People with Hashimoto's, when they take iodine it often causes their immune system to attack their thyroid causing an increase in symptoms and the destruction of your thyroid gland.  Most people that are hypothyroid have Hashimoto's so its generally bad advice to tell someone with thyroid problems to take an iodine supplement.  You can get all the iodine you need from raw fish or natural sources.

I got an email from a local producer in Florida and they said this was only "natural" herbicide they used on their pasture.  Does anyone have any information on it?

Well I can tell you a few things about my experience.  I have eaten all kinds of animals, lamb, bison, beef, fish, etc...  I have tried every organ from brain to tongue.  I have ordered grass-fed meat from Slankers more than once, several local farmers, as well as grain-fed supermarket beef.  It has been well over a year and a half since I started raw meat and I do not like any of it any better than the first bite I ever took.  I was hopeful that I would acquire a taste for it when I first started but it just did not happen for me.  I tend to project my own experience onto other people and find it impossible to believe that anyone else could enjoy raw meat since I have not even come close to being able to but I realize this is a very dumb thing to do and I can not discount other people's experiences.  Human nature I guess.  Maybe everyone else on this forum does the same thing when reading my posts and think that I must be doing something wrong.  Instinctive eating has not worked for me either as I have no limit to the amount of honey or fruit I want to eat.  Fruit especially makes my skin dry and puffy and gives me all kinds of problems including intense craving for carbs and sugar.  I find that if I abstain from sweet things completely my cravings for them die down a great deal over time.  I have put up with eating raw meat because I saw a great deal of improvement in my health which makes it worth it. 

I can also tell you that the expensive meat in the butcher shop is expensive for a reason.  You will have a slightly easier time eating $22/lb steaks but if you are like me you won't be able to afford them.  Again, others will probably disagree.  I find ground meat the most disgusting, although I probably felt the best eating nothing but that - grassfed of course, supermarket ground beef has no taste and I simply can not tolerate eating it.  The connective tissue and chewy fat seems to be the worse part of any cut IMO.  The texture of crumbly fat around the good steaks is pleasing but like all fat has no taste to it.  I really hate the chewy fat that comes with the roasts!

I have to eat this way because I screwed up my digestion by drinking alcohol for many years and growing up on coca-cola and microwavable burrito diet.  If you are attempting to eat this way just to be healthy then I say don't.  Just cut out grains, potatoes, and sugars and eat your meat rare with vegetables and live a long and happy life.  If you can tolerate fruit then eat fruit.  If you can handle raw dairy then enjoy raw dairy.  All this is my opinion of course, and you know what it smells like.

I have been eating like this for 16 months and I still find raw meat disgusting and crave things I can't eat.  A raw steak will never be as appealing as a piece of pizza despite what these lunatics in denial will tell you.  Sad but true.

I could eat an entire jar of honey in one sitting.  Just like I could eat 20 apples at a time.  Instincto does not work for me.  If I eat these foods and try to limit the quantity I am just left completely unsatisfied and yearning for more.  If I eat them until my hearts content I look like I'm pregnant and feel like crap.  Grapes?  You have to be kidding me.  There is no off-switch for grapes, I would put a vineyard out of business.  I envy you guys. 

Hey,

Earlier on in my RP experience I don't think I was eating enough calories, and felt cold at times as a result. I have been increasing my protein and fat consumption of late, and my temperature has much improved.

I was freezing cold when I was eating a lot of fruit.  I cut out fruit and that went away completely.  There are numerous posts of people reporting the same problem when eating fruit.

My sense of taste increased greatly and I learned to really appreciate sugar and wheat and all the foods that I cannot eat now.  As far as raw meat goes, it tastes just as bland and unappetizing as the very first time I tried it.

You show all the signs of hypothyroidism, as do I.  Your last T3 levels were borderline "out of range".  Your drop in T3 after 8 months of ZC has me wondering about all the talk of the effect no-carb has on the thyroid.  I got my T3 tested after 10 months of ZC and it was 2.3.  I don't know what to tell you, you show signs of adrenal insufficiency, as do I, and those cortisol tests are pretty much worthless.  Why don't you try supplementing with cortisol for a few weeks and see how you feel.  If you feel better then you will know what the problem is.  If there is no improvement then you can start to look in different directions.  I myself will be supplementing T3 coming up here in a few weeks to rule out any problems with my thyroid.  I don't know if the low levels I am seeing now are due to my ZC diet because I never got my T3 levels checked before I started it.  And what is low levels anyhow?  Maybe its everyone else (on the high-carb diet) that has high levels.  Who knows.

One more note; have you been tested for a vitamin D deficiency?  I can tell you that I saw a huge improvement in my health when I went ZC and then after several months I started going downhill again and I eventually found out I had developed a vitamin D deficiency and once I started supplementing with vitamin D I saw a drastic improvement again.  Actually, I can't stress how bad this simple deficiency was making me feel.

As far as any of this talk about it all being in your head... there is nothing more offensive then this, in my opinion. 

I have been on this diet for ten months and most of the suggestions on this page still make me want to vomit so truthfully the only way you can figure out what you can tolerate is to try a little of everything, it won't take long for you to figure out what you prefer.  If you are lucky you will become one of these people who looks forward to eating raw meat.  Never happened for me.

Alpha, Lex, of course I meant dietary sugar contained in fruit etc. BTW, it would make no sense for humans to have a "sweet tooth" if dietary sugar in any significant amounts could only be detrimental and would better be replaced by protein. Carnivores like lions and cats don´t have a "sweet tooth". There must be a reason why humans have a sweet tooth.

There is a lot of talk about reclassifying sugar as a drug.  Any drug ingested over a period of time will cause the body to become dependent on it to a certain degree.  Someone who snorts cocaine every day and then suddenly stops will feel intense cravings for cocaine.  The same applies to your "sweet tooth" theory.  It has been stated time and again that the longer you abstain from sugar the less you crave it.  There are actually a lot of foods that people crave that are not good for them and not all of them have sugar in them.  Its kind of like asking, "Why do I crave white rice with soy sauce if I'm not supposed to eat it".

Lex, awesome journal...  Is it possible that your stones were formed many years ago and have only now been dislodged and are wreaking havoc?  In other words, is it possible that your current diet is not to blame but your previous one is?

Paleophil, I am having constipation after 5 months also.  It seems I did not have this problem for a couple months earlier this year and the only difference I can think of is I was eating a lot of salt on my meat.  I am going to try adding in 1 gram of salt a day to my diet and see if my digestion improves.  If that doesn't work then I think I am giving up on zero carb and I am going to try a little raw Sauerkraut every morning.  I have awesome digestion when eating fruit but I just can't handle the other extreme side effects.  I don't want anything to do with sugar.  Maybe sauerkraut is my holy grail. 

Yuri, could you possibly have Chronic Pancreatitis?  It seems like all your symptoms are secondary and caused by the malabsorption of food by your digestive system.  Perhaps if it is not Pancreatitis, then it is Pancreatic insufficiency of some kind or even Pancreatic cancer... the pancreatic juices are not getting to the food in the correct volume and the undigested proteins are seeping through your digestive walls and causing all kinds of havoc?

Maybe you can see a doctor and get an ERCP to check your bile and pancreatic ducts?  Or get a pancreatic function test?  Maybe try taking potent prescription animal-based pancreatic enzymes (not the cheap over-the-counter plant-based ones) and see if that helps your digestion?  Just throwing out suggestions here...  I think in another thread you had already ruled out gallstones?

I think parts of your story are very much like my own and I like the way you think and express yourself.  I even like the way you look.  Too bad I don't live in the Ukraine I think we would be great pals:)

Your English/vocabulary is excellent by the way.

Bro, I don't want to disappoint you, but I am hungry for almost three years now on raw animal food diet. I can eat a pound of pure fat and still be hungry 10 minutes later. If I eat fruits I just can't stop. It's unbelievably uncomfortable to live like this. I have the whole set of other debilitating symptoms (muscle weakness, poor digestion, cold intolerance, low body temperature, anemia, bloated abdomen and fat around the middle) but being hungry 24/7 is worst of them all. And the strange thing is that this hunger is 10 times more intense after the meals.

What is causing your symptoms?  Have you had a CT scan or ultrasound to test for gallstones?  Is your pancreas not producing enough enzymes?  It seems to me that everyone who is forced into this diet by necessity has some kind of enzymatic insufficiency.  I want to know the root of the cause of why I used to be able to digest starches and cooked food and now I can't.  Something changed in my body what was it?  Although I can get by on raw beef I want to know if there is something wrong with me inside that needs attention.  If I have gallstones and it is blocking the pancreatic juices from flowing that is a very bad thing and it could cause Pancreatitis or even Pancreatic cancer so they need to be flushed out somehow...  

Have you tried making sauces? You could spice up your meat a lot that way. AV has a lot of recipes in his second book!
Another idea about the hunger issue might be to try intermediate fasting such as eating only one meal per day.
If you did better on high carb but can't stomach fruit, why not try a cooked starch such as baked tubers? It isn't paleo, but it has helped me greatly at times.

I have tried a great deal of intermediate fasting.  In fact, I am forced to eat that way most of the time because it allows me to eat a greater portion late all at once late in the day.  I hate going to bed feeling completely starved.

Cooked tubers is out of the question they will destroy me 1000x worse than fruit.