THE CARNIVORE CHALLENGE – THE FINAL STRETCH

The final stretch is upon me as I enter the last few days of my carnivore challenge.  I am now 15 stone 10 and I have lost over a stone in one month.  I have a good gap now in my snuggest jeans and I genuinely feel a bit lighter.  So I thought I may have got away with not adding an update this week being only three days left of the diet, but the missus wasn’t letting me get away with it that easy.  She insists that I also write up the full week as I transcend back to “normality” apparently you lot will care about that… so here goes.

Me and Mrs S have already planned my first none carnivore meal on Wednesday

we have chosen… wait for it… GOAT. Normally a winter meal for us but the rule book has been thrown out the window.  The missus wants goat and as she well and truly been neglected over the past four weeks whilst I tear at strips of steak and shovel in handful upon handful of meat I think I owe her that much.

The meat feast continues today with a Jacobs ladder and even though it is pissing down with rain I have the Traeger safely protected with an umbrella and I am as happy as a pig in shit.

The ribs were lovingly given to me by Riverside Garden Centre to try with my soon to be released Meat Dust.  They were so big they could have once belonged to a T Rex.

 

I worked from home today and these are the days I find the hardest…

when I don’t have a set routine. I wake up late, have my breakfast late and put my eating plan out of whack.  I realise I am turning into an old fart.

I am looking forward to my dinner tonight, eating something that I should have eaten more whilst on the challenge, offal, or organ meats as they are known across the pond.  Delicious and nutrient dense, I had chicken livers and bacon courtesy of the wife which was gorgeous. She even made a jus out of the bone broth from yesterday’s beef ribs for gravy.  Such an underrated food.

Final day tomorrow and I can’t say that I am craving anything in particular. Maybe a nice glass of red wine at the weekend. Perhaps some cheese and crackers?

 

The final day of July 2018 and I’m patting myself on the back… despite temptations I have not gone off track once.

I already know the things which seem to work for me which I am going to play with continuing as I relax on the rules this week.  One of these is the butter coffee for breakfast.  I used to wince when Mrs Shack would make these in the past, I mean butter in your coffee just seems WRONG, right?  well I would say that one thing I’ve most certainly learnt on this diet is the standard way of “Normal” eating breakfast, lunch and dinner is absolute bull.  Eat what your body tells you and eat when you want.  If you’re not hungry at dinner, don’t eat it… have a small meaty snack instead.  Fancy have your lunch at 3pm? do it!  whatever works.  Throw the bloody rule book out.

But going back to the butter coffee, this sees to work for me for staving off the hunger until at least mid morning or lunch time and allows me to be light and nimble until I am actually ready for a proper meal.  There is a whole science around butter, or Bulletproof coffee as it is known made famous by the founder of Bullet Proof Coffee, Dave Asprey.  You can read the guide for beginners here.

It’s over! 31 days of meat only!  No I didn’t wake up at midnight and eat a Mars Bar…

in fact today I pretty much stuck to a carnivore/keto lifestyle aside from some veggies in the Goat Cheftalia and a diet Pepsi that tasted like it had 1000 sugars in it. So I didn’t raid a pic n mix stand or scoff a tonne of Greggs sausage rolls. I am enjoying being lighter and plan to keep the weight off.  Even as I say this out loud Mrs Shack is scoffing…. I’ll show her.

Chicken Thursday at the shack and I was desperate to play with a new addition to the family…

a Jumbuck Rotisserie.  It’s first victim, a herb fed chicken from our favourite chicken farm, Herb Fed Poultry. What a bargain at £40 and the chicken it produced was pretty damn special!  I took advantage of Kale and Brussels to accompany the chook like the good old days, one of mine and Mrs Shack’s go to recipes.  I even had some mayo and hot sauce, feeling naughty tonight!

The Gloves are off…

I had a little procedure on my back today and had to fast for about 9 hours today…When Mrs S picked me up she had a monster and a bag of pork scratchings waiting (my kryptonite) and If you don’t understand that reference, go kick rocks bitch.  It is at this point that she announces that this particular brand are Carnivore friendly, having no artificials, just pork skin and salt from Awfully Posh.  I grimaced through my pain, these would have been a delightful addition throughout July, thanks for bringing that to my attention NOW. 
Still all is forgiven, waiting for me at home was her latest creation, BEEF RIB ENCHILADAS, a culmination of smokey, cheesey, carby goodness and even a chocolate ganache for pudding. Damn, it was good.  Like a big hug on a plate.

In case you thought I had turned into a dieting Saint and thus this would turn into a very boring website

You will be pleased to know that today I had a good few beers to celebrate!  I stuck to my butter coffee for breakfast but by lunch I had already had a Monster energy drink and a Ploughmans with some very nice Pickles which were lovingly sent to me by Alan and Christine Dale of Chilling and Grilling.  A lovely accompaniment to my Gala pie and cheese.

However in the grand scheme of things, although I see this as a massive binge going off diet this is so far away from where I’ve come from… if you think back to the Carb Before the Storm where I tucking into pizza in preparation for the diet, this didn’t appeal to me at all.  I had a small serving of salad, pickles and apart from the admittedly amazing crust around the pie… it’s not that bad at all is it?

Plus for dinner, although there were veg and condiments on the table, I wanted to eat carnivore style.  Interesting ay?

In saying that I have spent the day with Mrs Shack making Pecan Pie and Fiery Cornbread for our Recipe Vault and our Texan escapades tomorrow so what I eat then is anyone’s guess.  The Pie smells sooooooo good.

I decided to end the day with a few bevvies, some lovely IPA who have been waiting patiently in the fridge for me to enjoy throughout the month of July… and enjoy them I did.

So I’m sure you’re wondering what this week has been like moving back from a meat only diet into a less restrictive way of eating.

If you are anything like my friends and family around me then two things are going through your head right now, how can I send Jack some beer and I wonder what his poo is like…

So firstly thank you to the beaut who donated my first beer in a month.  It was much appreciated.  And secondly as it seems to be THE GO TO topic, I will tell you about my poo, but only because EVERYONE seems to ask… still regular as clockwork, sorry to disappoint!

So interestingly there are two big claims to the benefits of the Carnivore lifestyle, one is that is it supposed to be beneficial for the digestion process so I was interested to know once I started adding a few naughties in here and there what would happen.  Well, absolutely nothing.  My belly feels as good off the diet as it did on it. This could be down to two things, because I have had no real problems with digestion in the past and because loosely I have maintained most of the principles of the diet even off of it.  My eating style is a bit healthier and I’m paying more attention to what I’m eating.

The second big claim is weight loss.  Well, as you can see I have lost over a stone!  BUT whether that is actually down to the diet itself OR the fact that I have cut out beer, crisps, chocolates and pic and mix which I would have done on any diet is anyone’s guess.  Regardless, I’m pretty proud of my trimmer physique and losing a stone by eating glorious steak, slatherings of butter and bacon double cheese burgers without the bun is a hell of lot more appealing than the standard rabbit food diets out there!  So I still see this as a win all round.

I really hope that you have enjoyed reading about my Carnivore Challenge throughout July as much as I have enjoyed writing about it. There are a number of people I would like to give a massive thanks to for donating meat and being genuinely interested throughout July. So thanks to:

Riverside Garden Centre
The Ginger Pig
Tom Hisxon of Smithfield
Byacow.co.uk

Thank you Guys.