Odessa has given an extreme (all meat) and so have you (all carbs), but in my humble opinion, from trying these extremes myself and having access to multiple doctors and tests, I've been able to come to the following conclusions:
1. We must first make a clear distinction between overall health and weight loss. For example, you could have 2 people at a perfect weight, but they're bloodwork can look very different based on diet. I do think an all meat diet would show an overall healthier person.
2. Weight loss will always be calories in vs calories out. It doesn't really matter what you eat per se.
3. Carnivore helps people lose weight simply because protein and fat keeps you feeling full and fat as the energy source burns slower and doesnt spike your insulin. It's actually very difficult to eat more than twice per day on a Carnivore diet. Ypu simply dont feel hubgry. Secondly, because you are not eating carbs, your glycogen stores are depleted, thus losing a huge amount of water weight. Carnivore is really for people with auto immune issues where they eliminate everything from their diet and slowly add back to see what is making them ill. It's not really necessary to be this extreme. What is true, however, is that excess sugar or carbs will make a diet almost Impossible to follow because you will fell hungry all the time.
4. Eating carbs alone will probably make you feel bloated and hungry all the time. They are addictive, much like sugar. Carbs are quickly converted to glucose by the body followed by an insulin spike to try and deal with the blood sugar. Weight aside, you will probably get diabetes if you eat in this way. Carbs are also converted to fat very quickly compared with fat and protein.
5. In my experience, Carnivore was fantastic for the first 3 or 4 months and I did lose a lot of weight (around 10kg in the first 2 months) that I was able to maintain. Bloods were very impressive too. I found after this I generally felt quite flat and moody. I always struggled to eat enough fat with that diet which is likely the reason for the low energy. Depending on how active one is, adding a small amount of carbs will help balance that out because the brain ultimately needs glucose, so I added 100-200g carbs per day and felt a lot better without jeopardising weight.
The answer, in my experience, is a balance between a diet that is practical and sustainable and one that hits the right health markers. Adding a small amount of carbs allows flexibility at say a friends birthday dinner, where you might all go out to a Chinese restaurant and everything is covered in sauce. You can skip the rice or have a small portion and focus of the vegetables and meat despite there being some carbs and sugars in the mix.
if you don't have a plan on how you'll execute your diet in a variety of situations, you'll fail for sure. This is probably the thing that diet gurus leave out the most. For example, you wake up late and have to go to work, so you've got no time to cook your eggs in the morning. Where everyone else is reaching for a muesli bar or a bacon and egg roll or Maccas breakfast drive thru, what are you going to eat in that scenario? This is where a lot of people fall off the wagon simply because it becomes hard to comply due to lack of thought and planning.
