Q&A 461: Spicy Stuff For Fat Loss, The Power Of "Micro-Workouts", Growing A Bigger Penis, Are Bluetooth Headphones Bad For You & Much More!

In this episode of Ben Greenfield Life podcast, spicy stuff for fat loss and the latest research on that, the power of micro workouts, growing a bigger penis. Yes, you heard me right. Are Bluetooth headphones bad for you? And a whole lot more. Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show. Alright, welcome to today's show. Man, we have a lot of questions and a lot of fun news flashes to go through today in case the title opener to this show didn't indicate as such. Before we jump into what promises to be a rollicking episode, along with a ton of questions to answer. I wanted to, first of all, give you the link for the show notes should you want to go and find helpful links and resources and a whole lot more. We work pretty hard in the show notes and they're pretty darn good. Go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/461 for the show notes. The other thing is that before we jump in, I got to tell you, you might have already heard about this, but it just launched and I'm super excited about it. I created a 6-week course. So, I had a film crew come to my house and follow me around for a solid week filming everything from my bug-out bag and prep stuff and gardening tools in the garage and how I use everything to my daily routine to the spiritual habits to family routines to space, meaning the ergonomics of my workstation, to biohacks and a whole lot more. We've packaged all of that together and it includes stuff I've never talked about before when it comes down to life hacking if you want to call it that or life design strategies. So, it covers 6 different areas of life, this whole masterclass that we filmed. Primarily, your time, your environment, your health, your soul, relationships, and legacy. This thing turned out amazing. It's the first time I've ever done an entire comprehensive, I guess what it was called as a masterclass. That's what you call these big courses these days. But, I had a fantastic crack editing team behind the scenes, make an amazing final product for you. And it's now available at bengreenfieldlife.com/masterclass. So you're not going to want to miss that, bengreenfieldlife.com/masterclass. Let's go ahead and just jump right in to today's episode. Here we go. All right, we're going to kick off today with fat loss. I am and have been for a very long time a fan of spicy foods. I dose everything, just about everything I eat except my morning smoothie and copious amounts of hot sauce. By the way, a shout-out to the company Joey's Hot Sauce. That's my go-to hot sauce these days. It's got 4, I think 3 or 4 different flavors. They've got a hot honey, they've got a hot salt. But basically, their hot sauces are made from all organic ingredients. They have this one called Priscilla the Creeper. That's amazing. It's organic red sweet peppers and habanero peppers and poblano and cherry bomb peppers and apple cider vinegar, turmeric, and black pepper. Amazing hot sauces. I I also use a lot of capsaicin like ground red pepper. I'll sometimes make a cacao tea in the morning and I'll put a little bit of red pepper extract in that, a little bit of stevia and salt to give it extra flavor. Mm, so good. But, there's actually a pretty decent effect of capsaicin on your metabolism. I mean, I've talked about before if you're going to go do cold thermogenesis or cryotherapy or a cold bath, there's a lot of so-called blood glucose disposal agents that you can take before that to lower blood glucose and enhance fat burning. Like bitter melon extract or apple cider vinegar or berberine, but then also spicy extracts appear to enhance the conversion of metabolically inactive white tissue to metabolically active brown fat. Now, this is pretty cool, uh, the, the way that it works. Let me explain this to you before I tell you about the latest research. So, capsaicin, uh, there's actually a study published in 2021 at Harvard Medical School. It sure showed that capsaicin can mimic the effect of cold temperature or enhance the effects of cold temperature or cold soak, cold bath, etc., to activate your energy-burning brown fat cells. Here's how it does this for you geeks out there. It activates a protein called TRPV1. It's called transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1. No, it's a mouthful, but that, that transient receptor regulates body metabolism and temperature. So capsaicin activates that TRPV1, and when it does that, it activates brown fat cells, and those in turn burn calories through thermogenesis to generate extra heat. So that's, that's one, one really cool aspect of capsaicin, but it does a lot more. So for example, diets sometimes stop working. I have an upcoming podcast about this with a thyroid expert named Amy Horniman, uh, and there's a phenomenon called adaptive thermogenesis. It can limit the success of like a calorie-low weight loss program. So the way this works is thermogenesis is your body's process that converts calories into heat. And that allows your body to maintain a stable temperature. It supports healthy metabolism and helps to control body weight. Adaptive thermogenesis occurs when your body reacts to reduced calorie intake by lowering the amount of energy that it burns, particularly fat, and that occurs when your body is at rest. So essentially, your metabolic rate kind of decreases, and that makes it harder to lose weight and creates this vicious cycle in which the more you reduce calories, the less effect they have on weight loss. And it's one reason why a lot of people who are dedicated to a specific diabetes often get like this yo-yo weight gain where the weight comes back on and sometimes it comes back on even worse. So that's where thermogenesis comes in, because there are certain nutrients that support thermogenesis and that increases your resting metabolism, allowing you to burn more fat and more calories even at rest. And one of the most potent plant-based thermogenic compounds studied to date is capsaicin. It's the major thermogenic compound in red chili peppers. And it's actually been shown in research to not only, like I mentioned earlier, activate brown fat, but also increase metabolism. Now, normally you have white fat, and white fat, like your adipose tissue, that can be pro-inflammatory, especially when you have excess amounts of this adipose tissue, particularly around the abdomen. But brown fat burns energy. It gets triggered by cold temperatures, and it also gets triggered by the intake of spicy foods like capsaicin. So, uh, this latest study actually looked into the latest research on capsaicin. So what it showed was, via a systematic review and meta-analysis of all the latest research on capsaicin of weight loss in adults, it showed that it has modest effects, pretty good effects, in reducing BMI, body weight, and also increasing metabolism, particularly in overweight or obese individuals, which makes sense because overweight or obese individuals have that higher amount of white fat on their waistline. So, it turns out that by using hot sauce, by using capsaicin, et cetera, you're getting this effect. Now, the other thing that's interesting is this is going to be cool for you fitness freaks out there who may not be trying to lose a lot of adipose tissue but who want the ergogenic effects of capsaicin. Well, there was another recent study. This one came out just a few months ago,, and it studied the effects of a low dose to a high dose of capsaicin on squat performance, on activating muscle, and on overall body ratings of perceived exertion and muscle damage and protein breakdown and metabolic response and 24-hour recovery, meaning they looked into a lot of parameters. Now, what they showed was that capsaicin intake pre-workout favorably influenced your squat performance decreased your rating of perceived exertion, meaning how hard you think you're working in the gym, and decreased muscle damage compared to a placebo control. Now, this is actually interesting because the high dose exhibited most of these effects, showing that it actually has like this dose-response curve. Now, I understand that capsaicin can be a little bit irritating to the gut. There is, uh, one company that I know that's, that's made this compound called phenylcapsaicin where they, they bind it in a gel. This is one of those forms of capsaicin that different companies will use in their weight loss supplements. Like, I know the Life Extension Foundation has a fat-burning supplement, they use the phenylcapsaicin in it for people who have a sensitive stomach to red chili peppers or hot sauce or something like that. So there's a way around this if your body doesn't do well with hot foods or if your gut doesn't do well with hot foods with this phenol capsaicin that you can look on the label for in some of these thermogenic compounds. The other thing that you can think about is if you visit my home, in my pepper grinder on my kitchen counter is a, is a form of a similar fat-burning extract that acts very similarly to capsaicin, but it isn't quite so spicy and irritating to the stomach. And this one's called Grains of Paradise. I buy it the same way as I would buy black pepper. I just get organic Grains of Paradise on Amazon. But I put it into my pepper grinder instead of black pepper even though it kind of tastes and looks like black pepper. Now, this stuff has what's called paradoxine in it. And this can actually increase thermogenesis very, very similar to capsaicin. So, you can either get grains of paradise pepper, especially if capsaicin extract or hot chili peppers or things like that don't do well with your stomach, or you could do like I do and do both. I use hot sauce, I use the the red pepper extract, the powder, like in things like the tea that I mentioned earlier. And then, I use the grains of paradise pepper that I'll grind onto salads and stews and dinners and steaks and things like that. So, this is now known to be not only a way to enhance performance but also a way to enhance fat loss. There's a lot going for capsaicin, and these latest studies just kind of back up that idea that capsaicin is a natural thermogenic aid and can be very, very helpful based on its activation of this TRPV1 vanilloid receptor. So, pretty cool stuff. And again, if you want to get it in a hydrogel format that's not irritating to the stomach, that form of the supplement is called phenylcapsaicin if you want to look around for that on the label of a thermogenic aid, even though I think you can just do it naturally with hot sauce and grains of paradise and red chili pepper, et cetera. So, Pretty interesting research on capsaicin. Now, this is, I guess, kind of spicy. It's not related to food spiciness but bedroom spiciness if you see where I'm going here. I have a friend who was on the podcast before. His name is Dr. Judson Brandeis. He's one of these sexual performance aid consultants. He actually provided me with a lot of information way back in the day when I did the pardon the title, "New Year, New Dick" article for Men's Health magazine in which I spent 6 months doing everything one could do to improve sexual performance, orgasm quality, and yes, even penile size, meaning the penile length and the erectile quality. We did all sorts of things for that article. It was pretty interesting, things like stem cell injections and PRP and acoustic shockwave therapy and reduced ejaculation frequency and all sorts of stuff that are probably causing anyone driving in a minivan with their kids right now to put the earmuffs on. So, yes, we are talking about the penis for the next few minutes. So, if you want to fast forward, go for it. And so, what Judson sent to me a couple of weeks ago was a study that just came out that he was involved with publishing in the open access journal Andrology. The title of this study was "Increasing Penile Length and Girth in Healthy Men Using a Novel Protocol." This study is hilarious. It's called the P-Long Study. So, what they did was they used platelet-rich plasma injections, PRP injections. And believe it or not, that's not fringe. Just about any sexual performance clinic these days does that injection where they literally take the blood out, they spin it in a centrifuge, they isolate these platelet-rich plasma factors, then they inject them back into the penis. Usually, there's a nerve-numbing agent that goes in first. You don't feel a thing. I've had it done multiple times. But then, what they combined this with was what they call a vacuum erection device, known in more popular vernacular as the famous penis pump, and then nitric oxide precursor supplements. This would be things that have stuff like beetroot extract in them or arginine or citrulline, et cetera. Now, what they found after this protocol where there's a PRP injection, daily use of these oral nitric oxide boosting supplements, this one had citrulline and beetroot extract in it, very easy to find and get, and then twice daily use of a penis pump for 20 minutes. They found that healthy men demonstrated significant increases, and we're talking about a circumference about half an inch greater and a length about 0.8 inches greater for the erect penis with no adverse effects. And it was a significant increase in penile length, penile girth, and erectile function improvement. So whether you have something like erectile dysfunction or whether you simply want to get bigger and better, which I know is a desire of a lot of men even though it might matter less than you think compared to your personality and your ability to protect and provide. However, the idea here is that there is a way to make your penis bigger and longer. There's a new study out about it and I'll put a link to it, but basically, it's very simple. It's the use of PRP, penis pump, and nitric oxide precursors. And, I suppose, If you couldn't afford or couldn't get access to PRP injections, you could probably get one of these digital penis pumps. I have one. I don't know if you can see it in the podcast video, but it's on the shelf behind me. I haven't been using it lately, but I used it quite extensively in that article for Men's Health magazine. It works as advertised, I can tell you that. I'll also tell you one funny story. I attempted for the sake of extreme efficiency to go hands-free with mine one day, had my penis pump propped up against the desk while I was working on my keyboard. And because it's an automated suction device, as I'm sitting there working on my keyboard with the penis pump leaning against my stand-up desk hands-free, I felt a sucking sensation. And one of my precious balls got sucked into the penis pump. And I writhed in pain and discomfort as I stood there trying to get the vacuum seal to unlock while watching my right testicle turn a nice pretty blue color. I eventually got it off, but from that point forward, I never used my penis pump without great care and dedication taken to ensuring that my balls are protected. And I do not recommend you multitask or at least don't go hands-free and prop up the penis pump against the standing desk while you're using it. But, it turns out it can increase penile length and girth when you especially combine it with these PRP injections and nitric oxide precursors. So there you have it, interesting, interesting takeaways. And by the way, my wife has also done a very similar protocol. She's done the PRP injections and the, the acoustic shockwave therapy and has even done stem cell injections into her lady parts. And these type of protocols work similarly for the ladies too, although I don't think that they make what I suppose we would call a C-pump. Maybe it exists out there, wouldn't be surprised if it did, but she didn't use anything like that. So there you have it. Uh, and then the last news flash I want to get into today before we answer some questions was an interesting study on so-called micro workouts. So micro workouts, they're abbreviated VILPAs, and there was a study in, uh, in the Journal of the American Medical Association of Oncology on this, and they looked at these VILPAs, vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity. That means stopping during the day and doing short bouts of exercise anywhere from 1 to 4 minutes. The interesting thing was that they took 22,398 non-exercising adults and they gave them 3.4 to 3.6 minutes of a vigorous daily motion per day. And this can be push-ups, it can be burpees. It can be running briefly on a treadmill. It can be exercising briefly on an exercise bike. What they found was that when these people engaged in these VILPAs, that there was a significant decrease in cancer incidence among the non-exercising adults who engaged in these short micro workouts during the day. Now, whether or not you're concerned about cancer or have a high risk for cancer, I think this is very interesting. Because I stop all the time throughout the day to do what I call workout snacks. Like, in my book Boundless, there's a whole page in the workout section that shows everything from core foundation exercises to kettlebell swings to ELDOA stretches to the basic push-up squat burpee protocol. I've got a kettlebell on the floor of my office. I've got a pull-up bar going up the stairs behind my office, and I'm constantly stopping to do jumping jacks, to do push-ups. Like, my goal is that by the time I get to the end of the day, a workout is an option, not a necessity, because I've kind of lifehacked my day to engage in these teeny tiny movements throughout the day. I show off several of them in this masterclass that I did, and I talk more about this in the masterclass. That's the one I mentioned, that new one, at bengreenfieldlife.com/masterclass. But it turns out that although there is, of course, you know, back to the idea of thermogenesis, a mild increase in metabolic rate when you're fidgeting or stopping during the day to do teeny tiny workouts or these, these so-called movement there is, in addition to that, a decreased risk of cancer incidence. So, very good to know. And my rule for myself, even though this will vary depending on your job, is that for every half hour that I'm working, unless I'm recording a podcast, in which case I'm standing, if I'm interviewing someone, sometimes you may have noticed I'm walking on my treadmill. But besides, if I'm just parked in front of my computer doing a podcast, I stop frequently and I'll sometimes be cranking out phone calls and consults while doing push-ups, while doing air squats, while walking around the backyard, while finishing up one call, stopping, doing 10 burpees, and then jumping into the next call. So, if you ever speak on the phone with me and it sounds like I'm breathing hard, usually it's because I'm walking up a hill or on a treadmill while I'm talking to you or I've just finished a few burpees. And, I think it's a really, really great way to naturally include physical activity throughout your day. So yet another, another surprising benefit of daily micro workouts. So there's your news flashes for the day. Now let's jump into our listener Q&A. All right, well, if you want to submit a question for the podcast, you can send me a message on Instagram, on Twitter, or on Facebook. I'm easy to find on any of those platforms by typing in my name. Uh, you can also submit a question over at bengreenfieldlife.com.. We have a little, little question-asking box over there. I go through on a couple of times a month basis and select a few questions that I think are interesting. And the first question is from Anil. Anil says, love the stuff you put out, and I practice what is possible within limits here in beautiful Kathmandu. Hello, Kathmandu. I don't know where that is, but it does sound beautiful and slightly hard to pronounce. My question is, since I want to speak about health, nutrition, and well-being in general, what is a good course online or not to get that validation? Well, I'm asked this question a lot, like which personal training certification I should get, or which, which wellness coaching certification. I want to be a health coach, what do I do? And, uh, you know, it's a tricky question because many of these courses do require you to have an undergraduate or a graduate degree in an exercise science or nutrition science related field. My background is that I got a master's in exercise science from University of Idaho with an undergraduate degree in exercise science. My emphasis was in biomechanics and nutrition and pharmacology. And then I went from there and I got an NSCA personal training certification— that's the National Strength Conditioning Association— an NSCA CSCS, which is a certified strength conditioning coach. And then I also got what's called a CISSN, a certified sports nutritionist, from, from the ISSN. So I went the route of going to college and then getting degrees that required a collegiate degree on top of that. And for me, with the first, you know, 8 to 10 years of my existence in the exercise field, working as a personal trainer, managing clients, working at gyms and studios, etc., it was a good idea for me to have the piece of paper that showed that I actually knew that I was talking about. And it also reduced you know, the, the, the potential for litigious action against me because I was just some, you know, off-the-street personal trainer with the weekend online open book certification. However, that doesn't mean that you have to go back to a 4 or a 5 or a 6-year degree in college to become a health coach or to become a personal trainer. There are now some very good health coaching certification programs out there. Now, I also realize they're a dime a dozen and there are a ton of them, so I want to tell you a few that I think are the best. The first is IIN. I've actually done a few courses with IIN. That's not the, uh, the CISSN that I have. That's, that's not the, uh, the sports nutrition certification, different company. But IIN stands for Institute for Integrative Nutrition. The Institute for Integrative Nutrition has been around for 30 years. They have a bunch of different coaching courses including their flagship health coach training program. It's a very good health coach training program. I've been impressed with their coursework. That one has 41 modules. It takes either 6 or 12 months. You can do it online. They've got a lot of really great interactive training methods, fantastic website. And again, you can do that literally from your living room, your basement, your bedroom, the gym, whatever, and get a really good health coach certification program along with a lot of other ongoing continuing education credits through the IIN. It's the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Now, there's also the College of Naturopathic Medicine. Uh, they are based in London in the UK, but they have online certifications as well as campus-based training in health coaching, natural therapies, complementary therapies. And so this is a program that teaches you more like holistic medicine, but also nutrition, health, fitness and health, business promotion and marketing yourself, coaching and health. And that one's called the College of Naturopathic Medicine. The CNM. If you go to bengreenfieldlife.com/461, I'll link to all of these resources and websites in the show notes. They're a little bit more bent towards medicine, obviously, because it's through the College of Naturopathic Medicine. But if you didn't want to be a naturopathic doctor but you wanted a naturopathic-esque approach to your health coaching or your personal training, that's a good one. Okay, the next one similarly is a medical-based program. It's called the Institute of Functional Medicine. As a matter of fact, I've been very impressed with all the doctors who I've worked with who have been a part of the Institute of Functional Medicine or trained as a functional medicine practitioner. But this would allow you to be what's called a functional medicine health coach, would allow you to do things like review lab work, blood work, learn about positive psychology coaching techniques, nutrition and meal planning. They're big on the psychology of eating and mind-body medicine, but that's everything through a functional medicine lens. And I really like the Institute of Functional Medicine as another It's called IFM. Now, there's also a few people in the industry who have really great courses. One is Wild Health. If you listen to my podcast with Dr. Matt Dawson, who is a doctor with Wild Health, you'll learn about this Wild Health network of physicians. They're spread across the country. And if I tell people, if you're looking for a good doctor, you don't know where to start, generally go to the wildhealth.com website and you're gonna find personalized healthcare whether it's telemedicine or whether it's boots on the ground near where you live with a doctor who I would vouch for. They use in-depth genetic analysis, advanced blood work, and lifestyle evaluations. They personalize all their care to cover mind, body, and spirit, and they do a really good job. They use a lot of advanced testing, DNA testing, and what is called precision medicine. But one of the things that Dr. Matt Dawson and I talk about in my podcast with him is that they also have the ability for someone who's not a doctor to go through their educational protocols and learn everything it is that their doctor is learning and get this Wild Health certification that allows you to be a trainer, that allows you to be a health coach, that allows you to do things like reviewing blood work. And it's a, it's a membership-based program. You join, you go through a series of protocols that teach you how to analyze DNA biometrics, track lifestyle activity, provide exercise and recovery recommendations, look into genetics and blood work. So you have access to all of the same training that their doctors would go through to allow you to become a Wild Health certified, almost like, like a health coach. And you're getting educated. Now this, I think, is, is a better program and is best tailored for a doctor who also wants to be a health coach, who also wants to be a personal trainer. Who wants to learn how to practice precision medicine, but they have an entire program that you can join even if you're not a doctor to learn about advanced genetic testing, advanced blood work testing, how to create personalized health plans, how to be a health coach. And so, they have a fantastic, fantastic offering as well. It's Wild Health. You can check them out at wildhealth.com. Now, there's another guy named Paul Chek. Paul Chek has what's called the Chek Academy. He's also been on my podcast before. The Chek Academy is fantastic. You learn functional anatomy, you get this huge library of assessments and exercises to do on your clients, all created by Paul Chek, who is the wizard when it comes to marrying mind, body, and spirit optimization. They have a really great training for diet and lifestyle management, coaching techniques, a coaching framework, and they've put together a fantastic program that allows to integrate what Paul calls his holistic approach. You even learn corrective holistic exercise where you understand the relationship between the glands, the organs, posture, breathing. You get this full approach to the human body. I think it's one of the coolest and most unique approaches, especially if you're going to work with athletes, especially if you want to learn a lot more about the fitness and the movement component of things, but also delve into a lot of the deep science and even some of the, the ancestral more kind of like Eastern concepts that Paul builds into the different programs that he offers. So the CHEK certification would be another fantastic one to look into, and that's through the CHEK Institute. Now the next one, I've got a few more for you. And, and by the way, I'm going to stop here for a second and say that yes, if you were to take my masterclass, which I realize I'm shamelessly plugging throughout this podcast, you would also learn a ton of, of the underlying knowledge that you would need to be a really good health coach. So I would say if you're an existing personal trainer physician, physical therapist, chiropractic doc, etc., if you go to bengreenfieldlife.com/masterclass, that also would allow you to learn the way that I operate and how I work with my clients. And I also have a Ben Greenfield coaching certification program. I don't want to spend the whole time tooting my own horn, but I will link to my coach certification programs as well in the show notes if you go to bengreenfieldlife.com/461. But I also want to give a head nod to a couple of others. The first is the Kresser Institute. Run by my friend Chris Kresser. Now, he has a 12-month functional medicine practitioner training and certification program for practitioners, for doctors who want to learn how to interpret functional labs, uh, how to apply real-time clinical insights, up-to-date treatment protocols, etc. But he also has, for the layperson, a functional blood testing course. It's a self-paced 40-hour course that allows you to learn how to interpret blood chemistry panels. He's got another one called Functional Nutrition Mastery, which is a self-paced 40-hour functional and ancestral nutrition course to discover how to create things like nutrition plans and meal plans for your clients or for your patients. And again, you don't have to be a doctor necessarily to go through some of the programs with the Kresser Institute, although if you were a doctor, you're also going to learn some things that would hopefully allow you to practice better medicine and provide even better care to your patients. So he has what are called his functional and training courses and things like functional nutrition mastery and functional blood testing. And then also his practitioner training program, which similar to Wild Health is for practitioners and doctors. So that one's called the Kresser Institute. It's called the Kresser Institute for Functional and Evolutionary Medicine. Chris Kresser is— he's a guy I've known for, gosh, I think about probably 12, 13 years now. Really smart doctor, has a great certification and education program on his website as well. So, some of these have some overlap and you may want to go to these different websites that I'm talking about and choose the one that resonates best with you. Now, there is a newer program that's also pretty cool. A very popular podcast guest of mine, Dr. Leland Stillman, has just launched a series of courses that basically are called the Fundamentals of Wellness Course and Coaching Program. You learn not only if you're a doctor how to work in more functional medicine, integrative medicine, and precision medicine into your routine. But similar to the Kresser Institute, Leland has this entire program on everything from optimizing the thyroid to nutrition to medicine to lab reports, this whole library of courses and content. And he just rolled that out. I've taken a look at it, it's really fantastic, and I'll put a link to it in the show notes, but it's called Stillman Wellness. Stillman Wellness. Now, he also offers telemedicine, he also offers annual plans in his medical program, but one very, very interesting program that he just launched is called the HTMA, the HTMA analysis. And that gives 6 lessons on thyroid, adrenals, depression, heart disease, weight loss, blood sugar, and allows you to become well-versed and able to coach and learn more about these missing pieces of health. That a lot of people don't know about. So that one's called the Stillman Wellness. Uh, the Still— I don't know if it's called the Stillman Wellness Institute or just Stillman Wellness, but those are a handful of the programs that I would recommend if I were going to— that's what I would look for. Like, if I was going to work with a health coach or a personal trainer, I'd want to see, hey, is that— have they gone through the CHEK Institute or the Kresser Institute or the Stillman Institute or Wild Health, or have they gone through IIN or College of Naturopathic Medicine. So, think beyond just an ACE personal training certification or a weekend, again, open book personal training certification. The ones that I've listed for you I think are the best of the best when it comes to being a health coach who really is able to practice or have a really good well-informed practice. So, I hope that's helpful. So, Dan asks, "Is it okay to listen to podcasts, et cetera, in the sauna on Bluetooth?" earphones or is it still bad for health? Well, this is pretty interesting. I'm actually asked a lot about why I always have those geeky wires coming out of my head instead of wearing, say, like AirBuds or EarPods or whatever you call them. And, I'm going to start off by telling you that the research is not ironclad when it comes to the EMF risks of wireless headphones. And, I'll get to the whole sauna effect here shortly, But there have been concerns. As a matter of fact, in 2015, and this kind of set off some controversy about Bluetooth devices, there was a group of scientists that signed this position that expressed serious concern about the potential health risks of what are called non-ionizing electromagnetic fields or EMF technology. They're concerned about things like cancer, for example. Now, understand that all Bluetooth devices use EMF technology. The question is, how much of a risk do they present? Well, Bluetooth just creates wireless connections, as you probably know, between two different technologies. They use short-range radio frequency to connect devices within a certain distance from each other. Now, Bluetooth devices are wireless, so they also utilize what's called radio frequency radiation, RF radiation. That type of radiation falls under the category of what is called electromagnetic radiation or EMR, travels in waves using electric and magnetic fields. Now, RF radiation can occur from cell phones, from AM and FM radio, and from televisions as well. Here's what to note though, Bluetooth devices give off significantly less radiation than cell phones. Now, radiation exists as non-ionizing or ionizing radiation. Non-ionizing radiation has the energy to move atoms around, but it can't remove electrons from those atoms. Atoms. Ionizing radiation has the power to do both. Now, non-ionizing radiation has less energy, and it makes it less likely to harm your health, again, because it's not affecting electrons, just atoms. And Bluetooth technology is a type of non-ionizing radiation, and research has not conclusively linked that RF radiation, that non-ionizing radiation, with adverse health effects that I am aware of. There's some anecdotal studies where people will do like a live red blood cell analysis and find blood cell clumping, or they'll do like an EEG brain scan and find higher amounts of beta brainwaves when they have their AirPods in versus when they don't. And so, there's anecdotal evidence but no robust clinical research that I found behind the risks of Bluetooth wireless technology. Now, this is interesting because if you look at Bluetooth devices, they are very low-powered. They're typically about 2.5 megawatts. That's way less than the power of a mobile phone. That's like 100 times less than the maximum power of a mobile phone. So, we're talking about much, much less non-ionizing radiation than you get from a phone and extremely low power output far below the established limits for what would be considered to be, you know, something deleterious to health. Nonetheless, you can certainly find articles and anecdotes out there. That suggest there is evidence that indicates potential concerns for human health and development from all technologies that operate at radio frequencies. One of the guys who is big in this movement, who's very controversial, is Jerry Phillips, who's a professor of biochemistry at the University of Colorado. And his concern is that AirPods and their placement in the ear canal exposes tissues in the head to relatively high levels of radio frequency radiation. And he, I believe, is part of the roughly 250 researchers from more than 40 countries who signed a petition, like I mentioned, back in 2015 to the United Nations and the World Health Organization expressing serious concern about non-ionizing electromagnetic fields, which is the kind of radiation emitted by wireless technologies including Bluetooth technology. So Here's the thing. I'm cautious, but I haven't really seen any bodies in the street, so to speak, when it comes to the extremely low frequency of Bluetooth radiation. For me, the wired headset and especially the air tube headsets, which only cause the sound to travel in tubes, not even wires up through the ears, work well enough to where it's kind of like, "Well, I don't know, but I'm going to play it safe." Now, the question here though is about whether these things could potentially be safe but be less safe in a situation in which the body is heated, in which the tissues are heated. And this is very interesting, uh, because the, the heating effects of EMFs are partially responsible for some of the negative impact on, say, sperm, right? So if you were in a really hot environment and then you added additional RF on top of that from like a cell phone in your pocket while walking in the summer, you do more damage to your sperm. And that has been shown to be extremely impacted by radio frequencies and non-ionizing radiation compared to if you're in a cooling environment. Okay, so there is kind of a thermal heating effect that's aggravated by the presence of radio frequencies. But there's also a few other things to think about because I talked with a couple people about this. Nicholas Pinault, who wrote the fantastic book The Non-Tinfoil Hat Guide to EMFs, great title. And then Brian Hoyer, the guy who's doing the EMF analysis on phone who runs the website Shielded Healing, who is kind of like my personal EMF consultant. Now, here's, here's one thing that in particular Brian explained to me. Sauna therapy activates what are called heat shock proteins, and those aid in cellular repair and protein maintenance. It's one of the reasons that sauna therapy is good for you through the activation of these heat shock proteins. Now, the other things that can happen when you are exposed to EMFs or radio frequencies is a slight increase in the production of reactive oxygen species called hydroxyl and carbonyl radicals. Uh, also, when you look at EMF stressors, not necessarily Bluetooth, but EMF in general— and this is why getting a low EMF sauna is important— is your mitochondria are susceptible to oxidative damage because they have these lipid-rich membranes, and the EMS can actually disrupt some of those lipid-rich membranes and cause damage to some of the fats. So heat shock proteins can play a role in protecting the mitochondria, and that means that if you're in the sauna, you could be, through the production of heat shock proteins, making yourself a little bit more resilient to the effects of EMFs in other scenarios. But if you look at putting sauna-induced heat stress together with oxidative stress and what's called nitrosative stress from all types of EMFs while in the heat of the sauna, you could potentially be creating a state of excess stress, basically excess heat combined with the presence of EMFs, and that thermal effect of the EMFs combined with the fact that you're creating a lot of oxidative stress in general with the sauna would dictate that while a sauna and the heat shock proteins that it produces would theoretically allow you to better withstand the effects of EMF once you're out of the sauna, by combining EMF and possibly even the low-intensity radio frequency from a Bluetooth tooth while you're in the sauna, you might be contributing more to the type of oxidative stress that can occur when you're in the sauna, especially when you're also in red lights in the sauna, which as I talked about in podcast number 460, can create a state of a lot of free radicals. That's not necessarily bad, it's just you need to consider piling stress on top of stress. And that's why a truly low EMF infrared sauna is important. You know, I use one made Clearlight SaunaSpace has one, Sunlighten has one. But the fact is any form of EMF can affect your health by flooding your brain and heart cells with calcium. And that can cause— it can basically cause biological dysfunction by increasing the electrical charge inside the cell, which is supposed to be at a slightly negative potential. And we've seen these biological effects at magnetic fields as long as— as low as 2 to 3 milligauss, and at electric fields as low as 300 volt meters. So inside a sauna, there are many, many saunas that do not adhere to those type of regulations, and so you can get excess oxidative damage if you're not inside a truly low EMF infrared sauna. The question remains up in the air about how much the use of Bluetooth in a sauna would contribute to that, but I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt, not only am I careful, but I can tell you that the higher-intensity radio frequencies produced by your phone in the sauna dictates that it would be bad news bears to actually drag your phone into the sauna and not have it in airplane mode. I do not have my sauna ever not in airplane mode if I'm in a heated environment or if I'm in the sauna because the oxidative stress and the calcium influx from the phone, from the EMS produced by the phone, will be even worse in that scenario, and even worse if you're not in a low EMF sauna if you're using one of these infrared saunas. So, long story short, if you want to play it safe, I would not use the Bluetooth headsets, but it's kind of up to you because the research doesn't say for sure. I will include a study in the shownotes at BenGreenfieldLife.com/461 that talks about many of these other mechanisms and interplay between EMFs and the cells should you want to dive in more deeply than the brief amount of time that I was able to do that question justice. So hopefully that helps. All right, we, uh, we're going to keep going here. Uh, Wade says, hey Ben, I can't afford the ARX machine, what should I use instead? So just so you guys know, the ARX machine is the single set-to-failure machine that I have out in my garage. It walks me through one single 2-ish minute set- to failure for the squat, for the chest press, for the deadlift, for the pulldown, for the overhead press, and for the row. And when I say single set to failure, I mean by the last rep you're pretty much balls to the wall. There's no way you could do another rep. I, prior to getting one of these admittedly pretty expensive ARX machines that uses artificial intelligence to calculate your power, your force, adjust it as it goes, and produce a graph on the screen that walks you through the whole set. I would use Nautilus machines or other exercise machines in a gym or health club because moving a weight that slowly through an extremely slow and controlled, like 15 to 30 seconds up, 15 to 30 seconds down range of motion, is a lot more predictable, simple— still difficult, but simple conceptually to pull off when you're walking around the gym using, say, the chest press machine at the gym, the pulldown machine, overhead press machine, seated row machine, leg press machine, and if they have one, some kind of a deadlifting apparatus. Like, you could even use like a Smith machine. Um, but a lot of people don't have like 6 Nautilus machines at their house. Most people who have the money to have 6 Nautilus machines at their house would probably just get an ARX and have one machine to do it all. However, I have some clients who don't have an ARX and don't have the Nautilus machines at their house, and I will have them do this workout with bands, like the X3 Bar Band setup is really good, or any really hefty elastic band setup in which you're moving the bands very slowly through a range of motion. And it's actually a little bit of a different feel with bands because they kind of maintain that constant tension throughout the motion. Another way to do this is with free weights. There's no reason that you can't do, for example, a very slow dumbbell suitcase deadlift or barbell deadlift very slow push-up or bench chest press with dumbbells, very slow pull-up or pull-down if you happen to have some kind of thing to pull down with in your home gym, very slow goblet squat or back barbell squat, or if you're unable to squat, very slow right leg lunge and left leg lunge loaded or unloaded, a very slow shoulder press using a sandbag or a barbell or a couple of dumbbells or again even a band, and then a very slow seated row or very slow one-arm dumbbell row. Like, you can totally do any of those single sets to failure. Most people just don't go slow enough, don't go hard enough, and don't completely gas themselves out. One tip I can give you is if you still have some gas in the tank at, let's say, the end of, I don't know, 8 reps in a set, but you just can't do one more super slow, go to the end range of motion and just kind of like bounce and move through micro motions until you completely exhaust that muscle, then move on to the next exercise. And so, that's a way you can do super slow training, which is highly effective. You even get a really, really good increase in peripheral blood pressure, which can induce a cardiovascular training effect. Entire book about this concept and the science behind super slow training called "Body by Science" by Dr. Doug McGuff. But no, you do not need an ARX machine to do it. I have one. I know it's expensive. It is a really, really cool way to do super slow training because it's a 2-horsepower engine, and nobody I know of is stronger than 2 horses, so there's no way I can max out the thing, especially little old me. But anyways, you don't have to have an ARX machine to do it. And frankly, a lot of times if I'm traveling, at the average hotel gym, I can hunt down a chest press machine, seated row, shoulder press machine, pull-down or pull-up, uh, leg press machine, and something I can deadlift with, and I'm fine. Sometimes I skip the deadlift just because occasionally lifting super, super slow deadlifts, the only way to do is to lift up super, super slow and then skip the eccentric phase by dropping the weights, picking them up, and then doing the very, very slow pickup again. Because otherwise, setting a deadlift weight down that slowly at a high enough load can be really iffy for the low back, that eccentric loading combined with the hip flexor shortening. So just be careful with the super slow deadlift if you're not using some kind of a machine like the ARX to do it. But, uh, in most cases, you can do super slow training without the ARX. So So, great question. All right, next question. The person doesn't give their name, but they say, "What's your recommended setup for a treadmill desk?" I love this question because— so, I'll just share with you right now what I use because it's pretty sick. I use this treadmill called a Walkolution. So, I interviewed this guy way back in the day. He was this Swiss inventor who had spent a bunch of time out in Korea and he would walk around the Korean rice rice paddy fields and come back from a trip and find that his feet were strong and his knee pain was gone and his hip pain had disappeared. And so, he invented these walking shoes called kyBoons, which use the same material sensation, this soft cushiony sensation that he was getting out in those rice paddy fields. And then, he developed a standing desk mat that used that same stuff. Now, I'm all about strengthening the feet. Look, I walk a ton of places barefoot. I use the Peluva walking shoes by Mark Sisson, I'll use minimalist shoes. I don't use a lot of cushioning most of the day, but I really grew to like these shoes and this standing desk mat that this Swiss inventor showed me because, again, I'm getting my feet strong at other times during the day. I don't have to beat up my feet all day long. But then, like, 6 months ago, I found out that this dude has consulted with a company called Walkolution to produce a treadmill that has the same walking comfort surface on the actual treadmill. Treadmill. So not only is it whisper quiet, so you're completely undisturbed during video conferences and phone calls and concentrated work, but the— they have what are called alternating compression zones built into the treadmill. You gotta see a picture of it, I'll link to it in the show notes. So it feels like you're strolling on natural terrain. It stretches and cushions the feet the entire time that you're walking. So you finish walking and every single step is like a freaking foot massage. They're called Impulse Active Compression Zones. This treadmill is right beside me. I wish I was walking on it right now while I'm talking to you. But what it does, this feature, is it stimulates and trains the deep muscles and proprioception in the feet that are often caused by walking on hard surfaces or in, in the improper shoes. And you also get this rebounding effect off of the treadmill that ultimately causes— even though it's not strengthening your feet, your hips get stronger, your calves get stronger, your hamstrings get stronger, and feet just get spread and nice and supple and mobile. And then, if you're strengthening your feet at other times during the day by walking barefoot or using barefoot walking shoes or working out in the gym, et cetera, I think it's the best of both worlds. This treadmill is amazing. I am on it for at least 8,000 steps a day now. It's called the Walkolution Soft Treadmill by Wanderlust. They also have a treadmill desk that comes along with it. So, if I was just going to tell you done-for-you treadmill solution, just do that. It's amazing. And again, it's made by this company called Kybun, K-Y-B-U-N. And I think Woodway acquired the technology and the company. I'll link to the exact treadmill in the show notes. And so you get that, it comes with the desk and you're good to go. Now it's still important to— and I learned a lot about this from Kelly Starrett's book Deskbound— to have proper desk biomechanics. Like I used to get horrific elbow pain all the time working at my desk desk until I realized my elbows were not at 90 degrees, the desk was too far away from me, and the monitor was at the improper eye height. So, it is important that you set up the proper height even for a treadmill workstation. So, what does that mean? Well, it means your chest should be open, your shoulders back, so the monitor should not be super close to you. Your wrist should be pronated, meaning not turned down too much if you actually are on a keyboard with upper arms as close to the body as possible. That's why I like the fact that this treadmill I just mentioned to you, the Walkolution, it actually has the desk built into the treadmill so your computer can be super close to you with your wrists and your elbows supported while you're on the treadmill. Uh, the front of the keyboard is supposed to be higher than the back of the keyboard by about 30 degrees. So if you're using a laptop, for example, I like the idea of having an external keyboard that allows the keyboard to be ergonomic and propped up just a little bit. The mouse or the trackball should be super close to your body so you're not getting pain on the inside of the elbow by constantly reaching for your mouse. And then, your, your actual posture should be such that the hip bend is at 90 degrees if you're sitting or just straight up and down with the shoulders over the hip joints over the ankle joints if you're standing or walking. And the wrists if working and the elbows if working should be at a 90-degree angle at the elbow and as close as possible to 180 degrees at the wrist or slightly more, slightly more open. And there's actually a great website, it's called workwhilewalking.com. Workwhilewalking.com has some fantastic resources when it comes to the ergonomics of your workstation and the ergonomics of your treadmill desk setup. I'm like adjusting my body if you're watching the video version of this podcast because all of a sudden I'm self-conscious. When I'm standing, I use this stool, by the way, it's called a Focal Focal Upright Stool. Make sure I got that name. Yeah, Focal Upright Stool. And, it allows me to just lean against this stool. And then, my seated workstation up on my upstairs office is called an Anthros Chair, which is freaking Tesla of back-supporting office chairs. So, my setup is I've got the stool with the standing mat at my standing workstation. That's where I'm at right now. Beside me is the Walkolution treadmill, and then upstairs is the Anthros Chair. And, that's kind of my my whole setup for workplace ergonomics. So hopefully that's helpful. And, uh, anybody's listening in who wants the crème de la crème of treadmills, you have to try this one I was just talking about. It's, it's pretty amazing. So, uh, I will put a link to it in the show notes if you go to bengreenfieldlife.com/461. All right, looks like we've got one more question. This is a good one. What are your options from— for a male, or what options do you recommend for a male with low testosterone still trying to have kids? Ben Greenfield: I tried Clomid and Estradiol for a long time, but it's not working. Well, it is true that even though testosterone replacement therapy can help a man feel really great, better energy, better sleep, you know, better libido, better muscle mass, et cetera, there are some issues with testosterone replacement therapy when it comes to fertility. A lot of people think if they're trying to have a baby and they can't have one that low testosterone levels are to blame. But that's not necessarily the case. Some people because of low testosterone levels have lower sperm production and low fertility, but testosterone is just one of the hormones that stimulate sperm production. And, there are some other hormones that play an important, arguably a more important role than testosterone when it comes to fertility. Now, when you get on testosterone replacement therapy, whether it's a pill or an injection or a pellets or a cream or anything else, One of the most common side effects is a decreased sperm count. And that's because, well, think about how the body makes sperm. Okay, it's a complicated collection of hormones that triggers sperm production. Ordinarily, if your body detects that your testosterone levels are low, it will send a signal to your pituitary gland that will prompt the production of luteinizing hormone, LH. You may have seen that on a blood test before, and follicle stimulating hormone, FSH, and that process triggers the testes to begin producing sperm. And when your brain registers an influx of testosterone from exogenous TRT, testosterone replacement therapy treatment, that will disrupt the standard sperm production process. Because your body doesn't register low T levels, the pituitary gland doesn't produce the necessary hormones like FH and LSH, so your sperm production decreases, meaning that TRT, if not done properly, meaning in a way that would keep luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone elevated, could have a pretty significant long-term and sometimes permanent effect on fertility. Now, if you're hearing this and you're freaking out because you've been on TRT and you still want to have kids, yes, you can wean yourself off of it. And there's one way to do that I'll mention here briefly that can help. Some doctors will combine testosterone with something called HCG, human chorionic— how do you pronounce it? Human chorionic gonadotropin, I think it is. HCG, and that can help to protect your fertility. Other people will cryopreserve and freeze their sperm prior to getting on TRT so that later on they can use that same sperm when they're ready to start a family. That can also work. Some doctors will prescribe what's called clomiphene or Clomid instead of TRT, which as I'll explain shortly, I'm not a big fan of. And then, some guys will be on TRT, but they'll just be like, drinking alcohol, not sleeping well, under a lot of stress, in the sauna or the hot tub all the time, heating up the boys, and they're still fertile because they're being well managed, but there's just some other lifestyle factors that need to change. But in my opinion, at this point, I think that if you still want to start a family and stay fertile and you want to increase testosterone, you don't have to get on traditional testosterone replacement therapy. Now, why do I say that? Because, uh, if, if you look at what's called hypogonadism, and this would be one of the situations that would affect the signal of the testicles, there's a couple things to think about. You have primary hypogonadism and secondary hypogonadism. In primary hypogonadism, your hypothalamus and your pituitary function are normal, so the glands are successfully signaling the testicles to produce testosterone, but the testicles are failing to make testosterone. Okay, that's primary testicular failure. And then, secondary hypogonadism is the reverse situation. You have normal testicles that should be capable of producing testosterone, but the hypothalamus and the pituitary are not sending the signal to increase testosterone production. You'll sometimes see that, for example, in guys who have had a head injury or who are under a lot of stress. So, most guys with low testosterone actually suffer from secondary hypogonadism. Their testicles can make testosterone, but the brain signal is enough to increase testosterone. Now, if you have primary hypogonadism, then it is true that testosterone replacement therapy where you supply the body with exogenous testosterone is often your only option. But in secondary testo— hypogonadism, taking testosterone might not be the best idea. Now, the reason for that is because of an enzyme called aromatase, okay? When aromatase levels are present, a significant amount of of the extra testosterone that you get from testosterone replacement therapy gets converted into estradiol, a form of estrogen. And when surplus estradiol acts on estrogen receptors in your hypothalamus and your pituitary glands, that sends a signal to your body to produce less of the luteinizing hormone and less of the follicle stimulating hormone that would be necessary for fertility. So, basically, that causes you to suffer. Quite a bit if you want to actually have babies because that enzyme causes an excess of what's called estradiol or E2, and that impacts fertility. Now, that's where a solution of something that I think is better than Clomid comes in. It's called a selective estrogen receptor modulator, an SERM. So, what a selective estrogen receptor modulator does is it binds to that estrogen receptor, but rather than blocking all of the estrogens, it actually allows for the E2 to not be bound to the receptor that will cause the decrease in LH and FSH. So, I'll explain this a little more thoroughly. So, you're blocking estrogen at the receptor, so the aromatization of excess testosterone to estradiol isn't going to matter because estradiol isn't able to have an effect on the hypothalamus or pituitary gland. So, the idea here is that with an SERM, you're able to increase testosterone without affecting fertility. Now, probably the most popular SERM out there for this is called enclomiphene. Okay. You may have heard of clomiphene before, which is more popularly known as Clomid. Now, Clomid is both an agonist and an antagonist of estrogen. It's often used to treat infertility in women. So, it's partly estrogenic and it's partly anti-estrogenic because it has a diametrically opposed effect on the estrogen receptor. Now, what enclomiphene is, it's the part of Clomid that would be the estrogen antagonist. So, rather than producing a bunch of estrogen, it's just blocking the activity of E2 that will cause the drop in fertility to occur. So, often when men are given Clomid to increase their fertility, they do get a nice bump in testosterone from the enclomiphene that's in Clomid, but the problem is that they get a whole bunch of estrogen produced from the estrogen part of Clomid. So, what enclomiphene is, is it's taking out the excess estrogen that will cause a man to have these feminizing side effects and man boobs and getting weepy during chick flicks and stuff, and instead just boost testosterone without producing the drop in F-H and L-S-H. And, they've done studies on this and shown that when guys get on enclomiphene, they can see an increase in total testosterone, but they have normal LH and FSH levels and arguably better fertility. So, there's two ways to go about this. If you have really, really, really low testosterone like severe hypogonadism, some people get on testosterone plus enclomiphene. If your testosterone levels are just a little bit low but you want to get them up a little bit while still maintaining fertility, you can, you can often get by on enclomiphene alone. It would just be like an oral dose that you take typically 1 or 2 times a day. So, I realize it's a long explanation, but I would say if you want to have babies and you want to increase your testosterone, you're going to either have to freeze your sperm then get on TRT or go for something like enclomiphene instead of TRT. So, that's what I would recommend rather than the Clomid and Anastrozole that you're doing right now. I would recommend something like enclomiphene with a small dose of testosterone or starting off just in clomiphene by itself. That's what I would try. I'm not a doctor. I don't want you to misconstrue this as medical advice, but that's what I would think about doing if I were you. So, man, I think we are just about done with today's podcast, but, but, but I have to one more time give a big shout out to the brand new Ben Greenfield Life Masterclass. Again, it is me walking you through everything you would need to do for your ideal routine, your ideal day, You're maximizing 6 key areas and optimizing those: time, environment, health, soul, relationships, and legacy. And you can find it all at bengreenfieldlife.com/masterclass. Not only that, I'm doing a free challenge leading up to the masterclass that even if you don't want to do the masterclass, you'll spend 6 days with me every morning with live Q&A. I've never done anything like that, but it's leading up to the kickoff of the masterclass. And again, you don't have to get the masterclass class. You can just go through the 6-day free live Q&A with me where I teach everything about creating your perfect day and your ideal routine. I will link to that in the show notes, and I will link to the masterclass as well in the show notes. So the show notes are at bengreenfieldlife.com/461. The masterclass is at bengreenfieldlife.com/masterclass. Uh, I'm super grateful that you stuck it out with me through this episode. I hope you learned a little bit. And again, until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield signing out. Have an amazing week. 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. 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