Yes, you’re reading the title correctly. For seven weeks I only ate animal products. No vegetables, no fruits, no plants! And overall, my post-experiment lab work looks good! I honestly was not sure what to expect, but I’m so glad to have done this experiment! I’m so surprised what I found!

My diet consisted of lots of grass-fed/finished beef, pasture-raised eggs, bacon, fish, and some raw cheese. That’s it.

My meals mostly consisted of about 2.5 lbs. of ground beef per day and some variation of other protein such eggs or bacon. A few times during the experiment I ate fish or had steak. The bulk of my diet was mostly ground beef because of price, but I also found it to more palatable. For whatever reason, I find steak not to be as appealing. Maybe it’s old programming from my vegan days?

How I did this personal n=1 experiment was by taking first taking a baseline, pre-experiment lab test. I selected DirectLabs.com’s 10 Most Important Tests because of the price and the range of labs it covered.

Note: If you’re interested in seeing my full lab work, I’ll include links at the end of this article.

Also, I tested my blood ketones using a blood ketone meter, body pH with Urine pH strips throughout the experiment, and a body composition scan using a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scan device pre and post-experiment.

Additionally, since this is more of an objective report on what was found using various health biomarkers pre and post-experiment, I plan to write another article that’s more anecdotal. So look out for that.

So without further ado, here are my results from eating only animal products for seven weeks.

Hang onto your hats; it’s going to be a wild ride.

My Cholesterol Went Up And My Cardiovascular Disease Risk Went Down

My before and after lipid panel was fascinating. I have read that if you eat a diet where most of your calories come from saturated fats, your total cholesterol and LDL will increase.

What I’ve learned also is that this shouldn’t be a problem because your HDL will increase and triglycerides will also decrease. Having a healthy ratio between HDL and triglycerides is more critical than an LDL or total cholesterol number. And as you can see from my labwork, this is what exactly happened.

As shown above, my HDL had initially been 35 mg/dL which is considered low.

After going strict carnivore, I was able to increase my HDL to 54 mg/dL. Not too bad! And my triglycerides from 122 mg/dL to 114 mg/dL. Not as impressive as my HDL numbers, but still noteworthy.

From my training as a functional nutritionist, I found that the typical concern with cardiovascular disease risk (CVD) from high lipid levels boils down to two factors: HDL to triglyceride ratio and inflammation.

Looking at my HDL and triglycerides, this gives me a 2.1 ratio of 2 being the ideal. So the numbers that showed post-experiment, are certainly trending in the right direction.

Also, in my lab work, I tested a biomarker called highly-sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP). Initially, my lab work showed that my hs-CRP was 0.4 mg/L. By the lab work reference ranges, they state:

Optimally, keeping your hs-CRP levels below 0.55 mg/L is recommended. Interestingly, my post-carnivore experiment brought my hs-CRP even lower! My final result was a hs-CRP of 0.2 mg/L!

I was blown away by this finding. My LDL increased and yet, I had an even lower CVD risk as far as from an inflammation standpoint.

There is also some research out there that connects elevated levels of homocysteine to CVD risk (1).

Homocysteine is made from the amino acid methionine. Muscle meats are exceptionally high in methionine. During this experiment, I was eating grass-fed beef 95% of the time. That’s lots of muscle meat. Lots of methionine.

Here’s where things get interesting…

My pre-experiment homocysteine was at 10.8 umol/L; this is on the higher side. Not dangerously high, but it could come down.

After being on a strict, all-meat, predominantly muscle meat diet for seven weeks, my homocysteine levels decreased to 6.9 umol/L, putting me right into the optimal lab range of 6.0 – 7.2 umol/L.

Since I was eating lots of muscle meat, my homocysteine decreased, lowering my risk of developing cardiovascular disease by eating meat and high saturated fatty foods. This is expected when you increase your creatine intake as well as your B12 (2) (3)

Take that vegans. 😉

The only other test I could do to dig deep and figure out if this diet is a cardiovascular risk or not is to look at my LDL particle size, but what I see from my current lab testing and with my inflammation markers down makes me happy!

My Testosterone More Than Doubled

This one made me extra happy. I am not a big fan of serum hormone testing because they can fluctuate a lot, but I was shocked to find that my pre-experiment serum total testosterone was 237 ng/dL; this is definitely in the low range.

To my surprise, I found that my post-experiment testosterone shot up to 539 ng/dL. My levels have been higher in the past, so I need to continue to work at increasing my testosterone further, but the fact that my total testosterone increased so significantly is something.

I Ate More Protein and My Uric Acid and Urea Levels Basically Didn’t Change

Uric acid is a by-product that comes from nitrogen-containing foods or purines. Interestingly, animal products and all protein contain nitrogen that must process and convert into urea and uric acid. If uric acid becomes too high, the kidneys can become damaged and you can also develop joint pain.

Therefore, it would make sense that the more animal proteins you eat, the higher the uric acid in the blood.

Interestingly, my pre-experiment uric acid levels were found to be 4.4 mg/dL.

My post-experiment uric acid was found to be 4.2 mg/dL.

Not a huge difference, but I found this to be remarkable because remember… I was eating a lot more protein. Probably double than my previous intake and yet my levels of uric acid decreased!

Side note: Couldn’t resist… But often vegetarians vegans or any fruit lovers are at risk of high uric acid levels if they are eating too much fruit. Fructose, the primary sugar in fruit, can increase serum uric acid levels and even cause gout! And of course, so can consuming too many products with high-fructose corn syrup or even using agave nectar (4).

Also, the biomarker called blood urea nitrogen (BUN) basically stayed the same for me. Similar to uric acid, BUN is a biomarker to assess kidney health. It the kidneys are working correctly, BUN should be low because the kidneys can successfully get rid of the excess nitrogen from the amino acids found in protein foods.

My pre-experiment BUN level was 20 mg/dL.

My post-experiment BUN level was 21 mg/dL.

There wasn’t a significant change here. And from a functional standpoint, it would be better for my levels to be more in the 12 – 17 mg/dL range. So I can do better.

Personally, I am not too concerned about my kidney health because my other kidney biomarkers—creatinine and Glomerular filtration rate (eGFR)—both remained in optimal ranges.

I Ate More Red Meat And My Iron Levels Went Down

This one also confused the heck out of me. Somehow I increased my conception of high-iron red meat and yet my iron levels went down.

My pre-experiment iron levels were at 156 µg/dL. From the lab reference ranges, this is considered “normal.” Functional lab ranges, which are optimal health levels, are more strict and find this number high with their range recommending total serum iron levels between 85 – 130 µg/dL.

My post-experiment levels showed that my iron went down to 114 µg/dL!

This also makes sense why my ferritin levels, the protein that stores iron, also decreased from 190 to 115 ng/mL. Also, I know I have a genetic variant that makes me more susceptible to have higher ferritin, so it’s interesting to see an improvement still reflected in the diet change.

And let me remind you. This is after eating, on average, 3 pounds of red meat per day and cooking using only a cast-iron skillet!

Fasting Glucose Increased And Here’s Why

Here’s another interesting finding. My fasting blood glucose increased!

Initially, I tested my glucose at 81 mg/dL. Optimal ranges should be between 80-90 mg/dL at all times; this is even after eating a meal. Anything higher is typically thought to be putting stress on your pancreas, which can cause insulin resistance and later diabetes and/or other metabolic diseases.

You can check out my other article on blood glucose and how to check your own blood sugar here.

After being a carnivore/zero-carb-eater for almost 2 months, my fasting blood glucose was tested at 92 mg/dL. And I can confirm this from other testing too. I was almost daily taking my blood glucose using a glucometer, and I saw my blood glucose levels raise up and hover around 90 mg/dL.

The theory goes, if you restrict all dietary carbohydrates, your body will make glucose instead of fatty acids and amino acids. Because you aren’t getting a surge of glucose into the blood from food, the body will increase the amount of glucose in the blood so there is more energy readily available.

To add, my hemoglobin A1c, which calculates your average blood sugar level over 2-3 months, was first at 5.2% pre and 5.3% post-experiment; this is still below diabetes risk.

Maintained Light Ketosis

Ketosis is when your body produces what are called ketone bodies as an alternative fuel to using glucose. Ketones form from fatty acids. This is why ketogenic diets are gaining popularity in various health circles because when you’re in ketosis you oxidize fats and thus you will probably have an easier time trying losing weight. Also, being primarily in a ketogenic state is much more anti-inflammatory to the body, which supports overall longevity and health (5).

Ketosis happens by reducing glucose uptake and decreasing carbohydrate consumption. The standard rule to be able to put yourself into ketosis is to consume less than 50 grams of carbohydrates per day. But as always, this is a general rule, and some people will need to eat even fewer carbs to achieve ketosis.

Obviously, a meat-only diet is extremely low in carbohydrates. The only glucose I was getting from my diet was the stored glycogen in the meat I consumed, but the amount was less than a gram per pound.

It may make sense to think that eating zero-carb would put you effortlessly into a ketotic state. But measuring my blood ketones via a ketone meter almost daily, I found my ketone level to fluctuate around 0.2 mmol/L. Not super high levels of ketones present.

To achieve the maximum health benefits from ketosis, you should be between 1.5 – 3 mmol/L.

I wasn’t too surprised to see that I never entered into the ketogenic “sweet spot.” What tends to happen when heavily restrict carbs and eat lots of protein, your body converts the extra protein into glucose, via gluconeogenesis. Oh well.

My Body pH Remained In Normal Range

I also wanted to test my body pH using pH test strips.

A healthy range is 6.0.

If your pH is lower than this, this means your body is more acidic. This can put you at risk of kidney stones, acidosis, dehydration, diabetic ketoacidosis, diarrhea, and/or starvation.

A higher than normal pH could mean low stomach acid, kidney failure, pyloric obstruction, respiratory alkalosis, urinary tract infections, vomiting (6).

Throughout the experiment, my pH was at 5.75.

Since animal products have a more acidic pH, this would make sense, but my pH remained unchanged throughout my experiment. Therefore, I didn’t feel like there was anything to be concerned about.

What About Muscle and Body Fat?

Just to give a little background, my workout regimen remained the same. I did my standard twice per week full-body High-Intensity Workouts. No cardio, except some bike riding for transportation purposes only. All my exercise came from lifting weights.

I measured my body fat and muscle using a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) device. All body composition measuring devices are not entirely accurate, but DEXA scans typically are the best, in my opinion.

Shown above, my body fat did decrease slightly, at about 0.7 lbs.

I also increased my lean tissues to about 1.9 lbs.

I was hoping for something more significant with these results, but I did notice during this experiment I visually leaned out a lot. I would suspect this was due to a great deal of water weight being released as a result of stopping my carbohydrate intake.

This is because each gram of carbohydrate requires 3-4 grams of water to store and metabolize it. Therefore, I didn’t look as puffy as before and my clothes weren’t as tight.

I also believe if you have more weight to lose, you’ll see even more significant weight loss than what I found.

Thoughts/Reflections

This post is long enough so I’ll keep this short and sweet, but I feel that the findings from all these tests I did were overwhelmingly positive. Granted this was only a couple of months testing so who knows what the long-term effects on my own body’s chemistry would be. Nevertheless, it does appear that my biomarkers were trending in the right direction.

I do think I can improve this diet slightly; make it a little less boring and create a more diverse nutrition profile. I plan to outline my ideas on this topic in my next article.

With all that said, I do believe something interesting is going on here and is worth exploring further.

If I did it again, it would be interesting also take a micronutrient test, saliva hormone test, and LDL particle size test. Sadly, all these lab tests are expensive and I’m not made of money. Regardless, I love doing this n=1 stuff and I will undoubtedly do some additional experimentation in the future.

Obviously, this is only an n=1 experiment. If you decide to try eating only animal products, I would advise you to be careful and get frequent lab work. It’s also a good idea to team up with a functional medicine practitioner so you’re not flying blind.

And as promised, here are my lab tests for your viewing pleasure.

Pre-experiment lab testing

Post-experiment lab testing

Enjoy!

Sources:

(1) http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)60637-X/abstract

(2) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19079843/

(3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11553056

(4) http://blog.arthritis.org/gout/fructose-sugar-gout/

(5) https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-09-ketogenic-diets-curb-inflammation.html

(6) https://www.healthline.com/health/urine-ph#results