Food Freedom Friday Edition 328 - Women & The Carnivore Diet
More and more women are supercharging the keto diet by focusing all on animal foods, and are loving what the carnivore diet is doing for them!
A few questions that may arise include whether there are any specific areas of concerns or modifications necessary for women following a meat-based diet. Are there any specific nutrients that women need that men don’t? Can women thrive on a diet that contains only (or mostly) animal products?
Women and men are biologically and physiologically different with different needs, concerns and goals and a few areas require a little further investigation.
The Carnivore Diet & Women’s Hormones
The carnivore diet provides intense easy-to-absorb nutrition and is an anti-inflammatory diet. Both of these combined, along with the help of shedding excess body fat, help reproductive hormones find homeostasis or balance.
Your Cycle on Carnivore
Your reproductive hormones fluctuate through the month and your hunger naturally increases right before your cycle starts.
· Progesterone rises before your period starts, and it increases your appetite.
· Serotonin dips, making you feel more irritable and tired.
Cravings, PMS and Diet
When you’re hungry, especially when it’s linked to where you’re at in your cycle, give yourself permission to eat! You may be intermittent fasting, or eating a certain number of calories a day for the rest of the month without issue, but certain times of the month may feel more challenging.
If you feel unable to keep up with your appetite and cravings, my recommendation is to cook your favorite cut of meat in your favorite way, salt it to taste and enjoy! If you still have cravings, and I understand the resistance here, liver is a super food that crushes cravings! Sauté some chicken liver in butter, sprinkle with salt, and enjoy!
Some women, especially with heavy flow, find that they need to supplement vitamin C when eating a meat-based diet to prevent easy bruising.
The Carnivore Diet & Your Cycle, Sex Drive &Fertility
If you are not using birth control any more due to menopause or infertility, be aware! The carnivore diet is incredibly healing and anti-inflammatory, and can, in turn, regulate hormones. Fertility returning on the carnivore diet even after many years without it, is not unheard of.
If you chart your cycle and fertility signs, whether it be using the fertility awareness method as a form of birth control or simply for your own personal knowledge, you will probably notice that your fertility signs are very strong while you are eating mainly meat! Around ovulation an increased sex drive, increased cervical mucus, and noticeable boost in mood and energy all point to increased fertility.
It is also very likely that your sex drive overall will increase. Healthy humans have healthy sex drives. This is simply part of biology and the survival of the species.
As your hormones adjust, it is also common to have cycles become irregular before they become regular. Losing fat, especially rapidly, can further mess with your cycle.
Candida (yeast) is brought back into balance on the carnivore diet. Candida overgrowth is common amongst those who have been on multiple or strong courses of antibiotics, the birth control pill, or have been exposed to environmental toxins. As candida is brought into balance, it sends out a flood of chemicals as the excess dies. These chemicals can further interfere with fertility and your cycle hormones.
Social Impacts Of Women Eating Meat
Nobody is judging you for eating meat who wasn’t already looking to judge you for something. You eating meat has zero effect on those around you.
The bias that women only eat light meals like salad or a piece of toast is fading. So many men and women are feeling amazing on keto that they there is less and less blame on women for favoring eating larger portions of meat.
Eyes on your own plate
That being said, you definitely want to be careful to not over evangelize the carnivore diet and look for trouble where there is none.
Simply because you are so easily satiated on your meat-based diet, and probably only eating 2-3 times a day, it is rare that people will notice or pay attention to what you’re eating.
The smile-nod-and change the subject approach works best for deflecting food-based conversations. If someone comments that you are not eating any vegetables, a quick ‘nope’ and ‘so, how is your new puppy doing?’ subject change is the easiest way to diffuse the situation. Remember, you are doing this for you, and there is no need to convert others in order to see results yourself.
Fat Loss & The Carnivore Diet
You may be doing the carnivore diet with your significant other, and notice that he is losing weight WAY faster than you are! Unfortunately, this is common with women. You do lose fat every day, but it tends to show up on the scale in bursts and pauses.
This rapid weight loss, and then nothing, and then a big drop again is called (totally scientific) Whooshing!
When you lose fat, your body removes the fat from your fat cells, moving it into your blood, where it then goes to your liver and is burned for energy. However, the body cannot take the fat out of the cells and simply leave them deflated. The fat in the cell is replaced with water to ‘hold’ the cell in case you need to put more fat back in soon. After a few days, or even a few weeks, the body decides that those fat cells are no longer needed, and it releases the water and the cell deflates.
When the cell deflates, you usually have to make a few trips to the bathroom that night, and when you wake up the following morning there is a significant drop on the scale (even 2 lbs is quite significant (that’s the equivalent of 8 sticks of butter!).
If you want to ‘encourage’ a whoosh, getting lots of rest and relaxation seems to help. I suspect that if your body is in a state of stress, fat cells are ‘held open’ with water until the stress is resolved. The body is wired to survive, and making it easy to put fat back into a cell and save it for later is a survival technique.
Weight Loss Stalls
Other than consuming too many calories (this will reveal itself when you calculate your calorie needs and weigh and measure all your food) there are other things that can cause weight loss stalling in women.
Hormone Fluctuations
Your cycle encourages weight stalls, and even gains at certain times of the month. Embrace this, and know that, in essence, you are ‘banking’ weight loss for other times of the month. This will change from person to person, but for most people your month’s lowest weight will be the week before ovulation.
Salt Consumption!
Too much salt triggers can trigger your body to dilute it with extra water. This, again causes bloating. There is no need to, it’s just water weight. If you see the scale jump 2 lbs overnight this is most likely the cause. Remember, 2 lbs is ~ 7000 calories. It’s unlikely that you EVER consume an excess 7000 calories, even if you do go off the rails or binge on pork rinds with spinach dip.
Exercise.
Starting a new exercise program tears your muscles microscopically, causing them to become stronger after repair. Again, your body makes more blood and will send it to these muscles in need of repair and rebuilding. This causes a temporary (10ish days) increase in water weight. This is a good thing! Once those muscles have repaired and increased in size, your metabolism will go up as muscle burns more, even at rest, than nothing or fat.
Food Sensitivities
When you eat something that we are sensitive to, or allergic to, there is an inflammatory response as your body tries to remove the offensive suspect. This can cause you to hold onto water feel bloating or swollen. If you know you are sensitive to certain foods, anticipate this reaction if you eat it!
Carbohydrates
When your body enters a ketogenic state, it takes the stored glycogen out of your muscles. With each glycogen molecule, there are 3 water molecules attached to it. This provides a significant amount of bulk, and/or weight.
Note: Your body will still remove ketone through your urine when eat a high-carb meal. The brain and muscles will need to prioritize the glucose, so if you put sugar/carbs into your system, your brain and muscles will begin running on glucose. This will cause the ketones already in your system to dump out. This is why you can have a ‘cheat meal’ and still show ketones in your urine if you are using the urine strips.
Weight Loss & Your Cycle
When we burn lots of fat at once (as carnivore and keto allow you to do), what is stored IN those fat cells along with the fat is also released. This includes estrogen and toxins. If you feel like you are having a hormonal reaction (missed periods, heavy periods, acne) you can control this by slowing down your weight loss.
That is correct! All you need to do to slow down these symptoms is to lose weight slower. This can be done by increasing your calories, but still sticking to carnivore foods.
Most women learn to cope with the hormonal roller coaster and are happy to get rid of the excess weight. Your mileage may vary, but this is a common ‘carnivore symptom’ that actually isn’t attributed to carnivore at all but rather a testament to the efficiency of weight loss on the carnivore diet.
Period Problems
If your period problems include irregularity or heavy flow and are not suddenly brought on by the carnivore diet or weight loss, it may be a heavy metal issue. Consult a qualified healthcare provider for appropriate diagnosis and treatment.
Meat & Confidence
You might not notice it at first, but as your body heals and becomes stronger, your sense of confidence will also bloom. This comes from thinking more clearly, having higher concentrations of feel-good hormones being produced in a healthy gut, and even increased muscle mass. There is
Women on the carnivore diet become passionate and have their self-confidence rise. If think that you’ve suddenly become outspoken or angry on the carnivore diet, check in with yourself and see if this is actually increased self-confidence and passion!
Passion gives you meaning and direction and is not to be discouraged. You can tell the difference between anger and passion because anger usually comes with a desire to harm, where passion comes with a desire to change for the overall good. Focus on passion and embrace your journey.