[Angela Foster] (0:39 - 0:44)
Would you say that cortisol is a big driver of stubborn belly fat in women?

[Ben Azadi] (0:44 - 1:11)
100% yes. That cortisol, when it's elevated and it stays elevated, it is going to pack on fat around your midsection, especially your belly fat. It's called the cortisol belly.

Most people think the most important window for burning fat is the hour workout or the fast schedule. It's not. You could do all the things perfectly during the day, but if you miss this window, it's going to be very difficult to burn belly fat.

There's a window at night that is the most important window for fat burning during a 24-hour period.

[Angela Foster] (1:11 - 1:18)
What would you say your top three for helping you become better at burning fat, including belly fat?

[Ben Azadi] (1:18 - 1:21)
Okay. Top three for belly fat. Number one.

[Angela Foster] (1:21 - 1:34)
Ben, it is so great to have you back. So welcome back. First of all, you have spent pretty much your life's work helping people achieve metabolic flexibility.

Please just shortly explain what is metabolic flexibility?

[Ben Azadi] (1:35 - 3:29)
Yeah, Angela, thanks for having me back. I love the work you're doing. It's always an honour to have a conversation with you.

Thank you, first and foremost. Metabolic flexibility, that is the goal for every single human being. That is the way that we were designed.

We were designed to use different fuel sources, whether it's carbohydrates or protein or fat. If you don't eat your own body fat and still feel awesome, use it as an energy source, produce ATP, burn the extra as fat, and have amazing energy throughout the day where you're not relying on snacking and grazing for food. You're not relying on glucose spikes for a short burst of energy.

Unfortunately, in the United States, about 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. That means they're essentially metabolically inflexible. They're in a metabolic prison where they're relying on food for energy.

That is not going to be ideal, because when you're relying on food for energy, you're constantly snacking and grazing. There's this food chatter, this food noise in your head all the time. You've gone maybe two hours after your last meal, and then your brain starts sending your body signals like, hey, go get some more food, especially carbohydrates or sugar to get the glucose back up, because that person who's metabolically inflexible, they're only burning sugar from food.

They're not burning stored fat. They're not able to fast. They're not able to do all the things that we want when we're metabolically healthy.

So I think it's so imperative for us to understand how this works and get your body from a sugar burning, metabolically inflexible state to being metabolically flexible, where when you have carbs, you metabolise it, you feel good. Or if you choose to have protein and fat, you metabolise that and feel good. Or if you choose to fast, like I do all the time, you feel amazing.

So that is the goal. Metabolic flexibility is the goal. Unfortunately, it's a small percentage of us that actually have that.

[Angela Foster] (3:29 - 3:43)
And it's a common struggle for women, 35 plus, as their hormones are shifting and changing. One of the things that so many women struggle with is belly fat. Would you say that cortisol is a big driver of stubborn belly fat in women?

[Ben Azadi] (3:44 - 6:35)
100% yes. And here's the reason why. And I talk about this in the KetoFlex revised book.

As women go past 35 and then 40s and 50s and beyond, they are going to become more insulin resistant, first and foremost. And the second part here is, as the ovaries are putting in their two weeks notice, or in some cases, months notice, and then eventually retiring, it is the adrenal glands that are going to pick up the slack. As you talk about, Angela, the adrenal glands are what produces cortisol.

And it doesn't mean cortisol is bad. Cortisol and adrenaline are not bad hormones. There are no bad hormones.

However, when you're in this constant fight or flight state, especially women after 35, where the adrenal glands need extra support, that cortisol, when it's elevated and it stays elevated, it is going to pack on fat around your midsection, especially your belly fat, and especially the fat that you can't necessarily see, the visceral organ fat. And that's because inside of your organs, your liver, your heart, your pancreas, you have receptor sites for fat, of course, but there are three times as many receptor sites for cortisol in your visceral fat than other areas of your body. So, you're going to pack on that fat.

It's called the cortisol belly. That is really important to understand because you want to make sure you're not getting rid of stress. Angela, you talk about the importance of adapting to the stress.

It's about becoming more resilient. It's about looking at things like heart rate variability and increasing that, looking at your sleep and recovery. These are things that you talk about a lot.

And once you start tackling that, here's what's going to happen. Then you start signalling to your body, your metabolism, you're safe. Release the stored fat.

Lower the cortisol. Increase oxytocin, which counteracts cortisol. You see, the body will not burn fat if it feels like it's under a threat.

And that threat could be an actual physical threat, like some animal that's about to kill you, or it could be emotional threats, like what's happening in the world, doom scrolling on social media, relationship stress, financial stress, traffic stress. The body is going to react the same way and it's going to do what it needs to do to survive. That's the number one priority for the body.

So, it'll raise cortisol. It'll raise adrenaline. It does not want to burn fat.

That is not a priority. It wants to preserve that fat, especially that metabolically active fat around your organs. So, it is so important to become more resilient to those stressors.

And in some cases, that means dialling down the stress. And in other cases, that means just focussing more on recovery and becoming more resilient, or even a combination of both. But once you do that, you change the signals to your metabolism, it feels safe instead of the threat, then it starts burning belly fat.

[Angela Foster] (6:36 - 6:58)
It's interesting, isn't it? Us women notice the fat going on, as you say, around the belly area, and then also the upper kind of back fat, which again, is covering the organs, right? It's covering the lungs.

So, it goes on at very specific paces when you're highly stressed. What role do carbohydrates play in terms of supporting, training, reducing cortisol load?

[Ben Azadi] (6:59 - 8:45)
Carbohydrates have an important role. Now, it depends on the individual, right? If a woman out there is insulin resistant and she's overweight, maybe even obese, then it might make sense to strategically dial down the carbs short term and increase protein and fat just to become more insulin sensitive to lower inflammation, glucose, insulin, of course.

But in terms of the role of carbohydrates, you know I'm a fan of ketosis, but I'm not a fan of long-term ketosis. I'm not a fan of excessive fasting, especially for women. So, there's a time and place for those carbohydrates.

As you talk about, you know, carbohydrates help with a lot of these hormonal conversions. It helps with thyroid function. It helps with sex hormones like oestrogen and progesterone.

It has its place. And when we say carbohydrates, when I say it, I'm referring to whole food carbohydrates, fruit, vegetables, even things like white rice. And if you time your carbohydrates around activity, whether it's a walk or a workout, you're going to better utilise those carbs versus a dramatic glucose and insulin spike.

So, it has its place. And in terms of what time of the day is best, well, we are more insulin sensitive earlier in the day versus later in the day. So, you could eat the same food, the same meal, I should say, at 9 p.m. and the same meal at 9 a.m., same macronutrient composition, same exact meal, same calories, but it will perform differently at 9 p.m. versus 9 a.m. You'll get a much more exaggerated glucose and insulin response at 9 p.m. versus 9 a.m. So, if you're going to have your carbs, the best time to have it is in the morning or midday and to time it around activity and make sure it's whole food sourced. And that, I believe, is the right way to have the carbohydrates.

[Angela Foster] (8:46 - 9:16)
Yeah, 100%. It's interesting, isn't it? I always say to people as well, like, if you're having some carbs in the evening, which some people will find helped them sleep, making sure that when you finish your meal, even if you can't get out for a walk, like it's cold, it's wet, it's dark or something like that, doing the cleaning up after dinner, right, of like the washing up, the loading, the dishwasher, the activities, and not defiring them and thinking, I'm absolutely exhausted, I'm going to sit down for a little bit first, and then I'll get to it. Even that is metabolically healthier, right, because it's helping you metabolise that glucose.

[Ben Azadi] (9:17 - 11:01)
That's a fantastic tip, 100%. You're right. Ideally, go for a walk after a meal, but sometimes you can't do that.

So, by just cleaning the dishes, walking around, getting things organised in your house, that's another form of activity, to your point, that will reduce that glucose response and the insulin response. And it's really important to do that at night. And to your point, I have heard that as well from a lot of my students, a lot of my female students, I feel better when I have carbs at night.

It helps with my sleep. And there's a reason to that. But by going for a walk or being active after that meal, it's going to be so beneficial for you, because there's a window at night that is the most important window for fat burning during a 24-hour period.

Most people think the most important window for burning fat is the hour workout or the fast schedule. It's not. It's actually the three to four hours after you've fallen asleep during deep delta sleep.

Your body is pulsing growth hormone. You're increasing melatonin. You're burning a lot of fat during deep delta sleep.

But you could completely miss that window if you eat too close to bed, because you're going to spike insulin. Insulin will stay elevated for hours. And what happens is, by the time insulin drops down, you've missed that entire window.

Then you wake up puffy, bloated. You feel like it's impossible to lose weight, to lose belly fat. You could do all the things perfectly during the day.

But if you miss this window, it's going to be very difficult to burn belly fat. So I always tell my students, the kitchen is closed rule is what I call it in KetoFlex as well, where if you go to bed at 11 p.m., the kitchen should be closed by 8 p.m. Give yourself a three-hour buffer of digestion to allow insulin to drop, so you're able to maximise that fat-burning sleep window.

[Angela Foster] (11:01 - 11:29)
That's such great advice, Ben. Because I've read as well that when melatonin starts being released, we become less insulin sensitive as well. So when we start tipping into that 9, 10 p.m. as melatonin is being released, it's actually going to be harder for us to maintain that insulin sensitivity and that fat burning, as you say. You talk a lot about fasting. What have you found with your students and in your community in terms of how women manage fasted training and how that affects their metabolic flexibility?

[Ben Azadi] (11:30 - 14:16)
There's a lot of nuance here, as you know. And what's unfortunate and maybe even fortunate because it allows us to talk about this, as you know, there's always a negative to every positive. We see on social media, I see on social media, these reels.

Sometimes they're viral reels from individuals in our health space that say women should never practise fasting. It's too stressful for their hormones. There's so much grey area and so much nuance that just having that absolute statement is just not helpful for women.

Because that's like saying women should never exercise because exercise is a stress to their hormones. It's not the exercise that's the issue. It's they're not recovering, as you talk about.

It's not the fast that's the issue, which is a stressor. It's if they're doing too much and not feasting and recovering. So it's about the nuance here.

That's why in KetoFlex Revised, I have an entire chapter that I wanted to write out and customise how to practise fasting and even ketosis for women who have a menstrual cycle. And then a separate chapter for women who are postmenopausal because there's a lot of nuance there. So you talked about, you asked a question about fasted training.

And I think a fasted workout is great. And men could get away with a lot more fasted workouts than women. But one of the things that I would pay attention to is your sleep and your recovery.

If you didn't get quality sleep, if your sleep is not great, if you're dealing with a lot of stress in your life and you decide to do a fasted workout, probably not a good idea. It's probably too much stress for your body to adapt to. But if you feel great, your sleep is on point, your recovery is on point, you're tracking things like HRV, heart rate variability, and that is at baseline or above, then it's probably a good idea to add in a fasted workout and then break the fast.

As long as you're getting enough protein and amino acids during your eating window, that could be beneficial for you. Now, for women who have a menstrual cycle, of course, there's a lot of nuance here week by week as you go through. And I kind of break that all down in the book.

I'll just let you know that the week of your period is probably the best week to do a fast or a fasted workout, and the week before your period is the worst time to do it. So as long as you're looking at your stress and recovery and you're prioritising that, I don't have an issue with fasted workouts, as long as you're getting enough calories and feasting during your eating window. But to say women should not fast because it's too stressful, that's just not enough information there.

There's this hormesis conversation that we're talking about here where it's not the stress that's bad, it's if you're not adapting to the stressors. So as long as you adapt, you actually get stronger and healthier versus what most people think.

[Angela Foster] (14:17 - 15:31)
If you're getting value from this show, the single best thing you can do to help us keep bringing you the highest calibre guests is to subscribe or follow wherever you listen or watch. It takes 10 seconds, but it genuinely makes a difference to the quality of the guests we bring you week after week. I love what you say around HRV there as well.

I think like monitoring that and seeing what's happening, you can actually see how well you're recovering, and then you can personalise your nutritional protocol to that. Sometimes you need more carbs, right? I mean, it's really interesting because I'm a big fan of faster training, basically because it's the time of day that I can do it.

I've just always done it in the morning. But what I notice is if I'm having a day off, for example, and I don't go, I will not get the same hunger signals. And so I just won't be driven to food quite as early.

Whereas if I go and do some HIIT or I've lifted some heavy weights, for example, I will come home and then I will feel hungry and I refuel with protein and carbs and some healthy fats and I recover really well. And I think those signals are so helpful because it helps me be more intuitive and know what I need. For somebody who's listening to this and feels like, I think I've lost touch with some of those signals and I'm not sure what I'm doing is right, what can they do to help re-engage that naturally for them?

[Ben Azadi] (15:32 - 17:30)
Yeah. And it's a really important question. So I would recommend you start focussing on the foundations first.

A lot of people in our space, they major on the minors. They're so focused on the sexy topics out there, like the cold plunge, the sauna, the peptides, and even hormone replacement therapy. And I'm not against any of those things.

I'm just saying, those are not the foundations. Those are not the majors. It's not the supplements that's going to move the needle.

It's focussing on what really is foundational. So that's going to be, first and foremost, sleep and recovery. If you can dial in your sleep, everything else will improve.

Sleep is like the Swiss army knife of health. So make sure you dial in your sleep. There's many ways to do that.

Cold, dark bedroom, no eating at least three hours before bed, getting some morning sunlight, which is going to help with melatonin production at night, taking magnesium or eating magnesium-rich foods. There's many ways to dial in sleep. So start with sleep, then start with movement after that.

It doesn't mean you have to go and sign up for a gym membership yet, but just getting daily steps, especially after your meals, but getting some steps throughout the day. So sleep, steps, those are two things right there. Getting more sunshine in general is going to be beneficial, especially in the morning to help sync your hormones with this circadian rhythm that we all have.

And then once you've mastered these things, then you start cleaning up your diet and nutrition. You start eating whole foods. That's the first step.

We're not following any diet here. We're not doing keto per se or paleo or carnivore. It's just a matter of swapping out processed food for single ingredient foods.

Those are the key foundations right there. Those are the majors. Once you major in those majors, then you could start adding in the nuances.

I'm going to do some fasting. I'm going to implement ketosis. I'm going to do fasted workouts.

I'm going to do this biohack. But I would start there, get some momentum there, and then once you start adding in the other stuff, it's going to make it so much easier for you to follow.

[Angela Foster] (17:30 - 18:21)
I think this is so important for people listening, Ben, because what you've just recounted there is you haven't put nutrition first. This is really, really important for people to understand is you've put all the signalling before, which is exactly what I talk about in terms of biosyncing, syncing with your circadian rhythm, with your hormones. It's so important because unless you've got those cues, the body doesn't have the right messages to do things at the right time.

Just starting with a certain type of nutritional plan, if you're not going to bed at the right time, you're not having the right fasting window, you're not seeing sunlight, you're not going to get the same benefits out of it. For someone who is now doing all of those things, so they've got that dialled in, they're going for a morning walk, they're really focussing on their sleep and recovery, what's the next thing that they should be doing to get that metabolic flexibility and that lean athletic body composition?

[Ben Azadi] (18:22 - 20:57)
The next step is what you talk about as well, which is going to be building muscle mass. We know how important muscle mass is. It's like a sponge for glucose.

The more muscle mass you have, the more insulin sensitive you are, meaning the more carbs you could have and get away with it. What's going to happen is when you lack muscle mass and you start eating carbs and spiking glucose and insulin, a good percentage of that is being stored as fat. But when you start building lean muscle mass, then you have more of these kind of warehouses for that glucose to go into versus body fat.

That means you start adding in strength training. That could start with body weight. I actually had this conversation with a team member this morning.

She asked me, I want to start putting on muscle. I want to start becoming more metabolically flexible, but I don't really have access to a gym. I don't have equipment.

Where do I start? What I told her is start with steps, which we already spoke about. Start with body weight movements.

Depending on your activity level, you could just do body weight squats. If you have bad knees or a bad back, you could simply just sit on a chair and stand up. That's a variation of a squat.

You could do push-ups with just your own body weight on your knees or on your toes or just push up against the wall. Then you just want to focus on getting this resistance with your own body weight. Once you've done that, then you could invest in some gym equipment, dumbbells and kettlebells, even a weighted vest for your walks or even sign up for a gym membership and add additional resistance.

It doesn't have to take a tonne of your time. It really lessens more. I've learned this as I am now 41 going on 42.

Less is more for me. I think three or four times a week of a workout with some resistance training, 30 minutes each with proper recovery is enough. I believe it's so much better than doing an hour at the gym every single day.

That's the next step for you is to add lean muscle mass. Another piece to that is the protein. It's going to be difficult to add muscle mass if you're not getting enough protein and a lot of people don't get enough protein.

Increase your protein intake. To keep it simple for your audience, aim to get at least 30 grammes of protein at all of your meals to activate that muscle protein synthesis. Maybe consider taking essentially amino acids as a supplement, maybe even creatine to help with the workouts.

I take five to 10 grammes of creatine a day. I take 10 grammes at least of essential amino acids a day. Then I personally get about a gramme of protein per pound of my current body weight, which is my ideal body weight.

Protein is the next part there. Once you start doing that, you'll start building lean muscle mass and everything else becomes a lot easier.

[Angela Foster] (20:58 - 22:59)
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Or how do you help someone optimise what their macronutrient structure looks like?

[Ben Azadi] (23:00 - 23:58)
I like starting with protein because it automatically is going to help them eat less carbs because protein is just so satiating and filling. I could even tell somebody, you don't even have to cut your carbs, just increase your protein. But here's the thing, if you're going to have a mixed meal of carbs, fat, and protein, eat the protein and fat before the carbs.

I've noticed just by them doing that, they eat less of the carbs because protein slows digestion. Protein acts very similar to these GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic. It activates the satiety hormones like leptin, cholecystokinin, and peptide YY.

It tells the brain that you're getting full, put down the fork. So yes, I ask them to eat more protein, especially at the beginning of their meals. And as they do that, they end up eating less carbohydrates as a result, because protein, especially protein that comes naturally with healthy fats like a ribeye steak or grass-fed beef or eggs with the yolk, it's so satiating and filling that they automatically eat less carbohydrates.

[Angela Foster] (23:59 - 24:22)
That's a great tip. Great tip. The other thing in addition to belly fat, and it looks a little bit like it, that many women struggle with, particularly in that period of postmenopausal transition, is bloating.

With bloating, what have you found? How much is this down to gut health? How much is that actually a sign of chronic stress driving it?

What have you found here, Ben?

[Ben Azadi] (24:23 - 26:05)
Yeah, chronic stress is probably the number one driver here because, again, as I mentioned earlier, the number one priority for your body is survival. Digestion is not the most important thing for survival. And if you go into a meal rushed or stressed, distracted because you're eating and looking at your phone or eating and watching TV, your body's in this fight-or-flight sympathetic state.

Why would it want to focus on digestion and elimination and detoxification when it's feeling like it's threatened? And it'll result in you not being able to break down your food properly, protein, fat, even carbohydrates. So you get bloating.

You sometimes get acid reflux, GERD, indigestion, maybe even diarrhoea or even constipation. These are all things that could be a result of too much stress. But here's the simple fix.

I'm not asking you to meditate for an hour before your meals or anything like that, but go into the meals being present. Go into the meals without feeling rushed. Turn off the phone.

Turn off the TV. Just be present with the meal. And just being thankful for that meal is a way to lower cortisol and increase oxytocin.

So going into it with gratitude. Humming and singing before a meal is a great way to activate your parasympathetic tone, your vagal tone. So literally humming for 30 seconds before a meal.

And then as you're eating the meal, just chew it frequently and be present. Just chew it frequently and be present. It's going to help with bloating.

And if that doesn't help to the extent that you want it to help, you could consider taking some digestive enzymes. There are other reasons why somebody experiences bloating. It's not just the stress, but I would say chronic stress is the number one reason why somebody experiences the bloating.

Yes.

[Angela Foster] (26:06 - 26:34)
And you'll notice that, right? Almost immediately, if you have a series of poor night's sleep, you'll wake up feeling bloated, even if you haven't eaten more. We know that also drives hunger hormones, but even if you haven't eaten more, you talk a lot on your channel and you have these great short videos that are so helpful with some different kind of, I guess, for want of a better word, biohacks that people can use.

What would you say your top three for helping you become better at burning fat, including belly fat?

[Ben Azadi] (26:35 - 29:43)
Okay. Top three for belly fat in particular for biohack. I'm going to give three free ones, and then I'll give you three paid versions of those.

So number one, which is a free biohack, is vitamin G. Vitamin G is anti-inflammatory. It directly, like right away, lowers cortisol, which as a result of the increased oxytocin production, which is important for belly fat as we established.

And vitamin G is vitamin gratitude. It's the feeling of gratitude. So vitamin G is the first one there.

The second one is going to be sunshine, getting sunlight. I know that you're in the UK and I'm in Miami, and it's easy for me to tell people, go get more sun. It's always sunny here in Miami.

But even if it's overcast, just getting outside, taking off your sunglasses, exposing your skin as much as possible where you're not getting burned to sunlight is going to be incredible for the cortisol piece, the hormonal piece, and of course the belly fat piece, which is the main conversation here. The third free biohack I'm going to put to find an activity that you enjoy doing that doesn't feel like exercise, because it'll help you burn fat. It's also going to be enjoyable.

And it's exercise without it feeling like exercise. So for me, that's basketball. I love basketball.

It doesn't feel like I'm working out, but it is a workout. Maybe it's pickleball for you. Maybe it is, I don't know, tennis, whatever activity that's an enjoyable activity.

That's a great biohack in my book. Now, in terms of paid biohacks, I love sauna therapy. It's probably my favourite biohack that I have.

I love all forms of sauna, infrared, dry, steam, all of them. I think sauna is fantastic for fat loss and belly fat, fantastic for heart health, because what it does, it activates, of course, that autophagy process that we love, which is the cellular cleanup. It activates heat shock proteins.

It creates vasodilation, the opening up of your blood vessels, and it's overall great for fat loss and great for health. So sauna, number one. Number two is red light therapy.

I use my red light therapy, red light devices all the time, every day. I use it this morning. So red light therapy is great, especially if you have a good device with high wavelengths, it's able to penetrate your mitochondria.

Great for pain, great for inflammation, great for energy production, which at the end of the day is great for fat loss. And then the third biohack that's a paid biohack, it's probably going to be... This is a hard one, Angelux, because there's so many different things going through my head here.

But I'm going to say anything that gets your lymphatic system moving. So a rebounder might be up there as one of my favourite biohacks. So a rebounder is a device that you stand on, or even trampoline jumping if you don't have a rebounder.

But it's activating the lymphatic system. A lot of people have sluggish lymph. So I would throw that into the conversation of a favourite biohack.

It's a paid biohack. I would say rebounding or even trampoline jumping as a secondary option there.

[Angela Foster] (29:44 - 30:06)
I love it. I love all those things. Amazing.

Thank you so much for sharing all these tips. I think we've just compressed so much, so much science and so much info that will really help my audience and everyone watching and listening to this. They can go and get your book.

It's coming out in two weeks' time, KetoFlex Revised. Super excited for that. Please share, Ben, how can people connect with you, your work, and everything that you're putting out into the world?

[Ben Azadi] (30:06 - 30:44)
Yeah, we did cover a lot there. I know it was super efficient and you're a great host. And I love your work and I appreciate you, Angela.

So thank you for having me back. You're doing incredible work. The book is called KetoFlex Revised.

I'm holding up a copy here. It has a 45-day custom plan for how to practise keto flexing, which is going in and out of ketosis. And there's also fasting strategies here.

And if you go to ketoflexbook.com and order the book on any format, paperback, Kindle, Audible, Spotify, I narrated the audios myself, we're giving away a tonne of free bonuses that are sent to your email automatically. So the website is ketoflexbook.com.

[Angela Foster] (30:45 - 30:55)
Amazing. Thank you so much. We will link to that in the description below.

Thanks so much for coming on. I know you're rushing from one interview to the next. So super grateful to have you back, Ben.

Thanks for coming on.

[Ben Azadi] (30:55 - 30:56)
Grateful for you, Angela. Thank you.

Metabolic flexibility expert Ben Azadi joins me to explain why cortisol, not diet alone, drives stubborn belly fat in midlife women.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

Why cortisol, not just diet, is the real driver of stubborn belly and visceral fat in women over 35

What role carbohydrates actually play in lowering cortisol load and supporting recovery

Why the three hours before bed matter more for fat loss than your workout window

How to time fasted workouts around your menstrual cycle for the best hormonal response

Why sleep, steps and sunlight need to come before any diet or fasting protocol

How increasing protein and building muscle mass changes your insulin sensitivity

What's really causing your bloating, and why it may have nothing to do with your gut