Trialing The Carnivore – The Meat And Water Diet
So I’m taking a leap of faith and trying the carnivore diet for a week. It’s essentially keto, just without the fiber and the veggies. In fairness, that’s a pretty significant change. By removing all plants, I’m essentially relying on animal products to provide all the sources of nutrition.
So I’m left with meat and eggs, and a smidgen of dairy because I’m part Asian and therefore not the best person for lactose.
Carnivore Is The Ultimate Elimination Diet
When I first heard about this diet, around a year ago, I thought carnivore looked a little crazy, but not the dangerous sort. It’s the ultimate elimination diet.
You’re taking out pretty much all potential irritants and toxins, and then you can add the foods back in and see what’s causing you to break out in hives or dash to the loo. When you think of elimination diets, Low FODMAP probably springs to mind. That particular diet is often used to treat IBS, and lists different food groups that are known to cause digestive and immune disruptions. Well, the carnivore diet is practically Low FODMAP, with the toxicity score dialled down to zero.
It can definitely be used for this purpose, and it would work extremely well. You can find out which foods are a problem, and then make do with the rest. But it could also become a permanent thing, and that’s where things get murky. As with any diet, there’s no long term controlled studies to play safe with.
But this is just a trial run, because I’d like to see if carnivore can give me the extra metabolic advantage to lose the last holdouts of body fat. While I don’t have IBS, I don’t jive with some foods, so I would be keen on narrowing down the list of suspects. Despite how much better I feel on keto, I still run into bloating and heart burn from time to time. It could be dairy, nuts, berries, leafy greens, any of these are potentially more trouble then they’re worth.
The Search For The Optimal Diet
Over this week, I’ll be able to get a solid grasp on which foods are toxic for my body, and then they’ll be getting kicked off the team for good. I’m very much in this to find my optimal foods. The foods that digest without problems, and produce clean energy for the best possible performance. That’s not necessarily going to be found in a zero carb diet.
For what it’s worth, I still consider keto to be the better tool, because it emphasises higher fat. Carnivore tends to eschew the numbers towards higher protein.
The difference here is that protein is not the best energy source. You can use it to make sure that the muscle-building process can go smoothly, you can use it to make sure each meal is filling you up to the brim, but it’s not going to put springs under your feet.
That’s where the ketones come in. And the best ketogenic diet is still, surprisingly, keto. I’m going to step into this week with an open mind, but I’m still decidedly in favour of a meat-heavy, fat fueled approach. Carnivore-based, but without the full commitment to the steak and kidney pie.
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