Episode #103: How To Manage A Low Thyroid, Ketogenic Diets and More

In this episode from Ben Greenfield Fitness how to manage a low Thyroid Are ketogenic diets helpful for fat loss? Link between magnesium and testosterone, Budgeting your supplement intake, how to improve circulation, knee strengthening exercises, and how to eat during an Ironman Triathlon.

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

Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield. The day before, I'm about to head.

Out for a 10 day flurry of.

Trips across Oregon and California for various.

Business meetings and family reunions. So over the next couple of weeks, am I still going to be bringing you the podcast? You bet.

I have some great interviews lined up.

Last week I asked you to tell me who you wanted to see on the show. You gave me great feedback and I'm.

Lining up a fantastic series of podcasts for the next couple of months.

So look forward to still getting the.

Podcast, even though I'll be rushing around.

And the audio might change a little.

Bit as I use portable microphones and iPhones to record the podcast, but either way, we'll make it work.

So in today's podcast, I'll be interviewing Dr. Roby Mitchell, who is an expert.

On many forms of natural medicine, but.

Is going to share some insightful tips on managing a low thyroid and low metabolism today and why you should even care about your thyroid even if you don't have hypothyroidism. I'm also going to be answering listener questions, both calling questions and writing questions.

That cover a variety of topics. And before we get into that, we'll.

Have a special announcement feature, a special.

Message, and then the listener Q and A.

Enjoy.

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Special Announcements.

So here's what we've got.

Going for today's special announcements.

First of all, you may remember that last week I mentioned that I'll be teaching a triathlon camp in Texas, the.

2011 Austin Triathlon Camp. You aren't going to want to miss.

That if you're a half Ironman or.

An Ironman triathlete who's Preparing for a 2011 event.

It's a blast. It's all inclusive.

That means your lodging, your meals, your.

Nights out in the town, your training, your sag wagon. Everything is paid for, so be sure.

To check that out.

In addition, I've been getting fantastic donations from listeners.

I've been sending out lots of free T shirts and lots of goodies along with those T shirts. And you can donate to the show by going to the Show Note episodes where I always put lots of goodies and links and resources that have to do with whatever information we covered during the podcast.

You can go to the episode show notes for episode 103, scroll down to.

The bottom and that's where you can.

Donate to the show. In other news, I am still accepting.

Just a couple more people for the.

Trip to Thailand that I'm organizing a two week trip to Thailand for anybody.

Who'S interested in doing an Olympic distance or a half Ironman triathlon over there.

I'll be helping you organize your trip and putting together some social events as.

Well as organizing some of the logistical difficulties of racing in Thailand for you. So for any of that, email me BenGreenfieldFitness.com and whether you are a triathlete or you just want to shed a few pounds, you're not going to want.

To miss the Q and A and featured topic.

Coming right up.

Listener Q and A.

So folks, if you have a question, you can email Ben greenfieldfitness.com if you're.

In the US you can call toll free to 877-209-9439 or if you are.

International and you want to use the fantastic free conferencing software called Skype that you can download from skype.com My username is Pacific Fit. That's Pacific like the Ocean Fit, like fitness. So Pacific Fitness Fit and the first.

Question is from listener Sean and listener Sean actually had a very long question.

About some struggles he's been having with low testosterone.

But he finishes by saying, my question is, do you have any literature or information about athletes with low testosterone and how it affects their training? I've listened to your podcast about your own battle with low T Besides any supplements or medication, do you think it takes a guy like me more time to reach the desired results due to my low testosterone? Well, Sean, it's a great question. And just to clarify, you know, you say I've been battling with low T. I personally had testosterone levels that weren't ideal for the level of competition for.

Triathlon that I, that I wanted to go into.

But from the letter that you wrote me, you've got, you've got far more.

Clinical issues when it comes to your testosterone levels.

I see that you're trying a lot of different things like the testosterone patch and different types of supplements. But what I would recommend is that instead of coming to me for advice.

On hormone therapy or medical testosterone management.

Which I'm really not an expert in, you go to two different people. One, the guy that is going to.

Be on this show today, Dr. Roby.

Mitchell, and you can find him the information on him and the information on hormones that he provides@drphit.com you could also go look at the company Bioletics, which is where I get the Optimail testosterone.

Supplement that I take on a daily.

Basis, actually cycle on it. Five days on, two days off, it did double my testosterone levels.

I'm not saying that it's going to.

Do that for you, but it's worth looking into that and also maybe trying to arrange a consultation with Dr. Cohen.

Over there, who's also an expert in testosterone management and bringing testosterone up.

I can tell you that with the athletes that I've consulted and the individuals that I've consulted with who are attempting to battle low T, especially some males.

Who have testosterone levels that are in.

The tank, it does take several months and sometimes more than a year to really get things optimized in terms of all the different things that have to.

Take place within your body to get your testosterone levels back up to where they should be.

But because your question does have to do with testosterone, I wanted to talk to you about an interesting study that I just came across in Alan Argon's research review. And Alan Argon's actually going to be.

Coming on the show to talk about.

The top 10 myths in nutrition and.

Training here in a couple of weeks.

But he talks about a study that was published in Biology of Trace Elements Research in March of 2010. And the title of the study was the Effects of Magnesium Supplementation on Testosterone Levels of Athletes and Sedentary Subjects at Rest and after exhaustion. And the results of that study showed that the free testosterone levels increased at exhaustion. That's after a hard workout, before and after magnesium supplementation compared to resting levels. The conclusions were that supplementation with magnesium increased both free and total testosterone in sedentary individuals and in athletes. And those of you who've been listening to the show For a while know that I've recommended magnesium on this show. Dr. Cohen has, has, Dr. Carolyn Dean has, Dr. DeMarco has. Lots of different physicians are really recommending magnesium and more magnesium than what you're going to see in most dietary guidelines.

We're talking about magnesium levels. While as a matter of fact, in.

This study, the actual dosage was 10.

Milligrams per kilogram of body weight. So, for example, for a guy like me, that's between 700 and 800 milligrams of magnesium.

Now, between the food and the supplements that I take, that's about what I get on a daily basis.

But a lot of people aren't even taking 100 milligrams of magnesium. The way that I do it is I use a combination of topical and oral magnesium.

I'll put a link to the topical.

Magnesium that I use in the episode show notes and then the oral magnesium that I use. You know, I'll put a link to that as well.

Now, I'm not saying that the increased levels of testosterone are necessarily going to enhance performance.

And as a matter of fact, this study shows, and Alan Argon in his.

Notes on the study mentioned that it didn't exactly mean that you were going.

To be a better athlete or perform.

Better, but there was an increase in testosterone. And, you know, I have yet to see that be a bad thing. So I'll put a link to a.

Couple forms of magnesium in the show notes for you and I'd also check out Dr. Cohen and Dr. Fitt. So we're going to move on to the next question.

And this question is from listener Patrick. And Patrick says, how much fitness is really gained in the last big month for a long distance training plan? I'm on your triathlon dominator plan and I'm three weeks into the last five.

Week kick of volume.

I'd be interested to know how much all this volume really amounts to on race day. I get the feeling that it might not make much of a difference from a fitness perspective, but perhaps help a.

Lot from a mental perspective.

Well, Patrick, you're on the right track in that if you're going to do something like an Ironman triathlon, whether or not it's going to help you to.

Sit in a bike saddle for five.

Hours before the race. From a physical perspective, you definitely have to have some amount of mental fortuitiveness to actually make it through that event just by training and doing a few long sessions. However, you need to take into considerations a few things. For example, during the marathon, you are going to be on your feet for at least three hours, and for most.

People, closer to four hours and sometimes more than four hours.

If you've never spent that much time on your feet moving on your feet, and you've never spent even close to that time moving on your feet, then you may not have the actual strength in your ligaments, in your bones, in your soft tissue to actually support you during that event, especially after you've been.

On your bike for five to six hours.

The same goes for the swim. If you've never been horizontal in a pool or in the open water for an hour, or, you know, an hour and a half, or however long it's going to take you to swim 2.4 miles, you may find some hip flexor and some core fatigue that you didn't experience from shorter swim sessions. And that's why including some volume is important. But it goes even farther than that. Understand that there's lots of adaptations to endurance training.

You gain in your oxygen capacity and.

Your ability to use oxygen. You gain in your ability to be able to buffer lactic acid and also shuttle that lactic acid up to the liver to be reconverted and reused as fuel.

You improve in your exercise economy, meaning that if you're training to swim, cycle.

And run, you're going to become more efficient neuromuscularly at swimming, cycling and running.

Whether that be your, your stride length.

Or your push off when you're running, your swimming technique, your body position on the bicycle, your ability to push and pull the pedals. You also develop a greater ability to use fat as a fuel during a higher intensity exercise, meaning that you get.

A carbohydrate sparing effect.

You're able to go longer on less fuel. You get a conversion of your fast, explosive, what are called type 2 muscle fibers into type 1 muscle fibers, which are slow twitch muscle fibers that take a much longer time to fatigue. So there's. I could go on. You get increased capillarization, which means your blood vessels that feed into the muscles become more dense and larger. You get an increased size and density of the mitochondria in your cells, which.

Are the parts of your cells that are able to take oxygen and convert it into energy.

You get increased stroke volume in your heart, meaning that your heart can pump more blood per beat, delivering more oxygen to your tissues.

And your tissues can become enhanced in.

Their ability to extract that oxygen from the blood as it rushes past. All sorts of things happen in your body that if you did not engage in heavy training leading up to the race, you would not gain all of those results. Now there's also the kind of the use it or lose it philosophy in exercise. And what that means is that all of those aerobic capacity benefits that I talked about tend to disappear after a certain amount of time spent in detraining. And there has been a study that looked at well conditioned athletes who trained regularly for a year. And in that study they stopped those.

Athletes from exercising and after three months.

They lost half of their aerobic conditioning. Which means if you really neglect your.

Fitness and the 12 or in the 12 weeks leading up to the race, you're going to lose a lot.

And your muscles can tend to atrophy after they haven't been stimulated for 72 hours. That's how short a time period you have to really be able to stimulate.

Your muscles and to do exercises that use the muscles that you're planning on using during the race.

So there are a lot of physical benefits that maintain a sharpness for triathlon.

In your body that you're going to.

Lose if you don't engage in the workouts. Now, as far as the mad volume.

Goes, like I know in the triathlon.

Dominator plan, There is an 18 mile run in there, there's a hundred mile bike in there. Could you go out and do an.

Ironman triathlon without doing those?

Yeah, probably. But you wouldn't do as well as if you had because you're not going to have the mental wherewithal and you're not going to have that neuromuscular training. And it's likely that something called the.

Central governor in your brain, which is the part of your brain that says, okay, I'm tired now, this is all I can.

It's likely that that's going to kick in a little bit earlier if you.

Haven'T gotten yourself close to that marker of long distance fatigue. So there's a lot of reasons to make sure you include the volume.

Any single training plan that you look.

At, whether it be volume or an intensity training plan, definitely has some workouts that simulate something close to race distance in those final eight weeks leading up to something like an Ironman triathlon.

It's a great question question from listener Gabe.

He says, I'm on a budget but.

Committed to improving my health. If you had to choose, would you take the Ener prime supplement as a first priority or the Living Fuel Super Greens supplement?

Also, which supplements would you say are.

The most valuable to you in order of priority? Well, for those of you who aren't.

Familiar with the two Supplements that Gabe just mentioned. I will put a link to those.

In the show notes. But to answer the first question, you.

Need to understand the difference between those green supplements. They both contain superfoods, greens, things like chlorella and spirulina, blue green algae, all sorts of basically alkalinic superfoods that help.

The body fight off inflammation, have a less acidic state, give you a little bit more energy, and they're very, very nutrient dense forms of nutrition, meaning that they're not a lot of calories, but.

A high amount of nutrients and minerals and vitamins.

Now, the difference between the two is that the Living Fuel Super Greens is.

Formulated to be a meal replacement, meaning that it's got carbohydrates, it's got proteins.

It'S got a couple hundred calories per serving. The Enterprime supplement is designed to be just a green supplement, meaning it doesn't.

Have the carbohydrates, the proteins and the calories.

Now, my entire philosophy of life and nutrition is to try and get my meals from real food as much as.

Possible and then supplement that real food with the things that I need to fill in the holes. Now, although I think that both of.

Those supplements that were mentioned, the Ener prime and the Living Fuel Super Greens, are both excellent supplements, I would tend to have to go with the Ener.

Prime just because I like to have.

Salad, fresh fruit, things of that nature.

Post workout, I try and have a.

Real meal like say chicken and quinoa or brown rice with a little bit of nuts, almonds, things of that nature. And so for me to have a post workout drink is pretty uncommon. That's why if I had to choose.

From a budget perspective between the enterprise.

And the Living Fuel Super Greens, I.

Would go for the Enterprime. That being said, I do use both. I use a serving of that Living.

Fuel Super Greens typically about once every.

Couple of days, I'll have that as a meal. Usually when I'm on the go and I'm real busy and I do the Ener prime powder every single day. I stir that powder into a glass of water every morning.

So the second part of your question, what would I do if I had to budget my supplements? It's a pretty simple answer. In this order. I would take my greens supplement, I would take a vitamin D supplement, and.

I take the Nano spray from Bioletics.

I would take a magnesium supplement, and.

I'd take a fish oil supplement. All four of those.

Are supplements that are very effective, that are not super expensive. If you took them all Together, you'd.

Easily be under $100 a month. And all of them are well proven to really help out with your overall health and your performance. So that's what I would do if I were you. Take a green supplement, take a vitamin D, take magnesium, take a fish oil, and then eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Lots of real food, real nutrient dense food.

So listener Laurel asks, I just pulled something in my back doing squats, putting the weights down when I was done. I am trying to get my left quad back from an ACL injury, and I think squats are some of the better exercises, but are there safer ones.

To do at home?

Well, Laurel, the interesting thing about strengthening your legs is that any bodybuilder will.

Tell you that they do a lot of reps when they want to build up leg muscles. You know, they'll do like 12, 15.

20 reps. And that results in hypertrophy.

And development of the leg musculature.

And you actually don't need a squat.

Rack or a barbell to do those amounts of reps. You can use things like kettlebells, dumbbells. I have something called a gym stick that I use. You can check that out@BenGreenfieldFitness.com gymstick however.

If you're rehabbing your quad from an ACL injury, I don't think the heavy squats are necessarily going to get you.

The most bang for your buck compared to single leg exercises, which are going to actually train your knee to move.

Properly so you don't risk tearing your.

ACL again or doing damage to your ACL again, whatever it is that you did to it.

So you would want to do what.

Are called proprioceptive exercises, which means that you're doing things where you're standing on one foot, whether that mean, you know.

Starting off with walking lunges, supporting yourself.

In the middle of the walking lunge by standing on one leg and then dropping down in that lunge pattern, doing single leg squats, starting by supporting yourself using a wall or a stability ball and then gradually getting to the level where you can do so without holding.

Onto something and then using things like pillows and Bosu balls and elements that you stand on that make you balance and not even worrying too much about doing leg exercises per se, but just standing and balancing. I mean, I have some people have weak knees and I have them stand on one foot while they're brushing their teeth just to improve the proprioception in that leg and the ability of the.

Knee or the elements around the knee to develop the awareness that's necessary to support the body. Dropping off of low level surfaces like the bottom of your stairs and practicing landing in a controlled pattern can also help out your knees quite a bit. You can do that double leg and then progress to doing it single leg.

When I was in college, I did an internship down at the Nike Sports.

Performance center at Duke University. And there were a couple athletes there that I worked with, NFL football players.

Both rehabbing from ACL injuries.

And half the work that we did was things that if you looked at, you would have thought they were pansies because all we were doing was doing.

Real light weights on one leg, doing balancing unbalanced pillows.

We're even doing some water running and some aqua jogging, some light plyometrics, meaning those jumping and landing type of activities.

And some light change of direction type.

Of activities out in the field.

But not a lot, you know, not.

A lot of squatting, 600, 700 pounds or anything like that.

So sometimes brute strength is not what you need to protect a weak link.

In your body as much as the awareness that's necessary to keep that injury from occurring again and help your body to protect itself. Now, you had a second part of your question. You said there are so many slang terms for exercises.

Is there a place to look them up?

There are tons of different exercise resources out there, Laurel. YouTube, of course, is the most popular one that comes to mind. You always want to be careful because obviously anybody and their dog can throw exercises up on YouTube. I have a full exercise database, exercise photo and video database at my website pacificfit.net I'll put a link to that in the episode show notes for you.

I also have several workouts, recipes, videos.

Tons of different things at my YouTube channel. That's@YouTube.com BenGreenfieldFitness I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well.

So we have a question from listener Patrick and Patrick says, what is your opinion on very low carbohydrate ketogenic diets? In studying for my CISSN test and.

That'S a certified International Society of Sports.

Nutritionists test and reading a chapter on.

Very low carbohydrate ketogenic diets.

They basically praise it to the skies.

As a new cutting edge way to increase your metabolism and lose weight, saying.

That it's safe and effective in terms of promoting weight or fat loss, improving.

Metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors, and compatible with a physically active lifestyle.

Okay, so I guess the best place.

To start here is to explain to listeners what a very low carbohydrate ketogenic diet actually is what ketosis actually is.

Basically, when the amount of carbohydrate that.

Your body burns drops below a critical level. So the fuel that your body needs.

Drops below a critical level, your body turns to protein and fat reserves for energy.

So if you're on a low carbohydrate diet, that's basically what's going to happen. And your body will take protein through a process called gluconeogenesis, convert it into carbohydrate energy and fat through a process called beta oxidation, also convert that into energy.

So when you convert protein into energy, you do get some nitrogen released in your bloodstream. And your kidneys do have to excrete.

Some excess urine due to sodium loss from that nitrogen.

And when you break up fat, you also produce something called ketones, which also.

Puts a little bit of a burden on the kidneys.

So the idea behind people who kind of slam the low carbohydrate ketogenic diet is that if ketosis continues for a.

Long time with this very low carbohydrate diet, there can be some damage to.

The liver and the kidneys. Now, there has been some research done that shows that ketones in the bloodstream.

Actually can inhibit the release of insulin and the release of cortisol.

So you can get some blood sugar.

Stabilization, you can get some calming of your hunger.

They've shown that it can help prevent.

Epileptic seizures because ketones actually can help calm down your brain cells.

And at the same time, it's kind of interesting because there are also some.

Problems with ketogenic diets, such as increasing.

Your risk of kidney stones. Definitely not recommended for kids.

There's been some research that shows it can retard growth, it can lower the bone density.

For some people, they get a little bit of what's called acidosis, hypoglycemia, and.

Low blood sugar, especially in diabetic or pre diabetic people. This is not really such a good idea.

And interestingly, it can also be associated.

With kidney stones because of the excess calcium that occurs in the urine, which happens when you get increased bone demineralization that occurs with what's called acidosis, or an acid state from the breakdown of all the fats and the proteins.

Now, the interesting thing about the ketogenic diet is that the question is, is.

It the low, low, low carbohydrate intake that is helping you to lose weight on a diet like that and to stabilize your insulin levels, or is it the higher levels of protein intake.

And there has been a study that looked at low carbohydrate diets that included.

A high amount of protein intake and regular carbohydrate diets that contained a high amount of protein intake. And the regular carbohydrate with the higher protein intake actually improved the body composition more than the low carbohydrate diet, the ketogenic diet with the high protein intake.

So the idea on ketogenesis for me, when it comes down to the nutrition.

Plans that I write and the help.

That I give to people, is I.

Always look at it from an energetic standpoint.

If you have a hard exercise session, if you're lifting weights, if you're engaging.

In a high amount of endurance activity.

This diet is not for you.

There's way too much use of carbohydrate that's going on. There's way too much reliance on glucose and glycogen that's going on for you to be able to justify either tearing through your muscle tissue or lowering your body fat or just burning too much fat in general, which will form all.

Those excess ketones for you to justify doing it.

It's simply not healthy. A low, low carbohydrate diet for an.

Active population, it doesn't even make sense. It's not the way that the earth is built.

There's fruit and starchy vegetables all over the place. You know, there's potatoes and yams and.

Peanuts and all sorts of things for.

You to eat that contain carbohydrates. Why the heck would you fight against nature and not consume carbohydrate energy that's plentiful around you as long as you're doing it in moderation. Now, if somebody really needs to lose a lot of weight quickly, I don't have a problem with going high protein. I did it when I was bodybuilding. I went very low carbohydrate. I probably got to the point of ketogenesis. A lot of times, you're. Your breath begins to smell a little bit when you get to that point, almost like nail polish due to the state of acidosis and the ketones in your bloodstream.

And, you know, I didn't feel all that hot.

I felt horrible, actually, for the last few weeks leading up to my bodybuilding show. And I had very low energy, very low sex drive, did not feel healthy. And so what I would say from.

My perspective is that although I haven't.

Poured through all the research significantly to compare the ketogenic diets with a regular, like a low carbohydrate or I'm sorry, a regular carbohydrate diet with high protein, I would tend to lean towards the direction of consuming, as I've recommended in the past, somewhere in the range of 40 to 50% carbohydrate. If you're going to consume a controlled carbohydrate diet and then make sure you get lots of high quality proteins in and get continue to consume anywhere in the range of 20 to 30% fat, primarily from healthy fat sources. So it all comes down to really depending on who you are. But if you are an active individual, and I know that most of the people that listen to the show are active individuals, you'd be better off going medium carbohydrate high protein rather than low, low carbohydrate, high high protein.

Hi Ben, my name is Jennifer Rowe and I have a question about.

I.

Like to do a lot of hiking, skiing high elevation peaks in Colorado and I've always had this problem with as soon as I finish exercising, my body cools down really fast and basically the blood leaves my fingers. My fingers turn white, they kind of are swollen and they become very, very painful with cold. So I was wondering if there's any supplements out there or nutrition tips that I can do to improve my circulation so I don't have this problem. I've tried using different pairs of gloves and mittens to try and keep the problem from happening and I have it all the time, even in the summertime during my exercise. So if you can let me know of anything I could do that would be great. My Phone number is 970-799-3324. Thanks a lot. Love your podcast. Bye.

Jennifer.

There's absolutely some supplements that can help.

With circulation, but I wouldn't put all.

Your eggs in one basket and just rely on nutrition supplements to help with circulation. That being said, fish oil and omega 3 fatty acids would definitely be something that you could take. Bio Letics puts out a great fish oil. There's another one called nrefa that's a flax oil. You can find both of those. I'll put a link to them in the show notes for you.

Ginkgo biloba can help with circulation.

That's basically an herb that you can find at most health food stores.

Topical magnesium, which I already mentioned earlier.

In this episode, can help, but I.

Would also look into something like a muscle warming lotion. There's one that I use in cold.

Weather triathlons made by a company called Greyhound. @greyhoundjuice.com I'll put a link to that.

In the show notes.

But that's actually got like cayenne pepper and some other essential oils in it.

That help draw blood to the extremities and improve circulation. So I would definitely look into that.

I would also look into my favorite type of glove that I wear when I'm doing cold weather cycling or skate, skiing or anything where I've got to have my hands out there in the elements. And that's lobster gloves.

A little bit different than mittens, a.

Little bit different than regular gloves. You've basically got two fingers on one side and two fingers on the other side and then your thumb in its own compartment. And those tend to work really well. Google those lobster gloves. They work really well. So I'll put a link to those other things in the show notes. And it's a great question and I hope you do well with that. But that Greyhound juice is definitely something that I would try Ben hey, my.

Name is Jason Thibodeau and just want to say that I'm a huge fan of your podcast. My question is about Ironman Nutrition. I'm planning on doing Ironman Louisville at the end of August. I just wondered if you could possibly divulge into some of your insight into fueling pre race during the race and maybe recovery from the race all the way from the bike nutrition all the way down to run. So hey, I appreciate it. My name is Jason.

So Jason, that is a very, very loaded question. You may suspect that that's a very, very loaded question.

I could fill probably several hours worth.

Of audio answering that question. And I hate to do this to you, but I need to tell you that I have answered your question. I have several CDs out there and audio products that go into great detail every tiny little element that you need to consider for the last eight weeks leading up to Iron man, all the way up to race day, race morning, what to eat, what to drink, what to take in during the race, what to put in your swim to bike bag, bike to run bag, bike, special needs bag, run special needs bag, morning, swim bag, everything, every pill, every capsule, everything. That is basically what Triathlon Dominator is. So rather than go into great detail on Ironman Fueling on this podcast, you need to go check out Triathlon Dominator because that's information that I've put so much work into that I have a hard time going on with an hour long response on the podcast when I've really already given that response in a program that I've designed to be comprehensive for Ironman. So I'll put a link to that triathlon dominator.com sorry to not answer your question in detail. It's too big, man. I can't answer that question on this podcast. So that being said, we're going to go on.

I actually didn't receive any questions, really?

Any questions that were that good or that weren't? Repeat questions from Twitter this week. But again, if you ask me a.

Question on Twitter, then I will send.

You a free T shirt. If I answer your question on the podcast and choose it as the best question, how can you do that? Go to twitter.com BenGreenfield Hit the follow button and then write a message and.

Ask me a question.

So we're going to move on to this week's interview with Dr. Roby Mitchell.

And remember to leave a comment on the episode.

Show notes if you have feedback on this interview.

Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield and I am here once again with Dr. Roby Mitchell, aka Dr. Phil Fit. Straight from Texas, this natural healing physician has a ton of experience working with both athletes and the general population. He's a triathlete himself. He also happens to be an expert on the thyroid activity and hypothyroidism, the effect that that can have on your metabolism and on your health and some of the solutions that are out there and alternatives that are out there for treating your thyroid. So, Dr. Mitchell, thank you for coming on the call.

Always great to be on. Ben.

So the most important thing to start off with just for a refresher for people, is the thyroid itself and why proper thyroid activity is actually important. So can you give your overview of how you and your words would say people should think about their thyroids and the importance of the thyroid?

The thyroid gland is a gland that's located right there at the bottom of your neck. It's right over your trachea and gland produces a hormone called thyroid hormone. And the reason thyroid hormone is so important is because that is the you think of it as the spark plug in an engine or the electricity in your home. That is your energy source. So that is the hormone that goes into your cell and acts as a spark plug for these organelles that are inside each cell, these little power plants that are called mitochondria. Now, the mitochondria are the actual energy makers. So think of the mitochondria as the engine. But you have to have that spark plug in there in order to kick off the energy producing process. So as thyroid levels go down, then energy goes down, right? And we See, you know, stuff start to build up in the system, and, you know, the motor doesn't run well.

Interesting. So for the same reason that someone would, say, exercise to keep the mitochondria dense and keep a high level of cellular activity, that's the same reason that someone would want to make sure that their thyroid activity is optimized.

No question. And actually, there's a dovetail there in that exercise improves the conversion of T4 to T3. And we'll talk about why that's important here in just a minute.

Gotcha.

So in a previous podcast episode when you were on the show, and I'll make sure I link to that in the show, notes for people you talked about when somebody walks into your office, how you look for a range of symptoms, things that you can see just by looking at them without doing a lot of blood testing to identify that they may have low thyroid activity, can you briefly review some of the things, some of the most important parameters that you look at?

Again, thyroid, one of the major things that it does is it creates cellular energy. So one of the primary complaints that people with hypothyroidism come in with is low energy, no energy, I'm tired all the time. For athletes, this will manifest in an inability to recovery. Your recovery time will start to slow down. And we see this as people get older. I started to notice it in my 30s, right. It started taking me a little longer to recover, you know, from a triathlon event. Another thing that people will notice is hair loss. Constipation is a very common symptom. Again, in athletes. One of the very common things is muscle cramps. Right. If you start having muscle cramps on a regular basis, Charley horses, that's an indication of either low magnesium or low thyroid. Cold hands and feet. Again, the thyroid is very important for peripheral circulation. So when you start getting cold hands and feet, that's an indication. Also some of these clinical features like high blood pressure and high cholesterol and so forth, when I see a person, I look at their automatically, you know, just scan people for a lot of these physical symptoms. So one is the ridging on the nails. If people have these longitudinal ridging in their nails, right, that's a clue for me. If they're losing their eyebrows on the periphery, that's a clue for me. Just a pot belly is an indication of low thyroid swelling in the hands or legs. If the rings are getting tight or when you take off your socks, right. There's an indentation from your socks or pantyhose for Women, take off your sandals or shoes. If there's indentation there, right. That means that you're holding on to excess fluid, skin manifestations, Right? So things like eczema and hives and psoriasis, even athletes feet, Right. People think that's something that you catch. It's not something really that you catch. It's something that you are prone to. So those, what we. Those fungi that caused that particular problem, what we call dermatophytes, they are opportunistic organisms, right. So if they see an opening, Right. Then they'll jump in. So, you know, everybody that's using that same shower doesn't get the athlete's feet. Right. It'll just be the person that has, again, kind of a crack in the armor, a lowness in their ability for the immune system to keep them healthy because of low thyroid.

Interesting. Can the same be said for other fungal thyroid issues like yeast growth?

No question. No question. So that is a big underwriting factor for proliferation of Candida is the dropping of thyroid levels. Many times that dropping of the thyroid, that is the first domino. And then things just spread from there. The yeast starts to grow, and then you get the inflammation. And from there you can. I mean, once that inflammation starts in any particular place, that is the nidus, for all of these diseases that we talk about, like coronary artery disease or Alzheimer's or gastrointestinal problems, diabetes, osteoporosis, if you link any of those terms, if you go up and Google that, whatever your favorite disease is and inflammation, you'll always see that inflammation is the common denominator. And that inflammation, again, is sparked by that overgrowth of yeast. And then your immune system's response to that.

Interesting. And I also think it's interesting what you said about the cramping issue, because there are several athletes out there who I know have done quite a bit of work on their electrolytes and their hydration intake, who cramp frequently, who may not have looked at their thyroid activity. Now, when you're talking about the options for people who have hypothyroidism, I knew that Synthroid, for example, is one popular pharmaceutical drug that's used quite a bit. I'm curious what type of treatments you incorporate and what type of alternatives there are out there to prescription drugs for hypothyroidism.

So first, let's distinguish between drugs and hormones. So thyroid replacement is a hormone replacement therapy, a identical hormone replacement therapy. So we have to put back into the body the exact same molecule that your normal thyroid would normally Produce. Now, a hormone is something that your body recognizes and it has a biochemical chemical specificity just like what your body normally produces. And hormones facilitate normal biochemical reactions, whereas drugs are chemicals that are foreign to human biochemistry and they're designed to inhibit normal biochemistry. So when we do thyroid replacement, whether it's synthetic or, you know, the natural ones that we're talking about, that is a hormone replacement therapy rather than a drug therapy. That being said, there are several different choices out there. So now the actual thyroid hormone, when we talk about what your mitochondria, right, wants the type of spark plug that it wants to fuel the engine. It wants T3, which is this amino acid, tyrosine, with three molecules of iodine on it. That's T3. That's the actual thyroid hormone. Now, your body, your thyroid gland, though, produces it in the form of T4. And that T4 has to be directed to the flows through the bloodstream, to the cell or to the liver, and it's converted to T3.

Right.

And then again, that T3, that's where the action is. So even though. But then a lot of people don't make that conversion, right, from the T4 to T3. So they'll get put on T4, Synthroid or one of these other brands of levothyroxine. It's a generic name. They'll be treated, but then they'll go to my website and go through the checklist and they'll find they still have lots of symptoms of low thyroid. Right. Their blood tests will be show that they're balanced and everything and normal, but they'll still have all these symptoms of hypothyroidism.

Interesting. So why is that again?

Because they're not converting the T4 into T3. Right. So if we just give them the T, it's like you take that oil that's spilling there in the Gulf. We know you use gasoline in your car, right? Oil is made from gasoline. Well, you know, why don't we take out the middleman? Just put the oil into your gas tank. Well, your, your gas tank won't convert oil into gasoline, right? Very similar thing with the T4. Many people, they are given T4, but they don't convert it into T3.

So at some point you have to, you have to get from that. Do you go for the T4 to the T3 conversion? Do you attack it from that level or do you try to get T3 into someone? Or can that only be done in the body, that conversion?

So you can attempt to do both so one of the things, again, we just alluded to earlier was that exercise improves that conversion of T4 to T3. So regular exercise, very important, not just for us athletes, but for everybody. Or rather testosterone is a key element in converting T4 to T3. And that's why in most sports, we separate men and women. We have a little bit of an advantage as far as energy, strength, output and so forth because of our testosterone, being able to make us get a little more bang out of the buck. For thyroid, selenium is very important. So there's an enzyme that makes that conversion for T4 to T3. That enzyme is dependent on selenium. So if you're low selenium, then you're not going to have an optimal conversion of T4 to T3. Now, the next step from that, though, is to give a product rather than one that just has T4, give one that has a combination of T4 and T3 to kind of prime the pump, so to speak, and that can get things going. So Armored Thyroid is a prescription product that fits that combination of T4 plus T3. Armor Thyroid has been on the market for a long time. A lot of people take that. It's an extract from whole porcine thyroid. Thyrolar is a synthetic form of the same thing. It's a T4 T3 product. It's just a synthetic form. And then a pharmacist. And then the next step is, you know, and I have patients who are just so have such an inability to convert T4 to T3. We have to give them just pure T3, and a pharmacist can compound a product for us that's just pure T3.

And do you. Do you just go to a compounding pharmacist and they make Pure T3?

Yes. Now your doctor has to prescribe it. Right. And that's not the thing that you jump right to. That's why you need to go to some. Someone who has some expertise in using these thyroid products. But the Pure T3 product, many times for some of my patients, that is just kind of a bit of icing on the cake. So we get them 95% optimized, but they're not quite there. And so we sprinkle in a little of this pure T3 and we get them hitting on all cylinders.

Now, what. What's the thyro pack that I saw you email out about a few weeks ago?

Now, Thyro pack is very similar to the Armor Thyroid, the prescription Armor Thyroid, with two exceptions. One is that it's derived from whole beef thyroid glands rather than the porcine or the pig thyroid. The other is that it's non prescription, but even though it's over the counter, it's still a thyroid product. Again, very similar to the armored thyroid. And it's able to be purchased over the counter because it's kind of a loophole in this, what we call the DSHEA act that allows things that are natural in nature for us to be able to buy those over the counter. Initially, the story I hear is that it was outlawed. The FDA did, but the guy that was producing it down there in Mexico had enough money to take him to court and, you know, overcame the injunction. And so that product is available over the counter now.

Interesting. And so in terms of if someone's unable to find arm or thyroid, that might be something that they could look for. Not that we're prescribing medical advice on the show, but that'd be an alternative to something like arm or thyroid.

Yes, it would. I would recommend that anybody that, you know, goes to my website and they come out with all these symptoms checked and it's an indication that they have low thyroid. The first thing that I would do is I would get this book called Type 2 Hypothyroidism by Dr. Mark Starr. Read through that so that you can get educated. Right? Don't just run off and start trying to find a thyroid product or even go to your doctor without getting educated first. Because most doctors are not educated on this particular topic well enough to. To matriculate patients through successfully. So a patient needs to go in with a little bit of knowledge about how things should go, right. They should know what symptoms are associated with hypothyroidism. They should know a lot more than just a doctor doing a blood test and say, well, this looks normal. That's not enough. Once the patient gets that under their belt, that information under their belt, then they can go to their. Then the next thing I would do is go to practitioner. Try to find a practitioner. It can be your family doctor, but you just need to find somebody that is open minded, right? That is going to work with you, not be dismissive of you, not treat you like, you know, an idiot or just somebody who has no idea, you know, what they're doing. Find a doctor like that to work with. It doesn't have to be a specialist. Right. Again, it can just be your family practitioner or an internist and then work with that person. You two work in conjunction to get it where you start to bring down the level of any of These symptoms that you're having from being low thyroid.

Interesting. So people can find out more information about how to access Dr. Fitts list of thyroid symptoms. And I'll also put a link to some of the other resources that he talked about in the show notes of this episode. Now, is there anything else that you'd like to share that you feel would be important for people?

Again, the Thyro pack is something that is over the counter. Even so, I wouldn't recommend that people try to orchestrate their own thyroid therapy. You need to get with somebody who kind of knows what they're doing and will graduate you along in order to get the proper results. Because it's not just about replacing thyroid. If you're having low thyroid, there's a strong possibility that there are some other things that are out of balance. Also, again, I mentioned the selenium. There can be thyroid imbalances also, particularly with women. The estrogen that women has that tends to block thyroid. So if you're a, if you have an imbalance in your estrogen and progesterone, you got to get that right. There's cortisol also. Many times there's a combination of low thyroid and low cortisol. You won't optimize thyroid unless you optimize cortisol. Right. So that has to be looked at also. So again, even though this thyroid pack is over the counter.

Right.

It doesn't give people a license to go in and try to do their own thyroid replacement therapy.

Gotcha. All right, well, folks, if you have questions for Dr. Fitt, then go to the show note episode or the episode show notes and leave a comment or a question and let me know what you think and if you have some things that you'd still like to hear about from Dr. Fitt on hypothyroidism. So thank you for coming on the call today, Robi.

Oh, certainly. Again, always a pleasure.

All right, until next time, folks. This is Ben Greenfield and Roby Mitchell signing out.

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It.