The Plan
Ok, so I had decided to do it, I was jumping in head first! Just meat, 90 days.
So that's great and all, but uhhh, what did that mean? What does that look like? What the heck am I going to eat?
What Nagev means to me
Nagev, carnivore, zero carb, hard core keto, similar words, but all mean something different to different people.
For me, it means animal products only. Meat, cheese, butter, eggs. My plan was to eat only those things for 90 days. That's it, that's the whole thing. The rest of this page is just details and fluff.
Meat, cheese, butter (for cooking things in), eggs. Eat when you are hungry. Eat until you aren't. - Literally this whole webpage summed up in less than 20 words. I can't repeat this often enough.
I do drink coffee, unsweetened tea and zero calorie seltzers. (The polar orange vanilla ones, oh man...)
Some people eating similarly (see resources), do different things. Some eat a ton of organ meat (not my favorite), some don't drink anything but water (I like coffee too much to give it up), some won't eat cheese, heck, some even eat MOSTLY cheese. (people are nuts)
Week 1
We all have to start somewhere, I'd suggest starting at the beginning. I tried starting at the middle once, it didn't go well.
Ok, so here we are, early morning, May 16th, I'm hungry and I'm ready. Now what do I do?
Well, let's backup a bit. I knew I was going to do this, so I had prepared beforehand. I made some of these amazingly delicious egg bites the night before. Super easy recipe (bake bacon in muffin tin for 10 min, crack egg into muffin tin, take out when done).
I knew from experience that when I got hungry, I was the KING of being hangry. You seriously did not want to be around me when I was hungry. I was a jerk. (I'm pretty sure this is related to blood sugar issues, but I'm not a doctor, just a crazy guy eating meat, so what do i know?)
So, I knew I COULD NOT under any circumstances get hungry. So I ate 4 of them for breakfast every morning.
That lasted about 4 days until the smell of bacon made me physically feel ill in the morning. (I clearly wasn't hungry). So I stopped eating breakfast. I found I wasn't hungry in the morning anymore, so I now just have a single cup of black coffee in the morning and I'm good to go!
Of all the changes, I've got to say, not worrying about eating breakfast and not being a giant jerk when hungry have been AMAZING. Totally freeing! (I used to schedule my day around when I could eat so I wouldn't get hangry).
For lunch and dinner, I've been pretty consistent throughout with what I've been eating (see Sample Weekly Menu) from day 1.
"Keto Flu"
We've all heard of it, some of us have experienced it, your body making a switch to run off of stored fat instead of carbs can be ROUGH!
Your body is a finely tuned machine. One of the most delicate machines known to man. When you switch the fuel that it runs off of, you can have a bad time.
The first time I tried a keto based diet, I felt sick for DAYS. Like lying on the couch not wanting to do anything. No fun.
When I migrated to carnivore (or nagev :) ), I didn't experience those symptoms at all.
I am currently attributing this to the fact that I was making sure I was drinking a ton of water that first week. I've heard enough anecdotal evidence that water helps avoid feeling lethargic while your body is transitioning.
Is it true? I dunno
Will it work for you? I dunno
Should you drink plenty of water the first week? Yes.
Should I tell anyone?
Don't just tell anyone, tell EVERYONE.
What about other people?
The first thing I did was tell everyone what I was doing. I was either going to be the crazy guy who ate meat for 90 days or the crazy guy who was going to eat meat for 90 days and failed.
I assure you, if you ran into me during the first 2 weeks of this, I let you know what was going on.
Why? Because I don't care about what other people think AND I wanted to create some peer pressure for myself. It was going to be extremely embarrassing if I failed. I'm ok with people thinking I'm nuts. I'm not ok with people thinking I'm a failure.
How do I eat out / travel?
I screwed this one up in the beginning.
As part of my "tell everyone in the world what I'm doing" policy, every time I sat down at a restaurant in the first 2 weeks, I'd let my server know what was up and proceed to order some crazy stuff.
DONT DO THIS.
Have you ever sat down to dinner with a group of friends and been served a hamburger patty alone on a plate? It's sad. Like really, really sad.
Figure out what you can eat (and there's always something, but it turns out you better like hamburgers), feel free to go crazy adding stuff: "I'd like your cheeseburger, but can you add an extra patty, an egg and some bacon?", but order it plain. See if anyone you are with wants your sides. (Unless you found a place with meat sides, in which case, I'm in!)
Then, deconstruct your meal when it gets to you and eat the good stuff!