Can You Exercise Hard If You're Pregnant, 10 Ways To Get Smarter, Bitter Melon Extract for Fat Loss & More!

In today's episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. Bitter Melon Extract for Fat Loss, Natural Solutions for Bloodshot Eyes, Home Remedies for Shingles. Can youn Exercise Hard if you're Pregnant. Foods that fight blood clots, and how to run a 15K.

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

So I don't know about you, but I am getting pretty darn pumped about going to Kona. I know it's still a couple weeks away, but I'm like, I got my sunscreen out, I've got my fancy hat out, I've got my floral print shorts out. What are you doing? What's going on?

I got stung by a bee yesterday while I was riding my bicycle.

In your throat?

Yeah, I swallowed a bee and it stung me inside of my throat.

You know, I've actually. I got stung on the inside of the mouth once because I was running along and it went in my mouth.

I've been clearing my throat. Like it happened last night, all night long. It was like I had this like, frog in my throat. Except it wasn't a frog, it was a bee.

So where did it really sting you?

It's somewhere inside my throat. Like.

Oh, really?

Yeah, like I actually swallowed it.

I thought you were kidding.

No, I'm not kidding. Like, a bee flew into my mouth while I was riding my bike. And so, yeah, if my voice sounds. If my voice sounds way extra this morning, I'm just gonna swallow a bee before every podcast. And to make matters worse, here's the deal. I'm journaling now. So I journal every morning. My friend E.J. ramdas, he designed this brand new journal called the Five Minute Journal, and it's really cool. Journaling has been shown to reduce your blood pressure and to give you a better day and to make your biceps bigger and all sorts of cool stuff. Maybe not that last one. Wow, you already dropped the P word.

Sorry about that.

We'll have to bleep that one out anyways, though. It's called Five Minute Journal, and I think it's like Five MinuteJournal comm or something like that. But it's a. Literally a five minute journal every morning. And some mornings you wake up and there's a nice quote. And some mornings there's some kind of a call to action. Like last week was call an old friend and this morning was sing in the shower. So me and my swollen bee throat were churning out Randy Travis in the shower this morning, and it was lovely.

You know, part of cognitive behavior therapy is to do exactly that, like every morning to just sit down and do some quick journaling. Like, nothing extensive, like five minutes would be way more than enough. And yeah, I really, I found that to be incredibly beneficial. It's one of those practices I should probably bring back into my life because. Yeah, you know, it's weird how, like, something works so well for you, but then you stop doing it for a while and you kind of forget about it.

But, well, I like this one because it's five minutes. God forbid it takes six minutes or seven minutes, but it's five minutes and it's just like, you know, what are you grateful for? What would make today wonderful? You know, what was great about yesterday? And so, yeah, so this morning, if.

You go seven minutes and your shrinks.

I'm gonna add one, that's two. You are gonna have to bleep those out, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Everybody would be wondering, what did he say?

What exactly did he say? So the last thing I'm grateful for this morning, I'm gonna add a fourth is I'm grateful for the image of Brock standing there excited to go to Ironman Hawaii in and his floral print shirt and his touristy hat and the sunscreen, like the bright white sunscreen all over his lips and his face.

I've already got my camera around my neck too.

I'm grateful for that image this morning. So there you go.

News flashes.

Maybe not the coolest, maybe the nerdiest, but you know what? Before I even get to the news flashes, let me mention, let me mention, speaking of nerds being cool, Brock and I shot a video from. For all of you guys when we were in Canada, when I was racing Ironman Canada and Brock was there, we shot a video for all of our podcast listeners and only podcast listeners can get this because we're only ever going to mention this URL in the podcast. But if you don't share it, anyone, don't share it.

Don't tell anybody, don't share it or.

A bee will fly down your throat. If you go to giftfromben.com over@giftfromben.com Brock and I have a special surprise there waiting for you. And it involves a tennis ball, interestingly enough, so there you go. There's your mystery and intrigue for the morning. Visit giftfromben.com and check out what we've got for you over there. You might like it.

I don't know if anybody can tell, but we actually shot it in the driveway in a driveway of the condo.

You'll laugh. You'll cry.

Not exactly the nicest location, but it worked.

Run away in sheer terror, but it will entertain you. So, news flashes for this week. Bring them up. Here was an awesome article that I wanted to wanted to tell people about. And it is 10amazing and wonderful facts about your brain. I'll link to the article in the show Notes, but the title is why we're more creative when we're tired and nine other surprising facts about how our brain works. Check out some of these things that might actually surprise you. Here's one. Your brain does creative work better when you're tired. And you know why that is?

No. Well, maybe something to do with lowering your, like the editing function.

You get, you get distracted. Free flow, you get distracted more easily. And that's a good thing for creative thinking. So there's that Stress can change the size of your brain, literally making it smaller. They found that the actual hippocampus in your brain shrink in most cases. Brock. Yes, I would think that brain shrinkage would be a bad thing. Yeah. What else? It's actually impossible for your brain to multitask. When you look at the regions of the brain responsible for splitting brain resources, you literally cannot multitask. What we think is multitasking is always simply extremely rapid switching between tasks. So that was interesting. There's one in there about naps, improving your brain's day to day performance and how napping, which I actually do every day for a minimum of about 20 minutes, napping can, can improve your brain's performance. How about this one? Your vision trumps all your other senses. This one is. Well, I think we're going to be talking about vision and eyes later on in today's podcast. But the fact is that your brain, the human being's brain, relies on vision more than anything else. And this is also something that might be interesting for people who go and read the articles that I write@BenGreenfieldFitness.com I've got a really interesting article coming out about vision and biohacking your vision on this Monday, the Monday after this podcast comes out. So check that out. Cool. What else was interesting in there? There's a bunch of them. Let me, let me read you.

I like the one that was the people tend to like people who make more mistakes.

Yeah, that was really interesting. We tend to like people who make mistakes more. Somehow making mistakes make us more likable because they say that perfection creates this distance and an air of invincibility. And people with flaws tend to win out when it comes to likability.

I think that explains the whole popularity.

Of this podcast, and that would explain why anybody ever listens in to this podcast. So there you go. We'll link to that article in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com257 and here's another interesting one. The myth of one gram per pound of protein intake for weightlifters and for bodybuilders. And this is something I've seen since high school, and I think just about every athlete has probably heard this from their coach that you're supposed to so.

That you're supposed to have one gram of protein per pound.

One gram of protein. If you want to turn yourself into a muscular freak of nature, eat one gram per pound of protein. And really, when you look at protein powder, you know, a serving of protein powder being 20 to 40 grams, depending on how many scoops you use and how big your man in a can canister is, and you look at, you know, seeds and nuts being anywhere from 5 to 10 grams, a nice cut of steak being 20, 30 grams, it's actually pretty easy to get up to that gram per pound. But the fact is that, and this article goes into this in a little bit greater detail, pretty much every review paper on the face of the planet that looks into protein intake for maximizing muscle mass, maximizing recovery, protein uptake, everything tops out at, right, about 0.88 grams per pound. And that's really the upper limit. And once you get higher than that, not only is there kind of this diminishing return, but you also get a greater and greater risk of ammonia toxicity of too much nitrogen. So it's really interesting. The origin of the myth is it appears to be coming from the pro bodybuilding world. And that's because when you take steroids, and I'm totally not kidding about this, when you take steroids, it allows you to assimilate more protein than you normally could. So all of these bodybuilders, you know, pro bodybuilders on these androgen supplements, they're actually able to get away with, you know, one gram plus per pound of body weight for protein. But unless you're taking roids, you really can't assimilate all that protein. And the other thing is that there are a lot of supplement companies out there that have some pretty big financial incentives to make you believe that you need more protein than you actually do. You know, pretty much every protein powder company on the face of the planet. But, you know, more is, is not necessarily better. And I love the image that they use in the actual article to illustrate the fact that more is not better. It has to do with a female bust line. But you may want to go check out and read the image.

I just clicked the link.

I've got to see quite a good, good illustration for that image. So we probably shouldn't use that one for our podcast show notes, but we will, I promise, put a very entertaining image. The podcast show notes as usual. So the myth of one gram per pound of protein. And then the last thing that I thought was interesting was a study that came out this week on the difference between working out in the morning and working out in the evening.

I hated this study.

Why?

Because I hate working out in the evening.

I love working out in the evening. That's the only time of day usually for me, about 4 or 5pm, my body starts to wake up and want to go work out.

If I don't get it done before noon, it's a real chore for me to get it, get it done the complete opposite.

Well, this study found that you are actually a little bit less efficient. You're about 4% less efficient when you work out in the evening, but you last about 20% longer and your performance tends to be about 5 to 6% higher in terms of oxygen utilization. So what that means is if you're going to work out hard or long, later in the day is the time to do it. And even though you're slightly less efficient later on in the day, you're still going to get a better workout. And really, if you think about it, if you're training when you're less efficient, say you're getting ready for some kind of a race or a marathon or something like that, that's going to happen more along the lines of being in the morning, you're just going to be all the more efficient when you finally do go and do that eventually that time of day event. So my whole deal that I do is like I work out in the late afternoon or the early evening and then for about a week prior to like a big event like something like Ironman Hawaii that I'm starting up training for or that I'm not starting up training for, I've been training for you've.

Been laying around on the couch six months.

Go for a run this morning. See how the whole body feels. The idea is about a week before a big event, I will shift my training to take place more at the time of day that the event is going to be. But you know, 99% of the time I'm working out in the evening. And this study backs up the fact that I must be an absolute genius for doing so. So there you go.

But I know those, those numbers actually sound quite low. Like 4% doesn't seem like it's very significant. But I know in scientific studies, like in scientific practice, 3% is anything over 3% is what they call statistically significant. So there you go. There is something to be said for anything above 4%.

There's worth it. There's Brock with his propeller hat again. You must have taken off the.

That's me spinning the propeller.

Significance. Announcements.

Like I said before, getting excited about Kona.

Kona. For those of you who don't know what Kona is, that's. That's where Iron Man Hawaii is taking place. They have the Ironman World Championships on the Big island every year. This year I'll be down there competing and Brock is going to come and Brock is going to be holding.

I will not be competing.

Brock is going to be holding the video camera. He's also going to be kind of overseeing the book launch of my brand new book that I've been working on for the past year. We are beginning pre orders the week of Kona even though the actual book won't be released in full with all of its glorious hardcovery ness. Gloriousness in March is the actual book release. But we're beginning to give away a bunch of bonuses and prizes and everything. We're gonna launch all that in the Big island and so we'll both be down there and we put a link in the show notes for those of you who are heartily supportive of the podcast and want to ensure that Brock and I are able to do things like purchase $20 margaritas and eat out at fancy Thai restaurants every night.

If you want to donate tuna every night, please.

If you want to donate to the cause, then we're putting a link over in the show notes where you can donate to support the podcast and also support all of the cool content that Brock is going to be bringing you from Kona. And of course, if you're going to be in Ironman or be at Ironman Hawaii on the Big island that week, keep an eye out for Brock he'll be the guy running around with the floral print T shirt and the camera hanging around his neck and the big white sunscreen stick drawing.

And of course, my. My white Canadian legs and his white Canadian legs.

So we've got that going on that's coming up very soon. And of course, we'll also be releasing a premium podcast after the race in which I geek out on all the nitty gritty stuff that I am I'm doing to train for that race, as well as those of you who wonder about Ironman nutrition protocols, some stuff like that, things that have changed since Ironman Canada. We'll put out a premium podcast for.

That that will likely involve a couple.

Of glasses of wine, hopefully. That's right. And a lot of astaxanthin, the world's best skin protectant. October 4th, actually, Jessa and I just the other night sat down sober, surprisingly, and shot a video for the Inner Circle. Usually about half the time, we're halfway through a bottle of wine when we shoot a video for the Inner Circle, but we actually shot a sober video for the Inner Circle. And if you're not yet an Inner Circle member, you can go check it out. It's over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com innercircle and in that video, we go into why we, at one point in our life survived off of peanut butter, Captain Crunch and Skittles. And you can go check out that video link in the show notes and you'll definitely, if you're interested in the Inner Circle, want to get in on the next webinar, which is going to be about how to get your ideal winter physic. Physique.

Physique.

And what we'll go into is how you can go through the holidays and maintain your six pack your tight butt. Or get that if you don't have it yet.

So, and, and does that just involve skipping every family function that you're invited to? Because that's not a very good strategy.

It involves jumping rope and doing crunches and skipping Christmas. Yes. So we're going to teach you all that. No, we're going to teach you how to have. Have fun over the holidays and still maintain your physique. So that's coming up next Friday for our Inner Circle members. Inner circle is 10 bucks a month, so check that out and anything else that we need to announce. Brock, I think that's about it.

I think that's it.

We're going to be doing our cool giveaway at the end of this podcast, so make sure that you tune into that, and I think we're ready for the. For the official queue.

Listener Q and A.

All right, before we jump into the first question, this week in particular, we got three separate questions asking the same thing that we've actually covered in the past. It's about, what should you ask for when you go to the doctor to get your physical done or to get some blood tests? If you're an endurance athlete, what should you be doing? And we have covered that in the past in episode 188. So I didn't want to actually officially answer it, but I wanted to direct Everybody to episode 188. If you are looking for information about what blood tests you should ask for from the doc when you go for your physical.

I wasn't aware of that. But you know what I've been telling people, Brock, is go to direct labs. And we can put a link to direct labs in the show notes. But you just go to direct labs and they have a test there called the top 10 tests. And all you do is you just print that off and bring it into your doc and just be like, hey, I want these tests. And I mean, like, honestly, that's what I've been telling people to do. Unless you want to order it yourself through direct labs, in which case it can be a little bit more difficult to get it covered by insurance. Either way, you just print off that list and bring it into your doc and just be like, hey, doc, run these labs on me. And, you know, that's it. So just, you might just be a.

Little more forceful than that because the doc might be like, well, why? Why on earth would you want that?

Yeah, tell them to shut up and.

Do the test, doc.

Yeah, because Brock and Ben said so. So there you go. Direct labs.

Hi, Ben. Hi, Brock. This is Suzanne from Connecticut. I have a question about garcinia cambogia that I've been taking for weight loss. And I also have been taking your suggestion and using the bitter melon extract. Does one work better than the other? Can I take them together? Love your show. Thank you so much for every week making my run better. So thank you very much and have a great day.

Well, first of all, as far as bitter melon extract goes, I gotta tell you, that bitter melon extract is like my new darling supplement for fat loss. It's what I take every single night now.

Yeah, I think you've been doing that since Christmas.

I've been doing it pretty much all year. I weigh 170 right now, and that's actually I haven't weighed 170 since I was in like eighth grade, which is nuts. But I take two bitter melon extract every single night before dinner because of its blood sugar lowering effects and its ability to essentially keep carbohydrate from getting converted into fats. The mechanism of action is that there are what are called polypeptides that are present in bitter melon that have what you would almost consider. And I gotta be careful throwing around a word like this on the podcast because we can't manage disease, but almost like anti diabetic properties similar to the diabetic drug metformin. So all of these polypeptides put together increase your glucose uptake and also your glycogen synthesis in your liver and in your muscle and in your adipose tissue. And so it essentially just soaks up carbohydrates, soaks up glucose. It has such a powerful effect that it can actually cause your blood sugar to become low enough to where you wouldn't want to take the stuff before you go to a workout.

Didn't you take some before you played a tennis match one time? And just about, oh yeah, I got.

All dizzy because I was hypoglycemic. But taking it like before dinner. Dinner is the one time of the day where I tend to actually include some carbohydrates. I usually have a glass of wine. Typically there's some white rice or some sweet potato or yam or something like that. I pop a couple of those. And they're a pretty potent kind of damage control formula. When it comes to, to carbohydrates. I use a brand called mpx. I have no clue what that stands for, but it's. I think it's around 200mg of bitter melon extract. Now this garcinia stuff is something that Dr. Oz has talked about before, and garcinia is a little bit different. Garcinia has what's called HCA in it, or HCA extract, that stands for hydroxycitric acid. And hydroxycitric acid basically blocks fat by inhibiting this enzyme that your body needs to make fat from carbohydrates. It inhibits this enzyme called citrate lysase or citrate lyase. Now, usually carbohydrates or sugars that are not something that your body uses right away that end up hanging around your bloodstream can pretty easily get converted into fats by the liver. But when HCA from this garcinia stuff inhibits that enzyme, it kind of halts some of that fat making process. And then also the HCA also increases serotonin levels, Serotonin being that neurotransmitter that can help you to feel a little bit more satisfied after you've eaten. So it's an interesting supplement. The thing about inhibiting this citrate lyase enzyme, though, is that that can. That can drive your blood sugar down as well. So if you were to combine something like garcinia with something like bitter melon extract, it's kind of sort of doing the same thing in one sense of the word. Although the garcinia has that effect on the neurotransmitters. You know, if you tend to struggle with lots of cravings and that's really an issue for you, something like garcinia might be a better choice because of that effect that it has on serotonin. If you're okay with cravings and you just want a little bit of damage control, you'd want to go with something like the bitter melon extract. I've never used garcinia. I don't use it with any of my clients. I typically recommend the bitter melon for my clients who want to lose fat fast, but I definitely wouldn't combine the two. I don't think this would be an appropriate stack just because you're kind of doubling up when it comes to your fat loss supplements. Whenever I talk about fat loss supplements, of course, I want to emphasize nothing beats standing, physical activity throughout the day, exercise, and watching how many calories that you eat. But if you want that extra little.

Not only calories, but the type of calories too, not just the number.

Yeah. Although I think sometimes we focus a little bit too much on the type of calories and people eat bacon all day long and then scratch their head that they're not losing weight, doing their high fat, low carb diet. And they're because they're getting 3,000 calories a day of bacon.

But ultimately so much bacon as it is like baked goods. I see more people just eating bread constantly during the day. Like meal involves some huge bun or loaf of bread.

Yeah, I guess I use the bacon analogy just because I know we've. We are. Our listenership seems to have taken a little bit more of like this low carb, paleo bent. So now I can just. I can just vilify bacon whenever I want to perk up somebody's ears. So anyways, though, yeah, bitter melon would be the one that I'd go for if you had to choose something. Now, if, If Money is not an issue for you. And you want like the ultimate fat loss stack. You, you go over to pacificfit.net and there's this stack over there that's thermo factor, which is a thermogenic aid. You combine that with bitter melon extract. You combine that with lean factor, which contains a bunch of cyclic amp, which is like something you take right before workout to activate more lean muscle during a workout. You put those three together and that's some pretty potent shiz bang. But it's also not cheap, so just kind of depends on how much money you want to spend on your belly.

Hi Ben, My name is Deanna. I have a question about the whites of my eyes. I've noticed that the past few months they've been really bloodshot. I don't know if it's something I'm lacking nutritionally or what else it could be, but I'm really hoping that you can help me solve this problem. A little information about myself. I'm in my mid-30s. I exercise pretty regularly, meaning I run about six miles a day most days. I think I eat pretty healthy. I get a lot of sleep. So please help me out. I want the whites of my eyes to be white again.

Thanks.

Since Deanna did didn't mention that she's doing anything crazy like wearing contact lenses that look like cat eyes or working in a sandstorm or something like that will assume that she's not doing anything weird to her eyes.

Yes. And if you are wearing cat like contact lenses and working in a sandstorm, then I'm curious what kind of job you have.

That's a cool job.

There's a bunch of other stuff that could cause red eye too. I mean, you know, there's the obvious kind of infection like conjunctivitis, pink eye type of thing. But I mean, allergies that can be a big one when you get that histamine reaction or a bee flying down your throat. Computer vision syndrome. In which case you definitely want to read Monday's article where I talk about how to biohack your vision and reduce computer vision syndrome and screen glare from long periods of time spent staring at computer. You know, everything from like lack of blood flow to the eyes to some, some leakage to high amount of carbohydrate intake and like glaucoma and increased pressure in the eyes. Bunch of different stuff can cause red eyes. I mean even, you know, in, in an active, you know, I know we got, we have a lot of triathletes that listen in, but like chlorine and other pool sanitizers, as well as different type of bacteria you find in, in open water. All of those can wreak havoc on your eyes if you're a swimmer, as can the pressure from goggles. So, you know, a lot of different kind of causes of bloodshot eyes. But as far as the stuff that I would focus on, you know, there was a really interesting presentation at the Ancestral Health Symposium this year. And it was, it was by a physician who specializes in ocular health, which is my fancy term for eye health. And it was basically a discussion about how to get rid of things like dry eyes and cataracts and macular degeneration and glaucoma. I'll link to that full. Her slides are available for free on the Internet over at SlideShare. I'll link to all the slides in the show notes. But what I really liked was her super practical recommendations for how to improve eye health and all of the precursors that your eyes actually need to function properly. So here, here is what her exact kind of prescription was. When you look at things from like a whole food spectrum, first of all, two egg yolks a day doesn't matter if they're with the whites or without the whites, but two egg yolks a day. So you're getting all that lutein from the egg yolks and you also get this, this other compound called zeaxanthin, which is incredibly important, important for the eyes. So two egg yolks a day was the first kind of step in her healthy eye protocol. Next was the equivalent of one cup of greens a day. And that could be collard kale, spinach, Swiss chard, mustard greens, turnip greens, you name it. But one of the things that she really recommended that you do when you eat the greens to increase the absorption of the specific compounds in those greens that assist with, with eye health, was that you eat the greens with fat. So that would mean like, don't just have like a, like a, oh, God forbid, who would eat kale just by itself? I don't know. But you know, you have, you cook your mustard greens and butter or you have a kale salad and you put a lot of olive oil on it. But fat is what's going to help with the absorption of the specific compounds that again, help with eye health. Now, so you've got two egg yolks a day, one cup of greens a day, and neither of those should be too difficult to pull off.

Another thing, that's breakfast right there.

Yeah, that's breakfast. There you go. I mean, you could even fry up your egg yolks with some butter and some greens, and there's, you know, eyes would be popping out your skull. The equivalent of a pound of wild fish. With the skin. With the skin. That's important. There's actually this. This. This old. I think it's like an old, like, Indian folktale about this blind guy who's, like, wandering through the forest and. And he comes upon, like, some ancient medicine man who gives him, like, a fish to restore his sights. And it's something like that. I probably totally just butchered that entire.

It's not a very good folktale.

It's not a good folktale, but it's. It's a little boring anyways. The one pound of an oily wild fish. Now I eat the skin. Whenever I eat fish, I love to eat the skin.

Oh, yeah, the skin is the best food.

So good. I get strange looks sometimes when I'm at a dinner, and I'll rip the bottom of the skin off of the salmon and eat that first. But you could do a pound of wild fish a week. The equivalent of that would be three tins of sardines. Sardines would also work. Three tins worth of sardines. Or if you aren't a pound of fish person and you're not a three tins of sardines person, and that's not per day, that's per week that you'd want to get about that equivalent. You can also get your hands on a good fish oil. Use like the. Like the super essentials fish oil, or use like a. Like a Green Pastures Fermented cod liver oil. But you're looking at about one to two grams a day. That's not a ton. You know, a lot of fish oils. Even one capsule is one grammar. So you can get away with as little as a couple of capsules. But the fish oil component is extremely important as well. So when you put all of that together, you're getting a really good daily ratio of what's called your lutein and your zeaxanthin levels. So you're gonna get those in about a 5 to 1 ratio by working all of those in. There's a few other things that she mentioned during that study or during that talk. One was as yellow flowers or what's called nasturtium. They make these edible flowers. Jessa grows them in the garden. They're actually nurstiums. Yeah, nasturtiums. You can eat them, and those are good for your eyes. When you cook kale when you cook spinach and when you cook, you know, these turnip greens, collards, chards, they actually release more of the lutein and the zeaxanthin. It becomes more bioavailable. So if you're cooking it, steaming it, that type of thing, it's actually going to be even better than if you're, say, just blending it in a smoothie or eating it in a salad. So those were, those were most of her practical recommendations, though. I thought it was a really good, good, good presentation. And I'll put the slides in the show notes, but those are some of the things that I would do if you want to get better eyes and kind of ensure that there's nothing lacking in your diet that are affecting your eye health or that would be affecting your eye health.

Hi, this is Sam from Spokane, Washington. And my question is not actually for me. It's about my sister. She just found out she has the shingles virus. And I was wondering your thoughts on what might be good solutions or home remedies to treat this. I look forward to hearing you as soon as possible and have a good day.

So do you know Sam? I know everybody in Spokane, don't you?

You know what? I don't know if I know this Sam or not. I may. Sam, if I know you, let me know and send, send me a nice gift for answering your question. Come to my house and mow my lawn. For taking care of your sister's shingles.

Issues, come to Ben's house and take away the blender that's going to last. We have.

Yes, there is. It sounds like someone's. Just like yesterday I recorded a podcast and my wife was, was hammering building a bookshelf or something. Today it sounds like she's, she's blending everything in the kitchen, so.

Excellent.

There you go. I'll need to give her a heads up when I'm podcasting. You know, a year from now when I actually move into my new house, this will become a non issue. I have this office that's like soundproof downstairs in a den and completely separate from the rest of the house. So we'll be good at that point.

So then it'll just be noise on my side.

Then it'll just be all of Brock's noise.

I don't have that luxury.

So, Sam, there are some good home remedies that you could look into for shingles. And perhaps we should play our I'm not a doctor disclaimer at this point in the podcast because I'm not a doctor.

Ben is not a doctor and the content provided on this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or healthcare advice.

But shingles. Shingles are a viral infection. They're caused by a specific virus, the same virus that causes chickenpox. Similar to chickenpox, the virus can become dormant in your nerve tissue, and it can get reactivated at any point during your life as shingles. And a lot of times it'll get reactivated when you're in a state where you have a weakened immune system. You know, for like an exercising individual, you have a weakened immune system after you do a really hard workout. Some people have a weakened immune system after they eat foods to which they might be allergic, like wheat or dairy or soy. Other people have a weakened immune system if they happen to have, say, children running around full of runny noses and germs. Snotty little kids. So as far as shingles go, there are a few natural remedies that you can try. None have been proven very well to totally eliminate shingles symptoms, but could help a little bit. One would be proteolytic enzymes. Now, proteolytic enzymes are the enzymes that your pancreas makes, and they help to digest protein that you eat. And some of the more popular ones are like papain, which you find in papaya, or bromelain, which you find in pineapple. Or some of the more spendy ones that you can buy at the health food store would be trypsin or chymotrypsin, which are a lot of times derived from animal pancreas products. And sometimes they're marketed as digestive enzyme supplements. Sometimes they're marketed as ways that you can reduce soreness. Like there's a supplement called Recover Ease that you can get@pacificfit.net that is just chock full of papain, bromelain, trypsin, chymotrypsin, and a bunch of branched chain amino acids. And that's one that I recommend to people after a hard workout. But there was a study in Germany where they took a bunch of people and they gave them either proteolytic enzymes or they gave them a standard antiviral medication for shingles. Both of the groups experienced pain relief. They experienced improvement in a lot of the skin symptoms that occur when you have shingles. But the group that was taking the proteolytic enzymes had a lot fewer side effects. So that's something to consider would be proteolytic enzymes. Now, one of the things that you should also know is that proteolytic Enzymes have a blood thinning effect because they break down fibrinogen, which is a component of blood clotting. So if you're taking warfarin like coumadin, or you take an aspirin or some kind of other blood thinning medication, you're going to want to bear in mind that the proteolytic enzyme is going to thin your blood even more. So kind of be careful there if you're taking a blood thinning medication. There was another study that looked at improving immune function, specifically in older adults who are at risk for shingles by using tai chi. And tai chi is like, you know, the slow motion karate that old people do at the park?

Certain young people do it too.

It's something. I have a tai chi dvd. I've been going through it about once every couple of weeks. It's called Tai Chi for Beginners. I got it off of Amazon. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. But it's pretty simple. It just like walks you through basic Tai chi movements. And it's really relaxing, actually. And it really, like, that's almost what it's like, is like, you know, if you were ever like a kid and doing like slow motion fighting, slow motion karate, that kind of thing. Like, Tai chi is kind of like that. You don't have to do the whole like, matrix bending over backwards with your arms flying over your head. You could, I guess we actually did. We. When I was in London, we, a bunch of Ben Greenfield fitness podcast listeners and, and some. Some other folks met up with Darrell Edwards, who's the fitness explorer guy, and we did a whole primality workshop with him for like six hours. And one of the ways that we warmed up was slow motion karate where you just had to fight each other in slow motion. And it's actually kind of hard to do anyways. Tai chi, though, Tai chi is.

Is deceivingly difficult. Like, I've done a couple of classes and it's. You get a good workout. By the end, you're kind of weak and shaky and.

Yeah, those good. Those darn. Those darn old Chinese people in the park are more badass than you think.

So, yeah.

So tai chi. And you can get a Chai Ch for Beginners DVD that's actually pretty good. And I'll put a link to that one over in the show notes. The other thing for pain that you can get with skin pain with shingles is a capsaicin cream. Capsaicin is, as we know, like the active ingredient in cayenne. Pepper and chili peppers and stuff like that, but it has a topical analgesic, painkilling effect. It depletes what's called, called substance P, which is a neurochemical that transmits pain. And you can use just a natural tube or jar of capsaicin cream. And you can put that in areas where you're getting pain or tingling or burning or itching or numbness. And it can actually help out with some of those issues that you get with shingles and smell delicious too. And you'll smell like a giant Mexican burrito. So that's right, you can go join, join up with the older Asian tai chi folks in the park smelling like a Mexican burrito with a tummy full of proteolytic enzymes and your shingles will vanish.

It's an International Culinary Dr. Oz, here we come.

Hi, Ben, it's Vashti from South Australia. I'm a fitness trainer and I have just found out that I am pregnant, which is a bit of a surprise for me. My concern is that I'm 42 years old, but I am fit and strong. So I would like to know if you had any particular advice or adaptions I should make because of that age physically and nutritionally. That would be lovely. I love the podcast. Thank you both, Brock and Ben, very much.

Bye. Well, that's excellent, mate. Put another, put another shrimp. Another shrimp on the barbie.

You know, I'm having. I actually, my girlfriend is Australian and that's like the weirdest myth that has ever been propagated.

Let's all go surfing with the great white sharks now.

There you go. That's what every Australian does. But first they put on their thongs and do that.

Or thongs.

Thongs are shoes. Not what you think.

This actually reminds me of a pretty controversial article that hit the news this week about the pregnant crossfit mom. Did you hear about this? Yeah.

Well, how could you not?

She was like this, doing. She has this hardcore CrossFit workout routine and she. She's doing it like two weeks before giving birth to her baby. And there's this video and maybe we'll put a photo in the show notes of her eight months pregnant with her baby and crossfitting. And granted, she's an experienced crossfitter and has been doing it for a while.

Wasn't she an ex bodybuilder?

Like competitive bodybuilder?

She knows what she's doing.

Yeah, she knows what she's. But you know, she's kind of throwing the kettlebell around and everything and. And it was A little bit controversial. I think it, it shocked some people probably in a similar way to when I had Cassandra Forsythe on the podcast. And I'll put a link to that podcast that I did with Cassandra in the show notes. But she was, I think in her third trimester when she came on the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. She was deadlifting, doing power cleans, doing barbell squats. When I was managing the wellness program at University of Idaho, we had an instructor who taught pretty hardcore spin classes like up until about three weeks out. And so you certainly do have moms out there who are exercising over and above what you might find recommended in the typical kind of standard recommendations for what you're supposed to be doing during pregnancy. So what you typically see is that folks tell you in medical literature that you're not supposed to exceed a heart rate of 140 beats per minute, that walking is considered safe to initiate. But you want to be careful with weight bearing activity that you want to avoid like deep knee bends, that you want to avoid hopping or running, you want to avoid activities where you need to balance, you want to avoid heavy spurts of exercise, you want to avoid exercise in the heat. I mean there's this huge list of recommendations for what pregnant women should not be doing during their pregnancy. And I think what it leads to a lot of women doing is just like sitting around because they're almost afraid. It's like, you know, my baby is gonna wind up, you know, coming out looking like a, like a two headed ogre if I, if I so much as lift a heavy weight at the gym or you know, it's, it's kind of this fear. And so women just, well, not only.

Just sitting around but, but they're sitting around and they're just eating. They're eating for two, but they're eating for two and using M&Ms.

Right. So the thing is, and this kind of flies under the radar I think. Cause people like to play on the safe side when it comes to pregnancy. And it's not like there's something wrong with that per se, but the fact is that you can actually have a better baby depending on the type of physical activity that you engage in when you are pregnant. So there's been some studies that have looked into this. So for example, there was a study back in 2003 that looked at the effects of maternal exercise on fetal oxygenation and on placenta growth. What they found was that sustained bouts of exercise during pregnancy causes what was called an acute reduction in oxygen and nutrient delivery to the placenta, which sounds like a bad thing, right, that you cut off oxygen and nutrient delivery to the placenta. But what happened was this was followed by an increase in what's called fetal tissue perfusion and oxygen uptake. It's kind of like when you're exercising for a short period of time, you actually are sometimes experiencing this decreased amount of oxygen that's available to the rest of your body, decreased nutrient delivery. But after you've finished exercising, all of a sudden you actually get a higher plasma volume, you get better oxygen uptake, you get better cardiac output, you get better cardiovascular function. And it turns out that it's like.

Doing hypoxic sets in the pool.

Exactly, exactly. And this slight decrease in oxygen and nutrient delivery to the placenta actually results in what's called a fetal sympathetic response, which is almost just like a slight fight and flight response in the fetus. And again, that sounds like a bad thing, but what actually happens is you end up getting a placenta that has better oxygen delivery, better nutrient delivery, and a child that has a more well tuned nervous system. When the mother is actually moving around during pregnancy and even engaging in spurts of physical exercise, you have a little.

Scrapper baby that pops out all ready to fight and fight.

That's kind of the thing is you have a baby that's a little bit more adaptive in terms of its nervous system strength. So that's one thing to look into. There was another study that looked at the influence of endurance exercise, specifically on endurance exercise and diet. And this looked at sustained exercise sessions and what happened with oxygen and substrate delivery to the placenta during sustained bouts, like more kind of like longer, you know, 60 to 90 minute bouts of exercise. And what they found was that as long as dietary intake was adequate, as long as there was enough nutrients to go around, that there was absolutely no issues with anything like fetal growth, baby weight, anything along those lines. So the important thing to realize is that if you're going to be training for like a bike ride or a marathon or something like that, and you're pregnant, you do need to eat a crap ton of food. That's one thing. You don't want to send your baby a starvation signal. Sending your baby an exercise signal, it turns out, is better than not doing so. But in most cases, women have to, at a minimum, increase calorie intake by at least 300 calories a day. And, you know, there are weight charts that you can find out there that kind of show you how much weight you're supposed to gain during each trimester of your pregnancy. And it's pretty important that you make sure that you get adequate calories in. And this study showed that, you know, while exercise is good, you can affect birth weight if you are combining exercise with inadequate calorie intake. So that's another thing to think about. You get a lot of recommendations out there that women should not bounce and run and engage in impact based activity. But there was another study that looked at running through pregnancy and its effect on the placenta and on cellular proliferation and on fetal growth and birth weight. And what they found in this study was that all of the mothers who ran during pregnancy, they experienced an increase in vascular volume in terms of blood flow to the placenta and also what's called cellular proliferation, which is the actual growth of the fetus itself. They also experienced higher birth weight in the baby. And so it turns out that running did not result in any deleterious effect on the baby or on the birth weight or on the placenta. Now, I don't want to use any of these studies as an excuse for a woman to go out and beat her body up with metabolic conditioning workouts that go way over and above what you should normally be doing. There are a few things to bear in mind. One would be your fetal temperature. So when we're looking at a risk for a birth defect or a miscarriage or something like that, you can actually initiate something like that when the core temperature gets too high, specifically when maternal temperatures rise above about 102 degrees, there's some pretty serious risks for the baby. Now hard exercise in hot conditions can definitely create that. So if you're going to be doing CrossFit, if you're going to be running, you know, whatever, you want to make sure that none of this is taking place in, you know, saunas, hot conditions, you want to steer clear of hot tubs. But understand the whole temperature effect. If you are feeling hot and you're feeling uncomfortably hot, then your fetus is probably feeling that as well. So that's one thing to bear in mind is maternal and fetal temperature. Another thing to bear in mind is what's called hemodynamics. So you can, you can get to the point where once you exceed about 70% of your maximum heart rate, there's a little bit of what's called fetal bradycardia that goes on, which means that the fetal heart rate drops pretty significantly and can drop by anywhere from 5 to 15 beats per minute. Now, long term fetal bradycardia, this long term drop in the fetal heart rate can actually be deleterious to the, to the health of a growing baby. So the way that something like that would happen would be you being breathless during exercise for long periods of time. So whereas aerobic exercise is fine with, once you're getting up into metabolic conditioning, anaerobic conditioning, that's where you need to be careful, especially if it's for longer periods of time. I definitely would never exceed two minutes of any type of anaerobic, kind of glycolytic type of activity. And you know, I would be more prone to be very, to do very, very short, like 10 to 30 second bursts rather than anything over and above that that would cause an increased oxygen demand. So I'd play it safe when it comes to that. Remember that there's a big, big difference between aerobic exercise and kind of the acute, slight drop in oxygen and nutrient delivery that occurs with aerobic exercise and hard metabolic conditioning that's literally causing, you know, like this, this true hemodynamic response that drops the heart rate of the baby. So even though the recommendations are kind of vague on this, what I would personally say is if you're sucking air for a long period of time, you probably shouldn't be doing that. So that's something that you need to be careful with too. And I wouldn't be going any longer than two minutes for doing anything that's, let's like really hard in terms of like say, an interval, for example. Another kind of contraindication, and this is one that most women are aware of, is abdominals. And especially as you're getting into the second and the third trimester, spending lots of time on your back, which can significantly reduce the cardiac flow and blood delivery to the placenta. So if you're working on your core, I'll put a link in the show notes. I wrote an article called 14 Core Exercises for when you're pregnant, a cheat sheet for getting your abs back after you have a baby. And what I give you are a bunch of ab exercises that you can do where you're never really lying on your back on the ground. I mean, everything from like Saxon bends with a weight in each hand overhead to like kneeling cable crunches in a kneeling position to standing medicine ball rotations, but basically like a bunch of stuff that very, very similar to the type of exercises that my wife did when she was pregnant with river and Taran. And, and these are things that you can do without having to get concerned about spending a long period of time lying on your back, which actually can be something you want to avoid when you're pregnant, so I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. Ultimately, my wife did light weightlifting about two to three times a week. She swam about three to four times a week. There were a few weeks where she swam almost every day. She rode the bike a little bit. She did some of these core exercises that I'll link to in the show notes, and that was about it. And she didn't go out and do CrossFit or any hard and heavy metabolic conditioning workouts. But I think the big takeaway message here is don't let your body temperature get too high. Don't be sucking oxygen for long periods of time. And aside from that, it's okay to lift heavy stuff, it's okay to run, it's okay to do intervals in moderation, and you can actually stay pretty dang fit when you're pregnant by doing some of these things. And of course, that, you know, there are all sorts of things that can happen during pregnancy where you may need to be more careful than other women when it comes to. It comes to overdoing it. You know, if you've had issues in the past with pregnancy or you've got gestational diabetes or anything like that, you know, there's a bunch of other stuff we could get into, but those are the basics.

Vashti is old like me, and she's 42, so it sounds like she's taking good care of herself already. So that sets her up really well. But there could be some things she needs to take into consideration because of her age.

I think every woman, every family who's expecting needs to read Dave Asprey's Better Baby book. I'll link to that in the show notes. And even though I don't think it's necessary, I think it would be enormously helpful. Chris Kresser's Healthy Baby Code. If you were to put those two resources together, those would be two of the best things that you could do, that you could do for the growth of Healthy baby.

Hi Ben, I started running for the first time in my life about a year ago, six months into learning how to run, and after I ran a couple of races, I developed a blood clot in my neck. They're not sure why, but I was on Coumadin for the last several months and I just recently had an ultrasound and the blood clot is now completely gone. And I am back into running and hoping all will go well. But I am wondering what I could take to keep my blood a little thinner. I've had an issue with just really thick blood. I was on high doses of Coumadin and they just had difficulty regulating or keeping my blood thin enough. So I'd like to take something naturally that would help keep it thin. What would be your recommendations? Thank you.

Wow. A blood clot in your neck that can lead to some serious, serious problems and, or death.

I've always been concerned about blood clots. I had an exercise physiology professor in college who did a marathon about five hours from our school, and then after the marathon, like two hours later, got in his car, drove back, had a stroke from a blood clot and was never the same again. And it was, it was tragic. It, it made me think quite heavily from, from that point on about exercise and like sitting down after exercise. And, you know, it's, it's, it's something I get.

Do you think that was the magic combination?

The combination of what I said, do.

You think that's the, the magic combination, like doing the exercise and then basically like getting in your car and sitting for a while or even just going home and hitting the couch for a couple hours?

Exactly, because exercise can, you know, the damage that's done during exercise and a lot of that fibrinogen that's floating around, it can cause that clotting effect. I mentioned fibrinogen earlier in this podcast when I was talking about proteolytic enzymes to break those up. But it can certainly be an issue, especially if you are going into a sedentary position immediately after a long period of time spent beating your body up. You know, it's why when I fly to an Ironman triathlon or, you know, a hard event like that, I try and tack at least a couple days on afterwards before I'm getting in a car for long periods of time or before I'm flying. So if you've been on high doses of Coumadin before because you have thick blood, more natural ways to make your blood thin. You know, we already mentioned one, and that would be those proteolytic enzymes. There are some other things out there, though, that you can do. I mean, there are foods that naturally fight blood clots that would definitely include in your diet, probably one of the biggest ones. And this is one that not only helps you feel better when you've had a poor night of sleep or you've been drinking alcohol, you know, and part of it is because of that blood thinning effect. It's just a basic turmeric or curcumin extract, like a high dose curcumin extract. So I use one called phenocaine and it's about a full thousand milligrams if I take four capsules of phenocaine. And that has a pretty potent blood thinning effect. It also is really, really good for reducing pain, for reducing inflammation. It's basically my number one alternative to ibuprofen, but just a basic high dose curcumin extract, that's one thing that you can try. Another one would be the proteolytic enzymes that I mentioned. And you could use bromelain, you could use papain. The interesting thing is there's two things that make proteolytic enzymes like what you would find in pineapple and papaya and steak or in this recovery supplement that I talked about. Even more effective, number one would be curcumin and number two would be ginger. So that's kind of like this holy triad. If you combine curcumin with proteolytic enzymes with ginger, that has a potent anti inflammatory effect and it can also have a really, really nice blood thinning effect. So ginger, I mean you can take like a golf ball sized piece of ginger, you can chop it into thin slices, you can boil it and make some tea. You could use a ginger extract or a ginger capsule if you wanted to. But ginger is definitely another one that I would include a couple other. Garlic. Garlic has a really, really good anti inflammatory and antimicrobial effect, but it's also good for blood pressure and for thinning the blood. So garlic is another one that I'd look into. And then the last thing, when we're just talking about foods in addition to turmeric, doing some proteolytic enzymes, doing ginger, doing garlic would just be ensuring that you're staying adequately hydrated. Because when you're dehydrated, that thickens your blood. It can cause stuff to clump together to form clots. So drinking enough water is going to be really, really important as well. When you're looking at things from a supplement standpoint, fish oil is one super duper important one that has really, really good effect in terms of its blood thinning properties. And then the other thing that's important, important for proper clotting, it's not necessarily going to thin your blood, but it is important for proper clotting effect and for ensuring that everything's kind of working properly from that standpoint would be vitamin K. A lot of people are deficient in vitamin K. You can get it from things like Natto, which is like a fermented soybean. You can Also take it, if you take it in supplement form, you want to use a form called vitamin K2 but taking about 50 to 100 micrograms of vitamin K2 on a daily basis, especially if you're not eating a lot of fats in your diet. If you're not using a fermented food like Natto, that can be really effective as well. Any of these things.

Wait, sorry. How much did you take of the vitamin K?

About 50 to 100 micrograms. So that's mcg micrograms. We had a podcast that was, we did with the author of a book about vitamin K. I forget the name of the book. Vitamin K something something something something. But anyways that is, that's a book that I would recommend that you read if you want to learn more about vitamin K. So that's, that's what I would do. As far as the blood thinning goes, you could probably say bye bye to Coumadin if you were to introduce a lot of these next natural blood thinners that protect you against strokes, that protect against blood clots. Again, disclaimer. I don't want you to consider that to be medical advice, but it's certainly something that I would personally do if I were concerned about clots. It is one of the reasons why when I cross the finish line of an Ironman triathlon, I'm popping phenocaine, I'm popping fish oil and I'm popping recoveries. Like those are my top three for ensuring that, that I don't get a blood clot after a hard, hard workout.

Hey Ben, this is Shane. Hey. I'm a new runner. I just started running 5Ks in May and doing so I've lost about 50 pounds. Well, I've decided to run a 15K in about four weeks toward the end of October. So I wanted to know how to prepare for that, what to do. Is there something I need to take on the race course with me? I have no idea. I'm a rookie runner obviously and just need to get some insight on how to prepare for this next adventure in my racing. Thanks.

Okay, so absolute newbie, apparently done some 5Ks going to 15K.

That's right.

Not a lot of difference there really.

You know what, there actually isn't and that's why I wanted to answer this question because I know it's kind of like a beginner running question but.

Yeah, you'd think you're tripling your distance so need to do something different.

But yeah, there's not a lot different that you want to do. There's just a few little pacing and nutrition things you want to think about. And this is something that anybody who's running kind of up to about a 20k distance or so should, should bear in mind. And that is that nutrition is not all that important when it comes to running distances that are less. Less than about a half marathon. And the reason for that is you're.

Talking about nutrition during the race.

Nutrition. Nutrition during. Like you don't really have to take anything out there with you if you're running a half marathon or less. Like I just had one of my athletes, we actually put, put him up on Google plus. He was talking about his race. He did his, his half marathon and he actually ran a faster half marathon pace than any of the 5Ks that he's done in the past. And you know, his breakfast that I had him do was two hours before he got up and he had some, some bulletproof coffee. You know, just the basic, like he had some coffee blended up with some butter and some MCT oil and then you know that that was it. He went and did the run. I think he may have had like a tablespoon or so of Superstarch or something. He mixed something weird into the coffee. Coffee. But essentially went out and did the run. Yeah, it didn't sound that appetizing. Did the run and was fine and maintained a good pace. So once you're exceeding right around two hours or so of aerobic exercise, that's where you're looking at complete glycogen depletion and not eating anything at all. Winding up kind of coming back to bite you in the butt. But ultimately for a 15k distance, just go out there. You know, you may want to grab water from a few aid stations as you're thirsty and you barely even need that. But don't let the trickle down recommendations from Ironman Triathlon and from marathon cause you to think that you gotta, you know, go out on a 15k with a, with a, you know, one of those running, full of running belts. Yeah, one of those running belts with, with six flasks on it. The six shooter or yeah, the camelback full of Kool Aid. So as far as nutrition goes, honestly, just follow the superhuman food pyramid on BenGreenfieldFitness.com, eat a healthy diet and don't worry about taking anything out there with you on the run as far as your pacing is concerned. I am a big, big fan for anything from a half marathon up to a marathon of just following a few simple rules for pacing. First of all, you want to warm up really well. Most people don't warm up well enough for a 5k, a half marathon, a marathon. You want to get to the point where you've got a kind of a decent little sweat going on and you're breathing a little bit hard during a warm up. Usually that's going to be anywhere from 5 to a 15 minute warm up so that you can start at a good pace. A lot of people start at the pace that the rest of the crowd starts at and then they just feel like, like crap two minutes in and it sticks with you for the rest of the race because you didn't warm up adequately. So what I recommend for a warmup is a light, easy jog. And during that easy jog, you throw in a few strides up to race pace, like 30 second strides where you're making yourself just a little bit breathless. And you do that until you're kind of breathing hard and your body is beginning to feel warm. And that's a true warmup. Showing up and doing a few arm swings and leg swings and jogging through the parking lot for two minutes is not a warmup. So an adequate warm up will really help you start at a pace that's going to allow you to feel a lot better and run a lot faster during the race. So that's one thing to bear in mind. Another thing, actually, I just want to.

Clarify strides just because Shane is a rookie and I know there's probably some other rookies out there and I've experienced this with a lot of rookie runners. They hear the word strides and they think that that's, that's actually what they need to be doing. So they change their running gait to be more of this crazy whatever they sort of interpret the word stride is being. But actually when Ben says strides, it's really just picking up the pace. Yeah. Maybe turning your feet over a little bit quicker. It's not doing some weird lungy leaps through the air or anything like that. It's just, just running a little, little faster, a little harder.

Yep, exactly. A little quicker. Exactly. So you warm up. Well, as far as your actual pacing goes, I'm a, I'm a huge fan of the negative split approach. So you're, you're essentially going out, you're maintaining a relatively aerobic kind of anything for a half marathon or less. You know, you're going out and you're trying to maintain right around like a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10, you know, maybe an 8 on a scale, 1 to 10 for about the first half of the race. Race where you're pushing, it's hard, but it's manageable, it's good form, you know, something comfortably uncomfortable. Comfortably uncomfortable, exactly. You can tell that Brock's a running coach by the way. And then once you get about to the halfway point, that's where something snaps inside you, you know, and you pull the trigger and you start to. Not literally, hopefully, hopefully nothing snaps inside you, but you pull the trigger and you start, you start to build at that point and you build to a really uncomfortable pace to where like by the time you get to that last mile or that last K or so, you're really digging deep into the pain cave. And usually that results in a really, really nice negative split. And what that means is you're running the last half faster than the first half. And typically if you're running a negative split, you wind up putting in a pretty good effort, feeling pretty good about yourself when you cross the finish line. It's a nice way to finish knowing that you ran the last half faster than you ran the first half. Another little mental trick that I use is for me, if I'm gonna run like a 13 mile race, I treat it like a 12 mile race because I know I'm just going to be running on pure adrenaline for that last mile. Or like when I'm doing an Ironman triathlon and I'm at mile 20, I tell myself, okay, I only have five miles to go because I know that last mile I'll just get through on pure adrenaline. You know, it's like when Ironman Hawaii in a couple of weeks when I get to the top of Palani Road, which is like the point at which the rest of the run there, you know, you still have almost a mile left, but it's all like downhill and through screaming crowds and stuff. It's like for me, I picture the finish line at the top of Palani Road because I know at that point I can just, you know, I can dig as deep as I possibly need to dig to get through that last little bit and knock on wood. I haven't, I haven't feinted 100 yards from the finish line yet.

But maybe you run more of a risk of fainting across as soon as you get across the finish line when you slam on the brakes.

If I, if I do though, Brock will capture it all on camera because we, I will. We've got Brock hooked up with, with cameras, with VIP passes, with everything that he needs to deliver a kick butt Kona experience. To you guys listening in. So.

So stay tuned for that Ben's superstarch mixture shooting out his nostrils as he.

Hits the finish line. That's right. Nice visual. Speaking of shooting stuff out your nostrils, shall we read this week's top itunes review?

Absolutely. I'm surprised to hear that it's gonna involve nostril shooting.

It doesn't. That was a completely useless and meaningless sedgeway. But remember, if you leave this podcast a review on itunes and we read your review on the show, then you are going to get a special prize package from Ben Greenfield Fitness sent straight to your house. And we're about a week out by the way of having water bottles, shirts, hats, cool stuff available. So this week's review on itunes comes from Pearl Ag. Pearl Ag titles their review a little too good question mark it says unlucky for me that I found this podcast for the first time while studying for my written comprehensive exams. So instead of spending my time knee deep in theory, literature and research design, I was instead listening to Ben Greenfield and clicking on links in the show notes Notes. Hopefully there won't be any crossover with my committee members learning all about how heart rate variability impacts higher education policies. This is a great show. Thanks for the great info. I just need to work on my timing apparently. Yeah. So as you as you fail your written comprehensive exam, Pearl AG, you can least take solace in the fact that that winging its way to you is a special prize package from Ben Greenfield Fitness. All you got to do is just email your mailing address over to Ben greenfieldfitness.com if you heard us read your review, we'll get that off to you and hopefully it'll. It'll rub a little salve in the wound of having failed your final exams. So.

Or maybe you can use it to bribe the the members of the committee or something.

Deepest apologies. So remember to go to Free or Not Free Gift from Ben. Go to Gift from Ben. I have no clue what would happen if you went to Free gift from.

Ben, but we take no responsibility for that URL.

We figure a gift is free anyways, so just go to giftfromben.com save yourself from having to type a few extra characters and check out what we've got for you over there@giftfromben.com special little video from Brock and I. And yeah, aside from that, I think that about wraps it up. Check out the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com 257 for some weird photos of pregnant ladies. And yeah, there you go.

And we'll be back next week. I'm assuming we'll be back next week.

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

It.