Episode #75 CHRISTMAS SPECIAL Featuring BEN GREENFIELD!! EVERYTHING and ANYTHING Mind and Body!! THE ULTIMATE Health and Wellness Interview!

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I assure you, yourselves will thank you. All right, everybody, welcome back to the Dillinger Mellie podcast. And I am on cloud nine today because I have been waiting for, am I, yes, for quite a while and we've been trying to work this out. And he's one of the ones that I have wanted for a very long time. So I am super thankful that he got some time with me today because the schedule's with people, it's crazy. But I'm gonna give you a little intro, brother. I can't really do you just this, but he does it all. He, listen, he's one of the mainstays and I would argue one of, if not the most influential, I would say at least top two to three. And the last at least decade and biohacking health fitness wellness, you name it. I would definitely put him at my top of my list of go-to people, well respected, well renowned. Just quickly, he's a New York Times best selling author. I'm sure many of you have seen his, his books, boundless, he's got this big podcast. He's a former collegiate tennis, water polo volleyball player. He's a 13 time Iron Man triathlete. He's been voted by the NSCA as America's top personal trainer. He's done it all. I'm not gonna spend the whole podcast talking about his accolades, but my friends Ben Greenfield. And I suck it baseball and go. Then there, brother. Hey man, thanks for coming on here with me today. I have been looking forward to this, like I said, for such a long time. I wanna start off with diet. I've been doing a lot of things with diet the past several years and I've been running into so many different people on the carb side against the carb side, people that wanna argue fight over it. Where do you stand on diets? And do you have a specific go-to or what you're feeling on the polarizing topic of carbohydrates? Yeah, it's come up with an easy question, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Well, as you know, the dogmatism behind diets kind of ranks right up there with religion and politics. Probably not assisted much by the idea that religion and nutrition are often kind of intertwined in some ways, you know, whether you eat pork and shellfish and whether cows are holy or not. And, you know, all the elements that kind of go into the spiritual side of diet are probably why it's, so dogmatic, or one of the reasons, there's a book that goes back to like the 60s called biochemical individuality. It's based on the idea that human beings have different vitamin D excretion rates and different oxalate excretion rates and a different size of the pancreas and liver or stomach and the gastrointestinal tract. And when you pair that with this new era that we live in, this era of self-quantification, where now we know we have, you know, wild variants in genetics and detoxification capabilities, in methylation capabilities, in blood flow and nitric oxide capabilities. And we also have different microbiomes, possibly parasites, yeast, fungus that may influence our nutrition choices or the impact of those. We have different hormone statuses. There is no reason for anyone to say there is one perfect diet for all of humankind. And there is no reason for anyone to follow one perfect diet for all of humankind because the, you know, the rib eye and sourcrow diet might completely screw over. Somebody would let's say like over methylation issues who is, you know, who needs a higher amount of glycogen and carbohydrates, you do their physical activity, who might even have some kind of like an inflammatory response to saturated fats, because they have like, I don't know, an Apple E4E4 gene or something like that. So I think the best way to go is to test, to self-quantify and to figure out basin of genetics and your blood work and your activity levels and lifestyle and goals, what diet is gonna work best for you. And then if you just like can't afford to do that, you're living paycheck to paycheck, you're listening in your college student on a budget, you could make a pretty good case that possibly based on human origin and the fertile crescent, I don't know, possibly due to the fact that it's just a diet that's relatively diverse. So it grows the microbiome pretty well. I would say some semblance of a Mediterranean diet. Yeah, pretty good idea. And not like the unlimited breadsticks, giant salad bowls, but a training diet. But a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids with vegetables both fermented and raw, and extra virgin olive oil and plenty of omega-3s and nuts and natural sources of cheese and a little bit of red wine here and there. And all the things that you would tend to see somebody sucking down and sardine, that seems to work pretty well for somebody who just wants to throw a dart and hope that they hit the right diet. And then the carb piece, I mean, that again is an area that's rife with a need for customization, Dylan. Yeah, so for the most part, being aware of carbohydrate intake and controlling added sugars, especially to some extent is a good idea. I mean, I wear this blood glucose monitor, it tracks my glycemic variability, how much my blood glucose goes up and down throughout the day. That's more important to me really than my average blood glucose. It's just like how many spikes I get and how long it stays elevated after a meal. And in a sedentary person, in someone managing metabolic disease, like a diabetic condition, even someone like epilepsy, seizures, post-TBI, post-concussion, et cetera, you could make a case that like a low carb diet would be healthy at anywhere from 20 to 50 grams of carbohydrates per day, so-called a chitotic approach or a ketogenic diet. Right, and then let's say like an iron man athlete or a cross-fitter, or even just the average gym junk, your guy like me is like working out an hour a day, you know, and then whatever, walking out of treadmill while I'm talking to you, and burning a decent amount of calories, you know, for me, and I do this, a low carb diet is close to 200 to 300 grams a day. All right, so part of it is who are you and what's your lifestyle and what would low carb context be for you? And when I say 200 to 300 grams per day, I actually time that. So I eat very few carbohydrates most of the day. I'm gonna have a little bit of like a handful of blueberries sometimes in a morning smoothie, or like half a banana, you know, and you know, so I'm usually having some kind of a great smoothie, you know, like a superfood smoothie for breakfast. I have like a big salad with back to the Mediterranean thing, sardines, anchovies, extra virgin olive oil, seeds nuts, et cetera, a lunch, and then dinner tends to be the most widely varying meal of the day, just like socially and logistically. You might be out at a restaurant, might have friends over, you're hanging out with family. I'd rather have that be the time when I have the most flexibility for macros where I can grab the sweet potato fries and my wife's sourdough bread, and you know, a bunch of, you know, beets and carrots and parsnips and potatoes, and a little dark chocolate and yogurt and berries for dessert. And the cool part about that approach is carbohydrates can also assist with production of serotonin, wish, then downstream can help to produce melatonin to give you better sleep. The only kickback you hear sometimes with this approach is a lot of people have heard rightly so that you're more insulin sensitive in the morning, meaning you would theoretically, from a hormonal standpoint, be better equipped to shove glucose into muscle and liver in the morning versus the evening. But it's pretty easy to induce a temporary state of insulin sensitivity. I recommend somebody does this before or after any meal. You could go for a walk, could lift weights in the early evening before dinner. You could be like a cold shower or a cold plunge. For me, between like six and seven is about when I'm finishing up work. So I go like, I go hit a little bit on the pickleball court or play some tennis for a little frisbee golf, hang out with the family, go for a walk and make the last couple phone calls of the day. Oh, yeah, I mean, if you're just kind of like a sedentary slob for the hours leading up to dinner, carbs might actually hit you and cause a little bit of a blood sugar spike. But if you physically act them and you know, you understand the idea of even just like a five to 10 minute pre-dinner and or post-dinner walk, it kind of becomes a moot point and becomes even more mooter of a point if that's a phrase. If you've been researching carbohydrates the rest of the day because your muscles, assuming you're physically active are kind of like a little bit of a metabolic seat for glucose and they're a little bit deprived at that point in the day. So you know, long story short, summary of everything I just said is test yourself, self-planifying, customize your diet to you. And if you can't follow some semblance of a Mediterranean diet, trick carbs but not excessively unless you're managing some kind of a disease. And if you are able to time your carbs, are you having more of them in the evening? See, this is one of those times where I like to point out to everybody when you can really tell your talking to somebody with like credibility that's not relying on emotion when they talk about something because when you bring up the fact that it's all person to person specific and customizable, that's just basically everything in life. And when we fall into these traps where you get on these hardcore rants that this is the only way and it has to be like this and I see people arguing without understanding that there are so many different conditions and people like you said, the way we're training, I mean, I train, I don't know, man, almost three hours a day between cardio, one set and then lifting at night and I don't get enough carbs, I know it. And like you said, there's situations where it's necessary. So then that brings me to my next question, diet related because you, I mean, you covered everything so intricately for us. Let's take a look at the fasting side of things. I've done a lot of study on this in terms of the cellular health, the long-term longevity and I'm very spiritual. So as you pointed out, you know, that goes back to the beginning of time. So there's reasoning for it. What's your thoughts on fasting in general? Do you incorporate it? And if you do, how do you go about that with somebody that's training heavy? Yeah, that's funny. You mentioned prayer. There's actually an old book. It's called something like the atomic power of prayer and fasting, cheesy title, but it goes into how a deeper spiritual connection with God and a deeper prayer life can result from bouts of fasting that are intentionally built for a spiritual habit. For perfect. Which of course, you know, it's most people know that a lot of religions have some kind of practices fasting that's woven in. So my opinion on fasting and then my opinion on fasting for what did you say someone who's very physically active? Yeah, that top level athlete or someone trained like we do. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's, when you're looking at a top level athlete, first of all, just to touch on that first, you know, most athletes do need to hear that performance is not necessarily synonymous with help. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Like if you're not taking part in raising an adventure racing and there would be some weeks where I was exercising like 20 plus hours and races where I'd be going more than three days and at least 10 plus And while those kind of things are great for character development, for 됀 some weeks where I was exercising like 20 plus hours and you know, races where I'd be going more than three days and at least 10 plus hours. And while those kind of things are great for character development, for endurance, for perseverance, for climbing your own personal Mount Everest, you shouldn't fool yourself into thinking that extreme exercise is long term going to be healthy for your increased longevity, right? It's interesting because the true definition of temperance is not complete restriction or abstinence from a certain activity, but instead the ability to be able to modulate or self-control your usage of it and achieve a so-called Goldilocks zone. So exercise, you know, temperance is prudent and if you look at research on let's say cardiovascular exercise and its effects on cardiovascular health, there is a Goldilocks zone. Once you exceed about 75 minutes of very high intensity exercise, which barely anybody achieves anyways, but there are some crossfitters, some extreme athletes who would exceed 75 minutes of what would be considered if you're using zones like zone four, zone five cardio, you know, above lactic acid threshold on a weekly basis. And once you exceed about 150 minutes or so of moderate intensity exercise, which a lot of cardio bunnies, you know, brownie face treadmill, people of the gym do. You start to see arterial stiffness and early onset atherosclerosis. You know, it's just inducing too much inflammation without enough recovery. Yep. And there's some people who are like, wait, like human beings are primal creatures, we were built to move, baby, we should be like moving all day long. Yes, but you know, for anybody who's going like hunting or has a garden that you're out in during the day, or even as manual labor, like construction work or painting or fence building or something, you're not like running from a lion all day long during those activities. They're starting, you're popping, you got a little level intensity, it's aerobic and conversational, like I'm talking to you right now. And so I'm really talking about the stuff that actually kind of beats you up. So if you are back to the fasting piece, fitting into that category of an elite excursizer, a gym junkie, an athlete, then you also need to accept the facts that since performance is not synonymous with longevity, some of the things that you're doing to support performance would also not be those things that have been studied for longevity. And fasting could be one of those. Right. That's a calorie restriction. And even compressed feeding windows, which can hinder your ability to be able to fuel enough to restore muscle glycogen, to be able to get enough proteins and amino acids in for repair and recovery, to be able to hit an anabolic window, it just becomes more difficult, not impossible, but more difficult when you're fasting. All the more so if you like you mentioned Dylan or like a two day type of athlete. So I think that for a high performer, it's reasonable for males to go for anywhere from 12 to 14 hours. And I think that's pretty doable. Yeah. As a daily intermittent fast, you would even still be semi breaking that fast if you had an early morning workout. So that would look like you're going to finish eating dinner 8 PM. And then let's say your workout starts at like, I don't know what would you say it's late? We'll say it's like 9 AM. Right. So you're starting your workout with a 13 hour intermittent fasting window. You plan on having breakfast around whatever 10, 15 when you get out of the gym and get your hands on a smoothie or a post workout meal. Well, even then you could battle some of the catabolic effects of that fasting window, which you might have been doing for longevity, for maybe a gut break, et cetera, by using G-tones, pre workout, and by using essential amino acids, pre workout. And I actually have a lot of my clients and athletes do this. I'll give them a little bit of the baby benefits of a short term intermittent fast. And then they're doing like a shot of ketone IQ, one, three, butane dial, or a shot of like ketone aid, beta hydroxybutyrate, or some variant of a ketone, which isn't going to impact blood glucose. And arguably not only keeps your body in a fasted state, but magnifies the benefits of fasting. And then essential amino acids, especially loosening and rich to some true amino acids to be able to stay anabolic with a very small rise in insulin with minimal calories. So that's how you would do it if you were kind of an excerciser who wanted the benefits of fasting. You do like a 12 hour intermittent fast, 14 at the most. And then you do ketones and amino acids, pre-fasted workout. If you're a female at window shortens, spit wall specifically, or if you're a pre-menopausal female, impairment appausal, post-menopausal females, it'd be everything I just said, pre-menopausal females would be closer to 10 hours. You tend to see a down regulation of Kispeptin, which is an upstream hormone that will assist with fertility regulation and endocrine regulation if you are going for longer than 10 hours regularly as an overnight intermittent fast. So if you're an even more of an issue if you're a lean female, females should be a slightly shorter intermittent fasting window. And then the number one thing that people who are familiar with fasting might be thinking is, well Ben, I heard you get all the benefits of fasting once you've seen like 16 hours. Real atophagy starts to kick in. And that is true, but you don't need to do that daily. And what I do with my more active clients is we do one to two times per month, a 24 hour dinner to dinner fast. Right, putting on Saturday evening, don't need to get until Sunday evening dinner. And we try to time that on recovery day. So if Sundays are recovery day, then you're not going to need a ton of glycogen. You're not going to need a ton of anabolic factors like protein and amino acids. You know, just quit face-stepping on Saturday, get your 24 hour cycle in a couple of times a month. And that could be pretty good for cellular atophagy and clean up without the stress for an active person of more regular fasting periods, more regular long fasting periods. Awesome, great breakdown. I'm going to touch on, multitude of things that you kind of touched on there. One thing I'll say that I understand now, which I wish I did earlier was the abusive amount of cardio that you said. And I want to convey that double time that overdoing it like anything else can have obviously an adverse effect. I did a calcium score a couple of years ago and found plaque and thought, what is, how is this even possible? And I think a lot of that correlation is training in zone four, too many years, too long and doing it for over extended periods of time. And I actually found a low ejection for action on top of it. And so it's been this years of study now for me on the hard and learning about like several things that you're talking about and how to combat and overcome that and then teach others that are abusing themselves that think they're doing good. It were in fact, they're harming long term. So I definitely want to get in for some heart things with you. But I do want to touch on something else first. By the way, the ones stating grace of the type of plaque accumulation that occurs with hard exercises that it does tend to be more stable and yet we pack. Yes, so that is nice. It's usually less due to excess plaque accumulation and foam cell production and a little bit more of like a tight packed inflammatory response. Still an issue for builds up long term, less of an issue than some with unstable plaque. Let's stick with that then because that's, there's those fabulous points and I want to get into that with you because I think you're extremely well versed and I like to think now after what I've gone through the last three or four years that I can go back with forth with you on this. So this will be good. Let's talk about that. So you said stable plaque and then obviously the fear is the soft plaque and so we're trying to a, avoid that and b, learn how to figure out how we can even find that in comparison to the hard plaque. And so for me, we go in stages, right? We got the calcium score, we got a CT angio and you can get a little bit more intricate. Like I was in there and I had a catheter done and checked because I had a bout of cart palpitations. But then we go to the clearly test which can actually show you the differentiation between soft and hard plaque. Then you kind of get into the dangers of soft plaque a little bit and then how we can figure out what is what and what we need to look for. Yeah, a few of the nuances on the diagnostics piece of it. Most people just do the lipid panel, which is it can give you clues, but lipid panelism necessarily reflective of tissue cholesterol deposition. It shows you what's floating around in the blood and there is some correlation but I have seen and by the way, I am not a doctor. Do not take any of this as medical advice. Right, you're right. I was seeing people with very good lipid panels present with elevated plaques cores. Me too. And vice versa. People with pretty shitty lipid panels who don't appear to have significant plaque accumulation. That's why unlike full body MRI, which is questionable as far as like necessary diagnostic imaging largely because of the amount of false positives, you'd find with it. Some type of diagnostic imaging for the heart, I think is pretty smart. Now, the easiest, lowest hanging fruit would just be a carotid ultrasound. Yep. There are websites like vasolabs.com where you can find a technician. It's called a CIMT carotid into a media thickness score and it's just the non-invasive ultrasound on either side of the neck that can correlate with decent, not perfect accuracy, but decent accuracy to what's going on in the heart. I calcium in the carotid can kind of indicate what's going on in the heart. And then you step up to a basic calcium scan score. There's a lot of people are familiar with, or have done, which kind of gives you a score, just like it sounds like. It'll tell you, hey, you have calcium, or you don't have calcium. And it can differentiate visually a little bit between stable versus unstable, soft versus hard. But it's not the greatest. It's kind of like the old school scan compared to what you were just describing Dylan, which would be a CT angiography, and especially a form of CT angiography called the clearly scan. This would give you not only stable versus unstable plaque, but with pretty good precision, the location where that plaque resides, and the amount of infiltration in the vasculature. And there are some concerns about radiation from that test, especially if it's done on a repeated basis. The faster the machine, the less radiation. So the really fast machine to get less radiation than a cross country flight to New York City from California. The slower machines you could make a case for taking some iodine afterwards and not doing it any more often than maybe a year and a half. But even if it's real, once, you're gonna get pretty good information about the plaque, where it resides, whether it's stable versus unstable. This is all interesting, but I think what's more relevant and important is what to do if you find plaque. That's a million dollar question. What do you do? Because if you find the plaque, it is going to progress. It can be stable or unstable, if it's unstable, if it's soft, it will progress more quickly, but it will progress no matter what. It'll almost act like a little bit of a fly trap for additional deposition over time. The gold standard in alopathic medicine for plaque regression and I don't really have a problem with this approach, although it can create some side effects and it can be expensive for some of the insurance doesn't cover it. Would be a low dose statin combination like Zetamib and Resuva statin. That'd be an example. I forget it's five of one, 10 of the other in terms of milligrams, I forget which. And that's a pretty low dose of a statin. And all I was saying, this is actual research on plaque regression with that combination. And then often that would be combined with what's called a PCSK-9 inhibitor, which basically upregulates expression of LDL receptors and gives LDL more to attach to. So that's left plaque deposition that's going to occur. Yep. The issue would be PCSK-9 can be expensive. And I personally would be, this is pure theory. I just wonder what happened systemically if we upregulate LDL receptors long term because that would mean less cholesterol available potentially for things like the endocrin system, the brain. Areas that we know if we haven't swallowed the high cholesterol is bad for you tagline, hookline and sinker might be impacted with long term use of the PCSK-9, but I don't know, that's pure theory. And then with the low dose statin, this is less of an issue, but it's still an issue. There is some risk for co-ensum Q10 stripping and muscle fullness. So you definitely wanna use ubiquinol or co-Q10 or kind of top of the totem pole based on research by Dr. Barry Tan, would be something like a natto extract, which is kind of like mixed to cough rolls and talk of trying all that can help to stave off co-Q10 degradation even better than just taking co-Q10 or ubiquinol. So that would be like the alipathic approach, right? Low dose statin combo with PCSK-9, sometimes by itself, sometimes PCSK-9 by itself. You could make a case for any three of those having an impact on plaque regression, but downsides for what I just mentioned, plus the expense. The natural approach, even though there's a lot of things that might be good, like red yeast, rice extract, so called natures statin, niacin, magnesium, even things that aren't supplemental or oral nutraceuticals, like red light therapy, which would help to structure water in the cells and assist with membrane fluidity, exercise, of course, to a certain extent, you know, within reason. Pulse electromagnetic field therapy, which would reduce red blood cell adhesions and assist with blood flow, anything that would increase the nitric oxide production, even if we have dietary standpoint, right, beads, beetroot, watermelon, you know, arugula, assuming you have a clean mouth, right? Mouthwash can nuke some of the bacteria that assist with conversion of dietary nitrates and in nitric oxide, so they'll use mouthwash excessively, but you know, nitric oxide rich diet, you know, a little bit of a baby to dallophil, you know, like a baby siallus or a baby viagra, like seldenophil, but I would say top of the totem pole in terms of plaque regression, if you did want to go to the natural root, would be natal kinase and lumbar kinase, yep. Natal kinase is the easiest to find in supplemental form, supplements only have it at about 1,000 to 2,000 units, it could be hard for us to find any data, showing an impact on anything less than 8,000 units. So you got to take a lot of natal kinase, if you're gonna use that as a strategy, but that would be of all the things I've seen the best. I'm gonna throw this in there too. I spent a couple of years digging into this for my own personal interest in use, and I worked with a company called Vitaboom, they created a product called HeartHealth, and it has about nine of the different nutraceuticals that I identified as being effective for plaque regression, if you did want to go to the natural root, I realized I sound like a fox starting the henhouse right now, but I'd be remiss not to mention it, and then recently increased based on the data I was seeing the natal kinase dosage from 2,000 up to 10,000. So that's like a clinically effective dose, arguably, of natal kinase in it now. So some things that you can do, either go in the natural root or the pharmaceutical root, paired with some of those lifestyle factors. And I think it is important. I mean, a lot of women are like, well, these two dudes talking about having a heart attack, it's even called a widow maker, right? Yes, yeah. Paramentiposal, postmeniposal women have a shockingly increased significant risk for heart disease. And so this is something older females in particular should be worried about too. Brother had I not checked at 41 years old, this would have been progressing, progressing, progressing, and I would have had no clue because I am like a full-blown seven-day-a-weeker almost and go a non-stop. I take, you know, rest, but I mean, I go, go, go, and I would have never had a clue. And so I'm thankful I did. I want to run a couple things by you that I found and that I was told, and I'm smiling at a lot of things that I'm saying because I'm like, man, he's dialed in. So one, the nato kinase, there's one, and I don't work with them by any stretch, but natovena was the one I use, and they have a higher count on their pills, and I use that one, so I do like 12,000 a day. It was what I was doing because I read in studies that was where it was really effective on actually reversing plaque. And Pomegranate use of another one that I have found because I had gone back and I have been able to reverse plaque, but my situation was an elevated LP little A, and it was up to 330, which is, you know, insanely high. And my dad died of a heart attack at 59, and so reversing that is not so easy. I've been able to get mine down to 90, in the 90s, which is pretty miraculous. God's great. And a lot of classically trained physicians will tell you that LPA is not modifiable at all. I disagree. For the same reason, I disagree with people who say VO2 max is not very modifiable. Yeah. I would say by traditional methods, yes, possibly even just by following a normal heart healthy diet, yes, but by introducing, did you do like Kido's Niasin for the LP little A or? Did for a while I started to get really, really elevated liver because I was slamming that with the red yeast rice so I backed off both, got my liver under control. And what I am on a PCSK 9 of Repata, and then I take the seat, I dropped the statin completely because I wasn't enjoying some of the feeling with it, but they had dropped my cholesterol into the 30s, and I panicked, and I had now with the higher animal fats and more good, clean fats and saturated fats. I'm back up to 80 LDL, which I know some people panic, and I'm like, listen, that's actually quite good, even with having some plaque, considering, I got my HDL up that high, but I went to the Mayo Clinic, and they told me using PCSK 9s would be bad practice, and I was just looking at them, like thanks for making me drive three hours to waste my time, but I am thoroughly with you on everything you said, the natural things that you said, the baby aspirins, I'm gonna talk to you after about that product you mentioned, but I think the point here is that, looking at your heart, even if you think you're too young, is of the utmost importance. When would you tell people to start really getting into it and looking at it? If you have a family history of cardiovascular disease and you're a man, I would start as early as 30. And again, I'm not a doctor, but that would be my recommendation. And women is tougher to say, I mean, I would say at least right around paramedicost symptoms, setting in, but this is a can of worms, dude. You know, now we have athlete dropping dead on the field of practice and then increasing rate, due to some type of vestular infiltration for inflammation, it appears that the most likely culprit is spike protein. Yeah, and dude, they're either getting COVID or getting a COVID vaccination. So these are young people, right? And COVID spike protein is not going to show up as a plaque issue. That's kind of a problem. Is you're gonna be more like looking at inflammatory markers, cytokines, HSCRP, et cetera. But now it's like, gosh, like, you know, just in terms of checking on heart health overall, I would say 30 is a good time as a guy to really start paying attention to it and paramedicost for women. But then if you've had COVID and it was pretty bad or you've done the vaccination, especially full series of the vaccinations, you should probably start tracking inflammatory markers in particular, even earlier than that, like pretty much ASAP. It's difficult. I'll tell you, I've had COVID, I think seven or eight times no vaccination. But when I had the low rejection fraction, I related it to that, but all of my inflammatory markers are like zero. So it's kind of an anomaly I'm trying to figure out what it is. I still feel like there's COVID reaction there somehow. I suspect that beyond inflammation, there might be an impact on arterial elasticity. Yeah, I think so. That is measurable, but typically you can use light like a photon, like a photobyamodulation measurement for that. There's some frequency scanners that will do it. And it's kind of tricky because part of it comes to just like getting the spike protein out. And that would literally involve flying to Vienna or London or Tijuana, like at least those three places have clinics where they have a blood filtration unit. I've got it. Yeah, laying in hospital bed for two or three days and just pulls your blood out and passes it through a filter design to be like a sticky flytrap for the spike protein. Who I use called the Sarah filter. And it was designed specifically for this. And then it goes back into the body. Yeah, for sure. That's good to know. Oh, no, like thousands of people aren't going to go pay. But it's like, it's like depending on how you're doing it, like anywhere from like 15 to $30,000 to do that. It everything is just like when you brought up the repath, you know how hard it was for me to get like the insurance to cover a path. They have to literally elevate your triglycerides and you have to be allergic to a stat. I mean, it's a list of things to get it approved. And it's not a super spec like $3,000 a month on average. Yeah, it's a good oraxe even. It's like 750. It's just unaffordable. So it's in that sucks for people that are really trying. And then for me, I've already got ultra low blood pressure. So when you're doing something to fix your ejection fraction, you're very limited on what you can take. So then trust those and these other, I can't do it. I tried. And so Jardy and since it's been the one I've been relying on right now with Dribose, high ubiquinol, like very high ubiquinol. And so I have a echocardiogram follow up in a couple of weeks to measure it again, because it dropped to 45, which is not heart failure, but clearly low. So which dropped to 45? The my ejection fraction. OK, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it's dude, it's and I swear it's COVID related. But I want to talk to you about some cellular bond before we get shadow band, bro. All right. No, I want it. So I, you know, like I told you off camera, I spent decades just really in fitness and bodybuilding and you know, more focused on that nutrition. But I started working with timeline over a year ago. And I really got into the cellular and biology side cellular health and talking about that. So I want to talk to you about the importance of cellular health. And for me, it's like all disease and everything health related really starts there with ourselves. How important is it to you to take care of cellular health, mitochondria health on your list of things? Because you know, people talk about the God, people talk about so many different things. But I think everything really starts and ends with cellular health. What do you think? Well, I mean, you kind of cheated there because the gut is cellular health as well. But yeah, I mean, like, it's kind of like, how do I not agree with your question? Because cellular health and mitochondrial health are basically the foundational principles behind every organ system because every organ system has cells and almost all of them, mitochondria. And so it's important. And you know, I think that a lot of people are aware, you know, at least remotely aware of the type of things that would improve in particular the health of the cell membrane or the electron flow or electrochemical balance across the cells, including the electron transport chain and the mitochondria. But let's name a few just to make sure people have these bases covered. So, or the cell membrane proper fluidity and rigidity, we kind of briefly touched on this with a cholesterol piece, but it would be avoiding a completely fat phobic or prostidiet eating back to earlier in this podcast in a more mediterranean fashion. So you can go out and you can get a test called OmegaQuant, which is just basically an Omega index score and also you have a percentage of your Omega fatty acids and it's a ratio of Omega 3, 2, Omega 6s. And you want a percentage preferably at eight or higher. Even though the reference range cut off is at four, I think you can make a pretty strong case for being at 8% or above. So you would achieve this by getting a good balance of fats in the diet and in particular prioritizing Omega 3 fatty acids. And if you don't get a lot of them from your diet, they can one, two grams of fish all the day. Next part would be quelling every active oxygen species that would occur in response to mitochondrial energy production. You mentioned the gut and the cool thing is this strategy is a one to combo for both the gut and for that reactive oxygen species quelling and that would be dietary diversity, right? We live in the salad as a lettuce, mini carrots, tomato and ranch dressing culture. But when you increase the plant diversity in particular that you take in, not only do you develop a more robust microbiome, but you expose yourself a higher amount of the flavanols and polyphenols to help to quell the reactive oxygen species and to even the plant defense mechanisms that increase your own endogenous antioxidant production. This is why I'm a bigger fan of someone would have followed like a carnivore diet of something like the modified version of it where you're doing a carnivore diet but with fermented vegetables, kimchi, sour crab, et cetera. Or I mean, you could also choose like one of these reds powders, greens powders, whatever, but you're missing out on that aspect of dietary diversity with something like a carnivore diet. And paradoxically, the more you limit your intake of things like gluten, lectins, atu casing, from dairy, et cetera, the less robust your microbiome population becomes and the less able you are to digest those foods. Hence parents who have a little restrict peanuts with their children have older children with peanut allergies, parents who have excess of liter of strec gluten with their children have older children with gluten allergies. And I'm not saying like you know, if you paint the back of the toilet seat after you go out with pizza and you have total, you know, actual allergies or severe intolerances to like dairy or bread or pizza, I don't eat it. But if you excessively restrict dietary diversity or even don't just like go and seek out some extra things like shoots and sprouts and microgreens and eight different things on your salad instead of three, you are going to short yourself in terms of flavino polypheolintake, dietary and microbiome diversity. So I'll be the next thing to think about. The next would be down to the electrochemical piece to maintain that proper charge. You do need adequate minerals, get them on a cropping and fertilizer use, can restrict, and I'm not just pulling this on my ass, you actually do see restricted mineral production in plants that are heavily sprayed and plants that are grown in stripped soil. So we're not getting as many minerals in the average diet. So using things like traceliquid minerals, using really, really good salt and salt in your food, using electrolytes, all the more so if you're using like really good water purification because that will pull some of the minerals out. But being really cognizant of adding minerals back to your food, eating mineral, which of course, eat organic when you can, or at least eat non herbicide, pesticide spray, even if it's not certified organic. And then just basically add a lot of minerals back into your diet. And then the last thing would be, there are certain elements of nature that can assist with that electrochemical balance or with the activity of the electron transport chain and thus mitochondrial energy production and electrochemical balance across the cell membrane. Some of the biggies, you'd see kind of big in the biohacking world right now. Holtz-electromagnetic field mats or coils that you lay on, stretch on, sit on, et cetera, PEMF. Grounding and earthing, like going outside barefoot, using a grounding mat or an earthing mat, worrying grounding shoes, et cetera. Every time lightning strikes a surface of the planet for solar radiation, bombards, a surface of the planet, it collects these ions. There's transdermal connectivity. When your skin touches the earth, touches the beach, jumps in the ocean, whatever. So that's another way to charge up the body. Sunlight, specifically, you know, this is why you see such a surge in infrared saunas and red light panels and red light beds and photobial modulation is a technical term for it. Those spectrums of light are well absorbed by different protein complexes in your mitochondria and can increase activity of the electron transport chain and thus ATP production. I have like a plantwood photosynthesize. Right, yes. And I'm not saying you can live on sunlight with those guys, but I could definitely help out with energy production and mitochondrial and cellular health. But folks on that, and to become full circle, I would say just to name a few of the basics, good fat intake, especially from omega three or Mediterranean style fats, good dietary diversity, pay attention to a lot of these variables like earthing, grounding, PMF, sunlight, etc. And then a good mineral intake. I'll tell you Ben, I spent, I was a fashion model of my 20s and I've done so much work on camera. You had a little bit of a zoo vendor look about you. Not anymore, I'm older now, but I've struggled with like a just body dysmorphine eating disorder, even as a nutritionist, probably why I start study nutrition so young. And I, you brought up the fear of fats and I'll tell you, I lived the last 20, 25 years of my life in that fat, fat, full-baked eating 15, 20 grams of fat a day till about a year ago. And when I made that shift, I'm up to like 130 grams of fat now. And I'm telling you, man, like my health, my clarity, my ability to sit in focus, even when I don't sleep enough and the overall feeling and the skin, just everything. I mean, it has changed my life. And I thought like I didn't know it, but I'm glad we brought it up because I like to tell people like my struggles so they know what a mistake. And also, I'm pissed off that I wasn't cooking and carry gold and getting all these food that they enjoy in my food for so long, you know, but you know, just the amount of avocado and whole eggs, I was eating like all these just egg whites, low fat yogurt. It's just the garbage diet. And you think you're doing well and you're not. You're actually hurting yourself and hindering yourself. And it's, I'm glad you brought it up, man. I really am. What's they shading too? Cheese. I never angry during the day anymore or short-wicked or every 30 minutes getting up to go take a bite of peppers and onions, like, you know, that type of thing. It's just, it's insane. So thanks for bringing that up, man. I appreciate that. You cover in every base when I ask a question and it's really nice. I do wanna talk to you about the mind side. So like I said, I'm a spiritual guy. I really am focusing on the mind, body connection and lining up our neuro side, Vegas nerve stimulation with our health side. But I also argue that if you're not really spiritually healthy, it's really hard to be overall healthy, but what is your feeling on the mind, body, correlation connection and bringing that all together and how do you kind of view that and look at it? Yeah, the Vegas nerve is a really good perfect example. Right? So now you can use a ring or a wristband or a chest strap to measure your heart rate variability. It is basically an indication of the vagal nerve activation of the pacemaker cells of the heart. We have multiple cranial nerves, one cranial nerve, the Vegas nerve, snakes to the body, innervates various organs. And it has branches of the sympathetic, the fight or flight of the parasympathetic, rest or digest branch. When working in good interplay would cause robustness of the pacemaker cells of the heart, such that there is high variability between beats. Right? Boba 1.1 milliseconds, Boba 0.99 milliseconds, Boba 0.985. And if you see a low variability, that can be indication that your nervous system is kind of flat, kind of beat up, maybe stressed. In some cases, over trained. So the Vegas nerve, like you mentioned, is something that can play into a physical treatment of the mind body connection. Meaning that there are things that you can do to strengthen that connectivity between the Vegas nerve and the heart, and the balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic. Many things people would be familiar with as coming out of like the hippie esoteric, woo-woo, yoga world, but it would be things like meditation, chanting, singing, humming, gargling, yoga, breath work. All of these do a pretty good job increasing HRV. And any or all of those would fit well. And I would even say be crucial, at least present in for some of them, for an overall really good level of both physical and mental fitness. There are other newer, more technological devices that can stimulate the Vegas nerve. They make electrical handheld devices, like the true Vega or the wholist that you can hold up to your neck or that kind of stimulate the, what's called the curricular branch of the Vegas nerve underneath the ear, increase your HRV within just a few minutes. Which is great if you're nervous, if you are about to, you get an airplane or wanna fall asleep more quickly or wake up and can't get back to sleep, there are also physicians who for people with really poor HRV, and even things like PTSD, who will do a stellate gangly nerve lock, which is basically like an injection of an area around the Vegas nerve bilaterally on either side of the neck. And that's bringing out the big guns obviously, but you can even go in with a needle and actually stimulate the Vegas nerve that way. So a lot of different ways to do it, but people should be aware of the Vegas nerve that they can measure it and the fact that using both kind of like ancient wisdom and modern science, you could stimulate it. And then you brought up prayer, and it's interesting because the spiritual side of things is something that probably because the fitness and health world can be so materialistic, not addressed quite as much. Not only is it's something that doesn't feel immediately palatable in terms of the health effects that it produces, but it can be something that is a little bit more confusing in terms of where to start. And often very dogmatic, right? Like, well, I'm gonna be religious, we're my view. Hindu, Islam, Christian, you know, like, you know, and so, you know, then that whole catacana worms gets opened up. No matter which way you look at it, you cannot deny the impact that has been shown in research that prayer has on health, that some type of extrinsic religious experience like church attendance and being a member of some type of religious body and even like group worship has on health, that intrinsic religiosity has on health, right? Belief in a greater purpose for your life, belief in an intelligence that exists outside of you, a higher being that has your best purpose in mind and even has your life not in a robot, a ton of opt-on way, but in a good will way, I has your life kind of like planned out for you that no matter what you're going through, you can cast your hopes upon that greater being and there actually is a plan written for your life. And if you look at religions of salvation, such as Christianity, even a so-called way out, right? Like the ability to be able to just cast all your cares upon a figure like Jesus. So you have no more guilt and no more shame and you're not expected to be good on your own, but you're just basically doing it based on the path that that deity created for you by God stepping out of eternity into humanity and being crucified, taking on sins and then you're able to just cast your sins at the foot of that cross. And you know, I have books about this like indoor and fit soul, I have a journal called The Spiritual Disciplines Journal and the reason for that is that I was kind of at the tipy top of the world from a physical fitness, even a business fitness and mental fitness standpoint, like 10 years ago, but I was very unhappy on the inside. And I think I was experiencing what many, many people experienced and even many ancient philosophers experience, you know, CS Lewis, Pennsees, Augustine, these guys all referred to this eternal hole in the soul, this gnawing for something that's greater outside of us, you know, as a Disney princess might say, you know, there must be something greater out there. This idea that we are created as eternal beings and until we connect to that eternity that's outside of us, there's always that gnawing that there's something missing, something unfulfilling. And so in business, $10 million needs to become $100 million, needs to become a billion and in fitness, no matter how fit you are and whatever pinnacle that you achieve or however many iron man you've done, like it never quite feels like you've made it, like it's not as fulfilling as you thought it would be. And you could just throw anything at that eternal hole, sex and money and cars and homes and fame and power. And until you actually fill the eternal gnawing in your soul with something eternal, which would be like belief in a higher power and you know, some type of the intrinsic religious experience preferably combined with an extrinsic religious experience with an unbiased as a Christian, I think the most powerful of those would be like actually like saying a prayer to God that you can't do it on your own, you've realized that you aren't able to do this of your own power, but that you know that God has created a way for you to achieve happiness and eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. And when you say that prayer and it becomes like that simple then all of a sudden your entire life changes. And it's not like you trying to become good all the time and trying to be better all the time, but it's as though you are equipped and enabled and supported to do the best job that you can, but there's not guilt and fear and shame over failure. Instead it's just you being helped up by God and by that belief in Jesus to do what it is that, you know, you've been called to do. And then all those things like the money and the sex and the cars and the homes and the fitness all of a sudden they actually kind of become paradoxically fulfilling, but not in fulfilling in a way that you just want to chase after more and more of them. It's like, oh, I've got enough, I can be happy now. And it's not like you lose your desire to pursue greatness or to pursue what it is you've been called to pursue in terms of just your impact here on this planet, but it feels less like grasping at straws and more like waking up in the morning happy to do that. That happy you're about to let just like roll up your sleeves and do what it is that God has put on your plate for that day. So long story short, long answer I know, but I would say if anything, since our bodies are gonna fade and our bones are gonna become porous and our muscles are gonna be like beef jerky you know, at the end of the day, that the spiritual fitness is the most important thing because your soul is like the one bright eternal spark that will go on to exist for better or worse for eternity. So that's the part you should care about the most. I did, like you've been so insightful and you've shared so much, but what you just did right there for me, and I hope for everybody is by far and away the most impactful, you know, what you said there, if you looked at me on paper seven, eight years ago, you would have thought I was like, had it all right? I mean, making six figures a month, three, four cars in my drive, arcade games in my hand, like everything a dude would want, you know, shoe collection and I'm telling you Ben, every night I go, I look at my wife when I get into bed and I just be sad, miserable, empty. Like I felt like, what is it? I can't feed myself enough shit that I'm buying and doing like, why am I just so off every day, every night? And when I really became God first and I stopped worrying about everything, just let it happen and fall into place. It'll come if it's supposed to and if it's not and you know, you stop taking money from everybody throwing at you and selling out here and there and just doing what's good and right. Every single thing for me has fallen right into place as it should and now I'm doing what I was put here to do and I don't even worry about it. I don't wonder what's next or what, nothing. I'm stressed or I get on a flight or something if I'm gonna be late, but in general, that feeling that you just described is where for me and I think for a lot of people is it just completely changes and that's when the whole world all open up to you and then you can really become healthy and happy. Yeah, it's not a magic prosperity switch, right? No. We're not talking about like thinking you will grow rich because sometimes people hear you and I talking and like, oh, wait, all I have to do is like become religious and all of a sudden, you know, everything just clicks and you know, making the money I make and getting the job going, it's not like that, like your problems don't disappear but what I would more accurately define it as is a contentedness switch. Being contented is not synonymous with me happy. It's not like you're just like laughing and cruising through life all the time. Being contented is essentially that feeling no matter what, no matter what you're going through, you know, things are gonna get better and you're right where you're supposed to be and all you're supposed to do is be in that moment, trust God and do the very best job you can without despairing. And the only way to really do that is to actually like know that God is on your side and have a God that you can talk to. That's it. And when people ask like, how do I pray? It's really, it's just a conversation with God as all it is and turning it over to him. One of the things that I've learned to embrace that's very hard and it's still hard, I'm sure you probably deal with this too, is accepting like adversity but understanding why it happened and then seeing later on time and time again, wow, this happened because then it set me up for this or it helped me do this. It shaped my future. Right? Yeah, adversity is multimodal. Adversity can be God keeping you humble, right? Giving you some type of a help this year so that you don't become that asshole podcast who has it all figured out and all of a sudden you go farther away from God because all of your health problems are solved and you're just a walking picture of perfection. And God sometimes puts you through adversity so that you are more empathetic towards what other people are going through. Yeah. He might have a period of time where you go through financial distress just to open your eyes up to being able to help others when you have financial wealth to go around or he might put you through a sickness though that you're a little more willing to take flowers somebody's in the hospital or seek your other dog or be there for them in some way. And then finally, and this is of course the age old question, I don't know if it's a can where I'm just even open up towards the end here but I'll briefly name it. There is this idea, well why would God allow anything bad to happen in the first place? And some of the reasons that I've just described are the reasons but then the last reason and this is probably the hardest one for people to swallow is well God's God, right? He made everything, you wouldn't even be alive right now if God hadn't been. God does kind of call the shots, right? We don't know what kind of plan God has in mind but God certainly does and who are we to question that? We know that God draws straight lines with crooked sticks and that's the hard part about being a puny little human is there is an intelligent being outside of you and sometimes the way that they decide to pull off an incredible thing for the universe is not the way you would have done it. Exactly and you don't question it and if everything was just the same every day then what would the point of even be living? If we were all the same and nothing ever changed there has to be failure with success there has to be mad and good or else what would we have? There has to be evil with free will, right? I like, you know, God could have made us little robot automatons or just like worship him all day which didn't go to me wrong, it'd be great but instead God gave us free will and we get to decide what we want to do and sometimes we make the wrong choices and that's why there's evil, that's where there's sin and that's why the message of forgiveness is so beautiful. That's right. I know you've got to go here in a minute I got one more for you if you can really quick it's quick and then just wanna say thank you again I valued this, let's do this. Your top five staple foods that you have every single day or incorporate most often in your diet. How about I give you my grocery shopping list when I travel, do it, that's it, do it. I have like the Whole Foods grocery shopping list or even this throw guards or whatever, you know. Let's get into this from memory. I'm gonna hit the big ones. Okay, I'm gonna hit anything it's cause it's not important. So this would be like, you know, the person who says, you know, cause I have clients will say this sometimes I'm like, no, no, no, no, they'll be like, I'll have a travel in for the past 10 days and I just went off the bandwagon. I've been you pound and you know, couldn't find any good food and so I typically get the Whole Foods order in. Once I know about when my plan is gonna land and I realize even Whole Foods is Whole Pay Check for a lot of people. So it's my Instacart Rose ours Albert, since I don't care, you can pull what I'm about to describe to you off anywhere. The only reason I go Whole Foods is I like their chicken. So I get one whole cold, participatory chicken that easily goes in the mini fridge and it'll give me like two days of protein. I get a bag of frozen blueberries and they even those in the mini fridge in the hotel room will just like stay good longer than the ones in the canister and the cheaper. I get a bag or you know, a little, what have you called a little, like like little canisters of macadamia nuts or walnuts. Yep. I get a few tins of either sardines or anchovies. A thing of mixed greens, cucumber, a tomato and a little thing of mustard, which I use for the sauce with the chicken, just like good stone mustard. And then if I've got any money left over, I get a bar of dark chocolate. Oh, and yogurt. I like the really good, thick creamy coconut yogurt. Yeah. Like get all that stuff. The drives the hotel everything you fit into the mini fridge and needs to fit into the mini fridge. I get the little utensils from the hotel restaurant or the ones that they put in the bag, Whole Foods, little salt packets and pepper packets, even though a lot of times I travel with my own really good salt. And I can do like chicken salads. I can do yogurt with chocolate and blueberries. I can do chicken dipped in mustard. I can do a Mediterranean style, like sardines salad with tomato and cucumbers on it. Like I can do a few pre decent meals, any really well and what I just described to you. For everything I just said, that's still under a hundred bucks. Yeah. Any grocery store, at least in the US, and many grocery stores around the world. So, you know, that's just an example of how you could pull something like this off, like be healthy. Even when you're on the road and everything I just said, you would totally thin to like a home grocery shopping list too. If you, man, if you saw the structure I have around my travel and food, like the cooking and the VRBOs and everything I buy and what I do, and I even bring my own avocado so they're right. No, I'll have to tell you sometime off camera. It's messed up, but it, you know, it's just, I'm at that detail of a guy, but I think what you said, you can do this even if you're on a quick trip to a hotel, if you just do it right and take the time to map it out. I mean, you could really do it. So, I'm with you. Man, look, I could go 20 more hours with you. I swear this was one of my favorite conversations I've ever had. I really appreciate it, man. It was, it was. You are the man for sure and well, well earned all the accolades you have and I don't think it's enough for you. So, why don't you tell people, I know you got a couple new things that you've just had come out. You want to tell them about that and where to follow you. I mean, it's easy, but we'll just, you're putting their description. Let's see, I think the coolest things for people would be, you know, I have a podcast and the right articles and stuff that been greenfieldlife.com. I have a new book. It's like the Bible of Biohacking. It's called Boundless on Amazon or bellnessbook.com. And I just launched a new like Keytone-based bar with, but yeah, Keytones in it, which is kind of unique. I don't know if anything like that exists. It tastes pretty good. They got cinnamon roll and vanilla cheesecake and a working on chocolate. And that's called a Boundless Bar. Boundlessbar.com. And so those would be a few things to check out. Yep, I'm going to try some of those myself. They fit right into my daily, daily diet. So, I appreciate it again, brother. Thanks again. I'm going to look forward to seeing you at events and talking with you in the future. And I appreciate everything that you do and that you've done all these years. And I know you got a long way to go. So thanks again for your time, man. Oh, thanks, Dylan. Love you, bro. Love you too, man. All right, everybody. That wraps up another one. Stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan, Jamelli and Ben Greenfield signing off. Later.