Episode #327 – Full Transcript

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Transcripts

Podcast #327 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2015/08/327-nutrition-tips-for-burning-man-the-science-of-human-touch-blood-donation-biohacks-more/

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Introduction: In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness show: Nutrition Tips For Burning Man, Blood Donation Biohacks, The Benefits Of Human Touch, The Best Natural Remedies For Toenail Fungus and much more!

He’s an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America’s top personal trainer and one of the globe’s most influential people in health and fitness.  His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance.  He is Ben Greenfield.  “Power, speed, mobility, balance – whatever it is for you that’s for natural movement, get out there! When you’re working all the studies done… studies that have shown the greatest effort to see…”  All the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast.

Ben:  Brock, I’m feeling like an old, old man right now.

Brock:  You’ve kinda sound like an old man, I wasn’t – it wasn’t me to say anything but…

Ben:  No, actually… yeah, it’s because I’m wearing my old man’s socks, and the reason why I’m wearing my old man compression socks – not that I don’t just wear compression socks everywhere all the time because I like to look like a Cross Fitter.

Brock:  You need to look like a dork.

Ben:  (laughs)

Brock:  A fit dork.

Ben:  I wear neon socks everywhere along with what else is a stereotypical fitness faux pas not really…

Brock:  I think…

Ben:  …fashion faux pas much as a fashion must.

Brock:  (chuckles) Fashion must.

Ben:  Your compression socks, your knee high compression socks if you want to look fit – you gotta have like about, I don’t know, if you’re a dude some kind of board shorts – you gotta have these days like a v-neck t-shirt.  You have to have some kind of tattoo showing somewhere preferably tribal like a shoulder pattern and yeah, I don’t know I have to go back to…

Ben:  Or the Mdot on your cap, I think it’s…

Ben:  (chuckles) Yeah, the Mdot, it’s like triathletes and Cross Fitters around the world wear the compression socks.  The reason I’m wearing compression socks is I just got back from Colorado last night.

Brock:  Oh, cool.

Ben:  And I was competing in the Train to Hunt Competition out there which was narrowly – oh that thing was hard.

Brock:  And how did it go?

Ben:  Well, it started off with a 3D shoot and they make the shooting very, very much like you might experience while hunting.  You’re not able to use a range finder, so you must kinda know your distance everything from point blank shots, bears all the way out to a hundred yard shots at elk targets, and you know, they threw some weird stuff at us like you’d shoot two shots in 10 seconds – one at the you know, a dough 20 yards off, one of the buck 40 yards off or a goal from like a lying down position in the long grass to sitting up quickly and taking a shot from that seated position to all sorts of really narrowly scenarios.

Brock:  Did they make you chug a beer?

Ben:  (laughs) Chug a beer, sit in a tree for 5 hours.

Brock:  Chug a beer and shoot a bear.  Actually, what I really want to know is do they have a 3D rendering of Cecil the Lion?

Ben:  Mmm-hmm, no.  Although I’ve…

Brock:  Is that too soon?

Ben:  You know, they didn’t have a 3D rendering of Cecil the Lion and I’m gonna be totally honest with you, like I have not been watching the news, reading the news, I’ve been either out in the forest at this Train to Hunt thing or else I’ve been – I finished up at Fort Carson military base where I spoke to the army there.

Brock:  Oh, cool!

Ben:  Anyways though, the Train to Hunt thing, after you do that 3D shoot then they have what’s the meat pack and then you put a 100 lbs. in your pack and just race.  And this was – and this one we raced about 2 ½ miles or so, and then you recover and then you come back the next day and you do what they call the challenge course which is basically like an obstacle course that’s a mix of like barbwire crawl and we have like 80 lbs. sandbag get-ups and 100 lbs. sandbag shuttle runs up to side of the mountain and you combine all that with shooting while you’re tired – so it’s a tough event.  It’s fun, fun as heck but tough.  And then…

Brock:  Cool.

Ben:  The next morning, I woke up and with an army ranger and Special Forces guy did this inclined steps at what they call Garden of the Gods in Colorado so…

Brock:  Hmmm, sounds delightful.

Ben:  Suck an air up and nosebleed country and that’s why I’m wearing the old man socks is those…

Brock:  Oh yeah, that’s where we started this whole conversation.

Ben:  Yes.  Those damn stairs.

Brock:  The old man socks.

Ben:  And then spent the rest of the day over at Fort Carson military base so I didn’t know this but a bunch of the battalions over there are actually using my book Beyond Training as part of the training manual so…

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Brock:  Very cool.

Ben:  If we get butt kicked by any other military, it’s my fault…

Brock:  It’s your fault.

Ben:  …because we got unfixed soldiers.

Brock:  You let down the country.

Ben:  We got soldiers wearing training masks and doing ice baths.  So yeah, anyways though, that’s what I’ve been up to.

Brock:  And you know why I am wearing old man socks?

Ben:  ‘Cause you’re an old man?

Brock:  ‘Cause I’m an old man.  I turned 44 two days ago so… ouch.

News Flashes:

Brock:  Aside from feeling super old, I’m also feeling super tired but I hear that over at Twitter.com/bengreenfield you actually released some interesting stuff.

Ben:  Use your words.

Brock:  About insomnia – I can’t!

Ben:  Use your words, Brock, use your words.

Brock:  I’m sleepy.

Ben:  You’re sleepy and old.

Brock:  I’m sleepy and old.

Ben:  Well yes, as usual I’ve been releasing news flashes all week over at Twitter.com/bengreenfield, we’ll link to all of these different studies I’m about to throw you in on over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/327.  We’re gonna give you three as we usually do – three of the faves – so this first one just to I guess continue on last week’s infatuation with sleep is about sleep and I thought this was a…

Brock:  We do last week.

Ben:  really, really cool article at the Washington post.  The article goes into the fact that we’ve talked about this before on the podcast, how it is highly unlikely that our ancestors would’ve slept in convenient 8-hour blocks and instead there’s a great deal of evidence out there to show that in most cases, in an ancestral environment, void of artificial light that folks slept in two different sleep phases right? Like two different 4-hour-ish sleep phases with a wake period at some point during the night.  And they actually did a study where they looked into this – they had folks in a sleep research study get cut-off from artificial light, and I believe this was for about a three – I don’t wanna say 3 month-ish period of time? And anyways, they weren’t using everything from laptop screens to bright lights in their homes, to e-readers to anything else, and what began to happen is very interesting because they track their brain waves and they track their sleep cycles.  They would naturally wake at some point in the middle of the night and when they woke, they showed brain wave production very, very similar to what like a – you know, meditating yogi might show…

Brock:  Really!

Ben:  …and they would wake up in the dark…

Brock:  Crazy.

Ben:  ..and they’d eventually fall back asleep, and have this completely natural sleep cycles.  And in the era where we are exposed to artificial light especially at night, what happens is we dig ourselves into this hole where we require our biologist to need and you know, like a consistent 8 hours or so when in fact if you are, say like camping or if you begin to turn off the lights in your home and limit yourself to say like red light only which is doable via either a.) you know, you could do everything from like used infrared you know, like heat lamps like you would buy off Amazon or you could get like there’s a company called Lighting Science that’s makes these night bulbs that are void of blue light.  Anyways, you figure out the way to hack your environment so you cut-off from artificial light at night and that inconveniently includes not using iPhones and e-readers, and stuff like that too much at night.  What happens is you may find that after sleeping from say you know, whatever – 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. you wake up some time between 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. and you can do anything as long as it doesn’t involve artificial light.  So you’d do yoga, meditation, sex, reading but reading using something like candle light or some other form of non-blue light or non- artificial light and then you fall back to sleep and it turns out that this is completely natural, that insomnia – the way that we sometimes define insomnia like “I woke up and I couldn’t get back to sleep” may not in fact be insomnia but may just be us doing or naturally tuned to do with the problem being that a lot of times when people do wake up, what they do, they put open the computer, right? They grab Facebook or email, when they’re on their phones and surf on their phone for a little while but the fact is, if you just lay there and use that as a time to do whatever – deep tissue work or foam rolling or meditation or yoga or you know, love making or anything else – it turns out that this is entirely natural.  It’s a really interesting article.

Brock:  Yeah, now it’s really cool.  I actually, when I wake up – while I woke up in the middle of the night like three nights in the row now which is why I’m having trouble using my words but I’ve been reading on my iPad but I actually have the Kobo app turned to have a black background – 

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So it’s a black background with the gray texts, brightness turned all the way down and then I put my blue blocker glasses on ‘cause I just sit on like basically right on top of the iPad and I feel like I’m not destroying my sleep more that way.

Ben:  Hmm.  Aren’t you…

Brock:  What do you think?

Ben:  …cute little old man biohacker?  Yeah, I mean that – what I would like to do and we talked about this on the podcast that we do with Jack Kruse at some point last year is he has a wine bottles that you can somehow drop like a wick into and light and uses like torch-light in your home.  Now, I think that’s kinda like the ultimate cool way to light things up at night and I’d like to start doing more of that – more natural firelight in the home.

Brock:  That would be cool.

Ben:  Just because it’s cool.

Brock:  And very old tiny.

Ben:  Old tiny.

Brock:  You just like some kinda pioneer.

Ben:  Put on the records and read by candlelight.

Brock:  (chuckles)

Ben:  Anyways though, another thing related to sleep and fatigue I guess a little bit was an article over at Chris Kresser’s website that I thought was quite compelling – it was called “5 Causes of Fatigue Your Doctor May Not Be Looking For” and while it admitted the fact that things like poor diet and lack of sleep and chronic stress are the most common causes of fatigue.  There are 5 lesser known causes of fatigue that you may wanna rule out if you’re doing everything right, you know, like sleep and exercise on right weight, etc. but you’re still feeling tired.  So some of the things listed and I’ll link to the article if you really wanna delve into the nitty-gritty details – one was chronic infections.  A lot of people have things like underlying Epstein-Barr virus or human herpes virus or lyme disease or what’s called mycoplasma and it turns out you know, as I think most people know, these things can cause chronic fatigue but a lot more people than we think actually are walking around with these issues, you know such as lyme for example or such as like a mycoplasma infection.  And you can get you know, you can get a variety of different blood test rule this out but that’s one thing that it mentions as a possible cause of fatigue.  Another is what’s called biotoxin illness – now biotoxin is a poisonous substance that’s produced by a living organism, and that could be like fungus like a mycotoxin, like could be a plant biotoxin, it could be an animal biotoxin, and you know this would be something like a mold in a home or something like a biotoxin in the water that you’re consuming because you don’t have a good water filter in your home.  But ultimately, that’s another reason that you can be walking around fatigue as it can be something as simple as a biologically produced toxin that you’re exposed to.  So the next one…

Brock:  That’s kinda scary.

Ben:  Kinda scary – next one is methylation.  This one’s interesting because some people have what’s called impaired methylation, methylation being a biochemical process in which you are able to use what are called methyl groups to produce energy.  And if you have what’s called the impaired methylation which is just basically a genetic – not really a genetic defect but just a genetic trait that a lot of people are born with, you can have low levels of the active forms of folate and vitamin B12.  And it’s a case where if you actually get tested and you find out that you are a poor methylator, or you have some kind of impaired methylation, you can supplement with things like methyltetrahydrofolate or B12 in a vitamin and banish some of these chronic fatigue issues so that’s one is impaired methylation.  Another one…

Brock:  I’ve heard that from a lot of like not older women but sort of like aging women get a – actually get a B12 injections…

Ben:  Mmm-hmm.

Brock:  …in their… like in their hip.

Ben:  Yeah.

Brock:  Because they can’t actually ingest even after taking the vitamins it doesn’t actually get ingested.

Ben:  Right, exactly, so that can be a methylation issue.  Another one is mitochondrial dysfunction – so mitochondria of course are the powerhouses of the cell that take in nutrients and break them down to produce ATP.  And mitochondrial dysfunction or mitochondrial disease was once taught to be pretty rare but it turns out a lot of people do have mitochondrial dysfunction related to everything from like inflammation to a poor diet for many years to you know, environmental factors you know, toxins again for example and that can cause mutations in what’s called your  mitochondrial DNA.  And this is another thing that he goes into in the article that you can have tested and looked at and in many cases use as mitochondrial support compounds things like a PQQ or oxitol acetate or any of these supplements that can help to support your mitochondria, and that’s the only one that kinda play around with if you have chronic fatigue and you just don’t know why.  And then the last one is gut dysfunction – everything from small intestine bacterial overgrowth, to parasites, to a lot of these things that I think people would probably hazard I guess you know, if you got a bunch of nice little parasite eggs in your intestine…

Brock:  Yeee.

Ben:  …that could cause some fatigue.

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But ultimately, that’s the last one that they go into with this you know, for example one study found that patients with chronic fatigue had abnormally elevated levels of candida albicans or slight gluten intolerances or even you know, more common that you might think infection with parasite giardia which can persist with five years after you’ve actually treated the infections.  If you ever gone on vacation in Mexico or gone on the nice cruise down there along the border and you’ve come back with I might assume as revenge and it was many, many years ago that could still be affecting you even if you got rid of the explosive diarrhea part of it.  So…

Brock:  Larg.

Ben:  Interesting article over at Chris Kresser’s website, we’ll link to that one.

Brock:  I like Chris Kresser, he’s a clever fella.

Ben:  Clever fella.  And then the last one is about a bitter melon extract and the fact that bitter melon extract I’ve talked about before on the show how this stuff is just about as powerful as the diabetic drug Metformin in terms of ingesting what’s called your postprandial blood glucose levels, like your blood glucose response to a carbohydrate intensive meal.  Now I take personally two capsules of bitter melon extract almost every day before I do like my evening carbohydrate loading, and the reason for that is because it basically enhances your ability to shove glucose into muscle tissue to partition nutrients into muscle tissues so that glucose doesn’t remain floating around in your bloodstream for long periods of time either getting converted in the fat or causing the inflammation that high levels of blood glucose can cause.  So bitter melon extract – I’ll link to this article but it goes into how bitter melon extract works and how very, very similar to exercise it activates AMPK in muscle which mediates the movement of glucose transporters in muscle to the cell surface and allows the muscle to actually uptake glucose and carbohydrates in the muscle tissue – bitter melon enhances this effect.  The thing is, one thing you do need to be careful with is a supplement like this is not necessarily a supplement that you just take at any given time.  For example, I don’t take bitter melon extract and I would stay very, very far away from it before exercise because what can happen is if you take a bunch before exercise then you go exercise, you could actually a hypoglycemic response or abnormally low blood glucose during an exercise session.  So as with anything, you need to time, the supplement properly but the article is quite interesting in terms of how powerful this stuff is for controlling a lot of the things that can cause everything from Type 2 diabetes to just gaining weight from carbohydrates, and it is one of the supplements that I take anytime that I load with carbs especially in the evening just because it’s basically a way to biohack your weight, to better glucose partitioning without getting your blood glucose frequently elevated.  So bitter melon extract, the stuff I use is called the MPX100 – I take two capsules, you can do it like 30 minutes before carbohydrates intensive meal and up to 30 minutes after so that the effect – but handy-dandy little supplement and we’ll link to that article in the show notes as well.  I suppose you could probably figure a way to grow bitter melon on your back porch, not quite sure…

Brock:  Hmmm.

Ben:  …how that works, but I just…

Brock:  I have a feeling you’d have to grow a lot of them.

Ben:  I just take the capsule.  Yeah.

Special Announcements:

Ben:  Well Brock, its summertime and you know what summertime means?

Brock:  Ahhh, bikinis?

Ben:  Mmm.  Close, close.

Brock:  Sunburns.

Ben:  Yes.  Summertime also means that you wanna get rid of these much hair as possible so that you stay cool…

Brock:  Mmm.

Ben:  …right?

Brock:  Mmm-hmm.  Yeah, I never have a beard in the summer…

Ben:  That’s right.

Brock:  but I do every winter.

Ben:  That’s right or you’ve more of maybe you want to make some of that bikini hair disappear.

Brock:  Mmm-hmm.  Always.

Ben:  Or maybe you just want a nice, smooth shaved legs for your summertime bike rides or just so your sheets feel satiny smooth.

Brock:  Just to show off your calf muscles.

Ben:  Yeah.  Either way, no matter what your motivation is for getting rid of your hair you should know that today’s podcast is actually sponsored by one of the top methods for getting rid of hair, unless you’re going smear nair all over your body which would be…

Brock:  That’s not a good idea (chuckles).

Ben:  Yeah, maybe not…

Brock:  Don’t do that.

Brock:  …gonna get burn it off chemically.  Harry’s however, Harry’s over at harrys.com, that’s just like it sounds really, h-a-r-r-y-s.com – harrys.com.  They have like this German factories where they make this really, really sexy looking blades that are incredibly sharp – they install the safety on them so you can’t cut open a jugular with you know…

Brock:  Whew!

Ben:  Unfortunately, I think the straight edge razors introduce a great deal of excitement in the shaving process so…

Brock:  Have you ever had a shave with a straight razor, though?

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Ben:  I have, it’s pretty cool.

Brock:  I’ve had and they’re quite painful.

Ben:  Yeah, it’s painful but you still use it for macho.

Brock:  I need a damn good shave, too.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.  But the next best thing to nair or cutting up on a jugular is Harry’s (chuckles). So anyways, super-duper cool looking blades, nice and like heavy in your hand and they feel like you know, just old school shaver and they’ve got like foam that doesn’t have parabens and phthalates that hasn’t been tested on animals that smells nice – my wife likes it.  They’ve got the blades, they’ve got everything but they cut out the middle man, they get it straight to you so it’s about that same cost as the cheap drugstore blades.  So anyways, check them out harrys.com and we have a discount code for you – wait, with baby breath – the discount code is, shocker, ‘Ben’ b-e-n…

Brock:  (gasp)

Ben:  Yeah, use code ‘Ben’ over at harrys.com, save 5 bucks – there you go.  Enjoy your shave and enjoy your new bikini look along with the coolness that all the shaving of the hair imparts.  So there’s that.  And then there’s also the Biohacking Summit over in Finland – I would not shave before this because I hear Finland is cold, but I will be there.

Brock:  September shouldn’t be too bad.

Ben:  I just like to think that Finland is being a place where people walk around with parkas and frozen nostrils and beards covered with ice and snow.

Brock:  Well the folks would bring us the human charger from Finland, right?

Ben:  Yes, they are from Finland and also the…

Brock:  Yeah, I think the reason they invented that was because of the dark and the cold.

Ben:  Yeah, the Four Sigma mushroom blend that’s also a Finnish supplement.  There’s a variety of cool things coming out of Finland – those darn fins.

Brock:  (chuckles)  They’ve got this long winter evenings to just think up biohacking kind of stuff.

Ben:  That’s right, that’s right – the twiddle-doo thinkers and think of crazy biohacks.  Anyways, so they got a biohacking summit and I will be there in Finland – in Helsinki, Finland so check it out…

Brock:  I don’t think that’s how you say it.

Ben:  That’s how I say it.

Brock:  Oh, okay (chuckles).

Ben:  biohackersummit.com over in Helsinki.

Brock:  Helsinki!

Ben:  Check it out.  September 23rd thru the 24th and if you happen to be thru Finland or in Finland or visiting Finland, come say ‘hello’ at the Biohackers Summit and they’ll have everything from implanted chips to gene therapy to bionic arms to simply learning how to stay healthier and stay fitter with you know, cool food preparation and molecular gastronomy tricks.  So…

Brock:  If you don’t come back with at least one bionic limb, I’m gonna be so disappointed.

Ben:  I know, I know.  The question is which limb do I want to be bionic?

Brock:  Oh, it’s a hard choice.

Ben:  I can tell you want there would be pretty fun to have as the bionic arm…

Brock:  Nehehey!

Ben:  Hehey.

Brock:  Yee – talking about your nose, right?

Ben:  Yes, my bionic nose, exactly.  Anyways, another thing that I wanted to mention in this week’s special announcements is we are now up to Chapter 6 as a matter of fact, well as of this night, I’ll be releasing Chapter 6 in my new book or actually, no, Chapter 7 – I’m sorry, Chapter 7 in my new book in which the two heroes in the book discovered  their superpowers and the title of this new chapter’s called “The Powers” and it’s a pretty fun chapter – it’s one of the…

Brock:  I’ve been waiting for that moment.

Ben:  Anyways, if you want to read my new book for free and figure out all kinds of cool little wilderness survival hip tips, biohacks, and just a good book to sit down and read by the fire.  You can check it out over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/TheForest and it’s free – bengreenfieldfitness.com/TheForest.

Get the inside edge from Ben Greenfield Fitness delivered straight to your phone.  Just text the word ‘fitness’ to 411-247 and you’ll instantly get exclusive VIP discounts and insider tips that no one else will ever see except you.  Do it now.  Text the word ‘fitness’ to 411-247 and you’ll be in Ben’s VIP text club for FREE!

Listener Q & A:

Preston:   Hey Ben, this is Preston.  So I just went to the blood bank to donate some blood because I’m O- and I’m CMV- which means adolescents and babies can take my blood ‘cause I have a specific antibody inside my blood.  I like to go frequently and donate blood.  Is there any way for me to hack my next visit to donate blood? Can I get some blood and take it to Labcore since I’m already again some blood taken out? Is there any creative ways I can get more use out of donating blood next time I go?  Thanks for your thought.  Brock, hi and keep up the awesome content.  Thank you.

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Ben:  Who sits around on things of this crap?

Brock:  (chuckles) Well…

Ben:  Well?

Brock:  …a fellow named Preston!

Ben:  (laughs)  Our listeners either they’re bored or just so on the cutting edge of things that they think of things like this.  Well first of all Preston, good on you for donating your blood, man.  Good on you.

Brock:  Yeah, yeah.  It’s almost – if you got O- and CMV- then you really – it’s your duty…

Ben:  Mmm-hmm.

Brock:  …to donate as often as possible I’d say.

Ben:  That’s right and there are some…

Brock:  I’ve got like stupid blood that nobody wants.

Ben:  Yeah, me too.

Brock:  Oh.

Ben:  Me too, yeah.  Anyways though, the deal with donating blood first of all – you should know that if you’re doing this big blood donation because and we talked about this on the podcast at some point last year – it does significantly decrease your VO2 max and it can do so for up to 3 to 4 weeks.  So the first thing is make sure you’re not signed up for some super-duper important competition especially not a super-duper important competition that altitude where you want as much EPO and red blood cell as you can get your hands on because even when you’re say like giving blood for like a blood test like a Wellness FX blood test, you wanna give yourself a good week or 2 weeks of recovery from something as simple as that because even though it’s just about a quarter of what you might give when donating blood.  What you see when donating blood is you can get a loss of about to 6% of your VO2 max for a short period of time until you recover using that techniques that I’ll about to give you.  But you can see a decrease of anywhere from 1 to 2% when you give something like 15 to 20 of those little vials of blood when you’re doing you know, one of these little biohacking panels, so just know that you wanna make sure that you time your blood donations properly.  Now as far as why you may want to donate blood, why you wanna give blood – there are some reasons to do it that I think some people aren’t aware of.  So most of us are aware of the fact that there can be in many people, issues with high iron levels – of course more common in men than in women – it’s called hemochromatosis or iron overload and it can actually be a longevity enhancing technique when you give blood.  There are some biohackers out there, there’s one named – one guy named Jolly, another guy named Josh White – two guys have spoken with a different events and they both give blood regularly just to as a means of increasing longevity and lowering the risk for hemochromatosis and iron overload but also increasing their you know, the effectiveness of an anti-aging protocol, so there’s…

Brock:  But the question is do they actually go to the blood bank or do they just use leeches?

Ben:  I believe they use leeches and then drop the leeches off of the blood bank in the jar for the blood.

Brock:  Nice!

Ben:  Yes, of course.  So another advantage though, in addition to reducing your risk for hemochromatosis is you get better blood flow.  So what happens is everything from radio frequencies to electro-magnetic fields, to stress, to anxiety, to a high cholesterol, to high uric acid levels – all of these make your blood what’s called hypercoagulable – I mean it’s thick and slow moving and you get increase risk of having like a blood clot or stroke or something like that.

Brock:  Hmmm.  That’s where they’re really about when you’re taking a – what’s in the hormone? Ah, testosterone.

Ben:  Yeah, exactly.

Brock:  It gets all dupey and you have heart problems.

Ben:  So especially if you’re you know getting testosterone shot into your right butt cheek – another reason to give blood.  Anyways though, repeated blood donations can help blood to flow better which can help to limit damage to the lining of your blood vessels which can result in lower risk for arterial blockages.  So interestingly, did you know another way that you can make blood less hypercoagulable? Or less likely to clog is grounding or earthing, using like these grounding mats or earthing mats or a biomat or something like that, that actually increases blood flow as well.

Brock:  Cool.

Ben:  So, kinda interesting little way to go about things if you don’t want to give blood.  So one other quick thing on the iron issue is that there are – there are ways if you didn’t get a blood test for iron to know if you’re high in iron, if you are at risk for hemochromatosis – one is if you do a lot of cooking in a pots and pans like cast iron – that’s healthy but you also should know that you will have increase risk for blood iron levels and that it may behoove you to give blood if you are like a cast iron cooking person, especially if you cook acidic foods in those types of top pots and pans, you know, and that could include something as simple as lemon juice and alcohol and things along those lines.  If you eat processed foods like cereals or breads that are fortified with iron, that also can increase your risk for hemochromatosis, or increase the amount of blood iron that you have or excess iron.  Another one and this is actually why this Friday I’m going in the Quest Labs and doing a Wellness FX panel that includes iron is because well water can be high in iron. 

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And even though I have a really good iron precipitator, iron water filter, I recently turned on my sprinklers and the sprinklers overloaded the iron filter and so for a good couple of weeks I was drinking some really, really sulphurus, irony water – so I wanna go test and see how high my blood actually is in iron.  And then the last reason would be if you take a lot of supplements, a lot of supplements do have trace levels of iron in them and even a lot of multi-vitamins and it’s a good idea to check every now and again – even if it’s just twice a year, check your iron levels because again, it’s hemochromatosis is one of those things that is a – it’s one of those things that flies in the phase of longevity and anti-aging.  So if you’re one of those people who’s joined a bunch of stuff to stay healthy, make sure that you pay attention.  So every time you donate a unit of blood by the way, you lose about a quarter of a gram of iron which is a pretty significant amount of iron.

Brock:  Oh, is it? It doesn’t sound like very much.

Ben:  Ah, 250 mg of iron so it’s actually pretty significant.  And because of that if you don’t have hemochromatosis and I know this can be confusing because it’s like – well if you do have hemochromatosis, you donate blood to get rid of the excess iron and you’re good to go.  But if you don’t have hemochromatosis and you donate blood, one of the ways that you can recover more quickly from donating blood is to actually take an iron supplement and preferably what’s called a ferritin supplement post blood donation.  So the top three things that you can do to recover as quickly as possible especially if you’re an athlete after donating blood or after doing one of these big blood panels: number one, would be to take an iron supplement.  I am a fan of a non-constipating form of iron –

Brock:  (laughs)

Ben:  there’s a one form of iron – no seriously, most iron cause…

Brock:  I know, I know.  I’m just laughing ‘cause I’m being a fan of not getting constipated I think is…

Ben:  Yeah.

Brock:  …universal.

Ben:  Yeah.  And oh and by the way, when my well’s iron filter pooped out (laughs) pun intended…

Brock:  Hehehehe.

Ben:  I was seriously constipated for like a week and you know when I poo it was kinda reddish, orange – I know that I consume the great deal of iron which is again why I’m testing.  Anyways though…

Brock:  Time to give blood, Ben.

Ben:  Iron Bisglycinate – Iron Bisglycinate, I’ll link to this in the show notes – there’s a company called Thorne that makes a form of Iron Bisglycinate which is an extremely well absorbed form of iron that does not include what’s called ferrous sulfate which is the form of iron that is not only poly absorbed but also can cause constipation, so that’s number one.

Brock:  Alright.

Ben:  The second thing that I would take is a very important iron storage protein.  It’s in the form of ferritin pyrophosphate – your body use a ferritin protein to help to store iron and there is a supplement – yeah, you can get it off Amazon, I’ll link to this one in the show notes as well for you – it’s called Floradix and it’s again like a healthy non-constipating way to increase your ability to store iron and that one to combo of Iron Bisglycinate and then ferritin pyrophosphate from this Floradix supplement is a very, very good way to recover from something like donating blood.  And you could simply use these two supplements for about 10 to 14 days after your blood donation – that’s about as long as you need to do it.  And then the last one would be really, really good electrolyte intake and as a matter of fact just because it’s so closely – it matches the electrolyte concentration of human plasma, I love to use that word by the way.

Brock:  Plasma.

Ben:  Plasma – say like Dr. Evil.

Brock:  (laughs)

Ben:  “Mmm.  Liquid, magma, plasma” Coconut water – coconut water is actually a great little electrolyte replacement supplement and typically like after a big race or something like that or often times the day before a big race just to top off my electrolyte levels I do a coconut water – actually a crapload of coconut water.  I’ll typically take about 16 to 32 ounces, so coconut water is another one – yes, it does have sugar in it you know, like juice so you get some more concentrated sugars anytime you drink the juice  but it’s not too bad and it’s chock full of electrolytes – so I would do a 1-2-3 combo of Iron Bisglycinate, ferritin pyrophosphate and coconut water after you give blood to help you to bounce back faster and to help you to mitigate some of the VO2 decreasing effects of giving blood.  And the last thing that you can do, and this is a little bit spendier, it’s a little bit more of a – more of an inconvenience, but you can do like this Myers’ cocktails, right? Where you get IVs full of vitamins – if you’ve never – if you’re listening and you’ve never gotten like Myers’ cocktail and you can hunt down like a Wellness facility in your area that would give you a Myers’ cocktail IV with like some extra vitamin C and some extra glutathione – but if you wanna feel like Superman that or Superwoman, those IVs are magical.  So…

[0:35:21.2]  

Brock:  Especially if you’re hang-over.

Ben:  Yes, exactly.  The amount of food that they give you in those IVs actually do exceed World Anti-Doping Association regulations, so if you’re competing in like an, you know, an Ironman triathlon or anything else that is sanctioned by the World Anti-Doping Association, I would not do that.  But if you just wanna feel good and get an IV, they’re quite, quite useful in making you feel like a million bucks.  Anyways though, I know I haven’t really answered Preston’s question which is – if he can do anything while donating blood to get an added benefit, and Preston – while I hope the information that I’ve just given you is helpful and allowing you to recover more quickly from donating blood.  I do not think that they will give you your blood or extra blood that you could for example, put in a little Nalgene water bottle and trapes over to your local quester labcore and give it to them to run a thyroid panel on, or something like that.  I also don’t know of any way or any substance you could take that would perhaps like detox you while you’re giving blood or something like that.  I really am not aware of any blood donation biohacks so to speak aside from the ones that I’ve just given you which are primarily folks done either recovering more quickly from a blood donation or else – are reasons to give blood if you consider yourself to be a risk for hemochromatosis.  So, ultimately though I think everybody should give a little blood every now and again.  And the only exception to that would be if you’re one of those people that frequently test your blood using these fancy blood panels, you’re probably losing enough blood through those that really the only reason for you to donate blood would just to be out of the goodness of your heart to give your fellowmen, women, and children a little bit of extra blood.  So ultimately, there you have it.  Those are my tips and tricks for donating blood.

Julian:   Hello Ben, Jack Kruse mentioned something about the exchange of electrons during a massage and he included it as positive.  My question is what happen during a massage and what kind of positive effect to have this exchange of electrons.  Thanks Ben.

Brock:  Next time I book a massage, I’m going to just book an exchange of electrons.

Ben:  Hmm, yeah.

Brock:  Oh!  I’d like to book an exchange of electrons please.

Ben:  Yes!  Hello!  Do you do that service along with a deep tissue exchange of electrons, or maybe the next time that you’re making sweet love to your loved one, you could whisper in his or her ear, “really feeling your electrons”.

Brock:  “I love your electrons, baby”.

Ben:  Electrons.

Brock:  Exchange.

Ben:  “Exchanging all over me”.  And of course, it is true that humans are electric.  Most of us know that we are full of electrons and we can conduct electrons if you’ve ever grab an electric fans, you know that you can definitely conduct electrons and they can jump from the surface to your skin in any number of amounts, and sometimes they can jump right quickly and electrify you.  And electrons can also be transferred from one person to another, and this electrification can occur not just from a small amount of electron flow but charged ions can also flow like a sodium and potassium, and hydrogen and chloride, and all of these are charged ions and those can flow from human to human in the same way that electrons can flow from human to human.  And it’s one of the reasons that if you were to go get one of these forms of massage in which the person doesn’t actually touch you, like Reiki is an example of that.

Brock:  Oh, I have had that – it’s so, it’s so teasy.

Ben:  Yeah, it’s very teasy, like you can feel the person’s – you feel like your hair stand up a little bit, and you could feel the warmth of their hands getting oh so close to your skin but they’re not actually touching you.  However, it’s very interesting because some will hover their hands above various parts of your body and you’ll feel like warmth than blood flow going to that area of the body and part of that is because of that electron exchange effect or that electron transfer.  And it’s, you know, it’s the same way it happens when you’re touching for example the planet earth.  If one person has a more negative charge or more electrons, they can transfer that excess negative charge to another body that they’re touching.  It’s just you know, simple flow of currents.  So, ultimately in an ideal scenario we know despite the tile at negative electrons, the newly charge electrons such as we might get when grounding or doing barefoot yoga in the backyard.

[0:40:13.7]

Those are the good type of electrons that tend to result in the health effects that have been shown from something like grounding or earthing whereas positive ions such as you might get from holding a cellphone up to your ear or typing on your computer all day long, or being around a bunch of electrical equipment, those would be the type of ions that actually would be potentially deleterious or inflammatory to your health, or they would be the type of ions that would lower the electrochemical gradients.  The electrochemical gradient in your membrane supposed to be about 70-80 millivolts and by constant exposure to positive ions, you can walk around with a somewhat lowered electrochemical gradient and that can lower metabolic activity, and basically hamper the ability of your cells to function as well as they should.  You know, the very, very worse way to do that would be the frequent airline travel.  I actually have a few notes on that.  I’m gonna be talking about next week a very, very interesting article that was just released about airline travel and physiological effects of it.  I was reading it ironically on the airplane last night.  I was reading it which made me feel very guilty and I really wanted to get off the airplane while I was reading it but I couldn’t because we were, well, above the ground.  So…

Brock:  That ironic ‘cause it was coincidentally.

Ben:  Uhm, I was pounding.  I was pounding on the window.  Trying to get out.

Brock:  Let me out!

Ben:  Let me out!  Anyways though, the electron transfer thing – there is this concept in medicine called therapeutic touch or energy therapy, and what they say is that a practitioner therapeutic touch can put their hands on or near their client or their patient to make them detect, or potentially even manipulate the energy field.  And some people do similar to Reike, I swear by this in terms of it being like an ancient healing practice that you walk out of feeling better potentially because you have had your electrons adjusted and I supposed that if the person who was doing the touching of you is like barefoot, grounded, touching you helping to transfer electrons, helping to move those around the body, combine with massage and the fact that massage in itself can cause some pretty cool effects.  You could get an electron transfer, but I personally think that there are benefits to massage that go far and above beyond the electron transfer.  For example, when another human being touches you and you feel the skin of another human being, your central nervous system detects that in response with the surge of hormones, and one of those hormones is oxytocin – which is the same hormone that gets release in very high amounts after sexual intercourse, and oxytocin makes you feel fantastic.  It’s not only an anti-aging hormone but it’s a potent anti-inflammatory.  So, that’s one hormone that gets release simply through touch.  It doesn’t have a whole lot to do with electron flow and perhaps isn’t as woo woo as Reiki or Reike, however you pronounce it, but that happens.  There is – or there are some other benefits to touch that – or the human touch specifically that scientists have looked into.  For example, neuroscientists have discovered that when human beings touch each other, there’s activation of what’s called the orbital frontal cortex in the brain, and that is link to feelings of reward and compassion, and specifically activates the vagus nerve.  And the vagus nerve which we talked about on the show before when activated in a therapeutic way can increase your heart rate variability or the interplay between your sympathetic and your para-sympathetic nervous system.  So, not only do you get the release of oxytocin but you also can increase your heart rate variability which is a way to reduce stress and a way to enhance what’s called your alpha brain wave production.  So, there’s that as well.

There’s also some research that shows that infants who are touched a lot has stronger immune systems, like infants who get a lot of time with their mothers and – or touched by their fathers and their mothers have stronger immune systems, although they haven’t done some more studies in adults but it’s possible that the hormonal or the electron exchange or the vagus nerve activation that’s happening via that human touch is affecting not only the immune system of babies but may also be helping the immune system of adults as well.  And then the last interesting study that they found on touches that people with Alzheimer's disease who get massage and consistent human interaction skin to skin can relax more, make better emotional connections with others, and have reduce symptoms of depression.

[0:45:05.0]

So, there are things that go above and beyond just like making your IT band feel better or you know, getting a few knots out of the shoulders when it comes to human touch, and those are some of them.  So, even if you think the electron flow thing is woo woo, there are other proven scientific benefits to human touch that I think make it important for you to go out of your way to touch some people.  So, next time you’re on the subway or on a train or on an airplane, just walk around touching people, and see what happens.  It’ll be great.  I promise.

Brock:  It’ll be fine.

Ben:  (Laughs)  Now stick with your friends, and actually your friends or someone you pay, like a massage therapist.

Jimmy:   Hi Ben, this is Jimmy from Manchester, United Kingdom.  Following you for a while, love your podcast, and got a question about toenail fungus.  Have you got any suggestions, cures, and experience with people who have had any success with cure in it?  I’ve tried every natural or conventional medicine and under the sun haven’t had any success with all of those.  Thank you.

Brock:  Toenail fungus can be one of those things that just does not want to go away.

Ben:  Uhmm, I like little toenail fungus every now and again.  It’s a great conversation piece.  It gives you something to do when you’re bored and you’re barefoot.

Brock:  It’s really nice, you take a little grater, you can put like a little bit on your salad.

Ben:  Hmm, that’s right!

Brock:  (Cheese grating sound)

Ben:  Yeah, you save a ton of money on blue cheese.  So, yeah.  A lot of reasons to let that toenail fungus hang around.  But let say you wanna get rid of it, you’ve got a hot date, or you’re a foot model perhaps, there are reasons to clear up toenail fungus.  And really, I’m not going to beat around the bush here.  There is one remedy that I have never found to fail when it comes to athlete’s foot or toenail fungus.  And…

Brock:  Is it apple cider vinegar?

Ben:  It is not apple cider vinegar, even though apple cider vinegar is oh so tasty.  It is actually something…

Brock:  That also goes well on your salad with your toenail fungus.

Ben:  Even tastier than apple cider vinegar.  It’s oregano.

Brock:  Ah, of course.

Ben:  So, oregano has multiple, not just carvacrol which we’ve talked about on the show but also thymol, terpines, something called naringin, it’s got rosmarinic acid, ton of different tocopherols, and it is a natural fungicide.  You simply apply it two or three times daily and it can knock out fungal infection within a couple of days.  Fingernails or toenails, and it’s an antibiotic, it’s an antifungal.  I personally always have oregano around both in my medicine cabinet upstairs, I also have it in my refrigerator, because I will use it when I get sick, because of its antibacterial and antiviral activity, and I mean, really, I could go on and on here about natural remedies for toenail fungus but really it’s pretty simple, I haven’t found anything to work as well as just a basic oregano essential oil.  So, a few things to know about oregano oil is what’s called the dermal irritant – meaning, it can cause skin burning, skin swelling, skin inflammation.  Usually that’s because it hasn’t been deluded enough.  So the oil of oregano that I use, that I recommend, it’s deluded with almond oil and or olive oil.  It has a very, very high what’s called carvacrol content, so, I get stuff that’s harvested from Turkey – it is what’s called Wild Mediterranean Oil of Oregano.  A lot of times this stuff that you buy from the grocery store is not oregano, it is thyme oil which is far less potent and contains far fewer carvacrols, and – you know, full disclosure like I actually have oil of oregano bottled up, mixed with almond oil, harvested as well Mediterranean Oil of Oregano and we sell it at greenfieldfitnesssystems and the reason we sell it is because I personally use it for so many things.  When there’s something I personally use a bunch, I have it over there as well because I know other people will probably wanna get the same benefits.  So, that’s what I would use – it’s just Oil of Oregano.  We’ll put a link to in the show notes but get yourself some Ben Greenfield Fitness Oil of Oregano.  It’s mixed in a 7:1 ratio with almond oil.  You can use it orally, you can use it topically, you can put it in a water balloon, and throw at your friends for a fun summer time party.  You can put it on…

Brock:  It’s just mean.

Ben:  …pizza, you can put it with your toenail fungus and some apple cider vinegar on a salad.  But oil of oregano, check, check, check it out!

Brock:  So what would you do though?  Would you like just put a few drops on like a cotton ball and then spread it around on your toenails or how would you apply it?

[0:50:07.2]

Ben:  Uhmm, yes.  That is exactly what you would do.

Brock:  Ohh!

Ben:  And if you wanna skip the cotton ball or the Q-tip, you can literally just like take out the drop – it comes in a little dropper bottle and you squeeze a few drops onto the toenail and you just kinda like with your fingers, like massaging kinda rub it in.  So, yeah, different ways to skin that cat, but ultimately I would just throw yourself a little oil of oregano, toenail fungus funeral party.

Gina:    Hey Ben, Brock, this is Gina.  Question for you.  I’m headed to Burning Man this year.  You probably heard about this week long event in the hot, hot desert where there is no electricity, or fridge, and cooking and eating healthily is gonna be challenged.  So I’m curious what you would recommend I bring during that time.  So far my idea is a quest bars, and drinking coconut oil like it’s going out of business since it’s gonna be hard enough on the player.  Even making protein shakes is not an option because I don’t think I will have enough water to wash out the gunk out of the cup every time.  So, I’m just curious what’s you would recommend for s semi-balance menu for a week.  So far, I was also thinking nuts, canned fish, anything else?  Thank you so much.  Bye.

Ben:  Have you ever been to Burning Man, Brock?

Brock:  No.

Ben:  Do you know what Burning Man is?

Brock:  I do.

Ben:  Yes.

Brock:  I know people who go to Burning Man all of the time and they seemed to have a really good time but they always come back just a little noddier than when before they left.

Ben:  A little noddier.  Well, Burning Man started as just a bonfire ritual in San Francisco.  The place called Baker Beach in San Francisco where a few dudes burned a 9-foot tall wooden man and I believe they also burned a small wooden dog, and they burnt it as what they called a spontaneous act of self-expression, and basically it’s a way to kinda – kinda stick it to the man to burn the man so to speak.  And now they have this Burning Man festival out in the desert in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, and basically they define it as a temporary metropolis like a small city that they build out there in the desert dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance.  And if you ask the insiders, also drugs and orgies.  (chuckles)  You basically stay there for a week and then you depart leaving no trace whatsoever, and it’s a very, very popular event especially among like progressive young folks, all those young folks out there.  I get invited every year and have yet to go.  It is on my list of things to go to just because I would love to check it out.  You know, a lot of art, a lot of performance, a lot philosophizing, a lot of use of recreational drugs to enhance creativity, and it’s a very, very interesting festival near the desert, so… Anyways though, what would I take?  If you held a gun to my head right now and said, “Ben, get in your hippie van and go to Burning Man”, what would I take with me?

Brock:  That’s extreme.

Ben:  That’s extreme, yes.  Well, obviously there’s a lot of different things you could take to something like Burning Man and Gina’s got her bars, and her nuts, and her coconut oil.  But let’s say you’re not gonna bring out a lot of camp stoving and electricity, and water equipment, but what I take, well, I’m gonna give you a five – five things that I personally would take to Burning Man or any other event in which I really didn’t want to make myself scrambled eggs, hotdogs, and smores and just wanted like some good packaged food that I could rely on to fuel my – my drug taking in wild, sex orgies.  I would take, first of all assuming that you are omnivorous or carnivorous.  Take a good, natural, organic form of either pemmican or jerky.  One thing that I travelled quite a bit with when I’m camping or when I’m hunting or when I’m airplaning or whenever.  I always have a little bit of pemmican or jerky.  My favorite form of pemmican right now, I get from US Wellness Meats.  And pemmican is just rendered fat, one tube of that stuff will keep you full like 6 hours, get the stuff that’s like preserved with a little bit of salt, you can even get it with honey or berries if you like just a little bit of extra carbohydrates or flavor in it, but pemmican would be one, and if you get jerky, they’re variety of different jerky’s out there but the one I’m the biggest fan right now is the bison bar.  It’s called the…

Brock:  Oh, the Warrior Bar.

Ben:  The Warrior Bar, yes, the Warrior Bar from Onnit.

[0:55:03.3]

Brock:  Delicious!

Ben:  So, I would get yourself some pemmican from US Wellness Meats, and some of those bison bars from Onnit.  Another company that does like a bacon bars, and like pork and bison, and buffalo is Epic Bar.  Epic Bar does some pretty good bars too, but if you’re gonna make jerky yourself, I’d say US Wellness Meats for their pemmican, Onnit for their bison bars which are kinda like a mix between pemmican and jerky ‘cause they have a lot of rendered fat in them.  And then any of the Epic jerky bars.  I’d recommend those and we’ll put links in the show notes to these so that you can go and check them out if you would like.  That’s what I recommend from a meat standpoint.  For meals, pretty much – you know, like for example, I was on airplanes most of the day yesterday.  I pretty much survived on a little ziplock bag full of Super Greens and Super Greens are a meal replacement blend – meal replacement blend of a bunch of different things that got, like barley, spinach, kale, carrots, spirulina, probiotics, digestive enzymes, just kinda like this big mash-up of a big bunch of different nutrients, all shoved into like a greens powder.  So what I typically do is I travel and I’ll stop like Starbucks in the airport, I’ll ask them for like a 16 Oz cup of water, I’m typically really, really nice, so I get it for free and like no ice, no lead, no straw, just give me some water.  And as they’re getting the water, when they’ve got their back turned, I grab a plastic spoon, and like a huge handful of napkins and then take the water for free, and walk away.

Brock:  You’re badass.

Ben:  I know, I stick it to the man.  Starbucks man.  I’m such a badass and then I take that Super Greens and I just store it into the water, and I make myself a little slurry and I eat it with my free plastic spoon from Starbucks.  And it really is like it’s a – I’m serious, if you check out the label on this stuff, it is a blend of super foods, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, probiotics, amino acids, herbs, you know, you hear guys like Tim Ferriss talk about like athletic greens, and you hear other people talk about greens capsules and greens powders.  This stuff kicks the butt of anything I’ve ever tried in terms of like appetite satiations, taste, and hypo-allergenic potential.  So…

Brock:  That’s been my go-to-fuel for race morning.  Anytime I’m doing a race, that’s what I have for breakfast just like a quippy mess of that with some coconut water.

Ben:  Yeah.  Do you think that I should actually tell people what’s in it?

Brock:  Ah, sure.

Ben:  It might take a little while but let me…

Brock:  Yeah, it’s a very long list.

Ben:  Let me go through this for a super duper quick.  I promise I make this quick.  A non-GMO brown rice and non-GMO yellow pea protein, barley grass leaf, whole raw chia seeds, organic spinach, organic kale, organic broccoli, organic ker, organic beet root, organic oat soluble beta-glucan fiber, spirulina, organic sea vegetable blend of bunch of different sea vegetables like dolci and kelp, and stuff like that.  A stabilized micro-encapsulated probiotic compound, every digestive enzyme that you need from cellulase to all your amylases, your peptodases, your papsyses, your lypases, etc. from an herbal standpoint – organic marshmallow root, turmeric, ginger root, stragulus, dandelion root, milk thistle extract, gingko biloba, full spectrum of antioxidants, glutathione, Co-enzyme Q10, alpha lipoic acid, grapeseed, green tea, quercetin, acetylcysteine, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin B, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin K, all of your vitamins basically, and all the minerals: potassium, calcium, magnesium, trace mineral complex like 77 different minerals, zinc, silica, magnesium, boron, chromium, selenium, vanadium.  So, it is everything.  Granted you will get bored with it if you were to rely on this for every single meal that you eat, but I would definitely take this with you.  So, there’s that.  Next thing that I would take just because it mixes so well with pemmican and jerky with meal replacement powder, and even with just a banana like – a lot of times, all I have is this and a banana, I will just eat the banana on top of this.  And that is a good gluten-free, dairy-free, organic dark chocolate.  So look for this stuff.  There’s no soy in it either.  So, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, dark chocolate preferably so it doesn’t spike your blood sugar at least 75% cacao is my recommendation.  My number one top dark chocolate if I have to choose one on the face of the planet is the Eating Evolved Dark Chocolate.

Brock:  Oh, that’s so good!

Ben:  They have one called Midnight Coconut that is 100% cacao.  So, like almost zero sugar – I’ll put a link to ‘em in the show notes but they call themselves Primal Chocolate and it’s just fair trade certified cacao, source from an organic farming cooperative in the Dominican Republic, it is gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free, and the small amounts of sugar that they have in it is from a really, really nutrient dense, unrefined maple sugar, stoned –ground crafted in small batches in New York.

[1:00:08.0]

Good stuff.  So, I take some of that.

Brock:  One thing though, everybody like me who does not live in the US, they do not ship outside of the US.

Ben:  But Burning Man is in Nevada.

Brock:  There you go.

Ben:  So you could just get…

Brock:  So Gina is okay but the rest of us are screwed.

Ben:  That’s right.  Next thing would be chia seeds.  I am a huge fan of chia seeds just because of their versatility, just because similar to bone broth, L-glutamine, colostrum, etc.  They’re very, very therapeutic to the gut.  Not that you will be consuming alcohol or doing anything else that may harm your gut (crosstalk)  however, chia seeds are just like – they’re like the next best thing, like vegan bone broths, so you just take chia seeds and you can mix them like the Living Fuel Super Greens that I was talking about.  Or you can just put them in water with a little bit of lemon juice and stevia, and sea salt.  You can just crunch on them and chew them like they’re incredibly versatile.  They’re incredibly filling about 60 calories in a tablespoon.  They’ve got amino acids, they’ve got fatty acids, they do have good amounts of omega 3-fatty acids like EPA and ALA in them.  Yes, unfortunately to all you vegans and vegetarians out there, only about 2% of that is actually converted into brain beneficial DHA but…

Brock:  Bummer!

Ben:  … that doesn’t matter because it does have a lot of other really, really incredible properties to it.  So chia seeds…

Brock:  And it looks like weird fish eggs when you let it soak up the water.

Ben:  That’s right.  So, that’s another one that I almost always travel with in addition to pemmican jerky, add some from powder and some healthy dark chocolate.  And then the last thing I would take even though the Super Greens already has spirulina in it is I would take like spirulina or chlorella just because it is the most nutrient-dense thing that you can eat on the face of the planet other than bacon and liver actually, spirulina/chlorella.  Since the Super Greens already has spirulina in it, if I were you I’ll do chlorella but there’s this company called Energy Bits, they make this stuff called Energy Bits which is spirulina but then they also make this stuff called Recovery Bits which is…

Brock:  Did you say Energy Bitch?

Ben:  Energy Bitch, no.  I said Energy…

Brock:  It’s a name for a company though…

Ben:  I tend to slur, I tend to slur as we get farther and farther into the podcast.  I said it’s chlorella.  The recovery bits that they make is 100% organic crack-cell wall chlorella.  I talked on the couple of episodes ago in detail in terms of all the different properties of chlorella, but as far as something very, very satiating, very nutrient-dense, and something that has a liver detoxification effects in terms of its ability to bind some of the things that have detoxify by your liver and pass them out through your stool, there in the desert.  That’s another one is chlorella, so, if you banish me to a desert island, or to an airplane for a long period of time, or the Burning Man, those are the five things that I would take.  I will put a discount codes or discount code links in all those goodies for those of you who access the show notes and just wanna handy-dandy list to get these stuff, go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/327 and I’ll put it there but camping, hunting, burning man, etc. that’s the direction I’d go if you limited me to five things, just had me take those things, and if I had – well, how about this, Brock, if you’ve thrown a six, not to put you on the spot, what would you throw in?

Brock:  Oh man, that’s a good question.  I think I’ll throw in some sort of dehydrated coffee, just because I can’t go without my morning cup of Joe.

Ben:  How about this – dual extracted mushroom coffee…

Brock:  That would do.

Ben:  This stuff from Four Sigma Foods.  They make a mushroom coffee that will make your eyeballs pop out your head, and it’s got like detoxifying mushrooms, and adaptogens and all sorts of stuff in it.  So, the Four Sigma mushroom coffee, that’s a really, really good dehydrated coffee.  So, we’ll throw that one into.  So, there you have it.  Enjoy.  I’ll put all that stuff in the show notes as with everything else we talked about on today’s show.  So, speaking of talking about stuff on today’s show, let’s talk about the…

Brock:  Actually if anybody was wondering – energybitch.com is not taken.

Ben:  Oh! Really?

Brock:  It’s still available if anybody wants to register. (chuckles)

Ben:  Not anymore.  So anyways, yeah, and tell us what you wind up putting up there if you do.  Uh, we have a review!  If you hear your review read on the show, and by the way, one of the best ways to support the show is you just go to iTunes, (not hard) here’s how to do it: go to iTunes, do a search for Ben Greenfield.

Brock:  Step two…

Ben:  Ignore anything that comes up except the one of me half naked jumping over wall looking like I just stole something from the convenience store.

Brock:  Rob the liquor stores with the stick.

Ben:  That’s right, and click on that one, and then what you want to do is basically leave a star, actually five of them, and write your review.

[1:05:09.4]

And if you hear us read your review on the show, we will send you a handy-dandy gear pack with a Ben Greenfield fitness tech-shirt, water bottle, and a beanie or a tuque as Brock might say, and all you gotta do is email [email protected] and when you email [email protected], we will basically send all that straight to your front door whether you live in Colorado or Dubai, it doesn’t matter or Finland, or Helsinki, we’ll send it to you.

Brock:  Helsinki.

Ben:  Helsinki.  So, we have a review from Tunnelrattt and Tunnelrattt, the title of the review – that which is a five-star review is “Want to feel stupid?” and as usual so that I don’t sound like I’m praising my own lips, ah, praising myself.  How’d you say that?  Praising myself with my own lips. (laughs)  Brock, will ah…

Brock:  That’s… don’t you have to have a rib remove to do that?

Ben:  I also do like to praise my lips but Brock… Brock will go ahead and take this one away, Brock…

Brock:  I will.  Do you think anybody keeps listening at this point?

Ben:  Yes they do because they always know that we end with something highly entertaining and stupid after we read the review.

Brock:  Oh okay.

Ben:  So stick around.

Brock:  That’s the promise of stupidity.  Alright, this – the review goes like this: “This podcast has opened my eyes to a whole new world.  As a former minion…”  like those little animated guys?

Ben:  Should we play the Disney song “A Whole New World”? at this point?

(Music Playing)

Brock:  Definitely not.  I don’t wanna do that to people.

Ben:  (singing)  Go ahead, sorry to interrupt.

Brock:  Stuck in my head for the rest of the week now.  Damn it!  “As a former minion, I was going a long buying all that my parents had before me, whether it be food, cookware or vitamins.”

Ben:  Sounds biblical, “my parents before me…”

Brock:  My parents before me.

Ben:  And my parents before them.

Brock:  And my parents before them.  Hoopy cat, Joe, by hoopy hat begot always campy cat, Job.  Anyways, “Since listening to this I discovered a better way of living that will benefit my family moving forward.”

Ben:  And generations to come.

Brock:  When I begot Job.  Uhm, where the hell was I.  Oh, I think this word is whether but it’s not spelled either the way that you spelled whether.  “I am cooking for my family or preparing for my next obstacle course race, there are beneficial tips for everyone in every episode.  Caution, Nerdville is visited often.”

Ben:  Uhm, I have two thoughts on that.  First of all, way to work in words like minion and Nerdville.

Brock:  Uhmm.

Ben:  Just because those are epic words that we should all use more often.  And second, learn how to freakin’ spell Gee, beneficial, whether.  I guess those the only two that he kinda…

Brock:  Actually Tunnelrattt has an excessive amounts of Ts.

Ben:  Three Ts.  Got a little carried – Ts there.  Anyways though, that’s a great review kind of.  If you wanna feel stupid, listen to our show because Nerdville is visited often.

Brock:  I’m actually going to Nerville next week.

Ben:  Really?

Brock:  Yeah.  Be there for like 3 or 4 days.

Ben:  Nice, nice.  Will you take some minions along with you?

Brock:  Yup.  Absolutely.

Ben:  Cool.  Awesome.  Well…

Brock:  My goal is to make everybody there feel stu… stu…stu…pid  bird…

Ben:  Uh, visit bengreenfieldfitness.com/327 if you are still listening and have not fallen off the bandwagon yet, and there are all sorts of handy-dandy links there.  So, if you like to clicky, visit bengreenfieldfitness.com/327 and click away.  We will be back this weekend with a podcast episode… Brock, do you happen to recall what this weekend’s podcast episode is?

Brock:  Ahhh…

Ben:  Although I spent an hour and a half with the guest, I’ve – for some reason I can never remember what the weekend podcast is to bring because usually I record them a week in advance, then forget whose up to bat so to speak.  Is it Tai Lopez?

Brock:  Yeah, I headed to the list so you know, I think Tai is on the 15th.

Ben:  Ah wait…. It’s Ben Hewitt.  It’s called “How a steady diet of standard education is choking the creativity, health and fitness out of our kids and what you can do about it”.

Brock:  Holy crap.

Ben:  Yeah, that’s right.  So, how can you not listen?  Anyways though, stay tuned this weekend and for that in the meantime, have a healthy week and we’ll talk to you later.

[1:10:00.7]

You’ve been listening to the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast.  Go to bengreenfieldfitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.              

[1:11:02.0]     END

 

 

Aug 5, 2015 Podcast: Tips And Tricks For Donating Blood, The Benefits Of Human Touch, Best Natural Remedy For Toenail Fungus, and Nutrition Tips For Burning Man.

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, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form at the bottom of this page.

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Special Announcements:

This podcast is brought to you by Harrys. Go to Harrys.com and use $5 discount code Ben to save on any of their fancy shaving packages.

Sep 23-24, 2015. Ben is speaking at the Biohackers 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.

New Greenfield Longevity Panels. Working closely with WellnessFX, America’s top laboratory for concierge blood testing and online access to all your blood testing results, Ben has developed the “Greenfield Longevity Blood Testing Package”, which is the most complete blood testing package that money can buy. There is one package specifically designed for men, and one for women. This is by far the most comprehensive blood testing package that exists, and Ben created it for the health enthusiast, biohacker and anti-aging individual who wants access to the same type of executive health panel and screening that would normally cost tens of thousands of dollars at a longevity institute. Virtually all hormones and all biomarkers are covered in this panel.

Ben Greenfield has officially launched his first work of fiction: “The Forest”. Twin brothers River and Terran discover a portal to a hidden forested world attacked by parasitic fungi, dark shamans, and serpents. Along with an assembled band of unlikely misfits that includes coyotes, whitetail deer, wood thrushes, and fox squirrels, they must unlock their unique powers to control the elements of earth, air, fire and water, and save the forest before the evil they’ve uncovered can spill back into their own world. Click here to read it now! New chapters released every 7-14 days.

The BenGreenfieldFitness Quarterly box has officially launched! When you sign-up, you’ll get a Quarterly handpicked box jam-packed with Ben’s favorite fitness gear, supplements, nutrients and research-proven biohacks.

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 Brock Skywalker Armstrong, the Podcast Sidekick and Audio Ninja.

Tips And Tricks For Donating Blood

Preston says: He donates blood often (he is O- and CMV- so his blood can be used for infants and children) and is wondering if there is something he can do while donating blood to get an added benefit. How to “hack” giving blood. Can he keep some to take it over to Labcore for testing or anything he can do to get an added benefit?

In my response, I recommend:
Iron bisyglycinate
Ferritin pyrophosphate (Floradix)

The Benefits Of Human Touch

Julian says: He heard Jack Kruse talk about how getting a massage can create an exchange of electrons. Jack said that it was a positive thing. Can you explain how that works (how we exchange electrons) and why it could be a good thing?

Best Natural Remedy For Toenail Fungus

Jimmy says: He has tried every kind of conventional remedy under the sun to cure his toenail fungus but none seem to work. Do you have any suggestions for something that will work and preferably be natural/healthy?

In my response, I recommend:
Oil of Oregano

Nutrition Tips For Burning Man

Gina says: She is heading to Burning Man soon and is looking for some tips on how to stay healthy during the week in the hot hot desert. She is packing some bars, nuts and coconut oil but is looking for some suggestions that wouldn’t involve needing a lot of water or electricity.

In my response, I recommend:
-Pemmican or jerky (USWellnessMeats and/or Onnit and/or EpicBar)
-Meal replacement powder (LivingFuel)
Healthy dark chocolate
Chia seeds
-Spirulina/chlorella (use 10% discount code GREENFIELD at http://www.EnergyBits.com)
FourSigmaFoods Mushroom Coffee

Read more https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2015/08/327-nutrition-tips-for-burning-man-the-science-of-human-touch-blood-donation-biohacks-more/

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