88. Ben Azadi: The $4.6 Trillion Healthcare Crisis and How to Reverse Metabolic Disease in 30 Days

93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy and don't even know it. In this episode of EXTEND, I sit down with Ben Azadi, metabolic health expert and New York Times bestselling author who transformed his life by losing 80 pounds after facing obesity, depression, and pre-diabetes at just 23 years old. We explore how one out of every four healthcare dollars is spent on diabetes and why your doctor probably isn't checking the one biomarker that could predict metabolic issues. We also dive into practical strategies for breaking free from the sugar-burning trap. Ben Azadi is a metabolic health coach, New York Times bestselling author of "Metabolic Freedom," and founder of the Keto Kamp podcast. After overcoming obesity and depression through lifestyle changes 17 years ago, he has dedicated his life to helping others achieve metabolic flexibility through ancient healing strategies like ketosis and fasting, combined with modern science. We Also Discuss: Why Fasting Insulin Is the Most Important Test Your Doctor Isn't Ordering The Whitehall 2 Study: 6-14 Years of Hidden Insulin Resistance "Mentally Obese": Understanding Depression's Connection to Food Why There Are No "Essential Carbohydrates" in Medical Textbooks Continuous Glucose Monitors: The Accountability Tool That Changes Everything The 44.4 Pound Weight Loss in 30 Days Case Study Metabolic Confusion: Why Diet Variation Beats Diet Dogma The Simple Swap from Sugar Burning to Fat Burning Single Ingredient Foods: The Beginner's Best Strategy Thank You for Our Sponsors: IM8: Try IM8 today with a 30-day money back guarantee. You can get 20% off your first order with code DRSHAH at https://im8health.com/discount/DRSHAH. Function Health: Learn more and join using functionhealth.com/drshah. The first 1000 get a $100 credit toward their membership. Visit https://www.functionhealth.com/drshah https://www.functionhealth.com/a/drshah or use gift code DRSHAH100 at sign-up to own your health. Learn more about Dr. Shah: Website: https://www.drshah.com/ Clinic: https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/ Learn more about Ben Azadi: Website: https://benazadi.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebenazadi/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21, and trained and board certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We're living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span.

• 0:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Let me tell you a story for this podcast. This is a story about a 23-year-old who walked into his doctor's office weighing 250 pounds. He had erectile dysfunction, prediabetes, and thoughts of actually ending his life. But his doctor never asked him what he was eating. The United States spends 4.6 trillion annually on healthcare. It's more than the GDP of most countries, but it ranks 37th in health outcomes. One out of every four healthcare dollars goes towards treating diabetes, which is a completely preventable disease. How did we get here? In this episode, I'm going to be sitting down with Ben Azadi. He transformed from a suicidal 23-year-old with multiple medical problems into a metabolic health expert

• 1:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  after discovering the fact that 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy, and he was one of those people. Most people don't even know it. We're going to explore why your fasting insulin level can predict diabetes six to 14 years before your blood sugar changes, how the average person spikes their glucose 17 to 23 times a day, and the 30-day protocol that Ben has created that helped him lose 44 pounds and reverse his metabolic dysfunction. Ben Azadi is a metabolic health coach. He's the New York Times bestselling author of a book called Metabolic Freedom, and he's the founder of the Keto Kamp Podcast. After he overcame obesity and depression through lifestyle changes 17 years ago, he's dedicated his life to helping others achieve metabolic flexibility.

• 2:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And he uses ancient healing strategies like ketosis and fasting. And he combines that with science-backed, more modern approaches like continuous glucose monitors to truly change the destiny of someone's metabolic health. I really like this guy. It was such a pleasure meeting him. He has some great stories and I can't wait for you to hear this podcast.

• 2:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Ben, I've been really looking forward to this conversation. And I've been following you for a long time and I just love the work that you're doing. And metabolic health, you and I were just talking, is a crisis, I would say, in the United States. And you have some incredible tools and information you're putting out there to help us be part of the change of this problem, right? And so, thank you for joining me.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  It is an honor. I love your work. We're at your beautiful studio. I just explored your facility downstairs. I love what you're doing. It's an honor and let's have a fun conversation, my friend.

• 3:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, thank you so much. So, okay, you know, I feel like, when I started following you, your journey had actually started a while before that. And so, you know, then when I was doing a deeper dive into your story, it was just so, so interesting. If you don't mind sharing your story from your own words, I'd love for the audience to hear kind of why you're here.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Hundred percent, yeah. And I appreciate that. You know, when I was 23 years old, back in 2007, most people at that age, they're graduating college, starting their career, maybe starting a family. That wasn't me. I was on the internet looking for ways to end things. I was depressed. I was obese physically, obese mentally. Never understood fitness, nutrition, definitely not any research studies. Didn't know how to read those back then. And I went down the path of what most people do. I went to my appointments with my conventional doctor. And keep in mind, 23 years old, 250 pounds, erectile dysfunction, high blood sugar levels that were creeping up into prediabetes. And my dad also had diabetes, high blood pressure, my whole body felt inflamed.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  So I'm explaining these symptoms to my doctor. And the doctor never asked the question. Question like, what are you eating Ben? Let's discuss your lifestyle. It was, you know, what can I prescribe for this young man? And he definitely recommended some prescriptions, but I felt like I was too young to go on those. So I didn't take my life because I kept thinking about my mom and I didn't want to cause that devastation for her. So it forced me to figure things out and it really started with with self-development and Dr. Wayne Dyer and Bob Proctor and these, helped me take ownership and responsibility. Then I started eating just real food, moving my body. I went through this incredible transformation. I lost 80 pounds in nine months. I went from being obese to being physically fit. And that's what got me in the space. It was 17 plus years ago.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  And of course, there's been a lot that I've unlearned and relearned and now I write about metabolic health and the new book is called Metabolic Freedom. And I use a lot of these ancient healing strategies like ketosis and fasting. Whatever we can do to harness this innate intelligence within all of our cells to go to work for us because we've been blocking the body for so many years. So what can we do to remove the interference? And then allow that innate intelligence to heal. And I'm excited to talk about that.

• 5:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I love the framing of that. But before we get into that, you said something that kind of struck a nerve with me, this mentally obese. The phrase you use, can you dive into that a little bit more for me?

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely. You know, so many people are dealing with that. It's the depression. It's the emotional eating. And I think a lot of people are not necessarily tired. They're they're uninspired, right? So when you're not living a life with with goals and purpose and passion, you will find, this is my life, I will, I will find ways to fill that void. So it was with sugar addiction, drug addiction. I even mentioned that was part of my story, drug addiction. And I was mentally obese because I had depression. I had thoughts of taking my own life. I had this fog. I couldn't experience happiness and fun and happiness are different. Like I had fun, but it doesn't mean I was happy. Fun is very short-lived and shallow. Happiness is fulfilling and long-lasting. There's a difference there. And your food directly impacts your mood, right? You know this.

• 6:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  I had narrow inflammation, right? I was eating seed oils. My mom worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

• 6:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  And she did the best she could do.

• 6:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I didn't know that about your story. Wow, yeah.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  And of course, she did the best she could do with her, you know.

• 6:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But you probably ate a lot of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  I ate a lot of Kentucky Fried Chicken. You know, it's really. Interesting, just quick side note with Kentucky Fried Chicken. She would bring me home Kentucky Fried Chicken. I was a happy kid. But some nights she didn't and I would say, Mom, what's up? There's no chicken tonight? And she said she would only bring it to me the first week after they've changed their canola oil. They don't change it for 14 days. It gets so black, then they change it. She wouldn't bring it on the days that the oil turned like dark black. And I would venture to guess they're still doing that in these fast food restaurants.

• 6:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I'm sure, yeah. Or they've added chemicals to it to keep it not from not getting black, which is even worse, right?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I mean, there's so much chemical additives into the oil even after. And I mean, a whole way that, and you probably already know this, but a way that fast food restaurants are trying to save money is the recycling of this oil.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Yes. And it works. They save a lot of money, but it costs us our health.

• 7:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  It's insane.

• 7:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's insane. I mean, thank God for your mom like thinking, thinking about that. Like you said, she did the best she could.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 7:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And she had to put food on the table, but at least it wasn't, you know, the old oil fried food. That's amazing.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. So if I could overcome that, I think we, you know, I hope that it gives people some inspiration as well.

• 7:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, Ben, I want to ask you something kind of controversial, okay? And I want to hear how you talk about this. There's this kind of mini movement going on where, you know, fat shaming is kind of brought into our, into our topic of conversation. Like we use these words obesity and we're talking about people being obese as a disease. And then there's this movement about fat shaming and body pride and, and being proud of your body, no matter what body you're in. I deal with this, you know, a conversation a lot of times when I talk to people. And I would just hear how you kind of talk about this.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, it's a really important topic. You're correct. And I, I view obesity as not a disease personally. I view, I view it as a symptom. I view overweight, being overweight as a symptom. So nobody has a weight problem. They have a weight symptom. That's why the old calories in versus calories out approach doesn't work because it's treating the symptom. We don't lose weight to get healthy. We get healthy to lose weight. But the conversation, if somebody's overweight or obese, but they're, they're happy and confident in their body, that's way better than being overweight and obese and hating their body, right? You're going to be healthier, loving your body, number one. So I am on board with that mindset. However, When you're overweight or obese, it takes its toll on your body. I believe you can't be your true personality.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  You're gonna shave years off your lifespan. You're gonna shave energy off your personality. You can't show up and have that productivity because it takes its toll. It really does over time. It leads to other diseases. It leads to, of course, an increase in diabetes. It leads to autoimmune conditions, PCOS, I could go on and on. So it's not about aesthetics here. It's about showing up and being that full version of yourself for yourself and then for the world. So it's not about shaming at all. I know you feel the same way. It's about, it's about being healthy so you could live, and I believe in God, so you could live the way God designed you to live, to be that full potential. And when you're healthy, the bigger the mission, the more energy required.

• 9:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  And when you have all this extra weight, I was obese at 34% body fat. You don't have the energy to do that.

• 9:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  You're gonna be irritable at times. So you're gonna be at the post office waiting in line and you're not gonna be yourself. You're gonna be probably a jerk to the people in line, the person in front of you. But when you're healthy, you have more of your personality, you have more grace, you have more empathy. So I come from it from that standpoint, not shaming, but from being healthy and being that truest version of yourself.

• 10:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, and this goes back to being mentally obese because if the obesity, when you look at yourself in the mirror and it creates mental obesity, creates depression, irritability, not having a purpose or goals in life because all you're focused on is what you see in the mirror and not being happy with it, you're just gonna end up going in a bad direction, right? But I see a lot of patients that are like, I look good, I'm fine with the way I look. I'm like, that's fantastic. I'm not gonna tell you that you need to change for aesthetic reasons, but let's look at your biomarkers, let's see what your metabolic health is doing. Let's see what your cholesterol levels look like. Let's see what your APOB is. And then I say, let's make changes to get metabolically healthy.

• 10:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  If that leads to weight loss, fine, I hope you're okay with that. But I'm not doing this for aesthetics, I'm doing this for health.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  That's right, it's a great reframe. And exactly, it's about the biomarkers, it's about the labs, you know, the numbers do not lie. So if they happen to lose weight by getting those numbers optimized, great. And if they stay the same way. But their marketers look good, also great. It's not the aesthetic here, to your point. And let's also be clear that some people store their fat in visceral fat and could look clean, which arguably more dangerous than the subcutaneous fat, which they look bigger, but they actually be healthier because they have less visceral fat. So it's also where you're storing your fat as well.

• 11:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. That's such a great point. Yeah. Tofy, where you have, you know, skinny fat is another way to say this, but it's the way your metabolic health looks when you're finally looking under the hood and looking at some biomarkers. That really is what I try to focus on.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  I know. I saw your clinic downstairs. Impressive.

• 11:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Awesome. Okay. So you wrote this incredible book, Metabolic Freedom. I love the title.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thirty Day Guide, which is fantastic because it is true that you can address this problem successfully in 30 days, right?

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 11:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And tell us about the framework in this book that people will learn about.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the book, I wrote this book because when we look at the United States, we see that we spend about $4.6 trillion every year on healthcare. And if that was a GDP, it would be the fourth largest GDP in the world.

• 12:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What?

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Yes. That's what, how much we spend every year.

• 12:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Just on our healthcare spending?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Per year.

• 12:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  And you know, you would think, okay, we spend that much. So the United States should be top five in health. Well, all right, top 10 in, okay. What about top 20? No, we're on 37 or so, right? So we spend all that money, but we're not actually healthy. I mean, pharmaceutical companies are richer than ever before, but we're sicker than ever before. And what's interesting about that $4.6 trillion we spend on healthcare, one out of every $4 is from spent on diabetes, primarily type 2, which is a metabolic disease that is 100% preventable. I'm talking about type 2 diabetes.

• 12:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  And 100% reversible. So I wanted to write a book that explained the problems. The first half of the book are here are the main causes to metabolic disease. And we could get into a few of those if you want, but here are the causes. We need to identify the interference first. Second half are the solutions and then it's all tied together. Okay, you've learned this now. What's the problem? What's the solution? How do you apply it? And that's where the 30 day plan comes into play. And I wrote the book for a beginner tone. Understand it, or somebody use a geek like you and I to understand it with the 274 citations.

• 13:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. I love it. Okay. So, you know, one of the things I did not realize is the breakdown that one out of every $4 is spent on diabetes type 2.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Primarily, it's diabetes total, but probably like 95% is type 2.

• 13:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Primarily, yeah. The prevalence of type 2 versus type 1 is massive.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 13:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And type 2 diabetes is, in my assessment, a man-made problem.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right? And so, think about that. One out of every $4 and the other 3 out of $4 is spent treating cancers and

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Heart disease.

• 13:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Accidents and the hospital spends and all this stuff. Like, that's a massive amount of money that we're dedicating just towards a man-made problem, right?

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Correct, yeah.

• 14:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And when I say man-made problem, you know, you dive in in this book about the different causes of this problem. And I don't think a lot of these are intuitive to most people. Some of them are very intuitive, but some of them are not. And so, maybe you can talk about, just briefly about the intuitive ones, but dive a little bit deeper into the ones that people wouldn't necessarily recognize.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, you know, one of the, you mentioned biomarkers earlier. You're a big fan of that, which I love. One of the biomarkers that I make a strong case for in the beginning of the book is insulin, a fasting insulin. And a lot of people have heard of a fasting glucose. It's usually on their annual report or an A1C, which is also, those are great tests. Get those done. But not a lot of people are getting an insulin done. And there's a study that I put in the book. It's called the Whitehall 2 Study, which shows you could have full-blown insulin resistance for 6 to 14 years without your blood sugar shifting a bit because your body, and for those who don't know, when you eat food, especially carbohydrates, there's an increase in glucose. And then the pancreas produces insulin to clear that. And when that happens from time to time, you're good.

• 15:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And your body's really good at doing that.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Acutely, but when it's chronically, that's the issue, right? So, you could have insulin resistance for 6 to 14 years and you're not checking your fasting insulin. So, you have no idea. And then all of a sudden, your receptor sites for insulin are burnt out. They can't hear the message. So, then your blood sugars creep up and then it's a pre-diabetes diagnosis. Or if you're not testing, it's going to be diabetes. Diabetes diagnosis. So a fasting insulin is the most important test, I believe, to get done for most people, especially if you're a beginner here, but we want to see that. I want to see it between three and six. Like when I'm testing three and six sensitive levels and you go into that test 12 to 14 hours fasting. The problem, though, is twofold because most doctors, conventional doctors, not brilliant doctors like you,

• 15:45Speaker 01

  they don't order a fasting insulin because there's not a medication to prescribe for high insulin. So that's the problem. So you might have to pay out of pocket. Good news is that it's cheap. The second thing to pay attention to is that reference range that comes back on that report is between three and 28. So it won't be flagged as being a problem if it's 17 or 12 or 21, but that is insulin resistance. So if you could get your fasting insulin between three and six, that is a great starting point because high insulin levels are, it's the first domino to fall that will trigger weight gain, weight loss resistance, high blood pressure, pre-diabetes, cancer, heart disease. So that's really important and you could, you could dramatically lower those insulin levels by putting on muscle strength training, getting quality sleep. I saw your little wheel downstairs

• 16:27Speaker 01

  of the foundations, right? Mastering stress and then moving on to dietary changes and things that I talk about in the book.

• 16:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. So I think it's really important for people listening to really understand and double click on the science here because we traditionally in Western medicine, we check hemoglobin A1C, which is a three month average of your blood sugar level. This will be literally the last thing that changes in the spectrum of metabolic health, right? The first thing that's going to change is your fasting insulin because your body is disposing of glucose using this hormone insulin and it only usually should need a little bit of it, not a lot of it. Once you start secreting a lot of it, it means that it's, your body's getting, it's getting harder and harder for your body to handle the glucose levels.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right? So the first biomarker to change, you said three to 16 years, is that right?

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Uh, six to 14 years on average before you see the blood sugar shift. Yes.

• 17:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Why would you not want to know six to 14 years before you get metabolic health issues leading to diabetes? Why would you not want to know that?

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, everybody wants, they're just not aware of it. Now, now they're aware of it. Once you know better, you do better. Yeah. To your point, it's like, it's like when you scream at your kids for the first time. They'll listen to you, but if you keep screaming at them every day for years, they stop listening. Same thing with insulin.

• 17:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Great analogy.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Same thing, right? You have a high carbohydrate meal, even if it's processed, okay, you screamed at your cells and produced insulin and then it got back to normal baseline. But you keep doing that every day over time, then it gets burnt out and the blood sugars won't shift for over, of some cases, over a decade, which is insane.

• 17:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, absolutely. Okay, so we know fasting insulin is the biomarker that everyone needs to get. How often would you have someone get a fasting insulin level?

• 18:04Speaker 01

  It really depends on what, where their levels are. If you test, right, and you're insulin resistant over, let's say over 11, I would test every 90 days. And if you just want to do, if you're already healthy and you just want to get it done on a consistent basis, every six to 12 months is fine, but at least once a year.

• 18:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, I agree with that 100%. Let's talk about some of these causes because we've said carbohydrates a couple of times. And I think, you know, there's a lot of controversy about carbohydrates out there, right? And I think it's because people are not talking about the nuances or the, or the case scenarios. And so I love to talk about how you feel just about carbohydrates in general, how people should think about carbohydrates, what are they good versus bad? Let's dive into carbs.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's do it. So, you know, I know you know this, but what's interesting is that when we look at the medical textbooks, there's not, we see, we see essential fats, which is essential fatty acids. Of course, we see that, which means we need to take it through dietary source exogenously. We see essential amino acids, which are essential proteins that we need to take exogenously. But there's not such thing as essential carbohydrates in the medical textbooks, meaning our body could produce as much glucose as we need. We don't need to, we always need glucose, but we don't need to eat the glucose to manufacture glucose. We have gluconeogenesis, we have other, we could break down fat, we could break down protein, cortisol helps. Now, that doesn't mean we should never eat carbs. Don't get me wrong. It just means it's not essential. There's a time and a place for carbs and I'm not, I love keto, but I'm not a dogmatic do keto forever sort of guy. I

• 19:35Speaker 01

  think there's a role for it. However, 93% of Americans, according to a 2022 study I have in the book, are metabolically unhealthy. They are sugar burners. There's nothing wrong with using sugar as a fuel source unless you're always using sugar as a fuel source for years and decades. So they need to manipulate their carbohydrate intake to lower blood sugar, lower insulin. So they could get things back on track to burn fat and then go back to burning sugar. So what do I mean by that? When we look at carbohydrates and protein and fat, it is carbohydrates by far that will elicit the biggest blood insulin response. So if you're in that category of 93% of people being unhealthy, we need to, I recommend lowering that total carbohydrate intake.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Increasing protein and fat, protein has a very moderate insulin response, fat very minimal. So if you just made that swap right there, you'll start to regulate blood sugar, regulate insulin. And then there comes a time and place where you could introduce the carbs back in, time it around exercise, the more muscle mass you have, the more you know, insulin sensitive you are, you could take things like berberine, apple cider vinegar, walk after a meal, there's different things that you could do. So I know it's a long-winded answer. I think carbs have its place. I eat them occasionally. But it depends on where you're at on this spectrum of metabolic health or, or disease.

• 20:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I completely agree with that. And maybe we can address the fact that, you know, a lot of people, they think of carbs as maybe bread or, um, you know, a croissant or something like that, but and those are definitely carbs, right? But a lot of carbs come in the form of ultra-processed foods, right? And I think people get a little bit careless about their carbs. And when I ask patients, and I say this because I ask patients like, what's your carb intake like? And they're like, oh, well, I don't eat bread. So I'm not getting a lot of carbs. And then we dive further. I don't eat bread or pasta. That's what I always do. Then we dive further in is like literally everything they eat is out of a package from the center of the supermarket.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  It's, I see the same thing. And yeah, people don't, they don't get that. Even oat oatmeal, for example, right? It, it turns into sugar in the body, right? Cereal turns in, anything that's carbohydrate turns into sugar in the body. Now, if it's more processed, it turns into sugar faster versus something that's more whole food based. But, you know, a good starting point if you're brand new to this is to eat single ingredient carbohydrates. You don't have to cut your carbs out in the beginning. Like I'll give you an example, when you go down From the grocery store and you look at a potato and you turn it around and look at the ingredient list. What do you see? You see potato, right? Cause that's what you see. But when you go to the ion by potato chips, you see 20, 25 ingredients, cause now it's processed. So if you stick with single or double ingredient foods as a starting point, that's great. You know, you eliminate snacking, which is also an issue these days.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  It's the snacking and the grazing, Darshan.

• 22:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's a massive issue.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  It's a massive issue. One of my colleagues, I put the study in the book. Dr. Don Clum did a, he did a patient population study where he had hundreds of patients write down in a food journal every time they ate something. So what's the definition of that? It could be a full meal or a snack. So it could be the almonds, the kombucha or a full meal. But every time they did that and raised glucose and insulin, they would write it down. The average person was doing that 17 to 23 times a day.

• 22:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Are you kidding me?

• 22:45Speaker 01

  I am not kidding you. So think about that glucose and insulin spikes. That's a fast way towards prediabetes and all the issues we're talking about here.

• 22:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, for sure. You know, you mentioned glucose and insulin spikes a few times. And what I found with spiking glucose is that, especially with snacks, is that the spike occurs really high, really rapidly, and it lasts a long time. And that's because if you're snacking like potato chips, for example, it's because you're only eating that carb by itself. And you don't have the benefit of having fiber with it or protein with it. That is going to reduce the absorption of the glucose.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 23:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And reduce the need for the glucose. And so I think, you know, that's really important. When you mentioned snacking, that that's kind of the mechanism behind it is a carb unopposed in your body is going to create a much bigger spike to last a lot longer.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Well said. Yeah. They call it naked carbs, right? So you want to dress up those carbohydrates, ideally with protein, not fat. I think, you know, when we think about carbohydrates, I don't know if you've seen this sugar diet sort of thing. It's becoming really, yeah.

• 23:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh my gosh.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  I get all these comments and they, you know, they put it on my radar. Cause people are like, what about the sugar diet? Which is, it sounds ridiculous, right? But when we think about carbohydrates and It turns into sugar, but when we have carbs and fat, that's the issue. Right? The Randall cycle will prioritize the glucose, fat will pull up in the bloodstream, triglycerides go up and you increase your chance of metabolic diseases. But I think a lot of these diets or fat approaches work not so much because of what you're changing to, but because of the change itself.

• 24:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Does that make sense, right?

• 24:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Your body adapts and there's some short-term benefits. Now, I'm not saying do a sugar diet, don't get me wrong, but...

• 24:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Such a good point.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I believe that. And Dr. Pampa, who's my mentor, he always talks about diet variation. And I talk about him a lot in the book because it makes a lot of sense. Like keto, for example, is great, the shift to burning fat instead of sugar. But long-term, not great. I love carnivore diet, like I'm doing carnivore right now.

• 24:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, you are?

• 24:48Speaker 01

  I hope we have meat at your dinner tonight.

• 24:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, we do.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 24:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I have really good peace.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Oh, I love it, I love it. But I don't do it forever, right? I think it's the change and the adaptation. Now, I'm not saying to change to a sugar diet, but I'm saying maybe some days are lower carb with fasting, more autophagy. Some days are more mTOR, more protein and carbohydrates. So I think the change is the magic.

• 25:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Ah, that's such a great point and such, it's kind of a new topic that most people haven't talked about is having that flexibility and variability in your diet. Having the variability in your diet leads to metabolic flexibility.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 25:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Which can, the more you do it, the better. And that's why potentially it's probably a good idea also to have different types of vegetables and different cuts of meat and different kinds of fats in your diet as well. As many, the variability is probably a good idea, right?

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Correct. So even if you're doing keto, you just change your keto foods to your point. Even if you're doing carnivore, you change your fats and proteins. The average persons are eating like the same seven or eight foods every day.

• 25:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  We get stuck into the routine and that's not good for the gut. I think that'll lead to like monoculturing in the gut, less diversity in the gut. So I'm a big fan of rotation, I'm a big fan. Like personally, I have carnivore fasting days and I have what I call flex feast days. And I have high carb, so I like the variation. And to me, that's metabolic flexibility and metabolic freedom.

• 26:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Ah, such a, such a great point.

• 26:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 26:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So if you are looking to support your body and want to feel younger from the inside out, my friends at Timeline are offering you a 10% discount on your first order. Go to timeline.com/drsah to get started. That's timeline.com/drsah. Your future self will thank you.

• 27:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay, let's talk about a tool that I've been using a lot in my practice now for the last couple of years is a continuous glucose monitor.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 27:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, so you know, you're a big fan of it. Tell me kind of for people that haven't experienced it yet, how would you talk about this?

• 27:27Speaker 01

  It's one of the best tools that you can use. I love that you use it consistently. And you don't have to be a diabetic or have blood sugar issues to use it, right? You just need to be a nerd like us and get the data, right? So I wear it all the time. It gives you a 24/7 look at, of course, what food does to your blood sugar levels. And that's very different, as you know, for everybody. You know, when I first started wearing it many years ago, I found out that like organic coconut whipped cream jacked up my blood sugar to like 160. I rarely see that and you would think that's healthy, right? But I didn't, I didn't process that specific food at that moment very well. So I stayed away from it, right? But it shows you what food's doing to your blood sugar levels, showing you if your body had a good insulin response to it.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Like ideally what we want to see, what I want to see, and maybe you could, I don't know if you disagree here. But I want to see your your blood sugar levels before you start eating. So your baseline, so your fasting glucose, let's say it's eighty five milligrams per deciliters. Great fasting glucose. You eat a meal and then I want to see what it looks like two hours later. I want to see it closer to where it was baseline.

• 28:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  To me, that shows a good insulin response. If it stays elevated, not good. And if it's drops way below, you produce too much insulin, you're hypoglycemic, also not good. But it's showing you that, showing you exactly what the food, how you responded to that food, that meal. Did it work for you or against you? Showing you what stress does to your glucose levels. I've worn it when I spoke on stage and I see it go up. Uh, what exercise does, what poor sleep does. It's such a valuable tool.

• 28:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It really, really is. And I think, you know, you mentioned something critical there, which is it's not necessarily the spike that matters. It's just how long does the spike stay around, right? And that's the key. That's where the insulin is not effective enough to get rid of that spike and push it into your muscles where it needs to go. And that's either due to a very high dose or resistance to glucose as the problem. And you gotta get that time under the curve down.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And, um, you know, I think there's a lot of negative talk out there about continuous glucose monitors. Now that, um, they've become such a massive topic of conversation, particularly in the traditional doctor world, right?

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  They're saying these glucose monitors, not everyone should be wearing them. Glucose spikes are normal. What do you think's supposed to happen after you eat? And that's just really destroying the message of people need these devices to learn about their individual biology.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  How they react to certain foods, like your coconut whipped cream, right? That's not intuitive to most people, right? I thought bananas were healthy for me and I found that they completely spiked my glucose to the stratosphere, whether or not I had them with a protein or not.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 30:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so, you know, my breakfast was like eggs and bananas and now I do eggs and berries, you know? And it's a completely different glucose response. So I think this is really important, but I'm a huge advocate of every human getting a continuous glucose monitor for six weeks. And just see what you learn, what you discover and make some changes and do little mini experiments.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 30:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. Talk about this as well.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fun because then you could, okay, you have the same meal, do one meal without going for a walk after, do the same meal the next day, go for a walk after. You'll notice an improvement in your postprandial glucose going for that walk, even if it's just 10 minutes. You could take apple cider vinegar 30 minutes before and then do it where you don't have apple cider vinegar and see what happens, right? You probably see a better response with the apple cider vinegar.

• 30:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, and not everybody, right? Like if it doesn't work for you, don't do the apple cider vinegar.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Exactly. Then you don't have to do it, right? Well, I think another valuable component to the CGM is if you're wearing it and you have a coach or somebody looking at your data, it's going to inspire you, that's the word I would use instead of force, it's going to inspire you to make a better decision when you're about to eat a donut or, because you know somebody's gonna look at it. And you know that donut, that pizza, whatever it is, is gonna spike it and they're gonna ask you, hey, Friday at 7:00 PM, what did you eat? So just thinking about that might inspire you to make a better decision. It's the accountability component. I think that's huge, too.

• 31:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it's the whole kind of like, you know, the feedback and the data is helpful. But then you have a coach also kind of watching your data with you that really inspires you. And now that's all enabled through glucose monitors, the internet, through telemedicine, all kind of coming together. I'm a big fan of human coaching, you know, I know there's a lot of AI coaches out there now too, which are great, they work for people. But now you can even have a nutritionist get on there and you don't have to do this stuff forever. That's the key. You know, you make a change over the course of a month, six weeks, 30 days.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 31:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And it could be a long lasting change. It completely changes the destiny of your health.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  I agree. Always need a human component, for sure. AI is great, but yeah, the human component is important. I love that you just said that. It's not something you do forever. You just, you get momentum. You start, I always say one tweak a week, you start building momentum and then now you got the hang of it. Where, hey, if you want to continue to wear a CGM, go for it, but now you have enough data to understand what is affecting it positively or negatively and then you just push forward. You keep going forward.

• 32:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Fantastic. I love that. Okay, so I don't want you to give it away because it's in the book and people gotta get your book. They will learn so much. But big picture structure on a 30 day program. What are some of the components? What could people expect? How much change can you really make in 30 days?

• 32:40Speaker 01

  I had a guy, um, I, I recorded a YouTube video about a year ago where I was, I was finishing up the book and I was testing out the thirty day plan. I said, I'm gonna put it together in like a general protocol and put it on YouTube and see who follows it and get, just kinda get results from YouTube. And there was this guy, um, John Miller is his name and he followed it to a T. And I remember because he was, uh, going on Facebook Live every day.

• 33:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, wow.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  And he was tagging me and I was seeing this. And he was like, day one of Ben's thirty day, you know, resay. And the video was titled, "How to Lose Twenty Pounds in Thirty Days Following This Protocol." Something like that. Kind of a bold claim, twenty pounds in thirty days. And then he's, he's like, day seven, day fourteen. So, he finished the thirty days and he didn't lose the twenty pounds that I claimed. He lost forty-four point four pounds in thirty days. Now, that might sound unhealthy and in some cases it might be, however, he was really overweight. His blood pressure dropped, blood sugars dropped, like he felt so much better. So, you would expect, uh, I, that's not a typical result, first and foremost, but you will feel so much better after thirty days. You'll have more energy. Hopefully you work with your doctor to be prescribing some of the medications. The way that it's designed is that every week is something different.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  As I mentioned, the, the adaptation is really important. I, I think personal trainers that are incredible understand that like muscle confusion, right?

• 33:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  P90X was very popular because of muscle confusion.

• 33:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right, right.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  You change up the workout.

• 33:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So true.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  The body keeps adapting. So, I had that same thought when I was writing this thirty day plan. I call it metabolic confusion, right? So, the first step is we take you from burning sugar to burning fat. About seven days, we lower the carbs, you eat healthy fats and proteins, we increase electrolytes and minerals, no symptoms required. Second week is we start doing time restricted feeding. And it starts very easy, fourteen hours, sixteen hours, we start changing it up, uh, day by day. The third week, we start mixing up alternate day fasting. We focus on protein and getting your protein requirement, and I show you how to calculate that. The fourth week, we start introducing these metabolic flex days where we intentionally get out of ketosis, don't fast on some days, have what I call feast days, higher carbs, higher protein, lower fat, higher calorie days. And then there's

• 34:39Speaker 01

  some bio hacks you put in there, like ten thousand steps a day, walking after a meal, red light, cold plunge, these are like additional add-ons if you wanna get more results. So, yeah, it's all wrapped together. There's a beginner plan, there's an advanced plan, depending on where you're You're at in your journey and it's worked really well. I'm seeing some of the results. It's really cool to see.

• 34:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's amazing. Yeah, I've seen a few people post on their metabolic freedom diet and how they've made some massive changes. And I think, you know, we've focused so much on weight loss and that's such a great, like you said, symptom resolution. It's a symptom. But the reality is, what's happening on the inside, the metabolic healing that you're doing is what's really going to last you a long time. And what I mean by that is it's going to protect your brain from Alzheimer's. But the opposite of Alzheimer's is feeling sharp and being there for, you know, being there for the tasks you need to do and coming up with new ideas and your sleep is going to improve. All these things that are avoiding chronic disease is actually feeling great now.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  That's right, brother.

• 35:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so what I really noticed in the videos of people that are posting is how great they feel.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right? And so it's a, they've lost weight for sure.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  There, a lot of them are sleeping better, a lot of them are building muscle, but they feel great.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you're so spot on with that. That's what it's about. It's about like your energy, your productivity, the way you feel, the weight loss, which was better worded, probably fat loss, because we don't want to lose muscle, right? The fat loss is a side effect, right? As you know, it's like a side effect of getting healthy and that's what it's all about. How can you be the truest version of yourself so you can be there for your family, for your friends, for a podcast interview like this, right? It's like, the bigger the mission, the more energy required.

• 36:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. Well, you have a big mission, Ben, and really happy I get to tell more people about it. I love your mission and your work that you're doing. And where can people find out more about you and follow you?

• 36:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you, brother. It's an honor. I love what you're doing. It's so cool to be here with you. I can't wait to have our dinner tonight. It's gonna be fun.

• 36:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I can't wait.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  The book is available everywhere, bookstores, Amazon, wherever you want to go. Maybe support your local bookshop. That'll be amazing. We do have a free bonus we give away to people who buy the book online over at metabolicfreedombook.com. If you go there.

• 36:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  We have a free course in the metabolism and then they have some exclusive interviews with Dr. Jason Fung, Dr. Daniel Pampa, who I mentioned earlier, Megan Ramos and Cynthia Thurlow. So those are all free. If you go to metabolicfreedombook.com. It's available on hardcover, Kindle, Audible and Spotify, I narrated it myself.

• 37:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, you did?

• 37:02Speaker 01

  I did.

• 37:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Well, you have like a grid radio voice.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  That's good. Yeah, I'm a podcaster too, so I guess I should do it. Not fun, but I did do it. And I'm happy to say, you know, we hit the New York Times list too with the book, which is amazing.

• 37:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Congrats.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Thank you. And I say that not from like an ego standpoint, but like from a standpoint of that's such a mainstream list and it's a win for metabolic health. So I'm just super excited, super grateful. I'm honored to have this opportunity to be here and share with your audience. So thank you.

• 37:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, for sure. We're going to link to your book. We're going to link to your Instagram. You have great content, your YouTube as well.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 37:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Lots of great ways to really take control of your health and get to metabolic freedom. So thanks for joining me today.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Thank you, Darshan. I appreciate you, brother.

• 37:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We'll see you soon.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  See you soon.

• 37:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you like this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best and it's always important to seek their guidance.