Post on 05-Dec-2014
description
Podcast #88 from http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2010/03/podcast-
episode-88-are-you-eating-dead-food/
Introduction: In this podcast episode: what is Living Fuel? What to do if
you’re a female with too much muscle mass, body bugs
versus heart rate monitors, where to ride your bike when you
don’t have room to train, is too much exercise a bad thing?
How to use electrolytes, compression socks versus
compression tights. The Egoscue method of pain
management, do smoothies destroy your food? The best
protein for women, do expand-a-lungs work and a good
substitute for hamburger patties.
Ben: Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield on a beautiful
Wednesday afternoon. I just got back from Miami, Florida
yesterday doing a few things for the Rock Star Triathlete
Academy, the online triathlon school I run over at
www.rockstartriathlete.com Check that out if you haven’t
been over there yet. But we have – if you hadn’t guessed
from the announcements quite a bit of activity in today’s
podcast. We’re not going to waste a lot of time jumping right
into it. In addition to some really unique questions that
might have been influenced by my threat to give anybody
who asks the best question a free month of membership to
my Body Transformation Club, we have an interview with KC
Craishy from Living Fuel, and if you don’t know about Living
Fuel, you’ll know all about it after you listen to the interview
with KC. It’s pretty interesting stuff, and something that I’ve
been starting to implement. So sit back and enjoy another
issue of the www.bengreenfieldfitness.com podcast.
Alright, so remember if you have a question you can call
8772099439. You can Skype, if you’re international you can
Skype at Pacific Fit. That’s the user name that you want to
Skype to. Or you can email ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com.
And the first question is from listener Julia.
Julia asks: I have a question you probably have not been asked before. I
am a top age group female triathlete, age 56 who’s been
competing for 21 years. I’ve done 11 Ironmans including four
Hawaii Ironmans. (Dang girl.) I’m very strong on the swim
and the bike but my running is slow due to what I think is
excessive muscle mass and a knee issue. My body fat varies
between 18 and 19%. How can I lose muscle mass? They say
that around 35 years of age, you start losing muscle mass.
Well I’m still waiting. How can I lose muscle mass besides
starving because then I would not be able to train for the 8 to
10 triathlons I do a season. I do not eat excessive protein or
take anything that would beef me up. People constantly
comment on my muscles and I do not lift weights.
Ben answers: Great question Julie. It is very possible for both males and
females to have what’s called mesomorphic bodies. You tend
to be very athletic. You put on muscle mass, you just tend to
have genetically that body type. Okay, first of all, let me say
that it doesn’t sound like you’re suffering from an athletic
standpoint with the body you’ve been blessed with. So the
first thing I would not be doing is comparing yourself to
skinny, lean females who are that way genetically. They can’t
help it. You can’t help it either to a certain extent in terms of
the density of your muscle fibers and the amount of muscle
that you have. However it is possible to cannibalize your own
lean muscle mass. I want to make that evident to you
because that is what you’re going to be doing if you use some
of the recommendations I’m about to give you. You will be
cannibalizing lean muscle mass. You guys know that one of
my recommendations for leaning up, for losing fat – is to
wake up in a fasted state and do some light exercise. Nothing
too catabolic. Nothing that’s going to break down the muscle
too much. Nothing like a two hour workout or a hard and
heavy workout with intervals but just kind of a long – or even
a short – slow, easy, fat burning session. That’s the time that
fits in. For you Julia, I’m actually going to recommend that
you take that to another level. You get up in the morning
fasted and you do intervals. You don’t have to do
weightlifting, but you do cardiovascular intervals. You do
hard intense work. You do some of your long workouts
minimally fueled. 100 calories an hour, waking up in the
morning on an empty stomach for a three hour bike ride. The
types of things where you’re still working on fitness but
you’re also slowly starting to eat up your own muscle mass,
okay? I do not condone this. You’re asking me. It’s not
something I would if I were you because you will lose muscle
as you age as you mentioned. I think that it could come back
to hurt you when you’re 65, 70 years old and you’re starting
to really lost a lot of strength and a lot of muscular
endurance because you cannibalized your lean muscle mass
between the ages of 55 and 60. But that’s one of the things
that you’d want to do. The next thing that you’d want to do is
kind of lower the protein intake a little bit and up the carb
intake. Up the glycogen intake. So what we’re talking about is
eating closer to a 60 to 70% healthy carbohydrate diet from
whole grains like quinoa and amaranth and millet, fruits,
melons, vegetables. Things of that nature. And actually
bringing down the protein intake a little bit. Again to starve
your muscle. To wear away some of your muscle mass. The
other thing that I would do and again it kind of flies in the
face of what I typically recommend but I do lots of long, slow,
easy cardio and not very many intervals that you don’t get
the hormonal release that occurs. The testosterone release
that occurs when you do harder intervals. When you do more
of the intense versus the aerobic fat burning. So you got to
kind of re-design your whole program. If you are going to do
a lot of those intervals, do them starved so you’re not able to
go very hard and so you’re wearing away your lean muscle
and then do lots of long, slow, fat burning efforts. You’re
right. Not a question that I typically get, but that’s the way
you would want to go about doing it. And again, I’m going to
emphasize this point. I don’t recommend that, but hey it’s
your body, you asked.
Patricia asks: I need your help. I am so confused. I’m a female. 5’7, 160
pounds. I’m trying hard to lose weight but I’m really
struggling in this department. I’ve been focused since
November and even though I’ve run three marathons in
three months, bike long rides every weekend, run, swim and
weight train during the week and eat moderately well, I have
not lost a single pound. I’ve gotten a local personal trainer to
help me with muscle gain to aid towards this goal. And
recently she lent me a body bugg device. My polar heart rate
monitor has been indicating I burn approximately 10 calories
per minute during moderate to intense exercise. I work the
Body Bug for a 70 mile bike ride, windy and hilly and while I
didn’t hammer it, I was working pretty hard. That took about
four hours and the Body Bug says I only burned 1200
calories. But according to my heart rate monitor, I burned
2400 calories. That’s a big difference. No wonder I can’t
accomplish any progress. My trainer says welcome to the
reality of calorie burn and that Body Bugs are much more
accurate because they use body heat. My question is what is
your input on the difference between the two and what
should I trust?
Ben answers: Then she also follows up and says that when she runs, the
Body Bug is a lot closer to the heart rate monitor in terms of
what it’s telling her she’s burning versus when she bicycles
and then finishes up. Hopelessly confused and quite
frustrated. Okay so there is kind of a debate between the
heart rate monitors and the Body Bug. Heart rate monitor –
what happens is it counts the number of beats and the
amount of time between beats and there is an equation that
the heart rate monitor uses to approximate the number of
calories that you’ve burned and they can typically be accurate.
Some are accurate. They can vary by up to about 16% in
terms of their accuracy. Okay, the Body Bug doesn’t measure
heart rate. The Body Bug measures a few different things. It
measures motion. So it’s got what’s called an accelerometer
in there. It measures changes in direction, changes in speed,
measures the heat flux in terms of the amount of heat that
your body is giving off. And the body bug is basically just a
device that you wear on your body. It can measure your skin
response, more specifically something called your galvanic
skin response, your skin conductivity. So, it can basically
measure the amount of stimuli to exercise stress, the amount
of sweat due to physical exertion. Those types of things. And
then finally it will measure your skin temperature. The Body
Bugs are fairly accurate too. There are a lot of people who’ve
had success with the Body Bug. I believe that is the preferred
measurement tool that they use on the Biggest Loser as well.
As far as accuracy, there are a lot of variations in what you’ll
find out there in research in terms of whether the heart rate
monitors or the Body Bugs are more accurate. A couple of
things that I would wonder is, is your heart rate monitor
actually measuring your heart rate beats accurately or if it is
over-exaggerating the number of calories that you burned? Is
it actually counting too many beats? Some heart rate
monitors will go nutty every once in a while and if you
happen to look down, you might notice they’re saying you’re
doing 220 beats per minute, which is unlikely. So I would
question the accuracy of the actual heart rate monitor. At the
same time, some of the numbers that you’re throwing out
there for a 70 mile bike ride – 2400 calories is probably
closer to the number of calories you burned, versus the 1200
calories that the Body Bug is telling you that you burned. So
it’s really a little bit foggy. Here is what you can do. You need
to get what’s called indirect calorimetry, okay? You need to
go to an exercise physiology lab at your local university or a
metabolic laboratory and you need to actually have them
hook up a gas mask to you and measure the amount of
oxygen you consume, the amount of carbon dioxide you
produce and that gives you a laboratory accurate
measurement of the number of calories that you’re burning
at every different heart rate. Okay? And every different speed,
and every different intensity, and then you go out and you
measure those numbers up to what your Body Bug’s giving
you and what your heart rate monitor is telling you. And
then you choose the one that’s most accurate. But I’m not
going to finish there, because when you write me – and I can
tell this a lot of times – I’ve been doing this for a decade,
helping people lose weight, and you’re telling me about all
these things that you’re doing and the way that you’re writing
– you’re frustrated, you’re confused you sound stressed – be
careful. You’re probably a very cortisol personality. Okay?
You tend to be stressed. You tend to get a net acidic load due
to that cortisol and stress. You tend to retain water, you tend
to retain fat when your body is in a non-alkalinic state and
you tend to be very resistant to weight loss when you are not
relaxed, when you are not in control of your emotions, when
you are letting something like a weight loss plateau stress
you out. One of the most important things that you can do if
you are at a weight loss plateau is not to freak out. To take a
deep breath and analyze your life, take control of what you
can take control of and basically make some changes but
don’t let anything stress you out, okay? If you’re going this
way, going that way, exercising and exercising and exercising
and starving and stressing your body out, getting net acid
load, fat gain, water rate retention – returning to that cycle
over and over again the next day. A lot of times you are
overdoing it more than underdoing it, okay? Overdoing the
calorie burn more than underdoing the calorie burn when
your body is doing this. I see it happen all the time. It’s a big
problem especially in triathletes – endurance athletes who
are working out all the time. Then you say you eat
moderately well. I would recommend that you look into a
highly alkalinic diet. Cut any acidity from stress. Cut any
acidity from sugar consumption and grain consumption. Let
go. Read some books that will really help you relax and have
a little bit more stress-free personality. I’m just going to say
this not because I think it’s the best book on the planet, but
because I just finished it – The Magic of Thinking Big. Great
book to help out your personality and help out your life. So
that’s what I would recommend Patricia. The other thing that
can really help is relaxation. Tapes, CDs. There’s one CD
called the “I Am” seminar. It’s very good. Google it. The “I
Am” seminar. That’s again something that can really help
you get a little bit more relaxed when stuff like this is
stressing you out. So great question.
The next question is from listener John. Oh by the way you
guys, just so you know, I will be announcing which one of
these questions won the entry to the Body Transformation
Club at the end of the Q and A. So listen in.
John asks: While it is fresh in my mind, I was wondering if at some
point you could give us some idea on training in a city that is
not friendly to bikes. This weekend we had a car hit someone
riding in a large group of cyclists while obeying traffic laws.
In Tennessee, we’ve passed cycling laws but they don’t seem
to be getting through to motorists. What are your ideas on
how to train when it’s not safe to ride all over town? Some of
my thoughts – much more training on an trainer or roller or
finding a short loop in a park. I want to improve my skills on
a bike but I want to be safe also.
Ben answers: Great question, John. I’ll tell you exactly what I do – exactly
what I do when I have this issue, okay? Realize that you need
the equivalent of about a mile – a mile long stretch of road to
get a good bike workout. That’s all you need. I have one
workout that I do on a quarter mile stretch of road by my
house, okay? What I do is a five minute warm-up riding
some loops back and forth and then I go out and do 20
standing sprints, each one separated by a seated spin back
down that quarter mile to my starting location. Okay? I have
a very similar workout that I do on a hill near my house
where it’s just up and down the hill. Hill repeats, okay? So
you don’t have to do a full on ride. Now the indoor trainer
works very well. I use one called a Kirk Kinetic road trainer.
A computrainer if you can afford one is really great because
then you can get videos that are actually real videos and the
resistance on the computrainer changes as you watch that
video. So it’s really one of the closest things you can get to
riding outdoors. Doing a loop in a park, you could do that too
but if you do that, I’d recommend to – if you want to spice it
up a little bit – if you can splurge and get like a 500 to 700
dollar cycle cross bike or even a mountain bike then you’ll be
able to do some off-road, have some fun and kind of get off
the road. I have a cycle cross bike that I kept down in my
office for a while. Now I keep it in my house. It’s what I use
when I want to ride short because that allows me to go off-
road, to kind of switch it up a little bit. A little bit more
rolling resistance so you get a better workout in a shorter
period of time. So, those are my recommendations. It is very
hard to ride in a city that’s not friendly to bikes. I agree. I’ve
been there before and I’ve used some of the strategies that I
just laid out.
Mandy asks: My husband is reluctant to get into endurance sports
because he read an interview with Dr. Ken Cooper that said
that the free radicals produced by heavy endurance training
cause all sorts of diseases from heart disease to cancer to
virtually everything else. What is your take on that?
Ben answers: Okay, this is a great question because the idea is that when
you exercise it produces something called oxidative stress,
alright? Skeletal muscle, when it’s contracting, increases the
rate of oxygen that you use during that contraction. Anytime
you’re using more oxygen, there’s a lot of little biochemical
changes that occur at that muscular level, specifically an
increase in the activity of the anti-oxidant enzymes because
of the radicals – the little free electrons that are being
circulated as you use that oxygen to produce energy. Okay?
There is a significant increase in free radical production that
occurs when you exercise. In addition there have been
studies that have looked at ultra endurance athletes and
when they look at ultra endurance exercise training, one
study found that the increase in oxidative stress, all those
free radicals that were being produced could actually
contribute to the development of atherosclerosis because
what happens is when you have enough of that oxygen going
on, enough of that production of free radicals it can actually
oxidize some of your cholesterol and anybody that knows
much about heart disease has heard that term oxidized
cholesterol thrown around because that’s the worst thing you
can do for your heart – is have oxidized cholesterol. Sugar
can cause you to oxidize cholesterol. So can heavy, heavy
amounts of exercise. Now remember, when Mandy first
asked me this question, I wrote back to her and I said, well
technically your husband is right because really, ideal
exercise scenario – we’re kind of staying active during the
day. We’re farming, we’re moving, we’re walking and then
maybe every now and again we’re running really fast from a
lion – and that would actually be the ideal scenario because
you don’t produce a lot of free radicals, but you’re still
moving, circulating blood, circulating lymph fluid and
basically doing what the body was designed to do. But now
we sit around all day and we’re at our computers or whatever.
Then when we get up we want to exercise hard. And
exercising hard like that does produce a lot of free radicals. I
do know that people that are farmers, that are ranchers and
they look great and feel great and they don’t have to exercise
at all just because they are kind of getting the same amount
of physical activity that people who exercise do but they’re
not doing it at such a high intensity state. Now that being
said, some amount of free radical production is okay. And
this returns to something I talked about a couple of weeks
ago – the idea that you don’t want to always taking high,
high levels of anti-oxidants because when your body
produces free radicals like it does when you’re exercising or
like it does when you’re mildly stressed then your body
responds by increasing in its ability to handle stress. In
other words, you grow a harder shell so to speak. Your body
ends up being able to recover faster. You end up being able to
produce your inflammatory response just a little bit quicker.
You end up being able to repair and recover muscle tissue
just a little bit faster and there are all sorts of cool things that
happen when you exercise. And that’s kind of one of the ways
that exercise makes you fit and can also help you to live
longer – is because you actually get this stress response
bounce back, get stronger effect. And as long as you allow the
bouncing back and the getting stronger to occur, that
exercise is actually pretty good for you. You just have to find
that fine line. Too much exercise as the study showed with
the oxidation of the cholesterol can be a bad thing. I do think
that people overdo it. You do see people – they look like
they’re premature aging, wrinkled skin. You do see people –
even athletes sometimes dropping dead of heart attacks. You
see people look like they’re constantly run down, okay?
That’s not all that great. That’s one of the reasons that I’m
kind of in the whole low volume high intensity training
scenario where you’re staying pretty active during the day,
you’re feeding yourself well and then every once in a while
you’re going out and doing a real, real hard work out that
invigorates the body and allowing yourself to relax and
recover. So Mandy, your husband is right – to kind of wrap
this up – to a certain extent. And he’s wrong to a certain
extent because it just depends on how you define heavy
endurance training. If you’re listening to this and you’re like
“I’m not going to exercise an hour a day because Ben said it
can cause atherosclerosis,” no, no, no. I’m talking about
people who are going out there two, three, four hours a day,
ultra-endurance athletes… these are people running multiple
dozens of miles per week. Those are the types of things that
can be a little bit damaging, that I would recommend that
you be real careful with. But it’s your body. It’s your life. If
you know that it’s dangerous and you enjoy it, you get a rush
out of it – that’s fine. That’s your call. I’m not saying that it’s
morally wrong. I’m just saying that free radical production
could hurt you a little bit. So great question.
Chad asks: I was wondering what your recommendations are for taking
salt tablets while racing? I’ve read where you can just take
them orally and your body will know when to spit them out.
How does this affect your overall health long term? I fall flat
after about three to three and a half hours of training or
racing no matter what or how much I ingest for fuel. All the
symptoms that are said to come from low sodium, I feel at
that point. So I know I need it but I would really like to know
the healthiest way to get it.
Ben answers: Great question, Chad. Basically the idea when you say your
body knows when to spit salts out if you take too much – it’s
not really necessarily true to a certain extent. What you’re
talking about is what’s called the aldosterone mechanism.
That’s a hormone that your body produces and essentially it’s
a blood pressure regulating hormone. There are two things
that happen when you begin to lose too much salt, sweat too
much salt out. The first thing that happens is your body
produces something called ADH which is an antidiuretic
hormone and whereas a diuretic is going to make you lose
water, the anti-diuretic hormone which is also known as
vasopressin, that’s going to make you retain water. And the
reason for that is when you’re losing a lot of salts, when
you’re sweating a lot – what else are you losing? You’re
losing water. Okay? So your body has to actually retain more
water. So you produce that vasopressin, that ADH – and
that’s what that helps you to do. Then you produce
something else called aldosterone, and what aldosterone
does is it actually helps your kidneys to lose less sodium.
Okay, so not only are you starting to lose less fluids, but
you’re also starting to lose less sodium. And this delicate
balance between the aldosterone and the vasopressin or the
anti-diuretic, the ADH hormone – that’s how your body
responds sensitively to salt and water loss. That’s the reason
that when you’re sweating a lot, you don’t actually have to
replace all of the salt that you’re losing. In fact, most of the
research and specifically the research done by a fellow
named Tim Nolks down in South Africa suggest that it’s right
around 30 or 40% in terms of what the human body actually
loses in terms of electrolytes compared to what it actually
needs to replace. Now really fit people – if we’re just talking
about sodium – really fit people tend to lose about 1 ½ to 2
grams of sodium an hour. People who aren’t fit, who really –
their bodies aren’t acclimatized to sweat loss – they tend to
lose a lot more. They’ll tend to lose closer to three to four
grams of sodium per hour. And they’ll lose a higher amount
of all the other electrolytes per hour too. So, either way
you’re looking at it, you’ve got to put those back in or else
your body loses the ability to produce a muscular contraction.
When you’re looking at the types of salts you want to put in,
a couple of things you want to think about is first is it’s not
just sodium that you want. Because there are a host of
electrolytes that are responsible for keeping your muscles at
their optimal amount of contractility. So in addition to
sodium, you’re looking at wanting to get calcium,
magnesium as you’ve heard if you listen to this podcast at all
is very important. Chloride is another important one. And
the other thing – potassium would be the last one. Potassium,
you’d also want to look at. But basically a collated electrolyte
is a lot better too because they tend to provide for greater
absorption. Alright? So what that means is they’re actually
tied typically to an amino acid to make them more bio
available. Now I use something called Athlytes from a
company called Millennium Sports and two of those Athlytes
are going to give me about 350 milligrams of sodium an hour.
Which for me is about 15 to 20% of what I’m losing. So I’ll
take about four of those Athlytes every hour and I’ll typically
do two every 30 minutes. So I get those from a company
called Millennium Sports. If you’re an athlete that I coach
and you’re listening in, then you know you get 45% discount
on those so you essentially get them at cost. But either way,
they’re relatively inexpensive anyways. They’re at
www.millenniumsport.net. And the Athlytes would be the
way to go. If you took four of those an hour – that’s what I
tell most of the guys that I work with to take. Most of the
females I tell them to take two to three per hour. That will
help you out quite a bit in terms of keeping your sodium
levels topped off. Now, the last thing I want to leave you with
is that in most cases when people tell me what you’ve just
told me that you start to crash at thee to three and a half
hours no matter what or how much you ingest for fuel,
typically yeah I look at salt and hydration, it’s off a little bit.
But then I look at fuel and it’s also way lower than what
somebody thinks they should be getting, alright? I mean
heck, during Ironman I’m up around 350 to 400 calories an
hour. And a lot of times that’s what you need to keep you
rocking and rolling. So, really experiment with that fuel even
if you think you’re getting enough Chad. So great question.
Chuck asks: You’ve talked about the benefits and science of wearing
compression socks. Will wearing compression tights have a
similar effect or are the socks designed differently? I have
under armor tights and I’m curious if I would get benefit out
of wearing these or not.
Ben answers: Alright, great question Chuck. The idea behind the
compression socks is there’s been a ton of different research
studies that have found them to probably be helpful for
muscle recovery, okay? And a lot of the initial use of these
socks was in people with poor blood circulation in their legs,
chronic pulmonary disease, those types of things. And then
athletes started using them for recovery and then athletes
started using them for performance and the manufacturers
claim that the compression socks can help to optimize the
blood flow, reduce fatigue, prevent injury, help remove lactic
acid. Help decrease some of the muscle vibration that
happens during exercise and there’s been some studies that
have gone back and forth but specifically in runners there
were some studies that showed that runners who were
wearing the compression socks tended to move a little bit
faster. But most of these studies were done on the socks. Not
on the tights. However, the tights are made of the same
material, Chuck. The only difference is they cover more of
your body. Lots of athletes use the tights. The only issue is
you’re probably not going to wear the tights in a triathlon.
I’ve worn them in one triathlon before but it’s because it was
cold. But you’re not going to want to swim in them because
none of them have a drawstring that’s going to stay around
your waist while you’re swimming and they tend to retain a
little bit of water and make your legs feel kind of healthy.
And you’re not going to try to pull on a full on pair of
compression tights after you get out of the water before you
get on the bike. However if you sleep in the compression
tights which I do during a hard training week or during a
camp, things of that nature, after a race. Definitely. There is
a lot of evidence to suggest that those could help you with
recovery. So yeah, you’re going to get similar benefit from
the compression tights as you are out of the compression
socks. It’s just that the compression tights are not going to be
as conducive to using for performance.
John asks: An interview on goat versus cow’s milk (and I believe he’s
referring to an interview on my podcast. There are three of
them that I did actually. If you go do a search for “milk” on
www.bengreenfieldfitness.com, you’ll find a couple of
interviews with a guy named Joe Stout. Then you’ll find one
interview with a guy named Paul – I’m blanking on Paul’s
last name, but really great interviews on milk.) And the guest
speaker mentioned that homogenization of milk destroys the
fat globules and releases free radicals. So we have reduced
our dairy consumption but still consume low fat plain
yoghurts, some cheese, whey protein and occasionally raw
farm fresh milk. I like to make fruit smoothies that include
yoghurt, whey protein and sometimes milk. Is the blending
of these ingredients homogenizing the globules and releasing
free radicals?
Ben answers: Well the homogenization process, John, is typically high,
high pressures putting the milk through very fine filters. And
unless you have some blender from space that I don’t really
know about right now it’s unlikely that you’re doing anything
that stressful to the actual fat globules and milk you’re
consuming. The whole idea is you don’t really want the
proteins in the milk to pass undigested into your gut and the
way that would happen is if they’re bound up in the fat
globules, and the idea is that homogenization basically
blends all the proteins and the fats together and you get the
fat globules surrounding the proteins, you get poor digestion
of the proteins, you get the protein circulating in the
bloodstream and then the body mounts an inflammatory or
an allergenic reaction against those proteins. Voila, you get a
dairy reaction. You gain weight when you drink milk or you
get a lactin if you’re lactose intolerant. That’s something
that’s different. That’s just lactin enzyme. But you get
basically almost like an allergic reaction to the milk and you
get fatigued and you have poor performance after you
consume it. Those are the reasons we want to be careful with
consuming a lot of homogenized dairy products. Don’t worry
at all about the blending, man. I use a VitaMix and that
thing’s powerful enough to actually heat up some of the
foods that you put in it. If you left your yoghurt and whey
protein in a VitaMix for 10 minutes and came back and it was
smoking and warm and you really turned it up, it’s possible
that you’d get some mixing of the fat globules and the
protein globules. But a little blending, light blending, mixing
of yoghurt and whey protein milk – not an issue. I really
wouldn’t worry about that. So great question. And again as
far as the whole raw milk thing goes, I tell people just be
careful. Be careful with the raw milk because you never know
about the cleanliness of the farm you got it out of. I shouldn’t
say that. It’s not that you never know, but you need to make
sure that you do know. I’ve gotten raw milk from a farm
before but I’ve gone and visited the farm to make sure that
it’s actually clean milk and clean farm.
Grace asks: What’s your take on Pete Egoscue’s pain management
methods? I just started reading this as a way to relieve SI
pain and IT band pain.
Ben answers: She has a follow up question, let’s address the first part of
this question first. Pete’s pain management methods, those
are spot on. And what he does is he doesn’t say okay you
have this syndrome, you have this pain. Let’s go straight to
the pain and eliminate it. He looks at the underlying
structural issues that have caused the problem. So we talked
about it before on this podcast, like the SI joint – the joint in
your pelvis. A lot of times, that precedes knee pain. If you fix
the SI joint, mobility in the SI joint and then you rehabilitate
the knee pain, rehabilitate the body and return to activity
then you actually achieve results that are lasting, permanent.
Well it’s the same with those pain management methods.
Typically what this method does is it identifies the injury,
identifies the biomechanical abnormalities that could be
producing that injury, fixes the underlying abnormalities
while working on the pain and voila, that’s the way it works.
It’s the same way that I design my IT band friction syndrome
at www.bulletproofknee.com. When you go into that, that’s
13 different modules from nutrition modules all the way
through to adjustment modules, physical therapy modules.
And if you follow point A to point B step by step, it
eliminates IT band friction syndrome. It’ll eliminate knee on
the outside of your knee and I designed that over the course
of an entire year of rehabbing my IT band and everybody
didn’t want to go through all the same guessing games that I
had to play to fix my IT band. So, it sounds like what the
Egoscue method does is it it’s kind of designed some similar
protocols for as many different injuries as possible. So
there’s just different moves that you do – whether with the
foam roller or with your own body – to relieve the pain. So
it’d be a great method. I’m totally not getting on my soap box
here Grace but you say a way to relieve SI pain – the same
thing I did with the www.bulletproofknee.com, that’s the
same thing I did with www.runwithnopain.com. It’s a step by
step module for identifying and fixing pain related to your
low back joint. That’s $17. I don’t know how much the other
pain management methods are that you’re talking about, but
it’s kind of a do it yourself method. So I’d definitely check
those out. As a matter of fact, I’ll write a note to myself to put
links to those in the podcast for you. Okay the next question
is also from Grace.
Grace asks: What protein supplements should women take? I’ve heard so
much about whey protein that is not positive. Now I’m stuck.
Ben answers: Whey protein, the only issue with that is if you have a casein
or a whey or a dairy or an animal intolerance, yeah it might
not be the best thing for you. That’s why I actually do the
goat whey protein. The proteins in that are a little bit smaller,
a little bit more conducive to human digestion. But if you’re
looking at a different protein source, listen to the interview
today for sure with KC Craishy because he talks about that
Living Fuel Protein. He’s spot on. You got to go with the
vegetable based proteins and especially if you’re a female,
not so much the soy protein because of the phytoestrogens in
that, but I’m talking more along the hemp protein, pea
protein, rice protein route. All of those – even though they’re
not as well-absorbed as some of the animal-based proteins –
you’re still going to get a great protein source out of them. So
that’s what I’d look at if you’re really worried about the whey
protein. So specifically, to give you brands – I would
recommend if you want to do whey protein but you want to
go with a healthy whey protein, use the organic goat whey
protein that I use. It’s called Mt. Capra Double Bonded
Protein, I’ll put a link to that in the Shownotes and then also
the Living Fuel Living Protein that KC talks about in the
interview today. I’ll put a link to that as well in the
Shownotes so check both those out.
Jim asks: Do expand-a-lungs work?
Ben answers: And just so those of you listening in know, the expand-a-
lungs is a device that you breathe into and then you breathe
through it as well, and it’s called a resistance exerciser for
your lungs, and basically it increases the resistance to both
exhalation and inspiration and the idea is that it increases
the strength of your inspiratory and expiratory muscles and
the studies that specifically expand-a-lung has on their Web
site is that they looked at some cyclists who trained with this
and they found that the cyclist did nothing to their training
programs except started using one of these and found that
after about eight weeks of using one, that they improved
their time to fatigue while riding at a high intensity from 22
minutes up to 31 minutes. So, I’m not quite sure if there were
any other training effects in that study. It was also a very
small study. It only had eight people in it. The other studies
that they looked at were primarily done with like scuba
swimmers. They did some with people who were breathing
into snorkels, see how long they could swim while using a
snorkel. They cited a few studies of people with the
pulmonary disease and the lung disorders, that helped with
them a little bit. This would not be the magic key in your
program to help to make you the ultimate athlete. It would
be kind of like my recommendation for some supplements or
foam roller, things like that. It’s kind of the extra 5% here,
the extra 2.5% there. The reason that this would be different
than something like breathing through a straw while you’re
driving down the road – which technically could make your
lungs stronger – is that this has something that could
increase or decrease the resistance of the actual – the
difficulty of the breathing exercises that you do. A lot of
triathletes do use these. They do sell them at a lot of triathlon
expos. The expand-a-lung. The other one they do is the
Power Lung. But basically same concept all around. Again
it’s not going to be your saving grace. Training hard is what’s
going to make you work better but it just makes sense
intuitively that if you’re working hard to breathe that it’s
going to increase the strength of your body. This is one of
those things that I would suggest that you do, not as a
replacement for an exercise session but for example when
you’re driving your car or when you’re watching a movie or
when you’re reading a book or at a time when you’re able to
double up in terms of your productivity. So that’s when I’d
throw something like this in. So great question.
Then I’ve got a comment from listener Lorenzo. This is
actually one of the guys that I coach and he wrote into me.
Lorenzo says: Dude, my wife stumbled onto a new recipe. Our dog is four
years old today so we had a party and my wife made him a
cake. She took one half cup of cooked quinoa and one half
cup of cooked kidney beans that were smashed and enough
almond butter to keep everything together. She made a cake
out of it. Well I watched my dog eating this cake and
wondered, can I have that cake and eat it too? So I tried it. (I
hope you tried something other than what your dog was
eating Lorenzo) and he said it’s very good and stayed
together extremely well. Probably would be suited best as a
meat substitute in hamburger patty applications. Use as you
will, but if you get rick off of my wife’s invention, I need
some kickback.
Ben answers: Well I’m not a food manufacturer so I’m not really driven to
get rich off inventing a quinoa cake but hey, listeners, if
you’re listening in – we got a half cup of cooked quinoa, half
cup of mashed kidney beans and putting it all together in
almond butter. If you try this out, and it works and you’re
able to literally grill it and make a burger out of it, write in
and leave a comment on this podcast because I would love to
see that. Heck, video record it and show it to me and we’ll
make you famous and put you up on the Web site. 15,000
people a week will see your hamburger patty invention. So
check that out. Try it out. And remember if you like that type
of stuff definitely go back and watch Chef Todd’s videos from
last week. If you’ve seen those cooking videos, they’re
hilarious.
We’re going to finish up with a call in comment from listener
Chuck before we move on to this week’s interview with KC
Craishy.
Chuck says: Hey Ben, this is Chuck Seerick. I just wanted to give you an
update on how I’m doing with the Triathlon Dominator plan.
My half Ironman is about a month and a half out now. I did a
half marathon two weeks ago and beaten my previous best
time by a minute and a half. Also did the longest bike ride
I’ve ever done today, about 65 miles and was able to
complete that, no problem and do a six mile run afterwards
and felt great. Also during that ride, beat my 50 mile time by
about six minutes from previously two weeks ago. So it’s
going great. Just wanted to say thanks again and I’m going to
be keeping it up. Thanks for the podcast.
Ben answers: Well Chuck congratulations on your success and if you’re
listening in and want to check out the Triathlon Dominator,
go to www.triathlondominator.com. Okay, I bet you guys
want to know who won the Body Transformation Club. It’s
going to go to Patricia. The confused and frustrated person
who wrote in about trying to lose weight, trying everything,
not being able to do it, being confused by the number of
calories – I’m going to give you a free month to the club. So
write me in, if you’re listening to this Patricia, I’ll hook you
up and hopefully what you learn there – the accountability
you have to me, the weekly mailings you get from me, the
videos that I show to you will give you that edge that you
need to get you started with effective weight loss. So let’s
move on to this week’s interview on Living Fuel with KC
Craishy and remember that if as you’re listening here talking
about some of the stuff, you can go over to the Shownotes for
podcast 88 and click on the links and check it out.
Ben: Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield and on the other
end of this call I’ve got KC Craishy and KC is an expert in
something called super foods, which you’re going to learn all
about today. And this guy is a big time health advocate. He’s
done a lot of collaborative work with a lot of medical and
nutritional practitioners, researchers. He’s had health
problems in his own family which he’ll tell us a little bit that
kind of led him down the road of super foods and he actually
now sits on the Clinical Nutrition Review Board which is the
certifying body of the International and American
Association of Clinical Nutrition. He also has a little bit of a
background in sports performance nutrition. So he’s going to
be able to share some of that with us today and just a wealth
of knowledge on the topic that you’re going to learn all about
– super foods. So KC Craishy, thanks for coming on the show.
KC Craishy: Thanks for having me Ben, it’s a pleasure to be here.
Ben: I guess the best place to start would be for you to tell me just
a little bit and tell the audience just a little bit about super
foods and how you came to discover the whole concept of
what a super food is.
KC Craishy: Well allow me to back up a little bit to give you some
background. Several years ago, my wife, four years prior to
this incident was Miss Florida and then she was Miss Florida
USA, competed in both Miss America and Miss USA and won
swimsuit at Miss USA, first in swimsuit. So on the outside
she was an absolute picture of health and within just a short
time after we were married, she came down with clinical
depression and panic attacks and suicidal thoughts. The
doctors said she had anxiety disorder and they gave her
Xanax and Zoloft and psychotherapy and at the time I was
running a medical device pacemaker company and I just
decided at the time that they were messing my wife up and
we decided together this was not the answer so we decided
that I was going to dive into the literature and I wasn’t
coming out without an answer. So over a 10 year period of
research and trial and error, we discovered the seven areas to
manage that became the foundation of my bestselling book
Super Health, and also discovered the foundational
principles of our company Living Fuel and the Super Foods
and so on. I’ll say initially I thought I could get there all the
way with clinical nutrition, that that was going to be the
magic bullet, the answer – that if we solved all these
nutritional components, that she would be once again perfect
and we would move on. But as I did the research I discovered
that several other things kept popping up that were really
important in the literature. Things like hydration and
exercise and stress, managing stress, sleep, environmental
hazards, meditation and prayer and so on. And that each of
these things has such a profound effect on the body and the
performance of the body and on the hormonal flows and so
on that if you were to fish into any one of them that you’ve
got physiologic consequences coming and most people
listening today would have probably deficiency in probably
four of those areas. And in retrospect, my wife was rock
bottom on all seven. So that was the foundation and what got
me into this so I worked to develop the perfect food and in
the literature – I really had in the past a weight problem
from my youth, that it was a struggle. It wasn’t really a
problem. It was a struggle. That last 10 pounds and such, and
so I had tried basically every diet system out there so I had
some background in the diets and performance and nutrition
and those sorts of things. So I wanted to get into the
literature and see what did the research say? Not what did
this author say and what did that author say and so on. So
the thing that became profoundly important in the literature
was that if you would cut the calories and increase the
nutrient density that you could extend life, delay disease,
enhance performance, optimize weight. Essentially the
fountain of youth is essentially what the research was saying
and then there were about 2000 studies in everything from a
single celled organism up to primates and humans that
would show all the same thing. It was really profound. So I
got such an interest in that area. Now you’ve seen the calorie
restriction with optimal nutrition work out there, right Ben?
Ben: Right.
KC Craishy: Well it seemed to me that that wasn’t quite enough because
this was so profound that scientists don’t really even argue
anymore of whether or not that cutting calories work and
increasing the nutrient density – does that work? They know
argue why it works. So you’ve got a group on one side that
says well the reason the low calorie works is if you cut the
calories you automatically cut the oxidation going on in the
body because less food equals less combustion equals less
oxidation. So the theory on that side was that if you would
have less oxidation, you could get a similar response to
cutting the calories and increasing nutrient density. So that
side said less food and more broad spectrum anti-oxidants is
the reason that low calorie works. And the other side is – this
group says that you cut the sugar and the glycenic response
and you get the same result as cutting the calories and
increasing the nutrient density. And they did studies to show
that that would also give a similar response. 150% of the
calories of greens, of the low calorie diet and they were able
to get similar responses. So then there’s the group with the
healthy fats – the things like the fuel fats like coconut and
the essential fats like fish oil, EPA, DHA and so on. Well
those studies essentially were saying that you could take fish
oil and extend life, delay disease and enhance performance
and all the things that you want without making a single
other change in your diet. It was that profound. So on the
way to Super Food Nutrition, which is what we call this is – I
discovered that you could actually put all four of those
concepts together in the same nutrition program. We’ll call it
the four corners of optimal nutrition or the four corners of
Super Food Nutrition.
Ben: So, essentially the idea is that you’re taking the four most
successful – I don’t like to use the word diets – but the four
most successful eating habits on the planet when it comes to
fat loss and performance and you’re trying to interlock all
four of those together into one basic eating plan?
KC Craishy: Precisely. I have found some research that would back this
up also. Journal of Nutrition 2002 did a study and one of my
favorite little studies that really says the story – they had
four groups of mice. One group was the all you could eat
group. You’re familiar with how people eat out there.
Polyunsaturated diet, no Omega 3s and they eat all they want,
right? Well this group was able to eat anything they wanted,
all they wanted and they lived an average of 232 days, okay?
The second group was the fish oil group. They had the same
amount of food, same kind of food but they added fish oil to
the occasion and they lived 100 days longer with absolutely
no change in the diet except for the fish oil. The third group
was the calorie restriction group. They took the same food,
the same food the other two groups ate and they cut out the
calories by 40%. This group lived an average of 200 days
longer than the first group. Now the fourth group was the
same food as the third group, 40% less calories but then they
added fish oil. They lived 400 days longer than the first
group which is 300% longer by adding those two concepts.
Ben: Wow, that’s amazing. So we’re not just talking about fat loss
here. We’re talking about anti-aging is what it sounds like.
KC Craishy: Essentially because interestingly that the pace of cell division
– cellular apoptosis, cells divide and die over a lifetime.
Correct? And they only do it a certain amount of times. And
there are things that you can do in your diet to either speed
the pace of cell division or to maintain the pace of cell
division. Well one thing we know about that speeds the pace
of cell division is the increase of sugar. We take a micro
nutrient sugar and made it a macro nutrient in the diet of
Americans today. So 100 years ago, the average intake of
sugar was thought to be about 5 pounds a year. Mom would
make an apple pie sometimes, you’d go to the store and get a
treat. That sort of thing. It was a luxury. But now it’s become
a staple in the American diet and do you know how many
pounds per year now that people are eating sugar?
Ben: Oh I don’t know but I’ve heard multiple pounds per week.
KC Craishy: It’s 150 plus pounds a year in sugar. Okay? And what this
sugar does is it speeds the pace of cell division and death and
it collapses the term of lifetime. So yes, I’m not saying that
everybody needs to live to be 120, but I’m saying that it’s not
about being older longer, it’s about being younger longer.
And that means a lot in terms of an athletic career as you
know. An extra few years in an athletic career is huge as far
as money and so on. So it’s about being younger longer. So
now we’ve come all the way back around to the concept
backing the Super Food concept. How do you get low calorie
nutrient density? How do you get there? Well there are foods
out there in nature that are – the broccoli, spinach, kale,
spirulina, chorela, blueberry, strawberry, raspberry,
cranberry – that have extremely high nutrition but not a high
amount of calories.
Ben: Right, so those are the types of things that you see a lot in
greens powders.
KC Craishy: Exactly. Greens powders. Barley grass, wheat grass and so on.
This is kind of the craze but greens powders can’t get you all
the way there so we have to combine the concept of the four
corners of Super Food Nutrition that we talked about with
how much protein does a human body need and how much
essential nutrients does a human body need, because the
Super Food Nutrition piece that is really important is that we
know about in medicine – we know that there are 52, 53
depending on how you slice them essential nutrients and
that just means that you have to get them from outside your
diet. In the case of vitamin D you can get some from the
sunshine. But people are not getting all of their essential
vitamins. So it’s not like getting a pill because that doesn’t
quite do it. You got to combine what we know about in terms
of the number of nutrients that are essential with the highest
quality, most bio-available forms and then combine that with
the highest nutrient density super foods because they
contain so many things that we have yet to maintain. As you
know, we in medicine find – the doctors and researchers,
they find nutrients that they know call essential that weren’t
called essential a little time back as you know. Right?
Ben: Right.
KC Craishy: So once you combine all of these yet to be named
phytonutrients with the ones that we know about, that now
covers the bases that every person needs and if anybody is
deficient or insufficient in any of those essential nutrients
and known and unknown co-factors, there is a physiologic
consequence associated with that, that you may not even
have any clue is associated with a nutrient deficit.
Ben: Now, how can somebody actually take all these different
compounds that you’re talking about? Because the average
person doesn’t go to the grocery store and pick up a bag of
spirulina or a bunch of powdered kale and eat that for dinner.
How do you actually take these concepts and put them all
together?
KC Craishy: That’s a very good question. When my wife was going
through this situation years ago, I would be in the kitchen
and I was mixing in the blender my wife’s, and my breakfast
and our children and it was a myriad of things. It took quite a
long time just with the blender to put all these things
together in the right ratios to make the fuel for the family so
to speak. So I really wonder if it is even possible to do
without the help of some powdered, freeze dried super foods
these days, because the vegetables that you get in the store –
even the organic ones – most often have been picked 14 days
prior at a minimum to you getting them and they’ve been put
on a truck and shipped to somewhere and so the nutrient
availability is not what it was and the fact that they picked it
before it was mature. So you got to eat a lot of the things like
the greens and the bright colored vegetables and those sorts
of things. That needs to be a staple in your diet. So, that’s
why I designed Living Fuel because what differentiates
Living Fuel from anything that we know of is that it’s
designed to sustain life indefinitely. More calcium and
vitamin D than milk, more potassium than bananas. More
resveratrol than wine, more protein than half a dozen egg
whites. More phytonutrients than 20 servings of fruits and
vegetables and more friendly bacteria than 10 cups of
yoghurt in a single meal combined with all the known and
unknown essential nutrients and co-factors and super foods
and so on.
Ben: So you basically took all of these things that are the
components of the four successful diets that you just talked
about and you essentially blended them all up and put them
in a container and people just use that as a meal or as a
supplement?
KC Craishy: You can use it as a meal or a supplement, but see yes, it is the
most nutrient dense low calorie broadest spectrum anti-
oxidant with healthy fats known to man.
Ben: What I’m used to is exactly what you’re saying but typically
like I talk about these green supplements – no calories. So
you would take something like this, whatever, with a meal.
Have some potato and chicken and a greens smoothie or
something on the side. What you’re saying is that all of this
actually has the calories in it as well?
KC Craishy: Yes. Exactly. See, the thing is it’s kind of a funny story. When
I first built Living Fuel, I was building it from the ground up.
How much protein does a human body need? What is the
amino acid profile? What is the broad spectrum of anti-
oxidants to get all five radical groups? What is the probiotic
combination? How do you encapsulate them? So on and so
forth. So once I put all the fiber and the protein and the carbs
and everything in here, I was really shocked to find that at
around 300 calories, and I was really kind of bummed about
it. I said what am I going to do to get the calorie levels up
because basal metabolic rate theory says that 1600 calories
for men and 1200 calories are required to maintain
metabolic balance. You see? So this was a real troublesome
thing for me to start with but as I got further into the
research I realized that once you lower the calories and you
max out the nutrient density, because the nutrient density of
this thing is so far beyond a meal of five times the calories
because you couldn’t have a team of organic chefs put
together a meal as balanced as this is for the human body.
You’re feeding the human body at the cellular level and that
as long as you can maintain energy levels and not be hungry
for a four to six hour period of time, the calories are really
not what you’re looking for.
Ben: Gotcha. So this is kind of cool because I could imagine that
for especially the people who I’m trying to help lose weight
who just need almost that simplicity, not only when they’re
first starting off but when they need to round out their diets,
this would be kind of a perfect way for somebody to just grab
something and have a meal and know that it’s complete and
know how many calories are in it. But in addition to
something like fat loss, I coach a lot of athletes. I personally
go for a lot of sports performance benefits in my diet. Is this
something that you could take after a workout, before a
workout? Does it jive with sports performance diets as well?
KC Craishy: Very interesting. You know nutrition performance is an area
of specialty of mine. I just love it because people always think
that because we’re dealing with world class athletes, it
doesn’t apply to them. But the truth is that maximizing
performance is important at every level. Every person that’s
listening here today – from the world class athlete – and we
do have many world class athletes including Dara Torres. Are
you familiar with Dara Torres, the swimmer?
Ben: Yeah, absolutely.
KC Craishy: Yeah Dara is a tremendous athlete at 41 years old and she is
at the peak of her career. She uses Living Fuel on a daily
basis and to answer your question, how do you incorporate it
into a sports performance kind of diet, well it’s really
interesting that people that are trying to optimize their
weight or they’re trying to enhance their performance – both
require the elements of nutrition that we just described. Now
an athlete is going to require more protein than someone
that’s a couch potato, which is why we developed Living
Protein because we had our athletes coming to us saying hey
we really love this Living Fuel stuff, but 26 grams of protein
is not enough for our meal. We’d really like to kick that up by
10 or 20. Is there any way that we could get some more of
this high quality complete plant protein that you guys have
developed so we can add it to the shakes? And that’s how we
came up with our Super Anti-Oxidant Living Protein Fiber
Probiotic blend. It’s designed for the active people who want
to kick up the protein levels and the fiber.
Ben: Okay so sports performance ideally you’d want to add a little
bit of protein to something like this Super Green…
KC Craishy: Yes, because there’s so much literature around. Up to 1 ½
grams of protein per pound of lean body mass. Some people
will say 1 pound of protein per pound of lean body mass. But
still you’re talking 100 plus grams of protein on a daily basis
for someone who is an athlete or someone who is trying to
lose weight also, it’s important to get high levels of protein.
So yes, the Living Fuel, most people can survive easily on
either Living Fuel Super Berry or Living Fuel Super Greens.
But adding in the Living Protein is something that I do every
day. Something that Dara Torres does every day. JD Drew
with the Boston Red Sox does that as well, and many other
athletes that use Living Fuel always incorporate either one or
two scoops of Living Protein on top of their, say, breakfast
meal. Now how does an athlete use it beyond that? Well, the
prevailing theory of fueling an athlete is 20W15, if you’re
familiar with the concept. 20W15 is 20 minutes prior, you’ll
have say a scoop of Super Berry. During the workout you can
have more Super Berry is an extended, very difficult workout
because you want to maintain – what you’re trying to do is
block the rise of cortisol. So during the workout. So post-
workout, within 15 minutes you want to have a recovery fuel
which would be one scoop say of Living Fuel Super Berry or
half a scoop of Super Berry with a sugar kind of source. So
you would put it in some lemonade or something like that.
Ben: What did you call it again? The 20 what 15?
KC Craishy: 20W15. It’s 20 minutes for, W means while or during the
workout and 15 means post-workout. So I say 15, a lot of
people will tell you anytime you do your post-workout fuel
within 90 minutes of your workout, you’re fine. I’m sure
you’ve heard that a lot because that’s the prevailing theory
but the truth is that the research is more refined than that
now and it really is showing that 45 minutes really is the
optimal window for protein synthesis and synthesis just
means building proteins from amino acids in your body.
Right? So if you can get your insulin – because also your
insulin sensitivity is the highest after a hard workout, okay?
So if you can get that going 15 minutes after your workout
and you can get it going before your workout, during your
workout and within 15 minutes after, you now have
controlled two of the processes which cause significant
soreness on subsequent days. There are at least three
processes that cause soreness for an athlete. And the first
one is the physical breakdown of the tearing of fibers which
is what you want, right? But that process is exacerbated by
the rise of cortisol that happens in most athletes and then
beyond that the oxidation that is allowed to occur. So it’s not
just inflammation. It’s inflammation, oxidation, glycation.
The big three, I call them. Okay? So beyond the breakdown
of the muscle, if you can control inflammation, glycation,
oxidation, now you have given the athlete a chance to recover
almost twice as fast as the athlete who didn’t pay attention to
that. So when you’re thinking about the post-recovery shake,
that really is as important to your workout as the workout
itself. So post-recovery fuel if you will. Okay? So post-
recovery fuel – also I think you take the Super Essentials
Omegas, making sure that you have enough fish oil with the
right antioxidants to help with the inflammatory processes in
the body and the blood flow of the body and so on – those
things are really critical for athletes and people who are
weekend athletes. I’m talking about world class to any level
really. So an athlete who is just a weekend athlete, who
doesn’t work out that much or that hard is really going to
want to minimize or eliminate the sugar part of the post-
workout fuel.
Ben: Gotcha. Okay so you have the powder in the canister that
people can take probably adding a little bit of protein if
they’re doing the sports performance. Now you also have a
bar, and that was actually how I first found you, is I tried one
of these bars. Stumbled across it and really liked it and then
tried some of the other stuff that you guys have – but the bar
was initially the thing that I thought was really good because
my wife actually does a lot of raw foods and she makes a lot
of our own – these raw food energy bars at home, and this
tasted just like that homemade version that she makes. So
what was the idea behind the CocoChia bar? Is that also the
concept of Super Greens just in bar format or what would
somebody use that for?
KC Craishy: You know that’s a great question. These are sustained energy
bars. And it’s funny. You say it’s like your wife developed in
the kitchen – if she’s doing really good stuff, I encourage you
to take that on and make a bar out of it because that’s exactly
how I developed the CocoChia bars. Chia seeds are part of
our Living Fuel shakes and you know, they’re the highest
percentage source of plant omega 3 of any seed and the most
easily digestible without even grinding them. So Chia is a
really power super food that was used by the Aztec Indians.
They say that two teaspoons of Chia seed would be the – or
one tablespoon of Chia seed would be the nutrition for an
entire day of hunting. That and water. So it’s a super food all
by itself. The other super food that I’m very enamored with
and have been for many years is coconut. Coconut is a high
source of medium chain triglycerides. People are scared away
from saturated fats but the truth is if you really looked at the
literature, you’d say there is a difference in saturated fat.
There are saturated fats that are unnaturally, hydrogenated,
saturated fats – those things are horrendous for your health.
No question about it. But medium chain triglycerides
actually can increase performance, can increase the thyroid
performance. They have lauric acid which is somewhat anti-
microbial and so on. So there are so many benefits to
coconut. If you look at the indigenous populations who eat a
lot of coconut, there’s very little obesity in those cultures and
so on. So Chia seed, coconut and raw almond. The power of
almond – most people know about the power of almonds so
combining those three things together in a bar format was
just – we wanted to give people the concept of sustainable
energy and not quick sugar fix, crash kind of energy. So it’s a
true super food and fats need to be a part of – from the
athlete all the way down to (inaudible). The healthy fats are
one of the key components to the four cornered concept. So
the bar is a healthy fat and fiber bar with protein.
Ben: Okay so it basically keeps you full for a longer period of time
compared to say, like a power bar.
KC Craishy: Yes, exactly.
Ben: Gotcha. So these are all great for people going after fat loss,
sports performance. My next question because I get a lot of
these types of questions from people who listen to some of
the nutrition supplements that we talked about on this show
– but is it something you could use with kids?
KC Craishy: Oh in fact it’s terrific for kids. See every human has the same
foundational needs. Now some people have additional needs
that you need to customize on top of that. But you’re still
made of the same kinds of proteins, the same kinds of
essential nutrients and so on. So for instance when my
babies – I told you about the situation with my wife when
she had her panic attacks and depression and that sort of
thing – if we hadn’t solved that, we would have had one kid
today. But we now have five children and another one on the
way at the moment. So I really believe that this is hugely
important for everybody.
Ben: Okay so kids can tolerate this kind of stuff, okay.
KC Craishy: Well the first food for my children after breast milk is Living
Fuel. We mix coconut milk with Living Fuel and that’s their
food until they transition to Living Fuel shakes for breakfast
and then the regular food that everyone else eats.
Ben: Fantastic, okay, cool. Go ahead.
KC Craishy: I was going to say it’s terrific for women who are trying to get
pregnant, women who are pregnant. It’s terrific. Instead of
the pregnancy multi-vitamin, it’s just a terrific way to go. My
wife has done that with all of our children.
Ben: Nice, well over at www.livingfuel.com, because you kind of
just scratched the surface of super foods and you have a lot of
great articles over there at www.livingfuel.com, and I’ll put a
link to that in the Shownotes to this interview, but also those
of you listening in should know that I am now including the
option for you to be able to get some of the Super Greens or
these CocoChia bars that we talked about with any of your
orders from www.pacificfit.net. I’ll put a link to that in there
as well. So if you want me to send you some of these with
anything that you might currently order from that Web site, I
can definitely hook you up. So KC that was awesome. I have
a lot better understanding now. I think a lot of people hear
the term Super Food and it’s just like this concept that it’s a
bunch of mystery foods, but I think you’ve cleared it up
pretty well today. I want to thank you.
KC Craishy: It’s my pleasure. One thing that I want to point out that –
there’s a lot of hype out there in the market and people need
to be able to look through it. When you talk about a green
drink on the market, you’re talking about a 9 gram salad.
You cannot sustain life on a 9 gram salad. It’s very good food,
don’t get me wrong. Wheat grass shot, barley shot, those
things are terrific, but you’re not going to be able to have it
for breakfast, lunch and dinner indefinitely like you can
Living Fuel. The other thing is that anti-oxidants or ORAC,
people talk about ORAC, how high the ORAC is. But ORAC
simply measures one of the five major radical categories.
Living Fuel is tested against all five of the major radical
categories that attack the body. So there’s nothing else that I
know of that’s rated that way. So it’s really important to
really understand what you’re getting into and go with it.
Ben: Fantastic, well cool. Thanks for your time. For those of you
listening in, I’ll put a link to everything in the Shownotes to
this interview with KC Craishy and until next time, thanks
for coming on the show, man.
KC Craishy: It’s a pleasure, brother. I look forward to us doing it again.
Ben: Alright, cheers.
KC Craishy: God bless, bye bye.
For personal nutrition, fitness or triathlon consulting, supplements, books or DVD’s
from Ben Greenfield, please visit Pacific Elite Fitness at
http://www.pacificfit.net