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by ddorian43 1463 days ago
Yes, just tried bulking on a 6 week program and was very impressed with carnivore.
2 comments

By carnivore do you mean eating only meat? No veggies at all? If so that is an insane diet. Where are you going to get all your micronutrients from?
Only read meat, high fat, mostly only ruminant meat (lamb,goat,beef).

> Where are you going to get all your micronutrients from?

In the meat. You have to look at the bioavailability of stuff from plants and how much they have per-gram and per-calorie.

There are books/people/forums to follow if you want to try. Don't try it blindly/stupidly but go to a forum and ask basic questions.

> In the meat.

facepalm Good luck hitting the RDAs for the following using only the meats you described:

* Vitamin C * Vitamin E * Vitamin K * Calcium * Magnesium

I hope beef liver is in your daily diet, otherwise you're also going to come up short in a bunch of other micros. If you're also strength training you also need to go above the RDA for certain micros (e.g, Vit C, B vitamins, Calcium, ...) making it even harder.

This diet is pure pseudoscience.

> I hope beef liver is in your daily diet, otherwise you're also going to come up short in a bunch of other micros.

I eat full lamb but will consider going mostly muscle meat, will have to find some good deal first.

> This diet is pure pseudoscience.

We've been told that all our lives. It feels that way. I'm sorry. I don't listen to general advice though. Till now it's been going ok.

Join https://old.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/ and give it a try! Who knows, maybe I'm right ;)

RDAs are opinions, not science. They are guesses based on averages, which in many cases do not apply at all to any given individual.

The only way that RDAs are even remotely useful is if one is eating a standard diet where many vitamins and minerals are of lesser bioavailability as they are in the form of meat. In terms of vitamin C, there's a reason why meat eaters don't get scurvy, which is that meat contains other compounds that make the need for exogenous vitamin C much less necessary.

That is precisely why RDAs are mostly nonsense. Absolute values for micronutrients mean very little when you don't account for the food substrate, cofactors, an individual's overall health, what a person weighs, what their body composition is, etc.

Somehow, humans (the Homo genus, to be exact), got away without RDAs for millions of years. And they ate lots of meat.

> I hope beef liver is in your daily diet, otherwise you're also going to come up short in a bunch of other micros.

No, humans do not have to eat organ meat. There is no evidence for this. Skeletal muscle and fatty tissues, particularly that from large ruminant animals, provide everything that a human body needs to function optimally.

> If you're also strength training you also need to go above the RDA for certain micros (e.g, Vit C, B vitamins, Calcium, ...) making it even harder.

The human body does not contain an RDA meter. As I already discussed, RDA is an opinion that only makes sense when a certain set of vitamins and minerals are viewed in isolation. The RDA and RDI hypotheses fall apart when all the other variables of human diet and health come into play.

> This diet is pure pseudoscience.

Yeah... I guess stable isotope data is pseudoscience as well, but RDA is rock solid. Right.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13011

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41033-3#ref-CR9

Meat very slightly causes cancer. Saturated fats reduce your life expectancy, too.

Not that good advice I guess?

Check the studies you're relying on for this information. Most are confounded by people simply eating fast food.
And fast food is different because… ?
Lots of crappy carbs and added sugar on the side with generally low quality ingredients compared to what anyone caring about their diet would eat.

Most people don't have the dedication of a body builder carefully eating only patties from the burgers. Which would probably work.

Feel free to try it and change your life for the better. You can start with keto diet which is less extreme.
My friend's dad was just diagnosed with stage 3 renal failure and his doctor is emphatic his diet is the culprit. He'd been an advocate of the keto diet for years.

Biology is complicated and different people will have different results. I'm glad it's working for you but please exercise caution before assuming it will help everyone. You also might want to get your kidneys tested.

https://www.renalandurologynews.com/home/news/nephrology/chr...

My grandma lived 95 while smoking a pack a day since her 20s.

N=1 anecdotes are not worth the energy discussing them.

Her son (my father), lived 55 while smoking a pack a day since his 20s.

--

Also, what is keto diet? I've seen keto diets made of mostly meat and organic vegetables, and keto diets made of fat bombs and almond flour pizzas.

Keto and low carb these days have stopped meaning anything, often doesn't even mean "healthier".

If someone suggests something is a cure all for everyone, and a doctor says that cure all is killing someone, and there's medical research backing up the doctor - I'm going to trust the doctor.

My N=1 anecdote is a counterexample that has medical research to back it up. Or are you discrediting the person's anecdote about a carnivorous diet being healthy?

The hydration meme (drinking a gallon+ of fluids a day) is one the few fads that are actually sound.

Anyway, the long term effects are not that worrisome since virtually no one will stick to a diet this strict. I wouldn't also recommend strict keto or carnivore because without carbs most people will lack the oomph for a good workout.

High protein diets can trash a person's kidneys.

I've read that each kidney has a seven fold overcapacity for what people need. So if the kidneys are damaged something majorly bad had to have happened.

Kidneys are also involved in blood production along with bones.

Carnivore or keto is high fat diet. It's not high protein https://www.thecarnivoredietcoach.com/carnivore-foods.html
This always gets flamewar territory. My general answers are:

1. In every health thread we should post a picture of our body

2. Find a doctor that agrees with your opinion. Whatever it is you will find one.

3. I/we usually take harder things than the keto/carnivore thing (trust me)

4. Many things that we've been told our lives has been a lie. Maybe the keto/carnivore is also like that.

5. Please gather all your docs and start a thread on twitter with the "top" keto researchers (@nicknorwitz, @KetoCarnivore, @ChrisPalmerMD, @realDaveFeldman some that I follow)

6. High carb is killing the developed world. Please exercise caution.

I don't want to continue a flame war, but I want to respond to this:

> 2. Find a doctor that agrees with your opinion. Whatever it is you will find one.

I don't want a doctor to confirm my bias. I want a doctor to give me objective data about my health.

> I don't want a doctor to confirm my bias.

You randomly got one that confirmed your bias.

See Virta Health for FDA approved example. It's progressing slowly.

If you are open minded for real check the book "Brain Energy" https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Energy-Revolutionary-Understand...

Doing a low carb (not sure if I am in keto as I am not measuring) to see if it reduces CFS symptoms. So far it seems to be helping.

Not sure why: if it is the low carb aspect or just eating less.

Also check out this book Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Energy-Revolutionary-Understand...
Thanks for the recommendation. Does the book also recommended low carb/keto?
I think CFS is also connected to the mind (don't remember correctly). You can see a presentation by the same guy: Dr. Chris Palmer - 'The Ketogenic Diet in Neurology and Psychiatry' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUtwr_6sFw4
Good luck! Don't forget to eat fat! Make sure to join a forum and ask questions so you're not doing things wrong.