1. Keith Norris's excellent graph on health vs fitness as an introduction to where most people are, where most people are interested in getting to, and where most fitness "trainers" doom their clients to hanging out. How most people want to maximize health with minimal effort, and they really don't understand how little effort it takes. 1-2 hrs a week is all it takes to get to the end of the easy gains. 1-2 hrs a week is all it takes to maintain that for life.
2. The Paleo template/heuristic as a useful way to start thinking about food. If it's wildly outside your evolutionary heritage, chances are it's not good for you. Paint this picture with examples from wild vs. zoo animals, then talk about zoo humans, then talk about exceptions.
3. Why I don't trust trainers and dieticians who talk a lot about macronutrients. Carbs are not carbs. Carbs from fruit != carbs from HFCS != from tubers != grains and legumes.
In fact, even among the grains, carbs from wheat != carbs from rice.
4. How mind-bogglingly complicated nutrition can be. High HDL is probably good except in certain cases where it may be indicative of inflammation. Omega-3 fish oil is great but it oxidizes easily. Excess fructose is harmful but fruit is probably okay unless you are already metabolically deranged.
5. Don't trust anyone who is very confident about vectors of causality.
6. Feel pretty good about #1 but the others need to be distilled down to basic principles.
7. I know more about cholesterol than your doctor does. And I know very little. That should scare you. Doctors never discuss:
High TC linked with lower overall mortality
Low LDL linked with large numbers of cardiac cases
Even among doctors who understand the need to screen for LDL profiles, they don't entertain the idea that small dense LDL may not be causative of heart disease but rather a marker of something else going wrong.
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