Thirteen months on the carnivore diet (OMAD and what I eat now)

Today it’s exactly a year and a month since I decided to treat incurable Crohn’s disease by cutting out fiber, fruit, vegetables, bread, pasta and potatoes.

In other words, for 13 months nothing has passed my lips but meat, butter, lard, cream, eggs, salt and plain water.

Over that year and a bit, I’ve tried all sorts of eating patterns. I started with 6 meals, stuffing myself every 3 hours. Then I cut it down to 3 (breakfast, lunch and dinner). A few months ago I dropped lunch, and for about three weeks now I’ve been eating just one meal a day.

I tried steaks, then switched to boiled eggs, then ground beef, and various combinations with butter, yogurt and cream.

The whole time I had one single goal, and that was to gain weight, because I felt I’d only be healthy once I got back from 77 kg (170 lb) to my original 93 kg (205 lb).

Little by little it dawned on me that this was nonsense, because I felt sick for hours after every meal. So in the end I stopped worrying about my weight and focused on feeling reasonably good for as long as possible.

I got there thanks to OMAD (One Meal A Day). My inflamed digestive system finally has enough time to rest and get ready for the next round of digestion.

I eat every day between 5 and 6 p.m., and for the rest of the day my gut gets time off. I digest the food overnight, wake up in the morning without feeling hungry, and can easily get through the whole day like that.

I keep an eye on my physical activity. Two weeks ago I bought a mountain bike and I’ve already put about 500 km (310 miles) on it, and every morning I do some pull-ups on the bar and a few push-ups at the outdoor workout park.

My carnivore OMAD

By trial and error I’ve worked my way to the following menu, and it makes me feel better than I have at any point in my whole meat-eating career.

Beef broth from marrow bones

This is the foundation of my diet, and every day I kick off my hour-long feast with a bowl of beef broth with one egg cracked into it.

It’s a quick, easily digestible source of fat and minerals. Making it in a pressure cooker takes an hour; I cook the bones together with beef shank or beef neck.

Once it’s done, I pour it into a big container, let it cool down a little, and shove it in the fridge, where it keeps for a week.

Slow-roasted beef brisket

Another really easy thing to make. I salt the meat and throw it in the oven at 140 °C (285 °F). Other than that I don’t bother with it at all—I just leave it alone for 7–9 hours, and when I take it out, it’s melt-in-your-mouth tender.

Tomorrow I’m trying an upgrade: I’ll throw two duck legs into the roasting pan with it.

I have the brisket after the soup, just as a kind of appetizer before the main course.

Scrambled eggs / T-bone steak

For the main meal of the day, I decided to bet on easy-to-digest eggs scrambled in butter, combined with shredded Emmental cheese. Plus, as a bonus, prosciutto crudo. At Makro, a wholesale store, I found an Italian producer who doesn’t add any preservatives to it. Just pork and salt.

Twice a week I treat myself to a proper slab of meat. On Wednesdays and Saturdays I cook a T-bone steak. It’s not that I couldn’t handle one every day, but it gets pretty expensive—and rather than stuffing myself with cheap ground meat that makes me sick, I’d rather have real quality twice a week.

Sour cream as dessert #1

At Makro I found 36% sour cream. It’s so thick a spoon will stand up in it, so I thin it with water to make it easier and quicker to eat and to keep it from sticking to the roof of my mouth. Those 200 grams (7 oz) go down like nothing.

Ice cream as dessert #2

A few days ago I bought an ice cream maker. I take two egg yolks, mix them with 40% heavy whipping cream and add a pinch of salt. I pour it all into the ice cream maker, and 20 minutes later I have luxurious ice cream that I eat in front of the TV.

Done in 45 minutes

I’ve set aside 1 hour for eating, to let my gut rest as long as possible. Most of the time, though, I get through my feast in 45 minutes. It just takes a little logistical planning, and that’s it.

The upside of this OMAD is all the free time you gain, because you don’t have to deal with breakfast in the morning rush or lunch in the middle of the day, and you only think about food in the evening, when things are calm.

Your body gradually gets used to this routine. Within an hour of eating, I hardly know I’ve eaten. It’s not that I’m hungry, but my stomach isn’t stuffed and I don’t feel sick. I’m pleasantly tired as the blood moves to my digestive tract, and in a peaceful lethargy I slowly get ready for sleep.

Doctors have a sense of humor

And to finish, a little joke that hangs in the waiting room of my gastroenterologist. After 13 months on meat, I must surely be riddled with cancer from ear to ear 😀