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Zinc - is it delivering more Vitamin A to peripheral tissues and harming them?
Well, based on what you've said thus far, it sounds to me like you were eating far too little fat and probably too much protein in an attempt to get enough energy. Look into "rabbit starvation", the symptoms of which include nausea, fatigue, and diarrhea. It's amazing you didn't fare worse if you were doing that for 2 years, but it's no wonder it didn't make you feel better in the long run.
I've looked into "rabbit starvation". I admit this syndrome can happen due to a lack of fat in the diet. I tend to not believe too much over nutrition theories since I've been a victim of my faith on them.
Anyway, lean beef has 3% of fat (maybe even more), so I've been having at least 45 grams of fat per day when carnivore.
About protein, 400 g. a day may be considered a not very high amount (I remember some carnivore gurus saying so).
What do you think about it?
Doesn't Shawn Baker eat a similar amount? He talks about 2 pounds a day and my diet wasn't too far from that.
Now I daily eat only 1 pound of lean beef and no fat at all (just organic beans/chickpeas, organic whole grain sourdough bread made by me with rye, spelt, wheat and oats and some bananas and apples). Nothing else at all. Fat is even lower than before, just about 15 g. so maybe the "rabbit starvation" is due to even lower fat intake. But I feel ok and even gained some muscle and this summer I started running. No illness at all.
I've actually not paid close attention to the amount of fat I eat myself on carnivore, I just go by feel. I'm 5' 9" and 165 pounds and I could go through almost 200 grams of lamb tallow in a day if I'm really hungry and the meat I'm eating is super lean. A quick internet search suggests you get around 0.8 - 1.0 grams of fat per pound of body weight on a carnivore diet...doesn't sound like you were anywhere close to that (assuming you weigh more than 60 pounds!).
With protein, one rough guideline say 1 gram protein per pound body weight. 400 grams of protein may not be problematic for people like Shawn Baker, but it's probably a bit excessive for non-athletes, especially if you're not getting enough fat.
I'm still getting the impression that you were way undereating fat and were possibly taking in too much protein as a consequence.
There are many theories (lately I'm dismissing most of them), almost as many as health gurus, but almost none of them should be considered as an absolute truth. How then can we explain my last almost 2 years on just 15 g. of fat? My health is rock solid despite being in my second and consecutive rabbit starvation in the last 4 years.
The changes I've experienced are major, specially in my joints. Running is something I thought I would never be able to do again (I'm 58 yo). Of course I'll be reporting here if I get any health issue.
I learn a lot of interesting stuff reading these discussions. There is always someone who knows much more than me; so, I'm trying just to add up with my experience (be it in agreement with theories or not). In this case I can say very happily that the experiment proposed in this blog by Mr. Genereux has worked a miraculous change in me. I may be wrong, but I think whoever follows this guidelines is on the same amount of fat than me, aren't they?
We are saying you USED to be on a diet equatable to "rabbit starvation" when you were doing a strict diet of only lean beef. That's probably why you never felt very good on your particular version of a carnivore diet.
Now you're eating a bunch of carbohydrates which means you're no longer in danger of "rabbit starvation", which refers to a diet that consists almost entirely of lean protein with almost zero fat AND zero carbs.
I've seen very few examples of people who tried a strict low Vitamin A carnivore diet of muscle meat and fat with sufficient amounts of fat who did not dramatically improve long-term. @armin on this forum may be one of the only people who has convinced me that they didn't get completely better on what sounds to be an "appropriate" carnivore diet ("appropriate" being somewhat subjective, but in a conservative approach meaning primarily skeletal muscle meat and fat, not too many organs, little to no dairy, and little to no eggs).
Has anyone experienced high blood zinc and low copper despite eating a relatively "normal" diet and not taking any supplements? I've been having higher than normal zinc and lower than normal copper for a year and a half. I eat a good amount of copper and not too much meat, which is supposedly going to cause the opposite effect. I barely had any such or any issues before vitamin A toxicity.
I can't say, but I wouldn't be surprised if my mineral status was all over the place. Probably the vitamin A detox is putting a lot of stress on the body, so the mineral balance, like the zinc/copper ratio, is affected. Have you tried increasing phosphatidylcholine with eggs or a supplement? That might help, just a hunch.