Those of us on this forum, by and large, eat the way we do for health benefits and/or due to underlying health reasons. Many on Charles' forum eat ZC to lose weight.

This is what I meant in my previous post about how many people (mostly on Charles' forum) eat ZC because they want to look good. Some of them do stick with it because they actually feel better, or it suits their digestion better. Personally, I'm at an ideal weight and body composition for myself, so I am not really concerned with occasional carbs and a little bit of fat gain now and then, which isn't likely anyway if I stick to vlc, which I plan on doing if I eat any plant foods at all. I decided to go zc because of the health benefits, like smoother digestion and more steady energy. I don't think I ever became totally keto-adapted, but I did find that somehow I was automatically better at sprinting and had this seemingly (compared to the past) endless supply of energy, because of being a fat burner. It's still possible to maintain a keto diet while vlc, which is why I'm not scared of a little fruit or vegetables now and then. I may stick to carnivore more often though, because recently when I had insulin triggered hunger, it was really annoying and difficult to ignore, while when carnivore I just don't have to deal with that.

Van could you please explain what you mean? On the zerocarb forum Charles does not say any of this...

Nicola

I may be wrong, but it could be that there's no rush or drive from carbs or sugars which might make a person feel more like working out (energy from sugar and carbs comes in short bursts, compared to steady energy from fat). Personally, though I disagree, as I just ate a large amount of fat (nearly 1/4 lb of raw butter, which turns out to be too much for me, because I'm feeling a little nauseous) and despite the slight queasiness, I feel super energized. Almost like getting hyper from sugar, but without the jittery feelings, and without the energy crash.

It could also be referring to how when on a zc diet, exercise isn't required for fat loss, and the large intake of protein on the diet prevents muscle loss. If someone used to be motivated to exercise for this reason, they need to find a new motivation.  Mine is just for the sake of getting and staying strong (body weight training) and just generally feeling awesome (parkour and sprinting).

To be honest, lately I haven't been smart about doing my workouts early rather than later, since this is when my motivation and energy is still high. For the past 2 or 3 weeks I have only managed to fit 1 or 2 workouts in per week, and I would prefer 3 or even 4. This morning, before eating the butter, I tried doing pullups on an empty stomach. I have found that even short intermittent fasting sessions cause me to gain strength faster, as long as I work out hard and consistently. However it seems that lately my workouts are worse when I do this, I don't know if it's because of the lack of exercise lately, or if I need to eat more fat (which is why I tried eating so much butter). Unfortunately, it's probably the lack of exercise, which then leads to more lack of exercise, because part of me is always afraid of backtracking.

About the kidney stones, for a little while I did eat maybe %30 or %20 cooked meat. Honestly, I learned that it gets boring so much faster than raw meats, though even with raw meats once in a while I feel like at least just lightly searing something for a change of pace. So now it's more like 5% cooked. I don't mind the thought of foraging for wild herbs, in fact it's been something I've been wanting to do anyway, so this may just be another reason for me to get off my ass and do it finally.

I need to vent some frustrations now. Dealing with all of these issues has been much harder for me lately, probably because I chose a combination of classes this semester which are all very very time consuming. It's very exhausting, and takes away from my time and energy to plan and do other things that are important to me.

Some good news though: the nausea is gone, but I still feel plenty of energy. I think I'm gonna go try those pullups again now.

Wow, it's been maybe 3 or 4 months since my last entry.

I've been eating zero carb for that same amount of time. I include raw butter, and sometimes raw cheese or raw cream. I usually don't have cheese or cream until the evening however, because it makes me very lethargic. The butter is fine though. However, sometimes I do get a lot of gurgling and gas when I eat the raw butter.

I notice that even though I don't run much (an unfortunately haven't been working out much) when I do I feel great, like I don't get tired as fast.

However for these past few weeks when I've been putting so much time into being at school and working on projects, I hardly give myself the chance to work out. I finally joined a parkour club on campus, but most of the time they've had practice, I've had to skip it to work on projects outside of class. When I finally do have the time, it rains, and they cancel practice. So I've only been to two in the past 3 weeks.

I'm still feeling a little weak at times. I've read things about cell phone towers and other things in that emit large amounts of electromagnetic radiation. It's been described that when within the range of one, all your bodies functions are weakened. That may explain why whenever I go into a large store I suddenly feel strange and like I would rather not run around, while any place away from these I feel awesome.

I've noticed that I have a little bit of a bulge over my navel. It could be a little fat, which I probably gained after this weekend. I had a few glasses of wine (no sulfites added), though it really wasn't that much. Honestly I think the reason people choose an all meat diet is because they want to stay lean, but any carbs at all triggers cravings. Yesterday was my birthday, and my mom made a cake. I managed to resist it. In fact, I don't even really WANT that kind of food, because I know that whenever I do get refined sugars, even just a little, that I become jittery and irritable. In the past I have been able to stick to low enough amounts of carbs to remain in a ketogenic state. Though I do need to avoid things like stevia, because I have had the tendency to start using it in all kinds of things, which does make me start to crave sweet things, mostly because of the memories learned from a childhood of eating crap.

I don't want to eat fruit in general, especially not domesticated fruit. I'm getting a book on wild edibles in the area, and I plan on foraging (however I may have just missed the season for berries and things) whenever possible. I would also like to plant some wild varieties of berries, especially salmonberries and chokecherries (if they can grow in Indiana). I'm really interested in using wild plants for medicinal purposes, and I also want to work towards being able to hunt my own meat. I'll even eat roadkill if it's relatively fresh (meaning not bloated and super stinky). In fact, over the summer I scavenged a small rabbit. The hind legs were the only piece of good meat left, I skinned it, and it was pretty good. Actually, this time I cooked it because in the summer it is possible to get tularemia. I figure if I eat 95%-85% raw it's better than a totally cooked diet, and I'm not always going to be able to eat everything raw all the time, I would prefer not to freak out about eating one small amount of cooked meat (it was only maybe 5 oz). If I had eaten it raw, I could have likely gotten tularemia (I'm also not that fond of getting any intestinal or other types of parasites from meat.) This is why I never eat freshwater fish raw either. I've even found roundworms in a fillet of fresh wild caught salmon. That's better than tapeworms, because they can't survive to the adult stage in humans (only marine mammals) but before they die they cause a hell of a lot of pain and suffering.

The other day I did have some raw oysters though. They were tasty, with a squeeze of lime. For the rest of the day I had a gross feeling in my stomach, but over time it subsided, and I've been fine since.

I guess what I want is freedom with my food, not freedom to eat crap, but more like freedom to experiment. It seems that whenever I switch my way of eating, I go through a detox period (especially when I started eating meat again after vegan), then after maybe 3 or 4 weeks I feel really good with the way of eating. In the past three weeks however, I have noticed those dull aches in my back and around my bladder return, and my energy has gotten lower despite eating lots of fat. I have been drinking some yerba mate tea in the mornings before class, I wonder if the caffeine (around 40 mg in a cup) is stalling or causing anything. I think that I can be mostly carnivorous, with some occasional wild fruits and flowers. I just don't want to feel like I have to be super strict about my diet. I mean, I know what makes me feel best, and I stick to that, but every now and then I do like to indulge in some wine when I feel like it. Though I probably could go entirely carnivorous, especially if I can get more organ meats (I've stocked up, got 3 hearts, 1 tongue in the freezer, now I just need to get some livers before the farmer's market is totally over for this year (end of Oct.) and maybe some more tongues. It's kinda nice that those are some the most nourishing parts of the animal, but since people generally don't buy them, they're priced quite low for a lot of great meat (still not entirely used to it, but I like to make heart into jerky and eat it with fat. I might make some emergency pemmican with it as well, for travel). I also have an order of 10lbs of suet waiting for me from a local farmer (it's a long drive, so I gotta pick the right weekend to pick it up.) Only $10!

I've also noticed lately that I have a very faint swollen feeling around my intestines. Early on when I switched to zero carb, I had severe diarrhea, whenever I ate or drank anything. My abdomen was also swollen. It lasted for 3 days. On the 3rd day I decided to try taking a large amount of HCL to see if that would actually help me digest anything. Shortly after, the problem went away. I'm guessing the HCL killed whatever it was in my gut. I don't need large amounts of HCL anymore, or any at all for that matter. If I take one HCL, I get some heartburn.

I guess I'm still wondering a bit if I could be having adrenal exhaustion (once again, when I was a vegan, I became very high stress, adrenal exhaustion sounds like it could be caused by long periods with lots of stress. I used to get so anxious, that I would get a pain in the left side of my chest, which people and doctors have described as a symptom of an anxiety attack. Ever since my mostly and then entirely carnivorous diet, I've had absolutely no trouble with this. Vegans try to make meat eaters out to be mean and angry people, because since they associate meat with carnage and violence. I have found that it is exactly the opposite. Meat makes me happy and calm, and I really am a much nicer person, much better to get along with. I hardly ever get angry anymore.

Anyway, about adrenal exhaustion, if I want to get some tests done, how exactly should I go about doing that?

After reading about the benefits of zero carb, I'm thinking of trying it soon. I think that as long as I have enough fat and meat I can do completely without fruit. I've already been very low carb except for the past few days when I've had more than just a handful of berries.

The enthusiastic posts from Satya about it definitely convinced me, it sounds like there are so many good things about it that I probably wouldn't even miss fruit that much. I don't think it would hurt to at least give it a try!

It may be a while before I can officially start for a steady amount of time, I want to make sure I have dependable fat sources, which I am still looking for.

Today I did a short workout, just lifting w/ my legs. I did squats w/ a really heavy bag that was out in the garage. After that I did 30 pistols for each leg. My legs feel like jelly now. That was about 15 mins ago, so right now I'll be drinking some water, then I'll hobble over to the Whole Foods and buy some grass-fed ground beef, and eat some suet. I'm wondering if the suet that became moldy would still be ok if I just peeled off that outer layer. I don't want to just throw it away.

For the past couple days my weight has been pretty steady at 108 lbs which is fine.

My family knows, and my boyfriend knows. Basically my boyfriend says that he likes me anyway, he just asks that I cut back on raw meats if i ever get food poisoning after eating raw meat, and because I feel the probability of that is very low, I'm fine with agreeing with this. He's considering going on a paleo diet, he says he eats the way he eats because he cooks for his family, and usually just goes along with what they prefer.

My parents are different, my mom emphasizes the "disgusting" opinion, where as if my dad hears about me recently eating raw meat (especially ground) he gives me a big lecture about how people die from e. coli when they eat raw meat. He also thinks that anyone on a raw meat diet is cheating death. I think he's just stubbornly fearful of bacteria.

None of my other friends know yet, nobody has asked though. I'm choosing to follow the advice of previous posts and not talk about it unless someone else approaches me and asks about it.

I strongly recommend against GS's VCO detox. Firstly you can't 'cure' candida and you can't control it within 3 days or whatever. This is overly optimistic. There is no quick way to 'cure' it.

I tried it one morning and my stomach went into cramps I wanted to vomit but hate vomiting so held my vomit down and went to bed for a while. Woke up with diarrhea. This is not detox or candida die off, many people are fooled.

I wasted a whole day feeling ill and would never put VCO near my mouth again. It contains very high levels of plant toxins. Do you really want to poison yourself for a supposed quick fix?

Yeah, I guess I should have realized this could have been the case since I even feel sick just thinking about eating it, not like some cultural based dislike, but my mind just associates coconut oil with feeling shitty. I still like to use it on my skin though, I've had no problems there.

I did have some diarrhea yesterday, though I haven't used coconut oil for a few days (and won't anymore). I weighed myself this morning and lost a little weight. I'm thinking I need to eat more calories, at least 2000 per day. I'm 5'3 and I weighed 105 this morning. Before I was eating around 1700 calories, because that's all I ever felt like eating. However, now I have suet, so I just decided to try eating more of that before evening actually rolls around, because if I wait until evening then it takes me forever to eat, and don't get to bed in time for decent sleep.

I ate a big chunk of suet in the morning before heading to class, then when class was over and I got home I was so tired I took a nap, made some jerky, ate some strawberries, and ate the raw scraps from jerky making. I'm going to eat some more suet soon, and then later this evening eat some raw ground beef. I'm taking a few days off from exercising to rest, and then when I do work out this weekend I'm not going to go too hard for too long. Last summer I burned myself out by obsessively going rock climbing 5 days a week. Foolishly I thought that if i was tired then the exercise would get me going, but eventually i just kept getting more and more tired, and had to take a couple weeks off. I'm also going to take a break on pull ups and do some other things, since I've been doing them so often.

I wanted to add some details about the food I'm eating recently.

As a nearby farmers market just started up (at a farm 20 min away that raises grass fed cows and produces grass fed dairy and beef) which has made getting great quality meat much more convenient, at least for the next few months. Last week I asked about any recommendations as to where i could get some good grass fed suet in the area. On of the guys selling pasture beef told me to try a family owned meat processor 45 min away. They process only animals from local farms, some of which are grass fed, some of which is not. They also raise their own beef, which according to their website is Organic. They mention some feeding of grains and soy, so I'd prefer not to buy beef directly from them. But I bought suet from them anyway, because it was the only source I could find at the time. Of course, I remembered that there is a grass fed bison farm over an hour away that I called a month ago. They told me that in summer time they would have suet after they started slaughtering some bison. I'm going to call them and reserve some suet so I can pick it up next weekend, because the suet I have now is not 100% grass fed.

Also, at the farmers market, one of the vendors sells beef heart and liver. I had liver for the first time last weekend. I found that if i cut it up into tiny pieces and swallow them whole, it's much more tolerable. It's really the texture of chewing it that bothered me, not so much the flavor. I've heard that heart is delicious, and it's awesome that the prices for organ meats are so low. It kind of makes me glad that very few people eat buy these except for their pets, because that's what keeps the price so low.

Also, I want to look into buying EM probiotics and perhaps a fermented fish oil rather than the most likely cooked one I've been using. I don't have a job right now, and I can only get enough money from my family to pay for food. Also, they never let me order anything online, so that's why I haven't already got those things.

Also, something i forgot to mention about my candida situation:

GoodSamaritan: I read your page about the virgin coconut oil candida detox, and I'm interested in trying it. How did it work out for you? On that page you said you were still waiting to see if any symptoms returned to decide if you needed to do it again. I'm hoping to only have to do it once, because it sounds like hell. I'm assuming this because when I recently started eating coconut oil again, 3 tbsp made me feel crappy, like i just needed to lay down and rest. The next couple days when I tried this it was hard work just to get myself to eat it. After the first spoonful I would gag and then just feel like this stuff is gross while eating the rest. I have read on other sites about coconut oil for candida that eating up to 3 tbsp will cause flu-like die-off symptoms, which sounds like what I had. Did you experience this when you did the detox? Or does it sound like I shouldn't try it to that extent (maybe do a more gradual detox w/ coconut oil?). In one way I feel like I may not be able to keep it up, on the other hand when it comes to candida I'd rather get rid of it sooner.

I rendered a bit of my suet, and it cooled white, so I'm going to make a trip to a grass-fed bison farm about an hour away, they told me they'll have some suet.

4 pullups is pretty good.  Do you ever do pushups?  How many can you do?

I do pushups once or twice a week, the last time I did them I did up to fifty. I usually do them in sets of 10, and do a different exercise in between sets. This seems to help, because if I tire my arms out on pushups then do some pullups, and go back to pushups, my arms don't feel so exhausted, in fact it's like they have more energy to keep going. I also like to do pushups with rings hanging on a rope from my pullup bar in the garage, they're harder because it works more muscles to maintain the stability. I mostly wanted to focus on pullups for a while because I love climbing things, and I really think the pullups help so that I can have equal arm/leg effort. It's always exciting when I reach that day where I can do one more than before. I suppose I should work on other functions. When I'm playing with my dog I like to crawl around and crouch and jump a lot.

About a month ago I found parkour, which is really really cool because it's about moving through your environment as efficiently as possible. I think it was inspired by seeing hunter/gatherer people move about so easily. It's the kind of movement and speed you would want if you were chasing an animal. Sounds pretty paleo/primal to me. On the American Parkour website (http://www.americanparkour.com) there's a page for beginners, and they have a conditioning routine to get in shape to be able to safely do parkour. It says you should get to the point where you can do 3 rounds of 10-15 pullups and pushups, and 15-25 squats. I'm at the point where I can do that many pushups, so I decided that I need to work on pullups more, and do pushups enough to maintain my current strength.

When I was eating more carbs I would gain more weight, now I seem to stay at a steady weight, and just seem to gain strength rather than size. This is fine for me because I'm more interested in having the functional strength to be able to try this parkour thing (so far all I've been able to practice are landings and rolls). Plain running or jogging is boring, and parkour integrates running, jumping, vaults and climbing for getting around, and I think when I feel confident about it all around, I'll do it enough to have good running exercise. As of now the only workouts besides body weight strength exercises is rock climbing, which seems like a really drawn out strength/muscle endurance kind of work out. It's fun though. Oh, and jungle gyms are fun too.

Most of the time seemed to be taken up by the doctors talking over AV that there wasn't enough time to explain how raw meat can be eaten safely, in my opinion when they say "don't just pick up chicken at the grocery store" they are right because you shouldn't even buy meat from the grocery store, you should find a source that you can know for sure pasture raises their chickens or hogs or only feeds their cattle grass. These short tv segments are no good for explaining or even having a debate, there's only 7 minutes, maybe 2 minutes to make your case if the hosts of the show want to argue with you.

I have placed on my business card that besides being a web developer, I am a: Manggagamot / Filipino Traditional Healer who cures what western medicine says are incurable diseases.

So that shuts people up and makes them pay attention when they learn I eat raw everything.  People in my culture have no qualms about eating raw fruit, raw veggies, raw eggs, raw fish... they only balk at raw land animals... but telling them I'm a healer makes them pay attention.

I used to be enormously fat and getting old, now I look slim and young and I've cured myself and several people of diseases so they think I may really know something.  Wait until I get the time to body build.  That should wow them.

lol yeah, I'm sure that works, because then you can prove you know what you're doing, and people start thinking maybe you're on to something.  Personally I'm still trying to figure out what's best for me, so not really experienced enough to convince people that I know what I'm doing, which is probably why they step in and say they think it's wrong. I guess I can't blame them since I've lost weight and people have commented that my face looks gaunt and my eyes look sunken (I don't think that's a good sign). I think because I'm in that learning stage I should consider it seriously when people say I look unhealthy, but if they suggest eating cake or cookies, that's where I'll stop listening, because I know starches aren't what I need to gain healthy weight. I guess the only thing that does get to me is that people blow raw meat out of proportion by saying "OMG WTF you're gonna die".

Lex says that he has in the past been forced to eat raw  grainfed meats. He says that he just takes multiple doses of low-quality cod-liver oil capsules to compensate for the lack of omega 3 fatty acids in the grainfed meat.

Re pemmican:- Yes, the beauty of pemmican is that you can order large amounts and store them for years. I would suggest using the marrow as I've heard that the native americans prized the taste of the marrow-pemmican more. As for the quantity of marrow per bone,
it all depends on the supplier. I've received crappy bones with hardly any marrow in them, other times I've received decent bones with huge amounts of marrow in them.

The cod liver oil capsules sounds like a good idea. I'll have to get the capsules, I already have cod liver oil, but it's in straight liquid form.

I know that the place where I get grass-fed meat will have marrow bones, but currently they don't, as I bought the last four packages a few weeks ago. Theirs are generally pretty good I guess for having the parts with the most marrow

Another thing to add:

If I end up using grain-fed suet for pemmican, for about 4 days total, will that be a problem? Or is it just less optimal?

If it makes any difference I can get grass-fed bones with marrow, which I think can be used to make pemmican. However, I know that suet would be a better deal, since with marrow bones you pay for mostly bone weight. Most places around here aren't going to have any suet until summer.