Metabolism Myths BUSTED! Metabolic Freedom with @KetoKamp

What if your body isn't broken, it's just been following maybe the wrong instruction manual? Could your metabolism actually speed up with age instead of slowing down? And if you knew how to flip on the right metabolic switches, would you? And could you? And what if your fat gain, brain fog, hormone chaos, Maybe those are not the actual problems, but symptoms of something a lot deeper. Today's guest, Ben Azadi is on a mission to end the metabolic health crisis and help midlife women like us listening in break free from outdated health myths. After he himself release 80 pounds completely rewiring his body, he became a global voice in health, fasting and hormone balance. His latest book, Metabolic Freedom is must read for everybody. It's already called a lifeline and we're going to unpack a lot of this today with some common questions that I know you have navigating midlife. Thank you so much, Ben for being here.

It's an honor to be here with you, Natalie and your ladies. We're going to have an amazing life changing time today. I'm excited for it.

I can't wait for this. Okay, Ben, I gotta start with your story because it's seldom. I really want to start with someone's story, but I've got to hear yours because 80 pounds is not a small feat and this is something that you truly navigated becoming your own health detective. Can you take us through that story and what you thought before you entered that journey?

Yeah, my journey. I struggled with metabolic diseases like unfortunately, so many people out there. And for most of my life, I was obese. That is not a overstatement, that is the fact. I was actually physically obese as a kid. I ate a standard American diet. I had bad behaviors, I was a really bad teenager. I did drugs, I sold drugs, I was addicted to drugs and video games and sugar, toxic relationships. And When I was 23 years old back in 2007, I was rock bottom. I was going through a really difficult breakup. At this time, I weighed 250 pounds. I was physically and also mentally obese. I was depressed and that is an understatement. I was actually on the Internet looking for ways to, to end my life. I was exploring that because I was in so much pain. And I kept thinking about my mom. Every time I explored taking my life, I kept thinking about, man, if you did that, like your mom would just be so devastated. And I, I love my mom. She's my, my superhero. And I, I didn't want to cause that devastation for her. So it's the only reason I Didn't take my life. And I knew I had to figure things out. I was blaming everybody for my problems. My slow metabolism, my enabling family members, my bad genetics. None of that served me. None of that serves you. Your excuses don't serve you. And I finally took responsibility. It didn't just happen like, oh my gosh, I'm responsible, let's do this. It was me reading books. I started with self development books. I started with Dr. Wayne Dyer, Bob Proctor, Tony Robbins, Lisa Nichols, Zig Ziglar, these incredible authors that really helped me take ownership and responsibility. And the amazing thing about taking ownership is that it's the first step towards great change. So for me, nine months after that decision to take responsibility, I went from being 250 pounds at my highest to 170 pounds. I went from 34% body fat at my highest to as low as 6% body fat. Completely changed my physical appearance. And yes, I had six pack abs, which is great for some people. But more important than that, I achieved a mental six pack.

Yeah.

In my depression, suicidal thoughts and all the issues I was dealing with, mental illness started to subside and go away. And you know, Natalie, that was 17 years ago. I've kept the weight off. I was a personal trainer, which I know you could appreciate for many years. I had a gym here in Miami for many years, and now I am writing books and I'm on your wonderful podcast, Ben.

I got questions because it's interesting. When someone was once fit, and I tell this to my women all the time, if they were once fit and they kind of lose their way in midlife, sometimes it's a little bit easier to get back to it because they have a vision of what it was like to be once fit. So if someone's never fit, it gets a lot more challenging because they don't have a vision. So when I say, you know, get clear on what you want to create for yourself, it's really hard for them to imagine it now. You were like never fit. It sounds like you had this childhood struggle with weight and genetics and all of these things. So just reading a book or just starting in that and making that decision, that couldn't have been easy. So I know you're telling it like it just kind of happened, but how did you get yourself like that first initial thought process of like, you know what, I've got to go start changing my attitude here because that's very uncomfortable. I would imagine, like you, you learned and knew one way your whole life.

Yeah, it's a good point. Exactly. Right. I was never fit. I was always unhealthy. So this is a new completely. It's a paradigm shift for me. And the self image played a big role, the way I viewed myself. Because the way I viewed myself, the self image I had of myself was an overweight and obese person. So I made a conscious decision to take responsibility and change my diet and move my body. But I noticed I kept finding ways sabotage myself to match the self image of an overweight person. And I think a lot of ladies do this. They identify with their disease, their diagnosis, their autoimmune, they're being overweight, whatever it is. And we might make that conscious decision to change, like I did. But if we don't work on the self image, we will find a way to course, correct, essentially sabotage ourselves to match that self image. So I kept finding a way to eat the donuts, to eat the cookies, to gain the way back to match the self image. I had to replace the old self image with a new self image of a healthy, lean person. And it wasn't until I did that that I was able to break through and make sustainable changes.

Do you remember that first, and this is, I know this is a kind of a deeper question, but do you remember that first moment when you had that realization? Because I think people especially that are overweight and have always struggled, they're not dumb. Like, Right. You know, like you've heard this, like you had heard before about change your mind or change your attitude. But what was like the moment that it really kind of sunk in and made a difference? Because I think it's not like you were walking around naive like you'd never heard this. But how did that connection actually change?

It was getting some momentum, making a. I call it a tweak a week and just get stacking some habits, some positive habits, and not doing all these changes all at once. I was just making a tweak, mastering that tweak, getting some momentum, and then adding something else to that routine. And as I gained more momentum, I gained more confidence. My self image continued to change. And, you know, the rest is really history. I know I wrap it up in a short story, but that's really how it went. It wasn't in a day, it happened over time, but it was the reprogramming of the subconscious mind. And that's how we make lasting changes. And I can tell you one thing that I did, and one thing that I still do, and I talk about this in the new book, is to literally write down that new image. Of yourself on a card. I have this here that I have my current self image of myself, and I repeat it every day in the morning before bed. It's this new idea that I need to read enough times that you need to read enough times for those listening and watching to replace the old image of yourself that is not serving you with this new idea. And as you do it consistently, then you replace that in the subconscious mind, and then you start to become essentially unstoppable.

So good. So good. You know anyone I interview that I've interviewed even before I had a podcast that has had a successful transformation. They say the same things in different ways. They made a decision and they got clear on their vision. And when I teach fat loss, I talk about decision, vision, and then action. But somehow when people are stuck, they don't want to hear about decision and vision. But I want to just point out that literally you just said those things. And I think anyone that's had a transformation does start with that foundation. So if you're listening and you're like, I haven't had a transformation. I'm doing all the things I'm going to say. You got to start with those two things. It's like you just. You literally just laid it out. That's what you did with your card, with everything.

Yeah. Well said. I love that you teach that to your ladies. It's the truth. And you might not see the results physically in your physical world right away, but there's an unseen world changing. I like the way Price Pritchard mentioned it in his book called U Squared. He said, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Oh, so good. Isn't that good? We've been brainwashed not only to believe that when I see it, then I'll believe it.

Yes.

It's not the way it works.

Got to believe it and then you'll see it.

Exactly. We believe it, then we see it. So you might not see physical changes happening yet, but there are things happening in this unseen world. So just remember that you got to have the faith. And the interesting thing about faith and fear, it's the same thing. It's both for sure is demanding you to put energy into something you cannot see. Why don't you choose the positive outcome?

So we're going to get into some really specific tactical things. But I'm glad we started there because I don't love when people just skip to the tactical stuff, because if you don't have that foundation, it doesn't matter. Like, you can rattle off the best tips ever. Which you do in your book, and we're going to get into some of them. But if you do not change that piece first, it's like building a house on sinking sand. I mean, it's just.

It's got a collapse.

Okay, so let's talk into. I'm going to get into some mythbusters here, because you really just call them right out. And I want to. Let's start with some of the ones that are the most controversial. Okay. Are you. Are you down with it?

I'm down. Let's go. Let's pass those myths.

Let's talk about calories in and calories out. Why is that a scam?

A scam? Yeah. You know, it's so deceptive, isn't it? Because when you cut your calories and either exercise more, just put yourself in a deficit. Most people, even women, might lose some weight in the beginning. It does work short term for some people, but never long term. It's actually doing a lot of destruction at a metabolic level. Because, first of all, the premise behind cutting calories and being in a deficit to lose weight, the premise is this. I need to get you to lose weight in order for you to be healthy. That's the exact opposite for. In terms of how the metabolism works, meaning we don't lose weight to get healthy. We get healthy to lose weight. And as a matter of fact, if you're overweight right now, like I was, you don't have a weight problem. I never had a weight problem. There's no such thing as a weight problem. It's a weight symptom. The real problem is hormones and inflammation. So by focusing on calories, it's another way to treat the symptom, another conventional method that doesn't work. It has failed us time after time. The metabolism is not a bank account or a math equation. It's a very complex chemistry lab. So when you start to get healthy, the weight starts to come off, and it stays off. And in the book Metabolic Freedom, I referenced two studies. One study looked at the Biggest Loser TV contestants. For those who don't remember, this was a TV show in the US that was very popular many years ago where they took these overweight, obese individuals, put them in a calorie deficit, they lost a ton of weight. They celebrated them on this final episode. This study looked at 14 of those contestants after the show ended, and it showed that 13 out of the 14 contestants gained all the weight back, and a portion of them gained even more weight than when prior to beginning the show. And they looked at their hormones and their hormones tanked. Their ghrelin, their hunger hormone was through the roof. Their satiety hormone, leptin had plummeted. Because you cannot just outsmart the metabolism. Eventually the calories coming in, the metabolism will match and it'll slow down to match that. You could only cut so much. And most people think, I just need to cut more or exercise more or do a combination of more of both, and it might work short term again. And then you plateau. It's this yo, yo, vicious cycle of never ending weight loss, weight gain, weight loss, weight gain. And just one more study that I referenced showed how important the gut microbiome plays with fat loss. And it looked at two groups of obese individuals and they. One group was given fecal microbial transplants from lean donor, so they repopulated their gut bacteria with healthy bacteria. The other obese group was not given that fmt. And the group that got the fecal microbial transplant started losing weight with. The calories stayed the same. So it's a distraction. We need to focus on what really matters, which is hormones and inflammation.

Okay, I'm going to get into hormones and inflammation in a minute, but I want to, I want to go a little bit deeper on the calorie thing. And I'm sorry, I'm going to be nitpick here because this is. I agree with you on everything you said about calories. And I know the questions that people start saying. And this happened just actually with a good friend of mine where she's an expert and she looks amazing, but she's still really into the calorie thing. And she said, well, what. You have to create a deficit. So what do you say to that? Because do you believe you have to create a deficit in your body, in your calories expenditure or consuming to lose weight?

I've seen people increase their calories by increasing whole foods, protein and fat and decreasing carbs. And even though there was a surplus in their calories, lose weight because it was the inflammation and the hormones that determine the fat loss, not necessarily the calorie input. So good.

That's a mic drop right there, Ben. Thank you. That's what I wanted you to. That's exactly what I was hoping you were going to go. So that's good.

You know, it's. It's the calories in versus calories out. It does people disservice. It does your ladies a big disservice. I know you don't teach that, which I love that we're aligned here, but it's a distraction. And I did it for many years and I realized I was doing people a disservice. Yeah, we've been there, right?

No, And I will tell you, I'm down £19 in the last two years and I didn't change one thing on my diet. It was nothing. It was everything else. So I don't buy the deficit thing. Yeah. And I. And it's hard because people, they almost will discredit a conversation. Cuz you're saying I don't buy the. Do you have to almost like meet them where they're at and then explain?

Yeah, no, exactly. It's about the quality of the calories, not the quantity. Bottom line, calories matter. Yeah. We're not denying calories existence. They matter. But it's about the quality, not the quantity of those calories.

Totally makes sense. Okay, let's dive into some other like, hot topics here. Let's talk about fasting and what you define as sensible fasting or not sensible, where does it play a role? Should everybody be doing this? And how do you define it? Like, like somebody will say intermittent fasting is eating all your food in a certain amount of time and not the other time. What's that time to you? Or is it skipping days? Like help us understand that.

Yeah, there's different ways to do it. All of that is fasting. It's all technically fasting. There's intermittent fasting, which, let's say 16 hours you're fasted, which means you just have water. And then eight hours you have your eating window where you have all your calories, similar to the example you gave. And then there's more like extensive fasting, which are days. It has its place. But it's important to understand that fasting is a stress to the body. And that doesn't mean it's bad for you. It doesn't mean stress is bad for you as long as you adapt to the stress. How do you know if you're adapting to the stress? Well, there's a few things you could look at here. And for women, you are definitely practicing fasting differently than us men. That's important to understand. And women who have a menstrual cycle also practice fasting differently than women who are postmenopausal. So there's customization here. And I do hear some health experts say women should never fast because fasting is stressful for women's hormones. I think that's similar to saying women should never exercise because exercise is stressful for women's hormones. It's not the stress that's bad. It's if it's too much. So we want to know, we want to pay attention to the body. We want to see if we're adapting to that stress. If you are stressed out right now, meaning you have a lot of stress in your life, mental stress, work stress, relationship stress, and then you throw in a 24 hour fast. Probably not a good idea, probably too much stress for your body to adapt to. But the best way to know if you're adapting to the stress is to pay attention to two things.

Okay.

The first thing is your sleep. Are you getting good sleep? And if you fast, does it interfere with your sleep? Is your sleep sacrifice? Are you waking up feeling more groggy? That could be a sign that you did too much fasting, too much stress. The second thing would be looking at your heart rate variability. Your heart rate variability is a good gauge for, for your nervous system. And you find your average. I use an aura ring to track mine. And you find your average after seven days or so of looking at your hrv. And if you fast, you have a day where you do an 18 hour fast and you see your HRV drop, it signaled that stress was too much for your body to adapt to. But I have to say all of that and say this. When you find your sweet spot for fasting ladies, it is transformational. It's incredible for the body, it's incredible for the brain, it's incredible for your gut health. It's incredible for building muscle when you do it the right way. So you have to find your right, what's called your hormetic zone. And I talk about that in the book.

So, Ben, one thing I say, and correct me if you think differently too, I'm always up for having a new perspective. But I think another thing that sort of has gone wrong with midlife women is a lot of US in the 90s, we were taught, eat every few hours. Like keep eating every few hours. If you don't eat every few hours, your body's going to eat its own muscle. Like, I don't know if you remember those conversations, but that's like, right? And to me, if you, every time you're eating, you're secreting insulin. If you're secreting insulin, you're not in fat burning mode. So just the logic behind it, if we are eating every few eight hours and we're grazing, think of a cow grazing, we're going to have a cow body. I mean, I'm just, that's just that if you give it the space. And you're not doing that. You're going to not be secreting insulin and you're gonna give your body a break. So to me, it's almost like. Am I oversimplifying it there?

No, you're spot on. I like the idea that you just said when you're cow grazing, you're gonna. You're gonna look like a cow. Yeah, that's true. You're gonna gain weight and glucose will spike. Insulin, you'll store fat. We're not designed to graze, so you're correct. And so some. A simple thing, if you're brand new to this in terms of fasting, is to start with three meals a day and keep it within 12 hours.

Yeah.

And then you can start increasing that fasting window from 12 hours to 13 to 14 and see how your body adapts to it. But I'm with you. The whole grazing, eating every two to three hours, it's one of the fastest ways to age yourself and create inflammation and destroy your gut. I'm not a fan of that approach.

And honestly, I think it came kind of from the bodybuilding world because if you think about, like, trying to put on muscle, that made sense. Like, you've got. You can only process a certain amount of protein. So it's like that's, I think, where it came from. It just somehow moved to mainstream and it just got off track. When you talk about eating frequently ages you rapidly. You just said it again. Can you explain that?

Yeah, there's a couple of things. So there's something called the Hayflick limit. The Hayflick limit shows that your cells that we have inside of the body could only duplicate a certain amount of times before it can no longer duplicate. And then it goes rogue. It turns into a, what's called a senescent zombie cell, which then starts to infect other cells around it, and it leads to cancer and other diseases like autoimmune disease, especially when they're in the immune system. And when you're constantly spiking glucose and insulin, as you just mentioned, through grazing and processed carbohydrates, you reach that hay flick limit much faster. So you start to develop these zombie cells, essentially. That's one way. The second thing that happens is when you're constantly spiking glucose and insulin. Glucose. Insulin, when it's elevated chronically through grazing, starts to deplete certain things in your body, like nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is important for something called vasodilation, the opening of your blood vessels. And when you restrict or deplete nitric oxide from grazing and high blood sugar levels. Then you create vasoconstriction where the arteries narrow. Then your heart has to pump harder, and that's what high blood pressure is, which is one of the leading causes to heart disease. So that is what's happening. It's not the salt, it's the. The sugar that's causing high blood pressure. And the third thing here, if you want to look good in terms of your complexion, you want to have good amount of collagen. Sugar is going to strip collagen away from your skin, your tissues, and it's going to age you in terms of the aesthetics. And nobody wants that. So those are the three ways it ages you.

That makes a lot of sense. Okay, I want to go a little bit on that, the nitric oxide that you just mentioned, because this is. I think that's the reason people mouth tape too, like, because they want. Can you help with that connection there? Just because I know this is another topic that's come up recently, and I just want to explain that a little bit more. So just go back. You said about nitric oxide. I don't think people are really connecting what that is and if they should be taking it or having their body create it or like.