Episode #33 Featuring Ben Azadi!! THE METABOLIC FREEDOM EPISODE! The importance and role of fats, intermittent fasting, the great oatmeal debate, metabolic flexibility, keto vs. carnivore, foods that support metabolism, best carb sources and more!!

Summary

Episode #33: The Metabolic Freedom Episode with Ben Azadi

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
• Host: Dylan Gemelli
• Guest: Ben Azadi
• Release Date: June 11, 2025
• Description: In this episode, Dylan Gemelli welcomes Ben Azadi, a seasoned health expert with 17 years of experience and five best-selling books, including his latest, Metabolic Freedom. The conversation delves deep into the roles of fats, intermittent fasting, metabolic flexibility, and the debunking of common dietary myths.

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1. Introduction: Welcoming Ben Azadi [00:00 - 03:11]

Dylan Gemelli opens the episode with enthusiastic praise for Ben Azadi, highlighting his extensive background in the health industry, his best-selling books, and his influential podcast, Metabolic Freedom. Dylan emphasizes Ben's commitment to educating others on health and wellness through evidence-based strategies.

Notable Quote:

Dylan Gemelli [00:00]: "I have yet to get to this day to be this excited about a guest I've had… But my man, today we are going to have a conversation… Welcome Ben Azadi."

Ben responds with gratitude, acknowledging Dylan's support and the importance of their collaborative mission to impact lives positively.

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2. Ben Azadi’s Journey to Metabolic Freedom [03:11 - 06:45]

Dylan invites Ben to share his personal journey, emphasizing the transformation from a troubled youth to a health advocate. Ben recounts his struggles with obesity, addiction, and depression during his early years, culminating in a turning point at age 23 when he faced severe health issues and contemplated ending his life.

Through self-development books by authors like Dr. Wayne Dyer and Tony Robbins, Ben learned the importance of personal accountability. He shifted his mindset, embraced real food, and embarked on a transformative journey, losing 80 pounds in nine months and achieving both physical and mental well-being.

Notable Quote:

Ben Azadi [03:45]: "I stopped blaming my genetics, my enabling family members… I started to become the victor of my destiny."

Dylan resonates with Ben's story, highlighting the critical role of accountability in achieving sustainable change.

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3. Importance of Nutrition Over Calories [07:55 - 13:22]

Dylan raises a point of contention common in fitness circles: the debate over the significance of diet versus training and supplementation. He posits that 75-80% of results stem from diet, 10-15% from training, and 5% from supplements or enhancements.

Ben agrees, albeit with a slight adjustment, arguing that when mindset is included, nutrition accounts for up to 95% of success. He emphasizes that focusing solely on calorie intake is misleading, advocating instead for a quality-over-quantity approach to food.

Notable Quotes:

Ben Azadi [11:01]: "If we're not including mindset, that's an accurate statement. If we're including mindset, I would say 95% is mindset down in nutrition..."

Dylan Gemelli [12:00]: "I just don't understand how you can argue that those are equal in any way, shape or form."

Ben elaborates on how different foods impact hormonal responses and inflammation, challenging the simplistic "calories in, calories out" paradigm.

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4. Understanding Metabolic Flexibility [15:37 - 16:54]

Dylan introduces the concept of metabolic flexibility, seeking Ben's expertise. Ben defines metabolic flexibility as the body's ability to efficiently switch between burning different substrates—carbohydrates, proteins, and fats—for energy.

He points out that 93% of Americans are metabolically inflexible, primarily burning sugar instead of fats, which leads to constant hunger, energy crashes, and fat storage. Achieving metabolic flexibility allows for better energy utilization, reduced reliance on food for energy, and enhanced fat-burning capabilities.

Notable Quote:

Ben Azadi [16:45]: "Metabolic flexibility means you don't have to snack… You're burning body fat and then when you eat food, you burn the food for energy."

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5. Intermittent Fasting and Its Benefits [26:11 - 29:07]

Dylan shifts the conversation to intermittent fasting (IF), exploring what breaks a fast and the nuances of maintaining a fasted state. Ben clarifies that consuming anything that raises glucose levels—such as carbohydrates and significant protein—breaks a fast by increasing insulin and reducing autophagy (cellular cleanup).

He highlights permissible items during fasting, including certain types of coffee, herbal teas, water, and specific supplements that don't provoke an insulin response.

Notable Quote:

Ben Azadi [34:11]: "My definition of breaking a fast is when you raise glucose and start the digestive processes."

Additionally, Ben discusses methods to accurately determine ketosis, advocating for blood ketone testing as the most reliable method.

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6. Diets: Keto vs. Carnivore [31:26 - 33:51]

Dylan inquires about the distinctions between the ketogenic and carnivore diets. Ben explains that while both promote fat burning, the carnivore diet is more restrictive, comprising exclusively animal products with zero carbohydrates. In contrast, a traditional ketogenic diet allows for limited carbohydrates, primarily from vegetables.

Ben expresses a preference for the carnivore diet, especially for individuals with autoimmune conditions, as it eliminates plant toxins and supports gut healing. He also emphasizes the importance of metabolic flexibility, suggesting periodic higher-carb days to prevent metabolic adaptation and plateaus.

Notable Quote:

Ben Azadi [32:00]: "I prefer the carnivore diet… It works really well because you're removing all these plant toxins…"

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7. Effective Fat-Burning Foods [40:11 - 43:04]

Dylan requests Ben to share his favorite foods that support metabolism. Ben outlines a list prioritizing anti-inflammatory properties and hormone-friendly nutrients:

• Eggs with Yolks: "Mother nature's multivitamin," rich in essential fats and cholesterol.
• Red Meat: Highly absorbable nutrients without antinutrients.
• Butter and Ghee: Preferably grass-fed for optimal fat profiles.
• Avocados: Loaded with phytosterols and B vitamins.
• Sheep and Goat Dairy: Contains medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) that boost ketone production.
• Fermented Foods: Such as sauerkraut and kimchi for gut health.

He also mentions beneficial supplements like coffee (loaded with chlorogenic acid), green tea (rich in catechins), and Grains of Paradise—a spice that promotes the development of brown fat, enhancing calorie burning.

Notable Quote:

Ben Azadi [40:11]: "Eggs are mother nature's multivitamin… Red meat… Avocados are also great…"

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8. Seafood Consumption and Mercury Concerns [43:45 - 46:34]

Addressing the concerns related to seafood, particularly mercury exposure, Dylan seeks Ben's advice on safe consumption levels. Ben introduces the SMASH protocol, recommending seafood options that are low in toxins:

• S for Salmon
• M for Mackerel
• A for Anchovies
• S for Sardines
• H for Herring

He advises limiting intake of larger fish like Chilean sea bass due to higher mercury levels and suggests using binders or supplements like glutathione to aid in detoxification if consuming such fish.

Notable Quote:

Ben Azadi [43:45]: "The bigger the fish, the more toxins, including mercury it has."

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9. Views on Oatmeal and Carbs [52:35 - 54:12]

Dylan touches on the controversial topic of oatmeal, which is often lauded as a healthy breakfast option. Ben candidly shares his stance, arguing that oatmeal is detrimental, especially for those who are metabolically unhealthy. He cites issues like glycemic spikes and the presence of phytic acid, an antinutrient that depletes essential minerals.

While acknowledging personal enjoyment of oatmeal's taste, Ben asserts that it should be relegated to occasional "cheat meals" rather than a daily staple.

Notable Quote:

Ben Azadi [52:39]: "Oatmeal is not healthy for me. It's considered like a cheat meal."

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10. Future Topics and Conclusion [54:34 - 57:12]

As the conversation nears its end, Dylan expresses his eagerness to delve into more complex topics like cellular science, autophagy, and mitophagy in future episodes. Both hosts express mutual respect and appreciation, emphasizing the value of their collaborative efforts in educating their audience.

Ben promotes his new book, Metabolic Freedom, and shares resources for listeners to further engage with his work.

Notable Quote:

Ben Azadi [56:11]: "It's available on Kindle and also Audible and Spotify…get a free course with the book 12 Lessons on the Metabolism."

Dylan concludes by commending the episode's value and encouraging listeners to stay tuned for more insightful discussions.

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Key Takeaways:

• Nutrition Over Calories: Emphasizing the quality of food over mere calorie counting for effective health and weight management.
• Metabolic Flexibility: The ability to switch between burning carbs and fats enhances energy levels and reduces fat storage.
• Debunking Dietary Myths: Challenging conventional wisdom on fats and carbohydrates, advocating for higher fat intake and lower carb consumption.
• Intermittent Fasting: Understanding what breaks a fast and how to maximize its benefits through proper food choices.
• Dietary Choices: Differentiating between ketogenic and carnivore diets, and highlighting the importance of choosing nutrient-dense, low-toxin foods.
• Food Sensitivities: Recognizing the impact of antinutrients and toxins in common foods like oatmeal and certain vegetables.

This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for listeners aiming to enhance their health through informed dietary and lifestyle choices, grounded in scientific understanding and personal experience.

Transcript

[Dylan Gemelli]

Foreign everybody. Welcome back to the Dylan Gemelli Podcast. So I have to say I am super, super blessed with the people that I get to interview, the people that I get to meet and talk to. I have yet to get to this day to be this excited about a guest I've had and that is not a knock against anybody else because I always get excited and amped. But my man, today we are going to have a conversation and he has a lot going on. He has 17 years of experience in the health industry and he has five, yes, five best selling books and the one that we are really going to get into today is his new book, Metabolic Freedom. And it is literally one of the hottest items out there with good reason. He's also wrote Keto Flex and he's been the go to source for intermittent fasting and the ketogenic diet since 2013. And he's known as the health detective, which I love because he investigates dysfunction and he educates, not medicates, falls in line with everything we talk about here. He's the founder of Keto Camp and Keto Camp is a global brand that brings awareness to ancient healing strategies like the Keto Diet and fasting. And he's the host of the Metabolic Freedom podcast which is a top to me, it's a top, number one podcast. So I'm not even going to get into the Apple numbers. YouTube is off the charts. Over 350,000 subscribers, 50 million video views. I could go on and on and on and I can't do this man justice. But my friends welcome Benazotti.

[Ben Azadi]

Oh, wow, what an intro. Well, Dylan, I am so excited to be here too. I love the work you're doing. You've been super supportive and it's amazing to collaborate with you. We're going to have an incredible conversation today.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Dude, I like I said and I told you prior and for anybody watching, I reached out to Ben. It's only been a couple weeks, but we've talked a lot and I feel like you feel like you know somebody from watching them and getting a kind of feel for they are. But one of the things I want to make a point before we get into the conversation about you, Ben, is that I love and that I really believe in for the most successful people that I wish they would all be like is your humility and the way you come across and how polite and how you respond to people and how you really give thanks for the praise you're getting and the platform you've gotten. And I can tell because I'm very good at this. Seeing people when they're really genuine and they really care. And one of the reasons that I kind of really came at you the way that I did and why I want to keep conversing with you is because I believe in you, and I believe in the message you bring. And it hits my heartstring, because that's what I'm trying to do as well. Before we get into conversation, I guess I'm just saying thank you, man, for just being who you are.

[Ben Azadi]

Thank you, bro. I see you guys in the same light. I love the work you're doing. We're in the trenches together. God needs us. The world needs us right now. This message is so important. It's not about book sales or downloads. It's about the impact. That is what it's about, and that's what you're about. You're a faithful man as well, which I respect. So right back at you, bro. I received that, and I give you the love right back, Dylan.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Love it, brother. Well, I want to take advantage of the time I have with you because I know how busy you are, and I appreciate you taking the time for me today. So I think a lot of people are familiar with your backstory, but a lot may not be. And, you know, when we get into health and fitness stuff, a lot of us that get into it, something happened, whether it was to ourselves, a family member, something that triggered our interest into this field and then to become pioneers in what we do. So let's just take a little trip down memory lane here and discuss why you got into all of this and became so heavily driven into what you're doing today.

[Ben Azadi]

You know, pain to purpose. Like so many of us out there, we look back in retrospect, in 2020 hindsight, and we see all those stressors and stressings that became blessings. But when you're in and living in that rock bottom, it's hard to see that. And I lived in that rock bottom for a very long time. I was very unhealthy as a kid, Dylan. I was obese as a child, physically and also mentally obese. I had bad behaviors. I know a little bit about your backstory. There's some similarities here. I had addictions to drugs and sugar and video games and toxic relationships. My mom actually worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken, two of them, when I was a kid, and I had a whole bunch of Kentucky Fried Chicken as a kid. My mom did the best she could do with her resources, and I was very unhealthy. So nothing changed as an adult. I found myself back in two seven 23 year old young man, where most people when they're 23 years old, they're graduating college, starting a career, building a family. I was not doing that. I was on the Internet looking for ways to end my life. I was depressed, I was Inflamed, I weighed 250 pounds at this time. I had knee pain, back pain, pre diabetes, erectile dysfunction. Of course I was overweight and obese and I just wanted to feel better. I thought my body was broken and I was blaming my genetics, my enabling family members, my slow metabolism. And I would express my symptoms and my problems, problems to my doctor. My doctor never asked me the question, hey, what are you eating? Let's discuss your lifestyle. Those questions never came up. The question he asked was, what can I prescribe for this 23 year old man? And he would recommend a medication. But I never took it because I thought I was too young to go on medication and I wanted to give up on life. I explored that, but what stopped me from going through with it was thinking about my mom. I love my mom, she's my superhero still to this day. Yeah. And I didn't want to cause that devastation for her. So it stopped me from taking my own life. And I knew I had to figure things out. And it really, for me, it started with reading self development books. Before it was health and nutrition and Fitness. It was Dr. Wayne Dyer, Bob Proctor, Tony Robbins. It was these incredible books that I just started to pick up and read. That number one, helped me take ownership and responsibility, which I think a lot of people lack. And what I learned about responsibility from Dr. Wayne Dyer, he said responsibility, that is your ability to respond to life. When your ability to respond to life is poor, you get poor results. But when you take ownership, you get great results. So I stopped blaming my genetics, my slow, my metabolism, my enabling family members. I stopped being the victim of my history and I started to become the victor of my destiny. And then I started moving my body, I started eating real food and I went through this incredible transformation where I lost 80 pounds in nine months. I went from 34% body fat at my highest to 6% body fat at my lowest and completely just transformed my physical appearance, but also not just a physical six pack, which is great, but a mental six pack is what I achieved. And depression and those thoughts of wanting to take my life, they started to dissipate. And that was 17 years ago as you referenced in the intro. And I've been in the health space ever since. And I'M really passionate about teaching these ancient healing strategies to allow the world to achieve the metabolic freedom, which is metabolic flexibility. So I am grateful to be here with you to talk about that mission.

[Dylan Gemelli]

And that passion, you know, and there's a lot there of relatability with me and you. But I'll tell you what I personally love the most that you said there and it came down to accountability for some reason. I feel like as time has gone on, there's been less and less and less accountability and more and more excuses, excuse and blame. And I'm not trying to be a hard ass here about it. But the point is, when we're accountable, we can actually achieve something and make a difference, make a change, do something different to make something better. But when you find an excuse for every little thing, you use that as a crutch and you only go backwards and we never go forward. And I think that one of the things in accountability is taking a deep look in the mirror and saying, okay, it's time, it's time I'm wrong. And I think when you do that, like you did, and like, you know, I've had to do multiple times, unfortunately, that's when we can start to make change and then we can make a change for other people too. So I admire that in a very deep way. And do you feel like that you becoming accountable then helped you to really kind of shift your way into studying and implementing and then teaching? Do you think that's when it hits you to, okay, I'm accountable now, now I can make progress, now I can help other people? Do you feel like you credit that.

[Ben Azadi]

To your drive 100%, you know, taking accountability and ownership to your point, Dylan, it's the first step to great change. It's so easy to blame others for your problems. And I remember Dr. Wayne Gower, he said if other people were the actual cause of your problems, you would have to hire a psychiatrist or everybody you know in order for you to get better. Well, that's not realistic. When you take ownership, it's difficult, but it's the first step towards great change. And when you do the things you say you're going to do, you develop conviction, you develop confidence, and then you could teach that. Those people out there in our space, by the way, not just the conventional but holistic space that are teaching and they don't live it to leave it. They're teaching from things they've learned, but not necessarily have lived, they don't last a long time.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Right?

[Ben Azadi]

But when you live it and take Ownership and then you lead it. You have sustainability, you have energy. To your point, you have drive. So yeah, to answer your question, yes, it's a huge driver for me. I've been there myself. I'm not just some lean, fit guy right now telling people you could lose weight and you don't have to be obese. No, I've been there myself. And I think more so than my 17 years and books and accolades, I think more than any of that, my authority comes from my experience. And same thing for you, your authority comes from your experience. And I think a lot of people in our space, not a lot of people, but some people in our space don't have that particular experience.

[Dylan Gemelli]

You know, I spent a lot of years trying to be perfect and create an image and do things that just are non existent. And once I realized, and one of the things I live by is most of the best teachers have made the most mistakes. Now granted, they have learned from them immediately and not, you know, continue to do the same things. But a lot of us that have the knowledge or the drive, we've been through it and we've screwed up or we've been in like the worst predicaments possible and dug ourselves out of it. And I'm not saying that's the case for everybody, but I think you'll find, like you said, a lot of people that have lived it and done it are going to be the ones that are going to last the longest. Because we know what it's like to overcome adversity. We know what it's like to deal with it. And life is constant adversity. It is if you are living in La La land and rainbows and unicorns and thinking that every day is going to be perfect, you got another thing coming. And I think when you can accept that and do what you said, be accountable and push through it, that's what's going to make success and that's what's going to help people struggling with diet. You know, instead of making an excuse on why you can't figure out why you can and make it a priority. And that's where I want to shift to now with you. I'm going to throw you some numbers, I want your opinion and then we'll go from there in terms of like diet and sustainability. So I came from a background more so working with bodybuilders and trying to convey this message. The big steroid meatheads. This was not my space, but that's where I was. So my argument with them would be because they all want to depend on supplement, steroids, you know, ex, whatever. My argument is, if you're going to base your results down on a number percentage, I'm saying 75 to 80% of your results are going to come from your diet, 10 to 15% are going to come from your training, and 5% or less will come from any outside things that you take for enhancement or whatever. Me basically explaining diet is everything and then everything else kind of falls in line. What's your view on that?

[Ben Azadi]

Yeah, I think it's spot on to the conversation on the mindset part. I think if we're not including mindset, that's an accurate statement. If we're including mindset, I would say 95% is mindset down in nutrition and the rest, fitness and supplementation. But if we're excluding the mindset part, absolutely. The food you eat has a huge impact on everything. The thoughts you think, your inflammation levels, your performance in the gym. It is so important to clean up the foods you're eating because the food supply we have now, now it's poisoned. We have been poisoned for years. And it's not conspiracy, it is factual. There's many studies, there's many documentation on this. So to answer your question, yes, 80%. You saying 80% of the equation here is nutrition. I agree with you. And then, yeah, you want to make sure you have your fitness routine in place. You want to make sure you have supplementation. But to your point, a lot of people, they'll skip the nutrition part and they'll try to out train a bad diet or out supplement a bad diet. But that's, that's foundational. So I agree with you, bro.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Yeah, because if you break down blood markers, and then this is one I really want your opinion on, you start breaking down blood markers, which I think are going to be the key in terms of how your diet actually is. And that's why I want to get into this. All calories are equal and calories in, calories out. Because we're going to have fun with this. This is for the calorie bros. I despise the all calories are equal concept. And here's my argument. We got two hands. One hand we got a 400 calorie Big Mac and then the other hand we've got 122, 43, 60, well, almost four ounces of chicken to be in that equivalent range. Three and a half ounces, give or take. You're telling me that the 400 calories in this hand and the 400 calories in this hand are equal and. Or a Kit Kat in one hand and a plate of vegetables in the other hand. Calories in, calories out. All calories are equal. I just don't understand how you can argue that each one is equal in any way, shape or form. You're telling me that all this sugar and all this crap and whatever else is in all of that and then this we'll say pasture raised organic chicken, eggs, whatever we want to put over here, healthy, clean food. How on earth can one justify that those are equal in any sense of the word whatsoever. Otherwise, from what law of thermodynamics we want to call it or whatever we want to. However we want to shift the narrative. Please expound and please correct for me.

[Ben Azadi]

Yeah, yeah, no, the law of thermodynamics. That's the only reason, which a lot of flaws with that. You know, calories matter. They're a distraction. The premise that these individuals have the ones the seco the calories in versus calories out. Bros, as you call them.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Yeah.

[Ben Azadi]

Their premise is that we need you to lose weight in order for you to get healthy. That's not how the metabolism works. We don't lose weight to get healthy. We get healthy to lose weight. Very different.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Right.

[Ben Azadi]

And on top of that, nobody has a weight problem. Dylan. I had never had a weight problem. If somebody's watching this and they're £400 right now, they don't have a weight problem. It's a weight symptom. Focusing on calories treats the symptom, looks at the symptom. It's not about the quantity of those 400 calories, it's about the quality. It's about the hormonal metabolic response after you've eaten them. To your point, chicken breast, three and a half ounces. If you eat that, there's a very different metabolic process that occurs versus 400 calories of the Big Mac. So it's about the hormonal response after you've eaten that. When we focus on calories, it distracts us from what really matters, which is hormones and inflammation. You could only cut your calories so far until your metabolism will slow down to a certain point and then there's no more cutting. I mean, how far can you go? It's deprivation. You rely on willpower. It's a finite resource. And the tricky thing is that when you cut your calories, even if it's with crappy food, if you cut your calories, you're probably going to lose weight in the beginning, right? You probably Will. But then what happens is you'll stop losing weight. And most people think, I just need to cut more or I need to exercise more or do a combination of both. And the scale budgets a little bit. And they thought, oh, that's all. That was it. That's all I needed to do. And then it slows down and then it stops. So you keep plateauing. You could only cut so much. But when you focus on quality over quantity, when you focus on hormones and inflammation, you don't have to rely on willpower. You don't have to measure everything that goes into your mouth. That's right. It becomes easy. The weight comes off as a side effect because you're getting healthy to lose weight, not the other way around.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Yeah, you can't outrun or outwork a bad diet. You just can't do it. You. You can't. Not long term, no. That's right. Only so long. So. Okay, I'm glad we cleared that up and I appreciate that. What is for everybody listening, because I think this could maybe confuse some people. What is metabolic flexibility?

[Ben Azadi]

That's the way God designed us. God designed our metabolism to take any substrate. So a substrate is carbohydrates, protein, fat. A substrate is your own body fat. A substrate is sunshine. Anything that's available for fuel and your metabolism uses it for energy, and you produce energy and you burn fat. That's metabolic flexibility. 93% of Americans cannot do that. They're only using one substrate, sugar, Right? Glucose. They're stuck burning sugar. They're metabolically inflexible. In other words, they're not metabolically free. They're in a metabolic prison. When you're a sugar burner like 93% of Americans, that's not just a made up stat. It's a 2022 study I put in the book. When you're stuck burning sugar, you have to rely on food for energy, snacking and grazing. Eating food, especially carbohydrates, to get a glucose spike, you have this instant gratification and satisfaction and you might get some short term energy and then it drops and then you can't burn fat or anything else. So you have to eat more food. You have to keep eating food. It's a really difficult way to live your life. Metabolic flexibility means you don't have to snack. Heck, you could fast for a day, you could fast for five days. You could travel and not eat anything like I typically do. And you burn body fat. And then when you eat food, you burn the food for energy. You're not Storing any excess fat. That's metabolic flexibility. That's the way that God designed this to work.

[Dylan Gemelli]

I love it. Thank you for the breakdown. I appreciate it. I wasn't even sure how to really piece that together till I listen to you talk about it. I mean, I have an idea of what it is, but you made it simple and I appreciate it. I told you before, and I don't want to make this about anything to do with me, but I want you to analyze something for me, and I kind of told you and you agreed that we should talk about this. I think it's important we humanize ourselves like you did earlier and talk about the mistakes we made. So I'm going to be very brief here. I've struggled with an eating disorder. Never made that a secret. I was a fashion model. I have been in the bodybuilding. I've been scrutinized on platforms, yada, yada, yada, not what was me. Just a fact. Okay? And so for the past, man, I don't know, 10 years, I've been living a certain way where I work out. I do 90 to 100 minutes of cardio a day, and then I also do heavy weight training for another hour, hour and a half, and then sometimes even other activities. So you imagine I'm burning 35 to 100 to 4,000 calories a day combined with normal, you know, resting and everything like that. And I have, even as a nutritionist, that fear of eating any fats, like, at all, even knowing in my heart that that's completely wrong. But I developed that fear. And you know what that's like when you develop that, it can become so consuming. So my wife would make me about 13 to 15 servings of vegetables every single day. I'm talking five, six green peppers, two zucchinis, box of mushrooms, whole onion. And then there'd just be bowls of them in the refrigerator. And I'm getting up every 30 minutes to go eat some. And then all I'm eating for fats is the peanut butter that I can't stop eating throughout the day. And then it's like Greek yogurt, protein powder, egg whites. Not whole eggs, just egg whites. And the biggest serving of oatmeal with protein powder and peanut butter you've ever seen in your life. Okay? And I did this for, like 10 years. And you can imagine brain fog, irritability, trouble sleeping, can't stay focused. Every 20, 30 minutes, I'm getting up and walking around and. And I'm. Where I'm going is I want to talk about animal fats and carbs and all of this relation and the demonizing of fats specifically. I went in one day and finally told my wife and it was Thomas Delore was talking about cutting on red meat. And I was watching him and I was like, man, I am so miserable and I just can't take it anymore. And I went in there one day and I said, you know what, we're going to go to Whole Foods today. And her because she's been praying for this forever, right? I said, we're going to Whole Foods today. I said, I know. I tell you, I don't like avocados. Well, I don't even know if I like avocados because I just think they look gross. I want one today we're going to go buy all the grass fed ground beef we can. I'm going to go get salmon, which I tell you I hate. And I'm just going to make myself eat it. And then so I set this whole thing up, bro. And I went from 15, 1600 calories a day to 2715 grams of fat to 120 to 130 carbohydrates under a hundred and protein. I weigh 180. So I'm trying to get two 50 because I'm going for about one and a half as opposed to one based on the want for lean muscle and the amount of working out. And I'm telling you what, I have not felt this good in my entire life. I'm pissed off that I wasted so many years not eating meat and enjoying myself. And butter is one of those things I use for everything now. Carry gold, grass fed all day. And dude, I haven't been this cut since I was using steroids and this happy and this like lean and healthy and my blood markers like because I had a heart thing I found with a high lp little A, which we'll discuss some other time in private. But you know, they wanted to put me on statins and things which I refused. But everything is beautiful blood panel wise. So I guess one, why the changes? Like do you see in terms of all the symptoms I gave you so we can expound on that Because I'm sure there's plenty of people that have fear of fats. And two, just your overall feeling of demonization of fats and why they're good. And I just want you to get into all of that because I really have made it a like a goal of mine to, to get people to understand this, you know, after what I went through and Prevent people from going through it.

[Ben Azadi]

Yeah, I mean, you made some dramatic changes. All for the better too. And we, we, we've all kind of been there. We've been taught that saturated fats, cholesterol, it's, it's, it's bad for you. It's the boogeyman. Right? It creates heart disease, inflammation, insulin resistance, diabetes. The term is called lipophobia. I talk about it in the book. Right, the, the Fear of Dietary Fat based off of 50 plus years of propaganda and misinformation. That information that started to get popular in the 1950s. It started the whole low fat movement, the low fat craze. And I've been there myself. I wasn't there for 10 years like you, but I had been there myself for. And what happens is when you eat low fat and avoid animal fat, the butter you mentioned, the beef, the saturated fat and the cholesterol, you're starving your hormones, you're starving your brain. Yeah, Cholesterol is one of the most important fats for the human body. Cholesterol builds our cell membranes, it builds all of our hormones. It's the building blocks for all of our hormones, including testosterone. But all of them. And you felt off because your hormones were depleted. Your brain was being starved of this of amount important fat, cholesterol and saturated fat. The brain is mostly fat. And the cell membrane, we have 50 to 70 trillion cells in the body. The membrane is where the intelligence is. That's where you have your hormone receptor sites. That's where hormones and oxygen and nutrients get into the cell for energy production and fat loss. The membrane is the most important part of the cell. It's like the bodyguard of the cell. It tells the DNA what to do. It, it controls epigenetics. And it's so important, the question should be asked, what is it made of? What does it love? It's made up of saturated fat and cholesterol, the two things that we've demonized. How could it be bad for you if the human body's made of it? It's rusty, it's insane. So to your point, you're going to see, you're going to feel better. First and foremost, like you outlined, you probably had more energy. I'm sure your libido was improved, your vitality and energy was improved. But your lab markers will improve too. Your inflammation will go down. Red meat is one of the most anti inflammatory superfoods in the world. There's not one vegetable, including kale, broccoli, spinach or whatever it is, that has the Vitamins and minerals and nutrients that ground beef does, for example. A lot of the times when we're eating all these vegetables, people don't understand that the vegetables have these anti nutrients that lock in these vitamins and minerals. So even you're not even getting all the benefits. But with red meat, for example, no antinutrients, it's highly absorbable, it has great minerals, vitamins, iron, that's absorbable. So I'm a big fan of, of animal products. I'm a big fan of cholesterol and red meat myself. 95% of my diet is more of a carnivore diet. So we need to get away from that. It's bs. You're, you're going to notice, you're going to feel better, your labs are going to improve, it's going to give you the building blocks for all of your hormones. And we need to detach away from the low carb BS because that's what it is. It's fooled us. And unfortunately, a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth. And that's one of those lies. The cholesterol thing. And I'll just add one more thing, Dylan. The reason why, the main reason why most doctors still villainize cholesterol and saturated fat was because in the 1950s there was a scientist, a researcher named Ansel Keys, who worked with the United States government. And he did this study because this is when President Eisenhower was having, he had a heart attack and heart disease was on the rise. And they're like, this is a problem, we need to figure this out. So this researcher, Anel Keys, wanted to figure it out. He wanted to be nan to figure this out. So he did a 22 country study looking at the top 22 countries that have the highest rate of heart disease. And he wanted to show that those same countries consumed the highest amount of cholesterol and saturated fat. When he did the study, he found out that only seven countries fit that hypothesis. So he hid the other countries and said, called it a seven country study and said these seven countries, including the US eat the most saturated and most fat and that's why they have heart disease. And what he didn't share is that they were consuming fake fats like margarine and trans fats. But the government took that information. Then boom, the low fat craze happened. And when they do autopsies on people who have heart attacks, these heart attack victims, they see a lot of cholesterol in the arteries. And their hypothesis is that the cholesterol is what caused the heart attack. That's why they died. That's like saying every time there's a fire in my neighborhood, I noticed that there are firefighters at the scene of the crime. They caused the fire, right? Doesn't make any sense. The firefighters are there to put out the fire. The cholesterol is there to put out the fire of the body, the inflammation. So it's not cholesterol causing heart disease, it's inflammation. And that's the road we want to tackle. That's what we want to view and find out what's causing the inflammation.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Thank you for that breakdown. And I couldn't agree more. I honestly find that the low fat diets are the most detrimental health. Marker wise, feeling wise, everything. I think it literally is. I'd rather see a higher carb diet than a low fat diet, honestly, because I think it's worse depending on the carbs we're eating. But I mean, yeah, I totally agree. And it's funny because I've seen your fat foods that you say are the best for fat burning. And it's like the whole list and my list too. I was laughing because I told my wife the other day, I said, you know, I said, I'm making a list of what I feel are the best fat burning foods. I compared it to yours and I said, what do you notice about every single one of these? And she kind of looked at me and I said, every single one of them is a high fat food. Every one on this list. Because I'm going avocados, I'm going salmon, I'm going like nuts, and I'm going whole eggs, full fat yogurt. And I'm just going down the list. And it's just, that's what they all have in common. They're all higher fat foods. And to your point that you've made in your book, you will not snack at all. You will feel so satiated and full and good. And you don't have any cravings. I have noticed that I have like no cravings for anything whatsoever. And I like to mix a couple different fats together with. Very rarely do I have any kind of carb at all. A lot of my carb comes from pomegranate juice that I'm using to kind of try to reverse some plaque I have in my arteries. So otherwise, basically, it's just a one piece of Ezekiel bread. And then there's a little bit in my Greek yogurt, a little bit in my protein. It's just like little bits and pieces, right? And I feel so good with the lower carbohydrate intake, even with my output it. And so I guess I've seen you discuss keto and you said it's not a diet and I would like you to expound on that. But I want to talk about sustainability of being lower carb and the arguments against keto and how you can counter argue those. Because I'm living it and I've seen it. And I used to be the one on the opposite side kind of talking bad about keto because I felt like in my head, well, we can only get energy to our brains from carbs and, and I was just creating things and parroting information as well as a jerk would at the time, until I started to really deeply study it and get real facts. And so I really want your expertise on this to help people overcome bad information, misconceptions, misguidance, all of that, because I really feel like you're the go to on this that I would really trust to convey this. And you're the first person I've really asked to dig deep into this.

[Ben Azadi]

Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm happy to do that. It's an honor to dig deep into it. Keto, Chapter 7 of Metabolic Freedom is all about keto. As you reference, keto is not a diet, it's a metabolic process. There's nothing new about keto, it's just new to some people or nuanced. But in reality, this metabolic process called ketosis has been around for as long as humans have existed. Every single one of our ancestors did keto. How do I know that? Well, they didn't have food available all the time, so they had to fast. And when you fast, you get into ketosis. Ketones are simply a byproduct of burning body fat. When you burn body fat, you send those fatty acids to your liver and your liver and then some variations, the kidneys too, produce ketones, which fuels the body, fuels every cell, including your brain cells. What's interesting about what you shared just a couple minutes ago with glucose and carbohydrates being the number one energy source for the body, that is parroted all the time. I thought the same thing too. What's really fascinating when I have those conversations with people, here's how, here's how it goes. They'll say, yeah, but isn't glucose the number one priority, like the number one energy source for the body? I'll say, hey, do you know that in all medical textbooks there's no such thing as essential carbohydrates?

[Dylan Gemelli]

Really?

[Ben Azadi]

There are essential fats in every medical textbook, which are called essential fatty acids, EFAs, there are essential proteins called essential amino acids. There's no such thing as essential carbohydrates because the human body can make all the glucose necessary at any point through a process called gluconeogenesis. It can make it from the protein you eat, the fat you eat your own body fat, or even your liver and your adrenal glands could produce it through cortisol and gluconeogenesis. So, yeah, we always need glucose, that is true, but we don't have to eat that glucose. The body could make it through various ways, but we always need protein and fat. That's essential. Ketosis is really important. You know, the 93% of Americans that are a sugar burner, I call them being they're in a keto deficiency. They forgot how to burn fat. Dylan. And babies that are born into this world and breastfed are actually in ketosis, meaning burning fat is our primal birthright. Breast milk has saturated fat and cholesterol. We just spoke about that. And it helps that baby produce ketones because it helps the neurological development of that baby's brain, which is very important at that time. But then we wean the baby off the breast milk, we give it high sugar, instant formula, or it snacks and it grazes as an adolescent, myself included, and we teach it to be a sugar burner. And now it's 30 years old, 40 years old, 60 years old, and it's stuck. Burning sugar. We need to get them back to burning sugar fat. The tricky part with keto is that there are so many different ways to do keto. There are thousands of ways to do it. Not every way to do it is healthy for you. You could eat bad fats and get into ketosis. It doesn't mean you're getting healthy. So I make that clear in the book. But when you're in ketosis, your cells are producing 400% more energy, more ATP, than when you're stuck burning sugar. That's extraordinary because it raises your basal metabolic rate, you produce more energy, it raises glutathione in the body, raises antioxidant in the body. It's incredible. Now, with all that being said, should we be in ketosis for the rest of our lives?

[Dylan Gemelli]

No.

[Ben Azadi]

No, we should not. I don't agree. And I am big in keto. My company is keto Camp, and I've spoken at so many keto conferences, and my colleagues do not agree with me. They think that what I'm sharing here, to go out of Ketosis and back into ketosis is the wrong approach. They think you should do keto forever. That's another form of metabolic inflexibility. We want the ability to burn fat and sugar, go back and forth. And that's what I call metabolic flexibility in the metabolic freedom.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Excellent, excellent, excellent, excellent. Okay, perfect. So, question, because I've heard you talk about keto, I've heard you talk about carnivore. Which one do you maybe prefer? Or maybe it's just timing wise, one is better at a certain time or the other. And can you just give like a. What's the difference? Because I think that's a question. I don't ever see it talked about or answered like comparisons, just a basic simple comparison of two. Because I think there's a lot of similarities, but there are key differences and I would love for you to talk about that so people get an understanding to maybe figure out, is this something we should be doing both of? Is one, you know, better for me than the other? So break that down, please.

[Ben Azadi]

Great question. It's an important question because you're right, it's not really spoken about. What do they have in common? Well, when you're doing a carnivore diet, you are in ketosis, so it could be considered a keto diet, but it's not a traditional keto diet. A traditional keto diet is when you take your total carbohydrates and drop that under 50 grams per day total. And the majority of those carbs, if not all of those carbs, are coming from green leafy vegetables, non starchy carbs. That's not carnivore. Carnivore is only protein and fat, only animal products. So red meat, dairy, in some cases poultry, seafood, eggs. No carbs, no vegetables, not even fruit, nothing. So that carnivore is a little bit more extreme. Usually the progression is like, is like this, somebody is doing a standard American diet and they usually go to a low carb diet and that's different than a keto diet. A low carb diet is taking your total carbs from 300 grams of carbs per day, like the average person, to around 100 to 150 grams of carbs, kind of like a paleo diet, but it's not low enough. Enter ketosis. So that's the first progression, which is a great progression. Then they usually drop their carbs even more, under 50 grams to get into ketosis. They get those benefits and then they eventually progress to zero grams of carbs, which is a carnivore. Diet, that's usually the progression. The carnivore diet I prefer. I, I love the carnivore diet. I feel the best in the carnivore diet. It's really great for those who have autoimmune conditions. Leaky gut, intestinal permeability works really well because you're removing all these plant toxins, all of these anti nutrients, you're allowing your gut microbiome to, to heal itself, which is at the root of these autoimmune conditions. So if you have autoimmune, I would recommend getting to a carnivore diet eventually. If you don't, if you're just looking to get health benefits and burn some fat, you don't have to go that aggressive. You could just do a keto approach and kind of go in and out of ketosis. But personally, my routine, Monday through Saturday, I'm usually carnivore with intermittent fasting, and then Sunday I flex out. I have a whole bunch of healthy carbs and I don't do much faster fasting.

[Dylan Gemelli]

What's your fasting schedule then? Generally 18, six usually.

[Ben Azadi]

So six hour eating window, two to three meals, getting my protein requirements and then fasting for 18 hours.

[Dylan Gemelli]

So for the people that are kind of newer to intermittent fasting, what can one have that won't break a fast? And what's something common that people think won't break it, but actually does?

[Ben Azadi]

Ooh, good one. Yeah. That's actually the most popular question I get asked about what breaks a fast. First, we need to define what breaks a fast. Like what's the definition of breaking a fast is what I'm trying to say. So for me, my definition of breaking a fast is when you raise glucose and start the digestive processes. Because when you raise glucose, obviously insulin goes up and then you lower autophagy, which is this cellular cleanup process. So anytime glucose goes up, insulin goes up, autophagy goes down, and then you start your digestive system. So that is my definition of breaking a fast. So what does that. Any carbohydrates will do that. That. So that's a no go. Any protein that's over 5 or 10 grams will do that as well.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Okay.

[Ben Azadi]

For liquids, the surprising thing is coffee. So coffee is incredible. I love coffee. You're drinking coffee right now, right?

[Dylan Gemelli]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Ben Azadi]

You're having your, your short chain fatty acid coffee.

[Dylan Gemelli]

That's right.

[Ben Azadi]

Coffee is incredible when it's the right type of coffee. And for some people, coffee breaks a fast, for some it doesn't. The only way to Know is to test your blood glucose right before you have the coffee. Drink your coffee and then test it 45 minutes later. And if blood glucose goes up five points or higher, it's breaking your fast. But if you don't see it go up, if it drops or stays the same, it's safe. But it's different for everybody. I've tested hundreds of people. Tea is safe. Tea when it's unsweetened, like an herbal tea, like chamomile green tea, that's safe. Obviously water and electrolytes that are non flavored are safe. Supplements are mostly safe. I would stay. I would avoid taking fat soluble supplements during a fast. Anything with vitamin A, D, E and K that needs. Needs fat to really be absorbed and you're not really absorbing that if you have it on the empty stomach. Apple cider vinegar is great for a fast. Doesn't break a fast. Supports a fast. Your short chain fatty acids and your medium chain fats are great for a fast. Doesn't break a fast. Olive oil doesn't break a fast. Coconut oil doesn't break a fast even though there's calories there. So, yeah, that's kind of a breakdown of what breaks it and what doesn't break it.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Sweet. I got something else that I think is a good one. How do you know if you're in or out of ketosis? How do you know when you've gotten into it and how do you know when you're out of it?

[Ben Azadi]

You could test. There are machines to test. There's three different ways to test. There are breath ketone meters because there's three ketone bodies. Acetone is what your body expels through breath. So you could breathe into the machine.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Yeah.

[Ben Azadi]

Give you a reading. There's a urine strips which looks at acetoacetate, which is the second ketone body. Those two are not my favorite methods of testing ketones. My favorite method is blood. Blood. And it's a finger prick which tests for beta hydroxybutyrate, which is bhb, the most potent ketone body. And if you test your ketone and I use a company called Keto Mojo to test that, when you prick your finger and put that blood into a strip, put that strip into the machine and if it registers 0.5 or higher, you're in ketosis. So that's the best way to know for sure.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Now I remember the last. The hos convention I was at in Austin. They had a booth there where they were doing the ketones breathing. Can't remember the name of the company off the top of my head, but I have.

[Ben Azadi]

Was it keto Air?

[Dylan Gemelli]

Yes, yes, that's who it was. Yep, Yep. And they were busy and I was going to do something and I had to run to a meeting, and so I didn't get a chance to try it, but yes. Okay. So, you know, one of the turning points for me when I made those changes and I realized because I'm a big data guy, I am really big on every piece of data I can get. And I had a friend there that has a company. It's, it's no P, N O, E. I'm sure you've heard of it. And the, like, the breath analyzing, it's like the lumen, where they test your breath, except this is really intricate. And he's tested me and he said, man, you are chewing through fat. And he was showing me the breakdown. It was like 75 fat, 25 carbs. And I started to think to myself, huh, you know, why am, am I? So I really wanted to understand why. And then like, man, maybe if I start eating higher fat, then it's going to, to be, you know, quality for me. How do you feel about, like the lumen and those breath, you know, tests, do you feel that they're accurate in terms of them kind of telling you if you're your percentage on what you're burning for fats and carbs and what, what's going to have the effect on your body? So, for instance, some days I wake up and I'm at the level one and it says I'm burning 95 fat and 5 carbs. But then I have some mornings where it's like 55, 45. And I'll tell you this, that I know when I sleep less or kind of a like a bad sleep, then I wake up kind of more in that closer to even range. When I sleep good or longer, I'm in that big zone. What, what affects that and how do you feel about that kind of data in general? Is it accurate or what? What's your feeling?

[Ben Azadi]

I haven't used them that much. I, I, I mean, I've had lumen reach out to me a few times. I, I think the keto mojo is the most accurate way to test your blood sugar and blood ketones. That's the most accurate way. But not everybody wants to prick their finger. So I see that being a valuable resource to breathe in and see if you're burning sugar, carbs versus fat, it's not telling you if you're in ketosis. This is Different.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Right.

[Ben Azadi]

And your sleep, to your point, Dylan, plays a big role because when you're not getting good sleep, you're going to raise cortisol and glucose the next morning. So you're not going to be burning as much fat. You'll be having a mix. As you saw there, when you get good sleep, you burn more fat. So maybe it's a tool to give you an idea of which direction you're in. But I haven't used it enough and looked at the data enough to kind of give you my, my thoughts on it. I, I know that I love of glucose testing and ketone testing.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Yeah.

[Ben Azadi]

I haven't done much of the, the breath meters.

[Dylan Gemelli]

The CGMs are very pretty. Yeah, very. Yeah. I would recommend everybody at least give that a 30 day run. You know, Stello or whatever is the one that I used. I, I'm not affiliated with them, but that's what I used. I think it's really important to get the data to see how you're, what you're consuming is affecting you. I really believe in that a lot and I don't think enough people take it serious enough and I may go overboard in the way I count and see things, but I want to know, man, like I want to know every. You know, in one of your chapters in your book you talk about foods that like effective metabolism. What are your favorite foods that really support metabolism and why are they your picks in terms of that support and helping to get a better, you know, metabolism going?

[Ben Azadi]

Yeah, it's going to be the foods, Dylan, that number one, lower inflammation, cell inflammation. Number two, lower insulin, the fat storage hormone, the only hormone in the body that stores fat, insulin. So that's going to be foods that are, are primarily high quality protein and fat eggs as you mentioned earlier, not just the egg whites like you were doing, but.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Right.

[Ben Azadi]

The eggs with the yolk. I think eggs are mother nature's multivitamin. It's God made it to give us all the nutrients. Right. Zeaxanthine, lutein, there's omega fats, omega 3 fats in there. There's DHA and they also help you burn fat and lower inflammation. So eggs with the yolk are great. You don't want to overcook those eggs. You want them to be like soft scrambled or runny yolks. That's where you're going to preserve the nutrients. Red meat, whether it's steak or ground beef, great anti inflammatory fat burning food. Butter, like you mentioned, the Kerrygold. Yeah, absolutely. Grass fed butter. Grass fed ghee. Terrific fat burning food. Avocados are also great too. And if you're more of a plant based person, that's a good option for you because it's, it's a fruit technically. But avocados are great in healthy fats. Avocados are loaded with phytosterols which help lower inflammation, loaded with B vitamins that help with stress and adrenal issues. I have a video I published on what happens in your body when you eat one avocado every day for seven days. And a lot of people took that challenge. I've been seeing some of the comments. You start to lose weight, lower inflammation. And then I love the foods that help your body produce ketones because ketones, as we established are highly anti inflammatory, great for fat loss. So those are gonna be foods that have a good percentage of medium chain triglycerides. MC2, that's going to be sheep and goat dairy. 30% of sheep and goat dairy contain MCTs and it helps your body boost ketones. So sheep and goat dairy is great. I like fermented foods as well, like sauerkraut, kimchi. Great for the metabolism, great for fat loss. And then if we're talking about like supplements, there's different things. Coffee is a great fat burning, I call it, I put it in the supplement chapter, although it's a drink. But coffee, when it's medium roasted and it's organic, it's loaded with chlorogenic acid acid cga, which is a powerful polyphenol that's great for fat loss, great for detoxing your liver. So I love that. And then green tea is also great when it's organic without the microplastics in the tea bag. Like a good brand, great for fat loss, great for targeting belly fat. Actually, the catechins and green green tea help you do that. And then just one more thing here with supplements, there's a supplement that I talk about in chapter 11 called Grains of Paradise, which is a spice that you could buy organic Grains of Paradise and you could just add it to your foods or take it in a supplement form and it helps your body produce brown adipose tissue, brown fat, which is fat that's loaded with mitochondria that help you burn more calories versus the white fat that's around your organs, your love handles, that's, that's the metabolically inactive fat. So if we could increase brown fat, it's always a good thing for burning fat. And Grains of Paradise helps you do that. It's a really interesting supplement.

[Dylan Gemelli]

I do 125 to 150 grams of avocado every single day. That's like my number one staple food. Yeah. Oh man, was I missing out. I, I gotta tell you, man, it is literally like my number one staple every day. I got a question on seafood and this is kind of mercury related and overdoing it perhaps. I'm a big salmon guy. I probably maybe have it too much. I'm like five to six days and then I throw in a Chilean sea bass type or something like that. It's like a treat. Because I know you gotta be careful with the mercury, that, that or halibut. But where does it come to the point where it's overdoing it or too much? And what' your thoughts on that in terms of the seafood intake?

[Ben Azadi]

Yeah, Dylan, you know, that's a good question. Because the bigger the fish, the more toxins, including mercury it has.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Right?

[Ben Azadi]

The protocol that I, that I share is the SMASH acronym for seafood, which are going to be the best seafood to have, that have the least amount of toxins. So the SMASH is salmon, which you mentioned. Yeah, wild caught salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines and herring. So that's the SMASH protocol. If you could stick to those as the majority of the seafood you're eating, you'll get all the benefits of seafood without the toxicity of the heavy metal contamination. But look, if you're doing it once a month or so, having bigger fish once a month, not a big deal, or if you're doing every week, it could accumulate in your body for sure. And what you can do is you could take some binders if you know you're gonna have a bigger fish. You could take some binders about an hour before, maybe some glutathione as well, and it could help you detoxify that before you absorb it.

[Dylan Gemelli]

So let's say, for instance, somebody has, has, sees they have a higher mercury content, what's a recommendation for them to start to clean that up or get it out of their system? I know it takes a while. Is there a good natural route to go or what's your recommendation there?

[Ben Azadi]

That's like a whole conversation in itself, bro. We could talk hours about that. Part of my story, you may not know this, but part of my story is I had mercury poisoning myself in 2018 from 8 silver amalgam film. Swellings destroyed me. So first of all, testing mercury is very, very difficult. You could test through urine, you could test through blood, you could test through your hair. Let me backtrack. Hair is not accurate. Hair in general for testing metals is not an accurate measurement. It's always showing you what your body is getting rid of, not what's being stored. Yeah, it kind of gives you an idea. If you're getting rid of a lot of heavy metals, you probably have a lot stored, but it's not accurate. Blood is only looking at acute exposure of mercury and other other heavy metals, not chronic. So blood's not accurate. Urine would be the best option and you need to use a, a challenging agent with that urine test to challenge the metals out. So doctors data has a great test called 24 hour urine challenge test. When you use that with what's called a dmsa, which is a challenging agent to challenge the metals out gives you a good idea of your toxin exposure. Now, now, if you have ever had silver amalgam fillings like I did, if you've ever worn contact lenses in the 70s and 80s and, or if your mom had silver amalgam fillings when she gave birth to you, you have a lot of mercury in your body. So I like using a health questionnaire for mercury versus testing because I know if they have any of those three things I mentioned, they have mercury. How do you get it out? That's a process. It takes years. It's not a seven day cleanse, it's not a sauna session, it's not chlorella, it's not. Oh my gosh. I'm not going to name this person. But I, I sent this to my mentor, Dr. Pompa. Do you know Dr. Daniel Pompa?

[Dylan Gemelli]

I, I know I don't know him personally, but I'm very aware of who he is.

[Ben Azadi]

Yeah, I learned all this from him. The heavy metal stuff. He's the one who made me aware that I was mercury poison back in 2018. But there was, there's a really popular person in our space who posted on his Instagram and said, said, did you know Wild Blueberries removes mercury from the brain?

[Dylan Gemelli]

I know who you're talking about and.

[Ben Azadi]

We don't want to hate on people somewhere, but it makes me angry and I sent it to Dr. Pompa because that is not true. There's not one study that shows that in human beings. It's a process. You got to open up downstream detox pathways. You have to clear the body of metals and then go to the brain where the mercury is. And I would just, just recommend people check out Dr. Daniel Pompa if they want to learn more about the mercury toxic.

[Dylan Gemelli]

The mercury detox definitely, you know you mentioned something earlier and I wanted to kick back to it real quick. On the carb side, you mentioned green leafy vegetables as something. What are your go to sources or recommended sources of carbs? Because I know people are going to wonder that because it's confusing, man, because there's a lot of carbohydrate options. So I really want to know your Ben's go tos, you know, that you approve.

[Ben Azadi]

Yeah, I mean I would stay away. The ones that I don't recommend would be spinach, kale. Those are higher in anti nutrients like oxalates. Yeah, almonds too. And that's not necessarily a carb, but high in oxalates. I like arugula is a great carbohydrate, great green leafy vegetable. Great for the liver, great for detoxification as well. I like broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, zucchini. These are my go to vegetables. On my higher carb day I'll have white rice. Personally I'm fine with that because I'm metabolically healthy. I'll have fruit, I'll have blueberries, not for the mercury removal, but I'll have blue, I'll have blueberries, I'll have grapefruit, I'll have watermelon, I'll have a lot of fruit. So I like fruit in general on my higher carb days. But on the keto day I like the zucchini, the arugula, the broccoli, the cauliflower. Those are gonna be better options.

[Dylan Gemelli]

What's your amount of carb intake on your higher carb days? You got 100 or where are you at, man?

[Ben Azadi]

I go like to 400, right?

[Dylan Gemelli]

You really?

[Ben Azadi]

Yeah, I eased it up. I really flex out and I'm really active on that day. I'll play basketball for a few hours. But yeah, I really have a lot of carbs. So I go from zero carbs all week to 400 grams in a day and then back to zero carbs the next day. And I'm, I'm metabolically flexible. I'm able to do that. I've done the work and I want that for everybody to be able to do that.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Okay, so why do you do that? How often do you do that? And does that affect your, like do you, you lower your fat and protein intake? Like how do you accommodate that? I'm really curious. I, I really want to understand the reasoning and everything so people can grasp this and realize why it's even important to do this.

[Ben Azadi]

I do it because I want to maintain metabolic flexibility okay, if I stayed in carnivore or keto, I'm only burning fat. My body will forget how to burn carbs. I don't want that. So I do it for that reason. But also it prevents plateaus. It creates a change that my body has to adapt to. And you know, this being a fitness guy, every great personal trainer knows, hey, if we want this client to get amazing results, we gotta continue to change the workout, right? At low rate, change the routine, they, they don't plateau. It's very similar. I call it metabolic confusion. So you prevents plateaus, it overcomes plateaus, it maintains metabolic flexibility. But a higher carb day, and I'm glad you brought this up, a higher carb day is a lower fat day. Okay. I have low fat, less than 40 grams of fat on that day. We don't want to increase carbs and have the fat high. That's a disaster.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Right?

[Ben Azadi]

So high carb day protein could be high. That's fine. But fat needs to be low on a higher carb day.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Okay, that makes sense. And this, this is, this is what I love because, okay, I've been doing all this testing on myself and I get to these times and I'm wondering why the heck is this a day where it's saying I'm burning like my body's trying to burn all these carbs but I'm not taking them in and why do I feel like I'm way a little heavy today or I'm holding a little bit more water and when I did, didn't change anything. Why, why, why, why, why? Well, because I'm not adding a heavy carb day at all. And I'm doing all this training, all this output and not doing it. So if you were going to implement the heavy carb day, would you do the heavy carb day on a workout day or a non workout day?

[Ben Azadi]

I would do it on a workout.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Day on a workout date.

[Ben Azadi]

I do it on my basket. I play a couple hours of basketball every Sunday, so I usually do it on Sundays personally.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Okay, so we're looking at adding a lot more fruits, some rice. What else would we look at on.

[Ben Azadi]

The really high school of sweet potatoes, plantain. Have you tried masa chips before? Masa chips?

[Dylan Gemelli]

No, I haven't. I.

[Ben Azadi]

He would love masa. They, they, they're organic corn tortilla chips cooked in beef tallow. They're legit. So I have a lot of masa chips, but usually it's white rice and fruit on those days for me a lot.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Okay, so you're really slamming them home. All right. I am.

[Ben Azadi]

Yeah.

[Dylan Gemelli]

I know we're not really big on calories here, but are your calories kind of similar then on that day, too? I mean, I guess if you're eating higher fat on certain days and lower. Yeah. There's gonna be a. A certain. Certain differentiation on your total caloric intake, isn't there, on those days or are you even monitoring it?

[Ben Azadi]

I have no idea, honestly. Yeah, I don't even look at it. So there might be. I would guess that my calories were probably higher on that day. I mean, I'm just. I'm not fasting. I'm eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'm feasting, so my calories are probably higher. I just don't know how much higher.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Okay, then real quick, because I know some people are going to want to know this. You and I have had laughs about this, and I made comments that we laughed about, about. Let's do the real quick oatmeal thing here, because I don't. I don't want the. The oatmeal mafia to come after me. Oatmeal mafia, dude, I used to eat oatmeal. I know you did. Like, it was an everyday thing, and I'm talking a ton of it. And, and people get so angry if you start saying that. It's. You start breaking down the facts on it. And once I stopped taking so much, everything changed for the better for me. I. I know the glyphosate's obviously one big thing, but you know what? Someone's going to say, well, what if I get the non GMO that doesn't have any glyphosate on it and everything Every other we can get. So what else. What are the other problems? Aside from the obvious, which we know with glyphosate can even go on organic because of the sprayover. But cover it for me real quick, if you would, before we go.

[Ben Azadi]

Yeah. You know, I actually love the taste of oatmeal.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Me too.

[Ben Azadi]

Yeah, I absolutely love it. It's one of my favorite foods to eat. I also love peanut butter. I love, love oatmeal with peanut butter. But oatmeal is not healthy for you. No. If. Especially if you're not. If you're not 90, like 93% of Americans are metabolic unhealthy. You have no business eating oatmeal right now.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Right?

[Ben Azadi]

Yeah, there's the glyphosate issue, but you're. People are gonna say, I eat organic steel, stainless steel, cut oats well, all of that turns into sugar in your body. There's. If you ever put on a continuous glucose monitor, ate oatmeal and look at your blood sugar levels, you're gonna see this. It might not happen as fast as drinking a soda or drinking a Snickers bar, but it happens over time. It turns into sugar in your body. It is not a health food for me. It's considered like a cheat meal. Like, I'll still have some organic non GMO oats on that, that flex day I mentioned, but it's like, to me, it's kind of like a cheat meal. It's not something I'm having all the time. I just like the taste of it. Right? But it also. But oatmeal also has phytic acid. It's an anti nutrient that removes minerals from your body. And if you're having oatmeal every day.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Day.

[Ben Azadi]

You're removing minerals from your body every day. Minerals are the main fuel for your mitochondria. It depletes your battery pack. So there's a lot of reasons why we don't want to eat oatmeal. If you're having it once a week or once a month, and it's organic, non GMO and you're metabolically healthy, no big deal. But let's face it, that's not how most people eat oatmeal. So if the oatmeal mafia wants to come after Dylan and I, that's fine. That's the way we feel. We need to give oatmeal the reputation it deserves. And that reputation is that it is not. Not healthy.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Exactly. Okay, good. We had to. We had to do that. So. Dude, I can't tell you. I. I know you have to go. I've got a whole list of stuff in my head. I. I don't script, but like, hopefully at another time can cover because I want to get into some cellular science, some. Some autophagy, mitophagy, how it relates to diet, all of this. There's. I got a slew of things left to talk to you about.

[Ben Azadi]

Round two, brother.

[Dylan Gemelli]

We got to do it for sure, man. Besides appreciating this, man, I value it because I really, even selfishly, for myself, learned a ton. And I know the audience is going to really appreciate this man. And listen, I don't even know if that you can get enough for your work. And it's. It's your work and it's your spirit and it's your care and all of this effort. Trust me when I tell You, I don't think you could hear it enough about how appreciative it is, because even a guy like me that's been studying this for 15 years, the more I realize that I don't know really a fraction of what's out there. And I've turned to people like you. It helps me, too, to use. Use my platform to get you out, but to convey it also and learn from you and clean up my knowledge base, too. So, man, thank you for all of it. It's beyond appreciated.

[Ben Azadi]

Thank you, Dylan. I appreciate you. You're a great podcast host. I learned from you, too, dude. We're gonna hang out in Austin very soon. We're gonna be doing some more collaborations. We're gonna be supporting each other. I am grateful for the conversation we had today. I was very much looking forward to it, and I look forward to developing our relationship, learning from you as well. You're a very humble, knowledgeable guy. There's not much ego involved with you, and it's very different than a lot of people in our space. So I admire that, bro, and I appreciate your support.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Absolutely, man. Dude, it was an honor and a pleasure. Now, everybody make sure, literally. And I'm not just saying this to promote this. This book is gold. It really is. Metabolic Freedom. Check it out. But, Ben, what else. What else can people do to follow you? I know you've got the keto camp. Where can they. They. They come find you? Give them everything, and I'll link everything in the description for. For everything you've got going on.

[Ben Azadi]

Yeah. Thank you, Dylan. I'd love if your audience resonated with the message to go get Metabolic Freedom. It just came out a few days ago, and it's available on hardcover, which I, you know, Dylan went to Barnes and Noble, posted a nice video getting it at spartanoble. I really appreciated that. It's available on Kindle and also Audible and Spotify. I narrated the Audible on Spotify myself, and it's available everywhere, worldwide. And. But if you go to metabolicfreedombook.com you could get a free course with the book 12 Lessons on the Metabolism. For free. There's no credit card. I'm collecting and charging you later. It's completely free. And there's four interviews in that course with Dr. Jason Fung, Megan Ramos, Dr. Daniel Pompa, who we spoke about earlier, and Cynthia Thurlow. All that's for free when you go to metabolicfreedombook.com and if you want to learn more about me, my main website is benazadi.

[Dylan Gemelli]

Awesome, man. And those are great people that you've talked to and collaborated with. I know Cynthia, she's awesome. And yeah, yeah, you've got really strong people backing you, bro. And. And we're all in your corner, so I appreciate it.

[Ben Azadi]

Thank you.

[Dylan Gemelli]

I hope everybody really, really loved and appreciated this one, which I'm sure they did. So that wraps up another one, everybody. Stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Jabelli and Benazadi signing off.