No-quit, No-carb No-vember (30 day carnivore experience)


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #224

That was my meal, too. However, my sister made a sugar-free pumpkin pie, which I ate a piece of, just to please her. (Not the crust, of course; just the filling.) But that was enough of eating off-plan. Firstly, and fortunately, the sweetener she used was unpleasant (erythritol, I believe). Second, I’ve been finding myself thinking that because I made one exception to strict carnivore, I could make other exceptions, too.

But I’ve encountered that kind of thinking in other contexts (can you say, “Addiction”?) and know where it leads, so I’ve been sticking to turkey and butter. Gradually, the addictive thinking is going away again. Whew!


(Geoffrey) #225

That diet devil whispering sweet nothings in your ear. And that’s why I avoid anything that’s sweet, I just don’t need that trigger.
Glad you stayed strong Paul.
I have found that for me it’s better to eliminate rather than moderate.


(Geoffrey) #226

Yes ma’am, it’s a lot. It also depends on the size of the bird. Ours was 18 pounds.
This is how we deep fry a turkey.


#227

We are having an early heat wave. Up in the city there are about 5 days of around 40’C (104F). Down here on the homestead it gets up to 35’C (95F). That’s warm enough, thanks. Unfortunately these temperatures are already record-breaking and we are a couple of weeks away from summer.

I paddled my surfboard recently, out in the real ocean, felt like a chicken in a lake. Not back to full surfing, yet.

Billie the Labrador needs knee surgery after being tumbled by a large dog at the beach. So, my personal trainer is out of action. Luckily Labradors are world experts at resting.

Today I have to head down the hill from the forest to the local country town and go foraging for meat and coffee.

Carnivore living in an Omnivore world.
Last night I ate chicken thighs cooked in butter with salt. I ate two to start. Same as about a week ago. I was aware of what @Fangs often will observe that fish and poultry, maybe even pork, don’t hold satiety as well as ruminant red meat, steak or lamb. But the internal sloth slowly raised it’s ugly head and I went into recline and watched some Netflix. That’s when and where I risked making what could have been a disastrous husband mistake… I called out to Mrs. Bear. I was lazy and lounging. Deep breath here, I asked if she could make me dessert. Pin drop. She was really good and asked, Blueberries, or mango? Hang on, you don’t eat dessert! I said, In the bowl near the stove top. A few moments. Then she laughed. I had two more butter pan-fried chicken thighs cooling a bit before needing putting into the fridge. She brought them to me shaking her head with a smile. I accepted and thanked her. A small thanks given. Then waited until she was settled again in her online TV series, and I got up and got the salt (and put the kettle on for Mrs. Bear’s night-time tea). I may be a husband slothing on the edge, but I am not suicidal.

Remember “Flash”?


(Robin) #228

I had thanksgiving catered, so lots of various meats, cooked perfectly and all the other stuff everyone else wanted. It’s been enough years that no one questions me or cares anymore.
Boom


#229

Am I allowed to say “Amen”? I’m not religious. I’m saying it as, “I agree with this, like soul connection level agree, and I hope everyone who reads it can agree as well.”


#230

The combination of rabbit stew and duck wings sound great. Rabbit, like kangaroo, can be a bit lean and loves a fat bath (like the French make it).


#231

Wisdom here. So well put. Thanks @Geezy56 Geoffrey. Inspiration is what food addicts need to read or hear (like a safety horn in the thick brain fog) to navigate the feasts of festive season, as @PaulL described as well.


#232

yea I got to where all sweeteners taste like chemical garbage to me now. So understand that. once off sweeteners when you do have a taste again, they truly do taste ‘off and nasty’. Also agree with your 2nd thought, once ‘allowed’ to ‘go back’ very quickly one can make a zillion excuses to eat off plan and very fast we snowball back. I know that from truth for sure :slight_smile: many a backslide came from that ‘one bite’ and ‘the brain then allows’ backwards more carbs and boom…struggles start again. Only no struggle way for me is never eat it. I got control this way, any other way doesn’t work for me but to hold plan like a tiger! Good post to read Paul!

YUP! this is me too. there is no moderation in my life on carbs :wink:

I like how you said you are truly carnivore. Me too, but our actions we know it and live it :star_struck: I got carby eaters in the house, only carnivore here too and darn it was hard to walk that path alot of times but in the end, when ya want something you take action and make it happen! So glad I held carnivore, gave me a truly change of life when it came to health benefits and every day well being!! ZC Zen, can’t go wrong having that!

Ahhh, but so so lucky to be out paddling, I am jelly on just reading that :slight_smile: enjoy your ocean to the fullest FB!

Ohhhh, poor Billie!! So sorry to hear about Billie. surgery? yikes…from another dog yet? wow. glad to hear tho Billie is ok but tough to handle knee surgery but you will take great care to get Billie back in action. Wishing Bille good vibes on her med issues!!

Ohhh, wait, you don’t eat dessert, HAHA I have done that too where you just don’t eat enough to hold ya and then your mind sets back into the ‘old ways’ of eating, which is when a bit hungry after eating, time for dessert or start big time snacking right out of the bags LOL I ate many a bag of chips that way :wink: ugh…but so nice ya had more chicken to eat then and there!! I tell ya I always had to eat at least 4 big chicken thighs to be satisfied and even then I had to watch me after that, darn chicken really doesn’t hold me well at all. but some times ya wanna eat chicken HAHA enjoyed reading your post!!

---------today is one of those days that irks me. but I am fine doing it.
THROW OUT THE CARBY LEFTOVER CRAP! what a waste of money but I also don’t mind throwing it out too in that it is crap LOL I buy for the family and then they eat some of it and leftover now and time for it to hit the landfill :slight_smile: Out goes 1/2 a pumpkin pie, out goes leftover red velvet cupcakes, out goes leftover taters in fridge and a few other things are going bye bye. Out goes bread that got moldy. OMG I hate buying bread. hubby hates it in fridge or frozen ever so it sits out and before he can eat the rolls and bread he wants, 1/2 the darn packages go moldy and into the garbage they go. then I gotta buy more bread!! OH don’t get me started…honestly I NEVER throw out meat. NEVER EVER but the money waste on this carb crap is horrible. I can see such a massive difference in eating carnivore and then ‘eating everything else’ and how food waste is handled. Carnivore, 0 waste. Other food, tons of waste, really sad on that…ugh…luckily I don’t buy alot on regular life days for them but on Thanksgiving I did buy a big more desserts for them and now away it goes.

bleck. I honestly hate dealing with food anymore. Carnivore is so simple. Other foods are a pain in my azz to the max HAHA

ok enough ranting on holiday food crap!

Got NY Strip steak first meal. Doing giant roaster chicken for family and will eat on some of that but I also got 2 thin pork chops for me to eat along with what chicken I eat. ZC done for the day!

hold strong thru the holiday times everyone!! we got this and will be ZC’ers into the new year coming at us!!


(Geoffrey) #233

That’s where we are fortunate. When people are leaving we pack up food to take home with them and then anything leftover will go to our dogs or chickens.


(Robin) #234

Amen to that!


#235

You’re evil :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::innocent::innocent: Sending that stuff home with other human beings HA HA
Our family is scattered far so no fam gatherings and being older I have to say our circle is so small now. No one to send it home with at this point and my dog is carnivore so he ain’t getting it, now the chickens, hmmm, we had about 400 layers at one time in our farming time, but never thought to feed them house stuff LOL At this point landfill it is :smirk:, I am good with it tho now! away from me is all I want.

------------on the road zc day. bleck.

taking kiddo back to Uni since her car is not out of repair shop. 3 hrs up, 3 hrs back, just pray traffic is OK…ugh…probably eat darn crap on road for easiest way thru today. naked sausage egg cheese and naked cheeseburgers…omg…my guts are already saying NO but I can survive a day on that if required. Defrosting big sirloin steak in fridge and will be thawed when I get home tonight and will sizzle up that sucker and hound it down. Should be ok zc day in the end.

WOW the new year is coming at us fast huh? this yr flew by it seems. zc on strong all into the new year we all go!! carnivore style!!


#236

I started to wrote this 2 days ago but the photo was delayed, I lost some interest… But here it is. This thread gave me thoughts again… But I feel I enter a phase where I won’t think about food this much.

I don’t eat them together, that would be two not satiating meat together, I need red meat. I had pork, a tiny beef and rabbit today as far as meat was concerned.
We have so many things to eat and I am not so hungry so I put the duck wings into the freezer for now.

And this rabbit was fat again, it was lovely! I almost made a little rabbit scratchings but it took more time than the organs and poor mild rabbit liver got a bit dry already… Next time we won’t cook it separately, it will be nice in stew.

The rabbit stew was made over open fire, I made the fire, put things on it and went in. Alvaro was cold and didn’t see the food from the steam and decided it’s ready when it had a burnt smell :smiley: But it’s good, even the black pieces weren’t too bad. But poor dish had zero liquid :frowning: I love when it has some and it becomes jelly… Oh well.
Only 3 limbs remained. The days when Alvaro ate his share for 3 days are over…

I wonder what happens when I taste erythritol again. I don’t expect a big change yet. I run out of it several months ago, it already wasn’t my fav sweetener (that’s xylitol) but I never had problems with it. It’s sweet.
In the months since I used some xylitol but very, very rarely and little. Even on my off days, I just stopped wanting sweetened desserts. I mean, it’s not common now, I still love walnut pancakes, they are amazing :smiley: My sweetener intake became so tiny in 2023 that it just doesn’t matter if I use xylitol or erythritol, the net carb content is irrelevant in both cases… I didn’t eat much even before but this year brought a big change! I expect it getting even better in the future. As my sweet perception still keeps changing… I am quite close to feel my lactose sweetened desserts really, perfectly sweet. Some desserts still need to be really sweet for me but I am fine with almost neutral ones too, it depends.
And I have more and more days when I am quite fine without any desserts. It was very rare until recently. I am bad with time but I do remember wanting desserts all the time not long ago… :thinking:

I only hated the other sweeteners (horrid taste), sugar alcohols are the okay ones for me. But sweeteners and sweetness are overrated, I feel it stronger and stronger as time passes. As long as I have my dairy selection, I feel pretty content dessert wise. (Fruit is another group and matter but as long as I have my lemon, it’s fine for a while in winter.)

I had that problem for a very long time. It seems I am better even there. I eat off a bit… And while I may still thing I can go further then, at least I only do that with very low-carb items as I don’t want to cross a line with carbs. But I don’t even want more non-animal carbs if I already ate some so I don’t have those extra struggles after off eating many have.
The biggest issue with my current mildly rebellious free phase that I eat in a too big window in the weekend (and a tad too much coffee again)… But the rabbit was ready so early :upside_down_face: I barely could ate dinner, I was so not hungry (I even left some rich scrambled eggs, who does that? me when I can’t eat more, apparently) but it’s better eating dinner with Alvaro than a midnight meal…

That’s when I usually eat my processed meat. Or a slice of cheese with a sponge cake. Or sour cream with a sponge cake. If I am still hungry afterwards, I often can eat some more fried pork again :wink:
I eat dessert when I specifically want dessert (or when I can’t stomach anything else). But I still want it to be satiating (usually. it’s rare when I am satiated but want crunchy biscuits. very unfortunate as I can’t make biscuits if my life depends on it and I don’t buy biscuits, they aren’t good for me) so I still can’t go far from carnivore. Carby desserts aren’t as good as keto ones anyway so that part is fine. There are lovely irreplaceable crunchy non-carnivore savory treats though. Usually still quite low-carb so it’s not THAT bad but I am glad I don’t need to fight my peanut addiction on carnivore… I would lose in a heartbeat. Crunchy is my weak point. I have cheese whisps and scratchings but sometimes they aren’t an option or not what I want. It’s not too bad but I am still evolving anyway.

I never ever would throw out carby food myself, we just eat it. Well, Alvaro does, usually :slight_smile: We plan well, don’t buy or cook what we (Alvaro. he learned I probably won’t help much anymore) can’t eat. Or he sacrifices himself, sometimes he cooks a bit too much but he learns from it :slight_smile: But we never throw out anything even then.
Most of my food is so freezable on carnivore, that’s neat. And the cats would gladly eat it up anyway, I rarely have spicy stuff and I lightly salt… But nope, it’s all (well, mostly, Ginger is hard to resist…) mine.

I don’t understand these moldy breads. Our house is usually pretty humid but we never have moldy bread. My bread dries, never gets moldy… Let’s blame food industry? Probably. I need to be careful with my sponge cakes though, sometimes I was distracted and didn’t eat them up quickly and they are a bit moist, being 100% egg so they are able to get moldy. But it takes a few days and they rarely live that long. When they do, I use the fridge now.
Alvaro’s Mom freezes bread, I learned from her it works. We don’t do that to Alvaro’s bread, I put my keto (or hybrid) bread there a few times… But my sponge cake buns are so much better…

So food wasting is on the people. It’s not necessary on high-carb. Knowing people, yep, it happens way often there especially compared to not only low-carb but carnivore. But not everyone wastes their carby food. It’s a few small pieces of spoiled vegs per year in this household. We never throw out a tiny bit of bread. I can’t even make more than a spoonful of breadcrumbs per year (good as I wouldn’t know what to do with it, I have one recipe with it and another has it optionally) as Alvaro happily eats up 5 days old rock hard bread (it’s dense and dark even when fresh, he likes that). The softest rock available but still.

Good. Throwing out moldy bread, obviously. Other carbs, ouch but I can handle hearing about it sometimes. But throwing out eggs (especially yolks… :scream::cry:) and meat (especially fancy ones I never can afford), that hits hard. And it happens :frowning:
I never was compatible with having zillion different cakes and whatnots for holidays. Mom had that mindset and I hate the stressful environment and lost all my interest in food when I faces way too big variety and huge amounts. As Mom barely ate some. She expected me to eat up everything. It’s tahnks to my good genes (and my inability to eat just any amount. I did eat much but not super insane much) I wasn’t an obese kid. Just a bit overweight.

Exactly my feelings (and usually some extra physical ones too) after 1-2 days of carbier eating :smiley: And that’s still low-carb but too carby and complicated… It’s impossible for me to want back to carnivore when I go off. Even when I decide oh, I need the freedom and meat is boring and I need to get it and it’s not always trivial… And there are some still tempting old favs… I very quickly lose this.
I imagine I would do more carnivore if I could afford ruminant meat. Maybe not, pork is what I can eat in bigger amounts nearly every day. But ruminant meat is very much not pork and still satiating and tasty so it could help a bit. Next time in the city I will try to get some deer and/or mutton again! It’s not like I can’t buy some for my “bored of pork” times… It’s just harder to get than pork, I do love tender pork when I still am not bored of it… But I suppose I need a bit more ruminant meat for variety than I have thought.

Oh, you aren’t the type to pack your own food? I prefer to do that :slight_smile: My normal food is very good for me even when cold but I would just pack it selectively if I wasn’t like this… I rarely like to get whatever I can, I am way choosier than in the past. I want my own food or something similarly good.

And a fresh thing… We had SNOW. Not even a super tiny bit. Not much but still, very much visible for hours :smiley: We are below frost a little so it melted but we had it. There were some snowflakes in the weekend too but today had more. But it’s on/off sunny, not bad. Tomorrow’s forecast says rain in the whole country or close so it probably will happen.

We pick up the car today and the letter from the tax authority, it’s surely about the millions I need to pay. Less to worry about. Hungarian Forint doesn’t worth much, hence the really big looking numbers. It’s not like I inherited so very much. Significant though especially for us.


(Geoffrey) #237

Wow! What a day I had yesterday.
We’ve had family from out of state (Colorado) staying with us for a couple of days.
So yesterday we had a gathering of all the local family and I did a bunch of cooking.
I smoked half a lamb until it was fall off the bone tender and then some bacon wrapped stuffed venison backstrap. Sorry but I was just too busy to take pictures.
The lamb had been raised on pasture and heavily supplemented with alfalfa. The amount of fat on her was amazing.
Everyone thought it was all delicious and I have to agree with them.
Fortunately there’s enough left over that ol be eating on it for a few more days.


(Karen) #238

Happy Thanks Giving to my American friends… @JJFiddle your Turkey looked delish and you can send me one for Xmas :grin: cooked of course :wink:

Up in good time to do 60plus stair runs, books n coffee outside in the sunshine … bit cold but i had my coat on and the wind cleared away the cobwebs .a bit of sewing then off to take Raymond shopping. We had brunch at the Salvation Army charity shop n cafe… the usual 2 fried eggs and 2 rashers of bacon… no pic.

Home later about 4.30pm and dinner of 2 beef burgers 1 sirloin steak and king prawns (no doubt more like shrimps to you :rofl:)


‘It’s getting to feel a lot like Christmas’

Fogot to send this a couple of days ago! Ooops!

Since then, Saturday night went dancing and had a lovely evening with lots of laughter. Food 9ver the past couple of days…


Omelette in pic above was mixed seafood (cod,salmon and haddock,) plus i have had a brunch out but forgot to take pics … the usual breakfasts with and without black pudding and today i had a fabulous chicken omelette and this evening i have eaten a lamb steak pic above…plus 2 beef burgers and bacon. Note to self… remember the pics, i am either getting quite forgetful or i am very hungry!


#239

Do you deliberately make plates looking like goofy faces or is it just me? :smiley: The first one this time :wink:
(I would like shrimps or prawns too. Maybe I wrote before but they and crabs too are referred by the same word here. Just like clams and moussels have the same name and I have no idea about the differences… It’s like turtles and tortoises though I do know the differences here but it’s one word in Hungarian… We don’t have apes or monkeys either, it’s one word, again. Oh, simplicity… In that one thing, at least. And we don’t have gendered pronouns or other gendered things - like in Russian I need to tell my gender if I talk about doing something in past tense… - , that’s amazing too… I have learned German, yeah, that’s even worse but sometimes funny. But German was always very easy for me and if we mix the genders, it’s still understandable as it doesn’t actually MATTER, it’s just a stupid thing in the language to make our life harder.)

The omelet looked good! I never had the thought of putting fish into my scrambled eggs or omelets (it was ages ago I made an omelet…), maybe I should… :thinking:


It’s winter here :frowning: I am not Fangs but it’s COLD :cry: Outside, walking is fine but the house needs much heating (we just started to heat all night when we noticed it’s unavoidable at this point. normally I am fine but if we were outside for long and we are tired or something, it gets cold. and my nose is freezing in the evening). And I don’t feel so very motivated to go out often. And it was so very DARK before 4pm… :frowning: I am not used to this yet. I need to wake up as soon as I can to get enough light. I am solar powered, partially. I need a lot of things to have some energy. Lots of food, lots of sleep, exercise, sunshine.
And we didn’t have a very sunny day since too long. Just partially sunny ones :frowning: Mostly not sunny with a little sun here and there. And worse. I can be super whiny without sunny days for a few days but I NEED sunlight… (Even remembering the 3 weeks of fog in a November 10+ years ago can’t make me appreciate this tiny sunlight. I want MORE.)


(Geoffrey) #240

If you ever get the opportunity, an omelette made with smoked salmon and cream cheese is da bomb.


#241

Sounds nice :slight_smile: We almost never buy salmon nowadays as I am less interested now (I used to love salmon but mostly the raw kind in Japanese restaurants. smoked salmon must be wonderful though, I like tasty smoked fishes, see my love towards smoked mackerel) and Alvaro is fine either way but it may happen one day ;)Is the cream cheese on top or mixed in, maybe? I like cream cheese but it takes a lot to win over my beloved sour cream on top (scrambled eggs and omelets aren’t really complete without it for me though sometimes I don’t use any. just wonder if I should)… Cream cheese may suit salmon better though.


But today I just make hen soup (there was a great sale in the supermarket I visited yesterday :wink: even cheaper than the usual chicken thigh sales and it’s tastier, makes a good soup and Alvaro can have all the meh lean breast I dislike :smiley: even the cats get happy) and fry some pork (the leaner green ham mixed with pork belly). I only have 2 sponge cake muffins left as I ate 10 yesterday… :thinking: I got hungry late and ate some with the leftover smoked pork chuck and some smoked pork hock (so soft when it was still warm, even the skin was almost melting let alone the fat… I still have the daydream about cooking one just for me so I don’t need to be modest or leave most of the lean parts for Alvaro… I can imagine a meal heavily based on it).
I don’t track so I don’t have the vaguest idea about my protein intake now. But I suppose I was below 130g before my after midnight meal, I haven’t eaten much for lunch and dinner. And I will try not to eat just because I am not fully satiated. I was very far from a disturbing hunger, I just dislike going to bed not satiated. My abilities and willingness to resist eating is way weaker when I am not well-fasted.
OMAD is the best when I can do it as I wait until true hunger, eat a lot and it automatically takes care about the rest of the day. 2 meals aren’t that good. But I need very much carbs or some special items and determination to eat OMAD sized meals. It’s hardest on carnivore but tricky on low-carb too as most of my food is carnivore and the plants are the satiating type too. With hunger inducing sugars it’s easy to eat 2000 kcal in one sitting and then it’s trivial to do OMAD (if I got my protein but it’s unlikely I don’t when I eat this much). It doesn’t make higher-carb any more temping, just saying that it’s harder and harder to do OMAD as time passes and I eat lower-carb and even my plants tend to be the good, satiating kind - or minimal. With exceptions but when I go wild/relaxed, I eat in a bigger window anyway. I am bad at do the right pairing with more carbs: strict IF, preferably OMAD. But as the wrong one doesn’t feel good, I probably will learn.

But right now carnivore sounds the best idea, I will have a meaty day. Not particularly interested in eggs nowadays, of course I have my egg milks and sponge cakes with the occasional scrambled eggs if I have something fun to put in (pork belly, pork hock, sausage, whatever. we have mushrooms now and some are tasty but Alvaro appreciates them more. I used to eat scrambled eggs with a ton of onions. how times changes, they aren’t only sweet now but we barely have any ever - we used a lot before I tried carnivore - as Alvaro only puts them into a few dishes and never into his scrambled eggs, he likes them with sausage or mushrooms).
My dairy consumption is modest too. But I have rabbit, hen and fatty enough pork today, even smoked stuff and I ate little pork in the last days so a meaty day should be easy and enjoyable.

{I use too many “buts” I am aware but it would be hard for me to change it. I have plenty of problems with my style… Of course, I would do better if it would be serious writing - oh I would be bad but not as bad as some - but that would take forever. Some writers take their sweet time, my SO - who didn’t write since ages - is like that.}

Rainy day :frowning: It affects my energy and mood.


#242

My planned lunch (hen soup with some pork as usual, rabbit front leg, hen scratchings - I got some rendered fat, I needed it already, smoked pork hock and of course, sponge cakes):

I had some milky coffees, this new coffee is really nice, even mixed with the old one, I can drink it black. I don’t but I could. Coffee only after about half past 1, good enough. Gloomy rainy day, I could do this much. But only a few calories until now, it’s 3pm, Alvaro comes home a tad late as the battery of the car (oh, lovely smooth and not noisy now :smiley: ) needs charging and it takes forever.
I wrote “buttery” first :rofl:


(Karen) #243

Seafood makes a great filler and i like chicken also :grinning: