Vegan to Paleo: what happened?!

I came across this one woman who was vegan for quite some time, 811 for a year, but then according to her, developed a host of problems like cystic acne, grayish hair, poor skin, etc. Upon going paleo (which has been for the past month or something), she says she feels a lot better.

Her vitamin D levels were really low and B12 was borderline/low. So...what happened? It's kind of disconcerting to read because it seems like she gave the 811 lifestyle a fair shot for a bit. Did she not do it for long enough? Was it her deficiencies? What's there to learn from her experience?

Here's her letter explaining the switch, her interview with Dan about her health problems while 811, and her former YouTube channel from when she was raw vegan. Sorry for all of the links, but they can explain her background far better than me for those interested in commenting. =)

http://vegantopaleo.tumblr.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moKuJ59YETc

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rawyoganurse&oq=raw...

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Permalink Reply by Fruit fly on May 23, 2012 at 4:53pm

Not enough carbs, not enough love;)

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Permalink Reply by Alison Andrews on May 23, 2012 at 5:55pm

Low Vitamin D and B12 levels will cause ALL kinds of problems. But Vitamin D comes from the sun (NOT your diet, there are tiny amounts of vitamin D in certain foods, but it is still impossible to get enough from a dietary source, it has to come from the sun - or a supplement) and B12 deficiencies are related to malabsorption issues and as such should also be supplemented. So to blame the diet when these deficiencies exist is just ignorance.

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Permalink Reply by Vic on May 25, 2012 at 8:22am

To be objective: She stated the diet as a cause in the sense that her body fat was so low that she was not able to store vitamin D (since it's fat soluble).

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Permalink Reply by Alison Andrews on May 25, 2012 at 9:57pm

That's just not possible. In fact the less body fat you have on you the more easily your body actually assimilates D. It's overweight and obese people who have the difficulty in raising their D levels. As with other things she says in her post, it is clear she is just very very confused.

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Permalink Reply by Vic on May 25, 2012 at 11:47pm

Interesting - I would love to read more about it. Can you please tell me where you read about the Vit D assimilation? Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Mark on May 27, 2012 at 7:47pm

Plus the body stores D in the liver, correct?

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Permalink Reply by Mark on May 27, 2012 at 7:46pm

Quite right. My life was almost over for nearly 3 years. It was just a B12 deficiency.

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Permalink Reply by Gia on May 24, 2012 at 7:20am

I hope she takes down her channel. After been vegetarian, vegan for over 26 years and meeting hundreds of vegans and vegetarians I have never heard of all these problems that these so called vegans who go back to eating animal flesh s seem to have. Are they all liars to begin with since they never complained when they were vegans. I can see if someone did not want to be raw and went back to cooked vegan, but to go back to flesh eating is just insane and gross. Just say you want to eat meat never cared about animals and only cared about been skinny.

can she explain where her cystic acne is in her videos. I feel sorry for her kid having to eat animal flesh. She seems like she has issues and will be on to the next thing.