June 8, 2016
Click here for the full written transcript of this podcast episode.
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April 27, 2016 Podcast: 352: How Protein Could Shorten Your Life, Is DNA Testing Dangerous, Should You Eat Sugar With Fat & More!
Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right (or go to SpeakPipe), use the Contact button on the app, click Ask a Podcast Question at the bottom of this page, or use the “Ask Ben” form at the bottom of this page.
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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, Instagram.com/BenGreenfieldFitness, Facebook.com/BGFitness and Google+.
- Laird Hamilton’s 10 Point Plan to live forever.
- Based on this study, if you’re pursuing anti-aging and a senior, you should shoot for about 1.25g/kg protein intake.
- As I’ve pointed out before – if you care about your pancreas/insulin/diabetes DON’T overdo the protein.
- EXCELLENT article on how to keep proteins from damaging your body.
- Fascinating that Alzheimer’s could be an “infectious” disease.
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Special Announcements:
This podcast is brought to you by:
–FourSigmatic – use code bengreenfield for 15% off anything, including the chaga elixir Ben throws into his coffee most mornings.
–Harry's Shaving – get $5 off any order from Harrys at Harrys.com and use promo code “BEN”.
–Kimera Koffee – get 10% off nootropic-infused coffee with discount code BEN10 (and click here for Nick The Tooth's Gorilla Pudding recipe)
–Click here to follow Ben on Snapchat, and get ready for some epic stories on his morning, daily and evening routine!
NEW! Click here for the official BenGreenfieldFitness calendar.
July 8-10, 2016: Join SEALFit and Ben Greenfield for a SEALFit 20X event at Ben Greenfield's home in Spokane, WA – combined with Obstacle Course training with Ben Greenfield and Hunter McIntyre. Get all details here and get in soon because this one will fill up fast!
August 11-13, 2016: Ben is speaking at the Ancestral Health Symposium (AHS) in Boulder, Colorado. AHS is a historic three-day event created to unite the ancestral health movement and to foster collaboration among scientists, health professionals, and laypersons who study and communicate about health from an evolutionary perspective to develop solutions to our health challenges. Click here to learn more or to register now.
Nov 17-18, 2016: Ben is speaking at the Biohacker's Summit in Helsinki, Finland. Discover the latest in wearables, internet of things, digital health, and mobile apps to increase performance, be healthier, stay fit, and get more done. Learn about taking food, preparation, cooking, and eating to the next level with the latest science and kitchen chemistry. Even delve into implanted chips, gene therapy, bionic arms, biometric shirts, robotic assistants, and virtual reality. Two days with an amazing crowd and a closing party with upgraded DJs to talk about. Click here to get in now at a 40% discount.
–Dec 3-10, 2016: Runga in Costa Rica: 8 days, epic food, twice daily yoga, salt water pool and manual therapy and spa services galore, experts from around the world teaching running clinics, kettlebell seminars, lecturing on nutrition, etc. Also daily adventures ranging from zip lining to white water, along with a full digital detox. Code “BEN” gets you a free gift with your RUNGA registration valued at $75! Click here to get in now.
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 – click here to leave your review for a chance to win some!
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Listener Q&A:
As compiled, deciphered, edited and sometimes read by Rachel Browne, the NEW Podcast Sidekick.
Is DNA Testing Dangerous For Your Privacy?
Preston says: In Dr. Sharon Moalem's book, ‘Inheritance', she mentions that getting your genes tested might lead to insurance policy exclusions for you or your kids. How real of a threat is that? Does he have to worry about genetic testing companies being taken over by larger companies?
–Genetics Legislation web page
–How To Use 23andMe without giving up privacy data
–Genetic testing options
Natural Remedies for Night Terrors
Ryan says: He has a question regarding night terrors, he's not sure that's exactly what it is, but he's waking up in the middle of the night terrified. He's waking up from a deep sleep in a full blown panic and its put a hindrance on his sleep quality, he's waking up in a panic in a pitch black room and after he finds light and realizes what's going on he passes out and goes back to sleep from the huge adrenaline rush. It's horrible and he's hoping you can give him some insight whats going on he's heard things like eating too soon before bedtime can keep you too metabolically active. Can you shed any insight into what's going on physiologically and neurologically?
–DMT book: The Spirit Molecule
–Lully Sleep Guardian
–My article on Sleep Cycles (includes sleep tracking options, lavender, Sleep Remedy supplement, CBD, etc.)
Should You Eat Sugar With Fat?
Gurajit says: He's a long time listener and advocate. He loves carb back-loading, he's an endurance athlete. He recently read a study by Dr. Michael Mosley about the effects of food on your blood sugar levels and the amount of fat in your blood. He had a fry up in the morning and the evening and he found that the sugar and fat levels were higher and maintained higher when he ate the fry up at night. Does this fly in the face of carb back-loading from a general health (not endurance) standpoint?
–Carb Backloading
–MPX100
–Organic Ceylon Cinnamon
–Apple Cider Vinegar
How To Sleep Less Stressed
Tim says: For the past few years he's been working on calming his nervous system. He's used a lot of different modalities to try and get deep seated trauma out. He's done somatic experiencing, rolfing, psychotherapy, used heart math, meditation and a few others. He's made a lot of progress but he gets the sense that sleeping is triggering his nervous system, because he often wakes up really stiff and often with a clenched psoas and chest. Do you have any ideas for things he can do to help him sleep with a longer and more open body?
In my response, I recommend:
–Lavender
–Phosphatidylserine (IsoPhos)
–Podcast with Dr. Zelk on sleep apnea
–Pulse oximeters that can measure oximetry while you’re asleep
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Prior to asking your question, do a search in upper right hand corner of this website for the keywords associated with your question. Many of the questions we receive have already been answered here at Ben Greenfield Fitness!
Ask Your Question
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Hi Ben,
Thanks for the awesome show ! I had 3 questions.
1) If you could only use one dna testing service what service would you use between DNAFit and 23andme ? (I currently live in Canada Montreal)
2) When you used the Sacred Geometry posters which ones from the amazon link you sent were you using ?
3) If you can only buy one PEMF device between the EarthPulse and the SR1 Delta Sleeper ?
Thanks
1) DNA fit if you're doing it for higher performance 2) I don't remember exactly which ones it was and 3) EarthPulse for recovery, SR1 for sleep.
As a Brit i feel compelled to clarify that a “fry up” is not frying leftovers. It typically refers to an English Breakfast (all fried). Fried sausages, eggs, bacon, hash browns, tomatoes, mushrooms, toast are usually on the plate.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=english+breakfa…
Thanks for the podcast
Ben, lots of questions about the sugar and carb combo. I have one too. I eat one or two sweet potatoes and a couple eggs for breakfast. Do the sweet potatoes have enough sugar in them to cause the eggs to clog me up? And if I just had a protein drink and the sweet potatoes would that be better?
I switched from Fiber One Cereal to the sweet potatoes thinking I was improving my diet. I never used to eat eggs.
Oh, and if you have Bulletproof coffee by itself say at 4:00 AM and then at 6:00AM you go to the gym, then come back, can you eat carbs/sugar without clogging things up? Finally, should you have Bulletproof coffee at 3:30 AM, then climb a mountain at 4:00AM and when you get to the top in a couple hours eat something with sugar in it?
Lots of questions, but I am trying not to die.
Sure wish I could be at the 20X at your place, but can’t do 8 pull ups. Maybe 6. So I am putting it off till next year when I turn 72. By then my goal is to be able to do at least 10 pull ups.
You kind of answered your own question. If you are in an insulin sensitive state so that the glucose is not staying in your bloodstream for a long time then you will be just fine. That's it. It's that simple. If you need more help for your specific situation I'd be happy to help you via a one on one consult. If you want to go into detail, book a consult at bengreenfieldfitness.com/coaching and choose 20 or 60 minutes and we'll get you scheduled.
The DMT – Sleep – Night Terrors section of this podcast was eye-opening. I’ve started wearing a sleep mask consistently and have been waking up in the middle of the night in a confused and fearful state. After years of sleeping in semi-darkness with some source of ambient light, I’m guessing the drastic change from semi-dark to completely-dark is pushing me towards more delta sleep and the higher exposure to DMT you mentioned. Fascinating stuff. It’ll be interesting to see if these instances of waking up in the middle of the night taper off as I continue to use the sleep mask.
Really enjoying the podcast. Keep in up Ben.
Hey Ben,
you mentioned a rather obscure poster in your bedroom. Do you have any links about this?
KR
Mark
Yes, a link for the posters would be interesting
Here you go and for anyone else interested: https://amzn.to/1UHrhmu
If you can only eat 30 grams of protein at a setting, then a keto diet + IF is out of the question?
You can still do a ketogenic diet and you can still do intermittent fasting while taking and 30 g of protein and a city. But once you begin to get much higher than that especially once you begin to get too high in protein intake total, it becomes an issue.
So many different opinions on this subject. I have read many which also state that excessive protein is not desirable but equally, studies which suggest that it is a myth. My concern is regarding longevity and so I am more concerned with IGF-1 and a lower protein consumption may seem optimal. However, hunter/gatherers of old would have found it difficult to eat the equivalent of 10 chicken wings at any one serving. Some benefits of increasing protein is that it is more difficult to gain fat when you overfeed on protein. Dr. Jacob Wilson appears to be a fan of protein but as I say, quite a lot of conflicting info on this subject. Luckily for me, I love making my home-made curries and I add ample amounts of turmeric, black pepper, ginger, curry powder, chili, coriander, cumin etc, etc.
…difficult in the sense of stopping at just 10 chicken wings! I’d imagine they’d eat the whole damn animal ;-)
I’ve been enjoying the podcast the last few weeks in particular, and when I listened to this one, I realized why: those last few weeks of podcasts didn’t have any regular Q&A episodes, and so Rachel wasn’t there. I don’t want to be rude, and I’m sure she’s a nice person and everything, but seriously, Ben, think about this objectively:
1. She knows next to nothing. She doesn’t know much about the health/wellness/performance optimization field or add much in the way of insight and doesn’t even seem familiar with general culture references.
2. She is EXTREMELY annoying. Most of the time, she makes her presence apparent solely in the form of needless interjections (“Yeah!” “Oh!” “Ooh!” “There you go!”; if you were reading this on a transcript (which would be better because then you at least wouldn’t hear her grating voice), you’d get stuff like this: Ben: “It’s called genetic discrimination.” Rachel: “Oh!”). It’s like having an airhead cheerleader to add pep to the podcast … except that the point of cheerleaders is eye candy, whereas the point of Rachel is … um …?
3. She has the taste and refinement level of a lifelong village fish hawker who fell off the back of a turnip truck. Sorry for the mixed food metaphor there, but seriously, she seems to get excited and take a more active role in the podcast mainly when it comes time to add delve into some good, ole-fashioned toilet humor, and you can hear her general lack of refinement in her tone and diction. I mean, I’m not asking for Miss Manners here, but you know … someone who has positive rather than negative charisma and gets excited about science and ideas rather than bodily functions wouldn’t hurt.
4. She seems to be imitating a talk show sidekick rather than actually being one. What I keep hearing is an imitation of what she thinks one of these “sidekicks” should sound like, but usually, they actually contribute something (as Brock did), like a sense of humor, their own interests and ideas, a great rapport with the main host, etc. With her, we’re getting a bad imitation of that stereotypical style but without any of the accompanying substance.
So, in the end, Ben, you have to ask: what exactly does she add to the show? I actually cringe every time I hear her interject (uselessly), and I know I’m not alone in this, as I’ve both seen other listeners comment on it in response to earlier podcasts and also know at least two friends who listen to your otherwise awesome podcast and who feel the same way as I do. Again, I don’t mean this to be a rude rant, but I’m also trying to be direct and not hold back so that you can make an informed decision that’s in the best interests of yourself, your podcast and your core audience.
I preferred the podcast with Ben alone, but there is a fine line between diplomatically suggesting a change and being downright nasty about who appears to be a genuinely kind-hearted person.
For all we know, the presence of Ben’s cohost attracts a lot of female listeners. Let’s not forget we get this podcast for free.
I like Rachel. I think she adds a nice conversational element to the show. It flows well. I think Ben alone would sound like a lecture. Plus, there’s only room for one health/fitness propeller head on the show.
Woah, Robert. This is extremely uncool, and most definitely a “rude rant”. Would you say all of this to her face? Or even to Ben’s? Rachel is a real live human being, with feelings, and you know that she will read this.
There were other ways you could have communicated your personal preference…. without being such a dick about it.
Robert,
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…
…Rachel is the *perfect* co-host. She’s funny, she’s female (which I’m obviously not), she freakin’ Australian (ever hung out with any Australians? Your comment makes me think not so…as they’re very dynamic, outspoken and fun people), she’s not a nerdy, boring scientist-ish person like me, and the “ying to my yang” on the show.
Sure, she’s still “learning the ropes” of podcasting so to speak, and if you’d ever hung out with her, you’d know she actually *is* keen on the science and the geekery, just in a different, more down-to-earth way than me, and so her perspective offers a different twist to the show and keeps me “grounded” from getting too, too nerdy.
Anyways, you should also know that she reads all these comments, so you didn’t exactly make her day, man. :/ Might want to think about that in the future…
Again, I really didn’t mean what I wrote to be rude, though I also understood it would inevitably be taken that way and still made the choice to write it because it was really a choice between pussyfooting around the issue or saying what I thought the problem was as clearly as I could and knowing that I would probably hurt some feelings in the process. My goal was and remains constructive, not destructive. If Rachel can be better than she currently is, that’s great, but I think it’s also important that you and she understand some of the issues that are there at present (and that I know I’m not alone in seeing). One of the simplest things you can do that would take the passion out of the issue is just look at a transcript of this podcast and just read her comments. What you’ll find, if I’m not mistaken, is largely a bunch of one or two word interjections or lubricatory phrases that contribute no actual content. This has nothing to do with the fact that she’s Australian. I do know Australians, and have heard and seen many more of them through audio/video/etc. (some of whom I follow on various youtube channels, etc.), and some are vibrant and bubbly and energetic, like Rachel is, and others are more low-key, and I have nothing against either style of presentation. My point was about her knowledge and interests (which I could certainly be mistaken about, but I’m only judging based on what I’ve heard so far), her refinement and taste level and her contributions to the tone and content of the show. If that stuff improves, then the problem will obviously be solved.
Hey Robert,
I wanted to chime in here and say this:
If I had a dollar for the amount of both positive and negative comments people have said of my way of being, I’d be a very rich girl. There have been many, many more positive comments than there have been negative, but rarely does someone go to the extent you have on either side.
The fundamental thing that has become as obvious and reliable as the sun rising and setting everyday is this: personalities in the public sphere act as mirrors for the personalities of their audiences. Your opinions of my (or ben’s) way of being, good and bad (perceived intelligence level, perceived substance level, perceived refinement level, etc) are really just a reflection of your own world. And unfortunately, a lot of people lack that self awareness and as a result, project their worlds onto people in the public sphere. There are so many examples of this in the comment you wrote, because most of what you said was not ‘true’ (I agree with the fact I am unrefined, but you’re assumption is that’s bad, whereas I see that as a good thing!), only ‘true for you’, which is an extremely different thing.
But interestingly, you actually did me a great service by writing that comment, but not in the way I think you imagined. Your comment was so intense it forced me to look at how I was relating to these tiny little cuts or sweet little gifts people would leave in the form of comments of the blog. It caused so much tension that I broke through something quite major into a world neither of them affected me anymore. And it feels really good to be here.
So I invite you to take every thing you wrote about me, and analyze yourself in relation to it. Feel free to not listen to any of the Q&A podcasts with me on them, and thank you so much for being a catalyst for me to step more fully into my authentic power.
With love, my friend.
Rachel
Hi Rachel. Thanks for your response.
I know this is personal for you (and it’s difficult NOT to take it personally when someone is essentially saying you’re not doing a good job at something), but it’s not personal for me, and it’s certainly not a judgment of you as a human being. I love Ben’s podcast, and I want it to be as good as it can be. I’m sure you share that desire, and I’m sure you recognize that there are some things you could probably improve upon. If you take my harsh comments as a catalyst, I’d invite you to take them as a catalyst motivating you to work on things that need to be worked on rather than a catalyst motivating you not to care about what people think of you. There are some people and some views that are just silly or uninformed or hateful for no good reason, and these you can and should ignore. There are others — and I’d put myself in that category, though you might reach a different conclusion — from which you might actually benefit once you get over the hard part, and the hard part is the criticism that’s clearly there, which winds up feeling hurtful even if it’s not meant that way.
Yes, some of this is about my own values, and yes, I’ll freely admit, I prefer to listen to podcasts where the hosts and co-hosts are adding knowledge and depth and insight to podcasts where someone is just engaging in social banter. Don’t you? Ben has tons of knowledge and depth and insight, which is why I listen to his podcast regularly. I’m not saying you don’t have the potential to have these things, but right now, I’m hearing mostly banter. Ben says that you DO have a deep interest in the health and wellness field, and I have no reason not to believe him. So if you have that interest, show it. Passion is great. Passion is inspiring and infectious.
And yes, I prefer refinement in people, not the kind of refinement that is exemplified in mannered hauteur or superficial smugness or prissiness, but rather, the kind of refinement that shows good taste and judgment and a sensibility that is mature rather than juvenile. This is, indeed, a value I have, and it’s a value I’d defend and believe people should strive for, especially people who are part of a podcast that has the aim of making listeners better versions of themselves. Someone who takes great pleasure in fart jokes or dwells gratuitously on bodily functions, for instance, doesn’t offend me so much as they bore me. These things are bottom of the barrel, so to speak. They’re things a child could enjoy. The more you read, learn, see and hear and, in particular, expose yourself to great art, literature, music, philosophy and knowledge of all sorts, the less fart jokes and other discussions at that level amuse you, because you learn that there are simply things that are much more interesting and amusing in the world. Now, again, considering that you’re a co-host on a podcast which has the laudable aim of trying to get us to maximize all aspects of human performance, wouldn’t maximizing taste and refinement be one of these? What’s the point of fueling your brain with great nutrients and nootropics, maximizing your diet and your sleep and improving your focus and concentration if you’re then going to turn around and use these newfound abilities of yours to focus on things that are mundane and banal?
Please understand, again, I am not trying to insult you. And please accept my apologies for any hurt feelings. I’m going to keep listening to the podcast, and whether you care or not, I’m also going to keep an open mind about you. I believe most people have a very large and largely untapped capacity for self-improvement, a view that I’m sure you and Ben both share.
It surprises me that you’d But when you say that you’re proud of being unrefined, it’s actually a bit surprising. As someone focused
Hi Ben,
I have a question regarding your advice to not eat fats and carbs/sugar at the same time. I’ve been following the Perfect Health Diet for some time now which advocates eating fats with carbs as this will result in a lower spike in blood sugar, for example using lots of fats to cook potatoes and rice. What is your opinion on this concept?
Only if you follow the rules that I outlined in the podcast episode and stay very active and then time your carbohydrates after the physical activity… Along with using strategies such as cinnamon and apple cider vinegar. You just want to make sure your carbohydrate sensitive when you actually do eat them.