Most diet books stop at "here's the protocol and the first few weeks." This chapter is what nobody really writes about: what your life actually looks like at year 1, year 2, year 5, year 8 — and what changes when you do this through pregnancy, parenthood, and the rest of your life.
Year 1
The first year is mostly about figuring out your personal version of the diet. The protocol I described in Chapters 4 and 5 is the starting point, but everyone's version diverges based on what they tolerate, what their schedule is, and what they actually enjoy eating.
By the end of year 1 you should:
- Have done the strict elimination phase and seen meaningful symptom improvement (or have identified non-food drivers preventing improvement).
- Have done some reintroduction work and have a working draft of your safe-foods list.
- Have a default rotation of meals you actually enjoy.
- Have basic cooking equipment and a working grocery routine.
- Have figured out the social and travel logistics that work for you.
If you're not at this point at the end of year 1, that's not a failure — many people take longer, especially if their starting health was complex.
Year 2–3
The pattern that often emerges by year 2 or 3: people stop doing strict Lion Diet most of the time and settle into a personal "modified carnivore" that includes their tolerated foods. Strict Lion Diet becomes a tool they pull out when things flare up — a 2-4 week reset rather than a permanent lifestyle.
For me, "strict Lion Diet" is still my default. I add back tolerated foods occasionally, but I find I feel best when I keep it simple. Other people land further along the carnivore spectrum — eggs, cheese, fish — and feel best there.
The thing that tends to be permanent for most people in this community is the avoidance of: gluten, processed seed oils, refined sugar, and "fragrance" / "natural flavor" products. The major triggers don't usually come back.
Year 5+
By the time you've been doing this for 5+ years, the daily logistics are automatic. You know what to order at the restaurants in your neighborhood. Your kitchen is set up for this. Your bloodwork is stable. The relationship with food has shifted from "what should I eat" to "I already know what I eat."
What often changes at the 5-year mark:
- The relationship with food anxiety. If you came in with an eating-disorder history or with food fear from being chronically sick, much of that often eases over time. You're not afraid of food anymore because you know what works.
- The social cost. Going to social events stops being a big deal. You've done it 500 times. Your friends know.
- Cooking confidence. Steak from frozen at the air fryer becomes muscle memory. You can throw a dinner together for guests without thinking about it.
- The realization that diet is one input. Sleep, stress, environment, hormones, exercise — these all matter too, and they become more visible to you once diet isn't the loud variable anymore.
Pregnancy
I did the Lion Diet through pregnancy. My Labour Experience — Seriously successful hypnobirthing home birth is the post-birth writeup, and Baby is the related post on early postpartum.
A few honest notes:
- First trimester can be hard. Many people have severe meat aversion in first trimester, which is brutal on this diet. I had a bad meat aversion myself and tried adding back more foods during that time. The full story is in 8 Years on the Lion Diet (originally posted as "No Longer Carnivore") — short version: I tried broadening, had a gall bladder attack, mood and skin got worse, and I went back to strict meat once the aversion passed.
- If you're already established on the diet, continuing through pregnancy is reasonable. Talk to your prenatal care provider. Get bloodwork. Watch iron, B12, vitamin D, folate.
- Starting the diet for the first time during pregnancy is harder to assess. If you're newly pregnant and trying to figure out whether the diet would help, I'd recommend waiting until postpartum unless you have a specific severe condition that warrants the experiment. Pregnancy adds so many variables (hormones, hunger, aversions, sleep disruption) that you can't cleanly read what the diet is doing.
- Postpartum recovery on this diet is generally good. Healing seems to go faster and bleeding seems to be shorter than the baseline reports I've seen. Anecdote, not study.
Kids and family
I'm not running a strict Lion Diet for my own kid. My approach is meat-and-select-low-reactivity-foods, watching for the same kinds of food sensitivity patterns I had as a child.
What I think about for kids:
- Prioritize whole foods. Real meat, real fruit, real vegetables, real fat. Avoid the processed/ultra-processed category as much as feasible.
- Watch for symptom-food correlations. If a kid has chronic ear infections, eczema, mood swings, sleep issues, ADHD-like behavior — diet is one of the variables worth investigating.
- Don't impose a restrictive diet on a kid as a default. Restriction is a therapeutic intervention, not a lifestyle. Apply it when there's a reason.
- Model what you want them to eat. Kids who grow up watching their parents enjoy real food make those choices more naturally.
For our family, weeknight meals are meat + simple sides. Birthdays and holidays are mostly normal. We don't make a big deal out of any of it.
Bloodwork over time
If you've been on the diet for years, the bloodwork patterns to expect:
- Lipids: total cholesterol often rises, LDL often rises, HDL often rises. Triglycerides usually drop. There's an active scientific debate about the implications. My view: I track the values but don't change the diet based on them, because I feel better on the diet than I do without it.
- HbA1c and fasting glucose: usually drop to optimal range. Many people who were pre-diabetic resolve fully.
- Inflammation markers (CRP, ESR): usually drop significantly.
- Liver enzymes: usually unchanged or improve.
- Kidney function: usually unchanged. Despite the protein intake fears, most people's kidney function looks great on this diet.
- Thyroid: for some people, particularly women, thyroid can become more sluggish on very low-carb diets. Worth monitoring.
- Iron, B12, vitamin D: often improve from baseline because of better absorption.
Get annual bloodwork. The pattern is usually reassuring but it's good to confirm.
What I do now, honestly
My current eating is roughly: ribeye, ground beef, lamb chops, beef broth, slow-cooked roast, salted. I eat once or twice a day. I add eggs occasionally when I'm cooking for my family and don't want to make two separate meals. I eat reintroduced foods (sweet potato, parsnip) periodically when I want variety. I rarely eat out. When I do, it's a steakhouse.
I drink water and occasionally a salted broth. I don't drink coffee on most days. I don't drink alcohol. I take vitamin D in winter and magnesium most nights.
I exercise — walks, weight training, postpartum-appropriate movement. I sleep more than most people would think is realistic. I'm productive. I'm functional. I'm raising my daughter. Eight years in, the diet isn't a project anymore. It's just how I eat.
The point of all this
The point of doing the diet, if you had to summarize it, is this: most chronic illness is at least partially driven by inputs to your body that you have control over. Food is the biggest single input. Environment is the second. Sleep is the third. Stress is everywhere.
You can't control everything. You can't outrun genetics. But you can control what you put in your mouth, and for a surprising number of people with surprising kinds of chronic illness, that one variable is enough to dramatically change their lives.
This guide existed because I wanted you to have what I didn't have when I started: a single document that explains what works, why it works, what to watch for, and how to do it without making the mistakes I made. If it saves you a year of suffering, the eight years it took me to figure this out will have been worth it.
The final chapter is the FAQ and success stories — the practical reference you'll come back to most often.