Episode #294 – Full Transcript

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Podcast #294 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2014/09/294-how-many-calories-do-you-burn-with-cold-thermogenesis-how-to-build-muscle-on-a-vegan-diet-how-to-use-a-powerlung/

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Introduction:   In this episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast: How Many Calories Do You Burn With Cold Thermogenesis, Autoimmune Issues In Kids, Building Muscle On A Vegan Diet, How To Use Something Called A Powerlung, Dangerous Ingredients In Muscle Rubs, and much more.

Welcome to the bengreenfieldfitness.com podcast.  We provide you with free 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:  Hey, Ben!  How are you doin’ this mornin’?

Ben:  I’m wide, wide awake and alert, dude.

Brock:  Oh, really!

Ben:  I’ve been dumping stimulants into my body since I got up this morning.

Brock:  Do tell.

Ben:  So, the first thing is that, my electrician finally showed up and installs the light bulbs in our house.  And I’ve chosen specific…

Brock:  Have you been carrying candles around for the last 3 weeks…

Ben:  With mostly been sunlight and it’s actually been really nice ‘cause I’ve fallen asleep at 9 PM ‘cause there’s been no light.  Anyways though, I’m using these new bulbs that are made by company called Lighting Science and so, in specific rooms of the house, like my office and my gym, the lights actually have more of the blue light waves spectrum and they’re brighter lights higher lumen.

Brock:  Ah!

Ben:  And then, like in the bedroom…

Brock:  So you’re doing the opposite of the hack in the evening where you limit the blue light, you’re actually blasting yourself with blue lights in the morning.

Ben:  Yeah!  And they also make a sleeping bulb – oh actually, I’ll be talking about some of the lighting techniques I’ve used in my house at next week.  So, Bulletproof Biohacking Conference down in Pasadena, and we’ll try and get some resources out for our listeners or recording of that out to our listeners.  Yes, that’s number 1, I’ve got light in my office now and I’ve got my awake and alert bulbs on, and it really is a pretty big blast of almost sunlight like light.

Brock:  So, is that better than actually standing like I’ve got window wide open right next to me with sunlight just streaming in.  Would I feel in any advantage of having that light bulb as well or is the sun still a preferable source?

Ben:  I find that these direct lights overhead seem to enhance the sun.

Brock:  Nice!  Better than the sun!  That should be their slogan.

Ben:  I could get skin cancer on Wednesday, I don’t know.

Brock:  Oh geez!

Ben:  The other thing – oh, another couple of things, I took Ciltep this morning.  And…

Brock:  Me too!

Ben:  … that was something that I believe you actually connected me with, Brock.

Brock:  Yeah.  Nick from the Natural Stacks contacted us and wanted us to go with the try.  And I was like – hell, yeah!

Ben:  Yeah, so Ciltep then, ‘cause Brock and I are willing to try anything once.

Brock:  Or anything to our body once.

Ben:  With molar zit pop off my ears or something but it’s a – Ciltep stands for chemically induced long term potentiation.  It’s like a smart drug basically.  Tim Ferriss made it popular in an article that he wrote.  And it’s a blend of artichoke extract, Coleus Forskohlii – which is a root, L-Phenylalanine, and Acetyl-Carnitine.  So, I just took some this morning when I got up.  It was the first time that I actually tap into that, and feeling good.

Brock:  The question is, did you mix it with the smart caffeine?

Ben:  No.  But here’s the third thing that I did and then I’ll shut up.  This last thing is probably gonna scare away a lot of our listeners.  As maybe come a knowledge if you’ve been a long time listener to this podcast…

Brock:  Oh I know, I know where you’re going with this.

Ben:  … or when you go to Ben Greenfield fitness blog, about once, every once to two weeks, I give myself an enema.

Brock:  Yeah.

Ben:  So, I actually had a coffee enema about an hour ago in which you literally make coffee and you shoot it up your butt and it cleanses you from the inside, and you feel like clean as a whistle and freakin’ fantastic afterwards ‘cause you actually absorb a lot of the components of the caffeine as well into your bloodstream.

Brock:  Now that’s the part I don’t understand ‘cause your bowel should not have absorbed the properties.

Ben:  Well of course they have absorbed the properties.  I mean, in your colon where fiber ferments, that’s where you produced a lot of fatty acids.

Brock:  For your colon but not your bowel.  It is actually making way to your colon?

Ben:  Yeah, it’s actually makes its way into your large intestine.

Brock:  Okay.  Well, that make sense ‘cause I was thinking like you’re just shooting it in your bowels and your bowels really are like that depository of things you don’t want to absorb.

Ben:  You shove this tube to in pretty far of your body.

Brock:  I guess so.  I underestimated that.

Ben: I actually have an article – I have an article.  If you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com and you do a search for enema, I have an entire article on how to do a coffee enema.  I know this is gross and weird, and we probably just lost a bunch of listeners, but it is true.

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So, I have my light bulbs, I have my Ciltep, and I have wiped my butt, but I also have coffee enema.

Brock:  Hmmp?  Yeah, it’s just your butt people.  Get over it.

News Flashes:

Brock:  Every single day, you can get these news flashes delivered right to your computer’s desktop if you follow Ben on twitter.com/bengreenfield.  And right now we’re going to elucidate upon them.

Ben:  That and photos of every meal that I eat.  No, I’m just kidding.  I don’t tweet too much.

Brock:  Instagram, the course.

Ben:  I’m not one of the lunch twitters.  CEO Fitness.  This was an interesting study that came out this week.  That showed that companies that have CEOs who are fitter tend to have higher firm value.  And…

Brock:  So Chief Executive Officers like the guy who runs the company.  This is not a fancy acronym for something else.  This is the guy or the woman who runs the company.

Ben:  Marathon runners make better CEOs is what the study kinda sort of found.  So what it looked at was, they took a bunch of CEOs and using data from 2001 to 2011, they figured out which of the CEOs of all of these S&P 1500 companies had any given year completed a marathon.  And then they matched those findings with each company’s market value.  And they found that the companies that were run by marathon runners, huh, pun intended.  They found that these companies were 5% more profitable.  And they actually wanted to check into whether or not it was that the marathon runners were better executives because they were fitter, or whether marathon runners as a group share some kind of similar pre-existing characteristics, right?  That would make them better CEOs to start with.

Brock:  Yeah, I’m thinking just going and getting Patrick Makau to run your company, probably isn’t a good idea.

Ben:  Yeah, exactly.  So, to do that they looked at group of CEOs who particularly likely to experience high levels of stress.  Under which that CEO’s fitness would technically be most beneficial.  So they look at older CEOs and high tenure CEOs and CEOs with a high work load and in all of those higher stress groups that they also included as part of the study, all the companies led by a fit CEO were 8-10% more valuable.  So, it doesn’t, yeah, it doesn’t entirely limit the possibility that marathon running CEO share these personality traits that make them good at their job.  But it does suggest that, if you’re fit and you’re running a company, that fitness somehow helps you moderate stress and probably increases your cognitive performance, your productivity, etc.  So the next time that you’re strapping on the shoes to go out for a run or headed to the gym, if you happen to be a CEO, really anybody, you know, under a high work load listening in, you can make that excuse to your partner or to the person who’s giving you a hard time about heading out to the great outdoors that it’s actually going to make your wallet fatter.  So…

Brock:  Next time you’re interviewing for the CEO position, make sure that that is your first question.

Ben:  Just like show up in your running shoes and harken back to all of those marathons that you ran in the past year.  I guarantee, you’ll be bumped up to CEO in no time.

Brock:  You are shoe in.  A running shoe in.  Haha!

Ben:  Aha!  So, another couple of studies.  These next two are on one specific molecule and maybe I’ll keep our listeners on a cliffhanger as I jump into this.  This molecule is something that I take 5 grams of, a day, everyday.  It’s just like part of my morning routine.  Even though I use a multivitamin and fish oil, this is also something that I use every single day and have since I was a body builder.

Brock:  And which end of you does go…

Ben:  It goes into my mouth.  It’s like a tablet.  And 2 studies came out this week on this specific molecule.  I felt like this is Sesame Street.  This mystery object.  Anyways, one study showed that it suppresses the cortisol response to high intensity workouts specifically lowering the amount of stress that is experienced after very intense workout.  In this case, very, very intense swimming workouts.  So, lowered post workout cortisol which in the actual study that showed what this molecule does, the researchers suggested that it could technically be used as a way to stave off overtraining.  And then, another study again, just came out this week, showed that the same molecule stimulates fatty acid oxidation, and triglyceride secretion.  All that means is that, it allows you to tap into your own adipose tissue to mobilize your fat tissue as an energy source.

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Which means that if you were to use it prior to like take on a cold shower, or doing like a fasted morning aerobic workout, that type of thing, it would actually help you to mobilize fatty acids.  And it is in fact the most researched and proven molecule over the past decade of any specific molecule in sports performance.

Brock:  Crazy.

Ben:  And it’s called creatine.

Brock:  Creatine!

Ben:  Creatine.  So, yeah!  There you have it.

Brock:  If it’s controlling the cortisol response from exercise, could that potentially sort of lower your energy level while you’re working out?

Ben:  Hmm, what they were looking at was the cortisol response post exercise.  So technically, you want a little bit of a dump of cortisol during a workout –  an adrenaline, epinephrine, all of that will cause that to happen.  It will mobilize your liver glycogen and open up blood vessels and give you all sorts of acute stress responses that are beneficial.  But that cortisol concentration remaining high for a long periods of time, you know, high constant medium to high cortisol levels is a sign of overtraining in athletes.  And eventually it leads to consistently low cortisol levels which are technically adrenal fatigue.  So, you actually would benefit from slightly reduced cortisol concentrations post workout.  You want cortisol to settle down because it is a stress hormone that in excess can cause things like immuno suppression, overtraining symptoms, etc.   You know, catabolism of muscle, that type of thing.

Brock:  So taking the creatine is not actually inhibiting your ability to get that cortisol going.  It’s just sort of flushes it faster and more effectively.

Ben:  Exactly.  And of course, just a quick thing here as far as like loading protocols, stuff like that.  There’s all sorts of protocols for creatine out there.  What most studies have shown is that there really is no need to jump in to a 20-30 grams a day, for a week and then taper off that type of thing.  You can just jump right in and take 5 grams a day.

Brock:  So no loading necessary.

Ben:  Yeah.  And, honestly you don’t have to spend a lot of money on fancy pants creatine supplements with all these added ingredients.  I use one called CRE02 and the reason I that I use that one is it’s made a few hours from my house.  I know the guy that owns the company that makes it, and it basically has this fat coating on it, that for me when I’m out running and stuff, keeps creatine from causing cramping, so I like that too.  It’s very stable.  So, that one’s called CRE02.  He gave all of our listeners a 50% discount on it by the way.  Like, for life – 50% discount.  And, I will put a discount code in the show notes for folks, if you want to grab any creatine at 50% off or use the same stuff I used.  You can check that out at bengreenfieldfitness.com/294.

Special Announcements:

Brock:  With all the traveling that you’re about to embark on, we’ve got some pretty cool podcasts.  They’re all scheduled up and ready to go.  Do you wanna tell the people?  Give them a little teaser?

Ben:  Yeah, absolutely.  So, I’m headed out to race the Spartan World Championships in Vermont this weekend.  If you’re listening in, the date of this podcast comes out, and then I’ll be speaking in Vermont at something called The 431 Project, which you can check out at the431project.com.  If you feel like going to Vermont.  As well as the Vermont Traditional Foods and Health Symposium, and then I’ll head over like I mentioned over to the Bulletproof Biohacking Conference in Pasadena on the 27th and the 28th.

Brock:  Pasadena just sounds like a made-up place.  I guess it’s ‘cause I’m Canadian.  It just doesn’t – that was sort of an imaginary place in the Wild West as far as I’m concerned.

Ben:  E!  Pasadena eh!  Glad you know like Disney World.  That’s my Canadian accent by the way.

Brock:  That’s pretty good actually.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.  See!

Brock:  I suddenly understood you so much easier.

Ben:  Let’s go have some poutine!  Anyways though…

Brock:  Poutine!

Ben:  Poutine.  It’s podcast – I’ve got a few special ones coming out for you guys, if you wanna listen in this weekend.  My buddy Zack Even-Esh is coming out to talk about how you can use things like cags, tires, sandbags, kettlebells, big heavy rocks, to get more fit.  He’s an awesome dude and I think you’re gonna get a kick out of that podcast.  And then, after that one on next Tuesday, I’m having my friend Yuri Elkaim, who just wrote this all day energy cookbook that we’ve talked about in the past couple of podcast episodes.  We’re gonna talk about deserts, like how to make good healthy deserts.  We’re gonna be talking about reading food labels and then kitchen makeovers.

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So, a lot of cool stuff on that one.  And also, if you wanna jump the gun and grab his cookbook, anytime you buy Yuri’s cookbook, not only do you get the recipes for hemp balls and natural Gatorade and all the other crazy stuff – bone marrow, listen there.

Brock:  Cappuccino…

Ben:  So, anytime you grab the cookbook, Yuri is actually giving a portion of that back to us to support the show.  So you can get that at bengreenfieldfitness.com/aded and just in case you didn’t have enough to listen to the day after Yuri’s podcast, I also have an interview coming out with Steven Kotler, and he’s gonna be talking about why the future is better than you think specifically regarding some really some cool things about health care and making food, and even growing meat in petri dishes.  We’re gonna cover all that stuff.  So, lot of cool things coming up for you guys in future podcasts if you don’t yet subscribe in iTunes.

Brock:  I like that that podcast in particular pre-supposes that you have a bleak outlook for the future.

Ben:  It’s not so bad.  A lot of people do.  We talk about that in that podcast actually.  A lot of people do.  So, you know.  So, check all that out.  We’ll put links to everything that we just talked about over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/292.

Brock:  294…

Ben:  … like I was saying, subscribe in iTunes if you want to make sure that you get that stuff automatically delivered to you.  So, there you go.

Listener Q&A:

Jared:   Hey Ben and Brock, this is Jared from the Midwest.  I love the podcast and the book, I’m tried searching all over the net for this and a purpose for video that shows elevated metabolic rate over the course of a day.  I haven’t had much luck finding specific calorie burning from cold thermogenesis and any of the forms.  I know you’re not really big into the whole calorie concept, I was curious if you have any insight into how many calories will burn from the different forms of CT to an hour session.  Thanks.  Bye.

Brock:  You know, at first I wasn’t quite sure what Jared was getting at but I understand now.  There’s so many different ways to make yourself cold, apply ice to your skin or just expose yourself to some sort of thermogenesis that I guess each one has a different reaction, doesn’t it?

Ben:  Yeah, and I covered this on recent article that I wrote for T-Nation and I link to that article if you wanna read it.  But basically I wanna read the 3 different ways that you can do, called cold thermogenesis, and I tell you about how many calories you can expect to burn but let me cover which of the 3 intensities they are.  So you’ve got like what would basically consider casual intensity.  So that’s where you would be like sitting in a room that’s a little bit cold like 60, 66 degrees without a lot of clothing on.  You know, lounging around in your skivvies for example.

Brock:  So, you’re sure it’s an – a toque.

Ben:  Yeah, exactly.  And a what?  A toque?

Brock:  a toque.

Ben:  What’s a toque?

Brock:  You know, a wall hat.

Ben:  Oh yeah!  Of course.  Yeah, the toque, of course.

Brock:  You guys, won’t call them toques?

Ben:  No, we call them – I don’t know, beanies, little hats.  So, you’re cooled off but you’re not cold.  So you get this mild increase in your calorie burn because your autonomic nervous system does kick in to slightly increase your body temp and this would be the same thing as like sleeping in a cold room, walking around in the cold, making sure that you’re not too bundled up.  I frankly do that all day long.  Like right now, my office in is the basement so it’s already a little bit cold.  I don’t have my shirt on, I’m just wearing compression pants, standing here at my work station, and I’m a little bit cold.  Like if you look at my forms right now, there are a few goose bumps and I’m at this casual cold thermo stage where – and I tell you how many calories here in a second, but my calorie burn is slightly bumped up.  And then you’ve got moderate cold thermogenesis.  So, moderate cold thermogenesis is really the point where you start to get a little bit of brown fat formation.  And remember that that this brown adipose tissue or brown fat is the type of fat that actually produces heat.  So it will use your calories, use your fat, use whatever energy substrates you have in your body to generate heat rather than to generate like ATP based energy.  And you can build brown fat once you get down anywhere below about 60 degrees in the room.  So now we’re talking about you’re relatively cold and preferably closer to like 50, 55 degrees.  Ideally without a lot of clothing on.  So this would be like, you’re gonna go for a walk on a crisp spring, fall morning and you’re gonna wear maybe a cotton t-shirt and a pair of shorts, and wear your shoes, and technically if you’re really wanna hack things, you can wear like a gloves, and by keeping your feet and your hands and your head warm when the rest of your body cold, you actually keep your body from down regulating your metabolism to protect your extremities.

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Brock:  Oh, so that hypothermic response…

Ben:  Uhmm, but that’s like moderate cold thermogenesis, okay.  So, you’re gonna burn more calories with that.  And then the last…

Brock:  So no shivering in that one.

Ben:  Nope!  You’re really not gonna be shivering, you’re gonna be goose bumpin’.  And then you got hard core cold thermogenesis.  And I’ll go in all these stuff in great detail on this T-Nation article but this is where you are doing things like wearing a – one of this like vest like I’ve talked about before.  Like I wear this cool fat burner vest where I actually pack ice that these little ice packs that come along with the vest, it drapes over my body, it covers the areas where brown adipose tissue tend to be really high like my collar bones, upper neck, etc. and it really amps up fat burning.  Same thing with like the 110% compression pants.  There’s a specific company that makes these compression pants that come with ice sleeves so you can compress ice up against your legs and cool those areas of your body.  And I’ll put on the cool fat burner vest and I’ll put on this compression pants with ice and get a double whammy.  And you do shiver.  And if you want the intense cold thermogenesis, you want to get to the point where you’re shivering.  So before you even do, either of those protocols, you can take a cold shower for example.  Another example for this would be, swimming in cold water for a long time.  Like going for a 20, 30 plus minutes swim in water.  That’s pretty dang uncomfortable in terms of its temperature.  So, as far as what you can expect to burn for calories, they have done studies on this.  Indirect calorimetry studies, where you have a mask attach to your face and you’re measuring oxygen consumed carbon dioxide produced.  And that gives you a measurement of your metabolic rate.  So, for the sitting around in a slightly cold environment that’s not dipping below 60 degrees, you get about an 8% increase in metabolism, okay 8%.  And this is based off of data from Eric over at coolfatburner.com.  So 8% increase on that.  When we get up to the moderate levels, we’re at like 50-60 degrees or definitely goose bumping or doing like these cold walks, that type of thing, then you’re looking at anything from 30 up to 65% above normal as far as the actual increase in the number of calories that your burn say, snuggled up against the fire with your wool vest and toque on, and covered in your bare skin vs. walking around with your shirts off.  So, 30-65%.  And then when we get to low level or like this hard core intensity, you know, what Eric over at cool fat burner, he calls it shiver surfing.  Basically, you’re getting anything from 65-75% bumped up in calories.  So basically now, you’re looking at what you get if you’re running on a treadmill or you were bicycling or you were lifting weights or doing something that was burning a significant number of calories.  So you’re pretty much up there at the same level you’d be at if you’re exercising once you get to the point where cold thermogenesis is making you shiver.  So, and of course the other benefit from getting up to that level is you’re forming a lot of brown adipose tissue which is gonna stay metabolically active for a while turning yourself into a big big ol’ polar bear.

Brock:  Nice!

Ben:  So yeah, that’s what you can expect.  So, it’s pretty significant, I mean, even just sittin’ around at 60, 66 degrees around in that range without one much in terms of clothing.  You can definitely do it from there.  I’ll put a picture in the show notes.  I mentioned this Eric guy from cool fat burner and it’s pretty significant like as I’ve known him for a couple of years and kinda watch him transform.  He’s rockin’ a six pack now and he still doing all these nerdy tests like where he wears a gloves and a beanie and boots but then he’ll take his shirt off and go into a cold room for hours.  He’s doing a lot of interesting stuff as far as this stuff goes.  So, check out that photo.  I’ll put it over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/294 along with the link to the T-Nation article.

Mark:   Hi Ben and Brock!  My question is about a soy-free vegan body building program.  I’m a vegan athlete, looking to put on some muscle on a vegan diet ideally soy-free.

[0:25:00.7] 

So, I was looking to get your thoughts on food, meal plans, nutrition, any supplements that you would recommend to pack on some muscle.  Any thought would be great.  Love the show, thanks so much.

Brock:  It’s not possible, right?  Like, vegan space clear just doomed to be this string-gy, hippy, sort of smelly, frenzy…

Ben:  No, there are some vegan body builders out there.

Brock:  Really?

Ben:  There’s some big old like 70s big vegans out there, and they’re figured out to do things the right way.  They’re not pushing grocery shopping carts through whole foods with buckets full of dinosaur kale, I can tell you that.  They’re actually going out of their way.  You pretty much have to engineer muscle on a vegan diet and I followed a raw food vegan diet for about 6 months, I didn’t do it the right way and I lost almost 10 lbs of muscle on that diet.  I got way too skinny.  If I could go back and do it over again, I definitely use some of the tips that I’ll give to Mark.  But before I even jump into the tips, let me say that – I mean like, this maybe a little bit of a cultural thing.  I don’t wanna offend people, but a lot of times the mentality around vegan lifestyle and vegan eating pattern is an endurance lifestyle or yoga lifestyle or lifestyle that simply does not involve lifting heavy stuff.  It’s few and far between that you find vegan to – are power lifting, weight lifting, and doing a lot of the heavier more intense activities.  And again, like I know we have a lot of vegan and vegetarian listeners and I don’t wanna necessarily, you know, offend people but I really do notice that.  I think it’s just like us, maybe it’s that veganism causes you to – because you’re eating less protein and shy away from those type of activities thinking that you may not have enough protein to repair and rebuild muscle or something like that, or maybe it’s that as you tap into endurance, running, cycling, yoga, stuff like that, it really is a culture that based a little bit more on, you know, tofu, and hemp seeds.  Just like all these things that tend to kinda go hand in hand. It’s weird culturally how that happens.

Brock:  I think there’s also a predisposition in a certain type of person who will choose a vegan lifestyle.  They probably just have a little more of a gentle loving kind of spirit.  I mean, a lot of vegans do it for reasons that are very spiritual based or – what’s the word I’m looking for – I wanna say hippie but I don’t mean that in a bad way, which also doesn’t really go hand in hand with throwing a lot of weights around and bulking up really huge.

Ben:  Right!  you’ve got like your beard swinging stick chewing, you know, uhm…

Brock:  Arnold Schwarzenegger re-shopping…

Ben:  Arnold Schwarzenegger like, hunters out in their flannel vest killing animals and you’ve got the quiet vegans eating their salads running long distances, and doing yoga, right?

Brock:  Yeah.  Again, in their… but there definitely is a correlation.  That’s there’s definitely pre-disposition for both of those and there’s obviously a crossover.

Ben:  Yeah, but there are…

Brock:  I guess Mark.  Mark is our crossover.

Ben:  Yeah.  There are exceptions and what got me going down this slight segue is that, the first you have to realize is that, if you are doing like running, cycling, yoga, stuff like that, you need to shove some of that aside and simply lift heavy stuff.  And go listen to the podcast that I did with Dan John about Mass Made Simple which incidentally if you’re going to gain mass as quickly as possible is the program that I’d recommend you do.  It’s a combination of barbell complexes, heavy weights, some very high reps medium weights squats which are a fantastic way to build muscle.

Brock:  So many squats… so many squats.

Ben:  Yeah.  Brock’s done that program.  I’ve done that program, and it’s very, very good.  I’ll link to that podcast we did with Dan John in the show notes.  But first of all, you must adjust your exercise to lift heavy stuff period.  So, that being said, I wrote an article on how vegans can customize their diet to make sure that they’re fill in a lot of the holes.  Now, there are certain things I didn’t talk about in that article because I wasn’t really focusing on muscle loss as much as general health, or muscle gain as the case maybe as much as general health.  Some of my recommendations in that article as far as like supplements and food choices to fill in the holes, one was to avoid a lot of the textured vegetable proteins and processed soy products that you find in a lot of plant-based foods that are trying to either replicate meat-based foods just like tofurky or other common foods that you’ll find in vegan diets.   Basically once you get a lot of the isoflavones and estrogen mimickers and things like that.  You can create some estrogen dominance and that can cause some testosterone deficiencies that can limit your ability to build muscles.  You so wanna avoid basically plant-based franken foods, just what I call ‘em.  You know, fake meats, textured vegetable proteins, processed soy products, even tofu.  Avoid that stuff if you’re gonna go plant based, those should not be staples in your diet.  Another thing that tends to creep up quite a bit in vegan-based diets are like soy bean oil, corn oil, cotton seed oil, sunflower oil, peanut oil, even margarine sometimes, make sure that you really careful to stay away from any of those type of more inflammatory omega 6 based vegetable oils.  So, that’s another one to be careful with.  I probably don’t need to say this, but fat soluble vitamins: Vitamin D, vitamin K2, vitamin A, all of those are really important for forming the hormones that you’ll gonna need for muscle building.  So, those you’re probably gonna need to supplement with.  So like vitamin K2, vitamin D3, and vitamin A.  I will link to the article that I wrote in the show notes for this episodes, you can go look at the exact dosages because I’m really, honestly, I’m just not gonna get it through here.  So, another couple of things that vegans tend to be deficient in and I’ll really focus on, that I talked about in that article, one would be taurine.  Taurine is this amino acid that’s only found in animal foods and it’s pretty critical for muscle repair and also like brain development, and fighting free radicals.  There are vegan taurine sources out there but for that I’ll give you a dosage I recommend about a gram a day of taurine.  Preferably not from lots of Red Bull.  So, taurine would be another one and then vitamin B12 along with Iron.  Two things you’ll gonna find in pretty heavy levels and things like red meat, you’ll probably gonna need a little bit of vitamin B12, little bit of extra Iron.  So, I have all those recommendations in that article but if I were to go back and re-write that article and say here’s what you need to build muscle, I would also add in 20-30 gram regularly times dosage throughout the day.  Like, if you’re really trying to build mass, you got to eat a lot, and you got to eat frequently.  You know, that’s the mass building rule 101 whether you’re a vegan or carnivore, omnivore, or whatever.  You lift heavy stuff and you eat a lot of food.  And one of the things you’ll probably gonna need is a good vegan based protein powder that you can mix up with something really calorie dense like coconut milk and a little bit of nut butter.  And we’re talking about pea hemp rice-based protein blends, I like the Living Protein made by Living Fuel, that one is one that doesn’t have a lot of like heavy metals in it and stuff like the Garden of Life protein has in it.  And also the Thorne, which is another company that I’m a big fan of.  They make a vegan protein as well.  So, either Living Protein or Thorne Vegan Protein and getting dosages of those in throughout the day – so 20-30 gram dosages of protein timed regularly throughout the day can help a lot with muscle gain.

Brock:  And those dosages are important ‘cause I made the mistake of really, really loading way too much when I was doing the mass made simple program and I actually got kinda fat around the middle and got some serious muscle with it and also got really strong but I got kinda squishy around the belly.

Ben:  You get a lot of gluconeogenesis that occurs once you exceed about 30 grams as far as that dose goes, meaning that your body simply cannot utilize all of those amino acids and proteins for muscle repair and recovery and muscle formation, and you get a lot of it shunted into the liver converted into glucose, converted into triglycerides, and fatty acids and basically stored away in your waistline like Brock experienced.

Brock:  My spare tire.

Ben:  The other thing is you wanna go into every single one of those like heavy lifting workouts, with high blood levels of amino acids.  And if you find yourself burping up the protein or the pre-imposed workout meals or enough for you but you still want to get higher levels of amino acids, get an amino acid powder or an amino acid capsule.  Five to ten grams of amino acids for every hour that you’re lifting.  If you really wanna put on muscle as quickly as possible, keep yourself in a very anabolic state.  That stuff works wonders because amino acid powders or capsules are non-caloric but highly bio-absorbable and your body will use those and rely upon them rather than catabolizing your own lean muscle for energy while your lifting.  And then the last thing that I would throw in would be, there is this vegan nutritionist/power lifter who’s a big dude.

[0:35:06.2]

He coaches a lot of big vegans and his name is Mike Mahler and Mike’s got a podcast, it’s a good podcast, it’s called the Aggressive Strength Podcast.  He also has a supplement – a testosterone boosting supplement.  It’s called Aggressive Strength, Aggressive Strength Testosterone Booster.  That one…

Brock:  That’s just too much of a cliché.

Ben:  Yeah, but I mean, it was designed by a vegan originally to address a lot of the testosterone deficits that you tend to see more often in active vegans.  And that actually is a really good blend – it’s specifically can increase your luteinizing hormone which enhances the ability of your testes to produce their own testosterones.  So sound like a testosterone replacement that shuts down your body’s own ability to make testosterone rather it is allowing your body to make more of its own, and it’s also got some aromatase inhibitors in there which are going to keep some of those like estrogens if you are getting sources of like soy, tofu, stuff like that in your diet.  It will keep a lot of that from having as much of a deleterious effect as it potentially could.  So that one’s called Aggressive Strength testosterone.  Now, I know that sounds like a lot of supplements, but honestly like if you look at the most jacked body builders and weight lifters on the face of the planet, they are taking a lot of pills and capsules to help that out.  I mean, you’re trying to get to an unnatural end by using a potentially unnatural means with regards to the amount of supplementation that you might be using to achieve that.  But I mean, if you really wanna get swole, you may have to be doing everything from taurine to creatine to amino acids, to these proteins powders, to like a testosterone booster, to the vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin K, avoiding the soy, avoiding the omega 6 fatty acids from the vegetable oils, looking at vitamin B12, looking at Iron.  A lot of stuff to consider, but if I were gonna go on vegan diet, and I wanted to pack on as much muscles as possible, that’s what I would do.

Michael:  Hey Ben and Brock, this is Michael from the Netherlands.  And I got a question about how to go beyond training with the PowerLung.  I’ve read the book of yours, and I listen to a lot of podcasts including the one you did with Greg Wells but I couldn’t really find what I was looking for.  In the podcast you say, you use it twice a week but the manual prescribes twice daily.  My question is: how to get the maximum results out of the PowerLungs for cardiovascular performance?  What are the optimal sets and reps?  What does the amount of rest you need to recover or give super conversation?  What is the optimal training frequency with the PowerLung?  So, for instance if I use it in the morning, does it affect my afternoon run or spinning session or is it better to use after training session to get the maximum out of the lungs and the muscles you use for breathing.  So, for instance when you get home and do a few sets with the PowerLung while doing some static lunges under a cold shower with a weighted vest being hooked to an EMS device with first per style training bands on your legs to build up extra lactic acid while reading your book.  So, I really hope you can go beyond training with the PowerLung and hope you can answer this question for me.  Thanks.

Brock:  Yes Michael, you should definitely use it under a cold shower doing static lunges with the weighted vest being hooked to an EMS device with training bags on your legs to build up the lactic acid while reading Beyond Training. (laughs)  Done!  Next question.

Ben:  The PowerLung.  You know, what’s funny, I keep a PowerLung in both my cars for when I’m stuck in traffic and or I’m driving and I want to workout.  Some of total multi-tasker.  And you can hold it up to your mouth with one hand and you can do PowerLung sets.  Like I don’t necessarily follow the PowerLung instructions on a PowerLung website or follow the instructions that Greg Wells gave us in that podcast that we did with the PowerLung guy.  But I just go 3 seconds out, and then 3 seconds in, and I try and do 10 reps of that.  So if I’m driving, let’s say – I fly down to LA for example, and I got to drive to San Diego.  Every time I pass a certain mile marker or a certain – I make a game out of it like every time I go under an overpass or whatever, I got to do 10 reps of 3 seconds in and 3 seconds out on the PowerLung.  And so just like this little way that I’ll build up my lungs and build up my inspiratory and expiratory muscle capacity while I am in the car.  That’s almost the most of the time I used the PowerLung ‘cause frankly I’ve got 2 PowerLungs that I owned and one’s in 1 car and one’s in the other car, and I don’t really use the PowerLungs except while I’m in the car.

Brock:  The way that there are no destructive driving laws in your State.

Ben:  Don’t tell.

Brock:  Okay.

Ben:  So, the instructions on the PowerLung website, the instructions that we talked about on the podcast that we did with the guy from PowerLung was that, what you’re supposed to do is, you inhale and exhale through the PowerLung.

[0:40:09.6]

And it actually is about a 3 to 5 second inhale, and a 3-5 second exhale and you do that for a total of 10 repetitions.  So kinda similar to what I do in the car, and then it says, take a short break and repeat those steps 2 more times, for a total of 30 repetitions and do that twice a day, every day.  So, twice a day for 10 minutes, they’re saying to use the PowerLung.

Brock:  Yeah, that’s the protocol I followed when we first got our PowerLung.  So I wanted to see what would happen, I did exactly that.

Ben:  What’d you think?

Brock:  I liked it!  I felt, I don’t know, I just felt stronger in my breathing which seems weird but it actually did have that effect.

Ben:  Did you get big flappy cheeks like Louie Armstrong?

Brock:  I already have that.  (laughs)  Uncle Louie has those.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.  So, I’m more like – I’ll use the PowerLung like once every – cause I actually don’t drive that much but once every week and a half to 2 weeks.  I’ll use it for as many sets as I can long drivin’ around and I definitely don’t use it everyday, so it’s one of those things I just use every once in a while.  And that’s how I use.  If you wanted to use it for maximum benefit, I mean, the studies that they’ve done on the PowerLung, that’s what they were doing.  They wear it twice a day for 10 minutes to actually strengthen the muscles that’s support your breathing and that’s where it has been shown by independent studies to improve your breathing capacity.

Brock:  That’s what people at CAPD too, like the actual compromise breathing function.

Ben:  Yeah.  So if you wanna go gold standard, you get one of these things and you use it twice a day for 10 minutes in the way it just described.  Now, the reason that I also don’t go out of my way to use the PowerLung in exactly the way that it is described is, I do a ton of other things for my breath.  I’m gonna get into this in more detail actually in that biohacking presentation that I gave at the Bulletproof Conference.  Like, once a week I swim with the front mounted swim snorkel that has the cardio cap on it.  Meaning that, I swim with airflow restriction.  So, while I’m swimming I’m having to breathe like through a straw. So I do that once a week, and typically at the end of that particular swim workout, I also do 10 sets under water where I simply swimming for as long as possible hypoxically under water holding my breath.  So, that’s a long buster workout like your muscles don’t feel it but your lungs and your breath control are definitely enhanced by workout like that.  And I do that once a week.  I typically one to two times a week while I’m training, whatever the training session happens to be whether I’m doing kettlebells swings, or I’m doing like a hike with a weighted backpack or whatever, I wear one of those elevation training mask which is the mask that restricts air and that’s another way that I’m strengthening my lungs well while I’m out there.  When I go and sit in the sauna, ‘cause I go to the sauna about one to twice a week and I’ll just sit there for about 30-40 minutes, I’m reading magazines, I’m listening to music or podcast but I get to a point where all I can do – because it’s getting so hot in that sauna, is just sit and stare at the wall.  And when I get to that point, I practice what’s called box breathing, which is another great way to strengthen and train the lungs and that’s a 4 count in, 4 count hold, 4 count exhale, and then a 4 count hold.  And you’ll find that after about a  minute or so, box breathing in a sauna, you start to feel really short of breath and it takes a lot of focus especially on that exhale part.  But what happens as you’re doing this, you’re stimulating your body to produce new red blood cells, new erythropoietin to give you the ability to actually carry and deliver more oxygen along with strengthening the muscles that are around your lungs.  So, you get a pretty big effect when you’re doing all these things throughout the week.  So, that’s why I don’t use the PowerLung everyday ‘cause I’ve just got so many little things organically kinda spread throughout the week that I use to make my lung stronger and enhance my breath control, that I don’t see any, to use exactly as recommended.  But, what I will do for Michael is – all the stuff I just talked about like the swim snorkel, the cardio cap, the previous podcast that we did with the folks at PowerLung, the training mask that I used like the elevation training mask – I even have like phone apps that I use that walk me through, that box breathing protocol that I talked about.  Oh! There’s even one other thing I do that I wanted to mention that I’ve been doing since I got back from Seal Fit and that’s warrior breathing.  Where I finish up a yoga session, ‘cause typically about twice a week, I go on the porch and do about 30 minutes of yoga, I’ll finish that session with about 50 to 100 warrior breaths, which is very sharp nasal inhales followed by sharp short exhales.

[0:45:02.5]

That’s a technique that Wim Hof talked about.  Wim Hof the Iceman, the guy who like – will go sit, hunt in snow and immerse himself in ice for like 2 hours.  That’s the technique that he uses to warm his body.  He calls it inner fire breathing.  Commander Mark Divine from Seal Fit calls it warrior breathing, but that’s another great way to train your breath.  Basically, it’s a – I try to snot the microphone but it sounds like this.  (sounds)  But you’re basically doing that for like a good 2 minutes and you get this super high, hyper oxygenated feeling and that’s another thing that I’ve been doing a lot of lately.

Brock:  It’s not just straight up hyperventilating?

Ben:  Yeah!  It’s very similar to just like hyperventilation.

Brock:  So you have to be careful if you’ve got a propensity for anxiety.

Ben:  Probably.

Brock:  Can set it off pretty bad.

Ben:  Yeah.  Anyways though, I’ll put a link to all the different little breath things that I do and previous podcast that I’ve done, and books that I recommend on breath control.  I’ll put a whole host of stuff in there, in the show notes for you, Michael if you really wanna geek on this stuff but alternatively you could use your PowerLung while under a cold shower doing static lunges with the weighted vest being hooked to an EMF device with training bands on your legs to build up extra lactic acid while you’re reading my book.

Mori:  Hey Ben and Brock, this is Mori from New Jersey.  I just wanna get your thoughts on an ointment that I came up with.  It’s a mixture of coconut oil, topical magnesium, and caffeine.  I’ve been rubbing it on my knees and ankles and calves and it seems to be helping.  I got the idea from a dream that I had a couple of nights ago and I want to know if it’s just all of my head or if you think that it’s actually helping.  Thanks.  Bye.

Brock:  I think that sounds like it would be delicious!

Ben:  Uhmm, delicious must sound.

Brock:  I don’t think I would rub it on my knees, I think I would rub in on some toast.

Ben:  My wife makes this coco rub like for her face.  It’s like infuse it with like coco like – I don’t know, it’s like coco fats or I don’t know what it is but it makes me just wanna like eat her face, if I can say that on the podcast.

Brock:  Uhmm, sexy?

Ben:  That’s right.  And Mori, maybe I wanna eat your face.  That extra sounds pretty good.  Coconut oil, topical magnesium, and caffeine.  Well, caffeine is actually something that has been shown to have anti-aging effect.  It can prevent the formation of wrinkles by enhancing blood flow to the skin.  Caffeine is something that you’ll find in a lot of anti-aging serums out there.

Brock:  Is that ingested or applied topically?

Ben:  No, that’s applied topically like I actually – I bought a bunch of really high quality coffee infused oil when were in Thailand last year.  Actually Brock, you were there.  We went over to that lemon grass place.  It’s like the world’s famous soap and natural product place that’s on the island of Phuket out there in Thailand.  And we just loaded up with this stuff and brought back this coffee oil which is amazing.  You smear on your face and you smell like a giant latte.  Yeah, really.  No, more like a mocha, like a giant tasty mocha but it has this anti-aging effect too which is really cool.  But anyways, when it comes to muscle rubs, I have some that I definitely like and I do like that you’re using that magnesium, Mori because that that does have an effect that I’ll talk about in a second.  But you also do need to be careful and go easy with some of the medicated lotions, and creams and gels, and muscle rubs that are out there.  It was a few years ago and this hit the news pretty big time.  There was this New York City high school track star and she died from an overdose of one of these sports creams.  So, she used – I don’t remember if it was Icy Hot or Bengay but it was one of these popular over the counter pain relieving ointments that has as its key ingredient methyl salicylate which actually built up in her body, because as we know, your skin is a mouth, and it somehow interacted with some type of aspirin that she was using, and she went into cardiac arrest and she died.

Brock:  Geez!

Ben:  There was this other athlete who died of a lidocaine overdose because she has this lidocaine based numbing gel as she applied to her legs and she went into a convulsion, and then to a coma, and then she died.  And obviously lidocaine is something that would be more prescribed by a physician, not found in like an over the counter muscle rub but it’s an example of what this stuff can do for you if you’re not careful.  So, a few of the things that you need to be careful, like that methyl salicylate that I talked about, there you’re gonna find in Bengay, Icy Hot, Tiger Balm, all these stuff.  It acts really similarly to aspirin and because you can go into a cardiac arrest, from the blood thinning effect of aspirin.  Using this stuff too much can also cause that same type of blood thinning issue.  So, I actually got kinda sick when I was a kid cause I took one of these methyl salicylate creams that my mom had and I rubbed it all of my body because I thought it smelled really cool, as like this giant mint, and I woke up in the middle of the night not just shivering but also feeling horribly sick and my parents had to give this bath and wipe it all of my body, and so, maybe that’s what happened to me.

[0:50:23.9]

So, methyl salicylate overdose.

Brock:  Maybe.  At some point your super powers will…

Ben:  At some point my Spidey powers.  So, the licodaine, the benzocaine, the tetracaine, all the things that you might get from numbing an area, those type of topical anesthetics.  You usually not gonna find those in muscle rubs but they definitely can cause basically like an overdose type of effect.  A lot of people have allergies to them but you can also get pretty sick from over using those.  Hydrocortisone is another one that you’ll find as an anti-inflammatory topical steroid that will get prescribed in some cases for pain.  You know, knee pain, elbow pain, stuff like that but that can cause a little bit of an irritation effect as well and in some people you can have a pretty significant allergic effect.  There are some anti-aging creams that are out there that have like hydroquinone in them.  And hydroquinone is actually one of the things that can be carcinogenic that’s in those compounds.  So you’d wanna be careful with something like that.  Even high doses of vitamin A which you find in these other anti-aging creams.  High doses of that topically can cause vitamin A toxicity effect.  So you’d wanna be careful with that too.

Brock:  Is that the one that trims your arms as well?

Ben:  Uhmm, yeah exactly.  The main one though that I have the biggest issue with this is the methyl salicylate that you find in like these smelly popular muscle rubs like Bengay, and Icy Hot, and Tiger Balm, and I don’t use any of those.  I do have a few favorite balms that I use that I’m going to… but first, magnesium.  We’ve talked about on the show before, but it – I mean, that stuff is magic.  Like it displaces calcium, it relaxes muscles, it opens up cells, it supports detoxification, it’s got – got a lot of cool stuff.  The magnesium that I use is this stuff made by Magnetic Clay, and the primary ingredient is just magnesium chloride but it’s mixed with like olive oil, and coconut oil, and they add in MSM which helps to heal broken skin, broken blood vessels, torn muscles, things along those lines.  So that is probably my favorite go-to-topical, that’s one that I put on.  I was talking to Tawnee on Endurance Planet podcast about this the other day.  We’re talking about magnesium and we both came with the conclusion that that’s something that we’re almost to the point of using that stuff twice a day.  Like every time we take a shower like we just ______ [0:52:53.3] that stuff over any sore muscles.  That one’s called Ancient Mineral Magnesium Lotion, but that’s – that’s why magnesium works so well, it’s not only relaxes muscle, but it displaces a lot of the calcium build up that can cause muscle to be sore.  So, magnesium…

Brock:  That works in a hurry too.  That stuff is like almost instant.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.  And the lotion works way better than the spray by the way.  So, you totally by-passing your gut, you’re going straight into the skin, you rub it straight on the area that actually needs that relaxation or that calcium displacement and  it works really, really well.  So, magnesium is way up there on the list.  The other topical that I use pretty frequently – one thing I’ve been using a lot of lately pre-sleep is just a little bit of lavender essential oil.  I rub that into the back of my neck.  I put about a drop on the pillow, and I’m a big fan of lavender now for relaxation.  I’ve been using it when I travel, something about lavender – I mean, you just fall asleep like a baby after you use that stuff.

Brock:  You know, I hate the smell of lavender.  I really hate it.  I just dislike it so much.  People keep buying me.  Like I’m a terrible sleeper, I always wake up in the middle of the night.  People are constantly getting me stuff like – Oh!  you have to try this and it always has freakin’ lavender in it.  I smell some old lady.

Ben:  So first of all, you gonna have to listen in to the podcast that we have coming out in a couple of weeks with Andy Murphy.  Because he literally – he hypnotized me on the podcast and then like basically we did an LP session about sleep.  And like how to sleep better, in this case we were doin’ one on how to sleep the night before a big race.  So, yeah, tune in to that podcast if you haven’t listen…

Brock:  Does it gonna make me smell like lavender?  I’m a big fan like Downton Abbey.

Ben:  I’m a big fan of lavender, I don’t why lavender, maybe it had…

Brock:  I don’t know, it’s just a weird thing.

Ben:  … horrific experience that you’re suppressing from childhood… lavender.  A freak lavender accident.  Yeah!  So, lavender is another big one and then the last one that I’ve used that I like is the stuff from Hammer Nutrition called Hammer Balm.

[0:55:02.7]

And that’s a pretty good formulation too.  It’s basically ginger root and clove oil and arnica.  And arnica is an ingredient that you’ll gonna find in a lot of these better, natural, over-the-counter muscle rubs.  It’s a medicinal plant that used to treat like skin wounds and bruises, but it works really well for muscle aches and pains too.

Brock:  Sounds awesome on bruises.  If you’ve got a bruise somewhere where you don’t wanna have it for very long just put some arnica on there.

Ben:  Yeah, so if you look at my transdermal cabinet, it’s basically magnesium lotion, lavender, and then I’ve got some of those hammer balm as well.  And I’ll put links to all those on the show notes but there’s also this interesting study on PubMed that goes into all the different ingredients that you find in muscle rubs.  And one ingredient that have been shown in multiply studies to help with not just nerve pain like neuropathy but also muscular skeletal pain and even arthritic symptoms is Capsaicin.  And I can’t say that I actually have any muscle rub that I use right now or that I even experimented with one that has capsaicin.  You know, this chili peppers extracted from chilis.

Brock:  Get in your eye when you’re choppin’ up chilis.

Ben:  Yeah.  So, if any of our listeners out there and you’ve got idea from master of the heps capsaicin, or maybe more can add this in this coconut oil, and this topical magnesium.  Make you a little spicy, add some capsaicin in there.  I thought that was interesting that of all the different things that this PubMed article goes into, capsaicin is one of the more popular.  Another good one by the way, that if you’re on a pinch and you just gotta get some from most groceries stores, you’ll gonna be able to find this there and a lot of natural physicians swear by this as well – it’s called arnica, chamomile, and Echinacea, and a bunch of stuff in it.  It is called traumeel, that’s like a homeopathic muscle cream.  A lot of people swear by that one too.  And that one is also okay, it doesn’t have a lot of dangerous ingredients in it.  So, that one’s traumeel – t-r-a-u-m-e-e-l.  So, I’ll link to all these resources for you in the show notes but those are some of the better muscle rubs.

Andrew:   Hey Brock and Ben!  Thanks for the wonderful podcast.  My question is related to my almost 4 year old son.  Like many children his age, he has a persistent cough which is going on for 3 years now.  He eats a real food diet which includes some fruits and starches, potatoes and sweet potatoes, but without going on a full auto-immune diet, it’s probably as good as I can get.  His skin is always itchy despite being visibly fine and he often complains of a sore tummy and he has sign mood swings.  We see many doctors and specialists, however we’re having a hard time to maintain them with too much investigation other than prescribing drug which are mostly steroids and antibiotics that don’t seem to work.  Sodium montelukast help with the cough to some degree but had horrible side effects.  We finally got one doctor to test for mold sensitivity which did come back positive.  However, it wasn’t until we ask for the actual results that we even find out.  We’ve seen that any of the molds we have control over but that doesn’t mean there isn’t exposure elsewhere.  We live in Australia so we can’t really order the test for that going through a doctor.  So, we’re hoping for some suggested tests which I can then discuss with them.  I’m going to take his fasted glucose tomorrow in the off chance, it’s the start of Type 1 diabetes developing but we never have history of that in the family and aside from that I’m pretty much ______ [0:58:36.7] I need help and hope you can help.  Thank you.

Brock:  Wow!  That’s a – that doesn’t sound very comfortable.

Ben:  Yeah.  It actually sounds a lot like my nephew.  So, I have a nephew who has an auto-immune disease and there’s a lot of different like pediatric or what are called juvenile auto-immune diseases.  So, it can be tough to put your finger on what exactly the auto-immune disease it is.  So, type 1 diabetes is certainly one.  But you’ve also got celiac disease can cause a lot of these symptoms.  Just some pretty severe food intolerances particularly with regards to gluten.  I mean, that’s the biggie for celiac.  Lupus is another one.  Rheumatory arthritis like a lot of juvenile rheumatory arthritis can be another issue.  Lupus – one called scleroderma which is more of like a skin issue but it can cause some of these other issues that Andrew is talking about.  So, it can be tough to put your finger on exactly what type of auto-immune issue that the kid has and frankly, you know, and this is something I talk about in my super human kids book.  You know, auto-immune disease and auto-immune issues due to our growing use of things like antibiotics and antibacterial hand soaps, and C-sections, and lack of fermented foods in kids, and opting for soy milk vs. breast milk.

[1:00:02.1] 

I mean, it’s becoming a much, much bigger issue in kids and you tend to see all of these little issues: itchy skin, or skin rashes.  You get tingling, you get joint pain or muscle pain or weakness that a lot of times will set in.  A little while after a meal, you’ll get a persistent low grade fever.  A lot of times swollen glands like in the neck, or the armpit or a lot of the lymph nodes tender reside.  Sometimes like brain fog, like a kid just had difficulty thinking or they stutter a lot.  Sometime you’ll see hair loss, I mean, one of the same things that you’ll see in adults who have auto-immune diseases, you see in children as well.  Now, I’ll talk in a minute here about some of the things that you can do as far as testing is concerned.  But the number 1 biggest issue when it comes to auto-immune disease in kids, is that you have to realize that a very, very large portion of the auto-immune system lies in the gut, and in many cases leaky gut syndrome or gut inflammation is one of the leading factors that spills into a lot of these other issues that are created in a kid.  So, taking care of the gut is the number one most important thing that you can do.  Like if you’re child was say, born via C-sections, they didn’t pass through mom’s birth canal to pick up all these good beneficial bacteria, or they weren’t breast fed so they didn’t get that colostrums that helps to seal up the gut lining and keep leaky gut from forming.  I mean, two of the best things that you can do, would be expose your child to a wide variety of fermented foods, and then get them on some kind of colostrums supplement.  That could be anything from a straight of colostrums supplement to like a good healthy raw goat’s milk or cow’s milk or anything like that.  That’s gonna have some of that colostrums in it.  So, that’s really important in addition to getting them started on fermented foods as much as you can or even like a good probiotic.  Most kids can take about 1/3, 1 quarter of the adult dose of a probiotic whether it be prescriptosis or caprobiotics or any of these probiotics kids can use and you can open those up and put them in apple sauce or you know, if they don’t wanna swallow a capsule and that type of thing is fine.  Now, if I had a child with auto-immune issues, the diet that I would highly recommend in conjunction with the use of colostrums and fermented foods would be the Autoimmune Paleo Book.  That would be the number one book that I would recommend as far as a very, very good way to eliminate a lot of the common things that are gonna cause autoimmune triggers like grains, beans, eggs, nut seeds, night shades, even some of the spices, etc. And give you a really beautiful done for you recipe guide that you can follow and that a kid a gonna be able to eat.

Brock:  That book is like a textbook.

Ben:  It’s a good book and it was written by a friend of mine, Mickey Trescott.  She lives over in Seattle.  I trust her, what she writes, she studied this quite a bit.  Dealt with autoimmune issues herself and  it’s a really, really good guide.  So, I’ll be sure to link to that for you but some of the other things that I would definitely include just because again the gut is the place to start with most of these issues.  Bone broth, that would be enormously important and it can really help to heal up a gut lining of a child or an adult.  The other thing that can really help with a lot of the inflammation would be like a really good highly absorbable form of curcumin.  And kids can do curcumin supplement in the same way that they can do probiotic supplements , there’s no issues with children using curcumin but that would be another thing that I would look into.  Would be to use curcumin.  I’ve talked before on the show about this one called Rebound, that’s a curcumin phytosone meaning that it actually bound up with a fat.  It’s highly absorbable.  That would be another one that you could use.  So when you’re looking at this from like a supplementation standpoint: colostrum, probiotics, and some kind of really good anti-inflammatory that will help with joint pain, that will also help with gut inflammation. And that would be curcumin and then something like the Paleo autoimmune diet as far as an actual diet to follow in conjunction with some of these other things.  Now, as far as testing, you specifically ask about mold allergy and first of all, as far as  some of these other things that I mentioned, type 1 diabetes, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, test are gonna vary as far as those are concerned.  And what you would wanna do is just basically go in to the doctor and talk with your doctor  about all the different tests that you can do for these type of things ‘cause frankly, we could spend hours talking about each of the different tests for everything from celiac to type 1 diabetes, to rheumatoid arthritis.

[1:05:08.2]

But as far as mold goes, you can get a blood test for mold and it‘s sometimes called an RAST test which stands for radioallergosorvent test.  So that measures your immune system’s response to mold.  It measures the amount of certain antibodies in your bloodstream better known as iGe or immunoglobuline-e antibodies and they test for evidence of sensitivity to specific types of mold and it’s much, much more accurate like the skin prick test.  So, it’s called an iGe food/mold panel or it’s also known as RAST test.  Here in the States, you can get it through Direct Labs, you can literally like order it, you get the requisition form that you print off, you bring in to a lab near your house. They do the blood draw and within about a week you get a pdf mailed to you that tells you which type of molds sensitivities that you were you found to be sensitive to.  And typical things that you’d find that may contain mold you’re sensitive to would be like egg whites, almonds are another big one, shrimp, rice, beans in some cases, some type of yeast, sweet, along those lines, peanuts are another big one.  Basically this would give you a print off of every mold that you may or that your child may be sensitive to.  It’s not a cheap test, here in the States we order through Direct Labs.  I think it’s like a $600 test but it kinda tells you for life what kind of iGe antibodies that you have circulating in your blood stream that may be causing mold sensitivities.  So, we probably at some point, in here should have a “I am not a physician disclaimer”, yeah.

Brock:  Uhm, good call.

Ben Is not a doctor and the content provided on this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or health care advice.

Ben:  Yeah.  Those are the places that I would start and if I had a kid who is showing autoimmune issues, I would without a doubt jump right into an autoimmune diet combine with colostrums, bone broth, curcumin minimum, and then continued testing, you know, talk to your doctor about some of the things that I mentioned that could be causing this issue, and that’s would it start.

Brock:  Whew!  I’m sure that would help.  That was a – we’re going really long.

Ben:  Are we?

Brock:  Sorry folks.

Ben:  Sorry folks, we better wrap this thing up.

Brock:  Yeah, we’ve been trying to keep the show to an hour or less.  It’s not happening.

Ben:  It’s all, it’s all that Ciltep and the enema – tubes, that’s sticking in my back side.

Brock:  Yes!  It got so much.

Ben:  Well, let’s give somethin’ away before we wrap this thing up, shall we?

Brock:  Uhm, let’s give away a beanie, a shirt, and a bpa- free water bottle all branded with awesome Ben Greenfield fitness logo.

Ben:  That’s right and if you hear us read your iTunes review on the show and you email [email protected], we mail all that shiznits straight to your front door anywhere in the world, seriously.

Brock:  Nice.

Ben:  To pick up the shipping cost and everything…  So, I’m actually gonna read this review because it actually, it well, it will be pretty self explanatory.  So, the name of the review is, Ben might be the cat’s pajamas but…  and this review is from TheRealEllie.  And it say: “Brock is the bee’s knees!  Sure, Ben might have that alphabet soup behind his name, but often overlooked is the genius that is Brock Skywalker-Armstrong.  Let’s begin with his name: A Jedi mixed with the first man on the moon.  You cannot get more legit than that.  Brock is totally rad due to his ability to take the scientific jargon Ben spews out and make it understandable for the person listening while on a tempo run or bike ride.  Let’s face it, no one…”

Brock:  So I damn it down.  I’m good at damning it down.

Ben:  I think so, yeah.  That’s what they’re saying.  Let’s face it, you caveman it Brock.  It says:  No one besides Ben has a low-frequency house, a sound-proof office and a backyard that resembles a serial killer (hay bales to throw spears at?!)  Actually I know.

Brock:  Jack Kruse may have a very similar home.

Ben:  “Brock makes other biohacks like standing more, drinking fatty coffee and tracking heart rate seem manageable for the average human.  Lastly…. The guy CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD!”  That is true folks by the way, if you’re listening.  Brock has died and came back…

Brock:  My death has been greatly exaggerated.

Ben:  If that’s not the reason to listen to this podcast, I don’t know what is.  He is like Jesus, resurrected and showing Ben how to relate to podcast listeners ever since.”

Brock:  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!  Too far, too much.

Ben:  Wow!  You’re deity dude.  “Seal Fit training?  Laughable compared to Brock’s ability to live in Canada for most of the year!  By far, Brock makes the show go around and one reason I will always listen for health and fitness tips.”  Holy Shazam!

Brock:  Thanks, mom!

Ben:  Wow!  Yeah!  (laughs)  Thanks Brock’s mom.  Well cool!  Now that I know I’ve got Jesus as a podcast sidekick, I’m feeling pretty comfortable here.  That or the fact that she thinks I’m a serial killer.  Alright!  Well cool.  That was a fantastic review TheRealEllie.  So if you heard that, email us and we’ll get you out a care package and for all the rest of you listening in, head over to bengreenfieldfitness.com/294 for all the handy-dandy show notes and everything else that we talked about from the all day energy cookbook, to dangerous ingredients in muscle rubs, to weird things that you can breathe though.  So, check that all out.  And have a healthy week.

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

[1:11:31.9]      END

 

 

Sep 17, 2014 Podcast: How Many Calories Do You Burn With Cold Thermogenesis, Dangerous Ingredients In Muscle Rubs, Building Muscle On A Vegan Diet, How To Use A Powerlung, and Autoimmune Issues In Kids.

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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September 21-23: Ben will be speaking at The 431 Project – where astronauts, technologists, screenwriters, CEO’s, educators and more, will assemble in the picturesque Green Mountains of Vermont to take up a crucial call to action to end inactivity and obesity in the U.S.. Imagine Ted Talks meets Davos meets the National Geographic Channel. Vibrant fall foliage, fresh farm to table cuisine and world-class sommelier-curated wine lists are a bonus of this exclusive summit. If you want to connect, share, learn, have the time of your life AND change the world… get invited by requesting an invitation in the efforts to lead 300 million Americans towards positive choices, healthy living, and simple, sustained changes that will change their lives.

September 25-27: Ben will be presenting at The Vermont Traditional Foods and Health Symposium at Shelburne Farms. Inspired by the teachings of the Weston A. Price Foundation, this event explores the core principals of how traditional diets can contribute to health, wellness, and longevity.

September 26-28: Ben will be speaking at 2014 Bulletproof Biohacking Conference in Pasadena – Dave Asprey has decided to extend the pre-sale ticket price of $400 until this Friday, August 1st. Dave is stacking this year’s event with an all-star speaker lineup of bestselling authors… entrepreneurs… Olympic athletes… nutritionists… world-class biohackers… and more… Plus, an interactive expo of the latest biohacking ‘tech’ – including cutting-edge gear designed to get you into hyper-productive “flow” state, courtesy of the Flow Genome Project. And YES, that means Dave is making sure all the best ‘toys’ are on display in one place – and you get to play with them… click here to get in now.

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Listener Q&A:

As compiled, deciphered, edited and sometimes read by Brock Skywalker Armstrong, the Podcast Sidekick and Audio Ninja.

How Many Calories Do You Burn With Cold Thermogenesis?

Jared asks: He has been searching all over the net for the specific amounts of calories that are burned in an hour long session of all the different forms of Cold Thermogenesis.

In my response I recommend:
Cold Temps For A Hot Body T-Nation Article
CoolFatBurner Vest

 

Autoimmune Issues In Kids

Andrew asks: His 4-year-old son has itchy skin (visibly fine) and a persistent cough (for 3 years now). He also has “insane mood swings”. He eats a real food diet (with some fruits and starches). He has tested positive for mould sensitivity. They dealt with as much mould as possible. They live in Australia so they can’t get tests without going through their doctor. What would you suggest they get tested?

In my response I recommend:
iGe Food Mold panel from DirectLabs
Autoimmune Paleo Book
Colostrum
Bone Broth
Rebound (curcumin)

Building Muscle On A Vegan Diet

Mark asks: He is looking for a soy free, vegan, muscle building program. He is a vegan athlete looking to put on some muscle. What food, meal plan, nutrition, supplements that would you recommend to put on some muscle?

In my response I recommend:
This article on How To Customize Your Diet
Mass Made Simple
Living Protein or Thorne Vegan Protein
Amino Acids powder or Amino Acids capsules
Aggressive Strength Testosterone Booster

How To Use A Powerlung

Michael asks: He wants to go “beyond training” with a Powerlung. He has read the book and listened to the interview with Gregg Wells. In it you said you use it twice a week but the instructions say to use it twice a day. What is the best way to use the Powerlung to get maximum benefit? Best sets and reps? Best rest? Should he use it in the morning or will that effect his run or spinning session? Is it better to use after a training session? Should he use it under a cold shower doing static lunges, with a weighted vest, being hooked to am EMS device with training bands on his legs to build up extra lactic acid while reading your book?

In my response I recommend:
The podcast interview with PowerLung
Swim Snorkel + CardioCap
PowerLung
TrainingMask – use BEN2014 to get a 20% discount
Pro2fit inspiratory muscle training
Pranayama app
Warrior Breathing
Conquer The Cold And Get Quantum Leaps In Performance In This Exclusive Interview With The Amazing Iceman Wim Hof podcast
Body, Mind, and Sport: The Mind-Body Guide to Lifelong Health, Fitness, and Your Personal Best book
Runner’s World Running on Air: The Revolutionary Way to Run Better by Breathing Smarter book

Dangerous Ingredients In Muscle Rubs

Mori asks: He came up with an ointment made up of coconut oil, topical magnesium and caffeine. He has been rubbing it on his sore knees, ankles and calves and it seems to be helping. He got the idea from a dream he had… do you think it really is helping or is it all in his head?

In my response I recommend:
Magnetic Clay Magnesium Lotion
Lavender Essential Oil
Hammer Balm (15% discount code 80244)
This study on natural anti-inflammatories

Read more https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2014/09/294-how-many-calories-do-you-burn-with-cold-thermogenesis-how-to-build-muscle-on-a-vegan-diet-how-to-use-a-powerlung/

  

 

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2 thoughts on “Episode #294 – Full Transcript

  1. MAtt says:

    I have adrenal issues due to 5-ar inhibitor use (saw palmetto and propecia) so I can not take anything stimulatory. What nootropic options do I have with this info in mind? I have had good success with ALCAR +r-ala in the past.

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