Episode #420 – Full Transcript

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Transcripts

November 19, 2020

From podcast: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/qa-420/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:00:36] Ben's Liver Jerky

[00:05:13] News Flashes: Subway Bread in Ireland

[00:09:04] Coldwater Swimming May Protect Your Brain

[00:13:50] Ketones Increase Conversion of Fat

[00:17:17] Podcast Sponsors

[00:24:05] Listener Q&A: When to Do Blood Flow Restriction Training

[00:31:44] How to Reduce the Effects of Radiation

[00:40:18] Effects of Nicotine on HRV

[00:48:46] Stimulants That Won't Disrupt Sleep or Keep You Up at Night

[00:58:08] Giveaways and Goodies

[00:59:39] End of Podcast

Ben:  In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Which stimulants are safe to take at night, maximizing the benefits of cold thermogenesis, when to do blood flow restriction training, and much more.

Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show.

Well, Jay, I had to floss my teeth this morning before our podcast.

Jay:  Oh, man. What did you have to floss your teeth for? That's an uppity scale thing around these waters and that type of thing.

Ben:  Yeah. Sure. Well, I mean, you guys got pretty big gaps in your teeth down there in the southeast. So, anyways, I have to be careful, by the way, of insulting rednecks in the southeast. I might get people with [00:00:58] _____ gun racks showing up at my door. You have to drive a long ways up to Washington State, and then you'd have to find me. I had jerky for breakfast and I've got this new recipe. I've been making liver jerky. Have you heard of this?

Jay:  No. I mean, I have not heard of it. Actually, no. I've heard of it, not tried it.

Ben:  How could you not have heard of it? It's famous by now. It's my famous liver jerky. No. I actually have been making both heart and liver jerky. It's kind of a cool way to get all the nutrient benefits of organ meats. The heart has a lot of CoQ10, and the liver has all your fat-soluble vitamins and some choline, and other good nutrients in it. So, what I did, and I do this with a lot of my organ meats, I soak it in kefir. A lot of cookbooks tell you to soak your organ meats in buttermilk, or lemon juice, or even saltwater, but kefir turns out to be really, really great for breaking down and like drawing out a lot of the gamey flavor. It's got these really good enzymes in it.

And so, I make kefir every week anyways because sometimes I'll use as a base for smoothies. Often, I'll use bone broth, but sometimes kefir. It's always got a batch in the fridge, and it's super simple. It's kind of like making sauerkraut, or pickles, or any other ferment, and this kefir grain just grow almost like a sourdough starter. So, you just feed them every week with milk and you get a new batch every week. And I found that with my kefir, if I put a little colostrum in there and a little bit of prebiotic fiber, it gets super creamy because the prebiotic fibers feed the bacteria and the colostrum seems to lend some creaminess to it as well.

So, anyways though, I soaked the liver in that for about a day, like a good 24-hour soak. And then, I found this really cool trick that makes it just taste absolutely amazing before I put it in the food dehydrator, right? So, you cut it into your jerky size pieces after you've soaked it in the kefir. Doing it afterwards, it just cuts easier. And then, what I do after I rinse the kefir off and it's all chopped up in my preferred jerky size is I sprinkle a bunch of salt on it before I put it on the dehydrator. But this last batch, what I did was I put all the little liver pieces into just like a stainless steel bowl, and I coated it with–and I wish they were a sponsor for today's show because they're going to get a shout-out. I coated it with the Organifi Red Juice. It's got like pomegranate and cranberry and beets. And my thought process was that this could almost give like a caramelized type of texture to the jerky. And it's a little bit sweet and it's got an interesting flavor profile. So, I did that. So, it's all coated with this red juice and sea salt. It's like a red juice powder, I should clarify. And then, I just did like a 12-hour jerky dehydration. I think the setting is like 155 degrees.

Jay:  Yeah.

Ben:  Anyways, oh my gosh, this jerky is so good, like with this red juice powder and sea salt on it with that pre-kefir soak. I just finished writing a cookbook that's off of the publisher right now and I wrote to the publisher, I'm like, “Can I add this to the cookbook? This is amazing.” And they're like, “Nope, sorry, already filled out.”

Jay:  There'd be a website for it.

Ben:  So, yeah. There's a little jerky recipe for those of you, Martha Stewart, who are out there listening in and want to don the apron and chop up some liver, baby.

Jay:  Yeah. So, a couple of things you say. So, Ben Greenfield says that when you perform this routine of dehydrating this liver and heart, that it doesn't have a gamey taste. But to somebody who has not either partaken in liver or heart, do you think that that individual would say the same thing, or do you think they would still find it pretty gamey?

Ben:  I think they find it pretty good because I had a dinner party at my house the other night and there were three people who had never had organ meats and I gave them all a piece of this jerky and they loved it. They said it tastes like candy.

Jay:  Oh, nice.

Ben:  So, yeah. So, there you go.

Jay:  Interesting. Does it actually taste like [00:04:54] _____?

Ben:  I mean, they were drunk, but they've had to taste it pretty good.

Jay:  The only caveat. Yeah. Cool. Nice.

Ben:  Yeah. Alright. Well, let's jump into today's news flashes.

Jay:  Let's do it.

Ben:  I want to start with something kind of sad. Ireland's Supreme Court has ruled that bread sold by the fast-food chain Subway contains so much sugar that it cannot legally be defined as bread.

Jay:  Bummer. Now, we can't go there anymore.

Ben:  Yeah. I mean, we believe all–I was explaining this to somebody I was doing a consultation with last night, and they couldn't lose weight, and they were having whole grain bread with breakfast, whole grain bread with lunch, like a sandwich with lunch and some toast with breakfast. And I was explaining to them that bread can spike your blood sugar higher than like a snickers bar because the snickers bar has like some peanuts and some fats, a little bit of protein in it. But bread is notoriously high in terms of the glycemic index. It turns out that the sugar content of Subway sandwiches bread is about 10% of the weight of the flour. And to be classified as bread, it's not supposed to be any higher than 2% two.

So, that was one blow against Subway that makes–and I'm assuming it's the same in the U.S. as it is in Ireland. I didn't do a ton of research, but at least raised my eyebrow because I'm always paying attention to some of the stuff about food. But then, a Canadian study, which is closer to us than Ireland, so it must be legit, they found that the Subway chicken is only about 50% actual meat. I'm not trying to take down Subway or anything, but I just want people to know because a lot of people still think Subway is healthy. So, it's about 50% meat and the rest is all–in terms of the DNA that they tested in the meat, they used a forensics DNA laboratory, all of the rest of it was just soy.

Jay:  Wow.

Ben:  Which is a little bit concerning because Subway actually claims that these chicken strips and oven-roasted chicken contains 1% or less of soy protein. But they actually did a forensics analysis, and I think they use the same type of lab that can figure out who murdered somebody. So, it must be again legit.

Jay:  This must be accurate.

Ben:  So, yeah. I mean, the food babe–remember the food babe when she's a health blogger who criticized Subway's bread for containing–it was like azodicarbonamide that which is the ingredient found in yoga mats? And she was like, “Oh, you're eating yoga mats.” Technically, when you consume that, the body breaks it down into water. So, it's actually not as big of a deal as it sounds like, but this is a big deal. I mean, you're chomping down on fake meat and bread that's not even actually bread because it's so high in sugar when you're eating at Subway. So, just proceed with caution, my friends.

Jay:  Geez.

Ben:  Yeah.

Jay:  So, yeah. There are a couple things here. Number one, I would actually–I mean, I don't know this. I mean, you say that this is probably the same thing here in the U.S., but my guess is that it could be even higher in sugar content here in the U.S. just because everybody here in the U.S. has a freaking sweet tooth. So, they might be like, “Oh, damn. We need more sugar in this bread.” And the other thing is, man, I used to eat Subway. And when I was in college, probably two or three times a week because I thought it was healthy. And the chicken was the thing that I always got.

Ben:  Oh, yeah.

Jay:  But it was always grotesque. Like, I never liked eating it. I mean, I haven't been to Subway in probably a decade. And so, I don't plan on going back.

Ben:  Yeah. Well, I switched the Subway–I used to go to McDonald's for four years in college for lunch every day and I did the Big Mac and I got the extra, like the secret sauce, giant Dr. Pepper, and then the super-sized fries. That was my lunch every day in college. And then, I started taking all these nutrition classes and learned a little bit about vegetable oils and sugars. I switched to Subway because I thought it was healthy. And I ate Subway for about three years, and I actually really liked a lot of their … what they had, like the meatball sandwich. I think that was one of my favorites.

Jay:  Yeah.

Ben:  I still do walk by a Subway, kind of like when I walk by a Cinnabon at the airport. And I still do salivate a little bit, I got to admit. I still think it smells pretty bomb.

Jay:  But then you remember you'll get man tits if you eat that chicken.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. So, anyways though, shifting focus from man tits and Subway, this was kind of cool because I love cold water swimming. I always have since I was a triathlete. Those were my favorite parts was just like having a nice chilly invigorating cold water swim even though my skinny ass often needed like a wetsuit, even a thin wetsuit to be able to survive for that long. But at Cambridge University, they studied a bunch of cold water swimmers. And it was very interesting because doctors have known for a long time that cooling people down can protect their brains. Dr. Jack Kruse, for example, who's a neurosurgeon, who's well-known in the alternative health community and the biohacking community, is a guy who does some of his brain operations and uses cold thermogenesis like ice packing around the head and even has his patients do a lot of like a cold therapy leading into an after a surgery.

And the reason for this is that what happens is you get the production of these cold shock proteins. And the cold shock proteins, those can actually be relatively protective to the brain and have even been known to be associated with staving off things like Alzheimer's and dementia. And at Cambridge, one of the things that they did was they cooled mice. And then, they also cooled mice with Alzheimer's disease and prion disease, which is the neurodegenerative disease of the brain to the point where the mice became like a little bit hypothermic, which actually–people get hypothermic when they do this kind of like intense cold water swimming, like the folks who meet every week on the bay in San Francisco and do the cold water swims out there, which I tried. I lasted like 10 minutes. Again, it's about as long as my skinny ass could go.

But then what they found was when they rewarmed the mice, the ordinary mice could regenerate their synapses, and the Alzheimer's and the prion mice could not, and they found levels of a cold shock protein called RBM3 really went up very quickly in the ordinary mice, but not in the mice with Alzheimer's and neurodegenerative disease. And what they showed was if they artificially boosted the RBM3 levels in the mice with the Alzheimer's and the prion disease, they were actually able to stave off dementia and Alzheimer's. And so, they were doing this because they're trying to develop a drug that prompts the production of RBM3 because we know only 1% of the population who has dementia or Alzheimer's or is concerned about brain degeneration is actually going to get in an ice bath or go do cold water swims because they do kind of suck to a certain extent for a lot of people even though I think they get [00:11:41] _____. You get like this rush of endorphins and it gets kind of like a sauna. You almost get addicted to a little bit of cold here and there after a while.

Jay:  Oh, yeah.

Ben:  But they also tested a whole bunch of cold water swimmers during the winter, I think it was like the past four winters, they tested RBM3 levels in these winter and cold water swimmers at a club in London and they found they all had these really high levels of RBM3. And it turns out that essentially, what this comes down to is that cold water swimming and the production of these cold shock proteins, which arguably you could also get through things like cold showers and cold water immersion, they stave off the progression of dementia and Alzheimer's and may even decrease your risk of actually developing that even if you have a genetic propensity towards it due to the production of these cold shock proteins. It's also interesting because in the Finnish study, they found the same thing with saunas. So, I mean, once again, it turns out that probably one of the best things you can do for your body is like sauna a few times a week and cold water swim a few times a week, or just cold water soak or something like that.

Jay:  Yeah, yeah. Totally agree. I mean, I had to grow to love this. I mean, it's something that when I first started it, I hated it and still for the first 15 seconds, I might hate it even still after a few years of doing this. But from a neuro, like cognitive neuroprotective type factor, this is like my number one thing. It is like such an easy free hack for my overall neurocognitive effects. And so, I love it.

Ben:  Yeah. And we know, related to the man tits that you brought up earlier, I don't know if–is it offensive for us to say man tits? I don't know.

Jay:  We'll see in the comments.

Ben:  In [00:13:17] _____ culture, you never know. I'm sure we're offending somebody. Anyways though–

Jay:  For men, we have tits.

Ben:  Yeah, we do. So, we know that in the case of something like cold thermogenesis, you get an increase of the conversion of metabolically inactive white adipose tissue into metabolically active brown fat. It's based off this thing called mitochondrial uncoupling protein. And this uncoupling protein generates heat. It burns calories to generate heat, and brown fat is very high in this uncoupling protein.

Well, another study that recently came out showed that ketosis or ketones can significantly increase that conversion. And so, even though this has never been actually studied, if we know that the consumption of ketones or the presence of ketosis, whether it's nutritional ketosis, or in this case, they were consuming in rodent models the ketone beta-hydroxybutyrate, which is what you get in a lot of supplements that ketone salts or ketone esters significant increase in the activation of this uncoupling protein and the conversion of white to brown fat. And so, what this means theoretically is if you wanted to enhance the effects of something like a morning cold thermogenesis session, not only should you do it fasted, but you could also take a dose of these ketone esters or ketone salts prior and increase the effects of the white to brown adipose tissue conversion or the activation of this uncoupling protein. And that's really interesting because we did a podcast. Do you remember that podcast a while back where I reported on a study that looked at all the different food ingredients that could enhance white to brown adipose tissue conversion?

Jay:  Yeah, yeah. I definitely remember that one.

Ben:  Yeah. Capsaicin was one, like red pepper. Resveratrol was another. Curcumin was one. Green tea, omega-3 fatty acids from fish, and then like a topical menthol, like those topical cooling ointments. And all of those can enhance the effects of cold thermogenesis. And so, maybe this is an idea for my supplements company Kion or any other business-minded person out there, but why not develop like a pre-cold thermogenesis product that's like red pepper, resveratrol, curcumin, green tea, and omega-3 fatty acids along with some ketone esters? And you could consume that prior to doing like a cold bath, or a cold soak, or a cold shower, or a cold water swim, and enhance the fat loss effects even more. That's my bright idea.

Jay:  Dude, I'm game. I will definitely partake. Well, you get the fat loss effects, and also too, the cognitive boosting effects from both of them. So, I mean, it's a win-win all the way around. So, count me in.

Ben:  Yeah. It wouldn't be that hard, honestly. Everybody's got a little bit of red pepper in their pantry. Resveratrol is an easy supplement to get. Curcumin is an easy supplement to get. Green tea is simple to find. Any menthol topical lotion is simple to find. We are right now in the process of launching an amazing fish oil at Kion. And so, once you put all that together, it'd be pretty easy to just like stock your pantry and have your little section even if nobody was able to formulate a supplement that was done for you and just have your little stack that you take pre-cold. So, anyways, if anybody out there experiments with it, go to the shownotes at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/420 and let us know if you try that out. And if you notice anything, if you do things like track your body composition on a regular basis or something like that, I'd be curious, but it's kind of a cool idea. So, there you have it.

Jay:  That is a cool idea. You know what else is cool is that you just mentioned that this is Q&A 420. So, all of our stoners are ready to go.

Ben:  That's true, that's true. Alright.

Jay:  It's a good one.

Ben:  We'll take a break for you guys to light up, and then continue into this week's goodies.

Oddly enough, I didn't realize this as part of the discount codes for Kion. I can actually announce on this podcast that our fish oil actually is out. I didn't realize that at the time that we're recording, by the time this is released, our fish oil, our new fish oil will be out, and it's amazing. Did you know we've been developing a fish oil behind the scenes for like the past year?

Jay:  No, I didn't. I'm actually a little pissed off with you for not telling me. I've been ordering the Super Essentials that you guys offer for the past year now. And so, I'm hoping it's going to be one to kick that one's ass.

Ben:  It's good. Like, the Super Essentials is a good fish oil. I mean, that's the one I've been taking, but arguably, I think the one that we just finished formulating for Kion is better. We went with a ratio of EPA to DHA that's just fantastic. It's about 530 milligrams of EPA and 435 of DHA. All the fish oil comes from the sustainably sourced small cold-water fish. So, I think anchovies, like that type of fish. But then we added two really cool ingredients to stabilize the oils, astaxanthin, which is a carotenoid pigment. You find that in like fish, algae, seafood. It gives them the pink color, but it really protects the fish oil, and it's also amazing for your skin, and your joints, and your heart. And then, we used a rosemary leaf extract, which also does a fantastic job preserving the fish oil.

And then, the other really cool thing is that a lot of fish oils, when they extract it from the fish, it breaks down the triglycerides into what's called ethyl ester form, and it's expensive or a longer process that takes a little bit more in terms of the processing to convert it back into the natural triglyceride form, which is actually more bioavailable to the human body. But what we're doing is we're actually converting it back into the triglyceride form. So, we take these sustainably sourced small cold-water fish. We are extracting the fish oil, then converting it back into its natural form adding the astaxanthin and the rosemary leaf extract. It's a really good fish oil. And in my opinion, I think it's going to be–

Jay:  That sounds good.

Ben:  I mean, that's what I'm completely going to start using with myself and my family and recommending to everybody. So, I want to give everybody who's listening in right now a 10% discount on the brand new Kion fish oil. So, it's BEN10 at getkion.com, BEN10 at getkion.com. This stuff's going to fly off the shelves, but there you go. There's your big fat discount code on fatty acids.

Jay:  I'm excited about that.

Ben:  I know. I'm stoked.

Jay:  You know you're a nerd when you get this excited over fish oil.

Ben:  It makes me goosebumpy. This podcast is also brought to you by Joovv. And Joovv just upgraded all their devices. They made them 25% lighter. Get it, lighter. And then, they intensified the coverage area. So, you can stand like three times further away from it. I'm still waiting for my new device to get to my house, but apparently, they added ambient mode, which is like this calming lower intensity light mode at night to help you sleep and to optimize your circadian rhythms. And it's still like the low EMF light that produces a ton of the near-infrared and red light, but they've upgraded all their devices and they've also given us an exclusive discount code, which is super simple, just BEN. So, go to joovv.com/ben. It's J-O-O-V-V.com/ben and use code BEN, and yeah, you can get these brand new Joovv devices, which are pretty good. Again, I have yet to get my new device, but apparently, they're the bees knees and even better than the old ones.

Jay:  They look sweet, and I'll tell you that.

Ben:  Yeah. And then, speaking of infrared, Clearlight, they also are giving everybody a discount on their Sanctuary yoga sauna. That's the one that I have. It's big enough for me to do like push-ups, and swing kettlebells, and do yoga, and have dinner parties on 420 and invite everybody over and light up in the sauna, not that I would ever endorse doing something like that, but sometimes the Greenfield house parties go that direction inside our sauna. You don't have to get their Sanctuary. They have all sorts of different models, single person, two-person, four-person. But anyways, we all know saunas are good for you. I mentioned that Alzheimer's and dementia study.

They've also done studies on diabetes and overall longevity. You get heat shock proteins instead of cold shock proteins. So, great thing to combine with your cold protocol. They're all EMF shielded, like the Joovv lights are. They all come with a lifetime warranty. And what they're going to do is give a discount if anybody goes to their website, healwithheat.com, and just let them know that you heard about it on the podcast because usually you got to like call them to have them walk you through which sauna is going to work for your needs, or I think there's like a form on their website where you can say where you heard about us, or where you heard about them. So, it's healwithheat.com, and just mention this show, and they're going to throw in a little discount.

And then, finally, the last thing is this new clothing company that makes athletic gear that is distractingly comfortable, and also has really great looking designs. Meaning, you can use it for hiking, or running, or training, or yoga, or spinning, or sauna, or anything. They're called Vuori. Have you tried this stuff on at all, Jay, the Vuori clothing?

Jay:  Currently. I have on Vuori pants, I have on Vuori shorts, and a Vuori shirt. So, yeah, I've tried them.

Ben:  That's crazy. You actually got dressed for the podcast. You guys dressed for an audio–that's impressive. I rarely, rarely get dressed for–often I'm recording this podcast in my boxers. Actually, I'm dressed this morning because it's cold outside. It's like 29 degrees and my house I think is about 60. So, I do have my shirt and pants on. I actually have the Ponto pants on, the Vuori Ponto pants.

Jay:  Nice.

Ben:  Twenty-five percent on this clothing. It's really, really great looking clothing. It fits well. They focus primarily on man. They have a few women's options, but it's spelled funny, V-U-O-R-I. So, you go to Vuori Clothing, V-U-O-R-Iclothing.com/ben, and they're given a 25% discount. Use code BEN2020 at checkout. You get 25% with BEN2020 at vuoriclothing.com.

So, I think, I think–we used to on all of our announcements, we had all these places I was going to speak and people come see me speak in all these conferences and expos. None are happening. So, our special announcement section is it's pretty simple to get through really, folks, because the world has slowed down. Anyways, BenGreenfieldFitness.com/420. We'll also put all those discount codes, all the news flashes, and we'll also include robust show notes for everything you're about to learn about in today's listener Q&A.

Jay:  I've listened to a lot of your talks on using blood flow restriction bands, which I purchased when gyms are closed to use for kettlebell training and bodyweight work. Now, the gyms are reopened, I'm back to training heavier weight with barbells, dumbbells, and cable machines. Do you see any benefit to incorporating BFR with hard sets of strength training inside of a gym or not so much?

Ben:  Oh, BFR training. It is uncomfortable. The burn with BFR training is distractingly uncomfortable, but I mean, I just got back from Sedona where I had like a four-day getaway with Angelo, the CEO of Kion. We were just planning out some stuff, like our amazing fish oil. And I just travel with my BFR bands and I also like to bring some of those X3 Bar resistance training bands. I do just like bodyweight resistance training. And that's generally kind of like the convenience factor of using the tourniquets or occlusion devices to cut off a little bit of blood flow to muscles and allow you to essentially trick your muscles into thinking they're lifting a heavyweight even though you're just training with, say, bodyweight only, or with some light resistance bands.

And we could go deep into the science, but in the shownotes, I'll include links to some pretty significant like KAATSU and BFR training episodes that we've done. But I mean, in a nutshell, you get an activation of these things called myogenic stem cells, which are responsible for the repair of damaged muscles and the growth muscle fibers. Those increase just as much as they do with heavy resistance training when you do BFR. You get a significant increase in growth hormone and an insulin-like growth factor to increase collagen synthesis post-exercise and a downregulation in myostatin, which inhibits cell growth. And so, when you downregulate that, you get more muscle hypertrophy. You get hypoxia because you're cutting off a lot of the blood delivery to the muscles that hypoxic environment causes a surge in lactic acid, which once you take the bands off, you get this big release of what's called hypoxia-inducible factor, which can grow new blood vessels, it increases like BDNF and vascular endothelial growth factor for the brain so you get like this Russian in mental energy.

And then, you also get a little bit of cell swelling, like this anabolic reaction of cell swelling, not only due to the activation of those myogenic stem cells, but also the blood pulling from the blood rushing back in. And so, if you are one of those people who just likes to have–say, fellas, you like to have your arms popping for a date night or something, this is the perfect workout to do on that day that you're going to wear your favorite t-shirt or go to the beach. And so, there's a lot of a lot of benefits of BFR training, but the question is specifically to hear, like, is it worth doing in conjunction with just like regular weight training? Like, could you somehow get an advantage with doing with barbells or dumbbells or cable machines?

And it turns out they actually have researched this. And what they've found when they've combined these blood flow restriction bands with resistance exercise, which is something I used to do back in the day when I was bodybuilding, I would tourniquet my arms and legs usually for about one workout every couple weeks or so and just do my normal workout with the arms tourniquetted, and I would always get this amazing response for a few days. It was like I was just more swole. I didn't know about any of this–

Jay:  And you were lifting as heavy as you would without bands.

Ben: Yeah, yeah. I was just doing my normal weight training routine, but with the bands on. Now, what they've found when they've actually looked into this is that if you do resistance exercise with the bands on versus without the bands, you actually do see a greater release of growth hormone, a greater release of testosterone, more of the benefits that I've just described. And the tricky part though is everything is way more difficult to lift. So, you're probably going to be able to do fewer reps, which is that's one reason that people who do BFR training, they're often trained more frequently because you're actually damaging the muscles less, but getting a lot of the same results without the muscle damage. However, you can exercise a little bit more frequently because you're typically doing fewer reps and sometimes using less weight when you're doing this blood flow restriction training. But it turns out the studies that have compared doing your high-intensity training or weight training with BFR versus without BFR, with the BFR, you actually do see, even if you're not able to do as many repetitions or even use as much weight, increases similar to the gains that you would get without the BFR.

Jay:  That's interesting. I did not expect you to say that, actually.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. There's definitely something to it. Now, a lot of people get concerned about thrombosis, like the formation of a blood clot due to the obstruction of blood flow. But there's no research that low-intensity BFR increases the type of coagulation that would cause that breakdown of–or the increase in the production of clots. As a matter of fact, the research on it shows it may increase due to more what's called fiber analytic activity, the breakdown of clots. So, we know that's perfectly safe.

Lifting super heavy with a lot of occlusion though, there's no studies I could find that looked at risk of increased coagulation or blood clot formation in that scenario. So, I can't say I've seen any research that indicates that you're going to increase your risk of a clot by lifting heavy with BFR training. I can tell you though, bodybuilders do it all the time. And you don't see bodybuilders dropping dead left and right of blood clots while they're doing BFR training. I haven't even seen a single case study or anecdotal study where that's occurred, or anecdotal incident where that's occurred. So, I'm not that concerned about it. I mean, proceed at your own risk and make sure that you're not putting them on too tight. And ideally, if you can afford it, you get one of these KAATSU training devices that lets you very precisely dial in the millimeters of mercury that you would use to stay in your safe range, which would definitely for a heavyweight training session probably not be anything above like 300 millimeters mercury pressure. But ultimately, yeah, you can see greater benefits by doing your normal weight training routine with BFR bands on or KAATSU bands even if you're not able to do as many reps, which you probably won't be able to do.

Jay:  Yeah. Would you recommend, Ben, let's say for this listener, let's say they're lifting four times a week, do you think they should limit it to like once or twice a week or you think they'd be fine with doing it four times a week?

Ben:  You could. It sucks. It's painful.

Jay:  Yeah, it would suck.

Ben:  It's just a lot of burn. I mean, if you're glutton for punishment, yeah. And the way I use BFR training is honestly, I only use it with bodyweight or with resistance bands when I'm traveling. And part of it, too, is you do get some restriction of movement that may impair your mobility, your biomechanics, your form, especially if you're doing things like squats, cleans, some more complex barbell exercises, multi-joint exercises. You just might not be able to maintain quite as good of form when you got lactic acid pouring out your eyeballs. So, that's something to think about, too.

Jay:  Right.

Ben:  Yeah. It's kind of the same concept as like wearing those elevation training masks when you're training. Yeah, you're going to strengthen your inspiratory and expiratory muscles and increase your CO2 tolerance and everything like that, but you can impair biomechanics just because you're so gassed. So, that same concept.

Jay:  Right. That makes sense. I mean, you do get a crazy good pump from it, but yeah. I'm like, you only use it if I'm doing bodyweights or like sandbags or some functional fitness. I've never used them actually in the gym while you're doing bench or doing squats or deadlifts, but I might give it a try this week.

Ben:  Yeah. Alright, so there you have it.

Jim:  Hey, Ben. I recently had surgery for neck cancer and need to do six weeks of radiation. I was just wondering your thoughts on the top three things to do to reduce side effects. Love the show.

Ben:  Oh, man. Well, my heart goes out to Jim. And Jim, we'll keep you in our thoughts and prayers there with the surgery for neck cancer and the radiation because I know it just kind of sucks when you're undergoing radiation therapy, and that is a form of ionizing radiation. It kind of depends on the type of radiation that's used. External beam radiation is generally delivered outside the body, but then there's like internal beam radiation where you're actually placing radioactive materials inside the body, which arguably would be a scenario in which the consumption of certain nutrients and compounds, et cetera, to limit some of the damage could be a good idea.

And there is of course evidence that external beam radiation therapy, based on the same concepts as the type of damaging ionizing radiation you might get from Wi-Fi routers, cell phones, et cetera, can do a little bit of damage to cell membranes or increase calcium influx into a cell, or even do a little bit of DNA damage. And so, arguably, even though I'm not a doctor and I don't want this to be misconstrued as medical advice, a lot of the same things that have been studied for any form of ionizing radiation including cell phones, Wi-Fi, et cetera, could extend to be applied to staving off some of the potential damage from therapeutic radiology.

And technically, when you're placing radioactive material inside your body, that's a type of radiation therapy that's very commonly used to treat cancer. It's called brachytherapy when it's internal radiation. It's a little bit more problematic than the external radiation because again, it's going straight into your actual body tissue, radioactive materials. But if I were actually undergoing radiation therapy, whether it was internal or external, there are certain things that I would do. And this actually has been–it's been studied. There's a very interesting paper that was published back in 2007 in which they investigated the radioprotective potential of plants and herbs against the effects of ionizing radiation. And this is something anybody who does get exposed to EMFs, Wi-Fi, radiation therapy, travels a lot through airports, et cetera, on a regular basis, should actually sit up and take notice of. Because the general concept here is that some plants and herbs do have radioprotective potential. And that's very, very similar to the idea of the xenohormetic effect. Meaning that the polyphenols can scavenge radiation-induced free radicals due to an elevation of cellular antioxidants by these plants and herbs. They have mildly toxic compounds in them that of course have been roughly vilified by the carnivore community.

And we actually covered in our last podcast, if you guys want to take a listen to podcast 419, we talked about which of these are problematic and which are not, like lectins, gluten, phytic acids, et cetera, and even polyphenols. But these polyphenols upregulate mRNAs of antioxidant enzymes like catalase, and glutathione transferase, and glutathione peroxidase, and superoxide dismutase. And so, they can counteract a lot of the oxidative stress induced by ionizing radiation. I would argue the benefits of that occurring would exceed any cons in terms of like mild, like a little bit of gut damage, for example, like Steven Gundry talks about in his book “Plant Paradox,” or potentially a little bit of the toxicity from some of the built-in protective mechanisms of these plants.

I think that the response in terms of cellular antioxidant production, especially in the face of ionizing radiation, dictates that–I think the pros outweigh the cons of the consumption of the type of plant and herbs that have been shown to have some radioprotective potential. Specifically, the ones that they looked at in this study that were most notable, even though they used a lot of kind of like the botanical name, so it's tough to know exactly what they are when you look at like Mentha piperita. We know that's going to be a form of black pepper, but it's not like you're going to type in Mentha piperita on Amazon and find what you want. But if you do some research on some of these, it's not going to be that hard. I'll link to the paper in the shownotes. But a few of the biggies, a few of the most significant were Panax ginseng, which is commonly known, pretty easy to get your hands on. Ginkgo biloba, ginkgo biloba was another. Black pepper was one. Curcumin extract like turmeric curcumin, things like that, and then ginger. Ginger was a biggie as well. And I'll link to the full paper because there's actually over a dozen different nutrients that they looked at in the study.

And there was actually another paper in 2011, and that happened after the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan in which they looked at resveratrol and they found that resveratrol like grape skin extract could actually protect against radiation injuries as well. So, you could throw that in there along with your ginger, your ginseng, your gingko biloba, black pepper, or turmeric, and some of the compounds that are in this study that I'll link to in the shownotes. Also, in 2013, in the Journal of the Advanced Practices of Oncology, they looked at some complementary strategies for the management of radiation therapy. And in that study, they found aloe vera, glutamine, deglycyrrhizinated licorice extract, and then they actually identified quite a few in there probiotics, a psyllium, a Manuka honey, a calendula, melatonin, and even acupuncture, all to have some effect at limiting the damages of ionizing radiation.

Now, I realize that I'm listing off a lot of things. But for those of you who want to dig into the papers who are concerned about the effects of ionizing radiation, want to put together your own stack, so to speak, what I'll do is if you go to the shownotes at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/420, I'll link to a lot of these papers. Now, I would say, and this is my own strategy which I developed after interviewing Dr. Joe Mercola and digging into his book “EMF*D,” we talked about the three basic mechanisms of action via which ionizing radiation can damage cells and mitochondria. It was basically direct DNA damage via radiation, this steep influx of calcium into the cell, and then the upregulation of oxidative stress due to the activation of your body's inflammatory pathway called the Nrf2 pathway.

And what I did after interviewing him was every time I travel now, I use a higher amount of NAD along with sirtuin. In my case, I'll just use–well, I think that something called–it's like an alternative to resveratrol. It is–why am I blanking on the name of it? It's the one that starts with the P, and it's up in my pantry, but it's not pantry, it's–you know what I'm talking about? Pterostilbene. So, I take that because I think it's better than resveratrol as far as the sirtuin goes. But I pair that with NAD, and that's for the DNA damage. And then, I use magnesium to offset the calcium influx, and then I just use ketones to downregulate the Nrf2 pathway because I don't have the time to put 20 things into my suitcase when I travel, but I just use the NAD with the pterostilbene, the magnesium, and the ketones. And that's what I use when I'm going through airports flying.

Actually, if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/5gpackage, I just made like an Amazon list of those three things that I use to protect myself from some of the damaging effects of ionizing radiation. But that's my approach although a lot of other things, like I mentioned from those other studies, have been looked into, but I'm just kind of a creature who likes simplicity. So, I use NAD and sirtuins, magnesium and ketones. A couple of these studies looked into a lot that goes beyond that, like the ginger, the ginkgo biloba, then you're saying the curcumin, et cetera. But I think that armed with the results of those couple of studies, and then that list I made at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/5gpackage, you should be able to get your hands on a decent amount of things for natural production. I don't think you got to use all of them, but just choose maybe three to five different ones to throw into the mix, and yeah, that's where I'd start.

Caitlyn:  Hi, Ben. This is Caitlyn from Canada, and I have a question. I have recently started chewing the Lucy nicotine gum. I'm not a smoker. I've never smoked before. I'm loving it and loving how it makes my brain feel, but I've noticed on my Oura ring that my readiness score has been dropping. And it's been about a month, and usually, I get between 90 and 93 daily for my readiness and it's now significantly dropped to like 75 to 82. I don't eat late. I eat by like 6:00 p.m., rarely have a drink, and I'm usually in bed by 9:00 p.m. So, I feel like I'm doing everything right and I can't figure out what that change might be besides the nicotine, and I'm just wondering if nicotine could have any effects on overall recovery. Thank you.

Ben:  Do you chew that Lucy nicotine gum, Jay?

Jay:  I do. I don't do it as much as I used to, but I do.

Ben:  Yeah. Some company is developing a new form that's flavored with like–it's flavored with monk fruit. They sent me a couple of their trial products. It's pretty good. It's some keto company. I probably shouldn't say right now, but they're developing this nicotine gum that's got like–it's just like monk fruit and nicotine, and it's really good. It's like a four-milligram dose of nicotine.

Jay:  What does Lucy use? Do they use stevia, or do they use something completely–?

Ben:  They use all sorts of different stuff, but these lower amounts of some of the artificial sweeteners and a lot of these other companies. That's generally if I'm going to choose nicotine gum, usually, I'll do that Lucy stuff, or I also like John Lieurance's Zen spray, which is like the Amazonian Rapé that's more of like a nasal spray that does have some nicotine in it as well. And I like it because unlike coffee, it has a pretty short half-life, nicotine does. Meaning, it's not going to stain your system. It's got a half-life of a couple of hours. It gets metabolized in the liver to conatine–or it's called cotinine. And then, cotinine, it will stay in your system a little bit longer, but doesn't seem to like disrupt sleep or activate the sympathetic nervous system quite as much as nicotine.

And so, because of that, I can chew a piece of nicotine gum before a dinner that I want to be a little bit more wakeful during and maybe I'm tired at the end of the day. And it doesn't wake me up quite as much as a cup of coffee, or keep me awake quite as long as a cup of coffee might. But it is a stimulant and they've actually looked into this. There's a few interesting studies that have looked into the effects of nicotine, specifically on activation of the sympathetic nervous system, or specifically like reducing HRV. One study found that a single dose of four milligrams produces a significant reduction in your heart rate variability due to its increase in what would be called the low-frequency score.

And so, because of that, it could definitely affect your Oura ring readiness score. There was another one where they actually looked at rabbits and they found a similar thing like a nicotine induced catecholamine release that also decreased HRV. Now, interestingly, there was one study that found that nicotine actually did not lower HRV. And I don't know why, but in this case, they combined it with black tea. I'm not quite sure why they combined nicotine and black tea. Maybe it's because a little bit of the caffeine and the black tea, or maybe they're trying to see what some of the polyphenols would do. But in this case, they use less nicotine, they use about 2 milligrams, and they didn't find that it had as big of an impact on HRV. So, there's definitely a dose-response effect. And you'd probably want to, if you're using it at night especially, go with as low a nicotine dose as you're able to use, like closer two to 2 milligrams, for example, or cut a 4-milligram piece in half or something like that.

But yeah. So, the Oura ring readiness score that Caitlyn is referring to, what the Oura ring does, and that's generally the wearable that I prefer just because I don't like wearing something on my wrist. I wear like a cheap ass $15 Timex watch, and then just my Oura ring. But it takes resting heart rate, it takes heart rate variability, the amount of time in between your heartbeats, your body temperature and your respiratory rate. It takes those four variables and then it feeds that into an algorithm and kicks you out of readiness score. And I believe it also takes into account in addition to the body temp the heart rate, the HRV, and the respiratory rate. I think it also takes into account your sleep balance and how much you've exercised. I'm pretty sure.

Jay:  Yup, sleep. It does.

Ben:  Yeah. Okay. Good. And so, if you're consuming nicotine and noticing that it drops your readiness score, then theoretically, it's probably doing so due to the slight increase in resting heart rate. Probably, the decrease in HRV, it does impact sleep parameters a little bit, like it can disrupt deep sleep if you take it at night. And so, it's one of those things where–I mean, the short answer is yes. I mean, it is a stimulant. It's less of a problematic stimulant at night compared to, say, like caffeine, for example, or yerba mate, or something like that. But it definitely is going to do–like basically, yeah, nicotine decreases your heart rate variability and will decrease your readiness score due to not only the decrease in heart rate variability, but the increase in resting heart rate and the drop in sleep. And so, you just have to ask yourself whether this surge in energy or the increased alertness that you might be looking for is worth that trade-off.

Jay:  Yeah. I'd say for Caitlyn, just run a simple experiment. I mean, just try it with it and try it without it and see what happens to the readiness score, consideration body temperature, resting heart rate, HRV, respiration rate, and sleep. And so, yeah, it's likely affecting some area. So, kind of just open up the data and analyze it a little bit. And then, from a heart rate variability standpoint perspective, and this would really qualify for everything we just mentioned, is that when you are taking any caffeine, but more specifically when you're taking in nicotine, this is a vasoconstrictor, this is also going to kickstart the sympathetic nervous system.

And so, because of that, therefore, you're going to see drops in HRV. The heart is going to start regulating itself because basically, nicotine is going to be a signaler to the heart that, hey, you took this, or this was ingested for a means. Like, you have reason to take this, and the reason for you to take this is to get up and get going, whether it's cognitive or it's physical performance, whatever it may be. And so, you're just bound to see this. If I take nicotine–actually for me, interestingly enough, Ben, if I have nicotine later in the afternoon, or I would say evening time, I have a very similar response actually from a readiness perspective in my Oura ring than when I drink alcohol. It almost looks exactly the same. I might have a little bit lower HRV with alcohol, but for the most part, it will drop my readiness. So, for me, I cut it off past like 1:00 or 2:00, but I just really am sensitive to nicotine.

Ben:  Yeah. The vasoconstrictor effect is something, too, that I actually have had a couple of guys who started nicotine. It might depend on your nitric oxide pathways, too. Like, if you have what Dr. Ben Lynch, the author of the book “Dirty Genes” would call like a dirty nitric oxide pathway where you have trouble producing nitric oxide anyways. Was it the last podcast where we took a deep dive into nitric oxide? I think it was.

Jay:  Yeah. It was either the last one, the one before.

Ben:  Yeah. It was podcast 418 or 419. If you check that, we geeked out on all the things that can decrease your ability to produce nitric oxide, like mouthwash, fluoridated toothpaste, a host of factors. And if you already have impaired nitric oxide function or impaired nitric oxide production, it can also contribute to almost like an erectile dysfunction type of scenario if you throw nicotine in the mix along with that. So, I have nothing against nicotine. And of course, we know it's mildly addictive as well, which is a wonderful business model for a company like Lucy gum. But anyways, ultimately, yeah. I mean, you do need to be aware of some of the potential trade-offs. This kind of ties into the next question. So, let's play this question from Steve.

Steve:  Hey, Ben. This is Steve. I recently started taking night classes for my graduate degree, and the classes are typically from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., which is really late. I was wondering if you had any tips for maintaining mental acuity, making sure that I'm nice and sharp for those classes without keeping me up too late afterwards because things like caffeine are great, but they do tend to disrupt my sleep, and I want to get to sleep as soon as possible after those classes. So, any advice you have would be great. Thanks.

Ben:  Alright. Well, as we were just talking about, nicotine could be one option due to its shorter half-life compared to something like caffeine, which I think caffeine is a half-life of what, 15 hours, 12 hours, something like that?

Jay:  Was it that long?

Ben:  It depends whether you're a slow or a fast coffee oxidizer, but it definitely will impair sleep at night more than nicotine because it's going to stay in your system for a longer period of time even if you're a fast coffee oxidizer. I mean, in most cases, coffee afternoon, whether you're a slow or a fast oxidizer, will disrupt sleep, period. It just happens. So, when I have to stay awake at night because I'm traveling outside my normal time zone, going to like late night dinners or parties or meetings, which again happens when I travel, or even if I'm going to go, whatever, see a fight in Vegas or something like that, there are times when I'm definitely out past my bedtime, but I know I still want to go to sleep. Like, I don't want to take 100 micrograms of LSD and be up 'til 5:00 a.m. or drink a cup of coffee and sleep, but not really get my deep sleep cycles.

And so, there are certain things that I use at night. One I already mentioned, and it would be due to the short half-life. I will use nicotine at night. Like before dinner party, I'll pop some gum and chew it while I'm driving to the dinner party. So, that's one thing that I've found when I take, it still decreases my readiness score and decreases my HRV a little bit, but I can at least sleep. I can take nicotine as late as like 8:00 p.m. and still go to bed at 10:30 and be fine. Another one that's similar that I already mentioned due to the presence of small amounts of nicotine is that Zen nasal spray from Dr. John Lieurance, which is a blend of oxytocin, which is kind of nice if you're not in a social setting anyways. It's great for a date, for a social setting, for an evening activity, but it's blended with a little bit of this Amazonian Rapé extract, which is really great for clearing the head. It's got trace amounts of nicotine in it and it's actually a little bit of a vagal nerve stimulants.

And so, I think that because of that, there might be a trade-off in terms of the potential impairment of HRV. The cool thing is, and I don't know if John and I talked about this on the show, was he has one version that's got the Amazonian Rapé in it, but then he has another version that's just peppermint and rosemary, and I believe it's cinnamon essential oil and a little bit of oxytocin. And so, that doesn't even have any nicotine, but essentially like you're huffing peppermint and rosemary up your nose, which are all wonderful natural essential oil stimulants. And I'll do that at night a lot because I have both his Zen spray that's made of the Rapé, and then I also have his Zen spray that's made of just the regular essential oils. And then, with the essential oils at night, it doesn't disrupt sleep a bit. It's literally just like smelling peppermint.

Jay:  Sounds spicy.

Ben:  Yeah. So, yeah, it burns a little bit when it first goes in, but I mean it's–so that's a really great option and–

Jay:  Is that available for purchase?

Ben:  Yeah. It's all legal. You can totally purchase it. I'll link to his website. We might have a discount code or something somewhere. I'll hunt it down. And I did a great podcast with him, super-smart formulator. He does both the suppositories like the melatonin and the CBD suppositories, and then the Zen spray and the Zen essential oil sprays. That'd be another option. Another one that I'll do a lot of times in the later afternoon or the evening to get an increase in alertness as a mild stimulant without disrupting sleep, and arguably actually enhancing deep sleep cycles based on some research on REM sleep, is a lion's mane. And lion's mane has trace amounts of caffeine in it, but not enough to really keep you awake at night. And studies on lion's mane have shown that it can increase REM sleep.

And so, that's great because we know it can improve focus, improve neuroplasticity, increase levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, and even balance out the HPA axis a little bit, almost like an adaptogenic herb would, but it's not disruptive to sleep yet can make you alert. And I know some people who swear by it for improving their dreams like lucid dreaming and things like that. So, lion's mane would be another. I know some people in the plant medicine sector will even take lion's mane right before bed along with a small dose of psilocybin for enhanced dream cycles. And that doesn't work for me. I find psilocybin to be too stimulative for me. Even a microdose will just make me super creative. And I'll let you [00:53:50] _____ thinking of amazing ideas. But lion's mane would be one that I think would definitely fit as an evening supplement. That's another one that I'm fine using at night. It doesn't keep me awake at all.

Another one is L-theanine, and L-theanine is just fantastic. It's an amino acid. You'll find it in green tea, like caffeine. It's got two components in it, theophylline and theobromine, that can enter the brain by crossing the blood-brain barrier. But when it does so, it increases the formation of alpha brainwaves so it gives you this alert relaxation and affects GABA and dopamine pathways a little bit in a way that increases attention and brain function. But not only does it not keep you up at night, but if you combine it with a stimulant such as caffeine, it can actually make caffeine a little bit less stimulative, right?

And so, it's one of those you can have in your back pocket if you happen to have made the mistake of having too much coffee, but it's also something that you can take by itself. Around 100 milligrams or so I find to be the sweet spot. You could take it with lion's mane. You could stack it with anything I've just described, and that's another one that can be a stimulant you can use at night that's not going to deleteriously impact your sleep cycles. So, that's one. And then, there's one more, one more that I'm fine with taking a smaller dose of at night, and it's a nootropic formula. It's made by a company called Neurohacker Collective. It's called Qualia Mind, and it's like a whole shotgun for me. It's got like Huperzine for learning and memory. It's got a Celastrus, which enhances memory and learning. It's got like artichoke heart, ginkgo biloba, but they make a caffeine-free version of it.

And even though if I'm going to crush a day of work and I want to take a nootropic formulation, I'll actually take anywhere from six to eight capsules of it in the morning. And the reason I like the caffeine-free in the morning is because I still do like to have a cup of coffee a lot of times in the morning. I don't want to double up on my caffeine. But then, I found in the evening, if I just need a little pick-me-up, I'll take a half dose, like three or four. Never seems to impact my sleep at all. And that one already has–if you take three or four, it's already got about 100 milligrams of theanine in it. So, we're already getting some theanine, too. And that's another kind of done-for-you formula that I find about a half dose of, gives me good mental function in the evening, and I'm talking about the caffeine-free version. It doesn't seem to impair sleep cycles at all. So, that'd be another one to throw into the mix.

Jay:  I think it's got lion's mane in as well. I'm not positive on that one. I think it does. I know it's got L-theanine, but yeah, I love that as well. One other thing I would add, too, to give a try, I actually texted you this morning about this because I've recently been using it, is I actually have been using like a tables–no, no, no, sorry, a teaspoon of the B.Powered by the Beekeeper's Naturals brand, which is kind of a mixture of honey, propolis, royal jelly, and bee pollen. And it is a great just like cognitive pick-me-up that I can utilize without any negative side effects. I mean, it's only got like 5 grams of sugar in it. So, for a teaspoon of honey isn't awful.

Ben:  Yeah. And that one's got a lot of like acetylcholine precursors in it, doesn't it?

Jay:  Yup, it does. Yeah. It's phenomenal. So, I would recommend that as well, especially if you take it right before class, I think the amount of mental acuity you'll receive from that. And if you stack that on top of a small dose of Qualia Mind caffeine-free, I think you're in for a good night of learning there, Steve.

Ben:  Awesome, awesome. So, there's your drug bag, Steve. Well, that's great. Hopefully, we came up with some new tips for people. This was fun because, hopefully, people have gotten some ideas for enhancing their cold thermogenesis, enhancing their gym time with the blood flow restriction training, enhancing their evening activities with non-sleep disrupting stimulants, and staying the hell away from Subway. So, we'll link to all this stuff at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/420 along with the brand new Kion Fish Oil and some other fantastic sponsors like Joovv and Clearlight and–who's the other sponsor we had today?

Jay:  Vuori.

Ben:  Yeah, and Vuori Clothing. So, all at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/420.

And we'll also give away some swag. Should we give away some swag?

Jay:  Oh, we got someone to get some swag, too.

Ben:  Alright, let's do it. This is the part of the show where we will read a review. And if you leave us a review on any podcast platform that you listen in on and say something nice, and you hear your review read on the show, that means we're going to send you a sweet ass gear pack with a BGF t-shirt, and beanie, and BPA-free water bottle. And all you got to do is email [email protected] with your T-shirt size if you hear your review read. So, that being said, take it away, Jay.

Jay:  Alright. So, we've got a review from kim12345. She says, or maybe him, “My health energy and outlook has all increased because of this podcast. It is so fun to try new things to increase all these fundamentally important facets of life. The how-to, as well as the science that backs up the info and the podcast is what I needed to buy-in to this life-enhancing info. Thank you, Ben and team.” And thank you, Kim.

Ben:  Oh, awesome. Well, Kim, write [email protected]. Let's know your t-shirt size, just sweet gear pack sent your way.

In the meantime, for the rest of you listening in, BenGreenfieldfitness.com/420 is where you'll find all the shownotes for your 420 enjoyment. And Jay, that was fun. Thanks, man.

Jay:  Hey, it's a blast, man.

Ben:  Alright. Catch you all on the flip side.

Jay:  See you.

Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the shownotes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com, along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful “Ben Recommends” page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormone, sleep, digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please, also, know that all the links, all the promo codes, that I mentioned during this and every episode, helped to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. When you listen in, be sure to use the links in the shownotes, use the promo codes that I generate, because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.

 

 

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Listener Q&A:

When To Do Blood Flow Restriction Training…24:05

I've listened to a lot of your talks on using blood flow restriction bands, which I purchased when the gyms were closed to use for kettlebell training and bodywork. Now, with gyms are reopened, I'm using heavier weights with barbells, dumbbells, and cable machines. Do you see any benefits to incorporating BFR with hard sets of strength training inside of a gym or not so much?

In my response, I recommend:

How To Reduce The Effects Of Radiation…31:45

Jim asks: I recently had surgery for neck cancer and need to do six weeks of radiation. I was just wondering your thoughts on the top three things to do to reduce side effects.

Have a question you'd like Ben to answer on the podcast?

Click here, or use the ‘contact' button in the free Ben Greenfield Fitness app.

Prior to asking your question, do a search in the upper right-hand corner of this website for the keywords associated with your question. Many of the questions we receive have already been answered here at Ben Greenfield Fitness!

News Flashes – Follow Ben on Twitter for more…

Resources mentioned:

Special Announcements…

Check out where Ben is traveling and speaking on the BGF calendar.

Check out Ben on Instagram for epic posts and photos about his morning, day, and evening routines, recipes, and much more!

Follow Ben on Twitter for daily news flashes and the latest health, fitness, and anti-aging research.

Join Ben's Facebook page for conversations with listeners and even more useful information, posts, and support!

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Listener Q&A:

When To Do Blood Flow Restriction Training…24:05

I've listened to a lot of your talks on using blood flow restriction bands, which I purchased when the gyms were closed to use for kettlebell training and bodywork. Now, with gyms are reopened, I'm using heavier weights with barbells, dumbbells, and cable machines. Do you see any benefits to incorporating BFR with hard sets of strength training inside of a gym or not so much?

In my response, I recommend:

How To Reduce The Effects Of Radiation…31:45

Jim asks: I recently had surgery for neck cancer and need to do six weeks of radiation. I was just wondering your thoughts on the top three things to do to reduce side effects.

 

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