389: Is A Low Carb Diet Bad For You?, Coconut Oil Controversy, Inulin In Energy Bars, Reversing The

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. Is a low carb diet bad for you? Coconut oil controversy, Inulin in energy bars, reversing the damages of emf, and much more.

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

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Brock, I'm beat up.

Oh, no. What happened? Did you get in a fight?

Okay, kind of. I got a massage fight.

I think that's what you call that very relaxing fight.

Yeah, I have a massage therapist, so I. So I get a massage every. I try to get a massage every Tuesday night. And my massage therapist is. She's got sharp elbows, she's got very strong hands. I think her grip strength is probably much, much higher than mine or anyone you see on the World's Strongest Powerman competition or whatever that show is on TV anyways, though, so she's got these big meaty fingers and sharp elbows and she does these crazy techniques. Like, she's got this one where she pins my teeth and then has me open and close my jaw. And she's got another one where she like, drives her elbow into my. Into my hip flexor and has me like, extend my leg while I hold my breath. And then I release my breath and it causes this massive hip flexor release. But I wake up the next morning and I feel just not, not bruised up, but, but just a little bit beat up. And then I feel pretty amazing within about 24 hours.

And you do this once a week?

I do this once a week. Yeah. So I, I do a little bit of foam rolling, a little bit of lacrosse ball and stuff like that throughout the week. And sometimes I use those crazy massage devices. But once a week I try to lay down on this, on this table. That makes pulsed electromagnetic field frequencies, pmf, and it kind of shakes my whole body. So if I try to talk during my massage, I sound like this. And then she massages me and then I. And she comes over at like 8:30, right about the time my kids are going to bed and just like works on me till about 10:30. And then I go to bed and sleep like a freaking baby.

It's interesting that you bring up the massaging of the jaw because I actually, for the first time ever had that experience not that long ago where she actually put on my. My massage therapist put on these rubber gloves and put like two fingers just like just below my jaw inside my mouth.

All right, I was hoping you were going for the jaw and I'll just continue.

And she put some pressure in there and then sort of had me like open and close just a little bit. And it was intense. But yeah, like about an hour later I was just like, I could talk better. Everything was just sort of moving better. It stopped clicking because I've got a click in my left jaw bone. Like the. Not technically tmj, but just a click that pops up when I'm feeling a little stressed. So. So that was a. That was a new experience for me. But I'm definitely gonna have her do that again because that was. That was an awesome release.

Good to know. Your jaw clicks when you stressed out. The Human Garage does that one they put on the. The Human Garage in la. They do the rubber glove thing, but my massage therapist just works on it from the outside, no gloves required. However, does your massage therapist use coconut oil? Cuz if. So we're about to talk about how she's poisoning you.

Oh, crap.

So Brock, did you see what the Harvard professor has come out with and said? And it must be true because they're a Harvard professor.

If you've had that much schooling, you better be right. But I sort of go, huh? When you refer to something as pure poison, like, I guess, unless it is actually pure poison.

But yeah, this one came out in the Guardian. Says coconut oil is pure poison. Coconut oil is pure poison.

And that's why we're all dead.

This professor, Karen Michels Michaels, she based her warning on the high proportion of saturated fat in coconut oil. Said it could raise LDL cholesterol and the risk of cardiovascular disease, citing that it contains. Contains 80% saturated fat, which is more than twice the amount found in lard or beef drippings. And this thing just took off and everybody ran with this whole coconut oil is pure poison headline. And I looked into some of the research behind coconut oil and whether or not it would be pure poison. Frankly, the fact that she says that it raises LDL and that vilifies it kind of concerns me right off the bat because we know that ldl, in the absence of other risk factors really isn't that big of an issue. I actually, I like to keep my LDL high. I wear that Thing like a, like a badge of honor. It's good for cognition and good for hormones. But anyways, there. There are some studies that go into coconut oil and some potentially deleterious effects of it. For example, they looked at heart health in one study, and this was way back in the 90s, and they looked at a diet that supplied 75 of the fat calories from coconut oil. They compared that to palm oil and corn oil, and they did find that there was a high amount of triglycerides and LDL in the folks who had the coconut oil. With triglycerides being the one that might be concerning if you're concerned about, like, fatty liver issues or potentially really unfavorable triglyceride to HDL ratio, but, you know, no bodies in the streets. There was Another study in 2011 that did find, like, high, high intake of coconut oil compared to extra virgin olive oil seem to increase some markers of inflammation. And you have to be aware that in many of these studies, they're feeding rodent models coconut oil, soy oil, you know, lard, these strange laboratory feeds, and frankenfuels. So you got to kind of take all this with a grain of salt and a dollop of coconut oil, of course.

And a dollop coconut oil.

Yeah. And there were a few other studies. One looked at the polyunsaturated fatty acid ratio to saturated fatty acid ratio in the body and found that it was changed a little bit. You know, maybe you have a decrease in your intake of omega 3 fatty acids when you shift a whole bunch of your fats toward coconut oil, but that's really, you know, not rocket science to figure out, you know, if you decide to shift all the oils and all the fats that you take to coconut oil and you aren't consuming any fish oils or any Mediterranean fats, yeah, that would be. Be an issue. And then there's a couple of studies that show some amount of gut inflammation when, again, like, rodents are fed copious amounts of saturated fats and coconut oils, especially in the absence of. And I wrote an article about this, like, two years ago, in the absence of dietary fiber and plant intake. Meaning that if you're gonna, like, fill your face with coconut oil or, you know, butter or any other form of saturated fat, you may want to consume some plants along with it. I'm just saying. But when you actually step back and you look at human trials in which they feed actual humans coconut oil and then put them through laboratory tests, you see a pretty different response. And there have been studies that were done in the past year on this one, looked at coconut oil fed to humans, like healthy humans, and they found that it increased HDL levels and it increased the proportion of anti, what are called anti inflammatory lipid subfractions in red blood cell membranes, meaning that it actually increased the health of the cell membrane. There was another study that found that in terms of coconut oil, and this was compared to sunflower oil, there was absolutely no difference in metabolic response, no rise in blood sugar, no deleterious effect from a metabolic standpoint. There was another study where they took coconut oil and they again gave a bunch of coconut oil to real, actual.

Humans, not tiny little furry ones.

Yeah, it raised total cholesterol, it raised hdl, and it raised ldl. But ultimately, when compared to safflower oil and some other oils they were feeding the women in this study, there was no increase in inflammation with the coconut oil. There was another study that found that coconut oil, when combined with plant intake, could actually reduce endotoxins and kind of clean up the body, probably because of some of the lauric acid or the caprylic acid in coconut oil. And then, of course, there's the fact that coconut oil is fantastic for reducing bacterial colonization in the mouth, which is why I and my children do coconut oil pulling every day. So ultimately, the big argument made in the garden was that coconut oil is pure poison because it raises ldl. We know that LDL is an independent risk factor for heart disease anyways. And we also know that coconut oil, as part of a varied diet rich in omega 3 fatty acids in plants, is absolutely no issue. So basically, eat your other fats, eat your plants. Don't shy away from coconut oil. It's not pure poison.

Now, I just want to go back Toto, when we first started this conversation, you said that you wear your high LDH as a badge of honor. Now, do you keep an eye on the. The density of the. Of the ldl? Because I, I remember you bringing that up in, in the past, that there's still part of the LDL that may not be all that beneficial.

Yeah, you. You can look at the structure of the LDL particles. And what you would like is for the, the LDL particles to be of the large, and what we would call, this is the highly scientific term, fluffy variety. So, yeah, you want a full cholesterol panel that allows you to look at the actual LDL particles. You also want to evaluate whether or not you have high levels of inflammation, high levels of blood glucose, very unfavorable triglyceride to hdl ratio, meaning really high triglycerides, extremely low hdl. Those are the type of risk factors that could cause cholesterol to become oxidized. There are also a few specific conditions like familial hypercholesteremia. There are genes like pph. There are genes like the APOE gene. Certain things that respond unfavorably to a high intake of saturated fats. More. And those are present in some people. But ultimately this article is bunk if it's just saying that coconut oil is pure poison because it increases ldl. And as if that weren't bad enough, yet another article came out this week that I got a whole bunch of questions on, and that was whether or not a low carbohydrate diet shortens lifespan. Oh, this was a. You see this one?

Yeah, I saw this one. And yeah, I won't. I was going to spoiler it, but I won't spoiler it. Yeah, go ahead.

And don't get me. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of my sourdough bread and my sushi and my sweet potato fries. Like, I'm a fan of carbohydrates. They definitely fit into my diet. I'm a total foodie. I'm headed to Japan next week, actually, and I'll probably eat boatloads of white rice over there Anyways, though. This study says dietary carbohydrate intake and mortality. A cohort study and meta analysis. Basically what it found was that when you have a high intake of carbohydrate and a low intake of carbohydrate, both were associated with increased mortality. And that was the takeaway. And then of course, the fact that the low carbohydrate diet along with the high carbohydrate diet was associated with an increased risk of mortality. Of course, media took this and ran with it and just basically said, well, a low carb diet is going to kill you.

Yeah.

So especially if you add a bunch of coconut oil to your local diet, because then you've got pure poison.

You may as well just stab yourself through the heart.

Yeah. So. So this study had a bunch of weaknesses. So they collected data over the course of 25 years. It was a pretty long study. And people were asked to report their diet as far back as six years. So what'd you have for dinner five years ago on a Friday night?

Brock a hot dog.

Exactly, exactly. They also found that the low carb enthusiasts were more likely to be male. And males automatically have a higher risk of death than women, meaning they die earlier than women. The low carvers were more likely to be diabetic. They may have switched to a low carb diet because they're diabetic, but they didn't account for the fact that some of these folks may already have a risk factor. By being diabetic, they were more likely to be sedentary. They were more likely to smoke, specifically cigarettes. They were more likely to eat fewer plants, including fruits and vegetables with ties into the coconut oil discussion we just had. And they were more likely to be overweight. And the scientists did not control for any of these variables in this report. They also didn't look at alcohol intake. And there have been other studies, epidemiological research, that has found that carbohydrate intake goes down when alcohol consumption goes up. So not only were these people, male, diabetic, sedentary, smoking cigarettes, eating fewer fruits and vegetables, likely to be overweight, but they were also likely to be consuming more alcohol. We don't address any of those variables. And then we simply say, well, a low carb diet appears to be able to reduce health and lifespan. I mean, this study has so many holes in it that it's not even funny. And of course, when we know that controlling glycemic variability, even if you're not eating a low carb diet, right, just like controlling your blood glucose decreases cardiovascular risk factors, increases metabolic health, reduces inflammation, increases insulin sensitivity, and lowers overall risk for mortality, we can basically put a, put a, how do you, how do you say it? Bury this study in a deep dark, six feet under. Yeah, put a nail in the coffin of this study because it's a bunch of bull. So ultimately, again, I'm not against carbohydrates, but I don't think that a low carb diet shortens your lifespan. So. So that is my take for all the people have been tweeting at me, asking me about coconut oil, asking me about low carb. That's what I have to say about that. And there's actually one other thing I've been getting a lot of, a lot of comments about that would be, is it your hair?

That, how do you get your hair that way?

I do, yeah. I've got pomade. I use this stuff called. What's it called? Nature's Blessing hair pomade. It's got coconut oil in it and olive oil. So my hair is gonna die from pure poison because it is a, it's a, it's carb, coconut oil based hair pomade that I use. So my hair is going to hell in a hand basket. And that's not what I've been getting questions about, though. It's this whole Inulin versus IMO issue. It's no secret that I launched the clean food bar that I've been working on for the past year. The Kion bar. Just chocolaty, salty, coconutty goodness. And it's coconut flakes and cacao nibs and chocolate liqueur and cacao powder and chia seeds, almonds, sesame seeds, sea salt. The list goes on and on. I just wanted to pack as much real tasty superfood as I could into a bar. And one of the things that I talked about in the podcast that I published along with that bar was the fact that I chose to use an organic honey for the. For the probiotics and for the lack of its ability to be able to spike blood glucose. And the taste and a whole host of other reasons I chose to use organic nutrient dense honey as a sweetener. And what I did not choose to use was this stuff called ISO maltooligo saccharide, which is also abbreviated imo. And I got a lot of questions about that because a lot of bars contain imo. I also got a lot of questions from people who wondered whether or not IMO was the same as inulin, which is also something that you see in a lot of bars. So I want to kind of clear up the confusion about when you're looking at the ingredient label of your energy bar and you heard me talking about the dangers of IMO or the potential dangers of inulin, what you actually need to look at. So imo, this isomaltooligosaccharide, if you turn over and you look at the label of your energy bar, basically an oligosaccharide or an IMO is something that food industry makes. They use starch that they process from crops typically like wheat or barley or oats or tapioca or rice or potatoes, they break them down enzymatically. And what they produce is this stuff that's called like a high maltose syrup, which is supposed to be somewhat indigestible in the human gut. It's considered to be like a non digestible food ingredient. And these oligosaccharides pass through the colon where they wind up getting fermented by the bacteria in your colon. So it can also be classified technically as a prebiotic. But the fact is, and I highlighted this in that big podcast that I did about the new Kion bar, is the idea that it has been shown in research to actually be able to spike blood glucose. So isomalto oligosaccharides. It's marketed as a low calorie sweetener. You find it in a lot of low carb bars, and it's labeled as fiber, but it actually is about anywhere, depending on its source, about 2 and a half to 3 and a half calories per gram, and has been shown to actually raise blood sugar. There was a big controversy a few years ago with Quest Nutrition because Quest Nutrition was using IMO in their bars and marketing them as a low carb bar with a high amount of dietary prebiotic fiber. But it turns out that it actually spiked blood glucose. So this turned into kind of an issue, and Quest wound up switching to a different form of fiber. I forget what they switched to, but ultimately they got rid of that form of fiber. I think they switched to a form of corn. But what you'll find, even though soluble corn fiber doesn't really show an impact on blood glucose, is there's still a lot of other companies using IMO in their bars, a lot of companies that are marketing this as like a low carb, no carb bar. And I have yet to see IMOs be proven to be something that doesn't spike blood glucose. Now, there are a few people who have done independent trials of their bars that use IMO from specific sources, like my friend Dr. Mercola. He uses in his energy bar cassava. So cassava is the source of the imo, and he's shown me some of his blood glucose data. And it appears that this IMO derived from cassava doesn't really appear to be an issue. So it's possible that there are some forms of IMO that are not an issue. But the majority, the lion's share of the IMO, and most of the bars out there, spikes blood glucose and is not really turning a bar into a low carb bar. Now, the other form of fiber that you'll find in bars is this inulin stuff. And inulin is not necessarily imo. So inulin is a natural storage carbohydrate. We find it in a lot of these type of carbs that cause farts, right? Like Jerusalem artichoke and chicory and asparagus and garlic. And one of the reasons for that is that inulin winds up being extremely fermentable in the human gut. A lot of bacteria can utilize the. What are called the fructooligosaccharides that you find in inulin. And so they're. They're relatively unstable in gastric acid. They aren't broken down very well by the bile. And so, you know, whereas inulin doesn't seem to spike blood sugar as much as imo, it results in, you know, you being that person that nobody else wants to hang around with after you've had your energy bar, because you'reyou're basically a tooting machine. So that's the idea behind Inulin is that, you know, I also did not want a bar, especially because a lot of people are consuming this bar while they're out. You know, I've got Ironman triathletes using it and marathoners and people who are hiking and people who are just like, using this, you know, for example, for their kids, for soccer games and tennis. And I didn't want to create just a giant fart in a package. So that's why I chose not to use Inulin and also not to use imo. But the idea is that, yeah, there is some form of, or some forms of imo, it appears cassava is one of them that doesn't seem to really do much of a number on your blood sugar levels. And whereas inulin appears to be a little bit more favorable for blood sugar levels, there's the whole farting issue with inulin, which kind of makes me not like to consume too many bars with inulin in them. I mean, so that's kind of the idea behind using honey, not using imo, not using inulin. Ultimately, if you look at your energy bar label and it says Inulin, it's probably still low carb and it's got a lot of fiber in it, but it's going to make you fart. So that's your decision. And then if it's got a lot of IMO in it, you need to look at the source of the imo. And again, IMO is derived from a whole, whole bunch of different sources these days. But you may just need to go with like an n equals 1 and pull out a blood glucose monitor. And if you have a favorite energy bar that has IMO in it, just see if it affects your blood glucose. For me personally, because honey has the ability to lower the glycemic index of a food, doesn't cause much of an insulin release at all, and doesn't spike blood glucose. In me, the kion bar works really well for me and my own blood glucose values. If you are afraid of honey and you feel as though honey is going to give you fatty liver disease and, you know, deleteriously affect your metabolism, maybe you just need to, to go out and find a different bar. But that's, that's the idea behind the, the question of Inulin versus imo. Does that clear things up a little bit?

I just want to point out that these news flashes were brought to you by Keon's new fart bar.

That's right. No, it's a non fart bar, dude.

I mean, non fart bar.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is true. You can get it over at getkion.com bar get K-I-O-N.com bar.

Special announcements.

Well, Brock, we already talked about how this podcast is brought to you by a bar that's gonna kill you and ramp your blood sugar levels up through the roof with all that. With all that organic honey that it has in it. So why don't we continue to harm people by giving them pure poison cereal, this brand new organic coconut flake cereal. So have you had this stuff, by the way? No.

Sadly, Thrive Market still does not deliver to Canada.

Well, you spilled the beans because I was gonna say this podcast is sponsored by Thrive Market and one of the things I order from them is this amazing cereal that's basically organic coconut meat, organic coconut water and organic palm starch. It with a touch of coconut milk or almond milk or hemp milk. Tastes absolutely fantastic. You can sprinkle some nuts in there, some almonds, whatever you're accustomed to sprinkling on cereal. What is it up there in Canada? Rainbow sprinkles?

Maple syrup, of course.

Maple syrup, of course. So anyways, Thrive Market. What is Thrive Market? Well, they're this online grocery store. They have over 4,000 different organic products that you can filter by. Organic or pale paleo or gluten free. You get 50% off of every single item every time you order. Any order over, I think about 49 bucks, always ships for free. They've got an app where you can easily order on the app you can order online. They've got a whole bunch of stuff on there like healthy items like this coconut cereal that you can't freaking find on Amazon with better prices on most of the organic stuff than you actually get on Amazon. I have no clue why more people don't know about Thrive Market it, but it's the best place to go for organic groceries. They also give to all of our listeners today, free shipping and a free 30 day trial because it's one of those things where you buy a membership and that's how you get all the savings. And it's all over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com thrive. So grab yourself some coconut cereal and any other hippie dippy, healthy item that you want to throw in there. They've also got coconut manna. They've got coconut. They just have a whole store full of poison. So grab everything over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com thrive if you.

Don'T want to leave your house to get your poison. Thrive market.

That's right. Why don't we just continue down this, this coconut bandwagon with another thing that I consume frequently, that's got coconut in it. I didn't realize how close I am to dying until I really started to think about this. But there is this stuff that I have. Typically after dinner, I mix myself up some of this and I actually put some drops of CBD in it and then I blend it. But it's turmeric, ginger, reishi, lemon balm, turkey tail, which is a mushroom, not the actual tail of the turkey black pepper, which allows you to absorb the turmeric better. Acacia fiber, coconut milk and cinnamon. And they put all this stuff together and they call it golden milk. It's made by this company called Organifi Turmeric and reishi infused gold. And it's this gently dried superfood powder. I blend this up again. I'll add some CBD to it if I'm drinking it in the evening. This is the ultimate nighttime beverage. I also like to have crunchy, chewy things on my tea. I almost turn my tea into a smoothie. So I will occasionally sprinkle either cacao nibs or coconut flakes on top of it. And it is amazing. And you smell. It's like a baby. Yeah, it's like a soup. Kind of like a chunky soup. Now it sounds disgusting. No, it's actually really good. It's organifi gold. And you can get it for 20% off right now you go to organifi. That's organifi an with I organifi.com and use code greenfield and you save 20% off of this amazing golden milk. And then if the golden milk is too hot for you, or if you want a little something to go along with your golden milk, you can actually get a cold pack for your balls. I'm totally not kidding.

I know. I transcribed the commercial for this or the ad for this. And I was like, what? But it's true. It's a cold pack for your nut sack.

It's a cold pack for your nut sack. It's made by this company called Primal Cold. It's based on the idea that when you get your balls cold. You can increase your sperm count, you can increase your testosterone. I don't know if there are any other benefits besides sperm count and testosterone, but hell, that's enough for me. So if you want to get your balls cold with a special pack designed specifically to cradle your balls and keep them cold, that's what this jet pack does. And we're not joking. You have to see this to believe it. They make this thing called a jet pack. It's primal cold. And they're giving everybody who wants to make cold your secret sexual weapon, 15% off your order. If you want to do cold thermal for your nutsack, you enter code ben@primalcold.com just like it sounds. And the one I'm talking about is called the jet pack. I think they sell some other things too for cold thermogenesis. Like. Like, you know, for women, for example, who just wanna use like. I think they have like a one of these cold packs that you put on your body to increase your adipose tissue to brown fat conversion.

Do you have to put it on your face?

But ultimately, yeah. The one I want is the one for the balls. I have one up in my freezer. I put it on the other day and it, as advertised, makes your balls cold. So there's that.

I'm interested in the. In getting my testosterone up, but I'm not that excited or interested in getting my sperm count up. So I'm thinking just. Just put it on one nut maybe.

Yeah, you could do a trial. Just kind of wrap it around one nut, see what happens to one nut versus the other nut. Yeah, there's all sorts of cool experiments you could do with it. So check it out. It is primal cold.com 15% off, called the Jetpack.

Listener. Q and A.

Brock. By the way, I totally forgot during our news flashes to mention any upcoming events that people can partake in. Totally forgot. And of course, if you're listening in, you want to go visit the comprehensive show notes where I'll link to all the coconut oil and the low carb diet and the inulin versus the IMO stuff we talked about. Everything else, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com389 that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com 389. Brock and I bust ass on these show notes, so you better go visit it. But we have over there a whole bunch of different events that you can go to. And one that's coming up I'm particularly tickled pink about is this biohacking conference. In Toronto, where they're bringing in a whole bunch of researchers and physicians and biohacking experts, which basically means people who stick strange things into their orifices, nostrils, ears, anuses, you name it. If you want to go and hang out with people who shove laser lights in the holes, then come to this Spark Biohacking conference. It is October 14th through the 16th in Toronto. As you say up there, Toronto, Ontario. You don't say the T in Ontario though.

We do in Ontario, just not in the second T in Toronto.

That's where. Now I'm confused.

Anyways, we're confusing bunch.

Toronto, Ontario, the Spark Biohacking Conference. Check that one out. I'm also going to be speaking in Las Vegas, Nevada at a seminar called Live it to Lead it, which is like a health retreat. I'm going to be speaking at the World Congress of American Academy of Anti Aging Medicine in December. Whole bunch of stuff and there are still just a few rooms left. This is planning ahead for those of you who are Type A next June 23rd through July 7th, I am bringing a crowd of our listeners on a health retreat in the Swiss Alps. In Switzerland of all places. And you can come and join me in this health retreat where we'll be doing like detoxification, health classes and amazing organic foods. It's going to be one of the highlights of the summer for me personally. And plus you get to hike in the Swiss Alps every day. So that one I'll put a link to in the show notes. I think there's like three rooms left. All the rest are sold out. But if you want to go to Switzerland with me in June, you can get in on that. I'll put a link in the show notes. Just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com389 so there you have it. Now can we answer some questions?

Yes, please.

All right, here we go. Hey Ben, it's Shane from Calgary, Canada. Just a quick question. Just wondering if you know of anything you can take when you go into a flow tank. I've had pretty good experiences so far, but. But I'd love to be able to go deeper. Thanks, man. You ever been in a float tank, Brock?

I sure have.

What do you think of them?

I wasn't wowed. I wasn't. I wasn't blown away. It was nice.

I've gone through so much as an open water swim competitor, an Ironman triathlete. I've spent a lot of time staring at the black line of the bottom of the pool and spending a lot of time Deep inside my thoughts while swimming for hours in the ocean. And I find that when I go into a float tank, I personally, this is just me. And I have used substances that I'll talk about here in a little bit in a float tank before. I haven't found that it moves the dial much for me. I haven't found that I have, and I occasionally have breakthroughs, but when I'm in that float tank in isolation, I have the breakthrough. But I don't have a notepad or something I can write down that thought with. And I think of it, say, 10 minutes into my float session. For the next 50 minutes, all I think about is that thing.

Don't forget the thing. Don't forget the thing.

So then I can't relax. Which is why I think I mentioned this before on a podcast. That float tank should install voice recorders inside the float tank. So if you come up with something interesting that you want to remember later on, you just voice it, you name it, and then it records your float tank session. And you can listen to it when you finish your float tank.

That's a good idea. You could just leave your phone, like, nearby and just be, like, shouting, hey, Siri. Hey, Siri.

That would work too. Although I want that MP3 recording in my phone.

My watch just started. It's now transcribing what I'm doing, saying, because I said, hey, Siri, several times.

Oh, now my phone's doing it. Oh, geez.

I don't use Siri. I don't use any of that stuff anyways, though. So I would love to hear, like, my hallucinations and deep primal screams and everything else that I release while I'm in that float tank. It was. It was designed, though, originally by this guy, at least from my understanding, this guy named John Lilly. This was an interesting cat. You know about John Lilly?

Yeah. Didn't he almost die in one?

Well, this was back in this. Yeah. Back in the 60s, he somehow got funding by NASA to research whether it was possible to teach dolphins how to speak. And NASA's logic was that if we could somehow learn to communicate with dolphins, we would have a better understanding of how to converse with extraterrestrials if they would ever pop down to us for a visit. So extremely logical anyways, though. So he took a house in the Caribbean and he flooded it it with water so that the dolphins could live as closely as possible with him and his research team. And there are even allegations, for example, that they would have sex with the dolphins inside of this flooded home. Don't worry if you're listening in. Float tank experience does not necessarily involve a dolphin making love to you or vice versa. But anyways, apparently that was one of the things that happened with this whole Lily thing, and he lost funding for the project, but he kept kind of getting into this. This float tank stuff, and he was really into sensory deprivation tanks. And he would not only do sensory deprivation tanks, but he would actually use what would be considered then just like recreational drugs. And he originally started to do this to see if there was a way to get rid of his headaches, but he wound up shooting up ketamine, even iving ketamine, while he was inside of a sensory deprivation tank, along with some other psychedelics such as lsd. And this. This was. This was what he did. This. This was Lily's thing, was these isolation float tanks. And he was kind of like the father of isolation tanks and also injecting things like ketamine or taking LSD before you get into a float tank. So.

And his wife had to save him at one point because he. The ketamine paralyzed him, I believe, and he was drowning, so his wife had to, like, sneak in there and pull him out. Yeah, yeah.

That's something that ketamine can do, is sedate you to the point where you feel as though you're.

But he was undeterred. He continued to research and do it again.

Yeah, exactly. And somehow these sensory deprivation tanks have become quite common and kind of floated up again, so to speak, in the United States and in Europe. And there are people putting them into their homes now, but they've been around, like I said, since the. Since the 60s or even as early as the 50s. They've been used on and off in Europe, for example, since the 70s. And what folks aside from John Lilly were doing, in terms of, like, psychoanalytic researchers and neuroscientists was they were using the tank to increase creativity or connection to others or concentration or even to bring about some. Some type of a psychedelic experience. So the way that it works is these float tanks are filled with water that's almost the same temperature as the human body. They put a bunch of Epsom salt in there. Usually it comes from magnesium sulfate. And the salts let you kind of float on the water surface the same way as you would in, say, like, the Dead Sea. For anyone who's ever gone and toured over in Israel, same type of feeling. So. So you feel, like, really light of body and really peaceful, but you don't have to tread water or try to try to stay up. So even if you're not in the water, you just feel like you're kind of laying on this bed of air that's the same temperature as your body. And the idea is that this is supposed to induce this deep state of relaxation and turn down the body's fight or flight response. They've shown that it may help to lower cortisol levels, it may help to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and might even help with things like hormone balance or immunity and even normalization of digestive functions, probably because of the gut brain axis and the fact that when you down regulate the sympathetic nervous system, you get a little bit of a relaxing effect on the gut. And typically there's no incoming stimuli, there's no sensations, you're in the dark, you're inside of a tank. Typically there's no music playing and there's no guided meditation and you pretty much just are there with your breath in the dark. And it's an interesting experience. You don't feel the water on your skin because it's almost the same as your skin temperature. And it would be very similar to meditation in terms of the way that you feel during, but it kind of steps up a notch as far as the actual sensation. So you're in about 10 inches of water. There's like a thousand pounds of salt that they dissolve in there. And depending on where you go, yeah, it's like 50 to 150 bucks and you'll typically float for one to two hours. You don't get cold and you don't get wrinkly and you're just, you're just in there deprived of everything. So people do this for jet lag and they do it for like, you know, burnout and fatigue. They'll do it for headaches, they'll do it for mood related disorders. And there is some pretty compelling research behind it actually working for a lot of these reasons that people do it for. And there are certain things, like I mentioned, that you can take to enhance the experience of a float tank. And that kind of gets to Shane's question. He wants to go deeper in the, in the float tank. Well, one thing that a lot of people will use before they get into a float tank, you'd think this would amp you up, but it seems to be able to kind of regulate the mood a little bit, especially if you're using the correct form, would be some kind of a neutral pit or what we would call a smart drug. Right. So, you know, Alpha Brain by Onnit is one that you'll see a lot of people use. There's one called Siltep by a company called Natural Stacks. There's another one by Onit called New Mood which is a little bit more relaxing. I'm personally a fan of this one called Qualia Qualia Mind, which is like 40 plus different nutrients for the brain that could help you with focus or thought patterns while you're in the tank. So that would be one. Another one would be one that I use quite a bit to enhance my parasympathetic nervous system activation via the endocannabinoid system. And that's cbd. And you could, you could use just straight up weed. You know, a lot of people use THC too, although some find that the like the psychoactivity is kind of uncomfortable in the tank. But I will take typically before bed now about 30-50mg of CBD and I sleep like a. A baby. I've been publishing my sleep scores. I recently put one up on instagram@instagram.com BenGreenfieldFitness you can see all my crazy kind of insider stuff. And my sleep has been just through the roof. All I do is a little bit of CBD and right now a packet of this stuff called Sleep Remedy made by Doc Parsley. I take that Asleep like a baby. If you don't want to sleep in the float tank, I would say leave out the sleep remedy stuff, but just high dose CBD is another one that you can use if you don't want to dig into the, the psychedelic realm. Another couple of things that seem to work really well in a float tank. One would be a form of breathwork called box breathing.

That's right.

And there's even. There's a pretty good app. I'll see if I can hunt it down and put it in the show. Notes made by Commander Mark Divine, the Navy Seal. Commander Mark Divine, he's big into box breathing. He's the guy who originally talked about it to me and he's got an app. You could technically play the app in there in the float tank. Although box breathing is very straightforward. It's just four count in, four count hold, four count out, four count hold. And there are some people, you know, free divers, for example, or spearfisher. People will get themselves up to the point where they're doing like a 22nd in, 22nd hold, 22nd out, 22nd hold. I go on walks sometimes where I'll try to do like eight steps in, eight steps hold, eight steps out, eight steps hold all sorts of things you can do. But essentially it's like this symmetrical breathing pattern that is in, hold, out, hold. That one works really well for meditation. It also works really well for a flow tank experience. So that's another one to play around with is box breathing. In terms of tones and sounds. Like I mentioned, in a typical float tech experience, it's quiet, but you can enhance the experience. You know, I was talking about my massage. I have this collection of CDs called Whole Tones. It was created by this guy named Michael Tyrell. And these are musical tracks that are recorded at a specific frequency that will induce a pretty intense state of relaxation, I've found. I mean, like, I set that massage table up in between these two speakers and just blast that whole tones the entire time my massage therapist is working on me. I'm pretty sure she likes it. She hasn't complained yet about the, the loud music blasting through the room. But it's like this, this very peaceful guitar and piano driven music that I really like. And if I were to use a float tank frequently, I'd consider something like that. You could even get like a little underwater MP3 player if you wanted something in your ears while you're, while you're listening to these Whole Tones by Michael Tyrell.

He's been on the podcast before, right?

Twice, actually. Yeah. He's an impressive composer and a pretty smart dude. So yeah, there's the whole tones. And then the last thing, of course, would be what a lot of people go straight to. And that would be using either LSD or ketamine in the tank. And John Lilly, when he did a lot of the research into consciousness and a lot of research into the use of psychedelics and these isolation tanks, he used both. And ketamine is a little bit more of, kind of not, not a, not a downer. What would be the word, Brock? It's a sedative, basically. Yeah.

Relaxant.

And yeah, ketamine's got a lot of interesting depressing chatter around it. Now. It's not really a depressant, but a lot of people are using ketamine as just like a way to relax. And I'm not necessarily a fan of turning to a drug for sedation versus your own breath or controlling stress in your life or say, trusting a higher power that things are going to be okay. But ultimately ketamine is something that a lot of people use for anesthesia, used for pain management, and they use for depression. And I have never used ketamine prior to going into a float tank. I have done a float tank high on weed. I've done a float tank on LSD for some of that merging of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. And honestly, it's just kind of entertaining. You kind of go into this, like, isolated kaleidoscope experience. I have not used mushrooms before, although that would be another one. Especially if the water is not too cold or too hot and really is truly the temperature of your body. Because mushrooms will enhance your sensory perception and can make you uncomfortable if you're in cold water or hot water, that would be one I haven't used either. But I have used LSD in a float tank tank and I have been high in a float tank. And both were interesting experiences. But like I mentioned, they didn't really move the dial much for me. You know, one just felt like, kind of like being high and laying on my back in my backyard. The other felt like just sitting inside a kaleidoscope for an hour. So ultimately you can try LSD or ketamine, but, you know, I didn't really find them to be that, I guess, like, mind blowing as far as the overall experience. So there are simple things that you can do too. For example, try not to go to the bathroom before you go in so you don't have to think about peeing while you're there in the float tank.

Don't pee in the float tank.

Yeah, try it with a special foam pillow that they'll give you in many float tank experiences. Because sometimes you can find it a little more comfortable to float with a pillow. Sometimes music, like I mentioned, can enhance the experience. So I would consider that. I mean, if anything, I would go with something like box breathing, some of the whole tones music. Try Qualia Mind, because you kind of get this, this blending of like a psychedelic and a CBD type experience without having to necessarily kind of, you know, basically psychedelics. And I have a podcast coming out about this. Regular and frequent use of them can really do a number to dopamine and serotonin neurotransmitter regulation. And I know that all the burners out there, the Burning man enthusiasts and the people who are big time into hedonistic use of psychedelics might cringe to hear that, but it's true. I mean, it's not that great for you. I might use LSD once a month. I might use psilocybin now maybe once a month. Also, I got to a certain point last year where I was microdosing quite a bit. Right. Like, I did the psilocybin Every three days for a good three month stint. I was doing LSD every Friday when I do a lot of my fiction writing. And I've really, really stepped back on my use of psychedelics just based on my concerns about dysregulation of dopamine and serotonin. So I'm pretty careful with them now. And even with psychoactive compounds like thc, I'm much kind of more bullish on CBD now, so. So yeah, I'm careful with these things. But ultimately, try picking up an underwater audio player, grab some whole tones, learn some box breathing or pick up a box breathing app. Ketamine and LSD seem to be interesting for some folks. They didn't really do a lot for me aside from change up the experience a little bit. Try qualia, maybe try some CBD and those would be the biggies.

Hey, have you ever tried a thing called a theta chamber? I know like the other name for it is virtual float tank.

No, what's that?

It's, it's pretty crazy actually. You. It's sort of like this space age looking coffin that you get in. They put on this eye mask and headphones and then the entire thing like closes. And the one, the coffin spins one direction and the arm that the coffin is on, I shouldn't call it a coffin, but that's the only thing I can think of rotates the other way. So you're actually rotating in two different directions at the same time. And once it gets going, you basically don't feel like you're moving at all. And they play these binaural beats into the headphones and, and different patterned lights on the, on the eye mask and that thing that blew my mind, like I didn't think it was doing anything, but I was in there for 20 minutes and it felt like two minutes. And when it started to slow down and I realized it was over, I felt this profound sadness and just wash over my body. Like I was just like, like, oh no, it's over. And I didn't even realize how much my body was enjoying being in that state. I found that was like way better.

When I'm at the fair, when I go for a ride at the fair, I pay $10 for the zipper and it lasts two minutes.

But you don't barf on this one, hopefully.

Okay. Yeah, I was gonna say it sounds like something out of that horror movie saw, so. Sounds fantastic. Yeah, that's interesting. No, I'll have to look into that. I've never seen that, that before, but of course you do. Need to be careful if it produces a lot of emf, because we. Oh, yeah, a few people who are concerned about emf.

Yeah, let's. Let's talk about that.

Hey, Ben, there's a lot of talk about EMFs. I listened to your Building Biologist podcast. I was just curious your thoughts on biohacking tools out there. If you work in a high EMF exposure area, if there was something you could do, like, for example, I work in a shopping center, and the whole shopping center's meters are right outside of our windows. I'm not the owner, so I can't put up curtains and shielding material and all that, so I didn't know if standing on foil while I'm at work would help or there's other gadgets out there, like rings and watches and these cubes.

And.

If you knew of any brand that was legit. I know the Stetzer filters are the green wave.

You suggest for dirty electricity, but just exposure to meters and high EMF zones. If there was any other devices you recommended, maybe like wearables or such. Thank you so much for your podcast. Enjoy listening. This is Sheridan. Thank you.

So I really like this question from Sheridan. And I. I included it because we actually had a very similar question from a guy named Chris. And I was like, well, okay, if two people are asking this question, let's. Let's dive into it. Now. Chris actually worked at AT&T, and then he worked at Apple for his entire career, and that's where he was getting his EMFs from.

Yeah, and I don't. I'm not gonna kick the EMF horse to death. As far as warning people about the dangers of dirty electricity or electromagnetic fields, we know that non native electricity appears to have a pretty profound effect on cell membranes and also on electrons and protons as they tunnel through cells. And this affects calcium channel release. It affects the electrochemical gradient across the cell membrane. It affects the movement of water through both intracellular and extracellular fluids. I mean, like, go read a book. I'll link to this book. It's like the tinfoil Non Tinfoil hat guide to emf. So link to that in the show notes because it goes into the research far more comprehensively than I could right now. But there's a reason that not only do I not use Siri, but I don't have any smart device on in my home. I disabled WI Fi and Bluetooth on just about everything that exists around me. And I actually use. Because I do travel a lot and I do stay in hotels, I do get exposed to a lot of emf. I use a lot of the strategies that I'll explain right now to mitigate or reverse some of the damage from emf. Now I should mention I already mentioned him once, Joe Mercola. He and I had a podcast where we talked about how to reverse the damage, specifically from cell phone radiation. And I will link to that podcast in the show notes because we went on for like an hour on everything from, like, how to measure your EMF exposure to how the bugs in your gut are affected by electromagnetic fields. We talked a lot about it, as well as the shocking facts about how much EMF has, has increased since, you know, just in the past few decades.

And Dr. Mercola takes it to a whole new level too. Like he's basically got a Faraday cage that he sleeps in.

Yeah, well, he might, he, he. I mean, we might all kind of consider ourselves to be fools, you know, compared to, to guys like him 10 years from now.

I'm not saying he's wrong. I'm just saying, like, that's how far he goes.

Yeah, no, when people are dropping dead from coconut oil and their low carb diet and their EMF exposure, you know, he might be the last one standing laughing at all of us. So anyways, I know your finger is.

Going to fall off from wearing the OURA ring.

I put it in airplane mode. A lot of people don't, but even my self quantification ring, I have that thing in airplane mode. So ultimately, there are certain things that have been studied and can affect your ability to be able to bounce back from ems. One interesting one, a pretty recent research study was on resveratrol, which we would find in like grape skin extract. There of course, is some amount of resveratrol in wine, although you got to drink a pretty hefty amount of wine to be able to get the full 1000mg, 500mg twice daily they were using in this specific study. But what they did was they studied workers who had long term exposure to high voltage electricity lines. And they found that resveratrol significantly reduced the adverse impacts of the electromagnetic fields that these folks were exposed to, probably because of the profound antioxidant effect that resveratrol can have. And antioxidants in general have been looked into as ways to protect against free radical DNA damage in cells. Because we are really looking at a big increase in reactive oxygen species and free radical generation during exposure to emf. That's really one of the, you know, when, when you kind of Account for all that electron and proton stuff I was talking about in calcium channels and increase in, in what's called amp K activity. The reason for all of that or the consequence, I should say, of all of that is essentially increase in free radicals, increase in reactive oxygen species, too much of an inflammatory oxidizing reaction. So it makes sense that a pretty potent antioxidant like resveratrol in a study has been shown to reduce some of the effects of that. There are other antioxidants that can work similarly. But I should note that if you're gonna do resveratrol and you want to do it up around the dosage that they use in a study like this, I would look into like there's a pretty one good one made by Thorne, it's called resvera cell. What I like about that is they combine it with another thing I've talked about before that will support function of cellular mitochondria called nicotinamide riboside or nr. They throw some quercetin in there, which is another pretty potent antioxidant that can slow the breakdown of resveratrol. And then betaine, which is something that can help with methylation, which is also deleteriously affected from emf. So this is like they probably could have called this. Maybe they should. They should remarket it as the EMF blocker. Basically it's called thorn resveracel. That's one that I would recommend as a good source of resveratrol. I don't remember the actual amount of resveratrol. I think it's around like in a capsule you're getting around 100 milligrams or so. I'm not saying take 10 capsules per day of that to simulate what they were taking in the study because remember these were people working on powerless. You don't necessarily need to take 1,000 milligrams of resveratrol a day. But even just taking, you know, a couple capsules of this stuff, which is, I think the daily recommended dose would be prudent if you want to mitigate some of the effects of emf. Now of course you can get antioxidants from wild plant intake, from turmeric, from herbs, from spices, from a lot of these, you know, curries and even sulfur rich foods. But ultimately you may want to engage in a little bit of better living through science and try like a more potent form of an antioxidant like a resveratrol supplement. Some of the other things that appear to be either down regulated or decreased with exposure to emf, one would be a lot of these methyl donors. Like I mentioned, taking nicotinamide, riboside or betaine can help out a little bit. Or betaine specifically with methylation, which is important for just about every metabolism, metabolic reaction in the body that seems to be deleteriously affected by emf. But any sulfur rich food, it's going to help out a lot with that. Cruciferous veggies like broccoli, garlic, onions, cauliflower, there are even supplements that are sulfur rich supplements. MSM is probably the most popular, like putting a teaspoon of MSM into a daily glass of water. Even beets are pretty rich in methyl donor capabilities. So just consuming a diet rich in dark fruits, dark vegetables and sulfur, sulfurous stinky things, that can help out quite a bit as well. So you might have bad breath and nasty farts, but at least you're not gonna die.

That's what I was thinking.

You're not gonna die of a brain tumor. So there are other things that they say but that I haven't seen much evidence for. The same things you'd see used in detoxification like shilajit and fulvic acid and humic acid and clay and a lot of these binders. I'm more prone to give people a word of caution against just like taking a bunch of those to limit the effects of radiation or emf. Just because you can sometimes free up toxins or metals from one tissue of the body or one area of fat and simply redeposit them into other areas unless they're excreted properly. So you want to use, use like a systematized detoxification program if you're going to do a detox like I like, you know, Dr. Dan Pompa has one called the True Cellular Detox. Dr. Chris Shade has one called the Detox Cube. Dr. Brian Walsh has one. I forget the name of his detox program, but there's. Those are just a few of the guys I really respect when it comes to good systematized structured detox programs. But I also have seen very little in terms of actual research behind detox programs and emf. Those are probably something prudent to include if you're living in a post industrial era anyways. But yeah, Dr. Brian Walsh, Dr. Dan Pompa or Dr. Chris Shade look up any of those cats as they do pretty good detox programs. Brian's is about 10 days long. Chris Shade's I think is, I want to say like 14 days or so. And then Dan Pompa is a little bit more comprehensive and that's the one I do every year. It's a three month detox, so you could look into those as well. There are other things that you'd want to pay attention to. For example, melatonin tends to be pretty deleteriously affected by EMF exposure and is very good for protection from emf. And there are studies that show that it helps to reverse damage to brain neurons caused by EMF exposure. So using a melatonin supplement prior to bed, even supplementing with something like tart cherry, tart cherry extract, tart cherry juice, that's one of the more potent ways to enhance your own endogenous melatonin production. They're also a decent exogenous source of melatonin as well. Tryptophan is another. Tryptophan is a good precursor to melatonin and serotonin. And there are supplements like htp. Thorne actually makes one as well. They make that resveratrol that I talked about, but they also do an HTP supplement that you could take. So that would be another one to look into. Another. And this is something that Dr. Mercola and I talked about during the podcast that we did on limiting the damage from cell phone radiation would be something that shuts down some of these, what are called NF Kappa B pathways and some of the inflammatory pathways that develop in response to radiation and emf. And that's any source of hydrogen rich water, like hydrogen rich water tablets, Hydrogen rich water generators. I personally have these things called TRUSY tablets that I travel with. They're just like a little tablet, you dissolve it in water, takes two minutes, then you drink the water water. And at home I actually have a full on hydrogen water generator made by the same company, trusy. So I'm pretty much getting hydrogen rich water every single day. And that's a really good way to kind of, kind of fight the battle against inflammation oxidation. The cool thing about that one is it doesn't blunt the hormetic response to exercise. So you're getting a shutdown in oxidation and shutdown in inflammation without necessarily shutting down. Say your satellite cell response to exercise, which is something with high dose antioxidants like vitamin C or vitamin E you could actually get. So that's another one, iodine. Iodine is interesting because iodine seems to help protect against any kind of radiation and helps to repair damage after EMF exposure. So you can eat a diet that's rich in seafood and seaweed derivatives, but there's this stuff Called Lugol iodine. You can buy it on Amazon. The tolerable upward limit for it is about 1000 micrograms a day. I wouldn't use much more than that because the jury's kind of still out on whether iodine in supplemental form is safe at high doses. So I wouldn't do much more than 1,000 micrograms per day if you were going to use iodine. And you can also get iodine from raw milk. If you got access to raw milk, you can get it from eggs, you can get it it from sea vegetables like spirulina or chlorella for example. So those would be some that I would look into when it comes to iodine. This Lugol's iodine, it's like a, like a droplet that you get. For example, like I mentioned on Amazon, that one works really well also. I know I'm throwing a lot of stuff out there, but I'll mention a few other things that I would look into. One would be curcumin and also ketone esters. Either one of those are going to add act similarly on those same anti inflammatory pathways as hydrogen rich water. So not only being in ketosis but using a ketone ester like I like one called Ketoblitz made by Patrick Arnold. That's one you can get on Amazon. These are spendy. They're I believe close to like 10 to 15 bucks per serving. But doing even just one serving per day or taking ketone esters when you for example have flown on an airline, you know those would be be the times when you pull something like that out even though it's more expensive. So the company HVMN pronounced human. They make a good ketone ester. So does the company Ketoblitz. Another thing that I would consider would be the fact that you can experience some amount of mineral depletion during exposure to EMF because the protective calcium coating from the outside of the cells is affected. And so your cells will dump a bunch of calcium and magnesium and selenium and potassium and that causes a deficiency in minerals. So supplementing with a really good salt trace liquid minerals. There's a company called Aqua Tru. I recently interviewed the guy who developed this Aqua True water filter on a recent podcast and we also talked about the fact that they have Aquatru trace liquid mineral drops. You can get those. There's another company called Natural Vitality that makes like a little shot glass you can keep keep in the fridge or a bottle you can keep in the fridge and do Like a shot glass of those trace minerals. Again, like I mentioned, you could use just like a really good mineral rich salt, like a Celtic salt or a Colima. Aztec salt is the one that I use. So that would be, that would be another thing to do is to pay attention to minerals. So ultimately I would say as far as the lowest hanging fruit is concerned, first of all, as far as EMF mitigation, read that book I was talking about, the Non Tinfoil hat guide to EMFs. Mercola is coming out with a new book on EMFs which promises to be really good. There's another one that I wrote called how to Biohack the Ultimate Healthy Home. I'll link to that in the show notes as well. And then if anything I would do hydrogen rich water. I would do ketone esters if you can afford them. I would do a little bit of iodine daily. Take some melatonin before you go to bed. Use some form of resveratrol such as this thorn. Resveratrol a cell. Use some form of HTP which would actually pair well like that, that Doc Kirk parsley sleep remedy stuff that I talked about when I was mentioning the float tank that's got both melatonin and HTP in it. So that would be a pretty good solution.

And those would be. Oh, curcumin would be another. And then lots of, lots of minerals. The only other thing I know I'm throwing a lot out there, but we're, we're living in an era where we're fighting an uphill battle against this stuff would be support for the red blood cells. Support for the red blood cells particularly because those can take a pretty big hit when it comes to membrane damage from EMF exposure. There is a company called Biotropic Labs and they make a stack. They make it for athletes who are competing at altitude. It's like blue green afa. So there's some chlorella and some iodine sources in there. They have beetroot in there so you're getting a decent methyl donor liver anhydrate and then they have a bunch of nitric oxide precursors in there along with things like citrulline and malate. Really, really potent stuff for pre workout or pre sex. But ultimately it acts on red blood cells. So if you wanted to enhance your red blood cell health, that would be another one to throw into the mix. And I realize this sounds like you could be swallowing like 20, 25 capsules a day, but, but if that's affecting your pocketbook or your happiness you can just give a big old middle finger to cell phone companies and smart home device companies and everyone else who's creating all these devices that are pretty much bombarding us with EMF all day long. You gotta do something to battle that if you want to live in a post industrial era and not move to a pristine Himalayan mountaintop. And those are some of the ways you can do it. So I realize it's a lot and I will try to link to most of this stuff in, in the show notes. So it's just all kind of written out for you and you can go spend 2000 bucks on your daily supplement protocol to protect yourself against EMF.

Hey Ben, I am a 27 year old female. I would consider myself a pretty fit person. Doing HIIT training four to five times a week. Nothing too crazy, but you know, I can definitely run a sub 7 minute mile. I'm really trying to build my endurance base or my aerobic base. I've started to get a little bit into triathlons and I really want to perform well in them. I've heard a lot about the Maffetone method where you spend three to six months building your aerobic base and never touching the aerobic anaerobic zone. What are your thoughts? Is that still a real thing? Should I take three months off and just run at an aerobic heart rate? Let me know what you think. If I should incorporate strength training and HIIT training into that regimen or if you really think I should just take the three months off and train aerobically. Thanks, Ben. Bye.

It's been a while since we talked about good old Dr. Maffetone.

Isn't it Maffetone? He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He came up here when I did that conference in Spokane and he spoke about music in the brain. He kind of pivoted from being like an endurance coach into a musician. And he's got, he's still got a great website, good newsletter, good book over@philmathetone.com and this whole math method, essentially, I mean, painting with a broad brush. It involves using primarily aerobic training to build a bigger aerobic engine. Doing lots of low level aerobic work at a relatively low heart rate to increase your endurance. Made famous originally by Mark Allen, who won multiple. How many Ironman triathlons did Mark win?

I want to say, I want to.

Say seven, six or seven. And he had hired Phil Maffetone as his coach when nothing else was working. And I mean, he would go on runs and have to Walk up hills, Right, to keep his heart rate low enough or you know, you go to.

Go run in the middle of the night so people wouldn't see him running so slow.

Exactly, yeah. Because it involves a large amount of base aerobic work. And I wrote quite a bit in my book Beyond Training about the maffetone method and the fact that this whole idea of what is called polarized training, doing a good 80% of your training in this maffetone method aerobic zone, and then only about 20% of extremely high intensity interval training with very little time spent in the gray zone. And this kind of like in between zone between aerobic and highly anaerobic appears to be the actual training method used by the lion's share of some of the best endurance athletes in the world. Endurance athlete teams, Ironman marathoners, rowers, cross country skiers, they typically, most of them either intentionally or even naturally fall into this 80:20 approach. 80% aerobic training, 20% high intensity intervals training. Problem is, in my opinion is you got to do a lot of aerobic training to really see the results that you need to if you're looking to become like an extremely good aerobic athlete from something like the maffetone method and you need to either neglect most of the other skills to just go out and train aerobically, or you need to figure out other ways to skin the cat. Like me personally, I have a walking treadmill in my office. I stay physically active all day long. I stop a lot to do like kettlebell swings and walks and strolling on the treadmill. So I kind of have this low level aerobic activity all day long. And then I'll do something like a high intensity interval training workout at the end of the day. So I've almost kind of like hacked this 8020 approach into my day, which allows me to, you know, I run maybe five miles a week right now, but allows me to get out there and kind of kind of still compete in spartan races and things along those lines without a huge amount of formal aerobic training or formal maffetone method training. If someone has almost zero time and they really want to enhance their endurance. Well, it's important to understand that there's kind of two different ways that you can increase your mitochondrial density and your aerobic durance. One is via this, what's called the amp K pathway, which is what this maffetone method style of training will stimulate. And the other one is via a separate pathway that also causes favorable endurance training adaptations, but is more responsive to high intensity interval training. That one's called the PGC1 Alpha pathway. So voluminous endurance training seems to activate more of this.

AMP K pathway and then the other form of training seems to enhance this, this PGC1 alpha pathway. So ultimately there's kind of two different ways to skin the cat. But if you don't have much time, you can still get some pretty favorable endurance training adaptations and mitochondrial density with just doing high intensity interval training and not spending the relatively large amount of time that you need to engage in to do maffetone training. I need to be fair though, because the maffetone method is not just going out and doing it by of aerobic work like his whole method is. You're controlling inflammation with the right kind of diet. You're mitigating high glycemic variability by paying attention to the style of the carbohydrates that you're eating. You're maintaining adequate vitamin D status, adequate folate status, you're managing stress, you're doing a lot for neural function and brain stimulation. There's a lot of things he recommends from antioxidant intake to de stress stressing for maintaining healthy aging. It's kind of like yoga, right? Like we've bastardized yoga in western culture. Think that yoga is just like stretching and breathing when yoga is in fact an entire lifestyle that incorporates life methods, you know, purpose, belief in a higher power, mental discipline, spiritual practices, and then also the physical stretchy component that we harp on in America at the neglect of all these other variables. So it's important to realize that if you're going to do the math method and say whether or not it works, you need to do his whole method that he actually uses with his professional athletes and not just say I'm going to go out and do an hour long run every day at an aerobic pace and I'm doing math method. Now does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, it's you got to eat right, you've got to sleep right, you have to. Stress is a huge thing. Dr. Maffetone talks about stress, I think as much as he talks about his running and, and cycling and swimming.

Yeah. And if you go to my last book, it was all about maintaining the ideal amount of endurance while also having good longevity and good health. That's at BeyondTrainingBook.com you can get that book. I really explore this and unpack it a lot more thoroughly in the book. But the big picture is make sure you got a lot of time on your hands. If you're going to rely upon aerobic Training, formal aerobic training to get fit because it does take a lot more time. If you want to hack it, figure out a way to stay active all day long like I do with low level physical activity and then just throw in some HIIT training at the beginning or at the end of the day. And if you just have zero time and you're stuck in a cubicle and you have to choose between math training or just like doing a really good intense high intensity interval training session, know that the human body responds pretty favorably to, to hit and kettlebell swings and tabata sets and things like that to build endurance. And you can still get a decent amount of endurance just with kind of doing that really dense, intense training.

Hi Ben, my name's Kim.

I am interested in your opinion on carbon 60.

Well, I'm actually, I'm working on a book right now on anti aging and longevity. And C60 is something that pops up in that book because it does kind of fly under the radar. But it's been shown to increase the lifespan of rats by. Brace yourself Brock About 90%. About 90%. Yeah. It's got other names, got some funny names. So it's also known as buckminsterfullerene, also as buckyballs. But it's an antioxidant. It specifically works on fats within the body and it removes something called superoxide. So it binds the superoxide and removes it. And that's a toxic byproduct of cellular metabolism that can contribute to excessive tissue breakdown. It also has some pretty potent scavenging capacity for reactive oxygen species. So maybe it would fall into that EMF stack that we were talking about earlier. Some have hypothesized that with C60 it might get attracted to the mitochondria and assist with carrying what are called proton superoxide acceptors through the mitochondria, essentially enhancing the activity in the electron transport chain of the mitochondria. It might also be able to absorb protons. Protons are just like these positively charged hydrogen atoms in the body and could then actually enter the mitochondria bound to these protons. And that could also lead to a decrease in reactive oxygen species. So a lot of different ways that it appears to be able to work. But in the studies have been done, like I mentioned, 90% increase in lifespan for rats seems to prevent nerve cells from dying, meaning it decreases amyloid beta plaques. This was in mice. Mice were they had a decreased risk of Alzheimer's when using C60. Protects against free radical formation, prevents inflammation, seems to have some ability to be able to deactivate viruses and prevent nerve from dying. It appears to also prevent fat cells from growing in size and prevent development of insulin resistance. And finally, it has some kind of a skin protective effect because when applied topically in a skin lotion, it stops the development of sunburn. So there's a lot going on for it. It's almost like I feel like a used car salesman now talking about C60. As far as the risk given, there's not a lot of risks that seem to exist around it unless it's mixed with the wrong kind of oil or unless it's given in very high amounts, which seems to be able to cause some amount of DNA mutation. So you wouldn't want to overdose with it. You'd want to make sure that you use the doses that they used in some of these studies. And you would also want to make sure that if you purchase it that, that it's mixed in. And this is typical some type of an olive oil medium. That's the most common medium that you'll find this stuff mixed in. And there, I mean, here in the US for example, I don't know if you can buy it on Amazon in Canada or not.

Don't seem to be able to.

Yeah, in the US you can get it in olive oil. You can also get it in coconut oil. And the dosage ranges tend to vary. I'll put some links in the show notes, notes to some of the studies done on dosing so you can make sure that you dose accordingly. There are also some very good calculators online that allow you to calculate your C60 dosage. About four years ago, I bought C60. I used it for a brief period of time. I didn't notice anything, but I also wasn't testing my telomere length or anything like that at the same time that I was doing it. Why don't I take it now? Just because I've got. Got a lot of other things that I do for mitochondrial support and I just haven't really swallowed the pill, so to speak, of buying the stuff because it's like, you know, 65, 70 bucks a bottle and you know, a bottle might last you maybe a month. So, you know, it's a little bit of an investment. And you know, the bigger bottles you can find on Amazon, you know, you're looking at 200, 250 bucks. But you know, I would be interested to see who out there has done like for example, a telomeres measurement or experience other quantifiable results from something like C60. But ultimately it's pretty intriguing. You know, the amount of things that we can find in nature that seem to have a pretty dramatic impact on longevity and on decreasing inflammation. But I guess I should come full circle and say that you really cannot beat sunlight. Good mineral rich water grounding, earthing, meaning getting outside barefoot on the planet earth and fresh air and then lots of time with friends and family. Right. So if you just want the free, cheap and easy alternative to all these things that I've just named, that's your lowest hanging fruit, then all this other stuff is kind of like the icing on the cake. So there you have it.

Except does it, does it regrow your hair? Because I'm, I'm on a website right now. While you were talking, I was searching around in carpet carbon. 60plus.com has a hair regrowth formula and it's only 79.95.

I don't. I don't know, maybe, maybe first before you buy C60, you should just grab some of those ice packs for your balls and analyze the impact that that might have on hair. I think that would be more interesting than using C60.

I should put the ice pack on my head or just.

You could try that too, do the head and the balls. So yeah, lots of different options. Actually, photobiomodulation appears to be pretty good. I had the Joovv guys over at my house doing a podcast the other day and this use of red and near infrared light on the scalp seems to have some pretty good effects on hair growth. So there's a lot of things you can do. I also have this new essential oil that I use made by essential oil wizardry called Sexy Hair. And that's got a whole bunch of essential oils in it that. And so I rub that into my hair now each morning and it's supposed to be like a volumizer and increase the, the growth of follicles and all sorts of cool stuff. And I figure that combined with the amount of sunlight and the fact that I do like a daily treatment with this, this joovv light for photobiomodulation, I think I'm going to maintain a sexy head of hair well into my 80s, 90s, hundreds and beyond bond.

So I'm gonna maintain sexy baldness like, like Patrick Stewart.

Yeah.

Or the Rock.

Yeah, I like it.

Or Terry Crews.

Okay, so do we have anything we want to give away today, by the way?

Of course. We always do.

All right, so this is the time of the show make it so make.

It show when we make it Wait, that was.

That was more like Sean Connor. Yeah.

Sorry. This kid though.

We will read a review if you leave a review on itunes. Especially if you leave us five stars and you hear your review read on the show, that means that you qualified to win a free Ben Greenfield fitness gear pack with a sweet tech T shirt and a beanie and a water bottle. And we're gonna read a review now and again. It's a great way to support the show. You go leave a review. It just spreads some love around. And Brock, you wanna take this one away? Brock always picks the reviews.

Sure. Well, I've got never know what to expect. I could do you want to choose? I'll. I'll read the the titles of to them. You can choose.

Okay.

So I can't decide. So one is called best inappropriate jokes ever.

Okay.

And another one is called no Butts and butts is in quotation mark.

Let's go with no buts.

Okay. So this one's from Gourmet Grownup and it says Ben delivers a consistently high quality research research based podcast that covers all aspects of health and wellness. The occasional banter and rabbit holes only enhance the show and giving it a five star edutainment rating. In terms of length. I would be disappointed if it were shorter. Keep up the fabulous work.

That's a pretty good one. Edutainment. Edutainment. That's what we are. Yes. That is for those of you who are a little slow on the uptake. It comes combination of entertainment and education.

So you almost got that wrong, didn't you?

I almost did. All right, well, I am off to teach a webinar for kionu, which is my mentorship program for coaches and physical therapists and trainers and physicians. So I gotta go get ready for that. But in the meantime, Brock and I will finish up the show notes. We'll put everything for you over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 389. Be sure to grab yourself a box of the brand new tasty chocolate coconutty salty goodness of the Kion bars. We'll link everything else, including all the illegal performance enhancing drugs that you can use inside of a float tank. Everything that you can do to protect yourself from cell phones, except the actual tin foil for your tin foil hat. Buckminster Folster Fullerene for those of you who want to try Buckyballs for hair growth or anything else. And of course the world famous ice pack for your testicles. So I think that covers it, Brock.

Yeah, ice pack for your nut sack.

All right. Later guys. BenGreenfieldFitness.com389 is where those shownotes reside. Brock Catch you on the flip side.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast.

Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

Sa.