Paleolithic Ketogenic Diet

#97

So well said. This is a point I like to tell others on carnivore yet they don’t get it. Have no patience on it. That is why a carnivore saying out there is Keep the Faith :slight_smile: It is hard to do but means SO much! Those who do keep the faith get stellar results if they hold plan. Many won’t ever put in the time tho. Instant gratification and results are wanted. Wish that was the case for all but it never will be.

#98

@Ilana_Rose Those numbers are excellent! No wonder you’re seeing so much healing going on in your body. :smile:

(mole person) #99

@ReneeRC my fasted ones were less good though! Glucose 82 and ketones 1.1 at 5:30 am. It’s very confusing. Do you ever have better numbers in the day after you’ve eaten etc than fasted?

#100

@Ilana_Rose No, my ketones normally stay the same but my glucose will rise. Since PM only requests fasted (AM) numbers that is usually all I test now. Did you eat more than normal yesterday? It is confusing for sure.

(mole person) #101

@ReneeRC It’s possible that my early waking time is a factor. I’m likely having a “dawn phenomenon”. It may be less extreme if I woke two hours later and tested then. I’ll have to wait and see. I usually wake pretty early when in ketosis.

I shouldn’t have been so surprised. My morning ketone pee strips were always negative with my evening ones always being high.

#102

Llana_Rose,

Thanks for taking the time to write out that reply, It has really given me a boost.

I’m going to try upping the fat a little, maybe 2.5:1. I am monitoring my glucose very closely and am getting a lot better at keeping it low, when it is slightly high, like it was this morning (4.7). I know it’s because I had that extra snack I didn’t need before bed. I stopped measuring my ketones due to cost, and because they were always high, once I had a reading of 5.7 though that was an anomoly. I can tell when they are high, it’s a feeling. I’m going to cut back on the coffee as well, smaller cups, and only when I really really want one. I’ve given up coffee successfully for months at a time, and it felt like the easiest thing, now I’m stuck in a rut. Weird how the mind works. It’s just delicious and I love making it and its a comfort. Also PM didn’t seem to concerned about it in my last consult, though they did say it’s better without. I think it’s because its winter here in the UK and everything is pretty bleak, dark and depressing- I’ve also been buying loads of shit I don’t really need- its a sign.

This is what I need to hear. It gives me hope. Of course healing is a function of (the right) conditions and time. It’s easy to forget this and expect fast results. Make the conditions right, and then keep them right and wait. That’s the plan. What big improvements have you noticed that took such a long time to improve, if you don’t mind me asking?

Absolutely! Since going carnivore (initially higher protein) I have had a massive improvement in energy levels, brain fog, fatigue and most importantly mood and mental health. It’s easy to forget this now it’s my new normal. Recently, I’ve not seen any significant leaps forward, though I’ve noticed a general, minor improvement in some weird spots I sometimes get on my legs. I think I have noticed I feel generally worse mood wise when I eat pork, even really expensive organic stuff. I made 2kg of incredible bacon recently (salt only) and have been working my way through it, so that could be why I’m a bit down in the dumps.

I do have faith in their hypothesis, I just get frustrated. I think that because my condition is so rare and unusual, and there is so little known about it, I wonder how they can be so sure the diet will fix it. Dr Clemens seemed sure I could get better, almost casual about it. I felt a little stunned by that, since I can’t find a single case in the literature of it ever going into remission. Oh well, gotta have faith!

Solidarity to everyone trying this crazy diet :slight_smile:

Another Carnivore Thread
#103

I do, my blood sugar is often a lot lower during the day than it is first thing, even after eating. I’ve seen them go up several points while fasting. I

(mole person) #104

I’m the same. I find it incredibly difficult to give up. I’m trying again now and am down to two cups currently. Once I get rid of them I’ll also have got rid of the last bit of dairy in my diet. Maybe we can encourage each other in this respect!

I know what you mean, I love the mental feeling of high ketones myself and can always tell when they are high.

I had several major health conditions improve on carnivore, but most began to improve very quickly and I saw changes within weeks of starting.

Here is the one that didn’t. Since I was a teenage I had IBS. My bowels were always fairly loose. My whole life I’d wake up run to the toilet and everything would eliminate in 5 seconds. This didn’t bother me when I was younger. I thought I was lucky actually when I saw other people spending so much time at it. But as I got into my forties I noticed other changes to my bowel movements. I could see a lot of undigested food…other things as well, it was extremely abnormal.

Three years ago I went keto to try to lose thirty pounds I’d been putting on slowly for the past decade. Immediately my bowel movements turned solid and looked exactly right. But there was a problem. My body, after decades of not needing to even have contractions to empty didn’t seem to be able to anymore. The whole time I was keto I struggled. I only was having a bowel movement about once every 12 days and I felt pretty bad towards the end of that period each time. I tried everything people recommended but nothing worked.

Eventually, I switched to carnivore as I began to see some of my other conditions improved whenever I was eating less vegetables. I hoped and prayed that this would improve too. But months went by and though everything else improved remarkably this stayed the same. But finally, about two to three months ago I began to notice a real change. I’m still not going every single day but the period between is constantly shrinking now. I can tell that it’s almost completely better and the suffering from it is already completely gone as I’m going frequently enough that there is no more discomfort anymore.

I notice much more inflammation with pork and chicken and my abdominal pain condition that is normally silent on carnivore can have a small flare when I eat them.

I really hope she’s right!

There seems to be a few of us doing this now. Stick with us and tell us what you are going through. We can all offer encouragement to each other. :hugs:

#105

You realize they are halting the progress of terminal cancers and reversing all kinds of inflammatory diseases with this protocol right?

#106

wow that is wonderful to read that you are improving so well.

time on carnivore is key. so many will not heal on a ‘one fit for all’ timeline :slight_smile: you held well and onto plan and saw improvements and I am happy it seems you are doing so much better. Great post!

(mole person) #107

Thank you @Fangs. I was lucky in a way though as some very serious conditions were helped quickly and this provided the impetus to stick with it and tinker the fats.

Here is a bit more about my illnesses and journey @Flub.

When I started the regular keto diet I was very ill and had been for nearly a decade. I had migraines most days that frequently lasted for several days, I had intense undiagnosed abdominal pain which was so bad it frequently landed me in emergency, and I had trigeminal neuralgia which is the most painful chronic pain condition that exists in humans. Luckily this third condition was being controlled well with Gabapentin and Nortriptyline but prior to diagnosis I was seriously thinking I’d have to end my life, it was that bad. But the other two conditions were poorly controlled and I was taking a lot of opioid narcotics to control pain.

My life was awful. I did nothing because I was always in pain, and I shut everyone out because I felt miserable and boring (I had nothing to talk about except illness). I have the best husband in the world and I was even shutting him out towards the end. I was unable to do any of the things that I really enjoyed in life, which we’d always enjoyed together.

When I went keto I saw improvement and I was amazed. My migraines lessened in frequency substantially and my abdominal pain lessened as well. Nothing changed with the trigeminal neuralgia but this was not so bad to me since medication was working well on that condition.

I also had other benefits of keto. Weight loss was huge for me. I’m back to the size I was in my twenties. My mood lifted tremendously, my energy did to. I also had complete remission of two skin conditions that had plagued me since I was a teenager, seborrheic dermatitis and rosacea. I was extremely happy with the results, but I still had enough pain that it prevented a lot of the activities that I craved and continued to ruin a lot of my days.

I started to hear people saying that they achieved better results on autoimmune type issues on carnivore and I’ve long suspected that my conditions are all linked by being autoimmune. It started to niggle at my mind that maybe some of the healing that I’d experienced might be the reduction in plant matter rather than the ketogenic state itself.

But man, I loved my veggies. It took many, many months to work up to a proper trial of carnivore. However, in that time I started cutting back on the vegetables and I noticed improvements.

When I did finally go full carnivore the results were almost miraculous. With weeks my migraines disappeared completely, my abdominal pain subsided to an occasional whisper, but most interesting to me, since until then nothing had happened, my trigeminal neuralgia seemed better. As I said, it was well controlled on drugs so I wasn’t 100% sure at first as the residual breakthrough pain was always minor, but it seemed to go to zero. So I tapered off the Nortriptyline (which was the drug that I knew had the smaller impact of the two). I was far too frightened of the pain to give up Gabapentin. At first I felt more pain, but after another couple of weeks on carnivore that improved as well. I went to see my doctor and we worked out a plan to try tapering the Gabapentin. It took a few weeks. Every time the pain would increase temporarily and then subside. Soon all the drugs were entirely gone and now the only time I feel it is if I’ve eaten something carby in the previous two weeks or so. But it never gets very severe since the appearance of the symptom is enough to stop me before it ramps up.

Now my life is fully back to what it was more than 12 years ago when all of my problems began. I really never expected this. I go on long backcountry canoe/camping trips with my husband again, at 52! I thought that was all over for me. This year we did a 7 day and an 11 day trip full of exertion, 6 hour paddling days, and sleeping on the ground and I felt fantastic. Prior to that the longest I’d managed in ten years was a single two night trip. I have my life back completely.

But, I still have a couple of things that could be better yet and this is why I’m trying PKD. Mostly I just want to know if further dietary changes will make more difference still. I also have one skin condition, exfoliative cheilitis, that has been completely resistant to both keto and carnivore with dairy and coffee. I’d like to at least know if it’s dietary as well.

Anyhow, that’s my long form story to date.

#108

WOW. That is an amazing story of despair and pain and just a horrible situation you were in. And the changes you made to fix your troubles is outstanding. Thank you for posting all that because other’s can truly benefit from experiences other’s have been thru to such low times in their lives and that taking an active approach as you did can be a true life turnaround to fabulous! Very inspiring story! I truly hope your time with PKD can give you more benefits you never knew could exist for you :slight_smile:

And we are campers here also! And kayakers. We do the outdoor stuff big time also, I loved reading your fun adventures you got to live!! You are living the life now!! LOL All thru food changes. Wow.

(mole person) #109

I know. I keep thinking it’s a dream still…lol.

(Ashley) #110

This post has really inspired me to keep on course with carnivore since I have a lot of auto immune stuff! Thank you for sharing your story with us! :heart:

(mole person) #111

I’m glad @monsterjuice.

My biggest advice with carnivore is to give it a full months trial at least. People really seem to have adaptation issues just like when going keto so short trials can’t tell you anything.

The second thing is if it doesn’t feel right to you on the “just eat as much meat as you like” version, then consider adjusting the fat to protein ratio. High protein carnivore really sucked for me in at least a half dozen respects. I simply must be deeply ketogenic and high protein carnivore only keeps one in mild ketosis at best.

(Ashley) #112

What did you eat Persay, I been eating not just protein but the fattiest meats like 73/27 burger.

(mole person) #113

@monsterjuice I buy and eat solid beef fat that I cook along with my meat. I’m following the PKD instruction that in order to get 2:1 fat to protein by weight (not calories) 35% of your plate should be white fat and the rest red meat.

(mole person) #114

Has anyone here had unfasted blood glucose below 60?

#115

Thanks for that clarification Ilana

#116

Nope