Ben Azadi On How To Reset Your Metabolism, Eliminate Cravings, & Lose Fat For Good

**Michael Bosstick** (0:00)
Hello, everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Bossticks. Today, we have Ben Azadi on the show. Ben is a leading authority on metabolic health and New York Times' bestselling author of Metabolic Freedom and one of the most impactful voices in the space today. After losing 80 pounds personally and transforming his own life, he's on a mission to help 1 billion people break free from physical and mental obesity. And today, we're talking insulin resistance, fasting, gut health and fat loss, and how we can heal our guts and use a positive mindset to get basically anything we want out of life. With that, Ben, welcome to The Bossticks.
Welcome to The Bossticks. Starring Lauryn Bosstick and Michael Bosstick. Together, they are The Bossticks.

**Lauryn Bosstick** (0:46)
If someone says that my metabolism is broken, what does that mean? What do you say?

**Ben Azadi** (0:51)
I'll tell them their metabolism is not broken. It's doing exactly what it's designed to do based off of the signals you're giving it. And Lauryn, one of the things I hear all the time is, I have a slow metabolism or my metabolism has slowed down because I turned 40 or 50
When I dug into the research on metabolism, I learned that the metabolism doesn't even operate in speeds. There's no such thing as a slow metabolism or a fast metabolism. It's either an efficient metabolism or an inefficient metabolism. So what happens is the metabolism gets blocked. You do that with the foods you eat, sometimes even with the thoughts you think, also lack of sleep, different stressors. So when there's interference in your metabolism, it will do what it's designed to do, which is to survive, the body is designed to survive, and it's not about a slow metabolism, it's about a blocked metabolism.

**Lauryn Bosstick** (1:39)
So if you could give me a chart on an efficient metabolism versus an inefficient metabolism, what does that look like?

**Ben Azadi** (1:46)
An efficient metabolism is somebody that could eat carbohydrates, fat, and or protein, use that for energy and still be lean. Is that you, Michael?

**Michael Bosstick** (1:55)
I hope it's me, I hope so. She's pointing at you. I got a little bit down on the-

**Ben Azadi** (1:59)
No, it's him.

**Michael Bosstick** (1:59)
As I'm getting older, I could work a little bit. You know what?
I am guilty. I can eat kind of what I want to eat.

**Ben Azadi** (2:06)
And then you feel good, energy levels are good, even after a high carbohydrate meal?

**Michael Bosstick** (2:09)
Yeah, I mean, if I eat some, like the other day, she threw a party for our kid and there was some crap there and I ate it and I felt terrible. But if I eat relatively good ingredients and good things, then yeah, I can use it for fuel and feel great.

**Ben Azadi** (2:19)
So that is metabolic flexibility.
That's what we want. Now, here's a crazy stat for you. 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy, 93%.

**Michael Bosstick** (2:30)
Such a terrible stat.

**Ben Azadi** (2:31)
It is. I mean, you think about it. I was just in the airport. I flew in from Miami to Austin. You just look around the airport. There's a lot of unhealthy people, but it's not just the aesthetic side of things because somebody could be skinny on the outside, but fat on the inside. And they're actually at a higher risk of diseases versus the person who's obviously overweight.
So they're metabolically inflexible. Their metabolism is only burning sugar, sugar and glucose. When it's stuck burning sugar and glucose, it's going to create symptoms and then eventually disease.

**Lauryn Bosstick** (2:59)
And what is an inefficient metabolism?

**Ben Azadi** (3:01)
It's somebody who's designed to eat carbohydrates all day long, snack and graze. And if they don't snack and graze, their energy drops. They have all this food noise. They keep thinking about food. They keep going to the kitchen. That's somebody who's a sugar burner. Their metabolism is not efficient because it's only burning sugar and glucose. We need to teach them to burn fat, stored fat. What's crazy is that so many people have all this extra fat on them, 50 pounds overweight, 100 pounds overweight. This is stored calories and they can't access it because they're burning food for fuel, not body fat for fuel. Their metabolism is inefficient.

**Michael Bosstick** (3:35)
So how do you get to that point? I mean, I know there's obviously eat poorly, don't exercise, too much sugar, alcohol, like all the things we know. But what is a sign that you're heading in that direction? And how do you start to turn it around?