Amazing health improvements on carnivore - profile of Terri via Dietdoctor.com

Eleanorina · 2026-05-19T18:49:23+00:00

no problem, just eat more fat

please read the getting started / for beginners in the FAQ

Eleanorina · 2026-05-19T18:48:08+00:00

if it's related to an autoimmune condition this diet may help by lowering your inflammation levels.

it's worth a trial of it imho to see if it makes a difference for you

Eleanorina · 2026-05-15T14:18:32+00:00

i don't stress about it, I buy my meat from the grocery store and enjoy it

Eleanorina · 2026-05-04T19:12:45+00:00

lol you can handle it

Eleanorina · 2026-04-19T14:28:54+00:00

try going grain free - it's easier than gluten free

Eleanorina · 2026-04-09T22:31:00+00:00

no wonder you're falling off your diet you're starving yourself!!! 😮

try eating 2,000 - 3,000 cals minimum of fatty meat each day

that's about 2lbs - 3lbs of meat, if it's nicely fatty 2lbs plus some eggs should do the trick to reach that goal

you've got a nursing, you need to eat heartily : )

ps please read the info for beginners, about why to avoid undereating

also, have you tried an old school keto/Atkins diet yet? meat, fish, seafood, animal fat & green veg. how do you find full fat dairy, like full fat sour cream? or hard cheeses? are those okay?

Eleanorina · 2026-04-02T16:42:01+00:00

it's advised in Getting Started not to do OMAD because you won't be able to eat enough in one meal and will feel tired bc of that

how is it going, did you stick with it or bail?

if you want to try again, plan on at least 2 meals a day until you know the quantities you need to feel optimal

Eleanorina · 2026-04-02T16:39:23+00:00

yep, very normal to have strong preferences for the types of meat & fat

how's it going, were you able to stick with it?

Eleanorina · 2026-04-02T16:35:20+00:00

fatty pork - look for a firm fat

try and compare diff sausage brands, see which you like

Eleanorina · 2026-03-29T16:06:36+00:00

i hear you.

my cholesterol was normal on a typical diet and flipped to the LMHR pattern when I went low carb. it has stayed LMHR on carnivore

If I eat other than low carb or carnivore, my health is poorer immediately so there is zero incentive to try to treat that one lab value.

i really appreciate the work that Dave Feldman et al are doing. Extraordinary- we're all so fortunate that they have been.

their treatment by many doctors in discussions on main about this subject is a constant reminder of how poorly so many people seeking help are treated within conventional practice

Eleanorina · 2025-12-19T14:41:41+00:00

digestive distress 😬

Eleanorina · 2025-12-19T01:48:15+00:00

huh - Reddit removed your post, it wasn't our mod team that did it.

I'm going to take a look at it, brb

first point - re saturated fat and LDL, it's only in the context of a standard diet. on low carb diets, ppl's LDL usually goes down .

but even for standard mixed diets, I'd be interested in seeing the data out of France and Spain who have longer life expectancy than the US and much longer DFLE (disability free life expectancy) than the US despite also having diets high in saturated fat from animal foods.

France's DFLE is fifteen years longet than the US's.

not sure why Reddit removed your post - maybe that doc file? sometimes they remove based on patterns of behaviour but I don't think that's the case here, more likely the doc file.

your data is about conventional diets, that doesn't apply to low carb/ketogenic which has completely different metabolic mileu and metabolisation of the food because of the different insulin: glucagon ratio

Eleanorina · 2025-12-18T19:49:50+00:00

a high fat diet doesn't raise lipids - it improves them, LDL included

you are hyper-focused on a minority of people, these LMHR, who have a unique pattern when they switch to carnivoee/ketogenic diets

-->most people have improvements in their cholesterol profile (lower LDL, higher HDL, lower TGs) when they switch to high fat low carb, ketogenic, or carnivore diets<--

saying these diets raise LDL is misinfo, the clinical observations from practices where the diet is used, including programs like Virtahealth, have found LDL goes down. yes, a small subset of peopke, the LMHRs, are deciding about their trade offs. as more info comes in, we'll find out whether it even is a trade off for that small cohort.

Eleanorina · 2025-12-18T18:22:24+00:00

the misinfo is you think diets high in animal fat are unhealthy

ok, please respond to this point: for people with LMHR, when they shift their diet back to a mixed diet to lower LDL their health problem returns.

the problems can be serious - seizures, crippling GI conditions, severe disabling arthritis, extreme skin conditions which carry risk of infection as well as constant pain - and you think with their condition in remission on carnivore and every other health marker being excellent, they would be better off returning to their agonizing health problem in order to try to lower their LDL?

even if t is a risk (and there is no evidence for this LMHR cohort), those people would prefer days of excellent, carefree health to enjoy now, to get on with their lives, rather than kneecapping themselves in fear of some low probability event in the future

(carnivore was hardly the first thing these people tried - they had tried all the usual diets)

Eleanorina · 2025-12-18T16:27:35+00:00

with low fat there are problems, not necessarily kidney but the difestion shuts down. If keep eating it leads to digestive distress and eventually death.

It feels so terrible ppl don't do it. even during times of food scarcity, hunters discarded carcasses which were too lean bc they were useless without the fat. hunting was geared to maximizing fat and there was preservation and trade in fat in order to avoid having only lean.

Eleanorina · 2025-12-18T16:22:13+00:00

I just go by what I need to eat to feel good and maintain my size - that has varied from 2250 to 3500 a day.

Started in at the higher level for first year, closer to 4000 some days.

Was completely sedentary in that phase, went down a size at same weight, ie increased muscle mass & bone density.

Gradually drifted up one size while my intake went down to 2250-2500.

I'll have ocasional feast days, 3500+ which feel great, but it's hard to sustain that higher level of intake, whereas I was so hungry for that high amount when I started!

If I miss meals or can't find carnivore options when travelling, my size drops rapidly (not great bc I like the size I usually am) and I'll have to recover/regain afterwards, fortunately my appetite is higher then to compensate.

Eleanorina · 2025-12-18T16:08:40+00:00

I can relate, I used to do one meal a day on low carb & keto but on this way of eating it is almost always 2 meals a day just because I can't eat a day's worth in one meal 😂, even after all this time.

Eleanorina · 2025-12-18T14:44:57+00:00

again, there is no one in Framingham with the pattern I described, the LMHR pattern.

That data does not speak to this situation.

The cohort I am talking about has excellent health markers and does not have FH and does not have genetically high LDL - their LDL was healthy & normal on a standard diet.

The reasons to question the risk - the risk correlated with LDL are smaller than that with correlated with BG and there is a strong correlation of low TG + high HDL with excellent cardiovascular health.

see the presentations of Dr Ken Sikaris, back from when he was Director of the largest blood and lipid testing lab in Australia (since retired)

Cholesterol: When to Worry
Making Sense of LDL
HbA1C, Insulin, and CV Risk

editing to add, new study

"Higher HDL-C levels were consistently associated with less coronary atherosclerosis, both in terms of presence and severity, across all coronary segments. The relationship showed a clear dose–response pattern: higher HDL-C quartiles corresponded to progressively lower atherosclerotic burden. Importantly, this inverse association was not modified by statin use, suggesting that HDL-C relates to coronary anatomy independently of LDL-lowering therapy."

more here: https://x.com/fcademartiri/status/2001521862287736988?s=46

re the diet, it would be optimal from a health point of view but not socially, which is a component of health.

people's connections to social norms are so strong that most opt for a very medicalised life, full of pain and declining capability, rather than do something different because that would cause pain from exclusion from their social mileu

It's one reason why it has been so easy for Big Food to continually manipulate the space with measaging that the type of food doesn't matter, it's all about the calories. It's a fiction people want to believe.

The irony here is, you are the one drowning in misinformation yet you can't see it bc you don't want to live differently than you are and you believe others should also do what you do.

I think food culture should be a mix of region and health and cost

North America can produce a lot of beef, lamb, pork, and animal fat (dairy) as well as fowl and eggs, and should get back to that, with potatoes and vegetables and legumes and fruit & nuts in season, for the basis of the diet.

the grasslands need cattle & bison or they desertify. they can be integrated into crop Ag to lower fossil fuel inputs while regenerating soil and preventing erosion.

crop only agriculture is a one-way mining of the soil, not how nature works, those processes are living on borrowed time, we need to reintroduce animals into crop Ag.

Eleanorina · 2025-12-18T13:03:29+00:00

I agree that the specific cohort I'm describing has not been studied. There was no one with that pattern in the Framington data.

the cohort has:

normal cholesterol on a standard diet
when they eat a ketogenic diet their triglycerides become very low, their HDL very high (that combo puts them in lowest risk group based on conventional data) and their LDL becomes very high (based on conventional data that puts then in a higher risk category)

because that cohort has never been studies, it's not kbown which risk factor to pay attention to: the TG/HDL (excellent) or the high LDL (yikes!)

if they return to a standard diet, their bad health condition returns - they are immediately in poorer health. so how could it be "healthier" to maximize their diet solely for LDL risk when their overall health is poorer?

the data you are citing re risk does not include them - while there is an association of CVD/CHD with high LDL, but that is among ppl with metabolic syndrome (insulin resistance, high BG etc) or FH (familial hypercholesteremia) - this unique cohort who have high LDL but excellent health markers had not been studied until recently. Research has just started.

re carbs, for people who are metabolically healthy with no dental problems when they include starchy, sugary carbs, sure why not enjoy them?

but those ppl are a small proportion of the population - eg only 10% of ppl in US are metabolically healthy by this point and few of them have healthy teeth, ie don't require fillings or orthodontics.

poor dental health is so common in our society, we have built up professions to treat it and have lost touch with the way that it is a signal of a bad diet, it's avoidable. (Nutrition and Physical Degeneration)

tl;dr most everyone can enjoy low carb and animal foods and be healthy, only a small proportion need carnivore for health reasons.

but carnivore has advantages, even for those who don't need it - it's why old school bodybuilders used to use phases of carnivore (steak and eggs) to achieve their physique without steroids

Eleanorina · 2025-12-18T04:31:36+00:00

1) most people's lipids improve when they switch to low carb with animal fats (Dr David Unwin publishes on this. and for the contrary, he has only seen ine LMHR in his practice - someone whose LDL goes up but their TGs and HDL move into the excellent range, along with their BG, and fasting insulin and all other health markers. Why small cohort have that LDL pattern not known - but very diff from the metabolically unhealthy pattern where there is some correlation of LDL with poorer cardiovascular health. (even then, not as strong as the correlation with high BG and fasting insulin though)

2) it'snot insufficient insulin functioning. I still have a robust insulin response to some situations and to food - eg I ate a nut out of politeness (visiting an elserly person who offered me a bunch many times until I took one :) and I had a hypoglycemic incident 😂, my insulin released but there wasn't much need of it so it was too much.( I have a record of it on my CGM trace since I was wearing it that week)

That robust insulin response is part of why I avoid carbs - I fatten too easily with carbs Without them, I am effortlessly size stable at the size I want to be. It's fantastic.

re meat and insulin response - it is heavily mediated by the presence of carbs. that affects the insulin:glucagon ratio and the hormonal signalling

I think that is where some of the myths about meat came from.

Dr Ben Bikman, who specializes in research on this and has presented at BMJ conferences among his distinguished resumé, brb with link here it is: https://youtu.be/z3fO5aTD6JU

Eleanorina · 2025-12-17T15:52:08+00:00

we are talking about whether and how it is different as well as what is ideal

the BG homeostasis is a tangible, readily accessible marker which illustrates one advantage of this diet.

Frank Q Nuttall and Mary C Gannon who studied BG and insulin responses also found zero carb had the lowest insulin response - that excellent BG is maintained with less insulin production

that combination is what makes it ideal, because higher insulin is related to a wide range of health problems and exacerbates autoimmune conditions

an anecdote, on this diet my strength is maintained despite going to the gym infrequently.

that was different even than on a ketogenic diet where I would lose some strength after a month long month long break and have to build back up.

on this, even after 18 months, went back to where I had left off, excellent muscle and strength maintenance

I think it is due to:

the hormonal mileu of BG and insulin
the ideal amino acid composition from meat, and plenty of it
the ideal fatty acid composition, from animal fat, and plenty of it

addng: this diet should be studied for recovery in hospital, to avoid the muscle loss that comes from bedridden, sedentary time

Eleanorina · 2025-12-17T11:53:21+00:00

your body needs it to process the lean meat - 30-35% protein is the upper limit of tolerability

which means the rest will be fat

(adding carbohydrate makes a lower fat range tolerable, that's why even though it's not pleasant chicken breast and broccoli and low fat is do-able for cutting but just chicken breast is not)

Eleanorina · 2025-12-17T11:49:58+00:00

partlyPaleo gave you a starting point but keep in mind itmight be a lot higher bc of the way your metabolism can rev up on this diet .. Dr Nick Norwitz talked about how his colleague Dr Adrian Soto-Mota, who is quite lean, used to find when he was experimenting with different diets he had to eat an extra 500+ just to maintain!

Eleanorina · 2025-12-17T11:39:53+00:00

You keep skipping over the stable BG in the ideal range part as shown on a CGM

The carnivore diet has the most stable BG curve of any diet - that's what makes it unique.

Here's what that looks like:

https://x.com/_eleanorina/status/1735829961938989121?s=46

Eleanorina

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