Full transcript of “99% People LOSE WEIGHT FASTER With This Insulin Trick”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 Metabolism expert Dr. Ben Bickman explained that fat cells in our bodies don't grow because we eat too many calories. They grow when insulin levels rise. 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. At 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
0:46 bigger. Clinical evidence also shows how insulin affects fat cells and drives weight gain. In other words, it proves that the root cause of obesity is hormonal, not just behavioral. So, if you're trying to lose weight, counting calories or pushing through intense workouts might not be your best bet. What really matters is using metabolic strategies that help lower your insulin levels. That's where real progress begins. 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
1:33 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. Many experts consider fasting one of the most effective metabolic tools. But Dr. Ben Bickman points out that fasting is highly individual and not always
2:20 practical. It also takes preparation and a fair amount of discipline. As an alternative, he suggests something much simpler called the insulin trick. The idea is to outsmart your body through specific eating habits that help control insulin levels. For instance, most people don't realize that right after waking up, your insulin is already high. A phenomenon known as the dawn effect. 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, cortisol levels start to climb. And it climbs quite a bit. Um, and that's thought to be be uh to be a
3:06 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. This is a surprising point. Even people who follow intermittent fasting by skipping dinner often see little to no effect. That's because the time right after waking up
3:52 is actually the most dangerous for fat gain. Any food you eat in the first 2 hours is more likely to be stored as fat rather than used for energy. Why? Because your body is going through a hormonal surge, especially cortisol and insulin. To avoid this, you need to wait it out. Don't head straight to the kitchen the moment you get out of bed. Your body gives you a natural burst of fast burning energy first thing in the morning. Use it. Spend 20 to 30 minutes planning your day, going for a short walk, or diving into some light work. Your brain and body are at their peak. Take advantage of that window. Then, when it's time to eat, slow it down. Don't go for a sugary, carb heavy breakfast. Make it a mindful ritual. Let the smells, the sounds, the process of
4:37 making your meal ease your body into digestion. This approach helps reset your metabolism and sets the tone for a healthier 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.
5:23 Dr. Bakeman also points out that cortisol levels are tightly linked to your circadian rhythm and stress. In simple terms, if you don't get enough sleep, your body sees it as a form of stress. As a result, your morning cortisol levels can be two or even three times higher than normal. And that spike pushes insulin levels up, too. When that happens, it's much harder to stick to your usual routine. You'll feel hungrier, less in control, and more likely to crave sugary foods. 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
6:09 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 gluccocorticoid 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
6:56 enhances dopamine release, so increasing cravings for very palatable, energy dense foods. It's also important to cut out anything from your breakfast that could spike your insulin levels. And that includes more than just carbs. Even coffee can be a problem. Dr. Dr. Ben Bickman explains that caffeine can raise insulin, especially when it's combined with carbohydrates. In the morning, your cortisol is already high, which pushes more glucose into your bloodstream. So, if you drink coffee first thing, it can cause a sharp insulin response, even if you haven't eaten anything yet. Now, 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
7:43 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 it's best to hold off on coffee in the morning. It helps keep your hormones in balance and prevents you from doing early damage to your metabolism. At its core, Dr. Ben Bickman's insulin trick is about knowing exactly how your hormones are behaving. And the best time to take advantage of that is in the morning. It's the one part of the day when you can predict how your insulin is acting. Later on, that
8:29 clarity fades. So, it's crucial to get your morning right because that sets the tone for everything that follows. The balance between cortisol and insulin shapes your appetite and determines whether you're more likely to overeat. A well-timed, balanced breakfast kickstarts fat burning and tells your body to use energy instead of store it. Of course, this isn't some overnight miracle. Dr. Bickman's trick isn't meant to be dramatic. It's a starting point, but it's a powerful one. It puts your body in a state where losing weight becomes easier and more sustainable without extreme effort.
