The carnivore diet is a thing, it’s probably closer to historical diets of Hunter gatherers.<p>Having done a couple of stints of meat + veggies only for 8-12 months I can definitely say you feel wired. I highly recommend, though it takes a couple weeks to break any carbs. I prefer it personally, but alas with multiple children and constant gatherings it’s hard to keep it up perfectly.<p>Real trick is snacks. I would make burgers and / or bacon and store it for a week or eat jerky. Worked well enough if I got hungry. After the first week or two your body adjusts to the protein & fat based meals and you no longer snack as much. At least not for me.
Followed a vegan diet and felt great in the beginning as most people do. I made sure to do everything as recommended by vegan doctors. Slowly but surely various health problems started to show, including bad teeths. Tried to make it work, sought help in the vegan community, but it's not accepted that a vegan diet can cause health problems, so I was shunned. Being desperate and my health just getting worse, I did a radical shift to the carnivore diet and started to feel much better. Now, after 7 years on the carnivore diet, I have never been in better health. I believe this saved my life. I still have bad teeth from the vegan days, but atleast it's not getting worse.
"The first time I ate vegetables again I soon developed some kind of lethargy, but it was familiar, and had once been common. I realized that since I had stopped eating plants, I had not felt this at all. I thought it was just normal to eat dinner and not want to do anything for 1-2 hours? But when I only eat meat, I don’t get this. Eating plants, even just a bit, makes my stomach feel bloated— But I can eat 2lbs of steak in one sitting and feel great."<p>I consider myself vegetarian although not 100% strict and in the past 4/5 years I ate red meat when I wanted to try specific foods, or dishes and every single time I felt in the exact same way that the author felt when eating vegetables. When I eat red meat, I am tired, I don't sleep well, I can't exercise well and I can't concentrate. And all my (mostly) vegetarian friends feel the same way when eating red meat.<p>This to say that his single data point doesn't mean anything: most likely my body is not used to red meat anymore, in the same way that his is not used to vegetables anymore.
There may be short term benefits to a keto diet, but longer term is not so clear. And health is only one element. Red meat is absolutely devastating to the environment and water supply, with immense greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and polluted water tables, on top of the incredible cruelty of factory farming and slaughter.
Carnivore and keto diets are pretty much how much of the world ate until the 40s or so. Carnivore works for me, I did that for a few years some time back. I've been keto with a carnivore slant for four years. My blood work is similar to yours.<p>I don't care what anyone else eats, have at it. But if you pay attention to those A1C commercials that are all over the place, cut down on the sugar a bit, would you?
A clean metabolic panel is an important but insufficient signal of good health. Meat is jam packed with vitamins and nutrients, so it would be strange if he was severely lacking in any of the important categories.<p>The real question will be what will the results be when he gets a colonoscopy at 40. I have a family friend who has been a long term meat-only person, and he is 50 and has a very bad case of diverticulitis as well as gastric reflux. Maybe he would have gotten them regardless, or maybe if he tried eating a little fiber he could have avoided it. I personally would be taking something like psyllium husk if I was going on that kind of diet(which I did when I went keto, but I was just doing it for fun and not weight loss, so it was hard to stick with).
Sounds like this guy is in the category of people for whom keto diets can work wonders. It's definitely not worth it for me, I've tried, and I suspect it's the same for most people.
A useful way to interpret this blog post is “I had weird health issues that were resistant to treatment, but dramatically changing my diet helped”.<p>This blog post does not contain useful advice for most people, but is a) vaguely interesting to see how someone managed to control rare health issues, and b) may be helpful for folk who have been trying and failing to deal with major health issues similar to the author.
I don't really understand people trying to reinvent the wheel, why not look for diets around the world which work, look at life expectancy in Japan, Spain, Italy, South Korea, Singapore, Cyprus etc. (though quite odd to see at top places odd landlocked Switzerland, dunno when that happened, never noticed)
This is generally a healthy way of eating, but one word of caution:<p>Without any carbohydrates at all, your SHBG levels will generally get very high, and you may end up with long-term hormonal issues. It's also questionable whether very-long-term gluconeogenesis is good for your liver. More studies are needed.<p>Paul Saladino, who used to be very strict carnivore, has recently recommended introduction of fruits and honey into an animal-based diet to address the SHBG and long-term gluconeogenesis concerns. He is still vehemently against grains and vegetables, but regularly includes 100-150 grams of carbohydrates from fruit/honey sources daily now, with positive effects on his (hormonal) blood work.
Who is this guy? I’m glad his diet seems to work for him, but I’m not really clear what the value of the post is.<p>I made fried rice today and it was great. Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.
"I stopped eating plants (including vegetables, grains, and fruit) to try to heal an issue with my skin" — could anyone share more details about this?
I'd be concerned about his heart's health. Idk you can do anything to mitigate the chronic ingestion of high amounts of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) from causing heart disease.
Maybe he'll eventually discover an alternative that also works well.
I do the same, but with a lot of protein shakes (keto chow) as well. It works really really well for me.<p>I'll still eat low/no carb vegetables like cucumbers, pickles, broccoli, etc, however. A diet of no soluble fiber isn't workable for me.
The Arctic Explorer Who Pushed an All-Meat Diet [in 1928] (<a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/all-meat-diet" rel="nofollow">https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/all-meat-diet</a>)<p>tl;dr if you eat enough fat with your all-protein diet, and get enough vitamin C (e.g. from liver) to ward off scurvy, you (might be) okay
I love meat, and I've done ketosis for years. Carnivore is the dumbest idea in the world, and I love seeing when it goes wrong, like this famous example <a href="https://twitter.com/thecarnivorekid/status/1473122272579833863" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/thecarnivorekid/status/14731222725798338...</a>
This diet works well for my Scandinavian makeup, but it is very unethical in the world of today. I try to get most of my protein from plants. They don't make me feel physically great, but I can live with myself better doing so.