Introduction
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: What is going on my friends and welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, AKA Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show in which our guest talks Keto. She not only has a health story, and we will dive into that, but she also does something else pretty darn cool. She is the owner of an event called KetoCon and this is a pretty big thing. It’s probably going to be the biggest health event of the year, in our space at least. I’ll explain why in just a moment.
But we’re talking to her. We’re not only going to hear what she went through health wise. We’re also going to be learning about the event, how you can attend. It is July 8th through 10th in Austin, Texas at the Palmer Event Center. This is of 2022.
I will be there. Reed Davis, the founder of FDN will be there. Jo Pate will be there. She’s someone that does a lot of different things at FDN. She does all the social media stuff and helps out with the podcast. We have a whole crew coming down. Then there’s always a bunch of people when we have these booths that actually volunteer. So, you will meet plenty of people from FDN.
Come say hi to us there. Or just check out Reed speak. I know he’s going to be throwing it down. He is one of like 70 something speakers that this event has planned, which is absolutely crazy.
I want to give a little background on Robin really quickly, and then we will get into the interview itself.
Robin Switzer’s Background
Robin Switzer is an entrepreneur and the owner of Q1 Productions. Her company owns the popular health and wellness event, KetoCon – The Science and Stories of Keto. KetoCon has been bringing the keto/low-carb community together annually since 2017. The three-day event is nonstop motivation and inspiration, learning, networking, sampling all of the latest innovative products on the market, and enjoying the city of Austin, Texas. I am looking forward to this.
This is one of those conferences, she said about 70% of the vendors (and there’s 125 vendors currently) are food product people. They vet all of them. They make sure they’re actually legitimately Keto, which I thought was amazing. You’ll hear in the interview, she’s very passionate about this and takes it very seriously.
What I thought was so cool though, is when I’m working in these booths for FDN and doing my thing, typically you got to order food from some other place because the conference might not have food or if they do, it’s not really up to standards, but these are my people here. I love that I can just go grab breakfast and or lunch by walking 10 feet and finding a new product that day. We will hope to see you guys there.
For now, here is the interview with Robin Switzer.
All right. Hey there, Robin. How are you?
Robin Switzer: Good morning.
Detective Ev: I’m glad to be here with you. Thanks for hopping on. I know things are probably getting pretty darn busy with the event coming up in just less than two months now. I’m super excited to be talking to you, not only to learn about maybe some of the health stuff that you went through, but just because I’ll be at the event myself.
KetoCon 2022
If you guys don’t know, we have the KetoCon thing coming up, just in case you’re someone who skips through intros. That’s going to be in early July, July 8th, 9th, and 10th, correct?
Robin Switzer: That’s correct.
Detective Ev: So, I will be there. FDN as a whole will be there. Jo Pate will be there. And Reed Davis, I believe, is speaking, founder of FDN. We got a whole crew there. Come say hi to us, come check out the booth, or one of Reed’s talks.
But for today, before we get started talking about the KetoCon thing and the event, what inspired that. My gosh, the older I’m getting and the more I get into this space, I realize just the amount of effort that it takes to host these kinds of events, especially when we’re talking multiple thousands of people. It’s hard enough to put on one that does a couple of hundred let alone the numbers that KetoCon does.
We’ll talk about that soon. But I want to start off the same way that we always do on this show by asking you, what did your health symptoms look like and when did they start for Robin?
Robin’s Health Journey
[00:03:39] Robin Switzer: Well, I have a long-sorted health history. I am truly the perfect example of your crisis becomes your calling. I experienced from a very, very young age. I had issues with food addiction. I had issues with sugar addiction.
I came from an environment where my family used food to celebrate, to soothe, to entertain. It was just part of the culture that I grew up in. I just kind of naturally fell into my environment. I can’t say that if I hadn’t been in that environment, that I wouldn’t have had the issues, but regardless I did.
Through my pre-teen, early teen, young adulthood, I struggled with hormonal dysregulation. I struggled with maintaining a healthy weight. I struggled with depression, and it just continued, you know. When you start off your life like that, you’re kind of on a path to trouble. That’s about the best way I can put it.
Throughout my life, because of all of this, I had an obsession really with all of the things that were going on, all the symptoms I had, why I felt so different than everyone else, than what I perceived is everyone else’s experience. That really became harshly apparent for me when I was in my early teens.
I felt the physical effects of the hormonal dysregulation coupled with turning into a teenager. I always felt this heaviness, like a bloated feeling regardless of what I ate, was always there. The only time it wasn’t there is when I stopped eating. I got into that cyclical dieting habit that a lot of young women fall into, a lot of young people fall into.
Robin Talks Keto
I found that I really had to go to extremes to maintain my weight and also to feel better. It didn’t occur to me until I was in my probably mid-twenties, that the only time I really felt well was when I wasn’t eating. So, to me, I always knew that there was a connection between my health and the food. I just didn’t understand how it all tied together.
When I was in my thirties, I discovered Atkins, low carb, and Loren Cordain and the paleo movement. I started down that path where trying to utilize all of these different protocols to see if I could address my symptoms.
It wasn’t until I got really strict with low carb that I did see a difference. I finally had control over my appetite. I didn’t feel starving and hungry and that anxious feeling that you get when you’re overly hungry or when you have issues with blood sugar dysregulation. So, the puzzle pieces started fitting together for me at that point.
I lived that way for years, kind of in and out of that lifestyle. In the early 2020s, it became more of how I lived. Then I stumbled across the ketogenic diet in like probably 2013 or 2014. That’s when I started to really see a difference because the higher content of healthy fats, where I had the mental capacity to do everything I wanted to do.
I was in a Facebook group that was a ketogenic Facebook group. I saw a post for a program manager and at the time was working for a global bank in financial services. I was managing a team of people, so I was traveling a lot. I still had this underlying interest in fitness and wellness.
History Behind KetoCon
When I saw that post pop up in the Facebook group, I was like, you know, I probably don’t have the skill set to do this job, but what the heck. I’m going to talk to the guy anyway. One thing led to another and a few months later, I left my corporate career, jumped ship, and started working for an organization called Ketoevangelist, which was owned by Brian Williamson.
What we wanted to do was build a Keto empire because we both had success in that area in our lives addressing our health issues. So, we started with, let’s build an event because we have these hundreds of thousands of people in these Facebook groups and they all thrive on community. That’s been an underlying theme of all of this all along, is community. We decided we would do an event in Austin because that’s what Brian’s based.
We did the first KetoCon in 2017. Meanwhile, we’re building other brands underneath that umbrella of Ketoevangelist. The first one was such a success that we decided to do it again in 2018 and 2019. Then 2020 happened and we were dead in the water. There was nothing we could do and the whole entire business at that point had been pretty negatively impacted.
Brian had college kids and a family to support. He said to me, you know, I have to move on. I can’t sustain this. We can’t build anymore. We’ve been hit too hard. And I am, if anything, or if nothing, I’m very stubborn. I had left this super lucrative career in banking, and I wasn’t ready to give up yet. I felt like there was so much more to do.
Ketoevangelist Rebranded to Q1 Productions
I was in a position where I could say, you know what? I don’t want to let go. Can we figure something out where I can keep this going? We came up with an agreement. I acquired the company and I started from ground zero again. I rebranded Ketoevangelist. So, the new company is Q1 Productions.
Under that umbrella falls all of the other business lines that we had started to build under Ketoevangelist. One of them of course, is KetoCon. Now I own that event and we’ve just been waiting for the opportunity to come back. Behind the scenes, we’re still all human beings that have struggled with health issues, weight issues, all kinds of hurdles. And we all still thrive on community.
So here we are 2022, getting ready to do our next live event, which we haven’t done this since 2019. That was a very long way of me telling you my health story, where I started, why I’m still here.
[00:10:12] Detective Ev: That’s okay. It gives me quite a few things to work with and I am going to rewind to the health story in a second.
I mean, we’re talking about KetoCon, so I got to bring it up at least to some degree. I think that was very smart what you guys did, because I knew that there was many places that tried to force events in 2021. You know, some of them were very successful. I mean, Dave Asprey had his biohacking thing, I think even at that year and it did work out. You know, people came and that’s great.
Passionate to Share This Message
But I think what you’re doing from like a consumer perspective, is at this perfect time where most people are chilled out. (No, none of us want to get sick. No one wants COVID. I don’t care how healthy you are.) It’s one of those things now where most people, especially in our space, I think are a little more inclined to go participate in these things.
I would go as far as to say some people are just craving them because you want to get back out. It’s like, all right. A lot of us have had COVID. I had it recently again for like the second time. It was so simple, so small. And I’m not saying that’s the case for everyone, I understand that’s not. But thankfully, for so many of us that have been in this space for a while doing the keto thing, doing the health stuff, we really were prepared for this in a way that most people just simply weren’t.
I think that’s why we’re so big on promoting this. It’s not just for like COVID, none of us could have predicted that, but people don’t realize how bad life can stink when we’re constantly worried about health challenges or complications. That’s why people like us, we are diehard passionate about this. Let’s do whatever we can to share the message. I think that’s cool.
I just loved the way that the event became yours over time. I imagine that’s pretty stressful. Not that this is a business podcast per se, but I got to ask, in the event, are your incomes and livelihoods basically just dictated by this one major event each year? Is that how this ends up kind of working?
On The Right Path
[00:11:47] Robin Switzer: Kind of. I mean, there’s a lot. It does take a year to plan this event. So, it does take a lot and I have a very small team. There’s really just a few of us that do this full time. For my benefit, I mean, I do have other business lines that fall under Q1 Productions that help generate revenue throughout the year. But in the event space, there’s a lot that goes into producing an event.
The majority, like 98% of the expense related to an event, all of those bills have to be paid before the event. It’s not like you can pay it the day after you have all these same day ticket sales. That’s not how it works. There’s some risks involved. From a business perspective I think that I probably wouldn’t recommend to other people to take the path that I did because it was very risky.
I don’t mean to sound kind of flighty, but I’m just going to share with you honestly. I just kept on thinking little things kept on happening that were telling me I was on the right path, little things that fell into place every couple of months. The venue allowed us to roll over a portion of what we had paid on the actual event to this year. That helped us keep going. My other business lines continue to grow. Little things just kept on happening. I got introduced to people that I didn’t know before.
I’ve just always known I was on the right path.
Somehow, You Just Know
[00:13:12] Detective Ev: I think it’s pretty cool how that works in life and that’s not flighty at all.
It’s definitely well received on a show like this because I’m actually bringing this up a lot in the purely health interviews like where we’re only talking about the health journey. The vast majority of people that have come on this show, when you’re released by like almost 150 episodes now, have said the same thing. They just knew, they had some experiences that happened that led them off the path of conventional.
The whole reason I am in FDN is because something told me, I have no other way of describing it other than that. Something told me that at 21 years old, I should go out to California from Pennsylvania with $1,200 total, split between myself and a friend, to learn from the people who knew more about natural health out West.
That led to meeting Jen Malecha. You probably have heard of her or met her at some point. She’s a huge person in the FDN world. She happened to be speaking at a coffee shop and got me connected with Reed Davis. It just worked out. Now I’m sitting here doing a podcast with you for a good company, right?
Of course, it’s easier to look back and connect all those dots and say, hey, of course it worked. But in those moments, I’ve had those in my life, and it’s led to some wonderful things where I just know I’m going on the right thing. It might be tough at that moment, but you just feel like you’re going the right way. I think that’s just cool. That’s really interesting that it happened, and it clearly worked out.
Successful Female Entrepreneurs
I’m noticing a theme because I’m not a huge TV guy, but I love Shark Tank and I’ll steal my family’s affinity to watch Shark Tank. Kevin O’Leary says that all of his women owned businesses are the ones that do phenomenal. They’re the ones that are highly profitable. They’re killing it. He loves buying businesses that are owned by women or investing in it.
I’ve seen this in the event space. I don’t know what you guys are doing, but you kick butt at this. There was a woman recently, her name’s Pam, and she, my gosh, man, she made me shut my mouth. I just did not believe, it was so local, that she was going to get 200 people to this.
She exceeded that. She showed me the picture she sent me. I’m like, when you guys want to do something, it’s just game over. I think you guys understand something about community and bringing people together that, I don’t know, maybe we’re not wired in the same way.
I think it’s exciting to see what you’re doing because I obviously know on the back end, you are expecting a huge attendance here. That’s amazing. That’s incredible. And you still have two months to go.
I know for me, like I’m a pretty planned person, but when it comes to conferences, there’s so many things that come up in my life that I would normally buy a ticket to this last second.
Trying Everything – Not Giving Up
The fact that you’ve done what you’ve done already is incredible. If you guys haven’t gotten something yet, I would consider doing that because your times coming up.
Before we get too far ahead, I don’t want to just jump around, but we will come back to KetoCon. I want to just touch on a few things with the health story really quick. That was a long time. I mean, I think you said, correct me if I’m wrong, was it early thirties before you started trying like the Atkins type of thing?
[00:15:46] Robin Switzer: Yeah. It was. It was probably more like my late twenties because I was always trying something. People laugh when I say this, but I’m very serious. When I was going through those years, I tried everything. I tried the fruitarian; I tried being a fruitarian. I tried eating raw food. I tried low carb. I tried no fat. I tried high fat. I mean, I did it all, including the things that are dangerous. I tried pills. I mean, I’ve done it all.
I’m old enough to know that a lot of that stuff is still being tried by young people. I’ve seen people around me, younger people than myself, struggle with the same things. In many cases, much worse than what I dealt with. I don’t know what kept me going down that path. I mean, what other choice do you have? You either keep trying or you give up, and I wasn’t willing to give up.
Exhaust All the Options First
[00:16:41] Detective Ev: Well, you sort of answered my question, which is cool. I know that you don’t mean that literally these people are giving up. They’re hopeless though, right? No one wants to be sick or overweight, but they don’t see how there’s another possibility.
I haven’t quite figured that out yet. It just seems to be maybe a personality trait or something where there is relentlessness with certain people that they are going to exhaust every single option. I wasn’t always like that.
I had this moment at 18 when I got diagnosed with a pretty serious thing, I was told it was incurable. I mean, it needs surgery, all that stuff. It’s hard to say that a suicidal thought wouldn’t be because of depression, but it really wasn’t. My suicidal thought came from, I have been sick my entire life. Like you, I was dealing with health issues at around five, six years old. I didn’t even know what it was like to be healthy.
Then this got stacked on top of it. I was just kind of like, why am I here? What am I doing this for? Now I got to start working as an 18. I always worked part time, but like real work. Right? Now I gotta start working. I gotta do all this stuff. This sounds terrible to do while I’m so sick. Like, why am I even here?
That actually motivated me though, Robin. Because it gave me this mindset that you clearly have had for a while. I said, well, if I’m going to do something like that, man, I better try everything out there before I make a major decision that I can never take back, that’s going to affect my family or something like that.
Robin Talks Keto – Sustainability
Thank God I did, because it really didn’t even take that much longer before I found something that kind of worked for me or got the needle moving in the right direction. Then of course I found FDN, the keto stuff. The keto thing is pretty incredible.
Maybe because you’ve answered actually so many of the questions that I would normally go to already, just through your story, why Keto? Because there’s a million things that you’ve tried, obviously none of them worked sufficiently. We don’t actually talk about keto enough on this podcast. I’m not saying it hasn’t come up, but it’s not actually the main theme always.
We’re talking about the illnesses and the diagnoses and the supplements and the many different things that could work. So, why keto for you? Like why do you think that worked for you? Why are you so passionate about it to do these events where we’re talking to other people? What makes keto different than the pills, the Atkins, all that other stuff?
[00:18:33] Robin Switzer: For me, it was sustainability. It was something that I didn’t feel like I had to stop doing. That could be because it was a good fit for me, or it was a good time in my life. You know, I was ready to accept that.
I was mature enough to make the connections on what I put in my mouth and how I felt. That was a key factor. I was also at a point in my life where I wanted to feel better so badly that once I did, I wanted to hold on to that.
Robin Talks Keto – Hormonal Regulation
And why the ketogenic diet? For a lot of reasons. One, because it’s very flexible. I think that there’s a lot of misconception outside of the Keto sphere about what the diet really is. I think that people think that you eat a lot of salami, bacon, a lot of meat, don’t eat any vegetables, and have to eat huge gobs of butter. That’s not true.
So, the ketogenic diet for a nutritional protocol or therapeutic protocol is totally different. For therapeutics, you do have a higher amount of fat, a moderate amount of protein, and a very low amount of carbs. But for the majority of the people who are using this protocol just to level up their health or upgrade their health, they don’t need to go to those extremes or at least not long-term.
So, if you’re living in a state of going in and out of ketosis, you’re burning your stored fat as energy and your hormonal regulation is improved. For me, that was, I think, the key factor. Just that I didn’t have those highs and lows, and I saw an improvement in my mental health. I went through the extreme because I went through menopause on a ketogenic diet.
I actually didn’t go through menopause until like five years later than most women my age. I think that that points to improved metabolic and hormonal health for me personally. The other thing is, you didn’t ask me this question, but just along the health perspective, the majority of the women in my family have had some of their body parts removed either because of hormonal dysregulation, or diet, and the inability to process fats properly.
Robin Talks Keto – An Opportunity to Live Life Differently
I’m the only woman in my family with a uterus. I’m the only woman in my family with a gallbladder. I mean, I feel like that is a testament to my improved health in comparison to my gene pool. Lifestyle definitely has been proven to me to be a really critical component. And why I keep doing this is, I just feel like there’s so many people who can be positively impacted if they understand how to address hormonal dysregulation.
That’s a big pool of topics to cover. But living this lifestyle has given me a second, I don’t want to say lease on life. But it’s given me an opportunity to live life differently than I think I would have if I didn’t find this.
[00:21:40] Detective Ev: Wow. I think many people that listen to this show probably get what you mean, especially those of us that have been sick for so long, because it is tough, guys. I’m not trying to be dramatic, it’s not like I had cancer. When you have experiences like this and your whole life has just met with symptoms, I mean, you are taken away from certain opportunities.
It’s not that I even wanted to do this, but there’s people that go to college. I mean, they’re drinking, you know, four or five nights a week, partying, staying up late, then going and working the next day. That’s just not a reality. I couldn’t have done that kind of lifestyle, even if I wanted to. You know what I mean?
You aren’t able to participate in normal things as a kid sometime depending on how bad it is. So yeah, I think it absolutely gives you a second lease on life.
Detective Ev Talks Keto – Almost Like Aging in Reverse
For me, yeah, I just describe it as like a new life. It’s just living, it’s actually living. I love that I can even travel. It’s not that traveling isn’t tiring and exhausting in its own right. That’s why travel can be impossible for certain people that are really ill. But to be able to go do these things now, like the conferences in Austin, where we met, and then KetoCon. Then two nights ago, I’m like driving five hours to get to a speech and then sleeping overnight.
Physically could not do that at one point in my life. So, it almost feels like you’re aging in reverse to a certain degree. Now, unfortunately for my understanding that will cap out at a certain point. But right now, still to this day, it feels like I’m just getting better and better, stronger and stronger, more and more endurance, better mental clarity. It’s a pretty powerful thing. I can totally understand why you’d want to share that with other people.
Just to be clear about something, in pop culture we’re going to call it the ketogenic diet. I use that phrase myself.
But I think one thing people need to understand is that ketosis, in and of itself, is not a diet. It’s a metabolic state. That’s what people are really missing out on. So, would you mind? I still find even in the functional space; people really don’t get this. Could you explain like what ketosis actually is when it’s done and measured properly, and why it’s not just a diet.
Robin Talks Keto – It’s a Metabolic State
[00:23:27] Robin Switzer: Sure. Like you said, ketosis is a metabolic state.
What that means is that (babies are born in ketosis.), ketosis means that you are burning fat for fuel. And when you burn fat for fuel, you have better mental clarity, you have a stabilized mood, you have more energy.
Have you ever? I know you have, so for everyone listening, if you’ve ever heard the term, like you’re in flow, where you just, you almost have invisible blinders on. You’re so focused on what you’re doing that time kind of loses its impact. You don’t feel the passage of time. You’re just in the zone. You’re in the flow. That’s what being in ketosis feels like.
When you live like that, depending on your intake of food or dietary intake, you kind of flow in and out of that state. So, when you’re burning either exogenous energy that you take in or stored energy, it really doesn’t matter because you still have that same mental clarity and that same amount of energy.
I think your listeners will understand this even more. When you are intermittent fasting and you find that space where you feel the ketones kick in because you’ve got that clarity when you’re fasting, That’s the same feeling. You don’t have to fast for that impact. You can experience that on a ketogenic diet as well. Some people utilize both, myself being one of them.
Detective Ev Talks Keto – Intermittent Fasting
[00:25:17] Detective Ev: I think that’s a perfect way to describe it. That was actually a really good comparison about the intermittent fasting. I would have to imagine that literally every single person that’s listening to this, if not 98% plus, have at least tried the intermittent fasting for some point. Most of us, you really don’t have to stick with the IF for that long.
If you just stick with it for even a week, you probably will have that experience unless you’re maybe severe diabetic, that would have that experience of whoa, I feel really good. It might not last, that’s the problem. It might like tinker and as soon as you eat it went away or something like that. You’re like, darn it. I lost that. But there’s so many people that end up, they can stay in the fast even longer. Cause they’re like, this is amazing, I feel really good.
Something just came up on my Facebook. I tried intermittent fasting for the first time almost six years ago to the day. I was doing like these Facebook posts where I had my glucometer and I’m showing people my blood sugar levels. I could eat incredible amount of carbs. I was young, super active, lean guy, added on top of this. I was eating like a hundred grams of carbs in a sitting and an hour later, my blood sugar was still under 105. It was unbelievable what I was able to do at that time off a 16/8 fast.
Detective Ev Talks Keto – Level Energy
I think that’s the testament to this kind of lifestyle and what we’re talking about here. Yes, I’ve added Keto in over those years. I was eating a high amount of carbs at the time, then about two years into that, maybe like three or four years ago, I started experimenting with extended fast, keto diet, all that kind of stuff, low carb.
Now, it’s still something that I apply in my life. This is one of the things I hear often, Robin, I’m sure in your space as well. People do this long-term and that is not the case for most diets, or little get fit, quick type of things. They don’t stick with it, but this is sustainable.
For me? True story by coincidence right now while we’re interviewing. It’s 10:32 AM where I’m at. I have not eaten since 6:00 PM yesterday. And the only time that I ate yesterday was from 5:00 PM until 6:00 PM. I did two presentations. I drove five, six hours at the same time all this other stuff was going on. I basically had one giant meal that lasted me like 45 minutes to an hour. You know, I still need my calories.
But it was one meal for the day. I feel totally fine. I haven’t eaten yet this morning and I will not eat until after I’m done in the gym today. Now, I’m not recommending that to people on their first time. Give it some time for your body to adapt, but I can do this with level energy. Robin can do this with level energy because it’s a metabolic state. It’s not just the diet.
Robin Talks Keto – What Level are You Starting From?
I would love to know what your thoughts are on this if you do believe some people should just be doing it more often or not.
I mean this respectfully to anyone who’s said this, when someone tells me, well, oh, keto just didn’t work for me. You are suggesting that a very natural metabolic state does not work for you. One that you would have been more or less forced into if you had famine for even 48 hours at any point during normal history, which I think would have happened to all of us, no matter where we’re from. We would have had times of not eating. So, I just don’t really buy that.
What’s your philosophy on that? When like someone says, well, keto didn’t work for me, are you under the impression that some people should be in this like most of the time versus some every now and then? Because I think everyone should have the ability to get in that’s for sure.
[00:28:12] Robin Switzer: I agree. The answer to that, anytime anyone has ever said to me, you know, that that doesn’t work for me, my question, I’d want to understand more about how they were utilizing it, what they were actually doing. It also depends on what state you’re in when you get started. If you’re going from the standard American diet where you’re living on McDonald’s and pre-made food from Costco, and you try going to Keto, clean Keto, then you’re going to have some struggles and you’re going to feel like crap for a while.
Robin Talks Keto – It Takes Some Fine Tuning
The other factor is, there are people that come to this space for weight loss. They’re younger, they have less healing to do, and they can do keto in very loose terms with a lot of packaged food, and still lose weight, still improve their health. But for someone who has spent a long time in a damaged metabolic state, real food is a hundred percent necessary. Those bars, shakes, and whatever other products that have questionable ingredients in them are not going to get you where you want to go.
So, I would ask that person exactly what they were really taking in. Because honestly, I don’t think that there is anyone that wouldn’t benefit from improving their metabolic health. That doesn’t mean that you only eat meat, fat, and vegetables for the rest of your life. There are many people who can re-introduce higher amounts of carbs once their metabolic flexibility is strengthened.
But for someone who has lived in an ill state most of their life, it’s going to take a stricter approach to improve your health. If you’re someone that has tried this and can’t find a way to make it work, the way to determine how to make it work is to look at what you’re doing.
There’s so many different components. It’s a hard question to answer. I’m thinking about the people who snack all day, the people who eat lots of bars and processed food that have questionable ingredients in them. I’m thinking about people that try fasting after being on a high carb protocol.
So, it really depends on where you’re starting, what you’re doing when you’re trying it, and what your goal is to determine how to go about incorporating this lifestyle to improve your health. That takes some fine tuning.
Detective Ev Talks Keto – Measure with Blood in Ketosis
[00:30:49] Detective Ev: Well, I think, there are many ways to answer it and that’s kind of my point, right?
There are so many factors, guys, that I think it’s throwing in the towel to just say, hey, this didn’t work. There’s also a couple of things that need to be considered. I’ll add these in. One, just the basic one. Are you measured with blood in ketosis when you’re telling me that the keto diet did not work for you? That is the first and most obvious thing.
Because the breath test, yes, they’re okay. The urine tests are highly misleading. All that, that means is that you’re peeing out ketones. That’s literally all it means. In fact, what you might find is if you can get into it like Robin and I obviously can, unless you’re like on a three-day fast, if you’re just having a normal keto day, your urine ketones might not even be that high if noticeable at all. That is because your body’s actually using them. It’s not just excreting it in the urine.
Now, yes. When I’ve done 48- and 72-hour water fast, absolutely my urine is still very high in ketones and the blood. But the best way to track this is to buy like a ketone meter. We’re not affiliated with any specific thing. Keto-Mojo is good. It does both the glucose and ketones, which I love. I love being able to put that back and forth. You prick your finger, just like a diabetic does, and you’re able to see are you in it? So that’s number one.
Detective Ev Talks Keto – Detoxifying Effect
But then also number two, in addition to the million things Robin listed off that need to be considered, when you are in ketosis, you are actually going to have a detoxifying effect. That’s how amazing this “diet” quote/unquote, actually is.
Our toxic load is stored in our fat cells primarily. That’s why some people, they actually have a genetic advantage that they can get so large, so easily. But it’s to their detriment in today’s world where everything’s toxic and the rainwater has glyphosate in it. You know what I mean? That’s not to their advantage at that time.
But when you start using that fat for fuel, if those toxins (they’ll stay in there indefinitely, most of them will stay in there indefinitely until they have a reason to leave), you might also feel like crap because it’s working. So, give it some time. Learn from someone that actually knows what they’re doing.
Come to KetoCon. I’m sure you’re going to have some of the best people there speaking and stuff. I think at this point that’s actually what I’d like to transition to. We’ve talked about KetoCon a few times already, but let’s get into the details.
When is this? When can people purchase tickets? Then we’ll even talk about what can they expect there from this type of event? What kind of vendors and stuff?
Robin Talks Keto & KetoCon
[00:33:03] Robin Switzer: KetoCon is July 8th, 9th, and 10th in Austin, Texas at the Palmer Event Center. This is, like I said, year four for us, our 4th live event.
It is three days of literally non-stop activity. We start the event early on Friday morning and over the course of the three days, I counted yesterday, we have right now, 72 speakers. Those speakers are speaking on one of three and a half stages.
We run a keynote stage on the first floor of the venue. We run two breakout rooms on the second floor of the venue, and a VIP breakout room for the VIP ticket holders also on the second floor of the venue. The specialties with this group of people range. It’s so varied that I wouldn’t even know how to start to tell you.
If you’d like to see who’s speaking, go to ketocon.org and click on speakers. You’ll be able to see who they all are. But medical professionals, fitness experts, bloggers, technology experts, like I said, the range is so varied. It’s so wide. I don’t know where to start.
Reed we’ll be speaking, which we’re super honored and excited to have him with us. That’s going to be a tremendous experience for us and for the attendees.
So, what to expect over the course of the event. There’ll be all of those stages running from beginning to end each day. There will be a networking lounge where we are going to be doing special meet and greet sessions with celebrities in this space.
Robin Talks Keto & KetoCon – What to Expect at the Event
There’ll be a demo area where we’ll be doing cooking demos. Bill Schindler, who is from Eat Like a Human, the founder of Eat Like a Human, he’ll be doing a stone age tool demonstration. We’re super excited about that, having him join us too.
And panels – we’re doing four panels this year. On Friday, we’re doing a medical panel where there’ll be seven medical professionals who will share their experience and their background, with this lifestyle, how they work with their patients. Then we open it up to audience questions.
On Saturday, we do the same thing with a fitness panel, with fitness experts. On Sunday, we’re doing a success stories panel, which is six panelists who come from all walks of life who have utilized this lifestyle and this nutritional protocol to improve their health. They will share their stories, how they’ve utilized the programs, what they’re doing with it in their lives today. And then again, open it up for audience questions.
New to KetoCon this year is we’re doing a carnivore panel, which is medical professionals, and also people who have utilized the carnivore protocol as a way to address their health issues. This is much more of an elimination protocol than Keto, but also falls as a subcategory, to the ketogenic diet. Because when you’re doing this type of protocol, again, your goal is to be in your body’s natural state of ketosis, but also through eliminating things that irritate your system additional improved health.
So, four stages, four panels, three days, 70 some odd speakers, 125, I think we’re at right now, vendors. And these also are quite varied.
Robin Talks Keto & KetoCon – Not Everyone “Keto” Is Allowed
If you look at the showcase on our website, you’ll see all of the companies that are attending. These are, I would say, probably 75% of them are food product manufacturers. But they all go through a vetting process through KetoCon.
We’re pretty selective on what we allow in as far as ingredients go. This is not an event where if you see it’s Keto, that every company that says it’s Keto is there, they’re not. We’ve had to turn away a lot of companies. We’ve actually worked with several companies to help them understand the problematic ingredients that they have in their products, and what they would need to do to be able to participate. I consider that a huge honor. I mean, it’s really hard to turn away the money, but I don’t feel like we’re going to make a difference unless we have strict rules. So that’s what we do.
Then there’s technology companies, there’s educational programs, there’s fitness, there’s biohacking, there’s skincare. There’s pretty much anything you can think of is being representative at this. Then there’s the cooking demos. Maria Emmerich will be there doing a cooking demo. Anna Vocino will be there doing a cooking demo. Several other people will be there doing cooking demos. We have Max Mentzer who is a Type 1 diabetic who will be doing a cooking demo during the show.
Robin Talks Keto & KetoCon – Plan Ahead with Our Schedule
We also even have a food photography masterclass taking place during the event, and an entrepreneur mastermind session, which happens very early on Saturday morning, where we bring in successful brands that have embarked in this space and are quite successful now. They’re going to share what they did to get there, their approach to their business. Then open it up to people who are in the entrepreneurial space who are looking to get in or are in and have questions. They need the guidance. We’ll open it up for questions for that audience as well.
A little overwhelming, I’m sure. I apologize. The schedule is also on our website. Anyone who’s planning to attend, I highly recommend going to the website and looking at the schedule and planning out your experience before you get there, because there will be a lot going on. It will be really hard to do it while you’re there.
But just in case if you don’t, there will be a KetoCon app running during the show. You’ll be able to see on the app, everything that’s happening that’s on the schedule on our website – who all the vendors are, where they are. We’ll also be doing like push notifications to remind people when something’s happening in the demo booth or in the networking lounge. All of that will be happening at the same time.
Robin Talks Keto & KetoCon – Educating as Many as Possible
Tickets are already for sale. They have been for a while now. Our VIP tickets are sold out, but we do still have three-day tickets and one day tickets. The three-day tickets are still on early bird pricing. I know that FDN has a discount code (fdn50) that they can share with your listeners that will give them an additional discount off of the three-day ticket. We also have one day tickets available for Friday or for Saturday. Then on Sunday, if people only want to come to see the expo hall, there’s an even more discounted ticket for Sunday only. Lots of options.
We also have discounted hotels listed on our website where properties have agreed to give KetoCon attendees a discount on their rates, and they’re very affordable. We’re just trying to make it as accessible to as many people as possible, because we want to educate as many people as possible.
I personally know that for every one person that comes to KetoCon at least 10 people will learn more about this way of life from those people that attended. So, the more people that I can get there, the more of an impact I know I can have.
[00:40:13] Detective Ev: I absolutely believe that. I think that’s how these conferences work. Everyone leaves so inspired. Then you end up talking to everyone and their brother about whatever you learned or experienced. It’s amazing.
Now I obviously am not here to share someone’s business, but it’s a compliment. So, I think it’s okay to share this. For those that have been a little upset by the smaller conferences, because I’ve been to many in the last year and a half. Robin’s killing it.
Evan Talks Keto & KetoCon – Good Keto Food
There are already at the time of recording this a few thousand people that are involved in this kind of thing. Again, we still have two months of ticket sales basically to get this worked out.
Robin Switzer: It’s more like six weeks.
Detective Ev: Okay. Fair enough.
Guys, this is an actual event. If you’ve missed these things like I have, definitely, I think this is a place to be. I’m excited. 70 something speakers, that’s nuts. And the vendors, the amount of vendors. This is really good for me too, considering I’m going to be working the FDN booth a lot.
Now, I don’t have to leave the place or get like an Instacart with some specialty order. I’m just going to be able to go into the vendor booths. That is my type of conference, you know, because normally the conference foods are not good unless you go to something like KetoCon. That’s amazing.
Well, we ended up filling up a lot of our time. I’m so glad that we had so much to talk about. Again, guys, that’s ketocon.org.
You can check out the stuff there, get tickets, all that stuff. I want to finish with our signature question that we always ask our guests, Robin. I feel like I know where this might go, but I’ve had things completely throw me off in the past. I could be wrong here.
The signature question that I’d like to finish up with is, if I could give Robin a magic wand and you could get every single person in this world to do one thing for their health, whether that’s literally do one thing or stop doing one thing, what’s the one thing you’d get them to do?
Health Detective Podcast Signature Question
[00:41:50] Robin Switzer: Oh boy, stop eating sugar. That would be the one thing. Maybe the second thing would be wear a continuous glucose monitor for 30 days, so you really understand what you’re doing to your health every time you put something in your mouth.
[00:42:04] Detective Ev: Man, I got to get myself one of those CGMs. I think that would be so cool.
I’ve been pushing it off for a while. So maybe I’ll finally pull the trigger on that. I will let you guys know how that goes, of course, if and when I do. But believe it or not, even though I’m a leaner guy and I’ve said in the podcast before, I always have been, I actually had really bad blood sugar issues to the point where (it’s a separate story for a separate time), I basically had a doctor that was running blood tests unrelated to this.
They assumed I had diabetes and needed insulin based on some of the numbers that had come back at 18 years old. Even though at the time, no one had labeled me as being diabetic or even pre-diabetic. Kind of scary stuff. So, I think it would be really beneficial to so many of us out there to be able to monitor our blood sugar and see how different things affect us.
Conclusion
On a side note. I know this is irrelevant to the podcast today, but most people don’t realize that artificial light actually has an effect on our blood sugar. You guys know I’m a huge light nerd. So that’s something to keep in mind.
I’d be curious to see what happens to someone’s blood sugar when they work in the office all day, eating the exact same things as they normally do versus when they get to be outside most of the day or driving around with the windows down because it’s summertime and it’s beautiful. I’d be very curious to see the differences there.
Anyway, I am looking forward to seeing you guys at KetoCon. Remember that’s July 8th, 9th, and 10th. Yes, FDN will be there. If you’re someone that maybe isn’t in the course yet, and you’re considering it, this is a great time. We always offer really cool discounts at these events.
There’s opportunities to win other prizes and you get to meet actual FDNs in person. I don’t know of a better way than to figure out if this is for you or not, than to actually meet the founder and people like myself in person. I think that’s a pretty direct way to do it. And if nothing else, man, there’s 124 other vendors. So, you got to find something that you like there.
Thank you, guys, for listening to yet another episode of the Health Detective Podcast. If you enjoyed what we are sharing, I always ask. It would really help if you could leave a five-star review on Apple and or Spotify. If you did that, we would love ya even more than we already do.
I am looking forward to talking to you guys again soon. But until then, take care.
