Just chiming in as another person loving the carnivore life. I add cream, and sometimes cheese and nuts, but not much else.

Hi Pilotgal! I've coincidentally decided to register here because of your 'Has zerocarb been good for you' thread!

That may be so, but you aren't a carnivore so it doesn't say anything about carnivorism, only that on a mixed diet you have these cravings. Vitamins are not a concern on a carnivorous diet, you get all of them. Meat cooked no further than medium prevents scurvy from developing, so no need for concerns over vitamin C. Scurvy develops when grain and sugar are relied on as a staple and fresh meat is not available. Look up Vilhjalmur Stefansson and read GCBC. They both cover it.



Here's a link with some info: http://www.evitamins.com/healthnote...ntentID=2808009
I wouldn't worry about it being cross contaminated. My bottle says gluten free.

Mike didn't respond to this, so I'll just repeat what he's said to me in the past: He took just enough HCl so he wouldn't feel the burn, and his dose gradually went down until he didn't need it anymore.

I'm with you though, I'm extremely wary of supplements. Right now I'm trying to see if relying on kimchi a little less will help me adapt.

great, you must join us!

I have read GCBC and about VS. I understand the theory and know why it can be good for you. Also, I have tried carnivore in the past for an entire month and I ended up gaining weight, feeling horrible and basically ready to kill someone for a crunchy juicy apple. My craving did not go away, only got worse. Just because some groups of people CAN do carnivore healthily doesn't mean everyone should. I understand insulin and how it causes youto store fat. What I don't understand is why when I add natural fruit and veggie carbs and even honey I lose weight but when I do carnivore I gain weight. Other people have the exact opposite reaction. How can that be? I am really interested, is there something other than insulin that is responsible for weight gain and is zero carb necessarily lowering insulin levels in everybody? Help me figure this out!

I agree with this - but the thing is, I don't see a Paleo diet including any of these frankenfoods or additives either.

Yes, it's true that if you go towards a carnivore-style eating plan, you'll eliminate all of these things and reduce or eliminate cravings - but the same is true with a Paleo style diet too.

I can't figure it out either AimeeJoi - but my experience is similar.

Every time I try to go below a certain level of carbs, maybe 50g or so, I get cravings. Eating more carbs than Atkins or the Eades recommend makes me less hungry. When I was doing many years ago Protein Power, I thought about bread rolls all day.

It takes about 1 to 2 months of carnivore eating to eliminate cravings for foods that are additive like carbs. You will always feel ill when you eliminate any sort of drug - carbs included.

I think anyone who is dieting to lose weight is going to experience cravings no matter what they're eating. Why are cravings necessarily a bad thing? Now that I'm doing paleo, I feel like I'm craving the right things. When I need something sweet, a crisp juicy apple satisfies the craving, it doesn't make me go out and order a pizza. I think sometimes folks want to trade in their willpower for some magical combination of foods that will eliminate the need for it.

Both Hellistile and Digger95 have good points, those cravings will eventually disappear and meanwhile you don't have to act on every little impulse. It's still possible to just actively think about other stuff than food when those ideas occur.

First time around I lost the weight (before the kid) I used to cruise around websites and pretend shop for future clothing buys - i'd bookmark all the cute sz 6 stuff I'd see in a folder and I actually bought some of it in the end...the only reason I started to do it was because of an obsessive pizza thought that kept coming back.

Now I rarely think about it, once you get into a carnivore mindset variety is limited = not much decision-making = no dwelling on the forbidden...

Me too. By the way, I've just eaten a crisp juicy apple. It was delicious. Why would I want to give up something I enjoy so much and doesn't make me crave unhealthy foods? Very low carb makes me crave grains and sweets, not apples and cauliflower. Besides, most hunter gatherers eat meat and vegetables. There is also a minority of carnivores, just as there is a minority of vegans, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Just because low carb is good, it doesn't mean that very low carb is better and no carb is best.

By eating paleo, I'm eating a lot less carbs than I used to and never had to go through months of feeling ill. I used to eat HALF A POUND of cheap milk chocolate every day. And I've given up all that chocolate easily enough. Please don't tell me it's the apples that I'm addicted to.

I'm glad I'm not alone. Everyone I know personally who is doing low-carb feels great on it pretty much immediately. I feel okay at first but the longer I stay lc the worse I feel. I really don't think it's a matter of waiting it out, it just doesn't work in my body, no matter how much I theoretically want it to.

I'm pretty darned LC, just that I find that when I go to 'near zero' it doesn't work as well for me as it does for other people. I can *see* that tons of people are having all kinds of success with it (in terms of weight loss), but at a certain point, ultra-low or close to zero carb stopped working for me in terms of continuing weight loss. It was only when I added things back in that the weight loss picked up again. Makes me feel like some kind of an anomaly, that's for sure. I tried very low carb (like somewhere between zero and maybe ten carbs a day, max) and it *used to work*, but it doesn't work anymore. This happened around 20-30 lbs. within goal weight range.

I think what happened is that there was this line in there somewhere - a certain point in which all-meat or close to 'zero carb' where the calories were higher. I don't know how to explain this - but there's this great appetite suppression that you get from going super-low in carbs, but somewhere in there, there'll be this point that you reach and you're hardly eating anything at all, but what you're eating is actually higher in calories than what you'd eat if you ate a more varied diet. Meanwhile, I'm not entirely certain that 'appetite suppression' is some kind of indicator of a healthy diet.

I really don't think it's the vegetables that trigger the cravings. For me - the things that triggered cravings were cream, cheese, processed meats and so on. It's not like I ever binged on blueberries. I didn't go off and scarf down a ton of asparagus or salad greens. If I buy salted and processed nuts - then I'm likely to overeat these - but if I pick up plain, whole unsalted nuts, then I have no problem keeping to a reasonable portion.

I do think that Hellistile is onto something - it's the processed sauces and dressings that are the real problem.

<edited - the second part of my post was unnecessary>