BenGreenfieldFitness205.m4a

In today's podcast, what kind of sports drink or gel is best for endurance exercise? Also, upper body strength for swimming is honey a good energy source? Is hair analysis worthwhile? Should you run through menopause, chlorine sensitivities, dealing with a labrum tear, xenoestrogens and weight changes, cycling and sciatica pain, and ways to deal with metatarsal pain?

Welcome to the Ben Green 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.

Hey.

Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. I'm sitting here getting ready to have an awesome chat with Ben who's I believe there. Are you there?

I. I am here. I'm actually feeling a little bit lonely, though. I. I don't have the usual amount of electromagnetic radiation bombarding me because I went fishing over the weekend and took a pretty nice deep dip in the lake with my cell phone in my back pocket. Oh, no. The iPhone 4S is not a fan of deep lake diving for trout, apparently.

No, no, I don't suppose it is. I've seen them go in toilets before and they also don't like that.

Ironically, the only reason I had the phone in my back pocket was to take photos of fish because there was no cell phone reception where I was at. And I'm reading the book Zapped right Now by Ann Louise Gittleman. Gonna get on the show to talk about electromagnetic radiation and all of the different sources of it that we're constantly bombarded by. But it turned out to actually be kind of nice to not even have a phone at all or a computer or really anything electrical while I was just sitting out there in the woods reading a book about why electricity is bad for you.

That's. That's awesome. I'm actually doing exactly the same thing tomorrow afternoon heading up to a cottage that we rented up in in the Muskokas. And apparently there's no Internet and very sketchy cell reception and I'm really looking forward to that.

Mm. Yeah. Yeah, it's an interesting concept, the whole electromagnetic radiation, slash dirty electricity, electric pollution type of deal. I actually did just write a. Write kind of an article with my thoughts so far. Have being almost done with this book and I published it over@superhumancoach.com which is a site where I've got some articles up and where. Where I work with a lot of trainers and fitness and nutrition coaches to mentor them. But we also have a lot of articles over on that site.

Are the articles free to anybody?

Yeah, they're free for anybody. So it's over@superhumancoach.com if you scroll into the bottom, as soon as you get there, you can see that latest article that I did. And that way you can get inspired to also go swimming with your phone.

News flashes.

All right, this is the part of the show where Ben highlights the coolest things that he came across over the last week or so. And you can always find the latest and greatest stuff fresh off the presses if you go to twitter.com BenGreenfield and also to Google, which you can find if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and just click on the links along the side. So what have you got for us this week?

Yeah, you know, we just got done talking about swimming, and there was a study in the Environmental Journal of Health Perspectives that looked at indoor swimming in chlorinated pools and whether or not there was an issue with that and specifically hormonal alteration in adolescent boys. I know that there's a lot of folks out there that swim that maybe are concerned about chlorine, and we've talked about that before on this show. I think there's even a question in this podcast about chlorine. And what they studied was chlorinated indoor pools and chlorinated outdoor pools. And they really, really didn't see a hormonal effect in the kids who swam in the chlorinated outdoor pools, probably because they were better aired. But for the indoor pools, the boys who swam the most in indoor chlorinated pools had about 20% lower testosterone levels. That's pretty significant. That's very significant in terms of the chemical punch that chlorine can deliver to hormone levels. And I don't think this is necessarily a reason to completely pull your kids out of their swim team if the swim team happens to swim in a chlorinated indoor pool. But it certainly returns to that discussion that we had with Dr. David Gittoff, and we'll link to this episode in the show notes. But it was about how to reduce the risk from swimming in chlorinated pools or drinking chlorinated water. And one of the big, big things that Dr. Gedoff hit on was the use of, like, full spectrum antioxidants and vitamins. I mean, the specific nutrients that he harped on were vitamin D Vitamin E, something called alpha lipoic acid, which is an antioxidant. And then also he mentioned high, high dose vitamin C. And all of these are antioxidants that may be able to mitigate some of the effects of chlorine exposure when you're swimming. I'll put a link in the show notes because he actually mentions two really good articles on vitamin C that I ended up listening to. And there's certainly some really good evidence to suggest that if you're getting frequent exposure to chlorine, especially if you've got kids that are swimming indoors, a lot of high dose antioxidants may be a good idea either before or after that swim session. And you could do that. You know, for example, we've talked about products on this show before. You know, you could give your kids like post workout, use something like the Living Fuel superberry pre workout or during the workout you could have them do something like the Solar Synergy. Those are two examples of antioxidants that we use around here that my kids are able to eat. And you know, they're four years old, they don't mind the taste of that stuff. It just tastes like berry. But pretty interesting study and that one certainly caught my eye just because my kids, you know, they take indoor swim lessons and they swim indoors in chlorinated.

Pools quite a bit that's especially scary for adolescent boys when the hormones are not that they become less important as you age, but it's like seems like they're really important when you're going through all those, all those crazy teenage changes.

In the body to get Michael Phelps's girlfriend on the podcast and find out, you know, whether or not all his machinery is working. Okay, So there was also something about there's a study on self luminous tablets, aka iPads. That's the geeky scientist.

I like it.

Luminous tablets. You can add that to your vernacular next time pulling out your self luminous tablet on the airplane. But this study was looking at light level and duration of exposure on melatonin suppression. And they were specifically investigating whether or not looking at an iPad or a tablet during the evening affected melatonin. And there was actually a 20 to 30% decrease in melatonin after about one to two hours of viewing the tablet or reading the tablet. And that's pretty dang significant in terms of its effect on your sleep. And of course we've talked a lot about how in previous podcasts about the growth hormone and the cellular repair and recovery and everything else that takes place when you sleep with adequate Melatonin levels in your bloodstream, in your brain, and these tablets really do shut it down quite a bit.

That's a long time to be looking at your tablet. Do people actually lay in bed or sit on the couch for an hour or two and stare at a iPad pad or anything like that?

Same type of blue light wave spectrum that you get on TVs and computers, the combined effect of all three. Absolutely. I mean, I personally do, but I wear the blue light blocking glasses because the blue light wave spectrum is the spectrum that's the most damaging when it comes to melatonin levels. So I wear the Gunnar glasses just because they're one of the few brands that doesn't make you look like a complete geek, is don't require a propeller hat to be worn with the glasses. But yeah, blue light wave spectrums are pretty significant when it comes to melatonin suppression. I mean, I'm in the process of replacing all the, or most of the lighting in the main rooms of my house with lights that are lower on the blue light wave spectrum for that reason, just because of its effect on your melatonin levels and the incredible importance of melatonin when it comes to the quality of your sleep.

So I guess I'm just too much of a hippie. I don't spend that much time in front of, especially in the evenings in front of a TV or computer or anything. But if you do look out.

Yeah. And if you, I mean, if you ever go camping, you know this, you know, you sit around as soon as it starts to get dark, you start to get tired at a much, much earlier time than you do at home. And it's because at home you've got all these different forms of blue light hitting your eyes throughout the evening. Artificial light, pretty, pretty big deal. And something to be concerned about if you're concerned about recovery and sleep and all the other things that sleep can do for you. So as far as another study, there was one other thing that I wanted to mention and it was kind of related to this and it's this whole idea of basically like avoiding blue light in the evenings. But then there's also some evidence that if you get seasonal affective disorder, depression, if you have difficulty waking yourself up in the mornings, that using these high blue lights, basically they're like light boxes that you look at in the morning to help you wake up, that those can actually have a pretty significant effect in terms of your awareness and alertness and wakefulness during the day. Now what I will link to in the show notes. And what I found was interesting was there is one company that produces these light boxes that also has what's called a morning evening questionnaire. And it's this questionnaire that you go through. It'll take you about 10 minutes to do, but it determines whether you're a morning type or an evening type and whether or not you're using one of these light boxes. I personally don't use one because I go outside for about 10 to 15 minutes every morning and do a little bit of yoga, which is why I was late for this morning's podcast, Brock but you can figure out whether you're a morning person or an evening person. And I thought this was interesting just because it can help to dictate when you're going to prioritize mental tasks for which you want to be the most productive or even physical tasks. When are you going to be able to maybe feel most motivated to work out? And the results of the study also do tell you the best time of morning. If you are going to be getting a bunch of blue light exposure or you're going to be doing something like a light box on your kitchen table while you're eating breakfast, it tells you the best time of day. Like for me, if I was going to use one of these light boxes to improve my alertness during the day, based off of my morning evening score, I'd use light therapy at about 6:15am to 6:30am that's like the 15 minute period of time for which I'd want to be staring at artificial light blue light wave spectrums if I did actually want to maximize my wakefulness in the morning. So it's a totally free questionnaire, but I'll link to it. I thought it was kind of interesting.

Yeah, that is really interesting, especially if it can give you an indication of when you should be working out. And like you said, doing mental tasks. I think a lot of us, myself included, we just sort of slot everything in where it seems to fit as per the social norm kind of thing, rather than trying to maximize when we're doing things.

Exactly. It seems like this would be something pretty handy for employers to have for employees too as well.

Yeah, totally.

It might affect if you find that your entire workforce does better working from whatever 6am to 11am Maybe you kind of retool your workday for an earlier lunch and let people off earlier, but get them in there earlier. You know, that type of thing. So just some thoughts. Anyways, I'll link to that in the show notes and that's about it for the news flashes.

Special announcements.

Okay, so@BenGreenfieldFitness.com there's always interesting stuff that you're posting, but I have to ask you about the bracelets. The power bracelet post. Yeah, I kind of left that post a little more confused than I thought I was going to. Are you on board with the bracelets?

I am on board with the bracelet that I've been testing. It was interesting because I was playing tennis a couple of days ago and I was playing doubles and all four of us were wearing one form or another of one of these power bracelets. Like one guy was wearing like a Phi 10 band and one guy was wearing an ion bracelet. And I think one guy had the power balance one and he had that combined with one of the necklaces that it came with because he said it got rid of his joint pain. And you know, these things, especially in recreational athletes, and I especially see it more in older individuals who want to kind of get rid of pain. They're getting more and more popular. My problem is I've just never really noticed when I wear one, when you do the muscle testing and all the different types of things that are supposed to indicate that the bracelet is working. I haven't noticed much until I started wearing the one that I'm wearing right now. So I wrote an article about it. And, you know, this one is what's called a piezoelectric disc. So it vibrates, incidentally, you know, we were talking about this earlier in the podcast. It's also supposed to have a little bit of an electromagnetic field blocking effect as well. And I know that there, you know, we got a few replies from like quantum physicists and people who really were kind of laughing at my article in terms of some of the science presented. But my ultimate takeaway on that article, and of course that's available over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com for folks to read, was that there are so many things I know in science that are very, very tough to grasp and that maybe we don't know about. And if something makes me feel better or perform better or sleep better or feel less stressed, then I don't care if I can't understand the science or prove the science, I'll wear it. So that was really the ultimate takeaway article. And I do have a follow up article on that coming out this Friday as well.

I've actually tried. I had a negative ion bracelet that my dad bought for himself because he's got a lot of joint pain and he decided to get Me one too. I'm left handed and I wear a watch on my right hand. So the only place I could put it was my left wrist. And I've actually had reconstructive surgery on the cartilage in my left wrist. So that bracelet really hurt. I wore it for about three days and it caused so much pain that I actually like just, just threw it out because it was causing me more pain than not wearing anything.

Yeah, so, yeah, that's, that's, that's one of the cases where you definitely would probably be held back by the, by the bracelet.

Yeah, that's no fair on. That's not the bracelet's fault.

Yeah, that's not fair for the poor little bracelet. Article that I published on Monday too, that I think that anybody who's following a low carbohydrate diet or is trying to be in a state of what's called ketosis would be very interested in is that I wrote a fairly comprehensive article about which supplements help you out best when you're on a low carbohydrate diet. Just some basic stuff like, for example, when you switch to a low carbohydrate diet, your blood pressure pretty quickly drops due to loss of sodium. And so I talked about what kind of sodium dosages would be adequate once you switch to a low carbohydrate diet. Talked a little bit about amino acids, glutamine, magnesium and some other things. I actually ended that article mentioning a discussion that I had with Mark Sisson from Mark's Daily Apple when I was at the Ancestral Health Symposium a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about how a lot of this low carbohydrate stuff looks really, really nice on, on paper. And there are certainly some, you know, some ultra runners and some purely aerobic athletes doing pretty well with low carb. But it has yet to be really, truly tested in an event where you've got that unique combination of being totally carbohydrate depleted, you know, really like, like an ironman. But you're also doing efforts, especially if you're competing at a high level that are taking you way, way up into like your maximum heart rate zone. So you're looking at like, let's say really good Ironman triathlete who is maybe getting up to maximum heart rate 10, 15 times during the bike ride as they're making quick passes and churning out maximum wattage. And then maybe they're surging along real, real close to lactate threshold for the better part of a marathon. And granted that's maybe 10% of the folks who are competing in something like an Ironman triathlon. But we were discussing whether or not it's actually possible for someone competing at that level to really truly not be using lots of gels, lots of sports drinks, lots of sugar. And it's something that really is total blue sky because we don't know. So I am in the process of possibly putting together a team of almost like low carb ketogenic athletes to really test this stuff out full on. So I gave more information about that in the show notes and if any of the listeners read that or hears this and you email me about getting onto that team, don't worry if you don't hear back from me because I've got lots and lots of emails pouring in and I got to go through everybody's email and it's something where I'll probably be discussing this. I'm going to reach out to Mark Sisson again this, this weekend probably and I'll have more news about that next week. So there we go. Check out that article.

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 cotton 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 tririppd.com to start today. That's tririppd.com.

Listener Q&A. All right everybody, awesome questions yet again. And we actually have a brand new way on the website to leave voice questions. So now you don't just you still have the opportunity. You can do the the Skype to Pacific Fit or you can call the the 1-877-number-1 or if you go to the website on the right hand side of every page or at least the podcast pages, you can click on a little tab and it opens up a little window and you can record your audio right there. You can use the built in mic on your laptop or on your computer or if you have an external mic you can use that as well. It's very, very slick.

You don't even have to like BE in the U.S. i know that a lot of our calls in the past have come from the US because it's a toll free number that's free in the US but not free anywhere else. Now you can be anywhere in the world. You don't even need to have a telephone. You just push that little button and you record your message for the podcast and it comes to me. And please do not record other messages. You know about things like technical support and stuff like that. That's just for podcast questions. But yeah, it's pretty cool. It's called. I forget what it's called, but it's cool technology because we're all geeked out. The latest greatest here on the show.

Yeah, I did notice it uses Flash, so you won't be able to actually record directly from your Apple devices, but if you have an Android, you should be able to use it from there too.

Yeah, and I mean, if you wanted to ask a question from your Apple device, that's simple. You just go to the little voice memo part on your phone, you record a voice message and you send it to me, Ben, at benfieldfitness.com simple, old school email. Easy. All right.

Okay, so let's, let's take the first question that came through the new system and it comes from Keith, Ben and Brock. This is Keith from Austin, Texas, and I recently listened to a podcast about.

A product called Tailwind Endurance Fuel, and.

The conversation was quite compelling.

And I'm just wondering what your thoughts are about this product for ultra distance marathons.

Thank you. Tailwind Endurance Fuel. Tailwind.

Sometimes I get tailwind when I'm running.

I do right after the swim quite often.

Yeah, lots of tailwind, depending on what I had for breakfast that morning. Tailwind is an endurance fuel. It's a mix basically like glucose and sucrose sugars, and then they put like a bunch of electrolytes and stuff in there. It, of course, is based on the idea that you need electrolytes during endurance exercise. It is basically like a powder that you would mix with water. And it's got sodium, potassium, carbohydrates. Pretty standard really. They say it's really easy on the gut. That's probably because they use really simple sugars instead of complex sugars. And this is certainly one of those things that you could test. I find that it appears to be fairly similar to this new supplement put out by Stacy Sims, who we've had on the show. And that's the OSMO nutrition product. And if you listened into the interview with Stacy Sims, one of her main beefs with using, say, gels is that Gels tend to draw a lot of fluid out of the plasma in order to allow you to digest them properly. And they may possibly also have a greater heat of oxidation in the gastrointestinal tract. And so her solution to that is to use a simpler sugar combined with a high, high amount of electrolytes to keep fluid in the plasma and to basically do what's called increasing plasma volume. And this tailwind seems to be based on a fairly similar concept. Actually, the nutrition used in both of these products is somewhat similar. So the basic science behind this is that in terms of fluid absorption into your bloodstream, it's based on two things. How fast stuff is emptying from your gastrointestinal tract, and how fast it's getting absorbed on the intestinal level. And whatever it is that you're drinking is going to affect both of those variables. So, for example, glucose and sucrose are the two sugars that are used in both this tailwind product as well as this newer OSMO formulation from Stacy Sims. And the combination of glucose and sucrose is something that can stimulate sodium absorption and fluid absorption in the intestinal cells. So the goal is basically to cause rapid gastric emptying and rapid intestinal fluid absorption by using something like a couple of sugars like that. The whole idea behind something like the osmoactive hydration is they say, keep your food in the pocket and keep the hydration in the bottle. So the idea is that you take in this, this mix of sugars with a high amount of electrolytes to maintain your plasma fluid volume, and then you supplement that with real food. Like Stacy Sims recommends, things like salted potato cubes and little sandwich bites and mini cookie bites and maybe some chopped up bonk breaker bars or Clif bars or Luna bars or something like that. It's a combination of drinking a mix of simple sugars, a high amount of electrolytes, and then supplementing that with real food. The issue with this is that it's all based on the idea that you're trying to counter electrolyte losses, or the idea that we always hear about in sports science, that when you start to feel thirsty, you're probably already 2% dehydrated. And that can translate to a loss in power or a loss in speed. And that's where the real disconnect occurs. If you've ever looked at any of the research by, for example, Dr. Timothy Noakes, that there really isn't a correlation between that drop in body weight based off of dehydration or that loss of electrolytes and an actual performance decrement. So that's why I still have one eyebrow raise of this stuff. It's not going to hurt you. You may find that compared to a gel, you actually do much, much better in terms of your gastrointestinal tolerance. I'm just not convinced that the sodium levels are anything that you actually need because there's a lot of sodium in both of these compounds. So it's one of those things where you got to test it out, you got to try it. I know that, for example, the OSMO Nutrition, it's a fairly expensive nutrition source and it's one of those deals where you do get what you pay for. For example, I know that they filter their sugar differently. It's filtered through charcoal, basically through wood, rather than being filtered through a bone, char or charred cowbones, which is what most refined sugar that's used in sports products is filtered through. They use like a hormone free, GMO free protein source as the whey protein source in their supplements. They definitely go out of their way to ensure that everything is produced in a very, very clean, certified, good manufacturing processes facility. So you're going to pay more whenever you're getting a supplement like that. Now, I have absolutely no financial affiliation or sponsorship affiliation with either of these companies. But what it comes down to is that if you don't tolerate gels well at all, even if you do the recommended practice of drinking anywhere from 4 to 8 ounces of water with each gel that you consume, you, you may want to try out one of these products. I can't speak for the quality of Tailwind's ingredients. I don't know what they use. I do know that OSMO uses really high quality ingredients, but yeah, both of them would fall into the same category. And they're just powders that you mix with water that are based off of simple sugars and based off of maintaining plasma volume with a high amount of electrolytes.

Makes sense. There you go, Keith. All right, let's move on to our next question from Eve. Eve says I'm a typically pear shaped female. I've done strength training diligently for several years and I've trained for triathlon for almost a year. My upper body strength is really holding me back on the swim. I train swimming three times a week. I've worked with swim coaches and I've followed numerous strength training protocols with several personal trainers. I bought your book Strength training for Triathletes and followed some of the exercises and I've had improvements in my leg strength, but not in my lats and arms. I eat Paleo with loads of fruit, plenty of protein, liter of milk per day and zero junk and zero gluten. Is there no hope for me? Even my mother can bench more than me.

Sad face. I just, I was laughing a little bit because Paleo doesn't include dairy that she drinks a liter of milk per day. Anyways though, that's an aside. You know, you don't have to be that strong to swim. Well, I get my butt kicked by little 12 year old girls when I'm pulling laps in the pool. And I'm sure many of you jacked guys out there have experienced the somewhat humbling feeling of being destroyed by someone who appears to have no body mass whatsoever when it comes to muscle. So remember that swimming, because you're moving through this liquid medium is more about the way in which you move through that medium and your efficiency and economy. And that's why little kids can be so fast in the water, is because they've learned how to move properly through the water. You look at someone like the person who just won the Olympics, the Olympic gold medal in swimming. Oh, I'm sorry, not in swimming. In triathlon. Alistair Brownlee. Look at the guys who came in second and third behind him, Javier Gomez and Alistair's brother, Jonathan Brownlee. All very slight guys, tiny shoulders, tiny arms. You know, these guys basically have like pipe cleaners for arms, but they somehow swim extremely fast. And that's because of their form. And even if your mother can bench press more than you, you should still be able to swim fairly fast. And the best resource that I can recommend to you would be the book by the guys that I really follow when it comes to swimming advice. And that's the folks over at Swim Smooth, Paul and Adam over at Swim Smooth. They've got a book link to that book in the show notes for you. But in the book they discuss swim types and one of the swim types they discuss, they split swimmers into six different body types is the bambino type. And the bambino is described typically as a female with a really small to light build, a lot of times with limited swimming experience. But the way that the bambino is described is that they tend to have a really, really, really inadequate catch at the front of the swim stroke, a very gentle swim stroke that doesn't have a lot of oomph, typically kind of a wide and deep arm pull through, trying to use the shoulder to muscle through the water but being unable to do so because of that slightness. And small muscle mass and then really a struggle in the water due to limited confidence and specifically a lack of rhythm in the stroke. And this, in my opinion is really the key. No matter how much or how little muscle mass that you have, if you can increase your feel right at the front of that stroke, what's called the catch, and then you can get a high turnover, meaning that you get a very rhythmic turnover. You're not spending a lot of time gliding in the water, but literally your arms are turning over at a fairly rapid rate. Then you can actually swim really fast without a lot of muscle. But those are the two keys is a good catch at the front and a high rhythm. So for example, you can use something like a wetronome. It's a little metronome that you put in your swim cap that keeps you on pace and keeps your rhythm up stroke to stroke to stroke. The other thing that you can do is a lot of what are called sculling drills as well as single arm swimming drills to work on that getting that catch in the water. I mean, it'd take you about a half hour to work through the chapter for bambinos in the Swim Smooth Book. But you know, I own that book. You know, I've used it for myself, I've used it on some athletes that I've worked with. And that's what I would recommend is go, go read the bambino section of the Swim Smooth Book and start to use a lot of the drills that they give you especially for rhythm and for catch. And don't worry too much about spending a lot of time bench pressing and eating protein. Working on your economy and efficiency is going to, going to pay a lot better dividends when it comes to improving your swim speed.

I went to the Swim Smooth website, it's probably back in January, and did the typing questionnaire and I came up as a bambino, embarrassingly enough. But in the six months since then I've completely turned myself around and I haven't done the test again. But I should go back and see. But I'm quite certain I'm not a bambino anymore. And that only took me, I don't know, about four months probably to work on. So. So get to it, Eve.

A little bit of an insult for a big strapping guy like you to get classified as a bambino.

Brock, I tried to say it really manly when I was telling people, yeah, I'm a bambino.

Bambino. Shake your ponytail, your pigtails. Just kidding.

Okay, so next question comes from Rob and Rob says, I Was listening to you and Brock talk about gels and goos today. Recommendations for half marathoning I started running hardcore last year and I found the half marathon distance really tough until I started wearing a camelback. And I was thinking about carrying honey packets with me as a natural source of energy as opposed to gels and goo's. I'm a budget runner as much as possible because I'm on a budget sort of wage earner and I can just grab those honey packets in the local coffee house. What do you think about using honey as an energy source during a long distance run?

You know, it is certainly very available in terms of being able to run into any random Starbucks and grab some. Right. But one of the things that I know some people may think about when they're eating honey is that we often tend to think of honey as being mostly fructose. And fructose uses one kind of sugar transporter in the gut called the GLUT5 transporter. And that's a different type of transporter than is used for something like glucose, which uses a different type of what is called sodium dependent transporter. And it's one of the reasons, and we've mentioned this a couple times on the show before, that you can get a maximum sugar absorption rate by using two different types of sugar in a sports drink or a gel or something like that. And so you turn over and you look at the back of a lot of these gels and they're a mix of maltodextrin, which is a glucose polymer or a bunch of glucose molecules linked together combined with fructose. So maltodextrinfructose blend. And I know that I've been guilty of thinking of honey this way in the past before as being just, you know, primarily fructose. And so because it's only using that fructose transporter, you're getting less absorption than if you use like a, like a regular gel. However, if you look at honey, it's actually about, you know, most, most of these commercial honeys on the market. You know, if you, if you check out the jar or you look at the label or you go and dig a little bit deeper into what they're comprised of, they're actually right in the range of things 30 to 40% fructose and 30 to 40% glucose. And then there's a little bit of sucrose, a little bit of maltose, and there's a little bit of water in there. But that type of sugar blend is actually not too bad. And it's certainly not going to be an issue in terms of absorption and taking advantage of the multiple sugar transporters in your gut. So as long as you can tolerate honey, as long as you don't have some type of a fructose intolerance, as long as you don't have any type of histamine reaction due to pollinated compounds in there, if it's some sort of a raw honey, then there's really not much of an issue with using that as a natural. And if you're ducking into Starbucks and grabbing a handful of honey and then running out before they can snag you and make you buy a latte, sure, I mean, it could work. Of course, all of this is with the caveat that I'm more and more turning into the type of guy who does not really recommend using carbohydrates much at all during training, unless it's a very long session or a race. And based off what I was talking about earlier and the experimentation I'm going to be doing over the fall and the winter, we may get to the point where you're really using very, very minimal sugar during any event. And when you do your sugar only from a really, really slow absorbing, super long chain source, you know, like the, like the, you can superstarch, for example. However, if you're, if you're on a budget and you want to run into a coffee shop and grab some honey packets, yeah, go for it. These are, you know, the actual chemical composition is pretty favorable, you know, mix of glucose and fructose.

So I know Rob's question was primarily about the honey, but I just want to go back to his like second sentence where he said he was having. I said I found the half marathon distance really tough until I started wearing a camelback. Now that, that concerns me. Like a camelback generally holds like over a liter's worth of water. And during a half marathon that's a lot of water.

Unless you're taking more than two hours to run a half marathon. And I know there's a, there's a really good handful of people who take more than two hours to run a marathon. But unless you're, you're taking more than two hours to run a half marathon, you don't need any fuel. And I go out quite often for 90 minute to two hour, well, not quite often, but when I go out on 90 minutes, two hour jaunts, a lot of times I don't have anything with me. No water, no gels or anything like that. So you may want to cut Yourself loose a little bit, too, and just go out and run. And it's, you know, it's one of those things where just because all these fancy apparatuses exist for carrying all these extra gels and flasks and water bottles doesn't mean you have to use them for a half marathon training run. I mean, a lot of that stuff is. Is designed for, like, ultra runners who are out there all freaking day long, so. Yeah, that's a good point, Brock.

Yeah, I always get worried when I see people lining up for like a half marathon and even like a 10k and they've got one of those belts on that has four little bottles of liquid and a bunch of gels. It's not only unnecessary, but it can be a recipe for disaster. I mean, Tim Noakes talked a lot about hyponatremia a few weeks ago on the podcast, and it's scary.

Usually when I'm lining up for a half marathon, I've got my camelback. I've got a headlamp. I've got a tent, just in case.

Bow and arrow, of course. Just in case.

My bow and arrow.

Oh, that's right. No, you've got a handgun because you're in the States.

Well, I do have a concealed weapon as well. I pack my Glock during my half marathon just in case I need extra fuel.

All right, let's move on to the next question from Kalani. Kalani says, is there any validity to hair analysis? A local chiropractor offers this test to measure mineral content of your hair. And according to this particular website, and this is all from the website, if a particular mineral. Particumineral. Particumin. Yeah, particular. Not gonna say that anymore. Deficiency or toxicity exists in the hair, it usually indicates a mineral deficiency or toxicity within the body. This in turn, provides a great window into the metabolic activity within the body, which allows us to prescribe a unique treatment protocol in order to properly treat your condition. I'm interested for myself, but also for my daughter who shows characteristics of autism and other behavioral issues. Is it legit or a waste of money?

Well, if hair analysis were completely illegitimate, they wouldn't use it for drug testing. And it actually does provide pretty good forensic evidence for drug use. So what happens is you get trace amounts of this drug or the metabolite of the drug being broken down, and it can get deposited in the hair follicle. And what gets deposited in the hair follicle can get entrapped kind of in the core of the hair shaft. As the hair grows out from that hair follicle. So if your hair grows at the average rate of, like, you know, say, like a half inch in any given month, it will get to the point where it can provide a pretty decent historical record of when certain drug use took place or how often you took a drug. You know, like once or twice a week or daily or whatever. And, you know, a lot of drug metabolites are pretty chemically stable for a certain period of time. You can't wash them out of your hair or bleach them out of your hair. And so for hair analysis, drug testing for, like, job reviews, you know, job applicants, stuff like that, it works pretty well. They do what's called a gas chromatography lab analysis of the hair shaft, and you can get a pretty decent idea of whether or not there are trace amounts of a drug metabolite in the hair. Same thing for the fingernails, incidentally. You can do that. However, when it comes down to alternative medicine and making nutrients or mineral or vitamin recommendations based off of the level of something like a mineral in the hair, this is where you get into a lot more soft science. And no really good studies showing that this stuff actually works. So not only do the level of minerals that are in your hair not even correlate with the level of minerals that are in your body, but there's no known, like, normal ranges for minerals in the hair. So when you get these numbers back from the lab, who's to say what's normal, what's abnormal, and who's to say how the minerals in the hair actually reflect what's in your body? The other issue with hair analysis is they've done studies on these labs that do the hair mineral analysis and the type of chromatography, and what's called spectrometry that's used in each lab tends to vary. It tends to be unreliable. You'll tend to get different results from lab to lab. And they have done studies where they've sent in hair samples to over a dozen different labs around the country and gotten different results back from each one. The American Medical association has a pretty firm stance that they oppose chemical analysis of the hair to determine needs for medical therapy. And while you can't put a ton of credence into everything that the AMA says, this is certainly one of those deals where I would tend to align with them when it comes to hair mineral analysis. It's like, it's good to see if there's a certain trace element in your body like a drug. But when it comes to you choosing which supplements you're gonna take based off of the minerals or the nutrients or the vitamins in your hair. There's just better way to do things or better ways to do things. Say for example, like red blood cell analysis. There's a test put out by a company called Doctor's Data, and that's something that your physician can order for you. And what it is is it's a red blood cell analysis. So what that's going to allow you to look for are a lot of the similar things that you're going to find in hair, like magnesium, potassium, selenium, copper, zinc. It'll look at your glucose tolerance levels of chromium, levels of vanadium. It's called an RBC Elements Analysis. That test will cost you anywhere from $200 to $300 to have your physician order something like that. That's a good one. Another that would be good, that's actually going to tell you a few things that a red blood cell analysis won't tell you. Particularly your levels of antioxidants and also some amino acids and vitamins is what's called a Spectracel analysis. And Spectracel is another analysis that's going to cost anywhere between like 150 and $250 to have your physician write a requisition form for you to go to a lab and do that test. But similar deal, you'll be able to look at a lot of metabolites, but you'll be looking at them on a blood level, which more truly reflects what's actually going on inside your body. So I'll put a link to both of those tests in the show notes. One's called a specker cell analysis, one's called a RBC elements test. But those would be the two that I would do if you're really trying to get a glance at true mineral deficiencies or micronutrient deficiencies. And then finally, Brock, she said something about autism.

Yeah, yeah. Her daughter is showing characteristics of autism and some other behavioral issues.

Yeah. For that, go over to gapsdiet.com and check out some of the evidence when it comes to gluten and gut health. And it's linked to autism and behavioral issues. That's really the best resource I can point you out to and probably is going to give you more bang for your buck. Starting off with like a $20 book or even just exploring the Gapsdiet.com website for free before you go into some of these more advanced lab tests. Even though the lab tests are good and they're gonna tell you a lot. I'd start even more basic just on the whole Mac TR level of how much gluten is in the diet and, you know, how your daughter's gut health actually is great.

Okay, let's move on to Hope's question. Hope says I'm 53 years old and have been going through the side effects of perimenop and menopause for many years now. I decided when I was in my later 40s that I would try to run through menopause. I'm now running three to four miles a few times a week and also do different types of cross training. I've completed a 5k and a 10k, but I find that I get too exhausted to put in any real extended mileage. I wanted your input regarding how to deal with the exhaustion, hot flashes and creeping weight gain which has been occurring. I've tried black cohosh and other remedies, but to no avail. My diet is very good. Lots of veggies, clean foods, proteins, and not huge amounts of carbs, except for a treat. My mother had breast cancer twice, so there's no way I'll be touching any hormones. I'm trying my best to keep fit and young, but I gotta tell ya, it's been tough.

Yeah, running through menopause is probably not a good idea. And the reason that I say that running through menopause or trying to exercise your way out of menopause is not a good idea is because, as we talked about in the episode, why women gain weight as they get older and what you can do about it, which I'll link to in the show, notes, progesterone is something that declines very, very quickly through perimenopause and menopause, and it declines at a more rapid rate than estrogen. And when you combine that with lots of exposure of estrogen from the environment, primarily in the form of like xenoestrogens from chemicals and pollutants and toxins, you get a real high level of estrogen compared to the levels of progesterone. Now, the issue here, when I say that it's not smart to try and run through perimenopause or menopause, is that exercise, and especially chronic endurance exercise, spinning, cycling, running, 5k training, 10k training, etc. That tends to produce a lot of cortisol. And cortisol and progesterone actually compete for similar receptors in your cells. So when you've got high levels of circulating cortisol that can impair progesterone activity and it can reduce the effect of progesterone therapy. If you were taking something like a bioidentical hormone replacement, and even if you aren't taking a bioidentical hormone replacements, and it doesn't sound like Hope is or wants to, it can really limit the effectiveness of your body's natural levels of progesterone, especially considering that those are getting tinier and tinier. The older you get, the farther you get into something like menopause. So you've got cortisol competing with these progesterone receptors, and you're amplifying that through any type of training that's causing a real, real big cortisol response. Now, the other thing that happens is what's called the pregnenolone steal, which we've talked about before in this podcast. But what happens is cholesterol is basically it provides all the cofactors that you need to produce hormones. But the very, very first hormone that's produced is called pregnenolone. And pregnenolone is going to basically flow into production of some of your other vital hormones like dhea, testosterone, and even progesterone. However, prior to being used to produce any of those hormones that I just mentioned, pregnenolone can be shunted into, being converted into cortisol. And so if you are causing the adrenal glands in your kidneys to churn out a bunch of corticosteroids and cortisol, because of the amount of endurance training that you're doing, then you're going to get this pregnenolone steal. Or rather than being used to create something like the progesterone that you need to combat the effects of menopause, you're instead basically creating cortisol with that pregnenolone. So the final issue is that some of the natural progesterone that you have circulating around in your body, that can also act as a precursor to some of the things that you're going to be basically depleting more quickly when you're doing lots of exercise, like aldosterone, which is a cortico hormone that regulates fluids in your cells as well as cortisol. Progesterone can also be used and shuttled in the same way that pregnenolone can to produce cortisol. And so with excessive exercise, you're prematurely depleting progesterone because you're using it to create other steroids. And you're essentially aggravating this estrogen dominance that I talked about in that episode, episode number 193, which I'll link to in the show notes. And so one of the best things that you could do is to focus more on some of the more cortisol stabilizing things that you're doing. I would specifically say stick with the yoga, stick with the strength training and really back off your running, really back off your spinning and your cycling. If you want to combat a lot of these effects of perimenopause and menopause. It's one of the reasons that you tend to get a lot of like Ironman triathlete type of women having a real, real hard time losing weight as they, as they go through that type of training. Just because there's so much progesterone getting stolen away or not produced. Now, of course you're definitely going to want to limit your exposure to xenoestrogens and a lot of these environmental pollutants to make sure that you're limiting the amount of estrogen that comes in and that the estrogen to progesterone ratios aren't getting further thrown off. But I definitely listened to episode number 193 to geek out a little bit more on that. Now, as far as supplements are concerned, one of the main areas where estrogen turnover takes place and one of the main issues when it comes to estrogen dominance in terms of your physiological ability to process estrogen properly is your liver. And if you didn't want to take a bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, then you do want to make sure that you're at least taking really good care of your liver through some natural supplements. For example, magnesium is a really, really good one to take somewhere in the range of like 400 to 600 milligrams of magnesium on a daily basis. That can really help with your liver and your ability to clear estrogen. Vitamin B complex, similarly, like a really good full spectrum vitamin B complex, even like a liquid multivitamin, like a Peter Gillum's liquid multi, that's a good brand. You could get on something like that. And then also calcium D glucarate is really good, as is a milk thistle extract in terms of liver cleansing and kind of liver tonic type of effect. Capricleanse. I've talked about that on the show before. That's a good liver detox. If you get stomach upset with it, it's because it has a little bit of fiber in it. And so you definitely want to ease yourself into that one if you're using it. But go to the Ben Greenfield recommends page over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com and I'll link to that in the show notes. There's a whole section that I have there on estrogen dominance and some of the supplements that you can take to combat some of those effects of estrogen dominance supplements. I'm in the process of bringing a supplement to market that will just be something that will kind of give you the shotgun effect when it comes to this stuff. But in the meantime, go check out that page for some of my links to primarily like calcium, D glucarate, milk thistle extract that capricleans, the magnesium and the vitamin B complex. Those are some of the things that you'd want to combine with a decrease in the amount of this chronic endurance exercise that you do. So that's where I would start.

You just love the hormone questions, don't you?

I do, I do. I'm a hormone addict. You are.

Okay, let's move on to Nadine's question. She says, I'm an ex triathlete who stopped swimming because of a problem with chlorine. Here's what the symptoms are like. After two or three swims in a week, I stopped being able to digest fat, get heart palpitations, which I never get otherwise and generally feel terrible. It took me a long time to figure out what the trigger is until my natural path did some reflex testing with pool water and figured out that the chlorine in the water goofs up my liver and gallbladder. I stopped swimming in 2005. I do a lot of endurance training, but really want to get back into triathlon. I'm going to try lower chlorine pool in Vancouver, but wondered if if A you have encountered this sort of reaction before and B if you have any ideas that might help out with the chlorine. And then she adds, I have no respiratory symptoms.

Yeah, this is kind of, kind of related to a couple of answers that I've already given earlier in this podcast. Of course we talked about chlorine and mitigating some of the chemical effects of chlorine with a full spectrum antioxidant blend. But if this neuromuscular type of reflex testing that her practitioner was doing was accurate, then it certainly could be the case that there's liver gallbladder issues going on. Basically because the whole idea behind neurological reflex testing is that all of your different organs, like your liver or your heart or your gallbladder or your pancreas or whatever, they're associated with specific areas located on your skin and those are called dermatomes. And this is really linked to Eastern medicine to a certain extent. But the amount of stress that's experienced by any of those organs can be tested by testing the response of a muscle, the pressure that's exerted against a specific dermatome in the presence of the compound that you're interested in testing. So in this case, like, you know, chlorine. So it would be a muscle test with pressure against the dermatome associated with the liver while exposed to pool water. And you know, some of the muscle testing I think is a little woo woo, like when someone like holds a post it note up in front of you or as you hold a post it note in your hand with the name of a vitamin written on it. And if you muscle test weak, then that means that you're deficient in that vitamin.

What?

I'm not kidding.

That's crazy.

Yeah, I mean, I know we have a lot of alternative medical practitioners that listen to this show and I know that some of them actually practice this. I'm not trying to offend anyone, but I think it's complete bull. I'm just saying. And if you can send me studies that prove otherwise, fine, send them over. Or if you can show me that the stuff actually does work in some way, send it over. But either way, I'm not a big fan of that type of testing. But this neuromuscular reflex testing with the pressure on the dermatomes, there's definitely quite a bit of a foundation in eastern medicine that shows that some of this stuff can certainly indicate some type of organ dysfunction. So in this case, let's say that the liver and the gallbladder is sensitive to chlorine. I wouldn't necessarily say quit swimming in chlorine completely because chlorine shouldn't really like goof up your liver unless your liver is broken, unless your filter is broken. Chlorine is not so powerful of a chemical that you shouldn't be able to swim in a chlorinated pool without being able to handle it to a certain extent. I mean, you shouldn't be able, you shouldn't be getting heart palpitations and stuff like that. So I would make sure that if this is your liver that you do something like a liver cleanse. I just got done talking in my answer about the progesterone issue about some of the things that really help to support the liver, like calcium d glucarate, like milk thistle extract and some of that stuff. Some of the other things that would be really, really good to include in your diet on a regular basis would be a turmeric, ginger and garlic. All of those have a really, really nice supportive effect on the liver. And dandelion root, incidentally, like dandelion root tea. That's a really, really good liver tonic as well. You know, these are the same type of things that you can use to help your body if you're on, like a pharmaceutical drug protocol or anything else where your liver is having to basically filter more out than it would normally. And then, of course, eating lots of vegetables that support the liver, primarily cruciferous vegetables. It's a really good idea. I wouldn't necessarily ignore the fact that there may be other things going on here, though. Like you say you just started swimming, or not just started swimming, but you recently started swimming and after taking some time off, and you said you weren't able to digest fat and you get heart palpitations and generally feel terrible. I would also look at possibly just an issue with your gut in terms of being in that horizontal position for a long period of time, putting some extra esophageal pressure on you, that is giving you some of the symptoms of heartburn. And in many cases, that is an issue with an imbalance in your gut flora. For example, you either having a candida issue or not having enough probiotics in your diet, possibly eating too many fermentable carbohydrates like fructose and fruits and melons and grains and things of that nature. And then also in terms of heartburn, another thing that that can be related to is just a lack of digestive enzymes. You may want to experiment with taking some lipase or a full spectrum digestive enzyme complex just to make sure this isn't more of an issue with just your gut. You know, I do know. I realize that your naturopath did reflex testing and identified this as being kind of an issue with the liver and the gallbladder. But I'd say it'd be worth at least looking into your probiotic intake, your digestive intake, and your overall gut health. So that's another area that I would certainly look at.

When I was getting earlier in the show, we were talking about how I was classified as a bambino as a swimmer in back in January and leading up to that time and for like, probably a month after that, most of the time when I'd leave the pool, especially if I did a longer swim, like over 2km or so, like anything that was getting close to an hour's worth of swimming, my stomach would get really upset for. For quite a while. Like it would last hours afterwards. And I sort of. Eventually, as my breathing got more relaxed with swimming, I stopped getting that. That stomach upset, which also sort of made me feel terrible and was putting some pressure, almost like heartburn sort of feelings as well. So, again, not to go against your naturopath who did the test, but that could be something as well. Just gulping too much air down into your digestive tract can cause some crazy stuff as well.

Yeah, yeah. Quit swallowing the damn water.

Yeah, there's that, too. All right, next question comes from Shannon. And Shannon says, I currently have a small tear in my labrum in my left hip. I have an acetabular impingement. That seems to be why this happened. I was a runner and practiced a lot of yoga. I've been seeing a yoga therapist and doing physical therapy, and my hip has been feeling better. I'm not planning on having surgery because my hip is feeling better. Do you have any suggestions or opinions about workouts? I'd love to get back into running, but high impact activities make me nervous.

Yeah, it kind of depends on the extent of the terror. And, you know, of course, I can't go through a show without mentioning that I'm not a doctor, and nothing that I say during the show should be misconstrued as medical advice. And you should always check with your general care practitioner before you take any of the recommendations that I make on this show. I should make you say that really fast at the beginning of every show, bro.

I'll just record it, and then we can just drop it in anytime we need it.

Boom. I'm not a doctor, and nothing that I say during the show should be misconstrued as medical advice. And you should always check with your general care practitioner before you take any of the recommendations that I make on the show. There you go. So, you know, because the labrum is damaged to the cartilage and the tissue in the hip socket, it really depends on the location and the amount of blood flow that's in the area where the tear occurs. Kind of similar to a meniscal tear. You know, sometimes like a. Like a lateral meniscal tear is something that you can pretty much deal with. Whereas a medial meniscal tear that maybe is larger or has less blood flow can be more of an issue when it comes to knee pain and actually be something that requires surgery. Whereas on the lateral side, it can be managed, you know, with natural methods or just using physical therapy. Labrum tears are. Are kind of similar. You know, in most cases, if we're talking about just like mechanical labral tear that occurred due to an injury that's not from something like osteoarthritis, you're always going to want to try physical therapy and stretching and strengthening prior to doing something like, you know, taking the step into surgery. Physical therapy, for example, can help you learn to avoid putting too much pressure on that hip joint while building muscle strength. So you're strengthening your core and your hips and your glutes and your thighs. It could be that you're able to take enough stress off of that hip and specifically off of that bony attachment to where the labrum doesn't really get as much pressure placed on it. And if physical therapy and some stretching and I'll toss a few exercises and stretches your direction here in just a second. But if those don't work, really, the type of surgery that you can get in most cases for a slight labral tear is just a basic arthroscopic procedure. And that's minimally invasive. It's a little tiny camera that gets guided via some really small incisions and they remove the torn tissues. In some cases, they'll repair the tear. But, I mean, that's something to wear. Anywhere from four to six months later, you can be completely back to activity. If you let a labral tear go for a long period of time with no stretching, no strengthening, no physical therapy, and you're just moving through the pain, that you can get some pretty permanent damage to the hip joint. And the point where a minimally invasive procedure really isn't going to do you a lot of good for that labral tear. So that's where you have to be kind of careful. You know, I've seen many, many surgical, you know, quick in and out type of snip repairs of the labrum, though, you know, I, for two years, you know, I spent the better part of my life just standing in a, in a surgical room watching orthopedic surgeries as part of my internship or else, you know, later on, when I was actually working as a hip and knee in hip and knee surgical sales for Biomet, I was literally just standing there with a laser pointer showing the surgeon which of our tools to use next. And so I've seen a lot of these, and really the surgeries can be super quick and really minimally invasive. And then some of them, like getting your entire hip replaced can be a whole different issue. And you don't want to string something along to that, to that point, even though that's usually related to, like, osteoarthritis causing the labral issues rather than just like a little bit of a torn labrum from activity. But either way, in terms of initial pain management, little frozen bags of ice tend to work really well. Like frozen bags of peas. Yeah, peas, carrots, corn, zip. In Canada, too. Do you freeze anything else up there in Canada? Like, so get some frozen moose on there on the hip. But basically I like ice post activity. I like heat pre activity, so heat to basically allow for some blood flow and get the thing warmed up. And then icing when you have any pain can be really good for pain management. As far as stretches, I think she mentioned that she was doing yoga, right?

Yep.

Yeah, that's really good. Especially hip openers like the warrior pose or the triangle pose. Any of the sun salutations, those are really good. Any of the groin stretches, like the frog stretch, that's really good. The hip cradle is another really good one. Pigeon, like the hip cradle. Hip opener. Yep, the pigeon would be another good one. And you can easily find pictures or videos of any of those exercises on pretty much any yoga website. You also want to combine that, of course, with strengthening your hip muscles, because you don't want to just get uber flexible. The yoga, I find, really helps with range of motion, especially with folks who have a lot of chronic hip pain. But doing like a clamshell exercise or a fire hydrant exercise where you're hiking your leg out to strengthen your hip abductors, that works really well. Doing some type of a hip adduction, like lying down on the ground with an ankle weight or elastic band firing the inner thigh, that's another good one. Leg extensions can work out pretty well, especially like standing leg extensions, meaning that you have an elastic band or a cable attached to your leg and you're kicking out with a straight leg, and you can do that in multiple directions, too. There's a little bit more torque when you kick side to side with that one or back behind you. But that can also be really, really good in terms of strengthening your hips. So those are some of the things that I would look into. There's a book out there called Heal youl Hips how to Prevent Hip Surgery. And it's kind of older, but it's got some good information in it. It was written by a physician named Dr. Clapper, and I will put a link to that book in the show notes for you. But it's called Heal youl Hips, so that'd be another one to look into for sure. And again, I'll link to that and you can check that out, you should be able to pick it up off Amazon just fine. So those are some of the things that I would, I would do for that hip.

Excellent. Let's move on to Cephe. I'm assuming that's how you say it, or Cefi asks, are there any studies that actually look at weight changes in women who avoid xenoestrogens compared to those who don't?

Well, it's obviously one of those deals where you can't ethically give one group of women a chemical xenoestrogen and leave one group without just because we know that there are a lot of really serious endocrine disrupting effects from estrogens. They definitely are toxic. And that's something that there are multiple studies that show. I will link to many of them in the show notes for you. I'll collect a handful so that you can start to check stuff out cfe. But as far as comparing women who avoid xenoestrogens compared to those who don't, the way that you study something like that is you look at the amount of xenoestrogens that appear in the urine primarily, and then you can then go back and look at things like insulin sensitivity, like propensity to form adipocytes or adipose tissue, or even something like increased mammary tissue and risk of breast cancer. When you're looking at the amount of xenoestrogens that are appearing in the urine, specifically, like urinary levels of something like biscuits, bisphenol A, which is a pretty common xenoestrogen. Some of the main studies, like there was one that was done in the Journal of Endocrinology that looked at urinary bisphenol A levels and measures of obesity and elevated levels of urinary BPA were definitely associated with measures of obesity independent of any other risk factor. And I'll certainly link to that one in the show notes for you. That was a study that actually came out this year, earlier this spring, in May of 2012. That one was pretty compelling in terms of showing how exposure to environmental pollutants can affect your risk for obesity. There is another one also was done on bpa, but it specifically looked at how BPA in combination with insulin, which you would be getting from like a higher carbohydrate or higher calorie intake, can accelerate the conversion of fibroblast cells into adipocyte cells, which essentially is making fat. So that's another pretty compelling study. And that one that came out several years ago, but that was in the Journal of Lipid Research. There have been other studies that have been done. The American Journal of Physiology basically didn't study the obesity or weight per se, but instead they looked at the type of environment that gets enhanced in terms of your body's ability to store fat, insulin sensitivity, leptin sensitivity, things of that nature in response to xenoestrogen exposure. And what they found was that xenoestrogen certainly had a significant potential to create this enhanced environment for your body to stay fat. And that one was in the American Journal of Physiology, I believe that was 2005 that that study came out. There was another one in the Journal of Applied Toxicology that basically was looking at absorption of benzoic acid compounds through the skin and basically increased formation of fatty human breast tissue. And that one again found that there was a significant correlation between xenoestrogen exposure and tissue formation. So lots and lots of studies out there, they haven't necessarily taken one group of women, given them a bunch of pollution exposure and toxins and whatever melted plastic and then compared their weight. Didn't. Just because of the ethics of doing something like that. But the evidence is pretty mounting and I will put a link to the studies that I just mentioned as well as some other studies in the show notes for you that'll, that'll help you geek out on this stuff if you really want to look at the research more.

Who doesn't love to geek out?

That's right.

All right, our next question comes from Andy. And Andy says, I recently fell into the sport of road cycling after trying it out last year during a vacation. Andy? What? I. I'm worried. What do you mean by you fell into the sport? That sounds dangerous or painful or something.

He was out in the street riding his bicycle with his baguette and bottle of wine and like a group of cyclists raced past and he got drawn into the crowd and became a cyclist. From then on, I'm sure that's exactly how it happened.

All right, let's go with that. I have always been active, 4th degree, black belt in karate, though I now have to work within my sciatica that at times does not allow me to walk without pain. Riding does give me minor back soreness, but it doesn't hurt me at all. Even though I'm now 56 years old, I would like to get into this sport more seriously, but with caution. I still have a full time job and yes, a growing family, thus I have to balance. So where does one begin to establish a serious, though reasonable overall program that someone like me can use to challenge himself.

This is going to be my biased response, but that's kind of why I created the two primary triathlon training programs that I've written. Because I'm one of those guys that just wants to sit down at the beginning of the day and see the workouts that I'm supposed to do without a ton of, like, geek speak and little signs and symbols that I got to remember what they mean and just be able to go do the workout. That's always the approach that I take when I'm riding out a triathlon training program is I try and keep it very specific, but also not so specific that someone is trying to remember what if and tht and PLP and TIT and what everything else means when they're. When they're out there doing their workout. So, you know, there's. There's two triathlon training programs that I've designed that I'd recommend you take a look at. One is for Half Ironman or Ironman triathletes. It's called the Triathlon Dominator. You can check it out@triathlon dominator.com and it's designed with the same type of quality over quantity type of training that I do myself in order to allow me to do things like Ironman Triathlon and still have a life and a family and a job and all that good stuff. So that's one program that I look into. The other program that I look into would be one that I created for Sprint all the way up to Ironman Distance. The difference with that program being that it's a little bit more focused on weight training and getting a nice body while you're training for triathlon too. And that one's called Tri ripped@tri ripped.com I would certainly look into either of those programs. With Tri Ripped, you're going to find that you are doing a little bit of extra strength training and that you are focusing more on maintaining kind of a nice body along with your triathlon training. Whereas the Triathlon Dominator is a focus primarily on longer distance, like Half Iron man or Iron man, and B, not quite so focused on the aesthetic component of your. Of how your body looks. So check those out. And then you mentioned about the sciatica issue. And one of the things I always want to be sure to mention to folks when they tell me that they're. That they're having issues with sciatica, is that, you know, sciatica, which is basically pain in your low back and your hip that generally kind of radiates down your leg that is typically associated with issues with your lumbar disc with some kind of a disc protrusion or a disc herniation. But sacroiliac joint dysfunction was pretty much considered to be the primary cause of sciatica all the way up into the 1920s. And then once kind of disc issues were found, the sacroiliac considerations kind of went onto the back burner. But any chiropractic physician will tell you, and actually recently there's been kind of a resurgence of interest in western medicine as well, that the SI joint is really one of the primary sources of low back pain, even for something like sciatica. So I would go to a good sports chiro and just have them evaluate your SI joint and look at whether or not it's mobile, whether or not there are any abnormalities or sticky points in your SI joint, and they can mobilize that for you. And then from then, rather than going into the chiropractic dock over and over again, you simply get it adjusted possibly a few times. But what you do in conjunction with that is strengthen your butt and your glute muscles while at the same time stretching your hip flexors if you're ever in a, in a seated position for a long period of time. And that 1, 2, 3 combo of SI joint adjustment, glute strengthening and hip flexor stretching, as simple and stupid as it may seem, can really, really help in many cases to completely alleviate sciatica. So I'd certainly try out that intervention.

Cool. I was, while we're recording these podcasts, I usually try to jot down anything that, that Ben says he wants to put in the show notes and I was writing down triathlon Dominator and spellcheck. Really wanted that to be Dominatrix.

That will be the next program that I do. Triathlon Dominatrix.

That's exactly what I was going to suggest. That is your next book.

A bunch of people out there on Cervelo P4s, you know, riding along in their leather with their whips flying in the wind and an apple stuffed in their mouths.

That's gonna be awesome. Okay, our final question comes from Paul. And Paul says, I'm a 63 year old, 30 plus year runner. I have flat feet and hammer toes. Last few years I've had nerve pain under my second toe on my right foot. I've used a metatarsal pad under the toes with relative success. Lately, pain hangs on after long runs. I went to a podiatrist and got a cortisone shot for the Inflammation and was told I need an orthotic. I've seen insoles with a pad directly behind the ball of the foot designed to take the pressure off the metatarsal bone and would be interested in your view of the best way to approach this problem.

Yeah, there's a lot of research that shows that metatarsal pads and any of these other kind of offloading techniques can really help to alleviate symptoms of basically what's called metatarsalasia or metatarsalgia, depending on how you want to pronounce it in folks who have pain in their feet. I'm sure a bunch of podiatrists just laugh their butts off at my pronunciation, but essentially what you do is you wear an orthotic that spreads the pressure from when you strike the ground across all of your different metatarsal heads. And there's actually quite a bit of science that goes into everything from the rear foot post to the orthotic plates to the position of the actual like metatarsal button itself on these orthotics. And in many cases, going with the custom made orthotic and the extra 300 to $400 that you're going to spend at a podiatrist to get your foot casted. And that orthotic made up is going to be worth it if you're planning on spending a lot of time in weight bearing or impact mode on your feet for the rest of your life. So I would certainly consider going past like the over the counter orthotic and going more to like a semi rigid orthotic with, you know, you basically get your foot casted and then anywhere from two to four weeks later they get the orthotic created, you go back into the physical therapist or the podiatrist, you try it on, you make sure that it works really well for you. They make minor adjustments with like, for example, like a heating gun on a, if it's a semi rigid orthotic to make sure that it's really, really fitting you just like a slipper. And a lot of times that can really, really help with the metatarsals. I mean, there are certainly the folks who I know of who have just switched to kind of the whole minimalist approach, spent lots of time standing around with the bare feet, doing limited amounts of walking in the bare feet, gradually progressing to jogging in the bare feet or in Vibrams, and then gradually moving on to running and finding that that foot strengthening protocol actually allows them to be able to barefoot run or to walk around without orthotics. And while that approach may work for some, if you've naturally got flat feet and hammer toes and some of these other foot issues going on, you know, custom orthotic may be for you. And I know that there's always that argument that, oh, you know, back in whatever the hunter gatherer days, you know, nobody was going to get their foot cast in a custom made orthotic. I would argue that, you know, possibly folks who were born with flat feet or had some congenital issue that made, you know, running painful would have sure not had access to orthotics, but maybe also not been able to take advantage of the pleasures of running or of exercise in that sense. So I think this would be an example where better living through science may come in quite handy for you in terms of getting a custom orthotic, that.

Would have been the person who got picked off by the lion.

Yeah. And we certainly do not want our listeners getting eaten by lions. So, Paul, I would certainly look into, you know, rather than doing things like cortisone shots for inflammation, looking into like a custom orthotic and, you know, if you did want to go the minimalist running route, there was an article that I wrote a few months ago@BenGreenfieldFitness.com that basically went into how to start running barefoot and how to do it without being stupid about it, which is what, 75% of people, I'd say just start running barefoot and don't know how to do it. So I talk about how to naturally strengthen your foot as you go, how to take baby steps, all the drills that you can do for your feet, all the flexibility drills that you can do for your feet to actually get you to the point where you can run barefoot without pain. And I will, I'm right now putting a note to myself to put a link to that in the show notes. But yeah, I mean, there are certainly situations where I think that barefoot running or minimalist running is just dumb. Like when I was camping this this past weekend, I went for a barefoot run and I was like, hey, I'll see you guys, you know, in, in about an hour and a half. And I headed out to go run up in the hills. And, you know, the week prior I'd run seven, eight miles through Boston and, you know, felt great on, you know, the concrete and the wood and the bridges and the asphalt and everything. I took off, you know, up in the mountains where you'd think that there'd be even more natural, you know, ancestral running surfaces, wound up on a horse trail, a mile in slammed my metatarsal into a rock that was sticking up because of the areas where all the horse hooves had kind of compressed the ground down and limped back home and had to put on my shoes for the rest of the run. So there are certainly cases where shoes and orthotics and stuff like this come in quite handy. And I had it. The rest of my run went great, aside from the slight amount of pain that I had in my foot from initially starting off barefoot. So, you know, there are definitely times when shoes and orthotics and stuff like that come in handy. Or footy as the case may be. Ha ha, I made it funny. So yeah, I think that wraps it up. That does.

So yeah. Everybody, don't forget, if you want to ask a question, there's a brand new button on the right hand side says Ask Ben a question. So you can leave your audio questions. Unless of course you like hearing me mispronounce your names and stammer my way through your questions, then by all means keep sending the emails.

Goal being to completely eliminate the need for Brock.

I will become a automated service anyways though.

The other thing is, if there are any geeks out there, any audio geeks, Brock and I are still struggling with my audio cutting out when he talks and vice versa. We've been dealing with this issue for the past. It's been probably eight weeks or so now and Skype doesn't know what's up and we don't know what's up. So if you know anything about audio recording, mixing, etc. And you want to help us out, we would totally dig it. We really appreciate it because it's getting frustrating for us. We got it. Now at this point when we record the podcast, we gotta hang up like every 20 minutes and call back because it gets so bad. So email ben greenfield fitness.com if you think you might be able to help us out with that issue. And then one other call for support. I'm in the process of basically creating a series of blog posts on self quantification. You may have read that first one that I did about how to self test your body and mentioned about wellness effects and some of these other ways you can test your blood and saliva and urine. I'm beginning to create a series of blog posts on some other tests and some other ways that you can quantify. But this particular series of blog posts is going to get a little bit spendy for me. I think that you're all going to find it quite interesting, especially those of you with expendable incomes that really want to get down into quantifying every little thing that's going on with your boss. But I'm going to need some support for this next series of blog posts in order for me to afford some of the research that's going to go into them. So if you are listening in and you want to donate, you can go over to the show and donate any amount you'd like. $1, $5, $10, $20. But specifically, there's about a $600 need for this next series of blog posts for me to be able to get them done, get the research done, and get this stuff written out in terms of self quantification. So if you have any amount that you can donate, it will certainly help out a bunch and you can do that over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com there's a donate button there on the, on the right side. And of course, all of your, all of your support is appreciated. So, so that's it. And you know, in reality, that's just to support my gambling habit over at the reservation next weekend. But no, really, it's for, it's for self quantification research. So yeah, that's it. And until next time, this is Ben and Brock signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com Finally.

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