December 7, 2017
[00:00] Introduction
[00:35] News Flash
[20:20] Special Announcements
[21:22] ONNIT/Quip
[25:47] Get Kion
[26:52] Listener Q & A
[27:00] How to Lose Belly Fat
[28:07] Differentiating Types of Fat
[30:30] White Fat versus Brown Fat
[39:40] Yohimbe
[40:52] Kion Lean
[41:29] Cool Fat Burner
[43:58] Diindolylmethane
[48:07] Thorne Research Indole 3 Carbinol
[48:48] Kevin Hall Study
[59:12] APOE4
[1:06:51] Giveaway
[1:10:31] End of Podcast
Introduction: In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show: Holiday Fat Loss Tips, The Best Way To Lose Belly Fat, Does Ketosis Increase Your Metabolic Rate, Fasted Morning Walks, and much more.
Ben: Brock, I can’t stop burping this morning. I don’t know why.
Brock: Yes, we just unearthed the fact that you’ve been drinking root beer.
Ben: I burped four times before we started recording. I actually did. You nailed it! I don’t know if you have a hidden camera in my home. I had a craving this morning for Zevia. You know that sparkling stevia flavored soda?
Brock: Yeah, I love that stuff.
Ben: They have a ginger root beer and for some reason this morning, I wanted to have a ginger root beer. I drank one and now I’m realizing that root beer and podcasting do not go hand-in-hand.
Brock: No. Nothing makes you belch like root beer and we really should do a whole podcast on that because… what is the mechanism of action there?
Ben: I don’t know, doc, but I can tell you one thing, that stuff makes a darn tasty root beer float. You get this vanilla; we’re a fan of coconut ice cream here at the Greenfield household because we find cows to be sacred. We actually worship cows here. So, we don’t drink milk from a cow.
Brock: I’ve seen your Instagram feed where you’re all bowing before the cow.
Ben: Yeah, but we slaughter coconuts. We’ll eat the heck out of coconuts. So, we do coconut vanilla ice cream, and then you just put that in a glass, and you pour some ginger root beer over it. Oh my goodness! But, it’s not quite holiday-ey.
Brock: Not really. It’s more of a summer time thing, really, and we’re into, at least in the norther hemisphere, we’re into the winter holidays.
Ben: Hence today’s podcast for you guys. We’re going to be talking all about holiday fat loss! Starting right off with the news flash. We should just forsake the ginger root beer and jump right into busting the belly fat. What do you think, Brock?
Brock: Let’s do it. Let’s get rid of all that turkey we ate last week.
News Flashes:
Ben: Alright, dude, well speaking of all that turkey that we ate last week…
Brock: I can still smell it although I’m Canadian. We had Thanksgiving a month and a half ago. So, I’m just pretending.
Ben: Well, I shot a turkey. So, there’s that!
Brock: Take that, turkey!
Ben: Yes, well, I both bow-hunted a turkey and got a fantastic turkey from these folks over at US Wellness Meats. Bless your heart, John over at US Wellness Meats, for sending me an 18-pound turkey because my wife did not believe that I was actually going to go out and shoot a turkey, but I did.
Brock: Gosh, 18-pounds.
Ben: I snuck up on him in my camouflage, I snagged a turkey at 35 yards with my bow…
Brock: Nice.
Ben: Yeah. De-feathered it, opened it…
Brock: Right through the eye!
Ben: …and dressed it and took it home and cooked it up! It was good stuff. Anyways, though…
Brock: Anyway.
Ben: We’re at the time of the year when people binge and so I wanted to point out this fantastic article from our friends over at Examine.
Brock: Hey, Examine!
Ben: As usual, anything that you hear me talk about, you can go over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/376 and we’ll put all the links to all of these studies. But, what they wanted to investigate was whether or not binging, like we do over the holidays, at least some of us do, the binging can have an effect on your fat stores and if so, how much? It’s really interesting. They did this three month study and took a whole bunch of twins. They found 12 sets of twins and they decided that they were going to feed them enough calories to cause a 35-pound weight increase.
Brock: So, I guess force feeding them would be the proper term.
Ben: I guess what they did was, if a pound of fat is 3,500 calories, theoretically, they would have given them 35,000 extra calories.
Brock: Damn!
Ben: Actually, more than that! More than that!
Brock: Yeah, more.
Ben: Over three months study to cause a 35 pound increase. Yeah, a lot more than that.
Brock: Aw man, that is force feeding. They’re force feeding the twins.
Ben: Yeah and so, within a pair, they gained similar weight, the twins, which makes sense, because again, the same genetics. But, between the pairs of twins, the variability was through the roof. One pair gained 10 pounds, the other gained 30 pounds, another pair gained 35. It was just all over the map.
So, it appears that genetics play a pretty big role in determining how much weight you gain, especially when it comes to overfeeding. But of course, very few of us are eating for a three month holiday. Most of are just after Thanksgiving or on Christmas day. So, the question is, is that going to cause you to gain fat?
Well, the idea is, they looked into studies on this over at Examine and it turns out that many of those extra calories, most of them in fact, you eat over the holidays, they either get burnt off as heat, hence those meat night sweats that you get…
Brock: Yeah, you wake up all sweaty and plastered to your sheets.
Ben: A whole bunch of them wind up in the crapper and just go through you…
Brock: Thank goodness!
Ben: …as dung.
Brock: Dung!
Ben: By the way, not to sound all bulimic or whatever, a coffee enema can actually help that process out quite a bit if you did that after a binge.
Brock: Wait, how so? You’re still making the same amount of poop. You’re just inducing it to come out.
Ben: It induces peristalsis. So, it makes it a little more comfortable. Exactly. It’ll make more poop.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: And then the other thing is, to store the carbs you ingest, which you typically ingest more of on the holidays, your body has to transform the carbs into glycogen and then attach that glycogen to water molecules. There’s about three to four grams of water per gram of glycogen. So, you may find when you weigh yourself the next day that you weigh a whole lot more than you did before you binged. But, it turns out that a huge part of that is water weight.
Brock: Water weight!
Ben: So, ultimately, you can binge. You’re going to gain some weight, most of it is water weight, very little of it is fat; in addition to water, a lot of it is soon to be poop. So, it really turns out the main thing you need to worry about of everything during the holidays, when it comes to fat storage and effects on your microbiome and effects on your hormones, and effects in your belly fat which we’ll talk about later, is what do you think, Brock? Protein, the carbs, the fats?
Brock: I’m going to say it’s consistency. I don’t mean how smooth your meal is, I mean how often you’re binging, not just the single binge.
Ben: It’s actually alcohol.
Brock: So, I was way off!
Ben: You were way off!
Brock: I don’t think I even understood the question. That was so far out!
Ben: Yeah. Because your body so readily burns alcohol for energy to avoid the toxicity effects of alcohol that didn’t, it dampens the oxidation of fat, it dampens the oxidation of protein and carbohydrates, it increases your appetite in the short term, it decreases the propensity of your body to produce hormones that cause fat loss, and it increases inflammation which shuts down the ability of adipose tissue to release its fatty acids. So, it turns out if there’s anything you’re going to moderate during a binge, it would be alcohol. So, chock one up to that root beer stevia! There you go! Drink some of that!
Brock: So, actually, either you have to moderate it or you drink so much that you actually purge.
Ben: Or have some… They call it O’Doul’s.
Brock: O’Doul’s. Yeah, the alcohol free swill.
Ben: Yeah.
Brock: There’s never an excuse for that.
Ben: Yeah, I’ve been cutting my wine with organic apple cider vinegar as a digestive. It’s actually pretty good. It’s like this little cocktail I make: I do half as much wine as I’d normally have and I have it over ice, which I know just bastardizes the wine anyways, but then I put a little bit of apple cider vinegar, and a pinch of sea salt in there, and that’s the cocktail I’ve been having before dinner.
Brock: I don’t even know what to say to that.
Ben: Yeah, it’s not going to win any flavor competitions.
Brock: Yeah, it kind of want to reach over to the microphone and give you a slap, but I also kind of want to shake your hand. I’m torn!
Ben: That’s good! Apple cider vinegar is good stuff. Anyway, we better keep going through these flashes or else we’ll be here all day.
Brock: Okay let’s go!
Ben: So here’s another one for the holidays: a couple of new studies on something that’s super sexy these days: walking!
Brock: It’s so hot right now.
Ben: Everybody wants to talk about walking. Yeah, it’s so hot right now! It turns out that walking and the timing of when you walk in conjunction to a meal is actually important. It turns out, as you all know, we can improve our glucose levels and increase what’s called your glycemic variability by walking during the day. So, even the walking doesn’t really burn that many calories.
Brock: No.
Ben: Have you seen the new Google Maps feature where it tells you when you’re going to walk somewhere and how much you’re going to burn?
Brock: No, I haven’t!
Ben: Yeah, I was in Minneapolis a few weeks ago and I was going to walk to Whole Foods. Okay, so Whole Foods is two and a half miles away from my hotel and two and a half miles back and it’s 30 degrees out. So, I take off, I’ve got my coat on, I’m walking to Whole Foods, and I look down on Google Maps and when I’m almost at Whole Foods it tells me with those two and a half miles I burned half of a cupcake. Literally, and I literally…
Brock: So, it doesn’t even give you a number?
Ben: No. Well, no, it gives you the number. I forgot what it was like, 75 calories or something like that, but basically nothing. However, what it does do, even though you’re not burning a lot of calories…
Brock: Or a lot of cupcakes.
Ben: Yeah, or a lot of cupcakes. It does a fantastic job of lowering your blood sugar. It turns out that they studied when is the best time that you should walk to actually have the most effectiveness for blood sugar control and even for weight loss for long term studies.
It turns out, the best time to walk when it comes to a binge or when it comes to eating a lot of food or when it comes to walking is, rather than waiting for an hour to walk after a meal, there is a significantly greater effect on insulin levels, on blood sugar, and on propensity for weight gain if you walk immediately after the meal. Immediately after the meal. So, if you’re going to walk, you wouldn’t, let’s say, go to a restaurant, eat a whole bunch of food, and drive home and walk. You would park far away and walk to your car. If you have a big ol’ Thanksgiving meal, you won’t finish the meal and roll in a food coma over to the couch and watch the football game, you go for a walk before you watch the football game. So, it turns out that repeated hyperglycemia after meals can be controlled and this case, this mainstay, we’re looking at about a 30 minute walk. So, it turns out the best time to walk is right after you finish!
Brock: Nice! That sounds like it would be a lot more comfortable to do that too or a little more comfortable for the rest of the day or the rest of the evening. I hate that feeling when you’ve got a big bolus of turkey, and stuffing, and sweet potatoes and marshmallows, and everything piled up in your gut and all you do is just sit there.
Ben: Yeah, yeah.
Brock: It’s not a good feeling.
Ben: You feel the burn coming up your throat and your stomach is all sloshy.
Brock: Yeah, so get up and go for a walk and do something helpful!
Ben: I agree!
Brock: Maybe go shovel or something.
Ben: Again, I’m not an exercise-to-eat, eat-to-exercise kind of guy, I think that’s a horrible freight train to get on, but at the same time, doing something to improve the activity of your glucose transporters before a meal, whatever, it can be a high intensity interval training or weight training, either one works. You could do a tabata set on bike or do some three-sets-of-ten heavy deadlifts or whatever. Then after the meal, something aerobic. Nobody wants to deadlift or do a tabata set on bike after a huge binge.
Brock: No, no.
Ben: But at the same time, go on a walk, easy peasy! Plus it lets you catch up with the folks on the holidays.
Brock: Sure.
Ben: Okay, so speaking of blood sugar control, fascinating new article on natural alternatives to metformin which is a pretty potent blood sugar controlling drug commonly prescribed for diabetes that we’ve talked about before on the show, both the good and the bad about it. This article is big and is kind of a propeller hat type of article. It’s called “Towards Natural Mimetics of Metformin and Rapamycin.” So, we’re talking about things not only replicate the blood sugar controlling effect of metformin and this other compound called rapamycin, but also things that mimic the longevity enhancing effect. One of the things that really caught my attention in this article and one of the most significant findings out of it was there’s this compound call withaferin.
Brock: Withaferin.
Ben: That’s what I’d name a princess if I was going to write a book. Withaferin. Withaferin.
Brock: Withaferin.
Ben: So, withaferin was one of the compounds that topped the list for similarity to both metformin and rapamycin meaning it operated on a very similar pathway from a genetic standpoint. Now, what withaferin is, it’s called a lactone, a steroidal lactone.
Brock: Did you say laxative?
Ben: No, lactone.
Brock: Oh, okay. Gotcha.
Ben: Yeah, different than laxative. So, a lactone is something we’ll commonly find used in ayurvedic medicine, in traditional Indian medicine, for several different disorders, but it turns out, it’s got some pretty potent antidiabetic and blood sugar controlling effects and may also have some of these longevity enhancing effects that things like metformin, rapamycin do. Do you know what compound is very, very high in this withaferin?
Brock: I do, but I’m totally cheating because I’ve got the notes open in front of me.
Ben & Brock: Ashwagandha.
Brock: One of my faves!
Ben: Yeah, yeah. Ashwagandha, which is actually, you know what, this isn’t usually the time of the show when we do sponsors, but I might as well say this: one of the sponsors for today’s show, they actually have a whole bunch of ashwagandha in their stuff. It’s the Organifi, that green juice powder chockfull of ashwagandha! The guy that owns that company Drew Canole, he’s a buddy of mine and he does a really good job of sourcing this stuff, and it’s a really, really good high quality ashwagandha. They call it the Organifi Green Juice. So, there you have it, there’s your sponsor shout out. You can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/Organifi. Organifi with an “I” and that gets you 20% off your own antiaging, blood sugar controlling ashwagandha.
Brock: Brain test!
Ben: Yeah, okay and speaking of longevity, same thing, when I was in Minneapolis, I had a chat with Dr. Thomas Cowan, super smart dude, he actually wrote this week’s article over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com where we talking about why modern heart attack remedies fail and why people really have heart attacks. It will blow your mind if you can read that article. So, go check that out at BenGreenfieldFitness.com. But Dr. Cowan also has been looking into this concept of deuterium depleted water. You heard of this stuff before?
Brock: I have not.
Ben: Okay, so deuterium is very similar to hydrogen, but it weighs twice as much as hydrogen. It just basically has an extra neutron in it. So, that means, it’s pretty electrically identical to hydrogen and it can bind to oxygen to form water, so instead of H2O, it would be D2O and it’s very similar to normal water, but it is heavier. They actually call it “heavy water” because deuterium weighs more than the H2O.
So, because it is in water and is found naturally in a lot of water, it reaches a certain concentration in your cells when you consume water that has deuterium in it and what that can cause is when your deuterium levels rise, your mitochondria start to function more poorly, your protein, your DNA folding begins to unravel, it can’t be incorporated into cells the same way regular H2O water is, so the ultimate takeaway is that as your deuterium levels go up in the water in your cells, that’s the hallmark of an aging and deteriorating body. So, that all looks good on paper, but the idea is they actually looked into this and they took water and they depleted water of all its natural deuterium, so they just took deuterium out of the water. They did a study in the Journal of Cancer Therapy and they showed that men with stage four prostate cancer, which is not that reversible, they had a mean survival time of 11 years compared to the average of 18 to 24 months when they drank deuterium depleted water.
Brock: Wow!
Ben: There was another study published in the Journal of Medical Hypotheses in 2016 that showed that a ketogenic diet actually causes fat to generate deuterium depleted water in the tissues. You can make your own deuterium depleted water by being in a state of ketosis. The other very interesting thing, and I’ll link to the article that Dr. Cowan wrote in the show notes over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/376, is that vegetables, particularly green vegetables, have chloroplasts in their leaves and those chloroplasts excrete deuterium from the plant tissues and leave the water in the plant naturally deuterium-depleted.
So, if you’re going eating an animal that’s eating a diet that’s a grass fed diet, that animal will become naturally deuterium depleted and so you’ll get more deuterium depleted water from the animal meat; you would also, if you eat a high amount of greens, and combine that with something like ketosis, you yourself will be in a deuterium depleted state and lower your risk of things like cancer, for example. So, it’s really fascinating, deuterium depleted water. So, your “heavy water,” that’s water with deuterium in it, and “light water” is deuterium- depleted water, and there are companies now that are figuring out how to make deuterium depleted water. I had a bottle a couple of weeks ago because I wanted to see what it tastes like. It tastes just like regular water, it’s 12 bucks a bottle though.
Brock: And it’s super light! You pick it off the shelf and throw it across the room, it weighs nothing.
Ben: Yeah, exactly. It floats in the air like the astronaut stations, exactly, just like you’re in space. I think it’s fascinating. I think this could be another new frontier in cancer. Again, I’m thinking of buying a bunch of deuterium depleted water necessarily when it comes down to doing something like a plant-rich, ketogenic diet in many cases.
Brock: Yeah, chock another one up for grass-fed meat, really. What can’t it do?
Special Announcements:
Ben: Hey, Brock, remember Han Solo?
Brock: Of course I remember Han Solo!
Ben: The coolest guy in all of the galaxy!
Brock: Absolutely!
Ben: Who was frozen forever in carbonite? Remember that?
Brock: Well, not forever, but, yeah.
Ben: Well, yeah, for a long time. Anyways, so, you can get a yoga mat of Han Solo frozen in carbonite. Are you aware of this?
Brock: I’m not! You’ve just peaked my interest! I need a yoga mat.
Ben: Actually really, really fun.
Brock: That is nerdy, good times!
Ben: This company, Onnit, they have Captain American weight training plates, they’ve got kettlebells with gorillas and zombies on them, and they have this new thing, they even have Star Wars kettlebells speaking of Han Solo, but you can have, literally, you can just be like Jabba the Hut doing yoga on top of Han Solo if you’re messed up in the head and that gets you off! So, anyways, Onnit is an amazing company.
Brock: You just described me perfectly, Jabba the Hut doing yoga! That’s my Twitter handle right there.
Ben: Well, you can save 10% off anything at Onnit: you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/O-N-N-I-T and if you haven’t finished your Christmas shopping, there you have it. Buy somebody close to you their own Han Solo yoga mat.
Brock: Christmas is coming!
Ben: Yeah, BenGreenfieldFitness.com/O-N-N-I-T. You don’t need a code, it will automatically knock 10% off.
Brock: Awesome.
Ben: This podcast is also brought to you by light in your orifices.
Brock: In your head hole!
Ben: In this case, your ear holes. Yeah, your head holes.
Brock: Your head handles.
Ben: I don’t like the term head holes because it doesn’t rule out nostrils or eye sockets or the mouth, right. These things do not go in any of those orifices, they go in your ears! So, the team over at this company called Human Charger has identified specific photosensitive proteins on the surface of your brain and they’re very similar to those found in the retina of your eye and they recreate very similar reactions as the retina in your eye when they get exposed to light. So, we’re talking about increased energy levels and improved mood, increased mental alertness and reduced effects of jet lag. They produce this nice, cozy warmth when you put them in your ears too! Plus, it looks like you’re just listening to an audio player so people leave you the freak alone while you’ve got the light in your ears, if you’re antisocial and introverted like I am. So, anyways, it’s a calibrated white light, goes in your ears, plug it in and you push a button, and you do it for 12 minutes a day and it’s amazing for jetlag, and sleep, and mental alertness, and mood, and everybody listening in gets 20% off! You go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/HumanCharger and you enter code BEN20, that’s B-E-N-2-0 for 20% off the Human Charger.
Brock: Hooray!
Ben: And then finally, Brock, do you like to brush your teeth or you more like a toothpick, gingivitis guy?
Brock: I love flossing! I’m one of those weirdos who loves flossing. I’ll floss but not brush, but I’ll never brush and not floss.
Ben: The strings get stuck in my teeth. Has that ever happened to you while flossing?
Brock: No.
Ben: Yeah, they get stuck in my teeth. I think I have very tightly-packed together teeth, I don’t know.
Brock: You don’t have any gaps?
Ben: No, I don’t. Well, I got a little bit of a gap but it’s not bad. Anyways, though, this company has developed this electric toothbrush that looks like Apple and Tesla had a baby together and it was a toothbrush. That’s basically what it looks like. It’s amazing looking toothbrush!
Brock: What?
Ben: Anyway, it made Oprah’s 2017 New Year’s O List, it’s won a GQ Grooming Award, it was named one of Time Magazine’s Best Inventions, a freaking toothbrush, and it’s very simple! It’s called a Quip toothbrush and it’s an electric toothbrush and it vibrates and it has the special replaceable heads on it and it gives you cues when to switch to a different part of your tooth, your teeth if you have more than one, and it’s a sleek design, and they send you these amazing bristles that are high-end bristles that go along with your toothbrush, and it vibrates. Did I mention it vibrates?
Brock: So, it doesn’t spin? It vibrates?
Ben: Yeah, exactly.
Brock: Fun!
Ben: Everybody here can get one and get your first refill pack for free at the following URL: GetQuip.com/Ben and Quip is spelled Q-U-I-P. So, GetQuip.com/Ben and you’ll be off to the tooth brushing races. So, there you have it. What do you think?
Brock: I love it! If I didn’t have a very expensive toothbrush already I would get one of those.
Ben: Awesome! As usual, a whole bunch of new goodies over at our new website Kion, K-I-O-N, everything you need to optimize your mind, your body, and your spirit, every single episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show is now brought to you by Kion and you can get instant access to slamming deals, coaching, content, community, products, everything that you need, again, to optimize just your six pack but also brain and your soul. Just go to GetKion.com, G-E-T-K-I. k-i like ki life force, energy, GetKion.com.
Brock: Yeah, don’t go to Kion.com or else you end up on some crazy, German, I don’t know what they are, some kind of industrial complex.
Ben: They’re a construction company. Trust me I know because I asked them if I could buy their website and they asked me for a million dollars. So…
Brock: They said, nein!
Ben: We’re GetKion.com not Kion.com. Alright, let’s talk about fat.
Listener Q&A:
Patrick: My question is: how do I lose the weight in my mid-section, my belly? From about January or February until about now, I’ve lost about 15 pounds but I still can’t get rid of my belly fat. I’ve switched to a low carb, high fat diet and it’s helped, but I just can’t seem to get rid of these last few pounds of belly and I was just wondering if you had any tips? I’m relatively active, I play hockey three times a week, workout one or two other times during the week, I’m guessing it’s mostly diet. I was just wondering if there’s any supplements I can be taking, any blood tests I could be doing that would help to get rid of this belly fat? Thanks!
Ben: Well, Patrick, I’ve got bad news for you.
Brock: Uh-oh!
Ben: You can’t pill pop your way out of belly fat.
Brock: Aww.
Ben: You just can’t pill pop your way out of belly fat. There are some things that can work a little bit for belly fat but, let’s talk about fat, shall we, Brock?
Brock: Yeah, why not, since seeing that’s what we’re supposed to be talking about today. It is the fat loss super special!
Ben: Okay, so we’ve got belly fat, specifically, that Patrick has got this question about and you really have two different types of fat though: you have visceral fat and you have subcutaneous fat.
Brock: Yup.
Ben: Now, the problem is, fat does not just store energy. Fat does not just store fat cells.
Brock: No.
Ben: This is not a problem, suppose it’s a good thing, for example, fat secretes leptin which helps you to regular hunger, that hormone comes from your fat. It also secretes adiponectin which also has a lot of health promoting properties. It secretes something called tumor necrosis factor alpha, that one is a bad one, that one promotes inflammation. And you need some inflammation obviously to repair damaged tissues and to deal with pathogens, but too much of it does not do your body good.
So, in terms of subcutaneous versus visceral fat, the problem with visceral fat is it tends to result in more of this inflammation, compared to say subcutaneous fat which could even just be brown fat or fat that is used to keep you warm for insulation, and when you look at someone’s belly typically to know what kind of fat they have, if you’re looking at your own belly, subcutaneous fat kind of folds around your naval, around your belly button, it’s easier to reach down and pinch and it tends to kind of shift around as you pinch it, you can move it, you can wiggle it around, whereas visceral fat is like the big ‘ol kind of beer belly type of look that sticks out.
Brock: Remember that Simpsons episode when Homer went into the doctor and they tested what kind of fat he had just by slapping his belly and seeing how long it took to stop jiggling?
Ben: No, I did not see this episode.
Brock: And the doctor just stood there going “Look at that blubber fly!” and it went for a minute. Just kept jiggling.
Ben: Oh, wow.
[The Simpsons clip]
“Now, Homer, this is a new body fat analysis test, I start you jiggling and measure how long it takes for it to stop.”
“Woohoo! Look at that blubber fly!”
“Yes. Nurse, cancel my one o’clock.”
Brock: So, that would be visceral fat or subcutaneous?
Ben: Pretty sure that would be visceral fat. Fat also comes in two types: white and brown. We have brown fat which is actually a very good type of fat to have. We usually find it in babies and its main function is to produce heat. Actually my boys and I were in San Francisco a few days ago, and we were walking through San Francisco down Fisherman’s Wharf on a Sunday morning and we saw all the Polar Bear Swimmers out there and some of them were coming out of the water and some of these guys were super fit but they had this layer of fat. One of my boys spoke up and he was quite profound and he said, “Dad, those guys are probably going to live a really long time, huh?” because he saw them swimming in the cold water and my children are aware of the link between cold exposure and longevity. The fact is, that’s actually true because a thick layer of subcutaneous fat on these guys and gals, that’s brown fat that basically burns calories to generate heat and produces very little tumor necrosis alpha factor or any of these other inflammatory compounds. It’s just something that is a natural protective type of a fat. Some people think a surplus of it is viewed as unattractive, but ultimately, it’s something that confers health and longevity.
Brock: Yeah, it plays a role in other than making your pants fit funny.
Ben: Yeah, and a lot of subcutaneous fat can be brown fat, but visceral fat is a whole different animal. Not only is it comprised of a lot of white fat, you need some of it, right, it surrounds and it cushions your internal organs from jarring around, but too much of it is associated with a ton of things: heart disease, cancer, and high blood pressure, even freakin’ dementia.
Brock: Ew!
Ben: And, yeah, it’s really interesting. One of the reasons for that revolved around what’s called lipotoxicity. Lipotoxicity. So, what this means is that in large visceral fat cells release fatty acids directly into your liver to what’s called your portal vein and then those fatty acids begin to accumulate in the pancreas, the heart, and a bunch of other abdominal organs and those areas are not supposed to, in an ideal situation, store fatty acids until there’s a big overflow of fatty acids, but once they begin to store them, you know you’ve heard of fatty liver disease for example, right?
Brock: Yeah, yeah. That’s no good.
Ben: Yeah, so, you get a much higher risk of liver problems or type II diabetes or heart disease or because of the gut-brain axis, things like dementia.
Visceral fat cells are also different from subcutaneous fat cells in other ways. They have more receptor sites for cortisol, for example, and because of that, high levels of cortisol and also high levels of insulin, they have a lot of insulin receptor sites too, those promote even more visceral fat accumulation. That’s the very first clue for Paul or for Patrick, you control your cortisol in your stress, you control your insulin via some of those things we talked about earlier right postprandial walks and eating a meal when you’re in a glucose sensitive state and that can prevent some formation of that classic beer bell visceral fat look.
You know, the other interesting thing is that when it comes to visceral fat, cortisol and insulin will increase and promote accumulation of visceral fat but testosterone, and growth hormone, and even estrogens will have a little bit of an opposite effect, right. So doing things like adequate sleep to keep growth hormone elevated and doing things that maintain testosterone such as sprinting, and heavy weight training with your legs and good vitamin D and magnesium and zinc intake, and ensuring you have adequate estrogens by taking care of, for example, your liver using things like glutathione and some liver-supporting antioxidants like that. All of those types of things can help quite a bit when it comes to the formation of or fighting off formation of visceral fat.
In addition, there are some very basic things you would expect to be associated with higher levels of visceral fat for example high glycemic index foods like, I’ve had guys who’ve had leftover belly fat and I’ll tell them get rid of sugar and starches period, go strict. After a few months, it just disappears.
There’s also a class of antioxidants called catechins that can help to burn fat cells and those would include things like green tea, dark chocolate in moderation, red wind in moderation, dark berries which are great, blueberries and things like that. Those apparently have a little bit of an effect on visceral fat.
They’ve also looked at what type of training has an effect on visceral fat and it looks like, rather than doing just aerobic training and just resistance training, combining aerobic training with resistance training seems to have the best effect on visceral fat. So, doing concurrent training and that would be in the same workout. So you’re doing, let’s say, one of my favorites would be a super set where you’re doing a squat to a deadlift to a sprint on a bike and then you’re doing a pullup to a push up to a sprint on a treadmill, then you’re doing a low back extension to a hanging leg raise to a sprint on an elliptical, right. You’re just going back and forth from resistance training to aerobic training. So, that makes sense.
Brock: We’re not talking about a long sprint either, we’re talking about 30- to 60-seconds of a sprint.
Ben: Right and we know that exercise in addition to cold helps to convert white fat into brown fat and one of the reasons for that is this hormone called irisin that’s associated with muscles that is one of the main mechanisms for doing that: for turning white fat into brown fat.
Sleep, there appears to be a link between sleep patterns and visceral fat meaning getting adequate sleep is a silver bullet for visceral fat. Then there is of course, there is a question on this concept of supplementation.
There’s not a whole lot when it comes to supplementation. I mentioned catechins, I am a fan of green tea. In addition to people who want to lose weight quickly, telling them not to eat sugar and starches because of what I just mentioned, I will also, in many cases, recommend many people to do a catechin-rich, caffeine-rich compound. Green tea is a perfect example. Then you go out and you exercise fasted in the morning at an aerobic rate, so it’s not super stressful, and you’re not engaging in compensatory eating afterwards. So, a CrossFit WOD, you’re probably going to eat a bunch of eggs and bacon afterwards. Easy walk in the sunshine, your appetite doesn’t spike so high but you do some caffeine before and you finish that up with cold exposure, like a cold shower, and if I’m trying to get lean, let’s say it’s Christmas day and you eat a whole bunch, I’ll get up the next morning and I’ll have a bunch of green tea and I’ll go on a nice long walk and I’ll come back and I’ll take a cold shower and that’s great for keeping at bay a lot of these types of visceral fat accumulation issues and those catechins especially in the green tea have been shown to cause that! By the way, Brock, there was a research study that just came out yesterday, total rabbit hole on antioxidant supplementation.
Brock: Oh yeah?
Ben: You know how we’ve all been taught that antioxidant supplementation in conjuncture with exercise can blunt the fitness response of exercise? They found that one specific type of antioxidant found in the epigallocatechins that you get from green tea, it results in decreased inflammation and a decreased oxidative response without blunting that fitness response to exercise! Isn’t that fascinating?
Brock: That’s crazy!
Ben: So, it turns out, you can take antioxidants after exercising, they just need to be the type of antioxidants you would find in, for example, green tea.
Brock: I just don’t like green tea but all the evidence is just stacking up that I just got to get over it and start having some.
Ben: Yeah you got to have the good stuff! I have this guy who I coach, he’s a chef, he’s a French-Japanese cuisine chef, and he just sends me these bags of green tea because he goes to Japan a few times a year and harvests green tea in the mountains and this green tea is 200 bucks a bag and it’s just amazing! You can just…
Brock: It better be!
Ben: Yeah, it’s really good.
Brock: The green tea I have is free. They bring it to the table in a plastic jug.
Ben: I’m kind of spoiled. My green tea is really good. Anyways, so yeah, green tea fasted state with some cold afterwards is another thing that can help. So, we were talking about supplements and anything with a green tea type of extract, or caffeine is a close second could help out a little bit, but ultimately, movement in a fasted state and some of those other techniques I talked about earlier, like sleep and sun regulation, avoiding high glycemic foods, etcetera, that has a much, much bigger effect. So, we do know however that exercise and movement and exposure to cold especially in a fasted state with green tea or caffeine in your system appears to be a pretty potent for visceral fat.
Finally, like I mentioned, do your cardio and your weight training, but try and do it at the same time from an activity standpoint. I guess if there was one other thing that you could look into it’d be yohimbe or yohimbine. Now, that blocks the activity of alpha receptors and fat cells. So, technically it could cause you to reduce your visceral fat stores more quickly. The problem is that, because it’s such a potent central nervous system stimulant, I am remised to recommend it that heavily because I always hate to tell, green tea and caffeine are one thing, but yohimbe, at least in me, I don’t know if you’ve used it much, but it makes me feel like I’m going to have a heart attack by exercise.
Brock: Yeah, yeah it makes me super jittery, super shaky.
Ben: Yeah, anything that’s an excessive central nervous stimulant like that, I would be careful with, but you can get yohimbe on Amazon for example and I can put a link in the show notes if you want to support the show and go to Amazon and buy yourself some yohimbe and go out and spasm around during your exercise session while clutching your hand to your chest. But otherwise, I like more natural fat loss support supplements like Kion, I mentioned earlier, we have this new one called Kion Lean that literally lowers your blood sugar and improves your blood glucose response but doesn’t have any central nervous system effects. That’s a perfect example of something more natural, like of like ceylon cinnamon or apple cider vinegar or something like that, very similar type of effect. So, I would go after something that stabilizes blood sugar more than something that stimulates the central nervous system. So…
Brock: Since we talked about brown fat so much and cold exposure, we should really mention, I know we just got a brand new discount code for the cool fat burner vest!
Ben: Oh yeah?
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: Tell me about it.
Brock: If you go to CoolFatBurner.com and use the code BEN15CFB, which I guess stands for Cool Fat Burner, you can get 15% off one of those awesome vests. It’s sort of a vest I suppose, it kinda resembles a vest, and then a cummerbund. It also comes with it.
Ben: Yeah, I’ve used it. Some of my clients use it too! A lot of my clients who have to work during the day and can’t spend all their time in a pool, they’ll put the vest on, they also have one that goes around your waist…
Brock: The cummerbund.
Ben: And it triggers shivering in those areas. So, you get the conversion of the white cells into the brown cells. That’s a good point, I didn’t think of that. So that’d be another option, you just wear some of this cooling gear, for example around your belly fat, and it sounds kind of gimmicky but there’s some very, very compelling research behind that. I think they’ve got a lot of it published over on the Cool Fat Burner website. So, that’s a good deal too. Can we put that code in the show notes for people, Brock?
Brock: Let’s do it! Yeah for sure!
Ben: So go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/376 and get yourself a sexy piece of Cool Fat Burning gear.
Brock: Okay, so the rest of the questions, sadly, people asked them very nicely on Facebook, but they totally ignored our pleas to go over to SpeakPipe and leave them as audio questions, so now you’re stuck with me reading them to you instead of your lovely voices being on the podcast.
Ben: It’s fine, I like when people read to me.
Brock: Well, okay, Gail wrote: “Does DIM help with fat loss and DIM stands for diindolylmethane.” Diindolylmethane, do you know how to say that?
Ben: Mhm, I do, but I’m entertained by listening to you try.
Brock: Diindolylmethane?
Ben: Diindolylmethane, you got it.
Brock: Oh, nice. Nailed it!
Ben: Kind of.
Brock: After 17 tries.
Ben: What’s the question?
Brock: Does it help with fat loss?
Ben: Okay.
Brock: I’m not going to try to say it again so I’m just going to call it “it”.
Ben: Yeah, diindolylmethane, you find it in broccoli for example. It’s called diindolylmethane because it’s just two endo groups that are attached to a methane group. There you go, chemistry 101.
Brock: There you go!
Ben: It’s got a lot of promise for lowering estrogen especially for guys who get man boobs and stuff like that or women who have estrogen dominance. It’s got a lot of promise also when it comes to some of its potential to limit the growth of tumors that’s why we hear a lot of broccoli and sulforaphane, a lot of these things have a potential anti-carcinogenic effect. That’s why you’re supposed to eat your broccoli, and your cauliflower, and your brussel sprouts, and all your cruciferous veggies, right.
So, when it comes to fat loss, which is one thing that it’s marketed for, there’s one study where they use this stuff this indole 3 carbinol, very similar to diindolylmethane. DIM, let’s call it from here on out…
Brock: Yes, yes please.
Ben: Thank you very much. They found that it was able to attenuate expected gaining body fat associated with a high-fat, high-calorie diet, speaking of binging. However, they were doing five milligram injections into the gut and the last time I checked, you couldn’t waltz into Walgreens and buy a need chock full of this DIM. So ultimately, this is one of those examples where, it’s in a laboratory study, might not really be something you could replicate in real life. However, if you want to inject it into your gut after you eat too much, I suppose that could help.
Brock: So, just, right into your gut? You’d have to stick it through your skin and actually penetrate your gut wall?
Ben: Well, I don’t know if they inject it subcutaneously or not, I could probably find the study, I think it was in mice too.
Brock: I guess either way it’s a little much.
Ben: Here, a study in 2011, in the Journal of Nutrition, anti-obesity of indole 3 carbinol in high-fat diet obese mice. I don’t have the methods in front of me in terms of the actual study methods but I do know that they injected the adipose tissue region of those mice and I would imagine if those were mice, it’s probably subcutaneous, could have been straight into, usually you don’t do needles, straight into the gut.
Brock: No.
Ben: Just because of the obvious potential issues, usually it’s subcutaneous.
Brock: Talk about leaky gut!
Ben: Yeah, seriously. You don’t want needles in your gut. So, ultimately, because it has this aromatase inhibiting activity and because estrogen dominance in women, especially in post-menopausal women who produce less progesterone and in men who may be experiencing man boobs or highly estrogenic activity due to, let’s say a guy who’s on testosterone who’s taking a lot of that testosterone metabolizing into estrogen for example, those are the type of people who might benefit from better estrogen metabolism. So, indirectly because estrogen can cause some storage of calories or generation of fat cells to store calories, it may have an indirect effect on fat loss if you have estrogen dominance, but otherwise, unlikely that it’d work.
One thing I wanted to mention though, wouldn’t buy DIM, which is DIM which is what you’re going to get at most places, I would actually purchase it as indole 3 carbinol. It’s actually more bioavailable and acts a little better especially when it comes to liver detoxification and estrogen metabolism and indole 3 carbinol is absorbed in your small intestines and converted into DIM. So, for something like that, they found that dosages should be in the range somewhere about 400 milligrams a few times a day. So, right around 1,000 to 1,500 milligrams or so total, taken a few times a day. It’s also a great extra night of drinking to cleanse out the liver a little bit. Get rid of your man boobs and your sore liver all at the same time.
Brock: Sore liver.
Ben: Thorne has a good indole 3 carbinol. I can link it in the show notes for folks, but ultimately, again, I would come at fat loss primarily from an activity, fasting, cold exposure type of standpoint, lots of walking after heavy lifting before meals, things to control blood sugar like ceylon cinnamon and apple cider vinegar and like that bittermelon extract I talked about or, potentially that study I cited in our opening, something that has ashwagandha in it as a natural metformin alternative.
Brock: Cool. Okay, well that lead us to our next question from Christian. Christian wrote on Facebook, “What are your thoughts on the Kevin Hall study and whether keto has a metabolic advantage in the fat loss department?” Are you familiar with this Kevin Hall study?
Ben: Who’s not? Everybody knows Kevin!
Brock: Everybody!
Ben: Kevin Hall! Yeah, there’s a whole video that he shot on the internet and I can link to it, but basically there’s this study, it was last year, so it’s relatively recent, and the study was called Energy Expenditure and Body Composition Changes After an Isocaloric Ketogenic Diet in Overweight and Obese Men. Isocaloric.
Brock: I love the names of studies, man.
Ben: Yeah, isocaloric.
Brock: They’re so catchy.
Ben: All that means is they took a ketogenic diet that had the same number of calories as a non-ketogenic diet. They had 17 guys and they put them on the high-carb diet and the same number of calories as the ketogenic diet and they studied what happened when it came to fat loss and elevation of metabolism and all these other things. So, basically, the idea is that, according to the conventional calories-in and calories-out model of fat loss, obesity or being overweight or fat gain is the result of a simple mismatch between your calorie intake and your calorie expenditure.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: So, calories in, calories out. So, just eat less and move more.
Brock: Yup.
Ben: So, this study was going to look at is that true or does it really matter what the source of those calories actually is whether it’s from carbohydrates or whether it’s from fat. So, that’s basically called the Carbohydrate Insulin Model and it’s a totally different way of thinking but it hypothesizes that excessive weight gain occurs because fat cells have been triggered to take up and store too many calories and that leaves too few calories available for the rest of the body and so we over eat in an effort to keep enough calories in the blood stream for the brain and the muscles and the other vital organs. Those extra calories ultimately wind up in fat cells creating this vicious cycle of hunger and overeating and weight gain. So, according to that hypothesis, overeating is a consequence and not a cause of some kind of underlying metabolic problem that triggers fat cells into calorie storage overdrive. The idea is that the thing that’s able to do that is something we’ve already mentioned on the show: insulin, which would primarily come from either a ton of insulinogenic protein and dairy or fast digesting carbohydrates like white bread and white rice, and cereal, and crackers, and cookies, and soda.
So, there are some studies that provided pretty good evidence for that Calorie Insulin Model for example they had a study that showed insulin therapy in people with diabetes and insulin administration in animal models can predictably cause weight gain whereas insulin deficiency very significantly can cause weight loss. They’ve shown in animal studies where animals are given a fast versus a slow digesting carbohydrate, the animals who were given a fast digesting carbohydrate, they take in more calories and they gain excessive weight when we look at this isocaloricly, like fast carb versus slow carb.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: We also know that in humans the number of calories in the blood crashes and your stress hormones, like cortisol, associated with that visceral fat surges, and your hunger increases when you take in a meal that is highly insulinogenic such as a higher carbohydrate meal versus a meal that’s not. We also know that the metabolic rate can actually go down. Another study showed this on a long term low-fat, high carbohydrate diet compared to diets that were slightly higher in fat.
So, there’s a lot of interesting studies that have looked into this insulin hypothesis and so this Kevin Hall guy, Kevin Hall, they tested this hypothesis that exchanging dietary carbohydrate for fat would increase the energy expenditure and fat oxidation. So, they took these 17 guys and they measured how many calories they were eating, they measured how much fat they were burning, they had them on two pretty well controlled diets: one high carbohydrate, like 50 percent, the other group ate low carbohydrate, literally five percent and they did this for four week.
Brock: That’s it?
Ben: Yeah. That’s it. It wasn’t super long because you guys were doing it for half their lives or anything. So, what they found was that the folks who ate the low-carbohydrate diet, increased their total energy expenditure by, drum roll please, approximately slightly over 50 calories per day and also increased their sleeping energy expenditure by about 90 calories or so over an entire night of sleep. So, the total energy expenditure for the entire, in some cases, was as high as more than 150 calories in terms of the extra energy expenditure from a low-carb, high-fat diet. So, an energy gap for 100 to 150 calories a day. What Kevin Hall reported was that that could comprise potentially major component of the obesity epidemic long term, over the course of years and years having that extra 100 to 150 calories a day that the body is storing. But there are also some problems with his study like, for example, one big one was that the group that was eating the high-carbohydrate diet, they came in actually weighing a little bit less anyways which means that because we know that the more that you weigh, the higher your metabolic rate is.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: It’s possible that their metabolic rate was a little bit lower anyways to start with so and that could easily carry over to that 150 calories per day eventually.
Brock: Yeah, I mean 150 calories, 140 calories whatever it was, is not significant. It’s not insignificant but it’s not blowing my mind, I’ve got to say.
Ben: Mhm, yup, exactly. The participants of the study were not in calorie balance. So, they lost weight and fat through the study and so it’s really difficult to say if they’re going to be losing weight anyway once we return to this genetic facto that we talked about with those twins, how much variability there would be just based on genetics as well and how much of a confounding variable that might be.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: I was just down in San Francisco and I interviewed this gal named Dr. Daphne Miller and we talked about how she’ll put Mexicans who have diabetes in America on a traditional Tarahumara Indian Tribe diet and they’ll lose weight. They’re eating more maize, and corn, and tortillas, and beans. Whereas, she’ll put people who are from a Northern European population, she’ll recommend sometimes a higher fish oil intake or fermented food intake or omega-3 intake. She recommends lots of fiber and fermented foods for people who are over African American descent. So, ultimately, any study like this these days, I’m like “eh.” It’s probably better not to eat a lot of sugar.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: And processed carbohydrates, but ultimately, we need to eat the diet that corresponds best to your ancestry, best to your genetics, and even best to your locale, right.
Brock: Yes.
Ben: Because if you think about it, we live in a genetic melting pot in America and so for me and my kids are, based on Mom’s and my genetics, kind of Northern European but we’re surrounded by what we’re surrounded by right here in the North West in Spokane, Washington. Meaning, if you walked out in my backyard, you’re going to find deer, and turkey, and quail, and elk, and you’re going to find wild nettle, and wild mints, and dandelion, and morel mushrooms, and you’re going to find some lichen growing on the trees; and you’re going to find, in terms of stimulants, a little bit of camellia sinensis which is similar to a green tea type of leave; and you’re going to find, for the gut, things like Oregon Grape Root extract and I’m a fan of this concept that if you know a handful of a dozen different plants and herbs in your specific area, you can heal and fix just about anything and if you eat the diversity of plants and animals around you in your specific locale, you’ll support your own microbiome and you will, as your family and your children, and your children’s children kind of grow in that environment, almost change your own genetics and your genetic expression to kind of match what it is that is local to where you are eating.
I know it’s a very long term kind of thinking kind of approach, but ultimately, even if we were, let’s say, Korean or African American or something like that, I’d still probably have a similar approach which I wouldn’t say “okay kids, let’s order in, and burn a bunch of jet fuel: coconut milk, and avocados, and papaya, and mango because we’re African” right because that’s where our roots are. I’d start to change up our genetics and begin to eat everything that’s local that’s here around us and come at things from that kind of standpoint. So, I think it’s this kind of weird art and science blend of paying attention to your genetics but also just eating the local, real food they’re serving that surrounds you.
Brock: More and more evidence is pointing towards that than having these one size fits all diets there. More and more evidence is swaying, at least in my opinion, to completely agree with what you’re saying and you just got to eat for you and that could be completely different than what you’re ancestors ate but it might be right in line.
Ben: And now, to throw a whole wrench in that equation.
Brock: Okay.
Ben: Let’s talk about what happens when your genetics do change because I think out final question is about that, right?
Brock: Well, I’ll read it and find out. Our next question is from Terry and Terry wrote: “APO4 carriers supposedly cannot use fat efficiently ketosis… Thoughts, scientific evidence?” Those question marks.
Ben: Question mark, question mark! So, APO, APO. Yes, APO, not a fruit, it’s a gene. APOE stands for apolipoprotein E, that’s a key player in fat metabolism.
Brock: Is that the same as APO4?
Ben: Lipid metabolism. APOE comes in three variants: you’ve got APOE2, APOE3, APOE4 and since you have two copies of every gene, you can have APOE2/2, APOE2/3, APOE2/4, APOE3/3, what am I missing?
Brock: Please continue.
Ben: APOE3/4, APOE4/4, so there would be six. So, if there are two copies of each gene, and there’s three variants, you would have six total possibilities.
Brock: Tune in next week when Ben does algebra for us.
Ben: I did take logic! So, this APOE4, that would be the one that could be an issue, especially the APOE4/4. It’s actually famous for association with a significantly higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease but a lot of other diseases have been linked to it like dementia, and cardiovascular disease for example, and you’ll find the APOE3/4 or 4/4 present in about 20 percent of folks in America for example. When you have one or even more significantly, two copies, like if you’re APOE3/4 or more significantly APOE4/4, there are some issues for example… consummerating? I just made up that word.
Brock: I like it!
Ben: Consuming high intake of fatty acids. That can significantly raise your LDL particle count which is a major risk factor in your cholesterol profile for cardiovascular disease. It can significantly raise c reactive protein which is another inflammatory risk factor for cardiovascular disease. It can substantially raise your LDL cholesterol which is not correlated with cardiovascular disease, however, if you constantly test your LDL and you’re finding it in the 300s or 400s you may want to genetics checked out to see if you have this copy!
Now, in addition, you’ll also find that when you consume monounsaturated fatty acids and you have that variant that can actually have some of the opposite effects, right? More of a Mediterranean diet can actually have more of a cardio protective effect. So, when you have this specific genetic variant. In addition, when you consume a high amount of omega-6 fatty acids, it appears to be more deleterious, lots of what’s called EPA or arachidonic acid from nuts and nut butters and seeds and stuff like that, that might be even more of an issue for people who carry this APOE4 gene than people who don’t.
In addition, alcohol seems to cause a significant increase in triglycerides in these folks without the same cardio protective effect as we see in other people who drink alcohol and get a cardio-protective effect, doesn’t happen if you have the APOE4. You get impaired heavy metal detox capabilities. So, you can tend to be higher in lead, higher in mercury, you have increased susceptibility to the detrimental effects of a sedentary lifestyle meaning it’s more important for people with these genetic variants with the APOE3/4 or 4/4 to exercise compared to others. Like I mentioned, a substantially higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
So, based on this, when it comes to risk management of the APOE3/4 or APOE4/4 diet, number one, would be because consuming fatty acids can substantially raise the risk of cardiovascular disease like the whole coconut manna, coconut butter, grass-fed butter, ketogenic-type of approach is not a very good approach for people who have this variant in my opinion. So, something more like a very plant-rich approach that’s higher in carbohydrates from healthy sources like tubers, for example, or parsnips, and beets, and sweet potatoes, and yams, and pumpkin which I love…
Brock: Me too!
Ben: I bake pumpkin almost every night these days and eat them because we have a ton of pumpkins around and I bake a pumpkin with some avocado oil and some sea salt and when that comes out, I’ll put a little bit of yoghurt on there and a handful of fennel seeds and some nut butter and I’ll literally eat a whole pumpkin for dinner. That’s what I had for dinner last night: a whole pumpkin.
Brock: That’s what I’m having tonight!
Ben: A whole pumpkin with some arugula salad.
Brock: I’m going to do pumpkin with a rabbit tonight. It’s going to be awesome!
Ben: Yeah, exactly! So you avoid palm oil; you avoid coconut oil; you avoid coconut milk; you don’t do the butter; you don’t do the ghee no matter how much that diet seems to be helping your neighbor lose weight; you’re very careful with nuts, almonds are pretty low in saturated fatty acids, that would be one that’s pretty good; dark chocolate is pretty high in saturated fats so it’s another one you’ve got to avoid; you’ve got to be careful with lots of animal meats, especially fatty animal meats like bacon. So, if you’re a crossfitter with the APOE3/4, 4/4 you shouldn’t be doing the eggs and bacon when you go out for breakfast after the WOD, right; get the green smoothie.
Brock: Bummer.
Ben: And you even need to be careful with those wonderful nuts and nut butters and seed butters and instead go after what’s called MUFAs, mono-unsaturated fatty acids like avocados and olive oil and low glycemic carbohydrates, not just the tubers I mentioned but also lentils and properly soaked and fermented beans, things along those lines. So, I’ll put a helpful link in the show notes for you with pretty much everything you’ll ever need to know about APOE4. But, ultimately, to answer the question, yeah, I’m not a fan of the ketogenic diet if you happen to have that gene and that could be up to 20 percent of people when it comes to that.
Brock: That’s me! I’ve got that gene.
Ben: Oh yeah?
Brock: Yeah, and my cholesterol was three to freaking roof when I was following what would be a much higher fat diet and started doing things like MCT oils and butters and everything like that and they wanted to put me on statins and I was like “nah, I think I know what to do.” And within four months, I had everything back under control just by doing exactly what you said.
Ben: That’s crazy! How long ago was that?
Brock: About a year.
Ben: Wow, wow.
Brock: I actually wrote to you about it and you were the one who got me pointed in the right direction. So, once again, thank you!
Ben: Well I never get any other emails so, again, my apologies for that.
Brock: Yeah, I was mixed in with what, two or three other emails that day?
Ben: Do you want to see my email inbox?
Brock: I do not, you’re right. It makes me sweat.
Ben: Yeah, I probably get, I don’t know, I would estimate maybe 75 an hour or something like that.
Brock: Ugh!
Ben: Yeah, it’s a lot. I mean not 75 junk but 75 you-need-to-respond-to-this kind of stuff.
Brock: Yeah.
Ben: I’m literally hiring just a full time person just to be in my email inbox basically. So, don’t email me about your anal hemorrhoids unless you’re okay with other people seeing that!
Brock: There you go!
Ben: Speaking of anal hemorrhoid, should we give something away?
Brock: Not anal hemorrhoids! Don’t give those away! Keep them to yourself.
Ben: So, this is the part of the show where we give a special goodie to a listener, such as yourself, and if you leave a review in iTunes and you hear it read on the show, then we will send you a handy dandy gift pack your way, all you need to do is email: [email protected]. That’s [email protected]. Let us know your t-shirt size and I’ll put a gift pack with a BPA-free water bottle and a sweet Ben Greenfield Fitness beanie…
Brock: Or compression tube.
Ben: Or tech t-shirt!
Brock: Maybe it’s just because my head is so freakin’ big, but it’s really tight!
Ben: Yeah.
Brock: It’s really tight.
Ben: Alright, you’ve got a big head why don’t you just take this one away.
Brock: This one’s from MotorCityFitness. I like that! It goes like this: “I have been listening to Ben for about two years now. I work construction full time and with my passion for fitness, I’ve found Ben’s podcast to be the perfect health podcast to listen to while I work. Throughout the day, as I build things with my hands, Ben helps build my brain guiding me though topics I am completely unfamiliar with. Ben opens my mind to new and exciting modalities and research in the health and fitness sphere! Truly and amazing podcast from a…” Seriously? “From a grounded successful expert?” He’s calling you grounded?
Ben: Grounded. Yes, I’m barefoot.
Brock: Oh, yeah, that kind of grounded, sure. “From a grounded successful expert who unturns a new rock in each episode.” Wait you unturn? Wait… So you put it back?
Ben: I think that’s what he means. I put the rocks back where there’s rocks.
Brock: Oh you put the rocks back, that’s good. That’s what keeps you grounded!
Ben: MotorCityFitness needs to work on his semantics. The actual semantics? Vernacular?
Brock: Grammar?
Ben: I don’t know. I’m losing my words.
Brock: Verbiage?
Ben: Anyways, though, MotorCityFitness, thanks for the amazing review! Email us.
Brock: The perfect health podcast to listen to while I work.
Ben: Perfect. Alright folks, we’ll put links to everything over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/376. The article on deuterium depleted water and all the research studies on walking, diindyl-blah blah…
Brock: I loved that one.
Ben: ketosis, diets for APOE4, the best way to lose belly fat, and much more! Just check it out: BenGreenfieldFitness.com/376. Brock, I think it’s time for a root beer float!
Brock: Oh, yes, yes! Here I go!
Dec 7, 2017 Podcast: 376 – The Best Way To Lose Belly Fat, Does DIM Supplementation Help Fat Loss, Does Ketosis Increase Metabolic Rate, and What Kind Of Diet Works For APOE4?
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.
News Flashes: [3:05]
- Walking just after a meal seems to be more effective for weight loss than waiting for one hour to walk after a meal.
- This is why I recommend a fasted morning walk every day.
- Fascinating article on natural metformin alternatives.
- Deuterium depleted water…is this the next big thing?
- What happens when you binge on Thanksgiving or any other holiday.
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Special Announcements: [20:40]
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–Click here to follow Ben on Snapchat, and get ready for some epic stories on his morning, daily and evening routine! What did you miss this week? A clay mask, a park workout, a morning routine change-up, an epic post-race salad and more.
Ben’s Adventures:
-NEW! Click here for the official BenGreenfieldFitness calendar.
-Dec 7-9, 2017: XPT Experience, Kauai, Hawaii. Join me, Brian Mackenzie, Kelly Starrett, Julia Starrett, Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reece, for an epic, all-inclusive performance living workshop this Dec 7, 8 and 9 in beautiful Kauai, Hawaii. Come and join us for pool training, underwater workouts, gym training, breathing instruction, outdoor workouts, recovery biohacking and much more! Get your tickets here.
-Dec 11-23, 2017: Runga Retreat, Cambutal, Panama. This retreat spans 8-days and centers around fostering heightened awareness, presence, and connection with others through a mandatory “Digital Detox” – or no cell phones, computers, and other technology. Yoga is offered twice per day, every day. There is also an off-site adventure ranging from hiking volcanoes to white water rafting or zip lining. World-class spa treatments are available and 100% of the food is suitable for vegetarian, vegan, paleo, gluten-free, or ketogenic dieters. Get your tickets here, and use code BEN for $10 off.
-March 2, 2018: Academy of Regenerative Practices Winter Conference & Scientific Seminar @ Weston, FL, USA. Sign up today!
Giveaways & Goodies:
-Grab your Official Ben Greenfield Fitness Gear package that comes with a tech shirt, a beanie and a water bottle.
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Listener Q&A: [26:50]
As compiled, deciphered, edited and sometimes read by Brock Armstrong, the Podcast Sidekick.
The Best Way To Lose Belly Fat
Patrick says: What is the best way to lose belly fat? From about Jan until now I have lost about 15lbs but I can’t get rid of the belly fat. I eat LCHF and it has helped but I can’t seem to get rid of the last few pounds. I play hockey a few times a week and workout a few times a week and realize it is probably diet based. But are there some supplements I can take to help?
In my response, I recommend:
–Kion Lean
–Yohimbine
–CoolFatBurner (use code BEN15CFB for 15% off)
Does DIM Supplementation Help Fat Loss?
Gail wrote: Does DIM (diindolylmethane) help with fat loss?
In my response, I recommend:
–Thorne Research Indole 3 Carbinol
Does Ketosis Increase Metabolic Rate?
Christian wrote: What are your thoughts on the Kevin Hall study and whether KETO has a metabolic advantage in the fat loss department. Thanks!
In my response, I recommend:
–Kevin Hall’s YouTube Video
What Kind Of Diet Works For APOE4?
Terry wrote: Apo4 carriers supposedly cannot use fat efficiently in ketosis… thoughts, scientific evidence?
In my response, I recommend:
–APOE4 resource
Hi Ben I am a 24 year old female getting into fitness modeling. I’m 5”8. 145 pounds. 22% body fat. I’ve been getting leaner, but my belly button has always looked like a little sad face. What could the issue be how do I tighten and lift that area?