Evelyn did not skip AHS12 because Richard Nikoley and Jack Kruse were presenters. I find it extremely hard to believe that any who delights in skewering the dearly held beliefs, as well as the leaders, of the paleo movement as much as she would not jump on the chance to do so in person.
No, the reason she did not attend is because she is a liar of the first water. She spends a great deal of time telling everyone how she's "normal sized" when she is quite overweight - no one, and I speak as an overweight woman who is roughly the same age as Evelyn, who is 200 pounds and barely 5'3" is "normal sized." She goes to great lengths to hide her appearance - there are literally no photos of her anywhere beyond a carefully cropped and composed montage of fuzzy snapshots on her site. Which, by the by, was gone the last time I visited to see whose character she was assassinating this time (in her way, she is every bit as ugly and hateful as Richard) - conveniently whisked away by "problems" with her blog.
I also find it hard to believe that, in this day and age, she can't find someone with a digital camera who would be willing to take a full-length, current photo (with a timestamp!) of her - she can even wear those damn size 10 Chico pants she's always carrying on about. She won't, though, even if she already has the excuse about how "fat" she looks in photos at the ready, and she certainly won't attend any sort of cruise, symposium, or gathering in person any time soon. She'd have too much to answer for regarding her own weight/size after spending so much time ridiculing those honest enough to make their weight loss struggles public.
More total nonsense. She's been perfectly open that like most people who try weight loss diets, she did not meet her goals.
I did meet my goals on a paleo diet. I feel lucky about that. But I have met so many people over the years that struggle and struggle. Understandably, she wants to expose the low-carb dieting industry (it's an industry for sure) that sells unrealistic crap to people, all the while some of the people who run it struggle with their own weights.
Paleo helps people, so does low-carb. It is not magical though. And I feel that it is portrayed that way. I was dumb once too. I thought after I lost weight that when I saw overweight people at paleo meetups that they were doing it wrong. It took getting to know them and having members of my family struggle with the same thing to learn that this was not the case.
And I don't see why it's any blogger's responsibility to show themselves. I don't see what her weight has to do with her arguments.
I also know members of the paleo community who have met her. She teaches classes, lives her life, I don't see her hiding in a hole. Maybe unlike me she doesn't want to put clear images out there of herself so she can possibly be subject to harassment offline? I am very very privileged to be able to put myself out there.
Did I and the other women who have written in also not attend because we are fat too? Hahahaha.
Honestly, I'm pretty sick of the misrepresentations. In the kickass womanhood post there is pretty much a full length pic of me where I am wearing size 10's -- it's the obvious one as my top half is considerably larger than other pics. I have lost and kept off roughly 100 lbs and dropped from a pants size of stretched out 20W to a 10. QED.
This is a whole lot different than those I criticize who promote and profit off of LC (and aren't paleo) while looking more like my before picture or weighing more than they did before going low carb a decade ago. This is information my detractors would be glad to learn to spare them from scams were they not so blinded by LC dogma.
I did not attend AHS12 for one reason, and one reason only. My husband got a new job, I don't work in the summer so money is already tight, and he needed to take a week off in between so we could attend to our former home we have been unable to sell. All put together I had no desire to spend $1K to travel to Boston alone for a meet and greet of a few people. There were few presentations I expected to get anything beneficial out of. But that Nikoley still spoke and the last minute jostling of the schedule and such has me not regretting the decision one bit. This notion that anyone is required to attend AHS is nonsense anyway.
Actually I've specifically removed pictures from the "front page" because mine is not a weight loss or diet advocacy blog. At this point if I have any goal it is to educate people so they can navigate their own way to separate the BS from the helpful in this world. My weight is irrelevant to this and I'm just tired of having to talk about it over and over.