If you consumed nothing but protein, e.g. eggs whites, tuna, whey protein, etc, you will enter ketosis. An absence of carbs leads to ketosis regardless of your other macros.
I can eat 200+ grams of protein (and fat) at dinner. Then, after a 15-hour fast, hit 1.4 - 1.6 mmol on the ketone meter. That’s much deeper nutritional ketosis than when I was doing ‘normal’ keto.
The protein myth perpetuated by the keto police is exactly that, a myth.
You mean you’ve never tried to shoot for 34,000g of protein a day? Do you even want gains, bro?
@JamesBrawn007 what about body acidity on such a high protein diet? I assume, given the “deepness” of your ketosis, it’s entirely absent of vegetables? Do you take added glutamine? Or sodium bicarbonate? Any dietary buffers I can imagine would introduce carbs.
Carnivore, so a few grams of carbs here and there and that’s it. I do take sodium bicarbonate (5g each morning) and have done for years. Sometimes I may take a few extra grams pre-WO.
My wider issue is blood glucose levels, which I am monitoring. So far, my levels have been higher than expected (they do not go up significantly post-prandial but tend to sit there for long periods). Now, this is most likely down to protein intake. I intend to adjust this going forward to see what happens.
How do you get calcium when eating meat only?
Meat with bones, some eggs, dairy is allowed, so hard cheese. I do take an electrolyte supplement, which has a small amount too so probably well covered.
Do you get fatty fish? They almost all have small bones.
BTW to others, my wife is a cardiologist and she thinks most people get way too much calcium and that it probably contributes to heart disease. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-attack/expert-answers/calcium-supplements/faq-20058352
Also, calcium intake doesn’t really help with osteoporosis, which is mainly due to leaching of calcium out of bones due to low vitamin D intake or other hormone issues or some chronic medicine intakes (dilantin and others), and that the high leached calcium levels in people with osteoporosis also correlate to dementia and other plaque related problems. Adding calcium to the diet of someone with osteoporosis doesn’t help and it just raises blood calcium levels.
Yes, through canned sardines. Although, in all honesty, I don’t eat as much of this as I should so I am going to start making more of an effort.
On calcium, and other ‘nutritional deficiencies’ associated with carnivore, e.g. vit C, I believe it is obvious now that these are not as well understood as previously thought. I certainly don’t have any scurvy symptoms so far! Similar comment for hormones: while T3 may drop on low/zero carb it doesn’t mean your thyroid is not clinically functioning, which should be obvious assuming one has otherwise good health, e.g. still gaining lean mass/losing fat, etc.
I have seen speculation that T3 decreases because sensitivity increases on low carbs.
I believe that a proper carnivore diet would have to include some organs, especially liver. The Inuits considered organs to be equivalent to the veggies of animal products.
This kinda reminds me of Paul Check. The guy knows his stuff and can totally do his thing, what ever that may be. He’s been training for decades and is (to my knowledge) in really good shape.
But here’s the skepticism: He takes a hockey player or what ever, and basically beats him up with weights doing exercises that Check has conditioned with for years, and the hockey player may be only rudimentarily familiar with.
Then Check says “My stuff works! Look at me! I just whooped a hockey player 20 years my juniors ass! Now buy my shit!”.
So, is this guy built like a shed as a result of this specific practice, or in spite of it, and how can one actually know that?
Absolutely. That’s why you often hear the ‘nose to tail’ maxim. Apparently there is conflicting anthropological theories on organs. Some civilisations revered that part of the animals, others discarded them and went for muscle meat. I personally use a lot of liver in my diet. Less so other organs.
I can only judge it by what Baker has posted about himself. If he is being genuine regarding his photos and diet, then he used keto to get into reasonable shape before going full speed into carnivore.
To my mind, if you watch the guy train now, then carnivore is, at the very minimum, allowing him to train like a beast and look the part with it - regardless of how he performed/looked pre-carnivore. If that makes sense?
It does. I just maintain a fair bit of skepticism. Not claiming it’s outrageous or scamboogery, because our bodies are amazingly resilient, with some mind blowing metabolic mechanisms hidden away in them.
I just also feel pretty sure that plenty of people are getting away with getting jacked on good dietary practices and vials of test, then selling the general public on an extreme (but real) physiological mechanism that will get you through an ice age or species diaspora, but isn’t actually necessary when we can just go to the grocery store for some beef, salmon, cabbage, etc.
I just hit a protein PR of 241g yesterday
CT even recommends 1-1.5g per lb bodyweight - for a 200lber, the high range is 300g of protein.
I was interested in Connelly’s take on insulin resistance, that it is beneficial, and that high insulin sensitivity may be present in fat cells. I have felt that it is easier to add muscle when starting from a leaner state, and I think that people over 15% bodyfat may gain muscle better if they drop down to 12% or lower first so that there is less adipose trying to suck up glucose. Also BTW while it may be hard to turn glucose into adipose, fructose, and galactose are both turned into triglycerides when levels get higher, and alcohol also signals the liver to make them into trigliceride.
Anyway, I looked at research around cyanidin 3‑glucoside which raises insulin sensitivity and the trending research is showing that it preferrentially makes FAT cells more insulin sensitive which is good for blood sugar but horrible for body composition. Not all insulin sensitivity is the same. Improving liver insulin sensitivity by cutting fructose, galactose and alcohol should be good, but ketones make the liver very insulin resistant (physiologically) but may resensitize receptors and allow the pancreas to rest. Ketogenic diets also virtually stop the production of glucose burning enzymes in muscles.
Connelly, and also others recommend basically feeding glucose/ketone dependent tissues with glucose either from food or from protein rather than going into ketosis, so you allow the liver to make extra glucose as needed. This seems to occur with less than 150 grams (25% maintenance cals) from glucose which is about what the glucose dependent tissues need. Connelly likes to let the liver meet your glucose needs from protein while others prefer trying to hit the sweet spot on carbs, and only relying on gluconeogenesis, or added carbs for high activity periods.
If you are getting 200 grams of protein a day, it is my opinion that your brain is still running on glucose made from protein rather than ketones except in the fasted state, maybe 11+ hours.
Points well made. Most people who push a diet have usually been jacked using conventional, or bro, practices, and who then claim to have discovered the Holy Grail.
That said, I look at other advocates of carnivore like Mark Bell, Paul Saladino, maybe Joachim Bartoll, and I think, yes, these guys are on to something. The other factor is: you don’t need to hire them or buy their products. The advice is free and it’s incredibly straight forward - just eat meat… Sure, they can be linked to butchers and meat producers but, for me, that is a very small minus.
As I said, I’ve not completed my first month on this so I will reserve judgement.
Are you saying a certain supplement company which runs this website may not be pushing a very reliable product for fat loss???
Ok. Perfect example of a guy who got world record setting jacked lifting with Louie Simmons and the guys at Westside and everything he could get in his mouth and a syringe, now advocating something he has only been doing for a few months.
Ftr, Mark used to post here as JackAss back in the early 2k’s. Great guy. Extraordinary lifter, and very entertaining. I’ve been following his adventures and YouTube since about then, also.
About as built by Carnivore as my Aveo is American though.
And I think he only tried carnivore for a while. I constantly see posts where he eats carbs and cheat meals.
I follow peripherally, but that being said, the dude is as sharp turning and finely tuned to trends as anybody ever, and I say that with due respect. Only reason I’m even discussing him in particular is that he was the first example brought as someone who doesn’t do exactly what I said people are doing.
Enough about him though.
I’d like to see some real science done, like a five year, high compliance study that takes people from
Point A: not carnivore, generally normal health markers and habits.
To
Point B: a significant time frame like 5 years later, High dietary compliance, maintenance of other regular habits.
Then measure markers, compare results, conduct interviews, etc.
Not telling known sets of people desperately seeking a solution (diabetic, overweight, chronic pain) that “This simple la-de-da will fix All Of Your Problems” after a couple of months or some shit.
No. Just fuck no. Now I actually am kinda pissed.
Fuck all of these bullshit peddling fucking predators. They’re fucking scum.