Top Workouts To Do This Winter, Hacking Your Way To Better Sleep and Eating Clay For Health

In today's episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, is plaque really Dangerous? Top workouts to do this Winter do altitude training, supplements work, how to get rid of parasites fast, and the best way to train for obstacle races.

Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness.com podcast. We provide you with free exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon and wellness advice from the top fitness experts in the nation. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you're just trying to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

So I've been standing here twiddling my thumbs for, well, about 18, 19 minutes.

Now waiting for that.

That's okay. I understand it takes a while to.

Blame it on the lab tech.

Yeah, eight vials of blood does take a while.

That's right. I rolled out of bed this morning, unfortunately no breakfast and no coffee allowed on blood testing mornings, and went down to my local LabCorp. Actually, no, it wasn't a LabCorp. It was. What's it called? A Quest Labs for a blood draw. I did the Wellness FX performance panel this morning.

Oh, the performance panel. That's like the full spectrum, the whole.

So dug the eye crest out of my eyes while I fill about 40 to 50 milliliters worth of tubes, which it looks like a lot more blood than it actually is. But the reason that I did that was because I interviewed the 30 bananas a day guy.

Yeah, Durian Rider.

Which by the way, I have decided that I am going to release that to the general public this Friday because.

Right now it's only available to the premium members of the.

And he published his blood results on that show, so I'm going to publish mine as well and we'll be able to compare them. I should. Usually when you do a test with Wellness FX, you get results back in about 48 hours. Like they'll send it over to me. So I'll put those up along there and that'll come up on Friday. And don't worry if you're gritting your teeth now because you're a premium member and you spent 10 bucks. I've got some special stuff coming your way that I'm going to put into the premium app or the premium service this week, so don't worry about that. Oh, and then the other thing, I got a lot of raised eyebrows this morning because I posted a photo on the Ben Greenfield Facebook page yesterday and it was a photo of head cheese and Braunschweiger.

By the way, I know not everybody Felt that way about it. My stomach actually growled when I saw that photo. But I know some people's stomachs turned when they saw that photo.

And just in case someone thinks that head cheese is a large piece of cheese shaped like a head, it's not. That's what I used to think it was, actually, believe it or not. Well, they named it that. It's beef, beef heart, beef tongue, sea salts. And then they throw in some extra spices like onion powder and white pepper and things like that. So you could serve it sausage style with, like, mustards or sauerkrauts or things like that. Sausage.

Without the. Without the sausage case.

Yeah, exactly.

And awful in it. Yeah.

And a Braunschriger is kind of similar, except it's beef and beef liver. And in the case of US Wellness Meats, who I order from, everything just kind of arrives to your doorstep in a little, you know, frozen Styrofoam bucket. You know, this. This is. It's beef and beef liver mixed with sea salt and raw honey, and there's some pepper and coriander and allspice and stuff like that in there. But, you know, I'm a huge, huge fan of eating organ meats. Eating organ meats is hard sometimes if you can't find a good organic raw or wild source close to you. So I order from US Wellness Meats, but I just thought I'd throw that out there for anybody who's looking into thyroid health or who wants some of the benefits of eating organ meats in addition to their 30 bananas a day. You can grab it from US Wellness Meats. We'll put a link to that as well as the Wellness FX panel in the show notes. But that's the dealio with head cheese, baby.

Okay, excuse me. I'm just going to run off and have a little bit of sausage.

I'm dipping Braun Schwager in my coffee right now.

News flashes.

BenGreenfieldFitness.com 262 is where you'll find the show notes for this entire episode, including all of these awesome and exciting news flashes.

That's right. News flashes galore. Are you ready to talk about sleep, Brock?

I'm always ready to talk about sleep.

You should see the cup of coffee I'm drinking right now. It's about 32 ounces. I think I went a little bit overboard. I came home and there was some French press going on, so I think I didn't overpour this morning. So if this podcast sounds like it gets up to about four speed by the time we get to the end.

That's why, you know, as far as, like, coffee snobs are concerned, French press is like the bottom of the barrel. It's like you only do that if you have no other choice.

Well, I was in a rush to get in here. I slept 10 hours last night, though. I don't. I don't think I need the coffee so much as I'm loving the flavor.

I was all proud of myself because I did eight and a half. You just have to show off, don't you?

I needed a good night of sleep. I had a long day of work yesterday, and I slapped on one of those melatonin patches about an hour before I hit the sack. And you can get these melatonin patches off of Amazon or wherever else and then do a slow release, like a slow bleed melatonin while you're asleep. And I tell you what, you know, you need a sledgehammer to get yourself out of bed in the morning.

Did you put the patch, like, right on your ephemeral artery?

You could put it on the inside of your thigh. I actually put mine on the inside of my armpit. Not the inside of the armpit, the inside of the arm. Like kind of that fleshy area on the inside of the arm that doesn't have hair on it in most normal people. So, yeah. Anyways, though, the first article that I wanted to talk about was a really good article on sleep hacking. And in particular, this article, which we'll link to in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com goes specifically into a strategy to hack your sleep by getting up earlier. And I thought this was interesting because I'm personally not an early riser. But this article goes into how the CEO of Apple and the CEO of General Motors and Richard Branson and all these extremely successful entrepreneurs get up typically sometime between 4:30am and 5:45am kind of on average, that's early. They list a lot of other famous folks like Ernest Hemingway and Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who rose with the sun, so to speak.

So really just a bunch of slackers, people in your accomplishments.

A bunch of slackers. But they also, they talk in this article about how different people are hardwired different ways, and that sometimes if you force yourself to become an earlier riser, there have been studies that show that you actually have a natural drop in productivity, a relatively significant drop that winds up by the end of the day making you less productive than if you say, being hardwired to be a night owl had slept in. So the interesting Thing is that everybody kind of has their own personal biorhythm. But this article goes into how you could potentially kind of hack your biorhythm by using things like naps, small doses of caffeine here and there. They don't talk too much about supplements, although I do want to get into sleep supplements here in a second in talking about another article. But they talk about essentially creating these sleep habits. And I think for anyone who's just kind of getting into wanting to dial in a good sleep routine, this is a pretty good article. It's more of an introductory sleep hacking article, but I think it's got some good information in there, especially if you're the type of person who needs to be an early riser based on your job, your schedule, whatever. There's some good tips in there for you. So we'll link to that one in the show notes. But then what I thought was an even more interesting article was one that appeared over at Supversity and what this one went into was popular sleep supplements and whether or not they actually work. So for example, we've talked about.

So these are supplements, not medications.

Yeah, supplements. Not like Valium or anything like that.

Or those doze, whatever they're called, easy does or whatever you can buy at the drugstore.

Yeah, speaking of dose, I used to pop a bunch of those no dose pills before I'd do like sprint triathlons and stuff.

Oh, aren't those caffeine?

Those work. Abstain from caffeine for about seven days before a race and then pop three or four of those. I think they're around 100 milligrams of caffeine, a capsule. But those will have your eyes popping out of your head.

Yeah, that would spell disaster pants for me.

Not the best thing for your adrenals. Yeah, or your pants, potentially. This article though, of course went into the complete opposite. The first thing is that it begins by talking about this G gaba, or gamma aminobutyric acid. And I've recommended in the past, in the recent past, the use of things like passion flower extract or Somnidren gh, which is like a powder supplement that you put underneath your tongue to help you to sleep at night. The first thing that they talk about in this article is that there may be responders and non responders to gamma amino butyric acid when it comes to its effects as far as helping you to sleep. And very interestingly, one of the reasons that some people may actually respond to GABA from things like Passionflower extract For example, and become more sleepy when they take it is because of a leaky brain barrier. Now, a leaky brain barrier can be caused by everything from sensory stimulation to stress to diet to spending too much time on the computer, whatever. But it turns out that some people actually have GABA ba cross that blood brain barrier a little bit more easily and cause the sedative effect that it's able to cause. And that if you have, say, like an extremely stable blood brain barrier, that might not happen to you. So it's, interestingly for me, Passion Flower, which is a GABA precursor and I think works really well for naps and works really well for sleep. It works fantastically for me. But at the same time, it makes me think twice about whether or not there are deeper underlying issues that could be at play if something like a GABA extract causes you to become sleepy.

Really. So, like. So its effectiveness is actually an indication of there being something wrong.

There being something wrong or. Well, yeah, there being something wrong. And let's put it this way. If constant exposure to electromagnetic fields and working on laptops and computers and reading my Kindle and everything is giving me a leaky brain barrier, for me, it's one of those risk reward things. It's like that's kind of how I pay the bill, is by working on the computer and writing and being exposed to wireless signals and all these things. And, you know, I kind of doubt there are many people walking around these days that don't have perhaps a more permeable blood brain barrier. You know, and maybe if I was living on a, you know, pristine Himalayan mountaintop, you know, wearing an orange robe and, I don't know, reading the Bhagavita or whatever that philosophy book is all day long, maybe I'd have a really good blood brain barrier. But ultimately, I find these GABA extracts work really well for me. So what they talk about, though, are some of the more effective ones in this article. We'll link to the article in the show Notes, But I'll tell you some of the stuff that they found based on the research, really helps you to sleep. Valerian extract at about 400 to 900 milligrams, which, interestingly, is about four times more at least than you find in most supplements. So if you're taking valerian root, make sure that you're taking enough. And valerian, by the way, works really, really well with anything that increases GABA levels, because valerian root inhibits the breakdown of GABA in your brain. So if you combine something like valerian root Extract with, say, Passion Flower. That's a good one two combo ginseng. Ginseng has some really good calming effects on the central nervous system, but there's different.

I thought it was a stimulant.

Yeah, it's very, very interesting, but only in low doses. And so you're looking at about 200 to 600 milligrams of ginseng. And once you get above that, then it does become that central nervous system stimulant. So it's one of those interesting things where if you feel agitated when you take ginseng, you can reduce the dosage and turn it into more of a sleep supplement. A couple others that were in there that I thought were interesting. One was L tryptophan, which of course we all know is in Turkey. The amount in Turkey is really. It doesn't hold a candle to as much as you'd actually need to increase serotonin and cause yourself to become sleepy. But about a gram or so of L tryptophan, preferably mixed into a 10 to 1 ratio with something else called 5 HTP, that would be something similar to, for example, kind of like a mood stabilizing supplement. I've talked about before on the podcast called Travicore, which I recommend a lot of times to people who are stressed out or who need a little bit of a neurotransmitter reboot, so to speak. But tryptophan with 5 HTP was another one that they talk about. And then the last one that I wanted to mention, since we're fresh off of coming back from Kona, and this is another one that's been shown to have a similar effect to these benzodiazepines in terms of the way that acts as a sedative.

Is it a Mai Tai? It's not a plaid?

No, it's just doing an Ironman triathlon. No, it's kava kava. So they have these kava bars all over Hawaii. Did you go to any when you were down there?

Yes, I did. It was very interesting.

Earthy, dirty kind of flavor that turns your mouth a little bit numb, almost pasty weirdness. But about 200 milligrams or so of this kava extract has a really good sedative effect as well and kind of a relaxing effect. So I'll link to the article. There are some other ones that they talk about in there. I found that different strategies work for different folks when it comes to sleep, and most of these, you time about 30 to 60 minutes before you actually go to Sleep. But now that our entire audience is sawing logs, we could move on. All right, to the last thing that I wanted to talk about.

Something uplifting, something interesting.

This is gonna perk everybod up right away. And that is a new study that came out on Viagra and the effects of Viagra in increasing your testosterone. Now, you might think that by using Viagra or the active ingredient is actually sildenafil in Viagra, that the fact that you are perhaps as a man, ladies, this may be of interest to you, or you may just want to press the fast forward button. But you may think that just because you are probably having more sex if you're using Viagra, that perhaps that is why your testosterone goes up. Because indeed, when you do have more sex, your testosterone goes up. However, this study shows an increase in adrenal activity, your adrenal glands being those two glands that sit on top of your kidneys. An increase in adrenal steroidogenesis, which is something that typically wouldn't happen with sexual activity when you're using a Viagra or a Viagra type of compound, and a very significant increase in testosterone when you use this stuff. I thought it was. It was kind of interesting. Viagra is something I've kind of sort of used a few times. Not kind of sort of used. I've used it. I get the generic brand called Cameagram and I keep it on hand when I know that we've got a babysitter or the wife and I are going out on the town and maybe we're going to grab a hotel downtown or whatever. And I have to admit, going out.

On the town is the wrong time to take that.

Yeah, I have to admit, the stuff actually does work. And it does not only make you more horny, but kind of gives you a better time in bed, too. And now it turns out it also increases your testosterone significantly. I wouldn't suggest popping it before your next basketball game because it does specifically have a vasodilatory effect and in that specific crotchal area. But it gives you a boner. Well, I'll tell you where I get it. There's a website called worldpharma.org so where I get the chemistry.

Do we need to edit this out?

We may. I get it sometimes when I go to Asia and then there's also a website called called world-Pharma.org where you can get the stuff. And I don't think they have any type of special relationship worked out with BenGreenfieldFitness.com but maybe if you tell them Ben Greenfield sent you, they'll throw in some free cameagra samples. Or maybe they'll even toss some extra testosterone in there for you. So there you go. Be careful on websites like that, by the way, because they do sell illegal stuff. So. So if you're going to order something like, you know, generic Viagra, stick to generic Viagra. And don't go to the section that says anabolic steroid precursors or syringes and needles, unless that's your thing. So There you go. World-Pharma.org and so, yeah, our audience is now completely educated on sleeping and having better sense.

Special announcements.

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Including when you're on your awesome trip to la, Malibu, Santa Monica, and Santa Barbara.

I've been getting lots of questions from people about why I'm going to California this week. So here's a little insight into the life of Ben for those of you who care. So I'm flying in on Halloween evening, and on November 1st, I'll be meeting with a business mentor. I actually have people who help me out who are light years ahead of me in the realm of business and writing and everything that I have an interest in. So I'm having lunch with my business mentor who lives in Hollywood Hills, and then I'm driving.

Of course he does. Where else would he live? That's so cliche.

Driving over to podcast with Rich Roll later on that afternoon. So we're going to do a podcast with with Rich, Rich and I over at his recording studio. And then on the next Day I have a group of guys who I'm part of a mastermind group with. And that means that we get together at different places around the world sometimes and we talk and bounce ideas off of each other. And I'm meeting with some of those guys and some of those friends in business on the next day. And then I'm having dinner that night with one of my clients who's a. He's kind of like a big entrepreneurial coach. And he hired me to get him ready for Ironman Hawaii this year. And I, I cut his volume in half and he PR'd at Ironman Hawaii and he's very happy about that. And so we're, we're gonna have dinner and, and have a glass of wine together because we never got to have a Mai Tai together down in Kona. So the next day I'm going to do a podcast with Vinny Tortorich and Tawny Prasak from Endurance Planet is going join us. So we're gonna do that and that'll be in la, and then I will head over to Malibu and see my friend Mark Sisson from Mark's Daily Apple and we'll throw down a lunch together. And then I'm gonna drive down to Santa Monica and spend time with a couple of my friends down there who want to teach me how to surf. So I'll spend a couple of days just basically learning how to surf. And these are a couple of guys I'm launching a brand new phone app with as well. And I can't say anything about that right now, but it's going to be super duper cool. So we're going to surf and wireframe that app and everything. And it'll be a very cool app for folks. And then I'm going to fly up to Portland on the way home for two days of top secret meetings with Nike, of all things. And for those of you who are concerned that I might stop wearing my score minimalist running shoes, let's just say that this particular meeting has absolutely nothing to do with shoes, but a top secret project with Nike. And so stay tuned for more on that. So anyways, yeah, that's why I'm traveling to California. And that's a glimpse into my life.

Pretty good. You know what I'm doing?

What are you doing?

I'm going to Moose Jaw, actually.

You're running the New York Marathon.

No, that's right. I was gonna pretend I was doing something like, like going to have some cabbage rolls and coffee and Moose Jaw with, with my Aunt Mavis. But I am going to. I am going to New York.

Must be a Canadian thing. Yeah. For those of you who are going to be at the New York Marathon, Brock will be there. He's racing. And stay tuned to that. And then after Brock races, he's jumping right into the same protocol that I'm doing, which is a big mass building program. Brock and I are gonna get swole. We're gonna get 70s big.

I'm looking, I want to be like Vin Diesel.

More later in this podcast about how we're gonna be piling out a bunch of muscle over the next few months. But it'll be cool. And we're gonna put an opportunity out there for any of you listeners, males or females, who want to get big, get toned, get muscular, get curvaceous, whatever it is, your goal is to join us. So there's that. And then and you're off to do.

The creative live pretty shortly after.

If you're listening and you live anywhere near the Bay Area in San Francisco, or you want to fly into the Bay Area and you want to be part of our creative live audience. From December 11th through the 14th, I'm teaching an online class called Achieve Ultimate Human Performance. Very cool class. We're going to be digging into pretty much every biohack technique, nutrition strategy and exercise strategy possible to achieve ultimate human performance. And we'll put a link in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 262 with a link to a simple form that you can fill out to be part of the live studio audience down in San Francisco for that. And we'll also put a link to the class itself in case you just want to sit at home in your underwear and attend virtually.

I love how you don't undersell anything. I love how it's called Achieve Ultimate Human Performance. It's not called be a little bit better at doing stuff.

Lose fat. Just go big, go big or go home, baby. So that being said, what do you think? Should we jump into this week's Old listener Q and A.

Let's go. Big.

Listener Q and A.

Ben and Brock. You guys are on my runs all the time. Since Ben recently had a heart CT scan, I thought you'd be interested in mine. It came back with a calcium score of 1200, which, as you know, over 400 says you're at risk. Following that, I had a cardiac catheterization and I was told they probably would put in stents they didn't have to and told me that everything looked Just fine. And I could continue exercising like I have been and continue on the same diet I'm on. When asked for an explanation about the calcium score, all they said was maybe the calcium was on the outside of the arteries. Ben, do you agree with Dr. Minkoff that vitamin K2 may be very important in heart health?

I don't think I've actually heard Dr. Minkoff talk about vitamin K. I'm not sure where Keith heard that. Do you know.

There has been some discussion over on the Endurance planet podcast by Dr. Minkoff, who's our guest physician over there on.

And he does the vitamin K segment.

Yeah, exactly. And vitamin K. There was a podcast that I did with the author of a book about vitamin K, and I will be sure and put a link to that podcast for Keith in the show. Notes. Vitamin K has a lot of very cool effects in the human body. It is one of the most deficient vitamins worldwide because most people do not eat potent sources of vitamin K such as head cheese anymore. But when it comes to vitamin K and heart disease, it's very, very interesting because vitamin K's ability to protect us from heart disease is extremely clearly established. And there is a ton of research out there and a rapidly growing body of research that shows that a part of heart disease is a result of a deficiency in vitamin K. And the reason for that is because vitamin K plays with vitamin D and calcium in a way that vitamin K, in particular, vitamin K2 deficiency, causes what's called calcification in your cardiovascular system. So it not only protects against inflammation and accumulation of oxidized cholesterols and white blood cells, which is essentially what. What a plaque is, but it also allows for calcium to not build up in the bloodstream or, you know, it allows for cardiovascular, what's called calcification, not to occur. Now, all of these effects of vitamin K2 are occurring in the middle or the inside of the arteries. So you've got kind of two different parts of your arteries, your tunica intima and your tunica media. And by the way, I think Tunica intima would be a great name for a band. Brock, if you ever decide to get. What was your other band's name?

Captain Tractor.

Captain Tractor.

Yeah.

For those of you who didn't, who didn't know, you can find, like, Brock's old school Captain Tractor tracks. Like, are they on itunes?

Oh, yeah, they're on itunes. You can find videos on YouTube. You can see me with my 90s long flowing Google.

Google Captain Tractor if you want to get some Serious brockage. Anyways, though, tunica intima and tunica media are inner parts of your arteries. And for example, the tunica media has all these little elastic fibers in it that allow the artery to stretch and to accommodate different kinds of pressure. And when the.

Okay, so wait a second. If we're thinking of the artery as being like a straw, like a straw that you drink through, so would. It would sort of be like a double straw. And in between, like the smaller straw and the bigger straw. That's where the media is.

Yeah, that's the tunica media. That's the middle.

So that's where the little strips and round pits.

And you've got all these little fibers in there. And in healthy arteries, you've got what's called a vitamin K dependent protein, it's called mgp. And that congregates around all these little elastic fibers in that middle arterial layer and it guards them against the formation of calcium crystals. So that's where vitamin K2 comes in when we're talking about the middle part of the artery. Artery. And when you don't have sufficient vitamin K, then what happens is that MGP does not get activated. And so you get buildup of calcium crystals in and around these elastic fibers and you get hard arteries. And that's what a hard artery is. It's an artery that's lost its elasticity.

Doesn't get all squishy, it gets all rigid and.

Exactly. You've also got your tunica intima. And that's the inner layer of your arteries. It's the innermost layer of your arteries.

That's where the milkshake is flowing through the straw.

Right. And that's where atherosclerosis would technically develop. And in atherosclerosis you get these calcified deposits of cholesterols and white blood cells and they accumulate on all the inside of the tunica intima. And you get dead cells, you get white blood cells, you get lipids. All this stuff builds up, up, the plaque, breaks free and can cause clots and things of that nature. Now, vitamin K2 is also responsible for the integrity of the lining of that tunica intima as well. So there's two different places where vitamin K2 is acting. The reason I bring up the internal arteries is because Keith is asking about the outside of his arteries. That's something completely different that I'll explain in just a second. Now, when you are using something like a blood thinning drug, like warfarin, for example, is a very popular blood thinning drug. Interestingly, that can inhibit the conversion of K1 to K2. And when you don't have enough K2, you get that calcification of the tunica media and you also get the atherosclerotic buildup in the tunica intima. And what they've shown is that in people who are taking blood thinning medications, if they have adequate levels of K2 from dietary sources, that you can actually keep that from occurring. So if you are listening and you're on a blood thinning medication, there is no doubt that you should be getting adequate dietary sources of vitamin K2 or you should be using a vitamin K2 supplement. Without a doubt. I emphasize this because I know that a lot of people are on blood thinners, thinners and ironically, blood thinners can increase arterial calcification in the absence of adequate K2. So there's a lot of stuff going on when it comes to K2 being very, very crucial. Now, I am a fan, of course, before you go and turn to supplements, to looking at dietary sources. And if you're not an organ meats or a liver meats person, if you aren't big time into grass fed butter or maybe you just have a hard time getting your hands on that kind of thing, there's one really potent source of vitamin K2 that flies under the radar and that is natto. You ever had natto before? Brock?

Those snotty little beans?

Snotty little beans. But if you put natto on white rice with maybe a little bit of green onion and some mustard, it's actually a really nice little breakfast you could have with eggs and avocado. And believe it or not, it's very easy to make your own natto. I'm going to give you the bird's eye overview here of how to make your own natto. And I'll put a link in the show notes to an article that will help you out as well. And so if you're vegan or you're vegetarian and you need to go to adequate K2 or you want to introduce this into your diet, here's how you do it. You get yourself some soybeans. Now, before you give that sharp intake of breath and worry about all the man boobs and the breast cancer you're going to get from the soybeans, what we're going to do is we're going to ferment these soybeans and that fermentation is going to get rid of a lot of the digestive inhibitors and it's going to make those Soybeans a lot more, a lot more natural for your body. So what you do is you simply get soybeans and you soak them overnight and then you have to heat them, preferably slowly, preferably by steaming them for about three hours or so. You're basically just gonna steam them until they get soft. And you could use like a, like just a basic steamer for this. You might be able to use a pressure cooker. We haven't used a pressure cooker before, but it would probably work anyways though, you want, you want to slow cook these soybeans after you've soaked them overnight until they get nice and soft. And then, and here's, here's kind of the sneaky part. What you want to do is you want to get something that will make, make those soybeans ferment. And the best way to do this is you go to your local grocery store that sells Asian food, like an Asian market, or anywhere where you could find natto, and they sell these tiny little cups of natto. You're going to take that natto that you buy at the Asian market and you're just going to drop a few grains of that into about a cup of water or so. And what you'll do is stir that natto into the water. You'll notice the water starts to turn a little bit white. And that's going to be your starter for your own batch of natto. And you just pour that all over your steamed soybeans and you cover the whole thing with cellophane and you just pour it into a baking dish and then you let it sit in like a slightly warm spot. Like you could put it out on your kitchen counter. For example, if you don't have a really cold house house. And you simply let it sit out for a day and it ferments for a day and you're going to notice these little white sticky fibers start to form. And as that soy is fermenting, the bacteria is producing huge amounts of vitamin K2. And so once you've made it and it's ready and you toss it in the refrigerator, you can have that in the morning for breakfast. For fat soluble vitamins, you don't have to have them every day day. You could have a big thing of natto once a week if you wanted to, or you could just toss it in every few days with breakfast, like.

Mega dosing with vitamin D, you can do it once a week.

Yeah, exactly. If you wanted to bring your vitamin D levels up, you could just do 30,000 units of vitamin D once a week. You don't have to take it every day. So similar deal with this. Or you could go lay out in the sun one or two times a week. You don't have to go out in the sun every day. Day. Vitamin K2, though. Yeah, but you should. You'll be happy.

It's nice.

We'll put a link to that in the show notes. But let's talk about the outside of Keith's arteries, because that's something completely different. And what happens is when you are gaining weight, your body's going to initially store most of the extra calories in adipose tissue, in these white adipose tissue cells. And after a while, you're gonna build up a lot of adipose tissue, and then your liver is gonna start storing that excess fat. And as your liver starts to store excess fat and you begin to get essentially what's called fatty liver, fatty liver disease, then it starts to marbleize in your organs, like your muscles, your kidney, your pancreas, your heart.

And one of the places that's what makes us delicious.

That's what makes us delicious humans.

For those cannibals out there, marbleizing marble fat.

Between that and the head cheese, I think we've probably grossed out just about.

Everybody, all the vegetarians. Anyway.

Anyways, though, you. What happens is, what were you doing there? I was taking a sip of coffee, dipping my head cheese into coffee. One of the places this fat goes is into what's called the perivascular fat formation, which is around your arteries. Now, once you get fat forming around your arteries, and this is if you have heard the term visceral fat thrown around before, this falls into that category, that fat that's gathering around the arteries not only causes the arteries to shrink, so you're going to get increased blood pressure as more pressure is around the outside of the arteries. But it also sends a huge amount of inflammatory signaling via something called cytokines into the arteries, and that oxidizes the cholesterol that's circulating in your bloodstream and increases your risk for that cholesterol to dig its way into the arterial cell wall and cause, you know, again, like a, like a clot or plaque formation or a heart attack. So when we're looking at the fat on the outside of the arteries, this is less of an issue of like a vitamin K2 deficiency and more of an issue of. Of fat buildup from a dietary standpoint or fat buildup from lack of physical activity, that type of thing. And really the best way to mobilize Storage fat is to just, I mean, go listen to the Three Pillars of Fat Loss, the 90 minute free audio podcast that came out on BenGreenfieldFitness.com a couple of weeks ago.

I talk about Paul Gemini, I talk.

About fasting, I talk about about cold thermogenesis. I talk about combining high intensity interval training in the afternoon or the evening with fasted aerobic exercise sessions in the morning. Just like all the little hacks that you can use to lose fat faster, to mobilize adipose tissue and to eventually get your body to use that perivascular fat for energy. Ultimately, unless you put yourself into an energy deficit, it, it's not going to happen though. So that's something that's really important to know, is that that goes above and beyond, just like, you know, taking, taking a vitamin, for example. Now, interestingly, in any population, including old mummy populations, where they found atherosclerosis to be present, where they found plaque formation to be present, it really turns out that in most cases, cases it's not one of those things that causes death or that causes that plaque to break and to rupture, unless a big, big part of the diet is derived from sources of oxidized cholesterol. Now, the biggest source of oxidized cholesterol in just about everybody's diet these days are dietary vegetable oils that have been heated. That's, that's the number one way to oxidize cholesterol is to eat processed or packaged foods that have high amounts of canola oil or soybean oil or any other type of vegetable oil in them, to eat at restaurants, most of which are cooking with these type of oils, or to do things like eat crackers and baked goods and all of these other sources of heated dietary vegetable oils. If you're going to keep cut one thing out of your diet for the health of your heart, just one thing for say, like the next 30 days, give yourself this challenge. Don't eat any heated vegetable oils for the next month. That's the biggest issue when it comes to atherosclerosis, because it's looking, when you look at ancient civilizations like atherosclerosis, in terms of actual buildup of plaque in the arteries may be something that kind of happens to everybody, but unless you actually have a huge amount of oxidation going on, it's not as much of an issue. And so, yeah, heated vegetable oils, number two, would be like processed sugars and high amounts of processed starches. But I would really focus on vegetable oils when it comes toto inflammation in the arteries. So, so that, yeah, those are my main thoughts for Keith would be get vitamin K2 into your diet. Listen to that 90 minutes, three pillars of fat loss webinar and then cut all sources of heated vegetable oils out of the diet, period.

This is Dan Brock. This is Angelo calling from Boulder, Colorado with a question. That question is in regards to the post season kind of off season period of time. I'm a triathlete. I focus predominantly on Olympic and half ironman distance triathlons and I just really want to focus during the off season on getting enough recovery and also being able to continue moving forward in some ways with strength and speed workouts. So just curious really what your thoughts are about the best ways to maximize the postseason period of time. Thanks so much.

Bye bye.

And we also got a similar question from hi Ben, my question for you.

Is I've just completed in my first year of international triathlons and I want.

To know what are the best strength.

Exercises I can do over the winter to build my swimming and bike and run to lead me into next year Better. Thanks.

So it would appear that it is the off season for most people in the Northern hemisphere. Anyway, we're getting a lot of questions about this kind of stuff.

So I've got some cool workouts to throw your way. So I'm going to give you some of my best tips when it comes to workouts that you could do this winter. I'm going to include a little bit of info on what Brock and I are doing in terms of our whole muscle building protocol that we'll be going into our or calling our mass gain plan give you a lot of options. So first of all, whether you are a triathlete or a crossfitter or a marathoner or whatever, you have to have a period of rest in your year that's for your adrenals. It is for your mind. It is for the entire constitution of your body. You must, must, must have a period of rest. Now because, because most of us are, we do a pretty crappy job of injecting complete rest weeks or complete rest days even into our training protocol. We do need kind of an off season. Now I call this an adrenal reboot. And ideally it's comprised of very light yoga or tai chi type of sessions combined with some morning stretching and some very easy aerobic type of movement, some mobility work, some foam rolling, some addressing of weak spots or tight spots or spots that tend to get injured in your body. And I'm a fan of taking anywhere from four, up to as long as 12 weeks or three, three months to actually fix these type of issues now.

So of course you're throwing in some seven hour bike rides in there too, right?

Nothing like that. Just, just complete ease. And this is a good time too.

I'm just kidding.

Let's say you're going to. Let's say maybe you have gut issues and you need to do like let's say a juice cleanse or a gut cleanse. Or let's say that you are somebody who's always wanted to try like maybe ketosis or a high fat low carb diet or something like that. Not having the stress of exercise present in your life is a perfect time to make a dietary change or to do a dietary detox as well. It's very tough to detox or to change up your diet when you're also throwing hard exercise sessions at your body. So you start off with this adrenal reboot. Now I'm going to put a link in the show notes for you. I've actually written an entire adrenal reboot program that is on Training Peaks. It's flexible for anything from, from four weeks up to 12 weeks. But it kind of satisfies all the criteria that I just talked about. So we'll put a link to that in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 262 but you start with that. There are.

For those of you who don't know, Training Peaks is an online system for managing your workouts. So you can hire a coach, they can drag and drop exercises and stuff in, or you can just track your own workouts. Or like Ben's talking about, you can actually purchase some programs, lays out everything you need to eat or work out. Or you can put your metrics in there so your weight, your heart rate, all of that kind of stuff, everything.

And in this case nutrition is also included with that program. So that's a three month program. It's flexible to where you could do it for as few as four weeks if you wanted to. But it's a $97 program. I call it my adrenal reaction reboot plan. So you start off with that type of program and then what you'd want to do in conjunction with something like that is make sure, like I mentioned, that you're taking care of your gut and that you're kind of fixing yourself on the inside too. I mentioned doing detoxes, I mentioned doing cleanses. Probably the top two diets though that I would say would be Pretty good for just about anybody. And you could just look at both of these. I'll put of a lot link to both of them in the show. Notes. Choose the one that looks the most palatable for you. One would be the specific carbohydrate diet. If you experience gas, bloating, things of that nature. If you want to kind of get rid of fermentation or bacterial overgrowth in your digestive tract, this is a really good one. There's a completely free ebook online, I'll link to it. It's called the SCD diet. Though that would be option one. Option two would be what's called an autoimmune protocol. And if you have issues like with acne, eczema, brain fog, and if you also. This can help with bloating and gas and things of that nature too. But this one's called a Paleo autoimmune protocol. That would be option number two if you weren't going to use like the adrenal reboot program that I wrote, which includes meals as well. And it's kind of a mix of autoimmune and scd. I kinda kinda combine the two for that particular program. But I would do the Paleo autoimmune protocol or the specific carbohydrate diet. Okay, one of the two. And for the first four to 12 weeks of your off season, you're just going to really reinvent your insides using this specific diet. And then you move into the fun stuff. So then you move into really throwing some new curve balls at your body and some workouts that you, you aren't used to. So last year, the protocol that I used that I really enjoyed, that got me uber fit and ripped over the off season was a book called Warrior Cardio by Martin Rooney. He's got a 12 month program in there. It's written really from, from kind of an MMA mixed martial arts fighting type of perspective. There's some bag work in there, there's a lot of jump rope work in there. There's a lot of mobility work. Work meaning you're kicking, kicking the punching bag or hitting the punching bag. Okay, there are, you know, it's kind of a cool program, especially if that's something you've wanted to get into, like maybe you wanted to get into Krav Maga or MMA or karate or anything like that. It's a tough program, I'm not gonna lie. And, and I'm not doing it this offseason because it's also a very metabolically demanding program and I want to put on muscle. This would be a program that's kind of more, you know, it's going to get you lean and ripped and that's, that's what it requires. The, the other thing is that it does require you to be in a gym. Like, there's a lot of equipment in there, you know, like, like punching bags and, you know, barbell work and things of that nature that, you know, that make it not super conducive if you're doing lots of traveling and stuff like that. But it's called warrior cardio. I'll put a link to that book in the show notes. So that would be option one. Option two would be to go more of the bodyweight route. And this is a really good option if you're going to find yourself traveling a lot over the holidays. If you maybe don't want to spend a lot of time in a gym because you're sick of the inside of a gym or whatever, or you just want to kind of, you want to get into this whole body weight workout type of thing. So two resources that I, I'd recommend for that. Number one would be the book Paleo Fitness, which was written by this guy who is the fitness explorer and his name is Darrell Edwards. He's got, it's an eight to a 12 week program at the end of the book. And these are a lot of body weight exercises that have you moving like an animal, like alligator walks and bunny hops and rocks, rabbit crawls and cat crawls and gorilla crawls and crab crawls. And it's a really, really cool type of program. It's a good book, but it's called Paleo Fitness.

I had crab crawls once, but I got a cream for it.

So Brock no longer has his crab crawls going on. That's good to know. The other option, and this is really cool too, for those of you who have an iPhone, is this phone app called Safari Fit. I've been playing around with this one a lot and it's kind of similar to Paleo Fitness in that it is a bunch of exercises that are named after animals. Fantastic app, though. I've tossed in a few of these when I'm traveling. Yeah, but it's fun. It gives you a circuit to do comprised of a series of exercises. You can choose your level that you want to start at. I think you could like the beginning levels, like a meerkat or something like that. And you, you can. I've done the highest level, which is the lion, and it took me about 40 minutes to do the workout out in the park. And there's a ton of workouts loaded into this app, but it's really cool. It's got a little video in there that shows you how to do the move so you don't have to guess as you're going. It's got kind of a progression in there. It's even got like some gamification built in where you can see how well other people have done on that particular workout out. So it's called Safari Fit. We'll link to that one in the show notes too. The last one, when it comes to kind of like throwing some randomness at your body as far as like an off season workout would be a brand new workout that was brought to my attention this week so I figured I should mention it in the show notes. And it's called Exercise Cards. Now this is similar to like playing cards. So, so they're made by the bicycle playing card company and they're these really high quality kind of cards and they're 50 exercise cards and five different workout routines that show you the correct form and the correct movement. And it's just a deck of cards that you can use as like card games. So you can like deal certain people in a group, different cards and they're each going to get different exercises. You can kind of, you know, go through the cards one by one and see how far through the deck you can get. A lot of cool stuff, but it's actually right now a Kickstarter campaign, which I think is a pretty cool way to launch a workout. And it was designed by this 20 some year old entrepreneur based out of New York and you know, originally started with him drawing up little stick figure workout plans with exercises that he wants wanted to do before going to the gym. And now he's launched it into a Kickstarter campaign and it's called the Exercise Cards Project. I think it's cool. I love to support guys who are doing cool stuff like this, so I'm going to put a link to that in the show notes too. For those of you who want to check out the Kickstarter exercise cards projects and for those who haven't been over to Kickstarter before, it's a pretty cool idea. Anyways, you can, you know, you can, you can see, self sponsor or invest in everything from workout plans like this to books to new ways to make coffee, you name it. You ever done anything over at Kickstarter, Brock?

I haven't. I looked at it a couple of times but I always feel like the Stuff that people are asking for money. It's just not, it's not what I'm into. Maybe it'll get more widespread and start being more interesting kind of stuff.

Stuff. Well, it's a Kickstarter.com let's see. So I'm going to go over to Kickstarter.com right now. Yeah. So some of their popular ones are the foodie dice, which is a fun new way to shake up your cooking routine. Foodie dice is a set of nine dice desired to inspire creative whole ingredients meals. Interesting. They've got the Chipolo, which is a Bluetooth item finder. It's a little chip that you put on your iPhone or your Android that helps you locate your belongings lost or forgotten. So you could put like a chip on your sock and help you find your sock. Interesting. They've got the premium active denim engineered for performance raw jeans handcrafted in New York City with technologically advanced denim.

See, it just sounds like SkyMall. Really?

Like kind of.

Yeah, but it's, but it's interesting. Cool stuff. Stuff. But it looks like somebody gave spend.

Money on almost $200,000. So there you go.

So anyways, I'm sure people buy stuff at Sky Malt.

But seriously though, check out the exercise cards project. I think it's cool. I was surfing around looking at it and it's kind of a cool idea. But now the elephant in the room, the mass gain plan. So here's what this is. Some of you may have heard of Dan John before. He's got this book called Mass made Simple. And it is a six week program that is designed to put mass on your body while building strength, power and coordination. And it kind of does so in a very simple way. Meaning most of your workouts are very similar. You go into the gym, you're doing some upper body work. You're doing what's called a barbell complex, which is a series of six different exercises with the barbell. Same six exercises every single time you step into the gym. You know it's a, it's a row back, squat front squat, clean, Good morning. And overhead press. A little bit of core work in there and a little bit of kind of like overhead pressing and some pulling work in there. And then you finish every workout with usually kind of like a special squats type of workout that Dan's put in there.

There.

That leaves you crying like a baby and crawling home.

Is that the 300 squats that you did the other day and then tweeted about because you were.

I, I Had a lot of. I think it was 100 that I ended up having in the workout. Total was 100 squats, but most of them were loaded. And squats, for those of you who don't know, not only a great way to boost testosterone, but a great way to build mass as well in both the upper and the lower body. Because of the hormonal response when you do a squat, it's a very defensive position for your, for your nervous system anyways, though. So my issue with this whole program made by Dan John is it wasn't really built for triathletes specifically. It's like I don't want to completely give up swimming and biking and running in the off season. I just want to do it minimally and then also put on mass at the same time. I also wanted to work in more recovery. I wanted to work in some cold thermogenesis, some foam rolling and mobility work. I wanted to work in a little bit of extra core work using like the foundation type of low back core program that we've talked about the past few podcasts, that book by Eric Goodman. So I took all this stuff and I put it all together into what I call the mass gain plan for triathletes. Really it's a mass gain plan for endurance athletes, skinny athletes, anybody who wants to kind of get a little bit thicker, a little bit stronger, a little bit more curvaceous. So I'm going to put a link to it because I literally just put the finishing touches on it last night in terms of finishing it up. But it is the exact plan that I'm personally going to be using to still maintain my swimming, my biking and my running prowess, so to speak, so that I could still do a triathlon next year, but at the same time put on the 25 to 30 pounds of muscle that I'm looking for. I also put the nutrition in there as well in terms of my meal and supplement recommendations for piling on muscle as fast as possible. So that's called the mass, the curvaceous version of it. Brock wants to have that one. Yeah, we can give you the hourglass figure for sure.

Sweet.

So it's called the mass gain plan. It's 47 bucks bucks and what I'm doing as well. And I include this in the instructions with the plan is for anybody who logs their before and after photos every single month as we're going through this winter, for anybody who's doing the program and is posting the before after photos to their Facebook page, to their blog, whatever and then sending the link to us over on our Facebook page. I'm cutting a $100 check every single month to. To the best before and after photos. So if you stick with the program and you upload your photos, you're pretty much paying for the program or making money, getting paid to do the program as you go. So anybody wants to join along with Brock and I, I'm personally launching into this thing hardcore as soon as I get back from California. Up till this point, I've just been kind of experimenting with it, putting the finishing touches on it. But it's called the Mask Game Plan. If you're listening to this podcast when it comes out, which is on October 30th, and you want to start it along with me sometime in the next seven days, go to the show notes, grab the plan. And there's no fancy picture of the plan or anything. It's just. It's all super simple. There's just a line of text that you click on and then it. It downloads the plan to your computer via training peaks and you're off to the races. So. So yeah, that. Those are all my thoughts on the offset season stuff and all the different options for you. And we'll put links over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 262 for everything. Hey, Ben and Brock, this is Brett Akers here in Atlanta. Longtime listener and want to thank you guys for all the help you've provided over the years. I recently signed up to climb Mount Rainier next June, and I was reading some stuff online about supplementation, specifically a product called Altitude Adapt, which contains nitric oxide. I wanted to know your thoughts on this and if that would be any benefit at all in high altitude climbing. Thanks. Altitude Adapt. You ever seen this stuff before, Brock?

No, but I have used some nitric oxide supplements. Not that one in particular.

I was. I was looking through the ingredient list and, you know, when I was doing that wilderness survival camp camp in Colorado.

The Zombie apocalypse.

The Zombie Apocalypse Apocalypse Camp. Now the coffee's kicking in. There are a lot of guys who struggled with altitude sickness, and I got a lot of questions about, oh, Ben, what can I take? What supplement should I use? How can I get rid of this altitude sickness as fast as possible? And in most cases, I of course, just told him to drink water because we didn't exactly have a GNC up on the mountain. This supplement in particular, this Altitude Adapt, I'd never heard of, I'd never used, but I looked at the ingredient label and it has a Lot of stuff in there that has been shown in research studies to help out when you're at altitude. So like high dose vitamin C, which helps to protect you against the oxidative stress that's going to occur as the air gets thinner, as the sun gets more intense, and as your body starts to have to deal with the stresses of altitude. It has magnesium in it, which relaxes the smooth muscles, that dilates your arteries so you get better blood flow. It's got vitamin B12 in there, which is another one that can help with altitude sickness in high doses and can also help to activate nitric oxide release, which, speaking of Viagra, is one of the main ways that you're, that your arteries and your blood vessels dilate. And then probably the most unique part about this particular supplement, this altitude adapt stuff, is they have beetroot extract in it and it looks like They've got about 400 to 500 milligrams or so of like beetroot powder mixed with hawthorn berry extract, which is pretty similar to beetroot in terms of it being, being like a nitric oxide precursor that's going to increase oxygen and glucose delivery to working muscle. So when you're looking at any effect of any supplement on the human body, for Brett or anybody else who's trying to figure out whether or not some supplement would be good for them, I really like this reference guidebook called the Supplement Goal Reference Guidebook. It's about an 800 page downloadable PDF, but what it does is it allows you to look at what's called a human effects matrix, where you can go in and see, okay, whatever increased blood flow or oxygen uptake, what supplements are rated A, B or C in terms of the body responding best to that supplement for that particular health goal? Well, it turns out that when we're looking at oxygen uptake, which for performance specifically at altitude is going to give you the most bang for your buck, the number one rated compound is what's called trimethylglycine. Now, trimethylglycine is most often referred to as betaine, and it is betaine. It's the active component of beetroot betaine.

Oh, okay.

So when we're talking about the supplement that's shown based on clinical research, to really have a very nice effect on oxygen uptake, altitude, it does turn out that beetroot, which is in this particular supplement, is the best way to improve performance at altitude, either beetroot or using a betaine supplement. Now, another way that you could kind of hack your way into this would be choline, which is going to cause a similar reaction as taking something like betaine or supplementing with something like beetroot. The thing that you need to be aware of though, and again you'd see this if you were looking through this supplements reference guide. I'll link to it in the show notes is that dosage is important and in many cases people hear that beetroot for example, is really good for them but don't take enough of it. So the standard doses that have been shown to have a really good effect in terms of oxygen uptake are anywhere from 1 to 6 grams per day of a beetroot extract. In many studies they're taking a 16 ounce beetroot juice each day for and loading with that for one to two weeks leading up to the event that takes place at altitude or the event for which they want the beetroot for. So when I look at a supplement like this, I go straight to the dosage. So looking at the dosage they have one, it looks like it's a lozenge. So it so like an absorbable pill that you put in your mouth, their nitric oxide blend is 420 milligrams. So we're looking at the low level of what would actually be necessary based off of studies. And if you really wanted to get the most potent kind of like 6 gram type of effect, you'd have to pop what, 1, 2, like 12 of these in order to get what has been shown in research to be really good oxygen uptake and oxygen delivery. So always look at the dosage, never just look at the ingredients when you're looking at something like this. But make sure you realize how many you're going to need to take. Are the ingredients in here efficacious? Absolutely. But know that you'd have to take a lot of them in my case. And I think this is probably because I use adaptogens on a daily basis. I take that, that TNT stuff on a daily basis. I have never had any issues at altitude. I mean I've gotten a little bit short of breath like you said, typically do when you're at higher altitudes but never experience any issues with altitude sickness. And I think it's because I take Adaptogens on a daily basis. I'm going to put a link for Brett in the show notes to a really, really good article on adaptogens. But when we're looking at well researched adaptogens which essentially work on, on the level of helping a certain stressed out metabolic system to release proper amounts of Things like nitric oxide precursors or sex hormones or adrenaline or anything else. Some of the better ones are American ginseng, ashwagandha root, Asian ginseng, cordyceps, rhodiola, eleuthero and licorice root extract. Those are some of the ones that have a lot of good research behind them in terms of being the type of things that, like Sherpas who guide people up Mount Everest would use, you know, when it comes to, like, medicinal extracts to assist with altitude. So in addition to beetroot extract, I would really look into the adaptogenic herb world because there are some pretty proven elements in there that really aren't in this particular blend that's in this altitude adapt stuff. And then of course, like we mentioned in the last podcast, always understand that some herbal compounds are kept in big bins in China and sprayed with ethylene oxide for years. And some of them are fresh. So make sure you look into the source. Usually you get what you pay for when it comes to adaptogens as well. And that's why, like this TNT stuff that I use, it's 90 bucks for about a month's supply. I'm willing to put that investment into it because it's pretty potent stuff. But again, you could potentially be consuming some pretty laced and nasty compounds if you're not careful with adaptogens. So they can be expensive to use. But I'll put a link to the Supplement Goals Reference Guidebook for Brett or anybody who wants to research whether or not a supplement actually has good research behind it. And then that article on Adaptogens and also the link to the the TNT stuff.

Hi, Ben and Brock, it's Valerie from Canada. I'm calling with question about diatomaceous earth. I've read that a lot of people will use it for removing parasites and that some farmers use it for getting rid of parasites in their livestock. And I'm just wondering if it is a safe and effective treatment for eliminating parasites and how it compares to other parasite removal methods.

So I guess we should probably start by explaining diatomaceous earth is where some diatoms have either lived or died in the earth. And a diatom is a type of algae.

Yes. Yep. Diatoms we talked about when we in the Bedbug episod episode that we did from Hawaii, we were talking about how if you really wanted to get rid of bed bugs, you sprinkle diatomaceous earth on your bed. And it's a rock. It's made. Well, it's like a powdered up Rock. But it's made from the skeletons of these diatoms that Brock talked about, which is a kind of algae. And when you grind it into a powder, it can eat through the exoskeleton of parasites and pests, pathogens and bed bugs without being harmful to the human body. So it's something that you would actually either sprinkle in an area, whatever, like a garden or a bed or anywhere else where you wanted to attack parasites, insects, pests, things of that nature, or you take orally as a detox or as a way to destroy pathogens. And it's pretty popular in alternative medicine. It is something that can work for parasites. You can get it even like off Amazon as something that you can use orally is like 1 to 2 tablespoons per day mixed in a glass, like an 8 to 10 ounce glass of water. You can drink this stuff. And it's not something that I've used. I use something else that I'll talk about in a second. But you could certainly use diatomaceous earth. It's safe. And there are many, many alternative medicines, medicine physicians in particular, who use this stuff as a detox.

Have you ever tried it?

Nope, I haven't tried it. But what I have used, I was.

Interested in what it tastes like. I guess I've eaten dirt before and it just sort of tastes irony.

I've used edible earth before. And edible earth is a mix of calcium bentonite and a special type of clay. And it's designed for cleansing and detox and fixing your digestive tract tract. I get that from the same place that I get my magnesium lotion and the magnesium bath flakes that I use. But it's a detoxing clay that, from what I understand, works pretty similarly in terms of its effect on the exoskeletal cell wall of something like a parasite or a pathogen. The nice part about something like the clay is, is it's also detoxicant for radiation exposure. You know, we just had that recent earthquake over in Japan. I actually, I went to reorder edible earth. It's out of stock right now. I'll put a link in the show notes if people want to try and grab some. I don't know when it comes back into stock, but it's really good for radiation exposure as well. And I wanted to, because we're going to be traveling near Asia, I wanted to get some and at least get it into my kids to help to protect them a little bit. But it's called edible earth. And I have used that before it is supposed to work similar to diatomaceous earth. And I've never had any issues. It does have kind of like a dirty, kind of metallic, earthy taste to it, but it's not bad. So what I've used though in the past when I've actually had a parasite and I've tested, using the direct labs, has a test that you can get and it's called the comprehensive Parasitology profile. If you've ever wondered if you have a parasite, if you've got periods of insomnia that you go through, if you have weird bowel movements, if you look in the mirror and you can see worms in your eyeballs. Anyways, Comprehensive parasitology profile. If you get one of those at direct labs and you find out that you have a parasitic and you want to get rid of it. What I've used in the past is oil of oregano. Now oil of oregano has some incredibly potent anti parasitic properties. You know, a lot of these herbs, do you know, garlic, oregano, even coconut oil. A lot of foods that you tend to find as staples in the diets of places where parasites tend to be more of an issue. You know, we tend to see more of these types of spices used, garlic, onion, you know, cayenne, oregano, all that type of stuff. But carvacrol is the active component in oil of oregano that can, similar to diatomaceous earth or clay, again break down the cell wall. And it's something that I take as a daily tonic when I'm trapped, traveling. And what I do is anywhere from 5, 10 drops sublingually. It's mixed in about a 7 to 1 ratio with Almond oil. And I'll simply consume that when I'm traveling to protect myself not only against airborne pathogens, but to also knock any parasites out of the ballpark. I'll use it before I swim in water that I'm concerned about, which is what I'll be doing when I'm racing over here in Thailand next month. I'll use it when I've been exposed to the cold or the flu or something else. So really, really good natural antibiotic, natural anti parasite. So that would be another thing that I'd recommend looking into that might be easier for you to use versus diatomaceous earth or edible earth. If you didn't want to do clay or didn't want to use a powder or wanted something small that you could keep, like in your makeup bag or your purse. But oil of oregano, I actually like.

The taste of oil of oregano too, where I think the edible earth is just sort of tolerable rather than being delicious.

Yeah, a lot of people don't care for the taste of the oil of oregano. And I can't say that I eat the stuff up and it's a satisfactory culinary experience.

But I've been tempted to put it on my like, put it in soup.

Use it as cologne.

There you go.

So yeah, you could use diatomaceous earth. You could use this edible earth clay stuff. You could use the oil of oregano. I'll toss some links in the show notes for you, Valerie, to the parasite test at Direct Labs, that comprehensive parasitology profile. I recommend everybody try and do that about once a year. And then also check out the edible earth stuff and the oil of oregano. Hey guys.

Love the show. Hello, my name is Scott. I have a question for you. I'm signed up to do this 11 mile extreme obstacle race. The race is in about 40 days. I'm very concerned about the distance. I'm only up to 4 miles currently. I feel like I'm running out of time. I really want to finish the race without killing myself. Is there a training protocol that you can recommend to help me get ready for the race? My goals are to finish the race with my team and to shed about 4 to 5% and body fat. I feel completely lost in how I can, how I should be organizing my training for an event like this. Your help is much appreciated. Cheers.

Thanks. Brock. Have you ever done an obstacle race?

I have not. I have not. And I, I can't say that I'm all that interested in it and mostly because you can't quantify it. Like sure you can finish it in a certain amount of time, but how do you know if you're getting better or worse or. I guess that's not the point.

Point.

I'm missing the point.

You just, you just do it for the, for the rush. So I, I have done some pretty fun. Like I did one like day long adventure race in Thailand where we did like rappelling and then you'd run through the jungle and jump off a cliff into the ocean and swim across the bay and get in a sea kayak. And you know that that was more of like an adventure race esque type of race. I did another one here in Idaho that was primarily mountain biking, orienteering, sea kayaking, hiking, running and swimming. But these spartan races kind of take it to the next level. Like you've got like fire and walls and roads. Electricity, Electricity. And they actually a lot of people think Spartans are just like these tiny little short 40 to 60 minute events but they've got the Super Spartan which is like 8 plus miles and 20 plus obstacles and it's like a three hour race. They've got got the Spartan beast which is 12 plus miles and 25 plus obstacles and and then of course they have the Spartan Death Race over in Vermont and that one's just nuts. That's like a multi day event that you can only even get into if you're like a, a Navy SEAL or you've been in in prison for X number of years or whatever. But I'm doing one in Las Vegas. I'm signed up for a Spartan race in Las Vegas. The Spartan. I'm doing a Super Spartan Spartan in Las Vegas in April. So that one should be interesting. You can go to the Spartan website and you can find a Spartan race near you. They've got a ton of them and I think it's a great way to kind of, kind of get full body fitness. The question is like Scott says, what kind of training protocol do you use for one of these type of races? Because you're obviously doing a bunch of different things. What? Well, first of all we talked about that Safari Fit phone app, we talked about the Paleo Fitness type of book, we talked about that MMA book, Warrior Cardio. Any of those are going to get you in pretty decent fitness for something like this. But if you want something that actually has you for example, running and then going straight from running around a track, like running 8 hundreds on a track, to doing push ups, doing some jumps, maybe simulating a climb with some pull ups and then you know, a bunch of burpees and going back out to the track and you know, kind of throwing you through the rigors of what you might experience physiologically during something like an obstacle race. I'd suggest this program called Race Day Domination. We interviewed the guy from Race Day Domination. There's an article about it. I'll put a link in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 262 but it's an article on obstacle course race workouts. This entire program is based around like I just explained the idea of doing a bunch of exercises and then running really hard like on a track or wherever, you know, keeping yourself next to a treadmill at the gym, however you dec decide to do it and then doing a bunch of exercises again and then running really hard. And really as simple as that sounds, that's pretty much what it comes down to when you're looking at the type of physiology you'll be work working during an obstacle race as far as shedding body fat at the same time, I don't think you're gonna need to worry about that.

Yeah, that should just happen.

Yeah, that's. I mean, assuming that you're not engaging in compensatory eating and you know, you're not making yourself 1000 calorie Jamba Juice style smoothies after every workout because you feel like you earned it after running your 3,800meter, you know, hard repeats around the track. You're going to be good. So I wouldn't worry too much about the fat loss. I would just focus on the performance and the fat loss will kind of come on its own. But yeah, I mean, I don't want to blow off the question, but you pretty much do just that. You, you run and then you do a series of exercises and then you run again. And I will certainly link to that article that we did on obstacle course race workouts in the show notes for you because it's pretty comprehensive and there's even like a sample workout in there. There's links to this race day domination program and pretty much everything that you need to know as far as, as far as that goes. So cool. By the way, speaking of, of everything that you need to know, did you know that the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast is better than Google search according to an itunes review that we got this week?

Okay, it's like, how are you defining that information?

Megs? Megs1768, if you're listening in, then email us because we read your review on itunes and we loved it. And I want to send you you a care package straight from the official Ben Greenfield Fitness skyscraper offices here in Washington. We're going to send you a hat, a T shirt, and a water bottle from Ben Greenfield Fitness. But it's because of this review that Meg's left on itunes. Want to hear it?

Yeah, let's hear it.

So here's what she says. Ben Greenfield Podcast. Better than Google Search Ben and Brock. Cover everything you can possibly imagine that has to do with health, fitness and biohacking. If you have a problem skip Googling it, you will just come up with all sorts of pseudoscience and unsubstantiated articles. Instead, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and get the real information from well researched studies and the experts he interviews on the podcast and in his articles. Isn't that nice?

Can't argue with that.

So. So for any venture Capitalists, angel investors, people like that. Google. We are the next Google, apparently. So if you want to invest just again, email us separately Ben greenfieldfitness.com and we'll fill you in. And you could be on board for the next Google search engine right there. Don't get left behind and bags right. Write us too. Let me know your address. Write me Ben greenfieldfitness.com and I'll send you a care package. And if you want to leave an itunes review, we'll put a link in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 262 and you could leave your thoughts.

We'll also leave a link to audible, audiblepodcast.com Ben which is where you can go. You can follow that link and you can get yourself a free membership to audible.com for one month anyway. And you can download yourself a free book that you can keep forever.

That's right. And we actually have a special guest at the end of this episode talking about his book that you can find on Audible. So stay tuned for that. And then a couple other things for if you're a podcast listener, you're only going to hear this on the podcast, but if you go to gift from Ben, Brock and I have a special little deal for you over there@giftfromben.com and we also have a little surprise waiting for you over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Love. Love. So check out BenGreenfieldFitness.com Love and perhaps I'll see any of our California listeners as I trek across California next week. Week.

And maybe I'll see some of you in New York City, the New York City Marathon. And while I eat and drink my way across the city after the marathon.

That's right. That's right. So I think, I think we've, we've covered a lot today. So what do you think, Brock? Should we wrap things up and move on to our, our final special guest today?

Let's talk to Vinnie.

Hey, folks, what's up? It's Ben Greenfield and Vinnie's back. I got Vinny Tortorich on today, the author of the book Fitness Confidential, which just came out in audiobook. You'll be able to get that audiobook in the links over on the show notes@BenGreenfieldFitness.com and Dean, you actually have a little special guest appearance in that recording, huh?

Yeah, you said Dean, but yes, it is Dean. Dean, Laurie, here's the crazy thing. You know, Dean, Laurie has been a Hollywood writer and producer for a lot of years. He's written a lot of books in his own right. But Dean is and you know, he's crazy famous in one group. You know, he did that show Arrested Development.

That's show's hilarious.

Yeah, people love that show. And Dean is also right now, as we speak last week, his new show on cbs, the Crazy Ones, starring Robin Williams, just premiered as the number one new hit of the season of all the networks. And that same guy came in at the end, at the end of the book. And we did like, as we call it in Louisiana, a little lagniappe. He came in and he and I just went off the cuff for like 15 minutes on what it's like to write a book. So if anyone ever wanted to write a book, I know a lot of people out there have their own stories they want to write. Dean and I talk about the process and that goes on for an extra 15 minutes in the book.

Nice. So the name of the book is Fitness Confidential. And it turns out you cannot just hear Vinnie's lulling voice, but you also get that special guest appearance by Hollywood celebrity Dean Laurie. So check it out. You can get it on audible, you can get it on Amazon, you can get it in itunes. I'll put a link to it in the show notes over on BenGreenfieldFitness.com Vinnie, thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having me, Ben.

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