Transcript of Episode #146 Featuring Ben Azadi! KETO FLEX: The Massively Impactful New Book from the Keto King Ben Azadi! The ULTIMATE INTERVIEW on KETO and FOOD Science!

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I've been in a lot of studios.

A lot, and this is by far the coolest studio for a variety of reasons. But I am down here in Miami, one of the other favorite places in the world that I have. But my friend here, I, I cannot say enough about everything about him and what he has done and what he's doing. And you've seen him on my show before when his first book came out, which was one of my favorite books and I have put so many people on it and tried my best to get everybody to read it. What you taught in that book, Metabolic Freedom, it changed so many lives. It helped me, helped so many people I love, and that's why I was so excited when I got the invite to come down here and hang out with you and know that you have a new one coming out. My friend is a bestseller. He has a plaque in here from YouTube, which is just blinding on how amazing it is. A million subscribers and one of, if not the best YouTube channels, not just in the health space, in all space. And the resonation that I share with you and what you've taught me and given to me, that's given me the ability to be better and so many other people.

I can't say enough. The new book is called Keto Flex, July 21st. I was blessed to have an early copy, but this is another life-altering book. You guys know who I'm with, but I'm gonna give him an intro anyway. My friend Ben Azadi.

Thank you for that amazing intro. My friend Dylan, welcome back to Miami. Thanks for coming to the studio.

Like I said, I was so happy when I got the invite. There was no way that I was going to hesitate to come down here as much as my wife hates me to travel. I love what you've done here. I love what you do. You deserve all of this and more, and I just can't wait to learn more about your new book and different things that you're doing right now. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna get everything out of you that I can today, my friend.

All right, let's do it. I'm ready.

All right. Well, okay. The first book really changed lives when it came to diet and food and an understanding of so many different aspects of being metabolically flexible. Before we get into the Keto Flex, would you just tell everybody what it means to be metabolically flexible and why it is so important?

Yeah, I'll first answer that by showing you what it means when you're not metabolically flexible and why that is not good for you, right? So 93% of Americans are metabolically challenged. They have some sort of metabolic dysfunction. That's a high percentage. 93 out of 100 people out there are dealing with some sort of metabolic issue. They are metabolically inflexible. And you see it going through the airports. You see it at theme parks. You see it just walking around downtown neighborhoods and people are unhealthy. Did God design us to be that way, to have all these symptoms? You know, that's not true. God designed the body to be self-healing. When you're metabolically inflexible, your metabolism has forgotten how to burn stored fat for energy. So you have this sort of dilemma where people have all this extra weight on them. They're obese. They have clearly fat on their face, on their stomach, on their love handles. They have this nasty organ fat, the visceral fat, yet they can't access it for fuel. It's there to be accessed for fuel, but it's locked. It's blocked. They're metabolically inflexible and it's blocked because their hormones are off. It's blocked because insulin is high.

And when you're living that way, Dylan, you're going to have symptoms. Like, I could walk into a room and I could spot metabolic syndrome with my eyes. I could see it by looking at skin tags. If I see people with skin tags, they have insulin resistance. Those are little things that pop up in your eyebrows, your neck. If they have brown patches, they have insulin resistance. If they have like this round, hard belly, yeah, they've got this visceral fat, insulin resistance. And of course, I could ask them questions like, hey, how do you feel? How do you feel after you eat a meal? Are you good with your energy or is your digestion fine? Or do you feel like you crash and you need a snack? And most people are going to say they crash, and that's a sign of metabolic inflexibility. So metabolic freedom and metabolic flexibility is working the way God designed your body. It's taking food, turning it into energy, having amazing energy from when you wake up in the morning to when you go to bed at night, being able to train and recover. Which I know is important to you.

Being able to have your true personality show up for your family, your coworkers, customers, your day-to-day life. That's what I want for humanity. That's what I want for the entire world. That's why I wrote Metabolic Freedom. It, it's so sad to see so many people struggle with all these symptoms. And I, I've been there myself. I thought it was because I had bad genetics. I thought it was because my body was working against me, or my metabolism was broken, or was just aging. It wasn't any of that. I was sending my body the wrong signals, and my body was doing exactly what it was designed to do, which was to survive and protect myself at all costs, which means store fat.

Mm-hmm.

So when you change the signal, the response changes inside of your body. The ultimate goal, which we'll talk about here today, is what are those signals we're sending the body? What's the interference? Remove the interference, the body heals itself. And that's what Metabolic Freedom was about. And then it goes to the next level with the new book.

Excellent. So metabolism, I had a conversation recently with, with Dr. David Perlmutter, and he broke down metabolism in a way I'd never heard and explained to me just how important it was and the role it played in every aspect of us. Can you gimme an explanation on your end of What metabolism is, 'cause I think most people think metabolism is, they'll, oh, I have a fast metabolism, or, oh, I have a slow metabolism. Can you, can you explain or give a nice breakdown of understanding of what it is and why it's so crucial in all aspects of—

Everything runs on metabolism, right? I'll, I'll give a more simplified, simplified, um, mass understanding of it for the audience here today. Metabolism simply means transform. That's what the Greek definition of it, transform. What does that mean? That means you take energy from the food you eat, whether it's carbs, protein, and fat. You take energy from red light, sunlight, you take energy from oxygen and you transform that. Your cells transform it into energy, right? So you take a substrate, carbohydrates, food, any kind of food, or even sunlight and oxygen, and you transform it into energy. That's what metabolism is. A healthy metabolism could have carbs and create energy and burn fat or protein or any kind of macronutrient out there. You could fast and do the same thing and just rely on your own body fat for fuel. That's what a healthy metabolism does. What is not true is the speeding up of the metabolism or a fast metabolism or a slow metabolism. There's actually— that's not how the metabolism works. It doesn't operate by speed.

Yeah.

There's no such thing as a fast metabolism. It's either efficient or inefficient, right?

Of course.

And I, I don't know what Dr. Promoter said with his explanation, but that's how it works. Like either an efficient metabolism that could use any substrate that's available, turn to energy, burn fat and feel good. Mm-hmm. Or it's inefficient where you can only use sugar like 93% of people and you're locked into that. And then you're burning sugar all day long. You're relying on snacking and grazing and carbohydrates, which is not efficient. So we want a flexible, efficient metabolism.

That was that saying when we were kids, or the, the kid that could eat whatever they want. Oh, it's 'cause they have a fast metabolism. And right. That, that comment. Anyway, we'll leave the '80s and '90s stuff out of this for now. So, okay, now we've talked about this too. One, and, and I want to get into your book now. We've talked about how diets. Are tools or ways of life, right? And you know, you know how this is, how polarizing that these diets or tools are and how people are on one side or the other or the other or the other. And there's this always this fight about people that hate carbs, love carbs, people that hate oatmeal, love oatmeal. We've had that talk.

Mm-hmm.

You've been a proponent of keto for a very, very long time. I, started off as a non-proponent without any understanding, just cuz, just cuz that's what I was told. This was a long time ago. This was well over a decade ago. And once I started to actually learn how to do it, what it was, then I saw the merit and the value. And you taught me a lot. I'm not a big fan of completely cutting any nutrient out at all for too long. I do see the merit in doing it. I absolutely do. Can you explain to me before we talk about the premise of your book, in short, so people understand what an actual true ketogenic diet is, what does it mean to be in ketosis? Like a simple breakdown so that we can transition into the flow of the book a little bit. But I think people have a, either a misunderstanding or misinterpretation, and they have this basically facade they've created on how bad or how good it is.

Yeah, I see the same thing. You're exactly right. You know, keto is not even a diet, it's a metabolic process.

Okay.

Which makes it very different than any, any other diet out there. There because ketosis is when your body's breaking down stored fat for energy, it produces ketones. And I'll kind of break down how that works, but I first wanna make this point. There's nothing new about keto. Yeah. It's just nuanced or new to some people, but it's been around for as long as humans have existed. All of our ancestors utilized ketosis. How do I know that? Well, they didn't have food readily available to them. Mm-hmm. They had to fast. And even when they had food available, they didn't have carbohydrates available year round. Yeah. So they had protein and fat, so they entered ketosis. If they did not have that ability to burn fat and produce ketones, we would not exist today. We would've gone extinct because they would've not been able to function. They would've been blubbering idiots and they would not be able to hunt and kill and stay alive. So it's just a different fuel source. It's a very valuable fuel source. When babies are born into this world and babies that are breastfed, they're in ketosis. Breast milk has saturated fat and cholesterol, and that is the reason why it helps the neurological development of that baby's brain at that time.

It's very important. That baby is naturally going in and outta states of ketosis, and we're designed to do that. But then what happens is we grow up and we eat high carbohydrate processed junk food. We're eating 17 to 23 times a day, which is the average person. They eat 17 to 23 times a day.

What?

I know. And then we're teaching the body to burn sugar and only sugar. And to your point, there's nothing wrong with eating carbs. There's nothing wrong with burning sugar unless you're stuck burning sugar and that's your only fuel source, right? Then you have all those problems. So what happens is the hormone insulin is what unlocks ketosis. Insulin, get this, there's hundreds of hormones inside of the body.

Mm-hmm.

Hundreds, dude. But only one hormone is the primary hormone that tells your body store fat. And that hormone is insulin. When it's high, you are storing fat. Period. When it's low, you access your own body fat for fuel. So when we look at the three macronutrients, carbohydrates, protein, and fat, it is carbohydrates that will spike blood insulin more than protein and fat. Mm-hmm. So when you're spiking it, By eating high carbs and eating processed carbs and eating it throughout the entire day, glucose and insulin, glucose and insulin, store fat, store fat. Then you have this issue with metabolic syndrome that we were talking about. So we need to teach these people to go back to their fat-burning ways. They're essentially in a keto deficiency. So you do that by manipulating your macronutrients. You do that by lowering your carbohydrate intake, increasing protein and fat, eliminating your snacking, having just 3 meals a day to start. Protein and fat focused. Now you lower blood sugar, you lower blood insulin, then your body makes the switch to burn stored fat for fuel. Your belly fat, your love handles, the visceral fat. That fat is sent to the liver.

The liver uses it for energy, and then it produces ketones. And those ketones then flood the bloodstream, fuel the brain, fuel the muscle, fuel the heart. And I talk about this in Keto Flex. I, I went down the rabbit hole. Of studying the electron trans— transport chain, which is how your mitochondria produces energy. It's part of metabolism, right? And it's very, very complex. I don't completely understand it myself, to be honest with you, but I have a good understanding of it, but I'm not an expert on that electron transport chain. But here's what I did find and what I put in the book. I was looking at what happens in the metabolism when your, your mitochondria are using sugar as a fuel source versus ketones, right?. And what I found was that when it's using sugar, your mitochondria start outputting about 32 to 36 of these ATP molecules, which are these energy units the mitochondria produce. But when it's using ketones, it's 400% more ATP. Do you think about that? Your cells literally produce 400% more energy. It's like your iPhone being able to last 400% longer. Everybody would wanna pay for that, right? So what, what, what happens is the, the cells in the body that have the highest concentration of mitochondria benefit from this the most.

Mm-hmm. Which is the brain. The brain has the highest concentration of mitochondria. There are, there are regions in the brain that have millions of mitochondria in a single cell. Then you have the eyes, you have the testicles, you have the ovaries, you have the heart. These are the cells that really benefit from ketosis. So one of the first things people notice when they do this the right way, keto, My brain fog is gone. I'm mentally clear and sharp. I feel like I could actually focus on a task and finish the task. I'm not all over the place, scattered mind. Then it calms hunger, it calms inflammation, it calms insulin. You start burning fat, but you don't burn fat because you're focusing on weight loss. You're burning fat because you're lowering inflammation and insulin. So ketosis is not to be used for fat loss, is to be used for health. But that is the way it works. You lose weight, you don't lose weight to get healthy. You get healthy to lose weight. There's a big difference there. That's right. Right. So when, when we think about somebody who's overweight, like I used to be obese, I never had a weight problem.

I had a weight symptom. That's why focusing on calories does not work because it's focused on the symptom, not the actual cause. And if you keep focusing on calories, it's like this, Dylan, I talk about this in Keto Flex as a funny example. It's like. Having access to some of the richest people in the world. Let's say you're at like a conference and there's Elon Musk, there's Warren Buffett, there's Bill Gates, love him or hate him. He's a billionaire, right? But you have the opportunity to raise your hand and, and ask Elon Musk or Warren Buffett, how did you get so wealthy? Teach me your ways. I want to be rich like you. Imagine you're able to ask them this question and they look at you, they're on a panel and they're like, Dylan, it's very simple. Spend less than you earn. Next question. Okay. You would be left off with like, okay, that makes sense, but what's the actual solution? It's the same thing when you tell people just eat less and move more. You're not giving them a solution. No, it kind of makes sense, but how do you actually do it? So ketosis is one of the powerful health tools to lose weight by default.

It's a side effect of getting healthy. So I know that was a long answer. No, no. But ketosis is an incredible metabolic process when it's used the right way.

So what do you say to calories in, calories out bros?

I say that, you know, calories have its role. Yeah. Calories matter. They're just not important. They're a distraction. And what I would say to calorie, calorie in versus calorie out bros, they're called the CICO bros. I get the comments all the time. I'm sure you do as well. You know what I tell them? I say, look, God bless you, but you need to catch up. You need to catch up with how the body actually works. Mm-hmm. Stop looking at just research studies. Work with enough people and you'll understand that it's not about calories, it's about hormones. Mm-hmm. It's about how those calories create a different signal inside of your body. I taught the calories in versus calories out thing for many, many years. I had a gym here that I owned in Miami, a CrossFit gym. My friend Chris, who's sitting right there, you— that's how I met him. I used to train him. And I hosted seminars at my gym, The Science of Fat Loss, and I would teach the members how to calculate your total daily energy expenditure, how to create a deficit, and how to lose weight just focused on calories. And you know what?

It worked for most people in the beginning.

Yeah.

Until it did. Until it did not. Because you could only keep cutting your calories so much to the point where the metabolism adapts and energy slows down. It doesn't work. You, when you focus on calories, you're, you're, you're prioritizing willpower and discipline and you're making it very difficult instead of efficiency. Instead of efficiency. And we've seen this with The Biggest Loser TV show. Yeah. And these contestants lost all this weight, caloric restriction. Most of them gained it back. They wrecked their hormones, they wrecked their metabolism. There's a better way. So what I want to help the Seiko Bros is to catch up. Yeah. I've never met one person. Who went from the Seiko method of calories in versus calories out to the hormone method and then went back to the calories in method.

Right. For sustainability.

Correct. Or lack thereof. Or lack thereof.

You know what's funny, or not so funny, I tried to live by that model forever. I was come from the fitness world.

In this real bodybuilding world. Yeah.

And this, and I ask, how do you explain this? And, and I know you can't relate everything to yourself, but all those years I told you I starved. So I'm eating 1,500 to 1,800 calories a day. Why was I stuck at certain weights and couldn't drop? And then why all of a sudden when I started to eat 2,800 to 3,000 calories a day, did my body fat just keep going down and my muscle go up? And yet all the fat went down. It doesn't seem to add up.

Can I add to that? Yeah. Cause, cause that's such a good point, bro. I love that you shared that. I'm writing a new book. You don't know this, but I'm actually writing a new book that's coming out next year on belly fat.

Oh, okay.

And it's like 70% done. And there's a chapter in there about this and it's fresh in my mind. And it's about this guy here, Chris, and you can't see him off camera. You can't hear him, but he's sitting here about, uh, last December. So what, 5, 6 months ago, he came to me and he was very much overweight. And he was in a caloric deficit for years, years, years, years. His body was in this starvation mode. And what I did with Chris, I essentially tripled his caloric intake. And you lost what, how much weight in the last £27? £27 in the first 30 days. But then how much total since then? Uh, 30, close to 40. Close to 40 by tripling his caloric intake. How do you explain that, gym bros? Caloric calories in versus calories out, bro. So the way that I explain it in the book, I, I just wrote this. Here's the analogy. It's like if you lived in Alaska and let's say you lived in the middle of the woods and you lived in a cabin, but there was no heating system. The only way to heat the cabin was with like a fire, but it's the summer, so the temperatures are nice.

There's no need to burn the firewood. You, you're totally fine, but you know, in a few months it's gonna be fall and it's gonna be winter and it's gonna be so brutally cold. Mm-hmm. So you start storing firewood to get ready for the cold winter months. This is your precious fuel supply, right? Mm-hmm. You need that firewood to stay alive, otherwise you would freeze to death.

Right.

Winter rolls around, but you've only been able to kind of store about 20 logs of firewood, but you have about 4 months of really cold temperature. So what are you gonna do? You're gonna burn that firewood as slowly as possible to preserve that precious fuel supply, right?

Right.

When you're in a caloric restriction, that fuel supply, the firewood, is your body fat. Your body's gonna burn it as slowly as possible to preserve its life.

Right.

It's doing it to save your life.

Yeah.

But here's the thing. I came to Chris and I said, I'm gonna triple your caloric intake. That's like somebody coming over to your cabin and saying, oh, Dylan, you only have 20 logs of firewood. Let me dump I have a couple hundred for you, cuz I have thousands. Now what are you gonna do? You're gonna, you're gonna turn on the burning. You're gonna burn up that firewood. You're not gonna be scarce about it. You're gonna ramp up the burn rate cuz now you're not in fear mode anymore. When you actually signal to your metabolism, you're not going through a famine, you're not having to worry about caloric restriction, eat more food. It signals safety. Safety downregulates your nervous system. Safety lowers cortisol. It lowers adrenaline, and then your body starts releasing the extra weight. Mm-hmm. Because it was such in such a fearful scarcity preservation mode with the long-term caloric restriction. His body said, Chris, you're safe even though you're having an abundance of calories. Let's burn those calories. Let's burn the body fat. And you can't explain that to the gym bros, to the Tico bros, I should say, because they think it's all about calories in versus calories out.

Well, your body never got that message. Yeah, it's about hormones. That's the most important thing.

They're still listening to 8-track tape. Like they didn't get back, you know what I mean? But that's, that's like essentially what it is. It's this, it's painful honestly to see. And you know what, when I was transitioning to eating more, I still would do this while I'm not working on the weekend. So I'm gonna eat very little and it was like still hindering me. And then as, as soon as I was like, I won't eat quite as much, but it's gonna be pretty damn close. And then boom, just kept coming off. Coming off, coming off, and it just— starving yourself is the worst thing that you could ever do for multitudes of reasons. So thank you for explaining that and covering it. Today's episode is brought to you by my great friends at Jinfinity. One thing that I've learned over the years is that the highest performers do not rely on assumptions. They rely on data. And that's especially true when it comes to NAD+. Everyone is talking about boosting NAD+ levels, but Very few people actually know where their levels are to begin with, whether their protocol is working, or how much they even need.

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There's been a lot that I changed my mind on when it comes to keto. The first thing is that I used to believe, so I got into ketosis and I started teaching it and using it in 2013. And I thought that it was like the be-all and end-all, like you should be in continuous long-term ketosis. For the rest of your life. It's the greatest thing ever. Like, do it forever. May women do it the same way. I do not believe in that anymore. I, I, I don't agree that you should be in long-term continuous ketosis. That's where keto flex comes in. Mm-hmm. It's flexing in and out of ketosis, hence the metabolic flexibility. And the reason why is because when you're in ketosis, it's a mild stress to your metabolism. That's where you get the benefit of that mitochondria and the ATP output. The reason why that's happening is 'cause that mild stress signals to your mitochondria reproduce and it creates mitochondrial biogenesis, the creation of new mitochondria. And then there's massive ATP output. Short-term, it's so beneficial. Long-term, that good positive stress turns into a stress that your body's not adapting to. Then your hormones tank, your testosterone, your testo— your, uh, your sex hormones like estrogen and progesterone, your T3 hormone starts to drop.

It's too much of a stress. And for women, it happens a lot faster than men. But by introducing cyclical keto, higher healthy carb days from time to time, which I teach how to do that in the book, you actually make these hormonal conversions. So you get the best of both worlds. You get all the benefits of ketosis and then the drawback of long-term ketosis. So that's the first thing I changed my mind on. The second thing. I used to teach ketosis should be very, very high fat, moderate to low protein, and very, very low carbohydrates. Most people kind of go on Google and they see that's the way it should be structured.

Yeah.

I don't agree to that structure anymore, especially with the protein part. So in Keto Flex, I actually emphasize that protein should be high with keto because the muscle building part, you know, the value of building muscle. And if you don't get enough protein, it's gonna be hard to build muscle. So I'm actually fan, a fan of high protein ketogenic approaches. So I talk about that and I was against that back in the day. And then the third thing that I changed my mind on was the fasting part of it. 'Cause I used to also love fasting and I still do, but too much of a good thing turns into a bad thing with fasting, right? So I was somebody who fasted too much and I thought men and women should fast the same way. I don't agree to that anymore. I think fasting should be balanced with feasting, and I think, and I know women should do it differently than men. So that's why I wrote a chapter on, in Keto Flex on how women who have a menstrual cycle do keto and fasting, how women who are in postmenopausal years do keto and fasting, and then a different chapter on how men do it.

It needs to be customized. It's not a cookie cutter approach.

Mm-hmm.

And those are things that I did not have an awareness of back when I started teaching it back in 2013.

I love that. I, I've been that way too with the fasting, especially where too much of a good thing generally turns into a bad thing. Yeah. I think, look, we're wired that way. We sometimes we have to learn the hard way, but it's that thing where you don't make the same mistakes twice.

Right?

So that, that's a good, but that's good that you are constantly learning and then able to go back and correct because I mean, that's what life is, is trial and error.

Right?

I mean, this is really trial and error, all of it, because everybody's different. I think though that when it comes to this, that people do seem to adapt quite well to it. Do you run into a lot of people that are resistant that end up loving it? Like run using keto as a tool?

Yeah, I see that all the time. So I, I've taken about 10,000+ people through these protocols.

Yeah.

Through my, my courses. And I've seen people go on both ends of it, right? They're resistant to it. How, how can I? Lower my carbs that much. I'm so used to eating 2 to 3 times. No, sorry, 17 times a day, not 2 to 3 times a day. That's what they want to get to.

Yeah, 7.

That's actually a study looking at— Wow. Dr. Don Klum did a patient population study where he had hundreds of people write down in a journal every time they ate something, whether it was a meal or a snack. And the average American was eating 17 to 23 times a day.

And if I get 3 or 4, I'm like, wow, it's a lot.

That's right. It's glucose and insulin spikes. So anyways, they go from that and they're like, there's no way I could drop it down to 3 meals a day. There's no way I could lower my carbs under 50 grams a day. But the way that I teach it is a gradual approach. We don't do cold turkey approaches. I don't agree to that. No, it's gradually manipulating carbs, increasing protein and fat, reducing the snacking, and then getting rid of the snacking. And then they fall in love with it and then they want to stay there and then they're afraid to actually add the flex day in because they felt so good on keto. And then I explain The analogy I just gave you with the firewood applies to long-term ketosis is why I explained actually will help you break a plateau or prevent a plateau when you have that flex day. But people are resistant, especially people that have been sugar burners for so long. And when I bring up the word fasting to these individuals, I could see it in their eyes. It's like a deer in headlights. And it's like me asking them to hold their breath for 10 minutes.

We're gonna talk about fasting, right? But, but, but the way that I explain it to them is like, we don't even practice fasting right off the bat.

Yeah.

First I get them fat adapted. I help them, I teach them how to burn fat for fuel instead of sugar. Then we start fasting and that's how it's broken down in Keto Flex.

When you were talking about now you're kind of like heavier on the protein side, let's just take a percentage. Yeah. Are you like, 'cause like I try to go about 40, 40, 20 with what I eat, like 40% protein, fat, 20 carb, and sometimes it's like 45 fat, 40 protein, 15 carb. What's your percentage that you kind of stick with, or do you have one?

I don't have a percentage, but I have a macronutrient number that I do. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a little bit different, but you could kind of plug it into a percentage. Please. In general, for protein, it's a gram of protein per pound of your ideal body weight. So if somebody weighs £200, but their ideal body weight, their goal weight is £130, then I want them to consume about 130 grams of protein per day. Or aim to get there. Some people struggle with that. So what I tell 'em is to at least have 30 grams of protein at all of their meals to create that muscle protein synthesis. For carbs, I tell them, if you wanna be in this fat-burning ketosis, it needs to be under 50 total grams per day. And all those carbs should be non-starchy, um, low glycemic carbohydrates like green leafy vegetables, maybe some blueberries, no high glycemic fruits and, and vegetables. For fat, I tell them to follow a certain rule in the first week, which is called the 2-2-2 rule, which incorporates certain tablespoons of fat. But here's the, here's the interesting thing. I actually have them pull their fat down if they're looking to lose weight.

I have 'em pull their fat lower during this, the first few weeks of, of their keto approach. And their main thing is to get the protein and only get the fat that comes with the protein, not add extra fat because I want their, their body to pull their own body fat for, for fuel and not necessarily burn the fat they're eating. Yeah. So if they're really overweight, I actually have them lower their fat, not a high fat diet.

So you have fat adapted then?

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So then when they're fat adapted, then you go higher on the fat intake?

No, no, no.

You stay that way?

No, in the beginning the— so I explained that wrong maybe. So in the beginning it is high fat. I saw the first 7 days is high fat. Once they're fat adapted, then the fat is lowered.

Okay.

Because I want their body to pull from their body fat versus burning the calories from the fat they're eating.

Okay.

If they're really overweight.

Sure.

Yeah, sure. Yeah.

So it's tailored then.

Yes.

Okay, perfect. That explains a lot. Okay, excellent. So one of the things that I get, I'm wondering if you get this, I always got this. That's how do I get that much protein? Do you get that?

You said to you a lot? Yes, yes, yes.

And I, I understand if you don't like know diet or food. To me it's like the easiest thing in the world. I mean, one 12-ounce piece of salmon's like 70-some grams of protein just in one sitting. And then if you break it down to people, it's like, 4 ounces of chicken, or I, I don't like chicken, but I'm just using it as an example, or ground beef or whatever. I mean, there's, it's pretty easy to get it. Do you, when do you find, when you explain it to people, it's pretty easy, then they do it pretty simply, or?

No, people have a challenge, which is they really, yeah. Yeah, I agree. They tell me, but how can I have that much protein? So, you know, there's a, that's where I tell 'em, hey, look, if you can't get that 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight goal that I'm talking about, get at least 30 grams at each meal. Yeah. Just to get that mu muscle protein synthesis. But I also tell 'em to take essential amino acids. Yeah. To fill in the gap.

Absolutely.

Right. Why not take 10 grams, 20 grams of a high-quality essential amino acid, maybe a high-quality protein shake. Find ways to fill in the gap. Now, ideally I want their food to be the primary protein source, but it's not a bad idea to take essential amino acids. I take 'em every day.

I do too. Yeah. Queenie will come up to me now because I've stressed the protein and just like thrilled when she gets 100 grams a day or whatever and show me on her phone that she did it. But it is, it, if you are not used to eating that way, I'm used to it from all the training. So we would do like, when I was trying to really gain muscle a pound, uh, it would be like 1.5 grams per pound.

That's a lot, bro.

Yeah. Oh, I mean, I still do about 240, 250 a day now, but I train a lot. Yeah. I mean, a lot, a lot, except on the weekends. I don't get that much. I try to lower it. You know, when I'm not training on those days of those, on the days you're not training on the weekends, you lower the protein.

Yeah. That makes sense.

Yeah. I'm more like closer to my weight or even less. Okay. You know, so what's your weight? One, on my best day, 175. On days like this where I didn't eat at all yesterday, about 172, maybe something like that.

Fasting right now? Not by choice, but yeah. Well, we're going to go get a nice, uh, Argentinian steak.

I love it. Yeah. I had a quick little bit of vegetables and protein bar on the way here. I, I had some issues at the hotel also. You went on late.

Yeah. You were telling me a little bit about that. Yeah.

Okay.

So you're not technically fasting, but you're in a caloric deficit.

For me it's fasting, right? For me it is. So one of the things that I've kind of noticed, I don't crave carbs at all, even with all the working out where you would think I would want them, what causes people to really crave carbohydrates? Is it something from eating bad foods or is it something in the, like their sleep or what is it?

Sleep definitely plays a role there, but it's because they're a sugar burner. Here's, here's what happens when your body and metabolism is only burning sugar for fuel, like 93% of people that I talked about. What happens is when you, um, go a couple hours without food, the brain, the glycogen in your body goes low, but the brain in your glucose, the glucose in your brain, I should say, goes low too. Then the brain sends the body a signal, go get more glucose. We need to refill the sugar in the brain because it's so used to burning sugar for fuel, right? So they get these cravings every 2 to 3 hours for sugar and carbs and sugar and carbs, and they're in this vicious cycle. When you're metabolically flexible like you, Dylan, when you're fat adapted like you, Dylan, that doesn't happen. What happens is glucose drops in the brain, that still happens, but what happens next your body produces ketones or it breaks down fat, fatty acids, and then you're using that as an energy source. So that tells the brain, hey, don't worry, here's another fuel source. Use that for fuel. You don't get the cravings.

Now sleep plays a huge role here because when you don't get quality sleep, the next morning you're gonna have higher levels of glucose. Yeah. Higher levels of cortisol. And your brain is gonna be starved of the energy cuz it didn't clear out the junk at night. And it's gonna tell you, go eat the donut, go eat the Oreos, eat the sugar. Get the carbs because I want to fulfill the desire of getting energy back in the brain because it's depleted. 'Cause I didn't get quality sleep. And sleep, you, you talked about this in my podcast we just recorded. It, it's like the Swiss Army knife of health. It, it really is the most important thing. If you dial in your sleep, everything works better.

Yeah.

Every single thing. And I'll share one thing that's an important piece that I talk about in Keto Flex. The most important window for burning fat within your 24-hour period days. It's not at the gym. It's not during your fast. It's the first few hours after you've fallen asleep. Really deep delta sleep. Okay. You burn the most calories and activate this growth hormone pulse during that first 2 to 3 hours after you've fallen asleep. That you do not get anywhere else. Now, still work out, still fast. I'm not saying not to do that, but here's the crazy thing. Most people miss that really important fat burning window. You know why? Because they eat too close to bed. Yeah. When you eat too close to bed, you spike glucose. Obviously insulin is spiked. Insulin stays elevated for hours and it shuts down the growth hormone pulse. It depletes your deep sleep.. And once you get out of that window of deep sleep, it's gone. It's only the first few hours after you've fallen asleep. And if insulin was high, you've missed that very important fat burning window. So you wake up, you feel puffy, you look puffy, you're hungry, and you're on a vicious cycle of blood sugar imbalance the entire day.

Yes. And there's a recent study, not recent, 2020, John Hopkins, really fascinating study. They took 20 healthy people, probably had a hard time finding those healthy people, but they took 20 healthy people. They did a really cool experiment where on night 1, they had these 20 people eat at 6:00 PM. On night 2, they had the same 20 people eat at 10:00 PM.

Saw your study.

Yeah, I saw. Yeah, here we go. Same calories, same meal, same people. Calorie bros, you ready for this? Uh-oh. When they ate at 10:00 PM, they had blood sugars that were 18% higher. Than when they ate at 6:00 PM and 10% less fat burning when they ate at night versus at 6:00. That's a lot. You accumulate that night after night, night after. So what I talk about in, in, in Keto Flex is this rule that I tell all my YouTube, uh, followers to follow, which is the kitchen is closed rule. 3 hours before bed, kitchen is closed. So if you go to bed at 11:00 PM, kitchen is closed at 8:00 PM. No food. Give yourself at least 3 hours of no food before bed. Which allows insulin to drop. You fall asleep, you get that growth hormone pulse, you activate your fat burning hormones, you wake up and you do this night after night and your stomach starts to get shredded. It's the most important window for fat burning that most people miss. Mm-hmm. They think it's about waking up early and going to the gym, doing Orange Theory or CrossFit. They think it's about the caloric restriction or the fasting or the diet.

None of that is gonna be as powerful as this tip I just taught you by getting that deep quality sleep.

I love it. I, every time that I've had like 5-hour nights of sleep or really interfered sleep, like last night. Yeah, I actually did sleep last night.

It was just late.

I wake up just brutally hungry. Most not days I wake up fine. Just get up and do the routine. Don't even think about eating for 5 hours at least. But those nights of bad sleep, man, oh man, oh man, you wake up feeling just same terrible. And it's not just tired or groggy, it's just terrible. Mm-hmm. Let me ask you this. I, this, this is what I was just thinking in my head right now. What foods do I eat that gimme the most satiety and which ones don't gimme any? And I'm going down this list in my head and I'm going, okay, that's a fat. Okay, that's fat. Okay, that's fat. Okay, that's protein. Okay, protein, fat, protein, fat. Not coming up with one carbohydrate in my head aside from sweet potatoes, just 'cause my body just, I, I don't like them 'cause I feel heavy. I love the way they taste, but, but I'm, I'm thinking in my head and I'm just not coming up with anything.

Yeah.

And then I'm remembering, oh, you were always hungry when you, when you didn't eat any fats. And what were you eating when you weren't eating any fats? And it dawned on me, I was eating a lot of carbohydrates.

Mm-hmm.

A lot. It was a lot, a lot. And I was always starving. So you, how much per day? I mean, I was only eating 1,400, 1,500 calories a day and okay. Majority of it was vegetables. 12, 13 servings of vegetables, 2.5 servings of oatmeal, raisins, fruit, and you know, then yogurt. I don't know. Peanut butter.

Crazy.

Yeah, I know. It's amazing that I made it that far functional and production-wise.

Right. So yeah.

Well, there was some steroid use, things like that going on there. So in my head, I'm not seeing any carbs that are giving me any satiety. Mm-hmm. Why is that? And are there any that are gonna make you feel full or, you know, 'cause when you eat crappy processed foods too, you're still just hungrier. We are done.

Yeah.

So why is that if I'm right? And two, are there any that are gonna give you any of that feeling of fullness?

Well, you know, it's interesting when, when I went down the rabbit hole of looking at medical textbooks, I discovered when I was looking at the three macronutrients, right? Protein, fat, carbohydrates. In all medical textbooks, it shows that there are essential proteins, meaning it's essential for you, for human beings to live. You need essential amino acids. There are also essential fatty acids. So there are essential fats, but you know what? There's no such thing as essential carbohydrates.

Never heard of one. There's funny that you say that.

There's none in the medical textbooks. Carbohydrates are non-essential to function. Now with that being said, am I against carbs? No, no. I don't think there's a time and place.

There are facts though that— that's wild.

I've never thought of that. No such thing as essential carbs. Now this goes to the answer. Protein is what activates these satiety signals. They're like what GLP-1 drugs activate. It's cholecystokinin, which is a hormone that your, uh, gallbladder produces, CCK, that helps you feel full. Leptin, which is a hormone that tells your brain you're full, put down the fork. You have cholecystokinin, you have leptin, you have peptide YY. These are signals that tell your stomach, your brain, you're getting full, put down the fork. Protein does that, especially complete protein. So animal-based protein. Versus plant-based protein unless you combine different plant-based, uh, sources to make it complete. Uh, fat also gives you those signals. It also tastes pretty satisfying, right? So a, a, a protein that contains natural fats like a ribeye, or even, I know you don't like chicken, but like high-quality chicken, organic chicken with the skin on. Yeah. Uh, fatty fish, salmon, sardines, et cetera. This is gonna help signal to that. Carbs will not. I'll give you an example of, of how this works that's gonna be relevant to the person watching and listening. If you went to a restaurant, like we're going to an Argentinian restaurant after this, we're gonna feast on some steak.

And, uh, you know, I, I could eat like a 20, 24-ounce steak. I could, I could, I could put it down. And let's say I go to a restaurant and they have this 30-ounce ribeye steak and they're really proud of it. They feel like nobody could eat the whole thing. They even have a challenge that they reward you if you could eat the whole thing. And let's say I eat the whole thing. I eat the 30-ounce ribeye and the owner is impressed. He comes over to me and he goes, wow, you actually ate the whole thing. Nobody does that. And he says, we're gonna give you some free dessert as a, as a, you know, congratulations. So he comes and he gives me dessert, even though I'm so full from the protein, I could probably eat some of that dessert. I could probably drink a Coca-Cola because it's not gonna signal more fullness, right? But if he said, I'm going to give you another Wagyu A5, 5-ounce steak that costs $500 for free to eat right after that steak, I'm probably gonna say, I can't eat that right now. I'm too full. 'Cause the protein signals the fullness, the carbs do not, right?

So by eating more carbs, you just feel more hungry. There's something called the protein leverage hypothesis, which states the reason why so many people overeat and overeat processed food is because they're trying to meet their protein threshold. And they eat all this junk food that, which is so low in protein, they eat so much of it to get that protein. But you could skip that by just focusing on high-quality protein and fat, lower carbs or low glycemic carbs, and get the satiety that you're looking for that people pay to inject with GLP-1 drugs.

Right. I'm still thinking about the essential carb thing.

No such thing as essential carbohydrates. Fact-check me, my friends. Look in all the medical textbooks. Ask Claude, ask ChatGPT. Now, with that being said, I'm not saying you should not have carbs. No, no, no, no. Make that clear. But it's not essential. There's no such thing as essential carbs.

That's the thing. I mean, I'm also not saying the same thing. I think there's value there, but that is, that is great. I love it. So just give the quick outline of the premise of the book there.

Yeah.

For everybody.

So the book is called Keto Flex Revised, and it has a 45-day plan for how to use keto, how to use fasting, how to do a carnivore diet as well, and different levels of it. And it's customized for you. So I, I share a chapter on women, chapter on men, chapter on postmenopausal women, and it goes through my 4 pillars. This is the same 4 pillars that I've put in my courses that I've taught thousands of students. So ADAPT is the first pillar, getting you fat adapted. FAST is the second pillar, practicing intermittent fasting. PHASE is the third pillar, removing foods that trigger inflammation in the gut. You spoke about the importance of the gut on my podcast.

Yeah.

And then number 4 is, um, FLEX, flexing out of ketosis. And how do you do that the right way? So it has that in there. There's chapters on the newest research on ketosis, on fasting. A 45-day plan. There's recipes at the end of the book if you like that stuff. I don't care about recipes, but some people do.

Yeah.

So that's in there. And the book's coming out July 21st. We have some free bonuses we're giving away over at ketoflexbook.com. We have some downloadables. We have the entire chapter 2 audio recording with me narrating it, giving away that chapter for free, which is the fasting chapter, some 7-day roadmap. So if you go to ketoflexbook.com, you could get it there. It's available on paperback like this, Kindle, and then Audible and Spotify. And if you get the audio, I narrated it myself and I added in some coaching sessions at the end of each chapter. I had a lot of fun. Wow. So it was super cool and I added some different content in there. So that's the book. I'm really proud of it. It's, it's the advanced guide to metabolic flexibility. Yeah. It takes, you know, what I wrote with Metabolic Freedom to a more customized version of how to do this.

I love it. So it's basically like a handbook to keto, basically.

Yeah. And fasting.

Oh man.

Yeah.

You always go above and beyond with the teaching and everything that you do. How fun is that to do Audible recordings? I mean, is it pretty cool?

It's actually not that fun, man.

Really?

It's actually really tough.

Is it?

Yeah. Chris saw me. I could, I would come home from a like 5-hour session. I'm like, oh my God. The reason why it's not like a podcast, bro.

Yeah.

A podcast, you're natural. It's organic. This is different. You have the script. Got the headphones, you have this engineer looking at you through a glass, and anytime you change the way you say something, you mispronounce a word, your flow changes, they stop you, you redo it, uh, and they stop you and redo it. And I was doing it fasted and that mic was picking up my stomach growling. It was picking up my mouth doing things that I didn't know it was doing. And he would stop me and stop me. So it was not enjoyable. But what was enjoyable was knowing that I was the one narrating it.

Yeah.

I love when authors do that. It's done. What was enjoyable was at the end of each chapter where I could actually freestyle and flow and talk about these questions and go into a coaching session.

Yeah.

But when you narrate your next book, when, if you want to do that, it's a challenge. Mm-hmm. But there's so much growth there because it teaches you to be a better reader.

Yeah.

Uh, it teaches you to be a better communicator. So there's a lot of growth there, but I wouldn't say it's that enjoyable.

I'm like an ad reader. So like when people have me do ads, I, when they hear 'em, they're like, oh wow. And I think that there's a privilege to be able to convey your book out loud. I agree. You write it, it's awesome. I mean, that's absolutely amazing. But I think to be able to say it, even if it sucks, when you look at it later, it's kind of like the painful tattoo that hurts for hours and hours. And then when it's done, it's like, okay, this was worth it. Right.

It's so, it's so worth it. I'm so happy I did it. You're absolutely correct. Yeah. Uh, you know, if you're an author and you have a book out there, I do want you to narrate it because it's so important for the author that I believe to narrate it versus somebody else. There's a disconnect with somebody else. And, uh, just, you know, drink tea and maybe fast or know that if your stomach growls, the mic will pick it up. But anyways, I say all that because if you, if you enjoy my voice, if you enjoy my teaching, it's in the book as an audio. If you like Audible or Spotify, use a credit. You can get the book on there and you could still get the free bonuses even with the audios.

I love it. I love it, man. It was so far beyond worth it to come down here and hang out with you. I, I, I keep my travel to a minimum now because it got a little outta control and I, I am a regimented routine guy. So when I break it, you know what it's like? It's like, man, I would do this a hundred times over, even with all the nonsense at the, at the hotel and that flight and everything else. I would do this anytime, anywhere you ask me, I'd be here. And even my wife who hates me to travel, I'd go, just go.

She did.

Yeah, she did. Just go. My mom's a fan of yours. I love you like a brother. You know that. And what I love more so than anything is having the Bible here, having the positive energy, having so many people around you that I can tell you care about, like you genuinely care about You don't have any motive that I see so many people have when I'm in person with them. I can feel it. I pick up on it, you know, just like you do. Your motive is different. Your, your amount of information is stellar, but you carry the wisdom that I was talking about. You're not just a smart dude. You're a guy that uses it how it's supposed to be used for others in the right way. And so that exudes into everything you do, and that's why you're so respected and why you're so successful. And that's why, just like you told me, You too, my friend, even with all the numbers and all the success, are still only getting started. And it's, it's an honor and a pleasure and a privilege to sit with you, to rap, to talk, and to share it with everybody else.

So thank you, my friend, for having me here. But thank you for everything that you do, for the inspiration, the motivation, and the example you set, because you set an example for everybody in our field. On how it's supposed to be done. And I hope people watch that and, and take it to heart and do that in what they do, because you've set an example for me too. And, and I appreciate it. So my friend, everything that you do, that you're blessed with, you, you deserve it. You do. And I'm just thankful that I met you. I'm thankful for the friendship. I'm thankful for everything you do.

I received that, my friend. Thank you, Dylan. It's been so great getting to know you over this past year and your growth and your consistency, which I shared on, on the interview with you. Thank you for making the trip. Thank you to Queenie for allowing you to come. I understand the travel part. Same thing. I get into my groove and travel disrupts it. You lose some momentum, but sometimes you gain momentum and sometimes you have phenomenal conversations like we did. Now we get to go feast cuz I know you're hungry. Okay. Go, go get some steak here. And, uh, no, thank you for making it happen, my friend.

I love it. All right, everybody, get the book July 21st. And, uh, I will link everything else like I always do in the description, but get this book. It is going to be a game changer, a life changer, and to have this kind of knowledge, it, it just opens up a whole nother world for you. So thank you again, my friend, for this amazing studio and setup. That being said, stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Gemelli and Ben Azadi signing off.

All right. Awesome. Boom, boom, boom.