Health Makers How the Diet Doctor Puts Lifestyle Changes Before Prescriptions Everyday Health MenuNewslettersSearch Healthy Living Health Makers How the Diet Doctor Puts Lifestyle Changes Before Prescriptions A desire to help people lose weight with low-carb and keto diets led to a business that now counts 60,000 members. By Abby EllinReviewed: February 14, 2020Fact-CheckedAndreas Eenfeldt, MD, wants medicine to “empower people to get a better life.”Photo Courtesy of Andreas EenfeldtName Andreas Eenfeldt, MD Age 47 Title and Company CEO and founder, Diet Doctor Meet the Diet Doctor. In fact, that’s the name of his website: Dietdoctor.com. Andreas Eenfeldt, MD, doesn’t just play a physician online; he’s one in real life too, specializing in family medicine. But for the last six years he’s mostly been focusing his efforts on helping people lose weight through low-carb and keto diets. It’s not that he tired of medicine; he just wanted to do something on a larger scale. “You’re trying to be useful to one patient at a time,” says Eenfeldt, 47, who lives in Karlstad, Sweden. “I was used to patients getting older and sicker. Every year you’d have to increase medications, and things were a little bit worse. But nobody thinks that’s strange because it happens every day.” Eenfeldt though there had to be a better way to prevent illness. In 2007 he began researching how nutrition could help people with metabolic syndrome, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. “I got really into how a lifestyle change like reducing sugar and other processed carbohydrates could be beneficial for them,” he says. “What pissed me off is that most people don’t get that support. They just get a prescription for more drugs. I think it’s just wrong.” Transitioning From One Low-Carb Regimen to Another Eenfeldt, who is 6’7”, began cutting carbs from his own diet and lost about 20 pounds. Initially he ate a moderate low-carb diet, and gradually moved to a low-carb, high-fat and then eventually a ketogenic diet. Over the next few years, he began recommending a similar diet to patients. They were surprised that he was recommending high-fat foods. But a funny thing happened: They were able to get off medication or lower their cholesterol. It was, he says, almost as if time had reversed itself. “Instead of getting older, they were they were getting lighter,” he says. “Being lighter.” Medicine “doesn’t have to be about prescribing medication to people getting sicker,” he says. “You could empower people to get a better life.” From a Blog to a Business to a Full-Time Focus Eenfeldt put up a free blog, offering everything from low carb guides to step-by-step plans to recipes and shopping lists. He also published a book, Low Carb, High Fat Food Revolution: Advice and Recipes to Improve Your Health and Reduce Your Weight. In 2015, he quit medicine full time to focus on his business. Today, Diet Doctor has 60,000 members, about half of whom are in the United States. Users can get free information or pay $9 a month for additional content, such as meal plans and video courses. “We have a community where people can coach each other and moderators who help out 24/7,” Eenfeldt says, noting that there are no advertisements or sponsors. “It’s hard to change your lifestyle,” he says “It’s like quitting smoking. You might be addicted or have strong preferences for what you like to eat or what’s simple or convenient or cheap. We’re trying to make it less hard. “We might never get all the way there, but that’s the ambition,” he continues. “If you just eat what most people eat and choose what’s available and cheap and tastes really good, then chances are the same thing will happen to you that happens to most people. We gain a few pounds and it adds up. 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