Episode #299 – Full Transcript

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Podcast Episode#299 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2014/11/299-does-a-vegetarian-diet-reduce-sperm-count-cell-phones-and-brain-cancer-what-is-a-good-hrv-number/

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Introduction:  In this episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast:  Does A Vegetarian Diet Reduce Sperm Count, Cell Phones and Brain Cancer, The Best Place To Live For An Active Lifestyle, How To Naturally Increase HCL Production, What Is A Good Heart Rate Variability Number, Meat Broth vs. Bone Broth, and much more.

Welcome to the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast.  We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, sleep, brain, and hormone optimization.  So whether you’re an Ironman triathlete or you just wanna shed a few pounds, get ready for non-run-of-the-mill cutting edge content from bengreenfieldfitness.com.

Brock:  Shalom, man!

Ben:  Hey!  Yo!  Shalom!

Brock:  Did I say that right?  Shalom, Shalom…

Ben:  I think that’s one of those Hebrew words that is easy to say correctly ‘cause you don’t have to sound like you’re spitting up a hairball when you say it.  Unlike say uh, L’chaim.  Which I said plenty of time over in the past week in Tel Aviv because I pretty much drank copious amounts of wine and cocktails every night over there.  And it was amazing, by the way, amazing.  I’m sure that our listeners perhaps listened to the last two podcasts that I released from Israel.  If you didn’t, go back and listen to ‘em because I took away a lot of really interesting, a lot of good tips as far as the whole health, wellness, and nutrition scene over there.  So, check those out, go back and listen to those two episodes.  It’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/Israel and bengreenfieldfitness.com/whycancer and they kinda go over some over the stuff that I found over in Israel that I think you’ll find helpful but speaking of bringing things back from Israel, Brock…

Brock:  Did you bring me a present?

Ben:  We have a little Ben Greenfield…

Brock:  Did you bring me a camel?

Ben:  We have a little Ben Greenfield Fitness meet up over there.  I did not even see any camels over there by the way.  Lots of goats.

Brock:  They do have real cities and not everybody rides a camel on it.  All the stuff we see in Disney films.

Ben:  Yes, it’s not the Middle East from Aladdin, Brock.

Brock:  No.  I know.

Ben:  Anyways though, olive oil.  There’s lots of olive oil there as you can imagine.

Brock:  Oh, I bet it’s delicious too.

Ben:  It’s delish!  And, I actually released a video of one of the olive oil farms that we went to and the shocking news that you actually really can cook olive oil at high temperatures.  I’ll put a link to that, that video.  Yeah, extra virgin olive oil, you can cook at high temperatures.  Brand new research…

Brock:  But it just smokes like crazy.

Ben:  No it doesn’t.  Brand new research that just came out of California showing the type of extra virgin olive oils that you can use.  If it’s the really cloudy stuff, with lots of polyphenols and flavonoids, and antioxidants that comes in like those glass, non-transparent bottles that actually has a really high smoke point and it does not get oxidized when you heat it.  So, this is brand new news to me and I actually got – I caught on video the olive oil a researcher going over all this and I just uploaded it to Youtube.  So, I’ll put a link to it in the show notes.  It’s over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/299 but a funny story about that, we had a little Ben Greenfield fitness meet-up in Tel Aviv.  The night before I came home and one of our listeners brought me a bottle of olive oil as a gift.  Like a nice glass bottle of olive oil.

Brock:  Nice.

Ben:  And as we were rushing through the airport, rushing through JFK, right, we just arrived back in the States where you re-check your bags, you know, travelling internationally gonna grab your bags and re-check them.  Somehow, that bottle of olive oil broke inside the bag.

Brock:  No!  No!

Ben:  So I’m running through the airport, right, and I got this olive oil bag like dripping behind me as I’m running through the airport.  When we arrived to re-check our bags, and we hear like all this commotion behind us.  And loud sounds of vacuuming machines, and like a Hazmat type of clean-up crew and they’re following this kinda piss colored trail of olive oil over the linoleum and I’m kind of nervously gulping because I can see that the trail of olive oil leads directly to my feet and this entire clean-up crew At JFK thought of course that they’re probably cleaning up some type of urine or human body fluid.

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So, they’re basically following all the way to me and in front they get to me, and I was very straight forward with them, and I said – well, I have a bottle of olive oil here in my bag that appears to be broken open.  So I took it out, threw it away.  I actually stuck my hand in it and just like took a big handful of it and ate it right there in the airport ‘cause I want to at least see what it tasted like.  And then, I wipe the olive oil off my face, and lovingly said goodbye to it, and left the hazmat crew to clean-up the highly toxic olive oil from the JFK airport and…

Brock:  And all the people who had wiped out in the puddles of olive oil.

Ben:  That’s right and I smelled like a giant pizza for the rest of the trail.

Brock:  Uhmm, delicious!

News Flashes:   

Brock:  Now, even though you have been on several different continents in the last few weeks, you have been churning out all kinds of stuff over at twitter.com/BenGreenfield and Facebook and so on.  Wanna highlight some of the cool ones that you’ve been talking about?

Ben:  Some of the cool stuff.  Yeah.  Actually, of course I did just published last week a podcast on cancer.  Why you get cancer, what you can do about it.  And…

Brock:  Yeah, that was very powerful.  I enjoyed that one.

Ben:  It was!  And it was more focused on the emotional and stress components of cancer, and how our 24/7 rush lifestyle can potentially suppress disease and cause tumor formation, and the actual research that’s behind that but this particular tweet that I sent out was not focused on emotions and stress.  It was focused on cell phones and a brand new study that showed use of cell phones link with brain cancer.  This was a massive study out of Sweden, and what they found was that talking on cell phones can be related to brain cancer.  They literally studied thousands of people and found that the longer a person uses a cell phone, the more likely that they are to get gliomas which are type of tumor found in the brain and the spinal cords.  And the risk is 3 times higher after a couple decades of using a cell phone.  And of course, we’re now dealing with the first generation that’s been using cell phones for a couple of decades, right?  So, it’s the first time…

Brock:  Happy me.

Ben:  … that they’re able to come up with this.  So yeah, I mean, yet more evidence that it may be a good idea for you not only to mitigate your use of a cell phone but also when you’re gonna use one, do what do use an air tube headset which means that it’s this cable that plugs in your phone, sound travels in tubes of air up to your head and your cell phone never has to go near your head.  So, I’ll link to this new study in the show notes but…

Brock:  So you’ve got stethoscope for your phone.

Ben:  Yes, and if you’re listening to this podcast, through like the Apple podcasting app, and it’s all up to your ear, you should probably put that down right away.

Brock:  I’m now starting using my phone like the old Spanish ladies I see in the neighborhood that hold it like out in front of their face and shout into it.

Ben:  Uhmm, uhmm, that’s what my wife does ‘cause I don’t think she’s figured out how to use the headset yet.  So, she just kinda shouts under the speaker.  So, she can’t really ever have a private conversation.

Brock:  Who needs privacy?

Ben:  I guess we might as well break the ice here and talk about the vegetarian diet.  Did you hear about this one?

Brock:  Well, I saw the extreme [0:08:19.1] ______ that ensued on the facebook page when you posted this.

Ben:  Oh my gosh!  The new study that shows that the vegetarian diet does something terrible to men, I guess that men are interested in having children.  And…

Brock:  Yeah.  In my opinion, that’s not an issue.

Ben:  Well, here’s the deal.  There’s Loma Linda, the University, right?  Loma Linda the University is like a Seventh Day Adventist university and so, it’s of course, a vegan/vegetarian institution and they monitored meat-eaters as well as vegetarians and vegans between 2009 and 2013 in hope of course, since it’s was research done by Loma Linda and under assumptions that vegetarians sperm would be healthy.  But what they found and I quote from the study author is this: “We found that diet does significantly affects sperm quality.  Vegetarian and vegan diets are associated with much lower sperm counts than omnivorous diets.  Although these people are not infertile, it is likely to play a factor in conception particularly for couples who are trying to conceive naturally, the old fashioned way.”  How about the…

Brock:  With the turkey baster?

Ben:  The old-fashion way of the turkey baster.  So, they found that vegetarians had 30% lower concentrations of sperm, that their sperms are weaker in terms of movement or motility.  And so, for vegetarians, only 30% of their sperm were active compared to 60% of sperm being active in their meat-eating counterparts.  So, there were couple kinda explanations that they thought that may, say, why this should be the case.  One was the possibility of like a shortage of vitamin B12 – vitamin B12 helps to breakdown estrogen which can help to maintain a high sperm count.

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This is the same reason that women have like estrogen dominance, a lot of times can benefit from vitamin B12 or vitamin B12 injections.  It turns out that in a vegetarian or vegan who’s may be not including say like, spirulina, chlorella, some type of a B12 supplementation that might be why the sperm count is lower.  They found that pesticides might be a factor, just because more fruits, more vegetables in a vegetarian or vegan could cause increased consumption of pesticides if they’re not being careful about where they’re getting their fruits and vegetables.  And then, soy.  It’s possible that high consumption of soy in a vegan or vegetarian could impact sperm quality.  So, I think that one of the important things to bear in mind here though is that just like anything, if you look at a vegan or vegetarian diet that’s low in B12, that tie in non-organic produced consumption that’s got a lot of pesticides on it, and then also as high in soy, we got that’s a vegan or vegetarian diet done the wrong way.  Alright, so in contrast…

Brock:  Yeah, that’s not a good one.

Ben:  Yeah, in contrast more supplementation, use of vitamin B12, consumption of organic, non-herbicide, non-pesticide laden fruits and vegetables, uhm, only consumption of like fermented soy, like miso and tempe, and nato, like I still think and I’ve always say this, that you could do a vegan diet right or you could do a vegetarian diet right, and incidentally like the whole time I was in Tel-Aviv, I had meat twice like the entire trip was almost entirely vegan.  You know, falafel, chick peas, and hummus, and seeds and nuts, and fantastic rare foods.  And I felt great but that again, was a vegan diet done the right way.  So, yeah.

Brock:  I think all our listeners, all of our vegetarian and vegan listeners are doing it the right way.  So, they’re probably not having this problem.

Ben:  Yeah, and in the simple way now…

Brock:  I’m sucking up to our listeners because I don’t wanna answer all bunch of angry emails!

Ben:  I did my own sperm count, a huge favor this morning, actually.  And that’s why I was about half hour late to our podcast recording this morning.

Brock:  You were choppin’ the wood?

Ben:  I actually decide to a…

Brock:  Do somethin’ manly?

Ben:  I decide to get up early, and go hunting this morning and I got about 180 pound buck at about 7:30AM this morning.  So, I was out there field dressing it and it’s actually the – it’s the biggest buck that I’ve gotten yet.  So it took me quite a while to field dress and to – then I got it quite work out in getting a buck to my truck and then getting it into my truck and so anyways…  my sperm…

Brock:  That’s the size of me.

Ben:  It was a big animal, I mean, it wasn’t like an elk or anything like that but it was a big animal, and it was…

Brock:  How long do you think it will take you field dress me?

Ben:  To field dress you?  I don’t wanna field dress you, Brock.

Brock:  Okay, fair enough.

Ben:  I don’t wanna field dress you for a little while, I still honestly stink a little bit.  It’s like – I don’t know, if you field dress an animal there’s like this smell that’s kinda like stays on you.  It permeates you, and yeah, anyways.  I don’t wanna…

Brock:  Anyways…

Ben:  I don’t wanna gross people out.  So, I’ll stop there.

Brock:  Sorry vegetarians and vegans… not only your sperm low but now you’re sick to your stomach.

Ben:  But my sperm right now are quite happy so… and of course, kept the horns for my kids.  They called ‘em horns so, I kept the horns for my kids.  And the last thing that I wanted to mention, a final tweet that I sent out was breathing.  And there’s a really interesting article over at the Sweat Science Blog on Runner’s World, and again, we’ll link to all of these articles over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/… uhmm…

Brock:  299!

Ben:  299!  I guess almost episode 300.

Brock:  Yeah, we got to figure out what kind of party we’ll gonna have.

Ben:  Anyways, this one’s about inspiratory muscle training and the fact that there are studies that show that when you warm up your inspiratory muscles, meaning, you actually use like one of these resisted breathing devices, right?  Like a PowerLung, that they found that it can actually in this case in swimmers, increased their performance by improving their 100 meter free-style swim time.  I thought this was really interesting and it’s actually something that I do now when I am travelling to races like the last few Spartan’s that I’ve done.  Typically I find the race my hotels anything from 15 to 30 minutes away from a race typically.  So when I’m driving in my car to a race, I actually do a PowerLung warm-up or I’ll do a good 20 sets of 3 seconds in, 3 seconds out, just to get the lung muscles warmed up and I mean, why not?  Right?  Why not get your lungs all primed, get your inspiratory and expiratory muscles going even if you can’t warm-up your legs while you’re driving.  I think it’s great.  Even if you don’t have a PowerLung,  you can do some like the warrior breathing that I’ve talked about before… like that  (sharp sniffing sound) like the 50 reps of like a sharp nasal inhale and exhale to hyper-oxygenate you a little bit.

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I’m a fan and this study shows that there may actually some benefit to inspiratory muscle exercising to warm you up prior to competition.  So I mean, travel with the PowerLung – I’ve always got one in my bag of course. Interesting that you actually can warm-up your breathing muscles using these resisted breathing devices and get benefit from them.

Brock:  And you can learn even more about some breathing stuff if you hang on for Saturday’s podcast.  They’re just super cool.

Ben:  Yeah, Saturday is pretty epic.

Special Announcements:

Ben:  Now, this episode of the Ben Greenfield podcast is lovely brought to you by Audible and specifically Audible has a free audio book that they wanna give away to both new and existing Audible customers and it’s based off of – I don’t know if you remember this last year, Brock, but this book came out and it’s called Go To F to Sleep, and it’s a book that’s written for parents whose kids won’t go to sleep and it’s basically about the torture process to trying to get your kids to sleep at night, and it’s just a bedtime that’s really actually pretty funny for parents and due to explicit language, you probably shouldn’t play it for your children…

Brock:  Yeah, totally inappropriate.

Ben:  I think we might be able to play people a little sample of it here…

Audio:  You are cozy and warm in your bed, my dear.  Please go the f*** to sleep.

Ben:  Okay, so anyways though, there’s a sequel to it now.  There’s a sequel to Go To F to Sleep, and the sequel is called, You Have To F…ing Eat.  So, this one is kinda gives a voice to this longsuffering father whose child will just not eat, and it’s a pretty hilarious follow-up to Go To F to Sleep.  So, uhmm, well I…

Brock:  Children are idiots aren’t they.

Ben:  I, no way, I no way condone speaking to your child with profanity but these books are actually kinda funny.  So, you can them for free.  The URL that Audible has given us to give to you to go and get your book for free, is audible.com/cranston and I think that’s because the book is narrated by Bryan Cranston.

Brock:  Oh, that’s awesome!

Ben:  Yeah.  So, if you go to audible.com/cranston, you can get it for free.  I don’t really know much about Bryan Cranston.  Why is…

Brock:  He’s the Breaking Bad guy.

Ben:  Okay.

Brock:  He’s Heisenberg.

Ben:  So, Samuel L. Jackson narrated Go To F to Sleep, and then Bryan Cranston narrated You Have F…ing Eat.

Brock:  That is so cool!

Ben: Alright.  So, you guys – our listeners get ‘em for free.  Uhm, audible.com/cranston, that’s audible.com/cranston.  What else for special announcements?  I guess for those who are listening to this podcast, right on when it comes out, a couple of upcoming events.  First of all, I’m speaking at Mark Divine’s Unbeatable Mind Retreat.  I finished my speech for that retreat.  I finished my speech on the airplane back from Tel Aviv and it’s gonna be pretty epic.  I’m basically taking people through office, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, a whole home like every single biohack you could do to make your environment into a place that enhances your cognitive performance or your physical performance.  I’m just kinda delve into the nitty gritty of all these stuff.  I think they’ve given me like a good hour and 15 minutes to do this, so we’re gonna be able to cover a lot of stuff.  So, if you happen to be near Encinitas or San Diego, California, you wanna get into that thing, it’s at  bengreenfieldfitness.com/unbeatable, bengreenfieldfitness.com/unbeatable, and also I’ll be leaving the Unbeatable Mind Retreat and heading over to Malibu to race in the Spartan Race in Malibu on December 6th as well as December 7th. So, if you’re listening in and you happen to be at the Malibu Spartan, I’ll be there as well sporting my Spartan… pantaloons.

Brock:  Sportin’ your Spartan?

Ben:  My Spartan pantaloons.  And then also, December 15th through the 19th is my massive online conference where I’ve got 23 of the world’s leading experts on performance, recovery, nutrition, fat loss, hormone optimization, and everything all comin’ on for free and you get a free all access pass over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/revyourself.

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That’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/revyourself and I’m working on getting a couple secret super special surprise guests on as well.

Brock:  Oh yeah!  Did you get lots of votes from all the folks who wanted to have their say on who gets to speak?

Ben:  I did.  It’s looking like it’s going to be a – probably either Kim Jong Il, possibly Barack Obama…. I told people name anybody, anybody.  So apparently, dictators and presidents are who people want to hear me interview.  But in all seriousness, I am getting a couple of secret special guests on there and you’ll actually be pretty surprised that who I managed to get in.  So, check all that out at bengreenfieldfitness.com/revyourself, and, yeah that’s it.

Listener Q&A:

Geoff:   Hey Ben, I have a question for you.  Given your last time like sense of travels, I was wondering why you live, where you do.  And what do you think is the best box to live for swimming, biking, running, wellness, and just an active lifestyle in general.  Thanks!

Brock:  It’s kinda sounds that Geoff isn’t very fond of Spokane area.

Ben:  I love living in Spokane and it’s just not because I can hunt and podcast all in the same morning.  You know, Spokane in particularly is – it’s a very quiet city, it is jam-packed with mountain biking, fishing, skiing, hunting, show boarding, hiking, all four seasons: spring, summer, winter… and the other one, fall.  It’s pretty much just kinda little bit of everything, and I love it.  It actually just got ranked, I believe it was in Outside Magazine as one of the top waterfronts in the country as well just because the Spokane river kinda passes through it all.  The reason that I live here, honestly is not originally because of all that.  It’s originally because when I graduated from the University Of Idaho, I got a job in Spokane technically close to Coeur d'alene, Idaho which is across the border from Spokane, in surgical sales.  So, I was selling knees, and hips, and standing around in surgical wards helping doctors to install knees and hips.  Like, that was my first job out of college, and wind-up living in Spokane for that, and never living.  I fell in love with the city.  It’s amazing!  Absolutely amazing.  And now, you know, I have my dream home out here in the middle of a forest, and it really is just a place where you can get out in nature, and skip the hustle and bustle of the big city.  There’s enough to do ‘cause it’s got about half a million people to where you still got a cultural scene but there’s zero traffic and there’s tons of… as we like to call it “neture”.

Brock:  Neture?

Ben:  It’s also got really low pollution.  This was interesting when I was in Tel Aviv, I’m with a start-up over there and this is a start-up that launched a brand new app called the BreezoMeter, and the breezoMeter maps real time air pollution.  And it gathers air pollution weather data from literally thousands of sources and then it’s got this build-in algorithm that shows you the exact air quality and what’s called the air quality heat map around you no matter where you’re at.  So you can anywhere in the city, you can do something like – map out like a running route, or a cycling route, and you can see exactly what the air quality is gonna be like when you’re in that route.  And it literally…

Brock:  Oh that’s awesome!  And circumnavigate the smog.

Ben:  It will create.  You can tell how far you wanna run for example, and it will create the healthiest run for you based off of air quality if air quality tends to affect you deleteriously like with asthma or you know, your lungs will feel after the run.  It will literally help to show you where to go for the best air quality for like a bike ride or run, or anything like that.  I thought it was pretty cool idea honestly.  It’s called BreezoMeter, I’ll put a link to it in the show notes but I believe it’s free or close to free, and you just put it on your – it’s available for Google and then also, available soon, I think they’re developing the iPhone version but it’s almost out.  I think he said it was gonna be a couple of weeks or something like that when I met with him.  But yeah, super duper cool.  Called the breezoMeter.  The reason that I bring that up is not only the air quality really good in Spokane but there are also some other big cities for active families and Outside Magazine, actually just came out with their 10 Best Big Cities for Active Families.  So, shall we tell people what they are?

Brock:  Drumroll.  I think that deserves a drumroll.

Ben:  Uhmm, drumroll.  And by the way, I’ll put a link to this article if you really wanna delve in to the nitty gritty details of each of these cities.

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So, here they are: Minneapolis, Minnesota – best for lovers of parks, and lakes.  Austin, Texas – best for urban recreation.  And I actually do really like Austin.  I used to do and teach a triathlon camp down there.  And I – Austin and Portland, to the only other cities that I would consider living in aside from Spokane, and their built on this list.  So Portland, is on there and of course Portland because of the awesome cycling scene there.  That’s why I made the list but there’s more a lot to do in Portland.

Brock:  So check a ride in uni-cycle then?  I had to do something like that.

Ben:  Yeah, Salt Lake City, Utah’s on there.  Salt Lake City, Utah – best for mountain sports, skiing, snowboarding, stuff like that.  Boston, Massachusetts – this one surprised me.  Well, Boston is best for runner and running fanatics.  Which I think is really interesting.  I actually visited the author of the book, The Evolution of the Human Body, Dr. Daniel Lieberman, he believes that running barefoot is the best thing since slice bread or it is slice cheese…. I don’t remember.  That’s the analogy.

Brock:  Sliced Pemican?

Ben:  Sliced, yeah… whatever.

Brock:  Sliced liver.

Ben:  Anyways, I was in Boston a couple of years ago and he and I did an 8 mile run through Boston barefoot, amazing.

Brock:  Cool!

Ben:  But Boston is a good place for running fanatics.  Colorado Springs, Colorado – best for endurance sports such as triathlon.

Brock:  Surprise!

Ben:  Madison, Wisconsin,  Madison, Wisconsin is best for cycling especially road cycling.  Of course they have the world famous Ironman Wisconsin there.  Albuquerque, New Mexico – made the list.  Albuquerque, New Mexico which they say is best for year round adventure.  Things like rock climbing, trail running, mountain biking, even skiing.  So, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and meth of course.  Washington DC, and it said that Washington DC is best for weekend warriors.  Whatever that hell means.  But it’s got a hiking trails, a road biking route, white water for kayakers, so, Washington DC.  That one kinda surprise me that Washington DC made the list.  Boise…

Brock:  It’s kinda gross and hot, and sticky there.    I got to run there once, I almost barfed.

Ben:  I don’t know how much I like to recreate there.  Boise, Idaho – which I agree that made the list.  I’ve actually got a –  I’ve got a 5 day elk hunting trip down there in Boise next year.

Brock:  I thought this but list was big cities.  Isn’t Boise like 300 people?

Ben:  Six hundred fifty thousand.  So yeah, and Boise is pretty cool.  Go watch Napoleon Dynamite if you wanna know what Boise is like ‘cause that’s very much what it’s like.

Brock:  That’s an accurate definition.

Ben:  It’s actually is.  Lots of people wearing wolf t-shirts.  So, those are some other big cities.  You know, I told you why I live in Spokane but if you’re looking for another good city to live in, that’s another one to look into would be this article, The 10 Best Big Cities For Active Families from Outside Magazine.  So, check it out.

Cathy:  Hello Ben and Brock!  This is Cathy from Portland, Oregon.  As always, thank you guys for an awesome show.  I love the podcast, I never missed it.  So, today I have a question about hydrochloric acid, butane HCL specifically, and I hear you mention it a lot and I know that it’s a great supplement to take for many reasons. For gut health, to sterilize your food so that you aren’t prone to parasites, bacteria, etc.  My question is – I have tried the supplement with butane HCL before, and I noticed that it gives me major insomnia, a little bit of anxiety, and I also got a little bit of joint pain with it.  So, I’m having a hard time finding anything about why this may happen.  I did see that it could be related to suppressing like your potassium and magnesium.  So, I don’t know, if that has anything to do with it, could make sense to me if I supplement with magnesium for example, I get heart palpitation and so maybe it’s all point to a mineral imbalance. Not sure.  Anyway, I would love your thoughts on butane HCL and again, thank you guys for all of your awesome work.  It is truly appreciated.  Alright, bye.

Brock:  So, I’ve never taken HCL myself but I do use bitters a lot and I  know that it kinda goes hand in hand.

Ben:  Yup.  Bitters are digestives.  You can buy bitters in pill or liquid form and bitters help to – they help your body to produce its own HCL.  So bitters aren’t acidic, they won’t contain hydrochloric acid themselves but kind of like a like starting off your day or preceding a meal with lemon wedges or lemon in water.  Bitters work the same way and that’s one way that you can jumpstart your own HCL production if you struggle with the use of an HCL supplements.

[0:30:00.1]

So yeah, bitters are really good.  I personally use a digestive enzyme that has HCL in it. I use the Thorne digestive enzyme and I take two of those.  And actually the best timing for digestive enzyme is about 20-30 minutes before a meal or 20-30 minutes after a meal.

Brock:  Uhm, interesting.  Why is that?  Why is it just before or just after?

Ben:  Because that’s the amount of time that it takes for the enzyme to actually be waiting and ready in your gut to enzymatically act upon whatever you wanna act upon.  So, 20-30 minutes before, 20-30 minutes after.  If you take it right with the exact same time as a meal, it’s actually not quite as effective.  So, 20-30 minutes before or after but the reasoning is kinda interesting.  Yeah, so here’s the deal with HCL and some of the deleterious effects of that, the copy has experienced.  It actually is true that when you’re taking something acidic, you can pull alkalinic ions like magnesium, potassium, calcium, sodium, from the blood to buffer the extra acidity that would be an HCL containing supplement.  So that could be the issue that’s happening here.  Of course, that would one would be easily fixed by either a) not taking HCL and using some of the other natural alternatives that I’ll talk about in addition to bitters here in a second or just using mineral supplementation like using things like sea salt, you can get trace liquid minerals that you can add to water, to mineralized water.  You can take like a multivitamin has minerals like the Thorne multivitamin that I’ve talked about before.  That’s actually technically called a multivitamin mineral complex ‘cause it’s got minerals in it.  But basically adding extra minerals into your diet, if you’re on a high amount of HCL, can be helpful if that HCL is pulling alkalinic minerals from your body to help balance out that acidity.  So, that could be one of the reasons.  The other interesting reason that HCL can sometimes cause side effects, they’re unpleasant can be because of what’s called die-off.  When yeast cells are rapidly killed, like if you have a fungal infection or candida or something like.  Candida in your gut which can actually be killed by hydrochloric acid, that actually releases a dozens and dozens of different types of toxins when it dies off.  And that can include toxins – I know toxins is kind of a woowoo word, but some of the things I’m referring to for example would be ethanol, and acetaldehyde.  So if you look at acetaldehyde, we’ve talked about that one on the podcast before.  It’s something that like Asians get big amounts several of it if they try to drink and take some one of these Asian drinking pills that are – that people sell now.  It can actually create a bunch of acetaldehyde and create even more issues that go way above and beyond like the “Asian flush” that folks get when they drink and they aren’t producing alcohol dehydrogenase.  But acetaldehyde can be produced when yeast dies off as well and that can impair your brain function, it can kill brain cells, it can affect your endocrine system, your hormonal balance, your immune system, your respiratory system.  A high levels of acetaldehyde can damage the membrane of your red blood cells, reduce their ability to carry oxygen around the body.  Now, you know why drinking a lot might not be a good idea as well when drinking a lot of alcohol.  So, acetaldehyde generally will get like brain fog, and fatigue, and sometimes you’ll even be more allergic than you would normally be to foods.  And eventually that die off goes away but that’s why a lot of people feel that it’s really horrible once they start on to anti-fungals, reduce carbohydrates, try and kill off yeast, candida, fungus, stuff like that in the digestive tract.  And one of the things that can happen is when you take HCL and digestive enzymes and especially a lot of HCL, you can kill off some of those fungus.  You can get some of these candida die-off type of symptoms.  In that case, some of the best things you can do if you’re experiencing die-off symptoms is one, you should drink a bunch of water to flush those toxins out, and that can help a lot.  It is just increase your water intake.

Brock:  That’s in total too easy.

Ben:  Well, there are other things you should do too.  You shouldn’t be exercising much if you’ve got die-off going off just because stress can weaken your adrenals and it can be too much stress to be detoxing and be exercising a lot at the same time.  Vitamin C helps out quite a bit, it helps to restore adrenal balance and immune system balance like taking anywhere from about 2-4 grams of vitamin C a day can help if you’re experiencing some type of die-off reaction.  And then you can also take supplements that help to neutralize acetaldehyde into acetic acid.

[0:35:06.5]

One of the more common ones is milk thistle.  You could literally go out to your yard and find dandelion if you live near the world, and dandelion works very similarly to milk thistle.  You can put dandelion greens in salad for example, or you can just buy like a dandelion extract or milk thistle extract and that can help a lot with converting acetaldehyde into acetic acid, and acetic acid is really easily expelled by your body.  Interestingly, if you’re using milk thistle extract it can help to convert that acetaldehyde into acetic acid and the acetic acid gets converted into digestive enzymes.  So, there’s a pretty cool little circular helpful effect there.  So, I don’t know if this is a candida die-off, I don’t know if it is a stripping of minerals from the body, but either way, those are some of the things that you can consider doing.  If you just wanted to stop taking an HCL supplement all together, you know, you talked about bitters, Brock , there’s one thing that can work pretty well to stimulate your body’s own HCL production, and that’s one really good idea, and actually…

Brock:  They’re also delicious.

Ben:  They’re delicious!  They’re all right, I guess.  They’re bitter.

Brock:  I love ‘em, I have like 6 or 7 different variety of them and I just take some like my soda stream makes some soda water and just a few drops of bitters.

Ben:  Yeah, that’s possibly great idea.  That really is a good idea.  Sean  Croxton right now has his digestion sessions going on.  Fantastic online summit like if you have constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating, any digestive issues, this – I think it’s like 70-80 bucks to download the audios, the transcripts, the videos, everything.  That’s a really, really good one.  He’s got an interview in there, one of the things he’s gotten there is an interview with a guy named, Dr. Ruschel.  And they go into how to stimulate your body’s own HCL production if you don’t wanna be on an HCL supplement the rest of your life.  One of the things that they talked about is bitters but another thing that they talked about is the fact that if you have H-pylori which is an infection that a lot of people have, that can decrease your ability to produce hydrochloric acid as well.  And I’ve tested myself for H-pylori, it’s very, very simple the test for with a gut test or stool test.  And one of the best ways to get rid of HCL is what something called mastic gum.  So, I got rid of mine by taking 2 capsules of mastic gum a day, for a month.  And that was it, and I re-tested my h-pylori was gone and my digestive symptoms improved massively.  So, that’s another thing that can affect hydrochloric acid is H-pylori.  And then the last one is, what can happen if you are not producing enough HCL is a symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency.  And there was this really interesting study and again this is talked about in that digestive sessions summit – we’ll put a link to that in the show notes where you can go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/fixmygut.  That’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/fixmygut to download all these sessions but vitamin B12 injections, they did a really interesting study in Japan where they found that doing vitamin B12 injections, not taking it orally but doing a once a month vitamin B12 injection…

Brock:  A shot in the hip.

Ben:  …could make the body produce its own hydrochloric acid.  Really interesting link between vitamin B12 deficiencies and inability to produce hydrochloric acid and this is where they just take a little pinch of like abdominal fat typically or sometimes a fat in your butt, it’s a little subcutaneous needle, they injects vitamin B12 and that’s it.  Super – it’s safe, it’s legal, something that a lot of naturopathic medical physicians will do and it’s a – in the Japanese, they are using what’s called cyanocobalamin injection.  You can also get a methylcobalamin injection but these are just vitamin B12 injections and they improved the production of HCL, so yeah, bitters, knock out H-pylori, vitamin B12 injections.  Look into whether or not this might be a candida die-off, if it’s not, and it’s just a stripping of alkalinity.  You can use minerals.  So, those are some of the things I’d recommend, and again I would also – I do like these digestion sessions things, so I would go over to the bengreenfieldfitness.com/fixmygut link and grab those as well.

Annie:  Hi Ben, I want to start using HRV to avoid over training and I’d seen that my LF and HF should be balanced with high power, and also that my HRV and rRMSD should be high but I’m not exactly sure what numbers I’m looking for.  To see what number is ideal and what numbers are so out of whack that I just shouldn’t be training.

[0:40:01.7]

I’m female and 25, I act to assume that that also makes a difference.  If you have any like quantitative numbers to go by, that would be great help.  Thank you.

Brock:  Did you check your HRV this morning?

Ben:  Uhmm, I didn’t do my HRV measurement this morning ‘cause I got up a little – I wanted to hunt, I got up a little late.  You gotta get out there before you know, it’s light to get hidden before the deer come out.  So, I was in a rush.  So I didn’t do HRV…

Brock:  I was gonna do – I was gonna do a compare numbers thing, and look at out if this was higher…

Ben:  My numbers are generally in between 85 and 95 for HRV numbers and that’s great question you know, what is the right HRV balance.  So, first of all, I’ve got a really, really helpful PDF that I’m gonna put a link to in the show notes because recently in the Superhuman Coach Network which is the global network of personal trainers, and nutritionists that I advised, we had folks from Sweet Beat that come on and do a seminar on some of the really nitty gritty geeked out aspects of HRV and they actually went into not just your low frequency and your high frequency numbers which measure the strength of your fight and flight nervous system, and your rest and digest nervous system, respectively, but also we went into the rRMSD, and I know that, that’s a mouthful but basically that’s the standard deviation in the amount of times spent between heart beats, right, so like a high rRMSD is correlated with a high HRV.  All that means is that, there are tiny beat to be fluctuations in the amount of time that your body spends between heart beats and that’s a good thing.  It shows good interplay between both the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of your nervous system, and a good healthy, robust nervous system.  But they’ve also done some studies where they found the approximate HRV and the low frequencies and the high frequencies that are generally considered to be average for males and females in different age ranges.  And there’s a really helpful powerpoint online that I’ll link to if you wanna take a look at.  I’ll link to it in the show notes.  What it comes down to is for younger males up to about 29 years old, the average HRV is about 72, and for females, it’s about 67.  And then as you get older, a drop, the average for 30-49 years old is 62 for males, and 60 for females, for 50-69 year old males, it’s 52, and for 50-69 year old females, it’s 55.  And then for the 70 to the 99 year old age range, it drops down to about 52 for both males and females.  Now, what you’ll find is that a lot of times in athletes and then very healthy people, especially people who are physically healthy, the HRV is much higher than that.  I find that for the majority of the very successful healthy athletes who I worked with who are not injured or not getting sick.  They tend to consistently stay between 80 and 90, and after our weekly rest day or weekly easy day, we get up into the 90s.  And that’s a combination of rest, it includes low emotional stress, low relationships stress, good nutrient intake, but as far as the actual research on the averages, we’re generally looking at anywhere from like the mid-70s to upper 60s, and when the younger age ranges to the like mid 60s for the higher age ranges.  Now, as far as low frequency and high frequency scores, these are also something that you’ll find in the Sweet Beat app for example which is the app that I use to measure my heart rate variability.  For males in their 20s, you generally gonna find low frequency to be right around the mid 1000 like on 15oo, and for females right around 800.  And then, for the high frequency score or your parasympathetic nervous system score close to a thousand for males, and right around 500 and 600 for females.  And then as you get older that tends to drop, for males for example once getting up into your 40s, low frequency is around 200-300, same for females, and then high frequencies between 100 and 200.  But again in athletes like for myself, I tend to measure between 6,000 and 8,000 for both low frequency and high frequency.  So again, these averages are not necessarily for very healthy, robust population.  These are for the non-bengreenfieldfitness.com listeners.

Brock:  Sucking up again.

Ben:  So yeah, basically if you’re listening and you have no clue what I’m talking about, you need to go back and listen to some of the other HRV episodes we’ve done ‘cause we’ve spent hours explaining what exactly HRV is.

[0:45:14.2] 

But I can tell you those are the numbers based off of studies that have been done and then I can tell you from my own experience with the athletes that I’ve worked with, I generally like to see low frequency and high frequency numbers that are about 1500 or higher, and I’d like to see HRVs that are 80 plus and then on really good days, 90 plus and if you’re 25 years old, you should definitely be in that 80 to 90 range, and then in the thousands as far as your low frequency and high frequency goes.  And again in the actual show notes for this episode, I am uploading a PDF that’s gonna be super helpful for you.  So, if you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/299 I’ve got an HRV measurement PDF, and it’s the same PDF that we kinda went through in that Superhuman Coach Network workshop that I did.  It’s not the audio or anything like that, but at least gives you some of the information that we went through in the actual PDF itself.

Robin:  Hi Ben and Brock, my name is Robin and I have a question about bone broth.  Everyone talks about how healthy and nourishing it is to your body.  However, I’ve also read that it has high levels of glutamate.  I recently did a NutrEval test by Genova and it showed that I already had elevated glutamic acid levels.  So I’m really concerned about taking anything that might increase my glutamate levels even more.  Would love your thoughts about that.  I’m really confused about what to do and whether I should be taking that, I mean, drinking that actually. Thanks! Bye bye.

Brock:  Glutamate… as in monosodium glutamate?

Ben:  Mono-sodium glutamate…

Brock:  Because that’s just one type of glutamate.

Ben:  As in Chinese food.  That’s right, I like me some good MSG.  That’s a sign of a good Chinese restaurant is if you walk out with brain fog…

Brock:  Yeah, I listened to a science Friday podcast all about the MSG conundrum and the studies are so all over the place.  There’s no real scientific link between MSG and brain fog, and all the headaches, and all that kind of stuff people report.  It’s crazy.

Ben:  It can depend, I mean, when you’re looking or the mommy flavoring that’s added to Asian food, sometimes it can depend on how much and sometimes it can depend on you.  So, for example a glutamate clearance is affected by the amount of mercury that you have in your body.  And so, if you have dental fillings or if you have a lot of heavy metals, just because of exposure to heavy metals or you’ve never done a metal detox, that will lower your ability to clear glutamate or to clear MSG.  And when that happens you’re gonna be more susceptible to brain fog but then say, your neighbors sitting across doesn’t have mercury fillings.  So mean, there are little things that can affect this pretty dramatically, you know, in the case like that, you wanna say for example, go visit probably the best doctor in the USA for getting your mercury fillings removed.  There’s a guy named Stewart Natalie who is in Texas.  You can look him up or you can look in your area for what’s called The Holistic Dentists and we’ve done podcast before on holistic dentistry but you can look at getting your mercury fillings removed or you can do a detox like once a year.  I do a heavy metal detox, I use the stuff called Metal Free, and it literally binds metals in what’s in amino acid cage like it’s a spray that you put underneath you tongue.  It chelates metals but it doesn’t allow them to become active and circulate in the bloodstream, it’s they’re chelated.  They’re basically passed out in your stool so you get a nice shiny metal stool.  Not really.

Brock:  Really?  No.

Ben:  Not really.  That’ll be pretty cool though.

Brock:  That will be cool.  Dunk… in the toilet, dunk…

Ben:  Anyways though, so that’s one thing that you can look at is, it is mercury and metal.  But there’s also a difference between bone broth and meat broth.  So, meat broth is when you cook the bones and the meat into the stock, and that’s what’s meat broth or meat stock.  It’s got a bunch of gelatin, it’s got a lot of free amino acids in it, and it’s not as high in glutamate as a bone broth which is when you’re actually simmering the bones for a long period of time.  So the difference between like a meat broth and a bone broth, and when you’re using a bone broth, and you’re getting a lot of those glutamates to draw out of the actual bone itself.  Cooking the bone broth can actually produced a little bit more of those free-glutamates and people who are sensitive to those can react to them in the same way that they do with MSG.  So because of this, what can be a good idea is to start with meat broth, and to just use meat broth only and if you’re doing this for health reasons, a lot of times as you’re beginning to get healthier, you know, I talked about candida die-off for example, and one of the things that they’ll use a lot of times in people who have candida infection who’ll need to heal their gut, is bone broth, will be one of the recommendations for that, but in reality to help to ease some of the toxicity that can occur from that candida die-off I was talking about earlier, you can start off with a meat broth, and then gradually progress to a bone broth as you become healthier.

[0:50:37.0] 

But a lot of people just need to stick to the meat broth rather than bone broth or cook the bone broth at a really low simmer which will help to minimize a lot of the free-glutamate production that occurs when you’re making a bone broth.  But as far as the glutamate thing goes, you may want to consider doing like a metal detox, the other thing you may wanna consider is switching to a meat broth instead of a bone broth.  And I don’t know if you’re buying these broths or making them yourself, but I would consider kinda go in the meat route rather than the bone route for your broth.

Brock:  What about doing something like the gelatins?

Ben:  Like buying the powdered gelatin or the collagen?  That might be higher in free-glutamates.

Brock:  Okay.

Ben:  I’m actually not 100% sure but I would imagine based off the way that those are made.  That would be higher in glutamic acid and glutamates than like a meat broth.  I just highly suspect just because of the way that those are made and the amount of collagen that’s in them, and the fact that collagen is hydrolysated or broken down, it’s pretty likely that would be higher in glutamates.  I’m not 100% sure but you know, what I typically recommend to people is that they use this website called The Brothery, right, to just get organic bone broth ship to them if they’re not making it themselves.  But if you’re trying to lower your glutamate intake,  you would want to do just s basic meat broth, and there are plenty of meat broth recipes that are out there but you’re just basically putting meaty bones into a pot and covering them with water and typically add some herbs, you add some salt, and you turn up the heat in the pot, you bring it to a boil and then you let that simmer until the meat is well done and kinda falling off the bone, and then that’s it.  And your meat broth is done.  A bone broth, you’d be going for a lot longer period of time, I mean you’re cooking it for a good day, you’re getting a lot of the marrow and the minerals and stuff out of there but it’s also gonna be higher in glutamate.  So, I would just with like a meat broth and you’re still gonna get plenty of gelatin, plenty of good stuff out of that but less glutamate.

Brock:  And then of course, serve it with a nice Mushu Pork.

Emily:  Hi Ben, this is Emily, and I have question about breath ketone meters.  I recently purchased over at Ben Greenfield fitness systems the breath ketone meter called the Ketonix and I’m curious how the measurements in the Ketonix relate to blood millimolar measurements using the average precision extra.  I’m trying to avoid purchasing a blood ketone meter ‘cause I really don’t wanna to poke myself or buy the expensive sticks in order to test blood ketones but I’d like to see if I’m truly achieving a ketogenic state or not.  It looks like the Ketonix has some sort of a measurement above 5 pm and I don’t know what that really relates to and I’m wondering if you have blood ketones down as low as 1 part per millimolar, if the Ketonix even measure that or how sensitive that is.  Can you please give us a sense of what the comparison is between the blood ketone meters and the breath ketone meters just for those of us trying to stick to ketogenic diet and using the ketone meter as of way of kinda gauging where we’re at in the process.  I’m somebody who has used urine ketone sticks before, and they don’t really well.  So again, thank you so much, bye.

Brock:  I remember when Jimmy Moore was on the podcast, he was talking about using a blood ketone meter and he was doing it like several times a day for three or six months or something ridiculous.  He’s fingers were basically in cushions.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.  That’s why I mean like you can get pretty good measurements of ketosis like how many ketone bodies that you’re producing from a blood measurement.  And a blood measurement is pretty accurate but it’s also invasive, it’s inconvenient, it is expensive, and they’ve done studies.  The most recent study was spring of 2014 in which they’ve tested the accuracy of breath ketone measurement using some of these breath monitors that are out there vs. blood ketone measurements.  What they’re found is that, when you’re looking at ketone bodies that you can measure in your breath, in your blood, or your urine that when you’re measuring via the breath, you get a pretty significant correlation between what you’re going to find in a blood test and specifically what’s measured when you look at the breath is acetone.

[0:55:13.9]

And when you’re measuring acetone in the breath, what that correlating to is the amount of what’s called beta hydroxybutyrate in your blood, and those two values tend to track together really, really well.  So, a blood ketone measurement measures beta hydroxybutyrate in the blood, it doesn’t measure acetone acetate or acetone which are two other forms of ketones that you’ll gonna find if you measure in the breath.  But those blood ketone measurements are expensive, they sometimes fail so that means they’ll cost you twice, other inconvenient, and of course meaning that you need to bleed.  And the fact is, that acetone measurement in the breath correlate just perfectly to beta hydroxybutyrate measurements in the blood.  And both of those are better than the urine, so all these urine shows you is what’s called acetoacetate or excess concentration of acetoacetate in your urine and the problem is that that’s eventually going to decrease as you get better and better at utilizing those ketone bodies for fuel basically and so, if you’re just urine eventually you’re gonna think you’re not in ketosis when you’re actually are but you got lower levels of acetoacetate in your urine simply because you’re using it more efficiently.  So, I do like like what I own is one of these Ketonix breath monitors.  It’s got a USB cable that comes out of it, you can plug into your computer, it gives you like a different series of lights to show you what level of ketosis that you’re actually in.  They worked really well.  It’s a one-time cost so you just buy the thing.  I honestly forget how much it costs.  So we’ll put an Amazon link in the show notes to be able to buy it but I think it’s somewhere between like $150, somewhere around in there.  But it’s called the Ketonix and you just breathe in to it and it will tell you whether or not you’re in ketosis and it is sensitive, and there are studies that show that it actually is sensitive enough to be very, very accurate in terms of the way that it tracks with blood beta hydroxic butyrate measurements.  And if you wanna really delve into this, listen to the interview that I did with Jimmy Moore, the ketone clarity interview.  I’ll put a link to that in the show notes if you want to take a listen but it’s really good if you really want to learn more about ketosis.

Brock:  Does that Ketonix meter, does it actually give you like the 1 millimolar or whatever does liter measurements?

Ben:  Yeah.  It has colors that corresponds to each of those different variables so…

Brock:  So it doesn’t actually spit out a number.  It just gives you like a range?

Ben:  Yeah, yeah, exactly.  It gives you a color.  Yup, actually the range that you’re in.  Exactly.

Brock:  And that’s enough information there, you don’t need the exact number.

Ben:  No, you don’t need this.  I mean, if you know that for example, your ketones are between like let’s say 3 and 7.  You’re well into ketosis, whereas if you know s switch between 1 and 3, you’re kind of like mid-range ketosis, if it’s below 1, generally you’re not really in ketosis.  If it’s like above 7 then you might be getting close in keto-acidosis which might kinda be dangerous, but yeah, all you need are ranges, you don’t need exact number.

Brock:  Cool.  Alright then.  That is our last question for the day so maybe we should give away some gear.

Ben:  Let’s give away some gear.  And by the way, the way that this works is, you can get a Ben Greenfield fitness gear over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/gear and when you do that it goes into the coffers to support the show, so you got like a cool tech workout t-shirt, we’ve got a Ben Greenfield beanie, we’ve got a sweet BPA-free water bottle, but you can also leave your review in iTunes, and if we choose your iTunes review, and we read it on the show, then you get a pack sent straight to your front door.  Lovingly packaged by yours truly.  So, it looks like this review comes from Tib012 and it’s called The End of the Rainbow.  What do you think, Brock?  Do you wanna read it?

Brock:  The End of the Rainbow…  Yeah!  It’s so tiny.  My old man eyes are having trouble reading it.  I’ll do my best.

Ben:  Use your beard.

Brock:  Yes, the power of the beard will get me through.  “I have listened to dozens of health, wellness, nutrition, and performance podcasts during my grueling two hour commute to and from work, and had finally found the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.  The Ben Greenfield fitness podcast is a wealth of information that someone with even half a brain,” only half… “can digest and use to improve his/her life.  Personally, I’ve downloaded the Ben Greenfield fitness app which I highly recommend to my iPhone.  Pay the whopping 10 bucks for a full years worth of premium content and I’m now in the process of listening to every single episode.”  Did you write this?

Ben:  No.

Brock:  This reads like a commercial.  This is fantastic!

Ben:  Yeah, it’s great.

Brock:  “I often find myself replaying episodes because there’s just so much information that Ben selflessly gives away.  It can be hard to keep track of it all.  After listening to these podcasts for over a month, it is clear that Ben quits his heart and soul into each and every episode.

Ben:  My soul…

Brock:  Every episode…  “Ben’s podcast sidekick, Brock also gets 5 stars from me.  You guys truly brighten my days and keep my road rage at manageable levels.”  That’s good, that’s our goal.  “Thanks Ben and Brock, keep the great content coming.”

Ben:  I wonder if they’re Irish like a Leprechaun.  Maybe you should read that in an Irish accent.

Brock:  I was wondering where you’re going with that.  You just wanted to do a crazy accent get everybody mad again.

Ben:  No, that was a great review.  Well, thank you so much and of course, I mean, since they brought it up, we did – and honestly we did not pay for the review or anything like that.

Brock:  No, that’s not even our moms…it’s not.

Ben:  You can… pay 10 bucks and you gonna get all of our premium content as well as our secret insiders stuff that we’ve got available inside the Ben Greenfield fitness phone app and also our premium content.  So you can check…

Brock:  The coolest thing actually right now being the audio book version of Beyond Training…

Ben:  That’s right.  I am chapter by chapter releasing my book.  So, you can check all that out over bengreenfieldfitness.com/premium.  You can grab all the show notes for this episode, everything from the olive oil video to the study on cell phones and cancer, to the HRV measurement pdf, to everything that you need to make yourself pretty dang smart cookie along with free book from Audible over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/299

Brock:  What’s it called again?  You Have to F and Eat…

Ben:  You Have to F and Eat, Go To F to Sleep, and folks having a good F…ing week.

[1:02:49.0]    END

 

 

Nov 19, 2014 Podcast: The Best Place to Live For An Active Lifestyle, How To Naturally Increase HCL Production, What Is A Good HRV Number, Meat Broth vs. Bone Broth, and Breath Ketones vs. Blood Ketones.

Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right, use the Contact button on the app, click Ask a Podcast Question at the bottom of this page, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form… but be prepared to wait – we prioritize audio questions over text questions.

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January 30th – 31st, 2015, Ben will be speaking in Dubai – Talise Fitness and Jumeirah Emirates Towers, proudly invite you to take part in an exclusive two day seminar held by the renowned nutrition and fitness expert, best selling author, coach, speaker, ex-bodybuilder and Ironman triathlete, Ben Greenfield. Click here for all details.

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And of course, this week’s top iTunes review – gets some BG Fitness swag straight from Ben – leave your review for a chance to win some!

 

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Listener Q&A:

As compiled, deciphered, edited and sometimes read by Brock Skywalker Armstrong, the Podcast Sidekick and Audio Ninja.

The Best Place to Live For An Active Lifestyle

Geoff asks: Given your lifestyle of travel and sport, why do you live where you do? Where do you think would be the best place in the world to live for swimming, biking, running, wellness and living an active lifestyle in general?

In my response I recommend:
Breezeometer
10 best big cities for active families (article)

How To Naturally Increase HCL Production

Cathy asks: She has tried to supplement with Betaine HCL (for all the good reasons you have mentioned in the past) but it gives her major insomnia, a little anxiety and some joint pain. She can’t find any information on why this would be happening. She saw that it could be related to suppression of potassium and magnesium. Could it be a mineral imbalance?

In my response I recommend:
The Digestion Sessions Summit
The Thorne Digestive Enyzmes with HCL
Gentian bitters
Mastic Gum for h. Pylori

What Is A Good HRV Number?

Annie asks: She wants to start using HRV to avoid over training. She understands that her LF and HF should be balanced with high power and that her HRV and rRMSD should be high… but she is not sure what numbers she should be looking for. What number is “ideal” and what number is “out of whack”? She is 25, if that makes a difference. Do you have any quantitative numbers that she can go by?

In my response I recommend:
The Superhuman Coach Network
This HRV Measurement Explanation PDF

Meat Broth vs. Bone Broth

Robin asks: She has heard all about how good bone broth is for us and would like to start using it but she has heard that it is also very high in glutamate. She already has high glutamic acid in her blood so she is reluctant to try it in case it raises her glutamate even more. She is confused. Should she be drinking it?

In my response I recommend:
The Organic bone broth from the Brothery
Metal Free supplement

Breath Ketones vs. Blood Ketones

Amely asks: She recently purchased a Ketonix breath ketone meter and is wondering how the measurements from the breath compare or relate to the measurements from a blood ketone meter? She doesn’t want to buy a blood ketone meter but she does want to know if she is achieving a state of ketosis or not. She is worried the breath meter is not sensitive enough. Can you give her a sense of what the comparison between the blood and breath meters are?

In my response I recommend:
Jimmy Moore’s Ketone Clarity interview

Read more https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2014/11/299-does-a-vegetarian-diet-reduce-sperm-count-cell-phones-and-brain-cancer-what-is-a-good-hrv-number/

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