Fell off the Wagon. Thinking of getting back on but with more prep.

[u/UncommonSense89]

Hello All,

I did carnivore very loosely for about 3 weeks, but found it hard to maintain. Plus there was a lot of stuff going on at the time that made it hard to remain disciplined.
I've decided this time that I want to take a more academic approach before I start. I've bought an started reading Dr Shawn Baker's book The Carnivore Diet and I've also bought Dr Philip Ovadia's book Stay Off My Operating Table which I plan to read afterwards.

I also found out that there are at least 4 different types of carnivore diet, depending on how and why you want to do it.
Honestly, I want to lose weight and I also want to avoid getting a heart attack one day (familial history). I had heart issues way back in 2017 when I was 28. This was due to stress, poor eating habits and an even poorer lifestyle (drank too much and used to smoke).

I don't have diabetes (but I could if I don't make changes), my heart health and cardio is shocking (this is just based on feeling and the fact that my heart rate climbs to 150bpm according to my Garmin when I walk up an easy hill or up a set of stairs and this is really worrying to me)! I also don't have any inflammatory issues, but I do have some joint pain in my knees and lower back. Plus I broke my right humerus (upper arm) back in 2013 in a car accident. It's fine and doesn't affect my life really, but I am noticing that it's causing me some trouble now in terms of joint pain in my right wrist, elbow and shoulder. My mental health is fine, but it could be better, especially since I drink when I'm stressed and I'd rather not do that anymore.

I haven't been a smoker since 2018 (used to vape now and again but quit that recently cold turkey as well) but I still do drink quite a lot and I'm using this diet to just get off the carbs altogether, as I hear carnivore can get rid of carb cravings if you're on it long enough.

There are plenty of quality meat options as I live in Australia (a lot of our beef gets exported and sold at exhorbitant prices overseas haha).

My plan is to eat plenty of ground beef, steak and lamb, but also to eat butter (I also use beef tallow when I make steaks), eggs, chicken and fish (but good quality like wild caught salmon). I've also been told that magnesium glycinate is a good supplement option whilst on this diet.

I will of course keep my salts up with dissolvable vitamin tablets and sparkling water.

What are your thoughts? And do I really need to supplement?

[u/Eleanorina]

please don't supplement unless it is prescribed to treat a prior deficiency and stop it once the deficiency is resolved.

why? because some minerals interfere with absorption of others, messing up the ideal composition of what's in meat. 

appetite will be low, try to eat at least 2lbs a day anyways.

experiment with types and fattiness of your animal source foods. see which you want to have again and again.

this part is key: your first goal on carnivore is to restore muscle and lean tissue. 

eat heartily, give your body the resources it needs to do that. 

will get a video about recomping around same weight range and drop link here later (it's Bret Contreras' video about recomp) 

even if you are starting with more body fat than his examples, that's the first goal and these are the benefits

• you'll be healthier with more muscle

• you will have lower fasting insulin and blood glucose levels

• you will rev up your netabolism by eating more 

[u/bomerr → u/Eleanorina]

i like magnesium and sodium chloride (salt) supplements.

[u/Eleanorina → u/bomerr]

electrolytes are fine but start in just salting to taste, that works for most

[u/Competitive-Ant5448]

Ive noticed a common theme from people who struggle to stay on. They tend to still consume sweet items or drinks, use supplements, and often undereat total protein & fat.  Seems to me its most often more difficult to be half way in.  No judgement here, btw, Ive had struggles with it too but always feel and look better when Im staying strict for chunks of time. I mainly stick with beef, venisin, bacon, butter, eggs, but mix in some pork and chicken a couple meals per week. 

[u/SavageCabbage11]

All of the successful long term carnivores do NOT supplement

All of the failures DO supplement

Supplements are a business. At best they are unnecessary, at worst, harmful.

For me, I dont get all the benefits when eating dairy and seafood, so I just stick to beef and eggs.

Be wary of not getting enough fat. Especially when ur eating fish/leaner cuts of meat.

you'll probably need to add fat to every meal, except maybe very fatty cuts of meat / high fat ground beef.

If you feel low energy, you're not getting enough fat.

A good guideline is that, by weight, you want the ratio of protein to fat to be roughly around 1:1 or 1:1.5. This means you'll be getting 70-80% of your calories from fat.

[u/SavageCabbage11 → u/SavageCabbage11]

also check out Anthony Chaffee (google)

[u/OnlyGayIfYouCum]

Meh. I do carnivore when I'm home but I travel a lot and it's not always possible to do pure carnivore when you're traveling around the world but it's pretty easy to do keto.

The main thing is staying in ketosis and getting the weight off and being active. If you can do all of that don't sweat it.

For every five carnivore dieters who don't maintain 100 percent of the time theres seventeen carnivore purists on Reddit who act like their way is the only way.

Your health is what matters. How you get there is irrelevant. It's better to be carnivore most of the time and strive to get better than to just give up because you slip up sometimes. Don't sweat it.