January 6, 2016

Podcast #342 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2016/01/342/ 

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Introduction:  In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show:  The Dark Side of Travel, How to Rebuild Fitness Fast, Is Underwater Breath Holding Dangerous, and How to Avoid Shallow Water Blackouts, How to Stop a Receding Hairline, and much more.

He’s an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America’s top personal trainer and one of the globe’s most influential people in health and fitness.  His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance.  He is Ben Greenfield.  “Power, speed, mobility, balance – whatever it is for you that’s for the natural movement, get out there!  When you’re looking at all the studies done…studies that have shown the greatest efficacy…”  All the information you need in one place, right here, right now, on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Ben:   Mo Rachel, I gonna admit to you.  I am a bit sore this morning.

Rachel:   You got sore?  Why is that?

Ben:   I’m sore.  NBC, the great wonderful TV network, NBC.  I don’t even know what NBC stands for?  Do you?

Rachel:   I don’t know either actually, but I’m not American, so.

Ben:  National Broadcasting Corp.  They showed up in a giant van in my house yesterday to shoot video, and I’m under confidentiality so I can say a lot about why.  I can tell you how to do with that TV show, I was on that reality TV show, but they had me doing things that, let’s just say, I would not normally do.  For example, I spent a good deal of time after lunch carrying a keg through the forest.  A keg…

Rachel:   A keg…

Ben:  Yes, and a keg would be normally something as useful like keg throws, and keg deadlifts, and short keg carries, but they literally had me hiking through the forest holding a keg.

Rachel:   Not had been a site to see.

Ben:  So, for any of you who wanna workout challenge this week, you get a keg from a brewery.  My mom actually owns a brewery in – oh, not a brewery, it’s a pub really, but it’s down in Moscow, Idaho.  So I got an old keg from her, and you rip the top off the keg, you fill it with water, right, like about half to 3 quarter full of water.  So, slash is around, it’s really hard to carry, and then you put the lid back on, and it’s a great way training device.  But carrying it through the forest, I can guarantee will throw a curve ball at your body.

Rachel:   Yeah, it sounds intense, and I’ve noticed Ben that since there’s been a lot of camera crews in your house recently, was that been fun?

Ben:  (Chuckles)  It has been.  We’ll talk about the other reason the camera crew is at my house here in a little bit perhaps in the special announcements.  However, speaking of throwing your curve ball at your body, I know you are across the world for me right now, Rachel, and you just travelled to Australia.

Rachel:  Oh yeah!

Ben:   So, how that go?

Rachel:   Yeah!  It was actually not so bad this time around ‘cause I flew via Hawaii, and so stayed overnight there, so it’s a little bit luxurious.  And…yeah!  And I actually…

Ben:   Hmm, at the airport…

Rachel:   No, I didn’t experience any jetlag which was nice.  So, I fell straight back into my normal pants.

Ben:   Nice!  And what time is it for you there, in Australia?

Rachel:   It’s six.  Six in the morning but it’s bright outside.

Ben:   6 AM.

Rachel:   It’s actually not a big deal.  It’s you know…

Ben:   Congratulations!

Rachel:   Life is happening at 6 AM in this country.

Ben:   Yeah.  You’re remarkably cognizant…

Rachel:   Happy?

Ben:   … and upbeat instead – it’s 6 AM.  So I actually wanted to talk a little bit about travel and jetlag, and completely random thought by the way as we are podcasting, 5 giant wild turkeys are standing about 5 feet away from me.  They’re literally outside the window of my office.  They just walked up as we started.  So if you hear turkey gobbling… (laughs)

Rachel:   Do you hunt turkeys then?

Ben:   I actually – I don’t hunt turkeys.  Believe it or not wild turkeys don’t taste that great, and I would never find in my heart to just kill turkeys for the heck of it.  They’ll actually quite beautiful.  If you’ve never seen a wild turkey up close, they’re very beautiful birds.  So, I will be in a couple of weeks, I will be heading down to San Diego to compete in Battle Frogs, San Diego, and then I’ll spend the next day spearfishing down in San Diego, so I will get some fish down there and then I’m heading over to Texas to do some hog hunting and white tail deer hunting.  So, I’d go – I’d been getting white tail, hog and fish this month but no wild turkey.

[0:05:00.5]

News Flashes:

Ben:   So as I promised, Rachel, I did want to bring up the dark side of travel.

Rachel:   I’m interested to hear, and I’m glad you’re doing it.

Ben:   Yes.  As this article notes the dark side of hypermobility, hypermobility.  There was actually this new study.  And I mentioned it a few podcasts episodes ago about how researchers at the University of Surrey in Britain, and Linnaeus University in Sweden – they published a new study, it’s called a Darker Side of Hypermobility, and it goes into how we tend to glamourize the ability to rack up frequent flyer miles and jet set around the globe, but that there are a variety of physiological and psychological and emotional, and even social deleterious things that happened… (I just said “deleterious” just ‘cause it made me sound smart.  I have no clue if that chromatically fit in to that sense).

Rachel:   (laughs)

Ben:   But anyways, speeding up aging, increasing the risk of heart attack, increasing the risk of stroke, increase risk of deep vein thrombosis, exposure to germs and radiation at a much higher level than what would be considered like a hormetic effect, right, like not just getting exposed to bacteria here and there, not just getting exposed to sunlight here and there, but significant amounts that create a significant amount of inflammation.  I think that this is an article that anybody who travels much should read, and I’ll link to it over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/342, which is where you can get the show notes, but what the article gets into is that not only our people found to be more isolated and lonely when they travel more often.  And I know that’s not the case with you ‘cause you’re traveling with your husband to go see family, but that this new type of issue called travel disorientation from changing places, and time zones quite often is creating almost like this new form of metabolic syndrome.  It’s really interesting, and they found that specifically – so if you wanna sit down, if you’re listening in and you wanna sit down and see if you fall into the category of people at high risk…

Rachel:   Yup.

Ben:   People who fly more than 85,000 miles a year.  And that’s a pretty decent amount, but I do know we have a lot of frequent travelers that listening in, and so I would recommend you go read this article.  I’m not – it’s a very long article, it’s probably gonna take you out say an hour or so to get through, but it goes in to not only some of the darker sides of hypermobility but also what you can do about it.  So…

Rachel:   Right.

Ben:   I’d recommend that you read that, but speaking what you can do about it, I did wants to bring out one very cool thing.  And that is a brand new airbus – carbon fibre plane that has been designed to beat jetlag.  Have you heard about this?

Rachel:   I haven’t!  No, but it sounds very fancy and very practical.

Ben:  Okay, so this isn’t available on all our airlines right now.  Right now it is Qatar Airways, Qatar Airways.  And what they’ve done is first of all, they have a system of LED lights inside the cabin that are designed to change color to mimic the sun’s natural glow.  So they program to fit in with body’s natural circadian rhythm no matter what the actual time is.  So basically what happens is you don’t arrive at your final destination feeling that your circadian rhythm is just thrown way out of whack.  So…

Rachel:   Yeah, I never… This is a good question for you.  I never know when I’m on – I was flown a ton of international long haul flights, and I never know when I’m on the plane whether I should be getting myself into the time zone of the country that I’m going to, or just going with my normal circadian rhythm prior?

Ben:  Yeah.  There are 2 schools of thought: so one school of thought is the whole biohacking school of thought which if all the stars are aligned works quite well.  So that means that you use like any of the methods that I’ve written about over at bengreenfieldfitness.com, like you use like a human charger for in-ear photo therapy or you even use one of these intranasal LED devices, or there’s another device like this glasses called the retimers that you put on that exposed you to enormous amounts of blue light.  And essentially you exposed yourself to these intense sources of light in the ears or in the eyes whenever it is morning in the place that you’re going to.  Okay, when there’s morning in the place that you’re going to.  And you do that for 2 or 3 days prior to flying, and at the same time when it’s evening in the place that you’re going to, you try and limit your exposure to this blue light, and even increase your exposure to for example, red light or infrared light.

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And by doing that you’re using light to mildly adjust or gently adjust your circadian rhythm to be more used to the time zone that you are going to.

Rachel:   I see.

Ben:   Now, that is the big biohacker propeller hat version.  And then you get in to real life, and real life kinda goes like this – I’m going to fly to Thailand, or Australia, or wherever, I’ve got a layover in Seoul, and I’ve got a layover in Bangkok, and I’m exhausted, and frankly, I really don’t give a crap whether it’s morning or evening where I’m going.  My single soul purpose is to sleep as much as humanly possible on that plane because otherwise I’m just gonna feel crap anyways, and I often resort to that.  You know, some people say, – I’m gonna stay awake on the plane as long as I can because it’s daytime where I’m going.  I tend to be that person who not only just tries to get as much good quality sleep as possible going into travel, but then I just sleep as much as I can on the plane itself and I’ve found that to work quite well.  So, if this new airbus actually does indeed mimic the sun’s natural glow when I wanna sleep, and I don’t care what time it is where I’m going, I’d still continue to travel with my sleep mask and my earplugs.  There are other things on this plane.  They’ve got a filtering system.  It refreshes the air inside the cabin every 2 or 3 minutes, and it keeps it pressurized at an altitude of about 6,000 feet.  That’s far different than what most other planes will do, but that not only improves comfort but it also minimizes the effects of jet lags.  So basically, less pressure and more refreshing air.  Now, over 50% of the frame of this plane is made from carbon fibre reinforced plastic which reduces the weight of the plane, and reduces the amount of fuel required for long haul flights.  So not only do you feel better when you get to where you’re going, but you can rub yourself on the back for saving the planet just a little bit by choosing the airbus.

Now speaking of planes and exhilarated aging, and all that fun stuff that happens to you when you’re flying, there is a really interesting article that appeared on the website longevityletter.com, longevityletter.com.  And this article was about which part of the human body wears out first, and it’s a very, very fascinating article about how our bodies fall apart as we aged.  And I don’t think that this is necessarily something that you go read to make you depressed, I think it’s rather something that could quite realistically inform you about things you can do to keep your body from falling apart.

Rachel:  Okay.

Ben:   So, here’s a little bit about what this article gets into it.  It literally goes into the basic order in which organs fail based off of clinical experience.  So, the first organ to typically fail is the joint, and this usually happens around the 50-60 year old age range, and the reason for that is that cartilage has no blood vessels and so because cartilage gets more dehydrated as you aged, joint are the first to fail, and so joint pain is one of the first things that you feel as you get into your 50s and 60s or if you’re like me and you did 10 years of Ironman triathlon and travel around the globe during masochistic feats of endurance, I would say it’s about 34.  Anyways though, and carrying kegs in the forest doesn’t help by the way.

Rachel:   Yeah, I’m sure.

Ben:  So since we know that one of the primarily reasons that joints start to fail is dehydration, one of the things that you can look into is of course not only real focusing on good quality water and hydration, duh as you aged, but there are also – there are different types of injections and capsules that use things like MSM and hyaluronic acid, and glucosamine chondroitin.  Some of these things that can really help you as you age in terms of your joints access to synovial fluid and water, and a lot of these cartilaginous precursors that help you to maintain the integrity of your cartilage.  So that’s one way that you can combat going after the joint issue, and the other thing is as dumb as this may sound, and as irrelevant as it maybe for people who perhaps eating a plant-based diet, eating joints can help with your joints because when you eat joints you’re getting a lot of this hyaluronic acid, and synovial fluid, and cartilage.  This is the reason like when my wife makes chicken bone both, she leaves – she knows I love to eat the bones so she leaves all the bones for me ‘cause they’re soft and I literally saute them in olive, in sea salt and pepper, and a put a bunch of anti-inflammatories in there like curry and turmeric and…

Rachel:   Yup.  You actually eat bone.

Ben:   Every week, I kid you not.

Rachel:   What?

Ben:   I eat a pile of bones, they’re soft, they melts in your mouth, they’re tasty, you suck the marrow out of them.

Rachel:   Is it just chicken bone?

[0:15:03.6]

Ben:   It’s just chicken bone.  Yeah!

Rachel:   They’re the only ones that get soft enough to kind of chew?

Ben:   Well, you can have bone marrow, right?  You can get like bigger bone like a cattle bone also and have the bone marrow, but as far as the other components aside from marrow, yeah, it works fantastically.  So that’s my little anti-aging tip.

Rachel:   That’s fascinating.

Ben:   So, the second organ to fail is one that you’ll tend to see the abdominal ultrasound exams according to this article as being something that fails, and that’s the liver.  The liver becomes fatty.  It’s called liver steatosis, and that’s a common medical diagnosis that sets in because after the joints begun to age, and so the liver is the next thing.  And of course there are ways that you can take care of your liver as well. A few very simple examples that I could give you would be, things that support like phase 1 and phase 2 detox pathways in the liver.  So antioxidants are huge for that like your daily cup of coffee or your tea, and a daily glass of a good tonic, you know, red wine, you know, or finer wine, you could do tart cherry juice, you can do cranberry juice, like that.  But then also there are supplements as well.  You could “biohack” this, right?  There’s like glutathione, and acetylcysteine.  Two very, very good components for phase 1 liver detox.  Phase 2 liver detox would be things that wind and remove toxins from the liver.  So this would mean including things like chlorella in your diet.  Chlorella is one thing that can help out quite a bit.  If you do have times of your life when you have to take pharmaceuticals or drink a lot of alcohol, charcoal is another one that can help out with that phase 2 liver detox, that binding and removing of toxicans.  So antioxidants along with binders, two very, very good ways to ensure your liver stays healthy.  And then of course, don’t have too many benders that would probably help, so.

Rachel:   What’s next?

Ben:   Then we move in to the 60s and the 70s, so this is when the lens gets clouded and the hearing declines.

Rachel:   Uh-hmm.

Ben: So, this is really interesting.  I actually have an article at bengreenfieldfitness.com about how to take care of what’s called your vestibular and your visual systems, and vestibular systems would just be your ears and of course the visual would be your eyes.  And a couple of things that I get into: one for the eyes would be zeaxanthin and lutein are 2 very important components for the eyes.  You would find for example high levels of those in kale, and dark leafy greens, as well as eggs, in the same way that we have like I mentioned like joints are good for your joints, eggs…

Rachel:  (laughing)

Ben:  Don’t laugh because this is actually true.  Like walnuts look like little brains and they’re good for your brain, and avocados (believe it or not) are good for the ovaries and the testicles because they actually do look like a pair of gonads.  Another thing that is good for your eyes is egg, and if you think about it, an egg when you crack it open, looks a little bit like an eye.

Rachel:  Looks like an eye, it does!

Ben:  Yeah, it’s very interesting.  Nature gives us clues.  Celery by the way is decent for erections.

Rachel:  Oh!  They… (laughs) there you go.

Ben:   True facts, true facts.

Rachel:  And so, my mom actually has macular degeneration and I just learned about this, and tell some things that would be good for that.

Ben:   Exactly what I just said.  You know, like…

Rachel:  Right.

Ben:  And then also omega 3 fatty acids from fish – excellent for the eyes as well.  And there are actually a lot of cultures have myths and legends about how fish or like rubbing fish scales against the eyes can help with blindness and cataract degeneration, and all these type of things.  It’s really more likely the omega 3 fatty acids from fish consumption or from using like a fish oil capsule, but that can help out quite a bit with the vision system.  And then as far as the ears are concerned, people think a lot about taking care of the ears, you know, not going to loud concerts, listening to loud music, and stuff like that, but you can also train these little semi-circular canals in your ears that are full of fluid that respond to how your head moves in space by doing simple balance exercises.  You know, using like balance desks, balance pillows, standing on balance boards, just basically ensuring that you force the balance section of your ears to have to work and that can help quite a bit with your vestibular health as you age.

Rachel:  Interesting!

Ben:  So there’s that.  Oh we got 2 more things that tend to fail.  As we get up to our 70s, atherosclerosis is one of the primary things that tend to set in.  Now, your heart gets bigger especially your left ventricle as you age, and as that happens the valves become calcified and the collagen within that left ventricle gets cross- linked.  You would think that exercise would keep this from happening, but in fact athletes are at a higher risk of this because they have what’s called athletes heart.  That’s like a bigger left ventricle or bigger wall of tissue next to that left ventricle.  I have this, I’ve gone in for what’s called an ultrasound echocardiogram.

[0:20:08.0]

You could waltz into just by any heart clinic and either pay them or if you happen to have a really good insurance, you could get this covered by insurance, but you can find out if you have this mild amount of scarring in the heart tissue and this what’s called left ventricular hypertrophy if you’re an athlete especially an endurance athlete.  And it’s not – it’s not necessarily bad thing, it’s kinda like muscle, right, like anybody who uses their muscle – a bodybuilder or weight lifter, athlete, they’re gonna have more muscle damage and little bit more scar tissue than the average person.  It’s just the sign of use.

Rachel:  Right.  Make sense.

Ben:  And I personally think the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to using your muscle as long as you’re not abusing your muscles.  But atherosclerosis is something that is going to increase – it’s very, very simple test that you can get a blood test although there are variety tests for atherosclerosis, one is just a rise in the levels of blood creatinine.  Creatinine can show that atherosclerosis is an issue.  There’s also calcium score, you can check out the website trackyourplaque.com, trackyourplaque.com is a great website to go to to get a test that will look for the potential onset of atherosclerosis, but one of the main things that you can do about this is to limit the amount of oxidation that occurs to compounds in your bloodstream, and one of the best ways to do that is to keep your blood sugar level.  So, if you’re tracking your blood sugar, you wanna keep your fasted blood sugar below 90, you wanna keep what’s called your hemoglobin A1C which is a three-month snapshot of your blood sugar levels.  You wanna keep that below about 5.5, and if you can really control blood sugar fluctuations, and again I’m not necessarily saying, oh you know, going to ketosis or eat a high fat diet, that’s not necessarily the answer for everyone, and probably next week’s show I’m going to talk quite a bit about how your genes and things like salivary amylase and methylation status, and all these nerdy things can actually affect your blood sugar status based on whether you’d a high carb or high fat diet.  Ultimately, what it comes down to is no matter what diet you eat, you need to be careful with how frequently that diet spikes your blood sugar, and you can use yourself as N=1, go get a little $20 blood glucose monitor from Walgreens or CVS or whatever freakin’ pharmacy they have done there in Australia, and test your blood glucose, so, atherosclerosis.  Then the final thing that fails is the brain, and degenerative brain diseases typically will set in like late 70s, early 80s.  I probably don’t need to kick that horse anymore than I did.  If you wanna know pretty much – I would say, that was probably the most comprehensive episode we’ve ever done on improving cognitive performance and decreasing the rate which the brain degrade was podcast episode 340.

Rachel:  Uhmm, so go check it out.

Ben:  Yeah, bengreenfieldfitness.com/340 ‘cause we really dove into the brain there.  But yeah, that’s how the human body wears down starting from the joints, to the liver, to the eyes and the ears, and then the heart, and finally the brain.  So now that you know that, you can kinda pull out the stops and preferably do it before those things set in.

Rachel:  Right, yup.  Try not to get depressed by this whole thing.  (laughs)

Ben:  Get inspired, get inspired to go eat kale and eggs, and you chew on your chicken bones.

The last thing and this is something – I won’t dwell on this one too long but somebody had sent me over a link to a brand new study.  And the headlines go like this – Carbs fuel long runs.  Researcher show fat isn’t necessary for marathons.  Now, this was actually interesting study that just got published in The Journal of Applied Physiology.  I thought it was pretty interesting.  What they did was they took a bunch of folks – this is actually research from Australia, Rachel…

Rachel:  Uhm, you’re welcome!

Ben:  And they took competitive half-marathoners, and they ran this competitive half-marathoners at a pretty decent phase during their best half-marathon time on the treadmill.  And what they did though was they give them a compound called nicotinic acid, nicotinic acid before they run.  Now, what the researchers proposed nicotinic acid would do was that it would block the body’s ability to be able to access fat, to be able to oxidize fat during exercise.  Apparently nicotinic acid can to a certain extent shutdown fat production or fat utilization, right, fat oxidation.  And what they found was that in these runners, even when they weren’t able to access their fat, it didn’t affect their body’s use of carbohydrates.  Carbohydrates contributed over 90% of the total energy used by these runners whether they blocked access to fat or whether they didn’t blocked access to fat.

Rachel:  Interesting…

[0:25:06.6]

Ben:  And so the proposal was that, and the final statement by the researchers was basically this – blunting the exercise induced increase in free fatty acids via nicotinic acid ingestion did not impair intense running capacity lasting approximately 85 minutes nor alter patterns of substrate oxidation in competitive athletes while there was a small use of fat, the oxidation of carbohydrate-based fuels predominates during half-marathon running.  Now… go ahead.

Rachel:  Tell me what you think about that.

Ben:  Okay.  I have two quick thoughts on this: the first is – as we spoke about a few weeks ago, they recently did another study in which they took a group of athletes who ate a high carbohydrate diet for 12 months, and compared them with a group of athletes who ate a high fat diet for 12 months.  And what they found was that the substrate oxidation, your choice of what kind of fuel you are going to use during exercise is highly determined by what kind of diet you’ve been following.  And in this study, these runners were just eating a traditional diet, they were not what we would call fat-adapted or metabolically efficient.  I’ve never argued that being fat-adapted or metabolically efficient is going to make you perform better, but I have said that it can help you to perform just as well with better health.  And so, that’s one thing to bear in mind is that these folks had not been trained to utilize fat as fuel.  I would suspect that if you took a fat-adapted athlete, and you gave them something like nicotinic acid to shutdown fat utilization, that they actually would see a slight decrement in their performance because they weren’t able to access their fat stores.

Rachel:  Right.

Ben:  So that’s one thing.  You’ve always have to look at the subjects use in the studies and what kind of diet they’re eating.  And then the other thing that we should note is that the American Journal of Endocrinology did a study on nicotinic acid a few years ago, and what they found was that – what does indeed shut down the ability to be able to access fat?  There’s what called a rebound overshoot after that happens.  What happens is whole body fat oxidation falls initially when you take in nicotinic acid.  But then it goes right back up and often goes farther back up than it would normally.  So it turns out that their choice in this study to use nicotinic acid to shut down fat oxidation was probably slightly flawed, and in the first place, I think that the body is a little bit too smart to simply completely shut off fat burning pathways using something like nicotinic acid, and my eyebrow is highly raised.  It’s about below my hairline right now – so this particular research article.  But if you are listening in, and you go check it out, I’ll link to it in the show notes over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/342, if you wanna leave your own comments about that article or maybe this other research articles, you can, and Rachel, where can people get even more goodies every single day or twice a day from the latest research I’ve been delving into?

Rachel:  You can get all that good, fascinating stuff at twitter.com/bengreenfield, or if you wanna follow Ben and see him more of a behind the scenes, go to instagram.com/bengreenfielfitness, and then if you want all that and more, crazy giveaways, lots of fun stuff, go to facebook.com/BGfitness and follow Ben there.

Special Announcements:

Ben:  This podcast is brought to you by nuts!

Rachel:  (laughs)

Ben:   I’ve been wanting to say that for a very long time.

Rachel:  nuts.com

Ben:  And I finally can.  Yes, more specifically nuts.com, nuts.com.  Have ever ordered from nuts.com, Rachel?

Rachel:  I haven’t but it sounds awesome.  I can’t wait to do it.

Ben:  I personally order from nuts.com, and before nuts.com became a sponsor of the Ben Greenfield fitness show, I was already ordering from nuts.com, and here’s why; I’m a big fan of the selenium and other testosterone supporting compounds that you find in Brazil nuts, and the thing with Brazil nuts is they get moldy very easily, and so they also become rancidized, oxidized very easily, so not only do you want to order Brazil nuts in the shell but when you get them, you want to keep them in the freezer.  So what I do is I order a bag of Brazil nuts from nuts.com about every month and a half or so, I keep them in the freezer and I put three of those into my smoothie.  I wait until I’ve made my whole smoothie and then for a little bit of extra crunch, I crack open my Brazil nuts and there’s nothing to keep you from eating too many nuts like having to crack them each open lovingly and individually.

[0:30:10.0]

Have you had to do this?

Rachel:  I did.  Yeah, I actually spent last night shelling pistachio nuts for salad and it’s not really how I wanna be spending my time. (chuckles)

Ben:  Yeah, it keeps you from eating, it’s a build-in mechanism to keep you from eating too many of the inflammatory omega 6 fatty acid you can get from eating too many nuts.  However, I am a big fan of nuts in general, and when you get your nuts, you can now get your nuts from nuts.com.  Let’s see if I can break the record for how many times I say the word nuts in a podcast.  So, nuts.com has not just nuts, they’ve got chia seeds, they’ve got almond flour, they’ve got pretty much any powder you’d ever want to throw into a smoothie, and like I mentioned, I’m a fan of the Brazil nuts in the shell.  So here’s how you can get a bigger discount, a $15 value basically for free when you go to nuts.com.  What you do is you get 4 free samples, and you get to choose from over 50 options when you go to nuts.com and when you go to nuts.com, there’s a little picture of a mic, just click on that mic and enter the code “fitness”.  So, you click on the mic, you enter the code “fitness” and Boom!  You get all those samples added into your order.  So my recommendation?  Is just go order some Brazil nuts, add those free 4 samples in, and you not only get your Brazil nuts but you also get plenty of other nuts too.

Rachel:  Win-win.

Ben: So, there’s that.  Win-win, and this podcast is also brought to you by Casper, Casper Mattresses.  So if you look at Casper mattresses, if you were to take a Casper mattress and use the scalpel and break your entire mattress apart with your scalpel, you would find multiple layers.  So what they’ve got is the first layer is what’s called open-cell latex foam – that’s a hypoallergenic latex that keeps you cool, so it’s got this cooling feature which is great for helping you get into your deep sleep phases, but also adds a little bit of bouts.  And then below that layer, they’ve got something called hi-density memory foam which is a responsive foaming, kinda molds around your body.  Below that they have what’s called a base-support foam which adds durability and in that entire thing is surrounded by a woven cover that’s made by textiles from both the USA and Belgium, and that woven cover allows the mattress to be breathable, and flexible, and also keeps nasty things like mites from building up inside your mattress.  So it’s really cool.  I love this mattress company, they’re innovative.

Rachel:  That sounds like a beautiful mattress.

Ben:  Uhm, it is beautiful.  Actually no, it’s not beautiful.  It’s just a white mattress.  It’s no more beautiful than any other mattress but it feels good.

Rachel:  Right.

Ben:  So you can check it out if you go to casper.com/ben and you use this code “Ben”.  And when you go to casper.com/ben and use discount code “Ben” you get 50 bucks off the mattress, $50 off a mattress.

Rachel:  Fifty dollars.

Ben:  That’s a pretty slammin’ deal.  And, I’ve got one other quick thing for ya’ before I jump in to a few of the places where you can go this year.  The last thing I wanted to mention to you is that we have a bunch of these surprise gift boxes that were…

Rachel:   I love this!

Ben:   Yeah, they’re pretty cool.  You got for…

Rachel:  Yeah, I got one for Christmas!  I did and it was incredible.  Oh my gosh, he was so happy!

Ben:  Yeah, so the way this works is – I go pick out the latest, greatest cutting-edge, biohacking gear, and nutrients, and smart drugs, and goodies, I hand-pick them, I curate them, I put them in a box and I ship them to your front doorstep, and what it is, it’s about 300 bucks worth of stuff, 300 bucks worth of swag, and you get it for a 150.  So it’s a 50% discount, right now we have 7 of these available.  So they’re very limited quantities but there are 7 available, the way you get them, and I’ll put a link in the show notes – you can just go to greenfieldfitnesssystems.com, or you can have it over at the show notes at bengreenfieldfitness.com/342.  I’ll put a link to those handy-dandy gift boxes for you right there in the special announcements.

Rachel: Do it!  Yeah, you won’t regret it.  It’s like surprise after surprise after surprise.  It’s just not one surprise.

Ben:  Yeah.

Rachel:  It should be triple surprise gift box.

Ben:   what was Jake’s favorite in his box?

Rachel:   Probably the Tianchi, hmm.

Ben:   Tianchi.  Yeah, you had a box of Tianchi smart drugs.  Right there is a –  that’s a hundred ______[0:34:33.9]

Rachel:  Yeah exactly.

Ben:  Yeah, it’s pretty potent stuff.  Okay, so a few other things for those of you who are local in the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene area, you can go to the Spokane Health and Fitness Expo on January 9^th.  If you’re listening to this podcast on the week that it comes out because that’s this Saturday, and at 11 AM, I will be speaking about all of the reasons why you don’t lose fat even if your exercise and your nutrition plan is just perfect.

[0:35:02.6]

So, that is spokanehealthfitexpo.com, come on over and throw a rotten tomatoes at me ‘cause I will be up there.  Another thing is that I’d mentioned a film crew came to my house from NBC, but the month before, a film crew came to my house for 2 whole days and follow me into my kitchen, my living room, not my bathroom unfortunately, my gym which have a bunch of videos and we packaged it all into a 7-day course.  So what it is is it’s a 7-day course that is kind of my brain dump in terms of everything that you can do to balance your hormones, to fix your gut, to enhance cognitive performance, but it’s all videos and there are also PDF to go along with it.  It’s a really cool course and I partnered up with the good folks at Mind Body Green for this course.  Mind – Body – Green.  So you can either go to mindbodygreen.com, and check it out or I’ll put a link in the show notes, but it is – the title is – are you ready for this Rachel? It’s a big one.  The 7-Day Full Body Reboot Program to Get Strong and Fit.

Rachel:  (laughs) You’re a man of many words.

Ben:  I did not choose that, they did.  It’s a good course and if you just want to kinda like feed through the fire hose and get everything that you need to do for fitness, fat loss, and way beyond that, we go into everything from like enhancing cognitive performance to fixing your gut.  Check that one out, it is again if you’re listening to this podcast on week that it comes out, it’s 30% off until this Saturday, 30% off which means it’s like 45 bucks, something like that, so.

Rachel:  And we’re also posting little teases on facebook everyday this week, so you can check it out there as well.

Ben:  Yeah, if you wanna go to facebook.com/BGFitness, you can watch a few of the videos that are coming from that course.  You can see what it’s like.  The last thing that I wanted to mention is this whole PaleoFX thing.  If you wanna go to a conference this year, and you’re trying to figure out which health and fitness conference you wanna prioritize, I’d say this would be the one for you, and they just announced a few new speakers, Dr. Art Devany.  Speaking of being of getting old, Art Devany is the guy who I had on the podcast the couple of years ago.  He’s 70+ years old, he’s a freakin’ Adonis.  He’s actually an economist but he has also written a book called The New Evolution Diet, he’s a nutrition and a fitness guru, and he’s a specimen, an old guy but you would not guess that he’s one of those 70 year old guys who looks like he’s 35.

Rachel:  Wow!

Ben:  So, he will be speaking there and he’s one of those guys whose words I listen to when he speaks, when he says stuff because I would love to look like him and perform like him when I’m his age.  And I will!

Rachel:  Definitely.  You will!

Ben:  Mark my words.  I will be toned both with my teeth when I’m his age.  At least that’s my goal.  Few other people who just got announced that Jill Coleman whose a TV fitness personality and entrepreneur, who mostly works with women on achieving healthy lifestyles, she’s gonna be there, Kris Gunnars is another guy they just announced as speaker, he really focuses on like evidence-based nutrition, he’s kind of a nutrition geek, and then there’s a guy named Jonny Bowden who is kind of an expert on healthy foods and healthy pregnancy.  So all those folks along with a ton of different like biohackers, and chefs, and physicians, scientists, entrepreneurs, you name it, they all go to Austin, Texas, May 27^th to the 29^th and I’ll be part of it, a freakin’, amazing conference that you do not need to be paleo to attend.  So you can check that one at bengreenfieldfitness.com/paleo16.

Rachel:  And then, do you know what you’ll gonna be speaking on yet?

Ben:  I’ve got a few different topics that I’ll be speaking on.  One will be on natural ways to enhance cognition, and enhance mental performance, I’ll be on a few panels, one panel on stress, one panel on biohacking, so, I will be all over the place there, so.

Rachel:  Awesome!

Ben:  Definitely be there, come hang out.  It’s a ton of fun, lot of good parties.  So check it out – paleo – actually bengreenfieldfitness.com/paleo16, so that you get like the early bird discount, and all that good stuff.

Listener Q & A:

Sean:  Hey Ben, big fan, Sean Gallagher here.  I listen to all your podcast, read all your stuff, got your book, buy your products, recently ran into some health issues, came down with Lyme disease.  And my question is: for anybody out there who’s coming back from a significant injury whether that would be sports related or a health issue like Lyme.

[0:40:03.1]

What’s the best way to rebuild your fitness and strength, and how to go back tracking that like should I be using heart rate meter, should I be tracking my heart rate variability, should I be jogging, should I be – I’m not really sure what, how should I approach starting to build up that stamina again, and how to track my progress to see if I’m improving.  Thank you very much, Ben.  Talk soon.

Ben:  Alright, well Sean is one of my buddies.  So Sean, if you’re listening – what’s up man?

Rachel:  Alright.  How can we help him out?

Ben:  Okay, so first of all Lyme disease.  I am not going to focus on that too much.  I have a pretty comprehensive podcast that I did on that.  Actually with – are you familiar with Dr. Mercola, Rachel?

Rachel:  Yes!  Very, yup!

Ben:  Okay.  Dr. Mercola’s girlfriend came on the show, Erin Elizabeth, and we had a pretty comprehensive interview on Lyme testing, Lyme protocols, and a lot of really good information on Lyme.  So, I will put a link to that in the show notes because if you really wanna learn about what I would consider to be a global epidemic of Lyme disease that’s kinda fly under the radar, you can go check that out.  So I’ll link to that.  We’re really not gonna focus on Lyme as much as you know, when you’ve had a debilitating chronic disease like this – chronic fatigue, Lyme, things along those lines, what do you do?  Like how do you rebuild your fitness without overstressing your adrenal system without creating some of the autonomic nervous system imbalances that we talked about for example, on last week’s podcast?  What are some of the things that you can do?  So, what I’m gonna go over are some of what I consider to be the biggest wins when it comes to increasing your fitness significantly without actually putting your body under inordinate amounts of stress, or inflammation?

Rachel:  Okay, sounds good.  Sounds fun. Do it!

Ben:  Alright.  It involves hopping on an airbus flying 2,000 of miles, will exposed to the natural circadian rhythms and gently filtered air coming from the airbus, but there’s more… wait, there’s more.  So first of all, let’s start with strength training, so in folks who’ve had adrenal fatigue or who are perhaps on an off season bouncing back from like a tough season of say like marathoning or triathlons or obstacle racing, or people who are coming back from something like a chronic disease, the best form of strength training that would both build cardio and strength at the same time is super slow strength training.  There is a book that I would recommend that you purchase, or you can kinda sorta do the ‘done for you approach’ if you just Google this guy, or listen to my podcast with him which I’ll link to in the show notes, but it’s called super slow training and the book is called Body By Science.  The author is Doug McGuff, and the training protocol outlined in that book – and Doug is a physician who actually works with quite a few people using this protocol is a lot of very slow time under tension for the muscles hitting a few different muscle group.  So an example of this would be – you’re going to do 4-6 repetitions of one exercise.  Let’s say the chest press, you’re gonna go about 30 seconds up, 30 seconds down.

Rachel:  Wow!  That is super slow.

Ben:  You’re gonna be in freakin’ zen mode.  The problem with most people is that they don’t feel physically, they feel mentally on this one, right, they just like – they wanna go fast and get it done.

Rachel:  Yeah.

Ben:  Just listen to an audio book or podcast, or focus on deep knees or breathing and turn it into meditation.  You know, whatever works for you.  There are even this binaural beat apps you know, like sleep stream is one that I use that doesn’t just play apps for sleep or beats for sleep, but it all play beats for like motivation and focus.  Another one would be like the website brain.fm, which I’ve been using quite a bit for writing.  But the idea is there are specific sounds that you can listen to to improve your focus and your alpha brainwave production if you have difficulty staying focus during a run, or during a workout like this.  I personally when I’m doing a super slow strength training routine, I just put on like a good podcast or a good audio book that makes me not mind that long, long amount of time spend doing one single freakin’ rep.

Rachel:  Right!

Ben:  Choose one exercise, do 4-6 reps of that exercise, so a lot of time under tension and then that’s it.  You’re done with that exercise just doing one set.  And then you move on to another exercise like let’s say, the seated row and then you repeat with that.  And then you do 2 or 3 more exercises, let’s say the squat, let’s say the overhead press, and let’s say some sort of very slow core movement, right, like a V-up again moving extremely slow and controlled, a lot of tension, a lot fascial tension, muscle tension, you don’t hold your breath, you breathe through the movement preferably with something like deep nasal breathing, and that’s the work – it takes 12-20 minutes, and it’s incredibly effective but it’s also low intensity – Doug McGuff himself, the doctor has been doing this for many years and he stays fit without getting injured at all.

[0:45:28.1]

If you’re gonna do it like a triathlon, or a marathon or something like that, this is not going to do it all for you, right?  Like you’ll still gonna have to get out and do some power lifting, and throw some sandbags around, you know, like pound the pavement, but for just basic strength and the thing that also happens is you get an increase in what is called your peripheral blood pressure which is actually the type of blood pressure that you want to increase during a workout without a simultaneous increase in what’s called your central blood pressure which would be the blood pressure during a workout that you wouldn’t want to rise.  So there’s some very cool cardiovascular training effects as well with this form of training, but you would do that 2-3 times per week, 2-3 times per week.  Super slow strength.

Rachel:  Yeah.  It’s nothing crazy.  So, 4-6 different exercises, 4-6 reps, 2-3 times a week.

Ben:   Uh-hmm.  Yup exactly.  Just one set per exercise but the actual reps for that set are very slow and controlled.  The next thing would be increasing your nitric oxide production, your inspiratory and expiratory muscle strength, and your oxygen capacity by using hypoxic methods which you could do at the same time as some of these other things that I’m talking about.  This would be, yes, the use of something that many people considered to be a scam, but that I think works quite well, and that’s one of these like elevation training mask, and it just makes it harder to breathe and in addition to carbon that you exhale, builds up in the space around that mask and so you’re actually breathing in slightly more carbon dioxide than you would normally which allows your body to have better cardiovascular adaptations during a workout.  It makes your body have to buffer acids a little bit more during the workout, and so something – let’s say you’re doing a super slow strength training routine, or in my case, for example, yesterday, I did a workout that was comprised of – primarily kettlebell swing.  I did kettlebell swings, also had kettlebell deadlifts, is exactly like the youtube video I just posted to youtube if folks wanna go check it out and go to youtube.com/bengreenfieldfitness, I’m not wearing the mask in that video because you wouldn’t be able to freakin’ hear me if I was, supposed to be all muffled and band-like, but it’s basically kettlebell swings, kettlebell deadlifts, kettlebell squats, and kettlebell clean and press.

Rachel:  Can you try it without the mask and achieve hypoxic breathing in a different way?

Ben:  Yeah you could do nasal breathing, that’ll do a little bit but the mask is what really… and by the way this Saturday’s podcast for those of you listening in, I’ve a very good discussion with Brian Mackenzie about this whole idea and how the training mask actually works.

Rachel:  Awesome!

Ben:  It’s not a complete scammer, some people do blow out of proportions, it’s not gonna simulate altitude, it’s not gonna get you ready for some you know, climb up Mt. Everest, but it is good at making you work a little bit harder without creating a huge amount of additional stress on the body, right?  So, if I can do a series of kettlebell swings, and get my heart rate just as high as say if I were to just sprint up a hill, it’s gonna be a little less impact than sprint to keep that hill, and you could use a training mask while you’re doing – and I do recommend this something like the super slow strength protocol that I just talked about.  In addition, a couple other ways that you can train with hypoxia or hyperoxia which is increase in lots of oxygen, one will be keep a powerlung in your car, I’ve talked about this before recently on a podcast, and this is just a little device that restrict oxygen or doesn’t restrict oxygen, it makes out harder to breathe out and harder to breathe in.  And it’s basically a resisted form of breath work.  You could keep this in your car whenever you’re driving around, or if you’re sitting around, watching a movie or whatever, you can train your muscles using that.  And then the other – and by the way, the way you do that is for example, 10 breaths of 3 seconds in, 3 seconds out, and then you pause for a little while, you know, you take a 1 minute breather and then you do it again.  And you would treat that just like a strength training workout for your lungs.  The final thing that I would mention to you is recently a physician published an article at bengreenfieldfitness about how to biohack with hyperoxia, how to use what’s called exercise with oxygen therapy.  This involves spending a little bit more money.  You’d need a device that will cost anywhere from about $1,000 to 1,500 and it’s literally a machine that concentrates the amount of oxygen that you breathe so you get hyperoxia, and there’s some very interesting study that show when you do bouts of hyperoxia followed by hypoxia, meaning low amounts of oxygen, you can actually get a significant improvement in cardiovascular fitness very quickly for working under a lower workload.

[0:50:25.1]

I realized that’s a little bit more of an extreme biohack, this would be perhaps the professional athlete who has a competition coming up, who has been injured, who needs to bounce back as quickly as possible, but not only as that a very good method of training it’s called EWOT.  If you wanna look into it, or if you wanna go read the article that the physician wrote.  I’ll link to it in the show notes, but I also have a follow-up article being published on bengreenfieldfitness by him in a couple of weeks which goes into how to like make your own hyperoxia device that you can, for example, put next to your desk while you’re working, and you can just while you’re working do 5 minutes of concentrated oxygen, take the mask off, breathe normally for 5 minutes, put it back on, do 5 minutes of concentrated oxygen or you could do this while riding a bike, so very interesting.

Rachel:  Wow, it sounds fascinating.  DIY masks?  Wow!

Ben:  It’s a little more techy but I know some of our listeners like to kinda take a deep dive.  So, few other things I’d recommend: one would be hyperthermia, hyerpthermia.  Just this Monday I published a post that I’d recommend anyone who’s into hyperthermia which would be sauna exercise and heat exercise, go read.  And it goes into the exact sauna workout that I sweat through every single morning.  Did you see this one, Rachel?

Rachel:   I did, yeah.   Juicy.

Ben:   Yeah, it’s juicy.  I’m not gonna give it all away, gotta go read it.  But when you look at sauna, there are a lot of interesting things that it can do.  So not only does it increase the growth of new brain cells, but it also causes your body to release erythropoietin which vastly improves your ability to create new red blood cells.  It causes the induction of heat shock proteins which not only improves longevity but also increases your stress resilience.  You get a significant increase in growth hormone along with the small increase in testosterone, you get a maintenance of lean muscle mass not necessarily growth on muscle mass, but a maintenance of lean muscle mass due to the production of these heat shock proteins, you get a release of prolactin hormone which makes your brain function faster by enhancing myelination and repairing damaged neurons which is important because a lot of neural tissue can becomes damaged during something like Lyme disease for example.  You get an improvement in fat oxidation, of course you get a little bit of detoxification of heavy metals and environmental chemicals through the skin.  There’s a lot of really cool things that happen but what I like most about it is it’s very passive exercise, right, it’s – you don’t finish up a sauna session feeling as though your muscles are all inflamed and swollen, and beat up and torn.

Rachel:  Yes.

Ben:  And so I would recommend – and you could do this you know, I do sauna now, almost 7 days a week unless I’m traveling.  I’m in my sauna everyday, every morning.  So you can get in there along with these other protocols I recommended as much as everyday.  And if you finish up with a cold shower to improve the production of nitric oxide, all the better, so.

Rachel:  Uhm, you can’t really OD on heat, is that what you’re saying?

Ben:  You can, but if you’re doing a sauna session everyday for 20-30 minutes, you’re not staying there for 60 minutes, you’re not like wheeling your stationary bike in there to exercise while you’re in there.  You can actually get quite a good improvement in fitness, again without stressing out your body or your nervous system.  So I’m a big fan of sauna, and again like each of these things by themselves is not incredibly significant but once we string all these stuff together, and I’ll talk about a way that you can do that in a second.  Once you string all these stuff together becomes pretty significant.  Cold which I just hint today is another way to increase nitric oxide, increase production of adiponectin which helps your body tap in to fat stores and adipose tissue, increase the production once again of brain derived neurotropic factor, increase the production proteins very much like this heat shock proteins that increase stress resilience.  So we’re talking about for example, cold shower in the morning, cold shower in the evening, and a couple of times a week some kind of a cold soak where you’re getting into like a cold bath or a cool river for 15-30 minutes, and basically breathing through that kinda like the guy interviewed Wim Hof, and learning to improve your fitness and your cardiovascular efficiency via the use of cold.  And the benefit is a lot of people when they’re trying to become fit again, or also trying to lose a little of fat they may have gotten while sitting around, and so this will help with the mobilization of fats out of adipose tissue and also the conversion of adipose tissue in the more metabolically active brown fat, so.

[0:55:10.1]

Rachel:  Interesting.

Ben:  One of the thing would be electrostim, electroslim would be the use of for example, there’s one unit called the Compex – c-o-m-p-e-x, and that is a form of electrostimulation that unlike – there’s another popular device called the marcpro, the marcpro is very good for recovery, but this one called the compex is very good for causing your muscles to contract in a much more difficult manner.  Like it will simulate a several hundred pound squat if you were to attach the electro to your quads, and your hamstrings for example, without actually creating the same amount of potential joint wear and tear or strain that your body might not be prepared for if you’d actually hop under a barbell, if you would just trying to rebuild your fitness.  And they come pre-program, right, they’ve got like strength session, power session, and endurance session, and you simply attach the electrodes to the muscles for which you want to do that session, and so for example, you could do once a week an electrostim session on the quads and the hamstrings.  This sessions last 20-30 minutes, and then once per week you could do a session on say another lagging body part like let’s say the biceps and the triceps, and again you don’t finish the session kinda like the sauna, you don’t finish the session feeling as though you’ve lifted weights or done like a body-building type of routine, but you still do get those muscular-skeletal adaptations, so…

Rachel:  Very cool!

Ben:   That is another option.  Now, as far as putting these all together, you know, if you step back and look at it, you’re cold shower morning and evening along with the cold soak, let say, once a week.  Sauna session; 4-5 days a week, super slow strength training session; twice a week along with the use of training mask during that session, and then the use of a powerlung if you’re driving around in your car and stuff like that.  And then the only thing that’s missing would be – you eventually gonna want to start to include some of the things that might be a little bit more stressful to your nervous system initially, but that you’re eventually going to want to include, and that would be like higher intensity interval training, right?  Like bicycle intervals or elliptical intervals or you know, kettlebell swing intervals and I have a lot of instructions for that and exactly how to do it in an article that I wrote over at bengreenfieldfitness.com called How to Look Good Naked and Live A long Time.  And in that article which – I’m actually quite proud of it, it’s a little bit long article, but it delves into all of the researches out there that tell you exactly how you can maintain the density of your mitochondria, your muscular endurance, your VO2 max, and then also your metabolic efficiency, and your blood control.  And it’s just a simple series of cardiovascular workouts that you do each week; some long, some short.  If you want to… oh, go ahead.

Rachel:  I actually do this one, and one thing I noticed that’s in the plan that’s not something that we’ve covered is fasted exercise in zones 1 and 2, is that something you would…

Ben:   Yeah, it is.  And I don’t consider fasted morning exercise which I’m a big fan of to necessarily be a good way to improve fitness as much as to activate the parasympathetic nervous system like in the morning.  In a way that I talk about, I get into the science of that recent article that I wrote about saunas, so go read that.  We’ll put a link to that and this look good naked, live a long time article if you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/342, I’ll link to all these in a show notes but one thing, Rachel, is that you were to do like a morning sauna session, it would count for that morning fat burning session.

Rachel:   I see.  Yup!

Ben:   So, I would after about 4 weeks or so begin to implement some of the intervals that I have in that particular program and article  – the look good naked, longevity program.  I love that title by the way, I put that myself.  Anyways though, the last thing I would mention is how to track recovery.  Best way to tract, probably you’d expect me to say this would be, what I talked about when we talked about the nervous system last week, and that would be a very simple morning measurement for about 5 minutes of your heart rate variability, and that will show you how well your nervous system is coming along because frankly, yes, you can take front and side photos, and you can do body fat measurements, and you can even for example do a weekly test where you’re gonna ride a bicycle for 20 minutes and see if your power is going up or see if your heart rate is lower for the same RPM and the same power for that bike ride.

[1:00:12.4]

But most of that stuff is pretty intuitive, most of us know or can find out pretty easily for losing body fat or for getting more fit.  That’s not rocket science, the hard part that a lot of people don’t pay attention to is if their nervous system is becoming more robust, and I would say that that’s more relevant to bouncing back from something like Lyme disease, then how hard you can ride a bike.  And so I would say, that the main thing you’re gonna want to look at specifically is when you do a morning heart rate variability test, look at the numbers that are your power numbers, power numbers.  So there will be a power for your low frequency, which is your sympathetic nervous system, and a power for your high frequency which is your parasympathetic nervous system, and ideally both of those power frequencies are above 1,000 and steadily climbing.  Like I know I’m very fit, very recovered, and in a really good place both mentally and physically, if my numbers are 8,000 or higher, and I know for me personally I’m pretty beat up if they fall below 2,000.  That’s a sign for me to look into taking a rest day or go back and see what I did the day before that might stress me out so much.  So that’s my recommendation for tracking, you know, the app that I use for that is called NatureBeat.  We’ll put a link to that in the show notes along with all these other stuff.  But those would be some of my primary recommendations.  That make sense?

Rachel:   Yes!  So we’ve got cold thermogenesis, electrostimulation, all brought together in the Look Good Naked and Live a Long Time blog post, correct?

Ben:   Ah more than that; hypoxia, hyperthermia like sauna stuff, and then the heart rate variability tracking but yeah, there’s one other thing that I wanted to mention, one of the podcast that might be worth looking into, and it’s called Why Strong People are Harder to Kill.  It is a podcast episode that I did with Keith Norris in which we talked about this machine called the ARXFit machines.  If you do a search for the name of your town and the word ARXFit, that’s ARXFit or just go listen to that podcast.  These machines are expensive to purchase for home use, they’re a few thousand dollars but a lot of times some cities will have this machines available for use and it’s highly efficient exercise.  It’s a simple like 10 minute protocol that you go through with this ARXFit machine, and again for those of you who really wanna get into the techie side of things and hack as much efficiency into your workout as possible.  That’s worth looking into and listening to as well is that podcast hat I did with Keith Norris on getting strong – Why Strong People are Harder to Kill and these ARXFit machines.

Dundee:   Hi Ben, huge fan of the podcast, been a fan for years, I’m a member of the Inner Circle, great information – keep doin’ a great job that you guys doin’.  I’m calling from Trinidad and Tobago, the twin island Republic in the Caribbean, and recently I’ve been seeing all the articles last of which was an article on slow twitch that is condemning the practice of doin’ laps in the swimming pool while holding your breath.  I mean, this is something I’ve heard you mentioned on numerous occasions and something that I know you practice usually at the end of your swim sets, and it’s something that I’ve recently introduced.  So I’m a bit concern by all of these ‘bad press’ I would say about that particular practice and this article that highlighted dangers of shallow water blackouts.  So, really appreciate if you could shed some light on this.  And thanks again, keep doin’ the fantastic job that you’re doin’.

Ben:   So just for you the listeners now, we’re gonna open the kimono here.  Since our last question, Rachel went and poured herself which sounded like a copious amount of coffee.  Are you doin’ okay over there, Rachel?

Rachel: Ahh, it’s slight struggle street in the Southern Hemisphere, but I’m doin’ alright.

Ben:  You know, one of my favorite Christmas gifts that I got was a mug, and it says ‘coffee makes me poop’.  Giant brown mug.

Rachel:   (laughs)  Oh my god!  Coffee makes me poop too!

Ben:  Yeah!  That’s the one of the best ways really.  Any hot beverage in the morning will help out a little bit, or if you’re not a fan of coffee, not a fan of hot beverages, or not a fan of tea, you had there a little thing that will make you poo in the morning, is you just drink a glass of water with a little bit of lemon juice and about a teaspoon of baking soda.  And holy cow!  Wait about a half hour and if you have trouble pooing in the morning, that will get things going.

Rachel:  Wow, thanks!

Ben:  Sometimes too much.  Yeah, you may wanna go in the bathroom with some baby wipes if you try that technique.  Just saying.

Rachel:  Weird just getting’ gross by the second.

[1:05:02.5]

Ben:  We digress because we’re actually talking about here of course, is Dundee’s question on underwater breath holding.  And this actually was pretty sad.  It was something that happened this past week to a Dartmouth College swimmer, and this guy had been trying to complete four laps underwater without surfacing to breathe.  So that would be – he is swimming at 25 pools, so 100 meters underwater, 100 yards underwater.  And apparently in this particular case, he actually was somewhat fatigue.  He’d swam about 4,000 yards which is not an ungodly amount for collegiate swimmer, but it’s enough to fatigue you a little bit, and then he tried to complete his hundred, his four laps across the pool without surfacing for air, and he had – he had what is called shallow water blackout.  He died from this, and there’s been a lot of kinda controversy around the internet because this reflects quite a bit on a lot of these techniques that folks are using these days.  There’s everyone from Wim Hof who has his book, Becoming The Iceman, in which he describes turning yourself into a beast by going underneath the ice and swimming back and forth underneath the ice.  I’ve personally have done the whole freediving thing and experimented with breath holding, and apnea quite a bit, and so, this is certainly relevant.  And just like I mentioned, I am of a proponent of some of the benefits of hypoxia.  The big dump in nitric oxide, the activation of your mammalian dive reflex when you hold breath under water, the improvement in focus and the activation of your parasympathetic nervous system when you do the stuff right, but there are some definite issues with it, so.

Rachel:  That sounds very high risk.

Ben:  It is.  And there are few ways that that this actually happens.  So I wanna tell how you can avoid this if you happen to be one of these people who wants to tap into hypoxia, underwater breath holding, Wim Hof style training without necessarily risking this type of issue.  So, first of all, the way that this happens is actually 4 different ways that you can get blackout from oxygen deprivation even if you’re swimming in shallow water.  Like, even if you’re not going deep, deep down in spearfishing or something like that.  One would be low CO2 before you begin your breath hold.  So this happens with hyperventilation, you know, just basically what you see a lot of people doing before they hold their breath, they (hard breathing sounds) so, when they do that, they’re blowing off a bunch of CO2.  Anytime you’re exhaling more than you inhale ‘cause when you exhale, you breath off carbon dioxide, anytime you’re exhaling more than you inhale, you breathing off CO2.  Now, CO2 is the gas that if in your blood triggers your desire to breathe.  So as we we’d make logical sense, if you blow off a whole bunch of CO2 before you go under, yes, you may increase the amount the amount of oxygen, but you also decrease the one gas that’s going to tell you to breathe when you’re supposed to breathe.  The gas is like your warning signs like your canary in the mind, you get rid of all that, and that can become dangerous because all of a sudden you may blackout before you realize that you should have taken a breath.  So, that’s one thing that can causes hyperventation.

Rachel:  So do you think that’s what happened to the swimmer, is that we was low in CO2?

Ben:  No, I think he was probably low on O2 because you can actually lower your oxygen levels as well.  And this happens more though repetitive breath holding, or by doing breath holding after exertion and exhaustion.  So you’ll see swimmers do this sometimes like hypoxic sets where you hold your breath, you swim like a 25 underwater, and then turn around and sprint to 25 back.  And when you’re doing repetitive efforts like that, you’re oxygen levels tend to drop lower and lower.  You’re not necessarily blowing off a lot of CO2 but you simply are experiencing low levels of CO2 and you eventually get to the point where you blackout because you’re combining hypoxia with intense exercise.  So the combination with hypoxia with exercise is another way that shallow water blackout can occur.

Rachel:  So how can we mitigate against this?

Ben:  Well, I’m not done yet.

Rachel:   Oh, god!

Ben:   There are couple of other things that can cause.  I’m not done yet.  Wait, there’s more.  So another thing that can cause this is maybe you’re not hyperventilating, and you’re not exhausted but – and this is something I even had when I took the freediving course before that.  Some of it can be simply competition and peer pressure, and having a certain number or a certain goal that you’re going for your breath hold.

[1:10:01.6]

And you get blackout that occurs when that critical level of hypoxia is reached simply because you are ignoring the urge to breathe not because you necessarily have low levels of CO2, but because you are competing with someone else or competing with the clock for certain breath hold time.  So that’s another thing that can happen.  And then the last thing is simply a combination of many of the elements of – which often happens.  Someone will be doing repetitive breath holds while tire, hyperventilating, and then also competing with someone else or competing with the clock.  And so, what happens is you eventually get to the point where you ran out of oxygen and you get what’s called shallow water blackout which is a result of severe lack of oxygen to the brain because when oxygen falls to critical levels blackout happens instantaneously, frequently without warning, and the issue is not necessarily that is the lack of oxygen that kills you, it’s that you have this brief blackout, and what happens is you blackout and for a little bit your larynx kinda goes into spasm and keeps you from like taking in water into your lungs, and that spasm goes away while your head is still submerge in water, you breathe in a bunch of water, and then you have that that fatality occur.  Know how it happens is really basically advising you on how you can avoid it.  So, one thing is that you’d never want to practice prolonged breath holding unless you were in an extremely controlled environment.  For example, when I took the freediving course a few weeks, most of the static apnea training that we did and again, we’re static, we weren’t swimming back and forth, we’re just holding our breath statically.  Each of us had a partner.  Each of us were giving a signal every 15 seconds to show that we were still cognizant.  We had an instructor right there with us, and we were right on the pool edge.  Even if someone had blackout, if would have been known easily, you know, within 15 seconds.  So that’s one thing.  Another thing in addition to being supervised in that type of environment is if you’re going into a swimming pool and you’re doing like breath hold in the swimming pool, I have 2 recommendations for that because I do breath holds in the swimming pool.  I’m not gonna say that I never go alone by myself and do breath holds but a) I always stop when I’m at about 80% of what I think is my longest breath hold time.  So I never push myself to the point where I’m sucking oxygen because believe it not just by swimming at 25 hypoxic which is simple for a lot of people, you get a lot of the benefits of hypoxia without actually subjecting yourself to the risk of shallow water blackout.  And you know, so for example, I’ll go out and I’ll do 10 repeats while I’m swimming 25 meters, hypoxic but I’m always in control.  I’m never going anywhere close to, you know, so we were talking just like 30 seconds of holding your breath.

Rachel:   Right, yup.

Ben:   But you still get a lot of those benefits, and interesting here’s some funny – one of the ways that you know that you’re getting some of the benefits from hypoxia, and that nitric oxide release?  Is if as you’re doing those repeats you have to pee.  That’s a good sign.  If you feel that urge to pee, that’s actually a dump of nitric oxide.  FYI.

Rachel:   Hah!  Good to know.

Ben:  And I also assumed that there is no lifeguard.  Even if there is a lifeguard, I go into the pool swimming that that lifeguard is completely incompetent and is not gonna notice it if I have some kind of a blackout, or if I do something stupid in the pool.  I just don’t trust a lifeguard ever.  As dumb as it sounds, I assumed that – okay, let’s pretend I’m completely by myself and no one is here to save me.  I need to swim like that, so.

Rachel:   Yup.

Ben:  That’s another thing that I’ll do.  Another one that you wanna be careful with is repetitive breath holding, repetitive breath holding were you’re doing like long underwater repeats over and over and over again to exhaustion.  Again, if they’re short breath holds it’s probably not a big of an issue, but long breath holds to exhaustion is a big issue.  So, one breath hold, one time, one lap and then you recover, and you never want to combine your heart racing with this hypoxia.  And then the other thing is whenever possible, and if you are going to do any type of hypoxic training, you do it with a buddy.  Now, you should also know that I have – the next 2 podcasts – so, the next podcast you’re gonna hear is with Brian Mackenzie, that’s coming out this Saturday in which we talk about performance breath work, and all his little breathing hacks to improve oxygen capacity and activate your nervous system with breath work.  And then the podcast the following week is with Ted Hardy, who taught the free-diving course that I took and we take a deep, deep dive into…(pun intended)

Rachel:  Pun intended…

Ben:  … into this whole shallow water blackout and what causes it and how to prevent it.

[1:15:01.7]

But the very last thing that I wanted to mention was I know that in my response to Sean, I talked about the training mask, the powerlung, and all these things that can build up your inspiratory and expiratory muscles.  Well, if you are one of those people whose folks hold breath time, please know that it is a little bit of a catch 22 because as you increase the muscle around your ribcage, you can actually inhibit the ability of – you can inhibit your ability to hold your breath for a long period of time because you can build up too much muscle around your lungs and your diaphragm.  So, you should know that – you know, you can’t have your cake and eat it too, and that’s why a lot of free divers that you see are like, you know, kinda skinny, thin people, they’re not doin’ it.  A ton of core muscle training because they don’t wanna build up those muscles too big.  I’m a fan of, you know, I’m happy to be like for me, I’m almost up to a 5 minute breath hold.

Rachel:   Wow… solid active fan!

Ben:  I’m totally happy with the 5 – you know, I take a 5 minute breath hold, yeah, and then I also wanna have those inspiratory and expiratory muscles to help me with things like you know, my obstacle course racing and stuff like that.  So….

Rachel:  Yup.  Question…

Ben:  Anyways, we have a lot more podcast coming out on this stuff, and it’s relevant even if you’re not into like diving and spearfishing and pulling your breath, for those of you listening in.

Rachel:  Ben, so what is the upside to actually doing this breath holds underwater?  And is that more important?  Does that kinda make up for the risks?

Ben:  When you do hypoxia there's a few things that happen.  For example, one study that I’ve talked about on the podcast before was the use of restricted breathing in swimmers, and the significant 8% improvement in running efficiency and economy for hypoxic work in the pool.  So if you are a runner or a cyclist, it can help out with that activation of the mammalian dive reflex, more efficient use of oxygen, and an increase in capillary density, delivery of oxygen via the formation of new blood vessels to all these different regions.  I like the fact that it helps me quite a bit with relaxation and with focus.  There’s nothing like you focus like just kinda swimming by yourself, underwater back and forth…

Rachel:  On one breath…uhmm.

Ben:  Yeah.  But again, I don’t do it to the point where I’m gasping for breath when I come up.  Everything I do easily, I would say no one near the 80% the breath hold mark, and again, like I can hold my breath just sitting there for almost 5 minutes, any of these like static breath hold are not static, moving breath holds that I do underwater, we’re talking like 30 seconds, alright, it’s not long periods of time.

Rachel:  Okay.  So you think it is worth the risk if you’re doing it in a controlled environment and you’re doing it smart?

Ben:  I think smart, hypoxic training is a cool little skill to throw into your fitness protocol.  Yeah, I just think you need to take into account everything that I just said, and if you’re serious about it, you need to listen in to the next 2 podcasts that we have.

Darrell:  Hi Ben!  Hi Rachel!  It’s Darrell here from Dublin, Australia.  I’ve got a pretty stunning question for you today.  First of all I like to give you some feedback on the show.  I absolutely love it, me and my bestmate listen to you all the time, and while I’m driving in the car or whether driving to work, to training, sitting in traffic, I think it’s fantastic and the information you share is very, very beneficial for my training and nutritional are of help, which brings me to my question:  Ben, I’ve been training myself for a long time, talking 10 years plus at a very, very high intensity, playing sports such as swimming, soccer, cross- country running, and even body building, some of these extent as well for the past 3 years.  I have noticed in the past 3 years that – growing up I have – I grew up with a massive, massive afro.  Like I have huge amount of hair on my head, and the past 3 years I have found that as my training intensity and load has increased, my hair has slowly diminished, and I’m finding myself with a little bit of receding hairline.  I have a personal thoughts on it from a health perspective and maybe perhaps it’s got to do with the amount of stress that I’m putting my body under and maybe the lack of recovery, maybe due to some sort of nutrient deficiency, and therefore the areas in my body that coping it, structure areas such as skin, fingernails, or even hair.  What I wanted to see are what your thoughts on these matter and I think it’s quite a stunning question, so I want to hear what you have to share.  Really love the show, keep doing what you’re doing, and I keeping it here for your response.

Ben:  We have a very comprehensive episode on hair loss.  If you go back and you listen to episode #249, we did quite a bit on hair loss on that episode.  I’m going to link to that episode because it basically covers a few things.

[1:20:03.2]

There have been some new developments since then, which I’m going to get into here in just a moment, but just to briefly go over some of the recommendations from that episode to give you the cliff notes.  One of the first things that is associated with hair loss is a loss of fat-soluble vitamins.  So I’m a big fan of vitamin D supplementation to help out when you have something like a receding hairline.  Now, the latest research on vitamin D that came out this month shows that it’s not gonna be the same for everyone.  What’s specifically they found was that for people who are of a normal weight, what you typically need is ride around 3,000 IU of vitamin D per day, it’s 3,000.  However, if you are overweight, vitamin D needs to go up to about 4500 IU per day.  Some of the inflammation, and some of the increased metabolic requirements of being overweight increases your need for vitamin D.  And then finally if you are obese, and this is very interesting, you need to go up to about 7,000 IU of vitamin D.  Vitamin D deficiencies are quite common in the case of obesity, and so there’s kinda sliding scale for vitamin D intake, and I will link to this research in the show notes, but basically it’s going to change and especially base on your body weight.  So, 3,000 if you’re a normal weight, 4,500 if you’re overweight, and then 7,000+ if you are obese.  So, very interesting in terms of vitamin D intake, and then the other thing that’s very important is I never recommend using vitamin D in the absence of vitamin K, so that you avoid some of the potential risk for calcification if you take too much vitamin D, so.  Vitamin D would be one.  The other things that we’re gonna run in that podcast were fish oil – about 2-5 grams of fish oil per day.  That’s another one – an omega 3 fatty acid deficiency can also contribute to hair loss.  And don’t worry, this isn’t gonna be all about supplements, but I’m just gonna name off a few of the supplements that we went over in that particular episode.  Magnesium is another one – deficiency of magnesium has been associated with hair loss.  And about 500 up to basically – however much it’ll give you lose stool, uses gonna top out on a thousand milligrams of magnesium per day before you start to get a diaper moment, but magnesium is another one.  Brazil nuts – hooray for nuts.com!  Brazil nuts excellent because selenium deficiency can also be associated with hair loss.  You can go to nuts.com using your discount code, and I’ve already forgotten, I believe it was “fitness”, am I correct?

Rachel: It was “fitness” yeah.

Ben:  Fitness!  You go to nuts.com, use code “fitness”, get yourself some Brazil nuts.  Another one would be zinc, and when you take zinc a lot of times it’s best combined with something that will reduce the formation of what’s called DHT.  Testosterone can get converted into a very, very active form of testosterone called – I believe, DHT is dihydrotestosterone.  Don’t quote me on that because I’m havin’ a total brain fog right now, but I believe it’s dihydrotestosterone.  Anyways, DHT is the abbreviation, but what is called an alpha reductase inhibitor can inhibit some of the conversion of testosterone into that form of DHT because high levels of DHT can cause hair loss.  That is the reason that we have that cultural icon of someone who is like bald, and full of like drive and is a complete badass because of their huge amounts DHT.  You got like ‘the rock’ right?

Rachel:  Interesting!

Ben:  So there’s certainly something to be said for baldness, and high levels of testosterone ‘cause a lot of that testosterone can get converted into DHT.  Now, in some cases it can be things other than – unhealthy lifestyle, toxins, too much stress, which will talk about in a second.  There’s a few different reasons that you can have a receding hairline, but ultimately if you tend to be like a big mesomorphic guy who produces a lot of testosterone, you’re losing your hair, in many cases that just goes with the territory and I would – you know, if I had that issue, I’d be more than happy to just be bald and have good drive… so banging a lot… so the others that.  And then finally in that episode we went into some herbal compounds that may help, and I have a whole list in the show notes – but it’s like tribulus, and maca, and nettle and fenugreek.  For those of you who wanna like swallow the 10 pills every morning to stop the hair loss, we’ve got it all there for ya’.  I know it’s a lot of stuff, but I’ll put that in the show notes along with the link to episode 249, where I’m going to more the logic behind each of those.  But today, I wanna just cover a little bit of extra research that I didn’t talk about in that particular podcast episode.  So for example, when we look at the pattern of hair loss, the pattern of hair loss can give us clues.

[1:25:01.8]

So when they’ve looked at hair loss, what they’ve found is for example, if your hair loss is patchy, right, you’re losing hair in patches, in different sections.  Typically that is because of the following: a cortisol imbalance, a deficiency in B vitamins, or deficiency in zinc, or finally a build-up of heavy metals.  So if you look at your hair and it’s patchy, the hair loss is patchy, it can be  a cortisol imbalance, a deficiency in B vitamins, or deficiency in zinc, or heavy metal exposure.  So, that’s one issue.  If your hair is simply thinning, very thin hair and a lot of times it’s a little bit dry as well, in most cases that comes down to thyroid.  So you can get a thyroid panel and you can look at whether you’ve got enough thyroid precursors like selenium and iodine, whether you’re eating things that might cause damage to the thyroid, like gluten, stress can aggravate the thyroid, inadequate intake of carbohydrates can aggravate thyroid but thinning hair and dry hair would be thyroid.  Now, if it’s just the top of your head, it’s just the top of your head only, and a lot of times that’s what you’ll see with receding hairline, typically it’s hormonal imbalance.  It’s testosterone, or cortisol in men, typically progesterone or estrogen in women, and I’ll talk to you in a little bit about how we can test for this, but top of the head only is typically hormonal issue.  And if it’s total body hair loss, right, like you’re full of hair like falling up of your arms and your legs, and also your head, that’s typically related to two things: either DHEA deficiencies – DHEA deficiencies which is another kinda hormones/hormonal precursor ,and then blood sugar disregulation like rapidly fluctuating blood sugar levels.  So, that’s what you would get if you had total body hair loss.  And then finally just balding all over the place, like full head balding.  In many cases, that actually can be either poor circulation to the head, or can be a deficiency in some of these things that are associated with connective tissue.  Things like silicon and essential fatty acids, and zinc is actually up there to.  So obviously, you may want to actually test for some of these stuff, and find out.  But basically there are labs that can test for these stuff.  So for example when we talk about iron deficiency, when iron deps, hair loss can occur.  So you can get an iron test and a ferritin test, and that would be one test to look at.  There’s a thyroid test that I talked about and if you were to test your thyroid, you don’t just want to test TSH which is what most docs will test for, but you also wanna look into free T3, free T4, what’s called antithyroglobulin and reverse T3.  I will put a link to all these different tests in the show notes because you can run any of these by themselves or as a full panel.  Another one that you can look at would be just a basic hormonal panel to look at testosterone, free testosterone, the other one I talked about dihydrotestosterone, I remember the name it’s not dihydroxy, dihydrotestosterone.  And that’s the most associated with male pattern baldness like I mentioned.  That can also be associated with women’s hair loss but like a hormonal panel in which you’re looking at those specific hormones.  Another one would be a cortisol panel.  You can get what’s called an adrenal stress index to see if your hair loss is related to stress.  And then one other that I’ve mentioned would be heavy metals, and you can get heavy metal testing and that would be just a hair heavy metal test.  I’ve got a podcast that I’ve done on that, and I’ll link to that in the show notes as well.  So, the solution of course is to figure out what your pattern is, figure out which lab you want to get and double check and see if that is indeed the issue, and I realize it’s kind of a process, but you know, it’s better than just throwing random things at your body, and wasting your money.

Rachel:  Right.

Ben:  And then you supplement, and you change your lifestyle accordingly.  Now, there are huge variety of things that we can get into. Like – and again, I’ve got a full list in the show notes of all like the solutions but again, I would always test before just like wasting your money on a bunch of supplements.  But some things that you can eat do cover a lot of the basis all at once if you just don’t have the money to be able to test, or you just wanna start to try things right away.  For example, if we look at like pumpkin seeds, pumpkin seeds not only give you zinc but they also prevent testosterone form getting converted into DHT, and so you could use pumpkin seeds.  Another one would be for example, essential fatty acids like salmon or sardines, or cold water fish or fish oil, that will help a lot of timed with the inflammation, with the cortisol, and with some of the nutrient deficiencies associated with hair loss.  That’s why a lot of times like if you start giving your dog fish, and fish skins and stuff, if their hair becomes shiny and healthy and new, and that’s because a lot of dog food, traditional dry dog food doesn’t have a lot of stuff in it.

[1:30:08.2]

Another one would be Chinese adaptogenic herbs which help again to balance hormones, to regulate cortisol, to regulate stress, that would be another example of something that’s kinda like a shot kinda approach to hair loss.  So, have some pumpkin seeds, have some fish oil, have some adaptogens, and…you know, obviously goes way beyond that.  But then the other thing that I mentioned was the fact that in some cases this can be related to just basic blood flow to the scalp.  I mean, just like the rest of your body, when you exercise, when you get massages, when you foam roll, like it improves health in these specific body parts that you’ve worked.  And the same can be said for head and specifically head massage.  You’re gotten like a scalp massage, or hair massage, Rachel?

Rachel:  Yes, it’s delicious!

Ben:  Yeah, it is – well, I wasn’t gonna use the word delicious.

Rachel:  It’s delicious!

Ben:  It’s relaxing, it’s delish.  Increase blood flow – that stimulates follicles and helps hair to grow, and you can not only get a massage or you can use one of these like hair brushes or like these thick rubber brushes that you can use.  It’s not gonna brush, it’s more like a hair massage tool.  But you can combine that with specific oils that can help with hair growth.  For example, if you look at peppermint oil.  Peppermint oil is a natural way to improve circulation, and you can get a hair massage by using peppermint.  Yes, you smell like a giant mint until you shower afterwards, but peppermint helps to improve circulation.  Another one is almond oil and castor oil – both almond oil and castor oil have been shown to help promote hair growth.  So you could get a scalp massage and use almond oil or castor oil or even almond oil, castor oil, and peppermint oil, so.

Rachel:  And peppermint oil, yup. Three birds in one stone.  So Ben, is our receding hairlines ever genetic?

Ben:  Oh absolutely, yeah.  You actually inherit your mom’s hairline, you know, you inherit your hair from your mom, just to let you know.  So, if you look your mom side of the family, you know, the uncles, and the grandfathers, and the cousins on your mom side of the family, you can pretty much expect the hair growth similar to what they have.  Fortunately in my case, most people on mom side of the family have nice, beagled full head’s hair just like me.  So…

Rachel:   You got great hair.

Ben:   There you go.  On the other hand on my dad’s side, not so much.  He’s got hair on his face, not so much on the top of his head.  But ultimately, those are some of things I’d look into. Honestly, I have a huge list in the show notes for ya’ at bengreenfieldfitness.com/342, linking to somebody’s lab test so you can go.  Check them out and you know, basically my recommendation is you test, you look at patterns like the patterns I just described here, rewind, and listen to them again if you want to, and then you treat accordingly rather than just throwing a boatload of random things you found on some website and your hair, and wasting your money on supplements that may not address your need, right?  Like if you’re not zinc deficient, why take zinc?  If you’re not iron deficient, why take iron?  If you’re hormones are balanced, maybe you don’t need adaptogenic herbs, you know, maybe for you, you just need some… whatever, some magnesium and some selenium, so.  I’m a big fan at coming at this a little bit precisely than just like throwing everything in the kitchen sink at your hair, so.

Rachel:  Yeah, and saves you a lot of money as well.

Ben:  Saves you some money.  All about savin’ you some money, oh!  And by the way, I have sad news.

Rachel:  Huh!

Ben:  Sad news is that, when we went in to get the way that we wrap up every show, the reviews, I wanna get reviews.  There were no new iTunes reviews this week.

Rachel:   What?

Ben:   There’s no love.  No good Karma.  So, I’m just sayin’, I’m just sayin’ that we aren’t giving away any swag this week.  We’re holding back.

Rachel:   You guys are missin’ out!

Ben:   You guys are missing out.  So, spread the love, spread the good karma.  You’ll not only feel good about yourself, but you even may grow some hair in your head, and be able to hold your breath for a longer period of time if you go spread this good karma.  Go to iTunes, just go to iTunes, do a search for the Ben Greenfield fitness show or Ben Greenfield or whatev, and when you go there, leave 5 stars.  Leave a review, it helps the show, it helps us spread the word, and you win cool stuff.  You win cool swag from us but in the meantime, Rachel, you don’t get to read a review this week.

Rachel:   That makes me feel sad.

Ben:   That’s alright.  You’re in Australia at 6 AM in the morning.  You’ll not feel sad.

Rachel:   Yes.  Thank you.

Ben:   Keep second that coffee though, and in the meantime, we’ll link to everything that we talked about over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/342, the article that I’d recommend you read if you travel a lot about the dark side of hypermobility, those cool gift boxes that we’ve got for 50% off, all the resources on how to rebuild your fitness fast, my full list of things that you can put into your body that help with your hair, and oh, so much more.  So check it out and also stay tuned this Saturday for really cool podcast on breath work, and next Saturday for a very cool podcast again on hypoxia, breath work.  You guys are gonna be breath work ninjas if you keep on listening this couple of weeks.  And in the meantime, Rachel, I hope you enjoy the rest of the day.

Rachel:   Thank you.  You too.

Ben:   And get enough coffee into your system to survive your bright and early morning with the Ben Greenfield fitness show, and for you all listening in, have a healthy week, and we catch up with you this weekend.

You’ve been listening to the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast.   Go to bengreenfieldfitness.com for even more cutting-edge fitness and performance advice.

[1:36:42.1]    END                  

January 7, 2016 Podcast:The Dark Side Of Travel, How To Rebuild Fitness Fast, How To Stop Receding Hairline & More!

Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right (or go to SpeakPipe), use the Contact button on the app, click Ask a Podcast Question at the bottom of this page, or use the “Ask Ben” form at the bottom of this page.

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News Flashes:

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• The dark side of hypermobility: (and here’s a new plane that could limit the damage).
• Fascinating –  how your body falls apart as you age (gonna talk on next podcast about what you can do about this).
• Holy Batman! This carb vs. fat news is a pretty shabby study.

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–GreenfieldFitnessSystems “surprise gift box” – 50% discount on instant access to a box shipped to your front doorstep and full of the latest cutting-edge biohacking gear, nutrients, smart drugs and more, handpicked and curated by Ben.

Did you miss the weekend podcast episode with Devin Burke? It was a must-listen – titled “How To Quit Obsessing About Health, Eating & Exercise: Dodging The Silver Bullet Of Orthorexia And Body Dysmorphic Disorder.”  Click here to listen now or download for later!

New course from Ben! The 7 Day Full Body Reboot Program To Get Strong And Fit is 30% off until this Saturday. Optimal fitness and health are closer than you think. In just one week, you can set yourself up for a strong, long, lean and healthy body.

Jan 9, 11am: Ben is speaking at the Spokane Health and Fitness Expo. For all the Spokane and Coeur D’ Alene locals, find more info here: http://spokanehealthfitexpo.com/.

May 27-29, 2016: Ben is speaking at PaleoFX 2016 in Austin, Texas. This is the The Who’s Who gathering of the Paleo movement, with world-class speakers including New York Times bestselling authors, leading physicians, scientists, health entrepreneurs, professional athletes, fitness professionals, activists, bloggers, biohackers, and more. And you DON’T need to be Paleo to be able to get a ton of benefit and fun out of this one!

Nov 17-18, 2016: Ben is speaking at the Biohacker’s Summit in Helsinki, Finland. Discover the latest in wearables, internet of things, digital health, and mobile apps to increase performance, be healthier, stay fit, and get more done. Learn about taking food, preparation, cooking, and eating to the next level with the latest science and kitchen chemistry. Even delve into implanted chips, gene therapy, bionic arms, biometric shirts, robotic assistants, and virtual reality. Two days with an amazing crowd and a closing party with upgraded DJs to talk about. Click here to get in now at a 40% discount.

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 – click here to leave your review for a chance to win some!

Waaa….no new reviews? Get on it peeps. It’s good karma and here’s how.

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Listener Q&A:

As compiled, deciphered, edited and sometimes read by Rachel Browne, the NEW Podcast Sidekick.

How To Rebuild Fitness Fast

Sean says: He was recently diagnosed with Lyme disease and he’s wondering what the best way to rebuild your fitness and strength after an injury or health issue and how to track your recovery?

In my response, I recommend:
-Podcast “How To Get Rid Of Lyme Disease”
–ARXFit
–Super Slow Strength a la Doug McGuff
-Hypoxia, including Powerlung, TrainingMask, and EWOT
–Hyperthermia
–Cold Thermogenesis
–Electrostimulation
–Look Good Naked & Longevity blog post
–NatureBeat app

Is Underwater Breath Holding Dangerous? (And How To Avoid Shallow Water Blackouts)

Dundee says: He’s been seeing a lot of articles condemning the practice of doing laps while holding your breath. He’s concerned by all the ‘bad press’ about the practice and the articles that are highlighting the risk of black outs. He knows you’re a proponent of that kind of training, what’s your take on this?

In my response, I recommend:
–The Dartmouth swimmer who died
–My article on freediving

How To Stop Receding Hairline

Darrell says:  He loves the show and always has.  He’s been training for 10 years + at a high intensity and in the past three years he’s noticed as his training intensity and load has increased his hair has slowly diminished and where he used to have a massive afro, he now has a receding hair line. He thinks it might have something to do with the amount of stress he’s putting his body under, what are your thoughts?

In my response, I recommend:
–Lab testing for hair loss
–Vitamin B Complex
–Iron
–TianChi Adaptogenic herbs
–Episode #249 on hair loss, in which I recommend:
–Vitamin D3 and the latest research on Vitamin D 
–Fish oil – 2-5g/day + cod liver oil, 1-2T/day
–Magnesium (500-1000mg/day)
-Brazil nuts (selenium) – 5-6/day (get raw, not roasted and keep frozen)
–Grass fed beef – several 6-8oz servings/week
-If you do not eat shellfish or use zinc regularly, also include 2-4 Prostelan capsules per day (5 Alpha Reductase inhibitor + Zinc)
And then use either:
–D-Aspartic Acid – 3g/day (approx 1 teaspoon) combined with Myomin (aromatase inhibitor) – 1000-1500mg/day
OR
-5 day on/2 day off of herbal blend of tribulis, maca, nettle, fenugreek (recommend RenewMale, Aggressive Strength, or Onnit T+)

Read more https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2016/01/342/