Transcription
Insulin is the signal that promotes the growth of fat cells, no matter how many calories that person is eating. You cannot, it is totally impossible for a fat cell to grow unless insulin is elevated. Belly fat wants to be burned. Before you skip another meal or count another calorie, stop. The reason the weight won't budge has nothing to do with willpower. Dr. Ben Bickman reveals the shocking truth. It all comes down to insulin.
In this video, you'll learn why insulin, not calories, is the real switch for fat storage, the morning hormone effect that sabotages weight loss, and Dr. Ben Bickman's simple insulin trick to flip your body into fat burning mode starting tomorrow.
So, I grow fat cells in in petri dishes in my lab. Right now, back at BYU, I got students growing fat cells in the incubator. Um, they are swimming in a culture medium filled with calories. Everything the fat cell needs is all the calories that fat cell could ever want are around it right now. And yet they're teeny little cells. They're not getting big at all until we add one thing. And the moment we add insulin into that culture, now the fat cells start to get big. If we check them 6 hours later, there's a big lipid droplet. 6 hours still later, it's even bigger.
Research shows that insulin plays a powerful role in how fat cells store energy and trigger weight gain. This means the real cause of obesity isn't just about willpower or behavior. It's largely hormonal. So, if you're trying to lose weight, obsessing over calories or forcing yourself through exhausting workouts may not deliver lasting results. The key is focusing on metabolic strategies that bring insulin levels down. That's when real progress starts to happen.
In fact, humans provide the most convincing evidence of all that you cannot get fat unless insulin is elevated. Because one of the more common eating disorders among young people with type 1 diabetes is a condition called diabelmia, which is this terrible tragic scenario where the person feels such pressure to be lean and they have learned that that little syringe of insulin is the absolute gatekeeper of the fat cell. So they will deliberately underdose their insulin in order to stay as thin as they want. They can eat as much as they want and as long as they underdose their insulin and it's not even at zero. They're just doing a deliberately lower dose, they will be as skinny as they want. Now, there's metabolic hell to pay, right? They're hypoglycemic. They're getting into keto acidosis. So, they're dying, but they'll be as thin as they want. So, as much as people want to say, "No, it's just calories." We have a human case study that absolutely proves that wrong.
Fasting is often hailed by experts as one of the most powerful metabolic tools. But Dr. Dr. Ben Bickman notes that it isn't one sizefits-all. It can be challenging, requiring careful planning and strong discipline. As a simpler alternative, he recommends what he calls the insulin trick, a set of eating habits designed to naturally keep insulin levels in check.
For example, many people don't realize that insulin is already elevated first thing in the morning, a phenomenon known as the dawn effect. That as we begin to approach waking up in the morning, cortisol levels climb. And that serves a very good function. It's supposed to happen. It's natural in everyone who sleeps, everyone. So, a few hours before we would wake up about 4 or a.m. or so, uh, cortisol levels start to climb. And it climbs quite a bit. Um, and that's thought to be be uh to be a result of the fact that as the body is starting to wake up and the brain and the nervous system is coming online um back online and metabolic demands of the body starts to rise, if cortisol goes up, it's going to be promoting the liver to start breaking down all of its stored glycogen and releasing that as glucose into the bloodstream. So commonly we'll get an elevation in glucose as we wake up as well. And so that's why in the morning some people may find that they are a little more insulin resistant. What is a very common feature and why I am inclined to say that morning is a time of insulin resistance.
Even people who practice intermittent fasting by skipping dinner often see minimal results. It's because the period right after waking up is actually the riskiest for fat gain. Any food you eat in the first couple of hours is more likely to be stored as fat instead of burned for energy thanks to a morning surge of cortisol and insulin. The solution? Wait it out. Don't rush straight to the kitchen. Your body naturally provides a burst of energy in the morning. Use it. Plan your day. Go for a walk or tackle light tasks. Your brain and body are at their peak. So take advantage of it. Skip the sugary carbheavy breakfast and make your first meal a mindful ritual. This simple approach helps reset your metabolism and sets a healthy tone for the rest of the day.
I would say the simplest strategy would just be change breakfast tomorrow overnight. Fasting is incredibly therapeutic. Um insulin will come down during a fasted state and that sort of re sensitizes the body to insulin. So, in the morning, you've finally been fasting overnight. Insulin has come down. The last thing you want to do is spike your insulin with a starchy, sugary breakfast. And of course, tragically, breakfast is almost just a dessert nowadays all over the world where it is just like pure dessert. It's pure sugar and starch. I would say change breakfast tomorrow.
He also explains that cortisol levels are linked to both your circadian rhythm and stress. When you don't get enough sleep, your body interprets it as stress, causing morning cortisol levels to soar, sometimes two or three times higher than normal. This spike also drives insulin up, making it harder to control cravings. You end up feeling hungrier and reaching for sugary foods more often. Cortisol's metabolic effects do affect the brain, and there it influences appetite and food cravings. And wouldn't you know it, it particularly increases cravings for carbohydrates. Cortisol crosses the bloodb brain barrier and once again binds to gluccocorticoid receptors in the hypothalamus and the amydala. These are both regions involved in hunger and reward. So people feeling good about what they're doing. Now in the hypothalamus cortisol upregulates a protein called NPY neuropeptide Y and another one called a goody related protein AGRP and these are increased in response to the uh the gluccoid the glucocorticoid response elements and when they're activated they stimulate appetite. At the same time, cortisol inhibits leptin signaling, reducing satiety potentially. But separate from that regulation of appetite in the amygdala, cortisol enhances dopamine release, so increasing cravings for very palatable, energy dense foods.
It's also crucial to avoid anything at breakfast that could spike insulin, not just carbs. Even coffee can be an issue. Dr. Dr. Bickman points out that caffeine can raise insulin levels, especially when paired with carbs. In the morning, cortisol is already high, sending glucose into your bloodstream. Drinking coffee right away can trigger a sudden insulin spike, even if you haven't eaten anything yet.
I want to highlight this particular study here. It was published about 20 years ago. What they did was document the degree to which caffeine increases the insulin secretion when someone eats glucose or when you eat carbohydrates. When we eat carbohydrates, our blood sugar levels will climb and insulin will need to go up in order to reduce that blood sugar or bring it back down. When you couple that carbohydrate load with a high amount of caffeine, you have to have much more insulin. Insulin has to work much harder in order to clear the glucose. That's why Henry avoids coffee first thing in the morning. Waiting helps keep your hormones balanced and protects your metabolism from early disruption.
At its core, Dr. Bickman's insulin trick is about understanding how your hormones behave, and the morning is the perfect time to work with them. Later in the day, insulin patterns become less predictable, so starting your day right is key. The balance between cortisol and insulin influences your appetite and affects whether you're likely to overeat. A well-timed balanced breakfast kickstarts fat burning and signals your body to use energy rather than store it. This isn't an overnight fix, but it's a powerful first step. It puts your body in a state where losing weight becomes easier and more sustainable without extreme effort.
Struggling to lose weight? Click the video to discover Dr. Jason Fun's fat burning secrets to reset your hormones and unlock natural weight loss.