LFRV who still have weight to lose after a year or even two.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jon Fergus on April 14, 2012 at 6:55am

I will add a conservative +18 to this as well ;)

Permalink Reply by Greenmama on April 14, 2012 at 7:59am

And I think that OBGYNs and lay midwives are both important and it would be really awesome if they were to work in harmony with one another!  Unfortunately, in practice, OBGYNs are trying to eliminate lay midwifery and some midwives are dismissive of all obstetricians.  (Not that I think Adam or Harley are trying to do that!)  I'm just hoping that there is harmony and cooperation and comprehensive support for all.

Permalink Reply by Adam on April 14, 2012 at 8:17am

Hey Greenmama

I appreciate the analogy but I think you are taking what I have said out of context.I do agree with the analogy to the extent that what Harley promotes will be adequate most of the time, in the same way that a mid-wife and natural birth may be sufficient most of the time. But I disagree that what I am doing is analogous to the obgyn. In the sense that there is a need for specialised, personalised care for people with circumstances that do not respond to the generic support, I agree. But in the sense that it is dangerous, I disagree. What exactly do you think I am recommending? I don't even think you understand what I am recommending if you think that it is dangerous. I am not saying the lfrv, calorie sufficient diet is wrong. I am just saying that a specified, personalised version of it may be indicated for some people. That isn't dangerous, or rocket science if you actually sit down and think about it for more than a minute to let it get past the robot-like conditioned thinking that comes from only partial knowledge of how the body works.

I have never read any of Allisons posts prior to this discussion, so I had no knowledge at the time of responding to this, to suggest that she had an ED. If the question had been worded different, to give any indication that she was asking for help, talking about herself, or that she had any issues with ED, then I would have responded differently.

I responded appropriately to the question. She might be in denial about an ED, I don't know. I haven't read enough of Allisons posts to know that. The point of my post was very simple: I know of several people have started going back to eating meat or animal products or cooked food and have essentially lost faith in a lfrv diet, because they followed the prescribed, generic recommendations given here and for some reason it didn't work out for them.The reason: The way they applied the diet wasn't suited to their own personal nutritional needs. Telling someone to be patient for a few years is appropriate if someone is making consistent progress, but it is just slow. But if someone gets consistently worse, not better, especially for over a year, something is wrong. That is the old paradigm of no pain no gain, which is nonsense. If you are doing something right, you should start to notice some improvements. That doesn't mean it will all plain sailing. Healing isn't always straight forwards. But there should be some noticable improvements in some areas. I am not just talking about weight here. I am talking about symptoms in general too.

That is one lesson I learned very well from Doug Graham and Natural Hygiene. Everything I learned from nutritionists, naturopaths, doctors etc. was no pain no gain. And I tried that and it made me worse and worse whilst people said "thats' right, it's supposed to be like that". That's the sort of principle that left me 7 stone with an broken elbow that should have taken 6 weeks to heal, take 6 months to heal.

When I went to consult with one of Dougs early mentors, before I met Doug, I was given some awful advice. I had been following Dougs advice for 2 months, noticed some big improvements, and went to see this guy thinking that if he had trained Doug, he must be able to get me even better results. He took me off Dougs program and put me on some nut based avocado based diet to gain weight which made my symptoms worse than ever. I contacted Doug, and he said very clearly "It is never wrong to do the right thing; You shouldn't have to get so much worse in order to get better - your body communicates with you via symptoms and if you get worse, pay attention". I went back on his program and was immediately relieved. That was the last time I ever wasted my energy on someone who told me I should get significantly worse before I get better.

One of the things I love about the raw diet is how much faster the results are on this diet than on any other diet. That doesn't mean overnight miracle cures for everyone. But it means quicker results than on other diets.

So once again, yes people need help with eating disrders. But let us be VERY clear for one last time, if you please read my posts again, you will see that I have not once responded to this as a request for help from someone with an ED. This was a hypothetical question asked by someone who wanted to know about what would happen if someone followed the diet for one year and still wasn't losing weight. That is a perfectly acceptable question and I offered a perfectly acceptable answer - IN CONTEXT.

If I had given the same answer to someone with the additional knowledge that you have now offered, then that would be a different story. But that isn't what happened here and you are making an erroneous cross-translation of something I said to mean something completely different, assuming that the information would be universally appropriate, which is the exact opposite of my entire point. That we have to look at everyones individual circumstances and realise that sometimes, generic advice has its limitations. Most of the time, it doesn,'t thats why we even bother with fields like "public health". And this website. But occassionally it does. That is my point, nothing more, nothing less. Consider it, in context, and avoid translating it to a different context.

I do appreciate your points about being sensitive to ED's. And I very much am and have been on different discussions. Having worked full-time as a nutritional therapist with at least 20 clients per week, I can assure you that most of my clients are female and more than 50% have a history of eating disorders. I am very much familiar with the need to think carefully about what I say with those clients. And I accept that I should have been very explicit in my inital post, to offer "just incase" consideration points and disclaimers, "just incase" someone with an ED might be reading or misinterpreting what I was saying. But I stand by what I said overall as being contextually relevant.

And just as a final note about your metaphorical analogy, I know a couple who had two children. One was an unassisted home birth, which went absolutely fine. The second child was assisted by a lay midwife/Doola (sp?) and despite being trained and experienced as a Doola, she clearly didn't know what she was doing when it starting going not according to plan. And at 3 in the morning, with blood all over the new carpet, an ambulance had to be called out. Fortunately, mother and baby ended up being fine, but only because of medical intervention. Doesn't matter if we tell ourselves it is only 1%. If you are that 1%, it suddenly matters a whole lot when it is you, if the "generic, it should be fine" support isn't enough. 1% of 7 billion people is 70 million people.

Take care

Adam x

Take care

Adam x

Permalink Reply by Greenmama on April 14, 2012 at 8:36am

I appreciate your carefully thought out responses and I agree with your final example completely, which is why I think that midwives and OBGYN are both important and needed.  Because I have seen your posts, I am well aware of your extensive experience and I don't believe you did anything inappropriate.  I don't agree with the way you see the big picture, and I don't think you will ever agree with my point of view, either, but that's ok.  Diversity leads to learning and growth. I appreciate and respect your intelligence and desire to help others and look forward to learning more from you. 

Permalink Reply by Adam on April 14, 2012 at 9:01am

Hey Greenmama

Thankyou  for your response(s). I appreciate that you clearly make a strong effort to be considerate and respectful for the most part in all of your posts, and I have noticed that on other discussions too. I think that is very important in a community and I agree with your final summary - that we don't all have to agree on everything and that diversity is important for learning and growth.

I don't really think that what we are saying or meaning is that far apart , and probably much closer than you think. 

Take care

Adam x

Permalink Reply by Adam on April 14, 2012 at 8:53am

That having been said, I am not trying to say that because 1% of the population (or less) may need personalised recommendations that generic advice should be thrown out of the window, or that everyone should have personalised recommendations. Clearly, that would be a waste of time. I am just trying to say that we shouldn't ignore the fact that not everyone does get the results they are looking for, despite following the diet apparently according to plan. Sometimes they give up on the diet, sometimes, they seek help and make some adjustments.

One of the dangers in my opinion (and observation) is that the refusal to acknowledge individualised circumstances has led to some people being branded has flamers and being banned from this forum. I know for sure that this has happened because of the numbers of people who have contacted me on other forums, and because I am personally friends with one of those people. If we approach the diet with the belief that one size always fits all, then this can be highly problematic when it doesnt. Both for the individual who feels that their hope has been shattered, as well as feeling rejected by a community of people whom they had hoped to seek advice and help from. That is insensitive and psychologically damaging, since people who are struggling and seek help are often in a vulnerable state.Granted some people are flamers, and it is important to be conscious if somone is having a genuinely negative impact on the community. But if someone is just asking for help, it is important to recognise that and support them, rather than just discount it and say "oh it will get better in a few years, be patient". Don't forget that many people who are unwell often come to this diet as a last resort. It is easy to say to someone that they should be patient when we are not experiencing it. Objectivity is very easy. Subjectivity is a lot more difficult though. This isn't a political statement; I am not trying to pass judgement on historical decisions that have been made. I am just trying to get a clear point across, that by trying to be overly cautious, you can sometimes cause other problems inadvertently. And that as individual forum members, we need to be mindful that a community is made up of individuals. Individuals with similarities as well as differences. It is important to emphasise and focus on the ways in which we are all similar, whilst also valuing and recognising the ways in which we differ.

I understand and agree with your earlier comment that it is important that we present a clear message about the recommendatiosn for what people need to do. And I ALWAYS suggest people try to follow the generic advice for at least one year before deciding whether they need to consider whether there is anything else they can do to improve their health. I really don't want everyone to think that they need to go out and worry about their personalised needs. Public health education exists for a reason: We are all pretty much similar. There are very few differences between us all. It is just that everyone once in a while something unexpected happens with someone and we have to take a step back and think "what could this be about?". If someone notices consitent, but slow improvements in their health during that one year, then all is probably well and they really do probably just need to be patient. But if someone is noticing no improvements, or worsening of problems, or new symptoms which didn't exist before and are getting worse, then they need to make sure that they acknowledge these rather than ignore them. This IS a dietary experiment afterall. We don't have a big wealth of research, education, clinical, epidemiological or anthropologial health data to fall back on to say "oh yea, this is definately ok, it will get better". We are just guessing. It is important that we recognise the importance of this as an experiment and encourage people to see this as an opportunity to take an autonomous approach to healthcare. Taking responsibility for their health, rather than just handing over responsibility from their doctor to a forum.

Take care

Adam x

Permalink Reply by Greenmama on April 14, 2012 at 9:41am

Yes, closer than I suspected after reading this clarification.  Thank you, Adam.

And for the record, I'm not personally for banning or censoring anybody.

Permalink Reply by 7iron on April 15, 2012 at 4:40am

I love your responses Adam. So thoughtful and based in science. :)

Permalink Reply by Greenmama on April 12, 2012 at 3:22am

Allison, you have posted a number of times before on this topic and gotten lots of responses.  You're repeating your obsessive thoughts about your weight and body appearance.  In your other posts, what details you provided seemed to suggest that you have been restricting for a long time and using caffeine to look "cut."   When you stopped doing that, you immediately gained weight, and then you decided to get off the wagon because you couldn't handle it.

DR and Freelee have hundreds of videos and posts on this topic.  You are saying "no one is helping" because just don't like what anyone is saying.  And that's because you are scared to death.  Why?  Why is weight gain the END OF THE WORLD AS YOU KNOW IT?  

Permalink Reply by Allison on April 12, 2012 at 1:55pm

Again an attack, which is not what I am here for.  Thank you for your input I guess, but I don't want to defend myself.  As Adam stated I asked a hypothetical question about others.  And people are taking it as an opening to discuss why I am messed up.  Where is the support guys you are fruitarians for gosh darn sake. :)

Permalink Reply by Greenmama on April 13, 2012 at 9:54am

Not an attack.  Definitely not my intent.  You have not responded to why you are so afraid of weight gain.  You make the assumption that it is the end of the world for you, and that if you gain 20 pounds, you are ugly, sloppy, lazy...  You used those words about yourself.  God only knows what you'd say behind my back if you saw me and my 5'3" 145 pound body.  :)  And I wouldn't care a fig, because I am so grateful for my body which does so much for me and works pretty darn good.  Additionally, I've got a lot going for me...  An awesome family, a job I love, a garden that provides me with fun and creative expression, a passion for the environment and the animals of this planet, and the ability to go out every day and help someone. 

 

DR has videos that explain why you will gain weight if you are coming from a background of restriction and caffeine usage.  He also explains many, many times, that the weight gain is temporary and if you stick with it, and follow ALL PARTS of the program, you will see results.  It will take time, possibly a year or more.   That is why I am doing "Freelee's Challenge" and tracking my journey for the next year.  I'm trusting my body to know what it's doing.

Permalink Reply by Jon Fergus on April 13, 2012 at 10:11am

We're all blessed to have you in our company, GM! You're setting a great example :)

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