Podcast # 225 from http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2013/01/225/ [0:00:00.0]

Introduction: In this podcast episode: How to test your antioxidant levels,

should you mix sports drinks with energy gels, how to have one

recovery day a month, Ucan Superstarch vs. Vitargo for fueling,

why your legs aren’t toned, how the Squatty Potty works, and

Tough Mudder vs. Spartan Death Race.

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.

Ben: Hi everybody! If things are a little bit different than usual, that’s

because it’s just me, Ben Greenfield and I’m traveling right now.

I’m in Vancouver, Canada. I’m in my room, in this tiny little

bedroom breakfast and you’d actually laugh if you saw me right

now. First of all, I’m attending a conference up here so it is 6:00

in the morning. I’m still in bed. The computer is here, the

microphone is propped up against a book on the bed ‘cause my

room is so tiny, there’s no actual desk in it. I’m staying in a

bedroom breakfast which means I’m in a spare bedroom of

somebody’s house and breakfast is a loaf of bread and a block of

cheese. A little mini fridge is tucked in the corner of the room.

I’m podcasting to you from basically like a Russian prison in

Canada. Anyways though, I wanted to get a podcast out to you so

we have a bunch of questions that I received via writing. Usually,

we play people’s questions that they call in on this podcast. I’ve

got some really good questions. People have written them and I

want to get to them and the reason I’m podcasting so early is

because I gotta be at this conference in about an hour or so. So

I’m just gonna answer all you guys’ awesome questions and if

youheard the answer, we’ve got some good ones. And then I’m

going to take my ice cold thermo shower. So my pants are and

my shirt too, surprisingly, and head to the conference. Listen to

just a few announcements and we’ll jump right in.

Special Announcements:

Ben: If you have not been to the website lately, there are a ton of special

announcements. There’s so many of them that I’m not gonna read

them all to you. I just wanna start with a few quick things and

some new stuff. First of all, February 23rd, I’m going down to LA.

There is an event in there called Endurance Live and a website

that I run and many of you listen to the podcast over there called

enduranceplanet.com. We’ve got a table over at Endurance Live

and this is a huge party. It’s kinda like the big gathering of

triathletes and marathoners – all these people in the endurance

world and we eat and yes, we drink and dance and hang out and

party and have a good time. Anyways, I’ve got a table down there

for 10 people and right now, we’ve got 8 people at the table

including Tawnee Prazak, the host of Endurance Planet, and

Lucio, the host of our Ask the Ultra Runner segment, myself and a

few other folks and we still got 2 seats left. So I thought I’d give

you a shout out. Just e-mail me Ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com.

It’s not cheap. Tickets to it are $250 to get into the table and that’s

not like making us a profit or anything, it’s just covering the cost

of getting that table. Anyways, if you wanna go, just fire me an e-

mail: Ben@bengreenfielfitness.com. First come, first served. Next

thing is that, as we may know, my upcoming live event which is

gonna absolutely rock is on March 8th and 9th and you can get

CEUs now if you’re going. I just heard form Ace Fitness and we’re

working on the National Academy of Sports Medicine as well and

they’re giving CEUs to personal trainors and fitness coaches who

wanna get some continuing education units for attending that

conference so that’s gonna be great and the speakers and the

content (and we keep adding to that) is just blowing up. So if you

plan on going, you need to register because I have to figure out

catering. We’re doing a bunch of organic local food. I gotta make

sure that we fill up the hotel room blocks that we got discounted

and ready and waiting for you. I gotta plan the after party.

There’s still a few tickets left to the VIP after-party that we’re

having during that session and it’s just gonna be fantastic.

[0:05:06.3]

I actually wrote a big article and answered all the FAQs on my

upcoming live event. You can check that out at

bengreenfieldfitness.com. I’m almost done before I shut up. Just

a couple other quick things: First of all, January 31st, I’ll be in

Jimmy Moore’s as low carb experts and in the show notes for this

episode and this episode is Episode #225. I will link to Jimmy’s

shows where you can look into the call-in numbers, any access

numbers. That’s a live show. You can call and then ask questions

to me about Low Carb Fueling for Performance. Then finally,

camps and events galore. I’m gonna put a link to all the camps in

the show notes that I’m gonna be at but the main 2 that I wanna

mention to you are April 5th through 7th for anybody doing the

Wildflower Triathlon Bike Camp schedule. You can register as of

this morning, actually, so check that out. It’s the Wildflower

Triathlon Camp. It’s for anybody doing the Olympic distance or

long distance triathlon down at Wildflower in California which is

one of the most fantastic races on the face of the planet. By the

way, if I fumble or mumble or stutter during this podcast, I’m not

going back and editing because like I mentioned, I only have an

hour to podcast today. And then the last thing that I wanted

mention is I am going to Vietnam to race in the Laguna Lang

Vietnam Triathlon over there. This race is the sister race of the

race that I regularly do every year in Phuket Thailand and it rocks.

This organization that puts on these races, they take care of you

like you’ve never experienced before in terms of food, your race

experience, the pre-race dinners, the post-race parties. It’s gonna

be a blast and I’m planning on probably be getting a villa down

there. If anybody who is a podcast listener and triathlete has

basically a spare time in April. It’s gonna be April 10th-through the

16th. Shoot me an e-mail because I can get us discounted rates on

entry fee for the race, on all the party tickets, on the villa. I don’t

think I can get you discount on the plane tickets. That’s about all

you’d be needing to go find yourself but I’ll hook you up with

everything. I’m willing to take up to 6 people on this trip. So you

gotta fire me an e-mail if you want and you got some spare time

April 10th through 16th to go and Vietnam should be really cool.

All right, let’s jump in to this week’s Q and A.

Listener Q and A:

Ben: All right. I noticed the microphone was kinda making some

bouncy ran noises so I’ll try and limit that as much as possible but

I can’t guarantee perfect audio in today’s podcast obviously

because I’m podcasting on a freaking bed. What’s that with

Chuck’s question and Chuck says: “You mentioned having your

antioxidant profile tested. I actually just had that done and I’ve

had very good results. My dietitian mentioned that there was a

significant genetic factor in that as well. How much of a role does

that play? Also, my cobalamin (which is vitamin B12) and my

pantothenate were low. What dietary changes can I make to

increase this?

Well, first of all, just to answer Chuck’s questions straight up, yes.

Everybody has certain levels of antioxidants in their body that

allow them to be able to fight free radicals a little bit better or a

little bit less better. And that’s an example of something that I’m

not gonna edit out, by the way. Anyways though, these genes are

responsible for pulling triggers that allow your body to produce

more or less antioxidants and people with modified forms of the

genes that are responsible for producing antioxidants specifically

modified forms of those genes that limit your ability to express

antioxidants, what happens is you here increase risk of developing

heart disease or increase risk of developing some kinds of cancers,

specifically, breast cancer and colon cancer. First of all, there are

tests that you can do to look at genetic markers. These specific

genetic markers, if you really wanna geek out and go look at them,

one is called SOD 2 and another is called PUN 1. You get these

really weird names. They sound like space ship names. Bunch of

different genes that are responsible for producing antioxidants

and you can test those. There are companies that will do genetic

testing for you. 23andMe is an example of the company that will

do genetic testing and you can look at any number of biomarkers.

The other thing that you can do, and this is the test that Chuck

actually did, not to test the genetic potential to produce more or

less antioxidants but to just test how many antioxidants you have

which I think is a more useful test.

[0:10:10.4]

One example would be what’s called Ion Profile. And for those of

you who listened to the interview that I did with Dr. David Getoff,

he talked about the Ion Profile as a good way to see how well

equipped your body was to mitigate the effects of swimming in

chlorinated water because if you have low antioxidant levels,

chlorine can do a little bit more damage to your body. But what

this Ion Profile test is, is it looks at not just your antioxidant levels

but also things like your amino acids, your fatty acids, your

vitamins, your minerals. It’s a really good snapshot how well

equipped your body is to fight against the free radicals that are

generated by things like pollution and toxins in cleaning

chemicals, and even to a certain extent, exercise. The things that a

test like this (and I’ll link to it in the show notes if you wanna

check it out, it’s called the Metametrix Ion Panel) looks at some of

your main antioxidant vitamins specifically vitamin A, vitamin C

and vitamin E. It looks at beta carotene and co-enzyme Q10 which

are also involved in antioxidant protection and it looks at a couple

of other things. One called lipid peroxide and one called 8

hydroxy 2 deoxyguanosine (I know that is a mouthful, I hope you

memorize it, there’ll be a quiz at the end of this podcast).

Basically, each of these antioxidants is responsible for different

types of activities within the body. For example, vitamin A is a

really important antioxidant for your eyes and if you have poor

antioxidant levels of vitamin A, you could have poor vision later

on in life needing glasses or contacts. There are other things that

vitamin A is used for. Whereas if you look at for example, vitamin

C, that’s something that’s used more often in connective tissue

and collagen and even to combat levels of heavy metals in the

blood. Each of these different antioxidants, there’s a bunch of

them, I’m not gonna go through them all but they have these

different roles so getting a test that looks at all the different

antioxidants and allows you to identify which that you may be low

in can be really useful especially if you wanna take some

nutritional measures to adjust that as Chuck is asking about.

Because the B vitamins that Chuck asked about, the pantothenic

and the B12, those also have antioxidants activity. For example,

vitamin B12 along with folic acid is the most common dietary

deficiency that can lead to what’s called homocysteine elevation

and that’s a really big risk factor for heart disease as well as

having the ability to affect your risk for cancer. The other one that

he asked about the pantothenate, I believe is the other one,

pantothenic acid as it’s also known, that’s vitamin B5. And you

have to have vitamin B5 in order to synthesize what’s called co-

enzyme A which also helps you quite a bit in terms of your

antioxidant activity. Now, in Chuck’s case, you can find

pantothenic acid or pantothenate primarily in meat. We’re gonna

find a ton of it literally in animal muscle. Another couple of things

that have really, really high levels of B12 are avocados and

broccoli. And then if you really wanted to go all out and hunt

down some fringe sources of vitamin B5 that are also really, really

high on vitamin B5 or pantothenate is ovaries specifically cold

water fish ovaries, yum. Just had a sandwich covered in fish

ovaries yesterday, and royal jelly which is actually sold for a lot of

these websites or healthy companies or whatever that say like bee

pollen and propolis and another one is royal jelly. So B5, that’s

where you can find a lot of that stuff and most people get enough

from meat. Now B12, you can find that all over the place and a lot

of people they’ll change one thing in their life so start to get foods

that have high levels of B12 and all of sudden, they’ll feel like

million bucks. B12 deficiencies are really common especially in

people who don’t eat enough meat. You’re gonna shoot me but

liver is packed with vitamin B12 that’s why I have a serving of liver

at least once a week whether it’s lamb or beef or turkey or duck or

goose, whatever. Nice clean animal, clean liver, very good for

your dead source of a ton of different fat soluble vitamins and also

vitamin B12. Clams, oysters and mussels are good, caviar which I

already mentioned, kinda of when I mentioned fish ovaries, caviar

or fish eggs, very, very high source of vitamin B12. Fish, just about

any fish has good sources of vitamin B12 as do shellfish like crab

and lobster.

[0:15:01.7]

Similar to pantothenate are vitamin B5, beef, lamb, muttons, stuff

like that, high in vitamin B complex. And then eggs and cheese, if

you can handle those as well, that’s another place that you can get

those. Now, one thing that I always get asked when I’m talking

about antioxidants, is this machine and you see it in a lot of gyms

and a lot of health expose, it’s called the biophotonic scanner and

you put your finger or the back of your hand against this thing and

it measures your antioxidant levels. Well. I’ve got 2 thoughts

about that. First of all, it only measures what’s called your

carotenoid levels in your skin. Carotenoids are the antioxidants

you’re gonna find in a lot of fruits and vegetables like

pomegranates, kale and stuff like that and our carotenoids are

used for betacarotene. Other carotenoids are lutein and licopine

and carotenoids do have some really good antioxidant activity.

However, the scanner says that it can give an accurate and reliable

biomarker of overall antioxidant health status. The fact is you’ve

got a lot of antioxidants that are necessary. They go above and

beyond just your carotenoid levels especially above and beyond

just the carotenoid levels in your skin. So I thinf that a

measurement of a low skin carotenoid score could tell you a little

bit especially about your riskfor being able to mitigate the effects

of long term sun exposure and stuff like that. It’s not gonna give

you as good a snapshot as actually getting your blood tested and

doing something like an Ion Panel, for example of this company

called Metametrix. Great question, Chuck! I hope that helps you.

I’ll link to this Ion Profile in the show notes. Also, by the way you

guys, everything that I talk about today, I will also link to in the

MyList for this episode over at facebook.com/bgfitness. We create

MyList for every episode. MyLists are freaking awesome. They’re

like Pinterest for Facebook. So check that out. It’s over at

facebook.com/bgfitness where you can find a lot of other cool

stuff that you can’t find on the blog.

Edwin: Ben, my question is regarding the use of energy gels in

combination with other liquid nutrition. Energy gels by

themselves are extremely hypertonic and thereby it is important

to consume adequate amounts of water. The gel company that I

use states that drinking sports drinks with your gel will not

properly dilute the gel and thus slow the absorption rate. This can

also lead to stomach irritation and a dehydrating effect as your

cellular fluids are drawn upon to dilute the gel. What are your

thoughts on this? I heard you said that you use a gel every 20

minutes during a race. Do you only drink water?

Ben: Well, first of all, let’s start here. You’re right, Edwin. Gels are

designed to basically have a certain level of what’s called

osmolality. What this means is that the effectiveness of sports

drink or gel or any other kind of engineered fuel that you’re

drinking or that you’re eating during an event or during a training

session, the absorption of that will depends on the osmolality of it.

And if you have an imbalance in the osmolality of a substance in

your stomach is going to inhibit gastric emptying. It’s going to

inhibit your intestinal fluid absorption. It’s gonna inhibit your

blood flow. It’s gonna draw blood away from muscles and it can

cause cramping and high body temperature. Many of us

remember high school science where we learned about osmosis

which is basically the movement of water or some other kind of

solvent through a membrane, what’s called the semi permeable

membrane and your gut law and also your blood vessel laws are

semi permeable membranes. So the water tends to move through

a semi permeable membrane from a less concentrated solution to

a more concentrated solution. And if the osmolality is the same

on both sides of the membrane, then the water is just not gonna

need to flow anywhere and when that’s the case, the 2 solutions

are called isotonic. Now, you can also have solutions that are not

isotonic. One example of that would be hypotonic solution where

you’ve got your gastric fluids in your stomach. And gastric fluids

are what’s called the really, really low osmolality meaning they’re

less concentrated than the blood. So what’s going to happen is

water will flow from the stomach into the blood in that case. On

the other hand, if the gastric fluids were more concentrated then,

that would mean there’s more particles and high osmolality in the

gastric fluid from something that you ate, for example. And then,

there would be net flow of water from the blood to the gut and

that would be known as a hypotonic solution and that’s what

Edwin is talking about when he’s talking about hypertonic gel.

That means that when you eat that gel, it makes the osmolality in

your gut to be hypertonic and it will cause water to flow from your

blood to your gut unless you drink something along with that gel

to make the solution isotonic.

[0:20:24.6]

Now, here is the thing: Different sports drinks and different gels

are mixed at different levels of osmolality and you’ll see most

nutritionists recommend 6 to 8% carbohydrate solutions and

that’ll be in Gatorade or Powerade or anything like that and all

that means is you generally are getting extra amount of grams per

amount of liquid that you’re drinking. And there are some drinks

out there that go higher than that - that are like 10 to 12%

carbohydrate, for example. And in many cases, the percentage of

carbohydrate used in the solution depends often on the type of

sugar used in that carbohydrate-containing beverage or

carbohydrate-containing gel. For example, some have just glucose

in a lot of those grocery store sports drinks that you see like

Gatorade or Powerade or whatever. Those are primarily glucose

and some sucrose and those can deliver fewer grams of

carbohydrate than a big, big sugar like malted extract. And that’s

why those are mixed in a lower concentration so those simple

sugar sports drinks have to be mixed in a lower concentration in

order to maintain the osmolality of your stomach whereas the

fancy or sports drinks that have malted extract and more complex

carbohydrates, those can give you more energy without upsetting

your stomach’s osmolality. So, take away lesson number one here

is that I personally think if you’re gonna use a liquid beverage

using the longest chain starch that you can use mixed properly,

meaning mixed in the exact ratio that the manufacturer has

recommended is a very good way to go if you’re gonna use sports

drinks. Two examples of a longer molecular weight sports drink

that allows you to drink more calories during an event without

affecting the osmolality of your stomach: One example would be a

Carbo Pro. Another example would be what I use now which is

Ucan Superstarch which is a very, very long molecular weight

starch. You still need to mix it exactly as they recommend. I

think it’s something like one serving per 16-20 ounces of water. I

should know ‘cause I use it during races but anyways, that would

be an example of like a longer chain carbohydrate mix. Now, as

far as gels go, bunch of different gels is a bunch of different mixes

of sugars so it’s hard to say how many ounces of water you’re

supposed to drink with any given gel. I mean, you’ve got hammer

gels, and clipshots and power bars, and excel gels and honey

stingers and all these different gels out there and you need a

certain amount of water that you need to drink with that gel in

order for that gel to be isotonic. What that means is that you

shouldn’t drink sports drinks with the gels because that is going to

affect their ability to be absorbed properly and I’ve never really

ran into a scenario where an athlete does a really good job it feels

great the whole race mixing gels with sports drinks. That’s a no-

no. Gels full of water. So here is the thing and I’m gonna link to

this in the show notes. There is a table on Wikipedia that shows

you the exact amount of water that you have to drink with each gel

in order for that gel to be isotonic – super helpful chart. You just

go find the gel that you use, like let’s say you use Clipshot. For

every gel of Clisphot that you eat, you’re supposed to drink 300 ml

of water and for example, for every hammer gel that you eat, you

only need to take in 100 ml of water for that one to be isotonic. So

really cool chart. The other cool thing about the chart is it shows

you all the different gels that are recommended for sensitive

stomachs vs. people with fructose malabsorption vs. people who

want to go longer distances vs. people who want extra electrolytes.

I’ll link to it in the show notes, hook you up and you can check

that out. It’s a chart on the ingredients on the popular sports gels.

That’s the long answer. Short answer is if you’re using gels, don’t

use sports drinks too. I do not recommend it. All right.

Hollie: I am an absolute beginner as far as fitness and exercise. I started

a boot camp in June and was actually liking it quite a bit and

seeing results. And then I got tendonitis in my shoulders, my

right elbow and my right wrist. I work as a housekeeper so I’m not

able to rest that arm at all. I ice it after work, I take ibuprofen

when I remember (not daily). And my arms hurt so much they

wake me up at night. Is there a way to “power rest” my arms? I

got one day off a month and my daily life is kicking my butt. I

can’t even pour a cup of coffee some days. Can you suggest

anything?

[0:25:22.3]

Ben: Wow! You’re in a tough situation Hollie, because in a situation

like this, ideally, you get a chance to get a couple of weeks off and

allow that tendonitis to completely heal because if you keep

working through it, it’s gonna form scar tissue, it’s going to

continue to have limited mobility and it can eventually turn into

chronic pain. You have heard of fibromyalgia, or complex pain

syndrome or some of these issues that really frustrate people and

people struggle with a lot of times. Some of those situations can be

created by simply pushing through injuries. So ideally, you can

get a couple of weeks off. If you can make a change in your life to

allow that to happen, it’d be awesome. But let’s say that you’re

somebody like Hollie who is experiencing something like this with

the body, just can’t get a break whether due to lifestyle or whether

due to your exercise scenario or what or maybe you just wanna try

and squeeze as much out of your body as possible and you’ve got

either way, one day a month to recover and to get as much

recovery, squeeze that out of your body as possible, what would

you do? I’ll tell you what I would do. First of all: anti

inflammatory diet. Preferably, you’re eating an anti inflammatory

diet all the time but you’d definitely on this day of the week, you’d

have no sugars, you would have no wheat, no grains, you’d have

no soy, you’d have no omega 6 fatty acids from crackers and

baked foods and nuts (there are roasted, especially nut butter stuff

like that) you just go on super super low inflammation. If you

wanna see how to do that, go to my Superhuman Food Pyramid

and eat the foods that are only the Eat Foods of the Superhuman

Food Pyramid. By the way, Monica Reinagel (maybe, you know

her as the nutrition diva on iTunes), she’s coming out to my live

conference in March to talk about inflammation and specifically

The Inflammation Factor. That’s another reason to come to the

conference. So anti inflammatory diet, hopefully you’re reading it

all the time. You really wanna eat it on the day of the month or

day of the week that is your recovery day. A lot of people like

myself for example, will almost go into a little bit of some

semblance of a fast on a recovery day. We’re just doing like

greens, a lot of amino acids. You’re really limiting food intake just

doing some healthy fats like maybe you so like the bowl of proof

coffee or something like that with some butter and some coconut

oil stirred into your coffee and you just don’t eat much at all

because there is some evidence that just the pure active fasting

can have some really cool anti inflammatory and recovery effects.

So you start off with that. The next thing I would do on that same

day would be Chinese adaptogenic herbs. I know that sounds

really geeky but on my days when I ‘m trying to get my body to

bounce back as quickly as possible, I double how much Tianchi I

take and Tianchi is the adaptogenic herb I use to control my

cortisol levels. I’ll link to all these stuff in the show notes for you.

Next thing you’d wanna use from a supplement standpoint would

be something like proteolytic enzymes. There’s a bunch of amount

there like wobenzymes. Recoverease is another one and you take

these on an empty stomach so that they shut down inflammation

and specifically, formation of something like that can really cause

some pain and inflammation called fibrinogen. These are great

for people who are bouncing back from surgery, for people who

are bouncing back from injury. You can take them everyday if you

wanted to during the month especially on your recovery day,

you’d prioritize getting those into your body. You wanna balance

your ph so definitely, greens supplements as well as I already

mentioned. Finally, if you tend to have low iron, low iron levels

can really limit your ability to bounce back effectively from a

workout. And if you test your iron as low (and you wanna test

first ‘cause you don’t wanna take iron if your iron is high

considering the iron toxicity), I really like the supplement

Floradix for people with anemic like people who have iron issues.

So Floradix is another one that you’d look into. Okay, so basically,

you’re not eating much, you’re eating anti inflammatory foods,

you’re taking some proteolytic enzymes, some adaptogenic herbs,

working some greens in there to balance your ph and keep your

body alkalinic and then including iron if your iron is low. And

then some other things that you can do to improve mobility: I

really like muscle sticks or a foam roller and using those on your

recovery day to help you bounce back as quickly as possible. I use

one called the Rumble Roller. I like one to two times during that

day at 15-20 minutes soak in magnesium salts and you can also

use Epsom salts. Magnesium salts are a little bit better but they’re

more expensive. Epsom salts will work too. I use magnesium

flakes. I’ll link to magnesium flakes that I use in the show notes.

[0:30:07.4]

You would want to wear compression and preferably combine

compression with ice. So for example, I have these compression

tights that you can literally put ice sleeves into that compress your

body and allow metabolic waste to be removed from muscle while

at the same time applying therapeutic ice to reduce inflammation

and to make sure that as you’re removing metabolic waste from

muscle, you’re not getting backflow into the lymphatic fluid.

That’s another thing is combining compression with ice and I use

basically a full length compression tight that I could put ice packs

into for that. And then as far as some things that you can have

around the house, if you really wanna geek out on this, you could

use magnets. Some people aren’t fan of magnets. I found it helped

me when I’ve got little nagging aches and pains that I wanna get

rid of like these magnetic wraps that you can wrap around the

joint. Nikken is one company. There are really popular multilevel

marketing company but they make really cool magnets like on the

bottom of band aid that you can just stick to a specific joint or

specific area and I found that sleeping with magnets on an injured

joint can really, really help you feel better the next day. So check

those out. You can also get Home Handheld Cold Low Level Laser

units. Lasers are very cool. But these are basically handheld units

that you can hold where you can move in a circular pattern slowly

over an injured area. I have one that’s an infrared device,

basically, it’s what it is. Now physical therapists clinics and

alternative medical clinics, they have really, really antic versions,

really, really nice cold low level laser units. The low level laser in

terms of improving temperature area, improving blood filtering

area, can really help with stuff like tendonitis and muscle injuries.

And then the other thing you may wanna look into is again,

something you can use at your home, (I don’t know what your

expandable income is like but) you can for anywhere from $100-

1000 get Home electrostimulation unit which actually sends little

tiny electrical impulses into your muscles causes them to fire,

improves blood flow and can enhance recovery when you’re

bouncing back from an injury and I have one called Compex

works really well. So check that one out. I know that was a ton of

stuff but I’m just saying like if you wanted to totally win on that

recovery day and do everything that you could, those are the

things that I would do. And then, don’t use ibuprofen, please.

Use Phenocane. Phenocane is the all natural alternative to

ibuprofen. It’s basically a high dose curcumin extract just like

turmeric of a really, really high dose like 500 mg and then it’s

mixed with the nato kinase. And what this does is it achieves the

same Cox 2 inhibition of ibuprofen without inhibiting Cox 1 which

is what protects your gut. You don’t get like gut bleeding and

damage to your gut lining when you’re trying to shut down the

inflammation. Phenocane is the name of that you’d wanna use

typically4-12 of those on the day that you’re injured. Hopefully

that helps you out and best of luck, Hollie. I really recommend

that you try and get a little bit of time off if you can so that you can

attend to your body, attend to that arms so it doesn’t turn into a

chronic long-term issue. All right, let’s move on to Bill’s question.

Bill: What do you recommend for a 2-hour mountain biker cross

country race? UCAN Superstarch or Vitargo S2?

Ben: This is a great question because a lot of people mix up UCAN

Superstarch and Vitargo S2. And for those of you who think I’m

talking about aliens, I’m not. I’m talking about 2 different types of

carbohydrate-based fuel. The reason that they get mixed up (and

these are just like powders that you mix with water) is that they’re

both high molecular weight carbohydrates. They both exit the

stomach quickly and because they’re such high or long chain

molecular carbohydrates, a lot of people think that they’re the

same thing but they’re not. Vitargo S2 is this patented type of

carbohydrate that’s high molecular weight long chain

carbohydrate that’s been what’s called fractionated. And the

process of fractionation makes a carbohydrate extremely

digestible, meaning that it gets absorbed super quickly and

Vitargo is derived from what’s called amylopectin which is a

barley starch (for those of you who care). But Vitargo S2 is rapidly

absorbed in digestion in the intestines and it gives this big spike in

blood sugar, this big spike in insulin and if you’ve just finished the

workout, that is a great scenario. Rapid glycogen replenishment

and if you can get your hands at anything else right after workout

and you’ve got another workout coming up soon for which you

need to restore your carbohydrate levels as quickly as possible,

Vitargo would be something to go for vs. UCAN which is slowly

and much much slowly absorbed in the intestines causes the slow

release carbohydrate, allows for much more stable blood sugar

levels and lower insulin response, no spike in blood sugar.

[0:35:17.0]

And the whole idea between the UCAN Superstarch is that it

supports your body’s own use of fat as a fuel by not spiking your

blood sugar and by allowing you to actually consume fewer

carbohydrates during your exercise session or your race. You’re

looking at a more steadily released glucose profile and a better

ability to tap into your body’s storage fat when using UCAN

Superstarch whereas when you’re using Vitargo, you’re looking at

a fast acting carbohydrate that could allow for really, really quick

replenishment right after workout preferably. The question here

during a 2-hour mountain bike race is how much do you need to

spare your body’s carbohydrate levels, how much do you wanna

stay in your fat-burning zone, and how keyed in are you on being

a fat-adapted athlete, meaning, are you one using that low carb,

use your body’s own fats that turn yourself into a fat-burning

machine type of approach or are you okay with just using like fast-

acting carb sources. Ultimately, until you completely exhaust your

body’s storage carbohydrate, it doesn’t matter that much. Like for

sprint distance triathlon or Olympic distance triathlon, really

anything, up to right around 2 hours doesn’t matter that much

whether you use a long chain carbohydrate or a short chain

carbohydrate or fast-acting vs. a slow-acting, they’re all gonna

give you pretty decent bang for your body especially if you’re

going in which your body’s glycogen levels or your storage

carbohydrate levels or you topped off, meaning you’ve already had

breakfast and you’re fueled up going in the race, you’ve been

starving yourself for a week. But once you get into that 2+ hour

event length, that’s where I think that you should have more of a

focus on using fuels that do not cause rapid fluctuations in blood

sugar. Yeah, I know you’re more insulin sensitive in everything

when you’re exercising and a rapidly digestible starch like Vitargo

would be less prone to cause blood sugar fluctuations than if you

are to eat a bunch of Vitargo while you’re sitting on the couch. But

regardless, I am a fan of using something like UCAN Superstarch

for the reason that I’m a fan of the high-fat-low-carb-turn-your-

body-into-a-fat-burning-machine type of approach. For your

distance though of 2 hours or for anything up to 2 hours, I mean

gels, sports drink, Vitargo, UCAN really, it doesn’t matter until

you’re getting up into that high long term endurance range like

half Ironman, marathon Ironman, stuff like that where then it

comes down to what you wanna achieve. Are you okay with just

eating carbs? If so, Vitargo is gonna work fine. Practice in your

training first and use that as I mentioned earlier exactly according

to manufacturer instructions so you’re mixing the proper

concentration. Are you more concerned about your blood sugar

levels? Are you wanting to lose weight or tap into your body’s own

storage fat or stay ketogenic or something like that, then use a

long molecular weight carbohydrate like UCAN Superstarch for

slower absorption. Hopefully that helps you out, Bill and yeah it’s

a deal with UCAN vs. Vitargo. Just a few more questions here.

Angela: I’m having a hard time with the Squatty Potty and why it is a

benefit. I actually get what the Squatty Potty website is saying

about the anorectal angle and why using the Squatty Potty to

change it makes it easier to go to the bathroom, but I don’t see

why you can’t just bend over. In comparing images between

someone on a Squatty Potty and someone doing a seated row,

both show that their knees are just inches from their chest. Do you

believe someone can get the same benefits as the Squatty Potty by

simply bending over the toilet?

Ben: For those of you who are laughing at me using the word Squatty

Potty and don’t know what the Squatty Potty is, basically, it is this

device and I’ve got one in every single bathroom in my house that

adjust the anorectal angle that Angela references to the point

where it’s not kinked because it tends to get kinked when you’re in

a seated position and there are some serious health implications

in gut and bowel movement implications that can happen from

using the traditional western approach of sitting on the toilet vs.

squatting which is what many cultures do and which is what

human beings have done for thousands of years because squatting

lengthens out the anorectal angle and push you in a position

where poop comes out easier. You don’t have to strain and stuff

like that. Can you achieve that type of position without a special

stool called the Squatty Potty. Well, yes you can but the problem is

the toilets are not low enough.

[0:40:08.4]

Unless you got like a whole dug on the floor of your bathroom that

you can literally squat down and crouch over and poo into. Have

you ever tried to do that over a toilet? Your butt hits the front of

the toilet that you can’t get low enough unless you’re 7 feet tall,

Angela. I don’t know. Maybe you’re a professional basketball

player and you have the ability to squat down and crouch over

your toilet and do your thing in there without your bottom and

your hips actually getting blocked from squatting by the actual

toilet itself. That’s the issue is toilets are too high for you to

properly squat and get into that position that straightens out your

anorectal angle. Now in a pinch you could something like your

kids’ stool (when I say stool, I mean stool that they stand on) that

you could stand on and use that to stand above your toilet and get

into a squatting position. You could use any type of bench or

something like that or chair that you have in the bathroom to get

you into the squatting position. There’s a chair that’s too high,

you’re gonna have to really good aim by the way. But that’s why I

like the Squatty Potty, is because it kinda bypasses all these issues

with trying to have something together yourself in the bathroom

and it’s just this really nice looking little wooden thing that slides

in through toilet and it’s very non-invasive and you just basically

pull it out when you’re ready to use it and you squat and do your

thing in and out of the bathroom real quickly without straining

and I like it. I enjoyed my pooping quite a bit more than without

the use of the Squatty Potty. So there you go. I hope that’s helpful

and that’s why you should use something like that instead of just

trying to bend over while you’re on the toilet which I don’t really

understand how you could possibly do, again, unless you’re really

tall. Let’s move on to Synthia’s question after that.

Synthia: For the last 3 months, I’ve been doing the insanity DVDs

everyday. Before that, I was running everyday so all in all, I’m in

good shape but I feel that with this rigorous exercise, my legs

should be more toned. However, it still feels that I can’t them to

be stronger or more toned. How can I achieve this?

Ben: Well, this is something that a lot of women run into and

something that I talked about quite a bit in my book, Get Fit Guys’

Guide to Achieving Your Ideal Body which you can get now at

GetFitGuy.com. Basically, descriptions of your body shape and the

specific workout that is unique to your body type are in that book

and one of the things I talked about are all the different kinds of

female body shapes that there are. So you’ve got your female

ectomorph and these are skinny girls who are kinda waif-like –

pretty slim, thin neck, thin shoulders hips, wrists, calves, ankles,

all of it is kinda ruler-shaped or stick-shaped. So think of like

Gwyneth Paltrow or like Kylie Minogue for example, the petite

skinny females. And then you get the mesomorphs and these are

the more athletic females. Think of like your soccer players,

celebrities like Jessica Simpson has kind of a mesomorph body

shape. Beyonce does too. Scarlet Johansson and people like that,

they tend to have a little more of an hourglass shape of wide

shoulders and hips and more narrow waist. And then you’ve got

meso endomorphs. They were the basically classic pear-shaped -

small upper body, bigger lower body. That would be somebody

like J Lo for example is a meso endomorph. I mean, you’ve got

endomorphs – people who tend to have more apple shape.

They’re bigger on the top half of their bodies than on the bottom

and have kinda more of that round apple shape, like Queen Latiffa

or Oprah Winfrey or somebody like that. Ultimately, each of these

different shapes is gonna need a different type of program for any

type of body re-invention or body transformation including how

to tone the legs. So if you look at, for example, like an ectomorph.

An ectomorph is gonna get toned legs not from doing running, not

from doing cycling which is gonna give them really skinny legs,

make their butt disappear. Ectomorphs need to be doing basically

heavier sets in the weight room – barbell squats, dumbbell squats,

heavy walking lunges or reverse lunges ‘cause it’s hard to use or

having a flake when you’re doing a front lunge. That can be tough

on your knees. Deadlifts, anything like that whether you’re using

a heavy weight anywhere from 6-10 reps, that’s gonna help an

ectomorph get really nice toned legs, give you some curves, give

you a butt, hips and that type of thing. But you should stay away

from lots of running and cycling if having those toned legs are

important to you.

[0:45:02.6]

When you look at a mesomorph, a mesomorph which is that more

of athletic shape, they can actually get away with a combination of

running, cycling and then moderate weights in the weight room

‘cause if a mesomorph goes heavy weights, they can tend to bulk

up in the lower body and get a real hefty bedunk pedunk and you

wanna be careful with that. Running and biking for mesomorph is

okay and they can get toned legs from doing that but then they’d

wanna use moderate weight 10-12 reps and all of the similar

exercises as an ectomorph will wanna use like barbell squats,

heavy walking lunges or reverse lunges, deadlifts, stuff like that.

Meso endomorphs – that’s the pear shape. Pear shapes don’t do

well with weight lifting for the lower body to tone the legs because

they bulk up really, really easily in the lower body. I find that the

pear shaped, the meso endomorph shaped, they tend to get the

best legs when they’re doing running, bicycling, elliptical,

basically cardio for the legs, weights for the upper body for that

type of body shape, works a lot better when it comes to just toning

the legs and almost like reducing some of the curves that tend to

almost bother a lot of pear shapes - bottom hips that are too big in

proportion to the shoulders or the waist. Finally, we have the

endomorphs and endomorphs again, they’re the apple shape and

what I find tends to work best with that body type is a

combination of body weight or low weight type of exercises like

front lunge, side to side lunge, reverse lunge, step back lunge and

then light dumbbells as well can be used during something like

that but just light work. So we’re talking in the range of 12-20 reps

for the apple shape for getting toned legs. And then they also can

get away with some running and some cycling. Really, the only

body type that tends to lose tone from running and cycling is the

ectomorph just because they can get so catabolic. Their

metabolism is already so high. They’re already so skinny.

Running and cycling doesn’t work so well for that body shape for

getting toned legs. But yeah, so basically, ectomorphs: heavy

weight lifting for skinny chicks for the legs. Mesomorphs or more

athletic looking females: combination of running and biking and

then moderate weight with 10-12 reps in the weight room. Meso

endomorphs or pear shaped: just do more cardio really and not a

lot of weights for the legs and then endomorphs: light body weight

or light dumbbells for the lower body toning exercises and then

just cardio like running or cycling or elliptical. And I laid this out

way more comprehensively in my book. So I would recommend

you grab my Body Typing Book if this kind of stuff intrigues you.

That’s over at GetFitGuy.com. Check it out. Okay. We’ve got

another question here from Angela.

Angela: I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about obstacle races. Have

you ever considered qualifying for and of course, competing in the

World’s Toughest Mudder or the Spartan Death Race? If not,

why?

Ben: First of all, the World’s Toughest Mudder: you all may have heard

of these toughest mudder competitions where you’ve got this

course that’s like barb wire and you run through the fire and

there’s even like these electrical fences that shock you that you

climb under and you’re just like going through that mud pits and

obstacle courses and climbing and crawling and falling and they’re

relatively short though. It’ll take you like an hour ish to do it at

tough mudder event. But if you look at the World’s Toughest

Mudder, what you are doing is you have 24 hours to do as many

laps of the tough mudder course as you can. So this event is a big

competition. You actually get some pretty good money. You get

15000 bucks for the male and female individual winners and

$20000 for the team winners and they’re supposed to be pretty

tough and doing it for 24 hours in a row I think would be a

challenge. I don’t have the risk of dying ‘cause you’re just going at

your own pace going through all the obstacles there. But that’s

what the tough mudder is vs. the Spartan Death Race. By the way,

over at EndurancePlanet.com, we’ve interviewed the guy who is

the mastermind behind the Spartan Death Race and in my

opinion, this is way tougher than the World’s Toughest Mudder

because during the Spartan Death Race, on average only 15% of

the competitors actually even finish the event. But it is a 40-mile

course that runs through the backwoods of Vermont and during

the death race, you might be doing things like chopping wood for

2 hours in row, carrying a 2o pounds tree stump around for hours,

lifting 30 pound rocks for up to 5 hours, building a fire, cutting a

bushel of onions crawling through mud under barb wire (sounds a

little bit similar to the tough mudder) and it generally takes about

20 hours of racing and you also have to do things like memorize

the names of the first 10 US presidents or like memorize a Bible

verse, hike to the top of the mountain and then recite them back

in order and just do weird stuff like that.

[0:50:23.2]

So to me, the Spartan Death Race is way over and above the

Tough Mudder. Tough Mudder is just like go go go do as many

races as you can. Spartan death Race is like kinda pay attention

or you’re pretty much done and out. Why don’t I do either of

these? I’ve just got too many other things going on. I’m doing

triathlon, I homeschool my kids, I play guitar, I cook, I podcast.

Frankly, and now I’m gonna pour my heart out to my podcast

listeners. 2013 is my year when I’m gonna taper stuff back. I’m

gonna be changing my coaching scenario to give more time to the

clients that I work with and actually coach fewer clients. I’m

gonna be tapering back some of the companies that I run and kind

of not running them. I’m just basically focusing more on my

winners and I’m focusing more on creating as much value as

possible because my goal is to change over a million lives in terms

of teaching people how to get the most of their bodies and their

minds and how to defy the status quo that we all settle for when it

comes to what our bodies are truly capable of. And I can’t do that

when I’m traipsing around the Vermont backwoods in the Spartan

Death Race. Seriously though, I would love to do one of these

someday. It’s on the bucket list. I just haven’t done it yet, Angela.

Although my wife and I this year are planning on doing a 7-day

adventure race to cross North Idaho if we can find a babysitter.

I’ll put links to the World’s Toughest Mudder and the Spartan

Death Race in the show notes but (and I’m not done yet) there is a

really cool training program out there called Race Day

Domination that gets you ready for these events, not just the

Death Race or the World’s Toughest Mudder but even something

the Tough Mudder or the Spartan Race. It’s called Race Day

Domination. I’ll put a link to it in the show notes but it’s literally

an obstacle race training program. I recently came across it. It

looks super cool. It’s what I’m gonna use when I start training for

these events. That’s called Race Day Domination. So check that

out. I’ll link to it in the show notes. And we made it through all

the questions. I still have time to shower and get dressed and

everything. So this is Episode #225. All right. So everything I

talked about, I’ll link to over there and then you can check out the

MyList for this episode over at facebook.com/bgfitness and scroll

through the special announcements – tons of stuff. E-mail me if

you want in on that party table at Endurance Live. Check out the

Become Superhuman Live event. Get it on that. Register so I

know you’re coming. Get your hotel room. And then also check

out the stuff like the Wildflower Triathlon Training Camp. All the

other training camps I’m doing are listed in the show notes.

Remember the Vietnam Triathlon trip. If you want in on that, e-

mail me ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com and finally, leave the

podcast a ranking in iTunes or even leave a donation when you’re

over at bengreenfieldfitness.com so that you can support me

sitting here in my underwear, my bed and my tiny little bedroom

breakfast with my refrigerator with my loaf of bread and my block

of cheese, podcasting. So there you go. I skipped my morning

workout for this one. So thanks for listening in and have a great

week. I’ll be back with Brock in a more professional podcasting

format next week.

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

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