May 11, 2016
Podcast from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2016/05/ian-clark-podcast/
[0:00] Introduction
[1:32] Earth Runners Sandals
[2:49] Fitlife Organifi Green Juice
[4:08] Harry’s Razor
[7:23] How Ben met Ian Clark
[8:39] Previous episode of Ben with Ian Clark
[10:12] Activation products
[11:38] The genetic illness of Ian back in 2004
[16:33] How fungal infection affected Ian’s body
[23:39] How to equip the body to deal with mold and fungus
[26:04] An issue when fungus is combined with heavy metals
[30:01] Dr. Simonchini on mold and fungus
[33:14] How Ian created his own micro-universe to heal his body
[35:18] Fortis Groep and AECOM – build environmentally friendly
homes/places
[39:32] Concrobium mold control spray
[41:16] Air diffuser and essential oils
[43:06] One specific pose to reboot your autonomic nervous system – Dr. Stiteler
[48:15] The small exercise machine that Ian swears by – Xiser
[51:43] A new form of fasting called “Dry Fasting”
[1:01:36] A “smart drug” Ian uses to stay hyper-awake and alert
[1:04] Why Ian sprays his abdomen with magnesium
[1:07] Inside Ian’s black leather bag
[1:07:48] What is plant sterol?
[1:14:31] End of Podcast
Ben: Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness show. This is not our normal weekly Q and A. I am traveling all over the world these days. Twenty five days out of the month of May, I'm on a plane somewhere in the world, London, Austin, Ojai, San Francisco, you name it. We actually have a new calendar up if you wanna track me over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/calendar, you stalker, you, if you do want to check and see what I'm up to, but really interesting podcast today with a friend of mine, Ian Clark. You're gonna dig him. The dude has some very, very cool bleeding edge health concepts. He's been immersed in like the health and fitness and nutrition industry for a long time. He's a wealth of knowledge, we had an awesome conversation.
One of the things that I've been wearing quite a bit when I have been travelling as much as I have this month is something that keeps me grounded, grounded, and there's actually this concept of grounding, or earthing, where you suck up negative ions from the planet, and it sounds wooh-wooh, but it's really not. As a matter of fact, the Earth emits this frequency, it's called the Schumann resonance. It's at a specific frequency and when your body gets exposed to this frequency, like when you're barefoot on the beach, what happens is you produce more alpha brain waves and your body kinda slows down, calibrates, resets your nervous system a little bit, and it essentially syncs you up with the Earth's circadian rhythm, so you sleep better which is really important for me when I'm traveling as much as I am this month.
And so what I've been wearing are these sandals. They're called Earth Runners and they're actually a sponsor of today's show. They have these carbon laces, they're two parallel stitches of this silver-coated conductive thread that runs through the laces and then they secure it to the bottom of the sandal with a copper plug. So you could be on, like walking through the airport, on concrete, cement, on the street, you name it, anywhere where you don't want to look like a barefoot freak, but you still want to be grounded and these things keep you grounded. And the other cool thing is that they look like the same sandals that the renowned long-distance runners from that book “Born to Run”, the Tarahumara Native American Indians, they look exactly like the ones of these guys wear. So you can look like you're, you're a pretty legit trail runner too, like you could run for hundreds of miles even if you're just grounding.
Anyways though, you can get these things for 10% off, all you do is you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/earthrunners, and when you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/earthrunners, you use code Ben10 and code Ben10 gets you 10% off the Earth Runners. Very cool. Oh, they're minimalist too, for those of you who like to do the barefoot running thing.
This podcast is also brought to you by one of the best tasting green juice superfoods on the face of the planet. I have a Ziploc of this stuff in my book bag, speaking once again of travel, and I just put a couple spoonfuls of it in a cup of water, like if I'm going through the airport and I wanna make a really alkaline green-rich drink without many calories but a ton of nutrients. I use this stuff. It's a coconut and ashwagandha-infused green juice, but it's a gently dried superfood powder. What that means is that it doesn't get heat dried and oxidized like a lot of the other greens juice powders that are out there, but it also doesn't make all the mess that making a green smoothie or a green juice would actually make. There's no blending, no stirring, really nothing. You just put it in the cup, give it a little shake, you're good to go. This stuff is jam-packed with everything your body needs, but it's organic, it's vegan, it's gluten free, dairy free, soy free, doesn't taste like cardboard, actually tastes really, really good, and it's called FitLife, FitLife Organifi green juice. You can get it at Bengreenfieldfitness.com/organifi, and if you use the discount code mentioned there, you get 20% off. So Bengreenfieldfitness.com/organifi, and the discount code is mentioned there.
This podcast is also brought to you by something I need to actually use this morning. I have a serious shadow on my face. I'm at home right now. I'm at home for like three days before I hit the road again, I’ve been traveling and my face is covered with a shadow, so I use these German-crafted blades. They've got a flex hinge, they've got a lubricating strip, and there's not three, not four, but, count 'em, five blades on these razors, and they're made by this company called Harry's. They're the only shaving company that makes a five blade razor at the price of a cheapo drugstore razor, but not the shape of a cheapo drugstore razor. I really like these things. You basically run 'em down your face and you can't even tell your shaving. They have this set called The Truman, that's what I'd recommend you start with if you want to get in on the face shaving, or leg shaving, or other body parts shaving bandwagon, and the Truman is this set that gets you a razor handle which is ergonomically designed, so there's no carpal tunnel syndrome from shaving, moisturizing shave cream, and three of Harry's five blade German-engineered razors, and the deal is you get five bucks off that when you use promo code Ben at harrys.com. So that's H-A-R-R-Y-S dot com, enter code Ben, and get the Truman set, that's the one that I recommend, so quit compromising on your shave and use something good. So, I am going to shut up now, at least briefly, for a cool intro music and then I'm going to start talking again because I got to intro you to today's rock star guest, Ian Clark. Enjoy the show.
In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show:
“We're so maxed out in our life, we've got everything pulling out of now like never before in any other age. People get locked into sympathetic stress. They lay down, they go to sleep, they don't go deep enough into their sleep, and the longer you stay locked in sympathetic stress, the deeper you go down that negative spiral,” “You know the really big thing is when you take the load off of your system, when you allow your body to focus on producing energy to be living at a very high level rather than using that energy to paddle up microbes and parasites and mold and all this junk that would be normally in your system, you have way more energy.”
He’s an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America’s top personal trainer and one of the globe’s most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield. “Power, speed, mobility, balance – whatever it is for you that’s the natural movement, get out there! When you’re look at all the studies done… studies that have shown the greatest efficacy…” All the information you need in one place, right here, right now, on the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast.
Ben: Hey, folks. It's Ben Greenfield here and I first met the guy who you're about to meet, today's podcast guest, at a health conference. I guess it would be about four years ago, and I remember I was sitting across from a dinner table, from him, and I kind of watch as he pulled out this mysterious leather satchel that, that I'd see him carrying all weekend long in this conference, and he opened it up and I'm kind of watching him out of the corner of my eye while I'm eating dinner, you know, trying not to be a creepy stalker, but at the same time, you know, I'm watching him pull out these little bottles of like black oil and dropper bottles that have like this dark green algae-like goo and like mineral salts and all these other strange substances that he started to use to just basically, like, dress up the salad that he had there at dinner, and later on I struck up a conversation with him. I learned his name, and his name is Ian Clark, and I eventually invited him on to the show to talk about this green algae goo, and you may have heard that podcast episode that we did.
This was like two years ago in which we talked about that green goo, it's called marine phytoplankton, and we recorded a podcast episode called “The Ultimate Superfood You've Probably Never Heard Of”.
Now I'm going to link to that original podcast episode with Ian in the show notes for today's episode. You can go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/ianclark. That's bengreenfieldfitness.com/ianclark, that's I-A-N-C-L-A-R-K.
Well anyways, what we didn't really get into too much in that podcast episode was just in himself, ‘cause he has a pretty amazing journey to health and a lot of these, almost like very fringe, bleeding edge type of health concepts that he himself is immersed in, back in 2004 when he was 46, he got hit with a series of life-threatening health issues and obesity and a prediction from doctors that he had like two years left to live, and that was when he really got into pursuing a lot of the things that we're going to talk about today, traveling all over the world to discover strange new health products and, you know, different labs, different researchers, and different ways to do everything from, you know, find this green algae goo, to extracting sterols from plants, to basically putting together an entire team of innovators that he's now surrounded by at his business which is called Activation Products. And I know he's got a farm up in Canada, he's got five sons, I've spent some time with one of his sons, Anthony, who's come down here to my house and hung out a little bit, and his company now manufactures very unique things like black seed oil, and marine phytoplankton, and special mineral sprays, and much more.
But today, we're gonna, we're gonna get inside the head of Ian and find out some of the really cool things that he knows, being immersed in the health industry, and not just immersed in the health industry, but really on like this constant quest. Every time I freakin' see him, he's discovered something I've never ever heard of before, and I consider myself to be at least slightly on the cutting edge of the stuff and he seems like he's always one step ahead of me, but that being said, my guest today is Ian Clark. Ian, welcome back to the show.
Ian: Hey, Ben. It's a pleasure to be here, very cool to reconnect on the podcast and I'm excited to share as much things as we can today.
Ben: Yeah, for sure, and I think a perfect place to delve in would be this mysterious illness that nearly killed you back in 2004 because I'm very, very interested in how you got into this in the first place, so can you share a little bit about what exactly happened? What got you started down this journey into natural healing and pulling out strange bags of goo in the restaurants?
Ian: (Chuckles) Yeah, well I'm glad I can even be here today to tell you about it because it was one of those situations where, traditionally, it's a guaranteed exit for guys in their 40's that have not paid attention and things pile up now. Most people are not gonna get to the position I was, but I had a genetic predisposition with two of my uncles on my mom's side who died at 51 and 54 of cancer, and that was always in the back of my mind but I just sort of leaned on the fact that their mother, my grandmother, lived to 103 years old, but you know for them to die, and they died two days apart in 1978 when I was 20 years old, so when I started getting the riot act rea d to me from the doctors, I knew that I was headed down the wrong, down the wrong trail. So what it was is I had a heart disease where I was getting, my heart would let – it was like attack of cardio where my heart would stop, and then like it would stop for like three seconds, which is a really long time.
Ben: Yeah, for a heart. Absolutely.
Ian: Oh yeah. And then it would go bo-bomp (heartbeat sound), and it would get going again, and it would do that periodically, whenever it felt like it. I had, I was way, way overweight and it wasn't so much a weight thing, I mean there's lots of people that are overweight that are not having these issues, but my body was absolutely full, as it turns out, like at the time I had no clue what it was, but it was full of fungus.
And I had a massive heavy metal toxicity problem which was blowing out into significant liver disease, in fact my liver markers were so off the charts that when I had it tested, I was told go straight to the hospital. Do not do anything, just go, don't go groceries, don't do anything. Go straight to the hospital. I had a doctor in Toronto, from the markers he was looking at, ‘cause I would not allow a biopsy. I was very paranoid about things invading my body like surgeries?
Ben: Right.
Ian: I just didn't like the idea. So, but he told me that I had three different types of cancer in my liver which turned out, as far as I'm concerned, to be a total misdiagnosis because they're trying to do, you know how it's like a big guessing game a lot of the time, and anyway, it was very scary for me, but the thing that really actually alerted me above everything else was this growth that was happening in the bottom of my abdomen, right between my legs, pressing up against my prostate which is called a fistula cyst, and if you've never heard of it…
Ben: Sounds nasty.
Ian: Oh, they're, they're wicked. They are totally wicked, and this one was connected to my large intestine, to the colon, and it was a breach. So now I have this big leak in my colon, speeding all types of infection to the cyst, which is about, at that time the size of a golf ball, so I had that scanned they validated yet, you got this nasty thing and it's got, it has to be cut out. There is no other solution other than surgery, and I'm thinking, “Ah, perfect. This is awesome. I'm gonna get cut by a doctor under general anesthetic, in the exact area where I don't want to be cut under any circumstances.” There's so much plumbing down there.
Ben: Oh yeah.
Ian: So I phoned my brother who is a medical doctor for [0:15:01] ______ practitioner, and he's a great guy and he, he would always, you know, give me advice over the years and he was usually very accurate when I spoke with him, and so I told him the whole scene, right? ‘Cause I never really, you know, bother family members that are in the medical community as a doctor, but I would call him for advice. So he decided, well the long and short of it is is that you definitely need to follow through and do everything the doctors are saying, whatever medication they're suggesting, whatever surgeries is an absolute must.
So the one question I had for him and my other doctors that I was speaking to was, “Okay, so I've got all this list of all this crap going on and, and now you're telling me I absolutely have to have surgery. Why do I have what I have? What's the cause of this?” And they could never identify it, other than is primarily this genetic predisposition your body cannot handle stress and things you're putting it through, your, you know, it wasn't so much diet related in their books, it was more a genetic predisposition which comes down to statistical evidence of, you know, “Lucky. Yeah, you. You, not so lucky.”
And I, that's why I said to, my brother told me the same thing, that's why I said, “Well, so you're telling me that it's nothing really that I'm doing, it's just sort of the luck of the draw?” And he goes, “Well, it might be some things you're doing, but primarily no. It's not, like you can't really do anything to change that. When you get into these situations, you have to rely on the medical profession that saves people's lives every day, and if you don't, then you're gonna probably have it blow into a complete cancer situation.”
Well, what I didn't tell him at the time is that I had been having kind of a scaly thing on my outer flesh in that, between my legs from the front to the very back, and I thought, I never remember my skin being scaly down there. And so I got a mirror one day and I checked it out, and it was pure white crystal all the way right up to the top of the crack of my butt. And I thought, “Well, what is…”
Ben: Weird.
Ian: Oh, yeah. I said “What is that?” And there was like a wide patch, like maybe two inches thick at the thickest and then down to one inch and covering everything from, you know, that whole area. So I found out later, of course, that’s a massive blow out of Candida which had, you know, a fungal infection and this is all contributing. So what, when I talked to my brother that day, I said, “You know, Doug, I don't buy this thing that it's not me. I think it's something that I am doing, I'm being told by you and other doctors it's not really what I'm doing. I just need to rely on the medical world to fix these problems, it's luck of the draw,” and I said I think it's wrong and I want to take this into my own hands and do something about it. He said, “Well, if you do that you'll die,” and I said “Well, I'll tell you I would rather die at my own hands than the hands of a doctor because I watched my uncles,” and we see this all the time, people get diagnosed with something, they get the prognosis, the doctor says, “Okay, you've got six months to live and, you know, we're going to do this, this, and this, and if you don't do that you're probably going to be dead in two months.”
Ben: Right.
Ian: And the people will actually follow the instructions to their funeral.
Ben: Yeah. And, and, by the way, this whole heart thing, your heart stopping for three seconds, this was related to the fungus as well?
Ian: Oh, yes. It was related to…
Ben: How does, how does that work? Like physiologically, how does a fungus affect your actual, the pacemaker cells in your heart?
Ian: Right. Well, all the electrical in your body running by your autonomic nervous system is directly affected by fungal infections that are causing lower body temperature, that are causing blood…
Ben: Okay.
Ian: If your autonomic nervous system isn't working right, it's sending blood to the wrong places, it's getting all confused.
Ben: So it can, you know, are you thinking it was affecting like your vagus nerve? Like, like in terms of the signal being sent to heart through your vagus nerve?
Ian: Yes. Well, the ganglia, all the different parts of the autonomic nervous system, vagus is a huge thing that controls so much, and we'll talk about that in a little bit, but yes, that, all of those things were directly, partly because I also had major plaque build-up. You know, I was getting blocked arteries, I was getting all those things that killed guys in their 40's, you know, and I was getting it all at once from every direction. It was the grosses thing ever. So it was like I was getting put into a situation where there was no way out other than pure grace.
Ben: Right.
Ian: It was, it was sovereign, so I'm definitely into the spiritual things and when you get into that situation, I don't care if a person claims to be an atheist, they will cry out because there is no way out. I mean if you, to give up and go to the doctors and have a funeral is so humiliating and so unacceptable…
Ben: Yeah. Yeah.
Ian: It was a possibility. So, what I decided is that it was everything that I was doing, it must be. Everything I must be doing is wrong, and everything I know is killing me, so how could I have allowed myself to get to this dumbed down state, allowing it to get this far down the rabbit hole and not having done anything about it? So I literally prayed about it and I just said, “Okay, I need direction.” I knew for sure one thing, Ben, that guys like you were out there. I didn't know how to find you. I didn't know where you existed. I knew there was gonna be a tremendous amount of direction that was gonna be needed to meet the people, but I knew for sure that there were people on this Earth somewhere that knew the very information I needed about how to completely correct everything I had.
Ben: Yeah. Although personally, I was actually, I believe in 2004, heavily drinking at frat parties in college, so I probably wouldn't have been the guy hook up with, but I hear what you're saying.
Ian: Yeah, that's right, but I'm talking about now, right?
Ben: Right.
Ian: So the people that were out there at that time existed and so I just said, “Okay, if I'm allowed to find those people, I will spend whatever time, energy, and resources I have, I will suffer as whatever level I've got to suffer and I'll have as much fun as it required. I am wide open. I will go wherever, I will do whatever it takes,” and when you actually make that kind of a statement, you better hang on for the ride because things happen. Now they didn't happen quickly but they happened over the next three years. Within three years from that point, I didn't, I stopped 100% stopped going to the doctors. That was the first thing ‘cause they were freaking me out, and they were also offering things that were completely unacceptable. That fistula cysts, it did exactly what they said it would do. It got real hard, it grew, it grew a satellite out into the rectum and a satellite right into the scrotum.
Ben: Oh, nasty.
Ian: And every heartbeat, I would feel that. And I was just like, “Okay, that's…I don't know.” I met some people that told me this, and this, and this. I tried those things, suffered like crazy, they didn't work. The entire time I got into juicing, and I was like a raw food vegan for four and a half years. All those things are great, but they don't fix problems. But along the way I met all of the top level researchers in each area of the human operating system, physically and energetically, and was able to get instructions and follow them, and the first thing that showed up, thankfully, that empowered us was actually the marine phytoplankton, that showed up at the end of 2006. So I never really got the ball rolling hard time until the beginning of 2007, but I was already juicing and raw vegan at that time. I'm no longer raw vegan. I don't do any juicing at all, except for a specific juice protocol that I have that I don't juice. Right as by the juice, but we'll talk about that in a sec as well. So my body began, of course I lost 90 pounds of weight. I was down to a skeleton, I turned all yellow, my liver was all screwed up. Doing that, of course, on a fast track even compounds the problems, which made my liver markers get even worse. But I wasn't worried about it, I just knew that I was on a path to get healthy, and if I was ever to get a normal range of health, then I would say, “Okay, how far can we go from there?” But not trying to shoot for the stars quite yet, but just getting to normal health range. That took until the end of 2009. So that was five years, and if I knew then what I know today, it would have been about six months at the very most.
Ben: Were you doing like a candy to cleanse type of protocol, just like limiting sugar and taking, you know, specific things that knock out the fungus? Or were you doing stuff more advanced than that?
Ian: Well at that time, with my limited understanding, that's exactly what I was doing. And, yes, the candy, did it go way down, but it didn't completely leave. The issue was as I had spent 17 years in the oil field as a young guy from 18 to 35 years old, and in that space of time I had gotten completely poisoned by various chemicals and heavy metals and solvents and just really horrific environment to really work in long term. I was actually right in the service sector, on service rigs, on drilling rigs, like right there at the well site. You're breathing and soaking the stuff in, I mean, we don't have time to talk about a lot today, but it was over the top with poison. I was full of lead, mercury, cadmium. It was, it was nuts. So all those things working together with these fungal infections that piled up because I was always eating it, fast food restaurants, you know, rich [0:24:36] ______ restaurants, not getting enough sleep, thinking I was invincible, working around the clock and just being a basic maniac.
Ben: Right.
Ian: Bored hell, you know, so, when I reaped what I sowed, I was burning to the ground. So all those seeds that I planted to get to this very poor state were, like when you get there, anybody that ever gets there, they just want to lay down and die. You're so sick. You're so messed up. You're in so much pain. You got pounding headache, so you try to change anything. You just wanna die. Literally. I mean, I've been, I was in that mental emotional state and thinking, “Cool, really goodie and awesome job.” You know, here you are, you've got seven children, you've got an amazing family, and you've totally let your, I wasn't a drinker or a smoker. I mean I wouldn't refrain from having a beer or something, but I was not into that kind of stuff, I didn't do drugs. I stopped all that when I was about 21.
Ben: Yeah. It was your food and your environment.
Ian: Yeah, exactly. And the stress levels, and just the, and also the mental attitude, horrific mental attitude. Like, “Oh, I don't care. Yeah, whatever.” You know, that type of person, real arrogant and know it all, and you couldn't tell me anything. If you mention the word organic, I mean I would say, “What are you talking about? Everything grows out of the ground, idiot.”
Ben: Right
Ian: You know, that type of a person and I'm sorry that I was. You know, that, there was no excuse for it, and it had a lot to do when you put fungus in a person's body with heavy metals, you do turn into a rather weird person.
Ben: Is it a combination like you say that as though fungus by itself or heavy metals by themselves are not as big of an issue as fungus combined with heavy metals. Is there something about that one-two combo?
Ian: Oh yeah. I think if you have heavy metals, you will have a fungal infection and your whole enzymatic system goes down because, when you have those two combinations, your body temperature drops below normal and every 0.1 degree of body temperature, your basal temperature dropping, is a sliding scale upwards of enzymatic dysfunction.
Ben: Interesting. You know, this is something, and obviously you are way, way farther down this rabbit hole than I was, but, you know, I started to notice a couple of years ago things like, you know, me getting more cold than I should in the afternoon, and my energy levels dropping, and I actually got this thing. The doctor told me it was tinea versicolor, where I was tanning irregularly on my skin which I later learned was, was an actual fungus that grows in your skin that when you're, when the sun hits your skin it makes, your skin kind of splotchy when you tan. I started doing oil of oregano topically, and internally I started doing infrared sauna to work on getting rid of the heavy metals. I was doing like metal chelation spray, stuff like that. I think I probably had something similar to what you were experiencing, but a much more micro level, but yeah, I mean I would tend to agree that it seemed that the two went hand-in-hand. This whole idea that I had a bunch of metal exposure and I had some kind of fungus taking over my body and it, I mean, I think there's probably more people and probably a lot of people listening in right now walking around with some of these issues, you know, maybe it hasn't gotten into full-blown, you know, freaking like fistula like you had, but, but yeah that's interesting that heavy metal fungus combo seems to kind of go hand in hand.
Ian: Right. That's a big play and, you know, I was also exposed to many environments where I lived in as a young guy, working in the old field which were way less than optimal, a lot of mold inside the houses I lived in. So if you walk into a building right now, it's already now proven, I have a friend in Austin, Texas that was given a million dollars to do a research for the D.O.D. on mold alone. You walk into a building that has X amount of mold per cubic meter of air and you breathe that air, you will be colonized. It's inevitable, doesn't matter.
Ben: You'll be colonized by the mold.
Ian: Correct. Yeah.
Ben: But would you say, I mean just, just playing devil's advocate here, like it seems that the human body would, like it seems like humans would've been wiped out from the planet Earth if we were that weak and that susceptible to mold and stuff, do we have internal mechanisms that would allow us to be able to decolonize or to fight against mold or something like that, or are we just like screwed if we walk into a moldy building?
Ian: No, our bodies are absolutely amazing. They can take so much abuse and rebound it. It really depends also on your genetic predisposition because that does tie into it, but we don't rely on genetic predisposition. Because if you do, you don't really know for sure where your weaknesses are, but, no, the body is so remarkable. Some people can have exposure to all of those things, party there face off, smoke and drink 'til they're 90, eat whatever they want, never exercise and die of old age…
Ben: Yeah.
Ian: …is very few. So other bodies are just remarkable and its ability to deal with these things, but when it becomes to a certain level with any of us, it's going to overcome you and then your immune system gets compromised. That's where people blow it into cancer because, from what I've learned, 95% of cancer issues are primarily fungal infections passed on from the mother to the child all the way through their life, all the way up and then the more they're exposed.
Ben: Really?
Ian: Yeah.
Ben: I don't think I've actually heard that theory before. Is that presented in like, obviously we could probably do a whole podcast on this, but is there like a book or documentary or something that goes into this theory?
Ian: Yes, there is. Yeah. There's a Dr. Simoncini out of Europe that has, that has done tremendous things in that research.
Ben: Dr. Simoncini?
Ian: Yep. Yep.
Ben: Okay. Gotcha. And, and is it, is that, is that like a book that this guy's written or just a website?
Ian: It's just general information. As far as books and research, there are people that are in that world, like if you talk to Dave Asprey, very versed in regards to mold and the fungal, like, so basically what happens is mold goes in your system and produces fungus.
Ben: Okay.
Ian: The fungus is, is not so much that it kills you as much as the chemicals and the poisonous gases that come out of the fungus.
Ben: Okay.
Ian: That's the real issue. They're so hyper toxic and they release a tiny amount, but as that tiny amount builds up and the more you get it in your system, the closer you are to being taken out.
Ben: Now, now there's this whole metabolic theory of cancer, that cancer is caused by cancer cells basically metabolizing glucose and producing lactic acid even, for example, when there is oxygen present, right? Like a cancer cell will still produce lactic acid and act anaerobically in it and that's basically how a tumor grows. It's called the metabolic theory of cancer. There's, I've, I'm blanking on the name of the book, but there's an entire new book about it. I was talking with Dr. Mercola about it last week and it's really replacing the genetic theory of cancer. Is the fungus or the mold somehow affecting the cell's mitochondria in a way that would cause it to jump into this lactic acid production or anaerobic glycolysis?
Ian: Well, the fungus is the wing around that, but there has to be something to stimulate it. It doesn't just happen on its own.
Ben: Okay.
Ian: So there's something there. There's an invasion because it's a living thing inside of your body that has growth. It's expanding in some, like they talk about aggressive cancers that kill people in a couple of weeks. That's a rapidly growing living thing that's killing you.
Ben: Right.
Ian: So these are, yeah, all those things are all tied in. It's just a matter of what is the causal, what's the root, root, root cause. Not what's happening at the surface level nearly as much as how do we make sure that we have, that we're watching our systems. So we're making sure that we're keeping the fungal growth to the absolute minimal possible.
Ben: Okay. Gotcha. Now I know that you live in kind of a different environment now. I mean, the way that you've described it to me is you've set up almost like this micro-universe around yourself and your farm, your personal environment, everything else. I'm curious because we have so many people listening in who really are concerned about, you know, mold, fungus, metals, but who want to know how to set up their personal environment to be able to not have to do what you went through back in 2004. Can you kind of start to go into what your personal environment looks like now? Like how you're living in terms of what you're surrounding yourself with from like an air or a water or any electricity standpoint? What does your micro-universe look like?
Ian: So we moved on to a hobby farm in 2010, and that was a goal that we had set, you know, for many years. My wife was raised on a farm, she ate organic food when she was a young child and grew right up in that until she was 21, when I married her, and then I pulled her off the farm into the city for many years. So from 1983 'til 2010, that's quite a while. And we got back out on this, on this little hobby farm and, you know, our thing was, “Hey, let's live off the land.” Let's see. It'll be affordable, but it turns out the farms can become excessively expensive which they are if you're not using it to produce revenue ‘cause we don't use that as a business and we just set it up to have, all of the food that we're eating for the most part is coming from the land. You know, whether it's the dairy, or the chicken eggs or the turkey, or whatever there is that we would consume on a regular basis is coming from the farm, plus having a garden every year, but that's only for, you know, seasonal.
Ben: So you've got, you're basically eating organic foods or organic stuff that you're growing yourself?
Ian: Yes, that's correct. Yeah. So that makes up most of it, but the, you know, you obviously want to be exposed to as much natural things as you can because there's all kinds of, you know, like when a little kid plays in the soil, it's really good for them. Getting your hands on the, in the dirt and we're not afraid of getting, you know, farms are not exactly the cleanest thing in the world. The house on the other hand is a huge consideration. We're actually right now in the process of planning construction of a completely, like a lead certification 10 environment to live in. So that means air, water, and, of course, the whole environmental aspects of the house at the highest level. There's many technologies coming out right now all around the world that are going into this completely environmentally friendly place where you can grow things even for eating within your home, and it's a whole eco environment.
Ben: What do you mean?
Ian: Well, there's a, there's a company called Fortis Groep and another one called, It’s a large construction firm that's, that's, AECOM. AECOM is like in 140 countries and has, you know, 120,000 employees. They are adopting grow technologies for homes and working with groups that are building homes that are completely environmentally clean. So the, and they're also sustainable. They're off the grid. There's, and the technology advances over the last 15 years and that is huge. So we're gonna be adopting all those things and there's another company out of North Carolina that is into that. So these are modular built, you could have any design a house you want, they build modular chunks and they come in they put it all together in your property.
Ben: How do you spell that? Fortis?
Ian: Yeah, F-O-R-T-I-S. Groep, and that's spelled G-R-O-E-P.
Ben: Okay.
Ian: And then AECOM, A-E-C-O-M.
Ben: Okay, cool. I'll put a link to this stuff in the show notes for folks. So if people are like building a home, these, these folks actually allow you to build a home that takes into account like air, water, electricity, everything, but they're doing like modular homes?
Ian: Yes, that's correct.
Ben: Interesting. Is that what you guys are gonna do? Like a modular home?
Ian: Yeah, but it's gonna be a total Victorian style, you'll never know it was modular.
Ben: What would be an example of some of the things that are gonna go into that home that you would say would be considered to be like a micro-universe that would keep the body healing or keep the body equip to heal itself?
Ian: Well, the main thing is a complete removal of any possible fungal mold growth. That's number one. First and foremost. Because that wreaks havoc, if you have coolness or moisture, it can grow. So having air circulation, like an air exchange system in the house without losing heat, so it keeps ambient temperature. So you're not, you know, spending a fortune on heating a house especially up in Canada. So they have these different units that you can put into your home that circulates the water, that circulates the air. You have great water. You've got, of course, lots of solar technologies. You're heating your water with the solar, you're heating your home with it, you're powering your home, and all of those things that are keeping you from having to rely on outside sources, but, you know, obviously we have, we're connected to the grid if we need it. You know, it's not like…
Ben: Right. Yeah. And that's actually, that sounds similar to the way that I've set myself up here in Spokane, is we've got, so I use an AllerAir, which is like a negative ion generator with an ozone filter that filters like the central air that goes through my home, and then we've got, well we're in the process of constantly adding solar and wind to do things like make sure that our well water pump is not tied to the grid and, eventually, we want to put one of these, these Tesla batteries in the garage to be able to store a lot of this power that we're getting from the sun, and from the wind and there's even these new, now I'm looking into, I didn't realize you could do this, but they make what are called geothermal panels that you can put on the ground that take energy from the Earth in the same way that a solar panel takes energy from the sun and you can use that to get power as well. There's all sorts of really, really cool, clean sources of power and, you know, as far as this stuff goes, obviously it's all good and well, if folks who are listening in have the means of the resources to be able to like build a home. But what about people who are just like stuck living, you know, in their apartment or in their ranch or whatever. What are a couple of your tips for them to be able to kinda like create a micro-universe that would allow them to perhaps be less susceptible to like mold and fungus issues or dirty electricity or bad water?
Ian: Well, there's a company in Canada that produces a product called concrobium that you can spray anywhere in your environment. It doesn't harm what you spray it on and when it dries it crushes mold. So, yeah, no matter where you are living and, you know, we travel all the time, so we don't, we're in hotels, or in airBnBs, or wherever, so when you get there, you can use things like eucalyptus spray to make sure that the environment’s clean and the air around you. They can look up eucalyptus and just buy a really high quality spray, and that cleans out the room. Getting a grade, like you have a negative ion filter, do that. They can use ozonated water. There's a lot of inexpensive things that people can do to create a microenvironment within their living space, no matter where they are.
Ben: Yeah, that's actually something I began to tap into is for like hotel rooms. I did a podcast with this guy named Dr. Nick Littlehales and he works with, for example Real Madrid, which is a soccer team that, or a football team I guess I should say, that really wants to be on the cutting edge. And so when he has a player go into a hotel room, they have blackout curtains, they have like these special portable hepa air filters that fit over the air that the hotel is pumping into the room. They have sleep systems where it's like an existing sleep mattress that you put over the mattress in the hotel room that's molded to your body and all sorts of things, and I'll link to that in the show notes by the way for those of you listening in, if you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/ianclark, but one thing I've started doing, Ian, is I travel now with a little air diffuser that I'll put lavender, eucalyptus, rose essential oils, all sorts of stuff in it. As soon as I walk into a hotel room, I plug it in and start to diffuse essential oils into the room, oils that not only help with like mold and fungus and, you know, shocking things you actually find in hotel rooms, but also that assist with autonomic nervous system, right. Like, like shutting down the fight and flight nervous system, you know, when you walk into your hotel room and it smells like lavender and rose essential oil. It's a way, way different feeling than, than it smelling like the, like whatever crap that the cleaning lady happened to spray in there. So that, and that stuff you mentioned by the way is concrobium?
Ian: Yes, concrobium.
Ben: Concrobium. Okay, cool, cool. I love it. Now there's obviously a lot of other things that you're doing in terms of kinda like staying on the cutting edge of health, and one of the things that I know that you focus on is your nervous system, and especially, you know, the way that you exercise and the way that you eat. Can you delve into your own philosophy on physical movement, and kinda like maintaining a properly running autonomic nervous system?
Ian: That's a great question, and I like what you said there, also just a touch on that lavender or the diffuser of the lavender oils and the rose oils. You know that lavender is now proven to stimulate oxytocin release in your body when you breathe it?
Ben: Yeah, yeah. There is crazy, and also alpha brain wave production. It actually, they've specifically done EEG analysis on lavender oil and found that you shift into alpha brain wave production when you, when you sniff or you smell lavender oil. It's like it's got a special place in my home and my heart, this lavender stuff.
Ian: Right, right. So now to the body position, I'm, body movement and body position. There's a, there's a position that I was shown about eight years ago that I use all the time, and it is where you tell your brain to downregulate the sympathetic stress nervous system, and the way you do it is that, you know, just think about when you're in sympathetic stress here, the blood vessels in your thighs, in your biceps are expanded about 10% for a flight or fight, right? So when they're expanded, they're robbing your gut and your head of blood that needs to digest properly, you're not thinking about digesting food when you're running from the tiger and you're only thinking about running from the tiger when you're running from the tiger. So it, you don't need as much blood in your brain as you do in your legs and so people, and this all again ties in to when the body is simply out of equilibrium and were so maxed out in our life, we've got everything pulling at us now like never before in any other age. People get locked into sympathetic stress. They lay down, they go to sleep, they don't go deep enough into their sleep, and they, and the longer you stay locked in sympathetic stress, the deeper you go down that negative spiral. So what you do, if you are sitting in a chair, this is the position. So if you're sitting in a chair, your knees are bent, your feet are flat on the floor, somebody comes up to the chair and tips it over backwards and lays your back flat on the floor. That is the position, where your knees are bent, the bottom of your legs are relaxed horizontally, your thighs are vertical. When your thighs go vertical, gravitational forces push the excess blood in the expanded arteries back into your gut and back up into your head. Hanging upside down is okay, but that's not, it's too stressful for this type of thing. Your brain is like freaking out ‘cause it's got so much blood in it and, you know, obviously hanging upside down is good for your health for other reasons, but not for this particular thing. This is where you're completely and totally relaxed without a single ounce of stress anywhere in your body.
Ben: How are you doing, you're doing this when you're sitting in a chair?
Ian: Well, what I do is I just lay down on a carpet in front of a couch.
Ben: Yeah.
Ian: But my legs up where I would sit on the couch, so the bottom of my legs from my knees to my feet are on that seat.
Ben: Okay.
Ian: Thighs are vertical, my back is flat, and I don't have a pillow under my head, I have, maybe a towel.
Ben: Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. So almost like, like a happy baby pose that you do in yoga.
Ian: Yes. Well, you hold it for 30 minutes.
Ben: For 30 minutes?
Ian: This has been clinically trialed, so you're going to take a chill break for 30 minutes. This, a doctor in Los Angeles figured this out, where he was trying everything from acupuncture to deep tissue massage to herbal remedies, and all of these things he was trying to get people unlocked. So they were able to flip back and forth quickly from sympathetic to parasympathetic and in the end, after all his studies, this is the one that worked, and it's free. So it takes 14 days of doing it, 30 minutes a day, about the same time every day, for your brains switches to go. “Oh there's blood in my brain. Hmm. Everything's cool. Everything's chill. There's blood in my gut. I must not be in any need whatsoever to be in sympathetic stress.” And it unlocks the person, and it completely changes their lives 14 days from the time they start, if they do it every day without missing, the brain finally goes (makes a switch sound).
Ben: Do you do this every day?
Ian: I did it for 14 days every day and they don't have to do it every day after that. You do it periodically after that.
Ben: What's this doctor's name? Do you know?
Ian: Dr. Stiteler
Ben: Dr. Stiteler. Okay. I'm taking notes for people, this is just so they can, they can look at this also. So, Dr. Stiteler, he's, is he the S-S-T-E-I-T-L-E-R? This guy?
Ian: Nope. S-T-I-T-E-L-E-R.
Ben: Okay. Alright. I'll look it up and find him.
Ian: He's not even famous. I got to hear about this, he's a naturopath in Los Angeles.
Ben: Okay.
Ian: Many, many people, but this is like, I don't know why this is not, I wanted to broadcast this as an information product a long time ago and I just never got to it, but this is super key because it'll, and I'll tell you, they don't even need to know that there's a clinical study when they do it the first time because the moment they do this, and he called it the Tahiti pose. So you're supposed to just think, “Hey I'm on a plane to Tahiti. I don't have my computer or any mobile phones with me. I'm going for a two week vacation now.”
Ben: Yeah. Well, I found his website here. There's a picture of him doing it and everything, like demonstrating the pose. I'll link to in the show notes for folks. That's fascinating. So for 14 days you do this and it can help to almost like reboot your autonomic nervous system.
Ian: It really reboots it, man.
Ben: Interesting. What about exercise? Obviously that's not gonna get you in shape? Do you do you have, ‘cause, you're how old, Ian?
Ian: I'm 58.
Ben: Do you have an exercise protocol? Like I'm fascinated with how, pardon the expression, how old guys like you who actually look good do what you do. Do you have a specific daily routine, aside from laying on the floor in your back for 30 minutes?
Ian: Well, I've transitioned away from a daily routine, like at the same time doing the same thing. I have this thing called an XISER, I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's X-I-S-E-R.
Ben: No.
Ian: It looks like a little stepper, looks like a crappy little stepper, except for it's super high tech and built like a tank. But it's lightweight, it's made out of the aluminum, and you step on it and you have to balance yourself in the middle, and then you bend your knees and you go up and down really quickly as an intensity training device. And it, you feel the burn immediately when you get on this thing, until you get used to it. But you just, you jump on that throughout the day just to keep everything flowing and you're, like, it's a lymphatic pump and it is, I'll tell you, it's intensity training.
Ben: And how do you spell it again?
Ian: X-I-S-E-R.
Ben: X-I-S-E-R. Okay. I'll look this up. So this is basically like a, like a portable type of step machine?
Ian: That's right, but it's not a stepper, it's pneumatic. On it you, can go up and down as fast as you can possibly go, and you can't let your upper body move at all. It has to be 100%, so you lock your eyes on the wall somewhere, your head cannot move up and down when you're doing this. And you can also incorporate weights, if you want to lift weights, you know, with your arms while you're doing this.
Ben: Yeah, okay. I'm looking at a picture it. You can almost do this while you're, while you're watching TV.
Ian: Oh, yeah. You could definitely do it.
Ben: Interesting. Yeah, they've got it on Amazon. Very interesting. It's like a mini StairMaster. Do you do this every day?
Ian: Yes, and throughout the day. Now when I'm travelling the only thing is I actually have carried it with me traveling, but it just makes everything off the charts for weight, even though it's not that heavy, I've got stuff I carry with me and I just stop bringing it travelling. But when I'm home, I have several of them. Like we have a studio home on the lake that I work in and spend a lot of time in. And then we have 'em at the farm, we have 'em at the office. They're like five hundred bucks a pop up in Canada, but it didn't matter. We got, I got these several…
Ben: You're overpaying. They’re 399 down here.
Ian: (chuckles) That’s right but…
Ben: They've got, they've got used ones on Amazon. They got two at least, at the time this is recording, for 200 bucks, so there you go. Interesting. So it's a hydraulic cylinder system, very cool, and you just step up and down on this thing.
Ian: Well, it's pneumatic. It's pneumatic.
Ben: Okay.
Ian: An air, air thing, and you adjust it. The easier you make it to go, the more it puts energy out, the more that you got to put energy out.
Ben: Right.
Ian: So, yeah, you open the restriction to the very minimum and let it flow and, man, I'll tell you, even, even tremendous athletes are amazed at what it does to you. You know, people think, “Oh I could do this for 10 minutes.” No way.
Ben: Oh, yeah. It's like rebounding, I used to scoff it like mini trampolining and rebounding, and then my dad bought my grandma one of these many trampolines to help her with lymph fluid and blood flow and now, when I visit my grandma in Florida, I'll bounce on that thing for like 15 minutes in the morning, and you feel like you went on like a 30 minute run after you do some trampolining. Some people scoff at some of these little exercise tools, but they actually, they work surprisingly well. So another question for you, Ian, in terms of an additional like this pose that you hold and this XISER, StepMaster machine that you use, what about from a nutrition standpoint? I've heard you talk about fasting before. What's your take on fasting? Because I know something you're interested in.
Ian: Oh, yeah. The fasting thing really sort of built up in intensity over the years and I first started, of course, hearing about the master cleanse and then, you know, doing water fasts and I never enjoyed them. I didn't like it. I found them very uncomfortable. They weren't fun. I didn't, I mean I felt okay on them, but you get healing crisis and I just didn't enjoy them. So they were, I didn't feel they were sustainable. Then I heard about intermittent fasting where you, you know, you just stop eating food and you drink water only for like, you know, 15 hours a day…
Ben: Right. Yeah.
Ian: Then, last summer, an old friend of mine who is kind of a radical guy, he's a very, very smart individual, but he's a bit on the radical side in people's minds. He was, he had basically pulled together all the research in his life and he started this in 1990, he's now 50 years old, and he was doing this video on dry fasting.
Ben: Dry fasting?
Ian: Yeah, dry fasting and that's a major trend that's coming. We're actually, right now, in the middle of writing a book about this. And we've pulled research from all over the place, especially out of Russia. So, last summer, I had some friends of mine that knew this, that we both know this guy, and they said, “Oh, you gotta, you can't believe what this guy is doing now. You know, he's going completely out of his mind. He's gonna kill himself. He's going with long periods of time with no food or water, like for really long periods of time.” And I was like, “What?” So I checked it out and, and then it just resonated with me. I thought, “You know what? This guy might be on to something really serious.” And, you know, he didn't look bad, looked good, and he had done 108 day concord grape juice, lemon juice fast where you would, you would only drink the juice for eight hours a day and then drink-nothing-take-nothing period for 16 hours a day and then every week do 24 hours with nothing at all, zero, no food, no water. And then he would do 48 hours, 72 hours, and then 120 hours of absolutely nothing. You know, five days.
Ben: And is that why they it call dry fasting? Because there's, it's, it's like fasting but it's dry because there's also no water?
Ian: Yes, yes. It's not, you don't even have showers, you don't brush your teeth with water, you don't wash your hands, you don't, you don't need to.
Ben: Well, why wouldn't you want to shower or brush your teeth or wash your hands?
Ian: Because it actually interrupts the dry fast, ‘cause there's a whole principle behind it.
Ben: Do you absorb the water through your skin? Is that the, the idea?
Ian: You would absorb a lot of water through your skin.
Ben: Okay. Got it.
Ian: When you’re dry fasting, your body becomes more and more of a sponge.
Ben: Okay.
Ian: So you don't want to provide any water to your body at all for a reason I'll tell you about in a second. So the way that, so I thought, “Okay. Hey, I'll give this a try. Why not, right?” So I got the grape juice, I got certified organic concord grape juice that's pasteurized in a bottle so you don't have to make anything. I got the certified organic lemon juice [0:55:02] ______ same thing. And then I got some kidney tea and I got some baking soda and some activated charcoal and some bentonite clay and folic acid and things like that, ‘cause there's this whole thing that you do in the protocol and I, you know, wake up in the morning, make my stuff, I start at noon, and I am actually doing this right now while we speak. I'm on day number six right now of this next run, but anyways, I did this for 21 days last summer and when I started doing it, I thought, you know, he said, “Well, you'll never get hungry. You're gonna have more energy you've ever had. Your mind gonna be super clear. You're gonna have quite an enjoyable experience.” And it was exactly what he said it was. I started, I drank the juice. Actually, the first week, I did 12 hours drinking fluids and 12 hours with nothing, and then the second week, I did 16 hours a day and then I did a 24 hour dry, dry and then I did it another, at the end of the third week, a 32 hour dry, dry and I had an absolutely fantastic experience. I had a little bit of excess weight in my body at that time that I wasn't, you know, that really wasn't leaving, so I dumped actually 21 pounds in the first 15 days of this which, and I was even working out hard during that time. You can totally work out during this as well. You did, you know, this is not something that's gonna…
Ben: How can work out when you, when you don't have any hydration on board?
Ian: Oh, no. You're fully, you're hydrated like crazy because the fruit juices, it turns out, the water inside the fruit juice is ultra micronized because it takes six months to come up from the soil, up the vine, and then into the fruit. And when you, and your body is running on glucose, and this is a very special simple form of glucose which is a monosaccharide, but it's original, it's not fabricated, it's not extract, it's just in the juice. So your brain works way better. Your energy overall, your whole body energy is amplified significantly. So you can actually really put out energy.
Ben: So you don't need as much water because you're not engaged in beta oxidation of fat. You're basically burning these monosaccharides from this Concordia grape juice and doing nothing else other than that?
Ian: Yeah, that's right. Your, yeah. The grape juice, lemon juice, and then the micronized water that is, you know, in the teas. I have a way to micronize water, but the main…
Ben: What does it mean? What's micronized water?
Ian: Micronized water is when you have it completely and perfectly cleaned with the distillation or an R.O. system, then you add very specific minerals that are bioavailable to the body, and when you put those minerals in the water, it instantly structures the water. So it goes in, it just gets all the water molecules organized.
Ben: Okay. Yeah, I have stuff like that. I actually, I have these little structured water droplets that I use when I'm travelling and, I, when I'm home, I have a structured water filter, but then I have the special mineral drops for structured water when I'm on the road. And we've, we've done podcast before, like with Dr. Gerald Pollack, the University of Washington researcher who talks about when you add a specific form of water, even if it's droplets, to a whole glass of water, it'll structure the whole glass of water and it does make it taste a lot different, but this, I've never heard this concept called dry fasting before. Is there a book that you're following or a protocol that I could link to online that specifically is the protocol that you follow?
Ian: Unfortunately there isn't. There's a mix-match of a whole lot of different people's ideas, doing a whole lot of different things, and you'll find it to be very eccentric, but there is very solid science that comes out of Russia but everything's written in stinkin' Russian.
Ben: Do you speak Russian or how are you doing this?
Ian: No, I don't, but I have a business partner, Victor Sogoloski, who I'm writing the book with, who is fully fluent in Russian. He was born in Ukraine, and he, so Victor, when he saw me doing this last summer, he was very doubtful. He was like, “That's the most radical, crazy thing I've ever heard. You're crazy.” And then he watched me erase 10 years of age off my face in 21 days up at our island.
Ben: Jeez. That's crazy. You know, Jack, Jack Kruse is a neurosurgeon who has been on the podcast before, and I have discovered as we are talking, that on his forum, he actually has one of these translated e-books originally from Russian, but it looks like some of it's been translated. Have you heard of this guy named Dr. Filonov?
Ian: Mmm. No.
Ben: Okay, so I'll link to this in the show notes. It looks like there's a Google Drive here that's got some information from this Dr. Filonov, and you're working on a book about this too, Ian? [0:59:43] ______ .
Ian: [0:59:44] ______
Ben: This is interesting.
Ian: You're talking about the dry fasting doctor from Russia that wrote the original books.
Ben: Yeah. That's, that's what it would appear, but it looks like some of it's been translated.
Ian: That's right. Yeah, there's a few of them, but the issue is is to have the proper guidance because if you just go into it with, from a food perspective, you need to let your body have a total break and a rest, and that's where that ties into all these different juices.
Ben: Okay.
Ian: And you've gotta, you have to protect your kidneys and you have to keep your kidneys clean.
Ben: Okay. Gotcha. So, I may want to wait until your book comes out before I try this, is what you're saying versus trying to just navigate my way through a Russian book.
Ian: [1:00:24] ______ , I've got a power point that has almost finished now that I can share with you that will show you exactly what to do.
Ben: Oh, nice! If you send it, can we put it in the show notes?
Ian: Oh, yeah. Definitely.
Ben: Sweet. Okay, cool. Send that over and I'll, for people listening in, I know there's a lot of stuff we're talking about today, but bengreenfieldfitness.com/ianclark, I'll put some show notes over there. And I'm jumping all over the place here, Ian, because there are so many little things that I know you've delved into. I mean, I've talk to you at conferences about everything from like, you know, enemas, to flexibility and beyond, but there are a couple of other little things that I want to delve into with you in the time that we have left that I, that I know that you're aware of that I want to make sure I ask you about and one is, like you always seem really hyper awake and really alert whenever I see you and, you know, like you mentioned Dave Asprey before, I know he does, you know, like, like, you know, nicotine gum and Bulletproof coffee and that's kinda like his go-to and there are other people that do Aniracetam and smart drugs and modafinil, what would be your go-to, like when I see you at a health conference, you know, we run into each other a few times a year, it seems like, what is it that you're using to kind of fly above the crowd?
Ian: Well, the main thing I'm using are nano nutrients, and I don't, I mean, I like stimulants as much as anybody else, but I stay right away from them, and the reason I do is because they accelerate your heart and they ask your body to produce energy that may not be the coolest thing at that particular time.
Ben: Right, it's basically churning out extra epinephrine and adrenaline, not necessarily producing additional ATP or mitochondrial activity.
Ian: That's right. We're being tricked into the idea of having, so I stay away from the coffees and those things and I go to proper nano nutrients, particularly the Oceans Alive. I find that to be the most powerful.
Ben: That's the marine phytoplankton that we did a podcast on?
Ian: That's right.
Ben: Okay, and nano meaning it's a very, very, very, the way it's been created, it's a very small particle.
Ian: Right. Well, people talk about micro nutrition, this is nano nutrition.
Ben: Yeah.
Ian: And this is original heirloom strains of food that has every nutritional molecule known to man inside the cell, so that your body uses that as a medicine, it uses it as a nutrient for energy, it uses it for many things. But, you know, the really big thing is, when you take the load off of your system, when you, when you allow your body to focus on producing energy to be living at a very high level rather than using that energy to battle up microbes and parasites and mold and all this junk that would be normally in your system, you have way more energy.
Ben: Do you meditate or do anything like that?
Ian: Well, I don't, I don't do the traditional, like the Buddhist meditation at all. No, I don't do that, but I do meditate on information. So I love to lay back and quietly listen to teaching. That's my favorite subject matter and that I'm really interested in because then I absorb it, you know, it's like anything you're interested in you're gonna absorb, and that's another big energizer. Plus I sleep unbelievably well. You know, when all your deficiencies are topped up, you do sleep like, I just go into another universe and I dream like crazy.
Ben: Really? Like lucid dreaming?
Ian: Very much so.
Ben: Do you use, I mean, I've talk to some people have used like Onnits alpha brain or have used like phosphatidylcholine or binaural beats or things like that while sleeping to induce a more dreamlike state. Do you have, in addition to this marine phytoplankton that you use during the day for alertness, do you do use things at night?
Ian: No, I don't do any nootropics. The most I will do is spray the magnesium into my abdomen.
Ben: The magnesium spray?
Ian: That's right I don't, yeah the Ease. I don't always remember to put the Ease on every night because I'm so tired, I just crash, right.
Ben: Why your abdomen? Like I have magnesium lotions and magnesium spray, but usually I'll use like the upper neck, the side of the temple, stuff like that before bed. Why do you do the abdomen?
Ian: Because that's the largest area that soaks in the fastest. [1:04:35] _______ instantaneously disappears into your skin where I've tried many other ways of putting magnesium on and I had to just wash them off, but the abdomen, you want to get, I put 30 full pumps into the abdomen and I do that right in the morning and, if I remember, I do it before I go to bed, but I'm not religious with it.
Ben: So, you're bypassing the digestive process of you needing to absorb the magnesium, such as someone would need if they were to take like oral magnesium, and you're just literally like spraying magnesium all over your stomach before you go to bed to get transdermal absorption?
Ian: That's right. When I put it on, I also wipe it down the legs and around the back, the lower back, but I just, you know, I'm a guy, right? So I just, boom, boom, boom, boom, get it on there, you know, and I don't massage it in, you don't have to. I just wipe it once, and it disappears. So it's one of those things this real simple and easy, but I don't do any nootropics out all and I, I don't get into biohacking per se, you know, ‘cause the term is, is an interesting term, and I understand why people use it. That has its application, but my perspective is the body doesn't want to be hacked. It's not like a computer, it, but it wants to be supported as much as possible.
Ben: Yeah. Well, for me I think it depends on your definition of a hack. Like I would consider, like, I don't, like in the office right next to where I'm talking to you right now, I have a full blown like a low EMF infrared sauna that, you know, I've insulated, or “hacked”, to increase the temperature and I've stuck a wine cork in the temperature reading so I can jack it up to as hot as I can get it, and I'll go in there with like, you know, an elevation training mask to restrict air flow and get my heart rate up and like I personally would probably consider that to be biohacking, you know, versus spending two hours in the sunshine, but I do [1:06:25] ______ , you know, strapping electrodes to my head and stuff like that.
Ian: Uhm, oh know y’all.
Ben: Interesting. But now I'm sad because I could talk to you for like three hours, but I have one other question I wanted to ask you and, of course, I'm going to link to your website too because you have so much information over on your website and all the stuff. You got a blog. You've got all these, you know, you've got like your phytoplankton and I know there are other things I've seen you use like your black seed oil and you've got your own special flavor of magnesium that you rub into your abdomen at night, stuff like that, but I'm curious about that black leather bag I mentioned at the beginning of the show. If we were to, to rip that out of your hands and to open it right now, what goodies would we find inside? What is it that you're always traveling with these days?
Ian: Well, we didn’t get the chance to talk about the plant sterols which will be another subject later, but the little black bag has the Oceans Alive, it has the micronizer for the water, it has various different oils, like coriander seed oil, grapeseed oil, milk thistle seed oil, little bit of black cumin, and the Five Sea blend, and it'll have, also it has a bottle of silver Dihydrogen citrate. It's got some, these plant sterols that I used for consuming as well as on the skin.
Ben: And what is a plant sterol?
Ian: Plant sterol is the actual essence of any plant that is extracted in a way that doesn't damage it at all, and it super concentrates the medicinal properties of any plant, whether it's like clove, or thyme, or cumin, or whatever. There's this, or turmeric. There's a, this is a brand new technology that I've actually partnered with a company out of North Carolina who, we're gonna, we're gonna be rolling this out as a brand new product in the next month or so, and I have [1:08:23] ______ as way intense, so cool, and it just, it goes in and what it does, they do cell repair. When you have a plant sterol in its proper form, it go, it can get inside through the membrane of the cell, repair any damage in the cell, and kill anything in the cell that's not supposed to be there.
Ben: So you can't get this just from eating plants?
Ian: Uh, Uh. No, no, no.
Ben: Why not?
Ian: Because the plants, I mean, yeah, if you ate enough of them, but we're talking about a very concentrated form where you're only, you're literally only putting three drops in a glass of water of this stuff.
Ben: Would this be similar to like when you do an extract from a mushroom or you do like an alcohol in a water extract or like chaga mushroom or cordyceps mushroom or something like that to concentrate some of the, cause I know mushrooms have some sterols, but also like some of the active like, like saccharides in beta glucans in mushrooms, would it be similar to that? Like you'd have to eat a million mushrooms to actually get what you get out of a dropper full of like a dual extract of mushroom?
Ian: Yes. It's that idea, any kind of extract, but it's not CO2, it's not steam distilled, it's not alcohol extracted. This is 100% proprietary, I've never seen anything like it in my life, and this is like another way exciting thing that's going to compliment everything we're doing.
Ben: And why would you want to do it? Like what would be the purpose? What are you getting out of the sterol? Is it, is it just nutrients?
Ian: No, no. It's all about extending the life of the cell because every time your cells replace the telomeres shorten. This, this extremely extends the life of that cell because it allows it to be repaired before it replaces it.
Ben: Oh really? So it's decreasing the rate at which telomeres shorten?
Ian: Just exactly.
Ben: Have they researched it at all? I mean, like has anybody actually studied this stuff?
Ian: There's been a lot of study internally with this company and they have had, I mean the testimonies are off the charts. They have, they have rolled it up privately through medical doctors and naturopaths, and the results, I mean we can't even, I can't even talk about the claims, ‘cause it would be immediately categorized as a medicine.
Ben: Where can I get it?
Ian: You get it from me. I'll send you some for sure.
Ben: Okay. We can talk. ‘Cause I'm like, the older I get the more I'm really, really getting into this concept of longevity and anti-aging, not ‘cause I'm grasping at trying to necessarily like, you know, selfishly live as long as possible, but I want to feel really, really good during the days that I am on this planet and so anything like this perks up my ears, you know, from, from a [1:10:53] ______ to this phytoplankton that I know we've talked about before and these plants sterols sound very interesting too. So I'm gonna have to look into this. You've got, got all sorts of things in that little black leather bag and I know that you've got your, what your website is Activation Products, I'll link to that in the show notes. We talked about metabolic theory of cancer, and I read a really interesting book on that recently called Tripping Over The Truth. I'll link to that in the show notes as well as Dr. Simoncini's website on mold and fungus, this concrobium mold control spray you talked about, I'll link over to Dr. Stiteler's website where there's some photographs of him doing this, this pose that you mentioned, some information on dry fasting. If you send me over that power point, I'll put that in the show notes for folks, the XISER StairMaster. And, Ian, I swear I got to get you back on the show because I really, honestly only scratched the surface of some of the stuff that I wanted to ask you, but in the meantime, folks, if you were listening in, visit the show notes and visit Ian's website which I'll to in the show notes and I'll put all that over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/ianclark. That's bengreenfieldfitness.com slash I-A-N Clark, and I mean if, even if you don't do anything, just go read his blog and I would say if you're gonna try any of the stuff that Ian uses, you know, from what I would recommend, I'd try his phytoplankton. I'll link to the phytoplankton podcast that I did with, with him as well. So I may have to go, go lay on my back in that little pose for 30 minutes after this, Ian, to see what that reboot feels like, but in the meantime, thanks for coming on the show, man, and sharing this stuff with us.
Ian: Yeah, I really appreciate you taking the time and having me on the show, Ben. It's been a lot of fun, and I look forward to sharing more into the future and just one, closing note, the Dr. Filonov, actually my partner, Vic, my business partner has been doing all that work. Filonov is the key guy.
Ben: Okay.
Ian: There's a couple of other ones, I was just looking it up because it’s the, missed in reality.
Ben: Okay.
Ian: And the e-book is translated into partial English.
Ben: I think that's the one that I just linked to on the show notes, so that one would be there too. Awesome. I love this stuff. Alright. Well, cool. Folks, thanks for listening in and again you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/ianclark. Ian, thank you so much for giving your time and for coming on the show today.
Ian: Yeah. Thank you, Ben. It's been a pleasure.
Ben: Alright, folks. Well, this is Ben Greenfield and Ian Clark signing out from bengreenfieldfitness.com. Have a healthy week.
You’ve been listening to the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast. Go to bengreenfieldfitness.com for even more cutting-edge fitness and performance advice.
[End of Podcast]
I first met today’s podcast guest at a health conference four years ago.
I happened to be sitting across the dinner table from him, and watched as he pulled out the mysterious leather satchel that I’d seen him carrying all weekend long. He opened the satchel to reveal tiny bottles of black oil, dropper bottles full of dark, green algae-like goo, mineral salts, and all kinds of other strange substances which he proceeded to use to “dress-up” his dinner.
Later, I learned his name – Ian Clark – and invited him on my podcast to talk about that green algae goo, which turned out to be marine phytoplankton.
I also learned that back in 2004, at the age of 46, when he was hit with a series of life threatening health issues, obesity, and a prediction from physicians that he only had about two years left to live, Ian refused to accept life’s traditional circumstances and decided to pursue more natural methods of restoring perfect health.
Ian began traveling all over the world to discover strange, new health products while developing relationships with top labs and researchers in the fields of natural healing. Now operating out of a farm in Canada with his five sons and the support of an entire team of innovators at Activation Products Canada and Activation Germany, his company has become a significant manufacturer of unique products like magnesium spray, black seed oil, marine phytoplankton and much more.
In today’s podcast with Ian, you’ll discover:
-The genetic illness that nearly killed Ian back in 2004 and led to his journey of interest in natural healing…
-How you can personally “equip” your body to deal with mold and fungus (and the shocking link between mold, fungus and cancer)…
-How Ian has created his own micro-universe to heal his body…
-One specific pose you can hold for 30 minutes a day for two weeks to “reboot” your autonomic nervous system…
-The small exercise machine that Ian swears by and keeps in both his home and his office…
-A new form of fasting called “dry fasting”…
-What Ian uses as a “smart drug” to stay hyper-awake and alert…
-The reason Ian sprays his entire abdomen with magnesium prior to bed at night…
-Why Ian travels everywhere with a black leather bag, and what he keeps in it…
-And much more!
Resources from this episode:
–The Ultimate Superfood You’ve Probably Never Heard Of (previous phytoplankton podcast with Ian)
–Tripping Over The Truth book on the metabolic theory
–Concrobium mold control spray
–Dr. Filonov Dry Fasting resources
Read more https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2016/05/ian-clark-podcast/