Tom Naughton from 'Fat Head' is really funny. He is very clued up on the Low Carb lifestyle and he got to roast all of us lecturers at the pre-cruise dinner.

Have a watch and a laugh!

John Briffa and I connected immediately. I got myself a new friend, a really awesome friend! He also reminds me so much of my brother in SA, quite scary resemblance in fact, and at the same time a reassuring feeling.

John Briffa is a practising doctor in London, UK, and author to several books....

This is what you can read about Dr. John Briffa on his website 'drbriffa':

"Dr Briffa is a former columnist for the Daily Mail and the Observer, and former contributing editor for Men's Health magazine. He has contributed to over dozens of newspaper and magazine titles internationally, and is a previous recipient of the Health Journalist of the Year award in the UK. He has been listed by Tatler magazine as one of the UK's leading doctors, and has twice been on the judging panel of the prestigious Prince of Wales Integrated Health Awards."

About his lecture....

I loved the way Briffa started his talk.

He started by saying that he is English, not Australian nor South African. He is not married, but is not single – he has a girlfriend since some years back. He is an Aries....

"People often wonder about things like this, and have many questions in their heads so I want to clear all of that up right from the beginning, just in case you are all wondering..."

John Briffa is a medical dr. who got sidetracked into nutrition through personal health issues. He continued to say that he does not know if USA have the same problems as the UK with junk foods like: pizza; beer; KFC; smoking; sodas; etc...

When he changed his own diet he then got interested in nutrition. He did not know that there was a thing called nutrition, he had only spent many years in medical school and there he learnt nothing about the subject.

He was a diet doctor helping people without really knowing how to help them. He made it his mission to understand why people were yoyo dieting and which results they obtained.

People can take control over the weight so much more easily than what they have been taught through the' traditional' way of eating, by eliminating carbs and adding fat.

John Briffa does not call the diet by any specific name, why bother to eat low carb/lchf/paleo.

"Something that is low carb does not really mean that it's ok to eat it. Like perhaps the carpet on the floor. The carpet is low in fat too, AND high in fiber, as is potatoes... And also dog shit, and even more, dog shit is also low in cholesterol AND it's fresh!" These things are low in carbs, but not edible!

What happens when people go on a low fat diet? Not much! Actually something does happen – they gain weight actually.

There was in fact a study done on this, but the study was withdrawn without being published (?)!

We should forget about calories. Forget them! FORGET!!!

Is a calorie a calorie?

Plenty of studies show that low carb diets don't have positive affects. But these studies are very short studies. So they have given up before the positive effects have been established...

Imagine that a calorie is a calorie... IF that was true. Then people cannot afford to get hungry. You then exert your will power, and land up feeling more bad about yourself than you did prior.

Instead a high fat diet is like a bear hibernating, you don't get hungry!

It's not that diets don't work, they fundamentally cannot work!!!

John Briffa says he is positive to anything that is better than what the person was eating before, but he does not use branding (naming the diets as lche, paleo, atkins, low carb, etc...)

He also briefly mentions exercise and whether that works, or more, what does work? Resistance exercise helps as it is strengthening and toning, but it's not necessary for weight loss.

John brings up the American 'my plate' which all are recommended to follow in USA!

He showed slides with how the myplate looks today, and how he would like to see it change...

'Myplate' does not work for me, it's not working for anybody actually!

I also must just add, that on the last day of the cruise we had a question panel for all the lecturers... Briffa was asked:

"How do you as a dr. handle collegues that are critical towards you for treating patients with a low carb diet?"

Briffa has a standard answer which is as follows:

"Sir, I am afraid you have mistaken me for someone that gives a shit about what you think!"

Dr. Eric Westman is a researcher, a medical weight loss dr. and author of the book: "New Atkins for a New You".

He tells us that he was trained to giving pills for ills, but now he rather removes the pills and instead prescribes low carb eating.

Essential nutrients you have to eat, but carbohydrates the body can make by itself – so we don't need to eat them! (Important words these...)

Calories in and calories out, Eric Westman says: 'Let's put them to rest!' BUT if you don't talk about calories, dietitians would not have any jobs.'

Counting calories is not helpful when eating a low carb diet.

You don't need to talk about/restrict calories to get people to loose weight, you just need to restrict the carbs.

Eric Westman speaks of the myths around low carb eating. For instance those that eat low carb increase their protein intake. BUT as long as people increase their fat intake their protein consumption will more than likely stay the same as before.

Another myth was that of the brain needing carbs in order to function. He continues to say that this is however true, BUT we do not need to EAT these carbs! Our liver produces carbs (glucose) for the brain automatically. The brain needs100g – 140g carbohydrates (glucose) and our liver does this per automatic, our liver produces over 250g glucose so our brain gets exactly the amount it needs...

Eric talks also about ketogenic diet and the roles of ketones.

Eric Westman is a researcher and from what I can tell, he likes to see evidence for different statements being made. Having that said, it does not mean that if there is no study – it can't be true. He asked the audience how many believe they get hungry from carbs. A large (all?) amount of people put up their hands. So experience and anecdotes are also important. So is it true?

Another example he used was that of a lady at the check out counter at the store that wanted to warn him about all the eggs he was buying. She had said he should be wary of all those eggs as his cholesterol would go up. To this Westman answered 'Don't worry I am a dr.' The person was not reassured.

This due to what 'people' through the years, media and bad 'research' have been taught (brain washed?)!

He gives hands on tips about what choices people can do to easily follow ketogenic diet by eating a maximum of 20 g carbohydrates per day.

In his tips he does use fast foods, with this Eric Westman means that the majority, at least a very huge amount of Americans do eat fast foods, and that changing their eating habits to ketogenic diet / low carb will not stop them from eating fast foods. Therefore it is better to give advice and tips which the general American can follow and adapt to his or her lifestyle.

I like the way he thinks and really listens and follows the individual person and their needs.

Eric Westman also brought up the increasing popularity of LCHF in Sweden. He showed a slide with a picture of google search on diets.

He concluded his lecture with: 'How can we fix all this? Dr's need to firstly start prescribing a good diet (low carb) BEFORE prescribing medication.

The last slide shows facts about low carb, high fat diets. When reading these positive and simple steps, it's difficult to understand who would not want to try out low carb eating!

I sat next to Eric Westman during a few of the dinners on board the ship. He is a very easy going, funny and interesting man. We spoke about food, health, teenagers, sweetners (will get back to that conversation - a very interesting one) and life in general.

Dr. Michael Fox sat next to me several times during the cruise. Already during last years cruise we got on really well. Especially having children of exactly the same ages (except his youngest are triplets)... And both of us eat as strictly as the other. He is one of the only dr.'s that does not either eat fruit, sweeteners or any other light products with artificial sweeteners.

During his lecture he spoke briefly about his life as a reproductive doctor at his fertility clinic in Jacksonville.

In the 90's Michael Fox had a simple association in the shower one day – we eat too many carbs. Maybe those that are having trouble falling pregnant would be helped by eating less carbs. When he decided to reduce drastically the amount of carbs in PCO patients the pregnancy rates both doubled and tripled.

He also works with menopause / hormone replacement therapy. He was taught to give everyone hormone replacement, same for all. They thought it was good for everybody. But now he realizes this is very individual. Even with the hormon replacement woman were still getting hot flushes, headaches, sleeping badly, etc. So instead he started to apply nutritional therapy. All the symptoms improved.

AND the same is for men, treating med and measuring testosterone levels. If their testosterone levels were low, then also their sperm count was low. This, instead, could be helped by changing food consumption and diet.

There were many lecturers that were on the cruise from last year, but that were not lecturing this year. Jimmy Moore likes to introduce new lecturers every year.

Although these lecturers were given only 10 min to talk.

Dr. Mary Vernon

This is a very popular, well liked doctor in US. She is well known for her research and enthusiasm within the low carb diet. Mary Vernon writes, researches and educates doctors.

She told us how she says to patients that if what you do works for you, then keep on doing it. 'Get where you need to get, what works for you to balance your metabolic balance. Be it Paleo, low carb, whatever. You need to meet and maintain quality of life function.

Our body should work optimally as it does at the age of (25 -) 35 years. That we need to look at our hormones, and not only insulin. Hormonal balance is important.

Mary Vernon said that she is on the cruise, so everyone that wanted to talk to her, get advise and help could just grab her during the cruise for a chat. BUT you don't get off the hook by talking to her, you are the one that puts whatever you want to put in your mouth!

She is inspiring. We sat at the same breakfast table the one morning.

Together with Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt, I have just given a lecture on 'Right food for children'...

It went very well and the feedback was very positive!

Hopefully it was an 'eye-opener' for many. 

Thanx for a great evening!