The Latest On "Workouts In A Pill", How Much Exercise Keeps Your Cells Young, Oxytocin Supplementation & More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness show, the latest on workouts in a pill, how much exercise keeps your cells young, oxytocin supplementation, how to keep your appetite satiated during a fast, and much more.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental. He is Ben Greenfield.

Power, speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movement. Get out there. When you look at all the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy.

All the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Hey, want to hear a cool noise? Little beepee beep? Always. Okay, this is my Star Trek spaceship sound. Did you hear that?

That was not that impressive.

Anticlimactic.

That was a tiny little beep.

But that was the sound of cognitive power. That's right, cognitive power. Complete phenomenal cosmic willpower and mental enhancement via a antioxidant rich carnisol filled oil. Actually, I have this essential oil diffuser. I've talked before about how I diffuse pine and how I diffuse cinnamon and how I diffuse peppermint in my office to enhance cognition and mood. But there's one oil. I'll give you a guess here, Brock, in just a second. One oil that has been shown in clinical studies to improve cognitive performance and enhance memory and lower cortisol, and as an aside, thicken hair. If that's something you're looking for.

I am.

It's also something. On a podcast a couple of months ago, we talked about how these folks in Sardinia actually put it in their coffee and it's associated with enhanced longevity. You know what it is?

That's not a place. You just made that up?

No, it's.

Sardinia doesn't exist.

Sardinia really is a place. It's in Russia or Italy or Greece or Asia. Anyway. Okay, yeah, people live a long time. There's a lot of old people on bicycles over there. Anyways, can you guess what this oil is that's wafting into my nostrils?

It's wafting. Is it.

Wafting?

Perhaps. I'm going to guess spruce.

Rosemary. Crap rosemary, yeah. Also great on steaks.

Totally. That's delicious.

Yes, sir. How about you? Do you diffuse oils?

I do, I do. I've got a quite a collection of them sitting around in the living room. We do pine and we do peppermint and we do this. There's some blends. One Called Happy home that I really like. Oh, wow. Unwind your mind is my favorite one. Right before bed. Put that on. Totally knocks me out. I'm asleep on the couch before I even make it to bed.

Yeah, I for a while used to smear lavender on my upper lip before I'd go to bed at night.

Nice.

And I started to get really, really large amounts of chapping on my upper lip and I couldn't figure it out. I thought it was like the heat, the dry air. And then I realized like pure 100% lavender essential oil. That's not such a great idea to just like smear on your lip. Apparently eats away your skin over time.

Oh, geez.

Helps you to sleep as it degrades your lips off. But anyways, flesh eating essential oils, flesh eating lavender.

I'm just gonna do this voice for everything you say.

News flashes.

Well, speaking of rosemary, in today's news flash, there was actually a fascinating study done on that marker, biological aging, that notorious marker of biological aging that I'm now testing, by the way, twice a year. Because my goal is by the time I'm 40, I want to be 25. I want to have a biological age of 25. That's my goal.

I like that goal.

And right now I'm slipping behind because I'm 35 years old and my biological age, according to this company, Tello Years, that I tested with and go listen to the podcast I did with them. If you, if you don't know anything about this, just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and do a search for Tello Years. Anyways, they say I'm 36, not 30, but anyways, there was this new study that came out that looked into how much exercise actually keeps you young. Specifically, what they did was they compared the telomere lengths from a DNA test with self reported physical activity patterns. And they found that people who exercised had longer telomeres. And interestingly, they found that people that exercised the most had longer telomeres, which seems to fly in the face of what I've reported before, which is that you kind of achieve a law of diminishing returns. The previous research leading up to this point was if you exercise more than about 60 minutes per day, if it's high intensity, or more than about 90 minutes per day, if it's lowish to moderate intensity, you actually see a degradation in your lifespan or an increase in mortality. Now, what this latest study showed was that exercising more actually boosts your age by decreasing the rate at which your telomere shortened. But interestingly, once you delve into the actual data, what it looks like is that the threshold when we're talking about more exercise for men is about 40 minutes of light jogging five days a week and for women about 30 minutes of light jogging five days A WEEK. So that's compared to like sedentary people and extremely low physical activity people. So we always have to take these studies with a grain of salt. If you see the headlines that say more exercise makes you live longer, please don't go to the CrossFit gym twice a day. Also, don't sign up for an Ironman triathlon for the goal of longevity. Not that those two things aren't a heck of a lot of fun, but. But at the same time, this study should be taken with the caveat that we're talking about just basic low level aerobic physical activity, which returns to what you see with a lot of centenarians and old people. Low level physical activity all day long, sprint here and there, lift heavy stuff and don't overdo it. But what I thought was in the report that I will link to from this study, which you can find@bengreenfieldfitness.com 370. That's bengreenfieldfitness.com370. That's where we'll keep copious show notes for you. They also reported on the effects of caffeine and coffee and they found that high caffeine consumption actually makes your telomeres shorter. But the antioxidants in coffee fights that making your telomeres longer. And so this should influence you to perhaps drink a little bit more of like a good Swiss water processed decaffeinated coffee or choose coffee that has been roasted, roasted for a slightly longer period of time, thus decreasing some of the caffeine content. Basically what it comes down to is like these caffeine infused coffees out there may not be as good as the lower caffeine coffees that have higher amounts of antioxidants in them. And so it turns out that caffeine and coffee is kind of an aside in this article have some interesting effects. And having your coffee in a lower caffeinated state, like using a paper filter for example, or choosing like a, like a darker roast or choosing like a really good Swiss water processed decaf could be a good idea if you want to have your coffee and your longevity too. And of course throw a little rosemary in there.

I'm drinking coffee right now. It was made with a metal filter. It's a light roast and yeah, yeah, I'm basically ruining it all, doing it wrong.

I'm getting a guy on the podcast to talk about this. But the thing, when you use a metal filter or anything other than a paper filter or a French press, you do not filter out the cholesterols in coffee. And the cholesterols are what cross the blood brain barrier. These cholesterols like Kahweol and Cafestol and those actually allow for the cognitive benefits of coffee to be enhanced. So what that basically means is you're going to be a lot smarter but die earlier. So pick your poison, baby.

I can live with that.

That's right. If you can accomplish more in a shorter period of time, why not? Speaking of accomplishing more in a shorter period of time, bring it on. Tourniquets on the arms or the legs, these things called blood flow restriction band. I love this stuff. Really interesting study that just came out on these that showed that they attenuate the effects of high intensity eccentric exercise. Now I've reported in the past how when you exercise with these things called Kaatsu training devices or what are also called blood flow restriction bands or occlusion. Yeah, or occlusion training, there's a slight difference between the different forms of them. But essentially, you know, it's a glorified tourniquet. It cuts off some blood flow to the muscle, but it also causes an increase in growth hormone, causes a localized increase in lactic acid, which increases your ability to be able to buffer lactic acid. So there's a little bit of a performance training effect, but it turns out that eccentric exercise, which is the lowering or the negative portion of a movement that causes muscle damage and it causes inflammation. And it turns out that when you use this blood flow restriction training, you get the performance enhancing benefits and the muscle building or muscle maintenance benefits of eccentric exercise, but you don't get the same increase in muscle damage markers or the same increase in muscle soreness. This is one of the reasons that blood flow restriction training, by the way, has been shown to be so good for an aging population, because it allows you to get all the benefits of training without as much soreness or without as much muscle damage. So actually, in celebration of this latest study, because blood flow restriction bans are just like pennies on the dollar at a.m. unless you want to get like one of those fancy thousand dollar Katsu devices where you can control the millimeters of mercury of pressure with like this handheld device. And they're pretty slick, but pretty cool. Yeah, I actually, I worked out this morning with the. Well, I didn't work out what I did. And this is a great way to use them. I just did my normal little sauna yoga routine, you know, where I'm doing like down dog and chaturanga and all these things that actually do use the arms and the legs. And I have four for blood flow restriction bands. So I just put two of them on my legs and two of them on my arms and did my yoga routine with blood flow restriction. And you do kind of have this cool feeling in your hands and your feet and your extremities when you finish. And then once you take them off, you get this blood flow, this blood rush, a little bit of an increase in nitric oxide. Very, very simple way to increase the efficacy of your training, though, and get more bang for your buck out of your training. And this is an interesting new study that chalks up yet another benefit to blood flow restriction training.

And it's also a beautiful way to prepare yourself for microdosing some heroin.

That's right. Great for heroin. Or by the way, and I'm getting this guy on a podcast, there's this new company that sends you to your home what are called push IVs. These are like Myers cocktails, you know, high doses of vitamin C and vitamin B. And you can self administer these. And it's very, very simple. Takes 60 seconds. You put on one of these blood flow restriction bands and then go, go do what the folks who use heroin would do. Shove the needle in there.

By the way, we were jok about the heroin but not joking about the iv.

That's right.

Just to just be clear, Brock was.

Joking anyways though, Podcast coming soon on how to give yourself an iv. Nice. Speaking of giving yourself an iv, fascinating article on self medication and the amount of animals, the amount of different animals that self medicate. Did you see this article?

I didn't. I love this though.

Okay. It's fascinating. I mean, and the article is a little bit lengthy, but it goes into all of the different natural medicinal foods that animals go out of their way to supplement with, to medicate with. And you know, whenever people tell me, oh, we don't see animals in nature popping pills or taking capsules, it's. Well, I actually do, you know, in the same way that our ancestors would have used things like, you know, essential oils or chewed on wild nettle or, you know, nipped off a bud of St. John's Wort flour if they were depressed, you know, we tend to see animals doing the same thing. And this Article goes into the fact that, for example, we see ants using a special SAP from spruce trees. And spruce trees have antimicrobial terpenes in the bark. And that actually saves ant colonies from these microbes that attack ant colonies. The ants actually harvest and use this SAP from spruce trees to self medicate. Another interesting one was parrots. Parrots actually seek out and they consume clay, right? And the same type of clay that you'll see, you know, sold on Amazon, right? Like this bentonite clay or earth, you know, diatomaceous earth that they'll sell to, to people to like fight off stomach issues and Candida and things like that. Parrots eat clay when their stomach is upset.

That's so cute. Parrot with a tummy ache.

Yeah, I know, it is cute. Porcupines actually eat this toxic plant to enhance Hermesis and also assist with, with stomach ailments. There's also a really fascinating story about chimpanzees and how there's this one plant that they'll normally never eat unless they have stomach problems or parasites. And this is a plant that is poisonous in higher dosages, but in low doses will kill off parasites. And shrimps know not to eat it unless they have a stomach issue. This one's called the amygdalina plant that they eat. And the article goes on and on. Another really fascinating one is bees and how they mix their own secreted oils from plants to make propolis. And they gather material from the SAP of plants and tree buds and mix that material with their own wax and they make this propolis that of course you can find sold for human consumption. It's great for the human immune system, but bees consume it as well. Especially when their hive gets infected by mold or fungus. They increase their harvesting of and production of this fungal antibiotic propolis. It's a fascinating article and I think it's just one of those deals where we can, we can learn a little bit from nature and the fact that these creatures naturally go out of their way to self medicate in a, in a rather intelligent manner.

Yeah, it makes me think of. There's a chapter in the book Stealing Fire, the Steven Kotler book Stealing Fire, where they talk about animals. Actually. I think it was like a porpoise going and biting like a puffer fish to get the venom, to get high on it and stuff. It makes me think of that.

Yeah. Yeah, we see a lot of animals also tripping out. That's another thing that you'll tend to see like dogs licking toads for the Tryptamines you know, the psychoactive components found in magic mushrooms. That's one thing that they talk about in the book is dogs that lick toads, they talk about. I believe there's some plant that elephants eat that gets them intoxicated as well. But you know what? One of the things that comes to mind when you say that is some of the best beef I've ever had was down in Walla Walla, Washington, where they get the cows drunk. The cows feed on, on plants and more or less like fermented grapes and wine. And they've got extremely low levels of stress, extremely low levels of cortisol, and their meat tastes freaking fantastic. So the takeaway message here is eat animals that self medicate.

Nice. I like that.

Yeah.

Have you ever tried the beef that's fed lobster?

No. That sounds really good.

I just made that up. That's a small thing, I don't think. But can you imagine how amazing that would be?

I would have believed you, actually. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Last article here is Exercise in a Pill. So this one is really interesting. So there's this gene called ppard, or PPAR delta. And when you take mice and you genetically engineer them to have permanently activated levels of this gene, they essentially become the equivalent of long distance runners. Extremely insulin sensitive, meaning they can shove substrates into, for example, muscle tissue extremely effectively. Very resistance to weight gain. Extreme levels of physical fitness, and the ability to be able to run about 70% longer than a control group of mice. Extreme ability to control blood sugar, like maintain blood sugar at a very healthy level, like 70 to 80. An increase in the ability to be able to break down and utilize fat, like pretty much everything you'd want from exercise, these mice have. And what they found was that when they give mice this chemical compound called GW1516. GW1516.

Catchy.

It does the same thing as activating this PPAR delta. Now, GW1516, do you know what that is? And I've caught a lot of flack for talking about this before because I wrote an article about it. It's a sarm, right? It's a sarms, yeah, it's a sarms, Selective androgen receptor. So that is the latest exercise in a pill. Now I'll link to the study in the show notes. And I've caught a lot of flak because there's not a host of long term study that's been done on the consumption of SARMs by, by human beings. It's also banned by WADA and USADA. So you need to be careful if you're an athlete. But, and, and also when you buy it, you know, it says on the bottle not designed for human consumer. I mean, go away. I'll link to the article that I wrote on it if you want to read it. It's called Safer than All Inclusive Guide to Gaining Muscle, Losing Fat and much more with SARMs. And one of the main SARMs I talk about in that article is this GW1516 if you want to check it out. But that is exercise in a pill based off the research that they've done. So proceed at your own risk. But it's pretty fascinating, the latest research on exercise in a pill. And you can go leave your comments and your questions in the show notes about SARMs or go read the article that I wrote about it. But frankly at this point, with the evidence that I've seen on sarms in rodent models and some of the evidence in humans, if I wasn't competing, I would, I would actually use it. I, I have seen enough data to, to be convinced that it's worth using. So there you have it.

Do you know anybody who's been using it? I know two.

Oh yeah, I know. I, I have a lot of clients who use it and I know a lot of people who use it and they're getting freaking ripped.

So see what I've noticed is they actually got really puffy. Really. Like they did put on a lot of muscle, but it was very balloon animal.

Like were they putting their sarms on cinnamon rolls?

Or perhaps, perhaps it was the donut delivery method.

They were like, I'm taking sarm so I can eat more apple fritters. No, I've never seen that actually. I've never seen the puffiness or anything like that. Only, only enhanced libido.

Enhanced libido. If anybody has actually tried it themselves, let us know in the, in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 370. And let us know if you got puffy or if you got ripped.

Listener q and a.

Hey, Ben and Rachel, this is Tony from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. My question for today is about reading just before going to sleep. And the best solution is not to serve deep sleep. So I'm going to give you three cases. In all three cases, I'm going to be wearing a blue light blocking glass. Case number one is using my phone with a twilight app on top of an iris. App number two is using my paperback Kindle with a bit of light emitted from it. And number three is just using a hardcover book with a scientific light bulb in the room, like a sleepy baby. I kind of like the first two options a bit more because it's easier for me to highlight while I'm in bed. But I would love to see what your opinion is because you're the pro, Ben. All right, thanks, dude. You're.

I have this same question. I have an iPad with a Kobo app on it. I've got a blue filter on my iPad. I wear blue blocking glasses. And I still sort of lay in bed worrying that I'm totally destroying my sleep. But I really love reading right before bed.

It's.

It's one of my favorite things to do to fall asleep.

I don't read a Kindle in bed at all. And I have the Kindle Paperwhite. And the Kindle Paperwhite is not bad. Like, if you're gonna have a Kindle, you definitely want the paper white because it doesn't have the backlighting on it. But I still, unless I'm traveling and I don't want the weight of books, I'm rarely. Or I rarely can be found in my bed with a Kindle. The thing that I do is I take all my physical paper books and I read those in bed and I just have a big stack of them. So right now I am reading Dr. Jeffrey Bland's disease Delusion. Pretty good book. And I'm also reading a fiction series. I read a lot of fiction at night. The School for Good and Evil, which my kids just finished, so they gave it to me because they said it was so good. So that's my 1, 2 combo is I read fiction at night, which helps me get to sleep because it's not all businessy. And then I write fiction in the morning to jumpstart my creativity, which is why I'm so creative and right brained right now because I just got done writing about dragons eating children. Anyways, though, so the Kindle, if you were gonna have one, the Kindle Paperwhite is the one to own for reading in bed, in my opinion, because it's the closest thing to not disrupting your circadian rhythm with blue light. But there are a few other things that I would recommend that you do that I personally do. The first thing is the actual light in the bedroom. So there's a few different options. What my children have in their bedroom. And I actually just wrote an article about children's mattresses, children's blue light blocking devices, children's bulbs Et cetera. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and you do a search for kids mattresses or kids sleep, you'll find that article that I just wrote. But I kind of like went through my kids bedroom and everything that I do in their bedroom to enhance their sleep. Even their, you know, the sleep masks that they use, which they do use. However, in their bedroom they have these bulbs, they're called biological LED bulbs. They're made by a company called Lighting Science. They have in their bedroom these bulbs called Sleepy time bulbs that are very, very low in temperature, in brightness and in the spectrum of blue light. In my own bedroom I have a very similar bulb also made by Lighting Science that's just a slightly larger bulb, but it's called the good night bulb. And those are what are in the ceiling above my bedroom. And so when I'm walking around the bedroom getting ready for bed, putting on my sexy baby elephant trunk boxers, putting on my coconut oil all over my chest so I look all sexy. And once I've done all of that, I hop into bed and I turn those lights off. And the actual light that I have screwed into the bulb that I will read by, it's called a Rubylux bulb. And this is a red bulb, a ruby lux bulb. And this red bulb is pure red. And I believe it may have been Dr. Mercola that told me about this bulb, I'm not quite sure. It also may have been a Facebook group I'm a part of called it's like the Quantum light and Biology group. All these folks who just like geek out on all things biohacking and light based. But basically it's about a 650 nanometer red light. I have one in my office too called a Ruby luxury. And you want the one that's all red. Like Rubylux makes a purple and they make a green and they make a yellow. But you just want their bulb that's a near infrared is one option or their all red LED bulb, either one would work, but it's just pure red. And so when you see me, if you follow me on Snapchat, because I Snapchat the books that I read at night and you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Snapchat if you just want to look over my shoulder and read all the books that I read, you creepy stalker you. That's why everything is in red. And so that's what I use in my bedroom when I, when I don't have those sleepy time or, or the good night bulbs. On, but the other thing that you can wear. And I only wear these like late at night when I'm reading because they're just complete birth control for your head. They look horrible. Like they're super space agey, geeky, like wraparound dark red goggles. They're these true dark goggles. Have you seen these? I have.

I tried on a pair and was like, I cannot go out in public like this.

You. You can't. They're called the Twilights. They're called the Twilights and they're. They're a great pair of glasses. I actually, I haven't worn them lately because I gave them away to somebody who I ran into at a conference and I loaned them to them for the night to wear at night. And they liked them so much they asked they could keep them. So I just gave them to them out of the goodness of my heart.

I thought you were gonna needed them for their Avengers costume.

That's right. That's right. Plus they need a little bit of, like I mentioned, built in birth control for the head. However, they do work fantastically for blocking light at night. They almost block so much that you freaking can't see. But it's not that bad. You can still read when you're wearing these things. So those are called the Twilights. I'll put our Amazon link to those in the show notes if you want to try those out. But ultimately I just do physical books. I use that, that ruby lux red bulb screwed into my bedside and then in the ceiling overhead. I'll use the goodnight bulbs by lighting Science. I'll use the Kindle Paperwhite occasionally. And that's about it. And I mean, you know, the light will decrease melatonin production. So anything that has melatonin in it can help you a little bit in getting that melatonin jacked back up. And for that, I like the stuff made by Dr. Kirk Parsley, the sleep remedy, because it's just got like microdoses of melatonin in it. So if you have been reading at night or watching a movie or playing a video game or whatever, you can just like do one packet of that sublingually. And it works pretty well at getting your melatonin just slightly elevated.

How do you just pour it right under your tongue?

Yeah, that or I snort it with a razor blade off of a glass table. Hey, I was wondering what's a good way to you know, make yourself fast sort of to not to break the fast. Like to actually last, you know, 18 or 24 hours. Like do you have any mental hacks or tricks really to keep yourself from munching on something?

Thank you.

I really enjoyed the podcast that you did with Dr. Jason Fung. I've heard him before and I've read his book and man, that, that guy. I love all that info about fasting. That was great.

Dr. Jason Fung Bean. Yeah, it was a really good podcast. If you guys haven't listened to that podcast with Dr. Jason Fung that basically teaches you how to go for copious amounts of time without eating, that's something that, that, that floats your boat. Go listen to that show now. I personally, I don't do a lot of 24 hour fasts. About twice a month I'll go Saturday dinner time till Sunday dinner time. And then I just like eat.

That's 24 hours.

Sunday night, that's 24 hours. But that's, that's very occasional. Usually all I do is, is I finish up with dinner and I glance at my watch and I just tell myself, okay, don't eat again for 12 hours. That's my, my usual M.O. and I find that to be sustainable. Keeps me happy. I like breakfast, honestly, I like my big smoothie. I don't like to skip it and wait until lunch and do like the whole 16 hour fast thing. So for me it's a 12 hour fast. But when I do those 24 hour fasts or when I have clients who need to lose a little bit of weight and who I'm having to do like, you know, in many cases a 24 hour fast every single week, there are a few little things that we do. The first is gum. Gum is super simple. Now I do get some questions about what kind of gum that I recommend because I'm not a big fan of the sugar, alcohols and the artificial sweeteners. There's two brands of gum that I use. One is called mastic gum. So I use this Krenos mastic gum that comes straight from Greece. And mastic is really interesting because it has a compound in it that is called, of all things, mastic that actually can kill the bacterium that's caused by ulcers. But it also enhances salivary production. It kills H. Pylori. It's very good for gastric distress and it keeps your stomach quite healthy. It also satiates your appetite and it's kind of hard to chew. So it's good for your jaw muscles, your masseters, and so you can get like a nice square jawline that you've always been seeking. You don't have to take testosterone to get a square jawline. All you need to do is chew on mastic gum, fellas. There you go Anyways, though. So I chew on that. And the other thing that I do is I use this other brand of gum called simply gum. Simply gum. It has a little bit of cane syrup in it, which I'm not a huge fan of, but other than that, it's very clean. It comes in all sorts of interesting flavors like fennel and licorice and cinnamon and coffee. And I really enjoy that gum as well. So I like a really good gum for keeping the appetite satiated. And that's one thing. So.

So you wouldn't do something as, like, stevia or xy.

I haven't found any gum that really holds up that well, even, you know, like the Glee gum or the Spree Spry gum, whatever it's called. Yeah, Like, I'm pretty picky with gum and the texture of gum, so my favorite, too, the mastic gum. I'll link to in the show notes. You like a chewable mastic gum. Don't make the same mistake that I didn't order it off of Amazon and get the mastic gum capsules. Turns out you can't chew those. Get. Get. Like the little bottle of. It's called Krinos, I think it is. It's straight from Greece, but it's. It's kind of. Kind of freaky because you open it up, it's all these little crystals, and you're like, this is gum. And then you try chewing it, and not only does it chew, but you can. This sounds dumb, but it's like one of those everlasting gobstoppers. Like, I can take it out, put it on my desk, come back to it, and just, like, work on a piece for days. Gross as that is.

So is it deliciously minty?

No, it's not mint. It's very herbaceous.

Does it taste like a. Like a gyro or a gyro?

No, it tastes like ass. Oh. But it keeps your. Keeps your appetite satiated.

There you go, Rob.

No, it doesn't taste like sliced lamb. No. And yogurt. Tzatziki. Pellegrino. I do a lot of sparkling water to keep the appetite satiated. Pellegrino. I do a lot of Zevia, which is like a stevia flavored soda. And occasionally I do a little bit of kombucha, even though it's difficult to find a low sugar kombucha. So a lot of times I'll just do those kombucha that my wife makes because I know it doesn't have residual sugars added to it. The company that makes the coconut water kefirs that you can find at places like Whole Foods or Safeway, for example, those only have about 5 to 10 calories in a bottle. It's like a water kefir instead of a kombucha. So you get some of the nice flavor and you get some of the good bacteria from a fermented beverage without the sugars. And it helps to keep the appetite satiated. And kind of like the mastic gum, it's a little bit soothing to the stomach, especially when you're hungry. And so anything sparkly like that, I like. Also choose your sparkling water wisely. For example, a Perrier has a higher acidity than does Pellegrino. Perrier has an acidity closer to, I believe, in the sixes. Whereas Pellegrino or Gerald Steiner or even just like the Whole Foods generic brand, for example, they have a good ph. I'm sending a lot of customers to Whole Foods now.

That's because Amazon owns it. And it'll be delivered right to your door. By a drone.

That's right, by a drone. And anyways, the Pellegrino is the brand that I get. I get that by the caseload. And between that and the Zevia that I get and then just regular water along with the gum, that's enough beverage to keep me satiated. And the carbonated water kind of keeps you full.

Do you ever use, like, a fizzy water and then put some apple cider vinegar in it? That's one thing that I'm really, really into these days, especially when I'm fasting.

I don't do that. No. But what I do is I get the Omica Organic Stevia. These are little droppers that you can find on Amazon. And they have this flavor called Passion Flower. And if you put a little dropper of that into, like, a bottle of Pellegrino or sparkling water, and I travel with this as well, like when I order sparkling water on the airplane because it makes it taste like soda, that's a really good brand. The Omica Organic Stevia, especially that fruity kind of Passion Flower brand. They do a really good butterscotch. They do a good vanilla. They even have, like, a plain stevia flavor. But it's a nice organic stevia without some of the maltodextrin and the other compounds that some of these powdered stevias, like Truvia add to their stevias. So that's another thing that I keep on hand that I use not only when I'm fasting, but just kind of every day. I use a little bit of that omica organic stuff like in some coffee, etc. And I know that stevia can cause an increase in your incretin hormones and a slight, you know, surge in, in some of the things that might cause you to become hungrier later on, ironically enough. But I find that the pros outweigh the cons in terms of stevia. I like it.

I feel like we could probably do a whole podcast on fizzy water drinks.

Me and you, we probably, we're very.

Passionate about our fizzy water but we.

Won'T let's continue even, even delved into the types of hard alcohol add to, to sparkling water in the evenings or to Zevia. There's some good, good recipes out there. We'll have to do an alcohol episode sometime. Another couple of things. Amino acids, essential amino acids, not branched chain amino acids which can actually spike glucose because of the high amounts of leucine in branched chain amino acids, but essential amino acids. So I actually keep and full disclosure, my company makes these, but I chew on them like candy when I'm fasting. I'll do a handful of them like about every six to seven hours. And they keep your appetite satiated, but they also keep you from catabolizing muscle. They keep you in an anabolic state. They're great for healing injuries. They're called nature aminos. And this is just an essential amino acids. One tablet of these is 1 gram. So 10 is 10 grams, 20 is 20 grams. But it's like eating protein without spiking insulin without the calories. So I mean like a handful of these is like the equivalent of eating an entire steak as far as your protein intake and your amino acid intake without the actual calories. So that's another thing that comes in extremely handy and there are other companies that make it aminos. Like Thorn makes an aminos the aminos that I have on my website and I'll link to it@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 370 you can get a tablet or you can get it in a powder which you could add to a water or to a Zevia or anything else like that. But it's called nature aminos. It's an essential amino acid, not a branch chain amino acid blend. And then the final two things that I use to keep myself fasted during a fast one is this stuff called a hammer fizz. It's like a little effervescent electrolyte tablet. And it comes in a grape flavor, a grapefruit flavor, a mango flavor, and a lemon lime flavor. And it's essentially just a bunch of minerals and electrolytes. It tastes really good. I bring it on airplanes, too. But it's like tyrosine, manganese, magnesium, calcium, a little bit of vitamin B. It's got a slight amount of asorbitol in it. So it does have a sugar alcohol in it. It's got a little bit of stevia in it. And by the way, it's gluten free. Wheat germ oil is. But the texturizer that they use is a wheat germ oil. And we've had that question on podcasts before whether wheat germ oil has gluten or not. It doesn't. For those of you who are concerned about, I don't know, spraying diarrhea all over the backseat of the toilet after eating one of these things. Dude. But anyway, so that. So it's called. It's true. Some people can't deal with gluten.

I know. That was so graphic. I was just too graphic.

I know. Rectal spasms are a thing. Dude. Happens anyways, though. So hammer fizz, now that everybody wants one of those, that's another thing that'll drop into a glass of water. Don't put it in fizzy water or you're gonna get one of those volcano science fair explosions. And then the final thing, and I realize it has calories in it, but this is a whole thing, like bone broth fasting is I have a whole bunch of those boxes of kettle and fire bone broth in the freezer, and I'll take those out and thaw them out in the fridge when I know I want to have, like a lower calorie day. And those are really good, too. Like, what I'll do is I'll heat one of those up over the stove and I'll just dump a bunch of spices in there, right? Like salt, pepper, turmeric, cayenne, saffron, Just whatever I want to throw in there. And you make like a little soup. And the other thing that you can put in there into the soup are Japanese yam noodles, which don't have any calories in them. It's just insoluble fiber. So you can essentially make yourself like your own super healthy homemade version of top ramen. And when you throw a bunch of miracle noodles in with a box of this bone broth and A whole bunch of spices. It's an entire meal. It's like 40 calories and it tastes freaking amazing. So that's kind of like a halfway meal that's almost got no calories in it. That satiates you incredibly, incredibly well. So you just add miracle noodles to like one package of kettle and fire bone broth, and then you put a bunch of spices in there. Dude. Telling you mouth smackingly good.

And if you do jumping jacks while you're eating it, it totally counteracts the calories.

That's right. Hi, Ben. Love the show.

And I sure am happy to have Brock back on it, too. I'm interested in using oxytocin therapeutically. I mean, can you fill me in on how I can get some or how I can increase my oxytocin naturally?

Thanks. Oxytocin is pretty cool stuff.

It is.

Did you know that it. That it can stimulate labor and also milk ejection from one's nipples?

Not my nipples.

Okay. Can do that. It really can. You can milk yourself, Focker. It's a peptide. Now, Oxytocin is a peptide, and it's the love hormone. It's what you release after you orgasm. And it helps to relax and reduce blood pressure. It reduces cortisol levels, it reduces pain. It has anti anxiety effects. It stimulates various types of what we would call positive social interaction, meaning getting it on. It promotes growth, growth and healing of tissue as well. It's a very cool hormone, and there are ways you can naturally increase it. Although I experimented with. If you go to veterinary websites, can you. You can actually order oxytocin to inject. You can inject yourself with oxytocin. I tried this out just to see what it felt like. Proceed at your own risk. Not sold for human consumption, but a lot of veterinary websites will sell oxytocin. And you just need an insulin syringe, and you can inject it subcutaneously right underneath the skin. And if you take small amounts of oxytocin prior to sex or larger amounts prior to sleepy time, you can have some pretty cool results. It enhances, like, your feeling and your trust and your sense of love and connection during sex. And then it can just make you sleep like a baby now, kind of like the sarms, right? Like, proceed at your own level of risk, because there's not a whole lot of data out there about whether or not using it in that manner or intranasally, which a lot of folks also do. They'll do, like intranasal oxytocin sprays, if you don't like needles, might shut down endogenous production, like your own production of it. I'll give you some tips here in a second about how you could increase your own production without injection it, injecting it, or sniffing it up your nose. But if you want, like a really amplified effect and you're out there and you're a biohacker and you don't mind trying out something new, try some oxytocin, like intranasal or injection before bed or definitely before sex. It's pretty amazing. It's right up there with THC enemas up your butt if you haven't done that. Our THC suppositories Anyways, though I will put links to some oxytocin supplements, intranasal sprays, that type of thing in the show notes. But let's talk about natural, more sane ways to increase oxytocin.

Yes, please.

Shall we? Yes. Because there are children in minivans listening in. So there's some really interesting research on ways that you can naturally increase oxytocin. One is human touch, shaking hands, hugging, caressing, massaging, anything like that. You know, just basically. Basically making sure to go out of your way to touch those around you, along with eye gazing and eye contact. So, you know, like, one of the best things you could do is, like in bed or at some point during the morning, if you have a spouse or a loved one that you live with, just like hold them and look into their eyes and you get this intense release of oxytocin. So that's one thing that can increase oxytocin.

That's why they call it the creeper hormone.

The creeper hormone, that's right. It's actually the trust hormone. It's not something you'd want at very elevated levels if you're gonna go in and like, negotiate to buy a car or. Or you know, like go to work and have a tough day at the office, like engaged in negotiation or anything else that requires you to really plant your foot down firmly because you trust people and you tend to buckle more during arguments. So just an FYI, there are times when you wouldn't want oxytocin super duper high, basically, when you got to be an asshole.

That's why they call it a pushover hormone.

Yeah, that's right. A few other things that they've shown can increase oxytocin. Listening to soothing music. Right. So that. That kind of makes sense. There are foods, particularly eggs, bananas and peppers. All of those can increase oxytocin levels. So you could make yourself like a nice little egg omelet and slice some bananas and throw some peppers in there. Something along those lines, I suppose that is something we could call it the oxytocin omelet. There we go. A couple other things. Laughing increases oxytocin. So you could like watch stand up comedy or tell a joke or figure out a way to make yourself laugh. That's another way to increase oxytocin. Or listen to the Ben Greenfield fitness show for a good laugh and that could increase your oxytocin. So there you go. Don't listen to this podcast right before you buy a new car.

There you go.

Now you know, sunshine and physical activity in the sunshine can increase oxytocin. That's another one. And then one of my favorite ways, something I do every single morning, that has been shown to increase not just oxytocin, but also serotonin and dopamine. And this has also been shown to cause better sleep, to lower blood pressure, to decrease inflammation, and to allow for a host of other physical and physiological effects.

I bet I know what it is.

Can you guess what this one is?

Yeah. You take your pillow and you just punch the crap out of it and then like put it over your face and scream into it, right?

Yep. And then you punch through a wall. That's exactly.

Punch a hole in the drawer.

There's actually this gene called CD38. It's the key regulator of oxytocin release and it's one of the big players in social interactions and the ability for people to feel interconnected to one another and for. For people to empathize with one another. And researchers actually did a study in which they had, in this case, 77 different couples visit the lab a few times during the course of this study. And while visiting the lab, they were required to go through these series of gratitude based exercises listing what it was that they were grateful for about one another. And what they found was a significant upregulation of this gene, CD38, and an increased production of oxytocin. And there's several other studies that have shown an increase in dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin in response to something as simple as expressing what you are grateful for or engaging in like a daily gratitude practice, such as gratitude journaling, which is something that I've done personally for the past two years. I wake up every morning and I roll over and I strap on my little heart rate monitor to check in on my heart Rate variability for the day. And while my heart rate monitor is collecting my heart rate variability. And this is cool because it forces me to stay in bed and kind of relax and ease into my day. I write down three things, actually. I write down what I'm grateful for that day, just one thing I'm grateful for. I write down what truth I discovered in that morning's reading. Because the other thing that I do is I'll read like a brief, a piece of scripture, or an inspirational or devotional or anything that allows me to kind of like seek some truth for the day when I know I have to write it down. I'm a lot more kind of mindful of what I'm reading. And then the last thing that I do is I write down one person who I can help or pray for or serve that day so I can go into the day in a very others facing way, you know, instead of me, me, me, I, I, I, you know, what's the Stuart Smalley quote from snl?

I'm good.

I'm great. Doggone it. People like me, me like, rather than starting off a day like that, I think about one person who I could help that day or who I could serve that day, or who I could call or help.

So pretty much the opposite of what I was saying then, like the screen.

The opposite of a self affirmation or screaming into your pillow. Yeah, exactly. So gratitude practice. My kids and my wife do it too. And then we gather at the dinner table at the end of the day and we all take out our gratitude journals. And I, I actually took the same gratitude journal that I've been using and developing myself for the past couple of years and I've published it. I've got like 5,000 coming on a boat over from Taiwan right now because I got a whole bunch of them printed and published. And I'll put a link in the show notes. They're not ready yet, but I think they'll be ready in a couple of weeks. For anybody who wants to do the same gratitude kind of practice that I personally do. I'll put a link in the show notes or you can go to ChristianGratitude.com is where I've got these things available. But basically that's it. I do. What am I grateful for? What truth did I discover and who can I pray for or help or serve today? And dude, my oxytocin goes way up. Like milk just starts pouring out my nipples. It's crazy.

So I gotta ask. I'm not Christian. Can I still Use this.

No, no, you're going to hell. Yes you can. But I thought about just naming it like the Gratitude Journal, in which case it would have been sued because that exists. And have you ever heard of the five Minute Journal?

Yep.

Yeah, I partnered up with the guys with a five minute Journal, so they helped me design it. And it's this beautiful, beautiful, like hardcover design laid out in a really gorgeous way with, with some little tricks thrown into it to help you like stick to your gratitude journaling practice. Like there's a commitment part of it and this whole introduction that walks you through exactly what to do each day and the inspirational quote at the top of each page. But no, you don't need to be a Christian. But I just put that on there because I am. And really the whole thing was sparked and inspired by my own Christianity. So rather than shying away from that and shoving it under a bush or what's the shoving it under a burning bush, this little light of mine, I didn't want to basically keep that hidden. So yeah, it's called the Christian Gratitude Journal. But dude, anybody can benefit from this thing. But if you're Buddhist or if you're Muslim, you may want to be careful where you whip it out. But anyways, it's a great little journal if I don't say so myself. And it definitely causes the release of oxytocin. So there you have it.

Yes, I was wanting to know about your thoughts on a product called Clearchoice for swimming pools. The enzymes and I thought I had seen where you were linked to that product. So can I get your feedback? Is it a legitimate product? Is it something you would recommend to make the swimming pool a little bit better than chlorine? Thank you.

Yeah, this is an enzyme based pool cleaner and this one's called Clearchoice. And full disclosure, I have used Clearchoice extensively in my own hot tub and my own pool. And what it is, it's a non toxic, what's called a surfactant, which is basically like a soap and it's mixed with a bunch of enzymes and coenzymes that oxidize things like bacteria and help your spa and pool to self purify without the use of chlorine and a lot of these other traditional chemicals that you would put into a pool. I'm going to come right out there at the, probably at the detriment of these folks at Clearchoice and tell you that I didn't have any luck at all with this stuff. Bummer. It cleaned my pool for A couple of weeks and they kept getting green. And I call the company and they'd give me, tell me, do this, do that, you know, buy a whole bunch more of this. And I try it. And I spent like a year trying to clean my pool with this stuff, and it simply didn't work. So what I do now is a few things. First of all, the, the pool that I have, I have like one of these cold swimming pools and also like a hot tub, it's got ozone purification in it, right? So. And that's known as O3 or triatomic oxygen. So ozone is a really powerful oxidant that can destroy microorganisms and halt the accumulation of deposits and pipes and water systems. And it doesn't require harsh chemicals. And so if you look for a hot tub or a pool that has ozone purification in it, or an ozone generator, that helps tremendously with you being able to get away with using very small amounts of, of chlorine or very few chemicals. The second thing that's built into my pool's filtering system and again, you can ask a hot tub dealer or a swimming pool manufacturer about this, is ultraviolet or UV sanitation. So that uses short wavelength UV light to kill or deactivate microorganisms and essentially just destroys their DNA. Don't worry, it's not going to turn your kids into mutants, the UV light, but it destroys like sis. I know you want me.

That would be awesome.

Algae, viruses, bacteria, protozoa, pathogens that are chlorine resistant. So it actually pairs quite well with chlorine because it'll even kill stuff that chlorine won't kill. So you want like this combination of ultraviolet pool sanitizing light. And then you want ozone purification. And usually you can get like an ozone generator along with a UV light built into a hot tub or built into a pool when you're looking for a pool or a gym with a pool to swim in. A lot of gyms now use saltwater pools and saltwater sanitizers and salt sanitizers, basically those work kind of similar to chlorine, and they kill bacteria and viruses and algae and other radicals by oxidizing them. And it's far less of an issue than chlorine when it comes to toxicity, drying your skin, creating chloramine, which can be somewhat toxic for you to breathe in. They can contribute to asthma. And so the issue with those though is that salt is corrosive. So if you do that at your own house, you do have to know that you'll go through pipes and filters a lot more quickly. What I personally do is I do a few things. First of all, I use very small amounts of chlorine, like a tenth of what you're supposed to use. But then I've got the UV light and the ozone sanitizer in both my hot tub and my pool. And when Iwhen I get out or when there's been heavy use, I put a little bit of chlorine in and then I stay out for a good one to two days after I've put that chlorine in. Right? So I'm not swimming in a heavily chlorinated pool, but it's still cleaning and the filter is still running and cycling. The second thing that I do is I interviewed this guy named Dr. David Gedoff and I'll put a link to this interview in the show notes, but we talked about how to mitigate the damage of chlorine if you do swim in chlorinated pools. Because let's face it, sometimes you just can't switch to a new gym and the gym that you're at has a chlorinated pool and you want to train and it's just, you know, you want to at least mitigate some of the damage or you're like me and you have trace amounts of chlorine in your pool because the fricking enzyme thing just didn't work for you. And by the way, if you're listening in and you've cracked the code on how to clean a pool naturally, pipe in in the comments because I tried everything in the kitchen sink and it just didn't seem to work long term for me anyways though. So what Dr. Get off recommended and I'll put a link to the full podcast Show Notes is after you swim in chlorine, you do high dose vitamin C, right? So you can use like a, like a liposomal vitamin C, like 1500-2000 milligrams, vitamin D and vitamin E. So we're just talking about like antioxidants, more or less alpha lipoic acid. And so what you could use is like there's this shot called Life Shots. We have it@greenfieldfitnesssystems.com but it's just like vitamin C, vitamin E, a whole bunch of natural wild plant based antioxidants. But anything that is an antioxidant, you get that into your system in higher doses. And yes, I know it can blunt some of the hormetic effects of exercise, but I think the pros outweigh the cons in terms of helping you out with the chlorine. And then there's this stuff called a swim spray and it's a vitamin C topical. And you spray this all over your skin when you get out of the pool. And it acts as a natural oxidant on the skin and it can help to remove a lot of chlorine from your skin. So it's called swim spray. I'll include a link in the show notes. But you can just get it off of Amazon, for example. And it's just this vitamin C based spray that eliminates chlorine odor and irritation from your hair and your skin. So that's the way that I do things. And yeah, I didn't have a whole lot of luck. And that was the exact brand that I use. What Jody asked about the clear choice. And I just, I got on the phone with these people and went back and forth and I just couldn't get it to work. And, you know, ran into so many headaches and so much expense, I just quit using it and went with the methods that I just described instead.

That is a bummer.

It's a bummer. It's a first world problem. Totally. Speaking of first world problems, we have to figure out who the heck we're going to give a grand prize to for today's show.

All right, I think we can do that.

Shall we do this? So this is the part of the show where if we choose your review off of Amazon and if you go to Amazon or Amazon, itunes. Itunes. I'm mixing.

Actually, no, it's called Apple Podcasts now. It's not even called Apple Podcasts.

Go to Apple Podcasts. If you go to Apple Podcasts and you leave this show review, preferably a five star or. But be honest. See what you want to say. We're gonna read your review on the show. And if you hear your review read on the show, all you need to do is email gearreenfieldfitnessystems.com that's gearreenfieldfitnesssystems.com we'll send you a shirt. We'll send you a BPA, free water bottle, a sweet beanie, and possibly a few other goodies. And today's review is called Don't Wait by Sean Crampton. You want to take this one away, Brock?

I do. But first, a little known fact. It's actually Richard Gere that answers those emails that go to geergreenfieldfitnesssystems.com Little known.

Fact, very same man. Yes. White hair and all.

Anyway, so Sean says. So for years, one of my most intelligent and in Shape friends that I have has recommended the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcasts. My friend is hyper, intelligent and very critical. And the fact that he loves Ben Greenfield Fitness, among others. But Ben is the tops spoke volumes to me. Of course, I didn't take his advice right away. Not until my father, who was a Navy Seal of 30 years, got into the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast and had the same enthusiasm. That's pretty cool. I wish my dad was a Navy seal.

Yeah.

Actually, no. I'd probably be terrified.

No. Yeah, you kicked your ass. You do a lot of burpees growing up.

Totally. Again, I resisted. Until one day.

Fool.

What's that?

I said you fool.

He is, Sean. You're an idiot. 1. Until one day I decided to see what the fuss was about. And I haven't stopped listening since. My father described it best to me by saying, Ben reads a book and then he thinks. And then if he thinks it's worth discussing, he gets the author on the show. The difference with Ben is that no matter who is on, it's a peer to peer conversation. I could go on, but this should be enough. Don't wait.

I like it. Yeah. Yeah. And that is what I do. I read the books, I fold them over. I get the author on the show, and if I don't like the book, I burn the book and leave a horrible review on Amazon.

As you should.

So if you ever hear me not interview an author, that's why. But in the meantime, Sean, that's a great review, man. It is way to not listen to your friends and. And eventually, after missing out on life for several years, take matters into your own hand to begin listening into the podcast. We appreciate that.

I think this just proves that resistance is futile.

Resistance is futile. But here's what isn't futile. All the show notes, they're over@bengreenfieldfitness.com 370 we work hard on them. We put everything that we talk about right out there for you. So check them out. And in the meantime, Brock Toodle do Toodles.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

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