January 26, 2011
Introduction: In this podcast, how to manipulate temperature to burn fat, how to choose a healthy breakfast cereal, carb blockers, are juices okay, what to do if you can’t do a squat, a supplement called moomiyo, Monster Lo-Carb energy drink, does looking behind you slow down your running pace, can carbonated water give you a side stitch during exercise, is running twice a day better than once, how to eat healthy on a low-fiber diet, supplements that make you smarter, separated shoulder exercises, calorie rich food for very long runs, and a supplement called AthleticGreens.
Ben: Last week, we interviewed Chris Bohannon and he told us about these things he knew, body cooling devices. And today, we’re going to take that one step further and instead of talking about enhancing your performance by manipulating temperature, we’re going to talk about burning fat and losing weight by manipulating temperature and I’ve got two guests: Tim Ferris and Ray Cronise. Tim is the author of 4-Hour Body and you may know who he is. Ray Cronise is a NASA materials engineer and a very smart guy. The two of them and me have an interview in today’s featured topic. And then you’ll also get access today to a ton of information in our listener Q&A.
To those of you who popped on the blog this Monday morning, you may have noticed that you had a live 2-hour video for me, primarily consisting of me dressed in like we are sitting on a bike. I was doing a very advanced bike fit called a retool bike fit. Did the whole thing live, and this is the most technological way to make your bike fit like a glove that you can find anywhere. Anyway, if you want to see the replay of that video, I’ve made it available over at BenGreeenfieldFitness.com. So be sure to check that out and be sure to look for update from me once I actually get up there and ride the bike so that I can tell you how a bike fit like that actually jives in terms of its real world practicality.
Two other special announcements. The first is that remember to visit the link that I put in the show notes to the brand new supplements that I’m featuring including Mt. Capra double Bonded Whey Protein, which is that goat protein that your body treats far differently than a regular cow-based whey protein. Absorption is much better. You should check that out along with the source energy that I put in there. The Capra Flex, which is the only form of glucosamine chondroitin that I found actually worked well. Vitamin D, Fish Oil, Super Fat from Bioletics that’s now available straight from the podcast show notes BenGreenfieldFitness.com, and then finally, full GI food allergy testing panel, if you want to know exactly what’s going on inside your gut. That would be the gold standard test so that you have zero guess work about what you’re supposed to be eating. The other thing is, be sure to check out https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/innercircle and the free videos. If you haven’t checked that out, you’ll get to see a day in a life of healthy living as my wife and I follow each other around with the video camera. So let’s go ahead and jump right in to this week’s content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.
Ben: Remember, if you have a question, you can ask it by going to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and clicking on the show notes to any of the episodes. And if you wonder what the show notes are, if any of the posts start with episode number, like this one will be Episode #130, those are the show notes. And in the show notes is the Ask Ben for that is right above all the Q & A notes. You can also call toll free to 877 209 9439 if you want to ask your question via audio, or you can ask me via Twitter, by going to twitter.com/bengreenfield. Finally, you can ask via free iPhone app, you’ve got the BenGreenfieldFitness.com iPhone app, just click the Ask Ben button.
Patrick asks: I know you’re not the biggest fan of breakfast cereals, but what’s your take on Kellog’s new offering Fiber Plus AO?
Ben: In this case, AO stands for anti-oxidants. No big surprise there. They’re very, very sexy in nutrition these days. So what they’ve done is they got the Kellogg’s fiber plus, which is basically about 35% of the RDA for fiber, and they’ve added anti-oxidants specifically Vitamin E and Zinc into the cereal mix. And so if you go through the list, you’ve got the chicory root fiber, and chicory root fiber is actually a pretty common fiber supplement kind of a filler. It fills you up more quickly, keeps you satiated, reduces some of the absorption of fat, helps food to move through your intestine, so chicory root fiber is a very common fiber source that you’re going to find in a lot of these packaged supplements or bars or cereals that are adding extra fiber. And they move on to rolled oats, rice flour, sugar, malt extract, salt, more sugar semi-sweet chocolate drops, more sugar, coco butter, milk fats, soy lecithin, confectioneries glaze, coconut oil, vegetable oil made up of palm, kernel, coconut and palm oil, canola oil, fructose, honey, coco, glycerin, soy lecithin again with starch non fact dry milk, partially defatted peanut flour, soy protein isolate and then BHT, which is a preservative that they add for freshness. That’s quite the laundry list. And there are some things that are good on there and some things that may not be too great for you on there, specifically the high amounts of inflammatory omega 6 fatty acids from the vegetable oils, as well as a lot of preservatives and the sweeteners. Tons of sugar that they add to these things. Just like any breakfast cereal, that’s the reason that I’m not a huge fan of breakfast cereals. Tons of sugar, acid and omega 6 to start off your day. Considering that you can save 50% to 75% over a cereal like this, and instead just make yourself a bowl of oatmeal and put over the fruit in there like a handful of blueberries or raisins or figs, throw in some almonds in there. Maybe throw in a little bit of whey protein, or hemp protein or rice protein in there and you get the same thing. Again, these things receive an A for effort but really a D in terms of health. So looks good on the fronts, but really it’s not the greatest thing. One other thing about chicory root fiber is that it can cause a lot of bloating, a lot of gas and so filling up on something like this before you head to the gym or up for a run, probably not the best idea.
Joe asks: What are your thoughts about taking a carb blocker?
Ben: When it comes to carbohydrate control supplements, you usually got kind of three different categories that are out there in the nutrition supplement industry. One reduces carbohydrate craving. So you’re going to find elements like chromium or vanadium or bitter orange extract, the type of things that will basically stabilize blood sugar levels and help reduce your sugar cravings. And the you’ve got supplements that speed up the enzymatic activity of the conversion of carbohydrates to energy. So basically, the carbo that you eat get converted into energy more quickly. The finally, you have this carb blocker. And the idea behind carb blockers is that they interfere with the enzymes in your body responsible for breaking down carbohydrates in bread into simple sugars. And simple sugars would of course be absorbed much more quickly into the blood stream at the small intestine level. So essentially what happens is a carbo blocker interferes with the actual digestion of carbs. Looks good on paper, but the problem is that when you shut down the enzymes, specifically it’s called alpha amylase, when you shut down that enzyme that’s responsible for digesting carbohydrates or breaking down carbohydrates, you get a bunch of undigested carbohydrates going to your digestive tract. And then you’ve got 2 issues. The first is leaky gut syndrome. Leaky gut syndrome is basically the process in which undigested food particles cause inflammation in the small intestine and many of those undigested food particles end up still getting absorbed travelling into the blood stream causing an allergenic response because your body is unable to recognize those as something that you can utilize as energy because they’re impartially broken down. And then the other issue is that you have all these undigested food fragments ending up passing into your large intestine, your colon, sitting there unfermented. So you get a bunch of bloating, gas and essentially GI distress. You can also get heartburn as stuff comes back up, as well. So the prospect of that type of discomfort from taking something like a carb blocker to me is more a disadvantage than an advantage, and I would recommend that you just activate your sensitivity to carbohydrates and your ability to convert them into energy a little bit more easily by exercising regularly, or limiting or carbohydrate intake. Typically, anytime you take something like this that allows you to kind of have your cake and eat it too, there’s always a side effect somewhere. It’s the same thing like the Alli fat loss pill. It shuts down the enzyme responsible for breaking down fats so what happens is that you end up getting a bunch of oil in your colon and you essentially have to wear a diaper or not mind the anal leakage that the package warns you about when you buy that particular fat loss product. So always be cautious when something says it’s going to block, because it means it’s going to shut down something that’s naturally in your body and typically cause some side effects.
Joe asks: You recommend getting a juicer. I heard that juicers weren’t really that good for you.
Ben: Joe, you probably heard that because you heard from someone that when you drink a juice, you end up getting lots of sugar and not much fiber, and it can be not all that great for blood sugar levels. If you’re exercising, moving regularly, and you want a highly concentrated form of things like anti-oxidants and a lot of the pythonutrients, a lot of the good stuff that’s in fruits and vegetables, and you want to juice them to get that, it’s fine to drink a juice concentrate like that. Just don’t do it at 11 o’clock at night when you’re sitting around watching TV. Do it when you’re active during the day. Stop to have some juice before you head out on a run. You’re going to find that the stuff clears your head, you’d have a great deal of energy and just like anything, you need to be careful and think about when you’re drinking juice. Don’t juice all day long and rely on that concentrated sugar source as your primary form of energy. But it’s great every once in a while and it’s a very good way to get that concentrated fruit in a real tasty form along with vegetables. You can do dark leafy greens. You can do grapefruits. You can do oranges. List goes on. Get a juicer, have fun with it. Have tons of great juicing recipes out there.
Chelsea asks: I’m a runner, and I want to do squats to build strength and prevent injury. The problem is that my flexibility is so bad that I can’t get into a full squat. Even without weight, if I try to squat all the way down I either have to go up on my toes or use something for balance or I’ll fall over. I know I need to work on flexibility in general, but do you have any tips for working on getting away from woozy half way squats to being able to do a full squat?
Ben: Absolutely. Two things you need to work on. One is the flexibility in your hip flexors and the other is the strength of your butt muscle. The hip flexor part is pretty easy. Especially if you’re sitting down all day long in an office, something like that. You’re going to be in a position that’s chronically shortens your hip flexors. So stand up every 30 to 60 minutes and get into a lunging position in which you reach for the sky. Stretch those hip flexors out and if you’re going to do it properly, you’re going to feel that stretch on the front upper part of your legs. The other thing that you can do is strengthen your butt muscles. You can do that by getting down into a crawl position and doing an exercise called the kick out where you kick your legs out behind you. You can strengthen by doing walking lunges or reverse lunges. You can get an elastic band and do side to side elastic band walks. You can get elastic mini bands where you tie your ankles together and do the same thing. So essentially, your strengthening your butt in an isolated fashion that is not putting you in that biomechanically difficult squat position. And then once you’ve done that in about 4 to 6 weeks, go back to the squat and try it out. Feel free to go through partial range of motion. You’re free to hold on to a wall or use a stability ball to guide you as you go through the range of motion. And you’ll eventually get to the point where you can do squat. But strengthen your butt muscles, get your hip flexors stretched out and you should be able to get up to doing a full squat very quickly.
Kyle asks: Have you ever heard of the moomiyo supplement? What are your opinions on it?
Ben: Moomiyo is an extract and it’s known as an adaptogen. Now, that’s another word for kind of like carb blocker that you’re going to see thrown around a lot. An adaptogen is a term that’s used by herbalist to refer to basically any product that they believe is going to increase the body’s resistance to things like stress, trauma, anxiety or fatigue. You might also see a term like rejuvenating herb, tonic, restorative… all of that is to be considered an adaptogen. And they can range from being like a berry extract to the mushroom extract. And there’s no actually control over what can be termed an adaptogen, so you kind of have to be careful. However, the idea is that they balance the endocrine hormones and the immune system and help your body to essentially feel a little bit less stressed out. Which would be good if you’re doing endurance activity. It would be good if you’re stressed out in general. You don’t want to be activating that run from a lion system the entire day, especially if you’re sitting around at the office. So I take adaptogens there in the EnerPrime supplement that I take. We’ve interviewed people about adaptogens before in the show. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and do a search for Roger Drummer, you can listen to an interview with him that I did primarily about adaptogens. And that’s what this moomiyo extract is supposed to be. It’s an adaptogenic herb that happens to also be very high in minerals. So it’s something that you would use for repair or recovery or during the day when you feel stressed out. The issue with adaptogens is they’re not controlled, first of all. So you really need to make sure that you’re getting these from a laboratory that would be considered safe and preferably would be what’s considered to be certified good manufacturing practices facility or CGNP facility. The only thing you want to look into is that there’s very little evidence on moomiyo. And if you, for example, go check on PubMed, you’ll find very little on there. A couple of really small studies that look at the anti-toxic properties of the moomiyo extract, but anytime there’s really a lack of solid research on something then you want to be careful. So ultimately, worth a try, never heard anything bad about it, haven’t seen a lot of promising research on it, but that’s the idea. It’s considered an adaptogen and let’s say that it does work, then yes, an adaptogen would be something good and I recommend anybody who feels stressed out a lot, or anybody who is beating up their body with exercise, include some type of adaptogen at source in your diet. The specific source of that in the EnerPrime that I use is the rishi and the shitake mushroom extract.
Amy asks: I have a question about the low carb energy drink, the Monster Lo-Carb energy drink. From the look at it, the Monster Lo-Carb doesn’t seem so bad… but is there something hiding from me?
Ben: Monster Lo-Carb energy drink, you guys have heard me talk about Red Bull before and the problem with that can have with unleashing a host of health problems in even healthy folks, especially if you’re consuming it during exercise or with alcohol. We looked at the Monster Lo-Carb energy drink and the ingredients are: carbonated water, glucose, citric acid, taurine, sodium citrates, color added, and then they got their powerful stuff added, ginseng root extract, guarana seed extract, bunch of B Vitamins, caffeine and then of course you got maltodextrin, potassium ascorbate, sodium acid sulfate, more caffeine, ascorbic acid, more maltodextrin and more glucose. So yeah, even though the total carbohydrate and the sugars in this is fairly low. There’s still a good amount of chemicals in it and as far as the actual amount of caffeine in this stuff, it’s going to really stimulate the adrenal glands. What we are looking at in terms of comparing this to a cup of coffee, it would be about a hundred and fifty percent of the caffeine content of a cup of coffee. It’s about three times as much caffeine as in like the Delta E energy drink powder that I recommended before on the show. And I’ll be sure to put a link to that Delta E stuff in the show notes, but what this comes down to is you not only got that, but you’ve also got acesulfame potassium and sucralose in it. Sucralose being something that can kill up to 50% of the good bacteria in your stomach. Acesulfame potassium being a possible neurotoxin and I really don’t recommend that you mess around with that stuff especially combined with stimulating your adrenals to very, very high extent. So I would not recommend, whenever I turn over an energy drink, just to give you guys an idea on what I look for, immediately if there’s artificial sweeteners on there, I don’t get it. The next thing I look for is caffeine in excess of a hundred milligrams. If that’s on there, I don’t drink it. And then if there’s just a ton of citric acid, sweeteners, etc., the type of stuff that all combined are going to cause some bone demineralization, some problems with your tooth enamel, that type of thing, again, I don’t get it. So most energy drinks really don’t fall into a very healthy category.
Ernesto asks: My high school cross country coach would preach to us that we don’t look behind us during a race as this shaves seconds off our time. Can you verify this?
Ben: There’s no studies out there that have compared runners to look behind them as they’re running versus those who do not. But the primary muscles responsible for turning your neck are these muscles called sternocleidomastoid – nice big word that we had to learn in anatomy class back in college – and when you shorten your sternocleidomastoid that you have to do in order to turn your neck, what you can cause is this chain reaction that goes up your spine. Any time you’re shortening the muscles of the upper body, you can limit the ability of your hips to rotate. And when you limit the ability of your hips to rotate, your stride link is going to decrease just a little bit as well your ground push up force after ground contact during the run. So it is theoretically possible, highly possible, that by looking behind you, you’re not only going to reduce your power in your stride link, but you may also sidestep just a little bit, which can add up over the course of the race. So for a strategy standpoint, you may have to do it at certain points for your cross country race, but in terms of making a habit of looking behind you, I wouldn’t recommend it.
Ernesto asks: My coach would also tell us that drinking any carbonated water cause us to get stitches and slow us down during practice.
Ben: That could be true. When you drink carbonated water, what happens is you’ll get bubbles forming in your stomach and you have to burp in order to release those bubbles, and burping is a conscious muscle action that requires you to shorten your diaphragm. When you shorten your diaphragm you can get a side stitch. When the diaphragm goes into a chronically shortened position or state of spasm, that’s what a side stitch is. And if you’re shortening your diaphragm over and over again as you try to burp up the carbonation from the water, you could get a side stitch while running. So I really don’t recommend it unless you’re riding a bicycle or doing something that’s not taking up a ton of oxygen or using a ton of your inspiratory/expiratory muscles that you not drink carbonated beverages during the event. However, if you drink carbonated water in the morning and you have triathlon cross country three hours later, it’s not a big deal.
Ernesto asks: Steve Magness, the author of the website The Science of Running, wrote an article that running 4.5 miles twice in a day is better than 9 miles all at once and can lead to greater fitness gains. Can you back this up?
Ben: Because when you do any physical event, you have what’s called post exercise oxygen consumption, which means your body has to go through a state where it retakes the oxygen debt that went into doing the exercise session, you will burn more calories when you split up an exercise session into two sessions done during the day. Not only will you burn more calories, but you could burn more fats, and you can increase your resting metabolic rate, and so from a weight loss, calorie-burning perspective, yes, you can get a lot of benefit in splitting your workout into a two a day versus a one a day. The second reason that it may be beneficial is because when you have central fatigue set in, or muscle fatigue set in, you’re going to slow down and the last 4.5 miles of the 9-mile run may not be performed in the same speed or intensity of the first 4.5 miles and so if you’re training from a pure speed training perspective, specifically if you’re training for anything up to about a 10K event, splitting it into two runs is going to get you more benefit than splitting it into one slower 9-mile run. However, if you’re training for a Half-Marathon Kona, you need to include runs where you are actually getting close to the distance that you’re going to be putting on during the event itself, that you’re used to spending that much time on your feet and your muscle and bones are used to being pounded for that amount of time. So for a shorter distance, splitting up into two a day and going harder, not longer, is always going to be beneficial. If you’re planning on doing anything longer, then you are going to want a session when you’re going the full distance all at once.
Jennifer asks: The only foods I am allowed to eat are ‘simple’ carbs because I have a permanent small bowel obstruction and have to remain on a low fiber diet for the rest of my life. This includes white bread, white rice, white potatoes, white meat, white pasta, etc. Absolutely no fruits and vegetables, cooked or raw, no whole grains of any kind, no nuts nor seeds, etc. I can’t even eat applesauce! I’m at my wits’ end about what to do. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!
Ben: For those of you wondering what exactly got Jennifer into this conundrum in the first place, a small bowel obstruction. Any type of bowel obstruction is either a mechanical obstruction or functional obstruction of the intestines. Either something is obstructing your intestines, or your intestines are functioning in such a way that they are closing off or constricting so you’re preventing the normal transit of a lot of the normal products of digestion. When you get a bowel obstruction, you get a ton of abdominal pain; you get vomiting; you get constipation, dehydration, loss of electrolytes, there’s lots of issues when you have a bowel obstruction. Not pleasant. But the problem is that, there’s multiple recommendations for bowel obstruction. I don’t know the root of Jennifer’s bowel obstruction, but some people will put you on a high fiber diet to move things through, and that’s typically going to be when there’s a mechanical obstruction of the small intestines and you’re basically just constipated. That’s when you’ll be taking a bunch of fiber. But people have a functional obstruction of the intestines, where the intestines simply don’t function the way they’re supposed to, you need to be careful with fiber intake, because fiber can put a lot of stress in terms of functional digestive stress on the small intestines. And so people with this type of obstruction not only need to be careful with anything that causes a great deal of digestive activity, which will include milk products, eggs, meat, chicken, a lot of fluids and especially any type of beverage like coffee, tea, coco, alcohol, but also food that have a lot of fiber in them. And that would include a lot of the seeds, a lot of the nuts and even some of the whole grain and the fruits and the vegetables. And so for Jennifer, I’m not going to necessarily step into her physician’s role or her nutritionist’s role, and say what type of diet she should be on – the low fiber diet or the high fiber diet. But instead, I’m just going to get her some recommendations for, if you really don’t do well in fiber, what you can eat and still get nutrients from. So if we look first at vegetables, there are some vegetables that are lower in fiber than others. These vegetable would include asparagus, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, lettuce, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, water chestnuts, or zucchini. Now next we move on to the fruits, and I don’t know why you’ve been told not to eat applesauce, Jennifer, because applesauce is considered low fiber, bananas are lower in fiber, grapefruit’s low in fiber, grapes, peaches, pineapple and anything from the melon family would also be low in fiber. When you look at juices, we talked about getting a juicer before that it does remove a lot of the fiber and you can do a lot of tomato juice or carrot juice, pretty much any vegetable-based juice. If you look into cereals, you can do like a cream of wheat instead of an oatmeal. Cream of wheat tends to be a lot lower in fiber. When you look at breads, pretty much most of the white bread that you’ve already mentioned are going to be lower in fiber but I won’t be doing a ton of those especially if you’re concerned about weight. I’d be doing more of the low fiber vegetables, the low fiber fruits, and then something like a cream of wheat. No, from a meat perspective, meat is not considered a high fiber food. Meat is actually very low in fiber but again, for people with a bowel obstruction, you need to be very careful that you try to choose meats that you can chew into a very, very well-chewed bolus before you swallow. Bolus, when you say that, it’s just a bowl of food that moves down to intestine. So something like fish or chicken would be better than say like a nice piece of beef. And the other things that you could look into would be tofu and eggs. Those are fairly easy to chew and digest. And finally, really look into getting a good blender like a vitamix that you can blend things in and get them a lot pre-digested before you put them into your body. So if you struggle with high fiber, whether it be because of a bowel obstruction or because it causes you a lot of gas, those are some of the things that you can do. And again, for something as simple as constipation, I would not want to go low fiber. When you’re looking at something like a permanent bowel obstruction that a lot of times even requires surgery, eating food high in fiber can actually ause digestive stress.
Marco asks: What can I feed my dad? He had a brain stroke and is in bed all day. Can you recommend any supplements for his brain?
Ben: Absolutely. There are range of supplements that can assist with healing from a stroke. And this is not to be considered medical advice, but these are some of the things that could either decrease risk of stroke or help to preserve the brain cells, rebuild that brain cells in stroke victims. The first would be good folic acid and Vitamin B. Supplement with like a Vitamin B, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, folic acid and anything that’s going to help to decrease the levels of something called homocysteine in the body, which is goung to increase the risk of stroke, or increase the destruction of the brain cells after a stroke. So consume a lot of Vitamin B. Vitamin E is another anti-oxidant that could really be a good supplement for stroke recovery or stroke prevention, to help reduce the risk of developing blood clots that can cause a stroke, so get on a Vitamin E supplement. Co-Enzyme Q10 is another one. That may actually help to increase blood flow to the brain and it could also help the brain cells to be more active. You’ve heard of fish oil, of course, and fish oil would be a fantastic supplement. We’ve actually done studies of people who have had strokes. And taken on fish oil, and what they found out is that post stroke rat, not humans, but were given fish oil after they were induced into a stroke. The fish oil helped to decrease the swelling in the brain, helped to repair damaged brain tissue, so I would definitely get on a high quality fish oil supplement. The other thing I would look into would be a magnesium, and especially because magnesium could be a vasodilator, it can help to improve the activity of brain cells, you can get like a topical or an oral, specifically I recommend you get into like an Angstrom-based magnesium. Those are all things that would help out. So look into a Magnesium, a Vitamin B supplement, folic acid supplement, fish oil, coenzyme Q10 and Vitamin E. That would be some of the things that I would definitely look into if I were to get a loved one on something that‘s going to help him recover from a stroke or decrease risk of stroke in the future.
Sam asks: I just got a type 3 separated shoulder in a bike crash. What is your advice on the best exercises?
Ben: Separated shoulder falls into several different classifications, but basically, it’s also known as an AC joint separation. It’s a pretty common injury. You can see it in a lot of cyclists who fall in outstretched hands and it’s not a dislocation, but it’s actually a point where the end of your clavicle, you collar bone, becomes separated at what’s called the acromioclavicular joint. And a type 3 separation of the AC joint means that the ligaments in that joint are torn and it could take to about 12 weeks to heal. But it’s not a complete tear, there’s still some function so you can still do some exercises. So some of the things I would recommend you do, the first would be like an external rotation exercise, really common exercise. That’s when you get a towel or resistance band and you stand with your elbow at your sides and simply externally rotate your elbow. The other thing that you can do is what’s called the scapular squeeze. And for this you want to lie down, face up with bent knees, like you’re going to do a crunch. Put your arms straight at your side, put your feet on the floor and then turn your palms so they face the ceiling and simply press your shoulders backwards into the floor and towards each other. So you squeeze in your scapula or your shoulder blades closer together. That can help out quite a bit. Using a row roll light weight and simply doing a side raise out in front of your body and up to the side of your body can help strengthen the deltoids which are going to support that separated shoulder and provide you a shoulder function which you’re able to return to normal activity. And the other thing that you may want to consider is row roll light upper cut punch. And you could use a very light pair of dumbbells for this exercise. You can also just use your hands but to do this, you can lie face up on the floor again, and hold the dumbbells with your arms straight up above you and in line with your shoulders, and then simply punch the dumbbell up towards the ceiling and then back down. So those are some row roll simple exercises, some basic exercises that aren’t going to put a lot of stress on the shoulders. Again, I’m not giving you this as medical advice but those are some of the things I’d look into with the type 3 separated shoulder.
David asks: For the Marathon de Sables, I need to be self sufficient for 7 days while running between 150 – 160 miles in the Sahara desert. I need light weight, calorie and nutrient rich food. Do you have any recommendations?
Ben: Absolutely. Here are some of the things that you could do. I would recommend you look into getting chia seeds. You can soak the chia seeds in water until they form a gel. And then you can eat about 2 tablespoons of this gel for every 60 minutes that you’re out there running. You can also put it into one those flasks and chia seeds are going to be real high in amino acids and fatty acids. Those would be great… medjool dates, which you can also get your hands on, would be good to consume as a quick recovery food after your running is done. You’re going to be doing a lot of running, to eat the dates for a long time, they can draw quite a bit of water in the large intestine and they’re very fibrous so they could actually cause a little bit of GI stress if you’re using dates as a primary source. But dates would be great as a real good high glycemic index food to get in your body quickly because you need fast carbohydrate restoration. I would definitely be looking into a lot of superfoods. I would take Goji berries out there with you. Goji berries have a ton of amino acids and then they’re very, very nutrient-rich. Not cheap, but I would definitely get those. I would also grab millet, because millets are easily digested. It’s a very nutrient grain, and that is something that you can again eat several tablespoons of before you head out during the day. Similar to millet, you could do the same thing with any of these: a buck wheat, an amaranth or a quinoa. You can get all of those to give you some variety as you go through, but again, these are things that you can eat by the handful or by the tablespoon during exercise because you’re going to be moving slow enough where you can actually digest those. And you can also use them afterwards as a way to restore nutrients in a very, very dense format. And a format that’s also going to include lots of carbohydrates and amino acids and not require the same digestive time as a piece of meat. Looking like into a barley powder, you can get like a barley grass powder. A lot of these green supplements are going to have it in there. For example, the Living Greens Super Fuel, that’s something that I always travel with. I’ll put a link to that in the show notes. It’s called Living Fuel Super Greens. Look into something like a greens powder because those tend to be very nutrient-dense. They’ve got things like barley grass and algae and spirulina in them. Look into the macca root. And macca is just a root vegetable from the turnip family. You can do like ground macca, you can put macca in mueslis or smoothies, and that’s going to really help stabilize your adrenal glands. It can give you a nice, long term source of energy as well. Look into grabbing some coconut oil, like some extra virgin coconut oil. Sort of you dabble a couple of tablespoons of that or use that during exercise. As long as it’s not getting heated to a real high temperature, you can also get something like the Udo’s 3-6-9 oil. Take that out there with you as well. Also grab some avocados, if you can get those. And use a chopped avocado, you can use that during exercise or after. Again, if you’re moving in a slow enough pace to be able to digest that fat. I definitely do sweet potatoes and yams as well. And you can also, again, because you’re moving very slowly, go with seeds or nuts. I would specifically go with something little higher in the anti-oxidants, something like a pumpkin seed, something like a brazil nut, either of those would be great. Sesame seeds should be another good one. And those are the things that you can chew on as you go. Sunflower seeds as well. Lots of choices in terms of very, very nutrient-rich food that you could take out there with you. But those are some of the ways that I would go. Like if someone were to tell me, “Go run across the country right now,” that’s the stuff I’ll be buying when I go to a grocery store and giving to my support team or taking with me on a small backpack, pre-prepared.
Pamela asks: What do you think about the athletic greens from Tim Ferris’s book for our body? Do you feel that this supplement would affect people with hypothryroidism or have an interaction with synthroid?
Ben: Again, the clarification that I’m not a physician. You do need to be careful with some supplements that you’re on. A thyroid medication, I won’t get into the argument that… I really don’t think that levothyroxine or synthroid is the best way to be controlling thyroid anyways, but there’s a range of vitamins or supplements that you shouldn’t take at the same time as your synthroid as they can decrease the absorption of that by up to 20%. I wouldn’t be taking calcium, iron, magnesium or any mineral supplement at the same time as your synthroid. Chromium is another one that I would avoid. Anything that’s made from a soy product, anything that contains kelp, specifically because of the iodine. Walnuts can also interfere with synthroid absorption and also anything that would be considered like an anti-acid, because those again typically contain a lot of minerals. So you asked specifically about the Athletic Greens supplements. And the Athletic Greens again, just like any green supplement is a shotgun of vitamins and greens and there are definitely some things that are fairly high in minerals. It’s got a ton of chromium in it. It’s definitely got things in there that would interfere with your thyroid medication absorption, but it’s not that big of a deal if you just take it at a different time of day when you take your medication. For example, if you take your medication in the morning, take something like this in the evening before you go to bed. I’d say the same thing I said last week about green supplements. I’ve tried a ton of them, but I haven’t tried all of them. I haven’t tried this one, for example. But I’ve never found any that I can feel the same way that I feel the EnerPrime that I take. I just do not get the same results with any of that. But hopefully that helps you out. You definitely wouldn’t do any damage by taking this stuff. It does not contain artificial sweeteners and chemicals and preservatives, the type of things you need to worry about.
We’re going to move on to the interview with Tim Ferris and Ray Cronise. I will put a link to Tim’s book in the show notes. I’ll put a link to Ray Cronise who’s a fascinating guy. We’ll have him on the show again. You can go explore a little bit more about the stuff that we talked about and just to lay down the basics behind this interview, we’re talking about how you can manipulate your body’s temperature to lose weight. And there’s quite a bit of information in this interview, so sit back and enjoy.
Ben: Hey, folks, this is Ben Greenfield from BenGreenfieldFitness.com and I’ve got a couple of guys on the line right now. Tim Ferris and Ray Cronise. And Tim, who you probably know from the couple of books he has written, 4-Hour workweek and the 4-Hour Body has specifically a very interesting chapter in the 4-Hour Body about mastering temperature to manipulate weight. And in that chapter of his book, he also talks about Ray and the interesting weight loss that Ray was able to experience by manipulating his temperature and also some of the experiments that Tim performed on himself. So guys, thanks for coming on the line.
Tim Ferris: Thanks for having us.
Ray Cronise: Thanks for having us, Ben.
Ben: So Tim, starting off, what inspired you to actually contribute an entire chapter of your book to the topic of mastering temperature to manipulate weight.
Tim Ferris: I had experiments starting in earnest in 1999 or so. The reason was mostly recovery. So I was looking at countless therapies using hot showers and ice baths so speed up recovery among other things. I had also read a book at that time called Thermogenesis and hypothesized that if I called use established supplements or stash like the ______43:47 combination of ___________ but I should hypothetically lose more body fat, and that turned up to be the case, so __________ began using it for body fat loss and in the course of ___________frankly didn’t have enough data ______ and I was introduced to Ray at the NASA research center where 44:17