How to Think like a Carnivore

I have been looking forward to writing this article. Thinking like a Carnivore has always been my most important tool while eating this way. First a summary of my week. My workout schedule has been mangled and rearranged, I had a cheat day, I ran out of grocery money, and Keto Rash. It was interesting to say the least. The Meat this week is about casual Carnivore philosophy which will follow after the Weekly Update so you can scroll down to that automatically if you like. Will finish with a teaser on another subject I want to dive into with you, Cheat Days.

Weekly Update

Workout Schedule

Oh my goodness. This week my job got crazy busy and I had to work 7 days straight. I am on a swing schedule so I work from about noon to 10 PM. The gym here on the military base is open in the mornings but I am usually sleeping and I don't go. That is really just a lack of sacrifice on my part. I could go to the gym before work but I just don't. Military gyms are always packed. Anyway I am not going to the gym anymore and that means I can't lift heavy anymore. I am sad about that because I was having quite a bit of fun with it. In light of this speed bump I read into a man named Pavel Tsatsouline. You may have heard of him but I would say in a nutshell, his method is a more detailed and structured version of "Grease the Groove." It is based on low reps, moderate number or sets, and moderate intensity. This may all sound like gibberish to you. It was a bit shocking to me as well and a stark opposite to the methods I have been using for the last year. It is valid to say that I am in the test phase with it right now and if the protocol delivers on what it promises then I would say that everyone should practice it if they are not using a plan already. I will keep you updated.

No Grocery Money!

Yes, I am bad at budgeting sometimes. I was about 9 days away from a pay check when I looked at my account and found that I only had enough funding for 4 days of beef. I still had about 30 eggs in the fridge so I knew if it really came down to it I could just eat those. Also I had purchased a 9 pound brisket the week before, that's 3 days of food not including the eggs. With all this considered I could have 7 days of beef. But what about those other 2 days? I had to downgrade... to chicken. I was real torn up about it but they have these 10 pound bags of chicken legs for 5 bucks! I spread the little money I had and was able to have 6 days of beef and 3 days of chicken. On top of this I'd never cooked brisket before and chicken takes quite a bit longer to prepare than beef because it needs a more thorough cook and cannot be eaten rare. Lessons to take from this:

Slow Cook brisket. Please. DO NOT PRESSURE COOK.
Chicken is also good slow cooked but better on a barbecue.

The chicken did not leave me feeling ill but I could definitely sense a nutrient deficiency. My muscles were slightly sore and my energy was low. I am 3 days past the chicken now, my energy is back up physically and mentally.

Keto Rash

This is something I experienced a while ago but did not identify until this go around. A web search can give you much more detail on the subject but for our purposes, Keto Rash is caused by eating a low carbohydrate diet and can be further stimulated by intermittent fasting (IF). Due to my low budget this last week I was eating only one meal a day. I did not expect to break out with a rash again. The last time I had this was January of 2018, when I conducted a 10-day water fast. I remember taking pictures each day of the fast so I could see any fat loss, if it occurred, but it was much easier to track the growth of a patch of red bumps. It itches and it seems to spread the more you satisfy the urge to do so. If you get Keto Rash then ask the two questions:

Am I eating a Low Carb Diet? If you are a Carnivore then the answer is yes.
Am I fasting for long periods of the day? Intermittent Fasting with a 22 hour fasting window or longer is probably responsible.

A simple fix to this is to eat more frequently. I just started eating 3 meals a day. Other than the main course of meat, the 2 smaller meals are usually just 2 or 3 eggs. My rash stopped itching immediately and disappeared by the end of the week.

My Cheat Day (Teaser)

I have cheat days regularly and to be completely transparent with you I want to share my days with you. Documenting them will also help me track if they are hurting me more than helping me.

Monster Energy Drink
Beef Jerky
Hershey's Chocolate Bar
14" Bacon and Sausage Pizza
Large Order of French Fries
Mountain Dew
Double Chocolate Donuts
A Big Bowl of Fettuccine and Meat Balls
White Bread
Spareribs
Reese's Peanut Butter Egg
Hot Cheetos

This was within a 48 Hour window (not the parameter I would suggest you operate by). I will shortly visit this topic at the end and fully go over it on another week.

The Meat

Cavemen

This analogy is very unpopular but I enjoy it thoroughly and it communicates my point very effectively. So let's imagine our caveman has a cave and is able to make a fire. This is a pretty smart caveman, not quite a neanderthal, so he knows about making tools/weapons.

Firstly, I do agree that it was likely that humans only had access to animals as a food source for a long time. Also that any plant food back then would not be easily digested by humans and therefore would not support human life. Additionally one can go and fish out a meal or hunt for dinner at anytime of the day and year. Some plants only grow in a certain season. With these factors considered plant food would only be viable in certain times of the year. Eating other animals was the most sustainable thing for our prehistoric human.

Web Search: "Steak Caveman Style" and see how easy it could be.

Seasonal availability makes it quite easy not to eat any plant material on a daily basis and very natural to adhere to the Carnivore diet. That's why I stand behind the theory that humans are meant to eat meat. Even after years of development in technology eventually making cooking and farming more common there would be no reason to turn from eating animals.

Secondly, carbohydrate based foods are cheap, and somewhat addictive which we talked about last week, so it would seem natural for modern industry to capitalize on that. It is undoubtedly cheaper to achieve a full stomach of rice than it is to achieve a full stomach of beef, but that is only because it is low cost to produce rice. Again, you know I don't speak from statistics or articles. You or I can go to the store and purchase 10 pounds of potatoes for a tenth of the cost for the same amount of beef.

Thinking Carnivore #1: Beef cost more because it truly holds that value. $10 of beef will do more for your health than $10 dollars of potatoes ever will.

Lets be clear, I am not saying humans could not survive if eating only plants. Situations like a famine or prisoners of war being kept alive on small amounts of rice proved it is possible to keep someone alive with carbohydrates. I want to emphasize a quote I heard about carnivore, "Humans can survive on plant materials but they won't thrive. When we eat only meat we thrive."

Thinking Carnivore #2: On Meat we Thrive, on Carbs we survive.

I believe in this very strongly. Those who take up the Carnivore Diet will see weight loss, reduction of inflammation, and mental clarity without doing a single thing. Some build muscle without increasing exercise. We are thriving instead of surviving. Go to the gym and look around. You will see people all around you trying to achieve all the things I just listed except they have to spend hours just to counter the effects of plant foods and then they have to spend additional hours to supply a positive change...

I know you will hate to hear this because I do too: those with the right genetics can thrive on carbohydrate. You can certainly act like my entire argument in collapsed just by saying that but there's still three quarters of the country that is dependent on carbohydrate and suffering for it. For those of you who can eat pizza, fries, and cake everyday without falling into turmoil I predict this won't be the case your entire life and we will accept your application to become a Carnivore whenever you decide. Until then, enjoy yourself and have a slice for us too. For you, who eats a slice of pizza and seems to gain a pound as a result, I will explain why our modern society is a war zone for us.

Modernmen

Every business or establishment selling food include carbohydrate/sugar in their product. Obviously restaurants like pizza parlors, burger joints, donut shops, or gas stations are littered with sugar packed foods but even our BBQ pits can't call themselves innocent. Where meat is the center of their business they still smother it in sweet sauces and use brown sugar in their dry rubs. It is nearly impossible for an impulsive person to save themselves. I am one of those people or I was for a long time. It's not your fault, it's not any of our fault. As we also discussed last week, sugar is tasty and it is very addictive so its just found a way into every possible place it can be in our lives. Drinks, medicine, food, hygienic products, etc. From our Caveman character, we learned that beef is invaluable or at least worth every penny used to pay for it. Maybe the Caveman can save us from our scary world of carbs too.

When a prehistoric human walked through nature the only thing that appeared as food was an animal. If they happened to walk into a modern corn field it would be no different... But for us, we drive down a highway surrounded by fields of crop that we subconsciously know will be eaten. A caveman sees a large expanse of plants acting as cover, where food might be hiding, while we see agriculture. If you could walk past the bread and pastries in the bakery section of the grocery store and never even consider them to be eaten do you think being a Carnivore would be easy? Certainly! If a grocery store had only a butcher and a meat section then shopping Carnivore would be simple and easy

Thinking Carnivore #3: Meat is food. Plants are something else. Teach yourself to walk straight to the meat section without detouring through the rest of the store if possible.

Beyond this a Caveman's only apparatus for cooking is fire. Simply put an animal can be roasted over/on a fire easily while something like rice or a vegetable might need extensive processing and manipulation just to be edible. White Rice for example must be husked before it is cooked and that comes after planting, growing, and harvesting a crop large enough to yield enough to make a bowl's worth. This is a lengthy undertaking compared to hunting an animal, skinning it, then roasting it over a fire.

Thinking Carnivore #4: Meat is ready to be cooked, most plants were planted, grown, harvested, and processed/altered to be cooked. If we were meant to eat plants we would be able to eat them in their natural state. Most plants are too bitter or too tough to be eaten before they are manipulated for consumption.

Why it's okay to eat Carbs

So now we have multiple reasons to think that humans and meat are the perfect pair and carbohydrates are only detrimental. I agree with this very strongly but now that I've examined the caveman analogy in support of meat consumption I have to face the other side of the coin. Just because meat was the main source of food for our prehistoric man it does not mean he had no chance of consuming a plant.

Being a caveman that hunts animals frequently, he would observe these organisms eating plants all the time. Monkey see, monkey do. Our caveman character may have thought he could eat plants too. I am not telling you to go out and eat grass because we both know that would be terrible but if one were to see a monkey eating fruit or a pig digging up a potato then that may be easier to follow behind.

Any plant would only be available for periods of time before they were out of season and gone. Carbohydrate intake was naturally managed by the time of the year, no human could have become dependent on them because they were nonexistent for large portions of the year.

Thinking Carnivore #5: Carbohydrates may have been consumed but not for long periods of time. Meat is a sustainable fuel.

I do not suggest Cheat Days especially if you are looking to lose weight or if you have health issues you're trying to remedy. That being said, if you have come to terms with being a Carnivore and you know that meat is the right fuel for you then I say you can do what you choose. This is a way of simulating accidentally coming across wild berries or wild carrots growing in your territory. Yes I know soda and pasta don't grow in the wild but these are things a lot of us grew up with and they offer comfort and substance highs.

I am always going to speak about these days in a nasty way because in my opinion, a cheat day is like throwing plastic into a fire. It will burn but black smoke and a putrid smell will result. If you're eating meat you're throwing wood in the fire, keeping it burning strong and little smoke expelled. So here is my suggestion for you:

Keep our Thinking Carnivore Principles in mind: For your health meat is worth it's cost, On meat we thrive, Meat is food and plants are something else, Meat is ready to eat unlike plants that need mechanical processing to eat, Meat is our long term fuel.
Recreate a Caveman environment: Doing your best to accommodate your family that does not participate in Carnivore, eliminate all plant foods in the house. You can take all of them to donation or trash them. Now your house is just a cave with a fire (your stove). Then you can go to the grocery store and walk straight to the meat section (and maybe to the eggs and butter section) with a 15 minute limit on your trip. Who would have thought your grocery trips would take less than 20 minutes? This simulates only being able to hunt animals. I'd say 2 pounds of meat per day will be a good start. You can adjust that number up or down as you go. Some people eat as little as 1 pound a day and some go up to 6 or more. As a reference I weigh 220 pounds at 5'11".
Look at Food like a caveman would: Walk through the corn fields looking for animals. Look at a birthday cake and know that none of it is supposed to go in your body. This will be the hardest thing to learn because you've spent years thinking the opposite but that is where point 4 comes in.
Do Carnivore for at least 2 months with no cheat days: I want to make a full length article on cheat days but for now I will leave you with this statement, "Carbohydrates are drugs." This is my entire argument in a nutshell and you might be able to dissect the rhetoric in it before I ever explain it to you but to do that you would have to understand how carbs and your body react to each other. 2 months will give you ample time to see the world of positive effects that come from cutting out plants from your diet. Then at the end of the 2 months, a cheat day will show you all of the negative effects from adding them back in. Every time I cheat I just realize even clearer that I am only eating carbs and sugar for the mood boost it has. French Fries and Pizza taste less and less delicious every time I allow myself to eat them. I assume it is because my taste buds are trying to convince me to give them up all together. Of course I feel very sick and unwell which is probably how the Caveman would feel after eating a handful of grass or even fruits if he could stomach it.

This is world shattering for many people who are very strict about this way of eating but I just don't think it is necessary to be so unnatural about it. I've just argued about how we are naturally meant to eat meat so I will not ask you to unnaturally brain wash yourself into ignoring your whole childhood and society littered with sugar. Just be aware of it and how you can better yourself while existing here. Carbs are fun drugs (ha ha).

Next week we will discuss being Social while on Carnivore, telling friends and family, or not telling them. I thank you for reading and I hope this was helpful in easing your mind about the future of being a Carnivore. I know it can be a daunting task to give up your favorite food. We can ease you out of it slowly, just stick with me each week and watch me attempt to do the same for myself. This is the 4th article so far so if you haven't read the previous ones, I highly recommend that. I love receiving your support of this page and this movement. Talk to you soon.

Adam

The Carnivore Human

The Blog

3: Thinking Like a Carnivore #1, My Week, Never Eat Carbs again?