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How long have you been on carnivore? I went on keto some
Posted on: February 24, 2025 at 14:06:25 CT
JeffB MU
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years ago with quite a bit of trepidation. It went against everything the medical establishment pushes... but I had started putting on some weight & then I tried to really follow the medical establishment guidelines, but started rapidly gaining weight.
I was cutting down on meat & cutting off all the fat of any meat that I did eat. I started eating big bowls of mashed potatoes, pasta, rice... carbs have less than half the calories of fat, after all. They even said that sugary snacks are just carbs, so no real harm in them, other than the fact that they are "empty calories", with no vitamins or minerals that our body needs. So I ate licorice for snacks and took some vitamin/mineral supplements.
Much to my surprise, rather than losing weight, it started shooting up dramatically. What the heck?
Fortunately for me, I happened to see a notice about a book signing coming up by Gary Taubes, a very highly respected science writer. The book was entitled, Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It. I read a brief review of it saying that he recommended cutting out carbs... such as potatoes, pasta, rice etc. What!?!? I was very skeptical. He was turning the food pyramid upside down. But I had to admit that I was following the advice of all of the "medical experts" and institutions and it seemed to be backfiring on me. I finally decided to check out the online book at the library, as there was a huge wait for the hard copy.
To my surprise, he gave very solid scientific studies and historical records showing that a high fat, low carb diet resulted in very healthy populations of people and that individuals on such diets in current studies were losing a lot of weight, reversing type 2 diabetes and improving their health dramatically.
Despite all the evidence he gave, I was still very reluctant to try it. It went against the strong recommendations of the heart associations, and cancer associations and so on. I didn't want to ruin my health, but if I kept gaining weight I was clearly going to do that anyway, so I gave it a try. If found a low carb diet on the website of the Duke University Medical Center or whatever they call it. That sounded pretty solid so I decided to try it. They said limit carbs to 20 grams/day for a while to start.
It pizzed my wife off, because she had just bought a bunch of oatmeal, rice, and instant potato in bulk & now I wouldn't eat any of it. 20g per day is pretty tough to get to. It was almost all meat, fish and a little bit of green leafy vegetables. Any vegetables that were roots were allegedly starchy/full of carbs, so were off the menu. Ditto for fruits.
To my amazement, I was continuously losing about .2 lbs per day without being hungry. My wife was still pizzed & said that it wasn't a valid test because I was eating less than before. She wouldn't believe me when I said that was a result of the low carbs. It didn't make my insulin spike which would tell my body to store the sugars entering the bloodstream as fat... and as the sugar levels dropped it would set off the hormone response to get hungry and eat again.
My doctor had recommended that I lose weight & gave me a target to hit to get my BMI into the normal range. He was happy that I hit those numbers at my next checkup... until he heard the diet that I went on. He didn't like that at all, as it went against all of the medical recommendations.
It was hard for me to stay on that diet, however. Restaurants & fast food places don't offer that type of menu, and every family gathering had tons of deserts and starchy foods, but not enough meat or fish. My wife was always reminding me to not eat too much meat or fish, so that everyone else could have some.
But when ever I go off of that diet my weight starts going back up again. I've also started intermittent fasting, after checking out one of Uncle Fester's links to Dr. Jason Fung. It is like putting keto on steroids.
My doctor is now reluctantly going along with it. I think my bloodwork surprised him, other than LDL a little high. He wanted me to take some statins but I've researched that as well, so refused it. He's going along with me on that as well, probably because everything else looks good and it wasn't outrageously high.
I have recently been watching some videos on carnivore. It looks very interesting, and has obviously helped a lot of people in some pretty amazing ways. I'm still a little reluctant to go that route, however. Some health gurus seem to think that it is great as a reset to get people's health back on track, but may not be as healthy long term. Gary Taubes talked about Eskimo societies that had a diet consisting of 80% fat calories & almost all fish or meat. They had virtually no diabetes or obesity or cardiovascular diseases and very low rates of cancer. Some common cancers in western society are almost non-existent there. Of course cost is probably a non-issue for them, as they can just go out and club a baby seal or 3 for supper and not worry about it. I don't think I've even seen baby seals in Schnucks, so I don't know how much that is per pound around these parts.
I was cutting down on meat & cutting off all the fat of any meat that I did eat. I started eating big bowls of mashed potatoes, pasta, rice... carbs have less than half the calories of fat, after all. They even said that sugary snacks are just carbs, so no real harm in them, other than the fact that they are "empty calories", with no vitamins or minerals that our body needs. So I ate licorice for snacks and took some vitamin/mineral supplements.
Much to my surprise, rather than losing weight, it started shooting up dramatically. What the heck?
Fortunately for me, I happened to see a notice about a book signing coming up by Gary Taubes, a very highly respected science writer. The book was entitled, Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It. I read a brief review of it saying that he recommended cutting out carbs... such as potatoes, pasta, rice etc. What!?!? I was very skeptical. He was turning the food pyramid upside down. But I had to admit that I was following the advice of all of the "medical experts" and institutions and it seemed to be backfiring on me. I finally decided to check out the online book at the library, as there was a huge wait for the hard copy.
To my surprise, he gave very solid scientific studies and historical records showing that a high fat, low carb diet resulted in very healthy populations of people and that individuals on such diets in current studies were losing a lot of weight, reversing type 2 diabetes and improving their health dramatically.
Despite all the evidence he gave, I was still very reluctant to try it. It went against the strong recommendations of the heart associations, and cancer associations and so on. I didn't want to ruin my health, but if I kept gaining weight I was clearly going to do that anyway, so I gave it a try. If found a low carb diet on the website of the Duke University Medical Center or whatever they call it. That sounded pretty solid so I decided to try it. They said limit carbs to 20 grams/day for a while to start.
It pizzed my wife off, because she had just bought a bunch of oatmeal, rice, and instant potato in bulk & now I wouldn't eat any of it. 20g per day is pretty tough to get to. It was almost all meat, fish and a little bit of green leafy vegetables. Any vegetables that were roots were allegedly starchy/full of carbs, so were off the menu. Ditto for fruits.
To my amazement, I was continuously losing about .2 lbs per day without being hungry. My wife was still pizzed & said that it wasn't a valid test because I was eating less than before. She wouldn't believe me when I said that was a result of the low carbs. It didn't make my insulin spike which would tell my body to store the sugars entering the bloodstream as fat... and as the sugar levels dropped it would set off the hormone response to get hungry and eat again.
My doctor had recommended that I lose weight & gave me a target to hit to get my BMI into the normal range. He was happy that I hit those numbers at my next checkup... until he heard the diet that I went on. He didn't like that at all, as it went against all of the medical recommendations.
It was hard for me to stay on that diet, however. Restaurants & fast food places don't offer that type of menu, and every family gathering had tons of deserts and starchy foods, but not enough meat or fish. My wife was always reminding me to not eat too much meat or fish, so that everyone else could have some.
But when ever I go off of that diet my weight starts going back up again. I've also started intermittent fasting, after checking out one of Uncle Fester's links to Dr. Jason Fung. It is like putting keto on steroids.
My doctor is now reluctantly going along with it. I think my bloodwork surprised him, other than LDL a little high. He wanted me to take some statins but I've researched that as well, so refused it. He's going along with me on that as well, probably because everything else looks good and it wasn't outrageously high.
I have recently been watching some videos on carnivore. It looks very interesting, and has obviously helped a lot of people in some pretty amazing ways. I'm still a little reluctant to go that route, however. Some health gurus seem to think that it is great as a reset to get people's health back on track, but may not be as healthy long term. Gary Taubes talked about Eskimo societies that had a diet consisting of 80% fat calories & almost all fish or meat. They had virtually no diabetes or obesity or cardiovascular diseases and very low rates of cancer. Some common cancers in western society are almost non-existent there. Of course cost is probably a non-issue for them, as they can just go out and club a baby seal or 3 for supper and not worry about it. I don't think I've even seen baby seals in Schnucks, so I don't know how much that is per pound around these parts.
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How long have you been on carnivore? I went on keto some - JeffB MU - 2/24 14:06:25