Ex-Vegan (5+ Years): Apologizes For Encouraging Others To Try Harmful Dietary Restriction

Watch on YouTube · 2018-04-06 · 37 min

0:00 Well, where do you want to start? You want to say your name or where you're from?

[video] 0:06 Sure. I'm Victor, and I'm currently in Seattle. It's where I've been for like 20 years, so I guess it's my home.

[video] 0:18 Should I start from the beginning of how this... Sure, man.

0:22 Okay.

[video] 0:23 So when I was younger, I was kind of a punk rocker. I was with the sort of anarchist group here in Seattle. And veganism was very strong in this group of, you know, sort of radicals and radical thinkers. And that's when I first started experimenting with veganism, probably in the early 90s, like before there was books, before there was the internet.

[video] 0:51 we didn't even know we had to take B12 for example like there was I mean there was just nothing out there very little you'd get some zines you know and people would write about it their experience in zines that was the YouTube of the day and I tried two different times veganism then and both times just fell real flat on my face tired like no energy and just wasn't good, but I didn't really know what was going on. I didn't know really anything about nutrition. And I just thought it was because I was really physically active and fast forward. Um, I did some bike racing and I've been like a very strong athlete in my life and I did bike racing for a long time. And then I moved into, that's when I first started

[video] 1:50 And I started taking really a huge ton of supplements. And it actually like shortened my bike racing career. Because I started to have like intense joint pain.

2:03 When was this? When was this?

[video] 2:07 Oh, when was this? It'd be like mid-2000. Okay.

[video] 2:14 Somewhere around there, yeah, like 2004, 2005, all the way up to 2011.

[video] 2:21 Like no carb, because that's when I first heard about sort of the idea of paleo. And I thought, oh, that's what I was doing wrong with veganism. And I was reading all of these books on how to cut weight for cycling because you have to be lean. It's just physics. You just you don't want to pull any more weight around than possible. Right.

[video] 2:44 I started just eating this really protein-heavy diet with tons of supplements, no carbs, and I did drop a lot of weight and I got really light, but then I started having bad joint pains and then back pain. I quit bike racing and I started doing some lifting and then started doing even more supplementing because that's what you do, right? You got to do your precursors and you have to have your muscle stack and all this garbage. And it got worse and worse. It got to the point where the inflammation in my body was so bad that I literally had a hard time getting out of bed. I would have to swing my legs over and then kind of do this crawl thing where it felt like I was going to throw my back out. And I was seeing the chiropractor all of the time.

[video] 3:46 spinal damage there.

[video] 3:50 Um, and I really started developing this, like, so I started taking a lot of ibuprofen as well to deal with the inflammation and it just kind of like started compounding. And I hit this point where I was like, I'm going to be in a wheelchair. We're using a Walker before I'm 50. I've got to do something. I started doing researching of course. And that's where I found raw veganism and doing raw vegan, um, flushes and cleanses. And this was about 2010.

[video] 4:23 Maybe end of 2009. So I went full for it. I was like, I've got to do something because I can't stand this pain that I'm in and what my body's doing. But at that time, I was also very muscular and very lean. So my body composition was good, but my systemic inflammation was just... terrible it was terrible and I really thought after I started reading about juice flushes and raw veganism I was convinced it was about the heavy meat diet you know that was that was where I was at with that I was like well clearly I've eaten too much meat and I took a lot of you know casein and whey and these kind of things so I jumped on all the way into raw veganism, and I, within two weeks, found 30 bad, went straight for

[video] 5:30 And of course my inflammation went away within like 30 days because I got off all the supplements as well. Like I went 100% natural hygiene, no salts, no supplements, just natural hygiene. And yeah, to me it was a miracle. I mean, it was the thing that like, I was like, holy crap, all of my inflammation's gone, I'm healed, I'm not going to have to have surgery, everything is golden. And within, let's see, I started basically in the first of the year. Within three months, I was running again, and I hadn't been able to cycle or anything like that because of my knees and my joints. So I ran my first half marathon within three months. I ran my first marathon on June 20th, I think 2011. And I killed it.

[video] 6:30 And I mean, I had that like first year experience that a lot of people have when they go. high fruit raw, and I got incredibly lean, but I still had all the muscles from the previous years. And as you've mentioned before, and I see it's really true, and I've mentioned this as well, these stored nutrients. People have such a good experience with the first part of fruitarianism because they're living off of all of their stored nutrients. And yeah, the first year was awesome. And because I was outspoken and very passionate about how it healed me and kind of my physique that came along with it, I quickly became

[video] 7:36 Um, so fast forward, uh, I will, I will get back to this, but there were, there were challenges just remaining there after the first couple of months where like I don't crave sugar at all or fat.

[video] 8:01 So 18 months after I first went raw vegan, high fruit, I had a period in the winter. So I was back in the winter months and I would have this like intense pain coming down into my teeth. Like my whole mouth was just, it felt like I had That's what it felt like. It was just this deep ache. And then I was having a hard time sleeping, and then I just had this tooth just break open. And I didn't even know what I was eating. It was like a nut pate or something. It wasn't even anything hard, and it just cracked open. And I was crunching on it, and I was like, what is in this food?

[video] 8:58 pulled it out, this chunk of my tooth. And I was like, what the hell? And so I've always had amazing teeth. I never had a single cavity in my entire life up to year 35. Like nothing. I always go in and take x-rays and they're like, you look awesome. See you next year. You know, and I couldn't believe it. And then I started like going, what's going on with my teeth? And I started looking closer and like, you know, good teeth, you don't look at them very carefully. It's not like something I, you know, I brush and I do some hygiene, but never really like look too closely. Start seeing the gum lines are way up here. My teeth are looking like see-through in a couple of places. And, um,

[video] 9:54 and they always tell you like any like this is happening or that's happening you're detoxing right that's the story oh detoxing out all that nasty animal protein or whatever um but i started getting really concerned at that point that was the first red flag but then once you're committed to the cause then of course your next step is well i have to look into supplementation at this point because I'm not sustaining this and then there's a lot of people told me to water fast it out you know this kind of stuff but instead I got a complete osteoporosis supplement and the first one I didn't

[video] 10:47 That's why it's working. And then I got this really expensive raw vegan one that came in two parts and you had to take like eight of these a day and then you had to take four of those a day. So it was like 12 pills a day and it was like 20 days worth for like $45. It was ridiculous. And that didn't actually work that well. So then I had some ongoing like not feeling that great. I went and had blood work done at that point. My TSH levels were super high. My triglycerides were super high. And mind you, I'm running like anywhere from 60 to 85 miles a week. So heavily active, not just like being sedentary.

[video] 11:44 unusually high. And my doctor was like, what are you doing? And stop eating it. And I'm like, I'm eating so healthy. What do you mean? I'm just eating like a natural diet, just like fruits, veg, and this kind of stuff. The other thing that started happening to me, and I talked about this very publicly, was that I would just get all of these cold sores. And, you know, I have them on the mouth, the herpes. And I had them when I was a kid but as an adult I would only ever have them if maybe I got sick and my immune system was down then maybe I'd get some and I started having this like I'd go for a run like a 12 mile run not that far at that time for me it wasn't that far because I was doing 20 30 miles at a time and I'd get back to home and almost immediately I would just get this cold sore and it would just

[video] 12:43 And I knew something was going on there too, like my immune system was not suppressing the virus. The virus kept erupting. And the virus uses the spinal column to travel to make lesions. So, I can only assume that I wasn't eating enough fat to keep my immune system and my spinal because they say when you're... your neurons and your spinal column gets unhealthy, that it's easier for the virus to come up and make lesions. But I don't know a lot about that science. I haven't done a lot of reading on it. But I knew it was a problem. I could see that as a symptom. This is uncommon.

[video] 13:29 And then my partner, who was also doing this, started getting the colitis in the corners of the mouth.

[video] 13:43 and in vegans. So at that point, I said, well, this raw veganism isn't working out well for me. I live in a north environment. I don't get a lot of vitamin D. Maybe I just need to switch to cook vegan. You know, so then that's the progressive, you know, like cook vegan, high raw, still like, oh yeah, I'm fruit based. I just have this cooked stuff and I'm getting cooked stuff with supplements put into the food because I'm just like desperately trying to keep the system running. And I did that for about three years.

[video] 14:23 And during that time, I started off, you know, the progression, you go high fruit, raw, and then high starch, low fat. And then slowly you'll see people slipping into like meat analogs, you know, until that's all you're eating. I'm just eating like these fake meat products till you just break down one day and you're like, I can't do this anymore. But that's, that's kind of how it went. And for three years I did that while I was trying to lift pretty seriously. Like I wanted to show vegan strength, you know, because that's, That's what people want to prove. And in the third year, and I had some more bad blood work during that time. I've actually reposted a video about that. I got a blood work back with very high cholesterol for eating no animal products. And same thing, my doctor's like, what are you eating? Like, I've never, you know, I've had the same doctor for a long time. He's like, I've never seen your blood work like this. what's going on? I'm like, I don't know.

[video] 15:23 I'm just eating a vegan diet, you know, but you start mixing the starches with the fats with the meat analogs are just tons of oils in those two, you know, fractured oil. And it just spiked my blood work. And then in the last year, and I typed to you about this, I started getting bloody noses.

[video] 15:49 I went to my doctor about it, and he was like, well, people get bloody noses. And I was like, no, no, I'm getting regular bloody noses. That's not normal. And he's like, well, you're powerlifting, right? And I'm like, yeah. And he's like, well, you probably just burst something in your nose. And he took a look at my nose, and there was like some ruptured blood vessels, you know, so like weak connective tissue or something. Mm-hmm. And I was like, okay, he's like, it'll be fine. Give it a couple of weeks. And he said, if it doesn't go away, we'll cauterize it. We'll go in and we'll cauterize. And I kept getting more and more bloody noses as the time went on. And I had one day where I had four bloody noses in a day. And I was like, done. This is not normal. This is not, this is wrong. Like, and I have to stop playing this denial game. And you start thinking back to the first symptoms, you know?

[video] 16:49 your first cracked tooth, and then how you've been putting band-aids on all the way along. And that day I went to the store and I got duck eggs and milk and cheese, and I just started off vegetarian. And I went home and I had so many eggs. Like, I think I had a dozen eggs that day. And I just blew up. Like, I felt like I was just vibrating. I was like... Like, I just felt, like, so energized and like I hadn't felt in years and I was just... I was like, okay, we have to come to terms with this. And it's a psychological process because you've bought into veganism, you know, you've bought into this whole thing and you've helped others get into it, you know, and you've like, now what? So that's kind of where it was. And I had even, when I was running so many marathons and ultras, I had, you know, I was friends with Mike Arnstein who really helped get me into fruitarianism.

[video] 17:50 We were actually friends, and we were writing a book together. I have a background in biological sciences, so you start putting together all of the peer-reviewed science that supports your ideology.

[video] 18:09 We spent almost a year and a half writing this book, and it's pretty much done.

[video] 18:17 and I and I my part was done I was just kind of doing the background research and helping him put together but he decided to shelve the project and he ultimately I think felt that he didn't want the responsibility that came along with it um whatever that means you know whether it's peddling and selling or you know dealing with people who are contacting

[video] 18:46 and or having problems kind of thing. But I also found out along the way, like how many, like a lot of people contacted me off the record because they knew that I have a background in science and they were contacting me with problems. And that was the other thing that I couldn't deny the whole time along the way, like how many people contacted me with issues and wanted me to try to help them like sort it out or tell them what kind of supplements

[video] 19:17 seen all of these symptoms and like every week I was getting like when I was really active on YouTube I spent hours and hours every week like trying to help people and answer questions and during that time I learned about how many of these you know raw guru people are eating fish and fish oil and like raw milk and all this other kind of crap off the side and they're they're not saying that they're

[video] 19:48 raw because they're eating whatever raw things off to the side, you know, sashimi once in a while, or, you know, a little bit of raw yogurt or this sort of thing. And they're not sustaining the raw veganism, but they're selling the raw veganism. And it's just a, to me, it's a bunch of people who are lying to themselves. Like I look at it now and it's like, you're not presenting the truth. You're not presenting what is actually going on. You're presenting some polished up crap and you're dragging people into something incredibly dangerous for most humans. There's, without question, will probably be a few people out there that might have some genetic exceptions that make them better at surviving long periods without, you know, animal products. But that's an anomaly. That's a small percentage versus the majority, you know. So, that was kind of the wrap up.

[video] 20:43 I for a long time, even when I came back to animal products, was kind of trying to do this like, wow, I'm still like plant-based, but I use animal products as a supplement, as to like supplement the things instead of using supplements. And then I got really like anti-supplement. I'm still very anti-supplement. I'm completely off supplements. And I thought that coming back on animal products was going to reintroduce the inflammation that I was feeling. Before I went raw vegan, I haven't had any inflammation at all. And right now, I'm incredibly high meat, high animal products. And I'm kind of surprised because you don't know where those things are coming from. People just kind of make it up in their minds. It's subjective. Oh, it's the animal products that's giving me inflammation. But when you start eating a really clean, full nutrient spectrum diet, and you're not on the supplements, It hasn't been a problem for me.

[video] 21:43 And as I learned with biochemistry, I don't know about in Europe, but in the United States, we don't have any oversight in the supplement industry. We don't have any government going in and checking what's going on in supplements. And it's very dangerous.

[video] 22:02 testing on the supplements and found heavy metals like they found DNA from things that weren't even on the ingredient list and I try to explain to people that we have receptors in our body and they are very specific about what they take in and molecules are you know left and right hand and the receptors want a very

[video] 22:32 hand and a left glove works for shit well it's kind of like that in our receptors and when we do um pardon me when we do medicines um they do a very specific right or left hand based on the receptors and they know and there's oversight in that and they filter out the mixed up left and right

[video] 23:02 don't do that with supplements so you can be having like weird molecules that are similar to the receptors but don't work right and they will just go in there connect and just cause havoc like that's not how the biochemistry works and once I started learning that in school I was like oh no supplements are so bad I mean they might be if you were in a really dire like close to death situation they might help for a short period just to kind of stabilize you but then you need to like get away from that you know but I would say for every you know in any situation like the food the thing that you're supposed to be eating is the better choice you know there's always a better option and since I've been off with supplements every time

[video] 23:55 So since then, kind of going with that, like, high plant-based, a little bit of animal food, I've just kind of found myself listening to what my body wants over, like, all this back-and-forth garbage, you know, in the media and the Internet, and just trying to, like, listen. And I've been slowly moving more and more towards heavy carnivores.

[video] 24:24 No grains, no beans. It took me a while to get off all of the starches. And still eating some greens and a little bit of fruit. But it's very different for me now. And I feel so much better. And I look better. And I'm functioning better. And I haven't had bloody noses. My athletic performance is through the roof. And that's kind of how I started working.

[video] 24:52 more about all these kind of like dietary myths, and that's kind of how I ran into your channel. I'm trying to think if there was anything else along the way. I don't know. That's about the synopsis of it. That's kind of been the path, and that was, so I was vegan, strict vegan for five years.

25:11 And then... And then to 2015?

[video] 25:16 Yeah. Yeah, with all the experimentation... Um, 10 years total off and on in my life. Okay. And then I've been back on animal products for two years, but the last six months I've been very heavy. And then I've been slowly progressing into more ketogenic, um, because I feel better on it.

[video] 25:47 carbohydrates, like your body runs on it, your brain runs on it and all this kind of stuff. But I would just be up and down all day long. So I would eat this, you know, starch meal or even starch with some protein and get this spike and then, you know, and I was drinking a lot of that was the other thing because my energy levels were so

[video] 26:12 And I've heard that from other vegans, too. Like, I've heard some people saying they're drinking up to 30 cups of coffee a day, which is insane because your body's just dying. And I don't have that now. Like, I've been doing some intermittent fasting. And I don't do it every day, but I do it just based on how I feel. Like, if I don't feel like eating, I don't press myself to. And I'm not 100% keto. Like, I still... I eat some fruits and, you know, I kind of go up and down. But with lifting, I kind of try to make sure I'm having some sugars because I want to get the mass. I want to put on some more mass.

[video] 26:54 But I just don't feel that. I just feel so even. It's amazing. And yesterday, so I've been just starting to incorporate some raw meats.

[video] 27:08 which is something that, of course, I was terrified about, totally terrified, you know, because of that whole belief system. But then I started looking back through traditional meals and thinking about, like, how humans have come so long, and raw meats have been traditional meals forever. And so I started off with some tartars, some oysters, some raw seafood, and it's been, like,

[video] 27:41 I had come off a day of all raw meat, seafood, tatars. I did have some blue rare steak and some greens in a pair, but essentially a very raw meat day. And I had to do a bench test because I'm going into a training cycle for a powerlifting competition. And I blew my personal best bench by 20 pounds, which is a lot. I mean, that's a really huge jump. And there's nothing that's changed. And I had even been in a car accident this year. And I had to take some time off of some lifting because I had whiplash. And so I hadn't even been working out for months. three weeks, and then I had oral surgery to remove all the teeth. So I had to have this year nine cavities filled and three teeth removed, leftover from veganism.

[video] 28:37 I tried to see if I could heal them, you know, but they were too far gone. The three teeth, and then I had the nine fillings. So now we'll see what happens. But can you imagine three teeth gone and nine fillings and there's a person who never had dental issues ever in my life and yeah I came in I just that lift yesterday 20 pounds and I was like this is mind-boggling to me so I feel like I the more I know the less I know that's that's definitely where I feel at this point that's my story when were these ten years exactly just to make it clear

29:22 when you were vegan?

[video] 29:23 So the early days when I was kind of doing the experimenting but I never kept on it so I'd go like eight months or then a year and then I would break down and go back so that was in the early 90s early mid 90s I think I tried it like three times two times real seriously and then the last stint was a full five-year block okay

29:50 Yeah. Do you know any other vegans who were friends and now also quit or something like that? Many.

[video] 29:57 Oh, so many. So many. So many. Some of the most diehard friends of mine from the early Seattle anarchist scene who were so diehard. People who are anarchists are very convicted and passionate about what they're doing. And you're talking about People who would be out marching, maybe some people I know who are in animal liberation front kind of thing, you know, they're not vegan anymore. And how many people from the 30 bad days, like the early 30 bad days, we talk all the time. You know, on the side and there's just like... Easily half the people, it's a revolving door. That's what I say. It's a revolving door and they rely, they have to have that revolving door because nobody sticks to it. Very few people do.

[video] 30:51 And the ones that do, you watch them just go down, down, down, you know, having to do Botox or, you know, do certain camera angles and like only in certain light because they look so terrible. And then if they do, they're like, oh, I'm fasting because they have to fast to like deal with all the weight that they're gaining and It's just unbelievable. I hope the people that need to find the recovery, and that's why I'm kind of committed to continuing on and continuing to speak about my experiences with others, that when people come through the other side and they need the recovery, that they can find the resources that they need.

31:36 What do you think is the future of veganism? Say what you want to say.

[video] 31:42 the future of veganism oh well sadly i think that they will cling on to lab-grown meat that's what i think i think so many people have so many problems and then they'll say well this lab-grown meat is our ultimate ethical choice and they'll eventually go to that and they're all

[video] 32:09 will be in denial and will let their health just go to shit over their ideologies, and I've seen that. But I always say, like, hey, if that's your belief system and that's what you choose, that's fine, but be very clear about your experience, that you choose your philosophy over your personal well-being.

[video] 32:32 And that's fine if that's what you want to do. If you want to say, yeah, maybe I'm not going to be as healthy. I had one guy...

[video] 32:50 don't try to sell it as your health you know some health saving diet because it's not it might be a good thing for people who are really obese to do for a quick short while just to like change their eating and get used to moving into a healthier eating system sure it's helped people in a very short term you know sort of way but

[video] 33:15 You know, I think the average time that people do well on veganism, depending on stored nutrients, is a year to three. And then normally I've seen with people who are very convicted, they try to like drag it out to five to seven years before they collapse in veganism. And the only ones that I see doing really well long-term tend to be on, and I would say really well, as far as like a vegan goes really well, are on very heavy supplementation.

[video] 33:50 Or they're doing things on the background that they're not talking about, which I find incredibly disreputable. You know, taking a little fish oil here, doing a little of that here, but not talking about it. There's a number of so-called vegans that are taking

34:14 Why do those people do it for so long? Why do they not quit if their health suffers? And why did you do it for 10 years? Was it because of the animals?

[video] 34:23 Well, for me, it was really largely about the environment and as a protest against modern farming. So I grew up on a farm. And

[video] 34:42 I know how farm animals are treated. I know how they act. I've milked. I grew up drinking full cream milk right out of the cow. Delicious, by the way.

[video] 34:55 And I'm very against industrial farming. So for me, and it's difficult where I'm at here, I've now just finally sourced a really good family farm that I'm working with. But it can be very difficult in the

[video] 35:15 good quality animal products. I mean, they are feeding a new trend in the United States is to take candy like Skittles and Snickers and candy bars and candies that are outdated, and the farmers buy them in bulk. So it's like past due. It's all this garbage with chemicals and colors, all this crap, fake oils, trans fatty acids, And they buy it in bulk from these candy places because it's cheap as hell. And they feed it to the animals. They mix it. They cut the feed with it. And because it makes their production dollars, their bottom line, bigger. And that's what people are eating from this.

[video] 36:00 chronic health issues here it's like the quality of food is shit and it's very difficult to find good quality food here and that's why i have like start my own food forest to grow my own foods but um i don't have enough land here to do animals i only have one

[video] 36:25 But I finally found a good farm here to work with, and I'm really excited about that. But yeah, for me, it was a bit of protest, both environmentally and just consumer-wise. I don't want to support that industry.

[video] 36:44 Environmentally here, the government doesn't make the industrial farms keep the environment

[video] 37:03 the oceans, the rivers, and I find that very upsetting. So for me, it was really like, it started as environmentalism, but then as I got more into it, I started having like the, yeah, if we don't have to treat animals and eat them, then better, you know, if we can live on plants, better. But I never had the, it's to me, I never felt that eating an animal

[video] 37:36 So I did have the animal rights focus that some people have, but maybe just in the sense of industrial farming, which I don't agree with and still do not.