So far so good.  The past 2 days I have woken up refreshed, alert, and ready to tackle the day.  On day 3, my HRV was still telling me to back off and not push hard, so I did more strength training than cardio.

Another concern being expressed from friends is the integrity of my bowel movements.  One even asked me, “What are you hoping to achieve with all this meat?  Constipation?”  I will say the first couple of days, there were no bowel movements but I also wasn’t gassy, I wasn’t bloated, my gut felt great.  Day 3 and today seem to be back to normal patterns.  But again, no gas.

From a food psychology aspect, I’m noticing a couple things.  The first is that because I know I can only eat animal based foods, the other foods I love and would normally crave don’t have any interest.  The first night of the experiment, I came home to my wife’s house favorite burgers.  She had also prepared homemade baked potato chips, sliced avocado, caramelized onions, and a some coconut flour banana bread.  Not fair, right?  But I wasn’t tempted.

Last night, we were at our friend’s house.  They had prepared these amazing Italian sausages from a local market with zero preservatives.   There was also an amazing veggie tray and a giant bowl of ripe melon, crisp grapes, and colorful berries.  Under normal circumstances, I would have devoured the fruit tray.  But because I knew ‘that’s not meat, don’t eat it,’ the temptation wasn’t there.

I do miss the crunch of grapes or sweetness of watermelon but 31 days should be doable.

The other psychological ‘aha’ moment I’m experiencing is that when I’m full, I stop eating.  I’ve never cared about portion size ever.  As long as it was good food, do it big.  If I can eat it all, let’s do it.  To keep eating, I would just change the flavors from salty to sweet and cycle back and forth until I was uncomfortably full.

With meat only, there’s no cycling, so when my belly and palate say enough, it’s enough.  Over the first 3 days, I’m averaging 2225 calories.  My wife thinks I’m going to waste away because what’s on the plate doesn’t look like much when there’s only 1 item but I keep assuring her I’m not getting any smaller.

I’ve consumed beef burgers, pork Italian Sausage, Pepperoni, cheese, chicken breast, and eggs.  Tomorrow I get to throw some lamb into the mix as we partake in some Indian food.