There are hundreds of different diets out there for you to try, each with its own rules and restrictions. Whatever the case, these diets are designed to help people to lose weight and develop a healthier relationship with food.
One example is the carnivore diet. This meat-focused diet is said to support people in shedding extra pounds. To help you lose weight with this diet, we’ve got all the information you need as well as handy tips.
What Is A Carnivore Diet?
A carnivore diet allows you to eat as much meat as you want. So whether you’re a fan of beef, chicken, pork, or something different, this diet is designed for meat lovers.
However, this comes at a cost. You won’t be able to eat other food groups, primarily carbohydrates. This means that you can’t pair your rack of roast lamb with some delicious mashed potatoes.
When following this diet, you won’t even be permitted to eat fruits or vegetables. Instead, you’re encouraged to consume dairy products, meat fats, and fish.
There are lots of alleged benefits to this diet. Some people have found that the removal of carbohydrates from their diet helps them to lose weight. Plus, you can continue to eat your favorite foods, which many other diets forbid.
On the other hand, there are also some downsides. Many find the carnivore diet to be rather limiting. After all, you can’t eat large food groups, even though carbohydrates often form a large part of a person’s diet.
Fruits and vegetables also provide essential nutrients, which you might not be able to receive from merely eating meat, fish, and dairy products.
If you want to learn more about this diet, we recommend reading this brilliant book from Shawn Baker, which aims to explore some of the main misconceptions.
How Does The Carnivore Diet Help You To Lose Weight?
Part of the reasoning behind the carnivore diet is that our ancestors did not eat carbohydrates or sugary foods. Instead, the majority of their diet came from meat. Thus, people do not need carbs to survive.
When this happens, your body goes through ketosis. Instead of burning carbohydrates for energy, your body will look for alternative sources. This includes fat and ketones. Luckily, this fat can come from meat.
Since ketosis burns fat, you should notice that you are losing weight when following the carnivore diet. Just bear in mind that it can take roughly two weeks to notice results from ketosis.
When people follow the carnivore diet, they witness not only a loss of weight but also increased energy and reduced hunger.
This is likely because meat and dairy products tend to be quite filling, so you won’t require carbohydrates or other food groups to give you energy.
The only downside to this is that everyone’s experience will be different, so the results that you observe may not follow this exact pattern.
Tips For Losing Weight On A Carnivore Diet
Create A Calorie Deficit
Calorie deficits are an important part of any diet. Essentially, this is a method of reducing the number of calories that you consume.
To create a calorie deficit, you simply eat fewer calories than your body burns. As a consequence, you will be burning more calories than you consume.
To establish a calorie deficit, you will need to know your daily calorie expenditure. Once you know this, you will need to keep track of how many calories you eat every day and ensure that this number is below your expenditure.
There are plenty of calorie expenditure calculators available online and through apps. To complete this calculation, you will need to input information such as your gender, age, height, weight, and level of physical activity.
This ensures that the calculation is adjusted for you, as everyone will have a different expenditure. When following this diet, the calories you consume will come from meat and dairy products.
Measure Your Progress
Measuring yourself is a great way of tracking your weight loss progress. Even if you only lose a little bit of weight, seeing how well you are doing can motivate you to get rid of even more weight.
There are lots of ways to measure your progress, including your body weight. However, this is not always the most accurate measurement for weight loss, so you may also want to measure the width of your chest, waist, and thighs.
Remember to be consistent with your measurements. For instance, you may want to check your progress every two weeks.
Exercise
Even if you follow a diet, you will struggle to lose weight unless you also partake in regular exercise. This can be as simple as going for a walk or as difficult as doing an intense workout session at the gym. Meat tends to be high in protein, which is beneficial for building muscle mass.
Therefore, if you want to lose weight whilst also strengthening your muscles, the carnivore diet can be an outstanding option.
Just bear in mind that building muscle requires high-calorie consumption, so it can be tough to achieve both goals simultaneously.
Track Your Calories
If you want to ensure that you are achieving this calorie deficit, you must track your calories. Fortunately, there are lots of calorie-tracking apps available, such as Noom and MyFitnessPal.
The good thing about these apps is that they should have plenty of information about how many calories are in a portion of different types of meats and dairy products. Therefore, the amount of information that you will need to input should be minimal.
Conclusion
The carnivore diet sounds incredibly appealing, especially if you are an ardent meat eater. Unfortunately, if you are unable to get certain nutrients from meat, you could develop severe illnesses, such as scurvy.
As with any diet, you should seriously consider how these self-imposed restrictions can help you to lose weight and become healthier. After all, there is not much point in following a diet if you are not experiencing these rewards!
