How did you transition to ZC/Carnivore?

[PaleoPhil]

How fast did you transition to Zero Carb or Carnivore from gradual (more than a month) to moderate (more than a week but less than a month) to cold turkey (less than a week) and did you have any severe side effects, like heart palpitations, teeth rotting, severe anxiety, severe paranoia, etc?

***

Since some people are determined to follow in the footsteps of Lex, myself, Raw Rob and others in going carnivore and/or ZC, it would be good to see if they can increase their chances of avoiding or minimizing the negative side effects during the transition that Lex and others (though not myself, Raw Rob and some others) experienced.

One possibility is that the speed of the transition may have some effect. Perhaps a slower transition is less likely to produce less symptoms? This did not help Tyler, but he had pre-existing gland problems that may have been a factor. So if you had side effects and also had pre-existing gland problems, post a note, so we can also see if there is a correlation there.

Thanks! Good luck and remember, positive results are not guaranteed and your mileage may vary.

[invisible]

Overnight. No side effects.

[PaleoPhil]

Wow! Lucky you. Thanks for the feedback, Invisible.

[PaleoPhil]

OK, so far it does look like it pays to do a slow transition, with one exception, though the data is still too small to make much of a judgment. Are there any other people out there who have tried ZC/carnivore and haven't taken the poll? If you don't want to, can you explain why, so I can learn about any defect there might be in the poll?

Thanks.

[yon yonson]

well i've tried raw carnivore but im not sure how long it took me to transition. do you mean like how long it took for me to adapt to all meat after i started only eating raw meat? or do you mean how long it took me to transition from SAD to all raw meat?

[PaleoPhil]

I mean how long you took to transition from eating plant carbs to eating no plant carbs (ZC or carnivore).

[Neone]

For me I was eating a raw meat diet that i would also eat candy and cake and shit like that on the weekends. Then my wife and I had what we refer to as "Choc-Mint Weekend" where we stayed home and pigged out on a bunch of bullshit and felt absolutely horrible.  That night we came to the decision that above all else, we really enjoy having a good time and if you're not feeling absolutely 100% awesome, then you cant be having a good time. Thats when we cut the last (major) addiction and went 100% carnivore diet and havent looked back.

We still check out the junkfood in the weekend fliers but its more so we can eat it in our dreams, we both still have no real desire to eat it again.. Its the memories we love, the reality of it is more 



I suppose i didnt answer the question here.. I added raw meat into my diet at the start of the year but still ate veggies and fruit (although i cut waaaaaaaay back on my sugar intake, id go through over half a pound of honey in a week... just honey, not including the pounds of dried fruit and stuff i was eating.. I mean our bodies run on sugar, right!! its healthy sugar!!) then we cut veggies out because it just started making sense that they werent food (now i cant even bring myself to eat stuff from my garden i started this year, and i WANT to eat it.. i just cant fight my NO instinct i get now haha)

So i cut veggies out, ate candy instead, then said 'you're a retard, what are you doing to yourself, cut the shit' and havent looked back since the 'withdrawl' period that lasted mabye a week or so, but i guess when you understand that its just an addiction and analize it, you can deal with it a lot better, i personally didnt find it very hard at all to do once i made a firm decision to take my real health first.

[Ioanna]

overnite, but that's my personality (all or nothing) plus i was desperate to know if it would 'feel' right and desperate to reach health improvements.

i never consciously counted carbs or anything... i was eating them as i wanted at the start of rpd, and then one day let them go completely.

[PaleoPhil]

OK, thanks, and just to be clear--I think eating an occasional plant food, like what Lex used to do, or animal carbs would still qualify as essentially ZC or carnivorous. I'm not talking about absolutes here.

[yon yonson]

alright well i guess it took me a little over a week to start feeling really good on ZC. but i already wasnt eating many carbs. but after a few months doing zc i just felt that it didnt make sense to eat literally zero carbs in the summer. so now i end up eating a piece or two of fruit a week. just when i feel like it. but on the vast majority of my days im zero carb. i'll probably eat even less carbs when it starts to get colder...

[PaleoPhil]

Well if you weren't eating many carbs to begin with, it sounds like you did a gradual transition that lasted more than a month. Since you had no negative symptoms, that would put you in the "more than a month - no" category.

A rapid transition would be going from eating moderate to high carbs to eating very few or none in less than a week. The poll is trying to determine what factors might minimize the negative symptoms of ketosis that some experience. It seems like the faster the transition and the more dramatic the change, the more likelihood there will be ketosis symptoms as the body tries to rapidly change over to using fats as fuel.

[Paleo Donk]

I think you have to define transition in a more narrow sense. I think you will find, especially as the person gets older, is that the complete transitioning effects of the diet will take place over a number of years. Yes, the worst symptoms will occur during the first week or so with very few people experiencing anything too substantial after a couple months. Ive read seemingly hundreds of experiences from the zc board and have yet to see anyone have any real long term complaints if theyve stuck with the protocol long enough. Quite a few have not reached their goal weight or have stalled but nearly all feel substantially better which is all that matters.  I think cramping is about the only intermediate-term issue that quite a few "suffer" through.

Unfortunately its way too early to tell how long transitioning will take place. Who knows 5-10 years down the line, the overall health of zc'ers might start to decline and a transitioning downward might happen. Not that I think this will happen but its still a possibility. As for me I went vlc with most days being zc after reading GCBC with no memorable negative effects. I started feeling the difference. in a very positive manner, almost immediately. I went zc for a couple months straight and felt the same as vlc. I tend to agree with a poster above that if you do want to eat vegetation its best to do it in the summer time.

[PaleoPhil]

I think you have to define transition in a more narrow sense. I think you will find, especially as the person gets older, is that the complete transitioning effects of the diet will take place over a number of years.

Thanks for the input, but for the purposes of this poll, I'm not getting into side effects that disappear years later or don't appear until years later. If you want to make that poll, you are welcome to. I'm mainly focusing on the things that make people quit ZC or carnivore or VLC within the first month or so. Most people don't seem to want to wait years for problems to disappear, and I can't blame them.

I tend to agree with a poster above that if you do want to eat vegetation its best to do it in the summer time.

Yes, me too. One reason is that carbs seem to make me feel colder, whereas fats tend to have the opposite effect. Though, strangely, fats don't seem to make me overhot on hot days, even though they help me feel warmer on cold days--I don't understand that one. I think Lex touched on this, maybe he can explain it. Even among SAD dieters there is a folk tradition of eating bone marrow soups in the winter to warm up. I used to think it was just because of the hot temperature of the soup, but now I suspect that the fat is another element in the warming.

[PaleoPhil]

We could use at least a couple more responses to make the poll more useful. As I mentioned, I'm not talking about absolute zero carb or 100% pure carnivore. So if you transitioned to below 5% carbs or plants, I think your experience is still useful.

At this point, these are the results:
more than a month - no     - 2 (33.3%)
more than a month - yes    - 1 (16.7%)
between a week and a month - no    - 1 (16.7%)
between a week and a month  - yes    - 0 (0%)
less than a week - no    - 0 (0%)
less than a week - yes    - 2 (33.3%)

[invisible]

The reason why I tried diet was because of severe cystic acne, which began clearing straight away. I didn't notice any side effects because I wasn't looking or focusing on them, the mirror was my guide. IMO many people probably imagine side effects to some degree. What should I even have been looking out for? What does 'feeling bad' mean? When I ate a typical teenager diet I never felt 'bad' and was very rarely sick as in being confined to a bed but despite this obviously had some severe health issues.

[PaleoPhil]

If you didn't notice the side effects, then that would make your response to that part of the question: "no" (no severe side effects). The purpose of this thread is not to question whether people really had severe side effects, just to record their reporting of them. By severe I mean bad enough to quit ZC/carnivore due to concerns about seriously damage to health or because it made the diet WAY too nasty (not lesser reasons like loss of willpower or inconvenience, etc.). One example given was chronic heart palpitations that didn't resolve with teeth rotting, severe anxiety, and/or severe paranoia. I would think that teeth rotting on its own would be enough.

[djr_81]

I had been eating lower carb due to numerous food allergies for a couple years (I'm also convinced there was/is a fairly well rooted Candida issue).
At some point I switched to a fairly pure meat diet (chicken thighs usually with the occasional beef). I never had a chance to start burning ketones though as the calorie content from fat of my meals was probably only 50% and there were almost weekly indulgements in one carb or another in attempts to find something my body would/could handle.
I switched to all meat (cooked rare/bleu) a month ago and have eaten everything rare for close to two weeks now.

Even on my stepped transition as it were (I don't know if you could call it cold turkey as I was mostly low carb before this last step) I've still had some problems.
At first I was mentally alert and had lots of energy. Over the next few days my energy levels began to fall followed by 2-3 days of mental fogginess and attention issues. I've only now begun to start feeling "right" and I can tell I will feel even better over the next week or two. My daily morning jogs went from ~10min/miles to 6 or 7min/miles, to 10 or 12 min/miles, back to 8min/miles this morning. I even missed Monday morning because I felt like someone beat me with a bat overnight. Once I get warmed up though my endurance has been getting better the whole time.
The only stomach problems I've encountered were loose stools in the beginning from eating lots of fat. I got nausea as well. I'm tolerating it much better now. I got this from both raw suet & marrow as well as marrow bones warmed up in the oven or on the grill (first couple weeks). This too seems to be clearing up this week.
No issues with my teeth but my breath is rough (ketones I assume, I can smell the change in my urine as well).
I had been a bit more easily aggravated for a week or two but now seem to be fine (if not a bit more mellow). No paranoia or anxiety.

[PaleoPhil]

OK, that sounds like moderate, rather than severe symptoms. So unless your symptoms get bad enough to quit, or to where the only reason you continue is because you are extremely committed, then I would say you fall in the "no" category. It's not scientific, I know. Just trying to get a sense of any correlations that might help future newbies. If a slower transition seems to correlate with much lower likelihood of severe symptoms and of quitting, then that might be something we could suggest to those who are determined to try ZC/carnivore.

Right now the numbers don't appear to support that, so we may need to look elsewhere for clues why some people get severe symptoms and some get only benefits. Fat levels is something that was also suggested.

[klowcarb]

It was very easy for me. I went from VVLC vegetarian (under 20gm. carb / day) to ZC. I love it. No problems at all. Energy is fantastic, particularly since doing raw ZC.  Since doing raw ZC plus Warrior Diet (one large nightly meal), I have gotten leaner in the abdominals / waist and put on more muscle. I could not be happier.

[carnivore]

I have made several attempts to ZC. Before them, I was lowcarbs, with some short high carbs (fruits) episodes.

I started a high fat diet (rawpaleo version of homo Optimus) 5 years ago and I quitted after a few months because the symptoms were unbearable (high pulse, cramps, blurred vision, pain, etc.)
year 2008, I did a 5 months carnivorous attempt but I stopped for the same reasons.
I started again ZC january 2008. I reintroduced some veggies recently, so now VLC, but the symptoms are still here. I simply eat less fat to reduce them, but in consequence I have not enough energy and I have lost lots of weight.

I don't know what to do next because I have tried everything I could think of. Carbs I can find are toxic for me.
It looks like my body needs more fat, but doesn't know what to do with all this lipid flooding my blood?

[William]

Not all fat is equally good for us IMHO.

[cherimoya_kid]

I have made several attempts to ZC. Before them, I was lowcarbs, with some short high carbs (fruits) episodes.

I started a high fat diet (rawpaleo version of homo Optimus) 5 years ago and I quitted after a few months because the symptoms were unbearable (high pulse, cramps, blurred vision, pain, etc.)
year 2008, I did a 5 months carnivorous attempt but I stopped for the same reasons.
I started again ZC january 2008. I reintroduced some veggies recently, so now VLC, but the symptoms are still here. I simply eat less fat to reduce them, but in consequence I have not enough energy and I have lost lots of weight.

I don't know what to do next because I have tried everything I could think of. Carbs I can find are toxic for me.
It looks like my body needs more fat, but doesn't know what to do with all this lipid flooding my blood?

Eating more omega-3s and less omega-6will get rid of the high pulse problem. As for the rest, I don't know.

[PaleoPhil]

It was very easy for me. I went from VVLC vegetarian (under 20gm. carb / day) to ZC. I love it. No problems at all. Energy is fantastic, particularly since doing raw ZC.  Since doing raw ZC plus Warrior Diet (one large nightly meal), I have gotten leaner in the abdominals / waist and put on more muscle. I could not be happier.

Interesting. What did your body weight do as a result of this change?

[klowcarb]

Phil, I am 5'4" 100lbs. My weight has not changed at all from going VLC vegetarian to ZC. What has changed physically is my stomach is flat and toned with NO ab exercise other than my lifting at the gym, in which my abs are engaged.  Also, I can see my muscles are more defined. 

I think the best changes on ZC came when I transitioned to the one evening meal a day and went raw.

[Neone]

I have a question about ketones and how all that stuff works...

I went from a very high sugar diet, to a candida diet, then a month or two later switched it over to a 'zero carb' diet, although we ate say, liver and i also ate the occasional few raspberries since they were in season and growing all around where i was in the woods.
After id say, 4 months doing ZC, we had some hardcore cravings one day and bought a tiny ice-cream to share and that was the end of it, sugar forced its way back into the diet, so I have been eating some sugar now for a few months, sometimes with a sugar binge here and there (where i swear i thought my heart was going to stop ).  Well ive had my fun and back to pure carnivorous again. now here is where my question comes in...


When i started ZC coming from high sugar -> dying on candida diet, I got the whole no energy thing (which was horrible working labor haha) but i picked myself up some ketosticks to kind of check out my keto-adaption thing, well over a few weeks i watched the color change less and less untill i was pissing negatives and I had my energy and figured i had keto adapted... 

Well after adding sugar back into my diet for 3-4 months, i am still pissing negatives on my ketosticks... I dont really know what it means or if it means anything, but i always heard bear talking about the evilness of carbs and how they will knock you right out of keto-adaption even if you have just a little...  So how does it work? since i keto-adapted, then added carbs back in, even though i was still consuming fat (bad idea im sure) did my body keep on burning the fat and do something else with the carbs? or since i hadnt been ZC long enough i kind of balanced myself in the middle somewhere where i used both up?

Another thing i kind of found with the whole energy thing (and my feeling of health in general), was that even when i felt like crap and felt like i had no energy.... I was still able to out-preform the guys i work with... Its like how you feel is normal, is just your idea of normal, so when you're used to being healthy, when you feel like everybody elses normal, YOU feel like shit.. haha