06 Jul My Mission

My mission began forming September 10, 2002 when I got news that my grandmother had unexpectantly passed away.  Her autopsy report read: “Obese woman in severe respiratory distress.” This didn’t describe my grandmother. She was a caring, loving, passionate woman who struggled with weight all of her life.  I watched over the next couple of months as this devastation tore apart my family. We blamed doctors, we wondered why no one stepped in and helped her, we wondered why there were no answers for why my grandmother ended up dying at the young age of 61.  From this moment on I knew I had a choice – to sit on the sideline, bitch and complain about the healthcare system, or take action, be the change, and set out on a mission to improve overall health and quality of life in those around me.

Playing sports throughout high school and graduating in the Top 10 for my class allowed me to get accepted into the prestigious 6 year DPT program at Quinnipiac University.  However, a couple months before I was set to graduate high school, I remember walking downstairs to my mother crying and watching as they came and repossessed the only car that we had.  We were struggling to pay any bills and my parents had to file for bankruptcy for the 2nd time.  On a whim, I changed my path and headed to study at the University of Tampa where I played baseball and studied Exercise Science.  Not only was this a cheaper option, but I needed to get away from the “small town” mentality in order to truly grow and find my calling in life.  Juggling baseball, classes, holding down a part time job, performing research studies, and still trying to have a social life pushed my limits and allowed me to grow in ways I never thought were imaginable.  I was always picked on for being too skinny and not having enough muscle throughout college. I pounded weight gainer shakes and ate like crap but none of that worked. Nonetheless, we still ended up winning a National Championship my junior year, ultimately leaving me with one of the hardest decisions of my life – continue my senior year playing baseball or dedicate all of my time to a new passion of mine – research and education.  I decided on the latter. My family and friends thought I was crazy for hanging up my cleats but I knew I was put on this earth for a bigger purpose and that purpose was to help others through disseminating my knowledge and research.

Shortly after winning the National Championship, I realized that I couldn’t eat all of the junk food I had in the past.  Within 3 months I had gained 25 pounds and had been at the heaviest weight of my life. I was still training hard but my diet was awful and I never felt more uncomfortable looking in a mirror.  At that time I had already published over 100 scientific papers and abstracts so I began looking for an area that I wanted to dedicate most of my time and energy towards. A colleague of mine had been researching the ketogenic diet and its effects on performance.  I knew that several people had seen fat loss benefits on a ketogenic diet and now with new emerging data on performance, I was instantly intrigued. What if just by switching some of the foods we ate we could not only lose fat and perform better, but serve as a therapy for many diseases and health conditions that my family faced.  I was hooked and that set me towards the path I am on today.

After leaving the University of Tampa, my mentor and now business partner, Dr. Jacob Wilson and I started the Applied Science and Performance Institute, a 21,000 sq. ft facility dedicated to bridging the gap between science and application.  We had a mission – to change lives through science and innovation. All of our friends and colleagues laughed and said that it would never be possible to start our own CRO and never thought it would work out. Here we are 3 years later as we just signed a partnership with a huge group in China to build our 2nd ASPI in the Secret Garden, home of the Winter Olympics.  Over the last several years, a lot has transpired. I become hyper focused on studying ketogenic therapies for optimizing health and human performance – everything from Alzheimers to Parkinsons to TBI to Longevity.  In 2017 we published our first book, the Ketogenic Bible which is on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and at Costco. Just recently the book got translated into Chinese as well. We knew that in order to make the ketogenic diet a lifestyle, we needed to provide more research resources, tips, and information.  Nearly 2 years ago, we created www.ketogenic.com to provide just that.  Since then, the site and our social media following has grown exponentially and this year we are getting ready to launch some exciting new things to help people truly optimize their ketogenic journeys.  We are on an endless pursuit of finding optimal human performance and longevity in an effort to make this world a better place each and every day and I hope that every single one of you join me for the ride.

Here at drryanlowery.com, our goal is to allow you to build confidence, increase positivity, and achieve human optimization by providing researched articles, videos, podcasts, and information on how to live a better life.