Bob

Again, this is abnormal. The black color could be concerning. Have you considered consulting your physician or gastroenterologist, or getting some blood work done? The advice that we are giving works for the majority of people, namely, increase fat, try magnesium citrate, and for some, add a little fiber. There is a little fiber in things like organs and bone broth if you want to stay true carnivore. A proper human diet is a spectrum from low carb (100g a day or less) on the one end all the way to carnivore (0 carb) on the other end. You have to find where at on the spectrum works best for you. Your DNA may play a part in this. A natural human diet is definitely meat-centric, but depending on where you come from on this earth, you may be able to have more plants than another person. For example, if your lineage comes from areas around the equator, you can probably tolerate more carbs than someone who lives in much colder climates. Are carbs essential to human health and survival? No. But we DO have a cecum, albeit a small one, which shows that we are designed to deal with some plant food sources as well, just as much as our gall bladder shows we are designed to eat fatty meat. BUT, that is neither here nor there. You should be able to function just fine on a strict carnivore diet. So let's think this through. Have you tried @butterfly's suggestion to try different kinds of meat? Eliminate eggs for a while and try only beef. If you think it's the beef (which I DO know some who cannot eat beef) then eliminate beef for awhile and eat chicken, pork, and fatty fish instead. Do you keep hydrated? White rice has trace fiber and brown rice has even more fiber. While I personally would avoid all grains, of them, rice is probably the least bad. Sweet potatoes also have high fiber, and a sweet potato could still be part of a low carb or animal based diet. At 20 carbs per 3.5 ounce (100g), it's not going to be keto or ketovore per se, but that is alright. You are lean, and don't necessarily have to be strict for managing your weight. Magnesium Chloride is very bioavailable and easily absorbed. It's great to treat magnesium deficiency but not so great for the laxative effect you are looking for. The best choice is Magnesium Citrate. It's not very biavailable and goes right through you. Same with Magnesium Oxide, but I have heard health coaches say to avoid anything that's an oxide. Probably because we don't want anything in our body oxidizing.

I'm sorry to hear that. I hope that as you progress towards carnivore that these episodes will decrease in frequency. I've heard many stories of people whose gut issues completely resolved with a proper ketovore/carnivore diet due to low/no fiber in their diet. Those are fine. Especially if the Jello was sugar free. Hope you feel better soon Erik

Glad to hear you are experiencing some improvements and benefits. You're experience sounds like a carnivore YouTuber named Dave Mac. He has videos of himself before carnivore walking with a limp, and these days his walk is very much improved.

Yes, you can take a statin. You may experience side effects. You may not. It's the most prescribed drug on the planet, so millions of people take them and don't have any issues at all. Other people take them and suffer aches, pains, and more. I've heard a carnivore doctor say that if you are trying to compromise with your primary care physician, you could negotiate that you would take a low dose 5g Rosuvastatin which will probably not harm you (nor help you) but will be enough to shut your doctor up, lol. High doses (at least 1000g/day, and up to 3000mg/day) of Niacin (Vitamin B3 in the form of Nicotinic Acid) will also raise HDL and help lower trigs and LDL. Decades ago before there were any statins, this is what was prescibed. But prescription Niacin was expensive, so people just bought it over-the-counter, which is one of the reasons why new drugs were invented, because over-the-counter meds don't line the pockets of pharmaceutical companies. My latest cholesterol reading was 411. I've had it as high as 588 several months back.

So here's another one.... When people think of what constitutes "American food", they often think about hamburgers and hot dogs. But did these foods really originate here in the U.S.?

Awesome. Keep up the good work!

You're good. You'll never know what's really in that hot dog, but if you check out hot dog packages at the store there's usually 1g of carb snuck in there. I wouldn't worry about it since it's a rare event. Nice ride!

I will have to try beef bacon. I've been avoiding pork for the last 30 days because of my high potassium, so while I have cheated and had some bacon here and there, I haven't indulged as much as I had been. Welcome to our corner, @Phyllis 🙂

Wendy's will let you order sides of large beef patties and bacon. McDonald's does too but specify you want the quarter pound patties or else you get the little dinky kids size ones. Geoff's suggestion of hard boiled or pickled eggs is a good one. The pickled eggs might have trace sugar with the vinegar and beet juice but I wouldn't worry about that. You can also look for sugar free beef jerky, OR at least make if sugar is listed it's after that "contains less than 2% of..." line in the ingredients. A nice low sugar beef jerky will have a carb or two, but the regular beef jerky has like 6 carbs per serving because brown sugar is like the 2nd ingredient.

You're correct. The salt pellets used to preserve meat were called 'salt corns', thus the name corned beef.

Welcome Dan! What you are going to find is that many of us in the keto/carnivore space don't consider it a problem. A lot of new research has shed some light on cholesterol and LDL that sheds light on this not being the issue that mainstream medicine has had us believing since the low-fat craze of decades ago. Bascially, you want your HDL to be up over 40, and if you can get it higher that's even better. You want your trigs to be equal to (a 1:1 ratio) or at least no more than double (a 2:1 ratio) of what your HDL is. For example, if you had an HDL of 75 and trigs at 150, that would be good. The lower the trigs, the better. And then we don't generally care much about the LDL reading. Sooooo many factors go into that cholesterol reading. You can literally not eat for several days, go get a lipid panel, and it will have shot up. If you are actively losing weight, it's going to rise because cholesterol is stored in your adipose tissue. They say you should wait until 3-6 months after weight loss has stopped before you can trust your lipid panel results. They just get too skewed when losing wieght.

Welcome aboard Eric! Right. There are only 2 others. One has gone into inactivity because it's founder abandoned the carnivore diet AND turned around and attacked his former fellow carnivore diet influencers. It's didn't go over so well on YouTube. I actually emailed him to see if he would give me the database and I would merge it with ours, but he never responded. Probably a good thing, as in hindsight we probably don't want to be connected in any manner. The other one someone set up in like 2021, and then never promoted it. It's a 3 post ghost town, lol. I'm over in the Reddit's here and there myself, and have the same experience. Some of those forums have a rigid "auto-mod" set up that automatically hides half the things I try to post in there. And then another one has a mod that is just a plain tyrant. It's weird to have to tread so carefully. Both of these approaches will do the trick, whether you go keto or carnivore. If you do keto, make it a meat-based diet for sure. Remember that the A1C is a 3 month snapshot, so be good from now till then 🙂

Excellent. I still enjoy cheese myself. For some people, it's too hyper-palatable and they go overboard with it. I use it as a garnish or as a condiment to enhance my dish.

This one caught my eye today so I thought this might be a fun topic. Why is corned beef called "corned" beef if there is no corn in it? I already know the answer. Do you? Did you know it or did you Google it?

Corned Beef is a keto carnivore friendly food. 😉

Good morning Lisa, and welcome aboard. 3 pounds in 6 days is very good. You're right about slow and steady - this will help you cross the finish line, that is, reach your goals. And for many of us, we're quick out of the gate, but we do naturally slow our pace as we keep running, so don't let occcasional plateaus discourage you. Are you doing low carb animal-based, keto, ketovore, or carnivore?

Welcome @Bax! You want to focus on fatty red meat and fatty fish. When you do eat leaner meats, like chicken, try paring it with a fatty meat like bacon. And remember to count the butter, tallow, lard, bacon grease, or oil you are cooking it in. After plating that food, you can even pour some of the fat from the pan over top of the meal, or add butter. And then there is cheese, heavenly cheese, lol. Don't overthink it though. Many of us just eat meat and eggs and don't bother tracking our macros. I also don't think you need to worry about protein poisoning, also called "rabbit starvation". You would have to be eating a lot of protein and depriving yourself of fat and carbs for a long time. You're fat isn't that low, and really you could literally eat a couple tablespoons of butter right off the stick and your fat intake will rise significantly.

Honey and fruit was seasonal, so it was a rare treat. Not like today where it's "harvest season" year round at the local grocery.

Same here. I'm >50 lbs down, reversed a host of "incurable" conditions, and have kept it off, and have more energy than ever before. Wife and daughter prefer their sugary treats and prescription meds. It's sad, really.

In theory, yes. When you reintroduce carbs then your body will immediately turn to burning that off and getting rid of it. Same with alcohol. Have a few shots of whiskey and your out of ketosis, but then a few hours later you are back in ketosis. How soon you would get back into ketosis after carb loading with honey would depend on how much honey you had, how soon and how fast it got processed and made available to you, and how intense you worked out. I honestly have not read that much into honey. One thought that comes to mind is that with refined sugar, you experience a rush followed by a crash. I don't know if honey will have the same effect. For some, just having that sweet taste of sugar in the mouth and body again puts them in a state of hyper-craving carbs again for the next day or so, and many of them give in and then backslide on their diet. So there is some caution to be had if you are one of those types of individuals. And then there is how a fat-adapted carnivore or keto dieter enjoys a steady stream of energy. So the honey loading could be unnecessary if you are fat adapted. People like Shawn Baker and Anthoney Chaffee will load up on animal protein for their workouts, because even eating meat causes a rise in insulin. On the other hand, people like Paul Saladino advocate fruit and honey and work out intensely as well. When you are overweight, metabolically unhealthy, and have chronic conditions you want to be rid of, carbs and insulin are the devil. But if you are fit and healthy, you have more freedom to experiment with other natural food sources.

Yes it would. If I struggled to lose weight then I would be more interested in monitoring this. But I do just fine so I must be eating right 🙂

Have you gotten blood tests to check your liver or seen a heptologist? Based on what you have said in these few posts, it doesn't sound like your liver is "normal". The fatigue paired with the jaundice (yellow eyes) indicates a problem. Since you mention drinking, you might look into cirrhosis of the liver. Cirrhosis often has no symptoms until liver damage is severe and then you may experience some of the following symptoms... Fatigue. Easily bleeding or bruising. Loss of appetite. Nausea. Swelling in the legs, feet or ankles, called edema. Weight loss. Itchy skin. Yellow discoloration in the skin and eyes, called jaundice. Fluid accumulation in the abdomen, called ascites (uh-SAHY-teez). Spiderlike blood vessels on the skin. Redness in the palms of the hands. Pale fingernails, especially the thumb and index finger. Confusion, drowsiness or slurred speech. If this is the case, then there is scarring in your liver, impairing it's function, such as damage/destruction of bile ducts. You may have to experiment with higher protein and lower fat, or having eating more meals that are smaller portions vs fewer meals that are large portions. We normally discuss ketogenic diets and the importance for fat for energy here because meat and organs and it's associated fats are super healthy and beneficial. Your body is well equipped to process other foods as well. And while we encourage everyone to be ketogenic and even carnivore, you might have a health related issue that requires you to lean more animal-based with the inclusion of some fruitage. Carnivore and keto can completely reverse fatty liver disease. But it sounds like you are dealing with another issue and i would have it tested and investigated by a professional.

Yesterday was eggs and beef with cheese for breakfast. Tuna with sour cream and cheese for a late lunch, snack. And then my cheese infused beef meatballs for a late dinner. I woke up a couple pounds down despite eating so late, which was nice.

FDA Clears First Over-the-Counter Continuous Glucose Monitor For Immediate Release: March 05, 2024 Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared for marketing the first over-the-counter (OTC) continuous glucose monitor (CGM). The Dexcom Stelo Glucose Biosensor System is an integrated CGM (iCGM) intended for anyone 18 years and older who does not use insulin, such as individuals with diabetes treating their condition with oral medications, or those without diabetes who want to better understand how diet and exercise may impact blood sugar levels. Importantly, this system is not for individuals with problematic hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) as the system is not designed to alert the user to this potentially dangerous condition. “CGMs can be a powerful tool to help monitor blood glucose. Today’s clearance expands access to these devices by allowing individuals to purchase a CGM without the involvement of a health care provider,” said Jeff Shuren, M.D., J.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “Giving more individuals valuable information about their health, regardless of their access to a doctor or health insurance, is an important step forward in advancing health equity for U.S. patients.” The Stelo Glucose Biosensor System uses a wearable sensor, paired with an application installed on a user’s smartphone or other smart device, to continuously measure, record, analyze and display glucose values in people 18 years and older that are not on insulin and who do not have problematic hypoglycemia. Users can wear each sensor up to 15 days before replacing with a new sensor. The device presents blood glucose measurements and trends every 15 minutes in the accompanying app. Users should not make medical decisions based on the device’s output without talking to their healthcare provider. Data from a clinical study provided to the FDA showed that the device performed similarly to other iCGMs. Adverse events reported in the study included local infection, skin irritation and pain or discomfort. As part of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health’s strategic priority to advance health equity, CDRH will continue to support innovation that addresses health equity by moving care and wellness into the home setting. ARTICLE SOURCE: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-clears-first-over-counter-continuous-glucose-monitor