ZC Month

I just finished 30 days of ZeroCarb/ZC.  I don't normally write in detail about these experiments but a few people were curious about how it turned out, so bear with my writing.

For those of you that don't know me I have followed a low carb diet since 2009. I lost 100 lbs that year and have maintained it ever since.  I am perfectly content in my low carb lifestyle. Since a lot of people started asking me questions and just jumped right into trying ZC, I figured why not try it for 30 days? I was looking to do an elimination diet anyways to test a few more foods to see how I respond.  I also wanted to understand ZC better and I was curious if a long term low carber like myself could benefit from it in any way.

I had 2 very basic lipid panels done, one before and one after.  I checked weight, blood pressure and body measurements weekly and BG periodically. I was monitoring how I felt physically and mentally. I also have no known medical issues, take no medications and I take a basic multivitamin & magnesium.  I was also feeling good heading into this.

For the first 2 weeks I at mainly steaks, hamburger, full fat dairy, pork, fish and chicken. The last 2 weeks were strictly meat since the weather broke and I was able to grill out.  I mainly had fatty cuts of red meat along with fish, seafood and chicken once or twice a week.  I ate until satisfied and did not have a problem adjusting.   I did kind of crave nuts and some of the baked keto foods I like to make, but nothing overpowering.  I also drank 1-2 cups of coffee as well. I tried a couple times to skip it and I said fuck it I'm having the coffee!  My workouts and mental clarity were the same.

During this month I gained 2lbs but I was a few pounds lighter than average before I started, so we will see what happens with that.  Measurements were pretty much same except for about 1/2" on waist but I will monitor that as well because I don't expect it to stick around. I also had the dreaded 7-day constipation issue which sucked but luckily things got moving again.   

In a nutshell I did not experience any positive or negative benefits across the board as far as performance, mental, weight loss, or body composition go.  I’m sure this may sound crazy because of all the people posting all these great results and super human feelings, but again, I have had my diet pretty cleaned up for nearly a decade now and was already feeling good.  I'm not saying these stories you read about people claiming these great benefits on ZC aren't true.  I believe they are but I also believe they are experiencing similar things I did when I started LC, especially the people coming from a SAD, Vegan, Vegetarian or other shitty diet.  

In my opinion the people having great/better results that were formally LC & keto I think may have still been eating foods that did not agree with them or they were not eating as LC or keto as they thought they were.  In the end, its all about doing what works for you and what you feel good doing.  I personally was not one of the people that benefited from the switch.

My BG pretty much stayed in its normal range except for when I would have an extra steak or other large serving of protein, the readings would also be higher the next day too but were still pretty good.   Normally fasting BG was around 75 and post meal high was low 90s.  The higher protein days would spike to around 105 and next morning be in mid 80s so a 10 to15 point jump when I ate more.   BP stayed same around 110/60s.

My lipids were a little more interesting.   My HDL increased from 50 to 61.   My Trigs were about the same from 81 to 80.   My LDL spiked from 150 to 204. I am happy to see that for a few years now my HDL and Trigs are in a good range now but I did not like the fact I had a 54pt rise in LDL, I know there is a lot to consider with that number and most people say LDL is pointless. Until there are some more concrete facts that its nothing to worry about I’m still going to try and naturally lower that number.

The benefits I notice were that it’s very time saving - go to the store and buy from a short list of meats, dairy, and eggs and you’re done.   Cooking was a breeze, especially once the weather broke, 5-10 min on prep and the grill and dinner was served.  I did not fully get to take advantage of this time saver since I cook for my family, but when just cooking and shopping for myself it was definitely time saving,

I can see this being a big plus for someone who meal preps for the week. For me the transition was pretty easy, but I was already pretty meat heavy anyway and I love meat so no issue there.  I can see someone coming from SAD and other diets struggling with the transition though, especially if going meat only, as it’s about restrictive as it gets.  It’s probably why I read about many newbies caving, when the cravings hit there is nowhere to turn to curb it, you kind of just have to push through.

When I first started LC, this is where the bars would be a huge help, they kept me on track, did the bars keep cravings alive? Did they make it take longer to kick sugar? Did they slow weight loss at times? Maybe, but they got me there, and I achieved my weight loss goals and kicked cravings within a couple years, without caving and binging.  There’s not really a crutch on ZC, unless something like eggs or dairy works for your cravings.

I was satisfied and full while doing ZC.  There were a couple of times that I was hungry after dinner but I would just eat again.  Baker and others say eat when hungry so I did.  This was also good as an elimination diet, as I mentioned before since I really had no bad side effects it was easy to do.   Eating just meat is about eliminating as it gets, so I should really be able to tell if foods I add back in the coming weeks are having any negative effects on me.

My personal opinions on ZC/meat only is I personally prefer LC/Keto.  I understand there are some that have conditions and some that just flat out like ZC and do well on it.   I'm just not one of those people.  I don't have issues with most foods, I don’t do extreme workouts, or have conditions that ZC most likely benefits.   I prefer the variety of foods on LC and the way I feel on it.  ZC, though convenient, was a little too restrictive for me, from my own personal experience and what I've observed helping others,  It's also my personal opinion that many people coming from a SAD/High Carb diet would really struggle jumping head first into ZC, though its simple and straight forward, cutting everything down to meat only would be setup for failure once cravings hit.  I would recommend an Atkins style induction phase and work backwards if really interested in doing ZC and If you’re super motivated and think you won’t break to cravings then go for it.  I could not see myself doing this forever unless I had too for some reason.  Again, this is just my personal opinion.  I always say do what you like because in the end you have to do something you enjoy and can do long term to be successful, so that’s it, my last 30 days and what I thought about it.