#1171 The Hidden Cortisol–Insulin Loop Keeping You Stuck in Belly Fat (And How to Finally Break It) With Ben Azadi

[MUSIC] The Greek definition for metabolism is to transform. Your metabolism is designed to take food and to transform it into energy so you feel good and burn fat. We are determined to deliver the science and art of metabolism to you. We bring on the thought leaders in this space to have life changing conversations so you could apply and upgrade your metabolism. The topics covered here include biohacking, ketosis, carnivore, fasting strategies, mind set, and metabolic health. Your body was built to be self-healing. Our goal is to identify the interference and remove it. You are a masterpiece because you are a piece of the master. Welcome to the Metabolic Freedom Podcast. My name is Benizotti. I'm the best-selling author of KetoFlex and I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. [MUSIC] No one talks about what cortisol is really doing to your belly fat or how it keeps your insulin sky high even when you eat clean. What I'm about to say may get me silenced but it needs to be heard. This hidden hormonal link explains why so many can't burn fat. Even on Keto, when you fix this your body starts working for you again. This statement alone might get me shadowed band but I'm going to say it. Belly fat isn't just fat. It's a hormone factory and the industry knows it. Visceral fat is a type of highly inflammatory fat that wraps around your precious organs. It creates pressure and you probably never heard this before. But get this. Your visceral fat has two to three times more cortisol receptor sites than other areas of your body with fat. What does that mean? Visceral fat sucks up cortisol like a sponge. You see, it becomes more sensitive to cortisol which causes you to gain more visceral fat. And the more cortisol those fat cells absorb, the more insulin resistant you become. This creates a deadly loop that nobody's talking about including your doctor. Here's how it works. Cortisol and adrenaline rise. Visceral fat grows. Visceral fat becomes more responsive to cortisol. Cortisol goes even higher. Insulin then follows so insulin increases. Fat burning shuts off and belly fat grows. This is what I call the cortisol insulin death spiral. And the reason nobody wants you to understand this is simple. Your belly fat is profitable. Your metabolic dysfunction is profitable. Your cravings are profitable and your stress is profitable. Now let me expose the next part here that will probably piss you off. Cortisol raises insulin your fat storage hormone even when your diet is perfect and even if you're practicing fasting. Look this isn't just a theory or an idea or hypothesis. This is human physiology. Number one, stress response. Cortisol rises. Second thing that happens is your liver dumps glucose. That glucose spike causes the pancreas to produce insulin. Insulin then shuts off fat burning. It doesn't matter if you're doing keto low carb or carnivore. It doesn't matter if you're fasting. It doesn't matter if you're eating low carb, high carb, zero carb or in a calorie deficit. Cortisol can keep insulin high even when food is clean. This is why so many people say I'm doing everything right but my belly fat won't budge. It's because you're burning carbs and glucose from cortisol driven glucose dumps and you're not burning fat. And here's something else that's crazy. This rural fat recruits cortisol to stay alive. It wants cortisol. It feeds on cortisol. It grows from cortisol. This is why belly fat is the last to go. Today right now I'm going to break this hormonal prison for you. So cortisol is supposed to spike in the morning. This is normal. This is healthy. But modern day living flips the cycle backward. Here's just a few reasons why our cortisol is a huge issue these days. Late night eating and snacking. Screen time. Snacking in between your meals in general. Work stress, relationship stress. World news stress. Deep deprivation, overtraining and even chronic cardio could be an issue. These trigger cortisol in the worst possible window. When you spike cortisol at night for example, it raises blood insulin and glucose. It delays melatonin production. Melatonin is the most important antioxidant in your body or one of the most important antioxidants and it wrecks fat burning overnight. So instead of cortisol rising at 6 a.m. and following at night, it's rising at 9 p.m. At midnight at 3 a.m. you're waking up wired, heart racing and tired, but you can't go back to bed. And every time cortisol spikes, it forces your liver to dump glucose. Glucose spike insulin insulin shuts off fat burning. This alone explains 95% of stubborn belly fat cases I've worked with since the last 18 years over 10,000 people. Oh, but it gets worse. I'm going to go over the top three cortisol traps keeping a fat and how to fix it. Trap number one, it's called the 3 a.m. cortisol spike, the silent fat storage signal. Overnight during sleep your body's supposed to detox, repair and burn fat. Instead, ears will tap and fall asleep. Blood sugar slowly drops. If it drops too low, your brain panics, then your body spikes cortisol to rescue the brain. That spike does three things. Number one, it wakes you up. Number two, it raises blood sugar and number three, it raises insulin. You've now lost your fat burning window. This is why you wake up. Puffy, bloated, hungry, craving sugar and fatter around your midsection. It wasn't the food. Necessarily. It was cortisol dumping glucose at night. And remember, this real fat with its double cortisol receptors absorbs that cortisol like gasoline. Let's get on to the next two traps before I give you the solution here. Trap number two, chronic cardio. I understand that this one's going to upset some people. But guess what, you know, chronic cardio is one of the fastest ways to raise cortisol and stall fat loss. Long duration cardio, spikes cortisol, keeps cortisol high, breaks down muscle, slows metabolism, increases hunger, blocks fat burning and raises nighttime blood sugar. And yes, it increases visceral fat storage. And here is the irony. People doing chronic cardio often gain more belly fat. What classifies as chronic cardio? When you're jogging, running long distance, 5Ks, even shorter than that. But long distance running, running on the treadmill. This is not a good idea. Now this is different than walking. Walking is beneficial for fat loss, beneficial for tapering down cortisol. I'm referring to jogging and running long distances. Not a good idea because you'll chronically elevate cortisol, which chronically elevates insulin and that blocks fat burning. Again, cardio in itself isn't bad when it's either walking or in short, high intensity spurts like sprinting, but chronic cardio is cortisol fuel. Trap number three, the over fasting and over training combination. I love fasting. I think fasting is the best tool in your shed, nature's reset button when you do it the right way. Fasting is like a chainsaw. If you have not read the usual manual of the chainsaw and you start wielding it around, you could hurt yourself. It's the same thing with fasting. Too much fasting and combine that with too much exercise and not enough recovery is the opposite of what you want. This also raises cortisol too high. And when cortisol exceeds a threshold, the liver dumps glucose. Glucose raises insulin. Insulin stalls fat burning. You think you're fasting, but hormonally, you're in sugar burning mode. Let's be real. We all start the year saying, we'll eat cleaner, train harder, feel lighter. If your digestion sluggish, your body can't keep up. Meet mass enzymes, your simple digestive ritual for 2026. It's loaded with 18 enzymes, including four times more protease than top competitors to help break down protein, carbs and fats efficiently. That means better nutrient absorption, less bloating and more real energy from the food you're already eating. It's the hard working yet smooth enzyme blend that's been a customer favorite for over 20 years. This is the ritual your stomach will thank you for. No more post meal, food hangovers, no more bloat holding you back. Just clean energy and comfort to crush your goals all year long. For a limited time, get up to 26% off, select products and bundles during the new year, new sale by using my code, Azadi 15 at checkout and select bundles are on sale for up to 45%. Visit the link down below or head over to penazadi.com/masszimesmsmsms. And use the coupon code Azadi 15. Start 2026 with the stronger gut because more energy and better digestion start in your stomach. The safest cleanest doctor formulated protein powder for building muscle and shedding fat that won't leave you a gassy or bloated. I'm talking about prime protein from equip. It's 100% grass fed beef protein powder full nose to tail nutrition, not just the collagen powder like a lot of competitors on the market. Not only that, it truly tastes like dessert. One in three adults don't consume enough protein. I see it all the time with my students. I'm constantly asking them to share. How much protein they're having on a daily basis and most of them are deficient. Look when you hit your protein target, you'll burn more fat. You'll feel more satiated, filled lean muscle and you'll feel really good. One of the main challenges I get is it's hard to consume that much protein in a single day and that's where something like a high quality protein shake comes into play. That's one scoop of the equips prime protein has 21 grams of protein and the shortest ingredient list in the supplement industry. We're talking about a truly clean protein powder with the ingredient label to back it up. They third party test their products to make sure they are free of contaminants like heavy metals glyphosate and other pesticides. Prime protein is also super easy on the digestive system and doesn't cause the blow or gut issues a lot of folks report with protein powder use. Sometimes I'll mix it with unsweetened macadamia nut milk or simply put it in my morning cup of coffee. Metabolic Freedom Podcast listeners have a special deal to get 20% off your equip prime protein or 35% off a subscription from their website where they have other incredible products that I use all the time. Now let's get to the solutions here. Now let's get to the solutions. We're going to start with the solution. This means less insulin, less cortisol, less visceral fat storage, better sleep, better recovery. Your fix number four, balance your fasting with your feasting, especially getting enough protein. I mentioned how much I love fasting but too much could be a bad thing. So as long as you're getting enough protein during your eating window, continue fasting. You want to balance it out. So how much protein should you get? You want to aim to get one gram of protein per pound of your ideal body weight. So if you currently weigh 200 pounds but your goal weight, your ideal body weight is 130 pounds, then during your eating window you want to consume a total of 130 grams of protein based off of this example. As long as you're doing that, keep fasting. If you're not getting, if your window for eating is not big enough, you don't have enough time to get that protein. You might want to do less fasting and throw in more feasting. The other thing I would add is to throw in a 24 hour fast once a week once you're hitting that protein requirement. Now obviously you're not going to get enough protein on that day but you'll get it on the other six days. That's 24 hour fast. Well drop insulin, activate cellular cleaning, call the top of your boost growth hormone and improves liver function. It's a great reset to do once a week once you're getting enough protein. Fix number five. Replace your chronic cardio with sprinting. Look, one, 20 second all out sprint can raise your human growth hormone levels by 450% for hours and improve insulin sensitivity. That's super cool. Human growth hormone is cortisol's natural antidote where chronic cardio raises cortisol. Sprint burst lowers cortisol long term. So 22nd all out sprint two rounds do that twice a week maximum. Fix number six is the best supplement in the world. It's automatically lowers cortisol puts you in an anti inflammatory state, heals your hormones, heals your immune system. It's called vitamin G. This isn't woo vitamin G is vitamin and gratitude. Second you feel gratitude is the second you're by produces oxytocin which lowers cortisol. There are numerous studies to back this up. This isn't woo woo. This is mitochondrial biochemistry gratitude literally changes your hormonal output. So I hope you understand that your hormones aren't broken. They were hijacked. Now you understand what most doctors don't explain. This role fat hordes cortisol cortisol raises insulin insulin blocks fat burning. Chronic cardio makes it worse nighttime cortisol makes it worse stress makes it worse. But you're not broken your hormones were just misaligned. Fix the cortisol leaks fix the insulin resistance and fat loss becomes effortless. I'm going to get to the questions you submitted on this topic before I do want to give you a valuable free resource that could help you achieve even better results. Before you inject another dollar into ozempic you need to see this the truth. 68% of ozempic users gain all the way back. It drains your muscles, wrecks your hormones and leaves you with the ozempic face. But there's a better way in it's free. I created the world's easiest seven day protocol to help you burn fat. Kill cravings and boost energy without needles side effects or guest work or guest work. This is what big pharma doesn't want you to know. Click the first link in the description box below or if you're watching on YouTube, grab your phone and scan the QR code on the screen to download your guide right now. It's drug free, science backed and it works fast. Now let's get to your questions. How do I test whether my cortisol is actually high blood test saliva urine? I'm not a fan of blood testing cortisol. It's just a snapshot in that moment. It's not really accurate. I recommend the Dutch test. The Dutch test, they have a saliva option where you do a saliva swab throughout 24 hour period. It shows you exactly throughout a 24 hour period where your cortisol is. It'll show where it's high when it shouldn't be high, when it's low when it shouldn't be low. Or if you're in that nice diurnal rhythm as we call it, this receding rhythm. So it's called the Dutch test by precision analytics and you need to ask your doctor about that test. This is a great test. Have this rural fat versus regular belly fat without a skin. Hmm. A skin is going to be the most important thing you could do in MRI, a dexoscan. But here are some clues that you have this rural fat. If you have brown patches on your body, typically around your armpit area and your neck, that is a sign of this rural fat. If you have skin tags around your eyelids, your neck, your back, that's a sign of this rural fat. If you feel tired after eating meals, you just crash. That's a sign of this rural fat. This drinking coffee in the morning spike cortisol too high and raisinsland. Very important question. I love my coffee and it can't spike cortisol and raisins too high, especially when you already have high cortisol. So what can you do? Option one, have breakfast before the coffee, which will taper down that cortisol spike. If you prefer to fast, like I do, then wait an hour and a half after waking up to have that coffee on an empty stomach, that's when cortisol begins to drop and it will be much better to have it then on an empty stomach first thing in the morning. If honey and sea salt helps at 3am, will it break my faster stop, a topogy? It will. It will slightly break the fast and slightly break the atophagy, cellular cleanup process. However, right now, your goal is to get quality sleep, not necessarily fast. So it's a trade off. It's something you're not doing forever. As you work on lowering cortisol, this won't be an issue, but maybe temporarily, we're okay with us breaking some of the fast, breaking some of the atophagy to make sure you get back to bed, which is very important for you right now. If stress raises insulin, why do so many very stressed people I know stay skinny and look skinny? Here's where genetics play a role. Some people genetically look skinny on the outside, but what you don't see is their visceral fat. We've tested visceral fat on individuals who look skinny and even have a six pack, but they actually have high amounts of visceral fat. These individuals are called tofies. Then on the outside, fat on the inside, they look skinny, they look lean, but a lot of them have a ton of visceral fat. And I would argue that this is actually even more dangerous because they have no idea. They're typically not worried because they look skinny on the outside. So rest assured, these individuals are tofies. Then on the outside, fat on the inside. Their genetics just determine where they're storing that fat. invisibly, they look okay on the outside, but they still have high amounts of dangerous visceral fat. Don't be fooled. I hope this podcast episode was great for you. Please share it with somebody you know. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. This podcast is for information purposes only. Statements and views expressed on this podcast are not medical advice. This podcast, including Benazati, Disclaim Responsibility from any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own, and this podcast is not except responsibility of statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or non-direct interest in products or services referred to herein. If you think you have a medical problem, come