Q&A 419: A New Way To "Spot Reduce" Fat, Are Plant Anti-Nutrients Really That Bad, The Dark Side Of Daylight Savings Time & Much More.

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, a new way to spot reduce fat. Are plant anti nutrients really that bad? The dark side of Daylight Savings time and much more. Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. Jay. I feel like my head's swollen up like some kind of a freaky Halloween pumpkin right now.

Dude, it's allergy season, man.

No, I don't, I don't have allergies. I think I never really had to struggle with allergies. Fortunately, knock on wood. No, I, I, I was meditating this morning. Usually my whole family meditates together. I know. And everything started to swell. The, the thing is, our whole family, we just, we use this little app called Abide. It's really cool. It's like this combination of breath, work and prayer and meditation. And it has an option for 5 minutes or 10 minutes or 20 minutes. So we all gather as a family usually like around 8am or so before everybody kind of, you know, rushes off to do all their stuff, you know, their schooling or work or whatever. And we just gather as a family and we meditate, usually for about 10 minutes, just some. Sometimes outside, if it's cold, you know, we'll be inside by the fireplace or whatever. But we were kind of running behind today, and the boys have tennis practice typically on Fridays, which is the day we're recording this. So they all went off to tennis, and I'm, like, left there to meditate by myself. So I'm like, all right.

Poor Ben.

Might as well make this interesting. So one of my friends had given me, he had just gotten back from the Amazon a few weeks ago, and he gave me, like, some fresh hoppe, like some really good hoppe, which is like the, the nicotine containing alkaloid that just totally clears your head, blasts your sinuses clean, feels like you're smoking a cigarette up your nostril in terms of the, the burn that goes all the way back into your brain. But, but it's also incredibly kind of, kind of clarifying prior to breath, work or meditation. It, you, you feel as though your head goes clear as a bell after the initial, you know, 60 seconds to two minutes or so of intense burning subsides. And that's, that's been my experience with hape in the past, at least. And as a matter of fact, I don't know if you heard me interview Dr. John Lawrence, but he's a, he's a physician from Sarasota, and he actually has another doc he Works with who's embedded in the Amazon, who connects Dr. John with this hop A. And then John compounds with all these different essential oils and ships it out and that. And that's the. I did an interview with him about that. Stuff's called Zen.

Yeah.

And it's really nice. I really like it. I've been using Zen, but it's been a while since I've used actual legitimate hape. You use like a karipa, which is this small tubular device that allows you to load one end of the tube with the hape. And so that end goes in your nostril, then the other end goes in your mouth and you take a deep breath in and go. And just like blow it up the right nostril. And then as soon as you do that, load up the other end, blow it up the left nostril. And then, and then you just kind of, you know, sit there and let it burn for a little bit.

So I would happen.

Anyways, I did this before and the, the meditation and this must have been super powerful shit because.

Yeah, it doesn't sound like it had the effect you were looking for.

So I'm not, I'm not kidding you. Like I did the 10 minute meditation. By the time the meditation was over, it was so intense, the burn that, that my whole body and it's not that hot out. It's like probably 50 degrees out right now when I'm sitting outside cross legged in the fall sunshine. My entire body was dripping with sweat. I could barely breathe. My heart rate was about 20 to 30 beats higher than normal. And by the time I finished the meditation, I knew what I had to do. I went and jumped in the cold pool and just did the whole. What do you call it, the one nose blow out of both nostrils and just stayed in the cold pool for like 10 minutes, just clearing my sinuses and dipping my face under over and over again. But man, oh man, that stuff lit me up. My heart rate is still. This was like an hour ago. My heart rate is still like higher than normal.

So you got your high intensity interval training in without actually having to do it. That's, that's all that happens.

Seriously. So if you hear me snorting and sniffing during the, during this episode, that's, that's, that's why. No, no copy.

I'm surprised, like you jumping into the, to the cold plunge didn't like shock your nervous system a little bit, taking you from like one extreme to another? Were you not worried about that at all?

No, Jay, I'm a beast. I can. Yeah.

How dare I ask a question like that?

Come on. All right. Well, we have, we have a ton of, ton of stuff to delve into. So what do you think? Should we do this?

Yeah, let's do it, man.

Well, this is the part of the podcast, for those of you unfamiliar with the, with the Q and A, where we start off with a whole bunch of news flashes from the week based on the more interesting research studies and articles that I've stumbled across since the last time we had a Q and A episode. And it's been a little while, so I've got a few doozies to throw at you. The first one I think is going to be super interesting for folks because it was a fantastic article. And I tweet all these out. If you follow me over@twitter.com BenGreenfield or just on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Facebook page, we always tweet these out or Facebook them and get some interesting discussion around them. But this was on anti nutrients in plants, problematic plant compounds, which of course are something that are heavily discussed these days due to everything from Stephen Gundry's book the Plant Paradox to, you know, Paul Saladino and others championing the, you know, the, the plant chemical free carnivore diet, you know, and even the initial paleo movement, you know, was based around the concept of lectins and glutens and avoiding a lot of these problematic plant compounds. So this article, which was, it was written by a couple of folks I think in August and just recently came this month and I forget which journal that they had published this in, I think it was nutrients. It went into the actual facts and the actual research, pretty good research into the diverse and the complex interactions of vitamins and minerals and phytochemicals in foods and whether we actually need to be concerned about the potential, say, gut damaging effect or nutrient or vitamin or mineral malabsorption effect of any of these plant compounds. And I will link to the article in the show Notes if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 419. But I wanted to share a few of the things that I thought were quite interesting related to some of the more commonly talked about plant defense chemicals. So the first thing they talked about was lectin was lectin and they presented a lot of research on lectin. And basically the long story short is that they demonstrated that lectin rich foods and if not prepared properly can literally lead to almost a food poisoning esque scenario. We're talking about, you know, lentils chickpeas, jack beans, peas, you know, any common beans primarily are going to be pretty significantly high in lectins. However, they also showed that if you're engaged in any traditional processes, soaking, sprouting, fermenting, boiling, there's even a process called autoclaving, you know, some amount of pressure cooking essentially in that scenario. There is currently no evidence from human trials to support the claim that lectin rich foods consistently cause inflammation or intestinal permeability or nutrient absorption issues. So essentially the, you know, the jury is not out on lectins. The, the jury is in and it's basically, yeah, if you're an idiot and you pop open a can of kidney beans and just dump them all over your salad or, you know, you buy, I don't know, you know, quinoa from Costco and you don't soak it overnight or maybe, you know, even sprout it a little bit in your pantry, yeah, you're going to have problems. But if you do engage in proper food preparation, lectins non issue. So that's really cool.

I don't know what autoclaving is, though. I was reading through that and I was like, what? I've never heard of that process, autoclaving.

That, you know, they don't talk about it much, but it's basically like a sterilization that uses high pressure steam. There's some, there's some kitchen autoclaving units you can use, but, you know, usually it's used to, to sterilize things, you know, like you. And you can use it in the fermentation process. But yeah, it's, it's, you know, soaking or fermenting or sprouting are kind of the more common things that one can do at home. So the, the next one they tackle is oxalates, obviously a big issue because those are going to be in a lot of the dark leafy greens. A lot of people with like, you know, methylation issues are encouraged to eat a high amount of bioavailable folate, right, from bok choy and Swiss chard and spinach and kale. And these things are pretty high in oxalates, which can, you know, be associated with, with joint problems. For example, that's, that's one of the more commonly cited issues with ox. You know, kidney stones would be another one that you'd have to be concerned about. And so the takeaway with oxalates was that there's certain segments of the population that do appear to be at risk. And a lot of Times that's due to genetic variants in terms of your ability to be able to metabolize some of these oxalates or excrete the oxalates. And it turns out that if you cook oxalate rich foods like, say, spinach, and then you also have adequate amounts of calcium intake and potassium calcium intake in your diet, that helps to restrict a lot of the possible negative side effects of oxalates. Am I saying that you should go out and have a giant kale smoothie every day? No. I still think most folks should be pretty careful with oxalates. For me, I actually feel better if I'm not doing huge amounts of almonds and spinach and kale and even some of these teas that have a high amount of oxalates in them. I just feel like my joints feel better. But at the same time, if these foods are cooked down, then they're way less of an issue. Right? So if you're gonna have spinach, you know, steam your spinach, cook it down, discard the water. If you're gonna have, you know, kale, same thing, you know, any, like, basically it appears the big issue is raw, dark, leafy greens, raw almonds, you know, and that that's something folks should know because I know a lot of people who will just like make a smoothie, put a handful of kale, put a handful of almonds or almond butter, you know, press, blend. And. And I actually, based on this paper, you know, I think that's probably a bad idea for most folks, especially folks who may genetically have what's called oxalate hyperabsorption, they just retain a lot more oxalates. And also in people who aren't getting enough, particularly potassium in their diet and secondarily, calcium.

So, yeah, that's an interesting one. And I feel like I respond very similarly to you. Like, I just do not respond well to high oxalate containing foods. And I noticed this a few years ago, and then once I started either steaming or for a lot of things, honestly, like, one of the big ones is kale. So if iif I consume kale, it doesn't matter if it's raw or if it's cooked. I just feel awful. And I know that's not all people, but it's just me. So it's just one of the things I've had to stay away from. And then nuts, man, that's one too, that, like, I can gorge on nuts. Like, I could sit here and just eat like a whole can of macadamia nuts and not Think twice. But I always pay for it in the end.

Always. Yeah, yeah. Andand some nuts are particularly high in oxalates, like almonds, for example. So another one was goitrogens. Goitrogenic foods are, are something that are cited as being problematic for thyroid health. So we're talking about cassava, cabbage, taro root, even bananas have a pretty high amount of these goitrogenic compounds in them that seem to be associated with almost like a hypothyroid type of condition, or at least that's what's cited. And it turns out that when you look at the actual research, if these foods are not consumed in excess and they're part of a varied, colorful diet rich in other phytochemicals, fibers, essential vitamins, minerals, selenium, iodine, et cetera, there's really almost no human evidence that long term daily intake of things like collard greens or bananas or cabbage or some of these other goitrogen rich foods are going to have any deleterious effect on thyroid in healthy individuals. And people who already have pre existing hypothyroidism may aggravate that a little bit, but it seems that goitrogens are another one that are kind of blown out of proportion, so to speak. So that's another one you probably don't have to worry about as much as you've probably been led to believe unless you have a preexisting thyroid condition. Phytoestrogens, I've talked about those a lot before, you know, people saying, oh, you know, flax is gonna give you man boobs, or soy is, you know, just avoid all forms of soy. Well, it is true that, for example, babies and infants are at a much higher risk of the endocrine disrupting potential of some of these phytoestrogen rich foods. So babies and infants should be careful. In addition to that, the unfermented forms of these like soy milk, tofu, the wonderful edamame that they bring out at the, at the sushi restaurant, those appear to be a little bit more problematic when it comes to the amount of phytoestrogens that are in them. But in terms of actual, you know, increased risk for breast or prostate or endometrial or colorectal cancer, or, you know, some of the other issues that people sometimes seem to get concerned about when it comes to phytoestrogens, they actually appear to be somewhat protective in those scenarios, you know, paradoxically. And so, you know, again, I think that people need to be way less worried about phytoestrogen intake from things like a soy product or flax seeds, for example, and more focused on limiting phytoestrogens from chemicals, right? Like shampoos, personal care products, conditioners, you know, eating out of plastic, that type of thing. But based on this meta analysis, it doesn't appear that we have to be that careful with, you know, genistein and, you know, and soy products. And really I would just encourage people due to some of the other potential issues with unfermented soy, you know, similar to what I was talking about with lectins, you, at least, you know, if you're going to have soy, have like natto or miso or tempeh or some of these other kind of more fermented soy products. So, and then for the flax or flaxseeds, you know, if you grind them, for example, you don't get a lot of the same digestive distress or small intestinal irritation as you would from a whole flaxseed. So if you're gonna do flax, just, just grind it. So, so that's, that's kind of the takeaway on the, on the phytoestrogens. Phytates are another one that they talk about in the article, you know, and phytate containing foods. The, the, the problem with them is basically this idea that the phytates, which are produced during the seed development and a lot of nuts and seeds and also in things like lentils and peas might impair a lot of mineral absorption in the gut, like iron absorption, for example, or calcium or zinc. They essentially chelate. So they're called an anti nutrient because they chelate minerals. And when you look at the actual studies, phytate may decrease the bioavailability of certain minerals. However, similar to lectins, it appears that they do not significantly impair mineral status when traditional processing methods like soaking, germinating, fermenting and cooking are used. So again, if you're going to have seeds and nuts, just don't eat them raw. Which is great news for anybody who has my wife's raw cheesecake recipe, which involves soaking nuts for an extremely high period of time to get them super soft and gooey and to get rid of a lot of the phytate issues and then making a wonderful raw cheesecake from nuts. And I actually have my own, I have my own raw baruca nut cheesecake recipe that's in the new cookbook that I have coming out. So stay tuned for that. Let's do one more. How about tannins? Tannins, you know, these are Often cited. You know, something that you would find in, for example, a lot of tannin rich beverages, like you know, tea particularly is, is one big one. You know, wine has some tannins in it. Kidney beans have a pretty high, high amount of tannins. They're a plant metabol, even five in chocolate, for example, and a lot of grains. And the deal with the tannins is that they can interfere with iron absorption. They can also cause some issues with absorption of some other minerals. But again, evidence suggests that the health benefits of a diverse diet that's rich in a wide variety of plants, polyphenols, bioactive containing foods, it doesn't appear to be an issue. There's not many studies you can find that are going to show like low iron status associated with high intake of tannins. And this is one that I think you'll want to pay attention to. Your gut. I think people with a compromised gut may actually have a gut that's irritated a little bit with some of these tannin rich foods. But it appears that the actual flavanols and polyphenols and a lot of the things that you would find in chocolates and teas, et cetera. And there's a great book by Dr. William Lee called Eat to Beat Disease. And a lot of the foods in the book Eat to Beat Disease, which I also did a podcast interview with him on, they are tannin rich foods, but they also appear to be really kind of anti carcinogenic type of foods. And so the overall conclusions of the article is that we probably worry too much than we need to about anti nutrients. And the people who need to worry most are the people with pre existing conditions like hypothyroidism, leaky gut, damaged gut lining, et cetera. People who have a genetic variant that might, for example, you know, cause them to not be able to process oxalates correctly. And then people who are just doing way too many raw foods like raw seeds, raw nuts, raw dark leafy greens, you know, cooking, application of heat, fermenting, soaking, sprouting. You know, once again, this article backs it up. That's just, that's gonna be super smart to do.

Yeah, I think my takeaway from this is just again, like, how are these things prepared? And that is gonna make really the difference for most people. And I was thinking too, I mean, I would be interested in hearing kind of, you know, what one of the carnivore gurus might kind about this study. But my guess is they're just going to say, well, why just keep it safe and stay away from those things. You don't need to take the risk anyway. But I. But I think it, you know, that's probably what we're going to hear. Wouldn't you assume that's what they'd say?

But who wants to go out to a sushi restaurant and just have fish, right? Like, I want rice drizzled over the top with them, you know, maybe some of the onions and the seaweed salad and some miso soup. You know, like, you gotta. You gotta live a little bit. And, you know, and this is coming from a guy. I haven't talked about this on the podcast much, but I've been eating strict carnivore, strict keto carnivore for. Oh, yeah, how long? I'm now three and a half weeks in and.

Oh, yeah.

And I mean, full keto, I've probably had in the past three weeks, maybe 500 grams of carbs in three. Like, I'm literally eating, like, maybe 10 to 20 grams of carbs a day. I am eating tons of pork, pork lard, beef bacon, pork belly bone broth. You know, I'd do a little bit of honey, a little bit of blueberries, and here and there, just a little touch of, like, a pumpkin mash, and that's about it. And, you know, I'm assuming you're not.

That sold on it, right? If you're saying, you know, why mess.

Up on these other things. No, I. I am sold on it. I feel great. You know, I feel wonderful. My gut feels good. My only complaint is if I. If I, like, get on the aerodyne and I try to jam hard for longer than about 30 seconds, I poop out just because my glycogen levels are so low right now. But I just want to experiment with it. Almost kind of like a gut reset. And so. So I'll get back into more widely varied eating just because it's very restrictive. Right. It's just like, dinner's kind of annoying because Jessa makes these wonderful salads and. And. And, you know, we go out to eat. I just, you know, I'm shoving everything to the side and just having the meat off the menu. You know, the other night I went to a restaurant and, you know, they had trout. They had, like, oxtail. They had. What was that. What was the last one that I was looking at? Oh, duck. You know, but. But the duck had, you know, like an artichoke with a nice. I think they had, like, a squash on the side. And the oxtail medallions came with Like a tomato jam. And then the, the, the trout was served over like a bed of. It was either millet or quinoa with, with another sauce on it. And so, you know, when I'm at a restaurant like that, I'll just say, bring me the trout, no side. Oxtail, no side, duck, no side. Right. And so I'm just.

You do no seasoning as well, to keep it strict.

Yeah. And you just, just salt basically as the seasoning. It's not bad. But I just, you know, I, I like to eat a lot of, you know, what God has placed upon this planet for us to enjoy. And I'm doing it more, you know, as an immersive journalism shtick and to actually compare it to me doing like a half ass carnivore diet last year. And again, I feel good. And again, it's more of a keto carnivore approach. But you know, my only complaints, really, my only complaint is socially restrictive and well, I guess too complex. Socially restrictive. And also I just like to, you know, enjoy a wide variety of foods. Yeah.

And then when you get something that's really glycolytically demanding, then you feel like you don't have that.

That if I was still racing or competing, this just wouldn't work or else I'd just have to be doing shitloads of honey, so. Right. Yeah. But anyways, we got kind of long in the tooth on that one, but it's. Yeah, we did some pretty, pretty interesting stuff. And, and so, so yeah, I feel good on, on a full strict carnivore diet. It's just not something doing for, for life. But I just wanted to check in and kind of see. Plus I had a whole freezer full of tons of meat, you know, from Bel Campo and US Wellness Meats. And some of the meat I hunted last year was still in there. I got big old goat legs and I was just like, you know what, I got to punish some of this meat. So I'm just gonna, just gonna go go ape nuts for a while without the nuts. Just. I'm gonna go ape for a while.

Right. Good clarification.

By the way, speaking of food preparation, I did find a really, really good article. We're still in the news flashes for those of you who are trying to keep up. This one was published a while ago, but this guy named Michael Lustgarten, he has a really good website. Evidence Based Approach for Optimal Health and Longevity is the name of his website. And I came across an article by him and a lot of his articles are accompanied with pretty good videos as well. But it was about dietary advanced glycation end products or ages. And I thought it was interesting because we know already that when you deep fry or you broil or you roast, or you heavily heat a lot of these proteins, you get the formation of these advanced glycation end products, the binding of sugar to protein or fat, or the nucleic acids we'd find in meat like DNA or rna. And we know that that's really, really a pretty significant issue in terms of decreasing lifespan and increasing overall inflammation. But what this study that he cited in this article that I was reading pointed out was that if you take in this case two groups of mice and you put them on calorie restricted diets. Diets, the, the mice on a calorie restricted diet that also have advanced glycation end products, you know, such as from fried foods, vegetable oils, you know, heating foods at high temperatures as a part of their calorically restricted diet, all the longevity benefits of lowering the amount of calories you eat go right out the window. Meaning, oh, wow, if you're doing like a fasting protocol, or you're lowering your calorie intake, or you're doing like a fasting mimicking diet or something like that fat, but you're also cooking your foods at a really high temperature. This is not meant to be paradoxical to what I was just explaining about cooking. For example, to decrease the amount of oxalates in spinach, I'm talking about grilling your beef till it's black on the outside, or just even cooking every meal, doing a lot of frying, grilling, etc versus say steaming or boiling, or one of my favorites, like a sous vide water bath for your steak. Instead of feeling like you got a grill it every time. Well, if you're just cooking the hell out of everything, even if you're eating low calorie, you know, I didn't realize how much of an issue advanced glycation end products are, you know, but it' sit's pretty profound in that, like, even if you're engaged in a calorie restrictive diet, one of the best ways we know of to increase lifespan, the glycation of these proteins and DNA and RNA is gonna completely negate all the benefits of caloric restriction or fasting.

Yeah, that's pretty. Yeah, that's pretty intense. And I was looking at kind of like this illustration. They have this, I guess it's like a little almost like diagram or pict of looking at age formation and different food Items heated at different temperatures. And I was looking at kind of like the process of what happens to butter when it's overheated. And that looks like it's, like, the worst one. So, like, essentially, if you're, like, slathering butter onto your steak and then throwing it onto your grill to sear, that could do some pretty significant. Significant damage from an age formation standpoint.

Yeah.

So, yeah, you got to. You got to be careful. Has that, like, changed your mind on how you cook food, like, out on your Traeger? I know you're always on the. On the gram, throwing stuff on there.

Yeah, you. So here's my take on it. I. Actually, since I read this article, I've been trying to do particularly sous vide. I have one of these juul sous vide ones, which is a water bath that cooks the food at a really low temperature. Like, we had steak last night, and I just sous vide everything. Usually I'll put it in a bag with some. Like, last night was just four filet mignon steaks in what's called a stasher bag, which is a type of sous vide bag that's lower in plastic. Yeah. And what I'll do is I'll just take out the steak at noon, fill the bag with olive oil, you know, in this case, yesterday, olive oil, balsamic vinaigrette, and fresh blueberries. Right. Fresh organic blueberries and a little bit of salt. And then I'll. I'll just let it sit in the fridge and marinate for about, you know, seven hours or so. Take it out before dinner, toss it into the sous vide bag at 129 degrees, let it sit for an hour, take it out, and you're good to go. And you have a wonderful, wonderful, you know, even cook throughout on your steak. And you don't get the heavy heating. So I'm doing that about half the time now. But at the same time, like, the flavor, the. The. The aroma, just the. The whole cookery of like a. Like a really nice smoked, say, pork belly finished off with, you know, four minutes per side at 500 degrees on the grill. Like, like, you gotta. I. I don't wanna live till I'm 150 if I'm not gonna be able to barbecue. Like, to me, that's a great life.

And the.

The other issue is that, you know, I think the. The bigger problem is deep frying or cooking food to the extent where you got a lot of the browning or the blackening on the outside. And I don't really get much of that. And if I do get blackening on the outside, I scrape that off and discard it. And the other thing that I do is I will take anything that, let's say I've got butter on a cast iron skillet because I'm doing a reverse sear on a steak or something like that. In the past, I'd take that butter and just baste the steak in it and then pour it over the steak once I was done and have that as part of the meal. And now what I've been doing is I'll drizzle the butter off and just discard it, you know, after the steak is cooked. And then I'll actually pat the steak down with a paper towel to absorb a little bit of that, you know, the heated oils off the outside. And so I'm just, I'm a little bit more cognizant, I guess, of the amount of heated oils, whether it's a heated vegetable oil or heated, you know, whatever, pork lard or, you know, or fat or something else I'm cooking a piece of meat in. I'm just trying to be a little bit more cognizant of the heavy, heavy heating stuff and especially like the blackened bits and um. And yeah, and I think that's prudent. So.

Yeah, well, I think it's worth too to like not be overly stressed about it, but just be aware that it's a thing. And I think a lot of the listeners are probably aware of it, but maybe if they just kind of have it come back on their radar and they see, you know, a little bit more of the, the detailed information of what happens with age formation, it's, it's just, it's worth repeating. But yeah, nothing to get overly stressed about.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Here's another interesting one. A brand new study found that this, this compound called alpha ketoglutarate, which is super interesting because when I was a bodybuilder, we used to bulk up with alpha ketoglutarate. It was like a muscle building supplement.

Yeah. With arginine.

Yeah. But you know, we've all heard of the anti aging, really they're not anti aging drugs, but they're drugs that are used off label as darlings in the anti aging industry, like rapamycin or metformin.

Right.

We know those have shown some significant anti aging and longevity effects, you know, in rodent models particularly. But a lot of humans are taking these. You know, a of lot of smart human researchers in longevity are using rapamycin and Metformin. And this alpha ketoglutarate appears to have a similar effect in terms of the longevity effects in rodent models. They first tested it on C. Elegans worms and extended lifespan by more than 50%. And then they did studies in fruit flies and that showed similar lifespan improvements. And then they did studies in mice and the mice were living like 20% it longer, which is really interesting because alpha ketoglutar is just part of our metabolic cycle. It's how the cells make energy. And so it's really interesting, especially considering alpha ketoglutarate compared to rapamycin or metformin doesn't require a prescription. It's dirt cheap on Amazon. It was really interesting because I read this study and I, I swear it was so weird. Like the next day some company sent me alpha ketoglutarate, like it just arrived at my front doorstep as though they anticipated that I was going to read this study. This company was called Rejuvenant, Rejuvent, something like that. I don't, I don't think their version is on Amazon because I couldn't find it. And I tried to reach out to the company, I don't know who sent it to me. I couldn't even get a hold of anybody at the company.

Did you like Google it or something? Like I'm just wondering if they were tracing you online or something.

Yeah, who knows? Rejuvenation. Zuckerberg and everybody are watching. But yeah, Rejuvenate was the name of the stuff, you know, and, and the bottle, you know, normally I would just say, you know, it says reduces age related inflammation, detoxifies ammonia levels and cells, maintains DNA structure. But then I saw this study and I'm like, well damn, they're actually onto something. And there's pretty much it's a natural biological molecule. There's no side effects compared to like metformin, you know, which has a host of problematic side effects, or rapamycin very similar in terms of immune system suppression. So yeah, it's called alpha ketoglutarate and again you just like get it on Amazon, for example. So I thought that was pretty cool. Like whenever I see something that's dirt cheap like that, you know, it's kind of like baking soda or vitamin C or any of these things that are easy to get your hands on versus like a pharmaceutical prescription. Anyways, I thought that was cool. So that is cool.

And no known side effects. Yeah, I used to take this back when I was doing bodybuilding as well. And they always paired the AKG with arginine and I would take it as like a, as a pre workout supplement for the vasodilation effects. And I was just kind of taking it because I was taking whatever I could get my hands on back then when I was in college. But yeah, it's kind of cool now as more of an anti aging approach to give it a try. So you have to throw that one in the Amazon cart.

Word. Let's share a couple of others since I promised I would in the introduction. Fat loss, spot reduction, which is the geeky term for that in exercise sciences is regional fat loss. Regional fat loss. Can I just lose fat on my thighs or can I get rid of this fat that hangs down from the backside of my upper arm or something like that. This was a small study, but it was actually interesting. Randomized control trial in the Journal of Sports and Medicine. Medicine. And what they did was they did explosive resistance training, you know, meaning like really fast, powerful, like think, you know, medicine ball slams or squat jumps. And then they followed that up with an endurance exercise bout for about 30 minutes. Okay, so very short, like six to eight reps, super high power type of. In this case they were using some upper body resistance exercises and then following that with cycling. And then they also did another one where they did lower body resistance exercises followed by arm ergometer. So they were kind of just pairing either lower body power with endurance or upper body power with endurance. And I think the reason that they chose after the lower body power to use an arm ergometer and after the upper body power to use a leg ergometer was just because the hypothesis was that the, the overall muscles would be more fatigued for the endurance bout afterwards. So why not use muscles that you hadn't already used? Although I don't think it would have mattered, you know, the type of endurance exercise that they chose really. Anyways, though, long story short is that they were able to induce specific adipose tissue or localized fat mass loss in the areas that they trained with power and then followed followed with aerobic exercise. So what I mean by this is let's say you just have a whole bunch of fat on your butt that you want to get rid of, right? So maybe you do six sets of eight reps of like, like lunging scissor jumps, right? Super high power lunging scissor jumps where you're doing an explosive activity and then just hop on a bike and do 30 minutes of aerobic car cardio, like 50% VO2 max is what they're using on this test, or let's say you really want to, you know, focus on fat that might be in the, in the upper arm area like I talked about. So maybe you're gonna do you know, six rounds of six to eight reps of like a tricep push down, you know, like a rope push down or a close grip pushup, and then you're going to hop on like an elliptical trainer and just like jam an elliptical for 30 minutes, you know, and then, and obviously I'm talking about non functional aesthetic based training. I'm, I'm more of a fan of training for, for life and function rather than just aesthetics. But it turns out like you actually can spot reduce with, with this type of approach. And, and I, I, it seemed to me like a unique approach. In the past I've seen spot reduction to be something that could be achieved through like localized cold thermogenesis, like packing and, and making an area kind of cold, especially in a fasted state. In some cases electrical muscle stimulation seems to be able to pull it off. But, but yeah, as far as a training modality, explosive power based training, specifically with the muscle that you want to lose fat around followed by about 30 minutes of aerobic cardio, seem seems to do the trick.

Huh, that's interesting. Do they talk about how long you need to do this for before you start seeing results? Like, do they give a timeframe?

It was an eight week training program in this case.

Okay.

And that's pretty typical. Usually, you know, if you start a workout program, you notice functional changes, you know, neuromuscular changes, changes in power or strength production within two to four weeks, sometimes sooner, typically anatomical adaptation. And this is why so many people, you know, drop their gym membership, you know, January 30th and if they would have stuck with it till like February 15, they would have started to get a lot more encouraging results. Usually it's around six to eight weeks to notice anatomical changes in response to a fitness program. So.

Yeah, makes sense. Cool.

Yeah. And then one other thing because it is coming up and coming up fast. I don't remember the exact day, but daylight, daylight savings time, like in November this year.

November something.

Yeah, the whole idea that we set our clocks back. Well, you know, studies have shown traffic fatalities go up as much as 6% in the first few days following the change of daylight savings time. One recently published research abstract found 18% increase in adverse medical events related to human error, including medical errors in the week after switching to daylight savings time. And we also have seen a host of research I'VE talked about this in the past in terms of impaired school performance and impaired educational capacity in children following daylight savings time. And that's simply because of a pretty significant disruption in the daily rhythms of the body's internal clock when all of a sudden you have to spring forward or fall back. And so what has been proposed now is that to get rid of the sleep loss and increase production of inflammatory markers that they have found to be directly associated with daylight savings time, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine has called for the elimination of daylight savings time. And it's actually been endorsed by a ton of different societies. You know, the American College of Occupational Environmental Medicine, the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine, the American association of Sleep Technologists. I mean, on. Down the line, just because it is such an issue. And I'll link to. If you go to sleepeducation.org actually you can read about the issue in more detail. But essentially what it comes down to is that they're considering or at least trying to get rid of daylight savings time. And I think that it is a good idea. You get more darkness in the morning, more light in the evening. You disrupt the body's natural rhythm. And I just don't think we need it around anymore, personally.

Yeah, well, I think it was first created to help with agriculture and with farmers, and now I don't think it's utilized nearly as much. I know there's some states, I think it was like Arizona maybe, that they haven't had daylight savings time for a long time. I know South Carolina, where I'm at, they've been pushing for it. I believe it's on the ballot actually for this election to get rid of it. And I know that, and I know that for a lot of people, it's not the fall time that's the hardest. It's like when we are going into daylight savings time in the spring, when they lose that hour and have to adjust. It's a kick in the nuts.

Yeah, it was actually way back in the early 1900s. That's only how long. This is a new thing in humankind. And all they did, all they want to do is save energy during World War I. That, that's why it started. And.

Oh, okay, gotcha.

Yeah. And the Germans are actually the first to do it. And, you know, and, and then, you know, we started doing it here in the US but it's, it's just this basic idea that you save fuel because it means you gotta use lights less. And I just think it's ridiculous. I, I really, I'D love to see if there's like going to be a carbon footprint if we got rid of daylight savings time because people are using their lights more. I, I highly suspect it's not going to be an issue. And I, I think the, the amount of health issues that arise because of it probably outweigh any energy savings. So. Yeah. So anyways, yeah, those are, those are all the studies I wanted to go through today. If you guys want to read up more on those, if you want to add your own comments, you know, question away, anything like that, just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 419 and that's where all of the studies and much more will appear magically. And what do you think? Little Q and A?

Yeah, let's go. We got some good ones.

Hi, Ben, this is Thomas in Copenhagen, Denmark. Many breathing experts, including James Nestor that appeared on your show advised to exhale through the nose. But you and your recent writing and other breathing expert also advised to exhale through the mouth. Can you please dive into that difference, please?

Oh, I've thought about this before, especially when I was, when I was doing my entire meditation sucking through my mouth because I couldn't even breathe through my nose without intense burning going up into my brain during this morning's hopping meditation. But yeah, it's like, you know, why do you hear a lot of experts will say, in through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

When I was getting biofeedback education, this is how they taught it. I have different viewpoints now that I'll tell in a minute. But yeah, it's an interesting comment concept.

The only logical scientific reason for it is when you breathe out with a soft sighing sound, your shoulders release, your jaw releases, your tongue kind of relaxes down into the base of the mouth, which kind of can quiet the mind or relax the body. Aside from that, I've found no evidence, scientific evidence or otherwise, that there is a physiological benefit to exhaling through one's mouth, aside from the fact that it seems to allow for you to relax your body, body just a little bit more. Now, of course, we know that when you breathe not just in, but also out through your nose, the exchange of blood gases is far, far different. So we know that when you breathe in through your nose, it warms and filters the air in a way that's far different than what would happen if the air were not passing through a lot of the nasal cavities. They've even done tests. And I talked with James Nestor the author of the book Breathe, where he forced himself to mouth breathe for weeks. And you find bronchoconstruct, constriction, tightening of the smooth muscles in the lungs. And you basically don't make as much nitric oxide because a lot of the nitric oxide generating tissue is found within the nose, not within the oral cavity. It allows you to basically retain a little bit more CO2, which means that you shift what's called your Bohr curve to the right, meaning you more readily dissociate oxygen into muscle. You see a drop in the amount of baroreceptors that you use from shallow chest breathing. So you get a little bit of a drop in cortisol. They've done studies that show that when you train your body for CO2 tolerance by exercising when you breathe through your nose, you actually get an even bigger increase in the oxygen dissociation into muscle tissue. This is something Patrick McCown talks about in his book the Oxygen Advantage. And then there's even new research, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic, that the molecule nitric oxide or no, that is going to be significantly elevated. We're talking sometimes 300 to 400% higher when you're breathing in through your nose. That actually blocks the replication of coronavirus in the lungs. And there's a Nobel researcher who's a pharmacologist who helps discovered how nitric oxide is produced in the body body who found this out. And it's because nitric oxide is always produced by the endothelium, the 1,000,000,000, plus cells that form the inner lining of the arteries and the veins in your body. And that endothelium derived nitric oxide relaxes the smooth muscles of the artery. It prevents high blood pressure, it promotes blood flow to a whole host of organs. It prevents blood clots, it relaxes the smooth muscles in the airway. It mediates things like erection of both the penis and the clitoris. It allows for increased increase sexual arousal, which is why sildenafil, you know, trade name Viagra, works by enhancing the activity of nitric oxide. And then as I just alluded to, newer research shows that nitric oxide is antimicrobial and can destroy microorganisms like bacteria and parasites and viruses. And you get all of that when you actually breathe in through your nose. And then finally, Jay and I'd love to hear anything that you have to say about this as well, because I know you've studied up on breathing a little bit, A little bit. We talked about this before in that if you Breathe in through your left nostril and out through your left nostril. It's actually very activating. It can kind of activate your sympathetic nervous system. So if you're stressed or. I'm sorry, it would be the. The right nostril, the right nostril. You got it. Yeah. Parasympathetic. So if you're stressed or you're agitated or anything like that, you can literally cover your right nostril and breathe in and out through your left nostril nostril. Or if you are feeling sluggish or fatigued or you need a big pick me up, you can literally just cover the left nostril and breathe in and out through the right nostril. And so, I mean, it's just so interesting when we delve into this nasal breathing that, you know, I think that for me, when I'm gonna, like, have a meal, if I take a deep breath in through my nose, then out through my mouth, I feel like I. I get an even more relaxing sensation than if I breathe in through my nose and then out through my nose. But if it's during an exercise session or any other time in which I really want all those benefits of carbon dioxide tolerance, nitric oxide production, et cetera, I'm always breathing in and out through my nose.

So here there's some interesting things to say about this. And I've Talked with Patrick McCune a lot about this subject because this gets brought up to him all the time about the inhale and the exhale. And then I've also talked with a lot of mindfulness practitioners because they're very big. A lot of them, I should say not all of them, but a lot of them are big advocates of the in through the nasal pathway and then out through the mouth. With the mindfulness practitioners, they believe, and what a lot of them have indicated is that it helps us stay more mindful if we're switching our breathing from our nose to our mouth. And I think that makes sense, we can track our breathing more when it's through the nose and then out through the mouth as just opposed to just the nose, we might become more entangled with thoughts. We might become kind of straying away from our physiology. So I kind of get that argument. However, from a strictly physiological standpoint, there is no benefit from exhaling through the mouth. Now, one thing that you did mention was that when you are really just kind of wanting to kind of de. Stress, sometimes it's helpful to breathe through the mouth. And I know you utilize the relaxator A fair amount as well, which is out through the mouth or exhalation. Now, this. What I've had, what I've seen from some people who I've coached and what I've heard from some other practitioners. Practitioners, is that the reason that that can be helpful is because a lot of people feel like they can kind of just release as much air as they want to as quickly as they can. And so that doesn't cause that slightly bit of hypercapnia that you get when you're, you know, restricting nasal inhalation and exhalation. And so for a lot of people, when they experience that slightly bit of heightened CO2 state, it can cause a little bit of anxiety, almost like, hey, am I about to drown? Type thing.

That's a good point. Because when I interviewed James Nestor about his book Breathe, he talked about how some people, for stress resilience training. Training, they'll just have them breathe straight CO2 in, like, a lab or with. I think it's called a carbon. Carbonic, something like that. I forget the name of it, but yeah, so you're right. Like, and when you use that relaxator, which is this little device that you put in your mouth that restricts your ability to be able to exhale, it's almost like you breathe out through a straw. The first few times you use it, you. You can get a little panicky.

Yeah, yeah.

You really just have to. And what Patrick McCune has always told me and what we've talked about a lot, especially in relation to heart rate variability, is that people have to practice. I mean, that's kind of the goal is to practice because it's not. It's normal, but not normal. Right. It's probably a part of our innate human nature to only nasal breathe. So noses are for breathing, mouths are for eating. However, that shifts when we are kind of under this chronic sympathetic load to breathing more from the mouth for a lot of individuals, if not most of us. And so we're not. We're very sensitive to the effects of CO2. And because of that, we feel pretty anxious when we hold our breath or when we. We feel a slightly elevate, slight elevation of CO2. So a lot of it is just reducing that chemo sensitivity to CO2. And then after you do that and become essentially adjusted to that type of approach, then you feel a lot less stressed. And I've seen HRV just fly out the window with people who become. That's so smart. Oh, I know, I know, I know.

That's pretty cool. That's Pretty cool. That makes sense. That's a good perspective. That as you get better at tolerating CO2, you're going to feel that you could probably relax just as much exhaling through your nose as you could through your mouth. So that makes really good sense. You know, another few interesting things. Nitric oxide is just so fascinating. I should do a full podcast on it sometimes, but.

Oh, you should.

I want to share a few interesting things with you that I've discovered recently about nitric oxide. So, for example, you have bacteria in your oral mucosa, they're called anaerobic bacteria, that will take nitrate in the saliva and convert it to nitrite, which then becomes nitric oxide, and you'll have more nitrate in your saliva. If you actually eat nitrate rich foods, like green leafy vegetables would be one we've established you need to cook them. But that can actually be a really, really good source of nitrate. In addition to that, you know, a lot of these, these companies that, that actually have meat that's cured in nitrate or whatever, that's not bad. That nitrate actually gets converted to nitrite. It's been villainized, which is sad. It's unfortunate that companies like Oscar Mayer and Kraft, they have to advertise their meat as nitrate free because nitrate, sodium nitrate has never been shown to be a carcinogen. And it's actually really beneficial for nitric oxide production because again, your oral mucosa bacteria will convert the nitrate to nitrite and that gets converted into nitric oxygen. The interesting thing is that they've found that in people who use mouthwash or fluoride toothpaste, both of which are antiseptics, and kill the bacteria in the oral mucosa, they don't produce as much nitric oxide. Isn't that crazy? So the other one that's crazy is a proton pump inhibitor, like an anti acid drug. Like if you want to maximize as much nitric oxide as you can, like avoid proton pump inhibitors, avoid mouthwash and avoid fluoridated toothpaste paste and then make sure that you chew really, really well. A lot of these nitrate rich foods like green leafy beans or green leafy vegetables or beans, and it's actually kind of a hack to increase your nitric oxide production. So I thought that was, that was really interesting. And by the way, the other thing about, about the meats is, you know, normally, you know, the reason they were concerned about nitrate and cured meats being a carcinogen is because apparently, if you, you get these, what are called Nitrosamines that are made from the nitrate combining with the proteins that can be carcinogenic, kind of like the advanced glycation end products that we were talking about earlier. But I guess from what I understand in meat, there's not enough, what's called low molecular weight amine to actually allow for any significant formation of these nitrosamines. And in addition, vitamin C, which they're now actually adding to. They're required to add to any cured meats. Now, vitamin C, the reason for that is it inhibits the formation of nitrosamines. And so, you know, if you're somebody who's concerned about cured meats and cancer, you actually don't need to be. You know, there might be some other things they throw in there, like vegetable oil or, you know, you gotta look at the source of the meat, et cetera. But it turns out that, you know, getting nitrate into your oral mucosa and doing things that don't kill off the bacteria in your mouth is actually a good idea when it comes to nitric oxide production.

Yeah. So you think they're actually. By adding in the vitamin C, like that's. You think that's a bad thing? Because it's.

No, it's a good. It's a good thing.

It's a good thing because it would.

Inhibit the formation of the nitrosamines. Yeah, right.

Okay, gotcha. I had it backwards. Yeah, makes sense. Cool.

Cool stuff. So, long story short, Thomas, great question. And you can breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, but try to get yourself to the point where you can just breathe in through your nose and out through your nose and stay relaxed while doing so. And you're going to get even more benefits. So there you have it.

Hey, Ben and Jay. My name is Scott, and I'm an auto technician at a dealership here in Massachusetts. I'm routinely exposed to a number of toxins, including, but not limited to brake dust, cleaning chemicals, carbon monoxide, and more recently hydrocarbons in the form of gasoline due to a fuel pump recall. Now I have an N99 carbon filter mask. Get fresh air whenever possible. Work out regularly. I've been on point with nutrition. I'm willing to invest in a sauna at some point. But in the meantime, what is the best way to detoxify from these daily toxins other than finding a new career?

Thanks. All right. Oh, man. Detoxification. Well, here's the deal. And, you know, I want to keep this super simple because I'm just kind of over, you know, People saying, saying, well, first you need to buy a giant infrared sauna and then do dry skin brushing all day long and then get on this $1,000 detox program. And yeah, I mean, sometimes those type of strategies can really accelerate detoxification. But if I were working around cars, gasoline pumps, hydrocarbons like Scott's talking about being an auto technician at a dealership, you know, brake pad dust, just like all this stuff, I would focus on just some natural things that I think sometimes we don't talk about enough when it comes to detoxification. For example, coffee. We talked about coffee. We know that coffee, and this has been shown in studies, protects against liver cancer by reducing liver damage specifically related to toxins that can accumulate. And, and they increase the serum levels of glutathione, which is a major player in detoxification. And that may include even coffee enemas. So drinking coffees or coffee or doing coffee enemas, last I checked, coffee is not super expensive. And that'd be just one decent way to detox. Another one would be broccoli sprouts. Right? You can literally buy. You don't even have to, you don't have to sprout them. You can. Ken, this guy, Doug, was it? Doug Evans, I think his name is, he has a really good book on sprouts called the Sprout Book. The Sprout Book tap into the power of the planet's most nutrition food, nutritious food. And yeah, like I sprout, I get from this company called, it's like seed Friend, Broccoli Friends I think is the name of the company. I sprout broccoli in my pantry. But you can also just freeze the seeds themselves, drop them in a blender when you make a smoothie and you're going to get a ton of sulforaphane, which they have shown is able to null airborne pollutant derived oxidative stress. And so that's another simple one. Eat sprouts or throw broccoli seeds into your smoothie. So another one is collagen glycine, like you find in muscle meat or eggs or bone broth or even collagen supplements. Collagenous material is essential for detoxifying methionine, which you'll also find in kind of a toxin rich environment. So that's another one. Just get collagen and glycine in your diet. Diet glutathione. Yeah, you can buy the supplement, but you can also support your body's own ability to make glutathione. By, you know, drinking raw milk, eating raw egg whites, you know, again, sounds nasty, but it's free. Eating whey protein, eating cruciferous vegetables, you know, supporting your Cytochrome P450 activity, which would include, you know, consuming things like carrots or parsley or celery. You know, just basic plant phytochemicals found in foods also like chocolate or red wine or tea or berries. You know, it's interesting, a lot of those things we were talking about earlier, earlier, because they're mild hormetic stressors, mild poisons, they appear to really do a good job supporting detoxification. So that's another one you can do. I talked about the sauna. Obviously that is going to be an expense, but I think even if you can just sweat, sweating every single day is one of the best ways to eliminate bioaccumulated toxins. Your skin's the largest detox organ that you have, and that's a super simple, easy way to detox without doing one of the expensive detoxification programs. You know, methylation, supporting your body's natural methylation process is a really, really good way to ensure that you're detoxing. And I mean, you can do that with supplements like, you know, milk thistle and alpha lipoic acid and taurine and, you know, diindylmethane, all these different supplements. But you can also just make sure that you're getting nutrient dense foods, particularly organ meats. Organ meats. That's one of the best ways to support your natural methylation capabilities abilities. And then just make sure you're not pouring toxins on top of toxins, you know, from drinking water or food additives or BPA or, you know, heavy metals or antibiotics or pesticides. Just like live and eat clean. But yeah, I mean, I think too many people kind of get so focused on all these spendy detox programs and don't realize that you sweat, you drink coffee, you eat a wide variety of plants and herbs and spices, you work in some organ meats, and then you just live a clean life and eliminate a lot of the, the household cleaning chemicals and personal care products that can cause some of the toxin accumulation. It's not rocket science. And I'm a much bigger fan of doing something every day to kind of detox the body versus like toxifying yourself all year long and then doing some giant expensive detox at the beginning of January, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, indeed. I'm not gonna lie, Ben. You surprised me. I expected you to say everything that you just said, but I Thought you were just gonna tell Scott initially just to get another juice job.

Yeah, I thought that would be your first response. But for those of you who want the super sexy stuff, I can tell you, every Wednesday I get up, I jump on the trampoline, then I do dry skin brushing, I do a coffee enema, drink a giant cup of activated charcoal, and then get in the sauna for 30 minutes. And I actually do that every Wednesday. And so I realized that all of a sudden steps into the biohacking boundaries of the fringe style stuff. But I actually do that and it feels absolutely amazing. Oh, the other thing I do for that, because I just want to detox my face too, is a face mask. Right. So it's face mask, rebounding, dry skin brushing, coffee enema, charcoal drink, and sauna. And I literally do that once a week. And it just, it cleans out the whole body. So if you want to take things to the next level, that is my weekly detox protocol that I personally do. Obviously a little bit more involved, but yeah, that's what it is.

Hi, Ben Sheldon Coons here from Colorado. I just recently listened to your podcast with bodybuilder Milos Sharkev. He mentioned that he takes his essential amino acids, creatine, dextrose, pre and during workout to gain muscle mass because of the increased blood to the muscles during a workout. My question is, is, do you get the same benefit by doing the same thing pre and during a sauna with the increased blood flow?

All right, so sauna. Sauna. Sauna, Yeah. I mean, really, the long story short, to respond to Sheldon's question, is that you get a lot more blood flow when you're in the sauna. Anything that you've consumed prior to getting into the sauna is going to be delivered to muscle more readily because the muscle has more blood flow flow to it. That's just, you know, Physiology 101. But I did want to share what I do before I sauna because I, I usually sauna in a fasted state or like I mentioned in my response to the, to the other question, sometimes I'll take charcoal if it's on a detox day. Like I use that quicksilver charcoal drink. Quicksilver Scientific makes this really good activated charcoal. If I'm, if it's a charcoal day, I don't consume anything else because charcoal is going to bind to just about an anything. Right. But on the other days, what I like to do is a, before I get in the sauna, I preheat the body, either drink a really Hot cup of coffee and I sprinkle some cayenne pepper in there. So it's like spicy coffee. Or you can do just regular hot water with cayenne or black pepper in it. Okay. So automatically that's going to heat up the body. From what I discovered this morning during this morning's meditation session, I could arguably do a shot of Hoppe up each nostril too. And I would get super hot. Next thing is on Amazon for cyclists. They'll send what's sell what's called embrocation cream, which is designed to keep the muscles hot during exercise and cold weather. And I have a giant bottle of embrocation cream. I use this stuff by ATP Science called prototype 8. Admittedly, I think they discontinued that product because it got banned in Australia or something like that. But it's got like cayenne and rosemary and all these different oils in it that bring blood to the surface of the skin and they can almost like heat the body a little bit more. Normally, if you bring blood to the surface of the skin, it have a cooling effect. But these have so many heating type of compounds in them that you just sweat buckets. And so I get the sauna, I smear this stuff all over my hands and then just put it all over my legs, my arms, my belly, my neck, you name it. I do a lot of deep breath work in the sauna. So I have this essential oil that I use made by this company called Essential Oil Wizard Surgery. I'll link to it in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com 419, but it's called Respire. It's like peppermint and cinnamon and rosemary. And so it literally just opens up the lungs. You know, I'll spit, you know, chunky mucus out of my nasal passages while I'm doing yoga in the sauna.

Beautiful.

Yeah, great visual for you guys. But. But it just works. Cleans you out. That or the Zen spray will. Will actually do it. That one I talked about from Dr. John Laurence, you know, that similar to the hop A, but not quite as much of a trip. And then the other thing I'll do is when I get out of the sauna, another thing from Quicksilver that I like is they make this hypertonic mineral solution called Quinton. And so I'll do a couple of packets of their hypertonic mineral. It's the highest source of minerals that I'm able to find anywhere. And I get that from, from either quicksilver or Dr. Robert Slovak's water and wellness website diet. So essentially, I drink something, right? Like coffee, cayenne, black pepper, et cetera, that heats up my body. I get in and I smear that cream all over my body. I put a little essential oil in the sauna. Sometimes I'll do a little bit of Zen, spray up each nostril, and then sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat for like 30 minutes, get out, drink down the Quinton hypertonic. And then once a week, I don't do any of that stuff, and I just drink the charcoal, sweat it out, and then finish up with the minerals afterwards. So those are kind of like my two. Two different approaches to the sauna. And it just works. The more I can sweat, the more I can heat the body in there, the more of a detox effect I get, the more of a red blood cell production effect I get, the hotter I get, I get super hot. And so those are some of the ways I kind of hack my sauna experience. And I use the. My sauna is made by a company called clearlight. It's called a sanctuary sauna. It's big enough for like, four to six people, but I get in there on my own and just exercise and it works. So, so. So, yeah, yeah.

And you utilize photobiomodulation when you're doing this as well.

Right.

So that's gonna also help to increase blood flow. Turn on the red light therapy.

Yeah, big word. But, yeah, basically, I got a bunch of red lights in my. In my sauna, and clear light has. They just include them now with the sauna, like these red light mounts, kind of like the juv light, but they're just built into the sauna already, which is kind of cool.

So that's cool.

So, yeah, we've been going a while, man. We should probably wrap things up, huh?

Yeah, let's do it.

All right. Well, should we. Should we award a gift pack to the top of the review?

I mean, it's the best part of the show, of course.

All right, why don't you read the review, Jay? And if you're listening in and you hear your review read live on the podcast, then all you need to do is email gearngreenfieldfitness.com and if you email gearngreenfieldfitness dot com with your t shirt size, we're going to send you an amazing gear pack straight to your front doorstep. And if you want to support this show, trust me, one of the best things you can do is wherever you listen to it, Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Castbox or whatever, Leave a review. It helps the show out a ton. So that being said, I'll take this one away, Jay.

Let's do it. So this one comes from the Boss 9 millimeter. Wonder if that's a cop. The Boss 9 millimeter calls this one excellence rated at five stars and says, keep up the great work, Ben. You have brought forward a ton of valuable and practical information. My go to podcast for health and wellness, followed by a fire emoji and then a fist emoji. So that's, you know, he means it's.

Not just, yeah, it's a hot fist. It's a hot. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Cool. Well, we're gonna, we're gonna hook him up with some stuff. So if you want to leave your own fiery fists or anything else, a, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com419 for all the show notes and B, wherever you listen to podcasts, leave us a review. Leave us a rating. Making it's good karma helps the show out. Check out all of our sponsors. We're going to put those in the show notes as well. BenGreenfieldFitness.com 419 and Jay, thanks for joining.

Yeah, man, it's always a pleasure.

Good to be back.

Later, everybody.

Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to drive, generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes. Use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.