Low Carb MD Podcast - Episode 308: Dr. Amy West

Duration: 1h 12m
Broadcast on: 03 Dec 2023
Audio Format: other

Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Low Carb MD Podcast. Dr. Amy West is a specialist in sports medicine, physical medicine, and rehabilitation. Amy completed her residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard-Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and her fellowship in Sports Medicine at Maine Medical Center. Dr. West is actively involved in the CrossFit community and CrossFit Games Medical Team.

In this conversation, Dr. Tro, Dr. Brian, and Dr. Amy talk about Amy's career path, the field of physiatry, the principles of Crossfit, starting Crossfit as an overweight person, what sets Crossfit apart from other gyms, the downside of workout machines, the connection between mental, physical, and metabolic health, muscular and skeletal health, big companies influencing nutrition and exercise guidelines, widely circulated lies about dietary protein, the importance of functional strength training, and the importance of improving balance and glute strength.

For more information, please see the links below. Thank you for listening!

Links:

Dr. Amy West:

Dr. Brian Lenzkes:

Dr. Tro Kalayjian:

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Welcome to the Low Carb MD podcast. No one is beyond help. No one is beyond hope. As we've always said, we're bringing you medical information and cutting edge science, but none of this is medical advice. Please seek out input from your own doctor.

Guys, really happy. I'm here with Dr. Brian Linskis and myself, Dr. Trokel Asian. We are here today with Dr. Amy West, who I am absolutely ecstatic to have on. Just earlier this week, we were having a couple phone conversations and I said that I am the hugest Dr. Amy West fan. Let me tell you a little bit about her. She did her undergraduate medical education at Harvard. She did her residency at Harvard. She did her sports medicine fellowship at Maine and she is a doctor, a medical doctor who practices physical medicine and rehabilitation and should tell you about that. On top of that, you need to follow her on social media at Amy West MD. She is one of the biggest proponents of CrossFit and anti-corporate influence and medicine that I have come across in this particular field. I've been to ACSM and other athletic conferences and I've got the feeling that there's corporate influence in these types of conferences and she's talked a lot about getting rid of the Coca-Cola and Gatorade influence on sports and sports health. She's lectured on glutes. She's a published author. She's edited textbooks in her field. She is a huge CrossFit ally and she can out squat me and Brian combined and so if you want to be put to shame, follow her on social media. Dr. Amy West, this is the second time we're doing this. You know, happy to have you here. Great. Well, thanks again for having me here. I'm always excited to talk about CrossFit, talk about metabolic health and find people who are like-minded in the space. It's frankly kind of rare, as you know, so I appreciate it. So what dragged you into this space? What possessed you to become a doctor first of all and then to go into physiatry where a lot of people have no idea what that is? No idea what it is. Yeah. Well, so definitely wasn't my plan at the outset. I actually went to school for film and television production and thought I was gonna work in television. So I did for a little bit. I was a television producer/editor. I worked in a lot of music television, worked at MTV. I worked at the BBC in London for a little bit and at a certain point, I just kind of got sick of the entertainment business for reasons you could probably guess but also the work is very episodic. You know, you work a little bit and you're on to the next thing, on to the next thing and I just- it's not really my- I just I don't like that kind of thing but and then it sort of occurred to me like, well, I've always been kind of good at school and always, you know, liked studying and things like that and I said, well, if I have the mind to do it, then maybe there was some kind of greater calling. I should be using that for good in the world rather than, you know, editing TV shows maybe. So I went back to school and did all my- because I'd known my sciences or anything like that. I went back to school, did all my sciences, and it's working at a bookstore while I was going to school and trying to figure out how to get on to the next level. And then ultimately ended up getting in a Harvard med school and that's where I did all my training. While I was there, my- one, I did an education degree as well while I was there and then during that- that year that I was doing an education degree, it's much lighter low than traditional med school and that's when I first found physiatry, I never really heard of it. It's kind of the best-kept secret in medicine, but one of the biggest rehabilitation hospitals in the country is their spalding rehab, which I really know for the time didn't have very much interaction with the medical school, so I had to kind of go seek it out. And then as I was doing that, I sort of

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