The Guide To Carnivore Diet Fat Loss
Weight loss is a complicated topic. For some people, it's all about calories.
Some say it's mostly about meal timing. Others say it's all about ketosis.
I have my personal opinions on all of these, but to persuade you, I'm laying out what I think is best. I've been doing this health, nutrition, and fitness thing for years.
This is what I've seen work the best in my life and clients and friends and family…
Prioritize protein. Eat something like 25-35% protein.
This is a solid general range that most people fall into. It's hard to eat more than 35% of total calories from protein, at least for me, but it's possible.
I don't recommend going above 45% of calories from protein, as you can run into urea issues.
I also wouldn't recommend going under 20%. That's just a missed opportunity for most people. And eating protein under 10% of total calories would be dangerous.
Utilize intermittent fasting
16/8, one meal a day, multi-day fasts, whatever works for you; make sure you are utilizing some time-restricted feeding. And don't snack.
Eat a meal. Stop eating.
Walk and otherwise move and be careful about overeating after intense exercise
If you're trying to lose body fat while spending a lot of time working out, you'll likely end up overeating.
It's tough not to overeat when your body puts in a lot of work. Most of the research shows this to be accurate, with many claiming that exercise has nothing to do with weight loss.
I agree.
Building muscle helps with weight loss, but it takes a lot longer and is harder to balance if training/building muscle while trying to cut fat. Few can do both at the same time.
You're better off with lower-intensity training, lots of walking and general outdoor movement, and a baseline fitness routine.
When you figure out your feeding schedule, 2x meals a day, 1x meal, 3x, whatever, wait to deviate from it until you can see results.
And the thing you need to watch for are those small snack attacks that come up later in the day when your body is still saying, "I'm hungry."
You'll reach your goals if you can resist eating when your body is trying to get you to eat. It's as simple as that.
The results for most people come in those small habits. Saying no to snacking when you should not be snacking is the difference between staying where you are and getting to where you want to be.
For some, this is why they are still gaining weight even after cleaning up their diet.
You can still overeat on a carnivore diet since your body is trying to maintain its set point. It's trying to get you to eat to stay the same.
Your body doesn't want to burn off fat. It thinks it needs it to survive.
So it will try to dupe you into doing things not conducive to your goals, like snacking late at night. (I used to wake up 4-5 am and walk to the fridge like a zombie to feast anytime I went to bed with a bit of hunger.)
Below are some extra strategies for busting through weight loss plateaus on a carnivore diet and general weight loss and fat loss tips.
CARNIVORE WEIGHT LOSS PLATEAU | WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU STALL
Have you hit a weight loss plateau on the carnivore diet?
This can happen for various reasons, but today I highlight some of the most common. You can also apply these principles to just about any diet.
Here's why you might be stalling out in your weight loss efforts on a carnivore-based diet.
Make sure you are cooking whole raw foods at home in your kitchen
You need your body to do the processing. This ensures you get full faster than eating anything already processed for you.
Examples include whole salmon fillet vs. canned salmon. Or an entire steak sliced into thick slices over diced steak.
Make sure you are utilizing fasting. You are ideally skipping breakfast.
Then test whether your biggest meal should be your first meal (if you worked out, it probably should be) or whether your biggest meal should be more around dinner time.
Experiment to find which helps you satisfy your appetite the best
Eliminate ALL plants and dairy… and only reintroduce dairy slowly after 30+ days.
For obvious reasons: one or both of these may complicate issues you can't identify. So until you remove them from your diet, you won't know.
Diary is also inherently calorie dense and is easy to overdo.
Drink More Water
No brainer. It can help cull hunger pangs + make you feel full faster.
Often hunger pangs are thirst. So stay hydrated.
Eat less fat. Blasphemy, I know.
Try trimming your steaks a bit (save them for rendering or give it to a fav pet).
If you are eating your typical calories in a day, cutting fat back and replacing it with a bit more protein can help you thermochemically burn more calls to process + fill you up faster without noticing fewer calls.
You aren't trying to calorie restriction, but you are trying to offset some grams of fat for protein which can have fat-burning benefits as well as hunger control appetites.
Final notes on carnivore weight loss:
The key is controlling hunger while increasing satiety. That's what you want. And protein + water + utilizing intermittent fasting is your best way to do that.
This will help you avoid overeating while helping you get down to a better baseline of food intake that is optimal for utilizing fat burning in the fasted state.
IS A KETO DIET OR CARNIVORE DIET BETTER FOR WEIGHT LOSS?
Is a keto diet better for losing weight? Or does a nearly zero-carb, animal foods-focused carnivore diet get weight loss results faster?
First, we will define each, in my definition of the word. Keep in mind that these definitions will sometimes range, and I'm also not referring to a therapeutic ketogenic diet that would be used to treat epilepsy, for example.
I will define keto as the general diet people use for weight loss. Keto is high-fat, with around 60-80% of its calories coming from fat, 10-15% from protein and less than 5% from carbs.
These ranges fluctuate depending on who you ask, and some even suggest keeping carbs no more than 20g a day as a general guideline.
Remember that a keto diet mainly focuses on the quantity of food you consume and doesn't make any claims about the types of foods. So there is def keto done the wrong way and keto done the right path based on natural foods.
The carnivore diet is in which most of the nutrition comes from animal products, between 85-100% calories.
Carnivore is generally more protein than a keto diet, but you could do a strict keto carnivore diet with the same ranges as keto using animal-based fats while eating less protein.
If we compare the two, carnivore is best done with a much higher protein intake. I prefer every meal to be primarily protein, then fat.
So that's the version of carnivore I'll talk about today.
Some versions of carnivore eating include dairy products, and some do not. I personally consume dairy strategically. If you are trying to cut, dairy should be avoided.
Ok, now that we have keto and carnivore defined, I'm going to answer the question of today's video: which is better for weight loss, a keto or carnivore diet?
Instead of giving you a direct answer (you'll have to wait until the end of the video), I'll give you my points first. This will be better for learning.
Protein
Since you are eating more protein on a carnivore diet.
Satiety: Protein is the most filling food you can eat. It takes a while to chew, it's tough to overeat and it is the most thermogenic calorie you can eat.
Every macronutrient you eat, whether that is carb, protein, or fat, requires processing by your body. We can all estimate the thermogenic expense, which we can count in terms of calories.
Protein is rated at the highest, with some approximations putting the cost to process protein at something between 20%-30% of calories consumed.
This means that if you consume 100 calories of protein, it's going to take about 20 or 30 calories to process that protein.
This is why I'm such a pro-protein.
We'd have died off a long time ago if humans had issues eating protein. That's all I'll say about that.
I could end this video now, and you'd have my answer to whether keto or a carnivore diet is best for weight loss.
Animal products are more filling and harder to replace in the form of highly palatable junk food.
The same cannot be said for high-fat foods, which are a dime a dozen in our modern food system.
When it comes to animal products, it is much more challenging to find reasonable products in our convenient -focused-on-the-go food landscape.
This keeps you paying closer attention to your meals and the chosen ingredients. It also keeps you more in the kitchen, giving you ultimate control over everything you eat.
So when it comes to carnivores or keto, this is definitely a lifestyle benefit, but it's a benefit nonetheless that gives carnivores the clear advantage for weight loss.
Carnivore is nearly zero-carb, which is more of an elimination style, which is better for weight loss because you are controlling all the variables.
Keto dieters often consume carbs, just in lower quantities. This may include plants, tubers, and even sometimes sugar, so there are still many foods that may be causing inflammation, leaky gut, or autoimmune symptoms in people, many of which go undiagnosed.
Because carnivore eliminates these, you have a clean slate to let your body do its thang. This is a massive benefit for weight loss, which might be more or less effective for you, depending on your biology.
Finally, the last benefit is simplicity.
The carnivore diet is simple. Period.
I'm sure you guessed it by now, but I believe a carnivore diet is superior to a standard keto diet for weight loss.
It is the most ancestrally appropriate way to live.
3 Biggest Fat Loss Mistakes Everyone Makes | Here's How You Avoid Them
Today we cover FAT LOSS plateaus and three big mistakes that no one talks about.
What's great about today's tips is that they don't require a massive lifestyle overhaul like many weight loss suggestions do.
These tips are easy to implement and can help you bust through weight loss plateaus.
They also are some of the First Principles of human health, so you, that's a bonus.
Whether you want to lose weight, you need these tips for health and longevity.
Plants Vs Meat: Which Is Better For Fat Loss?
In this video, I cover whether a plant-based or meat-based diet is better for weight loss, weight maintenance, or weight gain.
These ideas may not be new to you, but they serve as reminders of the First Principles of human nutrition, so highlighting them is crucial since so many of us have diet creep.
As I define it, diet creep is when those small, seemingly "healthy" or "ok" foods creep into our eating habits. They sabotage our weight loss efforts and we are often unaware of the consequences until we are 5 pounds overweight.
Even the most dedicated carnivore may start letting a bit of fruit, or almond butter (or both) Creep in as those sweet cravings come to the surface.
So look at the coupe comparisons real quick.
Carbs and insulin
Carbs are a primary driver for insulin, a storage hormone. Eating carbs makes you fight an uphill battle for fat loss.
There are other downstream issues with the hormonal response to carbs, but as it relates to weight gain, these are working against you.
When you eat a primary carnivore approach, your carbs are near zero. And protein and fat do not have the same metabolic effects toward weight gain as carbs.
This is why fruit gets sweet, plump, and colorful right before winter: it's the animal's way of fattening up and the plants' way of spreading seeds. Both figured out how to do something that could help the other in a symbiotic way.
That's Mother Nature at her finest.
Of course, we can eat fruit or any food anytime we want. So mother nature's natural checks and balances are no longer in the equation.
Protein and fat contain all the essential minerals your body needs.
There is no essential nutrient in the plant kingdom. Meaning you don't have to eat plants to survive.
It would help if you ate protein and fat to survive; many of these nutrients are not found in the plant kingdom.
Taking signals from Mother Nature, which is way more intelligent than us, you see how humans are default meat-eaters.
Satiety
Plants beget eating plants. Meat and protein beget satiety.
When you eat plants, your body receives little nutrition and carbs, which signal your body to eat more. They have a eat more effects.
Crack open a steak or a pound of ground beef, cook it, eat it, then talk to me about whether you want any more food.
If you are trying to lose weight or prevent fat gain, eating animals as your foundation is going to be miles ahead of plants because you are satisfied.
These are those videos that help strengthen our resolve by sticking to the First Principles of nutrition.
We need to be as strong as we can here to constantly course-correct as we are led astray.
Our environment pulls us into sickness. It does not promote health or longevity. It actively stresses our system and leads us to disrepair.
If we let it, we will lose our life. Slowly, or maybe quickly without notice, but we will surely lose it sooner than we should have.
This is why a carnivore-based, meat-centric approach to human nutrition is better for weight loss, fat loss, and overall freaking health.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is it recommended to prioritize protein in a diet?
Protein is considered the most filling macronutrient. It can help reduce hunger pangs and keep you satisfied longer, making it easier to consume fewer calories overall. This can be particularly beneficial for weight loss.
What is intermittent fasting, and how can it aid in weight loss?
Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating. It can lead to weight loss by reducing your calorie intake and boosting your metabolism. It's also believed to enhance the body's response to insulin, which can be beneficial for weight loss and metabolic health.
Why is it advised to be careful about overeating after intense exercise?
After intense exercise, your body craves nutrients to replenish and repair itself. This can often lead to overeating. It's important to refuel wisely and avoid high-calorie, low-nutrient foods.
How does snacking affect weight loss?
Frequent snacking, especially on high-calorie, low-nutrient foods, can contribute to overeating and weight gain. It's often more beneficial to eat balanced, filling meals and resist the urge to snack between meals.
Why is consuming whole raw foods beneficial for weight loss?
Whole raw foods tend to be less calorie-dense and more nutrient-dense than processed foods. They also often require more energy to digest, which can help boost your metabolism and aid in weight loss.
What is the impact of drinking more water on weight loss?
Drinking water can aid weight loss by helping you feel full, thereby reducing hunger and overall calorie intake. It can also boost your metabolism, helping your body burn more calories.
Why is it suggested to reduce fat intake while trying to lose weight?
While fat is a necessary part of the diet, it is also quite calorie-dense. Reducing fat intake can help decrease overall calorie consumption, facilitating weight loss.
What are the advantages of a carnivore diet for weight loss?
A carnivore diet can be beneficial for weight loss as it is typically high in protein, which can aid in satiety and reduce overall calorie intake. It also eliminates many high-carb foods that can contribute to weight gain.
How do Keto and Carnivore diets differ in terms of weight loss?
While both diets can promote weight loss, the Keto diet focuses on high-fat, low-carb intake, while the Carnivore diet prioritizes animal protein. The best choice can depend on individual dietary preferences and health goals.
What is "diet creep" and how can it affect weight loss?
"Diet creep" refers to the gradual addition of small, often unnoticed, amounts of extra food or calories into your diet, which can lead to weight gain over time. Being aware of this can help maintain a calorie deficit for weight loss.
Interesting Facts
A high-protein diet can aid weight loss by increasing satiety and boosting metabolism.
Intermittent fasting, which involves cycling between periods of eating and fasting, can be an effective weight loss strategy.
Overeating after intense exercise is a common pitfall that can hinder weight loss.
Snacking, especially late at night, can contribute to overeating and weight gain.
A carnivore diet, which prioritizes animal protein, can be an effective approach to weight loss.
Related Studies
The Role of Protein in Weight Loss and Maintenance
This study highlights the importance of protein in weight loss and maintenance, showing that high-protein diets can lead to significant improvements in body composition, weight loss, and weight maintenance. Protein increases feelings of satiety, reduces total energy intake, and enhances metabolic activity, which can aid in weight loss and prevent weight regain.
Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4429709/
The effects of intermittent or continuous energy restriction on weight loss and metabolic disease risk markers
This study focuses on intermittent fasting and its impact on weight loss and metabolic health. The results show that intermittent fasting is as effective as continuous energy restriction for weight loss, and it could also bring about beneficial changes in metabolic markers, indicating its potential in managing metabolic diseases.
Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3017674/
Exercise for Overweight or Obesity
This study emphasizes the importance of physical activity in managing overweight and obesity. It suggests that while exercise alone may not lead to substantial weight loss, it can significantly improve cardiorespiratory fitness and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, which are important aspects of overall health.
Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17907745/
Low Carbohydrate versus Isoenergetic Balanced Diets for Reducing Weight and Cardiovascular Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
This study compares low-carbohydrate diets to balanced diets for weight loss and cardiovascular risk reduction. The results suggest that low-carbohydrate diets could be more effective for weight loss in the short term, but there's no significant difference in the long term. Furthermore, balanced diets were found to be better at improving cardiovascular risk factors.
Link: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0100652
Influence of Dietary and Physical Activity Habits on Weight Loss Maintenance: A Follow-Up Study
This study investigates the influence of dietary and physical activity habits on weight loss maintenance. It highlights that adopting a diet with high protein and fiber content, coupled with regular physical activity, are key factors in maintaining weight loss over time.
Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31197470/
Conclusion
In conclusion, weight loss is a multifaceted journey that requires a strategic approach encompassing nutrition, exercise, and behavioral modifications. It is clear from the evidence that prioritizing protein intake, utilizing intermittent fasting, and engaging in low-intensity exercise are key factors for successful weight loss.
Additionally, the carnivore diet, which is primarily focused on animal products, has shown to be more effective than the keto diet in terms of inducing weight loss, due to its high protein content, satiety-inducing properties, and its simplicity.
However, it's crucial to note that individual dietary preferences, lifestyle, and health conditions play a significant role in determining the most suitable approach for each person. Ultimately, achieving and maintaining weight loss is about creating sustainable habits that support an overall healthier lifestyle.
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