I've gone past rare and into the bleu zone with the pork so I've got the hog on a leash right now, not quite by the horns. It is very delicious. I'm just waiting until I can get some good quality pork. Slanker's has some that is supposedly "wild caught," which I assume means they just keep them on their farmland and don't feed them.  I at least would get something that is organic and well raised if I don't get the Slanker's. This has kind of slipped my to-do list, but thanks for reminding me, I will get it done. I can't bring myself to do it with the same supermarket stuff I feed my dogs, though I give it to them raw and they don't have worms crawling out of their ears yet. Wait,  shit, maybe they do. One of them developed hematomas on his ear flaps which could be caused by parasites.  Now I'm a bit worried.

Get a boring book and read it in bed. Math and science textbooks from school are perfect for this. Any sciency book will do. The more formulas,references, and definitions, the better. Works every time, guaranteed. Just keep at it until your eyes start crossing the words on the page, then shut the lights and knock out. Be careful, this is a powerful method. I often fall asleep with the book still in the bed so soft-cover would be ideal.

Getting good sun during the day and keeping lights very low for an hour before bed is helpful too. TV, tablets, and phones before bed are too bright. At least for me, cell phone radiation has the effect of making me drowsy during the day and keeping me up or waking me up at night. So try turning off all your phones, wifi routers, etc. an hour before bed. It should help.

Completely static holds (not slow-motion) are very good for building tendon strength, which is important to help avoid damaging tendons when lifting very heavy weights.

Interesting, I always wondered why people did this. I figured it was to strengthen the secondary stabilizer muscles. I have problems with shoulder injury when I progress to heavier weights, I will have to try this out.

I had that same reaction once when I ate an adrenal gland. It also gave me stomach pain for 2.5 hours. I never had an issue with adrenals after that, just that one. very strange.

fyi, cashews and pistachios contain the poison ivy toxin urushiol. raw cashews are never raw, they must be steamed by law to break down most of the toxin

I had the same problem with eggs. I used to cook them over easy to get at the raw yolk without having a reaction. I can eat duck eggs totally raw so give that a shot. I would also agree with Mr. Durden that you should make raw animal foods the focus of your eating, and not just seafood. Include some land animals. Lamb, bison, and duck tend to be much better tolerated than beef, pork, and chicken. That is a long list of plant foods, you may want to consider an elimination diet to figure out what is causing your issues. If you are eating any of that stuff because you think its good for you and not because you like the taste, I would just stop.

I had a similar experience to this about three months ago, so I thought I would share. I had been ZC/carniviorous for about 5 years and vlc for 15 yrs prior, excluding some infrequent relapses. It had been over a year since I have been sick. There were some instances when I felt I had caught something, but never got sick. It just sort of went away, which is interesting because you mentioned something about quarantining infections and not dealing with them in ketosis. I've never heard of that, but it may explain the phenomenon. i was just assuming my immune system was stronger in ketosis and able to knock it down before it became systemic.

Anyway, one day I had shut down my ketosis after celebrating with some friends out for dinner with some sugary cocktails and desserts. I decided to speed up my return to ketosis by jumping straight into a 4-day water fast the next day. Big mistake. Apparently this fasting exaggerates the temporary immune system shutdown that occurs when transitioning into ketosis from carb metabolism and I caught something on day 2 of the fast, probably at school. By day 3 I had a high fever up to about 105 and tachycardia. The likes of which I had never seen. No other symptoms really, just runny nose. it was just staying at about 190-195 bpm and normal for me is 70-75. The next day I decided to try some peppermint herbal tea, another big mistake. This triggered some sort of allergic reaction when it hit my fasted stomach and it became difficult to breath and I was wheezing. Coincidentally I had a physical scheduled for the same day so I went to the doctor.

They said my ekg was abnormal and they tried to hospitalize me for observation and further testing. I refused to go, for fear of radiation exposure and worse infections. They also said my LDL was extremely high and HDL was low, though my triglycerides were excellent and I had no sign of blood clotting. Also my ketones were very high. A good report if you ask me, but they tried to give me statins nonetheless. Of course that was refused as well. I opted to do my further testing at the doc's office after i was over the cold because I was sure the ekg problem was caused by my breathing difficulty, not any underlying problem.

I did the halter-monitor and the stress-ekg, both of which were now normal. I refused the echo-cardiogram because I had read a study in which they were using ultrasound as a contraceptive and were able to sterilize mice for 6 months with just two exposures of 20 minutes. For all I know, the test could be creating arrhythmias much like how the cat-scan could trigger cancer. I recently heard of someone who was otherwise healthy and went to have an mri for back pain and the machine triggered a fatal heart attack.

I didn't eat any carbs but I did break the fast early and started eating after leaving the doctors office but the tach. and fever lasted another day or so. My theory about the strange infection was that we are constantly being experimented on and the people who take flu-shots are being used to spread new infections for testing every year. I am intrigued by this concept of quarantining infections on vlc/zc, it would seem to fit with the timing. Like as soon as I ended the ketosis, some infection I had caught months earlier and never dealt with suddenly came to the surface and triggered the fever.
 
Could you reference where you heard about this?

This experience was part of my motivation for trying rzc, but I had been eyeing these forums for a while before that. I was consuming large amounts of cooked animal fats and cholesterol and I was interested in how switching to raw would affect my cholesterol numbers. I should have the results of this experiment in another week or two with a VAP cholesterol test.

Thank you for this response. I do appreciate that you have done some research regarding this. If my earlier post seemed a bit agressive, it was. Just as your post was very condescending towards the zc camp. I just felt that several important concepts were overlooked to make an argument seem more plausible and that you were making the offense of assuming causality when there is only correlation with things such as lifespan and other points. I suppose the purpose of a thesis is to make an assumption, but there are just so many here. The concept of preferring pathways for their lack of energy requirement alone is not relevant in today's society with plentiful food available. I would be more concerned with whether they are doing damage along the way or not.

 Yes I am aware of muscle glycogen converting with rigormortis, I mentioned it as it applies to eating freshly killed meat and the contribution is small when compared to eating liver, the glycogen of which remains in tact.

I'd like to continue this debate if you would indulge me, though in a more gentlemanly manner. I must say its been a while since I have researched any of this and its possible that there is new knowledge out there. This is one of those things where you can't just take any study and run with it because there are vested interests that like to fudge numbers and mislead people when health is at stake.

I'm sorry, but I don't buy any of this thesis. Writing a post that is 10 miles long does not add to its validity. Right away three glaring problems strike me. There is no account for the glycerol that is released on fat breakdown being easily converted to glucose. There is no account for glycogen consumed in muscle and organ meats converting easily to glucose. There is no account for glucose being consumed directly in fresh blood. At best, gluconeogenesis is a temporary condition that is used to provide up to 100g of glucose per day until one is fully adapted to ketosis. If you overeat protein it will also kick in to enable the excess to be stored as fat. And 30g is high, if one is in deep ketosis that number should be more like 10-15. Even up to thirty should be covered no problem by a well balanced animal food diet that includes liver every day. If one is fasting, the ketosis will likely get to be deeper and the breakdown of ones own glycerol alone should cover the 10 no problem.

The short life span in carnivores is explained by the fact that their food and their competition is trying to kill them almost every time they eat. Eventually they get old and get gouged in a hunt or a fight and succumb to an infection or bleed-out. There is no need to complicate it any further than that.

I have been vlc for 20 years and zc/zpf for the last 5. Now with RZC I can see immediate improvements on my already near-perfect state. The only problems I've had were upon breaking the ketosis or going in and out too often. When I am strict for long enough to be fully adapted I can't even catch a cold.

I've never in my life indulged in fresh vegetation myself, but I don't see any reason not to include some fresh greens in your diet if you are into being bloated, having smelly gas, and large bowel movements being constantly rushed out of your bowels. If this process makes you healthier without affecting ketosis, then I am all for it. I find things get moving just fine if I am active.

presumably, yes. Some would argue that animal fats are unaffected up to their smoke-point temperature, but there is more than just fat in suet, there is a cellular structure and tissue with proteins. If any of this makes it into the tallow or lard, for sure it is bad. Also you don't know if the tallow has been overheated unless you rendered it yourself. From my experience, I notice a big difference in taste between tallow and the fat in suet. The suet tastes much cleaner and healthier, the tallow has a toasted aroma. I would assume the fats in rendered tallow are damaged, unless someone knows for sure one way or the other.

Really? I actually find that almost all cuts are pretty tender when raw, it's when you cook them that meats like chuck and shank toughen up (which is why they recommend those for slow cooking). The shank we get is usually pretty tender unless the outside "skin" is really thick sometimes.

Yes, I meant tough as far as raw meat goes, it didn't approach the toughness that cooked meat could get to. It was just hard to cut with a knife and took some effort to chew.

I know its officially poultry, but technically duck is a red meat. I just walked away from my first plate of raw duck breast with the fat on and it was hands down the best thing I ever ate raw. Maybe even the best meat in general.  If you've never had this you should definitely give it a shot. I'm never cooking duck meat again.

I tried elk, it was a bit more flavorful than the venison. There's always lamb and bison if you're not into beef right now. I'd also suggest trying some different cuts of beef before giving up. I find the various textures to be very different compared to the same thing cooked. For instance, the small fibers in top sirloin, especially the cap or the coulotte steak are great when raw.

What is the advantage of butyrate from RS over BHB from being in ketosis? Doesn't LCHF provide exactly the same benefits?

I had the bone marrow, it was nice. I got a slice of shank with the meat still attached around it. The meat was a bit tough, but the marrow was soft and fatty. I think I was just worried it would be like the ones I get my dog at the pet store. They seem old and hard as a rock.