Day 1 of 365 | The Carnivore Diet Experiment!

Hello friends: It’s day one of the carnivore diet experiment! I am so happy that I made the decision to try this diet again. This time it’s not for one week or 30 days. I am going for 365 days. Yep and entire year. As I document my carnivore diet experiment, I will be documenting in a diary-style format.

I just did my weekly grocery shopping for meat. I would love to see what this diet will do for me in a years time period. When I did the 30 day carnivore diet challenge. I still had sugar cravings and I am curious to see at what point will my sugar cravings stop while I’m on this year-long journey. What is the carnivore diet? Simply put, it is a diet that consists of eating meat when hungry and drinking water when thirsty.

What’s my protocol? I am going to continue intermittent fasting while on this journey. Intermittent fasting is a term for a diet that cycles between a period of fasting and non-fasting during a defined period. My eating window will be 4 hours and I will continue to fast for 20 hours. I will not have dairy. In later months I may add alternatives to dairy such as goat milk or goat cheese. My exercise will consist of just walks. I will not be going to the gym or doing weights. I will have at least one steak a day with another meat product. I’m doing this mostly to feel satisfied and to have variety. I will add seasonings to my meat. I will take one teaspoon of black seed oil before my meal. I have been taking black seed oil for over two years now and I have not had a cold or flu. Therefore, I will not remove it from my diet. I have decided to treat myself to a coffee once a week which will most likely be Saturdays.

What’s for dinner today: Steak, steak, steak!

Just a little info about me. Intermittent fasting, black seed oil, and apple cider vinegar helped me to lose 40 pounds. The carnivore diet helped me to maintain and to get lean. My starting weight was 167 and my end weight 127! I am 5’5 and went from a size 14 to a size 4 in a very short time. I haven’t written a blog post in a while mostly because I completed my one-year omad/intermittent fasting and then I took a break from social media. While on my omad journey, I was posting everyday mostly to Instagram. I wanted to show what I ate daily. I continued eating one meal a day but I veered off eating healthy. During my one year of omad I tried to eat nutrient-dense meals and tried to stay away from junk.

When I completed the omad/intermittent fasting challenge, I just wanted to eat all of the things that I had denied myself. At times it felt like I was on a binge. Allowing sugar back into my life, I must say that waking up in the morning felt like I had a mild hangover. It was strange to wake up starving.

Some weeks I did the ketogenic diet. Other weeks I did the carnivore diet and I will admit I was not consistent. Most weeks it was “eat whatever you want during your omad”. Not good at all.

I have no idea how much weight I have gained back. However, I am happy that I can still fit into my hope shorts. The one that kept me motivated to keep going. I could see myself doing down a slippery slope. I knew that if I continued like this. I would gain all of the weight that I lost back.

After the challenge, I found myself eating too much junk and I was falling back into bad eating habits. For example, I would add popcorn or chips to my omad. Then I would eat this stuff while watching tv but I would convince myself that it was ok because I was eating this during my omad.

Of all the dieting I did during the year, the carnivore diet showed me the best benefits. Some of the benefits that I experienced was zero bloating, acne elimination, improved digestion, better quality of sleep, weight loss, and low stress. I also found out that dairy and sugar were responsible for my acne flare-ups. Knowing all of these wonderful things, I still found myself veering off this carnivore path. Mostly, I struggled with not having enough variety in my diet. I gave into temptation. I just couldn’t kick the sugar cravings.

The downsize is: All of the benefits that I have experienced have been erased. The longest that I have done the carnivore diet has been 30 days and in this video. You can see the benefits and how impressed I was.

Time to start over again. Come along on this journey with me if you like. We got this!

If you would like to join me on this challenge, please check with your doctor first. I will be posting on Instagram/lolaslifessons. If you are not on instagram, comment here: Twitter/IamLola2017 and Youtube/lolaslifelessons Feel free to let me know about your process there.