Podcast # 182 from http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2012/02/episode-182-what-does-it-feel-like-when-youre-overtrained/ Introduction: In today’s podcast, what does it feel like when you’re overtrained?

Also, abnormally low heart rate during exercise, the benefits of holding a position (isometrics), transitioning to “barefoot” running, is calorie “banking” effective for bulking up, the best exercises for maintaining bone density, can you make up for lack of sleep with exercise, dealing with pre-event illness, exercise equipment for kids, how wheat effects your brain, and nutritional advice for cancer patients.

Brock: Hello everybody, welcome to Episode number 182 of the Ben

Greenfield fitness podcast. It’s a beautiful day to podcast wouldn’t you say Ben?

Ben: Yeah. I think so. I mean look outside for the first time. It is mildly

beautiful. It’s a little overcast here in Spokane but not too bad. I’m actually a little sore this morning.

Brock: Working out a little too hard? Ben: Well, I went to the gym last night. And I wanted to go swimming.

And there were no lanes available at the downtown gym which was a mistake. That thing was just jam-packed. And there’s a master’s class going on. So, I just jumped in the master swim. And I think my problem is whenever I’m swimming with other people I tend to push myself a little bit too hard. So, I swam my butt off last night. And I can actually feel it a little bit.

Brock: Awesome. Keeping up with the masters is a trick sometimes.

That’s why they call it the masters. Ben: I know. You hop in a lane that they say is the fast lane is just this

hodgepodge your folks who I’ve never seen before. And a lot of times I see folks out here who have raced in triathlons. And it was like here we go. And they were all just very fast.

Brock: I was in the pool the other day with a woman which at first glance

she looked older probably in her 60s. And she looked like she was swimming very slowly. But she was in the high intensity lane. And I wanted to kick her out. And then I realized that the reason she was swimming so slowly is because she had one of those drag parachutes going. So, she was actually keeping up to me but she was pulling this parachute. And I was going to ask her to move out of the high intensity lane.

Ben: I would’ve just grabbed the parachute and gone along for a ride. Brock: I should’ve. She probably wouldn’t have noticed. She was like just

ripped for an old lady who was awesome. Ben: It’s scary. Well, what do you think? Should we get into today’s

special announcements? Brock: Here we go. Special Announcements: Brock: Okay, special announcements. I know you’ve got a few things going

on starting with I guess the nerdy one. I guess everybody has got to delete and reinstall their apps.

Ben: Yeah. If you’ve got the free Ben Greenfield fitness android app or

iPhone app, you delete it and reinstall it. So, you get access to the most updated version. We already fixed some issues with podcast not loading. And that app will give you access a handy-dandy ask Ben a question button, the blog, the podcast, pretty much everything that you need all in one place. But grab the most updated version. Just delete it and reinstall it. I’m sorry to say that you can’t just press the update button for this particular update. So, the other thing that I was kind of stoked about was the ultimate weight training guide for triathletes came out last week.

Brock: Yehey, Awesome. Ben: It’s a hard copy format. We’ll put a link on Amazon so you can grab

it. But it’s a pretty comprehensive book and the digital version of the book has been up for a while. But the hard copy version is now available on Amazon.

Brock: For all you luddites out there. Ben: That’s right. I have no clue how much it costs. I think it’s very

reasonable. But check that out if you’re a gym junkie or if you want to get stronger. That’s a great guide. I put a lot of work into it. So, the blog post this week at BenGreenfieldFitness.com on how to be extremely active and eat a plant based diet without destroying your body with a fairly impressive picture of a vegan ultra-athlete out there.

Brock: Yeah. Rich is just so incredible.

Ben: Yeah. Rich Roll. So, check out that article. There are some heated comments brewing. So, go over there, read it, leave your comment if you want to. But it goes into whether or not you can eat a plant based diet. But we won’t get in to that right now. But whether you can eat a plant based diet and can be a successful active athlete. So, check that out.

Brock: There are very few communities that are as easy to anger as the

vegetarian and vegan population. I think. If you say anything even slightly interrogatory, they really get on you. So, I was actually surprised there. There aren’t more comments on that post.

Ben: Well, I’ve met very many very reasonable vegan and vegetarian

enthusiast. But there are those kinds of people that kind of get zealous about it. They’ve turned it into a religion it seems. But it’s been fun to watch people talk about it, both vegan and as well as animal killers. And then Triathlon America is coming up next weekend. So, I’m heading up over to Superbowl champion New York Giants metal and stadium next Wednesday. And I’ll be over at the teen Timex triathlon camp over there. Then I’ll jet back over to San Diego for Triathlon America. So, if you’re at either of those events, be sure to say hello.

Brock: Nifty. News Flashes: Brock: Okay. Well, I know there have been all kinds of stuff going on at

your Google+ page. Do you want to talk about that as well as the www.twitter.com/bengreenfield?

Ben: You know, if you haven’t been over to the Google+ page, just go

over there and read some of the articles. There are some great articles, everything from barefoot running to eating corn, cool articles, really good content over there. And it’s easy to find. If you want, you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and click the little Google+ button. But it’s some snippets. It’s easy to read snippets. If the blog post is too long for you, you’ll love our Google+ page. It’s super easy to read and has good advice. So, check that out. And then this week on twitter, a few things came across my radar that I tweeted about that I wanted to get into in a little bit more detail in today’s news flashes. And the first is on, late night carbohydrate eating which we have probably all heard vilified at one point or another. And the reason that an article which I linked to which came from leangames.com. The reason that that article attracted my attention is because it compared epidemiological studies that look at people’s late night carbohydrate snacking habits and draw a

link between those snacking habits and weight gain and then actual studies. So, what epidemiology finds is that people who sell for port, eating more carbohydrates later at night, they do have a higher BMI and a higher body fat. But those are not laboratory controlled studies. Those same people may be the people who watch a lot of TV in the evening, sitting in front of the TV at night. Maybe they’re not quite as physically active. Maybe they make poor food choices in general. And so, there are a lot of confounding variables that if you eat carbohydrates late at night may enter into the equation of whether or not that actually causes weight gain. But when you actually look at calorie controlled studies in which it’s a proper study where they actually have people eating x amounts of calories compared to people who are also eating that same number of calories. But who are eating more of the carbohydrate component of those calories in the evening. And what’s found is that late night carbohydrate eating patterns actually produce superior results on fat loss and dietary adherence. And there are many biochemical reasons for that that I won’t get into in detail too much in this news flash. But what it comes down to is that it can actually assist with appetite control and a lot of the hormones that are responsible for appetite control later on the next day. And of course, it may also improve sleep which is directly tides to weight control and appetite control as well. So, I thought that was very interesting read and I’ll link to the full read.

Brock: That’s very, especially the sleep part, is quite opposite of what I’ve

been led to believe for the last few years. Ben: Yeah. So, I have a new Doritos cabinet next to my bed stand now.

It’s just full of carbohydrates. Brock: Tons of cool ranches. Ben: Yeah, exactly. So, the next thing that I noted on a news flash was a

study on massage therapy and the fact that massage therapy attenuates inflammation after exercise induced muscle damage. There have been actually a few studies that have investigated what goes on at the biological level when you get a massage. And this study did muscle biopsies where they literally put a needle into people’s quadriceps and check out what was going on at the actual muscular level. And they found that post exercise massage did indeed reduce the production of a ton of different inflammatory markers. Okay in the past, what you read on like massage therapy websites is that it’s going to flush lactic acid or that it’s going to reduce fluid based soreness. And it doesn’t do any of that as a matter of fact. They didn’t find any difference in lactic acid levels or in muscle metabolites like carbohydrates floating around in there.

But massage definitely does lower the production of inflammatory based markers after exercise. So, it’s something to bear in mind after a workout or a tough week, get a foam roller.

Brock: Yeah. Foam roll the heck out of yourself. That’s what I’ve been

doing. Ben: Yeah. Foam roller or hire a little massage therapist to follow you

around wherever you go. Brock: Just a little one though. Ben: Yeah, just the little one. You’ve got to be able to carry them around

in your pocket. Brock: Yeah, pockets. Ben: Or in your suitcase. But massage therapy, I’ll link to that study in

the show notes. Another interesting study that I came across was that branched chain amino acid supplementation enhances exercise capacity and your ability to burn fat when you’re exercising at a carbohydrate depleted state. So, that means if you wake up in the morning and you’re doing an exercise session or you haven’t eaten in a while and doing an exercise session, consuming amino acids. And specifically taking in a branched chain amino acid pill or pills or capsules or powder prior to that exercise session is going to significantly improve your ability to burn fat and improve your time to exhaustion during that exercise session. So, a couple of different forms of amino acids that I recommend for something like that, one example would be recoveries. That’s a little blue pill that technically, you’re supposed to take after exercise to reduce soreness. But it looks like it’s going to be just as beneficial if you were to take it 30 minutes prior to your exercise session if you’re doing an exercise in a fasted state. And the other thing that you could do that’s going to have just as good of an effect is a whole amino acid supplement. I’ll link to this and recoveries in the show notes. But master amino pattern, abbreviated MAP is another example of a whole amino acid supplement.

Brock: So, are you actually saying like the recoveries would be better but

the MAP would actually be okay too? Ben: You’re going to get amino acid release with each. But a whole

amino acid supplement is more expensive. That’s kind of the kicker for a lot of people. It’s like 50 bucks a bottle. That’s going to last you a month or so. Whereas, recoveries would be a little bit less or half that.

Brock: Yeah. Ben: The final thing I came across and again I’ll link to all these in the

show notes over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com for this episode, episode number 181.

Brock: 182. Ben: 182, I’m sorry. We’re much farther ahead than what I thought. Brock: You’re way ahead. Ben: A 45-minute vigorous exercise bout increases your metabolic rate

for 14 hours. In this study, they put people in a bike and have people bike at about 57 percent of their max for 45 minutes. And they were burning an extra. It boosted metabolic rate by about 190 calories compared to a resting group. So, that was about an additional 37 percent increase in net energy expenditure. Basically, what that means is that you’d have to go all that hard to bump up your metabolism. And your metabolism is going to stay elevated for a significantly long period of time. And this is one of the reasons. Like for example, I was at a conference all week last week. This is one of the reasons I’ll get up in the morning always and throw down tough exercise session. Ride a bike hard for 30 to 60 minutes or do some weight lifting with some cardiovascular intervals. And it’s because especially if you’re going to go sit around or be in meetings or be in a conference or be sitting in school or wherever else the rest of the day, you’re still burning a lot more calories. So, I’ll link to this study. But it was nice to see exactly how many calories you can increase your burn of just with a 45 minute vigorous cycling bout.

Brock: I think that it’s interesting that it was 57 percent effort. Ben: Yeah, which… Brock: Exactly 57 percent. Ben: Yeah. Well, that’s an average. But that’s of maximum. So, it’s still

fairly difficult. If you’re able to turn out a maximum if you’re going all out of 400 watts on a bike or still pedaling 220 watts or so which if anybody has done that that’s pretty tough.

Brock: Yeah. That’s pretty tough. Listener Q and A:

Brock: Alright. A good pile of awesome questions once again. And everybody, please be aware when you submit questions, it’s going to be a couple of weeks before we get to your question. We’ve got a really good backlog. And every once in a while I go through and think I can call some of them. But they’re all really good. Just be patient, your question will come up. And here, let’s start with our first question. It’s an audio question from Stewart.

Stewart says: Hey Ben, this is Stewart. And I have a question for this week’s

podcast. It’s in regards to heart rate and where it should be. I was working with my coach tonight. And we’re trying to do an accomodate run with the goal being to do one mile repeats with a rest of one minute after every mile. And the goal was to keep your heart rate below 155 the entire time no matter what pace I came out to. The problem was I couldn’t get my heart rate above about 147 or 151 no matter how hard I pushed. And it seems like everybody else running this had just keep slowing their pace to keep their heart rate under that. I’m pretty in shape. So, I don’t know if that had a factor to do with it. But it seems that I can’t get my heart rate to really go very high no matter how hard I’m working. And I’m just wondering if there’s anything wrong with the heart rate monitor that I’m using. It’s been pretty consistent. And I have used it. Is this a good thing or a bad thing or if I just shouldn’t worry about it? So, thanks. And I appreciate everything and the podcast is great.

Brock: So, Stewart can’t get his heart rate up. Ben: Yeah. There’s one very simply reason that that maybe happening

and then one slightly more complex reason. And the simple reason would be that Stewart has a great deal of cardiovascular efficiency. So, your heart when you’re in good shape is going to be able to pump more blood out of its storage capacity. It’s going to have a higher stroke volume. And a higher stroke volume means that for any given work effort, you’re going to have a lower heart rate. So, he may be in better cardiovascular shape than everybody else that’s out there. What I see more often though is that some types of over training can cause an inability to get up to a certain heart rate. So, when you look at over training, there are two different types of over training. We often simply hear that people can become over trained. But the reality is that depending on the type of exercise that you’re doing, it’s going to affect the type of over training that occurs. So, one type of over training would be over training of your sympathetic nervous system. Now, that is typically associated with weight training, power sports, heavy sprint type of sports, strength activities. But the sympathetic part of your nervous system is kind like your fight or flight. It’s when you see a line and you got to run from the line. It’s all the things that would cause your blood

pressure to go up and your heart rate to go up, etc… And when you see people who have over trained their sympathetic nervous system typically through too much intensity during exercise, going to heavy, not enough rest from hard weight training, etc… You’re going to see certain signs of over training that are very distinctly correlated to sympathetic nervous system over training. Disturbed sleep is one of the most common. Accelerated resting heart rate is another one that you’ll notice. Like when you wake up in the morning and your heart rate is much higher than it normally is, a lot of like restlessness, excitability, irritability, anger, losing your temper easily, that type of thing. And it’s similar to the other type of over training that I’ll talk about in a minute here. It’s just basically a drop in your overall performance. But that’s what sympathetic nervous system over training looks like. What you’ll see more often in endurance athletes is over training of the parasympathetic nervous system which is your rest and digests part of the nervous system. It’s also the nervous system that tends to predominate during aerobic based activities. And what you’ll typically see is that sleep really isn’t disturbed quite as much parasympathetic nervous system over training. You’ll see people become more depressed, really almost too laid back, very inhibited, a lot of times kind of loss of appetite. The resting heart rate doesn’t decrease as much as your ability to reach a certain heart rate during exercise similar to what Stewart is experiencing. And you just have a really hard time getting your heart rate up no matter how hard you’re going. And depending on the type of training that you do, it’s pretty easy to figure out with the symptoms whether your sympathetic nervous system or your parasympathetic nervous system has been over trained. Now, a lot of the over training signs and symptoms of parasympathetic nervous system over training are the type of things that we’d want from exercise. But they get thrown out of control. So, for example, there’s a nerve in your body called the vagus nerve. And that helps to inhibit your heart rate. So, it keeps your heart rate from going too high. Well, with regular exercise and with someone who’s getting into shape, the parasympathetic nervous system is going to improve what’s called the vagal tone or the ability of that vagus nerve to inhibit the heart rate. And that’s good in that it helps in your cardiovascular efficiency. And it allows your heart rate to remain lower at rest. But when that increased vagal tone gets out of control because you’ve over trained your parasympathetic nervous system. You just can’t get your heart rate very high period which can inhibit your performance and your ability to kind of dig deep and go hard. Another thing that you’ll see with parasympathetic nervous system training is that you get a very even beat to beat variation in your heart rhythm. And a lot of coaches now and systems will track what’s called your heart rate variability or your HRV. And when you are tracking heart rate

variability, you’re looking for the beat to beat variation in your heart rhythm to be very even from beat to beat. When you’re over training your parasympathetic nervous system, you’re getting a nice healthy beat to beat variation still and your heart rate variability. But it’s like that beat to beat pause is too long. It’s like you’ve over trained the sloth system of your body. And then the other thing that can happen is what’s called a baroreflex function. The baroreflex function is actually what it’s called. That’s responsible for your blood pressure, the regulation of your blood pressure and your heart rate. And when you’re well-trained and you’ve been doing like aerobic endurance exercise and really trained good cardiovascular efficiency, what happens is you become more and more sensitive to changes in blood pressure. And your body is able to regulate blood pressure and heart rate much more efficiently. When you over train your parasympathetic nervous system, once again, you get kind of an over stimulation of what’s called that baroreflex function. And your blood pressure is almost too low even during exercise. And so, all of these things kind of come together to cause what’s Stewart would be experiencing if he had over trained and had done too much aerobic training and kind of gone too long for too long period of time. And that is this inability to really get his heart rate up and to get his intensity up where he wants it to be. You’re just kind of stuck in a low gear. So, that’s the difference in the two types of over training. And I would suspect that unless Stewart is in much better shape than the rest of these folks that he’s training with, he probably has some form of parasympathetic nervous system over training going on. And you want to take a couple weeks to let his body rest and recover and do just easy stuff and a little bit of intensity here and there. But not very much long training at all and then gradually work his way back into training but do so like doing high intensity intervals and not a lot of like long slow bikes or long slow runs. Or the type of training that would be considered purely aerobic and purely parasympathetic nervous system type of training. So, I will shut up now and let Stewart take that where he wants to take it.

Brock: Just one other thing Stewart before you go off the deep end of any

of these directions, I’d say check your heart rate with a different heart rate monitor just to make sure that it’s not your heart rate monitor misreading. Like borrow somebody else’s or something like go to the gym and use one there to verify that you’re not getting concerned about nothing.

Ben: Yes. Sometimes I overlook the simple answers. That’s what I’m

here for.

Brock: Alright. Our next question is from Pete. And it’s an audio question as well.

Pete says: Hey Ben, this is Pete calling from Atlanta, Georgia about your 12

resistance training plans for training for a triathlon. I have two questions. One, is that are you opposed to dips for some reason because you don’t mention any dips. And they seem like a good upper body building exercise to me. Two, is that the body weight only two exercises or routine. It’s very challenging to me and since it’s a whole lot of just holding, just holding a position. And I wanted to understand why that the valuable type of exercise, the isometric hold, to be doing when you’re training for triathlon? Other than that, I love the book. Keep up the good work and thank you. Bye.

Brock: Okay. So, Pete’s got a couple of questions there about building

some muscle. Ben: Okay. He’s asking about my book that’s over at the

strongtriathlete.com. And in that book, the top 12 resistance training routines for triathletes is kind of like really quick effective strength training routines. It’s stuff that’s designed to just get you in and get you out and kick your butt and have you done but trains a lot of triathlon specific muscles. And it’s good for athletes in general. But I wrote it originally for triathletes. First of all, he was wondering about dips. And the thing is they’re just not in there because they were not included. There are exercises that work the similar function as dips do, narrow grip pushups and over head presses and things of that nature. But there is no special secret reason that they’re not in there. They’re just freaking not in there okay? So, you’re just going to be contented about that Pete. But as far as purpose of holding a position, I have an entire workout in there that’s an isometric based workout. And you don’t see isometric based workouts very much. But basically, you’re holding specific positions like the bottom of a push up or the bottom of a squat or the bottom of a lunge for anywhere from 30 to 90 seconds. So, when you’re doing an isometric contraction like that, what that means is that you’re producing a force. But you’re not changing the weight your muscles. You’re just staying in a position. The same as you would be if you were just like pushed against a wall and keep pushing against that wall for as hard as you can until the muscle was exhausted. You can develop a great deal of physical strength with this type of working out. You don’t need much equipment to do it. So, you could do this anywhere. You’ll find that it doesn’t really cause the same type of cardiovascular response. And you don’t tend to sweat quite as much as you do it. So, it’s a workout you could easily throw down. Say like in the airport, if you had a little room to work with. And it’s good for a quick workout where

you got to build a lot of strength and you don’t have a lot of time. But the issue is it’s not going to develop any muscular endurance with this type of isometric exercise. It’s extremely boring after a long period of time. That’s why I think I designed that workout to just last about 20 minutes. And it can really increase your blood pressure. So, if you have a cardiovascular condition and irregular heart beats, something of that nature, it could technically not be the type of exercise that you want to prioritize doing. Then it doesn’t burn a ton of calories either. It’s primarily just strength based. And one of the reasons for that is that you’re not pumping blood in and out of the muscle. There’s not much of a cardiovascular response going on. So, in this workout that Pete is talking about, you’re holding a squat position, you’re holding a lunge position, holding a push-up position, holding kind of like an abdominal position. And you’re just going through a circuit where you’re holding each of those for 30 to 90 seconds and kind of going back to the beginning and doing it again. It’s great for strength. It’s great when you don’t need any equipment to workout. It shouldn’t be something you rely on. But that’s kind of the reason that I included isometric exercise in that book. And the reason that I included multiple isometric exercises is because it would just be boring as hell to sit there and push against a wall for 20 minutes. It’s a great way to exercise though. I think everybody should try a little bit of isometrics now and again.

Brock: Yeah. Every once in a while I’ll do some isometrics if I’m stuck in a

car for a long time or stuck in a plane or something. You can just put your palms in front of your chest and push as hard as you can against each other and get a bit of a workout even if you’re sitting on your butt for hours and hours.

Ben: Butt clinchers. Brock: Yes. Okay, the next question comes from Dan. Dan says: You recently mentioned that you tried and enjoyed Vibram’s KSO

Trek. I have been a fan of the Five Finger lineup for a few years now and have done two off-road Triathlons in my Trek sports, as well as a trail 1/2 marathon in my KSO Trek’s. I was wondering where you would draw the line in regards to usage and distance? Would you not recommend VFF’s (Vibram Five Finger’s) or other minimalistic “foot-gloves” full time? Do you think mixing up VFF’s with your typical “sneaker” is a good idea for training? I have learned that form is very important, but anytime I put a normal sneaker on now I feel like I am running on marshmallows and I am setting myself up for injury.

Ben: Yeah. As far as the Vibram Five Fingers or this Trek KSO that Dan is asking about, these are, for the people who haven’t seen them before, the type of minimalist running shoes that are basically look like a foot. And your toes go into each of the little toe holds in the shoe and it’s essentially very similar with the bare-feet running with a little bit of a rubber protection on the bottom. And I’ve got a version of those called the KSO Trek which is kind of like the off-road leathery version. It looks like a chimp foot basically. When I got those and started using them, I had already been incorporating bare-foot running intervals to my training routine primarily in the summer and spring months. And I also use a standing work station when I’m working. And I’m typically in my bare feet when I’m standing work station. And so, I spend quite a bit of time in my bare feet. I was able to transition straight into running several miles in the KSO Treks. And that’s actually all I’ve been using for runs recently is those KSO Treks. I’ll run trails, cement, concrete, it doesn’t matter. I’ve haven’t had a single problem with them. And they’re actually comfortable to run in. So, I’m actually turning into a big fan of running in the Vibram Five Finger running shoes. But again, my feet were very conditioned. And I grew up not wearing shoes very much. My brothers and I would run up and down the gravel drive way with no shoes. I would hike with no shoes. I think that a lot of people probably have worn shoes much more than I have. And so, that’s the reason that I think that I was able to transition into using those KSO Treks quite a bit. And when you look at studies, there are not many studies that really go beyond the ten k distance. When investigating runners who use primarily a fore foot strike which is the type of foot you’re going to use when you’re using a minimal shoe versus a rear foot strike. Now, the studies that are out there have shown that runners who habitually strike with the front of their good with their fore foot actually tend to have a lower injury rate. And that is likely because when you are running in your fore foot you are using a better running form. And you’re landing softer. So, there is less joint impact. If you go out you can try this, you take off your shoes. You run in your bare feet. You don’t need a pair of fancy bare foot running shoes. You’re going to find that you just land more softly. It’s actually very difficult to even run on a treadmill without making a bunch of noise when you’re running in your bare feet or in your socks. We try this at the gym. And you’ll find that you’ll have to run very soft in order to not annoy people at the gym with your pounding on the treadmill when your take your shoes off and you start to strike with your fore feet. So, even in very advanced runners like they’ve done studies in competitive cross country runners, when you’re comparing good runner with a rear foot strike to a very good runner with a fore foot strike, you’re seeing a lower injury rate among the runners who have that fore foot strike. And when you look at all the different

studies on bare foot runners, there’s really not a lot of evidence that shows a bare foot running gate is going to reduce risk of injury or improved performance. Really, there are actually no studies that show that. But we can certainly hypothesize that if running closer to the front of your foot is going to help you reduce your risk of injury or become a better runner, then running bare foot or running in bare foot style running shoes may have that same effect if you’re doing it properly. Now, bear in mind that these were for good runners they were light. They were not carrying excessive weight. They were well trained. Ultimately, as far as the total distance that you can run in something like a bare foot running shoe, it’s going to totally depend on you. But I would very gradually build up that distance. And the other thing that of course you need to bear in mind is that you may find yourself doing lots of training in your five fingers or your other bare foot style running shoe but then racing with your typical sneakers, your regular running shoes. If that’s the case, then I would recommend that you include at least one training session per week where you are running in the shoes that you’re going to be racing in. I haven’t decided yet whether or not I’d be using something like a Vibram Five Fingers in triathlons this year. I may actually try it out in a few races. The only that would keep me from doing that would be how long it takes to put the show on. But if I can get the things on and off quickly, I could totally see myself doing a triathlon in these things.

Brock: That’d be awesome to see. Alright, Dan I hope that answers your

question. A word of caution, I’m on the other extreme from Ben. I’ve spent most of my life not only in shoes but in great big winter boots. And I picked up a pair of the Vibrams a couple of years ago. And I have played with them off and on and just had absolutely no luck. I pretty much gets injured every time I try to run in them even if I do a short run. I wear like racing flats pretty much all the time. I don’t wear any big cushiony control kind of shoes that I still have had a lot of trouble transitioning into the Vibrams.

Ben: Yeah. And I don’t want to sound arrogant or off putting. But I do

think a big part of it is if you didn’t grow up just basically dirty and bare foot on the porch like I did, then it may not be the shoe for you unless you are willing to be extremely patient. I mean ease yourself into it over a period of possibly not even months but years.

Brock: Yeah. Ben: So, if you spent 30 or 40 years wearing shoes, it may take you a very

long time to reinvent your body to being used to these types of shoes. And I think that’s one of the reasons that they do get a bad wrap is because people are just, no offense, but people are dumb.

They’re going to grab these shoes and just start using them way too much too soon.

Brock: Yeah. That was me. For sure, I didn’t have time I guess really to do

the transition correctly. So, I did do too much too fast and paid the price. But enough on that, onto Brandon’s question.

Brandon says:What are your thoughts on calorie banking/cycling for a bulking

regime? Is “banking” something to do in the future on rest days? What would happen if I took a few days (like 1 weekend) to “bank” calories without exercise? Will a metabolism slow down quickly enough to turn those calories into fat without the stimulation from weights/HIIT on a daily basis? (Meaning I should keep extra calories to extra days). Would you recommend calorie cycling for bulking like you recommend for weight loss plateaus?

Ben: Okay, semantics here, calorie banking. Calorie banking is just like

physical banking with your money. So, let’s say I give you a budget, of let’s say x number of calories per week. Let’s say you’ve got a budget of, I’m thinking of a number that would fit really well here. Let’s say you’ve got a budget of 21000 calories per week. And this would be for fairly active individual. That’s a decently high number of calories. That would mean that you’re going to need to average around 3000 calories a day. But the concept of calorie banking might mean that on five days of the week, you’re taking in 2000 calories. And then on the weekend, let’s say you’re extremely active in your big… Let’s say you’re doing lots of biking, swimming, and running on the weekends, you’ve got closer to 4000 calories on a Saturday and a Sunday and closer to 2500 calories the rest of the weekdays. That’s the concept of calorie banking. When you get to the end of the week or the end of a day, your total calorie intake is still kind of balancing the check book. But it may not be the same between meals or the same between days. Now, the advantage to doing something like this is you could for example do kind of a form of fasting or very low calorie intake something like five days a week and then refill the energy stores on the weekend. And then go back into calorie moderation during the next week. Now, what that could do is it could teach your body how to burn fatty acids more efficiently if you were not stuffing your face with lots of calories on your lower calorie intake days. It could teach you to regulate your appetite a little better, make you a little bit more insulin sensitive because you’re not spiking your blood sugar quite as much on those days in which you’re moderating calories. And then still allow you to kind of refill the gas tank, refill the energy stores on specific days. So, calorie banking and calorie cycling, we can pretty much use those terms almost interchangeably with the exception that calorie banking is very rigid. It’s like you’ve got x number of calories to

consume during the week. And here’s exactly how you’re going to do it. Calorie recycling is a little bit grayer in terms of having a little bit more flexibility to it. It’s just the general concept of eating lower calories on specific days and higher calories on other days without a set number, a set banking number so to speak. Now, the issue with calorie banking is there maybe a little bit of a mental impact to that. If you’re going on a very low calorie intake five days a week, it is more likely that you might fall off the band wagon on specific days and get so hungry that you end up binging. It could also, if you’re not really careful, cause damage to your body if you’re heavily exercising on days in which you have a very low calorie intake. That’s simply not all that great for your immune system or for your body. It’s just tough on your body to do that. So, you need to do it intelligently. But to get to the meat of the question, Brandon wants to know if you could do something like a bulk up or add muscle by using something like a calorie cycling concept. And you absolutely could do something like this. What you would want to do is if you were trying to add muscle, you’d have days in which you’re doing heavy weight training and very hard exercise. And on those days, you are eating your higher number of calories. And then on your lower exercise days, you are moderating calories. And those are kind of like your calorie banking days. In my opinion, a better scenario though for putting on muscle would be to actually go through phases like several week long phases where you’re eating a high calorie intake and lifting heavy. You’re lifting heavy stuff and not kind of depleting your body of calories on any days of the week. So, you’re lifting heavy. You’re putting on lots of muscle. And then you basically kind of do what body builders do. And after you’ve put on a lot of muscle and eaten a lot of calories, then you go into a phase. And it can be a two week phase or a four week phase or an eight week phase where you’re eating fewer calories, shedding a lot of fat and getting yourself ripped so to speak. So, essentially you go through a bulking phase where you’re eating lots of calories and lifting heavy. And then you follow that up with a lower calorie intake phase where you’re lifting higher reps, higher number of sets, and kind of doing more of the toning of all that muscle that you’ve built. I like that concept for putting on bulk better than having a week where you’ve got a higher calorie intake and heavy lifting on one day and lower calorie and lower exercise on another day. So ultimately, that’s a better way to put on muscle. It would be not to calorie bank but to instead just have specific phases of the year where you’re eating lots of calories and then specific phases of the year where you’re eating fewer calories.

Brock: Okay. Our next question comes from Kathy. Kathy says: I’m a 42-year old female, and I enjoy endurance training.

Brock: You know sometimes, sorry to interrupt the question, but

sometimes I feel like it’s almost like a seeking singles website sometimes. The “I’m a 40-year old male who enjoys”. Anyway, sorry Kathy, I cut off your question there.

Kathy says: I’m a 42-year old female, and I enjoy endurance training. I started

cycling a few years ago, and then got into triathlons. I did a few Olympic length races, and even managed to win my age group! But I decided to skip triathlon training this year, as I’d like more time for other personal goals. I’m focusing on cycling, but I like running and swimming, and some variety in the routine is fun. If I’m going to eliminate one, which should it be? My main fitness goal is to improve my cycling: the faster I ride, the more fun I have! And I’ll be training for the Gran Fondo in the summer. My secondary goal is to lose a few pounds. Not only will this help my watts/kg (right now at about 3.3), but, as I’ve gotten older, it’s more of a struggle just to maintain the same weight and not creep up. I lift weights once a week religiously, due to previous knee and shoulder injuries, and sometimes mix in some plyometrics. Swimming is very relaxing, and I like balancing the cycling with the upper body workout, but, as an older female, is running more important? I’m not sure if lifting once a week is enough to maintain bone density.

Brock: So… Ben: Wow. Brock: She’s looking for some advice there. Ben: That was a mouthful. Brock: Yeah, it was. Ben: Now that we have Kathy’s life story, basically what this question

comes down to is like how to prioritize whether you’re going to swim, whether you’re going to bike, or whether you’re going to run and specifically, how to prioritize that for something like bone density which a lot of older females are of course worried about. Now, the whole concept here that I think a lot of people are already aware of is that when you load a bone, it’s going to respond by growing denser. And activities which are non-weight bearing and don’t load the bone are going to be less likely to improve bone density. So, for example there was a article that appeared in New York Times a couple of years ago that showed that cycling could be bad for the bones. And this was a report on several studies done in competitive bike riders and competitive cyclists that found that they

had significantly lower bone density then they’re non-cycling peers. And that’s for two reasons. One, it’s a non-weight bearing sport. You’re not doing a lot of work with the upper body. And two, you are losing minerals at the same time. You’re sweating. You’re losing calcium. You’re losing magnesium. You’re losing a lot of the things that would be responsible for helping you to build stronger bones. So, it turns out that cycling may not be the best choice if you’re looking at improving your bone density especially compared to something like running. Now, what about something like swimming? You would probably think that swimming similar to cycling would really not have much of an effect on bone density. But the fact is that they’ve done studies on swimming versus running. And what it turns out is that if you take someone who is not physically active at all and you throw them into a pool. And then you take someone also who is not physically active and you have them run. They both build bone density. Specifically along the bones that are aligned with the muscles that they’re working. So, runners are going to build bone density in the spine and the legs. Swimmers are going to build bone density kind of in the shoulder and in the arm muscle and a little bit of the foot muscles and some of the muscles where muscle contractions are happening. But in a physically inactive person, pretty much any activity period when you’re comparing swimming versus running is going to build bone density. In a physically active person, someone who is already in shape, swimming doesn’t really build bone density either. Just running does. The only way that swimming can build bone density is because you get the action of the muscles kind of pulling on the bones. And in someone who is not physically active and hasn’t worked out at all, that is enough of a stimulus to cause some bone density formation. But in an active individual, you can’t build bone density swimming. So, at this point, kind of the order of activities when we’re looking at bone density would be running first, swimming second, cycling last, in terms of the actual research into looking at bone density. Now, a few other things about bone density are that, as I mentioned, the specificity of loading is important. Meaning that exercise is that directly place a load on a region of a skeleton are going to strengthen that area of the skeleton. And so, if you’re choosing just one form of exercise, you’re going to improve your bone density in the bones that are being loaded during that form of exercise. But the rest of the bones in your body really aren’t going to get enough stimuli to improve in density or to stave off osteoporoses. So, this is where weight training comes in because it has such a great propensity for you being able to place a load on any bone you want to. You want to strengthen your spine and your femurs. You’re arm bones. You would do an over head press. You want to strengthen your femur and in your tibia and your fibula. You’re doing squats and lunges. And so ultimately, the

best bone density increasing program would be a combination of running and weight training. If you’re going to throw out one activity and you’re caffeine you are trying to choose what you’re not going to do, I would say that cycling would be the one to throw out. And swimming would be the next thing to throw out. And running and weight training should be prioritize if we’re looking at this from a purely bone density perspective. But don’t get me wrong. I mean you can be a cyclist as long as you’re getting adequate calcium and magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin K are also important. And then your weight training as well, you can maintain bone density. So, you need to bear in mind that the studies that have been done on cyclist that have shown that it has the capability to lower bone density were done on people that were not necessarily supplementing the way that they should’ve been and more necessarily weight training. So, hopefully that gives Kathy some direction.

Brock: Yeah. It’s amazing how often the question especially with women

come up with the bone density. It’s quite a hot topic. Ben: Yeah, it is. And unfortunately, the most common answer you see is

to take calcium. And that is actually causing a bunch of women who are concerned about osteoporosis to instead get atherosclerosis as all that calcium builds up on the arteries. So, magnesium, vitamin D and vitamin K2 are essential if you’re taking calcium.

Brock: Awesome. Okay. The next question is from Bret. Bret says: I was having a discussion with a group of my early morning (5am)

workout buddies. If you have the choice, is it better to get a full night’s sleep or to get in the workout? Lack of sleep causes a myriad of issues, fatigue, cortisol release, etc… does a workout trump the negative effects of no sleep/lack of sleep? Thanks and all the best.

Ben: You know, I’ve talked a little bit about mitigating the lack of sleep

through the use of polyphasic sleeping. I’ll put a link to that in the show notes for Bret. It was episode number 110. I talked about how you could use timed and scheduled naps to string yourself along through a period of time where you aren’t getting as much sleep as you adequately get. But chronic lack of sleep, there are certainly studies that show that that’s going to decrease your reaction in time, your ability to have sustained detention. It’s going to decrease the ability of your body to heal and recover after a physically demanding exercise session. And it’s ultimately going to have a lot of deleterious effects when it comes to your ability to respond to training and your ability to train the way that you should. I think that there are a lot of people especially like endurance

athletes who have high training volume walking around under performing mentally and neurologically. And also doing things like getting sick a lot, being in an over trained state, having low testosterone, low work performance, low sex performance, destabilized appetite based off of lack of sleep or inadequate sleep from getting up for these four or five or sometime slower than that exercise sessions. Now, genetics plays a huge role in this. There are some people who can get by on lower levels of sleep. And so, there maybe one person in a five a.m. exercise group who’s just fine. And they went to bed at 11 p.m. the night before. And then there’s another person and I would fall into this group who is simply wanting to just drop out right there and go crawl up in a corner and take a nap because they feel sleep deprived. So ultimately, you can’t mitigate the effects of lack of sleep or low sleep with exercise. Okay. Exercise actually will ultimately magnify the problems caused by lack of sleep because exercise is going to further deplete hormones that are already depleted through lack of sleep further decreased levels of neurotransmitters especially this long heavy style of aerobic training that Bret might be doing at a five a.m. triathlon workout. And it’s going to pile things on that will cause similar symptoms to the over training that we started off this podcast talking about. If you’re in a situation where you simply have to make that decision between sleep deprivation and exercise, I would suggest you step back and look at your schedule and see if you’re doing enough high intensity interval training. Meaning, you can get an awesome aerobic workout with just 20 minutes of high intensity interval training if you’re doing a lot of slow junk miles or just training for the sake of training. And the other thing that you may want to think about is a lot times it is tougher to train with a group and have really efficient training versus training by yourself. Like me for example, I can roll out of bed in the morning. I can go for a run, throw in some high intensity interval training, be done and over within 45 minutes. When I’m training with a group, I have to get up. I have to drive to meet the group. We talk for five to ten minutes. We do the workout. We may visit for another five to ten minutes after. I drive home and suddenly that’s a two hour commitment. And that’s an extra hour and 15 minutes of sleep that I could’ve been getting. So, a big part of this might be the style of training that you do as well and some of the social impact. So ultimately, you should not try and fight lack of sleep by exercising more. That is a recipe for over training.

Brock: Alright. That’s good stuff. This next question from Josue I kind of

feel bad that we always warn people that it’s going to take a while to get the question on the show. This is definitely not very timely for Josue to get his answer. But I want to cover it anyway because I

think it’s a pretty universal question for a lot of people out there. So, here it goes.

Josue says: I have been training for the last 17 weeks for a cycling event on

January 27, I have put a lot of time, effort and money into it. I have been really sick for the last 2 days with sinus, flu, cough, and everything in between, the good thing is no diarrhea or vomiting. What recommendations can you give me and do you feel that everything is down the drain? By the way, it’s a 3 day event, 375 miles and is the first time I’m going to do something like this, and I am not a professional!

Ben: Just for the record, it’s February eighth. Brock: Yeah. We missed it by a good week and a half. Ben: First of all, my sincere apologies Josue for getting to this question a

long time after you needed it answered. Remember, I am a consultant. People can hire me. If you’re desperate and you need some answer, just hire me. I’ll get on the phone with you for 20 minutes and we’ll sort you. But if I would have been in your shoes having poured this time, effort, and money into a competitive event that I was getting ready for and I’d gotten sick in the important training days leading to that event, I would focus on the few things that I talked about in the show before. And because I’ve gone into some of these in detail, I’m not going to get into the biochemistry of the stuff in detail. But I want to tell you the exact things that I would do. First would be to step up intake of natural antiseptic/anti-viral type of compounds. Top two would be oil of oregano and coconut oil. Okay? You can do oil of oregano. 45 drops of that swirl it into a glass of water or just put it sublingually under your tongue. You can just cook more of your foods in coconut oil or literally take coconut oil by the teaspoon or the tablespoon. Both of those are going to have very good effects in terms of their ability to fight off sickness and bump up your immune system. Enerprime and other green supplements I’ve talked about before their ability to reduce acidity in the body and also strengthen your immune system is incredible. Whenever I am on a green supplement, I rarely if ever get sick. And when I am off a green supplement, I tend to get sick more often. So, in terms of staving off colds and flues when you’re training for something that’s very important to you, I would recommend that you be on a greens supplement as well. Now, when you do get sick and you do feel something coming on, there are things that you can take that could potentially reduce the severity and/or the duration of the flu or the cold. A few things that I would use are vitamin C, one to two grams of that per day. Elder berry is another thing that could reduce the

duration of the symptoms of a cold or a flu. And that’s something that you could just get a little dropper of or take it like a cough syrup. It’s just elder berry extract that you can get at a health food store. Quercetin is another. You’ll find quercetin in FRS energy drink. But the amount of sugar and caffeine and other things you’ll get along with FRS energy drink is not worth it. So, you can simply step up your intake of things like red apples. And another one would be red onions. Those would be two things that are very high in quercetin. I’ve talked about that on the podcast before. And you can go look and do a search for any of these at BenGreenfieldFitness.com if you want to delve into them in more detail. And then I would be careful with dairy too that has the propensity to really increase mucus production and exacerbate a lot of the symptoms of the cold and the flu. So, you’d want to avoid things like milk and yogurt during that time. But those are the things I would do. I’ll have oregano coconut oil, enerprime, vitamin C, elder berry, quercetin, avoid dairy. You got to throw a lot of wrenches at something like this. But I personally will incorporate a lot of that stuff if I ever feel myself coming down with something and usually can stave it off.

Brock: There you go. Good advice for all of us not just for Robert’s and

Josue of the past. Okay, the next question. This one comes from Robert. And it goes like this.

Robert says: We have a daughter who was two months premature. During her

hospital stay she got meningitis and was close to death. She is now seven years old and may have a slight case of cerebral palsy, but has not been diagnosed by her doctor. We had noticed she was very stiff on her left side. Her doctor recommended a physical activity to help her development. She has been in gymnastics for about two years, and we see a very noticeable difference. Her routine is basically a lot of stretching, running, body weight exercises etc. How can we design a system or workout for children to do ourselves what the local gym does. Why should we pay someone when we can have her run, stretch, do pushups, sit ups, pull-ups etc., right here at home and include our other children and ourselves.

Ben: Yeah, great question. And I’ll get into a couple of my specific

recommendations for something like cerebral palsy in a second. But just having the things at home that make the fitness fun for kids is actually pretty affordable. Kid’s fitness equipment is cheap. Unfortunately, it also falls apart more quickly than heavy steel dumbbells and stuff like that. But there is fitness equipment for kids. And personally here at home, my kids play around the BOSU ball and elastic bands and light dumbbells that are covered with protective fabric. And they play around with the foam rollers and

just about any of the home exercise tool that I have. Of course, I have the advantage because I’m in the industry that I am in. And a lot of folks send me stuff to test. And so, I’ve just got a closet full of random exercise toys and my kids just grab and play with. What I would do if I were you is you can go to a website like toysrus.com. They’ve got an entire kid’s fitness section. They’ve got fun little jump ropes for kids. They’ve got basically weight benches for kids that are super light. And kids can easily play with without hurting themselves. They’ve got little punching bags and gloves for kids. That’s another thing that we have here by the way. My kids love to fight. We’ll watch Rocky and have fight night. They’ve got little airwalkers and bikes for kids basically, just the ton of things to make it fun. And this stuff is cheap. I mean, you’ll spend a pretty penny for steel and for metal and for a lot of things that you’ll get when you’re buying as much weight as necessary for an adult to workout at home. But a lot of the kid’s stuff is cheap. I mean its four bucks here and its ten bucks there. So, I’d head over to a website like toysrus.com and just grab a few toys to have around. And if you don’t want to do that, go to your local sporting goods store and get a couple of stability balls, get some medicine balls, get some elastic bands, get stuff that’s colorful that’s going to attract kids attention. I know my kids just grab the stuff that’s red and blue and purple from the exercise closet. And they generally don’t mess around with the rusty dumbbells too much. But kids like stuff that look fun. So, I would stock your house with some of this stuff and have it around. And what I find is my kids a lot of times will just go grab it and start playing with stuff. It doesn’t have to be an organized exercise session per se. But you can also take things. And you can write a little workout for the kids or have like a PE minutes or PE hour. Now, as far as cerebral palsy goes, there are going to be some issues. It sounds like, in your case, it’s fairly mild. But as far as muscle tone and the spasmic state that a muscle can be in with cerebral palsy, stretching is going to be a fairly useful exercise. And I would certainly include some type of stretching and flexibility component in an exercise program for a kid with cerebral palsy. That’s going to help out quite a bit. As will the type of supplements that are going to improve muscle tone and decrease the potential for a muscle to be in a spasmic state. One of the top ones that I would recommend would be magnesium. That can really help to improve muscle tone and decrease muscle spasticity with something like cerebral palsy. So, I’d get good topical or oral magnesium. Another thing that I would really look into that’s shown some good result especially when it comes to muscle function and cerebral palsy is zinc sulfate. And you’ll want to be careful with this one. I would make sure that you’re not over doing zinc supplementation that you talk with a physician about this. But zinc sulfate would be another supplement that could assist with

something like cerebral palsy. And then, there can be some neurological deficits that occur with CP. And I would just go check out that article that I recently wrote over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com on mental performance facts because a lot of the things that can improve neurological performance or mental performance, fish oil, fatty acids, high fat intake, things like that. They’re going to help with the neurological status in cerebral palsy. So, I hope that helps out a little bit. I don’t want you to misconstrue this as medical advice. I’m not a pediatric doctor or anything like that. But those are some of the things that I would certainly look into.

Brock: Great. Okay, the next question is from Eric. And this is a question

about the interview you did with Doctor Davis, the author of Wheat Belly. We’ve talked the heck out of this topic many times. But I think this is a sort of an interesting take on it.

Eric says: I really enjoyed your interview with Dr. Davis regarding the

consumption of wheat. Prior to listening to the episode we eliminated wheat from my son’s diet after dealing with some behavioral issues and have seen a definite improvement. The improvement was so great we have begun to eliminate it from the rest of our diets as well and the info presented by Dr. Davis further solidified that decision. I was wondering if after your interview if you have any intentions of reducing or eliminating wheat from your diet? If so, it would be interesting to see what improvements you notice as you are so in tune with your body and your health.

Ben: Yeah. First of all, I’ve almost pretty much worked wheat almost

completely out of my diet. My wife is 100 percent on board. And it’s something that we’re both devoted to avoiding now for both our children and us. A big part of that is based off of my conversation with Dr. Davis. And what I learned about how even soaked and sprouted forms of wheat can still have some issues especially with modern forms of wheat. So, I’ve started to just gradually work it all out of my diet. We’re using lots of rice flour, coconut flour, kinwa flour. When you’re looking at kids, yes, there is a definite correlation between gluten sensitivity, wheat intake, and the mind to brain connection. So, it’s really not that hard to understand the link between gluten sensitivity and problems with your brain, learning disabilities, difficulty staying on task, memory dysfunction, poor performance in kids, acting up in kids, things like that. Gluten sensitivity in kids is caused by elevated levels of antibodies that fight against gluten and a specific component of gluten called gliadin. And the antibody is called anti-gliadin antibody. When a person is exposed to gluten, that anti-gliadin antibody combines with gliadin. And when that happens, you get specific genes that

are turned on in anybody who is gluten sensitive. And lots and lots of kids are gluten sensitive. And when those genes are turned on, your body produces inflammatory chemicals. They’re called cytokines. And there is a direct correlation between cytokines and determent of brain function. So, you’re going to see elevated cytokines in people who have Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis and autism and other forms of brain disorders. But you’ll also go into see elevated cytokines in kids who are acting up a lot. And if you’ve got kids who are showing a lot of the symptoms of ADHD or poor mental performance, poor mental performance at school, yeah absolutely. Eliminating gluten, eliminating wheat from their diet can be huge in terms of treating that. One person who has been on this show before, Nora Gedgaudas, she actually worked with lots of kids. And one of the first things that she does to affect a child positively is to eliminate gluten and wheat from their diet. And it sounds kind of silly. But my kids eat extremely healthy. They’re smart. They’re very well-behaved. And I think a big part of that is because they’re not walking around with cytokines coming out their eyeballs and this inflammatory chemicals circulating through their blood stream. So, yes, I personally am really lowering my wheat intake and gluten intake. And yes, I think it’s even more important for a kid.

Brock: Cool. So, have you actually noticed improvements in yourself since

you’ve been lowering it? Ben: Yeah. I’ve noticed and improvement in gut function specifically I

don’t want to gross people out but less gas, less bloating, less using the restroom, that type of thing. So, I certainly think that there’s a little bit of digestive inflammation that I can get when I have wheat and gluten. Not that it was a huge part of my diet before. I was probably having wheat maybe maximum about twice a week before and now, I’m trying to completely avoid it.

Brock: I’m two and a half weeks into the rev diet. I know I bring this up in

all the episodes. But it’s a big part of my life right now. And I’ve noticed the same thing. I rarely feel bloated. I rarely feel gassy. And my bathroom habits are very regular.

Ben: Yeah. Brock: Not that they were ridiculously irregular before. But this is like it’s

really quite a difference. Ben: Yeah. And for the folks who just went over their heads, I’m

coaching Brock. And we’re kind of switching from marathon training to triathlon training right now. And after Brock finished

his marathon down in Florida, I switched him to the rev diet. And the first few weeks of the rev diet are clean eating. So, you’re eliminating dairy, wheat, soy, pretty much anything that can cause inflammation. Pushing the reboot button, that’s what the R in rev stands for. You’re pushing the reboot button on your body. And so, Brock has had all these stuff just out of his diet. And it sounds like it’s going well for you man.

Brock: Yeah. The first week, I was really hungry. But the second week, I

started to get a lot more comfortable. And right now, I think I could eat like this forever.

Ben: Cool. Brock: Anyway, sorry I didn’t mean to completely derail the Q and A here.

We’ve got one more question left and it’s from Ferdinand. Ferdinand: I just had a friend tell me that he was diagnosed with liposarcoma

cancer. This particular cancer is quite rare and thus the best treatment from the medical point of view is really unknown. I pointed him to a few podcast episodes that cover cancer treatment via nutrition, but I wanted to see if you could run down a few specific things that you would tell someone if they asked you for advice on combating cancer through nutrition and exercise.

Ben: Yeah. Obviously, information overload can be a big issue when it

comes to cancer remedies especially when you’re looking at nutritional remedies and alternative treatments for cancer that go beyond something like chemo. So, I’m going to go over just a few things that I’m aware of and that I have noted to be effective. But I want to throw a caveat in here. Liposarcoma is one form of malignant tumor. The lipo part of that means that liposarcoma is present in fat cells and the soft tissue in your body. And certain forms of cancers are going to respond specifically to certain treatments and certain forms aren’t. So, without me being a cancer specialist per se. I have to paint with a fairly broad brush here. And I have to certainly say that I’m not 100 percent for sure that a couple of things that I’m about to mention would necessarily cause a positive change or affect something like liposarcoma. That being said, biochemically sugar feeds cancer. Glucose, basically sugar, and combined with glutamine which is an amino acid, those are both essential for cell growth and specifically tumor cell growth. So, if you’re cutting off glucose and sugar to a tumor, it’s going to die. You basically break the cycle of glucose utilization by a tumor. And this is why research studies have shown that something like a ketogenic diet in which you cut off carbohydrate consumption almost completely in your diet. And you instead force your body to

utilize fatty acids and ketones as a fuel can cause market improvement in the advancement in cancer. And that is because you are cutting off the primary fuel source for tumors. And almost every tumor is a glucose consuming tumor. This is a very uncomfortable treatment because you have to learn how to burn fatty acids efficiently as a fuel. And it can be basically like fasting yourself and almost feel like starving yourself. But a calorie restricted ketogenic diet has great potential for cancer treatment. And essentially, that’s the way you want to think about it, is that sugar feeds cancer. Tumor cells rely on glucose. So, I would highly recommend that you look into a ketogenic diet. The next thing that I would look into is a certain vitamin in the body that has been shown to suppress tumor growth and basically inhibit the ability of tumors to utilize fuel. And also cut off a lot of the capillarization or the blood vessels that can actually feed a tumor and actually, specifically target tumors almost in an intelligent manner. And that would be vitamin K2. I would be supplementing with a vitamin k2, what’s called an MK7 form of vitamin K2. And I will be, I didn’t mention this in the special announcements, I’m interviewing a physician this Friday. Not only about the cancer fighting properties of vitamin K2. But many of the other very interesting components of this vitamin, incredibly useful, and it’s something that I would highly recommend that you listen to. We’ll be going into dosage, type, just everything you need to know about how to use and supplement with vitamin K2. So, that would be number two. So, ketogenic diet, supplementation with vitamin K2. The other thing that I would look into is there is a movie that you can watch online or you can order the DVD of. And it’s about a doctor who invented a form of cancer treatment using something called anti-neoplastins which actually can have a significant healing effect on many incurable forms of terminal cancer. There’s kind of a huge political story behind this treatment because it has been suppressed to a great extent by the US Food and Drug Administration. But the name of the doctor is Stanislaw Burzynski. The name of the movie is Burzynski the movie. I would recommend that you look into this as well. This would actually be something more involved, more expensive that would actually require you to meet with this doctor. Go to his clinic and be treated. But it is certainly something that I would highly recommend that you look into. So, those would be the three recommendations that I would give to start you off. I hope that helps. I’m sorry to hear about your friend. And I hope that some of this information can be a benefit.

Brock: Okay, best of luck to your friend Ferdinand. Ben: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that wraps up the questions for this

week.

Brock: It sure does. Ben: Like I said, a great interview is coming out this Friday. Be sure to

listen to that. And it may actually be Saturday morning by the time it comes out. But this weekend will be that vitamin K interview. It’s a really great interview. I highly recommend that you listen in. And then, remember to delete and reinstall the phone app if you’ve got that. You can grab those apps over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com. Look into the ultimate weight training guide for triathletes which is now available in hard copy format. And then of course, everything that we’ve talked about today is in the show notes for episode 182. And that’s right over at bengreenfieldfitness.com. So, I personally want to thank people for listening in. And Brock, thank you for doing lots of reading today.

Brock: Yeah. I appreciate everybody putting in their back story. But you

make my job very difficult. Ben: And Brock’s actually very good in what he does because these

questions are even longer than what Brock is actually reading. So, we love the back story. We love it folks when you give us details. But don’t be offended when we cut some of those details out.

Brock: It’s not because they’re boring. It’s just because there’s too much. Ben: Your donations are always appreciated over at

BenGreenfieldFitness.com. Leave the podcast a ranking over at iTunes if you get a chance. And until next time, this is Ben and Brock signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

For personal nutrition, fitness or triathlon consulting, supplements, books or DVD’s from Ben Greenfield, please visit Pacific Elite Fitness at

http://www.pacificfit.net.