Hi to all,

New to the community (as of Oct 2, 2025) and oh so frustrated. I hope y'all can help.

63 y/o morbidly obese female with AFib, autoimmune flags, and blood clotting disorder. Next week will be 90 days since I started the carnivore lifestyle (with a few times having macadamia nuts, avocados while traveling with no other food choices) and I am so discouraged. I've only lost 16 pounds and truly have stayed strict to no sugars (read labels, etc.), no carbs (the nut and avocado days were still under 10 grams of carbs), only meats, heavy cream (read label, clean, organic) in tea for breakfast. I cook eggs in butter, have bacon with eggs on weekends for brunch time, but generally have shifted to 1-1.5 meals a day for 6 weeks or so, now.

I am so baffled. And, to be honest, I am not a huge fan of meat to start with (hahahaaa) so this is REALLY becoming hard for me.

Blood panels are excellent (outside of the rising LDL of 202, total cholesterol of 282) but I am still exhausted, brain-foggy, and needing to understand what I am doing wrong? I have searched and searched...
Not looking forward to my cardio appt later this month.

Thanks for enduring the whine. I believe in what I am learning about nutrient dense, animal based nutrition. I just am starting to wonder if my personal chemistry agrees?

Patience may be the hardest part. I will only speak for me, but I pounded my body for a lot of years with a dumpster diet and weighed well over 300lbs. I lost weight rather quickly and seen some positives before I even knew they were coming but it took six-plus months before my blood panels (auto-immune markers) began to move. I was not very patient with my progress once the progress started, if that makes any sense at all.

Here are the three things I had to do early on.

1. Eat more and make sure the fat content was higher. I struggle to eat enough now after 17 months. One steak and I am good til the next day, or even longer. So sometimes I feel like I need to eat just to be eating.

2. Hydration and electrolytes. I only eat meats, salts and water but early on I didn't add salt or electrolytes like I should, and I paid for it with being unexpectedly tired and just didn't have the get up and go at all. Once I figured out salt and electrolytes the energy returned. Not like crazy, off the wall type energy but a steady state of sustained energy.

3. Sleep. I still struggle here. I sleep really well since carnivore but I am a life-long shift worker with erratic sleep schedules. Since carnivore when I wake up, I wake up and there is no going back to sleep so if that is 1AM, then 1AM is the start of my day. I feel like I often fall short on sleep.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Scott

Welcome! Although I lost initial weight relatively fast, weight loss has not been quick for myself or the other member in my family also doing this. But it has been slow and steady, which gives my skin a chance to recover better as well as I lose the weight. I understand slower weight loss is also less muscle loss so that's a bonus too. I eat strictly to carnivore except for coffee with heavy cream (no other cheats or other snacks). I had to find a balance of protein to fat and salt that worked better for me and adjust the amount I was eating to lose weight. I also discovered I handle animal meat fat better than butter and we are moving to a better quality of the butter we do use as they arent all the same. Most days I eat one meal and I try not to eat after about 4 PM as when I eat seems to matter. I have gone through a number of plateaus where weight loss slowed or even stopped, but I was also going through body repair and I noticed my shape and muscles were changing as well. I have lost 33 lbs to date and my old clothes hang on me. Very encouraging. I do supplement with things like D, potassium, magnesium and zinc just because of many years of processed foods and sugar compromising my ability to absorb nutrients, but plan to see if I can gradually phase that out. My activity is increasing as I feel lighter and better which will definitely improve everything all round. I'm at about 7 months and I expect to be at my first main weight goal and health goal realistically at a 1.5 years given my age and state of health. This has definitely been an exercise in patience for me, but the positives have been nothing short of wonderful. Well worth it. I'm not going back to the other way of eating. So with some experimentation I hope you can discover what works best for you.

On 10/2/2025 at 10:33 PM, Scott F. said:

Patience may be the hardest part. I will only speak for me, but I pounded my body for a lot of years with a dumpster diet and weighed well over 300lbs. I lost weight rather quickly and seen some positives before I even knew they were coming but it took six-plus months before my blood panels (auto-immune markers) began to move. I was not very patient with my progress once the progress started, if that makes any sense at all.

Here are the three things I had to do early on.

1. Eat more and make sure the fat content was higher. I struggle to eat enough now after 17 months. One steak and I am good til the next day, or even longer. So sometimes I feel like I need to eat just to be eating.

2. Hydration and electrolytes. I only eat meats, salts and water but early on I didn't add salt or electrolytes like I should, and I paid for it with being unexpectedly tired and just didn't have the get up and go at all. Once I figured out salt and electrolytes the energy returned. Not like crazy, off the wall type energy but a steady state of sustained energy.

3. Sleep. I still struggle here. I sleep really well since carnivore but I am a life-long shift worker with erratic sleep schedules. Since carnivore when I wake up, I wake up and there is no going back to sleep so if that is 1AM, then 1AM is the start of my day. I feel like I often fall short on sleep.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Scott

On 10/2/2025 at 10:33 PM, Scott F. said:

Patience may be the hardest part. I will only speak for me, but I pounded my body for a lot of years with a dumpster diet and weighed well over 300lbs. I lost weight rather quickly and seen some positives before I even knew they were coming but it took six-plus months before my blood panels (auto-immune markers) began to move. I was not very patient with my progress once the progress started, if that makes any sense at all.

Here are the three things I had to do early on.

1. Eat more and make sure the fat content was higher. I struggle to eat enough now after 17 months. One steak and I am good til the next day, or even longer. So sometimes I feel like I need to eat just to be eating.

2. Hydration and electrolytes. I only eat meats, salts and water but early on I didn't add salt or electrolytes like I should, and I paid for it with being unexpectedly tired and just didn't have the get up and go at all. Once I figured out salt and electrolytes the energy returned. Not like crazy, off the wall type energy but a steady state of sustained energy.

3. Sleep. I still struggle here. I sleep really well since carnivore but I am a life-long shift worker with erratic sleep schedules. Since carnivore when I wake up, I wake up and there is no going back to sleep so if that is 1AM, then 1AM is the start of my day. I feel like I often fall short on sleep.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Scott

Thank you, Scott. It did help!

On 10/3/2025 at 10:08 AM, Copper said:

Welcome! Although I lost initial weight relatively fast, weight loss has not been quick for myself or the other member in my family also doing this. But it has been slow and steady, which gives my skin a chance to recover better as well as I lose the weight. I understand slower weight loss is also less muscle loss so that's a bonus too. I eat strictly to carnivore except for coffee with heavy cream (no other cheats or other snacks). I had to find a balance of protein to fat and salt that worked better for me and adjust the amount I was eating to lose weight. I also discovered I handle animal meat fat better than butter and we are moving to a better quality of the butter we do use as they arent all the same. Most days I eat one meal and I try not to eat after about 4 PM as when I eat seems to matter. I have gone through a number of plateaus where weight loss slowed or even stopped, but I was also going through body repair and I noticed my shape and muscles were changing as well. I have lost 33 lbs to date and my old clothes hang on me. Very encouraging. I do supplement with things like D, potassium, magnesium and zinc just because of many years of processed foods and sugar compromising my ability to absorb nutrients, but plan to see if I can gradually phase that out. My activity is increasing as I feel lighter and better which will definitely improve everything all round. I'm at about 7 months and I expect to be at my first main weight goal and health goal realistically at a 1.5 years given my age and state of health. This has definitely been an exercise in patience for me, but the positives have been nothing short of wonderful. Well worth it. I'm not going back to the other way of eating. So with some experimentation I hope you can discover what works best for you.

Thank you for the feedback! ❤️

5.3 lbs of weight lose per month, sounds perfect to me. Calculate the amount of time it took to become morbidly obese, then calculate the amount of time it will take to loose that weight at 5.3 pounds per month. good job keep going!!

On 10/2/2025 at 12:29 PM, GodsKid said:

Next week will be 90 days since I started the carnivore lifestyle (with a few times having macadamia nuts, avocados while traveling with no other food choices) and I am so discouraged.

So for starters, don't worry about that occasional macadamia nut or avocado. Those are harmless in small quantities and certainly hasn't done anything to derail your efforts. They were still keto so you're good, and they were back out of your system in no time.

On 10/2/2025 at 12:29 PM, GodsKid said:

I've only lost 16 pounds

That averages 5+ lbs per month, which is actually really good. Oftentimes we see a fast initial drop due to shedding water weight because you're depleting all your carbHYDRATE stores, and then it slows down to 1-2 lbs a week. Sometimes we hit plateaus where the scale doesn't move, but healing or body recomposition is taking place. Weight loss resumes after a while. You have to keep doing what you are doing. I would not call it a "stall" unless you haven't seen the scale budge in 3 months.

In the meantime, let carnivore become your identity. This is your lifestyle now. You only eat animal products.

On 10/2/2025 at 12:29 PM, GodsKid said:

have stayed strict to no sugars (read labels, etc.)... only meats, heavy cream (read label, clean, organic) in tea for breakfast. I cook eggs in butter, have bacon with eggs on weekends for brunch time, but generally have shifted to 1-1.5 meals a day for 6 weeks or so, now.

What times do you eat? What time to you go to bed and wake up? And are you undereating?

Intermittent fasting is a great idea. If I could, every day I would eat at noon and then again at 7pm. I go to bed at midnight (I am up past my bedtime tonight, lol). I try to make sure I don't eat within 4 hours of going to sleep, and that I don't eat immediately upon waking up (typically 7-8am). Sometimes circumstances are that I eat breakfast and dinner but skip lunch.

I aim for around 2000-2500 calories, split between 2 meals. My thinking is to take the amount I would normally have eaten across 3 meals, and eat the same amount between 2 meals. In other words, these 2 meals are a little larger than before because I am taking half my 3rd meal and redistributing it to those other 2 meals.

I am trying to avoid routinely undereating. It's okay to under eat or fast from time to time, but when you make it a habit, your body will adapt and slow down your metabolism because it thinks there's a shortage or famine.

You can also test some things on yourself. For example, try eliminating the heavy cream (or any other dairy) for a week or two. Remember milk, by design, is intended to add bulk to a young calf.

If you are using any kind of artificial sweetener, it could be triggering a cephalic phase insulin response. This happens to some people even with diet drinks, so avoid such diet drinks throughout the day and only have them with a meal (which is going to trigger an insulin response anyway).

And then like Scott said, you can test different fat:protein ratios, and aim to get quality sleep. A lot of maintenance is done while you are asleep. And then when you wake up, go empty and weight yourself then as this will be the most accurate, before you start adding the weight of food and drink (and clothing).