Yovana adopted a raw vegan diet six years ago. A year inside her journey, she decided to do a 25-day water fasting. Yes, she only drank water for 25 days. She said in the video how amazing she felt afterwards but confessed she lost her period as well. Talking to “other people in the movement” and not health professionals, she began to think it was a good thing. It was not until after two years of not having her period did Yovana start to look into the side-effect, only then she realized it wasn’t healthy.
This is the video that got Yovana in trouble
After going to the doctors to get tested, she learned that “her hormones were out of whack.” According to her, she was diagnosed as pre-menopausal. She thought it was weird, because she felt good. So it took Yovana a little bit to understand the seriousness behind her condition. The influencer began to change her diet, increasing its fat levels, adding salt. On top of that she started eating cooked food.
Within 2 months, Yovana got her period back but it was very irregular. But she said she thought her body had to take time to heal, so she was patient with it. After about a year, she stopped getting her period again. This time, she hadn’t had her period for about 5 months before getting checked again. By this point, it was 2017 and her hormones were still not good and she wasn’t ovulating. “I was basically anemic,” Yovana said.
The doctors recommended taking testosterone and thyroid pills. Yovana also admitted that ever since she started seeing the doctors they were telling her that she needed to eat eggs. But she refused. She thought she “could do it with a plant-based diet.” She said she always knew the doctors were going to recommend that every time she went to see them but she wasn’t paying attention to it.
“So the doctors were like ‘You need to gain more weight, you need to take the testosterone, the thyroid medicine and these supplements, and also it would really benefit you if you ate some eggs.'” Yovana’s response? “No, no, no … I’m gonna seek out some different information and talk to someone who actually understands my diet.”
Those other people that she talked to advised her to take iron supplements and up her protein and fat intake. So she did. Things are finally looking better for Yovana, she gained 6 pounds and got her period back. “This time it came back good,” she said. It was in April 2018.
She said that around that time she was beginning to feel a little more tired. “I would film a video and I would get really tired after that.” Her workouts took a lot more effort, too. But Yovana didn’t pay much attention to that, thinking the fatigue was related to traveling. Fast forward to July, and she’s getting painful cuts on her vagina. The doctors diagnozed her with Candidal Vaginitis.
After dealing with it through a specific diet, Yovana started getting digestive issues. “I was getting very, very bloated from basically everything that I ate. I was feeling constipated. I was getting diarrhea. I was having a lot of gasses, a lot of burbs.” But she claims it was on a low level, much milder than what it eventually got to be.
The doctor diagnozed the influencer with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). This bacterial overgrowth can happen either when bacteria from one part of the digestive tract travels to the small intestine or when naturally occurring bacteria in the small intestine multiply too much. “I paid attention to it, obviously I was treating it,” Yovana said. “But I tried not to put too much energy to it.” At this point, Yovana was doing juice and other cleanses to reset her digestive systems (which she came up with herself). After trying a lot of different things, she thought the best move was to eat a balanced diet.
To make sure of what her condition was, Yovana had to do a SIBO test. Waiting for the results, she felt desperate. At this point, she was open to the possibility of adding some animal products to her diet. The test came back positive. Yovana started to think about the future. “I thought about the fact that I was a woman and I want to bring a baby into this world … if I’m not good how can I expect to bring a child into this world? Yovana thought about her options and decided to start consuming animal products.
Now comes the most important part. She kept all of this a secret. From the whole word. While continuing to sell her diet plans. In fact, she still does. If you go to her website, you can find “challenges” and “plans” that include vegan meals for up to $99. “I wasn’t considering all of the options and for me it was now an option, I was seeing it as an option. And that’s exactly why I haven’t shared it with you, because for me it’s still an experiment, for me it’s still a process, I’m still figuring it out. I’m not gonna sit in front of the camera and tell you like, ‘oh, I’ve been eating eggs and fish for the past two months and everything is better and everything is good, and the plant-based diet doesn’t work.’ No. I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that i’m trying to figure it out.”
Yeah. Basically, she continues preaching that people should still follow and, most importantly, buy her lifestyle. Even after all of this, after it caused her body to fail her, Yovana is still selling it. This is some next level post-influencer era we’re living in.
And this is her apology
She aired her confession only after a video of her eating fish was leaked. “My hope is to go back and eat the way that I love to eat,” Yovana concludes. “I am grateful for this opportunity to improve my health, I’m grateful for taking the route of self-love and I feel that I’m doing this out of self-love, because I want to be better, I want to be healthy and because if I’m not healthy then I have nothing to give to this world.” So there you have it, folks. She’s eating meat products because she developed an unhealthy lifestyle which she is abandoning for self-love, but hey, you can still buy it. And this doesn’t mean that all the vegans are evil and self-harming individuals. It’s just proof that you can’t trust any “influencer” no matter how many millions are following them because you might end up developing something far worse than the flu.
People had a lot to say about the whole ordeal
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