High-Intensity Resistance Training, Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet, Peptides, Plant Medicines, Psychedelics & More With Keith Norris!

Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. All right, as promised, I got my guest back. The guest who first appeared on the podcast episode why Strong People Are Harder to Kill and how to Get Strong. In that episode, we geeked out on Single Set to failure training and the use of even some of these almost like exercise biohacks or these efficient exercise pieces of equipment called the ARX machines. We talked about that. We talked about muscle gain, fat loss, a whole bunch of cool stuff. And today I decided to get this guy back on the show because he's been up to a bunch of stuff, everything from peptides to plant medicine to psychedelics. A little bit of alliteration there. You name it. His name, if you haven't guessed yet, is Keith Norris. So Keith is very well known these days in the health sector as the founder of Paleo fx. Something else we're going to talk about today because it's basically one of my favorite health and fitness conferences that I go to every year, period. But he also has a deep history in the realm of fitness, in the realm of physical culture. He walks the walk. He's constantly up to something new whenever I see him, and just a wealth of knowledge when it comes to bringing your body to the next level. He's also incredibly well connected in the health and fitness world, and he'll be sharing some of the stuff you can expect at PaleoFX this year as well, because he's responsible for getting a lot of the cool cats at that conference in that conference. So everything we talk about today you can grab the links for if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Paleo2020 that's BenGreenfulFitness.com Paleo2020 since Keith's the founder of Paleo Effects, figured that'd be an appropriate URL. Keith, welcome back to the show, man.

Ben, it's great to be back and chatting with you, brother.

Yeah. Are you done? Awesome.

Right Now I am 75 degrees here right now. Not a bad. Not a bad November.

Yeah. You were telling me before we got on the show that you. You recently got back from Burning Man. You were saying that that was something you resisted going to for a long time, and now you're full on burning. So what was your experience like there?

Dude, let me tell you, drug my heels. For years, people could not get me to go out there because I had this misconception of Burning man as being, I don't know, a coachella. Bonnaroo, something like that, on steroids. And I was like, you know, I don't know if nine days of a Coachella or, you know, Bonnaroo type situation, I think that ship has sailed for me. You know, I'm a little bit older now, a little bit wiser now. I don't want to roll around in the mud and amok and, and do all that. But a number of people, you know, told me that's, that's a misconception of what Burning man is. Although they could not explain to me what it was. Right. And so then I would ask him, well, I have this conception of it being like this. And they were like, it's not like that. And I was like, well then what is it like? And they're like, you know, they would take this deep breath and look at me and go, can't even explain it, man. You're just gonna have to go check it out.

Yeah.

So what do you experience? So finally I did. Oh, dude. It was the most amazing nine days I think I've ever had in my life. It was just incredible off the chain, you know, it's like being dropped on a moonscape. I mean, the second you really. The second you roll into Reno, which is a couple hours outside of Black Rock City, the world begins to morph and change in front of your eyes. Just, you know, the vibe of the people there, the people at the airport, you know, coming in and beginning their trek out the. Out to Black Rock City. And again, I'm in the same position that people that I talked to were in is. You can't explain it. It's just. It's like being in a whole other world. It's just incredible. It is everything that is human optimization and human creativity all in one spot with a very, very high vibe.

I hear a lot of people say that, but it seems like very big picture esoteric like, like give me an example of something that was just hella cool there that you experienced, dude.

Just, oh, wow. The art. Just the art installation. So people think of Burning man as being a 24, 7 rave for 10 days. And yeah, you can do that if you want, but there is just incredible works of art that are out there. And when I say incredible, I'm doing it a disservice. I mean, these pieces of art have been put together out in the middle of the frickin desert and they're going to be dismantled in some form or fashion and taken out or they're going to be burned to the ground. And when you See how much work goes into these pieces of art and the fact that they're just going to be burned or dismantled, it's incredible. And the whole idea is that life is impermanence. That is the only constant in life is impermanence. The idea is to appreciate it while it's here and don't mourn it when it's gone. And it's just a huge life lesson.

Interesting.

Totally cool. Yeah.

So you go out in the desert and you get high and you look at cool art, basically.

Pretty much, yeah. But you know, on the other hand, it is zero judgment, right? There's no peer pressure, there's no judgment. You can do whatever you want. Nobody cares. Yeah, that's easy to say. And you go, yeah, there's no judgment. But once I get out there, people are gonna judge me. No, I mean, you can do whatever you want. You can be whoever you want. You can act however you want, as long as you're respectful of others and people are cool. I mean, it's just a super high vibe time the entire. The entire time. I loved it.

Interesting. And that was your first time out there?

That was my first time, yeah. And I went with a camp to where I was one of the only virgins out there, so. And I think if you do it, you have to go with a well established camp and with people who have done it preferably many, many times before, because it is literally like being dropped into another world. And if you get dropped there without some guides, it can be overwhelming.

And do they have like themes every year?

Yeah, this year's was Metamorphosis. There is generally a overall theme for the year. Yeah, it's just. And again, I'm. I can't explain it. You have to just go experience it.

Yeah.

And any pictures, videos, or anything that you see of Burning man cannot fully capture the full experience. It's just a sliver of a sliver of a moment that you're seeing. But I can tell you, Ben, that I must have said, what the fuck? I don't know how many times during that nine days. Every time you turn around, it's just a jaw dropping, awe, what the fuck? Moment.

Wow.

For the whole time you're out there. Yeah. It's incredible.

Interesting. Now, now, speaking of like themes, you guys have a theme for PaleoFX this year?

Nurtured Destiny is our theme for 2020. And the idea behind Nurtured Destiny is we are all created to be something more than what we're doing right now. You and me both, Ben. We could be a hell of a lot more than we are. And the idea is to take another step forward in that path. How can I be a better version of Keith? How can Ben be a better version of Ben going forward? And it's the, you know, it's the whole idea of the Kaizen method of continual betterment. You know, one step forward, one step forward, step forward and you're never there. Right. We can, none of us can be there, but we can be in a constant state of betterment, constant state of progress.

Yeah.

And that's what the 2020 is.

Are you guys changing much up there? Because I know you usually have like a health and fitness floor and you have like a jiu jitsu tournament and then of course all the vendors with the frickin, you know, bacon wrapped keto bombs and CBD in your coffee and all that jazz, but any, anything new?

Well, yeah, the floor is roughly the same, although there are more vendors, different vendors. The S and C floor will be the same, the same overall concept. But Ben, I don't know from last year if you felt how there was just this exponential rise in the vibe, just the overall feeling at PaleoFX. And I think we finally hit a critical mass of very, very cool people coming together and it just elevated the entire vibe of that, of that whole show. And we're super stoked about that. And here's a pro tip for people who are going to pay. You do not want to miss the charity party. It's going to be fricking off the chain. And since we just came back from Burning man, it's going to be a very burn inspired party. So it's going to be epic. Just saying. Ben, this will be your warm up for Burning Man 2020.

You guys had a pretty good band at the last charity dinner party. You remember that?

Oh, they rocked. Yeah, that was pretty. That was pretty awesome. I don't know if that particular band will fit into the whole rave.

Probably, probably not from the way it sounds. But for those of you interested, myself and my CEO at Keon, Angelo Keeley, we actually, we got a country music band together and we actually played country big, long like a 12 song country music set for the, for the charity dinner. But that was a hoot. And you're right, Keith. Like for those of you listening in, before we delve into Keith's latest biohacks, I just did want to, want to get that out there that, you know, of all the health and fitness conferences that I go to during the year, PaleoFX, just because the the parties and the dinner and the food and the people and the tribe and the topics and the speakers and everything, it's just, it's really high up on the totem pole. So I'll put a link to it@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Paleo2020 for those you want to go there and know you don't have to be Paleolithic man to actually attend, nor do you need to be a Paleo diet devotee. It's just.

No, I mean, we get people from all walks of life. We get obviously the people who are dyed in the wool Paleo, you know, ancestral wellness people. Obviously those are there. But we have plenty of people who are just dabbling. They just want to know what is this thing, this Paleo thing, what is this tribe I've heard about and you know, do I want to be a part of that tribe?

Yeah.

And overwhelmingly people who visit come away having drunk the Kool Aid, as they say.

Yeah, yeah. And by the way, any, just, just before we delve into a little bit more about what you've been up to, any crazy speakers this year that you have lined up that you think are going to turn some heads?

That crazy cat Ben Greenfield always turns a lot of heads. Always like the most well received person at Paleofx. Seriously, I'm not blowing smoke or anything like that. People love you. One thing, we might, we might have another Mr. Vitalis sighting.

Oh, yeah, Daniel Vitalis. He's a good guy. He's actually got a, he's got a great new TV show, Wild Food, I think it's called, like wild. Something like that.

Yes.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

So he's, you know, he's been in hiding, so to speak, doing his thing. And part of doing his thing is filming this series and now he's ready to come back out and do some, do some events and we would certainly love to have him. We're in talks with him right now. So, yeah, other than that usual cast of characters we get, we've got Mr. Kresser, Mr. Wolf, you know, all of those. Stephen Gundry. I mean, the list is, the list is huge and it grows every day as we get confirmation.

Yeah, cool. And for those of you not familiar with Daniel Vitalis, by the way, I'll put a link to a few episodes I've done with him in the show notes. But he's kind of like a, he's originally kind of a guy in the supplement and health industry and really, really branch out hardcore and into everything from like sustainable ag to farming, to plant foraging, to hunting, and has just kind of turned himself into almost like the ultimate wild food survivalist. And now he's got a bunch of content and media based on that. Cool dude. So that'll be cool if he's there too. I really dig Daniel. Awesome.

Super cool guy.

Yeah, awesome. But let's talk about you. You know, just a quick background for people who might not be familiar with you. What's your backstory? Like, how did you get into this whole world of fitness and wellness in the first place?

Wow. Well, you know, I grew up in a very working class, blue collar area of South Texas in San Antonio. Did the. What most athletic kids do in South Texas and that is play football. I played. You know, this was the whole Friday Night Lights time, if anyone's ever seen Friday Night Lights. And I will have to say it's a very accurate description of what the football life was in the late 70s up through, you know, even the early 90s. So it was totally dedicated to that. Trained very, very diligently and played all the way through school. Played college football at Texas State on scholarship. Got hurt while I was at Texas State. Blew out an ACL and an MCL all in one play. Which was rather both ironic and kind of a. It was the first time I had ever been like seriously hurt. And unfortunately, all it takes is one time in that sport. I went through the repair and the kind of the reconstruction of my knee. The knee came back perfectly fine, full strength. But what happened was, was that I lost the step of quickness. And in a highly competitive sport, a step slow is about 50 steps too slow.

Game over.

Game over. Yeah. So had to kind of reinvent myself. Went through a bit of a depression because I had totally and utterly put all my eggs in that basket. You know, you're old Keith, that this would have happened to him or if you would have told him, hey, you're not gonna wind up playing pro football, I would have laughed at your face. I mean, I was pretty calm and like I say, I put all my eggs in that basket and had every reason to believe that had I not been injured, I would have gone on. But so that happened. I luckily became a pretty good student while I was at college. When I was in high school, I was a horrible student. Didn't care. No one could motivate me. I couldn't see the point. And there were periods when I was in high school as a junior and senior that I contemplated dropping out and just going to work in the oil fields at that Time a high school dropout, if he was willing to work hard, which, you know, I had that resume, could make some serious money working in the oil fields either in West Texas or up in Alaska or offshore. And the only thing that kept me in school was sports. Literally the only thing that kept me in school was sports. But once I got to college and was actually asked by a certain professor to actually think for myself and not read and regurgitate and actually she pushed me very hard, almost in a, I wouldn't say confrontational, but very much a challenge, right? Like can you think for yourself? Can you come up with your own hypotheses, can you come up with your own reasoning? And that was kind of the first time that I thought, wow, I can come up with my own thoughts, I don't have to regurgitate out of a book. And then it was on. And then I became a pretty decent student. Studied political science, psychology. Got very, very interested in human performance, both from the physical aspect. You know, what does it take to fine tune a body? And what are the mechanisms by which an athlete can be motivated? The psychological mechanisms. Unfortunately, at that time, if you were in the strength and conditioning profession, you would starve to death. I mean, there just was no money in it at that time. None. I mean, the only people making money at that time were the position coaches and head coaches and strength and conditioning was. It wasn't really a thing yet and it wouldn't become a thing for another decade or so. By this time I had a family and now I'm out of any prospect of making any big money and professional sports. So I had to figure out something to do. And also I'm dealing with depression because I'm totally, I'm totally out of my element now. So I did the what any rational 21 year old would do at that. I thought, you know, I've got to, I've got to take care of this family and I don't want to leave the boys club behind because I really like this. I like hanging around with dudes, I like the competition, I like all of that. So this sounds like the next best thing. Went into the military, served nine years in the military, got out of the military and found myself right in the middle of big pharma, which is another rather ironic twist. So I spent 15 plus years in big pharma and towards the end of my career was essentially a liaison between the FDA and the pharmaceutical manufacturing. My job was to negotiate between the pharmaceutical factors and the fda. And my job was to prove that the pharmaceutical manufacturing process was indeed on the up and up. And it was mostly a shadow and mirrors game. And I began by this time, I'm married to Michelle, and both of us at this time were starting to get very disheartened with corporate America. We had totally bought into the American dream. The whole big house, big cars, kids in the best schools. We started an exit plan. We became formulated an exit plan, had our fuck you money goal set aside, and then the recession of 2008 hit. Like any good entrepreneurs, we said, I'm dropping a lot of F bombs. I think that's, you're going to have to scrub these or it's cool, but.

Michelle and I can cowbell.

Right on. So Michelle and I said, fuck it, we're going to do this. We're, you know, we're, we are entrepreneurs at heart and it doesn't matter what the economic situation is at the moment, we're bailing. So we, right in the middle of 2008, right in the middle of pending bankruptcy, we just decided to quit our high paying corporate gigs and jet out on our own. Best possible time to start businesses, right?

Yeah, exactly.

So, yeah, so Michelle and I started our path of entrepreneurship. She went into catering, I went into strength and conditioning, open gyms, and because we were both very, very good networkers. And if we have a superpower between us and, you know, between the both of us, it's, we know people. And it was through knowing people that we decided to create paleo effects. Michelle and I both have to lean on people who are specialists and we want to be better people. And there's a lot of other people like us who just don't have our networks. So why don't we put together a, you know, let's put together a huge party, teach people some things, bring people together and have a good time nurturing destiny. And that's exactly what we did.

Yeah, yeah. The things exploded since then. I'm sure it's certainly led to a lot of introductions and networking for you as well. And of course probably learn a lot of things also, and that's what I really want to get you on the show to explore today was all these new things that you're up to and some of the things that you've learned and delved into for yourself to really move the dial for your body or for your brain. You know, for example, in the past two years, like I've noticed, your body composition has really changed. Like you've got, you've, you've maintained muscle, but you've Gotten pretty lean. And I'm kind of curious, like, what you've been doing as far as your training and your diet program goes, whether it be changing things based on self quantification, what kind of the crux of your routine is, some of your best practices, et cetera. And you can feel free to rabbit hole as deep as you want.

My training routine really hasn't changed that much, so I still do. If you want to boil it down into any one method, it is high intensity interval resistance training. That's the crux of my workout routines, and that could be with weights. Obviously that's one way to do it. But I also incorporate sprints, bike riding, all kinds of things.

What'd you call it again? High intensity interval resistance training.

Right, right.

Okay. So what exactly would a typical workout actually look like?

Well, I can tell you what my workout looked like yesterday. It's probably the easiest way to break into it. I did trap bar deadlifts, supersetted with floor presses, and I did five rounds of that, and the weights were set such that I built up to a weight. In the trap bar deadlift, I think I was using 435 on the low grip at 3 reps, and the 4 press was 2:35, if I remember correctly, for 5 reps. And I just went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth with very little rest. The entire workout took me about 40 minutes. I think I ended up with about seven rounds after I hit what I would call working weight.

That's just two exercises.

So just two exercises and that was it. Boom. And done came in. Very little warmup. I don't, you know, I think warm up. The old school warmup of doing like, you know, a half hour and easing in, I think it's a waste of time. You can dive in very, very quick, hit a few rounds of whatever exercise you're working at, and then you're, bam, you're right up at working weight. So, you know, I don't have a whole lot of time to mess around anymore. If I were left to my own devices, you know, I would spend all day in a gym. I love, I love the atmosphere, but, you know, entrepreneurial and business pursuits that I need to get to. And so I have to get in, get it done, and get out. And these are hugely effective workouts. Hugely effective. And I've done them for the last, I don't know, several years.

How many times a week would you do something like that? The high intensity resistance training, it's six.

Six times a week. I'm constantly changing exercises. I'm constantly changing movements, movement patterns, rep ranges. So every time I go into the gym, it's a little bit different. And I think the human body and I've seen this play out and I know it to be true. The human body can take a lot more than what most people would think it could if you're smart about it. And being smart about it means constantly changing movement patterns. It doesn't mean that you can't lift heavy, you just can't lift heavy. On similar exercises multiple times during the week, you have to constantly change it up. So I might not hit four presses or trap bar deadlifts in that manner in the exact same manner for another two months. For instance, the next time I do a press, it may be a traditional decline press, maybe an incline press. And for lifting something heavy off the ground, it might not be a trap bar. I might be a trap bar deadlift with a high handle pull. It might be me on a low handle standing on an elevated platform. Something's going to change every time I do a particular exercise. Hand grip, foot position, something's going to change. So I will never do the same exercise a couple times in a month even.

Okay.

So I think that's very, very important.

Okay, got it. Now what about like cardiovascular exercise? Is it just that the rate of intensity that you're using with these back to back strength training sets is covering your cardiovascular bases or are you doing anything like rowing, versaclimber sprinting, anything like that?

I rarely do, Ben. I ride a fixed speed bike around town here in Austin and that serves as any kind of quote unquote cardiovascular that I do. And if I had more time, I might roll more. Right. But I just don't have the time. So what I'm very, very good at is finding the bang for the buck activities that give me the most return in the least amount of time. And that's why I'm very, very keen to do again. If I had more time, I would roll more stuff in because joy doing it, but I just don't have that time. So I have to be very, very smart about picking it. But I think the biggest change to my body comp has been that I've slightly altered my diet and my diet looks more like a Mediterranean keto diet now.

A Mediterranean keto diet, Right, right.

So you can think of the traditional Mediterranean diet. Yeah. Although I won't have any grains per se, but it's very low in saturated fat. And the reason it's very low in saturated fat is I found out through genetic testing that I have an APO3.4 allele. And that particular allele predisposes those who have it to dementia, Alzheimer's. What I was very, very concerned about is if you look at the NFL players who have died and they've had brain autopsies, these are the players with severe cte, right? And by and large, those who have had problems with CTE are either APO 3 and or 4. And so obviously, all those years of playing football, I'm very concerned about that. And so I will do everything in my power right now to make sure that I don't slide into, you know, brain dementia and any issues that surround that.

This is really important to highlight too, because a lot of people who perhaps have not tested their genetics are following, let's say, like a standard ketogenic diet, or working a lot of saturated fats, marbled meats, coconut oil, or other fats that are solid at room temperature, et cetera, into their diet, trying to either eat high fat from a hormone or a cholesterol standpoint, or maintain a level of ketosis using that traditional high saturated fat approach. But if you carry that APOE3.4 gene, then it's actually quite unfavorable. I fall into that same category and do far better on the Mediterranean fats. You know, copious amounts of extra virgin olive oil, lower amounts of saturated fats, you know, lots of fatty fish and fish oil. And I think that that's a perfect example of why it is important to test before you simply adopt XYZ version of a diet, because one low carb diet is not necessarily the equivalent of another low carb diet, especially when it comes to the fatty acid composition.

Yeah, and it's absolutely true. And this testing is really, really cheap now, Right. And it's one of the things that can help a person really dial in their diet, because before I had no idea, right? And I ate saturated fat, like most people within this movement do with abandonment. Saturated fat is good. It's no problem. And for most people, that's true. For most people, it is true. Unless you happen to carry this allele, the APO3 or 4, then you're really doing yourself a disservice. Now, that's what we know. Now, there's no telling what other genetic markers we'll find in the future that can help us dial in our diets even further. I think we can all agree that, that if you eat close to the land, as close to the land as possible, you're going to Be better off than 99% of the population and you're probably going to be a lot better than you were prior. But being able to dial in a diet using genetic markers like this is hugely beneficial.

Yeah, yeah. Are there any other tests that you've, that you run from a self quantification standpoint specifically to dial in your supplementation or your diet protocol?

That's been the biggest one right now, Ben. Everything else, I can say that as soon as I made this change in my diet, here's the other thing that helped with my body composition. I was slightly inflamed and I couldn't figure out where that inflammation was coming from because my diet was clean. As soon as I dropped the high saturated fat content out of my diet, and I should say too, I haven't eliminated it, I've just reduced it. I mean I shed a good, I don't know, £15. It was just water weight.

Right.

Inflammation could not get a handle on where this inflammation was coming from. Was it a direct result of the saturated fat content? I don't know. But what I do know is once I dropped that fat content down, everything else just kind of cleaned up and I look around and I'm 15 pounds lighter and I'm like, what the hell? I really didn't change anything. And I can tell you I do not count calories at all. I mean, I eat when I'm hungry, I stop when I'm full. Sometimes that translates into a 24 hour fast. Sometimes it means I eat first thing in the morning. The only con in my life is variability.

And this idea of the Mediterranean diet being a plant rich diet, how do you marry that to the current infatuation with almost like an autoimmune protocol? By consuming mostly meat products or avoiding a lot of the natural built in plant defense mechanisms. Are you pretty careful with the type of plants that you choose or the way in which you prepare them when it comes to eating Mediterranean? Because a Mediterranean diet is typically pretty high in plant based compounds, right?

No, I don't, you know, don't worry about it. I mean my diet is pretty basic really on the day to day. I mean I eat basic starches. Let me back up by saying I will add more starches into my diet if I earn them. By earning means I've had a super hard workout, maybe an extended workout. Maybe I've been on my bike for two hours. I know what it feels like to be carb depleted or starting to get weak and not being able to perform in the weight room like I would like, because I don't have that glycogen store and I'll just. And when I say I eat a little bit more, I mean it's like a half a sweet potato more. It takes very, very little to bump you up to where you're feeling like, yeah, I'm ready to rock and roll again. But I. But I go totally by feeling. Now, that feel has refined over the years by looking at different biomarkers, like heart rate variability, heart rate, body temperature, yada, yada, yada. Looking all. But I can tell you that I could up in the morning, sit down, take a gauge on how I feel. And how I feel is pretty damn well correlated to HRV and these other markers. And it's just, I'm just lucky that I have been able to dial into my body and I've never lost that. I've never lost that communication or knowing what it feels like to be on point and knowing what it feels like when you've overstepped your bounds and you need to back off a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. How about from a recovery standpoint? Are you using anything particularly effective for recovery, whether it be a supplement or special pieces of equipment that you use or, you know, aside from paying attention to hrv, anything else from recovery, recovery standpoint?

Dude, sleep, man. And I know people don't want to. People don't want to talk about it because it's the most boring thing in the world, but my sleep is dialed in and I do not compromise on that. I go out of my way and generally I need between seven and nine hours a night. And I never wake up to an alarm. I shouldn't say never. There are times that I have to, if I'm traveling or whatever, but for the most part, I wake up when I feel like getting up through the normal sleep hygiene, stay away screens, do the blue blocker thing at night. My biohacking, quote, unquote biohacking is pretty limited, really, in that realm. I'm just smart about dialing in my sleep. And I find if I have my sleep dialed in, I pretty much don't need any of the other stuff. Yeah, I like it. I like to tinker with it. You know, I like to do the cold plunge, sauna, you know, all of these things. But even a sauna for me, I would much rather be outside in the sun doing stuff, either riding my bike or sprints or, you know, playing on. Playing on bars, whatever it is, and sweating in that way rather than sweating in a sauna. Now, during the winter Do I get in a sauna sometimes? Sure, yeah, I do that. But I generally like to get out and move, incorporate that stuff and let my body naturally do what it would do if it were out in nature.

What about peptides? Because I think the last time I saw you, you were kind of interested in getting into the world of peptides. And I've certainly done several podcast episodes on using these, you know, targeted amino acid sequences to do everything from enhanced recovery to, you know, to fix gut issues to, you know, as cognitive enhancing compounds, et cetera. But where are you at right now with utilization of peptides and if so, what are you using and what's your protocol?

Right, And I'm lucky enough to work with Dr. Dan Stickler here in Austin who heads up the Puron Center. And so again, this is me having the network and not being a specialist in this area, but being able to lean on someone who is a specialist. And Dan Stickler is the, probably the world's foremost authority on peptides. And just a plug for Dan. If you haven't had him on your podcast, you need to, because he can deep dive into this stuff. Now I can tell you just from a personal, personal use, some things that I use are melanitan. So we'll dive into melanitan. So what is, what is melanitan? Melanitan, it's called the Barbie drug. It just helps you maintain a healthy tan. It's not a spray tan, it's not a fake tan. It is a protective actual tan. For instance, I've been using this substance for a while. We generally do it in two week bursts. And I say we. Michelle uses it as well. We were in Cabo recently and normally I'm either of two colors. I'm either white or red. But with using Melanitan, I build up this real nice base tan so I can go to places like we did Cabo a couple weeks ago and not have to worry about slathering on sunscreen or being too concerned about being out in the sun too long because I have this awesome base protective tan already. Now, a nice side effect of melanitan is sexual function. So you feel just a little bit, how can I say reindeer when you're on melanitan than when you're not. It's a very, very subtle.

It's something that is subtle for some people, but for others it tends to be pretty pronounced. Like for me personally, I've taken melanitan and I've gotten the same tanning effect that you've gotten, but I've Also experienced something that's almost as close as you could get to a pripas. Some like erections that just last for like four to five hours during the night and don't go away. So for me it actually disrupted sleep due to that side effect. But it's really interesting because I've actually been looking quite a bit into melanin which actually has a lot of research behind it, particularly some Russian research that digs into production of ATP in a very similar process. As a of part plant would produce ATP via photosynthesis and the use of chlorophyll via the use of melanin. And it seems to have some pretty cool anti aging and mitochondrial protective properties to it that would make increasing melanin levels a pretty prudent idea whether or not you're interested in tanning. And so I'm kind of keeping my eyes on melanin. For me personally, melanitan as a peptide is not one that because of the side effects I've been using much of, but it's pretty intriguing. And again for the aesthetic benefits, it's kind of like one of those old secrets of the bodybuilding industry that I think a lot of people are now discovering and tapping into. Right.

And I should say too that this is a subcutaneous injection. I can't speak to any oral applications. So this is definitely subcutaneous injections. So yeah, I don't know the efficacy of the orals, I'm not sure. But I can speak to the injectables. And Ben, I would say too, if you want to bump up the sexual performance side of things, you can always dive into PT141, affectionately known as the boner drug. And it works as advertised. I will just say after you take again a subcutaneous injection, about five hours later you are ready to go for a while. It's a nice little side benefit of that particular peptide.

And that's the main reason you would take something like PT141 would be, would be for sexual desire, for libido or for erectile quality. Because from what I understand for both men and women it doesn't just increase something like erections in the men, but it actually increases libido and sexual desire as well.

I'd say it's a very, very cool substance. I can say that Michelle and I have enjoyed it immensely. But yeah, that's something else that you can look into as well. And while we're on the subject of real quick on peptides, the cool thing about peptides is there are very Little side effects, right? Because they are, I mean, they're very, very targeted instances. But you don't have to worry about the long laundry list of side effects like you would have to worry about kind of pharmaceutical. And that's, to me, that's a big, that's a big selling point to me. To be able to super dial in whatever effect you want with the use of a peptide.

Yeah, exactly. Because really, if you look at it from a key and a lock mechanism, all you're doing is producing very specific keys for the locks on proteins or locks on enzymes to be able to interact with those in very specific ways. So even something like growth hormone, you could take growth hormone or you could take a growth hormone increasing peptide like ipamorelin or Tessamorelin or something like that, and actually increase growth hormone rather than systemically increasing it in specific areas of tissue, like muscle tissue, for example. So again, it's just super specific medicine. And I've got several podcasts on peptides in the past, but some of these we haven't delved into too much on those episodes like melanitan or PT141. Are there any others that you found to be particularly effective for you?

Apitalon. And this is a longevity, this is a longevity peptide. It works on all biomarkers of aging. I mean, you can just, you do a Google search on this and just look at all the very, very cool things that it does in the areas of longevity. It's actually been shown to increase telomere length. For me, that looks like a 50 day course once a year. In fact, right now I'm in the middle of one of those courses. Another longevity drug that I or peptide that I really like is Cerebralysin. Cerebral Lysin might be thought of as a longevity peptide for the brain. Positive effects on bdnf, gdnf, nerve growth factor. The list goes on and on. Given my history of combat Sports and my Apo3 4 allele, this is very, very interesting to me. I'm a big fan of cerebral lysine.

Yeah, that's interesting. And, and with cerebral Lysine, that's also known as C Max, I think is one of the brand names for it. Very, very efficacious in my opinion. If you get that as an intranasal spray and you can go to the website for the International peptide society@peptidesociety.org and find a physician who can work with you to get you and to specifically get your hands on something like an intranasal C Max spray. But Then the other one, epitalin. That's really interesting because yeah, there's a ton of research. Vladimir Kavinson is the Russian researcher I've talked about before has shown reduced all cause risk of mortality with doing something like a once or twice yearly epitalin protocol. But one of the main constituents of it is glycine. Right. So epitalin, just alanine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid I believe and glycine. And I think that a lot of folks who are using like organ meats, bone broth and other glycine rich compounds are probably getting a pretty good anti aging effect just from the use of that alone. I suspect that's a big part of the benefit of epitalon is just the glycine concentration in that. Because glycine is such a potent molecule. Especially you know, if you have like a high methionine, you know, high meat diet, glycine helps to balance out a lot, lot of that MTOR activation.

Yeah, super cool. And again, I mean all the upside, very little downside. Which is really why I like working with these and why I like working with Dan Stickler because he's a great coach and he is totally on board with human optimization. It's not just health. Obviously health is there, but what are we going to do after you're healthy? How are we going to optimize you? Some other ones, Ben, that I have in my back pocket that I haven't tried yet, knock on wood. I haven't had the need as of yet. But BPC157, I know you know a lot about that, you've written a lot about it, but speeds recovery and all types of recovery. I mean even, even leaky gut recovery. I haven't had an injury or a condition where I've needed to go on a run of that. But that's, that's in my back pocket.

Yeah, BPC157, it's, it's just very good overall as an anti inflammatory as well. Even a neural anti inflammatory, you know, post jet lag or you know, maybe you've been out a holiday party drinking or something like that. Like BPC157 has a lot of uses and I know some, some people who just use it preventively every single day. Like 200, 250 micrograms of BPC. So that's one that's pretty safe. And especially a lot of the research for it on tendon healing and muscle healing is pretty profound. But it has benefits for just about anything related to Inflammation. And it's also technically kind of a mild nootropic. There's some good studies showing its nootropic effect, particularly in protecting neurons from damage and dysfunction. So that's another one that's really interesting and I think kind of one to have as a core of any good peptide protocol.

Yeah. And one other one that I've been tinkering with, dabbling with is TB500. TB500 kind of has the same effects. You could look at it as growth hormone. So increase in strength, hypertrophy, improved endurance, speeding up the healing process in wounds, reducing acute chronic pain, reducing inflammation. I mean, the list goes on and on. I haven't dabbled with that yet, but that's another one that I have in my back pocket and Dan and I will talk about that. Just to be totally honest, right now I'm pretty happy with my body composition and my hypertrophy. But it's something that I thought at some point I may go on a course of and just see what it does.

I don't know about how efficacious it's going to be for. For muscle gain. I haven't seen a lot of good studies on muscle gain or muscle growth. But man again is like a 1, 2 combo with BPC157 for tissue repair, particularly because it acts on different pathways, your, your actin and myosin fiber pathways. It is very good. Again, if you're injured like a large bolus of TB500 either injected into your abs or I know some docs who are, who are using like ultrasound guided imaging to get it straight into a pocket of inflammation in a joint. That stuff can clear things up incredibly, incredibly fast at a far lower cost than something like stem cells or PRP or ozone even. So yeah, TB 500 and BPC, I'm a huge fan of those. And I also wanted to ask you too, like I mentioned in the introduction, I also know that you mess around a little bit, as your experience at Burning man would imply with the world of plant medicine and psychedelics. And I'm curious if you're currently microdosing or have any type of plant medicine or psychedelic protocol that you do on a regular basis as well.

Yeah. So I am up around, I don't know, 70ish. Ayahuasca ceremony. Wow. A good number of Wachuma ceremonies, which is so in plant medicine circles. And traditionally Ayahuasca is seen as the grandmother. Wachuma is also otherwise known as San Pedro is seen as grandfather. Different effects, different journeys. The nature of the journeys is different between the two. Both very, very beneficial, just very different. And I have had more personal growth, I think, in the last. How long it's been five, six years since I've been kind of in this world. It's just immense. And I wish these medicines were available to everybody who seriously, seriously, seriously wanted to do some consciousness exploration, because that's a. I mean, that's a whole other world in there and there's lots to explore. For me, mostly it is looking at. We were all programmed as children, right? I mean, as children, we are just sponges and, and that's part of how we survived as a species is this being brought into a tribe had to learn all the tribe's cultures, all its norms, and it had to quickly, quickly, quickly fit into that culture. Some of that conditioning is positive and a lot of that conditioning is not. But to be able to go back and rewrite that code as an adult and try to scrub yourself of those things that are not necessarily serving you as a tough business and it's very hard to be successful at it. But I think, and from what I've seen using these plant medicines, it makes it a hell of a lot easier to deal with some of that deprogramming and to get to the root of it. Find out if that programming is serving you or it's not serving you and try to scrub it if it's not serving.

Now, Wachuma, you know that's the San Pedro cactus, and I know it's composed primarily of mescaline, which is kind of like similar to LSD or psilocybin or something like that. But as far as the actual ceremony, do you think using that in terms of the actual effects itself or the benefits that you get from it, is it related to the way that it's ceremonial administered or how exactly would you describe the benefit and the feeling that you get from using something like San Pedro?

So for people who have tried low or mid dose psilocybin, it feels much the same. It has longer legs than psilocybin does. So a typical Wachuma ceremony would last anywhere from 12 hours on. I've had some that have lasted up to 16 hours. What Schumann is a medicine that you are still just like in a lower mid dose psilocybin, you're still quote, unquote, in this realm. So you're dealing with issues without, how can I say, many times in an Ayahuasca ceremony, you'll find yourself out on Pluto or some other universe that you're just Totally not used to playing in that atmosphere. So that can add, for many people who are not used to navigating those spaces, that can add fear to the whole mix. Just because you're out of sorts, you're not used to dealing in those realms. And on top of that, you're dealing with something that has just come up out of your subconscious that you're having to wrestle with in the Wachuma space. It's a little bit easier go because you're on ground, so to speak, so you can more easily navigate some of these tricky issues that may bubble up out of your subconscious. But as with all of these medicines, it's set and setting it is. Who are your practitioners and are they they good? It's one of the unfortunate downsides of these medicines becoming more popular is people tend to think that they are adept at using these medicines, especially from the facilitator standpoint, and they're really not. So it's imperative that you find someone who is really, really good at using these medicines. It means everything, especially, especially if a trip starts to go south, and sometimes they do, and you can't predict when that's going to happen. But it's sure good to have someone who is a really, really good facilitator there if it does happen to go south.

Now, why would you do something like 70 plus ayahuasca sessions? Is that indicative that it's not working well and so you got to keep coming back to the medicines? Is it that you're getting something more out of it every time that you use it? I've always questioned when I see somebody using some type of medicine so many times, whether or not they're having to do it so much because it's not efficacious or it's just so efficacious, they keep coming back and upgrading themselves with it. Why is it that you would do so many ayahuasca journeys?

I think because I keep getting called back. And I think that I can tell you, of all the ayahuasca journeys that I've done, no two have been the same. I've learned something new every time I've gone into a ceremony. And yeah, I mean, after, you know, after the first hand, first round or so, 10 or 15 times I had journeyed with ayahuasca, I thought, you know, I think I've kind of seen it all, I think I've kind of figured it all out and I don't really see a need to go back. But yet every time I do go back and it is a calling. It's kind of hard to define. You just know that you're getting drawn back into that space and there is always something else. It's like digging down into a tunnel and unearthing a chamber. And that tunnel, that chamber being your subconscious, and then you think you've plumbed the depths of it and then, oh, no, there's three more doors out of this chamber and then you follow those rabbit holes down and oh, there's 10 more chambers with each of these tunnels. I mean, it just keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and there's kind of no end to it. And that's good. I mean, it's constant things. And I have never come out of an ayahuasca ceremony to where I have not had a profound learning experience. And that was in ayahuasca ceremony number one. And the same thing, recent ayahuasca ceremony. It's different. Everyone has been different. But there's always something that I've picked up, something that I've learned and. Yeah, and you know, and I can only speak for myself now. I have been with, with other people who have gone through a retreat, you know, a three day ayahuasca retreat, and they're pretty much like, yep, I got it, I got, I got what I needed and I won't be back. And they have it and they're perfectly happy, but that's not me.

Now, are you doing this in South America or for most of your ayahuasca, is it something that you're just able to do in the States?

Well, ayahuasca in Wachuma, all of these plant medicines, it's a gray area in the US So I will take a pass on where I've done it. But, but there are many people in the US who think that they, or assume that they will have immunity to prosecution because they're associated with the Native American churches and the Native American churches have the Native American plants to where they can use these plants in ceremonial spaces. But ayahuasca is not native to the US that has not yet been pushed in court. I'm sure it will someday. And the people who I work with don't choose to be the crash test dummies for such a case, although they feel pretty sure that they have immunity. It just hasn't been tested in court yet. So we don't know. So if you're worried about legalities, you know, Guatemala, Costa Rica, obviously these spaces are wide open for that type of stuff. If you're in the U.S. it has to be more on the down low.

Yeah, yeah. Well, from Wachuma and Ayahuasca to PT141 and Melanitan, I think you've given people plenty of interesting things to look into. And I guess the last thing I wanted to ask you regarding especially your workout program was if people want to get more into this idea of high intensity resistance training and the way that you do it and with the frequency that you do it, the type of modalities that you use. Are there any websites or videos or places where you log your workouts or somewhere someone could go to kind of see more sampling of the type of workouts that you're doing?

Yeah, a little bit. I have a Facebook group, a theory to practice Facebook group that I put those in. I can say that I log every one of my workouts personally. It really comes down to time. What do I want to do with this? Because my workouts are so dialed in to me and my needs and my wants and what the types of exercises that I'm good at and the time requirements and my recovery ability and all of these. So it's hyper, hyper personalized. I think if someone knew what they were doing, they could take a glance at my stuff and kind of think, figure it out and figure out a path for themselves. But that to me, at this point in my life is not really interesting to me. I have a lot of other pursuits I find more interesting than to write exercise prescriptions or to get into that. A lot of great people doing excellent work out there that I don't have to dive into that space. I would just say that if anybody is interested in kind of the principles that I employ when I train. Louis Simmons at Westside is probably the closest to what I do. Louie is a big proponent of what came out of the Eastern bloc, which was concurrent training or conjugate training. The idea being that the body can be trained in multiple modalities year round and that the body could be trained in a way year round if it's done smart. And that's a caveat if it's done smart. So the flip side of that or the other side of the coin would be linear periodization, where you have a ramp up period, you have a deload period, and then you ramp back up. It's in my opinion and in the opinion of Louis Simmons, that's a very inefficient way to train the, the human body. It might work for the first couple of years when someone is just brand new to training. In other words, let's just say doing a deadlift and just constantly adding weight on the bar, same stance, same everything, constantly adding weight on the bar, there's a limit to that, right? And at a certain point the body will refuse to adapt. The trick is, once you get past that, early learning is to then force the body to continually adapt. And the way you do that is you change hand grips, you change stances. Every time you do say, quote, unquote, a deadlift, it's a different kind of deadlift. Straight bar, trap bar, standing on a block, high grip, just, I mean, a deadlift can turn into 50 different exercises really quick. And the idea is to do those 50 different exercises, push the body to its maximum capabilities every time you touch the. And you just keep right on rolling. So two things, the body is forced to continually adapt, number one, number two, you avoid repetitive injuries. So if I'm doing the same exercise over and over again, the body can only adapt so much and at a point you're going to get injured. But if you just slightly after some form of that exercise continually, you can avoid that trap, both the compensation trap and the injury trap. And that's the key to it. That's the total key to it. And then you train both ends of the spectrum. You have the max effort side of things and you have the speed side of things and you constantly roll those in and out of the training as well. And don't forget the ancillary work, which really in the Westside system incorporates 80% of all their training, 80% of all of their training looks like bodybuilding work. Although they are hyper focused on performance in the powerlifting realms, if you look at their workouts, the bulk of it looks like bodybuilding work. Why is that? Because bodybuilding work strengthens the tendons and ligaments and that's the only way you can really create very, very strong tendons and ligaments is by doing very high repetition movements. So that's kind of it in a nutshell. And then you just roll right through that stuff.

If folks go to the Westside barbell website and I'll link to that in the show notes over@bengreentelfitness.com Paleo 2020I mean, it's really, really straightforward and I mean the basic Westside method is four workouts a week with kind of upper body and bench press related exercises one day and then kind of like squat and deadlift related exercises the other day. But there's a lot of variations of it and super simple, very good way to get strong and there's some great templates for that online as well. So I'll link to their website. And then like Keith mentioned, he has a Facebook crowd called Theory to Practice where you could also tap into some of these type of workouts. And if you have questions or comments about any of the stuff that Keith and I talked about about, you could also go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Paleo2020 where you can grab the show notes. You can grab what I think is almost like a close to a 50% discount on the Paleo FX 2020 Expo Pass, links to everything we talked about, our previous podcast on making yourself harder to kill by getting strong, and plenty of other goodies over@BenGreenFulfitness.com Paleo2020 and Keith, hearing you talk about all this stuff just makes me super excited to come down to Austin. This, what is it, April or may that PaleoFX is this year?

The dates for PaleoFX are April 24th through the 26th in beautiful Austin, Texas. And if you're of the entrepreneurial mindset and you'd like to dive into a really, really good mastermind of entrepreneurs in the health and wellness space, we have Health Entrepreneurs FX, which will take place on the 23rd. Very, very mastermind.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, I'll link to all that as well in the show notes. So again, it's BenGreenfulFitness.com Paleo2020 Keith dude, thanks for coming on and sharing all this stuff with us, man.

Ben, it's been a pleasure as always.

Awesome. All right, folks, well, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Keith Norris of PaleoFX, signing out from Ben Greenfield Fitness.com have an amazing week. Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes. Use the promo code that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.