From SAD to Zero-Carb

[akaikumo]

I'm going to order from Slanker's finally. I'm going to start with about 24lbs of bison chili and 8lbs of suet, so about a 3:1 ratio, though that's a bit high in fat I think--maybe 3.5:1. I'll alter the ratio of fat to meat, depending on how I feel I suppose. Of course I don't have anything to measure it with so it'll just be guessing basically. Might also order some marrow bones also.

I'm expecting to eat between 1 and 1 1/2lbs a day, maybe less, as I have a very low weight and small frame. I'm a little concerned about the initial weight loss, but I know it'll stabilize eventually.

I'm going to be going from a horrible, cooked, totally SAD diet to raw zero-carb. If I can't down it raw, I'll wait until I'm hungry enough to down it raw. I think it'll be easier to just get the transition over with while I have a break from college and very few things I HAVE to do in the next 17 days, rather than dragging it out over months. Last time I tried to do that the digestive conversion was really distracting from school.

Though I'm going to try and do this in one shot, I'm also going to give myself leeway to cook some and eat paleo carbs if I absolutely have to. One can only handle so much.

I've got a lot of mental issues, and I'm interested to see how they're impacted after the switch. What pushed me over the edge to this diet decision was finding out I probably have mild psychotic depression. Psychosis can be impacted by sugar and caffeine for sure, and who knows what else in SAD could be creating the chemical conditions for it. I want to eliminate as many factors for that as possible, because I refuse to go on medication for it (meds make me crazier  ). I also have anxiety, so we'll see how that changes.

I expect to have about two weeks of feeling like hell and isolating myself near the toilet before I feel better.

I'm debating whether I should exercise or not (more than I am, which is only some interval training playing with my dog). I do want to exercise more eventually (martial arts and strength training), but right NOW I just want to make the transition from high-carb SAD to zero-carb as smooth as possible (done in two weeks) so it doesn't interfere with how I feel during school.

Any thoughts for those who are already went zero-carb?

[lex_rooker]

This should be very interesting.  Please keep your Journal updated on a regular basis.  The knowledge that others will be following your adventure will keep you focused on what is important.

I'd also recommend that you decide what your fallback positions will be.  In otherwords, what do you feel is most important and the order in which you will fall back from your ideal to lesser positions.  As an example, if you are going to try zero carb, then what is your ideal food?  Maybe unseasoned raw red meat and fat.  If you just can't do this then maybe your first fall back is raw red meat with seasonings, then lightly cooked red meat, etc, etc,. If red meat is not available then what is your next choice, chicken, fish, pork?  If you just feel you must include some carbs then what will that be and how much.

You've presented yourself with a significant challenge and the time frame you've allotted yourself is very short.  Don't box yourself into a corner as this will almost assure your failure.  Look at where you are, then clearly describe your "ideal", and then create fall back positions between the two.  If you drop a few notches down your personal success ladder, just climb back up to the next rung and start moving forward again.  You will find that full adaptation is an incremental process and will take many months to achieve. 

I did essentially what you are attempting to do, and I must admit that it really took me 18 to 24 months before I actually started looking forward to my meals of raw meat.  I'd cheat once a week or so and have a rare steak as well. In the early stages I'd make thick burger patties and lightly cook them on the outside and leave them raw on the inside.  I used salt, pepper, garlic powder, and other seasonings as well.  Over time I lessened the amount of cooking I did, the seasonings I used, and the number of times I would eat out.  Finally it got to the point where I really started looking forward to my raw meat, and I actually prefer it now to steak.

Take your time.  If your goal is zero carb in an effort to gain a better mental perspective, then make that your goal, even if it is lightly cooked and seasoned to start with.  You must do things that you are willing to maintain over the long haul our you'll never make it past the first few days.

One of my favorites when I was first starting was to take Slankers course ground Chili meat, add my extra fat (well chopped), lightly season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and then toss in a skillet over medium heat just to warm everything up.  At first I let things cook just a bit, and then over time I'd keep it over the heat less and less until I was happy just eating it at room temperature and completely raw.  After that I slowly started reducing the seasonings until I didn't need them anymore.

If you try to do something like switch to unseasoned room temperature raw meat over night, it may be so unappealing that you just won't stick with it.  Better to look forward to your meals of lightly cooked and seasoned meat and just attempt to drop carbs to beginwith and slowly climb the ladder towards completely raw and unseasoned meat from there.

As for your fat to lean ratio.  If you don't have a scale my suggestion is to add one cup of ground or well chopped fat to each pound of ground meat.  The ground meat is very lean.  My tests show it to be around 5% fat.  You need about 20% fat or more.  A rounded cup full of well chopped fat weighs about 4 oz or 1/4 lb.  This is not pure fat however, as there is water and other tissue in the fat so adding 1/4 lb of raw fat to 1 lb of meat doesn't raise the fat content 25% but more like 18%.  Add the initial 5% to the 18% and you've increased your total fat by weight to about 23% or so.  This works out to about 75% of calories from fat which is a very good place to start.  You can adjust from there.  All of these numbers come from my measurements of Slankers meat products using a Univex FA73 commercial fat analyzer so they are pretty accurate.

Let me know if I can help in any way.

Lex

[wodgina]

Geez Goodluck.

I think you will really really struggle. I want you to give it a shot but don't feel bad if you fail.

Diet is only about 25% of the happiness equation, if that, in my opinion (at the moment anyway)

if you fail how about a lightly cooked paleo diet with treats such as fruit or something and sort your mental position before going for raw zero carb.

[Josh]

Hi there. I've found the gradual approach better, having tried to launch into it. Check out my journal if you like.

I used to have some mental type problems, but had already sorted them out considerably with nutrition before trying zero carb. Going from a crappy diet into raw zero carb with depression- seems a bit extreme. It's tempting to want to go straight to what you think is right, I know, but for my money building a solid diet foundation first is better.

[Raw Rob]

I went with a gradual approach as well, with a lot of cheats, trials, and errors along the way. Anyway, I just want to give you a few cheat meals that I used when I just didn't want a raw meat meal.

Cooked bacon. Who doesn't love bacon? I would actually just cook up a whole package of nitrate-free bacon and eat that as my meal.

Scrambled eggs with Tabasco.

Fried chicken thighs or wings in coconut or olive oil. (not breaded obviously)

Seared or very rare cuts of red meat.

For me, it was more important to avoid carbs than to eat all my meat raw. If I ate a significant amount of carbs, my Ulcerative Colitis would creep back upon me. That was quite the motivational factor right there.

[akaikumo]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Tons of thanks for the measurements, since I don't have anything to weigh things with. That'll make it easy to make sure I'm getting a decent protein/fat ratio.

I'm going to try unseasoned raw, but if I just can't do it I'll go for seasoned (salt, pepper, garlic salt, maybe chili powder), and then lightly cooked, as Lex suggested. I've been lightly cooking meat for a few months, so I'm used to that if it's necessary (although the addition of the suet could make things more difficult, depending on how I like it). I'm definitely going to pick up some Real Salt, as I suspect if I want nothing else, I'll want salt.

When the carb cravings hit, I know I'll struggle. I have some ginger candy if go truly nuts trying not to eat carbs. At least they're not loaded with preservatives or grains, and I can keep track of how much I'm eating. I could also eat spinach or bananas. I'm not big on vegetables and fruit otherwise.

I also have eggs, which I really can't stand eating raw at this point, but will hardboil or cook if I need more variety. There's some frozen salmon as well.

I just want to be over the digestive conversion phase in two weeks. There's nothing worse than having stomach upset and having to go places. The rest of the conversion I know will take quite a bit longer. If it takes cooking it some or smothering it in seasonings, I'll fall back on that.

I'm looking forward to the benefits despite the inevitable misery of carb-cravings. Especially if it gets rid of my acne. If it does nothing else, but helps that, then I'll be thrilled. 

[Ioanna]

Good luck!  I think it could be a day to day thing seeing how your body handles different foods, and finding what is best for you.  And, of course, there will be changes as you progress.  I think it's important to be  patient.  That said, I wasn't so gradual myself.  It's just not in my personality, lol.  Plus the benefits, for me, were too encouraging. 

I found it easy, and no cravings, but every time I visit my mom I realize that the reason I don't have cravings is because I live alone and don't have anything but meat in my kitchen. I give so much credit to people who live with friends or family getting started on this because I think that would be so much harder... especially for someone like me whose family does not even know how I eat!

[akaikumo]

I live with my parents, so I have to watch them eat macaroni and cheese and oreos and junk like that while I try to do this lol! That'll be fun. If I lived alone I would just refuse to have anything else in the house.

I've considered having my private fridge in my room, but I don't really have floor space for that; the one we have isn't really "mini" and I don't have cash for another one. Not a big deal though.

I've already cut dairy out of my diet (except in baked foods) so that helps. I don't have to resist cheese; I already resist it. Resisting it hasn't gotten any easier though and was only motivated by the fact I get sick and suffer pain every time I eat it. Resisting carbs will be interesting. Definitely a test in will power. I think if I can make it through two weeks, I can make it to a month and then, hopefully, not turn back.

Though I may end up posting in the Confessional. 

[akaikumo]

Sort of getting my plan together.

I'll probably be eating ginger. 1 tsp of the spice has about 1.27g of carbs. 1 tbsp is about 3.82g. Or I might get an extract. I'll see what they have at the health food store. Maybe peppermint extract also.

I'm afraid the digestive discomfort is going to get the best of me before the carb-cravings do.

When I went cooked paleo I got really sick after a while. It could have been a case of parasites (I got sick right after swimming and a parasite herbal tincture helped it) or it could have been an odd reaction to the cooked paleo. Ginger ale (REAL ginger ale, with the extract) saved me a lot of misery, but I don't want to drink soda, obviously. Before getting really sick I was still having some digestive problems on it.

So if (when) my stomach gives me problems I can fall back on ginger and peppermint and hopefully they'll help.

If I absolutely need significant carbs I'll pick them in this order (fruit doesn't usually agree much with my stomach and sometimes vegetables don't either, hence they're at the bottom of the list.):
Raw Honey (although I suspect it's heated)
Ginger Candy
Bananas
Spinach

If I can't down it raw, unseasoned (which is likely) I'll start playing with seasonings:
Real salt
Garlic Salt
Pepper
Chili Powder

If I can't down it raw, seasoned I'll move to lightly cooking it (which I'm already used to). I really like Lex's suggestion:

One of my favorites when I was first starting was to take Slankers course ground Chili meat, add my extra fat (well chopped), lightly season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and then toss in a skillet over medium heat just to warm everything up.

I have the option of adding cooked eggs and seared salmon. I'm also going to get a few packages of Beef Chili Meat. I have it in my head that bison is "cleaner", though it's grass-fed and I know intellectually the beef is just as "clean," which is why I'm not starting with beef. So there's a little variation.

I think I can push through feeling miserable due to no-carb (unless I instinctually judge that it's a bad idea... I'm hoping I can tell the difference), but the digestive conversion might do me in when hit with both at the same time. My body is definitely telling me I need raw animal food in my diet and need to stop eating grains (vegetables I never crave and fruit very sparingly). It has been for a while, but I am so wimpy with digestive problems. 

[Ioanna]

The ground meat is very lean.  My tests show it to be around 5% fat.

Lex, are you talking about the chili meat you get from Slankers here? Thanks!

[lex_rooker]

Lex, are you talking about the chili meat you get from Slankers here? Thanks!

Yes, the ground meat from Slankers is very lean unless you purchase the "high fat" ground meat which is 22% fat by weight and about 75% of calories from fat.  Unfortunately, they don't offer the high fat option for the course ground Chili meat so I must add significant fat back in.  I usually add at least 1/4 lb fat to every pound of chili meat or regular ground beef.  This gets the fat content up to the 22% to 23% range which works very well for me.

Lex

[akaikumo]

I'm still planning on doing this soon, but unexpected challenges came up that have diverted my attention and mental resources, so I haven't been ready to take it on. As a result, I've now lost a week, which means I'll probably be lenient when I try and transition since I'll be in school, instead of trying to force a quicker conversion.

Not what I was hoping for, but it happens. Have to adapt to life sometimes.

My body is telling me now more than ever, though, that I need raw animal food. I've barely been eating (this has been a recent pattern under stress), which is a combination of the stress, no motivation, and zero appetite. Grain carbs and sugars sound disgusting; vegetables and fruits sound disgusting. Both make me nauseas when I eat them. Cooked meat is somewhat unappetizing, but better than those two. However, I've been extremely down and haven't had the willpower to make myself cook.

I keep fantasizing about eating raw meat every time I walk to the fridge and stare at the contents. I would call it bizarre, but it's a good thing, so I'm not complaining. I'm wishing I'd put in the order to Slanker's, but I bloody put it off because I didn't want to deal with cleaning out the freezer for space.

I should probably just force myself to cook SOMEthing. This has been going on for days, and yet I've avoided doing so. I'm basically living off of protein bars loaded with carbs and soy protein, because they're easy. Occasionally I have a sandwich with nice sugary jelly. It's disgusting. Even my carb-addicted body knows its disgusting.

On another note, I don't know if this will ever be relevant in my diet future, but my sleep schedule has been TERRIBLE. Completely nocturnal. I wake up between 4pm and 7pm and sleep at around 8am. Today, I stayed up until about 12pm, slept until 6pm; and then slept again from maybe 8pm to 11pm. It's 1am now.

I had about a week where I was getting a consistent 8 hours of sleep and feeling great upon waking, until my mood slid down. I was also able to stay awake a lot longer, instead of getting tired after 12 hours. This is completely unusual for me. I usually require 10-12 hours of sleep to feel even close to normal. My sleep schedule was still off, waking up between 12pm and 4pm, depending on when I went to bed.

Now, I think I'm sleeping anywhere between 9 and 12 hours a night and feeling like ass when I wake up, which just slides into further ass as I stay awake.

I have no idea what's causing the shift in sleep. I've been under equally high stress, so who knows? I don't know if it'll be relevant later, but there it is.

Right. Off to force myself to cook something with animal food in it. I've practically been an accidental vegetarian, and I doubt this is improving my bad mood any. It's as bad as living off of cake and little debbies about two weeks ago. Ugh.

[akaikumo]

Oh yeah, immediately my mood is a THOUSAND times better. I chopped mushrooms and onions and mixed it in with hamburger; then I melted butter, separated the whey, and poured it in with it and heated it all up.

The smell of the raw hamburger nearly made me dig into it (usually I hate that smell), but while I'm convinced the germ issues are mostly paranoid lies, I'd prefer waiting until I have Slanker's. If I got sick I wouldn't last long, not much weight; and that would be a pretty lame way to go.

Amazing how much better my mood is. I don't feel great, but I don't feel nearly as overwhelmed anymore.

 

[Raw Kyle]

If you're craving it then go for it. But don't be disappointed if you temporarily lose interest in raw meat, it happens to me all the time and I read that most people when going zero carb lose interest in raw meat during a transitional period.

[Guittarman03]

dude, why not go buy a steak and just lightly cook the outside (if your worried about getting sick).  Eat with some of those mushrooms and onions.  That way your still eating mostly raw.  I know it may not be grassfed, but even grainfed raw (or very rare), is still MUCH better than cooked, or eating twinkies.  When I travel I'm generally forced to eat this way.  Glad to hear the cooked paleo helped you feel better. 

[akaikumo]

When I make steak I normally do just cook the outside. All we have is hamburger, though; and I'll be ordering from Slanker's within the next week so no point is going out for steak. 

[wodgina]

Oh yeah, immediately my mood is a THOUSAND times better. I chopped mushrooms and onions and mixed it in with hamburger; then I melted butter, separated the whey, and poured it in with it and heated it all up.

The smell of the raw hamburger nearly made me dig into it (usually I hate that smell), but while I'm convinced the germ issues are mostly paranoid lies, I'd prefer waiting until I have Slanker's. If I got sick I wouldn't last long, not much weight; and that would be a pretty lame way to go.

Amazing how much better my mood is. I don't feel great, but I don't feel nearly as overwhelmed anymore.

 

I doubt it was the food that made you feel better and more likely the fact you got off your butt and moved.

Movement such as washing up, cleaning is what Zen buddists do to reach a state of 'Mu' which means emptiness/nothing. It calms the mind.

[William]

Dried raw meat, even only slightly dried, goes down easier than wet.
I mostly eat dried ground beef.

[akaikumo]

*sigh* I have been so busy I can't even think straight. Social, school, therapy.. it's nuts. Thinking about this diet feels like taking on hell, because I'm already dealing with so many GI issues right now.

My digestion is taking a turn for the worse. About 3 weeks ago I started having loose stools every single morning without fail after I ate. This has not stopped. I tried altering my diet in all kinds of ways to try and figure out the source since it was a random occurrence, and NOTHING changed. I was on a flawless morning schedule with no alterations. It looks like malabsorbtion.

I took imodium day before yesterday to see what it would do after weeks of this (I was going camping with someone.. didn't want to deal with lack of a bathroom and having that issue) and all it did was make me high/drowsy initially, made my muscles really weak, and now I'm suffering pretty severe intenstinal pains, probably due to some level of constipation, I'd assume. God only knows. I'm never taking that stuff again.

I'm really starting to wonder if being stressed gave me celiac disease (disease... I don't really consider it a disease so much as a natural occurrence when an animal eats something it's not supposed to). Apparently stress can activate it. I've become exponentially intolerant to most foods--dairy destroys me, I can't go near any fruits or juice, I seem to be having a harder and harder time with baked things that didn't bother me before... waffles, cake, junk like that. This suggests to me there's something worsening with time.

The problem with this is when I ate paleo (not raw) the second time (tried it once for a week and was fine), I had loose stools on and off all day for several weeks before I finally cracked under stress and stopped. I'd rather have a predictable morning than that.

I don't even know what to do. It doesn't matter what I'm eating or taking, my stomach is giving me trouble. It's making it hard to do anything. I feel like I need to lock myself up until I figure this out.

I just need to vent. I think I'll be taking a trip to the doctor to get tested for gluten intolerance and maybe some other allergens.

I'm considering doing the salt water flush mentioned a while back tonight or tomorrow. I want that imodium out of my intestines NOW, and that flush only takes.. what, an average of an hour and a half or so? I think I could deal with that. It's better than being miserable for several days.

[Guittarman03]

How long did you try raw paleo?  Or was it just paleo but not raw?  Was it zc?
Some people (like me) don't do well on zc.  I get loose stools among other issues. 

Have you eaten anything suspect like perhaps non organic organs?  Having food go straight through you can be a sign of parasites.  I don't think regular old muscle meats carry much danger, or well raised organic organs, but say non organic chicken livers... that gave me parasites once. 

A solid diet will balance your glandular system and calm the mind.  Won't solve everything, but it will put solutions within your grasp.

I know everyone says to order organic grassfed beef, and I agree that it's much better than grainfed; but if that is impractical for you, I eat grainfed beef every day and don't really have any problems.  A low carb, raw, grainfed meat diet is still better for you than waffles.

[akaikumo]

Never done straight raw-paleo (yet).

First time I tried paleo, I was eating nothing but ground beef (grain-fed) and occasional ketchup/pepper. I felt great and don't remember having any stomach issues. That lasted a week. I can't remember why I stopped though. That was about May of last year.

Second time I tried paleo, I was eating a variety of things. Mostly meat (all grain-fed), but some nuts and spinach and things like that. Mentally I felt better, but I had loose stools that didn't seem to want to go away. Finally stress got to me and I started eating SAD again. I also seemed to get a case of parasites, but that's self-diagnosis. I don't know for certain what happened. It cleared up with a parasite tincture. That was August of last year.

Now I haven't eaten anything unusual at all. That's why I am so stumped. My diet, as horrible as it is given that it's SAD, hadn't altered even a little bit. No organ meat, and I tend to eat very similar things each day. I tried to figure out what I had done differently that set it off, but there doesn't seem to be anything there.

The only change I had made was drinking filtered water instead of carbonated mineral water (which is what I usually drink), and then going back on the mineral water. I'd read carbonation sometimes gave people with IBS issues, so I stopped drinking it for a while to see if it made a difference and there was no change.

I read that celiac and similar "diseases" can appear spontaneously. I find this kind of strange, but if it is my issue it's not entirely spontaneous anyway--I've been getting more and more intolerant for a while, it's just much worse now.

When I woke up today I seared a natural steak in olive oil (so it was raw inside) with a little bit of mushrooms. My stomach felt better about it (no nausea at the time, though I'm nauseas now), but I seem to have moved from loose stools to flat out diarrhea (how nice!). Could be anything I ate in the last day or it could be the imodium still reeking havoc.

I realized I made a mistake though. I shouldn't have eaten today. I should have done that salt water flush and then eaten. I'm debating now whether doing a flush when having eaten recently is a good idea or not.  Sounds a little scary.

Depending on how much it costs, I'm thinking I'll go to the doctor to get tested for parasites, allergies, and celiac and see if I can pin down what the issue is. 

[William]

Best doctor here: http://www.healself.org/Digestive%20Problems.html

[akaikumo]

Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.

Doing the salt water flush today... I mixed 2 teaspoons of sea salt in 4 cups of water and added an orange and some grape fruit (I don't have lemons or limes). I'm waiting for it to get cold in the fridge; I think I'll have an easier time getting it down that way.

I am concerned I'm going to throw it up. One small taste of it had my stomach in knots for about 15 minutes. Doesn't help I'm nervous. I've been eating candied ginger on and off since I woke up a few hours ago in hopes it'll help, but I guess we'll see.

It probably won't take all 4 cups anyway, I'm guessing 2, and I can probably take my time getting it down. I'm small and have a sensitive stomach. The fact there's fruit in it will probably make the reaction happen faster also. I can't eat fruit without getting sick.

In other news, I just put in an entire onion and some mushrooms in a crock pot with a leftover ham bone. I'm going to cook the hell out of that, since I read onions and bone stock help the small intestine (which, if I do have celiac, is damaged). I'm going to do my best to stay far, far away from gluten. I don't think getting tested is worth the insane cost, considering I should keep the grains I eat to a minimum ANYway; so out with that idea. It's a good excuse to eat closer to paleo regardless.

I'd just hop into straight paleo/raw paleo, but I can't handle the transition after this mess. Maybe I really should have done it before I started school.  I'm going to mix it in with a gluten/dairy-free diet though, as if I make steak I always leave it raw in the middle and I'm going to try and use more paleo foods if I can handle nut flours.

*sigh* This is getting truly old already, and I know there are people dealing with so much worse on here. 

---

Oh damn this is foul. Getting this down is going to be a real test. The salt bites right through the taste of the fruit. I'm chasing it with plain water, which gets rid of the desire to vomit mostly, but while it's in my mouth it makes me really nauseas.

Nevermind, desire to vomit is sticking around now. Yes, getting this down in half an hour is NOT going to happen unless I do want to throw up (something I haven't done for 10 years). It's been 15 minutes and I haven't even gotten 1/2 a cup down.

Yeah... this isn't going to happen. I can't get it down.  Nevermind that idea.