The carnivore diet is one that’s risen to popularity in the fad diet sphere in the last couple of years. The aim of the diet is to eat only animal products, mostly meat and nothing else to the exclusion of all plant foods and carbohydrates. Pretty much the opposite of a vegan diet! I’ll discuss the potential pros and the many cons of a carnivore diet soon but it should be mentioned that for the most part, advocates of the diet are not eating a full spectrum of animal products. From what I’ve seen it’s mostly meat, beef in particular. This fact poses some issues in itself that we’ll get to.

The first point to remember is that there is no scientific evidence to support the carnivore diet as being good as is the case with most fad diets. All of the evidence is based on anecdote and while there does seem to be a lot of anecdotes to go around of people going carnivore and feeling great and resolving some health issues as a result you cannot then push a diet like that because “well it worked for me”. And I do have to empathise with people who have likely tried a lot of different treatments to help with chronic health conditions, like the daughter of the illustrious Jordan Peterson, with no relief until they come to carnivore and find it works for them. If you’ve tried everything and it’s the only thing that worked it doesn’t give you much option does it? However it’s still an issue to try and mass recommend a lifestyle approach that has no scientific backing whatsoever.

PRO’s

1) Meat and animal products are very nutritious

Unprocessed meat is one of the most nutritious foods you can eat in that it contains large amounts of important nutrients like zinc, iron, vitamin B12 and folate. It’s also a fantastic source of protein which in general diets tend to be too low in. The most nutrient dense foods we can get our hands on turn out to be organ meats, particularly animal livers. Eating more of these foods is one of the best ways to give your diet a nutrient boost. Within this I would include fish, seafood, poultry, eggs and dairy. Many of which seem to be excluded from a carnivore diet. And where red meat is concerned – unprocessed red meat seems to have very little if any negative impact on health whereas processed red meat like sausages and bacon do depending on how much of them you’re eating.

2)You likely won’t be very hungry once you adapt

If you’ve been eating a fairly normal diet high in carbohydrates then switching to a protein and fat only diet is likely to make you feel a bit rough. This can be offset by consuming electrolytes like potassium salt/ Lo-salt but for most people it’ll take some adapting to. Once you do adapt though and are likely to be in a state of ketosis i.e. using fat breakdown products as fuel, you likely will have a good handle on your appetite since ketones are very appetite suppressing. As such, many proponents of the carnivore diet also practice intermittent fasting and may eat only 1-2 times per day.

3)You’ll lose weight

If calories are controlled and you want to lose some body fat you’ll probably have a relatively easy time losing it on a carnivore diet because of the appetite suppression from the ketones and all the protein. When you’re restricted to such a small list of food options it’s less likely you’ll overeat and it could be relatively hard to get a lot of calories in on a meat only diet where you don’t get hungry.

CON’s

1)Plants overwhelmingly stand out in the scientific research as being healthy

Unlike meat, trying to find research or studies to suggest that plants are harmful to health is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Overwhelmingly plant foods are shown to be beneficial in terms of reducing the risk of chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, cancers and type 2 diabetes and reducing all-cause mortality i.e. any known cause of death.

2)Fibre/gut health

Many of the reasons plant foods and carbohydrates offer health benefits is down to the fibre content. This helps digestive health as well as feeding the gut microbiome. And although we don’t know all the ins and outs of microbiology and health the fact that we’re 90% made up of bacterial cells makes me think we best pay heed to this. Also, fibres from plants and plant foods in general seem to promote more healthy varieties of bacteria than a meat-based diet. Carnivores will argue among many things that their..ahem..’reduced digestive output’.. is just down to the better utilisation of the food they’re eating. When we consider though that a lot of faecal weight is made up of dead bacteria it just says to me that they have greatly reduced diversity of bacterial species in their gut. And while we don’t know the whole story for the gut and microbiome it does seem clearly enough that greater diversity is a positive sign.

3)Exclusion of foods

You’re stuck with just eating meat and maybe other animal products. Having so few options could make this a tough diet to stick to in the long-term. It makes eating out more difficult. Although to be fair if you’ve found what seems to be the holy grail for your health you’re probably going to stick with it. It’s just not for the faint hearted.

4)High saturated fat intake

Yes, saturated fat is no longer vilified like it once was, and with good reason. However it is still not necessarily a ‘health’ food as some people would have you believe by putting butter and coconut oil in their coffee…Not all saturated fats are created equal and some people can respond quite badly to them leading to elevated cholesterol levels. It’s not everyone but it’s worth thinking about. A balance of fats in the diet is what’s important and monounsaturated fats (many of these are found in meats) and polyunsaturated fats (omega 3’s in here), particularly plant sources outperform saturated fats when looking at health.

5)Plants help counter a lot of the negatives associated with red meat/cooking

Meats when they’re charred or burnt – think BBQ’d, can create some compounds called heterocyclic amines that are carcinogenic. Usually I don’t think this is something to really worry about if you are consuming plenty of plant foods and/or use antioxidants when cooking – many marinades and seasonings like herbs, spices, olive oils, citrus are protective against this but if you’re only eating meat and no plant foods and you cook on high heat like frying or BBQing or burn your meat you might be putting yourself at more risk there.

6)Awful for sports performance except maybe endurance sports

For the majority of sports carbs are your friends. They help you perform during exercise by supplying you with stored energy. We have stored energy as fat too but it can’t be accessed and utilised fast enough to support any sort of intense exercise which is a category most sports fall into except maybe endurance sports. In endurance sports you might get away with running on only fat but if I was your nutritionist I would be using carbs in there as well and get you running well on both carbs and fats. If you were to try a carnivore diet you could expect your training performance to tank.

7)You might not eat diversely enough

If you said to me that you were going to try a carnivore diet that was based around meats, fish, seafood, poultry and eggs and maybe some dairy well then you’re going to get a lot more nutrition from that than from just eating beef for example. By limiting your variety of foods you could easily run into nutrient deficiencies like vitamin C and magnesium. Sure you could supplement but this was one of my main criticisms of a vegan diet – the list of supplements needed to make it really healthy is a long one. By eating all of the animal products available to you as in those mentioned above as well as some organ meats like liver you’d be much better off. You could further improve on this by including nutrient-rich and protective herbs and spices and fats like olive oil.

Final thoughts

You might get the gist by now but overall I think it’s pretty ignorant to think that a diet that actively avoids plant foods (carnivores make many arguments as to why plants aren’t all they’re cracked up to be – I didn’t cover it here because these arguments don’t actually stand up to any scrutiny) is going to be health promoting. Quite the opposite. If you tried eating only meat and it virtually saved your life then I’m not going to argue with you – just don’t go around telling people that vegetables are bad for them, that’s nonsense. Meat and animal products are great. So are plant foods. Eat them both.

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By Brian Ó hÁonghusa, BSc (Hons) Human Nutrition, ANutr, PN1, PN2

I’ve noticed quite a shift lately towards more desire to engage in plant-based eating (PBE). Personally I think this is great! If there’s one thing that is sorely lacking from people’s diets on a population level its intake of healthy plant foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts/seeds and pulses/legumes.
And I like the term ‘plant-based’ eating because it effectively describes a healthy diet I think whereas ‘vegetarian’ or ‘vegan’ have their definitions in what they don’t consume rather than what they do. i.e. you can still have a shitty vegetarian or vegan diet that is going to be as bad for your health as any other diet containing lots of processed or low-nutrient foods.
With PBE though it sounds very much like it encourages more consumption of plants foods rather than just the exclusion of all or certain animal products. Of course people will have their own definitions of what PBE means to them but I’m writing this from the standpoint of a nutritionist and coach who’s primary focus is on eating for health and wellbeing.

Vegetarian vs Vegan vs Plant Based Eating:

In this post I’m going to steer well clear of:

i) the environmental considerations for different types of eating because I simply don’t know enough about it to have an opinion (if only that attitude popped up in more places on the internet)

ii) eating considerations from an ethical or religious standpoint because as a nutritionist focused on health this isn’t really any of my business.

That said I want to briefly define vegetarianism vs veganism vs PBE in this context.

Vegans tend to eat the most exclusively by not including any animal or animal-derived products at all in their diets. This includes things like dairy and honey and even certain supplements like vitamin D3 derived from lanolin (sheep’s wool).
Next up vegetarians have several different categories but again there is some emphasis on excluding animal products. Lacto-ovo vegetarians for example only consume dairy and eggs in terms of animal produce because it does not involve any animal slaughter which is the key point.
Then with PBE as far as I’m concerned this means to eat mostly whole plant foods and not as much animal products yet that isn’t to say they’re to be excluded entirely.

Issues with exclusive diets:

As I have eluded to already there are many benefits to a PBE approach. However as a nutritionist I will always have potential concerns when a large food group, like animal products, carbohydrates, dairy etc. is excluded unless it is for good reason. Simply by reducing your availability of food choices you could limit yourself on the nutrients available to yourself to keep yourself in top health unless you engage in a lot of supplementation to fill in any gaps. I think with a well-constructed vegetarian diet you can achieve maximum health and wellness.
With a PBE diet there’s no question because as I’ve said it may not necessarily exclude animal products – it just encourages more plants so it doesn’t have to be necessarily exclusive. Vegan diets on the other hand require a lot of supplementation and micro-management to ensure all your nutrient needs are met. Therefore as a nutritionist I would not recommend a vegan diet from a health standpoint. Remember I’m leaving aside the environmental, ethical and religious connotations of a vegan diet. Now if you are currently eating a pretty poor, low-nutrient diet would I think a well-managed vegan diet is better? Of course, but that’s a bit of a silly question. If you’re starting from a poor diet then making it better in any way will of course..make it better.

Nutrition considerations for vegans:

It is certainly possible to achieve extremely good health on a vegan diet so long as it is well-managed. These are some key nutrients to think about.

1. Vitamin B12 – vegans and vegetarians are at the highest risk of B12 deficiency as it cannot be reliably obtained from plant foods unless they are fortified (B12 added to them). So consuming fortified foods is definitely a good option to maintain good B12 intake. For example fortified cereals, plant milks and nutritional yeast. I would certainly suggest though that for anyone not consuming animal products that they use a B12 supplement in the form of methyl B12/methylcobalamin. B12 deficiency can manifest as anaemia, low energy and damage to the nervous system (this includes the brain).

2. Vitamin D3 – this goes for anyone who doesn’t live on the equator really and isn’t actually dependent much on diet but rather, sun exposure. So vitamin D3 is always worth mentioning as unless you get regular sunshine you may have low levels which can result in poor bone health, poor immune function, poor recovery and lowered mood. For vegans you will have to source a vegan vitamin D3 as the naturally vegan vitamin D2 is not as effective as D3 for vitamin D levels.

3. Marine omega 3’s – you’ll have likely heard the advice to consume omega 3 fats and oily fish for good health? These are important for brain & mental health, heart health and helping to regulate inflammation. While there are some plant sources of omega 3 like flaxseeds, chia seeds and walnuts they don’t provide the ones we’re looking for that come from marine sources and while we can convert a little bit of the plant ones into the ones we really want in the body, this process is very inefficient so supplementation for anyone not consuming oily fish on a regular basis (2-3x meals per week) is advised. For vegans this will require a high quality algae oil since fish oil and krill oil are excluded.

4. Calcium – contrary to popular belief there are ways to achieve good calcium intake without using dairy products. Leafy green vegetables, soy products, almonds, pulses and fortified plant milks, yogurts and cereals. It still does take some vigilance though to get enough so you would want to be consuming plenty of these foods to get in at least 500mg but ideally 1000mg per day. If you can still consume fish then canned sardines or salmon are actually fantastic sources of calcium when you consume the edible bones – which are pretty much pure calcium. So that’s an awesome hack if available to you to hit your calcium and omega 3 fat requirements. You need adequate calcium for bone and teeth health as well as nerve signalling and muscle function (the heart is a muscle too remember).

5. Zinc – zinc is a key mineral for things like immune function, hormonal health, growth and development and repair. Oats, nuts, seeds, wholegrains, pulses and tofu are all decent plant sources of zinc so make sure to eat plenty of them. There are compounds in plant foods called phytates that could limit zinc absorption by binding to it in digestion so for people not eating much animal products you may need to consume slightly more zinc. If you opt to supplement, zinc gluconate is a good source.

6. Creatine – gone are the days where creatine was just for people playing sports or training in the gym (though it still is fantastic for increasing performance and muscle gain). Theres plenty of research now to show that creatine is also very important for brain and cognitive health. And unless you’re eating fish and meat you probably won’t be getting enough creatine unless you choose to supplement. For the performance benefits either way supplementation is advised.

7. Protein – As standard I would say that the majority of people don’t consume enough protein whether or not they have specific training or performance goals. This is especially true for older people who do not digest protein as well and therefore need more than usual. It can be hard to get enough protein from just plant sources alone but consuming plenty of pulses, soy, nuts, seeds, mycoprotein and wholegrains will get you off to a good start. However it’s rare I find a person eating no animal protein that is having an easy time getting in enough protein especially when in theory they need more since the amino acid quality of plant based protein isn’t as good as in animal proteins. Fortunately there are many tasty and nutritious plant based protein powders on the market now which can offer a convenient way to boost your daily protein content if you avoid animal products.

While this is not an exhaustive list it does cover some of what I think are the key gaps in a diet containing no animal products. Additionally we could also look at nutrients like iodine, iron, choline and saturated fat but those ones I mentioned above are the main ones.

The ‘Best’ diet:

While I’m not too keen to throw around a generalist ‘best’ diet for people that doesn’t factor in things like the sustainability and ability to adhere to it I might go so far as to say that a plant-based diet that does include some animal products might be on to a winner.
How much animal products depends on your own needs and preferences but the fact is that animal products like meats, poultry, fish, seafood and dairy are an extremely abundant source of key nutrients that when added to plant-based diet really round it out and make it the best that it can be in my opinion. The most nutrient dense foods we have available to us are animal products particularly meats and seafood and specifically the organ meats of different animals. And for that reason I think it would be unwise from a health standpoint to exclude these foods.
The reality is you could get away with very little. Say you did want to minimise your intake of animal products but also keep your health a priority and not have to micro-manage and supplement your diet to a large extent. You could then eat the vast majority of your foods from whole-food plant sources like fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, pulses and wholegrains and then tactically complement it with small amounts of organ meats and seafood several times a week or a fortnight. Now unfortunately not many people – even avid meat eaters are willing to eat organ meats so this may devolve to consuming quality fish and meats on a semi-regular basis. For me this is a prescription for an awesome diet and awesome health. This is personally the approach I adopt with myself, maximising health being the main target outcome.
I eat tonnes of plant foods, 15-20 servings per day and I also eat a lot of quality meat, fish, poultry and eggs – more than is maybe ‘needed’ but I also have training and performance goals to take into account here too.

So by all means (I’m begging you here) eat more plant foods.
Most of us don’t get enough and therefore miss out on key nutrients, phytochemicals and fibre which are crucial for health but don’t be lead to believe (by certain shite..cough..documentaries) that a diet devoid of all animal products is going to be the best one for your health and vitality.

If you can, have the best of both worlds.
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By Brian Ó hÁonghusa, BSc (Hons) Human Nutrition, ANutr, PN1, PN2

HOW TO MEASURE YOUR PROGRESS IN 2019 

Here we are now, a few weeks into 2019. Hopefully you’re making some sustainable, positive health and lifestyle changes…if that’s your jam of course. In this blog post I want to discuss how you might go about measuring your progress, be it for weight loss or perhaps muscle gain or maybe improving health.

THE WEIGHING SCALES

A lot of you reading this are no doubt familiar with the weighing scales and many of us unfortunately have quite a negative relationship with it. We can literally let a number on a screen dictate how we feel about ourselves that day – that ain’t right. If you choose to use weight on the scales to help you track your progress (and I’ll discuss how best to do this below) then it should be giving you objective feedback. You’re the same person you were five seconds before you stepped up on the scales as you are five seconds after stepping off it. Remember that. There are several issues with using the scales as a gauge of progress, on its own that is.

1) The scales doesn’t tell the whole story

What if you’ve just started an exercise program for the first time or after a long layoff? You could well be building some muscle at a nice rate as well as losing some body fat. If you gain 0.5kg of muscle mass and lose 0.5kg of body fat you’re going to be the same weight right? Yet your body composition (the ratio of fat vs non-fat tissue in the body) will be much much better. Honestly this isn’t likely to occur for someone who doesn’t fit into that sort of newbie category but these are also the people who are least likely to know this can occur.

2) The scales can be crazy erratic in how much it fluctuates on a daily basis

If you ever get into the habit of weighing yourself every day you’ll see this. The scales weight can literally go up and down and up and down and there are many good reasons for this. If you don’t know about these reasons however you might be pulling your hair out wondering WTF is going on!? Because the scales doesn’t differentiate between ‘types’ of weight obviously, one of the main things to influence it’s fluctuations is water weight and water retention. Some examples are:

Increased carbohydrate intake – the storage form of carbohydrates called ‘glycogen’ takes with it 3-4 grams of water when it gets stored in your muscles and liver. So if your glycogen stores aren’t full all of the time – which is likely if you’re dieting and training but you go and have an unusually high carb day and you fill those stores right up then you can appear a lot heavier on the scales. The amount of difference this can make will depend on the size of the person but it could certainly account for 1-2 kg or so.

Increased sodium intake – eating a lot more sodium/salt than usual in a meal can increase water retention in the body.

Stress & cortisol – elevated stress levels of any sort will increase cortisol production in the body which can also cause increased water retention and a ‘masking’ of fat-loss efforts. What do people do here then if they see they’re not losing weight? They eat less and train more, maybe they start to use more stimulants to compensate for the lack of energy from this, maybe their sleep suffers then too as a result – all of this increases their stress and just makes the issue even worse. That’s why stress management is so important when it comes to making progress.

Menstrual cycle in women – in normally cycling women you can experience increases in water retention due to the hormonal changes throughout the month. You’ll see the worst of this in the fourth week of the cycle where you get PMS going on but it can also occur to a lesser extent in the second week too. The first week of the cycle just after you get your period is when you’ll be lightest and represents your ‘truest’ weight. These changes can easily account for increases of 1-3kg of scale weight.

Imagine this scenario then. You go out for a meal on a Friday night, you eat more carbs than usual and more salt because restaurant foods tend to be higher in salt and carbohydrates to make them tastier. Imagine also you’re a woman and your period is coming up in a few days and the next morning the increased PMS water retention is going to be apparent. That situation is almost a perfect storm for gaining a tonne of water weight. If you don’t know about all these factors you might step on the scales the next day – see you’ve gained 3kg and freak out, thinking you completely fucked your diet somehow from that one meal out – which leads you to take action by dieting and training harder next week but that’s not the case – you did nothing wrong you just experienced some temporary gain in water weight.

3) How to use the scales
Okay so how do we use the scales to minimise the amount of angst around it and to make sure it’s giving us a clear picture of progress? Two options. i) You weigh yourself very frequently under the same conditions e.g first thing in the morning after you go to the bathroom, every day. ii) very infrequently e.g once every 2-4 weeks. Anything in between that is just too unreliable and you risk comparing a ‘light’ day in week 1 to a ‘heavy’ day in week 2 and thinking you’re going wrong somewhere which might not be the case at all. With these options then – weigh yourself each day for the week, get the average weight for that week and then compare that average to the last week you recorded e.g last week or the one week last month you recorded. And ideally you won’t only use the scales as a measurement of progress.

4) How much weight to lose/gain?
This can vary a bit but on average about 0.5-1% of your bodyweight per week to lose is a good shout. If you have a lot of weight to lose you could maybe push that up to 2%. This is better than looking at in terms of just a certain amount of weight each week because losing 1kg per week for someone who is 65kg is going to be a lot more significant than for someone who is 120kg. So for someone 120kg, 0.5-2% of your body weight is 120 x 0.005 to 120 x 0.02 = 0.6kg to 2.4kg per week.

For weight gain in terms of muscle mass (this doesn’t include people who are very underweight) then for male beginners to weight training you could be looking at gaining 1-1.5% of your body weight per month. For intermediate trainees (1+ year of proper training) you could be looking at 0.5-1% per month and for advanced trainees (3+ proper years of training) only about 0.25-0.5%. For females these rates are about half. So before you think that gaining a kg per week because you’re ‘bulking’ is productive – do the math here, bro.

Remember these are just average numbers though – as an individual you might be to the left or right of that average number.

USING BODY MEASUREMENTS

Another good way to measure progress here is to use a tailor’s measure (soft measuring tape) and keep track of your measurements. This can be useful because it will show changes in body composition that the scales won’t. If certain areas are shrinking/growing on a regular basis then you can be fairly sure you’re on the right track. I don’t have exact numbers here to look out for but as with weight loss the more you have to lose the bigger drops you’ll likely see in measurements. I would suggest measuring several body parts i.e. not just waist because it won’t necessarily all come off there each week right? Things like waist, hips, thighs, chest, upper arm, neck are all good. Get the total of all of these and then see how that total changes week to week or month to month. These measurements can be taken on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis but no more frequently than that. And remember that muscle gain is much slower than fat loss so in this case I would suggest monthly measurements at the most.

USING PROGRESS PHOTOS

Photos are awesome because they don’t lie and you’ll really see the standout changes if they’re there! The only thing with photos is that it takes some time for the changes to become apparent so for these every 2,4 or even 6 weeks is enough in terms of frequency. Try keep it to the same conditions of course. Lighting, time of day etc.

USING CLOTHING

This is another great one that won’t lead you astray like some of the others can. If you have a specific piece of clothing you can use to gauge your progress this works really well. Be it a dress, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, whatever – it can be a really motivating one if say you’re not seeing as significant changes in weight or measurements (though you would expect these two to go hand in hand). I really like this one because you can FEEL it.

HOW YOU FEEL

This is probably my favourite one. It’s very subjective sure but it’s arguably the most important – what’s the point in losing weight if it doesn’t help you feel more fantastic or improve your health and quality of life? Things to keep an eye out for here are – improvements in your energy levels, sleep quality, mood, training performance, digestion, bowel movements and so on. These one’s you’ll feel for sure and it feels great! This and to look better naked is what we’re after at the end of the day so set yourself up to track some of these ones too! Give yourself a rating/10 for each point on a weekly basis and see how it’s shifting for the better. There are also ‘hard’ measurements of your health improving too which could be things like your cholesterol levels lowering for example that can be determined by blood tests.

SCANS, CALLIPERS & BOD PODS

Lastly there are a whole host of fancy (and not so fancy) tests you can do to help determine how you’re progressing. Things like DEXA scans, skin fold calliper tests, fancy weighing scales that give you feedback on body composition and other sorts of body scanners.

My take on these is that they’re fine but the ones that are actually quite accessible for most people shouldn’t be taken at face value. For example when it comes to calliper testing performed in many gyms if you’re told that “hey you’re 12% body fat great job” does that absolute number really matter? Like would you rather look and feel fantastic or be an arbitrary body fat percentage that may or may not be accurate? These can be a nice way to compare progress – “oh I’ve lost 1% body fat since last time” rather than taking the absolute numbers to mean much – “oh I’m 12% body fat , cool”.

Also with most of these they’re not well supported to be accurate and/or can be cheated. Even a DEXA scan which is pretty high level and going to be very inaccessible for most people can be ‘cheated’ in terms of measures of lean body mass by manipulating carbohydrate and water intake. So while these can be handy additions to tracking progress don’t let them be the be all and end all.

ARE YOUR HABITS IMPROVING?

All of the above are measures of progress ‘outcomes’ when in fact for a lot of people what’s going to create that change in outcome is going to be changes in behaviours. The things you do on a daily basis that create that desired outcome. Eating right, sleeping well, getting your workouts in, managing your stress. All of that stuff is what really matters here and they can be tracked too. You ate 30 servings of veg last week but you ate 35 servings this week? Awesome – that’s a major improvement right. Last week you slept only 6hrs per night but this week you got a couple of nights of 8hrs? Brilliant! Run with that and see can you build on it. All these little things will accumulate and can help keep you motivated when you can see you’re doing a little bit better each week and if you do that then you can almost assume that you’ll see changes in the other progress markers discussed above!

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

To summarise then. There are many ways you can track or measure your progress this year. My advice is to pick a few of the above (but not necessarily all of them) so that you can have multiple gauges to reflect on each week or month. If all you’ve picked is weight changes well now I hope you can see why that could be problematic or unreliable for informing your future decisions or representing how well what you’re doing is working. Pick a few and use them the ways I’ve described above and you’ll be on the right track!

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By Brian Ó hÁonghusa, BSc (Hons) Human Nutrition, ANutr, PN1, PN2