Yeah, I'm late to this party. Most of the others have addressed most of your other concerns. However, I wanted to share my thoughts on this one, in particular:

The Zero Carb Zen blog said to eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full.

WHAT IF I'M EATING ALL DAY WILL IT STOP DOES IT MATTER

Can I do this diet, actually lose weight, and not be hungry? Lol.

Believe it or not, if you give it enough time, your body will settle out and your weight and lean body mass will start normalizing. As mentioned, it may not be a direct path. Kelly Hogan had the experience where she gained weight at first, but after a few months, it started dropping again. Basically, her body needed to gain "proper" weight and weight distribution, and most of all -- she needed to heal. Once it was satisfied, she started leaning back out. Her intake naturally decreased -- she felt satisfied on less food, without actively restricting.

If that's not enough, I'll give you my own story:

I'm a horrible carb/sugar junkie. Reese's cups (especially the holiday ones) are the bane of my existence, as are mashed potatoes. I can consume a stupid amount of calories in those two foods in a single sitting, and worse, when I eat stuff like that, I never feel full.

Before I went low carb, I'd eat a huge plate full of spaghetti and go back for seconds, because I was still hungry. I just ate 600 calories worth of pasta, I should not be hungry. I tried just eating less. Watching portions, but eating the same things. You know, like the general advice is to do. I was miserable, because I felt starved all the time, even though I knew I shouldn't have been. We're not talking a little hungry. We're talking fighting the physiological drive to go find food, despite having consumed 2000 calories that day.

Long story short, I went low carb and saw a decrease in the cravings and hunger issues, but still couldn't lose weight. I could maintain like a champ, but that was it. In a fit of desperation, I tried all meat about a year and a half ago, and it was like angels singing.

Like you, I was worried that I would over eat on it. Eating a pound or two of meat a day seems like a ton of food. Surely I'd blow the calories, right? There's no way this would fill me up properly.

And yet, I had to consciously work in a little extra to ensure I was eating enough. My days consisted mostly of a pound of ground bison lightly cooked in butter for lunch (I skipped breakfast), and a "regular" serving or so of meat of some sort at dinner (often pork chops, sometimes more bison, sometimes chicken). The dinner meal was light, not because I felt it "should" be, but because I had very little appetite. I simply had no desire to eat in general.

I eventually just quit tracking altogether, because it got repetitive, but my average intake was still right where it was supposed to be for me to lose weight -- around 2000 calories.

What was particularly interesting was the day on Memorial Day weekend when I was working on the garden. And by "working on the garden," I mean "hauling bags of dirt and mulch around all day." According to my calculations (I don't remember off hand if I had my Fitbit at the time), I burned on the order of 4000 total calories, giving me an allotment of 3700 or so while maintaining a weight loss deficit. And I ate that much. A full rack of ribs at lunch and a sort of "bacon supreme" burger (bacon cheeseburger with bacon aioli) for dinner. I didn't worry about calories, but I logged it all for grins and giggles. I ate to satisfaction (okay, maybe a little beyond at dinner), and according to the log, I had consumed for the day, 3200 calories, nearly all of which in animal products (the ribs did, unfortunately, have a glaze that resulted in more sugar than I'd have liked, but given the energy output I had that day and the fact that it was lunch, I wasn't too concerned with it).

I still lost like 2lbs that week, and the next day, I was right back into my usual appetite.

So...your body will allow you to consume what it deems an appropriate amount for you to consume. Once you hit that point, it kind of becomes a chore to eat more. There have been times where I physically gagged at the thought of eating more.

blambo61 wrote: »

Seems like a good way to burn out the kidneys, no?

Believe it or not, unless you're actively seeking out the ultra-lean meats like skinless turkey or chicken breast, zero carb isn't overly high in protein.

Consider this -- most people go to zero carb from keto. Most keto people are eating 50g of carbs or less already. Even if you consider that net carbs, and assume something crazy like 100g of total carbs, you're talking 400 calories worth of all carbohydrates. When you're talking 2000 calories, that's not a huge difference. If you convert it entirely to fat, that's 44g of fat. Since you're eating whole meat, you're actually looking at somewhere around an additional 20-30g of each protein and fat. Since most low carb people tend to balance out around 100g of protein on a 2000 calorie average if they're not actively trying to swing that one way or another, that means you go up to a whole 130g of protein.

Here's an extreme example -- that day I consumed 3200 calories? 81g of carbs (thanks, Smokey Bones...), 250g of fat, and 161g of protein. 2876 calories from not-carb sources (so still a ton of meat), and only 161g of protein.

Okay, cool, but what about a typical day? I generally averaged about 100g of protein, with bison as my staple (which is a fairly lean meat as red meats go). The days that I consumed 150g or more of protein were the days I had chicken for one of my meals. So not really all that much, all things considered, since the high end works out to roughly 1g per pound of lean mass for me.