Podcast Episode #29: How Many Critters Are Living In YOUR Gut, Making You Fat, Tired, Lazy, Bloated and Sick? (hint: more than you think)

Welcome back podcast episode number 29 from BenGreenfieldFitness.com welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast, your free weekly audio exposure to cutting edge fitness, nutrition and wellness information. My name is Ben Greenfield and I'm an exercise physiologist, certified personal trainer and nutritionist. Each week I'll be bringing you information that goes outside run of the mill exercise and diet advice. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you're just trying to lose a few pounds, enjoy this week's podcast episode from BenGreenfieldFitness.com. Hello podcast listeners and welcome back. Finally, we are back into podcasting mode here@BenGreenfieldFitness.com and boy oh boy, oh boy, do I have a jam packed episode for you today. At the top of the list on today's topics is an interview with New York Times best selling author of the Fat Flush Plan, talking about her new book, the gut flush plan. Dr. Ann Louise Gittleman. You are not going to want to miss this interview. It has huge implications for you if you have chronic fatigue, if you have gut issues, or if you are an athlete who wants to learn how to optimize your performance by optimizing your gut. This is probably one of the most important interviews that we've had here@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Next up, the National Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research just came out and I'm going to be giving you a synopsis of some of the most important and relevant studies from that journal. A couple of them including how the type of rest intervals that you take while you're exercising are going to influence your hormonal response and the strength response that you get when you workout. We're going to talk about those compression socks that triathletes wear and a recent study that came out that really gives the final word on whether or not these things actually make you faster. We're going to be talking about core training and a study done on 5,000 meter runners and whether or not it actually made them faster. I've got an interesting study that talks about testing for specifically triathletes and whether running and cycling testing actually gives you different results depending on which you choose. And then finally, a little talk about caffeine and how that influences your exercise performance. Our listener Q and A today is a really interesting question from a listener who has some serious blood flow issues to her legs and wants nutritional advice about the type of things that she can eat, the type of nutrition regimen that will help with blood flow to muscles. And then finally in our calendar of events and announcements, I'll be talking about some special appearances in the Pacific Northwest area as well as the next date for the live video Q and A, as well as a release of some proprietary discount codes for the listeners to this show. So tons of stuff stay tuned and we're going to get right into the content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com. Before we delve into this week's content, I've got a couple of announcements. Remember on January 4th when I did a 90 minute video Q& A that turned out to be an incredibly fun, entertaining and educational session for everybody that showed up. And it was such a great experience for especially the athletes and the people who were going after holistic wellness and fat loss that I decided that I'm going to begin doing a live video Q and A on a regular basis. So get out your pens, get out your calendars without your iPhone, calendar app, whatever it takes because you're going to want to write this down. The last Sunday of every month I will be conducting a live video Q and a at 6pm Pacific time. That would be 9pm for you folks on the East Coast. You'll still be able to hit the sack by 10:30, I promise. This is going to be a one hour live video Q and A where I will be presenting on a special topic and then taking your questions after. Pay attention to the blog. Pay attention to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Newsletter. If you haven't subscribed to that, you can do so@BenGreenfieldFitness.com because in the next week I'm going to be posting the special topic and the reminder for the next upcoming live video broadcast. Now that's going to start the last Sunday in February. There will not be a live video broadcast this month. However, starting in February and beginning on the last Sunday of every month, you'll be able to get 60 minutes of free advice and live video Q and A. Now in addition, if you missed the last one, these are not going to be recorded. However, in coeur d', Alene, Idaho, I gave a 60 minute lecture on January 6th that covered many of the topics covered in that last video Q and A session and I'm going to be making this available on the website. If you look in the show notes for this blog posting@BenGreenfieldFitness.com There will be a link where you'll be able to access a talk called the Synergy of Fat Loss that goes over crucial fitness, nutrition and lifestyle choices that you can make that are pretty outside the run of the mill advice that you get about how you can accelerate fat loss. So if you're interested in watching that, it's an actual video conference of me giving this talk and I'll put a link to that in the show notes so that you can access it now. If you're local in the Spokane or Coeur d' Alene area and you would like to see these type of talks on a regular basis. On Tuesday, February 17, I will be over at Pilgrim's Wellness Institute in Coeur d' Alene from 6 to 7pm talking about metabolic testing and how exercise metabolic testing and resting metabolic testing can vastly improve your weight loss, your energy and your physical performance by giving you exact details on how to fuel your body, how to exercise at the ideal heart rate intensity for your unique biological profile. That's on Tuesday, February 17th from 6 to 7pm in Coeur d', Alene, Idaho. Same place Tuesday, February 24th. The following Tuesday from 6 to 7pm I'm going to be talking about whether or not exercise can actually give you a heart attack if you're genetically predisposed to cardiovascular disease and what you can actually do about that, how you can exercise safely. So if you or someone you know is interested in either of these talks, they're over at the brand new Pilgrims Wellness Institute on fourth street in Coeur d'. Alene. I will also put a link to both those talks in the show notes. Okay, I'm hurrying along. Almost done here for you triathletes who are out there. I'm continuing to create cutting edge triathlon training programs that I've posted huge discounts on. You can check those out in a link to the show notes to a place where you can actually simply log in, download those training plans to your computer and start into everything from a sprint triathlon training plan all the way up to Ironman. Pretty comprehensive plans that include exact workout details for every single day. If you're a triathlete and you don't want to hire a coach, but you want a customized training plan that's been written by me using the techniques that I use with the athletes that I coach, then you're going to want to check out that link in the show notes. All you do is click on it. Brings you to a place where you can learn all about getting those training plans immediately downloaded to your computer so you can start right away. And then finally, if you haven't been to the blog lately, you're going to want to go there and catch up on some of the articles that have been written. Specifically, the last one talks about the fact that I got food poisoning when I was recently competing at a triathlon down in South America. I got scared out of eating fresh fruits and veggies, but I still managed to eat about 10 salads a day while I was down there. If you want to know how in the heck I did that, go check out that blog post and scroll down and read some of the previous blog posts that we've put out since the last podcast. There's a lot of good stuff on there. And remember, you can subscribe to the newsletter to get updates whenever new blog posts come out. And also get access to some articles that aren't appearing in the blog that just go out to our newsletter subscribers, as well as some discount codes that just go out to our newsletter subscribers. Okay, I know that was a bunch of information. If you have questions about any of that stuff, just email me ben greenfieldfitness.com and the first thing that we're going to do today is go into the Listener Q and A. After the Listener Q and A, we'll be looking at some research from the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research and then moving on to the interview with Dr. Ann Louise Gittleman. So listen in. Listener Q and A Today's Listener Q and A involves an email that I received from Listener Jen, and Jen has a bit of a backstory to her question. She says that two years ago I had deep vein thrombosis in my left leg. It was treated and I was told the clot had dissolved. One year ago I started on my Ironman journey to complete an ironman before my 50th birthday, which I'll be doing this August in Louisville, Kentucky. Ironman Louisville despite medical reassurances that everything is normal, I continue to have issues with my left leg. Pulled hamstring last year, soreness in my left knee if I'm not careful and I've been told that there's an imbalance blocked energy in my left leg. Fast forward to last week and again a track workout started playing havoc with my left leg. Focusing on energy flow, I can feel the blockage. Now to my question. Is there perhaps a nutrition regimen through food and or supplements that is known for creating good energy or blood flow? I'm surmising that I sustained vein damage from the deep vein thrombosis, but if I could create more vein blood flow in that leg, I might circumvent further problems. As I continue to ramp up my training. Great question, Jen. I'm a big fan of using natural remedies and natural means as much as possible as either a replacement or as an addition to traditional medical care. And of course, I'm not giving out medical advice. I just want to give you some suggestions on some herbs, some supplements, and some foods that are really going to help enhance blood flow. So any of you who want to deliver more oxygen, more blood flow to working tissue, listen in. Here are my top five foods for increasing circulation to tissue. Pumpkin seeds. You can get them in the bulk food aisle of most grocery stores. If not all of them. They're a great source of vitamin E and vitamin E actually lowers your likelihood of forming blood clots. So I would add a handful of pumpkin seeds to salad, mix them with some craisins or raisins for a trail mix, but work those into the diet. Don't use them as a pre workout fuel because fats typically don't settle well in the stomach for before workout, but as nutrition throughout your day, utilize pumpkin seeds, oranges, a huge amount of vitamin C and something called bioflavonoids in oranges. And these really help to strengthen the capillary walls and they're also going to assist with blood flow. Next, nuts. I know I mentioned seeds already. Nuts are a little bit different in that they contain a high amount of niacin and niacin is also known as vitamin B3. It's in a lot of drugs that help to enhance blood flow and prevent circulation problems. But you can also get it in natural format in things like almonds, walnuts, macadamia nuts. So again, you can mix those into a trail mix with the pumpkin seeds or you can add them to salads. I like to add nuts to rice and soups as well for a little bit of a crunch, an alternative to croutons. So get nuts into your diet. There are actually or there is actually high amount of something called lycopene in melons. Watermelon in particular has a large amount of lycopene and this is something that can help prevent plaque building up in your arteries. And plaque can interfere with blood flow. So if you want to further enhance your healthy blood circulation, look into watermelon and then finally garlic. Now garlic has a ton of properties. I always have a clove of garlic somewhere in my kitchen. But garlic also can prevent the accumulation of plaque. So pumpkin seeds, oranges, nuts, watermelon, garlic. Add them to your grocery list and go out and get them. Now there are also a few herbs and spices that you can add into your diet as well. I'm a huge fan of cayenne pepper. I put it on a lot of stuff. It's great for circulation, and it has a lot of healthy effects in your gut as well, which is something that we'll talk about later in the interview on this podcast. Ginger and ginkgo biloba are two other powerful compounds that really help with blood flow, and they're something that you can get your hands on pretty easily. One of the multivitamins I talked about in a previous blog called Ener prime has a few of these compounds in it as well. And anytime you're adding these into the diet, you're going to help get a little bit more blood flow to working tissues. Now, there's a compound called lecithin that is found in soy, and you need to be careful with soy. I'm a big fan of choosing unfermented or, I'm sorry, fermented soy sources. And this would be like the type of soy soy found in miso. Tempeh is another great alternative. And this not only helps to lower cholesterol, but it can also prevent some of that cholesterol and plaque deposit on your arterial walls. I mentioned some foods that were high in vitamin E. You can also take just a vitamin E supplement. Pretty powerful antioxidant that's also going to help improve circulation. Now, the final thing that I want to mention is something called nitric oxide. It's the same stuff that they put into Viagra to enhance the blood flow to a specific muscle or gland, I guess, in men. But you can also get forms of nitric oxide that are not body part specific, but indeed increase blood flow to your extremities everywhere. During my master's degree at University of Idaho, I did quite a bit of master's study studies in nitric oxide for my biochemistry courses. I wrote a pretty extensive paper on nitric oxide and found that it does indeed not only improve sugar and oxygen delivery to muscular tissue, but it enhances capillarization, that is delivery of blood via the tiny vessels that feed into your muscle. And it does so fairly significantly. Now, you can't just go buy nitric oxide gas and wear a gas mask and get it that way. It just doesn't work. Most of the supplements on the market that deliver nitric oxide actually deliver a precursor to nitric oxide called beta alanine. And when you supplement with beta alanine, what it does is it boosts your intramuscular levels of something called carnosine. And what happens is when carnosine is metabolized in your body, it actually produces this gas, nitric oxide, that actually causes the blood vessels to become larger to do something called dilate. The place that I have in the past gotten nitric oxide is from a company called Millennium Sport. The name of this stuff is a little bit violent. Don't let that scare you away. It still works just fine. And it's something that you may want to try. It's called carnage. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes in the listener Q and a section of this of the show notes. But this Millennium Sports Carnage is actually a great way to get a concentrated nitric oxide delivery via beta alanine. And of course, I'm not saying that this is the end all in terms of medical advice for deep vein thrombosis, but those are some of my suggestions for increasing blood flow and cardiovascular efficiency during exercise. You know, it's pretty rare that I actually open up my journals and give you all the results of some studies, but about every month the journal of Strength Conditioning research arrives at my front door. And I like to go through it and find anything that's really relevant to the audience. And so I have it sitting here open in my lap. And I've circled a few of the studies that I think would be very interesting to go through with you and just give you a real brief insight into some of the cutting edge research out there and how it can affect you. This first study that I'm going to talk about, and I'll make these fairly brief, what I want to give you is the meat of the study. I want to give you the takeaway message that's immediately relevant to you. The first study looked at the effect of rest intervals between sets while you're weightlifting on the actual hormonal response to weightlifting. And two different rest periods were studied. One rest period was only for a minute between exercise sets and one rest period was for two and a half minutes. Now, what happened was the hormonal response to lifting, that is the actual increase in growth hormone and substances called catecholamines. This was a lot bigger after the minute long rest rather than the two and a half minute rest. And there was still a similar response in strength and muscular gains even with this one minute rest. Now, that was very interesting, but I thought the even more interesting fact was that these gains in hormonal response and strength diminished after five weeks. That is, they weren't significant compared to the group that was resting for two and a half minutes after Five weeks. So there's a couple of take home messages from this. The first is you don't have to spend a long time resting between sets in order to see a good response. When you're weightlifting, a minute appears to be sufficient. The other interesting thing is that you're not going to get as good a response from your weightlifting if you're doing the same routine over and over again for more than five weeks. Most of the clients that I work with change up their exercise routines every four weeks. And in some cases, especially the people that train with me face to face every single day, they never do the same thing. This keeps the body guessing, keeps the hormonal response very strong, and gets you very quick, quick results. Okay, study number two. This is for you runners and you triathletes out there. There was finally a good study done on the effect of compression socks when you run. And there's a lot of studies out there that look at recovery. And these studies have been kind of inconclusive in terms of whether or not wearing compression socks actually helps you recover better from exercise. But check this out. The group running, I believe the time, length, let me see. Yeah, this was about a 30 to 40 minute run. So right around in the 5k to 10k range. Now, the group who was wearing the compression socks had a running performance that was on average about half a mile per hour faster than the group that wasn't wearing the compression socks. And the people wearing the compression socks also lasted on average one and a half minutes longer than the people that weren't wearing compression socks. Takeaway message is that if you're competing, I would highly recommend that you get your hands on compression socks. There's a lot of companies out there that make them. I use some from a company called Skins. Yes, they look silly, but these things are not expensive. And if they can help you make you a half mile an hour faster or make you last for 90 seconds longer during exercise, that's huge, folks, especially for people who are up there competing at a highly competitive level. So study number three out of four is titled the Transferability of Running and Cycling Training Zones in Triathletes. And what this study looked at was when you're testing to find out what your heart rate zones are for biking versus what your heart rate zones are for running, how much different are the test results in terms of giving you heart rate training zones? In other words, you need to do a separate test for the run and a separate test for the bike. Are the heart rate zones different between those two sports? What this study found was that there is indeed a huge range in results when you test on the bike versus the run, an average of about nine beats per minute. And in my experience, the cycling heart rate zones tend to be lower than the running heart rate zones. Zones. And it's the first time I've seen a study that's actually looked into this. But the authors of the study recommended a not only doing sport specific testing to get your training zones being do a separate test for the bike and a separate test for the run. But they also recommended that if possible, you use something like watts rather than heart rate to measure your intensity if you're competing. Because they still saw a significant drift upward in heart rate during something as short as even a 30 minute exercise bout. So whereas the heart rate is going to change due to a lot of different things that are happening while you're training, the amount of watts that you produce is going to stay relatively constant. And then the final study is called the Effect of Caffeine on Sport Specific Endurance Performance. Now caffeine is something that I've used a lot when I race and train. And all this study did was it, it was a meta analysis, meaning that it looked at a bunch of different studies. And what it said was that in most studies they look at how long someone can last when they're on caffeine versus when they're not on caffeine. This study didn't look at how long you could last, but how much faster you actually went when you consumed caffeine prior to exercise. And it turned out that There was a 3 to 4% improvement in performance during a cycling time trial. When the subjects consumed caffeine prior to exercise, how much did they consume? About three to six milligrams per kilogram of body mass. I love these studies because they always have to put things in terms of kilograms. Well, to give you an idea of what that is, I weigh right around 70kg. So if we were to average that and say that I should take 5mg per kg that would be about 350mg of caffeine prior to exercise. You want to take that about 30 to 45 minutes prior. But for me that would be the equivalent about three or four cups of coffee. I personally do a product called Delta E. You can do caffeine pills, you can do Nodo's, you can drink a bunch of coffee which can be kind of acidic in your stomach. And I don't recommend that prior to exercise. The researchers found that you had to abstain for at least least seven days prior to exercise or prior to when you want to use caffeine in order to get the maximum effect. And basically three different ways that it acts. It helps to mobilize the levels of calcium inside your body, helps to increase the amount of fat that you use. Interesting for those of us out there going after weight loss. And it also serves, as we would guess, to stimulate the central nervous system and reduce your perception of how hard you are actually working. And so once again, as many studies in the past have done, we find that caffeine is indeed a good aid for exercise. This one just proves that it not only helps you last longer, it helps you move faster as well. And so that's the information from today's Research Corner. And hey, one final thing. If you like listening to me talk about research, post a comment on this blog posting or this podcast posting or shoot me an email ben greenfieldfitness.com and let me know if this stuff bores you guys to death. I'll leave it out. I want to put podcasts out there that are relevant to you that you want to hear. And again, any questions that you have, you can leave a comment on the blog. I'd love to read your comments. You can also email me ben greenfieldfitness.com now let's go ahead and move on to the interview with Ann Louise Gittleman. And after this interview, stay tuned because I have just a couple exciting final announcements to go over. I want to warn the listener that the first little bit of this interview and on a couple spots through the interview, after I completed it with Dr. Gettleman, I found that there were some very spotty audio recording spots. I didn't want to bother Dr. Gittleman by requesting an entirely new 30 minutes of her time. And so I would encourage you sit through the first couple of minutes. The audio gets better as it goes along, but the first couple minutes are a little spotty. I'll warn you, just stay with it. There's some really good information in this interview. Hey podcast listeners, this is and as promised, I have a New York Times best selling author on the Other line with me, author of the Fast and now the author of the brand new book the Gut Flesh, the breakthrough cleansing program to rid your body of the toxins that make you sick, tired and bloated is the subtitle of that book. Today is Dr. Ann Louise Gittleman. Ann, thank you for coming on the show.

Well, it's a pleasure to be.

I would like to start off by just looking at that title. Read the Gut Flush Plan and tell me what this book is about.

Well, excuse me, that one out. The Gut Flush Plan is really kind of a follow up, as it were, to the fatflush plan, where we focused on the liver and the lymph. This is focusing on the intestinal tract because I believe that the intestinal tract is really the home of the immune system. And if it's gunked up with a variety of what I call colon corruptors, from yeast to parasites, worms, as well as hidden food sensitivity byproducts, then you're simply not going to be healthy no matter what you do. Cleaning the colon, cleaning the gut, and then fortifying that gut and colon, small intestine and large intestine, with the right healing foods, I think is very important to prevent re infestation of these all too common critters that I find because I do stool samples for so many of my people. You'd be very, very amazed to know that I'd say 7 out of 10 of the individuals that I test are carrying one or more uninvited guests, many of these things being microscopic protozoa. And some people are actually carrying full fledged worms, yes, full fledged worms in their intestinal tracts. And it's the reason that they're not getting. Well, no matter what they're doing, whether it's diet or exercise, this stuff doesn't get rid of these critters that really don't pay rent. They are sucking up your nutrients and they're blocking a lot of elimination faculty, getting rid of the stuff that's in you. Just the way you deworm your horses, you deworm your puppies, you deworm your cats. Very important to start deworming ourselves now that we're approaching springtime. It's the very best time of all.

So how did this stuff get there in the first place? I mean, obviously people aren't necessarily born with worms and parasites inside their body. What are we doing? What mistakes is the audience making that they can, that they can change?

Well, it's not even their fault because, I mean, you're seeing what's going on with our food supply. And all the salmonella that may be in peanut butter these days, the E. Coli problems that we had years ago with spinach and ground meat, a lot of these things are just coming through the food supply. Number one, if you're not washing your foods, your fruits, your vegetables, your eggs, your flesh meat, your fish, as well as your chicken and beef and veal, in certain Cleansing baths, you really can. Can be absorbing some of these parasites, their eggs, their larva, quite easily just by eating, just by the act of eating. And how many of us eat out? I mean, think about it, Ben. Is it like four out of five of us? Three out of four? I mean, we eat out because it's convenient. In this day and time, you have no idea whether somebody's using a microwave oven to heat your foods, which doesn't heat the food thoroughly, or it's somebody from another country that may not have the same types of hygienic practices that we do, or are simply carrying some of these things and are not really sick themselves, but could be carrying these kinds of things, like Typhoid Mary earlier in the 20th century. This is alive and well and real. And if you see what I see, because I look at poop, unlike many other practitioners out there, and see what we culture, see what we grow, then you'll understand that you have to be very careful about what you choose to eat. That means no sushi anymore, ladies and gentlemen, so sorry to say. It means that eating salads out may not be the very best way to get your nutrition. And it means that when you are traveling, you've got to take really very good supplements, whether it's certain kinds of probiotics, maybe digestive enzymes to really help ensure up your system, to make sure that if these things get in there and unconsciously, unwittingly, that you've got protection. And that's what the whole thing is about. It's planning ahead so you don't fail and realizing that we have a problem not just in the countries to which we're traveling, there's a problem right here. Whether you live in the inland northwest, as we do, or whether you're in some of the mountainous areas, or you simply like to go to these exotic restaurants, you've got to be very careful, especially if you are sick. You're doing everything you know to get rid of these diseases and symptoms. It could be the parasites masquerading is something that you're more familiar with.

Okay, so I want to backpedal a second. We talked about cleansing baths for the foods that you take in as a precautionary measure. Now, the only cleansing bath that I've ever mentioned on the show and that I personally am familiar with, is the practice of using a combination of vinegar and water to soak your fruits and vegetables when you get home from the grocery store and then rinse them before you put them into the refrigerator. What type of cleansing Baths are you referring to?

I'm talking about the Clorox bath.

How's that work?

I actually become very infamously connected with.

The Clorox bath.

I'm talking about Clorox baths.

Okay, fill me in.

What I learned about this many years ago from my. I would say that she was my. Sometimes there's somebody that comes into your life that's a master woman. Was a master. She was 84 years old when I started learning all about nutrition. And these underlying causes. And she was the one, Dr. Hazel parcels. That really pioneered the Clorox bath. Which is now, I believe it's in the Smithsonian Institute. To be honest with you. That's how famous it became. It was a bath whereby you take a certain amount of Clorox. You dilute it with water. And then you make different groupings of your food. Put that in the Clorox bath. And then it will, within 20 minutes. Get rid of the parasites, the fungus, the pesticides, the parasitic eggs. Funky tastes. Heavy metals, chemicals, virus. Even some of these nasty super germs that are out there. That's what I've been doing all these years. It's using the Clorox bath. And when I'm very diligent about using the bath, I don't come down. And neither do my clients or my readers or my followers. With any of these flus and viruses. That are rampant during the change of season. So, yes, it's Clorox. Clorox is not chlorine. It disintegrates into salt and water. And it's very, very helpful, as we found, not just in cleaning your food. I used to tell my people to take Clorox baths if they had heavy metals. I had. Somebody was losing his hair. Started to take the Clorox bath. And put a little washcloth with this diluted Clorox mixture on it. And he started regrowing hair. So I could tell you myriads of stories. Because I've been around long enough to know that this is one of the only ways that if you're going to protect yourself. Organic foods, don't do it. Eating in the finest restaurants certainly don't do it. But protecting yourself on the home front, when you can, by Cloroxing your foods is tried and true. Now, the food doesn't taste like Clorox, then. Because I know that's going to be the next question.

That was something I was wondering. Yeah.

And why not? I've heard this. I've been doing this for so long. I quite can understand. It really doesn't what it does is it makes the food last two weeks longer in the refrigerator. It takes away the funky aftertaste. No more heavy metal kind of bitter taste. People will say at dinner parties, wow, this is so tender. What did you do? I said, I just put it through my Clorox bath. Mouths open, oh, my God. They say, but for years, the government would use the Clorox formula for people that were being sent overseas. They used it with people in the armed forces. A lot of times these old timers that ran restaurants would also drop a few little, maybe a teaspoon or two in the final rinse water because it does kill germs. And it makes sure that your silverware and plates don't have any gunk on it or anything that's growing bacteria. If you go into a restaurant this day and time, you better take a close look at your fork because half the time it's filled with bacteria causing food that has never been washed off. So I think that what you're finding is that there really is a problem. And I write about it in the Gut Flush Plan. In terms of cleanliness, hygienic practices, I think we're very cavalier about what we think is clean in this day and time. And it's one of the ways in which I know you can protect yourself and protect your family, especially if you're eating out, you're traveling, or you simply. You've got somebody in the house that has a little immune suppression. You really want to get the purest food into that person's system that is not carrying any kind of virus or E. Coli or C. Difficile or H. Pylori. I mean, we've got very, very resistant, antibiotic resistant and drug resistant organisms. So it behooves us in these toxic times to take toxic or drastic, I should say, measures. One of those drastic measures may seem like the Clorox bath. But quite frankly, Ben, I've been using this since the early 70s.

And I guarantee that 99.9% of our audience has never used a Clorox bath. And I guarantee that they also eat out frequently and put themselves into this situation that you're talking about. Now, in your book, you talk about gut grief and a multitude of problems. It can cause a laundry list. I'm just looking at it here. Ulcers, food sensitivities, disrupted sleep, digestive difficulties, yeast infections, frequent cold and respiratory infections, persistent aches and pains, bad breath, gum infections, irritable bowel syndrome, diarrhea, constipation, fatigue, weight gain, Skin problems like acne, arthritis. The list goes on and on. Now, if someone is experiencing these type of difficulties, obviously they can make this change, begin washing their food, begin taking precautions. But where can they start in terms of turning the clock back on what they've done to their guts?

They can do the. My colon cleansing kit. My colon cleansing kit is probably one of the fastest ways to get rid of these colon corruptors that I identify in the book. To get rid of the gut grief, the symptoms of which you have just itemized. Thank you very much. Because so many things really are related to an unclean intestinal tract. The colon cleansing kit contains three products. One is a powdered probiotic, which is very tasty, easy to take in one teaspoon in the morning, one teaspoon at night, or you can put it in your smoothies. And there are two other formulas, one of which gets rid of some of the yeast that's in the system with a panoply of herbs and botanicals that I've used for a long, long time that measure up together. Their PH is very balanced so you don't get sick and detox too quickly. And then you've got the pills that are part of that program that will get rid of the lawn worms that so many of us have. You'd be surprised at what comes out of the system. But, Ben, you've got a hearty audience. It's better out than in. Seeing is believing. When you start eliminating these nests and these little seedy, like, things that are really tapeworms, because that's what they look like, the seeds, the webs, the little strings, then you know you're doing your body good. And then miraculously, all of these symptoms of gut grief start to. To go away. No more bad breath, no more bloating. You're sleeping through the night. These things can disrupt sleep tremendously. They like to reproduce between the hours of 1 and 3. They really impact the liver. That's liver cleansing time.

One of the things that I hear quite a bit of is how many pounds of junk material people carry around in their colon. What's the figure on that? Is there an average in terms of what we actually have inside us, whether dead or alive, that simply just sitting there, sitting there rotting in our bowels.

Sometimes five to seven pounds. I mean, there were stories that they released. What did they get out of John Wayne's body? Forty pounds. And then, of course, there's a story about Elvis Presley, who had megacolon, whose colon actually was chalky white. He was so toxic the poor guy. But yeah, I mean there's, I mean, so, I mean this is an equal opportunity toxification process. In other words, you can become toxic just by everyday eating habits. And it really doesn't matter whether you're a celebrity or not. People, if they do not clean up and clean out on a regular basis, will start to stockpile many of these elements in the system. And then you encrust the colon walls with unreleased fecal matter. And that's where the parasites like to live, in the fecal matter. And a window pane of mucus that covers the gut. So you've got to have cleansing herbs and spices. I like to use a lot of thyme, a lot of cinnamon, sometimes cloves, garlic, oregano if you can tolerate them in your diet. But you're not going to get rid of this stuff just by diet and culinary spices alone. You really have to get down and dirty and take something like the colon cleansing kit. The reason I like that so much is it was based on the study that I did so many years ago with my, with my master teacher who lived Ben to the age of 106 and could have carried on this conversation with you just the way I am.

It's amazing. I think people don't really realize that they're not functioning at 100%. Maybe they feel sick every now and again, chronic fatigue, but they don't realize that quite a bit of it is coming from the gut. And three of the things that you're really big on in the book that I, that I saw that you mention over and over again was HCL or hydrochloric acid, probiotics and digestive enzymes. Why would someone need to be taking these? Just give me a brief overview of each of those and what they do to help people.

Well, the HCL you start to decrease because you're under stress. And anybody over the age of 50 really starts to secrete one half of the amount of the hcl. And that's your digestive enzyme. That's your first, kind of your first protection against invading bacteria. And so you need that to digest protein, acid based minerals, your iron, your calcium, and really to kill whatever is getting into your system that doesn't belong there. So that's number one. Number two, the probiotics, Those are the good guys in your gut to make sure that whatever got through the stomach doesn't get a foothold in your small intestine or your large intestine. You want to crowd these nasty bugs and yeast and, and fungi and molds you've got to crowd them out with enough of the good guy bacteria that we used to get in yogurt, maybe sauerkraut, but we're not eating enough of those foods. And the challenges are so formidable right now, Ben, that you really need a product that has billions of these colony forming units. That's why I'm big on probiotics. Then last but not least, maybe some digestive enzymes to assist with pepsin and HCL in your gut. Maybe some pancreatic enzymes if you're not digesting your fats or your carbohydrates. And all that, as you know, is laid out pretty succinctly, I think, in the gut Flush plan.

Yeah, it is, it is. And there's many, many people who I personally work with as a fitness coach or as a nutrition consultant, and they have a perfect exercise program. They appear to be eating healthy and they're not losing weight. They're resistant to weight loss, or they're even gaining weight, gaining fat. How do the yeast, the parasites, the superbugs, or the food sensitivities that you talk about in the book fall into the equation of weight loss?

Because we miss out on something, we talk about food sensitivities. It's not that you're just getting a tummy ache, it's not just that your digestion is impaired. But one of the byproducts, food sensitivities, is inflammation. Inflammation can create weight gain with water retention, or it can actually slow down metabolism and it can create binging because of the different types of chemicals that are produced. When you're actually allergic or reactive to a food, there's a whole, I'd say, domino effect when you're eating a food to which your body is reacting. Most individuals do not do well with milk. I talk about milk. It's not just the lactose, it's the casein in milk, which is also in cheese. I find dairy products a real problem. Gluten may be second to dairy or milk, specifically in cheese. And gluten, as you know, is now being recognized because you see so many people that are gluten intolerant or gluten sensitive. So no more wheat, no more rye, no more barley, komoot, spelt. Lots of grains that contain gluten would not be appropriate. And then I think corn is another one. That's a biggie. Corn. I mean, think of all those great corn chips, whether they're organic or not. But if they're not part of your DNA, RNA blueprint, I mean, forget it they'll create responses and negative reactions to your immune system. They'll trigger all kinds of problems and it really will weaken your whole immunity. So it isn't just digestion that we're looking at, but it's the immune system in total. That is probably variety. I had to get that in variety. Not eating the same thing on a daily basis.

Yeah, it makes sense. And I send some of my clients out for food intolerance testing to different natural paths as well as some male in type of food testing resources. What would you say is the best type of food intolerance test for someone to get? If they're concerned that that food sensitivity could be contributing to their weight gain or their resistance to weight loss, they can call.

Unikey. I'm going to give you a little commercial now. It's commercial time.

I'll try and play a jingle.

You can hum along. Have your audience now hum along the best food intolerance. Because I know a lot of the labs. I've used them over the years. The best food intolerance test is the one where you take the poop sample. Not only do you know what's in your gut, whether it's H. Pylori or it's amoeba or giardia or maybe a little cryptosporidium that you picked up, but it also shows on a gut level, not just through the bloodstream, but on a gut level what your body is allergic to. You'd be amazed how many people don't do well with soy, with eggs and dairy as well as gluten. I like the poop test the best. I'm familiar with all the labs. I get literature and I get free samples or the ability to do these tests all the time. They're not as accurate as what you see actually impacting the intestinal tract.

Okay, give me a URL or a name for people to find out about. Poop test.

I'm going to give you Unikey Health. Uni k e y Health. They're my distribution center here in beautiful Coeur d'. Alene. Unikey u n I k e y health.com and what happens when people get rid of whatever's in their bodies? Whether it's a food sensitivity or not is just miraculous. And this is the way you really know. I mean, I think we've gotten sophisticated enough. You just don't want to eliminate things. You really want to know what's going on in your system so that you can achieve the total health that you deserve.

Well, there's Also, in addition to people looking for weight loss, many active individuals and athletes, athletes that I know listen to this show. So let's say I'm a runner, I'm a cyclist, I'm a swimmer, I'm a triathlete, I'm an athlete. How could the type of information that you put out in the Gut Flush Plan make me faster? How can it make my body perform better?

Because you're not carrying around a toxic load in your intestinal tract that is depleting all of your vital resources and your energy so that your peak performance will maximize. We have a lot of athletes that are now taking these tests so that they can be the best they can be in all aspects of life. They also use another supplement which I don't talk about in this book, but I'm going to throw it out anyhow, which is ultra H3. It's the cocaine based product from Romania, which also has been very helpful in terms of assisting in recovery. What we're seeing is that a lot of athletes that are using this recover that much faster. And I'm not sure of the dynamics or the mechanism, but when you hear where there's smoke, there's fire, when you hear all sorts of good responses coming from people that are unsolicited, then you know you've got something going. So the ultra age 3, look on the unikeyhealth.com as well, look at some of the testimonials. I think we have some of our athletes that have the testimonials on there and you too will just be the best you can be. And we need to shore up our reserves is what we need to do. This is a day and time when again, we need drastic measures because these are toxic times. We're on overload in so many ways that you just got to do the best for yourself as quickly as you can, as fast as you can, as conveniently as you can. Because we want to be around for a long time and we want to extend our ability to live properly and to live in good health, not extend the period of dying, which I think is what's happening in this country.

What's in the Ultra H3, is that like a protein compound?

No, it isn't. It's procane. It's from Romanian. It's based on Romanian principle. And you're too young to know this, but I'll tell you a little bit about it. I think you're too young. You sound it, you sound wonderful.

But I'm 63 years old.

You're 63.

No, no, no, I'm not actually. I don't make a habit of giving out my age on the podcast.

Okay, but you're not my age. Okay, so let me just tell you that this product from Romania, legendary. All the movie stars, all the President Kennedy, Khrushchev, I mean, everybody who was anybody, Charles de Gaulle went to Romania to get the product. We now have it. They got shots in those days. We now have an appeal form which is extraordinary for extending your ability to perform. How it does that may be because it lowers a certain chemical that's in the brain, the monoamine oxidase, which is an enzyme, actually, that makes people very depressed and it impacts neurotransmitters and then it repairs damaged membranes with its PABA and its deae. It's extraordinary, Ben. It's just extraordinary. I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about it. It's probably Unikey's one of its best selling products and they don't even advertise it is word of mouth. It has traveled around the world. I just got an order yesterday from another one from New Zealand, from the UK because people are now hearing about it and are going to Unikey to get it. There are two elements in there that are able to go through the brain barrier functioning. They are bilberry and a little bit of ginkgo biloba. It's an antidepressant, but it's also, for some reason, really helpful for athletes. So it's something that I think I should send you. You'll try it and then you can recommend it.

I'm glad I know about it. I'll be talking to you about it after the show. I want to talk about something else, something that I personally have been studying quite a bit that I saw that you mentioned in the book. It's a really interesting compound. Oil of oregano. Where does that fit in?

Well, you have to be careful with it for the simple reason that it's very powerful. Like any of these very powerful antiseptic agents that you get in a health food store or otherwise, it can knock out the good bacteria as well as the bad. So whereby it's a powerful antibacterial, antifungal, antiprotozoic. You can take too much of it, you can actually become allergic to it. You know, all those tests that I was taking over the years, with all these labs, you'd be surprised that the two most allergic producing herbs are none other than oregano and garlic. And I'm sure you can imagine why we've overdone too much of a good thing. So I wouldn't overdo too much of that. I would use something.

She cut out for just a second. Ann, are you still there? Sorry, yeah, I lost you. Just as you were talking about the caution that you need to take with oil of oregano. And I think you were talking about diluting it.

What was I talking about? Oh, let's see.

The two most common food allergy produced herbs, garlic and garlic.

Garlic is huge because you do something on an everyday basis, then take it as a supplement. It can be too much for your system. So I think you should use it sparingly. I think it's helpful. But you have to be careful that it will also knock out not just the bad bugs, but the good germs as well. And that's where a good probiotic comes into play.

So if you were combining a probiotic along with a diluted source of say, an oil of oregano or something of that nature, then those two would work in coordination.

It's better. It's better. Yes.

Okay. Well, I know that we have some local listeners in the Inland Northwest, the Spokane, Coeur d' Alene area. I noticed that you spoke recently at Pilgrim's Wellness Institute in Coeur d', Alene, their brand new education facility. Do you have any other local appearances for the people who are listening in the local audience?

Yes, they should come and see me. I think I'm speaking there again in March. Or they can get in touch@annlowise.com, which is my own site. And I think there should be some sort of contact number on there to email me directly.

Okay.

And I'll put a link, but I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it to you. Okay, which one should we use? Let's use Gittleman. G I T T L E m a n mindspring.com gittlemanindspring.com There may be some questions, there may be some concerns. You may need somebody may need a little assistance. But I have to tell you, some of these tests that we're doing just will blow you out of the water, Ben, because we're finding underlying causes that you would have never recognized could be an issue. Because you think you're doing everything. Not you, the universal you. Because you think one thinks they're doing everything Right.

I have your book in my hand. I've read it. Folks in the audience, I read many books. I don't recommend them all. This one is Definitely a must read. I will put a link to it in the show notes to this podcast and I will also put a link to everything that we just talked about in the show notes so that you can go in and find out more about this incredibly important and I think potentially life changing topic. Ann, thank you for coming on the show.

My pleasure. We'll do it again. Thanks so much.

All right, folks, I've put the Amazon link to get your hands on that book in the Show Note episodes to this podcast@BenGreenfieldFitness.com and if you go to the website, here's what else I have. I have the link to the nitric oxide product that I talked about in today's Listener Q and A. I have a couple of special announcements including the link where you can go get your triathlon training plans that I've written and also the actual date, the February 22nd date for the live online TV show and Q and A with me. That's that last Sunday of the month episode. This one's going to be on Pill Poppin. You can also, if you missed the last live TV special, actually get access to a secret video page where I've put a 60 minute lecture called the Synergy of Fat Loss and I've posted that for just four bucks 99 cents to the website. If you go to the website for today's podcast and scroll down to special announcements, you'll see that in there as well. I am offering anybody out there in Internet land the opportunity to feature my calorie burning book, 100 Ways to Boost yout Metabolism on youn Website. And you basically get paid to feature that book on your website. If you want to know more information about that, about putting it on your blog or on your website, just again, go to the show Notes for this podcast and you'll see the little picture of the book there and a place where you can click to sign up and learn how to do that. It's very, very simple. Finally, I've put all the upcoming events, including the local Inland Northwest events, on the show notes to this episode and also I'll have you go read it to find out more. But some information on some exciting upcoming episodes that we have in the future, including some really cool news about that oil of oregano I talked about. So last thing, make sure you leave our podcast a rating in itunes at the very bottom of the show notes for this episode you can click to go to our itunes page. Leave us a feedback, leave us some stars. It's very, very simple, but it gets the word out there to people about this podcast, and if you have any questions or comments, you can email me ben greenfieldfitness.com until next time, have a great.