Last weekend, I had the great opportunity to attend Paleo FX in Austin, TX. Similar to the Ancestral Health Symposium, held in August, Paleo FX was full of who’s who in the paleo world, from the all knowing and all powerful, Robb Wolf to Mark Sisson to Chris Kresser to Dr Jack Kruse to James OPT Fitzgerald (the winner of the first CrossFit Games) and many many others. There were Dr.’s, Dietitians, Fitness professionals, nutritionists, neurosurgeons and even a former US Ski Team member, all of whom came together to get out the message of how to implement the paleo/ancestral lifestyle for health and longevity.
I’m kicking myself now for not writing up at least a brief overview of my experience at AHS last August (for nothing else than to be able to refer to it for this post) but I didn’t so I’m making myself write one now for PFX. Like a lot of bloggers out there, I had what I’m calling, ‘Great Delusions of Grandeur’ by way of documenting every last bit of PFX that I could. I soon (almost immediately) realized that a task like that would have been near impossible. There was so much going on from re connecting with old friends to meeting new friends only known through the internet until now. I know now that the many friends I made at PFX will last a long time, they are all just such awesome people. The whole time I was there, I didn’t even open my laptop. Next time, I’ll bring my camera and leave the computer and not the other way around.
My initial reason to attend this event was so I could speak with as many experts as possible, gather as much information as possible for my quest to cure my epilepsy through nutrition and lifestyle rather than a lifetime of taking drugs. I discovered quite quickly that this was something more. I was able to meet and socialize with like minded people that just like me, were looking for answers to health outside of the ‘conventional wisdom’ that the medical industry seems to promote.
I was able to grab Jimmy Moore of Livin’ La Vida Low Carb and talk to him about the ketogenic diet some. He was nice enough to point me in the direction of not one but two podcasts he’s done with a couple of Dr’s on the subject. I tried to do live tweeting some during the conference, but Jimmy put me to shame. I don’t know how he did it but he was able to get valuable information from each panel and send out tweets seamlessly. Jimmy you’re a tweeting MACHINE!! Follow him and see what I mean here. The two podcasts are below, check them out. Great information in there.
Dr Eric Kossoff – Pediatric Neurologist who uses Modified Atkins to treat epilepsy.
Dr Deborah Snyder – Talks about how her son was cured of epilepsy using a ketogenic diet.
After waiting patiently for my friend Amy Kubal’s panel about sleep and recovery (which was one of the best, but more on that later) to end, I was able to get her to finally introduce me to the geniuses behind Paleo Comfort Foods, Charles and Julie Mayfield. Both are really nice and SUPER tall! One of my prouder moments of Paleo FX was to give them my rendition of their sweet potato spears recipe that took the paleo world by storm during the release of their book: before putting spears in oven, coat liberally with duck fat. Bam! That’s it. Charles’ eyes got pretty big with excitement when I told him and he excitedly told Julie almost immediately. Charles and Julie, you guys rock! Hopefully I’ll make it down your way this summer and we’ll have a serious ><‘s party.
I was able to spend considerable time with Patricia Leighton of Stronger Faster Healthier as well as her father, Dr Jeff Leighton. Dr. Leighton and I discussed all sorts of things nutrition as well as an in depth conversation about dairy and how it relates to paleo. I was even able to give him my perspective on dairy as well. He is incredibly smart and a great guy. I will definitely try to stay in contact with him for any of my nutritional questions.
My girlfriend had me take a bunch of chocolate from our favorite company, ChocoVivo to hand out to some of our friends as well as to the Primal Palates, Bill and Haley. Haley got so excited when I gave her the bar, I thought she would eat it right then and there. A little while later, I met them down in the vendor area where I got the opportunity to talk with Bill about a whole manner of things. We talked about photography and lenses, landscape architecture, food, travel, among others. He was nice enough to give me a few tips on food photography in particular, telling me to try and shoot in natural daylight and which lenses to use. I was able to utilize those great tips just the other day when I was shooting my Ketogenic Pizza. Bill is right, natural daylight is best. Bill and Haley are super cool, down to earth people and I hope to see them either at the CrossFit Games in July or AHS in August.
There’s tons more that I know I’m forgetting about but I can honestly say that the people I met and got a chance to hang out with are people that I’ll stay in contact with. This was a fantastic learning experience not only for my own personal condition (that’s for another post) but also many other problems that may arise in the health, fitness and longevity world. I can’t wait not only for AHS in August, but also for Paleo FX next year. It’s only going to get better from here.
[…] met Bill and Hayley for the first time at Paleo FX 6 months or so ago. I wrote briefly how we all got along pretty much right away talking about […]