Episode #307 – Full Transcript

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Podcast #307 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2015/02/307-is-mct-oil-a-scam-how-to-measure-your-neurotransmitters-downhill-running-tip/

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Introduction:  In this episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast:  Is MCT Oil A Scam, How To Measure Your Neurotransmitters, Downhill Running Tips, Is Kratom A Healthy Sleep Aid, Why Weightlifting Shoes Have An Elevated Heel, What It Means If Just One Of Your Armpits Smell, and much more.

Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast.  We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, sleep, brain, and hormone optimization.  So whether you’re an ironman triathlete or you just want to shed a few pounds, get ready for non-run-of-the-mill, cutting edge content from bengreenfieldfitness.com.

Brock:  So Ben, are your arms tired?

Ben:  (chuckles)  Are my arms tired?

Brock:  Yeah, ‘cause you just flew in from Dubai!

Ben:  Hahaha…  You’re funny.

Brock:  Hahaha!  No, it’s a dead joke, isn’t it?

Ben:  I’m picking lemongrass out of my teeth right now. I was in a rush, and I literally did just fly in from Dubai… Well, I guess about fourteen hours ago late last night. And I’ll talk about some of the things that I do to manage jet lag after uhm…

Brock:  One of them being is jamming lemon grass from your teeth…

Ben:  That was a fourteen and a half hour flight.  I’m drinking this tea though that’s got a lot of, um, it’s basically turmeric based tea, but it’s got other things like cinnamon, and lemon grass, gotu kola, and it’s called Ultimate Endurance Tea.  It’s a – one of my buddy’s gave it to me.  It’s by – it comes at Hawaii, Hawaii Pharmacy.  Hawaii, Kailua?  I’m so horrible with my pronunciations.  Anyways, it’s an herbal tea, and it’s really, really good after you fly to get natural anti-inflammatories like that into your system because after a fourteen and a half hour of flight, not only do you – and this is the equation, for every hour of flying; it is a good day to re-orient your body in terms of circadian rhythm and time zone, so it’s literally two weeks after a fourteen hour flight that it takes your body to completely bounce back.  It’s crazy.

Brock:  Really?  I thought it was a day, per hour of time zone shift.

Ben:  Well, what I heard from Dr. Kirk Parsley at the Unbeatable Mind… I  don’t know if you’re listening to his…

Brock:  Unfairly I wasn’t paying attention but I was there…

Ben:  I could’ve or he could’ve been mistaken, but what I understand is that it’s an hour for everyday and it might be an hour for every time zone, which means that it’d be closer to twelve hours instead of or twelve days instead of or fourteen days in this case.

Brock:  Yeah, in that case it’s not much different.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.  Anyways though, so I do a lot of little things to mitigate jet lag.  I tried out some new things, and some old standbys on this particular trip; for example, one of the things that I tried was not eating for the last ten hours of the flight.  Normally, I will at least have some, you know, like some Brazil nuts, or like a – a good fat-based energy bar or something other than airplane food but this time I just didn’t eat.  And what I instead did was I walked to the back of the airplane and asked the flight attendant for two waters, since she takes up little cups of water and I’m like no, I mean like two waters, like the giant litter-sized bottles of water that they have in the back.  And she said, “Well, technically I can’t give those to you.” And I’m like, “I won’t tell anybody, I promise.”  So she gave me the two giant bottles of water and I just went back and I tucked those under my seat, and went through a couple of those and several other waters during the flight.  So I fasted, so I didn’t generate a lot of free radicals from digestion ‘cause you’re body’s already, you know, jammed with free radicals from the flight itself.  Another few things that I tried was when I got home, just like I’m drinking the turmeric -based tea, now I had a high sulfur and turmeric-based meal afterwards, like sulfuric, like stinky vegetables; garlic, and broccoli and cauliflower, turmeric, cumin, curry, stuff like that.  That’s really, really good after you fly.  So I had this Mediterranean chicken, which was basically chicken with curry, garlic, ginger, made that with some coconut oil, but basically, a very sulfurous rich meal, and that was in addition to using some of the glutathione, you know, the glutathione that you put underneath your tongue, that taste like dog farts…

Brock:  Yeah, the stuff that tastes like a – taste like a perm   solution  from the   1980s…

Ben:  Perm solution/liquid dog farts, yeah.  It’s not tasty, but that also is very  high  sulfurous…  and  you  are  not kissable  after you  use that  stuff  I should add… So I am actually a fan to oxytocin.

[0:05:01.2]

Jack Kruse talked about this when I interviewed Jack Kruse for one of the summits that I did.  My  Rev Yourself Summit at bengreenfieldfitness.com/revyourself.   We did an hour on jetlag, and one of the things that he talked about was oxytocin.  And so,  I don’t want to turn this into an R-rated podcast, but sex after you fly is actually a good idea because you get a huge surge of oxytocin and that has some really good anti-inflammatory effects. However…

Brock:  You can get that from just from  snuggling.  You  don’t  have  to  be  like down and dirty.

Ben:  You can, but I like the latter.  So, just make sure if you use the glutathione that you have a strong breath mint afterwards, that’s what I am getting at.  So, fast on the plane, did a lot like the sulfur and turmeric –based antioxidants along with the turmeric tea this morning.  Then a couple other things that I did was I smoked melatonin, so I used one of the e-cigarettes with the vapor-melatonin that you can get from Vaporboost.  And I use this stuff called Sweet Dreams, so you put a few drops in the e-cigarette and you vaporize Melatonin just like you would, you know, a weed or something like that.  And it’s like mainlining Melatonin which is really good for resetting the circadian rhythm sort of that…

Brock:  So that’s serving the heck of it of your mote skin…

Ben:  So smoke Melatonin  after  sex…  which  was  great…  and  then  an  earth pulse… So this is getting into like the more expensive, kind of biohacky, nerdy, kind of stuff but earth pulse is a… It’s a Pulse Electromagnetic frequency device, PEMF; and what it does is it dumps a bunch of negative ions into your body.  So you will have a bunch of positive ions when you’re on the flight and just like grounding or like being outside in your bare feet with built up bunch of negative ions soaked in this Pulse Electromagnetic Field Therapy, so you basically just put it underneath your mattress.  I don’t use it every night but I used it for the first two to three nights after I travel and I put it in, it’s got a few different modes, like sleep mode, recovery mode, etcetera, and recovery mode is the most powerful so I just jacked that thing up in recovery mode and did that. And then the last thing is I just walked in the door and made my tea and came down here in my office to podcast with you, Brock as I did a little bit of Yoga outside.  And that is for the same reason that I used the earth pulse, right, to get the grounding or the earthing effect.  But because it’s very cold outside and there’s like snow and ice, the problem’s if you’re wearing shoes, the rubber soles stop a lot of the transmission of the electrons from the earth.  I know that our listeners are slowly fading as we’re delving deeper and deeper into that biohacking geekiness.  But all you do is if it’s cold that you wear wool socks; those transmit really, really well.  So, I just did that to me outside – wool socks, tossed those bad boys to the laundry, and here I am.

Brock:  Nice.  You know, I used to travel like twice a week when I was a web developer, and I’d be flying all over the place.  It was a ridiculous amount of time, and I used in my protocol, was before I got on the plane, I drink several beers, eat a really gross meal in the airport, and then anytime the stewardess came by and offered me anything the answer was yes.

Ben:  Especially free booze.

Brock:  Uhmm, and that worked horribly.

News Flashes:

Brock:   As usual, twitter.com/bengreenfield is rippin’ up the joint with all kinds of cool studies and news flashes and fun stuff.

Ben:  News flashes!

Brock:  And fun stuff.

Ben:  Yeah, and so I have of course been tweeting studies while I’ve been gallivanting about Dubai, and a few things that I put out this week is – the first is something that I’ve been doing for a long time with the hunch that it would probably help somehow with my dry land performance and that would be swimming with limited breathing, right, like doing underwater breathing or doing free style swimming where instead of breathing every stroke, or every two strokes you’re breathing every seven strokes or ten strokes.  Basically teaching yourself of how to move and conserve oxygen simultaneously.  And they just came out with a really interesting study.  This one was in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science, and of course it wasn’t Scandinavia and I’m sure that they were swimming in cold water with sharks or something like… yes, anyways, what they looked at was limited breath frequency during swimming.  And whether the way that that kind of stresses and causes the respiratory system to become stronger, would actually make the subjects in their study better runners like improve their running economy.  And sure enough when they compared a swimming group that took two breaths per stroke, what they called controlled-frequency breathing vs. a group that took every seven strokes they took a breath – like every two strokes vs. every second, every seven strokes.  What they found was the limited breathing subjects improved their running economy significantly, and also improved what’s called their forced vital capacity or their oxygen capacity.

[0:10:09.5]

So, what this means is that if you’re a runner and you wanna do like a cross-training session or even a triathlete or something like that, and you want to cross-training session, it would behoove you to actually do some limited frequency breathing – some hypoxic type of swim sets.  So, you know, I’ve written about that in my book before and it was a little bit like blue sky like you, yeah, this is gonna help with your tolerance to hypoxia.  It’s probably help you mentally but you know, up until this point there’s no research that actually improves running economy and it turns out that it does.  So, kind of a cool thing now.

Brock:   That’s hormesis in action!

Ben:  Hormesis in action, kids.  The next thing and I promise when I tweeted this, I talked about on the show so I’m going to.  It is a post about MCT oil.  It’s called MCT oil vs. coconut oil: The Truth Exposed.  And somebody…

Brock:   Ah, what is the truth?

Ben:  You know about this article that I guess this is really true, because obviously the world’s health is imbalance based off of the answer to this question.

Brock:  Yes!  We cannot continue with eating anything until we know.

Ben:  What this article gets into is that there are all these different what are called medium-chained fatty acids that you’re gonna find in nature.  C6 which is called caproic acid and C8 – caprylic acid, and C10 which is capric acid and C12 which is lauric acid, and most of the names of these are – especially the C6 through the C10 – the names were taken from the word capra which means goat incidentally.

Brock:  Hmm, I didn’t know that.

Ben:  So, they’re goat fatty acids.  So anyways, the most predominant MCT that you’re gonna find in coconut oil according to this article mix is lauric acid.  Coconut oil is about 50% lauric acid, and lauric acid is the part of the coconut oil that is a really powerful anti-microbial agent, right, it’s the thing that you do everything from like an Ayurvetic medicine, you do like teeth swishing with coconut oil to clean your teeth and then you spit out the coconut oil or you’d use it as like – we’re gonna talk about armpit smelling in this episode and coconut oil is really, really good as like a natural anti-deodorant because of that anti-microbial action in the arms.  And what they say in the article is that MCT oil is generally only contain the capra fatty acids, right, the caprylic acid or the caproic acid or the capric acid and that they don’t really contain the lauric acid which is kinda like the star component in coconut oil.  And so the conclusion of the article was that even though MCT oil has been marketed as liquid coconut oil and it’s really potent, healthy extract of coconut oil, the fact is that you don’t get any of the anti-microbial benefits of coconut oil.  Period, point made – MCT oil.  No good compared to coconut oil.

Brock:  Booo!

Ben:  Yeah, but what they fail to taken to account in the article is that most of the time when you’re looking at everything from like bulletproof coffee to the use of like MCTs for sports performance enhancement when you add them to your sports performance beverage.  The idea is that the reason that you use this is because they’re readily converted into ketone bodies and they get you into this state of ketosis which was also improvement in cognitive function and focus, and sure I’ll admit that when you take an MCT oil, you don’t get some of the side health benefits of coconut oil but you do get a more targeted and concentrated delivery of these C8 and C10 fatty acids which help you out from the cognitive standpoint.  So, it’s all imbalance and of course the article itself is written by some folks who own a coconut farm and produce virgin coconut oil.

Brock:  Shocking!

Ben:  Yeah, so just goes to show, you know, be careful just because a food component does not contain like a liquid food component derived in the factory like MCT oil, just because it doesn’t contain a lot of the benefits of its original food source does not mean it doesn’t have side benefits because it’s concentrated.

Brock:  Yeah, and it really depends on what you’re after in this case. Like when I have MCT oil, I’m definitely after that cognitive function when I put it in my breakfast I just feel like my brain is just humming along for hours afterwards and I’m not worried about getting a whole bunch of antimicrobials.

Ben:  Yeah, so the question is, do you want to enhance cognitive performance or do you want to avoid smelly armpits.  Choose your poison wisely.

Brock:  Why must I choose?

Ben:  Pick your poison – I think it goes.  Anyways, the last thing that I wanted to mention, the last couple of things, the first was – a really interesting re-examination of data from what’s called The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.  The NANES survey, and what this looked out was – what proportion of the adult population has inadequate intake of things like vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, calcium, magnesium, all of the….

[0:15:09.8]

Brock:  Oh, I’m gonna guess… hundred percent.

Ben:  … at shockingly high proportion.  More than two thirds of the US population is deficient in most of the micronutrients and the vitamins that I just mentioned.  And almost all of them are deficient in A, C, D, E, calcium, and magnesium.

Brock:  Hmm, surprised by calcium.  That’s the only one in that list that I’m surprise with.

Ben:  Yeah, and we’ve talked about this on the show before – calcium is well 50% deficiencies.

Brock:  Wow!

Ben:  We’ve talked about this on the show before and oh!  And by the way, vitamin D and vitamin E, the fat-soluble vitamins in our food pyramid esque culture, up to 90% deficiencies in those.

Brock:  Yeah.  I’m not surprise by that.

Ben:  And that’s just below the estimated average requirement for the absence of disease.  You know, we’re not – so they talked about going from good to great, we’re talking about going from non-disease to…

Brock:  From optimum performances, not dying.

Ben:  Yeah.  So obviously a big part of this is that you know, our soil sucks because we aren’t turning over the soil the way that we would have been like in more ancestral farming environment.  Part of it is pesticides and herbicides, part of it is unhealthy leaky gut, so lack of absorption but ultimately what this comes down to is, it could be important to go out of your way to add these via like a vitamin or supplement based source.  And these goes to show you that sometimes you can’t get everything that you need from food especially if you’re eating a crappy diet.  And the way that I say things is if you eat a really healthy whole foods, ancestral-based diets, you’re the average gel about you’re lifting a little bit moving, sprinting, you’re probably good to go.  But if you are doing things like Spartan races, and ironman triathlons and asking your body to go above and beyond what would be considered like normal ancestral activity, you’re probably going to be in that boat where you need some extra nutrient support.  So, the data from that study though was just shocking in terms of how many are deficient in these things.

Brock:  Yeah, wow.

Ben:  So, and oh! And then the last thing, speaking of nutrient-dense foods, is hummus – I just push the 20 minute video that my wife shot when we’re in Israel of what the inside of a hummus factory looks like, and I thought that it’s just be like this nasty type of thing where they were taking chickpeas and you know, taking chickpeas which are a legume that can wreak havoc on the digestive system early and broadening them up and turning them to hummus.  But actually they have these enormous like soaking chambers, and rinsing chambers, and they’re heating and boiling, and deactivating all the digestive enzymes inhibitors, and I understood all these at the factory and then it was very, very clean, pristine, mechanical-like environment but at the same time they’re using a lot of ancestral food preparation methods when it came to chickpeas,  and this was the Strauss Hummus Factory which is a kinda big hummus brand.  So, apparently not all big food companies are evil, so anyways though, it’s actually an interesting video.  It’s like a big Dr. Seuss factory for hummus.  So, check it out if you’re interested in hummus, or humus, or how do you wanna say it.  I should eat plenty this week in Dubai and so it’s tasty stuff, I certainly like it a little bit of hummus.

Brock:  I make hummus the old fashion way.  I put it in a big vat and then stamp on it with bare feet.

Ben:  Uhmm, yeah.  It’s like wine, I like it.  It’s a good workout too.  Anyways though, bengreenfieldfitness.com/307 is where you can get access to everything that we just talked about including that video.

Special Announcements:

Brock:  And today’s podcast is brought to you by audible.com/ben.  One of the best places to get audio books for man for years and years going back to like the CD days.

Ben:  Yeah.  Is it audible.com/ben or audiblepodcast.com?

Brock:  Ohh, I think…

Ben:  I don’t, I don’t remember.  We’ll put a link in the show notes.

Brock:  I think it’s audiblepodcast.

Ben:  I think it might be audiblepodcast.com.

Brock:  You tell the people what’s going on, I’m gonna test it.

Ben:  If you type in audiblepodcast.com/ben when you get home from or where you are gallivanting about listening to this episode, you’ll – what should pop up is that you get a free audio book.  So you get to choose from 150,000+ titles, you get to download it instantly and so the next time that you’re out riding your bike, you can listen to Shades of Grey or whatever it is that you would like to partake in.

Brock:  Just as I did, it is audiblepodcast.com/ben.

Ben:  I’m so glad we have quality control.  So one book, I wanted to highlight that you may enjoy – it was actually written by one of my friends, Ari Meisel.  It’s called Less Doing, More Living.  Actually it’s a good book.  I have the physical paper version of the book, the “real” old school version.  And this is a – it seems probably short, it’s a two hour and twenty five minute book.  Something you could read during your next or listen to during your next swim or bike ride, for all of you overtraining aerobic athletes out there.

[0:20:08.1]

Brock:  I remember last time I did it two hour…

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.  I actually listen to a lot of audio books and podcasts when I’m flying.  So anyways though, it’s called Less Doing, More Living, make everything in life easier and it’s about everything from like getting through your email inbox faster to streaming lining how quickly it takes you to run errands, by outsourcing that to like Virtual Assistant, to how to get a Virtual Assistant… uhm, enhance your cognitive performance…

Brock:  If you have a Virtual Assistant getting your groceries, you end up with virtual groceries?

Ben:  Uhmm, possibly yes.  Also phone apps and productivity software like how to use the latest and greatest phone apps and all the different things out there from like remember the milk to like what…. Like Evernote, all these different ways to free up as much time as possible.  So, it’s pretty cool and it’s actually – this is relevant because Ari also has a conference and I’m speaking at it.  For those of you in or wanting to be in or near New York, May 1st through the 3rd.  It’s called Ari and myself – Less Doing Conference.  So, our URL to share that is bengreenfieldfitness.com/doless and the reason that that’s an important URL to visit if you wanna go to Ari’s conference or even if you don’t wanna go to his conference, you can go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/doless and you get a free productivity call with Ari which is the author of that book, which is in my opinion a slammin’ deal.  So, check that out.  There you go.

Brock:  So you actually get to talk to him?

Ben:  Yeah, if you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/doles – here.  Well, you know what?  It’s him or one of his coaches – one of his minions.

Brock:  That’s mine – that’s not what I meant, I just mean like you sign up and you get a free call.  That’s pretty cool.

Ben:  I think it’s cool.  It’s worth it.  So, even if you don’t want the little conference, so check all that out.  We’ll put links to all the audible and Ari’s conference in the show notes at bengreenfieldfitness.com/307.  And then just a few other little things: the first is March 6th through the 9th is the Spartan Cruise.  Check it out at thespartancruise.com, use code BEN10 to save 10%.  You get to go to a private island, you can either drink and stare at hot people in swimsuit jumping over walls and crawling under barbwire, or you can partake in the festivities.  It is there for adults, it’s there for kids, me, my wife.  All of our kids will be on the boat, playin’ in the sand, so I think that would be fun.

Brock:  I heard on the most recent obstacle dominator podcast that Kent Ryan and Isaiah Vidal are gonna be there too?

Ben:  Ryan Kent, Isaiah Vidal…. Uhm, yeah, possibly.  So, ladies there you go. That’s a good reason.  Uhm, okay, another thing – the New Media Expo, for you all out there who like bloggers and podcasters, and video creators, this is gonna be pretty cool.  It’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/nmx is where you can sign up.  It’s a big expo where you learn like how to market your blog, and how to get a better podcast, and how to create just killer online videos, all that stuff, but what I think is even cooler is it’s the same week as the Spartan Vegas Race.  You could go to the conference and then finish up by destroying yourself and jumping over fire, so that’s another place that I’ll be, I’ll be speaking at that.  I’ll be speaking at the Spartan Cruise, and the last place I’ll be speaking is Paleo FX – that’s kinda like the who’s who gathering of like bestselling authors, and physicians and nutritionists, and professional athletes, and like sustainability and food activists.  You don’t have to be Paleo but it’s really cool like an awesome expert you can walk around and all the things that caveman use to eat like paleo muffins, paleo cookies, paleo cupcakes, just everything that ancient caveman used to bake.  And you can also do workouts like the caveman used to do.  They’ve got like ancient caveman cowbells and caveman like high intensity trainers with computer screens on them, and…

Brock:  It sounds pretty accurate.  I’m sure every anthropologist in the world is salivating.

Ben:  To stimulate our ancestors.  But it’s actually a lot of fun, some really good parties to get time.  So, Paleo FX, check that out at bengreenfieldfitness.com/paleofx15.

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Listener Q & A:

Karin:   Hi!  How do you feel about the Pharmasan Labs Urinalysis Kit for testing your transmitters?

[0:25:00.4]

I heard that it’s a scam and I ordered it from my naturopath.  Just wondering I have some low serotonin and other things, and trying to find some ways to relieve this anxiety.  Thanks!

Brock:  Yeah, I did a quick little google search when this question first came in and I got to say, it doesn’t look promising.

Ben:  Uh oh!  The neuro…

Brock:  There seem to be the first things that pop up there like – scam, scam beware!  Do not do this!

Ben:  We’ll just say no to this, I mean, you’re peeing and you’re collecting an overnight urine, and I believe this one also involve say saliva sample.  Alright, the idea is that you can find neurotransmitters in the urine just like you can find like hormones in the urine.  And actually saliva and urine can be good for some stuff like an adrenal stress index for example, where you’re taking a salivary measurement four times in a day to measure the amount of cortisol and DHEa you’re producing.  That’s a really, really good way to find out if you’re like in a state of adrenal fatigue or not.  You know, maybe you have something else going out like I don’t know, Lyme disease like our last podcast or another thing that is pretty decent would be like a 24-hour urine sex steroid test.  It’s a wonderful test – you walk out of this orange jug the whole day, every time you pee, you pee into the jug and this is good for seeing like a 24-hour running cycle of your hormone levels which is actually a little bit better than a single snap shot of your hormone levels.  So, it actually is – it’s pretty decent for measuring hormones, it’s pretty decent for measuring again things like cortisol and DHEA.  When it comes to neurotransmitters though, the deal with urinary testing and neurotransmitters is that theoretically you can get a view of neurotransmitters when you do urine test because neurotransmitters are not just going to hang around in your brain.  They’re not unique to your brain, and as a matter of fact like serotonin for example, a very abundant neurotransmitter in most folks, 95% of serotonin production occurs in the gut and this is why a lot of times people deal with like depression and insomnia and stuff like that, you don’t start with the brain, you start with the gut.  And the gut bacteria, and the presence of leaky gut and stuff like that, but when you look at the amounts of any given neurotransmitter wherein the urine all you’re seeing is basically what you’re peeing out when it comes to neurotransmitters, and you’re not necessarily seeing like levels that are actually available to the brain or levels that are being produced in the gut.  So…

Brock:  Yeah, so it’s sort of like doing those ketones strips, you’re not getting an accurate measurement of what’s being used for getting a measurement of what’s coming out.

Ben:  Uhmm, yeah exactly, and Nora Gedgaudas talks about this.  She’s got a book called Primal Body, Primal Mind, and like on page 279 up to 284, she’s got like these quizzes and questionnaires that she uses to find neurotransmitter issues that – she’s a pretty good biofeedback practitioner, she finds those along with amino acid supplementation.  The use of amino acid to restore proper neurotransmitter levels to be far more reliable than say like a urinary neurotransmitter evaluation combined with neurotransmitter repletion therapy based off of this specific neurotransmitters that are shown to be deficient or imbalance in your urine.  So, what that would mean would be like for example, you would take one of this questionnaires if you’re deficient in neurotransmitters, you could start using something like essential amino acids or something like a blend of 5HTP and tyrosine is another really, really common example of an amino acid blend that tends to restore neurotransmitter activity.  And just a full spectrum of amino acids a lot of times that’s what people need like they just – they either have, since gut and brain issues are intertwine, a lot of times inadequate protein digestion, right?  Inadequate hydrochloric acid, or inadequate digestive enzymes resulting in inadequate protein digestion resulting in amino acids deficiencies, resulting in neurotransmitters deficiencies.  Or a lot of people sometimes just have too much serotonin or not enough dopamine or things along those lines.  So, the use of digestive enzymes and HCL to help with protein breakdown, they use like a full spectrum of amino acids supplement like Thorne makes one called Aminos, you’ve got Master Amino Pattern which is a capsule that has a bunch of amino acids in it.  Those kinds of things can help with neurotransmitter repletion, but ultimately testing neurotransmitters through the urine is not something that most of the better docs and medical practitioners out there are saying or that they have found to be accurate.

[0:30:04.9]

You’re only getting basically what your body is peeing out and it doesn’t really reflect what’s going on specifically in the brain which is really what you’re going after, you know, fixing when you’re testing for neurotransmitters.

Brock:  Now Karin, since you actually already purchased this and since it’s not exactly going to work the way that you hoped and when I was having anxiety problems, I did do one of the urine analysis things that Ben was talking about where you carry around a jug for 24 hours.  I didn’t actually carry it around, I kept it in the fridge but they, what they tested for…

Ben:  I carry mine around.

Brock:  Just keep it on your hip bone.

Ben:  Yes.

Brock:  What they did test it for was adrenaline and things like that to make sure that my body wasn’t the anxiety I was having wasn’t getting triggered by just a – like something misfiring and shooting out adrenaline all the time, so maybe your money isn’t totally wasted if you can convince your naturopath just sort of switch what they’re looking for.

Ben:  I actually hung mine around my neck with a chain and… around that way.

Brock:  Oh, sexy.

Downhill girl:   Hey Ben and Brock, I have a training related question hoping that will help me out with my 2015 spring race season.  I’m a runner primarily and experienced my first injury last fall, an IT band issue, did some strength training and bike work and started running in mid-December.  So far, so good.  I have a couple of spring races coming up which are known for being really hilly.  I do hills but my question is – do you have any tips or suggestions or training advice on how to get super strong for hills without potentially damaging my IT band again?  Thanks so much.

Brock:  IT band issues are a bummer.

Ben:  See, my whole philosophy on this is – find as many stairs as possible, find as many hills as possible.  Just tackle stairs like crazy.  Tackle down hills like crazy.  Eventually your IT band will just kinda rupture and after that you don’t have to worry about it anymore ‘cause it’s not there.

Brock:  ‘Cause you’re not gonna be running.

Ben:  Yeah.

Brock:  So, there goes your marathon training!

Ben:  I actually tried that approach once with a medial meniscus issue and I read on the internet which is a great place to do research on your injuries by the ways,  Dr. Google.  That you could like grind down a meniscal tear and I was like three weeks out from a race.  This was a few years ago, when I was kinda just like macho man mode, and so I did hill repeats just like limping through these hill repeats, slamming my leg into the ground.  Okay, I’m just grind out this medial meniscus tear whatever it is it’s kinda like rubbing on the inside of my knee, and I did like four sessions a week for a couple of weeks, and woke up one morning and my pain was completely gone.

Brock:  Hmm, and so was your meniscus?

Ben:  I don’t know, but I’m just – that’s a total anecdote.  I do not recommend that especially for IT band ‘cause I’ve had IT band issues before and holy cow like going downhill or walking downstairs is like teeth grittingly painful.  It really sucks.  So yeah, and especially if you have a race coming up, right, where there’s gonna be lots of downhills, lots of hills in general, you gotta – you get your body ready to run downhill whether or not you have an IT band issue.  You know, this can be an issue because downhill running, there’s a huge breaking component, right, like a huge eccentric contraction that takes place that can put a lot of stress in the joints, that can result in a lot of muscle tearing and longer recovery implications for anybody who does a lot of downhill running, I mean like it is hard on your joints.  So, the deal is though, training your body during downhill or running downhill in general requires things like a high cadence because your feet are moving very quickly underneath your body ‘cause gravity is pushing you down the hill.  A high ability to kinda be able to lean forward and swing your arms properly to be able to support as you go downhill but also to be able to use gravity to push you down that hill a little bit faster and…

Brock:  Yes, you’re not resisting gravity the entire time you’re using it to your advantage a little bit?

Ben:  Yeah, and also just staying on your toes or like avoiding heel strike.  So, some of the things you can do.  Here’s really a simple one – deep water running, and when you deep water run whether you’re training to run downhill or not, correct form.  I actually didn’t use to think that, I thought deep water running, you lean back to get your knees nice and high so you’re jacking your heart rate up but all that does is kinda teach you how to heel strike instead you wanna lean forward and drive your feet forward.  So you’re driving your knees kinda like forward, it almost like a 30-45 degree angle instead of straight up and down but deep water running, it’s like an awkward jogging bell, like an underwater mp3 player makes time go by way faster. Trust me.

Brock:  Alright.  So you’re putting yourself in more of a position like a sprinter?

Ben:  Uhmm, yeah.  And then…

Brock:  Okay.  So that knee drive fall those through like the really like long kick behind and then knee drive is the most important part?

Ben:  Yeah, and a really high cadence, right, like water running is really good for developing a high cadence.  Even if you don’t have access to deep water, like at my house I have a shallow pool.  I have one of these aqua fitness pools where I can run against a current and that’s only like four and a half, five feet deep but I can still focus on cadence, right?  I can focus on picking up my feet really quickly and there’s far less impact even when I’m doing that compared to doing like a sprint outside on flat ground.

[0:35:25.5]

So, water running is one thing.  Treadmill running, treadmill that set at like a 0.0% incline is not flat.  That technically simulates running downhill ‘cause you have no wind resistance, you’ve got very little friction resistance because the belt is moving and that’s a good way to work on cadence.  It’s a little bit lower impact than running downhill.  Still with an IT band, you might have to stick to deep water running but for other people who wanna get the overspeed benefits of running downhill with less of the impact.  So just doing treadmill running at a high speed at a 0.0% incline and some of the treadmills will go lower, right?  Some will go like a -1 or -2 so…

Brock:  I haven’t seen those.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah, they basically go up on an incline between the front of the treadmill will actually deep down a little bit.  I think there are the pre-course are a couple at our YMCA that does that.  They go down to -1 or -2.  So treadmill running is another one.  So, cycling , overspeed cycling – that trains your nerves to turn over just as fast as your nerves are trained to turn over when you’re doing like downhill running sprints on like, you know, downhill running sprints for example on golf course are really, really good, right?  ‘Cause you’re just like, it’s kind of a soft surface, usually controlled, it’s usually just a few golf balls to dodge.  A few angry, golfers shaking their clubs at you and cursing at you as you run pass them in your track shorts.  Go out there after the club closes or before it opens, but anyways that’s gonna aggravate an IT band either way.  But over speed cycling, right, where you’re getting that same over speed effect in your cycling at a hundred plus RPM, you can still get really, really good training of your nerves.  The big mistake a lot of people make when they’re doing like high cadence repeats on an elliptical trainer, on a bicycle is they use too high of a resistance, right, and so it’s more like a metabolic training effect than a nervous system or a neuro muscular training effect.  The idea with over speed repeats on a bike is you use a really like embarrassingly low gear but you get up to a speeding cadence that’s so fast that your brain freakin’ hurts.  Like that’s a proper over speed training session on a bike.

Brock:  So you’re totally in granny gear.

Ben:  Uhmm, yeah and you shouldn’t be able to do it for any longer than 60 seconds maximum and for really, really high speed like 20-30 seconds and you’re nervous system is cooked, right, and then you take a break, and then you go and repeat again after a full recovery but over speed with a bicycle is really good.  And then finally, the elliptical trainer.  I think I’ve talked about this on the show before.  I have one of these outdoor elliptical trainers called an elliptiGO on my garage.  And that’s really cool – that’s a spendy machine like it’s a 15 hundred machine but it’s an elliptical trainer on wheels so you can ride up and down the street with your helmet and your glasses waving at your neighbors.

Brock:  Like you’re riding a coach in a parade.

Ben:  And the funny thing is when I take this on a trail, this elliptiGO out on a trail, I get like “Yo, what’s up?” nods from like the guys on the dorky who come in bicycles, like the guys on a rollerblades with the ski poles, it’s like, you fit in with the people who are on the non-conventional, you know, ambulatory modes of transportation out there, yeah.  Anyways though, indoor elliptical trainers is fine if you don’t want to embarrass yourself outdoors, you don’t have one of these elliptiGo but the crossover between elliptical training and running – there’s a few really interesting studies that show that you incorporate all the same muscles, you get the same cardiovascular stimulus, you get a good maintenance of things like VO2 max, running economy, running efficiency, but you of course don’t get the same impact as you’ll get when running.  So, all sorts of things that you can do, I mean, if I had IT band, I’d start with the water running, and the cycling provided as that it’s pain-free and then move in to like some elliptical training, eventually some treadmill and some golf course running, and you should be able to progressively get yourself to the point where you can maintain a high cadence running downhill, pain-free.  And again, if that doesn’t work, just run the hell out of your IT bands and you don’t have to worry about them after a while…

Brock:   ‘Til it flies off…

Ben:  Oh, and we should also mention by the way, at bulletproofknee.com – it’s kind of an older program that I wrote but that doesn’t mean it’s not good.  bulletproofknee.com – I have an entire program design to fix IT band friction syndrome and it’s one that I wrote when I was training for the half ironman world championships about 5 years ago and had an IT band.  Spent like 6 months researching everything that you could possibly do to get rid of IT band friction syndrome.

[0:40:00.7]

And I put it on that program at bulletproof knee and that was before Dave Asprey came up with the bulletproof coffee, I’ll just say you can look at the…  you can look at the server record or whatever they are…. So…

Brock:  Bulletproof knee involves a lot of rubbing of butter onto your knee.

Ben:  Yeah exactly.  So bulletproofknee.com – it’s a – I don’t think I can trademark it or probably upset the bulletproof coffee folks but it is there and has nothing to do with bulletproof coffee.

Abby:  Hi Ben!  I wanted to know if you could give me any information that you have on the plant Kratom – k-r-a-t-o-m.  A friend of mine recommended it to me for sleep.  I’ve tried pretty much everything out there in regards to sleep and insomnia, and this is something that actually works really well for me,  but looking at some of the stuff online, it looks a little scary.  So, can you tell me what the benefits and any potential side effects of using this would be.  Thank you so much, bye.

Brock:  So, kratom is illegal isn’t it?

Ben:  Well, so in Thailand it is illegal.  Also in Australia, Myanmar, Malaysia, a lot of these Indonesian countries where it does tend to be overused.  Well, it’s mixed with fun things like in Thailand, you mix it with cough syrup for example and you get this amazing psycho-active properties.

Brock:  Whew!  It’s an opium, right?

Ben:  Yeah and some people mix it with like modafinil, right, the smart drug and get this crazy like pain killing…

Brock:  Smart and dumb at the same time.

Ben:  Have the seen the movie… Oh! What’s it called?  It’s about this pharmacist who just start – he’s like this really clean living, small town pharmacist who just start mixing up these crazy blends and going out like doing  the local cycling races and just go on way up the…

Brock:  Ah, I’ve seen that.

Ben:  It’s called… uhm, uhhh, I’m blanking on it.  It’s got…  we’ll look it up and put a link to it in the show notes.  It’s actually…

Brock:  Okay, now I’m curious.

Ben:  It’s really funny and I –you know, how when you’re trying to remember a movie in the tip of your tongue and you can’t remember it.  Uhm, anyways though, it’s brand new too, just came out.  But yeah, this pharmacist mix these things like opioids and painkillers, with central nervous system stimulants, cocaine-like central nervous system stimulants, and cough syrup and he goes out and just like wins races and stuff like that ‘cause his legs are numb and he can’t feel pain but he can, you know, he’s extremely hyper like he drinks 10 cups of coffee and that’s kinda sort what this kratom stuff is like when it comes to its painkilling effect.  It has what called opioid receptor activity in it.  So, it binds your opioid receptors, it kills pain.  They’ll use it sometimes like wean from stronger drugs like heroine, cocaine, stuff like that.  And is comes from a plant.  It comes from an herb, you know, surprise here in Southeast Asia.  The herb is actually in the coffee family – so it’s in the coffee family but rather than acting as a direct central nervous system stimulant like caffeine would, it is a little bit more like a – acts like a methamphetamine.  You know, it’s basically an alternative to methadone.  So, and then of course when you mix it with other things it can have all sorts of interesting effects.  Unfortunately, the pharmacology of it, the toxicology of it has like been studied very, very little surprisingly  few studies on this stuff and what happens when it does things like bind to serotonin receptors, and what happens when it binds this opioid receptors.  We do know that it has some pretty high addictive potential.  You know, and they’ve proven that in animals and it’s definitely not that good for your liver when you combine it with stuff like cough syrup, you know, which I really don’t think that obvious necessarily doing which is probably getting rather than like the methamphetamine that the heroine, the cocaine-like effects of it is all the painkilling effects, right, and that’s why it helps with sleep.  It’s like morphine, it’s like pain killing yourself into sleep.  Well, just like anything, like Valium, like Diazepam, like Ambien, or some other ones out there, Lunesta, even like a really strong antihistamine like Benadryl or Nyquil or something like that.  Most of these are not only acting as a band-aid to cover up an underlying issue that is keeping you from sleeping, but there also, you know, we talked about Dr. Kirk Parsley earlier on what he was saying about the circadian rhythm and the effects of the circadian rhythm with airline travel, he also talked in that particular talk about how you have very, very difficult time getting into your deep sleep phases like your rapid eye movement sleep, and to a certain extent your non-rapid eye movement sleep, and so it’s kind of like knocking yourself out with a hammer to get to sleep and then expecting your nervous system and your neurons to regenerate the same way they would during normal sleep and frankly that just doesn’t happen.

[0:45:06.6]

And so when you sacrifice sleep like that or when you get sleep from a drug like that that’s used as a band-aid, you get inadequate learning ability the next day, less ability to form memories, less repair of the nervous system which has some really interesting long term effects in terms of things like risk for Alzheimer's, and the effect on nerves which could eventually implicate things like reaction speed, risk for MS like all sorts of issues when it comes to not allowing your nervous system to recover properly.  So, I would personally be pretty careful with this stuff.  I would set it aside, get some cough syrup, the next time you get invited to a party, maybe use it in that way but… there are other things that you could do for sleep like I talked about smoking melatonin, you know, you could also use a melatonin patch, you can use like a sublingual or a melatonin liquid, and that usually works really well especially when you blend it with something like passion flower like melatonin and passion flower, blended together is like a really nice anti- anxiolytic which if  a pain killer or morphine-like substance is working for you for sleep might be the issue here, right, is anxiety which you know, a lot of people don’t have a parasite which can cause insomnia, or they don’t have like low blood sugar which can keep you up at night or they don’t have like too much screen times during phones at bed or something like that.  They just freakin’ or anxious, right, and so a lot of times something like that can help.  Another thing that really, really helps and the fact that it sounds like valium kinda gives you some clues even though it’s a sedative and an anti- anxiolytic that does not knock you out deleteriously in the same way that valium that’s not of a valerian root.  Using anywhere from 500 to 1000 mg of valerian root.  You know like that vapor boost sweet dreams blend that I talked about vaporizing, that’s actually melatonin, passion flower, valerian root, L-theanine, and you know, some of you out there may have reservations about smoking something in the effect of propylene glycol in lung tissue and that type of thing but you don’t inhale it, right, you just kinda breathe a little bit in your mouth and…

Brock:  Yeah, that’s the important thing.

Ben:  … to the mucus membranes in your mouth that’s a…

Brock:  When you say smoking it, I think people think like really smoking it.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.

Brock:  It’s more like puffing on it.

Ben:  I don’t know why they add the propylene glycol frankly, I guess just to produce the smoke-like effect honestly.

Brock:  So you look cool.

Ben:  So you look cool!  So that’s it at bengreenfieldfitness.com/vaporboost.  I actually have a link to the stuff and I think that knocks in to like free shipping with some kind of a discount or something like that.  You can check that stuff out, you can try like the valerian root, obviously there are a bunch of other things you can use for sleep but those are two that you could try so, ultimately this Kratom, I’ll be kinda careful with.  You know, interestingly, it’s not illegal in the US.  It is marked by the FDA as something that – it’s kinda like the raised eyebrow drug, right, something that is – it’s not illegal, it’s not banned by the World Anti-doping Association or you saw anything like that, but it’s also just one of those things that is so unknown it terms of its health effects that you just have to be super duper careful of it.  The searches for it on google by the way have skyrocketed.  People who like chew it, or brew it, or snort it, or smoke it, or inject it, or ingest it, it’s all over the place now interestingly.

Brock:  So it’s probably a week away from getting banned?

Ben:  Probably, and some people will say like turn you into a sex god, some people will say completely saps your drive, so it’s kinda interesting stuff but Kratom – k-r-a-t-o-m, if you wanna check it out for yourself, or if you want to experiment with it a little bit, with a cough syrup, hope there are no children listening right now, and a…

Brock:  Do not try this children…

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.  Yes.

Cory:  Hey Ben, this is Cory Edwards from Spokane Valley.  I wanted to know why power lifting shoes have an elevated heel.  To me, it seems like that would promote Achilles tightness and change a lot of biomechanical form in one people’s lifting?  And also I would like to know is when you squat, do you squat with no shoes on  for increased foot strength and balance?

Brock:  Personally I do all my weight lifting barefoot.   Which is probably a bad idea in terms of I’m going to crush my toe one day but it just – it feels good.

Ben:  It’s – if you’re doing heavy weight lifting in an Olympic style weight lifting, going barefoot is not necessarily the best idea.  And if you look at photos of a lot of Olympic weight lifters or power lifters, or anybody doing like a heavy clean, a heavy split which is where your legs are split into a really low lunge.

[0:50:06.5]

You know, which is sometimes followed by like a jerk up to like a push press type of position, people doing like getting into a really, really low squat after doing a power clean where you literally like a power clean is you’re exploding the bar from the floor and then you’re falling underneath the bar, not really falling underneath the bar but rapidly sitting underneath the bar, squatting…

Brock:  You’re shooting yourself under there.

Ben:  Yeah.  You know, it will be another example, even the deadlift, even like getting into a deadlift position where you really truly are using your leg muscles efficiently.  That requires you to get into a very low position with your butt and your hips, so at least there’s a relatively low position.  A snatch would be another example, right, like a squat style snatch where you’ve got a vertical trunk and you’ve got fully flex knees at the bottom and your hips and your ankles and shins are really tilted forward, the amount of what’s called dorsiflexion required for any of those positions that I just talked about is tremendous and the problem is that even in somebody with pretty decent ankle mobility, once you get in to the really heavy weights, it’s difficult to fall under weight and get into either a deep squat or a deep split with your shins either slightly vertical or your shins very far forward without having your ankles hold you back significantly from a mobility standpoint.  And so if you look at the biomechanics of this, a very, very easy fix for that a way to introduce the ability to get into those deep positions without your ankles holding you back specifically the ability of your ankles to dorsiflex, right, to flex forward holding you back is to somehow get your heels higher.  And so if you look at Russian weightlifting for example, they used to – they’re the first people to get into this weight lifting shoes and they would basically attach things to the bottom of their shoes, you know, like attach like wood with nails to the bottom of the heels to get that correctly elevated heel.  And yoga people like Katy Bowman for example talking about high heels can be deleterious to your low back because they’re shifting your biomechanics real world, they’re shortening the hip flexors and walking around in them all days is not a great idea.  And I would certainly say that walking around in shoes with raised heels could produce some of the other deleterious effects like keeping you in hip flexion or even inhibiting the ability to develop full hip extension the way that you would if you’re in like a barefoot shoe or minimalist style shoe.  And of course they also limit your ability to build up all your tiny foot muscles and your ability to like, you know, as we talked about in our last podcast to get strong arches to eliminate things like flat feet.  But if you are lifting heavy weights that you have to get low for, getting low to get underneath or getting low to lift them off the ground using your legs rather than your low back, elevated heels are a really good idea and if I were doing a lot of power lifting, and let’s say I decided I wanted to compete in a crossfit games and really work on my ability to get some of these heavy weights overhead, or be able to lift something really heavy off the ground, I would certainly use footwear with an elevated heel – a  weight lifting shoe.  So yeah, it does change your biomechanics, that’s core notes, it does promote Achilles tightness, and that is kind of why you use them is to be able to get yourself into more ankle dorsiflexion.  The problem is that a lot of people get the power of lifting shoes with the elevated heel and they walk around the gym doing curls because they’ve got their weight-lifting shoes on.  That’s just ridiculous.  So don’t be that person especially if you’re wearing your Ben Greenfield fitness t-shirt at the gym.  Do not –  take off the t-shirt or take off the shoes for the love of god.  Don’t wear lifting shoes unless you’re really truly weight lifting.

Allie:  Hi Ben and Brock!  I know you like to answer poop questions but here’s a pit question.  Why would one armpit smell worse than the other armpit?  I generally don’t wear deodorant and certainly never anti-perspirant, and usually it’s not a problem but when I get nervous or stressed, I notice that my left armpit smells a lot worse than my right armpit, and I was wondering why this would be.  Thanks for all the help and it’s great to know there’s a person or people I can ask about this exciting pit questions.  Thanks.  Bye.

Brock:  We do like a good poop question, it’s true.  We also enjoy the pit question.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.

Brock:  Anything stinky, really.  Bring it on.

Ben:  That’s right, that’s right.  We love sulphur here on the show.  You know, the fact that this is happening once you get fearful or stress or anxious,

[0:55:04.2]

that’s actually something that’s really interesting because you produce a scent when you’re anxious or when you have fear.  That is a signal to other humans that you’re anxious or that you’re experiencing fear.  And they’ve done brain scans on people and when sniffing what they call panic sweat, the regions of the brain that handle emotional and social signals become far more active in the people smelling that smell and the parts of the brain involved in empathy –this is really interesting – also light up.  So you’re sending this signal to people that you are in distress and technically it’s a signal for other people to empathize with you to help people to be able to socially be there for you when you stink.  So, you know, by wearing deodorant, you may be inhibiting your ability to be helped out by others.  So, there you have it.  We just put Axe Body Spray out of business, baby.

Brock:  Awesome.  (chuckles)  Finally.

Ben:  Or of course on the flipside by wearing deodorant anti-perspirant, you’re sending the world a message that you fear nothing.  Only you are not stinky but you’re fearless, not stinky.

Brock:  I don’t even fear aluminum chloride on my – on my most vascular part of my body.

Ben:  Well, it turns out that the studies that they’ve done on armpits do indeed show that not all pits are created equal including all pits on one single person.  So you can actually take the microbes from an armpit using like a Q-tip and they’ve done this on studies where they’ll put the microbes on a nutrient-rich plate called an agar plate and when they put it on there they wait for the bacterial colonies to grow and you’ll get more or less growth of bacterial colonies even in the same person when you compare the left pit to the right pit.  And one of the studies that they’ve done is called the armpit microbe study.  If you follow #pitstart on twitter, #pitstart, you could see some of the tweets that are coming out about the study.  And the theory here is very simple.  What they suspect is that it might have to do with arm dominance, meaning that with the dominant arm, you tend to hold that arm out and away from your body more frequently and that results in like a lower temperature in that arm, a little bit more aeration of the arm, and less propensity of bacterial colonies to grow vs. the non-dominant arm that’s kinda tucked up against your body letting all that bacteria thrive in that stinky armpit.

Brock:  I bet that’s got even more so now that we use Mysol with all-day like the most hand would be move away from your body…

Ben:  Yeah exactly, the hand that’s on the computer, yeah, even while we were podcasting, right?  So I’ve got my right hand, my dominant hand is kinda resting on my desk and my left hand is kinda – that arm is tucked against my side.  So…

Brock:  I actually have both arms straight up in the air right now.

Ben:  Yeah, you do that up in Canada.

Brock:  Woahhhh!

Ben:  Pits are equal in Canada.  So anyways, that’s probably what’s going on here.  Really, really simple answer.  Ultimately it’s not something to worry about, like we talked about earlier you know, just slappin’ some coconut oil in either armpit, that’s a great antibacterial.  First is MCT oil which would completely suck for that by the way.

Brock:  Yeah, just make it slippery.

Ben:  Yeah, so just slap some coconut oil in there.  Don’t get too stressed or excited about it but know that if you do get stress or excited, people are going to empathize with you as long as you just let it stink, baby.  So…

Brock:  Just waft it in their face.

Ben:  That’s right, that’s right.  So, speaking of wafting things in people’s faces, let’s go ahead and look at this week’s review and remember if you leave a review for the Ben Greenfield fitness show on iTunes and you hear us read your review as we’re about to do on the show, then you just email [email protected] and we actually will send you a t-shirt, a beanie, and a cool BPA-free water bottle.  Now, you do that over on iTunes, just go to search for Ben Greenfield fitness over there.  The other thing is that of course if you want access to any links that we talked about, go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/307 and we do a really kick-butt job getting all the show notes there for you.  So, today’s review is from Wellnessjen.  Wellnessjen congratulations.  Brock, you wanna read this one?

Brock:  I sure do.  The title is How In The H-E- Double Hockey Sticks Does He Know All That Ish!!??

Ben:  Ish!

Brock:  All this Ish!

Ben:  All this Ish, yeah.

Brock:  And it goes like this:  “Ben is the Rain Man Savant version in the healthy living realm!”  Hmm, wow!  I don’t know if that’s a compliment.  Judge Walker, Judge Walker.  No underpants, definitely no underpants.  “When it comes to knowledge about health, natural living, exercise, pooping, and probably any other topic you want to know about his brain knows no limit.  I…

Ben:  Cough syrup and drugs.

Brock:  (chuckles)  I need those two, yeah.  “I am in the fitness industry myself and could never retain all the facts, names, tips, recipes, and other tidbits he dumps out every week.”

Ben:  It’s good descriptive adjective.

Brock:  That’s some pretty good adjective.  “Perhaps it’s the smart drugs but regardless, I am in awe of his knowledge and inspired by his vast proficiencies.”

Ben:  I don’t use smart drugs.

Brock:  Right?

Ben:  Not really.  I use the Tianchi stuff sometimes but my smart drug is my cup of coffee.

Brock:  I took some Alpha Brain this morning.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.  I don’t even use that like I just – yeah, like occasionally from sleep deprived, I use smart drugs but I don’t even using them for like talks, workshops, and something like that.  Just…

Brock:  Just dumping it out… that’s where you go.

[1:00:51.9]

Ben:  Just coffee.  I actually did have about 8 cups of day when I was teaching my workshop in Dubai just because I got in and I was so sleep deprived.  I got 5 hours of sleep, rolled out of bed like topped for 12 hours, slept for 5 hours, got up the next morning and did it again, and I was literally like every hour havin’ a cup of coffee.  That was a little much.  Yeah, anyways…

Brock:  Anyway, back to Wellnessjen… “Furthermore, Ben and Brock can take totally geeky topics and make them funny so the podcast easily holds my interest all the way through!  These podcasts act as entertainment and education for me!  I’m always going back and listening to previous episodes over again as I wait with baited breath for the next release!

Ben:  Baited breath…

Brock:  That was my baited breath.

Ben:  Baited breath to me always just seems like a horrible term because I – for some reason I think of the word “baite” and like I think of like a mouth with like baite in it like warm – is it weird that I think that way?

Brock:  That’s a little bit weird, ah.

Ben:  So, baited breath to me is like a fishy foully mouth.  It’s horrible but you can still wait with your own baited breath for the next release.  So, awesome review, Wellnessjen!  And you can write [email protected], let us know your emailing address and your t-shirt size, and we’ll get a handy dandy snack pack out to you.  So, check out bengreenfieldfitness.com/307 for all of the show notes, all the tweets that we tweeted about, the conferences that I’ll be speakin’ at, the calendar, all the resources from the questions that we answered, and oh! So much more and stay tuned this weekend for a fantastic yet controversial interview on – I believe this weekend is vaccinations.

Brock:  No, that’s not this week.  That’s next week.  We need to wait 10 days for that one.  I don’t remember but I know it’s not the vaccination one ‘cause I promised I’m going on vacation for that one.

Ben:  Let me see if I can find my notes like all the listeners now.  This is great radio by the way.

Brock:  Uhmm, it’s great listening to us struggle to try to remember what the heck we’re doing.

Ben:  This weekend’s podcast is called Why Strong People Are Harder to Kill?

Brock:  Oh yes!  Of course.

Ben:  That would be a good one.  So, listen in and until next time, I’m Ben, he’s Brock.

Brock:  I’m Brock!

Ben:  Thanks for listenin’.

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

[1:03:46.1]              END 

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 Feb 4, 2015 Podcast: How To Measure Your Neurotransmitters, Downhill Running Tips, Is Kratom A Healthy Sleep Aid, Why Weightlifting Shoes Have An Elevated Heel, and What It Means If Just One Of Your Armpits Smell.

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 receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfieldFacebook.com/BGFitness and Google+.

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Special Announcements:

This podcast is brought to you by Audible. Visit AudiblePodcast.com/ben to get a free book!

March 6-9, 2015: Come on the Spartan Cruise with Ben Greenfield and family! Use code BEN10 to save 10% when you book this cruise to a private island in the Bahamas for the ultimate tropical Spartan Race. This cruise includes free travel for kids and a kid’s Spartan race, along with a sprint Spartan for the adults, tons of partying, beautiful beaches and new, exclusive island challenges.

April 13-16, 2015: Ben is speaking at New Media Expo, where the world’s top bloggers, podcasters and content creators teach you how to make money by creating content online, and how to enhance your blog, your podcast, your videos and any other media you create online. Better yet, you can come and attend the conference, then join Ben at Spartan Vegas on April 17! Click here to register for New Media Expo and use code “bgreenfield20” to get 20% off the current pricing.

April 24-26th, 2015: Come hear Ben speak at PaleoFX 2015. The can’t-miss conference that is the Who’s Who gathering of the Paleo movement, with world-class speakers including best-selling authors, physicians, nutritionists, research scientists, professional athletes, trainers, sustainability and food activists, biohackers, and more.

May 1-3, 2015: Ben is speaking at Ari Meisel’s Less Doing Conference, the year’s top conference for learning about things like how to manage your email inbox, hack productivity, enhance your cognitive performance, learn how to use the latest and greatest phone apps and productivity software, free up as much time as possible, and much more! Click here to get more details and to book a free productivity call with Ari.

The Ben Greenfield Experience is now available for either May 15-17 weekend or May 22-24 weekend (you choose): This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for you to be completely immersed in Ben’s unique combination of healthy, ancestral living and cutting-edge biohacking. Total cost is 10K for entire weekend(Fri/Sat/Sun) – includes yoga, workouts, food, and the full learning and living experience. You’ll leave completely equipped with everything you need to know to reinvent your home, your body and your life.

The entire experience takes place at the Greenfield home in the forest, which is completely biohacked to support optimum human biology, including 100% organic and green experience with zero electrical pollution, allergen-free materials, natural mattresses, circadian rhythm matched lighting and much more – including:

-Outdoor obstacle course on 10 acres of forest, with nature walking trails, climbing wall, rope traverses, spear throws, sandbag carries, Tarzan swing, monkey bars, mountain bikes, woodchopping and everything you need for the ultimate outdoor fitness experience.

-Completely outfitted gym with power lifting rack, indoor swim trainer, hypoxic air generator, bike trainer, elevation training mask, luxury Tru-Form running treadmill, outdoor yoga patio and much more.

-Cold thermogenesis endless swimming pool with chlorine-free, naturally ozone-treated hot tub for a one-of-a-kind outdoor, winter forest swimming and soaking body treatment.

-Plenty of biohacks to play with, including a recovery-enhancing Biomat, infrared lighting, electrostimulation, inversion table, power lung, and ore.

-Locally-sourced, natural and nourishing food from over a dozen nearby organic farms and Ben’s goats, chickens, organic vegetable garden, along with filtered, structured and deeply hydrating well water.

-Giant living room with wood burning stove and enormous oak table for learning, socializing, working, eating and relaxing.

-Outdoor obstacle course workouts, hiking excursions, yoga and high performance living led by America’s top personal trainer.

E-mail ben at bengreenfieldfitness.com if you are interested, and Ben will set up a private phone call with you to discuss details and your eligibility.

Grab this Official Ben Greenfield Fitness Gear package that comes with a tech shirt, a beanie and a water bottle.

And of course, this week’s top iTunes review – gets some BG Fitness swag straight from Ben – leave your review for a chance to win some!

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Listener Q&A:

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

How To Measure Your Neurotransmitters.

Karin says: She wants to know what you think of the Pharmasan Labs Urinalysis kit for measuring neurotransmitters. She ordered one from her naturopath but then heard it as a scam. She is trying to manage her anxiety naturally.

In my response I recommend:
Primal Body-Primal Mind (pages 279-284)
-using mood/symptomatic screening to guide amino acid supplementation with something like Aminos or MAP

Downhill Running Tips.

Downhill Girl says: She has spent her off season recovering from an IT Band issue (fixing some muscle imbalances) and is now training for a spring marathon. Her A-Race has a lot of downhill and she is worried about re-injuring her IT band by actually training on hills. Are there other ways to train for downhill running other than running downhill?

Is Kratom A Healthy Sleep Aid?

Abby says: She is wondering if she should be worried about using Kratom as a sleep aid. She has tried almost everything else – but this plant actually works for her. She has read some scary stuff online about it. Should she be worried?

In my response I recommend:
–Vapor Boost Sweet Dreams blend
Valerian Root

Why Weightlifting Shoes Have An Elevated Heel.

Cory says: He would like to know why powerlifting shoes have an elevated heel. Wouldn’t that promote Achilles tightness and change your biomechanics? Also, when you squat do you do it with no shoes on – for increased foot strength and balance?

What It Means If Just One Of Your Armpits Smell.

Allie says: She knows we like poop questions but here is a pit question. She doesn’t wear deodorant and doesn’t usually have an issue with BO but when she gets stressed or excited she notices that only one of her armpits gets smelly. Why would it only be one? She is glad to have people like us to ask these types of pressing questions ;)

Read more https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2015/02/307-is-mct-oil-a-scam-how-to-measure-your-neurotransmitters-downhill-running-tip/

 

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