How To Do Your Workouts Using Biofeedback, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, How You Burn Ketones & Much More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness show, how to do your workouts using biofeedback, natural remedies for stomach ulcers, how you burn ketones, supplementing with inositol, how to know if you're getting enough micronutrients, 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 BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

Well, good day to you, sir.

And good day to you.

Congratulations. Thank you.

Hey, I'm having an interesting morning.

What'd you do?

Well, I am tapering now. I have a big Train to Hunt competition this weekend.

Oh yeah.

I'm headed over to Kellogg, Idaho to participate 3D competition shooting meat packing, which is basically getting, getting 100 pounds of sandbag from point A to point B in your. In your pack. And then an obstacle course combined with, with bow shooting and so.

That sounds really cool.

Oh, it's gonna be great.

I had no idea it had all that stuff in it. I thought you were just going out like hunting for time or something like that.

No, go to, go to traintohunt.com and check out the videos there. I've had the guy who runs the whole competition on.

Yeah, yeah, he was on.

Yeah, we talked for like an hour about it anyways, though, so I'm tapering.

Apparently wasn't paying attention.

And this morning just, just as, as. As kind of like an easier workout. I was doing like hypoxic sets, right? Like breath restricted sets in the little. My. I have this little 19 foot pool in my backyard, so I keep it at like 55 to 60 degrees. So it's nice and cool. It's called an aqua fitness pool. And it's one of these, like, endless pools that generates a current that you can swim against as well.

Okay. I was wondering how it was. 19ft and you still could swim in it, not just sort of bob around splashing yourself.

Well, anybody who spent much time in cold water knows that eventually your coordination begins to decrease. You know, you spend 15, 20 minutes, you get to kind of like shivering status and coordination goes to pot. And so I got out of the pool and which is built above ground in this beautiful, beautiful structure that we have that uses like recycled snow fencing and this really cool, like grayish brown wooden floor. It's actually a Pretty cool. Like little pool house. We wanted it to be aesthetically pleasing and not just like a pool slapped in the backyard.

You didn't want to get one of those hillbilly above ground pools.

Right? Exactly. And so anyways, I got out and I noticed that I had about five minutes to spare before I needed to get in and eat breakfast and get down for the show. So I was doing some kettlebell swings and I was doing kettlebell suspended swings where you swing and then you switch hands. Then you swing and you switch hands.

The kettlebell sort of suspends in midair and you switch hands and grab it.

Again as I'm cold and I drop the kettlebell and it literally just opened up like this giant gaping hole in the floor of the pool house. So I'm seeing dollar, I'm seeing dollar signs. And I actually had to crawl down there into the, like, there's a little manhole I created and fetch my kettlebell and there's like broken wood splinters down there. So I'm still. This literally happened like, you know, 10 minutes ago. So I'm still trying to decide whether or not I'm going to go out there with hammer, nail and super glue or else get a, get a carpenter to help me out. But either way, I managed to destroy a pool house this morning.

That's more than I've accomplished. In between going on rampages of destruction, Ben is often tweeting things out on twitter.com BenGreenfield and we're gonna go through some of those tweets right now.

Are we ever. That's right. So, you know, I, I do spend a lot of time immersed in research. I used to do it while sitting on the toilet. I've realized in the past couple of years that it's actually not biomechanically advantageous to do research while sitting on the toilet. It's not good for your things like your sacroiliac joint or low back or.

Also the information just goes in one end and out the other.

Yeah, yeah. Plus it's smelly. So now I do most of my research in the hammock in the backyard, or out on the back porch or while walking on my little indoor treadmill. But essentially I try and tweet out the most interesting things that I come across each week. And twitter.com BenGreenfield is one of the places that I do that. And I noticed a few interesting things this week. For example, in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. I thought this was an interesting one because they don't post A lot of like biohacky type of stuff. But what they did was they looked into like a standard bicycling warmup prior to a high intensity interval workout on a bicycle. And they compared that standard warmup where you just do like, you know, a few repeats, getting your body nice and warm and throwing in a few like 30 second hard repeats, and the type of things you'd normally do while preparing, you know, for doing like about 10 minutes or so of a, of a cycling warmup. They compared this with alternative methods of warming up. In this specific case, they used either whole body vibration, right, like these vibration platforms. And then in the same study, they also used a light emitting diodes or LED radiation, which is very similar. It would be similar to like infrared, like using infrared wraps, infrared mat, infrared sauna. It would be very similar to using like these handheld LED infrared wands you can get off of like Amazon. But what they did was they compared a whole body vibration plus like this, this LED treatment with a standard warmup and of course a control group. And they found of course that, that both the standard warmup and the LED plus the whole body vibration beat out the control group. But it turns out that LED plus whole body vibration was able to warm up these cyclists just as well as a standard warmup in terms of like decreasing blood lactate and ammonia levels during the subsequent workout, in terms of increasing temperature, in terms of maintaining the same amount of wattage output. So the takeaway message here, I think is twofold. First of all, it is okay sometimes to think outside the box and use these little biohacks if you need to, to achieve decent levels of physical performance. The other thing is that, you know, let's say that you are driving to a race, right, like in the morning or, or, you know, and you're, you're on your way there, sitting in your car and you want to, yeah, you could use things like infrared wraps, light emitting diodes, electrostimulation. You're probably not going to have a vibration platform in your vehicle.

Well, if you take some back roads, some gravel roads, your whole car will be a vibration platform.

This is true. So I thought it was interesting. And they actually do have like these, you know, you go into any of these mall outlets where they've got like the vibration sticks, like the little massage sticks that, that vibrate. You've seen these, right? You can use them to vibrate your back or your thighs, your quads. Theoretically, you could also use something like that to warm up your body prior to a workout. If you're driving to your workout. I mean, even just for a standard gym workout.

Right.

Like driving from work to the gym. You could use whole body vibration or, or light emitting diodes to walk in there ready to rock the house. So interesting.

The thing that pops into my mind is sure it gets you ready physically for the. For whatever you're about to do, but it doesn't do anything for you mentally. And I find like warm up in general is just a lot of it is mental. Like just sort of getting your brain into whatever you're about to do.

Yeah. Neuromuscular coordination of the same muscles you'll. You'll be using during the actual event.

Well, that and even just plain motivation, like just sort of getting your brain out of whatever you are doing and into exercise or pedaling or lifting or whatever it is.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good, that's a good point.

But it is cool. That's, that's not at all what I expected when you started talking about this. I thought it was going to be maybe all right, like maybe 50 of a normal warmup.

Yeah.

So cool.

Cool stuff. So, speaking of, of weird little biohacks, I figured I'd just stay right on that bandwagon and go into another. Another article that was in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research. And this looked at the effects of hyperbaric oxygen, which are these, these chambers that you can lie in.

Wait, did you say hyperbaric or hyperbaric?

Hyperbaric. Not hypoxia, you know, not breath restriction, but instead 100% oxygen. That's typically in a hyperbaric chamber under a greater amount of pressure than you would experience in a normally pressurized room. And while these have certainly been proven in many, many situations to help out with things like, you know, wound healing, for example. Right. Like a lot of medical clinics will use these for something like that. Not a whole lot of studies have been done on hyperbaric oxygen and force production or subsequent physical performance. And what they did was they had 20 subjects do hyperbaric oxygen therapy and then they had them do some, some workouts primarily consisting of leg workouts. And what they found was that there was a longer time for that muscle to fatigue after these folks had spent time in the hyperbaric chamber and there was a sustained force production. So it somehow was suppressing muscular fatigue, probably through hyperoxia. Right. Like enhanced oxygen delivery to that particular area of tissue that was being worked. But I, but I think it's interesting. I actually just. It probably honestly won't come out for another three weeks or so. But I just recorded a podcast on a guy about, like, health scams and which of these, like, spendy home fitness gear, things like hyperbaric and cryotherapy and, you know, infrared, you know, what works, what doesn't, what you need to look for. And we did talk a little bit about hyperbaric oxygen, and we even talked about how you can kind of like build your own cheapo hyperbaric oxygen chambers in your own home. And it turns out that, you know, using something like this prior to exercise may actually help with performance. There's some other evidence that shows that these hyperbaric oxygen chambers may help with recovery post exercise. They definitely help with wound healing if you happen to, I don't know, burn your leg off or something. But ultimately, hyperbaric oxygen, there's something to it.

Crazy. So I always thought that, like, your cells can only carry so much oxygen. So over saturating yourself wouldn't really get.

Above 100%, say, unless you are in a situation where you've increased the actual pressure of atmospheric air.

Yeah.

So, you know, I'm saying, so you're. So you're driving more pressure into the tissue, which is what you would. That's the difference between hyperbaric oxygen chambers and, like, breathing pure oxygen at normal pressure.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. So just having like, those oxygen bars that you go to in LA where they put the little things in your nose, that just gets you up to a certain level of oxygenation, but this is actually squeezing you with oxygen.

Yeah. And those make you look like the old person who is rehabbing from 18 years of cigarette smoking.

That's true.

Yes.

Those poor people that have to pull the little oxygen tank behind them.

And I'm a. I'm a Segway genius today because actually, the next thing I want to talk about was old people and this king of transition. The king of transitions. The article that appeared on our friend Mark Sisson's Mark's Daily Apple website about seven old wives tales that aren't utter nonsense.

Did you just call Mark old?

Seven old wives tales. Well, Mark is old, isn't he? He's older than me.

That's true.

Makes him old. So seven old wives tales that aren't utter nonsense. One is, and we'll link to the full article in the show notes. But there's some interesting things in here, like smiling makes you feel better, or smile, you'll feel better. And it is true. They found that, for example, in one study, researchers gave pencils to people watching cartoons and told some of the people to hold the pencils between their teeth, which forced them to kind of sort of smile. And then they made the other group frown. And the group that held the pencils between their teeth rated the cartoons as funnier than the group that frowned. And they did another study where they used chopsticks to force smiles instead of pencils and found that that reduced the stress response. So it does turn out it's really.

Just holding something in your mouth that.

Makes you feel possibly better. Possibly they need to remove that variable and just figure out how to make people smile. Honey cures a cough. Turns out that that buckwheat honey compared to standard over the counter cough drops actually beats out that cough drop and helps with coughing. So it also beats out diphenhydramine, another popular anti cough drug. So chicken soup to cure a cold, Definitely. It's been shown to inhibit neutrophil migration that can trigger the onset of cold symptoms. Glycine can in that you'll find in like chicken soup, can help with deep restorative sleep. And then a lot of the things that you'll find in chicken soup, like garlic, for example, or onions, can improve your recovery and the strength of your immune system.

So we're not talking about Liptons.

We are cup of soup. We're not talking about Lipton's cup o soup. No. Preferably like a homemade bone broth.

Yeah.

Which can bring you back from the dead, as the old saying goes.

I've seen it with my own two eyes.

Apple a day keeps the doctor away. That one has been shown to be true and efficacious. Here's an interesting one. When trying to place a bun in your old lady's oven, avoid hot baths. Well, it turns out there is something to that. Hot baths, hot tubs, et cetera, actually acutely inhibit sperm production, sperm motility and sperm utility. So you could technically take a really hot bath and save a lot of money on condoms.

Don't try that on home kids.

Yeah, don't go outside without a coat. You'll catch a cold. I actually always thought that this was a myth and that unless you were already sick, that going out in the cold would be just fine. But they do show, for example, that when hibernating bears have a low body temperature and subsequently lower levels of circulating immune cells. And another couple of things that were cited in this section was that exercising in cold weather and one study was shown to impair your immune system. But exercising in general impairs your immune system. I think a lot of people don't realize that. And so it's, it's a question of how much immune system impairment actually occurs and whether that's significant enough to actually cause a cold.

So I have, I take exception with this one only on a semantic level in that you still have to be exposed to some sort of rhinovirus in order to get sick. Like you're not actually going to get sick from being cold or exercising in the cold. You could still, you still have to be exposed to something.

Yeah, I agree. I'm kind of on the fence about that one as well. And then I can feel bad weather in my bones. Human joints actually contain sensory nerves called baroreceptors, which are highly attuned to fluctuations in atmospheric pressure. And so you actually could feel the weather in your bones.

So I have a weather tone.

That's right.

I can tell the weather with my, my left big toe because I had a bunch of stress fractures in it back in the old days. It's awesome.

It's kind of weird.

It's really quite painful when the weather's changing. I hate it.

Yes. You're like a mutant. That is your skill.

That's my X Men power.

Listener.

Q and A. Hi Ben, it's Nacha from Toronto. So recently I came across what is called the autoregulatory training or like biofeedback training, when I can test the state of mind nervous system if it's ready to train, using what is called a range of motion test. So basically if I do a test and then I do a movement and if the range of motion increases, that means my nervous system likes that particular exercise. And then they recommend that I go ahead and test the implements and test the weights and the rep skins for the day and that I continue doing the exercise until either it becomes more difficult or when it no longer tests well. So I'm just wondering what you think about the mechanisms and whether you recommend this for your students. So thank you so much Ben, for all you do and I look forward to hearing you answer this question.

Bye. So this is interesting. I've never actually heard about actual auto regulatory training being something that you test your range of motion. That's interesting.

Yeah. Put on your propeller hat because this is actually, it's, it's, it's kind of cool. And you, you may have used autoregulation or biofeedback in your training without actually knowing it. But I'll, I'll give you kind of like basics of what autoregulated training is and then we can jump into how it would be used with something specifically like, like biofeedback. So autoregulation, all that means is that during a workout, you're making decisions about your training during your workout and letting how you feel during your workout dictate your intensity. The number of sets that you do, the number of reps that you do, the amount of weight that you use, et cetera, instead of having every detail planned beforehand and then pushing through that workout, the sets, the reps, the weights, the intervals, the time, lengths, the intensities, et cetera that are recommended no matter how you feel. Okay, so when you use autoregulation before, you know, it may have been, if you'd like, rested longer than what your workout had prescribed that you're able to push through another set. Or Maybe you added 10 pounds instead of 5 pounds because you felt really good. Or you just drop the weight and quit the set when your form started to suffer. Right? Like all of that is. They're simple examples of autoregulation, Right? Like, that is not. That is not rocket science. Just what everybody has known.

Intuitive training.

Yeah, it's just intuitive training. But. But technically that is autoregulation. Well, interestingly, they've done some studies on what happens when you. When you basically start to do things like sets and reps and then plan your next set and rep and the weight that you will use during a workout based on what's happen to your body after the previous set that you've done. So, for example, they found that autoregulated rest periods, in many cases outperformed structured rest periods for both strength and muscle gain in one study. Meaning that by. Rather than, say, like doing a set of squats and following the recommendations on whatever workout program that you're following to rest for 90 seconds, you instead rest for as long as you feel you're supposed to rest until you're able to crank out another set with good form at the intensity that you're planning on working out at. Okay, so that's better than just following like the structured repetition or the structured rest range.

And that was for muscle gain.

That was for strength and muscle gain. They did a study in football players that found that their bench strength and their squat strength, and this was in Division 1, college football players was significantly enhanced when they used this autoregulated form of strength training rather than just what, what would be called. Well, the. An example of, of programmed strength training that you follow to the T instead of autoregulated strength training is called linear periodization. And so they, they didn't use this standard linear periodization model. Instead, they kind of like tweaked their workouts in the middle of their workouts as, as they did them. They've also done studied on studies on injured athletes. They've done studies on injured elderly exercisers and found that autoregulatory strength training can help when you're recovering from an injury as well. So an example of this. So, for example, one of the studies that they did was on helping athletes recover from knee injuries. And so what they did with this study on autoregulation was that they decided that if the athletes decided how much weight to add in each workout, that they wouldn't progress too fast and they wouldn't re injure themselves. And they were relying upon the body's own natural, you know, you use the word intuition, Brock, right? Like intuitive training. So in that study they used four sets. So what it looked like was set one, the athletes would use 50% of their 1 RM weight, right? Like the heaviest weight that they, that they've used in their last workout. And they do that for 10 reps. And then for set number two, they would do 75% of their one RM for six reps. And then set three, they would do 100% and go as hard as they could for as many reps as possible. Now, after that third set, they would adjust the weight based on how many reps they were able to perform. So if they performed fewer than five to six reps, they'd lower the weight. If they perform more than that, they'd raise the weight. And so finally, set number four, they just did as many reps as possible with that new weight. And in most studies that have used autoregulatory training, it's not completely up in the air. It says, okay, well, if you can, on that third set, do X number of repetitions. Here is how much weight you should add or how much weight you should remove for that final set. So there are many other examples of autoregulatory training that have been used for everything from bodybuilding to strength training. So, for example, there's one system called a reactive training system. Reactive training system, meaning you react to the training that you're doing as you're doing it. So in that case, there's like a complex chart that shows you, for example, if you are doing 12 reps, you use 62%. If you're doing 10 reps, you use 66%. If you're doing eight reps, you use 71%. If you're doing seven reps, you use 74%. And so it's like these charts that show you about where you should be at in terms of percentage. So you know the basics of basic autoregulation training is you decide on how many reps that you're going to do. So let's say you're trying to get stronger, you're going to do like one to five reps, you're trying to gain muscle, you're going to do more of like a hypertrophic range, like 6 to 12 reps. And then once you've chosen the number of reps that you want to do, you create what are called fatigue stops. So you decide how you're going to manage fatigue. Like if you're going to say, okay, I'm not going to work any harder than 8 on a scale of 1 to 10, or I'm not going to spend any more than whatever, 60 seconds time under tension for the muscle, or I'm not going to spend any longer than 20 minutes doing a squat workout. And you use the time and the RPA limits to manage your fatigue. And then from there you simply adjust during the workout. And there are literally entire programs devoted to autoregulatory training. Now when we get into biofeedback, all of a sudden we get to being able to, instead of saying, okay, that set of squats felt really hard, right? Just felt really hard. So I'm going to strip off some weight or go easier for my next set of squats. Instead, when you use biofeedback, you use a more objective measurement of whether or not that set really beats you up, whether or not you really need to say, for example, decrease the weight. So when NACHO was referring to range of motion training, that's certainly one of the methods that is used during autoregulatory training. And typically it's a toe touch. So what you would do, for example, is you would do a test of the range of motion of your hamstrings by doing a toe touch and seeing how far you're able to get down to the ground. And then you would do a set of deadlifts, let's say eight reps of deadlifts at, let's just use a nice round number, 200 pounds. And then you would repeat that range of motion test. And ideally you would be at a slightly greater range of motion after that, that 200 pound deadlift. And so then you would increase weight and you would do test of range of motion again, you'd increase weight again, and you test range of motion again. And when you get to the point where your range of motion decreases, that's it. You're done with your deadlifts for that day. So that's an example of range of motion testing. There are other biofeedback protocols that you can use, though, in addition to range of motion testing. For example, CNS Tap Test is another one. There's an actual Tap Test app that you can download to your phone that measures how quickly you're able to tap the screen within a span of 10 seconds or 20 seconds. And so once your central nervous system begins to slow down, that would indicate that you have reached your maximum weight and your maximum intensity for that particular workout. And so, and at that point, you would either decrease weight or you'd move on to the next exercise or the next part of the workout. Another common thing that they'll measure that, and this one's a little bit more of a. More of a performance measure, is a broad jump, right? So you'll do a set of squats, and then you'll do one single broad jump. And if your broad jump increases, then you would increase the intensity of the squats or increase the weight or the number of repetitions, and then you'd keep testing the broad jump. And once the broad jump begins to decrease in distance, that's when you would squat less. And then finally, there is, of course, heart rate variability. You can just use a heart rate variability app. And once your heart rate variability begins to drop to the point that's showing excessive stress, right? Like, you know, for example, you know, the, the Greenfield Fitness Systems Nature Beat one that I talked about that will monitor both your sympathetic and your parasympathetic nervous system. And it'll start to flash a warning sign to you on the screen and a breath pacer if you're becoming excessively stressed. And that would be a sign that you would want to. To back off and either lower the weight, lower the intensity, lower the speed, et cetera. So that's what autoregulatory training is. And here's the deal. Here's my thoughts on it. It seems I'm a big fan of listening to your body and not necessarily blindly pushing through a workout to finish the workout, no matter what, even if your form is suffering and you're feeling crappy. I have yet to get to the point where I'm doing things like range of motion testing or taking an app out there me during the workout and doing a tap test or something like that. However, there are a good handful of studies that show some efficacy in actually Quantifying. So rather than just kind of like feeling whether or not you're suffering or your form is suffering, actually quantifying how beat up your nervous system is by using something like a range of motion test or a tap test or something like that. So there's something to it. But even though I personally find it annoying, right, Like I'd rather just listen to my body, there is something to this autoregulatory training. It's not complete bull and actually it's influenced a little bit, and this is a little bit more complex, but it's influenced a little bit by this whole like Z Health thing. So if you want to know what Z health is, it's a form of rehabilitation that actually relies to a certain extent upon autoregulatory training and biofeedback. And if you want to learn more about Z Health, listen to the interview that I did with Eric Cobb. We'll try and link to that in the shownotes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 320. But he's a brilliant physical therapist who uses autoregulatory and biofeedback training in many cases for rehab injuries, stuff like that. So I just think you gotta walk a fine line between not enjoying your workout because you're just quantifying everything during the whole workout and also listening to your body and making smart decisions that cause you to maybe change your workout midstream rather than pushing through and having a crappy workout. Hey, Ben, what can I do to treat stomach ulcers? Thanks. You ever had a stomach ulcer, Brock?

Thank goodness, no.

Yeah, I don't.

Never had it.

You know, I've had. I've done gut tests and I've had H. Pylori before. H. Pylori. Great name for that. Doesn't sound pleasant for a dog or a band, by the way. Pylori. H. Pylori. Helicobacter pylori bacterium. That's Helicobacter.

That's a good name for a band.

It's considered to be the primary cause of stomach ulcers. And so total elimination. Getting rid of H. Pylori completely from the body and from the gut through the use of antibiotics is kind of like the conventional medical treatment of choice for ulcers. And the fact is that when you eliminate H. Pylori, that often does let ulcers heal. But the problem is that if you completely kill off H. Pylori colonies using the type of antibiotics that are used in conventional medicine to do so, you get a development of Gastroesophageal reflux. And so you can get rid of the ulcer, but then develop chronic heartburn when you do.

So is that because you've gotten rid of all the. All the acid in your gut?

Well, H. Pylori in the digestive tract, actually, in small amounts and controlled amounts, helps protect against acid erosion of your esophagus and your small intestine. So you want to hang on to some H. Pylori. Selectively wiping out the entire H. Pylori strain of bacteria with antibiotics can really disrupt the balance of gut flora in your digestive tract. And so if you have ulcers, and even if you have an overgrowth of H. Pylori, you don't necessarily want to get an antibiotic regimen for those reasons because you're going to just, you know, get rid of one problem and create another. Now, there are natural treatments that you can use for ulcers, but before I give you these, I should highly emphasize that a lot of times ulcers are just due to, like, pent up stress and anxiety. And, you know, in many cases, you'll see folks who, who have no digestive issues or very few digestive issues whatsoever, right? Like gluten intolerance, lactose intolerance, low production of digestive enzymes. So like undigested protein passing through the gut wall. You know, all these issues, they don't have any of them, but then they go through a period of intense stress, and that can cause low digestion, low stomach acid, overgrowth, growth of H. Pylori, all these issues, and you develop an ulcer. And then once you've developed the ulcer, what happens is you get gut inflammation and this vicious cycle where you become more intolerant to gluten and more sensitive. And all of a sudden you're on some special autoimmune diet or some fancy elimination diet, and it all stems from stress. And so that's one thing that's really important if you have ulcers is don't just start doing the things that I talk about, like taking a bunch of, you know, licorice extract or something, but pay attention to the underlying cause in the first place. And, you know, look at, look into whether or not people in your life are annoying the hell out of you or your job is crappy or whatever.

A friend of mine got an ulcer when he was in medical school, and lo and behold, as soon as he graduated and finished being a resident, it went away.

Yeah, there you go.

It was obviously stress.

Okay, so what can you do. There was one study they did at the Kiev Medical Institute that found that using vitamin E would be effective against peptic ulcers. And the cool thing is that patients who took vitamin E in this study also had increased protein repair in their intestinal lining. So that actually healed their gut more quickly. Vitamin E, it's a fat soluble vitamin that technically, if you're getting enough like butter and wild caught fish and grass fed beef and these type of things, you probably are getting decent amounts of vitamin E in your diet. But in this particular study, they used 300mg vitamin E per day. So is that a lot?

That seems like a lot.

It's a pretty decent amount. It's a little bit more than what you get, honestly, from most of these fat soluble sources. So vitamin E is one. Another one is the dried unripe bananas. We've talked about these when it comes to resistant starch before, as far as like something you can consume to feed the good bacteria in your digestive tract without a significant spike in blood sugar. But it turns out that what are called the sitoindosides in dried unripe bananas that can actually, I'm assuming that's a form of a glycoside or a polysaccharide that could actually promote cell growth in the intestinal tract and help heal the intestinal tract and also provide this strong protective coating that can help to prevent and heal ulcers. So bananas, the polysaccharides that you find in them, they're some of the same compounds that you find in the anti ulcer prescription drug called carafate. So the trick is that you want unripe bananas or even like one of these, like unripe banana powders. Right? Like one of these resistant starch powders work pretty well also, probably even easier for you to digest than, than chewing through the whole banana. But that's, that's another one, unripe bananas. So honey, there's an enzyme in honey called glucose oxidase and that actually produces hydrogen peroxide and that can kill some of the bacteria that contributes to the overgrowth of H. Pylori. And honey also has some other cool antibacterial substances in it that come from the flowers when bees collect pollen. And so I'm a big fan of honey, actually as a topical antibacterial for things like cuts and wounds and scrapes and stuff like that. It turns out that adding a little bit of honey and in most studies you're seeing the equivalent of about two tablespoons a day. You know, use like a good local, raw, organic honey. But it has some good curative powers for your gut. So honey is another one. These are all things you could easily work into your day. Garlic. So garlic can keep levels of H. Pylori bacterium in check without completely eliminating the H. Pylori. Again, you don't want to entirely eliminate the strain because that can cause. Cause the. The gastroesophageal reflux. So garlic. There's. There's one form of garlic that doesn't cause as many issues with odor. It's called Alomax. It's a really potent form of garlic. You should be able to find it on Amazon. But it's called Alamax A L L I M A X. Really good at. It's also really good for small intestine bacterial overgrowth. Garlic is. But obviously there's the stinky factor. So this Allomax capsule. Yeah, I don't mind it so much. People just think I'm Italian. Okay. And then there's cabbage. Cabbage actually is another way to keep some of the bacteria that can lead to ulcers in check. And it works a little bit similarly to those dried bananas. But the other thing that you've got with cabbage is it helps to produce lactic acid, especially if it is lactic acid. Fermented cabbage. So one example of that would be like a good homemade sauerkraut or a kimchi or a pickled cabbage. Like anytime cabbage has been fermented using lacto fermentation, it actually can really help out with the health of the digestive tract, particularly the type of bacteria that can lead to ulcers. So I think everyone should eat some kind of a fermented vegetable source anyways as a daily part of their, you know, dietary regimen. Unless you've got a. There's a few cases where excess intake of fermented foods can cause a lot of production of histamines. So like, if you, if you're prone to migraines, that's where you got to be careful with stuff like this. But ultimately, even just like a raw cabbage juice, even if it's not a fermented cabbage source, can have a little bit of an effect. But I would encourage you to go after like a good, you know, not like something you buy at the grocery store, like, not like a heat pasteurized sauerkraut or kimchi, but something that you get, you get at a, you know, whole paycheck or, or nuggets or sprouts or one of these fancy grocery stores. Or something that you make yourself at home or Mumba's basement. That's right. I've got two more that I'd recommend. One is, is what's called dgl, Licorice. It's D Glycerizinated licorice. It's a very tough, tough one to pronounce, but basically licorice is really good for a variety of different stomach conditions, including ulcer. You need to be careful with licorice if you have high blood pressure, as it can elevate blood pressure a little bit. But basically dgl, this form of licorice, helps your stomach and your intestines to produce more mucus.

And that's found in like Twizzlers and stuff, right?

Just go to town on Twizzlers, go see a movie and just eat lots of licorice.

Party pack of Twizzlers.

That's right, the big long ones. And then capsaicin. Contrary to what you'd think, eating hot chili peppers doesn't actually cause ulcers and it can prevent ulcer development because what the peppers do, it's kind of like hormesis, right? Like mild amounts of things that you would think would be harmful can actually trigger protection and healing. And in this case, capsaicin can trigger some of the mechanisms that protect the lining of the stomach and decrease the acid output of the stomach. So capsaicin, incidentally, just like a little bit of a hot pepper, capsaicin extract can help out with ulcers as well. I would be remiss, not to mention the fact I know that I mentioned that we've got a phone app for HRV and I want to turn a whole podcast into a giant commercial. But we actually do not only do have an app for that, we have a supplement for that. There's one called Nature Cleanse that you can find at Greenfield Fitness Systems. And that's actually a cleansing compound that is designed to not be like a high fiber type of compound that irritates the digestive lining of your gut, but. Or the gut lining of your digestive system. But basically it's like a gentle cleanse. It's got some activated fibers in it like apple fiber and rice bran, but in very small amounts. And some of the more, the more active components that are very soothing to the stomach include things like slippery elm bark, marshmallow root, fennel seed, fenugreek, turkey, rhubarb root. There's hyssop in there. Ginger, yucca, rosemary, turmeric. It's got, it's a really Good botanical blend, specifically for helping out with gut issues or being, like, a gentle digestive cleanse. So that one's called Nature Cleanse. Nature. Because it's from nature. Nature. Have you seen those YouTube videos? The nature. Oh, you gotta. It's a nature blanking on the guy's name. But anyways, he's like. He's. He goes out in nature because nature's really neat, and he wears, like, these short khaki shorts and, like, this overdone hat, and he carries, like, this little rifle, and he's got, like, a cameraman. I'll remember the name of it. But if you just search. I think it's Nature Guy. Search for nature guy on YouTube if you're listening in. And when you get back from listening to this podcast, search for nature guy on YouTube. It's actually pretty fun. It's nature. So, yeah, you can get Nature Cleanse.

Hi, Ben. My name's Chris. I was just listening to episode 318 of your podcast, and in it, you talk about ketone metabolism and how ketones can be used for energy. And you mentioned something which I thought was very curious, and I realized my understanding must not be complete. I must be missing something, because you said that ketones can bypass the Krebs cycle. And my understanding was that ketones, the breakdown, the metabolism of ketones, leads to the production of two acetyl CoA molecules which go into the Krebs cycle and get oxidized like any other acetyl COA molecule. So. So ketones weren't unique in that respect. But it sounds like you're saying that they skip the Krebs cycle and can be used for energy directly. So I would love to know more about that, please. If you have time in a future show, that'd be fantastic, and thanks for all you do.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Is Chris trying to say that we got something wrong on this show?

No. This confuses a lot of people because I was right. But Chris is also right, and ketones go both ways. Ketones swing both ways. That's right.

Wow. Fancy that.

Yeah. Okay, so I'll give you the overview, and honestly, you could probably learn way more by just going to the Wikipedia page for ketone bodies or the Wikipedia page for ketogenesis. But I'll lay this out for you, and it'll be pretty easy to understand the way that I describe this.

So, okay, 30 seconds.

I might need 60. 60 seconds. So when you burn fatty acids, okay, when you burn fats and you turn them into energy, that's called beta oxidation. It occurs in your mitochondria. And one of the things that's produced during beta oxidation of fatty acids is this molecule called acetyl coa, and that enters what is called your Krebs cycle to produce energy. But that isn't the only thing that happens to acetyl CoA. Okay, some of it goes into the Krebs cycle to produce energy. But for example, in the mitochondria in your liver, some acetyl coa, rather than entering the Krebs cycle to produce energy, instead gets converted into any of three different ketone bodies. One called acetoacetate, one called beta hydroxybutyrate, and one called acetone. You've got three different types of ketone bodies in your body, and acetyl coa can become any of those. Now, once the liver has converted some of that acetyl coa, that doesn't enter through the Krebs cycle into ketones. Instead, those ketone bodies get transported to other tissues that can use ketones very effectively for fuel. Things like your brain, your heart, your diaphragm, your muscle. And when those ketone bodies arrive at those new tissues, the ketone bodies get converted back into acetyl coa, and that acetyl coa can then enter the Krebs cycle to produce energy. So you basically can get ketones going into acetyl coa production. You can get acetyl COA going into ketone production. And it goes both ways. If you've ever been through Chem101, you're familiar with the arrows that go both ways in a chemical reaction. This is that. So that's basically how it works. And so if you are in a state of low glucose or low energy availability, or even a state of high fatty acid utilization, or you're exercising fasted, or any of these states, you're going to increase the production of that acetyl COA into ketone liver, where those ketone bodies can then be shuttled to the brain, the muscle, the heart, the diaphragm, to then be reconverted back into acetyl coa, fed into the Krebs cycle to produce ATP. So that's kind of how it works. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. So it doesn't actually bypass the Krebs cycle. It might just postpone the Krebs cycle.

Yes. So ketones don't specifically bypass the Krebs cycle. They're not what actually enters into the Krebs cycle. But ketones lead to the production of acetyl coa, like Chris says. But acetyl coa also leads to the production of ketones. So it goes both ways, basically. And we've honestly, if you're just totally scratching your head at even the word ketosis, we've done some really comprehensive podcast on ketosis on the show before. Like listen to the one on Keto Clarity with Jimmy Moore, for example. Or go read the book Keto Clarity. Actually, it's a really good book. But ultimately that's kind of what's going on with the ketone bodies.

Hi, guys. Holly from Australia here again. I just wanted to get your opinion on inositol. My naturopath has put me on it for long term management of polycystic ovarian syndrome. She told me it helps with the metabolic side of things and with shortening my menstrual cycle. From the research I've done on it, I can't find many or any negative side effects of taking it long term. But I just wanted to know if you had an opinion on it. Thanks.

I've never heard of inositol before.

Inositol. You've been living under a rock. What's wrong with you, dude?

Perhaps in terms of polycystic ovarian syndrome, I'm not very knowledgeable.

Yeah, well, polycystic ovarian syndrome syndrome, kind of like ketosis, that's something we've talked about pretty extensively in the podcast. But you get a high amount of insulin resistance and you get a high amount of infertility and it's abbreviated pcos and there's some pretty serious issues that go along with it. But we're not going to get into PCOS today because we've discussed that in detail on previous podcasts. But instead the sinositol. So inositol is actually. It's a bunch of different molecules. It's nine different, what are called stereoisomers or versions of this molecule. But in the term or when used to describe dietary supplements, it usually refers to a form of inositol called myoinositol. So myoinositol you'll find a lot of times in things like whole grains and citrus fruits. But you can also take it in supplement format. And the things that it's actually shown the most promise for as far as clinical research proving its efficacy, one would be as a dietary supplement for promoting female fertility. One would be for restoring insulin sensitivity, specifically in cases of type 2 diabetes and polycystic ovarian syndrome. It also has good research behind it for reducing anxiety. And so it's got some promise as a little bit of like a mild anti anxiolytic or as an antidepressant or anti panic type of supplement. As far as its benefits to fertility and pcos, it's a lot of times, and also probably because it's got a little bit of an anti anxiolytic effect, you'll find it a lot of times in like female multivitamins, like, or women specific multivitamins. And so it does have some efficacy. And for women especially, inositol seems to be something that they respond quite well to. Now, in the studies that have used inositol for the treatment of polycystic ovarian syndrome, the actual amounts taken was, and it's a pretty big range, but about 200 to 4,000 milligrams of inositol, and that's taken daily before breakfast in most of the studies. Getting closer to the 4,000 milligram range is what was shown to be more effective specifically for pcos. And actually of all the things that inositol has been studied for, PCOS has been the thing that has really notably been shown to be very, very effective for. And it can also, in women, increase testosterone levels. So along with the increasing insulin sensitivity and decreasing anxiety, you also get an effect on testosterone as far as toxicity, safety and toxicity of something like inositol. It's been shown to be tolerated up to doses of as high as 12,000mg before any type of gastrointestinal effects set in. And there's been no other studies that have shown any adverse effects. And they've even used it in human studies from pregnancy all the way to conception to delivery in as doses as high as 4,000 milligrams per day and found no issues whatsoever, so relatively safe. And just to give you an idea, when I'm throwing around dosages like 4,000 milligrams of inositol, well, if you look at some of the richer sources of inositol, for example, like wheat, like stone ground wheat, and again, you may have some of the gluten issues with wheat, but about 11.5 milligrams of inositol are found in 1 gram of wheat. So in a standard, let's say you were taking in 100 grams worth. Well, you'd be getting about. What would it be about? I guess it would come out to close to 11,000 milligrams and 100 grams of wheat. And wheat's one of the more dense sources, so you could theoretically do this through diet, but wheat is pretty high up there. As far as a source, if you're paleo or if you're trying to avoid wheat, and especially if you're have polycystic ovarian syndrome, it's probably like one step forward and two steps back to be getting your inositol through wheat. But citrus fruits have about a quarter to a half as much inositol in them as wheat. Again, for people with pcos, though, that's a significant source of sugar. So when we jump down to the vegetables, we're seeing levels of inositol to where you would need to be taking a lot of vegetables. You'd have to be eating a pretty significant portion of vegetables to get close to a 1000mg of inositol when what research has shown is 4000mg is a pretty efficacious dose. So ultimately this is one of those things that's tough to get in therapeutical amounts through real food sources.

Hi Ben, Josh Brown here from Oregon. Just had a quick question about micronutrient intake and micronutrient targets. I currently eat a mostly ketogenic diet and I track everything through Cronometer, which has built in recommended daily values for micronutrients. But I've heard that those RDA values can be low sometimes and I'm looking for the optimal micronutrient values. Do you have any input or resources on optimal micronutrient targets? Thanks, Ben.

Chronometer. Do you use a chronometer?

I had to look up Chronometer to see how to spell it in the show notes.

Chronometer. It's an app. There's an app for that?

Of course there is.

We'll link to this app in the show notes. It's interesting. It's not groundbreaking. It's like, like it's basically an app that allows you to, as many apps do, track your meals and input your food. And it does have a pretty decent printout when it comes to potential for micronutrient deficiencies specifically. So it's really not bad. You know, a lot of these apps will just show macronutrients, right? Like your carb, your fat, your protein ratio. But this one will show micronutrients. Well, what are micronutrients? They're. It's kind of a catch all phrase. Honestly. It's everything from like your vitamin A, your vitamin E, your beta carotene, your coenzyme Q10, all of your, you know, your B1, your B2, your B3, B6, B12, folic acid, your amino acid Your fatty acids. Like there are a lot of things, even like your minerals, for example. So, you know, it's kind of a catch all term, this whole micronutrients thing. But yeah, Chronometer would certainly allow you to, to track it. But as far as RDA values and what would be considered optimal in terms of recommendation for micronutrient values, it's all over the map. And that's why I think that it's cool where we live in an era where you can actually test to see if whatever diet you're eating is satisfying your specific micronutrient levels. So a basic example of a test like that would be one that I've talked about before on the podcast, like Wellness fx, for example. Their performance panel will give you a lot of your fat soluble vitamins, your red blood cell, magnesium, electrolytes like, like chloride and sodium along with, you know, the standards, right? Like thyroid and red blood cells and white blood cells and stuff like that. If you want to just look specifically at micronutrients in great detail, there's a really, really good panel that you can get through direct labs. It's made by Metametrics and it's called an, an ion profile. And the ion profile tests homocysteine, lipid, peroxides, organic acids, fatty acids, amino acids, fat soluble vitamins. It's pretty much all your micronutrients. And that one is both blood and urine. And so what happens? It's a pretty comprehensive test. The blood test is done in a lab near your house, right? Like, so you get the requisition form, you print it off, you bring it into the lab, they take your blood, and then the urine test is something that you do over the course of 24 hours yourself. And then you ship all this off. So I mean, it's, it's kind of a, kind of a pretty involved test, right? Like it's not, it's not as convenient as like a salivary test or something like that, but ultimately it gives you a lot of information when it comes to micronutrients. Is it true that, that the general population needs higher amounts than you'll find in the RDA values? Yes. Vitamin D is a perfect example of that. Right? Like the amount of vitamin D currently recommended is the amount of vitamin D that's been shown to prevent rickets in children. Right. It's not the amount of vitamin D that's been shown to actually enhance your hormonal status or assist with physical performance or anything of that nature. It's more like how much of this. Do you actually need to say prevent disease? Yeah, yep, exactly. So ultimately, as far as, as far as a good place to go find RDA values that are more optimal for like a good healthy person, I'm not aware of one place where that stuff lies. I am aware of a pretty good resource, even though it's not out yet. But Mira and Jason Calton, they, they recently wrote a book called the Micronutrient Miracle.

Are they the ones who wrote the Rich Food, Poor Food?

Yeah, they wrote Rich Food, Poor Food which is another really good book too. But this Micronutrient Miracle book, I know Jason does a ton of research in micronutrients. It's probably going to be pretty good. I know you can get it right now on Amazon. You can pre order it on Amazon. I'm planning on reading it actually. Mira sent me an electronic copy to review. I just haven't dove in yet. But you can, you can go check it out on Amazon and I think it's going to be kind of like this resource that provides us with what we really need for micronutrients and some really good sources of them. When to my knowledge there is not a resource that exists that shows micronutrient values that would allow you to enhance your performance or enhance your longevity versus just avoid disease. If there is a website or a chart somewhere that does exist that you as a listener are aware of, please let us know. Leave it in the comments section. But I'm not aware of, of anything now. What I do personally is I just cover my bases. So I've talked about before on the show. But I do take a multivitamin just to shotgun a bunch of this stuff in that I would normally have to take. And the particular multivitamin that I take has hundreds, in many cases thousands of percentages over and above what the RDA is simply because it was designed for hard charging, stressed out people and athletes. And so it's a multivitamin that's a combination of both vitamins and minerals that has way more stuff in it, right? Like it's got vitamin K2, it's got way better absorbing forms of vitamin B12, it's got chelated minerals in it. And the minerals are chelated because that allows you to actually absorb them. It's got higher amounts of magnesium, higher amounts of calcium, it's got a bunch of like, like curcumin in it, green tea, phytosome, a bunch of plant extracts. It's all NSF certified for sports. So you can't get pop for doping or any issues like that. It's, you know, it's one of those ones where when you look at the label, it's kind of got like a holy cow factor. And that's the one that I use. I mean, and I've toured their factory. I've seen like the equipment that they used, literally. And I've done interviews with these folks at Thorne, like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of laboratory analyzing equipment and spectrometers to, to ensure that this stuff is like microdose to the exact amount it's supposed to have in it. So I'm like, when I open up my fridge and I see this stuff, it's like, I, I think it's cool that I've seen exactly where it's made and I'll, I'll vouch for it. So that one's called the, it's called the Multivitamin Elite. It's, it's, it's produced by Thorne Research, but it has, it's called, it's called Exos. Exos Multivitamin.

So you're not, you're not taking the AMPM anymore?

That. It is the ampm. That's what that is. Yeah. You take three in the morning, three in the evening. The evening has like sleep stuff in it. The morning one has everything you need for the morning in it, and it works well. So it seems like we've talked about supplements a lot on the show, and I totally don't want our listeners to get the impression that this thing's just all about pill popping. Right? Like it's specific strokes for specific folks. I made that up. I think I just, just bastardized whatever the bastard does, but basically whatever. Deglycerinated licorice and nature cleanse. Right? Yeah, those are supplements. But I didn't say everybody go out and buy those and start taking them. I said if you have ulcers, you may need to go through some kind of a protocol with that stuff. Or if you look at something like pcos. Yeah, maybe you don't take a standard PCOS medication and you use something like Inositol instead. But I'm not saying that every female has to rush out and use Inositol. I mean, usually in most cases I recommend folks take a multivitamin and they take a fish oil and pretty much everything else totally depends on your situation. Right. So if you're not eating a lot of fermented foods, maybe you take a probiotic or if you have issues digesting food, maybe you use a digestive enzyme or if you want to whatever, increase libido. Right. Like, we talked about, like, the sure. Strength stuff. Like, maybe you take some of that on the days that you plan on having sex. So, you know, it's one of those deals where it's not blindly grabbing, because I know people who take, like, 20 different supplements, and it's like, no, you don't take all that stuff every day. It's just like, plants and foods, you know? And I talked in last week's podcast about how I use this new app called Flower Checker, and I go out on my land and I find at least one new plant a day and study the medicinal properties of that plant. And so, yeah, so if I find, you know, one recent one was. Was Yarrow. Right. Which is really good for nosebleeds. And I actually got a nosebleed the other day, and I ran out there and I got some yarrow, and I crushed it all up and I stuffed it up my nose and it stopped the nosebleed. But that doesn't mean I'm gonna walk around every single day with two nostrils full of Yarrow. Right. So it's like all this stuff is you use it in specific situations. So anyways, just had to. But.

And honestly, folks, like, when I go through all the questions for the. For the show, I'd say, like. Like, 20 to 1, it's skewed to asking Ben his opinion of some supplement or another.

Yeah.

There's very few questions about, like, training, which is something that we'd love to talk about. So if anybody has any training questions, please load them in. Like, we're getting tired answering all this.

Yeah. And speaking of training, if you're not yet following the Facebook Ben GreenvilleFitness page@facebook.com bgfitness or the Instagram page, I've got tons of training stuff on there, and I also post my own workouts every single day to the inner circle. Every day. If you just need fodder for your workouts. And yeah, I mean, I'm a strength and conditioning coach. I'm a personal trainer. Yes. I'm a sports nutritionist. But I would say a good 80% of my expertise lies in the training principles, not in the nutrition, despite what this podcast might have you to believe, because there's all these questions about supplements. Ultimately, like, my area of expertise lies in getting swole, so.

Totally.

Yeah. So that being said, you know what? We are. We are not. We are not going to read a review on this show. I didn't tell you this, Brock, did I? Or even give away a product.

Holy crap.

In exchange for review. Although we will post a really nice review that someone left. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com you can read that review. But this week instead of going and focusing on an itunes review, which you can do, we always appreciate the itunes review and frankly, it helps a lot of people find out about the podcast. And we've been one of the top podcasts in health and fitness, at least here in the US the past few weeks. But instead this week, if you have read my book, which is a 450 page manual on everything you need for performance, digestion, recovery, fat loss, brain sleep, hormone optimization, you name it and you haven't yet left a review for it, then please, by all means go and leave a review. You can find it on Amazon. It's called Beyond Training. Or you can go to BeyondTrainingBook.com but book review is something that I'm going to highly encourage you. And the reason is I was just told by people that. By people, by people. Okay, I heard it on a podcast that Amazon relies heavily upon reviews to make books look good in rankings and stuff like that. So it turns out that if you leave a review, you certainly help to spread the word quite a bit. So anyways, leave your review for Beyond Training book over on Amazon and if you go to the show notes again@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 320, we'll put links to everything we've talked about, like the micronutrient miracle book and that, that multivitamin I discussed. We'll get the nature cleanse link in there, some of the studies that we talked about, the page where you can go make a donation to convert the entire classroom of this school in California into a standing desk classroom, the sheer strength lab stuff, everything else. And then this weekend, stay tuned. I'm super stoked. Last week we talked about Natural Born Heroes as one of the top books that I've read in 2015. Stay tuned because this weekend I am releasing an interview with author Chris McDougal who wrote the book. It'll be good. Stay tuned.

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

It.