15 Things you didn’t know about Dr. Garth Davis
Dr. Garth Davis is an American vegan doctor and author specializing in weight loss surgery for over 17 years. He is currently based in Asheville, North Carolina.
He is well known for his book Proteinaholic where he explains how meat obsession is killing and destroying people, and what to do about it.
His other book is called “The Expert’s Guide to Weight-Loss Surgery.” Here he explains what happens during surgery and how he keeps the weight of
Dr. Garth Davis has been featured in the documentary “What the Health.”
If you’ve not watched the film yet, What the Health is a documentary that critiques animal consumption’s health impact. You can also check out our list of Vegan Documentaries.
He and his father, Dr. Robert Davis, established The Davis Clinic for Medical and Surgical Weight Loss in Houston, Texas.
Yes, he is the second surgeon in his family after his father.
They both are Bariatric surgeons, and both founded the clinic to help obese patients lose weight and improve their health through surgical and nonsurgical procedures.
He is also the medical director of Bariatric Surgery at Memorial City Memorial Herman Hospital.
He and his father were the stars in TLC show Big Medicine.
Big Medicine was a medical American reality show that lasted for two seasons, with 22 episodes in total.
It featured behind the scenes into bariatric surgery, including the emotional and physical transformation of obese patients, capturing the whole process including before, during, and after the surgery.
He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa
Dr. Garth Davis was born in South Africa and moved to the United States in his childhood years.
He holds American citizenship, hence the American Nationality.
If his ethnicity is in question, Dr. Garth is Caucasian in origin.
He’s a nutrition fanatic
Besides helping people lose weight, Dr. Garth is a passionate advocate plant-based advocate with a thirst to help people improve their health through this lifestyle.
He enjoys helping people make the right food choices while adopting healthy lifestyle practices for a happy life.
His Veganism Journey began after he fell sick
As a weight loss surgeon, Dr. Garth saw a trend in which most of his patients kept gaining weight and coming back for more surgeries.
It was then that he discovered his approach to weight loss was not helping. This was because patients went back to their bad eating habits after the surgery, thus gaining back the weight.
He didn’t know exactly what to do, up until he was at 35 years old when he suffered from high blood pressure, fatty liver, and high cholesterol.
This made him examine his diet.
He also started looking into the scientific literature, which helped him make the decision to go plant-based.
With his new diet, his health improved and his problems disappeared. But he didn’t stop there. Dr. Garth could not help but become aware of the torture inflicted on animals, something that prompted him to go vegan.
Luckily enough, his wife was very supportive to the point of becoming a vegan herself.
He is social
Although Dr. Garth is a busy surgeon, he spares time to connect and educate people on social media.
With a following of over 113k on Facebook, 81.8k on Instagram, 18.3k on Twitter and a growing following on YouTube, he is dedicated to using his handles to spread life and happiness.
He is vegan for ethical reasons but plant-based for health reasons.
He has two siblings
Kim Callaway and Toni Davis Friedman.
He is a full of supplements
Dr. Garth endorses the consumption of nutritional supplements that are not readily available on a vegan diet like vitamin B12.
He doesn’t think you can get the benefits of eating plants from taking supplements, though. Instead, he recommends taking only the necessary supplements.
When vegan diets don’t work
According to Dr. Garth, dropping veganism means you were never vegan in the first place.
He associates true veganism with ethical veganism and anyone that drops that was simply plant-based.
He also explains that most people who stop being vegan are millennials who live extreme plant-based lifestyles—mostly omitting healthy food groups such as carbs, grains, and legumes without proper consideration of nutritional needs and possible deficiencies.
He encourages people not to freak just because a bodybuilder or a celebrity has dropped their vegan title. Instead, focus on the real essence of veganism, which is to save animals.
That’s why he finds it strange to leave veganism because of nutrient deficiencies. That only means you no longer have that ethic.
He is no longer a low-carb diet fun
Dr. Garth was once a low-carb, high protein advocate until he noticed his patients were still ending up on his surgical table.
He explains that most people believe that issues to do with insulin resistance and weight gain are due to high carbohydrate diets, but that is not true.
He believes that animal protein and animal fat cause intramyocellular fat, which causes ceramide toxicity and eventually, insulin resistance.
He encourages his patients to go on a whole plant-based diet before surgery
Although Dr. Garth doesn’t push his lifestyle on his patients, he highly recommends that the majority of the plate is whole plant-based foods like fruits and vegetables.
However, some foods like red meat and processed meat are not allowed since they are carcinogenic.
He also admits that some of his patients have had their bodies transformed to the point where they no longer need surgery by merely adopting a whole plant-based diet.
He once wrote a book he easily relates to
It’s not easy to have a doctor admit that they were wrong about something, especially when it involves the public. However, Dr. Garth acknowledges that he once even wrote a book promoting a high protein diet, but now recommends a whole plant-based diet.
This was after extensive research, plus the fact that he didn’t achieve long-term weight control strategy for his patients.
He is a notable athlete
Dr. Garth has competed in Iron men, marathons, and triathlons
His favorite food
Starches and fruits
