Note: This post is about Days 31-60 of my carnivore experiment. If you want, you can watch my Day 30 Carnivore Experiment Update video.
Summed up: carnivore is amazing right now because it seems like everything at the store is out of stock EXCEPT meat, I can intermittent fast anytime I want, my motivation to work on projects during quarantine is through the roof, and I only poop every 3-4 days, so toilet paper isn’t even an issue. ?
At the end of my first 30 days of my carnivore experiment, I decided to do another 30, this time just meat, salt, and water for these 30 days, with no more spices or decaf coffee.
On Day 31, I had a terrible 24-hour headache, and soon realized I had developed a mild caffeine addiction from all the decaf coffee I was drinking. ??♀️ I decided to taper down rather than go cold turkey so as to avoid further headaches.
The spices thing mostly stuck, although it was unavoidable sometimes when going out to eat. And when eating bacon. Which, ya know, I’m not ready to give up yet.
Here’s what I’ve noticed from Days 31-60 (and what I’m still working on).
What’s Working
- The famous “zero carb zen.” Without going into details, I realized I had let go of a lot of bitterness at a particular situation that hadn’t worked out. I’m happy being me, and I’m happy with them being them. I’m just feeling a lot more confident in myself, and I don’t feel the need to prove to them how wrong they are. Ha.
- I’m not allergic to exercise anymore! ? In cold weather I’d always get crazy itchy legs when on long walks. I’d get home and strip down and my legs would be covered in small hives, like a weird histamine response. We recently went on a long hike on a cold morning and husband asked, “Are your legs okay?” and I realized with surprise, “Actually, they are!”
- No morning stuffiness. My nasal and sinus passages aren’t blocked anymore when I first wake up. My symptoms here were mild before, but now they’ve cleared up entirely.
- Hair doesn’t get as greasy: I can go 4-5 days between washes now instead of 2-3.
Hurdles
- Quitting decaf coffee. Learn from my mistake and don’t go overboard on black coffee the first 30 days of carnivore! I tapered down to a cup a day after I realized I had been drinking too much decaf, then quit altogether. A friend who does muscle testing told me I’m sensitive to coffee, which is what I suspected anyway (and it’s what a prior food allergy test told me).
- Oxalate dumping. UGH. When your body clears out oxalate crystals, and it feels like a whole-ass flu, with fatigue and soreness. I actually wondered if carnivore wasn’t working for me anymore. After some research, I decided to incorporate some decaf earl grey tea and 100% chocolate, which have some oxalates, to slow the rate of dumping. I found this article by Sally K. Norton on oxalates helpful.
Current Measurements
- Waist: 37.5 to 34 [3.5 inches lost]
- Hips: 40 to 37 [3 inches lost]
- Weight: 143.8 to 128.4 [15.4 pounds lost]
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