April 13, 2023

From podcast: https://bengreenfieldlife.com/podcast/qa-454/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:00:34] Podcast Sponsors

[00:05:31] The Liver King on Boundless Parenting 

[00:12:49] News Flashes

[00:13:22] Breaking prolonged sitting with short bouts of light walking

[00:20:02] How to solve problems with Mediterranean diet

[00:31:07] Podcast Sponsors

[00:36:52] Nine Research Established Mental Distortions to Be Aware Of

[00:53:32] The influence of isometric training on dynamic spring performance

[01:04:22] The best parasite eradication protocol

[01:11:09] Closing the Podcast

[01:12:11] Upcoming Event

[01:14:18] End of Podcast

Ben:  In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life show. What to do if a Mediterranean diet hurts your gut, the benefits of isometric training, nine ways you could be sabotaging your social life and much more.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

You may have been at a gas station or convenience store or random grocery store, wherever and you see these horribly branded sexual enhancement pills, erection pills, whatever you want to call them. And, those can be tempting, throw them back and get a insti pleasurable experience. But, we're talking about four-hour erections that won't go away and nasty side effects, and heart issues, and sweaty palms, and possible trip to the hospital to get rid of that thing. And, these are pharmaceuticals or they're crappy herbal compounds that are somewhat effective, I guess, with a ton of nasty side effects. 

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I have on the back of my arm right now the one thing I can leave on my body for a couple weeks in a row that, probably in addition to HRV, is the number one thing that I can do on a real-time basis without going to give a bunch of tubes of blood in a lab to figure out what's going on with my body and how healthy I am. It's a continuous glucose monitor. It's also known as a CGM. I get mine from this company called Levels. Now, Levels has this app. It lets you see how your food affects your health by giving you real-time feedback on your diet via your CGM, your continuous glucose monitor. So, I can learn how a smoothie affects my body, if the reason I wake up in the middle of the night is because I have low blood sugar, what ketones do, what alcohol does. If it's up or down, if I'm feeling blah during a workout, did I not eat enough, what's my blood sugar at. There's so much that you can learn. I haven't like to track with breath work and heat and cold. It's just a real, real cool way to ninja hack your body like a true expert without having to do anything that's not advanced.

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Jay, what's up, dude?

Jay:  Enjoying life. What's up with you?

Ben:  Well, we got video now. We officially are a video podcast, which is pretty cool. So, if you're listening right now, you can go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/454. We'll have the video on. I sound a little bit like a broken record because I know I said that in Q&A 453, but I'm just announcing it for about the next month or so on podcast episodes. So, folks know that we are wearing pants possibly, but we at least have hair, makeup, whatever else, fancy books on the bookshelves strategically placed sponsored items hanging around behind the video camera. Shameless plugs, Truman show-esque shameless plugs.

I'm tired. I've been burning the candle at both ends recording the audiobook for “Boundless Parenting.” It's super interesting.

Jay:  Oh, geez.

Ben:  There's some interesting stuff in there. I actually have the book right here. I have the book right here. Did you know that I interviewed the Liver King for it? Obviously, kind of before he got busted. But, I was reading the part about his sample day in the life of how his kids eat and move. Alright, so here's a free preview, I'll hold it up to the camera, ding, of “Boundless Parenting” for you guys. So, free preview for anybody who feels maybe you're really doing a great job turning your children into free thinking resilient little human beings and they're doing burpees after lunch or whatever. You probably aren't.

Here's a sample day in the life of how Brian Johnson aka the Liver King kids eat and move based on what he's contributed to the book here. 7:00 a.m, wake up just after sunrise, meaning they're not waking up at 7:00 a.m. I guess, this is what they're doing up until 7:00 a.m. Wake up just after sunrise and walk down to the lake barefoot connected to the Earth's sun gaze and then do morning workout and chores, branch clearing, vine management, weeds, dogs, et cetera. If we're at the ranch, they also pick eggs, milk the cows and gather fruits from the orchard. That's not too bad.

Jay:  That's pretty reasonable.

Ben:  My kids gather eggs and take care of the goats in the morning. So, yeah, scoop poop out of the yard and stuff. That's pretty straightforward. That's not a crazy childhood existence.

8:00 a.m., make breakfast using six to eight farm fresh fertilized eggs from a ranch, bone marrow ghee, and leftover meat from the previous day. His kids aren't having liver for breakfast. This is horrible.

Jay:  Yeah.

Ben:  It's bone marrow. Geez.

Jay:  It's not consistent with branding here.

Ben:  No, it's not on brand. They're not liver princes.

9:00 a.m. to noon, self-taught school and nature time. I could get behind that.

12:00 p.m., lunch, cartilaginous. Not just meat but a cartilaginous rich cut of meat, liver, there we go, liver at lunch, and a few homemade beef snacks.

1:00 to 4:00 p.m., afternoon workout: boxing, jiu jitsu, swimming, cold plunge. Oh, even as a tip in here at least one hour away from working out so they don't shut down post-workout inflammation.

Jay:  Very scientific.

Ben:  And, if desired, 40 minutes of earned screen time. By the way, that whole post-workout inflammation thing with cold is kind of a myth because all the studies that have been done on that like your muscle core temperature has to get so crazy low. You got to be in 33 degrees water for 10 plus minutes. I don't know a lot of people who are doing that after a workout. And, cold shower or jump in a cold leg is not going to cause any issues.

Alright, 4:00 p.m., it's kind of early. Dinner, always raw liver, raw bone marrow, raw testicles. Why has it got to be raw? It tastes good cooked too. Maybe some heart close to a pound of red meat. We also include potatoes or rice and avocados with real olive oil. It's kind of funny because my kids eat meat and fish and stuff for dinner, but they're happy as a clam literally just eating rice, rice crackers, and they're like their mom; rice, rice crackers, bread, a piece of lettuce. If I didn't break out the protein in the meat, they'd never even asked for it. They just be like, “I can't, dad. I'm going to make rice again.” It's the little vinegar, a piece of lettuce. They're just little carboholic kids.

Jay:  My kids are more on the carnivorous side, but not raw testicles and liver. I haven't done that yet.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. A family wake surfing. Okay. So, they're doing dinner early, 5:00 p.m. family wake surfing. That sounds fun.

6:00 p.m., walk and free time to hang out as brothers or with friends.

7:00 p.m., hang out with dad. Bedtime, wind down the day and begin an optimized sleep routine.

Hmm, interesting. Yeah, that's not that bad of a day, it's an early dinner. But, a lot of people are into that early dinner thing. I'm not. I like to have all this stuff done before we get to dinner. Yeah. I like to do all my family wakeboarding before dinner.

Jay:  So, you know what's interesting, I think that most people in the health, wellness, optimization community would hear a lot of those components and not think a lot about them other than like, yes, they're great.

Ben:  Yeah.

Jay:  It's the food. It's the nutritional components. And, I'm like, “Man, if I tried to present that to my kid, to my wife, to myself at times, it'd be the challenge to say the least.

Ben:  You mean the raw liver and bone marrow part?

Jay:  Yeah, that part. That part. Yeah, for sure. For sure. How old are his kids? Did he say in the book or do you know?

Ben:  They're young teenage boys. I forget their exact age.

Jay:  Okay, got you. I mean, I have a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old, so I don't know how much that would fly with a five-year-old and a three-year-old.

Ben:  I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on the show before, but I have liver with almost every meal. I do. I have a raw liver smoothie every morning except occasionally I'll take my kids out for waffles or whatever. I'm not bringing raw liver in my fanny pack to the waffle place. We have a raw liver smoothie almost every morning. And then, I have a huge handful of those liver capsules with lunch and then often again with dinner. So, I technically have liver three times a day.

Jay:  I take it in desiccated form like in liver capsules. But, eating it raw, I actually have never done that. I'd like to try it out–

Ben:  Man, with a little honey and a little salt. It's actually not that bad, but I also think it's a publicity stunt to a certain extent, too, because it's raw. Let's face it. Raw liver or testicle or heart or anything tastes so much better soaked and dredged in egg and flour and fried up on the grill with some bacon and onions. I mean, if you're going to do it, I say do it right or blend it up in a smoothie with a bunch of stuff that makes it taste like chocolate ice cream.

Jay:  That too. Have you seen the company? I can't remember what they're called. Ancestral something. But, they're mass market now or mass market in terms of sprouts, whole foods type of thing, which I think is mass market. They sell just a blend of grass-fed beef with heart and liver are already inside of it. I know companies have done that before, but this is like– 

Ben:  Wait, it's like a powder?

Jay:  No, no, no, no. No, ground up in beefs so that you can create burgers out of it and you can mince it up.

Ben:  Yeah, I've seen that. And then, Mark Bell, he's one of my buddies. He has what's called the Steak Shake and it's a protein powder made out of powdered organ meats. And then, the other people, the folks at Keto Brick, they just launched one of their Keto Bricks, which is a 1,000-calorie coconut butter-based brick. And, they put meat powder in there, which sounds disgusting but it's actually not bad. And, I think they put some organ stuff in there too as well, I believe. So, anyways, all sorts of mouth-watering tips today for everybody except vegan people who are throwing up right now.

Alright. Well, let's launch into today's newsflashes, shall we?

Jay:  Let's do it, man.

Ben:  Alright, here we go. This is the part of the show where we tell you some of the interesting things that I've tweeted out and shared lately on the socials, some compelling newsflashes, articles that I've read that I thought were interesting enough to share with you, et cetera. I'll put them all at BenGreenfieldLife.com/454, which is where the shownotes reside.

Jay, are you standing up right now?

Jay:  No, I've been standing up most of the day though, so this is a reprieve actually. I've been up almost all day.

Ben:  Oh, look at you. Okay. So, if I go like this and I press my little camera thing here, I'll show you. This is nine times out of ten what's underneath my butt when I'm at my workstation. What I'm holding up is this upright stool. I'm not necessarily married to any specific brand. This one's a focal upright. I don't think they make it anymore, but it's got an extender on the end of it. See that.

Jay:  Yeah, yeah.

Ben:  Yeah. So, I can lean up, lean up against that and it goes up and down. My kids have a couple as well. They have softer padded ones made by a different company. And usually, I kind of lean back like this. And so, I'm kind of sort of standing/leaning against the stool. And then, beside me is a treadmill and I got to move my camera all over the place to show you the treadmill. But, beside me is the treadmill where I'll take a lot of my calls while I'm walking. So, I am of course into the standing workstation thing. Even this desk I use goes up and down, use a little button on it. And, you push and it goes up and down, which is kind of cool.

But anyways, I wanted to highlight a couple of studies. One was very recent. It was a randomized controlled crossover study. So, pretty well-designed study. They found the average blood glucose was higher during a seven-hour period of uninterrupted sitting compared to during sitting interrupted with physical activity every 30 minutes. And, I think that that makes pretty good sense. The interesting thing is that this other study actually looked at the metabolic effects of breaking prolonged sitting with standing or light walking. And, I thought this was more interesting. 

What they found was that for people, and this was in older adults who were working during the day, they found that in order to actually get metabolic benefits of taking a break from sitting during work, you actually have to move that standing doesn't actually make that big of an impact in terms of burning extra fat or glycemic management or anything. From a metabolic standpoint, you actually have to move. So, if you're telling yourself, “Well, I'm standing for eight hours a day at my standing desk so I don't need to do the Pomodoro break and stop and do jumping jacks or walk or sprint or whatever,” that's actually wrong. For blood sugar management, you do need to move. Standing is not enough.

Now, that being said, that's the metabolic component. Now, from the biomechanical standpoint, yeah, standing can be enough to reduce low back strain and to get rid of the shortened hip flexors and deactivated glutes and some of the things that you might experience while sitting. Now, of course, I should mention standing can come with its own host of other biomechanical issues. Knee pain if your knees are locked out. Some people will experience, especially if that poor posture, an excessive what would be called lordotic curve. And so, they'll also start to get kind of either tight hip flexors or weak low back or painful low back when standing. If not, standing with good posture. Some people kind of drop into that forward head posture even more when they're standing than when they're sitting.

So, there's a lot a lot of additional things to take into consideration here. But ultimately, the main thing I want to let people know based on these studies is that, yes, standing is good, it's better than sitting in most cases, but you must break up either sedentary standing, which is what I would define just standing around all day. So, sedentary standing or especially, sedentary sitting must be broken up with movement to actually see things like the lower triglycerides, the lower blood glucose, the increase in fat burning, et cetera. And, in this case, what they did was five-minute breaks every 30 minutes, which I have to admit, for me, I'm usually close to probably two or three minutes every 30 minutes. Five, just a complete waste of time. But, that's what they did in the study.

Jay:  Yeah. Two things about that. Number one is the posture thing is huge. For me, when I first got my standing desk which has probably been, geez, maybe even 10 years ago now, I was leaning over my desk with horrible posture just thinking, “Oh, standing all day is the way to go.”

Ben:  Yeah.

Jay:  And so, after three or four hours, it was awful. And so, I always tell people, it's like, when you see your posture start to give out and you're tired, just sit or go for a walk. Just get away from leaning over and putting all your pressure on the desks.

Ben:  Yeah.

Jay:  And, the second thing I'm curious on your thoughts, Ben, I know I've heard you talk recently about the pace and speed of walking and how that relates to glucose management and metabolic health. I don't think from what I could tell they were looking at the pace of these individuals during that point in time, but I'm assuming you would say maybe a little bit more of a rapid pace, not just kind of a slow stroll for this for better metabolic health.

Ben:  And, most of these studies to control them, they use walking. And, you are right, slightly faster pace is better. That's why I kind of like having one of these walking treadmills beside me. That's the manual treadmill. So, I can also run on it if I want to. A lot of the studies use walking, but let's face it, there's a kettlebell on the floor in my office behind me so I can do swings. I got to pull a bar back behind me where I can do the pull-ups. I'll do jumping jacks. Shameless plug, but my book, “Boundless,” I've got a whole list, menu of movement snacks for any given day. So, in my opinion, walking's cool, but the disadvantage of walking unless you have an office treadmill is you got to go leave your office. In some cases, you might look you're shirking your work or whatever, but I mean, if you're just banging out some swings ninja style in your cubicle office space, nobody knows.

Jay:  Or, if your boss loves the book “Deep Work” by Cal Newport, you can just talk about it as a productivity meditation that two to three minutes productivity meditation can be epic. So, I think that's the excuse.

Ben:  Yeah. And, by the way, there's a book behind me I just read. It's Katie Bowman. She's a great moment mechanist. I got to get her back on the show. She just sent me two new books. Let's see if my headphone table is long enough to make it back here and look at one of them. Okay, it's called, okay go, “Rethink Your Position.” “Rethink Your Position.” Obviously, “Deskbound” by Kelly Starrett is fantastic for this, but this “Rethink Your Position” book is also really good. I mean, any book written by someone who has removed all furniture from their home, I'm not joking, and sleeps on the floor without a pillow–but, she's a smart biomechanist. And, her kids go to Forest school. And, it's a cool book. So, anyways, “Rethink Your Position.” Check that book out. I'll make sure I link to it in the shownotes. BenGrenfieldLife.com/454.

That's what I wanted to mention about movement.

Next, I read an interesting article about the Mediterranean diet. The Mediterranean diet, obviously a diet that is well-proven from a wide variety of epidemiological sources for improving longevity and decreasing risk for a host of chronic diseases. You could probably, most people say it in their sleep, with the Mediterranean diet, vegetables and fruits and whole grains and nuts and low in red and processed meat. And, that's kind of the way that most people would define the Mediterranean diet. 

Problem is, and this actually keeps a lot of people with princess guts and I've dealt with this in the past, from eating that kind of high fiber, high vegetable, grainy, nutty, seedy, Mediterranean diet, your giant kale and arugula salads with pumpkin seeds and almonds on them and two slices of whole wheat bread and then brown rice for dinner with pears and apples. It's very rich in fiber and it's very rich in a lot of fermentable fibers and it's very rich in a lot of the potential plant-based defense mechanisms that can cause digestive distress in a lot of people. And, what this paper, which appeared in Frontiers in Nutrition pointed out was that you have to if you want to garnish–is garnish a word? Garnish, garner, garnish. Some of the benefits–

Jay:  Garnish is a word.

Ben:  I think it's garnish, some of the benefits of the Mediterranean diet. Did I use that word properly or is it garner?

Jay:  I don't know. When I think of garnish, I think about something being included–

Ben:  Look at that for me. What's his name? Do the Jamie-Joe Rogan thing. Look that up for me.

Jay:  That's right.

Ben:  Google that, Jay. Is it garner or garnish? Anyways, what you have to do is you have to make some modifications because ultimately not only if you're eating packages and processed foods in a Mediterranean context, you've got emulsifiers and thickeners and maltodextrin and artificial sweeteners and processed food that has titanium dioxide and sulfites and other stuff in it. But then, there's also just general foods that would be considered healthy by “normal” person that a person with irritable bowel or gut issues or gut inflammation simply has to be very careful with on a Mediterranean diet.

And, I think the end of the paper, they have they have some really great actionable information. So, here's the deal. If you're listening and your doctor or your trainer or nutritionist or dietitian or whatever has told you that you'd really benefit from eating the Mediterranean diet, they could be right. But, if they're not taking into consideration your gut and you're having gut issues; bloating gas, constipation, diarrhea, indigestion, whatever, here's some modifications you can make. First of all, make your fruits and vegetables easy to digest. Lots of pureeing, lots of blending, lots of mashing. If you get into the fermenting soaking sprouting game, great. Peel and de-seed if you can, okay. So, there's a little bit more attention that must be paid to plant preparation.

Next, they say that a Mediterranean diet free of whole-grain bread, pasta, rice, couscous, and other cereals is probably a good idea on a Mediterranean diet. Now, at this point, people are probably thinking, “Wait, you're starting to describe a paleo diet.” It sounds like I'm just getting rid of grains and a lot of the hard-to-digest fruits and vegetables and the peeling and the seeding, et cetera. But, here's the deal, they say nuts and seeds actually from what they found and they looked at a lot of studies in this paper, those actually are pretty tolerated. But, you ideally need to grind them and some cashews need to be soaked. But, you can get ground flax powder, you can take out a grinder or Nutribullet and grind your walnuts into a fine powder or your Brazil nuts or macadamia nuts or what have you. Good idea, because it's not necessarily the seeds and nuts that are hurting your gut, the digestive enzyme inhibitors in them, it's just the fact that they are big chunky pieces of hard stuff. Not quite as bad as glass, but imagine if you're eating bones and glass how hard that would be on your gut. Well, one next level down from that is the hardness, yeah, understatement of the year, are seeds and nuts. So, grind them if you can. Grind them. Mortar and pestle, break them down. That type of thing.

They actually highly recommend, and this will be something that folks who are following a more ketogenic or low-carb version of the Mediterranean diet need to bear in mind, they recommend avoiding full fat especially full-fat dairy products, but a lot of these compounds that are higher in saturated fats. And, I found this to be the issue. Sometimes, it's gallbladder and liver problems that are contributing to the digestive distress. Sometimes it's small or large intestinal inflammation, but ultimately, choosing fats that are a little bit more liquidy. There's the Andreas Seed Oil. They do a bunch of cold-pressed oils like pumpkin seed oil and hemp seed oil and black seed oil. Those are good choices. Obviously, extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil are good choices. Your fatty cuts of fish versus your saturated fat type of cuts of beef, et cetera, probably better tolerated. But basically, if you are going to do a low-carb or keto version of the Mediterranean diet or spice up any version of a Mediterranean diet with fats, using more of these liquid-based monounsaturated and in moderation polyunsaturated fats are going to be a better idea than the chunky thick hard fats. And, that would include full-fat yogurt and full-fat dairy. Even though dairy is something recommended on a Mediterranean diet, you'd want to be pretty careful with that.

By the way, I got to give a head nod to my podcast with Dr. William Davis where we went over his gut-healing super yogurt recipe. Did you try that one at all, Jay?

Jay:  No, I did not.

Ben:  Oh, my gosh, it's so good.

Jay:  But, I should.

Ben:  You sleep better. Your gut's better. So, I always have a couple of big glass Mason jars of that up in the fridge now. I'm actually putting the full recipe of it in this next cookbook that I'm working on. But, I mean, it's not that hard. It's three specific strains you buy on Amazon. Use goat milk or if you want to do a plant-based milk, you could use coconut milk, for example. You ferment it for 36 hours with these probiotics in it. Add a little gelatin to thick it up at the end if you want it more thick. 

And, Dr. Davis has actually tested it against things like rifaximin and standard treatments for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, which actually is one of the reasons a lot of people get gut issues and has found that drinking–I think it's a half cup, eating or drinking a half cup of this yogurt for four weeks in a row just eradicate SIBO, which is crazy. And, you'd get this huge Russian oxytocin, so actually feel pretty good too. And, people report weird things like crazy dreams and better sex, and all sorts of better skin. Their eczema goes away. It's magic yoga. So, yeah. So, I'll link to my podcast within the shownotes.

They also say a couple other tips. They say ditch the legumes. Ditch the legumes if you can, at least most of them. And, if you are going to do them, they say lentils or tempeh or tofu seem to be the best tolerated by people with IBD. I think, legumes in general. I don't meet a lot of people who have gut issues who do well with legumes. So, I think that's a good recommendation they give to just avoid even things like whatever, peas, pea protein, chickpeas, hummus, tahini, all that stuff be super careful with.

And then, the last one, hard-boiled, scrambled eggs, or fried eggs may be hard to digest. If you're on the Mediterranean diet and you're using the recommendations that you eat eggs on the Mediterranean diet, choose soft-boiled eggs or poached eggs. Soft-boiled eggs or poached eggs. That was surprising me. I didn't realize there was that much of a difference in terms of digestive distress based on egg preparation methods.

Jay:  Yeah, me either. No, that is a super interesting one.

Ben:  So, it's good. If you're having issues with the Mediterranean diet because you have gut problems, it might not be that you got to switch to a full-on paleo or carnivore or Elemental gut healing diet or have a smoothie for breakfast, lunch, and dinner or something like that. But, in a nutshell, a ground nutshell, in this case, grind and break down your seeds and nuts. Ditch whole grain, bread, pasta, rice, couscous, and other cereals. Use easy-to-digest fruits and vegetables. And, when you do fruits and vegetables, try and puree and mash and steam and blend as much as possible. Avoid the full-fat versions of dairy and a lot of the marbly cuts of meat and try to choose fish and the more liquid omega-3-rich oils over some of those harder-to-digest fats. And then, finally, a soft boil or poach your eggs and avoid legumes.

Jay:  There it is. This is a bit of an off-note or a side track, if you will. One of my favorite staples of the Mediterranean diet is obviously olive oil. Absolutely, love it. Did you hear? Because I thought this was fascinating. I didn't know this was a thing, but apparently, it's a thing. So, Starbucks is coming out with a coffee that is infused and mixed with olive oil. So basically, I've heard the whole butter and MCT oil and I did that for quite some time. But now, they're coming out with an olive oil coffee.

Ben:  There's going to be a lot of people that will report having shat their pants on the way to work because they aren't used to putting fats in their coffee. We're going to see what happens when Starbucks unleashes that on the general population.

That reminds me of something. Have you ever put a sprig of rosemary into your coffee like if you're doing a French press or even just to pour over?

Jay:  Yeah.

Ben:  It's amazing. It's really good. And, rosemary has a lot of nootropic properties on its own for memory and cognition, but it actually really amps up the flavor of coffee. I always been a fan of putting a little salt, a little cinnamon, sometimes a bit of that organic vanilla or butterscotch toffee flavored stevia that [00:29:46]_____ organic makes in my coffee. So, I do like to dress up my coffee a little bit. But, if you do a little bit of salt with a little bit of rosemary, it's actually really good.

Jay:  Huh, thinking that ago. I am such a purist, which I figured you would be Ben–

Ben:  With coffee.

Jay:  I think you'd be like, not put anything in there, which is what I do. basically, it's water and coffee for me.

Ben:  Yeah.

Jay:  And so, when I put anything else in there, again, if it's the mixed with butter, MCT oil or I've never done olive oil but I'm going to give it a go or salt or cinnamon, I feel it just takes away from that flavor of the coffee for me.

Ben:  It does.

Jay:  It's disappointing.

Ben:  It's no longer true coffee. I'll agree. Here's my hypothesis. I drank so much coffee with the dad as a gourmet coffee roaster and coffee stand and coffee shop owner from the age of 13 onwards that I think I possibly just kind of got bored with black coffee by the time I was 30. I spent almost two decades just drinking black brew every morning and branched out and started to experiment. Actually, I still like regular coffee. Honestly, I do, but it's fun to just experiment with other stuff.

Jay:  Yeah.

Ben:  Part of my job to do that and then report back on the podcast.

Jay:  That's true. That's true. If I ever get bored of just flavor of coffee, I will be very surprised by that. So, in 20 years, I'll let you know if I'm still bored.

Ben:  Okay, fair enough.

Jay:  I'll look I'm 20 in 20 years, which will be amazing because of all this biohacking we're doing.

Ben:  I've been so impressed by a recent energy drink company that is now taking the world by storm, it's called Update, that I've actually invested in this company. I want to come straight out and tell you that I recently wrote a check because I've been drinking this stuff for a few months now and I'm so impressed that the clean energy without a crash, without a jitters–and, I think the reason is Update uses a molecule that none of the other energy drink companies I'm aware of have touched or hold a patent to or able to use. And, it's called paraxanthine. Paraxanthine, I've done a podcast on it. You got to go listen. It's a revolutionary new energy source that's isolated and refined from caffeine. 

And, unlike caffeine, not only does it not give you jitters or a crash, but it gives you weird things like confidence and swagger and word recall and better focus and manages things like distractibility and attention deficits. I mean, it's crazy what this thing can actually do. And, you just drink a can but it's not got all the nasty stuff like the Monsters and the Red Bulls, et cetera, have. It's very clean, very naturally sweetened, very low calorie and low carbohydrate as well, which is amazing, and all their ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research. One of the best formulas on the face of the planet. My friend, Shawn Wells, was a key part of isolating this paraxanthine component and figuring out how to get it into drink Update in the right ratios combined with the right ingredients to give you energy for hours and hours. And, the cool thing is you can drink it before a dinner party and it doesn't affect your sleep deleteriously at night, which for me is amazing. I can get a pick-me-up without disrupting sleep.

So, you get 10% off of Update. Here's how. Go to drinkupdate.com/Ben and use code BEN for 10% off your order. That's drinkupdate.com/Ben and use code BEN.

A couple years ago, one of my most popular podcasts of all time, I interviewed Tony Robbins and Peter Diamandis. They wrote this book called “Life Force” with all these latest cutting-edge things you could do for longevity and to increase health span and lifespan. We got to a section of that interview where they blew my mind about this new form of NAD. So, NAD is this darling of the anti-aging industry. And, there is now this weird form of it called NAD3. And, it's way better absorbed than other forms of NAD and then you can combine it with certain things to enhance its effects.

Now, what they've done at this company called BioStack Labs is they've taken that NAD3 that I learned about from Tony and Peter and they've put it along with spermidine, resveratrol and niacinamide, three other amazing anti-aging and longevity components. And together, these ingredients create this totally unrivaled formula for people who want to enhance their NAD status without going busting around with getting a bunch of IVs and also want the NAD combined with the stuff that makes it work best and want this brand-new form of NAD that just blows the other ones out of the ballpark. So, NAD, NR, NMN and then there's NAD3, which is just in a category on its own. 

So, if you want this stuff and if you want to try, it's called NAD Regen, NAD Regen. You get one bottle free when you buy two bottles. So, you get two bottles for 134 bucks, then they throw in one for free. So, that's worth $67. And, you do this when you go to biostacklabs.com/Ben. I've just been popping three when I get up in the morning and it's amazing in terms of what it can do for things like sleep deprivation, for brain, for cellular healing, for overall longevity, a lot of research behind NAD. And, this new form is amazing. So, biostacklabs.com/BEN. biostacklabs.com/Ben is where you can grab this stuff and try it for yourself.

Alright, it's coming up. The Ben Greenfield Life coaching team is putting on a new transformation challenge. The last one was a six-week challenge that got people crazy transformations in their body aesthetics and their weight loss and in their lean muscle gain. So, I know that body image is something that a lot of folks struggle with, but extreme fad diets and endless hours in the gym can be a total waste of time when it comes to say getting ready for spring or getting ready for summer. 

So, we decided to do was put together a transformation that allows you to transform your body but also works in a lot of our brain-enhancing tactics, our spirituality coaching, and everything that you learn during this transformation includes decoding nutrition, using the minimum effective dose of exercise, sleeping better, prioritizing relationships for overall well-being and longevity aspects, building a community of like-minded individuals who are there cheering you along during the entire time. So, it's a transformation challenge and we're running it right now at BenGreenfieldCoaching.com/TransformationChallenge.

So, the way it works is every week, you get special tasks, you get to explore resources that we've uploaded for you, you get to attend a group call with the coaches to learn from one of the expert coaches that I've trained all while tracking daily meals and workouts in this easy-to-use app that allows you to stay accountable along the way. We've checked off all the boxes for you and we've even given you the option if you want to really kick start your transformation, you can upgrade and get a 60-minute one-on-one console with any of the coaches to really give you a boost up in terms of getting the most out of the transformation, and heck, maybe even winning it. 

So, we do have a grand prize winner and a runner-up if you win or you runner up, you're going to get a bunch of cool prizes, a free consult with a coach, a fitness and a nutrition plan custom designed for you, a book bundle with my books, a special shout out on social media to celebrate your transformation and a whole lot more. So, these things are super fun. People tend to get amazing results from these transformation challenges and they're doable.

So, you go to BenGreenfieldCoaching.com/TransformationChallenge to get in. That's BenGreenfieldCoaching.com/TransformationChallenge and I hope to see you there.

Speaking of science, nine research established mental distortions to be aware of. How's that for a segue? This was an interesting article that appeared on The Art of Manliness which is a pretty good website and I thought it was super interesting, interesting enough to provide conversation fodder for this podcast. I don't know if you took a look at this article, Jay, but it's a fascinating mental distortions. Basically, it was based on the fact that sometimes there's a mismatch between our perception of how others act towards us and how we think others will perceive how we act towards them. And, they list nine of these things that we should think about a little bit more if we haven't been placing ourselves in other people's shoes and thinking about some of the things that are myths when it comes to social interactions.

So, here we go. I just think these are really great. Number one, you underestimate how much you'll enjoy talking to a stranger. You underestimate how much you'll enjoy talking to a stranger. And, they say people in subway cars and other public places tend to keep to themselves, listening to music with headphones on or staring into space. They're reluctant to start a conversation because they think people around them are going to reject that conversation because they're strangers. But, and again, a lot of this is research-based, like I mentioned, studies have found that when you strike up a conversation with a stranger, the interaction tends to be more welcomed, enjoyable, and mood-boosting than expected. In other words, we all assume nobody wants to talk to anybody, but in fact, they do and it can be pretty enjoyable. And, it's a matter of being courageous and brave enough to spark that conversation like “Hey, those are cool shoes, where'd you get them?” Or, “Hey, I like that wallet, could I hold it for a second?” So, conversation starters like that.

Jay:  Yeah. When I'm traveling, I'm so prone to throwing in the headphones, maybe even throwing a hood on, sometimes kind of getting over to my corner in the lounge or wherever I'm at. But then, when someone strikes up a conversation, it's funny because even though I'm a psychologist, initially sometimes, I'll be kind of like, “Oh, man, I don't want to do this.” It's almost a little bit aggravating. But, most of the conversations I have are very fruitful and it's just great to connect with someone else. And, I end up enjoying it. Same thing with Uber rides. So, when I'm flying out a lot to San Diego, I have to drive, take an Uber from the airport up to Encinitas where Hanu's headquarters is located. It's a 30-minute drive. It's always just easier to not get on my phone. Oh, it is easier to get on my phone, but I try not to and just chat with the Uber driver. It's a lot of fun.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah, I agree. And, I mean, there is. By the way, I was joking. Don't ask people if you can hold their wallet. I think that maybe I sometimes get into this mode and it's almost mini celeb mode where I sometimes just don't want to be blasted with a bunch of questions about the podcast and stuff like that. And, that goes through my head sometimes, so I do kind of do the hoodie headphones-on thing just because I'm like, “Gosh, I got to get to my next place.” I know if I started conversation, I'll have to be that asshole that ends early. But, I mean, maybe a lot of other people listening in don't have that issue. And, I don't want to sound all like famous.

Jay:  You and your celebrity status.

Ben:  Yeah. It's definitely not really celebrity status, but you get what I'm saying.

Jay:  I mean, everybody comes up to me, Ben, and they're like, “Dude, are you the sidekick on the Ben Greenfield Life podcast?” I'm like, “Yeah, it's me. That's me.”

Ben:  So, yeah, people do want to talk. People do want to talk.

Number two. You underestimate how much new acquaintances like you. So, after meeting someone at a party, you might go home and think, “Boy, that was awkward, they probably think I'm a real goober.” They actually said goober in the article. Is it goober, like old deep southern saying? Google–

Jay:  Well, we use that pretty often here in the south.

Ben:  What would somebody who's a goober be? Just like socially awkward?

Jay:  Just kind of like awkward. Yeah, socially awkward, just a little bit off.

Ben:  Goober is just an awkward word.

Okay. Well, anyways, they say actually they probably don't. Researchers call the mismatch between what you think people think of you and what they really do think of you, the liking gap. And, it can last a long time. We tend to spend a lot of time ruminating on how poorly we think we came off to others, but in reality, most of the time people liked you a lot more than you think that they actually liked you or at least they disliked you far less than you think that they disliked you. So, basically, you're your own harshest judge when it comes to social interactions, which I think makes sense.

Jay:  Yeah, yeah.

Ben:  Yeah. Okay.

Number three. You underestimate how much people will care about intimate disclosures. Most people say they like to move beyond small talk to have deeper and more meaningful conversations with new acquaintances, but they're reluctant to share the kind of revelations that would make those deeper conversations possible because they think it'll be awkward and they don't think people will be interested. But in reality, research, those people care about the intimate details of your life more than you think.

Jay:  Yeah. With the proverbial line in the sand. There's some things, times where people just go a little bit too far and you're sitting next to the person on the plane and they want to tell you about their sex life. It's never happened to me. I guarantee it's happening to somebody.

Ben:  “Growth that just sprouted from my left butt cheek that's red and has a hair coming out the middle of it. What do you think of that?” I mean, this happened to me last night at pickleball. Someone came up to me and said, “Hey, how is so-and-so doing?” It with someone who we both deeply cared about and I went just straight into this conversation about sexual trauma, and relationships, and substance abuse discussions. And, there was a brief second where we're standing on a pickleball court talking about, this is kind of awkward. 

But then, it was way more meaningful than them just coming up and being, I don't know, “Hey, this snow is crazy, isn't it? Did you have a hard time driving here as I did?” I think that when we get into these intimate details, it does allow us to connect to humans on a far deeper level. And, you're right, Jay, you don't want to overshare. But sometimes, I think that not going deep puts us in this shallow conversation mode and we'll leave a dinner party or something asking ourselves, geez, what actually occurred there besides us eating food that we're going to poop out three days later and having a martini versus having those deep conversations? 

And, that's where I actually really like owning one of those table topic sets or conversation starter sets, which obviously like the party section of any bookstore has a ton that you can thumb through. And, so does Amazon if you want to look at them before you get them. But, just having a few of those around, we do them as a family sometimes and you don't take them to a restaurant with you with friends or take them out on social outings. But, they start to train you about some conversations that are really interesting. I think the most interesting is there's an essay you can find online somewhere. It's called “36 questions that make people fall in love.” And, they actually did research on questions that if asked over time cause love and a relationship to blossom. So, anyways get comfortable asking questions that are a little bit deeper than how about them Red Sox?

Okay. You underestimate how much someone else will be thinking about you after conversing. You have a meaningful initial conversation with a stranger and find yourself chewing on the things discussed in the hours and even days afterwards. You figure the conversation didn't feel as significant to the other person they're not doing the same, but that's wrong. Studies demonstrate people remain on their conversation partner's minds more than they knew and remember their stories and revisit their advice. 

That's really good information. I mean, if you're going to say something that's uplifting to someone or help them out, don't discount how much that might actually mean to them and how much they're going to remember that and think about it even after you've left.

Jay:  Yeah.

Ben:  I think it's a really important point.

Jay:  I should probably know this in my psychology studies. I wonder though if there have been studies to demonstrate how people might focus on maybe negative aspects of the conversation both for themselves and things that the other person said whether we're internalizing things that they said and interpreting it in our own kind of crazy narrative or distorted narrative. I think what this article is getting at is how we can underestimate kind of the power of our words in a positive direction and how much they were thinking about that conversation and that interaction. I would assume that they're probably the opposite side of that spectrum is also true. But yes, to put a damper on everything, I thought I should throw that in there.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. And, there's actually a scientific term for us called the “thought gap” after conversation, underestimating the frequencies of other's thoughts about us. So, yeah, people think about the conversations you have and ruminate on them for better or worse long after you've had them, thought longer than you'd think.

Number five. You underestimate how willing people are to help you. We're often reluctant to ask for help because we fear the people we ask are likely to say no. And, even if they say yes, they'll put out but they request. But, studies show people are much more likely to comply with requests for help from people more than people predict and feel more positively about giving help. It's a way of making friends. Wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who asked one of his enemies or rivals or political rivals or something like that to it was something simple from a help standpoint. I think it was to borrow a book and it was, I believe, as a way of developing some kind of friendship with that person. I could be totally bastardizing that story.

Jay:  You're right. It's either him or Teddy Roosevelt. I think he might be Benjamin Franklin. You might be right, but it was the most prized possession of that individual.

Ben:  Yeah.

Jay:  So, it wasn't just any other book. So, what he was asking for was a huge ask. And, he didn't think he was going to be willing to do it, but he did. It was a famous figure in history. I just don't remember who it was, but yeah.

Ben:  I tried that with my neighbor. It actually worked out pretty well. I trespassed across her lawn and she's very particular about her lawn and she got kind of mad at me and she called and left a voicemail and told me that I wasn't allowed near her house anymore. And so, two days later, I called her back and asked her if I could play pickleball on her pickleball court. And, it actually wound up being something she said yes to and we're quite friendly with each other now. And, it was because I asked her for help and it wound up establishing and fostering a connection.

Jay:  Oh, I thought the takeaway was just trespass and you'll make best friends with your neighbor.

Ben:  Yeah, that too.

Jay:  One thing, Ben, if listeners have not read either of these two books, they should. So, one of the best books I've ever read on the law of reciprocity, which is basically kind of the give-and-take law, if you will, is a book called “Influence” by Dr Robert Cialdini.

Ben:  Oh, man, that book is good.

Jay:  I mean, it is phenomenal. And so, we had to read it in a social psychology class, numerous social psychology classes when I was in school, but it's still just a phenomenal read for so many people to come across whether you're in sales or if you just genuinely want to know how to connect better to people.

Ben:  Yeah.

Jay:  Talking about reciprocity and just doing things for people without asking or expecting anything, you'll still probably get something back from them. It's just a matter of asking.

Ben:  And, he has all sorts of cool little tips in there. If you're going to ask for a favor, because I've used this before when I've been late for a flight, you give a reason and you're far more likely to get that favor. Let's say that you're, well, late for flights an obvious one like, “I'm sorry, I'm late for my flight, it's departing right now, can I cut in front of you?” You're going to get more than, of course, can I just cut in front of you in line? 

But then, there are other things like let's say you are at a coffee shop and I think there was another book related to this about asking for a discount on a coffee, you're far more likely to get a discount if you say something like, “Hey, I am a frequent customer here and also my dog got sick this month and I had a huge vet bill so I'm really trying to watch my dollars so to speak. Is there any way that you might be able to give me a 10% discount on the coffee?” Or, maybe you could try this tactic and get the person in front of you or behind you to pay for your coffee. Basically, Robert's like this whole student of human behavior and he basically says, “When you ask someone to do you a favor, you're going to be far more successful if you provide a reason.” People like to have reasons for what they do. And, I mean the whole books is jam-packed with good stuff like that.

Jay:  It's so good. Yup, that one. And then, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Carnegie is another just phenomenal classic that people need to read that talks a lot about that rule as well.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. That was absolutely.

I want to make sure that we get a chance to take a few questions from Twitter, but let's go with one more from this article and then I'll link to the article for folks who actually want to read it. So, go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/454.

Let's maybe go with the last one. You underestimate how much someone will appreciate you checking in with them. You write a text to an old friend say, “Hey, I was just thinking about you today. How have you been?” And then, you think, “Gosh, they're just going to think I'm weird for reaching out of the blue like that.” But, research finds people appreciate a check-in message more than you think. And, often the more surprising it is or the more distant you've been, the more that it makes their day, which I think is really cool. 

I weave this into my own life in a variety of ways. I'll give you two examples. The first is pretty obvious. I call my mom. I call my dad too, but I call my mom pretty frequently. And, sometimes I think, gosh, I'm calling her up, I only have five minutes. I'm literally just going to say, “Hey, mom, how are you? Tell me about what you did this morning.” But, that is it, it's appreciated. It doesn't have to be some big long chat, but people really appreciate you checking in with them.

The other thing I have is there's a variety of people who I've committed to like we've been out to dinner and I've said, “How can I pray for you?” or I've met them and I've helped them in some way or established a connection and I want to keep in touch with them, I actually use a service called–well, there's one called Relatable that's really good. I don't use that because basically I found out about Relatable after I already started using this other one. I was too lazy to move everything over. I use one called TextMagic. And so, I've got all these different lists in TextMagic of collections of different friends and contacts who I want to check in with. And, when I want to check in, sometimes there's 20 different people. 

And so, I send the TextMagic text to the whole group. When it arrives, it doesn't have the whole group CCed, it's coming individually from me. People can reply individually and respond. I'm very straightforward, I don't pretend that I'm sending an individual personalized text when in fact it is a group text. But, I actually tell these people, “Hey, I occasionally will send interesting information text encouragement, quotes, et cetera, to some of my close friends or VIPs. Would you care if I added you to that?” And, about one or two times a month, I'll come across an interesting quote or inspirational image or something I want to say or a new book I read that I thought was really good or a YouTube video I want to share, and I share it with these people. I don't think I've ever actually once.

One time this one person who I probably didn't get to know well enough or something, they replied with that one text-stopping line stop. But, besides that, everybody's just like they love it. And, at one point, I stopped for a while and I saw one of my friends at a party. And, the reason I stopped for a while was I was having some tech issues with the software and they're like, “How come you don't text me anymore?” I'm like, “Oh, oh, wow, this actually means something. Those brief check-ins.” So, check in with people, and don't worry if you got to figure out a way to scale it like I did, especially if you have a big relationship capital network. It's about the checking-in that counts. So, I thought that was a really good one, too. Research finds people appreciate a check-in message more than you'd think.

I like that this article has a lot of research-backed stuff too. They're not just blowing smoke or throwing stuff up in the air.

Jay:  The one part about checking in that I have really enjoyed both giving and then receiving is also checking in but then doing it also with gratitude. So, just saying something that you're grateful for, “I thought about you today.” Just something as simple as that when I received those types of messages but also when I send them. There's something that just kind of goes right to the heart and soul, which is pretty cool. So, I think that the gratitude component when also adding it to the check-in component can be a really great flare, if you will.

Ben:  Also emoticons, hardy emoticons, maybe a gorilla and a deer and the little flamey fire.

Jay:  Eggplant, peach.

Ben:  Not the eggplant, no. Yeah. Is the peach a thing too? Is the peach a thing?

Jay:  The peach is the butt.

Ben:  Okay. 

Jay:  Yeah, the peach is the butt.

Ben:  Yeah, I didn't know that. I knew what the eggplant was. I didn't know the peach.

Jay:  That's why I've been sending you peaches all the time.

Ben:  Now, I know. Okay, awkward.

Okay. Last one, The National Journal of Strength Conditioning Research published something that I was kind of aware of already but they researched it. And, it was on isometric training and its influence on dynamic sprint performance. You wouldn't think that isometrics, meaning dropping into a certain position and holding it with a high amount of tension without moving would be something that would result in better performance while moving. But, what this study found was there was a significant impact in sprint performance when isometric training was included in one's training protocol. 

Now, I'm actually a pretty big fan of isometric training. I use it with a lot of my clients. I think that I first got really into isometric training when I met–so, Dave Asprey had a conference and it was the very first ever biohacking conference. I think, it was in San Francisco. And, I interviewed a guy who I met at that conference named Jay Schroeder. And, Jay basically had an old-school Russian ARP electro-stimulation device that he attached. There was just a handful of guys like me, Aubrey Marcus, the fat-burning guy, Abel James was there. It's kind of funny because a lot of people who were there initially, they're now big podcasters and fitness bloggers and stuff. We were all just nobodies, whatever, 15 years ago when we went to Dave Asprey's conference. And, it was tiny. There was literally maybe a couple dozen people in this tiny little basement room in San Francisco, but there were some of these biohacking things there. And, Jay Schroeder who trains a bunch of NFL athletes, Olympic trainers, marathoners, et cetera, he's super into combining long isometric holds with electrical muscle stimulation.

Now, I interviewed him and I'll link to that interview about this whole program that he uses where he combines the two, but obviously, those Russian ARP units like the NEUBIE is an example of that. And, I've done an interview on the NEUBIE before. They're expensive. I mean, we're talking about $10,000 plus machines, but you don't have to have one of those to get the benefits of isometric training. Although, I would argue that blood flow restriction bands can definitely amp up the benefits of an isometric exercise. But, the idea behind them is that they allow you to recruit more muscle while you're training. And, they actually found you can build muscle just as effectively as other muscle-building exercises, meaning like an isotonic exercise, which would be traditional training where you're moving a joint through full range of motion or isokinetic exercise where the muscle is kept at a certain speed during exercise. That would be like the ARX machine, for example.

Well, isometric exercise, what you get is this huge increase in what's called peak tension. So, your mitochondria and what's called your sarcoplasmic protein synthesis, that gets increased in some cases by over a 100% when you're doing isometric training because of the amount of force demand that's placed on a tissue. Because when you're moving a muscle through the range of motion, your muscle only hits peak tension during a tiny, tiny fraction of that movement. But, when you're in isometrics, doing a deep squat hold versus moving through a barbell or dumbbell or goblet squat or doing a long push-up hold while instead of doing a regular push-up or, for example, I do a lot of this stuff using my Power Plate Vibration Platform, a long bridge hold versus doing Romanian deadlifts or a bridge. They've actually shown there's a lot of interesting research behind this, a huge increase in the amount of muscle fibers that are activated over and above moving, which is probably why there's this crossover effect into performance and why guys who train NFL athletes like Jay Schroeder, for example, will use this type of training to get really good results. 

Now, you can of course go cheap old school style and just do push-up position holds at the hardest range of motion, squat position holds, boat holds like an abdominal core hollow position. But, there are some pretty cool devices out there. There's this one book, it's called “The Ultimate Isometrics Manual.” It's this manual of all the best isometric exercises out there. But, in that manual is a device that they use. And, I have one out in my gym. I don't use it as much because I'm just, I don't know, maybe it's because I'm mentally weak. Isometric training is kind of mentally demanding because you're like– 

Jay: Dude, it's rough.

Ben: –you're pushing and you're not moving. It'd be somebody's saying, “Hey, go bench press or push against this wall as hard as you can for two minutes.” In my book, pushing against the wall as hard as you can for two minutes is way more mentally demanding than just bench pressing. But, I got this thing, it's called isoChain. So, the one-two combo of having that isoChain, and I used it for a few months when I first got it just to experiment with it, and it was incredibly effective because the other cool thing about isometric exercises is you're far less likely to incur injury because you're not moving the joint through a range of motion. So, you can just keep coming back over and over and over again and doing a lot of these big exercises including chest press squat, deadlift, curl, you name it, but you're just holding the bar. It's got a little force plate in there telling you how much force you're producing. And, it's a cool idea. So, it's called the isoChain. And, the name of that book if you want a manual for this is called “The Ultimate Isometrics Manual.” So, that's one good resource.

Another interesting one, another book, and this is one I've used more often with my clients and with myself, I typically throw in about anywhere from a six to a 12-week block during the year where I do this style of training. It's called “Neuro-Mass,” “Neuro-Mass.” And, it's a book written by Jon Bruney, super interesting. But, this is basically a series of sets you do. They do a set for the chest, except for the back, except for the arms, except for the legs, et cetera. But, it's what's called a grinding movement where you're doing super slow. Let's use a squat for an example, just a body weight squat or a very lightly loaded squat. Super slow squat, 30 seconds up, 30 seconds down, and you do that for around two minutes. So, a lot of time under tension. And then, a speed or explosive movement. So, the muscle's already exhausted and then you'll do 10 jump squats after you've done those super slow grinding squats. 

And then, the final component of the neuro set is you then drop into an isometric position and hold for as long as you can. It's crazy hard and crazy effective, especially if you have minimal training equipment. It doesn't have to be as long as two minutes, it could even be for just 60 to 90 seconds, so super slow. Then, same type of exercise but explode through that range of motion you were just doing super slow for a very short period of time like 10 to 15 seconds and then finish dropping into the hardest range of motion for that movement that you've just done the grind and the explosive movement with and hold that for 30 to 60 seconds.

So, it's called “Neuro-Mass.” Jon has a bunch of research in his books behind it, but it actually works really well. All the clients who I've programmed that with, they report back in A, they love it even though it is kind of mentally demanding because the isometric component especially you burn a bunch when you do this. If you use blood flow restriction bands when you do “Neuro-Mass,” it is next level.

Jay:  That's exactly what I was just about to ask you if there was an advantage or if there was potential disadvantages to doing that workout with a BFR band.

Ben:  Yeah.

Jay:  Let's say with somebody who's maybe not as true trained, it seems like that could be pretty intense to do with BFR. But, if someone's maybe well-conditioned, then that might make sense.

Ben:  I think definite advantages, yeah, yeah. And, he has the whole program laid out in there. And so, that “Neuro-Mass” book is really good. So, that'd be another one that would not require something big like the isoChain.

And then, the last one, my wife laughs at me sometimes as have some of my seatmates on long airplane flights, but I've always got this little thing in my bag. It's called Activ5, spelled with no E, A-C-T-I-V-5. It's a tiny little force transducer. I think the guy who told me about it was Adam Von Rothfelder from Strong Coffee who's the personal trainer won that TV show “Strong.” I think he was over at my house and he had it in his bag and he took it out and took me through a little mini-workout with it. But, what it does, it ties to a phone app and it gamifies. You'll be flying a spaceship. And, when you want the spaceship to go faster, you press harder. And, during the recovery period, you kind of let off a little bit. And, you can do anything from chess press, shoulder press, curls, triceps, but it's this tiny little thing, smaller than a cell phone and by pressing against it and then also having that phone app in front of you that's kind of walking you through the whole workout. And, all the workouts are short. They're 10 to 20 minutes long. Some are a little shorter than that.

Man, we drive to Seaside, Oregon, for example, for family vacation in the summers and I'll typically give myself a challenge of doing three isometric workouts on the six-hour drive down and then three more in the six-hour drive back. And, I'll be sweating and I get the window rolled down because I'm starting to get funky and my wife's laughing and I'm grunting and grinding, I'm taking a crap. And, it's again, like the size of a hockey puck. It's actually a pretty cool device, especially because it gamifies everything, tracks all your force, tracks your results. And, it's just like this little dot that's rising and falling. I think I said spaceship. I don't think it's a spaceship. It's more like a Pac-Man-style dot. But anyways, that thing is super cool for isometric training too. It's basically biofeedback. Yeah.

And, speaking of taking little work breaks, perfect for a cubicle or workstation. If you want to stop and do some isometrics. I'm flying to Portugal on Friday to speak at this Six Senses Retreat for a week. And, I guarantee, I'll get at least two of those workouts in on the flight to Portugal and two on the way back and wear deodorant, make sure I don't get too funky. But, yeah, I mean, it works amazingly well.

Jay:  That's cool. Have you ever used the grip isometric trainer? I think it's called Zona Plus. They sent me one years ago and I tried. I think they use it more for hypertension, high blood pressure.

Ben:  It's FDA-approved for high blood pressure. Yeah.

Jay:  Yeah. That's a pretty interesting device too. I didn't know if it had any other application other than for high blood pressure and grip strength. Maybe it could be a potential smallest isometric workout, but.

Ben:  I own one and I've used it and compared to just those freaking Captains Of Crush hand grip strengtheners. It's not that difficult. I mean, it's kind of difficult, but it's more medical management of high blood pressure, which it works for. My mom has high blood pressure and I got one for her. And, it's flies under the radar compared to BP meds or beat infrared sauna, magnesium, a lot of these other natural modalities that are often recommended for blood pressure. But, it actually does work and they've got good research behind it.

Jay:  That's cool.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah, the Zona.

Jay:  Nice.

Ben:  Yeah. So, I'll link to all that stuff, all those articles, podcasts, books, little devices in the shownotes at BenGreenfieldLife.com/454.

So, here's the deal, if you're on Twitter right now, come online and ask a question. You can raise your hand somehow to ask it. When you raise your hand, we'll bring it online. Oh, here we go. Garden of Words, go ahead and ask your question now.

Brett: Okay, perfect. Alright, thanks for doing the space, you guys. My question is, at the beginning of the year, I was kind of praying about the year to come and one of the things that became apparent was that this year I wasn't going to have the alcohol. And so, I gave up alcohol and subsequently I think I've been consuming probably more coffee and probably more calories in the evening and I just wanted to pick your brain and see if you have any thoughts. But, I've noticed that my skin seems to be a little bit more irritable is the right word, just kind of acne, just things that get bothered. If I have ingrown hair, it just gets really irritated, which this is new, it's definitely a change and my wife commented on it too. And so, I don't know if you guys have any thoughts specifically with that context. That's the only thing that I can pinpoint that's really definitely change for the past five years.

Ben:  Wait, you quit drinking alcohol and now you feel your skin is getting irritated?

Brett: Yeah. And, the only reason I included that because I wouldn't think those are directly linked, but I've been increasing coffee consumption and a little increase in calories. But, I just was curious even just in general about your ideas about how to support for, I don't know, pimples and ingrown hairs and stuff. And, it just seemed to be more prevalent.

Ben:  Did you make other major dietary changes besides removing alcohol?

Brett:  Not really. So, for the first two months, I just noticed that in the evenings, I did start drinking decaf coffee in the evenings. And so, I've kind of recently cut back a little bit just because I was drinking four or five cups a day, two or three caffeinated. The only thing that I came across was there was an interview with Paul Chek and I think it was way by foot as well and he talked about parasites potentially and coffee.

Ben:  I think I suspect what's going on here now. Okay, cool. So, anytime that we make a dietary change and we remove something from the diet, that often gets replaced by something else. And, sometimes the unhealthy thing that we removed is helping us out from a health standpoint. But, the thing that we thought was healthy that we replaced it with is causing issues. 

And, in this case, you're right, not only can a lot of people run into fringe not often expected issues from a gut standpoint when they add in a whole bunch of what was technically a legume or a bean like coffee. But, coffee is, I guess, back to Dave Asprey, he kind of made this popular, it can be a notoriously dirty food like mold, mycotoxins, and even parasite components.

So, let's cut straight to the chase, it's dizzying the number of parasite eradication protocols that are out there. You could always take a stab in the dark. Try what I would consider to be the best parasite eradication protocol that I've used and see if it clears up your skin while simultaneously switching to really organic clean coffee. I didn't pay you to come on and ask this question, but I do know a good coffee company.

Jay:  What company would you choose, Ben, out of all the companies, what would you choose?

Ben:  Yeah, starts with K and winds with Leon. Okay. So, best parasite eradication protocol in my book, high dose oil of oregano combined with proteolytic enzymes for two weeks while cutting out anything that feeds the yeast namely fermented sugary drinks like kombucha, beer, which it sounds you've already eliminated, wine, starches, sugars. Yeast love to eat those critters or those critters love to eat sugar. So, avoid that stuff. And then, what I mean by oregano proteolytic enzymes basically and this is probably what we heard from Wade because he has a company that makes high-dose proteolytic enzymes and they actually work. So, his are called MassZymes. Kion makes one called Flex. The way that I have my clients do it who get parasites and this just knocks them out flat. And, they're clean when they retest, when they do a stool test within a couple of weeks. 

We dose with oil of oregano, a full dropper full of two of really potent oil of oregano. It's okay to put in water. Three times a day for two weeks because parasites, it's nasty to think about, but their eggs hatch and they come out at different times. You got to hit it over and over and over again. This is not to be misconstrued as medical advice, by the way, I'm not a doctor. Proceed at your own risk. This is just what I would do if I were in your shoes. So, high dose oil of oregano, amazing for candida, yeast, fungus, et cetera, which can manifest topically, by the way, as can some of these parasitic issues. And then, you combine that with high-dose proteolytic enzymes. 

The way I do that is 12 Kion Flex in the morning, 12 Kion Flex in the evening which breaks down the biofilm that the candida reside in. If you get gastric upset from that much Kion Flex, you can go as low as six in the morning, six in the evening. So, it's oil of oregano three times a day, which crushes parasites, they hate that stuff, combined with high-dose enzymes. In this case, I'll use the Kion Flex, but that BiOptimizer stuff that Wade's company makes will also work. And, you do that morning and evening with the oil of oregano and with cutting out the sugars and the starches that feed the yeast. And, that just freaking works. So, that's what I would do.

Jay:  I want to just make one comment. And again, this is me not making any assumptions on his end on how much alcohol he was intaking versus none now. But, one of the things that I've seen kind of clinically in working with patients is that individuals who go from drinking, let's say appreciable amounts of alcohol all to no alcohol, especially if they're using it as a stress mitigation tactic, when the alcohol is there, it can actually be quite effective in the short term. We know it has a lot of long-term deleterious effects, but in the short term, a lot of people's anxiety gets relieved when they drink alcohol. 

Then, when they come off of it, the body kind of going through its tolerance and withdrawal effects alongside if there aren't kind of these effective mechanisms for managing stress, then we'll see people actually break out in their skin. We'll see them have other kind of gut-related issues. We see all of these things start to manifest because they didn't replace that behavior that was helping them to mitigate the effects of stress. They didn't replace it with something adaptive.

And so, again, I'm not saying that's something that he's dealing with, but if anybody else is doing something like that and have noticed symptoms arise that are either similar to what he's experiencing or otherwise, I think stress is a key component that, again, it may not be the most sexy topic in the world but it's one that everybody has to address.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah, I agree. So, French question, but I feel so much closer, so much closer to Brett, Garden of Words. Feel so much closer now that he shared something vulnerable with us as we've learned in today's podcast.

We're out of time. We are out of time; however, I would highly recommend that you go to the shownotes at BenGreenfieldLife.com/454. If you want to leave your own comments, your feedback, your questions for Jay or from me, well, the video is available too. And again, all that's going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com/454. Jay, are you ready to go do an isometric squat hold while eating a salad full of ground flax seeds, go on a walk and meet somebody new and share something vulnerable and embarrassing with them? I think that's everything that we learned. 

Jay:  That's the plan. That's everything we learned. So, I'll do all of the above right now.

Ben:  And, inquire as to whether or not they have a parasite. And, if so, you know how to help them now.

Jay:  Bet I do.

Ben:  Alright, folks. Well, that's all for now. Thanks for listening in. and, oh, you heard me read a little bit about “Boundless Parenting” in the very beginning, the intro of this podcast, available now, BoundlessParentingBook.com. You can read more about what Brian Johnson feeds his kids besides liver and testicles. There you have it. Alright, have an amazing day, folks. Over and out.

I am coming to London June 16th through the 18th and I'm going to be a part of the Health Optimisation Summit over there. And, if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/Calendar, you can check out that event. Fantastic. Kind of like biohacking meets wellness meets massive health technology expo. But, while I'm there, I'm going to be in London with my whole family and we're actually going to head to Italy afterwards and cycle through Italy. But, I decided to put on a very special private, intimate VIP event with me while I am in London. It's at this crazy place called HUM2N, HUM2N, like human except of the 2.

So, HUM2N Labs, they are a creme de la creme biohacking facility. I mean, the best hyperbaric chambers, amazing selection of IVs, super nutrient cocktails, cryotherapy, red light therapy. We're basically going to party and biohack and do a Q&A with me and the fine proprietor of that facility, Dr. E, who's a wealth of knowledge in and of himself at that event. It's Monday, June 19th, so it's going to be private networking, live Q&A, great food, great cocktail/mocktails, experiential biohacks, a variety of healthy gourmet foods is just going to be really amazing. You're going to get a swag bag too. Your swag bag includes super nutrient IV, cryotherapy, red light therapy, and hyperbaric oxygen. That's worth 750 pounds alone. Then you got the HU2MN supplements. They're going to give you their brain sharpener and their super blend protein. You get a travel voucher to take you to and from the event, meaning using a company called UONO. They will bring you to and from the event if you have trouble finding it or don't want to drive.

So, there's a lot more that go into those swag bag too. But, right now, I have to tell you, this thing is going to fill up fast. It's in London, June 19th, and you get there by going to BenGreenfieldLife.com/HUM2NLondon. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com/HUM2NLondon. And, that will allow you to claim your spot at this fantastic event. So, BenGreenfieldLife.com/HUM2NLondon

More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh entertaining, well-informed, and often outside-the-box approach to discovering the health, and happiness, and hope that we all crave. So, I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today. And, if you liked it or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. It means a lot. 

 

 

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 Upcoming Events:

• Health Optimisation Summit: June 17th – 18th, 2023
  

Join me at The Health Optimisation Summit in London! This is your chance to be part of a community of 2,500 like-minded people and learn from world-leading health speakers. You'll be able to fast-track your health journey, discover cutting-edge secrets and hacks, explore the latest tech and gadgets, and find the cleanest and healthiest supplements and nutrient-dense foods. Don't miss out on this incredible experience! Learn more here.

• HUM2N Event: June 19th, 2023

Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to learn from the best in the field and take your biohacking journey to the next level. You’ll get the chance to be involved with a private network of biohackers, a live discussion with myself and Dr. E, a live Q&A, an experiential biohacking experience, tasty food, and a chance to win some mind-blowing prizes! Learn more here.

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