Loren Lockman (Low-Fat Raw Vegan? of 20 Years) Will Be Speaking in NY/NJ/PA May 24th–30th! Any Interested Attendees??

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Permalink Reply by DURIANRIDER on May 26, 2010 at 1:20am

Here is Doug's take on that vid Loren did.


Loren waffles well. He begins by saying, "I am going to ignore your question."
He gives no details when it comes to actual numbers of calories consumed, or real performance stats.
What math could possibly support "eat less, do less, become less well-nourished?"

He calls bananas dense food, and says that coming from SAD, if you eat them, you won't detoxify.
People are supposed to believe him?

He says that the advocates of 811 aren't doing well, but doesn't name names. I wonder who he means?
I didn't see him on Chirripo this year when I was up there.

He doesn't give room for the beginner's issues, saying that you should just eat when hungry till satisfied.
Says its that simple, for one and all. I predict that if mainstreamers try this, they will crash, every time.

When asked, "what do you eat," he says "I have done dozens of relatively long fasts, and now can thrive on relatively few calories."
Doesn't address the nutrient issue at all, you know, the one where if you only eat 1000 calories per day, where do you get your iron, zinc, calcium, omega, etc?

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Permalink Reply by Karmyn on May 26, 2010 at 12:40am

Isn't he into calorie restriction? I thought he was in the "don't eat too much fruit" camp while, of course, enjoying fruit himself, just not the amounts per meal most of us eat.

No, he's into eating as much fruit as you need.

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Permalink Reply by DURIANRIDER on May 26, 2010 at 1:21am

but not if you need 30 bananas a day! :)

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Permalink Reply by Laura on May 26, 2010 at 12:41am

No, LL does not advocate calorie restriction. To borrow an incredibly detailed previous posting of Adam’s…

“811 is just a caloric ratio. Whilst people might have come to associate the term 811 with Doug Graham and Natural hygiene, the reality is that 811 is just a term Doug has coined, not something he has invented. When he talks about "if you do/don't do this or that, you are not 811" what he means is really, "you are not following my recommendations". 811 is not a new idea, its existed for a long time in the cooked food world. Doug has just put a raw slant on it. As such, Loren is 811 insofar as that he consumes a maximum of 10% of his calories from protein and fat, usually much less, and a minimum of 80% carbs. So technically, he definitely eats the same way. The primary difference is that he dissociates himself from the term 811, because people have come to associate it not just with the caloric ratio, but with Doug Graham and all of his teachings and recommendations that go with them.

As such, Loren chooses not to term himself 811, because he doesn’t believe we should learn to stretch our stomachs to fit in 'enough' food. He believes that we would be better off listening to the body and learning to eat enough by how hungry or satisfied we feel, rather than by counting calories.

To be fair, if Doug’s educational program, articles and overall messages hadn't been about simplifying and listening to your body, then I would never have been interested in following his advice. Doug presents mostly the same messages as Loren; eat most of your fuel from fruit, eat greens for minerals and other nutrients and eat small, occasional amounts of overt fats; listen to your body, eat one food at a time from when hungry until you're full, just like the animals; if you feel hungry after eating and are unable to maintain your weight once it should have stabilized, you may not be eating quite enough.

The primary difference is that Loren simply believes that with enough fasting and/or detoxification, the body will when fully healed, OVER TIME, reduce its need for the same amount of food. Its important to understand that although Nora Lenz, Anne Osborne, Gosia O'Reilly, Loren Lockman and other proponents of the 'listen to your body' camp, claim not to eat much food, and believe that our bodies WHEN clean enough can reduce overall food requirements, none of them recommend caloric restriction. This is often interpreted as being a recommendation of caloric restriction, because they do not eat much food, and believe this is a possibility of all of us. However it is not the same. Calorie restriction is done with the mind. I.e. we make a decision, "I am eating too much, I am going to stop eating as much". Hence we can ignore signals of hunger, by telling ourselves "I am not going to eat, I do not want food", or we can ignore other important feedback such as unhealthy degrees of weight loss.

Every one of the 'listen to your body' advocates emphasizes one important message: You should eat as much as you need to feel satisfied, to keep you on a healthy lfrv diet and to maintain a healthy weight. The only difference is that they do not count calories, and they believe that humans do not have a fixed calorie requirement. They all doubt the science behind the calorie model, and the validity it has in the place of human nutrition. They believe that quality of fuel is not the only determinant of human nutrition requirements; efficiency of the organism consuming the fuel is the other determinant.

I think that its important to recognize that whilst no-one should be going restricting their calories, or begin fasting to try and eat less. What is important however is to keep an open mind. I think it seems absolutely foolish to claim that we know for certain that it is not possible to improve the efficiency of our body to the extent that we need less fuel. I'm not saying that its definitely true, though I believe it is.

There are plenty of other examples on this forum who eat much fewer calories than are advised, and yet they maintain a physically active lifestyle, and do not appear to be underweight. In previous discussions a couple of these have presented themselves. Others tend to stay out of the limelight.

Personally, my calorie needs have reduced slightly since my fast in 2007, although not significantly. Prior to fasting, I was probably eating 4-5000 calories per day, and had a very poorly functioning digestive system. I was eating largely not through hunger, but through trying to eat enough calories though, so its hard to monitor. What I have noticed since my fast is that each year, my requirements for food volume have required. And what I noticed last year was that when I eat certain foods predominately in my diet, I need more calories than when I eat others. I noticed that when I ate primarily mangoes, melons and oranges and didn’t blend any food, I needed to eat far fewer calories, drink far less water, and had little desire to eat greens, compared to when I consume more concentrated heavier foods like bananas and blended foods in my diet.

Because my fast was broken far before my body was ready, and far before Doug Graham advised, it is unclear to me to what extent I would be able to reduce my food requirements post-fasting. My body still has a lot of healing to do, despite being in better health than at any other time in my life. I have no intentions of actively reducing my food intake. I see no value in that. I think that if we eat enough to feel satisfied without hurting ourselves, and we are able to maintain our weight, then it is wise to continue what we are doing. But I DO keep an open mind. If in the future, I decide to pursue another fast or more than one fast, and my body finds it needs less food to maintain my ideal weight (when I have reached it), then perhaps this logic will be something I can experience and validate for myself. If however I still need as much food as I do now, then so be it. I will not be disappointed, for I have no investment in either position.”

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Permalink Reply by DURIANRIDER on May 26, 2010 at 1:38am

As people become more and more sedentary they will need less calories. Its not that people are becoming 'clean' its that they are losing fitness and their body needs less fuel as its on the downward slide.

All the peeps that I know that promote low food consumption NONE of them are improving their fitness or have much fitness to report relative to their age. For me personally, I know that good fitness is part of good health. I encourage people to eat as much carb calories as it takes to live the lifestyle they desire. We aint gonna have much energy to spare on low cal diets. Even elite athletes that push too far on too few calories run the risk of insanity/burn out. Its a very fine line. We will fear adventure, takes things more personally, battle with cravings, live at restricted potential, have minimal fitness on low cal diets.

One raw foody friend of mine recently pushed the calorie restriction thing way to far and went from a lean bean 50kg to an emaciated hospitalised force fed and force medicated 38kg. That aint no fun! They were eating the purist of the pure but just not enough calories.

Loren is bs'ing his audience when he says he just lives on a few pieces of juicy fruit a day. He is defying the first law of thermodynamics.

This is what a male would look like living on a few pieces of fruit a day for 1 year let alone 20 years.

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Permalink Reply by Karmyn on May 26, 2010 at 5:37am

Much as I love Doug and Harley, I also love Nora, Loren and similar for presenting an alternative view.

Raw vegans have so much in common - isn't it better to focus on those things rather than keep criticising people who eat a little more, a little less, eat a little differently?

I love you Debbie! :)

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Permalink Reply by David on May 26, 2010 at 7:16am

I can eat 1500 calories of cantaloupe : ) keep on keeping on!

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Permalink Reply by Mr Angus R. Holliday on June 15, 2010 at 3:40pm

So 5kg watermelon will scientifically give you twice as much usable energy as 2.5kg of watermelon?

Food for thought.

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Permalink Reply by David on June 9, 2010 at 4:01am

lol i don't think i've actually had the pleasure of 1500 cals of cantaloupe, i just think i can do it. i've had more than that much watermelon though... cantaloupe seems smoother than watermelon but maybe that's not true

i eat watermelon to the point of pain... maybe not good? who knows.

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Permalink Reply by TheBananaGirl on May 31, 2010 at 4:17pm

Totally agree Harrison, great points. Your whole post is so relevant that I couldn't decide on a section to quote so I decided to include it all, nice stuff :-)

The problem isn't that he eats what he needs and it's working for him (he doesn't seem to ever say exactly what he eats) but that he says things like eating 30 bananas a day is crazy when in fact it could be the amount needed by some and some might need more. He can't say eat what you need or want and at the same time say eating 3000 calories a day is crazy. Whether he admits it or not his stance is one of restriction. His message is confusing either by design or accident, neither is a good thing, and it doesn't stand up well to scrutiny. Scrutiny in these matters is important. Sure, let's all get along on the playground, but Loren and others making decisions and selling materials that effect the health of people ought to be prepared for exacting scrutiny. If he can't survive it he is in the wrong business.

Debbie, my take on the 811 folks complaining about not being able to stuff themselves or feeling not so good after stuffing themselves is part of the learning curve. The info that must be learned is calorie info. We quickly learn that if we need to eat 1500 calories at breakfast it is going to be very difficult to do that if we are eating cantaloupe for breakfast. Anyone is going to feel stuffed after eating 1500 calories of cantaloupe. As we go along we learn about which fruits are the most calorically dense and end up concentrating on the those more calorie packed foods at times when we need to eat a lot of calories. If we start out completely ignoring calories how are we ever going to learn this info?

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Permalink Reply by Esmée La Fleur on May 26, 2010 at 6:51am

I totally agree, Debbie! Especially when there are so few successful long-term LFRV's out there for us to learn from. And I don't think it is fair to attack someone's character as a way to discredit their dietary knowledge and experience. There seems to be alot of strange rumors about Loren in regards to money and women which may or may not be true, but none of them are relavent to this discussion.

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Permalink Reply by DURIANRIDER on May 26, 2010 at 11:08am

They are true when they come direct from the people involved. I agree its not relevant to the discussion.

What is relevant is that Loren never answers the question 'so EXACTLY what did you eat yesterday Loren?'

What people eat is their own business, but when people are advising others, it becomes everyones business.

People undereat cos they heard of someone 'only eating a little bit here and there' but they forget the suicidal depression, chronic fatigue, hospitalisation, bulimia that comes with this form of 'raw anorexia' that is unfortunately all to common.

Life is fruity and sweet when we get enough calories, but when we try and 'eat light and be spiritual' its doesnt last longterm and Ive seen enough peeps go off the deep end to prove it. :)

I dont name names all the time either.

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