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- Welcome my friends to the Bob and Brad podcast.
My name is Mike Kenitz
and I'm a physical therapist assistant.
Today our guest is Dr. Eric Westman
and we are gonna be discussing different keto topics.
So Dr. Westman is the Co-Founder of Adapt Your Life
and Adapt Your Life Academy,
an Associate Professor of Medicine
at Duke University Health System,
and the Director of Duke Keto Medicine Clinic
in Durham, North Carolina.
So, without further ado,
here is Dr. Westman.
All right, welcome back, Dr. Eric Westman!
- Thank you.
- So our first question is
what are some tips and tricks when going keto?
- Sure, well, you know, I'm finding a lot
of people are making it too complicated (chuckles).
The old way I was taught, which back in the day,
25 years ago now, we didn't really emphasize keto so much.
It was keeping the carbs super low.
And even though that it is a keto,
so keto is really a state
of your body, it's not a type of food.
You're finding brands of keto this, keto that,
and it doesn't mean your body will be
in a keto state if you eat those things (chuckles).
So I'm finding that people are kind
of making things a little too complicated.
Just keep the carbs really low
and focus on that as the main thing,
eating real foods
and avoid all of the things called keto
and don't measure macros and things like that.
When life gets busy,
if you have a complicated way of going about things
it's gonna fall apart in my experience.
- Right, and you talk
about total carbohydrates intake
versus doing net carbs, correct?
- Yes, and it's more precise.
So the lower you go on the carbs, the stronger it is.
So it's not that net carbs can't work.
I've met a lot
of people who use net carbs and they do great!
It's kind of like an over-the-counter medicine.
If you have a mild pain, for example,
a ibuprofen from the store is fine.
But if you have diabetes,
you have a lot of weight to lose,
you have a a tough metabolic problem
like metabolic syndrome,
then you may find that the net carbs isn't strong enough.
And so I use total carbs.
So net carbs really just means more carbs (chuckles).
The calculation is you subtract
out the fibers and in some circumstances,
sugar, alcohols,
so often just changing from the net carb
to the total carb calculation
will make things work for folks.
So if you've tried total, excuse me,
if you haven't tried total carb,
you've just tried net carb and it's not not working for you
it doesn't mean keto doesn't work.
It just means that method
of calculating the carbs isn't quite strong enough.
I find when I teach people a simple method,
20 grams, that's total carbs per day or less,
some clinics use 30 total carbs or less,
It'll pretty much work for everybody.
I mean, if you follow it.
You know, and I can't account
for those who can't seem to follow it.
For some it just clicks really easily
and others it doesn't.
But yeah, I use total carbs
because it's just more accurate.
- All right.
Well, where can people find more information
about you at?
- My website is ericwestmanmd.com.
So that's E-R-I-C-W-E-S-T-M-A-N-M-D.com.
And you can find the different resources we have there.
We have a page, we have a book.
We have courses you can take on the internet.
The company I started., Adapt Your Life,
and The Adapt Your Life Academy has resources,
free YouTube videos at Adapt Your Life, YouTube channel.
And you can take courses that we open
from time to time at the Adapter Life Academy.
So we're trying to give our information
in teaching in many different ways.
And, of course, you can see me at Duke University going
through the clinical program there.
I have to warn you that there's a bit
of a wait to get in,
and I'm sorry about that (chuckles).
That's one reason why we created this company
to get information to people
who can't make the trip to Durham.
- Right, you're just getting too popular, I guess.
- Well, the approach is getting popular.
It's great. - (laughs) One of the two huh.
- Yeah
- Well, you know, I've trained a number
of doctors who created practices like this
around the country, and that's exciting to see.
So we need to train many more people in this way.
Really, I use lifestyle.
I use food predominantly.
Some people come to me, they can't exercise.
So when I say lifestyle, I really mean diet, you know,
the nutrition and I get to take away medicines.
I don't give medicines like most of my colleagues anymore.
- Right, well, thank you for joining us today!
- My pleasure.
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