Doctor Mike Goes Keto with Thrive Market

Doctor Mikhail Varshavski, commonly known as Doctor Mike, is a social media entrepreneur, philanthropist, and physician with a purpose. He stresses the importance of medical literacy and battles misinformation before a massive audience of over 7 million social media subscribers. As a board-certified family medicine physician, Varshavski is uniquely equipped to inspire and motivate countless people all over the world to live happier and healthier lives.

In his video, “Doctor Mike Tries Keto for 30 Days,” Varshavski takes us through his journey with the keto diet. What is keto? How does it impact the body? What are the best snacks and meals that keep you in ketosis? Varshavski covers everything— all with the help of Thrive Market.

Video Transcript:

Doctor Mike: It’s keto time. Keto, keto, keto. I challenged you to get my [first] keto video to 20,000 likes and you surpassed that goal plenty. And I’m actually really excited about this. I’m unfortunately fresh out of a breakup. So I’m more motivated than ever to change my lifestyle around, be healthier, look better. I wanna take you guys along for that journey. My one-month of keto starts now.

Starting the Keto Diet Journey

Doctor Mike: Actually, before we start, we have to give a huge thank you to our sponsor, Thrive Market. They actually sent all the food that you saw in the beginning of this video, which will help sustain me while I’m undergoing this crazy keto journey of mine. Thrive Market is a website that makes healthy living easy and affordable. Their prices are 25% to 50% off retail, and the best part is, you can organize their catalog based on the diet that you’re following. So when I’m doing keto, I can just click keto and it’ll give me all the products. If you’re a vegan, you can just click vegan and you get all your products. If you’re new to Thrive Market, they’re giving a special offer. If you click the link below in my description, you’re gonna get 25% off your first order, and you’re gonna get a free 30-day trial. Thanks Thrive Market.

All right, I’m gonna have my very first keto meal. It’s the middle of the day, I didn’t have breakfast, so I guess you could say I’m intermittent fasting today as well. This is my meal here, beef chili with all Oaxaca cheese and cauliflower rice. To my surprise, the first few days of keto weren’t that bad. I was totally expecting that I would go with keto-flu symptoms right off the bat. It wasn’t that bad, I didn’t have sugar withdrawal.

Working Out at the Gym while on Keto

Hi, well, I’m at the gym right now. This is my first heavy workout while on keto. And I gotta admit, I’m incredibly tired. And I got a good night’s sleep, so it’s not because of that. I suspect that it’s probably because I haven’t had carbs in four days or at least not enough to make me replenish my glycogen stores.

The weight stayed the same, my strength was there but I fatigued much earlier in my sets. I can’t even be certain it’s due to the keto diet, but that’s what was happening.

Keto Dieting & Cardio Workouts

All right, today’s my first day of cardio with keto on board, and I gotta admit, I’m feeling pretty tired. I just beat both of these guys, though.

I was able to keep up with them, and my sprints were fine and my game was fine, but I noticed that after a game or two, when I would be, somewhat out of breath, I was totally burned. I was really tired much more than usual. Again, not certain that it’s 100% due to the keto diet, but I do suspect keto was playing a role in my decreased stamina in my exercises.

Keto Week Two

Going into the second week of keto, I was starting to struggle a lot with my food choices. When I go to work and I’m going to be working a long shift, I can’t bring all of these goodies and avocado and all this stuff. So what did I do? I brought a Thrive Market can of salmon with some mayonnaise, and I basically ate cat food. Eating a diet that’s so high in fat, I mean, 75% of my calories were coming from fat, it’s difficult to maintain that. And I don’t plan well. For example, if I’m going to a big event, I should probably eat beforehand.

Maintaining Keto while Going Out

I’m at the Sebastian Maniscalco concert. The keto struggle is real because this guy is eating a full hot dog and I got to suffer right now with this.

You have to plan ahead if you want to stick keto. Because when you go to a fast food joint or a restaurant, yes, they may have a piece of meat but eating high protein is not keto. You have to be eating high fat, so you have to be thinking about what it is you’re gonna choose off the menu. And you can get a cheeseburger that’s very fatty, has sauce on it, that hopefully is carb free. That’s not optimal keto, that’s like the dirty keto that people talk about. You’re eating high saturated fats, overcooked red meats using processed oils and that’s not something I generally recommend or want for myself.

Doctor Mike’s Keto Results & Benefits

Two weeks. Two weeks in, I already had some results showing. My clothes were fitting better, my abs were coming out of hibernation, like one of them legit came out and said, “What up?” And I was like, “Oh, my God, look, it’s my ab, I used to see you back in the day and then you started hibernating.” It did surprise me that after two weeks of keto, I was already starting to see results. And now I get why this diet is so popular amongst people who are trying to lose weight quickly. And not that I’m advocating for that, but it was nice to see results so early on, and quite motivational. I will say though, the majority of the weight loss that happens in the first week or so is usually water-weight. That’s not gonna be sustainable, that speed of weight loss.

I feel like on keto, I wake up really hungry. Normally, I don’t mind skipping breakfast, but on keto I’m starving. It’s probably because I’m eating so much less calories than usual.

Getting into the later weeks of keto, I was getting hungry. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t satiated. I mean, eating a lot of fats, you get full quickly you’re no longer hungry. When I say hungry, I mean, more like cravings, bananas, cookies and cream milkshakes. And then I even noticed a pattern where I was hungry just because I was bored.

I had a high fat meal, I had some sardines with guacamole. I’m full. And I wanna munch on something, I just want to eat some chips. So I realized I like to bored-eat. And on keto, you really can’t bored-eat unless you just eat nuts all day. But I don’t understand how many almonds you can eat in one day before you’re…

Keto & Alcohol Drinks

I think I broke keto. I mean, not technically. I had several drinks last night. That technically drives you out of keto. They were not sugary drinks, I just had soda and alcohol but that does technically take you out of ketosis at least for a short while. So, you probably think I’m a failure.

Look, we all make mistakes. And two steps forward with one step back is still one step forward. That’s something that I want you to remember and take away from my keto journey. If you mess up, it’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t mean that you’re a failure. Yes, I had a few drinks and it took me out of ketosis for a little bit because your body actually metabolizes the alcohol and uses that as energy instead of fats. But it’s fine, as soon as I stop drinking the alcohol, the next day I was probably back in ketosis and everything was back on track. So did it slow down my progress? Probably somewhat, but it wasn’t the end of the world. If I treated it like it was the end of the world, that would hurt my progress because that would demotivate me and cause me to order some cookies and cream milkshakes. And we know we can’t do that on keto. I had a renewed determination to continue and finish my keto journey.

One Month of Keto Complete

One month of keto’s in the books. I made it. I ate 75% of my calories from fat, 20% from protein, 5% from carbs, I stuck to this bad boy. But let’s talk summary, let’s talk about what happened. First and foremost, body. I started this diet at 208 pounds. I ended, I weighed in this morning at 202 pounds. So that’s a six pound weight loss in four weeks, sounds pretty appropriate about 1.5 pound per week. My abs are showing a little bit more, which gets me really excited for summer. Now, when it comes to my mind, I don’t necessarily feel any big difference that jumps out but I do notice that I don’t crash as much, especially in the midday section.

Doctor Mike’s Keto Recommendations

Let’s talk recommendations. You need to have small meals and snacks at the ready. I trusted Thrive Market and they did not disappoint. You remember in the opening of the video all those things on the table? They’re gone because I ate pretty much everything, not only was it delicious, it’s totally affordable. Again, there’s that link down below in my description, you’re gonna get 25% off your order and a free 30-day trial. I really recommend you sign up, save some money, eat healthy, truly just be smart and plan ahead.

For the average healthy person going on a short course of keto will help them lose some weight and it probably won’t be detrimental to their health. If you’re gonna start a new diet, any diet for that matter, go see your doctor and have that conversation, figure out what are the benefits versus harms so you can make the most educated decision possible moving forward. I hope you guys enjoyed me trying out keto. If you want me to continue trying out weird things, diets, whatever, chop it down below in the comments and smash that like button. And if you tried keto and you had an experience of your own, also jump into the comment section, as you know, I’m very active down there.

Take your mind out of the gutter.

And if you wanna see more about my take on diets, click here for my playlist. And as always, stay happy and healthy.

For more, check out our ultimate guide to the keto diet!