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Short Summary
Main recommendation: On a low-carb or keto diet for weight loss or reversing diabetes, drop all nuts, nut butters, and nut flours (including almond flour and coconut flour) and give it two weeks to see if progress resumes. Dr. Westman says, based on his clinical experience, that nuts are often a reason keto stalls, mainly because they are easy to overeat, carb-dense, and calorie-dense.
Key Points
- Nuts count broadly here: almonds, cashews, peanuts (technically legumes but treated as nuts), and macadamia nuts, plus their butters and flours.
- Carb math: one ounce of nuts has about 6 total grams of carbs. The speaker uses total carbs rather than net carbs because some people absorb fiber and sugar alcohols can affect ketosis.
- Early on, the speaker wants people to stay under about 20 grams of carbs per day. The speaker says just a couple handfuls of nuts can quickly consume that 20-gram budget.
- Calories: nuts are very calorie-dense, which can stall weight loss, especially for less active people or those with chronic pain limiting exercise.
- Trigger food: Dr. Westman says that in informal straw polls of his audiences, at least 50 percent reported trouble with nuts, and he notes people often eat them until the package is empty rather than until full.
- Satiety: some people report that after eating nuts, other foods feel less satisfying and they still want more.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: Drop nuts, nut butters, and nut flours (including almond flour and coconut flour) for about two weeks, then assess whether progress resumes. If it does not work after two weeks, the speaker suggests trying something else. Avoid buying large tubs of nuts or pre-portioned packs that are easy to finish, and do not rely on keto cookies or baked goods made with nut or coconut flours. Nut butters and nut flours are to be avoided while losing weight, though the speaker says macadamia, cashew, and almond butters can be reincorporated later once at goal.
- The speaker says the recommendation draws on about 20 years of clinical practice, learned from earlier keto practitioners (Dr. Atkins, Dr. Bernstein, Dr. Eades, and Dr. Rosedale), and on research the speaker has published in peer-reviewed journals since 2000.
- Individual variation is acknowledged: the speaker says a rare few can eat a few nuts without problems, and that the mechanism for why nuts hinder progress is not fully understood.
- The speaker personally finds cashews hard to stop eating and leaves him unsatisfied even within carb and calorie limits.
Bottom Line
For keto-based weight loss or diabetes reversal, nuts are a likely hidden obstacle because of their carbs, calories, and trigger-food effect, so removing them for two weeks is a simple test worth running before changing anything else.
