Episode #198: When To Take Sleep Pills, Pain Meds and Fat Loss Boosters

In today's episode, when to take sleep pills, pain meds and fat loss boosters. Also fueling a long ride on a high fat diet how to recover from and prepare for a race simultaneously does eating low carb raise your cholesterol? The skin diet hormone exercise connection Menstruating on race day Taking a sleep aid the night before a race Yohimbe for fat loss how to incorporate burpees, the best way to decrease muscle, the different types of fatigue and the hormonal effects of prescription pain medications.

Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness.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.

Well hello everybody. After a short hiatus, we are back. This is Brock at the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast and as usual, here he is, the man himself, Ben Greenfield.

Konnichiwa. Konnichiwa. I don't. I picked up on like two words when I was in Japan. One was konnichiwa and one was aragoto and, and of course height. And height. Yeah, that's right. And people kept shouting stuff at me while I was doing the triathlon over there. Sounded like it was like baidu or something like that. It either means go or ugly American.

Or your leg is dripping down your bike.

Yeah. So for those of you who are completely scratching your head right now, I just got back from Japan, literally like last night. So I was over there doing a triathlon that I almost didn't go to because I got a flesh eating bacteria infection in my leg.

And he's not joking.

No, I'm not joking. I blogged about it over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com I put a bunch of pictures over there, not like embedded in the post because it would totally gross people out. They're optional to click on. I know some people did click on them and we're sorry that they did.

That was me. I was sorry.

Anyways, though, I did come down with basically what's called mrsa, which is nasty, nasty stuff. And I wrote an entire blog post about everything that I found out about it as I went through how to make sure that you don't end up where I ended up, which was letting it go for way too long without identifying it, not knowing what I could have done with it naturally, and then just basically having to wind up in the hospital on antibiotics, which was not fun.

So not fun. But at least it turned around quickly.

Once you did identify it and you took the appropriate steps, it turned around quite quickly for you and you were able to make it to the race and all that. But, yeah, you did come close to. Well, didn't the doctor actually say to you, you could lose your leg?

Yeah, he's like, if you would have waited a day, we probably would have had taken your leg.

Yeah.

Like, wow. So, anyways, read that or more about it over@BenGreenFitness.com and look at the pictures if you'd like to as well. And while you're there, obviously, it's been a couple of weeks since we've had a podcast, so check out some of the other articles that have come out recently, like blog about the fittest man on Earth and how I'm working on a guy who we're trying to get to win the CrossFit Games, the Reebok CrossFit Games for 2013. So check that out. We really go, you know, I geek out quite a bit on what we're doing. You know, when you're trying to get those extra few percentage points that you need to go from being really, really fit to being the fittest guy on Earth, you know what you need to do. So, interesting article. Check that out. Of course, I know a lot of people listening to the podcast we did with Tim Noakes last week as kind of a substitute for this one. Why everything that Gatorade is telling us about how much we need to drink is wrong and what you can do about it. And yeah, that's all over there. So check it out. Yeah.

News flashes.

Okay. Twitter.com BenGreenfield is the place to go. And there's been all kinds of really cool stuff over well over the last few months, and this is the time that Ben highlights a few of those for us. What do you want to bring to the forefront?

Well, not to ream on the Chinese too hard. It's not because I was just in Japan and that I'm being biased towards Japanese food, but I did recently tweet that Chinese food makes you fat. And links to a study on MSG that actually shows that even when you're limiting your calorie intake, monosodium glutamate in your food, MSG in your food is statistically extremely significant in terms of its ability to increase what's called your blood triglyceride content and also kind of the rate at which your liver churns out Fats and your actual weight gain. As a matter of fact, that becomes even more kind of problematic when you combine it with high fructose corn syrup intake. So I linked over to the studies on this stuff, but msg, the reason I said Chinese food is because we find it a lot at Chinese restaurants. But MSG in general, really, really not a good idea, especially if you're trying to lose weight. And it appears that it's not so much like a lot of people think, oh, well, you get the fuzzy head, so it affects your neurotransmitters, so it gives you appetite cravings, so you eat more. That's not. It actually works on a few different levels and one of them is literally the ability of the liver to just churn out more triglycerides. Another one is that glutamate acts. It crosses the blood barrier in the intestine a lot easier if you've got kind of a leaky gut or if you got poor probiotic content, et cetera, which I think a lot of people that are eating frequently at Chinese restaurants do. So. Yeah, what it comes down to is start looking at the foods that you're eating. Like if you're buying soups, packaged food, stuff like that, really make sure that you're limiting msg. I mean, I know that umami is, you know, considered to be one of those, you know, it's like the sixth flavor or whatever that brings a lot of extra flavor potential to food. But there's a difference between the umami that you might find in like, you know, fermented soy, you know, like miso soup, versus the umami you're gonna find from like a, like a synthetic MSG powder that they're dumping into, into Chinese food when you, when you go out to the restaurant.

So be careful when you can find.

It's not just Chinese food that has it. It's in a lot of sauces and salad dressings and stuff that you'll find just on the, on the shelves of your supermarket.

Yeah, Campbell soup. Yeah, absolutely.

And also with like, like you said, the deadly 12 punch of MSG and high fructose corn syrup that's pre every sauce that you'd be buying in the middle of the grocery store.

Yup, that's a good point. We're not talking about going out and ordering general Kung Pao's chicken with a 34 ounce coat. We're talking about the sauce you're grabbing off the shelf that you're seasoning your food with at home. Look on the back of it. Msg, fructose. That's a pretty potent combo, so be careful. I also mentioned about resveratrol and how resveratrol has been linked, especially in a recent study in the Journal of Physiology, to some pretty significant improvements in skeletal muscle strength and cardiac function and improving exercise performance. The issue with resveratrol is twofold. The first is a lot of people are like, oh, that's bunk. That doctor last year got convicted of fraud. The doctor at University of Connecticut who had all this research associating resveratrol with cardiovascular health. Yeah, the guy did. He falsified some of his lab results. But there are literally like thousands of other scientific studies and reports and ongoing research by a bunch of different universities and research centers around the world that are showing that resveratrol has some pretty cool potent effects. And it's basically because of the phytochemicals that you find in things like grape skins. So in this case, it does appear to have some pretty potent effects when it comes to improving your skeletal muscle strength and cardiac function. Once again, whenever I talk about resveratrol, a lot of people think automatically. Red wine.

Red wine. That's what I was thinking.

If you try to get as much resveratrol as people are getting in these studies from red wine, you're talking about drinking north of 10 liters a day of red wine.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

As fun as that sounds, there could be some deleterious side effects. So you gotta go with a powder capsule supplement, which is basically just like the extracted concentrated form of resveratrol. So, like, you know, I use Solar Synergy, for example. That's like a concentrated grape skin extract. That one's made by Mount Capra. There are, like, powders, resveratrol powders that you can get at the health food store. Resveratrol capsules. But don't chug a bunch of red wine before you hop on the treadmill. That's not the way to go about this.

That's unfortunate.

I know, isn't it? And then the last thing I linked to was an article. Great article. By a guy we've had on this podcast before. His name is Paul Geminet. He runs the Perfect Health Diet, wrote the Perfect Health Diet Book, and he wrote a great article on why food fortification is not all that is chalked up to be and could actually be harming us. He goes into how much foods have been fortified. You know, everything from flowers to cereals to just about any food that you look at that's been, you know, enriched with folic acid, iron, et cetera. And there's actually a pretty good link between excessive folate intake, excessive iron intake, excessive niacin intake, and all of these, these things that they were throwing into and fortifying foods with synthetically and chronic disease risk, things like oxidative stress, infections, cardiovascular risk, and a lot of issues that come with synthetic fortification of food. So it's a great article. And I mean, once again, it just comes down to the fact that getting your vitamins and nutrients and minerals from special kids versus getting it from fruits and vegetables is a whole different can of worms. So good article. I link to it. We'll put a link to at least those in the Show Notes and then you can get the rest of that over@twitter.com BenGreenfield yeah, make sure to go.

To Google as well because there's all kinds of great stuff, great articles being published there as well. And you can find that link in.

The show notes as well.

Special announcements.

Okay, speaking of Google, the Future of Health now videos, there's still lots of.

Videos coming out from that group, isn't there?

Yeah, there is. And the Future of Health now is basically kind of like an online free video series that I found. I've seen all the videos. I've actually downloaded a lot of them and listened to them as audios. But basically great resource. Some really good videos from people like Tim Ferriss and Dr. Daniel Amen and some anti aging experts. Some kind of like enhancing your brain power slash mental focus experts. Really good stuff. They're all totally free. They have an upsell on there where if you want to be able to have access to the videos for a year or whatever, you can pay. But if you just want to go in and watch the videos and check them out over the next month, it just launched for a while the videos weren't available. Some people were looking at my Cliff Notes on Google and asking why they couldn't see the videos. They're available now. If you're listening to this podcast and you just want to go watch them, follow the link that we've got in the Show Notes. Of course, like most of these things that are free, they ask for your email address. It's just one of those things that kind of goes with the territory, but it's worth checking out. I actually got a lot out of the videos and I've been able to check out. I've gotten through almost all of them now. But putting the Cliff Notes up at Google so You can always read about the video before you decide if you actually want to waste your time watching it. So been talking about that stuff over at Google. Check it out. It's called the Future of Health Now.

Cool. And the inner circle is.

You dropped the price on the Inner Circle, didn't you?

I did. I did a blog post asking folks what they'd actually pay versus what we were charging for the unlimited 24, 7Q and A form, access to me and my wife, our monthly video seminars that we do, my personal diet and exercise log, et cetera. It looked like $10 a month was kind of more of what people were interested in versus the $17 a month. So the Ben Greenwood Inner circle is now 10 bucks. You can get access to all that stuff I just mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com inner circle. And then the last thing, talking about saving money. I know Brock would be stoked about this, but I talk about Living Fuel and like the Living Fuel Super Greens meal replacement powder that I take and the Coco Chia bars that I eat as an energy bar. And we just picked up a Canadian distributor for that stuff. So it doesn't cost 40 bucks to ship to Canada anymore. So all you Canadian listeners can pump your fists and all you Australian listeners who still have to pay like 30, 40 bucks to get that stuff shipped to Australia. I'm sorry. But hopefully we'll eventually find somebody in Australia to hook you up with that stuff as well. So that is about it for the special announcements.

At first glance, triathletes appear to be a pretty fit group, at least with clothes on. But it's pretty common for triathletes to have tiny arms, a thin and weak neck, a stick like midsection, and a body that's just too skinny. But just imagine if your arms were cut and defined, your chest and shoulders were ripped, your waistline was tapered like a V, your stomach was flat and hard, and your legs were sleek and curvaceous. In other words, what if you had the ultimate triathlon body? Now you can learn how to swim, bike and run fast and look incredibly sexy doing it. Go to tririppd.com to start today. That's tririppd.com. Listener Q&A.

All right, we've had a couple of weeks to pile up some extra listener questions.

So please, everybody beware when you submit your questions. It is going to be probably four.

Weeks at least before we get to your question.

Four weeks to a year.

Exactly. So don't panic if you don't hear your question. Right away, we will get to it. It's getting. I archived them very meticulously and we'll get to them eventually. But yeah, keep them coming, everybody.

And let's, let's kick off the first. This question is from Chuck and it's an audio question.

Hey, Ben, this is Chuck from Tampa, and I have a question for this week's podcast. You've talked a lot lately about being on a higher fat diet, and I do the same. But the question comes in terms of when I'm doing a really long weekend ride between three to five hours out of my bike. I'm assuming you're doing the same thing because I know you're training for things like Kona and 70.3s. So what are you using to fuel during those rides? I'm guessing that you're not pulling out packs of almond butter and coconut milk. Although those would be good options, I don't see it being very feasible. Are you using things like gels or do you have a concoction that you utilize or are you packing avocados and stuff? If you could just give me an update, I'd really appreciate it on what you use and what you suggest for someone like me. Thanks, man. And Brock. You guys do a great podcast and I can't wait for it every week later.

Well, this is a good question. And first of all, Chuck, it's pretty rare that I'm ever gonna be sitting on my bike for more than a couple hours. I just, I don't have the time. And my whole philosophy these days is if I hop on my bike and I'm trying to get my body ready to ride, you know, 56 miles and a half Ironman, or as the case may be next month for the ITU Long course World Championships in Spain, you know that that ride is closer to about 80 miles in that race. I really, a lot of times I'm not riding my bike any longer than a couple of hours and not eating anything. I just basically, you know, we'll have some coconut milk and some protein powder and then just head out and hammer for a couple hours. And rarely do I actually eat anything. However, you know, for example, a couple weeks ago I was doing a triathlon camp down in Kona and you know, one day rode the full 112 mile bike course. I probably would have had a similar approach there and just had a little bit of fat and a little bit of protein. But right after that 112 mile ride, I was also getting off the bike, running five miles and then swimming 2K in the ocean. And so in a situation like that, I definitely had more carbs. You know, in that case I had what are called M's power cookies, which are like a gluten free cookie. You know, they're like 400 calories a pop. And I went through about four of those during this ride. But it's very, very rare that I'll actually go out for a longer training session like that and be sitting on a bike for four or five hours. In the past, when I have done that type of training leading up to Ironman and thrown in four or five of these longer rides going into an Ironman event, I usually will just have some clear, pure water and then I'll just stuff the back of my bike jersey with some food that I like, some real food that I like. So as far as bars go, I mentioned the Coco Chia bars by Living Fuel. That's like a coconut fruit based bar. I'll usually go with something like that. Hammer bar is another brand that I like. I pretty much look for any bar that's skewed towards protein and fat and that's also gluten free. And hammer bars and Cocchia bars are pretty good for that. Usually I'll like have a little Ziploc bag and I'll have some raw nuts and some dried fruit and that munch away on that. During the ride, I pretty much stay away from gels. Even though I use gels during a race, I really, I don't enjoy them. I save them for racing. You know, I view those as like gasoline and you know, they work. And I can, I can redline for hours just eating gels. But man, when I'm out on training sessions, you feel like crap by, you know, by the time time you're done and you've eaten all that sugar and they have the caffeine in them. So I'm generally just, just popping some real food. I have a brand new book coming out through Endurance planet over@EndurancePlanet.com about kind of like real food recipes for training. And that book should be out in a couple of weeks. We just came out with the altitude book and you can check that out over@EndurancePlanet.com and then the real food fueling book should come out pretty soon as well.

That's awesome.

Is that like a cookbook kind of thing?

Yeah.

Cool.

Just recipes. And then the last thing I should mention is that once I get back into doing a few longer rides, because I probably will do during the month of July when I'M getting ready for this ITU long course race. I'll probably get a couple of four hour rides in. I'm gonna go with just basically the couple tablespoons of coconut oil right beforehand and then the youcan superstarch during, which is what we interviewed Dr. Peter Adia about a few weeks ago. But basically that's that high, high molecular weight starch that has a really low release of glucose as it's metabolized and a little bit lower insulin spike. And so that's what I'll be using. But since I've interviewed him and since I have discovered that stuff, I really haven't gotten a chance to do many of these longer rides. And in the past, all I've done is just like I mentioned, raw nuts and dried fruit and stuff like that.

Are you still eating that coconut manna stuff?

Yeah, but I don't eat that when I'm training. That's the stuff made by Nativa. That's like coconut meat mixed with coconut oil basically in some proprietary recipe that tastes like heaven is raining down awesomeness. But, but basically it's just something that I'll toss into some protein powder or something like that, or I've occasionally just grabbed a couple tablespoons out of the jar and yeah, that's good stuff too.

All right, let's move on to the next audio question that comes from Chris.

Yes, hi, Ben. My name is Chris. I recently finished or completed an Olympic triathlon and I'm actually signed up to do another one in four weeks. And I'm looking for suggestions about how I should prepare and train for that coming race, which is now three weeks away. I've had a good restful recovery week and I believe I'm in real good shape and I'll be ready in three weeks. But I don't really have a clue as to what kind of schedule, training schedule I should follow and how quickly I should get back into intense training and tapering and so on and so forth. Any advice would, would be helpful and thank you very much. Bye.

So recovering and preparing kind of at the same time, I actually find myself in that situation right at the moment.

And actually I believe you do too, don't you, Ben?

Yeah, I mean, you know, when you, when you finish a triathlon, you've got another one coming up later. There's a few little rules that I follow for sure. Like if it's a sprint triathlon, generally you're going to be fairly recovered from that within about 48 hours or so. If you've gone all out during the race, you take care of your body, do a few easy workouts for the next couple of days, but you can literally just jump right back into training after a sprint triathlon. After an Olympic distance triathlon, typically you're going to find as closer to three or four days before you're really able to do hard swimming, hard cycling or hard running again. And so for those first three to four days after an Olympic distance triathlon, I recommend just like, if you're gonna swim or bike or run, just make it easy. And if you're, if you want to do anything intense, try and be using muscles that you really weren't using as much during the race. Like for me, I usually like to do some upper body weightlifting, some core, I'll usually be playing some tennis or something like that. But because I like to do hard stuff almost every day when it comes to working out, if I've done a triathlon, I'll just work some different muscles in the days after the triathlon before you get back to the point where you can swim and bike and run hard again. In the case where you finish an Olympic distance triathlon, you've got another one three weeks later. Basically those first three to four days are pretty easy if you do any swimming and cycling and running, but you can still lift weights and stuff like that. Just don't hit the muscles that you were using during the, during the race. So like I mentioned, some upper body weightlifting and some core, you know, like done in a circuit and then jump right back in. And what you're going to find is that if you've tapered for that Olympic distance triathlon for the recommended five to seven days, you'll have lost a little bit of fitness. So you take that first weekend after you've done your race and you use that weekend to do some volume, you know, like get your base back up. And then the next couple of weeks just focus on your, on your race pace, on your intensity, and then you jump back into another five to seven day taper for that next race. So it's basically three to four days easy. And then that weekend a return to some volume and then after that throw some intensity back in and get back into getting ready for your race. And if you step back and look at this, you know, it's kind of the, just understand the concept. So you're basically doing recovery and then rebuilding and then getting back into the intensity that's going to allow you to be able to go hard again during the race. After a half ironman, it really Depends, like if it's your first half ironman. Like Brock, by the way, just did his.

I just did my first one three days ago.

Yeah. Are you sore at all?

I'm pretty sore in the areas that cramped really badly.

Yeah. Yeah. And Brock, by the way, we actually had discussion this morning. We don't think he. We think maybe he took Tim Noakes advice to.

I did. I went too noakesy on myself.

Yeah. Basically, I think during the entire three hour bike ride you had what, like one and a half bottles of water?

Yeah, it was like maybe like a liter and a quarter. Like 1200 milliliters maybe.

So like what's that, about 45 ounces?

45, 50 ounces?

Yeah. Yeah. And to put that in contrast, like I was doing the same thing during my race in Japan. I was drinking to thirst. But drinking to thirst for me meant I was taking in in one hour what Brock took in during the entire three hours of his race. So Brock and I had a little discussion about drinking to thirst and about.

I think that's a. It was.

We sort of uncovered an interesting thing with the drinking to thirst in quotation marks is like I'm. I'm like I come from a marathon background, half marathon and full marathon. And you can push yourself a little.

Further into dehydration in races that are shorter like that, especially shorter in duration.

So I was thinking like my thirst, like my quotation thirsty feeling is. Is a lot more drastic than I should be letting myself get during something like a half ironman.

Yeah, you're just a lot more badass than I am and have a higher pain tolerance.

I guess I'm not thirsty enough.

Yeah, yeah. No, drinking a thirst is like anytime you're remotely thirsty, you drink. It's not like you wait until you know your lips are cracking to, you know, take a sip of water. I have no clue how we got on that much of a tangent. Yeah, we really tangent there, Half ironman. It depends on your experience. Like if you've just done your first half ironman, it may take you longer to bounce back from that. And it may be one of those deals where you've got a, a full week of just super easy workouts before you get seven days out from your race and you're finally able to start doing some hard stuff again and getting ready for your next race. I personally, honestly am usually throwing down a pretty tough workout the day after a half Ironman. I'm usually at the gym doing some kind of hardcore interval based workout or something like that. Hitting the weights for me, a lot of times it's just because the week before a triathlon I don't lift weights or anything like that. So I like to get back in and do a little bit of that. Literally it's either the day after or a couple days after. I did this race in Japan. The day after I walked about, I was taking a train all over Japan. But every time I stopped, I was walking around checking out cities and I hiked a good six or seven miles the day after the race. The day after that I did a full on workout at the gym, like a circuit based workout at the gym where I was stringing a bunch of exercises and I jump right back into stuff. Typically after a half ironman and the more experience you get, the more common it is to just be able to jump right back in and your experience will help you bounce back faster. And then after an ironman, technically on paper, based on lab studies that they've done in terms of clearance of inflammatory markers, it's supposed to take about two to three weeks to recover from an ironman. I've personally felt fine after an ironman within about seven days. And that means that you're pulling a lot of recovery tools out of the closet. Like you're doing proteolytic enzymes, something like recoveries or wobenzymes or any of these enzymes that kind of break up fibrinogen and help muscles to heal faster. You're doing those on an empty stomach every day starting as soon as you cross the finish line of the race. You're doing cold soaks once or two times a day. Like cold thermogenesis you're doing. If you can get your hands on a little bit of electrostim to increase blood flow, if not at least foam roller and some massage. You're wearing compression socks, compression tights, eating an anti inflammatory diet. I mean if you pull out all the stops like that. And I did talk about a lot of these in an article that I wrote and I'll be sure I link to that article in the show notes for you. This is episode number 198 by the way. So anything I talk about that I say I'm going to link to, it's 198 over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com but basically bouncing back from an ironman and even something like that, you can be fine within a week if you're pulling out a lot of these stops when it comes to recovery tools. So ultimately though, for an Olympic distance triathlon, few days easy do A little bit of volume the weekend after the race and then just start right back into intensity to get you ready for your next race.

Now, remember, the reason that we're talking.

About this in the first place was that Chris actually asked because he's got.

Another race coming up.

This is by no means what you have to do. If you finish a race and you really just want to take it easy and sort of break, you get your.

Life back for a little while, there's.

No need to do any of the stuff that we're talking about to jump right back into it. It's just if you do have another race scheduled, and often a lot of people do because it is race season in North America anyway.

Yeah. And a lot of us are just addicted to exercise and neglecting for punishment. I'll totally admit that for myself. And I just. After I finish a race, I don't feel like sitting on my butt for too long.

But there is something to be said for really taking that time and actually relaxing a little bit, maybe spending some time with your friends and your family instead of hitting the gym and hitting the pool.

This is true.

There is nothing wrong with that. All right, let's move on to the next question. We rat holed in the middle of Chris's question, and now we're making the podcast.

Very long here is osa And OSA says, is the low carb diet actually bad for you in the long term? I'm just concerned because there's a new study spreading around the web that says that low carb diets significantly raise the risk of heart disease. So he wants to know what you think of the article that's titled Atkins Diet raises risk of heart Disease because of surge in Cholesterol Levels.

I thought the Atkins diet was dead.

Yeah, I mean, whatever you want to call it. Atkins Diet, Atkins, I don't like, just because it's high protein and I'm a bigger fan of high fat. It's easier on your. On your kidney and your livers, and it's a little bit less acidic. But these studies are concerned because they're saying, oh, well, the high fat, low carb diet is a bad idea because it increases your cardiovascular risk. And the way that they're measuring your cardiovascular risk or your risk of cardiovascular disease is via cholesterol levels. But the fact is that, that simply, it's a logical fallacy because cholesterol levels aren't linked to heart disease at and fat really poses very, very low risk when you're not eating a lot of carbohydrates at the same time that would allow that fat to oxidize. So basically, if you're saying that a low carb diet increases heart disease risk, you're saying essentially that a low carb diet increases cholesterol. And of course it does, because you're eating more fat and that increased cholesterol is going to put you at higher risk of heart disease, which is not true. So kind of if you step back and you look at this, it's a very, very simplified view of cholesterol. Basically, in order for any cholesterol to increase your risk of heart disease, these lipoproteins that carry cholesterol around your body, a low density lipoprotein or ldl, and high density lipoprotein or hdl, these lipoproteins have to somehow have the capability to work their way into the arterial wall in your coronary arteries and damage the wall of that artery. Now, the only way that an LDL particle specifically is going to be able to do this is if it is what's called a small, dense, low density lipoprotein. Think of that like this tiny little, like a tiny little BB that's able to kind of work its way into these small areas in your arterial walls. Most normal lipoproteins carrying cholesterol around your body, if you've got a good intake of healthy fats and you're not eating a lot of carbohydrates, and especially staying away from like processed carbohydrates, high sugar carbohydrates, high glycemic index carbohydrates, then these lipoprotein particles, these LDL particles, they're going to be big, they're going to be buoyant, and they're not going to have that small dense characteristic that allows them to work their way into your arterial cell wall. So unless there are dietary factors present that are turning LDL into the type of particle that allows it to work its way into the arterial wall, there's really not an issue there. The issue is when you have this small oxidized cholesterol, and that's very, very easily measured via a test, the current measurements for lipid profile are, in my opinion, worthless. Going out and getting a cholesterol test for hdl, ldl, it's worthless because it doesn't tell you anything. Because LDL is good and HDL is good. What you have to get measured are the particles, the protein particles that are on the surface of the LDL or the hdl. And one of those tests is called an APOB test. That's a really, really good one. You can test your small LDL level and a couple ways that you can look at the actual particle size and the type of proteins that you've got on your lipoprotein particles. One would be called a VAP test and you could Google that. Or there's a website called thevaptest.com you go to thevaptest.com that test costs you about 40 bucks or so. And that's a really, really good way to test truly your levels of like, small oxidized cholesterol particles that you're putting at risk for heart disease. Another way that you could do this is via what's called an LDL S3 lab, and that looks at the size of the LDL cholesterol particles as well. There is a website called Berkeley Heart labs. It's at bhlink.com that's b h L-I-N c.com and Berkeley Heart Lab can also look at the cholesterol size rather than just the cholesterol themselves. And both these tests, especially if you have insurance, are relatively cheap, like $15 to $40, kind of in that range. So ultimately, if you find out that you've got small LDL particles and you've got the type of cholesterol that is going to put you at risk of heart disease. Pretty easy dietary fix, for example. Doing something. Studies have shown that doing something as little as eating three eggs a day can reduce your small LDL significantly, lowering carbohydrate intake specifically, which is the way we got on this topic in the first place. That also can decrease the propensity of that LDL to get oxidized. And for small LDL to form, avoiding any type of low, low fat intake is also a good way to make sure that you've got big, fluffy, buoyant cholesterol particles, good cholesterol particles circulating around your bloodstream. So those are all ways that you can go about addressing this issue by. But certainly the idea that a low carb diet would be associated with increased risk of heart disease is flawed. While we're on the topic of getting tested for this type of stuff, one new website I highly recommend that people check out is wellnessfx.com and wellnessfx.com lets you get pretty much everything that I personally would ever recommend in terms of your blood and your hormone markers and everything tested, and then put you in touch with physicians in their network who can advise you based on your results. The lab testing itself is not super cheap. But the fact that you're getting it all, you've got access to an interface, like an online interface that allows you to track everything and then you've got access to practitioners who will actually work with you to get your numbers where they need to be. I think makes it, it's super, super convenient. And I'm a big fan. So you should check out wellnessfx.com that's a good way to get this stuff tested. So yeah, that's what my thoughts are on this whole low fat diet, heart disease risk deal.

And I think once again the media is almost to blame on this one. Giving the title of these studies, like wrapping it up in a neat little title. Just saying Atkins Diet raises risk of heart disease. It's kind of like a few weeks ago we were talking about the coffee one that said the coffee was going to save your life when the actual studies were showing there was a moderate association between it. It's just so much easier to package it and sell it like this.

Gotta sell newspapers.

Yeah.

Okay, next question comes from Francis. And Francis says, I've been suffering from adult acne since I got pregnant with my one year old. I take a good probiotic fish oil and eat what I consider to be a very healthy whole food diet. I have celiac disease and adhere to a gluten free diet. I have also eliminated dairy, but to no avail. I'm currently training for a half marathon and about to start training for the New York City full marathon. And wonder what kind of hormonal changes occur as a result of endurance training. As someone who prides myself on a healthy lifestyle, it pains me to have acne and it seems like it must be something I'm doing wrong. Have you seen any studies on the skin diet hormone connection?

Yeah, few different places. We could kind of start here. But basically, you know, endurance training is hard on the body. Training for something like the, like the New York City Marathon. Which reminds me, I got to start training for myself basically. You know, everybody knows that there's a certain, there's a certain strain on your body when you're doing something like training for a marathon. You're going to create cortisol. Cortisol is your stress release hormone that comes in response to the whole fight or flight, running from a lion mode that you're just going to be in more when you're doing excessive training. But one of the responses that you get when you get this increased cortisol release is a release of glucagon and glucagon is the hormone that sends the signal to our liver to upregulate blood glucose, to break down that liver glycogen and spike blood glucose so that we have energy that we can rely on for running from that lion. So we get the glycogen broken down, the glucose released. Well, as soon as glucose hits your bloodstream, one of the things that happens is your body releases insulin in order to shuttle that glucose into, say, like, muscles to be utilized as a fuel or stored away. And so we get an upregulation of insulin being produced by the pancreas. And eventually you go through this long enough, surge in cortisol, surge in blood sugar, surge in insulin, you can get a little bit of hyperinsulism going on. And when you've got a lot of insulin circulating around the bloodstream and a lot of what's called insulin, like growth factor, which goes right along with insulin, as well as a lot of adrenaline, which is another thing that gets released when all this happens. One of the things that happens when all these things, insulin and IGF1 and adrenaline, get produced is increased sebum production. And I'll link to the previous podcast that we did on acne and dairy. But one of the things that happens when you get sebum production is that you can get increased acne formation. And the other issue is that insulin and insulin, like growth factor, those are growth hormones. You can tell just by the name of insulin like growth factor, and it increases the growth rate of, among other things, your skin cells. So when you're triggering new skin cells to form, you're creating more dead skin cells that have to be pushed up through your skin pores. You're combining this with more of kind of like the oily sebum production by the skin cells. You've got these big lumps of dead skin cells, and you take all this kind of sticky sebum and all these dead skin cells and you put them together in the big lumps and you've got your skin pores pushing this stuff out, and all of a sudden you've got acne as being an issue. So that's kind of how all of this would work. The cortisol, insulin, glucose, sebum and dead skin cell to acne release type of link. And so one of the things that you're going to want to do is make sure that you're recovering properly and that you're limiting the amount of insulin that gets released from, like, food sources. So you're going to want to make sure that you really manage your carbohydrate intake and manage any type of blood sugar spiking that's going on. Inflammation itself, in addition to just cortisol can cause some free radicals to get released and that can damage cells and those cells need to be replaced or healed. And that also can cause this, this turnover of skin cells and also put you at risk for higher amounts of acne. So a big, big part of this is adequate recovery and making sure that you avoid sugar and high glycemic index foods. You're already avoiding dairy, which is great. But when I say adequate recovery, I mean not over training kind of training. Less sleeping, more taking care of your body and really limiting the amount of cortisol that you're producing. You know, making sure that you avoid any higher inflammatory foods. So in addition to avoiding like carbs, you want to avoid lots of omega 6 fatty acids. That would be like nut oils, seed oils, stuff like that. Taking some anti inflammatory compounds. I really like turmeric, I like ginger, I like garlic. Probiotics have a good anti inflammatory effect. Getting some of those things in the diet can certainly help with acne as well. And yeah, those are some of the ways that I would approach this. The other thing that you could do is just kind of let your acne get out of control and see if that gets you a few more compliments in terms of maybe people think you're like a 14, 15 year old girl again and you can kind of use that to your advantage as like an anti aging type of deal. You know, get your acne going on so you look like a teenager. Once again.

It'S not a good idea.

Just throwing it out there.

I'm, I'm putting my foot down. Francis, do not.

Hey everybody, I'm young. I'm going through puberty.

This is coming from the guy who.

Just about lost his leg.

Yeah, yeah. You may not want to listen to everything I say.

Yeah.

All right, next question comes from Rebecca.

And Rebecca says, I have been a distant swimmer for years and a distance runner for almost a year. And from these experience I know that when I have PMS slash the first few days of my period, I'm just wiped out and achy. Sadly, the race falls on what should be the first day of my period. I can't alter this using birth control, so I just have to run race through it. Do you have any advice to make it more comfortable?

Yeah, this is an issue that surprisingly I've never had to deal with in my life.

Really?

No. I've never had to race on the first day of my period ever. However, I have. I coach female athletes. I get questions about this. And so, yeah, I mean, the whole menstrual cycle and kind of taking into consideration what. When you plan your races or even when you plan your hard workouts, it's certainly a reality that women need to deal with. You kind of first need to basically understand the very, very basic basics of the menstrual cycle, because it can get extremely complicated. But I mean, when you look at it from a hormonal standpoint, but basically your first day of your cycle would be considered like day one of the menstrual cycle. And typically there is a lot of bleeding that goes on for anywhere from five to seven days. And then that entire day one, when the period first starts, all the way up until about two weeks later. So like days one to 14, that is called your follicular phase. And then right around then ovulation begins and you get a surge in your estrogen level and you get a surge in the levels of another hormone called your luteinizing hormone, which is abbreviated LH. And that usually lasts until about, like, day 28. And that's called the luteal phase. So you've got your follicular phase and you've got your luteal phase. And during the luteal phase, you basically get a pretty big surge in estrogen and a growing surge in progesterone as well. So basically that's kind of what you're looking at when it comes to these phases. But during that luteal phase, that kind of day 14 or so up till day 28, as you get this increase in estrogen, one of the things that can happen is your body starts to spare carbohydrates, starts to spare glycogen. Estrogen can, to a certain extent, actually promote. Promote fat utilization. And so during that period of the cycle, the last couple weeks of the cycle, typically if you're going to be racing or doing hard workouts, you need to surge your blood glucose levels a little bit higher than you normally would. And you may find that you've got increased carbohydrate needs during those final two weeks of your cycle. So when it comes to, like, nutrition periodization, you may need to increase your carb intake for racing by anywhere from like 40 to 50 calories an hour. So if you've got, let's say you're going to do a half Ironman triathlon during the last couple weeks of your period, you may want to actually eat more carbohydrate than you would if you're doing a half ironman during the first couple weeks of your period. So that's one thing to take into consideration. And the other thing that can happen just because you are, you've got lower blood sugar during that, those second two weeks of your cycle is that might kind of decrease your propensity for exercise performance. So if you're trying to PR, days 14 through 28 may not be the best time to try and do that. So something to think about, another thing that happens is during those last two weeks, during the 14 to 28 day period of time is a lot of times that is when there are some changes in your thermal regulation. And that's a lot of times when you kind of might feel a little bit of bloating, carry a little bit of extra water weight. And with that kind of elevation in core temperature, elevation in blood volume, some of that can affect your ability to thermoregulate and can cause a little bit of cardiovascular strain. So that's another reason why the last couple of weeks may be tougher to PR if that's something that you're trying to do, is you might be carrying a little bit of extra weight and also having a little bit more trouble kind of managing heat during that period of time. Then you look at the kind of like the first part of the period when there is some blood loss and a lot of women get concerned that there might be a drop in iron level, like a drop in hemoglobin, drop in hematocrit. There really hasn't been much evidence to show that that's going to cause enough basically like anemia to affect your performance. Unless you're going a lot longer than like 8 to 10 hours. Once you get past that 8 to 10 hour range, that's where iron and loss of blood could be holding you back a little bit. So for example, you're planning on doing an ironman during the, the first week or so of your period. That may be something to take into consideration and there may be a little bit of iron deficiency there that could hold you back. I don't recommend that you necessarily supplement with iron or something like that because there's some toxicity issues there, but something to take into consideration. The last thing that you should kind of know about is that when you're in the last couple weeks of your period, during days 14 through 28, there are along with the higher levels of estrogen, also higher levels of progesterone. And progesterone can basically trigger a Little bit more hyperventilation, basically, you try and blow off CO2 a little bit more quickly. And so that once again, may kind of trigger days 14 through 28 not being the best period of time to compete. But returning to the issue here, we're looking at the first day of the period is kind of being just the end the day after that, day 28. And you're going to start to see as you begin your period and as you go through those first five to seven days, kind of a drop off in a lot of those effects that I just talked about. But you do get, of course, some of the cramping and some of the bleeding that can make racing, just from a logistical standpoint, kind of difficult. So some of the things that you can do that work well. White willow bark supplementation is something that may help quite a bit, specifically with cramping. So that's one thing to look into, would be a white willow bark supplementation. Apple cider vinegar is another thing. Very easy to get your hands on, like a Bragg's apple cider vinegar. A few shots of that a day. That's also been something from a holistic health standpoint that has been shown to help a little bit, as well as a blackstrap molasses. That's another thing that you can get easily at a health food store, can keep in your cupboard. And you can use that as well. You do like a couple tablespoons of that per day, along with a few shots of apple cider vinegar. And using a white willow bark extract, like a capsule extract, all that stuff can help a little bit with cramping. It can help. It's not necessarily going to help with blood flow or anything like that, but they do make things like menstrual cups, for example. There's one that I'm aware of called the Diva cup that you could use for something like this that. That supposedly holds up a little bit better in terms of padding and absorption and all that jazz when you're trying to compete while you're having your period. And that would be something to think about in addition to some of those supplements that I recommend. Ultimately, what this comes down to, though, is there are some definite changes in your body that occur during your period, and they're things that you need to take into consideration while you're training. If I were a female, and I'm not, believe it or not, you sound like one. Just. I'll make that clarification. I would not be going after a PR during days 14 through 28 or probably during, during the actual period. You know, if, if you're gonna plan to PR on your cycle, I would shoot for days seven through 14. That would be kind of like the best possible time to go after this. And you know, again, not something that I'm a complete expert in, especially on the logistical standpoint, but those are some of the things that I've just kind of, kind of found from helping folks out and listen to what they have to say. And you know, I am married, so I do get to spend some time around this stuff as well.

All right, Rebecca, I understand that we missed your race. I think you were racing in the beginning of May and just due to the backlog of questions. We're just getting to this now, but I'm sure this information will help you out in the future.

And any other women who are out there listening too.

Yes, if you're still listening. And of course all the men are no longer listening. They hung up on the podcast.

Yeah, I hung up a long time ago. What? All right, next question comes from John and John asks.

Oh yeah, I like this question. John asks Ambien Zolpidem, what's your take on the Benefits of a 7 to 8 hours of solid sleep before 100 miler or any other early morning 5 plus hour event? If it means popping a pill, my alternative is 3 ish hours of sleep and a very painful morning. I've tried it both ways. Last year I ran 100 mile PR after a great night of aided sleep. Well, the year before songs drugs, I struggled to stay awake through the hours leading up to the second sunrise. Do you have any other tricks or tips for ensuring a good night's sleep and conquering pre race jitters? I've read that the amount of sleep the night before a race is less important than the preceding days. He also wants to know if Ambien is either banned or dangerous.

Yeah, you know, when you're racing 100 miler and you got to get up as early as you got to get up, you're definitely going to be short on sleep. Anyway, I am really a big fan of guarding your sleep for those last couple days leading up to the race and I do geek out on it quite a bit. What I've found to work really, really well in terms of enhancing your deep sleep as much as possible and kind of shutting down some of those pre race nerves and even when you don't have enough hours to sleep, at least helping you to wake up feeling somewhat more refreshed. I've found that SOMNINDRA and GH works really well. That is a supplement made by a company called Millennium Sports. It's got what's called a somatostatin inhibitor in it, along with some compounds like gamma aminobutyric acid and some magnesium, which help you get into your deep sleep a little bit more quickly, get a bigger release of growth hormone during that deep restorative sleep phase, and then also wake up, just feel a little bit more refreshed. So I've found that that stuff works really well. You can actually add on to that because it doesn't have a ton of magnesium in it. You can add on about 250mg or so of like a natural calm magnesium powder. And that's a really nice one two combo. That's one that works well. If you don't want to use that somnidrin GH stuff or you don't like the taste or whatever, you can also do just like about 500 milligrams or so of the natural calm magnesium. And I like that as well. That works out pretty well. Hammer Nutrition makes something called an REM cap, and that's a mix of melatonin and valerian root and some other sleep maximizing supplements. I don't find that works quite as well for me as combining some nidrenga with magnesium. But that's something else that you could try is the Hammer REM caps. Those, because they're melatonin content, would work a little bit better. If you're like traveling and you're out of your time zone for a race, that's where something like that could come in a little bit handier in combination with any of those three things that I just mentioned. I really, really like that thing that I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, the Earth Pulse. I've been using that a ton of. You know, I slept nine hours before my race in Japan and that thing just puts me out like a light. So Earth Pulse, that works really well. You know, that's more expensive. That's like a 400, $500 device. But, you know, somebody asked me about this and the way I explained it was like, to me, like one hour of deep sleep before a race. I figure I'm willing to pay about 20 bucks for that. So the thing, in my opinion, the thing pays for itself. After you've had a good 20, 30 hours of deep sleep, it's worth it. That is one of the reasons that you work and make money is to make your life more comfortable. And so I'm not again spending money on some stuff like this. And it's one that I've found to work pretty well. So the Earth pulse and those would be some of my main recommendations as far as the actual sleeping pills. Yeah, I mean there's a few issues when it comes to this stuff and one is that they can a lot of times decrease the recuperative effect of sleep and kind of keep you out of getting into that rapid eye movement sleep and give you a little bit of a hangover, a little bit of a drop in alertness the next day. And that drowsiness could certainly hold you back in terms of being able to really ramp up into the intensity that you want to get up into. There are a lot of other kind of deleterious side effects of sleeping pills, like health side effects. And I could literally talk for about an hour about some of the changes that occur in your neurotransmitter levels and some of the ways that sleeping pills could eventually induce things like depression, like neurotransmitter deficits and have some other pretty disastrous side effects. There's actually a website that goes into this stuff with studies pretty well in terms of lapses in memory, lapses in well being, decreases in performance, stuff like that. Over@darksideofsleepingpills.com I know it's a really cheesy name, but you should just it's just like a simple easy read. They keep it pretty updated with research and stuff. It's written by an MD. It's called darksideofsleepingpills.com, but check that out. We'll put a link to that in the show notes. But I would try some of these natural methods instead of going after the sleeping pills for sure.

All right. Keerthi asks. I've heard contradicting things about Yohimbe HCL for fat loss all over the Internet and that it doesn't work if there are any is any insulin response. So it would be great if you could give your thoughts on this supplement and the right time and at what dosage to take it.

Yeah, Yohimbe is something that has been proven by research to assist with fat burning and fat loss in the same way that Ephedra has got some really good fat loss research behind it and it works in a somewhat similar way. It increases adrenaline levels levels in your body. So it's kind of a nervous system effect. It's kind of got a double whammy effect though, because it acts on your nervous system to increase adrenaline. It also acts on the receptor system of your fat cells, the parts of your fat cells that regulate thermogenesis and it increases activity in those areas. And so it essentially shoves your hormone sensitive lipase towards a more fat burning state or increases activity of that fat burning enzyme lipase. So a couple different, you know, kind of cool fat burning activities that it has. It appears that it may actually help you to produce more ketone bodies too. So if you're like in ketogenesis, it may actually augment some of the effects of being able to burn a lot of those ketones that are circulating through your body and help you burn through more of those free fatty acids as a fuel when you're taking yohimbe. The issue that I have with it is the same that I have with ephedra in that it can cause extreme anxiety, a little bit of psychosis if you take too much of it. And it's one of those things where you're hitting the fast forward button on your body, you're hitting the fast forward button on your metabolism. So yeah, you're burning more fat, but you may also be eventually risking adrenal exhaustion, risking affecting your lifespan and your overall health down the road. And so it's one of those things that in my opinion, because of its effects on adrenaline is something that you should use more like and consider more like the way that you would consider a drug, a legal drug like cocaine or marijuana or whatever else you're taking it for that short term effect that you're going to get, but acknowledging that it may affect your health long term. Yohimbe actually, interestingly, most of its strongest research has been to improve basically, and I know this may mean we got to mark this episode as explicit in itunes, but erection and ejaculation, and it does so even more when you combine it with another kind of popular libido compound called Horny Goat Weed. I love that name. But basically these two together both enhance those two, those two qualities that I just mentioned and would be something like, in terms of like bedroom activity, fantastic supplement. Once again, you are kind of, you know, you're overstimulating yourself with this stuff. But at the same time, you know, if it's worth those extra fireworks in the bedroom for you, that'd be another area where this stuff could come in handy.

I'd just be worried about the anxiety.

Yeah.

Sort of freaking out in the corner of the bedroom.

Doctor Psychotic sex addict. No, but seriously, like, yeah, it can certainly help with fat loss. There's a lot of good research behind it. And yes, it has been shown to be even more efficacious when you use it, like on an empty stomach and you don't have a lot of insulin circulating in your bloodstream. But in my opinion, any of this stuff that makes you burn more fat by shoving you into overdrive, it's not worth it compared with better lifestyle modifications like enhanced sleep, decreased stress, sane levels of physical activity, and having dietary self control.

All right, our next question comes from Steve. And Steve says, I recently discovered the exercise called burpees.

That's.

What's that called? A squat thrust.

Yeah, like, like a push up squat thrust jump.

Yeah.

I did two sets of 15 reps with about a minute rest in between and was gassed. I like to run and typically run.

20 to 25 miles a week and.

Enter a handful of 5k, 10k and half marathons a year. Ideally, I lift weights about two times a week, sometimes three times a week. My question is how and when to incorporate burpees into my training without messing up my run Training, training.

Well, burpee, by the way, I love burpees. I mentioned that I, that I worked, I worked out after that that half Ironman Japan. I, you know, a couple days later I was doing a hard workout in a gym. It was one of those tiny little Japanese hotels, by the way. Everything there is shorter. Like my feet hang off the bed and the TVs are small and like my head hits the ceiling in the bathroom.

And how tall are you? Six feet?

I'm six, three.

Oh, okay. So, yeah, so you're taller than usual, but not extraordinary.

Well, I'm a giant among men over there, apparently.

Yeah.

Anyways, though, and I went to the hotel gym and this was when. Where was I? I think I was in. This was in Nagoya. And the gym basically had a vibration platform, which was kind of cool. It was actually a pretty intense vibration platform. It was very vibratory. And then there was like this, it was almost like this bucking bronco type of thing or just like the seat that you sat on that just like bucked all over the place and you tried to hold on, you know, with your thighs and your core or whatever. And it felt held onto these handles, this thing just like moved around, you know, as you, as you clasped it betwixt your crotch felt slightly perverted. But that was another exercise machine they had. And then there was basically like a treadmill and a stability ball. So not wanting to do the little pelvic thruster rotator machine. The workout I did was basically I did Five minutes on the treadmill, like as, just like a tempo run, and then 15 push ups, 25 squats, 1 minute holding an isometric squat on that vibration platform and then 25 burpees and just did that as a circuit five times through. And the toughest part was you'd finish the burpees and jump straight on the treadmill. And yeah, I mean, extremely metabolic workout. And I was just dripping with sweat by the time I was done about, about 45 minutes later. But yeah, that's the issue with burpees is they're extremely metabolic. And so what happens when we're talking about proper recovery and cortisol, which we've mentioned in a couple of responses so far, is that you can literally just be pushing yourself too hard every day if you're combining burpees in your weight training routine with runs. So that means every day you're going fairly metabolic. Metabolic. I'm not a fan of every weight training session being a metabolic type of CrossFit workout session with burpees and all this stuff. Unless you have days in between those workouts that are easier days where you're not producing a lot of that lactic acid and not pushing your body quite so hard. So what that means is that if you do a workout where you're incorporating a bunch of burpees, your next day's rest should not be like an interval run or like an intense hill training repeats. Like, you gotta take into consideration that you did your metabolic work the day before. So now your body needs some rest and recovery. And so for more advanced athletes, you might be able to go two, three or four days with doing metabolic work before you take that easier day of recovery. For some, like advanced, you know, more like a pro athlete, you know, they can do a good one to two weeks of hard work before taking, you know, one or two easy days. But ultimately understand that if you're going to throw burpees in your routine, that you need to take into consideration that that is high intensity metabolic work and it could mess up your run training unless you adjust your running to be easier and take into consideration that you've gotten some of that harder effort done during your weight training session. Ultimately, for peer runners who just want to get really good at running, I'm a bigger fan of using running for your cardiovascular and your metabolic work work and then using the weight training for just your strength and your power. So not using the weight training as a time to get your heart rate up or do a lot of circuit work, but just to build up some strength, do some squats, do some deadlifts, do some presses and save the metabolic stuff for your actual runs.

Yeah, I've used burpees a few times in the middle of winter when it's just too crappy or too dangerous to get outside to do some hill training or do some high interval or high intensity intervals actual run stuff. I'll use burpees to do. Do a few flights of stairs in my, in my apartment and then do some burpees, do a few more stairs and replace a hill training session like that. Yeah, they're great for small confined spaces or just not being able to get out of the house because it's minus 40.

Yeah, they're one of my standby exercises. Like when I'm traveling, you know, if I'm say if I'm like at a conference, I don't have a chance to work out, I'll just, you know, every time I go to my hotel room I'll just do like 25 burpees. Burpees. And I'm sure the folks who are living below me or even up above me when I'm slamming my hands into the ceiling after a burpee are thinking, maybe thinking there's too much activity going on in the hotel room. But honestly folks, I'm just doing burpees. That's all it is. By yourself? By myself.

All right, next question comes from Aaron.

Aaron says I am a 25 year old old female, 5 foot 3, 120 pounds with naturally very low body fat percentage. Ever since I was young, my body has always carried a lot of muscle, especially my upper body, shoulders, biceps, triceps. While I do love working out and have participated in a variety of different workout styles and intensities, yoga, Pilates, CrossFit, endurance training. I always have the same bulkiness to my upper body and do not like it. Can you offer me any advice to get rid of the muscle but still maintain a good fitness level? Level? As of lately, I've been trying to do solely or solely do cardiovascular training. Swim, bike, run and eat pretty low protein diet. Do you think I should try a hypocaloric diet?

Well, anytime you're, you're resorting to something like starving your body to get rid of excess muscle. It is going to be kind of hard on your body when you put yourself into a catabolic state. Not wanting to kick a horse to death, but I mentioned cortisol a couple times already. But you are getting that surge in cortisol, surge in catabolic hormone. Sometimes an increase in inflammatory markers like homocysteine and CRP and some of these elements that show that your body is fairly stressed out and that can be tough on you, it can be tough on your immune system, can be tough on your well being and it can certainly limit your ability to, to have better performance. And I know that it sounds like the way that your body looks may be more important to you than actual performance gains, but you do say you want to get rid of muscle and still maintain a good fitness level. So rather than just straight up saying, okay, I'm going to eat very, very few calories and try and just cannibalize my body, or eat like you're saying a really, really low protein diet, what I would instead consider doing is just tweaking your workouts to where you're doing a little bit more metabolic work for your upper body and doing more strength work for your lower body. So you bring yourself back into alignment. I mean, this is one of the things that I talk about quite a bit in my new book over@getfitguy.com and it's really more for the female pear shapes for what's called in the book the meso endomorph female small upper body, stronger legs, bigger hips, weaker shoulders, weaker arms, fairly common female shape. You know, it's why it actually has a, it's named after a fruit or maybe the fruit is named after it, I don't know. But the pear shape, you know, pear shaped females, I'm a lot of times recommending metabolic work for the lower body. Walking, running on the treadmill, cycling at a high cadence, low resistance, doing elliptical trainer at a high cadence, low resistance, and then doing more upper body work, upper body presses and pull ups at a heavier weight to bring your body into better alignment to tone the legs and strengthen the upper body, so to speak. And we look at this from just an opposite scenario. Essentially, you know, this, this is a girl who's got a bigger upper body and what it sounds like proportionately, not quite so big legs. And that is a fairly unique female frame. Usually you see the opposite, but in a case like this, yeah, I'd be doing more rowing, swimming, arm ergometers, stuff like that for the upper body and then for the lower body, you know, doing more of the squats, lunges, step ups at a heavier weight. And so looking at, tweaking your exercise routine that way, as far as, did.

You say arm ergometers?

Yeah, arm ergometers.

Is that the thing that looks like you're pedaling a bike, but you're doing it with your hands.

Yeah, yeah, I actually like those. They're in most gyms around here and a lot of times if I don't have time to squeeze in a swim, I'll just do like a 3000 meter row and then throw in 5 minutes on an armor grommet. And yeah, they actually work really well for upper body work that's more metabolic, so that's what I'd be doing. And I mean, if you're going to go low calorie at all to cannibalize muscle, then what I recommend that you do is throw in a fasted morning workout with some amino acids and don't go hypocaloric fasted workouts every day because that can be tough on the body. But four or five days a week, do something like that and then just give your body adequate calories the rest of the time and do more metabolic work for the upper body and more resistance work for the lower body.

Okay, this next question comes from Don. Don says my question is about fatigue. Is fatigue from lack of sleep different from fatigue after a workout? As a truck driver, my sleep patterns are erratic. So the lack of sleep is a chronic problem. Is the efficacy of a workout affected by this type of, of fatigue? And further to this, I know you're not a fan of energy drinks, but I find that a Red Bull can make an otherwise difficult workout more doable. Will this affect the efficacy of that workout?

Well, it depends on the workout. There was actually a study that, that just came out. It was this month, I believe in the. No, no, it was actually. Was it this month? I don't remember. I just saw it recently, but it was in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research and it was about how sleep loss affects like male collegiate weightlifters. And they literally gave these guys like 24 hour sleep loss, essentially an all nighter. And then they tested testosterone, they tested cortisol both before and after the weight training session. They had them do snatches, clean injuries, front squats, heavy stuff. And they tested their fatigue, their confusion, their mood disturbance, their sleepiness, their performance, their hormones. And they didn't really notice any adverse effects of an all nighter on weightlifting performance at all. But at the same time there was another study that they did, there's one on swimmers and they kind of did something similar where they took swimmers and they basically had them maintain their normal sleep wake patterns. And these were college students, so those normal sleep wake patterns were pretty crappy. And then they had Them extend their sleep to 10 hours per day, which is a lot for six to seven weeks. And they saw a significant difference in swim performance after scheduling in the extra sleep for the these collegiate swimmers. And they had another study where they reported similar performance on the basketball team that was doing free throw shooting and kind of like gameplay and stuff like that. And so I think when we take some of the research that I've seen and we look at it, if you're doing like an intense cardiovascular metabolic session, I think that sleep loss is going to affect it deleteriously. If you are doing something that requires a great deal of focus, like playing a basketball game and shooting free throws and stuff like that, sleep is probably going to. Deleterious sleep loss is going to deleteriously affect that as well. It doesn't appear from what I've seen that if you just need to pick a heavy object off the ground, that that sleep is necessarily going to affect that too much. At least not like acute loss of sleep. I think the chronic loss of sleep long term could certainly affect that. So ultimately for most people that are doing something like weightlifting and fitness, you're going to be doing some metabolic work. You're going to be doing some movements that if you do them wrong, may certainly end up harming you. And I think that in those situations, yeah, fatigue and lack of sleep is, is going to affect you. If you've just got to lift some heavy weights, you might be okay. But even that research has only looked at the short term effects of lack of sleep and not chronic lack of sleep. As far as drinking a Red Bull to make the workout more doable, yes, the Red Bull is going to help. You're gonna get caffeine, that'll improve alertness, so will the taurine, so will the B vitamins in that. The problem is that you've also got a lot of sucrose, you've got a lot of glucose. If you're drinking the sugar free stuff, you've got like acid, sulf, potassium and aspartame instead of the sucrose and the glucose. So you're going to get either the neurotoxic effect of the artificial sweeteners or the acidic effect of the regular sweeteners combined with the soda. And you'd be better off if you really just need that short term boost of grabbing some kind of a powder that has caffeine and B vitamins and taurine in it rather than Red Bull. Anytime you're drinking an energy drink, it's going to be less healthy. For you than just grabbing some powder and mixing it in water. So there's lots of different brands out there. I've talked about the brand that I used before, the one called Delta E when I needed to pick me up like that. But ultimately, just like I mentioned with my answer about yohimbe, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul. And there's going to be long term side effects down the road if you're pushing through lack of sleep and fatigue and band aiding that with energy drinks.

Yeah, Peter's gonna come and kick your ass.

That's right. Look out, Paul.

But okay, so just to go back.

To the beginning of his question, the.

Very beginning he asked, is fatigue from lack of sleep different from fatigue after a workout? So you definitely talked a lot about.

The sleep fatigue, but how about the.

Fatigue after a workout?

Yeah, fatigue after workout is usually glycogen depletion, some lactic acid formation, some oxygen debt. Fatigue after lack of sleep is typically a disruption of neurotransmitters and imbalances in hormones. And so, yeah, pretty different fatigues that we're talking about there. Yeah.

So if you were already fatigued from a workout, obviously the Red Bull will help or the energy supplement or whatever will work in a different sort of way. Like that would be where the sugars would actually, actually be kicking in more.

So than like the B vitamins.

Yeah, exactly. And that's a good point. You know, in that case, it's your body taking up sugars to replace the sugars that you burnt during the workout. That'll be giving you a little bit of an energy boost. But I definitely am still not endorsing the use of Red Bull as a recovery drink for sure.

Yeah. I think the fact that Red Bull's actually outlawed in a number of countries around the world, like, it's illegal. Probably good reason not to. To drink it.

Yeah. Now the only time I endorse Red Bull is with vodka or rum in high amounts at all nighters. So that's really the only time that I think this stuff is worth it.

For some reason. I can just picture you with a glow stick in one hand and a Red Bull in the other.

Just. Yeah. And a pacifier.

Yeah. And yeah. Not gonna. Won't describe the rest of the scene. All right, final question comes from Andrea.

Andrea says I am a personal trainer and recently worked with a client who has been on prescription pain meds long term due to back surgery. He recently got tested by his doctor and was told that he has low testosterone due to the long Term Vicodin use. The doc is supplementing his testosterone and the client is now losing weight and feeling less fatigued and depressed. I was shocked to learn, I was shocked, shocked to learn that prescription pain meds could affect his hormone levels to such a degree. Have you ever heard of this? And if so, what kind of nutrient deficiencies or hormone problems could long term pain medications create in female athletes?

Yeah, basically, as she mentioned, like an androgen deficiency. And there's been multiple studies that have shown this with pain pills pills, particularly the opioids oxycodone and Roxycodone and Oxycontin and all these. Typically when you talk about pain pills, these are the ones that you're talking about. But opioids, unfortunately, they act on your pituitary hormone, which is responsible for initiating testosterone production, as well as luteinizing hormones. Testosterone, which is another very, very important precursor for like the Leydig cells and the testes and also the ovaries to produce testosterone. And they act to basically shut down a lot of that production. They can also suppress your adrenal hormone production. They can inhibit the activity of the entire endocrine system itself, which is responsible for producing hormones, hormones in general. And so women who are taking a lot of pain pills are eventually going to stop having menstrual cycles and have decreased libido, decreased sex drive from the loss of progesterone. Guys are going to get fatigue, depression, erectile dysfunction, decreased libido, all the stuff that goes along with a decrease, primarily in testosterone. And so, yeah, there's certainly, certainly some issues if you're using pain meds long term. Unfortunately, when you've had something like a back surgery, it's so tough to just get by without using something to shut down the pain. I was even on hydrocodone for a few days there with my MRSA just because it was getting so hard to even sleep because my entire leg was inflamed. However, in most cases, I like to, before actually encouraging something like opioid consumption to shut down pain, I like to encourage that you try out something natural, like a COX2 inhibitor. Like a natural COX2 inhibitor, which is basically, COX2 is involved in the production of prostaglandins and that pain response that you can get. I like doing a natural extract like, like a phenylcane is one that I recommend quite a bit as an alternative to something like ibuprofen or Advil. And it's basically a curcumin and turmeric extract combined with some other Natural compounds that decrease prostaglandin formation and are natural COX2 inhibitors. That's one thing that can work out quite a bit. We talked about this a couple weeks ago in the interview with Dr. Cruz about how cold thermogenesis can really improve the ability to handle pain and pain tolerance as well as shut down pain, pain. So like cold baths, cold soaks, cold showers, ice baths, stuff like that, that'd be another thing to think about as well. But yeah, ultimately I have heard certainly that prescription pain meds are going to affect hormone levels and nutrient deficiencies. I wouldn't be worrying about as much as actual hormone problems. I haven't seen any evidence to show that you're going to experience nutrient deficiencies or like effects on your gut health like you would with something like an antibiotic. But yeah, endocrine system and adrenal system. Yeah, anything opioid based is going to throw a, throw a real wrench in that stuff.

Yikes.

Yeah, honestly, I'd just sell it to some high school kid.

You're full of terrible ideas today.

But seriously, I mean, there's a time and a place for opioids. They are natural, natural plant based extracts and there's a reason that God made poppy. But yeah, I mean, once again, you've got some side effects similar to when you're using sleeping pills or similar to when you're using yohimbi that dictate that this stuff is meant to be used in a certain time, in a certain place and certainly not chronically.

All right, now that's good advice.

There we go.

All right.

And that wraps it up. And we should probably wrap it up.

Because we've really gone on with this one.

We have. Not only did we start late because of microphone problems and so we're going on like an hour later than when we usually wrap this thing up. But yeah, we went on, so. Okay, well, I guess that's a good place to end. Check out the show notes. What'd we say, brock? Episode number 198.

198. Two more to 200.

That's right. Over at BenGreenful Fitness.com we promise we'll do something special for 200. I don't know what it is. Maybe we'll record from an airplane or something. We'll figure it out. But anyways, BenGreenfieldFitness.com Episode 198. Leave your comments underneath the show notes. If you have follow up questions, leave your ranking over on itunes. Leave a donation while you're over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com if you'd like, and I have a few great interviews that I'm getting prepped to release, and so stay tuned for those. I'll probably be pushing one out to you as early as this Saturday, so until next time, thanks for listening.

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