A lot of things led me here - dealing with the effects of not having a gall bladder, as well as lactose sensitivity, then post-COVID symptoms of not being able to handle cheese at all without paying for it almost immediately (within 5-15 minutes I was in the bathroom). I've always been interested in diets, and have explored various edits, like not eating any cheese, or not eating meat, or tracking everything I ate and trying to be under 1800 calories a day, sometimes below 1200. I didn't try all the diets out there, never thought Atkins or South Beach or eating grapefruits was going to be the right path. I ndidn't think replacing foods with food substitutes was a good idea either.

I'd read The Bitcoin Standard and The Fiat Standard, and heard what fake foods were about. I'd read lots of notes about seed oils. I actually haven't eaten at McDonalds since I was about 14 and learned that McDonalds had partnered with DuPont Chemical to develop edible plastics. I won't even drink a soda purchased from there. Personal ideological boycott

But when I started reading into carnivore options, a lot of it made sense and pulled together things I already knew. I read about half of The Bear's ridiculously huge monster thread on some old forum. It became apparent that although they may have some limited benefits, vegetables weren't necessary. Most of the stuff people eat vegetables for is to counteract the rest of their diet, including other vegetables. Sugars aren't necessary, but they are highly addictive. The idea of the caveman or paleo diet was interesting too, but those (as well as keto) all seemed to waver around things like fruits, nuts, and vegetables - and nobody stays on them for long, because they end up succumbing to sugar cravings that they bring on themselves through fructose.

Then there was taking a dive into history, how people ate over time. You don't have to look at mummified feces of proto-humans to make some basic observations. People ate meat first, and supplemented with seasonal vegetation as a last resort, or possibly as a treat. Fruit didn't stay ripe long enough to be a serious food source, and vegetables would rot once harvested. Meat was the renewable. Sugar was available in the form of honey (and cane in certain areas), but there was some serious risk involved in going after honey. Even a couple hundred years ago, people ate far less sweets, and most things didn't have sugars added. Now everything has sugar, corn syrup, or some kind of artificial sweetener. Grains are also fairly recently destroyed. And we've made all foods available all year around, everywhere, so we're eating the worst things all the time, instead of enjoying something less healthy as an occasional treat. We're filling up on glop instead of healthy protein, and as a result, we look the part.

I am not a "food is just fuel for the engine" type. I do believe in enjoying food, but enjoyment still needs to be secondary to utility. First I need to stay on the right side of the lawn, because otherwise the occasional treat becomes meaningless.

Going back to where this started, I actually wasn't really calling you out on vegetables. I was thinking more about the protein and nutritional density of chicken vs. beef. Chicken (and other birds) should be a fairly low percentage of your meat intake. Lack of fats is also a problem with chicken, and the goals of carnivore is actually more about eating enough fat. People who eat lots of chicken struggle with this, and not getting enough fat means they don't have the energy and don't lose the weight (whichever goal they are after), and they say it doesn't work. Same problem with keto/paleo/caveman. At least you have bacon fat in there. Chicken and turkey are not really good substitutes for red meat. Sure enough, your next meal was also a chicken dish. As I said, keto has a lot to learn; it isn't just keeping that carb number down. It is keeping the fats high, the proteins filling, and the other stuff off your plate, unless you want to continually fight sugar. Plants are still valuable, they are medicinal. I don't eat plants just like I don't eat aspirin, but sometimes they can help. They can also provide spice or flavor, although I think meat tastes fine without a lot of spice or extra flavors. Most of what we add to meat these days are sugar-spiked additions that do more to appease our sugar addiction than anything else.

You asked about bloodwork. YES! check yourself. But don't take the dr's interpretations too seriously. you SHOULD have high cholesterol. You should NOT have any high sugar numbers. I had full bloodwork done about a month in, and I was no longer pre-diabetic. I have been borderline most of my life. Same goes for whatever the indicator is for fatty liver disease - that is improving as well, although it was never more than borderline for me. Whatever the Drs point out, listen, then do some of your own research before taking any drugs. You don't want to be on statins or diuretics. The Dr will probably want you to go on a statin because of the cholesterol, but don't, do your research on this first, and determine if you believe that having high cholesterol is really a health risk if you are handling your insulin levels properly. I don't, and refuse to actually take the statin, regardless of what the good doc wants.

I'm probably getting more blood tests in a month or two, and I'm very curious about those results. You can also check your piss for ketones and such, but I don't see this as being all that helpful. If you're in carnivore ketosis, you'll be burning those ketones, not dumping them.