Podcast # 140 from

http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2011/04/episode-140-the-last-diet-

youll-ever-need-part-2/

Introduction: In this podcast, The Last Diet You’ll Ever Need - Part 2, when to use

a foam roller, fish oil skin break outs, body fat measurement

accuracy, shrinking your stomach, a supplement called Vitargo, are

frozen meals healthy, eating before a morning workout, and rapidly

digesting foods.

Ben: Hey, podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield. And this podcast is

actually coming out one day later than its typical scheduled release

day. The reason for that is the Amazon hosting account that this

podcast is hosted on has been inundated with increasingly higher

and higher traffic each week. There are many many thousands of

you downloading this podcast when it’s released and consequently

the fees from that Amazon account have sorted to dig very very

deep into my own personal pocket. So, yesterday I actually had to

take care of some issues with the actual payment on that account. I

thought about it over the course of the day yesterday, I definitely

still want to continue bringing you this podcast, but it’s going to

take your support and little bit of help from you. What I've done is

I've put a button over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com that lets you

donate $1 to this podcast. It's very simple. It's a button, you push

it, you donate $1, and this podcast keeps on coming to you week

after week. So, the decision is yours, let's jump right in to this

week's content.

Ben: This first announcement is for you triathletes over there. I am

teaching in this Ironman C’oeur D’Alene Triathlon Camp, and that

camp is going to be May 13th through the 15th. I have extended the

registration deadline for that triathlon camp to April 15. I’m gonna

put a link in the show notes of this podcast, Podcast #140, over at

BenGreenfieldFitness.com for you to be able to get in to this year’s

camp. Now, relative to most camps, it actually is not that expensive.

It’s $299 for an entire weekend, and that includes the course rides,

the runs, the swim clinics, the fuel, everything that we’re gonna be

providing to you during that camp. You can check that out. I’ll put

a link in the show notes over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

Ironman C’oeur D’Alene Triathlon Camp.

Next, we’re obviously talking about the KC Craichy’s new book

today, the Super Health Diet, The Last Diet You’ll Ever Need. Nd I

do have autographed copies of that book. If you want to get this

book for free, all you have to do is make a video of yourself, telling

me why you need this book or why you think this book would help

you, and all you got to do is upload that video over to Facebook at

the BenGreenfieldFitness Facebook Page. I’ll put a link to that in

the show notes and you, if you’re video is actually entered as one of

the top videos, will get that free autographed book, The Super

Health Diet. That’s what we’re talking about today.

Now, the last announcement is that Tuesday, April 12, is

approaching quickly, and remember at 6PM pacific time, 9PM

Eastern time on Tuesday, April 12, Dr. Cohen from Bioletics and

myself are gonna be teaching a seminar called The Shocking Truth

About Vitamin D and Fish Oil. This is gonna be chocful of a bunch

of content that you didn’t really realize when it comes to Vitamin D

and fish oil and you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and RSVP

for free right there in the show notes. You will be able to ask your

question via chat or via video during that live seminar, so check that

out. That’s coming out Tuesday, April 12, at 6PM. So I hope to see

you there. Let’s jump right in to this week’s listener Q & A.

Listener Q and A

Ben: If you have a question for the podcast, remember you can just leave

it over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com by clicking on the Ask Ben

form, or you can call and leave your question via audio to 877 209

9439. And the first question for today comes from listener Kelcey.

Kelcey asks: I recently saw a write-up on a new foam roller called the “rumble

roller.” It has little bumps on it as opposed to just a smooth rolling

surface, and that’s supposed to make this foam roller superior to a

conventional roller. I was wondering if you had seen this roller or

had any thoughts about it. Also, one of my therapists made me roll

immediately before and after run workouts, but another said it was

better to wait several hours to roll to “allow time for lactic acid to

accumulate.” Is there a better time to roll than another, and are

there times when I should not roll because it might hinder

performance".

Ben: Well, this is a great question. I personally use a foam roller almost

every day, and here's why. Basically, you have this soft connective

tissue right underneath your skin. And it wraps around your

muscles, your bones, your nerves and your blood vessels. And it’s

called fascia. And together, muscle and fascia make up what’s

called the myofascial system. And for a variety of reasons including

heart exercise and sometimes not enough exercise, inflexibility,

injuries, variety of reasons. The fascia and the muscle tissue

underneath it get stuck together and that is called an adhesion and

it results in restricted muscle movement and drop in performance,

it can cause pain, soreness, reduce your flexibility, reduce your

range of motion and so, the idea is, that there is a way to release

that myofascia or to get rid of some of those adhesions. Now,

traditionally myofascial release is actually something that a

practitioner does on you. They use this sustained pressure on your

soft tissue while they apply what is called traction to your fascia.

And it’s something you can get done by a lot of times a massage

therapist or physical therapist. And that results in a softening and a

lengthening of the fascia, a breaking down of the scarred tissue, a

drop in adhesion between the skin and the muscles and the bones

and typically improvement in performance and improvement in

range of motion and a lot of times a decrease in nagging aches and

pains. But you can do myofascial release yourself with the foam

roller and you simply do it by lying on the foam roller so that the

pressure from your body weight is pushing the foam roller against

your muscle, simply rolling the foam roller up and down the areas

that tend to be tight or adhesed. This technique is something that

has to be a lot less expensive than going to see a massage therapist

or physical therapist. Now there are little areas of your body, you

know, little tiny muscles up in your shoulders and some of the areas

like that behind your knees that is really tough to get with the foam

roller but in most cases, for most muscles, the foam roller works

just fine. I've got of bunch of free videos that show you how the

foam roller over at youtube.com/bengreenfieldfitness if you're over

there and do a search for foam roller. Now this rumble roller that

you talk about with a little ridges sticking up out of it, that's actually

the foam roller that I use. I use it almost every day. And I swear by

it because of those little ridges dig into the muscle a lot better than

the smooth foam rollers will. Now, as far as the time to foam roll,

like I mentioned foam rolling can help you improve range of motion

and help decrease tightness and soreness during exercise. So,

during important exercise sessions or exercise sessions where

you're going to need a lot of range of motion, I recommend you

foam roll before the session. So you'll hit those muscles for about

five minutes of foam rolling before you actually go out and start a

session. In addition, I do recommend foam rolling after hard

workout sessions to actually help your muscle to recover. It's a

form of cool down. Basically helps milk some of the inflammation

up out of the muscle. Now, the therapist that told you that you need

to allow time for a lactic acid to accumulate, was actually incorrect.

Lactic acid is removed from your muscles almost immediately after

you finish your workout. Your body gets rid of lactic acid very

quickly. It’s not what causes soreness. And you don't foam roll to

get rid of lactic acid. You foam roll to simply flush a lot of the

inflammation, white blood cells, the prostaglandins, the fluid, the

thing that can kind of accumulate in muscle during a hard workout.

And that helps to decrease of the soreness the next day. So,

ultimately, best case scenario, you foam roll before workout that are

gonna require a lot of range of motion, or workouts where you tend

to feel you know, injured or feel body pain during and you foam roll

after workouts after which you traditionally feel like to get sore.

And that's the best way to use a foam roller. So hopefully that helps

out.

Mer says: I started taking Udo’s oil. I feel like it’s making my skin break out.

Is this possible? It has happened to me previously when I increased

fish oil intake, but I thought it was an old wives tale that using more

oil would make your skin break out.

Ben: Well, the idea with Udo's oil, and I did interview Udo Erasmus

before about this 3-6-9 oil that he has, which is basically the oil is

just chocful of Omega 3 fatty acids along with small amount of

Omega 6 and Omega 9 fatty acids. The idea behind it is that it’s a

great source of fats. Something you can take by the tablespoonful,

for example, on daily basis. You can even mix it and use it as a

salad dressing. But, occasionally, when people start taking in good

oils, they can break out. And the general consensus, and I did ask

Udo about this, is that it actually toxins moving out through the

skin. So what happens is that oil soluble toxins can build up on

your tissues and you don't have enough of the type of oil that

migrates to the skin present in your diet. Now, Omega 3 fatty acids

are the type of fatty acids that appear to move toxins more

effectively unlike in Omega 6 or Omega 9 fatty acids or saturated

fat. And because you're vastly improving your Omega 3 profile

when you are start taking something like an Omega 3 fatty acid

source, you can get a break out from that toxin release. But

typically, that reaction stops within anywhere from two to six

weeks. So what I would do is at least take an oil like this for that

period of time and then assess whether or not you’re still breaking

out. At that point you might want to look into like the soap you're

using, and the shampoo you're using, any type of chemical that you

may become more sensitive to as you get healthier which is often

the case. So, that's a great question, hopefully that helps you out.

Mike says: At the beginning of the year, I did the hydrostatic weighing, and I

was told I have 10.2% body fat. But I got tested with a Bod Pod

today. And I came in at 17.4% body fat. I haven’t changed my

training or my diet so which test should be more accurate?

Ben: Well, I've talked a little bit about hydrostatic weighing and I’ve

talked a little bit about the Bod Pod before and basically, a

hydrostatic weighing is where you get dunk into a tank, you hold

your breath, you go under water, you let all the air out of your lungs

and by measuring your weight underneath the water, you can get

your body density, and using an equation, your body density can be

converted into body fat percentage. And when you use something

like a Bod Pod, which is a chamber that you crawl into, you're

displacing air rather than displacing water. Now, both are accurate,

within about 1-2% which is fairly good as a body fat measurement.

But the issue is that, when you use something like a Bod Pod, which

is actually called air displacement plasmography, it can be an

ineffective way to measure body fat if it’s not done properly. So if

you've exercised beforehand, if you are wearing a bunch of loose

clothes during the test, if you've eaten beforehand, if you

dehydrated, all of this can affect the Bod Pod measurements,

whereas, water tends to be a little less sensitive to those variables.

So that's one thing as you may not have been in ideal state when

you did the Bod Pod versus the hydrostatic weighing. And they

have actually done studies like this before where they've taken

people and they've compared the Bod Pod versus the hydrostatic

and found that something as simple as having the baggy clothes on

can vastly reduce the accuracy of the Bod Pod measurement. So

you got to be in very, very tight clothes or else not wearing anything

when you do Bod Pod to oppose accuracy of hydrostatic. And both

of them, when done correctly, can be pretty accurate, so you’re

going to get within 1-2% of either method. But interestingly even

skin fold calipers which are those pinching calipers that pinch the

skin, they get a fat fold measurement at various sites of your body

can be close to the same accuracy if they are done by somebody who

knows what they're doing and who has done skin fold

measurements before. So, you don't have to go find the expensive

chamber to get into or do hydrostatic weighing. You can do the skin

fold and get pretty decent results.

David says: Is it really possible to shrink your stomach physically by eating less?

Ben: Well, the short answer is yes. They've actually done it an interesting

study on this. What the scientists did was they had a group of obese

men and women and was split into 2 groups. So there's one group

that ate whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. And then

the other group just had a thousand calories a day. And the

scientists used this cool little latex balloon to measure the stomach

capacity at the start of the study and then four weeks later. And

long term, over the course of those four weeks, the dieting group

versus the control group, they reduce their gastric capacity by 27 to

36% on average. The control group, their stomach capacity didn't

change at all. Now, typically your stomach is not going to shrink

that much by eating just a little bit less during the day. But chronic

dieting or chronic calorie deprivation can definitely decrease your

stomach capacity. Interestingly, this affects us both ways because if

you have a repeated intake of large meals, you increase your

stomach capacity. So I imagine these people who do something like

competitive eating probably have a huge stomach capacity. But the

idea is that as your stomach capacity decreases you can tend to feel

more satiated by smaller and smaller meals. And so a lot of times if

you begin eating fewer calories, whereas you may initially be

somewhat uncomfortable with that, long term your stomach can

decrease in its capacity to the point where you find those smaller

meals just as fulfilling. So, it's quite interesting. Now, we have a

question about a supplement.

Kara asks: What are your thoughts in the effectiveness of Vitargo as a

carbohydrate source for pre, during and post workout.

Ben: Well, Vitargo is basically a nutrition supplement company that

makes a carbohydrates supplement that's based on barley starch.

And the idea is that the type of carbohydrate that you get from this

barley starch has a very, very high molecular weight. Now, when

you have something that has a high molecular weight, it tends to

have a little bit less water or little bit lower osmolality in terms of

the water that collects around it. And so, when it’s consumed it can

actually move to the stomach more quickly versus the

carbohydrates that are requiring more water to digest. So, the

Vitargo starch is a little bit more rapidly digestible, gets to your gut

more quickly, gets to your small intestine more quickly and so you

get more blood glucose available to your blood, to your liver, to your

muscles, and so this high molecular weight starch is actually a

pretty good way to be getting in your carbohydrate during exercise

or after. The issue is that it's expensive to make, this is a spendy

supplement and so you got to have the money to burn on the

supplement if you want that higher molecular weight and Vitargo is

known for being a little bit spendy. However, now because it's

made from this barley starch and its made from something called

amylopectin, the high molecular weight can really improve

carbohydrate absorption so, I definitely don’t really have an issue

with this at all and everybody that I've talked to who has used it has

not really experienced as much bloating or cramping as they get

with the maltodextrin or the fructose or the glucose based formulas

that can kind of act like a sponge and draw a little bit more water

into the stomach. So, it will definitely be something to look into, it’s

really compelling in terms of a good carbohydrate source during

exercise.

Jenny says: I was wondering what your opinion is of frozen meals. I used to eat

a Lean Cuisine for lunch several days a week but now only eat

frozen meals if necessary for convenience. What is your opinion on

eating these meals?

Ben: Not a big fan. You can start off by looking at the sodium of

something like a Lean Cuisine and you're going to find about 500 or

600 mg of sodium so you getting about 25% of your daily sodium

needs within just one meal. And you have to add all that sodium

not only because it’s a good preservative but also because it makes

this meal loaded with chocful of fake additives taste a little bit

better. So, if you look at the actual ingredients of the typical meal

like we take the apple cranberry chicken Lean Cuisine, we start off

with blanched pasta and then we get to cook the white meat chicken

but they add modified tapioca starch to that chicken as a filler, they

add a chicken flavor to actually make that cooked white meat

chicken taste more like chicken and that chicken flavor is basically

natural flavors and chicken powder and the natural flavors as you

may heard before on the show can come from just about anywhere.

They add a whey protein, a soy bean oil, corn syrup salad, modified

corn starch, chicken broth, orange juice, lemon juice, apple cider

vinegar, sugar and more soy bean oil. So, lots of sugar, very high

glycemic index, high propensity to have more of that carbohydrate,

massive dose of carbohydrated meats, lots of Omega 6, pro-

inflammatory Omega 6 fatty acids coming from the soy bean oil,

lots of potential digestive irritants especially in folks who have food

intolerances with the soy, with the wheat, ultimately you’d be better

off going to the grocery store and picking yourself up an apple,

some nuts and maybe a cup of boiled egg, or some lean turkey meat.

Now, I found while I was travelling this past weekend incidentally a

great little package meal at an airport news stand. And it actually

had a very, very decent nutrition profile and primarily natural

ingredients. It was made by a company called Go Picnic. And I'm

guessing you're going to see this popping up more and more at

airports and convenient stores, because people are becoming a little

bit more health conscious, but at least incredibly filling. It was

basically like a salmon spread, some dark chocolate, some gluten

free trail mix, some nuts in there and it was great. So it was called

Go Picnic. It would be something look into as well, but there are

definitely better alternatives to these frozen meats.

Matt asks: My stomach needs a couple hours to process breakfast. So in the

morning, I just eat a banana, coffee and some water and then start

my training session for 1.5 to 4 hours. Will the technique I use, no

breakfast before long training session, be fine?

Ben: Well Matt actually included, when he wrote to me in a separate e-

mail, that he uses a power walker and that is why he is working out

for so long. It is competitive power walker, so he is working for this

long in the mornings. And the issue is that a lot of times, if you’re

wanting to eat that good pre-workout meal to make sure that you

get a good workout, it's a morning workout, you're working out at

7am, that means to digest that food, you got to get up at 4:30 or

5am. That's not just practical for a lot of people. And then, the

other issue is that if you're wanting to kind of take advantage of the

fasted workout state, in terms of being able to tap in the fat storage

a little bit better and enhance your ability to burn fat efficiently,

you're also missing out on that if you would a big pre-workout meal

before you start this training session. So, what I would recommend

is that you just get out of bed, and go straight into your training

session, take your fuel out there with you, so your gels or your fruits

or whatever it is that you are eating during the training session but

don't start to consume it until you get about 30 to 40 minutes into

the training session. So you're getting the advantage of both fat

fasted morning workout, but also getting enough fuel into your

body. You're not doing things like cannibalizing muscle or getting a

huge stress cortisol hormone response to the workout. Now the

other thing if you want to throw a little bit extra in there would be

to take an amino acid before you actually head out. So that you are

upping your blood levels of amino acids and again a decrease in the

chance that you’re going to be cannibalizing muscle and you could

do that with something like any of the amino acid powders I've

talked about before in the show like the Bioletic amino acid powder

or a master amino pattern capsule or any of these amino acids are

going to bump up your blood levels of amino acids, but not require

you to eat a steak or bunch of scrambled eggs before you head out

there in your training sessions. So highly biologically available

amino acids can help out quite a bit. And that's the way that I

would tackle a workout like this. And then of course when you

finish you have a big breakfast.

Lou says: My daughter had her colon removed a year ago due to an illness.

With absence of her colon, her digestion has to occur rapidly and in

a shorter time frame. She is a photography major, her day is full of

activity, moving gear, etc. She also works in retail 20 hours a week

and rides a bike to get around. Which products would you

recommend to complement or enhance her nutrition?

Ben: Well, I'm a big fan of kind of going with almost like the same type of

diet you would eat for irritable bowel syndrome if you had this

colostomy. Because you don’t have your large intestine, you need

food to be digesting very easily and not causing much irritation in

the digestive tract. So from the supplement stand point you’d

definitely be wanting to take two things, probiotics and digestive

enzymes. I highly recommend those so the food that is arriving in

the large intestine is well digested as possible and probiotics, there’s

any number of probiotics that you could get, and even eating yogurt

would be okay if you do okay with dairy. And for digestive enzymes,

I'm a big fan of something like, Capra Enzyme is the one that I take

by Mt. Capra. That's a really good one and you literally take that

just a few minutes before meal to help you digest that meal a little

bit better. I would also have certain foods that I would avoid. For

example, food with a lot of fat in it can really increase the strength

in the intestinal contractions and in a sense of digestive system that

can cause some heart burn, it can also cause some bloating, some

digestive irritation, so especially like fried fatty food or fatty meats,

be careful with things like that. So pizza, sausage, french fries, any

of those types of food be really careful with. I mentioned the

probiotics in getting those from the dairy product, but again, that's

ony if she doesn't get any type of bloating or cramping or diarrhea

when she eats a dairy like a milk or a cheese or an ice cream.

Otherwise you want to get your probiotics from a simple probiotics

capsule. Be really careful with grains. A lot of people can handle

grains just fine but they do have some digestive irritants in them.

And I recommend if you’re doing any grains that they definitely be

sprouted and so. Otherwise stay away from things like rye and

barley. Now, fruit is okay, but you got to be careful with a lot of

fiber because that can be irritating to the digestive tract especially if

you had a colostomy. So, in order to make that easier to manage,

limit intake of raw vegetables, try to eat more cooked vegetables like

cooked broccoli, cooked cauliflower, cooked carrots. Try to avoid

eating the skin and the peel of the fruit. If you are doing something

like apple I recommend maybe cooked and mashed rather than

eating the apple with the skin. I would stay away from like high

fiber cereals like I've already mentioned, the wheat, the rye, the

barley issue but stay away from like wheat brand cereals things like

that. Definitely corn and pop corn, I will not include. And also be

careful with high intake of nuts and seed which can also have some

irritating fiber in them. A few other thing that can be kind of

triggers in terms of irritable bowel would be anything that has

artificial sweeteners in it. So be careful with like sugar free gum,

like sugar substitute packets in your coffee, even like sugar free ice

cream, or sugar free drinks like diet sodas. At the same time, be

careful with acidic drinks like carbonated drink sodas, coffee,

alcoholic drinks. This is really good advice for just anybody who

tends to have irritable bowel. Spicy foods can contribute to some of

the issues that you could have with digestion whether you have a

colostomy or irritable bowel, so be careful with like chilli peppers

and capsaicin and unfortunately even chocolate can irritate the

digestive tract so I'd be careful with like a chocolate, as well. So a

combination of avoiding some of those foods, as well as taking a

probiotic and a digestive enzyme would be really helpful. So what

that means is that a lot of your carbohydrates are going to come

from things like cooked beets, cooked carrots, cooked sweet

potatos, cooked yams. A lot of your proteins are going to come

from leaner meat based protein sources or things like eggs, protein

powders like hemp or pea based protein powders will be fine. And

then a lot of your fats are going to come from things like olives,

avocados, olive oil, flax seed oil, not necessarily flax seeds but the

actual extracted oil. And then lastly, just because a lot of absorption

of electrolytes and lot of hydration can occur in the large intestine,

make sure that you really stay on top of getting in adequate

electrolytes and minerals every day. And drink enough water every

day. Those are some of the things I’d look into, I’m not a doctor,

these are not some medical advice, but that's what I would do if Lou

was my daughter. So let's go ahead and move on to part two of the

interview with KC Craichy and The Last Diet You'll Ever Need. Part

one is available in Podcast # 139 and I would highly recommend

that you listen into it. And that's available over at

BenGreenfieldFitness.com. Just do a search for The Last Diet You'll

Ever Need or just scroll down to Podcast #139. Let's go ahead and

move on to the interview.

Featured Topic:

Ben: Welcome folks, to part two of the interview with KC Craichy on his

book the Super Health Diet, The Last Diet You'll Ever Need. Now,

last week, you were in a ton about the premise behind a weight loss,

health spas, clinics, supplements, weight loss techniques, a ton of

different things that KC talks about in this book and the reason that

he wrote the book in the first place. If I could I would actually force

you to turn this off right now if you haven't listened to part one and

go back and listen to part one before you listen to part two because

it's really going to make a lot of the stuff that we talked about in

part two make better sense. So make sure that you listen to part

one before you listen in if you can and remember also that there will

be a link to KC's book in the show note to this episode so that you

can pick that up for your personal library which I highly

recommend. So KC thanks for coming back.

KC Craichy: I'm glad to be back, Ben, you're doing great work out there.

Ben: Well, you know in part one of your book which we discussed quite a

bit of last week, you talked about many of the issues in terms of

weight loss and weight gain and in part two of your book, you start

to talk about solutions and you jump right in by describing what

you call the four corners of super food nutrition. And what I’d like

to do is talk about what these four corners are. So what are the four

corners of super food nutrition KC?

KC Craichy: We'll go to the four corners I just want to read this one quote. Just

kind of recap last week, the short history of medicine. 2000 BC they

said, "Here, eat this root." 1000 BC they said "That root is healthy.

That root is heathen, say this prayer." AD 1850 they said, "That

prayer is superstition, drink this potion." 1940 they said, "That

potion is make oil, swallow this pill." 1985 they said, "That pill is

ineffective, take this antibiotic.” And 2000 they said, "That

antibiotic is artificial, eat this root."

Ben: It's a full circle.

KC Craichy: That's full circle. So at the end of the day, you going to have the

truth, you going to know the truth and it will set you free. And that

is what we are trying to give here. So the four corners of super food

nutrition, it is says, first one is calorie restriction with optimal

nutrition. We know and now more than 2000 research studies

alone that if you cut the calories of even garbage food that you're

going to increase, you're going to reduce weight, increase energy up

and increase mental clarity basically that's a fountain of youth. But

people don't like to be hungry. And we talked last week about how

you can actually lower the calories of a high protein diet, high fat

diet, high carbohydrate die,t basically any kind of diet if you lower

the calories, you’re going to get some beneficial result as a direct

result. Now, no practitioner, has done any research will argue

against calorie restriction. We know that it works. So now the

argument is why does it work? So one group of scientist says, the

reason cutting the calorie works is because less calories equals less

of the glycemic or sugar response. If you go to low glycemic or low

sugar, you should get the same response as cutting the calories.

And they’ve done studies that actually demonstrate that to be the

case. And the other group of scientist says, actually it’s the free

radical theory of aging because if you lower the calories, that you're

actually going to reduce the combustion or the oxidated stress in

the body or the oxidation if you were ill. And so, lowering the

calories or increasing the broad spectrum antioxidants should heal

the same result as cutting the calories and they got clinical studies

that actually demonstrate that to be the case. And the fourth area is

our healthy fat. Say like fish oil. We know that if you add fish oil to

the diet, you can get similar response to cutting the calories,

increase the nutrients, reducing the sugar and increase the anti

oxidants, all of them can be accomplished largely by now adding

enough fish oil to your diet and other healthy fat. So what became

obvious to me was that you are alright, you can actually do all four

of them and that should actually be the guideline on how one

should approach their diet of the four corners of optimal nutrition.

Ben: And in science, they actually have a term for this calorie restriction

with optimal nutrition or in your book you give the acronym you

call it CRON. The most interesting thing is that most diets talk

about calorie restriction obviously for the purpose of weight loss but

you note the research that shows that you get things like

mitochondrial adaptation, which is great for athletes and endurance

athletes especially, as well as a ton of other benefits from an anti

aging perspective in terms of reducing or restricting calories, now,

what would you say to somebody who says, " Well, that's all great

but I don't want to live until I'm 90 years old if I'm going to be

hungry all the time."

KC Craichy: Yeah, I think that is the American answer to that. And see, this is

why calorie restriction does work. People go off diets and back their

normal thing. And you talk about some of the benefits. I mean, this

has been studied, and everything from single cell organisms, algaes,

all of the primates and now even in humans and it works every, at

every level, but you're right. People don't like to be hungry. So an

athlete who has been told, "Hey, eat 6000 calories a day. And you

have to do that if you know your sport." But the truth is, if they will

eat a lot less calories and a lot more nutrient density, as long as they

assured that they got all of the 50 plus essential nutrients required

to optimize metabolic function, they actually could be a better

athlete and healthier and so on. So let me get a quick study that kid

of puts it all together. I write about in the book that there is an

article in Journal Nutrition 2002 which really says a lot about this

four corners approach. The first group was giving all that they

wanted to eat. These are four groups of mice. The first group’s

given all that they wanted to eat. A high polyunsaturated corn oil

kind of diet. They eat all they want whenever they want. They live

an average of 232 days. The second group same kind of mice, same

kind of food but all they did now, same amount of food, all they did

was add fish oil to their diets and they live an average of 100 days

longer than the 232 days control. So just by adding fish oil, you can

eat like an idiot so to speak and add fish oil and get the benefit. So

the third group was the calorie restriction group without optimal

nutrition so all they did was take the same garbage food and they

reduce the amount of the food by 40% and they were able to add

200 days to the life span of these mice over the 232 days control. So

the fourth group wants the same food as the third group, and the

same amount of food 40% less than the control and now they added

back fish oil to the equation and they live an average of 400 days

longer than the 232 day control, just by adding fish oil and cutting

the calories. So when you think about it, this is pretty much the

four corners but it does not do the optimal nutrition piece which

would even add a higher impact to it.

Ben: Now, in your book, you talk about super foods. And this was

something that really helped me turn the corner because I went

from eating a ton of calories everyday and still being hungry. Now I

can train for Ironman and on many days go as low as 3000 calories,

it may seem like a lot to some people but it’s not that much for an

Ironman male athlete, because I use a lot of these things that you

talked about in your book. You have a big list of super foods, you go

down the list from dark green vegetables like spinach, kale,

broccoli, asparagus, green bean, romaine and mixed greens, to seed

vegetables which you talked about more and explained in your

book, to the grain grasses and include things like wheat grass,

bright colored vegetables, berries, eggs from free range hen, beef,

bison, chicken, turkey and lamb, all grass fed, grain free and

organic, rice and yellow pea protein powdered blend, goat milk

protein, non denatured whey protein, stabilized brown rice brans,

sprouted legumes and grains, fresh sweet combination of vegetables

juices, sprouts, you know, in your book you talked more about how

to actually go about finding and getting all those but ultimately

what it comes down to and I'm speaking from personal experience

here is when your refrigerator starts full of like that this whole

calories restriction being miserable thing goes away because you are

not hungry.

KC Craichy: You're not hungry. See, it's not about, because when you eat this

food you're not going to tap out the calories like you normally would

on what you typically did and you are going to be satisfied. The

thing when you talk about the four corners of super food nutrition,

you really talk about super food nutrition in itself and what does

that mean. So when we came up with was the process as that we

know and we talk about just briefly, I guess, last week that there are

50 plus essential nutrients that human body requires to get in your

diet with exception to say vitamin D which we can get some of that

from the sun, but you don't get all of these essential vitamins and

minerals and enzymes and co-factors and amino acids and fatty

acids if you don't get all of the essential ones and there's going to be

a physiologic consequence and eventually death as a result of not

getting these nutrients. So what we design is a program where you

actually supplement the 50 plus in the highest, the most bio

available forms, and then you add super food like you just describe

to the diet. That way you're getting all the things when we continue

discover new things in science, new essential this, or new

conditionally essential that, and co-factor and so on. If we combine

those super foods with those nutrients, you now have everything the

body needs to thrive and to build muscle and to increase energy,

and increase performance and so on, and that is the concept of

super food nutrition.

Ben: Got you. Alright. So, number one, is this calorie restriction of

optimal nutrition. Number two, what is number two?

KC Craichy: The low glycemic, low sugar. The nutrient in this food is one that

we talk about. So if you think of low calorie as just changing your

types of food to nutrient then it’s food that will help people out of it,

I believe. So when you go on to low glycemic response food, there

are times particularly an athletics like you were talking about, we

are going to need a high glycemic pop. So I'm not talking about

those times. I'm talking about generally speaking, people should try

to eat food and don't rocket their blood sugar and insulin levels

immediately. So foods that are lower glycemic the greens instead of

the grains for instance, you know, having a lot of greens in your diet

will slowly raises blood sugar, but if you eat a lot of corn, it's going

to rack it up like you ate of all sugar. So a lot of people have like

breakfast cereals and all those kinds of things for breakfast and a lot

of athletes are still misled into thinking that a high carbohydrate,

you know, carbs centric breakfast is the way to go, when truthfully

they’re better off to have a low glycemic carb centric breakfast along

with enough of the all vital nutrients we talked about plus enough

protein which is another subject in itself.

Ben: What about like a high fiber special cake, granola, muesli, those are

all, would you consider those could be low glycemic response?

KC Craichy: They’re really not. They would raise blood sugar many hours after

you’ve eaten. Now there are times where having some oat meal

along with some eggs and some super foods smoothie or something

like that can be a slower sugar over time. It's not usually the

oatmeal that's the biggest of the problems. It's what's people are

throwing on top of that oatmeal that causes the problem. Because

they want to sweeten it up with something like honey or they want

it sweetened up with sugar or they want it sweetened up with

something else, and those are the things that cause a higher

glycemic and you know, if you have high insulin levels, it's kind of

contrary to optimal performance. There are times when you want

high insulin level, it is not when you’re just starting your bike ride.

Ben: What you're saying is rather than have like a bowl of high fiber or

whole grain cereal, you would want somebody to do like avocado

with maybe some steamed kale and spinach and a couple of

scrambled egg and maybe a handful of nuts on the side, something

like that?

KC Craichy: Exactly. It’s OK than to have some of that cereal along with that.

You see, now you've blunted the glycemic response of that food that

you want to eat as much of if it is you ordinarily would.

Ben: Got you. Alright, well, that makes sense. And I guess that's

probably one of the things that we've talked about most on the show

is kind of trying to choose the low sugar foods that are going to send

you on such a shorter based roller coaster and what you talked

about in the book of course make sense from that stand point.

Some of the charts that you give are good, too, because you go on to

that glycemic low. You take something like water melon. Why is

watermelon, even though it has really high glycemic index, not as

bigger of a problem as it appears to be on paper?

KC Craichy: The glycemic index is really not a good way to look at. And many

people still look at GI as the way to go on understanding how much

sugar a pop it's going to give. The truth is the glycemic index is

based on someone consuming 50gm of carbohydrates of a

substance and then comparing that to how they would have done if

they had 50gm of sugar or 50gm of white bread or something like

that. So to eat 50gm of carbohydrate of a watermelon, you'd be

eating the whole thing, you see. So not every serving of food has

50gm in it, so the glycemic load accounts per serving size and make

thus the division and so glycemic load is basically, that is the

number that is the descriptor of the glycemic response for the food.

So looingk at the list, the glycemic load list, you'd see where a piece

that might be a GI of 30, but a glycemic load of 13. So jelly beans,

the GI will be 78 but the GL would be 22. So if you could keep your

glycemic load, say around the 15 or lower area, that would be much

better off to most people.

Ben: Yeah. I think that’s what confuses a lot of people. They think fruit is

right up there with macaroni and cheese and pasta when in fact

there's so much water in it. That's a very low glycemic load.

KC Craichy: Exactly.

Ben: Now, number 3, we’ve got eating low glycemic foods or slow

carbohydrate response food, we've got calorie restriction but with

optimal nutrition. And then what you have for number 3?

KC Craichy: Well, number 3 is anti oxidants. I have consumed a broad range of

broad spectrum anti oxidants including supplementation if you

can't give their food diet, and really you can't get there from your

diet, particularly if you're in athletics, because what you see

someone training really hard, they get sick, don't they? They come

down with something quite easily when they're overtraining or

when they’re on the edge of overtraining. Well, anti oxidants are

really important piece to the recovery, really important angle to the

recovery piece. So people need to understand though that anti

oxidants are vastly different in their kinds of oxidants, in their kinds

of anti oxidants. So most things when you go out and you see

something called an ORAC or with name with ORAC.....

Ben: The people listening in might not be familiar with ORAC.

KC Craichy: ORAC is Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capability of a food. So

basically an ORAC score would tell you about how potent an anti

oxidant is, and that really is what is important to do anyway. But

when you see an ORAC score I'd say as a E berry at 1800 per

serving or green tea at 2300 per serving or coco powder at 7800 per

serving, it really looks impressive but the truth is that the anti

oxidants really are five major classes so if you have, let's say, you

have a green tea and your proxy radical is 2300, there's five holes in

the boat and you got one of them plugged, does that make sense?

So, peroxy radicals, proxyl, and there's hydroxyl, and there's

trioxide, nitrite, and super oxide anum, and singlet oxygen. So

when you think about single oxygen you're talking about a

completely different type of radical attacking the body. So, ORAC

doesn't tell you anything but about one which is peroxy radical. So

there's a new test out there called TOTAL ORAC FN and that is the

measurement of all five radical classes which is a much better

measure than a single ORAC.

Ben: Got you. Now, it’s something interesting in your book that I find in

a lot of books don't differentiate is that, you can't just grab any

random anti oxidant off the shelf. You take it because you have to

have at least these five different types of anti oxidants and you list a

bunch different foods that are good sources of anti oxidants as well.

Now, I will not deny the benefits of anti oxidants especially from an

anti aging perspective and scavaging free radical perspective when

it comes to people exercising a lot, although there is a caveat to that

I want to get into in a minute. But what does it have to do with

weight loss?

KC Craichy: Well, you know, why I’m mixing the athletes first is because we now

know it was the right mix of anti oxidants. You can speed the pace

of recovery by as much as 50%, and so, when you think about an

athlete that's doing a sport like let's say hockey, for instance. You’re

talking about getting recovered in two days versus 4 days. It's really

a dramatic difference in an athlete. And being sore is not often

necessary if you can have these things to repair the damage as the

damage comes along. So, weight loss, it is the same thing as that,

when you have an anti oxidant, you often also have an associated

anti inflammatory response. And so oxidation, you've seen a lot of

these weight loss supplements have green tea in it for instance,

because we know if you can quinch the fire of oxidation you can

reduce the fire of inflammation as well. And so, it really does have a

positive effect and like for instance, if someone eats a big sugar

meal, you can feel it right in your gut, you can feel looser in your

gut. You know that feeling when you have a thanksgiving dessert?

And that is basically an inflammatory anti oxidation response in the

gut. And you actually feel looser. And it so, but after you go for a

long ride and you have a great exercise, you go very tight there and

that is a profound difference that you can actually feel.

Ben: Interesting. So reduction of inflammation id going to assist with

weight loss and the issue that I was going to bring out with anti

oxidants and the kind of a caveat that I wanted to put out there

because I know some people will call me out on this since if they're

listening in, is that there is a recent research that suggests that high

dose anti oxidants might actually be bad for you because if you're

taking in anti oxidants all the time, you might actually shut down

your body's own ability to be able to handle stress. And this

research, and don't get me wrong, for people listening in, this

research is done on high dose anti oxidants, not on people eating

pomegranates, and blue berries and a gram of that fruit powder.

What my recommendation is on this, and if you've something you

would like to add, I’d definitely add it in, KC, but I recommend that

people when they're training hard or exposing their body to lots of

stress, that they supplement with high dose anti oxidants but that

they not do that every day so that they give their body a chance to

be able to handle some of that stress. And I'm saying not do that

every day specifically talking about like the high, high dose anti

oxidant supplements out there.

KC Craichy: I don't want to take a disagreeing point with you about this, I think

it is to clarify a little bit, is that, taking a high dose of Vitamin C and

Vitamin E in the form of D Alpha Tocopherol, is basically going to

go at one or two of the classes we just discussed. So self medicating

if you will and taking a couple of pills, that don't handle a broad

spectrum of oxidation is not going to give you the response of

taking a lower amount of broad spectrum anti oxidants on a daily

basis, because, see, your body’s deep into training, your body is

tearing down and you need anti oxidants big time. And so there is a

way to overdose on anything. So too much of anything is bad but

with covering the broad spectrum of anti oxidants is a very

important thing not only for athletes but for anybody because there

are stressers on the body that the body's anti oxidants systems just

can't handle.

Ben: Well, yeah, that's interesting. Because you actually do make a good

point here that the studies were done with single levels of

somebody's high dose anti oxidants like the Vitamin C and the

Vitamin E and you're talking about using all five in this balanced

kind of moderate dose.

KC Craichy: They always want to go to Beta Carotene, I said Beta, they want to

go to D Alpha, Alpha tocopherol, and they want to go to Vitamin C

and so these are well known anti oxidants but broad spectrums,

they are not. One thing is important, when you take vitamin E.

Vitamin E is alpha beta gamma delta tocotrienol and alpha beta

gamma delta tocopherol. So, to pull out one of the weakest of those,

D Alpha tocopherol and use that to judge your study and then also

using synthetic beta carotene to try and judge your study and say

anti oxidants are not good is getting exactly where drug companies

would like people to be. People need to take a large quantity of

broad spectrum anti oxidants on a daily basis to be healthy and a

literature shows that they can still like the legacies, enhance

performance, rapidly reverse, restore and recovery and exercise and

so on as long as you're taking the broad spectrum natural versions

of these anti oxidants.

Ben: This is why I'm glad that I benefit from getting to talk to cutting

edge guys like you on the interview is that for you, folks, listening

in, I like to learn this stuff, too, and I just picked up something that

is going to be highly beneficial for me and hopefully for people

listening in. Alright, so we talked about the anti oxidants and

supplementing with your full range of anti oxidants. Now, what is

at number 4?

KC Craichy: Number 4 is eat super fat. Fats that are good for you. People think

fats make you fat but that's really not true as you well know, Ben.

So, the primary super fat that we like to talk about is fish oil. I

didn't say Omega 3 because that's such a broad category, it confuses

everybody that every time some of these seeds with Omega 3 in it or

they get some flax oil or whatever, they think they're doing

everything they need to do regarding Omega 3 category, and simply

it's not the case. It is very clear according to literature that you

cannot take enough plant based Omega 3 in order to get the benefit

talked about in the literature. A nd the reason for that is plant based

Omega 3 is Alpha Linoleinc Acid, ALA. ALA goes through the delta

6 to saturate enzymes process and converts to DCLA and eventually

to DHA and rarely, if any, to EPA. So EPA, I’m getting a little

technical here, Ben, But EPA DHA is what you see on the size of the

fish oil pill. EPA DHA. That is what you need and basically a fish

has a very highly efficient process of eating a plant Omega 3 and

convert it to both EPA and DHA. Basically you think of a fish, a

fatty fish, a wild salmon, macro tuna, herring, sardine, anchovy, you

think of those fish are basically Omega 3 EPA DHA factories. They

have extreme ability to create those substance of Omega 3. When

you as a human eat ALA, you're only converting 1-5 % of that ALA

to the DHA and not in the EPA. So the point you really want to

know is, yes, I need fish oil, and people out there are trying to sell

this shell fish oil instead of fish oil, there would be the green lipid

oil or the creel. And they trying to say somehow that's better than

fish oil but that’s really a marketing hocus-pocus. Because they are

trying to say because they are in the phospholipid form that they are

better absorbed than the triglyceride form, which is the normal

form that a fish oil is suppose to come in, but the truth is marginally

different and phospholipids do absorb very well, but they have such

a minute amount in this shell fish oil that are you are getting an anti

inflammatory effect which are really not getting near in the EPA

DHA. So the second that you want to look for is that you don’t want

to over concentrate the EPA and DHA like a lot of these oils are

doing now. The super concentrated pharmaceutical grade fish oils.

Those are too high in EPA and too high in DHA and they are not in

a natural form, they are in ethyl ester form and not a triglyceride.

So I know that's getting technical but the point is ethyl ester is not

found in a fish oil, is not found in nature in ethyl ester form, and it

is not as well absorbed as a triglyceride form which they cannot put

it back to as they’re concentrated, super concentrated.

Ben: Probably a lot people want to hear what the ethyl ester form is. It’s

the cheap form that you find in the cheap fish oil you get at the

grocery store most the time.

KC Craichy: It is. So really what you want to look for is 180 or 120 being the first

number on the EPA and DHA, that is the number, that is the

natural ratio which you find it in nature.

Ben: Cool. You just went over your four corners. You lay over calorie

restriction, optimal nutrition, the considering the low glycemic low

sugar foods, your broad spectrum anti oxidants and then getting in

your healthy fats. That's kind of in my opinion the real meat of

your book in terms of laying out the structure which people need to

put together their diet literally scratch the surface really what you

going to in your book as far as the four corners are concern. But

then you go into kind of like what I will consider all this little tricks

and tips and extra things that you can do. For example, you talk

about your stealth technique of preloading with essential amino

acids. What is the stealth technique of preloading with essential

amino acids?

KC Craichy: You jump right to the big one, don’t you Ben?

Ben: Right.

KC Craichy: Yeah, well, the stealth technique is really fascinating. There is some

terrific research out of University of Texas, it showed that they were

able to reverse age related sarcopenia in the elderly, with just using

essential amino acids twice a day, 10 gm twice a day.

Ben: Sarcopenia mean muscle loss.

KC Craichy: Sarcopenia is muscle loss which happens to everybody over time

but it really is a big problem in the elderly. Their appetites change.

They don't get enough protein, they don't get any exercise, and the

muscle, you see the strength over time disappear. And so, when

this gets into a significant muscle loss, it is rarely and I don't think

ever been shown to be reversed frankly. So, this is really ground

breaking research. It showed that if you can get the 9 essential and

2-3 conditionally essential amino acids and the vegetarian preform

amino acid form and you could get in the ratios to where it would

exist using the strengths of the, say, top five protein sources of

nature plus adjusting the branch chain amino acids a little bit. If

you could get this formulation, you could actually increase muscle

mass in the elderly. Now, what does that mean for guys that are fit

like you and me? If you can increase muscle mass in the elderly, it

is really amazing what you can do in someone who is actually

working out, someone who is just wants to be more fit because

muscle mass is hugely important in health. So, the stealth

technique of preloading essential amino acids, essentially, the body

has a great deal of capacity to store fat and great deal capacity to

store sugars. And you know, there’s 500gm of vicodin in the

muscles, 100gm in the liver, you can fuel the body for a little while

on storage sugars. And the body has the capacity to convert certain

amino acids into sugars to fuel the body. So it’s an amazing

creation, but interestingly, the body has very little capacity to store

essential amino acids and the essential amino acids are the ones

that form all the other amino acids in the body, breaking down 10

essential including conditionally essential and 10 “non essential”,

that doesn't mean they are not essential, that just means that the

body can make those or create those from the essential amino acids.

So the point is, when you sit down, let's say on lunch and you eat a

large steak at lunch. Let's just say that you ate a hundred grams of

protein at that lunch, how long does it take you to actually get that

protein? It's going to be hours and even days before you are able to

release those essentials amino acids from that steak. If you don't

know how well it was chewed, how well the system is working and

so on, so once it starts digesting, it takes a while to obtain. But the

optimal use of the protein amino acids is when the insulin levels are

actually high. So you know this from your post workout smoothie,

right, Ben? You went in the 30 minutes, 45 minutes window after

you finish your work out, you slam your protein /nutrient rich

carbohydrate beverage to get that uptake within that window. Well,

if you think of a meal like this, you ate that steak you feel really

good about it because you got a hundred grams of protein but then

now you realize, oh my goodness, that's actually time release

protein, isn't it? Because it is going to take a good while for it to

start digesting and it's going to take a lot longer for it to digest. So if

it will be possible, let's just take a gun for instance, let's say you

have the magazine and it's full, if you could cock it and put a bullet

in the chamber and then put another one back in the magazine,

now, you preload the blood stream with essential amino acids, so

let's just say, 30minutes before you’re going to eat that steak, you

have 10-15gm of these essential amino acids. The body will peak,

the blood levels of the essential amino acids will peak within that

half hour so that when you have that steak and the baked potato

and the drink whatever you're having, while you have that insulin

response your blood stream is full of essential amino acid. They go

right to work creating muscle and lean body mass in the body.

Extra ordinarily effective technique to increase muscle mass, but it's

also great for just anybody who wants to be more fit and more

healthy.

Ben: Got you. And those would be essential amino acids not to be

confused, there are a lot of people confused essential amino acid

with the branch chain amino acids, big difference right?

KC Craichy: Yeah. Branch chain amino acids are essential amino acids but they

are only 3 of the essential amino acids. So there are could be some

benefits from preloading with branch chain amino acids depending

on what you're having for the meal, but the truth is, muscle cannot

be built unless all of these essential amino acids are present at one

time. So what typically happens is the body will tear down another

part of the body to get the amino acids to build a new part of the

body unless there are essential amino acids available to be used for

that purpose.

Ben: Got you.

KC Craichy: Every time you eat protein, you're eating for two reasons. One is to

give essential amino acids, because your body first is looking for the

essential amino acids, and then pull up some non-essentials after

that. And the second reason is nitrogen. So that’s where you get

your nitrogen. So if you think of your protein source, is basically it

is just a vehicle to transport essential amino acids into your body to

be then turned around and use to make muscle, to make tissue, to

make enzymes, to make hormones, to make all kinds of things in

your body. Then, you'll now start appreciating protein at a different

level.

Ben: Right. Cool. Last week, we talked about how this wasn't just about

weight loss, and I do know that many of the people who listen to

this show are lean mean fighting machine, they're not obese, they

are not people that you see walking down the street you think they

need to lose weight. But they, like me, want to live a long time and

look good, have nice skin, not get sick all the time. One of the

things you talked about in your book is very important from that

perspective and fittingly enough it's called AGE or Advanced

Glycation Endo products, AGEs. What is going on with those, what

are they and how did they work and what do we do about it?

KC Craichy: Well, athletes need to know about that because, see, it's really not

about being older longer, it's about being younger longer. And so,

being fit is a great thing. There's a lot of people who think that they

can exercise away their poor eating. And that works for a time but

at some point you're going to pay a price for that sort of approach.

So, they process as they go on in the body, so the super health diet

as we talked about is not about just weight loss, it's about healthy

weight gain, it's about maintaining muscle mass, it's about anti

aging nutrition. So anybody can benefit from this approach with

various twists depending on what you're trying to accomplish.

When you talked about advanced glycated end products it's

interesting that the letter spell AGE because one of the things that is

aging is advanced glaycated end products that means that a sugar

and a protein has combined to the point it has caramelized the

protein and it no longer is usable in the body and the body really

knows not what to do. So basically you caramelized the protein and

people, by the time they're in old age can have up to 1/3 of their

total protein caramelized or glycated and that is something you

definitely want to avoid and particularly as an athlete. So you can

block the glycation process with several things like, it's amino acid

but it's really a supplement called carnosine not to be confused with

carnitine. Carnosine has been showed to be a anti glycotent and I

have said five years ago when I wrote my first book "Super Health

Seven Golden Keys" that glycation would be what as well known as

oxidation in about five years and here we are five years later, six

years later people still don't know about it. So it happens when you

have high levels of sugar in your body so if you eat ice cream, or you

eat a lot of sugar you're going to cause a glycation response in the

body which you want to avoid. I'm not saying don't eat ice cream

from time to time, but high blood sugar levels does result in

glycation which you want to avoid.

Ben: Got you. So when combine with something like inflammation this

would definitely be an issue, right?

KC Craichy: It is definitely an issue. Now, that was the big four, so to speak.

Let's talk about those for a second. But see, like Living Fuel that

you take, that is, has been to test to be anti glycotent, anti oxidant,

anti inflammatory and anti angiogenesis. Those are the big four

that I talked about in the book. So it's really interesting that you

can actually, with the right nutrition, you can modulate this

processes to where they are only working for you, because there are

reasons to have oxidation in the body, there are reasons for

inflammation in the body, good reasons, and the reasons for..., I

really don't know any good reasons for glycation, but you want to

modulate that process. So oxidation, we’ve talked about it in the

anti oxidant nutrition section, so it's glycation, oxidation, and then

inflammation. To have chronic inflammation is a bad idea because

basically, it is the root of every disease and also if you have

inflammation, part of exercising causes inflammation and you want

to quench the inflammation to help the recovery. So oxidation,

inflammation, glycation and then angiogenesis is another thing we

talked about. If you twist your ankle, you want angiogenesis

because it basically opens up new blood vessels to come to that area

to bring more stem cells to heal it and so on, nutrients and so on.

But when the injury is finished, you pull back, the body pulls back

those new vessels and basically goes back to normal. So

angiogenesis has a function in the body which you don't want it to

run wild. Angiogenesis running wild as like a cancer cell in the

body, has no danger to the body unless it gets a blood supply to

start feeding, which is done through angiogenesis. And so we know

that certain foods like I list in the book can actually regulate

angiogenesis, so it's only used in the proper positive ways in the

body. Interesting to know also that a single pound of body fat

requires an additional 1-2 miles of additional blood vessels. So it's a

very fascinating world of human body.

Ben: If you shut down to a certain extent the addition of all these new

blood vessels, you're going to, for lack of a better word, starve away

some of these fat because it's not getting what it needs.

KC Craichy: Precisely.

Ben: And you have a ton, a huge list of these angiogenesis regulating food

and compounds in the book, really helpful chapter there. Now,

what I like is this single sentence about this advanced glycation end

products because I think that this sentence in your book really sums

it up about your recommendation. You say, I recommend eating at

least one half of your diet as uncooked or minimally cooked light

foods, mostly vegetables. And I think that just make sense. You

don't eat a bunch of stuff that's been heated up a ton. I would

imagine that you occasionally have a barbecue stick, right KC?

KC Craichy: I love barbecue but I do enjoy a grass-fed beef steak from time to

time, but the thing is the people that get it well done are really

making their selves, the protein in their body well done, because

that kind of heat, that kind of caramelization actually dramatically

increases the glycation within the body so those are the things you

want to make sure you're taking like your fuel or whatever it is that

you're on for the broad spectrum anti oxidant, anti glycotents, the

carnosine and so on. So, when you do indulge like that, that you

blocked these dangerous processes.

Ben: Got you. Ok, so advance glycation end products, again, we only

kind of scratch the surface of what you got in your book, but that's a

good place for people to start. So you talked about frequency of

eating in this book. And about how often you think people should

eat. How often you think people should eat?

KC Craichy: Very good question. This is one of the most question I suspect you

get that question a fair amount also. It is nutrition dogma that

people should eat all the time. I mean, that is really so ingrained

that people consider it fact, would you agree with that?

Ben: Yeah.

KC Craichy: Diet program, have you seen the ones that list here, how many of

them are saying here is what you have for your snack and then

afternoon or whatever. So I took a look at this and what does the

literature say about this and how does the human body work? And

so, interestingly, if you look at the cycle that happens in different

system, that's the first thing you look at. You look at blood sugar

and insulin rise to the meal, particularly if you have a high glycemic

meal, and then insulin will push down blood sugar until it gets back

to base line about where you started in about 3 hours after a normal

meal, and then from the 3 hour point until the next time you put

food in your mouth, you are going to have what I called maximum

metabolic mode. This is when the body goes from insulin

significance to glucagon significance and the body starts releasing

stored fats. So you convert from the fully fed state in the first 3

hours to the maximum metabolic mode in the next 3 hours or until

you eat again. So what happens when people east all the time and

people trying to gain weight, they fall in to this also, they try to lose

weight and do this, they try to gain weight and do this. They eat

say, first thing in the morning and then 2 hours later have a snack

and then 2 hours later have another snack and then have another

meal and so on. So what happens when you have that first snack is

that blood sugar rise after your meal starts to fall coming back

towards baseline and then you eat again before it gets to baseline

and goes right back up to a hundred and the process starts all over

again and then you do it again, the process starts all over again. It

puts enormous strain on the adrenals and you're basically on a

blood sugar roller coaster for the entire day and you never got into

fat burning mode. So that is the problem for most people trying to

lose weight is that they can't seem to lose weight because they have

a high insulin signals, stored fat signal at all time. People trying to

gain weight have a similar issue, too. You do want to minimize the

metabolic mode and people trying to gain weight and there are

some tricks to accomplish that also, but the truth is, from the

endocrines perspective, endocrine system, five to six hours really is

the ideal of a time to allow the blood or protein or the blood sugar

to go up and come back down. So, now let's talk about protein

metabolism and how does it lay on to that. Protein metabolism is

very interesting. When you eat something, let's just assume that it

is eggs, for instance. Let's just say you ate some eggs. Very, very

good protein source, that’s going to be 1-2 hours of digestion before

the protein starts to release, essential amino acids start to release

into the blood stream. So it's going to be from 1-2 hours after you

ate it, and then starting then it’s between 6 and 10 gm an hour, the

essential amino acid is going to be release into the blood stream. So

if you just do the math, if you had 50gm of protein at breakfast, and

it took you, let's just say an hour or later started releasing protein,

amino acids into the blood stream, then for the next 5 hours, it's

going to be 5 hours before you fully utilize that protein and deliver

it into the blood stream. Does that make sense?

Ben: Yeah.

KC Craichy: So now people are worried about going catabolic. Well, you're not

going to go catabolic as long as you have essential amino acids in

the blood stream. So the physiology of how the body works, also

interestingly, I write about this in the book also, there have been

studies where they would intravenously apply, infuse amino acids

into the blood stream, and they would find that the uptake of amino

acids would be very high and then it would drop significantly and

then will go up again and drop significantly around the clock. Even

though the same amount of protein was given at every minute of

that cycle. So it's very clear that the body has cycles on which you

can use the protein, rest, restore and do it again. And so, that is

why I believe that optimally it's 3 properly few meals a day plus if

you are trying to gain weight or lose weight, the amino acid

preloading has a very effective tool for that. And I tell a lot of

people, if you get the essential amino acids and you take them at the

time you ordinarily would have snacked, then that is a very positive

way to gain muscle mass also. Now many people, they are like an

athlete like just doing the kind of things that’s there in the

endurance athletics. Sometimes, you just can't get enough calories

into three meals in an athletic situation like that, so during the

training or the event, you're going to want to breaking it up into

smaller meals, but the point is, for most people, people say for

breakfast I have this, and then on 10 o'clock I have a snack, I say,

reach out towards your lunch hour and pull everything you had

between breakfast and lunch back to your breakfast and eat it then.

That allows your body to do what it can do.

Ben: You know, the interesting thing is, that would be ssential amino

acids. I'm actually in the process of trying to cannibalize muscle.

I'm trying to do the exact opposites of some of the things that you're

talking about because I tend to put on a little bit of muscle in the

following winter, I lift weights, I play basketball, because I need

some of that extra muscle, but I’m a few weeks up on a race now,

and my body fat percentage is low enough to I don't want to go any

lower, I don't want to drop my essential body fat too low, so the

only weight that I have left to get rid off is muscle. And so, whereas,

normally, when I'm going out and I'm doing say like a bike ride or a

run or something like that on an empty stomach, I would take

essential amino acid right before so that I don't cannibalize muscle.

I've actually quit doing that before some of these fasted work outs

so that I can actually get rid of muscle. So, if you want to maintain

muscle, keep your metabolism up if you're trying to lose weight and

you need to lose fat etc. Do the exact opposite of what I'm doing.

And what KC is talking about right now. Very, very few situation but

if you actually want to cannibalize muscle kind of comes to folks

who are right there on edge in terms of like right before in advance

before they need to be in a certain way that your body fats are

already low.

KC Craichy: So, are you talking about so you could stay in a class?

Ben: No, so that I can ride my bike up hills faster.

KC Craichy: So, you notice that just smaller amount of muscle difference makes

a difference?

Ben: Yes. It does.

KC Craichy: I would recommend that for a lot of folk.

Ben: No. I don't like it. I don't like to watch my biceps shrink and the

muscle waste away. So, I'm saying if you don't want to see that

happen to yourself, take these essential amino acids at least before

you work out, because it goes both ways.

KC Craichy: Very interesting, you know, because when your body fat gets as low

as you're talking about, you know, when you do those fasted

workout it has to chew up muscle.

Ben: Yes. Exactly. Ok. We're kind of started talking about exercise, so

let's just go ahead and talk about exercise. You have a chapter on

exercising this book KC. And before I ask you about your "7 Tiger

Moves" that you described in this book, I'm just curious what does

your workout routine look like, are you an endurance person, are

you a high intensity interval person, little bit of everything, what do

you do?

KC Craichy: You know, I am not an endurance person myself. It’s never been a

love of mine to start with, and according to the research, most

people now, you are doing endurance athletics. But most people

think that they need to lose weight, they go around the tread mill

for an hour and it's going to make them lose weight. So what the

researches show is, that approach actually causes enough of a

caloric increase of a desire to eat that people end up eating their

way the benefit they just gained on the tread mill. And so what you

really want to do is create enough of a metabolic change the way

you actually chewing up weight well beyond the workout. And so

that's where a high intensity interval training would come in. So I

do a lot of this body weight exercise and it was called isoflexion

which are the "7 Tiger Moves" where if you take your fist right now

and you squeeze your fist and you tighten your arms as much you

can while it’s straight, and you feel our fist is really tight, every

muscle is tight, and you bend your arm while it's tight, and bend it

all the way up and then increase the pressure even more and go

back down, just like you're doing a curl, you can see that you can

actually generate enough pressure, enough resistance on every

muscle from the tip of your finger all the way to your spine that you

can actually put a better load on that muscle than a machine can

because you're twice stronger on the negative as you were on the

positive. So that is a system that I like very much. But as far as my

endurance is, I do the high intensity interval training whereas I

might to go run 2 miles from within that 2 miles I would do 1000

yards sprints or 20ft yard sprints at full speed and then subsequent

to a sprint I would either go jog or work up to twice as many steps

as I took during the sprint. So, if it's a 50 yard sprint I might walk

50-100 steps or my jog 50-100 steps and then do it again. And that

approach has been shown to actually increase endurance capability

more than a long run would do. So that is one of the things I do .

Another thing I do is I run the steps and a lot of the steps, I'm really

just looking for 50-100 steps to run at full speed and then work my

way back down and do it again, doing it between 6 and 10 times,

that is a tremendous work out from a endurance capacity stage.

Well, another one that I really like is, have you seen the Xiser sprint

stepper?

Ben: I haven't seen that one, what is it?

KC Craichy: It's basically a stainless steel device that's just have a couple of light

steps on it and it has hydraulic on it so it get let you go really fast

and you can change the tone, but you sprint basically staying in

place and it has extraordinarily good exercise for doing just 30

seconds or something like that of total work outs. So 100 steps for

instance, then you get off a bit, and then I go over to my heavy

weight bag and I would then do 100 flurries on the heavy weight

bag, and after I recover from the sprint step, I would go to the bag, I

do 100 flurries as hard and fast as I can hit it and then I get my

breath bag I will back to stepper and go back and forth. So to me

that is really a tremendous work out in addition to the "7 Tiger

Moves".

Ben: I love it. We have Art De Vany, the guy who wrote the new

evolution diet book on a few weeks ago, he is a 73 year old man, he

looks fabulous, he has a ton of this high intensity interval training,

body weight stuff, mixing things up all the time, and you know, you

point this out in your book and I'll be the first to admit it that

endurance sports, these long slow run on the tread mill, if you just

trying to look good and to maximize weight loss and to actually

keep some muscle on your body, it's really quite the least effective

thing that you could do.

KC Craichy: It's not. It's good for your health, but it's not an effective weight

loss tool over time. A nd that's amazing. Another thing that I use is

the super flex bands which you, you would like to have this guy,

Dave Harmon. Do you know Dave Harmon?

Ben: Sounds familiar but I don't think we’ve talked.

KC Craichy: He is the band guy, he works for mostly professional golfers and

tennis player and he is a world class trainer. But he has this stretch

band of various sizes that are just really fantastic in terms of

building strength and flexibility that I use those as well.

Ben: Cool. Alright, so the Super Health 7 Tiger Moves you talked about

them in your book and then you go on and you finished this book

with a bang, with your 7 Golden Keys to weight optimization. This

is where you kind of throw in the stuff that goes above and beyond

and you go into great detail on each of the 7 in the book, but can you

go kind of give us an overview of each of these 7 golden keys to

weight optimization?

KC Craichy: Sure. Number one is hydration. You got to know that in your sport.

People are drinking other things other than water and they’re

drinking tap water which suppresses thyroid function and they're

really not hydrating properly. They’re drinking coffee and soft

drinks and even sports drinks are not good unless you're actually

doing the sport in which they were designed to be used for. So

people are getting hidden calories of up to 15% or more of their

calories from drinks and they don't even realize. So the number one

thing most people can do to lose weight today is to switch from

what they are drinking to beverages being exclusively spring water

and herbal teas. That alone will have most people change in the

way they feel and their weight fairly dramatically. So that would be

hydration. I go to a lot more detail on hydration in this book but

more so in my previous book the Super Health 7 Golden Keys.

Ben: That's it. And we actually didn't mention you do have another book

called the, what is it called again?

KC Craichy: Super Health 7 Golden Keys to Lifelong vitality. These are all well

research and documented and people can read the references and

so on.

Ben: And we are talking of the Super Health Diet for those of you who

listening in. This other Super Health Book that KC mentioned, I

have not personally read, now that I've read this diet, The Super

Health Diet, it's on my list and I guess from what I understand, the

difference between the 2 books is, one is really like plays your focus

on, on the diet portion, the other is just basic health lifestyle, right?

KC Craichy: Right. See, the Super Health 7 Golden Keys to Unlock lifelong

vitality, the purpose was, that is what I learned. Those “7 keys” is

what I learned to take my wife who was Ms. Florida, and Ms.

Florida USA, to beautiful Ms. America, Ms. USA, she was best in

swimsuit for Ms. USA, and 3rd runner up. Beautiful. But she came

down with panic attack and clinical depression, suicidal thoughts,

and the doctors were kind of screw up with the drugs and psycho

therapy, and so that's when I decided that, this was 15 years ago,

dozens of literature was coming out without an answer, maybe it’s

longer now, 17 years ago, that the 7 Keys in the original book were

the 7 Keys that actually restored my wife's health and restored the

numerous peoples since then, and what I’ve done in this particular

book, The Super Health Diet, is to show how these 7 keys apply to

weight optimization.

Ben: Got you. S o you got hydration in what sense?

KC Craichy: Well, we already talked about nutrition, and we talked about

exercise. So, those are 2, 3. So number 4 is stress. People are

under stress. Stress is important, I mean, without stress you would

die, because you didn't have any blood pressure, you wouldn’t be

around. But there are types of stress. We got repetitive and

competitive stress that you guys are talking about here that you do,

that actually can extend your life. And then you got repetitive

stress, which should be relational stress, financial stress,

overwhelming and that sort of thing that can shorten your life. And

actually it's a root cause in numerous diseases. So we talk about

stress techniques here and how people that are stressed out have

hard time losing weight, they getting the weight gain as one of the

symptoms of stress and so on, so I go in a lot of details about how to

handle that and how to minimize stress in your life and then I move

on to sleep which should be in chapter Golden Key number 5. Sleep

deprivation is a war time torture, and it's used in every war since

the beginning of man. People can keep you from sleeping long

enough, by slapping you around and pouring water on your face

and putting light in your face. They can execute you to do or say just

about anything that they want you to, because people can go insane

when they don't have enough sleep. But today we deprive ourselves

sleep on purpose. We stay up late and watch the game, sometimes

we stay up late and we'll get up early in the name of exercise and

health. But we are only giving ourselves 5 hours of sleep. And it's

just not enough. I mean people who don't sleep enough. People

who sleep less than 6 hours at night actually have higher weight

gain and harder time losing weight. So it's an amazing thing how

important sleep is and so we give plenty of techniques and

supplements and so on, how to improve one's sleep.

Ben: Yeah, I love a lot of tips you got in that chapter. Ok. So what comes

after sleep?

KC Craichy: Environmental hazards. People are, like endurance athletics. You

see people drinking out this plastic bottle but you can't see through

the bike paddles for instance, the ones that are staying still. You’re

drinking out of plastic that leeches big time and so there are certain

plastics that are better than others for when you are like on a bike.

And so the ones that are like colored and you can't see through,

those are horrendous as far as leaking plastic into the body, and so

you're out there and you’re literally drinking down on plastics and

toxins and building up in your system. So those other ones with the

BPA, some of these bottles have significant hormone disrupting

chemicals that people are drinking into their body in the name of

health. And so we tell you how to minimize that in the book and

then we talked about how perfumes and colognes and those things

and how they affect the body and how terrible it actually is and we

talked about heavy metals and vaccinations and medical radiation

and things that wives follow.

Ben: That's a good controversial topic in that chapter.

KC Craichy: Controversial but I have given plenty of clinical research to back it

up.

Ben: You have, which I appreciate. And you even go in to some very,

very cool nutrients that enhance detoxification which I thought was

some fabulous information I haven't seen before so, that was a cool

chapter as well. Then, what's the last one?

KC Craichy: Last one is meditation and prayer. We know that people that are

more peaceful and have meditation, that improves their breathing,

extends their lives and in prayer and so on, has clinical validation

behind it, the Mantra project at Duke University, it's a study on

prayer, half of cardiac patients were put on prayer list worldwide

and half of them were not, none of them were told whether or not

they've been prayed for and once they were prayed for had 50%,

50% less side effects which is clinically significant by any measure.

So I put in there the clinical validation of meditation and prayer and

people really enjoyed that chapter as well.

Ben: And of course over 150 clinical references after that chapter at the

end of the book and from start to finish as those of you listening in,

who have listened to both part one and part two of this interview,

from start to finish, this Super Health Diet Book, really knocks your

socks off. I highly recommend it and as I told you in part 1, I don't

do that with a lot of books but I read this book cover to cover and

can vouch for what's in it. Now, you learned a lot in part 1 and part

2 about many of these concepts. What we didn't get into aside from

some of the even more rich details behind those concepts is the

actual eating pattern itself. I don't necessarily want KC to give away

the farm on this one and take us through the recipes and the eating

habit and the meals and everything else that's in there but I want to

ensure the listeners, and KC, you could probably group me on this

since you wrote the book, the entire thing is doable. You know, you

talked last week about the one characteristic of a fad diet being as

you’re eating just one thing like a grape fruit, your meal plan is very

dynamic, you eat this way?

KC Craichy: I do eat this way and in fact, the important thing people need to

realize is, if you start designing your meal around what your protein

sources is going to be, it really is a different way to look at nutrition.

Ben: Yeah. It's a very practical tip which the book is full of. So folks, the

Super Health Diet. There will be link to it in the show notes to this

episode, part 2 of this interview, with KC Craichy and there also be

an interview or a link to the book in part 1. So pick it up. I cannot

emphasize strongly enough that I would love it if every person that

listens to this podcast, whether one time or on the weekly basis does

me a big favor. Pick up this book and read it because it's chocful of

the information that you need for health success and weight loss

success going down the road for the rest of your life and I guarantee

it's going to be one of the dog eared copies on my bookshelf. So KC

thanks for being so generous of your time for both these interviews.

KC Craichy: Ben, that was wonderful. I really enjoyed and keep doing the great

work you do out there, brother.

Ben: Alright folks, until next time. This is Ben Greenfield with KC

Craichy signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com

Alright folks, so remember, if you want to submit a video to get a

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help you and you can also get the book right now by going to the

show notes BenGreenfieldFitness.com shownotes for this episode,

Episode #140, and you can get your hands on that book right away.

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this is Ben Greenfield, signing out.

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