Monthly Archives: May 2017

Zero Carb Interview: Elaine Anderson

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1. How long have you been eating a Zero Carb (No Plant Foods) diet?

About a year and a half.

2. What motivated you to try this way of eating? Weight? Health?

When I went carnivore, I had already been paleo for nearly 5 years, and so I had lost a lot of weight and eliminated a page-long list of health issues. But I started getting concerned because I was putting the belly fat back on again. And I was developing “little” problems – such as, swelling around my ankles. At that point, I eliminated all the high-sugar “paleo-friendly” vegetables, like eggplant, sweet potatoes, winter squash, and based my diet on meat, lower-sugar/low-starch cooked greens (collard, turnip, mustard, lambsquarters), eggs and nuts. (I had already dropped fruit a couple of years into paleo, so that wasn’t part of the problem.) And guess what happened… nothing. The belly fat just had no intention of budging.

Alarmed, I googled: ‘low carb, not losing weight’, and came across a blog called My Zero Carb Life. Ironically, it was Kelly’s post about how she GAINED weight when she first went zero carb, haha. But still, that phrase “eat meat, drink water” really engaged my attention. I started to investigate the online info, and in less than 6 weeks, I made my decision. And guess what. The belly fat is only now starting to come off, and only slowly at that. But my original motivation doesn’t really matter to me anymore. I have an abiding trust now that my body will balance and regulate itself at its own time and its own pace. And you know what else. I have not once– even for a moment– regretted the decision I made to become a carnivore.

3. How long did it take you to adapt to a Zero Carb diet, both physically and psychologically?

I didn’t have any noticeable psychological or emotional issues with the transition. From my first day as a “meataritarian”, I knew it was right for me. I loved how calm and natural I felt on the “zero sugar” way of eating. By the third day, l was explaining to friends that I felt “like I finally came home to my own body.” I vaguely missed pecans a little (great big pecan tree in the yard), especially when I would look at them–but I didn’t have any real craving.

Physically, it’s a lot harder to say. The worst part was probably the first month, and that was the frequent diarrhea. But in some respects, I think the adaptation took most of my first year. That may have something to do with my age. Or with, see below…the great coffee debacle.

4. What books or people were most influential in guiding you to this way of eating?

This website.

5. Do you eat only meat, or do you include eggs, cheese, and cream in your diet?

I don’t tolerate dairy well, not even goat’s milk products. But even if I did, I would avoid them because, for me, it’s quite an addictive food.

Eggs, I do sometimes eat, even though I’m not crazy about them, because I can get free-range eggs for $2 or less a dozen direct from the farmer. But I don’t drop my guard with them because a hen egg has a 1/4 gram of sugar.

6. What percentage of your diet is beef versus other types of meats?

It depends. When I’m in rural north Alabama–my preferred home base–venison dominates during the fall and winter. Otherwise, beef is my mainstay.

7. When you eat beef, do you cook it rare, medium, or well done?

My staple is raw, frozen hamburger patties. If I eat out, I order my steak, liver, prime rib, etc rare. If I cook beef myself, it usually ends up well done. The truth is, I’m happy with it anywhere along the spectrum from raw to burnt.

8. Do you add extra fat to your meat? (i.e. butter, lard, tallow)

I use a little duck or beef tallow, or lard, when I cook or reheat meat in the skillet. But, no, I don’t garnish my cooked meat with an extra dollop of fat, if that’s what you’re asking.

9. Do you limit your meat consumption or do you eat until satisfied?

As much as I want.
Whenever I want.
With gratitude.

10. Do you eat liver or other organ meats? If so, how often?

Yeah. I eat liver, heart, tongue, stomach, fried tripas (known in the south as chit’lins, y’all–pork gut). (And when I’m lucky enough to be in Mexico and have my own cooking capabilities, I also eat rinones de res — beef kidneys. When I was staying in Cd Cuauhtemoc, Chih, I could get them cheap, any day of the week, right there at the supermarket.) And I love marrow; some people count that as organ meat. And chicharrones (fried pig skins). I eat any of the above organ meats whenever I get the inclination, but I don’t keep track of the frequency. I just trust that when I feel the desire to eat any of these foods, it’s a signal that my body needs it at that particular time.

11. Do you consume bone broth? If so, how often?

Ummm. I do enjoy sipping a cup of hot stock on a chilly morning. So yeah, pretty often in the cooler months.

12. How many meals do you eat per day on average?

Uh…I don’t really know how to answer that. I’m retired, so I’m on nobody’s schedule but my own. Right now, I live alone, with a cat or two, so I don’t normally sit down to a meal. I just eat when I feel like it–grab a frozen patty in one hand and go on about my business with the other. Next time I think about eating, I’ll grab another patty or two, or fry up a skillet of carne picada (yummy little pieces of beef). I just don’t pay much attention to how much and how often.

13. How much meat do you eat per day on average?

Not entirely sure. I guess a little under 2 lbs.

14. Do you eat grass-fed/pasture-raised meat, or regular commercially produced meat?

I like the taste of grassfed hamburger meat and make that as big of a percentage of my total meat as I can. Beyond grass-fed, grain-free, or pastured, though, I would eat only wild meat if it was practical. But it’s not always possible.

15. Do you drink any beverages besides water? (i.e. coffee, tea)

I once adored coffee: bold, black, bitter coffee. I had been off of it for five years, but my newly meatatarian body was functioning so efficiently…that I got a little too cocky and boldly walked right back into my former addiction. My body went into a tailspin then, and it took me months of floundering around (experimenting with things like intermittent fasting) in my misguided attempts to correct all the residual health problems I had caused myself.

As you may have guessed from my answer to question 2, I have a tendency toward severe non-diabetic insulin resistance. I found out the hard way that coffee triggers insulin resistance, and the less sugar you consume, the greater the impact! Something to think about if you have ever had symptoms of metabolic syndrome.

Look, some people apparently can drink coffee with impunity; I’m not one of them.

Bottom line that I learned from all this: eat meat, drink water, relax. Really, relax. Quit trying to tweak your way out of your mistakes; your meatatarian body is a lot smarter about itself than your intellect is, so just give it meat, get out of its way, and let it figure out the rest by itself.

My ‘coffee substitute’ is artemisia vulgaris (aka – mugwort, sweat lodge tea, river sage, etc). It’s one of the first weeds to come up in the early spring. And it’s bitter enough to keep me happy.

In the summer, I also like to plop a cone or two of staghorn sumac berries into a gallon of cool water, leave it overnight. They turn the water pink and give it a sour, lemony taste.

16. Do you use salt?

As much as I want – usually Himalayan pink.

17. Do you use spices?

Occasionally pepper. And I sometimes like to put rosemary in my meat and bone stocks. But I can take ’em or leave ’em.

18. Do you take any supplements?

No. I understand that some carnivores use mineral supplements to treat leg cramps, so I’d like to share what I learned about that.

When I first went carnivore, the leg cramps that had plagued me the whole time I was paleo…stopped!
The great coffee crash episode brought them back to me.

And I learned to banish them with acupressure. Especially effective is the point in the middle between the nose and the upper lip. Pinch that groove and hold it. The pain will almost always disappear in 30 seconds or less.

For the long term solution, I treated that one point on the face and another one on the foot (just short of where the bone of the big toe and the one beside it meet) with firm pressure for 30-60 seconds, once or twice a day, for a week or so, and the leg cramps quit bothering me.

19. How much money do you spend on food each month?

Less than I used to spend on paleo!! About $300-325, I think.

20. Do you have any tips for making this diet more affordable?

I buy my salt in bulk from the San Francisco Salt Co.Great price, free shipping and nice customer service.

If you happen to live in an area where hunting is popular, I recommend that you stop in during the fall at your nearest gamemeat processor. Ask if they keep a list of people who’d like to buy unclaimed and donated game meat, and get your name and contact info on the list. They can legally sell wild meat to you for what it costs them to process it. In north Alabama, I get venison for $2 a pound, and sometimes get stock bones for free or next to it. Also, if you are an organ meat eater, you may be able to get these items there as well.

Now, the rest of this answer below might seem slightly off-topic, or worse, ~radical~ to the ears (eyes) of some readers, and so I won’t be offended if you skip on down to number 21… in case radicality alarms you.

If you don’t already know how, I’d like to suggest trying to learn as much you can about hunting, fishing, and foraging (earthworms, grubs, black soldier fly larvae, sow bugs, etc). Nothing wrong with small and slow. If nothing else, get a book on tracking and go out to the woods and prowl around looking for tracks and sign. Or go to the lake and relax in the shade and watch someone else fish. Start somewhere, anywhere.

Sisters and brothers, this isn’t just about giving your budget a boost. It isn’t just about Survival 101. It is a spiritual lifeline to the wild and all its abundance. Nature’s benevolence intrudes even into the heart of the city, even now. Especially for those of us who’ve made the most environmentally responsible decision anyone can make— that is to walk away from the produce of the cultivated fields, the earth-rape that’s been going on since the rise of civilization. Look around you with your eyes open. The wild gives bountifully.

Look, y’all, I’m no Big Chingon great white hunter. I’m a 65 year-old, female, non-athlete. The sacred connection with the wild is open to all: urban/rural, young/old, male/female, able-bodied or not. Tyr, the ancient Norse spirit of the hunt, was said to be maimed, one-handed; think about that.

No, I’m nobody’s idea of the Big Chigon; I hunt grasshoppers. The act of killing and eating a gentle-eyed little wild being with my own hands is among the most sacred and moving experiences I’ve ever known. It’s the point where grief and gratitude become one feeling–the very Eucharist experience I imagined I was supposed to have as a child, but never quite found it there. Here is my body which is broken so that you may have life….
It’s my personal initiation into the bond of honor between the hunter and the prey: the prey offers up its own precious and well-loved little life so that the hunter may continue to live. The hunter provides for and defends the community that the prey was a part of during its life.
It’s also where I discovered that the identifying attributes of the spirit of Tyr–courage, compassion and self-sacrifice–are shared equally by both hunter and prey.

So be it.

21. Do you exercise regularly? If so, how often?

Not in the formal sense people usually mean when they say that. I feel great, my energy level is high, my stamina is steady, I love life. What does that equal for me? A lot of time outdoors, both working and playing. I also do a lot of activities by hand (like, wash & wring out my clothes, hang ’em out to dry, haul up to 5-gallon buckets of water by hand, wash dishes in the sink, wield a swing blade, etc) Things that people with a mainstream lifestyle usually do in automated mode. You know, the way I see it, people who feel full of life don’t have to be told to go buy a gym membership… For someone who enjoys gym exercise, or (of course!) for an athlete in training, by all means, let there be gyms! If not, I think a person learning to live healthy should just try to avoid too much uninterrupted sitting–continue to eat meat and drink water–and before they know it, they’ll naturally become active, simply from their abundant energy. But just because the dominant culture says you’re “supposed to” do it is no true Rx for health or happiness or weight loss. That’s my take on it.

22. What benefits have you experienced since beginning a Zero Carb diet? (i.e. recovery from illness, overall health, body composition, exercise performance, hormonal, mental or psychological, etc.)

My lifelong sensitivity to petrochemical fumes (colognes, paints, solvents, carpet glues, gasoline, etc) doesn’t KO me like it used to. And that is one thing paleo didn’t help me with at all.

I feel strong in who I am now in ways that I never did before.

My ‘narrative voice’ in creative writing is not nearly as flowery (sugary, shall we say, my friends?). It has naturally taken on a much more direct style of expression since I became zero carb.

23. What do you enjoy most about eating a Zero Carb diet?

Everything.

Others have mentioned the simplicity, the liberation from prior routines, the mental clarity, the more focused ideological perspective. Yes, yes. All of the above.

But I think for me what matters most is the still, quiet pride — the self-respect — that comes from facing life like an alert and calm warrior, without needing any cushion of carbohydrate addiction to soften the blows.

24. Do you have any advice for someone who is just beginning a Zero Carb diet?

There is no authority over your body higher than your body itself. No expert, institution, community, authority figure or goverment has the right to tell you what to put in your mouth if it contradicts the experience of your own body. Find out for yourself what works for you, and be honest with yourself about it. Then relax. Everything will be all right.

25. Are your friends and family supportive of your Zero Carb lifestyle? If not, how do you handle this?

They are, in general. For one thing, I’m Medicare age, I use no drugs–prescription, over the counter or street. Nor any supplements, and I seldom have any reason to even use herbal weeds to cure anything. I’m strong, I feel great, I look great. There’s not much they can say.
Besides, they really don’t want to get me started talking about how the amount of carbon released into the air from the time of the first plow until the beginning of the industrial age is equal to the amount released from the beginning of the industrial age until the present. Therefore, agriculture alone would have eventually brought our beloved and only home to the brink of utter disaster without the help of modern technology, so why the duck are YOU still complicit in the rape of the earth and the extinction of the wild at a rate of at least 200 species every ducking day? Why aren’t YOU a carnivore? Don’t you care? Do you want your grandchildren — not to speak of your one and only precious body — to bless your decisions? Or to curse them?

But I do sometimes happily engage with non-family and friends about zero carb, so if you find it necessary to do so, I’d suggest arming yourself with Lierre Keith’s The Vegetarian Myth. She’s an entertaining writer, and a powerful voice of reason.

If nothing else, you can hold the line with a firm but quiet little stand: “this is my body, and the decision about what goes into or out of my mouth is not for anybody else to make. End of discussion.”
Self-rule, baby, self-rule!

And if you like engaging them– or even if you don’t like it, but feel that you must — just remember, you’ve already taken the high ground. You’re the one with the mental clarity, the physical and psychological stamina and, yes, the emotional strength to have compassion on those who are still trapped where you once stood. But don’t expect anyone else to change just because they have watched your health blossom, or because you can defend your position well.

You are a threat to them. And they will try their best to re-addict you to carbs, lying to themselves that it’s out of “love and concern” for you. Even if you don’t argue with them about zero carb, you are still living proof that a person really can break free from a 10,000-year-old chain of socially-acceptable human addiction. And no matter what direct evidence they see that they too can be free, that they don’t have to continue to endure brain fog, fatigue, depression, anxiety, mental illness and disease, few of them are going to want to accept the responsibility that goes with acknowledging that it truly CAN be done. And that those who do it, thrive. Shrug your shoulders and move on — addictIon is addiction, and their choice to remain addicted is their choice. You are free. It may not be easy, and it may sometimes be lonely, but the way I see it, there is nothing more precious than personal freedom, and all the self-honesty and integrity that it takes to achieve and maintain it.

26. Is there anything you would like share about this way of eating that I have not already asked you?

Oh dear….I certainly could go on and on, but I’ve probably written quite enough already. What I have expressed here comes from my own heart, my own passions, my own opinions and my own experience, and I take full responsibility for every word. It does not necessarily reflect the ideology or thoughts of the blogger who interviewed me. It does not express the words of any medical or health professional living or dead and may not be taken as such.

I would just like to add that there’s a lot of wisdom available for everyone through Esmee and the rest of the zero carb online community. As for me, I’m no expert on anything other than my own experience, but I will say that if anyone wants to discuss further anything I’ve mentioned here — or to challenge it — do feel free to contact me at ela95126@gmail.com. Not to sound arrogant or anything, but vegans, you are also welcome to engage; I don’t care if you want to vent your venom against my choices. Rest assured, you will be neither the first nor the last in line.

May all the rest of you enjoy your carnivore adventure and become even more strong and ever more free.
And, Esmee, thank you so much for all you do for all of us.

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Please visit my “Interviews” and “Testimonials” pages linked at the top of this website to read the stories of other short and long term Zero Carbers.

If you are interested in meeting others who practice an All-Meat diet, please feel free to join us in the Facebook group “Principia Carnivora” for support.

 

Zero Carb Testimonial: Peg

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Raw Ground Beef & Raw Suet

Hello Esmee,

Reading through the testimonials on your blog helped me a great deal when I decided to take the plunge into zero carb eating and, if you are open to it, I would like to share my experience thus far with your readers as there are some aspects that are quite different from other people’s experience and may help others going through similar issues as me.

I prefer to remain anonymous so no photos. You can call me Peg.

Some background:

I have chronic fatigue, and have been struggling with it for over two years (self-diagnosed; I have never been to a doctor as I didn’t believe they would be able to help me–and I can’t afford it!). It started with a complete digestive system crash and the sudden onset of a lot of food intolerances.

Basically it went like this: In the winter of 2014 I was 220 pounds (I am a 5’8” woman in my late 30s) and decided I needed to improve my health and physical fitness. I cut out sugar, processed foods, caffeine (except green tea), grains and beans and lost 30 pounds throughout the spring. In the summer I started doing bodyweight exercises and moved into weight training by fall. I had dropped 70 pounds total, gained muscle I never had before and basically felt the best I ever had in my life.

After I started seriously weight training I got cocky about my progress and robust health and returned to eating some of the things I had previously given up, telling myself that it was ok, I would just work it off in the gym. It started with ice cream a couple times a week and moved into bread, cookies, pie, cake and other treats. For brevity; over the winter I began to experience more and more fatigue and frequent bouts of constipation and bloating (that became so extreme I looked three months pregnant!). I wrote this all off as the effects of winter, being cold, less sun, etc. and wouldn’t even have noticed a pattern to it all if I hadn’t been journaling my workouts and day-to-day feelings at the time (and even then, I only recognized the pattern when I re-read them months later).

In February, after a family celebration where I said “screw it” and ate whatever I wanted because I was feeling pretty crappy already (bloated, constipated, run-down) my entire digestive system crashed. I will omit the details for brevity sake, but suffice it to say, I was suddenly struck with major food intolerances and had an extremely limited diet for quite a few weeks until I was able to have a somewhat-less-limited diet that has subsequently remained pretty limited these past 2+ years.

I had to sleep early at night and nap during the day. My mind was foggy and unclear most of the time. I lost all the muscle I had build up as any exertion at all exhausted me for days. Over the past couple of years I have gone through waves of improvement and then crashes. I took supplements, herbs, teas and amino acids by the boatload. With all the supplements I wound up feeling good this past winter (it is early May as I write this) and got cocky again and thought I could eat sweets. I crashed badly and set myself all the way back to the beginning, giving me a really bad summer and a difficult winter struggling to pull myself back out of the pit of fatigue and weakness.

In late January I decided I would reset my digestive system by fasting, which turned into a fresh juice fast for 2 weeks (because my body simply couldn’t tolerate having no food at all). It helped considerably and I started feeling better but started to experience some extreme hunger so started eating again. I tried to add food back slowly but soon found myself overeating and consuming around 3000-4000 calories a day. And my digestion was failing again.

By early March I had learned about low carb high fat and started adjusting my diet to cut back on the sugar I was consuming with all the fruit/juice. I ate mostly ground turkey, eggs, cheese (I hadn’t been able to digest beef well for months), chicken fat and skin, bacon and bacon fat, coconut oil and salad greens with occasional small amounts of fruit. I realized the fruit was making me hungrier and causing me to overeat so I did more research and came across some information on zero carb and found Amber O’Hearn’s and Esmee’s blogs, and was especially impressed by the Anderson family (I had to find it using the Wayback Machine!) and Kelly Hogan’s blog. The information I learned in the stories I read struck a chord in me and I knew this is what I needed to do.

Zero carb journey

In the beginning:

When I started a month and a half ago I decided to cut out anything that was not from the animal kingdom (so no more coconut oil). I ate chicken thighs, bacon, rotisserie turkey, ground turkey with chicken or bacon fat pork tenderloin, steak, and a lot of eggs. For fats I ate chicken fat, tallow, bacon fat and ghee. I tried eating cheese for the first couple of days but realized it made me feel more hungry and was screwing with my digestive system and creating mucus (I was so sad!). After about a week I also cut out eggs because I believed they were making me more hungry and giving me a tendency to overeat. I feel better without them (though I miss them sometimes) and I was right; they were making me overeat for some reason.

As time went on I tried to focus on eating more beef. I came to realize that I digest it better when it is not well done and came to enjoy it quite a bit. I was eating mostly cheap steaks and 70% ground beef patties cooked rare and juicy in bacon fat. In fact, after a couple of weeks I started to feel like I was eating the best thing I ever ate every time I had beef! I was still experiencing loose stools and occasional diarrhea but wasn’t too worried about it.

In the beginning I was cooking some of my food in ghee and eating chicken skins fried in chicken fat. After awhile the ghee started to turn me off so I stopped eating it, and I was getting stomach aches and diarrhea whenever I had chicken skin or fat. I would feel really nauseous about an hour or two after eating and have to lay down for a couple of hours. Later on I figured out that seltzer water helped abate this feeling (most of the time) but I didn’t think I should be feeling that way so I eventually cut out poultry.

I then began to realize that any extra fat was giving me stomach aches and diarrhea too.

I was in a conundrum about the fat. On the one hand I knew that I needed to get the majority of calories from fat but on the other hand, too much fat seemed to give me the runs. I can’t afford expensive steaks as I have a budget of about $5 a day (with occasional extras) so i was having to add fat in the form of bacon grease and chicken fat to my food. I came across some information about eating beef raw and fat raw as well so I looked up ideas for raw fat and came across suet.

I got some suet the other night and have been chopping it up and mixing it with raw ground beef (70% mostly) and sea salt and I LOVE IT. I can’t believe I actually like it (the texture takes some getting used to) but my body must be really happy eating that way because it tastes delicious to me. Plus, I’m no longer getting stomach aches an hour or so after eating and I had my first normal bowel movement in weeks this morning!

What I eat now:

After 6 weeks of experimentation I now eat raw beef (cheapest steaks and ground beef), raw suet and low sodium bacon as a treat. I discovered early on that I digested my beef better when it was cooked less and finally got brave enough to try it raw. It changed my life! Raw beef mixed with chopped raw suet makes me feel good, drastically cut down on my stomach aches and regulated my bowels. And–surprise of surprises–I LOVE it. The bacon satisfies my residual desire for snacking but upsets my stomach if I overindulge (regular bacon upsets my system immediately and tastes wretched to me now).

I eat three meals a day, sometimes more if necessary. For all three meals I eat raw ground beef (70 or 80%) or raw chopped/shaved steak with a big chunk of raw suet chopped up and mixed into it, doused with sea salt (I’ve found I can tolerate a LOT more fat now that I’m eating raw suet and it has cut down on my beef consumption, from 2 pounds to about 1.3 pounds). Our grocery store packages ground beef in 1.3 pound packages and, now that I’m adding the suet, it seems to be enough for me for one day. We make low sodium bacon frequently at work, so I snack on this during the day. I’ve been eating anywhere from 2-8 pieces in a day (though today I had 8 and my stomach is a bit upset, so I think I will be cutting back on the bacon). I drink salt water in the morning and at night and sometimes in the afternoon if I feel I need it and regular water throughout the day. If my stomach is upset (or sometimes if I just want the bubbly) I will drink a plain seltzer water. I take 10 mg of astaxanthin a day.

I have had an electrolyte imbalance for quite a while that manifests itself in scary heart palpitations so I put sea salt on everything I eat and drink warm salt water three times a day. I am hoping that as my body acclimates more to this way of eating that things will balance out and I will eventually be able to do away with the salt. I purposefully stopped taking all supplements as my intention and hope is to be able to heal my body enough that it is producing what it needs (the one exception is the recent addition of astaxanthin as it is getting close to summer and it prevents my fair skin from burning in the sun)

Difficulties and things I’ve learned:

I really struggled with the fat ratios. I knew that I needed to eat more fat than I was eating, but every time I tried to add more fat it would nauseate me, give me bad stomach aches hours later and give me diarrhea. I recently realized that it is rendered fat I have an issue with. Once I started adding chopped raw suet to my raw beef all that changed.

Hunger has also been–and still is–an issue. On the one hand I can handle long periods of time without eating much better than I ever could–when it’s necessary. But I still think about eating constantly and partially plan my day around my three meals. I believe this is partially due to craving too much protein as a consequence of eating too little fat. I understand that too much protein can cause a glycemic response and I think that has been my problem as, up until 2 days ago I wasn’t able to tolerate much fat (because it was cooked/rendered). I am hoping that as I go longer eating the way I’m eating now my hunger will even out and I won’t feel the need to eat so much protein in a day. I also haven’t lost any weight since eating this way (in fact, I gained a few pounds, but I think it’s water, or glycogen as it drops off after a bout of diarrhea).

In the beginning I didn’t notice if I suffered any “keto flu” symptoms as I felt pretty crummy already. I had a runny nose up until about 3 weeks ago (that got worse when I ate, for some reason) but got better as I restructured my diet and removed some things. For the first month I was really wondering if this was going to help me because things weren’t getting better as quickly and dramatically as they seemed to for most of the other people who submitted their stories.

The thing that kept me going was that, despite how awful I felt, my mind was becoming clear and focused and it hadn’t been that way for many months so I knew something had to be right. Plus, I kept reminding myself that I was starting over from scratch; no supplements at all, just healing through diet, and had to constantly remind myself that it was likely to take longer for me to feel better as this was something that I had been going through for years.

The other thing that helped me stick to it was that I kept a journal of how I was feeling throughout the day in an app on my phone so I have been able to go back and see subtle improvements I didn’t notice as they were happening. This has been vital to my sticking with it! There are a lot of changes I never would have noticed if I hadn’t recorded them and been able to look back and see the patterns.

The entire process thus far has been figuring out what works for me in conjunction with what I am able to buy. Over the course of about 6 weeks I went from having a semi-varied diet to having a very limited one (raw beef and raw beef fat) but I am surprisingly happy with that! This way of eating feels so good to me and I feel happy every time I eat my bowl of pink-and-white mush!

Things I have noticed have improved:

I have NO cravings for sweets, not even fruit! (this is mind-boggling to me. I could never imagine my life without fruit)

My tastes have changed–I don’t just tolerate raw beef, I really enjoy it!

My sense of smell has changed–I can enjoy the smells of foods I used to love without craving them (that, in and of itself, is nothing short of miraculous to me!).

I can enjoy baking (I work in a bakery!) without even wanting to try anything I’m making

My mind is clear and focused in a way it hasn’t been for many months

I have motivation to do things I didn’t/couldn’t before (like household chores)

The ways of eating that work for healthy people did not work for me and I think this is important for others who are coming from a place of compromised health when they embark on this way of eating. I can’t have any dairy or eggs. Any kind of rendered fat gives me diarrhea if I eat more than a couple of teaspoons of it at a time. Because of my current electrolyte issue I require vast quantities of salt to keep my heart beating normally. Even though I require a lot of salt, I need to eat low sodium bacon instead of regular bacon because it makes me feel ill. Raw beef with raw fat seems to work well for me, even though it’s the cheapest stuff at the store and not the fancy grass-fed stuff (though I would surely eat that if I could afford it!).

I still have the fatigue, but I can see and feel myself getting better (and have proof of it from what I have recorded in my journal). My energy has improved over the past few weeks. I used to nap for 2 hours every day and now I don’t. I used to have to lean on my husband walking to work and home because I was so weak and wobbly and now I can walk unsupported. My mind was so foggy and unclear that I couldn’t do much of anything at home other than watch movies or sleep (after a shortened workday). Now I am back to reading, journaling, studying a language, doing brain-improvement exercises, watching documentaries and even having the motivation and energy to do chores around the house. I have also started to be able to do a bit more physically. I have started practicing Tai Chi again and have even been able to dance with my husband a bit. I am able to interact more with family and pets and friends.

My advice for others starting out on zero carb:

One way of doing things is going to work for every body! Just because the majority of zero carbers eat bacon and steaks and cheese and eggs and lose weight and get strong and feel great two weeks into it does not mean you will. It took me 6 weeks to start feeling noticeably better. It took me almost 5 of those weeks to figure out that my body doesn’t deal well with rendered fat. A lot of things that help other people didn’t help me and I had to pay very close attention to my own body and go against convention sometimes.

Keep a journal of what you’re eating and how you’re feeling every day. You will be surprised at the changes and patterns you don’t notice while they’re happening.
Learn to listen to your body. Just because something works for most people doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for you. Experiment and learn as you go.
Don’t expect immediate improvement. Some people notice dramatic improvement right away. But if you’re coming from a place of compromised health it might take awhile for things to get better. Some things will get worse. Pay attention and readjust accordingly, but don’t give up just because 2 weeks have gone by and you’re not feeling fantastic (this is where keeping a journal REALLY helps).

If you’re committed to improving your health you will find what works for you. Just keep at it!

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Please visit my “Interviews” and “Testimonials” pages linked at the top of this website to read the stories of other short and long term Zero Carbers.

If you are interested in meeting others who practice an All-Meat diet, please feel free to join us in the Facebook group “Principia Carnivora” for support.