Podcast #230 from

http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2013/02/230-is-it-possible-for-a-vegan-

to-be-a-healthy-endurance-athlete/

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Introduction: In today’s episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast: Is it

possible for a vegan to be a healthy endurance athlete? Also:

What causes side stitches, how to get through a tough workout or

race, healthy ways to heal road rash, what to eat after gallbladder

removal, and how to eliminate motion sickness?

Brock: I just got back from probably the coldest, crappiest, slipperiest

run I’ve had all winter and I’m trying to cheer myself up a little

bit. Can you help with that, Ben?

Ben: Here, this will cheer you up. Be glad that you did not take a spill

and tear your pack and bruise your rib.

Brock: Is that something you did?

Ben: Last week, yeah. I guess we haven’t podcasted since then but yeah,

I can’t swim, I can’t lift, I can’t...

Brock: Oh man!

Ben: I’ll actually go into the chiropractor after this to see if my ribs

actually shifted out of place but I’ve got a torn booby.

Brock: Were you running or snowboarding or what were you up to?

Ben: It’s actually a pretty dang sick 12 inches of air that I got on my

snowboard. And my wife was witness to this epic jump. I cleared

the ground by good foot, landed and proceeded to yard sail for

about 20 feet or so.

Brock: I love that term.

Ben: Her comment when she skied up to me was: “yeah, that was a

really, really huge crash for a really small jump.” Hopefully that

cheers you up.

Brock: It actually does. It really does.

News Flashes:

Brock: As always, to get these and other interesting news flashes

everyday of the week, follow Ben on twitter.com/bengreenfield.

Make sure to go to Google+ and look for Ben Greenfield Fitness

and Facebook as well.

Ben: That’s right. And I’ve certainly been putting in a lot of tweets and

Facebook posts in the past couple of weeks because (I don’t know

of anybody noticed but) there actually wasn’t really a podcast last

week. It was an interview but it wasn’t the usual Brock and…

Brock: I wasn’t there. There wasn’t any banter. Well, there was a little bit

of banter. Actually, I think you and I’ve forgotten his name.

Ben: Paul Jaminet or as we call him here in Washington, Jaminet.

Brock: That’s a great last name.

Ben: Yeah. We did a Perfect Health Diet interview but I ended up…I

was at Triathlon Business International last week and then I went

from there over to do some fitness videos for Fox in New York.

And then went from there over to New Jersey to Team Timex

Training Camp. Between all of that, I never actually got a podcast

done. I was just thinking, maybe, it would fly near the radar of

our loyal podcast listeners but I’m guessing a few people might

have noticed your absence, Brock.

Brock: Well, though the Perfect Health Diet interview was interesting

enough that I think it probably ______[0:03:57.4] with

everybody for the week anyway.

Ben: There we go. News flashes this week: I found a few cool things.

There was a study on electro stimulation which we actually talked

about a couple of weeks ago when I did a podcast with that guy

who trains elite athletes with electro stim. I was having a

conference with him this Thursday about how I can use electro

stim a little bit more intelligently in my own training. I’ve actually

still been doing about 3 times a week. I used to use electro stim

just for recovery and now I’m using it for full on like strength and

explosive strength sessions.

Brock: Those are in addition to the normal training that you’re doing.

Ben: Yeah. One thing that I found it to be really useful for is pre-

workout training. So before I go out on a bike ride, I’m doing this

session on my quads where I turn electro stim up on like the

explosive strength fall on, hard core contraction mode for about

20 minutes while I’m standing there just listening to my MP3

player and it takes me through this series of contractions and then

I go out on a ride. And I’ve found that it’s just exploded my riding

in terms of my power and my cadence. It’s almost like it wakes up

more muscles so it’s really interesting.

[0:05:17.2]

There’s a study in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research

this month called Restoration of Work Capacity of Skeletal Muscle

with Electrical Myostimulation. This study took 19 long distance

runners. And these are good runners and they divided them into

2 groups. They had a control group and then a group that was

getting shocked. What they were doing was, they’re putting them

through a series of electro myostimulation or electrical

stimulation. And what they found was that there was an elevation

of stroke volume and cardiac output in the folks who were

running with the EMS and that actually improved performance,

meaning that the people who were going through this EMS

protocol had better performance than the people who weren’t

using it. And the researches hypothesized, of course, that that was

due to improved blood flow in the running muscles that were

stimulated and improved what’s called venous blood pump which

is the return of the blood flow back up out of the muscle. It was

interesting that they actually found this to be fairly efficacious and

helping runners to get faster.

Brock: Awesome! Any way to get faster. That’s what I say.

Ben: Yeah. A couple other things that I found: concurrent training in

male runners (another study on runners). And this one looked at

the influence of strength training vs. muscular endurance training

vs. no resistance training at all in runners. And this one looked at

a bunch of male runners and they took one group and just had

them do the regular running routine and they took another group

and had them do strength training, basically like resistance

exercise, plyometric exercise, and they did an endurance training

as well. And then they had a third group who did what’s called

endurance strength training which should mean basically like

low-weight-high-rep kind of stuff. So essentially, you have a no-

strength training group, a high-weight-low-rep group, and a high-

rep-low-weight group. And they looked at all 3 groups and both

of the groups that strength trained, regardless of the type of

strength training that they did, they had a better jumping

capability, better running economy, higher VO2max and higher

peak velocity when running. And so there was a definite

correlation between strength training and an improvement in

running. Furthermore, in a 3k time trial, the only group that

ended up having a significant increase in their 3k time trial

performance was the group that did the high-weight-low-rep

strength training. And that’s probably because they were simply

training their body to recruit more motor units to recruit more

muscle fibers when they’re running and this produced more

power, more pump off the ground. It was a really interesting

study and just goes to show you that…

Brock: So more power over a shorter distance.

Ben: Exactly. It verifies what I’ve always said and that is that runners,

cyclists, swimmers, endurance athletes should not be training

endurance in the gym, should not be doing like P90X and these

workouts to exhaustion in the gym. If their goal is to use gym

time or weight time to get better at their sport, the gym time, the

gym time is used to load the body to actually lift and push around

heavy stuff and then you do all the light stuff when you head

outdoors unless doing P90X or crossfit, that kind of workout or

something like that just makes you happy and plus there’s a big

smile across your face, by all means, keep it up if that’s the case.

But if it’s just performance that you’re going after, lift heavy stuff.

All right, folks may have noticed that kind of a little hack up there

and it turned out that Brock and I were timed about 10 seconds

apart, let’s say on Skype.

Brock: Maybe more. It wasn’t conducive to good conversation.

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Ben: So I’d say something and Brock could hear me 10 seconds later. If

it’s not a little awkward, that’s why. Anyways though, we’ll plough

on, jumping in the last study that came across my radar. This one

kinda went after the whole deal that we’ve been taught by many

personal trainers and nutritionists that snacking boosts your

metabolism, right, Brock?

Brock: I love to snack. Boosting that metabolism through the roof.

Ben: You snack a lot during the podcast.

Brock: Yeah. I’ve got like a bag of chips, bag of doritos, a bag of…no I

don’t have any snacks.

Ben: I thought maybe you’re a poor crunch guy. Anyways though,

consuming smaller, more frequent meals is, of course, often

abdicated as a means of controlling your body weight. But this

study looked into fat oxidation and perceived hunger in people

who have higher meal frequency. They compared people who

were eating 6 meals a day vs. people who are eating 3 meals a day

and they found that increasing meal frequency from 3 meals a day

to 6 meals a day actually did not boost the metabolism, did not

cause people to burn more fat and in fact, increased hunger and

the desire to eat. There’ve been other studies similar to this in the

past that have shown that once you get up to 3 meals, you don’t

get any additional benefit. And now this one shows that not only

do you not get any additional benefit in terms of boosting your

metabolism but it, in fact, may actually just make you more likely

to eat and kinda stoke your appetite. And the probable reason to

this is that the big fluctuation in blood sugar, the inability to teach

your body how to be a fat burning machine, the continued rise in

insulin, spike in insulin throughout the day that may leave you

insensitive to insulin, just good to show you. Even in hard

training athletes, I’m not a big fan of really much more than a

breakfast, lunch, dinner and then either a pre-workout or post-

workout meal, and that’s it.

Brock: Now, when you eat only like let’s say, 2 meals a day, the big

danger that they always say about skipping breakfast, let’s say, is

that later in the day, you’ll get hungrier and you’ll wanna snack in

the evening when it’s bad. So, how does that measure up against

if you’re eating a whole bunch of small meals throughout the day

anyway, will that sort of balance out?

Ben: Well, there have been studies that have looked at breakfast and

studies have, indeed, found that habitual breakfast eaters tend to

do better in stabilizing weight and tend to have lower fat mass

than non-breakfast eaters. And the reason for that is likely not

something magical that happens when you eat breakfast

necessarily.

Brock: No, but it boosts your metabolism first thing in the day. It makes

you burn more calories throughout the entire day which is often

what people say.

Ben: Yeah. That’s highly unlikely. Instead, what it is more probably

and indicator of is that regular breakfast eaters tend to simply

have more stabilized eating schedules and do a better job at

tracking and knowing and being aware of what they’re eating

during the day. And I certainly know that’s the case with me. I do

a much, much better job when I’ve got a regular meal frequency, a

certain time that I’m eating during the day and often the same

type of things that I’m eating. I have these 3 different breakfasts

that I tend to go between - one’s kind of a protein blend, one’s the

high fat coffee and one is basically avocado and eggs. And I know

that any of those 3 meals eaten at a specific time in the morning,

keeps me going until 1:30 or 2:00 in the afternoon and when I

stray from that, when I jump into maybe eating some pancakes or

waffles that Jessa’s made the kids or I mix things up and maybe

go out for breakfast, it just throws off my routine. And a lot of

times, I do end up not eating quite as well or end up eating more

than I would the rest of the day and maybe it’s just my stupid little

type A-ish eating thing but I just find that having regular reliable

meals at a predictable time seems to be the best thing for me

especially when it comes to keeping lean and keeping my appetite

satiated.

Brock: Yeah. I actually found the same thing since I was in the Paul

Jaminet interview you did on the weekend, I thought it would be

interesting ‘cause he said that he often goes for 23 hours or he

pretty much never eats breakfast. That was he said, so when he

finishes dinner, doesn’t eat anything until at noon or 1:00 the next

day and I was, “Oh okay, I’m gonna give that a try”. Yesterday, I

made it to about 17 hours and I completely lost my mind and I

stopped at this Mediterranean place on the corner and got a huge

______[0:15:01.3] with rice and potatoes and all this stuff and

then I got home and eat a banana and a whole bunch of almond

butter at 7:00 and then was finally, I go, “Hey, I’m gonna be all

right.” So if I had just had my normal breakfast, I’m sure I

wouldn’t have that 4000 calorie bowl less of starch and stuff right

in the middle of the day.

[0:15:18.8]

Ben: Yeah. And the only thing I remember about a guy like Paul

Jaminet’s…you and I are training for triathlon pretty intensively

and he’s training for making a rocket science blueprint. Anyways

though, it all depends on your level of activity.

Brock: That’s a good point.

Ben: Speaking of activity, let’s go ahead and surge forward into the

special announcements.

Special Announcements:

Brock: Surging forward into the special announcements, what have you

got for us today, what kind of specialness?

Ben: One big, big special announcement and that is that we’ve got our

speaker line-up set in stone for the Become Superhuman Live

event and a couple weeks ago, I did a walk through the venue

which is gorgeous. Everything from the hotel where everybody is

staying and gets this kind of room blocks and it’s also where we’re

doing The Morning Boot Camps with Ben for the people who

decide not to do the morning real run with Brock, who will be at

Become Superhuman. As a matter of fact, our podcast will be live

from that event. But I also got a chance to walk through the

conference center - our actual auditorium where the speakers are

gonna be presenting really cutting edge performance and

nutrition advice to folks is beautiful. Just gorgeous wood tram and

plush red seats and it’s really, really cool space. It’s a topnotch

facility. As I was going through it and looking at the facility, at

our lunch rooms, at our party rooms where we’re gonna be doing

rat parties and we’ve got this gorgeous cocktail event that takes

place on Saturday night – that’s way up on the top floor of the

hotel and this ballroom that oversees the Spokane river, complete

with Superhuman cocktails which is my own little concoction and

lots of really good eats including bacon wrap scallops for you.

And by the way, the entire menu is just topnotch. I went back and

forth with the caterers and they were like, “Wait, wait, why can’t

we do garbanzo beans, why can’t we do, aren't lentils healthy?”

and I just basically went through the entire menu and it’s super,

super clean. Actually, my event manager who goes to some of

these health events and attends some of these from motivational

speaker events to performance events and things like that are on

the country, she said, this was the first time she’d seen someone

actually really, truly focus on every aspect of nutrition being rock

solid. So food’s gonna be really good and this is a pretty epic event

that I’m losing a lot of money on but it’s gonna be very, very cool.

So if you’re listening in to this podcast, this is pretty much crunch

time and if you don’t register now, you’re not gonna get in. You

can register over a superhumancoach.com. The speakers we’ve

got coming in right now are: Dr. David Minkoff, who’s gonna be

talking about fixing your body with advanced alternative medicine

tools; we’ve got Dr. Phil Maffetone coming on to talk about

optimizing your biology; Jimmy Moore’s gonna be there. He’ll be

talking about using nutritional ketosis from maximizing weight

loss and health and kinda revealing his journey over the past year

as far as testing and what he’s found as far as the practical in’s and

out’s of ketosis. Monica Reinagel a.k.a., the Nutrition Diva is

gonna be there talking about the inflammation factor. Ray

Cronise, who just had a big article come out on Wired Magazine is

gonna be talking about thermogenesis, cold exposure and weight

loss. Dr. Justin Mager from Wellness FX will be there talking

about using blood, sweat, and tears biomarkers to become

superhuman. My own personal physician, Dr. Todd Schlapfer

would be there talking about nutrition strategies for superhuman

stress control. Nora Gedgaudas will be there talking about carb

cravings, appetite cravings, cultivating a natural mental edge.

Dave Asprey, the bulletproof exec will be there. He’ll be going over

microtoxins and superhuman performance. Huge range of

speakers. There’s a few more folks that’ll be there. The list goes

on and on. It’s gonna be epic. So if you haven’t yet gotten into

that, grab your plane ticket to Spokane, superhumancoach.com

and it’s gonna be pretty cool.

[0:20:02.5]

Brock: It’s gonna be very cool. I’m so excited. I actually thought it was

next week. I was getting so excited, I bumped it up a whole week.

Ben: Yeah. You could show up next week and maybe and kinda sit

around…

Brock: I didn’t realize that we were actually getting head to head with our

My Run vs. your Boot Camp. This is sort of a popularity contest.

Ben: Well, I wanted to give folks an option to come get beat up by me

or go run with Brock.

Brock: You’re gonna get beat up if you run with me.

Ben: The other thing…yeah. So there’s that – the Become Superhuman

Live event, of course.

Brock: Oh yeah. We’re talking about special announcements, not just the

event,

Ben: That’s right. The other thing is that I just posted…we do MyLists

for the show every single podcast. If you go over to

facebook.com/bgfitness, there’s a MyList. And a MyList is

basically a list that we create with helpful resources of things that

we talk about on each show. And today, we will be talking about

vegans and vegetarians and performance. And one of the things

that I put together over on MyList this week was basically a stack

that includes all of the different things that a vegan or a vegetarian

would wanna supplement with if they’re really putting their body

through a ringer like Ironman, ultra running, marathoning, stuff

like that. You can check that out over at facebook.com/bgfitness.

And the other MyList that I published this week was what I call

My Get Fit List which is just a list of all the little things that I have

around my house from my homework and equipment all the way

up to my inversion table and my ellip to go but all the little things

that you can have around if you wanna optimize your fitness and

jut have all the right stuff around your house - little things to the

big things. Check both of those MyLists over at

facebook.com/bgfitness.

Listener Q & A:

Robin: Hi Ben! My name is Robin. I’m calling from Poughkeepsie in New

York State. I have 2 questions. First, could you explain what

causes side stitches or abdominal cramps and how to prevent

them. I frequently get them when running and it’s really

uncomfortable. And could you talk a little bit about developing

mental strength when exercising in terms of developing the ability

to push through when things get hard and things get tough and

how to really get off from a performance without feeling tired or

weak. Thank you. Bye.

Ben: All right. Side stitches. You know what the geeky term for side

stitches is, Brock?

Brock: I’m afraid, I don’t.

Ben: The acronym is ETAP which stands for exercise-related transient

abdominal pains.

Brock: Ah…Nice!

Ben: There’s actually a really big study that was done in the Journal of

Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise several years ago on

side stitches and why they happen. So they took almost a 1000

different athletes who participated in 6 different sports. They

looked at running, swimming, cycling, aerobics which is like the

headbands and the puffy socks and the leotards.

Brock: Of course!

Ben: Of course. Basketball and horse riding. And I would imagine they

were looking at the people, not the horses but I could be…What

they found was that, of all those athletes, swimmers were actually

at the top in terms of the population who had the most trouble

with side stitches. And runners were close behind. Horseback

riders were actually up there, too. But the folks who were least

affected were cyclists. The interesting part of this was that a pretty

significant number of those athletes also said that they had

shoulder tip pain which is discomfort at the bottom tip of one of

the shoulder blades. And that’s kind of an important clue for

understanding where side stitches come from because the tip of

that shoulder blade down there is basically a referred side of pain

for the diaphragm which is your main breathing muscle. What

that means is that pain that emanates from the tip of the back of

your shoulder blade could actually have its source in the

diaphragm which is that muscle separating your thoracic and your

abdominal cavities. And many side stitches actually originate with

an issue going on with the diaphragm because if you look at all of

these different organs that are inside of our abdominal cavity,

they bounce up and down.

[0:25:05.8]

This is one of the reasons that a runner, for example, would get

more of a side stitch than a cyclist. And all of your internal organs

that are bouncing up and down especially with an impact-based

movement like horseback riding or running, your liver, your

stomach, your spleen. These are supported by these little

ligaments that hang down from your diaphragm. So every time

these organs are bouncing up and down, they’re pulling down on

the diaphragm. Now, when that bouncing happens as you’re

breathing out during exercise that creates a lot of stress on the

diaphragm. And that results in pain, it results in discomfort and

it results in what we describe, more often than not, as a side

stitch. I don’t know if you have experienced this, Brock, but have

you found that side stitches tend to appear more in your right side

than your left side.

Brock: When I think about it, I think I get it more on my left but I can’t

say that I’ve actually taken notes.

Ben: Interesting! Well, I’ll get to why. You might be in the minority.

You might be a freak. I’ll talk about why you might feel it on the

left a little bit more. It has to do with your pollen, actually. But

stitches on the right side of the abdomen are much, much more

common and that’s because your liver is on the right side of your

body and your liver is the heaviest organ in your abdominal cavity

so that’s what creates the greatest downward force on your

diaphragm and a lot more than what the stomach or the spleen,

which are on the left side of your body, might create. Perhaps you

just really have a heavy stomach, Brock.

Brock: Probably.

Ben: Anyways though, there’s a lot of friction that can occur between

the diaphragm and the liver as well because the liver tends to

kinda ride up into the upper right side of your abdominal cavity

especially during exercise. That results in that side stitch and

especially happens more often on that right side. Now, one really

easy remedy for side stitches is to change your breathing pattern.

If you look at a runner, a lot of times, breathing and side stitches

are linked together because breathing and stepping patterns are

coordinated. Most athletes breathe out on the same leg. So if you

happen to want to make yourself cross-eyed, go out and go for a

run and try and figure out when you’re breathing out. And in

many cases, you might find that you’re only exhaling when your

right foot hits the ground. That’s actually very common. They’ve

done a study. There was one study in the Journal of Science that

looked at runners and found that most runners breathe out when

their right foot hits the ground. And unfortunately, what that

means is that as you’re breathing out and your diaphragm

basically springs upward when you breathe out, that increases the

tension on those ligaments and so you’re breathing out, your right

foot hits the ground, the jolting action of that foot lifts your liver

upward and then that falls back suddenly where your diaphragm

is still in its up position so that creates a bunch of pressure on the

diaphragm which goes into this painful spasm that we deem as a

stitch. Now, of course, one easy fix for this is you change your

breathing pattern. You try and focus on breathing out as your left

foot hits the ground rather than as your right foot hits the ground.

That’s a simple fix but something that can help a lot of folks. A

few other things that you can do is you can actually try and grunt

just a little bit as you breathe out and that action of grunting or

almost like groaning like a Monica Seles type of “argh” as your

foot hits the ground.

Brock: She’s a tennis player, for those of you out there who don’t know.

A very noisy tennis player.

Ben: Yeah. She’s about 2 octaves higher than that. That can help out.

That somehow relieves some pressure on the diaphragm when

you actually make that audible as your foot hits the ground. So

that’s one thing that you can do and I’ve actually found myself

naturally doing that sometimes when I get side stitches or grunt

or groan as that foot strikes the ground. That can help a little bit.

But there are some other things that you can do, too. First of all,

most runners breathe incorrectly when they’re running. This is

something that I’m gonna talk about at the Become Superhuman

event just to folks who are attending there about how their

posture and how their breathing is during the event itself. But

I’ve really been focusing lately on deep diaphragmatic breathing

when I’m standing in line, when I’m sitting in the car, when I’m

sitting in an airplane, when I’m sitting in a conference. Deep

diaphragmatic breathing through the nose and out the nose where

as you breathe in, that breath originates from deep within your

belly and as you breathe out, it also originates from within your

belly or deep within your rib cage. So shallow chest breathing is

one of the ways that you can really overstretch your diaphragm.

[0:30:06.7]

And that’s one thing that you can focus on both when you are and

when you aren’t training is good belly breathing. Another thing is

your abdominal muscles and focusing on strengthening your

abdominal muscles. I’m a big fan of side planking and front

planking for this. But basically, weak abdominals are going to not

be able to support your internal organs and they’re gonna jostle

up and down more if you’ve got weak abs. So that’s another thing

that you wanna consider.

Brock: That’s interesting. Both of those things – the deep abdominal

breathing and also the strengthening of the abdomen, I think a lot

of people don’t actually think of breathing that low. Everybody

thinks that breath really happens from the middle of the chest to

the shoulders but that should be the last part. When you’re

inhaling the last thing to move really should be your upper chest.

It should all be going into your stomach at first. That’s interesting.

Both go together really well.

Ben: Yeah. And it’s something you simply have to train yourself to do.

I’ve even found for once a week, I’m still doing my 10 by 30

seconds – 10% grade, 10 mile an hour sprints on the treadmill and

I’ve even found folks sing on deep diaphragmatic breathing for

that, deep belly breathing for that. It’s helped tremendously.

You’d be surprised at how hard you can be going and still focus on

proper breathing.

Brock: Yeah. I’ve doubled the length of my duration of plank (front

plank) by doing diaphragmatic breathing during that. I went from

being able to hold it for 3 minutes to over 7 minutes just by

changing my breathing.

Ben: And that’s a really good point. You can combine abdominal

exercising like planking with deep breathing. I mentioned that of

course, in addition to the liver, the spleen and the stomach tend to

pull down on the diaphragm. So the more full your stomach is,

and this is just logical. Most of us know this. The more downward

tug on the diaphragm this gonna create and the more likely you

are to get a side stitch. So just not drinking or eating too much

before you go out, that’s something that I think a lot of people

already or kind of aware of is not taking in too much fuel

especially if you’re running or doing a sport like swimming, for

example, would be another example.

Brock: And so is that the left side then if you haven’t eaten or drank too

much?

Ben: You’re gonna notice it more on your left side if it’s more of an

eating or drinking too much issue. But the other thing that you’ll

notice is that if you tend to have any type of bowel inflammation

or if your large intestine just based off your anatomy tends to rub

a little bit more in the inside of your abdominal wall when you’re

running, that can also cause stitch-like pain in both your right and

your left side ‘cause the large intestine tends to span your

abdominal wall. And in folks for whom that occurs, focusing on

going back and forth between exhaling on the right side and

exhaling on the left side can help out almost like switching every

few minutes in terms of your breathing pattern and not sticking to

one specific breathing pattern or not getting locked in to one

specific breathing pattern, that can help. But the other thing that

can help out a lot of folks is just paying attention to clean eating

before you go out for your run, meaning that you’re gonna avoid

things that might tend to cause a little bit more inflammation like

gluten, like caffeine, like alcohol. ‘Cause I know that up there in

Canada, you tend to throw back a few…will it be Kokanee before

you head out?

Brock: Yes, Kokanee or most in Canadian. Both of those companies make

us sports drink that we consume while we run.

Ben: Nice. And then soy and dairy tends to be big trigger, too so you

may wanna consider a food elimination type of diet as well to

focus on the side stitches and that I know for a lot of folks that I

worked with has made a significant difference. I’ve cleaned up the

diets of athletes who I’ve worked with and had them report all of a

sudden like “My side stitches went away”. And because all the

programs that I write out also includes strength training for the

abs and also include one of running economy and efficiency work,

who’s to say how much the food elimination worked vs. the

strengthening vs. the work on the breathing patterns but

ultimately, there’s something to be said for cleaning up the diet

especially before you run as well.

Brock: Great! Everything is gonna work in correlation with everything

else.

Ben: Right. Exactly. Those are the main things as far as the side stitch

is concerned and some of the things that I would definitely go

after. And as far as being able to push through difficult efforts, I

know that we have another question. Maybe we should play that

question.

Brock: Yeah. Let’s jump in to Adam’s question here before we get carried

away.

Adam: Good day, Ben! It’s Adam from New Castle, Australia. I tend to

fall out when I’m doing a lactate session of say 10k. I start out

mentally tough but through the middle of the run, I start

_____[0:35:10.2] or I tend to question myself till I start and get

negative thoughts in my head and then I tend to come out the

other side of it, actually start to finish off the session really well. I

just wonder if you get any advice about that middle section of the

run and how I can become mentally tougher and take out the

negative thoughts. Thanks, mate.

[0:35:31.2]

Brock: All right. Yeah. So pretty much Robin and Adam are talking about

what I believe you refer to as the pain cave.

Ben: The pain cave. I run a private mentorship and mastermind group

for personal trainers. That’s over at superhumancoach.com and

we recently had a guest, Chris Jansen come in and gave an hour-

long presentation on how to prepare your clients and prepare your

athletes to better be ready for that pain cave that they encounter

during a workout or during a race.

Brock: Chris actually referred to it as the fear cave more than the pain

cave which I thought was actually an interesting way to look at it.

Ben: Right. Exactly. Because we have this trepidation about going hard

and there’s certainly a lot of workouts from aerobic driving to the

gym or getting to the gym and have butterflies in my stomach

about a specific workout. What I wanna share with Adam and

with Robin are just some of the really practical techniques that I

personally use. Rather than delving into the whole psychology

behind the pain cave or the fear cave, I just wanna get in to some

really practical takeaways. One big, big thing that I do and I think

I’ve mentioned this on podcast before is, I tend to count. Maybe

that’s a method of distraction. Maybe it’s a method of setting

intermediate goals, meaning that from counting to a 100 over and

over again, not only is the action of counting distracting me but

it’s also…every time I reach to a 100 that’s reached a mini goal. So

I think it’s a combination of distraction method as well as the mini

intermediate goal method. But for me, a lot of times during a race

or even during a hard interval workout, I tend to count quite a bit.

Maybe I have a little bit of mild autism as well. I don’t know.

Brock: So are you counting steps or are you counting cracks in the side

walk or trees or what are you counting?

Ben: I count steps. So for me, a lot of times, I’ll even set up an interval

workout where if I’m planning on doing a 2 minutes hard, 1

minute easy 10 times through, I will count for that first interval

how many steps it took me for 2 minutes. And then rather than

using time to time the rest of the intervals, I’ll just count my steps

because I find that that tends to motivate me more. And a lot of

times, for example, during a half Ironman, let’s say, during a

special like the last 10k of that half Ironman, I might just be

counting to a 100 over and over and over again. And that’s it.

And that’s one method that I’ll use. I mentioned intermediate

goals. Another thing that I’ll do is I will set up goals that I’m

gonna get to like the next tree, the next rock, the next telephone

pole. If I’m in a race, a lot of times I’ll set up a goal of getting to

the next mile marker or kilometer marker or even the next arrow

that points which way to go. And many times, I will combine

counting with those intermediate goals, like I’ll be like, “Okay, as

soon as I get to the next aid station, I’m gonna count to a 100 and

then I’ll get to the next aid station and for that I’m gonna count to

a 100 again. And a lot times, those intermediate goals end up

getting closer and closer the closer I had to get to the finish line,

meaning, in the last mile, I might count to a 100 every single time

I pass anything that is a sign or a chalk on the sidewalk or

anything that has to do with the race. So I distract myself a lot

with those little intermediate goals that I’m running to rather than

just focusing on the finish line. That’s even what I tell a lot of my

Ironman triathletes: “If you’re standing on the starting line of an

Ironman triathlon, don’t focus thinking about the end of the

marathon. You’re focusing on that first _____[0:39:12.6] or the

first loop of the swim and when you come out, you’re focusing

going through T1 and then we put the bike typically in any of the

5-10 different little intermediate parts that you’re getting through

and the same for the run. And so it’s all about tiny little

achievements that you’re reaching throughout the day especially if

people are doing longer events. The next thing that I recommend

focusing on is to know your reason, meaning that if you don’t have

a really clear reason for you doing the hard workout or you being

in a difficult race, then that’s gonna make it really hard for you.

So for me, for example, if I am doing a 10 by 30 second sprint

workout on the treadmill, I remind myself over and over again

that I’m teaching myself how to be mentally stronger and I’m also

teaching my legs how to handle bigger amounts of lactic acid, I’m

working on VO2max and my lungs and I focus on all the little

achievements that that workout is giving me rather than just

thinking about how much it hurts or for example, during a race, I

will focus on why I’m actually there at the event, whether it’s

someone or a sponsor or something that I’m trying to impress,

whether it is somebody in my age group who I’m trying to beat,

whether it is a PR from an event that I did the year before.

[0:40:47.5]

I always have something firm in my mind that is my reason why to

finish that particular event. So that’s another really, really

important thing is to have some reason that goes above and

beyond just crossing the finish line or finishing the workout.

Brock: I remember you wrote a whole blog post about that race that you

did in Spain last year, how you were concentrating on just

finishing the race so your kids didn’t think you’re a quitter.

Ben: Yeah. Exactly. That was what got me through that was I knew that

my boys were at the age where they were with grandma back

home and I knew that she had the race pulled up and I just want

to show them that I could pull it off, that I could at least finish and

for me, it was a matter of just showing my boys that I wasn’t a

quitter. That’s another thing that you can do is think about people

who are depending on you finishing anyway. Another thing that

I’ll use especially for hard workouts but that I will use sparingly is

music. So I don’t listen to music during easy workouts. What

you’re actually feeling far between for me these days because I’m

really time-crunched so for me, most of my workouts are pretty

hard. And I will pull out music to get me through hard workouts

or I will have mantras that go through my head or clips of music

that go through my head when I’m doing races where you’re not

allowed to have music or MP3 players or whatever but music, I

especially like techno music like I subscribe to the TS podcast, the

Planet Perfecto Podcast, Felix Cartal’s Weekend Workouts

Podcast and the State of Trance Podcast. I can rely on any of those

podcasts to kinda be chocful of tunes that are gonna push me

during a hard workout because that up tempo beat, for some

reason, is what really gets me going. Some people like 80’s butt

rock and some people like jazz and I know for example…

Brock: Did you say “butt rock”?

Ben: Yeah. 80’s butt rock. Hare rock like Jordan Rap is a pro triathlete.

He talks about how he’ll use music for the opposite effect like he’ll

listen to classical music prior to his race ‘cause he wants to use

music to calm himself down prior to going out and really pushing

hard. For me, I find that I actually need music to really get me

pumped up especially before a hard workout. And I could see

where at listening to really, really hard rock before something like

an Ironman or a marathon or an event where you would wanna

start out too hard to potentially come back to hurt you. When

you’re doing most of your workouts each day are in the range of

30-60 minutes of just super hard get in, get out, get it done, music

can help you dig in to the pain cave for those. And then the last

thing that I’d recommend would be just to use a lot of the social

proof that we have available at our fingertips these days,

everything from Strava to Endomondo to Runkeeper to Map My

Run, Map My Bike, any of these type of tracking devices can be

tied in to Facebook, tied in to Twitter, tied in to any number of

social media outlets where when you head out for hard workout, if

you announce to the world that you’re going out to do a 56 mile,

always be pushing ride to get you ready for an Ironman triathlon

so you go out and do a half Ironman ride. Well, if you kind of

announce that to the world and you’ve got your Map My Bike set

out to send a post to Facebook every 10 miles to show your speed

and stuff, if you know in the back of your mind that somebody in

the world is watching, most likely you’re just annoying people by

blowing up their Facebook or Twitter or their Twitter feeds. Still

though, there’s something mentally that happens that pushes you

and I’ve done that before like my mom was about 70 miles away

and I remember a couple of times when I was doing Ironman, I’d

call her on the phone and be like “I’m gonna ride to your house

and I’ll be there in an x number of hours.” And just knowing that

mom was there looking at her watch and tapping her foot if I was

late would kinda push me during that ride.

Brock: Standing in the doorway with the apple pie.

Ben: That’s right.

Brock: That’s how I picture America, by the way.

Ben: Exactly. Sitting in the rocking chair in the front porch with her

shotgun.

[0:45:03.4]

Brock: Exactly.

Ben: But yeah. Just knowing that someone out there is watching can

help you out quite a bit with the workout as well and I know even

when I’ve gone with my wife to the gym and told my wife on our

way to the gym what workout I’m gonna do, I’m more likely just

knowing that she’s there at the gym and I’m there at the gym and

she happens to be someone who might be watching me then, I’m

more likely to finish that workout than to stray from it and do

something different or something easier. Using social proof and

kind of announcing your intentions to the world can help out as

well. Not to dwell too long on the pain cave tactics but those are

some of the things that I would do: count, distract yourself with

intermediate goals, know your reason, remember some of your

tougher sessions and be able to draw back on those, use music

and then use social proof when you need to.

Craig: Hi Ben! This is Craig from Birmingham and I wondered if you

had any tips for healing surface abrasions, road rash, cuts or

things like that. Thanks. Bye.

Brock: Sounds like somebody had a wipeout.

Ben: Yeah. I’ve delved with everything from road rash to embarrassing

marse scars going up and down the back of my leg to recent pretty

decent size scar in the outside of my hip from that crash racing in

Thailand and I’ve tried out some different things and found out

that some stuff works and some stuff doesn’t. First of all, I try and

stay as natural as possible. And this is no surprise to people who

have seen me at restaurants take olive oil from the middle of the

table and use that as a skin moisturizer especially if I’m going out

to eat after event swimming or something. Olive oil is really,

really good moisturizer. It’s one of my favorites.

Brock: So is coconut oil. Love it.

Ben: Actually coconut oil works well as a moisturizer, also works well in

your armpits as a deodorant because it has really good

antibacterial effect.

Brock: There you go.

Ben: The bonus is that it makes you smell like a giant sexy coconut.

But some of the things that I found to work really well: There’s

this specific type of essential oil. You can get it from Mountain

Rose Herbs and I’ll put a link in the show notes and also, I’ll link

in the MyList for this episode. It’s called Helichrysum Oil. And

Helichrysum Oil is what I use on the marse scars on the back of

my leg when I got that nasty staph infection 7 months ago and it

was literally eating its way into the bone at the back of my leg.

That leaves some pretty significant scarrage and I found that the

Helichrysum Oil really helped that to heal because there is an area

higher up on my leg where I didn’t put it and I was more using it

kind of the back of the hamstring where basically was kinda more

visible area and noticed a significant difference in the areas where

I was using that Helichrysum Oil. Helichrysum Oil works really

well especially for scars. Now as far as the initial healing period,

I’m a big, big fan of Manuka Honey and Manuka Honey has some

really good antibacterial effect so it will work well to keep an area

clean. But especially for burns and for road rash, that’s something

that I keep around. It’s fairly expensive so I don’t really eat it

much even though it is chocful of amino acids and some anti

allergenic stuff and good for immune system support. I more tend

to put it on wounds and of course, you’ll want to make sure that

you have no honey bees or wasps in the vicinity when you’re

walking around with Manuka Honey smeared on a road rash.

And it also tends to be sticky as you can imagine so, a lot of times,

you’ll want to put the Manuka Honey and then of course, bandage

it well so that honey isn’t getting on your clothes. But I’m a big fan

of Manuka Honey as well for healing stuff up more quickly.

Brock: I was actually supposed to find out that my girlfriend is

emergency room nurse and they actually use that kind of stuff at

the hospital as well.

Ben: Yeah. Exactly. So those are 2 things: The Helichrysum Oil and

the Manuka Honey. And then the last thing that I keep around is

this Liquid Bandage. Usually, it’s referred to a New Skin. I’ll put a

link to that.

Brock: Second skin.

Ben: Yeah. Second skin. I’ll link to it in the show notes but it closes up

the skin basically and has a little bit of alcohol in it as well. It

tends to sting quite a bit but you paint it on like fingernail polish

almost. I’ll use that a lot of the time on blisters, for example. I’ll

paint that on a blister and then kinda shake my leg or blow on the

area where I’ve applied that to cover up and kinda make this

protective covering. I’ll also do that if I’ve got a cut and I’m gonna

be doing something like traveling on airplane or going to the gym

or going anywhere where I might be exposed to something getting

into that cut, something blood-borne, I’ll cover it up with that

New Skin, with that Liquid Bandage and that’s gonna give you a

lot more of a seal than just like using a band aid or something like

that.

[0:50:27.2]

Those are the 3 main things that I keep around: The Helichrysum

for healing up a scar after the initial healing period has taken

place; the Manuka Honey in more of the acute healing period; and

then the Liquid Bandage for the smaller stuff – just a little cuts

and scrapes.

Dave: Hi Ben! Hope you are well. My name is Dave and I’m in Brighton

in the UK. I’m currently doing a Brighton marathon but then after

that, I’m going to be starting Ironman training. I’m going to try

and do Ironman Austria next year, June 2014. I’m interested in

your 9 Month Ironman training plan but I have question about

the nutrition element. I’m a vegan and I’ve noticed that on the

sales page that it tends to ______[0:51:21.7] meat and so on. I’m

just wondering, is there a scope in there for vegans or what do you

suggest ______[0:51:29.7]. Okay. Thanks mate.

Ben: Well, I think the triathlon training program that Dave is referring

to is probably my Triathlon Dominator Program. It might be the

Tri-Ripped Program as well. Both of those programs, I include

meal plans with. And because I’m an omnivore and I eat meat,

my meal plans tend to be skewed towards allowing for the

consumption of fish and grass-fed beef and eggs and things of that

nature. Although I am not of the mindset that it’s impossible to be

a healthy endurance athlete or good athlete in general in any sport

and still be a vegan or vegetarian. I just think that it’s more

difficult and that you really have to cover your bases especially

form a supplementation standpoint, to be able to get some of the

things that meat is providing you especially when you’re beating

up your body and requiring it to repair and recover more

intensively than someone that maybe a vegan or a vegetarian and

not have to supplement because they’re not beating up their body

and tearing up muscle fibers and depleting the body of vitamins

and minerals and nutrients to the same extent. That being said,

they have done dietary analysis that showed that vegetarians tend

to eat a comparable amount of protein as people who eat meat but

the bioavailability of that protein tends to be reduced, not a ton

but usually, it tends to be reduced by about 10% in a typical

vegetarian diet. Even though they haven’t done similar studies on

vegans, I would imagine vegans tend to do a little bit better job

getting protein and especially people who are really aware and

doing lots of soaking and sprouting and fermentation to really

make proteins and foods in general more bioavailable, they

probably tend to have a little bit less finish with bioavailability

than someone who’s just like eating foods that haven’t been

soaked or sprouted or fermented. But one thing to realize is the

bioavailability issue and there’s some evidence that there’s just

something about meat that makes meat a better quality protein

for the body to use specifically for muscle building and hormone

function compared to non-meat sources. For example, there’s one

study that compared hypertrophy and strength gains in men who

are doing resistance training who are on either a vegetarian diet

or an omnivorous, meat-eating diet. And the meat-eating group

had significantly greater hypertrophy than the vegetarian group

and they gained more lean mass, they lost more fat mass and they

had a higher fiber area of the actual muscle fiber and that grew by

almost 10% compared to the vegetarians. Now, granted this was

all based off of self-reported food journals but it’s suggestive that

when you’re eating meat, it’s easier to repair muscle and

experience some of those strength gains. And there’s another

study in the British Journal of Nutrition that looked at muscle

mass in women who are eating a vegetarian diet with that of

women who ate meat. And the meat eater had significantly more

muscle mass. Aside from having less muscle mass, a typical

vegetarian or vegan tends to eat less cholesterol from their diet.

They tend to rely a lot of times on soy protein sources for a

substantial part of protein intake and that leads to high amount of

phytoestrogens in the diet and because of that, you tend to see

vegetarian or vegan athletes having lower free testosterone levels

and lower anabolic hormone levels. And that might also be

another reason for lots of the lean muscle mass.

[0:55:27.9]

The other thing that you need to bear in mind is nutrient

deficiencies and there are common nutrient deficiencies for

vegetarians and vegans. I’m gonna explain how we can mitigate

some of those especially in a heavily exercising vegetarian or

vegan athlete. But the main ones are iron, zinc, omega 3 fatty

acids and vitamin B12. And then there’s also a few other things

that a lot of vegetarian/vegan athletes and the one interested in

being active should focus on getting and that would be amino

acid, taurine, carnitine, creatine, glutamine, glycine and

carnosine. Those are some of the main owns that you wanna

focus on and I’ll explain how you can get some of those starting off

with protein and protein malnutrition. Vegetarians or vegans

would tend to eat adequate amounts of protein can still

experience some deficiencies in specific amino acids. And there’s

a study in the Journal of Nutrition that looked at plasma levels of

a bunch of different nutrients in a group of Africans who ate their

traditional vegetarian diet and they compared them with a group

that ate an omnivorous diet – a group of Africans from a nearby

region. And neither of these groups were supplementing or

anything like that. What the results showed was that the

vegetarian group had significantly less muscle mass and low levels

of taurine and glutathione and also much higher levels of

homocysteine than the group that ate meat. They also have less

lean body mass. Now, when you look at this homocysteine issue,

high levels of the amino acid homocysteine in the bloodstream is

something that is an indicator of an increased risk of heart disease

and also is linked with greater stroke risk and hardening of the

arteries. And typically, high homocysteine levels come from

vitamin B deficiencies, especially vitamin B12 deficiency. But in

this particular vegetarian group, they actually were eating eggs

and they were eating dairy and so they had normal concentrations

of those vitamins. And so what researchers believed in the study

was that the high levels of homocysteine in these vegetarians was

due to deficiency of amino acids and specifically, very low levels of

something called glutathione. And we’ve talked about glutathione

on the show before but it’s a very, very important antioxidant

that’s made out of 3 amino acids – glycine, glutamine and

cysteine. And those are very, very easy to get in a carnivorous diet

but very tough to get in a vegetarian diet and low glutathione is a

big issue with vegetarians and it’s something that I highly

recommend that vegetarians and vegans and especially vegetarian

and vegan athletes rapidly deplete glutathione levels with exercise

supplement with. So what I would recommend is that you not

only ensure that you get enough vitamin B. And I’ll talk about

how you can do that in a little bit but also that you supplement

with something like a liposomal glutathione. So oral glutathione

tablets and capsules aren’t very well absorbed. IV glutathione is

but it’s hard to get your hands on so liposomal glutathione that

you spray in your mouth, you hold under your tongue for about 30

seconds and then swallow. That’s something that I really think

that vegetarian and vegan athletes should be utilizing. The other

thing, in terms of actual amino acid precursors from glutathione

for glycine and glutamine and cysteine, you’re gonna find those in

pretty decent amounts in a lot of dark leafy green vegetables so

making sure that you’re getting that spinach, bokchoy, kale,

mustard greens, things of that nature is gonna be super

important. And then the other thing that you’d wanna look at for

taurine which is another thing that can help out with the function

of your nervous system and your neurotransmitter production

and is another one of those amino acid deficiencies. We were

talking about the protein issue. You can get some taurine from

seaweeds, you can get some from eggs or you can take taurine in

its supplement form. So, big picture here when we’re looking at

things from a protein standpoint for vegetarians and vegans, the

main things that I would focus on would be getting adequate

glutathione, getting adequate taurine and then focusing on really

getting enough dark leafy green vegetables so you got some of

these precursors like glycine and glutamine and cysteine. Make

sense?

[1:00:18.3]

Brock: It does. I’m just surprised. I think the biggest thing that people

think of when you picture a vegan or a vegetarian doing any sort

of exercise is a lack of protein.

Ben: Yeah. And I really don’t think it’s a lack of protein as much as a

deficiency in specific amino acids. So I would more encourage just

going up to things with a sniper rifle, getting glutathione into the

diet, supplement with taurine if you’re not doing eggs and also

getting some seaweed into the mix as well. There’s another source

of amino acids that I was gonna talk about when I mentioned

omega 3 fatty acids and DHA but I might as well mention it now.

And that would be spirulina or chlorella. That’s another really,

really good way to get amino acids in. The other thing that I really

like about that is that when you look at a lot of these traditional

seeds and nuts and flaxseeds and things like that that a lot of

vegetarians or vegans are utilizing is that the problem with them

is that they contain what’s called ALA. And the omega 3’s that you

actually need are EPA and DHA. And the body only converts a

maximum about 10% of the ALA that you eat and to EPA and even

less than that in the DHA. So you’d have to eat huge, huge

amounts of something like flaxseed to get enough DHA. Omega 3

fatty acids are super important especially for exercising

individuals for their anti inflammatory effect. And for that reason,

I recommend an algal source – spirulina, chlorella, using

something like the handful of Energy Bits which is this chewable

tabs that you can use. Using a green supplement that’s rich in

spirulina or chlorella but focusing on that DHA source which also,

incidentally, is gonna contain some of those amino acids as well.

Brock: So it’s just way better than trying to get it from flaxseeds or chia

seeds or walnuts or almonds.

Ben: Way better. Yup. Another thing, I mentioned vitamin B12. And if

you don’t eat meat or dairy or eggs, it’s almost impossible to get

enough vitamin B12 without some form of supplementation. You

wanna make sure, if you’re using B12 that you’re getting it in its

methylated form because methyl allows B12 to actually be

adequately absorbed. It’s essential for nervous system function,

it’s essential to avoid anemia, it’s essential for a lot of this amino

acid absorption and utilization and so any vegetarian or vegan

who is not doing much in wave eggs and dairy, I highly

recommend similar to my recommendation for liposomal spray in

the mouth glutathione to do liposomal methylated vitamin B12.

I’m gonna link to this stuff in the show notes for folks. What show

is this, by the way?

Brock: 230.

Ben: So I’ll link to this over at bengreenfieldfitness.com in the show

notes for 230 and I’m also making a MyList for some of the stuff

just to kinda jug your brain. So we’re looking at needing liposomal

glutathione, liposomal vitamin B12, preferably some kind of a

spirulina or chlorella algal source of DHA if you’re not doing

much seaweeds, sea vegetable type of stuff, adding in some

taurine. And then just a couple of other things to pay attention to:

Zinc is a pretty common deficiency especially among vegetarians

and vegans because of the phytates that present in many plant

foods. So if you’re not soaking and sprouting and fermenting your

plant foods, you’re going to not be inhibiting the activity of a lot of

these phytic acids and so that’s going to affect your ability to

absorb minerals. And so zinc and iron deficiencies tend to be

common and even more common in people who are eating a lot of

plants especially plants that haven’t been prepared properly. You

can get zinc and iron by supplementing or eating dairy and eggs.

If you’re not doing dairy or eggs, you may wanna consider adding

some zinc and iron into the mix in terms of mineral

supplementation and also making sure that you’re soaking and

sprouting and fermenting the plant sources that you are eating.

That’s gonna be important as well. The last thing that I wanted to

get into was nutrients for athletic performance. There’s ample

evidence that people who don’t eat meat tend to have deficiencies

in 3 things – creatine, carnitine and carnosine – the 3 Cs.

Vegetarians have been shown in studies to have significantly

lower muscle of carnitine content and also reduced capacity to

transport carnitine into their muscles. And carnitine is what

allows you to, a lot of times, mobilize fat for energy. So,

especially, for an aerobic athlete, having adequate carnitine is

really important and you can get that in supplemental form.

[1:05:19.2]

The carnosine, that’s an amino acid derivative that you store in

your fast twitch muscle fibers and you use for anaerobic energy

production like sprint, harder efforts, stuff like that. You’re gonna

find it in eggs and dairy in small quantities and meat in really

large quantities. And a lot of vegans and vegetarians are gonna

tend to be deficient in carnosine as well. That’s another one that I

would look into. And then the last one, for creatine, low levels of

creatine is gonna reduce power. It’s gonna give you less capacity

to build or maintain muscle. Creatine is something your body can

make out of the amino acids methionine, glycine and arginine, so

you don’t have to eat meat to be able to make creatine.

Vegetarians who are getting enough methionine, glycine and

arginine can form creatine. Many vegetarians and vegans,

though, test low on creatine levels and I would recommend that

you do something like just a basic creatine monohydrate powder

or capsule. That’s gonna be a decent way to get that stuff. Big

picture answer to this would be a Gold Standard supplement

stack. Vegetarians or vegans would be liposomal glutathione,

liposomal vitamin B12, some type of spirulina or chlorella algal

source, zinc and iron if you’re not doing dairy and eggs and then

creatine, carnitine and carnosine. And that would be a really,

really good way to amplify your performance while eating a plant-

based diet.

Brock: And of course, make sure that you’re getting a good source of

those vitamins or supplements as well as all the food you’re

eating, too.

Ben: Yes. Or just be born as Rich Roll and that would be good to help

you a little bit, too.

Brock: Yeah. It’s against the law to bring up endurance sports and vegans

and not mention Rich Roll, which actually, you did a really

interesting interview with, probably about a year ago now, you

could search for that on the website and take a listen to what Rich

Roll had to say.

Ben: Yeah. I had Rich Roll on the podcast and interviewed him for an

article I wrote in Lava Magazine as well about how to do a plant-

based diet and still be an endurance athlete. There you go.

Chris: Hi Ben! This is Chris in Connecticut, 47 years old. My question is

I had my gallbladder removed about 10 years ago and I’m

wondering if there’s any considerations I need to make as far as

diet goes. I workout about 5 days a week, I’ll struggle to keep my

weight down. Just wondering if there’s any tweaks or supplements

I should be taking to counteract the removal of my gallbladder.

That’s it. Thanks.

Ben: All right. First of all, if you can avoid gallbladder surgery or

gallbladder removal, by all means, do it.

Brock: I don’t think there’s anybody in the world out there who isn’t

trying to avoid it. I don’t think Chris ever said, “You know what

I’m gonna do today?”

Ben: Yeah. But if you struggle with gallstones, a lot of times,

conventional medicine will just say, “Well, let’s get rid of the

gallbladder”, when in fact, there are things that you can do to

protect your gallbladder and cleanse your gallbladder. So, one

thing that you should think about is that your internal organs

need to be cleansed, they need to have circulation, they need to be

massaged in a way just like your muscles or like your skin.

Massage therapy is something that can move lymph fluid around

your body, can stimulate your skin, and it can also can have a

really, really good effect on your internal organs as well. And

there is a specific form of therapy called Taichi. Have you heard

of Taichi before, Brock?

Brock: I’ve seen the old folks doing it in the park early in the morning.

Ben: Yeah. Exactly. Those gentle movements with Taichi actually can

be stimulating to your liver and your gallbladder and pancreas. If

you’re somebody who struggles with gallstones or issue with your

liver and your kidneys, your internal organs, your organs will

move around when you’re doing Taichi and you can actually

benefit from those similar to the way that you’d benefit from

getting a massage on a sore muscle. Vibration platform would

actually have a little bit of a similar effect in terms of moving

lymph fluid around and kinda gently massaging some of your

internal organs. So I would look into those 2 ways that you can

take care of your internal organs. It’s why a lot of times, I think

people who exercise tend to just, in most cases, if they’re not

overdoing it, have healthier internal organ function anyways

‘cause they’re moving more lymph fluid around. But I would

focus on some of those things for just overall gallbladder health as

woowoo as Taichi and vibration platforms might seem but

certainly something to pay attention to.

[1:10:15.0]

But if you’ve actually had your gallbladder removed, a lot of times,

the number one supplement that you’ll see recommended is Bile

Salts because your gallbladder is what helps you to churn out

those bile salts. But the thing is bile is actually made by your liver,

not your gallbladder and so if you haven’t had your liver removed

(I’m assuming that he hasn’t), basically, what you need to do is

support your body with the type of things that are going to help

your liver produce bile so that you can emulsify fats a little bit

more easily in the absence of that gallbladder. One of the main

things that is going to help your body to produce bile is

cholesterol. Now, there are some types of fats that you can eat

that don’t even need bile at all to digest. And that would be things

like coconut oil, medium chain triglyceride oil, palm oil, any of

those short or medium chain triglycerides don’t need bile to be

digested. But most fatty foods need bile to be digested and in kind

of a cool positive cycle when you consume those foods, the

cholesterol in those foods helps you to produce more bile. So a lot

of gallbladder removal diets will tell you to remove fatty foods –

don’t your egg yolks, your cream or butter. And I would actually

recommend that you do consume those foods so that you’re giving

your liver the cholesterol that it requires for the production of

bile. And avoiding fat is going to compound any problems that

you have with digesting fat in the long run because you won’t be

getting the cholesterol that you need to produce bile especially if

you don’t have a gallbladder. So you can create a vicious cycle if

you avoid fat after gallbladder surgery. So I recommend that you

consume healthy fat. Once you’ve got those sources of healthy

cholesterol coming into your body, you’ll want to give your body

what it needs to stimulate bile production. You wanna basically

train your liver to produce adequate bile that you need when you

have meals that contain fat. Now, one of the things that you can

do is when you consume a meal that contains fat, you can use

something called Bitters. And bitters are herbal extract really rich

in minerals. Something there has been used for thousands of

years as kind of this ancient tonic for stimulating the liver to

produce bile. And they’re a little bit more popular in traditional

Asian medicine for their digestive benefit and their cleansing

properties but pretty much any health food store in the US –

Amazon, any of these type of places, they will have Bitters. And if

you just have a little bit of Bitters like even a teaspoon of Bitters

and a little bit of water in the morning and in the evening, or for

example, when you’re having a high fat-containing meal…

Brock: Or Gin and Tonic.

Ben: Or Gin and Tonic. Exactly.

Brock: That’s where I like my bitters.

Ben: That’s right. That can stimulate your liver to produce adequate

amounts of bile. And so that’s the other thing that I would

recommend in addition to eating a diet high in cholesterol would

be to use Bitters to stimulate bile production. I’ll put a link to

some Bitters in the show notes. And then the last thing that you

can do if all else fails is you can use Bile Salts but that would be

kind of a last resort. Bile Salts are definitely going to be doing

what your liver is supposed to be doing on its own. And I’m never

a fan of replacing what your body is supposed to be doing on its

own. But you can use Bile Salts in a pinch and that’s something

that you would just take with your meal but it’s a better idea to eat

a higher fat diet along with Bitters rather than to use Bile Salts or

to eat a low fat diet.

Thomas: Hi Ben and Brock! I’m Tom from the UK here. I’m leaving a

message for my partner’s dad because he suffers from motion

sickness when someone else is driving him but mainly when he

goes swimming. That means he can’t or doesn’t want to take part

in any triathlons anymore which is a real shame. So I wondered if

you got any advice or pointers on how you might be able to get

over motion sickness. To explain a little bit, when he goes

swimming, he basically can swim fine. It’s not the actual

swimming but he gets really swelly head and then throws up. It’s

pretty unpleasant when you’re in say, it’s worse when there’s

waves but still even in the pool, has motion sickness. Any help

you can impart on this will be great. Thanks a lot. I love the

podcast. Cheers. Bye.

Ben: Did he just a “really swelly head”?

Brock: What was that?

Ben: I love accents.

[1:15:03.6]

Brock: Me too. This show gets so many awesome accents called in.

Thomas, you aren’t at the top of the list.

Ben: Yeah. Whenever you’re moving your head a lot, you’re in

churning water, you’re swimming, you’re gonna tend to aggravate

motion sickness and aggravate nausea especially if you’re prone to

it in the first place. And I think a lot of swimmers move their

heads more and move their bodies more and almost rotate a little

bit more than is necessary. I find that when I swim with one of

these swimming snorkels and I’m doing my repeats thrown in

some 25’s, throwing in some 50’s in the pool with a swimming

snorkel, it helps me stabilize my head and focus on getting rid of

all the little unnecessary twitches and moves and rolls in my body

when I’m swimming and so not only would I recommend that

Thomas’ dad consider getting a snorkel. And you can go to Swim

Smooth and grab one of their snorkels. That’s my favorite website

for just getting any swimming device. They’ve got lots of good

stuff on there. I get all my paddles and fins and all that jazz from

Swim Smooth. But using a snorkel in your training and training

yourself to keep your head a little bit more immobile when you’re

swimming, not churn around so much trying when you do roll

your body to take a breath. You try and imagine that your head is

in line with the rest of your body and not moving independently of

your body. Swimming with a snorkel can really help you with

that. Snorkels are also legal in many swimming events and many

triathlons.

Brock: They’re legal but you can’t actually podium if you’re using one.

Ben: Is that what it is?

Brock: Yeah. You’re not eligible for age group or words if you’re using a

snorkel but they won’t take it away from you or disqualify you.

Ben: You’re also not eligible for coolness factor points.

Brock: Or maybe you are that coolest factor.

Ben: You are the unique snowflake with the snorkel.

Brock: Yup!

Ben: So, use a snorkel. Train yourself to move your head less when

you’re swimming. And then a couple other things that you can

use: One would be earplugs. Using earplugs when you’re in the

water especially when you’re in the cold water, it can help out

quite a bit. I recommend wax earplugs like those…(I forgot the

company that makes the wax earplugs.)

Brock: Is it EAR?

Ben: I don’t think it’s EAR. I’ll remember.

Brock: They make all kinds.

Ben: I keep them next to my bed. Actually, I’ve got them stuck in my

ear before when I’m sleeping. I had to go to the doctor once and

get them removed so be careful. They’re Max Silicon Earplugs.

That’s something that you could use would be earplugs. The other

thing that you could use would be this acupressure points. They

actually make wrist bands that are acupressure wrist bands or also

known as Sea-bands for seasickness. And they stimulate these

points on your arm that are traditionally acupressure points for

relieving nausea or seasickness or motion sickness. And they just

have this little plastic point on this bead that puts pressure right

where you’re supposed to get pressure put for relieving nausea.

You can get them for like 10 bucks. And that’s something you

could wear while you’re swimming to reduce motion sickness or

reduce nausea.

Brock: I remember myth busters did an episode on the TV show – the

Discovery TV show Myth Busters, they did an episode about

motion sickness and they used those wrist bands and I can’t

remember if they actually busted that one or they confirmed it but

that’d be interesting thing to go back and watch for you.

Ben: Yeah. And it’s definitely worth trying. They just put pressure on

the specific acupuncture point that could help relieve nausea and

motion sickness. The other thing that I’d recommend you look

into, of course, is ginger and ginger is one of the more popular

remedies for motion sickness. You can do ginger chews. You can

boil ginger and eat some of that with breakfast before you swim.

You can use a ginger supplement just like a ginger capsule that

you can swallow about 30 minutes prior to going out for that

swim. And it works for some people. It doesn’t work for others

but it’s definitely worth messing around with would be the use of

ginger. You may even smear some ginger tincture on your wet

suit and get that ginger just saturating the water as you swim

through it or pay someone to ride a stand a paddle board upfront

and sprinkle ginger flakes on the surface of the water as you swim.

Brock: You’re full of practical ideas today, aren’t you?

Ben: So you go with your earplugs and your acupressure wrist band.

We’ll put a link to that stuff in the show notes and those are some

of the things that I would certainly try for the “really swelly head”.

[1:20:00.2]

Brock: All right. Well, before offends all of England, lets’ wrap up the

show. Make sure you go to iTunes and leave a review and a

ranking for us, please ‘cause that’s always helpful for the show and

make sure to check out the Superhuman event if you haven’t

signed up yet, it’s do or die time. Come and join us and you can

vote for which one of us you like better by going to Ben’s crappy

Boot Camp or my Awesome Run.

Ben: You look like a baby.

Brock: And make sure to check out the MyList at

facebook.com/bengreenfield and yeah, I think that’s about it.

Ben: Have a wonderful week.