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.
How are you feeling after August?
I’m feeling great. Did OMAD today. One lamb burger mixed in with four scrambled eggs then a small slice of extra sharp cheddar for dessert.
My goal would be to drop my last 17 pounds but in reality I’m sure I’ll fall short and that’s ok. I’ll get there.
HEYYYY SB! ya know I dumped the small amt of processed I would rely on before and never noticed a ton of difference but this time, I am naturally walking away from using alot of salt, so I think on this dump, taking out that sodium is making it better for me on this go around.
I sure know I could rely on some salami and a few other processed stuff in situations I never wanted to cook, or just get that hungry feeling a bit and you like it for the sodium hit. But yea, if sodium hit is needed I would rather now jush shake salt into my mouth directly. I kinda want to walk away from doing things, hmmm, say round about when a direct hit to the solution works easiest kinda. hope that makes sense, lol.
I am not a fan of our Applebees around us. There food seems very very processed to me ya know, like one of those lower quality institutional brands but I have been to a few branches that seemed to have better food quality tho.
With your hubby hitting the road right there is a nice bit of kitchen work off ya 
Any help we can get not doing more work is good for us farmer people LOL, I know you work super hard like I did when farms are in full swing!!
HI S!!!
It is great looking back you are seeing differences now, ones that are right in your face and more real ya know. Fatty pork. An absolute must for me. I am relying on fatty country pork ribs right now and I eat so few, but the high fat content is just marvelous for some of us zc people. I know I super rely on it! Glad you are doing well!!!
@robintemplin
WEEEE…nice to chat with ya!! Hope you are doing super fine!
@Karen18
hope your dental stuff goes well. One thing I am not a fan of is the dentist HA but we sure need them when we need them!!
How is your garden faring? Are plants starting to turn a bit with season changes to come? Around here, I am supposed to live in the South. lol but right now it seems the mornings are friggin’ cold, not a fan~
Love it, no truer words can be spoken
-------------STEADY Sept is a great title FB!
So for me very mono eating. Naturally dumping salt, no idea why, just a natural thing now? who knew!
I ate a big part of my Tbone steak raw. Yes RAW! Would ya think I would do that? Nope, not me but I got it out to cook and thought, screw it, dive in raw and see how ya do…well texture was fine. taste was good but a tad lower in flavor than flash frying it and I thought, I can easily do this…but one thing nailed me. COLD. Cold steak. Not a fan. I have to say I like my food hot, simple as that. So more raw in my future, ehh, who knows. I thrive on my flash fry blue rare almost raw cooking style anyway, so might not bother going more raw again? Will keep that as a question for future to see if I walk more that way or not.
Today is NY Strip steak for first meal. Got big thick pork chops for second meal.
Hit grocery and got 9 bags snow crab legs. good sale, might hit store again tomorrow and get another 9 but ya know, I had 2.5 lbs of snow crab legs the other day and I have to say, doesn’t hold me anymore. Plus I stopped using butter for dip, just fresh crab. Not enough meat for me and lower fat content without the butter truly meant in a few hrs, yea I was friggin’ starving so I woofed a steak and felt fab after that.
got my steak out of freezer in garage this morning and my resident hawk was just yelling. Loud. Birds chirp, owls screech, crows caw but what does a hawk do? I don’t know, I said he was yelling his beak off, not sure why but I know I love my resident hawk. He loves the old horse barn too which much be a nice hunting ground for him along with the pasture. Seen him on my water trough drinking a few times. I don’t know, just like having that hawk living here!!
Rock on ZC!
Happy September,
Life is crazy (crazier?) right now and I’m grateful that I did a transition in August. I’m going to need all the energy and emotional grounding that carnivore is giving me.
Hubby and I for years have used hurricane forecasting to measure life. We are upgrading from a tropical storm into a hurricane right now.
Precooking fresh side and burgers in the oven this morning and have bison liver and shredded brisket in the freezer to power me through the weekend.
ETA- I also have cooked leftover steak. (Yum). Steak is a good price right now because of the American Labor Day holiday. I bought a whole primal ribeye and broke it down into steaks yesterday. Hubby getting 2 dozen farmer eggs for me this morning and I make up some electrolyte “Jello” yesterday evening.
I can’t resist to pop in, maybe it will help me to get the hang of things, my August wasn’t so great… Eating wise, creativity wise, feeling right wise… Nothing. There are things hanging above my head but I try not to stress over them so much.
It’s good I am not a stress eater but I tend to be even more indulgent when I am unwell. Food doesn’t help at all so it’s not most apparent there I think.
So, September 
I expect it being lower-carb than the summer months. Almost no fruit to tempt me and I had enough of fails and my inner rebel should be sated too.
I am ready for a higher level of simplicity…
But I need fatty pork for all this
Today we had a tiny shopping, we visited the farmer’s market. There was meat but nothing tempting enough. We will get some proper smoked stuff from the pig farm soon… That’s neat.
If we were in the village already, we visited the greengrocery’s (we bought 40 eggs and a figurine. I already bought 3 animal figurines from the series, they are cheap and HILARIOUS… they looked totally wasted this far, very heavy alcoholics for sure! they inspire me to draw them with bottles but I actually can sculpt such simple things too… but now? they still show some hard past but they definitely are after detox. I got a lion, I already have a zebra and a tiger and gifted an elephant to a friend) and the supermarket. And lo and behold, they had pork shoulder! So I bought it all (1.3kg). Nice fatty meat. A bit too fatty, it will release some lard I don’t need though but if I roast it, not very much. I will roast it tomorrow along with some leaner pork!
I think I continue diminishing the consumption of processed meat items. I keep the sausages but I don’t feel the need to eat them often. Unlike in the past.
I try to keep my dairy consumption modest too, it’s too easy to eat a ton of those lovelies but they aren’t so very useful for me. Not very satiating and I need to go and buy another if I run out and it’s not so convenient… I will eat those if I really need them.
I have an eggy phase again but I probably rarely will want as many eggs as in the past when I couldn’t eat meat in bigger amounts. I do need it for variety. I don’t miss eggs if it’s low anymore, I think but almost just meat would be quite boring I fear. Maybe not if I had everything, lovely seafood, various processed items, good fowl, good pork, ruminants and whatever other types exist out there… But that’s not my reality, especially on the seafood front as I bemoaned it a few times. The subset of the available items and the ones I find tasty is way too tiny and I haven’t even brought my budget into this whole thing at that point.
(We need that all you can eat Asian restaurant moderately soon, that probably will smooth me a bit, there are some nice seafood options there.)
Alvaro cooked simple today, just a bunch of potatoes and 30 eggs over open fire. Oh it’s so great the hot summer passed, it wasn’t so nice to cook outside then…
We never cook a huge amount of eggs since we did it with 50 once and as I don’t like hard-boiled eggs much, it was a challenge to eat it up. 30 will disappear in no time, Alvaro makes a dish, I make another… And we already ate the few cracked ones, it’s way better when fresh and warm!
But it’s weekend and feels like summer and I have circumstances so I will start my more or less carni September on Monday. I can’t wait, I doubt I will eat much of Alvaro’s dish, it’s way too carby even if only one item is that, the others are carnivore items, actually. I used to love that dish but I think I can mostly pass now. I wouldn’t enjoy it so much. That happens to all my old favs with plants. I enjoyed the hell out of them for decades, I am not sad at all that they belong to the past now. Clinging to them out of nostalgy is annoying but I probably grow out of that quickly, I dislike dietary disappointments.
So my slow evolution continues.
No specific goal, I just try to stick to carni and a tiny eating window - and make some better than ever attempt at ignoring coffee (the bar is shamefully low). August was quite bad at that front. Squeezing a single no coffee day out of me is a feat! (I did much better a few times in the last decade than that.) I think it would be easier with good teas (those or I will drink cocoa if my coffee is hidden… I can’t just swap it with water right away) and I don’t have any now.
I fancy warm liquids in the morning now, it’s probably time to go back to the warm water drinking I learned to like before but stopped when cold times ended.
My “raging” milk phase is over We still buy a liter per week but that’s it. Cream is more useful anyway and I use it in moderation. I got so much better with my dairy but occasionally I still have a lot of one or two and I have very many dairy items so they may add up. So I am careful. I don’t desire or need them in that amount, they are just so easy and nice to eat… So no one should think I actually restrict myself, against my desires, nope, I just take out the really unnecessary amount.
I don’t think I ate ruminant meat cold before (jerky like things don’t count of course)… I would think it’s chewier that way…?
But some fatty cold pork? I LOVE IT Much firmer fat but still everything is tender and lovable.
Fowl is a bit meh both cold and warm, I have this loving relationship with fatty pork I am pretty good at eating things cold anyway but scrambled eggs are way better fresh - let alone pancakes! But some egg dishes are fine cold (or room temp), some are even served cold normally…
I still don’t feel any desire to eat raw meat (besides the cured dried kind) but I really like when things get those changes from heat, it tends to make things tastier, be it meat or many vegs… But there are exceptions. See my drastically dropped interest in cooked salmon since I could try the raw version… Oh that softness and perfection… Something get lost if we fry it.
But that’s fish, most meats benefit from cooking thoroughly if you ask my tastebuds.
But I eat pork, mostly so of course I cook it well. I noticed that beef requires way less frying - cooking is different, it needs a long cooking time, the chewier the more. I usually like fried/roasted things way better and it’s especially true for ruminants even though they make lovely stews.
We don’t have a resident hawk, sadly but I saw a green woodpecker, yay! It’s usually Alvaro with those special sightings but I saw it too
By the way, today was a good bicycle ride back from the village, we used the scenic route next to the pond, great view, partially bad road but fine enough. We saw a swan, a beautiful egret and the usual gulls and ducks. Nothing special but I don’t always see an egret so it’s better than average. Blue herons make it really good and a kingfisher would be spectacular, I only saw one 2 times! Bee-eaters are even more precious, I just never see any, we only hear their unique voices as there are many around here but they are shy or something.
Have a nice month, everyone! I will really try to behave. Whatever it means… I only have some vague ideas about what is realistic for me in the near future.
Good September to you all 
Ot is the 2nd already… only 28 more september days! I am sure it will fly by fot me as i am away twice and have the dentist and stroke appts! Plenty to keep me occupied. I really don’t mind the Dentist @Fangs it is just the amount of inner mouth you munch as the anesthetic is wearing off 
The garden hasn’t changed too much as yet because we are still getting warm sunny days such as today. Though I am sure it won’t be long before the bubble wrap has to come out again!
Food yesterday and today
yrstrday i started with 2 fried eggs and 2 rashers of bacon at the Sally Army charity shop and cafe. Took some books thee instead of buying. I have plenty more to take over there plus a bin bag full of clothes and shoes that i filled today. Eating wise i have also eaten some cheese and hard boiled eggs. The rump steak in thr last 2 pics was delish and nice and rare and ate it with butter.
Started running some stairs again this morning. My left leg is a lot better and not so clumsy todays running was definitely smoother instead of clumsily lolloping up the stairs. Determined to get back o CrossFit Monday … i had booked for today but cancelled with a bit of anxiety about holding the team up… silly but thats me even though i am first to tell newbies that no one gets bothered by it! 
Took up the dress for next weekend not overly happy with how i have sewn it by hand looks a little lumpy from where it was taken up by the seamstress we uses at Sians wedding (it is the dress i walked her down the aisle in) i am sure that it will only be me that will notice! Did a little more clearing out of stuff i don’t need and will be glad to get it all moved from the hallway.
Been invited to a relatives house while in Harrogate next weekend. They offered lunch… any dietry requirements? Ooer i just said thank you but it would be just a cuppa as the hotel will feef us well!!! Glad there was a realistic excuse. I just imagine lots of stuff on the table n sweet stuff aswell even if i was to say I only eat meat! Then all the questions! Can’t be doing with it.
I just want a simple eating life for September. I need to get more steaks, just got the last one out of the freezer.i think another morrisons trip for some beef short ribs is a good plan 
Started the day (at noon) with a steak and extra sharp cheddar omelette. Used four eggs, a small steak that I had previously slow cooked to tenderize it and shredded up just a little cheese then cooked it in beef tallow.
Got rid of the stuff to the charity shop today and i have a nice clear hallway again. I hate congestion in the hallway and stairs
.
Did some stair running again, getting myself back into the discipline again
Brunch was chicken wings and dinner was a delish large sirloin steak. I took it out of the fridge about 1ish and left it loosely covered on the worktop and when i cooked it it was so tender. Ate it rare, just seared on outside. Also ate some cheese and some ham with mayo.
In bed now. It is very warm still at 9.15 … 26° looks like the fan will be on all night!
Happy September!
I love “Steady September,” steadiness is why we’re here, and what we need the most at this point in the roller coaster most of us have called our life and health so far this time around. It’s been good enjoying the benefits of the zc woe for 19 months, even better knowing that as time goes on it can’t help getting better and better. Slow and steady wins the race, said the tortoise to the hare.
@Fangs are you saying no more sardines? 
Interesting the changes in your life brought about this past month with DD off to college, it frees your mind up to simplify a little! Nice that your hubby makes his own sides. Mine doesn’t set foot in the kitchen except to take out the garbage once a week, lol. However I’m lucky that his style of eating has always been simple, predictable and plain.
Oh and you mention raw beef. A whole lb of hamburger never makes it to the table in this house! Pretty sure I could live on raw grassfed beef.
This week started with horse races on Sunday and a San Antonio trip Monday to pick up my viola which had been in the shop since February. He outsourced it to Oregon for the extensive repairs it needed and it is absolutely gorgeous now. That viola has given me everything, the high school trip to Carnegie Hall, the full scholarship, the Air Force Band career, and it has played in all 50 states as well as the UK, Europe and South America so I owe it a return to full health as much as I owe that to myself! Even though I’ve made my entire living playing violin, not viola, for the past 25 years… But I still teach viola.
A week from Tuesday we leave for Chicago and Washington DC to play some gigs and visit our house inside the beltway in VA. It will be a whirlwind trip with something on the schedule every day. We won’t be home to Texas until the 1st week of October… coming back to play our steady restaurant gigs.
I’m really glad to have the energy and youthful vitality this woe affords – the way I was 2 years ago I’m pretty sure I’d have stopped playing by now.
Delicious!
This morning the chef was away from the local cafe when we went to a nearby country town. I had a chicken and cheese toastie and a coffee. I was able to write the opening lines to a story that has been haunting my thoughts. By the time we got home at midday I was hungry. So, had the 3 free-range, local, chicken egg, omelette with a crumble of Jarlsberg cheese (I contend it is a very good omelette cheese), 2 strips of middle bacon. Then, I felt satiated. Interesting.
Yes, I agree. There is a craving. Hopefully in a positive sense. I’m going to slightly amend the thread title, maybe making it more complex, inspired by seeking simplicity.
Over the past weekend, Mrs. Bear and I took a road trip to a place we bought at the beginning of the year with my little brother. It’s a 45 acre sectioned-off piece of a rundown beef cattle farm. It was divided into 3 parcels and sold as 40 to 50 acre farmlets. The owners still had a dozen Angus crosses on it when we bought it. But they went to the sale yard. There is 15 acres of pasture. A run down 1930’s timber-framed farm house that the real estate agent valued at ‘zero’ (meaning we were buying a money pit). Let’s call it a fixer-upper. The local government values the house as $AUS10,000 for local taxes, and the insurance company reckons it’s worth $AUS200,000 , so they can charge high premiums. If we stay on budget plan, the three of us should own it as a family trust by about 2030. That’s all the by-and-by.
I like to think we bought it because it was inconvenient. When I say bought it, I mean we went into debt with a mortgage for a dream. The real estate advert almost said “sorry”, the place was a long way from town, it is a long way from anywhere. I mean, we already live 3 hours away from the nearest city. Then we need to drive another 4 and a half hours to the south and a bit east, to a coast that fronts another ocean, to get there. It was a turn off the highway before an un-named bridge, up to the end of a high road, crest a ridge, and down a gravel road and then down a winding dead end dirt road. It’s off “the beaten track”. It has no mobile phone reception. It is not connected to water mains, nor sewer (it has a septic tank), the water is rainwater. It is surrounded by forest, a tree plantation on one border and a dairy farm across the dirt road. We hear the girls lowing as they amble in to the dairy. Tiny frogs crawl across your gum boots in the wet pasture. Last month the rain gauge recorded 250mm. August is winter here. Out of 45 acres, 30 acres are forest. the trees love the high rainfall. 15 acres is pasture, house, shed and run down orchard. It takes awhile to walk the boundaries checking the fences and firebreaks. It takes awhile to read through the chores and jobs to-do list before needing a rest and a cuppa, and end up just fixing the urgent things while the list grows longer. Like having a funeral send off for the dead kangaroo that had lain itself gently in a hollow behind the shed. The wildflowers are just starting. The peach and plum trees are in full bloom and full of honey eaters (birds).
Mrs. Bear and I did not see another car or human being once we turned off the coastal highway for the 20 minute drive up into the hills to the property on the whole weekend. Just forest, or rolling green paddocks with cattle, sheep or horses. But if we drove past a winery, or chocolate factory, or a mushroom farm, anything selling tolerated hippy addiction, on that coastal highway at about lunch-time the parking was full of spring-time tourist cars. The cashier at a small roadhouse where we stopped for over-priced petrol in a tiny hamlet complained how busy they had been. That busyness needed more context, as I was the only one in the shop.
It is so quiet there in that old farm-house. A few creaks and a Labrador snoring. Outside on the porch it was just the sound of the stars at night, and the wind and birds in the day time. Lots of birds. We are just entering spring-time so we had equal dosage of sunshine and rain. The south wind cold enough to send one’s mitochondria spinning if it weaseled its way into the carelessly zipped jacket. On the Sunday morning we drove to the closest beach at about 9 am, did not encounter a car on the road. There were muddy tyre tracks at the turn-off onto bitumen. But they may have been our’s from the day before. The beach carpark was empty, and we found ourselves the only living souls on the beach. The waves were there to share with the 5m sharks. Gosh, that wind peeled your cheeks, and you knew you were alive. The Labrador seemed impervious. Makes one gently wish for the post-apocalypse. We had steak, haloumi, and fried eggs for me, for dinner and beef bone broth in front of the wood fire listening to the waves of rain on the tin roof. Mrs. Bear had a fancy tea.
We drove 4-and-a-bit hours to get home on Sunday afternoon. Here, though, supposedly rural, I hear the neighbours. They all have motors, ride-on mowers, leaf blowers and power tools. I want somewhere peaceful with human effort, munching grass eaters, rakes and brooms. They unknowingly intrude with their oversize prestige, shiny 4x4 engine tyre rumbles on the cul-de-sac road. This used to be a drop-out, surfy place, where we lived near the ocean, drank the Sun, rode waves and settled down with the sunset. Then the tourist trade came spruiking the ‘relaxing get-away’ message, and people with too much money and too many toys, and paid gardeners and house-maids arrived. Moved here with all their wants and city-made troubles. Hey, I got stung by a bee. It’s itchy. I’m going to plant some forest tree seeds to take down to our rundown farm soon. I know I am the problem.
Wonderful weather, sunny and perfectly warm, I was even cold when I was just sitting outside, I guess I need to be more active (not just physically)…
I got hungry early, I am sure the reason for it is that I ate little meat in the weekend AND I have a bunch of very lovely roasted pork in my fridge…
In the very beginning I mostly had roasts. Then I realized that fried fatty pork is the best thing ever and quick to make… And ate both. Then summer and tiny slabs came and it was more convenient to eat fried pork, mostly and it was a bit on the lean side most of the times… I almost got bored of it. I still can eat it but no fun.
But now I went back to roasted pork and it was sooo good again! I roasted pork shoulder and the usual green ham (but with some impressive fat layer, still mostly lean but not too much to my liking. anyway, a nicely roasted green ham has lovely, tender, juicy lean meat. it’s nothing like porkoin, that’s awfully lean and the texture isn’t nearly as good, hence I never eat that. maybe a bite when we make it for Alvaro).
So I got a bit hungry and definitely fancied some pork roast, had some along with a hard-boiled egg. And now I am very satiated and satisfied. This week started quite superb eating wise. I don’t plan anything, I will eat when I get hungry again and that will be the same thing. I expect some simple days, I have more than enough enjoyable meat for it, eggs too. I do have some cream, whipped too but I don’t think much about it and definitely not about coffee. It’s not like I miss it anyway. I ordered a lot of tea to help me with my coffee quitting endeavours but I started today with a glass of warm water. I just need something more fun sometimes… Until the hopefully nice tea arrives, I spice up my very boring cheap ones. I never made a spice mix for tea before, I don’t even have everything to make a really lovely one but it’s better than nothing.
Of course I have various options for a drink. Yesterday I made an exceptionally great egg milk but it was easy as I just opened a box of cream… Cream is unbeatable when it comes to egg milk or a rich (it means far from black in my world) coffee. Or many other things. I can easily survive without any for weeks but it’s just too nice and useful to forget about it. I can use it in a sensible way now I tentatively believe.
I remembered your ice cream and made my least eggy one ever a few days ago. 30g whipped cream, one yolk, vanilla and clove. It was fluffy (and far from eggy enough for me but I love cream too) and kinda nice but I never desired ice cream since I tried out carnivore and I don’t always enjoy it more than some easier dish. It has its uses, that’s why I make it occasionally but if I don’t enjoy it immensely and that is a tiny disappointment. But I will try again and wait for the time when I want it more. It’s tricky with ice cream as I can’t have it right when I may want it, it gets frozen solid in the freezer. Even this one and it was mostly whipped cream, it’s airy and everything but it didn’t help it. It’s normally fine as I make it some time before lunch and it’s perfect in the end of lunch but I don’t always want it then. It isn’t worth it to bother to solve the frozen solid problem, I have plenty of desserts I can make and eat right away. Now I mostly just like the idea and memory of ice cream, not the thing itself. Odd as I love yolks and cream…
WOW, what a history!!! Just reading the list is impressive but you must have zillion bright memories with it, what a feeling it could be to think about this instrument!
I feel lucky to have it, thanks!
When you make your ice cream in the freezer do you take it out and stir it periodically until it’s frozen? I use an electric gadget that makes it so nice in 15 minutes!
I know I am supposed to do that and sometimes it happens, sometimes I forget about it… It was the latter now. But I normally just stir it a few times and eat it up before it could freeze too much anyway. I always make a small portion.
I live vicariously from some of your posts and photos. Thanks for the break. Helps quiet my own mind.
TMAD for today, with a pretty big eating window as I eat around 11am and 6pm.
600g meat (I often automatically eat this amount), ~150g protein and a bit less fat but how much, that’s impossible to track as I had a decent amount of pork shoulders
Not a bad day but I postponed my workout, tomorrow will be the day!
Chill, I didn’t cook anything… But tomorrow I will as I put my fatty meat into the freezer and grabbed some more leanish pork, Alvaro will eat some of it (I always ensure the lack of visual fat as I need that and he is fine with anything between zero fat and pork chuck level).
I ate my pork roast cold today and it was great. I didn’t want much for dinner (if I already had a meaty meal, I usually don’t want much more meat of the same kind, it’s one reason OMAD suits me so much) so I had some eggs, a cheese whisp, 2 sponge cakes with some leftover salmon spread and sausage.
Perfect satiation. So the week started well enough but I can do better 
Yes @FrankoBear your new place is wonderful! I was showing your post to hubby this afternoon at breakfast, looking at the pics, what fun to have a new place to explore that’s so quiet and remote. At least it’s a nice getaway from the city noise and not so far you can’t make a 2 day trip of it. It sounds like even though the house is a fixer upper, it’s livable short term on weekends and short vacays.
This place in Texas was like that at first, just a getaway. It still beats anywhere else we have!
@FrankoBear loved your post and photos. I think you should give up that city job snd write for a living
@JJFiddle sounds like another crazy busy mo th for you.
I was up with the Alarm this morning and stair running, starting to increase the number of flights again amd after reading and coffee in the garden, ran to CrossFit.
Did the workouts but still having some trouble with left leg andbrain connection. Wobbled through the Snatch complex, stumbled over the skipping rope and found theburpees over bar became increasingly difficult because my left leg really had a mind of its own so i ended up stepping over the bar instead of jumping. Made me a bit emotional which is silly i know but that really says it all…not 100% yet. Just got to keep at it.
First meal at 3.30 today rump steak, rare.
Being emotional makes perfect sense. So frustrating when your body hasn’t caught up with your resolve.
You are a warrior.
You got this !
