Month of Meat

I'll start by introducing myself, as this is a slightly different audience then who I usually write to.  I'm an ultra marathon runner that goes by the moniker 'Canadian Ghost Runner'.   Ultra marathons are usually held in the mountains, and typically range from 50km to 100 miles (there are even longer one for the clinically insane).  My life consists of working, running and training.   I run on average 100 miles a week, as well as walking, hiking, and cross training, so what I eat plays a big part in my day.  I live in the beautiful ski town of Fernie, British Columbia, Canada.

  As I spend 16-24 hours a week running and training, I listen to a lot of music and podcasts, which brings to be how I first heard about the carnivore diet.  I first heard about the carnivore diet from Shawn Baker on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.  I'm a very skeptical person.  I would have dismissed this as the 'Jade Egg' of diets (go ahead, google it.  I've got time) had I not had a very positive experience on the keto diet.  I'd dropped from 185lbs to 155lbs (I'm 6'2), and this had transformed how I competed.  I'd discovered a few holes in the diet in regards to racing which I'll get into shortly.  After listening to the podcast twice, I put the info on the shelf in the back part of my brain (next to trigonometry, calculus and square dancing) for future use/abuse (you've never seen me square dance..it falls under abuse).

closest thing to a glamour shot I have

My run season this year had been going really well until about a month ago, when I had a tendonitis flare up in my right foot.  I could barely walk, let alone run for 24 hours on it.  I had to drop out of a 100 mile race at mile 70 while in third place.  I had run in abject pain for about 10 hours, crunching pain pills, when I realized I may need to change my approach.  This brought me back to the carnivore diet.  It turns out Mikhaila Peterson happened to be on Rogan's podcast discussing the diet the week after my failed race.  There was some discussion about the inflammatory properties of the SAD (Standard American Diet,  is there really a better acronym?  I mean c'mon....SAD?).   So, I formulated a plan.  I would do a month of the carnivore diet in October, starting after a 100K race at the end of September, and culminating in running the Javalina Jundred 100 mile race at the end of October.

I wanted to enter the diet with an open mind.  When I started Keto I was quite sure it was a scam, only to find that it worked very well in the off season to get me in better shape (it's difficult to race on it for me, as the caloric volume I need to consume gets tricky when I get too tired to chew during a race), and I continue a very light form of it to this day.

There are several things I don't believe the carnivore diet can do, including cure autism, regrow the hair on my barren scalp, become Batman, or cure cancer.  If I wanted pseudo science nonsense, I'd subscribe to Goop (again, google is your friend).  I'm interested in actual results.

I'm also not interested in writing a hit piece.  I won't dive in right from SAD to beef, salt, and water,  then after 6 days complain about constipation, fatigue, and the 'meat sweats', and call the whole thing off and a joke.  I've been actively working to what has been referred to as 'protocol 1' this month.  Basically like keto with less dairy.  I'm hoping this will prep me for the switch at the end of the month.  I also don't believe that a diet can be a 'tool of the alt right' as it has been described by some websites.  If I see anyone Heiling slabs of beef this may change my mind!  I also don't suspect I fall into a 3 month hallucinatory depression if I accidentally eat some broccoli, but we shall see!


Over the next month, I'll be documenting weight, workouts, and results.  I'm going into this not looking for anything in particular.  I'm interested to see what changes I notice.  If I wake up one day with a full head of hair, I'll take it.   Most reports I've seen over the last month include, better sleep, clearer skin, and weight loss.  I'll be taking taking a weight and body fat measurement each day and documenting as well.

 To my inner caveman delight, my nutrition will be meat, with allowances for coffee, tea, heavy cream, dry seasoning, and butter.  I'll be eating until I'm full as many times a day as I need to.

I hope you enjoy reading about my October as much as I enjoy experiencing it.

To track my life and progress, I'm on:

Photo from the Canadian Death Race 125km race from Hell

Instagram @Canadian GhostRunner
Strava @ Canadian Ghost Runner (this is where I'll document most of my runs)
Twitter @canghostrunner

Or right here on Facebook.

Run free or die,

Joshua Slykhuis
aka


 Canadian ghost runner