Hi there,
I’m 23 years old from France, and 4 month in the carnivore diet…
Diet past: I will try to make it short… I stopped eating meat pretty early, red meat around 16, thinking to do good and looking to improve my athletic life, as media’s were starting to claim the danger of meat… what followed then have been a progressively eliminating animal product diet, with some very bad digestive health at some point, and ended up raw fruitarian at 22 years old. ( with some exception in my diet at some time).
I was oh so convinced that it was the optimal diet.
My general health wasn’t bad. I was in a good shape, active, and could perform in sports, even in the cold, and was in better health than most of the people around me. I am a strong willing person so I guess that’s why I was still active.
But that changed during last winter, when I had to admit that something wasn’t working and that it wasn’t sustainable. I started craving meats and reading article about the benefits of meat and in general animal products. (Weston A Price foundation).
I reintroduced animal products but was still eating big quantity of carbohydrates in all forms, that resulted in a weight gain, anyway my health was getting better, so I switched to a keto diet and I started to lose some fat… I don’t remember how I found about the carnivore diet but I decided to give it a try about 4 months ago … one of my motivation was to lose the fat I gained. So what I mostly ate was beef, lamb, chicken, organ meats, raw cheese, raw butter, raw milk, yogurt, tallow to cook, bone broth…
Benefits:
- Better sleep
- Better mental
- More energy
- Very good adaptation to cold climate
- Better sex life and I guess a better hormonal functioning
- Not hungry all the day
- Good digestion overall, no gas
- Lost some fat
- Gained muscle mass (I wasn’t looking to gain some as I was already athletic but with all that protein I think you just can’t avoid it)
- I probably forget some others benefits.
Some side effects would be constantly thirsty, so want to pee numerous time throughout the day, hard to find a balance between constipated and loose stools, and some muscle cramps/contraction during exercice, even with a copious amount of salt eaten and magnesium supplementation as recommended, but why would you need to supplement if that’s the optimal diet ?
Anyway I will keep going with this way of eating, don’t know for how long, I guess as long as I’m happy with it, I would like to lose a little bit more fat in some area, but don’t get too big in muscle, I just hope this woe is not causing any damage in the body as we don’t have yet any LONG term study.
So to conclude, very happy overall after this 4 months experience, never felt better.
Meat heals. Thanks.