I Eat Meat

Carnivorism is paying off already! I'm feeling better (despite some lingering head cold symptoms) and my remaining body fat is getting jiggly, which is a sign of fat burning. Another sign - the unmistakable taste of ketosis kicked in not long after breakfast, and hasn't left the village for long at any point over the course of the day. The bonus of the slightly icky taste - apart from the knowledge that fat is being burnt - is that it encourages me to drink more water, helping to flush this virus out of my system.

Despite today's weather hovering in the humid tropics for most of the afternoon (it's nearly midnight and I'm still glistening as I sit and type this, despite the fact that I'm only wearing one of my new, slinky jersey dresses), I didn't mind cooking up a storm for three of my four meals. Yep, four meals. I photographed three of them:

Breakfast - after wasting so much food yesterday morning, I went for a solitary lamb chop today. It seemed like it was enough...


...but by 11am, three hours post-breakfast, I was in major keto-mode and feeling a bit under-fueled. So I reached for my stand-by can of tuna in springwater, which hit the spot! Amazing what 73 kcal can do when it's protein - consider the lack of staying power if it were the same amount of food in candy form!

Arriving home at around 5pm, hunger had set in again, so I whipped up a new favourite - chorizo sausage and egg scramble. I managed to snap a vaguely pleasant photo this time around.


And the pièce de résistance, roast lamb! Organic, Demeter, rolled and lightly seasoned, with an enjoyable amount of fat and an unbeatable flavour! My 300g serving went down a treat - I just wish there had been more... To the butcher!


And to round out this fairly average week, I was sifting through my blog subscriptions, cleaning out those which haven't presented a new post in over a month, when I stumbled upon a post from the now-quiet Thrifty Dieter's Blog, authored by a Twitter friend of mine. In this post, she quoted one of my posts during my first all-meat experiment. It drew me back to my post, way back in July, and it was wonderful to reacquaint myself with my mindset back then - a simpler, streamlined version of how I now think. It has encouraged me to let go of a few complications when it comes to food, and get back to enjoying meat for what it is - the healthy, delicious food out of which humans can get every drop of nutrition.

My multivitamin stash has just run out, and I catch myself stressing that I will be missing out on something. Now I will stop those thoughts and remind myself - 'I eat meat. Natural, grass-fed, sustainable, chemical-free meat. It has everything I need.'

I stress about how to respond to 'dietary requirement' requests when invited to weddings and parties. Now I will quit worrying about appearing like a freak and just write down 'I eat meat' - and when I show up, all I'll appear to be is gorgeous and happy.

I eat meat. I eat meat that is naturally, ethically raised and sustainably farmed, helping to combat the current environmental issues. As Don Matesz discusses in his the second part of his review of The Vegetarian Myth:

Ms. Keith addresses all of the other claims made by political vegetarians against animal husbandry, like that it uses more fuel than monoculture or causes global warming. In fact raising animals on grass is more fuel efficient than raising row crops, and monoculture of row crops has a net effect of releasing carbon into the atmosphere whereas raising ruminants on pasture has the net effect of sequestering carbon.

I often wonder what would have happened if, at the beginning of this journey, I had been persuaded by a vegetarian publication that theirs was the way to go for weight-loss (my primary goal at the beginning of the year). Would I have been totally blinded by vegetarian propaganda or would I still have chased down more general health blogs and been faced with the realities of necessary animal product consumption and the results of a diet high in grains, sugars, and starches? I suspect I would not have found the scientific facts surrounding general health, since my initial motivation was quick fat loss in the first month, and I bet I would not have had that experience going vegetarian. I probably would have gained weight, if I am insulin resistant (all signs point to yes, especially with the PCO in the mix).

So I am still so thankful that I was in that Bento place that day last November, flipping through that Women's Weekly, when I stumbled upon that article telling me to cut carbs in order to lose weight. And then I spent those two months leading up to Jan 1st researching what low-carb actually was, and whether it was safe, and was convinced that it was (despite there being more science-void "DANGERS OF LOW-CARB" sites out there than scientifically-valid endorsements of the lifestyle. Good thing I can tell the difference and don't take things on face value. I owe so much to my unending sense of curiosity!). And then, oh, the wonderfulness that was January, and every month, week, day, MEAL since then!

I eat meat, and I love it, and it loves me!










... but I still make a pretty kick-ass cheesecake.