This is not meant to convince you to do the Carnivore Diet, it’s simply an honest review about my experience after 200 days of following this approach myself…
I’m going to cover the good, the bad and the ugly as they say…
If you’re new here my name is Marcus, I’ve successfully lost over 60 lbs and I’ve been helping busy folks lose fat and get healthy for 13 years now, let’s get into it…
PROS:
It’s been easier than ever to manage my body composition…
It feels just about as effortless as it could because my appetite regulates itself so effectively…
I eat as much as I feel like eating and I’m good to go, in fact…
I often eat even more than I feel like eating because I’m super active and if don’t, I’ll be leaner than I want to be…
I was happy with my skin pre-Carnivore, however I’ve noticed that it’s even better now and hey, I’ll take it!
My gums were bleeding when I brushed my teeth fairly often beforehand, that’s gone…
My hair and nails are in better shape than ever…
In terms of my mood and energy, it is super steady, consistent and predictable which I find really valuable…
I originally implemented this approach primarily because I wanted to see if I could clear up my arthritic knee pain…
And I’m stoked to say that my knees have never felt better, I’m so grateful for that…
Feelings of angst and depression used to be brutal when I was clinically obese and they improved a lot when I originally got in shape, however…
They were still running in the background at times, almost like faint elevator music and fortunately…
They’re both essentially gone and it happened fast, I’m talking in a matter of days, not even weeks…
However, when I’ve strayed nutrition wise and/or had a few drinks over the last 200 days…
Those feelings come back and then when I clean things up again, they’re gone…so it’s clearly the diet!
I love to workout, run, cycle etc. just be active and my performance has been really solid…
But my recovery from exercise is a place where I’ve seen drastic improvements, for example…
I get way less sore after training than I used to despite doing the same thing or even more…
The recovery benefits that I’ve experienced has me rethinking the role of carbohydrates in regards to recovery and the immune system specifically.
Work wise, I’m procrastinating far less and that’s resulted in my productivity increasing a bunch…
A lot of this has to do with more stable blood sugar because whenever I have a carbohydrate containing meal at lunch let’s say…
I notice that my desire to work takes a serious hit and so being that I’m not eating carbs at lunch now, that’s much less of a thing.
Sleep quality has improved a lot and I’ve heard tons of folks say this exact same thing…
I’m sleeping better and therefore I need fewer hours, which actually lends itself to what I just mentioned around productivity i.e. I have more time in the day.
A lot folks seem to think that the Carnivore diet is either constipating or has ya running to bathroom…
I haven’t had that experience at all, my digestion is the best it’s ever been hands down…
CONS:
Okay now let’s balance things out and dig into the cons…
I mentioned that it’s been easier than ever to manage my body composition, however…
It does appear as though I’ve lost a little bit of muscle on this diet, which I know that I haven’t because I’m equally as strong in the gym…
But it kinda looks like it because for every gram of carbohydrates that you eat, it pulls 3-4g of water with it and so…
When I’m eating more carbs, my muscles appear to look slightly bigger due to that additional water storage…
Carnivore is essentially a zero carb diet and so I don’t get that visual effect anymore…
I don’t have a ton of muscle and so I need all that help that I can get haha!
I racked my brain for drawbacks in regards to how I feel and I came up blank, it’s aces across the board.
But, socially Carnivore can get a little bit tricky just because it’s not exactly mainstream to eat nothing but meat, fish, seafood, eggs and dairy if you tolerate it…
It’s actually kind of wild because if you order a burger and fries at a restaurant no one bats an eye, but…
If you order just the burger patty and skip the bun and fries everyone’s got questions.
You also might find yourself feeling like you need to defend your food choices, for example…
Folks often say, ‘but Marcus what about fiber’…
This is actually a really easy one to respond to because there are only 2 essential macronutrients which are protein and fat…
Meaning, carbs are not essential and fiber is a carbohydrate and so…
It actually can’t be a physiological problem not to consume by definition if it’s not essential to human physiology…that’s that.
Cholesterol on the other hand is more nuanced because we don’t know quite as much about it, but…
There are 2 ways that I go about addressing the cholesterol question…
The first one is simply to ask the person that’s asking me about cholesterol one simple and straightforward question…
What is cholesterol?
99x out of a 100 the person asking will not actually know and so that is a very quick way to end that chat.
The second one is to engage this individual in a little thought experiment which is…
Let’s say that you lost 30 lbs, felt way better, improved your hair, skin, teeth and nails…
Your libido increased, you never got bloated anymore and the list goes on, but…
Your cholesterol went up a few points, would you return to diet that resulted in you regaining that 30 lbs…
Decreasing your energy, making your hair, skin, teeth and nails less robust…
As well as resulting in a lower libido and feeling bloated every day?
Just to reduce a single blood marker that only has correlative data to support its role in heart disease…
That’s a pretty interesting question for anyone to contemplate!
Like I mentioned at the outset, I’m not trying to convince anyone to do this diet, in fact…
Most people probably don’t even need to unless, they have a specific issue like…
An autoimmune disease, mental health struggles, a tough time managing their relationship with food…I’ve experienced all 3 of said things by the way!
Essentially anything that general ‘healthy eating advice’ isn’t resolving.
What I will say is that you don’t know what you don’t know, meaning…
If you don’t at least try something, you can’t actually know if it’s a good fit for you or not…
I can’t know whether I like the taste of oysters without actually eating an oyster…
I may think that it looks unappealing, but it’s impossible to know if I like it or not without giving it a try…
So if you’re not feeling, looking and/or performing the way that you want to…
Whether it’s Carnivore or some other approach, why not do some experimentation…
Because nothing changes if nothing changes!
