The Carnivore Diet

[washable_orbit]

I've been on a keto diet for about 3 weeks now. Other than throwing up the first day, and getting some excruciating body/muscle pain and flu-like symptoms the following day or two (I got rained on a couple times before this so I don't know), I think I have adapted very well. I don't measure my food much but I'm eating a lot. My favorite thing to make is soup, which I eat almost everyday.

For the soup, I do one cup of organic store bought beef broth (I don't know why because apparently it's got no fat), two chicken thighs with skin and bone that I first roast in the air fryer (I filter whatever it releases and add it to the soup to cook with), and either half a lb of organic ground pork (only 15% fat) that I also cook first because it's delicious that way, or two pork chops with bone. I do one table spoon of minced garlic, and lots of other spices--the staples being ginger powder, cayenne pepper, and turmeric if I'm ok with the staining; the rest are random for flavor but never miss. I don't know how healthy powder spices are but I need my food to taste normal (the powders are single ingredients).

I do a good splash of olive oil and golden the garlic, add my cooked chicken, add the the roasted pork chop bones, as well as the cooked sliced meat, or the ground pork. I add the broth, water, spices, and let it cook until the meat becomes tender. This is when I shred the chicken and remove the chicken bones. I hate chicken bones. I also add 4 tbs of butter and let is simmer some more. This makes two meals. Very often I will eat this with 2 fried eggs, or scrambled eggs because they absorb the (extra) olive oil/butter better. Either way, I can eat up to 6 eggs in a day (supplementary). My other meal is always more meat, more butter, always some olive oil, etc etc.

For snacks I might have some pork rinds (not the best not the worst), or meat sticks (no fat on these tho, just protein). And like every other day or so I'll have greek yogurt with some blackberries. It's not a lot of sugar but it makes me feel more "normal" to have this.

I feel like my muscles have gotten firmer and fuller, except now I'm under 110lbs. I don't weight myself very often but I was at 116 not too long ago. This is slightly concerning, but I will have to keep an eye on my weight to see how my body may be changing in that regard.

According to Chat GPT, I'm not eating enough. I don't know how I can eat more. I feel so satisfied all the time it's amazing. I def fast a lot but the amount of food I consume is very consistent regardless.

I know I need magnesium, but do I also need potassium? For supplements I take b12, Omega 3 fish oil, some other one I can't remember. They're not boujie brand supplements but it's what I have. I'm giving lion's mane a try--this one was very expensive and out of my budget. I just wanted to try it.

I try to drink water but I know I'm not getting enough. Sometimes I add sea salt to my water (I've been cooking with plenty of celtic sea salt too), and lemon (is lemon ok?).

My calf muscles get fatigued and tired relatively quickly so I know I'm missing stuff. But I'm a loss here. Also, I'm not using the bathroom nowhere near enough, this is also concerning.

Anyway, this is my update. I hope y'all can share some wisdom.

 

[iamthatis]

I've been on a keto diet for about 3 weeks now. Other than throwing up the first day, and getting some excruciating body/muscle pain and flu-like symptoms the following day or two (I got rained on a couple times before this so I don't know), I think I have adapted very well. I don't measure my food much but I'm eating a lot. My favorite thing to make is soup, which I eat almost everyday.

For the soup, I do one cup of organic store bought beef broth (I don't know why because apparently it's got no fat), two chicken thighs with skin and bone that I first roast in the air fryer (I filter whatever it releases and add it to the soup to cook with), and either half a lb of organic ground pork (only 15% fat) that I also cook first because it's delicious that way, or two pork chops with bone. I do one table spoon of minced garlic, and lots of other spices--the staples being ginger powder, cayenne pepper, and turmeric if I'm ok with the staining; the rest are random for flavor but never miss. I don't know how healthy powder spices are but I need my food to taste normal (the powders are single ingredients).

I do a good splash of olive oil and golden the garlic, add my cooked chicken, add the the roasted pork chop bones, as well as the cooked sliced meat, or the ground pork. I add the broth, water, spices, and let it cook until the meat becomes tender. This is when I shred the chicken and remove the chicken bones. I hate chicken bones. I also add 4 tbs of butter and let is simmer some more. This makes two meals. Very often I will eat this with 2 fried eggs, or scrambled eggs because they absorb the (extra) olive oil/butter better. Either way, I can eat up to 6 eggs in a day (supplementary). My other meal is always more meat, more butter, always some olive oil, etc etc.

Stop it, you're making me hungry!

For snacks I might have some pork rinds (not the best not the worst), or meat sticks (no fat on these tho, just protein). And like every other day or so I'll have greek yogurt with some blackberries. It's not a lot of sugar but it makes me feel more "normal" to have this.

I feel like my muscles have gotten firmer and fuller, except now I'm under 110lbs. I don't weight myself very often but I was at 116 not too long ago. This is slightly concerning, but I will have to keep an eye on my weight to see how my body may be changing in that regard.

According to Chat GPT, I'm not eating enough. I don't know how I can eat more. I feel so satisfied all the time it's amazing. I def fast a lot but the amount of food I consume is very consistent regardless.

Is there a reason for your concern at being lighter? This is my question to myself, too, as I've also lost weight.

Guys are always supposed to be getting heavier, bulking up, putting on muscle, etc., but I don't buy that. I work out lots, but my goal is overall fitness, not building muscle. Attaching my sense of wellbeing to an abstract number (or cultural body images) makes little sense. It can be an indicator to notice, sure, but I feel it's more important to pay attention to how I'm feeling.

Some would say yes, you just need to eat more in order to maintain weight on carnivore, but I've tried that and it just feels gross. I'd rather just be lighter and not feel gross.

I know I need magnesium, but do I also need potassium? For supplements I take b12, Omega 3 fish oil, some other one I can't remember. They're not boujie brand supplements but it's what I have. I'm giving lion's mane a try--this one was very expensive and out of my budget. I just wanted to try it.

I don't know about potassium. I was taking it a while back and my Naturopath said to stop. You could always get a multi-mineral supplement, which has smaller amounts of many minerals in each capsule. The C's (and the research of Persej) said that minerals are very important:

Q: The other part of the dream was that I disappeared and reemerged from a cleft in a rock. I was cleaning... he went to investigate... and he returned and was crying and all this water was flowing out of there like a spring... What was the significance of this?

A: Trace minerals interact with deeply held secrets.

(Persej) Rene Quinton used seawater from a plankton-rich environment in his medical practice. Charles Schnabel promoted the health benefits of juice powder made from cereal grass grown on mineral-rich soil. Weston Price used butter from cows fed on cereal grasses as a source of activator X. Julius Hensel praised his Physiological Bread, made by fermenting the wheat flour mixed with mineral powder. It looks to me that minerals in a certain form might be the reason why those gentlemen had such positive results in their practice. Do minerals play a role in formation of beneficial information in certain foods or nourishment?

A: Indeed!

With bone broth and a multi-mineral, my guess is that you'd be getting enough minerals. I'd also suggest taking a multi-B vitamin, which would be an upgrade from just B12. I take D with regularity, and C and NAC for anti-oxidant effects.

I try to drink water but I know I'm not getting enough. Sometimes I add sea salt to my water (I've been cooking with plenty of celtic sea salt too), and lemon (is lemon ok?).

Pretty sure lemon is okay if it feels okay.

My calf muscles get fatigued and tired relatively quickly so I know I'm missing stuff. But I'm a loss here. Also, I'm not using the bathroom nowhere near enough, this is also concerning.

I also thought it was concerning that I wasn't having many bowel movements, but after some bad advice, and reading up on it, I think it's normal. The body adapts to circumstances, and rather than measure by our past or an abstract standard, I think that when we take in optimal food, there is just less waste.

Anyway, this is my update. I hope y'all can share some wisdom.

I was thinking of getting a blood test soon, just to see how things are going internally. May be a good idea for anyone trying carnivore, just to have a look to see if any corrections need to be made in general.

 

[Weontv]

I've been on a keto diet for about 3 weeks now. ..

One of the things I noticed when I was doing 100% carnivore was that if I didn't stretch my muscles, they would get more sore than "normal". This doesn't seem to be the case when carbs are added to my diet, which is an unexpected side effect. Perhaps as the excess fat gets burned off, and toxins are released some of that residue ends up in the muscles. I tend to just go off how I feel vs following a strict protocol at this point but this is definitely something that was significantly different on carnivore. Regular full body stretches seemed to help eliminate the issue.



It definitely takes time to adapt as well, I remember when I first started keto and adapting my body to the protocols on this forum around a decade ago, it took me several months before I even started to feel "good". It was months of suffering, which is why I think so many people lose motivation to continue. After that the "good" just compounded.

https://www.amazon.com/SNAKE-Juice-Electrolyte-Unflavored-Fasting-Focused/dp/B07F5YZNYV

"Snake juice" was something I was doing for a long time as well, for electrolytes. You can make your own easily, you don't need to buy this stuff. You definitely need more electrolytes on these diets as you are excreting so much through urination.

There is also the caveat that as your body gets more healthy, the amount of foods you can consume tends to narrow. Most of the food you can get in the supermarket is poisoned. This should come as no surprise considering the nature of the world, that its either intentional or due to incompetence.. but it will get to a point where you cannot consume these things anymore. They don't make it easy to eat well.

Unfortunately "Organic Bone Broth" does not mean grass fed cows, and generally isn't. The "Organic" food industry is just another marketing scheme used by large companies and you have to be careful in what you select. It is far cheaper to make your own bone broth, using grass fed/finished bones.

I also think it is 100% mandatory to be eating organ meats regularly. This has been my experience anyways. So many of the vital micro nutrients that you need are abundant in the organs. After doing keto/paleo/carnivore for 10 years, the one thing I can count on is that if I eliminate organ meats for any extended period of time, I am not going to feel good.

I would stay away from dairy and eggs entirely as well. There is all kinds of stuff on the forum regarding this, as well as the C's mentioning it directly.

Going to the bathroom less is normal on carnivore, you are eating food that is more digestible than plant matter, meaning you will have less waste. You will notice your stool is smaller as well.

Something else I do regularly, which seems to help as well is eating fermented food quite often. Make my own sauerkraut. Anecdotal information though, as its a vegetable and I am not sure if its even necessary.

For me, what is "optimal" seems to be in a constant state of motion. I ate vegetables on the keto diet for years, and all of the sudden my body just stopped wanting them, like many others on here. If I do feel like I need some, I'll eat a potato or something and may not need any more for a few days, other times I eat them more frequently. Learning how to listen to your body is part of the process.

 

[A Jay]

Edit: has anyone else had any issues with this?

It could be related to oxalates.

I've been doing Carnivore for 2.5 months now in order to relieve some pretty severe hay fever symptoms.

Doesn't look like I updated the thread to make note of it the last time that I was Carnivore but an unintended consequence of my roughly two month Carnivore experience back then, in addition to the healing of my psoriasis, was that the following spring/summer and for the first time possibly ever I didn't have significant hay fever symptoms and didn't have to take any histamine medications.

This is huge because I've had significant hay fever issues pretty much my whole life, though it got significantly worse around puberty. We're talking multiple emergency room visits every year with respiratory and bronchial infections so bad you could hear me wheezing from across the room.

So having a spring and summer where I didn't have to take anything and didn't have any significant issues was an unexpected and blessed relief. It only lasted for the one year but even in the years after that experiment my symptoms were significantly better to the point where I would only have to take a single Benadryl a couple of times a week as opposed to several every few hours.

Until last year when I moved. Then the symptoms came back with a vengeance and so back on the Carnivore diet I went starting in March to see if I could repeat the first hay fever miracle. So far it's definitely helped but I'm not in miracle territory yet. I still have to take histamine medication regularly but the diet makes it so the medication actually keeps me mostly symptom-free as opposed to keeping me functional but still miserable and symptomatic.

For the majority of this latest two month Carnivore experiment I've been doing the Lion Diet. Although, I will have some pork on occasion and I'm taking 2 tablespoons of cocoa (1 after breakfast and 1 after dinner) in order to prevent oxalate dumping symptoms. Which, for me, mainly consists of frequent and sometimes painful or burning diarrhea, but has also included headaches, nausea, and fatigue.

The cocoa came about because when I first switched to Carnivore I had frequent diarrhea, which I'd experienced last time I tried the diet. However, I didn't have the luxury of living next to the bathroom for however long it would take to adjust as last time it took two weeks for me to have solid bowel movements again and even then my movements weren't totally solid and the feeling of needing to pass gas couldn't be trusted.

I consulted Keyhole and he suggested taking a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder as an experiment. If my symptoms were better, it was an oxalate issue. I had kidney stones when I was about 24 or 25 so me having oxalate issues seemed plausible.

I took two and a half tablespoons of cocoa, as prescribed, and my symptoms went away in half an hour.

At first I needed to keep this 2.5 tablespoons of cocoa to prevent symptoms but I've slowly been able to reduce it to two. The cocoa does mess with my allergies sometimes because cocoa is also high in histamine, but if I try and cut out the cocoa the symptoms come back so I'm having to be patient and trust the process.

Knowing what I know now, the bathroom issues I was having the whole time I did Carnivore a few years ago was 100% because of oxalate dumping. It wasn't on my radar until Keyhole had me do the experiment but having experienced the difference I think it should be a starting consideration when evaluating symptoms on Carnivore.

So, something to keep in mind and perhaps experiment with if you're experiencing bathroom, tummy, headache, or almost any other symptoms while on Carnivore. It's easy to test and could save a lot of unnecessary suffering.

 

[washable_orbit]

Stop it, you're making me hungry!

Your fault, actually. If it wasn’t for you, I would’ve never thought of making so many broths/soups

Spoiler: Soup Pic😌

This one, I added a few white button mushrooms.

Is there a reason for your concern at being lighter? This is my question to myself, too, as I've also lost weight.

Guys are always supposed to be getting heavier, bulking up, putting on muscle, etc., but I don't buy that. I work out lots, but my goal is overall fitness, not building muscle. Attaching my sense of wellbeing to an abstract number (or cultural body images) makes little sense. It can be an indicator to notice, sure, but I feel it's more important to pay attention to how I'm feeling.

Probably just ego and underlying body image issues. I’ve been pretty scrawny my whole life, and never put on muscle until I started figure skating for a few years. I loved the way my body looked then. But then I was forced to stop and became very skinny again. I sometimes have to remind myself that the reason I’m doing this is to be healthy not to attain any specific body type.

Some would say yes, you just need to eat more in order to maintain weight on carnivore, but I've tried that and it just feels gross. I'd rather just be lighter and not feel gross.

Exactly the same feeling. Maybe I am overthinking it. I will keep going with the flow as long as I feel good/normal.

With bone broth and a multi-mineral, my guess is that you'd be getting enough minerals. I'd also suggest taking a multi-B vitamin, which would be an upgrade from just B12. I take D with regularity, and C and NAC for anti-oxidant effects.

Pretty sure lemon is okay if it feels okay.

Unfortunately "Organic Bone Broth" does not mean grass fed cows, and generally isn't. The "Organic" food industry is just another marketing scheme used by large companies and you have to be careful in what you select. It is far cheaper to make your own bone broth, using grass fed/finished bones.

Oh yeah, D was the other one I couldn’t remember. I will switch to multi-B and a multivitamin when I get the chance. I stopped taking vitamin C because apparently it gets in the way of the lion’s mane and I already have to take all of these at different times and it’s just so much to think about.

As for the store-bought broth, although it also says non-gmo, I’m probably just paying for water. It’s really got nothing in it other than a little bit of potassium and calcium. But who has 12 hours to make broth?

I was thinking of getting a blood test soon, just to see how things are going internally. May be a good idea for anyone trying carnivore, just to have a look to see if any corrections need to be made in general.

I def want to do this too but I have no health insurance so I haven’t even looked into it.

There is also the caveat that as your body gets more healthy, the amount of foods you can consume tends to narrow. Most of the food you can get in the supermarket is poisoned. This should come as no surprise considering the nature of the world, that its either intentional or due to incompetence.. but it will get to a point where you cannot consume these things anymore. They don't make it easy to eat well.

It’s definitely intentional at some higher level. But I also can’t think too much about this otherwise I’d just quit. I’m doing the best I can and already going past my means.

I also think it is 100% mandatory to be eating organ meats regularly. This has been my experience anyways. So many of the vital micro nutrients that you need are abundant in the organs. After doing keto/paleo/carnivore for 10 years, the one thing I can count on is that if I eliminate organ meats for any extended period of time, I am not going to feel good.

I want to add more of this. Which organs exactly and from which animals?

I would stay away from dairy and eggs entirely as well. There is all kinds of stuff on the forum regarding this, as well as the C's mentioning it directly.

Yeah I never eat dairy except for butter and the intermittent greek yogurt that I buy when I remember it exists (been buying more since I started this diet tho). It might be messing me up but so far it feels negligible. It’s also full fat.

I know what the C’s have said about eggs. I love eggs, always have been my favorite protein since I was a child. Maybe I have lizard DNA. I’m willing to turn a blind eye here

For me, what is "optimal" seems to be in a constant state of motion. I ate vegetables on the keto diet for years, and all of the sudden my body just stopped wanting them, like many others on here. If I do feel like I need some, I'll eat a potato or something and may not need any more for a few days, other times I eat them more frequently. Learning how to listen to your body is part of the process.

Yeah I don’t eat vegetables, don’t care for them.

As always, thank you all for the massive help!

 

[iamthatis]

It could be related to oxalates.

I've been doing Carnivore for 2.5 months now in order to relieve some pretty severe hay fever symptoms.

Doesn't look like I updated the thread to make note of it the last time that I was Carnivore but an unintended consequence of my roughly two month Carnivore experience back then, in addition to the healing of my psoriasis, was that the following spring/summer and for the first time possibly ever I didn't have significant hay fever symptoms and didn't have to take any histamine medications.

This is huge because I've had significant hay fever issues pretty much my whole life, though it got significantly worse around puberty. We're talking multiple emergency room visits every year with respiratory and bronchial infections so bad you could hear me wheezing from across the room.

So having a spring and summer where I didn't have to take anything and didn't have any significant issues was an unexpected and blessed relief. It only lasted for the one year but even in the years after that experiment my symptoms were significantly better to the point where I would only have to take a single Benadryl a couple of times a week as opposed to several every few hours.

Until last year when I moved. Then the symptoms came back with a vengeance and so back on the Carnivore diet I went starting in March to see if I could repeat the first hay fever miracle. So far it's definitely helped but I'm not in miracle territory yet. I still have to take histamine medication regularly but the diet makes it so the medication actually keeps me mostly symptom-free as opposed to keeping me functional but still miserable and symptomatic.

For the majority of this latest two month Carnivore experiment I've been doing the Lion Diet. Although, I will have some pork on occasion and I'm taking 2 tablespoons of cocoa (1 after breakfast and 1 after dinner) in order to prevent oxalate dumping symptoms. Which, for me, mainly consists of frequent and sometimes painful or burning diarrhea, but has also included headaches, nausea, and fatigue.

The cocoa came about because when I first switched to Carnivore I had frequent diarrhea, which I'd experienced last time I tried the diet. However, I didn't have the luxury of living next to the bathroom for however long it would take to adjust as last time it took two weeks for me to have solid bowel movements again and even then my movements weren't totally solid and the feeling of needing to pass gas couldn't be trusted.

I consulted Keyhole and he suggested taking a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder as an experiment. If my symptoms were better, it was an oxalate issue. I had kidney stones when I was about 24 or 25 so me having oxalate issues seemed plausible.

I took two and a half tablespoons of cocoa, as prescribed, and my symptoms went away in half an hour.

At first I needed to keep this 2.5 tablespoons of cocoa to prevent symptoms but I've slowly been able to reduce it to two. The cocoa does mess with my allergies sometimes because cocoa is also high in histamine, but if I try and cut out the cocoa the symptoms come back so I'm having to be patient and trust the process.

Knowing what I know now, the bathroom issues I was having the whole time I did Carnivore a few years ago was 100% because of oxalate dumping. It wasn't on my radar until Keyhole had me do the experiment but having experienced the difference I think it should be a starting consideration when evaluating symptoms on Carnivore.

So, something to keep in mind and perhaps experiment with if you're experiencing bathroom, tummy, headache, or almost any other symptoms while on Carnivore. It's easy to test and could save a lot of unnecessary suffering.

Yeah, it's a good point. I suppose I thought I'd be past the oxalate dumping phase by now but perhaps not. Taking some cacao once in a while is something I do as well, usually 1 1/2 tsp. I'll see if making it a more regular occurrence helps, thank you.

 

[A Jay]

According to Keyhole, it can take years to really be cleared of oxalates and the body doesn't always dump everything at once. It can go through cycles.

Say you start Carnivore and the dumping process is bad. After some time things may seem to resolve but this isn't necessarily because you're done dumping. It could be that the body is just done dumping for the time being.

After some weeks or months the symptoms could kick back up again. After a time appear to resolve and then later on kick back up with weeks or months between dumping cycles. Repeat.

Apparently this can go on for years for people with severe oxalate issues.

And that's not the end of it.

@Jenn informed me today that she was having oxalate dumping show up as acidic tears and @Keyhole was saying that when someone gets an injury that oxalates can get stored there.

So if you have an injury where theres stored oxalates and you go Carnivore, your body might try getting rid of the oxalates which causes pain in the injured area and causes you to think Carnivore is making things worse when it's actually helping to heal.

Makes me regret my keto days where I was unknowingly loading myself with ungodly amounts of oxalates via all the supposedly healthy alternatives like sweet potatoes, dark chocolate, nuts, almonds, etc.

Here's Keyhole's oxalate playlist that I definitely recommend.

 

[Yas]

Yeah, oxalate dumping is truly something.

Years ago I also experimented with carnivore for a little while, but I was already almost carnivore so I don't recall having too many issues with the transition, other than losing weight.

I've been transitioning to carnivore now after some time of being on a much less restrictive paleo diet and I think I'm getting that dumping. Most of the time I feel a lot more energized and my tummy is so much happier, but every now and then I wake up as if I had the flu, I have pain all over and low energy. I also had a bit of pain around the kidney area so I wondered if I was perhaps passing a small kidney stone (it wasn't the excruciating pain people describe when talking about kidney stones, that's why I think it could be a very small one, perhaps). I've been using very dark chocolate as remedy for that, it works! I also added a bit of potassium citrate to help with this.

Apart from the oxalate dumping thing, I think electrolytes or minerals are essential too, and it seems that many agree with that. I've been listening to some of the carnivore people on YouTube and a lot of them mention that electrolytes might not be necessary for always but at the beginning they are very helpful. It seems that this is especially when you transition from not so low carb to extremely low carb because the insulin drop triggers the kidney to dump some minerals until you properly adapt to keto fuel (that's how I understood it). So even just adding some salted water is good. I started feeling dizzy as my blood pressure seemed to be lower than usual, even though I take salted water every day, and I also started to have some leg cramps, so I added some electrolytes (apart from potassium citrate) and that helped quite a lot.

So yeah, I guess that taking care of the oxalate dumping and adding a bit of electrolytes at the beginning can help most people have a better transition.

 

[hobnob]

I've had issues with headaches finally solved several months ago by taking a lot of malic acid. Potatoes have some of that, and so do cranberries and green apples.

It makes bathroom trips slightly unpleasant, which I solved with cheese.

In previous years, whenever I was 100% carnivore, there were long periods I didn't go to the bathroom. In carnivore circles this is considered normal. The food is thought to be fully absorbed. But butyric acid might get things moving when needed.

 

[washable_orbit]

I've had issues with headaches finally solved several months ago by taking a lot of malic acid. Potatoes have some of that, and so do cranberries and green apples.

Could the headaches also be related to dehydration? Especially during the beginning stages of such drastic dietary changes, our bodies need more salt.

My muscle cramps and flu like symptoms only lasted a couple days but I was also drinking a lot of sea salt water. Probably not the same.

Now my go-to electrolyte of choice is water sea salt, lemon and monkfruit. Basically a lemonade but it makes drinking it feel effortless and delicious.

Edit: just noticed this is basically what @Yas said

 

[hobnob]

Could the headaches also be related to dehydration? Especially during the beginning stages of such drastic dietary changes, our bodies need more salt.

My muscle cramps and flu like symptoms only lasted a couple days but I was also drinking a lot of sea salt water. Probably not the same.

Now my go-to electrolyte of choice is water sea salt, lemon and monkfruit. Basically a lemonade but it makes drinking it feel effortless and delicious.

Edit: just noticed this is basically what @Yas said

That's very possible, and sounds smart enough to me.

I supplement my food with salt, but haven't really added salt to water for years, just because I'd have time it with needing the bathroom. I also take sodium in the form of baking soda, I don't know if that counts.