What Are The Best Fat Loss Supplements, Controlling Blood Sugar During Ketosis, Natural Asthma Remedies and More!

In today's episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, what are the best fat loss supplements? What to do about worn cartilage? Controlling blood sugar during ketosis? Natural remedies for exercise induced asthma. Does ADHD medication affect performance? And how to heal injured ribs?

Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. We provide you with free exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon, and wellness advice from the top fitness experts in the nation. So whether. 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.

Okay, brace yourself.

I'm braced.

I had some tea and chi earlier this morning and then I had a high fat coffee with lots of extra MCT oil and I think I'm kind of on the verge of freaking out.

Yeah, you're a nerd. Dude, we have completely geeked out on this biohacking thing. I think we've probably ruined both of our chances of ever being laid ever in the future.

Yeah, I wonder how that feels.

I. It's like, what, getting laid or.

Yeah, it's kind of like your left hand, isn't it?

Yeah. I don't know. Sometime we'll have to break out of our nerd podcasting mode and go. Go explore worldly pleasures. But.

Okay, but not right now, though, because I want to talk about something else. Nerdy. I tried the Sweet Beat app for the first time last night, and then again this morning. I sent you my report because I want to get your opinion, but apparently I'm incredibly stressed.

You're incredible. You mean like your heart rate variability was low?

It was low. And my stress level number was like a five. And I think. I think it's a five out of five, which.

Yeah, yeah. You know, we actually did an interview on the phone app last week with. With Rhonda, and we went into kind of like, like heart rate variability 201 or whatever, kind of like some of the more advanced stuff. And if you're testing your morning heart rate variability, and for nobody who has any clue what we're talking about, go.

To the iPhone app or the Android app and listen to the interview.

Yeah, or just go to the website and do a search for heart rate variability. It's cool, cool, cool. Shizzle. Anyways, though, the deal with that is that you want to make sure that when you first get that app and you start using it, it's not expensive. It's like $4. $4.99 $4.99. There you go. It requires you to do, like, a baseline measurement. And sometimes if you don't do your baseline measurement or you have your settings to be, like, super duper sensitive to your heart rate variability, then it can. It can kind of like freak you out if you're there in the morning taking your stress levels, and they're really, really high. I figured out something, though. If you ever use any type of kind of, like, pharmaceutical med, you sleep, whether it be Benadryl or, like, any antihistamine, any of these, like, Valium type of derivatives or whatever. I forget what the street name for Valium is. The street name, the pharmaceutical. Yeah, they all, like, dump your heart rate variability into the trash. So really interesting. Really, really interesting that that stuff has an effect on the nervous system. So now that our only listeners are the ones wearing the propeller hats, let's go ahead and move on.

Luckily, I think that's like 90% of our audience. But don't tell them.

News flashes.

All right, if you go over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 24-5 and scroll down to the section that says news flashes, you'll be able to find the links to all these super awesome. Some cool studies that Ben's about to.

Highlight for us or studies that are kind of dumb, like this one on.

So this week you've chosen stupid ones. Awesome.

Okay, so this was a systematic review of the efficacy of ergogenic aids for improving running performance.

And ergogenic aid would be something that gives you a slight advantage, like bump in your energy.

Yeah, so they. They investigated in this review, like, tons and tons and tons of studies that examine the effects of different ergogenic aids on running performance and. Drum roll, please. The. The top ergogenic aids for runners from middle distance or kind of short distance, like 400 meter all the way up to 40 kilometer, which is slightly longer than 400 meter. For those of you who do the math, do the imperial system. Top supplements. What do you think they were?

I don't think we need another drum roll, though.

All right, drum roll.

I'm gonna say cocaine. Methamphetamine.

Close, close. You're going down the right trail with the white powder. Sodium bicarbonate was the top supplement for middle distance. And by middle distance, they mean 400 meter up to 5k. Sodium bicarbonate. That's the thing where you load with a bunch of it and it buffers lactic acid. It's also. It gives you diarrhea and constipation, which is probably this is terrible. Probably why it was only good for up to about 5k. So don't, don't know why it makes.

You run so fast.

Shove this stuff down hatch. Yeah, Clinch, clinch, clinch. Sodium bicarbonate though is number one. So there you go. Number two was caffeine. Yeah, I just had a sip of.

My coffee while you said that.

There you go. Might as well go for a run now. That was across all variables for caffeine and I've certainly kind of studied that myself. And my whole deal with caffeine is it's like catch 22 because it does really, really help you during the performance. And then you're just, once you finish, you're just like buzzed for hours. If you use the actual amount of caffeine that's necessary for an ergogenic aid, which is it's like 3 to 5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. You know, it comes out to either drinking four to five big cups of coffee or else just like popping some no dose tabs. So caffeine though is number two and then the last one. And this is why I thought the study was kind of dumb because I don't consider this to be an ergogenic aid as much as just like, why would you say sugar food? Yeah, sugar, carbohydrate, basically.

Oh, okay.

So, yeah, and of course it should go without saying that all of these studies were done in athletes who were eating a normal, normal kind of typical diet, weren't fat adapted, weren't metabolically efficient, you know, per se. And so of course carbohydrate is going to offer a performance advantage for them too. But you know, even for, for folks who are in like whatever, ketosis, eating a low carb diet, etc. If any of you were to throw back a bunch of carbohydrate before you go out and run or a bike ride or whatever. Yeah, I mean, it's like, it is like, you know, you talk about cocaine, it is you know, literally like, you know, injecting amphetamines through a horse syringe into your right butt cheek.

I snorted a banana before my run yesterday and it was awesome.

But there are of course some health implications down the road and it kind of pulls you out of fat burning and whatnot. But there you go. Sodium bicarbonate, caffeine and carbohydrate were the top three.

All right, not entirely stupid.

No. Another study that I thought was cool and this was another kind of like review or meta analysis that looked at a bunch of different studies. This one looked at a bunch of different studies and looked at whether or not respiratory muscle training works or not. And this would be like those, you know, using those little contraptions that look like kazoos, those power lung devices and breathing into those, sucking air through a.

Tiny straw or somehow compromising your, your airway.

Yeah. Or using like one of those elevation training masks or. Yeah, like you say, breathing through a straw even. And this is something that I've been doing quite a bit of just like breathing through your nose rather than your mouth when you're exerc. If you're a swimmer using like one of those finis front mounted snorkels and putting a, you can get a flow restrictor on those called a cardio cap. That's another form of restricted muscle breathing. So it's not like, it's not like hypoxic training or altitude training where you get an altitude tent or an altitude training mask or you go up to elevation to train. It's just restricted muscle breathing. So you're training your inspiratory and excretory muscles to have to work a little bit harder. And all this meta analysis did was it looked at whether or not there is indeed an improvement in things like exercise endurance time repetitions that you're able to perform, especially in like sprints type of efforts, muscle strength, specifically inspiratory and expiratory muscle strength. And the conclusion of the meta analysis was that respiratory muscle training can indeed improve sports performance quite significantly. So, you know, my, my practical advice to folks based on this is just, just find something that works for you. I'm actually working on, on putting a, my list up over on the Facebook page where I'm kind of like, I'm finding all the different devices that are out there. Like there's one called a breath Slim that's actually used for, for weight loss. You know, there's the power lung device, there's the elevation training mask. There. There are actually a bunch of different resistance training muscle devices out there. I'm going to make a list of them and put them up on the Facebook page. But ultimately, you know, having one of these even just like keeping a power lung in the, you know, glove compartment of your car and using that when you're, you know, driving or commuting, stuff like this actually works people. So there you go.

Now would you say that a really good place to start would be to just like, especially if you're out for a run or a bike ride is just breathe through your nose first. Before you launch into buying a whole bunch of this kind of stuff.

Crazy crap. Well, yeah, for me it's about like what's practical. And like, I, I honestly, like, I don't commute, I don't drive my car much. I don't, I really have time to use like a power lung. And it would probably annoy my wife if I were to whip that thing out during dinner and you know, use my, use my power lung. They probably would. But no, for me it's just been nose breathing, nasal breathing, and that helps a ton actually, because it really does train you to breathe more slowly and interestingly. I'll link in the show notes for this episode over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 245 to an interview that we did at EndurancePlanet.com really interesting interview last week for those of you who are into biohacks and alternative medicine and cutting edge stuff. It was with this guy named Mark Serkis who's a doctor who is actually not even allowed to practice in the US because he got kicked out of the US and he lives in Brazil. And he's an interesting dude and very interesting perspective on a lot of stuff. But he talks about how training yourself to breathe more slowly has a lot of downstream effects on not just performance, but also just like longevity and decreased risk of chronic disease and stuff like that. So he's actually a fan of resisted breathing devices for more like kind of a health effect. But either way, cool stuff and turns out that it works.

So actually he talked about the sodium bicarbonate as well. Like that last study, we were talking about that being ergogenic aid, but he was talking not sodium. It was magnesium bicarbonate.

Magnesium bicarbonate. And he has some really cool protocols that we haven't even gotten into on this podcast. We'll probably save it for another day or whatever, but using a nebulizer to deliver magnesium bicarbonates literally just straight into the body through the airways prior to performance. He's on our Superhuman Coach Network board of directors, the mastermind that I run for personal trainers. And he's, he's in there and he has some, some really, really cool advice. But you know, again, like, he kind of like gets a little woo woo too sometimes. So you gotta, you gotta reign him in.

But don't we all?

Yeah. Who's talking? So the last one that I wanted to mention was the best two ab exercises. What are the best two ab exercises? What do you think, Brock? This is a study that looked at a bunch, you know, Crunches, sit ups, ab rollers.

I'm sure it involves one of those seen on TV devices.

It's got a electromyographic like everything. They looked at everything. What do you think were the top two ab exercises you could do to get a stronger core?

Probably like planking and some sort of like Bulgarian stand up.

Romanian, not Bulgarian, something European.

One of those Eastern European places that make you stand up wearing a big weight.

Yeah, no, it's pretty straightforward. The, the barbell squat and the barbell deadlift. So compared to any other ab exercise that exists on the face of the planet, including the as seen on TV ones, when you looked at electromyographic analysis of core muscle and lower back muscle involvement across the board squat and deadlift.

Well, I understand the deadlift for sure and the squat. I guess if you've got a barbell across your shoulders that helps a lot. But I thought what about like a pull up?

No, no.

Weird.

Yeah. And it's simply because of the spinal loading and the, the breathing and the internal pressures that are, that are created when you squat and you deadlift properly. So and you know, by the way, just for folks who are listening who really don't know how to squat or deadlift the right way, probably the best two books I could point you to for movement patterns for the squat and the deadlift. One is Starting Strength by Mark Rippeto, really good book. And the other one is Becoming a Supple Leopard by Brian Mackenzie. Or no, Brian MacKenzie is a CrossFit guy. Yeah, Kelly Starrett. Yeah, exactly. So check those books out. Starting Strength and Becoming a Supple Leopard. Best two ab exercises, squat and deadlift. Do them right. Get your flats and stomach, get your beach body and yeah, that's it for the studies.

Special announcements.

So Thailand, I can hardly wait.

Yeah, that's right.

Going. I don't know why I'm excited.

The 2013 Thailand Triathlon Adventure. Got three spots left in that and for the, for the pre camp that we're doing where we're gonna be basically going over health, nutrition, running, swimming, cycling, efficiency, economy, skill development, everything rather than like a beat you up and spit you out style camp, that one we've got five slots left in. So either way, if you want to get in on the whole thing, you know what, I'll tell you right now what the expenses associated with this thing are. But you can also go to pacificfit.net Thailand pacificfit.net Thailand if you want to get in, it's this winter. It's going to be freaking awesome. We're going to be there. Depending on how long you want to go, you can go anywhere from one up to three weeks. But it's just a straight up four hundred dollar fee and I take care of everything for you. Hotel discounts, airport transfers, bike transfers, boat transfers, restaurant reservations, everything. And then for the pre camp that we're doing, the five day pre camp, 800 bucks if you want a roommate, 1100 dollars if you want a king size room all to yourself. It's living in luxury, all inclusive. So ultimately like that might sound expensive to some folks but that's actually, if you, if you look across the board, that's a pretty dirt cheap camp.

It's some luxury too.

Yeah.

Nice.

Yeah.

Not only is the area beautiful, but those hotels are just impeccable.

Yeah. So if you want to get started in triathlon and kind of kick things off with a really fun bang or if you want to basically get faster, learn how to do it the right way and also just come hang out and party with some of the funnest folks on the planet, come on down to Thailand. So check that out, put a link in the show notes and tell them.

About the hills in the, during the triathlon. Yeah, that'll scare them off.

Yeah, it's, it was not, it's, you know the two races that we do during that adventure, they're not easy but they're, they're dang fun and. Yeah, and it's totally worth going. You don't have to be like a, like a pointy headed triathlon freak to be able to do this stuff. It's just, yeah, it's a, it's a blast. So even if you're just getting started, check that out. Pacificfit.net Thailand and then the other thing is that on July 10, what is it? July 12. So I am forcing my wife right now to log her diet using the usda, the free USDA tracking tool, the diet logging tool. And she's logging it and we're going to sit down and do like a full on how to analyze your nutrition workshop where we're going to teach you everything to look for the best tracking tools, the best logging tools, how to make sense of what you see and basically how to know if you're getting enough micronutrients, macronutrients, everything. Like I've been logging my personal diet and kind of putting it out to members of my inner circle and it's interesting. I am at 80% fat intake right now, 20% protein and 10% carb. And I'm at about 3,500 to 4,000 calories a day. And my total carb intake, I actually thought it was closer to like 150 grams per day, but I'm actually down around, depending on the day, 50 to 100 grams of carbohydrates a day. It's really interesting, the difference between what you think that you're eating and what you're actually eating, whether it be like macronutrients or micronutrients or whatever. Like, I get way more sodium than I thought too. Like I'm up at about 6,000 milligrams or so of sodium a day, which for a lot of people, you know, it's like, shocker, high blood pressure, whatever.

Six times what is recommended. I think 1500 is a recommendation.

Yeah, my blood pressure.

You're only four times over.

Yeah, my BP is like 110 over 60. And you know, so there's, if you do the right kind of salt and it's not the aluminum caked, you know, table salt that you tend to find most places, you know, I use a really, really high quality. I actually use an Aztecan sea salt. It's not even a Himalayan. And it's, it's a new one that I found. And I'll be, I'll be emailing pretty soon all my newsletter subscribers about that particular Aztec and sea salt that I'm using. But it's, it's cool stuff. So anyways though, that whole webinar that we're gonna do is for our inner circle members. So if you're, if you're not yet part of the inner circle. 10 bucks a month. The best 10 bucks a month you'll ever spend. Unless you happen to find something like. I don't know, I guess. Yeah. If you live, if you live in Thailand where you can get 90 minute massages for 10 bucks, that's probably a better $10. So. But if that's, if that's not the case, it doesn't last as long. Yeah, there you go. And we have happier endings inside the inner circle. So anyways, I'm biting my tongue. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com inner circle. Get in on that workshop and bada boom, bada bing. I think that's about it.

At first glance, triathletes appear to be a pretty fit group, at least with clothes on. But it's pretty common for triathletes to have tiny arms, a thin and weak neck, a stick like midsection, and a body that's just too skinny. But just imagine if your arms were cut and defined, your chest and shoulders were ripped, your waistline was tapered like a V, your stomach was flat and hard, and your legs were sleek and curvaceous. In other words, what if you had the ultimate triathlon body? Now you can learn how to swim, bike, and run fast and look incredibly sexy doing it. Go to tryript.com to start today. That's try rippd.com. Listener Q&A.

Hi, Ben and Brock. It's Fiona from Massachusetts, AKA Fit Brit Mom. I wondered if you could give me your expert opinion on cisus extract for managing and maintaining good joints and bone health as well as weight management. I work out about five, six days a week, mainly running, and I'm looking to do my second half marathon in the fall. The big 4o is right around the corner. It's next year, and I have family history of arthritis in the feet and knees. So I'm looking for anything that can help me definitely dodge that and help me run, bike, and train the way that I'm used to doing right now. If you have any brands that you could recommend for scissors, or if you think that it's a complete waste of time, is there anything else that would be good to take or any foods that I should really be eating to really help with the bone and joint and muscle maintenance and repair after I've been training? I'd really love to hear your feedback. Thanks so much. I absolutely love the show, as you already know, and you and Brock are just the best. Thanks so much.

Hey, it's Fit Brit mom.

Fit Brit mom who actually sent.

She wrote an awesome itunes thing.

Yeah, she. She wrote us an itunes review, and I actually sent her a killer care package the other day for. For that. Any. By the way, anybody who leaves us an itunes review if. If we choose your review and read it at the end of the show, and I do have a good one picked out for the end of this show, then we. We send you a pretty sweet care package. So I sent out a T shirt, a book, bunch of supplements. So cool stuff. Definitely it's a good reason to leave a review. And frankly, not. Not a lot of people leave reviews. So there's a pretty good chance that you're going to get some free stuff if you leave a review.

Way better than the lottery.

There you go. Way better than the lottery.

Okay, so back to her question. Cystis extract. Extract for the joint health.

Yes. Sisis is originally marketed as, like, a joint health supplement, and it's actually pretty popular, kind of like in the MMA crowd, because it does have a little bit of efficacy in terms of its ability to suppress joint inflammation and joint pain. And there are some decent human studies behind it that show that it has some anti osteoporotic effects and some bone regeneration abilities. It specifically can up regulate your, what's called your osteoblastic activity or your ability to kind of like create new bone cells. So yeah, it's got some decent research behind it. It also has been researched specifically in obese or overweight individuals. And there is some evidence that when you're taking it right up around in the range of 300 to 500 milligrams per day that you can actually see some decent reductions in body fat. And there have been specifically studies where they've taken obese or overweight individuals and done a placebo trial versus a trial with the cissis extract and found some pretty good weight reduction. There were some confounding variables in those studies, like they were using some of these fat loss cocktails that are like Cystis combined with green tea and B vitamins and stuff like this. But overall it seems that there may be some anti obesity effects. There's definitely some anti osteoporotic effects and some bone regeneration abilities. The unfortunate thing though is when you're talking about arthritis, that's different than just bone density. I mean, in many cases arthritis can be more related to autoimmune issues or to just a whole body inflammation more than it can be related necessarily to something like low bone density. So you know, if we're talking about joint pain due to, due to like low bone density or like even stress fractures, things of that nature, there may be some efficacy to using cystis, there may be some efficacy to using it for fat loss, especially if you're obese or overweight. But I would recommend that before you turn to something like that, first of all, you get your diet dialed in, I would highly recommend you check out the website inflammationfactor.com and that was started by Monica Reinagle, a friend of the show who spoke at our Superhuman conference. She's known as the nutrition diva on itunes. And what this inflammation factor website is is it rates a food based off of its inflammatory or specifically it's pro inflammatory and its anti inflammatory potential. And certain foods have some levels of pro inflammatory, like say like a blueberry, for example, the sugars and the fructose and some of those type of compounds in a blueberry are technically pro inflammatory, while the anthocyanins and the flavonoids and the polyphenols and stuff like that in a blueberry are anti inflammatory. So blueberry has a certain score on this scale of inflammation. And if you look at other foods, you know, certain foods have a higher inflammation factor. Certain foods have a lower inflammation factor. So if we look at some of the foods that have the higher factor rating and actually it's kind of confusing because a very high if rating means that it is better for fighting inflammation. But some of the foods that have a very high if rating that are better for fighting inflammation would be garlic peppers, incidentally, unless you have like Hashimoto's disease or something like that. Sometimes peppers can aggravate stuff like that. Parsley is really good. Dark leafy greens, of course, like kale and mustard greens and spinach. Onions are good. Salmon like a good wild caught, fatty fish. Avocados rank really high. And then apple cider vinegar is another one. So there are some made the perfect salad. Mm. Or the smoothie. I don't know about the. I don't know if I'd throw any peppers and garlic into a smoothie myself. But yeah, perfect salad. You know, get some kale, dark leafy greens and parsley, some onions. Put some fish and avocado on there. Use a little apple cider vinegar, extra virgin olive oil dressing. Toss that bad boy back every day. There you go. But yeah, I mean, look at your diet first when it comes to. To family history of arthritis. Because whenever we're looking at family history, we're talking about genetics, right? And genetics are like a stick of dynamite. So you're walking around with a stick of dynamite, but unless you actually light it, you know, and cause it to explode, it's not really as much of an issue. And so you, you light the dynamite. Pardon my violent analogy by I like it. So, so yeah, I mean, don't, don't go eat at McDonald's. Don't blow yourself up unless you want to blow yourself up. So and then regarding the fat loss component of cystis, you know, I'm personally, when we're talking about fat loss supplements, a bigger fan of supplements that tend to have an effect on insulin and blood sugar. And so probably the number one fat loss supplement that I recommend to just about everybody, the one that I personally use, I mean, even though I'm not. Not fat per se, it's what I use to control my blood glucose levels because frankly, like, you know, I have many, many nights of the week where I will do like dark chocolate and red wine. You know, I talk about how I'M how I'm eating 50 to 100 grams of carbohydrates on a daily basis. That's honestly. Yeah, honestly, like that's a lot of it is, is at night or sometimes, you know, I'll have like a little bit of white rice or whatever with dinner. So I use bitter melon extract, one of the best blood glucose and insulin stabilizers that you can use. I basically pop two capsules 30 minutes before dinner. And I swear by that stuff, I mean like it's so good, it's similar to the diabetic drug metformin in terms of its efficacy and dumping your blood glucose values down. But like if you take it before workout, you frankly have a crappy workout because it shoves your blood glucose levels so low. So it's, it's one of those things that you time prior to a meal and like I swear by the stuff, like I, I literally like almost every single day now before dinner, pop two of those 30 minutes before dinner and I swear by it. For, for fat loss and stuff like that. There are some other, like over at Pacific Elite Fitness, I have a fat loss pack that I designed and it's a combination of that and then basically kind of like a lean muscle enhancer and then a little bit of a metabolism booster, like a green tea extract with some tyrosine and some other insulin controlling compounds like chromium and vanadium. You know, if you're trying to lose weight as quickly as possible, I think it's like 120, 130 bucks, something like that for a month long supply. So it's not like chump change but that, you know, if you're trying to just like step up fat loss as fast as possible and you wanted, you know, you're already exercising, you're already eating an anti inflammatory super healthy diet, you want to throw in the extra 5% or whatever, you know, that's where something like that comes in. But as far as the best fat loss supplement, I would say that bitter melon extract beats the pants off SISIS in terms of the research that I've seen on it and also my own personal experience with it. So.

Hey, Ben Brock, this is Steve from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Love your show. My question is about meniscus injuries and tears and surgeries and generally it always seems to come down to after you've had a meniscal surgery, it's now bone on bone, you have less meniscus, hence less cushioning. So just don't run. I have to run. The other alternative I Guess at one point in my life, I was. I drank a lot and did some drugs, and I had a really, really bad lifestyle, and I was about £200, and I started running and changed my life. And within five months, I'd run a half marathon, lost 60 pounds. All in all, running became my new passion. Maybe a little too much from one addiction to the next. And next thing you know, I was doing 100k trail races and required meniscal surgery because I had a tear. First surgery did not go too well. I could not get back to running afterwards, so I still seek a second opinion, and I had a second surgery from a different doctor. So I did take your advice and got a McDavid leg brace. I did do, you know, a lot of quad strengthening, a lot of squats, a lot of lunges, a lot of deadlifts. You know, I kept up with my stretching and my rumble roller. I did some acupuncture to help engage my glutes, to help take some of the pressure off the leg and the knee. But at the end of the day, you know, it's still bugging. I really just want to be a good example for my kids to grow up and realize that, you know, running can be good. I promise I won't abuse it again. Wow.

Two knee surgeries and still can't run. I don't like your odds, Steve.

Yeah, yeah. Bone on bone. I mean, this is why all runners eventually become cyclists, right? It's like, you get to a point and, I mean, like, I'm gonna be honest with you, like, with me doing Ironman as much as I'm doing Ironman and stuff, like. Like, I know that I'm gonna have some knee problems and some joint issues later on in life if I keep on doing what I'm doing. I mean, like, the human body was not really kind of like, you know, we. We just haven't adapted the ability to be able to pound the pavement, so to speak, or run on concrete or whatever for long periods of time. And, you know, there. There is some hope in terms of some of these newer strategies that are emerging, especially when it comes to, like, stem cells and prolotherapy. Those would probably be the two biggest areas of hope for you when it comes to this stuff.

And when you say stem cell, you don't mean, like, the ones that are illegal that you have to pull from a fetus. You mean the ones that they're, like, pulling out of your own fat.

Well, I mean, and, you know, kind of toeing an ethical line here. I mean, either, like if you were to go to Europe or Asia where you can get your hands on embryonic stem cells, you can go there to medical clinics and get those injected. And there is some evidence that they can do things like literally regrow areas of damaged cartilage and tendons and ligaments. But you can also harvest very, very similar stem cells from fat cells. You can harvest them from bone marrow and do basically what's called an autologous stem cell injection. And we're not talking about cheap stuff here, but you know, if you're wanting to pull out all the stops and just like try the last possible thing for you to be able to run, that's an option, prolotherapy, which is kind of similar. That's the injection of like a sugar solution or pretty much anything that's going to introduce mild amounts of inflammation into that joint area and potentially upregulate healing. That's another option as well. And there are even, and I talked about this recently in a blog post over on BenGreenfieldFitness.com they also make compounds that supposedly upregulate your own production of stem cells, such as cellargen is one compound. And that's like a cellular marine complex combined with collagen. There's another one that's basically marine phytoplankton, which for lack of a better word is just like gooey liquid green algae. And that's another example of something that supposedly upregulates your own natural stem cell formation. But ultimately, like in a case like this where we're talking about pure bone on bone ultra runner, two meniscus surgeries, you'd probably have to go over more of the injectables. We're talking about a pretty sizable investment. Buying a plane ticket, going over to Asia or Europe and doing like full on injection or like, you know, flying down to Florida, down to, down to David Minkoff's LifeWorks Wellness center down there and doing a bunch of prolotherapy with a guy like that, you know, if it was me personally, I would start to consider the fact that, you know, maybe there are other things that could keep you happy other than running. I mean, you know, go, go buy a killer road bike. You know, go, go pick yourself up a Trek Madone or grab one of these Elliptigos. I use my Elliptigo a bunch. And for me, anytime I wake up, and for me it's a run day and my joints are sore or I know I'm going to be running with poor Biomechanics and potentially causing more damage than good. I just hop on my Elliptigo and it's a total geek fest. And I get these. You know how like one guy in Harley Davidson passes another guy and they have like their secret wave and.

Yeah, they have their nod or the one finger wave.

Yeah. Or even like two guys who see each other and pickup trucks. You know, it's the one finger or the nod or whatever. You know, when you're. When I'm riding my elliptigo down the trail, it's similar. Like the people on like the, like the geeky homemade, like, recumbent bikes or the folks who are like, you know, doing like the, like the weird little rollerblade ski things with the poles down the trail. Like anybody doing anything that's, that's mildly or remotely just geeky or nerdy or whatever, I get the nod from those folks when I'm on my Elliptigo. So. So slightly nerdy, but still kind of cool. You know, that's another option if you want to kind of like get the feel of running without any of that, that joint pain. You know, you're doing a lot of things that are right, you know, strength training for your legs and your glutes, working on like, like, you know, the vastus medialis muscle to ensure that your quadriceps are in a position to where they're able to stabilize the movement of your, of your kneecap or of your patella. You know, mobility work would be especially important. It sounds like you're doing some foam rolling, you're bracing it. You know, you're probably to the point where you either need to spend some big bucks and go do some stem cell or some prolotherapy, or else just like, you know, turn to some alternatives to running, you know, and some other things to kind of, kind of hit that dopamine receptor that running is giving you, you know, because it is kind of a chemical addiction that can be hard to break. And, you know, so you may also need to, whatever, learn how to play the banjo or have more sex or something like that, or do both at the same time. Potentially, potentially. We, we all know that playing a banjo leads to better sex anyway, so there you go.

I can attest, personally.

So anyway, Steve, it may just be an issue here of kind of moving on from running or trying something a little bit more hardcore in terms of recovery here. Hi, Ben and Brock. I'm Eric from Golden, Colorado. I've been keto athlete for the past year now. And my Question's regarding all the blood sugar hacks. Is there any point in me doing a lot of cinnamon and bitters to regulate blood sugar if I'm keto? Anyways, wondering if that's what Ben's gonna do. And also wondering if you had noticed.

Any poor odor coming out of your mouth. You had the ketogenic breath. Kind of interested in that. Thanks.

Bye. You know, this is an interesting question because I just got done talking about how I kind of try to suppress my own blood glucose levels with something like that MPX 100. And, you know, if you were to. So I use those metron breath test tubes for ketosis, where I breathe into that tube for 30 seconds, and based off of your breath levels of ketosis will. Or your breath levels of acetone, and a lot of these byproducts of ketosis will tell you whether or not you're actually in ketosis. And that actually is that breath issue that he refers to the production of acetone from the breakdown of what's called acetoacetic acid, that's pretty common when it comes to your body actually producing this ketogenic breath. I've personally found from my own experience and the experience of some folks who I've worked with getting into ketosis, that that tends to subside, I suspect because the body is doing a little bit better job generating ATP rather than generating acetone from the breakdown of acetoacetic acid. And so your ketone breath tends to kind of become less and less of an issue the longer you're doing low carb or the longer you're in ketosis. But I certainly notice it in myself every now and again. And especially if you're doing a ketogenic diet, when you wake up in the morning after that overnight fast, it can be pretty noticeable. But the thing is, the reason that I mentioned this was a lot of people will just wake up and they'll kind of already be in ketosis. And when I use that ketone breath measurement in the morning, I'm consistently in kind of a ketotic state when I wake up in the morning. And then as soon as you go through your day and you start dumping whatever protein which is going to potentially get turned into glucose or spike insulin levels, or you get mild doses of carbohydrate here and there, you're kind of at a point where you're pulling yourself out of ketosis throughout the day, and there are little hacks that you can use, you know, what Eric refers to as blood sugar hacks, to actually kind of stabilize your insulin levels and result in a lower spike in blood sugar. So that bitter melon extract that I talked about, that's an example of one. Cinnamon would be another. These are all things you would want in your bloodstream prior to eating that high protein or high carbohydrate meal. Okay. Or, you know, or during if you have to. But preferably, rather than taking that stuff in and what's called postprandial state, you're taking it in prior to the meal. So cinnamon works really well.

Decent amount, just like a half hour before the meal. Or does it have to be like hours before?

No, half hour. Ish is a pretty good rule. But cinnamon, you're looking at decent amounts of cinnamon, like one to two teaspoons of cinnamon. My wife actually, when I told her we were out of cinnamon the other day, she's like, what in the hell? She's like, I just bought cinnamon. I'm like, I'm using a lot of. I'm like, like, I'm doing ketosis. I'm using a lot of cinnamon right now. So cinnamon, the bitter melon extract. There's some evidence that vitamin C may have a pretty decent effect on the insulin as well. So, like a whole foods vitamin C source that you could get off of Amazon or whatever, you know, a good 4 to 6 grams, which is a lot of vitamin C. So not those.

Little fizzy vitamin C caplets you can buy in the grocery store.

You know, those typically have about one gram or so. So if you were to do like, you know, a handful of those, that could get spendy, but that would be an option as well. I get spendy and I have a.

Feeling they have a lot of sugar.

In them and fizzy and messy. They've just got a lot of other stuff in them. So, yeah, I would. I would go with just like a good whole foods vitamin C source. Fiber, of course. But there are some issues that go hand in hand with fiber that we've talked about with the fiber doctor before on this show to where if you. If you amp up fiber too heavily, it can cause some issues like diverticulitis and impacted bowel and, you know, affect the nerve endings in your colon and eventually lead to some digestive damage. So you want to be careful with, like, these high fiber supplements like metamucil and psyllium extract and stuff like that. That's not the best way to control blood sugar levels, in my opinion. But, you know, mild doses of fiber, like your kale smoothie with some spinach and some Collard greens in the morning, that type of stuff for sure. Apple cider vinegar, a couple tablespoons of that taken before a meal can really help control your blood sugar levels. And that's again, kind of a cheap fix that you could use along with an option like cinnamon or bitter melon extract. But certainly any of these things that are going to make you more insulin sensitive or keep your blood sugar levels from going up are going to by their very nature ensure that you are utilizing fatty acids more as a fuel than using, using glucose as a fuel. So I'm definitely a fan of, of those kind of, those kind of hacks per se. And then of course, you know, during exercise when you need to keep your, your energy levels up, you know, something like the, like the superstarch that I've talked about before, like the long molecular weight chain carbohydrate, like the youcan Superstarch. I don't use that stuff very much. I pretty much only use it now when I'm racing just because I kind of, I just don't like to use engineered fuels and powders and sports drinks and stuff like that, period. I just don't like to do it. However, that stuff can do a pretty good job keeping you in a state of ketosis when you're out exercising for long periods of time. I want to make sure though that you know that a lot of these longer chain, high molecular weight carbohydrates and this is something you don't hear about a lot, but that I've had a lot of the people who I work with experience after long term use of this stuff, like during a, say like a half ironman or a marathon or an ironman. You use this stuff for long enough and any residual that's left over in your digestive tract tends to ferment pretty damn rapidly. And you get like this, this Superstarch gas and bloating, basically. So I have also, when we're talking about biohacks, I've found a way to keep that from happening completely. And I use this stuff called. Yeah, and then your head explodes. I use this stuff called Charcoal cap. And there literally is a brand called Charco Caps and it is, it's like a homeopathic anti gas remedy. But essentially charcoal, when you consume literally like covers the extent of a football field. When you dump this stuff into your body in terms of its absorptive capacity, you know, it's a tiny little capsule, but its absorptive capacity is literally like the size of, of a football field. So charcoal caps, it's A homeopathic anti gas remedy. It's got like a little bit of club moss in it which is a homeopath for bloated abdomen and trapped gas. It's actually interestingly, club moss is also a neurotropic smart drug, but there's not, there's not a bunch of that in there. It's got a vegetable based charcoal, it's got a little bit of bark in there, it's got a little bit of salt, sulfur in there and it just basically like soaks up all this stuff. And I've found that in, in any situation where I'm consuming a food that would tend to normally promote gas, that this stuff just like knocks it out. So you know, if you're going to use something like Superstarch, I definitely recommend those, those charcoal caps or something like that. And we'll put our, we'll put our Amazon link to those in the show notes for you. But yeah, that's what I would do.

And if you happen to accidentally swallow some household cleaner, you take a bunch of meat.

That's right.

Save yourself a trip to the hospital.

Good for food poisoning. Good for consuming prior to eating like meats where you don't know the source of the meat. You know, stuff like that. So yeah, food poisoning, anything like that. For shizzle.

I was kind of kidding when I said that.

Hi Ben, this is Bob. Just recently started getting back into triathlons and I did ironman Texas on May 18th and ended up in the medical tent due to some breathing problems. And they told me that I had EIB exercise induced bronchial spasms. And so they suggested I go see a doctor. And I'm just wondering if you do have any knowledge about that and what I could do to deal with this problem. I took some Benadryl. That seemed to help. But I don't want to start taking Benadryl or inhalers to every race. I do. So if you have any information on that, be great.

Thanks.

Exercise induced bronchial spasms.

Do you, do you know who Bob is? Actually, I don't know. You weren't, you weren't on the first Thailand triathlon adventure we did, but Bob, and Bob, if you're listening in, hopefully this doesn't embarrass you, but Bob was the guy who went to Thailand with us and liked it so much. No, no, he didn't break his neck. That was somebody, There was somebody who broke. He, he moved there and like he had like a, like a, I think he had like a Thai girlfriend or whatever. Just like moved to Thailand for like two years after he went. Because he liked Thailand. Yeah, he lived the dream. Bob's also the guy who did like he did something like 16 ironmans one year just like see how many Iron man triathlons he could do. But ultimately it's a really interesting question that Bob asks, especially regarding this exercise induced bronchial spasms, because, you know, it's something we've talked about a little bit on the podcast before, kind of the link between food and asthma. And I'll link to the podcast that we did, but we had a podcast episode that we did with Dr. David Minkoff about this stuff. And the idea behind it is that if you have a diet that is comprised of a lot of foods that can cause something like an immune reaction, you up regulate your sensitivity to airborne pollutants and pollens and things of that nature. And exercise induced asthma tends to be a really big deal.

So if you drink like a glass of milk and then a couple of days later you get exposed to a whole bunch of pollen, you could react a lot more severely.

Yep. And there have been studies that have looked at folks especially like vegan, like plant based diet athletes, and they tend to require fewer asthma meds. And one of the big reasons for that is due to milk allergies. Allergies which if you're vegan, you don't drink milk. So there are specific antibodies in milk that trigger allergic reactions in people. And it's different than lactose intolerance or just like general gas or aversion to milk products. It is these specific antibodies in milk that cause these allergy like symptoms. And the reason for that kind of gets a little bit complex. But essentially there are two different arms of your immune system that can get out of balance. One is called your TH1 immunity and one is called your TH2 immunity. And TH1 immunity is responsible for your normal reaction to anything in the environment. So if you see like pollen and you've seen, maybe you've seen magnified pollen in books, it's these big, you know, they're like these big circular balls or if you watch, you know, whatever, you know, honey, I shrunk the kids way back in the day where you have the bees carrying around these huge, you know, balls of pollen. But if your TH1 is working pretty well, you're gonna breathe in millions of particles of this pollen. And you don't even know about it because your TH1 immunity just like deals with it. And TH1 is everywhere in your body that gets in contact with your environment. So you've got Th1 immune cells in your skin and your eyes and your tears and your saliva and your mucus secretions and your digestive organs and pretty much anywhere that is touching the external environment. Now what happens is that there are kind of two situations where you can aggravate or shut down TH1 and cause the second arm of immunity, this TH2 immunity, to go into overdrive or become hyperactive as it tries to compensate for the disabled TH1 immunity. And the two ways that you can disable TH1 are, number one, through an autoimmune reaction to a food that you've eaten. And in most cases, it is common foods that tend to be immune system irritants. We and dairy are the two biggies. Although you could get tested, you could do what's called an antibody test to see if there are other compounds that might also cause an autoimmune reaction. And then the other thing that can cause kind of a disabling of this TH1 immunity is sustained damage to the gut flora. So, for example, like what's called drug induced dysbiosis, where you've been on an antibiotic regimen that has wiped out the good bacteria in your gut or created some kind of a gut imbalance, or say something like a candida infection, where you've got a yeast or a fungus that is growing in your digestive tract due to the combination of usually a high carbohydrate intake and a lack of good gut flora. And that can also lead to something called small intestine bacterial overgrowth, where you literally have way, way too much bacteria in your digestive tract, both good and bad. And that can also essentially retard this TH1 immunity and cause this hyperactivity of the immune system and kind of an upregulation of exercise induced asthma. So that's how it works. But really, you know, the fix is, number one, to be really, really careful with some of these common immune irritants like, like milk and wheat and stuff like that. What I would recommend would be, well, there are a couple of different options. There's an ebook out there that's really good. It's called the autoimmune Paleo Diet. I'll link to that in the show notes for Bob or anyone else listening in who's dealing with exercise induced bronchial spasms and kind of wants to get off antihistamines and stuff like that. The other one that I would look into is actually a program that I personally put together that's available on TrainingPeaks. And for those of you who use TrainingPeaks and just want like an autoimmune diet that you can drag and drop into your, into your TrainingPeaks training plan. And TrainingPeaks is just the online software that a lot of the athletes that I coach work with. I actually created a four week autoimmune protocol on trainingpeaks that you could use as well. But an autoimmune diet just eliminates pretty much every single potential immune trigger that could be out there. So hook yourself up with an autoimmune diet. We'll put links in the show notes. And then probably the best natural antihistamine that I could recommend to you would be a fish oil. Like a really good, high quality fish oil. I recommend a brand called Super Essentials because it's got astaxanthin and vitamin E. It's a really good cold processed, triglyceride based fish oil. That's the best one out there. Four to six capsules of that per day along with an autoimmune diet, especially reducing like milk and wheat and stuff like that. And yeah, whether or not you're still gallivanting about Thailand or not, that's certainly the way that I'd go, Bob, if I were you.

Hi.

I'm a 50 year old athlete that's.

Currently taking 20 milligrams of Adderall for adult ADHD.

And because of stress, I've been taking half a milligram of clonazepam at night for sleep. These aren't real high levels, but I'm concerned. You've never talked about both amphetamine use for ADD and how it affects performance positively or negatively. And also the benzoids for sleep and anxiety. And if there's ways to potentially use other substances natural to the body that can wean someone off of this. Thanks, Ben. Right to you. Everything you say, bye bye.

Well, this is actually kind of sort of related to what we just talked about with the autoimmune reaction because in many cases these imbalances in gut flora are pretty related to ADD and ADHD simply because the majority of your neurotransmitters are created in your gut. And so one of the first places you'd want to start is specifically with your gut. So not only addressing some of the autoimmune factors that I just talked about with with Bob, but also focusing specifically on nutrients that are going to do a really, really good job healing the gut, whether in children or in adults. Typically leaky gut and damaged gut issues go hand in hand with personality issues, depression, add, adhd. If your gut is broken, your brain is broken. So, you know, that's why I'm a big, big fan. In situations where you have depression, insomnia, add, you know, insert the do not consider this as medical advice disclaimer here.

Ben is not a doctor, and the content provided on this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or healthcare advice.

But going after the gut flora would be big. So not just ensuring that you have wiped out bad bacteria by using some really good essential oil. Like two of my favorites are oil of oregano and goldenseal for that purpose, but then also getting some glutamine, some bone broth, some colostrum, a good probiotic that preferably doesn't have a lot of fiber, that doesn't have a lot of prebiotic in it, because bad bacteria can feed on a prebiotic. So just like a basic probiotic that includes a specific strain that's really, really good, in this case called Saccharomyces boulardi. Saccharomyces boulardi will be our word of the day. Yes. As a matter of fact, if I have another child, I'm gonna name them Sacro Sacro B. Anyways, though, getting on some of those gut healing compounds and really going after the gut. Okay, that's number one. Number two, when it comes to ADD or adhd, nutrient deficiencies are really common in patients with adhd. And they've done studies on this and they find that some of the common issues. And you can go out and get what's called a spectra cell analysis to look into a mineral or a vitamin or nutrient deficiency. There's another analysis that's done by a company called Metametrics, and it's called an ion panel. It's expensive. It. It ranges anywhere from 800 to $1,000, depending on where you get it. But it's a full test for fatty acids, amino acids, flavonoids, B vitamins, minerals, phospholipids, everything. But people with ADHD or add, they tend to be deficient in minerals, specifically the B vitamin complex as well. Both fatty acids, the omega 3 fatty acids, and the omega 6 fatty acids, they tend to have antioxidant deficiencies and specifically deficiencies in a type of phospholipid called phosphatidylserine. And so targeted nutrient replenishment using, like a supplementation protocol of a lot of these type of compounds can be really effective again in both kids and adults and much More effective than just using, like what's called a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor receptor, and that's more commonly known as the ssri. And that's something very similar to Ritalin. So Ritalin blocks the reuptake of dopamine or dopamine receptors specifically, which allows for a big, big increase in dopamine around the synapse of the neurons in your brain. Now, anytime that you're doing that, you're needing more and more dopamine to create that same response because you're just saturating your brain in dopamine. So you get addicted or you need more and more Ritalin as time goes on. Which is why I'm not a big fan of that versus focusing on a natural rebalancing of the neurotransmitters using a combination of gut healing and replacing some of the minerals that I just got done talking about or some of the nutrients that I just got done talking about. Another big, big correlation with ADD and diet is insulin insensitivity, potentially caused from the pancreas over creating insulin in response to high sugar meals. And there have been some studies that have shown that people with ADHD have reductions in their ability to metabolize glucose properly when compared with non symptomatic people. So children with hyperactivity disorders, adults with adhd, et cetera, there tends to be some glucose metabolism issues there as well. So in a situation like that comes down to controlling insulin levels. And really, like we already got into that earlier in this podcast. You know, we talk about apple cider vinegar, bitter melon extract, sane amounts of fiber, you know, cinnamon, Some of these, some of these foods that tend to really, really stabilize blood glucose levels or restore insulin sensitivity. As far as any other supplements and stuff like that goes, I gotta be really careful with this because some of this stuff is like, you know, neurotransmitters, if you just replenish like one, like, say, like if you give yourself a bunch of tyrosine, which is a dopamine precursor, and you're trying to restore dopamine levels, but you aren't at the same time taking into account something like serotonin, and you create a serotonin dopamine imbalance, you can basically just kind of F yourself up and cause temporary or even permanent neurotransmitter issues. Usually it's pretty safe if you're going to try and replenish neurotransmitters naturally to use a basic ratio of a 1 to 10 ratio of what's called 5 HTP to tyrosine and that'd be about 3,000 milligrams of tyrosine per day and 300 milligrams of 5 HTP per day. And usually you split that into three daily doses. Okay, so a thousand of tyrosine, 100 of 5 HTP three times a day if you really wanted.

300 to 5 HTP.

Yeah, 3,300. Yep, yep. So 10 to 1 ratio of tyrosine to 5 HTP. Now, if you really wanted to kind of step this up and get a little bit more scientific with it, there are specific supplements. There's one called Neurorepleat and one called CIS Replete. And Neurorepleat basically increases serotonin. CIS replete essentially is going to help a little bit better more with dopamine. And these are again, you got to be really, really careful with these. I'm going to put a basic protocol in the show notes for this athlete and I'll put them over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 245. But I would recommend for really digging into this stuff and going after it hardcore. You find somebody who is certified in the Kalish method. And Dr. Kalish is a practitioner from California, I believe, who's really, really good at helping to test and replenish neurotransmitter levels. He does have a book if you're kind of more of a self learner, take charge person. I'll put a link to his book in the show notes as well. It's called the Kalish Method Book. You know, I help people out a little bit. I'm not a Kalish certified practitioner per se, but and again, I kind of got to be careful with this in terms of like, you know, saying that we're managing medical conditions or whatever versus just kind of pointing people in the right direction. But let's just say that there are folks who I do consults with and work with who used to be depressed and aren't anymore. I think I'm safe saying that. And kind of the same thing goes for ADD and adhd. So I'll put a link to some of my recommended brain supplements, some of my recommended brain kind of fixing tools in the show notes. The only other thing I didn't mention here was that inflammation in the brain not only can be caused by things like gluten and wheat, but can also be shut down by specific brain anti inflammatories. And that's actually the way that a lot of neurotropics work. You look at things like curcumin or turmeric extract. You look at things, you know, smart drugs like aniracetam, for example, or Provigil, or even a little bit more natural one called phosphatidylcholine. All of these can cross the blood brain barrier and affect inflammation from a neural standpoint. And so when you put something like that together, along with an autoimmune diet, along with replenishing some of these minerals and vitamins and nutrients, you kind of get to the point where you can fix your brain. You can wean yourself off things like Adderall, things like Ritalin, and even the anti anxiety drugs like clonazepam and things like that, and get to the point where this stuff helps. Now, as far as performance, here's the deal. Most ADHD or ADD medications are performance enhancers. They work similar to an amphetamine, and so they improve focus, they can increase energy, and they can give you an illegal performance enhancing benefit, which is why in most cases, they're banned by the World Anti Doping association, unless you have a therapeutic use exemption, meaning that you have, you have been given a diagnosis by your physician, you've applied for a therapeutic use exemption through the World Anti Doping association, and you have paperwork that shows that you've got clinically diagnosed ADD or adhd, and therefore the cleared ability to be able to take something like, you know, an Adderall prior to competition. If you don't have one of those and you're using one of these drugs, you could technically get banned from participation in sanction event, get a medal taken away, get a podium spot taken away, get a check taken away if you're a pro. So, yeah, you do need to be careful with this stuff, too. It does definitely have a performance enhancing benefit, but that's why you even take something like Provigil, which is common in the military. It's common among a lot of these CEOs who are using brain enhancing supplements. And that you wouldn't want to toe the starting line of an Ironman triathlon with that stuff because it gives you an illegal performance enhancing benefit. I always wonder how many folks who are out there, because I know triathletes and marathoners and people like that have this go go personality that tends to be associated a lot of times with ADD and adhd. And I wonder how many of those folks are on illegal performance enhancing drugs and don't even know that they're not supposed to be taking that stuff without a tue, without a therapeutic use exemption, similar to Like a testosterone cream or a testosterone injection. But ultimately, you know, the deal is this stuff is addictive. The stuff eventually shuts down your own endogenous production of these good brain chemicals. So there are better, more natural ways to control ADD and adhd, and hopefully some of the things that I've just told you point you in the right direction.

Now, as far as trying to come off of these drugs, like somebody like Bob, or not Bob, actually, we don't know this guy's name. Our caller here asked about wanting to. To come off them. Is there. Would it be dangerous to. To mix any of these with the drugs as he's trying to wean himself off? I know if you're on a SSRI, if you start taking St. John's Wort, they really warn against mixing the two.

Yeah, yeah.

Is that gonna be the same sort of problem here?

Yeah, and that's. That's the issue, because it's like you're. It. It's like you're opening the flood gates and allowing for higher what's called endogenous production of, say, something like dopamine or serotonin. But at the same time, you're inhibiting the reuptake of it. So you're just flooding your neurons, specifically the synapses in your neurons, even more and potentially aggravating an issue, or you are essentially increasing the addictive potential of whatever pharmaceutical you happen to be on. So that's a situation where you'd want to start with real, real microdoses of some of this stuff or like I mentioned, you know, look, go. Go to, like, the Kalish Method website again. We'll link to that in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 245. Find a practitioner in your area who, through, like, urinary neurotransmitter evaluations or some other method of tracking your neurotransmitter levels, can cut of walk you through something like this, because sometimes it can take a little bit of hand holding. So, yeah, you got to be careful with something like that, for sure.

Dive into it.

Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, those are the main things when it comes to ADD and adhd. Those are the basics that I can think of off the top of my head. Sometimes I actually wonder if I have ADD or adhd, because I actually hop around quite a bit. I have a hard time focusing. My dad was like a serial entrepreneur and jumped between jobs really rapidly. I jump around a bunch as well, but at the same time, I can curl up and read a book for like six hours and not even look up. So I don't know. I think. I'm not really sure how all that.

Works, but anyways, I don't know either.

Yeah. Anyways, moving on.

Hi, Ben and Brock, this is Gina from California. I fell from a chair about four and a half weeks ago. I was not drunk. I get that question a lot. And the chair back was a hard chair back. And when I fell, it jammed up into my ribs right under my breast. And I guess I bruised ribs. X ray showed no fracture. Well, the other day I went to the chiropractor as I had even since the ribs were hurting because I have lower back issues. I told him about my rib condition that I was four and a half weeks out and he still suggested he do an overall spine adjustment. And I didn't even know what that meant. But I assumed since he understood my ribs were recovering and were almost healed, that he wouldn't do anything to damage the area. However, he adjusted me in a way I've never been adjusted before and basically, basically re injured my ribs. I thought I'd ask, what do you recommend in terms of healing as fast as possible. I have pretty slow recovery time and I really miss spinning, running, getting my heart rate up fast, which obviously I can't do when it's hard to even breath in or move my right side. So I really appreciate your insight and thanks again for the great podcast.

Bye.

Well, Gina, we've all been there.

Yes. Drunk. Some of us. Yes, some of. Some of us. Probably with more alcohol involved than others. Yeah, it's too bad about the chiro because you do, you do have to be careful. Like, I know a lot of chiropractic docs listen into this show and you know, and fortunately most of the ones who I've spoken to who listen into the show, they, they're, they're good chiros and they're not too woo woo, and they know what they're doing. But chiropractic medicine is something that can tend to cause damage if you're not careful. In more cases, it's the neck more often than the ribs. Chiropractic docs who do a lot of neck manipulation, there is risk of some artery aggravation and eventually stroke. That's actually been well documented in medical literature where, you know, to the point.

Where they actually like the people who work in er, if somebody comes in who doesn't fit the profile of having a stroke from natural causes, that's the first thing they ask about. Have you had any neck manipulation?

Yeah. Really interesting study. Like last year, the, I believe was the New Zealand Medical Journal. You know, they reported like 700 cases of severe complications from chiropractic neck adjustments. So you do need to be careful. You need to make sure that you kind of dig into the history of whoever you're seeing for chiropractic manipulation and that you understand the risks associated with it. I've gone in and have had a rib adjustment before from a chiropractic doc that completely fixed an out of place rib that I had from bench pressing. And this was back in the day when I was doing a lot more kind of weight training. And it helped a ton. And, you know, I can imagine that with the method that they were using, which was essentially like slamming their body weight down into my rib, you know, after kind of palpitation to find the correct area, that if they didn't know what they were doing, they could certainly, you know, cause an issue fracture rib or push a rib even more out.

Of place a whole lot worse.

Yeah, and I mean, you know, it's just you've got this junction of your rib with the cartilage attachment to the sternum, and not only can that be extremely painful if it gets aggravated or strained or sprained, but it can be moved around quite a bit more by impact or by chiropractic adjustments. So as far as healing this thing up, if it's a straight up fracture, I'm a big fan and we've done entire podcasts. Do we have something on stress fractures on the album Brock over on itunes? No.

No, we don't.

We'll have to take our stress fracture piece. Yeah. But basically, stress fractures, there are certain compounds that are really, really good for bone healing. And this could be like an hour long podcast. But if I could tell you the number one compound that I found that really, really helps, that I recommend to most of the athletes who I work with who get on the verge of or sustain something like a stress fracture or a broken bone from an acute injury. It's lactoferrin. Lactoferrin is something that's similar to Cystis, can really upregulate that osteoblastic activity and enhance the healing response. I get it from Capreflex. This gluten free formulation called Capreflex Pro, which is just like a blend of glucose. It's got chondroitin from like a type 2 chicken collagen. It's got a cherry juice and turmeric and a bunch of proteolytic enzymes in there as well. Which help you do everything from. Bounce back from surgery more quickly to break down fibrinogen from too much physical activity. So that stuff has lactoferrin in it. So that's probably the number one thing that I'd recommend from a supplementation standpoint. From a gear or injury management standpoint. Joints. I've seen some pretty good studies, like randomized clinical trials of rib belts for just like simple fractured ribs. And a rib belt is just like an. It's an elastic or a soft belt that you wrap around your midsection that just offers you a little bit of support. It goes a little bit higher up than a back, like a back brace. So kind of like halfway between a bra and a back brace, basically, like right there around your ribs.

So what do they call it?

A gusset, gusset, corset? I don't know, the thing that like.

William Shatner wears to slim.

Yeah, exactly. But I mean, we're talking 10, 20 bucks. Yeah, you get that slimming effect, gorgeous slimming effect.

Spanx for your wrist.

Eat as much as you want. Buy a rib belt. Heck, buy a rib belt. Buy a back belt, get a sport bra and just kind of hold everything in and go to town at the. At the local steakhouse buffet. But no, seriously, like, rib belts actually do have some good research behind them in terms of significant amounts of pain relief. And because there's a little bit of immobilization and support going on there, you're probably looking at a little bit of healing enhancement too. So that's what I would be looking into as far as some gear that you could use. And then I'd also also look into using some lactoferrin. And then just be really, really careful with impact based exercise along with crazy chiropractors.

And don't sneeze whatever you do.

Yes, avoid sneezing. Avoid black pepper or any fat loss supplement that contains biopurine.

Avoid playing the accordion as well.

Yeah, the accordion tends to be a big issue. We got to tell a lot of our listeners that it seems like it pops up time and time again. The accordion issue. Do you happen to have your accordion there with you, Brock?

You know, actually, if you have a second, I could. I could run to the other room and get it.

I'll tell you what, why don't I read this week's itunes review and while I'm doing that, you can go and get your accordion. Sound good? Okay. All right, here we go.

Here I go.

So this week's review is from re retired college athlete 2012 and here's what they have to say on itunes. I used to be a huge Jillian Michaels fan, but over the last year I made the shift to Ben Greenfield. I'm not a hardcore athlete, just an accountant that likes to be functionally fit. So glad I fell upon this podcast and website and. Hey Brock, you back with me? Alright, not yet. So retired college athlete 2012. If you heard your review read on this podcast then email me ben greenfieldfitness.com There we go. And I've got some love to send your way. Hey Brock, you missed. You missed the review, but someone just said they're cheating on Jillian Michael. They left Jillian and came to us instead.

Nice.

Huge.

Huge. That reminds me, by the way, I did the. I bought the Bob Harper yoga DVD and it was.

I don't know who that is.

Bob Harper is Jillian. Isn't his name Bob Harper? Jillian Michael, sidekick on the Biggest Loser.

I've never seen that.

I'm pretty sure. Anyways, he's got a yoga DVD and it's like yoga, hardcore yoga to rock music. And I can't say I rec. I'm sure Bob's a great guy, but it was kind of silly. It was like yoga to rock music. So not too.

Yeah, that seems.

But anyways though. The featured fitness podcast retired college athlete 2012. Thanks for the review. If you want to leave a review, you can go to itunes. I feel like I should be talking with an Italian accent. Hey, please do. So it's a little loud. It's a little loud. Can you back off the microphone?

Just. That's the thing about the accordion is it's loud.

Okay, go ahead and I'll take us out with my Italian accent.

All right.

And don't forget to go to BenGreenfieldFitness.comlove that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com love. And you too can spread the love about the Ben Greenfield of fitness. Get your spaghetti, your pasta, your linguine. We have some marinara sauce that is Mwah, mwah, mwah.

I can't believe it. I'm laughing.

Isn't the, is the accordion Italian? Is that is Italian.

Mine is. It's the camilo.

Yeah, it reminds me of the. Of like when my wife and I rode our bikes through Italy. We'd sit at a restaurant staring googly eyed at each other and drinking Chianti and from, from, from, you know, Montepulciano di Abruzzo and eating our pasta smothered in cheese and all sorts of other autoimmune triggers that we've talked about and then we go off and ride our bikes into the sunset, hacking from exercise induced asthma. Oh, that's a good way to end the show. So thank you for listening. Go to being a Greenfield, the Fitness of Dying. It's a Ben greenfield fitness.com 245 and get on the show notes. And until next time, have a wonderful week.

Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.