1. Eating Fat Doesn’t Make You Fat.
Since it’s the new year and people tend to go in for resolutions, especially regarding health, I thought I would share my experiences with the carnivore diet. How exactly I came to try and like the carnivore’s diet is merely a culmination of years of curious reading and watching things considered conspiracy theory and also having chronic health issues myself, mostly of a digestive nature. As a Christian it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the sinful world is lying to us, but from vaccines to fake news, I have been amazed at just how much lying has been going on for so long. If you really think in common sense terms, we all know the truth, it’s just we tend to ignore it, because #10 coming up: We are ALL addicted to sugar. It is sugar which makes us fat, not eating fat. In America, anyway, we are likely the fattest we’ve ever been and it’s not because we’re eating fat.
This past year I’ve eaten more bacon, more butter, and more fatty meat than I’ve probably eaten in the past few years combined, and I lost weight! Over 20 pounds. And that’s without exercise. Sure, I do walking sometimes, sometimes stretch and do pushups, sometimes jump on the trampoline, but by no means, do I have a dedicated exercise regime. Just cutting out grains and most of my sugar did the trick.
2. Without Sugar, Most Grains Taste Like Cardboard.
No, I haven’t actually eaten cardboard, but once I started cutting out grains and eating mainly animal products such as meat, eggs, and dairy, my taste buds changed. Or perhaps they just woke up to the truth. Without sugar most grains don’t have much taste at all and we wouldn’t eat them because we could tell instantly they weren’t good for us or nutritious. The Bible often talks about Jesus being the bread of life, but back then they must have had some awesome, substantially nutritious bread, not what we have today. It must have been bread that truly sustained the body and did not harm it. Hard for me to imagine.
Cutting out grains reminded me about what I already knew: I like hamburgers for the filling, the burger, the cheese, the tomato and onion, and the sauce. The burger is just a way to hold it all together without getting grease all over my hands. I’ve also learned that traditionally, grains have had to be fermented or tamed in some way so that humans can eat them, and if it’s not done properly or well, aka white flour, the effects on one’s digestive and immune system can be disastrous.
How horrified I was to find that cake or a donut just didn’t taste the same anymore, even with the sugar! And I then I reminded myself I was supposed to be avoiding those items, anyway.
3. Meat Is Where It’s at.
Never have I felt better than when eating red meat, the fattier the better, and also shrimp, salmon, hamburger, and the like. Grains, a least modern ones, make me sluggish in body and mind. Before I always thought it must be something with not getting enough sleep. Now I know better, though good sleep is certainly also good for one’s body and state of mind. I am able to digest meat better than fruits and vegetables, and will discuss them in #8. Meat is where’s it’s at as it’s really one of the the most nutritious things you can eat.
This is why in the Bible when Daniel wanted to eat vegetables only, the guard in Babylon was afraid to grant his request, for surely his health would suffer. Vegetables and water was not considered a healthy diet. But God produced a miracle and Daniel and his buddies thrived on the vegetables—a miracle, and an exception, not, I think, a call for everyone to eat vegetables only. Everyone is different, though, and it does seem like at least some people thrive on a diet of mostly vegetables, but I would think if they only eat vegetables they would soon find themselves malnourished.
4. More Grease Means More Cleaning.
This one’s a little funny. I have a gas oven and stove and found one day the flame on the stove seemed unusually high. This was because I hadn’t cleaned the hamburger or bacon grease off well enough. Eating more meat and especially more fat, means more grease in one’s kitchen. You will literally start a fire if it doesn’t get cleaned as frequently as possible.
5. Some People Need to Supplement, No Matter the Diet.
Sometimes those who’ve had success on the carnivore diet scoff at those on a vegan or vegetarian diet, saying how can that possibly be the right diet for humans when one has to supplement things like B12? Maybe that’s a good point, but maybe not. I have found that even with eating much red meat, including liver, I still have to supplement iron. On the vegan diet, I would have to supplement iron as well, because something, whether it’s just due to chronic inflammation or a genetic defect, something in my body blocks me from absorbing iron well. If I take more of it, the more opportunities I have to absorb at least some of it. Perhaps someday I will be healed enough and able to absorb iron well, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
Interestingly, I have learned that the carnivore diet can be dangerous for men, giving them too much iron. Women have less of a risk because of our menstrual cycle. I would suspect that it varies for men as well, though, and that sticking to fatty meats helps decrease risk of toxicity.
Anyway, it’s clear now that just because one has to supplement, doesn’t necessarily mean that the diet is a wrong one. Many on the carnivore diet will encourage one to “supplement” with liver or organs at least once a week. Some claim they don’t need it. I suppose time will tell, but everyone is different, so it make nutrition all the more confusing.
6. Breakfast Doesn’t Need to Happen.
After watching an embarrassing number of Korean dramas, I have seen that their breakfast is not the same as ours: No cereal, no blueberry muffins, no cinnamon rolls! What they eat is a variety of meats, eggs, soups, and vegetables and maybe some rice, a home cooked full meal. I just found that curious, and recalled my favorite breakfast has always been bacon eggs and maybe a couple of pancakes. Now that I eat bacon and eggs all the time, they are no longer breakfast too me, and when I stick closely to the carnivore diet, breakfast just doesn’t need to happen. In fact, I often feel too full if I eat breakfast now.
I propose that it is not lack of coffee or sleep keeping one feeling sluggish in the mornings. No. It is all those grains and sugars slowing everything down in both your mind and body. We humans are a lot like Tolkien Hobbits. We eat all the time, whether it’s a snack or a second or even third breakfast. Our bodies need a break from all this eating and drinking. It’s no wonder that so, so many people have digestive problems. We are barely giving our digestive systems the opportunity to work.
For me, fasting does not work if I’m depending on grains. My system will definitely crash. Becoming fat adapted has helped my energy stay constant, and now I have to get fat adapted all over again because I allowed myself to indulge for the holidays.
7. Willpower Is a Superpower.
Or it should be considered one. There is nothing like the thrill of when one’s will rules the day for good, especially if someone has tried to make one do something they don’t want to do. Willpower with oneself, however, I have found the most tricky. I can rationalize and think of over one thousand reasons why I must have sugar today–cake, pie, anything. I have the power to resist the temptation, but I often choose not to use it. The days where my willpower holds strong are the best days, for it does feel then that I’m winning. When it comes to health, willpower can absolutely be a superpower, for one is able to resist all manner of bad foods, bad medicines, and bad advice. But it’s not easy to use this power, especially in times like today where a sort of spell has been cast over the whole world to not see the truth of things.
We often think of willpower to be used to motivate one to work out every day, but far more important is to use that power to resist sugar, which I’ll talk about more in #10 below.
8. Vegetables are a Garnish, Fruit a Dessert.
The carnivore diet has taught me I do like fruits and vegetables, just in limited quantities. Meat, fish, or eggs is where my nutrition is coming from, but adding garlic or onion give it a nice flavor, along with some cabbage, carrots, or broccoli once in awhile. As for fruit, when you cut out a regular inhalation of sweets, fruit is itself a great dessert. Some fruits like dates or bananas have a lot of sugar and should really be considered a dessert only, and not healthy to eat as snacks.
It’s also been interesting to learn that I don’t need to have fiber in my diet. It’s not necessary. It’s only necessary to eat a lot of fiber if one eats a lot of fiber to begin with, coming from grains, fruits, and vegetables. Cutting all that out, one finds one does just fine, and even better, without it.
9. You Don’t Have to Follow It All the Time for It to Work.
It’s true. Mostly I’m carnivore during the week and on the weekends have some grains–it’s palatable with addition of a ton of butter–and some sweets. My weight and energy has been fairly steady, but I have found that fasting really is necessary if I eat too much. I think just doing a keto diet and cutting out most grains and sugars would do most people a world of good. I don’t know what the perfect human diet is, but A., there’s probably not one to fit everyone, and B., these days we’re all to sickly and inflamed to find out what that is. Even just adding more meat, eggs, and fat, to one’s diet could work, because you’d be getting more nutrition and eating less of the non-nutritional stuff.
10. I Have a Sugar Addiction.
Not only do I have a sugar addiction, but you likely do, too, and so do your children. Sometimes I watch Dr. Ken Berry on YouTube and he started out skeptical about the keto and carnivore diets and over time became amazed by the results he saw in his patients and then himself. His theory is that almost all chronic illness and ailments are caused by insulin resistance, which is caused by the longterm spiking of one’s blood sugar. Simply put, we eat too much sugar. We also eat too many carbs–grains, vegetables and fruits–that our bodies essentially treat like sugar as well. After awhile, the situation is so dire that we resist our own body’s insulin that meant to help keep our sugar in check.
Back to that willpower. When it comes to sugar, I have little. I have even less when my coworker or friend or relative brings a carton of donuts or a plate of cookies to share with everyone. The look in their puppy dog eyes, how can I crush that? And they’re so happy to be doing something for someone else. Try, just try giving up sugar, and maybe you’ll resist and maybe you won’t, but every time you turn around you’ll find someone offering you a sweet or something sweet to eat or drink. Less so today with our social distancing, but it’s still there.
Resisting sugar is key. It is why when most people start a new diet they do start to feel wonderful, because they are reducing at least some of that insulin resistance. But a diet relying on carbs as fuel will not ultimately break the cycle of addiction and also weight gain from the sugar. I have learned that my main fuel has to be fat. Fat, and then protein. Is this longterm? I don’t see why not, but who knows, for we have so, so much more to discover about how our bodies work in conjunction with the God-created world around us, and a decaying world at that.
For more motivation on not only eating well, but incorporating movement into one’s life, I recommend Oh My Venus starring So Ji Sub (The Master’s Son) and Shin Min A (My Girlfriend Is a Nine-Tailed Fox) about an overweight lawyer who finds help and love with a famous personal trainer.
Happy New Year!!
