For anyone who's interested, I got my blood work done on the carnivore diet. I did a little write up for someone else already, so I'll go ahead an re-post it here. I'm including my opinions about the subjective experience as well. To be clear, I'll restate that I think humans can be healthy on a variety of diets, assuming processed foods are kept to a minimum. As long as you're not putting things that are literally toxic (sugar, corn syrup, etc) into your body, you'll probably be fine...
Context:
From September-December of last year I was eating a plant based high-fat, high-ish carb (mostly in the form of potatoes and rice), and low-ish protein (0.25-0.5 lbs of meat and eggs per day) diet. I was also continuing to utilize a 16-20 hour fasting period and two meals each day, which I've been doing in some form or another for about 3 years. I had my labs taken after about a month (in retrospect, I should have been tested later, but I'm learning). I basically wanted to see if I could be healthy on a high carb, whole food diet.
From mid-January to now I've been eating 2-3 pounds of beef each day, which is usually accompanied by 3-6 eggs, a couple slices of bacon, and a few ounces of pemmican. I had to switch to 3 meals a day and ditch the fasting, for reasons I will discuss later. My blood lipids were taken after two months of carnivory.
Objective:
- Total Cholesterol-Increased from 201 to 320 (recommended range 97-200). This is due to increase in both HDL and LDL; more on that later
- Triglycerides-Dropped from 96 to 78 (recommended range 30-200). I believe this is the lowest it's ever been, so that goes in the 'win' box. The Trig:HDL ratio is seen as both a good predictor of cardiovascular health as well as a decent proxy for insulin resistance. This can be improved by lowering Trig or raising HDL.
- HDL-Increased from 50 to 67 (recommended range 32-72). This is the highest recorded HDL I've ever had. This is actually the first time my Trig:HDL has ever been close to 1:1, which is pretty neat.
- LDL-Up from 132 to 237 (recommended range 0-129). Ooooh boy. So it's definitely a wee bit high, and thus what accounts for the big jump in Total Chol. This is interesting, because LDL by itself is a very poor predictor of cardiovascular disease, until it gets over 200. To add statistical validity, you have to look at a ratio with HDL and either LDL or Total Chol. When I look at my ratios, my high HDL seems to be keeping me (just barely) in a low-risk area. That being said, LDL over 200 is still not something I'm particularly comfortable with...
- C-Reactive Protein-Unfortunately I don't have one to compare, but the one I got recently was <0.2 (recommended range 0.0-3.0). Basically, it was undetectable, and I would have had to used a more expensive test to figure out exactly where it was. CRP is a marker of systemic inflammation; less CRP=less inflammation. The limitation is that it doesn't tell you why you're inflamed (poor diet, exercise, stress, or a cold will all elevate CRP). The good news, though, is that cardiovascular disease is a two-part process that requires both inflammation and a poor lipid profile. If only one of these is present, nothing happens. This is the main reason I'm not worried that I'm about to stroke out with my LDL of 237.
- A1C-Up from 5.0% to 5.4% (recommended range 4.2%-6.5%). Honestly, this is higher than I thought it would be after two months of basically no carbs. Obviously, the month prior of higher carb living probably threw it off a little, but that doesn't seem to explain all of it. A little research yielded two possibilities 1) The body auto regulates to a higher blood glucose level in physically active individuals (this is definitely not a ketogenic diet; there's lots of gluconeogenisis going on), and 2) decreased inflammation and oxidative stress means that the red blood cells live longer than the presumed 90 days, which gives an artificially elevated A1C. My guess is it's a mix of the previous month of high-carb and the longer RBC life span, because my blood glucose at the time of the draw was 92.
- Blood Urea Nitrogen-Nothing previous to compare to, but at 29 it was noticeably outside of the norm (recommended range 7-22). This actually wasn't surprising, given that my liver is turning a lot of amino acids into glucose, which creates nitrogen as a byproduct. In a normal diet, a BUN of 29 would indicate impaired liver function, but in this context it's not concerning. I might get it done again in a month or two to make sure it's still hovering around 30, and not increasing.
- Creatinine-Also nothing previous to compare, but it was o.94 (recommended range 0.6-1.4). Creatinine is actually highly variable based on muscle mass and diet. My creatine would be high for a little old vegan lady, low for an NFL lineman, but is about what one would expect for a 156 lb male who's eating a lot of meat. This is another one I'll probably check in a month or two, just to make sure it's staying consistent.
Subjective:
I'll pre-empt this by saying that I've ran around 153-154 pounds for about the past 5 years (I'm 5'10"). By the end of my higher-carb, plant-based experiment, I had dropped to 149 (about 4 lbs in 4 months). I assume this was lean mass loss since I don't carry much fat, and I clearly hadn't gotten any leaner. I wasn't very concerned since I hadn't noted a drop in physical performance. I had developed an irritating case of medial epicondylits (golfer's elbow) though, but I was mostly training through it.
By the end of week one, I didn't feel too different, except that my sleep seemed to be better, and my golfer's elbow (which I had been dealing with for 5 months) had really improved. Week two was weird. That was the heaviest period of adaptation, and I somehow felt fatigued but well rested. My sleep was great, and I was having lots of cool, vivid dreams (deeper REM sleep? I dunno), but I was definitely dialed back a gear.
After the second week, my body kicked it up. Energy went up, libido went up, mood improved, golfer's elbow was basically gone, carb cravings were 90%
gone (this has never happened before), sleep was fantastic, and I was crushing my training. I haven't changed my workouts very much since September, but recovery was noticeably better. My schedule won't allow longer training sessions, so I gauge things by how many days I can train consecutively before I have to take a rest day. I went from 3-4 training days in a row to 6-7. Even when I do take a day off now, it's a different feeling. I used to take a day off when I felt beat up and old, now I take one when get out of bed and I'm a little tired (often life gives me rest days before I need them anyways).
The reason I had to stop my intermittent fasting protocol was due to appetite. I started gaining back lean mass pretty early on, and my appetite was cranked up to the point where I knew it would be unwise to continue with any kind of restriction. Now, 7-8 pounds of lean mass later, I think I'm leveling out in the 156-157 range.
Future Considerations:
It's hard to explain just how much better I feel eating this way. The few times I've "treated myself" I've regretted it the next day, as I've been promptly reminded what systemic inflammation feels like. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for vitamin deficiencies but nothing's showed up yet (and I don't believe it will, now that I've actually researched it). I do sometimes feel like eating a piece of fruit (which now tastes amazing), and I would like to get my LDL below 200. I'm going to start reintroducing some intermittent fasting again (which, in the long term, might help with the LDL), and maybe eating a little fruit after dinner.
Opinion:
This is odd. Carnivory has been simultaneously the most restrictive,
and most satisfying way of eating I've ever tried. I do get the occasional desire for junk food (although, much less so now than ever before), but I just can't ever remember feeling this good, and really don't wan't to mess it up. I have a lot to learn. Why would every single subjective and objective marker of health move in one direction, and my LDL move in another? How well do I understand the clinical significance of these markers? Obviously not well enough.
I'm still not proselytizing carnivory, since there are many reasons for people to eat the way they do. There are many good ways to lose weight, stabilize your mood, and improve mental focus. That being said, based on my experience and that of many others, I would definitely recommend it to
anyone struggling with any kind of inflammatory or autoimmune issue. The reduction of systemic inflammation in just the first two weeks was pretty amazing, and I do think it would be beneficial to the right people.
