Today is the first day of January and is also the first day of World Carnivore Month. To that end, let's challenge ourselves to eat a carnivore diet for the entire month of January. The type of carnivore diet and the level of strictness you choose to do is entirely up to you. Examples of carnivore diets include the following...
1) The Lion Diet. A person eating the Lion Diet only consumes the flesh of ruminant animals, water, and salt.
2) The BBBE Diet. BBBE is an acronym for Beef, Butter, Bacon, and Eggs.
3) The Carnivore Diet. This allows for the consumption of any and all animals and animal by-products, including dairy.
In any of the above examples, the object of course is to not consume any plants as part of your diet. Of course, we're not going to micromanage hoe you prepare your food, so your use of seasonings is entirely your own personal choice.
IF your circumstances don't allow you to go full on carnivore in January, then you can participate in this topic by challenge yourself to do better, above and beyond what you have been doing. For example, if you have still been eating grains, seed oils, refined sugar, or drinking alcohol, challenge yourself to avoid these items and just eat a clean, single ingredient whole foods diet such as clean keto, ketovore, or animal based.
We encourage you to check in daily, and share what you have eaten, perhaps a weigh-in if you're willing, and enjoy in some small talk. Participants in this topic will be entered into a drawing for a prize at the end of the month.
I'm wondering what's going on because in general, I've had very positive results, until now.
I started eating this way at the end of November last year. I'm doing carnivore during the week and ketovore on the weekends, adding a few low carb, low oxalate vegetables and berries. I'm not strict carnivore, and still use herbs and spices, small amounts of dairy and drink one cup of tea a day. I use Stevia and Erythritol.
I came to this diet already grain free and sugar free, and still in recovery from an iatrogenic toxic nervous system injury over 10 years ago which had left me with a CFS type chronic illness and lots of intermittent issues from inflammation, metabolic syndrome and most likely pre-diabetic, I have about 60 lbs to lose, but health is my priority.
First few days of eating this way were great, then I went through the 2 week transition, keto flu stage, with some psychological bumps, then back to feeling great until I got a cold/flu, which lasted about 5 days. Then 2 weeks of feeling amazing with heaps of energy, motivation and very fast healing of things which normally take a long time. I started exercising regularly and was speeding through my chores every day, cognitively better than I had been in a long time. The list of improvements in my physical and mental health is too long to write.....but....
I started feeling awful exactly 1 week ago:
Not sleeping properly, fatigue during the day, low mood, irritability, anxiety, temperature dysregulation, sinus inflammation came back, eye floaters came back and got worse, eye itching and leaking came back, joint pain came back, brain fog came back, virus issues flared up, none of this is new, it's old issues coming back with a vengeance after they had got a lot better or completely gone.
I have stuck with the diet, but due to fatigue I haven't been able to keep up with my new exercise routine and have only been able to drag myself out to walk every other day, rather than daily.
There are 2 things which could possibly be causing this, but I don't know and would love some input from others who have been doing this longer than me.
Last weekend, a week ago, I 'accidently' ate some wheat on Saturday and Sunday, it was in a shop bought meatloaf, I had in the freezer. I hadn't read the ingredients list. I had been grain free even before going carnivore, so this might have been too much for my system to handle?? But would the effects of this last this long?
Also, I'm fairly sure I'm having oxalate dumping issues, and these are ongoing, could this be causing a recurrence of old symptoms? At first it was, and still is presenting as skin issues, but now all these other symptoms are arising. I'm trying to include a few low oxalate foods, especially on the weekends, to slow down the dumping, it's difficult to know what to do or what to eat in order to manage this.
Is it normal to experience ups and downs when starting to eat this way, beyond the transition phase? Could eating a small amount of wheat after being wheat free cause such a big reaction? I'm so tired I'm finding it hard to drag myself off the couch again 😕 and after feeling amazing for a few weeks, it's confusing and disheartening.