The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #302 - Ben Azadi

TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)

Ben Azadi
I'm not telling people lose weight to get healthy. That's not even how the body works. I'm telling people get healthy and you'll lose weight. You could be 75 years old and have the same metabolism as when you were 25 years old, support the liver. That's the number one thing.

And once you fix that issue, you start to thrive on keto. Pormissus simply means you apply a stress to the human body. And if your human body adapts to the stress, you are now stronger.

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast where we meet the world's top experts to explore the secrets of health, mindset, longevity, and so much more. Are you ready to take charge of your existence and biohack your life? This show is for you. Please keep in mind we're not dispensing medical advice and are not responsible for any outcomes you may experience from implementing the tactics lying here in.

So friends, are you ready to join me? Let's do this. Welcome back to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. Oh my goodness, friends. What a true honor it was to be back here today with Ben Azadi for his new book, Metabolic Freedom. I adore this human. He is so overwhelmingly kind and changing so many people's lives. And in today's conversation, we discuss so many incredible topics, things like a shocking myth about the metabolism and whether or not it slows down with age, a powerful vitamin called vitamin G with shocking health benefits, which you can take now fasting versus keto versus keto fasting, the profound health benefits of CGA and coffee, how lack of purpose can actually lead to obesity, problems with seed oils, and so much more.

Make sure you don't miss Ben's exclusive free course with epic interviews with my former co-host, Cynthia Thurlow, as well as Jason Fung, Dr. Mindy Peltz, and Megan Ramos. You can get that when you order his book, Metabolic Freedom, which I highly recommend at metabolicfreedombook.com. These show notes for today's episode will be at melanieavalon.com slash metabolicfreedom. Those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out. I can't wait to hear what you guys think. Definitely let me know in my Facebook group, I have biohackers, intermittent fasting plus real foods plus life. Comment something you learned or something that resonated with you on the pinned post to enter to win something that I love. And then check out my Instagram, find the Friday announcement post. And again, comments there to enter to win something that I love. All right, I think that's all the things without further ado, please enjoy this fabulous conversation with my dear friend Benazzotti.

Hi friends, welcome back to the show. I am so overwhelmingly honored and excited about the conversation I am about to have. I know you can probably just hear me smiling. Today's guest is honestly one of my favorite humans on the planet. And I really do mean that I am here today with Benazzotti. He's been on the show before I've been on his show. He is a wonder of a human when it comes to radically changing people's lives and their metabolic health. And he has a new book coming out called metabolic freedom, a 30 day guide to restore your metabolism, heal hormones and burn fat.

Melanie Avalon
And friends, I just wish everybody could read this book because it is a mastermind. And first of all, understanding why we have all the metabolic diseases and chronic degenerative diseases that we have today, why we struggle with weight loss, all the things, how your metabolism actually works and how to have agency to take it back to change your life with a very much like Ben calls pain to purpose, no willpower approach to everything. And of course, it touches on a lot of things we talked about in this show. So the role of sleep and exercise and supplements and biohacking and there's recipes and it's just really a wonderful book. Cannot recommend it enough.

Get it right now. Just a little story Ben. So yesterday I was recording an episode of my show, the Mindblown podcast with our mutual friend Scott Emmons. I hope this story doesn't freak you out. So the episode was about serial killers. And then we were having a conversation offline afterwards and I was saying, I was recording with you. And so like I was saying, you're just like such a fantastic, wonderful human. And we were talking about you and we were like, if there was an award for least likely to be a serial killer, I think Ben Azadi would be the winner and or like most shocking if he was a serial killer, Ben Azadi.

Ben Azadi
Thank you, Melanie and Scott.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, you're just such a kind, wonderful human. I would be shocked.

But in any case, I am so excited to dive into this conversation for your new book. We were talking just right before this. So your prior book, I mean you have a massive audience and you were self-publishing and this is your first traditionally published book. I'm super curious what your experience has been like going those two different routes because I also went that route with my book and it's a whole other world working with publishers. And I'm super curious like with your publisher, did you get to do everything you wanted? Did they have a lot of ideas that you either loved or conflicted with? What has that process been like?

Ben Azadi
Yeah. And first of all, thank you for bringing me back on your show, Melanie. I love what you're doing. You're incredible. I'm glad we finally got to meet a few months ago at the A4M Biohacker self-premier. It's been just so cool seeing your journey and I really appreciate the kind of words you're very, very sweet.

Yes. So just like you, I've done both self-published and now this is a traditional publisher, Hey House. And I've always loved Hey House. They've had just such incredible authors and they were my favorite. And I'm glad that I went with them. There are of course, as you know, pros and cons to both. And when you self publish, you have all creative control. You could go as fast or as slow as you want. Everything is really up to you, which is good and bad. With the publisher takes a lot longer. I finished this book in August of 2024 and it's coming out in May of 2025. So you can see there's a gap between when it's done and when it's out, but I have to say I've been loving my experience so far with, with Hey House. They've been treating me well, supporting me. We didn't have any disagreements. You know, when we talked about like the book cover, the first image cover was like a speedometer, like this little gauge of a kind of like they were trying to get at like the metabolism. I didn't like it cause I thought people would see that and not really know what that means. So we changed it to the chili pepper, which showed like explosion metabolism. And they were really well to work with easy to work with. And so far it's been fantastic. I've been loving my experience with them. So I will say nothing but great things about Hey House at this moment.

Melanie Avalon
As you probably know, we often get having a podcast pitches all the time from guests. And whenever a book comes in from Hay House, I'm like, okay, I definitely, like I really respect the books that they publish and they publish so many incredible books.

So that's awesome that you're with them. Congrats. That's just amazing. Are you recording the audio book?

Ben Azadi
I have recorded it already and yeah, it's a pain in the butt, but it's done. Yeah, I did record the audio.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, how long did it take?

Ben Azadi
The total, like after the editor, I think it's like seven hours, but it took me around 26 hours to record it. How was your experience with that?

Melanie Avalon
So funny story, they made me audition. So this was before I had, did I have a podcast? I think I was at the very beginning of my podcast journey. I don't know if I even had the podcast at the time.

They made me audition and then they only let me do the intro. Really? But actually it ended up being the best of both worlds because I got to pick the narrator. So I got to pick one of my favorite narrators from other audio books I listened to. And then I only had to go into the studio for, you know, a couple hours. And then I still got to like sprinkle the book with my voice. Yeah, it's just funny though. I feel like if I did it now, they might let me do the whole thing.

Ben Azadi
I'm sure they would. I will warn you though, it is a challenge.

Melanie Avalon
Oh man. And then you have to learn the cadence. You have to learn the process of how to do it.

Ben Azadi
It's so funny because there were so many easy words that I cannot pronounce and then I would nail the most scientific term that you could ever hear. I couldn't say like cellular or particular.

I was having trouble with the L and the mic would pick up my stomach growling because I did it fasting. That was challenging, but I do love when authors narrate their books. I wanted to make sure I did it.

Melanie Avalon
That's amazing. I can't wait to check it out.

That's so awesome. Okay. So so many directions we can go with this to start. I know my, my audience is pretty familiar with your story most likely, but for those who are not, would you like to briefly touch on your background and you know, what led to your pain to purpose message because you had, you know, a lot that happened with your father and your own personal health epiphanies and your own struggles with, you know, addictions and things like that. So what was, what was that like?

Ben Azadi
Yeah, it was like a different person, different time. And it's crazy to look back because it's very different than the way I live my life today.

But for most of my life, 20 plus years, I was overweight, obese, not just physically, but mentally obese, suicidal thoughts, looking for ways to end my life. And I wanted to give up on life. I was depressed, I was inflamed, I had neuroinflammation. This is when I was 24 years old, a young man. I felt like crap. And I didn't take my life because I kept thinking about my mom. I didn't want to hurt her. I didn't want her to deal with such devastation. So it forced me to figure things out. It started before a nutrition change or a biohack or exercise. Started before all that with a mindset change and self-development. Dr. Wayne Dyer is somebody I started to study who really made a big difference in my life. He would say things that would just light me up because I was blaming everyone for my problems. I was blaming my slow metabolism, my enabling family members, and my bad genetics. And Dr. Wayne Dyer, I read something from his book. He said, look, if you keep blaming other people for your problems, you're going to have to hire a psychiatrist for the rest of the world in order for you to get better. And I thought, wow, that's the truth. And he would say things like, look, what happens when you squeeze an orange? What comes out? Orange juice. Why is that? Because that's what's inside, meaning when life squeezes you and applies pressure, what comes out is what's inside your thoughts, your feelings. If you could change that, then you'll see a different outcome. And I did. I started to take responsibility. I started to take ownership, which is the first step towards great change.

And then I started to move my body, eat real food, do some biohacks. And I went through this incredible transformation where I lost 80 pounds of fat in nine months. I went from 34% body fat at my highest to 6% body fat at my lowest. And that was 17 years ago. That's what got me into the health space. Along the years, I was along the way. I was a personal trainer. I had a gym. And of course, then I created keto camp, the podcast and all the good stuff that I'm up to now.

But what's interesting, Melanie, we were just talking about Hay House. I just mentioned Dr. Wayne Dyer. Dr. Wayne Dyer, who saved my life, was a Hay House author. And this is my first book that is with the publisher with Hay House. So it's just, what a blessing. Just such a cool full circle moment for me.

Melanie Avalon
That's so beautiful. It's amazing. You were talking about realizing the agency you have and that blaming other people is not the solution. And I feel like I've had a lot of awareness around that as well with just the role of personal agency and also realizing if I ever feel triggered about something, it's an issue with me, it's not the other people.

I'm curious because we're going to dive deep into your book and what you talk about. I feel like the world today with weight is so interesting because it's become... We had the whole Health at Every Size movement. There's a whole culture around not fat shaming and all of that, which I completely endorse and agree with. And at the same time, the topic, it's like you have to tiptoe around it a little bit not to offend people about this whole weight concept. How do you navigate even talking about the concept? Because it's one thing to be aware of our own triggers and agency and then there's this whole other world of other people's triggers. How do you handle that? Just talking about the topic.

Ben Azadi
Yeah, it's a good question and a good point. We live in such a sensitive society. In reality, I'm the only problem I'll ever have. I'm also the only solution meaning for those listening as well, like you are the only problem you ever have, you're also the only solution. I think a lot of people, they outsource that to, to be offended.

A lot of people and you've seen this Melanie, I mean, we saw it in our previous episode with the seed oil card, people love to be offended, they get a dopamine rush, it just lights them up. And yeah, being in the fat loss space, the weight loss space, I could see how talking about these weight loss strategies, fat loss strategies could offend people. But you know, what's interesting is that even though I talk about it a lot, I don't get a lot of those comments. At least I don't see them. But if I did, here's what I would say. I'm not telling people lose weight to get healthy. That's I'm telling people get healthy and you'll lose weight. I'm referring to metabolic health, not just fat loss, because I want you to look better. I want you to feel better. I want you to have your full personality. It's not about the aesthetics of it. That's just a side effect. It's about you being healthy. If you're overweight, let's face it, you're going to have a shorter lifespan, it's going to increase your chances of metabolic diseases like cancer, heart disease, pre diabetes, insulin resistance, PCOS, autoimmune conditions. It's not healthy being overweight. Unfortunately, we have like, for example, a couple years ago, there was a doctor from the government who went on 60 Minutes, who discussed obesity and said, Look, if you're obese, it's not your fault. It's your genetics. There's nothing you can do. But you could take osempic, you could get a surgery, we got you. That makes people the victim. It makes them relinquish responsibility. And it's the opposite of what we need right now. Right now, if obesity was strictly genetics, then let me ask this. In 1931, excuse me, in the 1930s, what was the percentage of obesity rates in the United States? And the answer is one to 2%. Now Harvard is saying by the year 2030, in just a few years, 50% of the population will be obese, our genetics did not change that fast. So we need to take ownership and responsibility.

And I, it's impossible not to offend people. You understand that, Melanie, I'm sure you could see it all the time. It's going to happen because people get a dopamine rush from being offended.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, that I forgot about so last time we talked about we talked about seed oils and Ben has this really cool seed oil card that you can bring to restaurants and basically it tells the server, you know how to prepare your meal so that you won't have seed oils it's interesting so like like you been I don't normally get. I don't normally get like negative feedback a lot on my social media but for some reason that post people were like upset about this seed oil card and I was like whoa where is this coming from yeah so it's just really interesting and and then also not to not to make this a whole olympic episode or anything like that do you think there's benefit to people being on these GLP ones if that's the thing that you know is the switch that puts them on a new path to change their habits.

Well I'm there.

Ben Azadi
I would say this, I'm not a GLP one expert. I haven't studied enough. I don't use it to give my stance on it.

But I will say this, if they're using it at a low dose and like you just said, it's getting them in the right direction where they could wean off and now they've gotten some momentum, I like it. Now, I don't use it. I don't recommend it. It's not my style. I like going the natural route, but I could see the value in that with certain cases, yes.

But it's not my area of expertise. I don't use it or I haven't researched it enough to use it as a tool.

Melanie Avalon
Gotcha. Yeah, I'm similar. I'm intrigued by the potential. I think a lot of times though people, I have a lot of concerns at the same time.

So I think it has a place though. Speaking still of this whole idea of weight and everything, you referenced a study in the book that I just found completely fascinating and shocking. In fact, I became a little bit obsessed with it. I like tracked it down and read the whole thing. And then on an episode of the intermittent fasting podcast that we were recording, I talked all about it and said how I learned it from your book. So the study was called daily energy expenditure through the human life course. And you talk about that in the book, but basically people think that our metabolism slows down drastically with age. And this study is fascinating. So as you mentioned in the book, after age 60, so basically from age 20 to 60, it doesn't really slow down like people think. And then after 60, it's like less than 1% every year, which I just think is a complete paradigm shift. What did you think about this concept of the metabolism slowing down and what this means?

Ben Azadi
Yeah, well, first of all, I have to say I could see why you're so successful as a podcast host. You're such a great, you prepare. I'm really impressed with the questions and the amount of research I could tell you actually read the book. So I want to just say, good job.

First and foremost, that study is a great study and I'll unpack it for your audience because I love that study. It's probably the best study ever done on the metabolism. It's a 2021 Duke study. And for so many years, I hear people say, I have such a slow metabolism. Once I hit 40, my metabolism slowed down. And once I hit 50, my metabolism slowed down. And I thought, is that really true? Well, this study had 6600 people in it and it wasn't just a U.S. study. It was a worldwide study. Multiple countries were involved. And out of those 6600 people, the age range, Melanie, was between one year old, a one year old, several one year olds, to 95. So age one to age 95 and everything in between. And they used a very sophisticated, what's considered the gold standard metabolism testing to measure their metabolism. And to your point, the study said between the ages of 20 years old and 60 years old, there are no significant changes in the metabolism. Once you reach 60 years old, there's a 0.7% decline in the metabolism every year at that point. Now, that might sound like bad news if you're listening to this and you're 65 or 75 or about to turn 60. But the study said the main reason why the metabolism starts to decline after 60 is loss of muscle mass. This means if you're 30, 40, 50 right now, listening to this and you start building lean muscle mass and preserving that, or if you're over age 60 and start building lean muscle mass, you could be 75 years old and have the same metabolism as when you were 25 years old. So that's super amazing. And yeah, I love that study. I'm glad you brought that up.

Melanie Avalon
It's so fascinating. Actually, when we were talking about it on the intermittent fasting podcast, I turned it into a guessing game.

I was like, I was like with my co-host, I was like, okay, guess what happens to the metabolism between like age zero to one and then age, you know, one to 20, because apparently from age zero to one, it's like just rapid, you know, rapid increase and then increasing more as well from like one to 20 and then just not really changing that much, which, and it points out as well that sex wasn't a factor because I think people often think, oh, like, you know, women's metabolisms are more, you know, thrifty or, you know, that there's more of a concern there, but it said that sex didn't make a difference. Pregnancy didn't make a difference in the metabolism. Yeah, and up to 60. And then like you said, when it is going down, it's not even necessarily inherently the metabolism that maybe that muscle, which we can, you know, people can really support. I just want everybody to read this study.

Ben Azadi
That means all of your excuses are not valid.

Melanie Avalon
I know, I know. They're like out the window. And also thank you so much for the kind words. I just really adore talking with you.

Speaking of actually that first phase, so that age right when we're born and our metabolism is rapidly increasing, something else you point out in the book is that we're born in the state of ketosis. Is that correct? When we're born?

Ben Azadi
Yeah, so babies that are breastfed are actually in ketosis. The reason why is because breast milk has saturated fat, has cholesterol. And then the argument is, but yeah, Ben, there's sugar and lactose. True.

But the babe in their studies, I have three of them in the book that studies show the baby is so efficient at using the sugar. It naturally goes in and out of the state of ketosis. Sugar burning, fat burning, sugar burning, fat burning. And it's because those ketones help the neurological development of that baby's brain.

And so yes, we are naturally born in a fat burning state.

Melanie Avalon
I had not thought before about i thought a lot about the difference between breastfeeding vs formula feeding i had not thought about it from this approach of. The macronutrients is formula feed i don't know much about it is formula feed typically higher carb.

Ben Azadi
Yeah, that's so that's exactly what happens. The baby is weaned off of the breast milk. And in some cases, I'm not, I'm not shaming moms. I can't breastfeed by the way. I'm just saying this is what's happening.

Some cases mothers cannot breastfeed and yeah, the baby's weaned off and most instant formula is high sugar, high carbs. Some have seed oils. And then even after that, the baby then grows up and as an adolescent, they start eating every two to three hours. They become a sugar burner. You take this naturally fat burning baby and it becomes a sugar burner. And then it's 70 years old. And well, I shouldn't even say that because if you're a sugar burner, you probably won't even make it to 70. You're probably 40 years old and you have all these symptoms because you're stuck burning sugar.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And so that's, you know, a huge part of your book is identifying this idea of being a sugar burner and how to get back your metabolic flexibility.

So what are symptoms that somebody might be a sugar burner? And in particular, I have a question because I've never seen the symptom before in your symptom list. And you said one of them was like brown patches on your armpits. What is that from? That's from sugar burning?

Ben Azadi
That's from insulin resistance. Yeah, sugar burning. So it's a sign of insulin resistance.

When you have brown patches around your armpit area and neck, typically those who have insulin resistance have that along with the skin tags as well. Those are two signs that start to show up on your body. Is it okay?

Melanie Avalon
Okay, question. Is it like where the skin is actually brown and if you scrape at it, it's like brown? Is that what this is?

Ben Azadi
It's a discoloration of the skin. Yes, exactly. Like when you pull it, like when you like kind of stretch it, you could see it kind of, if you just go on Google and type in insulin resistance, brown patches, you could see exactly what it looks like.

Okay. I just looked this up really quick. Hold on. Yeah. And as you, as you look it up, I'll go through this, this, uh, sugar burning quiz I have in the book, which I asked six questions and it helps to identify. Are you a sugar burner or a fat burner? So for those listening, I will ask you the six questions. If you answer yes to two of the questions or more, it's a sign your sugar burner. So the first question is, do you feel tired after eating meals? Second question is, do you snack in between meals? Third question is, do you have more than 20 pounds of extra weight on your body? Fourth question is, do you have any skin tags on your body? Fifth question is, do you have any brown patches underneath your armpits? And then the sixth question is, if you skip a meal, do you get hangry, hungry and angry? So if you said yes to at least two of those, you're a sugar burner. So yeah, that's the quiz. Have you, did you find that photos of the brown patches?

Melanie Avalon
I did and I'm having such a major epiphany right now because I had this on my neck in high school and I did not know what it was and it drove me up the wall. I guess so it can, wow.

It could start that young like in high school.

Ben Azadi
It can, yeah. Were you a sugar burner in high school? I guess so.

Melanie Avalon
I mean, yes, I didn't change my, I didn't start really taking into consideration my metabolic health and diet until college. I first went on a low carb diet in college. And before that, I was literally eating all the things all the time.

Ben Azadi
Yes, possibly. I mean, I don't know. I mean, if that was just one thing out of the six, maybe not, but possibly could have been from high levels of insulin.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. That's so, so interesting. Okay. So people hearing this, you know, that your book provides so much agency to work your way out of this and not even work. It's no willpower approach out of this, the sugar burning state.

A big question I have for you is, you know, you're a big advocate of a keto diet and fasting. And what are your thoughts on, you have them together like keto fasting. What are your thoughts on taking a ketogenic route to addressing this, but not fasting versus taking a fasting route, but not necessarily eating keto in the window and then combining them. And I actually found a study the other day that talks about the differences between the two, which made me excited. Yeah. What are your thoughts there? Do you think there's more bang for your buck or benefit combining them? What's happening?

Ben Azadi
I wanna hear more about the study after I share, yeah. The best way to do it, at least what I believe right now is the best way to do it is to first do low carb keto and then pair it with fasting versus going, if you're a sugar burner and you go right into fasting, it's like running a marathon without training for it. It's gonna feel awful.

Your body could break down muscle instead of it's not gonna use ketones because it's not metabolically flexible yet. The brain will send intense signals for cravings to the body because it's stuck burning sugar, but when you get more fat adapted keto, then pair with fasting, then you have ketones, which is going to fuel the brain. You're not gonna break down muscle. You're not gonna create gluconeogenesis. You're going to use ketones as fuel. So the best way is keto then fasting. That's the way I have it built out in the 30 day plan.

Can you do keto without fasting and get benefits? Yes, but if you pair it with fasting, you'll get more benefits. Can you do fasting without keto and get benefits? Yes, but if you're a pure sugar burner and do a lot of fasting, it will be difficult. So there's many different ways to do it, but I wanna hear about the study that you're referring to.

Melanie Avalon
I'm so just fascinated by this whole thing. The study I found, so it was called Common and Divergent Molecular Mechanisms of Fasting and Ketogenic Diets. It was February 2024 in Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism. So I can send it to you.

But basically, hold on, let me pull it back up. So they were talking about, so they say in the beginning that fasting, so intermittent short-term fasting and ketogenic diets, they say, exert, quote, overlapping but not identical effects on cell metabolism, function and resilience. They say that the benefits of a keto diet are largely mediated by the ketone bodies, whereas fasting actually engages additional adaptive physiological responses. And then they go through and they say, like, what gets attributed to each, you know, so keto diets, they say, act mainly through the inhibition of histone deacetylases, reduction of oxidative stress, improvement of mitochondria efficiency and control of inflammation, compared to fasting, which is autophagy, increased insulin and leptin sensitivity, activation of AMPK, inhibition of mTOR, bolstering mitochondrial resilience and suppressing oxidative stress and inflammation. And then they suggest that switching between the two can optimize health by increasing stress resistance and enhancing cell plasticity and functionality. Yeah, I was really excited to find this study because it actually like pinpointed the specific mechanisms of each of each side.

Ben Azadi
That's cool. And so that's great. It agrees with what I said. Yeah.

Pairing the two is, is, is important. What's cool about that, what you just explained is that fasting enhances ketones. And so it kind of has a good relationship there. They're both, they both play really well off of each other with keto. You do get some autophagy. You get some of those mild benefits of fasting, but fasting just enhances it. And I love fasting. I think it's nature's reset button. It's one of the best ways to harness this innate intelligence. So I love that study. Definitely send it to me because it's very interesting, but it works really well together and that's why I have a whole chapter on keto, chapter seven, a whole cat, a whole chapter on fasting, chapter eight, and it's part of the game plan on the third day plan.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it's it's so interesting because I think I had been thinking of things more like a pillar of either your fasting and it's not necessarily ketogenic or you're doing a keto diet. So I love this idea of the potential of combining them. And then also I'd be interested like because at the end when they say like switching into a non ketogenic state can also have benefits. Like I like the it seems like there's like a lot you can potentially play with with everything.

So in your book, speaking of fasting, you have four different types of fasting. There's so much debate in the fasting world about all the different fasting approaches. So how did you decide on and what was the reasoning for the four types that you have?

Ben Azadi
There's a lot of debate, huh?

Melanie Avalon
There's so much. Oh my goodness. Yeah.

Ben Azadi
First of all, in that plan, there's no fasting until you're fat adapted. First I get the person fat adapted and then we start pairing it with fasting. And I based it off of different things that happened during a fast. We know you mentioned autophagy. There's gut repairing systems that happened during a fast. There's fat loss. I mean, there's so many things that you mentioned already. And it all relates to hormesis, whether a fast is working for you or against you.

In the biohacking space that we're in, Melanie, I think a lot of people violate hormesis. They don't really understand hormesis I've seen. They might talk about it, but hormesis simply means you apply a stress to the human body. And if your human body adapts to the stress, you are now stronger, less inflamed, healthier, you're getting more results. But if that stress is too much for your body to adapt to, well, all of a sudden you're not getting those benefits. You're getting the opposite. You're inflaming your body, shortening your lifespan, and not burning fat. Fasting is a stress to the body. I think we could all agree to that, but it doesn't mean it's bad. I hear some people in our space say women should never fast because fasting is a stress to the body. And it's not good for women's hormones. That is similar to saying women should never exercise because exercise is a stress to the body. And that's not good for women's hormones. It's not the stress. It's whether or not they are adapting to the stress. It is true. A lot of women and men practice too much fasting, and it's too stressful. So the way that I mapped it out with the four different styles of fasting is we're building up the fasting muscle. We're starting very low and slow, 12 hours, 14 hours, 16 hours. Eventually we'll get to a 24-hour fast, but you're not doing that right away. We're working on that metabolic machinery one day at a time during the 30-day plan. So that's the reason why I came up with that game plan. I wanted to do even deeper stages of fasting, like 36 hours and 48. But I thought that's a little bit too much. That'll be more of an advanced book. This is not that for that reason. So yeah, it goes up to 24 hours in that protocol.

Melanie Avalon
Actually, so to that point, I'm really curious, two questions. One, do you remember the first day you consciously tried a day of intermittent fasting?

Ben Azadi
Ooh, good question. I know it was in 2013. I can't really pinpoint that first day, but I know that that was the year.

Melanie Avalon
Okay. I'm always so curious by that because for me, I made it like such a thing. So I have this really defining memory of my first day of one meal a day fasting and I thought it was going to be, you know, like I was going to die and it was going to be so hard. I did remember feeling that way though, yes.

And then I thought I was going to do it for a week and then be done. And yeah, here we are a decade later. What's the longest fast you've done?

Ben Azadi
Five days five day water fast what about you.

Melanie Avalon
Honestly, I don't I think like 50 hours. Yeah, I haven't done I have not done like a three-day fast How did it feel on day five people?

Ben Azadi
You know, people love, at least recently I've been doing content on what happens in your body during these long fasts, like a timeline sort of thing. I did a solo episode on it on my YouTube and 2.2 million views in like 40 days. I did it back in 2018 with Dr. Pompa and the group that I'm in with him, Mindy Pals was in that group as well. And we all did it together where we went five days without food and just it's called Waterfast. People hear Waterfast. They think it's fasting from water. No, it means only water. It was interesting because day two, I had the most hunger, but I know hunger is just a hormone and it goes away. Day three, the hunger was gone and I started to get back pain on my lower back that's like pulsating back pain. And it was actually, what was happening is that I used to have, I had reoccurring lower back pain in the past, doing deadlifts and CrossFit. So it was autophagy healing that area. And I heard this from other people doing long fast when they had an old injury, it usually gets flared up during a long fast and it's autophagy healing that area. Super cool.

So I noticed that and it actually lasted throughout the entire fast and get this, get this. When I broke my fast on day five, soon as I had my first bite of food, the back pain went away. Wow. Incredible. So I noticed also I was very, very introverted during the fast. I remember my, my current fiancee, who was my girlfriend at the time, she said to me, why aren't you talking to me? Like you're so quiet. I was just very like introverted. I had like these creative thoughts. It was like that brain derived neurotrophic factor that was going on. That's why every religion has some form of fasting because it really just connects you closer to your source and it was great. It was such a healing experience for me.

I broke it very low and slow and I'm actually due for one of those again. So I might, I might do one soon and document it for content.

Melanie Avalon
Oh wow, have you done one with your wife?

Ben Azadi
She doesn't do it as long as I do she she she's done like 24 hours. I think she's done Maybe in a day and a half, but no we haven't done it together. She is not as inspired as I have to do it

Melanie Avalon
Not called I'm just thinking about it more especially hearing you say, you know that day two is the hardest Which is what I always hear. And so like I said, the longest I've done is just a little bit over Well, wait, I can't do math. Yeah, that's that's a little bit over two days Yeah, the thing is I've done I've done that actually multiple times So I've done so I don't think I've actually made it past the hump of a longer fast So I don't know how I would sleep is the problem.

Could you sleep? Okay

Ben Azadi
Yeah, so my sleep wasn't that great as I went through day three, day four, just because of those counter regulatory hormones, the body thinks you're going through a famine and wants to give you energy to go hunt. So yeah, that for a lot of people, that could be an issue.

You probably it needs to be a week where you're not that busy because your sleep might not be that great.

Melanie Avalon
there were two things you said in the book that were about causes of issues and they were I think a little bit unexpected. So I'd love to talk about them.

So one of the first ones was you were saying that the number one reason people fail on keto, it's like dot, dot, dot, what do people think the answer is? You say that it is the liver being backed up. So yeah, what is happening there?

Ben Azadi
Yeah, good find because I've taken over 6,000 people now in the last, just the last, let's say seven years through a keto protocol and I've noticed, I've got a lot of data, right? So I noticed the number one reason why people struggle on keto is it's a liver issue.

And the reason why the liver is a major player on keto. It's a major player in general. Speaking of the question you asked earlier about publisher versus self-published, one of the things I originally wrote in the book is that the liver is the soccer mom organ and Hayhouse had me change that. They thought it was a little bit too offensive, I guess you can't say it. So it was changed to I think MVP organ in the book, but that's giving you the low down of what originally he was supposed to say. But anyways, this, that's not a disrespect to soccer moms. It's actually a praise because soccer moms do everything for their family. Like the liver does everything for the human body. One of those things that the liver does, it produces bile. Bile helps to break down fat. When you eat keto, you're eating more fat. And when you have a sluggish liver from toxins, medications, carbohydrates, you're not going to break down the fat on keto. You're going to have loose stools, diarrhea, you're going to feel off. You're going to call it a keto problem, but it's a liver problem. Simple solution. Love your liver. Eat bitters. I give you a whole list of bitter rich foods. I suggest maybe even doing castor oil packs, coffee enemas, anything you can do to support the liver. If this is you, you're eating fats, you have loose stools, diarrhea, it's a liver issue. Support the liver. You could also take digestive enzymes, bile salts, ox bile. So yeah, Melanie, that's the number one thing. And once you fix that issue, you start to thrive on keto.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I just I love that you talk about this, because I think, I mean, when I asked the question earlier, like the number one reason people fail, I feel like most people would not guess that you would say the liver. For you personally, did you experience that?

And did you personally, all of the different things, like the solutions that you offered, any of them work really well for you?

Ben Azadi
Yeah. You know, having apple cider vinegar really helped us to, it's a bit, it's a bitter for the, for the liver, having things like arugula with my meals.

And when all else fails, I just started to take some ox bile, some bile salt. So yeah, I had, I had that issue loose stools diarrhea when I first started doing a lot of keto.

Melanie Avalon
I was going to say awesome, not awesome, but I'm glad that we have awareness. Did you ever do, ever do coffee enemas?

Ben Azadi
I haven't done it yet. I've done suppositories. I just bought a ozone machine for my dog because he just got diagnosed with lymphoma.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, I'm so sorry.

Ben Azadi
Thank you. And so I'm doing all these biohacks for him, red light, beam minerals. And one of the things that I found through the research is that ozone therapy, rectal ozone therapy works the best for this type of cancer. So every day, I do it on him. And I'm probably gonna start doing it myself, different catheter, different than my dogs. But yes, ozone is great. I got off topic here, you were talking about enemas. I have not done enemas. I've done the suppositories, but I'm not opposed to it. I probably should do one. Have you ever tried it before?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, so many thoughts here. So yes, I kind of okay, and I think this happens to a lot of people. Well, I don't know a lot, but I know what happens to people based on my research with the coffee enema world is you start doing them, and they feel really great. And then you kind of get like addicted.

So I could definitely like got into like a coffee enema addiction phase. And I was like, we gotta, we gotta stop this. So I probably did like one daily for, I mean, a couple months. Yeah, but not a lot of coffee. So the one caveat I'll give is it wasn't I didn't make it like super high coffee amount. But yeah, the first time I did one, I was like, Whoa, this is what it feels like to be alive. So and to clarify for people, like the purpose of it, I know when people have enema, they might think it's, you know, mostly for like bowel movements or things like that. But it's more so to like, like we're talking about to support the liver.

Apparently, it's supposed to make the liver like dump file and it's energizing. So yes, I had a good experience. I did have to wean myself off of it. Regarding the ozone, I have not done rectal ozone, but I have done actually vaginal ozone stuff before. So that was cool.

Apparently, it just kind of like, Have you noticed a difference? I think so really just kind of like cleans everything out rebalances. I probably did that for a couple months, like, you know, like once a week for maybe a month or so.

Ben Azadi
You really are a biohacker.

Melanie Avalon
I don't know, how does your dog take doing the ozone to him?

Ben Azadi
Rectal, you know, my dog is, I love him so much. He's just the sweetest dog.

I've had him since he was three months and he's 11 and a half years old now. He's a 90 pound German Shepherd lab mix. He eats raw carnivore, takes his minerals, digestive enzyme supplements. He's on CBD, he's on blue scorpion extract, he's on energy pits. And so he's like a cat, meaning he's just so relaxed. He sleeps all day and he's not finicky like a cat though because he allows me to do the ozone. He just stands there, gives me those eyes. And the cool thing about the rectal ozone, it's really quick. So I lubricate it with olive oil, put it in, squeeze the bag. It literally takes like 10 seconds.

And then I go take him for a walk because he usually has to poop. So I've been doing it every day. We're going to monitor. I work with the holistic vet here in Miami. We're monitoring his white blood cell count every eight weeks to make sure it doesn't increase. And I'm pretty confident we could prevent it from increasing and prevent it from metastasizing.

We caught it very early, which is great. And yeah, I just love him a lot and I want to do anything for him.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, okay. I'm sending all the good vibes. Sounds like he's got the best dad ever. That's amazing.

Thank you, Melanie. Okay. So the other one, so that was one of the shocking number one causes things in the book. There was another one, and it was the number one cause of obesity and diabetes, what do people think? And you said lack of purpose. So what is going on there?

Ben Azadi
Ooh, yeah. You know, when we think about obesity, we think about what people are eating that causes this obesity, but it's really not what people are eating, it's what is eating people. Meaning, when you lack purpose, there's a hole that needs to be filled and most people fill it with high dopamine producing foods. And that was my story.

When I was obese, I didn't have a purpose. There's a great quote that I put in the book. I'm gonna share it right now. And it's from a guy named Robert Heinlein, who wrote a book called Strangers in a Strange Land. It's like from the 1970s. You don't have to read the book, but the quote is terrific. The quote says this. In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.

Let's unpack that. In the absence of clearly defined goals, meaning you don't have any goals, no purpose, then you become enslaved by daily trivia. Daily trivia is carb addiction, food addiction, drug addiction, things you do to hurt your body just to get an instant fix, a dopamine hit, which leads to obesity. I have found that when people are clear on their purpose, they know what's important to them. They're now living on purpose with their purpose. They start to treat their body better. They don't want to eat the crappy food. They don't want to get hung over because it takes them away from their goals. And that's exactly what happened to me. You know, Melanie, for most of my life, I've been told, Ben, you have an addictive personality. You have an addictive personality. And it's true, I had a lot of addictions. I was addicted to drugs, video games, sugar, toxic relationships. But when I started to get clear on my goals, that addiction turned into a superpower.

If you have the ability to be addicted to something, congratulations, that could be used and harnessed as a superpower because we put so much energy into our addictions. And if you transfer that energy into something good, you're now unstoppable. I'm unstoppable right now because I'm clear on what's important to me. I'm living on purpose with that purpose. And now that addictive behavior personality has turned into a superpower. I don't have time to eat all the crappy food that made me obese. It's the same thing with obesity. And when we lack that purpose and clarity, we're going to continue to eat these inflammatory foods that lead to obesity.

Melanie Avalon
I love this conversation so much. I thought about it a lot because I actually even have identified, like self-identified saying I have an addictive personality.

But what I mean by that is I definitely really love engaging in the dopamine loop. And I get it, like I get it though from like my purpose and my work. And I think what's really important, I think it's really, and this is kind of a tangent, but I think it's really important that people understand like, especially with dopamine, you're not working towards your whole life towards this one dopamine reward. And then that's like the thing, it's always a loop. So if you're doing things that feel good and release dopamine and are good for you, then you just can keep experiencing that. I think like just being really aware of that. So like being purposeful in where you're getting your fulfillment and your pleasure from life, I just think is so, so important. And have you had, have you interviewed Dr. Anna Lemke by chance?

Ben Azadi
I have not.

Melanie Avalon
No, she wrote a book called dopamine nation. I've heard of the book. Yeah, she's amazing.

And we had a really nice conversation about this whole concept of, you know, is it even possible to get dopamine from only beneficial things in your life and kind of like be addicted, but it's all good things. She was like skeptical of the idea. But I was like, I don't know, I feel like it's working for me. You know, with purpose and work and everything. So

Ben Azadi
Yeah, I could relate to that. I could relate to that for sure.

You know, you know, it's also interesting about the dopamine conversation. A 48 hour water fast, resensitizes those DT dopamine receptor sites in the brain. So it's called dopamine fast. Yeah, it's great. It's a great thing to do once in a while. It's great to be bored from time to time. That also helps for me. What I do to kind of reset these dopamine levels is I walk my dog and I walk my dog without listening to anything, no music, no podcasts. And that's my way of kind of just kind of resetting from time to time in the morning and the evening. And then in between like these Zoom slash podcast interviews, I'll go outside of my backyard and just sit there for five minutes, not look at anything and just come inside. For me, that's kind of how I do it throughout the day to reset my dopamine levels.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, okay, I love this conversation. So when you said the 48-hour dopamine fast, is that the one where... Wait, so that's not necessarily a water fast, that's just fasting from dopamine-related?

Ben Azadi
No, it's actually just the water fast.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, just a water fast.

Ben Azadi
Okay. Yeah. Now you could do, there's, there's something else that's called dopamine fasting where we're like, you don't do anything. I mean, you have water, but you don't like do anything that spikes dopamine. You're, you pretty much are bored all day and you do that once in a while to reset your levels. That, that, that could work too. I haven't done that yet, but it's interesting idea.

Melanie Avalon
Actually, I really like what you said about the walk without the music and everything. Any stimulus.

So, because you know what? I, going back to that work in productivity and dopamine and everything, definitely something I've struggled with is feeling the need to make every moment productive. So I feel like I have to be like, you know, if I do, if I'm driving, I have to be listening to an audiobook. If I'm, you know, every moment must be productive.

Ben Azadi
I'm just like you, Melanie, same thing.

Melanie Avalon
would love the book if you haven't read it or interviewed them. It's called Golden.

It's about silence. It's a whole book about silence. And it's kind of a cheat for me because it made me reframe silence as actually being productive because we need silence in our life. I'm just thinking about that and how that kind of gave me freedom to be like, Oh, I can actually just do something and not be multitasking. I can actually just be in silence.

Ben Azadi
That's good. I could definitely relate to that about wanting to always do something and be productive, like I'm washing the dishes, let's turn on an audio book, driving in my car, even though it's a two minute drive audio book.

Melanie Avalon
Exactly. And I feel bad. Literally, if I go like two minutes and don't multitask, I'm like, man, that was two minutes of wasted time wasted. Oh, man.

Ben Azadi
I'm going to read that book. I think it'll inspire me to do more silence. It's a great name. It's a great name because they always say silence is golden, right?

Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm. Exactly. If you like, I can introduce you to the authors. They're amazing.

Ben Azadi
Yeah. Let me, let me read it first and I'd love

Melanie Avalon
that. Awesome.

Okay, so also, yeah, so friends, I really love at the end, there is this whole, you know, purpose chapter, and I just thought it was really, really profound. I love how you talked about like, the role of laughter and health, which I think is very underrated.

Vitamin G, what is vitamin G?

Ben Azadi
I love that you said it without giving it away. There's been a lot of podcasts hosts that just give it away because I like to build it up. So thank you.

Yeah. Well, first of all, chapter 10 is my favorite chapter in the book. It's all about how your thoughts influence metabolism. I get into the nocebo effect, placebo effect, vitamin G, which I'll speak about right now, laughter, many other ways to improve your health without just focusing on nutrition. Vitamin G is the most important supplement that most people don't even realize, look, it's great for fat loss. It's great for inflammation, brain fog, autoimmune. Pretty much every metabolic disease will become improved with vitamin G.

UC Davis, I put a study from UC Davis on vitamin G. It showed that those who take vitamin G have healthier blood pressure levels, healthier blood sugar levels. Dr. Joe Dispenza did a workshop where he had his participants take vitamin G and he measured their cortisol levels, which of course is their stress hormone and their IgA levels, which supports the immune system. And he found after just three days, their cortisol levels dropped, meaning their stress levels lowered and their IgA levels increased significantly, improving their immune system.

The most comprehensive study ever done on vitamin G came out last year in JAMA and it was from Harvard published in JAMA and I put it in the study. This study is incredible, Melanie. It had 49,275 people in the study. Talk about a study, all nurses. And it showed that the nurses who took vitamin G every day had a nine percent reduction in dying from all-cause mortality and a 15 percent reduction in dying from cardiovascular disease compared to the nurses who didn't take vitamin G.

And one more study in the book showed in caregivers, keep in mind, if you're a caregiver, that's a challenging job. It's really crazy stuff you're dealing with. And it showed the caregivers that intentionally took vitamin G at night had healthier mitochondria the following day, measured through this mitochondrial health index, MHI. Okay, your audience wants to know if there's an affiliate link for vitamin G. Do they sponsor the podcast? Do we have a coupon code? The answer is no, no, no, because vitamin G is the feeling of gratitude, not the practice.

I used to say practice, but it's not the practice of gratitude. It's the feeling of gratitude. Every single study I just shared with your audience is on gratitude. Gratitude will rewire your brain. It's what I call strength training for your soul. And the more you appreciate things, the more you see things to appreciate, meaning it's a universal law which you feed energy into, expands. In other words, what you appreciate appreciates. And what you think about and what you think about, you bring about. So I highly recommend if you're not getting a daily dose of vitamin G, do it, especially in the morning when you first wake up and watch what it does to transform your health.

Melanie Avalon
I love this conversation so much. So can you elaborate a little bit on what you mean by it's the practice versus the feeling?

Ben Azadi
Yeah, you know, left-brainers, let me ask you this, Melanie. Are you more left-brain, which is more analytical, facts, figures? Are you more right-brain, emotional, imagination, or are you a combination of both? I'm like 50-50. Yeah, me too. I'm kind of in the middle.

Most lawyers, architects, engineers are left-brainers, and they really struggle with this concept because they need to see the studies, and that's why I gave the studies, but they treated it as an intellectual exercise, a checklist. Oh, okay. Vitamin G, gratitude. All right, 10 things I'm grateful for. Boom, boom, boom, dopamine hit. I did it, Ben. Now, there are benefits to that, don't get me wrong, but if you really want to get all the benefits to vitamin G, you don't treat it as a checklist. Instead of finding 10 things you're grateful for to write down, choose one thing you're grateful for, one person, one memory, and stay there for two minutes. And feel as much feelings as you can. What did that person look like? How was their smile? What did they smell like? Or whatever it is in that feeling, the more feeling you bring into it, the more this is gonna work for you. So gratitude is a feeling, not a practice. It's not an intellectual practice. It's an emotional feeling. That's what I meant by it.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, I love that. So how do you, not to use the word practice, but how do you implement it into your daily life? What's your protocol?

Ben Azadi
Yeah, every morning I first thing I do is practice gratitude. Now for me, I do write it down, but I slow down with it. So I'll write down something and then I'll sit there for a minute and feel all the feelings and why I'm grateful for that.

I'll move on to the next thing. I have a, you know, those college ruled notebooks that we used to use all the time.

Melanie Avalon
Yes.

Ben Azadi
Yeah, those are my favorite. I have a whole bunch of those. I have probably like, I don't know, in my garage here, like 45 of them just filled with gratitude over the years. I haven't missed a day in like, I don't know, 10 years.

I'm saving it because one day I'll speak on stage and show people stacks of just gratitude notebooks and I've rewired my brain. This is now how I operate from gratitude. Believe me, I was the opposite of being grateful for most of my life. I was resentful. I was bitter. I was angry. So first thing in the morning, gratitude throughout the day, gratitude. Before I go to bed, when I lay down in bed, I don't write gratitude. I actually rewind my day and I extract all the gratitude in reverse. So I'll think about you tonight, Melanie, and I'll think about this conversation and how sweet you are and how nice you were to help me get this podcast out there and promote the book. So I'll just rewind my entire day, activity by activity, and then I fall asleep and then go back to my gratitude. So vitamin G all day.

Melanie Avalon
I love that. I actually, so I'm working on developing a dating app. So I have a Oh, wow. around, we should talk about it.

It's going to be around biohacker dating app. Well, for people on different, well, okay, so food centric, because so much of dating involves food. So they did a study and the top four first dates all involved food or drink. So there's, it's basically going to be like any mainstream dating app, but you can filter by diet. So you know, are is it like, you know, just standard American or like a food lover, or is it keto or paleo or all the things? Yeah, carnivore, wine lover, sober curious. I'm yeah, I'm excited.

Ben Azadi
That's cool. That's a great idea that I hope, I mean, I hope it's already because you're sharing it publicly. So I hope that's okay to share that.

Melanie Avalon
We've been working on it for a while so we're hoping to launch in like twenty twenty six hopefully so point being is the reason i say that is i'm i'm on all the dating apps for research purposes.

Ben Azadi
Yes, research. Got it.

Melanie Avalon
Do you want to know how many times I get messages that are like, I could be your research and I'm like, I, every other person is saying that too. But in any case, my, on hinge, my like opening quote thing is, and I don't know if this is like technically true.

It might be a little bit more layered than this, but it says, you know, your brain can't exist in a state of fear and gratitude at the same time, which I think is just really powerful, you know? Cause you really can turn off if you're, if you're in a panic state or a fear state or just a low negative energy state, having a moment of gratitude is, you know, not that it's the opposite of that state. So it's, I think it's very powerful hack for people.

Ben Azadi
It is, you're right. You can't be anxious and in a fearful state and grateful at the same time. And if you're new to gratitude, it's not going to happen overnight. You know, you'll get better.

It's like a muscle that you develop over time. If you have a hard time being grateful for something, then subtract something for your life that's important to you and see if you're grateful for it. Now, for example, your right arm, you might not be grateful for your right arm right now, but imagine somebody amputating your right arm. You can't write with your right hand anymore. You can't do all the things that you used to do. Now you're grateful for the right arm, right? So you could subtract something and then bring it back to have gratitude for it.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, you know, and I'm even using this in real time. So like I had a, this actually happened today, I had something coming up, I was really excited about like a really incredible opportunity. And it's probably not happening now. And I was kind of upset about that.

But I can be grateful that I even ever like that I'm at a place where a sort of opportunity like that, you know, would even happen, you know, like that's so much to be grateful for. So yeah, reframe.

Ben Azadi
Yeah, compared to maybe like three years ago, five years ago, why you never would even have that opportunity. So exactly.

Melanie Avalon
years ago, I would have been excited by the idea of losing the opportunity because it just meant I even had it, you know? So I feel like you could probably reframe most, if not maybe everything, with gratitude.

Ben Azadi
It's all stories. Everything is a story, like create the best story possible because it's either serving you or working against you.

I always say you are the most influential person you'll speak to today. Have the best conversation. It's

Melanie Avalon
so true. It reminds me of, I'm reading right now Dave Asprey's new book.

I know you guys are going to do a podcast swap at the biohacking conference and his book is heavily meditated and the part I was reading last night was talking about how, you know, there's like a what, like a three and a half second delay between things happening to us and then our brain like talking about it. So basically things happen and then our brain makes a story about it. So which may or may not be accurate about reality. So we have a lot of agency there.

Ben Azadi
Yeah, that's interesting because I'm surprised it's that long three and a half seconds. I thought it would be like

Melanie Avalon
It might have been like 0.3. I should probably get the right staff for that.

Ben Azadi
Yeah, I'm not sure, but three and a half sounds long to me, but you're correct. I remember Viktor Frankl, who wrote the book, Man's Search for Meaning.

He was a Jewish psychiatrist who was put in these concentration camps and he survived and he wrote the book, Man's Search for Meaning. And he said, through stimulus and response, there is a space and that space holds your power. So that's like, it's a difference between reacting to something and responding to something. I actually have a coin right here on my desk that I got from Bob Proctor that says, on one side is a rough side of the coin that says, react and you lose control. The other side is smooth and it says respond and you're in control. And I always remember this because I'm not perfect. I mean, we always react to things, but the better you get at taking a 30-minute, 30-day reaction and condensing it to like three seconds where you respond and take ownership, you just want to get better and better at it. And I love that Dave's talking about that in this book.

Melanie Avalon
I, oh my gosh, I love that so much. I don't know if it was, I wonder if it was that quote that I saw. Did you have that quote in the book?

Ben Azadi
I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe it was in a different book.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, recently I saw that concept of responding versus reacting and looking at the world that way, it really opened my eyes because it makes you realize that at any given moment, it's like, oh, am I responding or reacting? And I know it's just like two words, but I think language really opens up our ability to perceive reality a different way.

Ben Azadi
100%. Yeah. And most of us are reacting. We're not responding. We're just reacting, reacting, reacting. And you're not in control. You're somebody else is in control. Nobody can make you feel offended, by the way. Going back to that conversation, you choose to be offended. Nobody can make you feel inferior or dumb or stupid. You choose. You allow them to make you feel that way.

It's your choice. With the whole react versus respond, do you know who Dr. Michael Beckwith is? Michael Beckwith? It rings a bell. Yeah. He's pretty popular in space, in the self-development. And he has a three-step approach to mastering your life that Bob Proctor used to always talk about. And I think it's valuable to share real quick because we're talking about this now. He says, when something happens to you, you have a three-step approach to master it, or it's going to control you. Step number one, it is what it is. Accept it. Either it's going to control you, or you're going to control it. Step number two, harvest the good, and God is always good. The more you look for the good, the more you'll find. Number three, forgive and forget the rest. Forgive means to let go, to abandon completely. So you could apply that to everything in your life. Like this opportunity that you just mentioned, like it is what it is. Accept it. Either it's going to control you or you're going to control it. Number two, harvest the good. You just did that. Well, you're actually grateful to even have this opportunity and lose it. Number three, just forgive and forget, which means to completely abandon. So that's the three-step approach that I learned from Bob Proctor, but through Michael Beckwith.

Melanie Avalon
I love it. It's amazing.

So powerful. And speaking of gratitude, one section of your book, I was so grateful to read. I was literally just filled with gratitude.

It's because I'm actually also working on a coffee line right now, and specifically high in CGA content. So we're sourcing beans, because there are certain, and I'll let you talk about CGA, but we're sourcing beans that are particularly high in CGA, and then we're roasting them to preserve that CGA content. So it's going to be like basically the highest antioxidant and coffee you can have, and mold-free, and toxin-free, and all the things.

So in any case, I was so excited in your book when you had a supplement section. You have coffee, and you talk about CGA. So yeah, what are your thoughts on coffee and CGA content?

Ben Azadi
I love that you're creating that. That's awesome. I think that's super cool. It's going to crush.

Yeah, I have it as a supplement. I know it's not technically a supplement, but I needed to fit in coffee somehow because I love it. Coffee is great. I mean, most people think coffee is going to increase your risk of cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure. The studies show when it's legit coffee, like you just explained the style that you're doing, no, you, it lowers your blood pressure. It improves heart health and improves liver health. And yeah, the chlorogenic acid, the CGA is the main players, the main polyphenol antioxidant in these coffee beans. And it's great for fat loss. There's a Norwegian study I put in the book that showed women who drank high CGA coffee, like the one you're producing, lost twice as much weight as the women who drank lower CGA brews. The C, the CGA helps the liver with the bio production we were talking about earlier detoxification, it helps you process fats more efficiently, similar to what a statin does without the harmful side effects of a statin. It helps your metabolism use fat for fuel more efficiently. It's a game changer, high CGA coffee for, for fat loss. Unfortunately, most coffee is loaded with toxins and mycotoxins and heavy metals. And it's produced in a way where it loses a lot of the CGA. So it needs to be the right sort of brew, similar to what you're creating. And I, I love it. I love my coffee. I love the caffeine. The caffeine works really well with the CGA to get you those benefits and you don't want to roast it at a dark roast. Cause you lose about 75% of its CGA content when it's roasted too much. So I love how you know that. And you said you're going to do it in a way to preserve it. So yeah, I'm all in with coffee. I think it's a game changer for metabolic health.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I love this so much and actually that's something because right now what we've been doing is trying a lot of different roasts because it's really important like you're saying that it's not over roasted so we're trying to find like basically the lightest roast we can do that won't be too light or like people who you know don't like light coffee won't like it so that's been you know something we've been working on right now.

I'm curious going back to the addictive personalities. Did you ever with coffee find yourself like did you ever have an addiction problem with coffee and like need to wean off and how do you incorporate it into your life? you

Ben Azadi
I have coffee most days. At the end of the year, I have a routine. The second half of December, I get off coffee, uh, just for a little reset. I'll do it once a year.

I should probably do it maybe once a week, but other than that, I pretty much have coffee every morning. I do have a curfew where I don't have it too late. I drink clean coffee. I put all the good stuff in there, but, uh, yeah, two weeks out of the year, I'll have a reset where I don't have it. And it's difficult at first. And then when I have it again after two weeks, it's the best coffee in the world.

Melanie Avalon
Wow, so your Christmas is not caffeinated.

Ben Azadi
No, it's not. It's not a caffeinated Christmas.

Melanie Avalon
No caffeinated Christmas. You gotta write a song about that. Oh my goodness. And do you drink alcohol?

Ben Azadi
No, I haven't had alcohol in over nine years.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, wow. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah, it's interesting.

I did a, I actually went a year where I didn't have any coffee or any caffeine, no coffee or alcohol. Because I just wanted to see like, do I feel any different, you know? And at the end of the year, I was like, I'm, I don't think this is my thing.

Ben Azadi
Well, great job, though, doing that experiment.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it was it was really, really interesting for me. Yeah.

So I love that people can that's great that you, you know, you know, it works for you and you have your system and then you bring it back. So the amount of coffee I drank in college was wild. And it was not, it was like not good coffee. It was Starbucks and all the additives and all the things. Oh, I shudder. I shudder. I've been there.

Ben Azadi
Yeah, minerals, I think we're mostly mineral deficient, so high quality minerals, fulvic, hemic acids, I love high quality minerals. Great for the mitochondria, great for the metabolism, great for energy production, and we're just so deficient in it.

So minerals, I also love essential amino acids. We mentioned how important muscle building is, and essential amino acids are great for that. So essential amino acids, creatine is a favorite of mine as well. I take about 10 grams a day of creatine, sometimes more on some strength training days.

I mean, yeah, we could go down a whole rabbit hole of supplements, but those are great. Magnesium, a lot of people are deficient in magnesium, so a high quality magnesium is terrific.

I imagine that your supplement counter or pantry is like mine, like the vitamin shop. Is that an accurate assessment?

Melanie Avalon
Yes, there's a lot there. I love like slowly making my own versions of all my supplements, which has been fun.

And then there's also been in the past like the supplement graveyard, you know, of everything that you tried. Oh, man, I remember back in the day, like I tried methylene blue went like, like a decade ago, and I was like, ordering when it wasn't a thing, you know, and I was like ordering like fish tank cleaner off of Amazon and like mixing it up in my kitchen. I was like, What am I gonna kill myself? supplement world's really, really interesting.

Ben Azadi
That's a cool story. And I do like Meflon Blow as well. I use it cyclically.

Melanie Avalon
It's crazy how much that turns your tongue blue though, like crazy.

Ben Azadi
Well, I don't, I just swallow it or I do suppository.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, a suppository. Interesting. Oh, I should look into that.

Ben Azadi
It turns your poop blue though.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my gosh, that's amazing. A question about the creatine. I haven't taken creatine and do you have any thoughts? Because I eat such a high protein diet, like a shockingly high protein diet.

Ben Azadi
What does that mean? How much protein are you getting?

Melanie Avalon
I mean, I should probably quantify it more in my life, but every night I eat like pounds of fish and chicken and meat. Like last night I probably ate, I don't know, three or four pounds of meat.

Ben Azadi
I eat a lot of meat too, I understand, I love meat, but I'm a lot bigger than you.

Melanie Avalon
So I don't know if I need, I don't know. Yeah, I'm curious by the creatine. You said you just started taking it recently.

Ben Azadi
No, not recently. I've been taking it for a few years, but I love it. I think it's a great addition. I mean, it's super safe. It's affordable.

It's great for the mitochondria. So well researched. It's not going to hurt you. Even though you're eating a lot of meat like I am, I think it's a good idea to take it, maybe five grams a day and see what it does for you. But it's great. It's great for the brain. It's great for the mitochondria, which are mostly found in the brain. And of course, exercise performance, muscle recovery, and all the other stuff, but I love it. I love that with the amino acids. I'll take that on a consistent because pretty much every day I'm going to

Melanie Avalon
consider this. And then I'm glad you mentioned mitochondria, because tapping into the broader part of your book, the idea, you talk about this in the book, but the idea that fats and ketones burn more cleanly in the mitochondria versus sugar, can you elaborate on that a little bit? Because I've also seen, I hear that a lot, and I believe it's accurate.

And I've also heard pushback where people are like, actually, that's, they say that's not true, that actually sugar burns faster and better, which may be different than burning cleanly. Yeah, so what is the role of the mitochondria and burning fuel choices?

Ben Azadi
Yeah. So that the language there, right? Sugar burns faster and better is not the same thing as, as cleaner and healthier. It is true.

Sugar will burn faster, better. I wouldn't agree to that, but when we, it's really, it's really basic. When I started to dive into this, it's in, it's a basic human physiology. It's in the, it's in the actual biochemistry textbooks. When it shows cells and the electron transport chain using sugar glucose for energy, it shows that the cell, the mitochondria, to be more specific, will produce around 32 to 36 ATP molecules, these energy units. Then there's some byproducts being created, these, these reactive oxygen species as a result of that. The same textbooks show when the mitochondria are now using ketones instead of the glucose as a fuel source, it produces 136 ATP molecules, about a 4% increase in energy versus the sugar. With that increase in ATP, you would think, okay, more energy is being produced. That means like burning the firewood, more smoke, more RLS. But what's different here with the mitochondria, excuse me, with the ketones is that it creates this mitochondrial uncoupling process. The analogy that I love from Dr. Gundry, yes. Yeah, Gundry, exactly, is, is the pressure cooker analogy. Like when the pressure, the steam gets built up. Think of that as free radicals. There's that pop-up valve to get rid of the excess steam. That's what's happening when your mitochondria are using ketones. So he doesn't like the term, it burns clean anymore. I know Dr. Gundry talks about that, but the way he explains it is that it does burn clean. He just doesn't like that terminology. So I think it's important to burn both fuel sources. I'm not saying to only burn ketones, but it is powerful, more energy. With that, with that ATP increase, it increases your basal metabolic rate. It benefits the cells that have the most mitochondria, the brain, the eyeballs, the ovaries, the testicles, the heart. So I think it's a great source of energy for the body.

Melanie Avalon
And distinguishing here ketones, what about burning fat? And I know this will this interest into the whole world of like the type of fat and seed oils are seed oils.

I know we're dancing around this clean terminology, but did they burn the least cleanly?

Ben Azadi
Yeah, there's a great study that Dr. Kate Shanahan made me aware of on how the mitochondria use different fatty acids for energy, and it breaks down polyunsaturated fats, mono and unsaturated fats, and it showed that essentially these seed oils, when they're processed, the mitochondria cannot really use them as an energy source efficiently. So it does depend on the type of fatty acid, to your point.

Saturated fats would be the best, followed by mono unsaturated fats, and then of course the poly would be the worst.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, and I remember that study. I feel like, so saturated fat was better. I feel like she also had a study where monos were like lit up the brightest, which I thought was really... I'll have to go back and find it.

Have your thoughts changed at all on the seed oil stuff? And how do you feel about the changes with administration? And do you think there's the potential of a lot of change happening with seed oils and restaurants and things like that?

Ben Azadi
Has my mind changed on it? No, it hasn't.

Seed oils are now becoming mainstream, which is good and it's also bad. There's a lot of confusion. There's, because Melanie, there's a big difference between studies showing seed oils have no harmful effects and actually could be healthy for you and studies showing seed oils are bad for you. Why is it? Why do we see both? Because this is why there's a difference between processed seed oils and unprocessed seed oils. I think unprocessed seed oils and mega six fats are amazing for you. If they're organic cold press, you never heat them up in moderation. I love them. I take them from time to time, but it's the processed seed oils that are highly inflammatory and that's the majority of the seed oils that are out there.

So that's the difference when you hear about these people arguing, it's the difference between processed versus unprocessed and they're still bad for you. I put the study in the book about the aldehydes being produced from frying french fries and vegetable oils. It's the same as tobacco cigarettes. Here's the tricky thing. I do think there's gonna be some changes with the administration, at least I hope, and I do think that's happening and I'm really excited about that, but I don't expect it to, in the next four years to have any dramatic changes. Bob Proctor used to say that if everybody swept their own front porch, the entire town would be clean. So still you gotta take ownership and take care of yourself.

Don't expect the government to save you, but the tricky thing with Steak and Shake, this is a company and you're gonna see other companies that are going to manipulate this seed oil free message. They are touting their french fries are cooked in beef tallah and they're using this seed oil free trend to get people to go buy their food. It is true, their french fries are cooked in beef tallah, but Melanie, did you know that their french fries are precooked in seed oils before it's cooked in the beef tallah?

Melanie Avalon
Stop it. No. Are you serious?

Ben Azadi
I am serious.

Melanie Avalon
This is so absurd.

Ben Azadi
setting. I know. So you have to ask them. That's why the allergy thing is important.

And I tell them I have an allergy because they'll check. And they'll say, Oh, yeah, we do cook in beef towel, but it's already pre cooked and it has canola has soybeans. So you can't have this. So you have to find that out. I will tell you, and I don't want to drop too many company names here because I know you have sponsors and all that. But I do want to shout out one company that does it right. Masa chips are amazing because they they're 100% beef towel. It's organic tortilla chips and they do it right.

But you have to be aware because a lot of these companies are going to jump on the seed oil free bandwagon. And they're going to manipulate the message.

Melanie Avalon
Wow, that's so incredibly upsetting and not surprising at the same time. Yeah, I haven't had masa chips, but I hear a lot of good about them.

Ben Azadi
They're amazing. I have them stacked in my in my pantry. Awesome

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, you did not put in this book your seed oil card, right? I did not. Did you think about having it again in there?

Ben Azadi
I don't know why I didn't put it in there. Maybe because I didn't want to take people, I don't know. I didn't want to, I don't know. It's a good question.

I probably should have put in there, but yeah, seed oil card.com is where you download it for free.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, perfect. And that, yeah, so that's where people can bring that to the restaurant and make the whole process super easy. Have you ever had any like horrible pushback at a restaurant?

Ben Azadi
Never. It's worked for me almost every single time.

And not just in the U.S. I've been used in Mexico, the Bahamas, I was just there, the Dominican Republic. I haven't been used in Europe yet, but I imagine it would be used there. So no, no pushback. It's been great. I don't want to take the hit. I don't want that seed oil in my body for years.

Melanie Avalon
Well, we will put a link to that in the show notes. Yeah, I've just I've been ordering so plainly and simply for so long I'm very much like accustomed to it and and used to it But I know it can be it can be scary for people to I don't know I think they get nervous about making all these requests.

So I just like to reassure people. It's very doable. Just be nice Just be nice

Ben Azadi
Always be nice, tip well, you know, have a good time with them, and the card makes it easy so you don't have to feel as uncomfortable, they're usually going to ask if you have any allergies and you'll say, oh yeah I do, here's a card, I'll take it to the chef and they'll show you what's safe on the menu and what's not safe.

Melanie Avalon
And honestly, having been a fine dining server for, in the past, for like five years, if somebody, I don't think anybody ever handed me a card, but if they had, that would have made it a lot easier, actually.

Ben Azadi
Yeah, you know, some servers tell me that they're like, I love that you have this. Thank you. This helps out so much.

Melanie Avalon
So easy, so I should start doing this actually. I don't know why I'm not doing it. Okay. Why am I not doing this?

Ben Azadi
I'll get you some I'll bring some ceto cards to you when I see you at Dave's conference. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
We only briefly touched on all of the incredible content in this book, so go get it now. Go get Metabolic Freedom.

A question about just the program in general. So, you know, it's a 30-day program. How does it compare? Because I know you have your, like, your program where you work with people. Is this that same program? Is it a version of it? Like the 30 days? Has it always been a 30-day thing? Like what is this program? Did you create the program just for the book or is it what you've been doing?

Ben Azadi
It's a program specifically for the book based off of what they read. So the causes, the solutions, how do you actually implement it? Cause I could give them the information, but if they don't apply it, it could only get them so far.

So it's split up into two different directions in terms of that 30 day plan, there's a beginner plan. So if you're completely new to this and you're just trying to get better, you follow that beginner plan. But if you're doing low carb keto fasting, you're a biohacker, then you follow the advanced plan. Everybody will benefit. It's really laid out for you in a really simple structure. Vitamin G is a practice as a part of that. There's also some things to change yourself image in that 30 day plan. There's an audit you do in your environment, which is super cool. So it's not just what to eat, what not to eat. It has that, but also so much more. And if you give it 30 days, and I don't expect you to be perfect, but to have progress in that 30 days, that you should do better each week, you're going to notice a huge, huge change in that 30 day protocol. And then there's recipes at the end that make it really simple for you to eat clean fat burning foods.

Melanie Avalon
I cannot agree more. I cannot endorse this enough.

So friends, go get it now. Metabolic freedom. Thank you so much, Ben. So this actually brings us to the last question that I ask on the show. And appropriately enough, it is because I am so obsessed with gratitude. What is something that you're grateful for?

Ben Azadi
Ah, I love that you asked this me too. I do the same thing. I love it. Is it your last question?

It is my last question. We're twins. We need more. Yeah, we need more podcasters asking this is the last question. Okay, let me treat this not as an because my mind went intellectual to give you a whole list of things, but I don't want to do that. I've been doing a lot lately with the book interviews, speaking, writing. It's it's it's a lot and I'm very grateful that I'm healthy. I have the energy, the vitality to do all this, to get the message out there. Because if I was not healthy, there's no way there's no way I would be able to get the message out there. So I'm grateful that I could walk, I could talk. I have the energy to do all this. I'm, you know, I'm grateful for for people like you, Melanie, who are colleagues and friends of mine who support me in the mission. And it's not even about me. It's about the people that are struggling with their health. And it's just cool to be in this space with you. And yeah, I'm grateful for all that. I just have a lot of vitamin G in my heart right now.

Melanie Avalon
I love this so much, and that actually made me think about how I'm grateful because I had a really dark time in my life with health conditions and things. And I remember thinking to myself, I will know that I've made it out of this if I'm out eating at a restaurant again. So I love that we just had a conversation right now where I'm talking about my restaurant eating habits and all the things. And I'm just talking about that casually, but I'm really grateful for that.

I am so grateful for you. I said at the beginning, I'm going to keep saying it, Ben Azadi, you're just such an incredible human. Thank you for writing this book. Thank you for putting it out there. Thank you for everything that you do. Congrats in advance on the book launch.

Ben Azadi
Thank you, Melanie, and I feel the same way about you. Can I just add one more thing for the audience? Yes, please do.

I have a, I forgot to tell this to you, so it's my bad, but I have a free course that I'm giving away for those who purchased the book, 12 lessons on the metabolism that I built out in this course, along with some exclusive interviews, the interview series with Dr. Jason Fung, Megan Ramos, Cynthia Thurlow, and Dr. Daniel Pompa.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, nice. All the fasters.

Ben Azadi
all the faster and it's free and you could get it over at metabolicfreedombook.com. You purchase the book on any of those retailers and then you go back to the page, put your name, email, order number, and you're instantly sent that course with the interview.

So metabolicfreedombook.com.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, that's amazing. So friends definitely get that. Cynthia was, she was a co-host with me. We love Cynthia.

Ben Azadi
Yeah, I love Cynthia, too.

Melanie Avalon
And I love Jason and Megan and Dan, so this is incredible.

Actually, Dr. Pompa, he was on, in Vegas, he was on my list of people I interviewed, so I got to meet him in person for the first time, which was really exciting, and you.

Ben Azadi
Yeah, you were a pro at that event. It was like interview. After interview, I was like, oh my gosh, look at Melanie go, I'm impressed. That was a crazy day.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Ben. This was amazing. Wishing you all the success of the book.

We'll put all these links in the show notes. And yeah, I can't wait to have you on in the future for the next thing, the next big thing.

Ben Azadi
I can't wait. I'm grateful for our collaboration. We'll see each other in Texas at Dave's event and keep doing your amazing work, Melanie.

Melanie Avalon
You too Ben. Have a good rest of your day. You too. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. For more information and resources, you can check out my book, What Win Wine, as well as my supplement line, Avalon X. Please visit melanieavalon.com to learn more about today's guest. And always feel free to contact me at contact at melanieavalon.com. And always remember, you got this.