Can Running Too Much Kill You (Or Make Your Boobs Smaller)?, Fexaramine For Fat Loss, Staying Fit During Long Road Trips And More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, can running too much kill you or make your boobs smaller? Fixeramine for fat loss. Does Himalayan salt have dangerous amounts of iron, staying fit during long road trips, and much more?

Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, sleep, brain and hormone optimization. So whether you're an ironman triathlete or you just want to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

I don't know if the people at home could hear me snickering through the intro to this podcast, but I can't help it.

You said boobs because I said the word boobs. Yes, those are funny to men everywhere on the face of the planet.

I blushed a little too.

Yes, funny or actually quite concerning when we're talking about making them smaller. Indeed, we will talk about that today, about running and whether it can kill you or make your boobs smaller. But more importantly, let's talk about our workouts. Did you have a workout today, Brock? Because I know you're getting ready for a half marathon right now.

Yeah, yeah, I did sort of a sprint workout, a 30 second super hard and 90 second recovery 10 times over a. I believe you call it some sort of time saver.

The, the treadmill one.

Yeah, yeah. I did it outside though because I'm, I don't have a gym membership at the moment so sort of simulated it on the trails.

Did you simulate the actual gym? Did you spray like perfume and perhaps throw a few TVs up in the corner of the tree?

And I carried a TV with me the entire time and I occasionally just like bumped into myself and was jerk.

About it and toss a few magazines in there. Hire some meatheads to sit around reading.

Books in between their rub some MRSA on myself.

Yeah, that's great. I love gyms. Hey, my workout was, was good. I've been doing rather than my morning yoga, I've been shooting in the mornings because I'm preparing for this bow hunting competition.

Oh, that's why you're doing all the bow stuff. Yeah, you're doing competition. Cool.

Well, I've got a five day hunt too that's coming up in September. That'll be kind of a gnarly hunt on horseback down in Southern Idaho where we're going to go get elk. But I'm also competing in June in the train to hunt competition which basically involves carrying around ungodly amounts of weight, stopping and doing things like burpees and sprints and then also shooting. And so for example, my workout this morning was I did 1030 second sprints up my driveway with a weighted. So I had a 50 pound sandbag inside the weighted pack. And then at the top of each sprint I would take five shots. So I was doing five 30 yard shots, right? And then carrying the bow, you know, run back down the driveway and then sprint again. So yeah.

So do you look like a quiver and everything? Do you totally look like Legolas or Robin Hood?

I have. I have a quiver. I've got long blonde hair now, nice and pointy ears and fancy little booties. Yes, and the special bread they carry around. I forget the name of it, but it just keeps. Keeps you going for days and days apparently. I'll bet it's gluten free too.

Oh yeah.

Brock, we had to issue a correction in the news flashes a few weeks ago.

What?

When we discovered that kettlebell yoga was not actually invented by me and Dan John had written me and informed me that kettlebell yoga has been around since like the, I don't know, the 70s or whatever. Anyways, though, we have to issue another correction. This is turning into like Fox News. I know, damn. And this is a correction that came from a fellow. I don't know if this is his real name, but he left a comment on our last episode, episode number 307, in which we were talking about jet lag. Whacker B left a comment because you and I, Brock, were talking about how many time zones you have to cross in order to create jet lag and whether it is actually time zones or the amount of time you spend in the airplane itself. And Wacker seems to be well informed on the topic. He says, FYI, you can't have jet lag of more than 12 hours. Imagine stepping back and forth across the international date line.

That sounds biologically, it's yesterday, it's today, it's yesterday, it's today.

That'd be a great workout by the way. That would be like biologically there is no difference, although you are changing time zone plus and minus 24 hours. Similarly, imagine flying in a really fast plane around the world and landing in a time zone that different from your start. Though you've traveled 23 or 25 time zones. The biological difference is one hour. If you're landing in a time zone, let's say like one hour different from your start. Adaptive strategies may differ whether it is plus or minus, but never can you be jet lagged for more than 12 hours. So if we do say like it's a day for every time zone or whatever, I guess the most you could ever be jet lagged would be 12 days, right?

Hmm. I guess I'm not sure I follow his logic because you. There isn't a time zone that's actually 24 hours different.

Well, there, there isn't. But what's.

That's just theoretically like.

Yeah. And, and I guess what would also be the case here is I am wrong because since the speed of planes is going to vary heavily, it really isn't the amount of time you've spent in the plane and it really comes down to how many time zones that you've crossed.

Yeah.

So, okay, I was so I was right. Pie in my face. Wacker was right. Brock, I guess was kind of right. Ben was I only had one. You're wrong. So that being said, let's jump into our news flashes. Yes.

Oh yeah, I forgot what we were doing here. Yes.

Over at twitter.com BenGreenfield I'm constantly issuing news flashes about the latest and the greatest news. And as a parent of a couple of young athletes who do happen to play soccer in the fall and the spring, I found this one pretty interesting. And if you play soccer, or really if you play any sport that has a halftime, or your kids play soccer or any sport that has a halftime, this is something that you should be aware of. So this study was done on 22 professional male soccer players. And what they did was during halftime, they had some of them perform a traditional resting or what they call a passive rest halftime, but then others did a low intensity re warm up during halftime, similar to the type of warm up you do prior to the game. And what they found was that in the group that did a re warmup during halftime, rather than just sit around and drink juicy juices and eat Snicker bars and lay on their stomachs playing with their eye touches during halftime. Or what they found was that the group that was doing a re warmup had a maintenance of their sprint performance. They had less of a decrement in their jump performance. But probably more important than those performance variables that they tested, they found that the group that did the re warmup during halftime had more possession of the ball in the beginning of the second half. And based off of the fact that they had more possessions of the ball and less defensive high intensity running, meaning less of a need to engage in high intensity running during defense because apparently their greater amount of ball possession early on was allowing Them to conserve energy. From a defensive standpoint, they had a game advantage at the onset of the second half. And so if your team just wants that slight advantage, they weren't saying that these advantages would go into the latter half of the second half, but apparently right off the bat, if you really want to perform well in any sport that has a halftime, and you want to come out in the. Come out of halftime, into the first part of the second half with all cylinders firing, so to speak, you want to make sure that you continue to move. And this seems common sense, but I think just a lot of coaches and a lot of players don't think about this. So, you know, it's what I. When I'm playing tennis, you know, like tonight is the night that I play in men's tennis league. And, you know, in between our set changeovers, a lot of times, you know, the guys are sitting down, they're drinking their water bottles, stuff like that. I'm doing lateral lunges. I'm jumping side to side. A boxer freaking people out as I lunge up and down the court with my racket over my head. But I try and keep my body warm the whole time and even in sets. Again, to use the analogy of tennis, like in doubles, when my partner is serving or my partner is receiving a serve, I'm constantly bouncing foot to foot or doing double bounces foot to foot or jumping back and forth. But basically this concept of keeping the body kind of sort of turned on, like slowly revving that engine or keeping the engine revved. Lots of be said for it.

So interesting. I've never actually watched a professional soccer game. I know that probably shocks any of our European listeners, but I know, like in hockey games, every period begins with quite a substantial re warmup. So, like, the hockey players all hit the ice and skate around like mad, shoot on the goal a few times and get themselves back into the game. Yeah, I'm assuming they don't do that in soccer.

No, unfortunately. You just banished yourself to football.

Hell, yes.

By admitting the fact that you've never watched a professional soccer game.

Boring.

You need sometime, just try it sometime. Go to some Brazilian bar during the World Cup. So anyway, anyways, so next. Is running too much going to kill you? And, you know, there was this new article that they just published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that analyzed data from this Copenhagen city heart study. And this is actually the same data that was published back in 2012, and it caught a lot of. Of publicity. Then when James o' Keefe Published in the American Journal of Epidemiology about the running will kill you studies. And this latest study actually goes into the speed of running. And what a lot of the headlines are saying is that fast running is as deadly as sitting on the couch or going out and doing lots of like high intensity jogging is basically going to increase your risk of mortality. So is this the case? Well, let's look at what the statistics actually say and I will link to an article in the show Notes for this episode. So if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 308 there is a fantastic rundown of all of the issues with this study done by Alex Hutchinson at Sweatscience.

Good old Alex.

If you look at just the basic idea here, what happened was the researchers surveyed, again, didn't study, but surveyed meaning they asked them some questions. I believe these were online a bunch of Danish joggers And they categorized 878 of them as light, moderate or strenuous joggers. And 40 of those 878 were in fact identified as strenuous. And then 10 years later they kind of checked in on how everyone was doing and they found that 17 of those 878 joggers had died and two of the joggers from the strenuous group had died. So over the course of the 10 years, two out of the 40 strenuous joggers had died. And that was the highest proportion of death in any of the three groups, the light, the moderate or the strenuous groups. So based on that, they said that that's what the headlines are saying, is that fast running is worse than sitting on the couch when it comes to your risk of death.

That was the extent of the study.

That was the extent. But statistically speaking, the fact that 2 out of 40 strenuous joggers died over the course of a decade doesn't really tell you too much about strenuous jogging. It's a very small sample size. First of, to make an assumption such as this, the study does not look into how the runners actually died or whether those causes could even plausibly be related to running.

Yeah, they get hit by a bus.

Yes. And there are many, many other. Yeah, exactly. It's possible that maybe running too fast in urban areas makes you the person who's more likely to step out in front of a bus even though your heart is working just the same. You're super healthy, but you light to moderate joggers. So yeah. Know that if you are one the people out there listening who, like Brock and I, are doing high intensity interval training and running quickly, it's not going to kill you. If anything, and I've said this before in the podcast and I talk about this in my book Beyond Training, if you are a runner and you're engaged in any activity, really, that's creating a lot of free radicals, crossfitting, running triathlons, whatever, then you do have to be a little bit more careful about dumping a bunch of potentially oxidizable fats and sugars into your bloodstream, especially from commercial sources or very processed sources, simply because you're pouring gasoline on the fire from both ends. You're creating free radicals through exercise and then free radical stress through diet. And so the fact that a lot of people who quote unquote, jog tend to train to eat and eat to train, if you know what I mean. Like they'll go out to run so that they're running extra chicken wings and beer later on. That's the group that I think needs to be careful in terms of their heart disease risk factors. But if you're eating a nice healthy ancestral diet and you've got a few runs that you're going on each week and even doing some high intensity interval training, don't worry, running is not going to kill you. This study was pretty heavily flawed. Although you may need to, as you'll find out later in this podcast, worry about your boobs. No. Then the final study that came across my radar because a friend actually sent this article to me and asked me where they could find these brand new devices that allow you to engage in this cutting edge Japanese style training called Katsu. This was something I thought was pretty interesting. So there's this revolutionary new training system just coming over from Japan, the headlines say, and I'll link to the article in the show notes called katsu. And what it is is you actually can purchase these kits or you can even get certified in this. But basically you can get an online certification course for $1,000 and that's designed to train Katsu providers and users on the proper use of this Kaatsu gear. And I'll explain what that Katsu gear is here in a second. You can get a, a master Katsu unit for $4,000, which comes with the actual gear that you would need to engage in.

How many thousand?

Four thousand?

Four thousand.

You could get a smaller lightweight unit intended for one person less of a commercial unit for twelve hundred dollars. Or you could even get a pair intended for use in the water for $190. So that's kind of the price point that we're talking about when it comes to this Katsu gear. And here is what Kaatsu basically is. It consists of these bands that inflate with air that wrap around specific body parts that you are training, such as your upper arms or your upper legs, and they cause blood flow to be restricted to your limbs.

This is known as like a tourniquet.

Yeah, it's just like a tourniquet. As a matter of fact, it's known as occlusion training. So the idea behind occlusion training is that when you restrict blood flow to an area that you are training, you get a huge amount of what's called metabolic accumulation in that body part. So instead of letting your body flush all the metabolic products of exertion out of your system, the tourniquet or the Katsu gear that you've purchased with your hard earned money keeps it all in the area. So you get this big release of anabolic growth factors, you get a higher recruitment of more fast twitch fibers, and you induce more production of protein. And it may also help to stimulate the production of heat shock proteins, which is the same type of stress resilience that you build when you're say, training inside a sauna, as well as the production of nitric oxide synthase, the same type of blood vessel dilating type of metabolite that you'd get when you were doing, say, cold thermogenesis or high intensity interval training. So here was what my response was, was to the fellow who wrote me about this. I said, we've known about this for a long time. When I was a bodybuilder, we used to take the elastic tubes or the elastic resistance bands at the gym before we do, like a set of bicep curls, we'd wrap them around our upper arms, right? So the biceps got this huge pump. And then when you were finally done with that set, you'd remove the tourniquet. You could do the same thing with squats and your upper legs, or another popular one we'd do is we'd wrap the tourniquet around our upper thighs and we do leg extensions on the leg extension machine to get like monster quads. I think it's actually kind of silly and a little bit funny that this is now being sold as not just a certification, but also as this overpriced training gear when you can in fact use just regular old elastic bands at the gym as makeshift tourniquets. But you are going to see this hit the news probably A few times. If you read magazines or whatever about this brand new Katsu training straight out of Japan, know that this stuff is not cutting edge. Just like a lot of trends in fitness, people have been doing it for a long time. Someone just figured out how to monetize it. So anyway, guys, that is Katsu training, AKA occlusion training, AKA putting tourniquets around your limbs and then working out. It works. Yeah, but you don't have to spend the the $4,000.

Good.

Special announcements.

So this podcast is brought to you by Harry's. I still want to know how much they paid to get Harry's.com because that's a pretty good URL.

That's an awesome URL.

Yeah. Although it's H A R R Y S. Yeah.

I'm wondering if that was what they had to settle on because they couldn't.

Get H A I R. Exactly. Yeah. That would have been more appropriate because Harry's. For those of you who don't know what Harry's is, they're razors. They're not just razors, but they also have like soap that you can shave with or what we also call here in the US shaving cream. And also like post shave lotion. Actually, we were sitting on the couch like two nights ago and we were watching Celebrity Apprentice on Hulu, which is like one of the shows that I will watch because I love to like see the celebrities try and figure out how to run businesses and, you know, race around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to figure out how to like make a commercial or launch a product. And we're sitting there watching it and my wife turns to me and she says, you smell good. Smell good. And I had shaved. I had shaved with my. I have like the whole Harry's kit. I have the blade and it's like this German engineered blade. I've got the handle, I've got the shaving cream. And it's like paraben and phthalate free. Yes. And I have the shaving lotion and my wife likes it. So there you go, guys.

Is the most important test it could pass.

Yes. It's a high quality shave. It's good for your face. It's good for your wallet too. They're not expensive. And it's five bucks off when you go to Harry's.com and use coupon code BEN. So that's Harry's.com, coupon code BEN. And you too can smell like a paraben and phthalate free fitness nerd. So check it out. What else? We are giving away some of the Obstacle Dominator training packages. So if you go to obstacledominator.com giveaway then you will get one of the most amazing and challenging and crazy blends of workout and fueling and training and obstacle course racing advice that I've ever created. It's actually the only one I've ever created. But anyways, myself and top Spartan athlete Hunter McIntyre created this and we're giving away three of them and it's free to go enter the contest so that you could win one for yourself or a friend. And it's got everything, the nutrition, the training, tons of interviews, tons of videos all shot up here in my backyard about how to do obstacles. And you can check it all out@advantacle dominator.com giveaway so a word of warning.

There is a workout called Death by Burpees.

Yes, there is a workout called Death by Burpees. Let your imagination go wild. Also, I will be speaking, speaking of obstacle course racing at the New Media Expo. You can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com n that's not only where they're going to have the podcast awards ceremony, but it's where any of you out there who have a blog, a podcast who like create online videos or like, you know, basically running a business online that is based around anything that has to do with content creation or media, this is like the conference to go to. I'm speaking there about podcasting. And really deep down inside, the selfish reason that I'm going to it is because the Spartan Vegas race is the day after the conference ends. Oh yeah, yeah, you can go to the conference and we'll put a link in the show notes too, to both that and the Vegas race. And you can finish up the conference by going and crawling under barbed wire and carrying giant rocks and doing lots of burpees. So check that out. BenGreenfulFitness.com NMX Also, because we are really into conferences that end with the letter X, you can come here myself, speak at Paleo fx. Brock's gonna be there. I'm gonna be there. It's pretty much a who's who gathering of everybody in the health and the nutrition and the fitness movement. You will rub shoulders with folks like Rob Wolfe and Mark Sisson and Brock. So check that out. You can get in at BenGreenfieldFitness.com here's the URL PaleoFX15 that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com PaleoFX15 that's link that they gave us and then finally, one more conference. For those of you who want to be in New York or already live in New York, you can go to the Less Doing conference. You go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Do Less. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com do less.

I can hardly wait to see what this conference is going to be. Or more to the point, not be a lot of people sitting around doing nothing.

Yeah, we pretty much sit around and we do nothing.

And then if somebody starts to do something, somebody goes, stop it. Do less.

Do less. Like how to manage your email inbox and like how to use different phone apps that help you to manage, like to do lists and, you know, hack your productivity and how to enhance your cognitive performance like smart drugs. There's like, Dave Asprey is going to be speaking there. I'm going to be speaking there. Ari Meisel, who wrote the really good book Less Doing, he's going to be there. So it'll be worth attending. And you can get all the details over@BenGreenfulFitness.com.au less so speaking of doing less, let's stop our special announcements and answer some questions, shall we?

Do less.

Did you know that Ben Greenfield personally mentors trainers, coaches, physicians and nutritionists from around the globe? From business building tips to advanced human performance and health concepts. It's all part of a private mastermind called the Superhuman Coach Network. When you join, you get instant access to monthly workshops with Ben, a Q and a forum, over 40 hours of cutting edge audio and video education, and much more. Check it out today and become one of the world's leading health and fitness experts@superhumancoach.com podcast. That's superhumancoach.com podcast listener Q& A. Hi.

Ben, it's Sebastian from Canada. I recently read an article about some wondrous miracle drug called fexaramine. Fexaramine or something like that. And apparently this thing is like a weight loss pill. And they finally invented this weight loss pill that if you take, you shed all these pounds. I was just wondering what your thoughts are on it. I'm not really interested in taking it because I don't need to lose weight, but just wondering if it's something I should recommend to people when they're telling me about their problems trying to lose weight and get fit. Let me know what you think. Thanks. Bye.

I first heard about this on one of my favorite podcasts, the Science Friday podcast from pri.

Yeah, I didn't hear that podcast, but I've researched Fexeramine a little bit. I mean, I haven't. I don't have, like the little mice in a cage in my office you.

Haven'T been injecting the portal drugs on.

But I mean, like, I've. I've read about and looked into fexaramine. So it actually is kind of interesting because if you look at brown adipose tissue, we take cold showers, for example, to increase our levels of brown adipose tissue, which are able to actually take calories and generate heat from those calories. And it's actually a really, really good way to amp up your calorie burning activity when you have increased amounts of brown fat and increased amounts of brown fat activity. And there was this paper in Nature Medicine in January that showed that this metabolite called fexeramine could help turn white fat into brown fat. But it does more than that. What it can activate is this receptor that causes you to release bile acids and some of these digestive juices and hormones that would normally help you to absorb nutrients when you eat a meal, when you eat foodstuff. And yes, that would make two podcasts weeks in a row, I think, where I've said the word foodstuff. Food stuff, that's my new word, foodstuff, because it sounds better than food. Sounds more scientific. Anyways, though, normally all those digestive hormones and juices are produced in your liver, and then they go to your gallbladder and then they get released into the intestine. And when that happens, that will flip on this activity that. That sends your gut a signal that food is there, and that mobilizes a bunch of blood flow to go gather nutrients. And it specifically prepares fat tissue to anticipate the arrival of food and begin to burn calories. Because you sent, you know, think of it as you sending your fat cells a message that, hey, food's on the way, so go ahead, it's okay to burn what you've got on board. And so that's basically what happens. And it's very interesting because you would think that when you stimulate the production of bile acids and digestive hormones, kind of like when you consume an artificial sweetener, that it would cause you to become hungry, right? Because you're sending your body a message that, hey, something sweet is getting on the tongue and we're tasting something that tastes a little bit like food. Get ready to eat. Your body produces all of these hormones that prepare you to eat. And then again, a great place for sad trombone. There's no food. So then you're hungry in, like an Hour. But this fexaramine seems to help at least with mice with fat loss. Now, anytime that you are messing around with digestion and digestive hormones and bile acid synthesis, you do potentially create some risk for creating some kind of hormonal intolerance, or let's say maybe the inability to, you know, the eventual inability to say, like, produce bile acid properly in response to a meal. But they haven't studied this stuff long term in either mice or humans to see if that's the case. That's how it works, though. So I would say if it were up to me, I'd want to see a longer term study, you know, in mice to show that it doesn't suppress bile acid production long term. I'd want to see something similar in humans. One of the cool things is that this study stuff does not get out of the intestine. It does not get out of the liver. It never gets into your bloodstream. So that's kind of cool. You at least know that you're not going to have it floating anywhere else except your gut. But I would say where I'm at is I would still want to see a little bit more research behind this stuff before I would give it the thumbs up. Because again, my concern would be its potential impact on digestive hormone and bile acid release. Because when you get your gallbladder removed and you can't produce this bile acid anymore, that's a big, big issue when it comes to digestive health. Constipation, bowel movements, production of hydrochloric acid, ability to digest fats, et cetera. And you know, if a drug creates that same scenario, that would be what we call here on the podcast, a bad thing. So, yeah, anyways, though, that's the story behind, let me call it bad stuff. Bad stuff. Hi, Ben and Brock. I'm a Mortz fan of your show. Morz means huge in South Tyrolia, which is my home region in Italy. I have a question regarding my girlfriend. She wants to increase the running and aerobic exercise volume. Her fear is that her really sexy boobs will start to decline. What are your suggestions against this problem? Pieti means Ciao, Alexandro. This may actually qualify as our question of the year.

I think so. Alex, you are a very entertaining fellow and so is your question.

Yes, I love it. And being married to a runner and having talked to a lot of runners and endurance athletes who have these same concerns, I definitely have an opinion on it and I have some advice on it it. And before I jump in, I should say I'm just gonna put this out there right now. I'm a fan of small boobs. Like, I'm married to a. To a petite woman, and I personally find that kind of sexy. I'm just not a. I'm not a big boob guy. I never have been. I've never, like, you know, I've always been a little bit more of like A, an A and a B versus a C and a D. And that's just me. What about you, Brock?

I like boobs.

Yeah. Okay, There you go.

All size, all sizes. I like them.

Not picky. So anyways, boobs. We should probably just start saying breasts so we sound.

So we don't sound qualifying.

Yes, yes. Considering the huge beating, the ass kicking that we are experiencing online right now for the podcast that we did on vaccinations, we should probably just at least get in as many folks as good graces as possible by at least not overusing the word boobs and saying breasts instead or knockers. Anyways, though, breasts are made up of epithelial tissue, and that helps to cushion and support your breasts. And no matter how much weight that you lose, that epithelial tissue will stick around. But you can just like you can shed some fat and decrease the size of the fat cells or the amount of fat that the fat cells are storing anywhere on your body. You can definitely decre fat that's stored in the fat cells and potentially even get some fat cell apoptosis or fat cell death in the breast area, and therefore shrink your breasts. And some women's breasts have more fatty tissue, while other women's breasts have more epithelial tissue. Typically, women with larger breasts do have more fatty tissue in their breasts. And so women who have naturally larger breasts are going to experience, once they start running, a greater decrease in breast size as that fat tissue gets metabolized. Comp who naturally have smaller breasts, who typically have a higher amount of epithelial tissue rather than fatty tissue, because that epithelial tissue is not really going to disappear, but the fatty tissue will. So as far as running, obviously running as an aerobic exercise is catabolic. It is going to cause fat cell mobilization and fat loss, especially if you combine it with fexaramine. Your boobs will probably completely disappear. But anyways, we know that the body is going to tap into some of that storage fat and you'll get some mobilization of fatty tissue, in many cases fat cells, unless it's combined with something like cold thermogenesis. Right. Unless you're wearing some kind of a special cold thermogenesis bra, Fat cell apoptosis or fat cell death is less likely than just a shrinkage of the fat cells, as a lot of those, those fatty acids are removed from them. And so what that means is if you stop running or you start eating more food, that those fat cells fill back up your boobs come back, and they come back just as easily as, like, you know, fat on your butt or on your waistline would come back.

So interesting. So it's not actually like the cell number isn't changing, just the cell size.

Yeah. And I talked about this a little bit in the podcast that I did with Kate Shanahan. In addition to cold thermogenesis being something that can induce fat cells cell death, which, you know, in many cases when you're doing this on your hip or your upper back or, you know, places like that, you'd actually want some of this fat cell death. The other thing that can really help with fat cell death is the combination of caloric restriction and the absence of inflammation. Apparently, the absence of inflammation, such as you would get from, like, high amounts of exercise or high amounts of omega 6 fatty acids, or high amounts of sugar or high amounts of, like, commercial meat or dairy, if you're really clean from that standpoint, apparently fat cell apoptosis occurs more rapidly, readily in the absence of inflammation. So, of course, that could be a catch 22 for you if you're trying to have big boobs. So in addition to not running, maybe you should go out and eat chicken wings and lots of dairy. Anyways, though, that's a segue, because there's one other thing that we need to talk about in addition to the consideration of fatty tissue and overall calories. And that would be that you can irreversibly stretch fragile ligaments in your boobs. And that can lead to sagging, which can also, you know, for anyone who's seen, like, you know, boobs that sag over time, they also appear less large just because they're getting closer and closer to the belly button. Not a pleasant thought, but it happens. And so if you're wearing the incorrect bra when you're running, that can also cause breast shrinkage, even though, you know, it's more of an optical illusion. Right. They're not shrinking. They're just getting lower and lower the more years that you run. And one of the considerations here is that you would want to make sure that you're using the correct bra if you're running. And the best bra for exercise, especially running, it's called an encapsulation bra, and that has separate molded cups rather than a compression bra that basically flattens your breast to your chest wall. This flattens the breasts and it limits the bounce, but it doesn't limit side to side or in and out movements. Movements. Whereas if you get an encapsulation bra that has separate cups and that limits the movements of your breast so that you don't stretch a lot of those fragile ligaments, that could also decrease breast size. So get the right bra is the first thing that I'm getting at here. The second thing that I'm getting at, and hopefully this was a little bit apparent when I was talking about the fatty tissue, is don't necessarily overdo the catabolic state of running, right? Like, if you send your body a message that there are no calories present and that it needs to dip into adipose tissue, including the fatty tissue in your breast, to give you adequate energy, your boobs could shrink a little bit. So what would be some things that you could do? Well, for example, you know, one of the things that burns really clean that you could do before, like a big morning run that will give your body its own fats to burn so that you don't have to burn your booby fats. That would be something like bulletproof coffee coffee, you know, like MCT oil, coconut oil, maybe a little bit of coconut milk. That type of thing burns clean, gives you some fats that you can rely upon and you don't have to dip into fatty tissue. Of course, that also means you're not going to be dipping into fat tissue on your waistline or your hips or anywhere else. If you're running to lose weight, not a good strategy. But if you're just running to become a good runner and you want to maintain the size of your boobs, then that would be one strategy. Strategy. If you don't like the whole bulletproof coffee approach, you could still do like, you know, a tablespoon of coconut oil with some almond butter and maybe some cinnamon or sea salt. You know, something that gives you a good, good bolus of fat that doesn't necessarily have to spike your blood sugar level or your, or your insulin levels. So those are, those are some considerations. And just to put a little personal spin on this, I remember the very first triathlon that I did after I was getting out of being a bodybuilder, and my most distinct memory from that race was getting about 1k into the 10k. This was an Olympic distance triathlon, and my boobs hurt. So much because I had this giant bodybuilding chest and my boobs were bouncing up and down with each step. And that's one of the few times in my life during exercise that I'd wish that I had a sports bra. So I'm right there with you. I can empathize with you ladies for everything from childbirth to boob sex size. Ben Greenfield is here.

Hello, Ben and Brock. This is Kathy again from Portland, Oregon. I had a quick question for you today about salt. I hear you talk a lot about eating mineral rich salts, and I totally get that. But lately I've heard some theories about the pink salts, like the Himalayan salts. And you should actually avoid that because the reason it's pink is due to a higher iron content, which is oxidized. So I don't know.

I.

You know, there's some theories about that floating around the Internet, but not sure how accurate that is. Just wanted to get your take on it, if you had any thoughts. As always, thanks so much for an awesome podcast.

So, oxidized iron.

Mmm, oxidized iron.

I think I have some pink socks that I think have some oxidized iron in them.

Yeah, exactly. You know, oxidized iron. Iron is present to a certain extent in Himalayan salt. Based on Kathy's question, in terms of the way that Himalayan salt is made, yeah, you do get a little bit of oxidation in the iron. Oxidized iron is not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, obviously iron is a mineral that's required for human life. It sits at the heart of the hemoglobin molecule and that allows our blood cells to carry oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. And these trace amounts of iron, especially in unrefined salt, salt give it some color, give it some flavor, some minerals. And the problem is that there is this idea behind hemochromatosis and increasing iron intake to a threateningly high level. So, for example, not that this is the end all for nutritional recommendations, but the USDA's recommended daily allowance or their RDA of iron is 18 milligrams per day. And iron can come in the form of like heme based iron, such as you would find in like meats, for example, or non heme based iron, which is what you would find in like lentils, spinach, tofu, whole wheat bread, and even unrefined salts. That's a non heme kind of non biological form of iron. Or like when you eat meat and it has iron, that's heme based iron. It's a little bit better when it comes to increasing hemoglobin. And unrefined salts, for example, contain this non hemi iron. Now, non hemi iron is not absorbed in the body as efficiently as heme based iron. So that's one thing to consider here, is that the actual iron that you're getting from the salt, just like the iron you'd be getting from, say, spinach, is not quite as well absorbed. And when you look at Himalayan salt, which is something that is typically singled out due to its high mineral content, that has 38 to 39 parts per million of iron. And what that means is basically it's about 0.003% iron by mass. So one teaspoon of that salt has about 1.32% of, for example, that US RDA of sodium that I talked about. Like that 18 milligrams of sodium. 1.1.32%.

Not very much.

Yeah. So if you ate two times the US maximum recommended amount of salt, you would be getting about the iron equivalent to what you'd get in about three quarters of a slice of whole wheat bread or like a great big tablespoon of lentils. Huge quantities. So in order to get the full US RDA of iron, you'd have to have about 76 teaspoons of Himalayan salt. So we're talking about very, very small amount.

You look like an enormous slug.

Yeah, we're talking about very, very small amounts of iron, period. So that's not really something to worry about. What you should instead be worrying about is just kind of the truth behind like kosher salt and commercial sea salt in general. And that is that many times it has been refined, which means that a lot of the minerals and moisture gets stripped away. And you know, a lot of times like sulfuric acid and chlorine is used to bleach the salt. Like if you're, if your salt is not discolored, that's not necessarily a good thing. It doesn't mean it doesn't have any iron in it. A lot of times just means it's been bleached with things like sulfuric acid and chlorine. And you know, there are a lot of anti caking agents that they'll also use, like sodium ferricyanide and ammonium citrate and aluminum silicon replicate a lot of these things that are not that healthy to be dumping into your body. And when you buy like the average, you know, Himalayan salt that is nice and you know, it doesn't cake and every single grain looks like it's identical size and you know, sometimes it doesn't have a lot of this like discoloration or pinkiness or redness to it. A lot of times that means it's been bleached, it's been refined, it's been chlorinated, it's had all these anti caking agents added to it and it's essentially a Frankenberg food. So, you know, I've written articles about this@BenGreenfieldFitness.com about what kind of salt that you should be eating. I generally consume completely unrefined sea salt. I use this stuff called Aztec and salt. It's harvested using an organic 100% renewable process. It's a little bit off color, it clumps, which would annoy some people. But I don't care because I know that means it hasn't had anti kicking agents added to, to it. And that's, you know, I just have a big bag of that in my pantry and I sprinkle that on food. And then I also have a pepper grinder and I put a bunch of it in the pepper grinder if I want like smaller grains and I can just grind it right out of the pepper grinder onto my food. And that gives me like the smaller grains of salt if I don't want the, the bigger kind of cake, caked grains, because it does cake together a little bit, but I don't mind that. And it's got a really, really high mineral content. So that's my pick for salt anyways. But you don't really have to worry that much about the iron in a Himalayan salt as much as some of the other additives. So that's the dealio with the salt, by the way. I have tons of iron. I don't know if I told you this, Brock. I have tons of iron and even bacterial based iron in my well water. And apparently if anyone listened into my hair mineral analysis podcast that I did, did with Wendy Myers, a lot of manganese and metals as well. And so I'm, you know, I've got quite a few treatments that I even do with my well water. For example, have you ever heard of a hydrogen peroxide filter?

No.

All the water that I drink actually passes through hydrogen peroxide. And what that does is it kills iron based bacteria and it oxidizes the iron. And then after that the water all goes through this carbon converter, this carbon filter and that filters off all the oxidized iron. And then after that it passes through a water structure unit that restructures the water, goes through a vortex yeah. If you walk into the mechanical room of my house, there's four giant tanks, and so the water comes out of the well. It goes through the hydrogen peroxide, it goes through the carbon filter, it goes through the water structure. So it's quite the process. But, you know, in the case of, like, my well water, we're talking about levels of iron that are literally hundreds and hundreds of times higher than what you get in Himalayan salt.

Hey, Ben and Brock, It's Dan in Connecticut. I'm wondering, what would Ben do if you had to drive a thousand miles in a car? I have to take a trip pretty soon, and I'm wondering what steps would you take to make. Minimize soreness, aches and pains, all that stuff. I actually have Lyme disease and leaky gut. I'm getting better, but I still get sore quite easily, so I'm looking to minimize that. I'm wondering if you would take several days off prior and just do lots of stretching and yoga, or if you train the day before and use that as a day off. Whatever you suggest. All ears. Love the podcast. Longtime listener here, and keep up the great work, guys. Have a good one.

So a thousand miles, what would that take, like, 13, 14 hours?

I would walk one 1,000 miles.

Thousand miles? As you say, five. I think it's 500, but it's with an accent. It's like, yeah.

And I would walk 500 miles into.

Haywood, but they're Scottish, so they don't know what a mile.

They're like me just to be the man who walks 2,000 kilometers.

There you go.

With my higus.

Have you ever had.

I love it when I offend our listeners.

Actually, that wasn't bad. That wasn't all that offensive.

Yeah, but we always get, like, I've done, like, the Indian accents, the Scottish accents, the Australian accents, like, and we always get people that write in that are like, that's the last time I'm ever listening to the shit show. You just offended the entire Australian population because what you did was actually a offensive Southern Australian dialect. Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, kidding me? All right, Segue.

What you actually did was shoot Gandhi. I don't remember what I asked you.

Okay, well, anyways, this is actually a good question because, like, I, I, first of all, I freaking hate, hate road trips for the reason that I. I, A, I just don't like to sit for long periods of time. And B, it's like, I. I love, like, nature and scenery and all that jazz for, like, maybe five miles, and then I'm bored then I've seen enough of it. Like, you can show me the stretching wild prairie of Montana and huge thumbs up, right? Like show it to me and we'll drive a few miles and I'll see it and that's really cool. But then once you, you're like four hours into Montana and you're one eighth of the way across the state, you're just like, I'm gonna freaking like, like stick a revolver in my mouth if I have to look at another mile of barren prairie. So yeah, there's that.

And there's also driving on the interstate highways where all you see is like the concrete. Concrete, concrete. McDonald's, Arby's.

Right?

Concrete, concrete casting Starbucks.

Exactly, exactly. So first of all, I'll talk about strategies you could do when you're in the car. Like let's say that you can't get out of the car and you're going to be sitting in there. I'll talk about some of the strategies you can do and strategies that I use if I know I am going to be stuck in a car. But the other thing is assuming that you wear good compression gear, which is going to help keep you from getting blood clots. I am a huge fan of doing a killer workout before a long road trip or before say like a long airplane ride. Like, like before my last 14 and a half hour flight to Dubai, I did. You've done this one before, Brock. I did the hardest workout in the world, right? It's that one two hours. It's adapted from the Esquire magazine article. And I'll. I can. Should I put a link to it in the show notes? Sure. Because I, I did my own spin on it because the one thing I didn't like about the hardest workout in the world, this is going be to sound really dumb, but I didn't like how much sitting that was involved with the hardest workout in the world. Because there was a lot of sitting, there was a lot of weight machines. And I'm like, I want to be able to do this in my basement with like a set of dumbbells. So anyways, the hardest workout in the world takes you anywhere from two to three hours to do. Or you can split it up into a few different portions throughout the day because it's like 16 different stations. But that's my standby. If I know I'm going to be stuck on an airplane or on a road trip trip, I'll skip some of my work. Like I'll skip some of the articles I have to write, et cetera, for doing when I'm in the car or when I'm on the airplane and I'll instead take that time and just smash myself. And typically I'll choose like eccentric based activities that I know will take some serious recovery. So not like swimming or cycling, but usually like running or weight training. And I'll keep my fingers crossed that the pros of the workout outweigh the potential risks of getting a blood clot. And I'll do that. And then I'll use some of the other strategies I'm about to talk about again to reduce the risk of a blood clot, but to also keep myself kind of active metabolically during the trip. One thing is that yes, I do use electrical muscle stimulation. Now there are kind of two types of electrical muscle stimulation. There's the type that grabs a lot of muscle fibers all at once. Once engages you in a really significant muscle contraction that can even leave you sore the next day. I mean, that's really good for training strength and power and endurance. And it's not necessarily like therapeutic recover physical therapy type of electrical muscle stimulation, but it is really good for keeping your muscles fit. And that would be the type of electrical muscle stimulation you'd find with like this unit called the Compact, the Compex. And this is one that literally like you could put it on your quads and your hamstrings and be getting the equivalent of doing barbell squats while you're sitting in your car on a road trip. That would be in contrast to something like say the Mark Pro. And I own both a Compex and a Mark Pro. But the Mark Pro is better for recovery, right? Like it's, it's therapeutic, it feels nice, but it's not going to like build muscles muscle or stimulate you to a huge extent metabolically when you compare it to something like the compacts. So if I had to choose like one electrical muscle stimulation and I wasn't going to buy like, you know, Dave Asprey's one that he, you know, promotes, which is like the 12,000$, what's it called? The ARP wave, which is a really nice unit, but that's, it's a, it costs a lot and it's got like this huge car battery size unit that's kind of, you got to drag around with it. The Compex is pretty good. So I take that on airplanes and on car trips. You can put it on your abs, quads, hamstrings, calves, wherever it works, have.

A outlet so you can Plug it into the, the cigarette lighter in your car.

No, it's. You don't have to have it plugged in. Oh yeah, just runs off. Assuming you've charged it, it'll go for hours. So, yeah, even though if you need to recharge it, you could plug it in to your car battery. The next thing is I use a power lung, for example, like if I got to fly down to LA and I know I'm going to be stuck in like two hours of highway traffic, I'll bring one of these power lung resisted breath training devices along with me and I'll play a game. So for example, every time I get to a mile mark, I will do 10 sets of 3 seconds in, 3 seconds out. Resisted breath training. And it's just kind of like a way to keep yourself occupied, right? Like you have in your glove box or you have it next to you, you or in your bag or whatever. And you just take it every time you pass a mile marker or every time you pass, you know, say like an overpass or something like that, or every time you pass a red car, right. Like you can turn it into a little bit of a game like Fartlek style. Resisted breath training, where it's kind of like randomized. That's the way that I do it versus like doing a half hour long set with the power lung. I'll just like bring it out every now and again. And you probably want to make sure that you're not sitting beside a police officer and using your power along because they will probably, probably think that you're checking your breath alcohol levels. Not a good thing to be caught doing. So anyways, the power lung is another thing you can keep in your car. Then the last thing would be a combination of compression, right, to limit the potential for blood clots, but then also cold thermogenesis. So I like the 110% compression gear, which is a company that makes compression gear that you can put ice sleeves into. So the gear comes with these little ice packs. You freeze them, you put the sleeve leaves in and this allows you to get all the benefits of building the brown fat that we talked about earlier while keeping your body cold while reducing your risk of blood clots. And you can wear that, say like for during the first hour of your road trip. And then, you know, if you got to stop and stay overnight in a hotel or whatever, you could refreeze the packs and use those again. And it's a great way to basically get all the calorie burning benefits of cold. Thermogenesis and the ice packs are not big and clunky and hard to see. Sit on as you would imagine. They're just like these little kind of. Well, you get them and they're very like, paper thin, and you put them in the freezer after you soak them in water. And they're. They're not like. It does not feel like you're sitting on a bunch of ice cubes, basically, or frozen peas for that matter.

They're like little frozen pillows or carrots.

Or broccoli or whatever your frozen vegetable of choice is.

Oh, actually, speaking of that, you could keep your sandwiches nice and fresh if you kept it in your compression gear with the ice packs.

You could. You could put the ice packs. Packs in there and tuck them next to your thighs and then put the sandwiches in next to your legs. That would work really well. Yeah, good idea, Brock.

I'm a genius.

Leftovers, fish, whatever. Just stuff it all in there. So anyways, we actually do have. We've got discounts on like, the electrical stimulation units, we've got discounts on the. On the power lung, discounts on the compression gear, etc. I'll put all that stuff in the show notes. So if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com we even have a 25% discount on the power lung.

Might have to use that. I. I broke my power lung the other day.

Really?

Yeah, it went shooting out of my mouth. I was trying to see how hard I could, like, set the setting for the exhale and it actually, like I was pushing so hard it shot out of my mouth and hit the wall and cracked.

You need to work on your lip muscle control.

I. Yeah, apparently my lungs are stronger than my lips.

You'll never be a professional trombonist or saxophonist. Hey, let's go ahead and move on.

Yes, please.

So, like we mentioned a few minutes ago, and again, all the links. What I was saying was all the links are@BengreentoldFitness.com 308 Before I was so rudely interrupted. The thing is, we caught a lot of flack for that vaccination podcast that we did with Stephanie. Stuff enough like, it always surprises me how polarizing the topic of vaccinations actually is. And I don't feel bad at all about getting Stephanie on the podcast to talk about her experience with vaccines. And she is a scientist and she has studied this stuff quite a bit. And I'll stand by having her on the podcast. I don't feel bad about that. But we did get freaking crucified on itunes reviews and on Twitter and in the comments and everything. So if you're listening in and you can find it in the goodness of your heart, even if you do believe in vaccinations, but your boobs are getting smaller from running and I just saved you from that problem. Go to the podcast in itunes and leave a review. Leave five stars, say something nice and not only is that great karma and helps to boost the show and let other people know about it, but we also choose one review each week and if you hear us read your review on the show, just email Ben greenfieldfitness.com with your T shirt size and I will stick in the mail for you a handy dandy Ben Greenfield Fitness T shirt, a BPA free water bottle, a sweet beanie, all that stuff. You can check it out@BenGreenfieldFitness.com gear so now is the time of the show when Bridge Brock reads our favorite review of the week.

This one comes from MD568.

Great name.

I have no idea if that's a man or a woman. Doesn't really matter. I suppose maybe it'll become clear as we go, but it goes like this. Oh, my husband teases me.

There we go.

It came clear immediately. There we go. Possibly my husband teases. Well, yeah, that's true. Depends on what state. My husband teases me me about how much I love to listen to other men. I start off every morning possible with Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast and a cup of coffee while I play with my dogs. Saddy saddy euphemism. Oh man, we shouldn't have started the show off by talking about breasts. This podcast has the most applicable information and allows me to constantly make small changes to my lifestyle. This has quickly become my favorite podcast because it speaks to both the hardcore and athlete and the fitness and wellness lover who just wants to optimize life. Can't thank you enough for the wealth and information. On a side note, the beginning and ending soundtracks are terrifying. When I drive and listen to the podcast with headphones every time, this sound makes my heart jump as I think something terrible has just happened to my car.

She apparently doesn't like the phone sex girl who we hired to record the intro.

Maybe.

Is that the terrifying welcome to the Ben Greenfield. I've always thought about that. Like if, like it's it's not meant to sound like sexist and stuff with the lady or reading the intro and the outro, but sometimes, you know, when I'm listening to it, I'll occasionally cringe and I'll be like, I wonder if we should just get something that's a little bit more, I don't know, PC or maybe like, like some kind of like a, like an in betweener voice where you can't tell if it's a man or a woman. Woman.

Remember years ago I made a demo intro that actually had a computer voice. Maybe that's what we need to do. It was like a robot voice. Welcome to Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Yeah, but who wants to play with their dogs while listening to a robot voice?

Everyone.

All right, well, we better end things there. So thanks for listening in. And also MB8275, whatever you were, email Ben gruntifulfitness.com with your T shirt size. We'll get a pack out to you and you can access all of the links in the show Notes for this episode for everything from the article on whether running will kill you to the Obstacle Dominator giveaway to the New Media Expo to PaleoFX. All that jazz@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 308 Tune in this weekend for a special episode on why strong people are hard to kill. And until next time.

I think we said that last week too. And then we pulled the old switcheroo. So this time for sure.

Well, you know why we did that? Because the measles thing. I figured it'd be better to just talk about vaccination sooner rather than later.

Because Disney World is banning everyone.

That's right. But this weekend we do promise an episode on why getting stronger will make you harder to kill. So until then, later.

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

It.