Tag Archives: Gastrointestinal

My First 3 Months on Zero Carb by Isabel

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Isabel’s Chihuahua Pup Portia.

I was on a LCHF diet for a year before I started a Zero Carb way of eating. I was eating lots of fatty cuts of meat, cheese, and fats from butter. I was also eating plenty of vegetables, especially greens and raw salads. I lost a great deal of weight over that year, about 90lbs!

However, I was still experiencing irritable bowel syndrome side effects. I experienced bloating, cramping, and abdominal pain from inflammation and irritation of my gastrointestinal tract (as explained by my doctor).

My Primary Care Physician prescribed probiotics, anti-depressants (in case it was stress causing my IBS), stomach acid pump inhibitors, and antispasmodic medications… all with little improvement.

I heard about the Zero Carb diet and I wanted to see if eating only those foods from the animal kingdom – like beef, chicken, pork and eggs – and drinking only water, would make a difference in my IBS symptoms. So, I decided to give it a whirl, and I was not disappointed.

Within 72 hours of beginning a Zero Carb diet, I quickly noticed my bloating was gone. After just 3 weeks, I was no longer experiencing any abdominal cramping and pain. By week 5, I was having regular bowel movements without bleeding. I had formerly suffered from severe constipation. I have now been on a Zero Carb diet for 12 weeks, and I have been totally off any IBS medications for a full 3 weeks. I also have lost an additional 27 lbs!

I eat all animal meats and eggs on the occasion. I usually will eat the same thing for a week, and switch it up. Maybe I’ll have beef burgers for my meals one week, then chicken or pork the next week, just to give the illusion of variety. I eat no dairy products. I also do use kosher sea salt, as well as black pepper, and once in a while I add some cajun spices on my meat.

I cannot imagine going back to my former way of eating. This is the only “therapy” I have tried that has ever worked so completely on my GI track to calm the IBS. It’s either this diet or gut wrenching pain. That makes the diet easy for me to follow. I still need to lose about 40 lbs more anyways, so i’m excited to continue on my weight loss journey as well.

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Isabel’s Pomeranian Pup Chanel

Please visit my Testimonials page to read the stories of others following a Zero Carb diet.

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.

 

My First 30 Days on Zero Carb by Lena Kristiansen

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1) What kind of diet were you following before Zero Carb?

At the time I started at Zero Carb, I didn’t follow any diet. However, in the past I have tried Atkins, LCHF, and Paleo diets. The Paleo diet was the one I liked the most since I felt pretty good on it. I think there are three primary reasons why none of these diets worked for me long term.

First, while my IBS was less problematic on Paleo, it never completely went away.

Second, I have never liked any vegetables except for potatoes. I have only eaten other vegetable because it was expected of me. Salad has always turned my stomach, but still I tried to make myself like it.

Third, my inner “sugar monster” was still much alive on all of these diets because of the carbohydrates they included. As a result, I would eventually fall back to eating what is considered to be the normal Norwegian diet.

2) Why did you decide to try Zero Carb?

I first read the interview with The Anderson Family, and it just felt right for me. I have always liked meat. As a little girl, I can even remember “fighting” with my grandma’s dog for the meaty bones left over from my grandma’s soup. I don’t think the dog liked me visiting…LOL.

For many years, I did have the feeling that I could solve the issues I have with my body with the food I eat. This interest started when I was attending a course in the University named “Human Behavioral Ecology.” After that, I started to research and read a lot of books about food and how the body would react to it. I tested an elimination diet, and found out that I shouldn’t eat sugar, diary and gluten. The result just confirmed that my answer to feel good and healthy was in my food.

So why did I do all this? I was diagnosed with asthma and allergy when I was a little girl. My metabolism was low and I had borderline hypothyroidism. Consequently, I always had some extra body fat. I also have IBS, and I get dizzy easily because of the low blood sugar episodes. Additionally, when I eat something, I often feel sick and tired and get heart palpitations. Recently, the doctors discovered that I have anti-phospholipid syndrome which means that my antibodies are attacking my blood cells.

All in all, I knew that I had to do something, and – when I saw the interview with The Anderson Family – I just felt that I must try it. So, I read a bit more about it and satisfied myself that it was safe to do.

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3) What was your transition to Zero Carb like? Easy or hard?

During the first few days on Zero Carb, my energy increased, my stomach calmed down and stopped aching, I was no longer bloated all the time, and the chronic brain fog disappeared. Basically, I just felt good. My body and mind were both much more calm and content. After the first few days, however, I got the “Keto Flu.” I was easily fatigued, had a slight headache, and felt dizzy sometimes. But it was not too bad, and – since I had been through the “Keto Flu” before when I did Atkins – I knew what to expect and was not worried about it. These symptoms lasted about two weeks and then went away. Since then, I have felt really good.

4) What does your daily food intake look like?

Normally I eat about 2 to 3 times a day, and it would normally be 2 eggs with 5 slices of bacon for breakfast and 1 lb. of meat for dinner. If I get hungry during the day, I would eat some extra meat. I prefer to eat beef, but I will eat all different kinds of meat. I also drink bone broth, and occasionally eat tripe.

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Ancient Scottish Dunnottar Castle with Rainbow that Lena visited on one of her trips abroad.

5) What benefits have you noticed so far?

  • Heartburn has become less.
  • Hypoglycemia and dizziness is gone.
  • My allergies and asthma have already improved.
  • I no longer feel sick, tired, or experience heart palpitations after eating.
  • I have lost 13 lbs. during this first month.
  • I have much more energy to do things.
  • I sleep really well and feel more awake/alert during the day.
  • My teeth feel newly polished all the time.
  • There is no unpleasant underarm odor as long as I eat just meat. However, if I add sauces or eat sausage, then I notice an unpleasant underarm odor.
  • My sense of taste and smell has changed dramatically. Things that used to smell and taste good no longer do, and vice versa. It is like my taste buds have been “re-set.” For example, I have noticed that commercial eggs taste strangely sweet, so I only buy organic eggs now. And my desire for salt has diminished considerably.
  • The sugar cravings have totally disappeared! Now I can pass by sweets, cookies and – my biggest monster – ice cream without any problems. Before Zero Carb, I would almost always eat something. This is actually the first time in my life that I have no sugar cravings. Usually, I have to use enormous willpower not to eat sugary treats. It is so freeing not to have these cravings any more.
  • My ability to walk the stairs where I work has become easier and easier. I feel like I have developed more muscular strength already. I can even see more definition in my legs.

I like to take long hiking trips, but I always find myself progressively more and more worn out as the journey continues. Now, I feel confident that I will be able to remain strong throughout the length of my hiking trips which excites me.

For me Zero Carb is simple and nutritious, and it is the best I can do for my body. Based on all the positive aspects I have experienced so far, I plan to continue eating this way indefinitely. Why eat something else when I feel so wonderful!

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Lena during one of her hiking trips.

Please visit my Testimonials page to read the stories of others following a Zero Carb diet.

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.

 

Dr. H. L. Newbold on Ground Meat

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I consider Dr. H. L. Newbold to be one of the great medical mind of the last century. To learn more about him, please read my page H. L. Newbold.

This is an excerpt from the above pictured book. I do not recommend buying this book, as it was a precursor to his later and better volume The Type A / Type B Weight Loss Diet.  Nevertheless, he does share some interesting ideas and observations in this older book, as quoted below.

Dr. H. L. Newbold:

Do not eat ground meat. I know hamburgers are right up there with motherhood, milk, and the American flag, but we must face facts. Patients in my practice to not feel good after eating ground meat. Off-hand, it does not make sense that patients seem able to eat steak and not react to it, but have a reaction to ground beef. Still, I have checked my observations on hundreds of patients and must stand firm on what I have seen.

I don’t know why, but…my theory deals with rapidity of absorption. If you eat foods that still are relatively bulky, even after chewing (like steak), then the digestive enzymes must work on them a long time before they are broken down enough to pass through the intestinal walls into the bloodstream.

On the other hand, ground meat is rapidly digested and rapidly enters the bloodstream. We know that if you have a mild allergy to food, you will get a much stronger allergic reaction if that food is quickly digested and passed on into the system. Some people who have a mild allergy to beef do not react to steak (slow absorption), but do react to the ground beef (quick absorption). Patients are also more likely to react to other forms of commercially-ground meats, such as lamb, for example.

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I do not think this is an issue for everyone, but it is certainly good to be aware of the possibility. Most long term practitioners of Zero Carb appear to do just fine with ground beef. However, Samantha Taylor – who has followed an all meat diet for over 5 years now – has reported experiencing symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) every time she eats ground beef. So, as always, the best thing to do is experiment and see if you notice any difference in the way your own body responds to whole meat verses ground meat and then do whatever feels best to you.

Another thing to keep in mind is that for people with histamine intolerance, ground meat is much higher in histamines. Once meat is ground, histamines form much more quickly. So, if you do have histamine issues, it is important to have the meat ground fresh and then get it into the freezer as quickly as possible to stop histamine formation.

 

My First Four Months on Zero Carb by Esmée La Fleur

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Sasha & Me

Me & My German Shepherd Dog “Sasha”

I have explained a lot of the following details on my About Me page, but I feel it is important to include some of them here as well so that readers unfamiliar with my history may better understand just how much appreciation I have for discovering the Zero Carb, or All-Meat way of eating…

As some of you already know, my reasons for trying an All-meat diet have nothing to do with weight. I have been very sick for a very long time and most of my issues revolve around extreme food intolerance. Pretty much everything I put in my mouth makes me sick, and has done so for the better part of the last 20 years. I believe these troubles resulted from a combination of a gastrointestinal infection I acquired in India when I was 16 and the vegan diet (high in wheat) I chose to follow shortly there after. Both of these factors damaged the villi of my small intestine and lead to the manifestation of celiac disease, specifically the skin version known as dermatitis herpetiformis (a very itchy rash experienced by approximately 20% of those diagnosed with celiac disease).

Because I was ideologically committed to a vegan diet, the high fiber foods I ate (even after wheat was removed from my diet) continued to assault the already severely compromised condition of my small intestine. I gradually became sensitive to everything I ate and was miserable all of the time. I was eventually diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome based on the constellation of bizarre symptoms I experienced, and the fact that I was so tired most of the time that getting out of bed to take a shower took extreme effort.

I reached a low point in 2001, weighing only 87 lbs., and was sure that I was going to die from starvation. Out of desperation, I had tried adding animal foods back into my diet beginning several years earlier, but I was still eating lots of plant foods which continued to irritate my gut. But I was brain washed into believing that plant foods were necessary for health, so I persevered in my consumption of them.

I finally found a goat milk yogurt that did not make me feel horrible after eating it, and I ended up living on a mono diet of only goat milk yogurt and raspberries for 2 years straight. It saved my life. I then was able to move over to a diet of raw ground beef, olive oil, and leafy greens. I was still convinced that plant foods were essential to good long term health. This way of eating worked fairly well for another two year period. However, I started experiencing negative symptom from it more and more as time went on. I now know that this was due to an increasing intolerance to both salicylates (olive oil and greens) and histamines (aged beef).

I then went off on a crazy tangent of low fat vegan fruitarianism promoted by Doug Graham known as the 80/10/10 diet. I did this for another two years, but continued to feel even worse. I was continually in a state of sugar highs and lows, which made me irritable and angry a lot of the time. I was having trouble thinking straight, and I was painfully bloated all the time. Fortunately, this was around the time Dr. Robert Lustig gave his excellent presentation on fructose metabolism, explaining in detail why too much fructose is not a good thing. Please see his YouTube video SUGAR: THE BITTER TRUTH for the complete explanation.

So, my next dietary experiment was a low carb high fat (LCHF) raw vegan diet heavy on avocados and green leafy vegetables. This stabilized my blood sugar and kept my energy pretty steady. But I was still bloated all the time and experiencing other unpleasant symptoms from the food I was eating. Then, I was severely bit by a dog, and – between the antibiotics and the energy needed for healing – my digestive issues just got worse. The avocado salads just weren’t working anymore after that.

I eventually returned to goat milk yogurt and raspberries because I had no idea what else to do at this point. However, even the yogurt and raspberries didn’t work as well as they had in the past. Again, I now know that this was due to my increasing sensitivity to both salicylates (raspberries) and histamines (yogurt). Nevertheless, I remained on yogurt and raspberries exclusively for another full year. I experimented with rice before and after that, but all of it made me feel bad. While doing a 63 day green juice fast (using the only two vegetables low in salicylates: celery and lettuce) – which felt good, but was certainly not sustainable – I stumbled upon Jimmy Moore’s book Keto Clarity.

I had read about the Ketogenic diet many years earlier and knew that it was used to control seizures in epileptic children. I was intrigued at the time and even experimented with Atkins’ approach, but I was always including plant foods in my dietary trials, which I now realize was the reason I did not experience the benefits so many others did with this type of diet. As it turns out, I am not only sensitive to carbohydrates, I am also sensitive to salicylates which are present in almost ALL plant foods. As long as they were in the mix, any diet I tried was doomed to failure. The time I spent on goat milk yogurt and raw beef was the closest I came to removing most plant foods from my diet, but it still wasn’t enough. Please read my page on Salicylates for more information.

Jimmy Moore’s book re-kindled my interest in the Ketogenic diet and I proceeded to devour all of the podcast interviews he has done with Ketogenic diet scientists and doctors over the past 8 years.  What a wealth of information he provides for free! I know many people in the Zero Carb community are off-put by Jimmy’s promotion of Keto “junk” or “Frankenfoods” as they like to call them. But for me, Jimmy Moore’s audio and video library was a lighthouse beacon of hope. I had no idea how much information was now available on the Ketogentic diet compared to when I first encountered it 20 years ago. For those who are interested, I have links to many of his best interviews on my Resources page.

Somehow, someway, through a path that can no long remember exactly, I found my way to Amber Wilcox-O’Hearn’s website on The Ketogenic Diet for Health, and then to her personal blog Empirica where she delineates her experience of eating a totally carnivorous diet for over 5 years. I was fascinated! I had no idea that was even possible. Yes, I knew about the traditional diets of the Inuit and Masai tribes, but their diets utilized many parts of the animals they raised or harvested from the wild. Amber was simply eating muscle meat without much in the way of organ meats, bone broth, etc. I wanted to know more, that was for sure.

Some anonymous person added me to the Facebook group Zeroing in on Health (ZIOH) started by long time Zero Carb veteran Charles Washington. I suddenly entered a whole community of people eating this way, many for over five years. Naturally, I had a few concerns about eating this way which were quickly answered and put my mind at ease. I had been on a Ketogenic diet for three weeks (started on December 7, 2014), but I was still eating some low carb plant foods like sauerkraut, leafy greens, etc. I was also eating animal foods like cheese and eggs, chicken and turkey, and sour cream. Even though I was in “ketosis” and feeling some benefits from this – mostly related to blood sugar stability – I was still having negative reactions to ALL of these foods.

Eventually, thanks again to Amber Wilcox-O’Hearn, I finally figured out that I was sensitive to histamines in the same way that I was sensitive to salicylates. Histamines are present in all aged foods. Ironically, most of the Keto-friendly foods I was eating were either fermented or aged and – therefore – high in histamines. Egg white are also high in histamines. So now I was ingesting both salicylates and histamines.

Every time I ate, I experienced severe GI bloating, hours of burping, a migraine headache, a racing heart rate, and low blood pressure that made standing upright for even short periods quite difficult. So, in spite of eating a Ketogenic diet, I was feeling quite miserable. Therefore, an All-Meat diet seemed like the next logical step to explore. I figured that if others have not just survived, but thrived, on Zero Carb for five or more years, then a 30-day trial certainly would not kill me. So, I began my carnivorous adventure on January 1, 2015.

However, what I soon discovered is that ALL meats sold in U.S. supermarkets are aged to some extent, either intentionally or by default, and – consequently – are high in histamines. Every type of meat I tried made me sick with all the symptoms described above. The only animal foods I could safely eat were raw egg yolks and heavy whipping cream, so I ate 2 dozen egg yolks and 16 oz of heavy whipping cream every night for the first month and a half while I worked to find a source of histamine-free meat. This felt like my only hope, and I was not going to give up.

I finally located some unaged fresh-frozen grassfed veal that produced no negative reactions. The difference in how I felt after eating it was truly remarkable. I almost felt like a normal person. Most people eat and feel good, but – for over two decades – my experience has been to eat and feel utterly bad (and when I say bad, I mean so bad that I often just wished I was dead). So, I knew I was on to something. I finally understood what the problem had been all these years, and this knowledge has moved me from a place of hopelessness to one of great hope. I finally have direction and know what I need to do.

After a month and a half, my source of veal ran out and I had to go back to the eggs and cream for a week or so until I located another source of histamine-free meat. I eventually found some local humanely-raised pork that could be processed within two days of being slaughtered. The company that sold this pork – The Meat Shop in Phoenix, AZ – also had beef that was only aged for 10 days (most beef is aged for a minimum of 21 and usually much longer by the time it reaches the retail shelf). I tried their beef, but – sadly – it still contained to many histamines for me to eat. Everyone’s tolerance for histamines is different, and mine appears to be zero, at least for now. Maybe, as the villi in my gut heals, I will regain my ability to properly metabolize histamines. That would be truly awesome and that is the vision that I hold for myself.

The pork, however, has been working pretty well. As soon as the animal clears inspection, the butcher processes it for me and freezes it immediately in order to stop the histamine formation as quickly as possible. I have been eating 1 lb. of ground pork with 4 oz. of butter once a day for the past month. Right now, I find that if I eat more than 1 lb. of meat at a time, or if I eat more than one time per day, I feel tired and inflamed. I am hoping that as my digestive system heals, I will be able to eat more meat and less added fat. Time will tell. Most women on this diet consume about 1.5 to 2.5 lbs. of fatty meat per day. But, for now, what I am doing is working pretty well.

The Zero Carb veterans generally discourage people from adding extra fat to their meat – unless it is super lean – because there are more nutrients in the meat than in the added fat, and too much added fat can cause some folks to gain unwanted body fat. Many people who come to Zero Carb from a Keto background often make the mistake of adding a lot of extra fat to their meat and then wonder why they are gaining weight. Since I was underweight to begin with, I was not overly concerned about this problem for myself.

In addition to the pork and butter, I also make and drink bone broth. I have personally found bone broth to be a very beneficial part of my transition to this diet. I believe it prevented some of the more severe symptoms that can occur during the initial period of metabolic Adaptation to a Zero Carb diet. None of the Zero Carb veterans that I have interviewed include bone broth in their diet, so it is clearly not necessary for long term health.

However, I strongly feel – based on my own experience, as well as the experience of others who are following a Zero Carb diet for complex health issues like me – that bone broth can be a real asset. My position on this subject, and my insistence on sharing my experience with others who are newly trying this diet, actually got me ex-communicated from the ZIOH fold. (Really? Yes, really!)

It is a long story and too complicated to try an explain here, but basically the Admins of that group did not like me promoting the benefits I have experienced from bone broth because they felt that I was somehow confusing people into thinking that it was an essential part of the diet, rather than just an optional addition. Perhaps I just have more faith and trust in the intelligence of individuals, and expect them to be able to read information and determine what the best course of action is for themselves, without needing others to make the decision for them.

Those of us who have chosen to include bone broth as part of our Zero Carb diet are at a complete loss to understand the ZIOH stance, especially since bone broth is clearly a food from the “animal kingdom.” I mean, it is not like we were singing the praises of Coke Zero or something, for heaven’s sake. I think the misunderstanding arises from the fact that none of the ZIOH Admins have ever suffered with the severe gastrointestinal issues or complex health problems that result from this. The only long term Zero Carb-er I have interviewed who had similar issues with food intolerances and might possibly be able to understand and relate was Charlene Andersen. But, she is not an active member of ZIOH. To read why I think bone broth can be beneficial for some people, please see my article Can Bone Broth Be Used as Part of a Zero Carb Diet?

After The Andersen Family interview went viral and was shared on William Davis’s Wheat Belly Facebook page and several other pages, ZIOH experienced an influx of many new members with Lyme Disease, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and similar very severe illnesses. This was a completely different crowd than ZIOH had formerly attracted. Most people who get interested in Zero Carb do so for weight loss reasons. But that was not the case for many of the new people – arriving via The Andersen Family interview – checking out this unique way of eating.

It has been my experience that it is virtually impossible for someone who has not experienced these types of complex health and GI problems to understand even remotely what it is like. And to forbid us to talk about bone broth – which has been shown to be so helpful for people with these kinds of issues – in the group is not only totally ridiculous, but terribly short-sighted in my opinion. What is the point of being part of a group if we are not allowed to share information and experiences? They pushed a lot of people away from learning more about a diet that has the potential to significantly improve the lives of so many very, very sick people.

Fortunately, however, this is a mostly free internet world, and we (with the support of 5-year Zero Carb practitioner Michael Frieze) simply created a new group called Principia Carnivora for ourselves where everyone is free to openly discuss any and all ideas that we feel may be beneficial to us on our journeys back to well-being. We had almost 400 new members requests in just 4 days, so I guess that says a lot about the need for a group like this with a more relaxed and free-thinking environment. If this sounds like your kind of group, please come join us and check it out. Our main objective is to have fun while supporting one another.

So, I will just end by saying that while I personally enjoy bone broth and feel better when I drink it, this may or may not be true for you. Like eggs and dairy, bone broth is secondary in importance to meat on a Zero Carb diet. It is important to keep in mind that not everyone reacts to it the same way. A small percentage of people who are sensitive to MSG can turn the glutamine in bone broth into glutamate and experience all the same symptoms they do from MSG. This is most often seen in children with Autism, but it can happen in anyone with gut issues. The only way to know how it will affect you personally is to try it.

I drink 1-2 quarts of bone broth per day. I remove the fat so that it does not interfere with my natural appetite and hunger signals. Essentially, it is the Zero Carb version of an electrolyte replacement beverage. Many people find it really helps to prevent the muscle cramping that can occur during the Adaptation phase of beginning this way of eating. For more information, please see my page on Bone Broth.

The most significant benefits I have experienced so far include…

  • Food Reactions – I no longer experience unpleasant symptoms after eating.
  • Bloating – I no longer look and feel 6 months pregnant after eating.
  • Blood Sugar – I no longer experience daily hypoglycemic episodes.
  • Energy – My energy is now stable and steady.
  • Teeth – My teeth are no longer sensitive.
  • Hunger – I eat once a day and am rarely hungry in between meals.
  • Cravings – I experience no carbohydrate or other cravings.
  • Mental Clarity – I have greater mental clarity and focus.
  • Mood –  I am no longer irritable all the time.
  • Outlook – I feel much more optimistic about life.
  • Hemorrhoids – I no longer experience pain or irritation.
  • Weight – I was underweight (95 lb) and am now at a healthier weight (120 lb).
  • Blood Pressure – It has increased from 85/50 to 105/95.
  • Skin – My skin has stopped breaking out with pimples.
  • Nails – My nails are much stronger.
  • Hormones – I no longer have menstrual cramps during my period.
  • Headaches – I no longer have migraine headaches as long as I avoid salicylates and histamines.
  • Shingles – The scar I have from this no longer tingles or itches.
  • Sleep – My sleep quality has improved and I need less total sleep.
  • Mornings – I no longer wake up feeling like I have a hangover.

As you can see, I have experienced quite a few positive changes in just 4 short months. The key for me in making this diet a success is to have a continual supply of histamine-free meat. I want to see if I can makes some histamine-free pemmican to serve as a back-up resource, as well as for travelling or day trips. I also plan to explore some therapeutic modalities, like DAO enzymes, which have been shown to assist the break down of histamines that are present in food. I am definitely happy with my progress thus far, and – as long as things keep moving in a positive direction – I fully expect to continue this way of eating indefinitely.

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Please visit my Testimonials page to read the stories of others following a Zero Carb diet.

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.

 

The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Kieth

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vegmyth cover third reviewThis book is by far one of the most powerful and important books I have every read in my entire life. It is my opinion that it should be required reading for everyone before they are allowed to graduate from high school. Everyone who eats food needs to read this book.

 

Here is the link to the free PDF version.

The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith

 

If you need more convincing, please read:

Dr. Michael Eades Book Review

 

 

Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword by Loren Cordain

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This one of the very best papers detailing why cereal grains are neither a necessary nor a desirable part of the human diet. Click on the link below to read Dr. Cordain’s article:

Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword

 

Can Bone Broth Be Used as Part of a Zero Carb Diet?

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I have received a lot of flack in the Zero Carb community Zeroing in on Health (ZIOH) from many long time veterans of the Zero Carb diet who run that group. Now please, don’t get me wrong, I still love and appreciate much that this group has to offer, I just feel that their vehement opposition to me discussing bone both is a wee bit ridiculous. I mean, it is from the animal kingdom, right? So what exactly is the big deal?

First, it is important to understand that – with one exception – none of these long term Zero Carb vets have ever made and consumed bone broth as part of their Zero Carb way of life. Their main concern is that people new to the Zeroing in on Health group who read glowing reports about bone broth by the likes of me will be misled into thinking that bone broth is necessary for long term health on a Zero Carb diet.

However, if a person takes the time to read my very detailed description of The Zero Carb Diet, or the excellent FAQs document written by the ZIOH administration, then they won’t be the least bit confused. But unfortunately – as much as I would like to – I cannot make people read. Some folks just want 30-second sound bites and there is nothing I can do about that.

I have actually been accused of saying that bone broth has “magical healing properties.” I certainly I have noted that it contains specific properties shown to help heal specific health problems. But I have never called it “magical.” It may have healing properties, but there is nothing magical about them. Rather, it is pure nutritional biochemistry, as you will discover if you decide to learn more about it.

But, one could just as easily be misled into thinking that eggs are a necessary component of a Zero Carb diet since they are extolled almost every day by someone in the group. However, as The Andersen Family has clearly shown, eggs are definitely not necessary for long term health on a Zero Carb diet. They have been eating only ribeye steaks for almost 2 decades and are thriving.

And, as many Zero Carb-ers have discovered through experimentation with their own bodies, eggs do not agree with or benefit everyone who follows a Zero Carb diet. The Andersen’s found that pretty much everything except fatty beef made them feel less than well. The only way that any of us can figure out what works best for our individual bodies is through trial and error. There is no one way or right way to do this diet.

The basic Zero Carb Guidelines are to eat only from the animal kingdom, which is quite broad in certainly would include bone broth. If you wish to reduce the variables, many Zero Carb veterans recommend  eating only meat (preferably beef) and water for the first 30 days. This way you will have a baseline from which to test other animal foods like dairy, eggs, and organ meets. I personally support this advice because people rarely react negatively to meat, especially beef.

So, when a person first embarks upon a Zero Carb way of eating, the less variables the better generally speaking. Bone broth is certainly a variable, and not everyone does well with it. In Nourishing Broth, Kaayla Daniel explains that some people who are sensitive to MSG have trouble with the high level of glutamine present in bone broth because the glutamine gets turned into glutamate and crosses the blood-brain barrier creating unpleasant cognitive symptoms.

Glutamine sensitivity is most often experiences by children with Autism, Asperger’s, ADHD, etc. For the majority of people, however, this is not an issue, but it is certainly important to be aware of the possibility. Like anything else, you just have to try it and see how it makes you feel. After reading Daniels book devoted to the subject, I decided the potential benefits were well worth exploring. What I discovered is that I felt better when I included it in my diet. But again, this will not be true for everyone.

I noticed very quickly that on the days I drank bone broth, I did not get leg or foot cramps that night while sleeping or the next day. While on the days that I did not drink it, I did. It was a very cause and effect correlation for me. Many Zero Carb vets have stated that they tried everything (salt, magnesium, bone broth) to try and prevent their muscles from cramping, but that none of these measures had any positive effect.

And, yes, these are the same vets who have also stated that they “never have and never will” make and drink bone broth, so I am not to sure how many of them actually tried bone broth specifically to address the muscle cramps they were experiencing. I am, admittedly, a little confused by their contradictory statements.

And even if they did try bone broth without experiencing any noticeable difference, then I would want to know how much bone broth they drank each day and for how long. If you are deficient in a mineral, it not only takes a certain amount of that mineral, but it often takes more than a day or two for the cells to get it where it needs to go.

Muscle cramps are a very common experience in the initial weeks and months of a Zero Carb diet. One of the main symptoms of a potassium deficiency is muscle cramping. When a person first begins a Zero Carb diet, a lot of excess fluid is flushed from the body and a significant amount of potassium is lost in this process. I have explored this phenomenon more fully in my page on The Adaptation Process.

There is nothing especially dangerous about this because it is self limiting. Once a person’s metabolism and kidneys make the transition from being a sugar burner to being a fat burner, you stop losing excess fluid and your mineral balance is restored. However, the interim period can be somewhat uncomfortable, and bone broth might help to ease the transition.

As it happens, bone broth is an especially good source of potassium, especially if there is some meat attached to the bones. I generally use whole chicken and turkey parts, mostly because that is what is affordable. But any meaty bones can be used: pork , lamb, beef, and even fish. It has certainly made a noticeable difference for me personally. But, I also drink an average of 2 quarts of bone broth every day, so this may be why I found it to be an effective remedy for muscle cramps compared to those who did not.

I also remove the fat from the broth after it has chilled and drink only the potassium-rich liquid. I do this so that the broth will not interfere with my appetite and so that I can drink more of it. It act like an sugar free electrolyte replacement beverage, i.e. Gatorade without the sugar. Interestingly, I have found that I do best drinking it on an empty stomach BEFORE a meal. If I eat it AFTER a meal, it will stop the meat in my stomach from digesting and I will be miserable for hours afterwards. I am not sure how it will affect you, but this is what I have learned about my own body. So you might want to pay attention to when you drink it and see if this makes a difference for you as well.

Many Zero Carb vets have argued that making bone broth is time consuming and difficult, but I have not found this to be the case for me. I put the bones in my crock pot, add water, let cook for 12-48 hours, and then strain. It takes me all of about 15 minutes. This is a lot less time that these vets spent ridiculing bone broth and those of us who drink it in a recent ZIOH post that generated 700 comments and continued on non-stop for almost two days! Really? Yes, really.

Okay, I will admit that the straining process is a bit messy, but that can easily be streamlined with the proper equipment. All in all, it is a small amount of work with a big pay off for me personally. Not only do I like the taste and the way it makes me feel, but the nutritional components present in bone broth are very beneficial for gut health.

With the exception of Joe Andersen’s wife Charlene, none of the Zero Carb veterans I have interviewed had serious gastrointestinal issues like I do. Most came to the Zero Carb way of eating for the purpose of weight loss. Therefore, while I deeply respect their knowledge of this diet, I also recognize that I have health issues with which they have no personal experience. I have problems that they cannot possible understand because they have never lived in my body.

And I know that I am not the only one in the group with these kinds of challenges. Many new people have joined the group and started the Zero Carb diet as a result of reading The Andersen Family interview after it was shared by William Davis on his Wheat Belly page and several other very popular sites. The people this interview has attracted are people with severe health problems like Charlene and myself, not people just looking to lose excess body fat.

While bone broth is certainly not necessary to long term health and success on this diet, it also holds the potential of being very beneficial for some like me. The one veteran who does use bone broth on a semi-regular basis is Ana Teixeira. Ana is an Ultra-marathon runner with unique needs due to her almost superhuman physical activities. We are all different, and we don’t all have the same needs. I believe it is import for this reality to be acknowledged and accepted.

This does not change the basic tenets of a Zero Carb diet: meat and water… meat and water… meat and water… meat and water. That is the most important principle of this way of eating to understand. Meat and water must form the foundation of a Zero Carb diet. Everything else must be seen as complimentary to that. In other words, one broth should not be used in place of meat any more than eggs or cheese should.

Meat is the corner stone; meat is the foundation; meat is the rock upon which everything else must be built. There is absolutely no question about that. For many, meat and water is all they will ever want or need on a Zero Carb diet, and that is perfectly fine. For others like myself, the extra nutrition provided by bone broth and other animal foods like liver are a welcome addition.

I really hope the long time vets of Zeroing in on Health can find it in their hearts to be more supportive of people with unique needs, instead of dismissing and ridiculing us as we walk our Zero Carb path to well-being. It is sad and – quite frankly – bizarre that a group of people dedicated to this way of eating would engage in behavior that is both demeaning to individuals and divisive of the community as a whole.

This way of eating offers promise to many people who have been struggling with serious health issue for many years. But they will not stay in a group – no matter how much it’s veterans have to offer in terms of their experience with this diet – if they are treated unkindly…especially over such a minor issue like bone broth. After all, Vilhjalmur Stefansson – whose work they promote above all others – drank broth throughout his year-long Meat-Only Bellevue Study and it didn’t seem to do him any harm. In fact, is it possible that he may have even benefited from it? Hmmm… I wonder…

If you would like to read about some of the unique nutritional properties present in bone broth, please see my Bone Broth page.

 

My First 3 Months on Zero Carb by Tricia Weber

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tricia weber

Tricia’s Beloved Scottie.

I wanted to share with you that I have now been PAIN-FREE for over 30 days in a row.

Being pain free is hard to describe, as I have been in chronic severe pain for almost as long as I can remember. I have had 17 major surgeries so far, 3 of the last 5 were back surgeries. It has not been fun.

The spine surgeries were for a condition known as spondylolisthesis, a forward displacement of a vertebrae which puts pressure on the spinal cord that results in severe nerve pain. Since the first event in 1998, I have not been able to stand in one place – such as fixing a meal or simply waiting in line somewhere – because it quickly creates an astonishing degree of pain, extending from my lower spine all the way to the bottom of my feet. I would rate the level of pain as an 8 on a scale of 1-10. Once the pain was triggered, there was little relief for days, even with strong pain medications.  I stopped all pain meds in April 2014 and was pretty much housebound.

I started Zero Carb on December 26th after reading blog posts by long time Zero Carb practitioners Kelly Williams Hogan and Amber Wilcox-O’Hearn. Then, I joined the Facebook group Zeroing in on Health and read everything I could.  I love the support from other Zero Carb veterans like Dana Spencer Shute, Caitlin Tilton, and Charles Washington. I began eating ground beef, ribeye steaks, other cuts of beef, bacon, and roasted chicken, and drink beef bone broth after each meal. I eat no dairy and few eggs because they do not agree with me. I eat an average of about 2 pounds of meat per day. My transition to an all-meat diet was relatively uneventful. I did not experience any unpleasant symptoms, other than some nausea when I ate more fat than my body was accustomed to metabolizing.

During the first month and a half I was on Zero Carb, there was a gradual reduction in pain levels, so gradual that I hardly noticed it until I noticed that I didn’t notice it! Then, on February 16th, I fell and triggered a severe pain event. I had a few martinis as needed to take the edge off but stuck to the diet and continued eating only meat.  It was not perfect solution of course, just the best I could do in this situation (fired the pain doc) and I gained weight quickly. I was not in the mood to tangle with doctors.

On March 11th, while standing in line at an event, I suddenly realized that I had been standing for almost 30 minutes with no pain. I was floored. I remained standing there in the same place for another 15 minutes just to see if the intense burning was going to begin, but it never did. I have tested it almost every day since, and still there is no pain.  It was so amazing that I was afraid to believe it. I finally told my husband about it on March 22nd and he is just as astonished as I am. He decided to jump on the Zero Carb path with me on April 12th.

I am not sure why this way of eating has made such a dramatic difference in the pain, but I suspect it has something to do with the increased saturated fat and its effect on chronic inflammation. I will discuss this with the surgeon in June. There is such need for clinical studies regarding a Zero Carb way of eating and the benefits that are possible. I would love to be involved in further research.

What I do know, however, is that I am thrilled. The benefits are truly amazing. While there isn’t much I can do about the structural damage that already occurred, finding a way to alleviate the pain, the inflammation, has been critical to my overall physical and emotional well-being.  My husband and I are simply over the moon about all the positive changes. Zero Carb has literally given me back my life.

I have known for a long time that carbohydrates were not my friend. I have had trouble with hypoglycemia since my teens and will experience severe blood sugar swings whenever I eat any significant amount of carbohydrates. I began following a low carb/low fat diet in 1972 and eventually moved into a very low carb/low fat diet. I found through trial and error that the less carbohydrates I ate, the better I felt. However, even with the small amount of carbohydrates I was eating, I was still experiencing episodes of low blood sugar. Since I have completely eliminated all plant foods from my diet via Zero Carb, I have not experienced anymore low blood sugar episodes. This too is huge for me.

Prior to Zero Carb, I ate a very clean low to very low carb/low fat diet. All real food. About 8-10 ounces of chicken or lean meat per day with unlimited vegetables. Some olive oil and butter, but nowhere near as much fat as I am eating now on Zero Carb. From 2001 – 2006, I ate a raw vegan diet with lots of juicing. I was able to maintain a healthy weight eating that way, but it was hard to follow, and it did absolutely nothing to mitigate the pain. I kept dreaming about prime rib.

I have had IBS since my teens, it has improved significantly with the removal of all plant foods from my diet. I have to be careful with how much fat I eat early in the day, so I eat lean in the morning and save the ribeyes for dinner. If I overeat fat, the food will move through me a bit too quickly. I am still experimenting with this and fine-tuning to find the right balance and am confident that it will improve.

Weight is not an issue for me. I am 5’ 7” tall and have always weighed between 125-140 lbs. I have always been physically active, skiing is my love and I plan to continue it (skiing did not cause the spine problems). My reason for embarking on the Zero Carb path was to see if it would improve my overall general health, the alleviation of the pain was a completely unexpected outcome.

I cannot stress strongly enough how important it has been to do just meat and water for those first full 30 days. The longer I do this, the better it gets.  I do not believe that there is only one path that will work for everyone, but for anyone feeling inspired to give Zero Carb a try – I encourage you to give it a fair try.

I have learned that the most important factor in my well-being is how I feel emotionally. I know how important it is to not let my inner happiness be dependent on conditions like physical pain. After about 2 weeks on ZC, my energy levels zoomed and I just felt wonderful, it is truly amazing. I am so glad to have found ZC and that I stuck with it.

ADDENDUM (05-19-15):

22 years or so ago I was diagnosed with Reynaud’s Disease, which is a royal pita but not life threatening unless ignored (in which case my fingers will be amputated). But I like to snow ski (a lot!). Usually, when the temps get below 70, I am indoors and drinking hot water or coffee to keep warm. I live in Southern California, so its a pretty temperate climate.

A couple of days ago I went outside to watch the sunrise at 5 am, its a special treat for me when night temps moderate to 65-70. It was 53 degrees. It took a while to sink in that my fingers were warm and doing just fine. So I did it again yesterday, same result. I did it again today…52 degrees at 5 am, and my fingers were warm and fine. I am befuddled! …and feeling so blessed to have found this woe. I have no clue why, unless this woe naturally raises and sustains a higher body temp.

If ya’all have not heard of Reynaud’s… when my internal temp drops too low the blood veins in my fingers (and other appendages) collapse and my fingers turn white from lack of proper blood supply. It is very painful. Then when I warm them, its excruciating pain for 2 hours when the blood starts to flow back into them. My fingers turn blackish-blue, it is not pretty.

I will be 6 months zc on May 25. I know its not a “big” thing when compared to some of the situations that some of our other members on this board have to deal with on a daily basis, but for me its just incredible.

 

Please visit my Testimonials page to read the stories of others following a Zero Carb diet.

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.

 

My Zero Carb Experience with Lyme Disease by Alison Lyons

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alison lyons

When I first went to the gastro with all my stomach issues and food intolerances, they tried to get me on a FODMAP diet. I was like…. uh, I just told you everything but meat makes me inflamed and sick and you’re telling me to eat a diet of nothing but the foods that make me inflamed and sick? Needless to say I didn’t return back to any of those doctors.

Zero Carb is really the only way my Lyme stays under control and allows me to be pain free. But I’ve struggled against eating an all-meat diet for years because of all the pressure I have received from doctors and family to keep trying to get plant foods back into my diet. Additionally, I did not know another single person who was eating an all-meat diet, so I felt very alone, isolate and unsure about the path my body was telling me to follow. As a result, I was pretty miserable.

Since finding the Zero Carb group Zeroing in on Health on Facebook (through The Andersen Family interview that a friend shared with me), my mindset has completely flipped. I have stopped fighting it. I now realized that I need to just listen to my body and eat the way it responds best and tell all my doctors and family to just accept that this is the way it is.

My god what a difference all this has made – less pressure from those around me, making friends with other people who eat like me, knowing I’m not alone anymore. I know it sounds melodramatic, but stumbling across the Zero Carb community, and all these people that follow a diet free of plant foods, has literally saved my life on every level (emotionally, psychologically, and physically).

Over the years that I have been struggling with this, I have attempted to add other foods back in periodically (mostly because those around thought I should), but every plant food I tried would cause a negative reaction (burning in my small intestines, morbid bloating, headaches, fatigue, high blood pressure).

By October 2013, I decided in earnest that I needed to just stick with meat and stop trying to please others around me. However, I recently got derailed yet one more time when my nutritionist encouraged me to try eating some blueberries. Unfortunately, this little experiment caused me SEVERE pain and cause many previously dormant symptoms of the Lyme bacteria to rear their ugly head.

Up to this point, I hadn’t had carb/sugar cravings at all for quite a while. But once I tried those blueberries, my brain chemistry just went bonkers from the fructose, and I immediately began to experience HUGE carb/sugar cravings. For the next few weeks, I found myself unable to resist my desire for more fruit and I just got sicker and sicker. I finally got a grip on myself, and I am now back on track and eating only meat again. The cravings are almost completely gone, and – once again – I am feeling so much better.

At this point, you might be wondering how long have I had Lyme Disease, and how did I arrive at an all meat diet? Well, when I was about 8 years old, I was bit by a tick. I got the classic EM Lyme rash (massively, it took up the entire inside of my right thigh). When my mom finally noticed it, she panicked and took me to the doctor.

This was Texas in the 1980’s, though, and the doctor told her that the rash did look exactly like the EM Lyme rash, but it couldn’t possibly be that because Lyme didn’t exist in Texas! I remember my mom arguing with him about why we vaccinated our dogs for it, but in the end he refused to send us home with the antibiotics used to treat it in the early stage of an infection.

My mom is a health nut, so I wasn’t allowed much sugar at all while I was growing up. No sodas, no candy, and it was very very rarely that I was allowed desserts. We ate mostly baked chicken, rice, and veggies. I played a lot of sports, and I did well in school. There was very little stress in my life throughout this time, so my immune system stayed strong enough to keep the Lyme bacteria in dormant state.

Around the age of 27, I began working at an insanely stressful job (a newspaper with long hours and very low pay), and I suddenly started having some strange symptoms emerge. I was really into triathlons at this point and so I desperately tried to ignore the symptoms I was experiencing. I didn’t want to give up training and the races I was competing in.

Looking back, I’m astounded at my stubbornness and how I kept training for triathlons through all of that – it was mostly profound fatigue, headaches, and brain fog. I’ve always been an avid reader and usually average around 50 books a year, but that year all I could finish was 1. I thought I was getting adult ADD or something. All the fatigue and headaches I chalked up to the stress of my job. But, I didn’t yet realize that the stress was impairing my immune system and allowing the Lyme bacteria to thrive.

I finally found a new job and – on what was supposed to be my first day at that job – I went for my usual morning run. About midway through, I was attacked by a dog. Animal control never found the dog, so I was forced to agree to the rabies vaccine. That was the final straw for breaking down my immune system. After those rabies shots, my left arm went numb, then my left leg, then the left side of my face developed bells palsy. It got so bad that I couldn’t walk, which was insanely distressing for me being an endurance athlete. I had just finished my first MS150 (a race that raises money for Multiple Sclerosis research) only 3 months before and the first suspected diagnosis they had for me was MS. The irony made me sick.

An avalanche of other symptoms started, though, and tinnitus was one of them. I could hardly hear anyone because the ringing in my ears was so loud. Someone on an MS message board told me that MS and Lyme are often misdiagnosed for one another because the symptoms are so similar, but tinnitus is one symptom that is very Lyme-specific. As soon as I read the word LYME, my memory jarred back to my childhood and that tick bite. Found a Lyme doctor, got all the right tests and sure enough it was Lyme.

I was terrified of the high dose long course antibiotic treatment usually prescribed for Lyme. I didn’t want to damage my stomach, so I insisted on trying to treat the Lyme with an herbal protocol first. For a year I took about 160-200 pills a day and changed my diet (no fruit/carbs/sugars to feed the lyme and no gluten/nightshades/inflammatory foods) and sure enough it all started working. My immune system was beefed back up and able to repress the Lyme bacteria once again.

However, by the time my symptoms finally started to go away, I suddenly began having stomach problems. My stomach ballooned out and I looked 8 months pregnant. I had a lot of tests done and finally decided to try an elimination diet. I discovered that trace amounts of gluten were the culprit. So, I became more vigilant in regards to gluten and sure enough the pain and bloating in my stomach went away.

Then a few weeks later my stomach ballooned back out again. I did another elimination diet and added foods back in one by one and found dairy to be the problem this time. Removed all dairy, felt better for a few weeks, then bam… stomach ballooned out again. Took everything out, added it back in one by one and found soy to be the problem this time. This maddening cycle went on for about a year until I was down to eating only potatoes and sunflower seeds.

At this point, I had been a vegetarian for 14 years and was refusing to try to add meat back into my diet. But – because I was only eating potatoes and sunflower seeds – I was getting very deficient in nutrients and my kidney function began to decline. All my doctors finally cornered me and said that if I wanted to live then I was going to HAVE to eat meat again.

I started with chicken. My kidney function improved almost immediately and I started feeling better. I slowly worked my way up to adding beef and turkey back in to my diet as well. I actually started feeling good for the first time in years. But all of my family, friends, and doctors were still putting tremendous pressure on me to find out what was wrong with my stomach, encouraging me to take steps to heal it and heal it in order to get vegetables back into my diet.

So – even though I felt so much better on just meat – I kept testing out foods at their urging. “What about SEAWEED? What about THIS? What about THAT?” Everyone was constantly trying to think of something that might work and pressuring me to try it out. Eventually, I would succumb to their suggestion and I would ALWAYS react terrible to whatever it was this time. This process of testing different foods kept my body, and especially my digestive tract, in a constant state of inflammation. It was a nightmare.

Then I started reacting to some of the foods that – up to this point – had been safe… like chicken. I couldn’t figure out what was going on until I started reading about how common leaky gut is with Lyme disease. I finally realized that I lost the ability to foods when I ate them too many days in a row or in too high of a quantity (anything over 10 oz in one sitting was problematic).

By the point I figured that out, though, I had already lost chicken, beef, turkey, pork, bison, and lamb. So for the last 2 years or so I’ve been eating mostly fish, duck, elk, kangaroo, and venison. If I stick only to those meats, and am careful about the amount I eat, and frequency with which I eat them, then I don’t become sensitive to them and I stay out of pain.

I’ve been working with a nutritionist to heal the leaky gut. Lots of probiotics / sauerkraut juice (can’t handle the fiber in the cabbage itself), colostrum, fish oils, enzymes, trace minerals, MSM, etc etc. We found that I also have a candida infection that could be adding to the leaky gut and food intolerances as well, so I was taking a lot of oregano oil and monolaurin, which are basically natural antibiotics/antifungals to kill off the candida.

I also have a few MTHFR gene mutations, so methyl b12 and methyl folate were added into the regimen at the end of last year. I was healing enough that I was actually able to very carefully rotate in a few small things I had developed intolerances to like lemon and lime. But I can only have a very small amount every few days.

With this small victory my nutritionist put pressure on me to test out berries. This was a huge, huge, huge mistake. Looking back I don’t know what he was thinking suggesting berries.  Yeah, the berries were an epic failure. I reacted horribly and my brain exploded on that sugar. I went completely crazy with sugar cravings.

I hadn’t realized how eating a meat-only diet had completely eliminated all of my cravings. I was desperately trying to add foods back in just because of the pressure from doctors and family around me, and because of the isolation of eating this strange way all alone… not because I desired any of those foods.

The cravings got so out of control that I found wholly myself unable to resist the urge for more sugar and started eating dates. I reacted horribly to them,and just eating a single bite would cause about 4-7 days of unbelievable pain. But I could not – for the life of me – seem to quit eating them. It was horrible. Up until now, the Lyme symptoms had been in complete remission for almost 3 years by adhering to an all-meat diet. But this little fruit escapade caused the Lyme bacteria to resurface with a vengeance, and all my symptoms returned. I was devastated.

However…It was in the middle of this mess that I stumbled across the interview on the Andersen family. I was so blown away to find someone who had been through such similar circumstances, but had managed to get it all under control with an all-meat diet.

When I began reading through the rest of Esmee’s blog where The Andersen Family interview was published – discovering that there were tons of people who ate a diet of meat only – I was so happy and so relieved to have found OTHERS eating this way that I nearly cried. The isolation I had felt for so many years because of my dietary restrictions had caused me much more suffering than the actual lack of plant foods.

With this discovery, a lot has changed for me in the last couple of weeks. I realized that I was busting my butt and breaking the bank to heal my stomach and for what? Because of the Lyme I will NEVER be able to eat fruit or other plant foods. For the first time, I feel free to just fully embrace being a blood-thirsty unapologetic carnivore. 😉

It is so much easier to eat only meat now that I have a little support group so-to-speak and now that I’ve sifted through so many of the supportive articles posted in the Zero Carb Facebook community Zeroing in on Health.

I have shared a lot of these new resources with my parents and best friend, and this has helped to relieve their minds as well. They have stopped putting so much pressure on me to try and add various plant foods back in to my diet. In fact, they have been reading so much material from Esmee’s blog that they’re starting to get a little curious about the benefits that Zero Carb might offer them as well.

So yeah. It has been one heck of a roller coaster. I was pretty distressed about the Lyme symptoms resurfacing, but now that I know I don’t need any plant foods to be perfectly healthy, I expect to be feeling much better very soon. Prior to the fruit binge, I had been eating only meat for quite a while and was feeling so good that I had been able to resume exercising, especially swimming, again. I am looking forward to getting back to that in the near future.

I’m fully on board with Zero Carb now since the berry debacle, and I finally realize that – for me – there’s no moderation with fruit or any other plant foods. Even a minuscule amount will cause me to go completely mad with cravings and pain. My doctor’s recommendations to constantly try various supplements, medications, and foods has only served to keep me in a state of chronic inflammation and pain. So, I’ve decided to do what is best for my body and just abstain from all plant foods from this point forward.

I’m still taking a few supplements like probiotics, enzymes, and herbs for immune support, but I’m done with adding any more new ones for now. I think if I stick with the supplements that I’ve already been taking safely for a few years now – and eat only meat and drink only water – the Lyme bacteria will go back into remission and may – over time – be completely eliminated from my body. Charlene Andersen’s story has given me great hope.

Thank you for listening and letting me share my story. Perhaps it will inspire others with Lyme to try a Zero Carb, All-Meat diet and see if it will assist them on their own path back to well-being.

alison lyons1

Please visit my Testimonials page to read the stories of others following a Zero Carb diet.

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.

 

My First 30 Days on Zero Carb by Candi Leftwich

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Candi and her little friend MooMoo.

I was diagnosed with psoriasis and Crohn’s Disease in 2012 at the age of 37. Both came as a surprise, as the psoriasis popped up out of nowhere, and – although I had alternating constipation and diarrhea for several years – I’d always thought my bowel habits were fairly normal. My Primary Care Physician encouraged me to follow a whole foods diet plan (gluten-free) and to make an appointment to see a Dermatologist.

I was prescribed Clobetasol ointment for topical treatment and Methotrexate for internal treatment of the psoriasis. I took used both of these medicines for 12 weeks. The psoriasis lesions lessened to some extent, but they never went away…and then – to my horror – they actually started spreading from just my knees, elbows, and abdomen to my face, ears, hands, and feet. I knew something had to change, so I started doing some research of my own. All this research pointed in the direction of dietary changes.

I watched Joe Cross’s documentary, ‘Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead,’ and dove straight into a juicing frenzy. I had only fresh raw juice for 30 days, but I saw no results with either of my health issues. More research led me to probiotics and foods rich in these good bacteria. I made Kombucha and milk kefir, and I fermented every vegetable I could get my hands on. My kitchen looked like a science lab. While I enjoy(ed) fermenting, I didn’t see major health results.

I decided to follow a raw foods diet for 14 days. I’m not sure if that would’ve helped or not, because I fell off the wagon after 7 days. There’s only so many zucchini noodles a person can eat. Naturally all these dietary changes started adding weight to my 5’2 body. I discovered the low-carb movement, and thought it might help with weight loss. But I had no hope that low-carb would do anything positive for my health issues.

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Candi with her husband before starting Zero Carb.

I stumbled into the Facebook group Zeroing In On Health (ZIOH) through one of the many low-carb and ketogenic diet Facebook groups I already participated in. I hadn’t lost any real weight through several months of keeping to the ketogenic guidelines of very low carb, moderate protein, and high fat, so the idea of Zero Carb intrigued me.

I read all the posts on ZIOH, as well as all of Kelly Williams Hogan‘s posts on her blog My Zero Carb Life. I’d done everything else, so I figured why not try meat and water for 30 days…it wouldn’t kill me.

I transitioned to Zero Carb quite easily – as far as the physical aspects are concerned. I experienced no major negative symptoms of withdrawal or adaption. The mental transition was a totally different ball game, however. I experienced both grief and anger. I mean, who were these people that said it was a good idea to give up my flavored coffee creamer and my delicious vegetables?!

Plus, I occasionally volunteer at a local organic farm, and receive free fresh vegetables – what’s so wrong with that? And I enjoyed playing with my $300 masticating juicer that I had purchased to follow Joe Cross’s popular juicing program. It was hard to turn off my desire to craft up some kitchen witchery with food experiments. But I persevered. “It’s is only 30 days,” I told myself.

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Candi after 30 days on Zero Carb with MooMoo.

Now, after only one month of eating this way, the magic of meat and water is becoming more apparent to me everyday…

My stomach no longer feels bloated and crampy.

My bowels have calmed down considerably. I have gone from 4-6 loose bowel movements per day to only 1-2  per day. And when I do feel the need for a bathroom, it is no longer an urgent emergency.

My skin is clear and my acne is gone.

My hair and eyelashes have grown noticeably longer.

My mood and energy have both improved. I feel less stressed out and more optimistic about life in general.

My libido has increased.

My weight has decreased from 132.8 lbs to 126.0 lbs.

And -most importantly – my psoriasis has greatly diminished (see pics below).

All this in just 30 days!

Left Elbow – Before Zero Carb

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Left Elbow – Before Zero Carb

Left Elbow – After Zero Carb

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Left Elbow – After Zero Carb

Abdomen – Before Zero Carb

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Abdomen – Before Zero Carb

Abdomen – After Zero Carb

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Abdomen – After Zero Carb

Left Knee – Before Zero Carb

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Left Knee – Before Zero Carb

Left Knee – After Zero Carb

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Left Knee – After Zero Carb

(Please note: All of the above “before” photos were taken after the topical ointment and 30 days of fresh raw juice had failed to make much of a difference, followed by 12 weeks of Methotrexate tried as a last resort due to its toxic nature…only to have the lesions get worse and continue to spread. All of the “after” photos were taken on the 30th day of eating a Zero Carb diet free of all plant foods.)

I was not prepared to release my love of coffee when I began Zero Carb, so I have continued to have two cups a day with some heavy whipping cream. I have been eating mostly beef, pork, and chicken. I also eat eggs, drink homemade bone broth, and have a bit of cheddar cheese from time-to-time.

I still like to include fermented foods in my diet, so I make and enjoy kefir butter, kefir sour cream, kefir cheese, and Kombucha flavored with a variety of herbs. I usually eat two meals per day, but sometimes only one. It just depends on how hungry I am.

I no longer see plants in the same light as I once did. They do not make my mouth water. I never felt as good consuming any kind of plant foods as I do right this very minute…finishing off my steak. I’m so pleased that I gave Zero Carb a fair chance for 30 days full days.

My results are proof that the body can show measurable signs of healing within a brief period of time. Thank you ZIOH veterans for showing me the path. I hope this inspires other people to take the 30 day meat and water challenge.

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Candi visiting with some deer friends.

 

On June 7, 2015 Candi posted this picture of herself to share that the psoriasis that plagued her for so long is almost completely gone after just 3 months of following a Zero Carb diet.

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Please visit my Testimonials page to read the stories of others following a Zero Carb diet.

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.