so i feel pretty lousy after i eat. i do eat a big carnivore meal, with one piece of fruit (under 50 grams of carbs). so my insulin is ok. but the post food coma is too much. this causes me to drink alcohol, as i have a difficult time sitting with discomfort.

Then eliminate that which may be causing this reaction…fruit. It’s not so much the carb but what the carb does to you. Fruit contains fructose. Fructose is not like most sugars because it goes directly to your liver where it is metabolized quicker. Fructose is not used to feed cells directly. It is taken up by the liver, where it is broken down, and stored or used much like glucose.

You might also try eating smaller meals instead of so much at once. Break them up throughout the day. I used to eat just one meal a day and it would be very large but I’d be worthless afterwards.

yeah geezy i feel pretty worthless after doing omad. i'm gonna try 2mad and see how i fair. although i really don't like eating meat more than once a day but i can try eggs for my second meal. i do ok with eggs and maybe a small amount of cheese on top.

Sometimes I think the fact we are not all the same gets lost when looking what carnivore has done for others and hoping about what it will do.

As Geezy suggested, try a different approach. Maybe two smaller meals will work better for you.

If the fruit is serving the purpose of a snack or something in between meals you can replace it with some sort of meat snack. In my first few months I would have a couple burgers or some bacon in the refrigerator. Thise will work in a pinch and will do no harm.

And if it has to be something in the family of fruits and vegetables then maybe something like an avocado or something similar.

It is much better to find what works for you than modeling your approach after another. I have changed a number of times since May '24, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad. It is like I have been dialing in since the start.

Good luck. Keep plugging away. The goal is to figure out your path.

Scott

thanks scott. at my best i was able to do carnivore plus fasting for 5 or 6 days in a row and i felt pretty good. but by the weekend i'd always want to celebrate with sugar and alcohol. not sure why, other than the fact that both carnivore and fasting create a lot of stress on my body.

For me, fasting is an interruption to my rhythm. My body does best with a constant rhythm.

20 hours ago, mpolyglottos said:

i really don't like eating meat more than once a day

I can relate. Meats and fats can keep me satiated for a long time and I sometimes have to eat even though I’m not very hungry because I know I haven’t eaten enough for the day. Keep up the good work.

Yes indeed. OMAD would be the most convenient but it’s hard to pull off. Eating twice a day seems the best for my rhythm.

I think we can all start on the same path but the true successes will see us splinter off down our individual paths.

If I eat 14-16oz. steak I do no want to even look at food til the next day, much less eat it.

What I found is that when I reintroduced sugar (by accident/semi-accident) I found it triggered hunger. The sugars that are in the protein drinks I use help me eat a second meal. The second meal helps me get within striking distance of my protein goals.

Sometimes my OMAD turned into One Meal Every Other Day.

I think that leads to a battle between protein curbing the hunger and the sugar triggering it. I think that battle could be deemed as a stressor

Scott.

so do you still drink protein drinks?

Yes. I use Bulk Supplement brand whey protein. On occasion I buy the Fairlife 30Gram Chocolate protein drink (I think it is 7g of sugar per bottle).

I didn't realize the sugar would have the impact it did. I went to the protein drinks/shakes because I could not eat anywhere near 200 grams of protein in a day.

When others would talk about eating 2lbs, and even more, in a meal I was blown away. There was a stretch when 2lbs could last me three days. I am sort of jealous. LOL

The sugar has spiked my appetite but not to the point I can consistently hit the protein target for muscle growth. Since I can't get there with food I choke down a protein shake here and there to boos my daily protein.

Thus far the appetite is still what would be considered carnivore and the drinks have not gave me any cravings for more sugar.

Scott

On 2/14/2026 at 1:54 PM, mpolyglottos said:

yeah geezy i feel pretty worthless after doing omad. i'm gonna try 2mad and see how i fair. although i really don't like eating meat more than once a day but i can try eggs for my second meal. i do ok with eggs and maybe a small amount of cheese on top.

2MAD is my preferred pattern.

If possible, I like to wait several hours after waking up to eat, and then I will have eggs and a breakfast meat. About 7 hours later the wife and I will have dinner and this is quite commonly 1 lb or more of beef, although I also enjoy chicken, fish, seafood, etc here and there because I have a need for some variety.

If I end up having meal #1 early, then mid-day I will likely have some pork rinds or beef jerky as a hold-me-over.

On 2/14/2026 at 10:45 AM, mpolyglottos said:

i do eat a big carnivore meal, with one piece of fruit (under 50 grams of carbs)... this causes me to drink alcohol

I think these 2 statements are related. The fruit isn't to blame for the food coma, but the sweet addictiveness of fructose makes it easier to crave the addictiveness of alcohol. The bad news is that the body will bounce out of ketosis (fat burning) to prioritize metabolizing the alcohol first, followed by the fructose, and you will struggle to become firmly fat adapted.

I would recommend pure carnivore for a set period of time (like 90 days or so). Then at a later time if you want to reintroduce an occasional fruit or rare sip of alcohol, that's your prerogative. At that time you may have gotten mastery over it and will be less inclined to cave into having it all the time.

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

that's very interesting. it doesn't look like i can do carnivore indefinitely. i just keep reaching for sugar and alcohol. although i did recently procure some magic mushrooms. if i can successfully microdose that, then i might not need to reach for sugar and booze in the evenings. my goal is just to feel good. not great but good enough that i don't need beer to forget about all of my problems. we will see i guess.

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

On 2/16/2026 at 1:48 PM, mpolyglottos said:

it doesn't look like i can do carnivore indefinitely.

And I don't think anyone really has to. Sure, many choose to, but there's nothing wrong with those who treat carnivore as an elimination diet and then later reintroduce other foods.

Part of the reason for using carnivore as an elimination diet is to heal and gain mastery over those tendencies to rely on sugar or alcohol or other substances. The hard part, and for some this is really really hard, is abstaining long enough to reap the benefits. I still drank alcohol on occasion even on carnivore - precisely once a month when we went out for Open Mic Night or Karaoke. But over time, I lost my desire for it, and haven't drank in months (plus with my kidney disease even a little alcohol gives me major side effects).

But during my first year, if I deviated, it became clear I was an addict. After 6 months on carnivore my wife wanted me to taste some pumpkin bread because it was my mother's recipe. That one bite had me jonesing for more, and I am talking shaking hands and insatiable cravings and feelings of hunger, even though I had just had dinner. It was a weird, surreal experience that I never felt before.

However, now that I am almost 3 years in, a single bite of pumpkin bread doesn't phase me. It's like I am immune now.

The only reason I tell this story is because I believe that the same thing would happen for you with sugar and alcohol..... in time, that is.