Ben's Current Recommended Fasting Protocol, The Extreme Power Of Combining Fasting With Spiritual Disciplines, How An Addicted, Angry Weightlifter Started A Church & Became A Pastor & Much More

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life.

Podcast, Temptation is about immediate gratification right now, where spiritual disciplines are about delayed gratification and a little bit after you make the right decision. And that's how temptation gets you, is it? It wants you to experience that immediate gratification, whether it's sleeping in or pornography. Pornography is huge for men and women now. It's all connected. It's all connected. A life that's not spiritually disciplined is falling apart in many different.

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

You've probably heard me talking about foot health a lot. And there is one way that you can actually support your foot health that goes beyond just, say, walking around barefoot. So the skin on the bottom of your feet has thousands of nerves that are used to control your movement and your posture. The more you feel your feet, the more you feel your ground, the better you move. And you can train your feet to actually have nerve stimulation that allows you to feel the ground better. Not only that, but you can work on things like the space between your toes, the health of the insoles in your shoes, even socks that assist with recovery, and special nerve system stimulating balls that you can put underneath your feet and use. For example, when you're standing at your workstation during the day, when you're in the sauna, et cetera, they even have a full mat that you can. That helps to support the feet and the sensory system in the feet. So there's a company called Naboso. Naboso N A B O S O. I've actually interviewed the founder of this company who also wrote a fantastic book called Barefoot Strong. Her name is Emily Splichow. S P L I C H A L. You gotta listen to that episode. But we get into all these different ways to support the feet. And she has this whole product line called Naboso that has the neuroball, the splay toe spacers, the activation insoles, the recovery socks. Everything that you need for healthy feet, they've got it. So if you go to naboso.com Ben you'll get 10% off of all their stuff. It's Naboso. N-A-B-O-S-O.com Ben and use code BEN for 10% off, you'll be well on your way to healthy, active feet that operate the way that you want them to. The feet are so important for your hip health, your knee health, all the way up to your Brain. And this sensory based product line is my go to for caring for the feet. So naboso.com BEN N-A-B-O-S-O.com BEN use code BEN for 10% off. Well folks, stress is a common factor that affects everybody. There's a lot of stuff you can do for stress, sleep, optimize relationships, time in nature, et cetera. But from a biochemical or a supplementation standpoint, magnesium is probably at the top of the totem pole when it comes to something that is depleted by stress, particularly because of high cortisol and some of these more stimulating neurotransmitters. And something that when consumed can act like a sort of break on your body's nervous system, helping to calm and soothe, improve sleep and allow for better quality of life. Magnesium can be confusing. There's lots of different versions of it, but this stuff called Magnesium Breakthrough gives you a full spectrum of all seven types of magnesium. Specially formulated to reach every tissue in the body for maximum health benefits. And addressing the deficiency in this key nutrient, magnesium can really address one of the root causes of stress, magnesium and mineral deficiencies. 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And Wild Health is this crazy cutting edge network of physician practitioners around the US who use precision based medicine, meaning they test DNA, they test blood work, they look at lifestyle, they have an incredibly comprehensive approach. You gotta go listen to my podcast, Dr. Dawson. To really wrap your head around everything that they do. But it's like not only the highest end executive health program that I've ever seen, but they also work with anybody who wants the peace of mind that they actually have a doctor who cares and who uses good precision based medicine, meaning they use Testing, they use preventive methods. They look not just at medications or pharmaceuticals, but at diet, at exercise, at sleep routines. Most of their docs even have a really good working knowledge of things like biohacking and ancestral tactics combined with functional medicine, lifestyle based interventions, along with personalized care and doctors who actually pay attention, who care. And their concierge program, which is available for high touch premium care for people like, you know, pro athletes and executives, is available as well as their entire program for anybody. I mean, if you want to find a pediatrician, if you want to find a functional medicine practitioner, if you want to find somebody to look at your genetics, that's what Wild Health does. And they've shown things like 69% reduction in inflammation in their patient database, 58% lower risk of heart disease, which is crazy. They get people off statins, they reverse diabetes. So if you want to check them out, go to wildhealth.com Ben and that'll get you 20% off of any of the Wild Health physician services. 20% off and you go to Wild Health just like it sounds. Wildhealth.com BEN and use code Ben.

Well, folks, I met my guest on today's podcast, or at least became interested in him when I was listening. As I'm prone to do to a sermon in the morning. I like to, for the very first 60 to 90 minutes of the day, listen to my Bible in one year podcast and then move on and listen to a sermon because I believe that you should feed yourself spiritually before you move on to a focus on any of the physical work or the business work, et cetera. And so as I'm tooling around the house doing foam rolling and making coffee and getting ready for the day or whatever, it's always the Bible and then some kind of a sermon that feeds my soul. I have multiple sermon podcasts that I listen to. I think I might have heard today's guest, whose name is Shane Idleman on. I think it might have been Calvary Unplugged, maybe one of the daily sermon podcast series. You know, there's so many of them, I forget the names. But anyways, he was talking about fasting and feasting. Also, he actually has a book called Feasting and what Works, what Doesn't and why. And it was really interesting to hear a guy who prioritizes spiritual health also talk in a pretty educated way about physical health and mental health and biology and lifespan and health span. It really piqued my interest because, let's face it, not to stereotype or paint with too Broad a brush. But often you have the stereotypical cigar smoking, whiskey chugging reformed Baptist pastor or maybe the evangelical preacher who puts a lot in their congregations but doesn't take care of their own body or their own temple or even know how to do so. And this guy seemed to be cut from a different cloth. So I started to look into him. And again, his name's Shane Idleman and he's got about a dozen different books from the feasting and fasting one that I mentioned to 40 days to reset your life for physical and spiritual renewal, to a book on addiction overcoming the cravings that overcome you, all the way down to books like if my people in case of national emergency read this and another book about connecting to God called Desperate for God. And so, you know, I dove in, I read a few of his books, I listened to some more podcasts by him. It's really inspiring and I'll allow him to share his story. But he actually had a promising career as a corporate executive and basically left all of that behind to follow a different dream that God placed in his heart. And now he's the founder and the lead pastor of a church called the Westside Christian Fellowship in Southern California, which is close to Los Angeles. And his collection of books on Amazon, which I'll link to in the show notes@bengreenfieldlife.com idleman it's I D L E M A N are just fantastic to download and have on your Kindle or have as a physical copy at your house because they're just chock full of practical and pretty easy to read wisdom. So you don't have to be like a theological wizard to get through Shane's books. But they also have this focus on health which of course, you know, as a guy in the, in the health industry, I really appreciate. So Shane, I'm really stoked. I've been working for a while to get you on the show and I'm glad we finally made it happen here.

Yeah, it's been a while that we've been planning this and I know, I think you made the connection even with Victor Marks when I was on his podcast and that might maybe prompted you to look into it further. But yeah, I've got a background, you know, and I think God uses different giftings for his personal purposes, of course. And so my background was with health and fitness. Never, you know, went to school for it. I studied a lot of the National Academy of Sports Medicine and, and just that was my lifestyle in my 20s. And what you alluded to was I worked my way up the corporate ladder and started working for 24 Hour Fitness and became a district manager over multiple fitness locations. And that's when I was overseeing, you know, personal training department, accelerated results supplementation. And we had certain numbers we had to hit each month, you know, board allocated budgets. And I was like the full steam ahead. I was even called the steamroller. But with that came anger, arrogance and addiction. And it really took me out. It hurt a lot of things in my life with alcoholism and addiction and arrogance and angry. I was taking steroids, you know, before I got into that.

Yeah. And by the way, to briefly interrupt you on the steroids steroids piece again at the show notes@bengreenfieldlife.com idleman I'm gonna include a picture because you sent me a photo of you. I mean, you, you were jacked. I don't know how much you weighed there. Maybe you can talk about what you were doing from a steroid standpoint. You obviously had a little bit of that kind of like inflammatory, almost like bloated look that some folks will get with steroids. But you were both overusing alcohol, but then simultaneously on steroids as a personal.

Trainer at that point. I wasn't with 24 Hour Fitness just yet. And a lot of it was self esteem. You know, I was chubby as a kid growing up. And I, I'm just releasing it maybe right before this one, a podcast I did on dyslexia. I, I have dyslexia, learning disabilities, reading disabilities. So I hate reading in public. Barely graduate high school with the 1.8. Kind of the stupid kid in the class, you know, make fun of chubby. And then I said, okay, somebody at the gym said, hey, try these little blue pills, you know, Diana Ball or Anavar, and try, just try these. And you start to get bigger and bigger and then, you know, you get more self esteem and now, you know, fighting people and getting thrown out of clubs and clubbing and just this really rebellious. I was 270 some pounds.

270? Yeah, you were pretty big. And I, by the way, I missed the steroid train back in college. I remember because I studied exercise physiology and a lot of the athletes at University of Idaho also were in the exercise science program. I remember a guy sitting beside me, a big old German guy who was playing for the football team. He was actually thumbing through like this catalog. It was written in German, but it was basically a collection of different steroids and chemicals, of course, were getting jacked. And he tried to get me to go in on an order with him. And not only did I not have the money at the time, but I was a little bit scared of that whole scene. So even for me, when I got into bodybuilding and extreme hypertrophy in college, I was pretty much like creatine, tuna fish and the cheapest steaks I could get from the grocery store. But the steroids were of course they were there and they were available and by God's grace I didn't happen to get connected to them. But how long were you using steroids?

Yeah, and that's what I want listeners to know too. That's always the best way to go is how God created us healthy because there has effects. And the word steroid is used a lot, you know, with, with I'm getting a steroid shot in my shoulder for shoulder injury. Nuts. A different steroid? Yeah, you know, we're talking about anabolic. Anabolic, androgenic steroid. Anabolic means growth as opposed to catabolism. Androgenic means male hormones. And so you know, and then I got into heavier testosterone sustenance, 250 equipoise, Winstro V from pharmacies, from actually veterinarian pharmacies for horse, horse tracks, ecopoise and then there's water based, oil based all. But then I got into Anadrol which is a very strong table it very hard on the liver.

Yeah.

And then also eventually into growth hormone. Growth hormone which was about a thousand dollar a month shot. You had to keep it refrigerated and then just you know, you begin to inject yourself and and so I was just boy looking for affirmation. Looking so almost in the cost versus the benefit, you know. Now looking back it was crazy because I did end up in the hospital at age 24 with myopericarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle.

Oh wow. Due to strep throat.

Strep throat went to there. But I started at about age 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. And that's when I started working for 24 Hour Fitness. Worked the way up the corporate ladder and eventually said, you know, I, I gotta stop this. But I continued just with this destructive lifestyle and learned a lot about, learned to read my own blood work, you know, HDL and LDL and triglycerides and, and trying to find, formulate what was going on. But now I use all that information to help people because I think spiritually and physically they, they affect each other. You know, if I have a big venti and a big, big vente and a big Donut. And I try to go preach, I don't feel too well. Or if I get, you know, Panda Express. Panda Express and in Out Burger and get a poor night's sleep, I don't feel too well.

Yeah.

And so how we treat our body. I don't think people realize the connection between depression and gut bacteria and productivity. It's good to focus on longevity, but also productivity. I want to be productive while I'm searching out this longevity goal. So that's what God used. God broke me in my 20s, humbled me massively. It's in my books. I talk about it. And that basically called the prodigal son home.

Yeah. I want to hear about how God actually entered the scene for you, because we got time to talk about how he got broken. But you mentioned donuts, so I'd be remiss not to mention that you can have donuts, folks, but. But you got to do the healthy variety. And this is top of mind for me because I baked a beautiful batch of a dozen donuts yesterday. And it's this super antioxidant, rich form of flour called Himalayan tartary buckwheat. And I combine that with some baking powder, some collagen, some eggs, and a little apple cider vinegar. And you stir that all up, and then you add a little bit of melted coconut oil and a little bit of a sweetener like stevia or monk fruit. You pour that into these silicone donut molds you can get on Amazon or wherever. You bake them for 15 minutes. It's super easy. And then the. And then I made a glaze. And the glaze is just melted coconut butter and a little bit of maple syrup. Or you could use honey and a little bit more coconut oil. And you kind of like dip the donuts after they cooled in the glaze. And then I sprinkled bee pollen and coconut flakes on those and put them into the refrigerator to set. And I literally like breakfast for me, this morning, I had a couple donuts with a cup of coffee. And. As opposed to the venti Starbucks that you mentioned and going and grabbing a fried donut from the local donut place. You can have donuts, Shane. It is allowed. You just got to make them the right way.

I mean, you just made a great point in the fitness industry that we get caught up on labels. All natural. It's not the item itself, necessarily. It's what's in it. Partially hydrogenated oils and processed foods and the white flour. No health benefit to your body at all, where everything you Just mentioned from the bee pollen. I mean, that's one of the most complete foods on the planet Earth.

Oh, yeah. Technically, the donut's as healthy as a steak.

Absolutely, absolutely. And so. But yeah, to answer your question, I was pursuing everything but God. I was one of the top paid, highest producing sales counselors and managers and district because it was all about performance and hitting my numbers, and that's how we were rating success. My mom was praying for me, people were praying for me. I don't want anything to do with God. You know, I'm kind of, you know, just having fun. Leave me alone. But then my life started to fall apart. God really got. Began to get my attention with just, just a broken, broken marriage and again, alcohol, arrogance, punching holes in the wall, you know, just a mean, angry man without the spirit of God in me. And then as a corporate, you probably know this, and a lot of people know this in the corporate world, but as in a corporation, you know, we had, we had same store growth, so I had to have a 6 to 8% same store growth. And I had to keep beating myself every month and, and I began to miss those goals. And then I eventually got demoted for a season. So from a district manager down to a manager and my boy, that was humbling. Just all of this there, there's so much more to it. Just issues that were happening behind the scenes and the alcoholism was taking its toll. And that's why I wrote that book, Help, I'm Addicted. And it was a hungover. I remember it was 1999 or so. And I just said, God, I need to come back to you. I'm sorry, I've drifted like the prodigal son.

When you said, God, I need to come back to you. So were you raised in a religious or spiritual household?

Yeah. And that's another controversial topic. Was I safe to begin with in the first place? But I believe at 12 years old, I was at a camp. And the Bible talks about repenting and believing. I repented, I believed. But then the bad influences came in. My dad wasn't a Christian. And so I just went the way of the world, you know, from Laughlin to Vegas to Palm Springs to the clubs down at Venice Beach. I mean, it was, it was a mess, but I always woke up in the morning convicted, you know, like, this isn't right. This isn't right. This isn't right for years, and kept fighting that and fighting that. And so it wasn't. That's different than somebody who says, I don't care. I love this lifestyle. I actually didn't like the lifestyle, but I was caught in it because of the sin and the addiction. And so I think to me it was full surrender. If I could use a choose a word, it'd be full surrender. I finally surrendered everything. God, you've got my whole life I repent I've been running from you. And that was a defining moment that really changed everything.

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because, you know, I too grew up in a. Well, I grew up in a, in a Christian, in a relatively, you know, strict conservative Christian household. You know, I was homeschooled. I was the little Sunday school boy, went to church every week and memorized scriptures that my dad gave to me and read theological books. And it was really in college that I got tempted by the world and began to take a deep dive into alcohol primarily and a lot of partying and girls and clubs. And it sounds like a lot of the lifestyle that you were living, very similar. But I remember I would still go to church almost every week in college and I'd be at church hungover and having, you know, sitting in the pew at like 10am after having gotten out of the club or the bar at 2am that morning. And I, you know, I lived that lifestyle all the way up until I got married and kind of sort of cleaned up, at least by, you know, the world standards when I got married, but still continued to live what I would consider to be a life relatively distant from God. You know, still going to church on Sundays when I felt like it, and just being a kind of non present, absent world, obsessed father and husband. And it took my marriage nearly falling apart, like, oh, this would have been about eight years ago that until I actually realized, oh, I'm going to lose my family, I'm going to lose my wife, I'm going to lose my kids, I'm going to lose everything that I've built up to this point. And most importantly, I'm going to lose my union with God unless I actually step back and begin to prioritize primarily God and then my spouse and then my children and then my health and then finally my business and what I at that point had on a pedestal making money. And so, yeah, it's kind of interesting that you can be raised Christian, you can be raised knowing the truth, you can be raised knowing all these principles that really allow you to be spiritually healthy, and yet with all these other temptations that come by, you can completely neglect that and live almost like a hypocritical lifestyle.

I didn't even know that. Ben, that's pretty, pretty cool to hear your story. And I think that's why it's so important that I said what I said earlier, that God has to break us. It's not true of everyone, but a lot of us. I needed that pride broken out of me. But there's a rebel within rebel within that wants to just do his own thing. Especially in my 20s and just a series of, you know, who God loves, he chastens, he brings them back. And so just. And that was a turning moment. And then now, you know, I start preaching. Of course, preaching is my passion, preaching the word of God, the totality of God, the absolute truth of God's word, the inerrancy of scripture. And believe it or not, I don't know if I haven't shared this very much, but for many years I tried to bring in some health aspects and people would say, you know, Pastor, leave that at home. You know, this isn't important. Spiritual things are important. I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, maybe. But then I came to realize they just like their Big Mac and they like being 60 pounds overweight. And so conviction. So I said, you know what, Enough of this, because it helps a lot of people. So years ago I started bringing back in. Not during a sermon necessarily, but on the side. You know, we have health expos. I teach on health and fitness and fasting. And I think when your body, when you start to feel better, you start to live for God better. And again, I mean, there's people in the third world countries or on the mission field, or people bedridden. I'm not suggesting that, but those of us who can make changes, that it can really, really, really impact your life, even spiritually. Because think about this. How important is discipline spiritually? If we're not disciplining our body physically, we're often not disciplining our body spiritually. They go hand in hand without a shadow of a doubt.

Absolutely. I was reading a book, it was actually a book on the Jesus prayer, which is a huge thing for me these days. I fall asleep now and when I wake in the wee hours of the morning, I mean, this was like an hour for me last night between 2 and 3am and also when I'm tempted, for example, when I travel and I'm tempted by pornography at night. Right. When you're alone in your hotel room and that's pretty easy to access and nobody's watching and my wife's not there, I rely on this prayer. It's called the Jesus Prayer, it's very simple and pairs well with breath. Actually, you breathe in and you say, oh, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God. And you breathe out and you say, have mercy on me, a sinner. And you almost develop like this mantra. You breathe in, o Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And you begin to just repeat this prayer over and over and over again. And, you know, I found that something as simple as that just seems to allow me to be able to retain my focus on God in moments of stress, in moments of sleeplessness, in moments of temptation. And while reading that book on, it's actually called the Jesus Prayer, she gets into this section where she talks about the link between physical stoicism and physical discipline and spiritual discipline. And she actually, I don't know if it's research that she cites as much as anecdotal data that goes into how people who are athletes or people who have a rigorous physical disciplinary protocol actually tends to be folks who report struggling less with addiction and succumbing to temptation. And also people who report having an easier time doing things like devotion, prayer, meditation, breath work, reading the Bible, et cetera, because they're just so used to overcoming, let's say, those first two really uncomfortable moments in the gym, or those first super uncomfortable 30 seconds in the cold bath, or that marshmallow test at the restaurant when you're not punishing the entire bread bowl as soon as it comes out. And it's kind of the same when you wake up in the morning and you want to flip on your phone and start working, or delve into the tasks and the business of the day. Especially for driven individuals, it feels like taking that step first step into the gym. There's that same resistance when you are instead dropping to your knees in prayer or opening the Bible before you open your cell phone, or doing something that allows you to grow spiritually. For me, every morning, it feels the same as a workout and just never goes away. It feels the same as a cold bath, and it never goes away. This slight cognitive resistance to starting off the day with something that is spiritually meaningful. Yet I think that the practice of things like self denial from a food standpoint, doing the hard thing and swallowing the frog with the morning workout, getting in the cold bath, even when it's cold, seems to ease that transition into having some kind of a spiritual discipline. It's probably one of the reasons why the Apostle Paul says that spiritual training or physical training is of some benefit, because there's, as you've just noted some real concrete crossovers, I think, into the spiritual disciplines.

That verse in context, Paul is not saying that physical exercise is not beneficial. All he's saying is listen spiritually. And where you're going spiritually in your relation with God is the priority and the physical will benefit to some degree. And so people use that scripture out of context and say, well, look, it doesn't matter. No, it actually matters a lot to take care of your body and to be physically active. And, and the whole point that you're just saying, I haven't heard of that book or anything. But the point is, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So as you're disciplining yourself to pray and to read things that are God honoring and to not watch the Internet and things at time. And these spiritual disciplines have ramifications later. And often we don't do them because we don't feel like it right now.

Right.

Our feelings. And we have to remember that feelings are the caboose of the train. They're not the engine. Self discipline is the engine of the train. And our feelings, how we feel, that's the caboose of the train. So I think it's so important, as you think is the direction you're going to go. And then finally, you know, there is a lot of. When I did that book on addiction, I did a lot of research, but there's a big connection between like gluttony and pornography. I believe that because you're giving in, you're not remaining disciplined, you're giving in to these fleshly appetites. And then as a result, the flesh gets stronger and stronger and stronger. And so that, that's definitely tied in. Discipline is so important. It's a biblical principle. It's actually a fruit of the spirit, you know, love, joy, peace, contentment, long suffering, self control, controlling self. But when we make it a work, you know, Christianity, we call works based. We don't want to make it okay, if I do this, you know, for example, if I fast, God's going to love me more. No, he's not, but I'm sure going to love him more. You know, there's, there's, there's these spiritual disciplines are just absolutely incredible and they benefit us in a huge way, spiritually speaking.

Thinking let's talk ketones. It's no secret that a lot of people struggle with sugar. And sugar is kind of like a sometimes drug, right? Like it spikes your energy it can give you a huge boost in energy and then you crash. Ketones are kind of like the opposite of that. Long term stable fuel for the brain and for the body. I've been using ketones for over a decade now. I first started using them during Iron man triathlon because they're a preferred go to long burning fuel for the diaphragm, for the heart, for the liver. Your brain can use ketones very effectively as well. And despite traditionally you needing to fast and severely restrict carbohydrates to get into a state of metabolic ketosis, you can actually shift that dial. Although you still want to look at your carbohydrate and your sugar and your starch intake. I'm not saying you need to eat your cake and do this, but you can shift that dial significantly by taking ketone esters. You can instantly drink yourself into a state of ketosis, even if you're not fasted or in a state of carbohydrate restriction. And in my opinion, if you are fasted or in a state of carbohydrate restriction, these allow you to maintain that state extremely effectively. They crush appetite. I take a shot before a long haul flight. I put a shot now in my bone broth of lunch to keep my appetite satiated for dinner. I like it at night to help satiate the appetite during sleep. They're called ketone esters. Ketone IQ IQ is made by HVMN and their Ketone IQ was created through a $6 million contract from the US Department of Defense and deep partnerships with some of the top researchers in ketone science. It's a very cutting edge drink and it tastes really good in my opinion. I don't mind the taste at all. Some people complain about ketone esters. I think HVMN nailed the flavor. So you get 20% off. You go to hvmn.com beng that's hvmn.com.

And use code BENG20 for 20% off any purchase of Ketone IQ. It's an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Hvmn.com BENG use code BENG20 for 20 percent off. By the way, if you're in California, you can find them in all the California Earth Bar locations located within Equinox. If you're looking for HBMN, they're actually @ Equinox as well. There you have it. Enjoy your ketones. Hey, so everybody wants to boost their immune systems these days. And getting in a sauna four to five times a week actually does that. Great for your immune system. And of course you also see all the other benefits. You get tougher, your cells get more resilient with heat shock proteins, you get more insulin sensitive. Infrared heat particularly really penetrates deep into the skin, allows for better detoxification, reduce pain, better joint stability, even make happy hormones. When all that infrared heat hits your body, it's almost like addicting, but in a really nice pleasant way. So anyways, what I have is a clear lights on. Clearlight is the sauna company known for shielding against emf. And every one of their saunas comes with a lifetime warranty. So they're built to last. Mine is the sanctuary model which is big enough for a workout or family sweat or a bunch of folks just hanging out or whatever I want to do in that sauna. They have a variety of sizes including a one person version that's perfect for even the smallest apartment. And they have a quiz that lets you get information and have one of their 13 different models hand picked for you in terms of the one that's actually going to work for you. And these are big, heavy, well made saunas, which means that you normally have to pay a little bit for shipping, but I got a free shipping and a discount code for you. You go to healwithheat.com and use code Ben for the discount and the free shipping. That's healwithheat.com and use code BEN. Alright, it's coming up. The Ben Greenfield life coaching team is putting on a new transformation challenge. The last one was a six week challenge challenge that got people crazy transformations in their body aesthetics, in their weight loss and in their lean muscle gain. So I know that body image is something that a lot of folks struggle with. But extreme fad diets and endless hours in the gym can be a total waste of time when it comes to say getting ready for spring or getting ready for summer. So what we decided to do was put together a transformation that allows you to transform your body but also also works in a lot of our brain enhancing tactics, our spirituality coaching and everything that you learn during this transformation includes decoding nutrition, using the minimum effective dose of exercise, sleeping better, prioritizing relationships for overall well being and longevity aspects, building a community of like minded individuals who are there cheering you along during the entire time. So it's a transformation challenge and we're running it right now@BenGreenfieldCoaching.com TransformationChallenge. So the way it works is every week you get special tasks, you get to explore resources that we've uploaded for you. You get to attend a group call with the coaches to learn from one of the expert coaches that I've trained, all while tracking daily meals and workouts in this easy to use app that allows you to stay accountable along the way. We've checked off all the boxes for you and we've even given you the option if you want to really kickstart your transformation. You can can upgrade and get a 60 minute one on one console with any of the coaches to really give you a boost up in terms of getting the most out of the transformation and heck maybe even winning it. So we do have a grand prize winner and a runner up. If you win or you runner up, you're going to get a bunch of cool prizes, a free consult with a coach, a fitness and a nutrition plan custom designed for you, a book bundle with my books, a special shout out on social media to celebrate your transformation and and a whole lot more. So these things are super fun. People tend to get amazing results from these transformation challenges and they're doable. So you go to BenGreenfieldCoaching.com TransformationChallenge to get in. That's BenGreenfieldCoaching.com transformationchallenge and I hope to see you.

There. Those of you who might be watching the video of this podcast may have seen me craning my neck just a little bit as Shane was talking because I was looking back at my bookshelf in my office library. One shelf contains all of the books that I want to come back to that are big heck yeses to reread every one to two years. And one book I was forgetting the author, which is why I was straining my head. I believe it is. Okay, yeah, Richard Foster. I want to make sure I got the name right. So Richard Foster's book the Celebration of Discipline is is excellent. There's another guy named Donald Whitney who has a great book on the spiritual disciplines. As a matter of fact, not to toot my own horn, but in my book Endure, which is a book I wrote wrote on the spiritual disciplines, I have this whole anthology of about eight different books that I've read that have taught me all about meditation, silence, solitude, fasting, breath, work, et cetera. But you know, this idea of disciplining oneself physically is actually something that surprisingly, you know, despite you and I talking about, it's important Shane doesn't appear so much in these books on spiritual disciplines, but I would love for more of these books on spiritual discipline to throw in a section on physical disciplines like Cold Plunges and breath work and heat tolerance and working out because again, of that crossover. And with my sons, I pray with them each morning. We gather for family Bible reading and meditation about 7:30am each morning. But then I'm very intentional about tossing them in the cold pool. It sounds like I'm just like abusing my children, but it's all voluntary on their part. They follow dad out in the cold pool. I'm intentional about them kind of getting to the point where they're super uncomfortable with high heart rates in the sauna. I'm intentional about breath work. I'm intentional about even when we travel before we have breakfast. Sometimes it's 100 burpees in the Airbnb. But I know that part of that is going to make them stronger and more resilient and harder to kill, so to speak, from a physical standpoint. But it has direct crossover into their spiritual growth. Growth and their ability to be able to do things like resist temptation and to grow spiritually. So I think that in Christian circles, sometimes this stuff is underrated or considered to be too much of living carnally or living in the flesh. But in fact, there's a lot of crossover into spiritual.

Growth. Yeah. And I've got five kids, too, 18 down to four. So I'm going to have to. Maybe I'm going to see how many of them want to jump in the cold pool with me. And, you know, all these points you're making are biblical. As we learn things, as we get wisdom. I mean, breathing and meditation. We're not talking about some mystic religion. We're talking about waiting on the Lord and breathing and just spending time and turning off everything so you can hear the voice of God. And those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength and their spiritual strength is renewed. But yeah, you're right. Discipline. I think it's because anytime I talk on this, there's always least, you know, 1 out of 10 people that get upset because they think you're too extreme. You're, you're making it like Christianity do all these works when it's just a relationship. Well, true, but because it's a relationship, I want to commit myself and live to the best of my ability. And therefore that's going to require spiritual disciplines and then and disciplining the body in all areas. Because man, the flesh given full rule and reign in your life, is, is a disaster. Think about it. How many people sleep in because of the flesh? They go grab a, you know, 600 milligram caffeine venti and Then the, the bad donuts and then now they want In N Out burger. Now I have to lay down. Now I want my three hour Netflix binge. So most people are living their whole day is guided by the flesh. The flesh wants this. What you're talking about is saying, no, stop, here's what we're going to do instead of and it's called delayed gratification because I don't feel like it right away, but later on, sometimes within minutes, I'm so glad I got up at 3:30 or 4 in the morning and started reading the Bible. But right then it didn't feel good. So we have to remember that the feelings. This is how temptation works. This will be good for some people. Temptation is about immediate gratification right now where spiritual disciplines are about delayed gratification and a little bit after you make the right decision. Decision. And that's how temptation gets you, is it? It wants you to experience that immediate gratification, whether it's sleeping in or pornography. Pornography is huge for men and women now. There's steps to that as well. I talk about in other books, but it's all connected. It's all connected. A life that's not spiritually disciplined is falling apart in many different.

Areas. Yeah, it's trading short term mouth pleasure or sexual pleasure or physical pleasure for some long term deleterious effects on your overall life. And I actually have a couple of thoughts based on what you were just saying. The first is that I don't talk about this too much on my podcast, but some people are like, well, why would you want to live your life in such a stoic fashion? Why would you want to buffet your body each week with a frowny face in the cold pool or pushing the weights around or swinging the kettlebells or doing the heat? This just seems almost like, like a form of masochism. And I'll admit that it can be. I think that there are even some social media influencers out there and fitness experts and even probably people listening to this podcast who take things too far, who push their bodies too much, who are on their 20th Ironman Triathlon and are working out two hours a day to the neglect of relationships or their spiritual walk or who have fitness and stoicism on almost like too high of a pedestal. But at the same time, yes, it does take a little bit of the pleasure and enjoyment and the tasty marshmallows out of your life's experience when you are operating in a spirit of discipline, in a spirit of stoicism, even to the extent where like you were talking about Shane getting up at 3:30 or 4:00am and being slightly more tired all day long compared to maybe your friends who are sleeping until 6 or 7am well, there's two thoughts I have on that. One is obvious, it's that there's not a lot of impactful world leaders and world changers who are not a little bit tired all the time and who also do not have some element of disciplining themselves and passing that marshmallow test. And then secondarily and again, I realize this might alienate some members of my audience who might not believe in eternal life or the message of Christianity, but I believe in a forever life. I believe in eternal bliss forevermore that we experience after we die in the presence of God in heaven on a brand new heaven and a brand new earth. That's going to be absolutely amazing. And you know what? If me going and doing the hard thing each day transfers over into me being better able to to follow God's law and maintain my spiritual disciplines and that then leads to me being given the opportunity to live forever. Well, I tell you what, I will do. Cold baths and meditation and reading the Bible and praying and following God's law all day long if again by the grace of God and not by my own works. That amount of stoicism and discipline that I got to hold to for 70 or 80 or 90 years is something that is giving me the opportunity to exist for infinity in the presence of God. To me it's a pretty logical trade.

Off. Wow, there's so much. I just appreciate what you said and even to piggyback off of some of it, you made a good point. What we believe and I can show through the Bible, historically, prophetically, archaeologically, scientifically. I mean I'm a skeptic by nature. And so with lining up with the Bible, what we believe is you're not saved because of your works, you saved because of repent. You repent and believe in Jesus that finished work on the cross, but now you have to not work for, but you work out your salvation. In other words, I don't want my testimony to be ruined. I don't want to live a lazy, lethargic, gluttonous lifestyle. That's not biblical either. And so you made a good point about finding that balance because it is hard to find. On one extreme is sloth, slothful and these people rarity, they don't accomplish much. But then you do have the other extreme where you know, this is I probably gravitate towards this side for sure. Probably like you and other type A driven because there's no happy medium. You're always kind of, you know, do I fast too much? Do I do this too much? And so I mean we can talk about that in a minute too. How to find that balance. And people need to be encouraged to fall forward too. If you think I do everything perfectly, I mean I fell on most of my fasting, I, I fall often, I. But the key is to get back up and fight again to fall forward. That's really the key. Not about perfection. You got to do this. Hey, I'm pursuing Christ and I'm going to fall in the way, but I'm gonna get back up and finish the journey. And spiritual disciplines, you know, with it's basically as you know, sitting is the new smoking. And so if you turn that into spiritual comfort is actually not our, our friend. If we're too comfortable and hoping to talk to Gary Beckett Becker, I think is his name. You mentioned him.

Before. Gary.

Breca. Oh, Breca, Yeah. Man, what a lot of great information. But he's right with comfort those who are comfortable, you know, you sit more, you don't move as much. Your body really needs to be like fasting does it and kicks in autophagy and telomere growth and brain derived neurotropic factor and all these things under stress. So your body's adapting under stress. So if there's no stress, you don't, you actually longevity is hindered as well because your body is created to react to these stressors and to become stronger and build your, your immune system up and all these other areas up even better. And so that's why spiritual disciplines or even physical disciplines, I should say that to me, physical and spiritual run parallel. I know spiritual is more important, but if I'm, if I'm disciplined physically, I'm also going to be disciplined in the spiritual things as well. And so just kudos to a lot of what you said. But I think it's important for people to know that we're not saying you have to, to do all these things, but to finish the race well. And I tell people, do you want to live the last 10, 15 years of your life in a nursing home or hiking and walking and maybe pass away in your sleep or maybe pass away, you know, some other way, but to have the quality of life and to be productive as long as.

Possible?

Yeah. So yeah, it is. The lifestyle is harder. But think about this. Those who are just, who are not disciplined, they're not they don't care about what they eat. They don't care about, about, you know, oh, that's too hard. Well, they also live with a lot of depression because they live in the pain of either experience the pain of regret or the pain of discipline. You're gonna, you're gonna experience one of those pains. So, yes, although being disciplined has its downsides, I guess if you want to say that you're not having as much fun. Me and my wife have these discussions sometimes. You know, she was a sugar addict, complete opposite. And so we kind of meet in the middle. But you live with some depression and man, I wish I would have gotten shape. I wish I could have been a better grandparent or parent for my kids. I wish I would have. So, you know, there's pain with that as well. It's not being slothful and lazy and not doing anything doesn't really lead to wonderful things in the.

Future. I agree. You know, to expound upon what you were saying about how you're not perfect all the time, man, I don't want to tell you how many times, especially with travel, Shane, where I feel like I've, you know, I'm, I've got my spiritual walk all in order and I'm praying every morning and I'm reading the Bible and I'm meditating. And then you travel and your whole schedule gets thrown to whack. You gotta, you know, you're used to maybe not taking your first business call till 9 and all of a sudden you gotta be at the conference room, breakfast at 7am or you got in late the night before and you need a few extra minutes of sleep because you have a big day or a speech to give or whatever. And it's so easy for things to start to slide, especially when you travel or when life gets busy at home. And I don't want to tell you how many times I've had to get myself and get the family back on the bandwagon. That's just the reality. Do not expect perfection. If you're listening right now when it comes to the spiritual disciplines, in the same way that from a physical standpoint, yeah, you're going to miss the gym sometimes because life happens, or you're going to miss your sauna cold or whatever, you're going to miss your breath. That just happens. Don't hold yourself to perfection. But the most important thing, as you noted, Shane, is to get back on the bandwagon. I think also that you noted this concept of autophagy of cellular cleanup and increased cellular Resilience in response to healthy and moderate doses of physical stress, or so called hormetic stressors. Everything from the slight damage that eating a wide variety of plants and herbs and spices might do to your gut, but the long term resilience that can produce in your body from being able to produce its own antioxidants, or the short term rise in heart rate or rise in blood glucose, a rise in body temperature in response to the sauna or a similar physiological response to the cold that would kill you if extended, but that allows you to bounce back stronger in the long run. Well, from a spiritual standpoint, be careful or at least know what you're wishing for. Because if you ask God to be spiritually strong and you ask God for spiritual resilience and you ask God, God for the ability to become who he fully has created you to be, oh, there are definitely going to be some trials and tribulations that get sent your way. But you know, it's kind of, you know, back to what Viktor Frankl says in man's search for meaning from a secular standpoint or job from the book of the Bible. From a religious standpoint, if you're happy no matter your circumstances and if, when God sends, I don't know, a house fire or a relationship issue or a financial problem or.

One of your children having a real serious issue or a medical or a health problem, if you say God gives and God takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. I'm going to be happy no matter my circumstances and I'm going to use this as a way to refine me. The pressure makes the diamond and the fire makes the gold and you move through that. Then every single time something like that happens, you begin to become someone who's not only able to maintain your union with God and your belief in salvation no matter what, and your own spiritual growth, but you also become someone who's able to help and encourage and empathize with so many other people. I mean, one example of that, Shane, is like, I have a princess gut. And I've had a lot of serious gut issues in my life and have struggled in years with everything from diarrhea to constipation to sibo to parasites to yeast to fungus. You name it, my gut's taken. It might be because I'm 25% Ashkenazi Jew and the Ashkenazi Jewish population is known for kind of having this super sensitive gut, but when someone comes to me for help with their gut, man, oh man, not only do I empathize with Them, but my body of knowledge. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm really, really good at helping people out with gut issues because of so many curve balls God has thrown me with my own gut. So there's kind of a silver lining there as well. And you know, we've alluded to it a few times, Shane, but I really. And this was my initial reason for wanting to get you on. I want to talk about fasting and kind of this fast fee cycling and your own experience with fasting. So tell me about the book you wrote on fasting and what your own fasting protocol, or I believe it was almost like an experiment was in.

Writing that book, the one you're talking about feasting and fasting. I did bring a copy people can take a look at actually. And just so people know we're not necessarily promoting a book is they can actually download these for free on our church website at Westside Christian Fellowship. All the books are there, free downloads. Click it and you're good to go. So I just want to help people, but Amazon, last I checked, doesn't let me put them on.

There. Free. Yeah, you can do like 99 cents on Kindle, which a lot of people.

Do. Yeah, so we went real low on Kindle and audible and things like that. So with fasting, the funny thing is, you know, in the bodybuilding world that's like, no, do not miss a meal, you know, every, every two and a half hours. Keep the metabolic rate up. And of course we know that. I don't think that's really true anymore with insulin and how it's released.

And you got to have all your Pyrex glass containers full of, full of brick and you know, broccoli and chicken at least three or four times a.

Day. I was up to when I had the 8,000. I was up to 8,000 calories when I was at 270 with on growth hormone and you had to make yourself eat, you know, it was, it.

Was, yeah, I remember, I mean the.

Bowl of pasta and chicken. So anyway, so I was taught, I mean, I've heard, I read it in the Bible and I would justify like, oh man, I don't. They didn't know what. They didn't really know, you know, as much as we know now. I know Ezra fasted, Nehemiah fasted, Esther fasted, Moses fasted, Elijah fasted, Jesus himself fasted, Paul said in much fastings. And so fasting is throughout the whole Bible. And Jesus said when you fast, not if you fast. So that's Pretty interesting. So there was a lot of con, there was a lot of conviction. You know, when I first came back to the Lord, like, ah man, they don't know. It's not that good for you really because you'll die if you don't.

Eat. For.

What? What was the normal, normal? 3 days, 6 days, 7.

Days? You'll die, you'll die or at least you'll miss some of your gains.

Bro. Back when I was lifting, it was, you look sucked up. Yeah, I don't know what they say now, but you look, you look sucked up. And now you call it gear for steroids. Back then we called it on the juice. As I get older now, wanting to retain my.

Muscle.

Hello. You know, I went from bench pressing 315lbs 15 times to now maybe deadlift it. You know, it's just because you start to.

Decrease. Yeah. And that, by the way, Shane, is an uphill battle. Now in people who are encouraging fasting is this concept of muscle centric medicine, which is fantastic. Muscle is critical for longevity. The problem is there's this myth going out there that in order to maintain or build muscle, you must feed it constantly. And in fact it's kind of the opposite actually. You've probably come across this research that short term fasting stints can especially combine with resistance training and things like protein refeeds, cause subsequent bounce back and increase in growth hormone and testosterone and hypertrophy while also giving the gut a break and allowing for some cellular autophagy to occur. So there's a definite case to be made for, for intermittent fasting cycles and even periods of longer term caloric.

Restriction. Yeah, like the five day fast with insulin, like growth factor raising and everything you just said. I, I personally would. I always went past that. I actually did a 40 day fast, primarily water.

Only. It. 40.

Days? 40 days. I did some bone broth and I did some juice if I had to preach and I talk about it. It's a fasting documentary on Amazon Prime. They just posted it. I think it's called 40 days, my 40 day.

Journey. Okay, I want to hear more details on this. Walk me through this 40 day fasting.

Journey. You go from a guy who's totally against fasting and then just reading in the Bible, Jesus fasted 40 days. I follow a little bit of Alan Goldhammer's stuff. We've talked on email, email before and of course they don't recommend don't, don't fast without. Super. We should probably say that too. Disclaimer. I'm not giving medical Advice here. I'm just telling you about my own personal experience and I think you do need to get medical advice if you're delving into waters that you're not familiar with. So I was just ignoring it for a while and playing around with it, but I thought, you know, hey, this is possible. I lost 37 pounds over the 40 day period we did the documentary. But I had to preach sometimes three times a day, like on Easter. And so that I would bring like a kajava, you know, smoothie, maybe 200 calories, two scoops in it. So it wasn't what they would call pure water only because in order to do that, you can't take any nutrients in whatsoever to go, you know, if you're fighting, I would recommend if you're fighting cancer or these, these types of diseases that really need you to go deep into autophagy. And so it was just incredible. After three or three days, not really having hunger and I was getting heavy, I was eating primarily plant based and I got to £230 and just a lot of nuts. Just too many calories. And so I, I, I, I understand that calorie, you know, we shouldn't count calories and it's more about hormone levels and not as much about. Calories also play a role in, I mean, if your body, if you're taking in more than you're burning, calories.

Play a bigger role than anything else, despite a lot of the folks who try to defy that. If it fits your macros at the end of the day, if you restrict calories and exercise, you'll lose weight. Yeah, we've kicked that horse to death on other.

Podcasts. Yeah. And so maybe it'd be good to talk. We can talk in the future. I'm curious where you stand on that. But the bottom line is I think we should be aware of what we're eating because I said, okay, mainly plant based, got some clean meat and was just eating too much. Yeah, I work out five days a week, but I eat too much. So if you eat too, because I'm that late night eater, I don't know, you know, after, if I could just stop at 5 after a healthy big salad and chicken breast, I'd be great. But then the chocolate, you want this, you want peanut butter, you want. We have a lady dropped off a couple gallons of raw organic goat.

Milk. Oh, man. Yeah. And by, by the way, I'm, I'm the same way with late night eating. Just because we have so much good food around our house, you know, that people send us like the dark chocolate bars and all different healthy ice creams. You know what saved my butt is ketone esters. I now have ketones with dinner and after dinner I don't even think about food because my ketone levels are so high. So that's my hack these.

Days. Is that the little $5.

Liquid? Yeah, they're not inexpensive but yeah, like a shot of ketone esters or even the ketone alcohol alternative, the one made by ketone aid. Like having a big glass of that with dinner. And you can measure this with a sensor like Biosense or any ketone measurement device. If you can kind of figure out a way by the time you finish dinner to have ketone levels above about 3 millimolar. Like you just, you don't think about snacking at night, just goes away. Which is.

Great. Wow. Yeah. And I actually ordered some after you recommended though, so I'm anxious to try. I try one out but I want to get more to it. So anyway back to the 40 day fast and there was a time where I said forget it. We were at the in laws house and I had some salad and a little bit of meat and I'm feeling like you know how you're going two weeks, you feel like upset, depressed that I blew it a little bit and so I got back on track the next day and just kept going, going eventually got to like 193 from 2:30. Why I was doing it though mainly is spiritual reasons. You know there's a verse in the Bible, this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting and the spiritual disciplines. Because if you just fast, it's a weight loss program for Christians. That's why you've got it instead of, instead of eating you take it to prayer and time with God and, and what's amazing is I didn't realize how much extra time I had. Have you ever, you know when you don't eat all.

Day? Oh, at least the calculations I've done is with making the smoothie in the morning, you know, lunch with the emails, dinner with the family that I don't quite count because I want to be in the family with the. Or with the family in the evenings anyways. But it comes out to about an hour and a half or two hours that if I cut out a meal or on the days I decide I'm just going to do like a fatty coffee or some ketone esters and amino acids with lunch because I want to be highly productive. Yeah, I mean the time and the Freedom of time. And also of course, you combine that with the focus and the productivity from the elevated ketones and the fasting. Productivity impacts are.

Enormous. I wasn't too worried about vitamins, minerals because I took a little bit of supplementation and overall it was a great experience and I wanted to do another fast. That was about a year ago and it is, I struggle, okay, when is too much. But I began to realize, studying it in the Bible, looking at all these different things, things. I think a person, especially as a believer, should live a fasted lifestyle. Now I don't mean I should clarify, I don't mean you got to be fasting all the time and, but I, I don't think you should just fast for 21 days juice only on January 1st and go back to bad habits after that. You know, there's a lifestyle enjoying what God has given us, enjoying, you know, the, the donuts you mentioned or a birthday cake or you're, you're either disciplining the flesh or the flesh is disciplining.

You.

You. I hate to say it that way, but that's the truth. I'm either bringing my flesh into subjection or my flesh is leading me. And it's a, it's a balance, it's a hard, you know, you've got the, that, that battle inside of us. And so I think as we're following God, as we're ask, asking for clarity, as long as it's not, you know, oh, I want to get a six pack of abs and I want to be this super spiritual person. I want to, you know, if your focus is on serving God and pleasing him and in the word, you know, you'll be, you'll be guided, you'll be, you'll be led to what is the right direction. So, so I don't know if there's a happy medium because those who fast a lot feel like they're fasting too much and those who don't feel like they need to do it more. But I think if you can just live a self disciplined life and I think adding fasting to your weekly schedule is pretty important because that way you don't get too out of.

Control. I think so too. And just to share with people like a practical boots on the streets protocol, actually I'll do that in a moment. But I got to mention, and I don't know if you've seen this book, but, but I first discovered the power of combining spiritual disciplines with self denial from a caloric or food standpoint. When I read a book, it's super cheesy looking. You can find on Amazon, I think it's only a couple bucks. But it's called Atomic Power with God through Fasting and Prayer. It's by a guy named Franklin hall and he gets into all of the different remedies that are healed and the impact in terms of the power of prayer when you combine it with self denial and as we were talking about earlier, the link between curtailing hunger and appetite and being able to curtail things like sexual appetite or sinful appetite. And I read that book, it was absolutely fantastic. But to get back to what I do now is daily. I do an intermittent fast for 12 to 16 hours. And I gotta admit, I'm a lean guy with the high metabolism. Most days I wake up hungry and I could go make myself a smoothie right away. But I engage in all of my morning spiritual disciplines, the prayer, the devotion, the scripture reading, et cetera, without any coffee, without any food, and I have a big glass of water when I get up. So this is like a mini fast each day for women who are premenopausal. You want to be kind of careful with that because it can downregulate fertility and have an impact on the endocrine system. So women do a little better with 10 to 12 hours, guys closer to like 12 to 16 hours. But I think that's fine from a daily standpoint. And then every quarter I do a longer kind of like getaway, similar to your 40 day fast, but only three to five days where it'll be juice or bone broth or amino acids and ketones, at least 40% or less of the calories I'd normally consume. This would be almost like what would be called a fasting mimicking diet approach. And I use that time to catch up on the giant stacks of books on the deeper sections of prayer. Sometimes a solo retreat in my house, like a staycation, so to speak. And so four times a year, spring, summer, winter and fall, I have caloric restriction and fasting combined with prayer, meditation, spiritual reading and a focus on the spiritual disciplines. So it's intermittent fasting daily and then a quarterly deeper dive for three to five days, which is is pretty achievable. And then you mentioned about kind of balancing the caloric intake with the caloric denial. Well, this is where I think religion, if you want to call that, ties in pretty beautifully with these spiritual disciplines. Because we have one day of the week, Sundays, where not only is my physical activity much lower or at least less intense, it's like walking with the family, bike rides, tennis, pickleball, et cetera. But Sundays are the feast day. Sundays are the glorious double waffle breakfast with the family or big pile of eggs and the big lunches sometimes with friends and a big dinner party at our house. And you just basically fill the body with everything it needs for the whole week, which is also great for resetting the thyroid, making sure the thyroid doesn't get down regulated from too much caloric or carbohydrate restriction. That's a day in which I don't worry at all about carbohydrates, even though I'm more careful with carbohydrates on the other day. So basically I would say six days of the week I'm kind of sort of hungry most of the day and especially hungry during that intermittent fasted period. And then that's the self denial piece that we talked about earlier in this podcast has so many side benefits. And then I get that one day of a week where it's rest, where it's embracing, almost like a little glimpse of heaven. And I get all the food I want, all the feasting I want. And then four times a year I can do the fasting with a deeper focus on the spiritual disciplines. Again, back to what you just noted, especially because I've got an extra two or so hours in the day because I'm not making or worrying about food.

Anyways. Well, you just made a couple good points and I think that protocol, I would actually heavily endorse that protocol and encourage people to do that. And when you take that three to five day, it's good when you have a little bit of juice. That's why you can get a lot of stuff done with your book, reading different things because if it's just water only, you know, that's when you go into some pretty deep detox symptoms and things like that, which is good too. But I want people to know, hey, I'd rather have you have 2, 3, 400 calories of juice every day and get through a five day fast and have you give up on day one. You know, the benefits are amazing. And you talked to, you mentioned.

The longevity diet or the fasting mimicking.

Diet. Yeah. Valter Longo is just an hour for me at usc. He's got a lot of great research. And then Daniel Pompa, mutual friend of ours, yeah, he talks a lot about that feast day. The reason the feast day is important is because your body will become accustomed to what you're doing. And that's why people are worried about A metabolic rate slowing down. That's actually why it slows down is if you, if you keep this caloric restriction you keep in your hormone levels from, I mean, gosh, glucagon up to insulin, up to the different ones that regulate the thyroid, then your metabolic rate will slow down to meet this caloric restriction. So that feast day is like kind of a throwing into the system. Oh, wow, okay. We can, we're not going to starve to death here. And on feast days, I encourage people, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't eat as much until your stomach's going to pop like Thanksgiving. But you know, to where you've, you've been satisfied. Well, yeah, you've went deeply into the, to these areas and that I think that's another important, you know, six days a week you're. And it's okay to feel a little hungry. I don't think people, even from a biblical perspective, there wasn't an ampm on every corner order. I mean they would go sometimes days and, and not eat. And that's why I look at everything from a creation standpoint. So when you ask me what diet people talk about, Paleo, carnivore, you know, keto, I look at creation. How did God create us? And he created us for seasons of feasting and.

Famine.

Yep. And so I think if you're not fasting to some degree and you're just taking in whatever your body wants it, that's why, why are all of our health related? Illnesses skyrocketing, rocketing. Diabetes is lifestyle related. It's a lifestyle choice. Heart disease, obesity, even Alzheimer's and the things, how the brain is affected, a lot of these things all cause mortality. If you look at most of it's diet.

Related. Yeah, yeah. Caloric excess and hyper palatable.

Food. Excess.

Excess. Yeah.

Exactly. And the wrong kind of.

Food. Yeah, yeah. And you know, you talked about thyroid downregulation and we're going to kind of get into the weeds here momentarily or for just a moment. But, but I think there are even ways to skirt that. And yeah, maybe Jesus and the apostles and a lot of the Old Testament prophets didn't have access to a little bit of better living through science, so to speak. And perhaps they didn't even care about longevity maybe quite as much as we seem to be obsessed with it. But nonetheless, I think that ketone esters again are fantastic because they give the body a metabolically available fuel that keeps it from engaging in as much endocrine downregulation and thyroid down regulation as you'd see with pure caloric restriction. And it also has a very, very low impact on things like MTOR and insulin pathways. And so I think it's probably one of the better things, even better than juice for something like an extended fast, being able to get by with as few calories as possible. And then the other thing, and this would be more for super lean people or people who would tend towards hypothyroidism or downregulated thyroid activity anyways, and this is not to be misconstrued as medical advice, this is a total biohack. But you can actually get desiccated thyroid glandular. There are companies like Ancestral Supplements or I believe Heart and Soil has some. There's another company out of New Zealand that has one called Thyro Gold. And you can actually take thyroid to keep your thyroid supported in the face of caloric or carbohydrate restriction. And it can actually help out a little bit with your body, not, not kind of resetting the, the metabolic rate too low after a period of caloric restriction. So I'm a big fan of the ketone esters and the thyroid glandulars for fasting as.

Well. Yeah, and you mentioned the ketone esters unless people might not be aware, but it's the liquid. So if you're taking in ketones right away, it's already in your bloodstream, it's already in digestion. Your body doesn't have to now break down ketone bodies and the fat and the fuel. And also if people are interested, they can follow me on YouTube and rumble and Instagram and Twitter. And I sometimes do a lot of health related from a biblical perspective. Like I just did one on, on supplements yesterday, talked about Thor or Thorn, I guess it's called and all the different supplements out there. I also try to help people on a budget because not all of us can have, you know, infrared beds which you can just walk out in the early sun or grounding, you know, grounding is, is great, but if you don't can't buy anything, you can go out in the grass and in the dirt hurt. I think that's biblical. I mean that's how we were created because the body's letting off charges. And so what I mean by I look at everything based on creation, how did God create us? What types of foods, what type of diet is best based on creation? What type of. Is fasting biblical? And it's really because you have this person say no meat, you have this person say all meat. Both experts, you know, so where do you find the source of truth? So that's, if I stick with that. I, I, I really don't get too confused on. And that's why I liked your, your, your whole aspect on your books and your website is because whether you knew it or not, it's, it's grounded, you know, in creation. Like how are we created? What types of foods did God give the body to eat? Yeah, it's so.

Important. And despite there of course being a great deal of biochemical individuality, I think that if you really step back and if you are a creationist, for example, which any Christian listening to into this show probably is the first diet known to humankind likely did not involve death or killing or animal suffering or anything of the like. And I do believe that the human body, in the way that it was originally designed, can do just fine on plants and fruits and seeds and nuts and really good water and sunshine and a connection to the planet. Yes, there must be also be involved with that type of dietary approach a great deal of fermentation and soaking and sprouting and treating things like plants and seeds and nuts in such a manner that they have improved digestibility, more amino acids and a reduction of their plant defense mechanisms that can do damage to the gut. And I think that also there's a need to eat a plant based diet in as whole foods based fashion as possible rather than kind of like the, the ultra processed vegan or vegetarian tofu whole wheat sandwich giant 18 apple smoothie that you see so commonly implemented these days in a plant based diet. But I think that you can do a plant based diet, it just takes a lot of work. I think furthermore, this might also get into the weeds a little bit. Shane, I think the chemical composition and the environmental composition of the planet was likely far different prior to the Great flood. And we know this from some fossil records. The size of fruits and vegetables, the amounts of them, and probably also their nutrient and chemical composition was likely superior when the earth was first created, at least that's my belief. And so I don't think that we'll be having ribeye steaks and Mary's half roasted organic chicken in heaven. I think it'll be be plants and fruits and seeds and nuts that there won't be any death or animal suffering or anything of the like yet. Fast forwarding and getting back to what you were talking about like a biblically based omnivorous approach, because I do think, and there's ample evidence for this in scripture, that God kind of gave the thumbs up on People eating meat and fish, and that that's just a natural part of our existence now. And that if we do so without the animals suffering to a great extent, and if we do so, we'll be in good stewards for this planet and that it's okay and arguably a much more convenient way to get adequate nutrients and calories than eating plants. I think that if we were to step back and include that omnivorous consideration, that two examples of really good diets. One would be a guy I interviewed yesterday on my podcast that hasn't been released yet, Jordan Rubin, who wrote a book called the Maker's Diet, which is a diet that takes into account our stewardship of the planet and caring for this planet in the way that God's called us to, while also eating a lot of organic, grass fed grass, finished, pastured raw products. And then a very similar diet would be the Weston A. Price diet, which again is a lot of ferments and vegetables and plants that have been treated properly, combined with things like sourdough bread, grass fed grass, finished meats, pastured pork, chicken that's been raised humanely, et cetera. So those are just two examples of diets that I think would fall into the category of something that feeds the body adequately and that also honors the planet, honors the animal and honors God if it's comprised properly and of course, eaten with.

Gratefulness. I'll tell you a funny story you mentioned. Who'd you have on the program.

Yesterday? Jordan.

Rubin. Oh, yeah. Jordan Rubin. In 2001, I met with a large publisher in Anaheim. It was my first book and the title was what Works When Diets Don't. And I was just coming out of the fitness industry, but I decided not to go with a publisher. I just, that's why I can offer them free. I can do them on my own. I can bring them to events and different things. And so I turned them down and they took the Maker's Diet instead. With Jordan Rubin, I joked about them. I ran into him once and joked about, said, hey, I should, I. They should have. You should thank me that they picked up your book. But I didn't want to be an organic farmer and do what he's doing. So God, God had his. You know, I don't regret it. I don't regret it for one minute because now we can actually. We give away thousands of books for free. Tree. And that's just where God has us. But anyway, to. Your question was. Yeah, I mean, if you look at, you know, we were originally created to eat and you're right. The environment was incredible. And then actually it was right after the flood. God, God told, you know, Noah, just like I gave you the, the green herbs and the plants to eat, now I also give you every living thing to eat to become fuel for you, food for you. And so maybe because there was enough grass, I mean, we don't really know. All we know is, you're right. From a biblical perspective, Jesus ate fish, Jesus ate lamb, I'm sure with Passover. And John the Baptist, you know, was, was eating grasshoppers and wild honey. And so we do see that now. But the, the thing is, for me, meat and dairy have become so toxic and dirty. You have to really, you know, make sure you're, you're eating something that is, is going to give you some benefit from the inside.

Out. Toxic and dirty. And also the way that they're raised and many plants are raised is raping the planet, creating dirt instead of soil and abusing animals. And so I think even, and I don't want to get all judgy, but I think more Christians at the church potluck or whatever, or even with the communion bread, et cetera, should take into greater consideration what the impact of the food that they're eating has, not only on their bodies, but the planet as a whole. Because we were called to be stewards of this planet. And I think that eating mindlessly, whether or not something is, quote, healthy, is something akin to almost like disobeying or neglecting that mandate because we're essentially destroying the earth and abusing animals in the process. So I think that really needs to be taken into consideration. It seems like something that's almost like a painful point to bring up in Christian circles, though, because people kind of look at you like you're some kind of a hippie.

Pantheist. You know, to your point, we're, we're actually called to steward the environment better than anyone else. We should. And because meat is allowed doesn't mean you have to. I mean, you know, the process of how they're raised. And it's just, it's pretty sad that how we treat the animals and we can do better in a lot of areas. So I think Christians should be fine with that. It's just a matter of, you know, choosing your battles carefully and finding out more, getting more information. But yeah, I agree that we should be good. Like, when you go backpacking or hiking in the mountains, like I do up in the High Sierras here, you want to bring out a little trash more than you brought in you know, you want to keep the streams and the river and you want to just keep everything, even how I fish, catch and release, fly fishing or something. You know, you want to. You want to just be good stewards. There should be a love for God's creation. I agree 100% on.

That. Yeah, I don't have any desire to be on a spaceship to Mars anytime soon because the Earth is inhabitable. So you mentioned Dan Pompa and I mentioned Jordan Rubin, and I've done a few other podcasts on feasting and fasting, both the science and the historical significance of it, even from a religious standpoint. And so if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com idleman it's I D L E M A N, which is Shane's last name. I'll link to all of those previous shows if you want to take a deeper dive. Like I mentioned, Shane's written over a dozen books, many of which are free, on the Westside Christian Fellowships website. You can also, of course, get them on Amazon, deliver them to your Kindle, etc. And I'll link to Shane's Amazon page and also his church website in the show notes, and he also has a podcast. I'll make sure that I provide you with details in the show notes on that one, too. So that's all going to be@BenGreenfieldLife.com idle and as a bonus, I will post the crazy picture of Shane when he was a massive, huge weightlifter on gear, just so you can see the before and after compared to how he looks.

Now. I was miserable and getting ready to get drunk that night, if I remember.

Correctly. You can tell you're not super happy, but you're huge. Well, Shane, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really like the message that you have. I like that you're teaching Christians about health and fitness. And I like the message for fasting, which, of course, is something applicable to everyone. This podcast isn't just for those who go to church or those who are Christians, although I think that's a very good idea to engage in both of those things Nonetheless. Shane, thank you so much for coming on the.

Show. Thank you too, Ben. What a blessing to sit and talk and help people in this.

Area. Yeah, for sure. All right, folks. Well, I'm Ben Greenfield, along with Shane Idleman, author, speaker, and pastor at that Westside Christian Fellowship in Southern California, signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com have an amazing.

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