 How to get that flat belly, beautiful skin, and LOSE WEIGHT for crying out loud! I listened to a podcast this morning about how getting toned and fit is 99% about the food and only 1% about exercise. That’s quite a remarkable claim, but I see where they’re going with this. And it reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend/former client on Saturday. She called me up out of the blue, and she said, “Connie, I wouldn’t have believed it unless I had tried it myself! I NEVER would have BELIEVED it!” She exclaimed. Of course I’m all ears – I was hanging on her words. “You know me,” she said. “I am a very skinny person. I pride myself on being thin. I’m good at keeping myself thin. I am vain, I love being thin. But there’s something that’s always bugged me and I couldn’t figure out. I’ve eaten very healthy for years, I love learning about nutrition, I’ve always eaten lots of vegetables and minimal meat. BUT…I always have this belly. And sometimes after I eat, it’s like I am pregnant. I don’t like that! I never have a flat belly. I was listening to a woman talk about the blood sugar spike with high carbohydrate meals and it’s all about the spike causing inflammation. I have been eating a high sugar fruit smoothie every morning for the last 20 years! And I put a little spinach in there sometimes or another veggie. And then I read your blog about plants and fiber causing bloating and gas, and a big belly, and I got to thinking about this smoothie I have every morning. No protein or fat. All carbs. Lots of sugar, lots of plants. And when you talked about how having a big belly could be related to the plants, that triggered my vanity.” And she laughed and said “It wasn’t about getting healthy or feeling my best. It was literally all about my vanity!” I just love her laugh. And when she says something that’s just so truthful about her own personality and make up, and her mind, and how she thinks about things, it makes me laugh too, because it reminds me of my own vanity. Vanity is something we just don’t talk about. We might think about it in secret, as we look in the mirror, and wish that maybe that little bulge was tightened up over here, or that little muffin top was pulled in a little more over there. We look at our skin, and wish it was more elastic, more smooth, or clearer complexion. We wish our hair was thicker and more luxurious. We wish our nails didn’t break and peel. We want to look younger! She then said, “So Connie, I cut out the smoothie in the morning, and I reduced the plants way down. I still eat some vegetables or salad here and there, but way less than before. And I’m eating more meat than I’ve EVER eaten! And guess what?! MY BELLY IS FLAT!! Connie, I would NOT have believed it unless I had tried it myself! There’s nothing you could have said that would have made me think it was a good thing to cut down the plants and eat more meat. Except MY VANITY!” And she laughed again. And I laughed with her at her good fortune. You’re probably wondering how to actually get to the point of being thinner with a flat belly. My friend is already thin, right? And what about being toned? So, this is what I’ve gleaned from carnivore coaches and what they’re saying about being toned. You start with feasting. Then you move into a little bit of fasting. You skip breakfast. Maybe you don’t eat until 10 or 11 AM. (Actually, you don’t eat until you get hungry.) You begin to rely upon intuitive eating. So you move more toward a 2MAD, which is two meals a day in a 6 hour window. And then try an OMAD (one meal a day). Mix it up so your body feels like you’re feasting inbetween the OMADs. Do an OMAD then two 2MADs, then an OMAD, and back and forth. Then have a day where you eat a LOT of food before doing a 24hr fast. You don’t want to be fasting for a week. You want to work up to a 24 hr and then down the road work up to a 48. All the while feasting before you do a fast of any kind. Feasting just means eating until you’re comfortably stuffed. It is these longer and longer fasting periods that allows your body to begin to digest the parts of you that you don’t like, such as the muffin top. The dimply butt. The saggy skin. The pregnant belly. The cottage cheese thighs. The turkey neck. The puffy face. The excess skin. And the idea is that you you don’t feel deprived when you’re fasting because you just feasted. You’re not starving yourself. You are nourishing yourself. And I’m not talking about nourishing with 2-4% absorbable broccoli, salad, and carrots. Or feasting with pizza, pop, and ice cream. I am talking about nourishing and feasting on 98% absorbable animal products such as bacon, ribeyes, eggs, burgers, chicken thighs, salmon, butter, cream, and cheese. This is how you drop weight. This is how you have a flat belly. Plants make you bloat! I invite you, at whatever stage you are at, to join me for the next 30 days, and we’ll meet as a group on a weekly zoom call to answer your questions and have discussions on how you can slim and tone with 99% food, and 1% exercise. I would like it to be a support group, where we can all come together and talk about our challenges and get our questions answered. It will be $40/mo for a month worth of zoom calls. I’m taking a survey for which days/times work well for the majority of people. We can also make these zoom meetings available for playback if you happen to miss one. You don’t have to be carnivore to do this. Like I said, you can join at whatever stage you are at with your food plan. You could be high carb now and wanting to slowly reduce them. You could be diabetic wanting to get down to keto. Maybe you’re wanting to go ketovore or carnivore. Currently, I am 98% carnivore with coffee a couple times a week. We’re all at different places in our health journey and our relationship with food. I’ve lost about 55 pounds of fat, but I want to lose another 55, and I’m going to start fasting so that I can tone. Wherever you are at is right now is exactly where you’re supposed to be. This is a group for discussing and learning and supporting each other on our own personal health journeys. A judgement-free zone. Send me a text and let me know what day/time is good for you! (734) 255-7191 You can vote and send me additional times that would be better for you, but I was kind of thinking of starting with the following. These are not set in stone. I’ll wait to hear from you all first. If I get enough response for a different day/time, I’ll consider changing one of these: Connie Kelly Nutritional Health Practitioner Naturopathic Health B.S. MedSci, NHE, FBWS
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 Both Keto and Ketovore indicate a high-fat diet. Therefore, a Carnivore diet should be high in fat, too.
So, if you’re transitioning into a Carnivore food plan and you find you’re not going as often, there are a couple of things to keep in mind: 1. You will go less often when eating only animal products because you absorb 98% of the meat. This is a very efficient way to eat. 2. If you FEEL backed up, then it’s time to increase the fat. If you don’t take in enough fat, your bowels will slow down. If you take in just enough fat plus a little more, the overflow will lubricate the bowels, allowing for a smooth, soft, snake-like bowel movement that is easy to pass. Hot fat will get the bowels moving more quickly than cold fat, which means you can eat a LOT of cold fat without having diarrhea. If you’re constipated, eat more hot fat. Hot rendered fat is the fat at the bottom of the pan that comes off the meat you are cooking. If you’re constipated, pour this fat over your meal. Most people reach the point with Carnivore where they desire about 80% of their diet to come from fat. The body will move you in this direction. Quality animal fat is a healthy food for the heart, the brain, hormones, mood, digestion, and basically every cell in the body. The fat in grass-fed beef has as many omega-3s as fish! Pastured egg yolks are like multivitamins, containing selenium for the thyroid, choline for the brain and fat digestion, Vitamin D, B vitamins, and more. (As long as you don’t overcook them!) EAT MORE FAT!! Want support with finding the proper nutrition for you, book a Wellness Consultation with Connie!  I want to talk about blood sugar and insulin resistance, and let's face it: Addiction. None of us want to believe that we are addicted to sugar, processed foods, and carbohydrates. The word addiction means that we have a problem. That is hard to face and hard to admit to. Admitting that we can't control our addiction is BIG. However, it may not be entirely our fault. We have been groomed since our first bite of solid, processed food. Since childhood, we have been set up and lured in with that first Lucky Charms commercial with all the bright colors, music, and fun!
 When we consider low testosterone, typically, we think of infertility, low libido, or ED in men. And when two men are in a fistfight, we might say, "There's too much testosterone in the room!" It can actually be the opposite. It typically indicates a hormone imbalance, which could be too high OR too low. When you watch the old westerns where the cool cowboy calmly walks onto the scene, and you see other cowboys fighting. The calm cowboy has balanced testosterone. Those cowboys fighting could possibly have LOW testosterone. It's a calming hormone. When you have enough, you're calm. Irritability can also happen when testosterone is too high or if you are supplementing too much too quickly.
This is the case for both men and women. Women need testosterone as well. The idea of having hormones in balance, regardless of gender, is kind of like trying to cook French toast for a family of 5 with only one egg. You might have enough bread but not enough of the other ingredients to make the recipe work. (And no, I do not advocate eating bread. 
So yes, I am still digging into why carnivore works for so many people. See my previous blog on whether or not we should be eating our veggies. HERE I was reminded recently how acidic the human stomach is. Human stomach acid pH is around 1.5 (between 1 and 2). And it made me wonder what the stomach pH of other carnivores would be versus the pH of herbivores. What I’ve come across is an article that I’ve linked below.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0134116 
This article suggests that the stomach acts as a filter. If the species’ specific diet of an animal is closely related to itself, the stomach pH would be low like ours. Versus an herbivore with a more neutral pH between 4.5 and 7, eating plants with little resemblance to their own physiology. This has to do with the need to digest and breakdown certain parasitic organisms that we don’t want in our system. You may have heard me say in previous talks or blogs that some of the parasites inside us closely resemble our own DNA, so the immune system might not always recognize them as foreign invaders. There are some carnivores who eat species completely unrelated to themselves and therefore do not need as a low a pH as we do. This is another piece to the puzzle of figuring out whether we are truly carnivores or omnivores. We are certainly not Herbivores.
 Cheesy Shrimp Dip 1 package organic cream cheese (8 oz), softened 1 c raw cheddar cheese (shred) 1 c raw parmesan cheese (shred) 1 c cooked and sliced wild caught key west shrimp Thaw and then sauté the shrimp in butter or tallow in a pan (instead of boiling – too much liquid gets into the shrimp with boiling). Pat dry. Slice into 3/4cm lengths. Set aside. Mix the 2 cups of shredded cheeses with the softened cream cheese and roll in the sliced shrimp. Place in 8x8 glass pan or equivalent. Bake at 350*F for 40-45mins or until lightly browned on top (ovens vary). Optional: I like to spread the leftovers on a grass-fed burger (no bun). Tastes amazing! (In the picture I put some uncured bacon pieces on top, not necessary, tastes amazing without the bacon) Carnivore Chips 1/2 c pork rinds (unflavored) 1 c raw cheese (mozzarella, cheddar, provolone…) Sea Salt or seasoning (optional) Blend pork rinds into a powder. Mix powdered pork rinds and raw cheese together. Sprinkle thin layer in silicone muffin tin. Bake at 400*F for 10min or until crispy. Include on your charcuterie board instead of crackers!  Does eating saturated animal fat make you fat?
Actually, eating sugar and a high carbohydrate diet will turn to fat in the body. A better marker than cholesterol is how high your triglycerides are. The amount of fat your body carries is directly proportional to the amount of sugars/carbs you take in, stress, and the amount of toxins your body is exposed to. What are you putting on your skin? And what are you cleaning your house with? A high carbohydrate diet will also lead to insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, and eventually diabetes. Fat does not create fat in the body. Sugar does, and those foods that break down quickly into sugar. But won’t the saturated animal fat increase LDL cholesterol, and shouldn’t everyone go on a statin if their total cholesterol is over 230?  The answer might surprise you.
This past summer has been an interesting study into the Carnivore Diet versus keto and low carb. If you’ve been with me for awhile, you’ll know that I used to recommend a lower carb food plan to reduce inflammation and heal the body that consisted of 50-75% veg, 25-50% animal protein, and quality fats such as butter, avocado, olive oil, ghee, or tallow. I am realizing now that I was wrong. And I’m willing to admit that I was wrong, if it means embracing something closer to the truth  “What do I eat if I have to cut out sugar, bread, and grains?” I get this question a LOT. You are not alone. Transitioning from a sugar/carbohydrate-based diet into a less inflammatory, higher-nutrient food plan takes time. It just takes a little planning, but hopefully, this will give you some ideas. The possibilities are endless, especially when you factor in changing up the spices. Spices and a little fat are key to a satisfying meal.
If you don’t have any fat in the meal, you will be hungry in about 2 hours. Also, consider having some protein for breakfast, which will help you think better at work all morning long. I have had clients add protein for breakfast, and suddenly they start losing weight. Be careful with too much fasting at the beginning of a healing program. Protein breaks down into amino acids. You are going to need those amino acids to repair organs. I am keeping a food log right now as I finally found someone I can be accountable to. I’m turning in my plan to her every morning and attempting to stick to it. So I am turning mine in, too, just like all of you. Here is last week’s food log. If you would like any of these recipes, let me know.  When you get tired of the same old salad…try this spin!
Below is the recipe for the salad in the picture, that I made for dinner tonight, with hardly any cleanup involved. First I headed to the grocery store to pick up some salad fixins,’ and what I couldn’t find there, I gleaned from the local health food store. I use what I can find. Every salad I make is a little bit different than the last based on what is available at the store, and what I’m in the mood for. I can’t wait for the farmer’s market to open for the summer. The fresher the ingredients, the better the taste, and the healthier for my body (and the farmer’s market veggies are way cheaper than the grocery store!). I can usually find 1-3 “organic” farms at the market. They may not be certified, but they don’t spray, and they utilize sustainable organic practices which puts back into the soil the nutrients the plants have taken. Non-GMO and organically-grown produce contains up to 100-fold more vitamins and minerals than conventionally grown produce! The fennel will be more flavorful from the farmer’s market (tastes like licorice – yum!) |
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