I Ate Carnivore for Two Weeks:

Here’s What Happened

Let me get straight to the headline here: I loved it. I felt incredible. I only intended to do this for 7 days but here I am on day 16, and still going strong.

I loved it for three main reasons:

It is incredibly simple.

When you only eat a handful of things, your decisions are made for you. I go to the butcher, seafood market, and grocery store for staples. Like everyone else, I’m incredibly busy and this took the worry, planning, thinking, time spent on meal prep down to almost nothing. Go to butcher. Buy meat. Prepare meat. Eat.

The carnivore diet also stresses the importance of eating noes to toes, including organ meats. I love organ meats (tongue, heart, cheek - can’t do liver or kidneys), but they always sell out at my butcher and they take some time to prepare. So to get to those nutrients I started taking organ meat pills to make sure I wasn’t missing out.

It’s incredibly delicious.

LMK if I need to elaborate here.

I felt the best I’ve ever felt.

My body was optimal, I slept well, I worked out well, I have zero complaints about how my body operated during this diet. Any concerns I had going into this, were completely eliminated (cravings, bowel movements, missing avocados, diversity in my plate).

Disclaimers, caveats, and other items of note.

I’M NOT PERFECT OKAY: I strayed 2x from the diet during the two weeks. Once on hot rolls at an argentian steakhouse, and once on fries at the airport. The hot rolls were totally worth it (#noregrets), the fries were not totally worth it (#regrets).

Another disclaimer: I started the diet with a 52 hour fast that just sort of happened and wasn’t planned. So going into this I was very much in a fasted state and cravings were already reduced due to a lowered insulin level.

The Science

Now, let’s talk about the science behind the carnivore diet (if you want to learn more about the science of the carnivore diet, listen to this Genius Life podcast with Max Lugavere and Paul Saladino, MD.)

It is an extreme version of the ketogenic diet, limiting the number of carbs consumed and insulin responses from your body. It is also extremely nutrient-dense. As humans, our digestive system functions more like carnivorous animals, not like ruminant animals (cattle, sheep, goats, buffalo, deer, elk, etc) who eat mainly plants.

Most nutrients existing in plants are not bio-available to humans. Meaning, they cannot be absorbed by humans. There is nothing you can find in plants that you cannot get from meat.

Eating less meat is also not going to save the environment. Only 3.8% of US greenhouse gas emissions come from cattle. The majority comes from energy and transportation.

But what did I actually eat?

Alright. Here we go. Here is a sampling of what I consumed: bacon-wrapped scallops, salmon + bacon, ribeyes, t-bones, bone broth, eggs, pork shoulder, lamb shanks, beef shanks, bone marrow, sausage, etc.

The carnivore diet does not have to look the same for everyone. Purists say meat, salt, water, coffee. Some say any animal products, including cheese. You gotta find what works for you. I thought I would miss cheese, but I really didn’t.