I think a lot of people also have been sick for so long that they don't understand what it feels like to be healthy.
Absolutely great. It's human nature to get used to where we're at. Yeah, right. And I and so you see this on both sides of the coin when somebody's miserable every day. I didn't realize how good I could feel without pain and rosacea and severe heartburn and and Dunlap. Do you know what Dunlap is Michaela here in the South and sounds horrifying? It is it's when your belly is done.
Slapped over your belt. That's a southern ISM that we say here. And that means you're fat. I didn't I didn't realize how miserable I was until I correct it. All those things.
Welcome to episode 117 of the Michaela Peterson podcast, featuring The One and Only dr. Ken Berry. Dr. Barry is a doctor who specializes in the carnivore diet and keto diets. He's incredibly knowledgeable. One of the most knowledgeable doctors in this area that is
This out there and his last name is Barry. So that's funny. We talk about lies. We've been told about health and how to transition to a healthy lifestyle. This guy's the best selling author of Lies. My doctor told me, and I support, what he does. I'm also slowly convincing him to try the lion diet. If you want to learn about how to get healthier in a way that actually works, check this episode out. If you enjoy it, please hit subscribe.
Dr. Ken Berry, welcome to my
podcast. Hey Michaela. Thank you so
much.
I feel like the last time we spoke, I did a live on your Facebook or something like
that. Yeah, I think you didn't live maybe on YouTube and Facebook. And that's been a minute, though. It's about time for us to converse again.
Yes. So before we get started, for anyone who doesn't know you can you give a brief background about who you are and what it is you
do sure. I'm dr. Ken Berry. I'm a family physician classically trained in allopathic medicine been in active practice.
For about 21 years now and have a YouTube channel that I'm trying to grow. I've got Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the things. I'm even on Tick-Tock, uryu, and Tick-Tock Michaela, you
should, I am on Tick-Tock. How do you feel about
Tick-Tock Tick-Tock? But the reason I'm on, all those social media platforms is because I have to go to where the people are to help them understand the lessons that I learned in my own Journey. First of all towards severe, chronic illness and then doing it.
80 away from that back to what I would consider fairly close to Optimal Health as a 52 year olds. And so, the things I learned along that journey and the things that I saw reflected in my patients when they change their diet, that's kind of compelled me. Some would say called me to kind of focus all my effort on reaching out to the millions of people who suffer from chronic disease. Chronic inflammation.
Isa T type 2, diabetes fatty liver, you know, autoimmune conditions that all of these things are at least to some degree, reversible by eating a proper human diet. And so it really, I'm on fire for that and have been for the last three or four years. And I don't see any plans in the future to stop doing that because it's, you know, I'm a doctor. I'm supposed to make people better. I'm not supposed to medicate them. I'm not supposed to tell them, there's no hope I'm supposed to give them.
And then also give them a path that they can follow and also introduced them to a tribe of other people who have had similar problems and similar Journeys and say, hey we all we all got better and you
can too.
That is what I like to hear from a doctor.
What else can a doctor
say? I know. I know, I know they say, like, I
could simply say, yeah, they see the chronically ill and there's nothing you can do about it. And here some pills. You're just unlucky advice
crew. Yeah, exactly. And I think that even if a patient is screwed, I think there's always hope for at least some degree of improvements, and that's the that's the thing that we need to focus on. Not the fact, you know, if the odds are bad, why focus on that? Because you're not in any way.
Open the patient, every interaction between a patient and a doctor or in between a YouTuber, and a watcher should be therapeutic. It should be an opportunity to instill, some hope. However, small the hope. There should always be hope involved, and there should always be a path. This work for me. This is work for thousands or tens of thousands of people. You should try
this.
So what happened to you? You said you had chronic health
issues? Yeah, so as a young teenager and a young man, I was very slender, very seemingly, very healthy. I just ate a complete junk food diet. I was, you know, going through medical school and residency. I didn't have time, definitely to cook, but really didn't have time to think about food at that point and my body had not given me enough negative feedback yet that, I knew that that was important and but
When I got out of residency started my very active practice. I was working in the emergency department, two to four nights a week. And so I might get an hour or two early and then also running a full time Monday, thru Friday, Family, Practice. I quickly started to gain weight, get inflamed, miserable joint pain. I didn't I became at my worst morbidly obese. I was just over the criteria for being diagnosed as morbidly obese.
I was pre-diabetic. I had severe gerd heartburn. I had rosacea chronic joint pain and was just getting fat and miserable and you might be able to tell from what little accent I do have that I'm from the south and the people in the South I grew up around a very common sense. People. You couldn't be a mechanic and be successful. If your car wouldn't start people judge you on that here you couldn't be a
Are dressed and be successful if your hair was ratchet, right? You had to have, you had to have nice hair to be a successful hairdresser. And in the same respect, you couldn't be a fat miserable. Sick, doctor people would be like, okay, Doctor you just you told me, I need to lose weight in their eyes would for one second, go down and look at my belly. Where the button over my humble. I kiss was in danger of popping at any second. They would judge me and I felt that judgment.
And I think that was therapeutic judgment because it cast a light on me. Dude. You're not, you're not being consistent. You're being very inconsistent. You're fat and pre-diabetic, but you're going to tell this person what's wrong with them and so I could not tolerate the incongruity of that. I had to fix that. And so I started out with with Primal paleo type diets. They may be helped little in the process of doing that. I discovered this thing called a key.
Organic diet. And so I thought, well, I'll try that for a few months and that it immediately started the weight loss. My hemoglobin A1c, which is the primary marker used for type 2 diabetes. That doctors, look at it started to come down precipitously, all of my symptoms of heartburn. Joint pain inflammation. Rosacea dandruff, skin tags, all of that stuff. Started to get better on this ketogenic diet. And in the process, I was, I was reading about your dad, Jordan Pederson. He's
He's you know doing this carnivore diet. I'm like that's interesting because that's his low-carb as you can possibly get right? And then I saw this crazy. Dr. Shaun Baker, an orthopedic surgeon. He's doing this carnivore diet and so on my Facebook page, I just I just issued a challenge I said, hey guys, let's do 30 days with this carnivore diet. Let's see what happens. And so when I tell you I had heartburn. He was severe almost disabling. It was so severe. I had to take two Nexium, which is a very strong prescription medication.
For GERD, I had to take two a day. So when the drug rep came to drop off the Nexium samples, the patient's didn't get those. I got all those, those are mine because I needed to add a and so I have to do that plus some Tums and Rolaids or some other an acid. During the day. It affected my ability to speak it affected, my ability to breathe and swallow. At the same time. It was really really bad. So on.
A ketogenic diet full of real whole one ingredient foods. Not all the keto shakes and cakes and cookies and pies, but real keto food, my heartburn, which was severe 10 out of 10, got 80% better? And I'm like, huh, at that point. I didn't know enough. I hadn't reached out to enough people to know that that wasn't just an anecdotal, weird thing that happened to me. That's something that very commonly happens. It's for people with severe reflux when they start a ketogenic diet.
But then when I did my one month carnivore challenge at the end of that month, I realized I hadn't taken a single thing for heartburn that entire month which was very unusual for me. And so I thought you know, that's really cool. But also very here. I'm gonna I'm gonna do this carnivore another month. So I'll let everybody on my Facebook page off the hook. They could go back to their keto, if they wanted to. But I stuck with carnivore and have been a carnivore now for 28.
T, 9 months. And at this point, I have no intentions of ever going back. Occasionally. I'll cheat on Carnivore with Tito for an anniversary, or a birthday or some family get-together. But on a daily basis. Consistently, I eat in all, it's an animal-based diet for me and that I have not had any heartburn in twenty, nine months, which is if anybody listening is suffered from severe heartburn, severe gerd reflux. That's
Us to say, I have not had a single symptom in 29
months.
Wow, I'm very glad to hear that. Me too.
Yeah, that's fantastic. I've been I've been doing it since December 2017, and I've tried a couple times. I'm okay for rap before before we get into that. What does your diet look like specifically? What's animal-based look like for you? What's like a daily daily meals? What does that look like?
So it's there's always a large serving of some meat routinely. I can I can eat eggs. Just find some people on Carnivore, depending on why they're doing it.
May or may not be able to include eggs. I found the many people we think they're allergic to eggs. It's actually the egg white. If they'll just stick to the Yoke. They don't have any inflammatory symptoms at all. And so for I typically don't break my fast until 1 or 2 or 3 p.m. Every day. I'm just not hungry. I don't think about it. I've got stuff to do. I've got lots of farm chores outside. I've got, you know, the people to reach people to help. And so it's somewhere between
One in four pm. I'll be like, oh I haven't eaten today. And so I'll go have maybe a 12 ounce ribeye with seven or eight egg yolk scrambles in that. That'll be my breakfast for that day. I can include some dairy, always full fat, real good, quality Dairy. If I get too far off into the dairy, I'll start to notice some inflammation in different parts of my body. So a tiny bit of cheese, a tiny bit of heavy cream.
The vast majority of my diet is is meat and eggs. I notice I do better on ruminant meat. So beef, goat sheep, venison is fine, even elk is fine, all the seams at all the room and it meets. So it has some magical quality for me. I just feel better. I'm more. Mentally. Clear. When I ruminant meat, I can tolerate some chicken and some pork. But if I eat too much of that I just
Feel my best and I don't necessarily think that chicken and pork or bad. I just think for me personally there less good.
I react terribly to Pork like terribly, two pork. I can eat pull out of the plants easier than than pork because me really bad autoimmune symptoms. Yeah, and I think
weirdly enough, I think everyone should experiment with their diet because you've discovered that about yourself and and it is true that we're all at to some degree bio-genetically unique and different. I think the gut microbiome which we
Don't know nearly enough about. I think that also plays a role, probably your ancestral heritage, your DNA Place some degree of a role. I don't think we know one of those to talk about them with confidence, but it's great. That, you know, that that now, you know, I'm like, I can have a bite of bacon, but if I get crazy on the bacon, I'm going to suffer, whereas, I can eat six pieces of bacon and eggs, and it's no big deal for me, but I think that, that, that is important.
People to understand that there is some diversity between us, although we are all 99.9% the same
genetically.
Hmm. Yeah. Well if everybody was a sensitive as my dad and I then there'd be we'd be glad to population would look a little different. Yeah. Okay. So I think we should address some like common concerns for people if they're not familiar with the carnivore diet, although, if they've been watching my channel, they probably are. But for people who say suffer from kidney disease or heart disease or high cholesterol, do those people have to be worried switching on to something that's
animal-based. No next question. No,
We go into that a little bit. So no, you don't. And so there's a huge myth in the medical community, which should not be susceptible to mythology--. They should focus and act only on facts, only on evidence. But there's this huge misconception in the medical community that a diet high in protein, is bad for your kidneys. And I've actually done several YouTube videos about this explaining that this is a complete motor myth. There's no research to
No control research that shows that a high protein diet protein from any source is bad for the human kidneys and there's definitely no control research showing that protein from meat is in any way, bad for kidneys. And so I've started using the the the phrase meat is good for your kidneys, prove me wrong. Show me the research and until I've yet to have a single controlled research studies thrown in my face saying you're wrong big guy meat.
Bad for your kidneys, there is no research that shows that yet. The average medical doctor dietitian nutritionist. They will especially someone with Stage 1, 2, or 3, chronic kidney disease. They will scare them to death though. You need to avoid, especially red meat, somehow, red makes magical. It's much much worse for your kidneys then than, you know, white meat, but okay, that's great. So, where's the research? Oh, then you hear the crickets chirping because there is no research that supports that whatsoever. Which
Makes that at best a hypothesis at worst, a myth or a big fat lie, like I talked about in my book people, with any medical condition. You're still human, being, you're still Homo sapiens sapiens. Therefore you need to eat a human specific diet, a proper human diet. And for, every human on the planet, a proper human diet, consists of a large percentage of fatty meat, and you just until we've got some control research.
You can't even argue otherwise.
What about heart disease. So hard to, you know, red meats going to cause a heart attack. Eating red meat is going to raise your cholesterol. So the American Heart Association, which is the de facto World Heart Association because most other countries, take their walking orders directly from the American Heart Association. When it comes to all matters. Heart-related, they have stopped recommending a maximum amount of cholesterol intake in the diets. The researchers.
Very clear. And when the reason why you didn't know that mckaela is because they didn't have a press conference as they should have, should have no press conference. And said, we know, we know, we've been recommending that you limit your cholesterol intake for decades, but the research doesn't support that and it doesn't matter at all. How much cholesterol you eat. Your body is going to make the amount of cholesterol you need. So we are no longer recommending that that's that would have been the ethical thing for them to do. Yeah, because what
Happens when they don't hold that press conference is we even though the top Cardiologist in the people that set the guidelines, they've stopped worrying about cholesterol intake in your diet and they've stopped recommending that to their personal patients. But we have this thing that I call the echo of the lie that I talked about in the book. So even though the preeminent authorities have stopped talking about that. They don't even, it's not even in the if you print out their dietary guidelines, it's not in there anymore, but we still have all these doctors and
Dietitians and nutritionists and mothers and fathers who are saying, oh, don't eat cholesterol. It's bad for your heart. That's it. And it's idiotic the because it was a, it was a weak hypothesis for a few decades. And it's been completely disproven, even though the researchers were trying desperately to prove that. It was a valid hypothesis, but he failed miserably and we still got this echo of the light that your hairdresser will tell you that your Aunt Betty will tell you old, don't eat those.
Egg yolks. It's too high in cholesterol, but there's no research to support that. So a lot of people listen to this will be like, you're telling me the American Heart Association. Said that cholesterol is no longer a molecule of concern when it comes to dietary intake. Yep. It's on page 187 of their guidelines buried in the minutiae, but it's there and so then well, okay. Well then, what about saturated fat? Eating saturated fats? Bad? Yeah. Well, they've also stepped very quietly away from that.
Commendation as well. They don't really speak about. Oh if you eat too much. Saturated fat. That is a direct directly causative of heart disease. No, actually that's no longer in their guidelines either. But again, they didn't hold that, that press conference to let the world know. So we've got all these people who mean. Well, right, they mean very well, but they're just wrong and you under any smart person understands that no matter how good your intentions are.
If the information in teaching that you're giving is just wrong, you're going to do harm. And so there's all these people who are scared to death of ancestrally appropriate foods, like egg yolks and fatty meat, because they're afraid it will affect their heart because of the cholesterol or the saturated fat, and the world Authority on all things. Heart-related has stopped that recommendation. They don't even recommend that you limit cholesterol intake or limit saturated fat intake, any longer, but they didn't have a press conference.
No one knows.
What's that saying? The road to hell? Is paved with good intentions?
In this case. I think that's very
applicable.
Yeah, no, that's completely criminal in my opinion. I
agree at what point do we have a young attorney out there? Who's hungry for a class action lawsuit, or do we have an assistant DA in some state, who's hungry to make a name for herself and who files, a class action lawsuit, against one of these organizations, saying, hey, you're actually doing harm. Yeah, but by not making public the fact that you no longer recommend that people limit cholesterol.
In saturated fat intake, because here's the harm that's being done. There are all kinds of vitamins and minerals essential fatty acids that you really can only get from foods that are high in cholesterol and high in saturated fat. And so if you're avoiding cholesterol and saturated fat, you're not getting access to this, this Cornucopia of vitamins and minerals and fatty acids, that your body absolutely needs for essential.
More human function. You might be able to limp along without these vitamins minerals and fatty acids, but never will you realize your best health your most optimal function? You it's just not accessible to you because you're being restricted from these necessary
nutrients.
Yeah, I think a lot of people also have been sick for so long that they don't understand what it feels like to be healthy.
Absolutely great. It's human nature to get used to where we're at. Yeah, right. And I and so you see this on both sides of the coin when somebody's miserable every day. I didn't realize how good I could feel without pain and rosacea and severe heartburn and and Dunlap. Do you know what Dunlap is Michaela here in the South and sounds horrifying.
Is its when your belly is done, lapped over your belt? That's a southern ISM that we say here and that means you're fat. I didn't I didn't realize how miserable I was until I correct it all those things. But then on the flip side, people like you. And I now that we found our point on the spectrum of a proper human diet and we feel great every single day. We kind of get used to that as well. Don't worry. And so it felt amazing at the beginning, but then after twenty nine months of this is it just feels normal.
Now to feel great and to be able to go out and work on the farm and sweat two gallons out to you know, just non-stop manual labor that just feels normal to me. And so I don't I don't you lose sight of just how bad, or how good you feel. I think that's just human
nature.
I think it's human nature to, however, have you tried just doing like Lion diet style for six weeks, super strict.
I have not in our usual
to try. Great have to try. I
agree because I feel great now, but could I feel even better? Exactly? No, I totally get the logic behind that and if some point, I'll probably do three months. Because I really feel like 90 days is what you really need for any dietary experiment to let your body have.
Be calm down in to improve. And at some point, I will do 90 days of just beef salt and water and just see. And, you know, I may have to include a little lamb in that because
lamb lamb I eat mostly lamb
sound of lamb and I like go do tell you so I may just do 90 days of ruminant me remembering again. Yeah, and I may do that here and I'll issue a, you know, a challenge to all my people when the time comes.
Okay, cool. Keep me posted. I'll advertise that on my Instagram to so people can join.
And that's fun. Let's talk a little bit about transition symptoms. You've seen from people going from say, the standard American diet into an animal-based diet, what people should be prepared
for? Yeah. So there are a couple of things that you need to understand, and also be ready for. So, the first thing in my opinion, highly processed carbohydrates are very, very addictive. They mimic all of the signs of addiction. We can see pet scan, and
And MRI data in the nucleus accumbens what you know, which is basically the center that of the brain. That leads to addictive behavior. It lights up just like you're smoking pot or smoking nicotine or smoking crack, it lights up the same way. When you're eating High processed carbohydrates or even thinking about eating them, which is interesting. Right? And so, the first thing you're going to contend with is carbohydrate withdrawal symptoms and a lot of people call this the keto flu or the carnivore flu.
But when people are quitting smoking and they have the same exact symptoms of withdrawal. Nobody calls that the the quitters flu that, right? Because, you know, that it's bad for you to smoke. So you it doesn't matter what your symptoms of withdrawal are. It's still worth it in the long. Run to quit smoking, but food is so wrapped up in Emotion, in religion, in Family Ties that we don't think of that the same way as we do tobacco, which obviously, no one needs to.
No, no one needs to do and less it drugs. No one needs to be an alcoholic. So there's there. We don't have all the social and emotional ties to those things. We can just see single those out and say that is bad for you. Stop that but Foods different, right? Because we have all these emotional strings attached to it. And so, when you change your diet from the standard American crap, process diet to a ketogenic diet or a carnivore diet and you start to feel miserable.
All people immediately are going to jump to the conclusion will do that diets bad for you. You go back to eating the your regular diet. Instead of thinking know, maybe you're having withdrawal symptoms from the highly processed grains and the sugar content. Maybe you need to give that 3 to 14 days, just like the withdrawal from any other standard addictive substance for those signs and symptoms of withdrawal to Abate because that's exactly what you have to do. And some people they don't have much withdraw.
Symptom and these are usually people who are already eating paleo or trying to eat real Whole Foods. But if you're if you're going straight from carnivore from a standard American or a standard Canadian crap diet, you're probably going to have three to seven days of withdrawal symptoms and it's going to suck. That doesn't mean you should stop. That means you should persevere until you get to the other side because that's where all the benefits are. The second thing that people need to be aware of is when you're eating a
High carbohydrate diet. Your insulin levels are staying chronically, High your levels of chronic inappropriate inflammation or chronically, high that both of those things are going to make you store a lot of fluid unhealthy fluid in your body, right? And still the way the human kidney works is when you start eating a very low carbohydrate diet, your blood sugar levels and your insulin levels are going to quickly return to normal and that's going to cause a diaeresis which means that you're going to start to Europe.
Out all this unhealthy fluid that you've been storing inappropriately all over your body. But the way the human kidney works is, you can't just urinate out free water. You have to have some degree of salt, go with that water. You have to have some degree of magnesium and potassium, and even calcium has to go with that water because of the way the human kidneys designed. And so you'll wind up with, with other symptoms of being not eating enough salt because we all been taught that salt is bad.
Which is another big fat lie that you don't have to worry about when you start eating proper human diet, but for the first few days of this transition, you need to be very mindful that you're eating enough, salt. And you need to be very mindful. That you're getting enough, magnesium and potassium either in your diet, or in the form of a supplement. And those things alone, mitigate this decide the symptoms of carbohydrate withdraw, and just the keto flu or the carnivore flu that many people mislabeled.
Ass it's just electrolyte fluctuations salt fluctuations and carbohydrate withdrawal. That's what you're suffering from. Its short-lived. It's temporary and I promise you it is worth the three to seven days transition period to get to the other
side.
For me, and for people, I've seen who have really severe autoimmune disorders, that can be up to 21 days, the Cravings. I had and I and take an, I went from standard American diet to a very restrictive paleo diet to a keto diet. With no Dairy, no eggs to the carnivore diet, over a period of like two years and the Cravings. The Cravings were bad enough and they lasted three weeks for me where I was having dreams about these Foods. Yeah, and it was ridiculous. Every time I so I didn't screw up.
As soon as I cut out a food was like I'm it's out but occasionally, I'd be somewhere and I'd have some contamination on something. And as soon as I had that contaminated food, all my Cravings would come back. It was wild. And so it'd be like, I'd have something and that there'd be soybean oil on it, and I wouldn't know. And then I'd have soy Cravings. Yep, was crazy.
And I think the other thing that caused your withdrawal, your Cravings to last longer is
Is your gut microbiome. And as I said earlier, we don't know nearly enough about this, but also you have a set of fungi that live in your gut as well and, and people, most people aren't aware of that. But you have a micro phone going, as well as a microbiome and fungi, can have serious effects on your mental health. And so, I opined this is a merely a hypothesis because nobody studying this, but I think when you go from a high carbohydrate diet,
To a very, very low carbohydrate diet, your gut bacteria Rebel because yeah, you are populated with a high carb, loving bunch of bacteria in your gut and all of a sudden, they're not getting the sugar. They're not getting the highly processed grains and starches that they operate best on. And so they start to down-regulate as well as protest. You can just imagine the little bacteria with their placards saying. Hell no, no more meat, right, but what?
You're also doing is up regulating all of the healthy beneficial bacteria and funguses, that love a low carbohydrate nutrient, dense diet and that can take a few weeks to get your gut bacteria and fungus regulated in a lot of carnivores. Notice. They'll have three days to three weeks of diarrhea and that's part of their transition. And that's because that's that's the protecta station of your gut bacteria. And fungus saying, what the hell are you doing? Where's where my carbs? And
I think also vegetable seed oils do play a role in that as well. And a lot of people don't understand the power that fungus can have over your actual mental activity. If no one saying the the video of the zombie ants where the fungus literally makes this ant ignore all of its Instinct in his training, climb to a top of the leaf attached to a certain kind of leaf on a certain Tree on a certain side of the tree and then die and then fall to the ground. So that the fungus can
Replicate in the ants body just search YouTube for fungus ants. I'm going to link that you're crazy. Screwed up. Yes, but that's the power that that fungi can have over seemingly sentient beings and make you literally become a zombie and you're going to the fridge and looking for the carbs and it's completely against your will. But yeah, I think that's absolutely a thing and I think that's something that our researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health. They need to start looking.
That kind of stuff. Yeah, scared of all, every piece of bacon, uh, shortens your life by seven minutes because they have played that, that's, that's a dead horse. They need to stop beating that. And start looking at the effect of the microbiome, in the fungus, have on our behavior and changing our Mental Health.
When I first went to paleo, that's when the Cravings were the worst. And I could tell I knew, because I've been doing research on the microbiome, even though there's not a lot to read out there, that's like legitimate exactly because it's so new, but I could tell that the Cravings weren't mine. Like, I'd be like, no, I'm on this diet and they just like, angel food cake would just appear in my head. And I'd be like, what is that? What is that? And I'd be hungry, but I wouldn't be hungry for the food. That was healthy. I just be hungry for the food. That wasn't healthy and be like, well, then I'm not hungry.
It's like if I only want to eat one food, but I don't want a steak. That's not actual hunger. That's excited. Just got angry at it. Like how dare you whatever is in me trying to control me. How dare you starve and that was very unpleasant. Absolutely.
Okay, so I have your book. This is your older book right here. Lies. My doctor told me, which is a great book. But what is, what is happening with this new
book? So I'm working on my new book and it's tentatively titled, the proper human diet because I think that there is a spectrum that every single human on the planet. If, if they if their goal is to achieve Optimal, Health optimal function, both the
Ugly and middle and me, you need to be eating on the proper human diets Spectrum. I'm going to try to have it out by the new year that may or may not happen. I have a bit of ADHD. And so I tend to get distracted but I am working diligently on that. I have a team working with me to kind of keep me focused. Sometimes that's a challenge but I think it's going to be a very important book. Perhaps even more important than Lies when I wrote lies.
I was called to write that book. I could not sleep. I could not eat Nisha. Basically, recounting the that the memories now, she's like, yeah, I basically didn't see you for 18 months while you're writing that book. And I think that proper human diets going to wind up being a more important book that's going to be more helpful to even more people than lies was and I can't wait to get it finished, but it's a work in progress.
Okay. Well, I'm looking forward to that. This is a good one. I mean, I can tell why you felt like you were called to writing it and medical missed. That can harm your health. There's probably an emotional aspect to that. Yeah.
Well it's so it's such a convoluted complex topic because it just think of the interaction in the average doctor's office. Here's a doctor who got received, very little training on nutrition right on average in Western medicine. It's maybe a few hours of
Training. And then you've, they are looked upon by the patient as an authority figure almost like a witch doctor. Like they know things. I don't know, anything that comes out of their mouth. I should consider gospel. I should do what they say. But the doctor not only doesn't know what the hell he or she's talking about when it comes to human nutrition on average. They don't know that. They don't know. And yeah, and then they trust these preeminent Authority.
He's like the American Diabetes, Association the American Heart Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics. They trust these people just like the patient trusted him. So you've got this almost exponential, just terrible trust problem and it multiplies each step up the ladder. You go. So not only is the doctor diluted misled, then you multiply that by the doctor misleading and diluting the patient. So it just becomes almost an
An unsolvable puzzle of. How do you fix that interaction? But that that's the most important interaction. Is that? Between the doctor and the patient. And that's why I wrote lies like I did. So that we break it up into one topic and this is what your doctor says, but this is the actual truth in the matter. And I think that I wrote it for patients, but if you notice, there's actually an entire chapter in the back dedicated to Health Care Providers. Like this is this, this is what you're doing wrong. This is how you correct.
At and that's why I've dedicated the remainder of my life to educating people. I'm not trying to change doctors minds or Healthcare Providers. I don't give a damn with the Ada or the AHA. Thanks to me. I could care less. I'm trying to reach out directly to people and say, hey, I know your doctor told you this but it's actually wrong. Try this instead and I've got pretty good feedback from, you know, a few people. So I think that that model working very well, but it's really sad.
Add that, that interaction has to go so wrong and has to just be just exponentially wrong, because no one in that interaction. Either the doctrine or the patient know the truth. And they also don't know the power of the truth. I mean, just for you and your dad, you know, absolutely. All of these medical interventions, all of these prescription medications became moot when you discovered the power of proper nutrition.
Let me see specific nutrition, proper human diet, when you became aware of that yourself. How many doctors did you? Did you render meaningless in your life when you made that adjustment and said, hey, maybe my diets way more important than everybody thinks it is. Not just about weight loss. It's about optimizing my health. How many doctors did you turn out to pasture? Personally when you discovered? Oh my God. Diet really matters a
lot.
A lot. I had a lot of doctors. I had a lot of doctors had a rheumatologist at a psychiatrist at a family doctor. That was that was three at least and then I was going to see an immunologist for allergies. So that's 400 and a dermatologist for skin. So that's five a bed stood. There was more, but there were definitely
five. Yeah, so all of those very complex interactions that you're having with each different doctor and then the prescription that inevitably came.
In from each different doctor which added up for you as a handful of people's every day, multiple times a day.
How powerful is that that that you basically at some point just put up your hand and said, no, no more, no more. I'm going to do something different. I'm going to try a different path and then all of a sudden, all of these things, all these doctors, all these pills, which it to you at the time seemed mandatory.
They have like life-saving if
I'm going to have any kind of a wife. I've got to see these doctors. I've got to take all these pills just they just magically melt away and importance. And I think I've seen that replicated.
So many times in people on a ketogenic diet or a carnivore diet. It's like, yeah, I'm all five pills. I'm often pills. I'm off three pills. I used to have four doctors. Now. I have one that I say once a year and that's mainly just because I like hanging out with my doctor once a year. I don't really need him or her anymore. But that that is such an empowering thing that moment when you hold up your hand and say no more. I'm going to try a different path. It's scary initially very scary, but just right before you make the decision and then right after
After the decision, it can be terrifying. Like, oh my God, I'm gonna die. I'm eating all this saturated fat and cholesterol now, but then when the benefits start to come some come quickly, some take several months before you start to realize them. It's at that point, you know, know I made the right decision and I'm not anti doctor. I'm not anti medical care. I'm just anti unnecessary, doctoring, unnecessary Pharmaceuticals. That's that's that's the anti that I am if you want to put a label on me.
And I think many people in the Ketone carnivore, communities are now very anti medical intervention, unless it's absolutely
necessary.
Yes, I agree. Do you have words of comfort for people who are overweight or obese who are concerned about increasing their meat intake and losing weight.
Yeah. So carbohydrates are uniquely fattening for human beings in my research that I've been doing into not only human nutrition and human medicine, but also archaeology anthropology and even
Apology, it's become quite obvious to me that human beings are by Design or by Evolution low-carbohydrate. Mammals. That's just what we are. And so, anyone who's eating over a hundred total grams of carbohydrates a day. You're going to have some degree of hyperinsulinemia. Some degree of inappropriate, chronic inflammation, and it made manifest in your skin. It may manifest in your gut, in your joints, in your hair.
Are there any number of in your mental health? Right? And we all tend to express the inappropriate inflammation in hyperinsulinemia different parts of our body. And that's why I initially a lot of people don't see the connection between all of these chronic medical conditions and diets because we manifest them in different ways. But once you start to lower the carbohydrate intake, you're going to immediately start to notice improvements and a lot of people lose inches before they lose pounds or kilograms.
Rams. And so I always recommend people take your measurements when you when you start keto, when you start carnivore because the scale may not move for weeks or even months, but you're going to steadily be losing inches as the inflammation and the unhealthy water you lose that, and as you start to burn fat, because it's been my experience that when you start a fatty meat, heavy keto diet or a carnivore diet, you're going to naturally start to put on muscle.
And I've heard this from thousands of people feedback. It's like, I'm not working out all but, but I'm noticing more muscle. Definition. Is that normal? And at first, I thought that was completely anecdotal and crazy. But after you hear something from a thousand or 2,000 or 5,000, people you have to give some respect and Credence to all those anecdotal experiences. Right? Also, you're eating a diet that's full of all the ingredients to build muscle and to build stronger bones and people don't realize
Let's say I want to lose weight. What they mean is I want to lose fat. That's what you mean by that. You don't want to lose bone density. You want to lose muscle? You don't want to lose cartilage, ligament fascia. And so you start to actually build up, all those vital organs, your bones get stronger, your muscles, get stronger, your faccia, which is its own organ in the human body starts to get tougher and stronger ligaments, tendons, cartilage. All this stuff starts to get stronger that's going to show up on the scale. So as you're losing stored fat,
That you're actually gaining these other things. And so for weeks, you can actually break even on the, on the bathroom scale and think this time it's not working for me at all. But if you're taking your measurements, you unlock that information. You're like, oh my God, you have lost three inches off. My waist, even though the scale hasn't moved. And so it can be for some people, the, the benefits and the weight loss is immediate for other people. It takes longer and so I would, I would say you're now eating a proper human die.
How can that not be good for you? At least in the long term? If not in the short term, so stick with it. And this guy, it works equally well for people who are under way and a lot of people are surprised when I say Quito and carnivore and are not weight loss diets. That's not what they are. When I first started this seven, eight years ago. I 100% believe that keto was a temporary weight loss hack because that's all I knew at that time, but now seeing this in
See, I realized know if you're underweight. If you suffer from an eating disorder or anything, you can actually gain weight, but you're not going to gain fat, you're going to gain muscle, you're going to gain bone density. You're going to gain all the beneficial organs are going to actually fill out, and resume their normal appearance. And I've seen people gain, 20, 30, 40 pounds of needed weight. On both the ketogenic and a carnivore diet.
Yeah, it seems to just normalize your weight.
Exactly, right, but it moves your body weight to a proper weight for you because it is a proper human diet. That's what it should do,
right?
That is what it should do. So if anyone isn't aware, what how do you define a keto
diet? So Tito died. For me, is definitely going to be under 50, total grams of carbohydrates a day for most people especially if you have to lots of stored fat that you need to burn off and lose it probably needs to be under 20 total grams of carbohydrates a day. And I think that total carbs that's a big deal because as you know, kito's becoming very
Very popular. And a lot of the big food manufacturers are jumping into the Keogh space. And if you let them count net cards, they can trick you with with soluble fibers and by Miss naming things, and friend of mine, did an experiment. She was eating under 20, net grams of carbs a day. And she was eating over a hundred grams of total carbs a day, but still getting less than 20 net. And so the
big wonder why? So, how is that different? What's the difference between
We natin total. So total
carbs means counting every carb including fiber because many of the fibers, some fibers are insoluble and you truly don't absorb them and get any carbohydrates from them. At all. Many fibers are soluble fibers and you will at least partially digest those with your gut. And so tapioca fiber, oat fiber, corn fiber. A lot of these fibers are soluble fibers, but most people don't know the difference, right?
The average customer and so the agency fiber and I think boom fiber That's good. I've heard my doctor told me that I need fiber. So there you go. But a lot of us o corn fiber and tapioca fiber and oat fiber. You're going to get about 2 grams of carbs from each from each gram. You're going to get this nice and soon I'm saying you're going to get two grams of carbs out of that four grams and you're like, oh wait a minute. I didn't realize that. Yeah, that's right in the big food manufacturers. They know you don't know the difference. So they'll feel the
They're they're fake, keto Foods up with lots of soluble fiber and then on the nutrition information panel, they get to call that fiber not sugar. And and say, oh, that doesn't count because that's fiber. Yeah. It's very Insidious. It's very disappointing. But of course, big food manufacturers, they have a duty to their board of directors to make a profit. They have no duty to the customer to increase their health or improve their health, right? So they're, they're actually doing their job, but their job is not to
Help you be healthier. And that's why I talk about total carbs because you cannot play reindeer games, with total carbs. It either is a carbohydrate or it ain't a carbohydrate. And so if people are really serious about doing a 180 with regards to their health, you got a ten count total carbs, and that's very unpopular, especially with, you know, Quito influencers who are either manufacturing keto treats or who are endorsing keto treats because that that shoots their Quito tree in the head.
Head, when you start counting total carbohydrates.
Okay, you just said play reindeer games. Yeah. Yeah, you
know, you know how, the reindeer wouldn't let Rudolph play any reindeer. That's right. Oh, yeah reindeer game is basically just a bullshit game of semantics or you know, the cam you know, so so yeah, they'll play all the games, they can with the nutrition facts. They'll call Sugar organic cane juice and
they'll say, oh, I've seen that. Exactly, that's a
Ranger game. That's yes, I guess that's it.
A personal thing I say I thought I like that said that. Yeah, but they'll do that for a profit because they're their goal is not to make you healthier. It's to make the bottom line healthier.
I also think a ketogenic diet every bite of food. You put in your mouth needs to be nutrient-dense. That's why we eat. We don't eat, we shouldn't eat for just pleasure. Everybody food should be meaningful nutrition, right? I think everybody foods, you eat should be a real whole food with one ingredient. That these are all my definitions of a ketogenic diet. You might be able to use Tito.
Cookies and cakes and pies, and bars and shakes to transition to a ketogenic diet. Yeah, but ultimately, if your goal is Optimal Health, your your diet on keto is going to consist of a lot of fatty meat, some kale or broccoli and a few blueberries. That's that's keto. If you're if you're making keto cakes and pies, that's that's kind of Quito simulacra. That's, that's it, man. It might help you transition, but that is it by no means of proper human diet.
Okay, I agree. There's a good differentiation there. I know, I know a lot of people who have transitioned from the standard American diet who do have an easier time going. Okay. I'm not eating pizza anymore, but I'll have like, keto pizza or Paleo pizza, and it cuts out a lot of the super, super super harmful ingredients, but it's not a way to. So it's a way to transition or for kids who are really used to the standard American diet and used to eating like sugar all the time. You can switch them on to Quito treats and they'll like
Hardly notice. But after a month of doing that, they'll be more inclined. Because the withdrawal will, like taper down. They'll be more inclined to go to Whole Foods. That's the exactly. And
I think, another thing that the average person does not know, the average doctor doesn't know, is that you can actually train or retraining your palate. There are so many people in the US especially out who the there? They only know. Chicken, chicken strip, breaded chicken strips and ketchup and Coke or Pepsi that and that's literally all the taste they can taste.
Cannot taste.
The sky was me. Yeah, I swear that was
me a hundred percent. It's very common, but people are aware this so they don't know this happens. And so Layla, initially say no, I don't like meat and I'm like, oh you hundred percent like me. You just don't know it yet because you're used to your breaded chicken strips with sugar-filled, ketchup, and a Coca-Cola. And then, you know, a little baby snack cake at the end. That's what you're used to but you can actually retrain the human pallets and it's you know, it preferably you don't want to do that. So you
Art a baby out. Like we did Beckett with beef ribs and ground beef. That was it. That was the first foods that went in his mouth. And so, he's love meat from day one. Yeah, any children don't get that opportunity. They're raised on the little Rice Krispie things, and the little wheat crackers. And so, they never develop a true broad human palate. That can enjoy lots of different subtlety in the taking, the flavors. And one thing that I tell people is when you eat a raw and does it taste sweet to you.
Someone if they haven't been on keto for long or they haven't they're not keto adapted their like sweet. Know. What are you talk? An almond you mean? I mean if it's like a candied almonds. Yeah, but I'm like no no, no almonds are very sweet. And when yeah taste that, you know that you're retraining your palate. Your palate is learning. Oh, they're much more subtle flavors than just sweet sour and salty their way, hundreds and hundreds of layers of the palette that you
You can redeveloped by slowly transitioning to eating real human food. And when an almond taste, sweet you, you know, you're on the proper path, you know, you're moving in the right direction.
I found that for me, when I switched from standard American diet to a paleo diet, in the Paleo was really, it was basically keto, right. It was it was almost keto. It took three months. So, for the first three months, everything, I ate was terrible. I was making stews that I would later. Really appreciate.
I
was like parsnips and carrots and beef, and I was just like, this is horrible like, repulsive. There's no flavor here. Everything's kind of better, the meats Bland, and it was like that for three months. And then slowly carrot started to taste sweet and then parsnips were sweet. And I was like, parsnips are sweet. I didn't know that. Then I went to meat and greens and I did that for a year and I started to be able to differentiate between the different types of lettuces like, oh no, no. No, I want the sweet lettuce.
Like, I know that that's the sweet. Lettuce. It's like what is going on? Pretty cool.
Yeah, and the human tongue is capable of that but most people don't know that at all. They don't know. They have that. It's kind of a superpower to be able to differentiate between types of lettuce just by The Taste but people don't realize they have that super power. It is undiscovered.
Currently. Did your. Did your sense of smell change?
Yeah, my and so in two ways my sense of smell changed not only
I become much more acutely aware of smells in able to differentiate smells, but also my personal smell improved greatly. Yeah, my body odor has gotten so much better on a carnivore diet. And that's something I don't think is talked about enough, but I think that speaks directly to how the diet affects your skin microbiome and your odor. And so humans are supposed to have odors, but we're not supposed to smell like a dead cat if we don't.
Don't take a bath every six hours. Right? But many people notice. I've got to take two showers a day or I smell like asshole. And that the reason is your diet is not right. You're selecting for the wrong skin bacteria that are very malodorous and that's why you stink my brother or my sister. It's not because just you stink. It's because you're eating a diet that
dropper. Yeah, I found I also think it's your body trying to get rid of food. So, when I tried to reintroduce
Soy and I had like, no body odor, totally fine on Paleo and I tried to reintroduce soy and during the reaction, when my arthritis came back, my skin broke out. I like horrifying Doom. My digestion was upset. I had terrible body odor and I noticed if I got in a sauna and kind of sweated it out, then it would get a little bit better. So I think it's also your body being like, get this out of me, whatever you're eating. It
could absolutely be that. Or it could be your you re up regulating your skin microbiome.
Down to the, to the previous unhealthy, when they either, either one, or a combination, could absolutely be the
case.
Yeah, okay. So if people are interested in this, is there an easy like first detail, people to jump right in and just do it and get through the withdrawal, and get through the electrolyte up and down. Or is there a way to transition in more smoothly?
It depends on the person Mikayla is some people are teetotalers like it sounds like you're kind of like that. Yeah. I mean, I only enter, I'm not going to do it if you're that type of person that and and you're aware that
You're probably going to have some carbohydrate withdrawal symptoms for a few days. You're probably gonna have some diarrhea for a few days. There's no danger whatsoever to just going from from David 0 today, 1 to 100 percent carnivore diet. Even a lion diet. That's a no way dangerous. You may feel like crap for a few days. But if you're if you understand the physiology of why you feel like crap, you understand, it's worth it to stick with it. Other people are kind of incremental improvers, right? They can't. They're not teetotalers.
So for those people, I think it's perfectly fine to transition slowly and to use all the keto products as a transition tool. And then to slowly tighten up from Dirty keto or lazy keto to doing a more real whole food, one ingredient keto and then to transition from there to carnivore if you feel like you
need to
Yeah, I've noticed that this has been my experience talking to people specifically with serious autoimmunity is that some of those people have pretty bad transition symptoms? Because initially, I was saying, just jump in, because you're going to heal the fastest, the fastest, you get on the diet. So, even if the withdrawal, and and the transition symptoms are a bit worse, it's so worth it in the long run, but then there were a couple people and you talked about potassium, sodium, magnesium. There are a couple of people who
Regulate, their electrolytes and ended up super faint with like serious. Like sodium, just balances because they didn't increase their electrolytes first thing in a diet. So, I think jumping, right in, if you're, if you've done your research and you're aware that you probably need to take, I had I was taking almost 2,000 milligrams of sodium a day to regulate my electrolytes for quite a while until my body got used to it like maybe like a year and a half. It took a long time for me.
I think if you can mitigate those effects than the sooner the better. All right, hopefully
I agree. But different people have different methods of transition and I think that if they're, if they are self-aware enough to know which kind of person they are. Yeah, you should definitely use that to their advantage during the transition process, whether it's a teetotaler or an incremental because if you don't honor who you are as a person during the transition, your risk of
You're skyrockets, right? Because you're not, you're not following the path that you should be following. And so, I think it's important for people to try to understand which, which kind of person
am I
Yep, I agree. Okay. Dr. Barry. You've kind of, downplayed the size of your YouTube channel. How many subscribers do you have right now? I
think I have 1.6 million YouTube subscribers on my channel, which I'm very thankful for. I'm very grateful for, I had no idea when, when my wife, Nisha shamed me into starting a YouTube channel. I had no dream, that it would ever become what it's become, but I'm very grateful for that. And I'm grateful that I've
Had the opportunity to help so many people who have never met to, you know, and I get I get comments all the time on the videos. It's like you've helped me lose this much weight. And I've reverse these, chronic medical conditions and I no longer am contemplating having a knee replacement surgery because my knee doesn't work anymore that kind of stuff and that stuff to me. That's that is payment. That is, that is better than money. That's better than accolades from the American Medical Association, who can they can kiss?
My Ass, by the way, that's that's what keeps me going. Every day is the feedback from people who sang, Who's saying you have changed my life for the better.
Okay. So other than your YouTube channel, what's your YouTube channel, called, by the
way, Kim D Barry MD. But I think if you just search for dr. Barry, you'll find me.
You find it funny that your last name is
Barry. It is funny. And you know, there's there's somebody made a graphic of me. Dr. Barry and then dr. Shaun Baker and then dr. Paul salad Dino and they're like, it's funny that the three carnivore doctor.
Is all have carbs in their name and I think that's also funny but
probably, that's very funny. I find that very funny. Okay, you're also on Instagram, right? Yeah. Instagram
feeling, especially loving and kind I'll post on Instagram when I'm feeling especially snarky. I'll post on Twitter. I'm currently most proud of my growth on my Tick Tock. I think tick-tocks going to be the next big thing. Yeah, for sure. Understand it, but
Trying really hard to master it. I'm also I'm going to all social media because as I said in the beginning, my mission is to help as many people as I can, reclaim their best health. And the only way I'm going to do that is to reach out to people and the currently the way you do that is with social
media.
Okay. Well, I definitely recommend anybody listening if they're interested in these kind of diets to follow. Dr. Ken Berry. I've been following him for a while and he knows what's up. So, thank you very much for coming on. That was a fun
conversation. Absolutely.
Thank you for had luck with the book. Good luck with the book coming out to no.
Don't don't tell me. Good luck Micaela. Tell me to get my ass in gear. I need some
do it. It'll help a lot of people and also try that. You know, what, try the lion diet first and then do the book and then you can see the difference just in case like what if you're only operating at 80% right now and you don't even know
it. And that's a valid point. Will I'm going to I'm going to put that on the
schedule. Okay? Okay. Okay. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks a lot.
