Colette heimowitz welcome to the ketocam podcast nice to be here Ben it's nice to see you again to see you uh we're going to have a great conversation which I believe is going to be very valuable to my audience that are doing keto they've heard of Atkins they want to know what is the difference between Atkins and keto and you're the right person to ask I mean you've worked directly with Dr Atkins you've written books with them and you've seen a lot of the uh myths out there so before we even get to all that good stuff how did you even get involved with the work of Dr Atkins what's your backstory oh yeah so I was in private practice working in physics Physicians offices and my job at the time nutrition was all the rage then back 25 years you know it was new and doctors were interested in getting nutrition information to the patient so I would go in set up a Nutrition department train their nurses and their Physicians assistants create diets that address certain diet related diseases like heart disease diabetes hypoglycemia food allergies and then leave behind you know the handout materials for the health professional staff so I would go through I would spend maybe two to three years in each office and then move on to the next office and at the time alternative medicine was the big rage and so I would set up um educational material for doctors and see private patients in their office my last stop was with Dr Atkins because in my private practice I found that the only way I was able to get the clinical results in patients profile you know when they do blood tests the doctor's blood test and you have your your profile and we checked that blood sugar the only way I can get the clinical results with their lipid profile and their blood sugars was to go lower in carb so I created a hypoglycemic diet you know where they would eat five times a day they would eat protein and vegetables and fruits and nuts and and that worked really well and then that really stubborn passion that needed to go very low in carb I was I was hesitant to do because I did there wasn't a whole lot of research 20 25 years ago so I went to Dr Atkins and I said how low can I go can I look at your records to see the the results of going very low and then he said well you know I need a nutritionist said you want to come work for me so you could see for yourself and I went sure it was time for me to move on you know to my next practice anyway so the first thing I did in his office was a retrospective study now there was no computerized records back then everything was handwritten but I managed to study about a thousand patients histories to look at their blood response and the level of carbohydrate and what I found was women in their 70s and 80s when the HDL of 70. it was like wait a minute I can't get athletes to have good cholesterol like wow I couldn't believe that the lipid profile was better all the risk for heart disease was better all the risk that pre-diabetes was better and oh by the way they lost weight I was more interested in the health outcomes but anybody that had any amount of overweight on them disappeared so I became very passionate it's like well you got to tell the world about this we got the right push we have to fund research this is incredible and uh and there wasn't much research I mean he didn't create the diet he got the diet out of a medical journal that he read um but there was there wasn't much back then so we finally met with Eric Westman from Duke University yeah and Dr Atkins went into his own pocket and funded a pilot study that could be published and then once it's published in peer-reviewed journals scientists get really interested in that so we start we showed safety efficacy of the diet and then of course 20 years later here we are we have you know 200 randomized controlled trials and independent done by the NIH done by universities in private practice to show safety and efficacy super cool yeah I know I was there from the beginning and I loved watching the progression yeah and everybody knows Atkins I mean Atkins diet Atkins books it's it's every year it remains to be very popular which I love and the question I get asked all the time and I want you to answer the question is what is the difference between an Atkins diet and a traditional ketogenic diet okay so the Atkins diet has four phases the original Atkins diet the first phase is Atkins 20. that's ketogenic no different than the ketogenic diet you see today moderate protein high fat the only carbohydrates you're consuming are vegetables mainly because there's not much you know with 20 grams is that much you could put that's ketogenic when and the same as what you see out there today yeah when research Advanced and we looked at the clinical outcomes what the research Community found and what we observed is that you could maintain a ketogenic metabolism at 50 grams of Total Car Pro less now what I saw in private practice is that the 20 gram was hard to sustain um you know people would lose their weight and then they'd start adding carbs and there was always a carb creep and there was always weight gain and then some you know some deleterious effects to their health so um we created the four phases and that was when Dr Atkins was still alive four phases so the Atkins 20 and then the owl owl ongoing weight loss where you start to add five gram increments of carbohydrates each week and then those pre-maintenance and maintenance so this way an individual could find their personalized carbohydrate tolerance some people had to stop at 60 some people had to stop at 50. some people could take in 100 grams of carbohydrate and maintain their weight so the four phases of Atkins once you get above 50 grams of carbohydrate it's no longer ketogenic then the body switches back and forth between ketosis and glucosis and you know it's not the ketogenic more recently we created the Atkins 40 program because what we thought is like okay if Atkins 20 is too rigid too complicated four phases adding five grams a week you know what some people give up so we created the Atkins 40 program which is you could start at 40 grams in that carb as long as you're under the 50 you're still in a ketogenic diet but now you could have some berries and you could have some nuts and a little bit of full fat Greek yogurt and with more variety it's more sustainable still ketogenic but with more variety that's where we part some ways from the rigid ketogenic diet that's only vegetables and healthy fats and moderate protein and then more recently we created the Atkins hundred program people don't want to go through the floor phases you don't have a lot of weight to lose you just said pre-diabetic right now you could do an Atkins 100. you're still taking in half the amount of calories and carbohydrates that the American public has taken in but you still have the health benefits so the difference is Atkins has more choices more variety more sustainability for a lifestyle approach rather than always staying low and there's some people at house that have to always stay low if you're a diabetic and you want to avoid insulin you got to stay low but they're more motivated because they're treating the disease yeah or if you have epilepsy and not responding to medications you're more motivated you're going to live at 20 for the rest of your life on a ketogenic diet yeah I love the flexibility in those different plans and I actually personally like the idea of rotating the plans I mean one time so do you like that idea too absolutely yeah it's a slippery slope when you when somebody has a lot of weight to lose and the primary outcome is weight loss if you if you switch from Atkins 40 seconds 100 seconds 40 you're not staying in the fat burning mode and you want to get rid of that extra fat first so when you're close to your weight goal and if your primary outcome is is weight then my suggestion is to stay low and add very gradually to find your carbohydrate tolerance but somebody that's young and healthy and they're just doing keto because I feel great and they look great and their bloods are great and yeah definitely I would you know I would always tell people you could carb cycle yeah absolutely agreed and I think you said the Atkins 20 is 20 total grams of carbs you said the Atkins 40 is uh 41. the original Atkins was Atkins 20 total the new one when we found when we we change our advice based on the emerging research what we found is that fiber has a minimal if any impact on blood sugar in the success of that ketogenic is controlling blood sugar and avoiding spikes and blood sugar and too much insulin so the Atkins 20 current Atkins 20s 20 net carbs got it yeah got it and for those who don't know it's total carbs minus fiber equals net so it gives you a little bit more wiggle room but more vegetables more vegetables right that's ideal way to get those carbs not in different sources so keep that in mind vegetables would be the the goal there unless you're doing like a 40 you could add some berries and 100 you have more room but yeah right even if you're doing the Atkins 100 which is 100 grams of carbs it's still less than half of the standard American diet so it's still low carb but it's not low enough you know essentially yeah and we tell people don't have it all at once you know that you have to spread out your carbs to avoid the spike in blood sugar so we recommend to shoot for 25 net carbs per meal that's good and 25 for snacks in between meals so we know that in America most people have metabolic dysfunction uh there was that study that came out from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill 2018 which showed 88 of American adults were unhealthy yeah what's the main contributor here is it is it only that we're eating a high processed carbohydrate diet is the frequency is it both is it something else what is the what are the main contributors to why we have this percentage Yeah it's a little more complicated it's the environment you know that we live in and all the toxins that we're exposed to it's the inactivity it's sitting in front of computers all day and lack of exercise and I think the main culprit however is over consumption of carbohydrates especially the high glycemic carbohydrates in processed foods so and when the U.S dietary guidelines are telling people to consume 50 to 60 percent of the carbohydrates and it's considered healthy and every government program ladders up to the dietary guidelines so the you know the the programs that feed the most needy that's why you have so much diabetic uh population an obese population and the people that are depending on Snap or or food stamps even the school lunch programs have to follow the dietary guidelines yeah um the military have got to follow the dietary guidance everything ladders up to the dietary guidelines and we've done lobbying in Washington to talk to them about it you know it's like the cost of diabetes and obesity to our our government is incredible it's it's growing at twice the rate of inflation and it's costing trillions of dollars in health care costs and their excuse to me was well this is only for healthy people it was like all right so now you're talking to 12 of the population and ignoring 88 of the population so right now there's a Bill in Congress from uh congressman from California and he's proposing that there's separate advice for people with diet related diseases and that it would have it would still let her up to the dietary guidelines and and you know what you're not going to change you insist on not changing and continuing to do the same foolish thing over and over again let's have different advice for the people that need different advice yeah so I'm praying that he gets somewhere with a bipartisan bill so we have scientists familiar with the research to be able to advise on a lower carbohydrate diet I mean the American Diabetes Association has done it recently you know the Atkins 100 type you know 130 but that's still better than what the dietary guidelines are recognized it's progress yeah it has done it it's recognized lower carb and we we've seen the tops University come out with that food Compass recently right and and they're showing you know foods to be encouraged Cheerios and Frosted Mini Wheats food to be minimized like red meat eggs and cooked in butter it's like the the opposite of what should be doing the ladder up to the food guy pyramid yeah exactly it's important until we change the food that pyramid the dietary guidelines it's all correct it's been continued to you know make the same old mistake over and over again yeah so the next question is this you mentioned that the main culprits are processed carbohydrates eating them frequently we know that the optimal amount of glucose in the bloodstream when you're in a fasted state is about one teaspoon right 80 milligrams per deciliters what happens when it's more than that and what is this Advanced glycation end product that is Created from sugar okay to keep it simple um if you've ever tried to make caramel you know that gooey gappy stuff which is sugar and protein right when you combine sugar and protein you get this thick um sticky and sticky and what that does is attach to the walls of the arteries and form plaque eventually it gets hard and then heart disease is right behind it so two grams or two to four grams of blood sugar is what the body is equipped to circulate all the time so you do more all the time meaning when you're eating as well and the body will get that glucose from other from the liver from muscles from any place to maintain that level of two to four grams of sugar which is equivalent to about a teaspoon of sugar when you go too high by eating a high glycemic carbohydrate like white bread white rice pretzels potato chips ice cream the loose goes on and on and on um you raise your blood sugar and if you want to know how much it's getting raised you could look at the glycemic load GL of food and then you'll know how much your blood sugar is going up right every time it goes up the body knows hey that's too much sugar it elicits the pancreas to produce insulin because insulin's job is to take that extra blood sugar take it out of the bloodstream it doesn't belong there takes it to the cell for energy what it doesn't need for energy it's stored as fat in the form of triglycerides so somebody that's over consuming carbohydrate will have high triglycerides and low HDL perfect scenario for stroke that gives you a higher risk of stroke so the way to avoid the spikes in blood sugar is to consume low carbohydrate foods low glycemic type of carbohydrates if you don't want to go really low spread them out eat a carbohydrate with fat and protein yeah the emptying time of the of the blood sugar that goes into the bloodstream you know so you don't get that spike in the too much insulin and then what happens why we have so many pre-diabetics and diabetics 52 of the population by the way um is insulin becomes less and less effective you know it's like a it's like a car you know just blood sugar metabolism gets run down insulin is not as effective and now you have insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome with insulin resistance you have chronically high blood sugar and then eventually diabetes and then eventually diabetes leads to a whole host of other disease yeah so you you mentioned um a good good marker to get done you know take away for the audience is get your blood triglycerides and blood HDL done what is your looking at that ratio of triglycerides divided by HDL what would you consider an optimal ratio there I like to see triglycerides under 100 okay and HDL above 60. so okay under 100 for drugless rides above 60 for HDL and then if you do you look at the ratio at all yeah sure yeah okay so I would say probably like 100.5 or other 1.0 would be a good ratio right yes um and total cholesterol doesn't tell you anything yeah total cholesterol it's the number one question I get asked one milligram yeah it's insane number one question I get asked is you know I'm worried about doing keto or I'm doing keto my cholesterol is high and I'm like no what else can we see here yeah when you're burning fat it's not going to accumulate yeah in fact saturated fat won't even raise your your risk for heart disease when you're burning fat yep and then the market that you look for for your blood sugar is hba1c yeah the doctor will do that and that's an average of your blood sugar over a three-month time that has to be under sex yeah even better other than like five if you can probably but yeah for sure under six right and yep and and but to your point those sugars including the A1C might not even change for several years but that insulin could be just pumping out in the pancreas could be pumping out insulin so do you recommend also getting a fasting insulin done to look at that taxes are really reluctant to do that and I still say this they don't understand why um maybe it's not that accurate I'm not sure but um that would be great if you can get your doctor to do it that would be a nice indicator but it's only a snapshot you know you need to know what's the only way to know that is with a pump you know over a longer period of time to know how the insulin is performing yeah the way I like to do that I mean you could let me know what your thoughts are is either putting like a continuous glucose monitor or some on somebody or having them do the finger prick one hour post print deal two hours post brand deal to get an idea of how their insulin is doing yeah I think the best thing that's happened recently is the gluco monitors yeah because people could see immediately what a food is doing to their blood sugar yeah that would that's been the greatest thing for pre-diabetics and diabetics because then they learn which foods are doing it without an intellectual learning type thing it's more kinesthetic you know it's like here it is this is what it's saying I'm not going to have that anymore yeah exactly it's such a great tool and then the fasting insulin part there are ways to kind of work around the doctor you could actually get them online some some companies actually offer kits so I do see that as a valuable resource another tool in the shed right sure going back to cholesterol you mentioned that looking at total cholesterol is not going to give you much data but just the role of cholesterol how important is it to have cholesterol but also the proper amount in your body precursors to all the hormones in your body yeah and and it offers the org it you know it it's great for the immune system um so you know patients used to be so proud I got my cholesterol under a hundred and that would freak me out when it was that low I would always be very low cholesterol and people whose was totally immune compromised you know something was really wrong with a patient that naturally had that low chronic cholesterol and but that's what they do they give drugs they drive it as low as possible to get that risk ratio down but total cholesterol isn't telling you anything you have to look at the entire profile and not only LDL but the the size of the part of the ideas Size Matters in this case Size Matters yeah so break that down a little bit you have the small particles large particles what do they mean so the large fluffy kind of LDL is less likely to attach to the arteries and form health pack the small dents uh particles of the kind that will attach to the arteries and form black like too much LDL is not such a great thing it has it has to be in ratio to the other things in your profile but the law if it's large fluffy ldlp sometimes when you do ketogenic your LDL does go up yeah a lot of times it's because you're losing weight and you have more free fatty acids circulating but then I'll tell my patients if if it's a result of HDL going up and triglycerides going down you just have more free fatty acids circulating any bloodstream let's check the particle size and see what the risk is now there are some genetic predispositions that diet's not going to touch you know there are some patients that have that Gene and and I like to use natural sources of lowing cholesterol but there's you know some patients just need a low dose of Statin at times yeah and what you said is important about the LDL get the particles done do you run an NMR test uh nuclear magnetic resonance yeah and uh see if they're in the right ratios but if you see the H dug going up and the triglycerides dropping that might be the reason why and it's not prop it's not going to keep technically up long term it could be a short-term thing yeah without professions we would tell them don't repeat the profile before six months because it takes a while yeah first thing that to respond is triglycerides plummet the next one triglycerides go down then HDL goes up total cholesterol will go up temporarily LDL will go up temporarily but eventually in long term six months to a year it'll it'll improve as long as you're sticking to it that's good do you also look at inflammatory markers like hscrp for burning homocysteine what are your favorite ones to get I liked Thomas's theme yeah yeah that's pretty that's pretty good indicator for heart disease and could you explain what that's looking at like what is homocysteine it's just about inflammation in the body you know that and that's why coven played such Havoc with our population because we're already inflamed from too much insulin um from being overweight and obese from eating inflammatory type foods and that was a disease of inflammation yeah so true so true that that conversation should be around metabolic health absolutely yeah what are your thoughts on protein um some some keto Advocates recommend you know all the protein you can get some say low protein some say I know Atkins is more moderate but what are your thoughts on total like the total amount of protein to consume and the types like plant versus animal yeah um it depends yeah so when you're aging you need a little more uh you know you're losing muscle and you know you want to retain as much muscle as possible when you're working out and building muscle you need more um but I I tried as a general rule to tell people never to go over 30 of total calories that too much protein is not good it stresses the kidneys it will turn to glyconeogenesis will turn into glute blood glucose not as much as carb soup but some to some extent um so but a general rule that's pretty safe if you keep it under 30 of total calories you're you're in a safe Zone in some cases a ketogenic diet they like it at a 20 Mark okay and what about fasting are you a fan of intermittent fasting what about honestly with with a clean ketogenic diet you don't I don't think you need it it's not going to hurt anybody it's a good practice to do just for detox purposes and to clear out at any extra insulin and blood sugar so I tell people that are on the strict ketogenic diet you only need to do 12 to 18 hours you don't need to do longer than that um and I plan if you do long into then that it throws off your appetite cues there's a certain calorie requirement that you have when you don't need it the signals of hunger will go to the brain and your signals won't be the same as what your physiological needs are so I like the idea of 12 hour fast is good for anybody just you know for your digestion and better sleep and all of that 18 hours okay for detox but honestly if you're on ketogenic I don't find it necessary got it so you are a fan of intermittent fasting 12 to 18 hours but longer than that not necessary not necessary if you're on keto you're already detoxing you don't have spikes in blood sugar and insulin I've seen people who do keto naturally begin to intermittent fast as just like a byproduct of feeling satiated right that is hungry yeah yeah um you have a book which is the Atkins 100 one of your books but is that your latest book The Atticus yeah the uh this one eat right not less Atkins yeah we went through this is when we went through in more detail about the Atkins 100 program but the what I when I think we did here that's so brilliant and we we showed people how to do in Collins right next to each other here's what Atkins 20 looks like here's what Atkins 40 looks like here's what Atkins 100 looks like oh cool you could see not much difference you know what I mean you're just adding maybe a starchy vegetable and a Atkins 100 but in a control portion maybe a tablespoon of chickpeas you're not going crazy with carbs in Atkins 100. so you get to see in the book exactly the difference between the three and then you could choose what level that you think you could sustain because the most important thing is sustaining it the worst thing is to go from high fat low carb moderate protein to high carbohydrate and now you're used to eating a lot of fat and you're still eating a lot of fat that's the worst combination high fat high carb and to and to go back and forth like that is no good you have to find something that you can sustain which is why we have so many options for people that's great yeah we'll put a link for that book and all your books in the notes below uh what advice would you give somebody who maybe they've been doing keto or one of these Atkins plans for three months and they've gotten some results but they feel like the results are slowing down what are some things that kind of break that stall well there's several things you have to look at and are you under more stress stress is a profound effect on on your weight and your health um are you have you done a carb creep have you gone beyond your carbohydrate tolerance um and and sometimes we just don't know I mean sometimes the body just needs a break from weight loss all the toxins that we have stored in our bodies in our fat cells that's right so when you're burning fat you're releasing those toxins and sometimes the body says yo wait a minute I need some time to clear the liver out you know there's a little bottleneck going on so sometimes I just tell people no pun intended wait it out if they've gone beyond their carbohydrate tolerance then I'll tell them to cut back on 10 grams of carbohydrate or go back to the Atkins 20 for a week just to get fat burning stimulated again yeah that's a great tip yeah I love that you addressed the stress part first could you talk to a little bit more about that and how stress causes weight loss resistance and all these health challenges hormone cortisol so when you're under a lot of stress the body produces cortisol the body then will produce insulin to buffer the effects of cortisol because it's a stress hormone and it has deleterious effects of your health so now you're producing a lot of insulin without carbs you're just producing acid which causes water retention sodium retention inflammation you know from excess insulin so the the thing is to find a way and sometimes we'll do it through supplements you know there are you know theanine and uh and lots there's other kinds of something that you could take to bring down the the level of stress but exercise is a great tool to get rid of and control stress meditation um you know that then that's when we we push alternatives to try to get that stress level down because that's the one thing that's so important you're right it's cortisol is that the bully over block right so so is insulin when they're around they're like just causing Havoc right uh What will what will the Sleep play with this again if you don't get too much sleep the body doesn't have time to heal and that is the stress on the body you could you know too few sleep could cause your recovery to be slower your heart rate to be higher um it's important to get at least you know seven hours a night at least yeah so true there was a study that came out there's several studies but one of them that I'm thinking about in healthy men after seven days of being sleep deprived so not getting enough Total Sleep seven days in a row they had blood glucose levels of uh pre-diabetic right because cortisol and all the other processes happening there it's insane it's just from that seven days that's wild so yeah you mentioned the American Diabetes Association and how they there there's some progress which which is good yeah and the food pyramid and this new bill being proposed in California like what what do you what do you predict the the future next five years in America what is it going to look like I think we're at a Tipping Point right now I mean they don't have a choice and the population is sick yeah uh and there's this whole food is medicine initiative going on um that I'm encouraged about the White House conference on food and hunger I mean and nutrition they're looking at diet related diseases once you look at this science there's no other conclusion that you can come to I mean the dietary guidelines was very um clever at eliminating the low carb research because they have a research library that they produce for the scientists to review and come up with their recommendations based on science right but it depends on the questions that you ask and what the inclusion and exclusion criteria is so what they did very cleverly is they eliminated any study that had a primary outcome of weight loss boom there goes all the low carb research wow so now that more food is medicine is intriguing you know the top of the pyramid they're curious about that and they will include weight outcomes in the next rendition of the dietary guidelines based on an independent study from the National Institutes of science medicine and Engineering the Mason report they recommended that they look at you know a broader array of research so once the research is able to Bubble Up for them to consider and look at then they're not going to have a choice but to that's how the Ada did it that's how the AHA did it that's good yeah so I think we're in a good place maybe not for the next rendition because the government has moved so slow but uh but if we have different advice for diet related diseases that'll help what about this push of um a plant-based diet the vegan push which is super strong they've got really good marketing like where are you not going yeah well I'm a type O blood so I need animal protein I was a vegetarian for 10 years and I had to run like six miles a day not to gain weight oh because as as a good vegetarian you need to combine your proteins and get you know whole grains and beans and and to get some good protein um so for me it didn't work I did it because it was a philosophical thing you know so I don't think there's anything wrong with it as long as you're getting your protein um but now that we have such such great medical foods and protein Alternatives like whey protein Dairy protein pea protein um there's ways to supplement the diet that you don't become B12 deficient um so yeah if that's your thing there's ways to do a vegetarian diet and do Keto if you're a vegan it's harder so I tell people get at the level of 50 or below total or 40 net or below because you're going to need some Dairy and some nuts um no begging wouldn't have dairy so you're gonna need some nuts um you know in I don't know if they eat eggs does vegan eggs vegans don't vegetarians would but the vegans just plants no yeah it's hard it's hard to get I mean I understand it because it's state of the environment but um it you know it depends on your metabolism your blood type your activity level some people just do better with animal protein I think most people do actually I mean and I think there's a lot of misconceptions with meat in the environment and the challenge is this and I was a vegan for a year and a half not a vegetarian for 10 years but I also did it for more like philosophical reasons but it didn't it didn't work for me and I I didn't want to destroy my health right so the problem is this Colette even if they're getting enough protein on the vegan or vegetarian diet if it's a plant-based protein it's just not bioavailable the anti-nutrients you have to make them complete so that's a challenge you know yes absolutely yes so you know so there have been ways to do it right I did a Blog about meatless Monday you know what you want to contribute something there's a lot of research here just having a meatless Monday do some tempeh or tofu on that day and or some you know with eggs and dairy that would contribute something yeah the temp in Tempeh and natto like fermented toys would be a good source right like non-gml fermented soy so there's ways to get the protein it's just I think for most people animal base would be a lot better for you oh yeah yeah I found that for me too right but I understand it so I you know what I don't want to say don't do that you know yeah yeah that are health conscious as well as environmental conscience eventually like you and I will come to that conclusion themselves right exactly um what are some of the misconceptions around Atkins there's a lot of myths going around like what are the most common ones you've seen regarding Atkins well that is excessively high in protein you could eat all the steak you want I mean for years they had whenever there's any mention of Atkins in the media there was a steak frying in butter that's true yeah on magazines they would show that yeah or hamburgers with butter melting on top so it's not excessively high in protein it never was and I challenge Dr Atkins once because he he used to say eat all the protein you want it's like well you really can't eat all the protein to one he says Colette they're not going to eat all the protein we want protein is satiating carbohydrates are reinforcing so if you get if if if you let them think they could eat every all they want if something they're more likely to try it and you know that was he had marketing mind but no you can't eat all the protein you can't eat 20 ounce steaks three times a day it's it so the misconception is that it's it's too high in protein and that doesn't have any vegetables and and if you follow the Atkins well constructed low carbohydrate diet you're taking in six to eight servings of vegetables a day yeah he is right it is very hard to overdo it with protein right the closest kind of the leptin the peptide yeah it might do it for a day or two but that that's really I'm done it's the same reason why like if you went to a restaurant and got I don't know like a 16 ounce Ribeye and you finished that you're like stuff they bring the dessert card you're like I got room for that but yeah like no way different chemicals right from carbs versus protein yeah um there's also a myth that uh Dr Atkins diet from heart disease as well so you want to address that too yeah I was there he it was in April it was a hail rain so an unusual time of the year to have hail and rain and freezing sidewalks he used to walk to work in Manhattan in Midtown and he slipped on the ice as simple as that he hit his head on the curb of the concrete curb and his brain swelled they opened him up to get the swelling down but he but by the time that all happened he was already brain dead Mrs Atkins had a hard time pulling the plug because he was on life support now when you're on life support they give you intravenous fluids to maintain the body and but the kidneys aren't working none of your organs are working so he just blew up through a blew up from the liquids that they were giving him for a week before she was ready to pull the plug so there was the um there was Physicians for alternative medicine you know that's a vegetarian front group no Physicians for forget the name of the group but anyway it's run by Paul O'Neill who's a vegetarian he sent a doctor to the emergency room the cardiologist to say he needs his records he wasn't his doctor the hospital gave him the records on the records it showed that his weight was 2 16 years you know something obese um and he had cardiomyopathy which is an infection of the sack of the heart nothing to do with diet so of course they wanted to get it out in the media that he does he had heart disease and he was obese when he died that's awful nothing to do with that Mrs Atkins sued when she won the lawsuit because what they did was unethical yeah and then I called Paul O'Neill who runs positions for responsible medicine that's it okay it's like what's going on anyway it's like you you could be a vegetarian I'm not going to judge you you know it's like okay it's like but why are you so against the neck and science because Dr Atkins pushes meat I grew up on a on a Slaughter farm for beef and it traumatized me and I I cannot bear the thought of people eating beef wow so you know what I can't argue what do you say I mean it's a very emotional decision that he made and it's yeah um but yeah it's like okay see you later man I thought I could do some diplomacy but yeah I know there's nothing nothing you do there um what what what was your favorite or a couple of favorite things about working with Dr Atkins like what did you learn from him well um he wasn't a he was a clinician he was a really good clinician not a researcher so it took some pushing to get him to get the research out there because he thought anybody can come to his practice and he would help them and we had a whole patient coordinator Department bringing him in from all over the world setting him up in hotels and making all their appointments within a two-week period so they can get all their tests done before they go back home I mean he he just wanted everybody to go to him because he wanted to heal the planet he was really passionate clinician and he really cared about his patients he wasn't a researcher and he and he was his personality was a little cantankerous like he would call people's names like dietitians he he had he had a dog that he named that he thought was smarter than some of the registered dietitians that might have been right best way to influence people and make friends yeah yeah so there's a lot of arrows exactly so in that way it was it was hard because I'm more of the Diplomat and I try to you know bring everybody in the circle but he was just so passionate about helping people in such a great clinician you know I had a lot of respect for him in that manner yeah that's wonderful and you're uh you know you're carrying the Legacy with with your work and your books and all the cool things that you're doing where where can the keto campers my audience uh check you out where do you want them to go well um you could read the book s the blog that I post every week um there's a community there uh where people experience low carbers could help each other through difficult times answer questions when there's a nutrition question that needs professional advice the moderator will ping me to post in there so you could talk to me within the community there and the website it has every all the information you need you know you could search anything we also have a health professional portal hcp so Atkins hcp.com all the research is in there um we actually did some food modeling so we have meal plans that meet all of the macronutrient requirements as well as fiber requirements and nutrient requirements so you can see what a well-constructed Atkins diet looks like in the meal plans um and the recipes are great they're all original they're all low carb and they're all delicious awesome yeah we'll put your website down below and we'll get your social media and put it down below what last question for you is about what I call a vitamin G gratitude my favorite vitamin on what are you grateful for today Collette I'm grateful to be here with you today awesome and I'm grateful to be still alive to see Hope for Change for the future that's beautiful well I'm also grateful to be with you today thank you for your tremendous research and dedication and for carrying the Atkins torch I love that you're you forward so thank you for coming on the show today nice to see you