Podcast #217 from

http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2012/11/episode-217-what-kind-of-

magnesium-is-the-best

[0:00:00.0]

Introduction: In today’s podcast: How to learn to swim, What type of magnesium

is best, What kind of cinnamon is best, Are all omega 6 fats bad,

high heart rate with ketosis, how much to eat to fix amenorrhea,

and is sugar in protein powder okay?

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: Hello everybody and hello Ben!

Ben: Brock, what’s up?

Brock: I am standing in my living room looking out at a beautiful sunny

day here in Toronto. It’s way too nice to be in the middle of

November.

Ben: Nice. I am sipping my morning drug of choice which interestingly

has no component of marijuana in it although that was just

legalized in my state of Washington here.

Brock: So progressive the Washingtonians.

Ben: So, I’m doing this coffee – coffee and a brownie.

Brock: Skunky brownie.

Ben: You know, what’s kinda interesting is that cannabinoids and

marijuana – that’s a banned performance-enhancing drug.

Brock: I know.

Ben: Anti-doping association.

Brock: That’s so weird.

Ben: I know. It’s not in any study that I think you could ever find on

PubMed ever been shown to give us a shred of performance

benefit.

Brock: None. Maybe it’s the Cheetos that you’re eating at the same time.

Ben: Yeah. The increased calorie consumption has that effect but yes,

it baffles me. I think it just probably just so they maintain positive

role models or what not in athletes. That reminds me, by the way,

I interviewed a biochemist professor about doping and the

different forms of illegal performance-enhancing drugs out there

and the effect they have on the body. So, I’m gonna try and push

that out this weekend for listeners who want to geek out on the

biochemistry of doping.

Brock: Cool!

News Flashes:

Brock: Okay, to get these and other interesting news flashes hot off the

presses as they say, make sure to follow Ben on

twitter.com/bengreenfield and also at Google +, and you can find

those links if you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com and I think we’ve

got stuff from both of those today.

Ben: That’s right and speaking of performance-enhancing drugs, let’s

start right off with this one. I tweeted that energy drinks plus

smoking equals heart attack. Put down the cigarette and I’ll put

down my joint. The Journal of Caffeine Research (interesting

little journal) did a study on the combined effects of ephedrine-

containing dietary supplements, which is like 50% of the fat

burners out there, combined with caffeine and nicotine on the

structure of rat hearts (I think primarily because this would have

been somewhat unethical to do in humans…would’ve been fun for

some folks though, I’m sure), they looked at whether the nicotine

that’s present in cigarettes can combine somehow negatively with

the ephedra and fat-burning compound you find in many dietary

supplements out there along with caffeine and sure enough, they

found some really cardio toxic effects of this combination of

ephedrine and caffeine and nicotine. They found changes in heart

tissue morphology, they found changes in the cardiac cells, and

ultimately, much increased risk of having heart issues when

you’re doing something like energy drinks plus smoking.

Brock: Crazy! So, it’s not actually like what we normally associate with

smoking like the tar and all the chemicals and stuff that is in the

inhalant. This is actually just specifically the nicotine that’s

causing the problem.

Ben: Yeah. That’s the scary thing is that nicotine is what’s known as

the sympathomimetic and it’s not necessarily present in a lot of

fat-burning supplements even though it probably would be

somewhat effective, it’ll be dangerous as a fat-burner if it were.

But there are many compounds that closely simulate the chemical

action of nicotine in a lot of fat-burning supplements and

especially the ones that contain ephedra or ephedrine, the ones

that contain caffeine. There are many ways to increase the

metabolism or to burn fat or to get a fat-burning effect from a

supplement but these caffeine plus ephedra components

especially if you happen to be a smoker as well, are doing some

really nasty things to your heart.

[0:05:14.3]

Brock: Read the ingredients list, people.

Ben: Yeah. It’s kinda related to the post that I did over at

bengreenfieldfitness.com this week. I talked about fat-burning

supplements that can be used for damage control primarily like

blood glucose control, improving insulin sensitivity, and helping

out with fat burn in the presence of large meals. Basically, I put

out that post leading up to thanksgiving and all these holiday

meals where people tend to eat a lot of calories as a way to control

the potential for the body to turn those calories into fat or to

churn a lot of triglycerides into the blood stream and there are fat-

burning supplements out there, like I read about in that article

that I (for lack of a better word) approve. Right now, literally like

a half hour ago, I took one. I’m right now jacked up on bitter

melon extract and the reason for that specifically (it doesn’t

actually taste bitter), incidentally, it’s like an Okinawan thing –

they chew on bitter melon rinds. But it has this effect of not only

improving glucose control and insulin sensitivity but it enhances

your ability to form this highly metabolically active brown adipose

tissue. So, I combine it with…or I’ve been for the past week and

half since I’ve had it (this stuff just came out in the market) but

I’ve been combining it with wearing this cool fat-burner vest that

I’m wearing right now. I use that one to combo to (basically in the

morning) help me to burn fat a little bit better and for me, it’s not

that because I’m obese or overweight, I just know that you and I

and the group of athletes that we’re taking over to Thailand next

week are gonna be climbing a lot of hills and I want to maintain

body weight.

Brock: Fair enough. Yeah, I was kinda concerned about that ‘cause you

don’t have a lot of fat to shed but getting your body into that state

of enhancing the fat adaptation helps for racing in one way but

also staying a little bit lighter for pulling yourself up the hills

definitely helps in other ways.

Ben: Yeah and I’ve got 2 different kind of thanksgiving celebrations this

week ‘cause I’ll be on an airplane to Bangkok during the real

thanksgiving so, that’s another situation which shall use this stuff.

Brock: I’m not gonna point out that the real thanksgiving actually

happened at the beginning of October.

Ben: You mean like the one with the native Americans that…

Brock: And the pox-ridden blankets? No. The Canadian Thanksgiving.

Ben: Oh…Gotcha. Yeah. I didn’t know you guys did that kind of stuff

out there. That’s cool that you’re progressive like that. We better

move on.

Brock: Yes.

Ben: Speaking of progressing…fermented tea…I tweeted about

fermented tea which we also know by the sexy term of kombucha-

A recent study done by the Department of Agro Bio Science over

in Kobi Japan with that fermented tea and what that did to

glucose tolerance in mice. And it was pretty cool because the

different forms of kombucha not only increased what’s called the

glut 4 transporter which is responsible for transporting glucose

and allowing you to actually utilize it more effectively after you’ve

consumed carbohydrate. But it also increases the protein

expression of your insulin receptor which would increase insulin

sensitivity. And so, whereas drinking gallons of kombucha or

kefir or any other fermented beverage actually is not likely for you

because of the potential for yeast infection. Doing one or two

bottles of the stuff a day has some pretty cool effects in terms of

blood glucose control.

Brock: Now, a lot of the kombucha that I found especially available

commercially actually has quite a bit of sugar in it. Would that

help to offset that problem?

Ben: Well, that’s because of our Western palate and I think most of it is

too sweet. What we do when we make it at home is we add sugar

to it but it’s for the fermentation process. The more sugar that

you add to it, you can leave the sugar in the kombucha bottled and

what it does is it’s fermented by the bacteria in the kombucha and

you just get a little bit more bubbly kombucha and the sugar has

already been digested and converted into lactic acid

_____[0:09:40.1] so you’re not metabolizing it. The bacteria are

metabolizing it. But many manufacturers will add sugar after the

fermentation phase to basically sweeten the kombucha so, yeah,

you do need to be careful. I’ve noticed you can get up to 150

calories a pop in a bottle whereas real kombucha should be like 5

or 10 calories.

Brock: Gotcha.

[0:10:01.7]

Ben: And then the last thing I wanted to mention, when out on Google+

and for those of you who aren’t aware, we actually do mini

blogging over at Google+. You can go to bengreenfieldfitness.com

and if you scroll down the right side of the page there, there’s a

link to Google+ and one of the articles that came out this week on

Google+ is in New York Times. It’s entitled The Island where

People Forget to Die.

Brock: That’s pretty forgetful.

Ben: Yeah. And it looked at this island off the coast of Turkey and

there’s a ton of centenarians there and people who are living super

long but high quality lives. What they did was they had some

journalist and I think a couple of epidemiologists went over there

and looked into what these folks were doing from a dietary and a

lifestyle activity standpoint to try and draw some corollaries for

people that know a little bit more about how they could live long

high quality lives. And they did find some interesting things in

terms of their diet. It was a very very kind of traditional

Mediterranean diet but it had some unique components, for

example, it’s very low in dairy except for dairy from goat’s milk in

which case, that dairy intake was fairly high from goat’s milk –

moderately high or even higher than many Western diets in red

wine. Generally, a lot of folks will be pleased to hear. Large

amount of beans but stewed like not necessarily fermented but

beans that had really been well soaked. We’re not talking about

grabbing a kidney beans out of a can at the grocery store but

making your dishes with peas and fennel and garlic and olive oil,

basically like Greek stews almost. There’s a lot of coffee and

interestingly tons of tea from a bunch of different plants that

these folks were literally picking up in the hills like wild plants,

wild herbs and that’s really interesting because a lot of our

pharmaceuticals that we use more traditional Western culture are

really derived from natural compounds. Natural compounds can’t

be patented and sold so, we tend to see them marketed as

pharmaceuticals instead but doing things like wild mint tea and

rosemary tea and another type of tea called artemisia which helps

to improve blood circulation and they did lots of dandelion and

spinach like grims that are good liver cleansers, lots of honey, lots

of homemade bread. I’m guessing the bread probably from the

more ancient grain that doesn’t have as much activity in terms of

digestive irritants and even lots of coffee. So, I think that we can

definitely take a note from what these people are doing. One

thing that’s really important here is lots of fresh air and outdoor

activities and tons of cultural activity like having friends and

playing outside (for lack of better words or better terms). That’s

how you live a hundred years.

Brock: I want to go there.

Ben: There you go. So, get a lot of clean air and wine. Grab your

Cabrini and go skipping out in the field.

Brock: Perfect!

Special Announcements:

Brock: Okay. So we already sort of alluded to the post that you did over at

bengreenfieldfitness.com over the last week or so but if you

haven’t checked it out, make sure you got over there and take a

peek especially if you’re about to indulge in some holiday feasting

‘cause there’re some very good strategies to take care of that or at

least help you along the way.

Ben: Definitely geeked down on fat loss in the past couple of articles

over there so check those out for sure. And then a couple of other

quick things: I will be brief in the special announcements ‘cause

anyway, you’re kinda long there in the opening. I’m now offering

nutrition consulting to people. I used to only offer nutrition

consulting combined with exercise coaching. Now, I am offering

nutrition consulting for people who already have a personal

trainer, who already have an exercise coach, who already have a

training plan that they’re following. You can still do the deal

where I’m actually programming your meals into training peaks

and giving you my private client forum access and doing phone

calls with you. You can check all that out. We’ll put it in the show

notes but if you just need a nutrition help and you don’t necessary

need the fitness component, that’s available to you now on more

of like a coaching basis rather than just getting me on for a single

phone consult.

Brock: And I guess if you’re looking for even more information and more

access to Ben and all his information, you should go to the

Become Super Human Live event in Spokane Washington.

Ben: Yes. And if you get in by December 1, we’re gonna enter you in the

contest to win one of 2 prizes – a private one-on-one consult with

me while you’re out here or free ticket but you need to register by

December 1. It’s at bengreenfieldfitness.com/superhuman.

[0:15:12.6]

A lot of people are wondering how is this gonna be airing event to

the podcast and the big big thing about this event is it’s not

information. It’s experience and it’s solutions in real time, Q & A

with some really really good folks that I’m gonna have there. I’m

gonna reveal the speakers very soon but this is something that

you’re gonna wanna be at. Local organic food, tons of information

that’s gonna change your life and I guess we should probably just

play the commercial for it to move on, huh?

Brock: Yeah. Exactly but I just wanna say personally, I’m most excited

about Ray Cronise being there.

Ben: That’s right.

Brock: That guy is freaking amazing.

Ben: He’s fat-burning NASA dude.

Brock: He’s from NASA!

Wanna get personal access to all of Ben Greenfield’s secrets life?

This March in Spokane, Washington. Ben is bringing the world’s

best speakers straight to you. You’re gonna get step by step

blueprints for performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, brain,

sleep, and hormone optimization and get inside or access to

private parties special sessions for podcast listeners only. And of

course, delicious locally grown organic meals. The conference is

called Become Super Human and it’s already filling up fast. But

you can get in now at bengreenfieldfitness.com/superhuman.

You’ll come away from this live 2 day event completely set for life

to achieve everything you want for your body, mind and

performance. Whether you want to maximize fat loss, achieve an

ironman triathlon, or push your body and mind to the absolutely

limits of human performance. So visit

bengreenfieldfitness.com/superhuman and we’ll see live you live

and in person March 8th and 9th, 2013.

Listener Q & A:

Alexander: Hi Ben and Brock! It’s Alexander here from Glasgow. First of all,

I need to thank you both. I’ve been listening to your podcast for

the last 6 months and although I’ve been always quite slim. I

always have this sort of as Ben called the skinny fat look and I’ve

already embraced his high fat diet over the last 6 months. I’ve

also stopped eating wheat after reading Dr. Davis some fantastic

Wheat Belly book and I’ve shed 4 kg in the last 4 months which is

quite a lot considering that I was already on the about 70 kg. And

furthermore, with your training recommendations, I’ve managed

to knock 20 minutes off my marathon pace time. I’ve done from

349 to 329 in 5 months which I could not really believe when I did

it. So, what I’ve done now, I’ve signed up for Ironman next year

and although I’m a good runner and good cyclist, my swimming is

rather poor and I was wondering what recommendations Ben

would have how to best start with proper swimming training.

Thanks very much and keep it up. I love the show. Bye.

Ben: Well, first of all, Alexander, congratulations on using that ironic

approach of a high fat diet to beat your skinny fat look. I think

that’s great.

Brock: Most people will not believe you when you tell them that but it

works.

Ben: It’s not as cool as your accent but it’s pretty cool. As far as

learning how to swim, it’s a great question. What I did when I

learned how to swim, and this is just the way that I learned was I

went and got a book from the library and it was one of those

waterproof books with the pages that don’t dissolve when

chlorinated water hit them and I just kept that at pool side and I

swam drills, I asked the lifeguards questions, and then I took

about 5 different little mini clinics that I found in the area where

coaches came in and they’d videotape you and teach you drills

whether you’re a beginner, intermediate or advance. I know many

areas have those kind of clinics going on. I teach some here

locally now but that combined with lots of reading and looking

and watching really helped me. Now, based off with my schedule,

I wasn’t able to get into any masters classes but master swim

classes are also good. You don’t have to be, as the name implies, a

master of the sport. Master just refers to age – you can be

beginner, intermediate or advanced and you can go into masters

workouts and they typically have different lanes for different skills

and lot of times, there is a coach or an instructor there at poolside

helping you out.

[0:20:06.2]

Now, if you just wanna pick up and you’ll go Christmas shopping

or whatever for some of the best swim resources out there, I’ve got

some things that I definitely recommend and I will make sure that

I link to this stuff in the show notes and the other thing that I’ll do

is we have a MyList for every single Ben Greenfield Fitness

episode and what that means is if you go to

facebook.com/bgfitness, there are very very helpful lists there

called MyList and not only can you see lists of everything we talk

about in the show notes but you can also click on stuff, go check it

out, you can like it, you can share with others and it’s definitely a

cool little facebook tool that we’ve been trying to use more to

make things more useful for you guys. Anyways though, as far as

some of the things I’d recommend, some of the things I’ll be sure

to put on that MyList, there are some really good books out there.

I like the one by Swim Smooth. It’s a complete coaching system in

one book. I own it. It’s probably the best swimming book on my

shelf and it’s just called Swim Smooth. That’s a really good one.

They also have a DVD. Swim Smooth does and it’s called Learn to

Swim Freestyle. I do have some more advanced swimming DVDs

that I think are also good and I own all their DVDs but that one -

Learn to Swim Freestyle, obviously, you can’t put a TV at the

bottom of the pool and watch it but if you just watch that a few

times during the week when you’re going to the pool, that helps

really really well also. So as far as learning resources, I’d save that

book and that DVD.

Brock: Buy on their website as well. There’s a great questionnaire on

their website. They will identify your strengths and your

weaknesses so you’re able to choose what you need to be working

on to sort of address any deficiencies you might have on your

stroke and I wish that all my athletes as well (the athletes that I

coach), at least the beginners, to watch. There’s an animation

right on the homepage of their website that is basically like the

perfect swim stroke. And if you sit and watch that for a few

minutes before you go to the pool (everytime for a few weeks in a

row) and really embody what that animation is showing you, that

can really help as well.

Ben: Your loved one might get jealous though.

Brock: He’s pretty handsome, Mr. Smooth.

Ben: I think they have a Mrs. Smooth too.

Brock: What?! I’ve been watching Mr. Smooth for years.

Ben: Maybe it’s Mrs. Smooth, topless, I don’t know. Anyways though, a

few actual tools or pieces of gear you’d come into the pool with

you. I like the Finis freestyle or paddles – these are special

paddles that rather than just providing resistance, actually guide

your hand into the correct position. I also like the Finis fins that

are specifically designed to teach you how to point your toes

properly during the kick. If you’re gonna have a little back pack

that you take with you to the pool, I’d have the fins in there, I’d

have the Finis freestyle or paddles. And then the last thing that I

would include are what are called PT paddles and these are very

very similar to swimming with your hand in a fist except they’re

actual paddles that you hold and you wrap your hand around the

paddle on that keeps you from using your hands so you learn how

to use your forearm a lot better. I’ll put a link to all of these stuff

in the show notes but you could go to Swim Smooth, you’ll

probably spend like 50-200 bucks over there getting all these stuff

and then you’ve kinda just got this package that you get in your

house and that’s a lot of the stuff you can use to swim. I know

they got some multi buy discounts over there too. You purchase 2

or more products and use some kind of a discount or something

like that.

Cathy: Hello Ben and Brock! This is Cathy from Oregon. Thanks for a

great podcast. Today, I have a question about magnesium. I’ve

taken Calm (the brand) on and off for several years to help with

insomnia but recently in the last couple of months, I’ve tried the

Calm brand again and I had a horrible stomachache the next day

and as well as like it was like taking a tranquilizer. The next day, I

had to take 2 to 3-hour nap, it would just knock me out. This

actually happened several times so I tested it and I absolutely

know it was the Calm. So, I’m wondering if you have any ideas

why this may be. It was the Calm brand with calcium and

potassium. I’ve tried another magnesium that has magnesium

glycinate and that’s fine, I don’t get that issue. So I’m wondering

maybe if it’s the magnesium citrate and the magnesium ascorbate

that’s in the Calm brand. Would that make any difference? Or

maybe it’s the addition of the calcium and potassium or I don’t

know what. So, any thoughts on that would be great. Thanks very

much.

[0:25:12.5]

Ben: I’ve heard this, Cathy, about magnesium citrate before.

Brock: I have experienced this from the exact same thing that she is

taking as well.

Ben: Like taking a little bit or taking a lot of it?

Brock: Taking 2 tsp like it says on the side of the bottle.

Ben: Yeah. Magnesium citrate in high amounts has certainly been

shown to draw a lot of water into the bowels and it can cause some

of the diarrhea type of effect. But some people are very sensitive

to it even in small amounts. A lot of people, they don’t experience

that kind of loose stool from like a magnesium citrate until they

get to above 500 mg or so of it. And I personally use the natural

Calm. I’ve been using it more as kind of a way to calm me down

when I wanna take an afternoon nap, I find that it works really

well for that. And for me I use about a heaping tsp of it or so

which is I think it comes out to right around 300-400 mg of

magnesium citrate. It is true that different people’s digestive

systems handle magnesium in different ways and so the first thing

that you should know here is that the whole reason we’re having

this conversation in the first place is that magnesium is one of the

most underrated and ignored minerals when you look at it

compared to calcium which gets pushed all over the place. But

magnesium is essential to literally like 300 different enzymatic

processes in your body. And we’ve had Dr. Carolyn Dean on the

podcast before and she calls it The Master Mineral because it has

so many different functions in terms of cellular activity and

glucose balance and because of performing practices–over

fertilization or over (what do you call it when you dump stuff on

the soil?)

Brock: That’s fertilization or you mean pesticides.

Ben: Yeah. Well that too – pesticides and herbicides, I guess it would

be just over fertilization. For some reason, for me that brings up

conjures of images of having too many babies or something like

that, for top soil conditions, basically. A lot of people are

magnesium deficient. The problem is that when you don’t have

enough magnesium, you aren’t able to use calcium properly, so,

you’re supposed to have a calcium to magnesium ratio right

around like 2:1. And most people are way way higher than that in

terms of their calcium to magnesium ratios. Now, you can look at

your magnesium levels (I recently did this). You get what’s called

the red blood cell analysis. You can also do what’s called the

spectra cell analysis and that’s a really really simple blood test to

determine your magnesium levels and it’s something that you

should be able to do just about anywhere. You can also, if you

wanna do kinda something a little bit more qualitative and I’m

getting a guy on the podcast. Actually, I already did the interview

and I should release it next week. You can do muscle testing

which I know a lot of people think it’s kinda woowoo but after I

talked to this guy, Dr. Ken Best, who’s a doctor in LA. I actually

think that there is quite a bit to be said for muscle testing where

you can literally have magnesium in your mouth or potentially

even be like holding magnesium and do muscle testing to see if

you might have some kind of a deficiency in magnesium, so, a

little bit quicker way to do things than a red blood cell analysis.

First thing to realize is that you’re gonna get decent amounts of

magnesium from fruits and vegetable that are grown in really

good soil and you can even add magnesium. They sell minerals

that you can add to your topsoil if you have your own garden to

increase the magnesium content of your food, so we use special

kinds of fertilizers and compost in our garden that increases

mineral content of the vegetables that we grow and that really

helps us get a little bit of extra magnesium. You can also use a

trace liquid mineral supplement. And a lot of times, people who

don’t tolerate magnesium citrate very well do just fine with this

and that’s like a full spectrum minerals. There’s one that I use

called the Natural Vitality and it’s not just magnesium but it’s a

bunch of trace minerals as well. The only problem with that is it

technically doesn’t have as much magnesium as most people and

especially sweating active individuals should get. So you’re still

gonna need to supplement with some extra magnesium even if

you’re doing a natural like a trace minerals. Now, there are a ton

of different forms of magnesium out there and this is where it gets

confusing for people because you’ve got magnesium citrate and

magnesium glycinate and magnesium threonate and all of these

different forms of magnesium. And studies go back and forth on

the bio availability of these different preparations of magnesium.

[0:30:16.0]

Essentially, magnesium in any form is gonna be bound to

something when it’s in a supplement. Sometimes it’s bound to

citrate, sometimes it’s chelated and what that means is it’s

attached to an amino acid. Sometimes it’s found in oxide form as

magnesium oxide. Now, what research is very very clear on is that

magnesium citrate which is what you’d find in the natural Calm or

in a lot of the popular magnesium supplements that are out there

in the market, magnesium citrate is going to be better absorbed

than magnesium oxide. Magnesium chelate is also gonna be

better absorbed than magnesium oxide. And this is based off of

studies that have been done that have looked at red blood cell

levels of magnesium after taking either form of magnesium.

However, once we get into a lot of these kind of like which amino

acid is better and is glycinate better than threonate or either of

those better than citrate, it kinda bounces all over the map in

terms of what studies show and what people actually tolerate. My

ultimate solution for this and my recommendation to Cathy would

be to just bypass the digestive tract all together and use a

magnesium lotion or magnesium oil and you can literally get

fantastic absorption. One spray or one little bit of oil applied to

the inner thighs, under armpits, any area of high blood flow, is

gonna give you right around 10 mg. 10 sprays of magnesium oil

would give you a hundred and you can literally completely bypass

the digestive tract, eliminate all these issues altogether and still

get the benefits of magnesium through transdermal application

and that’s something that I’ve spoken about before in the podcast

when I interviewed Dr. Mark Sircus. It’s about transdermal

magnesium. That’s what I would look into and your problem is

not uncommon with magnesium citrate. Usually it happens more

when people are taking a lot of it. One of the things that a lot of

people do is they’ll use the magnesium citrate but not drink

enough water with it and that can basically keep you from

absorbing properly and cause to get more complications when you

take it without water but regardless it sounds like for you it’s a

pretty serious issue even little bits of it so I’ll just switch to a

transdermal magnesium.

Brock: The stomach problem I found actually went away after using it for

a little while and one of the keys was especially with that natural

Calm (I haven’t tried the other ones) is to make sure you do mix it

with warm water to begin with or even hot water. If you just sort

of stir it into cold water, that’s when I got the stomach ache, not

necessarily the loose stool but it actually kinda hurt my stomach a

little bit. The other problem that she was talking about was being

completely knocked out even like the next day and needing to take

a nap and stuff. That’s something that I’ve experienced on a really

irregular basis with using the natural Calm.

Ben: Yeah. I suspect that that may be a little bit more of a dehydration

loss of electrolyte effect from that. The osmotic gradient of using

is correctly pulling a lot of water into the colon and just leaving

you feeling similar if you drank the night before and dehydrated

yourself that way. That’s what I suspect. Of course, it could be

possible that you’re just going in the woowoo mode from the

deeper sleep that magnesium can give you. But yeah, it’s tough to

say on that and I can’t really find many studies that show that that

type of post day effect of magnesium use. And of course, one of

the things that I should also mention and I know we’re going all of

these questions so I’ll go ahead and end it soon but magnesium

glycinate, I do know that a lot of alternative medical practitioners

and naturopathic physicians, that’s kind of the darling magnesium

for them, is magnesium glycinate form. So, if you don’t wanna

use transdermal and you do wanna use oral, I’ll put a link in the

show notes for you to some magnesium glycinate which doesn’t

for many thing I’ve seen have any lower absorption than a

magnesium citrate.

Debbie: Hi Ben! This is Debbie from San Antonio, the diabetes capital of

the United States. You have recommended cinnamon to increase

insulin sensitivity as well as increase fat burning. I was wondering

if you knew in the studies, was cinnamon verum or cinnamon

cassia used. I understand that the cassia variety is almost

exclusively sold in the United States with the verum type used

ever almost everywhere else in the world. Just wanting which

type is the most effective. Love your podcast.

[0:35:02.9]

Brock: So, congratulations on coming from the diabetes capital of the

United States.

Ben: Yeah. It’s a great accomplishment.

Brock: I didn’t know they have that kind of designation.

Ben: I’m sure women’s health or men’s health or something like that

named it. Anyways though, cinnamon, we talked about it last

week in terms of how as little as 2 tsp has a very stark effect in

terms of what it does when you have cinnamon with cereal as far

as lowering the blood sugar effect of something like cereal is great

for insulin sensitivity, good for not necessarily increasing fat

burning but more kinda increasing or improving blood glucose

control which has an indirect effect on your ability to burn fat.

You are correct in wanting to differentiate between the 2 different

forms of cinnamon because technically, there’s only one true

cinnamon and…

Brock: One cinnamon to rule them all.

Ben: That one cinnamon has been shown in research to be more

effective than the alternative forms of cinnamon or what would be

called cassia, basically.

Brock: It’s the hybrid.

Ben: Yeah. Cassia is the hybrid. And then Ceylon cinnamon or what’s

also known as cinnamon verum, that’s true cinnamon. And it’s

usually more expensive but it is more closely associated with

potential health benefits like blood sugar regulation. The reason

that sometimes they’re confused that both these forms of

cinnamon belong to the same family of plants and the same genus

but they’re technically different compounds chemically. The nice

thing is though that even this cassia cinnamon has been looked at

in studies and has been shown to improve glycemic control and

shown to have a little bit of this anti diabetic effect. So if you don’t

wanna spend the money on the real true cinnamon, you can still

get decent effect albeit a slightly less potent effect from the fake

cinnamon – from the poser. It’s interesting if you get the bark

you can actually notice the difference in the bark. The bark on the

true cinnamon is kinda thinner and a little less curled and the fake

cinnamon is really really thick bark. So, thinner layer bark is one

indication that you’ve got a real cinnamon on your hands.

Brock: Yeah. You can crumble it up very easily with your fingers. It’s

quite…like I’ve broken it up in just sort of mashed it between my

thumbs and sprinkled it on top of stuff and that’s not…if you did

that with the other stuff you’d be gnawing on it for a good half

hour.

Ben: Yeah. And we get our cinnamon from Cosco which I believe is just

a regular cassia-based cinnamon but we got through so much

where we used to get this mondo packages over from Cosco. If

blood glucose control and insulin sensitivity is really really

important for you like if you have diabetes, for example, and you

want the more potent one, that’d be a case when you’d wanna

spring for the true more expensiv6e stuff but in most cases, I

think it’s kind of a mute point.

Brock: Have you ever sniffed them side by side?

Ben: I have not.

Brock: It’s really interesting. The cassia (the regular one) smells like

cinnamon but the Ceylon stuff smells more like cinnamon candy.

Ben: Interesting!

Brock: They’re little like hot mollies or the cinnamon parts.

Ben: It’s got its skin down. It’s doing a good job as a poser.

Brock: Nice work.

Glenn: Hey Ben! My questions about omega 6 and it being a possible

cause or contributor to inflammation. Up until around 6 months

ago, I was supplementing with an all-in-one flexi olive oil, fish oil,

omega 3, 6 and 9. And then I read about omega 6 possibly

contributing to inflammation. I suffer from pretty severe Achilles

tendonitis as a distance runner and I did have some relief when I

cut the 6 out and switched to just straight fish oil with omega 3

only and I’ve been given a new supplement from a friend of mine

that’s an omega 3, 6 and 9 plus sterol supplement. I really wanna

try it but I’m just hesitant with the omega 6 and whether you

think it’s okay to incorporate supplements while fighting

inflammation. All right. Thanks. Bye.

Ben: This can be kinda confusing for folks because omega 6 do kinda

get a bad wrap. Big picture, we hear omega 6’s are pro

inflammatory omega 3’s are anti inflammatory. When we look at

this though, omega 6’s are basically a polyunsaturated fat that are

essential to the body. Both omega 6 and omega 3 are essential to

the body. That means neither of these fats (omega 6 or omega 3)

are produced by your body so you have to get them from your diet.

[0:40:09.4]

And the only difference between the 2 is that you look at

polyunsaturated fat and it’s polyunsaturated has multiple double

bonds in that carbon chain whereas a monounsaturated fat has

one double bond that appears in that chain. And that chemical

change makes polyunsaturated fats more unstable especially

during the processing that you might get in creating like a

vegetable oil. And so any amount of light or moisture or air or

heat or pressure can damage a polyunsaturated fat which really

leads to the reason that they have gotten a bad wrap is because

these damaged polyunsaturated fats, when you do studies on folks

for everything from brain function to bone health to heart

function, we tend to see some issues creep up with a high amount

omega 6 polyunsaturated fatty acid consumption that you find in

many Western diets. And specifically, if you look at the omega 6

to omega 3 ratio, a very very high omega 6 to omega 3 ratio is

associated with chronic disease risk factors. But it’s still

important to be clear that omega 6 is extremely important. Omega

6 does have a physiological role within the body but the issue here

is the actual source of omega 6 fatty acids. The reason, if you look

at this from a chemical standpoint that omega 6 fatty acids are

actually important is that they metabolize to an anti inflammatory

and they metabolize to an anti inflammatory that reduces

inflammation in many areas of the body. The eyes are a perfect

example. If you don’t have enough omega 6’s in your diet, you can

get what’s called ocular surface inflammation and it can affect

your eyesight. Now, the type of omega 6 fatty acid that

metabolizes to the specific anti inflammatory that can help out

with something like eyesight is not derived from vegetable oils like

sunflower or safflower or soybean oils that are added to a lot of

processed foods or the omega 6 oils that you find in crackers and

chips and in cookies and cakes and stuff like that. You get a lot of

these type of omega 6 from basically seed-based oils specifically,

these are called omega 6 linoleic acids and you find them in things

like black kern seed oil is one example, borage oil is another,

evening primrose oil is another. You’ll find many of these omega

6 fatty acid compounds that are out there like Udo’s oil is a

popular supplement. And they’re using a lot of these type of

linoleic acid sources of omega 6’s and not just taking canola oil

and dumping it in there along with some fish oil or something like

that. That’s one example of a healthy source of omega 6 that

actually has an anti inflammatory effect. Another example of an

omega 6 source that would have a good effect in terms of its

availability without being damaging for you would be chlorella or

spirulina. Those are also gonna be good sources of the type of

omega 6’s that have this anti inflammatory effect. And then of

course, the type of thing that can improve the absorption of the

anti inflammatory compounds at omega 6’s are omega 3 fatty

acids. Ideally, you’ve got some good healthy sources of omega 6’s

coming in along with decent levels of a healthy omega 3 fatty acid

source and you’ve got that one 2 combo as far as this anti

inflammatory effect that could give you some good response in

terms of your Achilles tendon. But if the omega 6 fatty acids are

from vegetable oil sources, it could have just the opposite

inflammatory effect. A couple other things that you should know

about this is that omega 6 and omega 3 fatty acids, if you’ve got a

lot of inflammation going on, if you’re exercising a lot, if you’re

exposed to a lot of pollutants, toxins, etc., those can metabolize to

pro inflammatory compounds. One of the dietary components

that can keep that from occurring is a very popular natural anti

inflammatory called curcumin extract. And I’m a big fan

especially in people who are injured and who have some muscle or

some inflammation issues going on or who just need to recover

faster, big fan of not only using a good pharmaceutical grade cold

water fish oil like an omega 3 fatty acid but also using a curcumin

extract. And generally, a pill or a capsule is even better that just

cooking with turmeric.

[0:45:01.5]

Another thing that I would really recommend that I really like to

inhibit inflammation and basically what this does is it enhances

what’s called neutrophil apoptosis which is cell death of

neutrophils and that signals the macrophage component which

are cells that they’re like your clean-up cells and helps in the

clean-up debris from injured sites and lactoferrin is a specific type

of protein that does that. One of the compounds that you’ll hear

me recommend to people who are injured is called the Capraflex.

The reason for that is that it has lactoferrin and curcumin extract

in it along with tart cherry juice and ginger and a bunch of other

stuff that really helps you out from that standpoint. So, I would

use something like that, I’d use a nice cold water pharmaceutical

grade fish oil, I’ll eliminate vegetable oils from the diet but I

wouldn’t necessarily paint all omega 6’s with a broad brush and

say they’re all bad.

Brock: So you’ve gotta look at the balance and you’ve gotta look at the

source.

Ben: Yeah. And this 3, 6, 9 plus plant sterol supplement that Glenn is

using, I believe is comprised of these natural linoleic acid forms of

omega 6’s that would be just fine. And the plant sterols wouldn’t

be an issue as well. Many food manufacturers now are adding

plant sterols to like margarine and mayonnaise and yogurts and

stuff like this to try and make them look more healthy. I’m not a

fan of those but natural plant sterol sources actually do have some

good evidence behind them in terms of helping lower small

oxidized cholesterol particles so, using an omega 3, 6, 9 with plant

sterols, I don’t see anything wrong with a supplement like that.

Jason: Hi Ben! My name is Jason. I’m a new listener. I had a question

about the ketosis diet. I recently started that about a week ago

and on day 5, I woke up with a resting heart rate that was pretty

fast – about 110. I quickly looked on the internet for answers and

read that said that they experience this when their carbs are too

low. So, I just ate some carbs in the form of candy and seems it

took care of that. So I upped my carbs a little bit in the diet but

then I experienced it again on day 7. I am working out, I’m doing

some circuit training in P90x and some bicycle riding 4 days a

week of workout. Both times it happened I didn’t workout the day

before but I did drink moderate alcohol in the form of vodka and

soda water. I’m just wondering why I’m getting this elevated

heart rate from the ketosis diet. Thank you.

Ben: Jason, maybe you just had a bad dream or an exciting dream and

you woke up excited or scared – one of the two, or both perhaps.

Anyways though, it’s pretty common with ketosis in causing an

increased resting heart rate and it just comes down to basic

physiology. Your cardiac output – how much your heart actually

puts out is a combination of your heart rate, so how fast your

heart beats per minute and also your stroke volume or how much

blood your heart actually pumps with each stroke. And then the

other thing that’s important to realize is your blood pressure is a

function of that cardiac output that I just mentioned as well as

what’s called peripheral resistance. And so, what this means is

that if your blood pressure drops, two things have to happen –

either your heart rate or your stroke volume has to increase or

your peripheral resistance which would basically mean your blood

vessels get smaller, that has to increase. The reason that I’m

describing this to you is because when you switch to a low

carbohydrate ketogenic diet, your body is gonna shed a lot of

storage carbohydrate. Storage carbohydrate can carry up to 4

times its weight in water so you’re gonna lose a lot of water and

your blood pressure is going to drop. And when that happens,

when blood pressure drops, that drop is detected by what are

called baroreceptors in your aorta and these baroreceptors send a

signal right into your brain – into your medulla which is a section

of your brain that’s responsible for doing things like sending

signals to your heart. And your medulla will send the signal back

to your heart to increase not only your heart rate but also your

force of contraction. And this can occur just chronically like all

day long if you’re in a state of low blood pressure that’s been

initiated by a drop in your storage muscle glycogen or a drop in

your storage water.

[0:50:01.5]

This is why in an article that I wrote over at

bengreenfieldfitness.com on supplements that ease the transition

into a low carb or a ketogenic diet, this is why I recommend

sodium and taking in electrolytes like using trace liquid minerals

blend. I would also get some Himalayan sea salt and start salting

your food using effervescent electrolyte tablets but getting enough

salt in your diet is super important and a lot of people think “oh

I’m messing up my body ‘cause I’m not getting enough carbs, I

must be producing a bunch of cortisol and I’m stressing out my

body” and that’s what’s happening and a lot of times, that’s not

the case. It’s just pure electrolytes. I was telling this story over on

the I do a sports nutrition for Endurance Planet at

enduranceplanet.com. We’re talking about how I literally almost

collapsed during a tennis match last week and I was flabbergasted

because I’ve got enough fuel on board, I’d even done my

carbohydrate, I’d done Superstarch, and it was during a tennis

tournament and it was an important match so I was fuelled up.

And I realized that my blood pressure was dropping. It was not a

matter of not having enough energy on board. It was a drop in

blood pressure so I literally went out and had a salted banana. I

went out to the tennis court cafeteria and got a banana, got a

bunch of salt, poured it on there. And I was fine within 10

minutes. And so, understand that a lot of the issues they

experience with low carb ketogenic diets, they’re just simply

electrolyte issues and that fact that you had some alcohol which

we know can dehydrate you and throw off your electrolyte balance

suggests even more so this is probably the case.

Brock: I remember Dr. Peter Attia when he was talking about the

ketogenic diet he actually drinks bouillon or eats bouillon cubes.

Ben: Yeah. I’ll have one or two bouillon cubes which is super salty - 1 or

2 grams of pure sodium per hour. Just be careful of that stuff a lot

of times, they can have MSG and stuff in it. I don’t personally do

that but yeah, look at the electrolytes for sure.

Jennifer: Hi Ben and Brock! A few weeks ago you did answer the question

about exercise-induced amenorrhea and suggested that in order

to bring periods back, women should stop exercising for about a

month and eat a pretty high fat diet. I wondered if when that

month is over, you can begin resuming your old training schedule

or if done, the problem would just come back again. I guess, I just

like you to talk a little bit more if possible about that “reset

button” you discussed and just explain how exactly it works. I

also wondered, (I noticed you have you have a lot of triathlon

folks out there) but I wondered if you have any specific half

marathon or running-focused training book. All right, thanks a

lot.

Brock: Okay. So, let’s get it out of the way. The last question you asked

about the marathon books. Ben, you’ve got Marathon Dominator,

right?

Ben: Yeah. I’ve got the Marathon Dominator program which you can

get at marathondominator.com. I wrote that along with the Jill

Bruyere, a running coach over in Seattle. She and I worked on

that together and it’s a 4-day a week running program with a

bunch of weight training and injury prevention protocols and

nutrition assistance and everything you need really is in there and

that’s a good program. I also do custom programs. I’m working

on a program right now for a crossfitter, for example, who’s doing

a marathon and we’re doing that one on 2 days of running a week

just because he’s getting enough metabolic stimulants from his

WODs that were going 2 runs a week and interval training session

and a marathon kind of a longer run on the end of the week. Yeah,

I do custom programs for people, too, if you don’t wanna

something like the Marathon Dominator.

Brock: For those of you who are wondering, a WOD is a workout of the

day.

Ben: Yes.

Brock: Not being gross.

Ben: It’s also a spit form. Anyways, I think one is WOD and one is

WAD.

Brock: Yeah. It’s hard to see the spelling on a podcast though.

Ben: It is. Just imagine. Anyways though, amenorrhea…I know that we

geeked out on amenorrhea (as folks do) a couple of weeks ago. I

think we talked about this and how it’s really related in many

cases to chronic energy insufficiency and calorie restriction so

that’ll put your body under stress and that leads to hormonal

changes. Basically, hormones that are produced by the

hypothalamus in your brain and those signal your ovaries to

produce estrogen and also to produce progesterone and those

hormones get decreased. And since estrogen and progesterone are

needed for your normal menstrual flow and for you to stay fertile,

what happens is your body kinda shuts down production of sex

hormones whereas, for many women, they find that to be

convenient to have amenorrhea and to not have to do with the

cycle.

[0:55:23.1]

It’s also quite damaging and it’s not really ideal from a health

standpoint to be infertile, for example, if you just step back and

you look at something like your bone density, estrogen is super

critical for keeping your bone density elevated and when you get

that drop in estrogen, you also get that drop in bone density and

you don’t get that back. What you arrive at about 25-30 years old

that with bone density is what you’re stuck with for the rest of

your life. To me, you’re looking down the road at hip fractures

and stress fractures and stuff like that. That’s one of the bigger

concerning issues with amenorrhea is the bone density

standpoint. And to answer Jennifer’s question a little bit more

specifically, yes, they’ve done studies where they’ve looked at the

type of energy intake that’s necessary to more or less pull you out

of amenorrhea because you do have to increase your calorie intake

while preferably decreasing your activity levels. There’s one study

in the International Journals Sports Nutrition that found that the

chronic energy deficit that causes amenorrhea could be reversed

and you could start to produce proper amounts of estrogen and

progesterone again with 20 weeks of increasing your calorie

intake combined with at least one complete recovery none activity

day per week. Now, another study that followed up from that

actually found the specific calorie intake that helped out with this

was 200 to 300 calories per day – increasing your calorie intake

by 200 to 300 calories per day along with lower physical activity

levels. They actually had folks taking some supplements in that –

calcium, iron, zinc, B vitamins, some of the stuff that people who

are energy deficient tend to be deficient in and that helped out

with that. Ideally, what I would do if I were trying to increase my

calorie intake to the point where I wanted my body to make

enough hormones because I was hormone deficient, is I’ll go get a

resting metabolic rate test and find out what your resting

metabolic rate is and basically never go under that, ever. And that

would be a very very good way to do it and evidence shows that

you can turn yourself around in about 20 weeks or so by using a

strategy like that.

Brock: And then if you’re actually exercising on top of that, would you

then compensate for the amount of estimated calories that you’re

burning during those exercise bouts?

Ben: Yeah. That’s a really good point. If your resting metabolic rate is

1300 calories per day and then you’re exercising to the tune of

500 calories per day, 1800 calories would be your minimum

calorie intake for that day.

Brock: So you never wanna be running at a deficit.

Ben: Yes. And if you’re standing work station, taking the stairs, parking

far away and you’re doing all things that kinda help keep your

metabolism elevated, you can multiply your resting metabolic rate

by about 1.2 as a starting factor. So activity is a daily living effect

that too if you really wanna be anal about these things.

Brock: And I guess you kinda have to be if you wanna get yourself out of

amenorrhea.

Ben: Yeah. And then test 24-hour urine sex steroid test or do a test with

direct labs and keep an eye on your estrogen and progesterone

levels and you’re gonna see a surge – you’re gonna see those going

up as you do the right things.

Tim: Hey Ben! My name is Tim Skafidas and I’m a personal trainer

here in Crestview Colorado. I’m hoping to come to your seminar

on March. Love your show. I’ve learned a lot. I got some Deep 30

protein that you recommended and I know it has 7 grams of

sugar. My old protein is called Whey Advanced from the people’s

chemist has zero sugar and he claims any positive effects are

negated due to the fact that any protein pattern has sugar in it.

Thanks for everything.

Brock: Tim asked a boat loader questions and we just couldn’t answer all

of them so this is probably the most interesting one.

Ben: Sorry, Tim, the other questions just sucked. No, they were good.

Brock: That’s not true (that they were good).

Ben: It was like a 4-minute long question. Whey protein and whether

or not it should have sugar in it. You’d think that it should at first

glance if you understand physiology because you know that carbs

spike your insulin levels. And when you spike your insulin levels

and you’re doing that along with food intake after workout, it

could technically improve your amino acid uptake and cause

greater enhanced muscle repair and recovery.

[1:00:11.3]

But when you look at this and you study it, there’s actually a study

that was done out there in Canada, Brock, where they looked at

muscle protein synthesis and breakdown after resistance exercise

in men. In one group, they had consumed protein and the other

group, they had consumed protein that had a bunch of sugar

added to it. And as you would expect, the protein + sugar group,

they did get a greater insulin response but both groups had

similar rates of protein synthesis and similar post exercise effects

like level of soreness and level of muscle building and that kind of

stuff so, it just goes to show that you don’t actually need carbs in a

protein powder to build muscle and you don’t necessarily have to

take carbohydrates and sugar along with protein post exercise to

build muscle. The impact of this for some folks is that it is true

that there is a potential downside to taking carbs and that they

could (in someone who’s had an energy surplus) shut down fat

oxidation or they could cause a rise in blood glucose and that’s

just from the excess energy from the carbs. Protein in and of itself

is still gonna cause a big insulin spike that’s why I recommend

doing stuff like coconut oil and almond butter and things like that

if you’re gonna snack before bed and not to do protein or

carbohydrate. But ultimately, what it comes down to is that

protein powder doesn’t have to have carbohydrate in it. Now,

protein powder is not going to be harmed by having carbohydrate

in it. You’re still gonna get just a fine effect from protein. In the

case of something like Deep 30 protein, which I personally have

just about everyday, I have a serving of Deep 30 protein. My

inner circle members who see my diet everyday know that it’s

kind of a staple in my diet. It’s got 7-8 grams of carbohydrate in it

and the carbohydrate is just from a couple of little things that they

add in there for some color and a little bit of extra flavor.

Specifically, it’s a little bit of beets juice and it’s little bit of

carbohydrates that come along with the goat milk that’s in there –

that’s in that protein. You get some of that goat milk-based

carbohydrate as well. Those are the main components. They’re

completely natural. They’re really nothing to worry about and

frankly, for that particular protein, the fact that it’s got a bunch of

probiotics added to it – a specific type of probiotic called ganeden

BC, which literally makes us the only protein I’ve ever had that

doesn’t make you feel like you’re going to have to crap out a straw

2 hours later or mess up your stomach. It sounds nasty but it’s

spore-forming probiotic. That means that inside the bacterial cell,

you got this spore which is like a seed that safeguards the cell’s

genetic material when a protein is sitting in the shelf and once

that spore gets into your small intestine, it produces a bunch of

good bacteria and actually enhances your digestive system and

enhances you immune system - super unique part of this protein

and then you get a bunch of extra electrolytes from the goat-based

minerals that are in it. The benefits of this stuff, the taste of it, far

outweighs any risk at all from the 7 or 8 grams of carbohydrate

that are in it which are frankly very very small drop in the bucket

and do not affect the efficacy of the protein at all.

Brock: So, actually, just fold up the nutrition label here and for the

coconut dream, it says the total carbohydrate is 11 grams but the

total sugar is 7 grams.

Ben: Yeah. When a label says that, the difference between the total

listed and the sugar is just fiber which technically is indigestible-

based fiber stuff like that. Another would be the beet extract for

example in there, I think. Maybe the beet extract is in a

strawberry for the color. I don’t know. I don’t know how the label

pulls up in front of me.

Brock: Okay. Well, it makes sense.

Ben: Yeah. Anyways though, I’ll put a link to Deep 30 protein in the

show notes. But as an animal-based protein, I’m not a fan of that.

I like the living protein for vegan-based protein, I like the Deep 30

protein as an animal-based protein, so, I highly recommend and

you don’t have to run from the sugar in it and as an aside, when

you mix the strawberry splash with coconut milk, it tastes like a

Wendy’s frosty.

Brock: All right! Well, on that delicious note, that wraps it up.

Ben: As Brock gets his car ready and go get a Wendy’s frosty.

Brock: Totally hmmm.

[1:05:01.1]

Ben: So, a couple of things for folks. One would be definitely go over to

MyList over at facebook.com/BGFitness and check out the MyList

for this episode if you want links to the swimming

recommendations and the Capraflex and the protein powder and

everything else that we talked about. But then, a quick request

from you guys – a couple of request from me. One would be, as

many of you know if you listen to the podcast for a while, Brock

and myself and a group of triathletes are going to be in Thailand

starting next week. Brock and I will be podcasting to you from

Thailand.

Brock: Fingers are crossed, just in case, something bad happens.

Ben: Unless Brock is trampled by an elephant.

Brock: I plan to try that anyway.

Ben: However, Brock will there longer than I will and potentially,

unreachable for a couple of weeks there in December.

Brock: Off the grid.

Ben: Off the grid. I wanna know what you guys would like for me to do.

If you like me to answer the questions by myself, if you want me to

get a stand-in host, if you want me to completely just leave the

podcast on the curb for the couple of weeks while Brock is gone

and neglect it altogether, whatever you would like for me to do,

leave it as a comment in the show notes for this episode – Episode

#217. So, go over to bengreenfieldfitness.com, let me know what

you’d prefer for that and if having the podcast without Brock just

makes it way too painful an experience for you, I’ll completely

understand even though ______ [1:06:37.8] too much.

Brock: I could record a whole bunch of smart ass comments that you

could just drop in every once in a while.

Ben: The other thing is that if you get a chance, please leave the podcast

a ranking in iTunes and a rating. That really helps out the show.

As it does, leave a little donation if you go to

bengreenfieldfitness.com because, especially with this morning’s

show, and all the hiccups and the recordings and my dog barking

and all the other little behind-the-scene stuff that you guys don’t

know about, this thing actually is a little bit of a labor of time.

Brock: Yeah. I forgot to press “record” this morning. I’ll

_____[1:07:16.3] up. We need to start over again.

Ben: That’s all right. It’s in your ears now so, enjoy folks and we’ll end

these things. This is Ben and Brock, signing out from

bengreenfieldfitness.com.

For personal nutrition, fitness or triathlon consulting, supplements, books or

DVD’s from Ben Greenfield, please visit Pacific Elite Fitness at

http://www.pacificfit.net