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I am not a super social person (and neither is my fiancé), but we couldn’t resist the invitation to attend a Paleo Meetup in Denver last night that Jimmy Moore of Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb was going to be at. Not only that, but one of my favorite bloggers, Peggy Emch of www.theprimalparent.com, was going to be there, so I would have a chance to meet her, too.

The reason for the dinner was that the American Society Of Bariatric Physicians (ASBP)/Nutrition & Metabolism Society (NMS) Symposium is happening in Denver right now. There are doctors and speakers of all kinds there, including low-carb proponents, talking about how to end the obesity epidemic. Many of the speakers ended up at our dinner, which also included the members of the Denver Paleo Meetup group and people from all over who just wanted to be in the presence of the mighty Jimmy Moore. And I mean mighty. That guy is tall! Check us out standing together…

Anyway, Jimmy goes to this conference every year to learn new stuff, but he also acts as a sort of media monger for the event, Tweeting and Facebooking little snippets of the conference so people know what’s going on there. Having met Jimmy over Skype late last year, then again at PaleoFX, I can say that he is one of the sweetest, most genuine guys in this community that I’ve met. He has a big presence in the low-carb/Paleo/Primal worlds, and he uses his voice in the gentlest way possible while still getting his point across. I really like spending time with him.

The dinner was at Fogo de Chao, which is a Brazilian restaurant where you get all-you-can-eat salad and meat. One of my best friends once said that I eat more meat than any other person she knows, so I can tell you that I did eat all-I-could-eat-meat. And by meat I mean prime rib, bacon wrapped chicken, top sirloin, lamb shank, and on and on. No, I don’t believe it was grass-fed or pasture raised, but sometimes I make an exception for delicious meats. Everyone at the party got a circular card that had green on one side and red on the other. If you wanted a server to come over and slice you off some perfectly prepared variety of animal, you needed to have the green side of your card showing. If you’d gorged yourself enough, you displayed the red side and they left you alone. Here I am being sliced off some filet mignon.

Across from me at my table was Peggy Emch. To be quite honest, she gives me hope that I, too, might look hot at 6 months pregnant :) Here she is.

I don’t know if you’ve seen Peggy’s blog, but she sort of reminds me of Denise Minger in her brazen dismissal of socially acceptable behaviors. She caught my attention because she was (and sort of still is) a raw carnivore for years, meaning she only ate raw meat and very little vegetable matter, because that’s what made her feel the best. She’s been at this Paleo/Primal thing for longer than most of us, since 2005, so she’s had some time to experiment. She also has a 6 year old daughter who eats just like she does, and a baby on the way. In fact, she told me over dinner that her daughter actually PREFERS the taste of raw beef over cooked beef, and that she LIKES cod liver oil. Oh, how I wish I’d been raised like that…

I met a bunch of other Primal/Paleo/Low-Carb people at the dinner, and it was really good for me to know that I’m not alone in the Denver/Boulder area in my nutritional habits. There are people who eat just like me, and they come in all different flavors, and with all their own different backstories.

I can’t wait for our next meetup. I really, really encourage you all to create a Paleo/Primal meetup of your own in your city. I think you’d be surprised by how many people join the group, and how many things you can learn from each other. I mean, because of this meetup, I may very well try eating my meat raw. Who knows? It may be the thing that makes me climb 5.14…