Zero Carb - Why is my energy so low?

[bluerare]

Hi. That’s a lot of foods you have been excluding compared to your old diet. I am not carnivore myself only keto, my daily carb allowance I keep to just under 10. Some days as low as 5. I eat eggs and a variety of meats and fish but still like you experience low energy. That probably is my body adapting to fewer carbs though I’m not an expert and couldn’t say for sure. In any case I’ve only been eating this way for about a month. Like you, I was also lean on my previous diet which was high carb, low carb. I lost 5 kilos on this keto WOE, and it seems to be going well.

Yes, it is quite a drastic change, especially since I did not try keto before going ZC. I guess our bodies are still adapting to using fat as energy. Congrats on your weight loss!

But anyway, if you struggle with the taste of fat and are eating too little of it as well as protein, and perhaps not getting enough variety in your diet is affecting the enjoyment you take in food, it may be that you have been eating too little and that this has affected your metabolism. You say you now mostly eat beef, salt and water. Is there a health requirement?

So this aversion to fat is sporadic. Sometimes, I love it. Sometimes, I just can’t do it. So I just listen to my taste buds haha. I eat around 2 lbs of meat per day and I really hoped that this was enough for me. I still have an issue discerning true satiety coming from a calorie-restricted diet. Perhaps I might be undereating due to my previous habits. I will try eating more! Beef, salt, and water, the so-called “lion diet” is a stricter form of ZC. I adopted it due to my preference for beef. I like the taste and my body likes it better than other types of meats. Also, I love dairy but sadly, am intolerant of it.

Thank you for your response!

[bluerare]

Fat in my meat is fine in some range but yes, there is a thing as way too fatty meat for someone and it doesn’t mean they don’t need more fat for satiation.

Yes! This is really what I wanted to hear haha. Begrudgingly eating fat sucks and I find it nauseating too.

I like to buy cuts with my favorite fat/protein ratio but sometimes I have too fatty meat and cut off the fat (and render lard from it as even I need a little here and there, like for frying liver). Sometimes I have too lean meat and add a fattier item, almost never added fat. Like lean pork eaten with sausage. Whatever feels best.
And I very much dislike tallow (some normal beef is fine and tasty but extra tallow, nope) so I probably would have problems with fatty beef.

I think I still have no clue what my ideal ratio is. I go to the meat section at the groceries and ask myself, “What do you really want?” and second-guess all my decisions lol. I have a hard time stomaching rendered fat from ground beef. So I’ve been letting it harden and eating with a leaner cut. Kinda like your combination strategy!

Good luck to getting your energy back! I have lowish energy on all woe but I hope longer term carnivore may help. If I can pull it off ever I definitely will try in 2023! Carnivore is very beneficial to me but energy is a tricky thing, it just doesn’t change quickly in my life.

Thank you and yes, the low energy thing is proving to be quite defeating. I wish you the best of luck as well for your carnivore journey!

[Shinita]

I would think 2 lbs of meat is enough unless it’s too lean or one has a high energy need.
I never ate as much and hopefully never will, that’s way too high for me. But we are different, some people feel the need for more.

[bluerare]

I have to make sure I’m fueling my bod with enough to fuel my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). I’m 70 in December, January will be my 2 year anniversary on Keto. I do weights at the gym, and treadmill. I’ve been tired at times, especially early in my Keto way of life.

Hmm I do find myself eating more meat on days I exercise. My energy levels are making me realize that I am indeed very early in this WOE.

Eat some liver, Salmon, and eat until you can’t eat anymore, but not so stuffed you want to throw up. I find a lot of folks worried about eating too much. I’m 5’2", 112 lbs now (down from my 140) building muscle, and I eat right around 1400 calories a day, sometime more sometimes less, but I don’t gain fat/inches even when I eat like 1700.

Coming from a calorie-restricted diet, I definitely find myself worrying about overeating. Carnivore is so intuitive and therefore, so different from how I’ve been eating before. I should eat until I can’t eat anymore but there is a mental brake asking, “Shouldn’t I stop here?” because of my calorie-restricting habit. Also because I’m eating around 2 lbs of meat per day, I regularly go over 2500 calories, and that is scary to me. I know that CICO is not a framework suited for this WOE so I’m trying to unlearn my past habits!

I don’t enjoy the taste of liver but I think I’ll treat it like a bitter medicine. I will try eating it soon to see if it helps with my energy. Also, congrats on your weight loss!

Is your sleep well into REM mode, or are you struggling for 8 hours (thinking at your age you should get that many)?

Currently, I sleep soundly for 8 hours. I always remember having dreams, if that’s what you are asking. When I first started this WOE, my sleep improved and I was sleeping an hour less. And woke up feeling great. I don’t know what happened to that and now I’m needing a nap in the afternoon haha.

[PaulL]

Coming from a calorie-restricted diet, I definitely find myself worrying about overeating.

Something to bear in mind is that the metabolism can adjust up and down to match the intake we give it. There are limits to this, of course: fail to eat enough, and we starve to death; overeat heroically, and we can indeed put on weight, even on a low-carb diet (though there are documented cases of people eating 3000-5000 calories and not getting fat; they were all on a ketogenic diet, of course). But people who fear calories forget that the body not only revs up the metabolism, it can also waste food in the form of heat, or excrete the excess, and so forth. In fact, measuring ketones in the urine and breath relies on the fact that the body will be wasting some ketones. Not only that, but there are data showing that eating more fat causes fatty-acid metabolism to increase, so to some extent, dietary fat does not compete with excess stored fat (and there are limits to how much stored fat we can release in a day, anyway).

[bluerare]

I didn’t know that! That gives me a peace of mind. Thank you!

[Shinita]

I don’t enjoy the taste of liver but I think I’ll treat it like a bitter medicine.

Oh that’s bad. I like the taste of liver, I just find it too strong in bigger quantities… And I have phases. If I really have problems with the taste but I don’t want to put it into the freezer for later, I grind it up with some meat (usually already roasted, I almost always have some leaner pork roast around), add a yolk and fry it The meat and yolk make the flavor way milder, it becomes some liver flavored meatball.
(It’s for chicken liver in my case, I find beef liver sweet and lovely, rabbit liver mild and lovely, I don’t eat pork and turkey liver because I don’t like them and I can do better. But these things are individual, my SO wouldn’t touch beef liver, for example.)

Calories: They totally matter, it’s not always so simple for everyone though. And I am open-minded, maybe one day a miracle happens and I lose fat without eating very little (i.e. below 2000 kcal) but it never did yet as far as I can tell. And anyway, I know I don’t have a high energy need and I don’t want to be wasteful, for multiple reasons. BUT if my body needs food, it gets food. It’s a different woe than our previous ones and we can’t possibly know (in the beginning) what will happen if we eat as much as we want. But we should eat as much as we feel we need… Even our body is subject to change, our metabolism… So we shouldn’t cling to calories very much. I always think a newbie should just eat whatever feels best (not according to their diet mind…) and we will see! If it doesn’t work even after months, one may tweak something. I mean the fat-loss, changes may be needed earlier if something bad happens.

I can relate though. I am often unsure when I should stop and even when I should start… Or if I should eat or not… It’s not always obvious. But unless I mess up my timing and eat too late without a need, eating as much meat as I want is usually fine. Certain kinds of meat are exceptions but I learned about them as time passed.

2500 kcal isn’t what I definitely would call too much. I simply need such days. But if I eat 4000+ kcal, I try to figure out why and learn from it. It still may be just fine occasionally… Very, very occasionally… My energy need is around 2000 kcal, I am pretty sure of that.

But people who fear calories forget that the body not only revs up the metabolism, it can also waste food in the form of heat, or excrete the excess, and so forth.

Or maybe their bodies never do that. I met quite a few people who knew how much they should eat. They ate more (at the same activity level) and gained (immediately and it continued if they continued to eat more), they ate less and slimmed down. They moved less and immediately started to gain instead of maintenance. So they learned that they should stay in their own small range of food intake.
Indeed, not everyone works this simply (I am not like that either) but quite many people do, apparently.

[PaulL]

I met quite a few people who knew how much they should eat. They ate more (at the same activity level) and gained (immediately and it continued if they continued to eat more), they ate less and slimmed down.

I’ll bet that these people were eating carbohydrate. There was a case study published in the 1960’s of a du Pont executive who’d lost quite a bit of weight on a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet, and who would begin to gain again if he ate even a single extra apple. As long as he kept his carbohydrate intake low, he did not gain weight.

[Shinita]

This forum has members experiencing the same, you surely read such comments.

Yep, there are special people. It has nothing to do with the many who have just a smallish range for maintenance… I have a big one but to lose fat, keto never was enough. (Not even carnivore but as I never did it for long, I am careful with saying that.)

But fat-loss is super complicated. I don’t even know how I managed to lose 3kg in the last months… I ate so much better on my zero loss years… Maybe some near magical changes were possible for me after all this time… But why now, with occasionally carby days and regular night eating? Crazy. But since I tried out carnivore (and go back to it quickly whenever I stray), my body behaves differently from what it did before. I had extensive tests, got clear results, they were so very reliable and carnivore just messed it up. And now I am less knowledgeable about my own body again. Sigh.

[bluerare]

I find beef liver sweet and lovely

I couldn’t disagree more! Glad it’s working for ya. I cook it up, cut it into small pieces, and swallow it with water without tasting it.

2500 kcal isn’t what I definitely would call too much.

Right. It was a big jump from my pre-ZC days so psychologically, it took some time to get used to this WOE. I stopped counting calories when I started ZC and I am loving it!

I can relate though. I am often unsure when I should stop and even when I should start… Or if I should eat or not… It’s not always obvious.

I relate to this so much. I notice that hunger on ZC is so different. Pre-ZC, hunger felt sharp, and when I was “starving”, all I could think about is how I need to eat soon and it would dampen my mood. Hunger on ZC feels more subtle. I have trouble deciding when to start eating or if I should eat at all. Even when I feel a more pronounced hunger, if I can’t get my hands on meat, the hunger subsides for a bit and I can wait without feeling too bad. For now, I just eat when I start thinking of meat and if it sounds good lol

[PaulL]

I cook it up, cut it into small pieces, and swallow it with water without tasting it.

I found that the problem with the taste of liver is usually that it’s been over-cooked. My ex once took me to dinner at the house of dear friends of his, a couple on whom he was eager for me to make a good impression. I found that the cook had prepared liver for our dinner, so I resolved to just ignore the horrid taste and choke down as much as I could (the things we do for love, lol!).

To my great surprise, the liver tasted wonderful! When the cook came out to receive our thanks, I complimented her and asked how she had prepared it. Turns out the secret was to cook it very lightly, no more than about 90 seconds on each side (depends on the thickness, of course). I tried it myself, and I found that it works. Now liver is one of my favourite foods. The cook’s method of preparing liver was very different from my mother’s: Mom cooked it for something like 20 minutes (probably not literally, but I swear that’s what it seemed like) on each side, and it tasted like sandpaper.

[bluerare]

I found that the problem with the taste of liver is usually that it’s been over-cooked.

My beef liver is grain-fed and store bought (pre-sliced). It is a Skylark brand. I overcook it for fear that it might not kill off the bacteria. The resulting texture and taste? Sandpaper haha. I know that some people eat it raw too but I think they get local, grass-fed and finished liver. If it’s safe to cook mine for 90s each side, I would try it!

[Ketokwaka]

Interesting to note the energy issue which I have also felt. I’ve been wondering what hormonal response (thyroid, testosterone) to dietary changes would translate into changes in energy and how that works. Just curious if there is anything known about this?

[PaulL]

There are indications (but no real evidence, so far as I know) that the body uses thyroid hormones more efficiently on a ketogenic diet, so that many ketonians have lower thyroid numbers but no symptoms of thyroid deficiency.

There are also indications that testosterone levels are better in men on a ketogenic diet, which is not surprising, since testosterone is made from cholesterol, and cholesterol is generally better-managed on a ketogenic diet. (Higher cholesterol also benefits the body’s ability to handle infectious diseases, by the way.)

Similarly, the ketogenic diet is also well-known as a treatment for PCOS and certain other hormonal problems women can experience on the standard diet (progesterone is also made from cholesterol). In fact, it used to be joked about on these forums, back when I first joined, that couples that went keto should be prepared for the woman to get pregnant!

Very little of this has been rigorously studied, so far as I know, so read these remarks with a certain amount of scepticism, please.

[Naghite]

Your thyroid is happy to spend energy on the creation of sex hormones that if it believes it has enough energy to spare. The body determines short term energy from the insulin spikes when eating. Chronic depression of insulin can promote thyroid degradation and limit hormone production. Fasting is the clearest way to see this, but overly strict ketogenic eating can do the same by lowering RMR and reducing testosterone. To avoid this pitfall, spike your insulin through carbs or enough protein to tell your body you have enough energy for both a good RMR and enough to spend energy on sex hormone creation. I use protein myself currently.

[PaulL]

overly strict ketogenic eating can do the same by lowering RMR and reducing testosterone

But, surely, that only applies if one is restricting calories on keto, right? I don’t restrict, and my libido and energy levels are better on keto than they were during my years as a carb -burner.

[Naghite]

But, surely, that only applies if one is restricting calories on keto, right? I don’t restrict, and my libido and energy levels are better on keto than they were during my years as a carb -burner.

From what I have read it is about insulin. So eating 20% protein and 80% fat would not produce much of a spike without a HUGE portion of food. Now, are you eating more than 150g of protein in a day or maybe 25 g carbs and 75 g protein in a meal? If so, then you probably hit the insulin spike needed to promote your thyroid. Those with seizures however, may not be hitting that cap with protein and therefore may suffer RMR and testosterone issues. At least, that is how I currently understand it. Similarly those who eat many small ketogenic meals a day are probably not spiking insulin enough and when they no longer lose weight, blame the diet as opposed to decreased RMR due to lack of insulin signalling.

[Shinita]

I notice that hunger on ZC is so different. Pre-ZC, hunger felt sharp , and when I was “starving”, all I could think about is how I need to eat soon and it would dampen my mood. Hunger on ZC feels more subtle.

Oh yes, exactly I lost my sharp sudden hunger when I got fat adapted. And carnivore brought more changes.

Mom cooked it for something like 20 minutes (probably not literally, but I swear that’s what it seemed like) on each side, and it tasted like sandpaper.

People have odd and unique perceptions. Unless turning charcoal, nothing loses its own taste if you ask my tastebuds. Liver always tastes liver, quite strongly except the mild ones.
Maybe your Mom preferred it like that? Her version surely sounds better to me - but it depends on the liver. I don’t use 40mins on beef liver, faaaar from it. Maybe on chicken liver but I need a huge amount for that, competing for the pan surface… A small amount is ready in 30 mins but it depends on so many things.

Tomorrow I will fry rabbit liver It doesn’t need much time and it’s one liver so it gets the proper space so maybe 10 mins? I don’t know, I just fry everything until they become properly brown. It doesn’t work with darker brown things but rabbit liver is light enough, I see the changes.

[Fangs]

read this from Dr Kevin Stock…now he IS a bodybuilder guy but READ the info ya know and see what hits ya if anything!

Are you John or Sally? losing weight and how it might happen

This is part of an article that might help some ‘get why carnivore’ does one thing for a person and yet another for a person which can be very different. Just that kind of read where we all might not fit in one or the other cause there are tons of shades of gray area for all of us…but this read gives a good idea of maybe where we fall. Gives us a bit of perspective when someone says ‘why am I not getting benefits’ from carni vs. what I am seeing others getting? Comments and more welcomed :sli…

[Ketokwaka]

Makes sense. Thanks for that. Not enough research ATM. Thinking there might be some cause and effect between caffeine, thyroid function and cholesterol. Might test the following out. Stop drinking coffee, then monitor thyroid and cholesterol via my next round of bloodwork. Just fyi I seem to be a hyper responder (a la Dave Feldman), tests have ruled out familial causes. Not too concerned, just trying see what happens.