butterfly

I feel your pain. Sincerely, I do. I've had some horrible issues like yours, except it's total constipation on my part. I've gone for a month with absolutely nothing happening. In my case, it's low thyroid I think, and even Ben Bikman admits that keto diets lead to lower levels of active thyroid hormone (T3), he maintains this is nothing to worry about, it's just like lower levels of insulin, he says, but I think that's a pretty poor argument. If your thyroid is already sluggish, you need to be aware that a keto diet of any sort will probably not do it any favours. Your thyroid does seem to require insulin in order to function optimally. Something which ties in circularly with low thyroid is low Ferritin levels. I was shocked that after a year eating red meat and organs, my bloodwork showed third world level iron storage. That in itself can cause constipation - I don't know if it's the chicken or the egg, you know, if the iron deficiency down-regulates the thyroid at least initially, or if the low thyroid prevents absorption of all nutrients due to depleted stomach acid and bile production, amongst other things. Both, I think. The really sad part is that iron supplements, even the very gentle liposomol ferrous sulphate I'm taking each day, constipates you even further. Have you had bloodwork done? Might be an idea just so you can see if you have a malabsorption problem. If you're getting thyroid numbers, you'll want to see TSH - thyroid stimulating hormone levels (the level of hormone in your blood sent by the pituitary gland to tell your thyroid how much hormone to produce; when it's very high, that would indicate that your thyroid is misbehaving), you'll want to see both T3 and T4 levels, but also TPO antibodies that might indicate Hashimoto's - an autoimmune condition (very common in women with low thyroid) where your body is basically attacking your thyroid. I had great success initially using Betaine HCL with pepsin, it's basically artificial stomach acid and digestive enzyme, and you use it if your stomach acid is low. There's YouTube videos on how to find the correct dosage for you, but I think it might be worth a try. The Best Naturals brand is a good one, the capsules are 648mg and they come with pepsin. Just start by taking one with your main meal (must contain protein - don't take the capsules with snacks.) You build up your dosage by one capsule every other day until you feel heartburn or discomfort. I was on 10 capsules with each meal while they worked for me, but I guess they're a bit of a band aid, and my body slowly adjusted to the dosage. For a while they really helped with constipation, though, so you might be lucky and find that just one or two capsules does the job for you. This is Very Important, though: take the Betaine capsule(s) in the middle of your meal. Follow them down with food. If they get stuck on the way down and empty their acidic cargo, you'll be in for an extremely painful few minutes, so don't take them after a meal. I'm currently taking ox bile, Tudca bile salts, and lipase enzymes, without much progress. The iron supplements are hard going. To be honest, I've had to hit the laxatives a few times. I'd prefer not to use them so I'm thinking of reintroducing some fibre. Depending on how well you tolerate vegetables, that might be a tool of last resort. I don't think it's the end of the world if you find that a portion of rice or sweet potatoes gets your digestion back to normal. No point being a zealot if it's making you ill. It doesn't sound like ground beef is working for you. Maybe your body is just tired of it and trying to tell you something. My first couple of weeks on carnivore, I ate mainly ground beef and eggs. I started feeling really tired, lethargic, and I couldn't understand why. I did a bit of reading on ground beef and a few sources talked about how the grinding process introduces higher levels of histamine into the meat and leeches out some of the nutrients. So I switched to whole meat - steak, oxtail, ox tongue etc. and the tiredness stopped. Maybe it's just time to try different meats? I'd definitely recommend giving ox liver a go if you can handle it. Packed full of nutrients and it's delicious once your palate adjusts. Really hope you find a solution. Digestive problems are seriously depressing.

That's really interesting. I'm 178cm, 14 inch wrist, and it recommends 8.5 stone or 120lbs thereabouts. I think that's fair. Too often BMI takes no account of bone/frame size. If you have a slight build, you don't carry weight as well and someone with a larger frame.

Don't get frustrated, men generally lose weight more quickly than women. They don't have as many complicating hormones wafting around their bloodstream causing general mayhem. 5lbs is excellent in one month, if that's what you've lost? I bet if you take a tape measure and go by your waist and hip measurements, you'll feel a lot more motivated. I don't keep scales because you can get a bit enslaved by them and lose track of the big picture. Some people can be very sensitive to coffee, and it can interfere with weight loss - not a common problem, but a possibility. An obvious one is making sure you're eating enough, especially protein. If you don't, your body will kind of lock down and hoard the weight you have. Eating enough protein will also help to guard against catabolizing lean mass instead of burning your own fat. Maybe try using cronometer.com if you're not already. You can track your macros and calories and micronutrient breakdown to check you're getting enough goodness from your food. To break a plateau, maybe try varying the calorie amounts you have on different days of the week - keep your metabolism guessing, and incorporate some intermittent fasting days if you really want to speed things up. If weight loss is particularly stubborn, getting your thyroid function tested - full panel, not just TSH (free T3, free T4 and possible antibodies like TPO that could indicate autoimmune issues like Hashimoto's). Hang in there, Rome wasn't built in a day, and the main thing you need is patience. Carnivore isn't a quick fix, and it's possible your metabolism is damaged from low fat dieting in the past. Got to give yourself time to heal.

Duck hearts are absolutely delicious, but very hard to find where I live. Duck anything is awesome, though. Crispy duck skin is maybe the only food on earth that is tastier than bacon. The problem is, you have to kinda sacrifice the breast meat if you're roasting a whole bird to get the skin perfect. Worth it, though!

I think you need to eat more. Protein, specifically, if recomposition is your goal, forget about the fat for a moment and concentrate on supplying your body with enough protein. Just one thing - are you eating ground beef, by any chance? When I started carnivore, the first kind of beef I ate was ground beef because I didn't much fancy big chunks of steak, and after a couple of weeks on a pound of ground beef a day and several eggs, I felt pretty lethargic and generally lousy. I thought about giving up. So I did some reading on ground beef, and there are those who say that the grinding process not only introduces extra histamine in the processing of it, but it leaches out a significant amount of the nutrition compared to whole pieces of steak. So I switched to steak and felt a lot better within another week. I've no idea if this applies to you, but thought I'd mention it. I would strongly suggest that you try incorporating some beef liver into your diet. It's a nutritional powerhouse and I find it almost an instant energy booster. As your palate adjusts with time, it's also delicious. No, really. Like Bob mentioned, varying up your calories and keeping your metabolism reacting and guessing is a good strategy. Your body will always seek homeostasis and it will adapt to any regime quickly, so throwing in a fast day maybe, one very high protein day, one high fat day etc, that might possibly help you. Your English is great, by the way. Good luck!

According to Dr. Boz, hair thinning is common when switching to keto diets - it's a shock to the body having to set up a new apparatus for energy production, and your hair sadly bears the brunt of it. She says it's meant to be temporary and shouldn't happen again, but my own experience is that my hair falls out at times of high stress and rarely grows back properly. I was hoping that carnivore might help, but after a year, I've kinda given up on that. My life's pretty high stress, though, so can't expect miracles from any diet I guess. Biotin and selenium are recommended supplements (can't say they've done much for me, though). I think cortisol levels are probably key. Anything you can do to lower your daily stress would probably really help. And good sleep, of course.

Awesome! You'll go from strength to strength now. The worst is over.

I totally agree on cold runny yolks, no way! I mean more, uhh, jammy? Basically a hard boiled egg where the yolk is still kind of translucent and set but slightly fondant-ish, not opaque and grainy and difficult to swallow. It's hard to get them perfectly right, though, and they're impossible to shell if they're too soft. Slow steaming them sunny side up in a pan with a lid is probably the easiest way to achieve jammy yolked perfection.

Just saw this, and oh yes! This is a huge one. Back in the day I only had to look at fried food to get acid reflux. Haven't had it since I switched. I'd forgotten just how unpleasant it was pre-carnivore.

I no longer have gas. Like, none. My digestive system isn't audible anymore, like some clapped out old car. It chugs along silently and peacefully. That's so nice. My skin is clear, I just wish someone had told me the no-sugar secret back when I was a teen with dreadful cystic acne. My teeth hurt a lot when I was a cookie monster, and my gums suffered. No bleeding anymore when I brush, and no toothaches. I think my breath is sweeter in the morning? And I think I'm definitely less emotional. My moods aren't being dictated by sugar anymore, so life just feels a lot more stable.

I hope you're hanging in there, Robert. I was in the same boat in February of last year when I started carnivore. I went from eating nearly exclusively carbs to total carnivore, and I was sure I didn't even like meat! As far as I was concerned, meat got in the way of me eating more sugar. My first few days were horrible. No energy, low mood, sugar cravings a mile wide, irritable and headachey. I didn't know that you were meant to lean on electrolytes to help you through the flu-like symptoms while your body was switching back to its default fat-burning metabolism. Things improved dramatically by week 2, though! It was like once the drug (sugar) had left my system, everything upgraded. Haven't had any problems since then, so please stick it out and see how you feel. What got me through my first week was eggs and bacon. That's all I ate. I thought bacon was the only meat I really liked, so I leaned on that. As time goes on, it's incredible how your palate changes, though. I never thought I'd really enjoy a steak or voluntarily eat liver or beef tongue or heart, but I do now and I love them. You will definitely develop a taste for meat once your system has adapted. You could also be dealing with the fallout of oxalates, given a veggie diet, so hang in there. I'd make up some bone broth, get a good electrolyte supplement, and maybe slow cook some oxtail. It's the ultimate comfort food, moist and soft meat with plenty of fat and I think it's tasty enough to tempt even a meat sceptic. Good luck!

Are you getting enough fluids, and enough electrolytes? If you're dehydrated, it's going to make things tough. A Magnesium supplement works for a lot of people to get your bowel moving, but maybe the best way would be to make up a big pot of bone broth and make sure you end the day with a large bowl of it. Doesn't have to be anything fancy - if you can get beef bones that's great, but a couple of packets of chicken wings covered with water in the Instant Pot - pressure cook for a couple of hours until the bones crumble, and you'll have a great broth. I do think fluids are probably the answer, but maybe you also need to eat more fat. I've noticed that eggs will definitely constipate if you're cooking them quite firm and not incorporating enough fat to, uhh, lubricate the internal machinery. Good luck! I know digestive problems are horrible.

I think if you're looking to specifically lose fat, then maybe you need to tweak your macros a bit? If you're on 70:30 fat to protein, and you're looking to cut, I think I saw Dr. Shawn Baker saying that he goes more like 60:40 when he wants to lean out a bit. If the idea is to build muscle you don't want to undereat, especially protein obviously, but maybe cut down on the fat a bit and you could try using something like cronometer.com to give you a breakdown of calories and macros and vitamins to see if you're getting what you need. Like Bob said, you're fighting homeostasis, your body will adapt to any routine, so varying up your calorie intake on different days, maybe leaning heavily on protein on some days, and incorporating some intermittent fasting might help shift you off the plateau. I've seen people use an egg diet for a few days to get things moving again. The rough rules are up to 10 eggs a day with a tbsp of fat with each egg. Alternatively, cut that fat to a tbsp per 3 eggs and increase the number of eggs if you want. No longer than 3 days or you'll probably go nuts, but it works well for breaking a plateau. Edit: would also make sure you're getting enough electrolytes, especially Magnesium.

I hear you, Geoff. I was looking at that U shaped curve from the big Korea study on all cause mortality and cholesterol, but I've a feeling that the lowest risk is associated with 200-250ish? I think the risk starts to climb slowly the higher you get after that, but maybe not quite as high a risk as having very low cholesterol. I did read an interesting study about women with very low LDL and triglycerides having more than double the risk of haemorrhagic stroke. So. Something to cling to, I guess. Dr. Baker posted a video recently showing how his cholesterol jumped about 200 points from one day to the next. First day fasting I think it was about 150, then he fasted for another 10 hours, I think, and it was around 350 once he'd done some moderate exercise too. Seems to tally with the lipid energy model.

Thank you for that, Bob! It does feel a bit superheroey doesn't it? "I'm Isla and my superpower is being able to ignore someone sitting next to me eating a Snickers." I never thought I'd be able to do that. I'd probably have wrestled them to the ground for it back in the day. I used monitormyhealth.com to do a home blood draw (nasty business, those lancets are brutal) and even with the Royal Mail tracked 24 envelope, it took them 72 hours to get back to the lab. So I was told they couldn't do some tests for iron, folate, b12 etc because the blood had been in transit too long, but they did give me hba1c (23) vitamin d (163 - 'excessive' apparently) and the cholesterol panel from hell, lol. Total cholesterol: 16.8mmol/l (650mg/dl) Non-HDL: 14.94mmol/l (578mg/dl) HDL: 1.8mmol/l (70.4mg/dl) Triglycerides: 3.69mmol/l (327mg/dl) They don't measure LDL specifically, but using an online calculator, it's something like 514. Gulp. There was a note included that I should make an immediate appointment with my doctor. I don't even know how reliable the test is, given the transit time, and I know it's only a snapshot, it could be totally different today, but those are big numbers. I haven't really been losing weight lately I don't think. I don't keep bathroom scales (had anorexia in my teens and don't want to get hooked weighing myself) but my waist has been a steady 26 inches for a couple of months now. I do eat a lot of butter, it must be said. My fat: protein calories ratio is at least 75: 25 most days, but can be as high as 90% fat. I even do fat fasting days, rather than water fasting. But from the doctors I've been following in the keto sphere - Paul Mason, Ben Bikman, Eric Westman etc., I had thought that saturated fat intake didn't necessarily cause cholesterol to rise. I've been reading about the lipid energy hypothesis and the LMHR phenotype - not sure that's me either, though, my good cholesterol is too low for that and my triglycerides are too high. I don't know. I should probably get some CAC imaging done, just to check. Like you said, though, it could just be that I'm losing fat all over and not realising, and that's inflating the numbers. I made the mistake of having a brief chat with my dad about my results - he's a very old school GP with no time for "keto fad diet nonsense." And he's convinced I'm damaging my health. It's tough to see your own dad really upset and worried.