Should I Go Carnivore Or Do The Lion Diet?

If you have a serious autoimmune disease, mood disorder, or are on medication:

Ease in or go straight to the Lion Diet. At this point, your body is so aggravated and inflamed it’s destroying its own tissue. These diseases can kill you, you need to heal as soon as you can. Many people with autoimmune or mood disorders react to eggs and dairy and even some forms of meat so the carnivore diet may not be appropriate.

However, this diet is not forever. You’ll need at least 6 weeks eating only ruminant meat, salt, and water. That first 3 weeks are going to suck. After your symptoms are under control – usually this happens within the first 6 weeks but can take up to 5 months – you can slowly try to add in foods and see how you react. Most people need a number of months on this baseline diet to achieve gut healing and tolerate some other foods.

If you don’t have an autoimmune or mood disorder and you’re not on meds:

If you’re looking to lose weight, get less anxious, or optimize your health, you probably aren’t nearly as sensitive as someone with a mood disorder, on medication, or with autoimmunity. Generally speaking, you could do a diet that’s very heavy on meat and include greens and some fruit, and you’d have an extremely healthy diet. Contrary to most carnivore proponents, I do not advise eating any dairy or eggs. Dairy causes cravings and weight gain for the most part (try stopping it and feel the cravings yourself). Eggs seem to be problematic for people with GI issues. Some people do better with duck eggs. Try a meat, greens and limited fruit diet and see if that achieves your health goals. Then add in other foods one at a time and see how that goes.