Carnivore 75 Hard: My First Three Days Were Spent Camping

A little backstory: The first I heard about Carnivore 75 Hard was a few days ago, which is somewhat strange considering the fact that I spend a decent amount of time on Twitter and follow quite a few people involved with the Carnivore scene to one extent or another. It was actually upon posting something myself regarding some failures I'd made in my pursuit of healthy living: I'd eaten some things that I shouldn't have and I was drinking to an extent that I shouldn't have been.

This is the post to which I am referring:

That's one of my most popular tweets ever somehow. The response to it was heartwarming, to say the least.

This reply to that tweet is what planted the Carnivore 75 Hard seed in my brain:

Anyway, because I was camping where I was unable to get internet access, I decided to keep a bit of a journal using the notes app on my phone.

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Without Further Ado:

Day 1: Friday, October 8th, 2019

Had coffee in the morning, but otherwise fasted. The first day of this challenge is also the first day of a weekend camping trip I’m partaking in with my wife, our dog Stella, my brother, and his wife. 

I’m the only one doing the challenge (my brother and his wife are actually vegan) but being camping is a good place to start out the 75-day challenge. Not only will I have plenty to be grateful for, but I’ll be around 3 other people constantly, so the community part will be easy. I’ll be outside for longer periods of time, and we’ll also be doing some hikes and stuff. 

I made one of the 1 pound tubes of 80/20 ground chuck I bought for this trip into four burgers on the camp store. I topped them with cheese curds and uncured salami. It was good! 

Three things I’m grateful for:

1. The outpouring of support I received and am still receiving on Twitter for some of my posts. One in which I discussed disappointment in myself, but also another one with a joke about cavemen and where they get their almond flour.
2. Good weather for camping and hiking. 
3. Being able to still eat what I want (beef and eggs) even while camping without sacrificing quality or anything.  

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Day 2: Saturday, October 19th, 2019

Fasted from when I had the burgers yesterday around 17:30 until about 13:00 today when I made 8 eggs with ham and cheese. It was originally going to be an omelet, but that didn’t work out. Because I mixed the eggs up in the pan instead of ahead of time, they stuck to the pan just slightly and made it difficult to flip. I just decided to scramble it all up. I made 8 eggs because my wife wanted about 2. So I figure I had about 6. 

Tonight for my second meal, I also made up one of the 1 pound tubes of 80/20 ground chuck that I brought. This time, I made up 8 oz of bacon first. The image you see in this post was the bacon cooking on the camp stove. It worked great!

When it was all said and done, I had four bacon cheeseburgers, but it was really more like a plate of ground beef with some cheese and bacon on it. 

What I did to make the burgers was essentially just cut the tubes into 1/4 lb sections and then just smash them in the pan. Maybe because this wasn’t cast iron, or because the camp stove isn’t sturdy like the stovetop at home, but the burgers didn’t form that well or keep their shape when cooking. I don’t really care about that anyway, though. I ate that at around 17:30 again. 

We had a roaring fire that night!

Three things I’m grateful for

1. It didn’t rain like it was supposed to. 
2. Having Stella T. Dog with so I have someone to hang out with when I wake up first. 
3. No cell service anywhere in this park. This forces me to do something other than look at my phone.  

Day 3: Sunday, October 20th, 2019

I was the first one up in my camp, and that after sleeping in until 7, which is later than I typically wake up. I tried to take Stella for a walk right away, but she just seemed kind of weirded out. She has only been camping twice so far and, while I think she has a lot of fun, it kind of freaks her out a little bit as well. She can hear people all over the place in this park, but rarely sees any of them. Maybe it’s all the sounds that freak her out. 

I made coffee in the percolator while I waited up for everyone else. If you’ve ever used a percolator, you know it’s not exactly like other methods of making coffee. You definitely need to kind of pay attention (or at least sit nearby) the entire time or you’ll just burn your coffee. I may look into getting a stainless French press for camping like my brother has. Or we can also just make pour-over coffee straight into mugs. That also requires constant attention just like the percolator, though. 

We spent par tof the morning mostly relaxing in the hammock. Then we built another fire to use up the rest of the wood that we bought. It was actually a little chilly in the early morning but warmed up quite a bit in the afternoon. We Packed up a little after noon and headed home. It honestly seemed like Stella T. Dog was more than ready to go home. I think all of the sounds of a campground are a little overwhelming for her sensitive ears sometimes. She gets a little nervous from it.

Though yesterday I didn’t eat until about 13:00, today I was essentially ready to eat as soon as I woke up. Around 10:00, I made eggs again, but this time I made up some sausages to go with them. I scrambled up 6 pastured eggs with some Monterrey Jack cheese and the aforementioned sausages. This will almost certainly be the last thing I cook on the camping trip. We’ll be heading back home this afternoon. 

I wasn’t able to use the Life app to track my fasting because it apparently requires an internet connection to work at all. You’d almost think it could still keep track of time without an Internet connection, but you’d be wrong. Eating around 17:30 both nights meant I really only had to fast until about 9:30 the next day, though. That’s not too hard to keep track of.

I bookended the camping weekend with Culver's, I guess! We stopped through their Drive Thru tonight because we've been pretty busy unpacking, washing the dog, doing laundry, and all of the other post-camping chores. Culver's was delicious as usual, but they did neglect to put bacon on the cheddar bacon burger I ordered.

Photogenic is it NOT. I shouldn't have even posted this, but whatever. It tasted delicious! After this, I'll plan on fasting for a while.

Three things I’m grateful for:

1. My bed
2. Internet access
3. My shower

Yeah, I know some of those are the exact opposite of what I was grateful for the other day. Sometimes you learn to appreciate things by not having them for just a couple of days. At least for one day, anyway. Having to write down things for which I am grateful will probably help me appreciate more things more often, though. 

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Going forward, I'll aim to post daily instead of cumulative posts. I'll start using the Life app to track fasts and probably the Cronometer app to track some of my nutrition data. I have experimented with that app in the past, but I don't use it regularly. As part of this challenge, though, I'm curious to see how much I'll end up eating when sticking to both the diet itself and the feasting/fasting windows.

If you're doing the Carnivore 75 Hard challenge as well, good luck to you! I hope you've been enjoying it so far.