Running

Aajonus's account of his entry into running begins from a baseline of total athletic incapacity. As a child, his arms were too weak to sew on a machine, and he could not play with other children. When he first attempted to run after beginning the raw meat diet and working on farms, he covered ten feet the first day, thirty feet the next, and within a month had reached a mile. Within two to three months he was running five miles. Within six months to a year, depending on which workshop account is referenced, he was running thirteen miles a day barefoot.

He specified the surface and conditions repeatedly: gravel around the Hollywood High School track, soft sand from Venice Beach Pier all the way past Santa Monica Pier to Taklitz Canyon (described as almost a five mile stretch), and barefoot running in cold rain during winter. He described the Hollywood High School track as a place where movie stars and other people ran during the 1970s, and he specifically noted that the surface was gravel and that he was barefoot throughout. He also described climbing Mount Chastain in the snow on bare feet before he began the running program, as part of his broader account of how he tested his body.

At the start of his running program, he weighed 98 pounds. He described this as the starting point from which, within six months, he reached thirteen miles a day. He was also performing 250 push-ups with his feet elevated high off the ground, going all the way down until his nose barely touched or his cheek touched, and 50 handstand push-ups against the wall daily. He acknowledged that he never mastered the balance for freestanding handstand push-ups and had to fall into the wall to do them. He described the combined program as phenomenal, noting he could run in the rain, barefoot, with the kind of endurance that allowed him to keep going without slowing down.

He exercised for approximately a year and a half, beginning roughly a year after starting raw meat in September 1976 and stopping in April 1979. He then abandoned formal exercise entirely, aside from what he described as incidental physical activity, carrying groceries once a week and occasional tree trimming at his property in the Malibu mountains.

A recurring detail across multiple workshop accounts is that Aajonus did not run only in the conventional forward direction. He ran backwards, sideways, and in sprints in all directions around the Hollywood High School track. He described sprinting backwards while men who were sprinting forwards could not keep up with him or match his endurance. He would simply "keep going and going and going" without having to slow down, while others were fatigued.

He attributed this unusual practice partly to the novelty of being athletic for the first time in his life and partly to a deliberate effort to work the body in multiple planes of movement. He also described running at Venice Beach as his exercise on the days he did not use the track, covering the full stretch from Venice Beach Pier to beyond Santa Monica Pier in soft sand.

The physiological benchmark Aajonus cited most frequently in connection with his own running was heart rate recovery. After stopping a thirteen mile run, including one completed in freezing rain in December barefoot over gravel, his heartbeat returned to normal within three minutes. He described this as a consistent feature of his training: no matter the distance or conditions, the recovery was three minutes to a full normalization of heart rate.

He also reported that his heart rate while running thirteen miles was approximately 98 to 100 beats per minute, remaining stable throughout the run. He compared this to the martial artist he later described, whose heart rate after 12,500 jump rope repetitions with a three-pound rope settled at 96 to 102 beats per minute. He noted that when he did a cardiac gym evaluation (with electrodes on his heart, head, wrists, and ankles via Bluetooth while using their treadmill and weight machines), his heart normalized in three minutes after five minutes of running, and the evaluators were surprised because he told them he had not worked out since 1979.

In a different account, he reported that while running 7 to 13 miles a day, his heart rate at the conclusion of a 13-mile run was 98, and his breathing rate was down to five breaths per minute. He described this as the product of deliberate breath control practiced throughout the run.

Aajonus's breathing method during running was central to his account of why he could maintain pace without becoming winded. He described forcing himself, even while running, to take deeper breaths rather than allowing the shallow rapid breathing that most runners default to. He would inhale over two to four seconds, hold the breath to allow the lungs to absorb the oxygen fully before exhaling the carbon dioxide, and then exhale for the same duration. He explicitly criticized the rapid breathing pattern of other runners, saying they were making the lungs work very fast but not efficiently, wasting enormous energy on the mechanical movement of breathing itself without extracting maximum oxygen from each breath.

He described his approach as ensuring the lung absorbed the oxygen before the carbon dioxide was expelled, so the lung was not putting extra muscle activity and stress on the blood. This, he said, allowed him to keep going continuously. He also said that most people will hyperbreath during exertion, expelling air before they have used even half the oxygen in the lungs.

He practiced breath control through yoga exercises when not running. When running, he breathed approximately every five to ten seconds, in and out slowly. He did not hold his breath in the way yoga pranayama practices dictate; rather, he maintained a controlled, rhythmic, slow breath cycle. When he finished running under this method, he reported that even after sprinting he was not weak, not out of breath, and showed none of the characteristic signs of oxygen debt.

He summarized the principle by saying that by not overworking the lungs he was not spending a large portion of his nutrients on the mechanical work of breathing, which freed energy for the run itself.

Aajonus argued consistently that fat, not carbohydrate, is the correct fuel for endurance athletes, and he cited his marathon runner clients as proof. He described the popular high-carbohydrate fueling approach for runners as producing quick fuel that burns quickly and irritates the body to excite it, but said this is not a healthy way to generate energy. He cited Columbia University research showing that when humans utilize carbohydrate, a byproduct called advanced glycation end product accumulates at a rate of 70 to 90 percent, with 70 percent being the best case in the healthiest body and 90 percent in conditions like diabetes.

He stated that fat produces 2.5 times more energy than carbohydrate or protein, and framed this as the reason raw-diet athletes could outperform conventionally fueled athletes even on dramatically less training or after dramatic reductions in training frequency.

He also addressed the question of white blood cell count and running performance, describing one client who had a white blood cell count of 800,000 compared to red blood cells that were half that figure. Doctors told this client he was leukemic. Aajonus's assessment was that this client's body was using white blood cells to carry fat for energy, a unique individual adaptation, and that as a result the client would actually be a better runner than most people because the fats were more available in white blood cell form. He described this as an example of why standardized measurements are meaningless without accounting for the individual.

Aajonus described several marathon runners who experienced dramatic improvements in race times after adopting the diet. The most detailed accounts involve two men:

One runner from New York City who had been running for approximately 30 years. After three months on the diet, he took 40 minutes off of his marathon time. Aajonus described 40 minutes as an astronomical improvement, given that professional marathon runners typically aim to reduce their time by two to three minutes per year, with five or six minutes being considered exceptional progress.

One professional runner from Las Vegas who had been running for 23 years. After two and a half months on the diet, he took 20 minutes off his time.

In a separate account, Aajonus described a marathon runner from St. Louis who took two and a half hours off his time in a single year. He framed this against the backdrop of runners who consider three to five minutes of annual improvement a realistic target.

He also described a female runner who was six feet tall, noting she was part of his illustration of the sport drink formula (see below), and described another context in which he mentioned a woman who had been a champion athlete whose entire athletic life improved dramatically on the diet.

In all cases, Aajonus used these athletes to make the point that fat-based fueling is physiologically superior to carbohydrate-based fueling for endurance performance.

Aajonus described a specific hydration and fueling formula for at least one runner, framed as providing everything needed for fuel and cooling without requiring large quantities of water. The formula for one quart consisted of approximately one-third cucumber juice, one-third blended tomato, about half a teaspoon of vinegar, about two tablespoons of honey, about four tablespoons of coconut cream, and two tablespoons of dairy cream. He said this provides everything needed for good fuel and body cooling, reducing perspiration requirements and fluid needs, and that it works tremendously. He noted that the six-foot-tall female runner he referenced consumed only one quart of this preparation during competition, while competitors sometimes consumed two gallons of water over five hours, became weak and tired as the water diluted nutrients and dehydrated them.

He also gave general guidance for athletes using the diet throughout a training or competition day: start with cheese, then eggs, then a meat meal, then vegetable juice later. He advised sipping milk and the sport formula between cheeses over four to five hours, and framed this as a structure for sustained fuel availability without the blood sugar crashes associated with carbohydrate-based approaches. He specifically stated that vegetable juice alone contains only vitamins and enzymes with no fuel, and that going out to exercise after only a vegetable juice will produce fatigue and weakness. He recommended adding two to three eggs to vegetable juice for any athlete planning to exercise after drinking it.

Aajonus was sharply critical of conventional approaches to distance running. He contrasted American runners who depend on aspirin to complete hundred-mile events with indigenous peoples who run similar or greater distances without pharmaceutical support. He described an actor friend who ran hundred-mile marathons once a year, consuming two bottles of aspirin (100 tablets per bottle, 200 tablets total) to complete the race. The consequences of this aspirin load were that it destroyed vitamin K and vitamin U in the body, stopped blood clotting, made everything very thin, and left the man unable to leave his house for nearly a month afterward because his skin became so fragile that a touch would bruise it.

He contrasted this with Tarahumara-style tribes in the Andes mountains at 14,000 feet altitude who kick a ball for 100 to 200 miles as an annual event, with 90-year-old men participating in the same lines as young men, rotating through groups of nine to eleven people, the front runner kicking the ball and falling to the back while the group continues for the full distance. He described this as representing what human bodies are capable of when properly nourished and not burdened by toxicity and malnutrition.

He also described a documentary depicting African hunters running deer to exhaustion over eight to ten hours without stopping, with the hunters themselves never becoming exhausted while the deer eventually collapsed. He noted that the man called "the runner" in the film, who could match the deer's speed, had so much energy from rotten meat the tribe had consumed the previous day that he was able to run the animal down in a sustained hard run (not a sprint, but a very hard continuous pace) until the antelope could no longer move. Aajonus used this to illustrate how pre-digested rotten meat functioned as superior fuel for extreme physical endurance.

He was also critical of the marathon running culture in terms of athlete longevity, stating that marathon runners are burned out by their mid-40s, that less than 1 percent remain competitive beyond age 45, that they recover for three to four months after major races, and that this pattern is not a sign of health but of physiological depletion.

Aajonus described an injury event in which doctors told him he would never walk again, much less dance, unless bone fragments were surgically removed. He declined the surgery and instead used ocean walking as his rehabilitation protocol. He went into the ocean with his crutches, threw the crutches back onto shore, and walked in water deep enough that his body was sufficiently buoyant to allow leg movement without significant weight-bearing pressure. He walked a mile up and a mile back (or half a mile each direction at other times) twice a day. He also used a hotel pool in which he persuaded the owner to stop adding chlorine for five or six days so he could walk with bandages and raw meat on the leg in the pool without pressure.

Within six weeks he was off crutches and walking normally. At two months he was walking without crutches. At four months, while on Antigua after giving a workshop, he ran a quarter-mile sprint. He described this as evidence of what the body can accomplish in healing when given the right conditions.

In one workshop, Aajonus described being challenged to a race at a co-op in Chicago by energetic young people who had grown up on the diet. The course was approximately 100 yards to a pond. He had not run in 30 years. He took off his sandals and ran barefoot. He reached the end of the 100 yards and turned around to find the others were only halfway. He described concentrating entirely on his breath rather than on who was beside him. He acknowledged that the sprint did leave him out of breath, and that it took him approximately 10 minutes to recover his breath fully because he was not accustomed to running anymore, but framed the result as a demonstration of what the diet can create even in someone who has done no formal exercise for decades.

Aajonus repeatedly noted that his body did not produce adrenaline for physical activity. He described his adrenal glands as not generating the hormonal drive for exercise that most people experience, while other glands, including his sexual glands, produced very well or even overproduced. This meant he had to force himself to exercise through intellectual excitement, the novelty of discovering he could do it, rather than through any natural physical impulse. He described every day of the exercise period as requiring a conscious decision to get up and do it.

He slept heavily during the first six months of the program, coming home from runs and crashing for two to two and a half hours. He described this as his body adjusting to demands it had never experienced. He described the exercise period as running from approximately 1977 to April 1979, after which he stopped entirely and said "you know this exercise isn't for me." From that point forward, his exercise consisted of what he called incidental activity: carrying groceries once a week, typing on his computer, speaking at workshops, occasional tree trimming at his Malibu property, and activities on his farms in the Philippines and Thailand where he would climb mountains, herd horses, ride, shovel, and hoe during his visits.

He noted that when he arrived at his farm after months of sedentary computer work, he would go from a 37-inch waist down to a 30-inch waist during his stay due to the sustained physical work. He also described swimming at his lake every day during those periods.

Aajonus made a specific comparative claim about singing versus running (and exercise generally). He stated that 20 minutes of singing is equivalent to one hour on a treadmill, because of the demands placed on the muscles of the throat, the aperture of the mouth, and the breath control required to produce tone and pitch. He described singing as the most strenuous exercise to the human body, citing as evidence the fact that opera singers cannot be thin because the energy demands of singing require substantial fat reserves. He framed this as a recommendation for those who cannot or do not want to run, and as an explanation for why he considered singing and dancing to be the forms of movement most worth engaging in.

Aajonus described iridology-based activity rings in the eyes as an indicator of how much physical movement a person genuinely requires. He stated that athletes have seven to fourteen activity rings, and that a person with seven rings needs a minimum of seven hours of activity per day, while a person with fourteen needs fourteen hours of activity per day. He stated that he himself has zero activity rings, which he used to explain why the only physical activity that motivates him is sex. He said that a person with eight to ten rings needs a formal exercise program every day, not merely casual movement. He framed the failure to meet the body's activity requirement as a source of anxiety, whereas meeting it produces a sense of wellbeing.