My advice as somone about 4 years in:

1) Drink plenty of water during the transition. Your body will dump all sorts of weird fluids (mostly out your butt) that it no longer needs because you're not getting carbs any longer.

2) Some people say salt helps with the transition. I started with lots of salt on my meat but don't add salt any longer.

3) Play around with how much fat you're getting. You may need a lot of fat, especially if you're relatively lean. 70/30 ground beef is a good cheap option and fatty steaks (eg ribeye, strip, chuck, picanha) are a more premium option, especially grass-fed.

4) Be careful about processed meats. They can have junk in them. Most will have some degree of added sugar. I'm sensitive to celery which is in many processed meats (as an alternative to nitrates). Even without junk, "fully cooked" meats will denature the vitamin C and you need the little bit of vitamin C that's in fresh meat. Fresh meat is known to *cure* scurvy, but a diet of only canned meat (for example) is known to *cause* scurvy.

5) I started off doing all sorts of organ meats and shellfish and a fair bit of poultry, but over time I've gravitated more and more to ruminant steaks (meaning beef, lamb and bison). If you have a craving for liver probably you have some deficiency and a bit of liver will be good for you, but you absolutely should not force yourself to eat it.

6) You may avoid dairy entirely or you may find some dairy works well for you. For me pasteurized dairy is generally no good (stomach upset and/or keeps me pudgy) while raw or raw-fermented dairy seems fine. Butter or especially ghee is basically pure milk-fat so it should be fine regardless of pasteurization.

7) Eggs are another good option. The yolk is where all the nutrients are at. I usually discard the white and eat the yolk raw. I buy either pasture-raised (so the hens have plenty of opportunity to forage) or the cheap factory farm eggs. The in-between (eg cage free) I don't think offer any nutritional benefit over the cheapest eggs and only dubious animal welfare benefits.

Thank you so much for your detailed breakdown! This is very helpful to me. I think I'm going to do it. I've gotten some really great information for folks here, and it's satisfying my questions and really making the case for the diet. With anything new, there's a degree of fear and apprehension, especially when you're talking about your foundational health and nutrition. But I think it makes sense, and my previous keto experience reinforces what I know about the impact on weight loss. I'm starting to make a shopping list, and I'm thinking I'll get started next week. Thank you again for taking the time to provide all this great information!

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