Here's where the problems really start.
A lot of people get dramatic increases
in LDLC, one of the worst kinds of
cholesterol. You can get gout flares,
unwanted urinary changes, which sound
like a really bad time. But the bad time
isn't just physical. It can be
psychological as well. You can feel a
little bit socially isolated. You can
have a lot of difficulty at restaurants.
You can conflict a lot with family
because like it's really weird just
eating only meat all the time.
Hey guys, Dr. Mike here for RP Strength.
Today we're going to talk about the
carnivore diet [music] because a
literature review came out on it
relatively recently and it got me
thinking. This is a diet that gets a lot
of social media attention. But what is
it and where did it come from? And is it
actually good for you or is it actually
kind of really bad for you? And if it is
a diet that you want to do, maybe there
are smarter ways to do it or even better
modify the diet so that it doesn't
kind of screw you up. This is a deep
dive. Let's get into it. So, first of
all, what is the carnivore diet? Well,
the reality is that it's it's kind of a
loose definition. There's not like a
formal definition, but basically it's
you eat entirely animal foods is kind of
the core of the definition. Some folks
use carnivore kind of as an elimination
diet. And that is a thing you do where
you basically get rid of almost all the
foods and then slowly reintroduce foods
back to see which one of the foods you
used to be eating was messing with your
GI tract. But a lot of people use this
diet as a lifestyle diet that they
always stick to 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week, 365 days per year. Now, we have to
take the benefits, at least the claimed
benefits of the carnivore diet very
seriously. So, the question we're going
to ask now is, what benefits do folks
that are fans of the carnivore diet say
they have experienced and say that they
feel? Now, the emphasis here is on say
and feel. Some of these are more real
than others. Some of them are legit.
Some of them are people having
perceptions that aren't exactly reality.
Number one, a lot of people report rapid
initial weight loss. A lot of that is
glycogen because you're not taking in
carbohydrate. Your glycogen stores in
your muscles don't replete. You lose a
bunch of glycogen. lose a bunch of water
with glycogen and all of a sudden you've
lost 5 lbs in a week. And if the diet
lowers calorie intake, which a lot of
times it does cuz there's only so much
bland meat you can eat, that's followed
by fat loss over weeks and weeks. And
that can be pretty impressive.
A lot of people accurately report much
less hunger and fewer cravings, probably
from the higher protein, somewhat from
the ketosis, a lot from repetitive food
choices. is cuz if your meal today is
steak and tomorrow it's steak and
tomorrow it's steak again, you just kind
of can't really crave steak and if you
can't crave what you're eating, a lot of
cravings go away. The big one is it
basically just disappears all the hyper
palatable foods. You can't crave chips
if you're not getting chips on the one
hand. I'll get to the downsides in the
other, but for some people carnivore is
exactly unsustainable because it doesn't
let them address their cravings.
Remember, people are split not entirely
but roughly into two groups. abstainers
and moderators. People who abstain, if
they just stay away from cravy foods,
they stop whining them. For these folks,
carnivore works better. But moderators
actually like if they have a few potato
chips, they're good. And if they don't,
they really want them. They do really
terribly on the carnivore diet in most
cases. Another benefit that folks
report, which is real, is the food
decisions are simpler. You don't got to
do tracking. You don't need your
recipes. You don't need to be debating
about what counts as what's acceptable
and do you round the fiber up or down.
ain't no fiber to talk about. You just
eat a whole bunch of meat, eggs, and
liver and that's it. So, it's actually
pretty straightforward because it's so
constrained there can't really be a lot
of complexity.
Some people report more stable energy
and fewer postmeal crashes. Now, the
postmeal crash is actually you relaxing
and going into a parasympathetic
recovery state after you're being fed.
It's kind of a good thing, but when it
stops happening, especially for people
who like Scott, do you ever like wonder
like sometimes people will go like to
have lunch like at a restaurant and then
go back to the office and their lunch is
like 2,000 calories and you're like, how
do you not fall asleep after this?
>> I'd be napping.
>> Napping. And so if you're eating crazy
high carbs and a shitload of calories,
hyper palatable food, it kind of makes
sense where you're having a crash. The
carnivore diet can absolutely reduce
that for sure, especially if you're
eating a ton of refined carbohydrates.
Some of these folks report better blood
glucose control or reduce diabetes
medication requirements, which makes
perfect sense because you don't have
carbohydrates coming in anymore. Some
people, mostly the survivors who don't
shit their way out of the diet, report
less bloating, gas, reflux, diarrhea, or
abdominal pain. Now, this is usually
when the diet inadvertently removes
FODMAPs. basically things that trigger
and irritate a lot of people's guts like
lactose, gluten, or some other stuff
because you don't get any lactose or any
gluten when you're not eating any
carbohydrates whatsoever.
If you're allowed milk, you do get the
lactose, but a lot of strict carnivores
don't allow milk. [gasps]
Some people report improvements in skin,
joint, autoimmune, or inflammatory
symptoms. That's usually people who are
really having a nasty immune reaction to
something in their diet, and it's
usually not just the fact that they're
eating meat. Some people report better
mood, mental clarity, focus, sleep,
strength, and endurance. Most of these
perceptions are unfortunately not backed
by evidence, though some people have
better times than others. I will say
this, especially the better endurance
thing usually doesn't measure up. Carbs
are the undisputed king of actual
measured performance. When you see
people doing cycle races and and and
triathlons and stuff, almost all of them
eat high carb diets for a reason. It's
not a vibe. It's a thing that actually
works. Some people report having better
triglycerides on these diets, having
better HDL values, better triglyceride
to HDL ratio, lower CRP, or better liver
enzymes even when LDL rises. However,
most of those we now know are as a
result of weight loss, not
isocalorically replacing all of your
food with just meat.
Some people say they get a greater
enjoyment and satiety from animal foods,
plus a feeling for freedom from calorie
counting, which makes a ton of sense
because you don't have to count shit if
you're just eating meat in most cases.
Now, the likely drivers here of all of
these benefits, they're not the
carnivore stuff. You're getting more
protein, fewer ultrarocessed foods, less
alcohol, sometimes zero. You get into
ketosis. You have crazy food monotony.
You get a ton of weight loss in most
cases. And a lot of times you're just
removing individual intolerances. That's
where you get almost all of the benefits
of the carnivore diet. It's not the
carnivore part that's doing it. You
could do this with a bunch of different
kinds of diets. When we do randomized
low carb research, generally early
weight and glycemic advantages often
sink over time. So, yeah, you'll lose a
few pounds doing this, but then when you
peter out and you're just eating
carnivore and you're not losing any more
weight, most of the benefits are no
longer to be found anymore. All right.
Now, those are the upsides. What
downsides do people report from
carnivore? cuz there's a [clears throat]
crapload of them. First, pretty classic
is the keto flu. First few days, first
few weeks, people get headaches,
fatigue, weakness, irritability, brain
fog, poor concentration. That's just
during the transition, though. So, it's
a little bit unfair, right? If you do
carnivore for more than a week, it
starts to feel better for most people.
But this is a real concern, right? Some
folks get dizziness, low blood pressure,
feeling faint from that early water and
sodium loss. Again, most these go away
within a few days. However, some do not.
A lot of people report constipation,
hard stools, hemorrhoid aggravation.
That sounds fun. Scott, remember you and
I had a metal band called hemorrhoid
aggravation.
>> Oh, that's a good one.
>> Good metal band name.
>> Or a lot of people just have like
uncomfortable and irregular bowel
movements. That is because they're not
consuming any fiber, which is
objectively a bad idea. Some people go
the other way where they have diarrhea,
greasy stools, urgency, um, or nausea
when their fat intake rises faster than
digestive system can accommodate because
a lot of these carnivore diets have a
crapload of fat. So, you go to a bunch
of fiber and you replace it with a bunch
of fat. You going to be doing the
Hershey squirts, man. Some people get
muscle cramps, twitching, or
palpitations associated with fluid
electrolyte change. Most these go away
within a few days. Some do not. Some of
the things that do persist are bad
breath, metallic taste, dry mouth,
altered body odor, which I've heard
rumors that Mr. the Liver King smells
very interestingly. Don't take my word
for it. Uh some some people get a keto
rash. Some people get food aversion,
nausea. I mean, boredom finds a lot of
people because uh some of these folks
actually like find eating meat actively
repulsive after a while because they
just continue to eat meat and only meat.
Anytime you eat one food over and over
and over and over and over, most people
are going to have a bad time with it
after some amount of time because that
kind of monotony is insane. Athletes
report reduced sprint ability, interval
ability, CrossFit performance,
bodybuilding volume, and a bunch of
different sport performance. and your
muscles often look flatter because
there's very low glycogen and the
internal waterfalls. So, this is
definitely not a performance diet.
Sometimes people get unintended
excessive weight loss when their
appetite really shrinks. That's
generally good for most people. For some
people, it could be excessive. A lot of
people report low energy availability
because carbohydrates are better at
energy availability. Stalled recovery is
really common, which again makes sense.
Carbs are the number one recovery food
after supplying protein. Uh, and a lot
of people lose a bunch of lean mass when
their appetite becomes too suppressed.
Again, this is mostly a good thing to
have, but when lifting is really hard
and you're losing lean mass, it's not
the best thing in the world. Here's
where the problems really start. A lot
of people get dramatic increases in
LDLC, one of the worst kinds of
cholesterol to have increases in. APOB
elevations also occur. These are nasty
markers of things not going well in your
body. Sometimes people have lower
triglycerides and higher HDL, but these
are counterbalanced by those other
markers. You can get gout flares, rising
uric acid, kidney stones, flank pain, or
unwanted urinary changes, which sound
like a really bad time. But the bad time
isn't just physical. It can be
psychological as well. You can feel a
little bit socially isolated. You can
have a lot of difficulty at restaurants.
You can conflict a lot with family
because like it's really weird just
eating only meat all the time. Now, God
bless you if that's a thing you want to
do, but it's not a sustainable diet in
the sense that you can still have a lot
of food freedom. A lot of diets, like
macrofriendly diets, you can sub in
this, sub in that, and get your fitness
too. But with a carnivore diet, it's so
restrictive, it ends up being that you
kind of have to like make all your own
food or order really weird shit at
restaurants. your flexibility, your food
enjoyment goes down into hell. Sometimes
the food costs are up like really nasty.
Sometimes meat is is expensive,
especially if you're buying like liver
and stuff like that. Sometimes that gets
really expensive and the travel
inconvenience is monumental cuz you have
to like pack all of your meat with you.
Meat does not exactly travel well. And
so the travel stuff is really really
strange. Like what you're eating on a
plane is like a giant question mark at
some point. And to illustrate that these
are real world things, a very awesome
YouTuber actually tried the carnivore
diet for some time, let's uh let's check
out what he said and how his experience
went.
>> There are a lot of things that I hate
about this diet. The social stuff is
annoying. Like I was at a friend's
birthday party and they set aside some
unseasoned meat for me.
>> Why unseasoned?
>> Cuz that's what it's supposed to be.
>> Oh yeah, I guess. Like carnivores don't
season. The lion doesn't season his
food, brother. Salmon cannot sit out for
more than 2 hours and I have a 3-hour
drive, but it's not like I'm going to
eat a bowl of salmon in my car.
[laughter]
Uh, pull over. Eat salmon bowl. Place
bowl in seat next to you. Have bowl
begin to make car smell like salmon
while you're at your location.
>> Okay, I'm not going to lie. This was a
new low for the diet. Yesterday, I had
gotten American cheese for the burger
patties I had. And so, I made a six egg
omelette with American cheese. It was It
was too much. And unfortunately, I
finally gotten the egg ick just 2 days
before being done.
>> Ooh, Scott, that's a real thing. Have
you ever gotten the egg ick?
>> I sure have.
>> I can't. Sometimes I can't finish an
omelette cuz like something about the
eggs, you're just like, "No." Your
body's like, "You're done, bro. You
can't do this anymore."
>> I felt great. I looked great.
Huh?
>> All right, that was a lie. I did look
great, but I did not feel great. Even
when I was stretching earlier, I already
felt sore before the workout even
happened. And I could tell instantly I
just felt way weaker. Everything was
harder to do. But with the strength of
the jeans, I didn't give up. Whoa. Oh,
no. Now I remember. I I did give up. I
was worried about hurting myself. I gave
up. [laughter]
Yeah, you probably don't have to worry
about hurting yourself, but uh when you
have low carbohydrate coming in, you're
usually going to have lower gym
performance, worse pumps, worse growth,
the whole thing. I got a message, and
that was because the results of my blood
work showed that my cholesterol was way
higher than it was in January. And so,
the message from the doctor that looked
at my blood work goes as [music]
follows. Your most recent blood test
shows that your bad cholesterol is super
high. We highly recommend that you start
on a cholesterol medication. Now, I will
say this was scary to receive. I don't
really care what somebody on the
carnivore diet subreddit says about my
cholesterol. This is a doctor who seems
freaked out for me.
>> Yeah, but doctors,
they're lying to you for big pharma or
something like that. By the way, guys,
bad cholesterol is actually bad for you.
It's not a myth. And statins are a net
health good for most people that will
get on them and have surprisingly low
side effects. This is a thing you get
into the forums, they'll tell you is the
opposite. It ain't like that. That was a
trip. Okay. There was a recent review of
literature and it said some interesting
stuff about the carnivore diet. So,
let's take a look about what the effects
are. This was uh a study called
carnivore diet, a scoping review of the
current evidence, potential benefits and
risks. It's published in the journal
nutrients and the author was uh Almira
Lates and her colleagues. I assume it's
a she. So nine total studies were
analyzed between 2021 and 2025. Remember
you would think 2021 like didn't they
have any studies that go back earlier?
Well, remember carnivore is really
really new. Carnivore is really like a
very late teens early 2020s phenomenon.
So makes sense here. Now, the evidence
consisted largely of case reports, tiny
case series, modeled menus, one
exploratory study, and two self-
selected social media surveys. So, the
no random control trials here, no
perspective long-term cohorts or
measuring super crazy stuff like heart
attacks, cancer, etc. But they do give
us something.
Here's the deal.
Carnivore, point number one, was really
inconsistently defined.
Some versions include dairy, eggs,
honey, coffee, alcohol, or even plants.
They did some diet modeling and the
model diet supplied abundant protein,
amazing, tons of B12, zinc, and
selenium. Amazing. But they often lacked
fiber by a huge margin and several other
micronutrients that are typically found
only or mostly in plants. In addition to
this, this is a big deal, heavy liver
intake, which some people actively
promote and are actively kings of, could
also provide excessive vitamin A. And
remember, vitamin A is one of the A, D,
E, and K vitamins that sums up in your
body over time. So, if you have
excessive vitamin A coming in over and
over and over, you could get into
unwanted health effects. Folks who were
adherence of these diets in the studies
frequently reported weight loss, better
satiety. Cool. They reported better
health and improved metabolic markers,
especially on the glycemic glucose
management side. But LDL bad cholesterol
often rose dramatically,
including among previously healthy
participants. A few uncontrolled cases
reported disease remission, while others
showed gout, kidney stones, or
microbiome shifts that probably are a
little bit concerning. Overall,
possible short-term benefits do exist,
particularly mediated by weight loss,
but long-term benefits and safety for
super hardcore science remain currently
unknown.
Now, they remain unknown in the formal
sense, but we can use theory that we
learned from all of the rest of
nutritional science to say like what
could the potential downsides of the
carnivore diet be on pure theoretical
grounds. We've already talked about the
upsides, specifically weight loss. What
are the downsides? Well, the strongest
concern is probably cardiovascular.
Most of these diets are super high in
saturated fat. They can substantially
and do substantially raise LDLC and
APOB. Cumulative exposure to APOB
containing particles causes
atherosclerosis. Literally,
low triglycerides and high HDL do not
cancel out that pathway. And the
European Atherosclloric Society
consensus basically says exactly that.
So this is not pretend.
Secondly, there are nutrient shortfalls
in a pure carnivore diet. Meat is
nutrientdense, but muscle meat alone
poorly covers vitamin C, folate,
calcium, magnesium, potassium, iodine,
vitamin E, manganesees, and sometimes
thamine or vitamin D.
Turns out that plants have a shitload of
nutrients in them. Guys, I know this
sounds crazy, but it's a real thing. And
because you're eating from one food
group, you can get excess of some
nutrients. Specifically, frequent liver
can produce excessive vitamin A and
excessive copper.
That's tough. And sometimes supplements
made from organ meats make the doses of
these vitamins difficult to judge.
Scott, you you can buy like liver pills
and stuff like that. You know that?
Yeah. If you're really carnivore, let's
talk about one of the biggest downsides,
fiber loss. When you take your fiber to
basically zero, you get very little
stool bulk. And fiber is the number one
source for gut bacteria to produce
butyrate and other short chain fatty
acids, which are very healthy for the
gut microbiome.
Guys, two things. A lot of the same
people that talk about how amazing
carnivore is, no offense, also say that
they're really concerned about gut
bacteria, but carnivore is probably one
of the worst diets on paper you could
have for gut bacteria.
And fiber is a basically unmitigated
good. Now, if you eat hundreds of grams
of fiber, you're going to be in having a
bad time. But lots of fiber is amazing
for you, and no fiber at all is really
bad. getting rid of fiber makes almost
no sense and we'll come back to that as
to how to modify the carnivore diet if
you want to have an actually really good
diet. Another thing, some people eat a
lot of processed meat on the carnivore
diet. That's not typical, but it does
happen. That is an increased probability
for colarctal cancer and red meat is
probably technically carcinogenic to
some extent.
Eliminating fiber richch foods makes
that even worse because fiber cleans
that out. Direct carnivore cancer
studies do not exist, but they'll
probably be done at some point and we
might not see great news just on theory.
Also, when you're cooking a lot of meat
and you're doing a lot of curing,
smoking, charing, or very high
temperature cooking that increases
exposure to nitrites, he related cooking
compounds, heterosyclic amines, and
other plausible carcinogens. So it turns
out like eating a bunch of grilled meat
is fine. Eating only grilled meat is
probably not the best use of your
health. Probability of having kidney
stones and gout goes up substantially.
Running into dehydration, low urinary
citrate, high sodium, high purines, uric
acid, and a high animal protein acid
load can create some of those kidney
stone pathways simultaneously
multiplying your risk. Training
performance. fat oxidation goes up, but
fat is not the limiting factor in many
of those reactions. Carbohydrate is. And
so, if you want the best performance and
the best results in the gym, you're
probably going to have to eat
carbohydrates. And of course,
psychological and social effects we've
talked about already. Those are gnarly.
If you're going to say carnivore is a
sustainable diet, what you're sustaining
is not a very fun diet. And if you think
you can pull it off, cool. But most
people are not going to have a good
time. Now, we've taken we talked a lot
of shit about the carnivore diet. What
if you really want to do something
carnivoreish,
but you understand that like, man, good
health and good performance is still
something you want to shoot for. What
are the best ways to go about it and
modifications to make? So, first, if
you're going to do this, emphasize
fresh, minimally processed foods. Don't
start on this bacon shit. Minimize
bacon, minimize sausage, minimize hot
dogs. Scott, can you believe we have to
say that in this day and age? Minimize
jerky and heavily charred meat is not a
good thing. Second, diversify beyond
beef. Don't just eat beef unless you're
really sick and that's the only thing
that makes you feel okay. Try to include
lots of fatty fish, plenty of shellfish,
eggs, poultry, and sensible amounts of
dairy if tolerated because dairy is an
amazing health food and is also
technically carnivore.
improve fat quality as much as you can.
Seafood is good for this. Fish is
amazing. And if you can spare permitting
yourself this, I know this is going to
sound crazy, but olive oil, avocado,
nuts, and seeds are better for your
health in direct comparisons and studies
than butter, tallow cream, and fatty red
meat at every single meal. [gasps]
A real big diet hack to make carnivore
way better is to allow low carb plants,
non-starchy vegetables, berries,
avocados, nuts, seeds, and legumes
because you're going to get a crapload
of micronutrients and an unbelievable
amount of fiber. Guys, this part is
huge.
A diet of mostly meats, plus nuts, plus
oils, plus veggies, is way better for
your health than just meats. It's no
contest. It's still super low carb, but
it's way healthier.
And if you're still going to be pretty
restricted, you can use specific foods
or targeted supplementation to cover the
stuff that carnivore doesn't really give
you a lot of, like calcium, magnesium,
potassium, iodine, folate, the vitamin
C, D, and E, and thamin. Do not assume
that meat covers everything. It does
not. Another thing, treat liver as a
concentrated supplement, not an
unlimited staple. The liver king turned
out to be a scam artist. Liar. Don't
just eat liver until you're blue in the
face and get your blood work done.
Obviously, keep tabs on hydration. A
light uh adjust your electrolytes. Make
sure that you're not doing like cuz
sometimes when you're consuming meats
only, you actually thirst response goes
down. You can get accidentally
dehydrated. If you're an athlete, that's
not ideal. If you are an athlete and if
you're training matters to you, at least
consider putting carbohydrates before
and after demanding training. just some
fruit pre and post training and then the
other times of the day you eat meats,
nuts, oils, and vegetables. That is a
great diet. It's incredibly healthy.
It's incredibly effective for sport and
it's way, way, way better than
completely carb-free carnivore. It's a
lower carb whole food diet that will
give you huge benefits.
I would also do this. If you're going to
experiment with carnivore stuff, try to
establish some stop rules. persistent GI
trouble. If you're getting faint all the
time, if you're getting gout, urinary
pain, Jesus Christ, menstrual
disruption, performance loss, that's
crazy, worsening glucose, or substantial
LDA apo rise, that should trigger
reassessment, not like, oh, I'm just
going to Google until someone tells me
this is okay, cuz there's a lot of weird
copium going on. Guys, the carnivore
diet can be effective for some folks
that are really just eating some foods
that don't jive well with them. That
does not mean it is the ideal diet.
There is a lot of value for some people
in reducing carbohydrate. Some people
just feel better that way. And there's a
ton of value for most of us to massively
reduce processed carbohydrate from junk
food. The diet I would recommend if
you're into that vibe is a diet of lots
of meats, but different kinds, and
especially lots of fatty fish, tons of
dairy, tons of eggs, and oils, nuts,
seeds, veggies, and if you can spare it
pre and post training, fruits. If you do
that diet, I can almost guarantee it'll
be better psychologically,
physically, and adherence-wise than the
carnivore diet. Give that some thought.
Have a stake while you're thinking. See
you guys next time.
[music]