We had such a great time in Austin, Texas, this past week visiting family and friends and making new friends at Palo f(x). If you haven’t been to Austin and you like to eat delicious food and enjoy the outdoors (when it’s not 95 degrees and 100% humidity), I highly recommend visiting this fun city.
Austin is considered the Paleo capital of the United States so it’s only fitting that the ancestral health convention, Paleo f(x), is held there. The conference was held downtown at the Palmer Events Center right next to Lady Bird Lake, renamed in 2007 from Town Lake to Lady Bird Lake in honor of the former United States First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. This reservoir type lake is great for kayaking or paddle boarding. We kayaked on this lake when we were in Austin last November. There’s also hiking and bike trails around the lake to enjoy as well.
Here are a few highlights from my first Paleo f(x) experience.
When I walked into the expo for the first time on Friday morning I was thrilled to see the Primal Blueprint booth right in the front. Primal Blueprint was founded by Mark Sisson, who is one of the people on the forefront of the ancestral health movement. Mark writes the widely popular paleo/primal blog marksdailyapple.com, which I have been reading for the last five years. Scot referred me to his blog when we met and I’ve been hooked on it ever since. Mark is also the creator of the best healthy mayonnaise in the world, Primal Kitchen Mayonnaise.
About three years ago, Mark launched the Primal Health Coach Certification, which is the first ancestral health coaching certification. When this certification was launched I signed up for it and became certified. I was excited to have the opportunity to meet Mark and take a picture with him. And he gave me a hug for completing the health coaching certification. I also met two of the ladies, Erin and Laura, on the Primal Health Coach support team. It was awesome to be able to thank them in person for they’re hard work they do behind the scenes to support us and give us the resources that help us build a successful coaching business.
I also had the pleasure of sitting in the audience during Mark’s keynote talk about creating your life’s work out of your passion. The number one takeaway from his message for me was that your passion finds you and you don’t find it. And it can change depending in your interests and where you are on your life journey. My passion on this part of life journey is helping others optimize their health by living a primal lifestyle. It brings me so much joy to teach a cooking class on how to create nutrient dense meals at home that are quick and easy. Or coaching a client to help them achieve their weight loss goals by making small changes that are simple but not always easy. Not only are they losing weight, but they are healthier in all areas in their life by making better lifestyle choices.
One of my other passions at this time is fitness. Although I’m really passionate about improving my own fitness level, I’m also passionate about helping others achieve their fitness goals. Darryl Edwards is well known in the paleoshere for his expertise in primal play. He teaches folks how to incorporate primal play into their lifestyle. Part of this play is teaching folks how to move like animals: bears, ducks, cats, rabbits, etc. It may sound and look easy but it is definitely challenging. Scot and I attended one of Darryl’s Animal Moves workshops at Paleo f(x) and it was definitely one of the most challenging workouts I’ve done. It was a lot of core strength in which I don’t have a lot of at this time but I’m working on improving. He is a master at primal play and animals moves and makes it look easy. He moves like a bear or a monkey with such grace that it looks so simple. I was definitely inspired by Darryl to incorporate animal moves into my daily movement routine.
After the workshop, I asked Darryl if he would take a photo with me. He said, “Yes, but you have to give me a piggy back ride.” I said, “Are you serious?” He said, “Yes!” I said, “Ok, let’s do this!”
There’s always something unconventional coming up in the paleoshere. The newest up and coming thing is camel milk. Yes, it sounds weird, but it actually tastes a lot like cow’s milk. We had the privilege of sampling camel milk at the expo. It’s lower in lactose which means it’s more easily digestible for most folks who are lactose intolerant. It also has less fat and calories and more vitamin C and B3 than cow’s milk.
They were offering free camel rides at the conference. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a chance to ride one of the camels. One of the camels did agree to take a photo with us.
There were many vendors there that make meat bars and sticks. My favorite vendors were the ones with the dark chocolate. This wasn’t just any chocolate. It was gourmet dark chocolate. The good stuff.
We made new friends and learned about new scientific research about how to find the optimal diet for each individual. There was so much to see and so many great experts to listen to all under one roof. I left Paleo f(x) inspired and motivated to help people become the healthiest versions of themselves.
Thanks for reading!
