The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

Top Insulin Expert: Insulin Is More Dangerous Than Sugar! This Will Strip Fat Faster Than Anything!

January 8, 2026

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  • Insulin is the single most important metabolic hormone, dictating how the body handles energy, and controlling insulin levels (primarily by controlling carbohydrates) is more relevant for weight loss than simply counting calories. 
  • Weight loss success hinges on shrinking fat cells, which is achieved by lowering insulin, as calorie restriction alone leads to hunger which ultimately causes failure. 
  • Ketones (like BHB) are the brain's preferred fuel, and their presence signals the body to burn fat, increases metabolic rate in fat tissue, and acts as a signaling molecule that can improve cardiovascular function and mental clarity. 
  • Exercising in a fasted state is beneficial for metabolic goals (longevity and health) because it promotes continued fat burning and improved insulin sensitivity, whereas performance-focused exercise benefits from pre-workout fuel. 
  • Stopping evening snacking is suggested as one of the most impactful changes for metabolic health, as eating late and going to bed hyperglycemic activates the detrimental sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system instead of the calming parasympathetic system needed for sleep. 
  • GLP-1 drugs, while effective for initial weight loss by controlling carbohydrate cravings, show diminishing returns over two years, and a significant portion of the weight lost (up to 40%) can be lean mass, suggesting they are best used in conjunction with low-carb coaching for habit formation. 
  • Wearable technology, such as a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM), can provide critical insight into personal health by linking stress or evening food intake to blood glucose spikes, leading to significant lifestyle improvements like better sleep. 
  • Dr. Benjamin Bikman's ultimate desire, if he could have one thing for life (excluding family), would be his holy scriptures, as his religious conviction and faith in a higher power are central to his happiness and perspective on life. 
  • The purpose of mortal life, according to Dr. Bikman's religious worldview, is to demonstrate self-control and worthiness to a Heavenly Father, with the ultimate goal being to progress and eventually create and populate worlds like our own, mirroring the divine parents. 

Segments

Calorie Counting Myth Debunked
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(00:00:00)
  • Key Takeaway: Calorie counting is relevant but not the most relevant factor for weight loss.
  • Summary: Weight loss goals should not solely focus on cutting calories because this approach often fails due to resulting hunger. Insulin is the primary metabolic hormone that dictates energy storage, telling cells where to direct calories, often into fat tissue. A strategy focused on lowering insulin is more practical and simpler than pure calorie deprivation.
Insulin’s Role in Fat Storage
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(00:00:47)
  • Key Takeaway: Insulin is the ‘one metabolic hormone to rule them all’ that directs energy storage, making you fat.
  • Summary: When carbohydrates are cut, insulin levels decrease. Insulin is determined to store energy, directing calories to tissues like fat or the liver. Ketones, the brain’s preferred fuel, can subsequently kill hunger and boost metabolism when insulin is low.
2026 Health Focus Survey
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(00:05:53)
  • Key Takeaway: Listener interest in 2026 health goals prioritizes Keto, cutting sugar, and weight loss over simple calorie control.
  • Summary: A survey of listeners showed Keto ranked number one for planned dietary changes, followed by cutting sugar and weight loss, with calorie control listed last. This suggests a societal shift away from the purely thermodynamic, calorie-centric paradigm of obesity management. Controlling macronutrients (carbs and fats) is gaining precedence over controlling total calories.
Metabolism and Thermic Effect
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(00:07:18)
  • Key Takeaway: Metabolism is the sum of all chemical reactions, and the thermic effect of food varies significantly based on macronutrient composition.
  • Summary: Metabolism encompasses every chemical reaction keeping the body alive, including the slight increase in energy expenditure after eating (thermic effect of food). Meals identical in calories but differing in fat/carb composition result in different metabolic rates afterward. High-fat, lower-carb meals lead to a higher metabolic rate for hours compared to high-carb, low-fat meals because insulin dictates energy use at every cell.
Insulin’s Control Over Energy Use
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(00:08:29)
  • Key Takeaway: Insulin controls what every cell does with energy, and high insulin slows the body’s metabolic engine to promote storage.
  • Summary: Clinicians often mistakenly believe insulin only controls blood glucose, but it signals all cells (brain, bone, liver) regarding energy utilization. Insulin’s determination to store energy actively slows down the body’s metabolic rate. Shrinking fat cells requires addressing insulin, not just calorie restriction.
Calorie Restriction vs. Insulin Control
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(00:10:15)
  • Key Takeaway: Focusing only on calorie control for weight loss fails because it ignores insulin, leading to persistent hunger.
  • Summary: Losing fat mass requires shrinking fat cells, which liposuction proves does not improve health markers if insulin remains high. Strategies based solely on calorie deprivation result in hunger, as demonstrated by reality TV contestants who regain all lost weight. The first step in fat cell shrinking should be lowering insulin by controlling carbohydrates, allowing consumption of protein and fat without triggering hunger.
Power of Insulin Deprivation
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(00:15:27)
  • Key Takeaway: It is metabolically impossible for a person to gain fat if their insulin is completely removed.
  • Summary: Removing insulin entirely makes fat gain completely impossible, even with massive caloric intake. This is evidenced by Type 1 diabetics who lose weight rapidly before treatment because they lack insulin. Once treated with insulin, they often gain significant weight rapidly, illustrating insulin’s potent fat-storing power.
Ketones as Brain Fuel
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(00:14:32)
  • Key Takeaway: Ketones are the brain’s preferred fuel source, and accessing them signals energy sufficiency to the brain, reducing hunger.
  • Summary: When the body burns fat (which occurs when insulin is low, such as during fasting), it produces ketones. If the brain receives ketones or sufficient glucose, it senses no energy deprivation and stops signaling hunger. High insulin spikes lower both glucose and ketone availability, causing brain fog and driving hunger.
Keto Sustainability and Brain Benefits
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(00:27:15)
  • Key Takeaway: The ketogenic diet is sustainable because it removes the constant battle against hunger, and the brain thrives on the stable energy from ketones.
  • Summary: Any diet works until adherence stops; the ketogenic diet’s advantage is that it does not pit the individual against their own hunger. Ketones provide stable, consistent energy to the brain, unlike the volatility of glucose, which can be experienced as abuse. This stable nourishment leads to indifference toward cravings, aiding in managing eating disorders and potentially improving conditions like schizophrenia and dementia.
Ketones and Heart Health
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(00:32:54)
  • Key Takeaway: Ketones, particularly LBHB, significantly improve cardiovascular function by expanding major blood vessels, benefiting heart failure patients.
  • Summary: The heart thrives on ketones, often shifting fuel preference to them during heart failure. Infusing LBHB (one form of ketone) into pig models increased the heart’s ejection fraction by 40% by causing the aorta and great vessels to enlarge. This vasodilation lowers blood pressure, as demonstrated anecdotally by the speaker experiencing a rapid drop in blood pressure after consuming LBHB.
Exogenous Ketone Types and Effects
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(00:37:45)
  • Key Takeaway: Exogenous ketones are available as precursors (like 1,3-butanediol), esters, or direct BHB salts/acids, and they act as both fuel and signaling molecules.
  • Summary: Consuming ketone precursors like 1,3-butanediol causes the liver to convert them into BHB, the main ketone. BHB enters any cell with mitochondria, acting as energy fuel without needing insulin regulation, unlike glucose. BHB also signals cells; for example, LBHB signals for nitric oxide production, causing vasodilation.
Sex Differences in Ketogenic Response
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(00:44:37)
  • Key Takeaway: Women are naturally better fat burners in their follicular phase, but progesterone in the luteal phase increases hunger, making adherence harder during that time.
  • Summary: Female sex hormones cause massive metabolic volatility absent in men, influencing how they respond to ketogenic diets based on their ovarian cycle phase. During the follicular phase (higher estrogen), women are fat-burning machines, entering ketosis faster than men due to higher free fatty acid release. However, the luteal phase (high progesterone) increases hunger, suggesting a need for flexibility in dietary adherence during this time.
Cortisol and Ketogenic Stress in Women
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(00:49:15)
  • Key Takeaway: Data suggests that a ketogenic diet does not cause a statistically significant, unique stress response (elevated cortisol) in healthy women compared to high-carb diets.
  • Summary: Studies comparing healthy women switching between ketogenic and standard high-carb diets showed no consistent, statistically significant change in cortisol levels across the diet transitions. This finding counters the argument that ketogenic diets impose a unique, detrimental stress state on women’s physiology.
Dr. Bikman’s ‘Perfect’ Lifestyle Plan
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(00:51:32)
  • Key Takeaway: The optimal metabolic strategy involves zero to low carbs for breakfast and lunch to maintain low insulin during the morning’s natural insulin resistance, followed by a larger, protein/fat-rich dinner.
  • Summary: Maintain low insulin by consuming only protein and fat for breakfast and lunch, avoiding carbohydrates entirely until dinner. This approach prevents compounding the body’s natural morning insulin resistance caused by hormones like cortisol. Lunch should be the largest meal to help manage evening cravings, which are typically carbohydrate-driven.
Fasted Exercise and Morning Routine
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(00:59:43)
  • Key Takeaway: For longevity goals, fasted resistance training is preferred over exercising with a full stomach, and morning cold exposure aids in regulating the sleep/wake cycle.
  • Summary: The speaker prefers fasted resistance training because his goal is long-term health, not peak performance requiring immediate fuel. His morning routine includes a 5 a.m. ruck (weighted hike), followed by making breakfast for his children while drinking Yerba Mate instead of coffee. He uses an ice bath in the morning to shock the system, helping to regulate his clock and improve sleep quality later that night.
Sponsor Readout and Daily Protocol
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(00:58:59)
  • Key Takeaway: Fasted exercise is metabolically advantageous for longevity, while performance goals benefit from fueled workouts.
  • Summary: The sponsor Pipedrive is introduced before the discussion returns to the ‘perfect lifestyle for 2026.’ Resistance training is best done fasted for metabolic goals, as this continues fat burning and maintains insulin sensitivity. Performance-focused exercise, such as for elite athletes, should incorporate fuel beforehand.
Dinner Habits and Evening Snacking
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(01:01:15)
  • Key Takeaway: Avoiding evening snacking and going to bed with normal or low blood glucose is crucial for activating the calming parasympathetic nervous system necessary for good sleep.
  • Summary: Dinner is treated as the main social meal, eaten around 5 or 6 PM, with the speaker eating whatever the family eats. The single most important action for metabolic health is stopping evening snacking to avoid going to bed hyperglycemic. Elevated blood glucose at night activates the sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system, disrupting the calming parasympathetic system needed for quality sleep.
Exogenous Ketones and Muscle Retention
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(01:03:56)
  • Key Takeaway: Exogenous ketones (BHB) can aid the transition into a ketogenic diet and help retain more lean muscle mass during weight loss protocols.
  • Summary: Exogenous ketones can help individuals adjust more readily to a ketogenic diet. Recent lab findings suggest that consuming BHB during weight loss helps preserve lean muscle mass. Challenging the brain by reading new books is also recommended while the brain is fueled by ketones.
Insulinoma Warning and Keto Risks
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(01:05:41)
  • Key Takeaway: Individuals with an insulinoma (an insulin-secreting tumor) should never adopt a low-carbohydrate diet as it can lead to life-threatening hypoglycemia.
  • Summary: A listener shared a story where a husband with an insulinoma became unconscious after eight hours on a keto diet because the tumor continuously secreted insulin, driving glucose down while blocking ketone production. Fasting glucose monitoring can reveal this condition, as a person with an insulinoma will show continuously dropping glucose levels when fasting.
Cancer Metabolism and Warburg Effect
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(01:10:36)
  • Key Takeaway: Emerging scientific views suggest cancer is primarily a metabolic problem rooted in mitochondrial disruption, relying heavily on glucose for fuel.
  • Summary: Cancer cells heavily consume glucose, a concept known as the Warburg effect, championed by researchers like Dr. Thomas Siefried. Experiments transplanting cell nuclei versus mitochondria showed that the mitochondria, not the nucleus, determined cancerous behavior, supporting the view that cancer is a metabolic issue. Adhering to a ketogenic diet is a personal strategy to starve budding cancer cells of their preferred glucose fuel.
Media Scrutiny and Scientific Humility
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(01:14:06)
  • Key Takeaway: Science requires constant humility and the willingness to discard hypotheses, making attacks on peer-reviewed findings based on minimal discrepancies anti-scientific.
  • Summary: The speaker interpreted media scrutiny of guests as an attack on inconvenient science, noting that institutions sometimes compromise truth for funding. True science is the pursuit of truth, requiring scientists to be prepared to abandon hypotheses when data proves them wrong. The speaker now provides on-screen context for studies to offer the audience a fuller, more scrutinized picture.
Supplementation for Weight Loss Goals
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(01:21:39)
  • Key Takeaway: Omega-3 supplementation is important for muscle building, and B vitamins, while essential for metabolism, may contribute to obesity when consumed in excess due to fortification.
  • Summary: Beyond the daily protocol, exogenous ketones (BHB) and Omega-3s (especially if not eating fish) are recommended for weight loss and muscle retention. High doses of B vitamins, often found in fortified processed foods like flour, can increase metabolic efficiency to the point where the body stores more fat rather than burning energy, similar to an engine idling in gear.
GLP-1 Drugs: Efficacy and Muscle Loss
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(01:26:05)
  • Key Takeaway: GLP-1 drugs cause significant slowing of the intestines and may lead to 40% of weight loss coming from lean mass over two years, suggesting they are best used cyclically with low-carb coaching.
  • Summary: GLP-1 drugs primarily function as satiety hormones and drastically slow intestinal transit, sometimes causing discomfort like ‘Ozempic burps.’ Studies show that after two years, the drug’s effect on sweet cravings diminishes, and 40% of lost weight is non-fat mass, including muscle. The optimal use involves low-dose, cycled administration alongside low-carb counseling to break carbohydrate addiction.
Sweeteners, Collagen, and Creatine Benefits
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(01:32:58)
  • Key Takeaway: Allulose and collagen peptides can naturally increase GLP-1 production, offering an exit strategy from GLP-1 medications, while creatine significantly boosts both muscle performance and cognitive function.
  • Summary: Allulose, a rare sugar, increases GLP-1 production in the intestines, offering a natural way to manage cravings. Collagen peptides also boost GLP-1 and support skin integrity. Creatine monohydrate is advocated for brain energy, requiring 10-15 grams daily for cognitive benefits, and it helps maintain performance during sleep deprivation.
Addressing Stubborn Fat and Stress
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(01:45:23)
  • Key Takeaway: To achieve lasting change, motivation must extend beyond self-interest (e.g., for one’s children), and stress management, often aided by adaptogens like Ashwagandha, is critical as poor sleep is a leading cause of acute insulin resistance.
  • Summary: A primary motivation for change should be external, such as inspiring children, to sustain difficult habits. Stress, often caused by poor sleep, rapidly induces insulin resistance. Adaptogens like Ashwagandha can suppress cortisol and improve sleep architecture, while ketones themselves act as an anxiolytic, reducing anxiety signaling in the brain.
Testosterone and Essential Health Tests
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(01:51:39)
  • Key Takeaway: Middle-aged men should check their testosterone levels, and measuring fasting insulin alongside glucose (HOMA score) is the most critical test missing from standard panels.
  • Summary: Low testosterone (andropause) can contribute to fatigue and weight gain, and cold plunges combined with workouts may naturally boost levels. Fasting insulin measurement is crucial for assessing insulin resistance, with a target below seven microunits per mil. Wearing a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) is highly recommended as it provides immediate, personalized feedback that drives lasting behavioral change.
Wearables and Stress Insight
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(01:56:14)
  • Key Takeaway: CGMs reveal that stress or evening glucose spikes can severely degrade sleep quality.
  • Summary: Hyperglycemic spikes, potentially triggered by stress, can be identified using a CGM, offering utility in stacking wearables. Monitoring stress revealed that poor sleep correlated directly with evening blood glucose spikes. Eliminating the evening spike was the single greatest change made to improve sleep habits.
Guest’s Ultimate Desire
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(01:56:47)
  • Key Takeaway: Dr. Bikman’s most desired item is his holy scriptures, which anchor his happiness through religious conviction and connection to a higher power.
  • Summary: When asked what one item he would choose for life (excluding family), Dr. Bikman selected his scriptures, which he reads daily for meditation. He views faith not as a negative, but as the basis for all actions, hoping to ponder his place in the universe. These scriptures connect him to what he believes is a loving Heavenly Father.
Purpose of Mortal Life
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(01:58:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The purpose of mortal life is to prove capability to a Heavenly Father by exercising control over physical temptations and addictions.
  • Summary: The purpose of this mortal experience is to show a loving Heavenly Father that individuals are capable of more than they currently realize. This period allows spirits to learn to wield power and control themselves against temptations unique to the mortal body. The ultimate goal is to return to divine parents, ready to continue learning and progressing, potentially to create and populate worlds.
Promoting Connection Cards
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(02:00:45)
  • Key Takeaway: Conversation Cards are designed to foster deep connection, mirroring the intimacy achieved during podcast interviews.
  • Summary: Connection is essential, especially in the modern world, which is why the Conversation Cards were created. These cards feature questions left by previous guests, designed to facilitate deep, intimate conversations. A limited-edition run includes an exclusive ‘gold card’ question directly from Steven Bartlett.