How Artificial Light Makes You Fat, Does Red Meat Really Cause Cancer, The Best Grip For Pull-Ups & More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, how artificial light makes you fat. Does red meat really cause cancer? Can household cleaning chemicals get into your food? What's the best grip for pull ups, how to use resistant starch, how to use ketones, and much more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, sleep, brain and hormone optimization. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you just want to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfield Fitness.com.

Dude, I am ready to rock this morning. I am so pumped. And I. I did take a lot of nootropics, so maybe that's it.

You.

You actually had two cups of food.

You had food in your mouth when, when we first connected here on Skype to record today's podcast, I did a.

Delightful ground bison burrito that I made at home.

A ground bison burrito. And then you followed that up with. With neurotropics. Is that what you were chewing on was neurotropic capsules?

I was downing some alpha brain and I already had my of creatine earlier this morning and some siltap.

Oh, jeez, I'm on fire. Yeah.

Wow.

Well, you, you should be a handy dandy sidekick to have around for today's.

Episode or I'll start short circuiting halfway through the show and be like.

All over pubmed. Well, how are you doing? I'm, I'm good. I have had a glass of water this morning with a little bit of ginger tea, so I'm feeling like an underachiever. I'm a bit sore though. For the first time yesterday and actually for one of the first times since I've moved out into the country, so to speak, I took my Elliptigo out, which is my giant stand up, dorky ass looking half bike, half elliptical trainer apparatus, and I took it out through the farming fields around my house. Whereas usually I get strange looks from people riding three wheeled bicycles on the bike trail, this time I was getting even stranger looks from dudes in pickup trucks because I was just tooling, tooling along in my little shorty shorts and my elliptigo waving at farmers.

They didn't throw empty beer cans at you or something?

Oh, it was a great workout. Great workout. So I'm feeling it a little bit today. The results of my elliptigo and also the beer can bruises on my skull. News flashes.

Despite the slight concussion that Ben received from getting beamed by beer cans. He's been tweeting things out like crazy@twitter.com BenGreenfield and we're gonna cover those now.

That's right. Okay, so here is an interesting one. And if you're listening to this, at night, being bathed in light, you may want to stop because you're gonna get fat. This is an article from Calories Proper. Calories Proper is kind of a cool website. They've got some good stuff. And the title of this article is Artificial fat regulates fat mass. No bueno. And the way that I post it.

Wait, what? Artificial. Artificial light.

What did I say? Artificial fat.

Artificial fat, yeah.

Artificial fat. That's amazing. Yeah, Artificial light regulates fat mass. No bueno. That is for non Spanish speakers. That's no good. Despite not eating more or moving less, what that means is that when you're exercising and you're dieting and you're moving less and you're still unable to lose weight and still unable to lose fat, it turns out that light actually plays a pretty key role here in the biological systems that regulate fat loss. And this was a pretty good, short, succinct article on some of the research of late that's been done in this. For example, prolonged daily light exposure increases body fat mass through attenuation of brown adipose tissue activity. What does that mean? It means that basically if you are having elongated day cycles, and I talked about this a long time ago when I interviewed the author of the book Sleep, Sex and Survival, I think was the name of it, T.S. wiley called lights out about how we live in our post industrial era where we have access to artificial light, we can live in a state of perpetual summer. And when that happens, what it looks like is we down regulate the activity of brown adipose tissue. So let's say you're one of those people who's doing cold thermogenesis, cold showers, doing all that kind of biohacky stuff to lose weight. Well, guess what? If you're also staring at your cell phone for a half hour before you go to bed at night, it's actually going to attenuate some of those effects. So that was an interesting thing mentioned in this article. Another one was the fact that you'll burn fewer calories to do the same amount of work. And that can be caused by what's called leptin resistance, meaning that when you have a dysregulated circadian rhythm from having like, you know, 12 to 16 hours of light a day versus say a lower amount, you know, let's use like the fall or the winter as an example, you're actually going to downregulate your metabolism, specifically through alterations in the hormone leptin, which helps to regulate appetite. Another, another one was in which they studied a hypocaloric diet. I'm not quite sure of many diets that aren't hypocaloric to a certain extent.

I guess by definition, yeah, low calorie intake.

But then they induced circadian disruption and they found that even though weight was lost, more of the weight was lost from muscle than from fat compared to a non circadian disrupted state. So really, really interesting. And if anything, the takeaway message is get lots of sleep. You know, wear blue light blockers at night if you're going to be watching TV and stuff like that. Get access to good high quality sunlight during the day. Because it's not just about darkness at night. Right. It's about sunlight in the morning or during the day. And then the other thing that of course helps to regulate your circadian rhythm is food. Which means that breakfast skipping, especially if you do have a dysregulated circadian rhythm, may not be the best idea. So interesting.

Or snacking in the evening too much.

Or snacking in the evening too much. Yep, exactly.

So did they talk about the like, is it just light through the eyes or is it actually light on the skin in the evening?

It's making a difference. Well, that's, that's the interesting thing is, is you do have photoreceptors on your skin that are sensitive to light and they've done studies on this showing that even in someone sleeping in a blacked out room with eye masks on, the brief exposure, what they did in one study was brief exposure to just a surge of light during the night that would go off at intervals like the equivalent of like a pen light against your skin. And they found that this was able to actually disrupt sleep cycles. So yeah, yikes. Yeah. So keep, keep that roommate with the pen light far away from you. So what's another one? Red meat? Red meat causes cancer. We all know that, of course. Yes, all of us barbecue eating folks walking around with giant tumors growing out our backsides. Well, it turns out that red meat has somewhat acquitted in a recent and very large meta analysis. And just as a reminder, meta analysis is where you integrate data from a bunch of different studies, both new and old, to see what the data actually says rather than looking at one individual study. And in this case they looked at data from 27 different independent prospective cohort studies and they meta analyzed each of these studies. And the only reason I'm saying all this is because I sound really smart when I use words like prospective cohort and meta analysis. But frankly they're just looking at a bunch of studies. It's like a study of a bunch of studies. And what they found was that the cancer causing effect of red meat disappeared once you accounted for some factors that go above and beyond just eating meat versus non eating meat. For example, whether or not that meat has been processed, whether or not that meat has a high amount of nitrites and nitrates in it, which you're gonna find in lot of like commercial bacons and sausages.

Hot dogs.

Yeah. And that along with, with unopposed levels of sodium chloride, like really, really high levels of processed meat, you know, beef jerky, things of that later things things of that nature, meat that's combined with a high junk food diet. So once they looked at all of these different variables, they found no association between red meat and cancer once lifestyle variables were accounted for. Which means that if you take say like, let's say like a blue zone, right? Like the Loma Linda blue Z, you know, Seventh Day Adventist, live a very healthy lifestyle, don't smoke, don't drink, don't have any fun. I'm just, I'm just kidding. Seventh Day Adventists have, have a lot of fun.

So much way more fun than us.

Way more fun than us. You know, skateboards and chandeliers and I, I don't know what else they.

Chandeliers.

Hey, swinging from, swinging from chandeliers in their church. Isn't that what they do?

Oh yeah, I think that, I don't.

Know, I just, I just offended a bunch of folks. I'm sorry, my apologies.

Not very many of them.

Okay. Of those people anyways though. So what, what this is, is suggesting is that if you take one Seventh Day Adventist. Let's just continue with that analogy since we've lost all our Seventh Day Adventist listeners anyways. And you give them red meat, but you keep all their other lifestyle factors the same, right? Like eating healthy, good sleep, not smoking, not drinking, not clubbing, you know, eating garden food, whatever. Clubbing. And then you compare it to someone who, who, who is a Seventh Day Adventist, not eating red meat, you're going to not increase the risk of cancer or the risk of death in the one who you gave the meat to. So. And I think this would be a great study. Take Seventh Day Adventists, bring them into a lab, put them in cages, feed them meat versus not. I should stop okay.

I'm sure it's totally ethical. There's nothing wrong with that at all.

I act. No, but in purely like to be. I have many Sevent Adventist friends. They're very cool, cool people. So. Just saying, just trying to dig myself out of that hole. Okay. Finally, last thing that I tweeted was, here's a good reason not to carb refeed sometimes. And this was a study that just came out that looked at manipulation of carbohydrate availability in people who were engaged in high intensity interval training. So what they did was they compared a group that they gave adequate or a normal amount of carbohydrates to around 200 grams or so of carbohydrates as a recovery supplement between very hard exercise sessions. But then they had another group that they didn't give as much carbohydrate to. They didn't do what we would consider to be like a carb refeed. That group got about 15 to 20 grams of carbohydrate. So a lot less, you know, about what you would get from some seeds and nuts and kind of like the high fat, moderate protein, low carb type of approach. Now, what they found was that the increase in what's called mitochondrial content as a training effect was similar between both groups. But then they also showed that the group who was on the train low, the low carbohydrate state, they actually experienced a longer time to exhaustion, hypothetically because of increased fat oxidation or a little bit of a glycogen sparing type of effect. And when we, when we look at some of the research that's been done on, on glycogen and training in a glycogen depleted state, it does turn out that not only is there a little bit of a glycogen sparing effect, but there is. For example, and this was a study that they did on, on swimming endurance. They found that in addition to increasing fat oxidation, training in a low glycogen state boosts levels of a muscle protein that's called glycogen GLUT4. And GLUT4 is this protein that sits on your muscle cell walls and it's required for transport of glucose from the bloodstream into muscle cells. And so when you train in a low glycogen or in a low carbohydrate state, you enhance your ability to actually uptake glycogen. In other situations, you actually enhance your glycogen storage capacities, which should come in handy if you're training for an actual event like a race or a triathlon or something like that, where you're actually going to want your body to be able to conserve as much as that high octane fuel as possible. So there's, there's of course also, you know, some of like the anti aging benefit, some of the downregulation of what's called mtor, which is, you know, it's very anabolic. But being in a consistent anabolic state can have, you know, carcinogenic effects or potentially life shortening effects. So all sorts of reasons to, to look at occasionally having workouts where you're training in a state where you kind of wish you could have more carbohydrate but you're not giving it to your body and even having some days where even if you're exercising a couple of times a day, you're not doing what a lot of folks do, which is a carb refeed. And the way that I pull this off myself, because this is the way I live my life in this state, in many cases of low glycogen availability is I simply eat zero to very low levels of carbohydrate all day long, whether or not I've worked out. And I save any amount of carbohydrate intake for dinner. So even though I'm getting enough carbs by the very end of the day and having carbs with dinner. By the way, speaking of circadian rhythm, which we were talking about earlier, it's also a great way to keep your circadian rhythm from getting disrupted is to save carbs all day long and then have carbs with dinner because you're more insulin sensitive at that time of day. But what also happens is you're able to have your cake and eat it too. You're able to get all the benefits of low glycogen, but still be able to maximize glycogen stores for the next day's workout after following a low glycogen diet most of the day and doing your training in a low carbohydrate state. So I'll link to that study in the shownotes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 318 and we shall now take our propeller hats off, put them aside and talk about fun stuff. Listener Q and A. Hey there Ben. I absolutely love the show and I'm hoping you can solve a small domestic dispute between myself and my girlfriend. So we have a small space and we were talking about the relative safety of putting cookware and or room temperature storable vegetables, onions, potatoes, etcetera in the same cupboard as the household chemicals. You know, for example, under the sink. I think there's some potential for danger in some of these cleaners to create toxicity in these foods and even the pots and pans that we might store in there. Am I being way too anal or is she putting us on the fast train to cancer? Or is the answer somewhere in between? Thanks.

The fast track to cancer.

Yeah.

Girlfriend is trying to kill you.

What I want to know is if he's actually like, like skewering the potatoes on the actual spray bottles full of the anti stain cleaning chemicals, or if he's just kind of like storing the potatoes next to it, or perhaps dipping the potatoes in the actual chemicals, like kind of floating them in some bleach.

We should give him the benefit of the doubt and just say they're next to each other. Okay, that's my inclination.

Let's say that they're next to each other, first of all, which they actually.

Are in my house as well.

Interesting.

Terence is not alone.

Okay, so when we look at household chemicals, they are considered to be, based on municipal regulations, hazardous waste. In any product that's poisonous or toxic or can catch on fire or is likely to explode, or can mix with other chemicals and cause a dangerous reaction, or can swallow or corrode other materials, they're considered hazardous waste. So not only are pesticides falling into this category, but like paint, paint thinner, stains, varnishes, motor oil, fuel, oven cleaner, drain opener, household cleaning chemicals. So there's a few reasons for this. One is that of course, they can be dangerous for children, they can be dangerous for pets. You're not supposed to eat them. But another reason is because they leach, they actually go into the air. Believe it or not, even when you screw on a lid, unless it's one of those lids with the rubber stoppers that completely forms a seal. Airtight seal, airtight seal. You get a lot of leaching, as.

They call it in Latin.

And then when you look at anything that has a skin that you would eat that's not a very permeable skin. Okay, So a skin that's less permeable that you maybe go less out of your way to buy organic would be like a banana or an avocado, right? Like that's a skin that you don't really eat. Strawberries, potatoes, onions, etc. In most cases, you're a lot of times eating the surface of that. And not only do you have a lot of these particles sticking around the surface, but we know that the flesh of vegetables and the flesh of fruits absorbs things like pesticides and herbicides, et cetera. So when we look at household cleaning products, there are a few things that I would look at. And if the product has these specific items in it, I would not have that product close to your food. Or perhaps the only other thing I can think of is if you are have the food in like a glass Pyrex container, right? Or some kind of a container where there is a, there is a shield around the food. So phthalates, you're going to find phthalates in pretty much any household product that has fragrances like air fresheners, dish soap, even like a fragranced toilet paper. And companies don't have to disclose what's in their scent. So you won't find phthalates on a label. But if you see the word fragrance, that's a very good chance that phthalates are present. And those are hormonal disruptors or what are known as endocrine disruptors. And the absorbed phthalate chemicals can go straight to your organs. So when you're using a, any, any type of, of laundry or cleaning chemical, go fragrance free or. And I'll put a link in the show notes to an entire article I've written about how to make your own cleaning chemicals. It's called how to detox your home. It also includes information about how to create your own personal care products. But you want to choose fragrances that are natural. Essential oils, for example, work for that. So we'll use like cloves, lemon, things like that. Another one to look for in addition to phthalates is perchloroethylene. It's usually abbreviated perc. You'll find that a lot of times in cleaning solutions, spot removers, carpet and upholstery cleaners. And PERC is a neurotoxin. The EPA also classifies it as a possible carcinogen. So that's another one to be careful with. Look for perc. Look for triclosan. And Triclosan is usually liquid dishwashing detergents or hand soaps that have been labeled as antibacterial because triclosan.

Oh yeah, it's the stuff in the hand sanitizer. Yeah, that's why I know that name.

And the problem is that it promotes the growth of drug resistant bacteria. So you could be growing superbugs on your potatoes right before you fry them up and eat them. So that's another one I would be very careful with when you look at fabric softeners and fabric softener liquids and also fabric softener sheets. You'll usually find what are called quaternary ammonium compounds or what we like to affectionately call quats. Sounds like a cute pet. But quats are actually another type of antimicrobial, same as triclosan. They can help to breed antibiotic resistant bacteria. And they're also a skin irritant, which means they're also a gut irritant. And they did one 10 year study of contact dermatitis and they found quats that you get from fabric softeners to be one of the leading causes. Kind of ironic that what you put in your laundry could actually be causing skin conditions, but it's true. And it's interesting that you can simply add a couple of drops of lavender essential oil to your laundry and it can smell fantastic. You don't need fabric softener or dryer sheets to soften clothes or get rid of static vinegar. Actually, we use vinegar and that works just fine. You add a little bit of white vinegar and it removes the soap residue during the rinse cycle. It helps to prevent static cling in the dryer and then you can put a little lavender in there. Obviously the article that I'll link to in the show notes goes into much more detail. I'm not trying to provide you with useful advice on this podcast, just scare you. But all the useful advice you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 318 so a few others to look for window cleaner, kitchen cleaner, multipurpose cleaner. Usually you'll find two butoxyethanol. That's the number two butoxyethanol. And this one is actually something, it's called a glycol ether and it can contribute to pulmonary edema, which is like lung swelling and lung conditions, severe liver and kidney damage. And this is According to the EPA's website, sore throats when inhaled and narcosis, which is basically tissue death. So those nice fried onions could be causing tissue death. Another one is ammonia, a polishing agent that you'll find used for like plumbing. You'll also find it in glass cleaner. Ammonia is mostly a lung irritant, so really an issue with like chronic bronchitis and asthma. Oh, and by the way, if you want to shine a surface, you know what works just as well as ammonia without the same lung irritation?

Charcoal.

There' sthere's two things that we use. Toothpaste. Vodka. Yes, and toothpaste. Vodka and toothpaste. Yep.

That's a waste of vodka.

It is a waste of vodka. I Agree. I agree. Chlorine also, chlorine is, is one that you'll find in toilet bowl cleaners, mildew removers, laundry whiteners, scoring powders. And obviously we've talked about chlorine before on the show and, and its potential to be a respiratory irritant and a thyroid disruptor. So chlorine is another one to be careful with. And then finally sodium hydroxide, and that's oven cleaners and drain openers. And most of the issues with sodium chloride is skin contact and inhalation extremely corrosive. But unfortunately, if it happens to be on food, you can of course consider your gut to be just like your skin, except in fact, the gut has a greater surface area exposed to the environment than your skin and is a little less hardy than your skin. And so just think about your gut like you would your skin and don't put things into or on your gut that you wouldn't put into or on your skin. So unless you're willing to smear oven cleaner on your skin and your eyes, I would not be eating a potato or an onion that has been exposed to oven cleaner fumes and particles. So have I made my point?

I think so. I think I'm going to summarize this right now. Terrence, you have to break up with your girlfriend.

I thought you were going to say he's going to die. So. BenGreenfulFitness.com 318 Terence and I do love your name, Terrence.

We've said his name more than we've ever said anyone else's name.

Terrence. Terrence. My son's name is Taran and the how to detox your home article you can find@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 318Hello, Ben and Brock. My name is Aaron. I live in Langley, British Columbia. What are the differences between all of the grip variations you can use while performing pull ups? For instance, wide grip pull ups versus narrow grip grip are some more effective for strength than others. What sort of bar thickness should I be looking for? I love the podcast. Keep up the great work. This is a good question. So, so first of all, let me, let me get into grip strength really quickly here. First of all, yeah, we did a.

Thing about grip strength probably like six months ago, so you can do a search of the website. And we did go into grip strength really in depth.

And like I mentioned on the last show, I've actually hired a, a coach to help me with my obstacle course training. And one of the things he has me doing now is using These Captains of Crush hand grippers. Have you seen these before? These Captains of Crush hand grippers?

I haven't seen that particular brand, I don't think.

Yeah, they're the ones that, like, the guys who win, like the World's Strongest man competition, like this is what they'll use and they'll sell them like £150 and £200 and £250. I just have the one that's called the number one, which goes up to £140. Are those ones that sort of look.

Like brass knuckles except you squeeze them?

Yeah, they're made of aluminum and alloy steel and they're produced by this company called Ironmind. I mean, you can get them on Amazon. We can put a link in the show notes if folks want to get themselves a Captains of Crush. But these grip trainers are extremely difficult. And when you look at grip training as something that can and has been proven to increase testosterone and to increase growth hormone and to, as the Captains of Crush advertisement goes, unleash your inner gorilla, these things are actually pretty cool. But one of the reasons that they work is because you have to start. You know, if you've ever seen one of these grip trainers, your hand starts with the hands spread apart, right? In almost a biomechanically disadvantageous position. And then you have to squeeze in order to increase your grip strength. Well, the same can be said for a pull up when you look at bar thickness. So the thicker the bar, the more biomechanically disadvantageous your grip is at. And in general, the thicker the bar, obviously there's a law of diminishing returns. Once you get to a bar so thick, you know, you can't wrap your hands around it. But for the most part, the thicker the bar or the more uneven or awkward to grip the bar, you know, such as like a piece of wood or like bouldering on rocks, the greater the effect is going to be on your hand strength and your grip strength versus a thinner bar. And the other thing to consider when it comes to pull ups, before I get into like wide grip versus narrow grip, is thumbs on versus thumbs off. So if your goal is to focus on forearm and bicep strength and grip strength, thumbs on is superior. If you want to activate your lats and your upper back, your rhomboids, your levator, a lot of these upper back and shoulder muscles, a little bit more intensity, intensively. Thumbs off is better.

Okay, so thumbs off. So are you basically just sticking your thumb back towards your face?

Yeah, yeah. Your thumb is just kind of wrapped Back where your fingers are, rather than wrapped around the bar. The same could be said for lat pulldowns, right? Like anytime you want to target your back for lat pulldowns, wider grip, thumbs off grip, it's going to target more of the upper back. But they actually did a study at the Department of Kinesiology at Pennsylvania State University, and they did electromyographic analysis or EMG analysis of the lat muscle. That big, you know, wingy muscle on your back, your biceps brachii and your, your middle trapezius, of course, the, the sexiest muscle on the entire body, the middle trapezius. And they looked at different hand positions to determine which one created the greatest amount of muscular activity. Now, the caveat here is they used a pull down, not a pull up, but it's, it's a very similar motion. So what they found was that when you use an overhanded wide grip, you had the greatest amount of muscle activation in the back. The biceps showed similar activity. Whether you did a narrow grip, an underhanded grip, an overhanded grip, et cetera. The biceps didn't really seem to change all that much.

That's surprising.

But wide overhanded grip had the best effect on training the back muscles and getting the most bang for your buck out of the pull up. But the other thing that's important to realize is that there wasn't a huge difference between wide and narrow. It was not extremely statistically significant. So if you don't have access to a wide bar, using a wide bar hurts your shoulders. You can use a slightly narrower grip. But the trick is to make sure that you are using an overhanded, not an underhanded grip, because overhanded is going to give you a lot more training for your rotator cuff, for your back, et cetera.

Now, when you say narrow grip, do you mean basically like right above your shoulders? So shoulder width would be narrow grip and more of a Y shape would be narrow grip.

You can generally consider to be anything inside the shoulder. So as far as width and wide grip would be shoulder width or farther apart. Now, another thing to realize here is that if your shoulder joint is limited in movement, so rotator cuff issues, you can't abduct or externally rotate or flex your shoulder very well. Then removing external rotation from the pull up will allow you to continue working when shoulder pain limits optimal movement. And what that means is that if you switch to what's called a neutral grip, you have access to a neutral grip, which is where both of your, your fingernails on either hand are facing each other. You know what I'm saying?

It's like a hammer.

Like a hammer grip. Yeah. They also call it a hammer grip. I'm remembering the days now when we used to do hammer curls. I was a bodybuilder. We do. You do hammer curls, do reverse curls, you do regular curls, preacher curls, cable curls, concentration curls, strip curls, stacked curls, pyramid curls, bounce curls, holy crap, name it. But anyways, though, if you do have shoulder pain or shoulder limitations, that neutral grip is going to work much, much better for you than forcing yourself into external or internal rotation with an overhand or an underhand grip. So that's the skinny. And pull ups if you want to get the most bang for your buck. Ultimately, slightly thicker bar, wide grip, overhand grip. Thumbs off if you're focusing on your back. Thumbs on if you're focusing on more of your grip and your forearms. So there you have it. Go get jacked.

Hey, you guys, thanks for an awesome show. This is Per from Sweden. I would just like to ask about Ketoforce. What are the possible applications for a marathon that's Ketoforce from. I don't know the branding, but it's been on your show. Thanks so much. So I guess Ketoforce must have finally made it to market because I think last time we had somebody on talking about it wasn't available to the public.

Yeah, yeah, I have some at my house. I do, I do. It's right next to the potatoes and the onions and the oven cleaner. So speaking of oven cleaner, it doesn't taste that well, by the way. Doesn't taste that good. So Ketoforce or any supplement that is basically comprised of ketone bodies, Ketoforce is specifically a beta hydroxybutyrate in what's called sodium and potassium salt form. Now, when you ingest beta hydroxybutyrate, you raise the levels of your blood ketones for about two and a half to three hours after you ingest a liquid ketone. Now, normally you would simply produce ketones as a byproduct of fat metabolism. And I believe I spoke about this a little bit the last time that I interviewed Dr. Peter Attia on the show. But the idea here is that rather than achieving ketosis via fat metabolism, you are achieving ketosis literally by consuming ketones. And so the idea here is that you can safely, without having a diaper moment, use something like a serving of ketones up to three times a day to elevate your blood ketones. It's very, very alkaline because it's a salt, it's extremely alkaline, it's got a ph of like 10 or 11. So you would typically want to mix it with something just slightly acidic, like grapefruit juice would be a perfect example. And when you take it, what they've shown is that you not only get elevated ketone levels, but you also get an increase in economy and efficiency. Specifically, the exercise data has shown a slight decrease in oxygen utilization for any given workload. Meaning that you and I believe that this study was done on cycling. But basically you're able to use oxygen more efficiently. And theoretically the way this works is that ketones reduce oxygen consumption because ketones can generate more cellular energy per unit of oxygen burned compared to glucose and compared to even fat. So they're a very efficient fuel.

So they're sort of skipping the Krebs cycle or sneaking.

Yeah, they're completely skipping the Krebs cycle and the cells simply burn ketones. So the way that the Krebs cycle would normally work, or what's also known as the citric acid cycle, is fatty acids will form, feed into that cycle, you know, along with glucose, pyruvic acid, et cetera. And one of the byproducts of that cycle, in addition to ATP, is ketones, which can then go on to actually be utilized as a cellular energy source. So, you know, and, and this could be used for a variety of uses. It could be used to, to increase your ability to get into a deep state of ketosis. If you're already following a high fat diet or exercising with lower carbohydrate, higher fat intake, it could be used as a way to try to achieve the best of both worlds, right, to eat a slightly higher amount of carbohydrate, like say 30% carbohydrate or something like that, which for ketosis is considered high. But then at the same time you dump ketones into your body, so you're also in ketosis. So you've got high blood ketones and also high blood glucose. Theoretically, I don't necessarily endorse that approach. And to be frank with you, I haven't done a lot of experiment with this particular supplement because it came out right about the time that I was finishing my year long foray into strict ketosis. And because I'm one of those guys who's more of like a real food type of person, right? Like I'd rather have like a nice, you know, kale smoothie with some coconut oil and some almond butter to keep myself high fat rather than chugging down liquid beta hydroxybutyl. Great. That doesn't taste very good. You know, it's not something that I can say I have a lot of personal experience with, but that's what it is. That's how you would use it. So if you were using it to, to run a marathon, for example, a serving is considered about 30cc and the actual bottle will come with, with the, the dosing instructions. But you would consume prior to exercise. If you weren't going to consume it during your marathon, and you know that within about 30 minutes you're going to be in a state of ketosis, you would consume two to three servings of that 30cc serving about 30 minutes before you head out to do your marathon. And it'll elevate ketone levels for a good three hours. So just run like the wind. And if you wanted to use it during, you could theoretically also just like take one serving 30 minutes prior and then one serving an hour in, and then one serving another hour in with whatever other beverage that you're, that you're using. You know, in my case, if, if I personally were doing this and wanting to go more of the ketosis route, I would, for example, have a, have a flask, like a running flask, and I'd have some MCT oil in there, some you can super starch, some electrolytes, and then a little bit of this keto force. So that you're, you're basically either going to maintain high levels of ketosis during the entire marathon or you're going to be running with the equivalent of a Molotov cocktail strapped around your waist. Because I cannot guarantee that when beta hydroxybutyrites get all hot and bothered mixed up with MCT oil and Superstarch, that you may not create some kind of a new version of a waste bomb. So let us know how that goes.

Well, one more. One quick question on this. If you're not somebody who has been following a low carb diet or, or isn't what I guess people refer to as fat adapted, would you be able to get the benefits of keto force still?

Absolutely, because it's completely skipping that entire step and you're just dumping a bunch of ketones into your body. So sneaky. There you go. Sneaky. Hey Ben, I had a quick question about resistant starch. I'm just kind of confused how to implement it into your diet as far as if you should eat it with any protein or fat, or if anything messes with its abilities, and if you eat it with other carbs does that add to the carb load or does it still act as an indigestible carb? Just kind of a question because it doesn't seem to ever get talked about how you should implement resistant starch into your diet. And yeah, I'm just wondering about that. And thanks for any reply.

It's been a while since we talked about resistant starch.

I think we actually talked about resistant starch last week briefly because I had a stomach flu issue and that's right. I was looking for something that I could eat that was going to be safe for my stomach because I didn't have the bananas, applesauce, rice toast type of approach. And so I had some of this natural stacks. And we'll link to this in the show notes if you want. It's called the natural stacks resistant starch complex. And this is actually. The ingredients are common resistant starch sources and I'll explain what those are in a second. But unmodified potato starch. So it's got unmodified potato sparks from premium grade high starch European potatoes.

Not kept guaranteed.

Yeah, we're probably not kept next to the disinfectant. Raw green banana flour. So banana flour made from the pulp of unripe bananas before the sugar content has developed.

Inulin makes your mouth feel so nice and fuzzy.

Exactly. Inulin, which is basically a root that attenuates blood glucose response and supports digestive health but also helps to feed gut flora. Trhalose, which is basically a mushroom sugar, about half as sweet as sucrose with a very, very low glycemic index and a very slow digestive process. And then cinnamon because that can further help to lower blood sugar and regulate blood sugar. So those are the ingredients of that particular stack. It's like a powder and I would say that it tastes fine and I felt fine on it. The only complaint, I would say is that you have, or at least I experienced potato tasting burps afterwards a few times.

That's not so bad.

It wasn't. I can think of worse than potato tasting burps. So anyways, what is resistant starch? Well, resistant starch is all of the starch and the products of starch degradation that are not absorbed in your small intestine. So instead of being cleaved by the normal carbohydrate digesting enzymes that are in your gut and then causing those carbohydrates to be absorbed as glucose resistant starch, like the potato based starch and the green potato or the green bananas and things that I've talked about that travels through your small intestine into your colon. The glucose is not absorbed. And when it gets into your colon, your colonic gut flora metabolize resistant starch into short chain fatty acids. So it's not necessarily resistant starch as much as it is starch that kind of has delayed digestion until it gets into your colon, at which point it is used to produce short chain fatty acids. So, of course, that would be good if you were trying to limit surges in your blood glucose. But there are other health benefits, too. For example, when you digest fibers like this in your gut and you produce these short chain fatty acids, one of the things you produce is butyrate. And butyrate is one of the prime energy sources for your colonic cells. So it's very, very good for the health of your large intestine. It's the same reason that someone would drink, say, bulletproof coffee to get the butyrate from the butter. It, of course, improves insulin sensitivity and decreases blood glucose. It can also inhibit endotoxins and reduce leaky gut. And so for someone like me who had the stomach flu or someone who's got aller and autoimmune conditions, it may come in handy for that. It can increase satiety simply because you have this big bolus of kind of fiber passing through the gut. It may actually bind to and expel bad bacteria. What that means is it may actually kind of like push bad bacteria through the digestive tract. By the way, I should note that after last week, after realizing that I had discovered resistant starch could work away okay for stomach flu. Chia seed slurry, like chia seed gels do a similar action. They push things through your digestive tract. They line the coating of your digestive tract like this protective. It's like this colloid, like this gel, this clumpy gel, but it's very, very soothing to your stomach. So we're talking about, when I'm talking about resistant starch and I'm talking about, like, chia seed gels, we're talking about something very similar to like, bone broth in terms of the way that it would make your stomach feel. And a lot of people will swear by this for, like, increasing sleep quality when used at night, increasing even the production of vivid dreams. What do you call them? Dream lucid. Yeah, lucid dreaming. And, of course, feeding the good bacteria in your gut. Now here's my take on biohacking your way into resistant starches using something like a resistant starch powder. Like the one I mentioned from natural stacks. I eat so many freaking vegetables each day. I eat 20 to 25 servings of vegetables on any given day from spinach and carrots. And we have this enormous vegetable garden in our backyard with, with eight raised garden beds. I mean, like our refrigerator is overflowing with vegetables. And vegetables can have a similar action as resistant starch when it comes to lowering blood glucose, keeping you satiated, and then also fermenting in your colon to produce fatty acids and butyrate. I would say that compared to vegetables resistant starch, you could technically do more of it than you could vegetables simply because you've got less bulk, right? Less fiber, bulk. If you're using a resistant starch versus vegetables to achieve this effect, I also don't think that you get the same lucid dreaming effect as you do from resistant starch when you're using vegetables. And many resistant starch supplementers have noted that they had better thyroid function and not necessarily convinced that high amounts of vegetables, especially cruciferous vegetables or spinach, stuff like that, that can improve thyroid function. So you've got that going for you too. So this kind of like liquid ketones. I think I've said this before on the podcast. I've never done one of those resistant starch diets where you just like go on a full on resistant starch diet to fix your gut or to lower blood glucose. I know a lot of our listeners have. Some of them have experienced extreme amounts of gas and bloating, some have felt fine. It's one of those things that you may want to experiment with as far as mixing it with protein or mixing it with fats, or eating it with carbohydrates. It's relatively versatile. Like you can mix other things into a diet that is high in resistant starches. And one of the things that I've seen a lot of folks do is simply eat their normal diet. But at the end of the day, rather than having dessert or even in some cases as a substitute for dinner, have a source of resistant starch instead. And that could be everything from rices or potatoes that have been cooked and then cooled, because cooling changes the structure and makes them more resistant to digestion. That would be potatoes, grains and beans specifically can do that, as can rice that's been cooked in coconut oil. But then you can also do like green bananas, greener plantains.

I basically start my almost every day off with a green banana. And I find that really just has worked well for me, for my brain and for my, my guts.

Yeah. Do you put it in your butt and hang from an inversion table or do you?

I do.

How did you know? That's what I thought.

You've been watching me through my window.

That's right. I've been telescoping up to Canada. Well, that's probably green bananas up the butt. A good place to end today's show. Of course. Yeah.

What else can we say?

When else can we say? And of course again, sad, sad face because we don't have a review to read. It's still a happy day though because we did hopefully give you a lot of good information on the podcast. But yeah, leave a review over on itunes if you get a chance. We'll put a link in the show notes where you can do that. We'll link to everything else that we talked about as well. The natural stack resistant starch, my how to Detox youx Home article, the Captains of Crush Grip trainer so you can unleash your inner gorilla. And then this weekend, what do we have coming out this weekend for our special interview? Do you remember Brooke? I. I can, I can.

Look, if you stall for a second, I will surely remember. It is. High protein breakfast myths, genetic testing for exercise, demystifying brain waves and more.

Oh, it's a good one. It's a good one. Yeah, I'm actually. I'll keep my lips shut but you will definitely want to listen to that one. It's pretty cool. I know I say that a lot of times about. But this one, actually, it's pretty cool. So. Yeah, so listen to that. It's coming up this weekend. Download it, give it a listen and thanks for listening to this one. Head over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 318 for the show notes and have a happy day. Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.