The Temporary Carnivore
If you’re like me, you’re afraid of commitment. Carnivore for life? Yikes. But if you have come to see that carnivore offers some real benefits, it may become a tool in your box. Let’s look at some temporary applications for carnivore. I examine using it as an elimination protocol, and using it as a tool to reboot, “cleanse,” or lose weight.
Summary:
Elimination Therapy: Carnivore can be used as an effective elimination diet because its simplicity makes it easier for one to navigate.
Autoimmunity: give your overstimulated system a chance to rest and recover by simplifying your diet and reducing reactive foods.
Reboot: Carnivore can be used to eliminate cravings for sweet and hyper-palatable foods.
Weight Loss: Carnivore can absolutely be used as a tool for weight loss. High satiation makes it easy to cut overall calorie consumption while still experiencing sustained energy. Long term effectiveness, however, would depend on what eating habits you adopt afterwards.
How Long? Read at the end to find out how long you should go carnie to get the benefits you’re seeking.
This is entry #3 in my Carnivore Series. Check out a Carnivore Conversation, My 30-Day Experiment, and The Lifestyle Carnivore, and the Ethical Carnivore for more!
Now, let’s do a deeper dive on these topics.
Elimination Diet: Sometimes Less Choice is more
Elimination diets are the gold standard in nutrition therapy for determining food sensitivities that can contribute to a host of health problems. Even with advanced testing options available, it is the most accurate and customized way to determine what foods you react to. However, it is also one of the hardest tools in the box. A desire for answers is one thing, sticking to an elimination diet for a long period of time is another.
There are many elimination diet protocols out there, each one backed by different experts for different applications. GAPS, Autoimmune Paleo, and the Six Food Elimination Diet (SFED) are just a few well known examples. As a nutrition therapist, I have seen firsthand how people struggle to adhere to often confusing guidelines and diets that call for new cooking techniques and extensive food prep. Carnivore fits the parameters of an elimination diet—it can safely eliminate common (and even obscure) allergens while providing enough nutrition to live on, allowing you to gauge which foods you react to by reintroducing them after a certain period without them. Why would carnivore offer an advantage then, when it is actually stricter (meaning more restrictive) than other elimination diets? The table to the right illustrates what I mean.
It turns out, while carnivore is stricter, it is also simpler. It reduces decision fatigue by narrowing down daily food choices to just animal products, in some cases, just beef and salt. It offers ease of preparation: if you can sear a steak, you have a 1-pan meal in 10 minutes or less! It eliminates complicated rules. You don’t need to know what a nightshade or a FODMAP is, you just need to know if your food is from an animal. Even Beyond Burger can’t confuse this menu plan!
One of my favorite features of the carnivore diet as an elimination option is that it so thoroughly streamlines your diet, that you make progress fast, with no wasted time. In other plans, you may find out food that were allowed on the protocol still slowed your progress or caused you to need to restart your plan. Carnivore, on the other hand, is so limited and straight forward that you rarely find a complication—particularly if you start in the strict phase that eliminates eggs and dairy. Read more about autoimmunity further below for more info on this.
We’ve talked about complications the carnivore sidesteps in an elimination, but let’s not forget to count its strengths! Carnivore is extremely satiating. I was surprised to find my cravings disappeared and I was content without seeking snacks. This is commonly reported by others as well. This is extremely helpful on an elimination diet that depends on willpower to give up foods you normally enjoy.
For a more detailed review of how carnivore can be used as an elimination diet, check out this paper I wrote for practitioners looking to help clients comply and succeed.
Autoimmunity: Evaluate the Cost
For those of you who suffer autoimmune conditions, you know the constant struggle of food intolerances. You know the tangled mess of reactions that happen and how hard it can be to pinpoint exactly what food is triggering what symptom. Most likely, this is the reason you’ve embarked on elimination diets in the first place (see above.) By beginning with the most basic form of the carnivore diet, meat and salt, you take all the guess work out of the game and are allowed a season of reprieve.
The application of carnivore for autoimmune conditions is what first caught my attention and made me stop to seriously consider a diet I had first dismissed as laughable. If you think about it, plants have many problematic compounds in them. The fact is, animals have external defenses: they run, bite, claw and otherwise physically defend themselves. Plants, on the other hand, wage a chemical defense.
Does the cost of eating plants outweigh the benefits?
Most people don’t think twice about eating a salad bursting with fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. But someone with an impaired system might instead see a landmine of irritants in a bowl. It seems someone with a hypersensitive system (autoimmunity) understands words like: lectins, oxalates, phytates and more. You may have heard of fermentable oligo-, di-, and monosaccharides and polyols (FODMAPS). All these compounds and more are specific to plants and can wreak havoc on a sensitive system. Simply put, there is a cost to every bite of plant food we take. With a healthy system, you can afford to take the hit of lectins in that Pico de Gallo to unlock a vitamin treasure trove. But if you have a compromised, overstimulated system—as in autoimmune conditions—the cost may far outweigh the benefits. Switching to animal foods may allow the body to recover from the accumulation of intolerances and either you become able to eat plant foods again, or you are able to clearly identify which plants, for the sake of your health, have to fall off your plate. An elimination phase may be enough to settle sensitivities and fortify your system. However, severe cases may call for you to move from the temporary carnivore to the long term carnivore (click here)**.
Simply put: plants offer nutrition at a cost that makes sense in a healthy system, but may be too expensive for an overtaxed, unbalanced body.
Reboot: A Meat Cleanse?!
When you typically think of a cleanse, you imagine going on green juices for 10 days or nothing but salad for a month. Who would ever consider a meat-based diet to be a cleanse? I would have thought “Meat Cleanse” was an oxymoron even a short year ago. However, if you consider a cleanse as a period of limited, clean nutrition that allows you to expel harmful substances and reboot cravings and tastes, then carnivore fits the bill beautifully.
Eating only animal products will recalibrate your taste for sweet, a useful tool if you find your sweet tooth constantly sabotages your efforts to eat healthy. In my own experiment, I was shocked to see my cravings for junk food completely disappear, a feat I thought impossible!
Consider bone broth fast for a healing reboot.
Meat is nutritionally dense, particularly if you include organ meats like liver and heart. You can meet your nutrition requirements with fewer bites of meat than you can with plants, making it a great way to “cleanse” without getting faint, fatigued, or lethargic as many do on other, more traditional cleanses.
Bone Broth Fast
If you are looking for a calorie-restricted cleanse, like a fast for example, consider a bone broth fast! Bone broth is a great source of gut healing components and contains all the amino acids necessary to rebuild tissue; so even as you fast, you are reinforcing the healing benefits you’re seeking.
Dr. Kellyann Petrucci gained notoriety with her best-selling book The Bone Broth Diet 1 where she essentially teaches using bone broth as a tool for healing and encourages different patterns of fasting with broth as your base.
I often do a 2-day bone broth fast to get myself back on track when I’ve had a few vacation days or a period of celebration and splurges.
During fast days, I typically consume between 1 and 2 quarts of bone broth throughout the day and abstain from food. I drink all the water I want. Broth is satiating and allows for an effective cleansing experience.
For some more interesting information about bone broth fasting, check out this blog post from paleo influencer, Mark Sisson.
Weight Loss: Pounds off with Protein?
Carnivore experts tout the health benefits of carnivore—lowered inflammation, increased strength, sustained energy, mental clarity, deep nutrition, etc.—but the truth is, most people try diets because they want to lose weight. The first question I get asked after “is it healthy” is “how much weight can I lose?”
Carnivore does facilitate weight loss in several ways.
Ketosis
One, it induces a state of ketosis, or fat burning. Remember from my 30-day experiment how surprised I was by this? Despite eating high amounts of protein rather than the moderate levels mandated by traditional ketogenic plans, I measured high levels of ketones in my blood almost every day, setting the stage for optimal fat burning.2
Less likely to cheat when you feel satisfied!
Satiation/Calorie Reduction
Another point apparent in my 30-day meal log was how satiating carnivore is. I hardly ever hit my calorie allotment for the day and many days ended drastically under calories. Now, I was not looking to cut calories or necessarily even count them; I was trying to eat intuitively so I could see how the diet truly influenced my appetite and energy. Despite eating an average of only 1200 calories a day, I was never hungry or “snacky,” had no cravings and never went to bed bitter because I wished I could eat more.
Satiation is a key characteristic of ketogenic and high fat diets.3
Strength in Strictness
Does it sound unusual to list this as a weightloss strength? Some people dismiss carnivore as a rebrand of the Atkins diet, insisting they’ve “been there done that.” But there are key differences. The Atkins is a low-carb diet, but it doesn’t restrict the kinds of carbs you eat. Carnivore, on the other hand, promotes only animal based foods. As with elimination diets, this simplicity is a key to success. For the type of dieter who can’t manage “moderation” but thrives in abstinence, carnivore offers a perfect haven.
“One person’s flexibility is another person’s relapse.” — Dr. Kevin Stock.
For some, even a little leeway on foods not conducive to weight loss is too much temptation. With carnivore, there are no small servings of desserts or fruits or flavors that will kick off a splurge or perpetuate a sweet tooth. No temptations mean stricter adherence, leading to more success with weight loss goals.
So how long should I go Carnivore?
This is a nuanced question with lots of factors to consider. It depends on your circumstances and desired outcomes.
Elimination/Autoimmunity
If you are going carnivore to heal/identify food intolerances, 6 weeks is a good amount of time to shoot for. That is approximately how long it takes the immune system to clear antibodies 4 it made in reaction to a problem food so it can look at that food again with “new eyes.” Oftentimes, the immune system is able to recognize food it previously reacted to as harmless and you are able to enjoy it again. Sometimes, for whatever reason, your body will still trigger an immune response, but you’ll finally know definitively that avoiding that food is the right thing to do.
As a cleanse/reboot
Two weeks to 30 days is generally considered a good amount of time to banish cravings and rest your digestive system. There are no hard and fast rules and you get to be the judge. I suggest setting a 2-week goal and then deciding if you have reaped the benefits or feel the need to continue.
For weight loss
You can choose to stay carnivore until you meet your weight goal and then transition to a whole-food based, balanced food plan. Some people use carnivore as a strict way to jump start a new healthy eating plan. For example, you can try 10 days of carnivore before moving to keto or paleo (or a combination.) Carnivore is so great at squashing cravings and munchies, it can really set you up to succeed in less restrictive diets. Just beware, as with any diet, if you finish and return to poor eating habits and inflammatory foods, the weight will come back almost as fast as it came off!
Seasonally
For those trying to mimic ancestral patterns, you may choose to eat carnivore in the winter when plant foods are naturally scarce and then incorporate seasonal fruits and vegetables as they become available in the spring and summer. This pattern puts you in tune with the natural rhythm of the earth and can offer an appreciation for tastes and varieties that we often take for granted in our modern grocery-store-year climate of constant availability.
In Conclusion
You don’t have to renounce all plant foods forever to reap the benefits of carnivore. You can use it as a tool in your box to bring out on occasion for specific purposes like rebooting tastes, slimming down, identifying intolerances and even just for variety. If you want to explore carnivore options for yourself, download my free get started guide!
[1] Petrucci K, Virgin J. Dr. Kellyann's Bone Broth Diet. Rodale, Inc; 2018.
[2] Volek J, Sharman M, Gómez A, et al. Comparison of energy-restricted very low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets on weight loss and body composition in overweight men and women. Nutrition Metabolism (Lond). 2004;1(1):13. Published 2004 Nov 8. doi:10.1186/1743-7075-1-13
[3] McClernon F, Yancy W, Eberstein J, Atkins R, Westman E. The Effects of a Low-Carbohydrate Ketogenic Diet and a Low-Fat Diet on Mood, Hunger, and Other Self-Reported Symptoms*. Obesity. 2007;15(1):182-182. doi:10.1038/oby.2007.516
[4] Konijeti GG, Kim N, Lewis JD, et al. Efficacy of the Autoimmune Protocol Diet for Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Inflamm Bowel Dis. 2017;23(11):2054-2060. doi:10.1097/MIB.0000000000001221
