diet | Primal Health Initiative

Fasting mistakes can sabotage your efforts to dramatically improve your heath with the most powerful method of detoxification and rejuvenation known to man.

As you are aware, fasting is the #1 way to restore metabolic health through improving insulin sensitivity. Without insulin sensitivity, your entire health profile is affected, and you can experience a host of disorders such as skin problems, hormone problems, stubborn weight gain, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, auto-immune problems, neurodegenerative conditions, cardiovascular disease and more. Basically these conditions are all related to insulin sensitivity and subsequent inflammation – the root of most of our chronic diseases.¹

Most people by now have heard of fasting and have probably tried some version of it with the most common type being “Intermittent Fasting.” This is where you simply create an eating window of 12 hours or less and a fasting time of 12 hours or more. Once started, a few key fasting mistakes occur that hinder results. We’ll cover these top 3 fasting mistakes below.

Let’s cover the basic tenets of fasting that make it a superior health restoration method vs literally anything else:

No muscle loss – during conventional low calorie dieting, eating smaller meals multiple times a day (eat less + exercise more,) or undergoing weight loss injections; you lose weight, but you also lose muscle. This is the very tissue that burns fat! It is a majority of your metabolism as well as what determines a lot of your longevity! Fasting preserves muscle through hormone optimization, namely Human Growth Hormone and testosterone. In fact, combining intermittent fasting and exercise is the secret to fat loss while gaining lean mass!²
Restoration of insulin sensitivity and overall optimization of hormone function. Your insulin receptors found in muscle now have a chance to rest, to re-set, and to become more sensitive allowing for more efficient handling of blood sugar. The more stable your blood sugar, the better your health.
Rejuvenation and healing – fasting allows for your body to shift from digestion to reparation. Through a process called autophagy, unnecessary cells (cancerous, diseased, poor functioning, etc.) are removed. This is true “detox.” Conventional dieting does not allow your body to repair and regenerate as you’re constantly in a fed state. You’ve heard of stem cells which are those amazing cells that replace old or bad cells and re-start the clock! DNA repair at it’s finest. I cannot stress the importance of autophagy enough as it is our built in way of literally improving most all modern chronic disease – even neurodegnerative disease like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s!³

The most popular version of intermittent fasting is the 16:8 method whereby you simply skip breakfast and create an 8 hour eating window followed by 16 hours of fasting. And it works!…Until it doesn’t.

Fasting Mistakes… #1

Staying with the same fasting method too long.

Let’s say you jump on the fasting band wagon and you’ve been eating 2 or 3 times a day with maybe a few snacks here and there starting with breakfast around 7 and ending around 8 or so – pretty common. Then all of a sudden, you skip breakfast, eat the same foods, but you’re eating them between 11am and 7pm. You start dropping pounds! After about 3 or more weeks, your weight loss stabilizes, and you’re stuck.

Why? Your body has adapted to that particular hormetic stressor. No where and in no time (except now) in human history did we eat and very consistent times every day. In fact, there were many days we simply didn’t eat!

Your body is always going to adapt to any consistent regimen you do.

If you’ve been in any of my groups or my clinic, you’ll know I’m always calling for “change-up” which means alternating your feeding/fasting times. Daily is great, but weekly works, too.

For example, set your fasting times up to go 16 hours Monday, 20 hours Tue, 12 hours Wed, 20 hours Thur and 12 hours Fri. Weekends are great to let it ride with hunger as your guide, but I don’t recommend eating after dark.

Fasting Mistakes… #2

You don’t fast long enough

In order to truly get into actual fat burning, you need a good 36+ hour fast! My favorite way to set up fat burning through out the entire week is to start it with a 36-48 hour fast. Stop eating at 7pm Sunday, don’t eat Monday, and eat a carnivore (high protein) meal to re-feed on Tue at 7pm or a little earlier if it’s getting dark. As long as you don’t eat excessive carbs, you will be back into ketosis (fat burning) by the next morning. You can carry this through out the week by staying OMAD then 2MAD (2 meals a day) on the weekend.

Fasting Mistakes… #3

You eat too much bad stuff

Vegetable oils, refined carbohydrates, and other artificial foods will hammer your health. Just because these man-made foods are legal does not mean they are healthy. Initially, you can lose weight without changing your diet when you shorten your eating window, but that soon comes to a halt.

Eventually, you have to clean up your diet!

I’ve literally seen people gain weight eating 1 MEAL A DAY!

Also known as OMAD, this is the ultimate go-to for most people who want to get a guarantee weight loss and quick. Depending on your age and you metabolic health, you quickly lose weight regardless of what you’re eating. Granted, you are much more miserable during your fasting time if you consume carbs.

Remember, there are ONLY 2 essentials to an optimal human diet: 1: Animal-based protein and 2: Animal-based fat. (Ruminant animals are preferred.) We love our carbs and most are addicted. Fruit is the “safe carb,” and I only recommend organic due to the incredible amount of pesticide that fruit absorbs. If you don’t do organic, you can soak your fruit in Apple Cider Vinegar for 15 min then rinse. That can pull out most pesticide. Hope this helps!

Need Support or Want Help?

Be sure to request membership to our closed fasting support group called “Fasting Focused Lifestyle.”

CLICK HERE for FREE support

Welcome to my carnivore zero carb 90 Day Experiment! I’m doing this to share my experience in order to learn as well as help you make a good decision for you. I’m interested in this approach due to it’s potential overall health benefits with fat loss being a nice “side effect.”

Week 1

So What is the Zero Carb or Carnivore Diet?

(courtesy of Dr. Shawn Baker @shawnbaker1967)

In short, it’s eliminating non-essential foods and only eating the known essential food since human history began – meat. Most of your questions will be answered as you scroll down. First, most people do this diet to fix a problem (not just weight loss). Problems that are chronic and not healing: arthritis, skin problems, neurological problems, chronic pain syndromes, auto-immune disorders, hormone and metabolic problems, as well as type 2 diabetes are being successfully resolved everyday! This is not hype. Is it for you? Test it to find out. Here is how I’m doing it:

90 Days:
1st 4 weeks: meats, eggs, real butter, coffee, occasional unsweet tea, sparkling water, water, occasional hard cheese
2nd 4 weeks: eliminate eggs and cheese
3rd 4 weeks: eliminate all except meats (grass-fed) and water only

The preferred meats are the fatty ones. Fat heals – more important, saturated fat heals. Hamburger, ribeyes, other steaks, chicken, bacon, pork, chicken, turkey, bison, venison, lamb and some fish (wild caught). Bone broth is also allowed.

Before I go further, if you would be interested in being a part of an Exclusive Keto, Carnivore, and Fasting Club where you would have access to novice level to advanced keto and fasting training, including LIVE, Q&A and training and support; Enter your name, email, an hit “Yes! Please Reserve My Spot.” We are in development right now! We will only be taking a select number for FREE. I love helping people succeed, and you will have access to me and other top keto, carnivore, and fasting pros.

[et_bloom_inline optin_id=optin_1]

What to do After 90 Days on the Carnivore Zero Carb Diet:

Start reintroducing foods you want to put back in your diet to test your reaction or sensitivity to it. For example, eggs first. Then coffee. If you want to reintroduce a vegetable, go for it. Also check how you feel if you use supermarket meet vs grass-fed. Some veteran carnivores get just as good results with supermarket meat and some prefer grass-fed.

I’ll be doing weekly videos on my carnivore zero carb experience and results. This is a 90 day experiment. For Day to Day reports follow me on snapchat username wadebaskin.

The word “carnivore” is interchangeable with “zero carb” for most people, but it’s not the same. You can do zero carb with certain vegetables, diet drinks, and other foods and non-foods. Basically, when you go carnivore zero carb with your way of eating (woe), you are basically eating meat. Carnivore means your nutrition will come from animal-based sources. When doing so, many people experience variable results like this…

This feature may not be working: If not, CLICK HERE to sign up! It will open in a new tab

MY INITIAL RESULTS (WATCH VIDEO):

Why Zero Carb AKA Carnivore?

The greatest common denominator in most chronic human disorders is the consumption of carbohydrates.

I’ve decided to simply eliminate what we already know as the problem in today’s modern ailments that plague so much of the population. It goes beyond obesity. I see the ravages of carbohydrate consumption daily in my practice where my patients present with auto-immune diseases, premature aging, skin disorders, metabolic disorders, digestive problems, inflammatory issues; and they’re all on so many medications to “manage” these problems. It’s as if pharmaceuticals are now the primary source of nutrition. This is simply not a sustainable healthy practice.

I looked to where people with these problems were not only getting results, but they were experiencing full remissions – they were cured! I found them. #ketotransformations. First I found ketogenic dieters using combinations of low carb/high fat dieting and intermittent fasting (IF) and getting rid of type 2 diabetes, PCOS, hypothyroid, certain cancers, rheumatoid arthritis, MS, and the list goes on. I engaged with these people to find that they had to find their answers on their own. Their medical providers were not “in the know” about dietary approaches that could help them. In fact, most were against ketogenic or LCHF dieting.

For those who were keto dieters and still had some remaining health issues or weight plateaus, I found they were having success when they shifted to a full zero carb approach and were basically eating meat only. How could this be?! Well, it was true. I found this huge subculture of some of the healthiest people including serious athletes, medical providers, and other very smart people (smarter than me!) thriving with the carnivore zero carb diet approach.

Great interview with noted professor who used carnivore to eliminate his depression and his daughter used to go into full remission on a serious autoimmune disorder. A must watch!

The hardcore keto community is suspect of eating too much meat as this high protein approach might kick them out of ketosis via gluconeogenesis. However, the science here is not supportive of this and results are highly individual. Most carnivores stay in ketosis. Gluconeogenesis happens more on demand vs supply. In other words, just because you eat what you consider “too much protein” does not mean that the extra will convert to glucose and increase your blood sugar thus kick you out of ketosis. It’s just not happening enough to call this a law.

I will be tracking my ketone levels so stay tuned (I ran out of strips!..coming soon!)

And BEFORE Anybody Asks About Cholesterol Concerns…

(This is a massive study often used to prove that saturated fat and cholesterol cause cardiovascular disease when in fact the data show otherwise).

First of all, what you think you know about cholesterol is wrong (I’m 99.9% sure)…Unless you are educated on the actual studies starting in 1936 showing no correlation of high cholesterol with atherosclerosis or heart disease. Learn about cholesterol and fat here first, then ask me any questions you need…Watch the first 30 minutes to consider yourself qualified ;-). You will be “in the know.” This is factual reporting. This is not ideology or conspiracy mess. I have no time for that – only results based on facts we can use. Watching just the first 25 minutes of this will help you! Be sure to save it to watch the entire video:

FACT: There is no correlation or evidence that links high cholesterol to cardiovascular disease.

FACT: There were NO HEART ATTACKS recorded in early 1900’s when eggs, lard, animal fat, and butter (all saturated fats) were consistently consumed. The first heart attack was recorded in 1921 after the change made to use more vegetable oils vs animal fats.

FACT: “High Cholesterol” is not a bad thing. Small density LDL is the bad cholesterol and some clinics do not test for this. They do an LDL measurment (both large and small). Large “fluffy” LDL is actually very good! So the distinction must be made between the types of LDL. It’s called a particle test. In fact your HDL to triglyceride ratio is a good measure for heart health:

Triglyceride (TG) to high-density lipoprotein (HDL) ratio values >2.75 in men and >1.65 in women were found in the Metabolic Syndrome in Active Subjects (MESYAS) study -18,778 active workers enrolled in 3 insurance companies in Spain- to be highly predictive of the metabolic syndrome (MS) diagnosis. TG/HDL ratio was also found to have a high predictive value of a first coronary event regardless of body mass index (BMI). (From European Society of Cardiology)

ENOUGH INFO and RATIONALE for NOW! ON With the EXPERIMENT!…

WEEK 2 Carnivore ZC Experiment Results: (Uh oh…)

Adaptation or something else?…Watch the Video to see what happened..

1. I did NO EXERCISE this last 1.5 weeks. I felt very good as if I wanted to exercise.

2. I cheated a few times: just 3 days – once with heavy whipping cream, once with a keto meringue dessert, and a few “bad drinks.”

Be sure to follow me on snapchat at wadebaskin and instagram at drwade_physio for my day to day reports and pics of my foods and mistakes!

What About Fiber on the Carnivore Diet?

This is not a mistake: the “Zero fibre diet” category below literally had zero (0) symptoms.
Here is the actual study for reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3435786/. Complete elimination of fruit, vegetables, cereals, and rice lead to these results.

In other words. The need for fiber is actually a myth. Early human history tells us this and updated studies without special interests or political influence do as well. In fact, our guts are not designed to handle fiber, and that’s why it gets eliminated fairly quickly. Moreover, there is a recommended limit to fiber intake for obvious reasons. Thousands of carnivore veterans at the time of this writing have only reported GI improvement after the adaptation period (1-3 weeks).

WEEK 4 (End) Carnivore Zero Carb Results:

See my instagram feed above and be sure to follow.

Abs Update! On the way to cook the Ribeyes!

Week 7 Carnivore Zero Carb Results:

I am 50 years old BTW

WEEK 8! Carnivore Zero Carb Results

WEEK 9! Carnivore Zero Carb Results

Not mentioned in the video:

My waist size is smaller and I now where between a 29-30 pant. All my 31’s are way too loose. I was 30-31 while on keto. I’m definitely “leaner” as my daughter states. Here is my latest waist shot.