Good afternoon, folks! It’s an unseasonably cool and breezy day here in Boca Raton, Florida, where I’m basking in the afterglow of an incredible convention. This was my first time attending a low-carb conference in person, and it did not disappoint!
Doug and Pam of LowCarbUSA put on a terrific event — a schedule packed with fascinating speakers, breakout sessions, low-carb buffet dinners, and a poster session featuring (among many much smarter folks) yours truly!
When I was journaling this morning, I realized that although it’s been a year or so since I first published my book, this weekend was kind of a “coming out party” for me as a writer.
plane english
It started on the plane. As I fumbled aboard with the long cardboard box that held my comically large poster (see above), the flight attendants offered to help find a space for it. “It’s a poster,” I explained, loudly to anyone within earshot, “for a conference.” Part of me worried that a big guy walking on a plane with a long, narrow box might conjure some fears among fellow passengers, or inspire a well-intentioned tackle by an undercover flight marshall (hey, I watch the movies).
The couple across from me laughed. “Are you in the natural sciences?” asked the man.
“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m a writer.”
It just popped out. And I realized, even as I said it, that it was the first time I’d ever introduced myself as such. Not as a teacher, or an English professor, or a higher ed administrator, but a writer. It felt weird, but in a good way.
We chatted for sometime after, and the woman told me of a freind of theirs who, at the age of 30, has just been diagnosed with epilepsy. She found my book on Amazon and texted the link to her friend, who replied within minutes thanking her and letting her know that he’d just bought it.
A sale! Before we even left the tarmac! I immediately texted Judy and all my friends to brag — I mean, celebrate. But more than anything, it means so much to me that something I wrote could be of some use to someone who’s in the very same situation I was in twenty years ago.
That really set the tone for the weekend. After all, it was as a writer that I was attending this conference, not in any of my other various roles in life. And it was as a writer in this space that I was so excited to connect with and learn from some of the greatest minds working in the field today. I am still overwhelmed by the interest and positive feedback from some of the folks I’ve admired for the last several years.
I didn’t get selfies with everyone — and, fair warning, I’m a pretty terrible selfie-taker — but here are a few:
dominic d’agostino, phd
A professor at University of South Florida, Dr. D’Agostino is who I want to be when I grow up. When not doing 500-lb deadlifts in his home gym/cow pasture, he’s doing cutting-edge (and sometimes top-secret) research for folks like the Navy Seals and NASA.
He’s one of the world’s foremost authorities on ketone supplements (in fact, the booth behind us is Audacious Nutrition, a company that his wife started). He’s basically Tony Stark, but without the fancy costume and crime-fighting alter ego (though I wouldn’t be surpised…). If you subscribe to one newsletter (besides, of course, this one) subscribe to his at KetoNutrition.org.
His talk was a great, in-depth look at some of the latest research on how ketones protect the brain in everyone from mice, to scuba divers, to astronauts, to Alzheimer’s patients — fascinating stuff!
nina teicholz
If you’ve read my book, you may recall my chapter about mavericks — the folks who, because they’re outside the establishment, can see the truth of things more clearly than those inside. Nina is the person who inspired that chapter (and, truth be told, much of my journey) with her book The Big Fat Surprise.
In her talk, she gave the latest on saturated fat, including a recent meta-analysis finding no link to heart disease or overall mortality and the errant US dietary guidelines. The smoking gun? An email she obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by one of the members of the dietary guidelines committee stating that, when it comes to recommended limits on saturated fats, “There is no magic/data for the 10% number or 7% number that has been used previously.” And yet those limits persist. Mind-blowing and maddening! Check out Nina’s substack, “Unsettled Science” for more.
eric westman, md
One of the most popular talks of the weekend was given by Dr. Eric Westman of Duke University, who also runs the Adapt Your Life online program and wrote the latest edition of granddaddy of all keto books, New Atkins for a New You, as well as the recent End Your Carb Confusion. Titled “An Evidence-based Summary of 20 Years of Keto Medicine,” his talk was both a look backward over his twenty years of practicing the ketogenic diet in his obesity clinic, and a look forward at where the diet is headed.
Dr. Westman has been doing ketogenic diets for weight loss longer than anyone around today, and it was interesting hearing the history. Running through was a central theme: Evidence-Based Medicine. It’s a term we hear all the time, but what does it really mean? In Dr. Westman’s view, the evidentiary standards required by the medical community do a great job of protecting patients from the potential harms of new and untested drugs, but at the same time, they can discount and suppress therapies like lifestyle that are more complex and more difficult to study.
Despite this difficulty, he says, “The Low-Carb, High-Fat diet has more evidence supporting it than would be needed for FDA approval, if it were a drug.”
I have lots more takeaways to share — in fact, my head is veritably stuffed — but I’l stop there for now.
Before I go, WELCOME to my new friends from the conference who have just subscribed! I’m doing a giveaway of some signed, numbered, first-edition copies of my new hardcover, and you’ve been entered! I’ll keep the offer open for another week, so please refer a friend (or sign up again with your backup/junk email address ;) if you’d like to be entered to win!
One final note: I didn’t get a selfie, but I also got a chance to spend some quality time with Dr. Mary Newport, who did TWO poster presentations (show-off! :) and signed my copy of Clearly Keto. Don’t forget — that’s our Book Club selection this month, and Dr. Mary will be doing a LIVE ZOOM Q&A with us on Wednesday, January 25th at 6:30 Eastern. Mark your calendar and be sure to tune in (even if you don’t finish the book! I won’t give you a failing grade!).
Talk to you soon,
BigDave
Hi Jennifer! Yep - I’ll put it out as a YouTube & podcast sometime in the week after.
Do you record the zoom sessions? I will unfortunately be working during the live time. Thanks!