And I started levitating.
No I’m kidding. But the results were annoyingly positive.
Why would a positive result be annoying you ask? Because I have an insanely unhealthy addiction to food. So I knew this wouldn’t last forever. But to counteract my disgusting behaviour, I don’t mind doing temporary diets and fasting every now and again if it means I can eat the way I do every other time.
Define carnivore –
People have different interpretations of the diet but when I say carnivore, I mean land and sea animal meat and eggs. I do believe the main carnivore diet however is just any animal product so that includes milk, butter, honey, etc. But I had a small window and a goal so I was going strictly protein and fats from seafood, meat and eggs. And a little bit of butter for cooking.
Did I feel like crap before I felt better?
No. But that’s because I was properly informed and did the right things. Sometimes people have a drop in energy, maybe get a headache or feel dizzy when they switch to carnivore and yeah you’d think its from the lack of carbs/fuel but what’s really happening is when your body has no carbs, there’s no insulin spike and it doesn’t hold on to as much water. When your body excretes water, it excretes all the electrolytes with it – meaning if you haven’t made an adjustment to your water/electrolyte intake, this is going to make you feel like crap. Electrolytes are like little sparks of electricity which gives you energy, now imagine you’ve depleted yourself of these sparks of electricity; you will feel low energy and fatigued and wondering why you switched to carnivore [or keto since this happens on diets like that too].
So how did I combat this inevitable downside to the carnivore diet? I increased my electrolyte intake immensely. I added salt to my water and extra salt to all my cooking. As I said, I included eggs as part of this diet and was eating about 4-5 a day [which is actually how much I eat even when i’m off the diet so that wasn’t so out of the ordinary]. On a side note, eggs are the most nutrient dense and cheap sorce of protein.
Egg yolks contain Sodium, Potassium and Phosphorus [among other vitamins/minerals] but these are all types of electrolytes, so with the 5 runny yolks, salt in my water and cooking seasoning my meat with salt, I was in the clear. I also doubled up on my magnesium supplements just to make sure I was covering all my bases. So if you aren’t already supplementing magnesium, this is another source of electrolytes you can take advantage of. I had no energy adjustment period. I still had my black coffee in the morning like I always do and didn’t feel the need to have another midday. So salt is your friend!! Especially on a carnivore diet. And lots of water.
The benefits
So what were the benefits? I felt fricking amazing. My mood was so much better and mind you, I have a pretty happy disposition as a default. I’m genuinely very grateful, I love my life and reply “always good” when someone asks how I am. Not because I don’t have bad days or negative thoughts, I am human. But because I appreciate small things and that’s usually enough for me to focus my attention on even when shit hits the fan. And the comforting fact that no feeling lasts forever so if I am going through something, I know it will eventually come to an end; and that’s just from experience.
So to have the feeling like I had just had 3 coffees and jumped out an ice bath mid day was kind of special. And as motivated and dedicated as someone can be to certain goals or even just every day crap thats’s gotta be done, you still have the dreaded voice in your head that says “I just can’t be bothered”, and then you do it anyway because that’s important and that’s life. When I was eating carnivore, the voice still came but I could overcome it so much easier. There was no back and forth dialogue, arguing with myself to get the thing done. I just did it. I found even at training, I’d be grappling and during exchanges where the voice of “ugh i’m being defeated” came in to play, it was just easier to ignore…
Weird right? I still think so. Could it be placebo? Possibly. Could it be the lack of processed crap I was putting in my body which just made all my main functions respond better? Definitely. Maybe it was even the increase in electrolytes, giving me more energy and brain power. I don’t know but what I do know is it felt great and I think we all need a little body reset from time to time.
Another thing is when you don’t have carbs, that retched voice telling you “keep eating, you’re not full”, goes away. Its amazing when you give yourself enough nutrients, your mind knows when to stop. The more empty calories you feed yourself, you feel full but man your mind can trick you into thinking you need more. Well on carnivore, there is nothing fighting you. You eat your protein, you get your vitamins and minerals, and just like that, you’re satiated. So that and being in a ketogenic state, I also lost about 4 kilos over a somewhat 7-10 days.
How did I go back to normal eating?
After the 5 days, I started introducing other fats that weren’t animal based like nuts, nut butter, avocado, greek yogurt. This I guess put me in ketogenic state so I kept burning fat and my energy still felt up. I also had added little bit of carbs like berries and honey, but not enough to give me any insulin spike. That was over about 2 days then from then I just kept adding more unprocessed carbs like rice, oats, nanas, madarines, etc. Just to not give my body a complete shock otherwise I’d feel like crap and like I’d reversed all those beneficial effects.
Takeaways
- Try it at some point, just to give your body a break from all the crap we pump it with. Think of your body like a vehicle. Imagine you’ve been fuelling it with E10 petrol your whole life. Then carnivore is like flushing the whole system and replacing it with premium petrol. It doesn’t have to last forever, its just nice to reset the system from time to time
- If you try carnivore, make sure you’re getting a sufficient amount of electrolytes. Add salt, eat yolks, take magnesium supplements.
- If you decide to come off the diet, I would recommend introducing healthy fats first then slowly adding in carbs just so you don’t feel a full crash and bloating
Its been about 3 weeks since I did carnivore and I’m back to normal eating but I now have the motivation again to make my healthy versions of unhealthy things. Like protein snacks and just making more of my own food in general. I still eat crap when its in front of me, but being on that diet gave me the motivation to balance it out again like I had in the past. Balance is key I guess. I just can’t believe how long it took me to get back to caring again. Amazing how much diet makes an impact! I will try carnivore again, probably for longer than a 5 days but at this present moment in time, I wanna eat and I wanna eat carbs.
Ah food…