Well, I tweeted this story a couple of hours ago, it got immediate traction in terms of mentions and retweets, then Robb Wolf retweeted it and things really took off. So, based on that, I figured I better just blog it. This is about a tragedy, not ridicule — except for those so deserving.
This morning I got a WTF? email from reader Clarice with a link to this raw vegan “success” story over at 30 Bananas a Day. It comes complete with before and after photos. Here’s some highlights of 17-yr-old Harout’s story.
I first got introduced to a better diet of mostly vegetarian foods with the occasion of some fish here and there by my high school assistant basketball coach for the Varsity team. i stuck to that for the course of my basketball season and stuck to it ever since i came to this site and moved on to the raw food movement. I was feeling so good on a vegetarian diet and looking so good that i believed that going on a raw food low fat raw vegan would make things even better for me with all the success stories.
So, he went from a diet that included cooked animal products to one that excluded them completely and…
I never jumped to high fat raw first. I barely tried being vegan for the time in transition. I just jumped straight in and have been 100% ever since mid September and have only had cooked plain brown rice pasta a couple times down the line. Every time i ate the cooked food though im like why am i eating it? It gives me energy yeah, but it doesnt taste good.
After 5 months of living this lifestyle i reversed my diagnosis of hypothyroidism. I took the pills for the first week and after that left it, on the verge of wanting to cure it myself. It worked, i shared with family my success stories and have influenced my households to go vegan and my brother a raw vegan as well. Its truely an amazing thing once you get into it. Its not just about diet anymore , i really realise the true aspects of this lifestyle and its NATURES GIFT. It really is, i wouldnt do anything nor let anybody do anything to change my insight on the way i live and my diet.
Well, so far so good, I guess. Or is it?
I have received great benefits and realise the only downfall is that i have gained a significany amount of fat, but i accept the fact of my body storing up what its been missing for a few years now and i respect it. I put my body through hell now its my price to pay for recovery. …
A few cons that ive been going through lately and like i said respect for the time being of going through the struggles. I cant expect to become the hulk right away. It takes time to feel good , 8 months is just a drop in the ocean to my 16 years of abuse. Another con is slight acne on the forehead, being someone who never had acne in the past.
Like i said these are all little things that take time to recover frrom and im not going to whine about it. I believe in nature and this is as natural as it gets. Ive given up cosmetics as well.
Another thing i’d like to mention is that i used to be the fastest player on my basketball team. Played on A division for my traveling team while i was in high school and thats a good level. Now i play B cause i cannot keep up and even though i am in the starting five, i am not the top player of my team. I cant train as hard as i used to, the gained percentage of fat slows me down a bit. For the meantime i suppose. …
Even though this last paragraph may be quite negative, i want to share my emotions one way or another, cause things arent perfect and i must share that. I think there is a big difference to feeling good and being able to perform good. I feel good , there is no question about that , but i suppose i am in the process of regaining where i cant perform as well yet. It really puts me down sometimes but i know there is no other option of just picking myself up and aiming for the best i can be day in and day out. Basketball has always been my true love and it just gets me how i let it get to me. Not being able to perform the same ways. It seems its a drag for me moving my feet up , down , slides on defense. I dont know, i hope i see in the light on the other end cause its just a tough time for me right now, still being in high school and ruining my hopes of college ball has been a tough sacrifice. It’s not the fact that the lifestyle isnt the answer to health. Its not that at all. But we all go through cleansing and elimination at some point. And fininshing my high school career very poorly in regionals ,being one of the best players. Is really dissapointing to me , it really is. Once again , i dont blame the lifestlye. Its just a sacrifice of present success VS. future health. As much as i think its the wrong thing to do morally , i shouldve waited and stuck with cooked vegan so i didnt do dramatic change to my body right away with basketball in the picture. My bodys foreign to this and thats the only issue. Every day im doing something better and better for myself. It just draws me out of success in what i love doing temporarily. For the time being i guess.
[emphasis added to highlight denial and self delusion]
Well, there you have it. And now, here’s the dramatic, 8-month anti-transformation of a poor, ambitious 17-yr-old young man. On the left, you have Harout as he looked on a diet that he called “vegetarian,” but included fish and whatever other animal sources, and his food was cooked. To the right you have his 8-month results after being 100% raw, plant based, excluding all animal sources of nutrition. You can click for the full-size image, where the acne problem is more apparent.
Before (left) and After (right)
Now, this would certainly remain a tragedy, especially given his passion of being a top basketball player on his HS team, with serious aspirations for a college scholarship, but he’s only 17 and this condition could be reversed just as quickly as it progressed. So not to worry, right? …because the 30 Bananas a Day crowd are there for him, there to help him for his sake; to point him in the right direction.
Let’s take a look at some of the comments.
Maybe this is that adjustment period for you.
Perhaps your body is just ‘rehydrating’ after so many years of being dehydrated. I betcha it’s all water! … look at all of the muscle you’ve put on!
So your super flexing in the top shot and ‘letting it go’ in the bottom shot. You gotta compare flex shots with flex shots otherwise its like comparing a limp banana to an erect banana! lol! [Durianrider]
THIS IS WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT!! You are still YOU, no matter your physical appearance! You are loved!
…and then its BANG! CRASH BOOM! and we come back to earth and people around us blame the fruit. … ITS NEVER THE FRUITS FAULT LOL! [Durianrider]
…how old are you in that top shot? You have the body of a 40 year old gym rat. [Durianrider]
Like I said HM, your on the right track now and just gotta let your body ‘do its thing’ as you do your thing. Keep eating right, eating lots, staying hydrated, GETTING EARLY NIGHTS and get on them b12 shots. [Durianrider]
In the above shot you look like your taking drugs. … In the below shot, you look like an off season Tour De France rider that is not taking drugs. Still look like you are super fit, just not drug fit. Somewhere in the middle is the more sustainable range. ;) THEN again, you confuse me cos your flexing hardcore in the top shot and are ‘letting it go’ in the bottom one. [Durianrider]
I think you look much healthier in the second photo.
Well, so there you have it. In case you think I may have selected only the comments that offered no help, only encouraging him to keep to his delusion, his self-destructive path, then feel free to read through all of the comments. As of 18 hours ago, the last comment, there is not a single one that even hints or suggests that he’s doing something seriously wrong to himself.
Not a single one of those mutherfuckers is willing for one second to even entertain a whiff of a notion that something just may be rotten in The Garden of Eden.
If this is not the hallmark of a cultish religion, then there’s no such thing as cultish religion. This just pisses me off. For the sake of being “right,” they are literally willing to toss away the aspirations of a young kid who clearly doesn’t know any better.
So, folks, assuming Harout may get wind of this post, anyone out there want to offer him some real help and guidance? Some real love? Please take a moment to do so. And also take a moment to share this with Facebook Friends and Twitter Followers. You never know who you might save from embarking on a similar path of self destruction; one that’s enforced by denial & delusion and encouraged by cultists.
And for any vegans who do stop by with an open mind, here’s what real results look like. Kit Perkins is the most recent success. Check out Tim. Or, this “Sterling” transformation. Who hasn’t heard of Super Mike? And Chris? He’s singing a different tune. Murray to this day constitutes one of the most amazing transformations ever. Anyone remember how Austin in Singapore turned his life around? And how about Michelle and Timothy? And then there’s Mel, a PhD biology researcher. All of the resources at her disposal and yet, she had to come to some guy’s blog to find a sound path for living and looking the way a human animal is supposed to look.
Good thing none of the above sought dietary and health advice from a fruit cult.
Primal Dave 
Stabby 
Ronald Pottol 
Rose 
Flying Burrito 
james 
Patrick 
Leanne 
Dana 
Michael 
Forgotten 
Chris 
Thiago 
The “hallmarks of a cultist religion” is spot on.
I’m sure Harout will stumble onto this… and if so, I’d recommend he take a hard look at the data on the Weston A. Price Foundation website for starters. Hey Harout – Ask yourself the hard questions with an open mind… why is your body starting to run-a-way down the ill health mountain?
Time to revisit your belief systems and free yourself from all that harmful conditioning.
Indeed Primal Dave; a cult it is. The funny thing is that many of these folks use the China Study as a basis to support their beliefs, even though the China Study data tells us almost exactly the opposite:
http://bit.ly/hOwOts
Others resort to this pseudo-scientific nonsense called “adrenal fatigue”, for which there is absolute “zero” credible supporting empirical evidence.
Holly Shit! Harout has made a recovry! ;)
http://www.30bananasaday.com/photo/you-want-something-to-talk?xg_source=activity
You owe him $10,000, deadbeat.
10,000? Harley would have to save a lot of welfare checks.
“Why on earth didnt you put this one up then bro? I TOTALLY dont understand! lol!
I mean this is how you are today so why put up a ‘fat shot’ so people can spread it around the net and say ‘hey! look at HM!’.
Does that make sense? Do I have to use another banana analogy? ;)”
Hey punk, why don’t you just leave the kid alone? That “new” shot is totally forced in the worst way and looks no better than the last shot. You know it, and we know it. Go suck on another banana. How’s that for an analogy?
So we have a 17 year old that still has single digit body fat and people are saying ‘wow! he is fat!’. What a great way to spark image disorders in our teenage population.
Look at Harouts latest pic. Tell me he is ‘fat’?
http://www.30bananasaday.com/photo/you-want-something-to-talk?xg_source=activity
Harout wasn’t flexing in the previous 2 pics unlike this one that looks painfully forced. Plus this pic is further away.
1) He clearly doesn’t have single digit body fat.
2) He looks like he is forcing out one hell of a turd
3) He has a weird stance to try and highlight what little ab definition he has left
Almost forgot; 4) He has a nice pair of estrogen fueled man boobies growing there
That is exactly what we are telling you. That picture is bullshit. Plus you’re the last one that should be accusing anyone of sparking image disorders. You throw around fat accusations like it was nothing. You are one piece of work DR.
You’re response to his post shows that you only care about one thing: the way you and 30bad are coming off looking through this whole incident. You don’t give a shit about Harout.
He’s very clearly lost muscle; if you look at his original photo, at his shoulders, and compare it to the flexed picture, there’s a CLEAR lack of definition, and reduction in size.
He’s lost a ton of muscle.
On the upside, he’s developing a helluva rack.
I agree the pic is totally forced.
On Mark Sisson’s forum if someone destroys their body and starts to get acne after 8 months (rarely happens), we tell them “What you’re doing is clearly not working. It looks like you should re-evaluate what you’re doing and make the necessary changes” and then we analyze what they’re doing and what their problems are and come up with a solution.
How can we do this? Because there is more to Primal eating than “eat lots of fruit yaaaay!” it’s versatile and can cover all bases no matter who you are. If you flounder on a fruitarian diet all they can tell you to do is “eat more fruit” or in rare cases “maybe you need to supplement with the nutrients your body needs to not deteriorate”, but that’s it. I have never talked to someone who had anything but miraculous success listening to Mark Sisson unless they didn’t listen well enough and stayed on a nutrient-deficient 5% carbohydrate diet for a long time, and in that case it’s usually amendable with more carbs, a little less protein and focus on the nutritional essentials.
Skepticism is key. Like Richard said, if everyone always agrees on everything, even the most blatantly silly rationalizations, then it is not a discussion but a religion. Best to proportion one’s beliefs to the evidence.
Actually, this is not quite accurate. On Sisson’s forum, I see *MANY* many comments of a similar bent to those quoted above (such as people being told to “give it time” — and is “It’s never the fruit!” really all that different from “Stop eating nuts!” or “Eat more fat!”) when people are having problems.
Show me one time on the MDA forum where someone started out Bruce-Lee fit, took up paleo/primal, got a belly, and people suggested patience and “eat more nuts/fat.”
It seems to me there is a common psychology behind this kind of veganism and bulimia/anorexia, except bulimics and anorexics don’t have cults egging them on and relentlessly driving a wedge between morality and well-being.
His phone turned red, is that some kind of warning signal?
Clearly you have never heard of pro-ana, the sites for encouraging anorexia etc.
Pro-mia, too. I have seen these sites. Such an example of something deeply wrong with the way people are viewing their bodies and food.
I follow those studies that rate faces as more or less feminine or masculine, and it really jumps out at me here: Not only does he have that doughy fat around his middle, his face seems more feminine, too. It may just be the fat, but it’s…weird. Poor dude. I hope he begins to use his own results as a guide, not the opinions of a bunch of banana munchers.
And his head is HUGE in the second picture, like his whole body, even his skeleton, shrunk. Emaciated plus doughy, that’s a really fupped combination.
And the man boobs…what’s up with that. Sad to see a young athlete throw it away.
This is tragic. And that mixed-up sickly-looking Durianrider is cheering him on and off the edge of the cliff like some kind of cult [of the damned] pied piper
was that a warcraft reference?
I’m sure I’ll get shit on for this, but here goes:
A guy goes from being in good shape to being in shitty shape, not only in terms of performance but very visibly, and decides it has nothing to do with his lifestyle. I feel bad for those who delude themselves (and have a hate-on for those who delude others for their own benefit), but everyone has to make their own choices. Is he any better off if we drag him by the nose and lead him to our particular trough of water? Health-wise, I believe he would be, but we’d really be just as bad as durianrider and those dipshits. If he doesn’t make an informed choice himself, the benefits he reaps aren’t his. They’d be ours. He’d just be a dog with his head out the car window as we drive his unthinking ass to the park.
So how do we do what Richard suggests? We can’t, really. This kid needs to realize (for himself) that something is wrong with his lifestyle. That comes first. Once he sees and truly believes that something is in fact wrong, he can take advice and begin to research and read up on the various other paths available to him. It’s not a period of adjustment; he’s going downhill. There’s nothing we can do to force him to re-evaluate that reality.
The first step is his to make. Hopefully he does come here having made that step first… but time will tell. I wish the guy the best but being 17 is no excuse to undergo such a horrible transformation and not think the following: “You know, I wonder if something’s wrong with the way I’m living. I can’t play basketball half as well as I used to, I look like shit, I have low energy, and I have acne. Nah, I’m just imagining things.”
I agree with you, Patrick. The real point of the post is first to issue a wakeup call and second, to offer info and encouragement if he were to want it but absolutely it’s all up to him and thinking critically and doing for himself is essential.
Of course, the overriding point of this post is to shine a light on that 30bad crowd. Clearly this illustrates that they are totally unreliable in terms of providing any valid information at all.
I agree with and highly endorse your overriding point. “Unreliable” is an understatement, sir. :)
I agree with Patrick, and I agree with Richard. My reactions to reading the kid’s post was sadness, but durianrider’s comments just pissed me the fuck off. THAT’s the body of a doped-up gym rat? Water weight? Those comments border on the criminal, forget denial.
I’ve been lurking for a while (love your work, Richard!) but just had to say something.
i’m with you andrea. this boy is still technically a minor and durianrider’s comportment really is criminal. as a mom, this whole thing makes me so so so sad. harout, if you read this, know that a diet that is actually good for you will cause you to perform better and give you your life back. you are being LIED to and manipulated so somebody can revel in their own delusions.
Jenny, I absolutely agree. As a mom, what I see is a kid who has been taken advantage of. And, on top of that, the people he admires and is trying to emulate are being cruel to him. I’m really quite sickened. The dreams of this young man have been dashed and the course of his life is altered because of very bad health advice the intent of which is not to promote positive health outcomes but to serve a single person’s ego.
Harout, I really hope you have a Google alert on your name or get curious and end up reading these comments. I wish you luck in finding real solutions to the problems this bad advice has caused. I wish you good health in the future.
On the other hand, he can’t make an informed choice if nobody ever speaks up and says anything. You don’t have the option if you don’t know the option exists. Why do some of us insist on letting people destroy themselves when, possibly, all we have to do is open our big mouths and present to them a possibility they might not have heard about, and maybe they’ll turn it around?
This is why I continue to argue in blog comments. :) Not because I really think I’ll convince whomever I’m arguing with but because some random lurker might be reading and that might be the nudge they need to investigate in a whole new direction.
True, Dana, but consider:
If you smash your face against a tank and the tank doesn’t explode, will you keep smashing your face against it for another few months simply because someone hasn’t shown you what an anti-armor weapon is? In other words, this isn’t a X/not-X scenario. If something isn’t working, you stop and re-evaluate, even if another option isn’t immediately obvious to you.
After all, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”
“this isn’t a X/not-X scenario. If something isn’t working, you stop and re-evaluate, even if another option isn’t immediately obvious to you.”
if we factor in that he IS experiencing health benefits since incorporating this lifestyle, then it isn’t as simple as saying it isn’t working
taking into account these improvements, it would be foolish to sweep the whole board and start again, rather to first think about tweaking, and building upon, the positives thus far
i’m pretty sure that were you to experience certain issues with your diet that you wouldn’t immediately abandon everything about your diet but, instead, look to tweak and eliminate that which was causing problems
Patrick – you don’t have teenagers, do you? Yes, they WILL beat their head against the tank for months and months and not only not realize what an anti-armor weapon is, but IGNORE anyone over the age of 25 who tells them. It’s the nature of the beast, so to speak.
I agree with you totally, Dana.
It is extremely rare to find a hardcore committed athlete who lets ideology of any sort get in the way of his athletic endeavors, but it does happen on occasion.
Generally most athletes are willing to do just about anything to further their career (including high school and college athletes), and will jettison something that isn’t working in a heartbeat. NBA Hall of Famer Bill Walton was a dedicated vegan, but finally gave it up when he realized his foot/bone problems (which basically scuttled his career in his prime) was caused by his diet.
I remember once my brother and me commenting on a NBA player (now in the hall of fame) who had a huge bubblebutt, but then we both caught ourselves and remarked that we would gladly take his butt if it ensured us a ticket to the big time for as long as he was there.
I don’t think so based on what I read, but maybe he might say screw it for the sake of returning to the level of play to which he was formerly accustomed.
I hope so.
The boy looks like shit in the second picture.
And he looks like a fricken anatomy chart in the first one. It’s really amazing what the human mind is capable of, both in the Randian sense and in the sense that people can delude themselves in such an epic way.
The abs look good in the first picture but there’s a ” hollowness” in the face that is not quite right. I think sometthing was missing nutritionally then too. Keep in mind this kid made an awesome improvement to get there, having lost 85 pounds!
“Keep in mind this kid made an awesome improvement to get there, having lost 85 pounds!”
Sure you got that right, Ag? I don’t recall anything like that being mentioned. Hard to imagine the abs he had in pic #1 after an 85# weight loss. Skin does not usually tighten back up all the way.
Sorry about that, I did make a mistake.
What he said what that as a chubby kid he weighed 185 at 5’3″. That’s when he started working toward the goal of getting on the basketball team. The timeline is a bit fuzzy but he started going to the gym and working with a trainer over a 2-year period. I’m guessing he started the prcess in middle school?
Regardless he doesn’t look much over 140 lbs. in that first picture, so he definitely slimmed down. I assume he stretch up some too.
The before/after photos look like an inversion of classic Paleo/Primal success stories. Read his story from bottom to top and it could almost be posted here or on Mark Sisson’s site. It’s hard for me to imagine any 17 year old thinking that an improvement. I can’t help but think that this is an attempt at trolling the 30 Bananas a Day site, because it’s exactly the kind of prank that would occur to me to play. That’s probably just me trying to rationalize what this poor kid has done to himself.
I barely knew what to think about Durianrider’s comment about looking like a “40 year old gym rat” in the first picture. His view of the world is so fundamentally different than my own. But I guess we’ve already heard enough from him to know that.
Yea, Chris, and even if it was a troll, you’re still left with the response from the Bananas crowd, which stands on it’s own. In the end, that’s what this is really about. Harout can turn things around fast, any time he wants but I can’t see 30bad every being anything but a cult of True Believers.
The prank idea also occurred to me. I want to believe that. Otherwise I really hope he come to his senses soon.
Me as well. It sounds like a joke. And now it morally wrong to eat cooked vegan food? WTF?
If it is really, I also agree that you need to find the road yourself. Try telling a Scientologist what is wrong with their religion. Its quite similar with the vegans.
Wow, Richard. You can’t make this stuff up. The guy’s apologies for his terrible condition as a raw vegan are heartbreaking. I’ve started to lean up as I’ve added more meat back into my own diet.
I think the amount of meat you paleos eat is absurd and itself unhealthy but the raw vegan extreme seems to be far more dangerous in the short term.
How about some balance?
You’re eating more meat and leaning out as a result and you honestly think eating more meat is unhealthy?
Now mind you, eating all your meat as muscle might be unhealthy in the long run. But here’s a secret… ssshhhh… *whispers* Ancestral diets DON’T limit themselves to the muscle. That’s not even the most desirable part of an animal to most of those people. They gorge on the fat, and they always have an organ or three they eat as a delicacy, and they make broth from the bones and other collagen-containing parts.
Interestingly (Ray Peat writes about this, look him up), bone broth with joints and skin included in the formation process contains glycine which balances out the somewhat-overage of methionine and tryptophan and cysteine in muscle meat. Because while you can get all your amino acids at once from muscle, those three are in slight surplus and over time that can cause various imbalances in your system. Nothing the ancestors would have known. They just didn’t want to waste their food. But they benefited from it so they kept it up.
“Balance” is “health,” not “whatever sounds palatable to people with no background in biochemistry.” Next thing you’ll be telling us to get some grain back into our diets.
I love this comment, Dana. I am trying to expand my dietary choices beyond just muscle.
That’s a good point, Dana. Serious soup made from real stock punches above its weight in nourishment. You can feel the strength even as you eat what is mainly liquid.
I’m not sure I go for the argument that because the cavemen did it, it’s healthy. Those cavemen died off awfully young without radio interference, carcinogenic chemicals and oil spills. If their diet were perfect, they’d have lived longer. But that’s a bigger issue than this raw food vegan madness…
At least on that we can agree.