Podcast #245 from http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2013/06/245-what-

are-the-best-fat-loss-supplements-controlling-blood-sugar-during-ketosis-

natural-asthma-remedies/

[0:00:00]

Introduction: In today’s episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast: What are

the Best Fat Loss Supplements, What To Do About Worn

Cartilage, Controlling Blood Sugar During Ketosis, Natural

Remedies for Exercise Induced Asthma, Does ADHD Medication

Affect Performance, and How To Heal Injured Ribs.

Brock: Okay. Brace yourself.

Ben: I’m braced.

Brock: I had some TianChi earlier this morning and then I had a high-fat

coffee with lots of extra MCT oil. And I think I’m kinda on the

verge of freaking out.

Ben: Yeah, you’re a nerd dude. We have completely geeked out on this

biohacking thing. I think we’ve probably ruined both of our

chances of ever being laid ever in the future.

Brock: Yeah. I wonder how that feels. What it’s like.

Ben: I, what getting laid? Or…..

Brock: Yeah. It’s kinda like your left hand.

Ben: Yeah, I don’t know. Sometime I would like to break out of our

nerd podcasting mode and go explore worldly pleasures but….

Brock: But not right now though ‘cause I wanna talk about something

else nerdy. I tried the Sweet Beat app for the first time last night

and then again this morning and I sent in my report ‘cause I

wanna get your opinion but apparently, I’m incredibly stressed.

Ben: You’re incredibly, you mean your heart rate variability was low?

Brock: It was low and my stress level number was like a 5 I think. I think

it’s a 5 out of 5 which isn’t awesome.

Ben: Yeah, you know we actually did an interview on the phone app last

week.

Brock: Oh yeah.

Ben: With Ronda and we went in kinda like like how our variability 201

or whatever, kinda like some of the more advanced stuff and if

you’re, if you’re testing your morning heart rate variability, and

for nobody who has any clue on what we’re talking about….

Brock: Download the iPhone app or the android app and listen to the

interview.

Ben: Yeah. Or just go to the website and search for heart rate

variability. It’s cool cool cool shizzle. Anyways though, the deal

with that is that you wanna make sure that you, when you first get

that app, and you start using it, it’s not expensive it’s like 4dollars

a year.

Brock: 4.99 a year.

Ben: 4.99. There you go. It’s, requires you to do like a baseline

measurement and sometimes if you don’t do your baseline

measurement, or you have your settings to be like super duper

sensitive to your heart rate variability, then it can kinda like freak

you out if you’re out there in the morning taking your stress levels

and they’re really really high. I figured out something though. If

you ever use any type of kinda like pharmaceutical medications to

help you sleep whether it be Benadril or like any type of anti-

histamine, any of these like Valium type of derivatives,

Cyndephamil? Or whatever that, I forgot what the street name for

Valium is. The street name, the pharmaceutical. Yeah, they all

dump your heart rate variability into the trash so really

interesting. Really really interesting is that it has an effect on the

nervous system so now that our only listeners are the ones

wearing the propeller hats, let’s go ahead and move on.

Brock: Luckily, I think that’s like 90% of our audience. But don’t tell

them.

News Flashes:

Brock: Alright, if you go over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/245 and scroll

down to the section that says “News Flashes,” you’ll be able to find

the links to all these super awesome cool studies that Ben’s going

to highlight for us.

Ben: Or studies that are kinda dumb like this one on…..

Brock: So this, we keep choosing stupid ones. That’s awesome.

Ben: Okay, so this was a systematic review of the efficacy of ergogenic

aids for improving running performance and on top of all that….

Brock: So an ergogenic aid would be something that gives you a slight

advantage, like bump in your energy?

Ben: Yeah, so they investigated in this review like tons and tons and

tons of studies that examine the effects of different ergogenic aids

on running performance and drum roll please, the top ergogenic

aids for runners from middle distance or kinda like short distance

like 400-meter all the way up to 40 kilometer, which is slightly

longer than 400-meter, for those of you who do the math.

[0:05:20.1]

Brock: Imperial system.

Ben: Who do the imperial system. Top supplements, what do you think

they were?

Brock: I don’t know. I think we need another drum roll though.

Ben: Okay. Drum roll.

Brock: And, I’m gonna say cocaine.

Ben: Close. You’re going down the right trail of the white powder.

Sodium bicarbonate was the top supplement for middle distance,

and by middle distance they mean 400-meter up to 5k. Sodium

bicarbonate. That’s the thing where you load with a bunch of it

and it buffers lactic acid. It’s also, it gives you diarrhea and

constipation which is probably why it was only good for up to

about 5k. So don’t go….

Brock: It makes you want to run so fast.

Ben: Shove this stuff down the hatch, yeah. Clinch clinch clinch clinch,

sodium bicarbonate, though. It’s number one. So there you go.

Number 2 was caffeine.

Brock: Hey I just had a sip of my coffee while you said that.

Ben: There you go. You might as well go for a run now. That was across

all variables for caffeine and I’ve certainly kinda studied that for

myself in my whole deal with caffeine, it’s like catch 22 cause it

does really really help you during the performance and then

you’re just out once you’re finished, you’re just like buzzed for

hours if you use the actual amount of caffeine that’s necessary for

an ergogenic aid which is a lot, it’s like 3-5 milligrams per

kilogram of body weight, you know it comes out to either drinking

4-5 big cups of coffee, or else just like popping some no doz tabs.

So caffeine helps, it’s number 2. And then the last one, this was

where I thought the study was kinda dumb cause I don’t consider

this to be an ergogenic aid, in as much as like….

Brock: Sugar.

Ben: Food. Yeah, sugar, and carbohydrates basically so, yeah. And of

course, it should go without saying that all of these studies were

done in athletes who were eating a normal kind of typical diet,

weren’t fat adapted, weren’t metabolically efficient, and you know,

per se and so of course carbohydrates is going to offer a

percentage advantage for them too but you know, even for folks

who are in like whatever, ketosis, eating a low-carb diet, etc., if

any of you were to throw back a bunch of carbohydrate before you

go on a run or a bike ride or whatever, yeah, I mean it’s like, it is

like you know, you talk about cocaine, it is, literally like injecting

amphetamines through a horse syringe into your right butt cheek.

Brock: I snorted a banana before my run yesterday. It was awesome.

Ben: But there are of course some health implications down the road

and it kinda pulls you out of fat burning and what not but there

you go, bicarbonate, caffeine, and carbohydrates were the top 3.

Brock: All right, not entirely stupid.

Ben: No. Another study that I thought was cool and this was another

like, kinda review or meta-analysis that looked at a bunch of

different studies, this one looked at a bunch of different studies

and looked at whether or not respiratory muscle training works or

not and this would be like those you know, using those little

contraptions that would like cazooze those power lung devices and

breathing into those.

Brock: By sucking air through a tiny straw or something.

Ben: Yeah.

Brock: Compromising your air way.

Ben: Yeah, or using one of those elevation training masks or you say,

breathing through a straw, even, and this is something that I’ve

been doing quite a bit, just like breathing through your nose

rather than your mouth when your exercising. If you’re a

swimmer, or using like one of those finesse front mounted

snorkels and putting a, you can get a flow restrictor on those

called a cardio cap, that’s another form of restricted muscle

breathing, so it’s not like hypoxic training or altitude training

where you get an altitude tent, altitude training mask, where you

go to elevation to train. It’s just restricted muscle breathing. So

you’re training your respiratory and excretory muscles to work a

little bit harder and all this meta analysis did is looked at whether

or not there is indeed an improvement in things like exercise

endurance time, repetitions that you’re able to perform in

especially like sprints type of efforts, muscle strength specifically

inspiratory and expiratory muscle strength, and the conclusion of

the meta-analysis was that respiratory training muscle can indeed

improve sports performance quite significantly so….

Brock: Cool.

Ben: You know, my practical advice to folks based on this is just find

something that works for you. I’m actually working on putting a

MyList up over on the facebook page where I’m kinda like, I’m

finding all the different devices that are out there like there’s one

called the BreathSlim, it’s actually used for weight loss, you know

there’s a PowerLung device, there’s the elevation training mask,

there are actually a bunch of different resistance training muscle

devices out there.

[0:10:11.8]

I’m gonna make a list of them and put them in the facebook page

but ultimately, having one of these, even just keeping a

PowerLung device in the glove compartment of your car, and use

that when you’re driving or commuting, stuff like this actually

works people so there you go.

Brock: Now would you say that a really good place to start would be to

just like especially if you’re a runner, bike rider is just breathe

through your nose first?

Ben: Yeah.

Brock: Before you launch out into buying this whole kind of crazy crap?

Ben: Well that, yeah. For me it’s about like what’s practical and I

honestly I don’t commute, I don’t drive my car much, I actually

have, I don’t really have time to use like a PowerLung and you

probably know my wife to fire with that thing out during dinner

and you know, use my…..

Brock: Your kids would be….

Ben: They probably would but no, for me, it’s just been nose breathing,

nasal breathing, and that helps a ton actually because it really

does train you to breathe more slowly and interestingly, I’ll link in

the show notes for this episode over at

bengreenfieldfitness.com/245 to an interview that we did at

enduranceplanet.com. Really interesting interview last week for

those of you who are into biohacks and alternative medicine and

like cutting edge stuff. It was with this guy named Mark Sircus

who is a doctor who is not even allowed to practice in the US

cause he got kicked out of the US.

Brock: Chased out.

Ben: Lives in Brazil. He’s an interesting dude. Very interesting

perspective on a lot of stuff but he talks about how training

yourself to breathe more slowly has a lot of downstream effects on

not just performance but also just like longevity and decrease risk

in chronic disease and stuff like that so he’s actually a fan of

resisted breathing devices for more like kind of a health effect but

either way, cool stuff and turns out that it works. So….

Brock: Actually he talked about the sodium bicarbonate as well. Like a

study we were talking about being a ergogenic aid but he was

talking about not sodium, it was magnesium bicarbonate.

Ben: Magnesium bicarbonate. And he has some really cool protocols

we haven’t got into this podcast. We’ll probably save it for another

day or whatever but like using a nebulizer to deliver magnesium

bicarbonate literally look just like straight into the body through

the airways prior to performance. He’s on our Super Human

coach network Board of Directors. The mastermind that I read for

personal trainers, he’s in there and he has some really really cool

advice but you know, again, he gets a little kind of woowoo too

sometimes so you gotta rein him in but.

Brock: Don’t we all?

Ben: Yeah, who’s talking? So the last one that I wanted to mention was

the best two ab exercises. One of the best two ab exercises. What

do you think Brock? This was a study that looked at a bunch. You

know, crunches, sit-ups, ab rollers…..

Brock: I’m sure it involves one of those seen on TV devices but it’s

gotta….

Ben: Electromyographic, like everything. He looked at everything.

What do you thing were the top 2 ab exercises you could do to get

a stronger core?

Brock: Probably like planking and some sort of Bulgarian stand-up

Romanian.

Ben: Something European.

Brock: Eastern European places that make you stand up wearing a big

weight.

Ben: Yeah. No, it’s pretty straight forward. The barbell squat and the

barbell dead lift. So, compared to any other ab exercise that exists

on the face of the planet including the as seen on TV ones, when

you look at electromyographic analysis of core muscle and lower

back muscle involvement across the board, squat and dead lift.

Brock: I understand the dead lift for sure and the squat I guess if you’ve

got a barbell across your shoulders that helps a lot. But I thought,

what about a pull-up?

Ben: Nope. Nope.

Brock: Weird.

Ben: Yeah, and it’s simply because of the spinal loading and the

breathing and the internal pressures that are created when you

squat and you dead lift properly. So, and you know, by the way,

just for folks who are listening who really don’t know how to squat

or dead lift the right way, probably the best 2 books I could point

you to for movement patterns, for the squat and the dead lift one,

is “Starting Strength” by Mark Rippetoe. Really good book. And

the other one is “Becoming a Supple Leopard” by Brian

Mackenzie. No, Brian MacKenzie’s the crossfit guy, Kelly Starrett.

Yeah, exactly. So check those books out. Starting Strength and

Becoming a Supple Leopard. Best 2 ab exercises, squat and dead

lift. Do them right, get your flat stomach, get your beach body,

and yeah, that’s it for the studies.

[0:15:03.2]

Special Announcements:

Brock: So Thailand. I can’t hardly wait.

Ben: Yeah, that’s right.

Brock: I’m going, I don’t know. I’m excited.

Ben: The 2013 Thailand Triathlon Advanture, I’ve got 3 spots left in

that and for the, for the pre-camp that we’re doing, where we’re

gonna be basically going over health, nutrition, running,

swimming, cycling, efficiency, economy, skill-development,

everything, rather than like a beat you up and spit you out style

camp. That one, we’ve got 5 slots left in so either way, if you

wanna get in on the whole thing, you know what, I’ll tell you right

now what the expenses associated with this whole thing are but

you could also go to pacificfit.net/Thailand.

Pacificfit.net/Thailand and if you wanna get in, it’s this winter it’s

gonna be freakin’ awesome, we’re gonna be there, depending on

how long you wanna go. You can go anywhere from 1 up to 3

weeks but it’s just a straight up $400 fee and I take care of

everything for you, hotel discount, airport transfers, bike

transfers, boat transfers, restaurant reservations, everything. And

then for the pre-camp that we’re doing, the 5-day pre-camp, 800

bucks if you want a roommate, 1100 dollars if you want a king-

sized room all to yourself. It’s living a luxury, all-inclusive. So

ultimately, like it may sound expensive to some folks, but that’s

actually, if you look across the board, that’s actually a dirt cheap

camp.

Brock: What does ‘it’s some luxury’ do?

Ben: Yeah.

Brock: It’s not only nice, not only the area beautiful but those hotels are

impeccable.

Ben: Yeah so if you wanna get started in triathlon, and kinda kick

things off with a really fun bang, or if you want to basically get

faster, learn how to do it the right way and also come to hang out

and party with some of the funnest folks in the planet, come on

down to Thailand so check that out. We’ll link in the show notes.

And then….

Brock: I’m not gonna tell them about the hills and the, during the

triathlon.

Ben: Yeah.

Brock: ‘Cause that will scare them off.

Ben: Yeah, it’s not, you know, the 2 races that we do during that

adventure, they’re not easy but they’re dang fun and yeah, it’s

totally worth going. You don’t have to be like a pointy-headed

triathlon freak to be able to do this stuff, it’s just, yeah it’s a blast.

Even if you’re just getting started, check that out.

Pacificfit.net/Thailand. And then the other thing is that on July

10th, what is it?

Brock: 12th.

Ben: On July 12. So I am forcing my wife right now to log her diet using

the USDA, the free USDA tracking tool, the diet logging tool. And

she’s logging it and we’re gonna sit down and do like a full-on how

to analyze your nutrition workshop where we’re gonna teach you

anything that you’re looking for, the best tracking tools, the best

logging tools, how to make sense of what you see and basically

how to know if you’re getting enough micronutrients,

macronutrients, everything. Like, I’ve been logging my personal

diet and I’ve been putting it out to members of my inner circle and

it’s interesting. I am at 80% fat intake right now.

Brock: Nice.

Ben: 20% protein, and 10% carb. And I’m about 3500 to 4000 calories

a day and my total carb intake, I actually thought it was close to

like 150 grams per day but I’m actually down around depending

on the day, 50-100 grams of carbohydrates a day. And it’s really

interesting. The difference from what you think that you’re eating

and what you’re actually eating. Whether it be like macronutrients

or micronutrients or whatever. Like I get way more sodium than I

thought too. Like I’m up at about 6000 milligrams or so of

sodium a day, which for a lot of people, you know, it’s like

shocker, high blood pressure, whatever.

Brock: Yeah, that’s like 6 times what is recommended. 1500 is the

recommendation.

Ben: Yeah, my blood pressure’s…. Yeah my BP is like 110 over 60 and

so, if you do the right kind of salt, it’s not the aluminum caked

table salt that you tend to find in most places. You know I use a

really really high quality, I use an Aztecan sea salt, it’s not even a

Himalayan and it’s a new one that I found and I’ll be emailing

pretty soon all my newsletter subscribers about that particular

Aztecan sea salt that I’m using but it’s cool stuff so. Anyways

though, that whole webinar that we’re gonna do is for our inner

circle members. So if you’re not yet part of the inner circle, 10

bucks a month, the best 10 bucks a month you’ll ever spend unless

you happen to find something like I don’t know.

[0:20:10.0]

I guess if you live in Thailand, where you can get 90-minute

massages for 10 bucks. That’s probably a better 10 dollars so, but

if that’s not the case….

Brock: It doesn’t last as long.

Ben: Yeah. There you go. And we have happier endings inside the inner

circle. So anyways.

Brock: I’m biting my tongue.

Ben: Go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/innercircle, get in that workshop

and bottaboom bottabing. I think that’s about it.

Voice over: At first glance, triathletes appear to be a pretty fit group. At least

with clothes on. But it’s pretty common for triathletes to have tiny

arms, a thin and weak neck, a stick-like midsection and a body

that’s just too skinny. But just imagine, if your arms were cut and

defined, your chest and shoulders were ripped, your waistline was

tapered like a v, your stomach was flat and hard, and your legs

were sleek and curvaceous, in other words, why don’t you have the

ultimate triathlon body? Now you can! Learn how to swim, bike,

and run fast and look incredibly sexy doing it. Go to tri-

ripped.com to start today. That’s tri-ripped.com.

Listener Q & A:

Fiona: Hi Ben and Brock, it’s Fiona from Massachusetts aka FitBritMom.

I wondered if you could give me your expert opinion on cissus

extract for managing and maintaining good joints and bone health

as well as weight management. I work out about 5-6 days a week

mainly running and I’m looking to do my 2nd half-marathon in the

fall. The big 40 is right about the corner, next year and I have

family history of arthritis in the feet and knees so I’m looking for

anything that can help me definitely dodge that and help me run,

bike, and train the way that I’m used to doing right now. If you

have any brands that you could recommend for cissus or if you

think that it’s a complete waste of time, is there anything else that

would be good to take or any foods that I should be really eating

to really help with the bone and joints and muscle maintenance

and repair after I’ve been training. I’d really love to hear your

feedback. Thanks so much I absolutely love the show, as you

already know, and you and Brock are just the best. Thanks so

much.

Brock: Hey, it’s FitBritMom.

Ben: FitBritMom who actually sent in….

Brock: She wrote an awesome iTunes thing.

Ben: Yeah, she wrote us an iTunes review and I actually sent her a killer

care package the other day for that. Any, by the way, anybody who

leaves an iTunes review, if we choose your review and read it at

the end of the show, and I do have a good one picked out for the

end of this show, then we send you a pretty sweet care package. So

I send out a t-shirt, a book, a bunch of supplements so cool stuff.

Definitely it’s a good reason you leave a review and frankly, not a

lot of people leave reviews so there’s a pretty good chance that

you’re gonna get some pretty cool stuff if you leave a review. So.

Brock: Way better than the lottery.

Ben: Yeah. So there you go. Way better than the lottery. Okay so.

Brock: Back to her question. Cissus extract.

Ben: Cissus.

Brock: Cissus extract for the joint health.

Ben: Yes, cissus is originally marketed as a joint supplement and it’s

kinda popular kinda like in the MMA crowd. Because it does have

a little bit of efficacy in terms of its ability to suppress joint

inflammation and joint pain and there are some decent human

studies behind it that show that it has some anti-osteoporotic

effects and some bone regeneration abilities. It specifically can

upregulate what’s called your osteoblactic activity or your ability

to kinda create new bone cells so yeah, it’s got some decent

research behind it. It also has been researched specifically in

obese or overweight individuals and there is some evidence that

when you’re taking it right up around in the range of 300-500

milligrams per day that you can actually see some decent

reductions in body fats and there have been specifically studies

where they’ve taken obese or overweight individuals and done a

placebo trial vs. a trial with the cissus extract and found some

pretty good weight reduction.

[0:25:10.1]

There are some confounding variables in those studies like they

were using some of these fat loss cocktails that are like cissus

combined with green tea and b-vitamins and stuff like this but

overall, it seems that there may be some anti-obesity effects,

definitely some anti-osteoporotic effects and some bone

regeneration abilities. You know, the unfortunate thing though is,

when you’re talking about arthritis, that’s different than just bone

density. I mean, in many cases, arthritis can be more related to

auto-immune issues or just maybe a whole body inflammation

more than it can be related to something necessarily like low bone

density. So you know, if we’re talking about you know, joint pain

due to like low bone density, or like even stress fractures, things of

that nature, you know, there may be some efficacy to using cissus.

There may be some efficacy to using it for fat loss especially if

you’re obese or overweight. But I would recommend that before

you turn to something like that, first of all, you get your diet dialed

in. I would highly recommend you check out the website

inflammationfactor.com and that was started by Monica Reinagel,

a friend of the show who spoke at out Super Human Conference.

She’s known as the nutrition Diva on iTunes and what this

inflammation factor website is is it rates the food based of its

inflammatory or specifically, it’s pro and it’s anti-inflammatory

potential. And certain foods have some levels of pro-inflammatory

like say like blueberry for example. The sugars and the fructose

and some of those types of compounds in the blueberry,

technically pro-inflammatory. While the anthocyanins, the

flavonoids and the polyphenols and stuff like that in a blue berry

are anti-inflammatory. So blueberry has a certain score on this

scale of inflammation. And if you look at other food, you know,

certain foods have a higher inflammation factor, certain foods

have a lower inflammation factor, so if we look at some of the

foods that have the higher factor rating, and actually it’s kinda

confusing because a very high IF reading means that it is better

for fighting inflammation but some of the foods that have a very

high IF rating, they’re better for fighting inflammation would be

garlic, peppers incidentally, unless you like have Hasimoto’s

disease or something like that. Sometimes peppers can aggravate

stuff like that. Parsley is really good, dark leafy greens of course

like kale and mustard greens and spinach. Onions are good,

salmon, like a good wild caught fatty fish, avocados rank really

high and then apple cider vinegar is another one so…..

Brock: You just made the perfect salad.

Ben: Or the smoothie. I don’t know if I’d throw in peppers or garlic into

a smoothie myself but yeah. Perfect salad. You know, get some

kale, dark leafy greens, some parsley, some onions, get some fish

and avocado in there, use a little apple cider vinegar, extra virgin

olive oil, dressing, toss that bad boy back every day, there you go.

But yeah, I mean look at your diet first when it comes to family

history of arthritis because whenever we’re looking at family

history, we’re talking about genetics right. And genetics are like a

stick of dynamite so you’re walking around with a stick of

dynamite but unless you actually light it, you know, and cause it to

explode, it’s not really as much of an issue. And so you light the

dynamite, pardon my violent analogy.

Brock: I like it.

Ben: So yeah, don’t go eat at McDonald’s.

Brock: Don’t blow yourself up.

Ben: Unless you wanna blow yourself up. So and then regarding the fat

loss components of cissus, you know, I’m personally, when we’re

talking about fat loss supplements, a bigger fan of supplements

that tend to have an effect on insulin and blood sugar and so

probably the number 1 fat loss supplement that I recommend to

just about everybody, the one that I personally use even though

I’m not fat per se, it’s what I use to control my blood glucose levels

because frankly like, I have many many nights of the week where I

would do like dark chocolate and red wine. You know, I talk about

how I’m eating 50-100 grams of carbohydrates on a daily basis.

Honestly…..

[0:30:01.4]

Brock: That’s a lot.

Ben: Yeah, honestly, like that’s a lot of it. Is at night or sometimes, have

a little bit of white rice or whatever with dinner so I use bitter

melon extract, one of the best blood glucose and insulin stabilizers

that you can use. I basically pop 2 capsules 30 minutes before

dinner and I swear by that stuff, I mean like it’s so good. It’s

similar to the diabetic drug Metformin in terms of its efficacy and

dumping your blood glucose values down like if you take it before

workout, you frankly have a crappy workout because it shoves

your blood glucose levels so low so it’s one of those things that you

time prior to a meal and like, I swear by this stuff, I literally like

almost every single day now, before dinner pop 2 of those 30

minutes before dinner and I swear by it for fat loss and stuff like

that. There are some other like over at Pacific EliteFitness, I have

a fat loss pack that I designed and it’s a combination of that and

basically kinda like a lean muscle enhancer and then a little bit of

a metabolism booster like a green tea extract with some tyrosine

and some other insulin controlling compounds like chromium and

vanadium. You know, if you’re trying to lose weight as quickly as

possible, it’s like, I think it’s like 120, 130 bucks, something like

that for a month long supply so it’s not like chump change but

that, if you’re trying to like step up fat loss as fast as possible and

you wanted, you’re already exercising, you’re already eating an

anti-inflammatory super healthy diet, you wanna throw in the

extra 5% or whatever, you know that’s where something like that

comes in but as far as the best fat loss supplement, I would say

that bitter melon extract beats the pants off cissus in terms of the

research I’ve seen on it and also my own personal experience with

it. So.

Steve: Hey Ben, Brock. This is Steve from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Love your show. My question is about meniscus injuries and tears

and surgeries and generally, it always seems to come down to

after you’ve had a meniscus surgery. It’s now bone on bone. You

have less meniscus hence less cushioning so just don’t run. I have

to run, the other alternative I guess, at one point in my life I was, I

drank a lot. Did some drugs. I really really had a bad lifestyle and

I was about 200 pounds and I started running and changed my

life and within 5 months, I’d ran a half-marathon and lost 60

pounds. All in all, running became my new passion. Maybe a little

too much, from one addiction to the next and next thing you

know, I was doing 100k trail races and required meniscus surgery

‘cause I had a tear. First surgery did not go too well, I could not

get back to running afterwards so I sought second opinion and I

had a second surgery from a different doctor so I did take your

advice and got a McDavid leg brace. I did do, you know, a lot of

strengthening, a lot of squats, a lot of lunges, a lot of dead lifts,

you know, I kept out my stretching and my rumble roller. I did

some acupuncture to help engage my glutes, to help take some of

the pressure off the leg and the knee. But at the end of the day,

you know, it’s still bugging. I really just want to be a good example

for my kids to grow up and realize that you know, running can be

good. I promise I won’t abuse it again.

Brock: Wow, 2 knee surgeries and still can’t run. I don’t like your odds

Steve.

Ben: Yeah. Yeah, bone on bone. This is why all runners eventually

become cyclists right. It’s like you get to a point and I mean like,

I’m gonna be honest with you, like with me doing Ironman in as

much as I’m doing Ironman and stuff like that, like, I know that

I’m gonna have some knee problem and some joint issues later on

in life if I keep on doing what I’m doing. I mean like the human

body was not really kinda like you know, we just haven’t adapted

the ability to be ultra pound the pavements so to speak or run on

concrete whatever for long periods of time and you know, there is

some hope in terms of some of these newer strategies that are

emerging especially when it comes to like stem cells and

prolotheraphy. Those would probably be the 2 biggest areas of

hope for you when it comes to this stuff and so…..

Brock: And when you say stem cell, you don’t like mean the ones that are

illegal that you have to pull from a fetus, you mean the ones that

you know, the ones that they’re pulling at your own fat.

Ben: Well I mean, and I’m kinda telling in an ethical line here, either. I

mean if you go to Europe or Asia where you can get your hands on

embryonic stem cells, you can go there to medical clinics and get

those injected and there is some evidence that they can do things

like literally regrow areas of damaged cartilage and tendons and

ligaments but you can also harvest very very similar stem cells

from fat cells.

[0:35:07.7]

You can harvest them from bone marrow and do basically what’s

called an autologous stem cell injection and we’re not talking

about cheap stuff here but you know, if you want to pull out all the

stops and just try the last possible thing for you to be able to run,

that’s an option. Prolotheraphy which is kinda similar, that’s the

injection of like a sugar solution or you know, pretty much

anything that’s gonna introduce mild amounts of inflammation

into that joint area and potentially upregulate healing. That’s

another option as well. And there are even, I talked about this

recently in a blog post over at bengreenfieldfitness.com. They also

make compounds that supposedly upregulate your own

production of stem cells. You know, such as celergen is one

compound. That’s like a cellular marine complex combined with

collagen. There’s another one that’s basically marine

phytoplankton, which, for lack of a better word is just like gooey

liquid green algae and that’s another example of something that

supposedly upregulates your natural stem cell formation but

ultimately like in a case like this where we’re talking about pure

bone on bone, ultra runner, 2 meniscus surgeries, you know, you

probably have to go over more of the injectibles. We’re talking

about a pretty sizeable investment, you know, buying a plane

tickt, going to Asia or Europe and doing like a full-on injection

and like you know, flying down to Florida, down to David

Minkoff’s LifeWorks Wellness Center down there and doing a

bunch of prolotheraphy with a guy like that. You know, if it was

me personally, I would start to consider the fact that you know,

there may be other things that could keep you happy other than

running. You know, go buy a killer road bike, you know. Go pick

yourself up at trek Madone or you know, grab one of these

Elliptigos. I use my elliptigo a bunch and for me, like anytime I

wake up and for me it’s a run day, and my joints are sore or I

know I’m gonna be running with poor biomechanics and

potentially causing more damage than good, I just hop on my

elliptigo and it’s a total geek fest and I get these like, you know

how like one guy in a Harley Davidson passes another guy and

they have their secret wave.

Brock: Yeah they have their nod or the one-finger wave.

Ben: Yeah, or you know, 2 guys who see each other in pick-up trucks,

you know, it’s the one finger or the nod or whatever. You know,

when I’m riding my elliptigo down the trail, it’s similar. Like the

people on like the geeky homemade like recumbent bikes, or the

folks who are like you know, doing like the like the weird little

rollerblades ski thing using the poles down the trail. Like anybody

doing anything that’s mildly or remotely just geeky or nerdy or

whatever, I get the nod from those folks when I’m on my elliptigo

so. So slightly nerdy but still kinda cool you know, that’s another

option. If you wanna like get the feel of running without any of

that joint pain, you know, you’re doing a lot of things that are

right. You know, strength training for your legs and your glutes,

working on like, the vastus medialis muscle to ensure that your

quadriceps are in the position where they’re able to stabilize the

movement of your kneecap or your patella. You know, mobility

work would be especially important. It sounds like you’re doing

some foam rolling, your bracing it, you know, you’re probably to

the point where you either need to spend some big bucks and go

to some stem cell or some prolotheraphy or else just like you

know, turn to some alternatives to running, and some other things

that kinda kinda hit that dopamine receptor that running is giving

you, you know, cause it is kind of a chemical addiction that can be

hard to break and you know, so you may also need to whatever.

Learn how to play the banjo or have more sex or something like

that. Or do both at the same time. Potentially.

Brock: Potentially.

Ben: We all know that playing a banjo leads to better sex anyways so.

Brock: I can attest personally.

Ben: So anyways Steve, you know, it may just be an issue here of kinda

moving on from running or you know, trying something a little bit

more hardcore in terms of recovery here so.

Eric: Hi Ben and Brock. I’m Eric from Golden Colorado. I’ve been a

keto athlete for the past year now and my questions regarding all

the blood sugar hacks. Is there any point in me doing a lot of

cinnamon and bitters to regulate blood sugar if I’m keto anyways?

[0:40:01.2]

Wondering if that’s what Ben’s gonna do and also, wondering if

you have noticed many poor odor coming out of your mouth.

Yeah, the ketogenic breath. Kinda interested in that. Thanks, bye.

Ben: You know, this is an interesting question ‘cause I just got on

talking about how I try to suppress my own blood glucose levels

with something like that MPX 100 and you know, if you were to,

so I use those Metron Breath test tubes for ketosis where I breathe

into that tube for 30 seconds and it, based off of your breath levels

of ketosis or your breath levels of you know, acetone and a lot of

these byproducts of ketosis will tell you whether or not you’re in

ketosis and that actually is that breath issue that he refers to. You

know the production of acetone from the breakdown of what’s

called the aceto acidic acid that’s pretty common when it comes to

your body actually producing this ketogenic breath. I’ve

personally found from my own experience, and the experience of

some folks that I work with, getting into ketosis that that tends to

subside. I suspect because the body is doing a little bit better job

generating ATP rather than generating acetone from the

breakdown of aceto acetic acid and so your ketone breath tends to

kinda like become less and less of an issue the longer you’re doing

low carb or the longer you’re in ketosis. But I certainly notice this

in myself that in every now and again, and especially of you’re

doing a ketogenic diet, when you wake up in the morning, after

that overnight fast, it’s, it can be pretty noticeable. But the thing

is, the reason that I mention this was like a lot of people will just

wake up and will already kinda be in ketosis and you know, when

I use that ketone breath measurement in the morning, I’m

consistently in kind of a ketonic state when I wake up in the

morning. And as soon as you go through your day and you start

dumping whatever protein which is going to potentially get to

turn into glucose or spike insulin levels or you get mild doses of

carbohydrate here and there, you’re kind of at the point where

you’re pulling yourself out of ketosis throughout the day and there

are little hacks that you can use you know what Eric refers to as

blood sugar hacks to actually kinda stabilize your insulin levels

and result in a lower spike in blood sugar. So that bitter melon

extract that I talked about, that’s an example of one. Cinnamon

would be another. These are all the things you would want in your

blood stream prior to eating that high-protein or high-

carbohydrate meal. Okay, or you know, during, if you have to but

preferably, rather than taking that stuff in what’s called a

postprandial state, you take it prior to the meal. So cinnamon

works really well. A decent amount.

Brock: So just like, like a half hour before the meal or does it have to be

like hours?

Ben: Half hour-ish is a pretty good rule. But cinnamon, you know,

you’re looking at decent amounts of cinnamon like 1-2 teaspoons

of cinnamon. My wife actually, when I told her we were out of

cinnamon the other day she’s like ’what the hell?’ She’s like ‘I just

bought cinnamon.’ I’m like ‘I’m using,’ I’m like ‘I’m doing ketosis.

I’m using a lot of cinnamon right now.’ So cinnamon, the bitter

melon extract, there’s some evidence that vitamin c may have a

pretty decent effect on the insulin as well so like the whole food,

Vitamin C source that you could get off at Amazon or whatever.

You know, a good 46 grams which is a lot of Vitamin C.

Brock: So it’s the little fizzy Vitamin C caplets you can buy in the grocery

store.

Ben: You know, those typically have about 1 gram or so, so if you were

to do like you know, a handful of those, that could get spendy, but

that could be an option as well. I get spendy and….

Brock: I have a feeling they’ve got a lot of sugar in them.

Ben: Fizzy and messy. They’ve just got a lot of other stuff in them so

yeah, I would go just like whole foods vitamin c source. Fiber, of

course, but there are some issues that go hand in hand with fiber

that we’ve talked about with the fiber doctor before on this show

where if you amp up fiber too heavily it can cause some issues like

diverticulitis and impacted bowel and you know, affected nerve

endings in your colon and eventually lead to some digestive

damage so you wanna be careful with these like high fiber

supplements like metamucil and psyllium extract and stuff like

that. That’s not the best way to control sugar levels in my opinion

but you know, mild doses of fiber like your kale smoothie with

some spinach and some colored greens in the morning, that type

of stuff for sure. Apple cider vinegar, a couple of tablespoons of

that, take them before a meal, can really help control your sugar

levels and that’s again kind of a cheap fix you could use along with

an option like cinnamon or bitter melon extract but certainly, any

of these things that are going to make you more insulin sensitive

or keep your blood sugar levels from going up are going to, by

their very nature, ensure that you are utilizing fatty acids more

than if you’ll then using glucose as a fuel.

[0:45:17.5]

So I’m definitely a fan of those kinds of hacks per se. And then of

course, you know, during exercise, when you need to keep your

energy levels up, something like the SuperStarch that I’ve talked

about before like the long molecular weight chain carbohydrate

like the UCan SuperStarch. I don’t use that stuff very much. I

pretty much only use it now when I’m racing just because I kinda,

I just don’t like to use engineered fuels and powders and sports

drinks and stuff like that period. I just don’t like to do it. However,

that stuff can do a pretty good job keeping you in a state of ketosis

when you’re out exercising for long periods of time. I wanna make

sure though that you know that a lot of these longer chain high

molecular weight carbohydrates, and this is something you don’t

hear about a lot but that I’ve had a lot of people that I’ve worked

with experienced, after a long term use of this stuff like during a

say like half-Ironman or a marathon or an Ironman. You use this

stuff for long enough and any residuals that’s left over in your

digestive tract tends to ferment pretty damn rapidly and you get

like this….

Brock: I know what that means….

Ben: This SuperStarch gas and bloating basically. So, I have also, when

we’re talking about biohacks, I found a way to keep that from

happening completely. And I use this stuff called….

Brock: Cork?

Ben: Yeah! And then your head explodes. I use this stuff called

CharcoCaps and they literally is a brand called CharcoCaps and it

is it’s like a homeopathic anti-gas remedy but essentially,

charcoal, when you consume it, it literally like covers the extent of

a football field when you dump this stuff in your body. In terms of

it’s absorptive capacity, you know, it’s a tiny little capsule but it’s

absoroptive capacity is literally like the size of a football field. So

CharcoCaps, it’s a homeopathic anti-gas remedy. It’s got like a

little bit of clubbed moss in it which is a homeopath for bloated

abdomen and trapped gas. That’s actually interesting. Clubbed

moss is also a neurotropic smart drug but there’s not a bunch of

that in there. It’s got a vegetable-based charcoal, it’s got a little bit

of bark in there, it’s got a little bit of sulfur in there and it just

basically like soaks up all these stuff and I found that in any

situation where I’m consuming a food that would tend to normally

promote gas that this stuff just like knocks it out so you know, if

you’re gonna use something like SuperStarch, I definitely

recommend those Charcoal Caps or something like that and we’ll

put our Amazon link to those in the show notes for you but yeah,

that’s what I would do.

Brock: And if you happen to accidentally swallow some household

cleaner, take a bunch of that.

Ben: That’s right.

Brock: Save yourself a trip to the hospital.

Ben: Good for food poisoining, good for consuming prior to eating

meats where you don’t know the source of the meat, you know,

stuff like that so yeah. Food poisoning, anything like that so.

Foshizzle.

Brock: I was kinda kidding when I said that.

Bob: Hi Ben this is Bob. Just recently started getting back into

triathlons and I get Ironman Texas on May 18th and ended up in

the medical tent due to some breathing problems and they told

me that I had EID exercise-induced bronchio-spasms and so they

suggest that I go see a doctor. I just wanna know if you have any

knowledge about that and what I could do to deal with this

problem. I took some Benadril, that seemed to help but I don’t

want to have to start taking Benadril or inhalers to every race I do

so if you have any information on that, that’d be great. Thanks.

Brock: Exercise-induced bronchio-spasms. Wow.

Ben: Do you know who Bob is? I actually, you weren’t on the first

Thailand Triathlon Adventure we did?

Brock: No.

Ben: But Bob and Bob if you’re listening in, I hope this does not

embarrass you, but Bob was the guy who went to Thailand with us

and liked it so much.

Brock: The guy that broke his neck?

Ben: No, he didn’t break his neck. That was somebody else.

Brock: There was somebody who broke his neck. I’m not sure.

Ben: He moved there and like and I think he had a Thai girl and just

like moved to Thailand 2 years after he went ‘cause he liked

Thailand so much.

Brock: He lived the dream.

Ben: Yeah, he lived the dream. Bob’s also the guy who did like, he did

something like 16 Ironmans, 1 year just like to see how many

Ironman triathlons he could do but ultimately, it’s a really

interesting question that Bob asks especially regarding this

exercised-induced bronchio-spasms because, you know, it’s

something that we’ve talked about a little bit on the podcast

before kinda the link between food and asthma and I’ll link to the

podcast that we did, we had a podcast episode that we did with

Doctor David Minkoff about this stuff and the idea behind it is

that if you have a diet that is comprised of a lot of food that can

cause something like an immune reaction, you upregulate your

sensitivity to airborne pollutants and pollens and things of that

nature. And exercise-induced asthma tends to be a really big deal.

One of the…..

[0:50:55.7]

Brock: So if you drink like a glass of milk, and then a couple of days later

you get exposed to a whole bunch of pollen, you could react to a

lot more severely.

Ben: Yup. And there have been studies that have looked at folks

especially like vegan, like plant-based diet, that athletes, and they

tend to require fewer asthma meds and one of the big reasons for

that is due to milk allergies which you know, of you’re vegan, you

don’t drink milk. So there are specific antibodies in milk that

trigger allergic reactions in people like, and it’s different than

lactose intolerance or just like gas or general aversion to milk

products. It is, these specific antibodies in milk that cause these

allergy-like symptoms and you know, the reason for that kinda

gets a little bit complex but essentially there are 2 different arms

of your immune system that can get out of balance. One is called

your TH1 immunity and one is called your TH2 immunity. And

TH1 immunity is responsible for your normal reaction to anything

in the environment so if you see like pollen and you’ve seen,

maybe you’ve seen like magnified pollen in books, these big,

they’re like these big circular balls if you watch, whatever, you

know, “Honey I Shrunk The Kids” way back in the day where the

bees carrying around these huge balls of pollen but if your TH1 is

working pretty well, you’re gonna breathe in millions of particles

of this pollen and you don’t even know about it because your TH1

immunity just like deals with it and TH1 is everywhere in your

body that gets in contact with your environment so you’ve got TH1

immune cells in your skin, in your eyes, in your tears, in your

saliva, in your mucus secretion, and your digestive organs, and

pretty much anywhere that is touching the external environment.

Now, what happens is that, there are kind of 2 situations where

you can aggravate or shut down TH1 and cause the 2nd arm of

immunity, this TH2 immunity to go into overdrive or become

hyperactive as it tries to compensate for the disabled TH1

immunity. And the 2 ways you can disable TH1 are number 1,

through an auto-immune reaction to a food that you’ve eaten, and

in most cases it is common foods that tend to be immune system

irritants. Wheat and dairy are the 2 biggies. Although you could

get tested, you could do what’s called the antibody test to see if

there are compounds that might also cause an auto-immune

reaction and then the other thing that can cause kind of a

disabling of this TH1 immunity is sustained damage to the gut

flora so for example, what’s called drug-induced dysbiosis where

you been antibiotic regimen that is wiped out the good bacteria in

your gut or created some kind of a gut imbalance or say

something like a candida infection where you’ve got a yeast or

fungus that is growing in your digestive tract due to the

combination of usually a high carbohydrate intake and a lack of

good gut flora and that could also lead to something called small

intestine bacterial overgrowth where you literally have way way

too much bacteria in your digestive tract, both good and bad and

that can also essentially retard this TH1 immunity and cause this

hyperactivity of the immune system and kind of an upregulation

of exercise-induced asthma. So that’s how it works but really you

know the fix is number 1, to be really really careful with some of

these common immune irritants like milk and wheat and stuff like

that. What I would recommend would be, there are a couple of

different options. There’s an e-book out there, it’s really really

good. It’s called the Auto-Immune Paleo Diet.

[0:55:02.6]

I’ll link to that in the show notes for Bob or anyone else listening

in who’s dealing with exercise-induced bronchio-spasms and

kinda wants to get off anti-histamines and stuff like that. The

other one that I would look into is actually a program that I

personally put together that’s available on TrainingPeaks and for

those of you who use TrainingPeaks and just want like an auto-

immune diet that you can drag and drop into your TrainingPeaks

training plan, and TrainingPeaks is just the online software that a

lot of the athletes that I coach work with, I actually created a 4-

week auto-immune protocol on TrainingPeaks that you could use

as well. But an auto-immune diet eleiminates pretty much every

single potential immune trigger that could be out there so….

Brock: Nice.

Ben: Hook yourself up with an auto-immune diet. We’ll put links on

the show notes and then probably the best natural anti-histamine

that I could recommend to you would be a fish oil. Like a really

good, high quality fish oil. I recommend a brand called Super

Essentials ‘cause it’s got astaxanthin and vitamin e. It’s a really

good cold-processed triglyceride-based fish oil. That’s the best one

out there, 4-6 capsules of that per day along with an auto-immune

diet and specially reduce milk and wheat and stuff like that and

yeah, whether or not you’re still galavanting about Thailand or

not, that’s certainly the way that I’d go Bob, if I were you.

Anonymous: Hi. I’m a 50-year old athlete that’s probably taking 20 milligrams

of Adderall for about ADHD and because of stress, I’ve been

taking half a milligram of Clonazepam for sleep. It’s not really

high levels but I’m concerned. You’ve never talked about both

amphetamine for ADD and how it affects performance positively,

negatively and also, the benzoids for sleep and anxiety. And if

there’s ways to potentially use other substances natural for the

body than can wean some of these. Thanks Ben. Like to hear

everything you say. Bye bye.

Ben: Well this is actually kinda sort of related to what we just talked

about with the auto-immune reaction because in many cases,

these imbalances in gut flora are pretty related to ADD and ADHD

simply because the majority of your neurotransmitters are created

in your gut and so one of the first places you’d wanna start is

specifically with your gut so not only addressing some of the auto-

immune factors that I just talked about with Bob but also focusing

specifically on nutrients that are gonna do a really really a good

job healing the gut whether in children or in adults, typically leaky

gut and damaged gut issues go hand in hand with personality

issues, depression, ADD, ADHD. If your gut is broken, your brain

is broken so that’s why I’m a big big fan in situations where you

have depression, insomnia, ADD, you know, insert the ‘do not

consider this as medical advice’ disclaimer here (Ben is not a

doctor and the content provided on this podcast is for

informational purposes only and should not be construed as

medical or healthcare advice) but going after the gut flora would

be big so not just insuring that you have wiped out bad bacteria by

using some really good essential oils like 2 of my favorites are oil

of oregano and golden seal for that purpose but then also getting

you know, getting some glutamine, some bone broth, some

colostrum, a good probiotic that preferably doesn’t have a lot of

fiber, that doesn’t have a lot of prebiotic in it because bad bacteria

can feed on a prebiotic so just like a basic probiotic that includes

specific strain that’s really really good in this case called a

saccharomyces boulardii. Sacchromyces boulardii we’ll be our

word of the day. Yes. As a matter of fact, if I have another child,

I’m gonna name them saccharo. Saccharo B. Anyways though,

getting on some of those gut healing compounds and really going

after the gut okay that’s number 1. Number 2, when it comes to

ADD or ADHD, nutrient deficiencies are really common in

persons with ADHD and they’ve done studies on this and they

find that some of the common issues, and you can go out and get

what’s called a spectracell analysis to look into a mineral or a

vitamin or nutrient deficiency.

[1:00:11.9]

There’s another analysis that’s done by a company called

MetaMetrix and it’s called Ion Panel. It’s expensive, it ranges

anywhere from 800 to 1000 dollars depending on where you get it

but it does, it’s a full test for fatty acids, amino acids, flavonoids,

b-vitamins, minerals, phospholipids, everything. But people with

ADHD or ADD, they tend to be deficient in minerals specifically

the B-vitamin complex as well. Both fatty acids, the Omega-3 fatty

acids and the omega-6 fatty acids, they tend to have anti-oxidant

deficiencies and specifically deficiencies in a type of phospholipid

called phosphatidylserine. And so targeted nutrient

replenishment using like a supplementation protocol of a lot of

these type of compounds can be really effective again in both kids

and adults and much more effective than just using what’s called

the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and that’s more

commonly known as the SSRI and that’s something very similar

to Ritalin so Ritalin blocks the reuptake of dopamine or dopamine

receptors specifically which allows for a big big increase in

dopamine around the synapse of the neurons in your brain. Now

anytime that you’re doing that, you’re needing more and more

dopamine to create that same response because you’re just

saturating your brain in dopamine so you get addicted or you

need more and more Ritalin as time goes on which is why I’m not

a big fan of that versus focusing on the natural rebalancing of the

neuro transmitters using a combination of gut healing and

replacing some of the minerals that I just got on talking about or

some of the nutrients that I just got talking about. Another big big

correlation with ADD and diet is insulin insensitivity potentially

caused from the pancreas over creating insulin in response to

high-sugar meals and there have been some studies that showed

that people with ADHD have reductions in their ability to

metabolize glucose properly when compared with non

symptomatic people. So children with hyperactivity disorders,

adults with ADHD etc. there tends to be some glucose metabolism

issues there as well so in a situation like that, comes down to

controlling insulin levels and really, like we already got into that

earlier in this podcast. We talked about apple cider vinegar, bitter

melon extract, sane amounts of fiber, cinnamon, you know some

of these foods that tend to be really really stabilize you know

blood glucose levels or restore insulin sensitivity. As far as any

supplement and stuff like that goes, I gotta be really careful with

this because some of this stuff is like, you know, neuro

transmitters, if you just replenish like one like say like, if you give

yourself a bunch of tyrosine which is a dopamine precursor and

you’re trying to restore dopamine levels but you aren’t at the same

time trying to take into account something like serotonin and you

create a serotonin dopamine imbalance, you can basically just

kinda yourself up and ‘cause temporary or even permanent

neurotransmitter issues and so usually it’s pretty safe. If you’re

going to try and replenish neurotransmitters naturally to use a

basic ratio of a 1-10 ratio of what’s called 5-HTP to tyrosine and

that’d be about 3000 milligrams of tyrosine per day and 300

milligrams of 5-HTP per day. And usually you split that to 3 daily

doses. Okay, so a thousand of tyrosine and a hundred of 5-HTP 3

times a day. If you really wanted…..

Brock: 300.

Ben: Yup. 3000 and 300. Yup. So 10-1 ratio of tyrosine to 5-HTP. Now

if you really wanted to kinda step this up and get a little bit more

scientific with it, there are specific supplements. There’s one

called NeuroReplete and one called CysReplete and neuroReplete

basically increases serotonin, cysReplete essentially is gonna help

a little better more with dopamine and these again, you gotta be

really really careful with these. I’m going to put a basic protocol in

the show notes for this athlete. I’ll put them over at

bengreenfieldfitness.com/245 but I would recommend, for really

digging into this stuff and going after it hardcore, you find

somebody who is certified in the Kalish method and Doctor Kalish

is a practitioner from California I believe who’s really really good

in helping to test and replenish neuro-transmitter levels.

[1:05:09.5]

He does have a book, if you’re kinda more like a self-learner, take

charge person, I’ll put a link to his book in the show notes as well.

It’s called The Kalish Method Book. You know, I help people out a

little bit, I’m not a Kalish certified practitioner per se but, and

again, I kinda gotta be careful with this in terms of like, you know,

saying that managing medical conditions or whatever versus just

kinda pointing people on the right direction but let’s just say that

there are folks that I do consults with and work with who used to

be depressed and aren’t anymore. I think I’m safe saying that. So,

and kind of the same goes for ADD and ADHD so I’ll put a link to

some of my recommended brain supplements, some of my

recommended brain kinda fixing tools in the show notes. The only

thing I did not mention here was that inflammation in the brain

not only can be caused by things like gluten and wheat but can

also be shut down by specific brain anti-inflammatories and that’s

actually the way a lot of neurotropics work. You look at things like

curcumin or turmeric extract, you look at things, you know, smart

drugs like Aniracetam, for example or Provigil or even a little bit

more natural one called phosphatydilcholine. All of these could

cross the blood brain barrier and affect inflammation from a

neural standpoint and so when you put something like that

together along with an auto-immune diet, along with replenishing

some of these minerals and vitamins and nutrients, you kinda get

to the point where you can fix your brain, you can wean yourself

off things like adderall, things like Ritalin, and you know, also

these anti-anxiety drugs like Clonazepam and things like that and

you know, get to the point where these stuff helps. Now, as far as

performance, here’s the deal. Most ADHD or ADD medications

are performance enhancers, you know, they work similar to an

amphetamine. And so they improve focus, they can increase

energy, and they can give you an illegal performance enhancing

benefit which is why in most cases, they’re banned by the world

anti-doping association unless you have a therapeutic use

exemption. Meaning that you have been given a diagnosis by your

physician, you’ve applied for a therapeutic use exemption through

the World anti-doping Association and you have paperwork that

shows that you’ve got clinically-diagnosed ADD or ADHD and

therefore the clearability to be able to take something like you

know, an Adderall prior to competition. If you don’t have one of

those and you’re using one of these drugs, you can get technically

get banned from participation in sanction events, get a medal

taken away, get a podium spot taken away, get a cheque taken

away, if you’re a pro. So yeah, you do need to be careful with this

stuff too. It does definitely have a performance enhancing benefit,

you know, but that’s why you even take something like Provigil

which is common in the military, common on a lot of CEOs who

are using like brain-enhancing supplements and you know, you

wouldn’t want to toe the starting line in like an Ironman triathlon

with that stuff because it gives you an illegal performance

enhancing benefit so I always wonder, how many folks who are

out there, because I know, you know, triathletes and marathoners

and people like that have this go-go personality that tends to be

associated a lot of times with ADD and ADHD and you know, I

wonder, how many of those folks are on illegal performance

enhancing drugs and don’t even know that they’re not supposed to

be taking that stuff without a TUE (without a therapeutic use

exemption) similar to like a testosterone cream or a testosterone

injection. But ultimately, you know, the deal is, this stuff is

addictive, this stuff eventually shuts down your own endogenous

production of these good brain chemicals so there are better,

more natural ways to control ADD and ADHD and hopefully some

of the things that I have just told you are gonna punch you in the

right direction. And so.

Brock: Now as far as trying to come off of these drugs like somebody like

Bob, not Bob, actually I don’t know this guy’s name. Our caller

here asked about wanting to come off them. Is there, would it be

dangerous to mix any of these with the drugs as he’s trying to

wean himself off and you know, if you’re on SSRI, if he starts

taking St. John’s Wort, they really warned against mixing the 2.

Ben: Yeah.

Brock: So that can be the sort of same problem here?

Ben: Yeah, that’s the issue because it’s like you’re opening the

floodgates and allowing for higher what’s called endogenous

production of say something like dopamine or serotonin but at the

same time, you’re inhibiting the reuptake of it so you’re just

flooding your neurons specifically the synapses in your neurons

even more and potentially aggravating an issue or you are

essentially increasing the addictive potential of whatever

pharmaceutical you happen to be on so that’s a situation where

you wanna start with real real micro doses of some of these stuff

or like I mentioned, go to like the Kalish Method website.

[1:10:34.3]

Again, we’ll link to that in the show notes over at

bengreenfieldfitness.com/245. Find a practitioner in your area

who through like urinary neurotransmitter valuations or some

other method of tracking your neurotransmitter levels can kinda

walk you through something like this because sometimes it can

take a little bit of hand holding see, you gotta be careful with

something like that for sure.

Brock: Don’t just dive into it.

Ben: Yeah. Those are the main things when it comes to ADD and

ADHD. Those are the basics that I can think of off the top of my

head. Sometimes I actually wonder if I have “ADD” or “ADHD”

because I actually hop around quite a bit a lot of time focusing.

My dad was like a serial entrepreneur and jumped between jobs

really rapidly, I jumped around a bunch as well. You know, but at

the same time, I can crawl up and read a book for like 6 hours and

not even look up so I don’t know. I’m not really sure how that

works but.

Brock: I don’t know either.

Ben: Yeah, anyways. Moving on.

Gina: Hi Ben and Brock, this is Gina from California. I fell from a chair

about 4 and a half weeks ago, was not drunk, I get that question a

lot, and the chair back, with the hard chair back and when I fell it

jammed up into my ribs, right into my breast and I guess I bruised

with. The x-ray showed no fracture. Well, the other day I went to

the chiropractor as I have been even since the ribs were hurting

because I have lower back issues. I told him about my rib

condition, that I was 4 and a half weeks out and he still suggested

that I do an overall spine adjustment and I didn’t even know what

that meant but I assumed he understood my ribs were recovering

and were almost healed that he wouldn’t do anything to damage

the area however, he adjusted me in a way I’ve never been

adjusted before and basically re-injured my ribs. I thought I’d ask

what you recommend in terms of healing as fast as possible. I

have pretty slow recovery time and I really miss spinning,

running, getting my heart rate up fast which obviously I can’t do

when it’s hard to even breathe in or move my right side. So I really

appreciate your insight and thanks again for the great podcast.

Bye.

Brock: Well Gina, we’ve all been there.

Ben: Yes.

Brock: Drunk.

Ben: Some of us.

Brock: Fall out of our chair.

Ben: Yes. Some of us probably who had more alcohol involved than

others. Yeah, it’s too bad about the chiro because you do have to

be careful like I know a lot of chiropractic docs listening to the

show and you know, and unfortunately most of them wants….

Brock: Are you gonna piss them off?

Ben: who I’ve spoken to who are listening to the show, they’re good

chiros and they’re not too woowoo and they know what they’re

doing but you know, chiropractic medicine is something that can

tend to cause damage if you’re not careful. In more cases it’s the

neck more often than the ribs, chiropractic docs who do a lot of

neck manipulation. There is risk of some artery aggravation and

eventually stroke that’s actually been well documented in medical

literature where you know…..

Brock: To the point where they actually, like the people who work in ER,

if somebody comes in who doesn’t fit the profile of having a stroke

from natural causes, that’s the first thing they ask, have you had a

neck manipulation.

Ben: Yeah. Really interesting study like last year, I believe it was in the

New Zealand Medical Journal, you know, they reported like 700

cases of severe complications from chiropractic neck adjustments

so you do need to be careful. You need to make sure that you kind

of dig into the history of whoever you’re seeing for chiropractic

manipulation and you understand the risks associated with it. I’ve

gone in and had a rib adjustment before from a chiropractic doc

that completely fixed an out of place rib that I had from bench

pressing. This was back in the day where I was doing more kinda

weight training and it helped a ton and you know, I can imagine

that with the method that they were using which was essentially

like slamming their body weight down into my rib, you know,

after kinda palpitation to find the correct area, that they did not

know what they were doing, they could certainly you know, cause

an issue. A fractured rib or push a rib even more out of place.

[1:15:09.8]

Brock: Get a whole lot worse.

Ben: And I mean, you know, you’ve got this whole junction of your rib

with the cartilage attached to the sternum and not only can that

be extremely painful if it gets aggravated or strained or sprained

but it can be moved around quite a bit more by impact or by

chiropractic adjustments so as far as healing this thing up, if it’s a

straight up fracture, I’m a big fan, and we’ve done an entire

podcast, do we have something on stress fractures on the album,

Brock, over at iTunes?

Brock: No. We don’t.

Ben: We’ll have to take our stress fracture piece. Yeah but basically,

stress fractures, there are certain compounds that are really really

good for bone healing and this could be like an hour long podcast

but if I could tell you the number 1 compound that I found that

really really helps that I recommend to mostly athletes that I work

with who get on the verge of sustained, or get something like a

stress fracture or a broken bone from an acute injury, it’s

Lactoferrin. Lactoferrin is something that, similar to cissus can

really upregulate that osteoblastic activity and enhance the

healing response. I get it from Capraflex. This gluten-free

formulation called Capraflex Pro which is like a blend of

glucosamine, it’s got chrondroitin from like type 2 chicken

collagen. It’s got cherry juice and turmeric and a bunch of

proteolytic enzymes in there as well which help you do everything

from you know, bounce back from surgery more quickly to break

down fibrinogen from too much physical activity so that stuff has

lactoferrin in it so that’s probably the number 1 thing that I’d

recommend from a supplementation standpoint. From like a gear

or injury management standpoint, I’ve seen some really good

studies like randomized clinical trials of rib belts for just like

simple fractured ribs and a rib belt is just like an elastic or a soft

belt that you wrap around your mid section that just offers you a

little bit of support. It goes a little bit higher up than like a back

brace, kinda halfway between like a bra and a back brace basically

like right there around your ribs.

Brock: So what do they call it, a gusset?

Ben: Gusset, corset, I don’t know.

Brock: The thing like William Shatner wears to get slimmer.

Ben: Yeah, exactly but I mean we’re talking 10, 20 bucks. Yeah you get

that slimming effects, gorgeous slimming effects.

Brock: Spanks for your ribs.

Ben: Yeah. Eat as much as you want, buy a rib belt. Heck, buy a rib belt,

buy a back belt, get a sport bra and just kinda hold everything in

and go to town at the local steak house buffet. But no, seriously,

like rib belts actually have some good research behind them in

terms of significant amounts of pain relief and because there is a

little bit of immobilization support going on there . You probably

are looking into a little bit of healing enhancement too so that’s

what I would be looking into as far as like some gear that you

could use and also look into using some lactoferrin and then just

be really really careful with impact-based exercise along with

crazy chiropractors so.

Brock: And don’t sneeze whatever you do.

Ben: Yea, avoid sneezing.

Brock: No sneezing.

Ben: Avoid black pepper or any fat loss supplement that contains

bioperine.

Brock: Avoid playing the accordion as well.

Ben: Yeah, the accordion tends to be a big issue. We got to a lot of our

listeners that. It seems like it pops out time and time again, the

accordion issue. Is your, do you happen to have your accordion

there with you Brock?

Brock: No, actually if you have a second I could run to the other room

and get it.

Ben: I tell you what, why don’t I read this week’s iTunes review and

while I’m doing that you can go and get your accordion. Sound

good?

Brock: Okay. Here I go.

Ben: So this week’s review is from retiredcollegeathlete2012 and here’s

what he has to say on iTunes. I used to be a huge Jillian Michaels

fan but over the last year, I made the shift to Ben Greenfield. I’m

not a hardcore athlete, just an accountant that likes to be

functionally fit. So glad I fell upon this podcast and website and

hey Brock, you back with me? Alright, not yet. So

retiredcollegeathlete2012, if you heard your review read on this

podcast, then email me, ben@bengreenfield.com. There we go.

And I’ve got some love to send your way. Hey Brock you missed

the review but someone just said they’re cheating on Jillian

Michaels. They left Jillian and came to us instead.

[1:20:08.0]

Brock: Nice.

Ben: Huge, huge. That reminds me by the way, I bought the Bob

Harper Yoga DVD and it was…..

Brock: I don’t know who that is.

Ben: Bob Harper is Jillian, is his name Bob Harper? Jillian Michaels’

sidekick on the Biggest Loser?

Brock: I have never seen that show.

Ben: I’m pretty sure, anyways, he’s got a yoga DVD and it’s like

hardcore yoga to rock music. And I can’t say I, I’m sure Bob’s a

great guy but it was kinda silly. It was like yoga to rock music so

not too…..

Brock: Yeah, that seems interesting.

Ben: But anyways though, the featured fitness podcast,

retiredcollegeathlete2012, thanks for the review. If you wanna

leave a review, you can go to iTunes, if you want I could be talking

with an Italian accent, hey Brock.

Brock: Please do.

Ben: So it’s a little loud. It’s a little loud. Can you back of the

microphone a little bit.

Brock: That’s the thing about the accordion is it’s loud.

Ben: Go ahead and I’ll take us out with my Italian accent.

Brock: Alright.

Ben: Don’t forget to go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/love that’s

bengreenfieldfitness.com/love and you too can spread the love

about the Ben Greenfield Fitness. Get your spaghetti, your pasta,

your linguine, we have some marinara sauce.

Brock: I can’t believe that I’m laughing.

Ben: Is the accordion Italian?

Brock: Mine is the Camillo.

Ben: Yeah it reminds me when my wife and I rode our bikes to Italy.

We sat at the restaurant and we’re staring googly eyed at each

other and drinking tea from Monte Pontiano Deo Brucco and

eating our pastas smothered in cheese and also some other auto-

immune triggers we talked about.

Brock: Delightful.

Ben: Then we go and ride our bikes off into the sunset hacking from

exercised-induced asthma. Oh, that’s a good way to end the show

so thank you for listening and go to

bengreenfieldfitness.com/245. That’s

bengreenfieldfitness.com/245 and get on the show notes and ‘til

next time, have a wonderful week.