May 22, 2013
Podcast #241 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2013/05/241-should-you-exercise-before-sleep-what-is-the-best-standing-desk-why-your-big-toe-is-important-and-more/
[0:00:00]
Introduction: In today’s episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast: How does exercise affect sleep, how fast can cholesterol go down, is freezing raw milk bad, what’s the best way to run the stairs, what is the best standing desk, and why is your big toe important?
Brock: Well, what’s up man?
Ben: I just had an amazing cocktail for breakfast.
Brock: Taking the edge of the day already?
Ben: My mind is spinning. So I’ve got a juicer and I made carrot-ginger-lemon juice and I had it over ice with tea and chi with my Chinese adaptogenic herb complex mixed in and I know that sounds really funky but like it was awesome.
Brock: No, that sounds real delicious. Those are flavors that go really well together.
Ben: I’m in cloud freakin’ nine right now and carrot pulp that you have leftover after you juice, it’s dehydrating right now, the dehydrator. And so when we finish up the podcast, I’m gonna make myself some carrot pancakes with the carrot pulp.
Brock: Crazy.
Ben: Yeah, with the dehydrated carrot pulp which you could use as like a flour almost. So aren’t I just the coolest-little nerded out-vegan-plant power-based dude today?
Brock: You are. I’m ashamed to admit that I had meat for breakfast and for lunch.
Ben: If it’s any consolation, I’m making liver and bacon on Saturday night so.
Brock: Awesome.
News Flashes:
Brock: Make sure to go over bengreenfieldfitness.com/241 and scroll down to the news flashes and you can find links to these super cool and (well hopefully super cool) and I haven’t heard….
Ben: Super.
Brock: I assume they’re gonna be super cool..
Ben: Super sexy today. You know I..
Brock: Super sexy..
Ben: I had that, that special episode last week, the sex and drive episode and my apologies to anyone who was offended by me talking about sex and drive. But..
Brock: If they tuned in, it’s their own damn fault.
Ben: That’s right. A few news flashes that are coming on the tail end of that, that I tweeted out about this week. The first was that if you are one of those people whose digging around at the bargain bin of your local supplements outlet or internet website and you just kinda, kinda picking these supplements that are purported to enhance drive or improve the quality of your sex life or something like that, you need to be careful. There’s a study that came out last week and what they did was they actually investigated all these different herbal you know, sexual performance inhancement dietary supplements and this came out in the journal of sexual medicine actually and what they found was that a high high number of these products were actually not only laced with extra things that weren’t supposed to be in the products but specifically, what I thought to be most interesting was that many of them contained Sildenafil or Tadalafil. And that’s the active ingredient in Viagra. So essentially you may be, without knowing it, actually consuming Viagra in these performance enhancement “herbal” type of supplements and you know, you may wonder why that would be a bad thing. Well the main thing..
Brock: Yeah, that’s sounds like a cheap way to get some Viagra.
Ben: These are pharmaceutical derivatives when you’re looking at them being laced with these type of compounds and so when you’re looking at specifically the health of your liver, it’s just something to be aware of. This is something you’re taking everyday. I’m non-enemy of Viagra or something like that but you do need to understand that your liver d0es have to process chemicals like that. So FYI, just kinda be careful and these are specifically supplements that fell into the $2.99 – 17.99 range. So kinda like the cheap bargain you know, herbal sex enhancing supplements. Careful with those.
Brock: That’s crazy. That seems like it’s really counter-productive like their putting something in thegenerally-cost-a-little-bit more but then their selling it for really cheap.
[0:05:05.0]
Ben: Yeah. And they’re like labeled as herbal or all-natural and it’s just false labeling so FYI,heads up. Pun intended.
Brock: Use that information at your own discretion.
Ben: There you go. Now along the same lines, and I promise this entire episode is not about sex but I just had a few tweets go out that I wanted to clarify. A good Viagra alternative for those of you who are interested in some of those positive effects that actually taking a pharmaceutical. There was another study that came out a couple of weeks ago on saw palmetto extract which is actually something that you can find at many health food stores and in herbal form or tincture form if you’re to order it. It’s very easy to hunt down saw palmetto extract. But that actually had very very good efficacy to be able to enhance your, as the scientist would say, erectile response. Much similarly, as something like Viagra so it can be used for the prevention or treatment of erectile dysfunction also to enhance the experience a little bit so there’s something else.saw palmetto extract.
Brock: So when they say enhance, does that mean that you need to have a bit of a, or some whatever response there already to enhance like, I know Viagra can start to take you from 0 to 100. Is this more like take you from 20 to 100?
Ben: No, it would be similar to Viagra in that if you are having difficulty with that particular area of your health in thefirst place, it could help with that. So…
Brock: Wow, that’s great.
Ben: Exactly. And then interestingly, for you guys who already have your ears, possibly other body parts, perked up, you can know that you will wanna put down the plastic if you wanna keep those testosterone levels elevated because a study that came out again this month looked at sex hormone levels specifically in men and BPA concentration. And what they did was they measured the BPA concentration which is something very very easy. You can get like a urinary BPA test to a company like Direct Labs and literally get a kit sent to your home. What they found was that BPA exposure was significantly associated with lower free testosterone levels, decreased free androgens, and increased levels of what’s called sex hormone binding globulin which binds all these active hormones in your blood stream and makes them less likely to be as potent as they could be. So interestingly, one of the top sources of BPA, that I think kinda flies under the radar but for this specific type of what are called phalates that were observed in this study, it’s clone. Interesting. So I know, that’s kind of a catch 22 cause we all like to think of you know, the Axe Body Spray as you know, the thing that’s gonna cause you to be tackled by a bevy of scantily clad cheerleaders but it turns out that fragrances are probably not all that great for your testosterone and your sex hormone levels and that would be true for…..
Brock: So you mean that advertising is lying to us? What?
Ben: That would be true for both men and women. So you know, you could be stinky and have great testosterone levels or you could smell great but not really be able to perform your call so…..
Brock: So BPA is basically the devil. It’s giving us cancer, it’s ruining our hormones, it’s….
Ben: Yeah. And it’s interesting because there’s another podcaster in the health sector, his name is Chris Kresser. Great guy. I’ve had the opportunity to hang out with him a little bit at some conferences and had the pleasure of meeting him at places like the Ancestral Health Symposium and I know he’s been writing a little bit about how this whole BPA thing is blown out of the water and how it’s probably not all bad for you but you know, I called him out on his latest study. I actually tweeted him and never heard back but I’d be interested to see if he ends up writing something about this too because this is the study that shows the definite drop in hormonal status in guys who had this BPA exposure so it’s interesting stuff and yeah, I figure we can, we could probably stop talking about sex baby, now because I have one other quick news flash that has absolutely nothing to do with any of the previous topics we are just talking about.
[0:10:03.4]
Brock: So I’m putting my pants back on.
Ben: TMI. Heart rate variability measurements. Many folks who are listening to this podcast may know that every morning I measure what’s called my heart rate variability which looks at the strength of your nervous system. Really really cool measurement. And I use the SweetBeat system to do that and I’ll be sure to put a link to that in the show notes. But what I recently discovered from the kind folks over at sweetbeat was that where as I was under the impression you have to have this special dongle that you attach into the end of your iPhone and then a heart rate monitor, and then the sweetbeat phone app on your app. If you have one of these handy-dandy bluetooth-enabled heart rate monitor straps, I guess the Polar H7 is the most popular of those, then you don’t need the little dongle that attaches into your iPhone. And I happen to know this because I traveled over to New York last week, actually a few days ago, and I lost that dongle at some point during my travel. I wrote to SweetBeat and I was like where shall I replace this, is there an alternative and they said well, all you need is this bluetooth heart rate monitor so I’ve got my Polar H7 on the way and I wanted to let folks know that if you’re trying to monitor your heart rate variability, that’s one, I mean there’s multiple ways to do it but that’s one way it’s with this Polar H7 combined with the SweetBeat app so…..
Brock: That’s great news cause I actually, I’ve been using the Azumio Stress Check to do my heart rate variability.
Ben: And all that’s…. Is that the camera lens?
Brock: Yeah, it uses the camera and the flash and you just hold your finger in front of it and it really, it’s not giving me…. Every morning it’s 2%. Like that’s my stress is 2%, sometimes it’s 1%. I came back from a 3-hour brick the other day, and I was at 20% so it does measure something but it’s really not giving me that accurate stuff so I’ve been really interested in trying the Sweet Beat but just all the components, having to have the dongle, the strap, the phone, everything is a bit of a, a bit of a turnoff.
Ben: I agree. And for those of you who wannakinda geek-out on heart rate variability and SweetBeat measurement, in the recent post that I did, which is an interesting post anyways, on the damage that happened to my body after the back-to-back triathlons I did. I reported also on what happens to your nervous system and the folks over SweetBeat had a full-on analysis actually for the past, like few months of my heart rate variability and there’s some really interesting data there in terms of kinda what happens in terms of your sympathetic fight and flight nervous system and your parasympathetic rest and digest nervous system and how, how you can, if you’re taking your heart rate variability readings every morning, really track whether or not you’ve overworked that sympathetic nervous system, whether or not the parasympathetic nervous system is over trained or drained and you can really glean some very very useful data from these type of measurements and they’re so easy to get your hands on, on these type of measuring these days that I think it’s, it’s definitely a cool thing to look into so.
Special Announcements:
Brock: So Mr. Webinar is at it again.
Ben: Mr. Webinar.
Brock: Do you mind if I call you Mr. Webinar?
Ben: No, why not?
Brock: So May 30th……
Ben: probably if I haven’t had carrot juice this morning I would have irked me but yeah.
Brock: They’re reaching me through skype and throttling me right now.
Ben: May 30th. I’m teaching a USA Triathlon Webinar and we’ll put a link to it over in the show notes at bengreenfieldfitness.com/241 but it’s called “Balancing Work, Life, and Triathlon” and it teaches folks who are doing triathlon, kinda how to merge your love for the sport of triathlon with family and social obligations and friends and hobbies and you know, other activities. Whether that be playing the guitar or sky diving or as in Brock’s case, eating poutine while skating about his backyard hockey rink in Canada. But either way, we’ll give you the proper strategies, and tips, and tricks to kinda help you balance time and training so that’s a USA triathlon webinar. That’s May 30th, I believe that’s a Thursday at 2PM Pacific time. It’s right smack dab conveniently in the middle of your work day.
Brock: Right in the middle of your workday.
Ben: So there you go.
Brock: Just to make your life a little more stressful.
Ben: For all of you unemployed triathlon junkies out there.
Brock: I’m guessing the webinar would be archived and people would be able to watch it at a later date, right?
Ben: It will be archived, or as we say, here in the States archived, also, speaking of triathlon, the Thailand, the 2013 Thailand Triathlon Adventure is well under way in its advance planning stages and for those of you who are interested who wanna show up early, who have nothing better to do than spend your 3 weeks of November and December in Thailand, I’m working on tacking on an extra 4 days where, leading up to that first race, we’re gonna do a bunch of like, triathlon clinics and training and learn about nutrition and fitness and diet and kinda how to get the edge and endurance and life and health.
[0:15:41.6]
Lots of cool little seminars and workshops with me but we’re gonna do that at this special place called Thanyapura and Thanyapura is this high-end training resort in Phuket, Thailand. It’s literally like a few minutes away from the race site so it will all be on top of where we’ll all be anyways but they’ve got this health center that has all this natural pads on stuff and they focus on this natural holistic approaches to treating illness and kinda giving you a bunch of these really cool recuperative powers, they’ve got some Asian medicine there, some anti-stress, anti-aging techniques so really really cool health packages they have there and then they also have a mindfulness center where you learn some advanced you know, like how to get your alpha brainwaves up regulated, getting into the zone type of techniques and so I’m going to make it so we can spend 4 days there prior to starting our kinda 2 week triathlon adventure. So normally, to do the 2013 Thailand Triathlon Adventure, it’s $400 and we’ll put a link in the show notes where you could register if you want to tack on those extra 4 days, it’s an extra 400. And I think it’s gonna be a really really cool life-changing experience for the folks who wanna join in on that part of the trip. But of course if you’re listening in and you have questions about any of this just let me know. I mean, it’s all flexible in terms of the dates you can go and stuff like that but as Brock can attest to, just the fact that we’re all gonna learn how to make Pad Thai together is a great reason to head over.
Brock: Anything involving Thai food, I’m all over it.
Ben: There you go. And what else do we have? Oh the brand new….
Brock: The gear.
Ben: Yeah, the gear.
Brock: New gear. So if you’re going to Thailand, you can look fantastic while you’re there.
Ben: With the brand new Ben Greenfield Fitness Triathlon gear. So if you’re a fan of the website, we’ll put a link in the show notes but we’ve got a brand new clothing store up where you can get like running shirts and workout shirts and all sorts of cool stuff you can wear to the gym, to make all of your gym buddies jealous about your cool threads. And we got a promo code for it: 20% off on that store. The promo code (drumroll please)
Brock: That was a terrible…
Ben: The cash register sound effect. It’s BG Promo 13. BG Promo 13. So, and then the last thing, before we jump into this week’s Q&A, is very exciting news. We’ve been working on this for like the past 2 months but the brand new Ben Greenfield Fitness phone app is almost ready to launch. We’re still waiting on apple for the official launch day but this thing is jam-packed with content that you’re not gonna get anywhere else other than the phone app. So we’ve got like a bunch of videos with Brock doing kick-butt product reviews, we’ve got a bunch of extra videos from me right now. Just as part of the launch week for the app we’ve got stuff like how to use an inversion table, I’ve got bike fueling setup scenarios for all the different distances in triathlons, as well as like travel checklists, for you know, what to eat or what to take with you when you travel, we’ve got extra PDFs and audios and videos from people like Dave Asprey and Ray Cronise, and Monica Reinagel, the nutrition diva. A bunch of stuff. It’s jam-packed in that app. And then also, the app includes premium content. In the premium content, it’s really really steep, shocker on the price, 10 bucks a year to access the premium content but that is an extra episode every single month and extra full-on podcast episode with Jessa and I called “The Naked Truth” along with a bunch of insider interviews that I’m doing with guest experts for example this next month it’s me and Rich Roll. For anybody who’s in on the premium part of the brand new app launch so stay tuned for all that we’ll release it. We just wanted to play a little teaser for you from “The Naked Truth” with Jessa Greenfield.
Brock: Like Yeah.
[0:20:11.2]
Jessa: So it’s a huge temptation for me so if I don’t *beep* a pretty substantial amount….
Ben: If you didn’t though, I think that you, but you could still do your stuff like get, whatever *beep* online *beep* jerky….
Jessa: Yeah. You’re really good at your job and you’re really focused on that but *beep* I just want everyone to know the first time I ever met Ben was in his underwear. *beep*
Ben: What?
Jessa: Yes. *beep* I knocked on your house *beep* and there’s a bunch of guys there *beep* and I was mad.
Listener Q&A:
Paul: Hi Ben and Brock, Paul here. Long time listener and a quick question. I’ve been listening to a number of the podcast recently and you’ve been addressing the idea that we don’t need necessarily 8 hours of continuous sleep. You can sleep for 4 hours and you wake up, just go ahead and get up, since you’re refreshed, do something and you can always go back to bed. You know, always listen to your body and do what the body needs and I found that they happen quite often. I’ll go to bed, I’ll sleep for 4 hours or so and I’ll wake up and be ready to get up for an hour or 2. The problem is, what I was thinking about doing is, do you think that time to actually engage in training? If I went out and ran, let’s say I go to sleep, try to get to bed a little early, 8, 9 o’clock, I wake up at 1 o’clock in the morning feeling pretty good, get out, go out for a run, come back from that, don’t eat, go back to sleep if I can and then get up and have a normal breakfast when I wake up. And I don’t know if it’s somehow in a fasted state working through the glycogen after the run. Curious what your thoughts would be about what impacts that might have on the body, if it would be beneficial for fat loss or the like. Again, love the show. Thank you so much and take care. Bye.
Brock: I love this idea. I seriously do. I wake up in the middle of the night quite often and I’m always like should I read, should I go and do some work, should I, what should I do but training, especially in the summer, that’s awesome.
Ben: Kinda, I mean, for me I guess all I ever thought about when I wake up and I feel like getting up is either eating or reading. Now, one thing that you wanna be careful with is you are gonna exercise, make sure you don’t do anything that’s gonna affect your hormone levels. That would affect your ability to get back to sleep meaning don’t go exercise in a bright room with a bunch of artificial light and you know, try not to get exposed to too much EMF, meaning like you know, I would stay off you know, the whole treadmill you know, computer scenario or like, you know, sitting on a bike trainer while staring at a computer screen, stuff like that. You know, if you’re gonna exercise, I’d be doing, you know, if it was me, I’d be going out for like a light run outside, you know.
Brock: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of.
Ben: Fresh air, or maybe you know, going out in the garage, lifting weights a little bit or something like that.
Brock: So lifting weights wouldn’t cause a hormone eruption?
Ben: Well the…. hormone eruption.
Brock: That’s the wrong adjective.
Ben: We have a title for this podcast episode, it’s how to erupt your hormones. Here’s the deal. If your sympathetic nervous system is activated and you’re stimulating your adrenal glands to start to churn out you know, a bunch of adrenaline and cortisol, and adrenal corticosteroids, what’s gonna happen is you will be in fight or flight mode and it can be tough to get back to sleep after vigorous exercise. And there have been studies that have shown that exercise can actually help you to sleep and improve the quality of sleep but in these studies, the exercise was performed in aerobic state. And you know, there wasn’t anything like high intensity intervals or intense weight training involved. Now if you go back and you listen to the podcast episode that I did with John Douillard, the author of “Body, Mind, and Sport,” he has a fantastic, couple of pages in that book where he actually interviews a body builder who he trains and the body builder talks about how he uses John’s concept of deep nasal breathing and relaxation methods during exercise to actually keep the body from going into this full-on fight or flight mode even while doing something like lifting weights. I’ve personally, and you know, it really probably two of the most life changing books when it comes to exercise and workouts that I’ve read in the past couple of months were the “Running on Air” book which teaches you how to do rhythmic breathing while you exercise and then John Douillard’s “Body, Mind, and Sport” book which teaches you how to engage in this deep nasal breathing and almost like a Darth Vader-esque breathing for your exercising which keeps you in this, in this almost like relaxed zone state where you’re working out. And I would say that if you’re able to master that, then there shouldn’t be any issues with you getting back to sleep even if you’re exercising in the middle of you know, like 2, 4 hour sleep cycles.
[0:25:31.9]
Now interestingly, there is some evidence that melatonin taken before exercise increases fatty acid oxidation. It boosts antioxidant capacity, it enhances your immune response to exercise. Some really really cool studies and these studies were done with supplemental melatonin usually in the range of about 3-6mg of taking like a melatonin capsule. But it would be interesting to see if you were to wake up and exercise after the natural melatonin secretion that occurs you know, while you’re sleeping, if you’ve got some of those insane effects. So, yeah. You know, it’s kind of a fascinating concept when one that really hasn’t been studied obviously probably cause it’d be kind of a tough one to pull-off in a sleep lab. But you know, I’d be curious to see if there are benefits to exercising when you wake up. When you look at things from an ancestral standpoint, and this is something that Marxism talks about in this primal living book. You know, when folks would wake up, you know, like in the wee hours of the morning after about 4 hours or so of sleep, they’d be engaging in social activities, eating, and sex. And I doubt that they were, you know putting on the war paint and heading off to battle and you know like going out to whatever spear and elephant or something like that. So you know, again I would say that if you’re gonna exercise think for more as movement and relaxed physical activity more than like a full-on you know, pain cave session.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: But I think it might actually help in terms of the fat loss you know, again. You know, melatonin has been shown to up regulate fatty acid oxidation so you know, you may notice some favorable body composition changes and I would say Paul if you try this, then write into the show. Let us know how it goes. And if you, if you’re listening in and this is something you’ve tried, let us know. You know, there certainly is this concept of exercise-induced insomnia but I think that more often occurs in people who are doing something like a crossfit workout or like a really intense session before bed. In which case you can always, you know, settle down your nervous system by taking a cold shower or something like that, you know doing a little bit of yoga, that type of thing before you go to bed. But I say it’s be even better just to make sure that any exercise sessions that you’re doing before bed or in-between sleep sessions are relatively aerobic.
Brock: And that keeps in practice with the fasted workouts as well. You don’t wanna go too hard if you’re doing it in a fasted state and not that he would necessarily be in a fasted state during the workout but if he’s not going to eat until he wakes up the next time, then that certainly puts him into that probably 12-14 hour….
Ben: Yeah. Unless he’s doing carrot juice in which case that cures everything. So there you go.
Brock: Ah, carrots. What can’t you do?
Eric: Hey Ben. It’s Eric here. Looking at your blood work numbers and I noticed your cholesterol was at 230. Do you have any concerns about that but your score after the race you were at 200. I wonder if the doctors are freaking out on you.
Ben: Well, if folks are wanting to go and check out the numbers on the cholesterol, you can go do that over at bengreenfieldfitness.com and you can see that my results indeed show, I’m gonna see if I can pull ‘em up here actually while I’m talking cause I do have them somewhere. I’ve got this PDF on my computer somewhere with my results. So my….
Brock: This wellness effects sent you all that stuff in PDF after every test right? They’d give you like a really detailed report.
Ben: Yeah, my total cholesterol was 233 before and 205 after. Now understand that my LDL cholesterol was rock bottom. It was 93 before and 79 after.
Brock: And LDL is the “bad cholesterol”.
Ben: Yeah, it’s not bad but you know, just, yeah. So my low-density lipoprotein dropped and then my HDL was at 132 and that drops to 118 so understand that my total cholesterol numbers were actually functional to me having really really high HDL even though I don’t really care about total cholesterol anyways. When I’m looking at cholesterol and I see that cholesterol’s elevated on my own panel or the panels of someone who I’m working with, generally I look at a few other things. I look at the level of inflammation which indicates how likely that cholesterol is to potentially get oxidized in the blood stream. I look, which would make it more likely to kinda be dangerous for atherosclerotic risk. I look at, what’s called….
[0:30:10.1]
Brock: That’s building up a plaque in your arteries, to those of you who don’t speak doctor.
Ben: Yeah, thanks Brock. I look at Apo B which is the protein portion of a cholesterol particle which actually interacts with cell receptors and it’s the Apo B particle count which really is distinctly related to heart disease, risk, and plaque formation more than it is the total cholesterol count or even the size of the cholesterol particles. So Apo B is really important. And interestingly, Apo B fell from before the race to after the race. And then I look at also triglycerides. Like for triglyceride to be low and generally I like for triglycerides to be significantly lower than HDL. And you know, if you’re looking at your triglyceride HDL ratio you know, a lot of people say that it should be right around a 2:1. I actually look for a closer to a 1:1 or for an HDL to actually be higher than triglycerides. And in my case that was indeed the case. Now in terms of why cholesterol responded the way that it does, one really important thing for you to realize is that the majority of cholesterol that you see has very very little to do with what you eat. So when you ingest, when you take in cholesterol from many of the foods that you eat and your body produces cholesterol from those precursors in the food, you’re only looking at about 25% of your daily cholesterol levels or your cholesterol fluctuation coming from things that you eat. The rest of cholesterol, the remaining 75% of cholesterol that you know, you might see in a cholesterol measurement is made by your body. This one’s called endogenous production of cholesterol. And of course, cholesterol’s required by all your cell membranes and is required to produce steroid hormones and bile acids and everything else that your body needs for normal day to day metabolism so it makes sense that your body has the ability to be able to churn out its own cholesterol in the liver. So when you’re looking at fluctuations in cholesterol, not only can cholesterol rapidly fluctuate from day to day ultimately but you know, in my case, the fact that cholesterol dropped from before this tough back to back you know, workout to after is likely due to the fact that I actually had to use my cholesterol to repair my body and so it resulted in this drop in cholesterol. If you would’ve measured a few days later it’s possible that cholesterol would have jumped back up you know, as my liver churned out more cholesterol, you know, that’s about 75% and as I got cholesterol from my kinda lower carbohydrate higher fat diet that I eat, that’s now the 25%. But ultimately, what’s important to realize is that the cholesterol in your blood stream that you’re getting measured during tests actually has very very little to do with the cholesterol that’s actually in your artery walls. Your atherosclerotic plaque formation and really the one thing that you wanna look at to give you an idea of any type or risk is that Apo B number. And if you follow the link that I put in the article which I wrote about my interpretation of my own measurements, you’ll see that, and I’m gonna mention his name again, Chris Kresser actually has an excellent article entitled “What Causes Elevated LDL Particle Number.” And in that article he lists basically 5 common causes of an elevated LDL particle number and again folks this is called the Apo B Test. This is the most important thing to test if you’re concerned about atherosclerotic plaque related to cholesterol. And the things that can cause it to be high one would be insulin resistance, and that would be typically due to a higher carbohydrate consumption. One would be poor thyroid function and in my case, my test did indeed show that I possibly have poor thyroid function and so I followed that up with a battery of thyroid tests that I haven’t gotten the results back on yet. Infection, something like h pylori or parasite or something like that. Leaky gut, which would usually be due to you eating something that you’re allergic to like gluten, lactose, things of that nature. And then genetics. Some people actually have what’s called familial hypercholesterolemia. Biggest word that I would say today I promise.
Brock: I like it. Say it again.
Ben: And then…… Hypercholesterolemia, also known as FH conveniently.
[0:35:04.3]
And basically people who have high Apo B levels could have a mutated gene that causes that to happen. Ultimately though what this comes down to is that I’m not concerned at all about my total cholesterol measurements and it’s one of the last things I look at when I’m looking at cholesterol numbers. I look at triglycerides, I look at Apo B, I look at inflammation and those 3 measurements are way way more helpful.
Allie: Hi Ben and Brock. 2 unrelated questions. The first is for raw milk. If I buy it from a local farmer, can I freeze it in small quantities and take it out and use it later on or does freezing somehow reduce the positive effects or positive nutrients in raw milk? My second question is about cold thermogenesis. When you said you sit in a cold stream for 20 minutes, I was wondering after that 20 minutes, when you get out and you’re cold, do you do anything to warm up like take a warm shower, drink something warm or put on warm clothing or for cold thermogenesis should you just warm up naturally? Thank you very much. I’ve learned tons from this podcast so I really appreciate all your work. Bye.
Brock: I like how both of Allie’s questions have to do with some sort of cold thermogenesis.
Ben: Yeah.
Brock: One is about milk and one is about you.
Ben: So as far as freezing raw milk, you know actually I smear raw milk all over my body and then I go into cold thermogenesis. So I actually do….
Brock: Oh I thought maybe you smeared it after to warm you up.
Ben: No. Typically, before. I wonder how much bowl we could feed people on this podcast. Just as you get enhanced fat burning when you smear your body with fresh frozen raw milk. So raw milk is something that we consume. We take turns, drive into a farm with some local folks and you know, every six weeks we drive to the farm and we get the eggs and the raw milk and all that jazz, and you know the other five weeks a different family drives and we all meet up in one specific spot, grab our raw milk and take it home and hide it under the bed where the feds can’t confiscate it. But there are a few things that you need to know. First of all, when you freeze raw milk, you are going to affect some of the vitamins in it. You can get a little bit of a loss of the vitamin B compound specifically thiamin or vitamin B1. There is a little loss on retention of that. We’re talking about like 90% retention versus 100% retention if you don’t freeze it. Vitamin C, you’re looking at closer to 75% retention of vitamin C when you freeze it versus 100% in unfrozen. So there’s you know, about a 20-ishpercent loss in vitamin C content, about a 10%-ishloss in your vitamin B content. As far as probiotics, the number of beneficial bacteria definitely decline when raw milk is frozen. And that specifically will increase the longer the raw milk is frozen. After one week of freezing raw milk, you don’t see a very significant loss in probiotic content but if you’re like getting up to the 10, 15 week range, you can see a very significant loss in your beneficial bacteria like your lactobacillus, acidophilus, and bifidum, and all these compounds that make raw milk really really beneficial for you so you do get some probiotic loss. Antioxidant activity, there has been a study that has been shown that there’s a loss of the anti-oxidant activity when you freeze raw milk and those would be some of the biggies. You know, I think the main thing that a lot of people get concerned about is how when you freeze the water in the cells actually expand and potentially cause some damage to the cell walls, there could potentially be some protein and fat based damage to the raw milk when you do something like that. There’s no studies that have directly looked at like amino acid utilization from raw milk or for example fatty acid content of raw milk with raw versus freezing but there is certainly evidence that you see a drop in vitamins and you see a loss of probiotics when you freeze as well as a loss of anti-oxidant activity. So I’m a fan of not freezing you know, anal-based foods unless you absolutely have to. You know, fruits and vegetables you see a little bit less kinda damage when you freeze but I’d be careful freezing raw milk for sure.
Brock: Still sounds like it will be more beneficial than having like commercially pasteurized dairy though.
[0:40:02.9]
Ben: Yeah. You’re still gonna avoid a lot of the hormones and antibiotics and you know, the disruption of the fat globules from the pasteurization and homogenization process and all the other issues with commercial dairy so I would say frozen raw milk is at least better than commercial milk but you can always get like organic, grass-fed, milk at the grocery store. It may not be raw but that’s not that bad. You know there’s a really good book out there called “Rich Food, Poor Food,” another one that I recommend that goes into kind of the dairy section of the grocery store and it lists a lot of decent brands of like, you know, organic, grass-fed milk that you can even get at places like freakin’ Wallmart so you know, there are options out there. And then as far as cold thermogenesis, when I’m doing something like taking a cold shower or doing like an ice bath or going into a cold soak in the river to enhance fatty acid oxidation or to shut down inflammation and help my joints to recover a little bit after workout, that type of thing. I actually do kinda go out of my way to keep myself chilly for a little while after I’ve don’t the cold thermogenesis because you get downstream metabolic effects meaning you can burn a little more fat, burn a few extra calories after you finish. You know, you don’t wanna go into the pain cave and you know, be sitting on your couch in your…..
Brock: Shivering and shaking……
Ben: In your tighty-whity shivering and shaking, exactly. But you know, a perfect example is I’ll ride my bike down to the river, I’ll hop in, I’ll tool around in there 20, 30 minutes or so of you know, just a cold soak and a little bit of a swim and then you know, I’ll ride my bike back to my house you know, a good 5, 10 minutes and air will be blowing around my body and I’ll still be getting some cold effect and that type of thing. So yeah, I personally don’t really warm myself back up right away. I try on my body just generate warmth on its own so…..
Brock: The 10-20-10 cold contrast protocol that Ray Cronise taught us at the Become Superhuman event. He stressed on the cold cycle as well, to not end on the warm cycle. So you actually carry that coldness into the day and just let yourself warm up naturally.
Ben: Yeah. Exactly. And up until he gave that talk, it’s been a long time since I’ve taken a warm shower. I just always take cold showers and now I’ve come to transition to his protocol of doing about 20 seconds cold, 10 seconds warm a few times through so.
Fred: Hello Ben and Brock. This is Fred from Columbus, Ohio. Love the show. I have a question about stairs. Throughout the day at work, I try to get my heart rate up and do some stairs at work. But my question is shall be bounding up the stairs by two’s or do a steady-paced single climb or a variation in between? Thanks.
Brock: I like this question almost as much as I like Paul’s question. By working out in the middle of the night. I like the way these guys are thinking out of the box.
Ben: That’s right. Well the ultimate answer is one stair at a time is better than two stairs at a time. It has actually been studied. You burn more calories when you’re taking stairs one stair at a time and the energy cost is higher if you’re looking at this at a pure calorie burning perspective. And I personally think that might be because you spend twice as long climbing the stairs when you’re taking them one stair at a time. You also can get a little bit faster rate of muscle shortening just because you’re spending a briefer period of time in between muscle contractions when you’re climbing the stairs one stair at a time so ultimately one stair at a time. It can be better. It’s also easier on your knees because there’s a little less leverage that’s occurring you know, when you’re shoving that knee joint, that lever, father in front of your body, there’s greater torque created around that just because you’ve increased the moment arm for all you physics geeks out there so two stairs at a time or three stairs at a time is tougher on your knees. At the same time, you also get greater hamstring utilization when you’re bounding up the stairs 2 stairs, 3 stairs at a time and so if you’re training for you know, enhancing your sprinting technique or becoming a better runner and you’re looking at this, kinda above and beyond the metabolic fat-burning component, taking more stairs at a time can certainly train your running muscles a little bit better. Taking one stair at a time….
Brock: Trail runners do that a lot.
Ben: Yeah. Exactly. One stair at a time, I mean you’re gonna get a little better calf utilization, a little bit better kinda upper glute utilization depending on how tight you’re squeezing your butt cheeks as you’re climbing and of course, less strain on the knees to add a little bit calorie-burning. Now, I’ve got a couple different stair climbing workouts that I do personally. One is the football stadium stairs when I’m down at my Alma Mater you know, University of Idaho which is only 2 hours from my home and I visit there sometimes because my mom lives there and I take the kids down there for her to watch the kids while I go and play.
[0:45:09.2]
But basically the football stadium stairs all go up one flight of stairs, one step at a time, go down, go on to the next flight of stairs, take that one two at a time, go down, and just alternate in between one at a time and two at a time. The other stair workout that I do is if I’m at a hotel in a city where I don’t have access to hills to climb, I will go floor by floor. In the first floor, I’d take two stairs at a time, and the next floor I take one stair at a time, and the next floor I take two stairs at a time. If I’m doing a full body workout I’ll even stop at a landing and do pushups. In this day and age, you rarely run into a soul in the stairwell so you actually have them pretty much to yourself. But those are a couple of stair-climbing workouts that I do. Ultimately though, yeah, it’s one stair at a time if you’re looking at this from your metabolic standpoint.
Elie: Hello Ben. This is Elie from London. My job involves sitting at a desk for about 8-9 hours a day. Do you recommend any work station that can counter the effects of being in that seated position or any other ideas that might help during the office day? Thanks.
Brock: Now I guess the obvious answer would be to get a standing workstation but I’m guessing that Elie’s looking for something a little bit more in-depth.
Ben: Yeah. I do have some thoughts. Now don’t we, on the iTunes album, we have a standing workstation episode, don’t we?
Brock: Nope.
Ben: Oh, we don’t. Okay. For some reason I thought we did. We will have to add this one to the next album because Brock and I do get some questions that we tend to see over and over again like, what’s the most popular episode on the iTunes album right now?
Brock: By far, it’s the ways to stop hairloss.
Ben: Ways to stop hairloss. So, we’ll put a link to the iTunes album in the response area over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/141.
Brock: 241.
Ben: 241. Sorry, I’m living in the past. As far as standing work stations, I personally just have a cupboard in my house, like this old cupboard that I use and I set my computer on it. I don’t have any fancy standing desks that I bought just to be a standing work station. Before….
Brock: Mine’s not fancy but it’s only a tiny step above Ben’s got. Mine is just a table with extra long legs and I just bought it at Ikea. Just got a tabletop and some long legs that are adjustable so I could make it the right height but that’s all.
Ben: Yeah.
Brock: It cost me less than a hundred bucks.
Ben: And, yeah you don’t have to get fancy on this at all. And you know, not to kick a horse to death because I think this has been talked about in the media quite a bit but we know the people who sits more than 11 hours a day have a 40% higher risk of dying. People who sits, whether or not they’re exercising after work, people who sit for more than 2 hours in a row have a higher risk of chronic disease. When you’re standing, you up-regulate this cool enzyme called lipoprotein lipase that can help you do things like breakdown fats and have higher metabolism. You can also engage a lot of these tiny little core muscles that help to maintain body tone and foot strength and leg strength. And you know, it’s one of the reasons why if you’re standing 6, 8 hours a day at work and say, you’re training for marathon or triathlon, you get away with less training cause you’re really making your legs stronger while you’re standing there at work. You can do…..
Brock: As swears by it.
Ben: There you go. Yeah, and of course you do have greater risk of things like varicose veins, you know, potential issues with your knees if you’re standing improperly, that type of thing but you know, all of that can be fixed with you know, things like wearing compression socks or compression tights or ensuring that you’re using good posture when you stand. And that was something I demonstrated at the superhuman event was you know, good versus bad posture when you’re standing and you know, you definitely want more, kinda military-esque posture with your knees slightly bent, with your butt near core engaged, deep breathing, and then you want the actual work station itself set up so that, you know, your table height or your workstation height is at or slightly below your elbow height so you’re able to stand up straight as you’re working. Now, as far as the way you can go about putting a kinda standing work station together, first of all, I’m gonna link in the show notes to a great little article over at brit.co and at brit.co/standingdesks, they have 10 examples of really kinda cool, creative standing work stations. For examples, there is one that’s basically like, it’s almost like the keyboard’s on the bar stool, on like a fancy bar stool and then the monitor itself is just one of these flat screen TVs that’s attached to the wall, right? So it’s super minimalist, kinda cool.
[0:50:13.8]
I’ll put a link to this in case people want to look at them. You know, add them to your pinterest or whatever crazy, weird things you wanna do. Another one is you get a bookshelf and you on whatever shelf of that bookshelf happens to be your ideal standing height, that’s where you have everything set up is on that bookshelf. Another example that they have there is basically like taking an old like cupboard shelf or just like plank of wood and tack it on to that wall at your ideal height and literally, just like doing that, that’s another easy way you can do things. Now there are companies out there, UpDesk is a really good one. UpDesk makes a desk that goes up and down on basically like a…..
Brock: Hydraulic motor…..
Ben: Yeah. Like hydraulics. And you know, that’s one example, one where you can easily and quickly convert it from seated to standing so updesk.com would be another one to look at. There’s another one called Elevate Adjust. It’s made by a company called Anthro and that one will also go up and down. New Heights makes one called the electric sit to stand desk and it’s got a push-button height adjustment on it. Then GeekDesks. GeekDesks makes one too that will go up and down when you click on. And these are more expensive, you know, these are I think 500, 600 Dollar desks.
Brock: Yeah. So get those if your employer is paying for it.
Ben: Yeah, exactly. Probably the best one out there, and I’ll put a link to this in the show notes, what I think is the coolest one is called the Kangaroo Pro Junior because it’s not that expensive….
Brock: Cause it jumps around the room while you’re trying to workout and you have to chase it.
Ben: It has a pouch where you put your little keyboard in to. That’s 250 bucks and it goes up and down. It’s aeasy easy way to convert a regular desk into a standing work station. It’s got this adjustable steel rod on it. It’s nice and sturdy. It’s got a nice little shelf for you to put your keyboard on and yeah, it’s a pretty cool one so the Kangaroo Pro Junior is, in my opinion, a pretty good way to go. And then of course you’ve also got the option for a track desk or a treadmill desk. And I was listening, I think you showed me the link, was it you Brock? You showed me the link to the Talk of the Nation NPR Science Friday?
Brock: Oh yeah, probably.
Ben: I think you showed it. Or maybe it was the eating insects one. You always….
Brock: Oh, definitely I sent you the eating insects one.
Ben: To replace all of our eating problems by eating insects.
Brock: Boosts your metabolism. Easy.
Ben: Segue, unless fried grasshoppers while you’re standing and walking and working is your cup of tea. Treadmill desks, like the Track Desk, that’s another way to go and that’s the next modification I’m making at my office is an actual treadmill desk so I can walk while I’m working and writing and all that jazz. But yeah, those are some of the ways that you can do it and you know, I’ll put a link in the show notes to a couple of these articles that show some really cool examples of standing work stations and if you are listening in and you’ve got a standing work station that you want to send in to us, just email into the show, [email protected]. We always put together handy-dandy lists for each show and we call this MyLists and we publish them on the facebook page – facebook.com/bgfitness and we put them in the show notes to the episode and we’ll make a MyList with all of our listeners – Sweet Standing Work Stations – and publish that. So email your standing work stations to [email protected]. Again, mine’s pretty ghetto. Probably as ghetto as you get out. I just have, literally, like a cupboard and I set my computer on it and that’s it so kinda more than one way to skin a cat there. So check out the links that I’ll put in the show notes.
Brock: I just, if you don’t wanna get a standing work station, there are still things you can do to sort of minimize the damage of sitting there for 8 or 9 hours and probably the easiest would be to set an alarm and get up every hour and do something active, raise your heart rate. So if you don’t wanna stand the entire day, make sure you interrupt your sitting and do some standing and some moving around.
Ben: Yeah. The other option would be like to have some kind of a horse that you could ride while you’re working because then you’d still be getting, be clutching the horse with your legs and your core will be active. And you could probably manage to put the horse on like some kinda rope so that it would just walk circles around in your office. I guess it could even be a pony, probably. And….
[0:55:10.9]
Brock: I think a donkey would do.
Ben: Yeah.
Brock: A big dog even.
Ben: Large dog. So there you go folks. Send us photos of your donkey.
Steph: Hey Ben and Brock, this is Steph and I’m calling from Maine. I fractured my fibular sesamoid bone in my left foot several years ago. I rarely get pain in the area but this week it became so painful. I went in for some x-rays. The doctor said that my big toe has a varus deformity and so the toe is turning inward which has positioned my sesamoid where it shouldn’t be and especially on my fibular one which is taking all the brunt of my activity. He also said that a fractured sesamoid is a lot larger than the other one. The only thing I’ve been doing lately that might have caused the pain in addition to my regular weight training is I’ve been doing a little cross-country and downhill skiing and some spi classes here and there. On my feet all day at work, can’t really pinpoint anything. I don’t do any running. My doctor said I could try a steroid injection, some orthodics or off-loading it with a special foot pad. I didn’t get the steroid injection, I’m trying out the foot pad, see if it improves. He told me I shouldn’t do surgery cause removing the bone could cause instability at the big toe. If you guys have any ideas on treatment or supportive care or shoes, a bike race coming up in 4 weeks so I’m a little nervous about that as well. So thanks for any help you can give. I really love your podcast.
Brock: So how do you not know that you fractured your sesamoid bone?
Ben: Pain tolerance.
Brock: Oh that’s…
Ben: Pain tolerance. Women do have higher pain tolerance as you know.
Brock: Steph is a badass. She probably goes to fight club.
Ben: Probably. Yeah, she’s one of those people that you know, is like bleeding from her knees and her elbows after a trail run and just doesn’t even know it.
Brock: Doesn’t even care.
Ben: Deosn’t even care. So, Steph, this whole varus deformity, you ever seen one of these, Brock?
Brock: Went just online. When the question came in I actually googled some and saw some x-rays. Knarly. Knarly-looking foot bones.
Ben: It’s actually, you know it’s kinda interesting because you can have both the varus and the valgus deformity. I was kinda confused as to Steph’s question because varus actually means that your big toe normally would point straight forward but it actually deviates away from the midline. It’s away from your toes. So hallux varus made your foot deviate or your toe deviates away from the midline. And a lot of times, a fix, if you have hallux varus and this would be like a genetic abnormality, sometimes it could be caused by like, a change in the structure of your bones and your ligaments from a lot of running but you literally have to get a shoe, like a bigger toe cage and they even make shoes that are designed specifically for hallux varus. It’s a really really significant deformity. And in a surgical correction, they remove the sesamoid bone and kinda restructure the tendons that are right around that hallux varus in order to bring it back in and correct it. So I’m not sure if that was Steph was referring to because the opposite of that would be hallux valgus where your big toe is just smashed up against your other toes. And with hallux valgus, a lot of times, that can be alleviated simply with mobility exercises on the bottom of your foot which are super super important for anyone specifically because the big toe is so important. And it’s really quite neglected in terms of its importance especially if it’s like runners and folks who are on their feet a lot. Your foot has this thing called, it’s called the windlass mechanism. Have you ever heard of that Brock?
Brock: No, I like it.
Ben: So windlass is the tightening of a rope or cable. And when your foot strikes the ground, as you work through each foot strike, your plantar fascia shortens and tightens and that allows your foot to act as like this rigid lever when you push off. So this is called the windlass mechanism. And so all of your tissues kinda stiffen along the medial arch of your foot and that improves your propulsion and your efficiency when you push off the ground. And so what will happen is if you’ve got immobility in your foot, this windlass mechanism doesn’t really work, first of all, and then second of all, you can get a lot of foot pain and foot issues and you tend to have and I hear this a lot in folks, your leg kinda or your foot specifically kinda externally rotates a lot when you push off the ground and kinda swings out to the outside everytime your foot leaves the ground. And a lot of these issues are simply due to a lack of big toe mobility.
[1:00:02.5]
My favorite thing to do, and this is a recommendation that I make a lot is to get a golf ball or like a soft lacrosse ball and keep it under your desk. And work through a rolling motion right underneath your big toe. You can also adjust your big toe or manipulate your big toe with your hands, with your fingers you know, moving your big toe in all directions but this golf ball technique works really well. If you can get yourself to the point where you can stand on a golf ball, on one golf ball on either foot, I guarantee that you’ll get rid of 99% of knee pain, hip pain, foot pain, and a lot of issues that plague around simply because you’ve got lack of big toe mobility and weak feet. And this is also kind of a way you could get yourself into being able to run in minimalist shoes or you know, like minimalist footwear or barefoot running. Also, doing single-leg standing exercises where you’re doing drills, standing on one leg, one of the things that I’ll do is I’ll just walk across the room pulling my knee up to my chest with each step. And everytime I’m taking a step, I kinda raise myself up on to the front of my foot to increase that big toe mobility. So the big toe is super important primarily because if it’s immobile, you leave behind this whole windlass mechanism and you don’t get the big toe power that you’re supposed to get. So in Steph’s case, I would be working on mobility. I would be doing basically these type of golf ball exercises for the bottom of the foot, single-leg stability exercises. Foot with the larger toe cage if this is like a varus deformity where the toes come in away from the other toes. If the toe comes in towards the other toes, you know, the mobility should work on that a little bit and obviously this is medical advice. If you’ve got a sesamoid that needs to be removed, you either stop running and pick a new sport like I don’t know, rowing or golf or guitar.
Brock: But she’s actually a cyclist. That’s got…. She’s got a race.
Ben: Oh. Yeah, I thought she was….. Okay so for cycling, I mean it’s similar. You know, you basically still want to mobilize the foot, you want to mobilize the toe, that type of thing. She’s on her feet all day and then she’s doing the cycling. So basically, I would look at a cycling shoe with a bigger toe cage and then big toe mobility exercises, and I’ll put a link to a really helpful article in the show notes that’s jam packed with videos. This was an article that appeared on ironman.com website but it’s got some really cool videos and a really good kinda explanation of this whole windlass mechanism so those are some things that I would do that’s why your big toe is super important. I would not neglect your big toe and when it comes to mobility, you know for me to pass a couple of years it’s one of the most important things that I have discovered in terms of my own joint health is making sure that I keep my feet really mobile and I use this little golf ball technique even when I’m standing on my standing work station I’ll roll that golf ball down on one foot then switch to the other foot. So….
Brock: Yeah, it’s always that good one too where you stand on a towel and just in your bare feet you try to scrunch the towel up under your toes.
Ben: Yeah.
Brock: And just keep doing that, flatten the back out and do it again and it’s amazing if you do that a few times you get a pretty sore foot if you don’t have strong feet.
Ben: Exactly. So there you go.
Brock: There you go. With that, wraps it up. Make sure you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/241 for everything that we talked about. There would be links galore as usual, including….
Ben: And we’ve got, we’ve got a review. We got a review on iTunes.
Brock: Yeah, I was gonna get them to show us the love.
Ben: Oh yes. You can.
Brock: The most important link of all.
Ben: The love link. You can go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/love and if you like this do it. Go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/love. I’m not even gonna tell you what’s on that page just go.
Brock: Yeah, just go.
Ben: Just go. You’ll be pleasantly surprised. And then the other thing you could do is you could go to iTunes and leave a review. And Brock we’ve got a review this week from fitbritmom and fitbritmom if you’re listening in, let me know because just like the last 2 reviews I read, I’m gonna be sending you out a cool care package straight to your house. A Ben Greenfield Fitness care package but you wannahear what fitbrimom has to say?
Brock: I really do. And I really want you to do it up special this time.
Ben: How about a british accent since this is for fitbritmom.
Brock: Yeah that was I was hoping for.
Ben: We’ll try not to make it sound too Australian. Maybe a cockney accent.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: “I love this podcast. I get so excited when I see a new episode in my iTunes library and I just can’t wait to listen to what Ben and Brock have for me this week. They are little fitness double act and Ben is like a sponge of knowledge that I just want to squeeze.” Maybe that was a little bit Australian, wasn’t it?
[1:05:15.0]
Brock: I don’t know what it was Ben.
Ben: “If there’s anything you need to know to perform your fitness routine, any blur then Ben is your bloke. Thanks to both of you for a fantastic podcast that keeps me informed and keeps me laughing. Just one downside is that it isn’t daily so I can’t get my fix but it’s always worth the wait. Mate. Governor.” Alright.
Brock: That’s amazing. Your voice completely transformed. It became a Simpsons character.
Ben: Boom. There you go. At least it wasn’t Kermit the Frog. Well, that being said, this is Ben and Brock signing out and we will talk to you next week from bengreenfieldfitness.com. Have a great week everybody!
Ian: Hi Ben and Brock, this is Ian. You answered my question about Rosacea syndrome a few weeks ago from my father and I’ll tell you what, it took about 5 days and he went from an average of about 1 hour a night sleeping to now, he’s on an average of 6. Feels amazing. He’s taking the supplements that you recommended and he’s feeling amazing. I don’t think my mom stopped crying because obviously he was affected, her as well from sleep deprivation. But I’m really overwhelmed with your advice and I will be sure to getting my family, my brother hooked up with some ______ [1:06:45] stuff and maybe some dominator and I’m really looking forward to your future podcast and information. You guys are amazing and keep up the good work. I really really appreciate it and that, thank you very much Ben and Brock. Cheers. Bye bye.
May 22, 2013 Podcast: How does exercise affect sleep, how fast can cholesterol go down, is freezing raw milk bad, what’s the best way to run stairs, what is the best standing desk, and why is your big toe important?
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News Flashes:
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- A good reason NOT to get any sexual performance enhancement supplements out of the “bargain bin”.
- Here’s a good viagra alternative: “saw palmetto extract” – check out the study.
- Put down that plastic if you wanna keep your testosterone high, fellas.
- If you get wireless HR monitor like the Polar H7 you do not need an adapter for SweetBeat HRV monitoring: Polar H7, Sweetbeat App.
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Special Announcements:
May 30 USAT Webinar with Ben Greenfield: Balancing Work, Life & Triathlon – Discover from coach, athlete and family-man Ben Greenfield how to merge your love for the sport of triathlon with family, social obligations, friends, hobbies and other activities – without sacrificing your training or multisport success! You’ll get the proper strategies, tips and tricks to help both you, as well as any athletes or clients you coach, properly balance time and training.
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If you’re looking for a topic we covered in the past – we have released the Ben Greenfield Fitness Top Hits, Vol. 1.
Including:
1. The Benefits of Fish vs. Fish Oil
2. The Best Ways to Stop Hair Loss
3. Increase Your Hematocrit & Oxygen Levels
4. Strengthen Your Immune System & Shorten the Duration of a Cold
5. Top 10 Ways to Boost Drive
6. Get Rid of Migraines Naturally
7. Become a Curvaceous, Lean, Ripped Female Athlete Without Destroying Your Health
8. Stop Side Stitches as Fast as Possible
9. Is It Possible for a Vegan to Be a Healthy Endurance Athlete
10. How Much Water Do You Really Need to Drink Each Day
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Listener Q&A:
As compiled, edited and sometimes read by Brock, the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast “sidekick”.
Paul asks @ 00:20:59
He often sleeps for 4 hours (or so) and then wakes up for a couple hours in the middle of the night and is thinking of using that time for training. If he went to bed early (8 or 9:00), slept for 4 hours, woke up, trained, and went back to sleep and didn’t eat until he woke up in the morning would that qualify as fasted workout? Would that be helpful for fat loss? Any other thoughts on that idea?
Eric asks @ 00:28:25
He saw the blood work numbers that you posted online and is wondering if you have any concerns about your cholesterol being at 230 before the race and 200 after. Were the doctors “freaking out on you”?
Allie asks @ 00:35:27
Wants to know if freezing raw milk harms it in any way or reduces the positive effects? Also, after doing cold thermogenesis (on yourself, not the milk) do you do anything to warm yourself back up or just let it happen on its own?
Fred asks @ 00:42:39
He tries to take the stairs as often as he can at work to get his heart rate up but is wondering if there is a better way. Bounding up the stairs by two? Steady pace single climb? A combination of both?
Elie says @ 00:46:01
He sits at a desk for 8 to 9 hours a day and is wondering if you have any suggestions of work stations that can counter being in the seated position? Or any other suggestions that will help during the work day.
~ In my response to Elie, I mention:Kangaroo Pro Junior, The best Standing Desks, Brit.co, UpDesk, Standing treadmill desks on Amazon (including TrekDesk), and also the iTunes album.
Steph asks @ 00:55:20
She fractured her fibular sesamoid bone a few years ago (doesn’t know how) and has rarely gotten pain in the area but this week it got bad enough that she went in for an X-ray. The doc said that the big toe on that foot has a verus deformity that is turning her toe inward, pushing on the other bones. He also said that the fractured sesamoid is much larger than the other ones. She is on her feet all day at work, has been doing some downhill and cross country skiing. She doesn’t run. Doc said she could try steroid injections or a foot pad / orthotic. What else could she try?
~ In my response I mention the Ironman “Try PT: Big Toe Power” article.
And don’t forget to go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/love!