Is Resveratrol Really Bad For You, The Shocking Ingredients in Beer, Debunking The Magic of Vitamins And Supplements, & Much More.

In today's episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, is resveratrol really bad for you? The shocking ingredients in beer, debunking the magic of vitamins and supplements and much, much more.

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 or you're just trying to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mil. Cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

So what you been up to so far today, Ben?

I've been burning my eyes out in front of my computer.

Ow. Yeah, that sounds unpleasant.

Yeah. Match candle cattle poker producer. No, I've. I just literally pushed publish on the latest article. It's called get ready for this. Brace yourself. How. How to fix your gut. 9 bad things that happen when your digestion goes wrong. How to hit the reboot button and the best way to detox your body.

Hmm. Yeah, that's a lot. And I can see why that took you most of the day.

Lots. Lots of pictures of. Lots of pictures of Porta Potties on the coast. Long lines.

Of course, you'd have to really be negligent if you didn't have Porta Potty pictures at least every paragraph.

Yeah, I think just about everybody that's probably engaged in some type of athletic event or like a triathlon or marathon or whatever probably has a Porta Potty story. I don't know. Do you have any Porta Potty stories?

I do, yeah. Actually, my very first marathon, I. I got to about kilometer 30 or 32 and had that. I gotta go right now. There is no waiting. So I ran into a Porta Potty, but I was wearing spandex shorts underneath some running shorts because I didn't know any better at that point. And when I went to stand up, they wouldn't come up because they were so sweaty and stuck to my calves. So I probably lost a good 2 minutes just trying to get my shorts pulled back up, which is not the best place to be, like stranded. It's smelly, it's hot, and you can't get your pants up and you're watching the time click by. Wasn't awesome.

Oh, it was so hot in those things. Mine was in Japan where all of the porta Potties are squatty potties, where it's not a toilet, just a hole in the bottom of the porta Potty and I squatted. I squatted in the wrong end. I wasn't sure which. Which my bum was supposed to face. And so I left.

Yeah, it was supposed to face the back of the porta Potty or the front or the door.

I left a nice steaming pile of poo for the next person to come in after me. So. Yeah, because apparently it doesn't go down the little hole if you go in the wrong end.

So, okay, so it wasn't like where somebody was going to stand. It just was in the wrong part of the hole. Okay.

Yeah.

I was thinking you could have just like kicked it.

If we have any gastroenterologists or anything like that listening in, they're probably still listening. And everyone else is gone.

Everybody else is like, oh, okay.

Ahead and jump into the news flashes for the the poop docs that are still with us.

News flashes.

Come on over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com249 to find links to these awesome. Actually, they are really awesome this week and very timely. These are all things that were snatched out of the headlines of a lot of publications this week.

That's right. There was a ton of kind of, kind of controversial articles that came out that I got lots of questions about. And the first one was about resveratrol and being bad for you. Resveratrol supplements may block the heart, healthy benefits of exercise. And of course, our media darlings around the world, God love them, they also of course, twisted this to say that red wine in general will blunt the effects of exercise, which just ruined my evening practice of drinking a nice glass of red wine after my workout. I was pretty bored. But it doesn't.

It's not the wine, it's supplements. Resveratrol supplement.

Yeah. The idea was that they took 27 guys who were around 65 years old, and for eight weeks they did high intensity exercise training. And half of the group got 250 milligrams of a resveratrol supplement a day, while the other group got a placebo pill. And the group that got the resveratrol was actually found not to have as positive and effective exercise training on their blood pressure and their blood cholesterol and their VO2 max. And so what was reported around the world was that resveratrol keeps you from getting fit when you're exercising.

65.

Yeah. And there were some pretty significant issues with the study. The first is that, like I mentioned, both groups experienced a drop in blood pressure and also a drop in cholesterol. And the only thing was that the group that was Taking the resveratrol actually had a slightly lower drop in both of those values. Now you could just as easily say when it comes to blood pressure, because the blood pressure was maintained in a normal range anyways, that perhaps resveratrol actually helps you to maintain your blood pressure within a normal range instead of getting it too low or too high compared to exercise only. So you could interpret that one of two ways. As far as cholesterol goes, the differences in cholesterol were pretty inconsequential. Cholesterol measures barely budged anyways. And the slight budge that they did move was a little bit more in the group that wasn't taking in the resveratrol. Considering that an increase in blood cholesterol is usually due to a anti inflammatory response anyways. This once again could have been simply the fact that the body needed more cholesterol to fight off inflammation because it didn't have the resveratrol on board to do that. And then the other thing was that they used synthetic resveratrol tablets. And synthetic resveratrol, these hard compressed tablets, they're known to degrade when they get exposed to light and heat and oxygen. And normally the idea behind the resveratrol in red wine or resveratrol from like a liposomal or like a sublingual powder or something like that, is that it's supposed to activate this longevity granting survival gene called the sirtuin 1 survival gene. And a synthetic resveratrol that doesn't actually get absorbed or is broken down and oxidized may not actually result in this same effect. So ultimately I would not stop drinking your nightly glass of red wine if that's something that you do if you're taking a resveratrol supplement. The number of studies that are out there that show the heart health benefits of resveratrol are pretty dang numerous. And so I would not let this one study on 20 some odd old dudes kind of block your enjoyment of your glass of red wine or your resveratrol. So there you go. So what do you think? Should we debunk another study here?

Take it down.

Not a study, a book. This was the book about supplements that the New York Times. It may have been npr. I don't remember if it was NPR or the New York Times, but they talk about this brand new book that came out called do youo Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine. And this book was written by this dude named Paul Offit. And the book goes into details about how if you take large quantities of vitamin A or vitamin E or beta carotene or selenium or any of these kind of high dose antioxidants or synthetic vitamins, that you could actually increase your risk of cancer, increase your risk of heart disease and, and potentially shorten your life. And that's kind of the gist of the book. Now, there are some issues with the book and actually it was the New York Times who came out with an opinion piece that was entitled Don't Take youe Vitamins based off this book. So the issues primarily with the book is that when we look at nutrition recommendations, especially in the United States for adults when it comes to supplementation, most of the recommendations for supplementation are based off of what you would need to take to prevent diseases like scurvy or rickets or pellagra. So for example, they say that you're supposed to take 60 milligrams of ascorbic acid or vitamin C a day. And that's actually what you need to prevent scurvy. And so whereas.

So it's pretty minimal.

Yeah. And kind of a baseline, that dose is way too low for optimal benefits, especially say in somebody who's got, you know, like you store a bunch of vitamin C in your adrenal glands. So if you're beating up your body and you have adrenal fatigue or overtraining or something like that, you know, 60 milligrams of ascorbic acid is not gonna, is not gonna really even make a difference at all. Especially when you consider that, you know, the type of studies that are cited in the book are all based off of doses of synthetic vitamin Z supplements. You know, similar to what we were saying about synthetic resveratrol. Whole food vitamin C source at a high dose. That can actually be really good for an athlete who's, you know, like has adrenal fatigue or somebody who really wants to step up their, their immune system activity or something along those lines. You know, same goes for vitamin D. The RDI for vitamin D in the States right now is 600 international units. And that intake is far below what you would actually need to generate optimal, what are called 25 hydroxy vitamin D blood levels.

Yeah, I think you've recommended like 10 times that dose on, on the show before.

Yeah, in, in many cases, you know, my recommendation for vitamin D and somebody who's got low Vitamin D are 35 international units of vitamin D per person per pound of body weight. And many of the studies that are cited in the actual book were performed on the use of these antioxidant supplements like beta carotene, for example, in smokers. And so we're talking about kind of people who are living an unhealthy lifestyle anyway. When we're looking at the cancer rates and the effect of these doses of synthetic antioxidants in smokers, yeah, there wasn't much of a change and things like lung cancer risk. But again, we're talking about subpar supplementation in an unhealthy population with synthetic sources. And when we step back and we look at things like antioxidants and multivitamins, when we're getting them from real high quality sources that are preferably whole food based and we're giving them to a healthy population, that is usually, in the case of many listeners to this podcast, kind of beating up their body and asking their body to go above and beyond even what it might be able to get from normal food sources. What it comes down to is you just gotta be careful with what media does with a lot of these studies. They say things like don't take your vitamins or don't have that glass of red wine after a workout, when in fact, in most cases we have to step back and look at the way that things really are and not this subpar supplementation of crap compounds and an unhealthy population.

Yeah, the headline should be don't take crappy vitamins.

Yeah, exactly. So, that being said, now that we're all frustrated, let's talk about booze.

Oh no. And it's beer too, isn't it?

Yeah. And this was an article that came out on foodbabe.com which is a website that is actually safe for work despite the names.

I've never been to foodbabe.com before I saw this post, but I think I'll be back.

Yeah, foodbabe.com is a cool website and the name of this article that came out is called the Shocking Ingredients in Beer. The article starts off by talking about how your liver metabolizes alcohol first before it metabolizes like carbohydrates and proteins and fats. And so that alcohol in general is a decent way to gain weight if you're not careful. And you know, I really don't think that, you know, a glass of beer here and there or a cup of red wine is necessarily going to be a big issue when it comes to weight loss. And I think that in most people the longevity enhancing benefits of something like a glass of red wine as well as like the stress reducing benefits kind of go above and beyond any type of fat gain risk that might come along with it. But what was concerning to me in this article was the number of legal additives that were found as being acceptable additives that you could add to beer. And also the fact that beer is not even regulated at all by the, by the fda. It's regulated by like the United, in the United States, the Department of treasury or something like that. I mean it's, it's crazy. But what they found was that when you look at a lot of these kind of popular beers out there like Bud Light and Michelob and Corona and pbr, which I know all of our listeners drink the Pabst Blue Ribbon Classic.

All our listeners with the great big beards and the trucker hats on stuff.

That's right, that's right. Because we are the white trash podcast of white trash.

And also the hipsters love us.

Yeah, exactly. Anyways, though, jam packed with stuff like monosodium glutamate or msg, propylene glycol, which is an ingredient found in antifreeze, calcium disodium edta, which is made from formaldehyde and cyanide, A of bunch, bunch of different sulfites and antimicrobial preservatives which, which have huge issues when it comes to autoimmune reactions, allergies, asthma, stuff like that. High fructose corn syrup, dextrose, regular corn syrup, a bunch of different food colorings like blue and red and yellow, you know, all the FD&C food colorings as well as insect based dyes, BPA in the actual can liners, the bisphenol A that can leach into the beer, that's basically an estrogen mimicker as well as carrageenan, which is linked to inflammation in your digestive system and irritable bowel syndrome. And a bunch of these beers have these compounds in them. And I mean, the article gets pretty specific in terms of which beers contain which of those ingredients that I just went into. You know, there is a light at the end of the tunnel though. There is a pot of gold at the end of the dark chemical filled rainbow that she goes into.

Thank goodness.

So German beers, German beers are good. Go Germans. Apparently they're pretty strict about what goes into their beers. And like they got to have those core ingredients of water and hops and yeast and then either malted barley or wheat. And German beers taste cleaner and they don't have a lot of those harmful things in them. So German. There you go. Also certified organic beers, if a beer is certified and Organic. It's also good to go. And these are usually, like, smaller beer producers, you know, and you can support your local organic beer farmer that way. Crafts and microbrew beers, like local micro beers are also good as long as they haven't been bought out. You know, like Rolling Rock is a microbrew, but that got bought out by Anheuser Busch, so now they can put all that stuff in it. Blue Moon is another one, and that got bought out by Miller and Coors.

That's too bad. That's a really nice beer.

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty clean beers that aren't German and aren't necessarily certified organic. But that would be okay. Sierra Nevada, they do a good one. Heineken is okay. And actually Amstel Light is another one. That would be. That would be considered. Okay, so there you go. We'll link to that article in the show notes, by the way, but it's pretty interesting, all the stuff that's allowed to be added to beer. I'm personally not a beer drinker anyways, but I know you are.

I am. Yeah. I just got back from what I would consider to be the land of delicious beers was in upstate New York, and, man, there are some really good microbreweries up there.

Mmm. Mmm. Nice. Nice. You know, we should probably come up with some kind of a drinking game for BenGreenfieldFitness.com considering I just wrote an article on how to detox your body. So we got those bases covered.

Once you finish the drinking game, you know where to go to find out what to do next.

We know everybody's not going to be guilty about drinking red wine. Now, we know that we've equipped our listeners on how to choose healthy beers. So the next step is going to be the drinking game. So maybe we should. Maybe we should let the listeners come up with a good drinking game for Ben Greenfield Fitness.

I think we got ourselves a contest here.

Head over to the Facebook page. Leave your proposal for the brand new Ben Greenfield Fitness drinking game. We'll do it.

But remember, if you're not sloshed by the end of the hour and a half, it's not a real game.

Special announcements.

What are we doing? Oh, special announcements. I've never done this show before. All right, so I may be the slowest reader in the world. I'm still working on the perfect health diet, the book itself, and I'm really enjoying it, and that's probably why it's taking me so long, because I'm actually reading every single word and trying to absorb it all it really is, it really is a great book. I love the way it just takes you through all these, all the different reasons why you should be eating, what you should be eating.

That's right.

What's going to be even better is going to the Perfect Health Diet Retreat in Austin, Texas.

That's right.

What's that going to be?

The Perfect Health Diet retreat. Perfect Health Diet, my go to book. I actually just wrote an article@BenGreenfieldFitness.com that has like 40 different meals for kind of like busy athletes that I wrote that are, a lot of them are based around some of the concepts and the Perfect Health Diet. But we'll put a link in the show notes. 30 day immersion program in this diet down in Austin, Texas, which is a dang cool place to go anyways if you like music and good food. So check that out. We'll put a link in the show notes. But February 3rd through March 3rd of 2000 and frickin whatever. Next year is 14, 2014.

It's a month long.

It's a month long. You can kind of choose like you can pop in for a few days. You can do a week long immersion program. You can do a month long immersion program. I'm going to be going down there and teaching specifically like athletes how to kind of blend the Perfect Health diet with an active lifestyle. But check that out. Perfect Health Diet Retreat, Austin, Texas. Really cool. So very cool. I'll put a bunch of info in that in the show notes and go listen to last week's episode if you want to hear an interview at the end of that episode with kind of like the head chef who's, who's getting the food down, down in Austin.

Oh, there's gonna be food too?

Oh yeah, it's, it's all like catered and they teach you how to cook and there's cooking classes and it's, it's, it's pretty cool. It's all based on like optimum circadian rhythms and there's like hydroponic gardens and aquaponic fish beds and hen houses and, and all this stuff. Crazy. Also for people who are over in London, I'm going to be coming over there to speak at the Global Triathlon conference in London, September 10th through the 12th. But I want to alert all of our London listeners.

This is London, England, by the way.

Yes, exactly. I'm not going to be leaving London until the 15th. So basically September 13th through the 15th, I want to get a bunch of our listeners together and do something fun. Whether we do A clinic or a meetup or we all go, whatever, get plowed on organic British beer. Either way, September 13th through the 15th I will be in London and I've got pretty much a clean slate on my schedule. So let's rally the listeners and do something fun in London. Email Me Ben Greenfield, Fitness.com if you're interested in kind of helping put something together. Maybe find a good, whatever they have over there, gastropub or. I don't know, I don't think they.

Actually have pubs in England. I could be wrong.

Yeah, I don't.

But I think that's a, that's an American thing. I don't think that's an English thing.

Yeah, yeah.

They only have like, like little places where you can eat vegetables and drink water.

Yeah. No beer, no biscuits, no tea, no crumpets.

Yeah, definitely not.

Yeah, yeah. London's not the place for that anyway. So yeah, the, the 13th through the 15th, I'll be over there just chilling. And then also I'll be speaking at the Global Triathlon Conference September 10th through 12th and we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. A couple other things. The Thailand trip is, we're just about full with folks for everything except the Tanyapura part of that trip, meaning that we've got kind of like a four day intensive health, nutrition, fitness, kind of triathlon focused camp that's going to be happening November 17th through the 21st over at Tanyapura, which is like this high end triathlon training resort over in Thailand. So if you want to get in on that trip, we'll put a link in the show notes for that too. And all this stuff is at. What is it?

Brock249 Episode 249 BenGreenfieldFitness.com 249 that's right.

And then one other thing, by the way, I sent an email this week about if you're a Gmail user, if you, if you use Gmail, they changed a bunch of stuff in Gmail. So when I send out emails to you, you may not be getting them. If I send you out like getting.

Them, they'll just be in a different spot, not your regular inbox.

Yeah, like later today I'll send out an email with a link to that, that Detox article that I just got done writing and it's going to wind up in your promotions inbox in Gmail. And so if you want stuff from me to wind up in your primary inbox rather than your promotions inbox, then you basically just go, you, you Find any email from me. Most of them come not From Ben Greenfield fitness.comBut from newsletterngreenfieldfitness.comBut you find any email and you just drag and drop that email into your primary inbox. And then it'll just say, like, do this for all Future messages from newsletterengreenfieldfitness.com you click yes and then you're good to go. And you've beaten Google back once again.

And don't be surprised if you look in your Google account and you don't see this feature yet. They're rolling it out slowly. I know my Gmail account doesn't actually have it yet, but it will be showing up probably in the next few weeks, so be ready if it's not there already.

Yes. So if you mysteriously quit getting all of the annoying emails I send out every week, then that's why so hey, folks, it's me, Ben Greenfield, and this is Abel James. And you may recognize me, Ben from the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast or me.

From the Fat Burning Man Show.

And today, Abel and I want to tell you the number one workout that we're doing right now to burn fat. So, Abel, I'll let you take it away first. What is it that you're doing right now when it comes to exercise to get your body as lean as possible?

All right, so the first thing that I do that a lot of people skip is a warmup. I do about five minutes of shadow boxing and light stretching. Then I go straight into doing some pull ups to failure, doing some burpees, and then I do some heavy squats and heavy deadlifts in my shed in the backyard. And that's it. It's easy and I love it right now.

Did you just say a shed in the backyard?

That's right. I work out in my shed, or usually I work out actually in my backyard in the sun because it's just that nice in Austin this time of year.

I was going to say the shed's about as masochistic as you can get. See out there doing your squats and deadlifts?

That's where my punching bag is.

So I've got this thing that I'm. It's called a Litvinov sprint. And it's.

I love how you geek out all the time, Ben.

I have no clue what Litvinov even means anyways, though. What I do is I've got this 50 pound dumbbell and I take it out to the hill behind my house and I do 15 dumbbell swings and then sprint 400 meters up the hill. Like, I drop the dumbbell, and while the dumbbell is kind of like still in midair, dropping to the ground, I'm off sprinting. And I do that eight times through. And man, when it comes to a fat burning workout, that is about the most potent thing that I've found yet.

So you sprint back and forth before the dumbbell even hits the ground, right?

Exactly, exactly. It's like a roadrunner from Looney Tunes.

That's a fat burning workout right there.

Exactly. So I guess folks are probably wondering why Abel and I are here geeking out about fat loss, and it's because we've got a new website.

That's right.

And it is basically Abel and I following each other around each other's houses with a camera virtually, of course, since Abel lives in Austin and I live in Washington. And we are basically showing you everything that we do from the time we get up out of bed in the morning, all the way up through lunch, through our workouts, through dinner, through bedtime, to live what we call a lean lifestyle.

Yeah. And you'll learn things that are kind of the more advanced strategies. A lot of times on our podcasts, our shows, our blogs, we'll talk about things that are kind of generalized to the public, but these are the things that we literally do ourselves every day. All of the secrets of what we're cooking, what we're eating for breakfast or not eating for breakfast for that matter, what we may or may not be putting in our coffee, depending on the day, pretty much any supplement that we're taking, and tons more.

All of the.

I mean, Ben has all sorts of crazy gizmos that you'll be able to see it. It's a blast to watch.

And Abel's house is much cleaner than mine, as you'll also find out. So anyways, though, here's what you do if you want to get inside the Lean Lifestyle Insider right now. All right, so, Abel, what is the URL that people can go to if they want to get in on the Lean Lifestyle Insider right now? That would be leanlifestyleinsider.comb that's leanlifestyleinsider.comb. and I'll put a link in the show notes for you all, too. Hey, Abel, thanks for coming on the show.

Anytime, man.

Listener Q and A.

Hey, guys, this is Heather from Denver. I've got a question about charcoal. I know that it's taken to negate some of the negative effects of conventional meat and alcohol, but a couple things. Can you overtake charcoal? Let's say you're on vacation and you're drinking a lot of alcohol or you're eating a lot of meat and fish and you don't know the source. Is it okay to just pop it at every meal throughout the day? And also, I'm wondering how charcoal works. I know it's like a binder. It binds to toxins and takes them out of your body. But would it also bind to good things in your body? Does it kind of rob you of any beneficial nutrients when you take it? Yeah. So any info you have on charcoal, kind of fascinated by it right now. I would really appreciate. Thanks.

I've been wondering this myself as well. I'm glad Heather actually stepped up and. Hi, Heather.

Yeah, Heather, you just basically you go to like the, the local grocery store and you grab yourself some charcoal briskets and you can, you can put them on your counter, get a sledgehammer, chop those babies up, and then you just kind of suck on it like gum or like a, like a piece of candy. No charcoal.

At first I thought you were actually telling something. I was like, oh, this is awesome. I didn't know you could.

Oh, the DIY don't do that. DIY Charcoal capsules. Yeah. Activated charcoal will basically bind to toxins. It's an antidote that absorbs most organic toxins or chemicals or poisons. And a lot of emergency rooms actually administer pretty large doses of activated charcoal for certain kinds of poisoning. Yeah, yeah. And your girlfriend's an emergency room doc or nurse and do they use that?

They do. And she said the entire room gets covered in it when they're using it too. It's really hard to wrangle. So these ones that are for sale on Amazon, they're in these little tiny little caplets are probably a lot easier to handle than the stuff they use in the er.

Yeah, exactly. And it works by adsorbing chemicals, meaning that it reduces their toxicity. And it works through the entire length of your stomach, your small intestines, your large intestines. It pretty much will adsorb toxins from your entire GI tract. I also incidentally, have used a activated charcoal based tooth powder to whiten teeth naturally. You can keep it on hand, like if you got kids around and they ingest toxins or household chemicals. But interestingly, a lot of meats, fish, beef, whatever has toxins. It as well. Like I travel with activated charcoal when I'm going to be consuming meat from an unknown source or, you know, if I get exposed to something that I might need, a poison antidote. Against I use it, it can actually soak up gas pretty well. So like I use for example, that you can superstarch as my fuel during triathlons. And like if you use that stuff for, for whatever, five, seven, 10 hours in a row, it can ferment and it can give you some gas. And I actually use this specific activated charcoal brand called Charco Caps and it's a homeopathic anti gas formula. And I get zero gas discomfort or pressure or bloating or anything like that when I take that right after I finished a workout or a race that I've used that superstarch stuff during. And it's just, it's got activated charcoal in it, like a vegetable based charcoal. And then it's got some homeopathics in it, like club moss and bark and sulfur. And these are all traditional homeopaths that are used for abdominal pains and like bloating and flatulence and stuff like that.

Okay, I was wondering what made this a homeopathic version. Yeah, so they've actually added some stuff in there. That's cool.

Yeah, exactly. So you just keep this stuff on hand and you would use charcoal like as part of a detox pro protocol. And go read the detox article that I literally just published today. You know, if you listen to this at the time that it came out is July 25th, that article just went live. And you can also use it to, to just like basically take prior to any meal that contains potential toxins like meat or animal products from unknown sources or you know, whatever foods that tend to give you gas, Anything like that. Yeah, so that's basically the way that you would use it.

So I think the biggest part of her question, or the most important part of her question was is it possible to take too much or take it too often? Like if you keep popping these capsules all the time, is it going to bind to the good stuff and eventually sort of leave your body depleted of any nutrients as well?

Yeah, I would imagine that it probably could do that. I mean it's such a powerful antidote that I would not be using it as like your daily go to supplement. You know, don't use it as an.

Excuse to eat at Burger King every day and then pop your charcoal.

Yeah, exactly. Even though they could do that, they could market the Whopper with charcoal. Kind of upsell you. You want some charcoal caps with that charcoal cap. Supersize me charcoal milkshake. That's right. No, I wouldn't use it every day, all the time. I just use it every like I have charcoal caps on hand, and I pretty much only use them when I am traveling and eating meat at a place that I don't know where the meat came from. Or after I've used, like a. Like a sports beverage, like Superstarch, where I know I'm going to get gas just from the amount of carbohydrate fermentation in the digestive tract. So.

Yeah, so very specific usage. Very sort of pinpoint what might cause some problems. Take it, then don't take it otherwise.

Exactly, exactly.

Sounds good.

And you can also break open the caps and, like, smear the black dust underneath your eyes like a. Like a football player. And it just gives you a cool look like before you go work out at the gym or whatever. It just makes you look a little.

Bit more badass and sucks the toxins out of your eyes.

That's right. Hey, Ben, this is Clay. I was wondering if you could compare and contrast the Sweet Beat app and the Inner Balance app from HeartMath and give us some good reasons why you should. You use one or the other or use both. Yeah.

So I guess we should probably start off by saying that both of these apps are things that measure your heart rate variability, which is something we've talked about a lot on this show.

Yeah, yeah. Like if you go to BenGreenfulFitness.com and you do a search for heart rate variability. We've talked about that a bunch. So I won't get into that much as much as the difference between these two apps. So think about it this way. The Sweet Beat app is an iPhone app, and it allows you to measure your heart rate variability along with things like the tone of what's called your vagus nerve, your sympathetic nervous system health, your parasympathetic nervous system health. It's just a really good snapshot of what's going on with how strong your nervous system is. Think about it like, if you were going to go hit the gym, the Sweet Beat is going to tell you how strong you are and how capable you are of actually lifting weights at the gym. Right.

In terms of nervous system.

Yeah, exactly. So whereas inner balance would actually teach you how to get stronger or how to lift weights properly, if we're going to use that gym analogy. So what the Inner Balance does is it tests your heart rate variability, but then it also has software on it that walks you through the process of learning how to de stress. So there is this process called a cohesion technique, and the cohesion technique is this technique of actually thinking of positive feelings. Positive emotions, positive experiences, and then using those positive experiences to specifically reduce the negative effects of stress, to improve relaxation, to build resilience to stress. And this is biofeedback. It's actually biofeedback training within the Inner Balance app. So you're both testing your heart rate variability and then learning how to sustain really good levels of de stress. It has coherence games on it. Like there's a game called Dual Drive and another one called Tropical Heat. And these games, they actually teach you how to de stress properly. And so if you're somebody who, say, uses the Sweet Beat heart rate variability app or any other number of these heart rate variability apps like the Omega Wave or the Bioforce or whatever, and you find that you've consistently got just crappy scores, that's where you might want to shell out some extra bucks. I think the Inner Balance app is like $97 or something like that. If you get the hardware that you need to go along with it, like thing that attaches to your ear, I believe it's right around $97.

It's not bad.

You buy that and it trains you. It's actual biofeedback training. And so, yeah, it's a little bit more advanced, but it's something where for somebody who's really got consistently poor heart rate variability values and high amounts of stress, this is what would teach you how to achieve that inner balance, so to speak. So that's the difference between the two. One just tells you what's going on, the other one tells you what's going on and trains you on how to fix it.

Well, I don't know if you've tried this, but wearing the Sweet Beat app, I've. I've tried doing different kinds of activities, thinking different kinds of thoughts, and then like actually looking at those specific times during the test to see what my reaction was. And sometimes it's more interesting to look at the low frequency versus high frequency, so the fight or flight versus the rest, and digest frequencies of your heart rate. Like when I do something like kiss my girlfriend, they tend to level out really quickly. It's like an automatic reaction. It just. They come together really nicely. Whereas if I check my email, they fly apart and it's like almost instantaneous. It's really cool stuff. So I can see how that inner balance would be really interesting.

I've just got this visual of you making out with your girlfriend and the heart rate strap with the little dongle coming out, the iPhone attached to your ear. Yeah, man, that's a sexy look and.

Then looking over her shoulder and immediately checking my email.

Yeah, I bet she likes that. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Way to go, man.

Hi, Ben and Brock, this is Keith from Texas. I listen to your show a lot and really enjoy it. And I have a question regarding ph. I use a little litmus strip orally and tested about 6.4 and am wondering if I should do anything at all to try to get up more in the seven or seven and a half range. Thanks a lot.

He's gonna die, Keith.

Go to the hospital.

Yes. Driver said don't even drive. Have somebody else drive. You drink some vinegar. Actually this is really interesting because we did a podcast on this. We had Dr. Ted Mortar on the, on the podcast and I'll link to it in the show notes. And it was really interesting because he goes into like, you know how eating an alkaline diet can do things like reduce incidence of migraine headaches. And I thought it was interesting because we actually, my wife went through his 30 day urine ph testing alkalinic diet protocol and actually used it to get rid of her headaches. And so from that perspective, I think it's interesting. If you eat an alkalinic diet, it's definitely gonna be in many cases more healthy than an acidic diet. But the whole basis behind this is that when you consume a food, it can be an acid forming food or an alkali forming food. So for example, animal products like meat, like a steak or grains, those are acid forming foods. And so solutions with the ph that's less than 7, that's an acidic ph. And so if your urine PH is dropping, that would indicate that maybe you'd eaten an acid forming food. And if your urine PH was increasing, maybe that would indicate or that would indicate that you'd eaten an alkaline forming food. An alkaline forming food would be like kale or fruits and vegetables and things like that. And some foods are purely neutral, like coconut oil for example, or other fats, those are just neutral. And that's because they don't contain protein or sulfur or any minerals that are going to affect your ph. So the tricky part here is that a food will affect the PH of your urine, but that doesn't mean that it's affecting your physiology. It doesn't mean that it's affecting your blood ph. Your kidneys are very, very good at regulating your blood ph. And unless you have like a, like a renal issue or you have kidney disease or something like that, to where your kidneys are unable to regulate your body's acidity or your alkalinity. The type of food that you eat is not going to change your blood PH that much. And the blood PH is really what's going to influence whether or not your body is healthy or whether or not your metabolism is able to work properly. So these diets that are based off of eating an acidic food or eating an alkaline food and then testing your ph and kind of adjusting your diet based off of your urine ph, they're not necessarily working because they're changing your ph because it's so hard to change your blood ph. I suspect that the reason that these PH type of diets work is that it's simply healthier, you know, when you, when you're downing a lot of things like, you know, kale and a lot of these fresh produce type of foods and a lot of these things that are a little bit more alkaline forming along with limited amounts of meat and relatively limited amounts of grains. I mean there's, there's very few people that would argue that that would be, that that would not be a healthy diet. And when we look at some of these other arguments when it comes to acid forming foods like avoid meat and avoid grains entirely because they're going to cause bone demineralization or osteoporosis, that's an argument that's often made by vegans, for example, that a high meat diet will result in leaching from the bones because it's a very acid forming food. There's really not a lot of evidence to show that that's true. And so what this, this really comes down to, the main thing you got to wrap your head around is that foods don't really affect your blood ph. Yes, certain foods, such as an alkaline forming food like kale, is going to be very high in phytonutrients and high in minerals and high in flavonoids and chocolate, full of a lot of compounds that are going to be really healthy for you and probably have some really good downstream positive metabolic effects, but it's not what they're, what it's doing to your blood ph that's causing that effect. So this whole ph diet can work, but not because it's really changing the PH of your body. Now if you want to dig into this a little bit more, then you could go, for example, read a really good two part article series that Chris Kresser recently wrote over@kriskresser.com on the myth of the ph diet or the myth of this acid alkaline diet. And Just the idea that anally keeping track of your urine, that doesn't really sound right the way that I just said that, does it?

Yeah, that's the wrong side. That's not the other place.

Keeping track of your urine or your saliva, it. Using PH test strips is not really necessary as much as focusing on not overdoing your meat and your grain consumption and then getting moderate amounts of dark leafy greens and dark fruits and vegetables. And if you're. If your urine is consistently. If your urine PH is consistently low and you're consistently down, like, you know, below 6.8 specifically probably does indicate that you could do a little bit better job, you know, maybe limiting acidic compounds like grains and maybe increasing your intake of rich green vegetables, you know, sea vegetables and kale and things of that nature. But don't put all of your eggs in that PH basket because, you know, there's not a lot of evidence to show that this strict PH diet actually works. Now, if you are kind of wanting to look for the optimal level of urine ph, that again, isn't going to reflect your blood PH, but could reflect the actual appropriateness of your diet. The actual number that you'd want to be looking for for your urine PH should ideally be right around 7.2. Okay. So that's what you'd be looking for. Salivary PH would also be pretty close to that. That 7.2 number.

It's a little bit acidic, but not. Not drastically so.

Yeah.

And he could have put himself there by having a. Having a burger at lunch or.

Yeah.

And eating the bun.

You know, all that. My wife did. Really, the only big change that she made that. That really did get rid of her headaches was she started having a kale shake every morning. And, you know, I don't think that anyone would deny that there are some health benefits of doing that. And frankly, that's, you know, that's my breakfast just about every. Anyway, so there you go.

Kind of comes down to that same old thing of eat a really varied diet, don't concentrate on one side or the other too much, and you're probably in a good position.

Yep, exactly. And then also just don't think that your urine PH is necessarily a reflection of what's going on in your blood. Your body is not broken. Your kidney does a pretty good job tightly regulating the PH of your blood and your extracellular fluid and all that jazz, so. So yeah, there you go.

Hey, Ben and Brock, this is Craig again from Birmingham. I'm a huge fan of tnt and take it every Day. And now I've added inner peace to the mix. But my question is, are both necessary or could you just go with one? Like go with more inner peace rather than taking both? If there's a difference, I'd love to know it. And I know that T and Chi has caffeine, but other than that, I don't know what the differences are. So wanted to be know your opinion on that. Thanks. Bye. Bye.

So we had a question about inner balance. Now we've got a question about inner peace.

Inner peace.

I like it. I'm feeling very.

I just like to say that word. It does make me feel like a monk on top of a Himalayan mountain. Hey, sick. Speaking of, did you watch America's Got Talent? You ever see that show? Probably don't watch that.

I don't have a tv.

Well, I don't either, but I watch it on Hulu. There's, there's this. Yeah, we don't have this, this contestant on it. And he calls himself Special Head and he like levitates and does magic knowledge, but he always starts off with the whole thing. It's kind of cool. Anyways, speaking of TNT versus Inner Peace. So these are both. TNT as well as Inner Peace are compounds that are formulated by this Chinese herbologist that lives down near Portland, Oregon named Roger Drummer. And he's a. Oh, is it the same dude? He's a really cool guy. He's one of the, one of the best Chinese herbologists in the world in my opinion, in terms of his knowledge of Chinese herbal medicine and how to formulate tonics that are going to be able to affect your adrenal function. And he also has a really good website. I think it's RogerDrummer.com. i'm blanking on the name of it, but his 2 kind of flagship formulations, or his original flagship formulation was T and She. I stumbled across TNT a couple of years ago when one of the people who Roger consults with, who lives in the same town as me, I was his personal trainer. He gave me a few, not capsules, a few packets of it. Super duper powerful stuff when it comes to mitigating stress. And it's also got a lot of really cool neurotropics in it, which are brain enhancing compounds like Huperzine and Clubmoss and stuff like that. That so makes you smarter, stabilizes your stress levels. And it's just kind of a really cool, sexy supplement that is, it is something I take every day and it's something that is one of my kind of like highly recommended. Go to supplements called tnt.

And it tastes a little like Kool Aid too. Which is kind of nice.

Yeah, exactly. It's like healthy Kool Aid. So, you know, I order a few hundred boxes of the stuff every month and it gets stocked at our warehouse over in Philadelphia. And I mean, you can order it and kind of like add it to pretty much anything that you order from Pacific Elite Fitness. And a ton of people use it. We actually get out of stock almost every single month because it's rationing mine right now.

I don't want to run out and I'm like halfway through my box.

Yeah.

Do I need it today? Do I need it it today? No, I'll wait till tomorrow.

It's produced in really small batches. It doesn't sit for, you know, years getting sprayed with ethylene oxide, you know, over and over in China. You know, it's, it's, it's fresh, real herbs. It's like a good £40 worth of herbs extracted into this tiny little packet. The issue with it though is it's, it's got trace amounts of central nervous system stimulants like caffeine in it, it's got a little bit of fructose in it. And some people either don't want fructose and caffeine or they don't need fructose and caffeine. The group that doesn't need fructose and caffeine would be someone who's in like a deep state of adrenal fatigue, who's really over trained themselves or somebody who's like wanting to use this stuff in the afternoon or the early evening. And they're caffeine sensitive and, you know, we're talking about the equivalent of like a quarter cup of coffee. But for some people, that does kind of muss up your sleep later on. So it's never really been an issue for me. But what Roger did was he wanted to take all of these components. Ashwagandha and schizandra and gotu kola and Chinese licorice root and all this stuff that's in tnt and get it in a capsular form that doesn't have fructose or caffeine in it. And that's what inner peace is. So it's basically the same thing, except you could take it like right before bed, for example, and you'd be good to go. Like the first time that I took it, I took it with lunch. I went into sleep in my room for my typical, you know, 20 to 60 minute post lunch siesta and I slept for three hours. That's how much this stuff can kind of stabilize your adrenals. So if you need to be de stressed, it will de stress you. It's one of the best stress control compounds that I've really come across. So that's the difference between inner peace and tnt. TNT is a powder of Chinese adaptogenic herbs you add to a glass of water or you dump it in your mouth has trace amounts of fructose and caffeine in it. And there are some situations where you wouldn't want that. Inner peace is a capsule and you swallow it like any other capsule with a glass of water. Gold standard. If you really wanted to get the full benefits of using Chinese adaptogens in your daily protocol would be use some TNT in the morning or the mid morning and then you pop some inner peace like in the afternoon or before dinner and there you go. And then you, you get, if you really want to take it to the extremes, you get one of those like giant Asian back tattoos. You know, I'm talking about like, like the Japanese gangster ones.

Yeah.

Toss one of those into the mix and then you're just, just a complete badass Asian herbologist. So that was a joke, by the way, for those who just wrote that down. I know some people take us seriously and they'll, you know, they just wrote down in their day planner, make, make appointment with tattoo parlor. No, don't get the giant back tattoo. That's probably a fast path to hepatitis C. But you know, you may want to think about doing the tea and chi in the morning, inner peace in the afternoon. That's a pretty potent little 12 combo for stress control.

I have noticed if I take the tnt, like often. Well, pretty much every morning I wake up, I have a cup of coffee, first thing I do, then I'll do my workout, then I'll take TNT and then wait, wait like 45 minutes and then have bulletproof coffee. If I do that combination of cup of coffee, TNG and then bulletproof coffee, I kind of freak out a little bit. So you do have to be a little bit careful with. I guess that's probably the caffeine just overload.

Yeah, listen to your body because a lot of that stuff, you know, if you overdo it, let's say you're doing like, you know, the Dave Asprey's bulletproof coffee and you're doing some Chinese herbal blends and maybe whatever. I know some of our listeners use aniracetam or maybe you're using like on its alpha brain or something like that. Once you start to stack a lot of this stuff, you may notice that your sleep suffers later on in the day, like eight hours later. And I've certainly, I've done a little bit of self experimentation with different things and I personally, I don't do very well when I start to mix all this stuff together. Just because some is good doesn't mean more is better. If you find something that makes you smarter increases alertness, don't dump a bunch of extra stuff on top of that. Usually keeping things pretty simple and clean and kind of staying on one track is a better way to go. And if you find that TNT is something that works for you in the morning, for example, to increase your alertness or whatever, I wouldn't mix it with bulletproof coffee and then, you know, throw whatever alpha brain or aniracetam or whatever in there. I mean like just like pick your poison and stick to it if you want to rotate stuff throughout the year. Like I talked about this a couple podcasts ago, like testosterone supporting blends, like herbal testosterone blends. Don't mix a bunch of different blends together and assume that just because some is good, more is better. If you're going to use a supplement, just take one. Because honestly, in this era there are a ton of different things out there and frankly a lot of them work, but that doesn't mean that they use them all at once.

That is good advice.

That's right. We're chock full of it today.

Hi Ben, this is Erin from Maryland. I'm a registered dietitian and I work in integrative and functional medicine. I really believe in the value of a balanced diet, but I can also appreciate the support of supplementation. What do you know about isotonic supplements? I'm trying to figure out the most ideal method to enhance the nutritional status of my clients. The science looks great, but I can't find any solid clinical trials to show its benefit. Any help you have on this would be great. Thanks so much. I love the podcast.

Isotonic supplements.

Isotonic.

It sounds like a pyramid scheme.

It sounds super scientific. It sounds like a pyramid.

Well, sounds like not a scheme, but one of those. What are they called? The multi level marketing thingies.

A lot of multi level marketing companies kind of base their compounds on this idea behind isotonic supplements. So there are supplements that are usually in liquid form with the idea being that the liquid that the vitamins are mixed in have the same concentration as body liquid, like, like blood and saliva specifically. And so if. If the substance that is dissolved in the solution is isotonic versus being hypertonic or hypotonic, then the isotonic supplement would be more readily absorbed. And there is actually a company, I think it's based out of the states, called Isotonics, which is, as the name fittingly implies, isotonic supplements, Isotonic vitamins. There's really not any studies that I am aware of that show that isotonic supplements are any better absorbed than any other kind of pills or supplements that you might swallow. So.

Unless you inject them directly into a vein.

Unless you inject them directly into a vein. And you know what? I actually have gotten IV cocktails of supplements, like a multivitamin IV cocktail before.

Were you super hungover?

You feel like a million bucks.

Is it a banana bag?

It feels really good. But of course, it's also a pain in the butt because you have to obviously give yourself an iv. There are a bunch, kind of like, in the biohacking community, there are a bunch of alternative nutrition supplement delivery mechanisms that are kind of being explored and developed and that I think are really going to replace our traditional use right now of just, like, popping pills in capsules. So, like, you've got transdermal delivery and transdermal patches, and, you know, it relates to the whole concept of doing something like, you know, transdermal magnesium oil, for example, but taking that to a whole different level in terms of, like, targeted delivery.

So transdermal means through the skin.

The skin and then sublingual.

Your arm or your leg or something like that.

Yep, exactly. Sublingual tinctures, Sublingual extracts that go directly, sublingually into the bloodstream.

That's another one for those who don't speak Latin.

Exactly, exactly. Nebulizers. Dr. Mark Serkis is big into, like, nebulizing, like, magnesium and stuff like that. He's a guy that's been on this podcast before. I think nebulizing with supplements, that's the.

Thing that bubbles the liquid so much that it becomes like an aerosol that you can breathe.

Exactly. And then there's another form called liposomal encapsulation, and that's another one that you see popping up now in terms of encapsulated in fat. Yeah, essentially. Usually like some kind of like a lecithin or something along those lines. And you get way, way better absorption for stuff like that as well. And the issue is that most of those methods, they kind of like, fly under the R radar. They're uncomfortable or they're. They're hard to come by or they're expensive, but, you know, biohackers are really kind of on the cutting edge of a lot of this stuff, and that's what a lot of them are using now. And there. There are entire communities online, like forums devoted to just, like, how to. How to nebulize or make liposomes or do transdermal delivery of just about every, you know, drug and compound and cocktail that's out there. I mean, and honestly, like, for me, best case scenario, I'd find out what I was deficient in and I'd get whatever, an iv, you know, whatever once a week. That kind of gives my body what it needs. But, I mean, like, a big part of it for me, frankly, is like, I just want to enjoy life a little bit. And I always have to find that fine line between better living through science or whatever and just kind of like, you know, unplugging. And, you know, the. The best times of my life really are when I'm, you know, hiking down to the river with my kids and swimming in the river and catching some bugs and coming home and eating some wild salmon and having a glass of red wine. And it's like, you know, the more, shall we say, annoying days of my life, or when I'm doing, like, electrostimulation and experimenting with different supplements and doing all this biohacking stuff, it's like, I don't want to give people the impression that I necessarily endorse some kind of unnatural, go way out of your way living that kind of takes the enjoyment out of life. Because we talk about supplement even on this show today. We've talked about supplements a bunch, and we've talked about. About ingredients and we've talked about strategies for better living through science. But I really want to emphasize to listeners the most important thing you can do is go out, enjoy nature, eat real food, get some good sleep, don't stress out your body too much. And that's where the big wins are. And then the little things are whatever. Liposomal delivery of your whole foods. Vitamin C versus synthetic vitamin C. Does it make sense what I'm saying?

Yeah. Yeah, I totally. I feel like even just the last part, the last 20 minutes of the show, we both came off as these guys who wake up in the morning and meticulously start measuring things out. And, like, that's not true at all. This morning I had a cup of coffee and went out for a run and came back and eaten a banana. It was. It's been very simple. It's a very simple day. But finding those times to test things out and see how much better you can feel or if you do feel any better or when you do something slightly different is also part of. Part of the life that I've chosen, I guess.

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, same thing for me. I got up this morning, I made myself a little cup of coffee and I went out in the garden and opened up my computer and wrote an article while I was sitting in my garden. And I frankly haven't had any breakfast or pops any supplements. And it's what, 11:00am in the morning. And it's just like. I don't want listeners to think that we necessarily endorse living your Life in this 247 like biohacking mode. It's just a matter of picking the stuff that works for you and choosing the stuff that enhances your goals, but not going overboard with it. And you can also ruin life by worrying about this stuff too much. So there you go.

Drive yourself into a state of preach it, Preach it.

Well, cool. What do we got? One more question and then a little giveaway for a listen listener. Mm. Alright, let's do it.

Hey Ben, love the podcast. I'm a big fan. I've got a question for you about Propecia, the hair loss drug. I took that every day for about nine years until I learned that it disrupted my hormonal balance quite a bit. I had very low testosterone and high estradiol. Went off of it about two years ago and I'm definitely having have a more balanced hormonal profile. But I'm wondering if this is something that could be affecting me long term and if there are any steps that I should be taking to further balance my hormones, increase, testosterone, et cetera, given that I took that drug for so long. Love the podcast and hope you answer this. Thanks, bye.

Propecia, Propecia. I like to say Propecia.

Don't we have a post on the album about hair loss?

We do, yeah. If you go to itunes and look for Ben Greenfield Fitness Top Hits Volume 1, you can download a whole big thing about boat hair loss. A whole. I think it's like a good 10 minutes long and it's only 99 cents.

Yeah, it is. What is it? It's like natural way, the best natural ways to stop hair loss. So first of all go download that and listen to that. John on when it comes to Propecia and hair loss drugs. Yeah, big issue. I mean the way that these things work is they're anti androgenic drugs. So normally you've got this enzyme that converts testosterone into what's called dihydrotestosterone or dht. Now DHT is some pretty potent stuff. It's super critical for like your libido and your sex drive and the maintenance of genital tissue structure or more specifically the size of your balls. It's responsible for seminal fluid production, for keeping estrogen levels in check so you don't get man boobs or bitch tits or whatever else you want to call them. DHT is even responsible.

How about gynecolomastia?

There you go. Gynecomastia. Thank you for using the polite term, Brock.

Bitch tits.

Mental clarity, mental function, like production of neurotransmitters like DHT is some pretty potent cool stuff and you effectively switch it off when you start using propecia or finasteride or any of these anti androgenic drugs that are designed to inhibit hair loss. Because that's kind of the issue when you block the conversion of testosterone to dht. It can actually, you know, cause you toto elevate your testosterone levels. At least your total testosterone levels, not necessarily your free bioactive testosterone, but at least your total testosterone levels. And that can keep you from losing your hair a little bit. But it goes hand in hand with like prostate cell apoptosis, which is cell death of your prostate gland, you know, shrinkage of your prostate and it reduces nitric oxide synthase so your erections aren't as good. And then like I mentioned, you get gynecomastia, you can get depression because you aren't producing neurotransmitters quite as well. And essentially it creates this pretty nasty downstream side effects that go hand in hand with having a nice head of hair. But nice head of hair and really small balls.

Huge boobs.

That's right. And big boobs. Boobs. So, you know, first of all, you know, the first thing I want to say is I really don't think that hair loss is that big of a deal. I mean I'm, I'm one to talk because I know I have a full head of hair or whatever.

But I mean, speaking of somebody who's definitely thinning and receding, it's not really that big of a deal. Like you find a haircut that works and you roll with it.

Bald is the new sexy. I mean, frickin bick it. You know, don't, don't, don't worry too much about first of all, but let' slyou know, you've taken the drug, you've experienced the side effects. I Mean, I, I would be, first of all, if you're on the drug, I would be titrating yourself off of Propecia and titrating yourself off of anything. You know, let's say you're addicted to sleep drugs like Valium or you're addicted to, or not addicted to, but using Propecia or whatever. And you want to limit some of the side effects that happen when you get your sleep off of a drug like that and limit some of the shock effects that can happen to your endocrine system. You wean yourself off over a several week period of time. So you could start with, let's say a full pill is 1 milligram, so you reduce the dosage to 0.5 milligrams or half a pill and then you go down to a quartered pill and then an eighth of a pill and then a sixteenth of a pill. And it's just every few days like every other day or so, whatever, every third day, fifth day, six, seventh day, you're bringing that down until you're no longer taking the drug at a certain point. So that would be one of the things I would seriously consider doing if you're, if you're taking one of these hair loss inhibiting drugs. I would also at the same time consider kind of looking into restoring proper hormonal function as you are getting off Propecia or as you're trying to, you know, as John is doing, mitigate the damage that Propecia caused. So I would make sure you've got adequate hormone and steroid precursors on board. So, you know, make sure you're getting adequate vitamin D and sunlight exposure, make sure you're getting adequate fatty acid. You know, you can even throw in like a cod liver oil or a good fish oil or something like that. Some other really, really good libido supporting and testosterone supporting foods that I like are Braz nuts. Big fan of grass fed beef, big fan of shellfish for the zinc. And then as we mentioned a couple weeks ago, there are some really good herbal mixes out there like tribulus and maca and nettle and fenugreek. And go back and listen to the podcast episode that we did on my three top recommended testosterone supplement compounds. I'll put a big list in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 249 that John can look at when it comes to, you know, getting testosterone levels back up. If you found that you do have low, it wouldn't be low total testosterone necessarily that you'd have if you were taking Propecia because frankly it increases testosterone because it inhibits the conversion of testosterone to dht. Well what it does do is it lowers free and bioavailable testosterone and more of that total testosterone that you produce gets converted into estrogen which is why you get like the man boobs and kind of like the weight gain and stuff like that. So there are, there are what are called aromatase inhibitors out there as well. Two of the more popular ones are Myomin and there's another one called Chrysan that can actually decrease the over aromatization of testosterone into estrogens. So I'll put some pretty big links in the show notes for you on all this stuff, John, so that you can go check that out. But yeah, I mean you want to titrate yourself off and if you're listening and you are on Propecia, I recommend you definitely look into getting off it. Probably the number one website that I would recommend to you that has the most comprehensive amount of information on it about dealing with like finasteride or propecium do side effects would be website called allthingsmail.com that's M A L E, not M A I L. There probably is also a website called all thingsmail.com where you can put your mail on hold during your vacation. But check out allthingsmail.com that'd be one that I look into as well. And, and we'll link to all that stuff in the show notes for you. So but yeah, man, ultimately, like I said, ball bald is the new sexy. Just let that hair go, it's not a big deal.

All right, well, speaking of letting things go, before we let the people go, I think we need to hear a review from itunes.

Yes.

Don't forget if you leave it a review on itunes and it catches Ben's attention and you hear it read on the podcast and you send an email, man, that's a lot of steps. To Ben greenfieldfitness.com Ben will send you some crazy crap that he finds kicking around his desk.

That's right, that's right. And I think that what I'm gonna send to Teddy V. Teddy V. I've got some super coffee drops for you. I don't know if you've tried super coffee drops, but they're made by living fuel and you put a few drops of them into like a cup of hot water or a nice glass of ice water and it tastes like coffee. It's chock full of antioxidants, but you can skip the step of actually making yourself a cup of coffee. If you don't have time to do.

That, perfect for camping.

It's called super Coffee. So here's Ted's review, Teddy V's review over on itunes. It's called Become the smartest person in the Room and it gave us five stars. Five fricking stars.

Nice.

He says you will love listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. You will learn, you will laugh, and occasionally you will say to yourself, no way. Your knowledge on health and fitness will surpass all of your friends. Just think about the number of things we accepted as fact 10 years ago, such as low fat is the way to lose weight. That we now know is the exact opposite. Ben stays on top of this latest research and shares his findings in his podcast. Very informational. And on top of that, you will have things to say at that next dinner party or happy hour. So for all of you who are speechless at parties and wallflowers and usually tend to leave cocktail parties early because you're bored and no one is listening to you, if you listen to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, you will all of a sudden become the life of the party.

You can regale people with stories of before you were gluten free, how you walked around in a bloated diarrhea haze, but now you feel fantastic. Yes, everybody loves to hear about that.

No hair, but you feel great. So, Teddy V, if you wrote that review, email me ben greenfieldfitness.com I'm gonna get a little bottle of super coffee out your way. And remember, you can leave a review of itunes. You can also go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com love and share the love. And then also if you are a listener in London, drop me a line ben greenfieldfitness.com and let's plan on having a super duper London meetup, maybe doing a clinic, having some fun, drinking some non toxic beer and just hanging out at, I don't know, a gastropub or.

Running laps around Stonehenge.

That's right. We'll go run some laps around Stonehenge. That's it. Because they do that in the UK as they love it as the English people do. So.

All right, we've offended our English.

That's right. We better quit offending our international listeners and head out. All right, so check out BenGreenfieldFitness.com 249 and yeah, over and out.

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

Vice.