391: How Skinny Guys Can Get Big Muscles, Is There Really No Such Thing As Too Much Exercise?, Is G

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, How Skinny Guys Can Get Big Muscles. Is there really no such thing as too much exercise? Is GHB safe as a party drug? And much more.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

Power.

Speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movement. Get out there. When you look at all the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy.

All the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Well, hey there, Ben. How are you doing? I'm having a hell of a morning so far, but how about you?

A hell of a morning.

Yeah.

What's a hell of a morning?

A good one. I, I had a good sleep, I went out for a good run, I had a good breakfast. Have a big cup of coffee in front of me. Everything is going beautifully.

That's a lot of good. It's a lot of good. Well, for me. Do you want the good news or the bad news?

Oh, no, let's go with bad.

All right. So the bad news is I almost killed myself in the sauna. Or at least almost put out an eye. I had a bright idea to drag an infrared light panel into my sauna. Yeah. So I have a, I think I bought it from sauna space. I think it's like 4250 watt near infrared bulbs that I have screwed into. Almost like a chandelier like device that holds all four bulbs at once. And you flip it on and of course all four bulbs turn on. So if I bring that into my infrared sauna in the morning, I can make my infrared sauna hotter and also add a whole bunch of near infrared. And I thought I was a smart cookie. Doing that sounds good, but the problem is that, yeah, it sounds smart. Sounds like something a smart person would do. Anyways though, so I got about halfway through my sauna session, I guess maybe about 20 minutes in, and the, the, the lights, I think I was in a down dog position and one of those 250 watt light bulbs exploded and sent glass shards flying all over the sauna. There's literally one little glass shard actually stuck in the wood. The rest is scattered across the floor. And somehow, God is good because somehow I did not get hit by a single shard of glass in there in the sauna. And I mean it was like an explosion. Like put out an eye explosion. So that's. I guess I was going to say that's the bad news, but really, I guess that's the good news is I didn't die in my sauna or become blinded by an exploding near infrared light bulb.

Yes, that is good news coupled with bad news of I guess you won't be trying that again. Do you think it was a heat thing? Did it just get too hot?

Yeah, it was a heat thing. It wasn't a failure of the bulbs or this device I got from sauna space or anything like that. It was just me doing a dumb thing. So anyways, don't do that, people.

All right.

The other thing is, the good news is I've got a new smoothie. A new smoothie. We're all about smoothies here on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show. Because who doesn't want to avoid cooking and instead just dump a bunch of stuff in a blender and see what happens?

I just like to outsource my chewing. I'm tired of chewing. It's a pain in the butt. I'm that lazy. Screw chewing.

That's true.

Smoothie.

Every day they should just start to call the Vitamix and the Blendtec the mommy birds, because that's really all they're doing, chewing up your food for you. And they're not quite vomiting it into your mouth, but you could rig something up very, very close. Yeah, they could probably rig up some kind of vomiting device to those things anyways, though we, we are all about that. Well, I guess some people call it biohacking. I don't call putting butter in your coffee or putting superfoods into a smoothie biohacking. I call it cooking. And I call it barely cooking. Because really, as you've just alluded to Brock the machines doing most of the work anyways. We digress. So what I did was I researched every ingredient that targeted things like mitochondrial density and the health of the mitochondrial membrane and hormesis, like hormetic pathways that induce cellular resilience, anti inflammation, increased production of your own endogenous stem cells and collagen, the pathways for nad. You know, a lot of people are getting this anti aging molecule nad injected, but you can take certain things that increase your own endogenous bioavailability. There's a lot of things in the anti aging community that are called sirtuin activators or stacks. You know, like blueberry and dark chocolate and red wine and so. Or more specifically like grape skin extract, not red Wine, particularly just the. The grape skin in the red wine. And anyways, what I figured was, why not take all these ingredients and make them into a smoothie? So what I did was I created this massive list on Amazon of everything like moringa and aloe vera powder and turmeric and cacao and wild strawberry powder, organic blueber berry powder, glutamine, the four sigmatic ten mushroom blend, even desiccated liver extract and coffee berry fruit, everything I've ever talked about for enhancing longevity. And I made an Amazon list. I turned it all into a smoothie. And you just basically take one or two teaspoons of each of these compounds, you put them in a smoothie. And what I did was I put it all over ice with a little bit of stevia. And I used bone broth because I like bone broth for the added collagen and gelatin benefits. And my stomach just feels really good when I use bone broth. Although I suppose you could for creamier texture, use something like coconut milk. Blended it all up, drank it, and it actually did not taste like as I expected it to. And as I'm prone to say, ass, it actually didn't taste too bad. I topped it with some cacao nibs and some spirulina. And better yet, I turned this thing. You know, you can make a list on Amazon.

No, I was actually wondering about that when you said you made a list on Amazon.

Yeah, you can make a list like, I've got a list of like the books that I bought my boys that were going through between now and when they're 13. And they do their. They're gonna do a vision quest or Rite of Passage when they're. When they're 13. And so I have all the books that I'm going through with them leading up to that. But the smoothie, I've also got a list of all. So if people want to actually use those books or use that smoothie, they can actually just go to my Amazon list. So I will put this in the show notes. The show notes are gonna be at BenGreenfieldFitness.com $3.91. Or if you just want to skip the show notes. And I'll put this right at the top of the show notes. You can also go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com AntiagingSmoothie because I figured I was just going to put this all on Amazon. You can just buy it all these ingredients, put them in your pantry and make the exact smoothie I did. I've even got comments on there about how much of this and how much of that to put in. So isn't that cool? Isn't that good news?

You can go to Amazon and I don't have to click on every single link. I can just say I want to buy all this list and it's like that easy.

Yeah.

I don't want to turn this into an Amazon commercial. That totally sounded like they're paying for this, but I'm just curious.

Yeah, that's it. You could turn it in an Amazon commercial. I don't care. They bought Whole Foods. They're wonderful. Now I save money at Whole Foods.

They are the.

They're a big, wonderful, corporate, richest giant.

Company in the world for a reason.

They're not as wonderful as, as Monsanto, but they're wonderful.

So, yeah, I'm confused.

News flashes.

Well, first of all, Brock, before I proceed, I was joking about Monsanto. They're evil. I just recorded a podcast about Monsanto and it's pretty bad. I'll release the podcast. I think actually believe that podcast might even come out this Saturday in a couple of days. It's pretty shocking what they're doing now.

Monsanto, yeah, they got very focused on profits and kind of forgot about the humans, I think.

Yeah, I'm not even going to open that can of worms, honestly, because, because I talk about it on, on the podcast. I don't want to get derailed. But this is really interesting. So this is part of the show, of course, where we talk about all the kind of cool news flashes that came out in Fitbit. God bless them. Fitbit. Even though I'm not a fan of Fitbit, I, I don't wear it. I, I like the, as you know, the, the aura ring better. It just tracks more and tracks more and more accurately.

And you look like you're in the mafia because you've got a pinky ring.

Not anymore. I've got on my ring finger now and it's smaller. The new. What do they call it? The Generation 2 Aura. It's smaller. So.

So now you just look like a engineering student, huh?

Yeah, pretty graduate. That, my, that my pocket protector. Anyways, quit derailing me.

Sorry.

So anyways, Fitbit just released about 150 billion hours of their heart tracking data and heart tracking data from just any wearable. It's not rocket science to make it actually log your resting heart rate accurately. So that's what Fitbit does. That's what all these, these tracking devices, you know, from the Apple watch to the Oura ring, usually to Track resting heart rate. There's not a lot of rocket science. You just track heart rate. You know, unlike sleep data and plasmography data and heart rate variability data, all that, you know, it kind of depends on the technology built into. But Fitbit has done a good job collecting all of this heart data and they've released all this information. And there's this fascinating article that appeared on Yahoo. About what they found based on resting heart rate. So, for example, we know that according to something called the Copenhagen Heart Study, that you're twice as likely to die from heart problems if your resting heart rate is approaching 80 compared with anyone whose resting heart rate is below 50. And they actually backed that up with this Fitbit data. They confirmed this data that shows increased risk of cardiovascular disease in people who have a higher resting heart rate. But then they went in and because they have so much data, so much big data, because so many freaking people are wearing a Fitbit now, they found a lot of other interesting things. Like women tend to have higher resting heart rates than men. And it's not because women are going to die of cardiovascular disease earlier. It's because they tend to be smaller. You know, it's the same reason that a hummingbird's heart beats a ton. You know, their heart is smaller, so their stroke volume is lower. So the heart needs to work harder to make sure the blood circulates and gets all the vital organs. So some of the other interesting things that they found, though, was that a huge number of the population seemed to experience a steep drop in the heart rate after middle age. And what they attributed that to is because over 30% of adults in the US have hypertension. Most of those people are on beta blockers and calcium channel blockers, which are essentially blood pressure medications. So they're saying that one of the big reasons that we're seeing this drop in heart rate is not because people are getting healthier or fitter as they approach middle age and beyond. It's because so many people are getting on medications that artificially lower the heart rate.

That ain't good.

That was. I know. That was one interesting thing. Another one was that they found that when it comes to the actual effect of exercise, and I actually want to get into another study study here in a moment. They found that exercise is, of course, good at lowering your resting heart rate. You know, a lot of people say, well, you know, they. They think of the heart like a battery, right? You've got X number of beats in the heart and then it's done with. So why the heck would you exercise and use up, you know, all of your heart's contractions with frequent exercise? Well, the answer to that is that, you know, a brief exercise session of, let's say 45 minutes a day lowers your resting heart rate for the rest of your life for the other 23 hours and 15 minutes. So ultimately you see more benefits when you exercise in the heart rate than when you don't. But what they did find was that there was not a change in the resting heart rate once you exceeded about 250 minutes of exercise per week. The American Heart association recommends 150 minutes. But there was a law of diminishing returns, meaning there wasn't a drop in heart rate that occurred once people got after about 250 minutes a week. And I didn't even do the math. We could probably do quick math on this. How many hours of that would be per day? I know we've tried math on the podcast before.

It never goes well.

Worked out too well. I believe that comes out to about 80 minutes a day though. That seems around in that range. So you know, 80, 90 minutes a day, you really don't see an increased benefit at that point. And that kind of backs up what we know from mortality data, that once you exceed about 60 minutes of intense exercise and once you exceed about 90 minutes of aerobic exercise, like marathoning or swimming or cycling or running or something like that, you actually see a slight increased risk of mortality because of an increase in arterial stiffness and you don't actually see a decreased risk of mortality. And Fitbit just back this up by showing that it also doesn't seem to make an impact on your resting heart rate.

If anything though, one thing I should throw in there as we're kind of going down this road of talking about how good a low resting heart rate is, is that from an over training standpoint, like for elite athletes? Sometimes you'll see elite athletes develop what's called bradycardia. You know, like Lance Armstrong with his heart rate of. What was it, do you remember? 34.

Yeah, it was like the low 30s.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's yours at?

Mid 40s.

Okay. Yeah. And mine? Mine tends to be depends. When I'm in the middle of race season, I'm doing a lot of, of, you know, blood volume and heart rate work. I'll tend to be like upper 30s. But ultimately if you see a steep drop in your resting heart rate over the course of several days, like a drop that's more than three beats below what you normally Are that can often indicate overtraining. Yeah, you know, heart rate variability is a better metric. But yeah, it's very interesting how there are certain populations for whom a low resting heart rate, especially a low resting heart rate that seems to occur just drastically, all of a sudden over the course of a week that can indicate impending illness or injury. So another caveat we should throw in there a couple of other things that they found from this article. And I'm only touching on just brief amount of the data if you really want to go see this. Yeah, it's really good. So they found that, for example, there was a scorecard they developed that was based off of life events plotted against heart rate data. That was fascinating. Like there were certain amount like the person had. And this, this was an n equals 1. But they tracked their heart rate based on life events, like when they went on vacation, when they started using a treadmill, when the school year ended, when the school year began, when spring break be vacation began. So the steepest rises in resting heart rate, and this is relevant at the time that this podcast is coming out, were Thanksgiving, Christmas, running a Kickstarter campaign, the kids graduation, a family reunion, and kidney stone passing a kidney stone. All of those resulted in a steep rise in the heart rate, indicating some kind of stress or some kind of intense, intense foray out of one's comfort zone. Whereas the lower heart rates occur during vacation, spring break and the end of the school year and the time when someone began using a treadmill. So there you have it.

Makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, finally.

What country scientists to figure that out?

No, what country do you think had the lowest resting heart rate?

I mean, I guess like a Scandinavian country, like Denmark.

Yeah, Sweden was pretty low. So the. The highest was India. For average resting heart rate, they're close to. They're actually almost close to 70 for average resting heart rate, the lowest was a place where we find a lot of these longevity hotspots and it was Japan. No, Italy.

Damn.

Yeah, Japan was like middle of the road. Japan is almost equivalent to the US about 64. But Italy was very low. Another one was another blue zone, Costa Rica, very low. But when I say very low, it's still kind of rel. Like very low is like 61 for Italy, which in my opinion for resting heart rate is, you know, I like to see people with good cardiovascular fitness, you know, closer, like you know, 50 to 60 or lower, as we've alluded to. But anyways, we could go on and on about this study, but ultimately I'll link to it in the show, notes for all of Fitbit's 150 billion hours of heart data that they unveiled over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 391. Now, of course, very relevant to this is this brand new study that came out this week, and here's what the headline said. Did you see this one, Brock?

I did, yeah. Go ahead.

Okay. No such thing as too much exercise. A study finds Boom. So this, this was a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. And what, what they say and what media has been saying in these articles is that based on recent evidence, even though there's been suggestions that elite athletes and heavy exercisers could be at risk of things like thickened heart valves and irregular heartbeat and clogged arteries, and some research have theorized that there's like a U curve for exercise. And I've even said this on the podcast, of course, I just did say it on the podcast. You know, where we're too little and exercise or too much exercise can damage the heart or result in increased mortality. It turns out that based on the analysis of long term data from the Cleveland Clinic in which they looked at over 120,000 patients, I think that's a pretty respectable N. Between 1994 and 2014, they found that pretty much across the board, the more elite of an athlete someone is, the more death proof they were, the more highly active someone appeared to be when it came to the extent of their aerobic fitness, the longer that they lived. And so this was a VO2 max test on a treadmill that they were measuring these people on. So essentially what the media said then was, okay, well, it turns out there is no law of diminishing return between time spent exercising and fitness and mortality. But this is a huge flaw. And I wanted to bring this up on the podcast because I could just imagine all those crossfitters who are doing hot yoga while simultaneously training for a triathlon and a kettlebell certification, they're going to use this as a way to justify spending yet another hour in the gym. But this study never measured the amount of hours spent training. All they did was they gave people a test of Cardiovascular Fitness, a VO2 Max test on the treadmill, and then they divided them into different tiers of mortality based on those fitness results. But all this means is that the people who had a higher amount of aerobic fitness did not have increased risk of mortality. They never, ever looked into how often these people were training. And I would definitely say that a increased performance on a VO2 max test is highly correlated with the, with genetics just as much as it's correlated with how much you trained. B, you can get yourself. And I have an entire book on this. I mean, this is what beyond training, my last book on endurance is about. You can whip yourself into amazing aerobic shape without necessarily doing a death march every weekday during your lunch hour and a three hour bike ride on a Saturday and some incredible open water swim on a Sunday combined with weightlifting every day. Right. Like, there are better ways to train cardiorespiratory fitness, more intelligent ways to train that don't require hours and hours of beating yourself up. And I would still say that based on the data that Fitbit just released and also all the data that I talk about in that book and that we've discussed before on this show, this study in no way.

Disproves the idea that there's a law of diminishing returns when you're beating yourself up with exercise every day. All it shows is that the fitter you are, the longer you live. And I couldn't believe that the media took this and said there's no such thing as too much exercise. What it should have said is there's no such thing as too much fitness. Right. Yeah, yeah, because there's a big difference. It's a, it may seem like a subtle difference, but it's a pretty big difference. So ultimately, once again, I'd say this, this shows that, that you, you always got to look at the study behind the headlines. So were you able to find the.

Did they have any graph or anything that showed the VO2 Max correlated with a death age?

No, they didn't have a correlation between VO2 max and death. But I can tell you my wife and I were talking about this actually last night at dinner. As you can imagine that the Greenfield house is chock full of all sorts of geekery that occurs at the dinner table. But really, the VO2 Max test, again, we have to couch all this stuff in realistic terms. You know, the maximum incline they reached on the VO2 Max test was about, I believe, and I'm pulling this out of memory, somewhere around 16 to 18% at a walking speed of 4 to 4.2. Right. So these were still, in my opinion, not elite athletes. They were testing to call someone an elite athlete because they can make it to, let's say, let's be generous, let's say 4.2 on an 18% incline on a treadmill. Yeah, that's hoofing it on a treadmill, uphill, walking at A brisk pace. But, you know, I, I know elite athletes who are doing intervals of 10 miles an hour at 10% on the treadmill, you know, or, or athletes, you know, like I've got friends in the obstacle course racing industry who are doing 40% incline for in some cases two or three hours. So, you know, that's all, it's all relative. So anyways, though, it's interesting stuff. So the last thing I wanted to mention, speaking of, of walking at 40% on an incline treadmill, which I don't classify as meditation, is a great little audio on Jack Kornfield's website. He's got a nice little website where he does some writing and he does some audios and he has a really great piece he released this week on walking meditation, something that I personally love to do. Do you ever do walking meditation?

Yeah, yeah, quite often, actually. I did some this morning. Yeah.

And for me, a lot of times it's going up on the farm road behind my house. And the way that I do it is I do breathing through my nose, right? Like deep breathing through my nose. And then I'll stop every once in a while when I pass, let's say a telephone pole and I'll hold my breath for as long as possible. And then when I'm completely out of breath, I recover, but I force myself to recover through my nose. And when I finish a walk like that, which I'll typically do over the course of about 25 to 30 minutes, I get back and feel very similar to, as though I've done a yoga session or a meditation session or sauna session. And he's actually got some pretty good tips in here for walking meditation. Like, for example, you want to really focus on feeling the pressure on the bottoms of your feet and natural sensations of standing. And then you walk kind of slow with your arms swinging, almost kind of like Tai chi esque by your side, you know, like the old Asian men at the park. You want to kind of, kind of walk like that, nice and slow and kind of a flowing way as you follow each step mindfully. So we're not talking about like, you know, the, the power walk that you see the couple doing, you know, down the neighborhood street, you know, the, the middle aged women walking at a brisk pace while conversing in their Lululemon. We're talking about like just like a really slow, almost meditative stroll. And, and he'll do it back like instead of just walking from point A to point B, just like choosing 30 to 40ft and walking 40ft and then turning around and walking back the other way 40ft. And so it's a very interesting way to kind of move and meditate at the same time. And I honestly, I feel better when I move as I'm meditating than I do when I'm sitting and I meditate. I just do. I don't know why, but I do. And the only other thing that I. That I wanted to note when it comes to this whole idea of walking meditation is that it's. It's vastly enhanced with high conception of psilocybin beforehand.

What isn't?

Yeah, I know, I know. Pretty much everybody, Everybody before they meditate these days can no longer meditate. You have to be on a psychedelic or a nootropic prior to meditation. So it's no longer acceptable to just meditate. So use Jack Kornfield's advice. But. But be sure to. To microdose with psilocybin beforehand. Of course.

Special announcements.

Oh, Brock, I remembered what this Saturday's podcast is about.

Oh, yeah. Not it's not Monsanto.

It is, but it's about gluten. Gluten? Yeah. And how you can eat gluten without getting diarrhea. So one of the things that we talk about in that show coming up on Saturday is this stuff called Dipeptidyl peptidase. Have you heard of this?

Yeah. There's a product that's got a really catchy name that I'm totally forgetting right now that has that in it.

Yeah. Gluten Guardian.

Gluten Guardian. That's the one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You should know that because they're actually a sponsor of today's show. And this is case where as is. As is always the case, actually, where if I talk about something on the show, it's because I use it and because I send my kids off to the birthday parties that they attend with this stuff. It pre digests gluten. They actually have a video showing where you sprinkle it on bread and you can watch the bread turn into liquid when you sprinkle this stuff on the bread. When you open up one of the capsules and you sprinkle it on the bread. And while I don't necessarily endorse doing that at a restaurant because it just make the bread one big, big, sloppy, nasty mess. And who wants bread soup at a restaurant? You can actually pop this prior to eating pizza or bread or any other gluten containing food. And it actually pre digests all of the gluten. And I wouldn't necessarily use this as the opportunity to like eat a bunch of crap. But at the same time, you know, when I like go to a steakhouse and I want to have like a nice big slice, like the artisanal bread that they bring out, you know, prior to the appetizers, if I pop this stuff beforehand, I get zero stomach discomfort, comfort. So it's very, very cool. Good idea I think too. I mean, I'm guessing they're probably going to kill it with this product because who doesn't want to be able to have their cake and eat it too? So anyways, I don't know if it'd work for poutine. Would it work for Poutine, Brock?

It would, but I don't think there's any gluten in poutine.

I just thought poutine was every offensive molecule known to man, all covered in Greece and sold in Canada.

No, it's quite simple actually. Three ingredients.

All right, well, I was just in Toronto and I walked past a poutine shop and it looked like a heart attack on a plate. But it could have been, you know, like whatever your guys equivalent is of Domino's Pizza up there.

So yeah, probably.

Yeah. Anyways. Glutenguardian.com greenfield glutenguardian.com greenfield you can get the gluten guardian and save 10% off the already discounted price. Another thing you can pop before a meal. And this also is in all seriousness, something that I take now along with gluten guardian before I have dinner. If the dinner has gluten in it, I'll add the gluten guardian. If not, I just have this before dinner. Anyways, it is a liver protectant and it also lowers your blood sugar. Very similar to the diabetic drug metformin. Based on my pre and postprandial blood testing of my glucose levels. But it basically is completely natural. It's bitter melon extract, the same stuff they eat in Okinawa, Japan, combined with Rock Lotus, which has a lot of really cool clinical trials on it for improving your liver function and fatty liver. So if you like to have a cocktail or glass of wine with dinner, the Rock Lotus is taking care of that. If you have carbs in the evening, which is what I do, I save most of my carbohydrates for the evening. The better melon is ensuring that your insulin sensitivity is improved. So more of that is partitioned into muscle, for example, and it's a really cool one, two combo. It's called Lean Kion Lean. It's one of the fine Supplements that we have over at Kion. So what we're doing for all the listeners is you can use.

The URL getkeon.com and the actual discount code is BENLEAN10. That's BENLEAN10. And then a couple of other things. This podcast is brought to you by East West Health. They're in Salt Lake City. I've actually been there before for stem cell treatments and they have a very cool approach because what they do is they combine acupuncture with stem cell treatments and that actually increases the blood flow and the circulation of the stem cells. And they actually have some research that they've released on their website. And I'll link to all this in the show Notes where they show how when you combine acupuncture with stem cells, you actually get more efficacious activity of the actual stem cells. And they even do intranasal stem cells. You can, you can snort stem cells kind of like crack cocaine, really, just. Yeah, just snort them. They actually, I haven't done that yet. I need to get down there and try that out. But they've got some compelling studies on that and Alzheimer's and the treatment of some brain related issues. So if anything, it's a good story for a cocktail party to tell people about how you're now snorting your own stem cells. That's what I guess wealthy anti aging enthusiasts do at cocktail parties. But they're also giving. So they're giving all of our listeners a consultation that's totally free to do a consultation with East West Health. It's free. And they're also giving all of everyone a book called the Stem Cell Breakthrough. Very simple. You just go to accueastwest.com Accu is an acupuncture. ACU accueastwest.com and what they've told me is that all you need to do is mention Ben Greenf. You'll get a free consultation and you'll also get that. That book. So there you have it.

I'm holding out until they offer haircuts. Yeah, the whole thing. That's when they start. And a shave too, actually. That would be awesome. So acupuncture, stem cells, shave and a haircut, Right?

Intranasal. Intranasal, of course.

So you could snort your beard after it's shaved off.

Yeah, yeah, there you go. And then finally this podcast is brought to you by if you want to throw something else in your smoothie and maybe you don't want to go to Amazon and get my entire list of anti aging smoothie ingredients and you just want, like, one thing. Here's a pretty good one. It's got moringa, it's got chlorella, mint, spirulina, beets, matcha, green tea, wheatgrass, ashwagandha, turmeric, lemon, and coconut water. But it's all in one canister and it's called green juice. Coconut and ashwagandha infused green juice. This stuff is made by Organifi. And they also, if you were gonna add just two things to your shopping cart over there, have this wonderful pumpkin spice golden latte. It's like. It's like Thanksgiving in a cup. It's like your grandma made you a pumpkin spice latte. Although now that I think about it, my grandma never made me a pumpkin spice latte.

Mine neither.

Yeah, but it tastes. It tastes like something she would have made on Thanksgiving if she knew how to make a latte or she knew what a latte even was. She was more of like pumpkin pies and of course, turkey and mashed potato. And the beets, unfortunately, she used the ones out of the can, not the. Not the better version of the beets, like the cubed. You know, my wife makes beets and, you know, boils them and they're real beets and then cubes them and serves them with, like goat cheese and a wonderful salad. My grandma would just take the canned beets and slice them.

But come on, grandma.

Regardless, still love my grandma. So anyways, this, this green juice, though, it's got beets in it, it's got a lot more in it. And you get a 20% discount. You just go to go to Organifi.com that's Organifi with an I Organifi.com you get 20% discount code with Greenfield on any of the fine ingredients, including the pumpkin spice and the green stuff from Organifi. Then finally, the last thing I'd throw in there would be, we're kind of nearing the end of the race season and, you know, I'm speaking at a lot of events that are coming up and we'll put them all over on the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com 391 but one place I'm going to be is San Francisco. I'm going to go to San Francisco the first week of December. They've got a stadium race there, a spartan stadium race. And I always love to see our fans out there doing burpees in the dugout and rope climbs in the outfield and running around the concourse at AT&T Stadium. And if you've never done a spartan race before. This is a fun way to get introduced to the sport of obstacle course racing without necessarily having to climb under barbed wire in the middle of a muddy forest. So it's the AT&T park stadium. They probably would if it wasn't something that would result in litigious events and lawsuits, put barbed wire and forest and mud there. But ultimately, as it is, it's. It's a little bit more of a clean race. It's almost like doing a giant CrossFit workout in a stadium. So it is December 1st and December 2nd. You can raise both days if you want to, down in AT&T park in San Francisco. I'll be there. And it would be fabulous to see some other friends there. So get on down, do the spartan little thing to. To keep you fit and motivated over the holiday season. So there you have it.

Listener Q and A.

Hey, Ben, this is Alex here. First time caller, long time listener. I wanted to get your thoughts on kind of a situation I've been dealing with these last few years. I've been going to the gym mainly with the goal of gaining muscle mass and hypertrophy in my upper body.

Mainly in my chest and my shoulders. And I'm not seeing the results. I wanted to. I was wondering if this is down to primarily my body type being ectomorphic in nature. I have been watching my protein. I have been making sure my lifts are targeted at the muscles that I want to hypertrophy. And I'm just not getting the results. I was wondering if these efforts are completely futile or if they should be put elsewhere. If I just need to tweak a few things. I'd love to hear your thoughts, man. Thank you.

Brock. Last year, you and I did a little bit of a mask and I have to admit, I kind of half assed it. But. But we did kind of a bit of a mass gain protocol.

We did. Do you? I didn't realize you were half assing it. I was using my whole ass.

Yeah, yeah. No, my problem was I was doing the mass gain protocol at the same time I was preparing. I had some kind of like a. Like an ultra endurance event. I don't remember if it was world's toughest Mutter or it might have been. I think it was like Spartan World championships possibly. But the long one, I was doing like the ultra beast. So regardless, I was doing way too much cardio for me to be able to gain mass. But you know, I weigh. To give you some perspective, Alex and all you other skinny folks Listening and want to get big muscles. I weigh 175 pounds right now. When I was in college, I weighed 215 and I was primarily. I didn't have access nor affordability for any performance enhancing drugs or steroids or anything like that. Like, I did that on creatine and tuna fish. That was, that was basically how I put on that much muscle in college. And then I, because I'm a skinny guy, was using a multi joint approach. So there's kind of like two different approaches to train a body part split where you might do, you know, chest and shoulders one day and biceps and triceps and calves another day, and core and legs another day, and then kind of rinse, wash and repeat. Not only does that take copious amounts of time, because you need to be spending a good two to three hours during many of your workouts to hit each body part with sufficiency to get that anabolic response response that causes those muscles to build. But it also, in my opinion, especially for skinny guys, is not as efficient as the approach I used, which was three full body lifts per week. We're talking like cleans, benches, squats, deadlifts, et cetera. You know, a lot of barbell work, a lot of free weight work, a lot of dumbbell work. And then I would typically have one vanity day, right, where I really would do, you know, I'd blast my biceps and triceps until I couldn't lift my arms anymore. And then of like, you know, seated calf raise and standing calf raise work and just kind of did a lot of the filler work. But that was my approach was it was three days a week of like heavy full body lifting and then one day a week of more kind of vanity body parts that was typically on like a Saturday or a Sunday. And during that time I was eating, you know, somewhere in the range of about 5 to 7,000 calories per day. So, yeah, you know, and not necessarily a healthy approach. I was doing more of like a high protein, low fat, low carbohydrate approach. And I'll speak in just a second about what I would do, what I will do actually if I were going to do this again. But ultimately that was my approach in college. And I did learn a lot about how skinny guys can put on muscle, particularly with that multi joint approach, which we'll unpack here in a second, about how you can kind of do that even more intelligently than I was doing it back then. But I also learned a lot about recovery and just about some of the little Things that skinny guys can do to put on muscle.

Where I want to start though is with a lot of what I've learned from the guy whose program Brock, you and I began to use last year. I just think you kind of went at it a little bit more thoroughly than I did. But that would be Dan John and Dan John's book, Mass Made Simple. Now I've interviewed Dan John, I also own his book Mass Made simple, which you can get on Kindle or you can get as like a spiral bound book that you can take to the gym. And basically the idea behind Dan John's principles, I would say there's kind of, there's several basic principles that he gets into in the book. The first is that you must, if you are going to really want to put on as much mass as possible as a skinny guy, focus on that alone and not fat loss simultaneously. Meaning that you, it's very difficult for you to get six pack abs at the same time that you put on a lot of muscle. In an ideal scenario, you would have a bulking phase and then a cutting phase. And the bulking phase would indeed involve you eating more food and not caring that much if you did develop a little bit of extra body fat as you build muscle. And then you go through a cutting phase where you do diet down a little bit and strip some of that fat off. But that's why a lot of skinny guys will do their mass building in the fall and winter when they've got their clothes out on. Right. And you don't have to worry about, you know, going to the beach. And I realize it sounds very, very vain and shallow, but, but it is something that, that people worry about. And it's true. We live in a culture where we're judged sometimes based on, you know, our, our rippedness, our striations. And ultimately the idea is you don't want to focus on building muscle and losing fat simultaneously. You focus on eating food and building muscle and putting on mass. And this is kind of related to Dan John's advice on cardio and that is that I remember when I spoke with him, he's like, yeah, lift weights and then sit around and watch the football game. Don't do the walking treadmill or the standing workstation. Park as close as you can to the grocery store when you go to the grocery store. Take the escalator when you're going through the airport. Basically break most of the rules that we talk about when it comes to low level physical activity throughout the day, day. And that, that's Another big one when it comes to gaining mass is you just, you're trying to avoid movement that's not anabolic as much as possible. So I mean he even goes as far as to say like wear extra clothes so your body doesn't have to like go through cold thermogenesis to stay warm. Definitely don't take cold showers, you know, sit more, find shorter roost to everything. And I realize that this is, this flies in the face of what you might hear when it comes to longevity or fat management. But ultimately if you're lifting heavy and then not moving a lot, you are going to gain mass. Like it's just going to happen. And again, like if your goal is to put on as much mass as possible, sometimes longevity and fat loss get sacrificed. But ultimately the idea is limit cardio. I would say be reasonable. You know, for me, as I go into this winter, my goal is indeed I want to get up closer to my normal healthy weight of about 190 to 195. And I will continue to walk down to the mailbox and get the mail. I'll continue to go in my afternoon 30 minute, those walking, meditation type of things that we just talked about. I'll continue to engage in low level physical activity throughout the day, but I will vastly decrease the amount of cardio training I'm doing for Spartan races or triathlons. And I won't be doing a lot of, you know, time spent, you know, hammering my road bike down the highway for an hour or anything like that. So some stuff will get sacrificed. So another thing that Dan John recommends is of course eating a lot and eating frequently. So this whole idea of intermittent fasting, this whole idea of long periods of time between meals, this idea of like a weekly 24 hour fast or like you know, a fasting mimicking diet several times throughout the year, year, all of that goes out the window. When you're hungry you eat and when you're not hungry you eat. And that, that's really, you know, I've had skinny football players and basketball players hire me to put together nutrition plans for them to help them put on muscle and they're shocked at the amount that they need to eat. And, and yeah, you get a good digestive enzyme like you get Thorn Biogest and maybe you pick up some of like Quicksilver Scientific's bitters and, and some things that are going to help you digest that food and you don't eat in a stressed way so that you actually can assimilate a lot of those Nutrients. But ultimately, and even listen to this coming Saturday's interview with the Gluten Guardian guys because we actually talk a lot about digestive enzymes. One of those guys is a bodybuilder. The other guy is, he's actually trying to put on a lot of mass right now and they're using a copious amount of digestive enzymes. But ultimately eating a lot of food and then combining a lot of digestive enzymes along with that food. That's also a, a really good strategy. But unlike Dan John who recommends you eat pretty much peanut butter sandwiches, anything in sight, you know. Yeah, peanut butter sandwiches. And he says when, when you walk past the donut, don't resist, just eat it, you know, and, and super sized meals at the, the, the fast food outlet. Actually I don't think he says that.

But no, he doesn't say that. It's not that bad.

Yeah, he. I actually have different recommendations and as I go into this winter I'm going to be using an approach that's very similar to two resources that I'm going to give to you, Alex. One would be the Weston A. Price diet. So the Weston A. Price diet is based on eating whole unprocessed foods. A lot of organ meats, beef, lamb, game, poultry and eggs from pasture fed animals, wild fish, fish eggs, shellfish, a lot of, and this is important for the growth hormone part, full fat milk products. So not just colostrum but raw milk and whole yogurt and kefir and cultured butter and full fat raw cheeses and fresh and sour cream lard, tallow, not a lot of egg whites. Right. If you read Dan John's book, he's like, oh, egg whites, egg white, no egg yolks with cream with butter, a lot of extra virgin olive oil, a lot of really good expeller pressed sesame oil oil. You know, expeller expressed flax oil, tropical oils like coconut and palm and palm kernel oil. A lot of fish oil. Like you know, a good over 6 grams of fish oil per day. Plenty of whole grains, legumes and nuts that have been soaked and sprouted and leavened to neutralize a lot of, you know, the phytic acid and the enzyme inhibitors that are in those. A lot of really good clean water, ton of bone broth and then lots of sleep and natural light. And I mean that's the Weston A. Price diet. And you want to talk about mass building diet. I mean I've had some pregnant women who have hired me to help them with their nutrition during pregnancy and I put almost Every single one of them, unless they've got some pretty severe autoimmune or allergy issues on the Weston A. Price diet. And I had two women last year give birth to babies that topped off over 10 pounds at birth. And they're just like these big beautiful babies with well formed jaws and big bones and you know, like the like kind of like all the fat around the ass cheeks and everything. Like all the stuff you'd want to see on a baby. It's the way these babies were born and that's the way that you'd want to eat if you're really trying to gain mass. So I'd say, you know the, the Weston A. Price diet. And I'll put a link to a great like shopping guide, grocery guide resource that's free on the West Navy. It's like free or five bucks, like it's minimal on the Weston A. Price website. And then also my article called 40 Easy Meals for Busy Athletes. You know, I've got everything in there from for example, like what are some foods, like my giant ass salad, you know, one of my really good Cobb salad recipes, some really great like you know, chicken and fish and liver pate and steak recipes for the evenings. I've just got a lot of, kind of, of decent resources on there for you. So that'd be another one would be 40 easy meals for Busy Athletes. But basically you're just eating a lot of food but a lot of really good nutrient dense food. So that would be another tip that I would give you and then a few other things that really go into Dan John's program. First of all, bench squat and deadlift. I mean those are our three big ones. And rather than focusing on low reps, which you'll see a lot of people do these days, you know, like one to five reps to build mass. I actually like his approach of closer to a 5 to 10 range for most exercises and for the back squat. And this, this is huge in my opinion. A lot of people neglect this high rep back squats. I mean you've got some sets where you're doing like 20, 30 reps of a back squat. And yeah, you can have intra set rest where you're, you know, you might do five squats, step back, walk away, come back, do five more squats, step back, back, walk away and keep coming back and back and back until you've gotten through that whole set. But ultimately in his book Mass Made simple, which I'll link to in the show notes to both the spiral bound version and then Also the regular version or the ebook version, depending on what you want to bring to the gym or to your workout with you. He's actually got a lot of really good workouts in there and they're kind of the same thing thing over and over again, which relates to kind of the next thing I wanted to mention is you're hitting the body from the same angles. Like rather than going for metabolic confusion, which is great for losing fat and burning a lot of calories, like doing some new workout every single day, you're doing the same exercises day after day after day, resting, recovering, restoring. You know, on certain days he has this concept where he calls them like rest days and I think refresh days, where the rest days are like full rest days, but then the refresh days. Yeah, you can get out and swing some kettlebells and move and maybe even work a couple lagging body parts, but ultimately those days are far different than these bigger bulking days. So.

That'S basically what Mass Made simple is. And if you were to combine something like that with the Weston A. Price diet, you would watch yourself explode. I'm going to be doing something similar as I just wrote on and BenGreenfieldFitness.com, i'm pulling out some biohacks when I do it. So I haven't even talked about this much on the podcast, but I really am going to be putting on MASS over this winter. And I will also be using injectable stem cells and injectable nad. And that'll be overseen by my friend, an anti aging doc in New York City named Dr. Helen Chen. But I'm pulling out a few kind of interesting variables, all legal. I won't be on on steroids or hormones or anything like that, but I am going to be using stem cells, some injectable antioxidants, and some injectable NAD as I go through this whole process. And the last thing I should throw in there is that when I say injectable, World Anti Doping association bans anything that's 100ml or more when it comes to IVs, but you can do 30ml push IVs for example, and that's fine. That's not an issue at all.

So those are the biggies, I guess. The last thing I can think of would be two additional resources for you. I have a book I wrote a few years ago called Get Fit Guy's Guide to achieving your ideal Body, and that has some really good resources in it for ectomorphs for both eating and for training, it has resources for like women who are pear shaped, women who are apple shaped, men who are V shaped, men who are ectomorph goes on and on. But that's a good book. I actually spent a lot of time on that book. Book. Not a lot of people know about it, but it's out there. You can get it. I'll put a link to that one in the show notes. And then also if you want kind of an upgraded or I guess what I would almost consider like to be a modern, slightly more systematized version of Dan John's Mass Made Simple. You know, I'm a simple guy. I don't want complexity. I want his little 80 pound, sorry, Dan, or 80, 80 page book. And that's it. Like I, I just want, you know, show me same workout every day. I write down my weights, boom, go, done, done. If you want something a little more complex and.

Perhaps a little bit more thorough or varied would be my friends at Mind Pump. They actually have a program called Maps Anabolic. Maps Anabolic. And Maps Anabolic is, you know, uses a lot of those same principles as Mass Made simple where you've got, you know, two or three big workouts a week. What Dan John calls his refresher days, I think he called, calls them. The guys at Maps call them anabolic triggering sessions. But what it means is you've got your big foundational workouts each week and then these triggering sessions are, for example, you know, where you might do your rear delt flies and your standing calf raises and some of those kind of more, you know, smaller workouts that don't last any longer than like 10 minutes, but just kind of trigger a little bit of an anabolic signal. So check out those two, the Maps folks. Like, they've got the aesthetics program and the Anabolics program and a mass gain program. Actually, their anabolic I think is their masking program. But they have like a Strongman style program. I'll link to all their stuff because they produce some pretty good good PDFs, like downloadable PDFs as well. So that is. That's Mind Pump. So I'll link to that too in the show notes. And I don't know, did I miss anything, Brock? Anything you want to throw in there?

The only thing I want to throw in is do you know Charles Poliquin? You familiar with him?

Well, yeah, I mean he, he passed. Yeah. A couple of weeks ago. Apparently he had a cardiovascular incident and passed.

Yeah, yeah, I. It's really sad that he's. He's gone but his, his website still is a great resource. The strengthsensei.com I learned a lot from reading a lot of his essays and blog posts and stuff over there about putting on some mass and doing things like barbell like bicep complexes and, and things like that. I found that to be a really nice compendium to the Dan John program. So yeah I'd, I'd point people there not only out of respect for, for a lovely fellow who died too early but also because he was a very smart guy.

Yeah. And I would, I would say that in addition to you know like I mentioned like really good intake of digestive enzymes, the use of, of things like colostrum for example. One thing that Poliquin was very into is high dose fish oil and it like a really good fish oil and by really good fish oil I mean something that's like in a triglyceride form that's packaged with antioxidants so it doesn't become rancid, that preferably is accompanied by some kind of phospholipid. So you've got some DHA absorption etc but like higher dose like he was going like 10, 20 grams or more of fish oil and that also. I didn't mention that but I, you know I'll be, I'll be stacking you know like the kion aminos, the kion colostrum, the super essentials fish oil, some of the digestive enzymes I talked about. So basically my goal will be any of these substances that legally produce anabolism combined with things that help you to digest food. I mean to get the most for your supplement, bang for your buck. I wouldn't spend a lot of money on pre workout pick me ups or.

I guess multivitamins and things along those I would just go straight to fricking colostrum. Fish oil, aminos, good digestive enzyme or bitters complex. I mean that's going to cover most of your bases. I guess the last one I would throw in there and now I'm droning on would be HMB and ATP. That's a very good combo for strength and mass that a lot of people don't know about. That's got some good research behind it especially when combined with creatine. So that would be the stack fish oil, colostrum aminos, hmb, ATP, creatine and digestive enzymes. And now I'll shut up because I'm starting to sound like that Steve. What's the comedian who's like have okay, so now it's Gonna drive me nuts Unless I tell people it's Steve. Who's the comedian? Steve.

Steve Martin. Steve Martin, yeah. The guy who plays the banjo, right? Steve Martin, Yeah. Okay, so Steve Martin has this movie and it is.

It'S the one, I think it's called Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I don't know if you've seen this movie, but several times. Yeah, he like, gets kicked out of the house. He's like, I'm just gonna leave and I'm gonna take my coat.

No, that's the Jerk.

Oh, is it the Jerk? Okay, maybe it's the Jerk. Yeah.

Yeah.

And my lamp and my table.

My lamp and my table. And my bowling ball. Table.

Yeah. My bowling bowl. My pants. Anyways, though, the jerk. I gotta watch that movie again now. So I feel like I'm Steve Martin the jerk. So I'm. Shut up. Hey, Ben, I was wondering, what is your take on using ghb, AKA gamma hydroxybutyric acid, as an alternative to alcohol?

So I totally understand why this person did not give us their name. Yeah, because this is also known as a date ratio rape drug.

Even buying it online can be difficult. I had a bitcoin account get shut down when I tried to buy GHB online, actually. So it's, it's still heavily regulated, which is kind of sad because it's a very interesting molecule. I understand that when used improperly, it is the date rape drug. Like for those of you who haven't heard of ghb, it's gamma hydroxybutyric acid, originally known as the date rape drug. People would slip it into drinks to aid with sexual assault. Salt. And I in no way endorse anything like that when it comes to the use of ghb. However, there are, there are interesting things about this molecule that I think make it compelling. And when I go to parties these days or I'm in, in Vegas with some of my friends, etc, many of them are now eschewing alcohol in favor of, you know, marijuana edibles or marijuana vape pens, small microdoses of like LSD or psilocybin, in some cases larger doses, and then ghb, which they'll typically have in like a little, you know, like a little flask or, you know, I know some people carry it around like five hour energy bottles, things that look like it's not what it is. And that's ghb. Even bodybuilders, you know, speak of mass gain, say that it promotes increased production of growth hormone, human growth hormone, and promotes sounder sleep and it actually is one of the few molecules I've ever been able to find that has been proven to increase deep sleep cycles dramatically and recovery and growth hormone dramatically during sleep when used in the proper amounts and used correctly without any deleterious side effects. The problem is that it can be very difficult to dose, and it causes this coma like sleep that when mixed with alcohol, enhances the depression effect even more. And so it can quickly lead to unconsciousness and even death, you know, especially if you vomit or something like that while you're in the coma. And that's one of the reasons that, of course, it was used as a date rape drug as well. Because if you don't dose properly, I mean, your heart rate will slow, your breath rate will slow, your body temperature will decrease, and you get nausea, and you can get coma and you can even get death. So, you know, this stuff's also, though, in lighter amounts, something that is used as a party drug. You know, one of the. One of the street names for it is liquid ecstasy or liquidity. And so, you know, it actually can be one of those things that kind of kind of picks you up a little bit if you use it in a little bit more of a party or kind of a. Even like a sex scenario. It's used a lot of times to enhance sex as well, but in higher amounts. Definitely something that would be used for sleep. So this is one of those compounds that's very similar to some other compounds out there, like cbd, for example, very effective in the treatment of narcolepsy or anxiety or stress in smaller amounts. But then larger amounts can improve sleep structure and really give you a lot of growth hormone release and recovery while you're asleep. And it simulates the brain neurotransmitter gamma aminobutyric acid. So anybody who's taken, like, Ph gaba, which is far easier to get, you can buy Ph GABA on Amazon. You can kind of get a little bit of a feel for what it'd feel like to use ghb. If you were to do something like take Ph Gaba and have a glass of wine. Like, that would be something that kind of sort of simulates some of the effects of having that inhibitory neurotransmitter present in greater amounts when you do something like ghb. So, of course, the problem is dosing. The problem is legality. And the problem is when it's mixed with alcohol in a party scenario, it can be very, very dangerous. Now, on the flip side, it actually has been studied to get to the root of. Of anonymous question. It has been studied not only in some of the scenarios I've just described, but also for treatment of alcohol dependence. It's been studied and shown to actually be in clinical trials at about 50 to 100 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. And that's usually given over several doses throughout the day to significantly suppress alcohol withdrawal symptoms and facilitate the maintenance of abstinence from alcohol. Because when you drink a glass of wine, you're getting a big release of gaba. When you have a few beers, you're getting a big release of gaba. That's why a lot of people have a drink at the end of a stressful day. And GHB in smaller dosages is doing the same thing. It's causing a GABA release. So is ph. GABA in smaller dosages and you know, even, even passion flower extract, which is something again you can just buy on Amazon, is causing that same kind of like small endogenous relations.

In gamma aminobutyric acid without you necessarily having to use Bitcoin and a cloaked browser to figure out how you're going to buy GHB and then keep it in your garage for a few days after you buy it, just to make sure the feds don't show up asking you why you're ordering ghb. It's something that's regulated pretty heavily, so you need to be careful.

Anyways, the idea would be that when dosed properly, I would say that I would be okay with the use of GHB as an alternative to say, drinking alcohol at a party. But the problem is that you have to be very careful of it. A recreational dose would be considered 1 to 2 grams, right? That's the dose where you get kind of that feeling of euphoria, a little bit of a pick me up without the deleterious effects like reduced motor function and drowsiness. You would take a little bit more than 2 grams if you were looking for more of a. The sleep induction effect. But I want to be kind of careful on the podcast that I don't get too far into dosage past that 1 to 2 gram dose. Because the last thing I want is for someone to get their hands on GHB and take whatever 6 grams and wind up passed out or have some horrible happen or a car accident because they heard about GHB on my show. So I would be careful. I would consider natural sources of GABA before you turn to ghb. And it's just gonna be cheaper Anyway, you know, like ph Gaba, very, very easy to get your hands on. Same could be said for passion flower extract. This is something that you could easily have with a glass of wine and you'll notice a little bit of a pick me up in the relaxing and the pleasantness of something like a glass of alcohol when you use something like that. You know, GHB you definitely need to be a little bit more careful with. So.

Brock it any, anything to add? I know you're a big druggie.

Well, the only thing I was going to add was that it is addictive like GHB is addictive and it's also metabolized in your liver. So in terms of being an alternative to alcohol, I don't like if you're trying to avoid the damage to your liver or you're trying to avoid the, the habit formingness of alcohol, this really isn't a great alternative. Yeah, there are definitely better party sort of substances out there. And yeah, speaking as a Canadian who just had marijuana legalized across the entire country, I would go that direction before I'd go for ghb.

Yeah, yeah, that I've forgotten about cannabis. And I was actually in Toronto when cannabis became legalized. I won't mention his name, but I went that evening to a party.

And I, I just stopped in like it was like an evening dinner party and, and as I'm leaving the party, this, this gentleman who I know walks into the party and looks kind of tired and his hair is kind of messed up and, and I'm like, hey, hey, how's it going? You look, you look well rested. You just wake up from a nap. And he said, well, I was celebrating national, what was it, National Cannabis Day or whatever in Canada. Yeah, Octokber. And he's like, so I took a bunch of edibles this morning and I was just basically in bed all day. I'm like, oh, sounds like a good celebration.

Me, on the other hand, I basically sold a bunch of my Canadian cannabis stock and made a crap ton of money. That's why I celebrated Canadian Cannabis Day. So, yeah.

Hi Ben. It was really great to see you. In my hometown of Toronto, I'm 17 years old and finishing grade 12 this year. My question to you is if you could redo your journey from high school to where you are now, what would you do differently and what would you recommend to someone like me who's very passionate about health and nutrition now that I'm considering my options for what to do after high school. Thanks.

So what would you do out of high school if you could do it all over again.

Well, I kind of had a weird upbringing because I was homeschooled K through 12. So I started college when I was 16 and graduated when I was 15. And so I had kind of a little bit different approach when I got to college. I was actually pretty excited about college college because it was my first time actually being in a classroom with a professor.

Sitting class. I lasted about a month like that and I didn't go to class at all. I would just show up and take the test and spend the rest of my time just playing, which was a great way to get through college. You know, I took like 28, 30 credits a semester, but rarely was was in the actual class only when it was completely required. So I, I hacked college to a certain extent. However, however, if I could go back and do it differently.

And.

Could learn at the accelerated pace that I truly think folks can learn at when they're not thrust into an environment that is focused on primarily parties and social life and required classes that are a waste of your time and learning at the pace of, of the rest of the classroom rather than at your own pace. I probably would have done so. I probably would have gotten what I got. You know, I got a master's degree in physiology, nutrition and biomechanics over the course of five years. I could easily have done that in about two years with self directed course study. With the only exception being of course without a diploma, without a certification, without like, you know, degree from an accredited institution. There are certain things you can't do legally, or there are at least certain certifications that you can't get. Like you can't get, let's say like a certified strength conditioning coach certification from the nsca. Unless you have a collegiate degree in an exercise science related field. Of course, if you want to be an astronaut or a surgeon, there are, there are also, I think, pros that outweigh the cons of going to college and having your education overseen by an accredited institution rather than someone who's going to hire you to fly rocket ship to the moon just keeping their fingers crossed that all that self directed study that you did did indeed qualify you to learn everything that you need to know.

At the same time though, there are tests that you can take. There's actually a great article called how to moneyball your way to a debt free college degree. And it gets into how you can do things like taking CLEL teps or what do they call them? No, CLEP tests. CLEP tests. They're multiple choice exams that cover a full semester of material. All you have to do is show up, pass them, you get the same amount of credits you would have spent months in a classroom for.

There are tests like that. That's called a CLEP test. There's a lot of other really good tips in that article to just save money in college. That one was on the art of manliness. But ultimately you're still going to wind up most likely coming out of college with a ridiculous amount of debt. And my question is, was it really worth it? And could you have spent that time elsewhere? There are two great books about this I'm going to link to for you, Eli. One is called College Disrupted. College Disrupted. And this book is about the idea that American higher education will undergo kind of a transformation from packaged courses and degrees to truly unbundled course offerings. Very similar to what you get if you were just to kind of choose your own adventure on Khan Academy and iTunes, university and Udemy and all these other places out there where you can get amazing online courses without necessarily relying upon the expense and the hassle of going to some big accredited institution. The other good book is called A New you, A New you and a New you is also kind of a different approach to college. And it gets into the fact that colleges and universities operate very similarly to the way that they did about 40 years ago without any changes, any major changes. With one major exception, tuition expenses have risen dramatically and earning a degree takes longer than it ever has before. You know, it takes over five years to graduate with an undergraduate degree. So you've got an enormous debt burden when you graduate. And a lot of times these degrees are not preparing people adequately to succeed at or obtain a a really good job compared to alternatives like apprenticeships and internships and practical experience and kind of this concept of unschooling yourself. So I would read College Disrupted and I would also read A new you prior to making the decision of whether or not you really want to go to college. If you do decide you're going to go to college, then check out the article that I link to called how to moneyball your way to a debt free college degree. Now, getting down to brass tacks, when you talk about someone who is passionate in health and nutrition, what I would do is I would consider a few different options. Like if it were me and I go back over again, in addition to all the practical experience that I still do. Like I worked as a personal trainer all through college. I work for the strength conditioning program at University, University of Idaho I managed the wellness program. I taught classes. You know, I did a lot that just got me out there in the trenches. But I would consider a something like a holistic nutrition program. My nutrition at University of Idaho, all respect to my instructors was just crap. Like it didn't really give me.

You know, it was Gatorade Sports Science Institute, you know, eat your whole grain and fruits and vegetables always packaged together, never consideration of fruits apart from vegetables. And maybe the two are not the same food group and just all the same old same old. But I at least got the degree. But there are. And I'm going to link to a whole directory for you in the show notes. Holistic nutrition programs spread across the country and even the world. Like the College of Naturopathic Medicine, like the Institution Institute of Holistic Nutrition, the Nutritional Therapy association, nta. That's a fantastic one. I've spoken at some of their events. There are naturopathic medical schools that allow people to go through their nutrition programs or their health sciences programs without necessarily spending the amount of time there when we need to spend to become an ND or a naturopathic physician. So many of these are quite good. And I will link to to the national association of Nutrition Professionals website which has an excellent holistic nutrition program directory. And if you were to do that and you were to pair that with a really good kind of physical movement protocol and what I like for that, you know, like the CHEC Institute. The CHEC is fantastic for corrective holistic exercise kinesiology and for even like lifestyle management, management and nutrition. I'm a big fan of what Paul Check has put together as well. The only area that Paul and I don't see eye to eye is like religion and spirituality. But regardless, if I could go back and kind of like go through college again, I would consider going through the Czech Institute and combining that with a really good holistic nutrition program. And then finally, not to toot my own horn, but if I were going to to kind of throw in one other thing on top of that, it would be Kion University. Right? And I realized that at Kion U. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes. That's my mentorship program where I train personal trainers and nutritionists and chiropractic docs and physical therapists and MDs and NDs. We have a whole range of people in that program learning from me about performance and recovery and digestion, fat loss and hormones. I would go do key on you as well. I mean if you were to do, if you get a check certification, I would certainly let you into Keonu. And especially if you were to combine that with a holistic nutrition program, There are certain standards. Not anyone can get into Keonu. They need to have an existing degree or certification, but we often consider that on a case by case basis. So that kind of triplicate of Keonu certification, holistic nutrition program and a check certification, I would, without any questions asked, hire you to train my mom. Mom or my sister, or a family member or a loved one or a friend. Like, if I saw that you went through those three areas, I mean, hands down, you'd have a better body of knowledge than someone who, like, went to Harvard for an exercise kinesiology degree. So that's where I would start. And I'll put plenty of resources for you over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

But that's really, that's where I would begin when it comes to kind of, kind of turning yourself into the ultimate modern personal trainer or modern nutrition and exercise professional without necessarily going to college. And then of course, understand, you know, you have to be a lifelong learner. I read a book a day. I'm passionate about this stuff. I'm constantly, whether I'm working out or doing anything else, I'm listening to audiobook books, listening to instructional programs, I'm watching documentaries or downloading them and listening to them. You must be a constant lifelong learner. And I think some people go to college and they just think they've got their degree, so they're good to go. There's a lot of physicians out there who have that approach, and there's a lot of really good physicians, but there's a lot of them that are just steeped in whatever they learned 30 years ago in medical school without a lot of advancements in their, in their learning or their education. So, so ultimately, that is, that is where I would begin. Anything you'd throw in there, Brock?

No, the only thing I'd throw in is everything that you said goes for pretty much every.

Every profession out there. I think the days of universities and colleges and stuff are, are numbered. There's so many better ways to learn and get jobs these days, and employees, especially in like the tech industry and, and some of the newer industries are not looking for college degrees or university degrees. They're just looking for people who know how to think, know how to solve problems, know how to be lifelong learners. This is, this is the way of the future.

Yeah, exactly. And I'll, I'll put links in the show notes to. I know we've got like free access to some of the Czech certification lessons if you want to look at those. I'll put that list of holistic nutrition programs, everything I talked about, I'll stick in there to help you out. So there you have it. Well, we're running, running a little bit long in the tooth and short on time. So now is the time on the show where we're gonna give away free swag to one person. If you go to itunes or Apple podcasts as they see these days, and you leave us a review, review. And you hear your review read on the show, all you need to do is email gearngreenfieldfitness.com that's gear bengreenfieldfitness.com Tell us your T shirt size, we'll send you an amazing tech T shirt bpa. Free water bottle so you don't get man boobs or woman boobs. I don't know how that work. I guess a woman should drink bpa. And finally a what's the last thing we send people? A toque. A beanie. Amazing beanie. Yeah. So anyways, Brock, you want to take it away? You want to leave or read this week's review?

Yeah. This one's from Dale Huernut.

10 Dale Hearnut.

10 Hearnut with an H in the middle of it. It's a very confusing last name. Dale. Okay. Anyway, it's a five star review and it's called Coffee cooling the balls and stem cells.

He says. Well, Ben and Brock, I probably lost a pound of mitochondria listening to your podcast through my laptop and headphones and I am lost. Where to start with the dictionary of ideas for gene testing. Post ACL rupture therapy. Best workouts on exercise for my body. Proper foods for my body based on my genes, Supplements prior to exercise, exercise and if regaining hair follicles is possible on my head. I'm almost 48 and 150 pounds after the Dr. Pompa detox this year and I lost 17 pounds of muscle. If I need to. If I need to mix my stem cells in my coffee, please advise.

Haha.

Thanks for all the wonderful podcasts.

Wow, he's drinking the Kool Aid. Jeez. Big time. All right.

I'm not sure how far into his cheek his tongue is going to. Yeah, I hope it's quite far, but I found it amusing anyway.

Well, he picked up another few things he can he can add into the equation from today's podcast, like GHB and what else? Walking meditation.

Put back some of that muscle that he lost.

A heart rate monitor. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll, we'll, first of all, we'll send you for that review. Good. Sir, if you email us a gift packs, just email gearngreedfulfitness.com if you are listening and you like this show, please leave us a review. It's good karma. It helps the ranking of the show too. Last I checked, we were one of the, if not the top health podcasts on itunes. So whatever you guys out there are doing for us, it's working. So keep it up. And in the meantime, we'll put together, as we always do, comprehensive show notes for you. We spend a lot of time on the show notes and they're chock full of everything you need. Those are at BenGreenfieldFitness.com391. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com 391 and other than that, Brock, top of the day.

And Toodaloo.

Toodaloo.