Category Archives: Living

Having a Hard Time at the Fridge?

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Do yourself a favor if you’re trying to go carnivore. Make a list of the foods you CAN eat. Put it on the fridge or the pantry door. Here’s my current list.

  • Beef
  • Butter
  • Tallow
  • Salt
  • Coffee
  • MCT oil
  • Bacon
  • Eggs (Chicken and Duck)
  • Sardines
  • Cod liver
  • Salmon
  • Shrimp
  • Chicken (very occasional)
  • Pork (also occasional)
  • Seaweed snacks
  • Collagen powder

You’ll note that there are some plants and plant products in mine. Those are no harm to me that I can detect, and they make things more interesting. And there’s a supplement of collagen powder that a purist carnivore would scoff at as unnecessary. We’ll talk about that later.

There’s nothing on the list that I could eat, but don’t want to, like oysters. Yuck. It’s just what I like. I can add or subtract things to it any time I want, except while hungry. Do not decide to write something on your list just because you want it right now. Only add a food once you’ve decided, rationally and not in a fit of hunger, that it will help you reach your goals.

Why make a list, though? It’s not hard to remember this stuff, is it? But you can trip yourself up looking in the fridge and thinking, “Oh, that’s pretty close to carnivore. It has honey, but honey is an animal product, so it’s fine!” or “I used to eat these and can’t remember what the harm was. I’ll just stick that in my mouth.” And the next thing you know, whatever the harm was–let’s say it was collard greens and you had anxiety and OCD within a few hours–you now remember all too well.

I find that the visual reminder helps me to not ignore my commitment in a moment of mental weakness. I’ve been carnivore for seven years now. I ought to have the perfect hang of it, and a lot of people are just perfect about sticking to it. But I’m denying myself some foods that I enjoy that are “healthy” foods. I love to eat greens! I can eat them with society’s full approval. Good girl, eating your vegetables! Sometimes it still takes a little willpower. The list gives me visual a reminder that there is a LOT of stuff I enjoy that I can reach for instead of the bad for me stuff that I’m tempted to eat.

Also, other people can see your list. If you have a nine year-old, especially, you will never be able to put a bite of food in your mouth again without realizing that somebody could catch you being this weak. “Mommy, I don’t think that food is on your list!” I don’t know if that’s a motivator for everybody, but I do not like having other people see me weak. Maybe that’s a bad thing, but I can use this character flaw to my advantage and let it help me keep to my plan.

You don’t have to do it forever. I only do it occasionally, when I’m feeling particularly weak. After holidays (because I do walk a little off the path on special occasions), or when I’ve loosened up too much with definitions (those Epic salmon strips are sweetened with maple syrup, and gosh they’re yummy!). Sometimes I have to get myself back in line. I wish we could all be Kelly Hogan, and just never look back, but some of us are a little more swayable than others.

Keep a reminder close by if you’re struggling at the fridge.

Happy New Year 2025!

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Gosh, it’s time to update the narrative again.

I’ve been thinking about doing a New Year’s post for several days. I wanted to talk about resolutions, especially dietary ones, and find a way to encourage people to make the changes they’re already thinking about making. I guess it’s become a little bit of a ministry for me to tout a healthy lifestyle. So much so that I get to hear many confessions from people about their habits. They admit that they need to “go keto” or get more exercise or whatever. These are good paths for them to explore, and I really do want to encourage them, especially after the Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations, that they can and should do these things. The benefits are worth every effort!

I think it’s a fine, human thing to both mark the seasons gone by and to look ahead to the next year. No mere animal can do that. Forward and backward thinking is one mark of human ensoulment. I have grumbled at other times about the pointlessness of picking a day for everybody to get started on new habits, or ditch old ones, as if we all turned over a new leaf with the calendar page. But I can see both sides of it. If you’re not going to pick a day, you’ll never get started, will you? Why not have a day set aside for everybody to think about that?

But after a rough year–and our neck of the woods has certainly seen a rough year–, you might not be ready for any big changes, no matter how beneficial they might be. I’m certainly not.

Instead of changing things drastically, how about just doing a Narrative update?

Might take a little explainin’.

You see, we all have a Narrative we tell ourselves about our lives. Our personalities, our relationships, our routines are all kept in our minds, in a personal Story–a story only the individual and the Creator really have access to. No matter what I tell people about myself, no matter what others observe in me, my Narrative will never match theirs about me, nor will it ever be 100% true. People are inconsistent, and that’s not hypocrisy. It’s just reality. We’re limited in our understanding, and that includes how we understand ourselves.

My Narrative has been that I am a Jesus-loving, large-family mothering, homeschooling, meat-eating, fitness-interested woman of a certain age. There are other aspects to my Narrative that I wouldn’t share with anybody, that I haven’t even named for myself yet. I have a lot of growing and learning to do in all of my things, but that’s been my Story.

If you asked someone else if the aforementioned list looks correct from their perspective, I don’t know what you’d get. I know that God would know my Story better than I do. He’d have a lot of changes to make. My husband would probably add or subtract some of that list in favor of his own Narrative, which only includes me as a (very important) character. He can’t know my whole Story, and I can’t know his! He might say I’m all that, and a bag of chips, or he might notice the times I ate a plant and say “yeah, not really a carnivore”. People farther out from my life–friends, neighbors, haters–are going to have an even differenter view of my Narrative. They’re going to find all kinds of holes in me that aren’t even on my radar. That’s fine!

It’s not about making your Story line up with anybody else’s idea of you. It’s about making my actions true to my thinking. My New Year’s question–not resolution, for which I have no strength right now–, is this:

How accurate is my own Narrative compared to what I’m really doing?

Maybe you’re feeling like this year just brutally beat you up, and you don’t have the strength to throw yourself into one big resolution, or even a small one. Losing the weight, or finding more time to volunteer, or learning to play an instrument are all fine goals, but if your Narrative is out of whack, you’re not even going to start out in the right direction, let alone get anywhere.

Instead of saying you’re going to lose forty pounds, somehow, why not just do a Narrative Check-up? What is it about what you’re telling yourself (this food benefits me in some way) that is making you unable to do the thing you need to do (not eat this food)? Why not update your Narrative? This food is addictive for me, and I have to fight this addiction. You can only do something about it when you see it for what it really is. You are not a “comfort-food lover”. You are a carb addict.

This isn’t just about food, though. Interrogate yourself about every aspect of your life.

Do I love Jesus? Do I just go to church and put some money in the offering plate and sing the songs without allowing any effect on my heart? Have I lost my first love? I could remedy that by spending a half hour praying and reading the Bible every day instead of jumping straight to the internet to read the news. I could find a Bible study or prayer meeting to attend weekly. I could just ask Jesus to come closer to me, even as I am struggling to draw nearer to Him.

Or I could update that narrative and just stop pretending to love Jesus. (Oh, my heart, that hurts to even type! Whatever you do, don’t do that!) If something hurts like that, it’s a sign that you need to true up your behavior with your Narrative.

The Narrative is not false, therefore you CAN live up to it!

Or suppose my narrative is that I’m learning to play the piano. But I haven’t actually touched it in six weeks, and my progress hasn’t been good in months. Is this a chapter of my Narrative that needs to close? Am I truly a learner who’s merely hit a temporary stall? Or do I actually not have that kind of time, and lack the neuro-plasticity at my advanced age? If so, that’s going to have to be fine. I don’t like it. The Narrative said I’m a learner, and I really want to accomplish this. The Reality may be that, sadly, I am not going to be able to do everything, and this ambition has to go.

If you’ve got something like this, cut it out of your Narrative! You are not a piano player. That didn’t hurt like the last one, so it can go! And you can put that back in your Narrative any time, should circumstances change. You need to constantly update your expectations. Today’s a good day to do that.

Take account of your wins. These are the parts of the Narrative you want to really double down on.

For instance, both strength and endurance training are very important to me.

Narrative says: I work out in a systematic way, no excuses, and see continuous progress.

Reality says: I’m crushing that! I did have some setbacks, but every time I’ve had a choice, I have made that choice well. I can rest in this aspect of who I think I am right now.

Find your Narrative-busters and don’t let them get the better of you.

Narrative says: I eat only meat every day, and that feels great.

Reality says: Starting at Thanksgiving and going on through Christmas, I ate a little more “keto”, and it didn’t go so well for me.

This Narrative is still true, and the Reality, my behavior, got in the way. I still only eat meat every day, as a rule. The carnivore way of eating is an integral part of how I live. I can remedy this Narrative-buster by simply taking no action at all. It is lifting the fork that takes effort, not refusing to! That’s certainly not too high a hurdle to clear.

Fix your Narrative, or fix your Reality. Unless you want to go on lying to yourself or others, these really are the only two options. I could, instead of being true to the diet that I know works for me, decide that the square of dark chocolate is worth the inevitable inflammation it will cause. It isn’t, but those are my choices. The one choice I cannot allow myself is that of continuing after these indulgences to live out of accordance with the Narrative I know is true: Carnivore works better than anything I’ve tried.

Find these inconsistencies in your life and ask yourself “Should I change this part of my Narrative, or recommit to it?”

Is it hypocrisy I’m talking about rooting out? No, I really don’t think it is! Hypocrisy knows it’s lying, and doesn’t care. It’s just human imperfection we’re dealing with, normal inconsistency and frailty. We get so down on ourselves that we think we failed, think we’ve given up, when the truth is, we just need to get back in touch with Reality. Stop telling yourself one Story when another is more realistic.

For the world-weary, it may be better to take stock of your Self-story today than it would be to make a big commitment to one hard thing. Does it hurt to view the difference between your Narrative and your Reality? If so, you have two choices:

Update the Narrative, or change the Reality.