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Fasting and the carnivore diet

EmeraldAtomiser

EmeraldAtomiser

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Yesterday, I finished a 4.5 day bentonite and psyllium fast and started on the carnivore diet. My first meal was a cheese omelette, dinner was sirloin (rare) and some fried kidneys. Breakfast was scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, and lunch was ox liver and lambs kidneys. For dinner, I have some lamb heart and more kidney. Cheese is a nice snack.
Obviously, my fat burning engine will not be in gear yet, but I've not had any unpleasant feelings and am actually feeling very good. Part of this is clearly having stopped smoking and drinking too, and being better hydrated.
I'm wondering if anyone else on here has any experience of this kind of diet? Any helpful hints and tips? Meal suggestions?
I have subsisted on carbs my whole life. I can eat pasta and pizza like a machine, and have been warned that my carb-loving gut flora will be sending signals to my brain DEMANDING carbs, causing dreadful cravings, so I need to clear my cupboards of anything 'bad' that might tempt me.
I'm doing this because 3 friends have tried this diet and had incredible results, clearing chronic inflammation, and felt amazing, with no energy peaks and troughs.
Doesn't sound like a long term sustainable diet for me, and I'm quite sure that the lack of variety would become pretty tedious and difficult, but I'm interested to see how my body reacts.
 
I tried to get on a full keto diet and learned a few things.

My key takeaway was that you want to step into the process well prepared.

Have recipes for about 4 weeks ready, preferably ones you have tried and liked. Finding some recipe you can eat daily, without protest, is key.

I used an app to track the carbs and that in itself was eye opening.

I lasted maybe 6 months carb-free being unprepared. Eating is a lot like life, don't become to rigid and go with the flow. Ease your way into turning on the ketonic state.

However, your body was crafted over perhaps millions of years. It knows when to turn on and off the appropriate burners.

I now eat about ⅕ of the carbs I used to eat. I don't eat sugar and desserts anymore. I may have a little piece of cake during festivities occasionally.

Currently I eat a no/low carb breakfast of ~¾lb ground beef in 1oz butter, 3 eggs, garlic, jalapeno, shallots, salt, and spices.

Typically I skip lunch unless it is cold and I have been working outdoors. I just let my body tell me if it wants food. I try to keep lunch low-carb, but if there are sandwiches on the table. A sandwich it is.

Dinner is anything that's on my plate. Carb rich pasta, rice, pizza, it doesn't matter. Not being carb picky during dinners certainly helped my family dynamics.

When I get cravings for carbs in between meals they typically can be quelled with royal helping of nuts or cheese. Brie is something I like.

Since you're doing the carnivore version find a reliable source of cheap meat. You're going to need lots of it.

Maybe you have a local commercial slaughter you can make a deal with.

Good luck with your experiment! You're on the path of learning something about yourself, for yourself. That knowledge, in itself, will be the success of the experience. Perceptions will shift and a new reality will bloom.

And as always, Flux with joy and enjoy the Flux!

🦋
 
I don't do keto but as a (TMI I know) menopausal woman I both exercise like a fiend and try to maximize all proteins in my diet to hang on to what little muscle mass I have.

Hopefully you will have success. I'm fairly skinny and this was not always the case (though I was never severely overweight) so clearly exercise and protein consumption does help burn fat.
 
I did it for a long time, testing my ketone levels daily.

I feel better with beef and fruit personally, leaving out dairy, eggs, grains, nuts, seeds and anything starchy. 2 pounds of beef a day and all you can eat fruit.
 
Thanks for the replies.
Sounds like you are well practiced, rkba, and it seems like I am not well prepared enough!
I've got plenty of eggs and butter in, and some cheese, but am down to just kidneys on the meat front.
I know what you mean about the meat cost. I went to the good butcher near me, but his dry-aged aberdeen angus was £50/Kg!
I went somewhere cheaper, but it's still not cheap (nothing is on Brexit Island), but will need to go somewhere to buy whole joints and break them down myself. I certainly don't want to be eating low quality meat, but will look at getting chicken and fish which is cheaper.
I'm not going to go weighing my food or anything like that, because I don't want eating to become a tedious chore. My friend showed me https://cronometer.com/but the thought of weighing and recording everything I eat gave me cold sweats. He's a data guy and loves all the stats. Not for me.
Be interesting to see how long I can keep it going, but I know, in my heart, I am on omnivore who loves to eat, and will eventually go back to eating everything, although maybe reducing the carb intake, maybe...
 
EmeraldAtomiser said:
but it's still not cheap
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You could also try to buy a cow from a local rancher. It's a lot of work and interesting to learn, but one cow will provide a proverbial metric shit-ton of meat. Provided you can legally butcher your own meat. Besides some sharp knives you'll need a large freezer.

On a typical cow ranch you'll have 1 sick/cripple cow per 100 cows each year. Maybe you can buy a sick/criple cow for the slaughter price. Which is here, at the moment, around $2/lbs of cow weight. A cow here runs between 600-800 lbs. Roughly 30-40% of the animal can become packaged meat.
 
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I did carnivore/18-6 intermittent fasting for a while. No carbs is not for me. Ended up with more phlegm and after a few months got a gnarly cold that was acute for 3 weeks, one of the worst I've ever had. I didn't start getting better until my first bowl of carbs in 6 months.

I think a meat heavy diet is good, it must be balanced and moderate quantities of complex carbs are good for you as well.

Fasting is an amazingly beneficial practice ime which is probably why a lot of religions incorporate it into their rituals. Water fasting for multiple days in the wilderness is truly one of the most amazing things people can do for themselves as a clean out, detox your digestion, nervous system etc.
 
I’ve been limiting myself to a bit of chicken and fish, along with some goat cheese, eggs, and ghee, here and there. Also been doing intermittent fasting on a daily basis, which accounts for my pancake fantasies. Last night, I interrupted my fast with a bit of ghee and honey, which was enough to hold me over for another 12 hours, or so.
 
Fasting is useful. That's great if meat-only diets work well for you but they seem to fly in the face of virtually all information on nutrition and our species origins IMO. It might help certain health issues, but whose to say cutting out other unhealthy foods wasn't a bigger factor, or that several other diets wouldn't have addressed the same issues more adequately.
 
EmeraldAtomiser said:
Doesn't sound like a long term sustainable diet for me
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A highly restrictive diet like that is typically not a sustainable approach long-term. I think it's a worthy short term experiment if you have a specific reason (like the aforementioned auto-immune issues).

I really just wanted to echo the recommendation for Cronometer. I do weigh most everything on the scale because I'm all about the accuracy and deep micronutrient level tracking, but you don't have to do it that way. It will scan barcodes on most packages and auto fill the information, you just select your portion, or with whole foods you just put in 1 cup tomatoes or half pound of beef or whatever.

With the paid version you can just dictate your recipe by voice, link up a recipe from the internet, or even take a photo of your meal and it'll match it up. It's a useful tool even if you just use it for a few days to get a rough idea of your general macro intake and the free version is great for that. MyFitnessPal is another good option for this, but the database isn't quite as robust.

In any case, best of luck on your dietary adventure.

P.S. - 4 days of psillium and bentonite sounds intense, can you tell us more about what that experience was like and what your reasoning for doing that protocol was?
 
Hello again, and thanks for the responses.
Yes, clearly buying a whole animal would be the way to go, and I've worked in kitchens plenty, so butchering my own is no issue (is it really illegal in places to butcher your own meat?), but I live in a small flat with a small freezer, so I think I'll just try and buy a whole shoulder. Been to the supermarket again today, and the portioned meat is just stupidly expensive. Even things like ox-tail is now expensive due to the damn tv chefs making them popular. At least offal is still pretty cheap.
One of my friends, who is, admittedly, a slightly crazy Latvian, had done strict beef carnivore for 2 years and looked absolutely amazing. For me, this is just a short term switch to see how my body reacts, as I know from previous restricted diets I've tried, I ultimately get frustrated missing out on all the other things I love to eat. I mean, eating is the second-best way to stimulate the nervous system, after all. Like I said to my friends, for me to cut out carbs permanently, this diet would need to give me literal superpowers, otherwise the payoff just aint worth it in my book. I don't have any health issues I'm trying to clear up (except labrynthitis, which I'm pretty sure this isn't going to cure).
Maybe I will give Chronometer a go for a few days and see how I go (y)
As for the bentonite and psyllium fasting, I have done this for 5 days many times (around 10 but I've lost count). First one I did was in India in 2007, and the stuff that came out of me was APPALING. Never in my life have I smelt anything like it. A huge toxic load removed from my gut. The day I broke my fast, two separate people commented on how amazing I looked, and could not believe I had just been fasting.
I was practicing Ashtanga, and some other students were doing this cleanse, and, after a lot of my ego/gut-flora saying no way, I decided to give it a go. One of the best decisions of my life.
It can be a real emotional rollercoaster, with waves of anger or sadness seeing to come from nowhere, but it always leaves me feeling clearer and focused, with more motivation for life (much needed).
I would highly recommend bentonite and psyllium fast/cleanse to anyone. Day 3 and 4, once the tract was clear of any food eaten before hand, was when the fun started.
Here's a little introduction to the protocol I did a few years back.
 
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