(Breather) I really appreciate the thought-provoking questions sent in by listeners of this show, and it’s even better when people share a message showcasing their amazing progress!

In this breather show, I’m putting the spotlight on some of the most inspiring messages I’ve received, and of course, I’ll be answering some questions too!

In this episode, you’ll learn about the key to succeeding when it comes to your endurance goals, and share an inspiring story of how one listener was able to avoid back surgery (in fact, their own surgeon was the one who decided to cancel the procedure!) after making some serious lifestyle changes. I also explain the different causes of muscle soreness, as well as the most effective method for avoiding experiencing consistent soreness in your muscles post-workout.

I then touch on the topic of sauna use, specifically the issue of EMF exposure and infrared saunas, and the phenomenal benefits that come from engaging in environmental hormesis for stimulating cellular and hormonal responses. This leads into a discussion about Nourish Balance Thrive’s incredible detox protocol, which was how I found out that I had toxic plastic residue and petroleum byproducts in my bloodstream! 

I also answer a question about the best kind of sprinting shoes, and explain why the Vibram Five Finger shoes have been my go-to for the past 14 years, as well as share the name of a (sadly, now discontinued) style of New Balance sneakers that I love to wear when I’m not in my Vibrams. Then I share a great message from a listener who has experienced wonderful results from taking MOFO consistently. It really is so exciting when someone who has been using MOFO reaches out to express how much it has changed their life and how they feel on a daily basis (check out more success stories here if you’re curious!), and I also share the many benefits I’ve noticed from taking Ancestral Supplements products over the last two years. And, if you’re curious about trying out some Ancestral Supplements, head over to their website, and don’t forget to use code KEARNS for 10% off!

The episode ends with some important questions about fasting: who is it most appropriate for? Is it ever too much of a stressor on your body? Can you fast too frequently? Because there are many important external factors to consider when fasting, being aware of these factors will help you engage in this practice in a way that is not harmful or stressful to your body, but extremely beneficial. 

TIMESTAMPS:

A 48-year-old listener talks about his difficulty in keeping his heart rate at the aerobic pace he wants. (180 minus the age.) [01:34]

Scott from New Zealand talks about how he convinced his doctor NOT to put him on statins and instead took the natural route to being able to cancel his surgery. [04:04]

Jerome talks about how he has noticed so many people training incorrectly and gives suggestions. [09:54]

Muscle soreness is not a good idea. [14:29]

Jeff asks Brad to compare and contrast the different sauna opportunities. [15:21]

The sauna gives a good detox opportunity. [19:12]

Jeff also asks about what shoes you should wear to do sprinting? Look for a zero-drop shoe. [21:18]

David from Nova Scotia talks about how his training with MAF approach has taught him to be rested and relaxed before competing. David also asks for more advice on parenting and hon healthy sex life for men in the 40s or 50s. [24:22]

From James Hall: “What is the difference between fasting and fueling? [26:26]

How can I maintain muscle mass and keep good energy levels? [28:41]

Target your carbohydrate intake around periods of time where you are burning up those carbs. [30:09]

There is a difference in the carb intake for women compared to men. [34:46]

LINKS:

• Brad Kearns.com
• Brad’s Shopping page
• Primal Endurance Mastery Course
• Pavel Tsatsouline
• Firas Zahabi
• Almost Heaven saunas
• Vibram Five Fingers
• New Balance Minimus MT20
• Merrill Trail Glove
• Wim Hof Method
• Ancestral Supplements.com
• The Paleo Thyroid Solution
• The Keto Reset Diet 

QUOTES:

“If you get sore, that’s an indication that you overdid it, and your muscles are requiring repair, so the energy and the protein synthesis that occurs after a workout is going towards repairing the muscles, rather than making them bigger, stronger, or more fit.”

“If you’re trying to drop excess body fat, the surest path to get there is to first get metabolically healthy, and then engage in prolonged fasting and carbohydrate restriction to lower your overall insulin production.”

LISTEN:

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B.Rad Podcast

Brad (1m 35s): Hey listeners, thank you so much for writing in and setting up this wonderful Q and a show. This is actually going to be more of a community experience than straight question and answers because so many of the messages are people writing in sharing their successes and enthusiasm. So I think you’re going to get some inspiration and good fuzzy feelings at a lot of these comments. And then we’re going to get into some important questions and tips too. But let’s start out with the bright sunshiny message from signed by tri positive. This is a joyous day. I’ve been following you from your old podcast. I’m 48 years old and I turned triathlete about five years ago. I’ve been trying on and off for three years. Brad (2m 16s): And finally, today I did a 5k run, keeping my heart rate at or below his maximum aerobic number of 133 beats per minute. I gave up several times before I had to stop running before one kilometer and walk because my heart rate was too high. I’d revisit again and again, and this summer, once again, attempting many,180 minus age runs where I had to walk instead of make it all the way through. Finally in the spring, I was able to go one kilometer, keeping it at 132 and now he achieved all the way up to a 5k at an aerobic pace. And that’s such a great example with this short message of how the power of the aerobic training approach, where you’re allowed to build and build and build your fitness and your fat burning capabilities without the interruption caused by overly stressful workouts that give you muscle soreness and fatigue and put you at risk of breakdown and illness. Brad (3m 17s): So just by going comfortably, he was able to increase the duration of time that he could keep his heart rate, keep his running pace without having to walk and maintaining the same heart rates. So it takes a lot of patience. A lot of people are out there with these endurance goals, wanting to blow off a lot of extra energy from the many sedentary and comfortable, convenient patterns that we have in modern life, but there’s a proper way to do it. And there’s a crazy way to do it. That adds more stress to your life rather than helps you become a competent athlete. So monitoring that aerobic heart rate and doing the vast majority of your cardiovascular workouts at or below the 180 minus age number is the key to success with endurance goals. Brad (4m 5s): And the next letter comes from Scott Wilson. Oh my gosh. You’re going to love where all the listeners hail from. Cause we’re going to take an entire trip around the globe. It’s so cool to connect with people that far away, especially in the great nation of New Zealand. So Scott is a 57 year old new Zealander. I come to learn later after exchanging a couple of emails, a very athletic family with fabulous running sons that are out there breaking records and going on with great achievements. One of them came over to run at the university level here in America. So that’s a quite a long journey, but anyway, a lot of good stuff going on in the family. And in Scott’s case, he says, I started listening to you and Sisson back in 2010, you both changed my life. Brad (4m 51s): I had to have a second back surgery from old soccer injury. And while I was seeing the doctor, he told me I had to start pumping some statins cause my cholesterol was too high. And I wanted to try things out. I told the doctor before going to the pharmaceutical route and that succeeded very well for him. He took the paleo plunge. He spent 30 days sticking to the guidelines. And after one month, this is a guy in the doctor’s office facing his mortality and getting dispense these very high risk with high side effects statins that people use routinely, but they are very depleting to the body. And it’s sending you down a questionable road when you realize how easy it is to right your numbers with dietary modifications. Brad (5m 35s): So he decided what the heck, give me a month, Doc, before I go fill the prescription. And in 32 days, he had lost five kilograms of visceral fat. That is 12 pounds. Yeah, I wasn’t overweight to begin with, but he got rid of that belly fat making a huge metabolic transformation in a very short, his cholesterol went right below the right into the safe zone. So below the cutoff. So he was no longer a candidate for statins. Also my inflammation from my back went down and my surgeon was able to cancel my surgery. I’ve been pretty much pain free since then, that was back in 2012. Brad (6m 20s): He’s setting himself up for surgery and pharmaceutical intervention. And instead just by fixing up his diet, he’s feeling great. How inspirational is that? Wow, canceling surgery because the inflammation was corrected. I wonder how many surgeries have been had by people who easily could have made a different intervention and spared themselves the knife. And, Oh my gosh, I’m thinking of myself right now. Because as you may know, from listening to shows, I dealt with a gnarly, annoying knee injury that put me out of my precious high jumping and sprinting workouts for six months. That’s a long time for a knee injury that seemingly minor because I could do a lot of things without pain, like hike and walk and jog. Brad (7m 6s): I just couldn’t do my go-to workouts where I’d get pain there right in the knee joint. So I was thinking, look, this thing’s not getting better. I’m probably going to have to have surgery. I mean, six months, the guys in the NFL have a total destruction of the knee, major reconstructive surgery. And they’re back on the field and seven weeks or nine weeks. And so what’s going on here, man? Something’s wrong. I had a consultation with the top orthopedist that operates on all the, the US ski team members. I had an MRI scheduled on the books and then somehow, finally I got wise and started going to super high quality physical therapy providers, Rod Shorey. My old friend in Los Angeles, took one look at my knee. Brad (7m 49s): Literally he examined me for about two or three minutes and he said, there’s nothing wrong with your knee, Man, but your muscles are all tight, not a up and dysfunctional. And you have to work on improving your mobility in your hip area and your quads. I, what got further care up here in Lake Tahoe at PT Revolution, and these guys were fantastic. They dug into those muscles, loosened them up. I continued with the stretching protocols that were recommended by the physical therapists and all of a sudden, my knee’s fine as it was all along. It was just the referred pain from dysfunctional muscles. But who knows if I hadn’t seen these guys, maybe I would have marched all the way into Oh, an exploratory surgery or whatever they do for people like that in my case where they really can’t figure out what’s going on. Brad (8m 33s): So anyway, Scott Wilson says, thanks to you, Mark Sisson and Phil Maffetone, Kelly Starrett. These guys are my wing man. And now I can sort out. Anytime I do experience back pain, I can usually sort it out in about five minutes. It comes from sitting too long or overdoing it and workouts, but he goes through his stretching mobility sequences and he feels better. So I love your B.Rad Podcast. Scott says you’re quite inspirational. I laugh at least once during every podcast. Thank you very much. I liked that. I even liked your rapping. I wasn’t quite sure the first time. He goes on and says, I’m also trying out your micro workouts and the high intensity repeat training protocol. Brad (9m 15s): That’s the acronym coined by Dr. Craig Marker, where your sprint sessions, your explosive efforts are a little more gentle on the body because you take luxurious rest intervals and you don’t sprint for longer than between 10 and 20 seconds. And that sprint could be a kettlebell set. It could be an actual running sprint. It could be anything non-impact, but adhering to that high intensity repeat training protocol. He’s experiencing benefits from that. And what a great note he says, I’m going to go leave you a five star review. That’s the only choice you give me and Auckland New Zealand way. And in the next letter comes from Jerome. Brad (9m 54s): Riviere a French man, 42 years old living in the amazing wonderful Island of La Reunion in the Indian ocean. Yeah. Look, this place up. It’s off the coast of Madagascar. I almost went there for a race back in 1988 and I didn’t quite make it over there. The fax machines were going back and forth. I was trying to make it work and too bad cause they had a, a very prominent event. There was extremely grueling, long distance triathlon. I think it was a 75 mile bike ride, 20 mile run climbing up this volcano. It’s a volcanic Island. Pretty cool place. Maybe I’ll visit there someday, but it’s so awesome to know that we have B rad podcasts listeners all the way out there in La Reunion. Brad (10m 38s): And I calculated roughly that’s probably the furthest away you can get from the West coast of America. Because if you get on a plane, you could go in either direction. It was still be, I don’t know, 24 plus hours of flight time. So Jerome says, I love sports in general and running trail running. We have a renowned ultra trail run here called the Grand Raid takes place in October. Some of the best guys in the world come over. It says I wanted to thank you immensely for all the work you do for the endurance community and for others who want to live a healthy life. He’s participating in the super awesome Primal Endurance Mastery Course. And if you are an endurance athlete and you haven’t heard me talk about this before, please go over to Brad kearns.com shop page, and you can click on the primal endurance mastery course. Brad (11m 25s): It’ll take you over there. You can get nine introductory videos to find out all what’s going to go in this wonderful course. It’s the most comprehensive course about endurance training and racing you’ll ever find put together dozens of interviews with the greatest athletes and coaches of all time and all kinds of instruction material. So it’s a total immersive experience. It’s really great. We’re still getting a lot of compliments on it. So it’s ready there for you. Check it out. If you’re into endurance training and trying to pursue goals in this sport, which can easily become unhealthy and imbalanced. If you don’t do it the right way. The mastery course is what it’s all about. Jerome says I’m very sensitive to the health aspects because I learned myself and see all around me that sport can be a great thing if we do it a certain way, but a very sad thing. Brad (12m 12s): If we do it intensively all day long. Good job on the English man. I mean, can you imagine writing a letter in French to somebody? This guy’s killing it. I appreciate the very clear message that you’re giving. In endurance sports like running cycling trail, running over-training is often the rule because of the durability of the trainings and the mantra, no pain, no gain. And he’s pointing out some great insights that he’s pulled from some of the podcasts and from other leaders in the space. He likes that concept of greasing the groove. That’s a quote from Pavel Tsatsouline, the noted kettlebell trainer and greasing the groove is analogous to what I like to call micro workouts where you’re just doing a set here and there. Brad (12m 57s): You’re not exhausting yourself. You’re not fatiguing yourself, but you’re living this active lifestyle. And you’re sprinkling in these little bouts of explosive effort that over time, add up to have a massive, fantastic cumulative fitness benefit. So you’re greasing your groove, greasing your groove without burning yourself out. He also mentioned Firas Zahabi, the noted MMA trainer. There’s a great clip. You can find on YouTube of him talking on Joe Rogan podcast about not getting sore with your workouts. And he’s talking about training world champions, as well as novices. He does not want them to get sore because if he gets sore, that’s an indication that you overdid it and your muscles are requiring a repair. Brad (13m 43s): So the energy, the protein synthesis that occurs after a workout is going toward repairing the muscles rather than making them bigger or stronger, more fit. So you basically, if you overdid it, you have to repair that damage. And that gets in the way of graceful and uninterrupted fitness progress. Dr. Maffetone has said this for a long tim he does not think muscle soreness is a great idea and you should try to avoid it at all costs. Now you’re going to get sore when you do something new and unusual, right? So you can be the fittest person on the planet and when you go out there and take a few polls on the water ski rope for the first outing of the season, you’re probably going to get super sore because there’s almost no way to approximate water ski going in the gym and lifting weights. Brad (14m 29s): So anything that’s new and unusual, it’s going to get you sore and the other way to get sore. Those ecentric muscle contractions, where for example, you’re lowering the weight. So it’s not raising the weight that’s causing those micro tears in the muscles that results in soreness. It’s actually lowering the weight and fighting gravity in an ecentric manner. Another example of an ecentric contraction is running downhill, right? That’s why downhill running makes you so sore is you’re landing. You’re absorbing the impact, but it’s sort of in a way that’s stretching the muscle causing micro tears. So by training, within your capabilities, not extending yourself too hard and pushing yourself too hard with more reps and more sets, you’re going to be able to avoid this recurring muscle soreness that easily can lead to an overly stressful workout program. Brad (15m 21s): So he mentioned Maffetone. He mentioned Craig Marker, the hit versus hurt. We have a whole show on that concept. So please listen to that. He listened to the Ted talk that I referenced often by Dr. James O’Keeffe. So this guy is definitely doing his homework and putting all these insights together to have a graceful and enjoyable approach to endurance training down there in Lafayette Union. Thank you so much for the letter Jerome. And next, Jeff writes in and asks about the compare and contrast the different sauna opportunities, the infrared sauna versus the traditional hot sauna where you’re getting to the high temperatures or they call it a dry sauna. Brad (16m 3s): I’m 44 year old looking to be the best version of myself. Thank you so much, Brad. And can you answer these questions? So I’ve looked into this and I, the guys I follow and respect a lot .Kelly Starrett talks about this really nicely. He really wants to see you in the hot, dry sauna and the elevated temperature causing profuse sweating is where you get some really nice detoxification benefits. My former podcast guest, Chris Kelly is also big on this idea that a dry sauna, hot, dry sauna is a great way to detox. By contrast, the infrared sauna is not so hot in there that it’s going to prompt, profuse, sweating. Brad (16m 44s): It has sort of a different effect where it kind of cooks your body like a microwave. So you enjoy those cellular benefits of a sauna experience, but in a different manner than the dry sauna, because I believe the infrareds will only go up to 130 degrees or so I’ve had a few visits in there and those are nice and have a lot of benefits. Some people are concerned about the EMF exposure from infrared sauna. So you want to get a model that is sort of EMF certified is not being a concern there. Ben Greenfield talks about that a lot, and I believe he touts one of the brands that I was arguing that there’s no EMF concerns with that sauna, but maybe some of the cheap ones that you find might be giving you some exposure to electromagnetic fields that could have an adverse health impact. Brad (17m 34s): So do a little research there, but with the dry sauna, you know, I’m a huge enthusiast of it. These wonderful kits from Almost Heaven Sauna are so easy to put together with just a handyman and boy, you are good to go with wonderful temperature therapy at your disposal. Oh my gosh, I am so dialed with my chest freezer for the cold water exposure anytime I want. And then right there, a few steps away entering the Almost Heaven barrel sauna and heating that thing up to over 200 degrees, “environmental hormesis”, Paul Saladino calls it when you expose yourself to extreme temperatures in a therapeutic manner and get all these wonderful antioxidant immune supporting anti-inflammatory cognitive function, benefits both hot and cold on a similar, in a similar realm stimulate these great cellular and hormonal responses. Brad (18m 29s): So I’m a big fan, but I do like to get into the really hot temperatures and I go for it, man. I do the sauna on a double cycle so I can get it even hotter. And then as soon as I enter my hot dry sauna, I will commence a set of 40 pushups and 40 squats and that’ll get me sweating really quickly. And then I just lie there and relax. And it’s the most relaxing sensation. I feel like I enter a trance-like state where I’m not falling asleep when it’s 200 degrees in there, but I’m just so relaxed and laying there letting the sweat pour out. And then at the appropriate time, you definitely don’t want to overdo it. And I actually have on a couple of times, maybe stayed in there too long where afterward I kind of feel a little goofy for a while. Brad (19m 12s): So there’s a sweet spot that you’ll learn really easily when it comes to exposing yourself to the, the super hot dry saunas. But Chris Kelly Nourish Balance Thrive has a great detox protocol. If you’re concerned about that stuff. And gee, I wasn’t too concerned about it until I came up with my comprehensive testing that I ran through the Nourish Balance Thrive program. And it was identified that I had toxic plastic residue and also petroleum byproducts in my bloodstream. Nasty! Speculated that possibly from consuming plastic water bottles that had been heated up in the sun. And also maybe from growing up in the San Fernando Valley and breathing nasty air. Brad (19m 57s): When I was a young guy for many years, that’s one functional medicine, healer speculated, and she has numerous clients that the same, where they grew up in a horrible polluted urban air and still showing the impact in, in blood results. And so the detox protocol that Chris Kelly recommends in response to getting this crap out of my bloodstream once and for all is to in a fasted state, go into the sauna, sweat profusely, but pop a niacin before you head in there. And you know, the true niacin they have now, anti flush niacin supplements. And so I’m going for the flesh. Brad (20m 37s): I’m going for the straight stuff. And you take a little bit of niacin. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried that, but boy, your skin gets all tingly. You can turn red and it could be a little bit uncomfortable at first to have this huge experience of dilating blood vessels throughout your body, and then entering the sauna to sweat it out. But boy, it’s pretty, it’s pretty intense and it, it feels great. And then when you’re sweating profusely, you immediately go into the shower and scrub your skin aggressively all over your body with Dr. Bronner’s or another natural high quality, like the Dr. Bronner’s Castiel soap. So that is a detox protocol. Continue fasting for a little bit after that. Brad (21m 19s): And you’re on your way to cleaning up your act. Okay. People, yeah. Go look at Almostheaven.com and see what kind of sauna opportunities they have. Maybe it’s time for you to get one in your backyard or your garage or your deck. Okay. Also asked in the same email, Jeff was wondering, what shoes do you wear to do sprinting cross-training or jogging and running long distance? So I’ve been wearing the Vibram five fingers for 14 years now, and I have no problem sprinting in them. No problem taking long hikes in them or jogging or what have you, but it takes a while to acclimate. So I strongly recommend getting them minimalist, footwear, and trying to get a more minimalist experience in your life. Brad (22m 6s): A starting point would probably be walking around the house barefoot as much as possible. And then just going for some of these shoe opportunities and integrating them carefully and steadily into your routine so that you don’t have a traumatic experience. Like so many people relate that they, they took off their cushy, cushy running shoes, donned a pair of Vibrams and got a muscle injury. Of course you’re going to, because you’ve been living in lifetime wearing cushy shoes. But after this long, the Veep rooms are my go-to shoe for doing a lot of activity, especially in the gym and lifting weights. They’re really nice to have. I mean, you can see some of the enthusiasts are lifting weights barefoot these days. Cause you get the best proprioception when your actual bare feet are touching the ground and hoisting away, it gives you kind of an advantage because you can see where the balance point is much better than wearing clunky shoes. Brad (22m 58s): But beyond Vibrams with a little more protection, our, the great model called the New Balance Minimus MT20. And I go on eBay and look for the used pairs because they don’t make this model anymore. Same with my favorite pair of Vibrams. The Bikila LLS is no longer made. And so I’m always looking and looking on eBay for used pairs that’ll come up. Yeah. Th the minimus MT20 also has zero drops. So there’s zero elevation change between the heel and the toe. And that’s a term that you want to look for that zero drop or minimal drop. Maybe you’ll get a shoe with three millimeters or four millimeters, And then work your way toward being able to function in a zero drop shoe. Brad (23m 43s): The Merrill Trail Glove is also a great zero drop shoe and there’s different models and versions of that. But Merrill makes a really nice shoe. So I’ll look for those. That’s my answer. Thank you so much for, for writing about sauna and footwear David is writing in from Nova Scotia. So if you’re keeping track, Oh my gosh, we got New Zealand. We got La Reunion. And now we got Nova Scotia. Thank you so much. You and Mark for your work. I found primal endurance four years ago after hearing you, Brad, on The Trail Runner Nation podcast. Oh yeah. I love those guys and go listen to that podcast if you’re into ultra running. Brad (24m 23s): So your advice has really helped me. I adopted a MAF approach and have remained mostly injury free for years. I was able to build up and finish a 50 miler and two 50 Ks in the last few years. With way less training mileage than most experts would recommend. I went into these races, rested and relaxed and enjoy the experience of delivering that all out maximum effort on race day, rather than, you know, killing yourself in training, leading up to these races, which is what happens to a lot of the runners there on the starting line. They’ve done a ton of hard work to get there, but they’re also a little bit depleted and not at full strength. And then the race really, really gets you. It really takes a lot out of you. Brad (25m 3s): David also says I’ve been doing micro workouts walking every day after I dropped my kids at the bus. JSW just F ing walk. That’s been inspired by listening to the podcast. So thank you and boy, David, thanks a lot for, for listening and writing in that’s really great. And he says, Hey, if you’re looking for new exciting subjects, I’d love to hear more advice about parenting. I have a five-year-old and an eight year old maximum aerobic function training. We can never get enough of that message. And maybe for topics about a healthy sex life for men in our forties and fifties. Brad (25m 46s): And Oh my gosh, your wishes come true. Because just before this show, we published the insights on testosterone, libido, and healthy sexual function. So we’re trying to hit all those hot topics and being rad in life. Yeah. Thank you for riding in David. Next, we go to Minnesota and Terry Ingram writing in. Thank you for everything you do in the world of nutrition and wellness. Your personality resonates with the title of the podcast. All right. And like you humility sense of humor. I’ve learned so much from you also a 58 and like so many others. I’ve turned my life around learning how to fuel my body with nutrient dense foods and daily movement of my body. I’m really enjoying the MOFO pills. Brad (26m 27s): I think they definitely help also working or the cold showers and daily breathing exercises I’m doing with the Wim Hof method. Wim Hof says I’m getting high on my own supply and you say, I’m getting over myself. So we’re all good going through. Maybe I’ll meet you one of these days. The, the world opens back up. And thank you so much for writing Terry.James Hall, frequent writer and listener, always with some good insights. He wants to know about striking a balance between fasting and fueling, especially when you’re training through cold British winters. Hey, interesting topic, James. And I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Brad (27m 7s): I’ve actually been personally on a kick to make an effort to consume more nutritious food inspired by folks like Dr. Tommy wood, Chris Kelly from nourish balance thrive, Robb Wolf’s recent show. And this concept, this idea that when you’re super fit and active, when you have good blood work, when you have good body composition, you stand to benefit less from fasting and even a carbohydrate restriction in the ketogenic realm than someone who has some metabolic damage that they’re trying to recover from, or having a frustrating time trying to drop excess body fat. Brad (27m 48s): So if you’re trying to drop excess body fat, the surest path to get there is to first get metabolically healthy and then engage in a prolonged fasting and carbohydrate restriction to lower your overall insulin production. That’s also one of the key health factors to avoid the epidemic disease patterns in the modern world, which would be a metabolic syndrome, type two diabetes, obesity, and related cancers and heart disease dysfunction from, from overeating. But I think we all have to address this challenge personally and individually, and for in my personal experience, you know, I’m concerned with peak performance as much as avoiding disease risk factors, but in the absence of disease risk factors, it seems to make sense to me, what Rob Wolf and Tommy wood and Chris Kelly are saying. Brad (28m 42s): Robb Wolf great one-liner from the show. He said, if you want to live longer, lift more weights and eat more protein, right? So if you can maintain that muscle mass, that’s going to be one of the most profound longevity factors identified. And in order to maintain muscle mass, you have to work the muscles, right? You have to throw some iron around or stretch the X three bar, or pull the stretch cords, put your body weight under resistance from doing pushups, kettlebells, whatever it is. And when you’re working those muscles hard, especially as you advance into the older age groups, and you have less ability to synthesize protein efficiently, less ability than, you know, someone like my son in his twenties, who can, you know, recover more easily than me from throwing weight around. Brad (29m 28s): That’s. When you want to really look at how to optimize your diet. Dr. Tommy Wood had a great insight on our show back in 2018, I believe. And he counsels his athletic types to eat as much nutritious food as possible until they gain one pound of body fat. And then you dial it back. Obviously you’re eating plenty and you’re starting to add fat. So that’s kind of your balance point right there, pretty simple. But the idea that the athletic type who’s performing physical feeds has a much greater nutritional need than someone who is less active and doesn’t demand that much from their body. Brad (30m 9s): So he, you know, he, he made the Quip. I put it in the recent book, you know, he says, I’m looking at these diet reports from the athletes and they’ll write down breakfast, two eggs and half an avocado. And he’s back, he’s coming back at them saying, come on, man, eat a real breakfast, make it six eggs and a full avocado, right? You’re an athlete. You need the energy, you’d need the nutrition. And as I talk about with my experience with ancestral supplements and trying to up my game, when it comes to consuming liver, liver, and other organ meats and supplement aggressively, I really do think it’s made a big impact in the last two years that I’ve been pounding the ancestral supplements and making a concerted effort to consume more liver and more super foods in my diet, the pastured eggs, the oily cold water fish, like sardines and salmon, the, the steak, like the rib-eye meat on the bone and all the things that I’m emphasizing in my diet more so than I was before, I feel like I have an overall improvement, a higher baseline daily routine, energy level, and a little bit better recovery, and most profoundly a reduction in the symptoms and the severity of these crash and burn patterns that I’ve experienced for my entire adult life going back to my triathlon times where I’d feel great, I’d feel great. Brad (31m 30s): I’d train hard. I’d be with the big boys. And then out of nowhere, sometimes I’d just be down and out for maybe two days, three days, maybe a week where I just had subpar daily energy levels, feeling lazy, not feeling like doing my regular workout patterns, and then I’d come out of it and bounce back and feel fine. But you know, the genetic differences between different athletic specimens and the, the optimal training load is so disparate that you really have to figure these things out for yourself. And these crash and burn patterns were probably be largely me trying to keep up to a regimen that was too much for me, but I also feel like it’s so difficult to nourish yourself and recover optimally with, you know, impeccable dietary habits, every single day that I do think the supplements like MOFO and the other ancestry, ancestral supplements can really help and also pointing your focus more toward those super foods, like the pastured eggs and trying to get some liver down. Brad (32m 33s): And I know liver is not the greatest tasting food on the planet, but the thing that’s really worked well for me is thawing out that liver a bit. Usually it comes frozen from the store, right? And then chopping it into tiny little blocks and salting the heck out of it and getting it back in the freezer to the point where you’re consuming raw frozen liver in these little cubes, and you just chew on them, they don’t have that strong taste. So basically you have to take the container out of the freezer till it thaws, just enough to where you can break off a piece from the, the cuts you’ve already made, you know, just enough to be able to chew it and then put it back in the freezer. And boy, it’s made it so much easier for me to consume liver on a regular basis. Brad (33m 15s): And even that doesn’t work for you, then pound those supplements and really give it a nice test run for 90 days where you’re taking a MOFO and perhaps some complimentary products like the grass fed liver or the grass fed organ mix. You can find everything on Ancestral Supplements.com and use that discount code Kearns to get 10% off. Yeah, I’m, I’m big fan of trying everything possible, optimize lifestyle for peak performance. And of course, speedy recovery being the key to all that. Okay. So there’s less justification for extended aggressive fasting and zero carb being on the diet because a high intensity workout is a stressor in a similar manner to fasting, right? Brad (34m 3s): So when you’re burning up a lot of energy on a tough workout, you are starving yourselves of energy, just like you are when you don’t eat a meal. And so if you stack those right, if you’re fasting, doing tough workouts and then bringing in wild card, number three, in my case, being in the advanced age groups, those could be an accumulation of stressors that are a bit too much. And I have found, especially in conjunction with my high intensity workouts, I believe it’s benefiting me to go home and slam extra food and extra carbs in the aftermath of these challenging workouts. So I do like the strategy of targeting your carbohydrate intake around periods of time where you’re burning up those carbs. Brad (34m 47s): And we know with the caveat that when you’re consuming carbs, without burning off a lot of energy, that’s when we get into the metabolic patterns that are super unhealthy and leading to a lifetime of disease, demise and accelerated aging. So that’s the essence of modern disease is eating too much, eating too often and forcing your body to process these extra calories. That’s a big difference from coming home from a great, wonderful outing, and then hitting the, the nutritious food hard. Again, there’s no justification for consuming nutrient deficient carbohydrates, like a Slurpee or a root beer or a bag of Skittles after your workout. Brad (35m 32s): So we’re talking about things that provide some nutritional value. Maybe you’re going to go for the sweet potatoes or the extra fruit, or in my case, the peripheral carbs that come from a high-fat dairy products. High Cacoa percent is dark chocolate, the nut butters like Brad’s Macadamia Masterpiece. Yeah. Now we’re talking, Ben Greenfield makes a good point here to where he is going for the best of both worlds, where he does engage in long periods of fasting and ketogenic type eating patterns. But he also enjoys these evening celebratory binges in the kitchen with his family, where they’re making concoctions. He might be pounding a large dose of carbohydrates in the evening time on a day where maybe he didn’t eat much before 12 noon, but then he’s doing these high intensity workouts. Brad (36m 19s): And so by enjoying his evenings, and I’ve been known to enjoy my evening, popcorn binges too. You’re ensuring that your glycogen is reloaded and that you’re achieving hormone balance and all these things that we want when we’re performing hard and doing these difficult workouts. Because again, and a lot of females experience this when they’re pushing their bodies hard and also trying to go into a keto to drop a little more excess body fat and things that are contrary to their genetic expectations for health and fertility, right? The female body does not want to shed excess body fat in the same manner that the male does, because if fat is essential for reproduction, where in the males case being lean is essential for reproduction, right? Brad (37m 6s): If you drop excess body fat, you’re going to get a testosterone boost where the females a little bit more high risk in this whole realm. So what we see often with females who are energetic and burning a lot of exercise calories, and maybe falling a little bit short on the diet side, trying to restrict calories is these compensatory mechanisms kick in that can be no bueno that can make you feel tired, sluggish, lower daily energy levels, poor recovery from workouts because your body’s struggling through what it perceives to be a sort of a, a starvation journey where you’re burning all this energy up every day, not eating sufficiently and needing to dial everything down, just so you can basically be in survival mode. Brad (37m 53s): And Elle Russ talks about this a lot in her great book, The Paleo Thyroid Solution, where she was checking off all the boxes she was doing great. She was doing hot yoga several days a week. She was going for her lengthy swims and two hour hikes and trying to keep the carbs down and align with ketogenic dietary principles. And all it was doing was down-regulating her thyroid function. A lot of people get diagnosed with adrenal fatigue, adrenal dysfunction, hypo thyroid, and this is all a body reacting to what is in total, an overly stressful pattern. So back to the male side, I clearly identified that I was higher age groups doing crazy ass sprint and high jump workouts are poorly designed. Brad (38m 41s): I might add. So when I transitioned over to the high intensity repeat training protocol, where I was getting more rest in between hard efforts, rather than trying to be a bad-ass and do great sprinting, and also not rest that much between efforts, because I have such a great endurance base and I can make it through the workout. It’s not, it’s not about making it through the workout. It’s about how will you respond in the next 36 to 48 to 72 hours? Right? So I’m doing these workouts that are by design a little bit too tough in the higher age group and making a devoted restriction of all the, the processed foods and keeping my carbohydrate intake down by default almost but not making that concerted effort to eat as much nutritious food as possible. Brad (39m 24s): So it’s been a winner for me to go looking for, you know, ample consumption of the good food, not worrying too much about extended fasting. I routinely will fast maybe till mid day, but a lot of times I’m not as worried about that as I was when I was, for example, deep in the research of writing the book, The Keto Reset Diet with Mark Sisson, you know, early on in the ketogenic movement. And we were pricking our fingers every single day and testing our blood ketone levels and engaging in extended fasting. And I think overall that was a little bit too much for me personally, again, looking at my body composition, my blood work, and having less justification to dial down everything. Brad (40m 6s): So think about where you are on that spectrum and make sure that you don’t kick in these compensatory mechanisms where you feel tired and sluggish because you’re training too hard, so hard and not consuming a ton of food. Hey, that’s a ton of fun right there.Thank you listeners for listening and for writing in, we love to hear from you. We answer everything. We consider everything. So if you have suggestions feedback for the show questions, you’d love answered right in to podcast@bradventures.com. Podcast@bradventures.com. And if you can take just a brief moment to leave a five star review for the show that would be greatly appreciated. Brad (40m 50s): This is how more people find the show. Now it’s much easier to leave a review. I think you can do it on your mobile device with Apple podcasts and the many other podcasts players that are offer the chance to leave a review and boy sharing the show. Also, you can take a screenshot and text it and they’ll find it themselves, or the wonderful podcast app that I use called overcast allows you to push a button while you’re listening to the show and create a clip of up to 90 seconds in length. And then text that over to someone you could say, listen to this guy blab. And do you think he knows what he’s talking about? Whatever you want to do. It kind of preface the, the text message they push play, they listened to it, and then they go and find the show and become a regular listener. Brad (41m 32s): So thanks for making the effort. I appreciate you so much. Have a great day.

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