JJ Virgin4x NYTimes Best Selling Author, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Fitness Hall of Famer

Fixing Metabolism With Ben Azadi

13 Feb 2025 · 1 min

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In this interview segment, JJ Virgin asks Ben Azadi how to help a metabolically unhealthy, insulin‑resistant individual access stored fat for fuel. Azadi explains that the first step is to simplify the diet by focusing on the three macronutrients, emphasizing that carbohydrates cause the greatest spikes in glucose and insulin. He recommends an initial restriction of carbs—about 50 g per day for most people, and under 20 g per day for those with severe insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes—while increasing protein and fat intake. This short‑term (6–12 weeks) carbohydrate reduction is intended to retrain the metabolism to shift from burning sugar to burning fat.

Chapters

Taking someone walking in who's metabolically unhealthy, meaning they are more insulin resistant, so they're having trouble accessing stored fat for fuel, they're really relying on having to use sugar— where would you take them? What would you do?
So the first step is to look at the 3 macronutrients, right? Keep it simple for them. We know it's carbohydrates out of the 3 macronutrients that spike glucose and insulin the most. Of course, processed carbs will spike it more than, uh, whole foods carbs, but If a person is insulin resistant, we need to restrict their carbohydrates at least in the beginning as we increase protein, one of your favorite macronutrients, and fat, right? We want to teach that metabolism to switch over to— from burning sugar to burning fat. For most people, they could get away with 50 grams of carbs per day total to make that shift. Now, if somebody's really insulin resistant, maybe type 2 diabetic, they might need to restrict it to under 20 grams of carbs per day. This is just short term, maybe for 6 to 12 weeks as the metabolism is now getting familiar with burning fat. That's the first step.