Supplements Update: What Supplements Does Ben Greenfield Take (& How To Time / Choose Your Personal Supplementation Protocol).

All right, let's go. Listen to me. Interviewing me. Check, check, mic check, 1, 2. That's very important that I do a microphone check for today's episode because I am recording it. Actually I'm in my home, but the power has gone out. I'm zero power. We are zero power. We been doing everything by candlelight since about 5am this morning. And fortunately, here's a cool little thing for you. We have solar panels on the top of the roof of our house. And so those feed backup storage power to a set of batteries in our garage. And those batteries are basically when the municipal power fails program to switch over to providing us power. But because we don't want to exhaust lost those battery sources for, say, watching Netflix or sitting in the sauna. They only power a very limited number of things in our home. Like, you know, the Maslow's hierarchy stuff, the freezer, the refrigerator, the heat, stuff like that. So I've got no power in my office, but I do have my little laptop. God bless the MacBook with its huge phenomenal laptop long term power output. And I've got my little backup microphone here and I have an episode for you. So I'm like the mailman. Come hell or high water or power outages, I come at you every time. Here's one other little tip for you. The solar panel is notorious. Solar panels in general are notorious for creating a bunch of dirty electricity because they have to convert DC to AC power. I actually have an interview about that with Brian Hoyer. I'll link to him and his building biology podcast with me in the show notes of this episode. But anyways, the, the thing you can do is you can get what's called an inverter that basically or an inverter protector, which basically takes that solar inverter that converts DC to AC and limits the amount of dirty electricity that thing puts off. So it's kind of a cool, cool hack if you have a solar panel to be able to protect yourself from getting a of the dirty electricity that thing throws off. Anyways, I'm rabbit holing big time. Today's episode is related to a Facebook video Instagram story I put out last week in which I talked about how I seem to be consulting with an increasing number of clients who when they hire me for a consult, it's often to go over blood and biomarkers and lifestyle, exercise, sleep, a whole host of factors. But one of the things that of course inevitably talked about are supplements. And specifically, it's as though people have, it's kind of like when you go to a naturopathic doctor or a functional medicine doctor, a lot of times they'll have you bring a big plastic bag of all the supplements that you're taking so they can look through them. Well, a lot of times people are doing the same thing with me over the phone over Skype, and I talk to people and they're just like, they have no clue why they're taking what they're taking. They don't know how to time it properly in many cases. You know, somebody I talked to last week was just taking all their supplements, right? Probably a good $500 worth of a monthly investment in supplements and just putting them all in their mouth with breakfast and swallowing them all with breakfast. And there was a great deal of competition issues going on in terms of different nutrients being taken that should have been taken on an empty stomach. Some nutrients interacting with others in a deleterious way. You know, everything from tannins to vitamin C to iron, and some of these factors that should be so separated and even redundancy in dosages that could have led to toxicity of certain fat soluble vitamins, such as taking a vitamin D and vitamin K plan and then also a multivitamin, then also an organ complex and getting multiple sources of fat soluble vitamins that are, as the name implies, fat soluble. So all these vitamins get kind of built up in the tissue and can cause a certain amount of vitamin toxicity. And so that story and that video that I put out on Facebook and Instagram highlighting the fact that you do need to be careful what supplements you're taking, know why you're taking what you're taking, and know how to time said supplements led to a host of comments and questions and inspired me to decide to actually record an episode for you. A solo sold, if you will, explaining to you a few things. First of all, the supplement regimen that I'm currently on, because I get asked that a lot. What supplements do you take, Ben? With all these podcasts you do and all the stores you put out, what exactly do you personally use? I thought that me going through that with you and explaining how I time these supplements and why I take them would hopefully help you do a better job navigating your own wide world of supplements and knowing what to take and when. So that all being said, what I'm going to do today, I fill you in on my personal current supplement regimen is give you an explanation of why the heck you'd want to pull out your wallet and spend your precious coins on things like supplements anyways, when we have access to real food and many people do have access to plenty of real nutrient dense food. And then we'll get into each of the different supplements I take for the different areas I'm trying to target, like fat loss or recovery or energy or sleep, etc. And then I'll finish up with clearing the air on this whole realm of experimentation and which things I might experiment with and perhaps not have as a staple in my routine, but things that I try as an immersive journalist, if you will. So everything, everything that is discussed on today's show you can access at the Show Notes page and you will be able to find that@BenGreenfieldFitness.com supplements podcast. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com supplementspodcast All right, so let's start here with why you would want to take supplements in the first place. Let's begin with this. Our modern post industrial, polluted, toxin laden lifestyle demands more nutrients than food can often provide. So the chronic stressors of modern life, whether it's the iPhone screen interfering with your circadian rhythms and chronobiology, or, or the never ending work deadlines, these all can increase your nutrient needs. And that of course, will increase even more dramatically if you're an athlete or a hard charger or frequent exerciser, et cetera. So every day you face hundreds of toxins, pollutants in the air, degraded plastic byproducts and drinking water, chemicals and cleaning products and pesticides in food. And all this further increases your body's need for vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. These kind of nutrients are necessary to help shuttle toxins through natural detox pathways and prevent the formation of DNA damaging free radicals. And furthermore, to make matters worse, when you're eating food, you're likely not getting the full array of nutrients from the food that our prior generations enjoyed. So due to modern farming techniques and fertilizers, most soil is depleted of nutrients more than it was in the past, and that decreases the beneficial vitamins, minerals and antioxidants when you're eating from these largely conventionally grown crops. Well, some would say that perhaps eating organic is the solution to that. While some studies suggest that organically grown foods contain more nutrients than non organic foods, other studies have concluded there's no significant differences. Furthermore, for most of human history, our ancestors ate, now nearly extinct and hard to find, dense cell rich carbohydrates in the form of foods such as wild tubers and cellular grains like quinoa and amaranth and millet. That's in contrast to the refined acellular grains and white rice that primarily comprise our modern carbohydrate intake. And I'll put links in the show notes if you want to dig more deeply into the difference between a cellular and an acellular carbohydrate. But the general idea is that cellular carbohydrates are starches that are bound up in plant cell, whereas an acellular carbohydrate is something in which the cell wall has been broken down. So a cellular carbohydrate would be another example, in addition to those I've already given would be like a carrot, whereas an acellular carbohydrate would be wheat flour or refined sugar. And largely the type of carbohydrates that we tend to eat are these acellular carbohydrates which are less nutrient dense. Now the other advantage of a cellular carboh is those provide the essential prebiotics that help our probiotic bacteria flourish. Now along the same lines, the abundance of refined carbohydrates and processed foods can create significant blood sugar swings and glycemic variability that our ancestors probably also didn't deal with to as great an extent. And a glance at a coffee shop, display case or hotel breakfast bar that features bagels and muffins and sugary cereals explains why many people need a snack a couple hours later just to make it through the inevitable mid morning blood sugar crash. And these blood sugar imbalances lead to chronic inflammation and are responsible for a host of chronic diseases such as Alzheimer's, obesity, depression and cancer. So in addition to the carbohydrate issue, the meat, eggs and dairy products that we commonly find in grocery stores deliver far fewer anti inflammatory nutrients like omega 3 fatty acids than what we would find in wild or pastured animals. Speaking of omega 3 fatty acids, most western diet munchers consume an imbalanced ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids. That includes the Paleo diet which can often create an omega 6 to omega 3 ratio of 20 to 1. Up to 30 to 1, a Westernized ratio can be up to 40 to 1 and the ratio you should be looking for is about a 4 to 1 omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acid ratio. And to make it even more complicated, modern harvesting, shipping, processing and storage techniques they degrade the nutrient content of food. Plants grown with modern fertilizer can only 25% of the micronutrients of those grown using more traditional farming methods with good soil turnover practices and nutrients further degrade as they're shipped and as they sit on store shelves. So a fresh picked apple is more nutritious than an apple you buy at the supermarket in the winter. And that apple at the supermarket in the winter is also likely treated with something like methyl cyclopropene and can be up to 10 months old, according to the FDA. And the very preservative additives used to maintain the freshness of these foods can impede the bioavailability of the food's nutrients and increase your body's need for nutrients to process the synthetic additives. So it's a one, two combo. Similarly, any common medication, let's say an acid reflux drug or a hypertension drug, those also have been shown to inhibit nutrient absorption. And then there are precious fat soluble vitamins like vitamin D. Even though the recommendations for sufficient vitamin D levels are controversial in it's safe to say that most people, based on blood and biomarker data, are not getting enough of many of these important fat soluble vitamins. And many people are even genetically predisposed to not get as much vitamin D from sunlight as others. And our ability to absorb nutrients from food also is not only increased with our level of physical activity, but it also decreases as we age. So you've got a lot going on there that sets, sets up a scenario where nutrient or micronutrient deficiencies could arise. But of course, a lot of people will say, well, so what? Our ancestors, they roamed the plains and they were highly active and many of them were old. And perhaps they didn't have access to extremely nutrient dense superfoods all the time. But the assumption that our previous generations didn't take supplements is not true. I mean, we have multiple examples of supplementation in ancient cultures. Ancient supplements could include root, stem and leaf teas that were used for specific medicinal symptoms, medicinal powders ground by mortar and pestle, highly concentrated oil extracts. And just because they didn't have encapsulation technology or mirror on glass jars to package this stuff with back in the day, that doesn't mean that these weren't considered supplements. They were just concentrated sources of nutrients extracted from plants and trees and herbs to allow them to have a medicinal effect or a highly concentrated nutrient profile compared to, say, just eating food. We also know our ancestors would do things like eat dirt, which has a wide range of beneficial probiotics. And we see a ton of different animals ranging from insects to chimps, self medicating and supplementing by consuming specific plants. And furthermore, the methods that we use, like I alluded to earlier, to gather, to cook and consume foods are drastically different than that of our ancestors, meaning that we probably are also just getting fewer nutrients from the food that we eat. Another example would be animals, right? We generally only eat animal muscle. We discard the collagen rich connective tissue, whereas previous generations, they simmered animal carcasses for hours, liberating collagen and gelatin and fat soluble vitamins from connective tissue. And this would be similar to us using a collagen peptide supplement or an amino acid supplement or a packaged bone broth. And so it's not that both our ancestors as well as the animal kingdom don't supplement or self medicate. We even see examples in the animal kingdom of the use of psychedelic compounds. For example, bees will get stoned on orange orchid nectar, or goats will gobble magic mushrooms. Birds will chomp marijuana seeds. Rats will consume opium as well as mice, lizards, flies and spiders and cockroaches. Elephants will get drunk on anything they can find, usually fermented fruit in a bog hole. And they've also been known to raid breweries in India. And cows will consume locographs. Moths will consume the incredibly hallucinogenic datura flowers. Mandrels will consume iboga root. And so we see this often in the animal kingdom as well. We are surrounded by all these different things from pharmaceuticals to medications to supplements to essential oils in the animal kingdom. And so it's certainly something that is not a foreign concept to take something from nature and concentrate it for a medicinal effect or a micronutrient effect, or a concentrated nutrient effect, or even a psychedelic effect. And so, you know, I am completely not opposed to the idea of dressing up the diet with a certain amount of supplementation. All right, so quick review before we get into my own personal supplementation protocol. The reason you'd want to supplement is 1, nutrient depleted soil, 2, the age related declines that occur in nutrient absorption, 3, poor food handling practices, 4, pesticides, herbicides and pollutants, and 5, changing needs in terms of exercise levels, especially for like, you know, crossfitters, Ironman triathletes, obstacle course racers, people doing heavy weightlifting, etc. Okay, so like I mentioned, the question that I'm often asked is what supplements do you take, Ben? What does your own personal protocol look like these days? What are you on? So I'm going to walk you through this stuff step by step. And again, everything that I talk about as far as the research studies for the stuff I just mentioned, as well as the links to everything that you're about to hear. As far as my own personal protocol you can find@BenGreenfieldFitness.com supplementspodcast okay, so the first thing that I target is just my basic daily nutrient and micronutrient repletion protocol. You have heard me probably in the past recommend that for most people I think that a good multivitamin and mineral complex is a good idea. And in the past the one that I've recommended the most has been the Thorn. It's called the Thorne Multivitamin Elite. It's an AM formula, it's a PM formula and what I like about it is it has a few key characteristics that I look for in a multivitamin. Now I do not think you have to take thorns. There are other good brands out there. I recently interviewed Mira and Jason Calton for example, and I'll link to that podcast in the show notes. Because we actually get into micronutrient and compound competition of certain components of different vitamins and why it's important to make sure your timing and the way you mix your supplements is important. But the things I look for, the key characteristics I look for in a multivitamin are a that if it has vitamin D, it also has vitamin K in it and preferably has vitamin K1 and K2. Most multivitamins will use only K1, but K2 is crucial for proper calcium metabolic metabolism. The other thing that I look for is a natural form of folate instead of folic acid because most of the population, or a large part of the population based on their MTHFR genetic status can't really properly convert folic acid to folate. So what you want to look for on the label of your multivitamin is natural folate. That's usually marked as 5mthf. So methyltetrahydrofolate instead of folic acid. When I look at the vitamin B12 I look for not cyanocobalamin but what's called methylcobalamin that has a far better absorption rate. The other thing I look for are any type of add ins that might make that multivitamin more effective. So for example, one of the reasons that I have recommended the Thorn multivitamin in the past is it has things in it for the morning dose that help with weight wakefulness like green tea phytosomes and then things in the evening that help with relaxation like plant extracts from magnolia and philodendron which help to decrease nighttime levels of cortisol and also balance DHEA levels. Right. So those are the main things is a good form of vitamin K, natural form of folate and then also other things that can help. In terms of the way that the AM dose and the PM dose is structured and based on your body circadian rhythm and your nutrient needs. It's pretty common to need if you're taking a multivitamin to choose a multivitamin that has a double daily dose, 1:00am, 1:00pm and for your multivitamin I recommend you take that with food. That all being said, I'm not currently using the Thorne multivitamin because I am using instead an organ complex. So I'm experimenting right now and have been and feeling very good with this for the past eight weeks weeks using nature's multivitamin which is organ meats. So when I'm at home I eat a largely nose to tail based diet that includes a lot of like liver and heart. And I actually have a kidney upstairs marinating right now that I'm going to dredge in some egg yolk and put some almond flour on and saute up for my family tonight in some butter. But what I've been using are the organ complexes. There's two different companies that make a good organ complex. So I'm a fan of the company Paleo Valley and also the company Ancestral Supplements. So the one I'm using right now is from Ancestral Supplements. It's a blend of grass fed liver, grass fed heart, grass fed kidney, grass fed pancreas and grass fed spleen all from freeze dried New Zealand grass fed beef. Now a good organ complex is giving you pretty much, pretty much everything you're going to get in a multivitamin, bioavailable heme, iron, selenium enzymes, coenzyme Q10 vitamin, B12 complex, good spectrum of fat soluble vitamins. So for your for your basic daily needs that is what I recommend would be an organ complex or a multivitamin complex. And those would be taken with food and very similar to how I do if I'm doing a multivitamin, my dose with breakfast and my dose with dinner. The same thing I'm doing with the organ meats is a dose with breakfast and a dose with dinner and I skip that when I'm doing the organ meats. I skip that if I'm actually eating organ meats like liver, heart or kidney. Especially when I travel though I'm not doing that. So that would be the first part of just your basic daily needs be a multivitamin or an organ complex. Again for the multivitamin I like thorn. I also like the stuff that Mira and Jason Calton make at Carlton Nutrition. And there are others out there like Onnit has a good multivitamin. Let me think about another company. Standard Process is a good company to look for designs for health. They also have a fantastic multi. So those are the basics as far as the multivitamin or you do the organ complex instead from ancestral supplements or from Paleo Valley. Now the other thing that I use to for my basic nutrient repletion for me, and this comes down to personalization, is based on genetics and that's glutathione. I use glutathione on a daily basis because if you go back and listen to any of my podcasts on DNA analysis, I have a low level of the genetic factors necessary for my own endogenous glutathione production. And many other people can benefit from glutathione because of its potency as an antioxidant. People who travel a lot, especially on airplanes, people who are exposed to a lot of industrial pollutants, people exposed to a lot of even like dirty electricity, wi fi, et cetera. I think glutathione is a good idea even if you haven't been genetically tested and found for your levels to be low. What I use for glutathione is a liposomal form of glutathione because oral glutathione supplementation is notoriously poorly absorbed. So what I use is one called it's made by a company called Alms Bio. I'll put a link in the show notes. But that glutathione also has two really good forms of support for the mitochondria in it, COQ10 and PQQ. So it's A, it's a sublingual blend. It tastes like an orange creamsicle. It's really good. So when I wake up in the morning, or not when I wake up in the morning, but when I'm having my breakfast, which because I do intermittent fasting, fasting is typically around 9:30 or 10am I make my breakfast and with my breakfast, which is often a smoothie because it's easy for me to have a smoothie while I'm going through my morning emails. I do the organ complex and I do the Alms Bio glutathione. So those are the two main things I would classify as my basic nutrient repletion would be organ meats or multivitamin and then liposomal glutathione. So those are the two that I currently take and that's how I time them. Now next I get into the realm or I want to get into the realm of energy. Like what do I take for energy as far as like nootropics, smart drugs or just general overall energy? The two basic things I use for that. Number one is something that I think everybody, especially vegetarians and vegans, but I think everybody would benefit from this due to its ability to not only promote lean body mass but also support cognitive function, support power output and increase work capacity, support physical endurance, assist with maintaining hydration within the cells. A lot of benefits of this one that would be creatine. I take creatine very simple. I don't go with any fancy form, just basic creatine monohydrate. I currently use this stuff by Thorne. But basically, basically I use a creatine monohydrate. The form is called creapure. So a lot of supplement manufacturers, they will use a specific form of creatine. And if you're looking at your supplement label of creatine, I think creapure is the best. It's an easy to mix, highly researched form of creatine found to be very bioavailable and it's just micronized creatine monohydrate. Now the thing to remember is that even though the dosage for creatine, creatine for just about everybody is five grams a day, you can only absorb a maximum of about two and a half grams at a time. So this means that if you're using creatine you can take, similar to your multivitamin or organ complex, a half dose in the morning and a half dose in the evening. If you take it all at once, you're only going to absorb at maximum half of it. Okay? And I just add that to my morning smoothie. That's how I get my creatine in. So that's the first thing that I do for energy. And then I also tend to use some kind of a pick me up. A lot of times I'll take this in the morning and sometimes I'll use something like this in the mid afternoon. I'm a fast caffeine oxidizer. I'm a fast oxidizer in general that's based on a certain enzyme pathway called the P450 pathway. I just have higher than normal levels, meaning I can take a nootropic or a caffeine complex even in the afternoon and it doesn't disrupt my sleep at all. Some people are a little different. For example, slow coffee oxidizers which would even show up on like a 23andMe genetic analysis. They are not going to process this stuff quite as quickly and want to avoid anything like a smart drug or a nootropic or even a cup of coffee in the afternoon. But the two smart drug ish tiny type of compounds, or really you'd call them nootropic natural cognitive enhancer compounds that I currently take and have in my pantry. One would be something called Tian Qi Tianxi. This one is more of a Chinese approach. It's a traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese adaptogenic blend approach. It is a blend of a whole host of different nutrients from vimpocetine to to Ginkgo biloba astragalus. It's got like 30 different wild crafted Chinese herbs in it. Now, as you may have heard on my recent podcast, there's a big issue in the Ayurvedic and Chinese medicinal supplement industry right now with contamination and with iron or with liver toxicity. And so you do want to be careful that you get stuff that is vouched for or that that is organic or wild crafted. This Tianxi I will vouch for. It's been a staple in my supplement pantry for like seven years. I've interviewed the guy who formulates it twice. He's a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, he's an herbologist. His name's Roger Drummer. And I'll link to my podcast episode with him about Tian Shi. We do a deep dive on it in the show notes, but that's one of the compounds that I will take. And that one for any of these energy compounds is either mid morning or mid afternoon. And these type of things are best on an empty stomach. On an empty stomach. So Tian Qi is one. And interestingly, I was just reading a book by Dr. Daniel Amen. Dr. Daniel Amen has a fantastic new book about the brain. Ironically, I don't have it on me right now and I don't remember the title. It's Dr. Daniel Amen's new book and most of the ingredients in Tiana are in that book as things recommended for tbi, for concussion, for maintaining cognition with aging, for shutting down brain inflammation, et cetera. So it's a very good blend. The other one that I'll use and I'll kind of like go back and forth between these two is made by the company Neurohacker Collective and it's called Qualia Qualia Mind. I use the caffeine free version of Qualia Mind. And again, we're talking about reduction redundancy in Supplements. This is a perfect example of that because I have a nice popping hot cup of coffee every morning. So why would I want caffeine in my nootropic when I'm already getting it in my cup of coffee instead? Qualiamine in the caffeine free version again is the one that I use. It's just a blend of everything from bacopa to rhodiola to artichoke leaf extract. Basically anything you'd find in most of the popular nootropic supplements out there are in this. But it's well formulated in that it has things like minerals in it, choline in it, the things that would naturally get turned over at higher rates when your brain is working faster. This has in it so you don't get that notorious post nootropic crash that a lot of these more poorly formulated supplements give to you. So the two in my pantry are qualia mind, caffeine free and then Tian Qi. Now the only other thing that I will occasionally use is psychedelics, meaning I will use a microdose of psilocybin or a microdose of lsd. And this would just be once every three to four days or so because any compound like that can really turn over your five HTP levels quite heavily, can result in some neurotransmitter depletion if you use that kind of stuff on a daily basis. But I do use on occasion microdoses as well. Well, and on days where I use microdoses I don't use Tian Qi or qualyamine. That's just too much. And let's face it, everything from a psychedelic to qualyamind or Tian Qi, these are pretty expensive supplements, so I don't take them unless I have to take them. But I do use the Qualiamind or the Tian Qi and those I would classify as the energy component of my supplementation program in addition to, like I mentioned earlier, creation. So next we get into blood sugar management, blood sugar management, which I think is kind of synonymous with fat loss, just because I think a healthier approach to fat loss rather than like ephedra and cayenne and green tea extract and all these things that kind of give you a sweat and make you a little uncomfortable. I think those are pretty good for pre workout, especially if you're really wanting to amp up fat loss rates. But the only fat loss supplement I take is basically blood sugar management tool, meaning that if I can control my blood glucose, it's that much more likely that I'm going to get less Sugar converted into triglycerides and stored away in adipose tissue. I'm a big fan of using blood sugar management type of supplement either a before my most carbohydrate rich meal of the day, which is always for me going to be dinner because I don't have any carbs the entire day until dinner time. It just keeps my body in fat burning mode the entire day. And then at dinner time I can have my carbs and those get socked away as muscle and liver glycogen to be used for the next day's workout. But what I also use fat loss supplement for is prior to cold thermogenesis, like before a cold bath or a cold soak or a cold water swim because it can amplify the conversion of white adipose tissue to brown fat, metabolically active brown fat. So the one that I use is made by my own company, Kion and it is Kion Lean, which is a blend of wild bitter melon extract and rock lotus extract. So both of those can support really good blood sugar management and glucose metabolism and a healthy response to insulin. The other cool thing about wild bitter melon extract is it's an AMP K activator so it activates some of the same cellular machinery patterns pathways as say like fasting or exercise does. So that is my preferred fat loss management tool. But again, timing is important. So again I like to use any type of blood sugar management control formula prior to cold thermogenesis or prior to my most carbohydrate rich meal of the day, which for me is dinner. Okay, next we get into recovery. There are three things that I take to enhance recovery, but I do not take these right after an exercise session because anything that accelerates recovery often is acting as an antioxidant and you actually don't want to shut down inflammation in an immediate post workout scenario. Meaning any type of antioxidant rich formula you should save for at least two hours after your exercise session has finished. So because of that, I don't time any of these couple of compounds I'm going to tell you that I use for recovery right after my exercise session. Instead, I will take them at a separate time of day. So number one is fish oil. As I alluded to earlier, the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio. Even in healthy eaters such as paleo diet eaters who are having bacon and avocado and eggs and meat and seeds and nuts, the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio is way out of whack. Furthermore, based on a recent massive meta Analysis on the benefits of marine oils for cardiovascular function. I'm a huge fan of this also just for general heart health, but I take an omega 3 fatty acid supplement. I take fish oil. I take a pretty decent amount of fish oil. I take about 8 grams a day, which is nowhere near what the megadose of 20 to 40 grams that a guy like Charles Poliquin makes, may he rest in peace, would have recommended. But it is a little bit higher than the 1 to 2 grams that most people take. And I test my blood and biomarkers on a quarterly basis and my omega 3 fatty acid index is stellar in terms of my omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acid ratio and my overall amount of omega 3s. So the one that I use right now for a fish oil is called Super Essentials. It's not the only good fish oil. Nordic Naturals have has a great fish oil. Carlson's is a very good fish oil. Thorn has a great fish oil. But the reason that I like the Super Essentials and use about eight capsules of that with breakfast because and again this is a timing thing, ideally a fat based supplement like that should be taken with a meal is because the EPA to DHA ratio is really good. It's a one to one EPA to DHA ratio, meaning they add extra DHA to it. And then they add some of these plant essential oils that are also very important. Particularly they have borage oil in there, mixed tocopherol of vitamin E from a plant based source, and then some plant phytosterols as well as astaxanthin to keep the fish oil from being oxidized. Now I still as everyone should keep my fish oil in the refrigerator so that that it can't be oxidized by heat. But I like the idea of a fish oil having added antioxidant to keep the fish oil from getting rancid, such as tocotrienols, tocopherols from vitamin E, astaxanthin, et cetera. And the marine based oil or the plant based oil that they add to this as well makes it more of a full spectrum fatty acid profile. So the one that I use is Super Essentials. Again, Thorn is good, Nordic Naturals is good, car Carlson's is good and I take that in the morning with breakfast. The other recovery supplement that I use that I would put into the category of managing a natural inflammatory response is Flex the Kion Flex. So that one you may have heard me do a recent podcast on where I take a deep dive into the ingredients of It. I believe it's episode 406 if you go to BenGalFitness.com 404 it's a whole recovery podcast special that we did, but it's a blend of turmerosaccharides. So not curcumin, but turmerosaccharides, which I think are better absorbed than curcumin and act far more quickly. And then it's also got an ayurvedic component in it called haritaki, which has some really unique joint health benefits for joint function. And then the final component of that are proteolytic enzymes. And proteolytic enzymes help to break, break down some of the proteins in your bloodstream after you've exercised. The other cool thing about that is it can double up in a pinch as a digestive enzyme, Kion Flex can, because if you take it when you consume a protein rich meal, it can help out with some of the breakdowns of those proteins. And so it can be something that you consume before a steak as well if you'd like. And so Kion Flex is the other component of my recovery protocol. And then the final part of me for recovery that would also fall into the performance bandwagon is I take essential amino acids. Many people will use collagen. Many people use collagen peptides. I think essential amino acids, when it comes to maintaining muscle, building muscle, or assisting with recovery are far superior and way superior than branched chain amino acids, which are essentially just a boatload of leucine and isoleucine and valine that can create some insulin dysregulation and spike blood sugar. I'm a bigger fan of getting all nine essential amino acids. Tryptophan, lysine, methionine, valine, leucine, isoleucine, threonine and phenylalanine, because you got a lot of neurotransmitter precursors so you can sleep better. You can take these even if you're in a fasted state without an insulin spike. So they can help to maintain muscle for a fasted workout. How do I time them? I like to take 10 to 20 grams pre or post workout because the research on amino acids show that when you work out with high blood levels of amino acids, it is superior. And the reason that I take them post workout is if I haven't had a meal prior to my big hard workout of the day, I know my blood amino acids are not going to be that high. So I'll use something like Kion Aminos to get My blood levels of amino acids high before I actually go out and do my workout. But again, the amino acids are something I will time pre or post workout, 10 to 20 grams. And the main things that I use those for, not only muscle recovery, but muscle maintenance. They can also be used to reduce appetite cravings. They can be used to support cognition because of the neurotransmitter effect. They're also very good for the immune fiction and the immune system. And for gut. It's probably why it's one of our top selling supplements at Kion, because it's like a shotgun for just about everything. So essential amino acids are kind of like the third spoke of my recovery wheel, in addition to the fish oil and the flex. Okay, so next we turn to the last two sections that I supplement for my gut and my sleep. So for the gut, you know, again, this is where customization to your unique scenario is important. Because I personally feel there's one area of my body that I have tended to have issues with due to everything from parasite and yeast and fungus infections. For me, going all over the globe, swimming in dirty water, and races in Thailand and India and Vietnam for over a decade, I was doing Ironman triathlons and all these dirty bodies of water to just general travel, airplane toilets, airplane bathrooms, or airport bathrooms. There's just basically a host of issues I get exposed to that really do a number on my gut. And me being raised on a traditional western diet probably didn't help much either. So what do I do for my gut? The first thing I do is I take colostrum every morning. Colostrum is best on an empty stomach. When you take it, you should break open the capsules or chew open the capsules and let them sit in your mouth for a little while, because the enzymes in your mouth will help to make the colostrum more bioavailable and actually activate a lot of the growth factors in the colostrum that can then go forward and help out your immune system. So colostrum is basically going to supply you with cytokines, which are the messengers that help your immune cells communicate. Provides you with lactoferrin, which assists with iron absorption, which is really crucial for athletes. And it's also a very big part of your immune defense system and the healing process. For your gut. It's got every immunoglobulin in it, IgA, IGD, IgE, Ig, IgG, IgM. These are amazing for not only supporting the immune system, but also helping the gut. Especially if you've had things like leaky gut mold, mycotoxin, anything like that. Immunoglobulins are fantastic for that. And then the final thing you'll find in colostrum are polypeptides, which are immune system regulators that encourage the growth of white blood cells. Right. So you have a low white blood cell count. This can be helpful. And they also help to defend against oxygen, oxidative stress, and support brain health. Colostrum has also been shown, like for athletes before they do a workout in the hot weather to reduce gut permeability. That's caused by heavy exercise. And it can also just improve functions of gut permeability in terms of keeping you from having a leaky gut in anybody. Okay, so I take colostrum for my gut. The way I do it is I'll take a dose in the morning and if I'm traveling where I know my immune system is exposed to even more salons, I take a dose in the morning and in the evening. And colostrum is going to be best again on an empty stomach. Return to the scenario of don't just pop all your pills with your morning smoothie, time them so you're getting the most bang for your buck out of what you do take. Now, the next thing that I do is I take digestive enzymes. I take digestive enzymes with my meals. Not only a because, because as an athlete, as an exercise enthusiast, I'm eating in many cases like 4,000 plus calories a day. So I need that digestive enzyme support. But and this returns to the aging component, as you age, your ability to be able to digest proteins and fats tends to decrease. And so having that support is helpful. I just feel better as far as my energy levels, fatigue, my poops, my digestive function overall, if I'm using digestive enzymes. So what I use is a stack from the company Bioptimizers. I've had these guys on my podcast before and it's very simple. They have one digestive enzyme formula called MassZymes. That's five different kinds of protease. I take mass zymes anytime I'm consuming protein. So anytime I've got a protein rich meal, whether I'm traveling or whether I'm at home, I pop four of these mass zymes to help me digest my proteins. Now if it's a fat rich meal such as my morning smoothie or my lunch with all the sardines and avocados, or anchovies or mackerel or herring or some seeds and nuts, all these different things that are fat based. I also take a different supplement from bioptimizers that was designed to break down fat and that one's called Kapex K A P E X. I also have an interview on that one I'll link to in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com supplements podcast. But the capex, again, that's with fat. So again, when you have these supplements, it's not like you're taking these supplements every single meal. But I'll take the mass times with the protein rich meal and then I'll take the K packs with the fat rich meal. And if it's something like dinner, which a lot of times for me is a lot of proteins and fats, I'll just pop four mass times. Then for me, it's two of the K packs. That's my dosage. So it's four mass times and two of the CapEx. The other supplement from bioptimizers that I have is called Gluten Guardian, which is basically just an enzyme called peptidase. Peptidase breaks down gluten. I don't eat a lot of gluten. I don't do a lot of wheat. But when I do, even if it's my wife's slow fermented sourdough bread, which admittedly has a lot of the gluten deactivated because that's what the fermentation process does, it breaks down a lot of the gluten. And the digestive issues such as phytic acids and trypsin, those of types tend to go away if you're fermenting a grain. However, I go out to eat. I go to steakhouses, I got business meetings. And a lot of times that bread basket comes out and I'm a human being, I want to grab that salted butter that they bring out with the sourdough bread or the pretzel sticks at the steakhouse and punish a little bit of that. I sometimes want to have a wrap if I'm traveling filled with all sorts of goodness, but I know the wrap has gluten in it. Very simple. I pop four of the gluten guardian anytime that I am consuming gluten. And that helps out with the gluten component. Again, that's not something I use all the time. That's something I pull out one or two times a week, which would be the time, the amount of time that I actually have gluten. Then the last few things I do for my gut is the other thing that I take at least Once per day was designed to help to heal the gut from the ravages of glyphosate. Now, even though I eat organic, there's a lot of glyphosate contamination in many foods. Not only organic produce can be contaminated with glyphosate. When I'm out at a restaurant, a lot of times, I don't know. And so there is this supplement called Ion Biome. It used to be called Restore and they changed their name recently to Ion I O N was developed by my friend, Dr. Dr. Zach Bush. A ton of different research exists on this supplement. It's basically lignite. And lignite acts kind of like colostrum to strengthen the tight junctions in your gut lining. But it specifically was designed to help to protect your gut against glyphosate. So especially if you're in the US and concerned about the amount of glyphosate used on the crops over here, this is one my kids use also. I take a shot of this at least once a day. And, and it's best timed before a meal, especially before a meal for which you're concerned about glyphosate exposure. They have little travel versions. It's a liquid. And they also have like big old at home bottles that you can keep in your fridge. Okay. So I use that as well for the gut. The last couple of things I do for the gut would be a, I take a probiotic if I am traveling because I don't eat a lot of fermented foods, or at least not as many fermented foods when I travel as I do at home. You know, at home I, I have miso and tempeh and natto and kimchi and sauerkraut and some homemade yogurt and wonderful forms of probiotics. But when I'm traveling, I don't have as many. Probiotics are great for the immune system. The specific probiotic that I use has pomegranate extract in it, which is wonderful for helping your gut microbes to produce something called urolithin A, which is a longevity enhancing compound. And it, it also has the L ruderi R e U T e r I form of bacteria in it, which in and of itself is wonderful for oxytocin, for general wellness, for hair health, for skin health. A ton of different benefits to that one. You may have heard me talk in The Past About Dr. William Davis Homemade coconut yogurt recipe where you take L routeuri capsules from Amazon for, for example, and you blend them with coconut milk and you dehydrate it for about 100 degrees or put in the oven for about 100 degrees and create your own homemade yogurt to get that concentrated El Reuteri. Well, if you didn't want to go through all those steps, this seed probiotic, in my opinion, is the best formulated probiotic out there. And that's the one that I use for my probiotic. I take three of those and those can be on an empty stomach or they can be on a full stomach, doesn't matter. I, I take mine when I take my colostrum because I like to get the probiotics and the colostrum in my system simultaneously. It's like giving my gut some love right when I wake up and or at the end of the day. Okay. And then the last thing that I do for my immune system would be an anti parasitic blend. And it also has some antifungal and antibacterial activity and that's oregano. Oregano contains something called carvacrol, which really helps to support a healthy immune response. But it's fantastic as an herbal remedy for parasites, yeast, fungus, et cetera. I used to only take that when I just be on airplanes or in areas where I needed assisted immune support. Now I just take it as a daily tonic. The way that I do it is when I wake up, I have this big glass mason jar of water. And in that water I add a couple of droppers fulls of the oil of oregano and it just kind of cleans out my system at the beginning of the day. So that's the oregano for that. And I'll put a link to all the brands and stuff that I use in the shownotes@bengreenfieldfitness.com supplementspodcast okay, so we've covered what I do for my basic nutrient repletion, right? My multivitamin or my organ meats and my glutathione. My energy would be the creatine and then some kind of nootropic like Tianchi or Qualia. For my fat loss and blood sugar management, I use the kion lean. For recovery, I use the super essentials fish oil, the kion aminos and the kion flex. For my gut, I got my colostrum, my enzymes, my ion biome, my probiotic and my oregano. And then finally there's sleep. So for sleep, basically there's just a few things I do. It's essentially kind of like three staples that I take take before sleep. Number one is cbd. I absolutely love CBD for sleep. Now, you need a pretty hefty dosage. Most of the time. Starting dosage for sleep is between about 40 to 100 milligrams. Smaller doses of CBD, such as 5 to 10 milligrams, are great for controlling stress or even improving awakeness and alertness during the day. But larger doses are wonderful for sleep. There's a lot of brands of CBD out there. I know the wide world of CBD can be dizzying. These aren't the only brands that are good, but the three I have around are Thorne. Thorne has a really good one called Hemp. And then there's a company called Element Health that has a really powerful full spectrum CBD liquid that you want to put in your mouth and hold for about one to two minutes, kind of like that glutathione I was telling you about. And you get better absorption when you're bypassing digestion, just absorbing it straight through the mucosal membrane and the mouth, mouth. And then the other one is Bio cbd, which kind of blends CBD with some other ayurvedic formulas that help you to relax. So those are my three forms of cbd. I'm not particular on any. I just happen to have all three around. But Thorns, Hemp, Element Health CBD, and Bio CBD are the three that I tend to use the most and again, only before sleep, usually in a dose of about 50 to 100 milligrams. Okay. The other thing that I use for sleep is magnesium. And magnesium is wonderful as a relaxant. A lot of people due to the mineral and soil depletion issues I was talking about earlier or the activity levels, they're deficient in magnesium. I recently interviewed Dr. Mercola, and although this podcast I think will come out, before my podcast with him, we actually had a big discussion about how magnesium can also protect your cells from the calcium influx that occurs in response to exposure to things like 5G and wifi and dirty electricity, which affects the calcium channels on your cells to cause an influx of calcium. Well, magnesium can balance that out. So it also, of course, helps you to relax before bed. If you take it before bed, your bowel movements are easier the next day. I use a brand by Jigsaw Health. It's called MAG srt. MAG srt. It's what's called magnesium malate, which is very well absorbed magnesium malate. And so I take four of those before I go to bed at night of that MAG srt. If I'm traveling, I tend to get a Little bit more constipated when I travel. When I travel, I double that. I take eight tablets of magnesium because I'm also usually a little more stressed out when I travel. And just really that along with the CBD really helped me to relax before bed. Now, the other thing that I have that I found this to be useful for a lot of people is I'll wake up sometimes like around 2 or 3 o' clock in the morning, and I like to have something on my bedside that helps me get back to sleep and specifically has some kind of inhibitory neurotransmitter in it to help me get back to sleep when I wake up. There's two that I like for that one is made by a company called Quicksilver Scientific Scientific. It's called Lipocalm. It's this tasty little spray. You squirt it in your mouth when you wake up. I do about four or five squirts. I let it hold my mouth and I just kind of lull myself back to sleep within about five to 10 minutes after I use that one. It's called Lipo Calm. I fluctuate between that and this other one called Sleep Remedy. This was one made by Dr. Kirk Parsley. I've interviewed him on my show about the formula. He designed it for hard charging Navy SEALs to get to sleep faster at night. I find it works pretty well if, you know, if I'm using the CBD and the magnesium, I can fall asleep pretty well. But if I wake up, I will use this sleep remedy or this Lipocalm to help myself get back to sleep. Now when I'm traveling, because again, I'm more amped up when I'm traveling. There's more wifi in the hotel room. I'm getting exposed to more blue light at night. I'm just not in my element. I actually will take that, that stuff before I go to sleep. And then I also have it next to my bedside should I wake up in the middle of the night or later on. So those are like my three sleep staples would be the magnesium, the CBD, and then some kind of inhibitory neurotransmitter precursor, specifically something like Lipocalm or Sleep Remedy. Okay. And those are really the biggies. Those are the staples of my supplementation program. That might seem like a lot, but so let's, let's count as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. That's about 16 different things that I use. And that might seem like a lot. I know Some people, a lot of these longevity enthusiasts that I've interviewed, you read their books, they're taking like a hundred different supplements. I think what I've just described works pretty well for me. That's not to say there's not some other things that I have experimented with. And this is also what I want to fill you in on because I, I get questions like, but Ben, what about that one thing you did a podcast on that one time? Are you still taking that? And I put all that stuff into the category of things I experiment with that may or may not have stuck. Everything I just talked to you about, these are things that have stuck for me that I've just found to be a hell yes for me. But then there are other things that I'm currently in experimentation phase with. Admittedly, one example of that would be peptides. You've heard me talk about peptides a lot like BPC150,157 or tessamorelin for fat loss and muscle gain, BPC157 for inflammation. I have begun to use peptides over the past year, and a year might seem a long time, but I can't say that they're one of those things that like the stuff that I just went through. It's just like a coverall recommendation. Yeah, everybody should be using these. I've successfully used this them. And I think the best way to go about putting together a peptide protocol, if you're interested in peptides, is you go to the website for the International Peptide Society, which I think is peptidesociety.org I believe, and you find a physician near you in your geographic area, preferably, or someone who you can phone or Skype, consult with, who can look at your blood, your biomarkers, your genetic data, et cetera, and put together a peptide protocol that is customized to you. Don't go to some random Chinese website and grab a bunch of peptides. I don't think that's a good way to go. But peptides I'm not opposed to. I just think that those should be almost considered closer to medication or like something you do with the supervision of a physician, because they're extremely targeted, very powerful, work extremely well by targeting specific cell receptors in a laser like fashion, but persistent with the help of a physician on those. Another one, I would say I'm experimenting right now is C60. C60. I did a podcast with Ian Mitchell about C60, and I mean, it's an antioxidant that's like almost 300 times stronger than vitamin C It has anti cancer effects according to Ian Mitchell when I interviewed him. Helps to counteract the effect of damaging free radicals on the body, can have a little bit of an anti aging effect for wrinkles. It can have a little bit of a support for the detoxification pathways in the liver. It's impressive the research that I've seen on it reduces all cause mortality and rodent models. And so I've been having again, because that's more of a fat based supplement, I've been having a shot of that with my smoothie in the morning and haven't done a lot of self quantification, haven't done a lot of blood testing yet on that one one. But that's another perfect example in addition to peptides of something I'm currently experimenting with. But again it might not be perfect for everybody and it's not one I can say is like a staple of my routine yet. But that's another example of something that you know, that I have around that I'm using right now. And then, you know, sometimes people will send me stuff in the mail. Different supplement manufacturers want me to try something out. And sure, there's always something on pantry I'm kind of experimenting with. But what I just laid out for you is my current protocol, what I'm currently taking, how I time it, how I go about doing it, why I treat it scientifically rather than just popping everything willy nilly with breakfast. And that's what it looks like. So hopefully this kind of gives you a little bit of a glimpse into the question I'm asked quite often, what supplements do you take, etc. Etc. And that is exactly how I do it right now. So I may have opened the Pandora's box in terms of generating a lot of questions about this stuff. And so I'll review any questions or comments that you all have. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com supplementspodcast I'll link to everything I've talked about as far as the research on why to take supplements and some interesting, interesting articles as well as some of the podcasts that I just talked about, Dr. Daniel Amen's new book. I'll put links to all that stuff in the show notes for you to review. In my new book Boundless, which is@boundlessbook.com, i also have some really, really big sections on testing your blood and biomarkers to figure out what's right for you, how to interpret your genetics, to know what type of diet or supplementation program is right for you, I kind of wrote Boundless to be a book that, that rather than gives you a fish, just kind of teaches you how to fish. So if you get that book, it'll be a really good resource for you as well. As far as answering, what diet should I be on? What supplementation program should I be on? What does this supplement do? What does that peptide do? I've got a lot of good info in there as far as self quantification and more of a precision approach to supplementation and foods as well. Okay, well, those are the biggies. I got through everything that I wanted to get for with you guys and you know what? Like 10 minutes ago, my power came back on. Hooray. So now I can go, I don't know, sit in my sauna. Thank you so much for listening in. I hope this has been helpful for you. I know, yes, there'll be a few people who will comment. Oh, Ben, you just made a podcast to be a, you know, supplement shill for Kion or something like that. That's not the case. I literally get so many questions about this stuff. What I really wanted to do was just give you guys a glimpse into what I'm doing, what my own routine is, and I hope it's helpful. I really do. I do believe that supplements are beneficial and if used properly, are great. I think if used improperly, timed, improperly, sourced improperly, they can be a total waste of money and create expensive urine or worse yet, create neurotransmitter issues issues, gut issues, fat soluble vitamin toxicity issues, etc. So just be careful, know what you're doing. If you go to BenGreenfieldCoaching.com you can always hire me to do a little supplement consult with you. I do 20 minute calls, 60 minute calls. I write out training plans, I write out nutrition plans. All that's@BenGreenfieldCoaching.com and I'll link to all this stuff if you go to the show notes again, BenGreenfieldFitness.com supplements podcast, where you can also leave your questions that I will look over. So thanks for listening in and until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com 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 good 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 generate income. That nature 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.