly revamped my cooking and shop style all to my benefit.

wow, I am over the moon on this one truly cause I have my control back darn near full at this point.

My hubby is easy to feed truly. Have some taters around and he will make something, have rice around he will do something with it but all I have to do truly is be sure he has big meat on the plate. Big steak, he will make his own side dish to it. Big roaster chicken, he will figure out what side he might eat with it. All this is to my advantage and with kiddo not in the mix, omg I shop so much less, faster and without cooking different for her now and not buying that other stuff…I tell ya, zc freedom is right smack in my face here LOL

So eating has changed. Big beef first meal. Like before I thrive on steak. So first meal, big honkin’ beef. Second meal is pork. I dumped damn near everything else. Got to where I hate burger meat anymore. I mean I tried it all from fatty burger to 93/7 lean where I ended up but burger taste is not for me anymore. I want a steak, simple as that I dropped all processed except for 2 things. Keeping extra sharp hard aged cheddar for cheese emergency when I might need it, and kept bacon…darn right I kept bacon HA

Dumped all pre-made like sausages, deli stuff like my salami, stopped making my homemade alfredo sauce, dumped the few little spice mixes I might use and now I am pure clean eating. Meat/seafood/bit of salt. done.

Even, and get this, me being a super super salter, I am now naturally using way less salt. All by natural wants ya know. Not by making myself cut back, it is a natural thing to want less salt now…only took into damn near 7 yrs for me on my salt issues LOL Will be very interesting to see if I do go into damn near saltless in the future??? no clue on that one.

Store is putting snow crab legs on very good sale price. OMG when the sale hits friday I am going to stock my freezer like there is NO tomorrow. Yup. Steak in the morn and crab at night.

Since I go mono eating like this when steak sales hit I jump. Pork sales. I jump. Crab and shrimp I jump cause this will be the 3 things I will only eat and this will keep me in zc heaven!!

Hubby got short end of the stick tho HAHA Not like I haven’t done this to him before, :), but I cut eating out. He was less than pleased on this but honestly, I cant stand restaurant food or eating less than crap zc when forced thru eating out. ONLY restaurant I will allow now is a good steakhouse. I can control that so I kept one type of restaurant in there for him LOL but even his beloved bbq joints I dumped. No rubs on meat for me anymore. Done with that. Told him order and pick up what he wants, chinese, or italian or bbq or whatever and bring home, just don’t ask me to go near it cause I will not. Yup, tough azz carnivore in the room and I would give no leeway on this anymore. I do see he is adapting, good for him HA

I feel very very zc strong! It has become very natural for me now without thought. I needed this change to hit ya know and it did. wow.

So all fine on zc and all good in life at this point and things settling down to auto zc for me now.

Sorry not posting much but come Sept I will be posting more, I got time now that kiddo is handled and all is fab with her in that I AM so relieved that all the ducks are marching forward well for us here.

ZC ROCK ON!

[SecondBreakfast]

SO HAPPY YOU ARE BACK!!! And, what a magnificent journey you’ve had. Wow! It must make it tons easier to have a hubby that can find his own side dishes. I do not have that luxury as of yet, but look forward to that day. So glad your kiddo settled into college! That transition can be tough sometimes, so, that is a real blessing.

So, have you seen or felt a difference since getting rid of all the processed meats? I know the clean stuff is always best, but, every now and then I need a hit of sodium- and find that some of the processed stuff ticks the box. Its just all the other additives that annoy me.

Good for you, getting rid of the restaurant eating! Just don’t know what they put in that stuff half the time. The ONLY good steakhouse up here closed recently, and they’re putting in a Mexican place there now. So, the only place left where there is an actual steak is Applebees - or home. Frankly home seems better.

Hubby is going to be out of town ALOT in the coming weeks, so, eats and fasting will be waaayyyy easier. Kiddo is in her senior year of HS. She has the option to move to our other house, which may reduce the cooking and food needs here even more. So, I have no excuse not to eat clean anymore.

So glad you’re back, and can’t wait for you to post more, dear friend! Blessings!

[Shinita]

I sooo missed your style, Fangs Your comment was a joy to read I wish the best for you and your kid! Okay, your husband too but the bigger changes seem to happen to you two!

I like looking back and noticing differences too.
I have a problematic “summer things and desserts galore” phase, I hope it will change but I need my fatty pork. I have a little pork chuck in my freezer, that will come next.

I fried the fattiest green ham pieces, I took a multi day break too… And nope. I didn’t enjoy it immensely. It’s okay food, not super lean, I ate a decent amount but it’s not my old bliss with fattier pork. So I hope the pork chuck will give me that. I am pretty much bored of sausage at this point (that is my number one emergency food when I am still hungry but can’t stomach more leaner pork) and don’t want bacon either. This is the situation where I start to eat some keto desserts if I don’t find a nice enough carni option.I always can eat desserts. I eat too much desserts

No photo today, I had a cute sized lunch (1200 kcal? maybe 120g protein…). Fried pork, turkey, tiny egg, little dairy… Yesterday had very much dairy fat and I wasn’t shy with eggs either so it became a higher-cal day (just maintenance for a somewhat active day, maybe? so nothing extreme). It felt I ate little. Meat feels substantial food, eggs and dairy items are so surreptitious, I easily eat a lot of them and I don’t even notice it was much…

I better focus on LITTLE dairy again (hard to do with my stronger dessert phase. I need more enjoyable normal food). I had cream AND mascarpone AND sour cream yesterday, not in tiny amounts. I eat little cheese, that part is okay.
But I can handle a fattier day now and then. And it’s not sooo fatty. I don’t even remember when I went over 200g fat on keto last time… I used to do it very regularly on low-carb despite all my efforts. Even my protein is nearly always below 200g since I focus on it a bit more…

I don’t even try to skip lunch now. I wake up earlier than before, not like it matters much but it feels quite nice to eat lunch. I always liked to eat at 3-4pm already… And with my lean pork, I typically need 2 meals but I still don’t want to eat too late. So lunch at 3-4pm, dinner around 6pm, it should work.

And I don’t even remember when Alvaro refused meat when I was lazy and usual and wanted to get out of cooking something extra for him (I still make his carby sides and bread, the former is almost zero work and I still love baking)… He ate turkey for his last 3 lunches (for a carby dish he made in the weekend. we often have this, I merely need to provide the protein), we had mackerel yesterday and the day before, deer even before that… He always eats up some of the leanest parts of my pork too… Good.

I am curious what the future will bring. And when I can have a mostly carni month. November is great for that but it’s so far away. September should be fine, only grape season and it’s not dangerous to me.

But I really will need a lot of fatty pork. IDK why I couldn’t find the usual nice sales for pork shoulder but I strongly prefer chuck anyway. And I can’t buy the 70/30 pork as my lard just doesn’t get diminished. I have bacon to cook my eggs with. Only frying liver helps. Pâté is nicer with butter. I really love butter lately. I always liked it but I eat it more often now.

And I think I will make my own sausage-like things (I call it sausage when I actually put it into intestine but I rarely bother with it, not having tools for it. and anyway, that’s not the important point. nice though)… I find normal sausage way too fatty now, it even loses fat while cooking (I just use the microwave for normal sausage. the soft raw thing goes to the oven, that’s precious and rare)…

Its just all the other additives that annoy me.

I got choosier so no more store-bought pâté for me. Good sausage and smoked stuff is easy to get, no problem with the ingredients there. And it’s convenient and interesting… I don’t even have a smoker…

[robintemplin]

YAY!
HUZZAH!
HOORAY!
BRAVO!

So glad you’re back, literally and figuratively.

[Karen18]

@Geezy56 it’s all good… tooth not hurting now. My new Dentist is amazing. I think i love him like i love my Doctor! I have a lot of dental appts in the diary over the next few months so it’s good to have sampled some of his work and found out i can have plenty confidence in him.

Able to eat a steak today for brunch. Also ate mussels in mayo and prawns in mayo, cheese and some bacon.

Wasn’t keen on the bacon.

[FrankoBear]

Last night I rolled some cigars.

I stayed an extra night in the city not wanting a night drive home.

Take a slice of original Jarlsberg add a slice of cold beef (from an uneaten leftover rib), smear that in liver pate, add a slice of smoked salmon, add a slice of roast chicken. All the leftovers in an easy dinner time picnic. I made 4 of these. Maybe it was 5. To start I had a slice of baked Atlantic salmon. Bit of marine protein and fish fats signalling from the body.

Tonight Mrs. Bear and I are going to a film festival event where there will be ‘grazing’ boards and booze. So, I’ll eat before I go and easily demur on the free social lubricant and its drink now pay later trickery.

[Shinita]

I managed to eat a tiny dinner with IDK, 15g protein? Tricky but it worked. Whenever I eat little (~1600 kcal, 130-140g protein, sometimes less), I have this borderline hunger in the evening and/or at night but it’s very subtle, not annoying and somehow my brain is fine with it. I used to go to eat whenever I lost my perfect satiation at night, I just couldn’t handle it. And now I can, even if it’s a tiny hunger. Wow. (I ate a cheese whips today but it’s minimal And then I stopped.) It’s true I eat just enough fat and protein to pull it off with good food choices (and sometimes it’s worse but very lovely food choices and more calories, still okay)… But I tried in the past too, even harder and it didn’t work… Maybe I never had the ability to eat much meat and willing to eat leaner meats at the same time before, at least longer term?
Whatever, things work now. (And I don’t even do proper carnivore… I am just close enough, apparently. Even proper carnivore rarely worked this well in the past…)

I think I am not nearly as much obsessed with food as in the past… Yay. Even in my chill carni times, I used to think about food way too much. Now my focus shifted. Good. I still think about food a lot and cook and stuff but still, it’s way less I needed this.

I am looking forward to September

We had a COOL day. 21C as our maximum, maybe? Wow. It was glorious. It will get warmer but it won’t be as bad as the last weekend was. Hungary had record breaking electricity usage due to A/C-s. And then it will be autumn. Probably warm but not super hot anymore. Sigh. I will be happy to sleep in my own room again, these mattresses (I always need to look up the spelling ) are big and super comfy… And then I can make my room light again… Autumn is wonderful. We usually have lots of warmth and sunshine. Winter is sunny enough too, actually… My room get lots of warmth from the sun in winter but most importantly, lovely sunshine. It cheers me up. I like sunshine even in summer, I just have problems with the extreme hotness part when that happens.

Oh I forgot to write that I opened a cheese Alvaro’s Mom brought from Italy. We always get some along with fish paste filled tiny peppers in olive oil. 2 of the cheeses are meh but the provolone is tasty and it’s dolce so it must have a more flavorful version…
We will tell her we like this. As Alvaro agrees with me, this is the best, by far. Nothing oh so special but still very nice

I must say again, I love your style, @FrankoBear. I really liked the last sentence.
I consider you the poet of the thread even if you do prose It just seem to be the right word for it.

[Karen18]

Wow who need bread to make a sandwich! Sounded great and got better with every extra slice you put on

[Geezy56]

OMAD today. Spent the day running around shopping for my in-laws. They’re pretty much homebound these days so we do what needs to be done for them.
Anyways, didn’t feel like cooking when I got home so I just ate some pork cracklings along with some

salmon salad, made with wild caught sockeye salmon, avocado mayo, eggs and a touch of Cajun seasoning.

[FrankoBear]

September surprised us.

Keep the chat going over here. Let us know how you are going on the carnivore way.

Steady September - 30 day Carnivore Way of Eating - 2023

Last year it was SurfTurf-tember. It’s always fun to look back on previous efforts. Until the whole way of being becomes effortless. Welcome to newbies to the carnivore try-it-outs. Try it out for a month. Welcome back carnivores who are finding their way.

Please @robintemplin, could we close the August chat?

[robintemplin]