If you’d asked me a few months ago whether I’d ever willingly give up fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices, and my beloved morning cup of tea, I’d have laughed in your face.

And yet here we are.

I tried the Carnivore Diet for seven days. Meat, poultry, fish, eggs, butter, cheese, salt. That’s it.

No fruit.

No vegetables.

No herbs.

No spices.

No lemon.

No pepper.

And, perhaps the biggest sacrifice of all…

No bloody tea!!!

As an IBS Nutritional Therapist, I hear about diet trends constantly – keto, paleo, juice cleanses, intermittent fasting, vegan, low FODMAP, dairy free, gluten free, sugar free, FUN free (OK, I totally made that last one up). However, the list goes on…

But Carnivore kept coming up, with people telling me it had transformed their digestion, energy, and sleep.

So rather than sitting behind my laptop rolling my eyes at strangers on the internet, I thought I’d do something slightly more useful.

I’d try it.

Just seven days.

Then I’d tell you exactly what happened.

What is the Carnivore Diet?

In its simplest form, it removes all plant foods and focuses on meat, poultry, fish, and eggs. Some versions include dairy, and salt is generally allowed. That means goodbye to fruit, vegetables, grains, potatoes, nuts, seeds, legumes, herbs, and spices.

There are also more extreme versions, such as the Lion Diet, which takes things even further and focuses primarily on ruminant (animals with multiple stomach chambers such as cows, goats, sheep & deer) meat, salt, and water. And as a cat person and a meat eater – this kinda appealed to me on a base level…

Apparently, we’re all supposed to channel our ‘inner lion’. Personally, I have never seen a lion sprinkling Himalayan pink salt on a steak, but there we are.

Joking aside, there are plenty of people who genuinely report feeling better eating this way. I’m not here to tell anyone their experience didn’t happen.

But there is a question I think we need to ask:

Is it the meat that’s making them feel better… or everything they’ve stopped eating?

Because those are two very different things.

Why I Decided to Try the Carnivore Diet

Curiosity, mainly.

I couldn’t fairly comment on Carnivore without experiencing it myself, and I wanted to do it properly.

I wasn’t coming from a diet of takeaways and biscuits, as I’d already spent months eating well: plenty of water, daily walking, some yoga and weights, minimal processed food, and I was already steadily losing my winter weight (Hey, it’s a real-life seasonal cycle)!

So I wasn’t expecting Carnivore to swoop in and save me.

I wanted to know what happens when you go from an already-healthy whole-food diet to an animal-only one, which is a much more interesting comparison than going from a diet of ultra-processed food straight into Carnivore and then announcing that Carnivore cured everything.

My 7-Day Carnivore Diet Experiment

Day 1: This isn’t so bad…

I missed my morning tea immediately. That ritual of water, tea, and planning the day, suddenly gone.

Otherwise I felt fine. Eggs for breakfast, steak for lunch, fish for dinner. Simple. Repeat. Normal bowel movement, too.

I thought, maybe everyone’s been making a fuss about nothing. Famous last words…

Day 2: Where’s my pepper?

I wasn’t particularly hungry, which I genuinely liked.

Protein is filling, and I wasn’t wandering around the kitchen looking for snacks all day, which was a real bonus – as when working at home the kitchen is never far away if I need to escape from a particularly unexciting spreadsheet!

Also, as a really random bonus ball, my teeth felt cleaner. Like proper clean, which I wasn’t expecting. No change of toothpaste or routine – just cleaner.

But I was beginning to miss flavor.

Specifically, pepper. I started thinking about pepper far more than any grown woman should. I was also wondering how I was supposed to eat fish without lemon. Apparently, the answer was: Sadly and with regret…

Day 3: Houston, we have a poo problem

By day three, things started getting interesting. My bowel movements had slowed down. Then stopped. And when you’re somebody who spends a large part of their working life talking about bowel movements, you notice.

I tried tea. Yes, I cheated! One cup. Because my morning tea is part of my normal bowel routine, I was curious about what would happen without it. Eventually, things moved.

There I was, conducting a nutrition experiment and basically negotiating with my perfectionism and my colon over a cup of tea.

Day 4: The novelty has left the building

By day four, I’d already made up my mind about Carnivore.

Would I do it again? No.

I still finished the full seven days, but day four was definitely the point where I started thinking, Okay, I’ve had enough of this.

I was getting bored of the heavy foods and, rather than feeling energized – which did happen initially – I was starting to feel tired and sluggish. More so than before.

The first few days had been genuinely interesting. I’d enjoyed the challenge, I’d eaten some fantastic-quality meat (I have a local organic butcher) and I’d proved to myself that I could do it.

But by day four, the novelty had worn off. And the following days were much the same…

The Problem Nobody Mentions in Carnivore Success Stories

A lot of these stories start with someone eating a highly processed diet. Then they remove processed food, refined carbs, alcohol, and sugary drinks, and suddenly they’re eating protein and drinking more water.

Of course they feel better.

But was it the meat, or everything they stopped eating?

That’s the bit that doesn’t get discussed enough. The fairest comparison isn’t Carnivore versus junk food.

It’s Carnivore versus a genuinely healthy whole-food diet. That’s exactly what I ran, since I wasn’t starting from a terrible diet in the first place.

What Happened to My Weight?

I lost around 4 pounds over seven days.

Woohoo! Amazing.

But let’s not get carried away. I was already losing weight before I started, having lost around a stone through eating well, drinking more water, and exercising. So I won’t tell you Carnivore unlocked some secret fat-burning superpower. It didn’t.

Could the change in food, calories, or water have contributed?

Possibly.

But seven days can’t tell me what happens after three months, let alone three years, and there’s currently limited long-term evidence supporting a lifelong zero-plant diet.

So the honest answer is: I lost weight, and I don’t know if Carnivore caused it.

What Happened to My Digestion?

As an IBS Nutritional Therapist, I paid close attention here. My bowel movements slowed by day three and eventually stopped. After returning to my usual diet, it took around three days to return to normal.

That doesn’t mean everyone on Carnivore will have the same experience, and it doesn’t prove Carnivore is inherently bad for IBS. It simply means my digestion changed when I dramatically changed what I was eating and that’s worth paying attention to.

What I Ate the Moment It Ended

I was done.

Not “maybe another week” done, properly done. I followed the seven days with a 24-hour fast because I genuinely didn’t want another mouthful of meat.

Then: Greek yogurt, berries, granola, and a proper cup of tea.

Honestly, glorious.

The color.

The crunch.

The freshness.

The variety.

It felt like someone had turned the color back on. That first cup of tea was heaven. It’s only tea, I know. But when someone takes it away for seven days, you realize it’s not just tea… it’s a ritual, it’s comfort, it’s ten quiet minutes before the day begins.

My Biggest Takeaway

Don’t confuse somebody else’s success story with what your body needs.

If Carnivore helped someone, brilliant. I’m genuinely pleased for them. But ask questions.

• What were they eating before?
• Did they stop eating ultra-processed foods?
• Did they start exercising?
• Did their calorie intake change?
• Did they change five other things at the same time?

Would I Recommend It?

For me? No.

Someone else might have a completely different experience, and I won’t pretend otherwise. A temporary elimination approach may suit certain circumstances, but the evidence for eating zero plant foods long-term is limited, and humans have historically eaten a wide range of animal and plant foods.

For me, the biggest issue wasn’t even the weight loss… it was sustainability. I don’t want food to become something I merely tolerate. I want herbs, spices, color, texture, vegetables, fruit – and apparently, a ridiculous amount of pepper!

Final Thoughts

So, Carnivore….

…you weren’t the winner.

But you were an interesting seven-day experiment. I learned I can survive without vegetables, fruit, rice, even tea. But apparently I can’t survive happily without flavor. And that’s okay.

Food is more than fuel.

It’s enjoyment, culture, texture, and sitting down to a meal you actually look forward to.

My week of Carnivore didn’t make me appreciate healthy food less. It made me appreciate it more. Sometimes you don’t know how much you love something until you spend seven days eating eggs and steak, fantasizing about a bloody salad.

Would I do it again? No. Am I glad I tried it? Absolutely.

Because now, when someone asks what I think about the Carnivore Diet, I’m not talking from behind my laptop. I’ve done it. I’ve eaten the eggs, eaten the steak (which was delicious), waited for the poo (not fun), and mourned the tea (ouch). And I’ve discovered that, for me, a life without plants isn’t a life I want to live.

Not Sure What Your Gut Actually Needs?

If you’re struggling with IBS, bloating or digestive symptoms and you’ve reached the point where you don’t know what you should – or shouldn’t – be eating anymore, you don’t need another restrictive diet to experiment with.

You need to understand what’s actually going on with your gut.

Book a FREE Gut Health Call with me and we’ll talk through your symptoms, your current diet and what you’ve already tried. We can then look at what might be keeping you stuck and the best next steps for you.

 

About Helen Jane

Helen Jane is a qualified Nutritional Therapist and IBS Coach with over 10 years of experience helping people reduce IBS, bloating, food intolerances, digestive discomfort, and low energy through practical nutrition and lifestyle changes. As founder of Your IBS Freedom, she specialises in helping people improve gut health naturally using food as medicine without restrictive fad diets or unnecessary overwhelm, supporting clients across the UK, Europe, and the USA.

Read client success stories and reviews here: My Reviews

Disclaimer

This blog is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for personalised medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment from your GP or healthcare professional.