My TED talk is over and done! Exhausting, exhilarating, and done! I’m super charged about sharing the video, which I’m told should be online in just a few weeks. This presentation included a number of firsts for me, but the most significant was that it was the first time I have ever shared “before-and-after” photos. The feedback, fantastic and instructive, is what I’m going to discuss today. 

To a person, I heard the same comment over and over: “I thought the first picture [the “before” photo] looked great. Fine, normal, completely good.” Basically, I looked just like anyone else you might see at work, at home, at school, along your way.

Until they saw the second one, the “after” photo. And then it was like “Oh, okay, wow. Now I see what you mean.”

I took the audience through that first photo precisely as if they were medical students, defining terms like “prominent buccal fat pads,” and “periorbital edema.” Buccal fat pads are kewpie-doll-like fatty deposits around your cheek bones. Periorbital edema refers to swelling around the eyes, especially noticeable below the eyebrows. It’s subtle but it’s there. Sallow skin color, pale red discoloration across the bridge of the nose extending to the cheeks. Excessive skin thickness. Enlarged pores. And yes, heaven forbid!, even the earliest hints of a double chin. It’s impossible to ignore these physical findings once they’ve been pointed out. And then, in the second photo, just like that, they’re gone.

I admit it; I am shameless. I don’t care what it takes to get people to eat better, live better, sleep better, rest better, move better. I’ll use any tool I can think of to get your attention. Even my own face.

Here’s how my friend Betsy summed it up: “Vanity is now!” Blindness, infections, heart attacks, or amputations are in the future. I can try to scare you with lots of frightening statistics about diabetes, strokes and heart attacks. It never works. I can even tell you about a 30-year-old I know who dodged the long-term consequences of a major debilitating stroke because he happened to be in the right place at the right time [fancy ambulance, fancy meds, world-class care]. You might think that has nothing to do with you; you would be wrong. But it’s so far away, so far in the future, that it has no relevance to you now.

Betsy hit the nail on the head with her observation. Vanity is today. It’s easy to convince yourself that the word dialysis has absolutely nothing to do with you, now or ever. But no one would mind looking nicer, healthier, prettier or stronger right this very minute. Even in a week or two.

Are you wondering what changed between pictures 1 and 2? The “before” picture was taken 13 years ago, in May 2002. The “after” picture was taken just over 3 and a half years later, in the winter of 2006. What did I do in between that resulted in such a dramatic improvement? One simple thing. I removed most of the stripped carbs from my diet. Not 100%. Ninety percent. Most, but not all.

And that, it turns out, was good enough. I’ll have that TED talk link for you any day now….