This is the Zero Carb Health information site. All you ever wanted to know about the Zero Carb Carnivore Diet, from folks who have been eating this way for 10+ years. For comments and discussion about a Zero Carb Diet. Please join us carnivores in our Zero Carb Health Facebook Group or Zeroing In On Health Group.
By Guest poster – Stephen Visio Ewen
I read Robert Lustig’s The Hacking of The American Mind last year, he was on 60 Minutes years ago warning people about the dangers of sugar and he wrote a New York Times bestseller called Fat Chance.
The liner notes description; “Dopamine is the “reward” neurotransmitter that tells our brains “This feels good, I want more.” Yet too much dopamine leads to addiction. Serotonin is the “contentment” neurotransmitter that tells our brains “This feels good, I have enough.” Yet too little serotonin leads to depression.
The book is wrong about nutrition, but the brain chemistry sections are amazing. The presence of dopamine inhibits the presence of serotonin. The way that dopamine excites the reward pathway is a marketer’s dream. If I can convince you to chase reward you will buy more of my product, if you are content you won’t make a purchase. Our economy drives reward chasing which penalizes contentment.
I was involved in the addiction recovery movement in the 1980s. I attended some Overeaters Anonymous meetings and they found a lot of success by abstaining from sugar, like an alcoholic abstained from alcohol to recover. Even with the success of sugar avoidance the OA protocol was very hard to maintain. I always thought it was due to the fact that you cannot abstain from eating. After living a Zero Carb life for three years I can now see that the difficulty was in the dopamine release from any sugar/plant/carb ingested.
This raises an implication for new folks. When you stop the dopamine stimulation of eating plants and substitute the serotonin enhancing amino acids from fatty red meat you will suffer from an initial withdrawal. You will get biochemically depressed. Your dopamine will fall which will drive you to seek out dopamine. Your serotonin will have been inhibited for so long you will not have much in your system and that will provide more biochemical depression. This is why Zero Carb transition can be incredibly difficult for some people.
In this chemical environment every little ache or pain, inconvenience, impatience, irritation or ailment becomes magnified by your reward center’s pressing need for relief. “Look what you’ve done to us!?! Life sucks, where is my joy, this feels wrong, my peers are aghast, I am fat, fatter, fattest, etc….” (See – The 5 stages of grieving carbs)
Now, imagine being new to Zero Carb and in transition (first 3 – 6 months) and you do not eat enough? With falling dopamine and no serotonin to replace it, your depression and irritation will become a full blown psychotic break! It is well documented that starvation causes mental breakdown. Starvation during transition could be one of the worst periods of your life. You must go out of your way to make sure you eat enough.
Like much of the reading recommendations from Zero Carb Health you must read between the lines and overlay your own and the vets experience relative to the nutritional guidelines from the book. However, I got a lot of good therapy from reading it. When it comes to living a Zero Carb Carnivore life, it is best to remember the old adage, “Free your mind and the rest will follow.” ZC three years last month.
For more information about the Zero Carb Diet, join us in our Facebook Group – Zero Carb Health
By: Stephen V. (2017)
While visiting Hawaii you may learn about a famous surfer and water-man named Eddie Aikau. There is a saying in regards to whether the surf was too high, “Eddie would go!” He wasn’t crazy or suicidal. He just knew the surf break very well. He was raised to respect the danger, and learned the secret was not to fight the ocean. Instead humble yourself and use its power to accomplish your goals. Hawaiians on surfboards and outrigger canoes amazed the Europeans who first saw them. No where on the planet had anyone ever conquered the water that way.
The Zero Carb Carnivore Diet is not a weight loss diet, it is a get healthy lifestyle change. If you are simply looking to lose a few pounds this diet probably isn’t for you.
Generally, The Zero Carb Carnivore Diet is self regulating and you can’t eat too much. For example, If you eat 6 oz of meat for breakfast you will be hungry in an hour. If you eat 2 pounds for breakfast you should not be hungry for 12+ hours, unless you are very active (Shawn Baker said he ate 7 POUNDS of meat yesterday!). BUT, like everything in life, there are exceptions to this rule. Some people can’t regulate their hunger and they are so insulin resistant that they gain weight or can’t lose weight.
Andrew Scarborough’s new update on his life with Brain Cancer inspired me to write a post about Stress. I want to point out this quote by Andrew Scarborough, “Stress raises blood glucose and I became very aware of that the hard way, but I successfully adapted strategies to deal with that.”
So many people do not understand the significance or the presence of stress in their lives because “stress” is their normal. They don’t know any other way. I was one of those people, stress was my normal my entire life.
It wasn’t until just a few years ago, after several years of over the top stress, and my health starting to suffer, even though I had been eating the healthiest diet I know of, Zero Carb, when I took a hormone test and found out I had 4th stage Adrenal fatigue. I believe my diet (5 years of Zero Carb at the time) probably saved me from further damage to my health and probably aided me in recovering so fast. (Ketogenic diets decrease oxidative stress.)
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With all the new “Carnivore Diet” hype and the discovery that actually being a full time ZC carnivore is hard and in most cases, unnecessary, I thought I would bring back the original term used to describe people who were almost Carnivores. Re-introducing, the “Dirty Carnivore”.
Dirty Carnivore was a forum created, maybe back in 2010 (I forget the year) by somebody who could not give up her non ZC foods. This was a perfect example of Carbohydrate addiction. She felt better on a mostly meat diet, but felt some harmless low carb nuts, dark chocolate and veggies should be allowed. This same thing is going on, again, today. So many people want to be carnivores, but are finding it is not as easy as it sounds, because of acculturation and addiction to carbohydrates.
“Eating meat sounds so restrictive only to those who are behind the veil. Once that veil is lifted, one realizes that this really is the only way to be free of restrictions.” – Margot, 9/09.
I guess it’s time to defend Zero Carb Health (ZCH) and Zeroing in on Health’s (ZIOH) position on the Zero Carb Carnivore Diet. With the new surge of interest in the Zero Carb Carnivore diet, sparked by Dr. Shawn Baker and his podcast with Joe Rogan, we are seeing old familiar term’s used to describe our way of eating and specifically aimed towards the original Zero Carb groups (ZIOH and ZCH). Dogmatic, religious, narrow minded, too strict, cult, militant, zealots, etc.
A quick overview of some Zero Carb Carnivore Diet FAQ.
1. FOOD: What do you eat: Anything from the Animal Kingdom (meat, poultry, eggs, cheese, HWC)
For a weekly menu suggestion: See a Sample 1 week zero carb carnivore menu plan here.
2. QUANTITY: How much do you eat: as much and as often as you want. No limit. Too little will sabotage your efforts.
3. ADAPTATION: normally takes 30 days, but can last for a couple of months: fatigue, nausea, headaches, cramps, light headedness, heart palpitations, intense thirst. Your body is changing from sugar burning to fat burning.
4. How soon can I expect HEALING: as long as it takes. It didn’t take you only 30 days to feel this way, right?
When my husband tells me how long a project will take I automatically count that it will take 3x as long. Expect that it will take you 3x as long as you think it will take to heal. Then you might be pleasantly surprised.
Disclaimer – This cake is addictive and you will gain weight if you eat it all the time. It is ZC, but like all dairy, not optimal. Always eat meat as your main meal.
This is basically the same as the other Zero Carb Cheesecake recipe we have, but it is cooked in a crockpot. I think it comes out much better than when cooked in an oven.
The orange flavor is just a refreshing hint, like the La Croix sparkling waters many of us enjoy.
By, Dana
The Zero Carb diet is an all or nothing diet. There is no “almost ZC” or 90% ZC, or ZC 4 days a week. If you are cheating and eating plant foods and or zero carb artificial sweeteners, you are not Zero Carb, you are Low Carb. It takes several weeks/months of 100% Zero Carb to become completely fat adapted and realize the amazing benefits that a plant free, chemical free, diet can do for you.
The Zero Carb Carnivore diet is similar to AA, Alcoholic Anonymous. ZC is basically AA for carbohydrate addicts. ZC is a diet for carb addicts and Zero Carb Health is a recovery, support and educational group for people (addict or not) trying to give up carbohydrates and get healthy.
When I started this diet 10 years ago, my carbohydrate addiction ended when my blood sugar stabilized. Blood sugar swings from eating carbohydrates is what drove my addiction. So, once they were gone, this diet was very easy for me. I never wanted a carbohydrate after my blood sugar got under control.
I soon learned that this was not the case for many people. Eliminating carbohydrates did not cure their carb addiction, like it did mine. This is when we realized that some people have a real addiction to carbs, just like alcohol/drug/smokers are addicted. This is why we are so strict about keeping images of carbohydrate “trigger” foods and posts about cheating, out of the group. Just like an alcoholic doesn’t want to hear about other alcoholics giving into drinking or seeing pictures of their favorite drink all over the place. We try to keep ZCH a carb free, safe zone.
Carbohydrate or sugar addiction is no different than an alcohol or drug addiction. The addiction infects every cell of your body and your brain. It takes about 90 days for the brain to break free of the immediate effects of an addictive substance. So, if you can’t make it 90 days or so of ZC then you are not even close to overcoming your addiction and becoming fat adapted. It takes the body weeks and months or years to detox from the damaging effects of years and years of the over consumption of carbohydrates and sugar.
When you keep cheating and feeding that addiction your body remains in a state of turmoil. Your body will not adapt to clean fat burning if you continue to feed it carbs. You think that 1 piece of dark chocolate or avocado or whatever, once a week or once a month has no effect on you, yet here you are complaining and upset because you are not seeing the results you want. Guess what? That 1 bite of sugar is obviously a huge problem for you! The fact that you can’t stop yourself from cheating should be a clue that you have a problem. But, that is why we are here, to help you get over your addiction. We are not here to give you gold stars for being ZC for 100 days. We want to help people ditch their sugar habits, but we can’t help anybody unless they are honest.
Not all of us are addicts. Those, like myself, who pretty much had an easy time transitioning to meat only, are not addicts. Those of you who keep cheating with sugar are bonafide addicts. Every bite or sip of sweetness is completely derailing any progress and putting you and your body right back at day 1.
So, stop fooling yourselves. If you cannot control cravings and continue to cheat over and over, you are not ZC and this diet will not work the way it is supposed to. You are “trying” to be ZC. There is nothing wrong with that. Your cheating experience is valuable because it is the most common problem. The struggle is real. Your honesty can help open up the discussion on how to help others with the same problem.
This diet is not easy. Most people have a very hard time. Most people can’t do it for very long. Don’t beat yourself up, just do the best you can and be honest about it. We are here to help you. If this diet makes you miserable and you see no benefits then it’s simply not for you.
For more information about the Zero Carb Carnivore Diet, join us in our Facebook Group.
By – Dana
High ketones are a sign of inefficient fat burning. If you have high ketone readings or if you can easily produce high ketone readings, you are not 100% fat adapted. Of course, if you are on a Zero Carb diet, you are in ketosis all the time, but our ketone levels become stable, just like our blood sugar levels.
The science on this is very new and very misunderstood. Dr Phinney has done the most research on it, but even he is misunderstanding. He thinks elevated ketones, in a target range, are a great thing and we should strive to be in “nutritional ketosis”. I wish he would try Zero Carb, so he can see what happens when people eat the human optimal diet, meat, with no restrictions or counting macros.