#364 – AMA #75： Diets： how to evaluate and implement any diet including keto, carnivore, vegan, Mediterranean, and more
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Summary
In today's AMA, we re taking a closer look at how to choose a diet for yourself, rather than which diet is the best of them all. In this episode, we discuss the 5 non-negotiables every sustainable eating pattern must hit: Energy balance, metabolic health, adequacy of protein, micronutrient sufficiency, and long-term adherence. From there, we introduce a simple rubric: define the diet s rules, then pinpoint its strengths and weaknesses, and finally surface the potential pitfalls so you can make corrections when necessary. With that framework, I walk through the 4 diets you asked about: Ketogenic, Carnivore, Vegan, and Mediterranean, to show how to apply the framework.
Transcript
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Hey everyone, welcome to a sneak peek, ask me anything or AMA episode of the drive podcast.
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I'm your host, Peter Atiyah. At the end of this short episode, I'll explain how you can access
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the AMA episodes in full, along with a ton of other membership benefits we've created,
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or you can learn more now by going to peteratiyahmd.com forward slash subscribe.
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So without further delay, here's today's sneak peek of the ask me anything episode.
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Welcome to ask me anything AMA episode 75. In today's AMA, we're taking a closer look at how
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to choose a diet for yourself rather than which diet is the best of them all. I start by laying
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out the five non-negotiables every sustainable eating pattern must hit. Energy balance, metabolic
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health, adequacy of protein, micronutrient sufficiency, and long-term adherence. From there,
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we introduce a simple rubric. First, define the diet's rules, then pinpoint its strengths and
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ideal users, and finally surface the potential pitfalls so you can make corrections when necessary.
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With that framework, I walk through the four diets you asked about most, ketogenic, carnivore,
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vegan, and Mediterranean, to show how to apply the framework. We discuss why I'm aiming this episode
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at the majority of people who feel confused, not the diet zealots, so everyone has a common sense
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roadmap. A deep dive into each of the five non-negotiables for any diet and how missing
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even one can sink long-term results. Applying the define strengths, weaknesses rubric to keto,
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carnivore, vegan, and Mediterranean diets, highlighting metabolic effects, micronutrient
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gaps, and adherence hurdles. Practical ways to track progress, DEXA scans, important lab metrics like
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fasting insulin, hemoglobin A1c, CGMs, and simple symptoms to log, so you know whether a diet is
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actually working. Why there's no single perfect diet, and instead the best diet meets those five
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core needs and your current goals, and how to iterate as life changes. If you're a subscriber
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and you want to watch the full video of this podcast, you can find it on the show notes page,
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and if you're not a subscriber, you can watch the sneak peek of this video on our YouTube page.
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So, without further delay, I hope you enjoy AMA 75.
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Peter, welcome to another Ask Me Anything. How are you feeling?
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I'm honored to be back. Thank you for having me.
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Do you ever think about just sleeping in the podcast studio so you can just be ready
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at any given moment if we need you to record something?
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I think there are times when my wife would like that.
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We should just, on the other side of the table in the studio, just put a tent,
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and every now and then you and the boys just camp in the studio.
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Speaking of the boys, quick chess update. We had a little chess tournament,
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in-house chess tournament this weekend. I made it to the finals with the youngest,
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my youngest boy, and I was playing kind of a bananas game, kind of playing lights out chess.
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And this is the one that loves to trash talk, so it was awesome. And then I made this idiotic
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blunder, and in a second, the game changed. And five moves later, it's checkmate against me.
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And I was like, God, this is why I love and hate this game so much.
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I do love that you started this by bragging about making it to the finals of an in-house chess
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No, no, no. There were a few others. There were some other people in the tournament.
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I thought it was you and the two boys, both under 11. And I was like, it's kind of audacious to
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brag about making it to the finals of a three-person chess tournament, two of which can't even drive
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yet. But okay. That's good to hear there was more people involved. The bigger question is,
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when you lost that game, did any pieces go flying through the air?
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It happened one time, Nick. One time. I'll never live it down.
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No, no, no. It only happened that one time. I am not a chess piece thrower, ordinarily.
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Have you gotten Jill to start playing chess yet?
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I don't know. Never say never. You sometimes do things that you said you never were going to do
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in the past. So you kind of never know. I mean, much like this AMA, which is all on not only your
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favorite meta topic, but your favorite micro topic. Not only is this nutrition focused, but it's diet
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specific focused, which anyone who's listened to this for a while knows maybe not your favorite
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topic to cover, but I think it's going to be really good. Here's why. We get a ton of question
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on diets. And I think it's because there's so much information in the ether on diets. And so
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what we did is we gathered those questions. We went to the audience, asked for questions,
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combined them all, organized them, and we're going to structure them in this way.
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The goal here is to not be a nutrition AMA, which we've done before, which we can link.
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It's much more to focus on diets and to do it in a way that doesn't really talk about everyone
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should follow this diet or this diet or this diet, and not to kind of join the tribal battles that
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people see, but instead really just take a pragmatic listen and really identify how can anyone listening
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to this understand the pros, cons, how to think about diets, and put it into their own life.
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In it, we want to give people a framework to evaluate a dietary approach, whether you follow
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the same one now that you did years ago or you change in the future. To do that, we'll start by
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laying out the five non-negotiables that you think any diet must address. So no matter if it's
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vegan or carnivore, what are the approaches that they all should follow? And then we're going to
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evaluate each diet through a framework, which is what are the core requirements for that diet to
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work? What are its strengths, including who is it best suited for? Because oftentimes we've talked
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is sometimes there's going to be different diets that are better for different people. So what is
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that and why is that? And then we'll look at its weaknesses, which is if someone's going to follow
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a diet, what are some of the pitfalls and how can they be addressed and how can they avoid those?
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And then with that framework, we'll cover four of the diets that are asked about us the most,
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seem to be talked about the most, and paint the broadest picture, which is keto, carnivore,
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vegan, and Mediterranean. And we'll close with practical takeaways. So we got a lot of diet
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talk today. Anything you want to add before we roll into it?
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I think that's a good setup. I'll add two unrelated comments. The first is, yeah, you pointed out how
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much I just generally don't enjoy this subject matter. And the reason for it is it tends to
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very quickly degrade into tribal religious discussions, as opposed to scientific discussions.
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And there tends to be almost a morality that comes out of this, which I just frankly don't think belongs
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in the space. But at the convincing of many listeners and our team have reluctantly decided
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that it's worth doing. And I think that sort of feeds into the second point, which is, I came into
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this kicking and screaming, not wanting to do it. But I think Josh Roche on our team did a great job of
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pointing out, Peter, you're not doing this for the extremes. You're not doing this for the extremists
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in each of these camps. You're not doing this for someone who is so hardcore in a dietary camp
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that they believe that their diet is the one true diet. And anyone who doesn't eat that way is an
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awful human being. And like, you're not trying to talk that person off that perch. You're doing this
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for frankly, the 87% of people who are confused, who are in the middle, who don't quite know what to do,
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who have tried this and they're not sure if it makes sense.
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I think that was a very helpful framing for me because it's very easy for me to focus on the
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fanatics and the fanatics across all lenses really turn me off. But as long as I just keep in my mind
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that I'm not talking to those people, I'm here for virtually everybody else, which fortunately is
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the majority of people who just kind of want some common sense frameworks for how to evaluate
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these dietary strategies. So with that said, I feel a little bit better about it.
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That's great. I imagine you'd feel even better if you won that in-house chess tournament, but
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it's probably always good to have a chip on your shoulder.
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Don't think we're not having a rematch and don't think I am not going to put a world of hurt on
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that little seven-year-old. In chess, just to clarify.
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By the way, he spent the rest of the weekend walking around the house telling everybody how he
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smoked my bags. I mean, you couldn't help but laugh.
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You have to, especially because it sounds like he did.
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We'll save that for the seven-year-old roundtable we still need to set up.
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All right. So maybe before we start, we've kind of mentioned quickly, we did a nutrition AMA
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somewhat recently. We'll link to it. Do you just kind of want to walk through how you think about
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Yeah. So the nutrition AMA, which was released, I think it was December of last year,
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it covered the big picture questions. Is there a best diet? How does nutrition compare to exercise
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for health outcomes? How much protein do you actually need for maintenance versus muscle growth?
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But it didn't really delve into, I think, the way most people think about it, which is individual
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dietary approaches. Now, in the past, I've said, look, people should pick a diet that they can stick
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to and that meets a certain list of non-negotiable physiologic states and needs. But how to exactly
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go about doing that? We haven't talked about that, frankly. And frankly, what should people watch out
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for? How do you make a decision and know if it's the right choice for you?
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