November 26, 2014
Podcast Episode #300 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2014/11/300-the-bill-clinton-diet-saving-your-gonads-from-laptops-and-bikes-reasons-for-early-puberty/
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Introduction: In this episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast: The Bill Clinton Diet, Is Sitting on a Bike Bad For You? What Is The Best Plastic For Water Bottles? Can You Increase Growth Hormone with Fasting? and much more.
Welcome to the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast. We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestions, sleep, brain, and hormone optimization. So whether you’re an Ironman triathlete or you just wanna shed a few pounds, get ready for non-run-of-the-mill cutting edge content from bengreenfieldfitness.com.
Brock: Hey there Ben! How are you feelin’ there you old fella?
Ben: I’m feeling like I’ve been podcasting for 300 episodes, Brock.
Brock: 300 episodes?
Ben: 300.
Brock: You’ll top in – you’ll top in Misiatica.
Ben: I need some podcast Viagra. I’m beginning to go limp.
Brock: I went limp like a hundred episodes ago, you lucky bugger.
Ben: Seriously though dude! We’ve made it 300 freakin’ episodes. As a matter of fact, for those who are listening in, we’ve probably done more than 300 episodes ‘cause for every episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast is usually special episodes. So we’ve actually done like probably close to 600 episodes. It’s crazy!
Brock: It probably more than 600.
Ben: Yeah.
Brock: Like there were times, like when I was away that we didn’t put a number on it, we didn’t count those. We need to hire somebody out there who wants to just like do it for the love, should count all of our episodes for us.
Ben: Well in 2008, when I was a personal trainer, a fledgling young personal trainer; full of life and vigor.
Brock: Yes! Optimism.
Ben: Reckon we had to walk uphill both directions to the podcasting studio through barbwire in our bare feet, in your shoes.
Brock: No! We used two tin cans to communicate.
Ben: Anyways, 2008, I remember recording my first podcast and trying to figure it out how to upload it. I don’t remember if iTunes existed, I think it did. But… Yeah man, we’re podcasting for six years. It’s nuts.
Brock: That’s awesome.
Ben: Almost seven years.
Brock: It’s good. I’ve only been with the show now for about three years last week, I think it actually was. So I’m only half as tired and worn down as you are.
Ben: Happy Anniversary, Brock. I’ll send you a magazine subscription or something.
Brock: Sweet.
News Flashes:
Brock: So your Twitter feed right now is completely overrun by something that we’ll talk about a little bit later. But you still manage to squeeze in a few pretty cool studies this week.
Ben: Yes. I accidentally blew up Twitter and I’ll tell folks why later on. But in the meantime, let’s talk about a few of the things that I tweeted this week over a Twitter.com/BenGreenfield. This is the latest and the greatest and the best of the best. The first is our near and dear ex-US President Bill Clinton used to be vegan. And I tweeted that he actually went from vegan to low carb paleo. And there is a very interesting article that appeared about this in the Inquisitr, and it sounds like Bill was actually influenced by Hillary who introduced him to Dr. Mark Hyman. Hillary introduced Bill to Dr. Mark Hyman. Mark Hyman actually really wrote a very interesting article recently about – he launches this new diet called the “Pegan Diet”, I think it’s a mix of Paleo and Vegan. But I think it sounds like some kind of a devil-worshipping twist, maybe ‘cause it sounds like pagan. Anyways though, Dr. Hyman…
Brock: Pagans don’t worship the devils. That’s a misnomer.
Ben: They do in my special twisted religious head.
Brock: I guess so.
Ben: So anyways, Dr. Hyman told Bill Clinton that his vegan-diet contain too much starch and insufficient good quality protein, and basically Bill Clinton switch to this paleo diet. And the article itself also talks about and Anne Hathaway, another celebrity who was not for those you who are not familiar the U.S. President, she’s actually an actress. But Anne Hathaway said that she didn’t feel good, she didn’t feel healthy on a vegan-diet and I have no clue if she’s doing it correctly. As we have talked about before, there’s a way that you can really F-up a vegan diet by…
Brock: Absolutely.
Ben: …doing it incorrectly, but…
Brock: Tons of tofurky.
[0:05:01.3]
Ben: She’s also doing eggs and sausage for lunch now. Anyways though so, I thought it was really interesting how Dr. Hyman is now preparing the Clintons especially Mrs. Clinton if she decides to run for President which is somewhat likely, he’s having them carry things like macadamia nut butter, walnut butter, turkey jerky and cans of wild salmon as they jet about the globe. So it’s interesting! Total switch, from vegan to paleo.
Brock: That’s pretty awesome. Most as awesome as you guys actually having a legendary funk musician as a President.
Ben: What? What are you talking about?
Brock: Oh Bill Clinton, not George Clinton. I always have been confused.
Ben: You must be Canadian. Okay. Anyways, let’s talk about…
Brock: No I, I’m just old.
Ben: Let’s talk about Diabetes. There’s this really interesting study that came out that showed that light and specifically sunshine could reduce your risk of developing diabetes.
Brock: What?
Ben: And this was quite interesting. They found that there was a direct link between sun exposure and decrease risk of Type 2 diabetes, decrease fasting glucose, better glucose tolerance, and decrease amounts of fasting insulin. And this is partially links to Vitamin D deficiency. In the fact that when you’re deficient in vitamin D, you have increased diabetes risk, but sunlight specifically was what they looked at in this study and they found a consistent link between lack of sunlight exposure and Type 2 diabetes. The reason I think this is interesting is because a long time ago I had this lady named TS Wiley on the podcast and TS Wiley wrote this book called, something like “Sleep, Sex and Survival”. I could be butchering the name but it’s something approximately like that. And if it wasn’t named that, it should have been because I like that name. Anyways though, she goes into how when you are – when it’s summer, when you’re expose to a lot of light, when the days are longer, you actually have a better carbohydrate tolerance. In other words, your body is better able to handle carbohydrates with less of a surge in glucose and less of a surge of insulin released by the pancreas. And it turns out that one of the reasons to this maybe the case is because, as you’re exposed to the sun you get increased of vitamin D expression, and that increase of vitamin D expression helps you to be able to handle carbohydrates better. So, the other interesting thing though if you think about this from kinda like evolutionary ancestral survival standpoint, is that if you are approaching a time of year when there’s less sunlight exposure but still eating carbohydrates you know, let’s say in the fall you know, an apples and pears and some of those – you know the fall/winter-based carbohydrates. You’re eating those – more of them won’t technically be getting converted into body fat, right? ‘cause you have lower Vitamin D levels in the fall, in the winter. And that would theoretically prepare you better for surviving the harsh cold and winter. So it could be a little bit of a struggle…
Brock: Yeah, exactly. You didn’t have the central heating to turn on.
Ben: Yeah, exactly. You know, but unfortunately we living in an area where we’ve got central heating and air-conditioning and probably far, far more carbohydrates than just like the simple fruits that may have been available in the fall, in the winter, and like in ancestral time. But it’s very interesting how sunlight and Vitamin D are so linked in this new study, actually shows why that is the case. So as you approach the winter and the fall, you know in November, the time of this podcast been recorded going into. One of the things you may wanna consider is adding Vitamin D in to diet. Unless you’re, you know, I don’t know, snow-boarding outside with your shirt-off or in your bikini. But you know, all podcast listeners are bombing down the slopes in bikinis right now.
Brock: They better be.
Ben: They better be. Start in the vitamin D, use like a liquid vitamin D or you know, a little bit of extra vitamin D possibly over and above what you’d normally take especially if you want to improve your glucose tolerance. So, that was a pretty interesting study and then interestingly, very much related to that, another article that came out about how sleeping naked can also cut your risk of diabetes. And this was a really interesting article. I’ll link to it but – your core temperature is at its highest at about 11pm and as lowest at 4am and if anything prevents that decline in temperature, you can struggle to get to sleep, you can have disturb sleep, and you can also have a lower ability to burn calories as you sleep. So it comes out to cold thermogenesis and with these researchers found is that when you’re able to drop the skin temperature by sleeping naked, your metabolism goes up and your fasted glucose is decreased when you wake up in the morning.
[0:10:11.2]
So sleeping naked also of course has other benefits that they go into the article including: giving your love life a boost and I’m going to assume that that means sleeping naked with someone else in the bed with you. I’m not sure sleeping naked all by yourself is going to give your love life a boost, unless you are simply maybe waking up happier than the usual, if you know what I mean. Yeah, and also infections – it says, “Wearing nothing to bed can help women to avoid developing yeast infections because “thrush” a form of yeast loves warm restricted environments, so wear something loose or preferably nothing at all”. So there’s another reason to sleep naked, ladies. And that’s actually what I’m gonna to tell my wife tonight before we go to bed is that I’m concerned about yeast and her warm and moist spots and so…
Ewan: You don’t wanna get thrush, baby. Come on.
Ben: I’d like you to sleep naked. I don’t want you to get thrush or diabetes so take it off baby, take it all off. So, one other interesting thing that I tweeted, and this was a hilarious video that was…
Brock: Hil-arious.
Ben: Hil-arious. It was a Ted Talk, and the Ted Talk was actually called “Help Fight Local Warming”. I first saw this when I was over in Israel because it was delivered by this guy named Yossi Vardi. He lives over there in the Middle East and what he talks about is the link between hot seats, laptops, cellphones, and sperm. And in this video and perhaps we will actually play the audio clip of this video for you as you are listening in here in just a second. But it talks about how studies have shown an increase of just one degree celsius can affect sperm formation in only fifteen minutes of laptop use produced that temperature rise in guy’s laps. And the video goes into more detail but basically this is why I never ever put a laptop in my lap unless I’ve got one of those heat blocking EMF blocking pads underneath it. This like the little pad you can buy off of like Amazon for example, I use one called the “HARApad”, that’s H-A-R-A pad. But you should watch this video or listen to the clip that are about to play for you because it’s really quite interesting:
Audio: Important health message: blogging maybe hazardous to your health especially if you are a male. This message is given as a public service. Blogging affect your posture, we’ll start with your posture. This is the posture of ladies who are not blogging; this is the posture of ladies who are blogging. (laughter) This is the natural posture of a man sitting, squatting for ventilation purposes. (laughter) And this is the natural posture of a standing man, and I think this picture inspired Chris to insert me into the lateral thinking session. This is male blogging posture sitting, and the result is, “For greater comfort, men naturally sit with their legs farther apart than women, when working on laptop. However, they will adopt a less natural posture in order to balance it on their laps, which resulted in a significant rise of body heat between their thighs.” This is the issue of local warming. (Laughter) This is a very serious newspaper; it's Times of England — very serious. This is a very — (Laughter) — gentlemen and ladies, be serious. This is a very serious research, that…
Special Announcements:
Ben: Brock, this podcast is actually brought to you by a Super Starch – a non-GMO based cornstarch that goes through forty different laboratory base treatments to cause it to get absorbed extremely slowly by your body and give you this slow bleed of carbohydrate-based energy that keeps you in either: A. a fat burning zone or B. in ketosis, and you know what the name of that magical starches?
Brock: I don’t Ben, tell me all about it.
Ben: I think you do, and you’re just playing. It’s UCAN this podcast is actually brought to you by UCAN, that’s spelled U-C-A-N and generation UCAN Super Starch is the name of this special carbohydrates that keeps your blood sugar stable and delivers this steady energy so you could do something like: eat it as a pre-marathon or pre-race or like pre-triathlon or pre-endurance breakfast for example, you can mix it with some coconut milk for example, and have that for breakfast to keep you in fat-burning mode.
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You can mix it into a water bottle and let you get away with eating about a quarter as many carbohydrates as you’d normally have to eat to keep your blood sugar levels maintain. Really interesting stuff: very, very low amount of GI distress, will still enhancing fat burn and sustaining some pretty good energy. They’re giving all of our listeners a 15% discount. So you have absolutely no excuse, if you’re listening in not to try this stuff. The URL you can go to, to save 15% on the stuff that keeps you in fat-burning mode all day long is bengreenfieldfitness.com/UCAN. That’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/UCAN, so check it out and try out some UCAN for breakfast perhaps something to throw in for a week or so after the turkey day coming up tomorrow.
Brock: Do try it a few times before you do it for serious because it put me into a fart-burning mode all day long in the first few times I tried it.
Ben: Yeah, use yourself into this stuff. It is a very like complex carbohydrate that you got to get your body used to once you do. It’s pretty magical. This podcast is also brought to you by Onnit. And what we’re going to do now is play you a clip of myself and top Spartan athlete, Hunter McIntyre playing with Onnit toys in our basement. Here you go:
Ben: (AUDIO CLIP STARTS) If you, want to learn how to train for your obstacle races using all the unconventional training gear, it’s so, take it to Onnit.com and use 10% discount code: Obstacle Dominator. You’ll save 10% off the steel bells, kettle bells with monkey faces on them, mason…
Hunter: Mason rocks!
Ben: And other things that you can kill people with and make yourself stronger. Onnit.com, 10% discount code: Obstacle Dominator.
So if you want the visual of what you just heard then check out the Youtube video that we’ll put in the show notes over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/300, but both Hunter and myself use a ton of Onnit fitness tools like maces, steel bells, primal bells, medicine bells and like I say in the video, other things that you could kill people with. And you save 10% off of all these strange and exotic fitness gear when you go to onnit.com/bengreenfield that will automatically knock 10% off your order so you can have your own dangerous fitness equipment at home and it’s actually pretty cool stuff. And then next – now that we’ve got our strange and exotic sponsors out of the way: UCAN and Onnit. As part of the celebration of our 300th podcast episode, Brock, we’re giving away something pretty cool. I don’t even know if I told you about this yet, but the BioMat which is the infrared mat that basically shoves your recovery through the roof and does all sorts of things like enhance sleep, detox, it allows you to do what’s called hypothermic therapy without necessarily going to like an infrared sauna or hot sauna or something like that. We’re giving away a BioMat Pro that’s like the sixteen hundred and fifty dollar BioMat.
Brock: Wheew!
Ben: It’s over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/giveaway, this giveaway started this morning – the morning that we recorded this podcast.
Brock: Which is, “How Ben Broke Twitter”.
Ben: Ah yeah, that’s how Twitter broke because every time you tweet the giveaway, you got three extra entries into the contest. So you can blow up your ability to win this BioMat. Also, there’s the special salts that you get with it. They’re called the Detoxi Salts, they’re actually heated to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit 9 times over for 20 hours and what you get based on that is this pure, pure salt that’s packed with a bunch of minerals and micro-nutrients that has this really interesting detoxing property when you take just a few grams of it per day, so you can get the salts, you can get the BioMat – we are only giving away one of these packages ‘cause it’s literally over seventeen hundred dollars’ worth of prizes. You can just go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/giveaway, and you enter your email over there and you’re automatically in to get some pretty cool stuff that all of your neighbors will be jealous of if they happen to know what a BioMat or Detoxi Salt pack is.
Brock: That should happen to be in your bedroom when you’re getting naked to avoid diabetes on the bed or on the BioMat.
Ben: That’s right. So, finally, a couple of other things, there are few events.
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First of all, December 4th and 5th, I will be speaking down in San Diego at Mark Divine’s Unbeatable Mind Retreat. There’s still time for you to get into that at bengreenfieldfitness.com/unbeatable. I’ll be talking about how to biohack your environment, there’ll be bunch of other people there like Rob Wolfe, Mark Divine of course, me, Brock will be there…
Brock: You won’t actually see me. I’ll be hiding out with the little computers somewhere.
Ben: Yeah, so come hang-out at San Diego and then two days after that, I’ll be racing the Malibu Spartan and if you happen to live near L.A. or Malibu, come out do the Spartan. It’ll be a blast. Just a sprint, you can totally do it. And then also December 15th through the 19th , is my online conference where I’ve got twenty-four. It used to be twenty-three but I just added Dr. Mercola – Dr. Joseph Mercola from mercola.com and I will be talking about, how he lives his life so it’s like all his daily habits, the stuffs from Mercola that he implements into his own routine. Really interesting interview, and so that’s all gonna be in the free online conference I’m doing over at bengreefieldfitness.com/RevYourself . And then finally, if you want to head over to the Middle East, I’ll be speaking in Dubai. January 30th through the 31st – and that would be two days Superhuman Seminar that I’m teaching. So pretty intensive but if you’re into fitness training, natural remedies, health – any of that kinda stuff, this is gonna be a pretty awesome two-day workshop, I’ll be teaching over in Dubai. And we’ll put a link to that and oh so much more, over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/300. So, check it all out.
Brock: Check it out!
Listener’s Q&A:
E: Hi, it’s E here from Auckland, New Zealand. I’d like to thank Ben for his work, it’s been fantastic and helped me a huge amount last season when we had a fund-raising gear with the three of New Zealand’s iconic events. We did the swim nohava which is a 3.2 case. Ride around Taupo which is a hundred sixty case, a lot. And we run the marathon, I used the – I’m in Training program because all of it have been worth and done for a one month period. Also, it suits me really nicely for a half marathon leading up to the event and then neither it stays me up in my first half Ironman which took me more than half hours of quite 28, nothing special. But I’m an age grouper and that can be pretty well in that field. And mostly there, I’ve enjoyed the race with the low training hours for the competition hours that I did and in particular the strings worked. The strings would suit me up nicely, it helped me, I mean, my peer and myself, and the people like with injuries, and like to thank me in the game and certainly very highly recommended.
Ben: Awesome. And speaking of tri-ripped.com Brock, I’ve got you doing some pretty narrowly ripped workouts yourself.
Brock: Uhmm. I’m pretty sore. I’m having trouble raising my arms above my shoulders right now.
Ben: Yeah. I’m bringing this up because Brock asked me, for those who don’t know, I coached Brock and one of the things that we always do in the off-season is re-introducing new program for Brock to do. And now he’s doing a five by five.
Brock: Last winter you had me doing that Mass Made Simple variation on Dan John’s program and that was awesome. I didn’t get super swoll but I sure got strong.
Ben: Yeah, for those of you who don’t know what five by five is, it’s very, very basic. I’ll put a link in the show notes to the basic page where you can – it’s at stronglifts.com or you can download the basic “5X5 Workout”. It’s just the way to get very strong and put on some muscle mass pretty quickly in a very simple way. So essentially, you use free weights, not machines. You do compound multi-joint exercises – not single-joint isolation exercises and you always add weight, you never add reps. So, you’re not training for muscle pump, you’re not training for soreness, you’re just adding weight. Now the original 5X5 routine was comprised of three exercises that are put into two full body workouts. And one workout was squat, bench press, and a barbell row. And then the other workout was a squat, an overhead press, and a dead lift. The “5X5 Workout” that I’ve got Brock doing, we’re putting all five of those lists: the squat, the bench, the overhead press, the dead lift, and we’re actually doing a clean instead of a row, but you do five sets of five reps of each of those exercises and you do that two to three times a week with very heavy weights and that’s it, it’s super simple.
[0:25:06.1]
All the other workouts for example that I’ve got Brock doing are mobility workouts, some fasted morning cardio, a couple of high intensity intervals, one day that’s just yoga with some deep breathing, and then like kinda like an easy light type of nature walk, or just get out in the neature – exploring neature.
Brock: Why do you say it like that?
Ben: Have you seen the neature videos on Youtube?
Brock: No.
Ben: Oh! You gotta watch it. Go to Youtube and do search for neature guy – nature guy, but it’s pretty funny, it’s pretty hilarious actually. If you’re listening in and also go to Youtube and do search for nature guy, you will laugh your butt off. Anyways though, the “5X5 Workout” that I’ve got Brock doing is a little bit of a twist on the traditional “5X5 Workout” because rather than just sitting on his butt reading magazines or watching TV as he rests in between…
Brock: Which is what I normally do when I’m working out.
Ben: Well, that’s actually what you see a lot of folks who are doing “5X5 Workout” right, they finished the five reps and they just kinda chill. But instead, I’ve got mobility throwing in between each of the different test that you do. So for example, if you’re gonna do five sets of five squats in between each set of the squats, rather than just sitting around, you do for example bird dogs, which is where you get down to a crawl position and you extend right arm and left leg then left arm and right leg ten times. And then in between your bench press, you’ll do something like a foam roller for the back or an abdominal movement or something else that is putting work into your body, and making your body better but still allowing that muscle that you work during the “5X5” to recover. So I call the five by five workout with mobility. So basically, that’s what Brock’s doing; got him sweating a few days a week with the 5X5.
Brock: Yeah. And one of the interesting recovery runs you had me doing is when I’m doing the dead lifts. You’ve got me doing like box jumps. It doesn’t necessarily seem like a recovery activity. What’s the theory there?
Ben: I will admit that there are a few of the 5X5 exercises where I am jacking a heart rate up a little bit. So occasionally, one of the things, there’s two exercises that’ll mix with the dead lift sometimes. Mix it with box jumps or mix it with rows. I’ll make a concept too. And if you want to make your 5X5 Workout super hard, you do your five sets of heavy dead lifts but in between each dead lift, you either do ten box jumps, or you do a 250 meter row and it turns it into a little bit more of a Sufferfest. So that was just my evil twist, Brock.
Brock: I actually – I really enjoyed that one – that was fun. My living room was a disaster after I finished the workout the other day.
Ben: ‘Cause you throw up all over it?
Brock: Yeah. I burped everywhere, it’s awesome. Actually it smelled really bad too ‘cause I’ve started using, by up and following your lead and started using coconut oil as my deodorant just because, I’ve worked my way through all over of the natural “deodorants” that I can possibly find and they all make me smell worst than if I wear no deodorant at all. So I thought, “Oh may I give the coconut oil a try”. And now my living room and actually right now, my office just smells like BO and coconut.
Ben: Like a giant, stinky cookie. I like it.
Brock: The cookie that you would not feed your worst enemy.
Bryan: Hey Ben and Brock, it’s Bryan here from South Africa. Thanks for the great show and keep bringing us that awesome content. Recently, I was exposed to the term called glycobiology and I was wondering what your thoughts were on the matter and if you see this important as some people are saying it is for the future of our health. Thanks a lot! Cheers!
Brock: I have never heard the term glycobiology before.
Ben: You idiot.
Brock: I’d said dumb. Apparently you know, I don’t listen to any podcast about like about health and fitness, and science or anything like that. So really, like it’s not a surprise.
Ben: Glycobiology!
Brock: Is that something you do with the Kardashian?
Ben: You have to say it as if you’re narrating like a 1960 science video.
Brock: Glycobiology is one of the most important processes you’ll cross in scientific history.
Ben: Researchers all over the world are now looking into glycobiology as a way to fight the cold war and stop nuclear disasters. Forever, glycobiology! Even the housewives are using glycobiology in all the latest and greatest cooking methods. How’s that?
Brock: That was awesome. You’ve been…
Ben: Okay.
Brock: Distortion was appropriate.
Ben: Glycobiology. Actually – so here’s the deal with glycobiology. If you define glycobiology, it’s just the biology of sugar chains, okay? That’s like glycans or what are called sugar chains. In biology, you might also know the “misaccharides” like monosaccharides or disaccharides or polysaccharides.
[0:30:03.1]
And there’s a lot of different ways that sugars can be stuck together. Now, the deal with glycobiology is that it’s a growing field… for in – and I’m gonna try and explain this in a way that’s not super duper confusing, but there are molecules called glycoconjugates in your body which are all these different kind of sugars that are stuck together, and typically when someone is developing a drug or pharmaceutical or something that’s going to act upon one of these sugars, they focus on not the core chain of the sugar. What would be called – if you’re thinking about it like a tree with a bunch of branches coming out of it, they’re not focusing on the scaffolding on the tree itself but rather on all of the different branches. That’s what a drug or a pharmaceutical would work on, so they’re focusing more on the things coming off of the tree than the tree itself or what would be considered the scaffold. So, when you look at glycobiology, what scientist now finding is that, you can actually – you can target the tree itself rather than the branches coming off the tree when you’re looking at one of these biomolecules. One of these what are called glycoconjugates. So, what that means is that, we all of a sudden can develop a bunch of new potential ways to fight against cancer, or potential for example, vaccinations would be another field where these could come into play, even ways that we could figure out how to fight against chronic diseases like diabetes for example by targeting the tree rather than the branches coming off the tree. That’s basically glycobiology is. I know this is probably super duper boring for those who tuned to this podcast that you can burn fat faster, run faster. But the idea here is that, they’re now developing anti-flu drugs, anti-cancer drugs, etc. that focused on the core of these glycan chains rather than the sugars themselves. And that’s basically what glycobiology is.
Brock: Cool!
Ben: As far as whether or not it’s the wave of the future, etc. I have no clue. I do know that the – what they called the glycomix market which is a market that’s focused on like drug discovery and development and immunology, and oncology and other applications that you can use glycobiology for. It does seem to be exploding. There’s a recent article and I don’t know if this is the article that Bryan read, but it was a recent article that came out that showed that the glycobiology or what’s called the glycomix market is going to be exploding to almost a billion dollars by 2019 in terms of all the different types of enzymes and instruments and kits that are being created to allow you to target the core of the sugar rather than the sugar chains themselves. So, ultimately I think it’s an interesting question but considering that in most cases especially on this podcast, we’re looking for natural solutions rather than drugs anyways, I mean I’m all about preventive living when it comes to cancer and diabetes. So, I’m still pretty obsessed with the whole – like sleeping naked and getting sunshine thing that I am on developing glycobiology based drugs, but if you’re an investor, looking for a field to invest in, it does seem to be quite promising and explosive when it comes to something that could blow up in the future as far as health research and the development of new drugs.
Brock: Where’s my checkbook?
Jonas: Hi, my name is Jonas Lurkpin, I’m biking in mountain bike to work everyday and I’ve done so for many years. And I would like to know how my sitting position should be not from – yeah, from the point of view of not getting any injuries later on. So, not from biking the postures or anything, but not to have problems with my back or my shoulders or anything else. So, how should my shoulders be placed? Should I have a straight back or curve back? How should my saddle be positioned? So, just – I don’t wanna wake up 10 years from now and learn that – you should have been sitting like this, so that’s why you have this bad injury or whatever.
[0:35:01.5]
So, any thoughts on this. Thanks a lot for a great show. Bye!
Brock: I like Jonas’ style. He’s not worried about going fast, he’s not worried about being maximum, efficiency, or anything. He just doesn’t wanna screw himself over.
Ben: That’s right. So, you think he’s talking literally about like his crotchal function?
Brock: I think he’s talking about everything.
Ben: Like testicles…
Brock: Yeah, he doesn’t wanna have a broken back and knees, and testicles.
Ben: Yeah, what I mean, we can start with the big obvious here and that’s the fact that a bike seat for both men and women puts pressure on a bunch of a nerves and blood vessels that are in your – what’s called your perineal area and then for men it’s the back of your scrotum. And that has been shown the cause and pretty big problems like mountain biking for example, because the rough terrain can cause some really severe problems. They had one study that show that 96% of male mountain bikers have what are called scrotal abnormalities. Add that one to vernacular…
Brock: That’s very much everybody.
Ben: Yeah, like calcium deposits and what are called sperm containing cysts and twisted veins, and all sorts of nasty issues…
Brock: What’s it called again?
Ben: Scrotal abnormalities…
Brock: Yikes.
Ben: I think you have a new name for your band…
Brock: Yes! Totally.
Ben: Yes. So, there’s another study that found the impact of cycling on the groin could lead to small scars within the scrotum and lower sperm production. Last week we talked about how being a vegan can lower sperm production and it turns out – probably the worst thing you could do is be a crappy vegan mountain biker when it comes to sperm.
Brock: That uses a laptop without a pad.
Ben: Yeah, or you could do that and avoid ever having a vasectomy again. So, yeah, low sperm count and scrotal abnormalities from cycling and then aside from contact with the bike seat itself, you get a bunch of heat generated in the groin area and that also impair your sperm functions. So, there’s that and then there’s also of course the potential damage to your testicles and the surrounding area and that specifically nerve damage. This is why when I would train for Ironman and I do my longer bike days, I’d come home and my wife could have been wearing like a negligee lying on a bed of rose petals with some sexy jazz music playing and I wouldn’t have been able to do a thing about it because of the neuropathy, the nerve damage that can occur when you are riding for long periods of time essentially you can get impotent for short periods of time which I think a lot of guys for example been riding for long periods of time, and it can affect women’s ability to orgasm or experience pleasure in other regions as well. Just because that neuropathy – that nerve damage… So, you’ve got what’s called the pudendal nerve and that’s between your genitals and your anus, and it’s responsible for sending information to your gonads and all the surrounding area, and the bike seat put direct pressure. Traditional bikes puts direct pressure on that pudendal nerve, and so you essentially are kind of turning off all the nerves in that area of your body. So…
Brock: Excuse me, I’m just gonna throw my bicycle away…. Now.
Ben: So when it comes to sperm production, impotence, neuropathy, things of that nature, you just go for a noseless saddle. I mean, those are pretty easy to find these days. My favorite is a company called ISM, they make a saddle called Adamo and it’s just a noseless saddle. And it’s very, very comfortable, I’ve discovered it a couple of years ago. That’s primarily what I use. A lot of other bicycle seat manufacturers are switching to sure noseless now. So, that’s probably the best bet if you’re concerned about this from like a sexual function standpoint.
Brock: So when you’re sitting on that one, your weight isn’t on your pubic bone, it’s on your seat bone? Where? What are you seating on right now?
Ben: You’re essentially spread across what would be called your ischial tuberosity or kinda like the outside bones of your pelvic bone and you’re not on your perineum or the softer of your crotch. So, essentially your entire weight is supported by your pelvic bone which makes sense. As far as other issues with the bike, obviously, when you’re sitting for long periods of time, hunch over computer for example, right, your shoulders are hunched forward, you’re leaning forward, your hip flexors are shortened, and if you think about it, you are replicating that position when you are on a bike, especially if you’re like a triathlete for example riding in a time travel position hunched over your aero bars for a long period of time. I think that the benefits especially from a cardio vascular, and happiness, and getting out in nature, and getting the wind in your face and sun on your skin standpoint, I think all of those pros outweigh the cons like not biking, but I do think that from a biomechanical standpoint, you have to do things to reverse some of the potential muscle imbalances that can build up when you’re riding.
[0:40:08.8]
Doing things like seated rows so that you’re pulling your shoulders back after they’ve been hunched over on a bicycle. Doing things like some really, really good lunging hip flexor openers, or better yet using for example, this is something I really like, the Core Foundation book by Dr. Eric Goodman, or The Core Foundation DVDs by Dr. Eric Goodman. I think every cyclist and every runner should be doing those as part of their program at least once a week. I personally do them 2-3 times a week. So I alternate every morning between doing Yoga one morning for 10-15 minutes, and doing this core foundation exercises by Dr. Eric Goodman, 2-3 times a week. And that’s a really, really good way to open up all the muscles that tend to get shortened when you either riding a bike or you’re hunched over computer. Two things that are part of my life and so I do those in addition to making sure to do a lot of pulling. So, seated rows, pull ups, things of that nature, and then I’ll stop every once in a while and do like a standing hip flexor stretch. So, those would be the two main things that come to mind would be muscle imbalances, and then some potential danger to the crotches of our dear listeners.
So, what I’ll do in the show notes, we will want them – over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/300, I’ll put a link to the ISM Adamo Saddle page. We can go kinda peruse some of their noseless saddles and then also the Core Foundation book that I was just talking about, if you want some resources and you’re a bicyclist who doesn’t want to be impotent with an ugly body.
Mark: Hi Ben and Brock, Mark from Philadelphia. I ride lots of my isometric bicycle and I always have water bottles. I’ve seen some articles recently suggesting that even non-BPA plastics are dangerous to your health. I’m wondering if you have any recommendations at what water bottles to use. Thank you and hope to hear from you soon.
Brock: So, I guess first of all, why is BPA bad? Why are we concern about that in the first place?
Ben: Well, BPA is essentially – it’s like an estrogen mimicker in the body. And that’s something that we’ve known for a long time that BPA or Bisphenol A is basically a hormonal disruptor and you know, they’ve done a huge, huge number of studies in terms of cell culture studies as well as in vivo studies in humans and epidemiological studies and they’ve certainly found out that from an endocrinology standpoint, that BPA disrupts hormone production and can also cause for example estrogen dominance in both men and women. They’ll be like man boobs in men and weight gain in women, potential autoimmune issues, basically creating a hyper-reactive immune systems. So you’ve got increased risk for things like asthma and acne, and things of that nature. And even like this combination of diabetes and obesity called diabesity and there’s a whole number of environmental toxins and chemicals, and plastic that can contribute to obesity because when you are expose to plastics, toxins, things that your body can’t metabolize, you tend to store that in fat tissue. So your body creates new fat cells to store that. So, a huge number of issues when it comes to non-BPA based plastic, and that’s why there are certain plastics that you should avoid. So if you’re looking like a plastic bottle, there are typically 7 different numbers that you could see and each of those numbers reflect something different, like plastic number 1 is what you’d see in the big like 2 liter soda bottles or like peanut bottle jars like it’s the thicker plastic. It’s kinda rigid, but it’s relatively light weight, the problem is that that can break down when it gets exposed to heat or when it gets exposed to light. So, plastic number 1 is one that can be dangerous if you’ve got like illegal water bottle in your car, and it gets hot for example, and that’s plastic number, not such a great thing. That’s one that can breakdown and build up in your body and that would be one n0n-BPA played plastic. Plastic number 2, that would be the type of plastic you’d find in detergent bottle or like a milk jug. It’s a really sturdy plastic. It’s a little bit less leaching, so technically from a plastic standpoint, it is a safer plastic than number 1. So, the number 2 is called high density polyethylene, you still get some leaching but it’s not bad for beverage and food storage. And it’s a little bit more dishwasher safe, it’s a little bit more able to withstand high temperatures. I’m still going to give you some alternatives to plastics that we personally use in our house but if you had to choose plastics like number 2, isn’t that bad.
[0:45:04.1]
Plastic number 3 is what you’d find in plastic pipes. You’d find it in shrink wraps, you’d find in like salad dressing containers, it’s called polyvinyl chloride and that one is pretty bad one. It contains thalates and those mimic human hormones and are pretty bad, and if they wash out into the water, they affect fish, they affect ocean life. That’s kind of a nasty one. So, that’s polyvinyl chloride.
Brock: Isn’t PBC what we made – what we use for plumbing and houses?
Ben: Yup, exactly.
Brock: Ew, that’s not cool.
Ben: Yeah, not such a great solution. You know, especially if it gets heated up. So, another one is plastic number 4, that’s called low density polyethylene. You’ll find that in like trash can liners like garbage can liners, stuff like that. It’s pretty flexible, it’s relatively microwave-proof, relatively dishwasher safe, relatively heat stable and kinda like number 2, one of the least damaging of the plastics. So number 2 and number 4 are two okay numbers. Number 5 is another one, it’s called polypropylene, and you’re gonna find that like in bottle cups, drinking straws, stuff like that. That’s also pretty resistant to heat, and a decent option. So, two, four and five so far are the decent ones. One and three especially if you’re gonna drink out of them or eat out of them, would be ones to avoid. Number 6 is polystyrene, and that’s like Styrofoam basically. So, you’re gonna find that like star foam peanuts and in some plastic tableware, and like those “to go” containers that you get from the Chinese restaurants. That is a major component of plastic debris in the ocean where it gets pretty toxic for marine life, it’s hard to recycle, it’s not one of I’m a fan of using just or for the consideration of our planet. So, plastic number 6 basically Styrofoam, not a good one. Plastic number 7 is basically anything else. It’s like food containers made out of something called black sand, Tupperware, it’s pretty much any of the plastic that’s not number 1 through number 6. Polycarbonate is probably the most well known one and it leaches a lot of BPA. Most plastics number 7s are not all that great. So, two, four, and five would be kinda the better plastics to use, if you’re gonna use a plastic. But then there was this relatively new form of plastic that popped up in the past decade, considered to be a safe plastic, a BPA-free plastic that was supposed to be really heat stable, really chemical resistant, really resistant to plastic degradation, and it was made by – well, it’s branded as something called Tritan – t-r-i-t-a-n. And it’s also known as copolyester, and Tritan is something that you’ll find used by like Nalgene, and CamelBak and a lot of these other companies that are making BPA-free products. One of the problems though is that there was a recent study that found that BPA is not free of what’s called astrogenic activity which means that it can actually be a hormonal disruptor and what we thought BPA-free plastic specifically were safe, they are indeed potentially harmful and can leach and aren’t necessarily the safest thing on the face of the planet if you want every advantage possible. There’s even some evidence that some of these BPA-free plastics might be even more estrogenic than BPA itself especially if they get heated. So, it really is kind of an issue especially if you’re putting these BPA-free plastics into the microwave or into a dishwasher, or leaving it out in the dashboard of your car, in the sun. They actually did a bunch of tests on this and found that just like normal contact with food or water in a slightly heated situations was enough for the chemicals to leach into the food and into the water. So it’s kinda ironic that you know, for example we’ve all been lead to believe that Nalgene bottles are the ones to buy when in fact that may not be the case. So, as far as what we do in our house, when we pack lunch for our kids for example, a couple of things we do. We use something called LunchBots which are stainless steel containers that we put their food into. So Jessa, when she sends the kids off to school puts – like she makes like little sushi rolls a lot of times, like carrots and celeries, some flax seed crackers, sometimes like some hummus or some type of like a goat cheese…
Brock: Did you learn how to say that when you were in Israel?
Ben: Yes. Hummus semetaneous chima. So, yes! Aflafol.
[0:50:04.8]
Anyways though, so Jessa makes the kids a lunch the night before they go to school, and she puts them into these LunchBots which are stainless steel, and you can get those at like Amazon. I’ll put links in the show notes if you want to go to like the LunchBots page on Amazon, and that’s one thing that we use them for their water. We use a stainless steel container for them called Klean Kanteen…
Brock: I’ve seen those all over the place.
Ben: Yeah, and Klean Kanteen makes water bottles too not just for kids but also for adults. And that’s again a stainless steel container and that or like drinking out of glass maison jars, or glass jars, or glass cups is a much, much better bet than plastic. We use Pyrex containers in our house for storing food and those are just glass containers. The lid itself is plastic but when you think about it, that’s not as big of a deal because typically the lid isn’t coming in contact with the food. Unless you’re like me and you put way, way too much food in these glass containers, and then you shove the lid on, and of course the lid…
Brock: So they need set to avoid the top layer.
Ben: Yeah, yeah, just don’t lick the lid. But Pyrex glass containers are really good for storing food along with glass maison jars and then Klean Kanteen’s the stainless steel version for drinking fluids and water and you can use those on a bicycle too by the way. And then, LunchBots for actually packing food for again for kids or adults, if you’re going to the office or whatever with packed lunch. Those LunchBots worked pretty well. So, those are some of the better alternatives. You know, it’s still one of those things were as really, really tough especially if you’re an athlete who’s competing in events where they’re gonna be handing a plastic bottle no matter what. You gotta grab that, you gotta drink out of it, and you gotta roll with the punches, right. You can’t live life in a bubble but try as much as possible especially when you’re at home and you can control the environment to use glass and stainless steel. And that’s what we do.
Johan: Hello! My question is rather complicated one regarding hormones. The positive effects related to fasting seems to be quite evident. You have an effect for instance with human growth hormone, as well as for instance your boost to your immune systems. Possibly “rebooting” completely or you can use the system of 24 hours of fasting, and – so the question is – if you’re doing this fasting 24 hours and training, and by training getting positive effects via testosterone, that seems to be really powerful way of combining health and training. If it is, that the case for several and secondly, is there a reason to suspect that that could be a good thing also for kids. Maybe they instead need to really get into fat burning load that’s reducing also insulin growth factor 1 that seems to be a very, very negative aspect of carbs loading, and carbs diet, and for kids it seems like insulin growth factors, one contributing factor for them entry into puberty too early reduce tight so…
Brock: Alright everybody, go into your closet and find your propeller hat. I feel that this one is going to get scien-cy.
Ben: Nah, actually I’ll try and keep this – this [0:53:41.0] ______ one that I want. Actually I lied, I’m not gonna keep that simple.
Brock: Okay, go for it.
Ben: So, here’s the deal. There was recently a research study that was released by Brad Schoenfeld, I think it was on the National Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, and it talked about how both fasted and non-fasted exercise can improve body composition and that both of them are relatively equal when it comes to burning body fat. I actually tweeted about this and I noted that it would have been interesting to see some of the biohacks that I use and that I encourage my clients and our listeners to use when they’re doing fasted exercise, right. Like doing your fasted exercise after a cold shower, so that you’ll increase your activity of brown adipose tissue or doing your fasted exercise with caffeine in your system so that you get a slight upregulation of fatty acid oxidation, right. So, you’ll like you take a cold shower, you have a cup of coffee, and then you do like your fasted exercise after that. So some of those little biohacks when taken into consideration in that study. But the other thing that wasn’t taken into consideration was that fasted exercise goes way above and beyond just like trying to burn a little extra body fat. And there’s a lot of cool things that happen when you exercise in a fasted state.
[0:55:00.1]
So, one of the things that that does indeed happen when we look at this from like a potential body composition standpoint is, when you fast you get improved insulin sensitivity. So as most of us know, when you eat, your body releases insulin which is a hormone which helps you absorb the nutrients from your food, which helps you for example shove glucose in the muscle tissue or into liver or even sometimes the fat cells to be use as energy later on. And, your amount of insulin sensitivity that you have and the need for more or less insulin is affected by fasting and fasting specifically improves insulin sensitivity. The other thing that it does though is that, it increases production of human growth hormone and there was one study that showed that 24 hours without food increased growth hormone production by 2,000% in men and by 1300% in women.
Brock: Wow!
Ben: And in addition to that, it has an effect on testosterone, meaning it increases testosterone and that is probably because of that increased in human growth hormone. So, the thing is, as far as human growth hormone, that increase in human growth hormone helps to preserve muscle tissue, for anabolic – it helps you store more energy and more like nutrient substrate is glycogen, rather as fat, and it helps you engage in lipolysis. So you break down your own fat, you release free fatty acids and glycerol, and then you metabolize those to create energy. And they’ve seen that human growth hormone will increase even after an overnight fast, but it was something like intermittent fasting, for example you stop eating at 7PM and you start eating again like 8AM or 9AM. Thirteen hours is the shortest period of time that’s been shown to cause a really significant increase in human growth hormone production by your pituitary gland. So you don’t have to do a full day fast, you can even do intermittent fasting to increase this human growth hormone. Now, so just stepping back here – we know that fasting can increase human growth hormone and testosterone. We also know, and I talked about this quite a bit in my book “Beyond Training”, that fasting can decrease inflammation, that it can decrease the rate of which telomere shortens, so it has like an anti-aging effect, it can help with burning fatty acids depending on whether or not you’re using some of these biohacks I talked about earlier. And so, there’s a lot of benefits. Johan asks a couple interesting questions. First of all he says – if you are fasting and training to get the positive effects of testosterone, is that a powerful way to combine health and training? Now, here is the issue. The studies that have shown people to have an increase in human growth hormone when they fast, we’re not necessarily looking at hard and heavy training in a fasted state. They’re just looking at fasting itself. Once you throw in hard training as a way to increase growth hormone or increase testosterone when fasted, then you’re putting your body into a potentially catabolic state. And this is why I’m a fan of – if you’re going to exercise in a fasted state, keeping things very aerobic and I actually just wrote an article for quickanddirtytips.com about how the best scenario is to find your fat burning zone, which is generally the heart rate at which you start to breathe hard, and your muscle start to burn, you take that heart rate and you subtract 20 beats. And that’s your approximate fat burning zone and that would be the zone at which you’d exercise when you’re in a fasted state, if you want to avoid that catabolic effect where you would potentially have a unfavorable testosterone to cortisol ratio. So, that’s one thing to bear in mind – is that combining fasting and training is okay and you could still get some of the human growth hormone boosting effects of fasting but you wouldn’t want to do lots of hard and heavy training – like weight training or high intensity interval training in that fasted state. Now once we jump into kids, and helping to control insulin like growth factor in kids, this is a really interesting consideration whether or not kids should be fasting to control IGF1 and to increase their human growth hormone. So, here’s – I’ll get into why kids are potentially going to puberty earlier and some of the issues with HGH and IGF1 to kinda step back and give you the big picture for those of you who aren’t aware of this problem.
[1:00:05.8]
Basically kids are going through puberty much earlier nowadays. Now as far as what’s normal, girls have always developed earlier than boys. Usually we see girls go through period like between the age of 8 and 12, and boys somewhere between like 9 and 14 years old. But the new normal based off studies that they’ve done, have found that girls are going through puberty like 8 or 9 years old and boys are going through puberty a little bit before the age of 10. So it changed really, really significantly. Like in – if you look at one study, they found that in 1860 – the year 1860, the average age of the onset of puberty in girls was 16 years old, and then in 1920, it was 14 years old, and then in 1950, it was 13 years old, and in 1980 it was 12 years old, and by 2010 it drops to 10 years old. And so, in an African-American girls, like it was going on an 8 years old, and for Asian girls, it was dropping around 9 years old. So, really, really weird trend in this onset of puberty. As far as why, there’s a lot of different speculation as to why. They’re saying it’s stress – physical, emotional, relationship, and lifestyle stress based on us living on a more stressful environment could potentially one of the reasons for this. They say that light cycles, like longer periods of time spent to artificial light especially at night having that body in a constant, basically would be called a constant summer state, could potentially cause this. Chemical exposure, some of the plastics that we talked about earlier as well as the hormones and chemicals that we find in meats and milks and things of that nature, could also be causing this. It’s probably a cluster of symptoms. It’s really, really tough to say but one of the bigger issues here would likely be endocrine disruptors that we find in a lot of the plastics that I just got done talking about as well as any environmental chemical pollutant like herbicides, pesticides, a lot of the plastic preservatives that are found in cosmetic products, plastic toys, hairsprays, deodorants, car fresheners, shampoo, nail polish, perfumes. We just took our kids to Disneyland yesterday and when I took them there because we’re on vacation in Long Beach right now, when we took them there they gave us like a car air freshener like when we came in through the parking lot, and the first thing that I did was pull up and throw it in the garbage can, and my boys like – why, that’s smell nice dad. I’m like – it smells nice guys but actually that nice smell is really, really bad for you. I just toss in the trash like car air fresheners are one of those things among others that are one of these issues when it comes to a lot of these environmental pollutants that could potentially be causing us to go through puberty earlier. There’s one really, really interesting study where there is this chemical spill of an insecticide called DDT, it’s like a mosquito spray and what happen was they had a chemical spill and alligators, the male alligators living in the lake started going to puberty earlier and I have no clue how they study that, or why they studies it or how you actually were grabbing alligators and seeing how early they went through puberty and somewhat curling that to a chemical spill but…
Brock: They’re looking into their armpits to see if they had hair yet.
Ben: Yes, exactly. So, seeing when they start rebelling against their parents. But basically, really, really interesting. So, it’s probably very chemical based. Now, one of the things that we know is that when you get increased exposure to hormones specifically the type of things you would find in some of these endocrine disruptors and endocrine mimickers and also in like meats and like milk from commercial dairy and stuff like that, you get an increase in insulin like growth factor, which is also known as IGF. And this increase in IGF1 can be one of the things that also correlates to an increase in human growth hormone and causes you to go through puberty earlier. So, when we step back and look at this, an increase in human growth hormone or an increase in IGF1 brought on by for example, a long periods of time spent fasting would not necessarily be a way to control puberty in kids. If we’re thinking about from a logical standpoint, you know, putting kids through fasted scenarios like that might actually cause an earlier onset of puberty by causing an increase production of human growth hormone, and possibly an increase in some of the insulin growth factor as well. I think that might be a much, much better idea to just give your kids LunchBots, stainless steel containers, glass food, you know, detox your house, use natural personal care products and household cleaning chemicals.
[1:05:06.0]
Keep them away from mosquito repellants and herbicides, and pesticides by giving them organic fruits and vegetables, and a lot type of stuff rather than having your kids fast which I think potentially could cause them to go through puberty earlier, unless I am confusing Johan’s question here. I think this is basically not such a good idea to have your kids fast plus they’d probably hate you anyways, if you have them fast for a long periods of time. But yeah, I mean, that’s the big pictures, that kinda make sense?
Brock: Yeah, yeah! Actually that was remarkably easy to follow even though it was very scien-cy.
Ben: Remarkably? Yes!
Brock: My propeller hat is working well today.
Ben: Well, if you saw my podcasting environment today, you would understand why I’m so – is cogant the word? Cogent?
Brock: Cogent, yes.
Ben: Cogent, yes. Why I’m so cogent. I’m actually standing right now which of course we all know that increases your brain derived neurotrophic factor that makes you smarter, but I’m standing in a small bedroom of a rented house in Long Beach with my microphone propped up on four pillows. My laptop on a chair, with the chair on top of the bed, and then children running around and playing downstairs. It’s really, really interesting scenario.
Brock: It does sound like you’re recording in a kindergarten.
Ben: Yes. There are children playing downstairs with the podcast audience sounds a little bit different today that’s why it’s vacation…
Brock: Blame Disneyland…
Ben: … vacation Long Beach. That’s right blame Disneyland. So, anyways though, resources for all of the stuff. We’re going to put them over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/300, a long for the discount for UCAN, the discount for Onnit, some of the studies that we talked about, the Unbeatable Mind Retreat, the getaway in Dubai, my Rev Yourself Conference, and all the other things that we’d talked about during the Q and A. But then also, we are going to send out an official Ben Greenfield fitness gear pack to one lucky listener, as they say in Canada, Hasa! Or as we say here in America, Hooray!
Brock: What you say, Yahoo!
Ben: Happy, happy, joy, joy!
Brock: Yeehah!
Ben: Yeehah! So anyways, we have a review from Blueteo, who says – “How my mornings went from simple to super.” What do you think, Brock? You wanna take this one?
Brock: Uh hmm. It goes like this: “Dear Ben and Brock, this podcast seriously revolutionized my life. I never thought I’d go out and buy Himalayan crystals salt lamp and an air purifier until the day you guys rewired my brain to take control of my environment, of the environment I live in. Also, I switched to Doctor Bronner’s soap and I noticed it has relieved my hives that would occasionally break out.” That’s good. Nobody wants hives.
Ben: Yeah! Little TMI but okay.
Brock: He didn’t say where. Uh, I’m assuming it’s a guy… “I learn so much from you guys. I want to thank you guys for an awesome show that I eagerly wait for every Wednesday and Saturday while I eat my morning, acai?”
Ben: Acai bowl…
Brock: What’s acai bowl?
Ben: It’s like a bowl that has like acai berries and like fruits and stuff in it.
Brock: Hmm, delicious.
Ben: Yeah, very hippy.
Brock: “…and sit next to the hot oven on a cold fall morning. Thanks!” – Mateo.
Ben: Wow!
Brock: Is that some sort of a sign off like, Namaste! Mateo!
Ben: No, I think that’s Mateo’s actual name. That’s a lot of stuff: a Himalayan crystals salt lamp, an air purifier, Dr. Bronner’s soap for your hives, sorry about those. Your morning acai bowl, and your hot oven on a cold fall morning. Amazing! Wow! This guy is like a walking and talking testimonial for everything that we’ve ever recommended on the podcast.
Brock: Hmm, Mateo!
Ben: So yeah, Mateo! Write us an email, [email protected]. Send us your address and we are going to send you a cool tech t-shirt, a water bottle, and a beanie cap. And so, if you’re listening in and you also are covered in Dr. Bronner’s soap, sitting next to your Himalayan crystal salt lamp and hunched over eating out of your acai bowl, hopefully with a bamboo spoon, not a plastic spoon, then you can leave your review at iTunes and if you hear us read your review, then we will send you a sweet Ben Greenfield fitness gear pack or you can just support the show by going to bengreenfieldfitness.com/gear and order a pack for yourself. So, that being said…
[1:10:01.5]
Brock: I’ll go ahead and start saying that at the end of every Yoga class, I just be like… Mateo.
Ben: Mateo…
Brock: Mateo….
Ben: So, bengreenfieldfitness.com/giveaway, get on that biomat contest, for our American listeners – Happy Turkey Day/Thanksgiving! For our UK listeners, sorry that we kicked the red coats butt 200 some odd years ago, and we are now… so why we’re celeb… was that 4th of July? I forget.
Brock: What? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Thanksgiving…
Ben: I’m getting my history mixed up. Thanksgiving is when we came over with the programs and that…
Brock: That’s when you brought small pox and what…
Ben: Yeah! All those small nuts and a cornets with the Native Americans so…
Brock: Yeah, which is a really nice thing to celebrate… our freedom.
Ben: But still I’m gonna snow ball over our London listeners about how we beat the red coats.
Brock: I could bring up the time that Canadians burnt down the White House in the war of 1812.
Ben: Yes, and tell all of our Native American listeners, thank you for teaching us about popcorn… uhm…
Brock: … and sorry.
Ben: And sorry for what?
Brock: Everything.
Ben: Everything, uhm, by the way, I did just find out my wife is I think 1/16th Native American? So, no! 1/8th Native American, kids are 1/16th Native American. Found out her dad’s like co – core Native American.
Brock: How did she know that?
Ben: I don’t know but she could have gotten so many more like college scholarships so… yeah. Oh well, total segue but anyways, Ben Greenfield fitness, we got to end this thing, bengreenfieldfitness.com/300, check it out and have a wonderful week!
Visit bengreenfieldfitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition, and performance advice.
[1:12:13.0] END
Nov 26, 2014 Podcast: 5×5 Workouts, What Is Glycobiology, Is Sitting On A Bike Bad For You, What Is Best Plastic For Water Bottles, and Can You Increase Growth Hormone With Fasting?
Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right, use the Contact button on the app, click Ask a Podcast Question at the bottom of this page, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form… but be prepared to wait – we prioritize audio questions over text questions.
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News Flashes:
You can receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield, Facebook.com/BGFitness and Google+.
- Bill Clinton’s gone from vegan to low carb paleo.
- Lack of sun can increase diabetes risk. (this may also be why you can eat MORE carbs when in tropical climates).
- But sleeping naked can decrease diabetes risk.
- And this, my friends, is why I use an EMF, heat blocking pad under my laptop. (I use the HARAPAD)
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Special Announcements:
This podcast is brought to you by Generation UCAN. Just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/UCAN to save 15% on the stuff that keeps you in fat-burning mode all day long.
This podcast is also brought to you by Onnit. Just click here to see a video of Ben Greenfield and top Spartan athlete Hunter McIntyre punishing maces, steel bells, primal bells, medicine balls and much more. You save 10% at http://www.onnit.com/bengreenfield.
As part of our celebration of our 300th podcast episode, the Great Biomat Giveaway goes live Nov 26-Dec 3. Click here to get in now and maximize your chance of $1750 worth of detox prizes!
December 15-19, 2014: Ben interviews 23 of the world’s leading experts in performance, recovery, nutrition, fat loss, brain, sleep and hormone optimization, and you get a free all-access pass. Check it out now at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/RevYourself.
Go ask your burning Obstacle Racing questions at ObstacleDominator.com for the brand new Obstacle Dominator podcast.
December 4-5 Ben will be speaking at Mark Divine’s Unbeatable Mind Retreat in Encinitas California. This is a life-changing experience for anyone looking to learn about SEAL principles, health and peak performance – with LIVE, hands-on training from Mark Divine and a world-renowned team of experts.
January 30th – 31st, 2015, Ben will be speaking in Dubai – Talise Fitness and Jumeirah Emirates Towers, proudly invite you to take part in an exclusive two day seminar held by the renowned nutrition and fitness expert, best selling author, coach, speaker, ex-bodybuilder and Ironman triathlete, Ben Greenfield. Click here for all details.
Grab this Official Ben Greenfield Fitness Gear package that comes with a tech shirt, a beanie and a water bottle.
And of course, this week’s top iTunes review – gets some BG Fitness swag straight from Ben – leave your review for a chance to win some!
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Listener Q&A:
As compiled, deciphered, edited and sometimes read by Brock Skywalker Armstrong, the Podcast Sidekick and Audio Ninja.
What Is Glycobiology?
Bryan asks: He recently has been hearing the term glycobiology. He is wondering what your thoughts are on the subject and whether you agree that it is as important as some people are saying to the future of our health?
Is Sitting On A Bike Bad For You?
Jonas asks: He rides a mountain bike to work everyday and is wondering how he should be sitting on it, not necessarily to go the fastest but to ensure he doesn’t get injured or create any issues later in life. He doesn’t want to wake up 10 years from now and find out that he shouldn’t have been “sitting like this”.
In my response I recommend:
–ISM Adamo Saddles
–Core Foundation exercises
What Is Best Plastic For Water Bottles?
Mark asks: He has been reading recently that even BPA free plastic water bottles can be harmful to your health. Do you have any recommendations on what water bottles are safe to use?
In my response I recommend:
–Lunchbots
–Klean Kanteen
Can You Increase Growth Hormone With Fasting?
Johan asks: He has read that the positive effects of fasting (24 hours or more) are quite evident with HGH and “rebooting” your immune system. If you are fasting and training to get the positive effects of testosterone, is that a powerful way to combine health and training? Could this also be helpful for kids to help control IGF1 and thus stop them from entering puberty too early by relying on HGH instead of IGF1?