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November 29, 2025
In fact, we often identify poor metabolic health with insulin resistance, because that’s the easiest measurement of it in your body. But obesity, inflammation, and high blood pressure are all indicators
People come to me with obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other health conditions. What they—and even their doctors—don’t understand is the root cause of metabolic health. Improve that, and everything else improves.
Then I heard Gary Taubes’s talk on sugar, and it all clicked for me. I cut sugars out of my diet, then carbs, then processed ingredients, then artificial
ingredients, then vegetable and seed oils. I dropped one hundred pounds and reversed my prediabetic blood markers.
prepare my food simply, quickly, and cheaply. I don’t spend a fortune on premium ingredients the way that people worry that “clean eating” is going to require. If I am hungry and food is not available, I’ve stored enough healthy nutrients in my body that I won’t be starving. I can drive past all the fast-food temptations on my way home and eat a healthy meal I know will help me rather than threaten my life.
book is also more concrete than a podcast or a talk I could give, though I’ve done plenty of both.
Arm yourself with knowledge, educate yourself about the problem, and live a longer, healthier life. I’m begging you: Do not stop educating yourself. Keep yourself off my operating table. Take back control of your health.
was led to believe that margarine is “heart healthy.” It’s not. It’s poison.
Our bodies have actually evolved to endure periods of food unavailability. But we no longer tap into those energy stores, so they accumulate excessively.
Baby food is processed with simple carbohydrates and simple sugars. If the food industry gets you hooked early enough, they know they’ll have a customer for life.
HDL and triglycerides are more predictive of heart disease than LDL. We only focus on LDL because that’s the cholesterol physicians can easily manipulate with medications.
the education system teaches doctors to pile up medications to treat every symptom, then treat side effects with more meds.
The data shows you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. Metabolic health is 90 percent diet, 10 percent lifestyle, and exercise is not necessary for weight loss.
Instead of focused activity that increases your hunger, a better plan is to build consistent movement into your entire day. Moving your body throughout the day is just as effective as working out for most people.
The medications are there to treat the symptoms. That means the meds will never make you better,
Your body isn’t designed to just fall apart from your thirties onward. Don’t let anyone make you believe this.
There was my patient, propped up in bed, with his breakfast tray in front of him. Pancakes with low-fat syrup, low-fat yogurt with granola, a cup of sweetened peaches, a small sausage patty, a small serving of scrambled eggs (likely artificial egg substitute), and a cup of orange juice.
Hospitals have to offer better food than this. But, of course, many can’t.
The entire system would break if we shifted priorities from treatment to prevention.
Doctors who do become aware of the nutritional guideline deficiencies don’t really have time to discuss them with their patients.
Discussing lifestyle choices, metabolism, and the impact food has on our health may save lives, but with just fifteen minutes per patient, most physicians opt for the quickest fix and skip right to medicine.
There’s also a generational issue at play here. A hundred years ago, before rapid transit and international food trades were possible, people ate what was available. Even our grandparents and great-grandparents were eating whole food because processed food wasn’t affordable.
Our parents were told low-fat foods with
vegetable oils would save their lives, so they threw out the animal-based butter and smeared margarine on everything.
They targeted eggs the same way—cholesterol causes heart disease, and eggs have cholesterol, so don’t eat eggs. Then came the push for more dairy (“Got Milk?”), but experts questioned that idea because whole and 2 percent milk contain fat. Switch to skim milk. And while you’re at it, set down the regular soda and pick up a lower-calorie alternative with all its artificial colors, flavors, and sweeteners.
High cholesterol with metabolic wellness is not the problem we’ve been told it is. We are treating the wrong problem and leaving patients to die while they believe they’re being saved.
It’s still horrifying to me that hospitals serve the same foods that put you there in the first place. Ninety percent of the food we serve follows the high-carb, low-fat, “heart-healthy” diet.
I know that medication isn’t going to keep my patients off the table a second time.
physicians have been persecuted for offering counter-industry advice. Tim Noakes in South Africa and Gary Fettke in Australia were each brought up on charges related to giving nonstandard advice on metabolic health. Both fought the medical industry, who could not let their alternate diet advice slide. Both were ultimately cleared of wrongdoing, and Dr. Fettke eventually received an apology from regulators, but the pushback from the healthcare system and the processed-food industry served as a warning to anyone who might dare to step out of line.
Let’s discuss exactly how you’re going to change your metabolic health forever and live the kind of life the medical system tells you is impossible without prescription drugs.
Metabolic health is indicated by five specific markers. We all fail the metabolic health test if three or more of these markers are off.
“Pants size isn’t the marker,
We need your waist circumference just above your belly button.”
measure your waist instead. For women, we look for thirty-five inches or fewer. For men, forty inches or fewer. Anything above that indicates an 80 percent chance of metabolic syndrome.”
a fasting blood glucose level above 100 is the second marker for metabolic syndrome. Blood pressure is
the third. For good metabolic health, your top number should be less than 130 and your bottom number less than 85 without medication.”
‼️WITHOUT medication‼️
it is commonly called essential hypertension, and this is an indicator of poor metabolic health. It’s not about age, it’s about the amount of time on a metabolically unhealthy diet.”
The function of all cholesterol is to transport fats around your body as an energy source. They play a part in immune function and cell membranes. We actually want HDL to be high.”
Notice that LDL is not an indicator of metabolic health. But doctors are often quick to throw a patient on a statin and assume that will prevent them from getting heart disease and extend their life.
the criteria for diagnosing metabolic syndrome are: Waist circumference over 35 inches for women, and over 40 inches for men Fasting blood glucose of 100 mg/dl or greater or taking glucose-lowering medications Blood pressure higher than 130/85 mm Hg or taking blood-pressure-lowering medications HDL cholesterol less than 40 mg/dL for men or 50 mg/dL for women Triglycerides over 150 mg/dL
The single most predictive sign is waist circumference, which is why we associate obesity with metabolic health.
“What about sumo wrestlers?” And that’s a worthwhile question, because they’re held up as some of the fattest people on earth. They consume a mountain of carbs and salts. But the truth is that their body contains vast muscle mass. Where they should be metabolically unhealthy, their dense muscle system compensates.
and their intense physical training and wrestling decreases, if they don’t change their diet they do become metabolically unhealthy. But at the peak of their game, sumo wrestlers are healthier than most Americans.
You could be thinner than I am but have worse health. Weight doesn’t matter. Metabolic health matters.
Ideally you’re looking for blood pressure 130/85 or lower.
pick up a glucose meter and testing strips, and follow the instructions to test twice daily.
Decide you’ll do what it takes to improve. Once you’ve decided, take swift, decisive, consistent action.
Eat the real whole food first.
Substitute oils. Instead of cooking with fake oils—the highly processed and unstable industrial oils like canola oil, sunflower oil, and safflower oil—use real whole foods. Animal fats you can substitute are butter, lard, and tallow. You can find lard and tallow in the baking aisle or the refrigerated section. That’s what our grandparents and ancestors cooked with. Fruit fats are acceptable as well. These include coconut oil, avocado oil, and olive oil.
The last suggestion is to eat fewer snacks.
