Is Aajonus trustworthy?

[risrosen]

The last few days I've been trying to do raw paleo, and I ended up just killing my already terrible digestion.  Today I can't eat anything at all, my digestion is just dead.  May be the worst episode I've ever had, and I've had some terrible ones.

I happened to get an email from Aajonus telling about his upcoming appearance on the 26th at a city within a day's drive from me, giving consultations.  I emailed him, prior to this bad episode, asking if he thought he could help someone with as poor digestion as I have.  He replied that he's helped people with worse digestion and told me to eat whole egg, starting with the white, to heal the digestive tract.  And then for indigestion, his book says to eat raw honey.

Can he be trusted?  Should I go down this route?  The guy I've been following on diet, Matt Stone of 180 Degree Health, has written:

"The number of negative long-term health stories that I hear from former followers of AV far outweigh the number of happily-ever-afters. In fact, some of the most tragic dietary prisons I’ve seen people live in (barely live), were constructed around ideas gleaned from Aajonus’s “Primal Diet.” "

But I'm in a big hole.

[ForTheHunt]

I don't think anyone really knows. All you can do is try and see if it works out.

[goodsamaritan]

I trust Aajonus.

Except for the dairy.  I just cannot digest dairy.  I tried every trick Aajonus and Rami Nagel suggested how to digest dairy and it does not work for me.  Not cow dairy, not goat dairy, not carabao dairy.  It's just no good for me.

And I agree with Aajonus on the eggs for your digestion.  I would suggest that too.

If you still have reserves, even a 1 to 3 day orange juice fast will restore your digestion.

Your definition of raw paleo may be different from ours.

Open up a food journal in this forum so people can see what you are doing.  Take pics too.

[risrosen]

Your definition of raw paleo may be different from ours.

I got my definition of raw paleo from you!  From your article that I read.  I was eating meat, egg yolks, low glycemic-load fruit, coconut.

However, last night, after eating the raw beef, I took an hcl capsule, and some gelatin...and then later I started eating cereal and milk.  That usually helps in these situations (believe it or not), but I guess I was past that.

[laterade]

If you ask AV I am almost certain he will tell you to eat high meat.
I think you should try that first before you see him.

[risrosen]

I have to say, though, that I've never felt this good after a digestive disaster.  Usually I feel horrible, but today I actually feel better than usual except for my stomach having that full feeling although it's empty.  So I guess the raw meat must have done something good.

[raw]

The last few days I've been trying to do raw paleo, and I ended up just killing my already terrible digestion.  Today I can't eat anything at all, my digestion is just dead.  May be the worst episode I've ever had, and I've had some terrible ones.

I feel for you. When I started raw paleo, I just love it the way I feel my energy and the calmness in my stomach.(even though I didn't like the taste). I see my husband and my child were acted different than me when they started. This diet is not the drugs that u can see the result just trying for some days. Hoping your best health.

[Brother]

I have to say, though, that I've never felt this good after a digestive disaster.  Usually I feel horrible, but today I actually feel better than usual except for my stomach having that full feeling although it's empty.  So I guess the raw meat must have done something good.

When I started eating raw, I had a week or so with heavy flu like symptoms. the shits, the shakes, the fever, the whole ball of vax. It passed and paved the way for something better than before. But the transition had me wondering if what I was doing was insanity.

[TylerDurden]

Gelatin, cereal and milk? No wonder you had problems!  Best to make sure you are not allergic to any raw foods and try to avoid ALL non-rawpalaeo items in future. Some of us(by no means all) found out via experimentation that we did badly on raw dairy or raw veggie-juice or raw coconut oil/cream(ironically, all those being major constituents of Aajonus' Primal Diet). Other people came a cropper when they ate too much each day (a common AV-inspired false concept).


AV is, IMO, a curious mixture of superhuman genius and charlatan. Several of his ideas were the only reason I became healthy in the long run(the high-meat, the raw aspect etc.) and yet his insistence to me, at the time, that it was physically impossible for anyone to be allergic to raw dairy meant that I had to needlessly suffer another 6 months of misery before I had the sense to cut out all raw dairy from my diet.

[risrosen]

I know.  I find him kind of preposterous, and yet I'm thinking of turning to him.  But I would certainly take everything he says with a dose of salt and proceed as cautiously as a desperate person can.  If he said to eat something that made me feel relentlessly bad, I wouldn't continue it. 

[laterade]

AV is, IMO, a curious mixture of superhuman genius and charlatan.

What do you think of his ideas on how viruses are not alive? Or contagious?

I know.  I find him kind of preposterous, and yet I'm thinking of turning to him.  But I would certainly take everything he says with a dose of salt and proceed as cautiously as a desperate person can.  If he said to eat something that made me feel relentlessly bad, I wouldn't continue it. 

I feel the same way.. He seems like such a nut, but with confidence that DEMANDS attention. I take everything he says with a grain of salt but I could listen to him for hours. Like telling people viruses are not contagious WTF??

[dsohei]

risrosen, you might have leaky gut syndrome from years of eating food that wasnt right for you - gluten/grains/dairy/etc
why dont you just eat clean paleo, either all raw or some cooked (im not advocating well-done cooking here)
if you want a more sane, but less extreme talk about paleo, read robb wolfs book the paleo solution.

some of what matt stone says makes bizarro sense, but he is neither a scientist nor a serious athlete, and robb is both, has healed himself of crazy sickness and trains high performance athletes.
matt may have some interesting tricks, but robb will also get you there systematically, not via hearsay. that being said, some of matt's inspirations like schwarzbein, martin berkham, are right on in regards to useful systems, except for some of the poisonous foods they recommended. also look at the GAPS diet, and see a good functional biological medicine doctor/naturopath who understands evolutionary nutrition.

[KD]

if you want a more sane, but less extreme talk about paleo, read robb wolfs book the paleo solution.

heh its for sure true that there is a much nicer vibe going on with Rob Wolf's stuff or Mark's Daily Apple. I don't follow the message boards there but I suspect theres alot less discusion of how awful everything is.

I have pretty much nothing bad to say about Aajonus. I find some of his ideas impractical, but there isn't a single thing i've found for certain to be incorrect. I do find his extreme nature to cultivate some really obsessive/negative things in people that are unwell. Even tho I believe in detox theories I am not surprised that some might do better on MS's program or other things. There is only so much one can suffer to the point of it being non-productive. I think Aajonus is stubborn in not acknowledging this. Anyway the unfortunate result that I think MS points out is you get for instance people complaining about vaccines (that everyone on the planet has had) or other things as impossible roadblocks to health. I can't even participate in much AV related health rants about which vaccine or pharmaceutical was a death sentence or whatever because always in my head i'm like..."dude i've had cancer and seem to being doing ok... just STFU and go run and play or something."


given the opportunity I personaly would still like to have a consultation/meet Aajonus

[risrosen]

why dont you just eat clean paleo, either all raw or some cooked (im not advocating well-done cooking here)

also lkook at the GAPS diet, and see a good functional biological medicine doctor/naturopath who understands evolutionary nutrition.

I can't follow any diet, at least none that I've ever found.  I can't eat enough of the allowed foods because my digestive capacity is so poor, and so I always fall back on the cooked sweet carbs and milk late at night.  Or with raw paleo, I can't digest the meat.  And I don't seem to do well eating cooked meat without starch.  I struggled for a long time to do that because I thought it was healthful.  Then Matt clued me in that it weakens digestion over the long run, and when I added the starch back I did much better.  The rules seem a lot different with raw, both for that and in terms of calorie requirements being much less.

[TylerDurden]

What do you think of his ideas on how viruses are not alive? Or contagious?

I disagree with it. I suppose he could be right to some extent, but people do catch colds or flus, even rawists like me on one occasion.

[KD]

Can you articulate further what you mean by 'digestion', or being 'dead', as in if you were to eat a whole egg in this state what would happen? I'm not a huge personal proponent of raw milk, but it appears you are drinking/mixing pastuerized milk with processed food and having no troubles. Why not get a few gallons of raw milk and eat small meals of meats and eggs when it feels right for a few days? There are a few other thigns I could suggest but at that point you might as well be dealing with AV because I don't even follow what you mean or get your particular situation. The spleen thing seems somewhat of an issue that others here might not understand I would think.

[Iguana]

What do you think of his ideas on how viruses are not alive? Or contagious?
(...)
 Like telling people viruses are not contagious WTF??

GCB is much more logical:
A NEW THEORETICAL MODEL OF VIRAL PHENOMENA

[risrosen]

Can you articulate further what you mean by 'digestion', or being 'dead', as in if you were to eat a whole egg in this state what would happen? I'm not a huge personal proponent of raw milk, but it appears you are drinking/mixing pastuerized milk with processed food and having no troubles. Why not get a few gallons of raw milk and eat small meals of meats and eggs when it feels right for a few days? There are a few other thigns I could suggest but at that point you might as well be dealing with AV because I don't even follow what you mean or get your particular situation. The spleen thing seems somewhat of an issue that others here might not understand I would think.

Yeah, "digestion" is kind of vague.  I suppose gastric emptying would be a better description.  I have what seems like gastroparesis without the nausea and vomiting.  When this thing happens the food just seems to sit in my stomach and not digest.  And then even many hours later--even a whole day or longer sometimes--I still have a full feeling in my stomach, though not quite the same as when the food was in it.  It's like nothing is moving.  And when this first started happening, back in '97, I would also have a hard time passing what I'd eaten and I would have to take a laxative, and I wouldn't be able to eat anything until it got out.  There was one particular event that happened--it was the very first time it happened: I ate a breakfast that included a glob of greasy hash browns.  And I couldn't eat for a day or two, until I took a laxative and got it out.  And that was it; I've never had a normal stomach capacity since then.  I started living on mostly cereal and sweet things at that point.  Sometimes during the next few years I could only eat quite tiny amounts at a time, and the slightest thing would set my stomach off.

Actually, now I remember (I haven't had to deal with this much, or not so acutely, for quite some time), I think it could be the presence of gas in my stomach that remains after the food is gone--I have had relief a few times from simethicone (Gas-X).  And it happens sometimes even when I haven't eaten food, in response to taking a supplement or something, or maybe just a very small bite of some food.  Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if each of those things is creating gas.  Would the gas possibly be coming from candida?  Does anyone know?  In which case the coconut oil detox might be good for me to do after all? 

God, I hope so.  I'm going to go get some Gas-X right now.

[King Salmon]

I've met Aajonus.Nice guy but I can't stand his focus on dairy and honey.
Having said that,his ideas at the time were most likely impossible to "market" without those two crappy(imo) ingredients.

Btw,I also don't care for his fairytale-like stories about coyotes,caves etc...

[laterade]

Btw,I also don't care for his fairytale-like stories about coyotes,caves etc...

Coyotes feeding him rabbits... trippin on psychedelics and more...That could have been a book by itself
I have had a few positive experiences with wild coyote but never have they served me dinner. XD
It is possible but IMO He just gave people like durianrider a bunch of stuff to run with to bash raw meat and make him look silly.
If it did happen than he has some balls to share it, he must know damn well that sounds like lunacy to most people.

[dsohei]

so, ris rosen, i have had many forms of gut issues, including years of constipation.
what really helped me is to deny my carb cravings, eat less sugars, eat LOTS of healthy protein and LOTS of healthy fats, work with a good doctor, take prescribed probiotics and other supplements, eat fermented foods, use magnesium, do everything to relieve stress, inflammation and cortisol.
basically, do not eat the bad shit. you have to love yourself enough to get through the painful bio-chemical issues that effect your brain and mood and make you think in an altered state.

[risrosen]

so, ris rosen, i have had many forms of gut issues, including years of constipation.
what really helped me is to deny my carb cravings, eat less sugars, eat LOTS of healthy protein and LOTS of healthy fats, work with a good doctor, take prescribed probiotics and other supplements, eat fermented foods, use magnesium, do everything to relieve stress, inflammation and cortisol.
basically, do not eat the bad shit. you have to love yourself enough to get through the painful bio-chemical issues that effect your brain and mood and make you think in an altered state.

I know that's good advice for most people, but for me the issue is that I simply can't get enough food doing that.  I've tried many, many times to just do it on self-control, but it doesn't work because it's not really that I'm so addicted to sugar, at least it doesn't seem like it.  Maybe there is a little of that, but it's mostly that I get extremely depleted because I'm not eating enough, because I can't eat enough of the good stuff, and I turn to the easiest thing to digest, which is all I can eat late at night.  And I've been depleted for so long that I no longer have the capacity to go for any length of time on insufficient calories.  This has been going on for 15+ years.

I was on a fermented milk diet for months this year--nothing but that.  I never had a craving for sugar.  But I also had a hard time digesting all that clabbered milk, a cup every half hour I was supposed to do.  I had a hard time just swallowing it, which is a common symptom for me.  Yet since I was drinking so much of it, I was getting enough food and so I didn't crave sugar.  In a previous attempt, I didn't know to skim the fat off it before clabbering it, and so I really had a hard time; I couldn't drink enough of it, and after a week or two I did have to go for the cereal late at night.

That's the way it's been, anyway.  I don't know what I'm going to do now.  I still can't eat anything, I haven't had anything but honey all day (a la Aajonus).

[laterade]

That's the way it's been, anyway.  I don't know what I'm going to do now.  I still can't eat anything, I haven't had anything but honey all day (a la Aajonus).

Have you tried blending meat? That may be easier to digest

[dsohei]

i dont see how ground raw meat is harder to digest than your alternative. are you counting your calories? i ask this because people who eat lots of carbs instead of fat have leptin resistance and cannot tell when they are full. eating fat and protein increases leptin sensitivity.
2000 calories a day of raw meat fat and protein is easy to obtain and eat, compared to the pain it seems like youre going through. i dont think the milk and sugar diet is helping you heal.
if its low stomach acid or an enzyme deficiency, buy some "Now super enzymes" from iherb.com and take a whole bunch with each meal until your symptoms reduce.
there was still sugar in the fermented milk, so dont kid yourself. and if you eat enough protein your body will make the carbs it needs from that.

im still not sure how you can't eat anything but honey. is your esophagus swollen? do you immediately regurgitate it back up? seriously, have you seen an actual doctor of naturopathy/bio-func. med?

[risrosen]

i dont see how ground raw meat is harder to digest than your alternative. are you counting your calories? i ask this because people who eat lots of carbs instead of fat have leptin resistance and cannot tell when they are full. eating fat and protein increases leptin sensitivity.
2000 calories a day of raw meat fat and protein is easy to obtain and eat, compared to the pain it seems like youre going through. i dont think the milk and sugar diet is helping you heal.
if its low stomach acid or an enzyme deficiency, buy some "Now super enzymes" from iherb.com and take a whole bunch with each meal until your symptoms reduce.
there was still sugar in the fermented milk, so dont kid yourself. and if you eat enough protein your body will make the carbs it needs from that.

im still not sure how you can't eat anything but honey. is your esophagus swollen? do you immediately regurgitate it back up? seriously, have you seen an actual doctor of naturopathy/bio-func. med?

Well, it's a gastric emptying problem, I think.  Gastroparesis or something close to it.  I have most of the symptoms.  People who have gastroparesis, delayed gastric emptying, have a lot of trouble with certain things: fiber and fat are the chief ones, and also raw food.  Gatroparesis diets always forbid much of any of that; raw vegetables for sure, and certainly raw meat would be right out.  And I can certainly see why.

I don't know why I can't eat right now.  If it's not stomach gas--and the Gas-X didn't help at all this time, by the way--then I don't know.  But I just have this unrelenting feeling of fullness in my stomach.