Tomorrow I begin my carnivore diet. I'm a bit reluctant to call it a diet; it is not be a diet in the sense of a weight-loss or fat-loss plan. It is instead my first attempt to start what I wish to be a permanent dietary change. But, I will still refer to it as "diet" as it deals with what I eat, and it's just easier to call that diet. My plan is to use the month of August as a ramp-up, a time of trial and error while I am getting used to the diet. I will try to be as strict as possible, but will not chastise myself if I eat off the diet once or twice. And, as of now, I am going to eat whatever I want for my Birthday Meal. Then beginning on 9/3, will do my best to be on the plan completely.
The rules I will be following will be the ones set by The Bear, a person who has lived on the carnivore diet for 47 years. He sounds like he knows what he is talking about, so I will borrow his rules. Here they are:
SEVEN SIMPLE RULES FOR THE HUMAN CARNIVORE
1) Eat only from the animal world (eggs, fish, redmeat and fowl and some dairy are all animal sourced foods, i.e.: meat).
2) Eat nothing from the vegetable world whatsoever. (Very small amounts of flavourings such as garlic/chillies/spices/herbs which may be added, are not ‘food’).
3) On diary: avoid milk and yoghurt (heavy carbs- lactose), use only pure (not ‘thickened’- heavy) cream (read the label), cheese and unsalted butter.
4) Don’t cook your meat very much- just a little bit on the outside- for flavour- blood-rare or bleu. For this reason I advise against eating pork.
5) Eat liver and brains only very infrequently- they are full of carbs.
6) Be sure to have plenty of fat of animal origin at each meal and eat mostly of the fat until you feel you have had enough- you can eat more lean at this point if you like- calories are not important, nor is the number of meals/day. Vegetable oils are not good food.
7) You do not need any supplements of any kind. Drink a lot of water and do not add salt to anything.
They only digression from these rules will be that I will finish my Fish Oil supplements until they are gone. No need to waste them. Other than that, I'll be following these rules. Oh, except for definitely NO liver and brains--gross!
I will try to make beef the staple, and eat from other animals for convience and variety. I've already done some preliminary research on storing meat, and have recorded prices at my favorite supermarket, Publix. I also priced out some grass-fed beef at the local co-op, but with those being about $3 a pound more than Publix, poor-man Mike is gonna stick with the Big P. Plus, Bear's forum posts got me thinking grass-fed isn't all it's cracked up to be. It is definitely more expensive, that's for sure.
I am not worried about missing vegetables; I was stuffing them down during BFFM and RTP anyway. Fruit, now that is another story. But, this whole thing is really an attempt to eat as healthily as possible, and modern fruit is more of a creation of man than nature. Plus, the more I learn about carbs, the more I want to avoid them. Now, I know I am venturing into the whole "demonation" of a macronutrient, but I just can't fight the logic that man lived mostly, if not entirely, on meat for most of existence. I am beginning to doubt the whole paleo/primal belief of large quantities of "gathered" fruits and vegetables. I'll go into more detail about that in future posts.
Speaking of paleo/primal, I was originally planning on doing a Primal Blueprint/Mark's Daily Apple 30-Day Challenge, in which a person adopts the primal lifestyle fully for 30 days. Well, seeing as I am going significantly off the diet, and I just don't want to do organized sprints/HIIT, I will make my own rules on the non-diet aspects of my challenge.
- For my weights, I will continue on the Stronglifts5X5 program. It rocks! I will do this for a while, to see how strong I can get.
- I will start the transition from running with running shoes to running wearing my Vibram FiveFingers. This will be rough; I will have to seriously ease into it. My weekly mileage won't be nearly as much, as I will be walking mostly, and running only a little each outing. But I want to do this, and I have to begin the transition at some time. I have read it can take 6 months to a year or more to fully make the switch. So, the earlier I start the sooner I get there! But I will take it WAY SLOW.
- I will occasionally go for walks barefoot. I don't like hiking that much; I prefer running. But I like short walks aroung the neighborhood, and I will experiment doing this barefoot.
- I will get on the bike. Sunday Club rides, or with Marc, and during my days off when I'm wanting to ride. I will not force myself on the bike; my weights are my top exercise priority. Riding will be for fun, not really for exercise. This will be my form of "active play."
I will be blogging daily. I will not do an exact description of what I eat and amounts and all that. I may do a food list, or not. I may take pictures, or not. As far as that goes, I will just wing it. But I will blog about this diet every day of the month of August. I have the time, and the desire. I did it with RTP; now I will do it because I want to, not because I have to. I will write about how I feel, how I am adjusting, what is working, what is not working; basically how I am doing with an all-meat diet. I will include non-diet topics also, just to keep it interesting. But this will be primarily about the diet.
And so it begins tomorrow when I wake. I've been reading up on Bear's forum posts. I've had what will be my last Coke Zero for a long while. I didn't binge on junk food today; in fact, except for about a cup of whole milk it has been a ZC day. I am ready to take the plunge. See you tomorrow, on the other side!
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