Podcast Episode #36: Why Ben Greenfield Smells Like a Spa.

Podcast episode number 36 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. Hey podcast listeners, welcome back to this week's episode. I have sitting on my desk right here in front of me the March 2009 edition of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. And I thought, what better than to give you some of the practical advice straight from the pages of that awesome research journal. But that's not all that I have for you today. Got a couple interesting Listener Q&As on eating during exercise and on diet soda. In addition, we'll have a few cool announcements, including one that I'm pretty excited about because I just put the finishing touches on something very useful and potentially intriguing, especially to triathletes out there that I'll let you know about when we get to the announcements. And then we finally have a bonus interview today with my friend Martha from California. She has something called Action with Wipes. You're going to have to hear my interview with her because these things are actually pretty interesting and I use them every single day. You're going to find out why, but you'll definitely not want to miss that interview. It's pretty entertaining. Gets a little bit PG13 at a couple points, but it's not too bad. So without any further ado, let's go ahead and shoot forward to the announcements for this week's podcast episode. Special Announcements okay, first of all, as I mentioned in the introduction, I just put the finishing touches on something exciting for you triathletes out there. Anybody who uses the TrainingPeaks online training software, which is kind of the gold standard right now. If you want to be able to have an online journal for your training, keep track of everything from exactly what you've eaten, how you've trained, to how many miles you've logged on your bike, on your shoes, to what your heart rate monitor is telling you every day, you pretty much anything that you want to track in this online training software you can track. You can also work with a coach back and forth on this thing Well, I have designed a comprehensive Ironman nutrition training plan that takes you step by step not only through the overview of how you should be eating, but I have gone in and taken every single recipe, every single meal, every single tactic that I use with the athletes that I coach and put them into a nutrition plan that you can get and simply drag and drop into any of your existing training plans that you might be using on trainingpeaks for both you athletes and you coaches out there. This is a fantastic research or fantastic resource and there's not anything like it that exists that I'm aware of for you to use in conjunction with trainingpeaks. So you're gonna want to check that out. Just go to the URL that I have there in the show notes. If you scroll down in the show notes, there's a little section on there with a picture of a triathlete running. And right in there you can click and go to the the link for that new Ironman nutrition program. And speaking of Ironman, I know this podcast isn't just for Ironman triathletes, but the Iron Speed Coeur d' Alene Triathlon camp still happening May 9th through May 14th in beautiful Coeur d', Alene, Idaho. I'll be there coaching as well as other American Canadian coaches, physicians, sports scientists. There'll be nutrition lectures, physiology testing, biomechanical analysis. We'll be taking you out in the course, telling you exactly what to do and when, how to eat and drink and how to pace yourself. So you're definitely going to want to check out that camp. In addition, for you local people in the Coeur d' Alene Spokane area, a couple lectures coming up. I've got one on Tuesday, March 17, and one on Tuesday, March 24. Both of those are at 6pm in Coeur d', Alene, Idaho. One's on exercise secrets for fat burning and one's on nutrition secrets for fat burning. And speaking of exercise secrets for fat burning, I have bad news. I've had to cancel the March 26 online TV Q&A session because I just realized that I'm going to be in Atlanta during that date doing a promotion for my book, 100 Ways to Boost your metabolism. And it's going to be real hard for me to shoot that particular online TV episode from my hotel room. So I'm going to wait until I get back. I'll be announcing when I'll have that rescheduled. I still want to get it out to you, but but stay tuned for more on that. In addition in the announcements to this week's podcast episode, I have the secret energy drink tea recipe that I've been drinking every afternoon here in Chile, Spokane, Washington, to give me a little boost of energy without the mega doses of caffeine that most other energy drinks have in them. So you're going to want to check out that recipe. And I also have a link to a program that I've written on protecting your knee while you're training. It's called the Bulletproof Knee. You can also check that out in the show Notes to this podcast. Let's go ahead and move forward into this month's research from the Journal of Strength and Conditioning. So every month, this research journal shows up on my doorstep, and it's full of really interesting studies like the velocity of the forward kick in elite jiu jitsu athletes or variables of plyometric training for improving vertical jump height performance. Meta analyses Now, I know that some of these may be a little bit irrelevant to the audience, not to say that they're not good research studies. But I like to go through and find the stuff that really strikes home that's practical and that you can implement immediately. And so today I'm going to go through exactly the things that I found most interesting in the journal this month, and I'm going to put them into straight talk that you can understand and implement in your training program or in your fitness program immediately. Okay? So study number one is titled Structural Protein Alterations to Resistance and Endurance Cycling Exercise Training. And in this study, they compared people who lifted weights for 12 weeks or people who rode a bicycle for 12 weeks. And in particular, what they were looking at was, was the level of certain type of muscle filaments. One of those muscle filaments was called desmin. And desmin is what's really used to effectively transmit forces when your muscles contract. And then another type of fiber that they looked at was called dystrophin. And dystrophin, as it would sound like, is associated with muscular dystrophy. Basically, what it means is that if you don't have enough distance dystrophin present, you don't have very strong linkages between the filaments in your muscles. Now, what was found in this study was that the resistance training and the cycling training both resulted in no significant change in that dystrophin content. And so they both were good at staving off the effect of muscle dystrophy. But perhaps most significantly, it was found that the resistance training resulted in adaptations that increased the amount of the desmin protein the protein that really helps your muscles to produce a larger force. While the bicycling really didn't have much of an effect on the content of the desmin. And so from this data, if you're looking for becoming stronger, creating greater muscle force, and really strengthening the filaments associated with being able to produce a force, then you should consider incorporating weightlifting along with cycling. Cycling is going to do a lot for you from a cardiovascular perspective, but it's not the best thing to, for example, get strong legs. And that's why some of the cyclists that I work with who are even doing it for competition, not just for say, fat loss, they doing a weightlifting program because it really can help with the amount of force that your legs can produce and the amount of injury prevention. It's a topic for a whole different discussion when we're talking about how much weightlifting could actually help cycling. It's likely that it doesn't actually help elite cyclists very much. But it's great if you need to just increase your strength and increase your force. And this study showed that you should really incorporate it if all you're doing is just riding a bike. So I thought this next story was interesting. It also looked into cyclists and what it looked at specifically was the effect of caloric restriction overnight fasting on cycling endurance performance. Because what happens is for a lot of people leading up to a triathlon or a cycling race, they'll decrease their calories for about three weeks or calorically restrict so that they can drop fat because you really can have a hard time pedaling even an extra couple of pounds up a hill in a race. And what these researchers did was they decreased caloric intake by 40% in cyclists. And then they also had them do an overnight fast of about 11 hours prior to a two hour exercise test. And this two hour exercise test was completely completed at a nice steady tempo pace. Now what was found was that the cyclists power to weight ratio was improved, meaning that the cyclists lost fat and increased their muscle composition or their power to weight ratio. But at the same time, there was no significant compromise in endurance cycling performance. And as a matter of fact, I was talking about that nutrition plan that I wrote for Ironman. And one of the things that I worked into that was a decrease in caloric intake for the last three weeks leading up to the race. That kind of goes hand in hand with the fact that you're going to be resting a little bit anyways and not working out quite as much. Well, it turns out that it actually can help you a Little bit. And you can also do an overnight fast of about 11 hours prior to something like a two hour time trial and still see the benefit. I understand that a long day like an ironman may require a little bit more fueling. I wouldn't recommend getting up in the morning without eating breakfast, but I would recommend looking at a slight taper and caloric intake. You can shed just a few extra pounds leading up to a race like that. So the third study that I want to look at is the effect of high intensity training by heart rate or by power in well trained cyclists. And what this study looked into was an interval training workout, a high intensity interval training workout where the subject were doing eight repetitions of four minutes at about 80% of their peak power output. So that's four minutes of very, very hard exercise followed by a breather and then another four minutes of hard exercise, doing that eight times through. Now, one group was correlating their 80% based off of their power. The other group was looking at their 80% based off of their heart rate. And then what they did was after eight different training sessions like that over the course of several weeks, both the groups of cyclists did a 40k time trial performance. And what they found was that both groups significantly improved in their time trial performance, but that the group that was exercising based off of heart rate actually showed just as much, if not a greater benefit by doing their interval training while paying attention to what their heart rate was at versus what their power was at. Now there are a lot of advantages to training with power, especially if you're an athlete who really wants to see the hard data and be able to track changes, improvements. But if you can't afford a power meter or if you're used to exercising with heart rate and want to keep doing it that way, don't let anybody tell you that training with power is the only way to go. There can still be a lot of benefit derived from looking at your heart rate while you're cycling and not just using say like a power meter that will tell you your wattage that you can attach to your bike. I've got athletes that I coach that use both methods. I personally use the heart rate method. And this study shows that you can get pretty good benefits, pretty good gains with each. Now here's an interesting study. This one is sustained prolonged exercise at stable heart rate defined by the deflection point identification method. And basically what this study was looking at was can you decide what your maximum sustainable effort is going to be when you're running or when you're cycling or even when you're doing something like swimming, rather than looking at, say, the blood lactate that's produced, or rather than going to a lab and getting a metabolic test done, which would be the gold standard, if you really wanted to just kind of approximate it, could you do it by looking at the point at which your heart rate starts to go up at a rate that's not quite correlated to the workload, meaning that you reach a certain point in exercise where when you increase the workload, your heart rate really starts to shoot up. And at that point, that would be considered what's called your blood lactate threshold, if you, if you were to do a blood test in the lab, or it would be called your ventilatory threshold if you were to do a test when you were wearing a mask, analyzing your gases. And what they found in this study was that most of the participants were able to actually get that steady state exercise that would normally be predicted with a blood lactate test or with a ventilatory test by just looking at the point where the heart rate started to deflect, where it started to go up at a rapid rate compared to workload. So if you don't have access to a lab or a metabolic test or a way to get your blood tested, you can gradually increase your workload, say, while you're on an indoor bicycle, and just track the workload at which your heart rate starts to really shoot up. If you were to just graph it on a simple piece of graph paper, it would be the point where the heart rate starts to look like it just kind of reaches a deflection point. And that point would approximate where your threshold heart rate is, where your steady state heart rate is. And most people can only exercise for about 60 to 90 minutes of that heart rate. And so it's a, it's a good way to determine intensity heart rate zones for exercise. I know a lot of this research study is really correlated to cyclists, triathletes, endurance performance. And yes, I am playing favorites just a bit to the, to one of the demographics that I know listens to, to this podcast. Don't worry, there'll be other content in the podcast for everyone. But I thought that was a really interesting and useful study. Now, I personally would recommend that you get the blood lactate test or you get the ventilatory test done if you have access to that. So there's zero guesswork involved, but you could graph it yourself if you really wanted to see if you could do this for yourself. Okay, two More studies that were looked at. One I thought was really interesting because this is something that I use in my own training program. It's called massage after exercises responses of immunologic and endocrine markers. And what this study looked into was whether people who received a massage after intense exercise actually showed a resistance to the immunosuppression that occurs after you do a hard workout. What that means is if you were to do something like a long training session or a really tough weight loss lifting session, or you know, in this case, they did some very, very difficult power efforts and then you were to get a massage, does it actually help your immune system to bounce back a little bit quicker? Because in normal situations your immune system actually gets a little bit suppressed from a hard effort like that. And what they found was that the massage therapy actually did demonstrate an improvement in the ability of the body to fight off some of that immunosuppression suppression. In particular, one of the hormones that was looked at in this study was called secretory immunoglobulin A. And this actually recovered much quicker when people had a massage after the exercise versus when they didn't. I personally work with a local massage company called Therapeutic Approach. I actually interviewed my massage therapist on this PATH podcast a few months back. I do it once a week when I'm getting ready for a triathlon and it really helps with injury and recovery from exercise. Highly recommend doing a massage at least once a month if you're exercising frequently. And then the final study I wanted to mention was the effects of a short term aquatic resistance program on strength and body composition in fit young men. Well, I have always been a fan of aqua jogging for cross training, especially when you're doing a lot of other hard workouts. And what this study looked at was a little bit more than just aqua jogging. It actually had a group of fit young men participate in an eight week long, three day a week program that included things like wearing little gloves in the water and doing arm raises and claps, using boards to increase resistance in the water, using thins, using noodles and little dumbbells. And basically what they did was a whole series of different exercises. And they even put some jumps and rows and things of that nature in. And they actually found that these subjects not only grew fitter, but they increased their fat free mass, meaning that they got stronger, but they also increased their lean mass and decreased their body fat percentage. But they also had a reduction delayed muscle pain. So they didn't have as much soreness after the exercise. They were able to have greater calorie consumption, meaning that this stuff was actually burning a lot of calories and overall noted a significant increase in upper limb maximum strength and leg muscular power. So I thought that was interesting. I personally do aqua jogging about once every two weeks and my program but it turns out that you can do quite a bit more than just aqua jogging in terms of aquatic resistance training. And what I plan on doing at some point this month is taking this journal over to the pool and trying some of the exercises that are prescribed in it and some of the exercises the young men were doing in this study. And I'm just going to see how hard of a workout this actually is. Looks kind of fun. So if you see me at the pool waving a big giant noodle around, I'm doing research. Let's go ahead and move on to this week's listener Q and A. And oh, by the way, just so you know, the reason that I do this is to give you the best information possible on how to reach your goals as quickly as possible. This is, this is the type of stuff that I do with all the people that I coach and that I train. And so know that we're not using any old school technique. We're trying to stay on top of what's going to benefit you the most. And if you want to look at some of the coaching and the training that we do, go over to pacificfit.net and that's the online coaching and training webpage that I run. Okay, now let's move on to the listener Q and A Listener Jen asks Ben, further to your Fat Burning Secrets episode with John Gilbert. Re taking in four food carbs during a 60 minute plus workout, how much food or carbs would you suggest and would that amount change based on the overall length of the workout? Okay, so basically John and I were talking about consuming carbohydrate during exercise, how it helps you to burn more calories, how it helps you to burn more fat. The amount really varies from individual to individual. The generally recommended range is 4.1 to 4.6 grams of carbohydrate per minute. That for most people it can come out to 200, 250 calories an hour. That's highly variable though. And as the second part of your question asks, it's also highly variable based on how long and how hard you're working out. Now for me, if I'm doing a workout that's longer than an hour, but under two hours, I'll generally consider about 100 calories an hour. So I'll have 100 calories about the 45 minute mark and another 100 calories about the hour and a half mark and I consume that from a gel. If I'm actually competing, say in a race, what I'll do is eat more calories the longer that race is and the lower intensity that it's at. So during, say an Olympic distance triathlon, when I'm going really hard and exercising for maybe two hours, I'll only take anywhere from 200 to 250 calories per hour. And typically I'll only do that on the bike. In a half Ironman triathlon where I'm exercising for anywhere from four to five hours, but I'm not exercising quite as hard, I up that to about 300 to 350 calories. And during an Ironman, when I'm out there for anywhere from 9.5 to 10 and a half hours, I will consume anywhere from 350 to 400 calories per hour because again, I'm not going quite as hard, but I'm going for a much longer period of time. So it's really going to change based on your intensity and your length. But the general starting Recommendation is around 200 to 250 calories of carbohydrate per hour for anything that's more than two hours. And for anything less than that, I usually take in about 100 calories per hour. Now another question listener Paul asks. I'm a 45 year old male. I did a sprint triathlon this summer and I'm training for two to three events this year. I'm a former bodybuilder who always wanted to get involved in endurance training, but the bodybuilding kept me from pursuing it due to the inevitable muscle loss. A ruptured disc and subsequent surgery changed all that. My bodybuilding days are 100% done. I can do some Jane Fonda workouts, but I only do those to maintain some strength for triathlon training. Anyway, I try to eat right and think I do pretty well for a weekend warrior. My big question is about diet soda. I do not drink alcohol, smoke or have any real vices except that I drink a lot of pop. All diet of course. I probably drink 70 to 100 ounces per day and I know that is too much. What is the truth regarding drinking pop? I have read that it is bad, but I see a lot of conflicting information. Am I retarding my progress by ingesting this much pop? Is any amount acceptable? I know you're a straight shooter and you can back up your comments with science and that's why I'm asking you. I appreciate your time and I will look forward to your answer. Great question, Paul. I used to be addicted to diet Dr. Pepper. When I say addicted, what I mean is I would drink about three or four of those little like, I guess they're about half liter bottles per day. I eventually weaned myself off of that by switching to gum and soda water. But I did recognize that it was a little bit addicting and that just like anything that you consume on a regular basis, it can be habit forming. The question is, is it dangerous? Well, there's anecdotal evidence that diet soda, even though it's diet contains artificial sweeteners that could stimulate your appetite, it could increase your carbohydrate cravings, or that could stimulate fat storage or weight gain. There's also studies, animal studies on sucralose in particular. And in sucralose they found that it could decrease red blood cells, it could increase male infertility, it could cause enlargement or kid calcification in the kidneys. It actually caused spontaneous abortions in rabbit populations that it was given to and also caused a 23% death rate in rabbits compared to a 6% death rate in the control group. I know there was another study that recently came out that showed that it killed about half of the good bacteria in your stomach. There was another study that looked at 600 normal weight patients that were aged 25 to 64 and it was an eight year long study. They discovered that people who were drinking one diet soda a day were 65% more likely to be overweight. That two or more of the zero calorie or the diet soft drinks per day raised the odds of becoming obese or overweight. And that the people who drank the diet soda actually had a greater chance chance of becoming overweight than the people who ate the regular soda or drank the regular soda. I guess you don't eat soda. So there's also anecdotal evidence that aspartame could, could cause some neuromuscular problems. Most of these are anecdotal. I usually just try not to take my chances. But the, the ultimate take home message is that if you're trying to lose weight weight, there is evidence that yes, it could retard your progress. It could also be causing some health issues. One of the first things that I do when I'm looking at anything that says health fat free diet, I'll turn over the label. I look for aspartame sucralose or sugar alcohols. That's anything ending in an ol, if any of that is in there, I put it back on the shelf. And that's tough to do because there's a lot of stuff out there that has artificial sweeteners in it. And like I say, a lot of times when it comes to beverages will go with sparkling water or sparkling beverage that doesn't have artificial sweeteners in it. You can do a lot of stuff to water to make it taste good, including fruit juice, lemon juice, cucumbers. You can chew gum, which has a lot less artificial sweetener than the diet soda that you're currently consuming. So ultimately, Paul, I would have to say that it would be a good idea for you to start to wean yourself off of the diet soda. Quitting all at once is probably going to be tough, but start to look for alternatives and know that especially if you're trying to lose weight, it's probably not going to be the best thing to be taking in. Now if you have questions, you can email me BenGreenfieldFitness.com or you can actually leave me a voicemail using the free Skype software@skype.com I'll put a link to that in the show notes. And my username on Skype is Pacific Fit. So let's go ahead and move on to this week's interview with Martha from Action Wipes.

Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield coming to you once again from BenGreenfieldFitness.com and I have somebody on the other line who I met a couple years ago down at a triathlon, one of the biggest triathlons in the States, and in my opinion, one of the biggest, best triathlons in the world, the Wildflower Triathlon. And when I was down there competing, as a lot of the participants do, I was camping. And that means that you drive into this kind of remote spot out on Lake San Antonio in California and you set up camp and you hang out at this multi day triathlon festival. And as most of you know, when you're out camping, you tend to get a little bit grimy, a little bit dirty, a little bit, as one of my friends used to call it, gamey. And you know, I was down at the triathlon expo that they have there and I ran into this gal named Martha who I've got on the other line and she had this, well, it was almost like I'll ever tell you a little bit more about it, but it was almost like this cleansing spray that you could. You could spray on your body as well as a wipe that you could use. And it literally made your body just feel like this, like you'd just gotten out of a spa. And these things were called Action Wipes. And I basically got hooked on them while I was down there. And Martha gave me a few to take back with me. And I've been hooked on these things ever since. I'm going to have Martha tell you a little bit more about what they are and how they came about. So, Martha, thanks for coming on the show.

Hey, Ben. Hey, thanks for having me. Gosh, you did such a good job of explaining the product. I don't even think you need me anymore.

Well, I don't think I gave a very good idea. I know there's a lot of really, really good stuff in it, but I'm gonna let the master give the details.

Well, you know, it's amazing though. You said we met a couple years ago. Can you believe it? It's only gonna be a year this May. So much has happened in this year.

Between the two of us.

You know what?

That was last year. Wow.

Yeah, that's when I launched them.

You're right, it was last year. Well, so tell me a little bit about your background and how you got into the Action Wipes, as they're called.

The Action part of it. You know, I was in technology for 25 years and I just got tired of it one day and decided there was a passion inside of me that I wanted to pursue. And it just came to a boiling point one evening where I just couldn't take it anymore. Decided, boy, you know, if I'm going to put this much energy and put my life in danger like this, because I was traveling so much, I might as well do it for myself. So I quit abruptly and decided to pursue this passion, which was bath and body care and aromatherapy and essential oils, not knowing anything about it. So it took me a year.

A little bit of a 180.

Yeah, it was a complete. And you know, my husband was shocked at first and my family was shocked and, you know, it definitely put a crimped in our lifestyle because half our salary went away. And so we had to modify our. Everything that we did, but everybody hunkered down and we did it. And I can't tell you that, you know, we're hugely successful yet because like I said, you know, we love. We launched Action Wipes a year ago, which was at the Wildflower. But prior to that, the first product line that I launched was actually a Bath and body collection for couples. And that's where the action wipes, the genesis for the action wipes came from.

So I know a little bit about this, this product that you, that you had for couples, but tell me. Well, I don't, I don't think we have too many children listening in, but how about the PG or the PG13 rated version of what this, what this product for couples that you were doing?

Well, it was a way for couples to just balance their relationship. You know, women love to be romanced and as much as we like the passionate side of ourselves, but there was really, there wasn't anything on the market that was class, that was, you know, classy and not cheesy and raunchy and, you know, something that I didn't have to go to an adult store to get. So I decided to create an all natural bath and body collection for couples that included a candle, a linen mist bath and body wash, massage cream, a really cool looper pin, and some Intimacy towelettes. And one of the collections is called Inspire Romance. And that's like, you know, when your wife is not in the mood to be passionate, but actually wants, you know, to at least communicate with you and get her feet rubbed. That's a great line to start with. It has everything you need to get her in that mood. And then where the other side, there's the Create Passion collection that includes the lubricant and the towelette and everything that you need to have a little bit more fun. And so I launched that and started selling it through resorts and spas because it is so classy. And from that, you know, the Intimacy towelettes, folks started using that outside of the bedroom, taking them to camping, to Burning man, to Coachella, you know, music festivals. And they're the ones that actually persuaded me to change the label and create Action wipes for the outdoor and sports industry. And so that's what we decided to do last year and we are focusing on the marketing of that now and we've gotten a tremendous response to it. You know, I would have never known that such a product was so needed in for outdoor sports.

So what exactly is the product? I mean, how's it built?

What's in it?

The Action wipes, what it is, you know, when I created it, I was creating it for my own personal use. There was just something that I needed after getting intimate. And it was a way that I didn't have to rush to the restroom to get a wet towel or anything like that. And I didn't want to use my husband's dirty T shirt or whatever, whatever was readily available. So I wanted something that was big and was moist but that was natural, something that wasn't going to irritate me or my husband. And so I created it with all natural ingredients. There's a little sensing action in the wipe that's made from a coconut oil derivative. And then we use eucalyptus, tea tree and frankincense as the essential oils because those are naturally antibacterial, antifungal, and they're actually soothing. So if there's any irritation or anything like that, it, it helps clean that out. And so it's just made for a natural transition into the outdoor and sports industry because, you know, there's road rash, there's, you know, poison oak, poison ivy and there's bugs, you know, insect bites and things like that. And so the essential oils, the eucalyptus and petri actually soothe all that. And so it's been perfect as an outdoor wet wipe. And now with the sudsing action that's, that's in it, you don't have to try to figure out how you're going to get in that sleeping bag all clean and soft and touchable. You know, now you are. Because it, it doesn't dry your skin like baby wipes do. It doesn't have all those harsh ingredients. If you read the back of a baby wipe label, you're going to see all these chemicals that are in that. Within ours, you know, we have six basic ingredients. Water, the surfactant and the essential oils.

Yeah, I've noticed that it doesn't make my skin dry when I use these. I don't know if that's because it doesn't have a lot of alcohol in.

It or there's no alcohol.

Yeah. If it's because of the oils or what. But the actual wipe itself, what's that made out of? That is a polyester than a baby wipe?

Yeah, it is. It's much thicker. It's thicker and it's bigger. So the size of the wipe itself is a 9 inch by 10 inch wipe. So you can, you know, I wanted it pretty big so that you can pretty much clean your entire upper torso. You know, I say start at the top and work your way down. And the fabric itself is made out.

Of a polyester to put it less finely. Wipe your face before you wipe your butt.

Yeah, exactly. So it's made out of a polyester fabric which can actually be washed. So after you're done cleaning your body, you can actually throw it in the washing machine and dryer. Three to five times. I have samples that I show at the events now that I've washed at least five times, and they retain that thickness and they're strained. And so you can repurpose them for other things. Wiping your bike down or using it as a shop rag or as a dusting towelette within the house.

Yeah, I actually keep them in the little box that I have all my bike cleaning equipment in, and I'll use it as a chain wipe.

Right, exactly. You know, it's. The whole purpose is, you know, keep it out of the landfill as much as possible. You can actually even just throw them in the recycling bin when you're completely done with it. Because polyester, kind of like PET bottles, is a recyclable fabric. But, you know, repurposing it and the whole green element is what the company is all about, really. Lifeelements is the company behind Action Wipes and the CNM Couples Collection. And so our charter from the get go was how can. How can we contribute, you know, to. To the environment by making our products more earth friendly and recyclable? So that's what we aim for now.

Right? And what, what about the spray? Is that pretty much what the Action Wipes have on them in spray?

It's a little bit different. And it's. I love this spray. And the purpose of creating it, when I first created it was, as I mentioned, the wipes, the wipes themselves can be washed and reused. So a lot of folks said, well, if I can reuse it, why can't I just reuse it on my body? And, well, once you wash it, the properties, the cleansing properties with the wipe, you know, are washed out. So I was thinking, how can we recharge the wipe? So I created this spray and it's a completely different scent. And the reason is that because we couldn't put that surfactant in the bottle because it would clog the sprayer. You know, that little sudsing action, I had to make up for that using other essential oils. So we actually have about seven other oils in that that include lemon, myrtle, geranium, lavender, rosemary, all these cool oils that have been known for their antibacterial properties, their bug repellent properties and all these things. And so the main purpose was to recharge the white. But we found that because of the properties of these essential oils, you cannot use it, as I said, as a bug repellent, natural bug repellent. Again, I don't use any harsh chemicals in there. We have a moringa seed extract that actually is an antioxidant. So what it does, it actually helps your skin cool down. You know how after you've ridden hard and you're all sweaty, just spray that all over you and it automatically, not automatically, but pretty quickly starts bringing your skin's temperature down. And then after you wipe that, you're getting the same effect as the cleansing towelette, getting all that dirt and grime out of your pores. So you can actually use it by itself or use it, you know, with your own towel or recharge the spray with it. It just, it became multipurposeful and I actually have to change the name of it now because I called it a sports spray, you know, cooling spray, but I think it's just an all purpose spray now.

So yeah, I guess I never really even, even it didn't really register with me the skin cooling properties. I just always knew that it made me feel really good after I used it, you know, after a long bike ride or a long run. But I guess that makes sense. You know, I live and die by that stuff. In the, like last summer after you gave it to me after every single long bike ride or long run, I would use that, you know, before my cool down, when I was getting stuff done, when I was stretching, before I showered. And it just makes you feel completely fresh and kind of renewed after you finish a long training session. A lot of times, you know, when I'm rushing around in the middle of the day, I don't really have a lot of time to hop in the shower or whatever and I'll just spray a little bit. That spray on it makes you feelmakes you feel like you just went to the spa. I mean that's the best way I can describe it. Dr. Not that I go to the spa a lot, but you know, the eucalyptus and the tea tree oil and the other stuff that you have in it, I mean it really does make you feel refreshed. It, it's almost, it's a clean scent. Dr. Yeah, it's almost like right in there with the recovery compounds that I use like you know, branched chain amino acids and proteolytic enzymes and all this other stuff that I take action spray is one of the things that I'm actually using right after a workout. But, but in the winter. One of the main things I like about this is I haven't really struggled much with dry skin at all this winter. And what I started doing was I'd take a shower after I swam in the chlorine water, but then I've been using that action wipes spray all over my skin after a swim workout. And it's just like I kind of mist it around my body. And number one, it makes me not smell like chlorine. And number two, it does make my skin feel more moist and less, you know, that dry, kind of cracked skin type of feeling you get after the chlorine. So that's what I've been using the spray for. And then I keep one bottle of the spray in my backpack and just take it to. Well, it's permanently in my backpack, but I make sure to take it to all my races and just literally mist my body after any hard training session.

It feels good. Yeah, it's just, you know, I'm just amazed at the different uses that people are continually sending me, you know, what they're using it for. So I've been really happy. I mean, I'm so excited about the line taking off. And, you know, we certainly intend to expand upon it. And as you were mentioning, you know, the dry skin and everything, we have, of course right now have, you know, massage creams and everything else, but that we want to extend over to the sports line and just create other. Other products that sport enthusiast and outdoor enthusiasts really need.

I've seen some. Well, because I'm around the triathlon population a lot, I've seen some pretty messed up, especially facial skin profiles of older triathletes who look like, you know, ravens because they've just been out in the sun and not taking care of their skin. And so this is. This is one of the reasons that I'm using that spray is just to keep. Keep myself hydrated. But then the other thing with the wipes, you know, like I said, I use the actual leftover wipes for my bike, for my bike chain and cleaning my bike. But then I keep the wipes in my glove box because a lot of times, especially in the spring or the summer, I'll hop in my car after a workout and just literally wipe myself down. And then I also keep some basically out in the garage where if I finished a run or a bike, I can literally just wipe myself down and walk in. And my wife doesn't even know I worked out. Barrel.

That's the best part. But you know, too, just so that. Just so that, you know, because of the gentle formula, you can actually use them on your twins, too.

Yeah.

No, if you guys ever run out of the baby wipes or anything else, don't hesitate because they're probably more gentle.

Yeah. You were saying that the Baby wipes are probably more gentle. Before I lost you for a second.

No, the Action wipes are more gentle than the baby wipes.

Oh, right.

For the twins. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, yeah, what we're working on too is a hand wipe because it's so good at taking the chain grease off too. It's a degreaser, believe it or not. And again, these are all just uses that people are writing in. Oh my gosh. I found out it did this and it did that and I'm like, oh my God. Cool.

Okay, well, I want to give the URL where people can go to get these things. I'm going to put a URL in the show notes to this podcast so people can just click on it and go check it out. Your Action Wipes Calm.

Right, right. Action Wipes Calm. And we did set up a 15% off discount coupon for your listeners. They just have to enter BGF for Ben Greenfield Fitness. And again, 15% off at checkout. And Action My Calm.

Okay, so what's the next event you're at? Is it Wildflower?

Well, excuse me. Yeah, we're going to the Tri Flow Menlo Park Grand Prix and then Wildflower. I'm trying to do as many local events when I say local, you know, California as possible. Again, it's all grassroots marketing right now and so Wildflower will definitely be there. Oh, Sea Otter too.

Nice. I'll keep my eye open for you at any of the California events that I'm down at. So actionwipes.com use discount code BGF. She's got sprays. She's got wipes. Thanks for coming on the show, Martha.

Thanks, Ben.

Alright.

So that's this Week's content from.

BenGreenfieldFitness.com Remember, you can leave us a comment or rank us in itunes by simply clicking on the link that I have in the show notes. I know I had a lot of announcements today. All you got to do is go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com, go to episode number 36 to click on any of the things that I talked about like the Ironman Triathlon nutrition plan, any of the talks that I'll be giving online or locally in the Spokane Coeur d' Alene area, or even to click onto Action Wipes and check out the 15% discount code that you can can get on the Action Spray and the Action Wipes. Until next time, this is Ben Greenfield signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.