it’s the carbs, kid

Last week I talked about the whimsical nature of landing on the career path of human services, a life-changing, life-directing passing conversation in a deserted college hall. Today, and perhaps other days this week, finds another story holding my heart close with absolute whimsy, another “Oh by the way” comment about to change my life forever.

It’s later August in the summer of 2018 and I’m coming to the tail end of my usual walk on the tarred bicycle path – the Springwater Corridor Trail – along Johnson Creek in Portland, Oregon. I’ve probably walked that very walk three or four times a week the past 10 years. This day I’ve been on a long phone call with my best friend Gavin (Oakland, CA) most of the way back toward the steep incline off the Trail and up into the neighborhood of my then home – my then wife’s house a couple streets away. I couldn’t tell you what we’d been talking about so long, but just before goodbye Gavin says something like, “Oh yeah, let me tell you about this new diet I’ve started,” and says it’s called Keto, and tells me there were experiments with this diet back in the fifties or something, with kids with intellectual disabilites, and there were amazing results, and he’s doing it, get rid of the carbs and eat lots of fat. In other words, pretty much the opposite of what I’d heard to do my whole life, especially with a family history of heart disease.

Anyway, his enthusiasm gets me all excited and I hurry up home and burst in and tell the wife all about it and how I’m going to try it. And that was six plus years ago, and I’ve never stopped trying it. With full disclosure, I – well – I’ll save the details for tomorrow. Or the next day. I’ll just say here that another one of those innocent, passing conversations changed most everything for me.