Cookie Farts, Sex For Exercise, New Biohacks, Pre-Workout Stacks, Morning Vs. Evening Workouts, Calorie Counting & More With Max Lugavere & Crosby Tailor.

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Dude, the news media weakens your immune system. I mean, chronically elevated cortisol, we know, makes you more prone to infections. And so like the panic porn that pervades the media.

There are some doctors I know who are setting up all their peptides internationally and then the patient needs them. They get shipped from an international locale, like that's the only worker.

Oh, so because they work so well.

If you're looking at them for a long term relationship, perhaps a litmus test should be their ability to interact with your pheromones, with your odors, with perhaps a few of your small poop molecules help. Performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. Well, I recently got back from a trip to LA where I was speaking at a private event down there and I had a chance to sit down with a couple of super interesting guys, my friends Max Lugavera and Crosby Taylor. We had an absolute geek fest, just jam packed with our top tools and tactics and tips and nutrition training life spiritual relationship hacks of late recorded as sort of a roundtable each of us sharing with plenty of rabbit holing as we talk through our latest self optimization strategies. You're going to dig this one. I'm going to put all the show notes for everything we discuss@BenGreenfieldFitness.com three way that's BenGreenfieldFitness. So who are these guys? First of all, Max has been on my show before. I'll link to the other episodes we've done. He has his own podcast. I've been on his show too. He wrote this book called Genius Foods. Followed that up with another book. I believe the other book was called Genius Life. His podcast is called Genius Life. I'll link to all that in the show notes too. He's a filmmaker, he's a health and science journalist, He's a New York Times best selling author. You've probably seen him on TV before because he's been all over the Dr. Oz show and the Rachael Ray show, the Doctors, internationally sought after speaker and he's talked all over the place. TedX, the New York Academy of Sciences, south by Southwest, you name it. Cool guy. Crosby Taylor is a fashion model and a former college football athlete turned biohacker and sugar free dessert chef, as you'll find out in the early part of this podcast as we sample some of Crosby's fabulous cookies which he says allow you to eat dessert and burn fat. Anyways, he also has tried every diet fad from vegan to the body ecology diet to paleo to alkaline to super high fat ketogenic and experiment with everything and is just a wealth of knowledge and happens to be really good at making cookies and cupcakes and donuts and pancakes and cinnamon rolls and ice creams and chocolates too. So Crosby's cool just because he's, you know, full of amazing food, baked goods that you can eat whenever you want and not be guilty. So million dollar question, fellas. Are you gonna taunt me with this giant pile of chocolate chip cookies that's like one foot away, well within arm's reach of me for this entire show, or am I allowed to go Cookie Monster while we are recording?

You have to Cookie Monster as soon as possible and.

Okay.

And I made those.

Totally gross. I'm gonna take my gum out.

I made those like, an hour ago, so I didn't even put them in the fridge yet. These are. These are still fresh.

You're selling the house, Max, it's okay. If I put the gum. Are you taking the table with you?

Totally fine. Totally fine.

Okay. Don't worry. I'll Lysol it afterwards.

I don't know. It's Greenfield's chewed up gum. I feel like I could sell that.

You probably could ebay it or something like that to the cross. I actually have sold, like, old, sweaty triathlon clothes on. On ebay before. Okay. So I'm going to grab this cookie. We should have video going, gosh darn it.

I mean, but then we'd have to be wearing.

We'd have to be wearing pants if we did video.

Let me just get the video here.

I'll going to slowly and lovingly tear this cookie. And it's moist, so that's. That's bonus. Now what is. What is in this cookie? And take a right. All right.

Cross bread.

It's. It's, like oily. It's tender. Yeah. Chewy. Pretty good texture. Yeah. What is it? You got to tell me this is healthy or something.

Yeah, of course.

Of course.

Okay, so no sugar. I mean, that, like, that one actually has. I'm doing, like, a new metabolically, like.

Only 4 grams of psilocybin per cookie.

There's only 3 grams. There's still only 3 grams of sugar per cookie, but I sweeten those ones with an organic maple syrup powder and honey powder. Yeah. So it's still, like, great fuel. But they're. They're also gluten, grain, and nut free, so there's no almond flour.

I don't use almond flour. What do you use as. As a flour essence?

The base is a coconut cassava mix. Both organic.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

That's beautiful.

And there's also collagen in it as well as I only use I'll. In my cookies. I'll only use saturated fats for the fats. So I. Organic grass fed butter and pastured eggs.

So how come not pork lard? That'd be a good one to throw in there.

Well, you know, it would be kosher. It would be, but I don't think that it just wouldn't. It just doesn't taste.

Yeah.

As good. I think you can fry better.

I'm actually joking. I don't think pork lard would work well.

I actually in a baked good, but I think it'd be good in. If you wanted to do. Cook donuts. If you wanted to fry donuts, people used to do it.

Yeah, that's. That's true.

That's like the old way of doing it.

I have. I know you guys are probably fans of Bel Campo since they're huge fans down here. I have a. Yeah. Shout out to the folks at Bel Campo for the best burger in town.

Bel Campo is my merse. It's. I got a blue bag over there. It's literally like my man purse. It's just a small. It's a small Bel Campo bag.

Well, I have a bunch of their suet. Have you guys ever had like the beef suet? Just like the big chunks of fat that they send up in bags?

I've never tried it. The one. My, my. I think my sole exposure to suet is when Paul Saladino showed up to my house. Oh yeah.

He likes the kidney suet.

Yeah.

Which like that dense fat right around the kidneys. But the. The beef suet, you know, there's obviously a whole lot more of it in a cow in areas other than the kidney. So. So they have a. A bunch of this suet. And what I do is I. I melt it down so I have like the fat. But there's always like these little. I think they call them cracklings leftover. You guys ever have like those pork cracklings? Like, love them. What is it? Epic. They make like their pork rinds and the rind cracklings. Yeah, you. You can kind of cook down the beef suet, strain off all that liquid fat, and then fry up these. These leftover chunks of suet. And it's just like a crackling. And so I'm on this kick now where with. With lunch during the day because it kind of makes. You know, usually I'll have like a lunchtime salad or something, but I heat up a couple of those cracklings and I put a little bit of raw honey and sea salt on them. Oh, my gosh. They're so good. It's just like pork fat honey and sounds amazing.

Shout out to chicharrones. I'm a huge fan. They're similar.

They're comparable.

They're like, yeah, the pork skin fried in its own fat. That's what you want to look out for. I. One of my favorite on the road snacks when I'm traveling are pork rinds. But you always have to look at the ingredients list because sometimes they'll throw in. They'll fry. I mean, the. The pork skin has its own lard usually attached to it, but sometimes these manufacturers will fry them in soybean oil. They'll throw it out. Yeah.

Why'd you have to add fat to my fat?

Exactly. Yeah. Why not?

Well, anyways, so we had this. This grand scheme. I was going to be down here in LA for a few days. I thought, you know what, we should get the three of us together and just geek out on some of our latest tips and tactics and tools and self optimization techniques. Because I know you guys have some pretty cool flavors in addition to the cookies that you throw into the mix. So to direct this conversation somewhat and keep us going from completely, you know, completely off the rails, very go round table and just like go with the topic and like, just riff on it for a little while about like what you're. What you're really most excited about for that. So it's like an Air1.

It's like a big Air1 date.

Yes.

It's like sitting at Air1 and just being normal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love it.

Without the paycheck. The cookies were free. You saved me like, what, $42?

Exactly.

Because I would have bought like the $14 tiny 2 ounce. Did you. Coconut yogurt.

Are you being shy?

I'll have one.

I'll.

I'm actually very impressed because, Crosby, you were. You were saying. But then I guess you get.

You got cut off.

These are metabolically flexible cookies.

These are my metabolically friendly. Yeah. Flexible cookies.

They can touch their own toes, those cookies. Wow.

These are flexible. Wow, these are so gooey. These are much cooler than they are normal.

They're much more like. That's the word. I was looking at a restaurant.

Yeah.

As opposed to. My other ones are great. The sugar free Ones are delicious. But there's a difference. There's like a chewiness, there's a texture difference, and that's, you know, the caramelization of those actual real sugars. Even though they're, you know, fructose sugars, they're, they're actually still going to give that caramelization, which lakanto, the erythritol doesn't. So that's the big difference.

That's what a lot of people don't know about Lakanto. It's not just monk fruit, it's monk fruit with the sugar alcohol.

It's the sugar alcohol.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Which can also lead to a little bit of digestive distress.

Yeah. So if you have digestive issues, which is why I want to, I wanted to create these alongside the sugar free ones, is I'm gonna have an audience that's gonna want these because they have digestive issues or they're okay with honey and maple syrup and they like to have those sugars in their, in their lifestyle. Because I just don't like to own.

Or be proud of their farts.

Right.

You know, it's, it's a, it's a natural fermentation process. You should, you should just own it and be proud of it.

Farting in a flatulence in the context of a social setting is inconvenient to say the least.

So.

Mm, yeah, we want to date.

Everyone should have a bottle.

We got a single guy still. Max knows he can't be having the flatulence on a, on a night out. Especially since you're. We're back. Like you can actually take a girl out right now.

Well, if you're looking at them for a long term relationship, perhaps a litmus test should be their ability to, to interact with, with your pheromones, with your odors, with perhaps a few of your small poop molecules just to make sure that that agrees with them. So that should that happen, such as a, a Dutch oven scenario, you know, later on down the road, that they're going to be okay with it.

Yeah, there's definitely a. I have a friend who, who likes to like on a first date, he likes to actually make a point to fart in front of the girl because it establishes, it breaks the ice real quickly and establishes right off the bat that he's comfortable doing that with, you know, with the girl that he's with. I don't know if I would go that far.

He should write a relationship book.

I know, right? Or maybe he shouldn't, but yeah, I Mean, I think, you know, to some degree it's a sign that your bacteria are spitting out those postbiotics. You know, your gut microbiome is doing its job. And yeah, one of the obvious fermentation byproducts can, you know, or they can be gases.

So, yeah, hey, look at me. I'm a man. I'm humble, I'm open, I'm transparent. I just let one rip. That's how much you can trust me. I'm not fake. This is me. Me and my bloatedness and my butthole.

Would you say that if you started taking a new probiotic, you might potentially be more gassy in the transition into a new probiotic?

Because changing the gut bacteria microbiome shifts often tend to produce a large amount of gas and sometimes not, right? Sometimes if you have a high amount of methanogenic bacteria, which you can determine via one of those biome tests, which the whole gut biome test I don't like as much as just a straight up stool panel for yeast and parasites and fungus and the more acute issues. Nor do I like the fact that many of these biome companies like prescribing certain probiotic regimens based on your test because there's no evidence that you can, by taking certain probiotics, actually meaningfully adjust that biome. But you can see something like, oh, well, I genetically have a high number of methanogenic producing bacteria, or let's say sulfur digesting bacteria. Therefore, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, et cetera, for, let's say a date night would probably not be the best idea for me. And then from what I understand, there's certain bacterial strains that can almost kind of like crowd out out some of the sulfur producing or the methane producing bacteria. So you can shift that just slightly.

Good to know. Definitely.

Yeah.

Especially if you're single.

I definitely. That happened to me. I started a new probiotic by a company called Mitolife. It's a spore based probiotic. It's really good.

Wait, Mitolife, Is that, Is that Matt?

That's Blackburn.

Blackburn. He lives right up by me. He's been coming to my house for dinner parties. Oh, no, Matt, he's a real character.

He's a character.

Oh, he always shows up with like some paper bag full of whatever, homemade goat cheese and amazing, you know, vitamin E. That's crazy.

You guys live, right.

A special lecture for me about why I shouldn't be using my fish oil.

And oh yeah, he hates the Omega 3s.

Yeah, exactly. Because of the their potential, their fragility and their potential for what would be called not oxidation, which is actually a natural process that occurs in the body and generates like signaling free radicals that support healthy inflammation. But peroxidation, which occurs to an Omega 3 if it gets heated, if it gets exposed to a lot of sugars in the bloodstream, if you have a lot of underlying inflammation, high iron. I think in a metabolically healthy scenario, you can consume high amount of omega 3s, even those fragile ones from let's say fish oil, and not be at risk of a high amount of peroxidation. But if you're inflamed, tons of or excess UVA and UVB radiation or other forms of inflammation or radiation, and it's a hot oil or hasn't been treated properly or you're in a state of excess stress, stress or high blood sugar, I think it can do more harm than good to have like an Omega 3 as part of your supplement stack.

Interesting.

Kind of depends on the scenario.

Yeah, but also that's where I mean, demonizing omega 3s and particularly fish oil is where I think sometimes there's a disconnect between looking at speculating mechanistically and what we see from outcome data. Randomized control trials that will use Omega 3 supplements as an intervention for whatever it may be, whether it's to reduce triglycerides. We know that there's now a pharmaceutical available. It's basically purified, hyper purified epa.

Right. It's an EPA based oil that they've done these large randomized clinical trials in. And from what I understand, they actually didn't do a similar trial on DHA and EPA in combination, which theoretically would induce even greater benefits from a neural standpoint or a cell membrane standpoint than just the EPA based Omega 3s. But you're right, Max. You can say that theoretically consuming fish oil because it's fragile would lead to peroxidation in your bloodstream. Yet when you look at the large human clinical trials, we're seeing lower triglycerides, better heart disease outcomes, variety of factors that show that that's for some reason not occurring. Or it's the pros outweigh the cons.

Exactly. I mean, with every, with every treatment you have to weigh the benefits versus the risks. Right. There's a risk, benefit analysis, analysis that you're doing consciously or not, with everything that you do. Pretty much, you know, with every single thing that you do. And every healthcare practitioner, I mean, every treatment is going to have risks no matter what. I Mean, so I think to just throw the baby out with the bathwater is. It's kind of like anti science in a way. You know, I mean, there's just. There's a lot of good, I think that comes from fish oil. And I have no financial affiliation with any fish oil company. But in regards to cardiovascular health, in regards to brain health, I mean, that risk is. Is definitely there. You want to make sure that. I like to say that if you're gonna, you know, if you're gonna max out and spend your money, you know, on. On any one supplement in particular, like, you want to make sure that you're getting the highest quality fish oil that you can afford to, you know, because whey protein tends to be, you know, whey protein. But there's a big, I think, valley like CVS brand fish oil that you get compared to something like.

Yeah, those are definitely rancid, you know.

Like a Nordic naturals or whatever.

Clear pristine waters full of unicorn tears and to a, like. To like a kion anchovies. Anchovies that were massaged each day until they're harvesting. Yeah. And shamanistically blessed. Well, you know, I was gonna see if you guys want to start with exercise, but since we're on the whole like, nutrition bandwidth, let's start here. What's one recent nutrition habit, whether a food, an ingredients, meal preparation style, or anything else that you guys have adopted of late, that's just been like a shockingly big win for you or something that's just become a staple in your routine?

Well, I. One of the things that I started doing over the past year, just because I've had more free time and gyms were closed, I took up boxing. So I don't know. Ben, do you dabble in martial arts boxing? Yeah.

Well, down here I've dropped in and trained with what's his face. I'm forgetting that the guy's got the box. Boxing gyms down here. Is it Tony?

Which box?

He's been on my podcast before. He's. He's like a former. He's like from the uk. He and his partner Fortune, they've got a boxing gym down in Santa Monica. I forget his name.

Anyway, I don't know.

So I've done that. But you do it then. I own one of these fight camp things in my gym that's got the Bluetooth sensors and the gloves that will track your. Your number of punches per minute.

Yes.

And then you got somebody on the screen who's shouting out your combos, like 1, 3, 6.

That's awesome.

5, 4, 1. And so it's cool because you're training mentally and also physically at the same time because you got to be, you got to be on top of the combos that they're calling, which I like about boxing.

Yeah. So I've been, I've been doing that. I went from having zero experience boxing or fighting of any, any sort to doing it multiple times a week. And I've been doing it now for about a year. I generally really enjoy fasted workouts. I find that the combination of not having that post meal fatigue that you sometimes get when you do it, even though the circadian data seems to suggest that later in the day you're stronger and more coordinated, I find that a morning workout. And I credit Crosby to some degree for that because that's kind of Crosby's routine. And I jumped on that bandwagon just because I wanted to work out with him. And I found that I had more energy during the day during my workouts when I would work out fasted. You also get that sort of benefit from the morning cortisol spike and the fact that you're hungry and you're using your next meal as a reward.

So many benefits. You get the cortisol upregulation in the morning, which arguably should best be attained by getting out and looking at sunlight as early as possible. Like that's the very, very best way to get that corded. Probably one of the worst ways is a giant cup of coffee in the morning. Despite the fact that I like that it's fantastic for my morning bowel movement. Like in an ideal scenario, actually. Andrew Huberman from Stanford just talking about this on a recent podcast, how, you know, amping up that cortisol too early in the day with too many mechanisms can be problematic versus saving some of that cortisol and epinephrine release for later on in the day. But some of these more natural so called zeitgebers, like these circadian cues, like light, specifically sunlight or blue light exercise and in some cases a meal can be really good for regulating circadian rhythmicity. But I'm on the same page with you. I like the fasted morning workouts. I like not having food in my stomach. I like what seems to me to be better body fat percentage and better body composition from a morning fasted workout for like a hard gainer or somebody who's wanting to like pile on muscle or somebody who might have, you know, issues with like metabolic efficiency or something along those lines, like taking, taking like an a caloric or a non caloric pre workout. When you're in that fasted state, like a bottle of liquid ketones or like you know, some, some amino acids or something like that, it can kind of sort of help. But I, I like to just go in with my morning glass of water and a cup of coffee.

Yeah.

You're not optimizing for anabolism when you work out fasted, there's no doubt about that. But there are probably other benefits. I don't know, just fasting, the increase in beta oxidation, just fat burning, the.

Post fasted exercise, rise in growth hormone and testosterone also.

There you go. Yeah. Increase in. I don't know, I mean I don't know to what degree you can measure this or even if it's like significant. But the autophagy, that sort of AMPK activation with the morning fasted workout, that metabolic workout I think is, is important. But you're not, you're not necessarily optimizing for anabolism and performance when you do that.

No, no. And if we were talking to athletes and this was a sports performance podcast, this would be a whole different discussion about pre workout. Put like, that's when that comes in handy. But unfortunately a lot of the nutrition advice the layperson receives is trickle down from the bodybuilding industry or from the pro athlete industry where you're burping up your pre workout bar while you're downing your post workout shake from a 40 minute bout on the elliptical trainer. And you've got 1200 calories down the hatch by 9am and you're really not developing any amount of metabolic efficiency at all.

There you go. So the long sort of. To wrap up the story, I started boxing, which is very different from resistance training which was my primary exercise modality. And I found that I was a lot quicker to bonk in that fasted sort of high intensity glycolytic sort of exercising without having some food in my stomach. And I started just putting, I started just eating like, but like I had, I would have like a banana with some like baruca nut butter on it and like a protein shake beforehand and I really felt like a significant increase in my power output.

Well, you were working, working out completely fast before, right? Dude, just do like a black coffee.

And we'll work out pretty much like a black coffee.

You're saying that you're cortisol city right before.

Yeah. So what you've found like a recent nutrition habit you've adopted is actually doing pre workout fueling for a morning high intensity workout. And you found it to be better.

Yeah. And I don't, I don't necessarily need that for resistance training, for weight training, but for boxing, which is like three minute rounds with 30 second intervals and you're doing that for 45 minutes.

Highly glycolytic.

Yeah, highly glycolytic. Yeah. You need something in the tank.

You need something else.

Yeah.

Or else you're gonna be super flat. Catabolism is going to set in real quick. You're gonna feel like, yeah, just, just a string bean extreme. Yeah.

100.

And that's not a fun feeling. I hate that feeling. I like to feel like, like dense at the gym. Like that's why I, I mean, I don't mean to cut you off, but I feel like that was your, that's like your nutrition.

Yeah, that's my most kind of like.

Pre workout kind of thing.

You kind of killed two birds with one stone there and gave you a recent exercise hack.

Yeah, I know. I was, I thought you were gonna go exercise. I was like, what's going on?

Yeah, it's not, it's not a hack. It's I guess a new, new routine.

You're about boxing. But like I'm, I'm similar in a way where I like to have that empty stomach before I work out. But I wake up so early. But I don't love to train right away.

I like.

What's early?

5, 30 and 6 sometimes, you know, 7. Latest. Like I can't sleep in past 7. It's crazy if I actually get past 7. But I like to have my coffee too. I bulletproof it a bit because I like to put. I have a pretty sensitive stomach, so I kind of buff.

You mean bulletproof? TM it TM trademark. You gotta say TM after bulletproof.

True.

But I put like protein.

I'll.

I'll throw a protein source in there. Usually like a whey isolate or something. Like maybe collagen my fats. And then I do like all sorts of stuff with it. Like I'll do like lion's mane and then I'll take an ashwagandha with it with like L theanine and some stuff to really make myself feel balanced with that coffee. And that lasts me two, two and a half hours before I actually go work out. And then I make my pre workout drink, which is like something that you were talking about before because I'm kind of a hard gainer. But I don't love to work out with like a big. I would never have like EG in hash browns and go work Out. I don't feel like shit. So I do a drink that has like kion aminos with like chlorophyll and cordyceps and astragalus schizandra. Like I put a bunch of adaptogenic herbs in there with like amino acids. Creatine I've been adding. I think you were using it before. I actually caught onto it from you pre workout. Like carb powder.

Oh. Like a slow release starch.

It's a starch.

Is that like you can super starch, that type of thing?

Kind of like you can. But this one, the youcan kind of made me gassy.

Oh, me too. Yeah. This much fermentation and blow.

So much fermentation. This one doesn't. This is like.

Is the Vitargo? Yes. Yeah.

Like Vitargo.

Yeah. So Vitargo is good. It's a little bit higher glycemic index but it seems to give a nice slow stable release of energy. I think it's a potato based chain and so it doesn't create the same fermentation as a super duper long chain.

Right.

You can. I don't know how many hundreds of.

No, totally.

That's exactly dextrose molecules. It is. Or, or how they actually create that. But I get a great burns easy.

I get a great pump at the gym. I feel great, my stomach feels good. I don't feel like I really ate much. And then I have like that post workout window where I do some type of simple sugar, whether it's raw honey or coconut water with my protein source. Glutamine, glycine. Get that like anabolic response right after I work out. And that kind of sets me up for my day where I've gotten that training in. It's kind of one of those things where I'm doing just a tiny bit each day, but I feel like I'm getting results every day.

That's what I do is I've given myself permission to actually go to the well in terms of a hard workout for about 30 minutes a day. And sometimes that's in the morning, sometimes it's in the evening. I don't structure it based purely on exercise physiology science, so to speak, or nutritional science or circadian rhythmicity. As much as me waking up and being like, oh, I'm gonna have a ton of decision making fatigue by like 6pm today. Based on looking at today's calendar, I'm gonna go ahead and do that hard thing first and then go for a walk this afternoon or evening once I've finished work or if it's a pretty easy morning. I'll go for a walk and then wait, as you kind of alluded to, max until like body temp peaks and testosterone peaks and grip strength peaks, you know, sometime between like 4 and 6pm and do the hard workout then. But for me it's like a half hour and I can build consistently and I do that nearly every day. Like I have very few days off, but I just do hard, you know, whether it's kettlebells or hiit cardio or BFR training or whatever for about a half hour and then anything else just bonus, you know, walking during the day or.

I've been using the bands too. I just got those bands.

Yeah, I used them this morning. And I mean, well, I guess you.

Gotta get the bands max.

Yeah, this kind of leads into I guess like an exercise hack. So I'll do relish from nutrition for just a moment. But I'll tell you guys something new I've been doing. But I use those BFR bands this morning. Yeah, I use those things. I do some form of blood flow restriction training now probably like five times a week because I have one of those.

Do you do the legs too?

Vasper machines. And I hit that thing like two or three times a week. And that's the, it's like the full body exercise machine, almost like an elliptical trainer with the arms, but it has cuffs that circulate cold water in them. So you're, you're basically, you're getting a bunch of lactic acid buildup from the blood flow restriction. But the cold reduces the discomfort from that and also gives you some of that cold thermogenesis, extra calorie burning effect while you're on it. It's a 21 minute workout, but that's more of like a machine that you got to get on and get hooked up to and everything. But those bands, I mean I travel everywhere with them. I put them on, you know. This morning was a half hour. Squats, push ups and pull ups, they basically limit some amount of arterial blood flow while still allowing for venous return back to the heart to a certain extent. So you're not fully occluding blood flow or cutting it off completely. But what happens is blood pools and metabolic byproducts from exercising pool in the muscles, muscle. And so when you get all that lactic acid building up a. The growth in mitochondria and muscle fibers is induced by the muscles being almost tricked into thinking they're lifting something heavy. But the beauty of it is the joints are not under stress. Nor is there an appreciable amount of inflammation produced. Right. It's a different signaling mechanism. It's a lactic acid based signaling mechanism rather than a whole bunch of inflammation to recover. I mean, you could do this twice a day or, or every day if you wanted to. You recover more quickly, you build muscle, even if you don't have access to a lot of weights or anything like that. And it's portable. Right. I can throw these in my bag and they're like, they weigh like half a pound for the arm straps and the leg straps and that's.

I mean, and it's all about a ton of that high rep. Right. Like, you don't necessarily need to be lifting anything heavy when you're doing it.

And because they also increase your heart rate and produce a little bit more of a cardiovascular load just because you have all that lactic acid built up. Sometimes I'll finish a workout like that and if I got a couple of phone calls I need to make in the morning or something, I'll leave the straps on after I finish that workout with the muscles all pumped, go for a walk. And a walk becomes a lot more of a cardiovascularly demanding workout. When you're wearing these bands. Walk for a half hour while I'm making phone calls and stuff and get a little bit of extra benefit just because it probably takes like four minutes to put the bands on. So I'm going to spend that time putting everything on. For me, I'm just all about time hacking, so I might as well make a walk afterwards. A little bit more of a stimulus. Metabolically.

That's awesome. Yeah, I've been wanting to try that, but I just haven't, you know. Yeah, I've seen it. I've seen it come up on a number of people's Instagrams that I follow and respect you. You know, I feel like I've seen.

Bill Campbell, who's a Luke, has some cook, has some.

Yeah, they're not, they're not going to turn you into a super athlete. If anything, you're restricted in terms of your functional movement patterns because honestly, like you're kind of gritting your teeth, you got a lot of lactic acid built up in your appendages. But if your goal is just pure like portable muscle building and a lot of metabolic stimuli in a short period of time, like, they work remarkably well. And so I've been doing a lot of that, I guess to close the loop on nutrition. Probably the number one thing I've thrown in is hunting Down a lot of ingredients. Not a lot, but a few staple ingredients that I use throughout the day that are incredibly satiating to me, but very low in calories, right? Because I like to eat. But, you know, because I'm eating usually three square meals a day, I'm like a breakfast, lunch, dinner guy. I'm kind of selective in what I put on the plate just because I'm aware of my overall calorie load by the end of the day. So I use a ton of those, you know, like those konten noodles or the Japanese yam noodles that are zero carbs, zero. So I can have like a giant plate of quote, pasta unquote, with lunch and put a little bit of marinara or a little bit of like the primal kitchen sauces on there. And it's got no calories, but a ton of bulk in the stomach without the bloating or the fiber effect in terms of gas production. Those are incredible. I have a serving of those almost every day. I also do now, like a lot of times for smoothies. I'd put in avocados or coconut milk or something to cream it up or thicken it up. And what I found is sea moss gel. I think it was Drew Canole who introduced me to this stuff.

Irish moss.

Yeah, it's like Irish moss or sea moss. I've been using a company called Akasha. Put a couple tablespoons of that in a smoothie. I get the same thickness, the same creaminess. It's basically like the content noodles. Zero calories. So full on cheat. But it works amazingly if you're trying to kind of like cut calories here and there. And then the last one that I use is or this, like by the caseload from Amazon, this organic pumpkin puree, like what you'd use for making pumpkin pie or whatever. But again, super low in calories, digests incredibly easily. It's like this BPA free can organic pumpkin puree. And I'll have like a couple spoonfuls of that, like in the smoothie or with lunch or I'll even, like I'm weird. I'll dip my steak in it at dinner and sometimes put a little salt, a little hot sauce in there, you know, if you want a little cinnamon or a little pumpkin pie spice, a little bit of raw honey or whatever. But this, this pumpkin mash, like, I use that and the sea moss gel and the noodles now almost every day, and I'm super satiated. But really my calorie load is not that significant with those food groups.

I Appreciate being able to have a discussion and talk about calories because calories are this contentious thing where I feel like you have some people in the nutrition space implying somehow, whether it's by way of promoting the ketogenic diet or other dietary patterns, that calories somehow don't matter. But I think it's important for people to recognize that they do matter. And what you're talking about, you know, calorie density, for somebody to understand how to identify a calorie dense versus a calorie, we'll say sparse food. The difference between those two, that's one of the greatest life and body composition hacks a person can have. Right. I post about this stuff all the time on my Instagram and these are some of. Some of the. Some of these kinds of posts that I do are like among the most popular ones that I share. Because visually, like you can eat one single fast food meal that has as many calories as an entire day's worth of eating. Higher, you know, lower calorie density, higher volume foods and volume eating is basically what that's called, is something that we should all be able to do. Very few of us really know how.

To identify that are the subtle nuances like we were talking about earlier with sugar, alcohols. Right. Those can be satiating. They can be a good low calorie substitute. But there are certain low calorie substitutes that can create some amount of fermentation and bloating and others that just create bulk without the fermentation. Like the Japanese yam noodle. Right. It's a non fermentable source of insoluble fiber. And so you just feel. It just fills you up. But you're not farting. So. Yeah, I've been doing that and I guess for the exercise, the BFR bands, I guess Max is boxing in a pre workout meal. Do you have any favorite new exercise?

Exercise hack wise Crosby, you know, I've been doing a lot of ice.

Crosby's having a lot of sex.

Well, yeah, a lot of. A lot of intercourse.

Wow, that's. That's sacred spiritual exercise.

Yeah, that.

Yeah.

This is like. It's like the healthiest thing you could be doing in life right now. Especially right now. Covid and everything.

Yeah.

You have a partner.

Yeah.

And you're in love with someone. Like you're in a good place right now with everything else going on. I mean, if you can afford to live a decent life and eat good food and. And get good son and be in a place where you like where you live and you have an amazing partner. Like, everything else is not as stressful right now.

Are we talking about. Okay, so like, like I was about.

To talk about something else, but this guy.

Oh, no. Sex works.

No, no, we can, we can go back to sex.

Yeah. Jamie Wheal just wrote that book Recapture the Rapture. And I interviewed him a few months ago before the book was released because he's very into this, this so called, like hedonic matrix of sex. And in the podcast we got into this everything from like nitric oxide whippets to, to microdoses with lsa to certain soundtracks to tantric breath work, to all these things that turn sex into, you know, arguably more spiritual and sacred and meaningful activity, but also a little bit more of like a marathon esque type of bout. So when you say more sex, are you saying like hours upon hours? You're just saying more just like, like normal, quick sex in general?

No, I think somewhere in between. Definitely somewhere in between. I think that like there's the hours and hours kind of situation. She works a lot. Like, I'm in a place where I'm trying to build a business. Like, we're not devoting our whole life and days to sex. But yeah, I think that there's calorie wise burning. There's something to be said when you're.

It's having a lot of sex. Well, with sex you can get 13.

Calories a minute, so you're getting like 26 calories.

Yeah, yeah. But sex is. Sex is one of the few activities that can be lists, right. It can be like low intensity, steady state, or it can go all the way up to like hit, you know, like, for sure. I mean, literally, it could be. It could be super high intensity.

Yeah.

So it's an. It actually is an amazing exercise. It is if you're lucky enough to.

And I like both. I mean, like, so we, we plan typically once a month, like either a staycation where the kids go off to a friend's house and then my wife and I just get out of the bedroom and go out to like the guest house or a different bedroom of the house just to make it a little bit more novel, or get a local hotel, right? Go out, go out to a restaurant, washer, dryer, kitchen, you name it, if the kids are gone. But we'll go out to a local hotel and do more of that like Jamie Wheel esque type of experience where we'll literally like take plant medicines and have a carefully selected soundtrack and do like four rounds of Wim hof. Before we even start making out. Just all these things to really tweak our physiologies. But that's not an every night type of thing. Especially for. For busy working parents.

Do a full on biohack before the sex.

Right, Exactly. But you know, we also, as you were just alluding to Matt with like the low intensity steady state sex versus the high intensity interval sex. I don't know if you guys have found this, but sometimes like no music, super quiet. Like the, you know, this would be like the, the best way I could describe it would be like if you're having sex at her parents house type of scenario where it's just like super quiet and you're trying not to make the bed creak or the floorboards creak or anything. But it's still like kind, special and silent and meaningful and eye gazing and low intensity. And then there's like turn on the music and just like, you know, pound for you know, 10, 15 minutes. Right. And get a sweat on. Yeah. Front planking. Great core.

I mean I don't do any abs, don't do any ab workouts. I mean I do plan, you know.

You probably do like deadlifts and things like that.

Yeah, everything.

Stability.

Exactly. Anything that I'm actually using my core to stabilize for other workouts. But you'll never see me at the gym doing like crunches or anything like that. I've always had a sensitive stomach and I had a psoas injury in football. Never really fully recovered. I actually hit you up recently about, I don't know, within the last year. About BPC157.

Yeah.

Because I was like, I just need to start healing my body in places that I'm avoiding doing things. And that's one of those things that I've kind of avoided for a long time are those intense core workouts because it triggers an inflammatory response right away in me and especially leg lifts because I'm using that psoas muscle so much.

That's great. I have the same thing. I really had a hernia that I got during my Ironman racing days and I still can't do hanging leg raises or anything like that that produce a really, really high load, Particularly the rectus abdominis. I just have to avoid those. And I've thought about going in for a repair or something like that.

But did you? Because you did some BPC157.

Not there. But yeah, I've used pretty much all of them injectable BPC157 for injuries incredibly successfully. Typically Stacked with another peptide called TB500. And now there's a newer one. It's not newer, but it's indicated quite a bit now for inflammatory conditions for tendon repair, et cetera, called ghk. Copper peptide. Oh, I haven't heard of that. Common peptide in the beauty industry, like for hair and skin growth or beauty. But they're all injectable. And furthermore, they are specific amino acid sequences that one by one, the FDA is restricting and making illegal or making it unable to access in the United States. So I'm not even sure how long peptides will be available to the general mass market. There are some doctors I know who literally are setting up all their peptides internationally. And then when a patient needs them, they get shipped from an international locale. Like that's the only workaround.

Yeah, because they work so well to heal the body.

Yep, exactly.

They need a sick.

Yeah, yep. Now what about. What about like technologies like biohacks, you know, because people talk about red lights and saunas and.

Yeah, I got the red light cryotherapy changes. I try to do the joov.

Like wearables or devices or things that are. That are like go to's in your guys's routines now.

Yeah. So, I mean, I would say the most radical transformation for me has been to my sleep with using some of these tools. I recently went through my, my bedroom, my bathroom, my, you know, so like my upstairs area, which is where I spend most of my time in the, in the hour, you know, prior, just prior to going to bed. And I've replaced all the light bulbs.

With red light bulbs.

So now when you go up there and you put. Well, first of all, they're all. So I have like these red night lights.

So it looks like a nightclub upstairs.

It kind of does look like a nightclub upstairs. But the red is very soothing. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't have any of the blue, you know, wavelengths of light that would otherwise disrupt your circadian and tendency to want to wind down and release melatonin, obviously, and get you prepared for bed. So I have that. And then I have developed this sleep routine that the mouth taping. I think it's. Well, it's not just the mouth taping because mouth taping is fairly common. But what I've become kind of obsessed with are nasal strips, which to me are kind of revolutionary. And I haven't seen anybody else talking about this. I'm sure that you. That you have, but. But I go to just my local drugstore and I buy the Generic. I mean, I guess there's like a. The most well known brand are Breathe Right strips, but I actually don't like those. I like just the generic drugstore extra strength brand of nasal strips. And what they do is they expand your nasal airways. And for me, it makes it so much easier to. So I put those on and then I tape my mouth at night. And it has radically. I was already a good sleeper, but it's made my sleep even better. And I have no affiliation with any of these companies, but it really does help. And, you know, one of the benefits of that, theoretically increasing, you know, air airflow through your paranasal sinus is going to increase nitric oxide.

Exactly.

And increase. Improve, you know, enhanced recovery. Cardiovascular health.

Humidifies the air, oxygenates the air. Interesting rabbit hole. But the. The nasal passages are one of the few tissues in the body that contain erectile tissue pretty much similar to that of the clitoris in the penis, really. And so it can expand and contract. You know how, like, if you've been talking about having sex a lot, if you've been having sex a lot, your dick's bigger. You notice that during the day it seems to have more blood flow to it and almost more nitric oxide production, et cetera. But by engaging in nasal breathing during exercise during your walks, such as a guy like Patrick McCown might talk about, or this whole process of buteco breathing, you can actually train your nasal passages to become more elastic to have more blood flow. In the same way you can almost train. Train your genitals to do so. But using those Breathe Right strips is kind of like. It's not a workaround, but it's a way to amplify that effect even more. You know, ideally it's paired with nasal breathing during your workouts or during your walks, but that's something I also hear repetitively. I have done the breath right strips. The mouth taping, I find seems to significantly inhibit the quality of my wife's and my nighttime pillow talk and prayer time, because we literally just like, talk each other to sleep or pray each other to sleep at night. And so when I wear that mouth tape, it's like, you sound like Kenny from South park or whatever. But the other interesting thing, by the way, Max, is I'm glad you brought that up about the red incandescent lights, because a lot of people will say, well, I've got blue light blockers. I don't need to change out the lights in my bedroom. But because you have photoreceptors on your entire body, the idea of just having your retinal photoreceptors blocking blue light, but the entire rest of your skin exposed to blue light when you get up to go to the bathroom at night, or when you're sitting in bed reading at, or when you're preparing your bedroom for sleep, it technically is going to impact your circadian rhythmicity. So that idea of actually replacing all the cans in your master bedroom and master bathroom with red or even arguably because it's the closest to the nighttime, like sunset spectrum red incandescent, it's actually a really, really smart move. Even if you have blue light blocking glasses.

Yeah. I'm not sure the degree to which your peripheral photoreceptors interface with their, with your suprachiasmatic nucleus. But yeah, I mean, obviously we now know that you have photoreceptors throughout, you know, throughout your body, in the periphery. But just in terms of like my sleep, those lights have made a big difference. And then finally, I'll just say I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with white noise, but what many people are not as familiar with is brown noise. So knowing the difference, brown noise has been another one of those, like, you know, really significant up leveling of my.

Slightly different frequency than white.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're listening to like white noise to go to sleep, you're. I mean, definitely try brown noise. It's way more soothing.

Unless your deep sleep is low. Like, if your percentage of deep sleep is low, it's actually pink noise, which.

Is right in the middle.

Right. It's like right in the middle. Yeah. And then brown noise, I guess, is like the balance between REM and non rem. But for me, like, I struggled for a long time with, you know, checking on my ring in the morning, my deep sleep percentages, and I switched to pink noise. I use this app called Sleep Stream.

Okay.

You know, it plays meditation tracks and all sorts of ambient noise. I all. I use the noise on it, but I use pink noise. And for me that works really well. Brown noise is also good. I think white noise is probably the least effective.

I think I need some pink noise too. Yeah, yeah, I feel like that might be key for me. I actually do well on like six hours of six, seven hours of sleep a night. Like, I don't sleep a lot. Like probably like 11 to 6, 11 to 5, 30. 11 to 6, yeah.

Do you nap though, or meditate at any point during the day?

Well, I was meditating for a bit, but I haven't been in a while. But I don't nap either. I have energy throughout the day. I can get all my work done throughout the day. But it's funny because I used to have to take a nap in the middle of the day. But ever since, one big nutrition hack that I was going to bring up that I forgot to earlier was ever since I've kind of been very aware of my fats and the oils that I'm putting in my body. I used to eat a ton of polyunsaturated fat that was cooked. Not even knowing like going to Erewhon all the time and getting like the vegetables, but they're all in grapeseed oil, thinking, oh, I'm eating like super low carb. I'm gonna have my broccoli and brisket and everything is like cooked in these bad oils.

Right.

So I really started to become aware of, it's more of like a PUFA awareness, but that Omega 6 kind of ratio and, and that changed my energy levels completely. Like implementing a little bit more vitamin E in my diet. Also getting rid of all those polyunsaturated fats, eating more saturated fat, more of those stable fats that gave me that energy along with good sources of proteins. And then adding carbs back in my diet too. Like I was pretty low carb for a minute. And then as soon as I started doing like clean ones, like I don't eat really any grains besides white rice. And then I love potatoes, roots and fruits basically, and then honey, maple syrup. Just changing that a little bit and having them at the right time, spiking my insulin at the right opportune times. When my insulin sensitivity is high, like post workout, it's completely changed my body composition. I like gain way more lean muscle. My, my fat percentage went down all from like boosting my carbs.

You sound a lot like, have you guys heard of like the, the kind of like the anti aging author and, and I don't know if he's a scientist. Yeah. Ray Pete, Georgie Dinkoff, those would be two of the primary figures in like the community that also would, would probably be a community that a guy like Matt Blackburn, who we were talking about earlier, is a member of where they're all about low PUFAs. They're all about actually weaving in sugar and carbohydrates pretty extensively. And then kind of like a third piece of that puzzle is they're really into pregnenolone, progesterone and DHEA supplementation, like especially for men who want to, for women to a certain extent too. But, but those are Things that a lot of times you would see more recommended to females, but they're actually big on that as well. And there's, there's a lot of people in that community who claim that like their energy levels are through the roof by doing a lot of what you've done, eliminating PUFAs, not being CARB phobic and then they're also throwing in some, some hormonal support. Yeah, I've kind of had my eyes kept on that crowd just because they're just doing some different things that I think are interesting.

It's different. There's some things that I still won't do. Like I've, I've researched a lot of repeat stuff and I have some people in that community that I conversate with a little bit. There's actually a really cool pufa free skincare line by this lady called Cosma Beauty that I've been kind of talking to her a bit and got some of her products. All amazing stuff. But the one thing, it's that extra sugar thing that I won't do. Like I won't do the refined sugar. I'm not going to put table sugar in my food. Like, I don't necessarily love orange juice. I'm not gonna, that's not a thing for me. But like with anything else, like stuff that I've learned from you, stuff that I've learned from Max, stuff that I've learned from Ray, Pete and even Matt Blackburn, some of these, some of these people, like, I take little pit like bits of each and I put it into my tailored plan for Crosby Taylor that works for me and my lifestyle and how much I'm working out. Because when I went and got blood work with recently, you know, my level, my everything was great and my levels were high and. But my one, the one thing that he said was you could even have like higher testosterone. But it seems like your problem might be under eating for the amount of training that you're doing. And so up your calories, up this, up that. And I was already eating a good amount and I was like, how am I going to eat more? Because my stomach's sensitive, so it's not like I can just gorge myself post workout. Probably like shit myself if I did that. So just finding time to like add in more calories. For me, it's like trying to get more calories like you were talking about getting bulkier things to have your calorie content be lower. For me, I've been trying to figure out ways like sometimes I'll just Crush third of a pint of Strauss organic ice cream at night just to get those calories.

Yeah. And you're bringing back to my bodybuilding days.

And sometimes I feel like that.

Sometimes I feel like back in football, couldn't eat enough. Yeah.

Sometimes I feel like I'm back in football by the way that I'm training and how balanced my hormones feel right now. It's that metabolic place where I'm like, if I eat sugar, I burn them right away. Then nothing's sitting around, nothing's storing as fat. And I feel very grateful of that, but I know it's not a forever thing, so I'm trying to find the balance with all of it. It's been a fun process. I mean, we, me and my girlfriend, like, joke around about it all the time. Just, like, avoiding the PUFAs in certain ways.

Yeah. I wish I had known back when I was trying to shove calories down the hatch all day long about things, you know, liver and bone broth and, you know, and some of these wonderful fats like lard and suet that at the time I vilified, but would have been such great energy sources.

Amazing.

Yeah. If I could go back and do it over again, I think I'd do a lot less of the man in a can protein shakes and, you know, pre workouts. But I guess for me, from, like, a hacking or a technology or standpoint, I've been messing around a lot with these devices that can induce certain brainwave states or simulate what, like, supplements or medications might do for the body, but using technology instead. Like, and I've done interviews about this in the past, like, there's this one device called Apollo.

Oh, yeah, the Apollo Neuro.

It produces, like, this inaudible sound wave, and you select from the app, like, relax or sleep or social or focus or whatever. But it operates based on the principle of the sound wave traveling up the long bone of your femur. If you wear it on your wrist, the long bones in your arm, and it induces, like, a brainwave response, like alpha or beta or theta or delta, different sequences depending on the sound frequency being used. And it actually seems to work remarkably well.

Yeah, it's funny. The science is super interesting and it's a coincidence that you bring it up this week. Dave Rabin, who created it, is on my podcast.

Oh, cool.

They sent me a device and I've been checking it out. It's definitely. It is super interesting. And I think especially in light of, like, the fact that so many people today are struggling with, you Know, chronic.

Stress, anxiety, or even like a deleterious gut response to a cup of coffee. But they want that same kind of like beta brainwave release, whatever, in the morning or when they need to wake me up. They could do it without actually consuming a substance.

Yeah, it's very interesting. So you found it to be helpful?

I've found. Well, I've messed around with a few different devices. I've found that one to be helpful. That's a keeper for me. There are two others I'm experimenting with right now that I'm getting really good results with. One is called a HAP B. And I'm not an investor in any of these companies or anything like that. This one's called a HAP B and it is based on magnetic frequency technology, almost like transdirect cranial stimulation. But what they've figured out how to do is simulate the same frequency that basically would match that of, say, like caffeine or nicotine or MDMA or CBD or anything, you know, kind of similar to the Apollo. The app can allow you to select from which signals that you want, but unlike the Apollo, it's based on magnetic frequencies. And so you feel a little bit different. Feels almost like more powerful than the Apollo. And you can feel it right away. Like, there's one that simulates, like, the social lubricating effect of alcohol. And you wear that thing and you feel like you've had a couple glasses of wine, but again, you're not getting any of the acetaldehyde conversion. You're not getting the calories from drinking. You could arguably, like, go out to a party, have one cocktail, be wearing that, and kind of like feel the effects of not necessarily being drunk, but having that nice social buzz. And so that's another one that I like. And then the last one, and this is kind of far out, but I interviewed this guy on my show as well, something called an infopath device. And it's based on the concept of homeopathy. You know, this idea that, you know, when you put certain medications or substances in water, the water can carry the imprint or, or the actual signature of that particular compound. And so for this one, you basically have a device. And usually it's like, it's like a disc that you place your water or your wine or your beverage on top of. Then you select that you want to infuse it with like resveratrol or sildenafil or just about anything that you would want. I mean, there's like thousands of different compounds that they've got on there. I'm even shipping them my stored stem cells so they can take the frequency of the stem cells because I have like my 30 year old stem cells stored just to see what would happen if I drink and water the 30 year old me equivalent of stem cells each day. And I realize that there's not a ton of research behind this, but yet. And actually I think it was Blackburn who was telling me about this. He's like, have you tried the sildenafil freque actually works just like Viagra. And I tried it out a few times and I'm pretty in touch with my body and I don't think it was a placebo effect, but I swear like massive, massive hard on every evening that I used it for way longer than that would normally stay with me by drinking sildenafil in like the later afternoon on a night where I knew my wife and I were going to get it on.

Are you actually ingesting sildenafil?

Well, you're ingesting the frequency, right? So you're not having to do like first pass metabolism or anything of the actual compound. But it's really interesting and I feel like we need more research on these type of things that simulate what consumption of foods or supplements would do for the body. I'm never going to be a breatharian. I love food, I love supplements, I love my glass of wine. But I think it is cool that we're seeing more and more of these technologies that seem to simulate what foods or supplements or meds could do for you.

That's interesting.

Yeah, I started using the company Somavedic. They sent me one of those things. You have of those too, right? Yeah, it was one of those. You just kind of have to trust that something's actually the research is either.

The research or bias. But yeah, for that one it would be like blocking EMFs or introducing healthy frequencies into a room.

It's like harmonizing the stuff.

Yeah, it seems like one of those things shows up on my doorstep like every week, some new pendant or like EMF blocking device. And like I gotta be honest, most of them I kind of feel something. But you just never know if it's actual placebo unless you're actually taking a meter through your house house and testing everything which I've done. And I have to admit most of the EMF analysis I've done with meters doesn't show any of those to have that significant of an effect yet physiologically I see like higher HRV and better.

Sleep and I think that's Kind of what their whole shtick is, is, like, it's not really changing that emf. It's not blocking it. It's actually creating an environment that your cellular frequencies can actually harmonize with the EMF and not. Not have negative side effects from whatever it is that you would have side effects from the emf. So, I mean, because I swear, they just put the smaller type box, 5G panels, caddy corner from my apartment. Not the big one, but, like, the tiny little, like, square panels, and there's four of them, one on each side of the. Of the pole. And when that went up, I was like, all right, I gotta figure something out. That thing's gonna fry that corner.

We. We did buy a Faraday canopy for our bed. Like, my wife was resistant to it for the longest time, and I actually had to show her, like, the design. And it's actually beautiful. It's like a four poster. Like, I finally get to have my princess bed. You know, like the curtains and four posts. But it's a. It's a Faraday cage. Just blocks out everything.

Wow.

And I mean, those things feel like. Just like a peaceful cave when you crawl, really.

Do you know. Do you know Luke's story? I'm sure he's a mutual.

Yeah, he.

Apparently there's a. What from what I gather from his Instagram. So he just moved to Austin, and there's a paint that you can use that block.

Yeah, it's a Faraday paint.

It's a Faraday paint.

Yeah.

So he painted his bedroom black, right?

Yeah.

Obviously, that would make the room way too dark.

And. Yeah, he painted over it Draconian.

He painted over it with white.

But, yeah, it's got that panel of black in there.

Yes, in there, below the white paint.

Freaking expensive.

Is it?

I got an EMF analysis of my house.

He's got to be crushing it because he's building, like, a dream house.

For me to do a paint job on my house was, like, 28,000 bucks. Like, to actually paint all the rooms that I cared about that had, like, the higher levels of EMF from cell. And I live out in the middle of nowhere. Right.

Where.

Where are you at again?

I'm up in Spokane, Washington. But there's still. You know, when we went through the house and tested, there were radio signals coming in and cell phone towers we were getting signals from and some of the wiring in the house. And so arguably, I might benefit from doing it, but I have difficulty justifying the expense of a whole house painting versus Just. Let's Say a Faraday canopy around the one section of the house where you're spending a third of your life wanting to be in like a resting and restorative phase. So that's. That's kind of the path I've taken.

We. During the pandemic, me and my girlfriend did a road trip up to Canada because that's where she's from. She's from Calgary. We went up the west coast and one of the places we stopped and got a hotel was Spokane. Oh, yeah, it's beautiful there.

Yeah. Yeah.

We did like a bike ride through Gonzaga and was in Washington State. Right?

Yeah.

And there's like a really cool health market up on the hill. What's that one called? You know which one I'm talking about. They. You must. I mean, because you're probably.

It's up on a hill up on South Hill.

It's up right up from the city, like downtown, because we stayed kind of downtown.

Not know the one that you're talking about. But I don't want to make Spokane sound too good because I don't want people moving there. Like, what happened to Austin? But it is like a. It's like a cheap bolt older.

It's pretty nice. We weren't mad at it at all. Like, we were looking around and had. It was like a nice, like fall time to see the leaves falling and stuff. It was pretty beautiful. And the nice weather.

Well, that's actually. That's a good segue into something I wanted to ask you guys about as well, which was like relationship or community building or anything you've done when it comes to like, your social life, your relationships or community. And the reason that Spokane made me think of that was during the pandemic and the lockdown, I wound up traveling way, way less. I'm still traveling way, way less than I did before when I was on a plane once or twice a week. And I really developed a desire to be a member of my local community on a greater. On a greater level. That's cool. Unfortunately, that desire was generated during a time when everything's locked down. It's not like you're going to be going out to restaurants and like. But we started to have like, dinner parties where it was just like, anybody can come wear a mask or don't wear a mask, whatever you're comfortable with. We're going to do a huge, like, cook up of meat. And, you know, sometimes it'll be like my kids jiu jitsu instructor and a couple coaches from the local community and a few athletes Sometimes it's a bunch of biohackers, sometimes it's friends from church, sometimes it's a few families. But we. At the beginning of each month now, I map out two specific days to have like a big, big dinner party. And it's been amazing. Just because you get all these people together, they form new relationships. All our dinner parties, like, start with sauna and cold pool and you know, like a cocktail bar and you know, then. Then it generates into like a massive dinner gathered around the great table or outdoors. And then we always do like, singing and like group music. Everybody will, like, grab a drum or guitar, what do they feel like? And play where's my invite words. Oh, man, I'm quick.

Quick.

But yeah, that, that idea of making your home like a gathering place for people and planning it out and actually, so I have a master list, like a Google Doc where I've got like 30 different names. It grows every month of people in town with a quick description written after of who they are. And I'll just sit down at the beginning of the month. It's like making a recipe. It's like, hey, I want this person, this person, that couple and this family, and we're going to mix and match and see what happens. And they just have everybody open over. It's a blast.

That's cool.

That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, I definitely value that. One of the reasons why I moved into this place, my house, is because it allow. It lends itself to having people over. And I think that's one of the. One of the great joys in life is, you know, building and fostering, you know, your social circle. And there's no better way to do that than, I think, to cook with people and to break bread. You know, I mean, it's been something that people have bonded over food. People have bonded over food for millennials. And to think that somehow now we can just subjugate that and, and be okay with it and not suffer any kind of repercussions, I think is completely naive.

Yeah. And. And bonding over food, I think. And by the way, I never thought I'd hear you say breaking bread, bonding over food. I think it is something that becomes a bit like diet agnostic, you know, when you say, hey, everybody, I'm gonna whatever, grill salmon burgers, everybody bring a healthy side to share. You're. You obviously have a wide, wide variety that might fall outside the dietary context that you've been following. But I mean, there's something about. And, and this might sound kind of woo, but like, letting it go and like, having whatever, you know, Aunt Matilda's cookies with your. Whatever. The jiu jitsu instructor's yogurt parfait with blueberries and granola and, you know, and a giant helping of, you know, your neighbor's sweet potato mash and then whatever. The salmon burger you grilled up. Like, when you're gathering with people and just enjoying the food in that, you know, arguably highly, kind of like parasympathetic scenario where just laughing with people and you're super relaxed. I feel like foods that would normally, like, mess with me a little bit. Like, they don't as much in that scenario, which is super interesting.

Well, it's that valve, right? That valve that doesn't shut the cortisol response. Yeah. So it's nice open and. And you're having fun and you're not thinking about it, and you just crush something that has a bunch of gluten in it because you're laughing and you just maybe sang a song and. Yeah, nothing happens. But if you know it's got gluten in it, you sit down and you're already premeditating the stress response from it, and you start eating it, that valve is going to shut super fast. All of a sudden, you're in digestive distress.

I think, like, praying over a meal. Like, I think there's more than just, like, being grateful for what you're about to consume and blessing it to your body. I think you're actually generating in a state of prayer or gratitude, positive frequencies that affect not only your body, but also the food. I mean, I think that eating in that state, praying, settling yourself down, doing some breath work or some meditation prior to a big meal, I definitely think it affects both you and the food.

Agreed.

Yeah. Going around the table, I mean, that's a good sort of activity for your next dinner party or even just like dinner with the families to go around the table and express a bit of gratitude. What you're grateful for. I mean, you know, I'm a ardent meat eater, and I wouldn't call myself a carnivore by any stretch, but I definitely am an advocate for the consumption of animals. And I think it's really important, actually, to express gratitude for the lives that have been unwittingly sacrificed for our nourishment.

Oh, yeah. I mean, every time I hunt and now I take my boys hunting, we say a prayer, we return that animal to the earth. It's a very sacred experience. And we do the same thing at our house, Max. When we have These big dinner parties, even with just our family at dinner, it always starts with breathwork. A lot of nasal breath work. Usually we're pausing. We're having a moment of silence for one to two minutes with breathwork, that's always followed by gratitude. Like, what are you grateful for today? Or, who are you grateful for? And then prayer, and then finally you dig into the food and having that type of habit and then carrying that type of habit into your solo meals, right? So for me, now, you know, whatever. I just had, like, one of those bowls up at SunLife for lunch, right? But I'm out there in that little outdoor veranda by next health and sun life. And now I pause before my meal when normally, prior to adopting that habit with my family, I would have just dug right in. But that idea of, oh, hey, I'm about to eat, and this is actually pretty super special. Like, I have this amazing meal that 99% of the people on the face of this planet would kill for, and I've got my computer open and my phone on, and I'm distracted by this, and I'm listening to that and just plugging yourself into a state of awareness and gratitude and actually realizing what that does for you for your meal, for your digestion, like you were talking about Crosby, for even that closure of the ileocecal valve in response to cortisol. I mean, it's pretty profound.

That's really cool. Yeah. Just to kind of build on that, we have been playing volleyball every weekend with a huge group. We go out to Will Rogers, and that's kind of been our big community building thing since the start of the pandemic. I think probably a couple months in, once it settled a little bit and we could actually. And there was no lockdown, we just started playing, like, a lot. Like, she played in college, so she got me into it. I started getting pretty decent. And we're playing with, like, 30, 40 people.

Your girlfriend, Tessa.

Yeah, yeah. She played in college, and she's quite the athlete, so. And I played college football, so I have some athleticism. And we go out there all the time, and, you know, everybody's slapping hands, being super positive. Nobody's in a mask out there. Everybody's just having fun, like, enjoying life. And, yeah, I think there's something to also be said about being in that space where, you know, you're having fun and you're not super stressed and creating kind of like, almost like a placebo effect that you're gonna get ill. You're just enjoying life and not really Worrying about it and kind of letting your biochemistry do what it's supposed to be doing and getting all the different bacterias and touching things and getting dirty and hugging people and exchanging all that sweat. Sweat and increasing the resilience of your immune system.

Yeah.

And then you go home and eat good food. And on top of all that, I mean, we haven't had a sniffle this whole time. And it's not like I'm not, like, trying to brag or anything. I just think there's something to be said for really having a faith in your body, in, like, a sovereign body and having that faith in your immune system.

There's papers now, right now, floating around on the Internet about the possibility of weakened immune systems in response to social isolation or at least a less robust amount of physical contact based on COVID lockdowns. And I certainly think there's something to that. In the same way that kids who grow up on farms have more resilient immune systems just because of their exposure to poop and dirt and animals and germs.

Dude, the news media weakens your immune system. I mean, chronically elevated cortisol, we know, makes you more prone to infections. That's a good point. Yeah. And so the panic porn that pervades the media, and I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything like that, but it's like watching the news is literally asking the TV what you should be worried about today. That's literally what it is. Like, turn it off.

No matter what channel. No matter what channel.

No matter what channel.

Yeah.

And that can. We know that that can have downstream physiologic effects.

Yeah, but it's purposeful. Maybe bleeds the leads. Like, that's. That's what bleeds leads. That's. That's what sells ads, and that's what gets viewers, is something that's sexy and attracts attention and makes people freak out. And that's the way news is built these days. I don't know. How do you guys get your news? Or do you.

I mean, it's hard not to get it on Instagram if you're on it.

I just know. I mean, I just. I scan Twitter.

I.

You know, that's it. But I'm not, like, news obsessed. Like, you know, all the news I need is, like, in my. In my group chat with, like, me and my brothers and my, you know, as long as my family's doing all right, I'm like a family guy.

Yeah.

You know, I'm realizing now in my third, you know, plus decade of life, like the stuff that matters most to me is the stuff that's happening in my immediate environment. You know, our brains didn't evolve to have a grasp over what's happening on a global scale at an exponential pace. You know, we evolved in an environment where our most pressing needs occurred locally.

Our village.

Yeah. And where 30 steps away equaled 30 steps away. Today, 30 steps away equals a billion.

Right.

Because we live in the era of exponential technological growth. So I think that we're all suffering silently due to the fact that, you know, we each have taken it upon ourselves and because in, in a way, we're each kind of told that we have to take it on ourselves.

Right.

To be like these globally minded, you know, people concerned about irresponsible on of top.

Watch the news, bro.

Yeah, yeah. And I just, I don't, I don't.

Buy that for like not voting.

Yeah, there you go. I think that we need to like return to, to that more sort of like localized vantage point about things for.

For me, I mean, like, honestly, like, I've got a, a couple of podcasts that are quick news feeds that are just like, I mean, and they're still biased. I'm a freaking like libertarian Christian from North Idaho. Right. And I have to admit, like the, the couple of podcasts I listen to for the news, they are bent that way. Just, just like most news is going to have some amount of bias to it, but I just do a quick check in. I got a couple of podcasts are like 15 minutes long. It's the new. There's one I listen to called Cross Politics. There's another guy who tends to be kind of controversial, a little bit of a lightning rod named Charlie Kirk. I listen to his show sometimes just to take a deeper dive. Whatever. If Biden gives a speech, I'll go listen to their breakdown of it. And yeah, and yeah, I will fully admit it's still biased, but for me it's like a podcast. Turn it on, turn it off. You know, do a quick listen at three time speed or whatever. Catch up on what I need to know for the day. And that's generally what I do. I guess if we could like cover one more topic in the time that we have left, what might be fun is, you know, inevitably when we record shows like this, there's just like something you thought of during the show or something you want to share you didn't get a chance to share yet, something you want to tell people, some cookie recipe message you want to get out to the world of Cosby or whatever. But if you guys could leave people with one piece of item, either deeply meaningful and spiritual advice or one super silly crazy thing that you've been up to that you just think is cool that people would dig knowing about.

Yeah, I'll start today. So I've been for a long time wanting to get therapy, just like interpersonal talk therapy. And today I actually had my first session with this.

This podcast.

It was. This podcast, really. No, no, no.

We actually gave Max a bunch of MDMA before.

There you go.

Full on MDMA talk therapy session.

No, I. So I want to. I bring this up because I think it's important to normalize that therapy. There's no. There shouldn't be any stigma about it that it doesn't make you weak to seek out a therapist. But sometimes we have things that like, we want to sort of deal with and, or get better at in life and we're very quick to seek out experts in. In other regards in regards that are unrelated to mental health. Like, I wanted to learn boxing. I sought out a. Of bunch boxing trainer. Right. I'm a musician. I sing and I play guitar. I have a singing teacher. I know there's no ego involved. I can say I take singing lessons and I really, really love it. But I had some, like, some unsettled, like, loose ends in regards to like, previous relationships and like, you know, my upbringing and stuff that I wanted to sort of like unpack with a therapist. And so I sought out one and I. I did a little bit of due diligence and I think it's important, you know, I. I'm somebody who, like you, Ben, probably, like, I have to re. Before I make any decision, I research the shit out of it. Right. Can be. That can make something like therapy very intimidating to begin. Like, I want to know that I'm getting the best therapist or whatever or the therapist that's right for my particular needs. Because I'm a unique snowflake and I have needs that are unlike anybody else's. Anybody else's needs throughout all of human history. Right. But that's actually not necessarily the case and. Or not necessarily productive or beneficial in the context of therapy. And so I think at a certain point you just have to like, pull the trigger and just like see some person and to start feeling things out in that regard. And so I was recommended somebody by a friend of mine who's a very smart woman, and she thought that this particular therapist could be of help to me. And so I don't know where it's going to go or how long I'm going to be seeing this person. But I just think it's, like, important, especially today, but for men in particular, I think women tend to be more inclined to be open about that sort of stuff. But, yeah, there's now all these apps. I'm not using one of these. The apps, but there are these apps now that make it, like, very accessible for people with, like, all different kinds of budgets.

Yeah, I've heard about those. Although if you were super serious, man, you just, like, go down to Peru and do ayahuasca. That's true therapy.

That's what they say.

That's the sexy stuff that everybody's going to do now.

I'm a little bit reluctant to. To be totally honest, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Yeah. I have. I have a lot of friends that do this plant medicine stuff, and I think it's okay to be afraid of plant or to be, like, like, reluctant to engage with plant medicines. I think, like, in our community, there are. People are like, yeah, this past weekend, I did an ayahuasca ceremony.

Well, I feel like a whole different portal.

Have a little more. We need to have a little more.

It changes the whole game for you.

Spiritual portal. You know, sometimes if you're in the wrong place from a neurotransmitter standpoint, there are issues there. Like, yeah, there. There's a lot. You know, a lot more than we probably have time to go into on this show. But, yeah, I mean, that is. That's like a. Proceed with caution.

There you go.

Great deal of foresight and seriousness if you're going to do it. This is not a vacation to the Amazon where everything is fixed and you happy. Like, obviously. Gosh. I mean, like, I've seen videos of guys, like, finishing up an ayahuasca ceremony and just, like, being sued. Like, one of my. One of my buddies had a friend who did it, and, like, he came out of the ceremony and sent a video to his family of him, like, cutting his dick off. What? Right. Yeah. Like that. That much of a. Messing with your awareness of self or your spiritual connection or even, like, influence from a spirit. Like, you're opening up, like you said, Crosby, a different portal into a different spiritual world. It's not just, like, whatever, drinking an extra glass of wine.

No. And it's not even like, doing mushrooms either.

It's.

It's a whole different.

Yeah. Hallucinogenic, purgative and. Yeah, yeah.

Crazy.

Anyways, therapy. I like it. How about you, Crosby?

Therapy.

Yeah.

You know, as of late I've been really working on personally embracing more change for myself because I'm a pretty strict, stringent, kind of like routine guy. I have my routine in the morning. I control the control to feel as good as I want to feel every day is like a very big thing for me. I like that. I like to be able to grip that and say, like, if I do X, Y and Z again tomorrow, I'm going to feel, feel as good as I felt the day before. Just working on opening up more to other possibilities, being more spontaneous, even if it's going to push me back a couple notches, but being able to have that new life experience me and my girlfriend have actually been talking about. I've been in West Hollywood for 10 years. I've been in the same place for 10 plus years and it's comfortable. I have my whereabouts that are my, my normal whereabouts that I've known for that long. And she's like, oh, let's move west, let's move to the marina, let's do this or do that or like even move out of la. And those things are like terrifying to me.

At one point I feel that.

But also just like I had moved from Northern California to Los Angeles or from New York back to Los Angeles, there was a moment when I was like, oh man, I'm gonna have to have this new environment. I've just been doing a lot of thinking lately on being able to embrace that and just being okay with like having a lifestyle change and pace that changes maybe my day to day a tiny bit or I have to give up a little bit to get something new. And I think that is a big thing for me and being able to switch that, being able to flip that switch for not only for myself, but also for business and financially. Like, I think that once you open up that next door, you know, I think that I'll be able to be a little bit more uncomfortable when it comes to making business decisions and take a little bit more risk and create, do something with my, the baking company that makes me get over that next kind of like puts me to that next step. Whereas I've also been very comfortable with that too. I've been very comfortable with being where I'm at with the baking company and being where I'm at with certain partnerships I have that give me a decent living and I live good here. But I could be changing that as well. So I think that for me it's been kind of like that kind of. Max actually inspired me when he said therapy, because that was he got a little vulnerable talking about his therapy. And this is kind of vulnerable for me too. It's like being able to really sit with that, meditate with that idea that what are you really gonna lose if you start embracing a little bit more change and being okay with whatever that is and stepping into a new path and paradigm that might put. Put me to a new place that takes me to an exponentially different level that was a hundred times better than before.

Yeah, that reminds me a lot of the work of folks like Anthony Demello and the idea of detaching yourself from things in life that you thought you were attached to for your happiness. Or David Hawkins book Letting Go, the Pathway of Surrender. Or the book by Michael. I forget his last name, the Surrender Experiment. Just this whole idea, especially for like, like driven guys like us. Releasing control can be difficult. And when you do, there's real freedom about it, and it can even manifest itself biologically or physically. You know, people who are control freaks or have OCD like tendencies, you know, I'm the same way. They tend to have tight psoas, tight abs, tight pelvic floor, musculature, all those things that you'd associate with being able to let go. Right. Constipation, issues like that. And it's interesting how when you begin to learn to let go, when you begin to learn to release control, to surrender, to trust that God will provide, or to be open to change, even if it's just like, whatever, getting a new haircut or trying a new food or going out at a time you normally wouldn't go out, it seems to change you physically as well.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

Well, I got to hit the road pretty soon, so I have to think of something kind of brief. This is going to sound trite compared to what you guys have just said about, you know, being able to therapy and releasing control. But I would say one other thing I'd throw in there that's actually been kind of cool for me in terms of infusing me with more energy and positivity and just one of those things that I tried. And like, some of the other things I've mentioned just kind of stuck with me that I like, because 90% of the stuff I try doesn't stick. I was just like, that was interesting. I'm not going to make that part of my routine I discovered in a book I was reading this morning. Routine called the Five Tibetan Longevity Exercises.

I know, the Five Tibetan rights.

Yeah, the five Tibetan rights. Yeah. I found a website. I think it's t5t.com has, like, a poster and a book that walks you through it. I started doing, like, 21 reps of each every morning. I did it this morning, dude, in the beginning. 21 reps. But I feel, like, aligned energetically. I feel as though I'm more open. I feel more positivity during the day.

Day.

I feel like my journaling and my meditation and my prayer, everything else just becomes a little bit more enhanced by that ritual. So I've been doing, you know, every morning, I even taught my boys how to do them. These five Tibetan people. You know, I'm going to explain them all on audio because it'd be easier if people just, like, Google it.

I did them years ago, but I never would like to.

It's 3:20 now. Yeah.

But, yeah, it's. It's super cool.

Yeah.

Is one of them butthole sunning?

No, buttholes. Arguably, if you were to do it nude in the sun, you would be doing that. You would get a little bit of butthole exposure. Which I guess brings us full circle to what we started off with. The sugar, alcohols, and air coming out the butthole. Flatulence, Platonic energy in the butthole. Well, guys, first of all, if people are listening to this on my show, I'll put the links to everything we talk about and also to Crosby's Instagram channel and his page and his cookies and Max's wonderful podcast and some of the episodes Max and I have done in the past. I'll put all of that@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 3way I think that's a rememberable URL. BenGreenfieldFitness.com 3how for this discussion. And if you guys have your own comments, questions, feedback, new training, nutrition biohacks, relationship routines that have stuck and worked for you, feel free to join in the discussion session there and throw in your own tips. And thanks for doing this, fella. It's always fun to just, like, have a chat you'd normally have anyways, but have the mics on and just get to know each other better. So this is good.

This was awesome. I couldn't think of a better, like, roundtable, you know, gaggle to get together. This was super fun.

This was great.

And we sat down with cookies.

We didn't do alcohol. We didn't do weed. We just ate a little bit of cookie and look at us, we crushed it. Anyways, well, fellas, thanks for coming on. And again, folks, BenGreenfulFitness.com three way and I'm Ben along with Crosby Taylor and Max Lugaver. Did you say Lugaver A or Lugaver? Lugaver Signing out. Have an amazing week you guys. Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes. Use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.