Read the Transcript Below the Bio
Dr. Will Cole, leading functional medicine practitioner, specializes in clinically investigating underlying factors and customizing health programs for chronic conditions such as thyroid issues, autoimmune disease, autoimmune deficiency, an autoimmune disorder, hormonal dysfunctions, and more. He consults locally in the Pittsburgh area as well as a webcam and phone consultations for people across the country and around the world. Dr. Cole is a health writer for international publications such as mindbodygreen and lectures nationally. Dr. Cole is the author of the forthcoming book, Ketotarian, in which he melds the powerful benefits of a ketogenic diet with a plant-based one. (https://www.amazon.com/Ketotarian-Mostly-Plant-Based-Cravings-Inflammation/dp/0525537171)
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TRANSCRIPT:
This is auto-generated and may have mistakes. Please listen to the interview for accuracy.
Reena Jadhav: We have today Dr. Will Cole who is going to talk to us his new book, Ketotarian. Hi Dr. Will, welcome.
Dr. Will: Thanks for having me.
Reena Jadhav: So you have a new book coming out. Tell us a little bit about it. Why did you decide to write this book?
Dr. Will: Well, I am a functional medicine practitioner. I spend most of my weeks every week really with few exceptions I spend with patients and kind of immersed in finding out what works for people, what doesn’t, as it’s centered around food and natural medicines and lifestyle changes and just healthcare at large. And um, I’ve implemented different Ketogenic protocols over the years and I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. And now I’m, you know, I’ve known Keto podcast with Jimmy Moore called Keto talk and my kind of hear people’s questions on that level as well, just on a no podcast level. So I’ve been immersed in this world for a long time now and I myself was a Vegan for 10 years, like my teens and into my twenties a.
Dr. Will: So I have this sort of thought of like why I have a heart for the plant-based world and the reasons why people do that. And then I see I have a heart for the ketogenic world, but I also see how people can do the ketogenic diet wrong or unintentionally wrong. But I also see how the world in the plant-based world, how they can do their diet wrong or not ideal. So I really wanted to have this amalgamation of the best of the plant-based world and the best of the of the ketogenic world. And then the Ketotarian movement was born in my mind and my heart and really put it out into the road. Ends up in the form of a book. And it’s this plant-based ketogenic lifestyle guide of really how to calm inflammation levels down to balance hormone levels to become a fat burner, which is really the core of the plan based on the ketogenic world.
Dr. Will: But I love it. I’m just super pumped about it. And there’s a Vegan track. Basically, you can be Vegan Ketogenic, you can be vegetarian, Keto, genic and Pescatarian Ketogenic or what I call it, budget quarian. Basically eating wild caught fish and shellfish so you can kind of pick your level or you can be all three. Um, and really getting the benefits of Ketosis and eating Kido without falling prey unintentionally to the pitfalls, uh, that the conventional Keto either may or may go through. So you a lover of Keto, that’s why you wrote the book. What is it about the Keto Diet that you believe is healing to the body? What I put through a Rotarian and I explained in detail in the book is to shift your body to become a fat burner. And that’s really the genesis of a healthy ketogenic diet. Um, so our body has two forms of fuel.
Dr. Will: It can burn sugar and burn fat and most people in the West are in primarily as sugar burning mode and the body is sort of on his blood sugar roller coaster. It’s akin to like a dirty fuel, diesel fuel or like a tractor-trailer truck, the semi-truck where you are having a refill. Often it’s putting off a lot of exhausts into the environment and it’s not very efficient, so you have to refuel often and that’s where most people find themselves on their having to snack in between meals or having said he often they get hangry if they don’t, that’s hungry and angry, evil spawn and they are, um, kind of slaves to the next meal. So this is really an inefficient way to eat. It’s not actually sustainable, it’s not sustainable for our health. And the byproduct of this sugar burning mode is inflammation.
Dr. Will: Um, so oxidative stress, raising inflammation in the body, which is really the commonality between every chronic health problems that we see today. And this high insulin blood sugar erraticness, that’s the sugar burning mode to varying degrees. Most people are on a, even the healthier eaters out there. The real food eaters out there, the plant-based, the Paleo eaters, most of them are still in sugar burning mode where they’re still hungry between meals. They just be, they will be better off than your standard American diet or, um, there’s still varying degrees of the same thing. And then you can shift your body to being a fat burner, which metabolically you can shift to being fat burning or a nutritional ketosis. And it’s your body using fat for fuel, which is akin to being a hybrid car. You’re still going to burn some sugar, but your primary source will be, uh, be fat, which is the slow burner.
Dr. Will: It’s like a log on the fire, which versus the kindling on the fire, which will burn really fast. That’s the sugar as the kindling. The log is a low slow burning fat log, which is the food that we are a form of healthy fats, but also the fat on our bodies and our rne. So it’s just a more sustainable way to fuel our body. But you have to spend, uh, some time to kind of put your body into being a fat burning machine. Really, so I explained in Ketotarian to put eight weeks in two months and of shifting your body to being a fat burner. Uh, again, this is a plant-based Ketogenic. It’s not unconventional eating tons of dairy and meat, but it’s a plant-based approach to becoming an eating acute agentic diet. Um, so it has lots of benefits because your body becoming a fat burner.
Dr. Will: It’s not only more sustainable, um, your body also produces the main key town, which is Beta-hydroxybutyrate or BHB and Beta-hydroxybutyrate research is showing, has lots of cool health benefits so it can pass the blood-brain, the blood-brain barrier. It gives your brain nice clean fuel. So it’s good for brain function and cognitive sharpness, decrease in brain fog, and it’s also an epigenetic modulator, which means that it’s good for a lot of things like driving inflammation levels down. It’s a potent anti-inflammatory. You can also pass through the cell membrane and help with mitochondrial biogenesis, basically making new Mitochondria, which is good for cellular energy and cellular repair. So it has a lot of cool how benefits I could go on and on, but it’s basically putting the time in for eight weeks to become a fat burner. Then after there, you can either stay in Ketosis or like you had said, some of them.
Dr. Will: Maybe the critics have a ketogenic diet is not everybody has to stay in Ketosis all the time, but when you put in the time to become a fat burner, many people can go in and out of Ketosis as they see fit. They could increase their carbs after that healthy carbohydrates and they do fine, but this is about personalizing this cute and journey and finding out what your body loves, what your body hates. It’s not about dogma, it’s not becoming obsessive about macronutrients, not become obsessing about food. It’s about feeling great and wanting to feel great and finding out what makes your body feel great.
Reena Jadhav: Love it. What is the first week look like? So in terms of the menu, you know, for those who are saying, yeah, I think I want to give this a try, I want to take eight weeks and get myself into this ketosis mode. What is your bookshare in terms of options for the first week?
Dr. Will: Well, it depends on what level they want to go into because you can be a Vegan, Kito eater, vegetarian or pescatarian options, but you want plants are your primary source of all of these tracks. Uh, so
Reena Jadhav: vegetarian. So what would a vegetarian Keto menu look like for the first week?
Dr. Will: Right? So lots of green leafy vegetables and we give lots of recipes with pretty pictures and stuff. Uh, so they can kind of sink their teeth into eating vegetables beyond it being boring. I think a lot of times people think they have to eat like a rabbit to be healthy and you don’t have to eat like a rabbit in this many yummy, decadent, nourishing, satiating things that you can eat with vegetables. So it’s eating a lot of non-starchy vegetables. We say Florida, nine cups a day, um, as our base and then healthy plant fat, so Avocados and all the different ways you can have an avocado, uh, and also olives and olive oil and these other plant fats, nuts and seeds. These are other plant fats and then coconut and coconut oil, more plant fats. And then in the vegetarian world, you can have organic pasture raised eggs or get the healthy fats from eggs as well as ghee or clarified butter on those other areas to other vegetarian fat that they can have in Nikita Terry and paths that way. Um, so yeah, that’s, that’s the way to more or less. I’m being over simplistic here, but that’s the general components to the vegetarian ketogenic path in Ketotarian.
Reena Jadhav: And are they requirements like you do intermittent fasting along with it or can you graze all day? Is it three meals? Is the restructuring of the meal plan or is that pretty much open to personal taste?
Dr. Will: It is open to personal taste. So it depends on the activity level and what they like. So the only rules rarely eat when you are hungry and eat until you’re satiated and when you’re eating a healthy fat, bring the non-starchy vegetable and then you have non-starchy vegetables. Eat a healthy fat that’s really the Basic Keto, Tarian Isms as you will, as you like that sort of brought into the book so when you’re hungry, eat and when you’re not hungry anymore, stop eating. That’s how somebody is going to have to and when they’re in this fat burning state, they’re going to be able to do that. The body’s going to be clearly communicating to oneself as a, I’m hungry, let’s eat, and then when you’re not hungry anymore, you stop eating because your body is hormonally balanced and the inflammation is down. You have a clear communication line with your hunger signaling systems, but you mentioned intermittent fasting. That is another tool beyond the foods that you want to become a fat burner. Intermittent fasting is another great way to put oneself into ketosis or this fat burning state. So I go through all the different ways that you can intermittent fast and how to do it and exactly when to do it depends on the person. Um, but I put it all in the book to kind of explain exactly how to intermittent fast to put oneself into ketosis.
Reena Jadhav: What does your day look like? What does Dr will eat on a given day and recipes have you incorporated into your own daily diet?
Dr. Will: Yeah, so I am a very simple, simple man. So I intermittent fast in the morning, I have tea in the morning, I love peak tea. It’s these tea packets that are organic and you mix it in water. And then there are friends of mine that they’re brilliant. Basically, I intermittent fast on tea in the morning and then I will have a lunch, which is typically a big salad with Avocados in there, some avocado, oil-based dressing and typically would be some tuna. Uh, I eat fish typically at lunchtime, but it’s not necessary. You don’t have to. And you donuts and seeds with that as well. And then at dinner, sort of the same thing to varying degrees. It’s going to be a vegetable base with some plant tracks, a dinner, but the cool thing when you are in a fat burning state, uh, you don’t, you’re not at the whim of the next meal. I eat when I’m hungry and you can do random acts of fasting just not because you even think about it just because you’re not hungry. Um, so it’s a great way. I don’t know if this is showing up backward or not, but this is the book, um, but there’s a lot of cool recipes in there as like over 80 different recipes.
Reena Jadhav: Nice. Very nice. So that sounded like I’m a very healthy diet, sort of salad and protein. Protein for dinner. What do you do for a treat? Because he had a seminar class. We, we need treats.
Dr. Will: Yes. It, me included me included. This is no judgment zone. I love fat bombs. I love that bonds. I don’t know if you know, usually, roads in decadent coconut oil based trades and you can do like nut butter, like almond butter in them as well. They’re amazing and put some recipes in the book as well, but yeah, fat bombs are my go-to treat for sure, and there are awesome smoothie recipes. I make a fan of smoothies, green smoothies, and you can use them, your smoothies as a vehicle for healthy fat so you can put some avocado oil, coconut oil, nuts, and seeds in there to really have your smoothie be an agent for your healthy fats.
Reena Jadhav: I’m sitting here listening to you talk so much about fat in your imagine having this conversation even four years ago that was so vilified, right? To hear you say, you know, that’s the way to get your fats in because we were trying to get our thoughts out.
Dr. Will: Yeah, we paid for it. We paid for it. When we lower our fat has gone as a nation. The higher these health problems and brain problems have really risen. Our brain is 60 percent fat or an immune system needs fat or hormones need fashion. I mean this is a core macronutrient for our body’s survival.
Reena Jadhav: Absolutely. I feel so much better when I’ve had fat. You know, things get busy and sometimes I lose track of what I’m eating and I’m not being as conscious as in, in terms of including fat and I’ll feel it. I’ll feel it the next day that I just don’t have that energy to go run a marathon, which I normally wake up with. Absolutely. What do you think of MCT oil, you know, most Kito Diet? Talk a lot about MCT oil. Does it work? Should it be included? Which one’s your favorite?
Dr. Will: Yeah, so it absolutely works. It’s a good fat source for many people. Um, I, I typically don’t use it during fasting. I want my body to burn any fat. I don’t want it to get giving my body exogenous dot even though one can do it and I don’t shame anybody for doing that, but I definitely can be a tool to increase ketones. It can be a great tool to curb our appetite because the fat is so satiating and it’s good. An MCT, medium chain triglyceride, fats pass through the blood-brainThe blood-brain in the barrier is of clean fuel for the brain since good for cognitive function as well. So it is definitely a tool you can use to put the body in Ketosis.
Reena Jadhav: And which brand do you believe is a good brand because there’s so many brands out there, prices are all over the place and it’s backed. And how do you decide which is a good trustworthy brand?
Dr. Will: Yeah. I love a lot of brands out there, but perfect. Ketones are probably my favorite brand. Uh, they’re amazing and they have a lot of a macho one. They have a lot of different flavors of perfect key tones. They have exogenous ketones, some MCT products as well. If I had to go to any product to be that.
Reena Jadhav: How much MCT oil do you take in a day? And how do you typically take it?
Dr. Will: Well, I don’t take it every day. Food is primary for me. Food is fuel primary, but it’s when I want when I want to have it, maybe I want extra energy, then I’ll have it. Um, if somebody is new to their key cogenic journey, then they may want to have a little bit more to kind of get their body healthy fats and giving the body extra fuel as their bodies making that metabolic transition from being a sugar burner to a sap or nurse. Um, but yeah, I use it as needed. It’s not like an everyday thing, a need to take it every day, but it’s, someone wants to have it. They can enjoy it, like I mentioned, like MCT with the macho then than it’s great you’re using that macho and the benefits of the antioxidants of that with some MCT or, or exogenous ketones, you know, at large. But um, yeah, it’s as needed.
Reena Jadhav: Who is the book for? Who should really get out there right now and by the Ketotarian Book.
Dr. Will: Yeah. So I wrote it for a few people, which ends up being everybody. I don’t want to say it like that. I want to say more specifically, it’s a lot of people. Let’s not say it’s really not for everybody. It’s for the plant-based eater that I want to teach them how to do their diet a healthy way and not be carpentarian are inflammatory. And so this is unintentional problems of being Vegan and vegetarian and depending too much on unhealthy foods and then for the ketogenic diet are, and how to do the ketogenic diet in a plant-based way, in a healthy way. And I’m not saying they all have to be vegans and Vegetarians Pescatarians, but maybe bring more Vegan and vegetarian the pescetarian options in their kids and there, just their daily routine. So it’s for the plant-based and the ketogenic diet or then it’s also for the disillusioned person who doesn’t know what the heck to eat, uh, and they want to be healthy and they want to feel great. So those three categories are really, uh, whoever wrote the book for it. It’s not everybody, but it’s a lot of people that are looking for answers. And the people that I talked to the most and I kind of try to put all of these things that I see people do wrong and right in the books that they can have that pointed way.
Reena Jadhav: Personally, I think it’s about time we really needed a vegetarian, a plant-based diet book. So thank you for writing it. Have you tracked results? Have, have people gone through sort of acute Rotarian diet and shared their results, what, what they might experience at the end of the eight weeks?
Dr. Will: Yeah. Well, I mean because primarily I’m a clinician, I’m not an author a, I see patients all day long. So I know that’s what keeps me sharp really. And it keeps me kind of seeing on the ground level, the real-life level, what works and what doesn’t because I’ve heard everything you can think of as far as variables, people’s lives in their foods they eat and the foods they don’t eat it and all these different factors. Um, so yeah, I have 10 years of clinical experience at this point of looking at food and the impact that highest. Uh, and like I said, that’s really what made me even right. Ketones Varian was the clinical experience. The clinical experience actually happened before the book.
Reena Jadhav: Fantastic. Thank you so much Dr. well, any last parting advice for someone who is suffering from inflammation dealing with a chronic illness or an autoimmune ls? Any parting advice for them?
Dr. Will: Yeah, and maybe this is something you mentioned at the top of the conversation was that one of the credit critiques of the Ketogenic Diet is because people can become too obsessed about macronutrients and counting their proteins, fats and carbohydrates, and that’s really not what I wanted a Kito Terry to be focused on. It’s really a loving your body enough to nourish it with good food medicine and really this whole component and ethos of being a gray spaced way of eating and that’s really how this all comes about and I want that to be the genesis of anybody’s food choices, whether that’s Ketotarian or another way of eating has really just this self love approach to wellness and eating because stress isn’t good for your health and obsessing about food is not good for your health, so this is just a roadmap to feel great and I really feel like that whether they’re eating ketotarian or another way, I think it just has to be the genesis of their relationship with foods.
Reena Jadhav: Oh, I love that. Have a loving relationship with your food. Oh my goodness. I think half our problems would disappear if we all just followed that one basic role. You know? Sit and eat lovingly and enjoy your food. Don’t feel guilty. Don’t rush through it. And by the way, I’m speaking to myself at this point, most of my meals now that I’m so busy again, are sort of eating hardly eating more as a, Oh, I need to sort of nourish myself so I must eat as opposed to just having this beautiful loving relationship where you’re truly enjoying the food that’s, that’s being consumed. Love you. I love hearing that. Thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you so much for writing the book. For the rest of you, checkout Keto and it’s on Amazon. I’m looking at the Kindle version right now. We’re going to put the link in the show notes. If you’re listening to this while driving, do not make notes. You’re going to check out the show notes later for the link. If you love the podcast, please share it. Show some love, and we will see you on another podcast soon. Stay smiling.
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