Ever since I announced my 5-Year Blogiversary Giveaway Contest less than 48 hours ago, the entries have been pouring in fast and furious. The first prize package post will show you some of the other fantastic low-carb stuff you can win if your name is drawn from the entries. I’m already on a record-setting pace for entries, so THANK YOU to everyone who has already submitted your information.

As a reminder, here’s how you enter. E-mail me the following information if you would like to win a prize in my 5-Year Blogiversary Giveaway. Be sure to put in the subject line “BLOGIVERSARY CONTEST”:

1. Your full name, mailing address (no P.O. boxes please), and telephone number.
2. Which eating plan do you follow? How long have you been eating low-carb?
3. How much weight have you lost following a low-carb nutritional approach?
4. What led you to begin a controlled-carb diet in the first place?
5. Have you read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes?
6. Are you a diabetic? Type 1 or Type 2? Any family members with diabetes? Who?
7. How and when did you find and start reading the “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” blog?
8. What is your favorite part of the “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” blog?
9. Would you be interested in joining us on The Low-Carb Cruise in the future? Why or why not?
10. Name someone you would like for me to interview on my podcast who has not yet appeared?

Send your answers to these questions to livinlowcarbman@charter.net with the subject line “BLOGIVERSARY CONTEST” no later than 11:59PM ET on Friday, April 30, 2010 and I’ll draw the winners and announce them at my blog on Tuesday, May 4, 2010. Please only one entry per household to make it fair for everyone to win a prize. Yes, it is open to international readers as well and I’ve already heard from people all around the world, including Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Canada, and of course the United States. Keep ‘em coming guys!

Click here to see the first set of low-carb prizes that YOU can win in the 5-Year “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” Blogiversary Giveaway Contest.

I come to you today with some pretty big news in the world of “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” because this is something that you don’t hear about everyday. Believe it or not, it was a quaint little blog post I uploaded to my original Blogger hosting web site on Thursday, April 21, 2005 that officially started what would arguably become the most extraordinary journey of both my personal and professional life. What simply began as an outlet for me to share about my 180-pound Atkins diet weight loss success in 2004 (after everyone I came into contact with kept asking me “how’d you lose your weight?” and driving me crazy!) has morphed into a daily stop for doctors, nutritionists, and educated lay people from all around the world totaling 5 million views and counting. Little did I know way back when just how much my “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” blog would grow and grow over the next five years into one of the top health blogs online today. And from those early days of this blog, I’ve added a Top 20 Fitness & Nutrition iTunes podcast and fun YouTube video channel as well as a whole myriad of affiliated web sites. Additionally, I now have two books, including my latest 21 Life Lessons From Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb where I share many of the ups and downs of blogging about healthy low-carb living. With all of that said, I am so grateful and honored to have you here today to help me celebrate my 5-Year Blogiversary with some really cool giveaways!

Click here to see the grand prize as well as how to enter to win any number of autographed books, DVDS, and other awesome low-carb loot in Jimmy Moore’s 5-Year Blogiversary Contest!

Every year since 2008, you have heard people in the low-carb community talking about going on a cruise together with a bunch of their fellow low-carbers. And every single year, I personally get e-mail messages from people who said they wished they had known about it because they would have loved to come and enjoy the fun in the sun with us had they known about it. With some of the best and brightest low-carb guest speakers available today, this annual Low-Carb Cruise has become an event that anyone who is livin’ la vida low-carb doesn’t want to miss.

Ever since we returned from the March 2010 Low-Carb Cruise one month ago, people have already been asking, “How can we sign up for the one in 2011? You are still having these cruises, right?” Today I’m proud to say we have been working hard to make yet another exciting cruise for you to enjoy next year and yes indeed we will be having a 4th Annual Low-Carb Cruise to Jamaica!

Click here to find out about the brand new web site created for the annual Low-Carb Cruise as well as all the details including most of the guest speakers we already have lined-up to join us!

I’ve been on the low-carb lifestyle for over six years and have felt my mission is to provide quality content through my columns, podcast interviews, books, YouTube videos, and everything else I’m associated with. One area of interest I have neglected to pursue has been creating a group of like-minded people who support a low-carb/Paleo way of eating in the Upstate South Carolina area where I live. Low-carbers and Paleolithic followers from Asheville, NC to Spartanburg to Greenville and all the way down to Anderson, SC have not had an organized way to meet with each other, exchange ideas, and learn how to incorporate healthy high-fat, adequate protein, and low-carb nutrition into their lives. Until now.

Thanks to some enthusiastic friends on Facebook who hail from this area, we will be having our Upstate S.C. Low-Carb/Paleo Kick Off Gathering coming up this Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 5PM. We’ll be meeting right off the I-85 corridor in Greenville, SC at California Dreaming (Pelham Rd. Exit 54). EVERYONE is invited to join us if you are in the area. Please RSVP at the Facebook page if you will be joining us. We’re sure to have a great time!

Christine and I look forward to meeting our local peeps and I’ll be autographing copies of my latest book 21 Life Lessons From Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb. We’ll also have some FREE PRIZES to give away to the people who attend and there is NO CHARGE to attend this meeting with your fellow Upstate SC low-carb dieters and Paleolithic followers. And be sure to join the Upstate SC Low-Carb & Paleo Diet Group Facebook page to keep up with what’s happening with this group. Hope to see you there!

Emceeing the 3rd Annual Low-Carb Cruise, I sensed low-carb rising again

I’ve been home for over week now from The 3rd Annual Low-Carb Cruise to the Bahamas that took place March 6-11, 2010, but I’m still super-stoked about all that went on in just those few short days with some truly amazing people that encourages me to have great optimism about the future of the low-carb movement as we know it not just in the United States of America, but quite literally around the world.

Don’t you dare ever let anyone tell you that the healthy low-carb lifestyle is dead. Sure, that crazy fad that produced all the nasty so-called “low-carb” products that happened in 2004 is a goner and good riddance! But if the growth we’ve seen over just the past few years with these annual low-carb cruises is any indication, we are now at a major turning point regarding low-carb becoming more mainstream in our culture and truly exceptional things lie ahead for us in the future. Exciting stuff!

Click here to read the story behind how the Low-Carb Cruise was birthed and how fortuitous everything has been to just sorta fall into place to make it happen.

Been thinking of getting Mark Sisson’s book? Today’s the day to do it!

If you are a supporter of Paleo/low-carb living, then no doubt you are already well aware of the work of Mark Sisson from Mark’s Daily Apple. He is one of the most influential and prolific bloggers out there today promoting the health benefits of reduced carbohydrate consumption, increased fat in the diet, and healthy primal living a la our ancient ancestors. Mark is such a likable fella and I’m privileged to call him my friend.

In June 2009, he released his long-awaited book entitled The Primal Blueprint: Reprogram your genes for effortless weight loss, vibrant health, and boundless energy it has gone on to do extraordinarily well on Amazon.com. But despite this initial success, Mark has a dream that I’d like to help him fulfill today.

He wants to reach the #1 overall ranking at Amazon and he’s willing to reward you handsomely for helping him do this. But this offer is only good through Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 12PM PST so listen up! He’s put together what he describes as “an irresistible offer” that will serve as a “win-win situation” for fans of Paleo/low-carb living to help give this book “the sort of exposure it needs to affect real change.”

Click here to learn more about the deal available NOW through 12PM PST on March 18, 2010. Rally behind one of the leading voices in the Paleo/low-carb community to make Mark’s goal of going to #1 at Amazon a reality!

Former 20-year vegan Lierre Keith gets assaulted by vegans while giving a talk

Just when you think it can’t get any worse with the radical nature of the vegan diet advocates, along comes something like what I’m about to share with you today that delivers a strong reminder that there is a contingent of people out there who do not want the truth about their way of eating exposed. It’s one thing to disagree and have a healthy debate of ideas about diet and nutrition and their relationship to a healthy lifestyle. But acting criminally and causing harm to another human being in the process is just about as disgusting as it comes.

Click here for all the disgusting details about the pie-throwing incident that happened on Saturday at a book fair in San Francisco and how you can show your support for Lierre Keith in response to this cowardly act.

The science behind carbohydrate restriction promoted by Metabolism Society

If you are an active member of the growing low-carb community and are not already familiar with the great work of The Metabolism Society, then I urge you to team up with this incredible organization because they are working hard to change the conversation about nutrition and health by revealing the truth that science is showing us about the amazing benefits of carbohydrate restriction. They believe that livin’ la vida low-carb is “under-investigated and under-utilized” and have asserted that they will continue to “support research in this area.” Please consider making a contribution to The Metabolism Society TODAY!

The Metabolism Society has been leading the charge ever since the late, great Dr. Robert C. Atkins was taken from us in 2003. His legacy with low-carb diets is what drives the science to confirm much of what he shared with real patients for decades prior to his untimely death early in the 21st Century. As has been the case for the past few years, The Metabolism Society has piggybacked on an established conference with weight loss doctors who are members of The American Society of Bariatric Physicians (ASBP) to offer physicians wanting to offer their overweight, obese, and diabetic patients another treatment option. With the onslaught of quality research that has been released in recent years, it is imperative that these medical professionals are given as much information as they can possibly obtain to best assist their patients with the latest strategies.

I’ve been stunned to watch the growth in interest about low-carb diets among the bariatric physicians build and build each year and yet another Metabolism Society Symposium is scheduled for Seattle, Washington in April 2010. As just a layman who seeks to educate, encourage, and inspire others to seek out the truth about what they’ve heard about diet, health, and nutrition, I’m stoked about the positive impact that The Metabolism Society is having on our culture one doctor, nutritionist, and clinician at a time.

The Seattle Metabolism Society Symposium will be a two-day event taking place at the Hilton Seattle Hotel & Conference Center beginning on Saturday, April 17, 2010 with a focus on “A Carbohydrate Restriction Clinical Practice Guideline” designed to help physicians understand what it would be like to set themselves up as one of the growing low-carb doctors practicing this nutritional therapy with their patients. Then on Sunday, April 18, 2010, a full “Update on Low Carbohydrate Diet Research” will be presented by the real movers and shakers in the low-carb scientific community. The objective of this course will be to educate on the possible role that carbohydrates play in certain medical conditions, how to implement and educate patients low-carb diets, recognizing the powerful effects of low-carb nutrition on hormones, understanding the very latest low-carb research, and to provide dietary solutions to patients with nontraditional obesity ailments.

Anyone living in the greater Seattle area who would like to learn more about low-carb diets and their impact on health should consider attending as well as medical professionals where you will get to rub elbows with the researchers in person. Click here for the proposed schedule of speakers along with the subject matter of their 45-minute lectures, including Gary Taubes, Dr. William Davis, Dr. Mary Vernon, Dr. Steve Phinney, Jackie Eberstein, and others.

Picture yourself with 100 fellow low-carbers going to the Bahamas in 2010

We’ve been telling you about it all year and now we are less than three months away from The 3rd Annual Low-Carb Cruise to the Bahamas taking place March 6-11, 2010 leaving out of Jacksonville, Florida port on the Carnival Fascination to Nassau and Half Moon Cay, Bahamas. So far, nearly 100 enthusiastic supporters of the healthy low-carb lifestyle have signed up to join us for this magnificent trek in the Atlantic Ocean for a vacation like none other you’ve ever experienced in your entire life! This event was very special in 2009 and 2008, but 2010 looks to be the best one yet!

Click here for all the last-minute details about The 3rd Annual Low-Carb Cruise to the Bahamas including our eight special guest speakers and the topic they will be covering on the cruise. This is a can’t-miss low-carb event in 2010!

Tom Roddy was diagnosed with brain cancer in April 2009

This was a sad week in the low-carb community when one of the most innovative leaders in the online health retail industry was taken from us at the age of 43. Tom Roddy, President and Co-Founder of Internet-based nutrition products retailer Netrition since 1997, died on November 9, 2009, at Johns Hopkins Hospital after battling grade 4 glioblastoma brain cancer since his diagnosis in April. According to Tom’s brother Bernie, Tom was a “very private person” who chose not to disclose this very serious illness with the public.

“I’m sure this news will come a great shock to many of you who knew him,” says Bernie Roddy, who has served as Vice-President of Netrition. “It was his request that his illness be kept as private as possible.”

And despite his very serious condition over the past six months, Tom Roddy remained an active part of guiding the future of the company he had invested so much of the past twelve years of his life to.

“Netrition was Tom’s vision and even in his final days, he continued to impart his ideas on how it should grow,” Bernie added. “His vision will continue to live even after his death.”

I never met Tom Roddy in person, but I did know him through e-mail and spoke with him on the telephone a couple of times. All of my one-on-one dealings with this man confirmed to me that he was a good, decent, and generous person who sought to provide his customers with quality products to enhance their healthy lifestyle. His loss will be difficult for those who were closest to him, but his legacy will live on for many more years to come.

You can view Tom’s obituary by clicking here and please share your thoughts and prayers for the Roddy family by signing his guest book.

Funeral services will take place this Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 11:15 am at the McVeigh Funeral Home, 208 North Allen Street in Albany, New York. Memorial contributions in Tom’s memory can be sent to The Musella Foundation For Brain Tumor Research.

Please make checks payable to:
Musella Foundation
1100 Peninsula Blvd
Hewlett, NY 11557

Feel free to share your thoughts on Tom Roddy’s passing in the comments section below.