Episode #251 – Full Transcript

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Podcast #251 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2013/08/251-how-to-transition-from-vegetarian-to-meat-eating-fast-ways-to-heal-stress-fractures-how-to-use-colostrum/

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Introduction:  In today’s episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast: How to transition from vegetarian to meat-eating, the pros and cons of circumcision, why you should avoid red rice yeast, fast ways to heal stress fractures, and getting rid of varicose veins.

Welcome to the bengreenfieldfitness.com podcast. We provide you with premier exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon, and wellness advice from the top fitness experts in the nation. So whether you’re an ironman triathlete, or you’re just trying to shed a few pounds, get ready for non-run-of-the-mill, cutting edge content from bengreenfieldfitness.com.

Brock:  Alright. After one false start, we are ready to rock.

Ben:  One false start. Brock had to restart his computer.

Brock:  Are you ready to rock?

Ben:  You had to restart your computer and it took like 15 minutes to restart, dude. So what’s wrong?

Brock:  That’s because I’ve got all these extra malware and stuff on my computer to make sure that everybody in the world can see what I’m doing at all times.

Ben:  Extra what?

Brock:  Malware. You know the stuff that like…

Ben:  Oh, malware. Yeah.

Brock:  …monitors everything you do and sends it to the gangsters in Russia.

Ben:  Yeah, we actually call it malware here in the United States of America.

Brock:  Yeah, if you can make a word sound more harsh, that’s what the Americans do.

Ben:  Mal…Well, today should be, it should be…

Brock:  Malware. How’re y’all doing?

Ben:   If it’s any consolation, today will be a little bit easier for you ‘cause my kids are at camp all week. So we’ve got no toilets flushing in the background, no pets giving ______ [0:01:43.4], no screaming, no eating.

Brock:  Nice.

Ben:  You listeners would be surprised at the amount of post-audio cutting that has to take place when you’re recording from a home office. It’s pretty nuts.

Brock:  I think my favorite thing was editing your audio book and there’s actually what I believe was a goat in the background at one point.

Ben:     Uhm, goat. That may have been just the gerbil. But we don’t talk about that.

Brock:  Don’t squeeze the gerbil.

News Flashes:

Brock:  Go on over to bengreenfieldfitness.com/251 to find these next few awesome links that Ben’s about to tell us all about.

Ben:  Let’s jump Friday, man. Let’s start with the moon. I don’t know if you saw this article that came out.

Brock:  I love the moon. I did. It’s pretty interesting.

Ben:  Trouble sleeping. It’s probably the moon’s fault.

Brock:  Stupid moon.

Ben:  Stupid moon. Oh, moon. So the moon has these things that are called circa lunar rhythms and as our listeners know, we’re big time into like enhancing your sleep, just ‘cause all sorts of cool things happen, you know, in terms of neuron, and recovery and repair when you’re sleeping.

Brock:  Uhm, sleeping.

Ben:  And it turns out that lunar rhythms influence sleep and humans. And I’m gonna put a link in the show notes to this article but it’s really cool. It basically talks about how the moon’s gravitational pull and also the light that’s emitted by the moon affects everything from like how deep you sleep to like menstrual cycles, to other human sexual behaviors, as well as coral, coral sex, which I thought was just kind of an interesting random thing to throw in the article.

Brock:  I want to know how they even thought to look there. That was, that’s interesting.

Ben:  I want to know how coral have sex. I didn’t know coral can do that. But, anyways, so next time I’m snorkeling….

Brock:  Very slowly. Yeah, interesting.

Ben:  So, scientists found that during the time of full moon, what happens is brain activity related to deep sleep drops by 30% and people take 5 minutes longer on average to fall asleep, and they sleep for 20 minutes less. And that may not seem like much. But what it probably indicates is that, just like, we kinda sort of already know do that, you know, ipad insomnia, or whatever that we shouldn’t be using it’s an artificial light at night. It turns out that by kinda honing in on both the sun in the morning and the moon at night, that we can really keep ourselves locked in to these cool sleep cycles. So, just more evidence that we all need to move out to the wilderness and live intense.

Brock:  See-through intense. You got the, you really got the circadian rhythm of the moon and the sun. Although that, does that mean that we shouldn’t have those really heavy curtains, and like the real light-blocking curtains on the window?

Ben:  That’s like kind of an ongoing argument in the whole like primal ancestral community is whether or not black curtains because they block out sun, moon, stars, everything, are actually a good or a bad idea. I can tell you one thing. I think it depends sometimes on…

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Ben:     … you and how messed up you are chemically. So, we don’t have block-out curtains. Our room is like super bright light in the morning. If it’s a full moon, it’s gonna be bright at night. I usually sleep masked, and I use sleep earplugs, and white noise apps and all these other geeked out stuff. My wife, nothing. Sleeps, sleeps on her back. And she sleeps like 9 or 10 hours a night, my wife does. Like she goes to bed at 10, and she rolls out of bed at like 7 or 8 AM. And it’s not, I don’t know how she does it. But she doesn’t use anything at all. She just gets into bed and falls asleep. And so I think it depends a little bit. But I would say that, I suspect that the less we use when it comes to black-out curtains and stuff like that, the better, assuming we’re not exposing ourselves to a lot of other artificial light. And that is another important variable here. My wife doesn’t work on the computer. She doesn’t watch TV. At night, she’s like, she’s kinda chillin’, you know, sometimes working in the kitchen, or she’ll be like out in the garden or whatever. So I think that probably helps her along a little bit, too. I think you do have to hack things once you’re doing, you know, if you’re like me and you’re writing an article ‘til 9 o’clock at night, you know, you might have to hack things a little bit, so, there you go.

Brock:  Oh, I suspect it probably has something to do on you or your location would also influence like if you’re really far north and you’re getting basically like no sunlight in the winter and all sunlight in the summer. That probably, well, not probably, that absolutely messes it up. So, that would be a great case for definitely having some extra light and some heavy, heavy curtains.

Ben:  And possibly also the next thing I want to talk about, which is colostrum. And colostrum is kinda cool. It’s this thick fluid that’s produced as a precursor to mother’s milk. I know I just grossed out all the vegans and the vegetarians listening in.

Brock:  Even vegans had some breast milk at some point.

Ben:  You find it in humans, maybe goats, and other mammals. Colostrum is used to kinda jumpstart a newborn’s undeveloped immune system and turn a baby animal into a big animal and has a bunch of cool properties in terms of its ability to heal the gut lining. It’s got like lactoferrin in it which helps you out with iron absorption. It has a bunch of cool antimicrobial characteristics. It’s got like growth precursors in it, growth hormone in it. But the reason I’m talking about it right now is because they just came out with a study on colostrum last week where they gave about 10 grams of colostrums to cyclists who are doing 5 days of hardcore cycling efforts. And two things that we’ve talked about on the show before are heart rate variability and testosterone were both improved in the group that used colostrum versus a control group that just used whey protein. So it’s really interesting that you can improve heart rate variability and you can also maintain your testosterone. And they also, they looked at cortisol, too, and found better cortisol rhythmicity which means that cortisol kinda went up in the morning like it’s supposed to and down towards the end of the day. So very, very cool stuff. Whereas, I don’t necessarily think that people need to be taking colostrums if they’re just kind of living a normal life and not going out and doing stupid long events like an ironman triathlon or a 5-day cycling event or something. This is better living through science. So we isolate this stuff, get it from, like I use CapraColostrum which is from an organic goat farm, actually out here in Washington state. And I load with it. So the way that you use colostrum is you load with it similar to creatin. So what you would do is, even if they used 10 milligrams in the study, a lot of previous studies have shown benefits from as few as 3 milligrams to about 6 milligrams. But what you do is you take 6 milligrams a day of colostrum which if you’re using Capra colostrums that’d be like 8 capsules, 4 in the morning, 4 in the evening. And you load with that for 2 weeks before whatever big important event you’re gonna do. It decreases gut permeability too, meaning that, especially when you’re in hot conditions and you tend to get undigested food particles crossing the lining between your gut and your bloodstream, that doesn’t happen as much. Colostrum helps to basically seal up what’s called zonulin, which are these linings in your small intestine. And so it helps with that, too. Like it helps you not have gut issues when you’re out competing. So it’s legal and theoretically if you took a crap load of it, you might test positive for human growth hormone, for a test that detects HGH but I think you have to take a heck of a lot of colostrums. I’m not worried. So anyways, c0lostrum…

Brock:  So, you know what this actually, you know what this leads to though is we need to talk to the guys over at Mount Capra and get them to include that in one of their protein powders.

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Ben:  Yeah, that’d be 30 plus colostrum would be…

Brock:  That would be like magic.

Ben:  That would be kind of cool if they combine colostrums and protein. I’m not sure why they don’t because probiotics and colostrums taken together have pretty good effect. And the Deep 30 protein the amount Capra makes has probiotics in it. So I’ll have to talk to Joe. He’s like their chief nutrition scientist over there. He’s one of my buddies. I should ask him why they don’t add colostrum to their protein ‘cause that’d be interesting. But right now I just, like I’m leading up to Ironman Canada for example so I’ll pop 4 in the morning and 4 in the evening, vavaboom, vavabing, there you go.

Brock:  Beautiful.

Ben:  So, last thing was a couple of studies that came out that were… I believe both of them were done in the Netherlands. But they looked at cold thermogenesis and cold exposure and specifically sitting in a cool room, not even a cold room, a cool room, it was like 68 degrees.

Brock:  It’s like sitting in an ice bath or something, but just in a room…

Ben:  No, it was uhm, actually I think I just said 68, it was 59-61 degrees Farenheit which is 15-16 degrees Celsius in one room.

Brock:  Yeah. I was just gonna do that conversion for everybody.

Ben:  Yeah. People sitting in shorts and a t-shirt sitting in that room for a few hours. And then the other study it was about 63 Farenheit so that was 17 Celsius. In both studies they found increased metabolism, increased resting energy expenditure which is the same thing as increased metabolism but just makes me sound smarter to say increased resting energy expenditure, and a decrease of 5% in body fat mass compared to their control group, which is crazy. I mean that’s…

Brock.    Is that over six weeks?

Ben:  That’s not 5 pounds. That’s 5% body fat mass. And that was for six weeks. And that was just not doing anything at all except sitting, twirling your thumbs, bored to death sitting in a cold room. But of course you could just keep your….

Brock:  For two hours a day.

Ben:  Yeah. Like what I’d do is I’d get up in the morning. I usually wander around in my boxers or my board shorts or whatever, for as long as I can. I don’t put on a shirt. If I am eating a lot of food or truly warm outside, I’ll put on my cool fat burner vest which I get from coolfatburner.com and it says vest that hits all the brown adipose tissues on your body.

Brock:  They just came out with a new version, too, I think. They got like the version 2.o.

Ben:  Cool fat burner 2.0

Brock:  Better than the one you have.

Ben:  What makes it better?

Brock:  I think it’s just a little different construction, I don’t think it’s actually better. I’ve never seen…

Ben:  Does it have like spikes coming out the shoulder like ving from Batman?

Brock:  I think, it’s gotten…. like it plays music and makes you coffee.

Ben:  Cold thermogenesis complete. So, yeah, you put on the cool fat burner vest and that works. You can, like, this study shows that you can literally just turn down the freaking thermostat in your house and even that has a pretty cool effect. Plus I think that I personally sleep better when it’s cool anyways, so I’m a fan. Anyways, I’ll link to the studies in the show notes. But pretty cool stuff and I think that, and this is something that in the article that I’ll link to, they actually expound upon but we kinda have all these modern conveniences like heating, for example, and those make our lives more comfortable.

Brock:  Fire.

Ben:  Yeah, and fire. And perhaps in some cases our body adapts and burns more fat when it’s just a little bit uncomfortable, so.

Special Announcements:

Brock:  So you’re heading up to Ironman Canada. Pretty darn scene, only a couple of weeks.

Ben:  Hey, I did my last long run on…

Brock:  Yeah, you’re practicing?

Ben:  …on Monday. I ran 20 miles on Monday. I haven’t run 20 miles in a , shut up. I haven’t run 20 miles in a long, long, time.

Brock:  I’m getting you accustomed to how people are gonna talk to you.

Ben:  I know you are but I’m trying to brag about my run, and…

Brock:  Ok, so…Twenty miles?

Ben:  There you go. I’m doing the whole minimalist training thing and so this means that one time before Ironman, I got to do one long run which just beats the pants off of running long every weekend.

So every weekend up to this point I’ve only run 60-90 minutes save for a getting lost up in when I went to check out the course in Canada and accidentally ran more like 2 hours. Anyways, though, run 20 miles the way I do it mentally is I run out 10 miles and I kinda have to get home and I’m too embarrassed to call my wife to come pick me up so I have to run back 10 miles and that’s the trick I play on myself. So anyways, though….

Brock:  I suppose you don’t see through that.

Ben:  No, my brain hasn’t figured it out yet, apparently. So anyways, I ran 20 miles and that was like my last long training session so now I just sit around, get ready to race.

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And the reason we’ve been talking about this is for any of you who are triathletes who are gonna be up at Ironman Canada, just announced over at Ben Greenfield Facebook page and we’ll link to this in the show notes, we’re gonna have a pre-race meetup. It’s gonna be Friday, August 23rd noon at this place called Mogul’s Coffeehouse up there in like the main square at Whistler. So we’ll put all the details, or deets as the cool people say in the show notes.

Brock:  All the deets?

Ben:  We’ll put all the deets in the show notes at bengreenfieldfitness.com/251. Go check it out if you’re gonna be at the….

Brock:  If I get my act together in enough time, I’ll be there, too.

Ben:  Brock will be there, too.

Brock:  I get in to Vancouver on the 22nd so I just have to, just have to make sure I don’t miss the morning bus on the 23rd and I will be there as well. So it would be like, we could….

Ben:  So if you want to come and come and hang out…

Brock:  We could do a live show.

Ben:  We could do a live show. So come and hang out with Brock and I, ask your last minute race questions, chill, plan our big post-race parties, whatever, if you’re gonna be at the Whistler. So, couple other things. If you’re gonna be at the Ancestral Health Symposium, come say hi. You’re gonna see me pretty much on stage the whole time ‘cause I’m leading all the stretch and the workout breaks and everything during the entire day…

Brock:  You’re just gonna sit in on everyone at the seminar, throw your two cents in.

Ben:  I’ll also be in the panel with Mark SissonRob WolfJimmy Moore, Jimmy Scott and myself. We’re doing a panel on the ketogenic diet for athlete performance. So…

Brock:  How did you get paired up with those losers?

Ben:   I don’t know, but we’ll be up there. Ketogenic diet…

Brock:     These are not the best minds in this department at all.

Ben:  Yeah. So if you’re going in the Ancestral Health Symposium, then come and see me look really dumb next to a bunch of really smart dudes. The next thing I wanted to mention, and I promise I won’t go on with too many special announcements, but September 10th to the 12th, if you live in London, I’ll be at the Global Business Triathlon Conference. And I’ve got about 50 people on a list right now of people who have emailed me who are listeners in London who want to do a meet up on I believe it’s, it’d be Saturday the 13th and Sunday the 14th . I might have those dates wrong but it’s kinda like September 13th to 15th –ish. Email me [email protected] if you wanna find out about the meet up that we’re gonna have which from what I understand from everyone who’s emailed me so far, is probably gonna be at like some kind of a pub near Hyde Park. So anyway, there you go. And that’s the same weekend as the ITU Triathlon World Championships in Hyde Park. So there’s gonna be a lot of tri athletes and stuff from town, and we’re just gonna get together and have a formal meet up. So, that is gonna be in London.

Brock:  Sounds delightful!

Ben:  Delightful! And tea.

Brock:  Sounds very civilized.

Ben:  Yes, very civilized, very civilized. Say hello to the queen and see the new grandchild, the baby thing, baby thing.

Brock:  Baby thing…

Ben:  Ok, last thing. There’s one freakin’ slot left in the Thailand trip.

Brock:  One slot.

Ben:  One slot. So if you wanna get in on the adventure of a lifetime in Thailand, we’ve talked about it enough on the show before so you probably already know about it but it’s gonna be anywhere you kinda have the option to come for anywhere from 2-3weeks but it’s gonna be 2-3weeks of hardcore fun, family-friendly. You can bring your wife, you can bring your kids, you can bring your girlfriend, your significant other, your dog, your goat, your gerbil, whatever. But Thailand. Here’s the url…

Brock:  I don’t know about that.

Ben:  Jot this down or remember it. Gerbil might get taken at customs. Url is pacificfit.net/thailand. That’s pacificfit.net/thailand. If you wanna go in there and get in, I’ve negotiated fat room discounts, boat trips, excursions. We’re just gonna have a ton of fun, might even eat some scorpions and drink some snake blood, we’ll see about that.

Brock:  Well, that’s part of the morning buffets.

Ben:  Morning buffet. Come and do it.

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Listener Q and A:

Kim:  Hi, Ben and Brock! This is Kim, and I am a 29-year vegetarian. I’ve been eating a vegetarian diet for 29 years. 

[0:20:03.3] 

And I think probably next year, I’m gonna start to eat meat again, Twenty-nine years is a long time and that’s a good effort. So, I think it would be a lot easier for me, more convenient, and I could certainly introduce a lot more variety in my diet by eating some of those greener, more available proteins and yes, I know that I can get grass-fed beef whey powder but it’s difficult to find in my area, and they’re expensive and I can go through a tub of whey powder pretty quick. So my question to you is, what kind of gastrointestinal/digestive transition can I expect my body to make and any advice that you may have to make this transition easier would be appreciated.  I really enjoy the podcasts and you’ve been a real inspiration to me. Thank you.

Brock:  Twenty-nine years. Wow!

Ben:  That’s a long time.

Brock:  That’s a long time to not eat meat.

Ben:  Probably one of the more important things that you should begin by doing is disguising your meat as vegetables, just to trick your brain.

Brock:  I don’t think everybody’s brain is quite as trick-able like yours, Ben.

Ben:  Dress up your hotdog like a giant leaf of kale and shove that bad boy down the hatch with some ketchup. No, seriously, your body is probably going to be deficient in some of the enzymes that you may need to digest meat. And those are some of the complaints that you get from folks who switch from veganism or vegetarianism into a meat-based diet. Now because we’re complete lodites on the show, we’re not gonna talk about like the psychology of this much or even, you know, talk about why or why not you would choose from a moral perspective to eat meat versus plants. We’re just gonna leave all that on the table and jump right into the hardcore science.

Brock:  Oh, okay.

Ben:  Sorry, Brock. I know you were excited to talk about…

Brock:  Oh, I was all ready to get on my soap box and start waving my arms around.

Ben:  Yes, I know. Hmm.

Brock:  That’s fine, that’s fine. Whatever…

Ben:  Baby animals with cute faces, okay. So, anyways, what can you do to make the transition easier? So what happens is you have this reaction in your stomach that occurs when you consume a very complex protein-containing food such as meat. That involves hydrochloric acid being produced. Hydrochloric acid and that…

Brock:  There you go again. Americans making things harsh. Acid.

Ben:  That activates an enzyme called pepsin. And pepsin is what’s gonna break down some of those proteins into their individualized amino acids and make them more likely to be absorbed and used for muscle repair and neurotransmitter formation and all the good stuff that vegans, vegetarians completely miss out on. No, I’m just kidding. You can get that stuff from a vegan diet. It’s just a little bit more difficult and in a less complete form. Anyways, though, so you may have to jumpstart your process of hydrochloric acid production and I would consider taking a hydrochloric acid supplement that includes something called pepsin in it. For example there’s a company called Now Foods. I’ll put a link to it in the show notes. They’re making HCl with pepsin. And what you do is just take 1-2 capsules right before you eat your meal. If you get a bunch of heartburns as soon as you take HCl, you probably took too much. Many folks find that they start off with 1-2 capsules and it works well to each week add 1-2 additional capsules of hydrochloric acid prior to your meal until you get to the point where you got a little bit of acid, a little bit of heartburn going on, then you back off to a maintenance dose of whatever you started off with. And you generally need to take hydrochloric acid for 30-60 days. And what that does is it will gradually jumpstart your own ability to kinda, kinda make your endogenous hydrochloric acid a little bit more easily. If the idea of taking hydrochloric acid doesn’t really make you all that excited, you can do….

Brock:  It sounds a little terrifying, to be honest.

Ben:  You can do some other things. No, it does work well. It works really well on people who have heartburn and stuff who need to jumpstart that process. But you can take lemon juice.

Brock:  I think most people know hydrochloric acid that’s the stuff that you used in like Grade 7 Science to dissolve a nail.

Ben:  Yeah. I mean that…

Brock:  It is the same stuff that’s in your stomach that will dissolve a nail but, yeah, it’s not like you’re pouring it down your throat and letting it eat through your tongue and your esophagus and everything on the way down. It is safe to take.

Ben:  Pleasant thoughts. Lemon juice is kind of an acidic pre-digestive that can work pretty well if you can’t afford or you don’t want to take an HCl supplement with pepsin.

[0:25:00.7]

Ben:  And you can literally just do a glass of lemon juice prior to a meal. And you can achieve kind of a similar effect as HCl with pepsin if you take that glass of lemon juice and when you consume it, we’re talking about squeezing the juice of one lemon into a glass of water, swallow some digestive enzymes along with that. I’m a fan of the CapraZymes stuff, same company that makes that colostrum that we’re talking about. And CapraZymes is simply a plant enzyme blend of a bunch of different enzymes pretty much everything from like peptidase to lactase to all of your proteases for protein, to some cool things that they’ve developed for even people who have issues with like celiac, gluten intolerance, like cerecalase. And they’ve got some papain, bromelain, some proteolytic enzymes are in there. And a big botanical blend of stuff like aloe vera juice, and yucca powder and stuff that kinda lines and coats your stomach and helps to heal your gut. It’s actually part of the gut-healing pack that I designed that’s over at Pacific Elite Fitness, you know. It’s got like colostrum and probiotics, and that digestive enzyme blend that I just described, and then some antifungal oil of oregano. You kinda put all that together and just take it every day. But you would at least want to use something like a basic full digestive enzyme complex like this CapraZyme stuff. So I’ll link to that in the show notes but that also, prior to a meal, you could do one or the other. A lot of people do pretty well just doing the lemon juice, the full digestive enzyme spectrum. So, some other things that can jumpstart digestion would be to use bitters, that’s the same stuff that you would use as like a martini mix. Maybe you already have some in your house, hanging around up there by the grey goose and the tonic waters, some bitters. You can actually take a splash of bitters prior to a meal. And that can help you digest foods a little bit better, that’s a very good digestive. You can precook, not precook, but predigest meat by making sure you marinate it in acidic-like mediums. So for example, before I eat liver, I soak it for a couple of hours in lemon juice. That not only helps make it more digestible, a little bit softer, but it also can extract some potential toxins and things like that out of the liver. So, you can use an acid like…

Brock:  I’ve heard of soaking it in milk and but not in lemon juice.

Ben:  Milk does it as well. I like the flavor better, though when I soak it in lemon juice, frankly. You could tenderize meat in digestive enzymes, like, you can literally take the digestive enzymes that I just talked about and you could make whatever marinade you’re gonna make and then just break open a couple of those capsules and you put them into the marinade. And that helps to tenderize the meat as well. There are some fruits like pineapple and papaya that contain bromelain and papain and you could add the juices or even chunks of those fruits to whatever marinade that you’re using for your meat, and those also help to predigest the meat. So, a lot of different ways you could kinda go about it. But all you’re doing is making that meat a lot easier to digest. Eat it slowly when you’re eating meat. Don’t eat it with a lot of complex foods. The other thing that can really help is if you gradually transition yourself from something that has some meat-based amino acids, and talos, and collagens and stuff like that, without actually forcing you to digest the meat fibers itself. And a really, really perfect way to go for that is bone broth. So what you can do is start off by just making bone broth. And that’s very easy to make with a crock-pot and just like basic chicken carcass, or some pork bones, or beef bones, or whatever. There’s recipes that abound on the internet, if you just search for, you know, how to make bone broth. Or you could even if you wanted to if you’re lazy, you know, just order it to your house from a website like TheBrothery.com. Anyways, they’ll start off with bone broth. And you could literally just do bone broth for a couple weeks to kinda jumpstart your body’s digestive ability to be able to process meat. And that can be a way to ease yourself in as well. They also make, if you wanted to order like a bone broth like powder online, you can get organic gelatin from a company like Great Lakes or Bernard Jensen. And you could put that in the smoothies or shakes you know like if you’re a vegetarian and you’re doing a kill shake every day and you want to start to make that transformation to adding meat, then, you know, these organic gelatins, are like beef-based organic gelatins and they can put some of those compounds into your body but they’re predigested so they’re easier on your stomach, when you’re making that transition. So those are some of the things that you can start off with. And that’s where I would start, just with some digestive enzymes, a little bit of something to jumpstart HCl production whether that is an HCl supplement itself or some lemon juice, use some bitters prior to eating, predigest the meat by putting some acidic compounds or some enzymes into whatever you’re marinating it in. And then ease yourself into some bone broth and some gelatin.

[0:30:03.0]

And then, you’d be chomping down on a giant Viking-sized leg of turkey in no time. So there you go.

Brock:  A big flintstone shop.

Ben:  That’s right.

Brock:  Rack of ribs. The only thing I’d add to it. I’ve used the papaya to tenderize my steaks before and if you leave it on too long, it actually starts to like digest it a little too much.  So be careful how much you leave it on there so it can make like a layer on your meat of this sort of mealy powder, and it kinda grossness and it really takes the pleasure out of eating meat when that happens.

Ben:  Fun with chemistry.

Adam:  Hi, Ben and Brock. I love your show, and thanks for all the great content. My wife and I are expecting a baby. We have two questions for you. The first is what are your thoughts on circumcision and the long-term health implications. We don’t know if it’s gonna be a boy so we have to plan for the event. The second question is about cord blood storage. Are the benefits large enough to outweigh the costs? Are there any risks involved? And it seems like there are multiple companies that offer this service. How do we pick? Thanks, guys. I hope to hear from you before the big day.

Ben:  Talking about fun with chemistry. This is a loaded question.

Brock:  It is.

Ben:  Well, you know, circumcision is kind of a polarizing topic. I’m a little bit nervous to talk about this, honestly.

Brock:  We talked about vasectomies.

Ben:  That’s true.

Brock:  It’s almost the same.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. I’ll just shoot this out there right now. I’m circumcised. In my family heritage or wherever we come from a Judea Christian background where that is highly encouraged. And so even though, you know I don’t live in an area that’s rampant with, you know, HIV and AIDS and some of the other reasons that you might end up wanting to be circumcised, you know, many people have it done for religious and ethical and traditional reasons. In my opinion…

Brock:  I come from a similar background and I am not circumcised. And neither is my father and so on.

Ben:  Blasphemer.

Brock:  Exactly.

Ben:  Blaspheming heathen. You are going to the depths of hell.

Brock:  And there you go. There is your answer.

Ben:  You need to get that taken cared of right away.

Brock:  If you don’t circumcise your child, going to hell.

Ben:  So, let’s jump back into the science here. Kinda like veganism and vegetarianism. There is a butt load, pardon the analogy, of evidence that circumcision can reduce the risk of things like contracting HIV, human papilla viruses like HPV and other sexually transmitted diseases, genital herpes, syphilis, a lot of these issues that you would kind of logically expect to be an issue if you had more tissue down there for stuff to collect in, right? So that’s one of the reasons that kind of like removing the foreskin would be something that you would do to control the spread of disease. And it certainly has been shown in studies that circumcision can help to control the spread of some of those diseases in countries that have it done and it may also have a productive effect against the risk of penile cancer which is kinda pretty rare anyways, but, there you go. So as far as circumcision is concerned, you know, it’s generally safe when it’s done by an experienced practitioner. I think that in the day and age where it seems like sexually transmitted diseases tend to be kind of an issue, it may end up you know being a prudent health step to take. Ultimately, like I mentioned, we’re not gonna get into the religious implications, or ethical reasons, or anything along those lines. Those are all up to you. But there is good evidence that it may protect against some of the potential health effects. Urinary tract infections was the other one I was gonna mention.

Brock:  There’s a lot better interventions or a lot more foolproof interventions than getting circumcised. I mean, the condom is going to protect you far better than just having that piece of skin removed.

Ben:  Yeah. This is true. This is true. I think that potentially a big, big part of kind of like the traditional reasons for circumcision stem from when it was first kinda introduced just like an ethical or moral or in some cases, a legal prerogative that we didn’t have a lot of. You know, I think condoms are made out of well, like sheep.

Brock:  Intestine.

Ben:  Sheep’s skin or sheep intestines or whatever.

Brock:  Stomachs or something.

Ben:  That’s possibly notoriously leaky, no ______[0:34:42.8]  spermicide. So, yeah, I mean who knows? But what you’re getting at, Brock, kinda leads into the next thing that I wanted to mention. That is that there are some cons to circumcision, particularly you’re cutting off a heck of a lot of nerves. 

[0:35:00.1]

The foreskin contains a lot of nerves and so you may actually experience less sexual pleasure when you’re circumcised compared to someone who is uncircumcised. And that’s just kind of a fact of life. So it’s kind of a trade off. Yeah, maybe you protect yourself from some potential sexual diseases but you are also going to potentially remove some of your abilities to enjoy sex. That being said, I’m circumcised. I enjoy sex a heck of a lot. And so….

Brock:  I’m not circumcised and I don’t really enjoy sex. I’m just kidding. I love it.

Ben:  Awkward. So there you go. I mean, like….

Brock:  I hope my girlfriend’s not listening.

Ben:  I’m totally not gonna pretend that I’m an expert on this but that’s, I just exhausted my entire body of knowledge on circumcision. So there you go.

Brock:  I think given the amount of people who are one way or the other in the world, it’s, there’s no right answer here. It’s not like half the population is walking around wishing they have their foreskin hanked. Probably after it happens, it’s forgotten and that’s that.

Ben:  Yes.

Brock:  Until you take your first shower at school gym and everybody starts looking at each other and going – Hey, why does, who, what?

Ben:  Yes. Okay. Well, anyways. Now that all of our…

Brock:  Excuse me. Was that too much?

Ben:  Cord blood banking.

Brock:  Did I go too far?

Ben:  No, I think we’re good. I think we’re good.

Brock:  Okay.

Ben:  Cord blood banking. And by the way, folks, just write in the show if a stuff like totally offends you, and you never want us to talk about it again and we will probably ignore you and talk about it anyway ‘cause we talk about anything in the show. But you could still write in and it might make you feel better. So, let’s talk about cord blood. I think this is cool stuff. Because I am not a huge fan for ethical reasons of embryonic stem cell harvesting, I’m just not a fan of that. I am, yes, one of those dudes who believes that life  begins at conception and that’s just me. But that’s what I believe and so I’m not a fan of, for example, you know, like, aborting an embryo and harvesting some cells. I just think that’s not cool. Or creating an embryo to, you know, for the purpose of aborting it and harvesting some cells. So, that’s just me.

Brock:  I’m hurting my tongue from biting it.

Ben:  I know, I know. This is turning into such a political podcast. So, but cord blood stem cells are just blood that is in the newborn’s umbilical cord after birth. And so you can take that stuff and you can harvest that and it’s full of stem cells which are our body’s master cells which can be used, basically can differentiate into other cells, let’s say…

Brock:  Yeah, super cool.

Ben:  Yeah, so rather than, let’s say you need a bone marrow transplant. You’re older and for some reason your parents had blood banked your umbilical cord stem cells, you could use those instead. And that would probably be a little more pleasant for you than going and harvesting some cells from your bone marrow which, from what I understand, is not a pleasant process.

Brock:  Yes, it’s a little painful, I think. But, it’s worth it, in some cases. For a little bit of pain to help you with some, like blood cancer or something, it’s a big deal.

Ben:  Yeah, exactly. But the technology exists now to be able to harvest and bank cord blood. I did not do with my kids because frankly I was unaware of its existence. And recently in writing my book, I started to dig into stem cells and using stem cells to repair more quickly or using stem cell precursors like, you know, marine phytoplankton, to recover more quickly from exercise and injuries and came across this and I’m like, wow, that actually, you know, would have been something useful to do. I have no clue how much it costs. I have no clue if insurance covers it. But I do know that if you’ve got all of these stem cells banked that you could potentially use when you need a rich source of stem cells if you have like a traumatic brain injury, a spinal cord injury, you know, you need some type of a replacement, this would be something that is of course compatible to your own blood, or potentially compatible to the blood of that of your family. So I’m a fan from everything I’ve seen in terms of harvesting, and storing umbilical cord blood stem cells, and apparently this can be stored indefinitely under the proper conditions, like for the rest of all time. So, kinda like, Hans Solo getting frozen in Star Wars. You’re just there until the bounty hunter unfreezes you. So there you go.

Brock:  There you go.

Ben:  I wonder if there are stem cell bounty hunters out there. And I wonder if they’re circumcised or uncircumcised. We shall see.

Brock:       They probably think it’s cool.

Ben:   By the way, if you’re gonna have a baby, there’s one book that you should get, called “The Better Baby Book” by Dave Asprey.

[0:40:01.1]

That’s a really good book. I highly recommend it. So go buy that because it’s got a lot of really cool information about how to make your baby smarter. So, recommend, kudos to that book.

Brock:  Yeah. I have a terrible confession to make. Adam’s baby was supposed to be born in April. I actually was going back to our voice mail service in which we had over a year’s worth of voice mail and was cleaning it out and I came across Adam’s question and thought it was really cool and that maybe we could help other people by answering it. So I’m sorry, Adam if this information is coming too late for you, but…

Ben:  At the time of this recording, Adam is now deciding whether he’s gonna take his four-month-old and to get circumcised basically, that’s what you’re saying.

Brock:  I pretty much…

Ben:  He’s digging, he’s digging into the trash can for the umbilical cord. “Where the hell did I put that? I need that back.”

Brock:  I hope he made some good decisions. Yeah. But Adam, know that you’re helping other people even though we were extremely tardy on answering your question.

Ben:  Yeah. You were the sacrificial lamb, so to speak, Adam.

Charlie:   Hey, Ben and Brock! It’s Charlie. Just wanted to say thanks so much for all your work. Have a quick question. My cardiologist recommended putting me on red rice yeast as kind of preventative for cholesterol-lowering medication. Not sure if you know anything about red rice yeast or if there are any concerns about its effect on the GI tract. If you could let me know, that’d be really helpful. If you have any other recommendations for natural ways to handle cholesterol, that would be wonderful. Been able to do it somewhat through exercise and nutrition but I do have a fairly strong family history. So if you could let me know what your thoughts are, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.

Ben:  Well, first of all, let me say for Charlie that if you’re listening to this podcast at the time that it comes out, stay tuned, because this Friday I’m releasing a podcast with Jimmy Moore about his new book, Cholesterol Clarity, and that’s gonna be really, really good if you could listen to it.

Brock:  Yeah, this will answer the question perfectly.

Ben:  Yeah, so first of all, when your cardiologist recommends that you go on red rice yeast as a way to help reduce the damage of cholesterol-lowering medication, that makes absolutely zero sense to me. And the reason that makes absolutely zero sense to me is that red yeast rice contains albeit naturally-occurring substances, but substances that closely parallel what you’re going to find in statins, specifically inhibition of an enzyme called HMG coA reductase which is an enzyme that triggers cholesterol production and that’s how a lot of popular statin drugs work, is they inhibit that enzyme.  So red yeast rice products have a high concentration of the type of substances that are going to inhibit that enzyme and because of that, the issues with red yeast rice extracts parallel that of statins, particularly their ability to break down muscle tissue which can lead to kidney failure, as you have all these broken down muscle tissue circulating in your bloodstream. It’s also known as rhabdomyolysis. You can replicate that by doing like a hundred dumbbell curls you know for hours and hours on end and destroy your muscles that way. You could do the same thing by using statins or high amounts of this red yeast rice stuff extract.

Brock:  Wow, really, you could put yourself into rhabdomyolysis just by taking them.

Ben:  Yeah, and kidney failure.

Brock:  That can kill you. Crazy!

Ben:  Yeah. And related to that, in studies red yeast rice has been shown to interfere with your body’s ability to produce coenzyme Q10 which is another huge side effect of statin drugs. You run out of co-Q10 and that is one of your crucial internal antioxidants. It’s also crucial for performance enhancement, utilization of oxygen, cellular metabolism. I think that any physician who prescribes a statin and does not recommend someone get on co-Q10 is basically in malpractice because a statin is so potent at reducing your stores of co-Q10 and completely depleting and draining them. But red yeast rice extract can do a similar thing. And it can also have some issues with damage to peripheral nerves, with, as our listener noted, inflammation in the gut, inflammation in the liver, increased levels of another inflammatory enzyme called creatine kinase. So, I’m not a fan of it, and I have no clue how it would fight against the damage related with cholesterol-lowering medication ‘cause it’s paralleling it, doing a lot of the same things. Now the dangers of statins go like even far above and beyond the muscle pain and the muscle weakness, and the neuropathy, and the drop in co-Q10 that you’re gonna get with something like red yeast rice, even though a statin can do all of those things.

[0:45:01.3]

Statins have been shown to be associated with congestive heart failure and that might be due to that drop in co-Q10 depletion because you get decreased stability for you to produce ATP specifically in cardiac tissue. You get a lot of downstream blood pressure lowering effects which can lead to extreme dizziness while being on the use of statins. There are some issues with cognitive impairment and transient amnesia that have been proven to be shown an issue with statins. Statins have caused cancer in every study that has been done with rodents, putting them on statins which is crazy. Pancreatitis which is inflammation of your pancreas, depression, ton of issues. There are some small populations that have been shown, you know like older males for example, I think above 80 years or something like that, that have been shown to have a very small lowering in risk of heart disease when being on statins. But the risks far outweigh the benefits, in my opinion. And we’ve actually talked, like I talked about this for like 20 minutes once on a podcast. If you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com and do a search for statins, like I just kind of breezed over it just now, but it’s a pretty thing, big issue. So here’s…

Brock:  Yeah, I think Dr.Minkoff also went through tons of this stuff on the Endurance Planet podcast as well so if you look there and do a search for statins, you’ll probably come across that podcast. And Dr.Minkoff is quite an expert on the subject, too. So…

Ben:  Speaking of the Endurance Planet podcast, they also just had  an awesome podcast with the guy who’s doing the movie Cereal Killer which talks about how cereal affects your heart and specifically how the….

Brock:  This is cereal, like grains…

Ben:  Yeah. Cereal like grains and how he literally like got all these genetic testing and hacked his genes to, ‘cause both of his, both like his dad and his uncle who were awesome runners and distance runners and athletes died from heart attacks. And this guy figured it out why and fixed it. And it’s kinda related to this. So go listen to that episode on Endurance Planet. It’s amazing. Just Google Endurance Planet Cereal Killer or type in enduranceplanet.com and go check it out. Anyways though, this whole question returns to kinda like the ones through which you see the world of health because lowering cholesterol as you’ll learn in the podcast that comes out later with Jimmy Moore, is not really that big of a deal, like that shouldn’t be your goal, is to lower cholesterol. Your goal should be to ensure that the cholesterol that you do have, the healthy cholesterol that you do have, is not subjected to inflammation and oxidation. And so, rather than getting ‘em red yeast rice extract and rather than getting ‘em statin, just shut down information. I’ll tell you some of the best ways that you can do it. Avoid heated vegetable oils. Ok, so when you’re eating in a restaurant, unless something’s been heated in coconut oil, or avocado oil, or regular olive oil, not extra virgin olive oil, but regular olive oil, or some stable fat like butter or gee or something like that, don’t order it. So you gotta be really careful specially places where they like stir-fry foods like Asian restaurants and stuff like that. And in your own home. So you avoid heated oils, okay? So those are…

Brock:  Only eat at French restaurants ‘cause they‘ll be using really heavy butter.

Ben:  Only eat at French restaurants or restaurants that serve just kale and raw sesame seeds. So, there you go. That one bistro. Avoid refined sugars because those are gonna amp up triglyceride levels like they’re going out of style. Fructose is one of the biggies there, too. I’m not talking about fructose in its naturally-found format with phytonutrients and fiber and everything in a nice apple. I’m talking about like any like concentrated form of fructose, like high-fructose corn syrup, like, avoid like the plague if you’re concerned about cholesterol. Because not only can that cause higher triglycerides, but it can also stimulate clumping of blood platelets. And clumping of blood platelets is a great name for a band but not a good thing to be happening in your body.

Brock:  Avoid it like the plaque.

Ben:  Like the plaque.

Brock:  The plaque that forms in your arteries, yeah.

Ben:  Take a really good fish oil or really good cod liver oil. Because the vitamin A  and the vitamin D, and what’s called the EPA in that is going to be awesome for shutting down specifically inflammation of cholesterol, and high levels of what is called apo B, which is your cholesterol particle number. And a few other things, you’re gonna need lot of anti-inflammatory prostaglandins circulating in your bloodstream. Ironically, you get those from saturated fats like coconut oil, and coconut milk, and grass-fed beef, and fatty cuts of wild fish and stuff like that. So it’s okay to eat that stuff, assuming that you’re avoiding the other stuff that’s gonna cause it to become inflamed like sugars and fructose and things of that nature. I’m a big fan of primrose oil, or borage oil, or black currant oil. I’ve mentioned before on the show that like in my kale shake I add this really nice cold-processed oil called the Panacea Five Seed Oil Blend.

[0:50:07.8]

I also take SuperEssentials Fish Oil which has a bunch of primrose oil added to it. These are all sources of another thing called GLA. Now saturated fats help you to make anti-inflammatory prostaglandin, so does GLA. Okay? So you get those into your diet from like a nice fish oil that has this primrose in there or this that oil that I take is called Panacea, another example that would be like Udo’s oil. A few other things that you should consider. I talked about coconut oil and coconut milk. But not only is it good for the saturated fat, but it also protects you against bacteria and viruses that lead to inflammation specifically in your arterial wall. So, ironically, once again, defying conventional wisdom, use those. And then finally, avoid any sources of oxidized cholesterol. A few of the biggies are like, well I can think of one biggie, really, for all people listening in, and that is whey protein that’s not processed via cold-processing methods. That’s a great way to oxidize the cholesterol in the proteins. Like powdered eggs, another example. I don’t know that a lot of our listeners like downing spoonfuls of powdered eggs, unless you’re like eating the…

Brock:  That must be in the army or something.

Ben:  …eating the continental breakfast at, you know, Comfort Inn all the time, but look at your whey. Make sure your whey is freakin’ cold-processed. So be careful if it’s not. If you can’t find cold-processed whey and you don’t like it. By the way that Mount Capra Deep 30 stuff that we talked about earlier, that’s cold-processed. Just use like a pea or a hamper-rice based protein product and just use that instead of powdered whey. So nothing powdered that is from an animal source – powdered milk, powdered eggs, powdered whey unless it’s all like super-duper cold-processed. So I know that was a bunch of stuff I just listed off. Rewind if you need to, listen to it again. But ultimately, when it comes to lowering your cholesterol, that’s kinda like a bad operating hypothesis.

Brock:  Assumption?

Ben:  Assumption, yeah to go off of anyway so there you go.

Amy:    Hi, Ben and Brock! This is Amy calling from Chicago. I just got diagnosed with a stress fracture in one of my metatarsals. So, I was just wondering if there’s anything aside from what’s normally recommended by doctors and some other people in the running community about you know the faster way to heal a bone. I’ve also been using a bone stimulator that my doctor gave me and I would be interested on your thoughts on that, the Exogen 4000 Bone Stimulator. Thank you. I love the podcasts.

Brock:  A bone stimulator.

Ben:  Bone stimulator. The Exogen 4000. Yeah, the Exogen 4000 Bone Stimulator.

Brock:  Why do we love Marvin the Martian so much on the show?

Ben:  ‘Cause he’s just bad ass Marvin the Martian. We like him. Anyways, though, the use of electronic stimulation for healing fractures is something that’s pretty cool. Now I have geeked out on this podcast before about all the different supplements that you could take to heal bone fractures. I’ll link to them in the show notes so you could review. It’s like lactoferrin, liquid trace mineralsvitamin D, some magnesium, and some K, too. Boom! And like I’ve gone over that in great detail in previous podcasts so I won’t geek out on that. Just go to the show notes. I’ve got links to like kinda like my supplement stack, you know, so to speak, for anybody’s got stress fracture, should not be ignoring that. But bone stimulation using electrical stimulation, there are a variety of different ways to do it.  You’ve got ultrasound. You’ve got pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. You’ve got electrical muscle stimulation. And the way that a lot of these things work is they send these low-intensity waves to bone tissue that stimulates either release of healing factors or osteoblastic activity, re-growth of bone. Frankly, most of them are kinda pretty easy to find these days in a lot of different therapeutical clinics. And bone stimulation devices are something that have been being produced and marketed for a while. ’Cause when I got out of college in 2005, I worked for a company called Biomet. We did hip and knee surgical implants. And there were two things that we’re kind of like, marketing, so to speak, on the side, in addition to the implants themselves. And that was platelet-rich plasma injections to enhance internal growth factors, and then also external bone growth stimulators, or implantable bone growth stimulators, like Johnson & Johnson, Smith & Nephew, and you know all these companies that make these. These can also get…

[0:55:00.9]

Brock:  These are implantables so they’re actually like under the skin? Like, usually in…

Ben:  Yeah. But you can get a home unit, too. Most of the studies that look into the use of electrical and electromagnetic fields to enhance things like transferrin and calcitonin, lactoferrin, osteoblastic activity, they’ve shown to have pretty good efficacy. And there’s varying levels, varying frequencies.  But the things that have been studied the most and shown to be effective, one is this technology that uses low-intensity pulsed ultrasound that I talked about which is Exogen 4000. And it’s not gonna work to heal, you know, a full on like fracture, whatever, if you’re femur’s sticking out of your skin. You probably know about that anyways, and you’re probably at the doctor getting that thing unionized. But for basic stress fracture, yes. Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound can work. This other form called extracorporeal shock wave or ESWT, that has a little bit of research behind it as well. Something as simple as electrical muscle stimulation, these EMS devices, like the compacts, that can work. The thing that has the most research behind it, though, would be pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. And that would be using something like, you know I‘ve talked about the Earth Pulse before, for example, which I put underneath my mattress when I sleep at night, ‘cause it releases, it’s basically like grounding or earthing on steroids. Like it releases the same magnetic pulse released by the planet Earth, and it helps you sleep. But if you take the north pole end of this device, and you just like jam it up against an injured area of soft tissue, or you hold it up against a stress fracture, and you’re doing like daily  applications several times per day 15-20 minutes, it can stimulate healing. And in bone, it would be through stimulation of osteoblastic activity in soft tissue. Basically what it does is it up-regulates mitochondrial metabolism and blood flow. So…

Brock:  Hmm. Neat.

Ben:  You know, they’re not cheap. That’s like a $600 device but it’s called the Earth Pulse and lot to get research behind pulsed electromagnetic field therapy in fractures. This ultrasound that you talked about, the Exogen 4000, that would also be something that would work. There’s just not quite as much research behind that as there is behind PEMF. So, there you go.

Brock:  Very cool.

Ben:  Just keep it away from sensitive areas –children and kittens, and you should be fine.

Wes:  Hi, Ben and Brock!  This is Wes. First of all I just want to thank you so much for the podcasts and the website. I get a lot of information there. My question today is about varicose veins and deep vein thrombosis. I don’t think I’ve heard you talk about it that much. Basically I’m a 38-year-old stay-at-home dad with a small business so your advice on the best training will really help to keep me fit in spite of my busy schedule. But basically, I’m having varicose and leg pain. Just came on this year and it got so bad once that I went to the urgent care, and basically they just said take some aspirin, wear some compression socks, and look into lasers. But what I want to know is what I can do to heal my veins and valves in my veins that are not working right and causing me all this pain ‘cause it gets really bad. Elevating my feet helps a little bit. My legs feel fine when I’m exercising, it’s just when I’m standing around taking care of household stuff or working all day. It’s a little bit scary for me because my grandfather and an uncle both seem to be very healthy, you know, runners and downhill skiers and stuff. And right about my age, they just keeled over and died. And nobody can tell me what exactly it was, just something with the heart. Again, thanks for the show and I look forward to the next podcast. Thanks. Bye.

Ben:  Well, first of all, we have kicked the varicose vein horse to death on this podcast before.

Brock:  To death. Poor horse.

Ben:  To death. Use the handy dandy search function. Before you ask a question, use the search function, like search for varicose veins on bengreenfieldfitness, you’re gonna find two previous pretty expansive podcast episodes that we did on natural remedies for varicose veins. We’ve talked about horse chestnut extractgrape seed extractbutcher’s broom, all of these pretty cool natural treatments for varicone… varicone?  varicose veins that…

Brock:  Varicone?

Ben:  They strengthen veins. They reduce fluid leakage from vessel walls. They improve various venous insufficiency.

[1:00:01.7]

So, yeah, I would definitely go back and follow the links that I’ll put in the show notes for those. And remember we transcribe every show so go read those, too. And, by the way, people, I shouldn’t say people, that’s rude. By the way, our valuable listeners, I do pay out of my pocket to get these things transcribed, so if you need to go read them, they’re all there. Isn’t that cool? Anyways, though, so let’s talk about things we haven’t talked about before when it comes to varicose veins. Some like the little things you can do during the day. It’s like I use a standing work station, Now, I use compression socks and compression tights when I’m standing for long periods of time to allow for better venous sufficiency. But I also will stop sometimes and put up my feet for a while. Like, during lunch, I usually work during lunch with my feet up. I don’t work during lunch, you know, usually I’m reading my Kindle or watching something on Hulu during lunch but I do with my feet up. Okay. Now, what that means is that I get my feet higher than my heart.

Brock:  You mean really up?

Ben:  Well, the way I do it is I just sit down usually outside at this point in the year in my garden and I’m sitting on a chair and I put my feet up on the table. Because my mom’s not there to tell me not to.

Brock:  Is it higher than your heart?

Ben:  That’s right. But I also do inversion, like I use an inversion table. I have an inversion table in my garage. You can easily find them on craigslist or you know, a classified website pretty easily. Usually some rich dude bought an inversion table and never used it, so. You could probably get it for almost free if you offer to go pick it up. That can really help with blood flow back out the legs but there are a variety of really cool yoga poses that are inversion yoga poses and some of them are frankly pretty easy to do. Like a plow pose, a supported shoulder stand. It’s kind of funny, my kids do headstands and handstands against the wall. Because what I do, I do the whole like, cross fit style workout where I’ll take a couple of dumb bells, put them up against the wall, and take a break and do like 5 or 10 headstand, or handstand push ups, shoulder ups. You can also just like stand there or hang there in that pose, just to drain blood off your legs. And I mean you can do that a few times during the day. I’ll put a link ion the show notes to some of the more common yoga inversion poses, from like the easy pose like the plow pose to a full on handstand, which is called a wishinashawashana.

Brock:  Really?

Ben:  No. I’m just kidding. I’ve no clue what it’s called. Most yoga phrases sound like that so it could be your…

Brock:  They all end with an ….

Ben:  …invasion… inversion wishinashawashana. Wishin. Why do I say wishiwashanashana? But inversion poses like yoga inversion poses, with full respect to all the yoga practitioners who are listening in, I apologize.

Brock:  Yeah. We’re not making fun, we’re just having fun.

Ben:  But use compression gear, get your feet higher than your head and do that several times during the day. And in addition to all the natural remedies that I mentioned in other shows which you can go check out, that will help out quite a bit. Because a varicose vein is just a big dilated blood vessel that is usually due to your body having a hard time pumping that blood back up out of your legs. So give your body a little bit of help. And if you do have to sit, don’t cross your legs or do anything that’s gonna increase venous pressure in your legs and your feet. Because long period of time spending in that cross-legged position  is gonna weaken the blood vessel walls and can also lead to varicose veins.

Brock:  If you have to cross your legs, do it at the ankles.

Ben:  Yeah. ‘Cause once you get on your mini skirt and your high heels, last thing you want is for that unsightly varicose vein to go down the back of your calf less too. Also I would say that deep vein thrombosis is probably a bigger concern there. So…

Brock:  Yeah. Absolutely.

Ben:  Same reason that I am relieved like when I travel to a race or a triathlon or something like that, I usually give myself a padding of at least 24-48 hours before I’m hopping back on a plane. ‘Cause you know, just like sitting for long periods of time, period, not a good idea. But, throw in inversion and compression gear and old man socks as you like to call them and all that stuff can help out quite a bit less. So, hopefully that helps you.

Brock:  Alright. Well that’s awesome! That wraps this episode up except for our iTunes review.

Ben:  We got to give some the cool way. By the way, we had our ten thousandth follower on Twitter so I sent them out a big old 7-lb bag of magnesium salts. And we give out a bunch of Timex watches on the Facebook page. And…

Brock:  Nice.

Ben:  For this guy from iTunes ubermench44, I’m gonna hook you up, dude, I don’t even know what I’m gonna hook you up with. I got so many goodies I can give away. I’m sitting in my office right now. I got boxes and boxes of like t-shirts, and bars and supplements. I’m just gonna throw a bunch of stuff in a bag and just send it to your house.

[1:05:07.1]

Straight from me to you. And if you want to get free stuff sent to you, just leave a review on iTunes. We’ll put a link in the show notes. So you get on iTunes and do a search for Ben Greenfield Fitness.

Brock:  It better be five stars and it better be amusing.

Ben:  Yes, it has to be amusing. Because the last thing that we want is, you know, a review that’s just…

Brock:  To bore the listeners?

Ben:  Yes. I learned so much about fitness.

Brock:  We do that enough, boring our listeners. We don’t need your help.

Ben:  I got to know my body so well if I listened to it. Okay, so anyways, ubermench44 says, “Escape mediocrity” which caught my attention right away ‘cause it sounds like a movie intro. “Escape mediocrity”.

Brock:  So Tom Cruise.

Ben:  I wonder how ubermench44…Is he like German, you think? Ubermench44…

Brock:  That would be a good guess, I guess.

Ben:  No, he’s ubermench44. He is, who’s the guy from Austin Powers, you know? The guy who says Mini Me..Mini Me..Oh, gosh, it’s on the tip of my tongue now. The Austin Powers guy. Ah, not Mini Me.

Brock:  Dr. Evil?

Ben:  Dr. Evil! Ubermench44, if you’re truly serious about taking your body and mine to the next level, then you should listen to this podcast and follow Ben. The information, yeah, he provides, and tools and gadgets he recommends are cutting-edge. And that’s the part where I bring my pinky up to my mouth. Not done yet, though.

Brock:  Of course. Oh, yeah.

Ben:  And yet, Ben shows you how you can implement them in your own life to achieve superhuman performance in your mental and physical endeavors without having a large bank roll or professional athletic trainor, or sharks with lasers. I made up that last part, the sharks with lasers. And then he says, “Now there are no more excuses not to escape mediocrity”.

Brock:  Bravo!

Ben:  Ubermench, dude, send me your address, and I’m gonna send some cool crap your way, ubermench. So, there you go.

Brock:  Maybe we should send some cool crap to Mike Meyers as well to placate him for your terrible impression.

Ben:  That’s right. Well, didn’t I do his Fat Bastard the other day, too, as well?

Brock:  Oh, yeah, I think you did. Yeah, we definitely owe him some stuff.

Ben:  That’s right. And maybe we should end with that for our listeners as one of the url that I’m gonna give to, that you need to go to if you love this podcast. And I’m gonna tell it to you just like Fat Bastard.

Brock:  Alright.

Ben:  You ready?

Brock:  Go for it.

Ben:  Don’t forget to go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/love. That’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/love.  Now get it going!

Visit bengreenfieldfitness.com for even more cutting-edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.

 

 

Aug 7, 2013 Podcast: How to transition from vegetarian to meat eating, the pros and cons of circumcision, why you should avoid red rice yeast, fast ways to heal stress fractures, and getting rid of varicose veins.

Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right, use the Contact button on the app, click Ask a Podcast Question at the bottom of this page, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form… but be prepared to wait – we prioritize audio questions over text questions.

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News Flashes:

You can get these News Flashes hot off the presses if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfieldFacebook.com/BGFitness and Google+.

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Special Announcements:

The Ben Greenfield Fitness phone app – is your portal to all of Ben’s best fitness shows, special episodes, and videos in one convenient spot – including exclusive bonus content you won’t get anywhere else except inside this app!

ONE slot remaining – November 21 to December 4, 2013 Thailand Triathlon Adventure with Ben Greenfield – details at pacificfit.net/thailand. Now including the pre-camp: It’s a “high end” triathlon training resort. Brand new facilities – check ’em out! We’re going to do coached sessions every day. It won’t be hardcore training as much as a focus on learning about nutrition, training, fitness, and how to “get the edge” in endurance, life and health!

August 14 to 17: Ketogenic Diets and Exercise Performance. Ben Greenfield, M.S., CSCS, C-ISSN, Jamie Scott, PGDipNutMed, PGDipSportExMed, Mark SissonRobb Wolf, B.S., Jimmy Moore. Ben Greenfield are on the Ketogenic Diet for Athlete Performance panel at the Ancestral Health Symposium in August. Visit http://www.ancestryfoundation.org/ for details.

August 23, Friday noon Pacific – Ironman Canada at Whistler Meet-up: All BenGreenfieldFitness fans and athletes are invited to hang out for a lunch hour on Friday before the big race! Come ask your last-minute questions, chill, plan post-race parties and meet other athletes who will be racing. This event will be a Mogul’s coffeehouse and you can RSVP on the BenGreenfieldFitness Facebook page.

September 10 to 12, 2013: The Global Business Triathlon Conference is featuring Ben Greenfield as a speaker. Hilton London Metropole, London, UK – Join us for the premier global gathering of leaders of the triathlon business community. Enjoy three days of learning, networking and fun at the newly renovated Hilton London Metropole, conveniently located near the ITU World Championship activities in Hyde Park.

February 6 to March 6, 2014: Want to get into the Perfect Health Diet retreat in Austin, Texas? Click here for all details. Ben Greenfield will be presenting at the Feb 6-Mar 6 retreat.

If you’re looking for a topic we covered in the past – we have released the Ben Greenfield Fitness Top Hits, Vol. 1.

Including:

1.The Benefits of Fish vs. Fish Oil
2. The Best Ways to Stop Hair Loss

3. Increase Your Hematocrit & Oxygen Levels
4. Strengthen Your Immune System & Shorten the Duration of a Cold
5. Top 10 Ways to Boost Drive
6. Get Rid of Migraines Naturally
7. Become a Curvaceous, Lean, Ripped Female Athlete Without Destroying Your Health
8. Stop Side Stitches as Fast as Possible
9. Is It Possible for a Vegan to Be a Healthy Endurance Athlete
10. How Much Water Do You Really Need to Drink Each Day

And of course, this week’s top iTunes review gets a care package straight from Ben – leave your review for a chance to win one:

 

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Listener Q&A:

As compiled, edited and sometimes read by Brock, the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast “sidekick”.

How To Transition From Vegetarian to Meat Eating

Kim says @ 00:29:53
She has been a vegetarian for 29 years and is about to start eating meat again. What kind of GI or digestive transition can she expect her body to make and do you have any advice on how to make this transition easier?

~ In my reply to Kim, I mention Digestive Enzymes from Caprazymes, and also:

The pros and cons of circumcision

Adam says @ 00:30:41
They are expecting a baby and are wondering how you feel about circumcision and the long term health implications? Also, are the benefits of Cord Blood Storage large enough to justify the cost, are there any risks involved and do you have any suggestions on how to pick a storage service?

Why you should avoid red rice yeast

Charlie says @ 00:41:02
His cardiologist recommended he go on Red Rice Yeast as a way to help reduce the damage of cholesterol lowering medication. Do you have any concerns about Red Rice Yeasts effect on the GI tract? Is there a better way to manage his cholesterol?

Fast ways to heal stress fractures

Amy says @ 00:52:17
She just got diagnosed with a metatarsal stress fracture. She has been using a bone stimulator (the Exogen 4000) that he doctor have her and is wondering what you think or know about those?

~ In my reply, I recommend:

Getting rid of varicose veins

Wes says @ 00:57:41
Is wondering about Varicose Veins and Deep Vein Thrombosis. He has varicose veins and is having leg pains, bad enough that he went to urgent care (they told him not to worry about DVT). He is looking for ways to heal his veins and the valves that aren’t working right. His legs feel fine when he is exercising but they hurt when he stands still. Is there anything he should eat or supplements he should take? He has some family history or early death (they just keeled over and died) and it worries him.

~ In my response, I mention the transcript to a previous episode we did on varicose veins, and also our recent podcast on varicose veins. Also: Horse Chestnut ExtractGrape Seed Extract, and Butcher’s Broom. I also mention:

Read more https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2013/08/251-how-to-transition-from-vegetarian-to-meat-eating-fast-ways-to-heal-stress-fractures-how-to-use-colostrum/

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