In the years from 2013 to the end of 2018 I tried to be vegan. I say I tried to because I wasn't too strict about everything and my body obviously told me to eat animal products. I would say I was 95% vegan.

I had an athletic body composition (184cm, ~80kg, ~10% body fat) and wasn't able during these five years to build any new muscle. I just managed to lose some.

After my digestion got so bad that I didn't want to eat anything (except animal products) I started to introduce bigger amounts of animal products. Then I learned about the carnivore diet and gave it a try.

Gainz

I still had an Intermittent Fasting window with 4-6 hours of eating per day. I ate as much as I wanted from any animal product, for example:

• 20 raw eggs with stevia and whey protein
• 500g of raw meat
• 500-1000g cooked meat (frequently liver)
• 500+g of quark
• milk 1-2 litres
• raw butter

(everything full fat of course)

Now it's hard to imagine to eat such an amount in such a short time but maybe I was so deficient from my vegan approach that I needed it.

Starting with 77kg in late December 2018 I had 93kg in February. Given the fact that I also gained a little bit of fat and water the 10kg muscle gain is a well meant but in my opinion realistic statement.

So I gained 16kg in three months with mostly under 80g carbs per day and no performance or muscle enhancing drugs except coffee (yes, I know that's not a real carnivore). You could argue that some of the muscle was just regained due to the memory effect. That's true. You could also argue that I'm some genetic freak but I can tell you: no, I'd know after 9 years of training.

Nevertheless I find the result very impressive from a scientific perspective. I didn't believe that such muscle gains were possible without steroids.

My training

My training was the same as before, so I know the change was diet related. I never trained with a strict workout plan, the scheme was:

1. upper body, mostly pullups, pushups, rowing, overhead presses, inclined bench press - in antagonistic super sets

2. lower body, mostly squats and deadlifts (not really heavy)

This split is very flexible. Usually I trained both parts two times per week, sometimes more or less depending on energy levels.

What else changed?

Apart from muscle gains I developed a perfect digestion. Until I tried carnivore I didn't even know what a good digestion is. My mood was better and I didn't have animal food cravings anymore ;)

So if you have digestive problems you might want to skip some plants, bro!

Veganism and the carnivore diet will be topic of another article.

I appreciate constructive comments, suggestions and questions!