Week 1 Carnivore-ish Thoughts

I will be bringing this blog back to what it used to be, sharing more meal ideas and healthy living in an effort to get my crap together.  I have been participating in World Carnivore Month in my own way, eating carnivore-ish, calling it “protein January.”  I’ve seen people talk about the carnivore diet for months now and I’ve been hearing so many positives about it, so I’ve been wanting to give it a try.  And honestly it appealed to me because I love a good ribeye and that’s what a lot of people I follow seem to eat often.  Now that my first week is complete, I wanted to share my thoughts on how I’m feeling eating carnivore-ish!  

Side note: I will not be taking quality into consideration as I cannot do grass-fed beef (it truly almost makes me gag).  I do believe quality is important though, especially when consuming so much, so if you can do grass-fed, please do!  

Week 1 Feels

First and foremost, I FEEL amazing.  I am feeling lighter, I feel so much less bloat, and my gas is minimal compared to normal.  I know that eating clean can give you some of these same results, however, I have struggled the last few years to eat clean because I feel so unsatisfied sometimes that I end up eating crap to feel more satisfied.  Also, there are WAY TOO MANY good restaurants where I live and I LOVE FOOD.  I can be pretty good with my food choices when I want to be, but I choose to not care way too often or I give up any cares for one weekend and all my progress goes away.  As for bloating and gas, this has been a very nice result because I am typically a very gassy individual.  

Another thing I noticed almost immediately eating carnivore-ish is I haven’t felt super hungry when it comes to my normal meal times and I don’t think I’ve caught myself saying normal things like “I’m starving.”  Some days I don’t think about food until 12pm or 1pm and usually I’m incredibly hungry by 10am or 11am whether I eat breakfast or not.  It makes sense though since my body is getting so much more protein and fat.  It’s still early, but this has been an obvious change that I’ve noticed.

A negative while eating carnivore-ish is that I’ve still had a couple cases of what we will call “bathroom urgency” where something runs RIGHT through me and I have no choice but to run to the bathroom.  Doing this has helped me confirm what is most likely a dairy intolerance.  It’s definitely not all dairy though, at least not all forms of dairy.  It seems to be the grease from things like certain melted cheeses and certain butters, in addition to greasy foods.     

Post Week 1 Weigh In

My plan was to not weigh myself at all during “protein January” because I really just wanted to see how I felt eating this way.  Well, I was feeling so dang good that I had to weigh myself after the first seven days just to see and I was down 5.7 pounds.  Regardless of where this month takes me on the scale, it’s nice knowing that if I ever need to reset, I can slim my diet down to just proteins for a bit to feel amazing and to get back in control.

Some Things I Ate During Week 1 of Carnivore-ish

• Steak
• Bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
• Chicken wings
• Pork loin
• Bacon
• Beef jerky
• Clear protein
• Pork rinds
• Buffalo chicken dip with pork rinds
• Scrambled eggs with cheese and hot sauce
• Salami/beef sticks/deli meat and cheese
• Ribs and sausage from a BBQ joint
• Burger patties with cheese and/or bacon
• Chicken breasts with bacon and cheese
• Rotisserie chicken

I am still using my seasonings of choice (I always try to use clean one’s), I’m cooking with avocado oil, still using hot sauce, I’ve consumed a little BBQ sauce, and I’ve have had a couple protein shakes, which is why I’m calling this “protein January”.  It’s not truly strict carnivore, more carnivore-ish.

Ultimate Goals

Weight loss is my main goal along with getting back to eating healthier on a regular basis. I want to get my habit of feeding my body so many things that don’t provide any nutritional value under control.  I know how to eat well and how to fuel my body, but as I said, I too often choose to not give a crap over the weekend and push back any progress I made that week.    

Carnivore intrigued me for more than just the weight loss aspect though. People claim that it has healed their acne, and I have what I consider pretty bad hormonal acne.  I’m currently using prescription creams, but that is not what I want to have to do long term.  Although they have helped, I can also completely tell if I get a little lax with them.  Unfortunately I’m not doing strict carnivore at this time so I’m not really counting on my acne going away, but I hope to be more strict in the future for a short period of time to maybe test this out more.  Anxiety was another big reason I wanted to give carnivore a go- again, I’m not doing true carnivore so who knows, but people say their anxiety subsided from following the carnivore diet, and that alone made me curious. 

Come back soon for my week 2 update!