Bodhi:

That's the most insidious part of the lie: the idea that it's your fault that you feel sick, because you're not doing it right. 

"You're detoxifying, it'll get better," the gurus say.  "30 bananas a day provides all your dietary needs," the gurus say.  "If you feel like you're starving for butter or a steak, it's because you're weak," the gurus say.  "Push through it."  And you keep thinking that if you can just find the right combination of obscure Brazilian rainforest fruits, pureed wheatgrass, and organic asparagus, you'll feel like you did when you first started out.

It's a terrible lie...and now you know why.

I'm glad you were able to find a way out, and I'm glad you're here now.  Thanks for sharing.  

Sébastien:

I never became as sick as you (I was 'just' a vegetarian, living mostly on cheese and tortillas), but I've seen it happen to others.  It's frightening how far gone we can be while still convincing ourselves that we're "detoxing".

I just took a break to read your article "How Steve Pavlina Almost Killed Me."  And you're absolutely correct: that "sacred", blissed-out feeling comes partially from the asexuality you get for free when you're starving, as your body shuts down all its reproductive drives.  But the other part is the constant serotonin rush from all the simple fruit sugars they're eating: I talk about that in detail here.

Anyway, I'm glad you've made it here, and I'll be spending more time reading your articles as I can.

PS: Your website is so nicely designed and laid out that it makes me jealous!  Great job.

JS

Ravi:

I'm not bashing vegans: they're victims.  I'm bashing the misinformation that's suckering people into poor health, and the con men that are spreading it.

Elenor:

What sort of "allergy tests" is she getting, and from what lab?  There are a lot of shysters/bunk artists and a few legit ones. 

As far as what to do:

-Find some guaranteed algae-sourced vegetarian EPA/DHA caps (sigh) and stuff her with large quantities of those.  Some forms of depression respond as well to high doses of DHA as they do to SSRIs, and she's probably heavily n-3 deficient since flaxseed oil doesn't upconvert with any efficiency.

-Coconut milk. Anything tastes great in coconut milk, even if it's just a bowl of berries...and as a bonus it's almost all medium-chain saturated fats.  This article has the quick and dirty Thai curry instructions near the end.  Even a vegetarian curry will at least get her full of healthy MCTs, and I bet you can get her to eat some whitefish or chicken breast cooked in it.  You'll probably want to omit the fish sauce at first because it's tricky to get the amount right.

Eric:

I'm not trolling.  When someone is losing both fat and muscle mass because they're eating a nutritionally inadequate diet, they're eating their own bodies. 

That's how metabolism works.  It doesn't matter if that stearic acid in your bloodstream came from beef you ate or your own fat cells, and it doesn't matter if that leucine in your bloodstream came from beef you ate or your own muscle tissue.  If your body needs nutrients, it will disassemble itself to supply them.

None of this is controversial.  Read about the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, which produced "The Biology Of Human Starvation", a two-volume, 1400 page report:

"The men became nervous, anxious, apathetic, withdrawn, impatient, self-critical with distorted body images and even feeling overweight, moody, emotional and depressed. A few even mutilated themselves, one chopping off three fingers in stress. They lost their ambition and feelings of adequacy, and their cultural and academic interests narrowed. They neglected their appearance, became loners and their social and family relationships suffered. They lost their senses of humor, love and compassion. Instead, they became obsessed with food, thinking, talking and reading about it constantly; developed weird eating rituals; began hoarding things; consumed vast amounts of coffee and tea; and chewed gum incessantly (as many as 40 packages a day). Binge eating episodes also became a problem as some of the men were unable to continue to restrict their eating in their hunger."

Does any of this sound familiar?

But let's return to the initial euphoria, when your body still has reserves to burn.  This is why fasting is so addictive, particularly to people on low-fat 'health food' diets: eating their own flesh is the most wholesome meal they get!  Paleo people do IF sometimes, but we don't have that nearly sexual drive to repeatedly starve ourselves for a week or more -- because we're already eating delicious, nutritious fatty meat.

(An aside: the one saving grace of the ridiculous high-fructose fruitarian diet is that it's a high-fat diet in practice: their bodies are converting much of that sugar into (gasp!) triglycerides full of saturated fat.  I bet I could make a delicious foie gras out of a fruitarian's fatty liver...gavaging yourself with bananas is just as effective as gavaging a goose with corn.  Personally I prefer to give my liver a holiday and simply eat the fats.)

I freely admit (and said so at the very bottom): "Yes, I know that it is possible to maintain a moderately healthy vegan life through creative supplementation, the use of highly processed industrial products like ‘soy protein’, and a constant stream of fruits and vegetables out of season from halfway across the world."  Some people get it right: I know a few who do.

But a lot more succumb to raw food or fruitarian guru bullshit -- or simply don't understand all the nuances of things like bioavailable B12, EPA and DHA, and vitamin K2-MK4, and end up in the cycle I describe.  Demyelinating your nervous system isn't a good long-term strategy.

JS 

PS: Names aren't important: they come and go. The TV personality who's vegan this month will be on a gimmick diet next month. And I'm not here to start fights: I'm here to debunk myths, and offer support to those who want to jump the fence but are afraid to leave the herd behind.

Melissa:

Absolutely intermittent fasting does some good: hormesis is real.  It's the same reason exercise is good (body rebuilds after stress) and polyphenols are good (body mounts antioxidative response to small doses of toxin).  But a 24-36 hour fast, in which muscle mass is conserved, is far different than a 7-10 day fast that requires self-cannibalization -- or worse, what is effectively a multi-month fast due to nutrient deprivation.

None of this is news to you: I'm just explaining it for the benefit of my readers. Thanks for stopping by!

Cornelius:

Food habits are just as persistent as drug addictions.  And just like an addiction, you can't change the addict: they have to change themselves.  You can open the door, but they have to walk through it.

JS

Mahalo, Edwin. Be welcome here.