How Two Middle-Aged Entrepreneurial Parents Completely Transformed & Biohacked Their Health, Fitness, Sex Life & More

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

So I was going to the gym less and I got more results. And, yeah, people were going, man, you're a beast. Now, what happened to you? Again, this is work smarter or harder. That's why I really appreciate what you've done. You've really researched. You simplify the sciences. And you said, jim, this is what you have to do. And why.

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

Well, folks, I have a couple of dear friends who I've been helping with their fitness, their health, their longevity, their nutrition. They are the father and mother of many children. Too many to count. I've lost track. I think six. And they run a company called 18 Summers based on the idea that we all have 18 Summers to have with our children, and we might as well make the most out of those summers. And you can learn more about them in the links that I'll put in the show notes, which are going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com 18 summers, number one. The number eight summers, their names are Jim and Jamie Shiels. And gosh, we've just been biohacking them and upgrading them and working on all these different tactics to improve them for so long that we figured, hey, let's hop on the horn and talk about how a successful entrepreneurial father and mother of multiple children can stay fit and sexy for life. And that's exactly what we talk about in today's show. So again, all the shownotes are going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com 18 Summers enjoy.

All right, 18 Summers Tribe, we're here today with Ben Greenfield. Now, so often we're told that family is boring, unattractive. You have to grow old together, right? You never get to have hot sex again. You have to drink wine to tolerate your children. And, you know, there's so many stigmas that go along with growing old together. And at 18 summers, you know, Jim and I are really passionate about doing things differently. And two years ago, we started training with Ben here, who has completely turned us into sexy beasts. And we're so grateful.

That's right. Now you only need two glasses, two glasses of wine to tolerate your children and eventually get you down to one. Then just a shot of vodka, then you'll be good to go.

We don't even. I don't even drink anymore. It's been about eight months since I've had a glass of wine.

Oh, my Gosh you know, I didn't even tell you guys this yet because it's been a little while since we last chatted, but, like, you know, I used to have a glass of, like, nice organic biodynamic wine every night, and even that I'm down to about two nights a week because there's this new alcohol alternative that just came out a few months ago. It's basically these ketones that they package up in cans as like a gin and tonic or Moscow Mule, and they taste just like the real thing. But rather than using alcohol or ethanol specifically, they use ketones. So it shifts your body into this rapid state where it crushes appetite cravings and puts you into ketosis and. And then gives you the same kind of socially lubricating effects of alcohol without drinking. I'm going to interview him on my podcast soon because I've been just putting those over some ice with a squeeze of lime or some electrolytes at night, and I get the same feeling as I would have had a glass of wine, but it's just ketones. I love it.

See, Ben, this is why I love our conversations, because. And we're going to talk about some of our results in a minute that we've gotten. You are such a research fiend that I just. I'm just like, well, let me check with Ben on something. And then you always add something that gives a little bit of course correction. And like Jamie said, naturally, we were never big drinkers, but honestly, as we.

Feel better, as we drink less, as.

You feel better, we're drinking even less red wine. Enjoy a glass. But that's just one of the success results we've had. And Jamie was already listing some of the other phenomenal ones. But I really want to know. You and I have known each other for over a decade. We've had a lot of time together at different events, family time. I want to know, because one reason is selfish. You don't even know this, but our 16 year old is very, very, like, enthused about what you do and how you do it.

Fitness and training and peak performance.

Like, what. What put you on the path, Banks? I don't think we ever really talked about the way back when, Ben, of what got you on this path of boundless.

Yeah, well, I mean, like, I wasn't that interested in fitness or sports or the human body or anything like that. Like, I think you guys know I was home schooled K through 12, you know, and not that all homeschoolers are like this, but, you know, I was kind of like a stereotypical geek. You know, like I was president of the chess club and I played the violin, you know, since I was like 4 years old. More proof to go through. I spend most of my time with my nose in a fantasy fiction book or like, you know, I'd go to the symphony on the weekends. You know, like that was my concert was I go listen to orchestra and I was pretty, pretty geeked out. And I was also super into computers and computer programming. My parents, when I was really young, hired me a private tutor for computer programming and I could like take apart all my computers and put them back together and program video games. And I kind of this internship and practicum worked up with a former Microsoft programmer and I was just going to like move in with him when I was 15, 16 and you know, start down the road of being a, being a nerdy little computer programmer, you know, with a. No offense to computer programmers but you know, like a nice little neck beard in my mom's basement or something like that and you know, maybe play dungeon and dragons on the weekend. And, and then what happened was, you know, my, my parents, they wanted to make our house a really fun place to be, which I think is super smart. Like I, that's one thing I learned from my parents is like make your home so fun that your kids just want to like hang out and bring their friends over and keep coming back year after year for family reunions and holidays because it's like your home's just like the fun pad. And that was my parents goal. So you know, they, they built like a swimming pool with a slide and they built a basketball court and, and like a skeet shooting course with shotguns and you know, ping pong table, all sorts of stuff. But then they built a tennis court and, and they had me and my friends have a tennis instructor who they brought up and teach us tennis a few times a week. And well, first of all, she was pretty hot, so I kind of had a crush on the tennis instructor and yeah, so, so that, that kind of made me want to get good at the sport. Michelle, I remember her. And then also like I was kind of good at it. Like it seemed like I was just like naturally just a little bit better than the other kids in the class. And up till that point I dabbled in like soccer and basketball and T ball and baseball. You know, my parents would just kind of, you know, throw the noodles against the wall and see what sticks in terms of interest. But man, tennis just, I was on fire for tennis and I started playing, I mean, literally like two to three hours every afternoon. I'd finish school and just like go out to the tennis course, call my friends, find out who wanted to play tennis. As a result of that and wanting to get really good at tennis, I started also kind of like looking into fitness. Like, oh gosh, I could do like hill sprints back behind the house. And I remember I had my dad bring me down to gart sports a few miles down the road and bought me some 10 pound dumbbells. And I had no clue what to do with them, but I'd lay on the edge of the bed and do that was my first exercise ever. I laid on my stomach on the bed and did preacher curls off the bed because it seemed like I should get my arms strong for tennis. So I was just kind of making stuff up as I went. I, I saw an as seen on tv, ab trainer device. And then I got that too, because I knew the core was important for tennis. And so I was basically doing like some, some DIY weightlifting and running a little bit and kind of started to pay attention to what I was eating too. Like, I didn't know jack squat about nutrition, but, you know, I was like, oh, geez, protein's supposed to be good, so I'm gonna start having eggs for breakfast instead of sugary cereal. And gosh, I should probably have some broccoli with dinner even though I hate it. You know, just super simple stuff. And gosh, I got so into just like nutrition and fitness and physical culture and I, I wound up meeting a couple of mentors. One guy who was the Washington state powerlifting champ, and then my little brother's best friend's dad was a bodybuilder. I started hanging out with these guys. They taught me a ton about, you know, how to load up barbells and Olympic training and weightlifting and nutrition and supplementation. And by the time I was 16 years old, I was like, yeah, I actually want to study this stuff at a university level. Like, I want to go study kinesiology and exercise science and sports and personal training. So at 16 years old, I actually walked on to the local university tennis team and started playing tennis and studying and then like, whole new world, right? So my dad, he was a paramedic and he'd bring me around to the emergency medical conferences and I'd go and visit him at the office and his EMTs would chase me around trying to stick me with IVs and I learned all sorts of medical terminology. My first job, when I was 13 years old, was filing medical insurance claims. I wake up at 4am and just file medical insurance claims for two hours because my mom put me in this Mavis Beacon typewriter competition. I got really, really fast at typing. And by time I was 13, I was faster than any of their secretaries at the medical office. So they had me filing all these medical insurance claims. And so when I was in college, I was real familiar with a lot of the medical stuff. And I didn't realize this going into college, but shortly after I was in, I realized, oh geez, you don't just study sports and exercise when you're wanting to study sports science and exercise science. It's anatomy and physiology and microbiology and biochemistry, organic chemistry and physics. And I'd never been that interested in science or math up till that point. But now that I had a purpose behind it and I was like, oh gosh, if I know that know the moment arm and can, you know, digitize the joints on a bench press, I can figure out, you know, the force loads of like a dumbbell bench press versus a barbell bench press. I was just super geeked out on this stuff. So I was very, I was so very intellectually driven, probably as a result of being homeschooled. And so I decided I want to be a doctor. Right. I, I, I, I thought, well, gosh, what's, what's the, the pointy, pointy edge of all this stuff I'm doing? It'd be like orthopedic surgery or sports medicine. And so I took the medical route, I took the MCATs. I got accepted to six different medical schools. And you know, since I started college and I was 16 actually, actually I was about not quite 16. 15 and a half. I.

You were 15 and a half when you started college?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

And so I, you know, at 19 and a half years old, I had, you know, passed the MCATs. I was interviewing in medical schools and I was accepted to a bunch. But there was, there was two programs I wanted to get into, the UPenn and the Harvard MD PhD programs. I didn't get accepted into those. It's kind of an uphill battle. I realize this isn't super PC to say, but, you know, as a young white male, it was a little bit more of an uphill battle getting into, get into medical school or at least a high, high end medical program like that. So I thought, well, gosh, you know what, I want to go work in the private sector and make myself even more palatable to these two institutions that I really want to get into. So I got offered a job in hip and knee surgical sales from a company called Biomet. And I thought, great, I'll go shadow physicians, work in hospitals, pick up all the lingo, you know, get a few doctors to write reference letters for me, and then, you know, move on and go into sports medicine, orthopedic surgery at one of these programs that I really wanted to get into. And I got that job. I actually, I had just gotten married, but I moved like an hour and a half away from my wife and slept on my older brother's floor of his trailer working at this, this medical facility. And oh my gosh, I hated every minute of it. I hated every minute at the hospital. All the doctors were grumpy and seemed to hate their jobs. All of them told me I'd be done to go to medical school because they spent half their time just filing insurance claims and dealing with lawsuits and grumpy patients. And they were installing overpriced 40, $60,000 hips and knees into people who probably would have benefited more from being told to exercise and eat healthy and just the whole thing with a nasty taste in my mouth. I quit that job after about six months. I walked into the gym across the street from the place where I was staying and I slapped my resume down on the counter at that point. I mean, like, I was pre med. I had a personal training certification. I worked as a personal trainer and nutritionist all through college. You know, I was a certified strength conditioning coach. I had hundreds of hours spent with the football team and the basketball team and the tennis team at University of Idaho. Like, I was kind of like a dream hire for any gym. So I got the job right away and started managing the Liberty Lake Athletic Club. And you know, I was a spin instructor, the personal trainer. Wound up actually being pretty successful. This is a pretty wealthy part of town. And you know, within about a year I was pulling in six plus figures as a personal trainer and managing this athletic club. Then I met a doctor whose wife was working with me as one of my clients as a personal trainer. And this doctor, Dr. PZ Pierce, he was a doctor for Ironman and the doctor for rock and roll marathon. And I was in the Ironman triathlon at the time. And he shared with me his dream of creating a one stop shop for sports medicine where you go to this place and you have your high speed video cameras for gait analysis and your blood and biomarker testing tools and calorimetry tools for determining metabolic rate, chiropractor and a Physical therapist and massage therapist and a sports medicine doc, personal trainer, nutrition programming. And he asked me if I wanted to go in on it with him. And so I did and he and I launched that. It was called Champion Sports Medicine down by Gonzaga University in Spokane. And I was the director of sports performance there for about four years. And all I did was just train athletes, video record people, do blood and biomarker testing, do nutritional analysis. And I was pretty much just like the most geeked out personal trainer in town, right?

I was still super intellectual and really into like all the cutting edge stuff, like the early day biohacks and we were doing like platelet rich plasma injections into joints and all sorts of cutting edge stuff. And it was great working with a doctor too, because I learned a ton. Then what wound up happening, because we worked so closely with the local medical community and they would refer a lot of patients to us for training, was several of the docs in the local medical community. In Spokane, they nominated me as America's top personal trainer through the National Strength Conditioning association, and I received the award. So I flew down to Vegas and was part of this big, you know, gala and event where they gave me this award. And then all of a sudden people started asking me to speak and write books and do a lot of like public facing stuff that went way above and beyond just the time in the gym that I'd been spending. And so at that point, I kind of got thrust in the limelight, started getting feature in magazines and I was writing for, you know, Men's Health and the Women's Health and, you know, all these fitness magazines and triathlon magazines. I started writing books. I started a podcast back when, I think was about 15 years ago now. There may have. There was maybe 50 podcasts max, when I started a podcast. This is back when you had to code your own RSS feed. And it was just me sitting there with my gym T shirt on, you know, telling people about research studies and exercise science. And then eventually I started to interview people, continue to write books, continue to write online programs and kind of, you know, when my wife became pregnant with twin boys 14 years ago, that was when the light bulb went off for me and I was like, dude, I can't do all this because I was like, I was on a plane two or three times a week speaking at conferences. I was racing professionally in triathlon. I was running two different gyms because I opened up another gym in coeur d', Alene, Idaho, and I was working, gosh, 16 hour days a lot of days. And I knew there was no way I was going to be able to be a family man and keep that up. So I sold all my gyms, moved all my clients onto other trainers, got out of the fitness industry in terms of the brick and mortar aspects of it, and began doing a lot more of what I do now. Writing books, doing a podcast, you know, working with some people online, but working out of a home office instead of a gym. Having a lot more time to spend at home because we homeschool our sons. And so, yeah, you know, I'm still in the fitness and nutrition and health industry, but now, you know, a lot more media, a lot more investing, a lot more like online consulting and advising, which I know, as you guys know, I've done with you guys. That's kind of where the journey has brought me so far.

That's incredible.

So interesting. And, you know, something that you said really spoke to me, and it all ties back to homeschooling, and that's. You studied what was relevant to you, so you got super passionate. Like you said, you were nerdy because it fed the next thing you wanted to do. You were genuinely curious about it. And so much of traditional school doesn't fan that fire. It really extinguishes it. So I love.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's. That's the beauty of homeschooling or unschooling is experiential based education. This idea that rather than being forced to learn at the same pace as the rest of the classroom with the same subjects that the state or the federal government has determined you should study, you're instead free to pursue your own passions and interests and desires, preferably in the creative free play and experiential environment. And yeah, there's certainly something to ensuring that in any child's education, they receive robust exposure to some of the things that I think are necessary for success in life, namely math, logic, rhetoric, reading, and writing. Like, those are the big five. But, gosh, as long as my kids have checked those boxes, like, sure. Washington state, where we live, requires demonstration of proficiency in 12 key areas. You know, social studies, science, reading, math, et cetera. And we keep records. Like, if my kids, you know, study up on Japanese cuisine and make an amazing meal in the kitchen, for mom and I, that counts as chemistry, it counts as math, it counts as social studies, it counts as language. So we're pretty creative with jumping through the hoops. But ultimately, it's a great way for a kid to grow up. It's a great way for a Kid to learn. And I'm super grateful to my parents for deciding to not take the standard educational route, even though there were many times growing up where I was super embarrassed about being homeschooled, I was the odd man out and, you know, and I felt like, you know, gosh, I don't know how to talk to girls as good as some of these other guys. And, you know, I'm not down in the classroom, you know, playing the politics game because I lived in Idaho, so I could still play for the public school sports teams and, you know, I'd show up to play sports, and I kind of felt like I was, you know, like the misfit. And so, yeah, there were times where I was like, gosh, I wish I could just go to a regular school and be a regular kid. And. But then, you know, the outcome of being able to be a little bit more of an independent, creative, free thinker, I think served me well and serves a lot of kids well, you know, versus just kind of being raised to be. To be a sheeple, so to speak.

Yeah, absolutely.

I know our boys had that where they. At first, and now they're. They're grateful and they're still 16 and 18, so their gratitude has come early. And they also see the sensibility where. I think there was something that I know Jamie and I talk about. You know, obviously all three of us on the phone are very alternative in our approach with our own education and our kids. But something I think you hit on there, Ben, as you said, experiential. The old Ben Franklin method of being an intern, for lack of a better term. You know, his whole thing for Ben Franklin was to get into it and see if you liked it. You know, you went into the doctorhood and I mean into the doctor community, actually into the trenches. And you're like, God, this is miserable. So many people will not do that one thing. And they'll just go through the whole Dr. Quest after 12 years, and then they'll try and go, God, this sucks. I had my best friend almost became a lawyer, and before he went to law school, he interned for a summer. And everyone. It's so funny. The story just said all the doctors, what they said to you is what the lawyer said to him. Like, are you kidding? You want to go into corporate law? This is awful. Don't do it. And now he's building skyscrapers in New York City. And he was always a Bob the Builder type, so worlds.

Yeah, it's a really good point. And I mean, you know, I realized that this kind of flies in the face of the great American dream. Boo. Who you want to be, carve your own path. But traditionally, like, a kid would go, like, hang out with their dad or mom at their dad or mom's career. Like, the, you know, the child of the blacksmith, the son of the blacksmith would go hang out with his dad and learn how to be a really good blacksmither. And, you know, the family's generational legacy was a legacy of blacksmithers or artists or, you know, or horseshoe or whatever the case may be. And, yeah, now we live in an era where it is a little bit easier to kind of be who you want to be and carve your own path. But I don't think that we should leave behind the value of a child having early career exposure, especially early career exposure to what their parent is doing. Like, my wife, Jessa, she's an amazing artist, and I'm, you know, I'm an author and a podcaster. And what are three things that my kids do? Well, my wife's an amazing cook, too, by the way. So my kids have a cooking podcast.

They write books and graphic novels. They're amazing artists, and they spend half their time just doing what they see mom and dad do, which brings us together as a family. And I, like, I'm not embarrassed that my kids might go down the same path as I do and probably be a lot better at doing what I do because they learn so much from me and my mistakes. I think that passing on generational careers, it has a lot. Has a lot of value, and it offers a great way for kids to hang out with their parents. Yeah.

Apprenticeship model. That was. Apprenticeship model.

That's what I. Yeah, yeah. And what I love, too, and that's what we've seen in our own life with our own children, is you referenced that you reached something you were interested and passionate about sooner than most do. You know, you graduated early. You were taking the MCAT sooner than anybody else in your class, certainly. And we've seen that with our own homeschool school children, you know, and our kids are just like, you're saying, super. Whatever they're passionate about, they go out and do it. So he. One of our boys might be fishing five hours out of the day. Instead of learning, you know, history, he learns history, but it doesn't take him five hours every day. And so, like, you're saying, it was just really cool to see. Now, at 18, he's accomplished something that most people don't get to accomplish until they're much older. Just as Yourself. And so just another plug for homeschooling, as you say, like doing life is homeschooling.

Yeah.

Practical affairs of life, for sure.

Yeah, yeah. Education should first and foremost be life.

Yeah. I want to talk, Ben. I want to make sure. I know we could talk for four hours on alternative education and we have before. I want to give some credit to results, you know, and because I think it's important for your people to hear our people to hear, you know, I really don't think the dad bod or the old dad is something people aspire to. I think it's something they give up to.

Oh yeah, Remember, dad bod was in style.

Dad bod was in style.

Mom bod was never in style and stuff.

Never. Yeah, either one. I wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't healthy.

Right.

But you know, yeah, but, but it's.

But it fit in because, you know, it was a trend to be culturally acceptable, to be unfit. It's just the way things are. You see, you become a dad or a mom and you're supposed to be unfit. And really not because your grandkids, it.

Just, it made no sense to me. And that was a big motivation for me. Like I've told you, I want to surf with my kids and my grandkids beyond my years. I'm 48 now. I have one kidney because I donated one to my dad. Our youngest, who we just adopted is only four months old. So I had to do some real awareness. I had to be very intentional. And so when you and I, we had known each other for years and started working two years ago, I mean, that is what happened. I think there is a cool story I haven't even told you yet, but a year into our training, we went down to do service work in Guatemala. Our friends run an orphanage down there and we went down to do that and we got invited to, to play in a charity soccer game with a bunch of 17 year old Guatemalan athletes.

Oh, geez.

And I hadn't played soccer in years then. I played football in lacrosse. Soccer was not my sport since a little kid, but I loved it. And my two boys were there, right? They were about a little older than your boys at the time. And I was a beast. I was sprinting around like a kid, loving it from.

I was like, who is this man?

Side to side, like corner to corner. And it was a glimpse, like there was. I'm sorry, there was a boost of enjoyment and excitement and pride because my sons and my daughter saw this glimpse of this competitive athlete I used to be back in college that I thought was long gone, and I was like, I got to tell Ben this story someday, because there are things that we did with rebuilding my knees, balancing my hormones, fine tuning my diet, you know, and out of that came a way more bountiful sex life with Jamie and I. So I just want to make sure I told you that story, because I know that would make you feel good.

And it's. It absolutely does. And it rings true. I mean, you know, we play family tennis a couple of times a week, and I just love it when, you know, I. I can. I can. You know, a couple days ago, I reached up and, you know, slapped down a backhand overhead, and my son, who was on my team, my other son was on mom's team. He's like, dad, that was so cool. And it's awesome to still be able to inspire your kids athletically. You know, I'm. I'm 40. It's not like I'm a super old dog, but, you know, it's. I. I really think that we settle for a lot less than we should when it comes to the way that the body should look, feel, and perform as we age. And, you know, I imagine you could probably share about some of the stuff I had you doing, Jim, but it's not like you were spending three hours a day at the gym. I mean, you were doing super slow training, and you can go ahead.

Super slow. No, I mean, to point that out, people are like, oh, yeah, sure. Well, you must have taken half a.

Year to do that.

No.

Or people say all the time, oh, it must be nice to be able to work out all the time. I'm like, I don't work out the first year, Ben.

I rebuilt back to it. You said, I did super slow sets for which were about a half hour, three times a week. So I was going to the gym less, and I got more results. And, yeah, people were going, man, you're a beast now. What happened to you? And so I think it's, again, this is work smarter or harder. You know, there's effectiveness. And that's why I really appreciate what you've done. You've really researched. You simplify the sciences. And you said, jim, this is what you have to do and why. And you said, jim, this is the stem cells for your knees. Knees. And this is why. And put prp. And this is why.

Here's why.

You have to start doing the kion flex. This is going to help the joints. And it did. Here's for sex life. Hey, let's make sure that your testosterone is good. No, it's not. Okay, here's the treatments for testosterone to make sure we're staying balanced. I mean, all these things work together, and you. And you made it all very easy to follow.

Yeah, that's the trick is, you know, even everything you just described, it sounds complex. Right? And for you, we had to look at your. We had to look at your blood, we had to do a micronutrient analysis, we had to do a salivary and urine hormone analysis, we looked at the gut, we looked at the food allergy panel. And then from there, you customize the nutrition, you customize the supplementation, you customize the exercise scenario based on joint limitations. And a lot of the stuff tends to kind of hold you back with age, but that you can work around and, you know, it just takes a very systematic approach. So, yeah, you were doing the super slow training, but I didn't want to neglect your fast twitch muscles. So you were doing some. Some explosive finishers at the end of each set of the super slows, right? Actually, that's exactly how I was training this morning. You know, I love being able to get in and out of the gym 15, 20 minutes for the strength training. You know, you were doing some mitochondrial work, some lactic acid work, some VO2 max work, some. Some slow fat burning work. But when I sit down and look at somebody's body, I realize we're unique, special, sacred souls that go far beyond just flesh and blood. But I do look at the body as a little bit of a machine when it comes to. Okay, which parts of the engine do we actually want to address? Which part of the engine seems to be failing, what needs to be filled up here in the gas, here in the oil, et cetera. And it just takes testing. Once you get all the test results in, then it's just a matter of fixing things one by one by one. And I mean, you know what it feels like. Jim, you just described, like, once you get all that done, it's way different than just like reading Men's Health magazine and eating lean chicken breasts and doing bicep curls. Right? Because as you. As you know, we're also focused on infrared and sunlight exposure, grounding, earthing, your, you know, the style of water you were drinking, the mineral intake, you know, the heat, the cold. Like, there's. There's so many variables that go way beyond just like, you know, eat healthy and move.

Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I wanted to share with you, Ben, because I know most of the time you're speaking with just Jim, or I'm just a fly on the wall listening and taking notes and. But years ago, when we had been together a couple of years, we had maybe we had three children, a fourth on the way somewhere, you know, you hit a little space. And my sex drive was high and Jim's wasn't. And I think this is an important story to tell because I think a lot of families, a lot of couples are matched, you know, that one is higher than the other. And there were lots of nights that I felt insecure or sad or I would reach out to Jim and I would say, gosh, do you not find me attractive? And then he'd be like, well, of course I find you attractive. I just don't need sex as often as, you know, like, this whole conversation around, you know, sex and us being on the different page. And I. And I always took it very personally. And it was a little bit of a rub in our relationship for a period of time. And once we started training with you and working with you, and you introduced Jim to the idea of testosterone therapy and some other, just probably the entire picture of working with him. I can't keep this man off of me for, like, he's not just met my drive, he's exceeded my drive.

And now I'm being asked to slow down.

I know in the morning, if I have to be like, hey, I need a day off.

Just a minute. Just a minute. I know, I know. I've been there. But that's important, too, because, like, you know, even with something like testosterone therapy, it's not a fit for everybody. You know, when I looked at Jim and then saw he had his other variables dialed in, and, you know, there are certain things to look at. Creatine, zinc minerals, dhea, the style of weight training, you know, sunlight exposures, all sorts of things that can affect testosterone. But if I see somebody's doing everything right and it's not where it needs to be, well, then you look into some form of testosterone optimization therapy. And even there, I mean, Jim, you and I have this discussion. You know, there's injections, there's pellets, there's different forms of testosterone administration, and many in no way mimic the natural diurnal variation of hormones in the human body. You know, so, you know, for example, like, a very, very small amount of, like, a scrotal testosterone cream applied morning and evening far better mimics the natural diurnal variation of hormones than, say, just like a giant bolus injection once a week into the butt cheek. And then you also have to pay attention. You pay attention to estrogen levels, to sex hormone binding, globulin levels, to psa, to a lot of this stuff that tracks along with testosterone as things that you got to keep your eye on. And so, yeah, there's a lot of moving parts, but it's, you know, I think of this highlights for people like the complexity of being truly optimized, but also the hope that, I mean, once you do everything that you're supposed to do, I mean, stuff just freaking works. And it's nice to be able to have not just the lifespan, but also the health span or as you guys are just talking about the sex span or the hanging out with the grandkids span, everything else that you want in life.

Yeah, it really just extends it because it was a rub in our relationship. And to think that, wow, a couple of medical tests and just tiny adjustments made such a huge difference. Just like with his lifting, just like with our energy and being able to allocate ourselves even more so to our family and to each other because we're optimized.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and you know, like my, my wife, she, she's, she does a little progesterone, she does a little bit of dhea, I do a little bit of testosterone. We take care of our bodies and I mean, you know, yeah, we'll be making, you know, second cup of coffee at 10:00am in the morning and I'll bump into her and you know, all of a sudden stuff starts to go down and, you know, we're upstairs in the bedroom at 10:30 in the morning trying to, you know, keep, keep quiet so that the, you know, so the housekeeper doesn't hear us. And you know, and that's, that's the type of, of love and sex life that's amazing. You know, at 40, absolutely.

Yeah. You want each other. And you know what's great, Ben, is, you know, this is something that is extended on like I, and we've never talked about this, but I believe for certain things like you introduced me to, it's going to topple other things. And so like the, I think surgeons are in trouble when it comes to stem cells. I just think orthopedic surgery is obviously something that needs to be done. But I know that years ago, you know, from my lacrosse days, you know, with just knee injuries and, you know, things have just, you know, wear and tear that we talked about, everyone wanted to cut me open and man, I've done the two stem cell treatment now on my knees with Phenomenal results. I mean, and it's right there in the MRI. And now it's. My mother is 84 years old, really good shape, but she has a tear in her knee. And we have her set for next week on that.

We cured my Lyme's disease, we cured.

Jamie's Lyme disease with Lyme disease with stem cell treatments.

And even a lot of these treatments you don't even have to go outside the US for. I mean, with the advent of things that can be co injected or co administrated with the stem cells, like exosomes or ozone or placental matrix or platelet rich plasma, I mean, yeah, you can't expand stem cells to have a really high mesenchymal stem cell count in the U.S. that's illegal. But there are so many things you can do even with, even with an American based practitioner. And yeah, I mean, I've had many successful stem cell treatments. I'm regrowing cartilage in my left knee right now and sprinting on the tennis court when I could barely move six months ago when it came to my left knee. It's awesome. That's not a surgery. I mean, you could call it a surgery. It's little needles going to the side of your knee, but they're not cutting anything open. You're not sitting around recovering for six months. Yeah, I think that this idea of minimally invasive regenerative medicine. Tony Robbins talked about this a lot in his recent book Life Force, it's the Cutting Edge. And I see a future where we're literally just, you know, painting new cartilage, you know, growing new joints, and it's, it's a cool time to be alive. Yeah.

But Ben, that completely goes against like our good old FDA and what they're trying to do. That doesn't really promote health, wouldn't you say?

Let me put it this way. Despite there probably being a little bit of pharmaceutical lobbying and power grabs at play, I don't think there's anybody at the FDA thinking, gosh, I don't want people to get healthy. The thing is, yeah, the fda, they are extremely cautious, you know, when it comes to everything from, from supplementation to stem cells. And yeah, I mean, they're, they're protecting people, but I think sometimes they're stepping over the boundary when it comes to us being able to engage in things that actually do have some pretty good research behind them and that are a lot more healthy and natural than some of the alternatives and in many cases offer you something that pharmaceuticals don't offer you, or at least offer you that same thing without the side effects. So, yeah, there are some corruption issues. I don't think the FDA is evil. I just think that there's a little bit of pharmaceutical lobbying and sometimes they're being a little bit overprotective when it comes to what we can and cannot do and put into our bodies.

For sure, for sure. But I got to tell you, the more that I've learned to go alternative, and I think that's in entrepreneurial pursuits and homeschooling. Homeschooling. Health is the healthier I am. I mean, as you know, after my kidney donation, I mean, we're just realizing that, you know, almost 10 years later, we're pretty sure some bacteria got caught in my body. And really, from this last time, you know, I don't think I've discussed this on the podcast, but I got hit with prostatitis, which was really scary. And I texted Ben. Ben said, this is the doctor you need to talk to. He has this book, this book, this book. And as you know, Ben, I've gone through.

Yeah, for that one. That was Gio Espinoza. Yeah. Yeah.

Great guy. And the approach we took. And, you know, he's very well researched and documented in his degrees, but he took a whole different approach. And I've never been better. And it was like, hey, this is stuck in you. We just got to get it out. And that was something that was kind of coming in and out for years. But I don't know, I just. I encourage everyone, don't be crazy. Without research behind it. But there are alternative, cutting edge things, like you said, Ben, that are there for us to get excited about and to actually use.

Yeah. And I definitely wouldn't want to give anybody the impression that I'm personally, you know, practicing medicine or something like that. As you guys have experience, I. I consider myself to be somebody who connects people to the right resources and then gives you the information about what I would do if I were in your shoes. You know, I don't get prescriptive as much as I do try to, you know, find. Find the diamonds in the rough. Who can help you out when nothing else seems to be working or point you in the direction of which test to get and what to look for when you get those tests. You know, I. I've got about 30 different physicians in my back pocket, you know, in my Rolodex, who. I just know when somebody comes to me with XYZ issue, you know, whether it's Lyme or Mold or mycotoxins or metals or, you know, a prostatitis issue or anything like that. I know who to connect people to because I'm just. I'm constantly vetting these people, constantly talking to them, and it's. It's nice to be able to know that, you know, if I don't know the answer, I got somebody on speed dial on my phone who does.

Yeah, well, I'm really glad you did, because Dr. Geo was obviously the most accurate person that I've ever met for what I needed. And it's made. I mean, it's cured. So that was. That was fantastic. So thanks for that as well. I don't even know if I've given you update on that.

Yeah, it's amazing.

We'll be together in a few weeks. I love the family book. Right, sure.

No, I just love that you're a curator of, like, this is your super genius, and you saw it at a young age and you've just over time curated. You've learned, but you've also curated this great Rolodex of doctors and. And even your supplements, which I want to touch on that too, because we take your supplements. Quite a few of them. Yeah.

Quite a few on Flex or Pinnacle.

Yeah.

But we do notice the difference. So we do keep. We keep yours in stock. And then we have like a shelf of our backup crap stuff, you know, and so it's like I keep. I do keep, like, an auto ship of some other things.

Oh, yeah.

That for, you know, they overlapped at some point in time. And then I was like, oh, we just keep it just in case. And so when we run out of yours and have to tap into the overflow, it's. It's very noticeable. And even Jimmy, he's like, hon, I don't want to take this crap. And so it's like, it's really noticeable. And I wanted to. To give you that shout out to.

The aminos, for sure. Why? And.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Well, the aminos and. I don't know if we talked about this, but. But you know, the jello that I'm. Because I just made a batch this morning, so it's fresh in my mind. I make jello out of the aminos, and that stuff's just like, oh, my gosh. Eating healthy joints, all I do is just heat up water or coconut water, put a whole bunch of gelatin in and stir it in as the water's heating so it doesn't clump. And then I put literally almost a whole canister of aminos in there, stir it all up, stick it in the fridge, and it's like the densest jello ever. One tiny cube has more protein and amino acids than a giant piece of steak. And I just. I'll. I'll eat that whenever I've got appetite craving or if I don't want to eat dessert or, you know, it's. It's amazing. And it's kind of like aminos on steroids with the gelatin in it. But, yeah, I think, you know, at Kion especially, that's probably the top thing that flies off the shelves, the aminos, just because it does some up for. For your gut, for your joints, for performance, for recovery. You know, I don't know if you guys know we just launched a new mango flavor and a new watermelon flavor.

No.

But, yeah, I mean, it's. You know, my. My partner over there, Angelo, he and I have had many discussions about this. And, yeah, we go out of stock of stuff a lot because we're super picky on our ingredients. We spend sometimes one and a half to two years developing one single product. And people like, why don't you bring this to market and this to market, this tomorrow. You don't understand. Like, we pick every single ingredient super carefully. And then it's kind of funny because we visit the offices in Boulder. It's like a jungle gym. There's like inversion tables and kettlebells and red lights and. And, you know, foam rollers and massage guns. And so we try to make the company culture a place where people are really, really dialed in from a fitness and a nutrition standpoint as well. And that. That just helps to keep the ball rolling when it comes to putting out amazing products.

That's awesome. Now, we recently contributed towards your latest project, a family book. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Let's talk about that. Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited about. You know, I spend the wee hours of the morning these days editing every chapter, but basically, I've wanted to write a parenting book for a while, and yet my sons are 14, as we were talking about. And so I can't necessarily say I'm the world's leading expert on parenting. Who knows, they might wind up in prison when they're 18, and my parenting book would go to crap. But basically I thought, well, gosh, kind of like Tim Ferriss in Tribe of Mentors or Tools of Titans, interviewed all these other amazing people. What if I just found the most amazing parents who I know with children who are Obviously turning out very, very well, or have turned out very, very well. Entrepreneurs, philanthropists, people who are thinking of others, people who are living their life's purpose, people who are self actualized, both the children and the parents, and then feature them in this book. And so I came up and you guys have seen it with a set of 32 different questions. Everything from what we put on billboard to, you know, what kept you awake at night to what'd you do with the second child that you didn't do with the first? What did you go back and change? And so I've got about 30 couples and parents featured in the book. I tried to mix it up. You know, there's some, you know, divorced moms in there, some single dads, you know, some homeschooling parents, some public schooling parents, some, you know, there's one polyamorous couple, you know, just it's, it's, it's all over the map. But basically I've collected the best of the best of the best, and it's called boundless parenting. And, you know, Jess and I, of course, contributed chapters. You guys contributed an amazing chapter. But it's so cool to see the different flavors of parenting. But also, I think the most intriguing part is the common threads. Like almost all the successful parents, they've prioritized family dinners. Almost all of them have carved out specific one on one time, not only for the couples, like a quarterly retreat for the couples, but also one on one time with the kids on a regularly calendared basis. A lot of them have some kind of spiritual practice for the kids, like meditation or journaling or prayer or scripture reading or something of the like. Many of them have, like, really, really well built in traditions. Like, here's what we do on Thanksgiving, here's what we do on Christmas, here's what we do on Easter. Here's the vacation that we go on each year. Here's what we do when we're on that vacation. It's almost like this deep, deep sense of legacy. And so you see these common threads pop up. And even though every parent has a slightly different style, you know, and again, like, not all of them homeschool and not all of them private school, not all of them public school. But it's amazing just to see what happens when you actually put your heart and soul into a child. And my thought has always been, I wish a parenting manual existed when I first had my sons. A parenting manual that goes far beyond just like, whatever. Here's how to use disposable versus regular diapers. Or here's the good baby foods and instead delves deep into education and self actualization and not just the physical growth, but also the spiritual and the mental growth of a child. And so I'm personally very stoked for this book. I write books for myself. Right. So I want it to be a big, beautiful, coffee table esque book that you can just, you know, as a new parent or you know, somebody who's got kids that are teenagers pick up and just like drool over. And so it's one of the most exciting projects I've ever worked on. I'm super stoked about it.

That's awesome. Another example of what a great curator you are. You found the parents that you wanted to interview and they, they brought some great information. So we were really excited.

Yeah.

Questions were one of your family thought provoking for sure. We're like, we need to, we need to remember all these because you don't realize what you're doing until you get asked a question about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I'm going to interview every single parent that I haven't interviewed yet for the podcast. Over the next year, I'm going to be, you know, the book's going to be accompanied by audio interviews each of these parents. So I'm, I'm hoping it can help out a lot of people and hopefully help, help the world to bring even more amazing, you know, independent, resilient, creative, free thinking kids into the world.

I'm sure it will. I mean, if it's anything along the lines of the health success, I know it will. And just from our personal conversations around family, I am pretty positive on that. Let me ask you our finale question, Ben. We started asking this a few years ago. We all hear, oh, what would you say to 21 year old Ben? And that's a good question, but it's out there. 75 year old Ben. What advice would 75 year old Ben Greenfield give to people today, do you think?

Oh, that takes a little bit of future projection on where I'll be at when I'm 75. But I think that just looking at the mentality that I've come to adopt over the past decade or so that, you know, you can be the fittest person on the planet, the cleanest diet and the best six pack abs and you know, have, have, you know, a lot of, a lot of money and a, and a great working brain, you know, all the stuff that I, and many of the people who I've worked with strive for. But you're still not happy like you're still not totally fulfilled. All that stuff is kind of empty at the end of the day, right? There's, as you guys know, there's a lot of depressed billionaires, there's a lot of professional athletes who are just super, just, you know, non self actualized and desperate for something new. And so I think that really the most important thing, and it's something I wish I'd done far before the age of about 35, which is when I really buckled down and started working on this, was I would say, dude, first thing every single day. You feed your spirit, you feed your soul. You care for the most important part of you that's going to go on and live for eternity, right? And that means meditation, that means prayer, that means silence, that means solitude, that means journaling, that means studying scripture and other great, you know, everything from self improvement books to devotionals to spiritual manuals. It takes sometimes shutting off all of the busyness of the outside world and just going on a quiet nature walk or listening to your favorite song or playing an instrument and just appreciating and ingesting the beauty and particularly the spiritual beauty of life. And man, if you stack that on top of all the stuff we've been talking about, like, you know, healthy kids and a healthy lifestyle and eating the right stuff and taking care of the joints and lifting weights, then all of a sudden all that other stuff becomes even more meaningful and fulfilling. Because your true ikigai, your true purpose, your true plan, Davida, is developed from a deep, deep spiritual awakening and a deep, deep longing to serve God, to serve other people and to love the world. And there's no way you can fully do that unless you just wake up every morning, put on your oxygen mask and start to work on yourself spiritually. So my 75 year old self would tell me, dude, like, this body's going to fade, this brain's going to fade. But that soul is the special spark that if you water it and care for it and put it in the right soil now, it's going to blossom forth into something absolutely amazing.

That's awesome.

Oh, I love that. And I wrote it down.

I was jotting notes too.

That puts into words so many things that I've thought or felt. Care for your soul first because that's the part of you that goes on and on. That's beautiful. Thank you, Ben. Thank you. We're so glad that you're here and been here with us and that you've guided us for the last two years. Can you tell our audience where they can find you best.

Oh, yeah, it's. It's not that hard. My, my website's been greenfieldlife.com I got all, you know, the coaching and stuff we talked about. That's a BenGreenfieldCoaching.com and my books are on Amazon. But yeah, it's not too hard. I guess if you're a crappy Googler, you're probably going to have an uphill battle, but otherwise I'm pretty easy to find.

You're easy to find.

You are easy to find.

Well, thank you for everything. It's been an incredible two years and I actually, to be very honest, I look forward to seeing people we've not seen in a while because I love the compliments we get because I've not always felt well and I feel really well now. And feeling well is the greatest part. Looking well is a really nice side effect.

Yeah, it's a two, two, double double plus for sure.

So that's so awesome. I'm super proud of you guys.

Thank you for pouring into us and.

We'Ll see you in a few weeks, bud.

All right, I'll catch you guys on the flip side.

Alrighty. Thanks, Ben.

Later.

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