Keto / Carnivore update

[[Le...]]

Hey - have you tried bok choy? I ate some today and initially I became really revved up but now I feel kind of calm and happy. Bok choy is low in fodmaps and histamine too.

 

My strategy right now is to introduce some greens first

[[Le...]]

So adding in the carbs makes my anxiety really high and my sleep much poorer. I wake up around every 3 hours, but if I get up and go for a ten minute walk and get straight back to bed I can manage two 3 hour blocks and one 1 hour block. So I sleep around 7 hours and am surviving...

[[Da...]]

That's great Lena! The things I would do for 7 hours sleep....or even 5, for that matter.

[[na...]]

Any updates from members about your experience with carnivore/keto?  I'm seriously considering trying to eliminate carbs.

[[sl...]]

Just another buddy in the mix here; I couldn't read the whole thread, headaches are a bear today. But I just wanted to chime in that I've eaten a pretty unusual meat-heavy diet for over a decade now.

 

I had colic as a child, weird stomach problems growing up (I was being abused, and the terror sort of lives in my gut), then on Adderal my digestive system went haywire (IBS, no cure in sight). Eight years of Adderal and anti-depressants and I quit all meds at 21, and attempted to figure out "health food". Weston Price, macrobiotic, barely vegan, etc, but I just kept getting sicker and sicker. At a point I was traveling in Cali, volunteering on small organic farms as part of my college degree, spent a week or so just horribly sick, and the farm I was at a man referred me to a nutritionist he liked. I paid a fee and had a chat. The nutritionist pitched an all raw diet, including raw meats; he said it cured him of terminal cancer.

 

After a few days of fasting, I switched to this diet. My first meal was raw eggs, kefir and unheated honey. It was weird, and soupy, but for the first time in memory, I ate a meal and felt satisfied. I didn't have sugar cravings, or indigestion, or even really think about food for four more hours. That was a new experience!

 

I've eaten dietary variations with raw meats (eggs, beef, chicken, pork, deer, organs), raw fruits, unheated honey, raw dairy (usually just raw butter), vegetable juices, and small amounts of cooked starches, for over a decade now. If you're concerned about parasites and other things, I don't blame you; the "common knowledge" is that the diet I ate is unsafe. Yet hundreds of people eat it, I ate thousands and thousands of raw eggs, hundreds and hundreds of pounds of meat including pork, and I only felt better for it.

 

Twice, very recently I've tried cooked meat diets, since my mental health has continued to be an obstacle in my life; I ate GAPS (a low-carb, high fat diet) for 2+ years, as it promised to cure ADD and other mental health issues, and more recently I was extremely sick from a severe THC overdose for about eight months and I just ate whatever my wife could make easily (usually a chicken-rice porridge, oatmeal, and roasted chicken). Both experiences seem to have led to decreasing health, especially gut health, inflammation, and the increasing need for nutritional supplements. On these more conventional diets, my mental health symptoms became increasing physical health problems, such as fibromyaglia, chronic inflammation, and chronic fatigue.

 

As I realized the emergency of my second failed benzo taper, losing 5lbs in just about 5 days (I was only 128 to begin with), and being told my numerous doctors I had mast cell activation that was causing chronic inflammation in my brain and body... I went back to my old tricks. Raw meats, raw vegetable juices, unheated honey, and raw fruits.

 

All I can say is, two months later and I'm doing a lot better. I eat a couple pounds of meat a day; it can be expensive. I buy expensive honey and pasture raised eggs. But over all it's not looking much more expensive than the basic diet of organic cooked foods I was eating before. I've gained back my 5lbs and a couple more easily. My digestion is easy (bowels are a good metric), and I don't take any supplements.

 

My benzo taper still SUCKS! But I'm a trauma survivor, and this is a healing journey. I expect nightmares now, I expect anxiety, and terror, and depression. At least my food is simple, my body is getting the best I know how to give it to rebuild, and maybe most of all, I made a choice to use what I know to get through this. That's all I would encourage anyone else to do.

 

I hope this message entertains you and gives you a peek at how broad "nutrition" can be for some people. I'm not preaching or sticking to this diet for life, but I am doing my best to keep moving forward. I celebrate all your explorations!