February 11, 2015
Podcast #308 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2015/02/308-can-running-much-kill-make-boobs-smaller-fexaramine-fat-loss-staying-fit-long-road-trips/
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Introduction: In this episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast: Can Running Too Much Kill You or Make your Boobs Smaller, Fexaramine for Fat Loss, Does Himalayan Salt have dangerous Amounts of Iron, Staying Fit During Long Road Trips and much more.
Welcome to the bengreenfieldfitness.com 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: I don’t know if people at home could hear me snickering through the intro to this podcast, but I can’t help it, you said “boobs”.
Ben: Because I said the word “boobs”. Yes, those are funny to men everywhere on the face of the planet.
Brock: I blushed a little, too.
Ben: Yes. Funny, you’re actually quite concerning when we’re talking about making them smaller.
Brock: Indeed.
Ben: We will talk about that today, about running and whether it can kill you or make your boobs smaller. But more importantly, let’s talk about our workouts. Did you have a workout today, Brock? ‘Cause I know you’re getting’ ready for a half marathon, right?
Brock: Yeah, yeah. I did a sort of a sprint workout with 30 second super hard and 90 second recovery ten times over. I believe you call it some sort of time saver.
Ben: The treadmill one?
Brock: Yeah. Yeah, I did it outside, though, ‘cause I don’t have a gym membership at the moment, so sort of simulated it on the trails.
Ben: Did you simulate the actual gym? Did you spray like perfume and perhaps throw a few TVs up on the corner of the tree?
Brock: I carried a TV with me the entire time and I occasionally just like bumped into myself and was a total jerk about it and …
Ben: Toss a few magazines in there, hire some meatheads to sit around reading books in between their bench press.
Brock: Run some MERSA on myself.
Ben: Yeah, that’s great. I love gyms. Hey, my workout was good. I’ve been doing- rather than my morning yoga, I’ve been shooting in the mornings ‘cause I’m preparing for this bow hunting competition.
Brock: Oh, that’s why you’re doing all the bow stuff! I didn’t know you’re doing competition. Cool!
Ben: Well, I got a five day hunt too that’s coming up in September. That’ll be kind of a narrowly hunt on horseback down in Southern Idaho where we’re gonna go get elk. But I’m also competing in June in the Train to Hunt Competition which basically involves carrying around ungodly amounts of weights, stopping and doing things like burpees and sprints and then also shooting. And so for example my workout this morning was I did ten 30-second sprints up my driveway with the weighted pack on. So I had a 50-lb sandbag inside the weighted pack and then at the top of the sprint I would take five shots, I was doing five 30 yard shots, right, and then carrying the bow and run back down the driveway and then sprint again. So…
Brock: To do that like a quiver and everything, do you totally look like Legolas or Robin Hood?
Ben: I have. I have a quiver. I‘ve got long, blond hair now.
Brock: Nice!
Ben: And pointy ears.
Brock: And fancy little booties.
Ben: Yes. And special bread they carry around. I forgot the name of it but it just keeps you going for days and days, apparently. I bet it’s gluten-free, too.
Brock: Oh, yeah.
News Flashes:
Ben: Brock, we had to issue a correction in the news flashes a few weeks ago.
Brock: What?
Ben: When we discovered that kettle bell yoga was not actually invented by me and Dan John had written me and informed me that kettle bell yoga’s been around since the 70s or whatever. Anyways though, we have to issue another correction. This is turning into…
Brock: Oh, man. We’re like Fox News!
Ben: I know.
Brock: Damn.
Ben: And this is a correction that came from a fellow, I don’t know if this is his real name, but he left a comment on our last episode, episode number 307 in which we’re talking about jetlag. Wacker B left a comment because you and I, Brock, were talking about how many time zones you have to cross in order to create jetlag and whether it’s actually the time zones or the amount of time you spend in the airplane itself. And Wacker seems to be well informed on the topic. He says, “FYI, you can’t have jetlag of more than 12 hours. Imagine stepping back and forth across the international dateline…” Biologically…
Brock: That sounds like fun. It’s yesterday, It’s today. It’s yesterday. It’s today.
Ben: That’d be a great workout, by the way.
Brock: That would be.
Ben: “Biologically, there is no difference although you are changing time zone plus and minus 24 hours. Similarly, imagine flying in a really fast plane around the world and landing in a time zone different from your start. Though you’ve traveled 23 or 25 time zones, the biological difference is 1 hour, if you’re landing in a time zone that’s say 1 hour different from your start.
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Adaptive strategies may differ whether it’s plus or minus, but never can you be jetlagged for more than 12 hours.” So if we do say like it’s a day for every time zone or whatever, I guess the most you could ever be jetlagged would be 12 days, right?
Brock: Hmm. I guess! I’m not sure I follow his logic ‘cause you – there isn’t a time zone that’s actually 24 hours different.
Ben: Well, there isn’t but what he’s saying is that…
Brock: Is this just – that’s just theoretically.
Ben: Yeah, and I guess what would also be the case here is I am wrong because since the speed of planes is going to vary heavily, it really isn’t the amount of time you’ve spent in the plane. It really comes down to how many time zones that you’ve crossed.
Brock: Yeah, okay. So, I was right!
Ben: High in my face. Whacker was right. Brock I guess was kind of right. Ben was… he sort sad trample when you’re wrong. So, that being said, let’s jump into our news flashes.
Brock: Yes, oh yeah forgot what we’re doing here.
Ben: Over at twitter.com/bengreenfield. I’m constantly issuing news flashes about the latest and greatest news. And as a parent of a couple of young athletes who do happen to play soccer in the fall, in the spring, I found this one pretty interesting. And if you play soccer, really, if you play any sport that has a half time or your kids play soccer or any sport that has a half time, this is something that you should be aware of. So this study was done on 22 professional male soccer players. And what they did was during half time, they had – some of them perform a traditional resting or what they call a passive rest half time. But then others did a low intensity re-warm up during half time similar to the type of warm up you’d do prior to the game. And what they found was that in the group that did a re-warm up during half time rather than just sit around and drink juicy juices and eat Snicker bars and lay on their stomachs playing with their iTouches during half time, what they found was that the group that was during a re-warm up had a maintenance of their sprint performance. They had less of a decrement in their jump performance, but probably more important than those performance variables that they tested, they found that the group that did the re-warm up during half time had more possession of the ball in the beginning of the second half and they studied the fact that they had more possessions of the ball and less defensive high intensity running meaning, less of the need to engage in high intensity running during defense because apparently their greater amount of ball possession early on was allowing them to conserve energy from a defensive standpoint. They had a gain advantage at the onset of the second half and so if you’re team just wants that slight advantage- they weren’t saying that these advantages would go into the latter half of the second half, but apparently right off the bat, if you really want to perform well in any sport that has a half time and you wanna come out in the- come out of half time into the first part of the second half with all cylinders firing, so to speak, you wanna make sure that you continue to move. And this seems common sense. Just a lot of coaches and a lot of players don’t think about this. So, you know, it’s what I – when I’m playing tennis, like tonight is the night that I play in men’s tennis league and in between our set change, there’s a lot of time guys are sitting down, they’re drinking from their water bottles, stuff like that. I’m doing lateral lunges, I’m jumping side to side like a boxer, freaking people out as I lunge up and down the court with my racket over my head. But I try and keep my body warm the whole time and even in sets again, to use the analogy of tennis, like in doubles where I – when my partner’s serving, or my partner is receiving a serve, I’m constantly bouncing foot to foot or doing double bounces foot to foot or jumping back and forth. But basically this concept of keeping the body kinda sort of turned on like slowly revving that engine or keeping the engine revved. A lot to be said for it. So…
Brock: Interesting! I’ve never actually watched a professional soccer game. I know that probably shocked many of our European listeners. But I know in hockey games, every period begins with quite a substantial re-warm up. So the hockey players all hit the ice and skid around like mad, shoot on the goal a few times, and get themselves back into the game. I’m assuming they don’t do that in soccer?
Ben: No. Unfortunately, you just banished yourself to football hell by admitting the fact you’ve never watched a professional soccer game.
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Brock: Ahh, so boring.
Ben: You need some time. Just try it sometime. Go to some Brazilian bar during the World Cup. So, anyways, so next –is running too much going to kill you? And there was this new article that they just published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that analyzed data from this Copenhagen City heart study. And this is actually the same data that was published back in 2012 and it caught a lot of publicity then when James O’Keith published in the American Journal of Epidemiology about the Running Will Kill You studies. And this latest study actually goes in to the speed of running. And what a lot of the headlines are saying is that fast running is as deadly as sitting on the couch or going out and doing lots of like high-intensity jogging is basically going to increase your risk of mortality. So is this the case? Well, let’s look at what the statistics actually say. I will link to an article in the show notes for this episode. So if you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/308, there is a fantastic rundown of all of the issues with this study done by Alex Hutchinson. It’s What’s Science.
Brock: Oh good ol’ Alex.
Ben: If you look at just the basic idea here, what happened was the researchers surveyed, again, didn’t study but surveyed, meaning they asked some questions, I believe these were online, a bunch of Danish joggers. And they categorized 878 of them as light, moderate, or strenuous joggers and 40 of those 878 were in fact identified as strenuous. And then 10 years later, they kinda checked in on how everyone was doing. And they found that 17 of those 878 joggers had died. And 2 of the joggers from the strenuous group had died. So over the course of the 10 years, 2 out of the 40 strenuous joggers had died and that was the highest proportion of deaths in any of the three groups: the light, the moderate or the strenuous group. So based on that, they said that, and that’s what the headlines are saying, is that fast running is worse than sitting on the couch when it comes to your risk of death.
Brock: That was the extent of the study?
Ben: That was the extent. But statistically-speaking, the fact that 2 out of 40 strenuous joggers died over the course of a decade doesn’t really tell you too much about strenuous jogging. It’s a very small sample size first of all to make an assumption such as this. The study does not look into how the runners actually died or whether those causes could even plausibly be related to running.
Brock: Yeah, did they get hit by a bus?
Ben: Yes, there are many, many other- yeah, exactly, it’s possible that maybe running too fast in urban areas makes you the person who’s more likely to step out in front of a bus, even though your heart is working just the same as…
Brock: And you’re super healthy but you…
Ben: …a light to moderate jogger. So, yeah, know that if you are one of the people out there listening who, like Brock and I, are doing high intensity interval training and running quickly, it’s not going to kill you. If anything, and I’ve said this before in the podcast and I talk about this in my book “Beyond Training”. If you are a runner and you’re engaged in any activity really that’s creating a lot of free radicals- cross fitting, running, triathlons, whatever, then you do have to be a little bit more careful about dumping a bunch of potentially oxidizable fats and sugars into your bloodstream especially from commercial sources or very processed sources simply because you’re pouring gasoline on the fire from both ends. You’re creating free radicals through exercise and then free radicals stress through diet. And so the fact that a lot of people who “jog” tend to train to eat and eat to train, if you know what I mean, like they’ll go out to run so that they can have some…
Brock: They’ll run and burn through these.
Ben: …extra chicken wings and beer later on. That’s the group that I think needs to be careful in terms of their heart disease risk factors. But if you’re eating a nice, healthy ancestral diet, and you’ve got a few runs that you’re going on each week, and even doing some high intensity interval training, don’t worry, running is not going to kill you. This study was pretty heavily flawed, although you may need to, as you’ll find out later in this podcast, worry about your boobs. So…
Brock: No!
Ben: Then the final study that came across my radar because a friend actually sent this article to me and asked me where they could find these brand new devices that allow you to engage in this cutting-edge, Japanese-style training called kaatsu.
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This was something I thought was pretty interesting. So there’s this revolutionary new training system just coming over from Japan. The headlines say, and I’ll link to the article in the show notes, called kaatsu. And what it is is you actually can purchase these kits or you can even get certified in this but basically you can get an online certification course for a thousand dollars and that’s designed to train kaatsu providers and users on the proper use of this kaatsu gear and I’ll explain what that kaatsu gear is here in a second. You can get a master kaatsu unit for $4,000 which comes with the actual gear that you would need to engage in kaatsu.
Brock: Wait, how many thousand?
Ben: Four thousand.
Brock: Four thousand!
Ben: You could get a smaller lightweight unit intended for one person that’s for a commercial unit for $1,200. Or you could even get a pair intended for use in the water for $190. So, that’s kinda the price point that we’re talking about when it comes to this kaatsu gear. And here is what kaatsu basically is. It consists of these bands that inflate with air that wrap around specific body parts that you are training such as your upper arms or your upper legs and they cause blood flow to be restricted to your limbs. This is known as…
Brock: Sort of like a tourniquet.
Ben: Yes, it’s just like a tourniquet as a matter of fact. It’s known as occlusion training. So the idea behind occlusion training is that when you restrict blood flow to an area that you are training, you get a huge amount of what’s called metabolic accumulation in that body part. So instead of letting your body flush all the metabolic products of exertion out of your system, the tourniquet or the kaatsu gear that you purchase with your hard-earned money keeps it all in the area. So you get this big release of anabolic growth factors, you get a higher recruitment of more fast twitch fibers, and you induce more production of protein. And it may also help to stimulate the production of heat shock proteins which is the same type of stress resilience that you build when you’re, say, training inside the sauna, as well as the production of nitric oxide synthase, the same type of blood vessel dilating type of metabolite that you’d get when you’re doing, say, cold thermogenesis or high intensity interval training. So, here is what my response was to the fellow who wrote me about this. I said we’ve known about this for a long time. When I was a body builder, we used to take the elastic tubes or the elastic resistance bands at the gym before we do like a set of bicep curls, we’d wrap them around our upper arms. So the biceps got this huge pump and then when you’re finally done with that set, you’d remove the tourniquet. You could do the same thing with squats in your upper legs. Another popular one we’d do is we’d wrap the tourniquet around our upper thighs and we’d do leg extensions on a leg extension machine to get like monster quads. I think it’s actually kind of silly and a little bit funny that this is now being sold as not just a certification but also as this overpriced training gear when you can in fact use just regular old elastic bands at the gym as makeshift tourniquets. But you are going to see this at the news probably a few times if you read magazines or whatever this brand new kaatsu training straight out of Japan. Know that this stuff is not cutting-edge, just like a lot of trends in fitness. People have been doing it for a long time. Some of them just figured out how to monetize it. So, anyways, that is kaatsu training, aka occlusion training, aka putting tourniquets around your limbs and then working out. It works, yeah, but you don’t have to spend the $4,000.
Brock: Good.
Special Announcements:
Ben: So this podcast is brought to you by Harry’s. Harrys.com I still wanna know how much they paid to get harrys.com ‘cause that’s a pretty good URL.
Brock: That’s an awesome URL. Although….
Ben: It’s h-a-r-r-y-s.
Brock: Yeah. I’m wondering if that’s what they had to settle along ‘cause they couldn’t get h-a-i-r.
Ben: Exactly. That would’ve been more appropriate ‘cause harrys for those of you who don’t know what harrys is, they’re razors. They’re not just razors, but they also have like soap that you can shave with or what we also call in the US- shaving cream. And also like post-shave lotion. Actually, we’re sitting on the couch like two nights ago and we’re watching Celebrity Apprentice on Hulu which is one of the shows that I will watch ‘cause I love to like see these celebrities try and figure how to run businesses and race around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to figure out how to like make a commercial or launch a product. And we’re sitting and watching it and my wife turns to me and she says, “You smell good!” “You smell good.” And I had shaved. I had shaved with my- I have like the whole Harry’s kit. I have the blade and it’s like this German-engineered blade, I’ve got the handle, I’ve got the shaving cream and it’s like paraben and phthalate-free, yes.
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And I have the shaving lotion. And my wife likes it. So there you go, guys.
Brock: That is the most important test it could pass.
Ben: Yes, it’s a high quality shave, it’s good for your face. It’s good for your wallet too, they’re not expensive. And it’s 5 bucks off when you go to harrys.com and use coupon code BEN. So that’s harrys.com coupon code BEN and you too can smell like a paraben and phthalate-free fitness nerd. So check that out. What else? We’re giving away some of the Obstacle Dominator training packages. So if you go to obstacledominator.com/giveaway then you will get one of the most amazing and challenging, and crazy blends of workout, and fuelling and training, and obstacle course racing advice that I’ve ever created. It’s actually the only one I’ve ever created. But anyways, myself and top Spartan athlete Hunter McIntyre created this and we’re giving away 3 of them and it’s free to go enter the contest so that you could win one for yourself or a friend. And it’s got everything, the nutrition, the training, tons of interviews, tons of videos all shot up here in my backyard about how to do obstacles and you can check it all out at obstacledominator.com/giveaway. So…
Brock: A word of warning. There is a workout called death by burpees.
Ben: Yes, there’s a workout called death by burpees. Let your imagination go wild. Also, I will be speaking, speaking of obstacle course racing, at the New Media Expo. You can go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/nmx That’s not only where they’re gonna have the podcast awards ceremony, but it’s for any of you out there who have a blog, a podcast, who like create online videos, or basically running a business online that is based on anything that has to do with content creation or media, this is like the conference to go to. I’m speaking there about podcasting. And really, deep down inside, selfish reason that I’m going to it is because the Spartan Vegas Race is the day after the conference ends.
Brock: Oh, yeah!
Ben: Yeah, you can go to the conference. And we’ll put a link in the show notes to both that and the Vegas race. And you can finish up the conference by going and crawling under barbed wire and carrying giant rocks and doing lots of burpees. So check that out bengreenfieldfitness.com/nmx. Also, because we are really into conferences that end with the letter x, you can come here, myself speak at PaleoFX. Brock’s gonna be there, I’m gonna be there. It’s pretty much a who’s-who gathering of everybody in the health and nutrition and fitness movement. You will rub shoulders with folks like Rob Wolfe and Marc Sisson and Brock. So check that out.
Brock: Mostly me.
Ben: You can get in at bengreenfieldfitness.com/ here’s the URL paleofx15. That’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/paleofx15. That’s the special link that they gave us. And then finally, one more conference for those of you who want to be in New York or are living in New York, you can go to the Less Doing conference. Go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/doless. That’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/doless.
Brock: I can hardly wait to see what this conference is going to be or more to the point not be. A lot of people sitting around doing nothing.
Ben: Yeah, we pretty much sit around and we do nothing.
Brock: Then if somebody starts to do something, somebody goes- Stop it! Do less!
Ben: It’s about how to do less, like how to manage your email inbox, and like how to use different phone apps that help you to manage like to do less than hack your productivity, and how to enhance your cognitive performance like smart drugs, or like Dave Asprey’s gonna be speaking there. I’m gonna be speaking there. Ari Meisel who wrote the really good book “Less Doing”, he’s gonna be there. So it’ll be worth attending. You can get all the details over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/doless. So speaking of doing less, let’s stop our special announcements and answer some questions, shall we?
Brock: Do less!
Voiceover: Did you know that Ben Greenfield personally mentors trainers, coaches, physicians, and nutritionists from around the globe? From business-building tips to advanced human performance and health concepts. It’s all part of a private mastermind called the Superhuman Coach Network. When you join, you get instant access to monthly workshops with Ben, a Q and A forum, over 40 hours of cutting-edge audio and video education and much more. Check it out today and become one of the world’s leading health and fitness experts at superhumancoach.com/podcast. That’s superhumancoach.com/podcast.
Listener Q and A:
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Sebastian: Hi, Ben! It’s Sebastian from Canada. I recently read an article about some wondrous miracle drug called fexaramine, fexaramine or something like that. And apparently this thing is like a weight loss pill. They finally invented this weight loss pill that if you take it, you shed all these pounds. I was just wondering what your thoughts are and not really interested in taking it ‘cause I don’t need to lose weight but just wondering if it’s something I should recommend to people when they’re telling me about their problems trying to lose weight and keep it. Let me know what you think. Thanks. Bye.
Brock: I first heard about this on one of my favorite podcasts, the Science Friday podcast from PRI.
Ben: Fexaramine… (whispering) Yeah, I didn’t hear that podcast but I’ve researched fexaramine a little bit. I mean I haven’t – I don’t have the little mice in a cage in my office….
Brock: You haven’t been injecting the poor little mice.
Ben: I mean I’ve read about and looked into fexaramine. So, it actually is kinda interesting ‘cause if you look at like brown adipose tissue, like we take cold showers for example to increase our levels of brown adipose tissue which are able to actually take calories and generate heat from those calories. And it’s actually a really, really good way to amp up your calorie-burning activity when you have increased amounts of brown fat and increased amounts of brown fat activity. And there was this paper in Nature Medicine in January that showed that this metabolite called fexaramine could help turn white fat into brown fat. But it does more than that. What it can activate is this receptor that causes you to release bile acids and some of these digestive juices and hormones that would normally help you to absorb nutrients when you eat a meal, when you eat foodstuff, and yes that would make two podcasts weeks in a row I think where I’ve said the word foodstuff. That’s my new word- foodstuff, ‘cause it sound better than food, sounds more scientific. Anyways though, normally all those digestive hormones and juices are produced in your liver and then they go into your gallbladder and then they get released into the intestines. And when that happens, that will flip on this activity that sends your gut a signal that food is there. And that mobilizes a bunch of blood flow to go gather nutrients and it specifically prepares fat tissue to anticipate the arrival of food and begin to burn calories, because you sense- you know, think of it as you sending your fat cells a message that hey, foods’ on the way so go ahead, it’s okay to burn what you got on board. And so that’s basically what happens. And it’s very interesting because you would think that when you stimulate the production of bile acids and digestive hormones, kind of like when you consume an artificial sweetener, that it would cause you to become hungry, ‘cause you’re sending your body a message that – hey, something sweet is getting on the tongue and we’re tasting something that tastes like food, get ready to eat. Your body produces all of these hormones that prepare you to eat and then again, a great place for sad trombone- there’s no food. So then you’re hungry in like an hour. But this fexaramine seems to help at least with mice with fat loss. Now, anytime that you are messing around with digestion and digestive hormones and bile acid synthesis, you do potentially create some risk for creating some kind of hormonal intolerance. Or let’s say maybe the inability to – the eventual inability to produce bile acid properly in response to a meal. But they haven’t studied this stuff long term in either mice or humans to see if that’s the case. That’s how it works, though. I would say if it works for me, I’d want to see a longer term study in mice to show that it doesn’t suppress bile acid production long term. I’d want to see something similar in humans. One of the cool things is that this stuff does not get out of the intestine. It does not get out of the liver. It never gets in your bloodstream. So that’s kinda cool. You at least know that it’s – you’re not gonna have it flowin’ anywhere else except your gut. But I would say, where I’m at is I would still wanna see a little bit more research behind this stuff before I would give it the thumbs up because again, my concern would be it’s potential impact on digestive hormone and bile acid release ‘cause when you get your gallbladder removed, and you can’t produce this bile acid anymore, that’s a big, big issue when it comes to digestive health, constipation, bowel movements…
[0:30:00.4]
…production of hydrochloric acid, ability to digest fats, etc., and if a drug creates that same scenario, that would be what we call here on the podcast a bad thing. So yeah, anyways though, that’s the story behind…
Brock: Shall we call it bad stuff?
Ben: Bad stuff.
Alexander: Hi Ben and Brock! I’m Amoltz, fan of your show. Motlz means huge in South Tirrenia, which is my home region in Italy. I have a question regarding my girlfriend. She wants to increase the running and the aerobic exercise volume. Her fear is that her really sexy boobs would start to decline. What are your suggestions against this problem? Ferti means chao. Alexander.
Ben: This may actually qualify as our question of the year.
Brock: I think so. Alex, you are very entertaining fellow and so is your question.
Ben: Yes. I love it and being married to a runner and having talked to a lot of runners and endurance athletes who have these same concerns. I definitely have an opinion on it, and I have some advice on it. And before I jump in, I should say I’m just gonna put this out there right now. I’m a fan of small boobs, like I’m married to a petite woman and I personally find that kinda sexy. I’m just not – I’m not a big boob guy. I never have been. I’ve never like you know, I’ve always been a little bit more of like a – an A and a B vs. a C and a D, measures me. What about you, Brock?
Brock: I like boobs.
Ben: Yeah, okay, there you go.
Brock: All sizes, okay.
Ben: All sizes.
Brock: I like them.
Ben: Not picky. So anyways, boobs! We should probably just start saying breasts so we sound – ah, more qualified.
Brock: Probably, yeah. So we don’t sound like 10 year olds.
Ben: Yes, yes. Considering the huge beating, the ass-kicking that we are experiencing online right now for the podcast that we did on vaccinations. We should probably just at least get in as many folks’ good graces as possible by at least not overusing the word boobs and saying breast instead, or knockers. Anyways though, breast are made up of epithelial tissue and that helps to cushion and support your breast and no matter how much weight that you lose, that epithelial tissue will stick around. But you can, just like you can shed some fat and decrease the size of the fat cells or the amount of the fat cells are storing anywhere in your body, you can definitely decrease the fat that’s stored in the fat cells and potentially even get some fat cell apoptosis or fat cell death in the breast area and therefore shrink your breast. And some women’s breast have more fatty tissue while other women’s breast have more epithelial tissue. Typically women with larger breast do have more fatty tissue in their breast and so women who have naturally larger breast are going to experience once they start running, a greater decrease in breast size as that fat tissue gets metabolized compared to women who naturally have smaller breast who typically have a higher amount of epithelial tissue rather than fatty tissue because that epithelial tissue is not really going to disappear but the fatty tissue will. So, as far as running, obviously running as an aerobic exercise is catabolic, it is going to cause fat cell mobilization, and fat loss especially if you combine it with fexaramine, your boobs will probably completely disappear. But anyways, we know that the body is going to tap into some of that storage fat and you’ll get some mobilization of fatty tissue. In many cases, fat cells unless it’s combined with something like cold thermogenesis, right, unless you’re wearing some kind of special cold thermogenesis bra, fat cell apoptosis or fat cell death is less likely than just a shrinkage of the fat cells as a lot of those fatty acids are removed from them and so what that means is if you stop running or you start eating more food, and those fat cells fill back up, your boobs come back and they come back just as easily as like fat on your butt or on your waistline would come back. So…
Brock: Interesting. So it’s not actually like the cell number isn’t changing just the cell size.
Ben: Yeah, and I talked about this a little bit in the podcast that I did with Cate Shanahan. In addition to cold thermogenesis being something that can induce fat cell death which you know, in many cases when you’re doin’ this on your hip or your upper back or places like that, you’d actually want some of this fat cell death. The other thing that can really help with fat cell death is the combination of core constriction and the absence of inflammation. Apparently the absence of inflammation such as you would get from like high amounts of exercise or high amounts of omega 6 fatty acids, or high amounts of sugar or high amounts of commercial meat or dairy, if you’re really clean from that standpoint, apparently fat cell apoptosis occurs more readily in the absence of inflammation.
[0:35:13.0]
So, of course that could be a catch 22 for you if you’re trying to have big boobs. So, in addition to not running, maybe you should go out and eat chicken wings and lots of dairy. Anyways though, that’s a segue because there’s one other thing that we need to talk about in addition to the consideration of fatty tissue and over all calories. And that would be that you can irreversibly stretch fragile ligaments in your boobs and that can lead to sagging which can also, you know, for anyone who’s seen like boobs that sag over time. They also appear less large just because they’re getting closer and closer to the belly button. Not a pleasant thought but it happens and so if you’re wearing the incorrect bra when you’re running, that can also cause breast shrinkage even though it’s more of an optical illusion, they’re not shrinking they get lower and lower the more years that you run. And one of the considerations here is that you would want to make sure that you’re using the correct bra if you’re running. And the best bra for exercising especially running is called the encapsulation bra and that has separate molded cups rather than a compression bra that basically flattens your breast to your chest wall. This flattens the breast and it limits the bounce but it doesn’t limits side to side or in and out movements whereas if you get an encapsulation bra, that has separate cups and that limits the movements of your breast so that you don’t stretch a lot of those fragile ligaments that could also decrease breast size. So get the right bra is the first thing that I’m getting at here. The second thing that I’m getting at and hopefully this was a little bit apparent when I was talking about the fatty tissue is don’t necessarily overdo the catabolic state of running, right. If you send your body a message that there are no calories present in that, it means to dip in to adipose tissue including the fatty tissue in your breast to get you adequate energy, your boobs could shrink a little bit. So, what would be the things that you could do, well for example, you know, one of the things that burns really clean that you could do before like a big morning run that will give your body its own fats to burn so that you don’t have to burn your booby fats, that would be something like bulletproof coffee. You know like MCT oil, coconut oil, maybe a little bit of coconut milk, that type of thing. Burns clean, gives you some fats that you can rely upon and you don’t have to dip into fatty tissue. Of course, that also means you’re not gonna be dipping into fat tissue when waistline or your hips or anywhere else if you’re running to lose weight, not a good strategy, but if you’re just running to become a good runner, and you want to maintain the size of your boobs then that would be one strategy. If you don’t like the whole bulletproof coffee approach, you could still do like a tablespoon of coconut oil with some almond butter and maybe some cinnamon or sea salt. Something that gives you a good bolus of fat that doesn’t necessarily have to spike your blood sugar level or your insulin levels. So, those are some considerations and just to put a little personal spin on this, I remember the very first triathlon that I did after I was getting out of being a body builder, and my most distinct memory from that race was getting about 1k into the 10k. This was an Olympic distance triathlon and my boobs hurt so much because I have these giant body building chest and my boobs were bouncing up and down with each step. And that’s one of the few times in my life during exercise that I’d wish that I had a sports bra. So, I’m right there with you. I can empathize with you ladies, for everything from childbirth to boob size. Ben Greenfield is here.
Cathy: Hello Ben and Brock! This is Cathy again from Portland, Oregon. I have a quick question for you today about salt. I hear you talk a lot about Himalayan salt and I totally get that but lately I’ve heard some theories about the pink salts like the Himalayan salts, and you should actually avoid that because the reason it’s pink, is due to a high iron content which is oxidized. So, I don’t know, you know, there’s some theories about that floating around the internet but not sure how accurate that is. Just wanted to get your take on it if you have any thoughts. As always, thanks so much for an awesome podcast!
Brock: So, oxidized iron.
Ben: Uhmm, oxidized iron. So…
Brock: I think I have some pink socks that I think have some oxidized iron in them.
Ben: Yeah, exactly. You know, oxidized iron is present to a certain extent in Himalayan salts. Based on Cathy’s question, in terms of the way that Himalayan salt is made, yeah, you do get a little bit of oxidation in the iron. Oxidized iron is not necessarily a bad thing and obviously iron is a mineral that’s required for human life.
[0:40:04.2]
It’s at the heart of the hemoglobin molecule and that allows our blood cells to carry oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. And this trace amounts of iron especially in unrefined salt, give it some color, give it some flavor, some minerals, and you know, the problem is that there is this idea behind like hemachromatosis – an increasing iron intake to a threateningly high level. So, for example, and not that – this is like the end all for nutritional recommendations but the USDA’s recommended daily allowance, so the RDA for iron is 18 mg/day. And iron can come in the form of like heme-based iron such as that you’d found in meats for example or non-heme based iron which is what you’d find in lentils, spinachs, tofu, whole wheat bread, and even unrefined salts that’s non-heme kinda non-biological form of iron or like when you eat meat that has iron, that’s heme-based iron. It’s a little bit better when it comes to increasing hemoglobin and unrefined salts for example contain this non-heme iron. Now, non-heme iron is not absorbed in the body as efficiently as heme-based iron, so that’s one thing to consider here is that the actual iron that you’re getting from the salt is just like the iron you’ll be getting let’s say from spinach is not quite as well absorbed. And when you look at Himalayan salt which is something that is typically singled out due to its high mineral content – that has 38-39 parts per million of iron and what that means is basically it’s about .003% iron by mass. So one teaspoon of that salt has about 1.32% of for example that US RDA of sodium that I talked about, like the 18 mg of sodium, 1.32%.
Brock: Not very much.
Ben: Yeah. So if you ate two times the US maximum recommended amount of salt, you would be getting about the iron equivalent to what you’d get in about 3 quarters of a slice of whole wheat bread, or like a great big tablespoon of lentils, huge quantities. So, in order to get the full US RDA of iron, you’d have to have about 76 teaspoons of Himalayan salt. So we’re talking about very, very small amounts of iron.
Brock: So it looks like an enormous log.
Ben: Yeah, we’re talking about very, very small amounts of iron, period. So, that’s not really something to worry about. What you should instead be worrying about is just kind of the truth behind like kosher salt and commercial sea salt in general and that is that many times it has been refined, which means that a lot of the minerals and moisture gets stripped away and a lot of times like sulfuric acid and chlorine is used to bleach the salt like if your salt is not discolored, that’s not necessarily a good thing. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any iron in it, a lot of times it means it’s been bleached with things like sulfuric acid and chlorine, and there are a lot of anti-caking agents that they’ll also use like sodium ferrous cyanide and ammonium citrate, and aluminum silicate, a lot of these things that are not that healthy to be dumpin’ into your body and when you buy like the average Himalayan salt that is nice and you know, it doesn’t cake and every single grain looks like it’s identical size and sometimes it doesn’t have a lot of these like discoloration or pinkiness or redness to it, a lot of times this means it’s been bleached, it’s been refined, it’s been chlorinated, it has this anti-caking agent added to it, and it’s essentially franken food. So, I’ve written articles about this at bengreenfieldfitness.com about what kind of salt that you should be eating. I generally consume completely unrefined sea salt. I use this stuff called Aztecan salt. It’s harvested using an organic, 100% renewable process, it’s a little bit off-color, it clumps which would annoy some people but I don’t care because I know that means it hasn’t had anti-caking agents added to it. And that’s – you know, I used to have a big bag of that in my pantry and I sprinkle that on food and then I also have a pepper grinder, and I put a bunch of it in the pepper grinder, if I want like smaller grains and I can just grind it right at the pepper grinder on to my food, and that gives me like the smaller grains of salt if I don’t want the bigger kinda caked grains ‘cause that’s caked together a little bit but I don’t mind that. And it’s got a really, really high mineral content. So that’s my pick for salt anyways but you don’t really have to worry that much about the iron in the Himalayan salt as much as some of the other additives.
[0:45:03.4]
So, that’s the dealio with the salt. By the way, I have tons of iron. I don’t know if I have told you this, Brock. I have tons of iron and even like bacterial-based iron in my well water. So, and apparently if anyone listened into my hair mineral analysis podcast that I did with Wendy Myers, a lot of manganese and metals as well. And so, I’m – I’ve got quite a few treatments that I even do with my well water, for example, have you ever heard of a hydrogen peroxide filter?
Brock: No.
Ben: All the water that I drink actually passes through hydrogen peroxide, and what that does is it kills iron-based bacteria and it oxidizes the iron and then after that the water all goes through this carbon converter, it’s carbon filter and that filters off all the oxidized iron and then after that it passes through a water structuring, that like restructures the water, so.
Brock: It goes through water vortex.
Ben: Yeah. If you walk in the – like mechanical room in my house, there’s like 4 giant tanks and like so the water comes out of the well, it goes through the hydrogen peroxide, it goes through the carbon filter, it goes through the water structure, so it’s quite a process but you know, in the case of like my well water, we’re talking about levels of iron that are literally hundreds and hundreds of times higher than what you get in Himalayan salt, so.
Dan: Hey Ben and Brock! It’s Dan in Connecticut. I’m wondering what would Ben do if you had to drive a thousand miles in a car? I have to take a trip pretty soon and I’m wondering what steps would you take to minimize soreness, aches and pains, all that stuff. I actually have Lyme disease and leaky gut, I’m gettin’ better but I still get sore quite easily. So I’m looking to minimize that. I’m wondering if you would take several days off prior and just do lots of stretching and yoga, or if you’d train a day before and use that as a day off, whatever you suggest, I’m all ears. Love the podcast. Long time listener here and keep up the great work, guys. Have a good one.
Brock: So a thousand miles. What would that take like 13, 14 hours?
Ben: I would walk one… (singing) one thousand miles?
Brock: One thousand miles… I would drive 5… (singing) I guess 500…
Ben: I bet it’s with an accent. It’s like… and I would walk 500 miles in the hay wood, what… (singing)
Brock: They’re Scottish, so they don’t know what a mile is. They’re like me.
Ben: Just to be the man who walks 2,000 kilometers…
Brock: There you go.
Ben: With my haggis… (laughter)
Brock: Have you ever had haggis?
Ben: I love it when I offend our listeners.
Brock: Actually, that wasn’t bad. That wasn’t all defensive..
Ben: Yeah, but we always get like – I’ve done like Indian accents, the Scottish accents, the Australian accents, and we always get people right in there like – that’s the last time I’m ever listening to the show. You just offended the entire Australian population because what you did was actually a – offensive southern Australian dialect, blah, blah, blah and I’m like – oh, you’re kidding me. Alright, segue. What did you ask…
Brock: What you actually did was – shoot, Gandhi. I don’t remember what I asked you.
Ben: Okay. Well anyways, this is actually a good question because like – I first of all, I freakin’ hate road trips for the reason that a, I don’t like to sit for long period of time, and b, it’s like, I love like nature and scenery, and all that jazz like maybe 5 miles and then I’m bored. And I’ve seen enough of it like you can show me the stretching wild prairie of Montana and huge thumbs up, right? Like show it to me, we’ll drive a few miles and I’ll see it and that’s really cool but then ones you’re like 4 hours into Montana, and you’re one eighth of the way across the state, you’re just like – I’m gonna freakin’ like – stick a revolver on my mouth if I have to look at another mile of barren prairie.
Brock: Yeah, well, there’s that and there’s also driving on the interstate highways where all you see is like the concrete, concrete, concrete, McDonalds, Arbee’s, concrete, concrete, gas station… Starbucks.
Ben: Exactly, exactly. So, first of all – I’ll talk about strategy you could do when you’re in the car, like let’s say, you can’t get out of the car and you’re gonna be sitting in there. I’ll talk about some of the strategy you can do and strategies that I use if I know I am gonna be stuck in a car. But the other thing is – assuming that you wear good compression gear, which is gonna help keep you from getting blood clots, I’m a huge fan of doing a killer workout before a long road trip or before say, like a long airplane ride. Like before my last 14 and a half hour flight to Dubai, I did – you’ve done this one before, Brock. I did the hardest workout in the world, right?
Brock: It’s two and a half hours.
Ben: It’s the one that’s adapted… It’s adapted from the Esquire Magazine article and I – should I put a link to it in the show notes?
[0:50:05.6]
Brock: Sure!
Ben: ‘Cause I did my own spin on it ‘cause the one thing I didn’t like about the hardest workout in the world, this is gonna sound really dumb but I didn’t like how much sitting that was involved with the hardest workout in the world. ‘Cause there’s a lot of sitting, there’s a lot of weight machines, I’m like – I wanna be able to do this in my basement with a set of dumbbells. So anyways, the hardest workout in the world takes you anywhere from 2-3 hours to do, where you can split it up to a few different portions throughout the day ‘cause it’s like 16 different stations, but like – that’s my standby. If I know I’m gonna be stuck on like an airplane or on a road trip, I’ll skip some of my work, like I’ll skip some of the articles I have to write, etc. for doing when I’m in the car or when I’m on the airplane and I’ll instead take that time and just smash myself. And typically I’ll choose like eccentric-based activities that I know will take some serious recovery, so not like swimming or cycling but usually like running or weight training. And I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the pros of the workout outweigh your potential risks of getting a blood clot and (I’ll do that) and then I’ll use some of the other strategy about that we’ve talked about again to reduce the risk of a blood clot but to also keep myself kinda active metabolically during the trip. One thing is that, yes I do use electrical muscle stimulation. Now there are kind of two types of electrical muscle stimulation. There’s the type that grabs a lot of muscle fibers all at once, engages you in a really significant muscle contraction that can even leave you sore the next day. I mean, that’s really good for training strength and power, and endurance and it’s not necessarily like therapeutic, recover physical therapy type of electrical muscle stimulation but it is really good for keeping your muscles fit and that would be the type of electrical muscle stimulation you’d find with like this unit called the Compex, the Compex. And this is one that literally, like you could put it on your quads and your hamstrings and be getting the equivalent of doing barbell or squats while you’re sitting in your car on a road trip. That would be in contrast to something like say, the Marcpro. And I own both the Compex and a Marcpro, but the Marcpro is better for recovery, right, like it’s – it’s therapeutic, it feels nice but it’s not gonna like building or stimulate you to a huge extent metabolically when you compare it to something like the Compex. So, if I had to choose like one electrical muscle stimulation and I wasn’t gonna buy like, you know, Dave Asprey’s one that he promotes which is like the $12,000, what’s it called – the ERP Wave, which is really a nice unit but it costs a lot and it’s got this huge car battery size unit that’s got – you gotta drag around with it. The Compex is pretty good. So, I take that on airplanes, and on car trips. You can put it on your abs, quads, hamstrings, calves, wherever.
Brock: Does it have an outlet so you can plug it into the cigarette lighter in your car?
Ben: No, it’s ah – you don’t have to plugged it in.
Brock: Ohh! Even better!
Ben: Yeah, just runs on its own assuming you charge it. It will go for hours. So yeah, even though you need to recharge it, you could plug it in to your car battery.
The next thing is – I use a PowerLung. For example, like if I gotta fly down to LA and I know I’m gonna be stuck in like 2 hours in highway traffic, I’ll bring one of these PowerLung resisted breath training devices along with me and I’ll play a game. So, for example, every time I’ll get to a mile mark, I will do 10 sets of 3 seconds in, 3 seconds out resisted breath training, and it’s just kind of like a way to keep yourself occupied, right? Like you have it in your glove box, or have next to you, or in your bag or whatever, you just take it every time you pass a mile marker, or every time you pass, say an overpass or something like that, or every time you pass a red car or you can turn it a little bit of a game like fartlek style resisted breath training, or it’s kinda like randomized. That’s the way that I do it vs. like doing a half hour lung set with the PowerLung. I’ll just bring it out every now and again. And you’ll probably wanna make sure that you’re not sitting beside a police officer when using your PowerLung, because they’ll probably think that you’re checking your breath alcohol levels. Not a good thing to be caught doing. So anyways though, the PowerLung is another thing that you can keep in your car. Then the last thing would be a combination of compression, right, to limit the potential for blood clots but then also cold thermogenesis. So I like the 110% compression gear which is a company that makes compression gear that you can put ice sleeves into. So the gear comes with these little ice packs that you freeze in, you put the sleeves in and this allows you to get all the benefits of building the brown fat that we talked about earlier while keeping your body cold while reducing risk of blood clots, and you can wear that say like – for during the first hour of your road trip and then if you have to get a stop, stay in a hotel or whatever, you could re-freeze the packs and use those again and it’s a great way to basically get all the calorie burning benefits of cold thermogenesis, and the ice packs are not big and clunky and hard to sit on as you would imagine.
[0:55:12.7]
They’re just this little kind of – you get them and they’re very like paper thin and you put them in a freezer after you soak them in water and they’re not like – it does not feel like you’re sitting on a bunch of ice cubes basically or frozen peas for that matter.
Brock: They’re like little frozen pillows.
Ben: Or carrots or broccoli, whatever your frozen vegetable of choice is.
Brock: Ohh! Actually speaking of that, you could keep your sandwiches nice and fresh if you kept it in your compression gear with the ice packs.
Ben: You could! You could put the ice packs in there and tuck them next to your thighs and put your sandwiches in next to your legs. That would work really well. Yeah, good idea, Brock!
Brock: I’m a genius.
Ben: Leftovers, fish, whatever, stuff it all in there. So anyways, we actually do have – we’ve got discounts on like the electrical stimulation units, we’ve got discounts on the PowerLung, discounts on the compression gear, etc. I’ll put all that stuff in the show notes. So if you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com – like we even have like a 25% discount on the PowerLung.
Brock: I might have to use that. I broke my PowerLung the other day.
Ben: Really?
Brock: Yeah, while shooting it at my mouth, I was trying to see how hard I could set the setting for the exhale and it actually like – I was pushing so hard, it shot in my mouth and hit the wall and cracked.
Ben: You need to work on your lip muscle control.
Brock: I – yeah, apparently my lungs are stronger than my lips.
Ben: You’ll never be a professional trombonist or saxophonist. (saxophone sound) Hey, let’s – let’s go ahead and move on.
Brock: Yes, please.
Ben: So, like we mentioned a few minutes ago, and again all the links. What I was saying is all the links are at bengreenfieldfitness.com/308 before I was so rudely interrupted.
The thing is, we got a lot of flak for that vaccination podcast that we did with Stephanie Seneff like, it always surprises me how polarizing the topic of vaccinations actually is and I don’t feel bad at all about getting Stephanie on the podcast to talk about her experience with vaccines and she is a scientist, and she has studied this stuff quite a bit, and I’ll stand by having her on the podcast, I don’t feel bad about that. But we did get freakin’ crucified on iTunes reviews and on Twitter, and on the comments and everything. So, if you’re listening in and you can find it in the goodness of your heart, even if you do believe in vaccinations, but your boobs are getting smaller from running and I just saved you from that problem, go to the podcast in iTunes and leave your review. Leave 5 stars, say somethin’ nice, and not only is that great karma and helps to boost the show and let other people know about it, but we also choose one review, each week. And if you hear us read your review on the show, just email [email protected] with your t-shirt size, and I will stick in the mail for you a handy dandy Ben Greenfield fitness t-shirt, a BPA-free water bottle, a sweet beanie, all that stuff. You can check it out at bengreenfieldfitness.com/gear. So now is the time of the show when Brock reads our favorite review of the week.
Brock: Uhmm, and this one comes from Emdee568…
Ben: Uhmm, great name.
Brock: I have no idea if that’s a man or a woman, it doesn’t really matter I suppose. Maybe it’ll become clear as we go. But it goes like this – “Oh my husband teases me”, there we go, it came clear immediately.
Ben: There we go – possibly.
Brock: “My husband teases me…” well, yeah, that’s true, it depends on what state. “My husband teases me about how much I love to listen to other men. I start off every morning possible with Ben Greenfield fitness podcast and a cup of coffee while I play with my dogs.” Sad euphemism. Oh man, we shouldn’t have started the show off by talking about breasts. “This podcast has the most applicable information and allows me to constantly make small changes to my lifestyle. This is quickly become my favorite podcast because it’s speaks to both the hardcore athlete and the fitness and wellness lover who just wants to optimize life. Can’t thank you enough for the wealth and information. On a side note, the beginning and ending sound tracks are terrifying when I drive and listen to the podcast with headphones. Every time the sound makes my heart jump as I think something terrible has just happened to my car.”
Ben: She apparently doesn’t like the phone sex girl who we hired to record the intro.
Brock: Maybe. Is that the terrifying part?
Ben: Welcome to the Ben Greenfield fit… I’ve always thought about that like it – it’s not meant to sound like sex in itself the lady readin’ the intro or the outro, but sometimes you know, while I’m listening to it, I occasionally cringe and I wonder if we should just get something that’s a little bit more, I don’t know, PC or maybe like, some kind of like a – an in between voice, where you can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman…
[1:00:09.9]
Brock: Remember years ago I made a demo intro that actually had a computer voice. Maybe that’s what we need to do. It was like a robot voice when – welcome to Ben Greenfield fitness podcast.
Ben: Who wants to play with their dogs while listening to a robot voice?
Brock: Everyone.
Ben: Alright. We better end things there so, thanks for listening in, and also in the 8275 whatever you were, email [email protected] your t-shirt size, we’ll get a pack out to you, and you can access all of the links in the show notes for this episode for everything from the article on whether running will kill you, to the obstacle dominator giveaway, to the New Media Expo, to Paleo FX, all that jazz at bengreenfieldfitness.com/308. Tune in this weekend for a special episode on Why Strong People Are Hard To Kill and until next time.
Brock: I think we said that last week too and then we pull deals, switch reviews. So this time, for sure…
Ben: That’s because- well, we did that ‘cause the measles thing. I’d figure it’d be better to just talk about vaccination sooner rather than later.
Brock: ‘Cause Disney World is banning everyone.
Ben: That’s right. But this weekend we do promise an episode on Why Getting Stronger Will Make You Harder To Kill. So, until then, later.
Visit bengrennfieldfitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition, and performance advice.
[1:02:11.9] END
Feb 11, 2015 Podcast: Fexaramine For Fat Loss, Can Running Make Your Boobs Smaller, Does Himalayan Salt Have Dangerous Amounts of Oxidized Iron, and Staying Fit During Long Road Trips.
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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- Every soccer coach/soccer parent should read this.
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-Outdoor obstacle course on 10 acres of forest, with nature walking trails, climbing wall, rope traverses, spear throws, sandbag carries, Tarzan swing, monkey bars, mountain bikes, woodchopping and everything you need for the ultimate outdoor fitness experience.
-Completely outfitted gym with power lifting rack, indoor swim trainer, hypoxic air generator, bike trainer, elevation training mask, luxury Tru-Form running treadmill, outdoor yoga patio and much more.
-Cold thermogenesis endless swimming pool with chlorine-free, naturally ozone-treated hot tub for a one-of-a-kind outdoor, winter forest swimming and soaking body treatment.
-Plenty of biohacks to play with, including a recovery-enhancing Biomat, infrared lighting, electrostimulation, inversion table, power lung, and ore.
-Locally-sourced, natural and nourishing food from over a dozen nearby organic farms and Ben’s goats, chickens, organic vegetable garden, along with filtered, structured and deeply hydrating well water.
-Giant living room with wood burning stove and enormous oak table for learning, socializing, working, eating and relaxing.
-Outdoor obstacle course workouts, hiking excursions, yoga and high performance living led by America’s top personal trainer.
E-mail ben at bengreenfieldfitness.com if you are interested, and Ben will set up a private phone call with you to discuss details and your eligibility.
Grab this Official Ben Greenfield Fitness Gear package that comes with a tech shirt, a beanie and a water bottle.
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.
Fexaramine For Fat Loss
Sebastian says: He has been reading about this miracle weight loss pill called Fexaramine. He is curious what you think about it. He doesn’t want to take it (he is not overweight) but he would like to know more about it.
In my response I recommend:
Fang S, Suh JM, Reilly SM, Yu E, Osborn O, Lackey D et al. (January 2015). “Intestinal FXR agonism promotes adipose tissue browning and reduces obesity and insulin resistance”. Nat. Med. doi:10.1038/nm.3760. PMID 25559344.
Can Running Make Your Boobs Smaller?
Alexander says: His girlfriend wants to increase her running and aerobic exercise volume but is worried that her “really sexy boobs will start to decline.” What are you suggestions to help solve this problem?
Does Himalayan Salt Have Dangerous Amounts of Oxidized Iron?
Cathy says: She knows you are a big fan of eating mineral rich salt and she ‘gets that’ but lately she has been hearing that the Himalayan salt is coloured pink because it contains iron that is oxidized. Wouldn’t that make it unhealthy? How accurate is that?
In my response I recommend:
–Aztecan Salt
Staying Fit During Long Road Trips
Dan says: He wants to know what you, Ben, would do if you had to drive 1000 miles in a car. He has to take a trip soon and wants to know how to minimize soreness, aches and pains and all that stuff. Would you take several days off prior to the trip and do a bunch of stretching and yoga or would you train hard the day before and call the trip a rest day? Side note: he has Lyme Disease and Leaky Gut. He is getting better but not there yet.
In my response I recommend:
–Compex or MarcPro ($32 discount at http://www.MarcPro.com with discount code “Ben”)
–PowerLung
–110% Compression Gear (use 10% discount code GREENFIELD)
–Hardest Workout In The World