The Carnivore Diet and Bowel Movements: Surprising Changes You Need to Know!

The carnivore diet, which involves consuming only animal-based foods, has gained popularity for its potential benefits, such as weight loss and reduced inflammation. However, this restrictive eating pattern, which excludes fiber-rich foods like vegetables and fruits, can raise concerns about digestive health, particularly bowel movements. This article explores the relationship between the carnivore diet and bowel movements, addressing potential issues like constipation and diarrhea, and providing guidance on how to manage them.

Understanding the Carnivore Diet

The carnivore diet is a dietary approach that focuses exclusively on animal products, such as meat, fish, eggs, and some dairy. By eliminating plant-based foods, the diet is high in protein and fat while being very low in carbohydrates and fiber. Proponents of the carnivore diet suggest that it can offer various health benefits, including weight loss, reduced inflammation, and improved digestion. However, it's important to note that the carnivore diet is contrary to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which emphasize the importance of fiber for good health.

Potential Bowel Movement Changes on the Carnivore Diet

When transitioning to a carnivore diet, various changes in bowel movements, energy levels, and digestion can occur as the digestive system adapts to the increased protein and fat intake. The adaptation phase might involve temporary discomfort like constipation or diarrhea.

Constipation

Constipation is a common condition characterized by infrequent bowel movements or difficulty emptying the bowels completely. Several factors associated with the carnivore diet can contribute to constipation:

Low Fiber Intake: The carnivore diet inherently restricts fiber intake, as it eliminates plant-based foods. Some research suggests an association between lower fiber intake and a higher risk of constipation. However, other studies have found health benefits and high satisfaction rates, with few adverse effects, in people following the carnivore diet.
Glycogen Breakdown: When following a low-carbohydrate diet like the carnivore diet, the body breaks down glycogen stored in the muscles and liver. Glycogen binds to water, which is then expelled through urine, potentially leading to dehydration and a lack of water for forming stools.
Gut Health Adaptation: The gut microbiome, the community of bacteria residing in the digestive tract, needs to adjust to the new dietary composition, which includes a higher fat intake and a lack of fiber. Carbohydrate-loving bacteria might die out while fat-loving bacteria increase in numbers. Facilitating these adaptations could decrease the food transit time through the gut.
Other Potential Causes: Constipation can also occur due to slow movement of stool through the colon, delayed emptying of the colon due to pelvic floor disorders or colon surgery, functional gastrointestinal conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, life changes, and health and nutrition issues like inadequate water intake or diabetes.

Diarrhea

Diarrhea, characterized by loose, watery stools and frequent bowel movements, can also occur when starting the carnivore diet. Several factors can contribute to diarrhea:

Carnivore Flu: When switching from a high-carbohydrate diet to a high-fat, medium-protein carnivore diet, the body attempts to become fat-adapted. This adaptation may cause a series of reactions, known as Carnivore flu. One of the symptoms of Carnivore flu is diarrhea. As the body shifts from using carbohydrates for fuel to burning fat, there is an increase in the production of ketones. This change in metabolism means losing water and electrolyte imbalance, both of which can cause diarrhea.
Changes in Gut Bacteria: The foods we eat directly affect the gut microbiome. When you remove fiber and plant foods, your gut bacteria change. This change can cause temporary digestive issues, including diarrhea.
Adapting to More Fat: If your previous diet has been high in carbohydrates, your body is not used to digesting large amounts of fat. Your digestive system gradually increases bile production and enzyme secretion to break down fat efficiently. The liver produces bile acids to help emulsify fats, but if this process is inefficient, excess fat can pass through undigested, causing diarrhea.
Eating Too Much Fat, Too Fast: Jumping straight into eating a high-fat Carnivore Diet without letting your body adjust, you may experience diarrhea. Eating too much fat in a short time can cause steatorrhea, a condition that results in fatty, loose stools.
Eating Too Much Protein: Consuming too much protein can disrupt the digestive system. The human body has a limit to how much protein it can process, and exceeding that can lead to loose stools. When we overeat protein, nitrogen is built up in our body, which increases the demand for water excretion, leading to diarrhea. Eating too much protein can also damage kidneys and change bowel movement patterns.
Bile Acid Issues: While bile helps digest fat, too much bile can cause watery stools. If you eat too much fat in a short time, your liver should produce more bile, and this extra bile may enter the intestines and cause diarrhea. Bile acid malabsorption is a cause of chronic diarrhea.
Nutrient Deficiency: When your body doesn’t have enough vitamins and minerals, such as magnesium, you may experience diarrhea.
Eating Inflammatory Foods: Some processed meats contain additives, preservatives, and chemicals like nitrates that can irritate the gut and cause digestive issues.

Managing Bowel Movement Changes on the Carnivore Diet

While bowel movement changes can be a concern when starting the carnivore diet, there are strategies to manage them:

Preventing and Treating Constipation

Hydration: Drink plenty of water throughout the day to stay hydrated and help soften stools.
Electrolyte Balance: Ensure adequate intake of electrolytes like sodium, potassium, and magnesium, which are essential for intestinal muscle function. Consider adding a pinch of salt to water or meals or consuming bone broth, which is a good source of electrolytes.
Exercise: Engage in regular physical activity to stimulate bowel movements.
Time and Place: Set aside a specific time and place each day to dedicate to bowel movements.
Proper Posture: Try to ease the passage of stool by placing your feet on a low step to elevate your knees above your hips when going to the toilet.
Laxatives: If lifestyle changes are insufficient, consider using laxatives, such as bulk-forming, osmotic, or stimulant laxatives, after consulting with a doctor. In severe cases, a suppository or enema may be necessary.

Managing Diarrhea

Hydration: Drink plenty of water during the day to replace lost fluids and prevent dehydration.
Balancing electrolytes: Consume enough sodium, potassium, and magnesium to help the function of our digestive system digestion. These minerals help keep the balance of electrolytes.
Bone Broth: Consider consuming bone broth, as the gelatin and collagen in it can improve gut health.
Digestive Enzymes: Taking digestive enzymes, particularly lipase (for fat digestion) and protease (for protein digestion), can help your body break down food more effectively.
Probiotics: Using probiotics is a good way to help transition into a low-carb, high-fat diet like Carnivore and reduce diarrhea. Probiotics add beneficial bacteria that help balance gut flora, reducing harmful bacteria that can cause digestive issues.
Supplements: You can take supplements to reduce bile acids, acid malabsorption, and diarrhea symptoms. Of course, after consulting your physician.
Foods to Stop Diarrhea: Bone broth because it contains collagen and gut-helping minerals, fatty cuts of meat because they are easily digestible, organ meats because they are nutritious and support digestion, cheese because it can firm up stools, fermented dairy like kefir because it contains probiotics, eggs because of their choline that helps digestive function.
Foods to avoid: Processed meats with additives, too much rendered fats (butter, tallow, lard), dairy (for lactose-intolerant people), too much lean meats, spicy or heavily salted meats.

Normal Bowel Movements on the Carnivore Diet

Since the Carnivore Diet is fiber-free, it is normal to poop less often. Some people may have only one bowel movement every day or every few days, while others may experience less frequent movements without discomfort. Actually, people who eat only meat tend to produce less waste, so they might find themselves pooping less or less frequently, but it isn't usually a sign of constipation. It is all because meat takes longer to digest than plant foods, so your bowel movements will probably be less frequent but regular and predictable.

Normal Carnivore Diet poop is generally firm and well-formed, often appearing cylindrical or sausage-shaped! The texture can be softer and easier to pass if you're well-hydrated and your overall digestive health is good. The firmness of the stool is also related to the lower fiber intake.

When to Seek Medical Attention

While most bowel movement changes on the carnivore diet are temporary and manageable, it's essential to seek medical attention if you experience any of the following:

Diarrhea lasts longer than two weeks.
You experience severe dehydration symptoms, like dizziness, dry mouth, and rapid heartbeat.
Stools contain blood or mucus.
You experience unintentional weight loss.
Big changes in the texture, volume, or appearance of your stools.
Constipation or diarrhea that lasts more than two weeks, or if these conditions come with severe symptoms like stomach pain or signs of dehydration.
Stools that are deep red, maroon, black, or tarry, especially with a strong odor.
Symptoms like constipation with nausea, dark urine, a fever, or yellowing of the skin.

The Role of Fiber: A Closer Look

The conventional wisdom that fiber is essential for healthy bowel movements is challenged by the carnivore diet. While fiber can add bulk to stools and promote regularity, many individuals on the carnivore diet report no issues with bowel movements despite the absence of fiber.

Carnivorous mammals, for example, have no problem whatsoever having normal, regular bowel movements in the complete or nearly complete absence of fiber. Also, numerous human populations have had no difficulties with elimination despite living on diets that are essentially devoid of fiber. The resounding response is that they have no problem whatsoever having bowel movements. They’re regular and comfortable, and most report their overall gastrointestinal function is the best it’s ever been in their lives.

Studies have even shown that chronic constipation is relieved when the diet contains zero fiber and that people who eat lots of fiber have much higher rates of diverticular disease. It is important to consider that humans cannot digest fiber because our digestive tract wasn’t designed for fiber. Just because we shove fiber-filled foods down our digestive tube and some bacteria start to grow and eat it in no way indicates that our bodies require it.

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