I was first inspired to try the carnivore diet last year when a friend of mine tried it for about 90 days.
He was losing weight and by all indications, things seemed to be moving in the right direction.
In the end, all the markers for his blood test were showing positive signs – his cholesterol had gone down, just off of eating red meat!
So, I finally had the founder and author of ‘The Carnivore Diet’, Dr Shawn Baker as a guest on my podcast Quite Franklin recently.
As he went into further detail about his training, nutrition and fitness on Quite Franklin, I was sold and knew I had to give it a go myself.
Here’s the story of how I ate meat every day for 30 days.
My Daily Carnivore Meal Plan
On a normal day, I usually try and get 5 – 6 meals and I eat every 2 – 3 hours.
When I attempted the carnivore diet, this was actually the first time that I didn’t specifically shoot for my 6 meal a day goal.
I didn’t care if I was eating a huge block of meat in one sitting and then going a few hours without anything.
That said, here’s what a day’s worth of carnivore meals looked like for me.
Breakfast: 8 whole eggs (scrambled) and 8 ounces of ground beef (cooked with salt and pepper or allspice seasoning)
Meal 2: 20-22 ounce ribeye, seasoned with salt and pepper, (grilled medium-rare)
Meal 3: Post-workout Protein shake (1 tbsp of fish oil, 1-2 tbsp of heavy whipped cream, 2 scoops of hydrolysed beef and egg protein powder) + 1 serving of fruit, usually blueberries/raspberries
This provides some sugar recovery to help with muscle tissue damage repair
Meal 4: 22-24 ounce ribeye steak, seasoned with salt and pepper (grilled medium-rare)
Sometimes that would do it for the day. But if I was up at night taking calls in my job as Vice President for ONE Championship, I would add another meal.
Meal 5: Protein shake (as above) + 1 square of dark chocolate
I would occasionally substitute in some chicken or fish, but it was interesting how red meat seemed to satiate me just fine. On the days I had fish, I would cut up some lemons or ginger for some flavor.
The Good, Bad and Ugly
As with any diet, there are some positives, and negatives and most of it lies in the middle.
The Good
I felt fine and there were no noticeable energy drop-offs during the time I stuck to the carnivore meal plan.
A huge bonus was just how much this simplified my nutrition.
Having talked in detail about decision fatigue when it came to eating outside, going full carnivore made things so much easier.
When I was at the store recently I found myself with eggs, ground beef, ground bison and ribeye steaks. I started to think “Am I missing something?”
And guess what, that’s pretty much all I really needed. If I was hungry, all I needed was to eat more steak until I was satiated.
The Ugly
Because I had stripped out all fibre, and vegetables out of my system, I noticed my trips to the bathroom were of the liquid variety. Not the most pleasant but I adjusted quickly.
Also, I was going much more frequently, three to four times a day compared to my normal one to two bowel movements a day. Likewise, I adjusted but this was never quite regular.
The Bad
Even though this simplified my nutrition, it made going out to eat particularly tricky. If I went to a steak restaurant for instance and ordered a steak, it normally comes with two sides – a vegetable and a baked potato.
I wasn’t going to eat those sides so I ended up ordering two meals and having the kitchen keep the sides. So meals outside became more expensive than they should.
In addition, even though my weight hovered around 220lbs, I noticed my physique felt flatter than usual.
So I added back about 50 – 150 grams of carbohydrates into my diet and since then, I’ve looked a lot fuller.
Final takeaways
While most people might not enjoy eating the same thing every day, I never really struggled with variety.
Being a former professional athlete meant I was used to this lifestyle, so it wasn’t necessarily a dramatic change either. Prior to the carnivore diet, almost 30% of my protein came from animal sources, which meant that 70% of my calories were already of a carnivore diet origin.
I found it surprising how satiated I was not only from just eating red meat but craving even more of it in the process.
Everyone’s physiologically different and because I have a higher glycogen turnover rate, I burn carbohydrates more efficiently. So I needed a source of carbs in my diet regardless.
Bear in mind that Dr Baker is not necessarily a strict proponent of only eating meat. Modifications to the diet are definitely welcome as it is employed widely by a lot of people in different use cases, even professional athletes.