Are Vitamin C & Vitamin E Bad For You? Exercise When You're Sick, Why Your Stomach Sticks Out, Alcohol Cravings, and More!

In today's episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. When is it safe to exercise after being sick? Vinegar for fat loss, Mucus in your stool, how to fix your colon, why your stomach sticks out. Can a yeast infection cause alcohol cravings and building swim endurance?

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.

So, Brock, I'm surprised you actually showed up for today's podcast. I would have expected you to be off watching curling at the Winter Olympics.

Because curling is so thrilling. It is hard to tear myself away from the feed, I have to admit.

From the feed in Sochi, you know, curling. Have you seen the curling calendars that came out on the Internet?

No.

The sexy curling calendars they actually have.

Really?

They have the women of curling and the men of curling and they've come out with these calendars to raise money. You know what, I don't know what they're raising money for. Curlers. Curlers Anonymous. Probably beer knowing curlers raising money for beer. So anyways, after seeing those calendars, I am personally a little bit never going into curling.

Oh, you are?

Yeah. Yeah, I'm surprised. Apparently curling can keep you relatively fit. And so, you know, I hate to.

Say anything derogatory about my countrymen, but not in Canada. I think it leads to beer consumption and copious donuts.

Well, just be glad you're not, you're not in Sochi. I don't know if, if you've seen some of the, some of the feed that has come back from the Winter Olympics, but apparently it's not all that great of a place. Like there's like completely unfinished hotel rooms and like beds. Like they have a pillow shortage. Like they've run out of pillows.

You know, I was in, I spent a lot of time in Russia in the early 90s in Minsk. And that does not surprise me. I can't imagine things changed a whole heck of a lot since then. And none of the stuff that I'm seeing coming out of that, out of the reports right now surprises me much. I mean, it's just not the, it's not the Russian way. They're not hung up on things like pillows and having extra blankets and, and actually even like doors on toilets, clean drinking water.

Yeah, like the toilet, toilet bowl lids installed upside down. It's, it's.

They probably just put those on for the Olympics, so they should count themselves lucky there's a seat at all because it's just not something that Russians really worry about. And in some ways, I kind of hand it to them to not be so hung up on all this, like, creature comfort kind of stuff that we place so much, so much importance on.

Yes, it's very, it's very Putinesque. I was thinking about that. Like, it's. They're taking all of the other countries way outside their comfort zone, which is kind of cool in a way. So if any of our listeners, they're.

Showing what badasses they are.

Really very Putinesque. If any of our listeners are over at the Sochi Olympics, write us in or call the show and yeah, send some photos, let us know how it is. And for those of you who don't know how to ask questions for the show, just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and there's like a little right sidebar thingamajig. And you click on that and the magic of the Internet opens up its arms to you and allows you to actually record using your own voice and the built in microphone on your computer. So there you have it.

I think it's called a thingamajig. I think it might be a thingama doodle, technically speaking.

News flashes.

And this is the part of the show where Ben goes through all the latest, coolest, and most in depth thingama doodles that he's come across on the Internets.

That's right. And speaking of the Olympics, why don't we jump right in and talk about cheating, doping and steroid use? I love it. This was a very interesting study that was published. It was actually published in October, but kind of hit the presses earlier this week. And the title of the study was a cellular memory mechanism, aids overload, hypertrophy in muscle long after episodic exposure to anabolic steroids.

So basically showing the longevity of using steroids, it doesn't just end when you stop using it.

Yeah, basically in a nutshell, in plain speak, non geek speak, what that study showed was that when you get exposed to performance enhancing drugs, your muscles actually remember it and remember it for, like years. So what this means is, for example, somebody who uses steroids or hormones or illegal performance enhancing drugs, like, say, Juan Pelota, also known as Lance Armstrong. By the way, did you know that he has a Twitter handle called Juan Pelota?

I didn't you know what that means in Spanish? No.

1 ball. Yeah. So you could find it. It's like twitter.com JuanPalota Anyways, though, the idea is that you actually remember it, and I've suspected this for a long time. You kind of reset your body's expectation of what it can do if you use illegal drugs. And so let's say you get banned or you stop using those drugs and then come back to the sport, Technically, you're still able to compete at a higher level than you may have been able to had you not taken the drugs. So it's really interesting. I'll put a link to the study for people who want to delve into it a little bit more. But to me, it kind of brings up the question of whether or not we should ever allow people back in the sport after they've been banned.

Yeah. So, yeah, it's interesting, actually, with all the. All the new talk about the body having like a set point for. For your. For your weight even, and the central governor theory that Tim Noakes talks about it, it does make sense that your body does have these memories that it. It falls back on and goes to.

That's right.

That's very cool.

Once the Incredible Hulk, always the Incredible.

You can never get unmad.

And of course, the other thing that really hit the news this week that I've gotten a lot of tweets and questions about is this whole vitamin Twitter everywhere.

People are crazy for this one Vitamin.

C, vitamin E antioxidant study. And this, this was in the Journal of Physiology. The title of the study was Vitamin C and vitamin E supplementation hamper cellular adaptation to endurance training in humans. And so we got a bunch of people writing in asking, you know, should I, should I avoid vitamin C? Should I avoid vitamin E or antioxid Antioxidants Bad, because the media took this and a lot of the headlines said, antioxidants ruin your endurance. What?

The media made a blanket statement that wasn't correct.

Endurance athletes shouldn't take vitamin C or endurance athletes shouldn't use antioxidants. So here's the deal with this study, and I tweeted out a little bit about this over@twitter.com BenGreenfeld as well. So if you dig into this study, first of all, let's not even look at what they were feeding the participants as far as the actual antioxidants that they were using. First of all, let's look at their definition of endurance. So if you dig into the results of this study, and I'll link to it in the show notes. What episode is this? 271.

271.

Yeah. So if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 271 I'll put a full download to the study PDF over there. But first of all, they looked at folks who were running and doing high interval training sessions, running for about four sets of four to six minutes, three to four times a week. They also looked at people who are running 30 to 60 minutes submaximally at an aerobic pace. And then they looked at folks who were riding a bicycle for around an hour or so. So when we're talking endurance, we're talking what, frankly, a lot of people at my health club who are recreational athletes and weekend warriors are doing. We're talking about like one fifth of the volume that a lot of endurance athletes like marathoners and ironman triathletes are actually doing. So first of all, the level of actual endurance is all relative when we're talking about endurance exercise. And so that's the, that's one thing is that the amount of free radicals and the need for antioxidants is not as high when you're not doing as much ultra endurance or, you know, very high volume type of endurance that I know a lot of folks are out there doing. And I mean, even myself, I'm a low volume guy, but I'm doing more than 30 to 60 minutes a day on many days. And a lot of times I have weekend workouts where I'm doing something like I did last weekend, where I'm literally hoisting sandbags and doing hill sprints and riding my bike. And by the end of the day, I've accumulated a good two hours of exercise. So there's that. And then if you want to delve in and look at what they fed these folks, first of all, let's talk vitamin C. So vitamin C, what they gave them was a vitamin pill of synthetic ascorbic acid, and they used about 250 milligrams of ascorbic acid per pill. And they gave them a total of about 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C per day. So when you look at ascorbic acid, you know how they make that stuff like synthetic ascorbic acid?

No, I don't.

So it starts off with corn starch, which is basically refined pure corn sugar or corn syrup. And then they put it through about seven different laboratory steps. They start off with what's called starch hydrolysis, where they break down the cornstarch into simple Sugar and then they hydrogenate it, they ferment it. They use what's called an acetonated acetonation process where they use sorbose acid and then they oxidize it, they hydrolyze it again with hydrochloric acid and then they recrystallize it, meaning that they, they purify it and mill it into a crystalline powder. And the finished product they can technically, you know, quote unquote legally call vitamin C. But if you compare it to what you actually get from a food, you know what, what you're going to find natural source growing in a tree or on a plant, ascorbic acid is nothing like it. And ascorbic acid and vitamin C, it's.

Nothing like anything at that point after.

All that they're not even structurally identical, the two. And I've brought this up on the show before about the difference between synthetic vitamin C and what you actually find in nature when it comes to vitamin C. So when you look at the complete complex of vitamin C that you're going to find in a fruit or in a whole foods vitamin C source, you've got what are called biofavonoids. And there's actually kind of this underground name for those biofavonoids called vitamin P, also known as factor K. You've got another thing called factor J or tyrosinase, which you're going to find in the full vitamin C complex that you get from say like a whole fruit or even like a ground up whole fruit or vegetable powder that would be called like a whole foods vitamin C source. And then you've also got a different form of ascorbic acid. And many times ascorbic acid is bound to minerals which actually allows it to be absorbed by your body and not cause a lot of kind of like the stomach issues and some of the downstream issues that that a synthetic vitamin C source can actually cause. So what I'm getting at here obviously is there's a big difference between what they were shoving down these folks gullets in this study versus what you actually get when you use vitamin C. I would say from, from one of two different sources. If you're going to use vitamin C because it is good for you and you know, I'll even go hunt down a natural doctor who does high dose vitamin C injections. When I need my immune system to bounce back fast, like if I'm coming down to a race or a big travel session and I know or feel that my immune system is beat up, I will go in and do a High dose vitamin C injection. And there are naturopathic physicians that can do that. I mean, you can do a search in your area using like, like Primal Docs, you can use the functional medicine website, but you can find a person who will give you like a high dose of vitamin injection. That's one way that you can do it.

Where do they do those injections? Is that an intramuscular thing?

It's actually an intravenous injection or an iv. I think I said so right into the vein. I meant iv. It's a drip. Yeah, it's a drip in your vein. And a lot of times it's combined with other vitamins like vitamin B12 and stuff like that. So that's one way you can get vitamin C. But let's talk about easier ways than getting hooked up to a needle. You can use a bound source of vitamin C. So I actually have a brand and I'll link to this in the show notes. It's called Vitality C. And the way that Vitality C works is the common pathway for vitamin C uptake is via both a glucose pathway as well as a sodium pathway. So what they do is they bind this natural form of vitamin E. It's a whole foods vitamin C. Rather it's a whole foods vitamin C powder. And it's bound to ribose, which I've talked about before. I think we talked about that last week. And it's also bound to sodium and so it doesn't break down in the gut. And it actually uses what's called the pentose phosphate pathway or the PPP to allow the vitamin C to get absorbed into the cell. So totally different absorption pathway than synthetic ascorbic acid. And they also use sulfur in that particular supplement, which allows the cell to become a little bit more per to the intake of the vitamin C. So that's about the best vitamin C source I found. It's the one that Dr. Minkoff, Dr. David Minkoff, who runs the LifeWorks Wellness and Anti Aging center down in Florida, that's one he recommends. You know, if you don't have access to like a vitamin C iv. So that's really good. The other way that you can go is like with a whole foods powder source and that's typically like blended up fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts. There's one called Superberry that I like that's really good. But either superberry or this vitality C stuff, way, way better than like a synthetic ascorbic acid. So that's number one. That's my first kind of beef with this study is they're using totally synthetic, you know, corn syrup derived ascorbic acid. And then number two is they're also using, and I'll give you the exact title from the study here because they lay it all out in the methods. They're using 58.5 milligram DL Alpha Tosopherol Acetate tablets for their, for their vitamin E. And I think I mentioned this on the show a few weeks ago how when you're looking at vitamin E and if you're going to look, if you're going to take like a vitamin E supplement, if you look on the label and the vitamin E typically listed as like alpha tosopherol, alpha tosopherol acetate or alpha tosopherol succinate, what they're going to put on there or what's going to be listed on there, if it's a natural form of vitamin E is the prefix is going to be a D and if it's a synthetic form of vitamin E it's going to be labeled with a DL and there's a big difference in terms of the chemical structure between D and D L as far as the actual absorption of the vitamin E versus it just basically sticking around your tissues or your digestive tract or not getting absorbed or potentially causing some of the effects that cause these endurance athletes to actually have a lower fitness response or these semi endurance athletes to have a lower fitness response compared to what they would get without the vitamin E. So they used a completely synthetic form of vitamin E as well. So there's that issue. Pretty simple to look for vitamin E, that's natural when it comes to that type of thing. But what this comes down to is you gotta, gotta go in, read the study, get to the methods section, see what they were using. And you know, anytime you're looking at a vitamin or a supplement study, see what's going on. You know the human body is gonna excrete synthetic vitamin E about three to four times faster than the natural form of vitamin E. So the folks probably weren't even responding to that particular antioxidant. And you know, there's definitely a difference in the liver too. So basically you're binding and transport proteins in your liver. Select the natural D form of vitamin E and pretty much ignore that DL form. So there's your chemistry lesson for the day.

I like it. I like it a lot.

Special announcements.

So we've been adding a lot of stuff to the BG fitness phone app lately and we've got another premium exclusive interview that's releasing on Monday.

That's right. How to lose 75 pounds Eating plants is coming out on the premium podcast on Monday. And you actually don't even have to have the app. You can access the premium episodes and there's like over 300 extra video and audio and PDF episodes of the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast on the premium. You just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com premium. It's $9.99 a year. And what's coming out Monday? Monday is how to lose 75 pounds eating plants. And it comes down to a lot more than just diarrhea from a steady diet of bananas and kale.

That's what I was afraid of. It's just eating. Are we going back to 30 bananas a day?

It's an interview with an ultra runner who eats a plant based diet. So should be interesting stuff. And then of diarrhea, we're gonna go to Mexico so you can join Brock and myself and Mark Sisson. Jess is gonna be there. Mark Sisson's wife will be there, who I know is doing a lot of writing now for the Mark's daily Apple website or for their newsletter. Darrell Edwards, the fitness explorer guy is gonna be there. We're gonna do workouts on the beach, we're going to eat luxurious health food. We're gonna explore. And you could still get in, you could still sign up even though it's coming up literally in like two weeks. If you're one of those last minute people who makes decisions like going to Mexico at the drop of a hat, then head over to. Head over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and check out our link to Primalcon Vacation Tulum, Mexico 2014.

It's gonna be fun.

That's right.

You can sit around the pool with me while everybody else does cool stuff. Drink some tequila and curl. Soak up some sun. Yeah, do some sand curling.

That's right. And then one other thing. My book is coming out. Literally. It'll ship. The 540 plus page hardcover manual is going to ship in two weeks and we've actually got a rally page going for the Beyond Training book and what that means.

What is that? Yeah, tell us about this rally. I hadn't heard of it before.

So if you're listening in and you want to help support what I'm trying to do, which is to change the way that folks kind of view performance and exercise and to start to look at things from more of like a health and an anti aging and a longevity and a standpoint that brings in Everything from family and your relationships to your time management to just like looking at exercise way above and beyond exercise, you can help contribute to the cause and join what we're going after, which is 5,000 donors over@rally.org beyond training. Now, in a couple of weeks, I'm going to announce the charity that we will be giving the donations to. It's likely going to be through donorschoose.org which means that you're actually going to be able to choose which charity you want your funds to go to. If you go over there and donate anything from $1 up to 50 bucks or really whatever you want to donate. But it's@rally.org beyond training. You don't even have to donate. You can just go over there and like share it with your friends. Spread the news, like have that be your donation. Just use social currency to tell other people about it.

But if you've got lots of friends with deep pockets, then awesome.

Yeah. Or friends with $1. So you can head over to rally.org Beyond Training to check that out. And I'm personally kind of responding all the comments over there and a big thanks to everyone who has, who has donated or shared the love over there so far. And we're gonna, we're gonna keep that rolling for another two weeks. So if you're listening in right now, mental Note to yourself, rally.org Beyond Training. Check it out. And I think that's it. Check it out.

At first glance, triathletes appear to be a pretty fit group, at least with clothes on. But it's pretty common for triathletes to have tiny arms, a thin and weak neck, a stick like midsection, and a body that's just too skinny. But just imagine if your arms were cut and defined, your chest and shoulders were ripped, your waistline was tapered like a V, your stomach was flat and hard, and your legs were sleek and curvaceous. In other words, what if you had the ultimate triathlon body? Now you can learn how to swim, bike and run fast and look incredibly sexy doing it. Go to try ripped.com to start today. That's try ripped.com. Listener. Q&A.

Hi Ben, Dan Geisler here. Massive fan of everything you do on the Internet and on Twitter and everything that you do for everyone. So this is the follow up with a tweet that I sent you. I was diagnosed with pneumonia two days ago. Now, this could be caused through or having a cold, bit of overtraining maybe, but was really suffering. And what I want to know really is what I can do to speed up my recovery. I've got some big races, world championship qualifier in March, and I'd just like to know what sort of nutrition I can use to help my body not lose anything. I haven't trained for three days now. I'm on antibiotics. So should I take probiotics? What supplements can I use in my diet to help my body? How long I should leave it before I race again or train again? Really be absolutely brilliant if you could share any advice on this. Thank you very much.

Yeah, this is a great question. We've covered. If you're sick, how do you get over it quickly? What can you do to sort of mitigate the possibility of getting sick? But I don't think we've ever talked about how do you know when you can go back to training?

That's right.

When you've gotten over your cold.

Yeah. And, you know, it's kind of a paradox because exercise actually makes your immune system stronger. So they've done studies where they show that exercisers get fewer colds when they run regularly or exercise regularly.

Although I think the key is moderate exercise.

It's moderate levels of exercise. So we're talking getting back to that vitamin C, vitamin E study. Folks who are exercising like 30, 60 minutes a day, you get stronger immune system response. You get an increase in the production of macrophages, which are the cells that attack bacteria. You improve blood flow and the movement of lymphatic fluid. So that means your immune cells can circulate through your body more quickly to kill bacteria, to kill viruses. And the other studies have shown is that consistency is key here. So, like the folks who do, like, whatever, skip working out for three or four days, then work out for three days or two days or whatever, go like weekdays, on weekends, completely off. You actually don't see as high an immune system enhancement as doing short sessions consistently every day. So that's something that's important as well. When you look at whether or not exercise can actually get you sick, there's definitely a temporary decrease in the proper function of your immune system after a big workout. So, like a hard exercise session, like I mentioned that I threw down, like, a really hard exercise session last Saturday, you actually increase cortisol, you increase adrenaline, your fight and flight stress hormones, and that not only raises your blood pressure levels and your oxidized cholesterol levels, but because of a lot of the things that happen from that increase, you suppress your immune system. And that's why people get sick after they run a marathon or after they do an Ironman triathlon or after they even do a really hard workout. Especially if they get exposed to cold germs and things like that.

If they jump on a plane right afterwards.

Yeah, exactly. And then if you exercise while you are sick, there's some interesting research on this too. So they did a study at Ball State University. And my apologies to anyone who goes to Ball State just for the name.

Just gonna say, why are you apologizing?

Yeah, they actually. I don't even know which state Ball State is. Do you know what state Ball State is?

I'm gonna guess Baltimore.

Who would name their state Ball State? Or maybe my mind's in the gutter and I'm just thinking Ball State. Anyways, they, they injected students with cold germs and I don't know why you would want to volunteer to be in that study where the cold germs came from.

I hope they were banging these people a lot.

You sneeze into a syringe and then inject. So they injected them with cold germs and they tracked them for 10 days. And each person logged their exercise session. And in the group that did light aerobic activity for around 40 minutes each day, they didn't get any sicker. They saw no significant difference in their cold symptom severity or duration. So the exercising group group did not get better any faster, but they also didn't get any worse. So exercise didn't make them more sick, but they were also not doing high intensity exercise. They were doing light aerobic exercise. So what this means is while you are sick, it's probably okay to go for like a, like an easy bike ride in, you know, non inclement weather, you know, like, like not super duper cold weather, you know, that's going to be tough on your immune system or you know, stressful, you know, easier sessions, easy swims would be okay runs. But you also want to be careful that you're not going out into public places and spreading your germs all over the place.

Don't go in a public pool with a big runny nose. I've seen that. It's gross.

Yeah. And also if it's a flu or if it's the fever, that requires a great deal of healing by your body. One of the reasons your body naturally shuts down when you have the fever, when you have the flu is because it needs lots of energy in order to recover and repair. And so my opinion is you don't exercise at all when you're in that type of situation. Just because your body needs every shred of energy that it can get. So as far as working yourself back into exercise, not a lot of studies there as far as how quickly you can actually get back to exercise. But you know, if you're looking at a chest illness like a pneumonia or bronchitis, a lot of times that tends to be a little bit more potent than a head cold. It takes a little bit longer to bounce back from. I would say anything that causes you to breathe deeply could aggravate the issue. I know that I've found that a lot of times when I have like a, like an upper respiratory tract infection or a cold and I go out and do high intensity interval training, a lot of times it can spread to your lungs pretty quickly and actually cause some of that, some of that deeper, you know, respiratory tract or lower respiratory tract infection. So I'd be kind of careful there. Evidence that zinc is a pretty good immunomodulator when it comes to increasing the amounts of your Natural antimicrobials. Immunomodulator Q36 explosive space modulator. And it also can upregulate your T cells, which will help you fight infection. So getting a decent dose of vitamin d, like your 2,000 to 4,000 international units. I already talked about vitamin C in a whole foods form. That's going to be important. There's some support for zinc supplementation. There's also in other studies, they've shown that people who supplement with zinc had higher incidences of side effects. So you want to be careful with zinc. Some folks are side effects of zinc deficient in it. Yeah, exactly. So you want to be careful with zinc. Not to overdo it on that front, but vitamin D, vitamin C would be fine as far as that goes. So as far as getting back into it, I don't know. Is there anything else that I would recommend? Probably the one thing here that would be pretty important would be utilizing electrostimulation if you have access to a Compex electrostimulator. Because what that allows you to do is keep the muscles activated and even increase strength of the muscle without putting any stress on, in particular, your cardiorespiratory system at all. So you're not having to breathe deep, you're not having to huff and puff, and you can literally do electrostim while you're lying on the couch watching replays of Mad Men and still get some muscle stimulation. I mean, the stuff actually can improve blood flow, increase lymph flow a little bit. Bit. So that's an option if you have access to electrostimulation. Another similar option, you know, when we're talking about just like biohacks would be vibration, like a vibration platform, for example.

Shake the mucus out also.

Yeah, exactly, Shake the mucus. Clean up the vibration plate afterwards. And then I've also got an article called can youn Exercise if you're sick? And you know, I've got. Got literally hundreds and hundreds of articles, newsletters I put out every week over. I don't know if a lot of people know this, but over at quickanddirtytips.com you can go over there and I've got just everything you'd ever want to know about, you know, fat loss and muscle gain and you know, men's health, women's health, stuff like that. So I'll link over to that.

Also known as the Get Fit guy.

The Get Fit guy.

Just Google that.

And if you Google image that, you'll see that I wear red tighty tight pants and a black tank top.

And I think you have blonde hair in that shot too.

It's kind of like red hair and lipstick. So if you want to, if you want to see my avatar that looks nothing like me, then check out Quick and Dirty Tips. So. So there you go. And I hope that helps, Daniel.

Yeah, I think the only other thing I'd throw in there is you really just like, you've got to pay attention to yourself and just like trust your body and test the water. If you think you're feeling well enough, then just give it a try. But be ready to pull the plug and turn around and go home if it just doesn't feel right. I just test the water over the, over the matter of a few days and eventually you'll, you'll feel like you're. You're back at it and you can actually finish your workout.

Hi, Ben. Hi, Brock.

Love the show.

I wanted to hear your take on vinegar as a fat loss supplement.

Can you give me any insight?

Is this myth or something that should.

Be added in a daily dietary consumption?

Thanks a lot.

Yeah, I religiously dump like a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar on my salad. Just sort of crossing my fingers and hoping that it's helping me just keep my fat down?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure vinegar is a really potent fat loss supplement because it tastes so nasty. You just don't want to eat anything else ever the rest of the day. No, but seriously, they've actually had vinegar around as a weight loss aid for a long time and they Did a study relatively recently in Japan where they gave folks a high fat diet that had vinegar in it. And then they studied them. I don't remember the period of time that they looked at them for, but they ended up decreasing their body fat significantly, like lowering their body fat by 10% compared to people who ate that same high fat, high calorie intake without any vinegar. And the idea behind this is that vinegar has a lot of acetic acid in it. And acetic acid can activate lipolysis by up regulating levels of your lipase enzymes that are going to burn fat. It can activate some of the genes that specifically cause your body to store less fat around your waist. And it may also increase metabolism specifically by increasing thermogenesis in a similar way that like cold thermogenesis and the activation of like brown adipose tissue from taking a cold shower would increase fat loss. Acetic acid may have kind of a similar effect. And that's actually a biohack stack that you can use is a shot of apple cider vinegar. Or if you're really daring, I guess you could just use like white vinegar. But we'll get into in a second here why apple cider vinegar would be a much superior choice anyways.

Tastes tasty.

You can combine that with a cold shower if you really want. A really potent 1, 2, 3 combo shot of apple cider vinegar, vinegar, some bitter melon extract and a cold shower. And that's a really potent fat loss stack.

And when you say a shot, do you mean like a, like a literal, like an ounce?

Yeah. Like a shot glass? Like a shot glass, yeah. Like one to two ounces. Exactly, yeah. Clean the vodka out of it first from the night before might help. Yeah. Anyways though, as far as acetic acid goes, the only issue is that in some of the studies that they've done that have showed, for example, in mice that acetic acid has a really good effect, it was a lot of acetic acid that they use like the equivalent of using about 20 ounces of vinegar a day. So that's quite a bit in terms of the thermogenic effect. However, in terms of the blood sugar regulating effect, you need a lot less, like around one to two ounces or so. So. So I think that you'd have to do a lot of vinegar to actually increase your metabolism. But as far as potentially stabilizing blood sugar, increasing insulin sensitivity, less than that. And this would be something that you do like right before you have a meal would be something that may help in a similar way that bitter Melon extract would help. Or cinnamon. Or cinnamon. Yeah. Now apple cider vinegar is some pretty cool stuff because apple cider vinegar has some benefits that go way above and beyond regular vinegar. And we actually keep a big bottle of Bragg's apple cider vinegar. And the reason we use that particular brand of apple cider vinegar is because it is gluten free, raw, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar. And that's really important. A lot of vinegar vinegars have gluten in them. A lot of them are going to really support things like yeast and fungus overgrowth. But like a good gluten free, raw, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar, I'll put a link in the show notes. You can literally get Braggs like off of Amazon, you know, get it primed, subscribe and save straight to your house.

Braggs make some other good stuff too. They make that soy sauce sort of version that's gluten free. Can't remember what's called aminos.

Breggs. Aminos. Aminos, yeah. Even though we don't use that anymore, I believe we looked into it and we're not sure if it's a non GMO source of soy that they use in that. So not quite sure about that one. I don't remember. My wife and I looked into it a while back and I think it was the soy that we found to be an issue with that. But their apple cider vinegar is good stuff. So apples are really high in pectin, which is a kind of insoluble fiber that helps you to feel full faster and be more satisfied with your meal. And apple cider vinegar has pretty high level of pectin in it. So you've got that, it's got amino acids, obviously the building blocks of proteins in it. And one of the things that that may help with when you take in apple cider vinegar is the availability of amino acids to create more growth hormone, more natural growth hormone. In the same way that getting enough sleep can increase growth hormone, getting adequate doses of amino acids throughout the day can help with that as well. Well, and apple cider vinegar has amino acids in it. Important for athletes or folks who are worried about anemia or who are sucking oxygen when they climb a flight of stairs or kind of getting brain fog or an energy dip during the day. Iron, a key component of hemoglobin and myoglobin, that's something that you're going to find in pretty decent amounts in apple cider vinegar as well. Specifically because apple cider vinegar actually helps Your body release its natural iron and so it'll increase absorption and also upregulate your natural release of iron. And then also it's got some good digestive enzymes in it that will help break down proteins into amino acids. So some pretty, pretty cool things. And you're going to find also with apple cider vinegar that the amino acids in it are particularly good at helping you make more tryptophan. And tryptophan is what plays a critical role in your release of serotonin, which is one of your feel good neurotransmitters. So that may help you avoid kind of like cravings and eating a lot as well. So a lot of things that vinegar has going for it. And I'm going to give vinegar as a fat loss supplement a thumbs up.

Is that three stars out of four?

Three stars.

Hi, Ben and Brock. My name's Holly. I just have a quick question for you. I started the Pacific Elite Fitness Gut Healing Pack five days ago, and over the past two days, I've noticed mucus or jelly in my bowel motions. This has worried me a bit because my nursing knowledge tells me that this is usually indicative of inflammation and that I should stop the treatment or the cleanse. But I know that this gut pack is relatively gentle and I'm not sure that it would cause enough inflammation that my GI tract would produce mucus, if any. So I just wanted to know if you guys had heard of anybody else who had experienced the same thing or if you had any ideas or information about what could be causing this. Thanks. You guys are awesome.

I like how Holly calls them bowel motions.

Bowel motions is such a nice word.

It's so gentle.

It's like women glowing, not sweating.

Exactly.

And women don't poop. They have bowel motions, graceful, smooth bowel motions. So when you detox, you get something called a Herxheimer reaction, and it's basically die off. So that reaction is thought to happen when toxins from dying pathogens, like dying virus, bacteria, parasites, candida, yeast, fungus, that type of thing in your body kind of overwhelms your body's ability to clear some of that stuff out. And that can create a situation where you get like muscle aches sometimes, you get headaches, you'll get skin rashes sometimes. And excess mucus production is another side effect of a die off reaction that's pretty common, especially when you're doing like a gut detox. And that can increase the amount of mucus in your stool. So that's one thing that you may be seeing. You know, the particular detox gut healing pack that Holly is talking about is one that I personally designed. We'll link to it in the show notes. But it's oil of oregano, really potent antiviral and antibacterial that can kill off fungus and yeast in the digestive tract. It is a therapeutic grade probiotic called caprobiotics, Capra colostrum to help heal up the lining of the gut. And then it's also got digestive enzymes in there. In particular a digestive enzyme complex that contains slippery elm, which helps to coat the lining of your stomach and heal the stomach. And then also it's got capra cleanse in there, which has some other natural antibacterials and cleansing supplements in it. So you put all that stuff together, and if you have a yeast or a fungus or a bacterial issue in the digestive tract, you are definitely gonna get some die off. So that's likely what's going on here. But there are some other potentials too. So, for example, you can actually get some of the fillers and some of the coatings of capsules, because some of those supplements aren't tablets. Some of them are capsules. Some of those can just wind up in your. In your poo and look like it's mucus. When it's like the gelatin capsules. Yeah, it's just you digesting the capsules. And, you know, that's one thing that can pretty easily happen. Parasite. Parasite infections can also cause mucus in the stool. And a lot of times if you have a parasite, and I went over this in the gut video that I produced@BenGreenfieldFitness.com a couple weeks ago where I talked about how to test for parasites and how to get rid of them. Sometimes there are specific herbs that are active against certain parasites or certain bacterial infections. Like if you have H. Pylori, for example, mastic gum is really good for fighting that. If you have something like blastocystis berberine or goldenseal is really good for that. And so there's sometimes things that you got to add in if you actually have a parasite issue that can contribute to mucus in the stool that Holly may want to consider kind of throwing into the mix there. If it is a parasite issue. Inflammation. Inflammation can definitely cause mucus in the digestive tract, as she alluded to. And that's typically inflammation from like, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, or celiac disease. If you've cleaned up your diet and I would Hope that you are. If you're doing a detox and you're not doing things like consuming gluten, digestive irritants, you know, dairy, if that tends to be an issue for you, white sugar can be a big issue, you know, as can like bread, pasta, stuff like that. If you've cleaned up your diet from that stuff, it probably would not be contributing to mucus. If you haven't, then that may be an issue as well. And then the last thing is, of course, just like switching your diet to a high fat diet and having more oil in your diet can make it look a little bit like you have mucus in your stool. A lot of times it's just oil and fats that aren't being digested just because, because you've totally switched your macronutrient profile and you probably aren't even producing enough lipase yet to digest a lot of those fats. And that's where like taking a digestive enzyme can certainly help. I suspect that because Holly is doing the detox gut healing pack and because I've noticed this in myself and I've also had a couple other folks report this when they do detoxes, that it's a die off reaction and that she's just basically cleaning out her digestive tract. So mucus reactions in, in response to detoxes are pretty common.

Okay, so everybody who is slightly grossed out by this whole conversation so far may want to fast forward for the next little bit, but I just want to know, how would I notice, like, how would I recognize this in my own bowel motions?

So it's like stringy white, mucusy looking stuff that usually settles. It usually settles on top of your poo. And it's usually pretty obvious if you're one of those people who looks at their poo or if you're competing at the Russian Olympic Games and you don't even have a hole in your toilet, you have a lid and there's a hidden camera in the bathroom. So somebody else is looking at your poo too. So yes, you can always be like.

Hey, buddy, I just noticed you might want to take a look at this.

Hi, Ben and Brock, this is Josh from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Love the podcast. I'm writing a description for somebody else. Family member. He's 22 years old and was recently diagnosed with colon cancer, stage three. They've had to remove a large majority of his colon. They found the colon cancer when they were performing a routine appendectomy. So now he has very little of his colon left and has no appendix. There's been some reference before to living without an appendix and. Or living without a colon, but I'm curious what kind of recommendation you have from a dietary standpoint for someone that now has pretty much neither. Thanks again. Keep up the good work. Bye.

It wasn't that long ago that we talked about the whole idea that the appendix isn't as vestigial as we once believed, that it actually was a place where we store some good bacteria.

Yeah, the appendix is like your memory site for the gut bacteria. So if you have your appendix removed, and I'll put a link to the podcast where we went into this in detail. But taking probiotics if you've had an appendectomy or using a lot of fermented foods is extremely advisable. So, you know, we're kind of, kind of treading on the whole medical advice here thing. I should throw in the disclaimer that.

Ben is not a doctor.

And the content provided on this podcast.

Is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or healthcare advice.

And as far as colon cancer goes and the actual removal of the colon, you know, I personally don't have a lot of experience with, you know, a diet in particular for colon removal or for post colon cancer recovery, but what I can do is give you some of the advice and give our listeners some advice on how to fix a colon that is broken and how to definitely reduce your risk of colon cancer. Cancer, which is like the third most common cancer that there is. And it's a pretty big issue that you do want to pay attention to. So the reason that you want to pay attention to this is because your colon is extremely important in doing things like fermenting fiber to turn it into short chain fatty acids that get reabsorbed and used by your body and by your immune system. You get some vitamin production in your large intestine, too. You get some good bacteria in your large intestine. You get some mineral and water absorption there. I mean, it's not just like this storage site, your colon for poo. I mean, there's a lot of other things that go on that make that a pretty important organ. And so if you've had it removed similar to your appendix, I definitely do think that you may want to consider, you know, doing something like using like a full spectrum probiotic like I talked about. And you're probably going to have to dial back your fiber intake a little bit because you aren't going to have one of your primary mechanisms for fermenting and absorbing the byproduct of fermentation anymore. You know, it's one of the reasons like, you know, gorillas have huge, huge guts is because they've got huge, large intestines. Intestines and huge colons where theythey fermentand absorb a lot of the byproducts of fermentation of fiber in their digestive tract. And so if you don't have that going on, you probably have to add some good bacteria into the mix. And your colon helps to remove water and salt and other nutrients from indigestible food matter. So, you know, you probably have to add in minerals, you probably have to add in like a good strong multivitamin complex. You know, those are some of the things that you'd want, want to consider. When it comes to colon care though, there's a few things that you should know. First of all, I'm not a fan of colonoscopies at all. I think that they're a big issue. When I had Konstantin Monastirski on the show, the fiber menace guy, he talked about some of the risks of getting a colonoscopy. But what it comes down to is that there's not a lot of strong evidence that colonoscopy colonoscopies actually reduce. Or increase the ability to be able to find colon cancer. And there's an estimated 70,000 people each year that are killed or injured by colonoscopy related complications. And that's higher than the number of annual deaths from colon cancer itself. So there's not a lot of evidence that, that it prevents cancer. You get increased cancer risk from radiation. A lot of times you get a pretty dramatic increase in the risk of colon cancer. That goes hand in hand with the increase in the number of screening colonoscopies. And so it's not really decreasing much of the cancer anyways, like these polyps removals or anything like that. And what it comes down to is that that more of a preventive approach is going to help. Now if you really want to get into like some of the issues as far as like kidney damage and bowel disorders and some of the other issues that can happen from colonoscopies, then you should go and check out the link that I'll put in the show notes over to Konstantin's website. I'll put them over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 271 but it's some pretty interesting stuff. I mean he's literally got like a full on two hour interview or two Hours worth of video that goes into what he calls the deadly deception about colonoscopy and whether or not it's actually worth the risk. And there's transcripts that you could read over there too. Now, as far as a solution, there are some definite things that you can do to reduce your risk without getting a colonoscopy. So being careful with not overdoing fiber consumption like Konstantin talks about in the interview that I did with him, I don't go as far as he does. Like I don't peel fruits and peel vegetables and stuff like that. But I am really careful with a lot of these cleansers that are really high in psyllium husk, a lot of high fiber supplements. That type of stuff can be an issue in terms of being hard on your colon. Restoring your colon's ecosystem is also something that's important. And there are specific bacteria that can help with, with a healthy bowel, certain probiotics. And there's this supplement called a colorectal recovery program that actually helps to restore your colon's ecosystem. And that's actually made by that guy, Konstantin Monastirsky. And it restores your intestinal flora, it normalizes your stools, it replaces fiber, synthetic laxatives, stuff like that. And what that one is is it's a, it's a whole foods form of vitamin C like I talked about earlier with a lot of the minerals that you need to kind of clear out your colon. It's got a really high dose glutamine in it to help to heal the lining of your digestive tract. And then it's got a really nice probiotic profile that in particular is designed to help with things like post chemo and post radiotherapy. And that's something where, like recovery from colon cancer, this might come in handy. It also helps out with stuff like yeast infection. It can help a little bit with preventing the growth of new polyps in the colon or mitigating the risks of colon cancer and kind of restoring normal colon ecology if you have had a colonoscopy. So it's pretty cool stuff. I went through a 30 day process protocol of that colorectal recovery program after I was on antibiotics. And I completely, you know, not to gross folks out, but I, I pretty much got so constipated I didn't go to the bathroom for like five days after these antibiotics. And that's, that's what kind of pulled me out of the gutter and allowed me to have a very satisfactory dumb and dumber style bowel movement after Five days. After five days. So yeah, and that, that was after I was on a really strong dose of probiotics for a staph issue that I got from basically working out in a dirty gym while I had open wounds from doing an off road triathlon.

Wait, you said probiotics. You mean antibiotics?

Antibiotics. Yeah, exactly. So check out that colorectal recovery program because that's got some really good stuff in it as far as restoring your normal colon ecology. There's a lot of of common cancer triggers for colon cancer that you also want to be careful with. You know, you're looking at everything from clostridium in your digestive tract, yeast and fungus overgrowth, which I think we'll talk about later on. You know, food additives can be an issue. Pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals. So basically really cleaning up the diet and being really careful with that. And then there are also some mechanical triggers, triggers as well, like EMF radiation from power lines and cell phones and WI fi routers. A lot of those increase your risk for cellular mutation. You know, we've talked about some of that stuff in podcast episodes with Jack Cruz and what else? You know, I guess any known environmental carcinogen, you know, personal care products, plastic storage containers, Teflon coated pans, even like crystal glass, which can be a source of lead. Like, you just want to be careful with a lot of these potential triggers or potential carcinogens in your diet. But biggest recommendation for you would be to go check out that colorectal recovery program, to be careful with excessive intake of fiber, and then to visit that website for the fiber menace in particular, read the page called colonoscopy. Is it worth the risk? Because it really isn't known yet whether colonoscopy can actually help reduce the number of deaths from colorectal cancer. And there are a lot of potential side effects. Hi, Ben, my name is Michael. I'm just calling about abdominal distention. I've got fairly low body fat, but for some reason my stomach sticks out. You can almost see the muscles on the stomach, but it just sort of sticks out. So I look fat even though I'm not fat. So wondering if you had any training ideas or supplements or diet tweaks I could make in order to get rid of this annoying, annoying problem. Cheers. Enjoying the podcast every week? Cheers.

Yeah, you see this a lot in young kids, it seems. You know why that is?

You mean like the Ethiopian poster child?

And just like the kids running around the neighborhood, they're like those skin and bone kind of kids have Those bellies.

Too, sometimes those kids. It's just that the size of their organs are that much larger than the size of their developing skeletal, you know, musculoskeletal structures.

I hadn't thought of that.

Yeah, but in adults, and in particularly like athletic adults, bodybuilders, you know, you see this in crossfitters sometimes who have low body fat that you tend to see the stomach kind of stick out. And typically it's due to some kind of an inflammation or an immune response that is causing gas bloating and excessive fermentation in the digestive tract. So there's a few things that can cause this. One would be small intestine bacterial overgrowth or sibo. That's one big issue with gas and bloating and kind of having a stomach that sticks out too much, especially after you eat higher carbohydrate intake during a meal. SIBO is something you can test. Like there's a breath test that you can get over at direct labs where you swallow like a glucose solution and it measures the amount of gases that you produce in response to that solution. And if there's a certain number that the rise in those gases reaches, then it's a pretty good indication that you have bacterial infection, your small bacteria in your small intestine kind of overproducing gas in response to metabolizing that glucose solution or lactose solution that you drink. And that's one thing that can cause gas and bloating. But more common than that is simply one of two things. Either an immune reaction to a food that you eat, and it's typically wheat, soy, eggs and dairy are the biggest trigger triggers. And in a case like that going on a basic autoimmune based diet is one of the best things you could do. Like the paleo autoimmune diet is awesome for this. And I'll link to that one in the show notes. But that's a four to an eight week diet where you just eliminate all of the common immune triggers. So that would be another thing to look into, would be elimination of a lot of these common triggers. Now the other thing that really takes tends to cause this issue that I would say is the most common thing I see is yeast or fungus overgrowth in the digestive tract. So if you look at Candida albicans, that's a yeast that usually lives relatively harmlessly in pretty small numbers in your digestive system. And it's controlled by good bacteria in your body, like probiotics, from eating fermented foods or from taking a probiotic and also by your immune system. But if the beneficial bacteria get killed off by antibiotics, or if your immune system becomes weakened due to illness or stress or excessive intake of some of those immune triggers that I just talked about, or you've been on an antibiotic protocol like I mentioned, then it can kill off these good bacteria. And when that happens, candida can overgrow. And candida overgrowth in your intestines can penetrate your gut wall. They can cause a lot of yeast and other toxins that results in inflammation, and you get a lot of gas and bloating and it can make your stomach stick out. And so the answer to that, in addition to rebuilding the good amount of bacteria in your digestive tract by using like a fermented food and a good therapeutic grade probiotic, would be to remove anything that's going to feed yeast and also anything that contains wheat gluten, which will also cause this gas bloating yeast issue. And so that includes a lot of stuff that'll include like balsamic vinaigrette, a lot of salad dressings, any, like I mentioned, vinegar. Like if it's, if it's a vinegar that has gluten in it or a vinegar that's not raw or unpasteurized, that can be an issue. A lot of condiments like ketchup, water, Worcestershire sauce, barbecue sauce, soy sauce, mustard, a lot of green olives that you get in the can. Beer is a biggie. So a lot of that stuff contains things that would potentially aggravate a yeast issue. And then sugar and starch, obviously feed yeast and will feed that fungus overgrowth. So that would include stuff like bread, pasta, even a higher intake. If you do have an overgrowth of juices, potatoes, fruits, any of that stuff can really aggravate the issues. And so this would be a situation where you could even look into doing something like the specific carbohydrate diet. And that's something that, similar to the autoimmune diet, eliminates a lot of common autoimmune based triggers. But that one in particular actually takes care of a lot of the things that would potentially cause a yeast or a fungus overgrowth as well. So I can link to that one in the show notes too. And you could even do like a four to eight week of the autoimmune protocol and then shift into something like this specific carbohydrate diet where you eliminate a lot of these yeast and fungus issues. Or you could just do one or the other. I mean, either one of those is Going to be better than a standard diet at getting rid of a lot of this stuff. And then you also want to knock out the bad bacteria. You could use like an oil of oregano that's really good, 15 to 20 drops, three times a day. Extremely potent with yeast and fungus overgrowth. Another pretty good one that I mentioned earlier that's not only good for some parasites, but also really good for yeast and fungus overgrowth is this goldenseal or bear brain stuff. That stuff does a pretty good job as well. Thorn in particular makes a good bear brain and we can link to that for you as well. Those are some of the biggies. And a lot of times, I mean, if you look at like the classic like bodybuilder weightlifter sucking down whey protein shakes and getting a lot of like dairy in particular as an immune system trigger, you know, you tend to see that more in the folks who are being careful with excessive carbohydrate intake, but still getting a lot of dairy for its muscle building effect. That's where you tend to see the stomach sticking out and really fit folks. And in folks who are, you know, maybe even eating like a really quote unquote healthy, you know, like paleo or primal diet or whatever, but who simply have a skewed macronutrient profile towards too much sugar or starch intake that can be a really big source of like a yeast overgrowth or a Candida infection. So. So those are some of my recommendations for Michael and his stomach sticking out.

Hi Ben and hi Brock. This is Richard from New Zealand. Over the last few years, I've noticed I've started to drink more and more wine and I need to drink more and more to kind of get the same effect. And it's almost like a craving, you know, once I've opened a bottle, I'm going to carry on till the job's done rather than just enjoy sipping a little glass of. So I've been researching Candida as a cause of this sugar craving as I see it, and possibly also as a contributing factor to me getting a heart bypass a few years ago. I just wondered if you could share any thoughts you have on Candida, why it develops and how to kill the damn stuff. My current plan to kill the Candida by drinking two bottles of excellent New Zealand Pinot Noir really doesn't seem to be working. Thanks guys and hopefully we can keep this just between ourselves. I wouldn't want all of your listeners to think I had some sort of drinking problem, even if I probably do. And that's why I crave so much wine. Cheers.

Now, before everybody gets alarmed and thinks that we're totally ignoring Richard's request to keep this private, he did send this in after a couple of emails back and forth about how this would make a good, good question for the podcast. So please don't get angry and think we're being jerks. He's just joking.

That's right. If you want to stay anonymous, we'll keep you anonymous.

Yeah.

Although I probably would. I would either not call into the show and write in your question or else I would wear one of those, like Darth Vader Bane style masks, maybe like an altitude training mask, just to mask your voice. One of those things they use for kidnapping people all the time, voice modulators. I'm sure there's an app for that. But anyways, the answer is absolutely. I mean, the symptoms that you're getting can definitely be related to alcohol and specifically Candida. So candida and alcohol abuse or alcoholism or alcohol addiction or alcohol cravings very often occur together because drinking alcohol can create an overgrowth of yeast or perpetuate an existing overgrowth of yeast. And a lot of times you tend to get food cravings that go hand in hand with that. Now, one of the reasons for that is that alcohol is a sugar, and it is actually one of the more refined sugars that you can consume because it doesn't have to be digested and you absorb it directly through your gastrointestinal wall. Now, sugar is, like I mentioned, candida or yeast's favorite food source, and it's what allows it to grow. So when you drink alcohol on a regular basis, it encourages that candida overgrowth. And the Candida ferments sugar to generate energy so it can survive. And that fermentation process can actually create a lot of toxins in your body, and it can even release, in particular, toxins that contain alcohol or mimic the effects of alcohol in the body. So you can actually, in response to a high carbohydrate meal, if you have a Candida issue, you can almost feel, in a way, drunk, even if you haven't had any alcohol. And in many cases, that can result in you craving that feeling and wanting alcohol even when you aren't eating other sources of carbohydrates. Now, Candida can also also play around with your neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. And that's because it alters your gut bacteria, which are crucial in the formation of neurotransmitters. And so That'll tend to aggravate cravings as well. So one of the things that you can do is listen to everything that I just said about controlling Candida. Not only getting on like a specific carbohydrate diet, but also getting rid of of, you know, breads, pastas, rolls, most condiments, like I mentioned, ketchup, mustard relishes, salad dressings, most fermented beverages. And that would include stuff like kombucha, that would include of course wine, but you know, beer and gin and a lot of those as well. Being really careful with cheeses, with dried fruits and fruits in general and, and even got to be careful sometimes with a lot of like lunch meats, corned beef, things of that nature. Now there are some health food stores that will sell totally yeast free or mold free products. And you can actually ask like a lot of times they'll have like yeast free breads that are made using like baking powder or non enriched forms of flour. They'll have salad dressings that are yeast free. A lot of times it's at like a whole foods or something like that where you, you can get those type of things, but you want to clean up all the potential things that would cause Candida. You want to get on the stuff that I talked about earlier like oil of oregano and a good digestive cleanse to be able to restore the normal gut flora. And if you do that hand in hand with understanding that wine creates this vicious cycle, if you have a Candida infection that just creates a desire for more wine, then that can help out quite a bit. Now a few other things that are in particular effective with Candida. One would be like a form of probiotic that's called acidophilus DDS1. Now, most therapeutic grade probiotics are going to contain that particular strain of acidophilus. It produces hydrogen peroxide and that can have a really good antimicrobial effect in your digestive tract, it can really help control Candida. So something like that caprobiotic stuff would be perfect. Essential oils and, and some of the better ones in addition to oregano oil would be. Peppermint oil is really, really good. And then either that goldenseal extract or a goldenseal type of oil oil would also be really good for this. And peppermint oil is literally like you can get essential peppermint oil and add it to water. It's actually kind of refreshing as a drink to put a few drops in water.

Didn't you say last week that you were putting it in your SodaStream, I.

Mix it with chocolate stevia. So I do chocolate peppermint soda water and it's really good. I'm kind of addicted to it right now. And I just make that in the soda stream. A few drops of chocolate stevia, a few drops of peppermint oil. It's actually really good and almost like wakes you up too. The peppermint has like this, you know, peppermint is a very heating essential oil. So you feel pretty good. Yeah, Invigorating. Exactly. Invigorating and extremely kissable, which is a great thing to be around Valentine's Day right now. Valentine's Day is in two days, incidentally. And then speaking of being kissable, garlic is another thing. And we talked about garlic a few shows ago and how you actually need to take an enteric coated garlic capsule if you use garlic so that it actually opens when it reaches your intestines. So it can actually be efficacious in that area. So garlic is really good. And then two other things to look into. Coconut oil is really good. And the oleic acid from olive oil can have a really good effect on Candida. So kind of big picture here would be get on a good therapeutic grade probiotic. You introduce essential oils like oregano oil and peppermint oil. You can use garlic as part of your diet, or if you'd like, you can take an enteric coated garlic capsule. You use coconut oil and you can even take like a tablespoon of that before bed is actually really satiating for your appetite because it gives you that slow release of fatty acids while you're asleep. Use olive oil in your diet and then eliminate a lot of these common condiments that tend to to contain yeast, meats, fruits, starches, things of that nature. And all that stuff can help tremendously with that huge desire for alcohol in the evenings. The other thing to understand with alcohol is, let's say it has absolutely nothing to do with Candida. A lot of times it is related to GABA deficiency. Gamma aminobutyric acid. You get a lot of wounded up people who just need that wine at the end of the day. And if it's that, if it's a stress issue, you can replace that. If you're wanting to get off a wine and not get the calories or the expense or whatever associated with having to go through half a bottle of wine every night. Passion flower extract is really good for that. Like just getting on a basic passion flower extract. So I know that's a lot of stuff I will try and link to most of my recommendations in the show. Notes for controlling Candida. But those are some of the things that I would. I would highly recommend.

I'm gonna throw in a little plug for Richard just because he's a nice fella and I actually worked on his audiobook called Life After a Bypass.

Oh, nice.

And it's. I know it's up. And it's quite entertaining and quite informative. So you are.

You're all over the audio sphere. Between this and. And Mark Sisson's podcast and all these e books you're doing. Wow.

Yeah.

Amazing. And you're also getting. You're doing the audiobook for the Beyond Training book as well. Yeah. So there you go. The audio.

As fast as you can churn out those chapters.

Hi, Ben, it's Sebastian from Fredericton, New Brunswick. I had a question. I'm pretty new to triathlon.

I come from a cycling background, but.

I'm a pretty decent runner. So swimming is definitely my worst sport. I'm having a hard time building up to endurance swimming because I'm constantly out of breath. So I swim like 50 meters and then I need to stop to catch my breath. How do I improve my aerobic capacity so that I can swim 750 meters straight and then building up to even more after that? All right, Love your show. Hope to hear from you soon.

Sebastian. Why so sad?

Yeah, actually, Sebastian does something pretty sad.

He does?

Yeah, Sad. It's time to be happy. It's time to be happy. We'll get your swimming rocking and rolling. So it's actually pretty common to have this frustration with being able to build your aerobic capacity or feel as though you're breathless when you're swimming. So a few of the things that you can do. First of all, I should mention that I've been swimming in my garage lately, and it's because I have one of these Vasa trainers, and that's pretty cool.

You don't have a Mr. Turtle pool that you.

I don't have a little Mr. In my garage because that doesn't count. It's one of these Vasa trainers, and they're pretty sick, actually. I always thought that they were a little bit dorky, but I've actually been training on it, and it's about the closest thing to swimming I've ever experienced. And I can actually practice my breathing. Not only can I wear, like an elevation training mask or like a breath restricted device while I'm on it to kind of make me feel a little bit more of that breathlessness, that I experience in the water. But I can also do like one breath in for two strokes, one breath out for one stroke and practice. Basically like the type of breath training that I've talked about before on this podcast that I'll do when I'm running. You know, like kind of like the three breaths or one breath in for three foot strikes, one breath out for two foot strikes. Similar to this. You can take one breath in for two arm strokes, one breath out for one arm stroke.

Stroke.

It's a really cool way to train. It's also expensive. I mean you can, you can get them off Amazon and they're, you know, anywhere from a thousand to $1,500. Full disclosure that what I'm using in my garage is a demo unit. But it's, you have to give it back. I have to give it back at some point after I'm done kicking my butt on it for, for a few months. But really cool thing to have around, especially in the winter, you know. So, so like my workout yesterday was I've got a little, little cul de sac driveway that's about 400 meters long. So I do a 400 meter sprint end in my garage. I do about 200 meters on the Vasa trainer and then get off the trainer and head back into the driveway. So it was, I did a 5 by repeat. So 5 by 400 with a 200 on the Vasa trainer after each 400. So you can do some kind of cool winter swim run workouts on it. But let's say you don't want to get a full on Vasa trainer shipped in a giant box to your house. You can also train your lungs and get kind of this hypoxic effect using a power lung. So that's another thing that I used yesterday. I had to drive over to Coeur d', Alene, Idaho last night to give a like this anti aging health lecture to some, some folks over there. And what I used on the way over there was my power lung device which allows me to build up up my inspiratory and expiratory muscle strength. And I do that a lot when I'm driving. So I play a little game. Like every time I pass a mile marker I'll do like three breaths of a three count in, three count out with my power lung. So it's just like these little like sets and reps as I'm driving along the road and I just keep that next to me. It's better than digging around in your cell phone. The other thing that you can use to take a little bit of the stress out of breathing and thinking about breathing while you're swimming as you're trying to develop your stroke is a swim snorkel. And Finis makes swim snorkels. And it's a front mounted swim snorkel. So it just sticks out like in front of you as you're swimming. And as you get stronger and stronger using a swim snorkel, they make airflow restrictors that go on the top of those as well. It's called a cardio cap and you can order both of those from, from Finis. I'll put a link in the show notes, but the front mounted swim snorkel and then having a cardio cap to go on top of that, that can really help as well. Now, as far as swim workouts go, honestly, nothing beats the Swim Smooth book. And I forget the name of it, but it's published by the folks at Swimsmooth. I'll hunt it down and get a link for you. But the idea behind it is it teaches you how to start your swimming with your warm up. So easy swimming and stretching and getting comfortable in the water. And then you move into drills where you're all focusing on technique. And then you move into your main set. And this is just kind of a, you know, a standard layout for most swim workouts. And the main set might be endurance or power or speed or form. And then you finish with your, your cooldown. And so if you're trying to build swim endurance, what you would do is you, you'd always include your warmup, your drills and your cool down. But for your set sets you can just do a simple weekly build where, you know, first week is a, is a 10 by 25 with 5 seconds of breathers on the wall. And then the next week is, you know, like a, like a 6 by 50 with you know, 10 seconds of breathing at the wall. And the next week is like a, like a 5 by or 4 by 100 with 20 seconds of breathing at the wall. And so you just gradually increase both your distance as well as the duration of your set sets while slightly increasing or keeping your rest periods constant. And that's a really good way to build endurance. Now when I first started swimming, I did it totally the wrong way. So I started swimming in college and I remember I was scared to death about having to swim 500 meters in 10 minutes or less for lifeguarding class. And I think I had about two months to get ready. And what I started doing, I would just get in the water and swim until I would almost, almost be ready to pass out. And usually that took me about 25 meters or so. And then I just stopped for as long as I need to stop and then just keep swimming, you know, until I got to 500. And then that was kind of like the end of the workout. If I would have known that I was supposed to warm up, do drills, then do an interval based set. That didn't necessarily mean swimming 500 meters in a row, but I could break the 500 into 25s or 50s or hundreds and then finish with a nice relaxation and cool down. Like that would have been so much less stressful and I would have gotten better, so much faster. Because swimming is all about efficiency and economy. So best advice I can give to you is to gradually build with intervals like that and to use something like the Swim Smooth book to dictate your workouts because they've got really good progression sets in there. And then do some extra training for your lungs. Use a power lung while you're in your car or while you're sitting around. Use a swim snorkel if you can. You can even use one of those, those Vasa trainers and add in the elevation training mask for, for added effect. And that those are some of the places I'd start.

You know, the thing that noticed the most when I start working with a new swimmer is that it's not so much a matter like I'll be working with them. They'll swim across the pool and come back and be like, oh man, I'm so out of shape. And it, it's really like, it's like Ben said earlier, it's not a matter of really being in shape or out of shape. It's, it's building that economy and the like getting your technique down. Because once your technique is good, you'll just find that you can swim a lot farther because you're not using as much energy.

Yeah.

So making sure to do those drills and getting your technique down will make way bigger difference than, than worrying about if you're in shape or outer shape.

Yep, exactly. So I think that's great. And, and you can, you can, you know, put on your snorkel and maybe even drag your Vasa trainer beside the pool and just get all geeked out and get lots of, lots of strange looks at the pool.

So awesome. It's fun times.

And speaking of strange looks, I think we've got a, we've got a review that, that. So this is the time of the show when we give away some Ben Greenfield fitness swag. We've got a beanie and we've got a bpa free water bottle and a very cool tech T shirt that you can wear to the gym or in the pool or wherever else you'd like to wear it. And we're gonna ship all of that to this week's itunes review because it's such a great review. So if you, if you want to get in the run running for some swag sent to you, then leave review over to itunes. And if you just want to get the swag and support the show, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com gear and what do we have today, Brock?

All right, we've got a review. A five star review. Nice. That's called be prepared for strange looks by Pedro17.

Pedro?

Yeah, I don't know what Pedro is.

But anyway, Pedro from that movie. What's. What's the movie with Pedro to vote for?

Pedro?

Napoleon Dynamite. Yeah, it might be the Napoleon Dynamite.

I didn't say Pedro Shooks.

Sweet. See, you're drinking 1%. Is that cuz you think you're God? Strange looks. Gosh, why don't you go tell your mom to shut up?

Anyway, the review goes like this. It says, I just finished rolling around on the floor of my apartment on my foam roller, grunting, groaning, and giving my neighbors the wrong idea. What better time is there to finally give Ben and Brock the props they deserve for helping me increase my level of fitness and making me are making me to sound a lot smarter than I am when I'm talking to my friends.

Making me to sound a lot smarter.

That's what it actually smart. Increasing my level, making me to sound a lot, lot smarter.

We forgive you since you gave us that great visual of you grunting and groaning and humping your foam roller while giving your neighbors the wrong idea or the right idea or the right idea. That's right.

I think you should look at this as half full, not half empty.

What better gift for your loved one on Valentine's day than a foam roller for them to hump? So speaking of humping, head over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com love to see Brock and I showing you all the different ways you can hump a tennis ball to get fitter.

Maybe we should Change it to BenGreenfieldFitness.com hump hump.

Yep, there you go.

Now don't go to that URL.

Be sure to visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com premium to learn this week how to lose 75 pounds by eating plants. Check out BenGreenfieldFitness.com 271 for all all of the helpful links from today's Show Notes. And Brock, for all you people who.

Keep writing in where the show notes are, that's the Show Notes. Every time we say BenGreenfieldFitness.com what a number. That's the Show Notes.

Brock.

Where the. Where the show notes?

I. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think they exist. Actually. We just. That's just something we make up.

Sweet. Oh, this.

Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.

It.