Struggling with health issues is an extremely humbling experience. While I made it out of my crisis still vegan, I can completely relate with ex-vegans’ desperation. Hi Yovana, hi Alise, this is for you and everyone who is confused or suffering from similar symptoms themselves – to provide insights from someone who was at least as deep in the misery as you were. I reversed all of my hundreds of symptoms within a week, staying vegan. Take a quick look (and a thorough look later for sure) at the development of my health issues over years:

This is not to convince anybody to change their mind but to help people find the most probable cause of their health issues on a plantbased diet. To provide understanding about why your health fell to pieces on a vegan diet. This will be of big value for you if you hear me out – although you might think in the beginning it doesn’t – because you think already know what I wanna say. But it’s different. I’ve watched your videos in full on why you’re not vegan anymore. And I respect all of your decisions. And I 100% emphasize with your despair. In fact, I’ve been at that point of questioning myself. To say that one would never ever go back to eating animal products is quite naive when you’ve never hit absolute rock bottom. All I ask is if you can be open for a few minutes of the whole video for the causes that got me where I got with my health, and my crisis looked much the same like yours. I know that what worked for me doesn’t works for everyone but given that your symptoms were quite literally some of my hundreds of symptoms [timeline], the chance is high that it played a big role in your cases too. Sharing is the least I can do.

Take it from me as someone who has experienced it more than enough. Not having all the answers. But maybe some. For some people. Stick around for my upcoming videos. Next is like a five video series on the second reason for vegan gut, immune & heath issues – the volume eating, whole food, nutrient, antinutrient, purifying, biohacking and macro obsession. It’s gonna be outright amazing, eye-opening and worth a million dollars for anyone suffering. I’m working hard creating content that will certainly help anyone who feels forsaken by the vegan diet and also any non-vegans who dieted their metabolism down. I share how I managed to stay vegan while recovering from my severe vegan crisis fast and safely. For those who are vegan and wish to stay vegan – my channel is for you. For those who are not vegan and find themselves in weight and health crisis after chronic dieting – my channel is for you. My videos are just the ones that I would have needed when I was suffering on all levels. So I know they will be exactly that for you.

My case was horrible enough, pretty much like your cases. I’ve literally been through the exact same symptoms and many more, including gut, immune, inflammation, low thyroid and adrenal issues and therefore parasite, candida and systemic inflammation issues. I was literally wasting away over the years. I too couldn’t help but question veganism, that’s how miserable I got. I 100% understand you. I’m completely symptom-free for more than half a year now. Please, if anyone struggles with symptoms like these in my timeline – definitely watch my recent videos and videos to come. I believe it can truly be life-changing for you. I’m talking about them in my videos.

The questions doctors should ask (but probably don’t ?):

The question doctors should’ve asked you, Yovana and Alise, (and anybody with these symptoms!) are:

1. Are you in energy balance? Or have you been in an energy deficit (no matter how small or short, if temporary or chronically)?

2. Are you obsessed with volume eating / whole foods / macros / nutrient / antinutrient / detox / weight loss / controlling / cleansing?

3. and maybe even most important in some cases: Are you eating non-organic foods?

My coming videos are going to be about 2 and 3. But for 1, let me ask you, even though you probably won’t think you are: Have you been in an energy deficit? Be it a non-rebalanced calorie deficit from the past or a chronic calorie deficit, be it with out without the “help” of exercise… water fasting alone ultimately has gotten you into a huge calorie deficit of around 75.000 calories (2500 calories * 30 days, given you didn’t exercise in that time)! And we haven’t even talked about the juice fasting, cleansing, detoxing, 21 day weight loss episodes and programmes, and low fat raw diet with plenty of exercise (just assuming, just saying). In terms of digestion, when fasting or juicing, or eating fruit or soft foods only, you’re babying your body. Your body’s systems literally adapt to what you give and train them. And can’t be surprised if you body is not able to digest certain foods anymore after long bouts of restricting those foods. You might not want to hear it, and I neglected its truth for a long time myself, but 2000 calories a day is a fasting and starvation diet. Even without any exercise at all. Screw what calorie calculators say, they don’t have a clue – I learned it the hard way as well.

The reason we gain weight more often than not is because our bodies are running on low flame, not because we’re eating too much.

There’s no way around recovering reversing this by teaching our bodies to trust again by eating in abundance if what you want is health, reversing all calorie deficiencies you’ve done in the past and achieve energy balance. But I see it all the time – and I myself fell for it – that people are going for eating in abundance without restriction, but then shying away from it because they gain weight, so they think they must be eating too much for their body, and stay in this calorie deficit, which only causes more and more problems over time. But the truth is that it really does take time for your whole system to adjust from thinking we’re starving to knowing we’re safe and in a place of food abundance so “hey we can waste all this energy on non-vital stuff like digestion and hormones and immune system and hey let’s let that fat go as we won’t need it anymore, she’s shown as over months that we’re finally safe!”. Look at my health crisis timeline – diseases added up over 5 years!

This won’t be new words for you but the thing is you probably haven’t come to believe them very much. Otherwise you hadn’t gotten to this place where your health was falling apart and you were left confused. I was not believing myself that I need that much energy. Because I would gain weight if I ate that much right?! But this is where things go wrong and downhill again because we fail to understand how our body, health and adaptive metabolism & how thermogenesis works. How is our body supposed to maintain health when the energy is missing that should have been  spent on immune, intestinal, digestive, hormonal and reproductive systems – and literally all processes in your body?? And because I failed so much even though I was aware of eating enough (I just didn’t think I’d need that much!),

So, have you ever consciously put these calories back into your body?

My guess is that probably you haven’t because when you tried, you started to gain weight, of course, no winder, because you had trained your metabolism to do run on low flame, save energy and store fat. Just increasing fats and protein won’t cut it here. Just because you gained weight doesn’t mean at all that your metabolism has recovered. You can gain weight and eat far too less – it happens to people all the time. It is no wonder that your body has stopped your period (and probably ovulation) and lowered your thyroid output and downregulated all your digestive, hormone and immune system in order to save energy. This is a normal evolutionary response to an energy deficit. It’s supposed to happen this way. I didn’t know that back then either. But science knows for a long time already. It’s so disheartening to see people fall apart in their health (like I did!) and then can’t help but think it’s the vegan diet.

Yes stress and macros play a role but let’s not neglect the much bigger factor: energy balance. I can only encourage anyone with these kind of problems on a vegan diet to reach out to me, watch my videos I’m making these days on vegan health crisis, study my health crisis timeline on my website and see if they can relate. And if you do, my free advice will be worth a million dollars for you.

How do you know if your metabolism is slow – too slow for you to maintain health (or weight)?

– Check your resting heart rate – if it’s below 60 beats per minute, your metabolism is most probably running on low, unless you’re doing a ton of endurance training – but even then it shouldn’t be lower than 50 beats per minute. a low heart rate at 30-50 beats can be a sign for both, very unfit or very fit state of the heart or metabolism. In general, doctors like to say a low heart rate is a sign for a fit trained person – but if you’re experiencing numerous health issues on several levels, you’re most likely not having a low heart rate because you’re so fit… it’s common sense. But yeah, it takes seeing all symptoms together in context – you can’t conclude anything from the heart rate alone obviously – especially because numerous factors play a role. But all I’m saying is that when your health has been declining and you’re not well, chances are a low heart rate is not a good sign at all. Most of the times, a low heart rate comes together with the next one:

– Low thyroid / hypothyroidism. If you free T3 and T4 show low on your blood test, this is a huge sign your metabolism is low. The thyroid is a key part of your metabolism. That’s why people who are hypothyroid tend to gain weight easily and those who are hyperthyroid (hyperactive thyroid) tend to lose weight easily.

– Low adrenal / low cortisol / low adrenal hormones in general / adrenal fatigue

– Low reproductive hormones / low estrogen / low progesterone / no period / no cycle

– Digestive issues of all kind

– Systemic recurring inflammation and infections of all kind (tendonitis, congestion (e.g. excess mucus in throat, wax build-up in ears, injuries, pains and aches)

– Endless list continuing…

Absolutely watch my first video of this series “calorie deficit -> vegan gut & immune issues” including my personal vegan health crisis timeline over 5 years which lists all hundreds of severe symptoms I had. It’ll provide a long thorough list of how to know you have a slow metabolism. [insert list here] Impaired cognitive, memory and brain function like memory loss and hypersensitivity in eyes and ears are one of them. I had to deal with those like crazy. A weak immune system another which will lead to predisposition for things like toxic mold because the fight off system is set on pause. A strong immune system can deal with mold. Not saying it’s immune against it but the difference that a strong and weak immune system in many cases makes all the difference! Rashes, chronic health conditions in general, systemic inflammation, recurring infections. Also, omega 3, like everything else in your body, the longer the chronic (even the slightest) calorie deficit went on – or I should also say: the longer the huge calorie of the past wasn’t balanced out again by making up the deficit -, omega 3 conversion to EPA and DHA is impaired on calorie restriction.

I don’t think we’re all quite clear and knowledgeable and knowledgeable on how big of an impact even the slightest chronic energy deficit has on our system.

Let alone a temporary. Our body can’t help but fall to pieces as our systems stop working and operating as properly and on peak as they should. Which is not a good thing. This mode is meant for super short term survival purposes where non-vital functions are neglected and shut down. That means that your whole body and every system is running on energy saving mode. As efficient as possible. Holding on to fat and not spending energy on basic functions like digestion and hormones. To get it back to running inefficiently and “wastefully” again (that’s what you want), you need to get back into energy balance, lose all food fears and perfectionist orthorexic approaches towards veganism and avoid eating non-organic food where possible – especially in your day to day choices.

Your body always does the right thing.

Sounds good but cheesy – but it’s true. Your body will do all these “stupid and wrong seeming” things on purpose. To lower your metabolism. To ensure your survival Because it senses you’re starving. It has no idea you’re fasting on purpose, juice fasting, detoxing or only allowing yourself to eat raw or low fat or whatever. All it knows is that in order to survive, it’s going to have to shut down all non-vital systems. All of this has happened to me. And if you can relate with the symptoms listed in my symptom timeline, I can only recommend you to consider staying and settling here on my channel and hot the notification bell for a lot to come.

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