📣 Natasha Smikles is a registered psychiatric nurse with about 20 years in mental health care who was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. She shares how she went from ADHD medication to a ketogenic diet, and what changed for her.
📋 Natasha spent most of her career in Manitoba, working in acute psychiatry and crisis services and building a dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) program in Winnipeg. In this conversation with Robyn, she walks through the day a dog bath led her to ask whether she had ADHD, what the medication did for her and cost her, and what happened when she tried a ketogenic diet again. She also talks about how that experience changed her work, and about the Metabolic Psychiatry Summit she is co-hosting.
🔑 What You'll Learn
- How an adult ADHD diagnosis can follow years of building systems and rituals to cope
- Why Natasha stopped ADHD medication, including the day food tasted like cardboard
- What changed on a ketogenic diet: steadier mood, clearer memory, and no panic attacks
- Why a DBT therapist began to wonder whether biology should come first
- What the Metabolic Psychiatry Summit offers, and why lived experience is a big part of it
💡 Key Insight
"I couldn't regulate my nervous system to be able to do it. It was like a biological thing that had to be fixed." — Natasha Smikles
🌐 Connect with Natasha
https://www.natashasmikles.com
https://www.instagram.com/natasha.smikles/
https://x.com/NatashaSmikles
https://www.linkedin.com/in/natasha-smikles-93753523a/
💚 Metabolic Psychiatry Summit
October 21-25, 2026
https://summit.robyndobbins.com
This is an affiliate link and not a sponsor of Ketobiography.
⚕️ This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and is not medical advice; always consult a qualified healthcare professional about your own health decisions.
⏳ Chapters
0:47 Introduction
3:08 Psychiatric Nursing, DBT, and Metabolic Psychiatry
4:24 Diagnosed with ADHD as an Adult
8:00 The Dog Bath Day That Raised the ADHD Question
15:47 ADHD Medication, Anxiety, and Side Effects
21:55 First Try at a Ketogenic Diet in 2016
25:36 Chris Palmer, Brain Energy, and Starting Keto for ADHD
26:32 Calmer Mood, Clearer Memory, and No More Panic Attacks
30:09 Fixing the Biology First: A DBT Therapist's Career Shift
35:01 DBT and Ketogenic Therapy With Clients
43:08 The Metabolic Psychiatry Summit and the Ripple Effect
49:49 Painting Nails in Acute Psychiatry: Impact You Never See
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👥 Connect with Robyn:
https://www.robyndobbins.com
https://robynrdobbins.substack.com/
🎬 Robyn is featured in The Cholesterol Code – Watch it on YouTube or Amazon.
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http://eathappykitchen.robyndobbins.com
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