So I’m onto the next stage of food weirdness.
I’m on day 5 of only eating meat.
What is the Zero Carb Diet?
Literally, it’s people who only eat meat and animal products (this can include dairy). Obviously, it won’t include dairy for me. I still think dairy is evil. Some people have been doing this diet for 20 years. There are tribes that only eat meat as well (Inuit, Massai, etc.)
How do they not get scurvy and vitamin deficiencies?
It’s possible that some of the vitamins we need are actually vitamins we use for metabolizing glucose. For instance, vitamin c competes with glucose, so it’s possible that people who don’t eat anything with glucose need far less vitamin c. There also is small amounts of vitamin C in meat
There are a lot of questions about this diet, but people seem to thrive on it.
I’m going to try it out for a month and see what happens.
I have a couple of theories/questions:
1. People who thrive only eating meat have extremely damaged microbiomes and can’t tolerate plants. Meat doesn’t need a microbiome to be digested, so eating meat eliminates the microbiome problem. Plants need to be broken down partly with a functioning microbiome (especially carb-y plants). I don’t believe people are carnivores. I do believe that you need a good microbiome to help you digest plants. Antibiotic use, birth control use, C-sections (among many other things), over generations, is BAD. It’s cumulative too, which concerns me. I obviously have a microbiome problem (Not being able to take probiotics is a big clue). I was born C-section so my microbiome is going to be a little funky. Or a lot funky. Then my baby, born naturally, breastfed, is still going to have a funky microbiome because she inherits it from me! Generationally, through antibiotic use and whatever else, we’re screwing over our children. It’s terrible. Anyway, I think maybe that’s the reason for this new microbiome-less diet. If anyone has any info on the microbiomes of carnivorous people, comment below, that’d be really interesting.
2. Maybe people on the zero carb diet haven’t tried the safe foods. A lot of the stories I’ve read are people trying to reintroduce fruit and nuts and then declaring all plants are harmful to them. What happens if you reintroduce coconut oil? Lettuce? Is that still going to bother you?
Why am I doing this?
1. I haven’t been able to get as well as I felt before the pregnancy. I’m at an 8/10. I was able to get to a 9.5-10/10 before the pregnancy. I was able to tolerate more and now I can’t without a reaction. I feel good but not AS good as I did before. This is probably from a microbiome change. There’s evidence that your microbiome gets less diverse during pregnancy. This is something I REALLY didn’t need. (See this article for more info: “The first trimester gut microbiota is similar in many aspects to that of healthy non-pregnant male and female controls, but by the third trimester, the structure and composition of the community resembles a disease-associated dysbiosis that differs among women”… GR8)
2. Every time I try to reintroduce probiotics it fails miserably. Even baby amounts. There’s something really wrong if you can’t tolerate probiotics in any form in any amount. I can’t even do homemade sauerkraut (and I don’t have a problem with red cabbage so it’s not the cabbage).
3. I don’t seem to be getting less sensitive, which makes me think I’m not healing, I’m just not irritating myself. I need to move onto the healing stage.
Plan of action:
1. Meat for a month, see if I feel any better/different.
2. Eat lettuce after a month and see if that irritates me. (Arthritis, digestive problems)
3. If it turns out (my limited) plants are bothering me, I’ll continue with the all meat diet and theoretically allow my gut to heal. Bone broth, and meat. THEN I’ll attempt to add in probiotics and some plants once I’m healed.
I know that when I have a reaction I can’t digest plants properly. I also know that almost all plants give me an autoimmune disorder and severe depression and skin issues and makes my life literally not worth living. I wanted to try all meat a while ago but was unsure about the vitamin thing. After some research though I feel a bit better and am more than willing to give it a try:
http://www.jbc.org/content/87/3/651.full.pdf+html
https://zerocarbzen.com/resources/ – This guy really knows his stuff
http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/food/vegetables/
Nobody else is doing this that I know (dad seems to be tolerating his foods excellently, and so is my husband). So I’ll give it a try and let you all know how it goes. Next month I’ll either feel 100% or I’ll go back to what I’m eating now. I’m also going to do stool testing for my family to see if that’ll show me anything of use.
UPDATE: March 2018 – Carnivore diet still going strong. Only beef and salt and water (Lion Diet) at this point. Feeling good. Oct 2023 – Still doing the Lion Diet. Haven’t died yet.
Hi, Mikhaila! Just watched your interview with Joe Rogan and can commiserate. I’ve tried, over the past 20 years, vegetarianism, veganism, wheat-free, gluten-free, numerous elimination diets of varying kinds, the Whole 30, and autoimmune paleo. None of them have given me 100% relief from symptoms. The closest I’ve come is a low-histamine diet, and I’m only 5 weeks in, so I think there’s room for improvement still. That brings me to my question for you. Did you try low-histamine before you went carnivore? I’m asking because some of the foods you describe eating up until the very last moment before carnivorism–apple cider vinegar, for example–are high-histamine. It makes me wonder if you could bring low-histamine foods back into your diet. Not that you should attempt this–I totally get the carnivore diet is working for you, and amen to that. If low-histamine doesn’t do it for me long-term, I might have to join you. All the best to you in your diet journey, and if you’re curious about the low-hist diet I’m following, feel free to reach out to me, and I’ll send you the PDF.
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