Thinking of trying Carnivore


(Patrick) #1

Hello, did keto years ago for like a year and a half or something, got lazy and went back to my “see food” diet. While I lost 65 pounds in 5 months on keto the whole time doing keto I was so exhausted and my tiredness made me feel almost paralysed. Now that I have gained most of my weight back been curious about carnivore diet. I wanna try it for a year and see if it works better for me then keto ever did for how I feel inside rather how much weight I drop because dropping weight is easy. I plan to start by just eating until I am stuffed like KenDBerryMD says and not worrying about macros or calories. Eggs, bacon, burgers, ground beef, ghee, tallow, wild caught fish, beef liver pills, Morton lite-salt, sardines, etc. Maybe i’ll try making my own bone broth? also got an air fryer that can help me sometimes, i’ll drop the greese that drips out onto my food after.


#2

I just started too, thanks for reminding me not to track, i worried alot about being too low calorie, but i want to just follow my hunger - satiety signals. I will see where i am in 30 days. I look forward to following your progress.


(Patrick) #3

I follow this guy https://www.youtube.com/c/KenDBerryMD/featured as he seems to be pretty good. No idea if I would like beef liver, I am taking some pills starting Monday when they arrive to ease myself in on that beast of a superfood. Starting to wonder if I added beef liver to my keto diet if I would not be tired at all because I was doing things right, although not the best at following ingredients (just the macros) which is going to be my go to from now on. But keto was in the past, now it’s time to Eat Meat.

Good luck on your journey.


#4

Welcome!

I’m at 4 weeks myself, this is my 3rd try doing carnivore because I used to undermine myself, cheat, and then feel so bad until I got back on the train again.

At 4 weeks I feel all the adaptation issues are going away, and I’ve been feeling constantly pretty good for the past few days, so sticking to it now feels so much simpler.

Here’s my quick advice to get started based on my experience:

  • Adaptation flu is real, but doesn’t have to be debilitating. Add salt when you feel a little crappy with no energy, add magnesium if you get cramps, weird joint or leg muscle pain, at the last resort add potassium sparingly. I see plenty of people eating potassium as if it were salt, but hyperkalemia is a real and dangerous thing.

  • Coffee and tea are fine. Make sure you drink enough water.

  • You might not feel very hungry. It’s fine, but be aware that initially dietary fat = energy. It doesn’t matter how much overweight you are, your hunger might be out of whack and your body still hasn’t learned that the fattier the meal, the more energetic you’ll feel. Feeling weak? Up your fat intake.

  • The least processed the meat, the better. Eggs are great and inexpensive. Bacon is life. Chicken is overrated. Butter is probably OK, cheese and milk you need to test yourself, but best to avoid initially.

  • If you feel low, sad, had a stressful day at work, pick up some nice fatty deli meat, your favorite cheese, some high quality steak, stuff yourself, you’ll feel better.

  • Don’t count your calories. Eat to satiety. Don’t eat processed crap, and trust me you’ll never feel hungry once and you’ll lose weight effortlessly.


#5

Beef liver is quite a strong taste. You might want to ease in with lamb’s liver, which is a much lighter taste in comparison.


#6

Cod liver is great. Tastes a bit like paté.


(Carnivore for the win) #7

I’m 22 months in to carnivore after 18 months of keto. It took me a few tries to start carnivore while doing keto. Not enough fat was the culprit. Once I got the fat worked out, it was easy. No more tracking or worrying about macros is great. Way easier to avoid cravings now that I abstain from carbs completely.

I cut back on the salt about 6 months ago and only use extra salt about twice a week. Eating a bit less salt, cut down on excess water retention, and reduced some inflammation.

I have tried a few different types of liver, but don’t like the stuff. Fortunately, it’s not necessary for survival, as most long term carnivores don’t eat it. I want to try the pills you mentioned, just to see what happens.

Dr. Ken Berry definitely has some great videos, with lots of good resources.

Good luck. I hope everyone here does well.


#8

Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t think a year which is an admirable ‘goal set’ but sometimes ‘goals set’ work SO against us.

Come into carnivore for 3 months. All ya need cause in that time you will need at least a month or 2 for adaption issues and yes, you will have them and be super tired maybe and more changes could happen…but that flip when ya get it…full on energy, mental fog cleared and more…but that energy we get ON PLAN at all times means we are thriving and want our bodies to move and honestly, I can not explain the ‘feeling’ of a healthier body just saying thru its’ own feelings of we wanna move every muscle, we want to engage life, we want to live, live and move LOL

So yea take it slow. Come on over into our ‘carnivore thread and chat up wtih us carnivores on plan and doing this lifestyle’

come here and chat up, we got your back :slight_smile:
https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/all-animal-august-triple-a/109615/101

we can chat, get into our carnivore community here and we can help you find you on this lifestyle and work thru adaption times etc.

and Dr Ken is FAB! I watched damn near all he has on his vids and I have to say the guy is ALL about the smarts on nutrition and more, just a wonderful carnivore advocate for sure!! You can’t go wrong with that.

Plus we got ZC Information Videos to watch all about this WOE.
https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/zero-carb-information-videos/96379/220
and Dr Ken is in here of course :slight_smile:

wishing you the best and come join us if you want and chat up everything carnivore and see how well we are all moving forward to better heatlh :100:


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #9

Dr. Berry is great. He can sneak some pretty sophisticated concepts into people’s brains with that down-home manner of his.

The key to enjoying liver is not to overcook it. I grew up hating liver, because it always tasted like sandpaper, Mom would cook it so long. But in adulthood, I found myself being fed liver at the home of some people on whom I wanted to make a good impression, so I choked it down, only to find out it was delicious! Their cook told me later that the secret was to fry it for only 90 seconds on each side. (Also, calves’ liver is not as strong-tasting as the liver of an adult animal.)

I have followed her advice ever since, and liver has become one of my favourite foods. I find that the exact timing depends on the thickness of the piece, but 90 seconds is a good rule of thumb. Instead of dredging the liver in wheat flour, you can use almond flour in its place.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #10

This is good advice. I saw it in a video of a lecture by Dr. Phinney, and never had the keto flu, because I kept my salt intake up.

ETA: That said, many people on a carnivore diet find that they don’t need to add salt, because they are getting enough from the meat they eat.

More good advice. But I’ll just add that the goal is to get enough fat, not to choke down as much as possible, which is the impression some people get from the media hype. Also, saturated and monounsaturated fat (i.e., butter, tallow, lard) are the tastiest; too much vegetable oil can cause nausea.

:+1:


(Edith) #11

I have eaten grass fed beef liver and grass fed lamb liver raw. The beef liver tastes way better. The lamb liver leaves a bitter aftertaste.


#12

Which is a good reminder that n=1!

Maybe buy a bit of both and see what you prefer personally.

I had beef liver which was super strong - I could only eat half of it at one sitting because the taste was overpowering, although I did eat the rest of it from the fridge later that day.

The lambs liver was so light and refreshing - it was a completely different taste. But then I did eat lambs liver as a kid, so maybe that was the taste I was expecting and just found the beef liver surprising by comparison.

After that I had venison, which I thought would be super strong, like the beef liver - but it was also quite light and I devoured that plate.

Not sure whether they’re just two very different tastes, or whether being on carnivore for longer has changed my tastes a little. I was about 3-4 weeks on carnivore when I tried the beef liver, but 8 months or so on carnivore when I had the venison.


#13

I found beef liver (only ate once) light just very sweet without any hints of bitterness that I found in any other liver this far… Pig liver is the strong one. Beef liver is the one I eat the easiest (I love liver - though it depends on the liver a lot - , I wouldn’t eat it otherwise but it’s still a strong stuff I can’t eat much from. I love flavorful items, a little goes a long way, gives me variety… But I can’t base my meals on them. But I have eggs and fresh meat for that role.)

But it’s extremely individual, people have almost shockingly different view about liver… It’s not that different for normal meat even though tastes differ there too, obviously and not a little.

I would love to try lamb liver one day… I only had chicken, pig, turkey and beef liver lately (duck too as a kid).


#14

True, but to be fair, at least in my case, I had to stop thinking adding butter to my steak was unhealthy or weird. And even if it’s got much more calories than carbs, it’s really hard to eat too much fat before feeling completely stuffed.

It’s still hard for me to judge how much fat is enough.


#15

Stuffing sounds a bit forceful but eating to satiety is a nice start and you will see what happens. Not everyone loses fat quickly on carnivore who has much to lose… Eating too much is still a problem anyway (if one manages to do it on carnivore, it’s easy for some and totally impossible for others), not healthy and wasteful and it would make no sense to lose fat there but it’s complicated and anyway, many people have no idea what is overeating for them. It’s not like a calculator can tell you your energy need…
Eat to satiety, use good, nutritious food, with the right satiating effect (whatever it means for the one in question at the moment. I had some crazy times when my staples were way too satiating) and you will see. You may need tweaks some time later, your body probably won’t want the same every day… You will see :slight_smile:
Don’t eat too little or too much, stuffing yourself may be useful or not at all. I rather use other methods to ensure eating enough but I did that a few times. But I can’t stuff myself with meat and I heard that from others too. Meat is often quite special. You eat and at some point you get a clear stop sign. And that’s it. But if your body wants more food, you probably will know it and eat again. Oh yeah, don’t worry if your number of meals change wildly, it can happen though I think it’s quite annoying when your cute 2MAD becomes 6 tiny meals a day too often… :smiley: But main thing is to get the right amount and type of food somehow.

Maybe you felt so bad because you must have a huge calorie deficit for that quick fat-loss. I would be a zombie if I tried to do that (with plants), probably… It depends on my activity, though (low activity makes me low energy anyway, no matter my eating).
In the beginning your body was busy with the big change but if you felt exhausted even after months, maybe it was the too little food? Maybe badly chosen items? Even if you follow someone’s keto and it’s brilliant for them, maybe it’s not for you at all.
One big benefit of carnivore (especially the only meat one) that you effectively avoid most of the potentially bad ingredients for you. Some people have problems with certain meats too but that’s moderately rare I think. Eggs and lactose is different but the plants bring a big can of worms, it seems. I am fine with everything except “excessive” amount of carbs especially sugars (what is excessive changed so much in my last decade :smiley: so even low-carb plants are just too carby for me except in tiny amounts). Others are way more sensitive.

Good luck!

Some people really should just add all the fat they can… But I come from VERY high-fat. I actively try to eat as little fat as I comfortably can since a decade, avoiding added fat as much as possible. Well that’s the other extreme…
Fat isn’t satiating for everyone, at least not all kinds of fat. For me, only the fat in my protein source works (and chicken is a weird exception. it’s like nothing, satiation wise, at least alone. and my chicken is always fatty due to the skin) and of course, I need a lot of protein as well.

Don’t you feel that somehow?
I just eat using the items I know they can’t be too bad and eat as much as I feel like, I always have multiple items, I can choose. If something doesn’t seem to work (like too lean eating causes problems with satiation, energy etc. not like I can eat lean but sometimes I try), I change something. I don’t need a specific fat/protein ratio (though most of my days are similar regarding this due to my taste) but some people work best keeping it stable indeed… Experiment and find your sweet spot! :smiley: And don’t be surprised if it will change later, it happens.

Butter on steak isn’t weird, who did tell you that? Don’t listen to them! :wink:
I ate butter alone as a snack (in need but it was yummy and I was hungry. I ate enough protein and nutrients a few hours later), that’s not an extreme thing in certain circles either :wink:

Eating a pint of sugary icecream is weird and unhealthy. Or smoking. I still can’t wrap my head over that, people are so not hedonistic or health-conscious sometimes… (I wanted to write they are stupid but maybe some people will be upset. But well, I am sure they are stupid doing that so I still write that.)


(Patrick) #16

Thanks everyone, I will give it a serious go like I did keto those years ago (and posted some updates here). I am looking forward to trying this out, meat normally fills me up quite fast and gives me bathroom runs peeing out of my butt. I am from Canada so no kerry gold butter, I normally have ghee or if I see any some bulletproof grassfed ghee. I also have pink him salt in a shaker, some lite salt. I drink my coffee black because I can’t stand the taste of it with anything else in it (gotta cut down, I can have 5-6 cups a day or 1-2) and will have to throw out my gum (coffee breath sucksssss).

Few questions.

How many times should I eat salmon in a week? and how many times should I eat liver in a week? I read you can get Vit A poisoning from eating it daily but no idea what’s a myth and what’s fact.

Good luck to you all.


#17

I wish you luck, doing that put a ton of weight back on me. Not all of our satiety signals allow us to eat to being stuffed… I’m never stuffed!


(Laurie) #18

Hi Patrick. It’s worth a try. Good luck! A year ago, I could no longer eat most plant foods, so an all-animal diet chose me. It’s easy and I’ve had no problems.

I think salmon 2 or 3 times a week is fine. Liver once a week.


(Patrick) #19

Alright Gonna try day 1 today. Making 4 bacon (0 carbs but looks like it has hidden sugars inside ingredients?), 4 eggs, some lean ground beef (sadly thriftys had no ground beef/pork but my work does), my ghee I still use, got my electrolytes, water. I wont be perfect but it’s day 1 so live and learn. Also have some wild caught salmon fish filets. Let’s see if that makes me stuffed.


#20

That’s a great start, don’t overthink it.