Podcast Episode #66: How Goosebump Goals Can Bring You to the Next Level

In this podcast episode, powerful motivation techniques for exercise and sports nutrition, news from the Ironman Medical Conference, and a massive diet and exercise Q and A. Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. We provide you with free exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon and wellness advice from.

The top fitness experts in the nation.

So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you're just trying to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill, cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com. Hey podcast listeners, before I go into anything, I need to tell you something. I am actually recording this podcast in an airport. I happen to be traveling down to Jamaica right now to do some media coverage for a triathlon down there called the Rose Hall Triathlon. And it just so happens that this is pretty much my only opportunity right now to bring you this podcast as I wait in the Charlotte Douglas International Airport to fly down to Montego Bay. So if you hear security warnings in the background, if you hear someone telling me not to leave my luggage unattended, or if you hear someone shouting at Ben Greenfield to get over to his gate so he can catch his flight, that's what you're hearing in the background. I'll try and filter out some of the noise, but thought I'd just give you a warning and wow. We have a jam packed podcast today. Tons of listener questions. You'll notice too many for me to even list in our introduction, as well as a fantastic interview with a sports psychologist who trains some of our nation's top athletes, namely people in the army, at the army center for Enhanced Performance. He's going to bring us a lot of information on mental toughness and then just a bunch of special announcements and opportunities for you. So no matter what your exercise level or fitness level, no matter where you're coming from, we're going to have something for you on this show. It's a lot of nutrition, a lot of exercise, a little bit of triathlon in there as well. Sit back and enjoy.

Special announcements.

First thing I'd like to talk to you about in today's special announcements is some of you are aware that I was down in Kona, Hawaii at the Ironman Medical Conference and at that conference there is just a ton of the latest, greatest research, especially for endurance sports and endurance athletes. And there was also some great nutrition talks on fat loss. And because there was just such a dense amount of information there at the conference, what I want to briefly go over with you and the special announcements are some of the Highlights some of the little things that I took away from it that I wanted to bring to you. Just little snippets for you to think about. Here's an interesting one. Caffeine increases your intestinal glucose absorption by about 0.2 grams per minute. What that means is that for those of you going out and running a marathon or doing a triathlon, or really doing any event where you're going to be consuming sugar during the event to actually keep your carbohydrate levels elevated, you can improve the actual absorption of that sugar and the subsequent utilization of that sugar. At least your potential for the utilization of that sugar by consuming caffeine prior to exercise. Dosage recommendations vary, but typically it's from 2 up to 5 grams per kilogram of body weight. And usually it takes about a half hour to hit your system. But know that it does more than just wake you up or make you feel like you aren't working quite as hard. It can actually increase the amount of glucose that you take in in the small intestine. So a great ergogenic aid that in most cases is going to be legal for you to take. Okay. Another interesting note is that there was a recent study that looked at cyclists who were doing a 440 kilometer time trial riding their bikes over 20 miles, around 25 miles. And what they found was that when these cyclists were simply rinsing their mouth with a carbohydrate solution, they actually decreased their time that it took them to complete that 40k time trial by almost two minutes. They weren't even drinking the sugar, they were just rinsing it through their mouths and then spitting it out. So there's a very good link between your actual taste buds and your brain's perception of how hard you're working when you can get something sweet in your mouth. Maybe it's our realization that we're not starving, that we're going to be able to push hard because there is energy on hand if we need it. But that was a very interesting study that you don't actually have to swallow or consume the sugar, but just rinse it through your mouth. Similar study in a 40k time trial, about a 1 minute decrease when people consumed a blend of carbohydrate and electrolyte. Okay. There's a lot of drinks out on the market that are a blend of carbohydrate and electrolyte. Two that come to mind would be Hammer Nutrition's heed, which stands for high energy electrolyte drink and Goo Nutrition's electrolyte brew. Both of those are a blend of carbohydrate and electrolyte. And compared to a carbohydrate alone beverage that didn't have the sodium and the potassium and the magnesium and the calcium in it, 1 minute decrease in the 40 kilometer time trial on the bike. That was pretty interesting. So a couple of interesting snippets on fat oxidation. Green tea was shown to increase fat oxidation during exercise, specifically by increasing the rate of lipolysis, or the rate at which the fat enzymes actually break down fat. So that was interesting. You're going to find green tea extracts and a lot of fat burning supplements out there and a lot of energy drinks out there. And consensus is that they actually do accelerate the rate of fat oxidation. Another study done on something called carnitine or carnitine, and what this study looked at was that increasing the skeletal muscle carnitine content may alleviate the decline in muscle fat oxidation seen during intense exercise. Essentially, all that means that when you are working out hard, if you can figure out a way to actually get your muscles loaded up with more carnitine than they would normally have, then you can actually burn fat or burn more fat at higher intensities. Now, the only flip side to this is that in the study, the way that they got people to load up with more carnitine than their muscles would normally take in involved not only carnitine supplementation, but also feeding the subjects a high carbohydrate diet so that they had high insulin levels, which actually allowed them to store that carnitine a little bit better. And so it seemed kind of paradoxical to me that if you're going to exercise to burn fat, and you're going to take advantage of the fact that more carnitine in your muscle is going to allow you to burn more fat, then it kind of flies in the face of burning fat to consume a high carbohydrate blend prior to exercise along with your carnitine supplement. So, didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me, but it was interesting. I suppose maybe in the future we can figure out a way to increase the carnitine content of skeletal muscle without eating a high carbohydrate meal along with a carnitine supplement. And there was also another interesting study on supplementation with a supplement called beta alanine. There's been a lot of studies that have been done on alanine supplementation to increase the content of something in muscle called carnosine, which is associated with better sprint performance, like one to two minute maximal Exercise performances. Lots of research was coming out at the Ironman Medical Conference about how supplementation with alanine can significantly enhance sprint performance. And specifically for those of you endurance athletes who are thinking, huh, that doesn't mean anything for me, after an exhaustive endurance exercise bout, it enhanced sprint performance. So I thought that was pretty interesting. Again, we're not getting into a lot of the details of the studies here, but I want to give you guys the overview. So alanine supplementation. Alanine is something that I actually load up with for about two or three weeks prior to some of my big races. I use something called Carnage from a company called Millennium Sports. And that's a dense beta alanine supplement, essentially. But evidence shows it can help you give a little bit of, a little bit more of a surge after an endurance effort. Okay, some other things that came up. A study showed that training with low muscle glycogen could enhance your training adaptation, meaning that training without fueling or training with low carbohydrate levels afterwards actually caused expression of proteins that caused a bone. Better training adaptation, a better fitness response. So I thought that was very interesting because the majority of professionals and sports nutritionists are going to tell you to eat prior to training, whereas this study showed that there were actually some pretty cool training adaptations that occurred when people trained, starved, so to speak. Now, the flip side to that is, are you going to be able to train that hard when you're hungry, when you're starved, when you don't have much carbohydrate on board? And is the training adaptation that occurs when you're training with low glycogen as great as the training adaptation that might occur when you're training with high glycogen levels and able to push yourself harder? My recommendation is to simply include at least one workout a week in each of the different skills that you do, say weightlifting or bicycling or running or swimming, and do it minimally fed. Don't take in those 200 calories an hour that you might usually take in. Don't eat the big meal two hours prior to your workout. And there's actually some studies that show that there are some unique training adaptations when you train in a low muscle glycogen state. I just don't recommend you do it all the time. A couple other interesting studies. There was no difference in the sugar absorption or the fuel absorption in drinks versus solid food or bars when people were cycling. I know we hear a lot of people talking about you should only take liquid fuel in when you're competing. And this study showed that the liquid fuel was just as good or the solid fuel was just as good as the liquid fuel in terms of your absorption rate. Now I know speaking from personal experience, trying to chew stuff while you're exercising can be pretty difficult. It can take some focus. It can actually increase your heart rate. So I don't think that that's the, that's the end all when it comes to liquid versus solid fueling. Just the glucose absorption. But know that the glucose absorption is pretty similar. A couple other things we looked at. Chrissy Wellington is the Ironman world champion. And I was able to see a slide of what her intake was when she won the World Championships in 2007. And I thought that presentation was pretty interesting because even though she was only taking in, it looks like about 200 calories an hour on the run, she was closer to 600 calories an hour on the bike. Just a massive amount of fuel that flies in the face of what you would expect people to be able to take in during exercise. But if you add up her entire day, her entire nine hour event she averaged, I believe it was just under 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour. And recommendations for Ironman fall kind of in that 80 to 100 gram per hour range. So that was interesting that even though she took in a lot on the bike and maybe even too little on the run, it all evened out over nine hours to be almost a perfect amount of fuel. So what that goes to show you is that you can kind of load up a little bit on the bike, maybe not load quite so much on the run. And if that's something that you've practiced in your training, it might actually turn out to be pretty good for you. So other research. There was one other thing I wanted to talk to you guys about and that was the choice of your carbohydrates during your actual event. Based off of some of the things that I just went over with you in terms of if you were going to choose what type of carbohydrate you're going to take in during a sprint event, during an Olympic event, during a half Ironman event, or during an Ironman event, supposing you're a triathlete. And so what this might look like would be that during a sprint distant event you could just rinse your mouth with carbohydrate and that would be all that you need to take in for an Olympic distance event. You'd be looking at about 30 grams per hour of any type of carbohydrate blend. Preferably for a half Ironman event, you would take up to about 60 grams per hour of a carbohydrate blend again, but preferably mixed with some proteins like a branched chain amino acid. And then finally for an Ironman event, you take up to about 90 grams per hour. And most of the consensus on the Ironman event is that you really want to take in different types of carbohydrates or what are called multiple transportable carbohydrates. So like mixes of, say, glucose and maltodextrin or fructose and maltodextrin. So that was interesting. I know there was a lot to go over. If you have questions about that stuff, just shoot me an email. I just wanted to bring you guys some of the information because that's kind of my goal on this podcast is to just bring you as much information as possible and let you run with it. So that was a really long special announcement. What else do we have for special announcements today? First of all, for those of you familiar with the Training Peaks online training software, and for those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's what I use to coach most of the athletes that I work with and also work with several of the clients that I train for for fat loss or for General Fitness. Anyways, TrainingPeaks is an online training software system that allows you to manage your own workouts, log your own fitness, your nutrition, or allow a coach to oversee your exercise nutrition program for you. Anyways, I have designed a nutrition plan, several nutrition plans for trainingpeaks. As a matter of fact, everything from a lean muscle fat loss nutrition plan up to an Ironman nutrition plan. And these are unique because they're designed to be completely compatible with TrainingPeaks. So whether you already have a TrainingPeaks account and you want to look into these nutrition plans that can easily just go straight into your training calendar, or whether you have no clue what TrainingPeaks is, but you want to learn more about it. I put a link in the show notes and the show notes are huge for this podcast, but there's a link in the show notes right there. Click on podcast number 66 and I put a link to Training Peaks where you can go check it out. Okay, second special announcement. A bunch of people this week and you know who you are if you're listening to this podcast. You got the brand new Ben Greenfield fitness cycling jersey and cycling shorts and they're pretty cool. I'll get a video out later this week to show you what they look like. But essentially if you didn't get a cycling jersey or shorts and that's something that you are interested in, I'm going to be making another order on November 15th. So if you email me Ben greenfield fitness.com prior to November 15th and you're interesting and you're interested in getting a cycling jersey and cycling shorts, a tri top, a tri suit, a tri top and tri shorts, basically I can get just about anything, but it's all custom designed with BenGreenfieldFitness.com and all you got to do is email me. But email me prior to November 15th if you're interested in that. And speaking of deadlines, it's October 28th right now, which means you have just three days left to be able to get the special pricing on the Pacific Elite Fitness All Inclusive Triathlon Training Camp down in Austin, Texas. And I've got a link with all the details to that on the Show Notes one of the people who was signing up the other day, she emailed me and she said, well, I just clicked to sign up for the camp and it said $400. And I was confused because I thought that the total was something like $1,300 for everything for the whole week. And that's true. But what I do is allow you to split it into three separate payments, make it a little bit easier on cash flow through the holidays. This is the best deal in the nation when it comes to all inclusive training camp. That includes your lodging, your free food, your training, your coaching presentations, everything. But I understand that you may need to take it in three small chunks. So I put that opportunity up there for you, registration, everything. All you got to do is go over to the Show Notes for podcast number 66 and it's all right there, as well as the link to the Triathlon Dominator package. And I know some of you are planning on dialing in your training plan by November or December here for the Triathlon training training season, make sure that you check out the Triathlon Dominator package, which is pretty much the most complete program I've ever put together for people who maybe don't want an active coach but want a training plan to follow. It's the plan, it's nutrition, it's everything I teach to my athletes put into a package for you and it's specifically designed to make it doable. So much less than 20 hours per week of training, about 50% of what the average person going to spend getting ready for Ironman. So last special announcement, I'm about Four weeks into my journey with changing my body, based off of the interview with the physicians that we talked to in podcast number 62, where I got all my test results back for vitamin D, magnesium, my essential amino acids, my ferritin, the magnesium calcium ratios, the metabolic typing questionnaire. And over the past four weeks, I have gone through the process of changing my diet, changing my nutrition, starting to supplement with a lot of things that I was low in and trying to bring my testosterone levels back up, my vitamin D levels back up, my essential amino acid levels back up, and all I can say is, holy cow. I mean, I'll do a training session and wake up the next day and feel like I didn't even do anything. I mean, it's like my body is bouncing back at light speed. I've never really had this feeling before. I'm very, very anxious to go race. I'm going to go race in the half Ironman World Championships actually here in a couple weeks. Very anxious to see what my body is capable of now because it is performing at a much better level than it was before. I'm personally supplementing with vitamin D and essential amino acids as well as upping my magnesium levels. And those are the recommendations given to me by Bioletics. I'm going to put a link to Bioletics in the show. Notes. Dr. Richard Cohen is your man over there if you want to get tested for your key internal performance factors and find out how you can actually optimize your performance and optimize your. Your body. So those are the special announcements for this week. Be sure to go over to the show notes for this podcast and check those out. Podcast number 66, everything that you can click on is right there. Listener Q and A. The first question this week comes from listener Sarah and Sarah asks, hi Ben, I was wondering what you think about the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray. I have a hard time believing that there is no big amount of calories in it, but can't find much online that tells me any more details about it. Do you have any more insight about the good or bad bad of it? Well, the idea behind that spray that comes in the can, Sarah, is that they're taking advantage of the fact that in the US any serving that's up to about 5 calories, a manufacturer is able to list as zero calorie or calories free. Now, they still have to state on that nutrition label what actually constitutes as a serving. But in order to get away with a serving being less than 5 calories what the manufacturer does is they just pick a ridiculously small serving to actually represent serving. And so if you look at the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray, they have in about 12.5 sprays, about 10 calories and 1 gram of food fat. And it's something like a third of a second is the equivalent of a spray. So for most of us who are holding it for, you know, three seconds or so, we're easily getting that 10 calories and 1 gram of fat in a serving of the I Can't Believe it's not butter. 25 sprays. It's about a teaspoon. There's 20 calories in 25 sprays, which again, these are very, very small sprays. Most of us do not do the eensy teensy sprays they consider a serving and about 2 grams of fat in that. You take 37.5 sprays, which is probably about how much you'd put if you were coating, say, a pancake griddle. That's about 30 calories and 3 grams of fat. So if you take that entire bottle that says I Can't Believe It's not butter, calorie free, zero calories, whatever, the entire bottle is 900 calories and about 90 grams of fat. So to answer your question, yeah, it does have calories in it. Now, looking at the actual ingredients of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray, you have water, liquid, soybean oil, salt, natural sweet cream, buttermilk, which is a mix of a bunch of different ingredients. Ingredients. And really that's about it. There are some natural and artificial flavors in there as well. I wasn't able to actually figure out what the artificial flavors actually were. But for any of us who are trying to limit our consumption of vegetable oils like a soybean oil, or trying to watch our salt intake, who maybe don't like the idea of spraying buttermilk on our food. You know, there's probably better alternatives to I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray. What I personally would recommend is that you get a little spritzer and you fill it with extra virgin olive oil or grape seed oil. And you use that for your low temperature cooking and for your salads and for your higher temperature cooking, just use a very small pad of completely natural butter, which is great for you in small quantities. Or a coconut oil. You can actually get extra virgin coconut oil. It's solid at room temperature, very stable at high temperatures. Also fantastic to cook with. So wouldn't recommend the I Can't believe it's not butter spray. You will have noticed right now a significant increase in the quality of the audio. Hopefully because I caught my flight and am now in my hotel room without quite as much background noise. So that being said, I'm going to go ahead and move on to the rest of this week's questions. So the next question comes from listener Chuck. And Chuck says, here's a question for you. I love steamed vegetables like broccoli and spinach. I usually have a large serving along with my dinner each night. Is it okay to have a really large portion of vegetables or should I stick to an appropriate serving portion size like everything else? I figure since they are low calorie and healthy, it's alright, but I don't want to overeat. Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it. Good question, Chuck. With all of my clients vegetables, assuming that these are raw vegetables, not drenched in vegetable oil like you would get them at say P. F Changs and just their normal unadulterated version, I let my clients eat as much as they want. Okay, you take something like asparagus, we're talking about right around a cup of that or 100 grams of that. 26 calories, 90% water. Broccoli, 32 calories, 90% water. Brussels sprouts, 40 calories, 87% water. Cabbage, 24 calories, 93% water. You even can go as far as to look at some of what we would consider the more starchy foods. And even pumpkin, 12 calories, 95% water. Now a few of them, a few of the vegetables, like say yams. Yams would be about 110 calories in a portion size equivalent to some of those other vegetables I mentioned. And only 65% water. But that's kind of common. Sen can usually tell the ones that are more starch based. Corn would be along the same lines. So yeah, all my clients, you know, when I write out their meal plans, vegetables are typically not measuring out unless it's just for logistical reasons. So they don't, you know, overflow the plate or throw the taste off. And then another question, this one is also from listener Chuck. I think this is the same Chuck. Wow, Chuck, you've got a lot of questions this week. Because this next question is basically like a three part question, but I'm going to answer it anyways. So he says, hey Ben, I have a couple questions for you this week I was hoping you could answer. The first parallel is the one I asked last week about how much steamed vegetables one can eat. Yep, that would be the same Chuck. I steamed a butternut squash yesterday and had that as a side along with some broccoli and chicken for dinner. Should I treat foods like butternut squash or acorn squash as carbohydrate side dishes? Same as I would treat sweet potato or brown rice, or would they count as a vegetable? Would it have made more sense to balance that meal by having the chicken, butternut squash and some brown rice? Most of the squashes are going to fall into a similar category as pumpkin and not into the same category as rice or potato. Let's just take like a simple summer squash, about 1 cup of that chopped, you're looking at 17 calories, 1.5 calories from fat. So again, I'm assuming that you're just talking about the regular version. You're not doing what a lot of people do with squash, which is add butter, add brown sugar, add chopped nuts, etc. But the squash just by itself would fall into the same category as vegetables. And yeah, very rich in phytonutrients, antioxidants, high in fiber, and a great source for a vegetable, especially in the winter. You can make soups, you can make stews, you can add them to stir fries, it's, etc. So you move on and you say, second, I've read a couple articles lately on cheat meals and the importance of them. The principle makes sense, not completely depriving yourself so that you will stay mentally healthy as well as be more likely not to binge and to stay on your program. Some of the articles also talked about the effects these cheat meals or days actually had on the body. The theory was that by eating a cheat meal, like a large burger and fries with a shake, the calories would shock the body and spark the metabolism, making it work differently than the consistent foods it is used to receiving. Some went so far as to say the muscles would store the fat as energy and would burn it in the next workout. I don't know about that last part, but the rest of the theory seems plausible. What's the truth? It's a little bit, to use the highly scientific term, messed up. The way that you describe it in terms of it not really acting in a way to shock the body and spark the metabolism when you eat a cheat meal. But what happens is that if you are glycogen depri, carbohydrate deprived, calorie deprived, and you eat a high calorie meal, your metabolism will experience an increase. That's why when people come into my lab for metabolic Rate testing, they have to fast for anywhere from 4 to 12 hours prior so that they don't get that caloric cost of digesting food. So in the sense that it bumps up the metabolic rate when you take in a large number of calories, especially when you're coming off a caloric diet deficit. Well, that's true. That large number of calories doesn't need to be an unhealthy meal. And in fact, an unhealthy meal like a large burger and fries with a shake is going to give you the calories, but is going to give you the trans fatty acids and the free radicals, the toxins, the preservatives and everything else that you get along with the extra calories. So I'm all for a refeeding day and giving your body one day where it's getting a little bit more tlc, so to speak, from a caloric perspective, but not if those calories are primarily from unhealthy sources. Now, I do still think that there's some importance in having some junk food every now and again if you want to go down to Dairy Queen and get a blizzard once every Saturday night. And if you're in training and you're exercising, you're eating well 90% of the time. Not that big of a deal. But it's not going to do anything magic to your body. It's just that taking in more calories in general will bump up the metabolic rate if you are calorically deprived. As far as the muscles storing the fat as energy and burning it in the next workout, the only thing the muscles store as energy is glycogen storage. Carbohydrate. The muscles can burn fat via something called beta oxidation. They don't necessarily store that fat in the same way that they would store carbohydrates. So that's not true. And it's not true that you're going to have increased fat burning capacity when you eat a large cheat meal. It's just that if you have more fatty acids circulating in your bloodstream, you might tap into more of them. But the fatty acids circulating in your bloodstream are taking precedence over the fatty acids that could be mobilized from your adipose tissue on your waistline or your butt or your thighs or wherever you tend to keep it. So that would not be a good way to get your body to burn more fat. And then the last part of your question, you say, lastly, in the last email you sent out on how to get fat, you criticized ensure drinks pretty hard. And for those of you who didn't read that post? Go check out the post@BenGreenfieldFitness.com where I talk about an upcoming book I'm writing called how to Get Fat. Chuck goes on, I clearly understand why, but on the other hand, would you advise everyone not to drink them or similar products? When I was inpatient for my eating disorder a couple years ago, we were given Ensure plus as a supplement to help put on weight in a more nutritious manner. I was advised to keep drinking them once I got out until I reached and maintained my goal weight training. As hard as I do, I still drink one to two Ensure a day, usually mixed with protein powder and a banana as an extra evening snack. I figured this was a better way to get healthy calories, the overall calorie level being something I still worry about than other options. Is it okay for someone like me to drink Ensure or are there other options like whole milk? Okay, this is a pet peeve of mine. When nutritionists give people Ensure as a way to get them to gain weight, say coming off anorexia or bulimia or whatever the case may be, but don't educate the patient that that is fake food. It is sucrose or corn syrups or preservatives or basically it's also got cow's milk in it, which we know from other episodes on this show is chock full of insulin like growth factor and a lot of other preservatives and hormones that can affect your body. And if you were to use real food, if you were to take, I mean banana, some fat free organic yogurt, you can use quinoa, you can use nut butter, you can use whey protein powder, pea protein powder, hemp protein powder, rice protein powder. There are ways that you can get a meal replacement shake without getting it in a can, without getting it with all those preservatives in it, with all that sugar in it, Ensure is basically glorified sugar water with a little bit of milk protein added. And it's the wrong concept. You need to eat real food, not food that you could put in your pantry for two years, take it out, drink it and not be affected. So I'm going to have to say that I would highly recommend that you make your own homemade, healthy version of Ensure. I mean, if you're mixing Ensure plus with protein powder and a banana, just take that Ensure plus substitute. I mean there's all sorts of stuff out there. You can get powdered goat's milk as an alternative to cow's milk. You can use Almond milk, you can use rice milk. You can make your own protein smoothies and protein shakes at home. When I write out the nutrition plans for my clients, they've got like eight different smoothie recipes that they can make at home that taste far better than Ensure and are far better for you. So don't rely on fake food to nourish your body. Despite what some of the mainstream nutrition professionals are going to tell you, it sets you up better for life to be eating real food. So, going to move on to a question from listener Bob. Bob says hi Ben, I'm a new listener to your podcast and love the show. Please can you direct me to a good multivitamin and give some information about vitamin absorption? I've always been told that vitamins just make expensive urine. I've also run across this new company called Activez9. I'm in the process of going over all the material on your website now. Having been out of the exercise and nutrition frame of mind for some eight years, it is a little overwhelming now. Or, I'm sorry. In 2001, at 40 years old, I did my first and last full Ironman in California while really not knowing much about nutrition and training. Now, a few pounds later and not much exercise, I want to return to exercising and more important, I want to start eating healthier. In the next few years, I want to go to Kona Ironman. Thanks. That's a really good goal, Bob. And I like your question about the multivitamins and the whole idea behind the multivitamins and is that all nutrition professionals are going to tell you that when it comes to vitamins, nutrients, minerals, it would be best to get as much as possible from real food when you can, because the nutrients that come bundled together in real food are absorbed by your body a little bit more completely and utilized by your body more effectively than the isolated vitamins and minerals and nutrients you're going to get from a multi. So if you look at plant fibers like vegetables and fruit, fruits, beans, whole grains, you're getting your fiber from those, you're getting your very important, what are called phytochemicals from those which help support and sustain a healthy metabolism. You take something like fish, meat that's going to contain your vital omega 3 essential fatty acids. Nuts are going to have a lot of really good, what are called monounsaturated fatty acids, a lot of other nutrients, a lot of other antioxidants, and all of those will help. They'll not only help stabilize our energy levels, but they help prevent cancer and heart Disease and diabetes, they don't cure that stuff, but they definitely help prevent it. Now, the tricky part is that food processing can destroy nutrients, fertilization can destroy nutrients, modern commercialized agricultural processes can destroy nutrients, leach minerals from the soil, etc. And even lifestyle choices or lifestyle patterns can lead you to an inadequate intake of some nutrients. I have some clients who are super busy and the only way that they're going to get their vegetable intake in during the day is from a powdered green, ground up vegetable source. Fine. I'd rather they be doing that than nothing at all. Pregnant individuals sometimes need more vitamins than they can get from food. Older individuals who have reduced absorption in their intestinal tract, they can also have a higher need for various nutrients. And so what it comes down to is that for a lot of people, multivitamin is a very good choice. The one thing I didn't say, which is, is probably most important in your case, is that exercising individuals, and especially individuals who are leaching as many minerals and using as many vitamins and nutrients as you're going to use, training for something like Ironman supplementation becomes paramount. So the RDA has kind of the recommended daily allowances, the minimalist approach in terms of the multivitamin supplements that Americans can be getting. But a lot of times you need a lot higher levels of nutrients than the RDA recommends. There's not a lot of scientific data out there right now for the recommended maximums or the recommended minimums. They're designed to maintain health in about 95% of the population. So that means 1 in 20 people might need more than what the recommended RDA is to maintain health. And there's a lot of extrapolations and guesstimates out there about what our minimums should be be rather than extensive scientific evidence. And that's why a lot of times you'll notice that the recommended supplementation protocol for various minerals and vitamins will change. Magnesium has gotten higher and higher as the years have progressed as more research has come out that shows that people are chronically magnesium deficient. So, yeah, there is a definite case for multivitamins and there's a definite case for taking multivitamins that might go above and beyond the rda. Now, as far as the expensive urine question, yeah, some multivitamins don't dissolve properly, they don't absorb properly. There's two different types of multivitamins you get. One is just a regular multivitamin. Think about it in terms of just letting all the nutrients in it out into the stomach in a single burst. And then you have time release formulas that are supposed to produce more of kind of a steady state release of the nutrients throughout the day. And the time release formulations are typically a little bit more expensive because the idea is that the body cannot use some of the stuff that gets released in a single burst. So it gets excreted through your urine or your sweat or your stool. So what you could do is you could just use the regular tablets and cut them into halves, or cut them into thirds or quarters and take one with each meal of the day. If you wanted to kind of split the absorption up. I don't know many people that are practically going to do that. Most people want to grab their multivitamins, drink them in the morning, or swallow them in the morning, or swallow them in the evening and just call it good, not have to worry about taking them at multiple points throughout the day. If you really want to find out if your multivitamin is going to dissolve quickly enough for you to actually be able to absorb it, then what you can do is you can actually take some vinegar, like white vinegar. You can put it in a bowl and actually warm that bowl of water up to, or that bowl of vinegar up to about 98 degrees. And the way that you do that is you actually put the bowl of vinegar inside a larger bowl of water that you fill with hot water until the vinegar gets up to 98 degrees. So you got a thermometer sticking out of that vinegar. Then once it reaches 98 degrees, which is going to approximate physiological norms, you drop your multivitamin, whatever other pill you're looking at absorption rates in, you drop it in the vinegar and you kind of shake and jostle the vinegar about every five minutes or so. This is kind of a big task, but it's something you could do home, experiment, do it with your kids. You could also stir the vinegar, but make sure you don't touch the tablet if you do that. So if it dissolves within 30 minutes, which is kind of the gold standard, especially for any pharmaceutical tablets, then it will be dissolved in time to get absorbed by your body. And if it doesn't dissolve within an hour, it's probably not doing you a lot of good. Okay. So that's one way that you could look at the absorption rate. I would recommend, if you're able to, that you just go with a time release formula. Okay. As far as the other inactive ingredients that you're going to find on multivitamins, that's another thing that you need to be careful of a lot of vitamins and tablets are going to have fillers. Okay? They'll have, you know, for example, some multivitamins have a formula that includes oil and water. And the oil and water doesn't mix together well enough. So the manufacturer will add some filler ingredients so that the tablet can be big enough or stable enough to hold both the. Both the soluble and the insoluble or the water soluble and the water insoluble ingredients. A lot of people are allergic to some of these fillers. They're going to include lactose, which is a milk sugar. So if you have lactose intolerance, you might not be tolerant to those pills. They'll have cellulose, cornstarch, a lot of times sugars like sucrose, fructose, dextrose, all those are used as fillers. Whey can be used as a filler, yeast can be used as a filler. They also put binders into multivitamins, things like xanthan gum and something that's basically, it's like an acrylic resin that they put in to help bind the ingredients together. A lot of times they will coat the tablet so they don't break apart in your mouth, so it masks any unpleasant tastes. A lot of times that coating contains colorants. So if you want to avoid dyes, if you want to avoid potential carcinogens, then that's something that you would want to look for in the ingredient label. And then there's a lot of times lubricants that are coating the outside of the tablet, like especially with the capsule. But that could be like a stearic acid, magnesium stearate, polyethylene glycol, and even hydrogenated vegetable oil. So there's a lot of things that can be in that multivitamin. Now what you would want to look for is preferably something that just had like a little bit of a maltodextrin based food starch in it. And then other than that, not a lot of fillers, not a lot of binders, and a lot of times those type of capsules or multivitamins, you have to take in a higher number of capsules per dose. So, for example, the one that I take, I have to take six when I take my multivitamin. But that allows me to take a vitamin that doesn't have as many of the fillers and the binders in it to be able to compress it into one tiny little multivitamin. Probably the last thing to look for, Bob, would be that you get your multivitamin from what's called a CGMP facility. And that means a Certified Good Manufacturing Practices Facility. And that means that the FDA has developed regulations that these facilities need to follow. So there's this act called the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. And what that does is it lays down regulations that supplement manufacturers have to follow and still are required to follow for GMP regulations similar to those that they have for food. So you want to look that you want for your multivitamin to be CGMP certified. So with all that being considered, let's check out this active Z9 product that you mentioned, just to show you how to look at a multivitamin. So I've pulled up the food label on this and it looks like it's getting its vitamin A from a carrot source, vitamin C from acerola cherry, vitamin D from yeast fermented with soy. If you have a soy intolerance, you might want to consider that the vitamin E is from mixed tosopherols, again from soy. So if you're a woman or if you're trying to limit the phytoestrogens you're consuming, if you have a soy intolerance, Something to think about as I move down the list. All of their B complexes are made from yeast, again fermented with soy. And then we get down to their mineral profile. It's got magnesium in it, only 100 milligrams. Most of my clients are taking 500 to 700 milligrams of magnesium now. So you'd want to supplement with an additional magnesium source if you're using something like this. And then they have what a lot of multivitamins have now, which is a whole food antioxidant complex. Theirs in particular is grape skin extract, grape seed extract, green tea extract, a lot of like curry type of supplements. Again, good antioxidants, good for combating free radical formation. They have boron, which is kind of an amino acid precursor, vanadium, which helps to stabilize your appetite. They have a plant enzyme blend of different enzymes that help your digestive system function. So, yeah, I mean, they've got some good stuff in there, some stuff to be cautious with for some of the reasons that I mentioned. So, yeah, it's one that you'd have to look at yourself on a case by case basis and decide if that one would be for you. The one that I take is Ener Prime. The one that my wife takes is called Ener Essence. And I talked about that in the show last week. I'll actually put a link to that after your question Bob, so that you can look at the Ener Essence or the Ener prime and see what I'm currently taking for my multivitamin, what my wife takes, and hopefully they'll give you some direction. So great question. Next up, a question from listener Heidi and listener Heidi says, hi, Ben, I'm a new listener and I think I'm addicted to your podcast. They are great. Thanks. Heidi. One question for you. I was just diagnosed with mono. I used to be in the gym doing cardio and weights nearly every day, but Now I have zero energy and I've packed on about £10. It's really frustrating because I know that I need to get back into the gym, but just going to work drains me. What can should I do? Thanks so much, Heidi. Don't be in a hurry to get back into the gym. Mononucleosis is pretty serious. It affects your liver, it affects your spleen, and your body actually needs rest in order to recover from an attack of mono. I would be focusing on some natural home remedies to help you. I would be focusing on some specific dietary supplements and food intake rather than really chomping at the bit to get back into the gym because your body needs some R and R and you can't force healing when it comes to mono. Some popular home remedies that I know of, one would be aromatherapy. Eucalyptus and lavender are pretty easy to get in terms of essential oils that you can just add to a warm bath and soak in for about 30 minutes on a daily basis to help relieve some of your fatigue. Garlic has been for thousands of years used as a potent potent fix for viral infections. Or not a fix, but a preventive medicine against viral infections and can often help you feel better if you're taking it while you have a viral infection. If you're getting a sore throat with the mono, a couple things that you can gargle with. Again, very easy to find and get your hands on that kind of coat your throat and help it to feel better. Slippery elm bark is one, licorice is another. And one that I do quite a bit is salt water. You can gargle with salt water if you feel a sore throat coming on and it works quite well. The other things that you can use to help drain your lymphatic system or cleanse your lymphatic system, something called a wild indigo plant extract as well as a cleaver extract. And these are things that you could talk to an herbalist about or you could go to your local health food store. A Lot of times they'll have a dispensary with an expert on staff who will be able to help you a little bit more with items that are known to be lymphatic system cleansers. And then things that can help reduce your fever, like an elder flower or something called yarrow, can also have some medicinal properties for fever reducing. Now, as far as your diet, one of the things that you really need to do is adhere to a strict healthy diet plan to boost your immune system. So make sure that you're eating several times per day. Try not to go real long between meals, but keep nutrients coming in. So make sure you're getting your fresh fruits, your vegetables, lots of unprocessed foods. Shop around the perimeter of the grocery store. You've heard me say that before. Drink lots of water, at least 2 liters of water a day to flush toxins out of your body. Some supplements you should consider vitamin D. That will help to boost your immune system and support recovery. Essential fatty acids, very big fan of those for immune system health. Magnesium, again, a mineral that's going to be crucial to supporting your body while it's weak. Vitamin C and zinc, very good for the immune system. Another one I would highly recommend as a natural antiseptic and antiviral would be oil of oregano extract, which you can literally just put a few drops underneath your tongue before you go to bed at night or mix into a glass of water. I don't travel anywhere without oil of oregano. I put it on my toothbrush when I'm traveling, into cups when I'm in places where I'm not quite sure if, like at a hotel room where I'm not sure where the water's been. I put that oil of oregano and everything, and it helps out quite a bit. As a matter of fact, I just put some into my glass here at the hotel in Jamaica and my water tastes like oregano now, but that's okay with me. Avoid meat as much as possible. You don't need to eat a lot of meat. Avoid a lot of saturated fats. Avoid a lot of caffeinated or decaffeinated type of cat, canned beverages or bottled beverages, and avoid lots of exercise or stressful activity. In other words, give your body some TLC and let it recover before you think about getting back into the gym. I realize it's hard when you feel like you're losing your fitness, but you really want to bounce back from the mono and it's not something to play around with. So, next question. Lots of Questions is from listener Eric who says, I have seen pro triathletes ride in their Ironman races carrying only one bottle. That is is typically tucked behind their seat. I've never seen any other evidence of other places or potential sources like bulging jerseys with gel packs, et cetera for fueling needs. Are these people just so well trained that they simply do not need to fuel much during their 112mile ride, relying on their fat stores as fuel? If that is the case, how the heck do they do that? Genetics training. Okay, what I did, Eric, was first of all, I checked into this for you because over@slowtwitch.com, which is a great triathlon website, they take a lot of fantastic pictures of Ironman triathlon. They take the top 15 female cyclists and the top 15 male cyclists. And in those pictures you can kind of see what these people are carrying. And definitely if you're only seeing one bottle on a bike, that means that they are filling that bottle with water as they go through the aid stations. And they may actually be grabbing fuel at the aid stations as well. That's actually served at the aid stations. But while I have you listening, let me scroll through the top 15 Ironman World Championship finishers. Craig Alexander, two bottles on the back, definitely some bulges in his jersey. One bottle on the down tube and one aerodrink bottle. So four bottles total for him. Chris Lieto, fastest bike split of the day. One arrow tube bottle, one big, looks like about a 2820-30 ounce bottle behind him and one fuel flask on his bar as well as another water bottle on the down tube. Okay, so there's another three bottles and a flask. Who's this? Andreas Reiler. He's got one bottle on the down tube, one bottle on the arrow and two on the back. I'm just going to do the first five guys here because you're starting to see the pattern. Chris McCormick's got one 20 ounce bottle on the front, one 20 ounce bottle on the down tube and his jersey is like overflowing with stuff. And then we've got Rasmus Henning, two bottles on the back, one bottle on the down tube, one Arrow bottle. So that's again four bottles total and a lot stuffed into the jersey as well. So I hate to say this, Eric, but I would say that you're probably wrong about that in most cases. But when you're right, I'm guessing that they're getting that extra fuel just from aid station as they go by. If they're not carrying A lot with them. We look at the top females. Chrissy's got one front tube bottle, one down tube bottle, one bottle on a rear mounted water bottle. So she's got three. And it looks like she's got some other fuel sources taped with electrical tape to her top tube. Mirinda Carfrae. One air tube bottle, two bottles on her seats, one bottle on the down tube or no, on the seat tube. And again, Bull's just coming out from her jersey where you can see she's got gel stuff back there. Virginia, the girl from Spain whose last name I can't pronounce. She has one. Okay, so there we go. There's somebody with one water bottle. Her foot's up, so I can't actually see. She might have two, but she's got a heck of a lot of stuff taped to her top tube. Turinz Bacelle. She's got. Okay, wow. Okay, yeah, there it is. She's riding the Cervelo P4 with that water bottle kind of stuffed in between the down tube and the seat tube. And then finally, Samantha McGlone has a looks like one down tube, one seat tube and a jersey packed with stuff. So there you go. Hop over to Slow Twitch and you can see some of those photos and what the pros are doing as they fuel. So they definitely are taking in fuel, but good question. Listener Jason asks My question is about weight training in the off season. In the past, coming from a mindset of weight training for muscle size, I've always lifted an Olympic style of lifts. But now, going into my fifth season of triathlon, I'm considering a more core style of training. The workouts that I've looked at as far as mass produced are P90X cyclo core and the book Tri Power. So my question is, if I only have two to three days for strength, what should I focus on? Or if I have three days, what do you think of doing two core workouts and one Olympic workout? I've seen improvement in my run from a little more core workout last year, but I'm not sure how to judge my core fitness to give myself the appropriate workout. P.S. i really appreciate your podcast and all the great information on diet and exercise that you put out there. I think that you are making a difference in the fitness level of America. Kind of depends what they're doing when they listen to this podcast. Jason. If they're sitting around on the couch eating Bon Bons Cheetos, hopefully not. I think most of the people out there are swimming, biking, running, weightlifting, or engaging in other physical activity while they're listening to the podcast. So hopefully I'm making a difference in the fitness level of America. But to answer your question, I don't know if you know this. I have written a book about weight training for triathletes that includes some off season instruction. It's over at thestrongtriathlete.com that's thestrongtriathlete.com youm can check this out, but here is what was used to create that program. The idea that periodization is important, that actually focusing on something specific in the off season is important and in this case a foundation of supportive strength. And so you're looking at wanting to do a little bit lower number of repetitions, usually in kind of the 8 to 10 rep range, anywhere from 3 up to about 5 sets. Choosing full body exercises like some of the Olympic style lifts that you're talking about as well as if you're pushed for time doing things in a circuit style format with the minimum rest between each exercise. Now there are a lot of different spin offs of that program you could do. For example, one of the programs that I have a lot of my athletes on training peaks do is we have a lot of single leg exercises, a lot of rotation exercises, a lot of kind of difficult make smoke come out your ears type of exercises that are all designed to improve neuromuscular balance, stability, mind muscle connection and the stuff that you're not going to spend a lot of time doing during race season. And I call those, I've basically got swim, a bike and a run. Phase one that they do for four weeks, phase two that they do for four weeks and phase three that they do for four weeks. I actually did put that workout up on trainingpeaks as like a separate plan that you could buy by itself. I don't remember how much it is. I think it's something like 59 bucks to get that 12 week program. But what it comes down to is not worrying a lot about fitness, worrying a lot more about your foundation, about your strength, about your neuromuscular coordination and worrying about fitness later on when you're going to need a lot more if you're doing this in terms of wanting to be ready for a race season. So hopefully that answers your question. And then listener Ace says, hey Ben, I'd like to suggest a topic for one of your upcoming podcasts. I'm very curious about the impact of triathlon or heavy training on the female's reproductive system. There seems to be two paradoxical cases female Triathletes who manage to have kids despite being on the pill for many years of training, being on the pill to avoid menstruating during races and training. Second paradoxical case, female triathletes who apparently have permanent amenorrhea and are not sure if they ever can have kids. Also, he goes on between progesterone, estrogen and testosterone, which one an amenorrheic female athlete lacks. And what impact does that have on the long term? Second part of that question, if the athlete has a healthy diet and has enough calcium, potassium, vitamin D and magnesium in her diet, can she still risk having osteoporosis? We could fill up a whole show with the answer to those questions, Ace. And so what I've done is I've contacted Dr. Carolyn Dean, Dr. Carolyn DeMarco, and Dr. Roby Mitchell, three of the top kind of women's hormone type of specialists in the country. And I'm going to have one of them come on the show sometime in the next couple weeks to address those questions. So I think those are really good questions, but I think they would just be, it would be too much to try and fit that question into today's podcast. So look at an entire podcast in the future being devoted to female athletes and some of the hormonal issues that they face during exercise. And then I have a couple of call up questions. The next one is from listener Madeline with a question about swine flu.

Hey, Ben, my name is Madeline. I went to the gym the other day and I was asked by the staff if I wanted to get a swine flu shot. I was wondering what you were thinking about all that stuff. Thanks, Bye.

Okay, the night that I played this voicemail, CBS actually came out with their report that showed that reports of the swine flu were grossly overestimated and that our quote unquote epidemic was far less serious than what we had been led to believe. I am not a physician, I'm not the expert on swine flu. I do have a very strong opinion on this topic. Similar to the last question, there's not a lot of time to get into it. So I'm going to devote an entire episode. And because I know this is time sensitive, it's going to be the next episode. We're going to devote that entire episode to, to the swine flu. And again, I'm going to have one, possibly two physicians on that show. So look at podcast number 67 for that. I do have an opinion on it. I'm sure that some of you can guess what My opinion is on the vaccinations, etc. But we'll save that for the next podcast. And the last question is from listener.

Nick hi Ben, this is Nick in San Francisco. I have a triathlon specific question for you regarding road bike versus time trial bike used during the winter months. I know a lot of folks that are finishing their race season and they're excited to get off of their time trial bikes and onto their road bikes for the winter months. I realize that it's good to break up your year and move away from the race setup for a while to recharge your batteries mentally, but I just happen to like the way my TT bike feels and I'm not antsy to get off of it. As we move into the winter months where we're spending a lot of time indoors on our trainers, I'm wondering, are there any physiological reasons to switch over to your road bike and away from your TT bike setup? If your position on the TT bike feels comfortable and you've gotten to the point where you can spend hours in your aero position, is there any real reason to let that go during the off season? And on a side note, I just wanted to let you know that I just finished reviewing the entire Triathlon Dominator training plan and all the awesome bonuses that come with it, and I firmly believe that there's no better value out there on the market for someone who's training for an Ironman. So I really wanted to thank you for putting that together for us. And I really personally feel confident that that plan will deliver me to the starting line next year for my Ironman prepared and ready to go. So I just want to thank you for that. It's a great, great deal and I'm just excited to get started on it. So thanks again and I look forward to your response on this question.

Take care.

So Nick, thanks for the kind words about the Dominator package. I'm glad you like it. And to answer your other question, it depends if you are a strong cyclist, if you've put a lot of time in your time trial bike, if you've done a lot of racing throughout the season, then not only do you rarely need to get on your time trial bike during the off season, but sometimes you don't even need to get on your bike all that much at all. You take, you know, we're talking about triathlon. The guy that won Ironman Coeur d' Alene a couple years ago, Tom Evans, the word on the street was that he didn't bike or run at all until something like March for that race and that race was in June and that all he did was skate ski, which is similar to cross country skiing in terms of the effect that it has on your VO2 max in terms of it being a fantastic cardiovascular leg strength based workout. So cross training would not only be a fantastic mental break for the already strong cyclist, but it also could indeed maintain or even increase in some cases, weak areas in your cycling protocol. Now, for weak cyclists, I do definitely recommend that you not only get onto the bike that you plan on racing on about once every week to week and a half, but you do skills and drills, high speed spin ups, single leg pedaling efforts, low gear type of mashing efforts to improve your strength, your speed and your skill on the bike in the off season. That being said, I had a fantastic triathlon season for a few years in a row where all I did was teach spin classes all winter long on a spin bike, not on my road bike or my triathlon bike, but on a spin bike. And I can tell you that this season I've actually purchased skate skis for both myself and my wife. And we plan on utilizing skate skiing during the times that during the winter we would, you know, say last winter, have normally been on an indoor bicycle trainer just to get a change of pace, mental break, a little bit different cardiovascular workout. What it comes down to though, and we'll hear this during the Sports Psychology interview today, is you gotta do what you enjoy. If you like sitting on an indoor trainer and it's a cool way for you to get your aerobic workout and you love your bike and you love the way you feel afterwards, man, go for it. Enjoy what you love to do. But if it's a drag for you, it's very easy to build fitness on the bike. And if you're planning on, say a July or August, you know, high priority race, you don't really technically have to truly start hardcore cycling until January. Yeah, you can get to be a better cyclist over the winter, but you don't have to. I have quite a few athletes right now who are touching their bikes about once every two weeks that I'm coaching and we're gradually going to increase the frequency of that as we get closer to the new year. But yeah, it's definitely not necessary to get on that bike all the time if you're preparing for a cycling event or a triathlon next season. Wow. I think that actually finishes up this week's Listener Q and A. So I apologize for the length on that and also for some of the background noise when we were at the airport. If you have questions, email BenGreenfieldFitness.com if you'd like to do a call in question like some of the listeners did, you can simply call 877-209-9439. I will put that email address as well as that phone number in the show notes where a bunch of other cool information is. We're going to go ahead and move on to this week's featured topic.

Featured topic.

Hey, podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield. I know that a lot of you out there want to know more about mental toughness. You want to know more about how to motivate yourselves, and you've been asking for that here on the podcast. So I decided to go out and get one of the experts, one of the guys who actually trains psychologists in the army on how to introduce more mental toughness at the army center for Enhanced Performance. This guy's name is Bernie Holiday. He's got a PhD in sports psychologist. On top of that, he's a certified strength and conditioning coach. We actually happen to both be alumni from the University of Idaho. And I happen to know that Bernie was a fantastic athlete and coach down there, and he's got a great background in both sports and sports psychology. So, Bernie, thanks for coming on the show.

Hey, Ben, I'm pleased to be here. I'm excited to be here and thank you. And I want to thank your audience for having me.

Awesome. Well, before you go and tell people how they can walk out their front door and run a marathon and it's all mind over muscle.

I hope so.

Why don't you give us a little background in athletics and in sports psychology and where you're coming from for the people who want to know what kind of experience you have in sports psychology?

Sure. I guess it's safe to say that I probably share a lot of the same passions that your audience shares. I love to be physically fit. I love to be athletic. I love to push my limits and to see where my limitations lie and just to keep up in the ante as much as possible in my physical development. So I got started as a collegiate tennis player and kind of collegiate tennis head case, which is probably what got me into sports psychology in the first place. Just learning about why I compete and how I can compete better and how I can be more tough out there on the court. And once I threw the rackets under the bed forever. I picked up volleyball and played about 15 years of competitive doubles volleyball, grass volleyball, beach volleyball, up and down the east coast and just enjoyed approaching that with a different mindset from tennis. Recently it's been hard to get a lot of volleyball participants and partners where I'm at in New York now. So I've recently shifted gears and I guess I describe myself now as an ultra trail running wannabe. I like going out there running really, really far, really really slow. And I've recently picked up this whole CrossFit thing. So I'm a bit of a CrossFit newbie and I'm enjoying that. But I'm brand new, just trying to figure out the who community, sports psychology wise. Yeah, I went to grad school right where you did at University of Idaho. Since then I spent some time teaching mental toughness at the Everett Academy in Boca Raton, Florida and spent the last six years here at West Point at the United States Military Academy, first helping cadet athletes be better on the field, on the court, be more mentally tough in competition. And more recently I've worked with the actual soldiers out there in the army so they can be more mentally tough when they deploy and in their day to day army jobs.

So to cut right to the chase, Bernie, because it sounds like you've just been doing tons in the realm of mental toughness and motivation. What do you think is the underlying cause for someone to not be motivated, say to compete at the level that they're capable of, or even to walk out the front door, to work out or to exercise?

Well, this is a hard thing to talk about. I know we talk a lot about whether or not there's a personality aspect to it. And I don't necessarily think that's the case, but I do think there's a cultural aspect to it. We talk a lot about how you learn from the culture you're in. You learn from your community and learn what to value. You learn to pay attention to, you learn how to think. You learn what types of goals to set by the folks that you're around all the time. Now, when you think about means, the concern there is that the majority of the people you're dealing with are very average, normal people performing in very average, normal ways. So you learn to think in very average, normal ways and set very average, normal goals. That's query, that's your pursuit. But I love working with people who want to be extraordinary in what they do. They want to go after their potential, they want to see what they really have available. They want to set their limits. That means to some degree resisting this socialization and breaking free from some of these cultural beliefs that You've been around all your life. You know, some of those, some of those beliefs might be, you know, you don't want to set a big goal because you just set yourself up for failure. So set something reasonable, set something realistic. When you feel these nerves kick in when you're about to do something important, you need to be afraid of them. You got to make them go away because they're bad. You got to think about your flaws and think about your faults so that you can fix them and get better. All these things are things that we've been taught in society and at the same time they kind of get in the way of a person really reaching their potential. So a lot of my work is done helping motivate people by helping them resist socialization and start to think in a more extraordinary way about themselves and about the capabilities.

Interesting. So it's almost kind of like that social norms theory where you look around you and you kind of hold yourself to the standards of the people that you tend to associate with. And what you're saying is that you kind of have to rise above the crowd that you might be hanging out with. Who thinks that maybe 30 minute 5k is all that you're capable of, or all that they're capable of, or all that the average working individual might be capable of.

Yeah, there's a guy by the name of Dean Carnazes. He's a big ultra runner in the ultra running field. He's written a book called Ultra Marathon Man. It's a great book if you ever get a chance to read it. But there's a really absurd quote from him. When he's about 185 miles into a 200 mile race. He comes up with this realization that we as a society seem to have been, we seem to have mistakenly equated comfort with happiness. And therefore, if we're comfortable, we must be happy and if we're uncomfortable, we must be sad or unhappy and therefore make that discomfort go away. And he's learned through his running, through his running career that quite the opposite is the case. And I think that's what you see with a lot of folks that really excel at the highest level is not only do they learn to embrace discomfort, they embrace pain, they embrace being a little bit different, but find some kind of meaning and pleasure in it. It's a bit absurd, but it's a different mindset from your average person trying to accomplish average things. These extraordinary people take pride in the fact that they can push beyond and that they can find pleasure and pain and that they can think about a challenging situation in an exciting way, as opposed to a threatening way.

Now, do you think that someone actually has the power to do kind of a mind over muscle trick? The reason I ask is I was just down at the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii, and I'd watch the athletes cross the finish line there, and they would literally be sprinting for the final 400 meters of that race. After being out there for 8, 10, 12, 15 hours, they would cross the finish line, and you could literally see almost like this disconnect between their head and the rest of their body where they were smiling, but their body just kind of melted underneath them like jello. I mean, is there a technique that some of the top athletes use to be able to push themselves to that level that gives them the mind over muscle, the ability to push outside of what they. What they might physically think they're capable of?

You know, I. I certainly hope there is. I believe strongly in my heart that there is. And what you experience down there at the Ironman World Championships is that in Kona?

That was down a Kona.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Just. That's really what motivates me. That's what gets me fired up, is watching people that are able to do extraordinary things that most people would say is impossible to do. And it got me really interested to figure out why is it that somebody can pursue a monumental task like that and really accomplish it. Define a lot of what physiologists would say are the odds. And I. I know a lot of folks really battle internally with that. That runs constantly in their head. If you're a 5k runner, a 10k runner, especially if you're a half marathoner or you want to get involved in half marathons or a marathon distance, you got to learn to tame that inner voice, because that's going to be chirping at you the entire time. And the more it hurts, the louder that voice gets. We have a saying here. You got to think in the last word, meaning no matter what your thoughts are, no matter how much you battle with yourself and try to convince yourself you don't have what it takes and you're going to fail and you got to stop or you're going yourself, it's about getting in that last word. I had a mentor once tell me that your thinking doesn't have to be perfect. You just got to make sure that the helpful thoughts dominate. And when we speak about the human mind, we typically think about 50,000 distinctly different thoughts every day. And for most normal folks, about 40,000 of those are hurtful or get in the way of your accomplishing goals. So I think the trick is really learning to manage that voice, learning to harness it, and exercising what we call free will, the ability to think about what you want to think despite what circumstance you're in. I think, Ben, that word exercise is key there. Just like, you know, in the exercise world, exercise is about getting reps and practice and having a training effect. Well, when you exercise free will, it's the same way it takes practice, it takes commitment and relentless pursuit in controlling your mind just the way you train your body.

Well, in the same way that being able to push yourself outside of what you might be capable of can help the elite athletes perform at that level or even the non elite athletes be able to push themselves 12 or 15 hours. Do you, or are you familiar with what's called the central Governor model, which kind of implies that you're going to be able to perform about as far as your brain thinks that you're capable of performing or do you have any thoughts on that?

I know enough, Ben, to know that I don't know very much about it. I looked into a little bit, I had a recent discussion about it and it's the first time I've come across it. It may kind of explain why I'm more into sports psychology and less into the exercise psychology realm, but I got a little bit fatty with the idea, looked into it a bit recently and it confuses me. I'm not really sure what happens. I'm probably not in a position to even speak about what happens, but let's just say if it does exist, I do strongly believe that the people that can really tap into their potential and extend beyond what they thought they're capable of, those are the people that know how to override it and that overriding it as a skill. I can't put a number on this or a certain date or a certain person, but I have heard multiple times that the brain fatigues about 10% sooner than the body. Like I said, that's a number and it's very arbitrary. But it does, I think, prove a point that, you know, the mind tends to give up or the body gives up. And if you can to have goals, pursue the goals, use effective thoughts in pursuit of those goals. You can sometimes extend that mind's resilience a little bit further, which will get you more out of your body.

Mm, Almost like kind of a Jedi mind trick that, that you actually are capable of running a six minute mile and you don't have to be held back to the 615 or the 610 that you may have run in the past.

Yeah, they may not even be a Jedi mind trick as much as it's a Jedi mind skill. So it gets better with practice.

Right. But since I'm not a sports psychologist, I can throw around terms like Jedi mind trick. So what I'm talking about is how you guys. How the experts actually motivate themselves to exercise. You know, the sports psychologist walks out the door to go to run or going to run or needs to go to the gym. Do you have special techniques that you yourself use, Bernie, to motivate yourself to exercise?

You know, I am certainly not the guy to look at here in this regard. I can share with you what I do, and it may not be the right answer, may not be the best answer, but it's worked for me. And, you know, it's kind of funny you mentioned that, because I've stumbled across this more recently than something I've done for a long time. And for me, I got to have something on the calendar. I've got to have something on the calendar that is going to be pushing me, stretching my limits and making me uncomfortable. So I've noticed when I have a race coming up, when I have some kind of a big event planned out three months or six months down the line, it's so much easier for me to get out, get excited about working out, get to the gym, get out on the trail and just push myself. If that isn't on the schedule, if that's not on my calendar, man, it's hard to drag myself out of bed and to get myself excited about going out there and suffering for a half hour, 45 minutes or sometimes longer. So for me, that's the big thing.

Do you think that's because you want to push yourself to new levels in that competition or because you don't want to be embarrassed when you show up?

That's a great question, and it's one that we come across a lot. You know, I guess when we look at motivation, we typically see three types of individuals that are motivated in three types of ways, and it's probably a blend of all three, to be honest. It's not one specific type over another. But you got those folks that are motivated to be the best and to come out in the top of the standings. You'll see another group are just the opposite. Their main goal, their main motivation is not to look bad, not to come in last place, not to be the last person across the line. But then there's a third group that are much more self motivated. They don't look externally to other people, but turn inward to see what was my personal best, what would it take for me to beat my own personal best and how could I do that next time? And it seems like these folks that turn internally and look to themselves and try to beat their personal best seem to have more consistent motivation over the long than folks that look outward and try to beat others or try not to come in last place.

Interesting. Now, your recommendation is for people to actually have, or to actually at least try to have some kind of a goal, something on the calendar to push themselves to actually get out of bed in the morning and go for the run or hit the gym in the afternoon after work when they'd rather drive home. To me, that seems like kind of the macro goal that would be out in the future for someone. But what about when somebody finds themselves in the heat of competition, Bernie, when they are on the, you know, hitting mile 20 of the marathon or they're in the final quarter of a basketball game, Is there a certain technique or a set of techniques that people can use to push themselves through the pain or to make themselves step up their effort or something that you use over there at West Point in terms of teaching mental toughness when you get late in the game.

You know, this probably has to be set up prior to that moment. If you hit that moment, it's probably too late unless you plan for it in advance. So in the army, they have this, this concept of having a battle buddy and use your battle buddy to hold each other accountable. You have a battle buddy that can support one another. And if you want to apply that to exercise, fitness and health, you know, peer pressure is a great motivator. And I'd encourage anybody who's going to do it, their first 10k to tell anybody who will listen that you're going to do it. Because I'm telling you, when you hit that fifth mile and you just feel like quitting and everybody else is way ahead of you and you're starting to question yourself. The fact that you told 500 people that you're going to run a 10k that weekend, it's probably going to push a little further than if you didn't buddy. It's a lot easier to quit and pull over to the side if no one else knows that you're doing it. So I think using battle buddies in that way, announcing to them, asking for their support and they'll pop into your head when you start to struggle in that moment. And I think you're not just performing for yourself then, but you're performing for your battle buddies as well if you don't let them. And that's always been a great motivator.

Yeah, I would imagine, especially in the realm of social networking, you know, in the age of Facebook and Twitter and email and all that probably be even easier, I guess. You know, I've never really thought about that, but I have before on Facebook, logged in and said, hey, I'm about to go for a 10 mile run. You know, just kind of one of those narcissistic, tell the world what you're about to do type of things on a social network. But you know, I have noticed when I do something like that, I tend to go on the run.

Yeah, you may call it narcissistic, you may call it strategic, but either way it's gonna, it's gonna keep you on that run because you going to ask you about afterwards to tell them, oh, I got a dnf, did not finish. It's a very hard thing to have to swallow. So yeah, it's going to push a little bit more. It's a great example. And yeah, Facebook and Twitter has changed our world and I think provided some opportunities for us to be able to leverage battle buddies and leverage that social support network out there.

Interesting. Well, I think that's a really good suggestion to use that peer pressure to push yourself when it's getting hard. Now, as far as the different type of personality types out there, which you kind of briefly went over, Bernie, in terms of some people being externally motivated, some people being internally motivated, do you actually have screens or questionnaires or some way that you help people to identify how they are motivated? And then kind of as a follow up question to that, once you find out how they're motivated, do you have a specific technique that you use with that athlete or that client to actually push them to the limit or push them what they're capable of?

Hmm, that's a darn good question. And I don't think I have an answer for it.

Well, as far as like the internally motivated people and the externally motivated people, if you have somebody that you're working with, do you have a way to kind of easily tell how that person is going to best be motivated or some type of a system?

This may steer that question a little bit off track, but I think this might get at it as well. Avenue sort of way. To me it comes down to the goosebump factor. And that's what I'll call it. I don't really have any kind of an inventory or set of questions where I look to categorize a person. But what I do try to do, and I think what we found in our field, is we try to find out which folks have that goosebump vision, that goosebump image that goosebumps dream in their mind. And what I mean by goosebump is if you have something that you really, really want to accomplish six months down the road, 12 months down the road, and you envision it in your mind and it's so powerful and meaningful that it actually gives you goosebumps or it actually gives you a chill down your spine when you see yourself accomplishing it. To me, that is the first question I ask is what is that goosebump goal you have? And if they don't have one, that's where we begin. Because you know, you've limited yourself right there because you don't have anything big and powerful meaningful to pursue. Goal setting kind of works in two ways. You got to have this big, powerful, meaningful, personal goosebump goal out there in the and that's what supplies motivation. But then having those day to day goals and those week to week goals, that's what provides focus and keeps you on track. And you can't have one without the other. So that's usually where I start, is we spend a good hour talking about goosebump goals. What gets you excited, what gets your blood pumping, what do you want to freaking do? What would be awesome to accomplish and to let them start there and then start to acronym that.

Yeah, that's interesting. You know, Ironman Triathlon, which we were talking about a little bit earlier, is very popular. And what you find is that a lot of times the race directors will open up those events the day after the race because so many people have been at the finish line the day before literally getting goosebumps and getting very excited watching everybody else cross the finish line. And I know for me, when I was down there, I literally did have goosebumps watching some of these people finish. And it truly inspired me to go. And you know, I've done Iron man before, but inspired me to want to go do another one. Yeah, I think that's a, that's a really powerful suggestion that you do have to be truly excited about what it is that you want to accomplish.

Go ahead.

I don't think that the biggest mistake that, that I typically come across when it comes to motivation is this misguided belief that Our goals have to be realistic. And to me, that's a little bit absurd because unless you really go out there, give it your all, put some time and effort into it, have the right attitude while accomplishing it, who knows what's realistic? But there's this belief that we have to be realistic, and therefore we tend to always undershoot our capabilities. And you're never going to have that goosebump dream and that goosebump goal if you try to limit yourself to what you think is realistic. Because I think human beings on the whole have undersold themselves. We've always shot a little shorter than our target. So I think that goosebumps go really powerful way to gauge whether or not you're thinking big enough, you're thinking grand enough, and what you want to accomplish.

Interesting. Now, Bernie, do you have special books that you recommend to clients or people that you work with or websites or resources that you find are good in terms of more information on motivation or on sports psychology?

Absolutely, yeah. Would you like me to share a couple and. Yeah, definitely.

Definitely, yeah.

You may have read Lance Armstrong's book, It's not about the Bike. Fantastic book. It talks about the. The art and science of suffering and how you can actually build confidence and build strength through suffering and in an absurd sort of way, use it to propel yourself forward. So I love Lance's book. I have another mentor and colleague in the business who his mantra has really become learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, and that that's where excellence lies, that you got to become comfortable being uncomfortable. And I think Lance Arms Bookman does a nice job of teasing that out and painting a picture of what that's all about. I also love a book by Bob Rotella. A lot of the work that I do is influenced by Bob Rotello, who works a lot with PGA professional golfers on the mental game. And his book is called Golf is Not a Game of Confidence or Golf is Not a Game of Perfect.

You kind of broke up there for just a second. You said golf is not a game of what?

Yeah. Bob Rotello's book, Golf is Not a Game of Perfect.

Of perfect. Okay.

And he basically talks about the fact that golf is going to test you, golf is going to challenge you. Golf is going to make you look silly and stupid and foolish. And that does not necessarily have to impact your confidence. You can still think effectively, you can still commit to routines. You can still focus on the present whole at the present moment and get the job done, despite the fact that golf will make you look Silly. So it's a great book that really provides some down to earth, down and dirty techniques on how to get the most out of your golf game knowing full well that kind of a single sport.

Interesting. So we got Golf is not again perfect. I'm going to link to these in the show notes and then Lance Armstrong's book, Not about the Bike. And as far as you go, you're over in New York right now and you're primarily working with the army center for Enhanced Performance. Do you do any private one on one work with any clientele over there in the New York area or. I do.

I take them on on a case by case basis. I don't have a whole lot of time, but I'm more than happy to get out and do some talks with groups to take on some individual clients who have some Goosebumps Goals and dreams, but they're not quite sure how to pursue them or whether or not they're mentally ready to go after it yet. And those are the kind of people that I love working with. Yeah, I certainly take some folks one on one beyond the army job where I'm working a lot with soldiers and working here at West Point.

All right, well, Goosebumps Goals is going to be the name of today's show. And Bernie Holiday, thanks for your time. Thanks for coming on the show today, man.

It was my pleasure. I'm excited to be a part of this. Good luck with everything.

Thanks. Talk to you later.

Well folks, that just about wraps up this week's podcast, so I wanted to remind you about a couple of things. If you want some cycling jerseys or triathlon type of outfits, go check out some pictures that I have on the show notes to this podcast podcast number 66. Shoot me an email if you want in on the next order. Make sure that you get to me by November 15th at the latest. You also have three days left to get in with the special pricing on the January 18th triathlon training camp down in Austin, Texas. I'll put a link to that in the show notes that you can get on board board asap. Also put a link to the Triathlon Dominator package that got mentioned a couple of times in this podcast and a link to everything that Bernie and I talked about as well as pretty much everything I mentioned during the listener Q and A. So the show notes are jam packed and I put that out there as a good resource for you to access to supplement this podcast. Now obviously it takes a lot of work to get this out to you, so do me a favor and leave us a ranking or leave us a review in itunes about how the podcast helps you and what you think about it. Please be nice. And if you have topics that you'd like to see, questions that you'd like to ask, just email me. Ben greenfield fitness.com so I'll be down here in Jamaica for the next five days if you want to see what I'm up to down here. I'm doing footage for a website called everymantry.com so if you surf over to everymantry.com you'll be able to see daily videos of the Rose Hall Triathlon and Wellness Festival down here in Montego Bay, Jamaica. So until next time, this is Ben Greenfield signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

Sam.