My partner (36 XX) is two months in to very strict carnivore, eating exclusively beef mince and grass fed butter. Total intake is 1-1.5kg been mince and 200-300g butter per day. The only beverage is water or Powerade (sugar free, acesulfame K, sucralose).
Her ketones on a blood meter are consistently low, maxing out at 0.2 mmol/L today. She feels tired, fatigued, and has burning in muscles suggesting lactic acid being elevated.
Just looking to see if anyone has seen something similar and if so what the solution was? Thanks
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Is this a real question?
Are people really only eating meat and butter and then being confused by why they’re not healthy?
To be clear, my partner has a seizure disorder which results in 3-10 seizures per day on average if she is eating carbs and on this diet she has less than 1 per day. In terms of seizures this is way better than any anti epileptic medication she has been on and is actually stable for an extended period. The issue we are having is not whether this is better than eating the standard western diet, it is about why she is inhibited from reaching a higher level of ketones. If you think eating meat, butter, and water is a bad idea, cool, good for you, but I don’t need your opinion.
Bruh…
Sometimes keto can help…
But no medical professional ever told anyone to just eat 3 fucking pounds of meat and some butter every day.
Which YouTuber told you this was a good idea? It sounds like some Peterson bullshit
Eating carnivore is not a real diet and causes severe dietary deficiencies and illness like fatigue. It was made up mostly by James Salisbury in the 1800s to sell salisbury steaks. It’s literally a centuries-old marketing gimmick that has been repackaged by new companies and investors every generation.
Research from blogs, news, and universities:
https://www.todaysdietitian.com/newarchives/0519p12.shtml
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/health-nutrition/carnivore-diet-beefy-leap-faith
You won’t get good answers here. There is no moderation and the community is populated with anti-meat people.
If you want answers I recommend the reddit community https://old.reddit.com/r/zerocarb
I would recommend against the Powerade. Nothing with an ingredients label is part of a zerocarb/carnivore way of eating
Thanks for the reply. We ended up adding the meat broth recommended by PaleoMedicina and things are improving. It seems at this point that low fat levels may be part of the issue, so increasing fat intake is the plan for the next couple of months.
Higher fat intake will increase ketone production. Broth is generally good, so it sounds like you got reasonable advice
Yes indeed. We’ve increased fat, the meat broth is going extremely well, and symptoms are changing. My partner’s enetgy levels are increasing and their overall feeling of wellbeing is indicating a positive response, so we are sticking with the beef bone broth, beef mince burgers with butter, chicken wings with butter, and some supplemental B complex alongside cod liver oil. I think we have a good starting point, hopefully the next few weeks will show further improvement.