January 23, 2021

From podcast: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/fitness-podcasts/where-does-fat-go-when-you-lose-weight/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:32] Podcast Sponsors

[00:04:01] Guest Introduction

[00:07:19] David's Morning Routine and Rituals

[00:19:12] Mid-day Routines and Favorite Biohacks for Both David and Ben

[00:32:47] Why Sunlight is So Important and So Undervalued

[00:34:18] Podcast Sponsors

[00:37:05] cont. Why Sunlight is So Important and So Undervalued

[00:40:18] Where Fat Goes When You Lose Weight, And Why It Matters

[00:53:27] About the Blend of Essential Oils David Sells to Clear the Respiratory System

[01:01:56] David's Near-Death Experience

[01:16:42] Resources to Learn More About Near-Death Experiences, Supernatural Events, Etc.

[01:21:33] Closing the Podcast

[01:24:00] End of the Podcast

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

David:  “You're selling snake oil, boy.” And I'm like, “Well, you know, I was dead for five days and I came back to life.” I just want them to start tuning into their body and allowing their immune system and their physiology to speak for itself, and I think the doorway to that awareness is through breathing. A miracle that just continues to astonish you if you can do the due diligence of peeling back the layers of discovery through yourself and through this amazing, majestic, miraculous world that we dwell in.

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

Well, hello, everyone. Say hello in your crazy voice.

River:  Hi.

Ben:  Hi. Hey, this is Ben and my son River. Welcome to the show. I had a really, really good podcast with the guy you're going to listen to. I feel like we talked for really long time. His name is David. He lives in Florida where I actually really want to go visit Florida soon. It made me want to go eat some fish and shellfish and hang out on the beach. He lives like right on the beach and goes in the sand, in the ocean every day. We talked about how our family is different. We do the ice and the snow in the forest every day. He does the sand and the sun in the ocean every day. So, it's kind of two different worlds. But anyways, it's a really cool episode. I think you guys will like my chat with David.

This podcast is brought to you by Kion Immune. Do you know what's in Kion Immune? Do you remember the top two ingredients in that?

River:  Zinc and–

Ben:  Vitamin.

River:  Vitamin A. No. C. No.

Ben:  Close, C. Vitamin C. Vitamin A is good, too. But vitamin C and zinc. So, we use a really unique form of zinc that's really well-absorbed without causing gut issues, which some forms of zinc do. So, you can take a whole bunch of it. Not that I recommend that. You only need two–well, I don't know. These days, I'm taking two capsules three times a day of Kion Immune, just to keep my immune system amped up. And it's a brand new formulation. We just launched it. It's flying off the shelves because it's just so, so great for showing up your immune system. And we're going to give you guys 10% discount. You go to getkion.com. How's it spelled? Get–

River:  G-E-T-K-I-O-N.C-O-M.

Ben:  GetK-I-O-N.com, getkion.com/bengreenfield. That will get you 10% off of the Kion Immune. Get it while it's in stock, because we get the stuff in stock and then it just disappears fast. So, it works. It is super, actually, it's inexpensive. It's not one of those shotgun formulas that cost a million bucks, which is very simple. We researched the two best things, vitamin C and zinc, put them in there in the perfect ratios, and you get all of that goodness. And we want to tell you about the Paleovalley grass-fed beef sticks. You remember these ones?

River:  They're really good.

Ben:  They're fermented. Do you know they actually ferment the beef sticks with bacteria?

River: I thought you just like [00:02:56] _____.

Ben:  No. That's why it has this wonderful umami flavor, and it is–well, they're grass-fed and grass-finished. First of all, they're way healthier than the gas station beef jerky. But when they ferment it, they get this amazing flavor. And it has a lot of glutathione in it, which is really cool because that's a supplement that you and I both take, but you also get it from these beef sticks. And you also get something called a conjugated linoleic acid, CL. It's like a compound that helps your body to burn fat and helps your mitochondria. So, actually, it's pretty cool, these beef sticks. And everybody gets 15% off. Tasty, tasty beef sticks, at least according to River, right?

River:  Yeah, they're pretty good.

Ben:  Paleovalley.com/ben is where you get 15% off of beef sticks. They're really good for the ski slopes, too, huh.

River:  Mm-hmm.

Ben:  Paleovalley.com/ben and use code BENGREENFIELD10 for 10% off. Shall we go talk to David?

River:  Yes. Let's go talk to David.

Ben:  Let's do it.

Well, folks, in the past, I have discussed a few times the link between your respiration, or to make me sound even smarter, your respiratory physiology, and your body fat, and the link between carbon dioxide and body fat and breath. I've talked about it in an article that I published on my site, and also in a podcast. I did a podcast on a whole bunch of reasons people don't burn fat, and got into respiration a little bit there, but I've never actually tackled it really thoroughly on a podcast and hadn't thought about doing it much until–actually, my friend, who was a recent podcast guest, Adam Wenguer, who's the Element Health CBD company. I interviewed him and we geeked out on plant medicine, and psychedelics, and CBD, and just a host of different topics.

Afterwards, Adam, who I've gotten to know pretty well over the past three years, introduced me to one of his friends, who not only has pretty thoroughly studied up on this link between breath and fat loss, but also has quite an extensive background in the fitness industry. He is a personal trainer, he's a model, he's a corporate wellness speaker, he's an entrepreneur. He is all over on magazine covers. So, he actually does practice what he preaches, or at least has access to really good photoshopping software because he's been on Muscle & Fitness, and FitnessRX, and Men's Health, and Ironman Magazine. Pretty prolific writer as well. He trains quite a few celebrity clients from the US Special Forces, the military, NBA stars like Allen Iverson, and really knows his way around fitness. He has also appeared on Netflix in the documentary “The Perfect Physique,” and also has been on a Michael Bay's blockbuster film called “Pain & Gain,” along with The Rock and Mark Wahlberg. So, the guy has done quite a bit in the fitness sector. And so, I thought it would be pretty cool to get on and chat not only about fat loss and respiratory physiology, but a few other things that Adam and David and I have been emailing about regarding everything from near-death experiences to a whole lot more.

So, the podcast shownotes for everything that my guest and I talk about you can find at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/flo. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com/F-L-O. His name is David Morin. That's M-O-R-I-N, if you want to look him up, David Morin. And I guess I've already introduced you, David. So, welcome to the show, man.

David:  Awesome, Ben. Thanks so much for having me, man. And quite gracious introduction considering your resume.

Ben:  Oh, yeah. Well, I never do my resume measuring. I just say what I've been told and hope I'm not making up shit about somebody that winds up coming back to bite me in the butt. Anyways, I think it's actually really interesting because, again, based on all the magazine covers that I've seen, even though you and I haven't hung out, you appear to be a pretty fit dude. They're watching some of your videos and seeing some of the photos. And I'm just curious, not having any nice body, as you know, is a metric of, say, like health or longevity, but it is always interesting to speak to somebody who's very fit about what their routine looks like, what your daily routine looks like as far as how you care for your body. And it's funny because sometimes I'll ask this question, and then an hour later, we're wrapping up the podcast and we haven't even gotten off of this first question because it gets so interesting.

But anyways, I was wondering if you could walk us through what your routine looks like on a day-to-day basis if it is consistent on a day-to-day basis.

David:  Yeah. I mean, you know yourself. You got twin boys. I've got twin girls myself and whatever the morning requires. But typically, I live on the beach. Thank God, I've got a nice, peaceful condo in Miami. So, my first thing, I have my bed set up so it's facing east, so the morning sun, that natural light wakes me up. Yeah. No alarm clock. So, then I'll just proceed to go downstairs. And what I've been doing lately in the past three months, four months at the tail end of this whole pandemic lockdown thing, I've got a lot of injuries, pre-existing conditions from hardcore weightlifting and bodybuilding strength conditioning and just redlining it now that I'm 46.

So, mobility, joint health. There's a lot of responsibilities with those relationships that your routine has to be very malleable so that you can adapt to just focusing on cultivating energy, grounding myself in the morning, getting that morning light, getting that nice–that circadian rhythm going and just dialing in for the day. I set my agenda the previous day. So, everything is there. I just want to be wide open and do–it could be a number of different things in every practical sense I'll do. I may go for a jog. I may go for a swim. I've got these paddles. I don't know if you're familiar with them. A lot of the guys like Georges St-Pierre, they're big into using water resistance now. They use a water resistance out. Yeah. So, I get into that, too, because just the pronation and supination, the hip mobility, the shoulder, opening up the shoulder, decompressing all the joint.

Ben:  Yeah. They're called like those hydrorevolution, like resistant. They almost look like barbells and dumbbells that you take into the water. You just train them in the water.

David:  Yes.

Ben:  Yeah. I've seen him using those before and it's funny, they're very similar because whenever I would get injured when I was a triathlete, I would have something very similar. I would just strap to both legs and I would go run in the pool. And it was just boring as hell. Just running in the pool is–oh my gosh, I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. Aqua jogging, so to speak, but it's incredibly effective if you can't run on land due to a joint injury, or a knee problem, or whatever because it's non-weight bearing. But yeah, I think those are called the hydrorevolution, something like that that he uses.

David:  Yeah. I notice that when you're putting your body in different environments, you're keen to develop a different kind of awareness. I think for a lot of guys, maybe yourself is like you're mentally tough and you want to grind on through any adversity during like Ironman run or an aggressive kind of powerlifting regiment, and kind of numb your senses, but you throw your body in that different environment and you regain some of that body awareness and some of that sensitivity to say, “Oh, yeah. Now I see this problem with my elbow and how that's impacted my shoulder range of motion. And now, I'm compensating here, overcompensating here.” I think that's crucial, just all of that morning ritual of slowly just awakening yourself with different environments.

I mean, I use the ocean. Particularly, I do some type of low impact, moderate cardio, could be a bike ride, but nothing that gets my heart rate up too high. I don't like to get my heart rate above maybe 100 in the morning. Maybe for a duration, it could be a yoga routine, it could be that my neighbors think I'm crazy. I'm out there with a 12-pound maul hammer sometimes on the beach just swinging it around like a madman. And I live in a building where there's a few Russians and they're looking at me like, “Do you know what this is? Do you have any idea what you're doing? This is on our flag.”

Ben:  That's funny.

David:  Yeah. It's just I find the sand to be amazing, too. In Miami, you get a lot of that radiational heating off of the sand and it's so good for my feet and my ankle's strength and stuff. So, I'll use sand resistance, I'll use sandbags that I'll fill and drag, whatever I can find, and that is probably not going to be very helpful to your listeners, but it will cover the principle of make use of your environment. And hopefully, you're in a place where you can explore new environments each day and pick up some novelty that you can incorporate in your daily routine.

Ben:  I love that, that idea of living in a certain location and adapting your fitness routine to that location. For example, I am in the forest. You are on the beach. So, you're doing sand, you're doing aquatic resistance, dumbbells or barbells, you're using sandbags. I'm in the trees. I'm in the forest. So, I've got like ropes hanging from the trees, I've got rocks at the bottom of a gravel driveway, I've got like cinder blocks that I drag up and through the forest, and then I've got cold, right? So, for a lot of times for me, it's in the snow in my shorts with my shirt off, but it's interesting. It's almost like–what's the old Jean Claude Van Damme film where they bring together all the warriors from all the different areas of the world and they fight against each other?

David:  Yeah.

Ben:  You know what show I'm talking about?

David:  Yeah, “Blood Sport.”

Ben:  Yeah, “Blood Sport.” It's almost like blood sport for fitness where you take all these different fitness personalities where people are into fitness and you just adapt your training to your environment. But I love that idea and I think it's cool for the listeners to think about, like look outside, what's around you, what kind of parks are near your home, and how can you design your fitness routine to be part of your environment. I would actually hazard a guess, and I don't know if you thought about this much before, David, that by doing so, of course not only are you getting all the benefits that everybody knows about already from being outdoors, but you're probably also enhancing your immune system health a little bit, too, by connecting to your local envirobiome, just the flora and the bacteria and everything else that is in the exact place where you live, kind of like consuming organic raw honey from an area around you is actually very good for your immune system. You build up antibodies that are equipped to fight against the specific pathogens you might encounter in that specific environment.

David:  Hundred percent. And that dovetails right into what I do before I have my coffee. I just have a nice glass of water before I go outside, but I will enjoy a shot of bee pollen and maybe a tablespoon of royal jelly, or sometimes some raw honey with some wax in it, something like that. Bee products are just incredible. Throughout my life, I found myself being B vitamin deficient. That's the one thing I struggle with. B vitamin, zinc, magnesium, calcium. I tend to burn through that stuff pretty quick. So, I do use a lot of bee products. I think it's underrated. A lot of strength and conditioning guys, a lot of bodybuilders, a lot of fitness–let's say fitness personalities, I've never heard anyone say, “Yeah. You know, I live off bee products, bro.”

Ben:  Well, it falls into apparently the category of being acceptable with this popular carnivore diet that everybody is consuming, it seems, these days, and it actually is something a lot of carnivore enthusiasts will use the honey for the carbohydrate component. But now, you make a good point. The propolis, the royal jelly, I don't know if they're a sponsor for this podcast, I probably should have them be now, but in the past, Beekeeper's Naturals is a company that sponsor my podcast, and they send me propolis and royal jelly. And I'm learning a ton of things about royal jelly for its protective effects, not only on neurodegenerative disorders but wound healing, reproductive health. It seems to have an effect on telomere shortening as well.

Propolis for gastrointestinal issues, for dermatological issues. And then the pollen, that alone is just–it's an amazing crunchy addition to a smoothie or salad or anything like that. And I don't want this to sound like commercial for bee products, but there's one interesting study, for those of you who are a little bit more scientific-minded, that appeared in the Journal of Cell Longevity couple of years ago. That's a comprehensive review. The biological actions of honey, and propolis, royal jelly. And I'll link to it in the shownotes, but I think everybody should have bee products as a part of their medicine cabinet, if not a part of their just better living through science cabinet.

David:  Hundred percent. I couldn't agree with you more. Bee pollen is a complete food. You have all the vitamins, you have the enzymes, you have the amino acids, you have everything that you need and it's like the perfect trail food, too, if you got a nice trail mix and you're going to go for a long hike. My kids love it. It's a unique opportunity to present this amazing product from nature to your kids. You and I both being fathers. I'm sure your kids don't have a problem with some of your more radical natural suggestions. But my kids are a little more skeptical. But with bee products, they think honey, that's delicious. The royal jelly, that's delicious. The propolis, I'm good with that. Here's the pollen. Okay. It's bitter, but it's kind of sweet and they're introduced to bitters, I think, that's a crucial thing for all the parents out there.

Ben:  Oh, yeah.

David:  Get some bitters in your kids.

Ben:  Absolutely. There's a book by an author who studies animals in self-selection of nutrition by animals named Fred Provenza. He wrote a book called “Nourishment.” And he does find that young animals tend to favor the more nutrient-dense bitters deficient, or slightly antioxidant deficient older plants because the younger animals don't yet need as many antioxidants or as many of those bitter phenols, or terpenes, or any of those other compounds as the older animals do. As a matter of fact, if they give the young animals anti-nausea medication, they'll eat all the young plants because they don't have that nauseous feeling kick in when they've consumed too many antioxidants and too many bitters.

And so, I think to a certain extent, young humans don't really have a taste for a lot of bitter compounds because they don't need them physiologically quite as much, and yet kind of like coffee or kind of like the hops in beer, it grows on you as you get old, and I think it's not just because we acquire a taste for them. I think we, physiologically, based on just a little bit of built-in innate intelligence, know that we might need more of these bitters. And it is funny you should bring this up because I have been, for my gallbladder and liver health, drinking triphala tea at night, which is an Ayurvedic, almost like something to enhance release of bile. It's great for having a good bowel movement the next morning. It's a very interesting kind of three fruit blend of these three Indian herbs or fruits. And I gave some to my kids last night. You would have thought that I would have fed them just like a piece of dog poop off the floor. They were grimacing and gagging. I just drink it down and don't notice it much, but yeah, I think children are definitely far more sensitive, too, to bitter tastes. And the bee products are a great way to introduce them to some of nature's vitamins with a little bit more of a sweet touch.

David:  I'm going to get into that tea you just mentioned because rupturing gallbladders and gallbladders being removed runs in my family.

Ben:  Yeah. Triphala is one of the best for overall gallbladder health. It's therapeutically used in Ayurvedic medicine for a wide variety of gastrointestinal issues, but specifically for initiating the release of bile by the gallbladder. The only issue is that it can tend to induce a bowel movement so effectively. You wouldn't want to use it in the morning with your smoothie or something like–usually, we take it at night. And then, when you wake up in the morning, you have a giant dump, but it definitely works as advertised in terms of enhancing liver and gallbladder. And also, just overall peristalsis as well. It's an interesting one to look into. I just personally buy it on Amazon. There's a bulk powder triphala company. I forget who they are, but I'll put it in the shownotes for people.

Okay. So, your morning routine you've got your honey, you've got your coffee, you've got your sand workouts, you've got your sunshine, bedroom facing east. And then, I would imagine at some point during the day, are you working? Are you retired off of your magazine cover royalty right now?

David:  Well, I do a little bit of everything. I have an app that's running now that requires some social media activation. I have another product that's called Lynx Fitness. I don't know if you have seen these kind of friction boards. They're almost like sliders, but you have little pads and you can do HIIT training on them, you can do mobility work, you can do physical therapy on them. But your body weight plus about 25% resistance cause the surface acts as a friction surface instead of a sliding surface.

Ben:  Okay. And that's called Lynx Fitness?

David:  Lynx Fitness or Flowin. So, Flowin is the European version. It's is a sister company out of Sweden. And Lynx is the United States and Canada version.

Ben:  Are these similar to the very–like I used to go to a lot of fitness conferences and I used to run into Val, who does the Valslides where you put your feet on the sliding–they're almost like sliding discs and you can do mountain climbers or adduction, abduction, or any number of different moves as long as you have a relatively friction-free surface. Is that along those same lines?

David:  It's along the same lines. The board that we provide for you, there's a travel board and there's a studio board. The studio board is about four by eight, and that's the board I recommend. And yeah, you're provided with these kind of pads that are almost like fabric, but they provide the perfect amount of resistance because there's a patent that's friction surface that's almost like, let's say, a very fine sandpaper grade. So, you have to activate some muscle recruitment and some effort to get the flow going, get the sliding going. But once you get it going, you notice how the resistance kicks in and you're going to get a good workout.

Ben:  Huh. And you invented that?

David:  Well, no, I didn't invent it, but that's our product. I was the founder of the company in the United States. So, I wrote all the fitness programs for it, and then of course help with the marketing and all the frontend image side of the product, and investing, and all that stuff. My real passion is really just, especially now in the times where everyone is so worried about everyone else spreading germs and invented a respiratory enhancement product made from organic essential oils that are antiviral. So, that's really my focal point in regards to my training, too. It's just that mind-body connection, that breath awareness, that heart coherence, that listening to my heart. A lot of people think I'm listening to music when I'm out on the beach. I actually have my headphones off so that I'm in a sensory deprivation, and I can hear my heart rate, I can tune into my breathing, trying to sync myself up with the waves of the water. That's it. That's it, sir.

Ben:  You mean you're using the headphones to block out sound so you can hear your heart rate in your ears a little bit better, that type of thing?

David:  Yeah. Just block it out, but I'm kind of like a ninja about it, I guess.

Ben:  Okay. Interesting. Cool. That's a good idea.

David:  Other than that, daily routine consultations. I do have a few clients down here. I trained with only a two or three–right now, we're trying to avoid as much face-to-face contact as possible. I still want to be as responsive as I can be and not affect someone else's household and not affect my own household. So, I'm doing as much distance training as I can. And then, of course, strategizing for the future. I'm in the middle of writing a book. It's called “The Divorced Man's Guide to Reinventing Yourself.” That should be out sometime this summer. Yeah.

Ben:  And when you're running these companies like Lynx or the–I actually want to ask you about the essential oil because it may tie into what I want to chat with you about regarding respiratory physiology and fat loss. But I've got a manual treadmill workstation and kind of like a hand crank stand-up desk and one of these mats that has topographical surface that I can stand on. So, I've got different working positions during the day. I diffuse essential oil. I have my own little workspace setup I've talked about before, but do you kind of–I assume you're working from home. Do you have a setup that you found to be particularly effective for–or even a routine you found to be effective for maintaining your fitness or your health while you're running all these companies and working during the day?

David:  Well, usually, my rule is 2 hours on and 30 minutes off. So, once my workday is going, I only do two hours in one particular place. And I set a timer, and then I just get up. I can be anywhere. I've got two tangos that I stand up in my corner where I can see the ocean. That's my creative writing place. I've got a nice little bonds I set up over there and a few more meaningful pictures that I put in that area to get that creative energy going. And I set my workstation up on these tangos, and that's where I'll do some writing. And then, on my patio is where I have like a little workout station. So, in between, I'll break because how I like to train if I don't weight train, which I don't normally anymore, I'll do like maybe twice a week, I'll do weights, I'll do a full body workout with the weights twice a week, but I like to do one particular muscle group for 15 minutes consecutively, just training that one muscle group with various different range of motion, different stimulus. It could be bodyweight, could be weights, could be kettlebell, but I'll do 15 minutes, one HIIT cardio session a day, and then I'll do one isolation of body weight.

Ben:  What would that look like doing like 15 minutes for one specific body part? Can you give me an example?

David:  Well, if I was going to do, let's say very, very simple, I would do like a Bulgarian split squads with squads, maybe try to integrate some pistol squads, and then maybe some mountain climbers, and then I would cycle that through. My mountain climbers would be kind of like my active rest in between the squats and the Bulgarian split squads or the jumping squats, whatever terminology you want to use. I would probably finish that workout with like an isometric hold. So, I would try to do 90 seconds on in a full squat position with hips below knees, or try to hold that position for 90 seconds, and then rest for 20 seconds, and then 90 seconds. Yup. Something like that.

Ben:  Okay.

David:  I could do pushups like that. I could do rose like that. I have some heavyweight bands that I would use, arms and shoulders, and delts are a little trickier. But I don't want to waste a lot of time with a lot of reps and a lot of using weight resistance and stuff. My body is really talking to me nowadays. I'm 46. I've found that I can manage if I just cram in a lot of intensity without all the reps, using negatives, using isometrics, and then using like a Tabata style just as much intensities I could pack into a certain time prescription. Then, yeah, it works for me.

Ben:  Interesting. So, are you using any kind of weather for recovery as you age with all these fitness routines that you're doing, or for sleep, or anything else, or using any kind of technology, biohacking modalities, so to speak, like red light or hyperbaric oxygen? Or did you mess around with any kind of devices that you found to really be effective for you?

David:  I would love the opportunity to work with devices. I haven't. I've heard the infrared light is really good. I've used infrared sauna, and conventional sauna is quite a bit, especially after–I was in a coma before, so I'll tell you about that later, how I used the sauna to rebuild myself and my endocrine system.

Ben:  Really? Is this the near-death experience Adam alluded to that you had experienced?

David:  Yeah.

Ben:  Okay. I definitely want to get into that.

David:  Yeah.

Ben:  Okay. Interesting.

David:  The only thing I could say that I used with any consistency would be binaural beats, probably put that on with like an ambient track. It's mostly nutritional. I tend to get into a really good relaxation response with some Element Health CBD. They have a 1,500 milligram. I'll use that. I usually put in capsules, too. I'll have that ready. Maybe some passionflower, some ZMA, something that's going to get me nice and tranquil. I don't have a problem with sleeping too much. I follow the golden rules of turning off the smartphones and the computers. I mean, it may be a rarity that I get on the phone and just do something because it requires my time, but like I said, I had the benefit and a lot of people don't, but if you ever get the opportunity to live in the ocean, you'll understand what I'm talking about. There's just an automatic, succinct feeling of tranquil. When that moon rises over the water and you see those reflections, and all of a sudden the winds die down, and you hear the waves coming a little slower, it just puts me right in that sweet spot where I can just relax and wind down. So, I have a pretty good routine I'm just winding down. What about you? I know that you've mentioned quite a lot of technology that you use. I'd be super interested to get your input on it.

Ben:  There's a couple of things I mess around. One thing I should comment on, by the way, that just came across my mind as you were talking about I guess some of the circadian rhythmicity issues, is that it's my take that just based on human origins, a lot of human activity along the coastlines, origination probably in the Fertile Crescent somewhere, and just the overall data that I tend to see over and over again from an epidemiological standpoint, that if you want to live a long time and be super healthy, living in a coastal area, being on the beach in the sand, in the sunshine frequently, in water, including cold water, and eating a lot of fish and shellfish, is one of the best things you can do for longevity.

And then, I'll of course get people asking me, “Well, then why are you living out in the forest eating nuts and berries, and red meat, and hunting, and surviving the cold for six months out of the year?” And part of it is just because I'm also a believer that you blew more God has planted you. And we're close to family, and this is where we grew up, and I'm very happy here. But if you're strictly in it for health and longevity and nothing else matters to you, I think living in a coastal area like you live, David, is really one of the keys to staying fit for a long time. And you know, I'm not discounting the fact that maybe someday when I'm 60 or something, I might wind up being one of those Florida guys, but it actually is one of those things that I think you're on the right track for, especially when it comes to things like this whole circadian rhythm piece because I find like–to answer your question in a long-winded way, I find that especially in the winter and during the times I'm getting a lot less sun exposure, aggravated by the fact that I live on a north-facing slope where I've got sun for maybe 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Even on a relatively sunny day, I have to do a lot of other things to regulate my circadian rhythm and sleep.

So, I would say from a technology standpoint, the best things I've found of late have been a lot of infrared light in the morning to simulate sunrise. So, I use these big red light panels. And in addition to that, I wear blue light blockers in the morning, the red lenses. I use the raw blue light blockers with the red lenses to simulate for the first hour so I'm waking up more of like a sunrise type of feel. So, I keep most of lights in the house off. If I flip on a screen like a phone screen or a computer screen, I wear the red light glasses, and then I flip on these red lights in the morning. And a lot of times, I'll do infrared sauna and more red lights either in the morning or in the evening to simulate more of a sunset feel. And then, I just changed out all the bulbs in the bedroom to red incandescent bulbs so the bedroom is very kind of sunsetty as well when you get in bed at night.

And then, I guess from a technology standpoint, the main things I like to use right now is I have this sound wave device called the Apollo. And it creates these sound waves that lower your body into almost like a delta sleep. I wrap it around my ankle. I did a podcast with the folks who designed it and I find that to be pretty effective. And then, I use a little bit of essential oil, like a lavender. I used to diffuse it. Now, I just apply it back behind the vagus nerve behind both ears because I was doing some research on topical application of essential oils, and it turns out that you can actually see a pretty big increase in HRV and an increase in vagal nerve tone just by topical application near the back of the air where that vagal nerve lies. So, I usually do something like lavender, or rose, or Bergamo, back behind the ears, flip on that Apollo. I've got the red light going.

And then, the only other thing I do pretty consistently is noise. I use a couple of different apps. One called a SleepStream, which does like pink noise, which compared to all the other ambient noise sources really covers up noise well/lulls you into sleep state. And then, the other one that I use is called the NuCalm because a lot of times, I wake at like 4:00 a.m. and I want to sleep a little longer. So, the NuCalm has these options on its device like reboot, or restore, or fall back asleep. And so, I'll play one of those for bout sometimes 90 minutes while I'm just laying there in a dream-like state in the morning snuggling with my wife. And those are few of the things off the top of my head I found to be pretty effective from a technology standpoint.

David:  Yeah. I can totally see where you would have to necessitate those things based on where you're at. Yeah. That's the thing I don't have to deal with the lack of sunlight at all. There's an abundance of sunlight here, which brings me to why I moved down here in the first place. So, I've got psoriasis growing up and I lived in the UK. My mother was English. My father was a pilot in the military. He was a copilot in Vietnam for the AWACS, which is these big reconnaissance planes.

And he met my mom when he was on tour, married her, and then I was born in Germany. We lived in Italy. We lived in Hawaii. We lived all around, typical military brat family. Make friends for three years and then I'm gone. And it became, I guess through my mother's side, there was a lot of the English party drinkers. So, whenever I would have a drink of alcohol, let's say about 16, 15, when I was in the UK, I'd start drinking. All of a sudden, man, I just break out in scales. And a lot of people don't understand what psoriasis is. It's an autoimmune condition that just–skin cells replicated a faster rate, so it just appears scaling on the surface of the skin. And so, you leave a trail. It's a little bit embarrassing.

In fact, my uncle was lead chair in the London Symphony for five years, and then he just continued to drink, and then his psoriasis escalated until he was so ashamed of his condition that he ended up dropping out. So, it was something that I had seen alcoholism affect my family, and then I'd seen it exacerbated and aggravated by this drinking. So, I was like, “Look, what do I got to do to solve this?” And the first thing was get sunshine. So, as soon as I got into sunshine, it cleared up immediately and then I was like, “Oh, 100%.” That firmly constructed this relationship with the sun or most kids just take it for granted. It's like, “Yeah. I need this in my life.”

Ben:  Well, hello. We want to interrupt today's show. Let's interrupt. Rudely interrupting your best rudely interrupting voice.

River:  Oh, I haven't thought about that voice yet.

Ben:  Me and my son River are here telling you about Joovv, Joovv infrared lights. We're standing right in front of one right now. It's not on. You'd probably hear if it was on. But they make these super-powerful red lights. They have so much power. You'll need to stand firm for 10, maximum 20 minutes. Most of the rest, you got to stand in front for like an hour, which gets annoying unless you have lots of oodles of time to spend standing in front of red lights. But they're sleeker and lighter, the new devices. They can simulate sunrise, they can simulate sunset. You guys have one of the Joovv Minis up in your room, don't you?

River:  Yeah. And kind of travel with them.

Ben:  Yeah. Dogs even like infrared light. It's kind of interesting, and infrared light has so many benefits. I talk about it in this podcast about how it was actually compared–photobiomodulation was compared to a powerful drug by recent researcher, and I'll link in the shownotes for this podcast to her research, but it's super interesting. And Joovv is going to give everybody an exclusive discount on your first order. You go to J-O-O-V-V.com/ben and use code–do you know what the code?

River:  BEN.

Ben:  BEN. Easy.

River:  All caps.

Ben:  All caps, J-O-O-V-V.com/ben. Use code BEN, all caps, and get an exclusive discount on your first order from Joovv. And then, this podcast is also brought to you by Kin. Do you know what Kin?

River:  It's a drink, isn't it?

Ben:  Yeah. So anyways, as far as this Kin company goes, they have dry January. They're promoting dry January, which as you can imagine is a month where you're going to be drinking non-alcoholic alternatives. I think that should be phrased though alcoholic alternatives, right? So, anyways, they have designed, this company Kin Euphorics, three different mood defining drinks, like the Spotify beverages. They've got High Rhode, which is this herbaceous flavor to lift your mind and relax your body. It's good for social hour where I can have a little club soda or tonic 2 with a squeeze of lime. They've got their Kin Spritz, which is this sparkling Aperol-like brain boost without the crash or the hangover. You could drink this stuff at 5:00 p.m., baby. And then, Dreamlight. That's like this booze-free nightcap that tastes like an Amaro and melts away stress and helps you sleep like a baby. So, Kin is giving all my listeners a 15% discount. You also get free shipping. You go to Kin Euphorics, K-I-N-E-U-P-H-O-R-I-C-S, for all my listeners who don't know how to spell euphorics, kineuphorics.com/ben, or you can just use code BEN at checkout on their website, kineuphorics.com/ben. That is where you can get it on the Kion goodness.

There you have it, and shall we go back to talk to David?

River:  Yeah, let's go.

Ben:  Let's do it.

During this show, David and I talked about like this essential oil spray that he makes that's got like camphor oil and peppermint, and all this crazy stuff in it. And I thought it was–honestly, I thought was kind of hokey when you told me about it because I'm like, “Why can't you just sniff essential oils?” But he sent me some to try after we recorded. I wish I'd got my hands up before we recorded, honestly, because it's pretty cool. And I sprayed some on my hands and it does for me what smelling salts do, which totally kick you in the ass and wake you up, like you stuck your entire head in a cup of coffee, but without kind of like the nasty smell in your sinus passages. It literally smells like you're just sniffing peppermint during your whole workout. And I swear, I work out harder when I sniff this stuff.

So, I don't make any money off his product or anything, but I think it is pretty cool.  Holy cow, this stuff actually works. So, check it out. I think it's called FLO50. So, there you have it.

Ben:  Yes. Psoriasis is super interesting. Well, I remember the first clients I trained when I was in college. He had pretty significant psoriasis, and I didn't even know that much about diet or autoimmunity at that point, but I wound up shifting him kind of like in a paleo-ish direction and he was just shocked at the impact that diet had on his autoimmune condition. And of course, if I would've had studied as much of folks like–well, Jack Kruse comes to mind, is a guy who specializes in sunlight and circadian biology. Michael Hamblin is another really good researcher you can find in PubMed.

I wish I'd have known that much about light back then and I'm in the midst of taking another deep dive into infrared lights. And based on the work of someone named Tiina Karu, who is the head of the Laser Technology Research Center at the Russian Academy of Science in Moscow, Russia. Some of her research is just absolutely amazing. I mean, she actually has a paper she's published entitled “Is It Time to Consider Photobiomodulation as a Drug Equivalent?” And if you read that paper, it will just knock your socks off in terms of the wide variety effects, not only of sunlight, but of red light in general, or so-called photobiomodulation in general. It's crazy. I mean, sunlight just gets so underplayed. Light in general gets so underplayed.

David:  Yeah. I mean, everything is light, right? I mean, it's all molecules arranged in certain configurations, but the origin is all light. It's very interesting stuff, especially when you get into the talk of psychedelics and you realize like, “What's the source of all the visions of these plant compounds in these alkaloids?” It's just they're all arrangements of different molecules. And what's responsible for the visions? Well, it's the interaction between the brain and these molecules. And these molecules specifically trigger these visual centers in the brain. So, it's kind of like, “Well, why? Well, why am I watching a movie based on taking this plant substance? And what is it about this plant that has this information in it, which produces these images and gives me these visions that are very unique?

I mean, a lot of people say, “Well, you're just in an active imagination. Your sensory gates are open. You're creating a reality based on preconceived information, or let's say information received at an earlier date. That's just in your subconscious mind. And I'm like, “Ah, it's stranger than you can imagine.” It's kind of like Einstein's quote. It's like, “The universe is stranger than you can imagine.” And I'm so glad you're in that field of research in validating that because light is definitely where it's at and a lot of people don't understand. It's like the food that you eat has a specific light characteristic to it. Is it dark food or is it light food?

Ben:  Yeah.

David:  I kind of look at food that way, you know. I'm sure you do, too.

Ben:  Yeah, absolutely, I do. Okay. So, there's a couple of things we got to talk about that I really want to talk to you about. And one is this study that appeared I think in the BMJ in 2014 called “When Somebody Loses Weight, Where Does the Fat Go?” And the findings from that paper were quite interesting from a biochemical standpoint. And I'm wondering if you would be so kind as to unpack where that actually goes when somebody loses weight and why we should care about that.

David:  Well, what I learned from it was I may or may not be familiar with that paper, but Robert Meerman, he's the one that did a TEDx on it. He's a biochemist out of Australia. He did a TEDx on where does fat go, and they asked–

Ben:  Actually, I believe his name is Rubin. He might go by Robert as well, but–

David:  Yeah.

Ben:  That's his paper in the BMJ, “When Somebody Loses Weight, Where Does the Fat Go?”

David: Okay. Perfect.

Ben:  And by the way, just so folks know, quick interruption, I'll link to that paper in the shownotes for those of you who really want to geek out in it. The shownotes are at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/flo. That's F-L-O, BenGreenfieldFitness.com/flo. Alright, go ahead, David.

David:  Yeah. I was astonished after years of trying different diet pills. Not that there's anything wrong with diet pills and supplementations or all this different expert analysis on what you should and shouldn't do to lose weight. And I think he asked in his presentation on the TEDx, 100 fitness professionals, where does the fat go after it's gone from the body? Where does it go? And people say you urinate it, you excrete it through the pores, you metabolize it. And the truth is is that 80% of fat is excreted through respiration? You actually breathe out fat. And I know it sounds very strange to people that you would actually have something that's very tangible strapped to your waistline, and then it would just disappear every time you breathe, but the air that comes out of your body is heavier than the air that's coming in your body.

He basically eloquently laid all this out and he breathed into a balloon, and then he was able to cool the balloon with liquid nitrogen, and he was able to extract the very fine particles of fat, which remained after he popped the bubble. You can see the whole presentation online. But then I started learning about the uncoupling of carbohydrates in the carbon that you excrete. And let's say the triglycerides were uncoupled into the ketones. Was it acetone and beta-hydroxybutyrate? That's all broken down into carbon, too. So, when you breathe out, you're basically attaching carbon molecules to the breath and through the whole long chemical process, the whole biochemical process of metabolizing fat and excreting it through this combustible process that human respiration is. What you're left with is Carbon and H2O. That's what's left.

Ben:  And this, by the way, is important because a lot of people believe that fat gets converted to energy, or gets converted to heat. But that violates the conservation of math, or the conservation of mass principle, right? And so, I think a good way for people to think about this is anytime you get excess carbs or excess proteins, those get converted into triglycerides. Those get stored in the lipid droplets of your adipocytes, your fat cells. And excess dietary fat doesn't even need to get converted. It just goes through lipolysis and re-esterified, and also winds up in fat cells. And for you to access that, it has to be oxidized, right? And to oxidize like one single triglyceride molecule results in the need for you to inhale a certain amount of oxygen. In the case of his research, it was like a certain amount of oxygen correlates to a certain amount of body fat being oxidized.

But then, you also, as a byproduct of that of course, produce carbon dioxide and water. And in that study, which is very simple and elegant, all he did was he traced every atom's pathway out of the body. He used labeled heavy oxygen to show where everything was going and found that the majority of triglycerides being burnt, the majority of fatty acids being oxidized, were essentially getting exhaled as CO2, showing that the lungs were the primary excretory organ for fat. So, it's super interesting. And I think for a lot of people, it's like, “Okay. Well, that is interesting, but what does that mean? Does that mean if I just hyperventilate all day, am I going to lose more weight?” What would you say are the practical takeaways from that?

David:  Well, in terms of the delivery of my pulmonary embolism and the experience of, let's say, using breathing correctly, there's a lot of research out there that says if you breathe too much, then you're compromising longevity. But I think I kind of approach–

Ben:  Right. That'd be like Patrick McKeown‘s research.

David:  Exactly, exactly. And the way I train, it's really strange. Since my accident in 2015, I hold my breath. I know I'm not supposed to. But it's kind of like when I dive in the water and I'm holding my breath, that's a hypoxic state that's activating these certain processes that are similar to, let's say when you're training. I'm holding my breath while I'm training, too. People say you shouldn't do that, but I get better dilation, I get better strength. I do long, deep, slow controlled breaths or recovery periods between sets. I don't hyperventilate.

Ben:  Now, when you say you hold your breath, are you talking about like a breath brace for like a heavy deadlift, or are you talking about like running in the sand or on an AirDyne literally holding your breath?

David:  No. The latter.

Ben:  Okay. Are you holding on the exhale or on the inhale?

David:  I'm holding on the inhale.

Ben:  Okay. Got it. And the reason I ask is a lot of people will, for improved oxygen delivery or to basically train the overall title volume, they'll take a giant breath and hold it on an AirDyne or rowing machine, or a bike, or anything like that. However, to train tolerance to carbon dioxide, which is more like what a guy like Patrick McKeown said is going to improve longevity or increase the delivery of the oxygen into tissue, they actually will hold, I believe, the exhale. And so, it's interesting. You actually see both practice. I do both. I'll hold and inhale sometimes when I'm exercising. Sometimes I'll hold an exhale to get the best of both worlds, oxygen tolerance and CO2 tolerance. But ultimately, this idea of holding your breath during exercise, yeah, a lot of people here not to do it, but there's actually some cool effects that you can get out of it. If you read Patrick McKeown's book, “The Oxygen Advantage,” it goes into this a lot more thoroughly. But yeah, this idea of playing with breath during exercise is, I think, a wonderful, wonderful way to experiment with your respiratory physiology.

David:  Hundred percent. And I find that what I'll do is I look at my energy levels, and this refractory period between sets is like building up the charge for the consecutive sets. And then, what I'll do is I'll look at it as a pressure valve. So, when you say, “Do you hold your breath?” I do, but I don't. It's a slow-release valve. So, as I'm encountering the resistance, let's say, for deadlift, for example, so I could give your audience a visual. Initially, when I'm starting a pull, if it's a heavyweight, I will hold my breath. As I'm part way through the range of motion, I'll release slowly so that there is a resistance factor with holding my breath, and at the same time, the weight is leveraged against my breath. So, there's a slow kind of release. I won't hold my breath as I'm holding in the top position 400-pound deadlift.

A lot of people get lightheaded and faint that way, but there's a connectivity and a sequencing and cadence to the breath that I'll use. The best way for me to remember it and internalize it, it's like when I go diving in the ocean, when I freedive. I'll commit to the set. There's no way that I can change my mind when I'm already under the water. I've committed to the set. And so, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to focus all the energy I have while I'm in that underwater state or while I'm in that lift. And then, all that energy is allocated towards that lift with all the intensity. And then, that way, I'm holding my breath or I'm using a breathing technique, but when I come up, I'm obviously–and I'm obviously holding my breath to get the benefits of hypoxia and getting the benefits of my breathing, my training. But when I come up, what I want is I want immune function regulation, I want recovery, I want revitalization of energy storage. I want to clear lactic acid. I want to do all these recovery steps. And you know what, too, I notice that I just feel overall better. I feel a sense of euphoria. I don't know if it's norepinephrine. I don't know what it is, post-set or post after max exertion of a set.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. A lot of people get that with breath exhale holds or breath inhale holds. There's even some theories that that part of it is related not only to the nitric oxide production and the increase in CO2, but also a potential release of DMT by the pineal gland, which is why holotropic breathwork is something a guy like Stanislav Grof invented as an alternative to LSD. So, there's a lot of interesting things happening from a neurotransmitter and a neurochemical standpoint. But I think a lot of people are probably wondering, “Well, why the heck you holding your breath when we just established based on Meerman's study that you breathe off fat.” So, based off the fact that you breathe off fat, wouldn't overbreathing be something? Or figure out a way to just breathe as much as possible, be something that you would want to do if your primary excretory organ for fat is your lungs. And the main way you get rid of fat is breathing it off. Why wouldn't you just kind of be–like that all day long?

David:  Yeah. I think the critical point of view that I like to express in terms of my product development, the essential oils, and clearing the nasal pathway, like you just mentioned, is an increase in nitric oxide production through the nasal pathway, number one. Number two, recovery and immuno support. So, you're not going to burn fat while you're doing–and correct me if I'm wrong, you're not going to burn fat while you're doing the exercise. You're going to burn fat as your resting metabolic rate rises post-workout so.

Ben:  Well, you are going to burn fat, but the majority of the fat is burned to the non-exercise activity thermogenesis all day long just moving, all day long, not the exercise session. And then, also, repaying the oxygen debt after you've exercised. So, yeah, you're correct. Fat oxidation is primarily going to occur post-workout because anytime you're moving, you're shifting the body into a state of carbohydrate utilization. Higher and higher percentages of carbohydrate utilization, lower and lower percentages of fat utilization. So, yeah, the majority of the fat is burnt at very low intensities.

However, I think some people still, under this idea based off the fact that you breathe off fat, that you should just try and overbreathe, but it doesn't work that way. You're essentially wanting to, if anything, I would say from a health and longevity standpoint, control breathing, do breath holds, do a lot of nasal breathing and minimalist breathing similar to what Patrick McKeown recommends. And then, as long as you're moving, as long as you're exercising, it's almost just like this fact, and correct me if I'm wrong, David, this fact that you breathe off fat is almost like a fun fact, but really doesn't change much in terms of my thoughts, in terms of recommendations to move frequently, breathe through your nose, do breath holds, and don't overbreathe unless you're doing like a holotropic breathwork session, or Wim Hof, or something like that to get ready for an ice bath.

David:  Yeah, 100%. And me with my background in fitness, it's just another example of trying to deepen the breath of pointing out the obvious. A lot of people, they would look at it, “Okay. I want body. I want the abs. I want to low body fat. I want the stats, I want the goals, I want all this,” but they're neglecting the most fundamental thing. And for me, that unique little perspective on biochemistry and how humans excrete fat only points back to the very importance of realizing what is actually going on with your body. And there's so many other benefits to breathing. And then, it just opens up the door to all of these other benefits and understanding.

Hey, it's not just about losing fat, it's about controlling my anxiety. It's not just about, you know, controlling my anxiety, it's about wait a second. I'm always congested this time of year. What is it about my sinus? Is this this time of year? What is it about my asthma? What is it about all of these various things that–

I think this statistic is somewhere upwards of 65% to 70% of Americans experience compromised respiration every year. And when you're talking about compromised respiration, this is before the pandemics and all of this stuff. When you're talking about this, well, how much of that is affecting your performance? How much of that is affecting your cognitive performance? Let alone, your ability to motivate yourself to get to the gym, or get what you need done, or just how you treat people on a daily basis. I mean, all of that's impaired if your respiration is impaired. So, I'm less of an advocate of solely promoting breathing more as a mechanism to lose fat. I'm a huge proponent of using breath to bring about awareness of the fact that every facet of your physiology could be optimized if you use particular breathing techniques and use them properly. So, it's not about breathing more, I guess you could say. It's about breathing correctly.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely not. Now, you've alluded a couple of times to this special blend of essential oils. I know that's natural product that you sell for opening the respiratory pathways, and I'm curious what it is and how one would use something like that.

David:  Yeah. Now, we're getting into the plug. Plug my special sauce.

Ben:  Now, you can plug your special sauce, David, yes.

David:  Everybody is like, “You're selling snake oil, boy.” And I'm like, “Well, you know, I was dead for five days and I came back to life. And this stuff makes me feel happy.”

Ben:  Which we're going to get into after you explain your essentials oils. We're going to the near-death experience.

David:  So, part of the formula I got when I was in Thailand a year after I recovered from my NDE, and it was something that I was in the middle of nowhere and freaking out. I was listening to Joe Rogan, actually, and Bryan Callen talk about the flu and how it was killing people. And then, all of a sudden, I started feeling the same way I was right before I had an embolism. So, I researched some different herbs and expectorants, and some different things that could unclog my sinuses, and I was in Bangkok, and I was walking around. And I found some really cool jasmine oil. This guy comes out and I asked him all these Chinese herbs and he's, “No, no, not this one, this one. You try this one.”

So, I tried this green viscous holt blood jasmine oil that he put in my hand and I just rubbed it together, and immediately, it just opened up my nasal pathway. So, I grabbed the bottle of it, and I went back and I worked with the lab down here, who does some formulations, and they're FDA-certified, they have scientists, and they can break everything down. They told me what was in it, most of it. They couldn't figure out a few other compounds inside. So, I basically reverse engineered this stuff and then added a few extra things so it's a potent antiviral sanitizer. So, my thing is, especially now, sanitize, nebulize, exercise. So, the essential oils, you got camphor, menthol, jasmine oil, wintergreen, and rosemary. All of those things, they have robust literature supporting their anti-viral characteristics. And I just spray it on my hands and you nebulize it so you nebulize the vapors.

Ben:  Okay. So, you can use like a desktop nebulizer. You don't just have to–because a lot of times with essentials oils used for respiratory physiology or clearing out the sinuses, one trick that Dr. Nick Berry from Essential Oil Wizardry showed to me was you just put a few drops in your hand, rub your hands together and just place both hands over the nose and inhale, and breathe it all in. But then even right now while you and I are talking, I have essential oils in a diffuser right next to me. I'm diffusing peppermint and rosemary, which is my alertness blend during the day while I'm working. But then I also nebulize. I nebulize silver, I nebulize glutathione with a face worn mask and just like a desktop nebulizer off of Amazon. And so, you can take this essential oil that you make and nebulize it as well?

David:  Oh, God. That you bring up silver. Yeah, you can definitely use that and nebulize it. But now that you bring up silver, I've got a nice colloidal silver spray that I just shove up my nose any chance I get. My daughters look at me like I'm–everybody looks at me like I'm crazy and I'm like, “I don't have sinus infections anymore.” That's the thing that people are missing is that we live in environments that are full of particulate matter, brake dust. God knows what's in the air that we breathe if you live in the city. I mean, you probably don't experience that because you're out in a beautiful, pristine land. But living in Miami, if I'm not on the beach, I'm exposed to brake dust and all this stuff, and it's like, how much of that stuff do you think is getting in your nose and in your body and compromising respiration?

So, I'm definitely using this to unobstruct my airways, especially as you pointed out as well, is that nasal pathway is so essential for nitric oxide production and just immune function. So, yeah. I'll spray it in my hands exactly like that doctor that you referenced and I'll nebulize it in the hands, which is very cool for me as a memory and a tribute to [00:58:30] _____ to where the actual–one of the key ingredients from the formula came from Thailand. In Thailand, every time you buy something, they thank you with that same nebulizer position, hand gesture. They put their hands together in prayer and they say thank you.

Ben:  Right, right. Kap khun krap, kap khun krap, kap khun krap.

David:  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I was like, “Wow, that really works for me. It helps me remember and give gratitude.”

Ben:  So, you use it in the gym almost like smelling salts. You spray it in your hands, you rub your hands together, and then you just take a whiff?

David:  Exactly, exactly.

Ben:  Interesting. Okay.

David:  And the more you breathe it, the more effective it is. I mean, it really does work and it's potent for about 30 minutes.

Ben:  And what's in it? Which essential oils?

David:  So, it's rosemary, wintergreen, jasmine, and camphor, and menthol.

Ben:  Oh, camphor is potent. Camphor is kind of like a cinnamon type of–isn't it related to cinnamon plant?

David:  I think you're right. Yeah. Tiger Balms, camphors and Tiger Balm. So, yeah, it's very potent.

Ben:  Yeah. That stuff is potent. Wow, that alone to half of that would be pretty amazing. But yes, it's in Tiger. But it's in Vicks VaporRub. I think CBDfx has like a muscle bomb that has it in there. A lot of people know Biofreeze or Bengay, like it's in all that stuff. I've never actually thought about rubbing it in my hands and taking a whiff. But of course, when you're congested, you can smear little VapoRub underneath your nostrils. The interesting thing is that regardless, I assume–well, correct me if I'm wrong, you're not marketing this as a way to burn more fat because you're breathing better, are you?

David:  No, but because I come from the–my background is in fitness, I'm challenging people to pay attention to the way that they breathe. And if their goal is to lose weight, which obviously obesity is a huge risk factor for all-cause mortality, I'm just trying to get people to exercise more and breathe better. I think if I could teach people how to fish, they don't have to ask me for fish and diet pills, and training schedules so much. I just want them to start tuning into their body and allowing their immune system and their physiology to speak for itself. And I think the doorway to that awareness is through breathing. So, no. I mean, I might mention it as a fun fact in relation to, “Hey, my product can help you breathe better.” There's no claims that my product will help you burn fat better, but breathing better will help you burn fat better.

Ben:  Right. Or just exercising more intensively which peppermint, rosemary, et cetera, those have been shown to really increase your exercise potential, increase your exercise tolerance, improve time to exertion, reduce rating of perceived exertion during hard exercise. And I interviewed a doctor named Dr. John Lieurance out of Sarasota, Florida, and he does like a peppermint, rosemary, cinnamon nasal spray. And then, he has kind of like an upgrade to that that he adds the Amazonian herb, Rapé, along with oxytocin. And before I go and jam on the AirDyne, I take a few huffs of that stuff. He calls it Zen spray. And oh my gosh, I mean, it rips you wide open. It's not quite as bad as snorting the actual true Rapé powder from the Amazon, which for me if I do that, I'm lit up for a couple of hours, plus getting all sorts of green chunky stuff come out of my sinuses. But that Zen spray is amazing. And this sounds like it's right up that same alley. So, that's very interesting. I think anybody who's listening who hasn't experimented with essential oils for workouts, especially, compared to smelling salts–or what's that stuff called, Nose Tork? You ever used Nose Tork?

David:  Yup. No, I've never used it, but I've heard of it.

Ben:  Okay. Yeah. Nose Tork. It's a trip. I use that to punk my friends sometimes. It's what the powerlifters use, basically smelling salts, Nose Tork smelling salts. And if you are sleep-deprived, or if you're just down and you want to jack yourself up big time, that Nose Tork is amazing, but I'm more into the Zen spray now. But I mean, considering you're getting Nose Tork for like 10 bucks, you can get a giant bottle of it on Amazon. It's actually worth having one on hand just to proceed with caution, but it's actually worth trying just to see what the effects are.

David:  Yeah. It's like you want a little bit of fireball bourbon in your liquor cabinet every once in a while, right?

Ben:  Exactly, exactly. That reminds me. I need to up my stock on that. I think the last time that I use Nose Tork was I told someone that it was like a lavender sleeping substance that would help him get to sleep and just told him to lay back, lay down, it's okay. So, on three, I want you to just take a giant breath in through your nose. They're like one, two, three. Oh my gosh, they hated me for months. The person is listening, person who I did that to. I think he's listening to this podcast so I'm sure he knows who he is and he's hating me all over again.

David:  It's a cool jazz.

Ben:  Well, not to be too trite in addressing NDEs and near-death experiences, but speaking of smelling salts and bring people back from the dead, I'm very curious about your NDE because you've alluded to it a couple of times. Before we get into that, by the way, you guys, I'll link to David's FLO50 products, or his FLO2 product.

So, that being said, Mr. Snake Oil Salesman, now we've established.

David:  That's it, man. I'm huffing, I'm huffing and I'm puffing.

Ben:  Tell me about the near-death experience.

David:  So, bro, well, just to give you some back story. Two years prior to the experience, I did my first ayahuasca session. And at the end of the session, I actually had the entire health scenario scare near-death experience, heart tumor, the whole thing, I had the vision of a two years before. And what's really bizarre is the shaman at the end–and Adam was actually at that ceremony. At the end of that ceremony, the shaman carved from ayahuasca vine a talisman. He would give someone a little momento, and he picked a heart for me, which was incredible because two years later, I was diagnosed with an atrial myxoma after I was admitted to the hospital with respiratory arrest through pulmonary embolism, and then intubated for five days.

And while I was in the netherworld for five days, I saw myself above myself as disembodied consciousness. I jumped back in my body and it just so happened to be that on my birthday, I came back to this plane of existence. Yeah, it's very–I could tell you this with the outmost certainty because I have witnesses that the reality that we live in and that we play in with altered states and we go into this visionary, imaginary world of wherever we go in our brain, if it's the limbic system, the reptilian brain, neocortex, I don't know, but we are tapped into something greater that is far more astonishing than we could ever imagine.

And the evidence of this time and space continuum being out of–I guess at certain points, you can get the aroma that this linear existence, this way of accounting for time doesn't exist because I jumped back, I jumped forward. My phone the day that I came out of that coma turned on by itself. My girlfriend and my sister who's an oncology nurse was there in the room. The phone turned on. It started operating by itself. I thought it was malfunctioning. I told my girlfriend it was plugged into the wall charging. I told her to turn it off. It turned back on again. It had the fingerprint encryption safety. It opened up by itself, boom, sort of operating again, going through text messages like crazy. I told her, “Just unplug the phone. It must be malfunctioning.”

And this is like within an hour of me being revived. I actually extubated myself, if anyone knows what that's like. You've got this huge plastic thing attached to your face with a lot of force holding this intubation tube. At the bottom of the tube, there's like a, between a baseball and softball size, inflatable device that's at the end of the intubation tube to secure the tube. Apparently, I had perfect technique in extubating myself at 3:00 a.m. on my birthday because I just ripped the thing off my face and out. The doctor said I could have torn out my vocal cords. But three hours after waking up, shortly after, I see this phenomenon with my phone turning on and off, and then all of a sudden, finally, I'm just like my sister and my girlfriend, like, “What's going on?” The thing turns on and it goes into pictures, it goes into texts. I had all these text populating because my phone resolved. So, I had all these text messages coming in from people that had heard that I was in the hospital. I was in the netherworld for five days.

So, the first few texts are coming through. And then, one text comes through, it's my sister who lives in Arkansas. Her husband is a neurologist. She sends a picture of my grandmother's rosary. It zooms in real quick, and then it goes right on Christ, and then it does this function I've never seen iPhone do it, kind of bordered the picture with the flashing black and white frame, and it was just flashing. And it was doing this all by itself. No one was touching the phone. And it was doing it with such precision in such speed that it was like someone was remotely accessing my phone. And then, it zooms out of that picture and it zooms in to the pictures when I was intubated, and unconscious, and in a coma, and it just zoomed in on my picture and did the same thing. It zoomed in on my face while I was out, and then it flashed–

Ben:  Your phone did?

David:  My phone did by itself, yeah. I've got two witnesses that were in the room that watched the whole thing happen.

Ben:  What's your explanation for why you think something like that would have happened?

David:  My explanation is that of course I can't prove it. The absence of evidence is the evidence of absence. I can only state with certainty that I did witness this thing, and I can say that there are forces at work that are beyond our brain's ability to access and interpret. And those forces, as much as I was raised a Catholic and a Christian, and then I straight away from that getting into college in my academic life and my social life, and trying to create peace, and purge, and cleave the dogma from my thinking, I've completely turned back to my Christian foundations. Not that I was never not a Christian, but it was just I'm more a believer and an understander of the Orthodox mechanisms that have allowed Christianity to exist 2,000 years after it was created.

Ben:  Is this because of seeing something that made you believe that God existed during that NDE? Was it an actual conversation that you had while you were in that state? What would you say pushed you over the edge to that extent? I've never doubted God's existence. I've only, at certain points in my life where I feel like my choices have led me down a road where I felt abandoned by God, I've always asked for, “Give me guidance. Let me know that you're here. I can't handle this anymore. I'm cashed out. I'm done. I don't want to be here anymore. I don't know if I can pick myself up.”

I'll give an example. It's like after this occurred and I saw these kind of things happen to my phone, immediately walks in the cardiologist and says, “Wow, it's by my bedside.” But mind you, I'm three hours out of a five-day coma and he says, “Look, we've discovered why you had a pulmonary embolism. We did an MRI of your heart. We found an atrial myxoma, which is a benign tumor.” That's good. It's benign. “But it's about,” gave me the measurements, “it's about the size of the tip of your pinky.”

Ben:  Yeah. And those are very rare, like a cardiac tumor is pretty rare.

David:  Very rare. Yeah, tumors don't form on cardiac tissue, on smooth muscle. But in this particular case, he tells me, “You know, we're going to need to do open heart surgery.” And I'm like, “Wait a second. I'm supposed to be in Boise, Idaho tomorrow filming bodybuilding.com's $25,000 body transformation challenge, blah, blah, blah.” I had not even realized that I was out for five days yet. Actually, my sister and my girlfriend had a cruel joke that they were going to put like, “Happy 2025. You made it.” Like, “Surprise, you woke up. It's 10 years later.” He tells me we're going to have to do operation. I'm like, “Everything I have is all in on fitness.” And I went through this divorce and I was at a crossroads in my life before. And I said, “Maybe what I'm doing is not the best life for me.”

Actually, I had a Surfers Bible, which was what I was married with. That Bible fell on the floor out of a box that I was using to unpack my new life in my unfurnished apartment without the custody of my kids, and that Bible fell down face down, but opened to a page. And when I picked that book up and I read it, it said that, “Rabbi, we are laying hands on the sick, and that some unclean spirits are not able to be cured.” And Christ said, “Well, only through fasting can this unclean spirit be removed.” And so, that was my pursuit into intermittent fasting, which my first road down the fasting highway was a five-day water fast, and it changed my life. Absolutely changed my life in such a radical way.

Ben:  Really? So, you hadn't fasted much at that point?

David:  Nope. This was two thousand and–my divorce was 2010. My pulmonary embolism was 2015. So, anyway, the doc says, “Hey, we're going to have to open you up. We're going to have to take this tumor out, blah, blah, blah.” It's like, “The hell you are, you're not doing anything.” Well, my phone starts acting up again. It starts dialing an old client of mine, and by this time, the phone has my complete attention. It dials this woman named Barbara, who used to be a client three years ago, who just so happened to be dating a cardiologist for a week. That same week I was in the hospital, Barbara had just started. And my phone knew to call Barbara. Well, I texted Barbara. I said, “Hey, I'm in the hospital.” She said, “I know you're in the hospital. I've been meaning to get ahold of you. My husband is Dean Roller. He's a cardiologist in Florida. I called Dean. He said, “Send over the MRI. I'll tell you if you need to get the operation now.” So, he said, “No, I don't think you need the operation now. It's not critical. I think you need to recover and I think you need to be on anticoagulants and we can do some more testing and observe from here.”

So, my whole life would have changed from there if they had done an open heart surgery. Everything I've worked for in fitness would have ended right there. I was in the other world. All I can tell you is that when I came back, I was definitely reborn. My sight was different. My hearing was different. My girlfriend who had never prayed ever in–

Ben:  After the near-death experience, not after the fast?

David:  Correct, correct. After the near-death experience. My girlfriend, who was terrified when they gave her the prognosis after the third day I was under, they said that sepsis was there. They had two [01:13:42] _____ kidney dialysis. I had seven different IVs in me. I had a catheter in me. I had this long electrode that they actually inserted under my right pec that was right onto my heart to monitor my heart. I was just erect. And she never prayed during our relationship, and then all this–I don't want this to be about some big Bible session. I'm not an advocate of pushing my beliefs on anybody else. All I can do is report what happened to me.

Ben:  That's okay. I am.

David:  Yeah. Good. Okay, cool. So, boom, I wake up. The second I wake up, but she's there by my side. I had gotten her a necklace from Brazil, which was the Christ. And this necklace was one of those necklace that you leave it on your neck until it breaks up. And she said that she had prayed for the first time since she was a child when the doctors told her that I had a 50/50 prognosis. And she started praying, and then when she opened her eyes, the necklace was on her arm. And she started crying and she just got super emotional. So, she told me that story. From there, I dodged the bullet with the open heart surgery because of course these young doctors, I mean, they are so bright and so eager to test their knowledge and the new technology that they have in these cardiac wards. And of course, they got a ton of student debts they need to get off their chest.

So, fortunately, man, I dodged the bullet. Just like any other normal day, I didn't know that I had a heart condition. I didn't know I had an atrial myxoma. I was a kid who grew up with a heart murmur. They didn't have the diagnostics, so I never had gotten, I guess, a thorough check-up enough to get any imagery or any MRI scans to look that close at my heart. But they said I had a staph infection that ultimately led to a walking pneumonia, which cascaded to a blood clot being released from that tumor into my lungs. And then, I had respiratory arrest, and then was intubated, and then barely got out with my life, you know.

Ben:  Wow.

David:  Yeah.

Ben:  Wow. And you did that fast afterwards and found that that had an impact on the tumor itself?

David:  You know, I have been talking to different physicians. I guess I was considering doing stem cells. And then, when I read that, that tissue could grow because of introduction of stem cells. I have to get you some–there's different herbs that have been used in certain cases that have illuminated the atrial myxomas. And right now, I'm on Nattokinase, I'm on natural anticoagulants because I can't take warfarin or all those things. Those things are poisonous. I mean, they may save some people's lives, but I'm fully functional and I've had no critical incidents since then. So, I've just done my research and I take ginkgo, take Nattokinase, I take turmeric. All of them mess with blood platelet formation and thin the blood enough to–

Ben:  Yeah. Of course for me as a Christian who believes in a magical God fairy in the sky made everything we live on in a span of six days, I do not discount even things like material miracles, the movement of necklaces, the ability of cell phones to somehow respond to some kind of a spiritual dimension or something going on from that standpoint. But whenever I have these conversations, it just–when I have these conversations or when I do some kind of a plant medicine experience that takes me into a whole different dimension that I know is more than just serotonin and dopamine playing around in my head, or DMT getting dumped from my pineal gland. And especially when I see these type of things that happen almost from a serendipity standpoint afterwards.

I am a believer in a lot of this stuff, but I just find a lot of it so fascinating. Do you have books that you recommend or certain resources for people who would want to learn more about near-death experiences or explanation of some of the phenomenon that you experienced?

David:  Well, “The Spirit Molecule” obviously is a great book to start. I mean, that'll let you know this from scientific perspective the mechanisms of the death experience of what's going on in the brain.

Ben:  The new Pixar movie “Soul.”

David:  Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a–

Ben:  Actually, I don't watch movies, but I watched that. That's a fantastic movie. If anybody is not seeing that, you don't need to have kids to watch it. It's wonderful. It will inspire you to be more mindful, to appreciate life more. I thought that movie was great.

David:  Well, the more you go down this whole rabbit hole of investigating every bit of the substance from which we're constituted, it's kind of like why isn't it plausible to think that, like you said, that there's some magical force that just created this gigantic ball of burning gas that's sustaining everything, and that this invisible force called gravity? It's kind of like, look, I can say that I know Los Angeles, but I really don't. People can say that they know psychedelics or psychedelic experience. That's like saying that you have a phonebook and you can know Los Angeles by opening up the Yellow Pages of Los Angeles or the white pages and looking at people's phone numbers and their names.

We don't know anything. I mean, at least I don't. I don't know anything. And anytime I'm in those situations where I claim that I do, I'm dumped on my head and I'm left scratching, going, “We do live in a vibrant mystery, a miracle that just continues to astonish you if you can do the due diligence of peeling back the layers of discovery through yourself and through this amazing, majestic, miraculous world that we dwell in.” Anything that your listeners or anybody out there that wants to just find more about this, I mean, there's tons of documentaries, but I didn't go to the other side and find some vision of hell, thankfully, fortunately. I didn't come back with some lessons, but what I did come back with is very palatable feeling of I made it because of my willpower.

There's lessons in the esoteric spiritual world of Buddhism and Daoism, and even Christianity, agnostic type and stuff, is that your willpower, not to train or to get in shape or your intellectual endeavors, all of these things you want to achieve in your life is like it's a muscle, it's a willpower. And your freewill, especially in today's world in the United States, your freewill is being questioned of its own validity in its own existence, your own sovereignty, your ability to choose your path by doing the reps. And I think that just doing the reps every day allowed my soul to find my body. There's a serious neuromuscular connection, and I think I've done enough to establish the angiogenesis, if you will. The blood capillaries are fully dilated and they routed into this body, and I don't think they're going anywhere for anytime soon. So, I think that's what I learned this at. The work that I did really–I got strong roots, man, you know?

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. That's a good perspective, too, on just doing the work that is to be done every day, chopping wood, carrying water. There's a great book by the same name, and I'm actually working on an article about this idea right now of simply waking up each day, doing as extraordinary a job as you can with whatever God has put on your plate for the day, and then sitting back and enjoying the success that goes along with that, doing everything in a spirit of loving God and loving other people in an unselfish mindset. You do that and the success will follow. And obviously, success may come in the form of an essential oil blend that you can huff and puff. It may come in the form of a slide-based fitness product like you created, David.

Anything else? I know I've been writing down a ton of stuff during this entire discussion that I'll link to at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/flo, slash F-L-O. I wish we had more time to just–I mean, we could geek out on near-death experience. I feel like we almost barely scratched the surface of exploring everything that happened during that experience, but I'm hoping–and this is my goal with a lot of these shows that we at least got people thinking a little bit about things like the afterlife, about things like spiritual phenomenology and phenomenons that can occur here on the Earth dimension. And also, a little bit of respiratory physiology and some other fun stuff thrown into the mix.

So, David, this is fascinating. I'm going to link to a lot of the articles you've written on respiratory physiology and fat loss, everything we talked about from bee products to Patrick McKeown's book, to the Nose Tork stuff, and then the FLO50 or the FLO2, your product. I'll link to all that at the shownotes at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/flo. Again, I feel like–and I hate it when people say it's on the podcast because I feel like it's an oft-used phrase, but I feel like we could have talked forever, man.

David:  Yeah, 100%. And I want your listeners to really understand the type of person that I perceive you to be. You're an inspiration to me, brother. Your diligence and your continued effort to be with the true spirit, the true pioneer spirit, to deliver this information and test this information in real time instead of waiting for scientific establishment to say yes or no. You are participating in an amazing scientific experiment every day and I know that I appreciate what you do. If you don't hear it enough, you're the man, brother, and I really appreciate your time.

Ben:  Oh, thanks, man. That means a lot coming from a successful guy like you. So, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Appreciate Adam having introduced us. I'll link to the podcast that I record with Adam if you guys didn't hear that. It's really fantastic. And at some point, I'll have to make it down there to Miami to hang with you guys because I hear that Florida is the place to be at right now during the time we're recording this, during the whole pandemic. I could use a little sunshine and fish. So, you guys might see me sooner rather than later.

David:  Anytime. Mi casa es su casa, brother.

Ben:  Alright. Well, we'll have a little party down there. Alright. Well, folks, until next time. I'm Ben Greenfield along with David Morin signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com. Shownotes are at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/F-L-O. Have an amazing week.

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.

 

 

In the past, I've discussed the link between respiration and body fat in articles such as “The 2 Best Ways To Burn Fat Fast (Without Destroying Your Hormones Or Metabolism)” and on the podcast “16 Reasons You’re Not Burning Fat (& How To Lose Weight The Right Way).”

But my friend and former podcast guest Adam Wenguer recently introduced me to a guy who has thoroughly studied the link between breath and fat loss, and he has some very interesting insights on the matter as well as some potent fat loss tips you may find quite handy. His name is David Morin.

David is a German-born American fitness trainer, model, corporate wellness speaker, and entrepreneur. An accredited strength and conditioning trainer and coach with 16 years of experience, David's clients include everyone from folks in the U.S. Special Forces to NBA stars like Allen Iverson. His skill set continues to evolve through various modalities rooted in movement, martial arts, Chi Kung, mediation, biofeedback, free-weight training, HIIT, and advanced biohacking techniques.

He has appeared on more than 30 fitness magazine covers, including Muscle & Fitness, FitnessRX, Men’s Health, and Ironman magazine. For over 10 years and in 15 countries, David has been featured over 100 times as an editorial contributor and instructional fitness model for print media. Not to mention, he has hosted a number of successful fitness product infomercials. David joined “A-list celebrity” Rebel Wilson for a six-page editorial inside Glamour Magazine recently and can be found in advertisements on the internet and in print and billboards around the world representing his supplement partner Dymatize. David can also be seen in the documentary The Perfect Physique as well as working on director Micheal Bay's film “Pain & Gain” with The Rock and Mark Wahlberg.

As a father of four who likes to stay active, David took matters into his own hands to create an effective, efficient at-home training regime called Lynx Fitness. As a corporate wellness speaker for clients such as Bank United and Post Holdings, David covers nutritional topics, practical guides to better health, DNA-test-specific nutrient selection, and behavioral pattern course correction towards higher productivity and health.

Finally, David created FLO2 essential oils for “sniffing” pre-workout, and I have to admit, since David sent me some after this podcast and I began to use them, they are now my preferred alternative to full-on “smelling salts” for hard workouts. I recommend you try them for yourself. You can click here to get FLO2, and use code BENFLO to save 25%.

During this discussion, you'll discover:

-David's morning routine and rituals…7:15

• No alarm clock; natural light wakes him up
• Mobility, joint health exercises
  • Make use of your environment; adapting your fitness routine to that of your environment
  • Sandbags, aquatic resistance training
  • Grounding
• Hydrorevolution water-based resistance training equipment
• Bee products are great for B vitamins, zinc, magnesium, etc.
  • Beekeepers Naturals(use code BEN to save 15%)
  • Honey, Propolis, and Royal Jelly: A Comprehensive Review of Their Biological Actions and Health Benefits
• Nourishmentby Fred Provenza
• Introduce children to bitter foods (pollen for example)
• Triphala

-Mid-day routines and favorite biohacks for both David and Ben…19:30

• Lynx Fitness
• com
• Block external noise with headphonesto tune in to heartbeat, inner movements of the body
• Writing a book “The Divorced Man's Guide to Reinventing Yourself” that should be out in summer 2021
• Work 2 hours on, 30 minutes off in any particular place; move to another location after that time is up
• Work on one muscle group for 15 minutes consecutively
• Isometrics, Tabata sets
• Binaural beats
• Element Health CBD(15% discount automatically applied at checkout)
• Passionflower(use code BEN to save 10%)
• Living in a coastal area, eating fish and shellfish, playing in the sand is great for the health
• Joovv panels
• Ra Optics blue-light-blocking glasses(10% discount automatically applied at checkout)
• Apollo wearable
  • A Whole New Way To Deal With Stress, Trauma & PTSD In Just Seconds: The First Clinically Validated Wearable That Helps You De-Stress, Focus, Sleep, Stay Energized & Remain Calm With Dr. David Rabin of Apollo Neuroscience.
• Lavender essential oil(use code BEN to save 10%)
• Sleepstream app
• Nucalmdevice

-Why sunlight is so important and so undervalued…32:45

• David has psoriasis and has lived all over due to military background (father)
• Moving to Miami where there's lots of sunshine helped with psoriasis greatly
• Everything has a certain light characteristic (food for example)

-Where fat goes when you lose weight, and why it matters…40:20

• The Mathematics of Fat Loss– TEDTalk by Rubin Meerman
• 80% of fat is excreted via respiration (your breath)
• The idea that fat gets converted into energy violates the conservation of mass principle
• Majority of fatty acids being oxidized are exhaled as CO2 (lungs are the primary excretory organ of fat)
• Using breathing correctlyis the most important element
• Oxygen Advantageby Patrick McKeown
• Hold breath on the inhale while exercising
  • Hypoxia
  • Immune function regulation
  • Clear lactic acid
  • Feel a sense of euphoria (norepinephrine)
• Holotropic breathwork
• Why we can't just hyperventilate all-day
  • Increase in nitric oxide
  • Fat is burned as resting metabolic rate rises post-workout
  • Non-exercise activity thermogenesis
• Around 65% of Americans experience compromised respiration
• Use breath to bring about awareness of your physiology, not just to lose weight

-About the blend of essential oils David sells to clear the respiratory system…53:30

• FLO2
  • Blend of jasmine oil, wintergreen, camphor, menthol, rosemary
• Sanitize, nebulize, exercise
• Essential Oil Wizardry
  • BGF podcasts with Nick Berry:
    • The Wizard Of Essential Oils Strikes Again: The Hidden & Magical World Of Little-Known Plant Extracts For Digestion, Relaxation, Libido, Immunity & Much More!
    • Psychoactive Sleep Edibles, Essential Oil Wizardry, Cosmic Orgasms & More With Dr. Nick Berry
  • Colloidal silver sprayfor sinus infections
  • The Crazy Future Of Medical Biohacking: Skull Resets, Suppositories, Nasal Sprays, Nebulizers, Sound Therapy & More With Dr. John Lieurance.
  • ZEN Nasal Spray
  • Nose Tork

-David's near-death experience…1:02:00

• First ayahuasca sessiontwo years prior, had a vision of the experience
• Shaman carved from the ayahuasca vine a heart
• We are tapped into something far more astonishing than anything we could imagine
• The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence
• Became more committed in his Christian faith and respectful of orthodoxy as a result
• Open heart surgery needed
• 5-day water fast changed his life in 2015
• Nattokinase
• Turmeric
• Ginkgo Biloba

-Resources to learn more about near-death experiences, supernatural events, etc…1:16:35

• The Spirit Molecule
• SoulPixar movie
• “I made it because of my willpower”
• Chop Wood, Carry Waterby Joshua Medcalf

Resources from this episode: 

– David Morin:

• FLO2(use code BENFLO to save 25%)
• Lynx Fitness
• David's Instagram
• David's Facebook page

– Podcasts:

• A Whole New Way To Deal With Stress, Trauma & PTSD In Just Seconds: The First Clinically Validated Wearable That Helps You De-Stress, Focus, Sleep, Stay Energized & Remain Calm With Dr. David Rabin
• The Wizard Of Essential Oils Strikes Again: The Hidden & Magical World Of Little-Known Plant Extracts For Digestion, Relaxation, Libido, Immunity & Much More! With Dr. Nick Berry
• Psychoactive Sleep Edibles, Essential Oil Wizardry, Cosmic Orgasms & More With Dr. Nick Berry
• The Crazy Future Of Medical Biohacking: Skull Resets, Suppositories, Nasal Sprays, Nebulizers, Sound Therapy & More With Dr. John Lieurance.
• Ayahuasca 101, Tripping Out On Nutmeg, Magic Mushrooms & More With Dennis McKenna.

– Books:

• Nourishmentby Fred Provenza
• Oxygen Advantageby Patrick McKeown
• Chop Wood, Carry Waterby Joshua Medcalf

– Supplements:

• Vitamin B
• Zinc
• Magnesium
• Beekeepers Naturals(use code BEN to save 15%)
• Triphalapowder
• Element Health CBD(15% discount automatically applied at checkout)
• ZEN Nasal Spray(use code BEN to save 5%)
• Nose Tork
• Nattokinase
• Turmeric
• Ginkgo Biloba

– Gear:

• Sandbags
• Hydrorevolution Water Resistance Training Equipment
• Grounding
• Joovv Red Light Therapy
• Ra Optics Blue-light-blocking Glasses(10% discount automatically applied at checkout)
• Apollo Wearable
• Nucalm
• Noise-canceling Headphones

– Essential Oils:

• Passionflower Tincture(use code BEN to save 10%)
• Lavender(use code BEN to save 10%)
• Essential Oil Wizardry(use code BEN to save 10%)

– Videos & Movies:

• Bloodsport
• Soul
• The Spirit Molecule
• The Mathematics of Fat Loss TED Talk

– Other Resources:

• Honey, Propolis, and Royal Jelly: A Comprehensive Review of Their Biological Actions and Health Benefits
• Breathe In, Breathe Fat Out
• Fat ‘breathed out' of body via lungs, say scientists
• Where Does Body Fat Go When You Lose Weight?
• This Is Where Body Fat Actually Goes When You Lose Weight
• When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?
• Sleepstream app

Episode sponsors:

–Kion Immune: Kion Immune is a blend of two of the most-studied, clinically-proven nutrients for immune health: Vitamin C and Zinc. It may sound simple, but the truth is these two nutrients are essential when it comes to the immune system functioning properly. BGF listeners, receive a 10% discount off your order when you use discount code BEN10.

–Paleovalley Organ Complex: Contains not one but three organs from healthy, grass-fed, pasture-raised cows so you are getting a more diverse array of nutrients. Receive a 10% discount on your order when you use discount code BENGREENFIELD10.

–Joovv: After using the Joovv for close to 2 years, it's the only light therapy device I'd ever recommend. Give it a try: you won't be disappointed. For a limited time, Joovv wants to hook you up with an exclusive discount on your first order. Just apply code BEN to your qualifying order. 

–Kin Euphorics: Kin Euphorics are stacked with the good stuff and none of the bad: think adaptogenic herbs and mushrooms, that help curb stress in the moment and over time. As well as nootropics that support cognitive function i.e., clarity, memory, creativity.