By Michael Prager
Chairman

The three members of the institute’s board, including myself, who attended the recent Low Carb Festival in Wroclaw, Poland, were delighted and amazed by what we saw. Saturday was especially boggling, where we were among 3,000 people bathed in white spotlights and blue gels in a hall suitable for rock concerts. 

In this instance, the rock stars were the doctors (and twin brothers) Łukasz and Mateusz Rodzeń, whose popularity was endlessly evident during their two-day event: Dozens of people seeking selfies with them, a grandma who reached out from the crowd to hug Łukasz as the brothers strode among their people, high enthusiasm everywhere.

Now, I was in the room with “only” a few thousand people, while almost 700,000 live in Wroclaw (pronounced VRAT-swaf, I now know), and million live in Poland. Later, I asked a waiter if he’d known there was a Low Carb Festival in his town that weekend, and he didn’t. But when I asked if he knew of the Bracia Rodzeń, that was a “you bet!”

You may be wondering, why did board members of the Food Addiction Institute travel from the States and Switzerland for a low carb festival? It was because the brothers made Food Addiction a particular focus of their event, and stocked the speaker roster with our friends and allies, including Canadian Vera Tarman, one of our strongest and most faithful supporters; the legendary Bitten Jonsson from Sweden; and the ultimate power couple, Jen and David Unwin from the UK. 

But does this mean that low-carb eating is the official food plan of the institute?

No, it does not.

Our combined century-plus in Food Addiction experience and treatment tells us there is more than one way to eat while recovering from Food Addiction. 

By happenstance, I was what amounts to a low-carb trailblazer. The foremost low-carb popularizer was Dr. Robert Atkins. His “Diet Revolution” book came out in 1973, and I was his patient for more than a year beginning in 1974; as a high school junior, I would fly to New York from Boston for my appointments. 

But it wasn’t for another 20 years — during which I gained and lost hundreds of pounds — that I found recovery from Food Addiction, as the result of tremendous community support, shared wisdom, and professional help. I was in rehab, for food, for nine weeks in 1991. Some of the professional help was nutritional, and I sit with my adviser of 30 years, Theresa Wright, on the institute’s board. I have followed a specific food plan, modified over time, that has not only brought a consistent 150-pound loss but healthy numbers across the board. 

And it’s not low carb.

Please understand: I have great respect for the health benefits of low carb, and I wouldn’t say a word against it. Dr. David Unwin was a steady star of the weekend, relating his 40 years’ experience as a family physician just north of Liverpool. He and his team have helped 158 people escape diabetes and other ill metabolic health just by helping them change how they eat. I’ve also been very impressed by studies demonstrating the mental health benefits of low carb. 

It is so obvious that it shouldn’t have to be said, but it does: There is NO QUESTION that how one eats is a paramount factor in how one feels, and much of what many people consider normal in their lives — low energy, foggy brain, joint pain, overweight, and more — is the result of how they eat Eating differently can make a profound difference in quality of life.

But for Food Addicts, the question is not just what we eat. It is why we eat to such a degree that we’re candidates for invasive “corrective” surgery, for potentially lifelong courses of drugs, or other external strategies. As Dr. Unwin pithily put it, it is the question of why smart people do stupid things to their bodies.