(Breather) Lots of great stuff to cover today as I continue to go through all of the great questions you’ve submitted so far.

We start with a question from a listener who challenges me to name the many things that I find more important to endurance success than the particulars of workouts and scheduling, so I spout 7 things quickly in response. I then share from recent success stories, including improved sleep from honoring digestive circadian rhythm and improving inflammatory conditions with dietary restriction. And what kind of dietary restriction do I mean, exactly?

Well…of course, it all depends on the individual. For some people, that means eliminating certain foods that trigger inflammation. But for others, it just means working on timing and adjusting the way you schedule your meals, but not changing anything about the food itself – just switching to eating earlier dinners, for example. I also stress the importance of cultivating your intuition (in all areas of life, duh) when it comes to fitness and diet. Knowing how to employ your intuition will always serve you well because it allows you to go with the natural flow of things. So instead of forcing strict, regimented workouts set at specific times on yourself, try to balance honoring your commitments with an understanding and respect for your body’s natural needs, which are for rest and relaxation, balanced with a healthy exercise regimen.

I then explain how to reconcile the seemingly disparate training approaches of aerobic-based versus explosive efforts found in a Crossfit Endurance workout (listen to my show with Brian MacKenzie for more details). I also talk about how consuming lectins may be triggering inflammation that worsens skin-conditions, like vitiligo, and how the elimination of night-shades can help with this problem.

As I get down to the last few questions, I realize how many of them have had a similar theme, which is balance. How do you balance intuition with a set schedule? How can you begin to manage stress and rest most effectively? And how do you reconcile two diametrically opposed perspectives, like Primal Endurance vs CrossFit endurance? How do we move forward when there are things in our life that seem to contradict each other, or when we don’t quite know how to proceed? We get over ourselves and our negative internal chatter, and remember the importance of having a healthy perspective! Take advantage of support from your community, from your family to your friends, to your colleagues to your neighbors, because that’s what makes all the difference in the world in terms of your performance and your mindset. Just don’t get caught in the trap of stressing about not doing enough. We’re all doing the best we can (and if you’re not, simply recognize it, and make adjustments!) so, remember the importance of continuously committing to BALANCE. There is a time for action, just as there is a time for prioritizing resting and recovery. Do yourself a favor, and let yourself fully experience the benefits of both.

Thanks for the thought-provoking questions! Keep ‘em coming by emailing getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com.

TIMESTAMPS:

David is asking about workout scheduling. What is the order of importance?  [03:57]

It interferes with our circadian rhythms to have this constant technology available. [05:30]

Stress/rest management is so important for a balanced life, especially for an athlete. [07:13]

Have a healthy perspective on setting goals. [08:22]

Having a supportive family, community environment, or training partners makes your training more doable. [09:50]

Cultivate intuition over a regimented schedule. [11:17j

Think about the “breakthrough workout.” It should be the centerpiece of your training. [12:10]

Morning flexibility routine keeps Brad in a stronger position to do other things the rest of the day. [13:04]

Clean up your diet. [14:42]

Ward is telling about what he discovered that, despite going keto, carnivore, changing sleep hygiene, he was still having disturbed sleep. The timing of eating was the secret. [16:46]

Felix is asking about the skin disease of vitiligo which is believed to be caused by an intolerance to lectins. Eliminating nightshade vegetables from the diet can help with many conditions. [21:15]

The next question is how does a middle-aged novice trainee reconcile two diametrically opposed viewpoints like Primal Endurance vs CrossFit endurance? [24:51]

The two viewpoints go hand in hand, but the emphasis needs to be rest and recovery. [29:50]

Holger in Germany mentions how many studies there are on diet that will support anything.  It’s confusing. You have to see what works for you. [31:57]

Brian shares how he is living with ulcerative colitis but living the Keto lifestyle has kept him off meds for 8 months. [34:38]

LINKS:

• Brad Kearns Morning Routine
• Dr. Panda UCSD
• Vitiligo
• The Plant Paradox
• meatheals.com
• Podcast with Brian MacKenzie
• Mark’s Daily Apple
• 21-Day Primal Reset

LISTEN:

Get Over Yourself Podcast

Brad: 00:08 Welcome to the get over yourself podcast. This is author and athlete, Brad Kearns, discovering ways to be healthy, fit and happy in hectic, high-stress, modern life. So let’s slow down and take a deep breath. Take a cold plunge and expertly balanced that competitive intensity with an appreciation of the journey. That’s the theme of the show. Here we go.

Brad: 03:11 Welcome to the Q and A show. Hey, get over yourself. Podcast listeners, thank you to those who wrote in. Get over yourselfpodcast@gmail.com with your thoughtful questions, comments, feedback, and success stories. I particularly enjoy hearing real people out there listening. Since mind you, I’m recording this show in a very small recording studio slash hall closet disconnected from other humans and what’s especially cool is hearing from people around the world, Oh my gosh, the power of the modern digital age and the exchange of information so smoothly and efficiently. We’re all connected here on the podcast and.

Brad: 03:57 our first question comes from David. Hey Brad. Great job on the podcast. I caught up on my Thanksgiving break driving to Auburn, Alabama. I listened to several shows. I don’t know where you’re driving from, but I guess you had a long drive over to Auburn, Alabama. Very insightful information. Uh, I’m working on my recovery and adaptation and other parts of my life and I got a question, man.

Brad: 04:25 You once said that on the top 20 list of important things for endurance athletes, the actual workouts and the scheduling of workouts was ranked number 17 or 18. I was being flippant, but, uh, I actually love to get into this point and I love that question. Can you please give me some insight? David says on what other stuff we should be looking at before the workout scheduling and all that nonsense. Of course it’s important to plan the right workouts and approximate the challenge of your race goals in training. But yeah, if you don’t have your shit together and your life all straightened out and good practices in place, away from the actual workouts, you are going through struggle. So thanks, David Pritchett. Well let’s go. I’m going to throw off some of the top of my head. Number one, sleep. Come on. If you’re not getting adequate sleep, you are compromising your progress in all manner of peak performance goals, both cognitive and the workplace, studying what have you, as well as physical, athletic.

Brad: 05:30 So we want to prioritize sleep and the best way, simplest way to do that is to minimize artificial light and digital stimulation after dark is simple as that is we want to have a more mellow evening experience than our historical example that’s getting worse and worse with each passing day as mobile devices take over our lives and turn us into part robots. Remember that great insight from Elon Musk when he was on the Joe Rogan podcast. And Rogan asked him if he was concerned about any dangers or negative implications of artificial intelligence growing and growing in the future. And, uh, taking over a human life. And Elon Musk said, well, you know, we’re already, uh, robots today because we have every fact ever known to the history of mankind at our fingertips in our hands here with this phone. And, uh, it was a profound insight because it’s so different than, uh, our previous experience as humans where we were collections of knowledge and insights and opinions.

Brad: 06:31 And yes, we had to work hard to go learn more information, uh, digging through the encyclopedia that we, uh, couldn’t check out at the library, had to be there at the table looking for the M and N book and the facts and information we wanted to learn about, uh, the, the mountain range that, uh, borders Afghanistan and Pakistan. And now we have every fact ever known to mankind. It’s kinda scary. Many, many good attributes about that. Uh, but one of the horribly destructive ones is that it’s interfering with our circadian rhythms to have this constant technology available. And these artificial light admitted from emitted from screens and from, uh, light bulbs in the house. So mellow evenings for an athlete especially.

Brad: 07:13 How about a number two on the list is your stress management. How are you doing with your stress/rest balance in life? There are many forms of stress to the body these days. Uh, workplace stress, relationship stress, and of course the physical stress of training. But these all must count on the same side of the balance scale. The scales of justice. You know, when you envision the, uh, the, the statue of Liberty type lady, it’s not the statue of Liberty, but the scales of justice. Justice is blind and there’s two sides. And so if we envision stress and rest, we have a lot of ways to apply stress. A lot of times we get, uh, uh, sorely mistaken thinking that a workout is a great quote, stress release from the pressures of the, uh, office setting and those kinds of stresses. But in reality, they’re just different forms of stresses. They both stimulate the sympathetic nervous system function, the fight or flight. So we have to figure out ways to tone down, unplug, unwind, especially as an athlete. Uh, mixing in your athletic goals with, uh, hectic, modern life and other life responsibilities.

Brad: 08:22 Uh, let’s go. How about, um, a healthy perspective on setting goals? So a lot of endurance athletes I’ve worked with over time, uh, spit out, uh, some incredible ambitious goal. Like I want to do, uh, the Ironman triathlon or I want to run an Ultra, I want to run 50 miles or I wanna run a hundred miles. And by the way, I have three kids. I run my own business and I commute for an hour a day and they’re piling on, uh, too much, uh, creating an imbalanced life, uh, with an unhealthy goal perspective, perhaps driven by, uh, marketing and consumerism forces because the people that are advocating the Ironman as the end all accomplishment and triathlon, uh, are building their brand rather than looking out for your healthy life balance with other things that you do. So maybe you can shift your goals to something that’s more appropriate, age appropriate, lifestyle appropriate. And I kinda hit that theme a lot when I talk about my, uh, my speed golf goals and my trying for the Guinness world record and how that brings out, uh, my competitive passion, my competitive intensity. It’s something that I never want to let go for the rest of my life. But this is certainly different than having an all consuming, all encompassing, physically exhausting journey on the professional triathlon circuit. When I was a young man, that would be a completely stupid thing to contemplate at this point in my life.

Brad: 09:50 Okay. So healthy goal perspective, uh, you also want to have a supportive, uh, family, community training partners environment. So whatever goals you’re pursuing, if you don’t have 100% buy in from your wife, your kids, your husband, uh, your elderly people that you’re taking care of, whatever’s going on in your life, your true core responsibilities, if that’s not supportive, it’s, if it’s in conflict with that, then we got some real problems because there’s going to be negative energy coming into the mix. And also see this quite often, uh, in the extreme endurance scene where people are doing high hour time consumption endeavors, that’s taking them away from perhaps a more important or more fulfilling responsibilities if you were to just face these issues. And sometimes it’s an escape, right? So, Oh my gosh, when my kids were of, uh, the, uh, the proper ages where they had an athletic experience of their own, I didn’t want to miss a single thing. I wouldn’t imagine doing a single workout that would take me away from soccer practice. Thankfully, I was the coach, so I had to be there. Uh, but I love to absorb every bit of that because it was over with so quickly and there’s, you know, the races will always be there, uh, when you’re ready. So there doesn’t have to have that sense of urgency that you’re missing out on all these more important things in life. Uh, so that, that would be a supportive, uh, situation, supportive environment.

Brad: 11:17 And then, uh, when it comes to scheduling and workout planning, I think it’s really important to cultivate intuition over a regimented schedule because the body, the process of fitness is dynamic. It happens in fits and starts. It’s not, you’re not a robot. And so we have to always keep that intuitive sense of what’s the right thing to do every day at the forefront of our training decisions rather than looking at a schedule that perhaps you purchase from, uh, an expert or looked into a book and it tells you what to do every day. I know a lot of us are drawn to that type of because it gives you that certainty and that ego gratification that you’re accomplishing something and you’re meeting your stated goals, but they might be in conflict with your wellbeing and your health. And that’s how people get over-trained and injured by adhering to a schedule that they didn’t need to or shouldn’t have.

Brad: 12:10 Um, then, uh, going down, another thing I would add on the list, more important than, uh, some consistent scheduling pattern is that you just accomplished some breakthrough workouts as Mark Sisson coined the term. Let’s see, 32 years ago, uh, the breakthrough workout as a workout that’s difficult and challenging enough to stimulate a fitness breakthrough so you can have all kinds of consistent patterns and get to the gym three times a week, every week for 27 weeks in a row or average 43 miles per week with your running when you’re training for a marathon. But if you don’t have those breakthrough workouts in there, those ones that approximate the incredible challenge on race day, the ones that push you to break through to a higher fitness level and of course are always paired by sufficient rest and recovery and easy workouts. That should be the centerpiece of your training rather than the obsession with schedule.

Brad: 13:04 And of course, we also want to have a, what I’ll call, um, a supportive lifestyle practices such as a commitment to flexibility, mobility, injury prevention. Uh, look on YouTube, Brad Kearns morning routine. It’s going viral, baby. It’s gotten a lot of views. I can’t believe it. Thank you. Uh, whoever’s watching. Uh, and this is something that I’m proud to say into the microphone that I do every single morning of my life without fail. Now on a streak that is past three years. In fact, a couple times when I missed due to let’s say an early morning flight or something, uh, I doubled up to make up for it. So I’m on the streak. And what I do is just this routine on the ground where I’m doing a good core exercise and also working my hip flexors, hamstrings and uh, building my overall fitness base so that when I do a proper workout session, I can launch from a higher fitness platform because I have this commitment to, uh, morning flexibility, mobility drills. It’s helped a lot and it takes me 12 minutes. I thought it was five minutes. And then when we filmed it to put it on YouTube, it actually took 12. So anyway, the first 12 minutes of my day, every day are we counted as a supportive lifestyle practices that’s going to help my fitness goals. And you could put a whole bunch of recovery strategies in there as well. Uh, such as a commitment to foam rolling, uh, whatever else it is that you’re doing, such as temperature therapy, hot sauna, cold plunge, which I’m such a big fan of. Uh, so those things are, are pretty darn important too. And then, uh, probably should be slighted up higher on the list, right? Right.

Brad: 14:42 There was sleep would be diet and cleaning up your diet. And I think what we see in contrast quite often is the extreme calorie burning athlete, whether it’s CrossFit or endurance, seeing triathlon, long distance running. A lot of times a lot of junk leaks into the picture in diet seemingly because the athlete, uh, gives him or herself a free pass to consume those extra calories because they’re burning so many calories. But here’s the deal. Your nutritional needs are heightened due to your athletic pursuits. So while we do give the free passes out and the athletes are fond of slamming the pizza and beer and the hot fudge sundaes or whatever to sort of celebrate the great efforts and the great commitment to calorie burning, uh, it would be a great idea to prioritize nutrient density, to support your athletic goals and make sure that you cover those bases and have an extremely nutrient dense diet, perhaps even more so than the slob next to you in the next cubicle who doesn’t exercise and fuels themselves on fast food all day. You might not get as fat as the next person who doesn’t burn any calories, but you’re going to fall short and you’re going to put yourself into high risk for disease patterns, breakdown, burnout, illness and injury.

Brad: 15:56 You need that good food. So how many was that, David? A? I said sleep. I said good stress management practices in life. I said a healthy perspective about goal setting rather than that, uh, imbalance or that instant gratification or doing goals that are too daunting for your lifestyle. That’s three. Number four. I said supportive family, community and training partners. Number five. I said, cultivate an intuitive approach, a more important than adhering to a fixed written schedule a number six, get those breakthrough workouts in there and emphasize those or prioritize those. A. Number seven, throw in the supportive lifestyle practices, like my flexibility, mobility drills that I do every day, and then optimize your diet. So that’s eight things on the list that come before the actual workouts and the scheduling of the workouts.

Brad: 16:46 Whew. Okay. Ward writes in a long time ago. Sorry guys. Thanks for being patient. Uh, thanks for the podcast. Brad. I want to throw in my 2 cents on sleep saysWard, I’ve continued to have disturbed sleep despite going keto, carnivore, fixing up my sleep hygiene, my sleep patterns, and I figured out it was my gut keeping me awake. Typically I have a big breakfast, like a ribeye, a big lunch, like a pound of grass fed hamburgers, some salmon and egg yolks, and that’s around 1:00 PM and then seven to eight slices of bacon before 3:00 PM and I sleep great. So he’s getting his last food in and his main foods coming in the morning. The last food’s coming around 3:00 PM and I’m sleeping better than I have in years. If I get sloppy and eat something around six or 7:00 PM, then my sleep is disrupted. I don’t know if this is just me, but the timing of eating has been magical for me. Thank you for the great podcast. Regards, Ward.

Brad: 17:45 And Oh boy, you’re certainly onto something there. And the research of Dr Panda at UC San Diego has exposed this really nicely that we have a digestive circadian rhythm that lines up with our circadian rhythm. In general our light and dark cycles, our sleep and wake cycles. So it’s very, very important to give the digestive system a break every day so that you can allow the other healing, repair and regenerative processes to take priority. And of course, the best time for that is at nighttime while you’re sleeping. So, uh, eating food after dark disrupts your digestive circadian rhythm in the same manner that blasting your eyeballs with artificial light after dark disrupts your circadian rhythm. So we want to find, uh, Dr Panda’s research advocating that you consume your calories and operate your digestive system. In a maximum window of 12 hours per day.

Brad: 18:45 So in other words, you turn on your digestive clock at 8:00 AM and finish by 8:00 PM and never, uh, outside that maximum window. Of course, we have a lot of talk in the ancestral health community about uh, eating in a compressed time window. Mark Sisson, a big fan of this and generally, uh, consumes all of his calories between 1:00 PM and 7:00 PM. So he’s on an 18 hour fasting pattern and a six hour eating window. Another important thing to understand when we’re talking about this digestive circadian rhythm is that any xenobiotic substance will turn on digestive function even if it doesn’t have calories. So anything that requires digestion and processing is going to count on your clock. And that was a huge revelation for me because, uh, I might be having a, uh, a cup of herbal tea at seven in the morning, not eating, I’m fasting till noon or whatever.

Brad: 19:46 And then I might have a few squares of dark chocolate at 9:30 PM or what have you. And so I’m outside that 12 hour digestive function window, even though my calories perhaps were only eaten between 12 noon or whenever I started eating. Uh, and then into my final couple squares of dark chocolate or whatever. So I had a, uh, devoted effort to tighten that up, realizing that even something as simple as herbal tea or swallowing vitamin pills or anything of that nature is turning on that digestive clock and speaking to that in the morning. Uh, the research is suggesting that it’s not a bad idea to turn on that digestive clock in the morning when you want to start operating at peak function, peak cognitive, peak physical function. When you want your energy, it doesn’t necessarily mean consumed calories. So maybe you feel like a fasting pattern is better for you, where you’re waiting till 12 noon to consume any calories.

Brad: 20:41 Maybe you’re one of those people that wants a high fat beverage in the morning, which of course gives you calories and turns on your digestive function. Uh, but I’ll do so something as simple as let’s say, having a drink of a kombucha one quarter kombucha, three quarters water. Uh, so something’s going on and my digestive tract has been, uh, triggered to turn on and get my energy levels going. So you can try that as a strategy, but respect that 12 hour window. Okay, good job ward. Way to prioritize your caloric intake to support sleep.

Brad: 21:15 Here’s Felix. I just heard about the poor guy with vitiligo. That’s a pigment producing the pigment, producing cells, stop producing melanin and lighten up out of sync with the surrounding skin. Uh, so Michael Jackson was a prominent sufferer that. You can probably reference, um, the, uh, the skin condition with some familiarity. Uh, Doctor Gundry in his book, The Plant Paradox, goes into detail and he is pretty darn sure that vitiligo is caused by an intolerance to lectins very well. The listener who wrote in a complaining about that, uh, might have increased his consumption of night shades while doing Keto. So nightshades are the group of plants that have that distinctive color. Eggplants and tomatoes things in that family night shade family. And it turns out that a lot of people are sensitive to them. And so, uh, the elimination of night shades, that’s part of the FODMAP diet where you’re eliminating a certain plant foods that you may be reactive to, uh, has resulted in great success for people, especially with mysterious inflammatory conditions, especially relating to skin conditions. So I’ve engaged with several people that have a very frustrating, uh, psoriasis that can’t be cured by drugs or, uh, by typical, uh, traditional approaches and have achieved success doing, uh, radical things like trying the carnivore diet.

Brad: 22:47 Dr. Paul Sandino, uh, references patient success with longterm conditions like psoriasis. Uh, other people are talking about how, uh, irritable bowel, fibromyalgia, inflammatory or autoimmune conditions can be improved when they, um, when the suffering is just too much. And you’re finally willing to try a dietary intervention. Some great successes have been reported out there. So what do you have to lose? Not much. And it’s funny because, uh, I’ve just in recent times, uh, come across to people where the idea was floated out there that, Hey, maybe you might even want to try a carnivore diet for 30 days because these people are healing miraculously. You can look at meatheals.com and see all these success stories or listen to McKayla Peterson on the Joe Rogan show. Talk about her transformation and health, uh, extreme health problems that immediately transformed when she eliminated all plant foods. It turns out a lot of people are reactive to, uh, to the anti-nutrients contained in all manner of fruits, vegetables, seeds, grains.

Brad: 23:53 So exclusionary diets, a pretty, pretty good strategy for longterm suffers. But I’ve heard recently, uh, of two people that don’t even want to try a dietary modification, they’re just not interested. So I guess I’m going to conclude they’d rather suffer with these horrible conditions that they’ve had for so long, uh, thinking that the diet is not going to matter, possibly influenced by, uh, someone in the medical profession that, that discounted the, uh, importance or the, uh, association of diet to psoriasis diet to irritable bowel colitis, what have you. So, you know, think what you want, uh, form your beliefs and spout them to the world. But I feel like it’s worth trying something, right? Especially when you have tremendous anecdotal evidence that people are healing from crazy stuff by changing their diet. Okay. That’s my pitch for the day. How about that?

Brad: 24:51 Okay, next. Hey Brad, thanks for all the great work on the podcast. I appreciate it. Thank you for writing in. My question is how do I, the middle aged novice trainee reconcile two diametrically opposed viewpoints like the Primal Endurance versus Brian MacKenzie’s CrossFit endurance? I’ve studied both and it seems like I can’t have it both ways or are they more similar than I think they are? Does it come down to N equals one? Okay, well that’s a great topic. It’s been bantered about extensively in the endurance community. So just to set the stage, and I did a great podcast with Brian MacKenzie early on, early in the archives, so go and look for that one. And Brian’s the guy who popularized the CrossFit endurance movement, applying the fundamentals of CrossFit, those explosive and varied, uh, training exercises to the specific goal of endurance performance. So historically a endurance athletes have trained in a pretty linear and narrow manner where the marathon runner, uh, is just going out there and trying to put in as many miles as possible in the straight forward exercise of running down the road.

Brad: 26:02 Same with the triathlete is swimming laps, peddling their bicycle and, uh, putting in miles on the road. And so we have these straightforward, uh, sports that require a tremendous amount of cardiovascular endurance and, uh, quite a bit of muscular endurance as well. Uh, but the training has been pretty specific and narrow. And so, uh, the evolution of this approach was to integrate things like, uh, brief explosive efforts or things that were, uh, considered cross training. So if you go and look at a CrossFit endurance workout model, you’re going to see people aspiring to perform in a marathon or an ultra or a long distance triathlon doing a set of box jumps or grabbing the heavy rope and doing the wiggle wiggle on the rope, working their upper body, doing pullups, uh, inverted handstands, all kinds of crazy stuff. Now what do you think happens when your system fatigues?

Brad: 27:00 At the end of a long distance endurance effort? So you see the marathon runners looking great at mile four, mile 12, and then at mile 20, they’re shuffling along because their hip flexors have blown out, their lower back is destabilized, everything’s fallen apart, and while they still have a massive aerobic engine, they’re not putting out a lot of explosive energy into each foot strike that’s getting them to the finish line at the pace that they want because their muscular endurance has fallen apart. So when you are not able to preserve optimal technique for the duration of your endurance event, you are going to suffer an extreme decline in performance. And that’s where these alternative training modalities might come in. So when you get to mile 20 on the marathon and that tremendous fatigue that’s occurred where the muscle breakdown is occurring, uh, you can’t, uh, approximate that in training day after day because you can’t run 20 hard miles every single day in training.

Brad: 28:01 But when you get into the gym and get under a loaded squat bar and do your seventh and eighth rep when your muscles are near failure point, you’re kind of in a way approximating what’s happening at mile 20 of the marathon. So you’re getting a tremendous training effect by doing the brief explosive work that has long been neglected by endurance athletes. Okay, that’s great. And now here we get to the complex part of the story. Your greatest return on investment as an endurance athlete is obviously going to be sport-specific training and improving your cardiovascular function, improving your aerobic efficiency. That’s the centerpiece of the primal endurance story that’s conveyed so well in the digital course and in the book is you’ve got to build that base and become more and more efficient at burning fat such that that you can proceed at a faster and faster pace and still be in the fat burning zone.

Brad: 28:56 So the majority of your training should be comfortably paced in the fat burning zone conveyed by the maximum aerobic heart rate of 180 minus your age and beats per minute. So now I’m almost 55 years old. My one 80 minus age magic number is one 25 beats per minute. That ensures that I’m doing an aerobic exercise that emphasizes fat burning and not drifting into those anaerobic heart rates that can cause a easy breakdown and fitness regression. So that’s the centerpiece of any endurance training program. Now, where’s the explosive stuff come in? A little goes a long way. And so during focus periods of your training where you’re introducing this high intensity stuff, you can deemphasize the aerobic work and all the miles and hours that you’re putting in in favor of putting in some impressive work in the gym and they all go hand in hand and they go well together.

Brad: 29:50 Especially when you follow a periodized approach, which is where you really focus on endurance for a dedicated period of time of the year where you’re just jogging, you’re pedaling, you’re building the base, you’re not risking injury by going faster and you’re getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And then one day you’re ready to introduce a high intensity phase of training where you might do shorter workouts at a faster pace and also might get into the gym and try some of this novel, uh, CrossFit endurance type of, uh, exercise where you’re, you’re challenging yourself in different ways than just jogging down the road. So they kind of go hand in hand or you could, if you’re confused and thinking in black and white, you might think they’re diametrically opposed. But the reconciliation here is that you dedicate the year to different types of training emphasis and including the third wheel on the tricycle, which is an emphasis on rest and recovery.

Brad: 30:49 So I think the big problem, the big mistake that people make as they’re trying to have it all and do it all, so they’re trying to keep their mileage up and then they’re going in the gym and doing these crazy CrossFit endurance workouts and getting sick, getting injured, getting whatever. So you can get to burnout in all different ways. You can get there by trying to blend both over distance and explosive training. You can get there by doing something like a CrossFit endurance protocol too aggressively and going there four days a week instead of one or two kind of thing. Or you can get there by just doing too much mileage and especially when you exceed aerobic heart rates, you’re just going to blow yourself up. That’s called chronic cardio that’s been covered at length. Uh, in the Primal Endurance book on the primal endurance.fit website, uh, on Mark’s daily Apple, A Case Against Cardio, the landmark post that was written, uh, what, um, 12 years ago, 13 years ago, and it’s still, uh, done a lot to, um, reshape the thinking of the traditional endurance approach. All right, thank you for that question, that lengthy reply. Okay, here’s some quicker ones.

Brad: 31:57 A nice compliment from Holger in Munich, Germany. Love to hear from ya from across the pond, man. Incredible. Thank you so much for writing. Holger says, I’ve just come across your podcast recently. It’s really inspiring, informative and motivating. I read a lot about nutrition myself with all the pros and cons of each kind. And it’s difficult for me as an outsider to decide who is right because there seems to be so many studies proving anything and everything. Holger likes the one saying that Coke is actually healthy and sugar is only an issue for the teeth. Wow. I’d never heard of that one, man. That’s pretty crazy. Uh, but to see you in the videos is real proof for me. What really works. I’m going to do the 21 Day Primal Reset myself. Thank you. So, all right, Holger, keep it up, man.

Brad: 32:41 Yeah, that is an excellent point that you can find studies that will support anything. This is why there’s so much controversy around the a new documentary that many people criticize as being laced with propaganda, but it’s backed by science. It’s backed by research and so is all kinds of commentary from the diametrically opposed dietary strategy. If we want to talk about vegan versus carnivore for a moment, both sides have tremendous support, uh, success stories and all that. But there also a tendency to make logically inaccurate or flawed conclusions such as, Hey, this amazing athlete just broke a record and he doesn’t eat meat. So, uh, this makes it healthy and optimal for peak performance. But it’s perhaps possible that the athlete is succeeding despite their diet, isn’t it? Yes, it is. Brad, thank you for putting that straight.

Brad: 33:39 So it’s really, really difficult when you have all these variables confounding variables to make direct conclusions and apply them to everyone. So yeah, the N equals one that means an experiment of one is highly relevant because you have to see what works for you and you know, measure very carefully as best you can, uh, any, any the impact of any dietary change. Uh, meanwhile, that’s why I like to look for common ground. And in my show with Rip Esselstyn, my old friend, my old triathlon compatriot, as you may know, he’s a prominent leader in the plant based community. So we have an extreme disparity point of view about what constitutes a healthy diet. But as you listened throughout the show, uh, we also have a lot of common ground to land on. And uh, the most prominent one being that you want to get the junk food out of your diet before we start talking about the critical distinctions between, uh, having a meat based diet or having a plant based diet, at least it’s not a Slurpee based diet. Right. We can agree on that. All right, next.

Brad: 34:38 Brian, I want to let you know that your podcast kicks ass. What a high compliment! I’ve been listening for about a month now and love the content. I’m an active 27 year old living with ulcerative colitis. Living the Keto lifestyle has kept me off medication for the past eight months. That’s a good little streak there, man. Hopefully it’ll open up doors to say goodbye to the medication forever. I’m still trying to dial in the no medication lifestyle though. That’s all right. Eight months is, you know, a short time respective to the rest of your life and getting off meds. So, uh, your podcast hits each category of my life. It’s great. Thank you so much Brian. All right man.

Brad: 35:20 People that was a great Q and A show. Keep it up. Please participate. Send your comments to get over yourself podcast@gmail.com and thanks for listening. Have a great day. Right

Brad: 35:47 thank you for listening to the show. We would love your feedback at getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com and we would also love if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop, iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews, and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars. And it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves cause they need to. Thanks for doing it.