Keto Carnivore Month – August 2018

The keto carnivore diet is all the talk in the keto community at the moment, and as unusual as it seems, there are people claiming to have seen massive health improvements by not eating any vegetables! We wanted to give it a go for ourselves and see what all the fuss was about.

If you are interested in more info check out our youtube videos about our carnivore month –

• Keto Carnivore Month with Grocery Haul
• Keto Carnivore Day of Eating
• Keto Carnivore – Our experience after 1 month

Why did we do keto carnivore for a month?

After hearing Amber O’Hearn interviewed on the Keto Woman podcast we were intrigued by the carnivore lifestyle and wondered how easy it was to stick to and if we would notice any health benefits if we followed it. Then we saw Amber speak again when we attended Ketofest in July, and made the decision we would try a keto carnivore style diet for the month of August.

We also saw it as a great opportunity to reset our tastebuds after eating a little more than we normally would during our trip to New York. Hoping that we would reduce our cravings for sweet foods and perhaps lose a few kilos.`

What did we actually eat on keto carnivore?

So what is this carnivore diet? Well purist followers eat only red meat, salt and water. But we are just not that hard core. So we did our own version of carnivore (also called zero carb) which included the following;

• Any meat – beef, pork, chicken, seafood etc
• Animal products – cheese, butter, heavy cream, eggs
• Salt, pepper and minimal spices
• Mayonnaise, mustard, hot sauce/chilli sauce
• Tea and coffee

Some of our go to meals were chicken wings, steak, bacon and eggs, pork belly and burgers all with lots of grilled halloumi.

What did we like about keto carnivore?

I am not going to lie, going in to our carnivore month I was scared. How was I going to eat only meat for a month when I was never a huge meat eater? How was I going to survive for a month without my beloved sweetener in my coffee, dark chocolate, peanut butter, keto treats and diet soft drink?

Within days of starting we noticed a noticeable reduction in our hunger and cravings for sweet foods. After a few more days we noticed heightened mental clarity and extra energy. These benefits were a great motivation to continue on.

One of the things we liked about keto carnivore was the black and white aspect of it. We had a list of foods we were eating, and if it wasn’t on the list we didn’t have to think about it. It removed a lot of decision making from our day to day lives.

A lot of factors of keto carnivore are pretty easy. Less food preparation and cooking, less food waste and less washing up. Anyone who followed along on our daily Facebook videos knows that we cooked most our dinners on the BBQ!

What did we struggle with on keto carnivore?

When we first started keto we thought eating out would be hard and even stayed away from it if we could in those first few months. One thing keto carnivore month has shown us is that eating out on keto is a breeze compared to carnivore!

Now just to clarify, yes you can certainly find meat options in most places. The issue for us was more around what is socially acceptable. When you alter your meals for keto you are usually asking for no fries or no bread roll, so that might be a little weird, but I think most people would get that you are doing low carb.

Asking for no vegetables what so ever and just eating meat – that is not only weird, but what most people would consider as unhealthy. We found this aspect challenging when eating out. Now I know you may say don’t worry about what people think, but we do and I am sure others may feel the same way.

Do you know what we find fun and enjoyable? Cooking, recipe creating and eating delicious food. Do you know what is not really that fun? Cooking and eating meat. Keto carnivore is certainly more functional and necessity based than fun and exciting.

Particularly with working on our food blog, it made life a little more challenging as we couldn’t really do any recipe development as that involves a lot of taste testing!

Final thoughts on keto carnivore?

We did like having the limitations of following a keto carnivore diet to use it as an opportunity to reset and really reign in our regular keto eating. It certainly reduced the decision making process when deciding on what to eat. There was less cooking, less meal preparation and less dishes and we did notice a reduction in our hunger levels overall.

However, it is terribly restrictive. The restriction played on our minds a bit during the month and for some people can lead to binge tendencies. We also found it challenging to eat out, which we usually enjoy doing so this was a negative for us.

Overall it is not something we would enjoy doing all the time, but we feel it can have some great benefits when used for a shorter period of time or a reset. We will be trying to keep some of the aspects going forward such as limiting sweeteners and eating very low carbs.

Have you tried zero carb or carnivore? Let us know how you found it in the comments below.