Don't call it a diet...
I begin this series with a recap of my journey to Carnivore/Zero Carb. I don't like to use the word "diet" in reference to Carnivore, as that implies fad, temporary dieting for the purpose of losing weight primarily. As will be evident, eating Carnivore isn't a diet in that sense for me, it is more in the dictionary sense of "diet": a description of the food I eat on a daily basis.
Pain!
This all began several years ago when I lived in Kuwait. I've always been able to eat just about anything with little to no negative reaction. I have no food allergies and rarely have food poisoning. I began to develop burping fits that would sometimes go on for days at a time. These would sometimes also be extremely painful, keeping me up at night and making me generally miserable. I tried antacids, identifying triggering foods, etc... Nothing seemed to work.
Sugar = Poison
Of course I was also concerned about my increasing weight, and at some point I realized sugar, carbs, and processed foods were probably the source of most of my trouble in that area. Over the course of about a year, I cut out all sugar (to the best of my ability). What helped most was to re-orient my concept of sugar. I started substituting the word "poison" for sugar in every context I could, especially in my mind. This helped a surprising amount, because you are much less likely to ingest poison without thinking twice about it. Eventually, as sugar was eliminated and I lost my craving for it, I found myself feeling healthier.
Carbs = Sugar = Poison
Along these lines, I also began to cut carbs. Many years ago my wife and I had tried an Atkins-style diet and neither of us liked it. Me especially, as I loved rice too much to give it up. But now I understood better that carbs are basically just a raw form of sugar as far as our bodies are concerned. So I started thinking of carbs as sugar, and sugar as poison, therefore helping me cut down. I didn't go all the way at first. I spent about a year living by the "rule of half": at every meal, if there is a high carb component, just eat half of it. This took some getting used to and practice, but over time it became easier. I wasn't necessarily trying for weight-loss, but this year resulted in the most notable weight-loss I had ever experienced. And I felt so much healthier over all. I will add that I finally realized I had to give up beer (or at least move into the category of a treat). The carb-laden beverage was starting to have a clear and smelly affect on my digestive tract. I have since learned to appreciate Scotch so much more!
Processed foods = <unpronounceable ingredients> + Sugar = Poison
The third plank in that year of change was to finally recognize that processed foods are just plain terrible. They are packed full of unpronounceable chemicals, artificially engineered to increase addictive responses to keep us coming back, and usually full of disguised sugars. I began to eliminate all processed foods wherever possible, trying to consume as much minimally processed food as possible.
The Fast Tract Diet
However, I still wasn't experiencing complete relief from the burping/acid-reflux/GERD symptoms. I read somewhere that a low-carb diet often alleviated these, so I decided to give it a try. To my astonishment, I immediately got worse! This was so frustrating, so I did some searches about GERD getting worse on low-carb diets and came across an article at https://digestivehealthinstitute.org/ discussing why that might be the case. This guy's "Fast Tract" diet approach made a lot of sense! Certain foods tend to ferment in the stomach resulting in bacterial colonization of the stomach by the upper digestive system, resulting in tons of burping. Finally, an explanation that made more sense to me, along with an intriguing approach to managing things: each food is assign a Fermentation Potential (FP) value that is based on sciency things (read the site if you're interested). Basically, you pick a maximum FP value per day, and select foods with low FP that add up to less than that value throughout the day. Presto...burping and acid reflux managed! However...I wasn't thrilled with his acceptance of highly processed foods such as white bread vs brown bread as being "better" eating. This was because it was easier to digest...but basically just turned into sugar. In any case, I tried it for several months and then got the gist of how to follow it without using an app or tracking anything. The idea is still sound I believe, but I was ready to try some more extreme options. I still recommend it to fellow GERD sufferers.
So close I can taste it...
The weight-loss had been encouraging, but I really wanted to get down closer to an "ideal" weight. Not that I buy the BMI approach to "ideal" weight, nor do I believe there is any such thing really, but I just wanted to feel what it was like to get down to what most people would consider "normal". For me, that would be somewhere in the 150 lbs range. I had been as high as 220 lbs in Kuwait. Having gotten down to around 190 lbs over those couple of years, I was ready to see if I could get even further down. This was about when I started hearing about Keto.
Keto explosion!
Of course, Keto is all the rage now, but at the time it was a brand new idea to me. It clicked when I finally realized it was just switching the brain over from primarily running on glucose (i.e. sugar) to ketones (i.e. fat). This is done by drastically limiting carbs and increasing protein and fats. There are lots of different Keto diet approaches out there, but as I was starting out I found a "30 days" plan and decided to try it. One week in I exploded with burping...some of the most painful I'd had in a really long time. Of course, it was because the main way the diet got low carb but high volume was by using a lot of spinach, an extremely high FP food for me. I have to say I also found Keto to be a bit too fiddly to stay on long term. I needed something that was more of a permanent lifestyle change than just a short-term "diet".
Going the whole carnivore
Disappointed and frustrated, I did some more research online and came across Zero Carb or Carnivore. At first this seemed a bridge too far, but then I found the raw meat folks, so no....there is even more crazy out there! Carnivore is simple: eat meat, preferably high fat content, until you are full. That's basically it. There are variations, some people are purists (only grass-fed beef!), others "dirty carnivores" (cheese and milk ok), some mix in intermittent fasting (6-8 hour eating window), but essentially, it's to just eat meat, as much as you want. I had been reading around the edges of this thing for a while, but was more on the Keto bandwagon until I actually tried it and exploded. Since I was in the middle of this Keto experiment, I just decided to go whole-hog (pun intended) and cut all the veg out. My painful burping cleared up almost immediately. Since I was already in ketosis, I had very little issues transitioning to full Carnivore.
1 year later
I spent the next year experimenting with Carnivore. I did the full 30 days, only grass-fed beef test (no real difference I found). I discovered Sous-Vide (the other topic of this series) had direct benefits to eating Carnivore. I had an unfortunate experience with gout when I traveled to Bahrain for work and went off Carnivore (don't change your diet too quickly!), I got my blood work done at the beginning and end of the year to see if there was any negative effect on my overall health (none, numbers were all great, and the doctor was pleased with my BMI...woohoo), and I came across a great resource for how to eat Carnivore on a budget. I also experimented with intermittent fasting. All of this over last year (2019), and at the end of it, I am still basically eating Carnivore (dirty, dirty Carnivore, I like cheese way too much to stop eating it) and have had no ill effects (gout not withstanding, but more on that later).
So how much did I lose?
One thing that didn't happen? I didn't reach my "ideal" weight goal of 150 lbs. Oh well...I currently hover between 165-170 lbs (depending on whether I've had a carb-laden cheater meal), but it has been rock solid for a very long time. It's like my body just decided..."this is how much I want to weigh, and there's nothing you can do about it!" But you know what? I feel great! I almost never have issues with painful burping (except when I go off Carnivore of course), and the difference between how I feel when I eat Carnivore vs carbs is night and day (fuzzy headed, bloated on carbs).
All this with no exercise...
BTW, did I mention I basically don't exercise at all? I'm in IT and sit at a desk all day. My only exercise is to walk to and from work about 15 minutes one way, 4 times a day.Here to stay
So I've settled into this thing and it's pretty much here to stay. Maybe it's terrible in the long run, but so far so good, and as long as I'm still feeling good and my doctor is happy, I'm going to keep it up.
Advice
This is my main piece of advice that I took away from all of this:Go slow - Don't try to jump to the hardest thing. Identify a small, achievable goal and work on that until it becomes habit. For example, if you're all excited by the idea of Carnivore, but you still basically eat a terrible diet now, don't quit and try Carnivore now. The goal is not to temporarily alter your diet...you want to permanently alter it. But if you try too much too soon, you're more likely to fail and quit. My suggested steps are 1) cut the sugar, 2) cut the carbs (half is fine, you'll still see benefits), 3) try Keto as a half-way house (it helps get your body used to ketosis for sure), and then 4) go for Carnivore. And if you're a fellow sufferer from GERD symptoms, give the Fast Tract Diet a try.
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