Scott F.

A guy moved to NC from West Virginia way back when and we worked together. He moved into a farming community and took up turkey hunting. He bought the nicest shotgun (a Benelli I believe) a "guilly suit" a sniper would be proud of and the latest and greatest turkey call. He was all set. He walked by the farmer's house early in the morning, waved at the old guy sitting on the porch, and deep into the woods. Just about the sunrise hit the old farmer told us he heard that Benelli cut loose. Boom, boom-boom,. boom. boom-boom. He looked a few minutes later and coming over the hill was my buddy with two handfuls of birds. The first thought was this dummy has killed hens and when he got closer it was even worse, not legally I guess but funny-worse. When the sun came up the guineas come off the pond dam and my buddy thought they were turkeys and bagged his limit in a matter of seconds. We have ridden him for that for the last 30 years. I can't hear, see or read 'guinea' without thinking of his epic hunting story. Off topic, I know. My apologies. My buddy eats guinea eggs on the regular if he can keep them out of the road. They seem to enjoy directing traffic. Scott

Muscle loss and bone density issues. The regain will be mostly fat. If a person can use the GLP-1, get in a sustainable lifestyle, both diet and exercise, to sustain the loss of weight then I think the medicine could be used. The problem is that it is the 'miracle' drug as of late and there is no lifestyle change which cripples sustainability. I'm sure there will be a nice lawsuit in the coming years. Scott

I am sort of the in the same boat. I am a life long rotating shift worker. My patter has been 9PM to 3AM or 9AM to 3PM for years. Before carnivore I could go back to sleep after waking the first time and sleep til 4 or 5, and sometimes even six. That is no longer the case. When I am up, I am up and my day starts when my eyes open. I was up yesterday morning around 3:30. I went to the gym, walked the dog, got a truck inspected, cleaned and re-housed some chickens, then flopped in the recliner with the laptop for the afternoon. I got paged into work a little early and worked from 4PM til 7AM this morning. I lifted on the way home, walked the dog and crashed like a rock. And just about 3PM on the dot, here I am. LOL For the most part I feel rested and I think it sounds worse, or even appears worse than it actually feels. Just odd that I can't go back to sleep like I could in the past. Scott

About once per month. I am a rotating shift worker and when my Tues-Wed-Thurs night rotation comes around I fast. I will eat either Monday night or Tuesday morning and then fast into the weekend. It lands between 72 and 96 with my longest being a 7-day water fast. Scott

I did in the beginning. I went to youtube and made an electrolyte solution but that has faded in time. I now mix up several different salts in a plastic bowl, hake and then use as table salt. When I fast for more than 72 hours I eat it by a few pinches here and there throughout the day. I don't put the salt in my water because I don't like the taste. Scott

Always a fan when people take charge of their own health. I am not anti-doctor by any means but there are so many things we turn to doctors for when the solutions are looking us in the face. Good luck as you progress. Scott

I have read numerous articles and testimonials about the mental clarity that comes from the cleaner diet. My interest has sort of been piqued as of late because I am not sleeping through the day or the night. The first few months of carnivore I didn't really have tons of energy per se, but it was like just having a steady supply. I was getting more done during the day, at least more than before, and my sleep actually improved. (Lifelong shift worker, rotating 12-hour shifts both days and nights so my sleep patterns are far from normal. I sleep much better during the day than the night and my sleep is 9-3/3:30 day or night.) I have not had the 'mental clarity' I have read about. The closest thing is that when I wake up, I am up, and there is no going back to sleep. I am not what has changed as of late but my 3 or 3:30 has shifted back to 'before 3' and there is no going back to sleep. Been up for awhile now and this seems to be my new norm. Yesterday I had what felt like a really good workout between 5AM and 7AM. I carried my mom to an appointment and home by 9:30. Fed animals, hauled a week's worth of garbage to the dump (two houses), put brakes on the back of my buddy's car, pulled my son's dishwasher out to replace a diverter motor, walked their dog for about a mile or so, fed the baby so my daughter-in-law could walk the other dogs, and then pulled the dishwasher again last night to ohm check the motor when he brought the meter home. I ate two chuck steaks and the day sort of caught up with me. I was dog tired after eating and could barely hold my eyes open at 8PM. I made it to just about nine and went to bed. I slept like a rock til 2:30 or so, and here I am. For the last month or so I have tried everything I can think of to go back to sleep but as I said, when I wake up, I am up, like, my eyes open and my feet hit the floor. Ready for the day, except it is the middle of the night. LOL The sleep itself is good, and I wake up rested and feel charged. It is like my clock has shifted and my new bedtime is 8, and sometimes like 7. Noting has really changed as of late that I can think of that would trigger a change in sleep patterns, especially after having them engrained over the last 35 years. This is how I end up being one of the weirdos in the gym at 4:30 in the morning. LOL Scott

Glad its back. I was starting to have withdrawals. LOL Scott

I would imagine if there happened to be a couple dollars involved, we should not be surprised. Scott

I should have taken a picture. I ate fried catfish tonight. The first fried food I have had since May '24. It was battered in corn meal and fried in lard. I thought I would give it a try. It was pretty good. I don't think I completely fell off the wagon, but I guess my feet did drag the ground a tad. LOL Scott

Welcome back. I lived in Silverdale and Bremerton way back when. I enjoyed my time there and never thought 'hiking' would be a thing for me. I spent most every weekend stomping thru the northwest. A tad bit rainy at times but really enjoyed my time there. Again, welcome back. Scott

I do. I think I have the best shift as far as people as well as workers. I cook for the shift on occasion as well as do pizza for the shift once every other months or so. They make me look good pretty much everyday. Scott

When switching from a standard American diet to carnivore the difference between regular meat and grass-fed meat is minimal, minimal at best. Grass-fed, free-range and organic are often used as misleading terms. I would not eliminate eggs as they are just about nature's most perfect food. I eat fish and seafood for a couple three days each month. I do agree it is an elimination diet but there is no need to eliminate chicken or pork or seafoods. As far as 'good quality meats' I hit the bo-bo sections of meat whenever I can. I'm the guy that buys up all the reduced meats in one fell swoop. Scott

Welcome. Your fat content is based on you as an individual. I tend to eat more fat than most of the popular equations on X amount of fat vs. X amount of meats. I made some snacks once that were butter and bacon. really fatty but really good. I also add butter to everything and I eat stabs of butter here and there. I too dropped more weight than I had planned and made some changes. I dropped from the 300's down to around 210 and looked sickly. I switched up and started to force myself to eat more. I remained strict on carnivore as far as food goes but I did reintroduce some sugars via protein drinks. The sugars were minimal in amounts but did trigger hunger for me which helped me gain some weight. I like dairy but dairy (for me) the milk stopped/stalled any weight loss I was experiencing. I don't drink a lot of milk but I do drink milk fairly regularly. If you are doing things to not lose weight and like milk, I would drink it sparingly to see how you do with it. The lack of energy could be any number of things. Salts and minerals could still be an issue as amounts differ per person. Experiment up and down and see if you can dial that in to fit your needs. The lack of energy could be the lack of fat or it could be the lack of total amounts eaten. Again, hard to say. I have remained strict carnivore food wise since May 2024 but I have morphed the approach in several different ways in order to make it work for me. What works for me is going for long stretches on straight red meat and then a few days of chicken or pork or fish. Eggs have been a staple from very early on as on my days off I try to eat 8-10 eggs per day. Good luck. Scott

Hunger is a weird feeling, especially when I have not felt it in quite some time. Anything close in the past year or so could be quashed with drinking water. I guess I survived. Scott

So true. Scott

I finished a 72 hour fast yesterday. I'm still not all that good at breaking the fast as I was a tad bit 'loose with the caboose' last night and sort of the same this morning. Still a work in progress, I guess. My next attempt will be fruit. I have read melons are a good choice but I can't think of any of the melon family I actually like. This one was the first one in a while that I got hungry, actually hungry, going into day #3. Most of them is a little hunger around 24-36 hours and then none afterwards. I was standing int he shift meeting at 7PM Thursday night about to starve. A co-worker who went carnivore and lost a hundred pounds last year (carnivore, fasting and has switched back to some fruits) was standing beside me and he could hear my stomach growling. I have not had a stomach growl in what seems like forever. If I had brought something to work, I would have broken the fast then, but I stuck it out. I was pretty much hungry all night. Around 3AM I went to the vending machine and the only thing remotely close to what I will eat is beef jerky and of course, that slot was empty. So, I toughed it out. At 7AM I told my co-worker I could have 'eaten the hind end out of dead skunk' and he said "that would still qualify as carnivore but he would go another route'. I broke the fast with a small portion of eggs and here we are waiting to see if I am normal again on Saturday morning. LOL Scott

I don't disagree or nor could I debate the article. People who eat meat have cancer is a true statement. People who eat beef fat have heart failure. People who eat salt have high blood pressure. People who eat a heavy protein diet have kidney failure-renal disease. And now people who eat peanut butter could end up with colon cancer. All these are true statements. The details and the other life choices played a factor too, and from my perspective, even a bigger factor than beef or fat or salt or 'peanut butter' as a stand-along cause. Scott

I am the biggest fan of those who take their health into their own hands. Mr. Pauls I think your approach and your story could be an inspiration to others. It is not like you jumped off a cliff with your plan as it seems well thought out with a methodical approach. Very sensible. Very effective. Great work. Enjoy these steps as successes. Keep stacking them up. Scott

For my sake, the mounds of grape jelly neutralized the risks with peanut butter. I have eaten more than my fair share. Scott

Dr. Chaffee has a video and pretty much says if you are eating once per day on carnivore there is no need to "fast". And then others don't call it 'intermittent fasting' but choose the term 'time restrictive eating'. I would guess going twenty hours apart it would not make much difference between one larger meal or two smaller meals. And then it depends on the goals. If fasting is being done for weight loss then OMAD with 20+ hours between should serve the purpose, especially if the OMAD is the carnivore/low to zero carb approach. The metabolic benefits require some longer fasts. So far all the changes I have made have been relatively easy. I switched to carnivore cold turkey and didn't experience any cravings for all the crap I was eating before. When I tried fasting, I didn't have any issues going past 24, nor 48 and then 72 hours. No issues doing 96 hours and have done one 7-day water fast. My biggest issue with fasting is how to break the fast. I have not figured that out at all. I have tried smaller meals, broths/soups, eggs, what feels like everything but fruits. (read about the benefits of melons recently but have not tried it) The first thing I eat gives me really loose stools for a day or so afterwards. I just woke up from night shift and I am about 52-53 hours into this fast. Feel great. I had a solid lift this morning at the gym after work. Although I only slept from 10AM to 3PM I feel well rested. I'm going to lift again in the morning and then figure out when and how I break the fast from there. Big fan of fasting. And if someone made this same post some two years ago I would think they were as full of it as a Christmas turkey. It makes no sense to be energetic and feel great from "not eating". I have found the more I read and experiment with fasting how little I actually knew about things before. Scott

You are spot on. Even what most consider big results started with something small. No one ever lost a 50-100 pounds on carnivore until they lost the first one. If we do the math on long we were in need of this meat healing and then compare to however long it takes once eating the proper human diet, things can move really quickly. Congrats on your progress. Anytime the needle moves to the positive is a win. The size of the win will always be relative. Congrats. Scott

I think a lot of people go the 16:8 route. I have never had insulin nor blood glucose issues (never got over a 100 til carnivore, go figure?) If the circadian rhythm is factored and the normal dawn effect with blood sugar, an early breakfast sets the tone for insulin resistance the rest of the day. For me, if I am eating breakfast I make it much later in the morning, more like lunch time. I have read 16:8 is more effective if the 16 is from later at night til midafternoon. Personally, I have used OMAD form of fasting, and my longest was 7 days. I'm back on nights this week. I ate last night and will eat again this weekend, maybe Friday or Saturday. I'm a big fan of the fast. At this point it is all about the healing and the life longevity it provides. Weight loss is just a "lil' bonus". Scott

Experiment in a forward moving path. Figure out what works for you. I quit drinking 20+ years ago. Either I was really getting good at it or I was totally regressing. I got blistered drunk. A deer ran out in front my wife's new car and I couldn't get out to check on the things. Basically, I said, "Let it roll" and I didn't hear anything, so we drove home. When we got home her door would not open and she had to crawl over me to get out. Later that night my son got really sick and had to go to the hospital with a fever. I was still drunk in the car. I have never felt lower. I stopped cold turkey that next morning. Never wanted another drop. When I switched to carnivore, I went cold turkey and didn't have any of the sugar cravings others have experienced (just lucky, I guess). Since I have not drank in a lot of years I have had none of those cravings. I can't really speak to those with experience. My only advice would be try to plug something healthier into those cravings. If you can skip one, and then in time skip two, they should get further and further apart, until you no longer have that load to carry. Best of luck. Not much help. Scott

There is a guy at our gym who is what he calls part-time carnivore-part-time keto and sometimes whatever he wants. He uses carnivore like a tool much the same as a hammer or a wrench. He will go three or four months on a strict carnivore diet and reap those benefits and from there he eases into a keto-type diet by reintroducing certain things to his diet. From there he morphs into some bad eating habits. When the bad eating habits come back around and he adds a few pounds he switches back to a strict carnivore diet. He has done this for the last few years. I can see where it would work for a lot of people. We laughed because we both agreed that we can dig a hole with a hammer but there are better tools out there. He is the first person I met that purposely starts and stops carnivore with a reason in mind. Scott