“Eating fat does not make you fat. That is a fact.” - Steak and Butter Gal, Bella Ma

The #1 Mistake New Carnivores Make (And Why It's Killing Your Results)

You made the decision. You're eating meat. You ditched the bread, the pasta, the fruit, the juice cleanses that leave you starving, the vegetables, the processed garbage that's been slowly wrecking your body for years.

And you still feel like hell.

Tired. Hungry. Wondering if the people online who swear by this Carnivore thing are lying to you or just built differently.

They're not lying. And you're not broken.

You're just not eating enough fat.

That's the mistake. Right there. The one thing that separates people who thrive on Carnivore from people who quit after 1 month and tell everyone it didn't work. And I'm going to break it down for you because I've lived it, and I've watched someone I love make the same mistake in slow motion.

What a Year of Carnivore Actually Did to Me

One year ago I was a different person. Not metaphorically. Physically. I was carrying 125 extra pounds. I had acid reflux so bad it was just part of my day. Joint pain that made getting up in the morning a negotiation. Foot pain I had stopped mentioning because complaining about it felt pointless.

I went Carnivore. Meat, eggs, butter, salt, water. No calorie counting. No fasting windows. No complicated protocols designed to make a simple thing feel like homework.

The 125 pounds came off.

The acid reflux is gone.

The joint pain is gone.
The foot pain is gone.

I don't have a primary care doctor. So I went and got my own bloodwork done.Walked in, ordered the labs, and waited for the results like anyone who actually wants answers and wants to see what my bloodwork actually looks like after being at this point 8 months solid Carnivore.

The results came back perfect across the board.

Now here's the part I want you to understand. I have friends and family who are nurses and doctors. People with credentials and opinions and years of training telling them that what I was doing should not be possible. Telling me my cholesterol was going to be high and to watch out for my blood pressure and so many other concerns. When I showed them my labs, the conversation changed. There was nothing to argue with. The numbers said what they said.

When your bloodwork is perfect, the critics go quiet.
In fact many of these critics are now trying out Carnivore as ironically a couple nurses who tried to give me medical advice were very obese and overweight. Now they are looking at nutrition from a very different perspective. They are coming to the Carnivore side of living (or at least getting on the Keto train).

I'm telling you this not to impress you but to give you a reference point. Because what I'm about to say about fat is not a theory. It's what I learned by doing this for a year and watching what happened when I did it right versus what happened when someone I love, my wife, tried to do it halfway.

My Wife Is a Recovering 10 Year Vegan

My wife Melinda watched me lose 125 pounds. She watched the acid reflux disappear. She watched the joint pain stop. She saw my labs and in fact one of the reasons I got my labs done was because she was so concerned about my “high cholesterol” and other BS claims that are made on Carnivores because of all the mis-information out there. Melinda saw the whole transformation happen in real time.

And after about 8 months when my labs came back perfect and my body changed, she decided to try Carnivore (or really what she tried was what I call “Carnivore-ish”).

But she brought a decade of vegan programming with her into the kitchen. Ten years of being told that animal fat was dangerous. That butter was something you avoided. That cooking spray in a can was the responsible alternative to real fat.

So every morning she'd cook her eggs with this aerosol can. Just a fine mist of Avocado Oil (you know the 0 calorie cans of oils spray that you buy at Costco). Technically enough to keep things from sticking. That was it.

I'd watch her do it and say, "You need to use real butter.

She'd say, "But this has 0 calories”

I'd say, "Ditch this toxic spray and use real butter."

Finally she started using real butter and we threw out any oil that is in a can.

However she would put a tiny spoonful of butter in her pan.

I'd say, "Triple it."

She would not triple it.

This went on for a while. And I want to be clear: she wasn't being stubborn for no reason. She had genuinely been taught that fat was a threat. Over Ten years of being in a judgy hard core vegan community in San Diego, California meant that all the programming and the identity built around it had to be unlearned. This de-progamming does not happen in a week. The vegan programming was deep

But here's what I knew that she was still learning: you cannot do Carnivore halfway on fat and expect full results. It doesn't work that way.

What Happened When She Finally Let Go

Slowly, she started paying attention to the data her own body was giving her.

Days with more butter: full, clear, no cravings, energy that lasted until evening without a fight.

Days with less butter: hungry by 10am, foggy, reaching for something to bridge a gap that shouldn't exist if breakfast had done its job.

She made the switch. Real butter. Generous amounts. And then she made one more change: she stopped putting garbage nut milks such as Almond, Oat or Soy milk in her coffee and started using cream, real heavy cream or real half and half that has actual dairy fat.

She had been struggling with her weight for such a long time, Now after switching to about 90% Carnivore (she still eats some vegetables, so I guess you could call her more Keto), she's down 27 pounds in 2 months. Her energy is real, not propped up by caffeine and willpower. Her skin has cleared up. Her mental clarity came back. She does not have gas (yes her farts used to be stinky). This is the stuff that I want to share and talk about because it is real life.

That's what happens when you stop being afraid of fat and give your body what it actually runs on.

Why Fat Is Not Optional on Carnivore

Let me be direct about why this matters so much.

When you remove carbohydrates, you remove your body's primary fuel source. That's the point. You are forcing your body to shift to burning fat for fuel instead of sugar. This is called ketosis. It's where the magic happens.

But here's the part people miss: if you remove carbs AND undereat fat, you've removed your fuel source and failed to replace it. Your body has nothing to burn. You feel exhausted because you are exhausted. You're running a car with no gas and wondering why it won't move.

Fat is the fuel. On Carnivore it is not a condiment. It is not something you add for flavor and then quietly feel guilty about because you grew up in the low-fat era. It is the macronutrient that makes the entire protocol work.

When you eat enough fat, hunger evens out. Not because you're white-knuckling through cravings, but because your body is finally satisfied at a cellular level. Fat is the most satiating macronutrient that exists. A meal with real fat in it keeps you full for hours. Not the kind of full where you're distracted from hunger. Actually full.

Your energy stabilizes. The afternoon crash, the brain fog, the slow drag through the second half of your day, those are symptoms of blood sugar swings. Fat does not spike your blood sugar. Fat gives you a long, steady, clean burn. The kind where you're productive at 3pm without a second cup of coffee.

Your body actually starts changing. This is why most people come to Carnivore in the first place. But you cannot lose weight if you're chronically underfed. You will feel terrible, you will stall, and you will blame the diet instead of the missing fat.

What Enough Fat Actually Looks Like

Stop being vague about this. Here's what it means in practice.

Cook your eggs in butter. Not a spray. Not a thin film. Butter. A real, generous amount. If you think you have enough in the pan, then just add more as I guarantee you probably do not have enough butter in your pan. The amount that feels like "too much" when you come from a low-fat background is probably about right.

Eat the fatty meat cuts. Ribeye over sirloin. Pork belly over pork loin. Chicken thighs over chicken breast. The fat cap on your steak is not something you trim off and leave on the plate. It's the part you eat. If you're leaving fat on the plate, you're leaving your results on the plate.

Go 80/20 on ground beef at minimum. If you're buying the lean stuff because it feels healthier, you're importing low-fat thinking into a high-fat protocol. It doesn't fit. Get the 80/20. Cook it in butter if you want more.

Put cream in your coffee. Real cream. Not oat milk. Not almond milk. Not a creamer with a label that sounds clean but is full of additives you can't pronounce. Heavy cream. Dairy fat. If the nut milk is still in your fridge, ask yourself who told you that was better and whether you still believe them. My wife asked this question and now we no longer have any nut milks in our refrigerator. (oh and also she used to get this tickle in her throat anytime she drank her coffee, that is gone since she ditched the nut milk and started drinking full fat cream in her coffee).

Add tallow or butter or heavy cream to leaner meat cuts. If your protein source is naturally leaner like chicken breasts, then add fat when you cook it. You are engineering a fuel mix here. The ratio matters.

Don't fear butter. On bread, butter was just the vehicle for refined carbohydrates. On Carnivore, butter is food. Butter is one of the most bioavailable, nutrient-dense fats you can eat. Please use butter without guilt, use it freely and use it like someone who understands what it actually does.

The Fear Was Installed. You Can Uninstall It.

You were not born afraid of butter. That fear was taught to you by food marketing and by nutrition guidelines written by committees that included the companies profiting from low-fat products and keeping you sick and malnourished. After thirty years this messaging has demonized the one macronutrient your body is designed to run on, which is FAT.

The science that started the fat-phobia era has not held up. The studies were flawed. The conclusions were wrong. The industry that built itself on top of those conclusions made billions while metabolic disease rates climbed year after year.

You don't have to keep paying for that mistake.

The body you're trying to heal knows what it needs. It needed fat before the food pyramid told you otherwise and it still needs fat now. Give it what it's asking for.

Stop spraying your eggs. Stop reaching for the nut milk out of habit. Stop trimming the fat cap because something in the back of your head says that's the responsible thing to do.

Triple the butter.
Add the cream.
Eat the fat.

Your results are on the other side of that decision.

If You're Ready to Go All In, Let’s Do It Together

We are gearing up for a 30 Day Carnivore Challenge.

If you've been watching from the sidelines, reading the posts, following the transformation stories, and telling yourself you'll start when the timing is better, this is me telling you the timing doesn't get better. You just decide that the time is now.

All in and let’s rip the bandaid off.

My 30 Day Challenge is built around the exact protocol that took 125 pounds off my body and healed things in my body I had stopped believing could be healed. You'll know what to eat, how much fat to actually use, and exactly what to do when the old programming tries to pull you back toward the 0 calorie spray can.

Doors open soon and spots will fill. Reserve your post here: CarnivoreSchug.com/challenge

You already know what you need to do. You just need to do it.

Join the 30 Day Carnivore Challenge