0:00 We're going to flip the whole visceral fat science on its head for a minute. It's not just about cutting calories. And the Mediterranean did it right. But I'm not asking you to do a Mediterranean diet. That would be a huge overhaul. Might be a little bit boring. It's probably expensive. And you don't want to eat that much in the way of carbs. There was a study that actually showed what part of the Mediterranean diet specifically leads to less insulin resistance, less visceral fat, and also as a benefit, a little more longevity, too. So, I'm going to break it all down. The eightstep diet that you can implement today, literally today and tomorrow, and be able to get started on your way to less visceral fat because you'll understand exactly how it works. So, in this video, we'll cover this interesting study that was published in
0:46 BMC that changes everything about the Mediterranean diet, changes everything about insulin resistance and visceral fat. Then, we'll get straight into the meat and potatoes, or maybe more of the polyphenols and lean protein of the actual eight-step diet, like what you can just add into your diet without completely overhauling everything. And then we'll get into the actionable takeaways that you can do with supplements, things that you can add in that are optional, but definitely amplify things. So, let's jump into this study published in BMC. This look at a healthy diet versus a Mediterranean diet versus a high polyphenol Mediterranean diet. There was a 14% reduction in visceral fat in what group? Only the
1:31 high polyphenol Mediterranean group, which goes to show that when Americans are implementing Mediterranean diet patterns, it's really the polyphenols that are helping. But why Americans? Why have other people do it? Does a Mediterranean diet work? Well, because Mediterraneans doing a Mediterranean diet are also living a Mediterranean lifestyle. They're more relaxed. They're walking more. All kinds of things. Okay? So, there's a lot going into the whole Mediterranean approach. But for people that are not living in the Mediterranean regions, the main benefit that they get is out of the actual polyphenols. Did you know that the most antioxidants and polyphenols that most people get in their day is coming from their flipping cup of coffee? Because our diets are so devoid of nutrients. We get most of our nutrition in the way of antioxidants
2:17 from our coffee in the morning. Okay, that highlights something big. But what does this have to do with visceral fat? How do we weave this all in? And how can you use it? Because you're struggling with this stuff. You have this fat you can't get rid of. You have this insulin resistance that makes you feel foggy after you eat. It's affecting your brain. It's affecting your gut. It's affecting your family. Well, no one talks about the fact that insulin resistance comes first, visceral fat comes second. Some will say that, oh, it starts with the visceral fat. No, the visceral fat and a fatty liver are products of insulin resistance, but once those form, they steamroll even more and more and more and they piggyback on top of each other. So, let's jump into exactly what you can do and what you can
3:03 expect to feel with each of these changes. Change number one, add bone broth, kafir, and or yogurt to your diet. Now, that's not rocket science, but here's what you can expect to feel from that. You can expect to feel lower inflammation, which might just manifest in the way of just feeling a little more energy and less brain fog because most of the inflammation starts in the gut. This isn't a cheeky marketing thing. This is very, very real. The inflammation starts in the gut. The bacteria in our gut actually determine how strong our gut barrier integrity is. If that gut barrier integrity is weak, then what happens is larger particles sip through and we end up with an inflammatory war triggered because of that and that triggers inflammation which leads to insulin resistance. So you'll actually notice some of the
3:49 biggest bang for the buck by doing that. I also want you to avoid labels that say polyorbate 80, polyorbate 60, and for a while, avoid carrageenan because it's a little bit of a mixed bag. I also put a link down below for a good probiotic that I think is very helpful in this case. It's called seed. It's one I've been using for about half a decade. It's the only probiotic I would recommend. If you have one that you like already, no pressure. I always recommend people do it with food first, but this is a really nice little I guess you could call it a shortcut because they do the research and they have the clinical trials to back it up. It's a symbiotic, so it has prebiotics and probiotics in it, which is quite rare for any probiotic company. So, that link, it's in the top line of the description underneath this video. Next, you're going to add 1 oz to 2 ounces of aged cheese per day. This
4:34 sounds wild and it sounds a little bit over the top, but this is the Mediterranean flare that we need to add. It's not the polyphenols here. It's the C15 fatty acids. Okay, so in aged goat cheeses and sheep cheeses like pecarino sarda, pecarino ramano, these have high amounts of C15, a type of fat. Heavy cream can have this too, okay, but not as much as you will get in like an aged cheese. So any kind of good quality aged cheese is going to have the kind of saturated fat that actually protects your cell membrane from oxidative damage. So your cells are fragile. And imagine what would happen if your cell had a membrane that was weak. Well, what would happen is anytime stress or oxidative stress would come in, it would oxidize the weak membrane, a little bit of good quality saturated fat actually structures the membrane where it can
5:20 kind of repel that oxidative stress in a certain way and actually make the cell more resilient and less likely to become oxidized and damaged and insulin resistant. But what will you start to feel with that? Well, you might actually feel like you have less oxidative stress, which means maybe you recover better from a workout. Maybe you're more resilient to stress, right? These things matter and they stack up. But what if you don't like vegetables and you need to eat Mediterranean style? Because there's a lot of vegetables in the Mediterranean diet. Well, with this, we go for the most bang for the buck. So, I want you to start adding a half a cup to a cup, maybe even more if you wilt it, of arugula. Arugula is one of the highest dietary nitrate foods that's out there. And it's super low oxalate. So, it's a great way to get greens without oxalates, which are like these little
6:06 crystals. And when you bite into spinach, you feel those crystals that that grittiness. And these actually don't break down. They can build up in your kidneys. They can build up in your joints. It's a very real problem. Very real. Not making that stuff up. Legit. Look it up. With arugula, you don't have those oxalates, but you'll have dietary nitrate. So, you want to chew it really good because that nitrate converts to nitric oxide in your mouth and then it ends up in your blood, increases blood flow to your brain. So, what will you feel there? You'll feel it quick. You can actually feel dietary nitrate from things like arugula in your brain within about an hour. You feel fresher, you feel clearer, and then if you wanted to eat some a little bit pre-workout, might actually help you with a pump and get more blood flow to the muscles. So, this can help insulin resistance because you're actually helping the blood flow. And how does this help visceral fat? Once again, we need to deal with the insulin resistance first so that the
6:52 body doesn't start stacking the fat around the organs because it's overflowing from insulin resistance. The next up is one cup, maybe two, of good quality green tea, preferably matcha. And you don't have to replace your coffee. Coffee is good. It's got chlorogenic acid. It's got other polyphenols and antioxidants. I love it. Hit it all the way. Green tea is supplemental because the kakans, okay, the catacle omethyl transferase specifically, okay, this is in high potency green tea and it comes from green tea extract. It's not about the caffeine. Not only is this an incredible fat burner, but also turns your body into a little bit more of a fat friendly machine. It wants to burn the fat, okay, but also these polyphenols are shown in
7:37 multiple studies to be hugely beneficial at staving off insulin resistance and improving insulin sensitivity. If this happens, you have less fatty liver and you have less fat that forms around the liver and therefore less that builds out from there. So visceral fat is almost a proxy for a fatty liver. It starts at the liver and tends to spread outward around the organs. Next up is specifically because of what's called hippuric acid. We're looking at one to two cups of either blackberries, dark wild blueberries, mulberries. Okay, these have hippuric acid in it. We want one cup of these. Wild blueberries are really low sugar, by the way. Okay, it's deceiving. You have a cup of these things. And I would recommend having them towards the evening time. Okay, that way you're getting it actually at night. You're getting these carbs at night which might actually help you
8:22 sleep a little bit better. Don't think that this is a lot of carbs, okay? One cup of this stuff is not bad. One thing that you could do is you could mix it up with like good quality heavy cream and a little bit of stevia in that heavy cream and whip it up and have it with berries. It's an amazing dessert and you're living like a Mediterranean polyphenol life kick that tastes dang good. This is something you can feel quick. Hippuric acid is one of the most potent anti-inflammatory polyphenols. So you'll feel it in your body, feel it in your gut, feel it in your brain. But you also have high anthocyanins, which are one of the only antioxidants, polyphenols that are demonstrated across the bloodb brain barrier fast and impact our neurology, like impact our brain cells quick. So you'll feel it in the brain. Next up, one gram of lean protein per pound of lean body mass. That's not crazy. That's just simple stuff that you probably
9:08 already know, but there's an interesting piece to add to the mix. The protein leverage hypothesis. This is exceptionally important for insulin resistance and visceral fat. There is a lot of evidence that suggests we will continue to eat until a protein target is met. That means it's not just about the satiety of protein. It's about how we eat protein until our brain says you have enough. You're safe because protein is that important to survival. So the average protein leverage hypothesis study shows that we need to have about 0.6 g of protein per pound. That is sort of where we need to be for like the minimum before we stop eating. So basically, we're going to eat until we get to that amount. The recommended daily allowance by the FDA is 0.8. We're not talking about what the recommended daily allowances. We're talking about
9:53 this is the point at which the hypothalamus says, "I have enough protein." And it'll probably change throughout the day. So get your protein as early as you can in the day because it will actually curb your appetite. Not because it's just satiating, but because it actually tells you to, well, I got enough protein. We don't need to send the signals to eaten one. The next one is sort of a two-part situation. Intermittent fasting 3 days per week. No surprise. Shocker from Thomas. That can be simple. That can be skipping breakfast. That could be skipping dinner. When you're implementing this and you're getting started, I recommend just keep it simple. I've done other videos on this. In fact, here's a basic video that talks about like from 2025, like recent intermittent fasting updates. Maybe check it out after you watch this video. I'll link to it right here. And then every 2 weeks, do a 36-hour fast. Okay? I would rather you do that than intermittent fasting if you can. It's called a monk fast. You can do
10:39 it every 2 weeks, every 3 weeks, where you stop eating Sunday night, you fast for the day on Monday, and you break your fast Tuesday morning. This has monumental effects on our metabolism and insulin resistance. It's not about the fat loss, although it's good for that. What you can expect to feel from that, I can't even tell you. You will feel like a new person. You will feel like your mitochondria is smack and rolling again. Okay? That's what we want to feel. Now the other piece of this equation is more about a how you break your fast but b about well here's the thing fats in combination with high carbs especially when you break a fast you are going to have competing macronutrients and this means that the insulin resistance can actually become triggered by the higher saturated fat. So, the point in saying this is a don't combine a lot of foods when you're breaking your fast. Simple proteins, keep it easy, and then eat more food later. But also, if you're
11:25 eating higher carbohydrate, which totally cool if you choose to do that, I just would recommend you keep your saturated fats lower, the higher your carbs are. The lower your carbs are, the higher your saturated fat can be. It's that simple. Together, they're not the best combination. But, I promised you supplements. And I think that's really important because some people just need that extra kick, right? And when it comes to cortisol, which is such a big player for just overall insulin resistance, we probably need to learn some tricks. So, cinnamon can help reduce cortisol. Okay? So, just a teaspoon of cinnamon in your coffee might reduce that cortisol spike. Glycine, 3 g of glycine, hugely beneficial as a neurotransmitter to reduce cortisol. 2 to 400 milligrams of theine. You don't have to do all these. Absolutely reduce cortisol. 4 to 500 milligrams of magnesium. magnesium glycinate, magnesium 3inate or d
12:11 magnesium mate binds to what's called an NMDA receptor and can reduce your stress overall. It's an enzytic property. Okay. In addition to that, one to anywhere from 1 to eight really grams of spirulina. Spirulina has really powerful anti-insulin resistance effects by increasing what is called fat oxidation and decreasing fat synthesis. So, it lets us burn more fat and stop storing new fat cells. Not as simple and easy as it might sound, but by adding this into the mix, especially pre-workout, it helps you burn more fat overall. So, let's recap really quick. We learned how cortisol and visceral fat and the Mediterranean diet all co together, how they all kind of co-ingle. Then, we talked about the eightstep diet approach with the cheeses, with the berries, with the Mediterranean flare, okay? All that
12:57 stuff, right? You can always go back and take some notes in that video. Then, we talked about the supplements, the glycine, the cinnamon. We talked about ways that you can reduce cortisol with theineine. talked about magnesium. Okay, these things all matter. And to make it a little simple, I put a link here to a video that breaks down how you can apply Mediterranean approaches to your diet without doing a full Mediterranean diet. So, that video is right here. I encourage you to check it out. As always, don't forget to hit that subscribe button. I will see you tomorrow.
