How Bad Is Beer? Healthy Deodorants, Burning Fat Faster, Interpreting Your Own Bloodwork And Much More!

In today's episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, does garcinia and green coffee extract help fat loss? Interpreting your own blood work. Should you drink ocean water? Are water alkalinizers bad? How to prevent razor burn and the pros and cons of protein cycling.

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

You know what that sound was, Brock?

I want to say beer.

Close. Even though we are going to talk about beer in today's podcast, that was the sound of me opening my zero calorie, no sugar, no artificial sweeteners, caffeine free Zevia flavored soda.

Wow.

In a pleasant ginger ale flavor. It's also vegan, kosher and just like the water I bought the other day at Whole Foods, gluten free. So. So it has that going for it.

That's great.

Yeah. By the way, if my sound is a little off today or anything, it's because I am stranded. I'm stuck in Austin, Texas right now. The first day I tried to get out of here to leave Paleo FX where I was speaking this past weekend, there was a hail storm. So that stuck me here one night. And then yesterday, no hail storm, beautiful sunny day. Yet I still got a notice from the airport that my flight was delayed two hours and thus I was going to have to spend the night in Vegas. So I just stayed in Austin another day. So I can think.

Looks like you're staying somewhere nice. I saw the, the video you posted about, about the book coming out and it looks like a beautiful location.

I'm staying at the Austin Health Center. It is. Well, it was originally, I was originally told it was a fat farm. And no offense and of course you.

Wanted to go and hang out there.

It's not. It is a medical intervention facility that takes folks who have issues like leaky gut, messed up hormones, maybe weight gain. And it just hooks folks up with integrative physicians who work out here at the resort with people and fix them so you can get like, you know, blood testing. And I've been having, you know, they're kind of like breakfast, lunch, dinner, includes bone broth. So I've been living a very healthy lifestyle. I've been living a lifestyle I would live if I were extremely messed up. And I'm actually gonna, I'm gonna podcast with the, with the owner. As a matter of fact, right after we wrap up, I'm gonna sit down with him and record a little podcast so he can talk to me about what he's doing. And we can let folks know who you know, if you know someone, if you're listening in. I know a lot of our listeners tend to be a little bit healthier, but if you know somebody who is in need of some serious medical management, this is kind of like a cool resort to send them to. And hopefully by me saying that on the podcast, I have justified the fact that they've put me up for two free nights now. Wow.

I was going to ask how much it was costing.

Yeah, so no, but very, very cool place. And I'm going to also get the doc, the integrative physician that works here on the podcast, too, next month. So that being said, with you think you ready to. To flash some news at people.

News flashes.

All right. Although twitter.com BenGreenfield has mostly been dominated by talk of the beyond training book for the last, well, probably 24 to 36 hours, it's still a great place to go to find out all the latest and greatest news flashes that we're about to cover right now.

Yeah, I don't want to talk about my book. I want to talk about beer.

Nice.

Like you said, Brock, I'm always putting stuff out over@twitter.com BenGreenfield and one of the first articles I tweeted this week was about eight beers that you should stop drinking immediately and this beer down. But I can still continue to drink my Zevia, which.

Is that what it's called?

It's called Xevia. They are not a sponsor of the show, by the way, although they should be after this podcast.

There is a Zevia beer at some point, the clear beer back in like the early 90s.

It's very possible. It's very possible. That sounds horrible. But stevia flavored beer.

I don't think it was stevia flavor. I think it was just. Maybe I've got the wrong name. Okay, it was Zinnia or I don't know. And anyway, back to the news flash.

Not stevia, but there are many harmful ingredients that are commonly found in beer that this article goes into. And of course, as we do with everything, we'll link to everything we talk about over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 278 if you want to go read this article. So the harmful ingredients that are commonly found in beer include GMO corn syrup, GMO corn, high fructose corn syrup, fish, fish bladder, propylene glycol, msg, GMO sugars, caramel coloring, insect based dyes. Not that I have anything against insect based dyes because I'm a big fan of like. Yeah, they had cricket protein bars at the, at the expo this weekend. BPA and lots more. And then the article goes on to list eight beers commonly found in bars that you maybe should think about stopping drinking. And the top eight are. Newcastle Brown, Alex, we probably should have done a drum roll, but I'm just jumping right in.

Yeah, just go for it.

Newcastle Brown Ale, Budweiser, Corona Extra, which I think Corona is fine if you put a lime in it. Miller Light, Michelob, Michelob Ultra Guinness, which I actually kind of like.

Yeah, that's the only one on the list so far that I haven't just sort of turned my nose up anyway.

Yeah, Coors Light, of course, PBR is on there. I don't think that.

Oh, the hipsters are gonna be so sad.

I don't think that PBR is beer. And then the article goes on to talk about some of the beer that is GMO free, organic, unpasteurized, unfiltered, lower in a lot of these artificial ingredients, grains and preservatives. And some of the ones they go over that are organic specifically are Fish Brewery Co. Lakefront Brewery, Brooklyn. Pincus. Pincus is a horrible name for a beer.

That's a horrible name for anything it sounds like, unless it's a disease.

Yeah.

Got a bad case of pinkus.

Can I drink your pinkus? Samuel Smith's Witchwood Bison, Lamar street and Woe Lavers, and there's a few others listed there. Some of the more popular ones that they quote, unquote, approve of are Heineken. I'm picking some popular ones here. Amstel Light, Dogfish Head, Sierra Nevada, which they serve, I believe, at the finish line of Spartan races. So you have that so you can go to a Spartan race and drink guilt free beer at the finish line while you're getting Spartan Triton tattooed onto your appendage. And so, yeah, I'll link to this article in the show notes, but it's pretty interesting and kind of a good, good one to read if you're into beer and you kind of want to choose the, the lesser of the evils.

You know, we did have you posted this on Facebook as well and a guy actually wrote back who is a broom brew master I guess what they call them, a brew meister.

Whoa. Is that like a Dungeon Master?

I think so.

Cool.

Like, it's not quite as nerdy and a little more drunk than a dungeon master. But he wanted to point out that there were a couple of inaccuracies in that article in that the high fructose corn syrup, while it may be bad for you, actually during the fermentation process, it's actually metabolized out of the beer. And so there's no residual high fructose corn syrup left in the finished beer.

I believe that it's kind of like. Kind of like sugar and kefir. Yeah, or sugar and kombucha, rather. Okay, what else does he say?

They also said that the fish bladder is a standard clarifying agent. That does not make it into the finished beer either.

That's good to know because I didn't want to be thinking about fish bladder the next time I have a frosty one.

I'd have to admit I just giggle every time I hear the word fish bladder. Such a tiny little bladder. And then the last thing was the propylene glycol is actually a refrigerant and they use it for cooling in the breweries. It also does not get into the beer.

Yeah, well, you know, those are all good points, but really, ultimately, Brock, like, for me, it's the GMO thing. Like, that's, that's the biggest thing because you not only have the issue with GMO crops being used for beer and everything else cross pollinating and contaminating the gene pool of all the other crops, but you've got the increase in herbicide use from engineering all these GMO crops to be herbicide tolerant. You've got some, some big issues with potential harm of the environment from those herbicides, you know, in terms of them harming birds, insects, amphibians, the soil. And you know, another big issue, if you've seen a lot of Dr. Jeffrey, I'm forgetting his name. He's a big GMO researcher guy, puts out the DVDs and everything. Let's just call him Jeffrey GMO. There. There are some, some pretty serious issues that have primarily been demonstrated in lab animals, not necessarily in humans. I'm not taking my chances with GMO stuff, so I'd rather drink a beer that's made from, from non GMO sources. Personally, that's kind of where I'm at. So, yeah, yeah, there's a reason to.

Not pick one of the good ones.

Yeah, if they're available.

A lot of those are just crap beer anyway that don't taste good, they don't do anything for you, and you're actually giving money to really big corporations instead of some nice sort of local stuff. So, yeah, lots of reasons to avoid them.

I don't want to give my hard earned money to PBR or Adolf Coors. Well, speaking of messing up your body with GMOs, let's talk about aluminium, as they say in Europe. Do they say that in Canada too?

No, we say it without adding extra letters to it. Aluminum.

Aluminum. So this was kind of scary. There was this article that came out in a European study that looked at the levels of aluminum in popular antiperspirants or, or deodorants. They found that the uptake of aluminum, literally the AM of aluminum absorbed into your body through your skin is above the maximum tolerable daily exposure level. Meaning that if, if you're using a deodorant, you're not just getting a little bit of aluminum here and there, you're actually getting aluminum that is over and above from one application, the daily tolerable limit for aluminum. So it's a, it's a pretty big issue. We've talked about personal care products, of course, before on the show, and I think we've gone over like, you know, alternative aluminum, you know, recipes, so to speak. Right now I, I actually finished a bike ride a little bit before our podcast and I'm still a little bit hot and bothered from that. So I slathered some coconut oil in my armpits.

I hope you didn't get hot and bothered over the bicycle. That's a little, it's a little creepy and weird. I hope you just got hot.

Yes, hot and hot and sweaty. There you go. So anyways, what I'd like to do for listeners, just because I know that some folks may not want to slather coconut oil in their armpits and some people may not want to use something like, you know, baking baking powder or whatever, or baking soda. I wanted to give a shout out to one that I found at the Expo here at Paleo FX that I used a few times and it worked out pretty well. It's called a primal pit paste and I know cool name, good name. I like it. Yeah, I'll link to it in the show notes. But it's basically just organic coconut oil, organic raw shea butter, non aluminum based baking soda, very, very important, organic arrowroot powder and organic essential oils. I tried it. I liked it. I used it during the Expo and no one actually complained that I Stunk. So maybe they were being polite or maybe it actually worked. But this stuff, Primal Pit paste, it was actually pretty co. Comes in a few. A few different flavors, I was going to say. But since I guess thyme and lemongrass.

Sounds like you could actually probably eat it quite safely.

Yeah, thyme and lemongrass lemonade is another one. Orange Creamsicle. Some pretty cool flavors. You know, the one for the orange creamsicle one is for kids. Lavender, patchouli, so all sorts of hippie little scents that you can throw into your armpits. And apparently according to the label, it's vegan. So I guess you probably could eat it. So that's another one. And if that's not enough inspiration for you to stop using common deodorants, I don't know what is.

Well, so what do they mean when they say maximum maximal tolerable. Maximal tolerable daily exposure levels over in Europe?

Kind of similar to the, I guess it would be, you know, their equivalent of the FDA over there. They actually have maximum exposure levels deemed to be acceptable for health reasons. And one application of deodorant was enough to go higher than that. So.

Yeah, so. So it's obviously not like right out, no poisoning us or making us like visibly ill or dying, but it's just enough to make us slowly dying a little bit sicker than we ought to be in that kind of thing.

Your deodorant is slowly killing you. Exactly.

Awesome. So you can either be stinky or die quicker.

Now. The last thing I wanted to mention was a great article that came out called the Hundred Hardest Body Weight Exercises of All Time. And I actually sent this article to my Kindle so that I could take my Kindle over to the park and try out some of these exercises rather than printing off, you know, 37 pages worth of bodyweight exercises. And I gotta admit, there are some in here that I hadn't seen before. Like the Archer pull up where you have one arm straight over the pull up bar and the other arm is doing the pull up as if you're pulling a bow. Hence the name Archer. They've got the, the crucifix push up in there where you have your arms spread out to the side and in almost like a crucifix pattern doing a push up. They've got the. What else do they have in there that, that I thought was pretty interesting? I mean, I'll link to in the show notes because there's like a hundred. They've got the Muay Thai push ups, which is basically Like a clap push up on steroids where you're doing a push up but you're literally getting your body up to about 45 degrees with each push up. They've got the Superman push ups. We've seen these before where you're, you have your arms extended as far out as possible in front of you and then your legs out behind you and you're doing a push up in that position and in. And to make it harder, you can do the Jack lalanne version, which is where you're on your fingertips in that spread out position. How about, how about the top?

So there's not a lot of movement involved in that one. You just sort of lift yourself off the ground.

No, you actually, you actually do a push up. It's, it's hard. I mean, there is some movement and if the movement's even an inch, it's tough. But here's the top three for any of you Ben Greenfield fitness listeners who are insane or extremely fit. You've got the one arm pull up to a handstand, and that is exactly what it sounds like. A one arm pull up into a handstand. Over the pull up bar. You've got the one finger handstand where you're literally doing a handstand on one finger. And these last two are performed by monks. No surprise there, because they require, I would imagine, extreme amounts of meditation to block the pain from your fingers. And then the number one. What do you think the number one exercise is, Brock? The number one hardest body weight exercise of all time.

I can't imagine anything being harder than your entire body weight being on one finger. So I'm at a loss. Maybe your tongue.

Number one hardest bodyweight exercise of all time is having a baby. No, I'm just kidding.

I thought you were serious.

Like, that's not fair. It's, it's balancing on two fingers. A handstand balanced on two fingers. And there's, there's a video of it over there and I'll, I'll link to it for folks who want to check it out. But.

So two fingers, like one on each hand?

Yeah, one finger on each hand. So it's a two handed handstand but using your fingers instead of your hands. It's crazy. But I mean, some of those last ones, obviously most of us aren't going to do, but some of the other ones. Try this. This is what I did. I picked five that I, that I'd never done before that I thought were pretty tough and did a circuit of the of five and it was, it was tough, but it was fun. You know, bodyweight exercises, new ones. If you're, if you're stuck in a hotel room or like I am at a, at a health retreat, you want a good workout, try those out. So there you go.

Special announcements.

So a huge sigh of relief was likely breathed by you and, well, the rest of us that work for you and with you when the book finally started showing up on people's doorsteps.

Yes, actually, I just belched. I drank a PBR and belched. That was my sigh of relief. No, actually, yeah, beyond training book shipped. Believe it or not, it actually is a real book and it's available this week. And I'd like for any of you listeners who like this show and want to really support what we do to listen in. So I know you, you tend to zone out the entire rest of the podcast, but if you listen to anything, listen to this. I should say that in an English accent, like an inspirational accent. If you listen to anything, listen to this.

Citizens, don't think that was any more.

Okay, so here's the deal. We are, we are giving away a bunch of stuff. So the first thing is for everybody listening in, please understand that a big goal that I have for this book is for it to make the New York Times bestseller list. And what influences that list is if you buy this book at your local bookstore. And so if you go to your local bookstore and you buy a book and you take a photo, photo of yourself purchasing that book, not just holding it in the, in the aisle of the bookstore, but be honest here, actually purchasing it. And then you upload that to Facebook, Google, Twitter, whatever your social network is, or any of your networks, and then mark it with our hashtag for the book. And the hashtag, if those who don't know what a hashtag is, it's the looks like tic tac toe. Like a tiny little baby tic tac toe. You mark it with hashtag beyond training. We're going to choose three people over the course of the next week who do that. And you're going to get a private one on one 60 minute consult with me.

So you take the photo, usually worth like 250 bucks.

That, that's actually. Yeah, exactly. So the other thing is if you just, you're, if you're total tech head and you want to do Amazon instead, that's cool. But here's the deal. If you purchase more than one copy on Amazon, which is a really good way to bump up the Amazon rankings, then you get Free access to a two hour workshop that I'm going to do on Amazon. So all you need to do is purchase your copy on Amazon. Now if you're running or biking or something like that right now, you may not remember this URL, but It's Beyond Training book.com photo if you upload your your receipt to that, then that will get you into that two hour Stop drinking soda. I know, like belching.

Okay, belching away.

Okay. So beyond training book.com photo these two other things. So first of all, there's over $5,000 of swag, bonuses, raffles, giveaways and a bunch of stuff we're doing. If you purchase five books or 10 books and that's over@beyondtrainingbook.com bonuses, you don't need to remember that URL. You can just go to beyondtrainingbook.com, click on bonuses. It's right there. And then here's the last thing. I will do a keynote speech at your corporation, your club, your business. If you're kind of like a CEO, you manage the human resources division, whatever. If you have a business or a club or a corporation and you purchase more than 1,000 copies of Beyond Training, I will come out and do a keynote at your at your location. So anywhere you're going to need to email ben greenfield fitness.com if you want in on that deal so that we can arrange it. Because you can do that through Amazon, you can do it through my publisher. But either way, email me first. Ben greenfieldfitness.com and if you don't want to buy thousand, I've got another deal. You can come spend the weekend with me, eating healthy, exercising, seeing a lot of the biohacks, a lot of the things I talk about in the book as far as training, nutrition, lifestyle brain hacking, sleep hacking, everything that I teach you how to do in the book, you can come and experience firsthand anybody who purchases 500 copies or more. You can come spend the weekend with me and same thing, email Ben greenfieldfitness.com if you want in on that. So there's all that stuff, a photo of you at your local bookstore or you can do Amazon and upload the multiple copies. You can go to BeyondTrainingBook.com, click on the bonuses section to see what you can get if you do 5 copies or 10 copies and then email bench@BenGreenfieldFitness.com if you want to do 500 or a thousand and any of the above things. Let me say one other thing. Do I have time to say one other thing Brock Quickly. Is the clock okay?

Say it fast.

Amazon Review Amazon Review Amazon Review Amazon Review Amazon Review Leave review on Amazon because the powers that be tell me that those really help. The book rank highly and we're almost to the top 100 books worldwide right now. So help help a brother out. Leave the Amazon Review Let us know if you have any questions over in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com 278 or just head over to BeyondTrainingBook.com do it.

Listener key q and a.

Hello. Lately on Facebook I've seen a lot of people posting about this new product called Plexus P L E X U S. They're talking about how they've lost weight and they have more energy and their food cravings are cut down, they're sleeping better, etc. All these things sound really great and I looked at the website and their products seems to be pretty natural and safe. But I wanted your professional opinion. Ben. Is this product something worth trying or is it just kind of expensive? BS Plexusworldwide.com is where you can find it and the product is Plexus Slim. I'd love to hear what you think. Thanks.

It's nice to hear from Heather.

Heather, I remember Heather. Yeah. Yes. I won't say her last name, but I even remember Heather's last name. Heather. I won't say her last name. I don't want crazy podcast listeners stalking you because we have a lot stealing your places. Yeah, we have. We have a lot of ax murderers and clowns that listen into this show.

So we do. Yes, that's our demographic.

Scary clowns in vans. So which is a horrible thought, this Plexus Slim. I looked at the ingredients of it and really your two main ingredients are chlorogenic acid and that's this green coffee stuff, the green coffee bean extract. And then also Garcinia cambogia, which is another kind of darling of the fat loss industry right now.

So not Dr. Oz's favorite thing.

So it's a powder. Now fortunately it doesn't have a lot of artificial sweeteners in it. It's flavored with stevia. You know, it doesn't have a lot of those fillers that are nasty. But let's go ahead and look at this. These two main ingredients, the green coffee and the garcinia. So first of all, as far as the garcinia goes, garcinia is this fruit that comes out of Asia and India and it has this rind, has a really sour flavor Kind of similar to tamarind. And the fruit has this compound in it called hydroxycitric acid, or hca. And that's the portion of it that's been studied as a potential weight loss agent. So back in the day, and this was about six or seven years ago, I believe, they did some research on garcinia and hca and it was kind of sort of promising. What they showed was that high doses of it appeared to suppress the accumulation of fat in lab rats. However, when they did subsequent research on humans, there wasn't a lot of evidence this stuff was all that efficacious. So in one study, they, they put a bunch of overweight people on a low calorie diet for 12 weeks. Half of them took garcinia and half of them took a placebo. And everybody in the study lost a significant amount of weight, but there was no difference. Yeah, hooray. There was no difference between the two groups. No difference between the garcinia and the. No garcinia. And since that time, there have been a couple dozen additional studies done, and the results kind of varied. But ultimately there was a very low amount of benefit shown from taking garcinia. And then finally in 2011, there was a meta analysis done of all the published studies on HCA as a weight loss aid for humans. And what they concluded from that meta analysis, which was a study of everything they've ever done, was that when taken with a reduced calorie diet, that's the important part, HCA does seem to somewhat enhance weight loss, but the impact was pretty slight. It amounted to around 2 pounds of fat a year. And I guess what I'm wondering is, is that worth it to you, as far as, you know, the amount of money that you spend on garcinia for that amount of weight loss? And, you know, maybe could, could you use the extra time you might spend surfing the Internet or driving over to Walgreens to buy Plexus Slim to instead do some burpees and, and get your extra 2 pounds of fat lossier that way, maybe. So as far as this green coffee extract, we can kind of go into the overview of that as well. So supplements that have green coffee extract in them are mostly based on one study which was funded by one of the major companies that markets green coffee extract, Starbucks. And they found that, I don't know if it was Starbucks. I think it was the company that makes the raw ingredients that Starbucks uses, but they found that the overweight people lost weight when they took a high dose green coffee supplement. Now, the Green coffee extract that they took had a little bit of caffeine, but not enough to actually explain the weight loss. And what the researchers in that study said was that this weight loss was due to an active ingredient in the actual coffee called chlorogenic acid. Now chlorogenic acid may help to stabilize your blood sugar response to foods that contain, you know, carbohydrates, starches, sugars, things of that nature. And we all know that coffee, or I've said before in the podcast that coffee may help to mobilize the utilization of free fatty acids. So potentially you could get a sugar stabilizing mobilization of free fatty acid effect from a chlorogenic acid containing supplement. And this one study does indeed show that there could be an effect on weight loss. And it was about a five month long study. It didn't notice any issues with, with long term safety or anything like that. So I would say of the two, garcinia and green coffee, green coffee almost appears to have potentially a little bit more promise to it. Now again, there's not a huge difference in the chlorogenic acid that you're going to get in green coffee extract versus a cup of coffee. So you're going to be spending. I don't know how much is this plexus slim stuff? Did you, did you have any? I didn't look at the price, I'm guessing. You know what, I don't have the price in front of me. I'm gonna see here it looks like it's a multi level marketing company, so it's got that going for it. So again, if it's a multi level marketing company, I can guarantee you're gonna pay out the wazoo for this stuff compared to drinking a cup of coffee. So I would say you'd be better off doing. You know what I tend to do, which is you do a fasted morning workout with get some chlorogenic acid into your system just from drinking some coffee. Do a fasted morning workout, like a brisk walk, easy bike ride like I just got done doing. You do that with a little bit of cold thermogenesis preferably. So what that means is for example, you get like a vest from coolfatburner.com or you keep your house a little bit cool, or you figure out another way to get your body cold, cold showers, that type of thing. And you do that right after you have your coffee. You do a light fasted morning workout. And I've found that to be extremely effective at getting people lean without the need to do anything other than that. Cup of morning coffee, I would say. The other thing that I really like is this bitter melon extract. That's something that I personally use to control blood sugar response to carbohydrate containing meals. It's something a lot of my clients have had a lot of success with. It would be something kind of similar to this, this green coffee extract, potentially kind of similar to the garcinia, but one that I personally have experience with versus the garcinia and the green coffee which I don't use. So I can tell you that MPX 100 stuff works pretty well too. So I would be going after that kind of, kind of one, two combo. The morning cold thermogenesis with the coffee and the light fasted workout combined with MPX100 before your primary carbohydrate containing meal, which would be probably your evening meal. And that's the way that I would do it. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of direction with this plexus slim stuff and maybe we didn't podcast this in time and you've already joined that multi level marketing company and are spending lots and lots of money on £2 of fat loss a year and if so, our condolences.

I just finally found the price. It took me a lot of, a.

Lot of effort here.

It was 84.95 for a 30 day supply.

Yeah, that's not gonna happen.

Hey Ben, it's Mike from Toronto and my question relates to all of your blood and hormone tests and even you've done in your past and that you continue to do. Do you have a nice summary sheet that kind of outlines what the normal and pathological values for all the things that are important for testing HSCRP and homocysteine and all the stuff that you do. Just having normal values in a nice summary sheet that we can kind of take a look at.

Thanks.

When I heard this question, Mike, it kind of made me proud to be a Canadian because it's such a reasonable question and you asked it in such a reasonable manner.

We're so reasonable and polite. Did you see the Canadian anchor news anchor team led by Jim Carrey in the recent movie Anchorman?

No, I haven't seen the very polite yet.

The polite they, they basically, you know, they have a fight among all the news anchors and they're sitting there like hitting hockey pucks at high speeds at the other news anchors and every hockey puck they hit, they're, they're like sorry, sorry, sorry about that. Perfect. Sorry. Anyways, Jim Carrey is a great polite Canadian, so He is a.

Well, he's not a polite Canadian, but he is a Canadian.

That's right. Interpreting your own blood work, Mike. Believe it or not, Wikipedia has an excellent reference range for blood test page. Wikipedia is the most comprehensive one I've seen. I'll put a link to the actual Wikipedia page. But it is really, really comprehensive in terms of reference ranges for blood tests, in terms of enzyme activity, white blood cells, ions, trace minerals, acid, blood gases, cardiac tests, lipids, endocrinology, all your hormones. Pretty much everything that you'd want is on there. So I'll link to that one because it's really comprehensive. I've even used it before. But one of the things you always have to remember is that these reference ranges are usually what is given as normal values found in the population or the prediction interval that 95% of the population falls into what we would call the standard range. Now, in contrast, the optimal range, the healthy range, is typically much, much different than what might be the range that's gonna save you from dying. And I like the way I've heard.

Somebody explain it, like if you walk into your local Walmart and look around, the normal values are the average of all of those people.

Yeah.

Do you want to be like those people?

There's going to be a huge amount of variability too, based on your age, your sex, your race, your diet, what kind of herbal drugs you might be using, how much stress you're doing, if you might be doing a bunch of crossfits and training for Ironman versus living a relatively sedentary lifestyle. I mean, these reference ranges vary quite a bit. And I would say that even though, for example, this Wikipedia page is a very good place to start, I tend to have certain markers that I look for in the athletes who I work with that I consider to be acceptable. I can tell you what the most important ones are just to get you going. And so, for example, if you were to go do a blood test, my favorite company to do blood tests through is Wellness fx. They've got one really, really good one called a performance panel. I helped them design that panel. It contains most of what I like to see, especially if I'm working with an athlete or someone who's exercising a lot. This one in particular tests those type of things. So one is CRP or inflammation. Normal CRP levels will be indicated on like these lab reference ranges as 10 milligrams per liter. I like to see ideal CRP levels as being under 1 milligram per liter. And in most of the folks I work with who are really healthy. We shoot for about 0.5 or less for CRP. So again, that's kind of an explanation of the difference. Yeah, so the reference ranges will say you're fine if you're at 10. I like to see people below 0.5. Me as a hard charging guy, I stay around 0.2 because I eat an anti inflammatory diet. I really try and do a good job with, you know, using curcumin and turmeric and cinnamon and dark chocolate and a lot of these natural anti inflammatories. And that's, that's hscrp. That's one example, another one that I, that I like to see tested. I'm not going to tell you all of them here because I've written a pretty comprehensive article on this and I'll link to this article for you. But another one is tsh. So TSH is another one where modern medicine will tend to find very high TSH values acceptable. TSH is up in the range of 4 or 5. Now TSH or thyroid stimulating hormone is something that's going to be produced in higher levels when your body is trying to amp up the production of thyroid hormone. And so if TSH is high, it means something is going wrong at the thyroid level. There's some kind of a decrease in the conversion of, of your T3 to your T4 or there is some kind of issue with autoimmune disorders or high cortisol or very, very low carb diets affecting the thyroid. TSH gets out of control. Now what I like to see for TSH is an optimal value between about 0.5 and 2. So between 0.5 and 2, not these levels of 4 and 5 that you'll tend to see acceptable on a lot of these laboratory ranges. Another one is triglycerides and hdl. And in many cases what they'll tell you is having very high triglyceride levels and very low HDL levels is bad, which I agree with. But these lab reference ranges will tell you to look for a ratio, you know you're healthy if your ratio is around 4 to 1 of triglycerides to HDL. And I actually completely flipped that on its head. And in the healthiest folks who I work with, we tend to see about a 1 to 1 to a 2 to 1 ratio of HDL to triglycerides, meaning your HDL levels are equal to your triglycerides or in some cases higher than your triglycerides. And that's a really, really nice negative cardiometabolic risk factor. Now, of course, more HDL is not necessarily better. Once you start to see HDL creep pretty high above 80, that can be a sign that your body is actually mobilizing HDL to fight off inflammation. And when I see really, really high HDL levels in folks, a lot of times it indicates there's some kind of gut infection or gut inflammation present. And when you go out and do like a GI panel, like a GI effects test, you'll tend to find things like parasites, yeast, fungus, bacteria, things of that nature, and pesticides, people who have super duper high HDL levels. So that's another one to look at when it comes to lipids. And then I would say, since we're on the lipid bandwagon, another one that again, if you're looking for just reference ranges that you really can't trust, would be your total cholesterol. So I like to get people's total cholesterol above 200 because there is an indication that once you're, your total cholesterol falls below 200. And Nora Gadgautis talked about this at our, at our Superhuman conference. There are studies that have been done on this. You tend to see neural degradation and a drop in IQ in folks whose total cholesterol levels drop below 200 because they don't have enough fatty acids present to do things like the formation of myelin sheaths, nerve repair, regeneration, DHA levels in the brain, things of that nature. But in most cases, if your total cholesterol was above 200, you would be flagged as someone who was at risk of having a cardiac event. So I like to see LDL or rather total cholesterol above 200 with a contribution of LDL and HDL, low triglycerides, low what's called VLDL or small LDL particles, and in that case, high levels of this big, fluffy, relatively harmless cholesterol levels. That's a good thing. But again, if you're just relying on the reference ranges, even on this Wikipedia page, you're not going to see that. So you do need to be careful with reference ranges. I think if you're going to get a blood panel done, you just need to have an integrative medical practitioner or a naturopath or someone who, who's really dialed in, like someone who's on the Primal Physicians or the Paleo Physicians Network or someone who has a functional medicine degree, something of that nature. Walk you through your panel so that you know you're getting advice that's not based off reference ranges. But that is based off of what's really, truly healthy, optimal, and ancestral. So can I get off my soapbox now?

That wasn't very soapboxy. I think that was very reasonable.

Yeah. So as reasonable as you can get when you're drinking ginger ale in Texas at noon?

I guess so.

Hey, Ben and Brock. I listened to a podcast, the Bulletproof Executive Podcast, where Dave interviewed a woman named Carrie Rivera, and she talked about drinking ocean water to cleanse the gut. And she was talking about it in regards to working with kids with autism. And that's part of her protocol or something that she uses sometimes. But I was wondering what that would be like for the rest of us to do. I know there are salt cleanses and everything, but I just feel like maybe there's something beneficial about ocean water, like when it cleanses the system, if it could also possibly replace some minerals and other nutrients into the body. So obviously you'd want to be very careful with what ocean water you drank and where you got it and all of that. But I just can't find anything about it online. But it just sounded really interesting to me and I'm a big fan of Healing from the Earth. So I really wanted to learn more about this. So I would love to know what you think. Thanks so much for all you guys do. I truly love your show.

I actually heard the interview that Molly is referring to, and I. My immediate thought was that all these mothers are going to go running down to like Kitsilanu beach and scoop up a whole bunch of water and feed it to their kids and all these poor autistic children with terrible diarrhea.

You know that the guy that originally kind of came up with this idea of using what's called chlorine dioxide as a way to get rid of parasites, yeast, fungus, bacteria, that type of thing that could potentially aggravate autism, since autism can be autoimmune related and autism can be gut related. His name was Jim Humble, and I've actually talked to him on the phone before. He's a friend of my dad's, and my dad had me talk to him on the phone when I had mrsa because we, we were trying to figure out a way to, to kill off mrsa and he wanted to put me on like a chlorine dioxide protocol. I ended up going a completely different route and going. Going with essential oils instead. So I ended up doing essential oils and Chinese herbs. So I was doing like berberine and oregano and some of these natural plant based extracts that tend to have really good antibacterial effect or have like anti staph effect. But it was, it was kind of interesting. And I think that there's certainly something to be said for using, you know, a powerful whole body disinfectant like chlorine dioxide, for example, if you have a parasite, if you have a gut that needs, that needs cleaning out. There's a big difference between using chlorine dioxide as an acute cleanse to fix an issue one time though, and doing something like drinking ocean water. The problem with ocean water is you, you, you don't need that much salt to stay alive. So, you know, you, the, the daily dose that you would need to actually stay alive is around 500 milligrams a day. I like for athletes actually to get closer to anywhere from 3 to 6 milligrams of salt a day, or, I'm sorry, 3 to 6 grams of salt a day. 3,500 to 6,000 milligrams a day in order to.

Pickles.

Yeah, it's not a ton, but I mean, if you don't get enough sodium, your body, your, you know, your body can't transport nutrients or oxygen. You have a lot of sodium dependent transporters in your body. It can't transmit nerve impulses. You can't move muscles, obviously and you know, you know, cardiovascular muscle especially need, needs adequate amounts of both sodium, potassium and a lot of your trace minerals that, yeah, you're going to find in ocean water and other sources like, you know, vegetables, for example, to actually survive. So when, when we're talking about seawater, though, we're not just talking about like common, common salt that you'd find in your table, like sodium chloride. There's a lot of other compounds and elements and minerals or salts that you're going to find in ocean water. You've got Epsom salts, you've got potassium salts, you've got iodine salts. And so you've got a pretty complex composition when you're looking at the dissolved salts in ocean water that at first glance would make this stuff appear to be, you know, potentially pretty healthy or alkalinizing or whatever you want to call it. But when you look closer, basically ocean salt is classified as highly saline. So when you want to measure the amount of dissolved salts in a substance, you use a measure of salinity. And that means that you take the amount by weight of the salt in the water, which is expressed as parts per million, and you look at the parts per million of the salt. So like, fresh water has around a thousand parts per million of dissolved salts. So about less than 0.1% of the weight of fresh water from like a river or a lake comes from dissolved salts. And human blood is around 0.9% salt. About 0.25% of our total body weight is salt, but our actual blood is at around 0.9%. Now, on that salinity scale, ocean water is over 1% dissolved salts. So remember I said that that fresh water is 0.1, ocean water is over 1% and seawater is around 3.5% dissolved salts by weight. That means that it's about three times saltier than human blood. Now, once you start to put something like that into your body, if you take a lot of salt and you put it in your body, there can be a pretty big metabolic crisis that occurs. So what happens is to maintain proper concentration of minerals from every single one of your cells. Water molecules are going to leave the cell, they're going to rush off from the cell to try and dilute and carry off that sudden intake of salt into the bloodstream. So that leaves the cells dangerously short of the water that they need to carry on their normal function. So your cells are basically becoming dehydrated when you do this. And that can cause seizures, it can cause unconsciousness, it can cause brain damage, it can cause cellular damage, it can cause damage to the cell membrane. And in the meantime, you've got a bunch of blood cells carrying all this excess salt to the kidneys, and the kidneys are under a great deal of stress to actually excrete that high, high amount, that high saline solution that you're putting into it. So the issue here comes down to a simple osmolality issue. Whereas you, yes, you do get a lot of compounds and elements and minerals from sea salt, the salinity is so high you're dehydrating your cells when you drink something like that. Now, are there ways that you could get those same amount of elements and minerals that you're going to get in ocean salt without actually drinking something that, that's, that's, that saline? Absolutely. And I've got, got a few recommendations that I would say folks should go after if, if, you know, if you're not trying to cleanse your body with chlorine dioxide and you want to get a lot of these trace minerals that are in ocean water. One thing would be something that we've talked about before in the podcast, Basic sea salt. So I've talked before about that clumpy, natural, Aztecan based salt. This is taken directly from the Salt flats down in Mexico where the ocean water washes up, it leaves these big clumps of salt those are harvested. You sprinkle a little bit of that on your food and you're getting all those trace minerals, over 80 different trace minerals that you could be getting from ocean, but you're not putting the damage into your body by drinking ocean water. So that'd be one thing is useuse like a sea salt. Another thing wouldand by the way, sea salt is different than like a Himalayan rock salt, okay? You're gonna get more minerals from a sea salt than from a rock salt. Another thing would be, and you can put it on your popcorn, and you could put it on popcorn with a little bit of cayenne pepper and some grass fed butter and a good movie. That's hopefully what I'll be doing with my wife if I can ever make it home in Texas. So trace liquid minerals would be another thing. And you know, you can find those, for example over@pacificfit.net that's one of the mineral sources that they have over there. And that's just liquid minerals that you could like take in a shot glass. You can pour it into water. It's not super saline. It still has all those trace elements. I personally would rather use sea salt because I think it tastes better. I like to put it in smoothies and on salads and stuff. But trace liquid minerals would be another way that you could kind of skin this cat and then the last thing, and this one's interesting because I just finished up a podcast with this guy yesterday and I'm going to release it this Saturday. But it's marine phytoplankton. So marine phytoplankton actually takes inorganic raw material in the ocean. So it takes seawater, minerals, sunlight, CO2, and it converts it into vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, carotenoids, a ton of really cool stuff. And you can get concentrated marine phytoplankton in like a dropper. You can get all the benefits that you'd normally be going after by drinking ocean water, along with huge amounts of chlorophyll, which is a, it's an awesome detoxification agent and excellent for up regulating things like red blood cell capacity, oxygen carrying capacity. Very, very cool stuff, but basically just straight up marine phytoplankton. So I would, I would listen into this Saturday's podcast and review with the guy that harvests this stuff from the ocean because it's super duper interesting. He uses like this, this he's essentially kind of like built an ocean on land. He has this photobioreactor where they, they filter the seawater, they bring it in, they concentrate it, they grow this species of marine phytoplankton and then bottle it in liquid form in this tiny little dropper. And like one drop of this stuff has over a billion different cells and all these trace minerals from the oceans. Really cool stuff. So anyways, listening to that podcast coming this Saturday, but ultimately I would say if it comes to chlorine dioxide as a gut cleanse, as a whole body cleanse, I have seen some evidence to show that if you're not overdoing it and it's kind of like a short term thing, the same way that you might use like an antibiotic protocol, there may be some benefit there. But I don't think that long term it's very great for people. I'm gonna put a big thumbs down on the ocean water based on the salinity and cellular dehydration issue, but a big thumbs up on some other ways that you could get trace minerals. So that's my thoughts on guzzling ocean water.

That's your thumbs on guzzling ocean water.

Hey Ben, this is Randy calling from la. I have a question for you about alkaline water systems. Systems like the Kangen water system. A friend of mine recently bought one of these, spent about three to four thousand dollars on it and she claims she was told it does everything from healing acne to curing cancer. So I wanted to get your take on this. My understanding is that even if you correct the alkalinity levels in your gut and in your urine, let's say that would not necessarily mean you're changing the alkalinity levels of your blood. And I don't even know if that's something that is important to do. Any info you could give on this would be great. You guys are fantastic. I wait anxiously each week for your newest podcast. So keep it up guys. Thanks.

Wow, that's a lot of money to spend on, on a water filtration system.

That's right. Alkaline water systems, they're all the rage these days. Randy, are they that expensive? Randy? Three to 4,000? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I mean you can get cheaper units, but basically they're just passing water over a metal plate, which is my first issue with them because you're getting potential metal exposure alkalinizing the water. And they're very, very popular as potentially being something that could change your, your ph. Now I'm not one of those guys who denies the potential benefits of using alkaline substances. And the way that this goes is that different parts of your body have different levels of ph. So your blood maintains a constant ph ph of about 7.4. Your stomach is acidic, it's got a ph of around 4. And when we're looking at kind of staying neutral, the ideal water to drink would have a ph of around 7.4 to about 7.6.

So just like your blood.

Yeah, very, very similar to your blood. Now, these alkaline ionizers, they a lot of times will be alkalinizing your water to a much, much higher extent. That goes way over and above that amount of alkalinity. And it's not like more alkalinity is better. And you can run into issues if you're getting, you know, for example, too alkaline with your. With your diet. And I'll give you, you people who are listening in. I actually did that in my PaleoFX conference. I was talking and I was like, so you people. And I'm like, why did I say that? You people are awesome listeners and friends out there. I'll give you some links in the show notes, too, to a few different, really, really good books on understanding ph and alkalinity. But the idea is that more alkaline is not. Is not better. It's kind of a myth out there that it's good to be alkaline, it's bad to be acidic. So it's actually bad to be alkaline, and it's bad to be acidic. You can be too alkaline. And some of the common symptoms that you tend to see associated with alkalosis are hypothyroidism. A lot of times you also tend to get low stomach acid, which can affect your ability to digest protein. So it can have some effects on muscle wasting or muscle quality as well. A lot of times, you'll tend to see allergies and wheezing associated with higher alkalinity. You. You start to feel sluggish, which is probably related to the hypothyroidism. And you'll tend to see if you're measuring bicarbonate levels in the blood, which is actually pretty common in a standard blood panel. You'll see elevated bicarbonate. And a lot of folks think that most people are too acidic, but you also tend to see people that are too alkalinic, they are consuming too many of these alkalinic foods, or they are, you know, they're drinking a bunch of this alkalinized water. And that's not necessarily considered to be healthy. Normal blood ph, again, it's going to be between about 7.4 to 7.6. And you can influence blood ph a little bit if you are taking in high, high amounts of this alkaline water. And I actually talked to one lady who, who was pretty concerned because she was, I think she's a podcast listener, so she might be listening in right now. But she got one of these alkaline water filters and her kids started drinking much this alkaline water and had a seizure. And the only, the only thing they changed was drinking this alkaline water. So it's again, one of these things where more is not better. And I'd be really, really careful, especially considering the fact that most water, especially if it's, you know, good mineral enriched, filtered water, is going to have decent alkalinity as it is. So what that means is if you are filtering your water, and we talked about water filters a bunch on this show before, and you are using anything from reverse osmosis to carbon or whatever the case may be, and then you're either removing mineralizing your water or introducing other sources of minerals into your diet because like reverse osmosis filter and a carbon filter is going to remove a lot of minerals from your water. And you, do you, you want to be aware of that if you're drinking water that's had a lot of its minerals removed from it. So you might remove chlorine and fluoride and some of this stuff and, but you also would remove minerals from a good water filter like that. But you add back in the minerals using some of the stuff I just got done talking about, like, you know, sea salt and marine phytoplankton and trace minerals and things of that nature, and then you're good to go. And that water, it's typically at a ph that is just fine. Now, there are also acid alkaline food charts out there. I'll put a link to a really good acid alkaline food chart in the show. Notes. I have yet to be convinced that you can drastically change the, the PH of your body by eating foods that are alkaline or eating foods that are acidic. But usually the foods that are more acidic tend to carry a lot of parameters when we're talking about grains and things of that nature that are less healthy anyway. So I think that people who shift to a more alkalinic diet tend to benefit potentially more from just the lower amount of processed ingredients, gluten et cetera, that they're getting than they are from a distance. Distinct change in the ph. But ultimately acid alkaline food charts. There's something interesting to look at when I, when I do a blood test like a Wellness FX panel, for example. One of the things that is shown on there is CO2 and chloride. And if you measure out with very, very low levels of CO2, very, very low levels of chloride, sometimes it can help to pull up an acid alkaline food chart and begin to choose foods that are a little bit more alkalinizing, like, you know, dark leafy greens and kale and spinach and things of that nature, while avoiding grains, sugars, starches, PBR beer, things like that. So a couple resources to look into this a little bit more is there's a really good book over there called the Battle for Health is Over Ph and I'll link to that one in the show notes. But it does go into why it's important to consider physical. But again, the whole issue here is that more alkaline is not necessarily better. I'll also link to an acid alkaline food chart for you if you want to see some of the foods that are considered to be a little bit more alkalinic. But I ultimately am not a fan of the alkaline water filters due to the metal issues and due to the potential for drinking water that is unnatural and that's actually too alkalinic to stick.

With the whole primal paleo sort of philosophy that you've been sort of stuck in for the last little while. If our bodies, like if, if humankind was really meant to be so concerned over our ph, we probably wouldn't have survived and thrived quite as long as we did. Yes, it's like they're really over complicating.

And we probably also would have been born with ph strips that kind of stick out of our, our ureters that automatically alert us to whether or not we are high acid or high alkaline.

That'd be cool.

Yeah, that would be way cool. Yeah.

Ben, this is John from Las Vegas. I have a quick question out here in the heat. If I end up shaving the morning of exercising outside, I tend to get really bad razor burn around my neck. And I was just curious if you have any suggestions on how to prevent that or how to, to alleviate the symptoms once they get there. Thanks a lot. I'll wait for the answer, but.

I.

Used to get razor burn like crazy when I was younger. When you were younger, every time I'd shave, I'd just like My neck would just break out.

How young were you when you were shaving?

I started shaving when I was, like, eight.

Oh, wow. Geez. Holy cow.

No, I didn't. I'm just shaving. Actually, I started shaving in grade six, so it probably would have been like.

I'm like, I think that means you're going to die early if you go through puberty when you're eight. So nothing else caught up?

It was just the beard.

Yeah. For. For a while, I didn't even really understand what razor burn was.

Oh, really?

But in. Basically, you have razor bumps, and these get created by ingrown hairs, and they look like pimples, and they can itch really bad.

And.

And they can be particularly problematic for people who have, like, curlier hairs, because you tend to get ingrown hairs a little bit, a little bit more in that case. Now, razor burn can produce these razor bumps. And razor burn is just this rash that will show after you shave. A lot of times it tends to be from the blade from an improper shaving protocol.

All.

But if you do the right thing, you can completely eliminate razor burn and especially eliminate the potential for producing these razor bumps. So as a. As an embarrassing side story, I actually got razor bumps on my crotch the first time. I kind of did, like, a speedo shave to get ready for a triathlon.

Yeah.

So be really careful being hairy. Yes. These protocols would assume especially apply if you are manscaping guys or girls. So, I mean, girls probably aren't manscaping. They womenscape. They womenscape lady escape. So how to prevent razor burn? So, first of all, if you have an actual beard that you're shaving, you definitely want to soften it, and the best way to do that is via hot steam. So if you want to be. You want to get your beard really soft, you can even use hot steam in a hot shower, and you can take some hair conditioner, and you can rub that on your beard while you're in the shower, and that will make your beard really, really soft. Soft like a baby's bottom. And that will. That will, if you actually have a beard, make it much, much easier to shave. Now, exfoliation can also work out really, really well. So you might have, like, a loofah in your shower. That's that weird thing that perhaps your wife uses. That is the scrunchy little deal. I always wondered what it was until my wife told me it was for exfoliation. You can use a facial scrub. Jessa makes her own scrub. But you can Also buy scrub like there's one brand called St. Ives Apricot Scrub and that's actually an all natural scrub. Doesn't have any nasty ingredients in it. I'll link to it in the show notes. You can literally just get something like that off Amazon. But exfoliation prior to shaving can really help with razor burn because you just have, you get to use a much softer touch when you actually do shave. So next up you can use what's called a badger brush. Now a badger brush is something you would use for example, if you are shaving your beard. So you would use that brush after you lather up and you get the shaving cream and, and just an old school badger brush can work really, really well. If you don't have a beard and you are just shaving your face just as kind of like an upkeep type of thing, consider shaving with a safety razor because those safety razors have much, much lower levels of irritation. And all the safety razor means is it has this little, I think it's, I think it's almost like a rubber little surface that comes before the blade that makes it much, much less irritating to the skin. If you're using one of these super duper high tech four or five blade razors, it's a lot more difficult for them to kind of add that safety razor aspect to it. So I would just use a one to like a three blade or max and get something that has one of the little safety strips on it. It that'll help a lot too. Shave with the grain. Of course, guys shave with the grain. My dad never taught me to shave. I had, I had to teach myself how to shave. My dad never taught me how to shave. So I, first time I shaved I was just figuring stuff out for myself and I just kind of threw the razor here and there and wherever. But I always shave with the grain. So you're going to soften, you're going to exfoliate, you're going to use a safety razor, you're going to shave with the grain. Use light and short strokes and that'll keep you from applying too much pressure. You don't want big long strokes because you'll apply more pressure with the razor when you do that. So you just want nice short strokes and you want to make sure that you take care of the blades on your razor too. Unless you're using like the dollar a month shave club, which is actually really cool. I love the dollar a month shave club. But if you're not using the dollar a Month shave club. Then what you want to do is.

Make sure that slightly more interesting than the olive oil club, you want to.

Clean your blade with alcohol, okay. So that you're not only killing bacteria on the blade that might be able to infect, you know, some of, some of the cuts or the rash you're producing, especially really if you really suck at shaving. But you want to make sure that you use a sharp razor and, and use new razors as soon as that new. Don't be cheap with your razors basically, if you don't want razor burn is what I'm trying to say. And then the last thing I would recommend is rather than using one of these like razor burn creams or razor bump creams, which tend to actually have a lot of nasty ingredients added to them, I would instead use one of the forms of oil that's most biocompatible with the natural oil that your body is naturally going to produce that I've found to really, really help. It's my pick for a post shave oil. Now I have mentioned before that I do use olive oil a lot of times when I'm traveling when I want to bring a little bit of color to my skin before I go out. Olive oil can actually have this really, really cool color bestowing aspect on the skin. But I use emu oil after I shave Emu oil. So if you try it out, you will never go back, I swear. If you exfoliate, use a good blade, shave with the line of the hair and then you use some of this emu oil after. Emu oil is excellent stuff for this. You can find it on Amazon. Super easy to get. I'll put a link in the show notes to both that and the exfoliation scrub that I Recommend. But that 1, 2 combo is really useful.

Hey Ben, this is Troy Delaney from evolvedns.com and I wanted to see if you can cover protein cycling. The pros and cons as well as the benefits. Really appreciate everything you do. Keep changing lives. Thanks a lot.

Bye now. I have to admit, I don't really know what protein cycling means. I can guess.

It's very simple. What you do is you get one of these rigs where you have a blender attached to your bicycle and as you pedal, you make yourself your protein shaker.

Protein smoothie.

Yeah, exactly. Protein cycling flintstones. Yes, very. So, no, the idea with protein cycling is think about like carb cycling.

Yeah.

So when you look at carb cycling, your muscles store carbs in the form of glycogen and Your livers also store carbs in the form of glycogen. But the liver is kind of a secondary source and the muscles are going to hold the primary amount of storage carbohydrate. You know, muscles are going to hold around, let's say for the average person, around 1600 calories worth of carbohydrate, whereas the liver is going to store around 300 to 400 calories worth of carbohydrate. So if you're say like eating a low carb diet or going ketogenic or exhausting those glycogen stores, the energy is going to come from stored carbs in the muscle primarily. Now it's kind of the opposite way with protein. Since muscle protein can last longer than liver protein, what happens is when you drop your protein intake very, very low, your muscles are actually going to still contain pretty decent amounts of protein, while your liver is actually going to lose the majority of the protein. So when you go on a low protein diet, it's basically your liver that loses a lot of that protein, whereas the muscles will maintain relatively high levels of amino acids, assuming that it's not a very, very long protein diet. When I say that you're primarily just going to burn through your liver's proteins, it's usually about three to four days of eating relatively low protein. When I say relatively low, I'm talking about going down around like 15, 20% protein intake, around 0.5 to 0.6 grams per pound, which is not super duper, you know, like starving African child protein intake, but it's low for the average person who's exercising, who's maybe been doing a lot of protein, eating a lot of steak, doing protein shakes, that kind of thing. So what you do is when you, when you lower your protein intake, what happens is that the enzymes responsible for, for breaking down, assimilating and absorbing protein and supporting that process will basically go from being up regulated to being down regulated. And so what that means is that once you actually start back into a higher protein intake, you flood your body with an upregulation of these enzymes. You flood your body with amino acids and it creates this very anabolic state. Hypothetically, all of this is hypothetical. I should, I should have proceeded by saying that. So the idea is that by going from high protein to low protein, back to high protein, you would increase your oxidation of amino acids, you would potentially increase your body's ability to store amino acids for those times that you're low in protein, and you would increase your ability to be, build muscle on the days that you do the higher protein intake. So what this means is, for example, you might protein cycle by going low protein three days of the week, amping back up to higher protein four days of the week. And on those four days of the week that you're eating higher amounts of protein, those would be the days that you lift more weight, for example. So now theoretically, this might work. It actually biochemically makes sense when we talk about, for example, limiting carbohydrate. When you drop your carbohydrate, what happens is you increase your sensitivity to one of the enzymes that's responsible for storing carbohydrate. And so then once you start to eat a bunch of carbohydrate again, your body can kind of hyper compensate and store way more glycogen than it would normally. And so this is kind of similar, except you're doing this with protein. So my whole issue is if, if you're exercising and doing workouts that kind of break down the muscle, like weight training workouts, running, kind of the more catabolic type of workouts, I've always recommended that on those days that you're doing that, you consider slightly increasing your amount of protein intake anyways. And I recommend that for two reasons. Number one, because you'll want those extra amino acids available for repair and recovery. And number two, because when you upregulate your protein intake, you also get a little bit of gluconeogenesis or conversion of those proteins into some of the carbohydrates that can be used for glycogen replenishment. So. So I kind of sort of recommend protein cycling anyways, just not in the traditional sense that you might see protein cycling diets recommended, which is multiple days off of protein, then multiple days back on. And I'm never a fan of diets like that, that kind of cycle, versus just kind of organically tweaking protein intake based off of your daily levels of physical activity. Now, I do recommend if you want to build muscle, you always maintain nitrogen balance or you exceed nitrogen balance. And it turns out that in most cases, you don't need anything more than 0.7 to 0.8 grams per pound of protein, period. This actually came up during a talk during Paleo effects. I forget which talk it was, but somebody asked a high protein question and you know, most of the people on the panel with me came to the same conclusion. They were like, maximum you need, you don't get any benefits once you exceed. This is 0.8 grams per pound of protein. Most People build muscle, et cetera, do just fine on 0.7 grams per pound on an easy day, on a day where you're not really breaking down much muscle, you might benefit from some of the, you know, potential life extending benefits of limiting protein intake and going closer to like 0.5 to 0.6 grams per pound. So yes, I agree that you don't need to eat the same amount of protein every single day. But no, I don't think you got to go way out of your way and protein cycle just because it seems like a little bit of a pain. And I haven't seen much evidence to show that it gives you any benefit versus just eating more damn protein on the days that you tear up your muscles a little bit more.

And that kind of goes for all the macronutrients too.

Yeah, it does. Like higher fat on easier days, lower carbs, carb, lower protein, slightly higher protein, higher fat, moderated carbs on your normal days. And then on the days where you're going out and doing something completely epic and destroying yourself, those are days where you might need to really up your carbohydrate intake, you know, closer to like 30% or so. So, you know, it's. It's about those macronutrient tweaks. I go over all this in chapters 11 through 15 of my brand new book. Did I mention my brand new book is out?

I don't think so.

Over at Beyond Training you've got a book dot com. So yeah, I mean, read the book, read the chapter. How much carbohydrate, protein and fat do you need to stay lean, stay sexy and perform like a beast? So there you have it.

What's funny about that? I don't have a copy of the book.

Yeah, you were supposed to get mailed one. And I looked into it and you and a few other people fell through. Vinny Tortorich was another guy who wrote me, he's like, where's my book? I was supposed to do a review. So I. Yeah, There were about 15 names or so that didn't get a book that were supposed to. That, that definitely deserved a free copy.

So I feel a little bit better that Vinnie didn't.

Yeah, yeah, there were, there were actually quite a few people that didn't get one. And you can, you can thank my lovely publisher for that.

So it's funny, they send me emails anytime there's anything wrong, but they don't send me a copy of the book.

Yeah, I don't know, man. But you did get a shout out on our latest itunes review.

Did I?

You did. And by the way, for people listening in, we have the killer Ben Greenfield fitness tech T shirt which I have laying over on the bed right now. And I wear it to the gym all the time. Absolutely love it. I don't just wear it because it has my name on it. I wear it because it's actually a pretty cool tech T shirt. The Ben Greenfield fitness beanie, which is a pretty badass beanie that you can wear when you're gonna go fight somebody in a dark alley, when you're gonna go skiing or rob a bank, when you're hanging out in your house. A pretty cool beanie when you rob a bank. Yeah. And then the Ben Greenfield fitness bpa free water bottle from which you can drink any brand of beer guilt free. So we will send that.

Attracting attention of the cops.

That's right. You can support the show if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com gear. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com Gear, not beer. And just.

We are working on a Ben Greenfield fitness beer. Won't be out till 2016 though.

And you just buy yourself gear. Or you can win yourself gear. If you leave an itunes review and you simply go to itunes and you click on the Ben Griffel fitness show and you leave some stars and you leave a review and we'll send you some gear. And somebody won some gear this week.

Looks like it was CWKNAP01.

That one. Yeah.

That's quite a name. And the title of the review is I have an addiction to this podcast. Five stars.

Five stars.

Addictions. And it says I've been listening to this podcast for about two months and there are probably that. There probably hasn't been a day when I don't hear Ben and Brock's voice. I'm a full time student and the topics in this class help me bring new perspective to.

I didn't. I didn't know this was a class we were teaching.

Yeah, I think that was supposed to be in. The show helps me bring new perspective to my classes. And on often I can catch my professor off guard with my knowledge.

I'm good.

Take that, professor. Uh, the tips they offer can be directly related to training for all types of athletes at all skill levels. And the oddball humor of Ben Greenfield and Brock Skywalker. Not sure if that's his middle name, but it's awesome. Armstrong make the podcast enjoyable to listen to as well as beneficial. Just listen to one podcast and thank you. Me later.

Skywalker. Really is your legal middle name, right?

It was. It was actually my legal last name for the years that I was married to. To Muffet Skywalker.

That's right. So my ex wife. So there you go. C.W. nap. Not only is Skywalker his real middle name, but we're happy that you're catching your professor off guard. Hopefully you're being respectful. And as far as your you won't.

Get a good mark if you're just being a jerk about it. Yeah. Even if you're right.

And as far as your addiction to this podcast, I would say replace your addiction with a healthy, guilt free alternative like Zevia zero calorie soda. Oh, oh, I still have a little sip left. Hold on here. Or of course, what was one of the beers that we said was okay? Sierra Nevada beer.

Yeah, actually the Dogfish Head. That stuff's good.

There you go. Dogfish Head, Sierra Nevada, some Zevia zero calorie soda. Hey, thanks everybody for listening and have a healthy week. And be sure to listen to the Saturday's podcast where we'll talk about drinking marine phytoplankton.

If I remember to get it edited.

Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.

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