Are pH Based Diets Proven, Is Bluetooth Dangerous? Should You Exercise Your Chest Every Day and Much More!

In this episode, does coolsculpting fat loss surgery work? What are omega 5 and 7 fats? Should you exercise your chest every day? Will a paleo diet cause gout? 5 ways to stay healthy at College Are Bluetooth headsets and wireless heart rate monitors dangerous? And what should your ratio of vitamin A, D and K be?

Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. We provide you with free exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon and wellness advice from the top fitness experts in the nation. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you're just trying to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

Well Brock, I gotta tell you, I'm pretty racked. I'm pretty sore today and I'm, I'm, I'm glad that Wednesdays are podcasting recording day are also now my recovery day because I definitely need it. I did.

What did you do to yourself?

Well, I'm doing the eight weeks to SEAL FIT to prepare for my hell week for civilians that I'm doing in August down in San Diego.

Oh, that's right. Ben is actually joining the Navy Seals, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm just pretending it's my, my armed forces envy, wishing I had actually served my country at some point. So I'm just going to go do the hell week instead. But yesterday's workout was Murph, which I'm sure CrossFitters are familiar with as being the 1 mile run, 300 squat 200 push up 100 pull up 1 mile run workout. So I did Murph, but the only difference was I did Murph with 30 pounds in a backpack, so.

And people shooting at you.

Yeah, I don't, I don't know what shooting at you. My arms from doing all the pull ups with the backpack on or the, the, the chafing that's worn into my lower back from the backpack rubbing up into the house.

I hadn't thought of that. Got to put a whole crapload of. What's that called? Body glide across everywhere.

I should have in just take a bath in it. Yeah, exactly. 2020 hindsight. So I'm actually logging all these workouts that I'm doing for all my inner circle members. I'm not only photographing my food, so. Took a nice photograph yesterday of.

Are you running it through Instagram like all the hipsters do?

Flickr, actually. So I'm photographing all my food and uploading all my workouts. The reason I'm Doing this now is because if you go back and listen to like podcast number one of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, let me put.

It this way, that's actually. It wasn't a podcast. It was chiseled into a rock with a hammer.

So we've come a long way, baby, when it comes to the type of health techniques, workouts, nutrition supplements, biohacks, basically everything that I personally implement on a daily basis and implement now with my family and my kids. And it can get confusing sometimes to figure out what I'm doing now, what's working now, kind of assemble everything that we talk about in, in this podcast and in my books, and the kind of one easy to implement system or one system to where you can kind of just get in and ask questions, but also see how I'm doing this stuff on a daily basis. And so the Inner Circle is kind of the way to do that. And we're in the process of revamping the whole Inner circle right now to where my video workshops that I do each month are going to be a lot more Q and A in terms of me talking about how I'm taking the research that we, for example, talk about on this podcast. And I'll be walking around my house with the video camera camera showing folks how I'm actually implementing what I'm implementing. Jess is going to be doing a lot more cooking videos, and we're actually bringing a film crew over to our house at the end of this month to shoot a bunch of episodes for the Inner Circle. So it's, you know, for 10 bucks a month, it's actually going to be a pretty cool deal. So. Didn't mean to turn that into a commercial.

No, but it's interesting that you bring up the whole evolution of the things that you do and the things that you believe in, because I often we do get questions for the podcast that people say things like, hey, you used to say that phytoplankton was. The jury was out on phytoplankton, but you seem to have changed mind.

And now I take it every morning.

And you know, yeah, you do change your mind.

And two years ago I would have told you that enemas were one of the strangest, most woo woo things on the face of the planet. But next week I'll be.

You're giving yourself one right now?

Yeah, on Sunday. On Sunday, actually, I'm going to be experimenting with coffee enemas and bringing the results of that episode to the Inner Circle as well. So all sorts of interesting things that are evolving in my life that I want to make sure to share with people. So that's all@BenGreenfieldFitness.com inner circle. And if coffee enemas aren't enough of a news flash, we've got some others coming your way now.

All right, so what's the first news flash for this week, Ben?

Well, the first news flash. And by the way, I put out all these news flashes over@twitter.com BenGreenfield if you want to check them out.

And actually quite often@facebook.com bgfitness as well.

Yes, on the Facebook page. But the thing that we talked about a few weeks ago is this whole idea behind PH diets and whether or not ph diets actually work, whether ph diets are a myth. And kind of by ph you mean.

Like alkalinity in a single.

Yeah, this idea about whether or not you can actually change your ph with the foods that you eat. And this has never really been studied in super great detail and the theory has never really been validated about whether or not you can maintain proper PH in your body with the foods that you eat and whether or not that's going to actually affect your health at all. The idea behind this is that there are certain foods that are alkaline forming and certain foods that are acid forming when you digest them. And that's not something that is argued. That is something that is a scientific fact. Every food that you eat leaves a residue in your body after it's digested. And that residue is called in nutrition science, ash, which I've always thought was a funny term.

I actually thought it was because they measured that by actually setting it on fire.

I am not sure if that's why, but they call it. Pretty sure.

They actually, that's how they determine the alkalinity is they actually will burn, say spinach and then take the ash and check the PH balance of that. I think that's where it comes from.

And then spread it over the ocean or into the Grand Canyon to commemorate the spinach that died to spray the ash.

Everyone cries a little bit.

Yeah. And some foods are kind of confusing because like lemons will taste acidic, as you can tell by their pucker factor. But they leave an alkaline residue upon digestion or an alkaline ash. So lemon would be considered an acidic food, but not, not an acid forming food. And the idea is that some people would say that if we eat too many acid forming foods that our blood or our tissues become acidic and that that might promote disease. But again, that's something that has always been kind of blue sky and not really, really fleshed out in the science until this week. So there is a new study called Dietary Acid Load and risk of type 2 diabetes. And in this study they actually quant acid load from an acid forming diet versus an alkaline forming diet and found that risk of type 2 diabetes was actually increased in folks who were eating foods that were more in the acid forming format. And that would include things like a high amount of meat, a high amount of commercial dairy, low amount of vegetables, low amounts of fresh fruits, that type of thing. And the idea behind this is that insulin resistance is one thing that has been reported with low urine ph and what's called a higher anion gap, which is essentially a marker of metabolic acidosis. And there's another thing that will increase when you eat a lot of acid forming foods and it's called serum lactate. And that's also been associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes. So there are some biological mechanisms that kind of point to the idea that there may be a way that an acid forming diet could actually cause insulin resistance or increased risk of type 2 diabetes. But this study, which I'll link to in the show notes, actually shows that a diet with a high acid load does indeed result in increased risk for type 2 diabetes. And it's the first one I've ever seen that actually shows that there is something to this whole ph diet thing and paying attention to the alkalinity or the acidity of the foods that you eat. And I should of course mention that just like I talked about a couple of weeks ago, being overly alkalinized, eating a bunch of or drinking a bunch of alkaline water and having some kind of a countertop alkalinizer, that type of thing is not something that I recommend. I think that you can definitely be too alkaline. However, paying attention to especially getting lots of alkalinic foods in the diet. That's where I tend to see people mess up the most, is not getting enough things like dark leafies, cruciferous vegetables, some good fresh fruits, you know, not fruit juices, but fresh fruits. And then paying attention to fatty cuts of meat, not just lean meats, for example. Like those are some of the ways that you can alkalinize the diet. And it turns out that there really is something to this ph balancing diet.

Interesting.

Yeah, super interesting and relevant to me because I've done, for example, like 23andMe.com genetic testing. I've seen that I have higher than Normal risk for type 2 diabetes. And it's something that I always bear in mind. And by the way, for our listeners over in the show notes, just like we do with all the show notes, I'll put resources, but@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 280 I'll link not only to that study, but also to a really good acid alkaline food chart that you could print out and put on your fridge if you want to see if things are acid forming or alkaline forming handy. So speaking of acid forming diets, I'm not sure if you saw this article, Esquire Brock, but it's called how to Drink Beer All Night without Getting Drunk. Did you see this?

I didn't see this. That sounds like no fun at all.

I know, it does kind of sound like no fun, but basically it's this guy who has come up with this way to be able to drink beer all night without getting drunk. And the idea is that he uses yeast. So like this, you know, like brewer's yeast that you use for like, you know, getting a bunch of vitamins into your body. It's kind of big among like nutritional yeast. Yeah, it's like what hippies spread on their salad, that kind of thing.

I put it on my popcorn Stitch.

Yeah, it actually is pretty good on your popcorn, but like kind of cheesy active dry yeast. And you can buy this stuff at the grocery store, but it has an enzyme in it called alcohol dehydrogenase. That's the same stuff that like, I think we've talked about in the context of Asian folks who don't do quite as well with alcohol because they don't naturally make much of this alcohol dehydrogenase. But the idea is alcohol dehydrogenase can break down alcohol molecules and metabolize them rather than them being metabolized by, say, your liver. So theoretically, if you have that enzyme in your stomach, when the alcohol first hits your stomach, the ADH or the alcohol dehydrogenase starts breaking down the alcohol before it gets into your bloodstream in your brain and, and really mitigates the effects of the alcohol. And this guy swears that he'll drink beer all night and never get drunk and has actually even filed a patent on the process of kind of like an anti getting drunk supplement based on active dry yeast. So I thought the article was interesting, but to me it fails a little bit from a biological standpoint.

Why don't you end up with a terrible yeast overgrowth?

Well, first of all, that's certainly One issue is if you have yeast, fungus or candida or anything like that, not only should you not be drinking beer or doing a high amount of some fermented foods like wine and beer anyways, but the last thing you're going to want to be doing is a bunch of nutritional yeast. That's bad news, bears, if you're like a candida fungus yeast in the digestive tract type of person. The other thing is that that alcohol dehydrogenase basically gets nuked once it hits the acidic PH of your stom. So the only way that you'd be able to do this is to somehow.

Still in your mouth.

Yeah, you'd have to swallow it. You'd have to drink the yeast at the exact moment that you were drinking the alcohol in order for this to really actually be able to act effectively against the alcohol. So if you were going to do nutritional yeast as a way to keep yourself from getting drunk when drinking, you would have to literally like have your little powdered yeast product sitting there next to your beer and do like, you know, a drink of beer and then a little bit of yeast and then a drink of beer and a little bit of yeast and be possibly a social embarrassment and definitely a logistical inconvenience. So it's an interesting article to go read and theoretically it could work. But I don't think it's quite as easy as they point out in this Esquire magazine article. And I also wanted to point that out just because everybody and their dog, like Joe Rogan and Adam Carolla and all these folks were tweeting out this article and it's not quite as simple as they make it sound, but it's not simple.

And it's also like, why would you want to do that?

And that's the other thing is, unless you really, really enjoy the taste of beer, I don't see why you'd want to drink all night without getting drunk. I personally, and this is my dirty little secret, I have a glass of wine every day. And I actually have my glass of wine after I finish my workout, before dinner. So completely empty stomach. Because I work out at about 5 o' clock in the afternoon, I'll come back from my workout, take a shower, do my cold shower, recover and everything. And the first thing I do is have a glass of wine. Because honestly, after my workouts, a 4 ounce glass of wine pretty much spins the dials in my brain totally. Yeah, I'm a total cheap date and that's my drink for the evening. And I feel great if I have wine after dinner. I gotta drink two or three glasses before I really feel the same effects, happiness inducing effects and relaxation effect of the wine. So yeah, wine is kind of my. Actually, I'll tell you what I've been doing lately. I grab a handful of those amino acid capsules, pop a few of those back to get some protein in my bloodstream, and have a glass of wine. And that's my post workout routine these days.

That sounds like a nap waiting to happen.

Yeah, there you have it. And then the last study I wanted to point out that I also tweeted about was the leg press versus the squat.

Oh, I like this one.

Yeah, this was.

I love it when science backs up the things that I already love.

That's right. So certain exercises can cause higher levels of testosterone, growth hormone and cortisol release, all of which are going to assist with your anabolic response to that workout. Yes, even cortisol you're gonna want in certain amounts when you're exercising because it is a helpful stress based hormone in certain contexts. Well, in this study they compared the acute hormonal response of the leg press exercise with the squat and found no big surprise here, I think that the free weight exercise, the squat, induced a greater hormonal response, a significantly greater hormonal response than a machine weight exercise like the leg press. And I think, and this is something that I was talking about on a recent podcast I did with the alpha male podcast guy, we were talking about this and I mentioned how chopping wood is another activity that has been shown to increase testosterone even more so compared to exercise. So any type of functional free weight activity, what we were talking about was you can go to your local tire store and ask them for a big heavy tire. They usually have their old junk tires in the back. You bring that back to your, your house, you buy a sledgehammer, or you use whatever sledgehammer you might happen to have out in your garage and you hit the tire. And that's a great way to increase testosterone. That or flipping the tire. Anything where you're swinging, squatting, moving a free weight around, kettlebell swings, all of these type of things are going to jack up testosterone significantly, especially compared to long, slow, chronic cardio, for example, or even weight machines. So if you're looking to amp one of your body's most potent fat burning hormones, testosterone, free weights are gonna be the way to do it.

I like it.

And speaking of increasing testosterone, let's talk a little bit about hair on your face. We actually, we answered a listener question about razor burn a couple of weeks ago. But I've got a pretty good tip for folks listening in. And this particular podcast episode, episode number 280 is brought to you by Harry's which is what the heck is Harry's? Harry's these really high quality shaving blades and they engineer them in a factory in Germany and I've actually got one of their blades and it's probably the most beautiful shaving blade I've ever seen. It's got this weight to it. You know how when you just hold nice things like it just feels different, you know, because I've used disposable razors and I used the dollar a month shave club before and like this is an actual nice razor. They actually.

Is it a straight razor?

It's a three blade razor. So it's still like a, you know, it looks like a standard razor, like a, you know, similar to like a Gillette, but it's actually about half the price of a Gillette. You can even get your actual razor handle engraved with your name. Like it's just one of those like, like nice things. It's kind of like, you know, kind of like driving a Mercedes Benz. It's just like this, this nice German engineered blade and it's made in this 93 year old German factory and they sh to your door and it comes with some shaving cream and they use this all natural paraben and phthalate and chemical free or basically a toxin free shaving cream. And it's a really kind of clean, cool way to get your shave on. And they have been so kind as to give our podcast listeners an actual discount. So whether you're a guy or a girl, because I know, I'm hoping that many of our female podcast listeners actually do shave their legs or their pits perhaps. Well, I guess other areas of the body. I would prefer laser not razor but anyways you can use code Ben preferred laser. For every laser you can use code Ben over@harrys.com and you save five bucks off of this shaving kit from Harry's and like I mentioned they sent me one to check out and it actually is pretty cool and it's just like probably one of the nicest things in my bathroom now my Harry's shaver. So check it out Harry's.com and use $5 discount code Ben.

Did you get your name engraved on it?

Not yet.

Listener Q and A.

Hi Ben, what is your opinion about Creolipoesis?

Is it good or not so good? Thank you.

I think it was like maybe two years ago, I saw tons of posters pop up about cool sculpting. It seemed to be a thing that was like all the rage there for a bit.

Yeah, I thought it was just like some kind of an ice sculpting competition.

But it's totally what it sounds like. And that's always, that's what I fear too. They're going to take like a, I don't know, a cold laser and just carve off parts of your love handles.

And they'll turn you into, what's it, Olaf from the cartoon Frozen. They turn you into a snowman. That'd be cool. That's my kid's favorite cartoon character right now is Olaf Frozen.

I have not seen that because I do not have children.

It's a funny movie, but coolsculpting is kind of like this alternative to liposuction in which they use this non invasive tissue cooling applicator. And the way that it works is it's a vacuum applicator that you put over the area of tissue, like let's say your butt, and it holds the butt between two cooling panels. So to like suck a, like a little area of your butt and hold it between these two cooling panels and take all the heat out of that area. And that theoretically causes fat cell apoptosis or fat cell death, fat cell reduction and loss of subcutaneous fat. But the way that the vacuum suction is set up is that it doesn't actually cause damage to the skin. So you get loss of subcutaneous fat without damaging the skin. And the idea is that you go in for a few sessions of fat layer reduction using this coolsculpting treatment and it would be something that you use instead of something like liposuction. So, so I looked up the studies on this and there's a few small studies primarily done on animals that have looked into this. And I would imagine they just did it just to make sure that they weren't destroying human tissue. But the technical term for it is cryosurgery, or surgery at very low temperatures used for tissue destruction, in this case, fat tissue destruction. And for example, I found a study that was done back in 2008 on of all things, black Yucatan pig. And what they found was that when they did about 10 minute long treatments of this fat based cold exposure to the pigs, that the lipid area underneath the skin was significantly lower and there was a loss of adipocyte tissue without actual injury to the skin and without any scarring. And so the results of this study indicated that you could actually get a localized loss of subcutaneous fat through this type of cooling. My question is, how expensive is it? Is it going to be covered by insurance? And ultimately, is this something that is going to be superior to just doing something like putting on the cool fat burner vest from coolfatburner.com or by doing cold showers, cold thermogenesis, going out in the morning in your backyard if you live in a cool area and you know, doing some yoga on your back porch while it's still a little bit cold, doing some shiver walks where you're going for a walk in your T shirt and shorts while it's cold outside. I mean, all of those things can cause lipolysis, upregulation of lipase as well. But a lot of other cool effects that this liposuction doesn't cause, like for example, upregulation of adiponectin, which can reduce systemic inflammation, can increase fat burning, can increase metabolism, can have some effects on risk of diabetes by elevating the burning of glucose and insulin sensitivity, a decrease in inflammatory cytokines, increase in pain tolerance, improvement in nervous system stability. I mean, there's all of these effects that you get from just incorporating temperature fluctuations into your day to day routine that you're not going to get from something like this, this surgery, which seems like a quick fix that ultimately doesn't offer quite as many benefits as like cold thermogenesis, for example. I think it's interesting. It's an interesting idea though. Yeah.

But it also, I mean, you, you sort of likened it to liposuction, which also has the same problem of once the liposuction is done, you've got sort of this window where sure, you don't have the fat, but it's going to come back if you don't make any other changes in your lifestyle.

Yeah. And I think what's interesting, and we talked about this with Dr. Kate Shanahan when we had her on the episode, is that in most cases fat cells are going to become other cells, such as nerve and muscle cells, or they're going to shrink. So you're either going to get fat cell conversion or shrinkage of fat cells with the capability for those cells to still become full of energy and still be able to enlarge once you do begin overeating, for example, or for the muscle cells and bone cells or nerve cells that were converted from fat cells to get converted back into fat cells. And actual fat cell death is something that can be pretty difficult to achieve. You can do it with exercise and ancestral eating and very low levels of inflammation. But fat cell apoptosis or cell death is not the easiest thing to pull off. And the thing that's interesting about this cryolipolysis is it does actually cause controlled cell death of the fat tissue itself. So it's like you get rid of fat tissue and you don't actually risk it coming back. Assuming that after you've done the surgery, or it's really not a surgery, after you've done the procedure, you actually pay attention to your diet and your exercise plan. I wouldn't necessarily use this as an excuse to eat Twinkies and sit around all day, pop up a bunch of.

Yeast and drink a bunch of beer.

Yeah, it's interesting. And it's over@coolsculpting.com I'm not sure how many folks around the world actually do this test. I would imagine that you could probably find a surgeon in your area who does something like this. But yeah, it's basically called coolsculpting. And if you want to explore, go, go check out coolsculpting.com and get your your icy cold vacuum on.

And you can take your pig there too.

Your black Yucatan pig.

Actually, if there's one thing I learned from from Mythbusters, it's that a pig makes an awesome human analog.

Hey, Ben. Brian Clark. Love the show. Quick question for you. Omega Omega 3, 6's and 9s. We obviously know the health benefits. Been doing a lot of reading on omega 5s and 7s. What is the real advantage of an omega 5 and 7? And second question is, is there any reason that an ironman triathlete or somebody doing a lot of training, endurance training, should be taking a 5 and 7?

Alright.

Love the show. Thanks.

Yeah, what the heck. Omega 5 and 7, they're like the forgotten stepchildren.

Seriously, as if we didn't have enough to think about already with the omeg threes and the Omega 6s and the Omega 9s. Okay, so we've got. Yes. You don't just have omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids, there are others. So you've got for example, omega 5 fatty acids. Examples of this would be like myrostoleic acid or punisic acid. And these.

Are we supposed to know what that means?

Yes. Found in black Yucatan pigs. Actually, it's found primarily in pomegranates and pomegranate seeds. You find a lot of omega 6 fatty acids or omega 5 fatty acids rather in pomegranate seeds and it can get converted into conjugated linoleic acid or cla pretty easily. And cla is a pretty cool way to increase the ability of your mitochondria to be burn fat as a fuel.

That's the stuff that we're trying to get by buying all that grass fed butter.

Yep, exactly. And speaking of butter fat, as well as coconut oil, your body will actually generate omega 5 fatty acids as those are metabolized. So if you're eating coconut oil, if you're eating butter, if you're eating pomegranate seeds, those type of things, you're getting plenty of omega 5 fatty acids and your body actually can generate those fatty acids on their own. Unlike omega 3 or omega 6 fatty acids, which you actually have to get from your diet, your body can actually make those, which is why they are called essential fatty acids. Whereas Omega 5s and Omega 7s and Omega 9s are non essential fatty acids because your body can manufacture them itself. Good old body, omega 7 fatty acids. An example of that would be like palmitoleic acid. There's another form of omega 7 fatty acids that you find in grass fed meat that you find in dairy and it's also one of the naturally occurring trans fats. So we hear a lot about trans fats and they get thrown under the bus because they are found a lot of times in modified fat based foods and they've been outlawed in many states. So the idea though is that there are naturally occurring forms of trans fats and the way that the fat is actually oriented from, from a biochemical and structural standpoint is just different than a factory made trans fat. But you find naturally occurring trans fats in grass fed meat and in dairy, and in most cases Those are omega 7 fatty acids. You'll also find them in macadamia nuts and you'll also find them a lot of times in a grass fed dairy, a good organic dairy. So omega 7 fatty acids, if you're eating grass fed meat, if you're, if you're eating dairy, if you're eating nuts, and in particular macadamia nuts, you're getting a decent amount of omega 7 fatty acids. And again, your body can actually manufacture omega 7 fatty acids out of other fats as well. So once again you don't need to be rushing out and purchasing some omega 7 fatty acid supplement or pill or something like that, or asking for omega 7 fatty acids where you're getting the cold vacuum sucked out of you.

I do enjoy a good, a good handful of macadamia nuts though, especially when I'm In Hawaii.

I think covering them in chocolate possibly amplifies the omega 7 fatty acid effect.

I believe it does for everything.

I like to believe chocolate macadamia nuts are healthy. And then omega 9 fatty acids, those are monounsaturated fats that are all over the place. Meat and olive oil and avocados and just about any nuts, you don't need that many of them. Your body can manufacture them from other fat sources. So omega 9s are something else that again are a good fatty acid. But deficiencies are pretty uncommon assuming you're eating meat, dairy, nuts, things of that nature, and then even things like pomegranate seeds and avocados. So ultimately Omega 5s, Omega 7s, Omega 9s, they're all really good fats. But you don't have to worry about, about buying a supplement that has those in them. If you're eating a good, healthy fat based diet, you're getting enough of those in your diet. So as far as the Omega 3s and the Omega 6s go, my whole deal with that is on any days that I'm not eating fish, that I'm not eating sardines, I will actually use a fish oil. And I've got a pretty simple rule. I take 4 grams of a mix of fish liver oil, oil, fish oil, astaxanthin, which is a natural antioxidant that keeps the fish oil from getting rancid with a little bit of vitamin E. And I use something called super essentials. They're like these black dark fish oil capsules. Because of the astaxanthin content, you get a little bit of anti aging effect from the astaxanthin. And that's the way I roll. And yeah, I just basically do 4 grams a day, easy peasy. And skip it if I'm already eating fish or anything like that.

That.

So you see those like bottles of, I know, Udo's oil, they make a 3, 6, 9. And I think now, now foods makes a 369. So there's no real point in having that then.

Not the nine, no.

Why on earth do they make it then? Sons of bitches.

Hey Ben. Name's Donald. I have a friend, he is really big on working on his chest and he does it every single time we work out, whether it be three days a week, four days a week, occasionally five days a week. He will always work out his chest. Two or three sets, 12 reps, sometimes four sets back to back days. He doesn't care every single time. So my question is, is that safe I know everybody's body is different, but I have problems with gains on my arm, so I thought maybe, maybe I would try that with my arms. Back to back days, or maybe twice a week, three times a week. But I just feel like that's unsafe. And so far he hasn't had a problem with it. He doesn't even get sore. So is that a specific thing for the chest where you can work it more or can you do that with any muscle group? What are the benefits of that? Are the downfalls of that? Thanks a lot.

So I believe there is a chapter in a book that I have sitting on the table nearby. I can't remember the name of it, but yeah. Do you know what I'm talking about?

I do. And I do talk about this in my new book about how long it takes you to recover from a workout and whether or not you should work the same muscle group every day. It's in chapter six. So if you didn't get the book yet, go grab it from beyond trainingbook.com. okay. So they've actually done studies on this, how long muscle repair takes. Because if you're working your chest but you can't meet or exceed whatever you were doing in your previous chest workout, then it's really not going to do you much good at all to be working your chest again. So, you know, for example, case in point, I had whatever how many push ups I did yesterday, I guess it came out to 200 push ups. With that 30 pound weight on my back, I have no need to crank out another push up for a good three to four days or so afterwards. And they've actually looked into this. There was some study done at McMaster University and the Washington University School of Medicine where they found that muscle protein synthesis increases by about 50% for four hours after a workout. And this repair process peaks about 24 hours after a workout. Now the idea though, is not that the muscle is completely repaired after that 24 hours. In most cases. With the average resistance training program, it's actually about 36 hours before that process is complete. So if we're looking at this from a pure muscle standpoint, it's an approximate 36 hour recovery time before another true high quality session on that same area is doable or is efficacious. So basically what it comes out to is a minimum of about a day and a half. So if you work your chest on a Monday morning, it's gonna be at least Tuesday afternoon before you benefit at all from doing another chest workout. And in most cases, What I tell people is, you know, that that 48 hour window is a little bit more. It's a better rule to stand by. And the reason for that is not just because of the pain in the butt issues with trying to space workouts by a day and a half, rather than say like one day or two days, but also because your nervous system is an important component here. Because in the same way that your muscles can get fatigued or become torn and injured, training damages your nervous system. And specifically you've got these local nerves at the actual muscle site and it's called your neuromuscular junct. And that joins your nervous system and your muscle together. It's the way that your brain communicates with your muscles. And when you release inflammatory cytokines in response to muscle damage, which is induced by training, like doing your bench pressing or doing your push up when you're doing your chest workout, those inflammatory cytokines actually dock on receptors in this neuromuscular junction and they hamper neural recovery. Which means that even if the muscle fibers themselves are repaired, your nervous system could still be under recovered and you aren't going to be able to actually transmit nerve signals as well to say, your chest muscles until those inflammatory cytokines have subsided. And they have done studies that have looked into inflammatory cytokines and recovery of the neuromuscular junction, and that takes about 48 hours or so to fully recover at the neuromuscular junction level level. So even though in my book I get into everything from your blood to your bone to even your metabolism and how long some of those take to recover, along with your anabolic versus your catabolic hormones, the main two things that I would be thinking about when it comes to back to back chest workouts would be local nervous system fatigue and then muscle fiber fatigue, with muscle fibers needing about 36 hours hours and that neuromuscular junction needing about 48 hours. And if it comes down to pure neuromuscular fatigue, such as you might get during like a bodybuilding session where you might be working the same muscle group for a good hour or, you know, in some cases, you know, two hours, you know, if you're doing an Arnold Schwarzenegger esque biceps workout where you're just like doing, you know, incline curls and decline curls and standing curls and seated curls, and a true bodybuilding type of workout, it's about four days before your muscles and your nervous system are fully recovered. And that's why in some bodybuilding routines, they'll take a full week before they actually return to that same body part. So working the same body part day after day, especially when it comes to actual resistance training, is not that great of an idea. And by the way, as far as the nervous system goes, you can track that. I mean, that's what heart rate variability testing is, is if you're rolling out of bed in the morning and you're tracking your heart rate variability. Like, I can tell you that today after doing that Murph workout yesterday. And it was actually that workout was preceded by push presses to failure. So sets of 10 push presses until I couldn't do 10 anymore. And that was with 120 pounds. So that was prior to Murph destroyed my shoulders, went out, did that work workout. I did my heart rate variability testing this morning. And even though my parasympathetic nervous system, which is the low, I'm sorry, the high frequency component of heart rate variability, even though that was nice and robust and somewhat high, because yesterday's workout wasn't that aerobic at all. And frankly, neither was the day before. They were both similar, kind of like hardcore resistance training type of workout. That high frequency score looked really good on my heart rate variability, but my low frequency score yesterday was low and today was even lower. So I'm watching over the past two days, my sympathetic nervous system get dug deeper and deeper into a ditch now by recovering today and doing my typical recovery day that I talked about in last week's podcast, which is basically a little bit of some cold showers, a trip to the sauna, some foam rolling, and an easy swim. By doing all of that today, I allow my sympathetic nervous system to bounce back even stronger. So I dig it into a hole and then I allow it to bounce back and basically get this super compensation effect. And you know that that is basically using tracking of my nervous system to enhance or biohack my recovery even more. So if, if, for example, I noticed that both my parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system scores were both low this morning, I wouldn't even do an easy swim or anything like that. I would just have this be a complete sit around and do nothing day. So it comes down to your muscle system, your nervous system, around 48 hours between working the same body part and if you're really destroying that body part, minimum of four days.

I have a feeling that don't Donald's friend can get away with this kind of thing because he's probably doing what I see a lot of people do in the gym, which is really not working all that hard. Like he's probably going doing like three sets of 15 at like say 70% of maximum one rep. Like, so he's not lifting really heavy, he's just sort of throwing some weights around. And I mean, there's a whole other problem with doing that.

Yeah, that's, that's the other thing is, is you'll see people go in and just like half acid every day. And that's also the group that doesn't see results. On the flip side though, if you're working the same muscle group every day, you can't help at half acid again because you aren't, you aren't getting that nervous system firing period. So you know, you simply are unable to meet or exceed the previous day's performance. So again, from super compensation to really, you know, biohacking this whole recovery thing, I get into it in great detail over@BeyondTrainingBook.com so grab the book if you want to dig into this even more.

Hey Ben, this is Daniel from the LA area. After a couple years of eating a very high protein bodybuilding like and then paleo type diet, I've started to develop some gout pain. So what I'm wondering is how do I get rid of these uric acid crystals in my body once and for all? Is there some sort of detox I can do, start getting rid of them? I'd eventually like to start enjoying chicken, fish and steak again. Also, I plan on starting Dan John's mass building program with all the amino supplements that you recommend in the correct amounts. Any other recommendations that you have in case this is something that I can't just get rid of? Thanks a lot, Ben. Really enjoying the podcast.

Yeah, I know we talked about gout probably, it's probably like a couple years ago now, but it wasn't specifically revolving around this kind of diet.

Yeah, and gout. Just a quick 30 second overview of gout. It's this inflammatory arthritis that you get when you have elevated levels of uric acid in your blood. And the uric acid forms these crystalline like deposits in your joints and your tendons and the surrounding tissue. And you get a lot of times in your feet just because for some.

Reason it's the big toe disease.

Yeah, it's almost like gravity, it kind of moves it down there. So your feet, your big toe joint. And the number one way to get uric acid buildup in your blood is via the metabolism of purines. And purines are present in all foods, but they're especially present on something like a paleo Diet, you know, foods that are rich in like red meat, turkey, even like organ meat, meats, a lot of fish and seafood. A lot of these foods are purine rich foods that actually result in the production of uric acid when they're metabolized. So the idea here is that although you can get higher uric acid intake from high purine foods, there are also some things that aggravate this issue that I think are a bigger issue than the purine containing foods themselves. So, so, for example, you tend to see that high levels of uric acid and gout flares are present when both C reactive protein and interleukin 6 are high. And these are cytokines that are produced in a state of inflammation. So systemic inflammation in conjunction with a high purine diet is one of the things that's going to aggravate gout. And that could be everything from over exercise with inadequate recovery, which we just got done talking about, to another issue that you tend to see quite a bit, especially in folks who are not paying attention to the source of their meats. And that's an imbalance in omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acid ratios. So this is something that you would get, say if you were eating, let's say you're eating a paleo diet, but you weren't paying attention to the source of your meat and you're, you were.

Getting a lot of like chickens that.

Are fed corn, chickens that are fed corn, cows that are fed grain. You're getting a lot of omega 6 fatty acids that they've shown in studies wind up in your bloodstream. When you eat the animals that are fed the omega 6 fatty acids, you know, you are, what you eat, ate is what this comes down to. So high levels of omega 6 fatty acids, you know, you tend to see seeds and nuts and trail mix is really popular a lot of times kind of in the paleo crowd as well. And you need to check whether they are roasted or have vegetable oils added to them which are going to increase the inflammatory nature of them versus whether they are raw and whether they are moderated in terms of their consumption. Because seeds and nuts in general are going to have pretty high levels of omega 6 fatty acids compared to omega 3s.

Yeah, even things like walnuts and macadamia nuts still, still sway harder towards the six.

Yeah, you can't eat them at libidum. So that's one issue, is what your inflammatory potential is. Another issue is fructose. And high intake of fructose may also cause an increase in uric acid Particularly due to the elevated triglycerides that can occur with high intake of fructose. So high fructose corn syrup, table sugar or stuff like that is gonna have pretty high levels of fructose, which is gonna elevate triglycerides. You don't see a lot of Paleo folks doing a ton of fruit. I don't think that's as big of an issue in that population. But if you are that person who happens to be doing, you know, soda, or if you have other sources of fructose in your diet, or yes, even high amounts of alcohol, you know, wine, for example, is gonna have fructose in it. You want to be careful. And I would pay attention to your triglycerides, even if that means getting a blood test to see what your HDL to triglyceride ratio is. It's a really important measurement to take. And that's another thing that you're going to want to bear in mind is not just the inflammation, inflammatory, your inflammation, but also your fructose intake. So ultimately, I don't think think that eating a paleo diet is going to cause gout as much as a paleo diet that's high in commercial meats or that has fructose introduced to it. The other thing you should bear in mind here is what we talked about in the news flashes, and that is this idea behind metabolic acidosis and the ph of the foods that you eat. And this is where that acid alkaline food chart might come in handy that I'll link to in the show notes and kind of shifting your ph towards alkaline. So for example, you look at, you know, an acidifying vegetable would be, for example, corn. Another one would be lentils. An alkalinizing vegetable would be something like kale or mushrooms or onions or sweet potatoes. An example of an acidifying nut or an acidifying kind of like a fat source would be something like. And again, you can print this chart out and put it on your refrigerator. But like peanuts, peanut butter, cashews, legumes, walnuts, all of those technically produce an acid ash upon their actual metabolizing. Whereas if you look at more alkalinizing compounds or alkalinizing protein, almonds and chestnuts are actually a little bit more alkalinizing than things like walnuts and peanuts and pecans. So that's another example. Even when you look at sweeteners, stevia, God bless the Zevia soda. Again, stevia is actually an alkalinizing sweetener. Whereas like carob or sugar Those are acidifying all alcohols from beer to hard liquor to tequila to wine, all of those are acidifying. Whereas yeah, apple cider vinegar is alkalinizing, Kombucha is alkalinizing. Green juices like wheatgrass and kale juices and things like that, those are alkalinizing. So I would be paying attention to a chart like that as well. I think that's going to be a pretty important component here. Although that I'll of course be the first to say is not based off of science that have been done on acid alkaline intake versus gout. But, but just the idea here between trying to reduce net metabolic acidosis, decrease some of the effects of that high uric acid buildup and gout. So ultimately protein breakdown, doing it like a high amino acid, high protein diet is not something I would recommend. If you're doing a mass gain protocol, I would recommend you do more alkalinizing vegetables, you do higher fat intake, you do a really nutrient dense, higher fat diet. I'm actually getting Dr. Terry Wahls on the podcast next month. We're even going to go as far as to talk about how you can do an extremely dense, nutrient dense ketosis diet and just some of the mistakes that people make when they shift their diet towards fat and don't get enough nutrients in. But very similar to the type of thing I do, I test my blood four times a year. I have extremely low inflation inflammation, I have an extremely favorable HDL to triglyceride ratio and I also have a very low level of net acidity based off of my chloride and my CO2 levels. These are all tests that I get through Wellness fx. And if you look at my diet, it really is, it looks like a plant based diet. Tons of dark leafies, tons of vegetables and then I have moderate amounts of proportion protein, usually about one serving of meat a day and not a huge steak, but just like you know, a can of sardines ish equivalent and then lots of fats, avocados and olives and olive oil and you know, all that good stuff. So I, I would be focusing on something more along the lines of that and you'd be surprised at how few amino acids and how little protein that you need to do something like mass gain. You really don't need to exceed anything above about 30% of your total daily intake from protein sources.

Actually speaking from experience, I went really high in the protein when I was doing Dan John's masking protocol and all I did was get kind of fat.

Yeah, Exactly.

Got really strong. But I also got. I'm still trying to get rid of the roll I put on around belly.

Basic gluconeogenesis. The proteins that are unutilized, once you get above 0.8 grams per total pound of body weight, those will get shuttled to the liver and converted into fats. So, yeah, I mean, high protein diets can make you fat.

So, yeah, I was surprised. I thought if I was lifting that much, that I was just going to turn it all into muscle.

But nope, you. You stop turning anything that exceeds about 0.8 grams per pound into muscle, and the rest will just basically get converted into fat, so. Or nitrogenous waste byproduct, which is not all that. Not all that great for gout. So there you go.

Look at that blubber fly.

Hi, Ben, this is Jennifer from Birmingham, Alabama. I love your show. I have a daughter that is going to college in the fall, and my question is just how to keep her healthy in college. I'm concerned. She's very healthy right now, but what are some tips that you can give me for. She's worried about the cafeteria food all the way to keeping her dorm room healthy. You know, I think there could be mold or there's fluorescent lights everywhere. Just what are some of your best tips on how I can keep a freshman college student and runner healthy? I'd love to hear your advice. Thanks so much.

Luckily, I never went to college, so I didn't have to worry about this.

Well, I'll tell you how it goes. Brock College is actually really, really healthy. Yeah. You show up and everybody who goes to college, each gets assigned a personal trainer. And the cafeterias are full of juice, vegetables, and healthy supplements and things like that. You get it all for free. Alcohol is generally shunned, and early to bed is really the rule at most colleges, at least.

And drugs, they.

Here in the United States, drugs are not tolerated.

Definitely no experimentation.

Yes. This is the opposite show, by the way. So it's the opposite of everything we just said.

In fact, I have gone to college and it was horrible. Yeah, that's when I lost all my hair. And I wish.

I wish I had known how to be healthy before I went to college because I probably would have added years to my life. So, Jennifer, will you.

Jennifer, rules for asking this question. You will protect your daughter from the things that we were not protected from?

Possibly. If she is open to your advice, yes. So she may be a rebellious young woman who wants to go and discover the world for herself and say, screw Ben Greenfield and your Dumb podcast mom. I'm gonna go do. Yeah, my kids are 6 years old and they're not going to be in college for at least another couple, couple years.

But they're already saying screw you Ben Bean fans. In your face.

There are definitely some things I would do. And you know, there's honestly so many places you could go when it comes to being healthy. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you five of the top things that I would do if my kids were going off to college and I wanted to equip them to be as healthy as possible.

So Ben Greenfield's top five college tips.

That's right. Don't give up your day job. Okay, so snacks, first of all, healthy snacks are one thing that you're going to want to equip your kids with. I would actually, if you don't already have an Amazon prime membership, get one. Because you can get a lot of these healthy snacks just off of like Amazon prime, even if your child's college experience happens to be in a healthy grocery. Grocery store oasis. So some of my top snacks that I recommend you have around, these are really good snacks for travel or for college or whatever, you know, going to class, that type of thing. Here we go. BPA free sardines and BPA free canned salmon. The salmon is going to have less of an odorous effect as the sardines, but those BPA free cans, you know, nutrient dense proteins, usually there's some oils in there that's pretty good. A good grass fed beef jerky. And there's a bunch of companies that make these from on it to US Wellness meats to primal packs, but basically having those around also really, really good fresh fruit or you can also get dried fruit and you know, any combination of that. And even like going after the more dense superfood fruits like goji berries and blueberries. And then you've got also a lot of, a lot of sprouted foods that you can actually get in packaged format like sprouted raw foods. There's a really good website, it's Barefoot Provisions. I found them@paleofx. I think it's barefoot provisions.com and they sell a bunch of raw, sprouted healthy foods and a lot of these like super foods, you know, like goji berries and blueberries and these rare nuts from, you know, some, some deep jungle of Peru that you've never heard of that have These amazing omega 3 fatty acid ratios and just like all these really cool foods that are actually not as expensive as you think. Especially if you, if you buy them in bulk Coconut flakes, just like a basic like Bob's Red Mill organic unsweetened coconut flake that goes really well along with like dark chocolate cacao nibs. You can get all those off of Amazon Prime. I'm personally on subscribe and save for both unsweetened coconut flakes and dark cacao nibs because they both go in my smoothie every morning. That's how I add texture to my kale smoothie. Every morning is I make my kale avocado smoothie and then I stir up coconut flakes and dark chocolate cacao nibs into it.

I just don't wash my kale.

That also makes it nice gritty texture. Coconut oil really, really good. It's great as a detox box. It's great for controlling yeast and fungus and things like that. Not that your daughter is going to be drinking at all, but it's also got lots of good healthy appetite satiating fats in it. And you can get her like a bin of coconut oil. Olives are also a decent fat source. So I would say, you know a lot of these BPA free canned fishes, some stuff from Barefoot provisions.com, amazon prime membership for coconut flakes and dark chocolate cacao nibs. Some coconut oil oil, some olives. Those are some of the staples that you can, most of those you can order without necessarily having to go to the grocery store. So that's number one. Number two I would say would be she's going to get exposed to lots of artificial light in the classroom, lots of artificial light probably in whatever dorm or house that she's staying in. But she does have control over her bedroom and the lighting in her bedroom. And I would say go over to LowBlueLights.com and get some really good low blue light lights that are going to allow her to have really natural circadian rhythms, especially in the bedroom and make sure that she, she gets rid of fluorescent lighting and things like that in the bedroom, which is going to help anyways because she's probably going to be on her Kindle or her iPad. She's probably going to have her laptop open for studying in the bedroom. But we can at least limit artificial intelligence lighting from other sources. And then when it comes to like the Kindle, the iPad, the smartphone, the computer, go get her a decent set of blue light blocking glasses. So I'll put a link in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 280 for a good spot, you can get the low blue light bulbs. Good place for some of these other foods I talked about. But also just a basic set of stylish Gunnar glasses that she can wear.

Those will really help her meet the right kind of guy too.

That's right. That's right.

Boys love the blue blockers.

She'll be able to do the whole like hot nerd thing. So, you know, she takes off her glasses and lets down her hair and suddenly she's a princess. So the blue light blocking glasses. And another thing, I would also get her a book for when she does go to the grocery store. One of the best books I can recommend to you is Rich Food Porch Food.

Oh yeah, good one.

Ultimate Grocery Purchasing System. So what that teaches you are all of the foods that you can get at the grocery store, including even a store like Walmart that are actually wholesome micronutrient rich foods. Everything from where to find the best, you know, raw organic cheeses to which type of eggs that most common grocery stores are best to, you know, if you are going to get milk, which kind of milk at the the grocery store is going to be better. And basically it's like this, Eat this, not that type of guide that gives you some pretty good rich food sources in every aisle of the grocery store, from desserts to snacks to sauces to even hot dogs in which hot dogs are going to be good. So that's a really good book. I'll link to that one in the show notes for you. I would snag that off of Amazon as well and tuck that away into her backpack as you, as you shove her off to college. And then the last thing. You know, so many directions we could go with this. But I would say that hacking her environment to ensure that it's really healthy is another kind of step up that you could give her. And you're going to find that a lot of, especially in a college environment where you've had these homes a lot of times that are getting rented out that have been around for a really long time. Especially, especially if it's like one of these older universities with lots of older homes around it, which is the way a lot of universities are. Or if it's like a dorm room, usually those are poorly built construction. A lot of times you do have mold, moisture, things of that nature. I would look into getting her a HEPA air filter. And this may sound like a weird suggestion, but for everything from mold to toxins to all of the personal care products, products and nasty perfumes and endocrine disruptors, and things like that she's going to get exposed to. If she has a HEPA air filter in her bedroom at college, that would be a really, really helpful thing. You can get, for 100, 120 bucks, I'll link to a really good one on Amazon. But you can even go one step further when you get a HEPA air filter, and you can get a HEPA air filter with what's called a negative ion generator in it. Now, negative ions are something that are naturally generated by moving water, like rivers and waterfalls and crashing waves. And you're gonna find natural amounts of negative ions in, you know, crisp, clean mountain air. And when you're out in nature, surrounded by trees, etc. And typically in indoor environments, especially environments that are rife with electromagnetic field exposure, like computers and WI FI routers and stuff like that, you get a ton of positive ions generated. And what a negative ion generator will do is it will mitigate a lot of these effects of exposure to positive ions and kind of rejuvenate a lot of the stressful effects that you get when you are exposed to a lot of these indoor electrical ion producers. So, you know, it's the same reason that I sleep on a Biomat, which has a negative ion generator in it. It's the same reason that I have what's called a harmonizer on my desk next to my WI FI router. And the harmonizer is very similar to, like a Himalayan rock salt lamp. It releases negative ions. It's basically full of minerals that naturally release negative ions. Very similar to if I had a waterfall on my office. Except I don't have a waterfall in my office. So I'll link to a good HEPA air filter with a negative ion generator on it. I would have one of those. If she lives in a room that does not have good air or that has a lot of chemical exposure, if she lives in a pretty clean area, I would just get a negative ion generator. I was first interested in introduced to these by my dad, who, who is actually in the water business. He does like water filters and structured water. And so he had done a lot of research into the ability of good water to generate negative ions. And, you know, Mark Sisson over at Mark's Daily Apple has a really good article on water and negative ions. But the one that my dad sells on his website@GreenfieldNaturals.com is called the harmonic ionizer. I've got one in my refrigerator, one next to my WI FI router, and one in my bedroom. These are negative ion generators. It's this little silver looking device about the size of a. It's about the size of like a pill bottle. And I asked him for a code for folks listening in today. And the code that he gave me for 15% off of one of those negative ion generators is BEN15. So you can use code BEN15@GreenfieldNaturals.com and I think that same code works for all of his water filters and all that jazz too. So go, go say hi to my dad who sent me to college. Thanks a lot, dad. With no negative ion generators and also no Amazon prime membership. So thanks for nothing, pops, and no.

Awesome advice from people like us. You know, one thing I'm gonna add right here at the end, Jennifer, tell your daughter, just stay away from the zigzag rollies. You know, a vaporizer is definitely the way to go, or at least a water bong.

And make sure you take your nutritional yeast.

Hi, Brock and Ben, this is Hessen from Ohio and I'm the one who emailed you guys about the EMFs from Bluetooth technology. I was just wondering specifically about the heart rate monitor Strateg, and now the new heart rate patches from Sweet Beat. Since these things are right on our bodies, I was just wondering if you had any concern about them also. What about EMFs from the biomat? I want to get a Biomat, but I'm sort of concerned about the EMFs coming out of it. So I'd love to know your thoughts on this. Thanks so much. Love your show. Bye.

Well, this is actually something that concerns me to the point where I actually use. I use a headset and it's actually, I'm using a headset right now plugged into my microphone while I'm podcasting. And it's an air tube headset. So rather than transmitting sound to my ear through Bluetooth, it's the same thing I use with my phone. It transmits it through air tubes. And you notice this huge difference when you're talking on the phone. Once you use one of these air tube headsets, if you go back to using a regular headset, a Bluetooth headset, or even just like the wired headset that comes with like an iPhone, you notice a huge difference. And all of a sudden you get this little tinny kind of headachy type of feeling up in your, in your ear. It's weird. It's like going from eating healthy food back to junk food, then back to healthy food. You know, it's a big difference. So I gotta check that out.

So is it more Like a stethoscope sort of idea where you've got like the sound is happening at one end and then the sound waves going through air.

I'll link to the one that I use but on the show notes. It's a hollow air tube and it's called an anti radiation headset. I'm not super convinced about one part. It actually has one of these EMF protectors on it. I haven't seen much evidence that those actually work. These are little, you know, like these little metal things that you put on the, on the, on the phone to control emf. But the actual frequency itself is not transmitted via EMF up to your ear. It's literally transmitted via sound waves that go through this air tube. So really, really cool. None of the radiation that you're going to get from like a, like a Bluetooth device and this kind of leads into, you know, this whole Bluetooth issue is, is that Bluetooth transmits at about a 2.4 GHz frequency. So there's three different power classes of Bluetooth. You have Class 1 transmitters and these are Bluetooth devices that have a range of about 100 meters and they have a peak transmission power of 100 milliwatts. And then you have class 2 transmitters and that's what's usually found in a mobile device. And they have a range of about 10 meters and they operate at about 2.5 milliwatts. And then you have class 3 transmitters which are really weak Bluetooth transmitters and they're going to operate in a range of less than 10 meters and have a peak transmission power of 1 milliwatt or less. So first of all, for any of the Bluetooth devices that you use, if you are going to use Bluetooth, I would shoot for, for a Class 3 where it's not even going to work if it's in a range of less than 10 meters. Okay, so if you're getting a Bluetooth signal and you're more than 10 meters away, I actually wouldn't be using that based off the amount of radiation that you're going to get. The interesting thing as far as what science says about Bluetooth radiation is that there are a bunch of studies that show that electromagnetic fields and I'll link to, to this in the show. Notes from Bluetooth lead to increases in blood pressure and affect things like cell membranes and body heat in the same way that a cell phone would. You know, for the same reason that a cell phone has a warning on it. If you read the warning that you're not supposed to bring the thing near your head or near your body. Just two hours of exposure to emfs from a cell phone or a Bluetooth headset can literally cause, cause irreparable DNA damage. So it's not something that I recommend that you use. Of course, the idea here is that the Class 1, Class 2 transmitters are a bigger deal. The milliwatt exposure is something that you do need to take into consideration. And some Bluetooth devices have lower milliwatts than others. Most of these personal devices that we carry around, from a Fitbit to a jawbone to like the Sweet Beat heart rate variability monitoring, those are somewhere between a class 2 to a class 3 transmitter. So you're gonna, you're gonna be around 2.5 milliwatts or less for most of these devices that just because they're, they're so close to your body and you're not relying on being far away from the, the device, typically they are attached to you, so you're definitely getting less from something like that. But even if you look at something, you know, like let's say one of these Bluetooth technology, like the Sweet Beat heart rate variability monitoring, for example, that's still around 2 to 2.5 milliwatts. So that's about 1/200 the power of an average cell phone, but it's still on your body. And so this is why I don't personally monitor my heart rate variability all day long. I've experimented with doing that a little bit, but I still have reservations about being exposed to Bluetooth as much as possible. So if you take a look at my office right now, I am hardwired into my WI fi router with the radio signal on, my WI fi router turned off. My cell phone is on the desk completely off. My laptop is actually plugged into a dirty electricity filter, a greenwave dirty electricity filter. So there's no electrical surges coming through the laptop. And then I've got the air tube headset on and my wife's desktop, which is on the desk across the room. I've thrown out her Bluetooth mouse and her Bluetooth keyboard. And both her mouse and her keyboard are, are hardwired into the computer. Just the typical old school USB style. So my office has close to zero.

Your office looks like 1997.

Yeah, basically. And the only thing I'm missing is a landline, which I'll probably put into my new house. Just a basic landline for talking on the phone. So I am pretty careful with this stuff. And it's the same reason that I am building a new house. And every everything they asked me about, controlling my washer and dryer via my iPad and using wireless signals for the music in the house, or using wi fi from the router for the Internet. My whole house is hardwired. I don't have any WI FI or EMF because even though there's convenience, I don't want it. I don't want to expose my cells to that.

So you're not getting that Google powered atmospheric control?

None. Not even like this smoke alarm, like the Nest, which has the WI fi that protects your house. Like I've pretty much got my house. It's pretty old school. So there's about as much EMF in there as you're going to get in a log cabin.

You're such a hippie.

I am a hippie. And then this Biomat, the Biomat, you do plug that into the wall, but the Biomat actually has what's called an EMF interceptor on it. So what that means is that there is this big unit between the actual Biomat and the outlet in the wall and it has a chip in it. It's basically like this carbon style chip that mitigates emf. Or basically it's almost like grounding the Biomat. So here it's this dirty electricity filter. It's this big black unit. My only complaint about it is it has these little lights that turn on, so I cover those up with a little cloth at night, so I don't have light exposure in the bedroom. But the Biomat, even though it's plugged in, does not give you exposure to the same amount of electrical pollution as you would get from say like a grounding mat or an atmosphere.

I didn't know the Biomat was plugged in. I thought the whole idea was that it was just these crystals just sort of emanating stuff.

It is plugged in because you need power to generate the actual infrared waves. But it's got this special layer of double fiberglass and carbon in that unit between the wall and the Biomat itself. And that, that cuts off the emf. And they actually have done studies on it. And there's this chart that came along with the Biomat where it compares a General Electric device like a lamp plugged in next to the wall with the biometric mat. And the EMF generated by the Biomat is close to zero. It's almost like nothing. So it's, it's pretty safe as far as that goes. But yeah, I'm you Know like I'm careful with this stuff at the expense of my personal convenience. So there are things I would love to be able to do like track my heart rate variability all day or you know, turn on my washer and dryer from my car or something like that, but I just don't because I, I do not like the way my body feels with constant emf, extra exposure and I've got some real reservations about its health. So I kind of have taken a step backwards in terms of modern living in that sense.

Hi Ben and Brock, this is Meg from Marietta, Georgia. My question is about vitamin A and vitamin K. Currently I take 10,000 to 15,000 international units of vitamin D every day. And I've heard you mention on a couple of occasions that high amounts of vitamin D are okay provided I get adequate amounts of A and K. But I'm not sure what an adequate amount would be. The recommended daily amount for A is 5,000 international units and for K it's 80 micrograms. And my question is, are these amounts considered adequate for my daily vitamin D consumption? Anyway, that's my question. Thanks so much for your help. I love the show and keep up the great work. Have a great day.

Bye.

So Meg is doing some serious high dose dose stuff going on here with her vitamin D. Yeah, you gotta be.

Really careful with vitamin D toxicity. With vitamin A toxicity. You know, I know this podcast is getting a little long, so I'm not going to get into this too hardcore, but I'm going to put an excellent article for, for you, written by one of my favorite fat vitamin researchers, Dr. Chris Masterjohn. Do you have a shown us for you? What's that?

Do you just call Chris fat?

No, fat research. Yes, I did call him fat.

I guess he's a fat researcher.

He's a fat researcher. So vitamin A toxicity is more common than vitamin D toxicity. So you need to pay a little bit more attention or be more conservative with the, the vitamin A that you're taking. And taking too much vitamin A can actually nullify the benefits of taking vitamin D. So in your case, you are on 5,000 of vitamin A and 10 to 15,000 of vitamin D. The fact is that what Chris has shown in his research is that you're going to want to be close to a 1 to 1 to a 2 to 1 ratio of vitamin A to vitamin D. And general, generally the rule that I follow with supplementation is for every thousand international units of vitamin A that you take, you take 1,000 to 2,000 of vitamin or for every thousand of vitamin D that you take, you take 1000 to 2000 of vitamin A. So 1 to 1 to a 2 to 1 ratio of vitamin A to vitamin D. If you look at natural amounts of vitamin K2 that you'd get from a basic intake of a couple servings of fermented food on a daily basis, you're going to get somewhere between 100 and 300 micrograms of vitamin K2. So in addition to that vitamin A and vitamin D ratio, you'd want to be at somewhere around 100 to 150 micrograms of vitamin K2. So in your case you've got, it looks like you're taking high dose vitamin D and then 5,000 of vitamin A and 80 of vitamin K, I think is what she said. So not enough vitamin A, not enough vitamin K and too much vitamin D basically would be an example of her. Now the issue here is your body can synthesize vitamin D from sunshine. If you've got adequate levels of fat intake, you can get decent levels of vitamin A. From the carotenoids that you're going to find in yellow and orange and red fruits and vegetables along with, with the high levels of vitamin A you're going to get from intake of organ meats, you're going to find vitamin K2 is generated by your own gut bacteria. If you're eating a lot of fermented foods. And so unless you're exercising a ton and you've got a bunch of hormone and steroid turnover and cortisol formation from exercise, I don't think you got to go out of your way to take a bunch of vitamin D or vitamin A or vitamin K. Okay. You just follow some simple rules like, you know, get 15 to 20 minutes of sunshine every day, like midday sunshine on your bare skin, like a combination of UVA and uvb. And preferably after you've done that, don't go take like a soap based shower or bath like later on in the day because the vitamin D that formed on your skin can't be absorbed into your bloodstream if you do that. So you'd want to get your sun exposure but not take a, not take a, a hardcore bath or shower. Yeah, I only take incidentally a soap based shower about once every three days and everything else I do is all water based. Now the only exception to that is I do swim sometimes and chlorine, which probably nukes just about any vitamin D formed on my skin. You don't have to use soap ever. Yep, exactly. Another thing that you can do, of course, is to eat a lot of yellow and orange and red vegetables and fruits, eat a lot of fermented fruits foods and then include organ meats about once every week to once every two weeks. Both alcohol and cigarette smoke will destroy carotene and prevent retinol formation. And retinol is your activated vitamin A. So you're going to want to be careful. I know most of our listeners are not cigarette smokers, but a lot of them do like to throw back a few glasses of wine in the evenings. So for the same reason that we talked about acidic diets, gout, uric acid, fructose, triglycerides, etc. You don't want to overdo it from an alcohol standpoint. So be careful there as well. And then of course, as far as antibiotics go, be very careful with that because you can destroy the gut bacteria that convert vitamin K1 to vitamin K2. But ultimately, if you are including a really nutrient dense diet, getting sunlight exposure, not washing a lot of that vitamin D off your skin and getting your rich sources of carotenoids while living pretty healthy when it comes to like smoke and alcohol and things like that, you don't have to take a lot of these megadoses of vitamins. So for hard charging athletes who are taking something like vitamin D, I don't recommend much more than 2,000 to a maximum of 4,000 international units of vitamin D each day. And if you are taking that, you want to eat some organization meats, that you're getting a lot of your vitamin A and you're going to want to look for about a 1 to 1 to a 2 to 1 ratio of vitamin A to vitamin D and then also get in about 100 to 300 micrograms of vitamin K a day, which you're naturally going to get if you're eating a lot of fermented foods. And that would be a pretty good little scenario. But ultimately I'm pretty disillusioned with vitamin D megadosing and I'm really not a huge fan of it. And again, this comes down to down to like we were talking about earlier as far as like the Ben Greenfield fitness inner circle, for example, and me talking about things there and showing what I do in my day to day life there. That might be in contrast to stuff I talk about on the podcast two years ago because two years ago I would have said take 35 international units of vitamin D per pound of body weight, period. And I wouldn't have even talked about sunlight exposure and organ meat. So this is all an evolution. And what, what I say 50 podcast episodes ago changes based off of the research that I find and the things that I discover as we go.

If we had more time in the day, we should go back through all the old podcasts and bleep things out.

Yeah, I'll do that. And then probably about 18 years from now, that project will be complete. There you go. All right.

I was going to say that that was the last question, but I think there may be one more.

Somebody was sneaky. They worked a question into their itunes review. We always, at the end of our podcast, give away swag. So over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com gear, you can actually support the show by grabbing yourself a cool Ben Greenfield fitness tech T shirt, which I'm wearing right now as we start speak.

I think you've been wearing it the last three weeks in a row that we've recorded.

I have.

And not using soap, so I'm a little gamey. Nice. But I have been using my Harry's razor, so I'm not hairy. At least that's good. That's just gamey. So we. We like to say I'm gamey, not Harry, actually, which would be a great name for a movie or sequel. The sequel to When Harry Met Sally is gamy. Not Harry. Anyways, though, you can get a tech T shirt. You can get a sweet ass beanie, which is a really, really cool beanie that goes on your head, not your ass, despite my colorful description. And then you can get a BPA free water bottle. And all of that is available in this $1 47 package from BenGreenfieldFitness.com Gear. But you could also just. Just win the gear if you didn't want to go over there and support the podcast by buying the gear. And you can win the gear by just leaving us a review on itunes. So we'll put a link over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com 280 where you can go and leave your review, or you can just go to itunes and do a search for the podcast and subscribe there and leave us a review. And Brock is going to be kind enough to read us this week's review.

Actually, first, I'm going to say not everybody. Everybody who leaves a review gets swag.

Just.

Just to be clear, you kind of made it almost sound like we gave it to everybody.

Yes. We randomly choose one person each week. We don't even randomly choose you. We actually choose you based off of how cool your review is. So. And then if you hear your review red, email Ben greenfieldfitness.com and we'll send you your swag. Include your address and your T shirt size of course. So that being said, what about we got this week Brock?

We've got MN Weather nut as written and the subject or the title is Exercise and Diet for Dummies. Five stars. And it goes like this. I have an abundant interest in fitness and healthy eating, but I prefer to leave the research and experimentation to the experts. Ben and Brock do an excellent job sharing their experiences and expertise. Also enjoyable are the fun tidbits of research from science journals thrown in at the beginning of the episode.

That's a well written review.

Yeah, it was. Even it was a pleasure to read in my sing songy voice.

Also enjoyable.

And then the sneaky little bugger put a question at the end that says.

Worked his question into the actual review. I don't know if you can do that, but what the heck.

Yeah, we could just pretend it wasn't.

There, but read it.

All right, I've never heard slash read anyone's opinion on eating tripe. Any reason this is left out when talking about Paleo style diet, I'm thinking about tripe served in pho or tacos.

Hmm. Well, tripe is an organ meat that is derived from beef stomach and sometimes in South America intestines. And just like any any awful meat that's o f a L not a w f u L by the way, it's got lots of fat soluble vitamins and vitamin B12 and zinc and phosphorus and selenium and choline in it, which means it's fantastic for your thyroid as well. And I'm going to point you towards probably the most comprehensive article on tripe and tripe recipes and all sorts of cultural variations variations on tripe that I have ever seen. And that is simply Drum roll please. The Wikipedia page for tripe. Not to be confused with the progressive rock band Tripa.

So speaking from experience, I'm guessing got the wrong Wikipedia page.

So tripe is. It's good stuff. I do recommend it. I I personally do not have any recipes for it, although my wife just purchased half a pig and is planning on doing the whole snout to tail thing with it. I think she's going to use the book Beyond Bacon for that, not to be confused with my book Beyond Training. And she's going to, I'm sure, include tripe in our diet over the next few weeks. So I will be sure and hearken back to that in future podcast episodes if you if it happens. So that's the dealio with Tripe. Check out the Wikipedia page for tripe. I'll link to it for you in the show notes along with links to all of the other helpful things that we talked about. From the thyroid sessions, to the fish oil that I'm using, to the acid alkaline food chart, to all the healthy things you can give to your loved one in college, to everything. So check it all out.

It's a never ending contest over at Men's Health.

That's right. To the neverending contest over at Men's Health.

That's where that's at.

BenGreenfieldFitness.com 280. You can check it all out and enjoy. And this weekend we will of course be back with a special podcast episode. And don't forget to join the inner Circle for $10 a month because it is going to be an incredible experience. It's only going to get better this year year. So check it out@BenGreenfieldFitness.com inner circle and we'll shut up now unless you return to your normal lives.

Citizens, visit BenGreenfield Fitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.

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