Podcasts Health Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry LLP120: Why I made the switch to the ketogenic lifestyle?

LLP120: Why I made the switch to the ketogenic lifestyle?

Published: Aug. 7, 2019, 10 a.m.

Let's Talk about Ketogenic Lifestyle...

On this week's episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry I am back to start off our next round of podcast episodes focused on the topic of nutrition. At the time of the episode, I have currently made the transition over to a low carb ketogenic lifestyle and what better way to start the nutrition discussion than to tell it from a personal view.

Learn why I made the transition over to the keto lifestyle, why I hate referring to lifestyle changes as "diets" (Even though throughout the episode I still had trouble not doing it) and what the goal for me is.

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Download Episode 120 Transcript

Episode 120 Transcript...

Introduction

Dr. Berry:
And welcome to another amazing episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. I'm your host, Dr. Berry Pierre, your favorite Board Certified Internist. Founder of drberrypierre.com as well as a CEO of Pierre Medical Consulting. Helping you empower yourself for better health with the number one podcast for patient advocacy, education and promotion. Today we bring you Episode 120 and it is a solo episode with yours truly and we are moving along with our theme related episodes and for the next few weeks we're going to be talking about nutrition. Because for majority of my listeners, the majority of just patients out there in general, it is a huge topic. It is a huge area of concern, especially when we talk about controlling our health and getting our health together. And we're going to start off with a solo episode because I want to kind of talk about some of the things that I've been doing pretty recently.

Depending on when you're listening to this episode, as far as nutritional changes in lifestyle changes. Because again, it is not a diet. We're not talking about any diet related strategies. We are talking about nutritional and life base changes that need to occur to make sure that we have a very fulfilling and a sustainable approach to our health care. So we're going to talk about my transition to the Keto lifestyle, which again if you're listening to this in the month of August, just happened pretty recently. And it was something that I was always thinking about something that I was always contemplating, but it was with the issue of me going into the surgery and not being able to have any ability to exercise. It was going to be even more important that I stress my nutritional habit, which was bad of course, which is something I wanted to make sure I addressed before I can get back to the gym.

So again, listen for another amazing episode. Like I said, we're going to have a great slew of episodes coming up in the next few weeks. Hope you guys are there again and appreciate all the new listeners who have been recently following and subscribing to the show and sharing. And letting friends know and your parents know and your relatives know that being healthy is cool. And again, stick with me. Then remember, Empower Yourself for Better Health, that is the model here on the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. You have a great blessed day and let's get ready for another amazing episode.

Episode

Dr. Berry:
Hi everybody, Dr. Berry here. So today we are having an episode that focuses on nutrition and I think for most people, especially those who follow along with the podcast. You like to hear a lot of the personal reflections every time we talk about the stories of, really important to get the personal standpoint from it. So today we're talking about my journey with nutrition and we're going to be talking about the ketogenic lifestyle. Which is again, I don't like to call it diet. Because diets aren't long lasting and they usually don't give us the result we want for a long period of time. So, and in here we always try to focus on very evidence based medicine related to a lot of the topics we do and ketogenic diet definitely happens to fall under one of them. So just a quick little recap of everything that's been going on does far.

As a person who has been working on losing weight. That was my goal in the beginning of 2019. It's still my goal towards the end of 2019. I definitely thankful to still be kind of on that track. In Dr. Brad's episode where we talk about the fact that 80% of people by this time have kind of fallen off on their new year's resolution. That has not been the case with me. So I'm definitely glad about that. But what occurred was the aspect of, and I've talked about this before, how important diet and exercises to losing weight. But then what happened a few weeks ago for those who may know or may not know. Again, if you don't know, you're going to know now. I recently had an injury where I actually had to have surgery and actually had to be non-weight bearing for four weeks, which essentially means that I'm not going to be able to exercise and do that level of physical activity for at least four to six weeks.

It really actually longer because even once I'm actually becoming weight bearing, because I broke my fibula. I can't even wear sneakers for another two more weeks after that. So at least six to eight weeks before I can even put sneakers back on before I can get back to kind of working out. Right? So here was this onus where we know the equation, especially when we talk about losing weight is diet and exercise. But now I've taken that component pretty much out of equation. So now all I can do is really focus on my diet to help me lose weight. And I'll be honest, and then this happens for a lot of people who do did an exercise combo. For a lot of us who do it and kind of do it frequently enough. You kind of cheat on the diet side, even though I know someone's going to hit me with the diets are made in the kitchen.

Yes, I know that. But like if I exercise enough, I don't have to worry about eating really bad that one day or two days. And that was occurring throughout this process. There are some days where I wasn't as efficient as I needed to be on my diet. Again, that just happens to everybody. The goal is when you have these trips and these obstacles and these bumps in the road that you know how to get past it, right? So I was very fortunate enough to be able to work out, to balance those issues and allowing the weight to still be decreasing. But now I've taken that aspect. I can't work out and all I can do is focus on my diet. And there's a wide range of different types of diets related options.

Again, like I say diet, but really is the lifestyle changes that need to occur and understanding, where I was at and what needed to be changed. I am Haitian, so growing up most of my meals were rice and something. And when I look back, the amount of carb load that was associated with my diet was so crazy high. It was a wonder that I lost any weight, right? Because carbs are such an important staple of my diet. So when I was looking to see, okay, what type of lifestyle change can I make that I think would have the biggest impact on me. This is when the ketogenic diet to shot up to the top. Because the ketogenic diet for those who may not know is a low carb, high fat, high protein diet. And it has lots of different benefits.
And we're going to talk about some of the benefits at hand. But it was one of those things where I said, you know what, if I know my bad issue, is the carbs, right? Why not go to a lifestyle that reduces that? Right? And Ketogenic Diet pretty much did what it needed to do, right? It said, hey, I want you to decrease your carbs and I want you to just have more proteins and more fats, which again was pretty obvious in nature here. And for a ketogenic diet, again, for those who may not know, those may remember of the Atkins Diet. That famous diet that people were essentially having almost a zero level of carbs and just like eating bacon and grease and all that. That's not the Ketogenic Diet. The Ketogenic Diet does take into account that just you're going to increase your fats. Yes, you're going to increase your proteins and have lower availability of carbs, but you're not going to be having those drastic amounts of fats.

Because again, there's all types of fats, all types of proteins. There's good ones and there's bad ones. Right? And what happened for a lot of people, especially when the Atkins Diet was very popular, was everyone was eating really the bad related types of fat. They weren't really eating any of the good related oils and fats that needed to be added to their diet. So that's why we had so many problems back then. So I think that's why the Keto lifestyle has took a center stage at this time because it's been more perfected. A lot of the related ill effects that you used to occur with that type of diet with the Atkins Diet does not necessarily happen, especially if you follow a good regimen.

So I want to take you what happened. So again, here I am, I can't have any of my typical o's I normally eat, which essentially was rice and something. That's essentially gone. And there was a lot of change over. Because again, I had surgery. I couldn't move anywhere. I couldn't do exercise. So I had to decide, wait, what am I going to start this diet? Hey, I might as well start at like right now. So once I started, once I made the change, it was pretty drastic, especially in the household because most of our meals consisted of that carbs. And I'll be honest, I was not a big vegetable eater, even on fruits are kind of, you know, sketchy. Especially, because I don't know if a lot of us realize how high carbs some of our fruits are, but fruits was kind of sketchy as well.

So I had to decrease some of my fruit intake and really increased my protein and my vegetables. Which was something that I needed to do anyways, but just never had. And again, I think I was going off some of the benefits of, the fact that I worked out a lot more than I needed to be. And there's different types of ketogenic diets. There's your standard diet, which again, from a percentage standpoint. And again, I don't like, especially for my listeners who may be thinking about starting on your nutritional support. Obviously, make sure you follow up with someone, make sure you have some professional help to get you over the hump. We're talk about percentages. When it talks about percentages, a lot of people have about, 20 to 30% of their food or proteins.

Again, a good 60 65% of their food, are fats, and then less than 10% is carb related. That's just in a general sense of things. And again, for most people who don't understand, why keto works? Our body typically breaks down our three, we have three types of nutritional support. Proteins, fat and carbs. Most of us have a pretty high carb diet. Most of us take in enough carbs. So that's what our body tends to use. So our body needs this nutrient, which is carbohydrates to energy. Really to make the body work, make the brain work. But if you're in a state where you're taking in a lot of carbs and you're taking a lot of fat, your body does not have to break down any of that fat for energy.

Because why? Because you're giving it enough carbs. So that's what tends to occur. So imagine you're eating enough carbs, you're eating enough fats and you need to work out. You need to do something. Your body is going to break down those carbs first and leave those fats alone. So what tends to happen over time is that you have this fat stores that continues to occur, continues to build up because you're giving it enough carbs that your body never actually has to go down to the fat. That's why when you go on these treadmills or these bikes, they usually have different settings, one for a carb and one for fat burning. Because it's a different level of energy needed to get to the fat burning. It knows it has to get through all of your carbs source first before it can even think about getting to the fact because your body just won't allow it for you to do the Keto Diet because that's essentially reverse.

Essentially I'm saying, hey, I'm going to give my body the bare minimum of carbs to use energy and burn off. Your body has no choice but to go after the fats much sooner. And for most people, that's where the weight loss occurs. Because not only are they usually, because they usually have a lower intake from a total calories standpoint. So they have a lower intake from a calorie standpoint and then because they have a lower carb intake, your body is having to go after the fats that are in their system much quicker. This is why you see a lot of the weight loss occur in patients on the ketogenic lifestyle because your body says like, oh I got nothing else to burn but fat. So I'm going to burn fat because I need this energy. And that's where a lot of that's where you see a lot of the success and results for people who are on this lifestyle losing weight.

That's the crux of, right? Again here at the Lunch and Learn community, we don't want to try to hit you with the grave details. Because that's not really important here. You want to understand why something is working, why something helps. Because that's really the name of the game. Why does this thing work? And that's really the reason why. Because your body is now forced to break down that fat that it was not forced to break down no more because you're going on a low carb diet. And there's a lot of different things that have been shown to help. For patients who are diabetic or pre-diabetic, because you're having less carbs that means you're having less of your insulin that's needed to be used.

So we've seen some benefits in our pre-diabetic and our diabetic patients. There's been studies that's shown that there's changes that improve for patients with epilepsy because of the ketogenic state that happens in your lifestyle. Patients of course had to be concerned because remember we're talking about increased fats, we're talking about increased protein. So you have a history of high cholesterol and stuff like that. You definitely have to be very mindful when you're on this type of a diet to make sure you don't really cause any problems and headache. Because again, like I said, every lifestyle comes with changes that need to occur. So again, I'm not telling you to eat nothing but bacon grease three times a day, but I am telling you, you have to be very mindful of what you're doing and what you're eating to make sure that\u2019s not an issue.
So again, I'm just going to list a couple of other things that, again, these are evidence-based things that ketogenic lifestyle has been shown to improve. Again, it helps improve the risk factors of heart disease. Again, because you're losing all of this weight, are you dropping your blood pressure down? There's been signs of that some cancer, has been shown to have a slower growth rate because of. And we know cancer is a very nutritional base. Again, not to say that nutrition causes cancer, but we know that there are some nutritional diets that can help at least slow the process down. Patients with Alzheimer's disease, I talked about the epilepsy, Parkinson's disease as well, brain injuries, acne. So again, a lot of these things that are nutritional and hormonal related. We do see some benefit associated with the ketogenic diet.
So here I was, because again, back to me because we get up to the big thing. So here I was saying like, yup, I want to make this change. It's going to happen right now. So what did I have to do? So question RSE is, well Berry, what did you have to like avoid? What was your big things? For me, big things were rice. That was always a big thing for me. First and foremost, I was a big fruit eater as well and that was probably some of the bigger things. And again that occasional fast food. But these are some of the things that, again, some people would go look in your cupboard right now.

Just to list some of the things, I've had to avoid that, you're going to have to avoid, if you want to partake in this ketogenic lifestyle type diet. Sugary foods, soda, fruit juice, ice cream, candy, your breads, your pastas, your cereals, get a lot of your fruits are very high in carbs. Again, you could still have like berry, blackberries, strawberries, but you have to do it in moderation. Again, with everything is in moderation. So you have to do that in moderation. Beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, any fast food, fried foods, get that out of there. A lot of your condiments, that's just no good. Some of your unhealthy issues, fats, vegetable oils, corn oil, canola oil, mayonnaise, ketchup, all of these things here that are high in carbs are high in sugar was a big thing.

Of course, I'm not a big alcohol person anyway, so alcohol, one that had to get out of there in that case as well too. So there's a lot of different things that, again, I don't suggest. Again, and we're like, we always do right. Always follow professional. I give you advice here but you know the terminology, you know the legal is, right? Don't follow me. Act like I'm not a physician and always follow up with some professional that can follow you along in that process. Again, these a lot of things that you have to remove out of your diet. If you really want to partake in this type of lifestyle. So again, this isn\u2019t an easy process.

This isn\u2019t an easy transition. It's probably the reason why it took me so long to make that transition. I really had to kind of be forced into doing so. Because again, I love my rice. I love rice. I can't, ugh, it hurts me. It hurts me when I can't have rice. It hurts me when I can't have bread. But because I understand the long-term goal of where I want to go with, that's kind of direction I'm willing to take. So what are some things bread that you can\u2019t eat? And again, a lot of this stuff I was already eating in the first place, Meats of course, red meat, your steak here, your bacon, your ham, those Turkey chicken. That's still on the horizon. I used to always tell my diabetic patients, what gets them in trouble. Make it have a plate, 12 ounce New York Strip. And that's not the problem when it comes to their diabetic.

It's that roll on the side. It's that mashed potatoes on the side. That's what causes your sugar to raise. Again, your steak could be as big as your plate and that's not causing your sugar levels to shoot up. But that roll and that mashed potatoes that you have on the side is really, really the problems. Fish is definitely what, so what are foods that are good to eat that we can't eat on a ketogenic diet? You know, again, I hate to say diet, but whatever. Needs, we talked about fish, eggs, butter, cream, cheese, there's some nuts or say almond walnuts that are available. Healthy oils, virgin oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, avocados. Some, I love avocados that was definitely a good thing.

Most of your veggies are going to be in line and then a lot of your condiments. Again, I know you can't have like ketchup and stuff because of the high in sugar, but there's a lot of sugar free related stuff that you can have. Salt, pepper, all that stuff is still on brand to have. So again, yes, there's a lot of foods I can't eat, but there's still a lot of great foods that I can eat. So isn't that something that like, Oh woe is me, how Berry gonna survive because he can't eat his regular food. That's definitely not the case here. There's a lot of great nutritional support. But I think the most important thing, especially for person, in my case, a person who decides, this may be a lifestyle that I want to think of.

There\u2019s pros and cons with it and understanding what good can happen, what bad can happen. There's always something you always think about. Understanding longevity. And this is where we're going to get on the soapbox aspect of this show. Understanding that when you're making a lifestyle, whether it be you're going to exercise more, whether you'd be, you're going to change in nutrition. Like I said, there's a whole bunch of different types of a lifestyle changes. Like I said, over the next few weeks, you're going to hear some various aspects of a nutrition. Because I want you guys to get a full picture of how people are doing it differently. Again, this isn't the only way to help lose weight. This is just one of the ways to help lose weight.
Because again, at the end of the day, the equation is simple. If you take in less calories. If you burn off less calories that you take in, you're going to lose weight. That's just the simple mathematics of it all. The question is how do you go about doing that? That's really the most important thing. You could be on this ketogenic lifestyle, but if you're eating, 3000 calories of stuff but you're not really burning off that many calories. You're going to have some problems. That's not a good aspect. It's all about making sure your nutrition is adequate and really adequate for you. Make sure that you, it can be in what, in three months, in six months in a year, still be doing that same process. Because that's where, again, Dr. Brad talked about it, right? Eight months later, you want to be eight months later still being able to say, yes, I'm still on that type of lifestyle.

And I've had people who, again, there's various different ways to do the ketogenic lifestyle. Some people do it where they do it for five days out the week and then two days they kinda quote unquote recharge their battery as far as the carbs are concerned. You could do it that way. But again, just like we've talked about, especially with Dr. Bollie, right? We talked about these cheat day, right? Don't cheat yourself. You can treat yourself but don't cheat yourself. Don\u2019t think that you can be very good Monday through Friday and just go crazy Saturday and Sunday and then it all kinda starts over again. We don't want that. That is not healthy way of doing things.

And again, like I said, I can only imagine some of them. I've been doing it for probably like at this time recording about almost three weeks now. I'm definitely noticed a difference. I definitely noticed I'm not hungry anymore. I definitely noticed some changes that I think are positive benefit of minds. So I know its works. So again, in which was never the problem. It was never an issue of does this thing work. The question was, is Berry Pierre, in the mental mindset? Again, all last month, we've talked about getting into mindset ready and getting our goals. Why Berry in the mindset to do this? And I can tell you a few months ago I was not, but over time and you know I kept saying, I kept saying that aloud to the point I didn't want to call myself a liar.

And I finally did it and that's why I'm definitely happy. Like I said, I'm definitely excited to see over the next few months, especially once I get back to working out again. You know, what type of positive benefits we're going to see here. Because again, it is a transition. Like I said, every time I go on my kitchen like I almost like have to close my eyes because I see all of these things that I used to be able to eat that I don't eat no more. Right. All of these things that I used to be able to enjoy that I just don't enjoy anymore. I can't enjoy anymore. I w what I and that's really where a transition occurs. Right? Once you mentally make the decision like I want to make this leap in this direction. Right. You just got to do it right. And there's a lot of support groups.

Like I said there is a lot of different aspects especially for those who may be interested in the ketogenic lifestyle. There's a lot of different ways to do it as a lot of different supplements. Again, if you have any questions, concerns or you want to make the leap, make sure you drop a drop a note in the comments, make sure you go them a website, make sure you follow along. Because I'm on my socials everywhere. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. I'm all at Dr. Berry Pierre, all of them. So follow me, drop me a message if you have any questions or concerns along with that process. If you are in my Facebook group as well, that's another place that you can ask your questions as well, especially if you have any questions regarding at least to ketogenic lifestyle and what the process is going through at this moment here.
And like I said, I'm hoping. I'll say it on the prayer out loud and maybe with answer. I'm hoping to get it one of the foremost maybe like a ketogenic expert on this. Everyone, when you're an expert, it just means that you've done it longer than everyone else or you just read up on it. So I hoping to get an expert on Ketogenic lifestyle, maybe like a dietician on here to kind of talk to us about that aspect as well too. Just so you can kind of get a little bit more of a formal approach. But I really wanted to give you a personal aspect to kind of start the month. Because again that's one that seems to translate well with you guys.

You guys like to hear the personal stories, which makes sense. You want to make sure that the person who you know is up here, expounding knowledge, actually has some sense, isn't like a robot doesn't follow their directions. So again, love everyone for their support of the podcast. You guys have been absolutely amazing over this past year. Continue to listen, continue to share, to subscribe and leave your ratings. I love those ratings. Like I said, I love when you guys show that I'm actually doing a good job. Because sometimes you never know when you're up here talking into a microphone by yourself. So you guys have a great and blessed week. Like I said, I'm excited for the next month or so as far as some of our podcast guests, and I think you guys will be excited as well. Have a great and blessed week and see you next week guys.

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