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I have a friend who went on the carnivore diet recently. They lost 36-pounds in just 6-weeks time (and ate as much as they wanted, so never hungry). But they

I have a friend who went on the carnivore diet recently. They lost 36-pounds in just 6-weeks time (and ate as much as they wanted, so never hungry). But they did a blood test and it was panic time. The doctor told him he's on the brink of cardiac arrest and had to be put on medication and immediately introduce vegetables into their diet.

WorkerBee28474 2y ago
To be fair, that uncommon situation is not in the dataset used to train doctors. We can theorize that he needs medication and vegetables, but we lack certainty.
isk517 2y ago
I feel like a lot of the results from the carnivore diet can easily be reproduced by just completely cutting out processed sugar from your diet.
- tiffanyh 2y ago
  At the end of the day, it's all about calories. The appeal of the carnivore diet is, you can eat as much as you want - so long as it's only meat. The trick is, meat is actually fairly low in calories and protein (meat) is extremely filling. So you're achieving a calorie deficit without being hungry.
  - anotherhue 2y ago
    Eh, not quite. The microbiome is a quickly emerging and remarkably complex system. The calorie values on food are 'bomb-calorific', which is about as far from what goes in your gut as possible. 'Bio-availabilty' is the term to look up.
  - ASalazarMX 2y ago
    > The trick is, meat is actually fairly low in calories and protein (meat) is extremely filling. What? Meat, from fish to chicken to beef, is one of the most caloric foods, rivaled only by nuts and oils. Meat usually is high in fat, it's very hard for it to be low-calorie. The weight loss doesn't come from a low-calorie diet, but from forced ketosis due to prolonged lack of glucose. As others hace said, it's the carb deprivation that makes you lose weight, you could easily do a vegetarian diet and lose the same or more weight without abusing fat and rising your bad cholesterol.
    - tiffanyh 2y ago
      210 calories - serving of grilled chicken 324 calories - serving of granola cereal One of those is way more filling & less calories than the other. https://www.eatthismuch.com/calories/one-grilled-chicken-breast-6-oz-4556605 https://www.eatthismuch.com/calories/one-grilled-chicken-bre... https://www.mynetdiary.com/food/calories-in-breakfast-granola-with-milk-by-joma-bakery-cafe-serving-21354754-0.html https://www.mynetdiary.com/food/calories-in-breakfast-granol...
    - zero-sharp 2y ago
      >The weight loss doesn't come from a low-calorie diet, but from forced ketosis due to prolonged lack of glucose. Lol what the fuck? and yes, meat and foods high in fiber are satiating. That's common knowledge.
    - kcplate 2y ago
      > Meat usually is high in fat, it's very hard for it to be low-calorie. The weight loss doesn't come from a low-calorie diet For me, eating a keto diet makes it easy to achieve a daily caloric intake that is significantly less than other diets I have tried because of meat being high in fat it creates greater satiety that lasts longer. Most keto and carnivore diets result it being easier to achieve caloric deficits for that reason. There may be some out there that increase caloric consumption (and usually do for the first couple of weeks of the diet) but soon after your body adapts to fat for energy, you tend to eat much less in my experience. So if you are religiously tracking (and I have for 8 years now), you will find that your weight loss under keto also abides by CICO rules. Ketosis is helping to burn your fat stores, and it’s easier to get there because you are not eating carbs, but your body is burning fat stores because it has a calorie deficit. Even if you are in ketosis, never eating a carb, but not in a caloric deficit, you simply will not lose weight.
  - agnivade 2y ago
    > At the end of the day, it's all about calories. No it's not. Calories is just a unit of energy. And there are good energy sources, and bad ones as well. It's not just one single factor that rules everything. Quality and variety of food matters a lot.
- sneak 2y ago
  No, ketosis is a thing. Potatoes and brown rice aren’t processed sugar but will prevent ketosis sure as anything. Carbs are the devil. They’re also my primary calorie source after years in ketosis because cholesterol is also a killer.
- MrSkelter 2y ago
  Most of the supposed magic is simply eating high protein and fat and getting sated. These diets work for people who will not stop eating until they feel full. As that fullness takes so much longer with processed sugary foods they consume too many calories. It’s very hard to consume 2,000 calories of red meat in one sitting. The idea eating meat alone is healthy is totally spurious.
srid 2y ago
I have been on carnivore diet for 5+ years now. Did a blood test and the doctor prescribed me statins due to high cholestrol readings. I declined to take them, of course.
- SwiftyBug 2y ago
  What, why?
- Balgair 2y ago
  I don't know if this is a troll, but in case it isn't: Buddy, listen to your doctors. At least, please, go talk to another MD about your blood work and see if they recommend other methods. You don't have to listen to just one MD, but if 5 are telling you the same thing then you should probably listen.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
    The carnivore diet on the face of it looks suspicious. No one that tried it thinking “this is totally legit” worried about what doctors are saying.
  - srid 2y ago
    > I don't know if this is a troll This is a rather odd dig towards a non-anonymous user (using his real name) and is ironically coming from a pseudoanonymous account (with no real name associated with it).
  - hilux 2y ago
    I'm not the guy you are replying to, but most MDs really don't know anything about nutrition. That simply is not a topic they ever took a class in, and official nutrition recommendations themselves are completely changing. The "food pyramid" with a base of carbs? Must eat breakfast of sugary cereals and orange juice? That's all murderous nonsense. (And it's changed!) And so on. MDs want "stable" patients who resemble patients they've familiar with. Even though that could mean being diabetic on half-a-dozen meds. Based on my genes, I would be fat and diabetic by now if I had kept following only my doctor's advice.
readthenotes1 2y ago
That must not have been a very good doctor. If the man is on brink of cardiac arrest he should be in the hospital. He can do a simple Ultra fast CT scan to see the atherosclerosis impeding blood flow, or even an exercise treadmill test will give you some hints of it. I believe the modern understanding of the cholesterol theory of heart disease is that it's not simply LDL that is the problem, but instead small dense LDL. SD ldl can be measured directly of course, but you can kind of get a sense of whether you're likely to have it based on having triglycerides over 115, and the high triglycerides are in turn usually caused by lots of sugar or simple carbs in your diet. Something a person on a carnivore diet won't probably have
zero-sharp 2y ago
I'm not a carnivore diet advocate, but 6 weeks of a poor diet, alone, is to blame for being on the brink of a cardiac arrest? That's really not believable. If that's not what you meant, then you should really clarify in your post.
- ryandvm 2y ago
  He was probably already in a bad state. I imagine just about everyone going on the carnivore diet had already been cosplaying it for decades.
  - zero-sharp 2y ago
    So because he was on the carnivore diet for 6 weeks, he must have been on it for decades. Logic check out. Thanks for clarifying.
rdsubhas 2y ago
Reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_toxicity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_toxicity aka rabbit starvation / protein toxicity

WorkerBee28474 2y ago

To be fair, that uncommon situation is not in the dataset used to train doctors. We can theorize that he needs medication and vegetables, but we lack certainty.

isk517 2y ago

I feel like a lot of the results from the carnivore diet can easily be reproduced by just completely cutting out processed sugar from your diet.

tiffanyh 2y ago
At the end of the day, it's all about calories. The appeal of the carnivore diet is, you can eat as much as you want - so long as it's only meat. The trick is, meat is actually fairly low in calories and protein (meat) is extremely filling. So you're achieving a calorie deficit without being hungry.
- anotherhue 2y ago
  Eh, not quite. The microbiome is a quickly emerging and remarkably complex system. The calorie values on food are 'bomb-calorific', which is about as far from what goes in your gut as possible. 'Bio-availabilty' is the term to look up.
- ASalazarMX 2y ago
  > The trick is, meat is actually fairly low in calories and protein (meat) is extremely filling. What? Meat, from fish to chicken to beef, is one of the most caloric foods, rivaled only by nuts and oils. Meat usually is high in fat, it's very hard for it to be low-calorie. The weight loss doesn't come from a low-calorie diet, but from forced ketosis due to prolonged lack of glucose. As others hace said, it's the carb deprivation that makes you lose weight, you could easily do a vegetarian diet and lose the same or more weight without abusing fat and rising your bad cholesterol.
  - tiffanyh 2y ago
    210 calories - serving of grilled chicken 324 calories - serving of granola cereal One of those is way more filling & less calories than the other. https://www.eatthismuch.com/calories/one-grilled-chicken-breast-6-oz-4556605 https://www.eatthismuch.com/calories/one-grilled-chicken-bre... https://www.mynetdiary.com/food/calories-in-breakfast-granola-with-milk-by-joma-bakery-cafe-serving-21354754-0.html https://www.mynetdiary.com/food/calories-in-breakfast-granol...
  - zero-sharp 2y ago
    >The weight loss doesn't come from a low-calorie diet, but from forced ketosis due to prolonged lack of glucose. Lol what the fuck? and yes, meat and foods high in fiber are satiating. That's common knowledge.
  - kcplate 2y ago
    > Meat usually is high in fat, it's very hard for it to be low-calorie. The weight loss doesn't come from a low-calorie diet For me, eating a keto diet makes it easy to achieve a daily caloric intake that is significantly less than other diets I have tried because of meat being high in fat it creates greater satiety that lasts longer. Most keto and carnivore diets result it being easier to achieve caloric deficits for that reason. There may be some out there that increase caloric consumption (and usually do for the first couple of weeks of the diet) but soon after your body adapts to fat for energy, you tend to eat much less in my experience. So if you are religiously tracking (and I have for 8 years now), you will find that your weight loss under keto also abides by CICO rules. Ketosis is helping to burn your fat stores, and it’s easier to get there because you are not eating carbs, but your body is burning fat stores because it has a calorie deficit. Even if you are in ketosis, never eating a carb, but not in a caloric deficit, you simply will not lose weight.
- agnivade 2y ago
  > At the end of the day, it's all about calories. No it's not. Calories is just a unit of energy. And there are good energy sources, and bad ones as well. It's not just one single factor that rules everything. Quality and variety of food matters a lot.
sneak 2y ago
No, ketosis is a thing. Potatoes and brown rice aren’t processed sugar but will prevent ketosis sure as anything. Carbs are the devil. They’re also my primary calorie source after years in ketosis because cholesterol is also a killer.
MrSkelter 2y ago
Most of the supposed magic is simply eating high protein and fat and getting sated. These diets work for people who will not stop eating until they feel full. As that fullness takes so much longer with processed sugary foods they consume too many calories. It’s very hard to consume 2,000 calories of red meat in one sitting. The idea eating meat alone is healthy is totally spurious.

srid 2y ago

I have been on carnivore diet for 5+ years now. Did a blood test and the doctor prescribed me statins due to high cholestrol readings. I declined to take them, of course.

SwiftyBug 2y ago
What, why?
Balgair 2y ago
I don't know if this is a troll, but in case it isn't: Buddy, listen to your doctors. At least, please, go talk to another MD about your blood work and see if they recommend other methods. You don't have to listen to just one MD, but if 5 are telling you the same thing then you should probably listen.
- 2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
  The carnivore diet on the face of it looks suspicious. No one that tried it thinking “this is totally legit” worried about what doctors are saying.
- srid 2y ago
  > I don't know if this is a troll This is a rather odd dig towards a non-anonymous user (using his real name) and is ironically coming from a pseudoanonymous account (with no real name associated with it).
- hilux 2y ago
  I'm not the guy you are replying to, but most MDs really don't know anything about nutrition. That simply is not a topic they ever took a class in, and official nutrition recommendations themselves are completely changing. The "food pyramid" with a base of carbs? Must eat breakfast of sugary cereals and orange juice? That's all murderous nonsense. (And it's changed!) And so on. MDs want "stable" patients who resemble patients they've familiar with. Even though that could mean being diabetic on half-a-dozen meds. Based on my genes, I would be fat and diabetic by now if I had kept following only my doctor's advice.

readthenotes1 2y ago

That must not have been a very good doctor. If the man is on brink of cardiac arrest he should be in the hospital. He can do a simple Ultra fast CT scan to see the atherosclerosis impeding blood flow, or even an exercise treadmill test will give you some hints of it. I believe the modern understanding of the cholesterol theory of heart disease is that it's not simply LDL that is the problem, but instead small dense LDL. SD ldl can be measured directly of course, but you can kind of get a sense of whether you're likely to have it based on having triglycerides over 115, and the high triglycerides are in turn usually caused by lots of sugar or simple carbs in your diet. Something a person on a carnivore diet won't probably have

zero-sharp 2y ago

I'm not a carnivore diet advocate, but 6 weeks of a poor diet, alone, is to blame for being on the brink of a cardiac arrest? That's really not believable. If that's not what you meant, then you should really clarify in your post.

ryandvm 2y ago
He was probably already in a bad state. I imagine just about everyone going on the carnivore diet had already been cosplaying it for decades.
- zero-sharp 2y ago
  So because he was on the carnivore diet for 6 weeks, he must have been on it for decades. Logic check out. Thanks for clarifying.

rdsubhas 2y ago

Reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_toxicity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_toxicity aka rabbit starvation / protein toxicity