Listener questions hitting hard from around the world, including the UK, the Dolomites in Italy, Australia, and the USA.
In this show we’ll discuss a variety of topics, including: concerns that fasting can slow down metabolism at the age of 64; a 45-year-old dad of a youngster in the UK is getting all dialed in on exercise, diet, micro workouts, cold exposure, nature exercise, and improving eyesight naturally—all thanks to lots of podcast consumption—so inspiring!
A listener also asks if your MAF heart rate is burning fat, isn’t everyone “fat adapted”?, a question that sparks a discussion around the idea of fasting with butter to minimize stress and guard against potential gluconeogenesis (recalling former podcast guest Dr. Michael Platt, author of Adrenalin Dominance, suggesting to take a spoonful of MCT oil in the morning to prevent excess cortisol (something that can happen from fasting in those who are vulnerable). We then talk about exactly what kind of rest to take between all-out sprints and discuss the important caution of warming up a bit before doing a micro workout (something I haven’t sufficiently emphasized when talking about hauling off a set of pull-ups or deadlift!). Good times, good information, join the fun, and be sure to email any questions you want to be answered to podcast@bradventures.com!
TIMESTAMPS:
Larry is concerned about intermittent fasting and its effect on metabolism. [01:40]
It is believed that we burn around the same number of calories every day regardless of whether we exercise or not. [04:40]
When you are in your later years, it is extremely important to maintain your lean muscle mass. [07:34]
If you are able to just eliminate nutrient deficient processed foods, you will go a long way toward regulating your appetite. [10:15]
Rich Vaughn from the UK talks about Brad’s podcasts bringing Brad to review many important facts. [11:18]
Brad has tried successfully to wean his eyes from needing glasses. [16:54]
What does Brad feed his dog? [17:44]
Ken Phelps asks: if you stay at or under your MAF heart rate are you burning all or mostly fat? Aren’t we all fat adapted? [21:32]
Sue Simmons asks about the fasting protocol for a slender person. [26:59]
Bob Lockwood asks about how restful the rests should be between sprints. [31:45]
A question from Alan in Italy, who is worried about not warming up before doing micro workouts. [34:45]
LINKS:
- Brad Kearns.com
- Brad’s Shopping page
- The Obesity Code
- Dr. Herman Pontzer podcast no. 1
- Dr. Herman Pontzer podcast no. 2
- Dr. Robert Lustig podcast
- Two Meals a Day
- The Way of the Peaceful Warrior
- Dr. Shanahan – How to Become Cancer-proof
- Paleomedicina Clinic
- Allison Gannet on Cancer
- Ted Naiman podcast
- Jake Steiner podcast
- Mark’s Daily Apple
- Adrenaline Dominance
LISTEN:
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- Inside Tracker: Ultra-personalized blood, genetic, and fitness data all-in-one online portal
- Primal Blueprint 21-Day Primal Reset: Online multimedia Mastery Course to get healthy and drop fat the right way
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B.Rad Podcast
Brad (01:41):
Greetings listeners, Guess what we have? Q and A Hey, Hey, Thank you so much for writing into the show, sharing, connecting, making this a community effort. I look forward to diving into these wonderful questions. Uh, some of them comments, feedback, topics for discussion for all of us to listen and enjoy. Go ahead and participate. Send a note to podcast Brad ventures.com. Our first question comes from Larry and it’s about intermittent fasting for 60 year olds. Hey, this guy’s organized. He puts the subject right there in the start instead of having to dig through a long note. But anyway, Larry says, Hey, your podcast is one of my favorites. Thanks for your work. Well thank you for writing in. That’s super nice to hear man, since, uh, I’m sitting here in a closet slash recording studio, talking to a microphone who knows what’s going on and where this message is emanating.
Brad (02:38):
That’s why I love to hear from people super far away. Uh, got an email from LaReunion island, which is off the coast of Madagascar. I almost went there for a race 30 years ago, but I didn’t go. And now I get to connect with a listener from there, from Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, all over the place. Super fun. Anyway, Larry says, my question is about intermittent fasting and metabolism. I’m concerned about messing with my metabolism, lowering it accidentally at my age of 64. I’d be hesitant to intermittent fast every day. And I believe that an everyday intermittent fasting would possibly lower metabolism. YouTuber. Thomas DeLauer supports this concern of mine. What’s your opinion on the matter? I realize you get many questions, it would be really cool to see your point on this issue. Thanks and keep up the great work.
Brad (03:27):
Now it’s true you can lower your metabolism. You can slow your metabolism and engage a lot of different undesirable mechanisms to do so when you systematically eat fewer calories. What happens is the body goes into compensatory mode. Many people are familiar with the thyroid dysfunction that sometimes is associated with starvation diets. So one thing that is probably not necessary for health, vitality, peak performance, longevity is to systematically restrict your caloric intake. How do you know if you’re doing that? It’s possible that you might feel sluggish, tired. You might have some blood work that comes up unsatisfactorily. You might have less energy, less motivation to do workouts, as you normally did before you started some strange dietary strategy in the name of health, or perhaps the goal of dropping excess body fat. Dr. Jason Fung talks about this a lot in The Obesity Code, where if you just cut back a certain number of calories per day, and you get out a calculator and decide that if you eat 300 fewer calories, then you burn every day.
Brad (04:40):
Then in six months time, you’re gonna have lost 12 pounds. It’s gonna be fantastic. And I forget the exact name of the study. It was the women’s health initiative. Ooh, maybe I do have a good memory after all, cause I’m eating enough food and my brain’s online. Anyway, the subjects of the study diligently track their calories, the caloric expenditure for seven years. And the prediction was that they were on course to lose like 20 pounds in a year. And after seven years, it was like 0.6 pounds difference from when they started. In other words, the restricted calories had no effect on long term fat reduction. So how the heck are we going to drop excess body fat? And how we going to do things like intermittent fasting and enjoy the health benefits without turning down the flame. And boy, this is where we open up the idea to 25 different books that you could read, cover to cover, uh, get further knowledge and also get further confusion.
Brad (05:40):
But I’m trying to simplify it here and cough out a pretty good answer. And one of them is that you could, occasionally, engage in a restricted calorie day or week or month, or what have you, if you’re trying to shed excess body fat, but it’s a good idea to return to a homeostasis situation where you’re eating the number of calories that you require for maximum energy vitality, hormonal function, immune function, all those good things. And so this is kind of this under the radar strategy that I’ve been taking more interest in lately when it comes to the goal of reducing excess body fat, rather than that regimented strategy of carefully tracking your calories each day. I also had Dr. Herman Pontzer on the show for two lengthy discussions of his life’s work as an evolutionary anthropologist with an expertise in caloric expenditure by primates.
Brad (06:35):
And he contends strongly that we burn around the same number of calories every day, regardless of whether we exercise or not. So we have all these powerful set point mechanisms in place to kind of keep us surviving when caloric expenditure varies. Obviously this is evolutionary honed adaptation for at times in our ancestry, our ancestors did not always have sufficient calories and they had to remain alert, strong, energetic, maintain muscle mass. And you’ve heard about some of that stuff from the ketogenic diet, where you get better at muscle protein synthesis when you are restricting carbs, because you need to, you have to be, uh, avoiding, breaking down protein into glucose, and that’s why you start making keytones one of the reasons and all that great stuff. So especially at one’s advanced age, we have another huge objective and that is to maintain muscle mass as we age.
Brad (07:34):
And when you’re in the 50 to 60 category in the 60 to 70 category, it becomes increasingly important to keep that lean muscle mass on your body rather than experience the aging accelerator that is sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is a loss of muscle mass associated with aging. Robb Wolf had one of the most epic quotes ever on my podcast of any of the episodes when he said, if you want to live longer, lift more weights and eat more protein. So perhaps instead of this calorie restriction approach you can increase your protein intake, cut back on refined and process carbohydrates. If you’re trying to drop excess body fat, you might even want to cut back on your overall fat intake. And then up the protein, maintain that muscle mass, get the excess body fat off your body. And once you do, you can kind of recalibrate your body will likely adjust.
Brad (08:30):
Jason Fung has some studies mentioned in his book where the opposite effect occurred, where people who deliberately consume an extra 300 calories a day or whatever it was, did not gain the predicted amount of excess body fat because their bodies found ways to up-regulate and burn more calories. One of them is this fidgeting concept, which, uh, you’ll hear from Dr. Pontzer introducing in his shows too, where you’re tapping your legs. You’re jumping up and down a little faster than the average person. You’re a little more busy, busy body around the house. You’re shuffling up the stairs to get a, a pencil rather than, being too lazy to get the pencil. So all these ways that we burn off extra calories, some people have some genetic adaptations here where they naturally carry excess body fat because they are naturally more active throughout their life.
Brad (09:25):
And the curse of being, uh, naturally less active and naturally prone to carrying excess body fat. Again, these are strongly genetically driven. You tend to be lazier, move slower burn, fewer calories at rest, all those kind of things. So to kind of close up this line of questioning line of discussion, I would say that you can bob and weave a little bit, that’s a boxer analogy where you go in for the big punch, and then you kind of hop back and, and keep your day instance and try some occasional extended fasting, occasional days of caloric restriction, perhaps a 24 hour fast once a week, or whatever it is that your goal could be, that would be a stretch for you, and then return to basics, uh, later on. But then let me bring in one more insight from another great podcast I had with Dr. Robert Lustig to really simplify matters.
Brad (10:15):
And that is if you are just able to eliminate nutrient deficient processed foods, you will go a long way toward regulating your appetite, your body fat levels, and improving your general health because the brain’s appetite regulatory mechanisms, your hunger satiety mechanisms are all royally screwed up by processed foods, which compel you to overeat and have addictive properties. In Two Meals a Day Mark Sisson and I talk about ditching the big three, and those would be refined industrial seed oils, probably the number one priority, and then refined grains and sugars, sweetened beverages. And that would be grains, number two, sugars and sweetened beverages, number three, but definitely getting the seed oils out of your diet. And then things get a lot easier including trying to go on a, a focus period of fat reduction by cutting back on your meals or taking fasting and so forth.
Brad (11:18):
Okay. How’s that, Larry? Thanks so much for writing in Rich Vaughn from Beverly in east Yorkshire, United Kingdom writes in and he says, Hey, I got a super long lead up here, but the topic is on the chronic approach to exercise and some health and fitness challenges. Thank you so much for your podcast for fantastic source of variety and information. The insights that you offer come strangely at just the right times. Oh, isn’t that cool to listen to? And some of Rich’s favorites were the John Gray episodes, the Mia Moore shows, Hey, Mia Moore, we gotta get back on the mic. It’s been a while. Uh, Dr. Herman Pontzer was amazing. He loved Dan Millman, the author of Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Dave Rossi who’s been on the show three or four or five times talking about spirituality. And as related to real life objectives like being more successful in your career, dropping excess body fat,
Brad (12:11):
Dr. Cate Shanahan, one of the shows I think about a lot, I think the title was How to Become Cancer-Proof. She’s been on the show a few times. I remember some of her epic commentary there where she said if she were diagnosed with cancer tomorrow, the first thing she would do would be to watch it for a while. See, see if it continues to grow or see if she can do something about out that. Especially with dietary intervention. She mentioned going to the Paleomedicina clinic in Hungary where they’re having some great results using restrictive dieting to address cancer patients. And that’s principally Ketogenic carb restriction, fasting oriented diet. So, if the question were posed to me, if I was diagnosed with cancer tomorrow, I’m not sure I would sit there and just watch it for a while, but I would undergo an extreme, dietary recalibration where I would probably go on a zero carb ketogenic diet out of the gate because we know from is it of the Warberg effect in science that the cancer cells feed preferentially off of glucose.
Brad (13:19):
And if you can starve the cancer cells of glucose, maybe you can shrink that tumor. That carb restriction approach, that ketogenic approach to cancer does not work for every single kind of cancer. So this is a pretty intense subject. You’re gonna need some medical consult, to walk you through. And I would certainly do that. Probably the first thing is I’d make 12 phone calls to doctors and medical experts and, functional healers that I know. So that would be my answer. Uh, but in many cases altering that diet can bring about miraculous results. I saw presentation at keto con several years ago. Allison, uh, sorry, I forgot her last name. We’ll find it by the time the show notes. Uh, but she showed her imaging, her MRIs, with her body riddled with cancer advanced cancer, I believe of the lung internal organs, uh, re reproductive organs.
Brad (14:14):
And then she showing a sequence of imagery as she’s healing, healing, healing, and standing up there on stage being declared cancer free when she was supposed to be dying in short order. And she turned the corner by going on a completely wholesome natural foods, diet, cutting out all the junk, eating off the farm. And it was just one independent story. And there’s a lot of sad stories that don’t work out. Our friend in the primal community, chef Rachel Albert succumbed to cancer a few years ago, she was the exact same age as me. And she tried to heal it in a holistic manner and it was too late. Didn’t quite work. And he medical interventions didn’t quite work. So, this is not a gentle subject, but what a great show to expand your perspective with Dr. Cate Shanahan.
Brad (15:00):
And that was just a, an offshoot of Richard, naming some of his favorite show. So I get to do the same, I guess. Okay. I’m 45. I have a four and a half year old son I’m focused on longevity and increased quality of life. So he’s come a long way. And today, thanks to listening to the podcast. He credits mine and others. He’s a pretty low carb guy. He eats one or two meals a day. He has ditched the industrial seed oils going for the highest quality meat trying eat in nose to tail strategy. Been doing micro workouts for the last three years, especially influenced by the Ted Naiman show. So go and listen to that one where he is talking about those single set of maximum effort exercises to really boost your fitness in a short time. He’s enjoying the woods in the open space, in the countryside where he lives in the UK.
Brad (15:50):
He’s also testing out cold shower stuff. He’s doing the breathing work. He’s doing sprinting, oh my gosh, this guy sounds like he’s, he’s dialed. Feels better than he has in years. Looking at old pictures couldn’t believe the difference from feeling great today at age 45, and even trying to get weaning off the glasses, the eyeglasses, thanks to our wonderful break through podcast with Jake Steiner. And, uh, that one is about a natural way to improve your eyesight and become less reliant upon glasses for the rest of your life. Jake has a website called endmyopia.org. And boy has that show affected me profoundly in a personal way where we recorded on August 5th, 2020, and after the show, I was compelled to give it a shot. And so I started using my distance vision glasses less and less as little as possible, and even trying to be more frugal with my use of my reading/computer glasses.
Brad (16:54):
And it started to work. I started to need my computer glasses less and less rather than a hundred percent of the time. I went to the extreme a little bit where I refused to use them for a while. And Jake corrected me and says, you don’t want to get your eyes to the point of too much strain, but a little bit of blur in your life is okay. And making your eye muscles work rather than be locked into spasm as they are when you put on a prescription lens. Now here’s the miracle part with the distance vision. My naked eyesight right now is almost the same as my corrected eyesight from my glasses that I’ve had for oh, 20, 30, maybe 40 years. I got ’em when I was, uh, just starting college, cuz I couldn’t see the words on the Blackboard.
Brad (17:44):
I couldn’t believe it. So in the process of a little over a year, I have through the use of my eye muscle and straining a little bit to see things and allowing for a little bit of blur instead of perfect vision. My vision has improved tremendously. And so go listen to that show if you’re interested, it’s it’s really wild. Okay. And after all that, that was Richard checking in. But guess what his question was? What do you feed your dog? I love your style man. And uh, so inspiring to hear someone in the UK doing everything he possibly can, uh, to be a great dad of a youngster and, and keep that longevity going. Let’s see, if he’s 45, his kid’s four and a half. So he was a 40 year old new father. I remember my father let’s see, I was, um, I was zero.
Brad (18:35):
He was 44, 46 and 48 when he had his final three kids, my brother and sister. And that guy was in such fantastic shape his whole life that he seemed like the fit dad. He coached all the sports. He was out there throwing passes to us, beating us on the, of course, all that great stuff. His age was an absolute non-factor all the way to the very end. He made it 97 years, which was a good, long run. He was healthy. He was functional. So what an inspiration, rather than a negative to think that, um, you waited so long to have kids that you’re gonna be hunched over by the time they graduate high school. Not necessarily, he it up rich in the UK and what do I feed my dog? Uh, well, I love to consult with the paleo inspired dog experts, Eric Sizzler, uh, over at Mark’s Daily Apple. Mel Stevenson is big on this.
Brad (19:24):
I’ve taken advice from different people. Jenny Verger in Sacramento, and she’s big time with her champion dogs and feeds them raw meat, chicken, livers, chicken with the bone, but the bone’s soft it’s uncooked. So it’s raw chicken bones where the animal will go and chew that thing and not choke on it because it hasn’t been cooked. And so that would be like the high gold standard. We’re talking about carnivores here. We talking about humans where you can make that argument. Humans are indeed evolved as omnivores. I like how Paul Saladino categorizes the two categories of food, plants and animals. He calls plants obligatory survival foods. And the animal foods is where the main nutritional benefits are which is very difficult to dispute from a scientific level when you’re analyzing, uh, the nutrient quantity, nutrient quality of liver versus a stock of broccoli.
Brad (20:18):
The liver’s gonna gonna kick butt there. But we certainly have adapted to digest plant foods to, to for the most part. Now the dog should be eating like a carnival because it descends from the wolf and the that’s why they have their big teeth and that’s their, that’s their story. Okay. So why are we feeding them kibble? It’s like having a human live on a bag of potato chips every day, even if they’re healthy potato chips and you go for the best brand and you’re getting you know, ground up salmon meal or whatever the, the premium kibbles are selling. That’s not what the dog has adapted and evolved to consume. So I’m trying to give my dog a maximum amount of animal products and minimal kibble. So there’s a lot of, uh, sardines, mackerel. I’ve been recommended to put in full fat yogurt in there.
Brad (21:11):
You can put up a bit of sweet potato in there, even though they’re carnivores. That’s, I’m just repeating the recommendations that I follow. So I’ll make my dog that kind of concoction and slap it on the top of a little bit of kibble because, unfortunately, that’s what the dog’s been used to eating his whole life and it’s difficult to make those transitions away. And so that’s my answer.
Brad (21:32):
Next. We have Ken Phelps. Hey, if you stay at, or under your maximum aerobic function, your MAF heart rate, while running my understanding is that you’re burning all or mostly fat for inner. If that’s true for everyone, then isn’t everyone fat adapted? I don’t understand why there seems to be this process of becoming fat adapted. What a great question. Yeah. That is interesting to think about it that way. And indeed, uh, we are all fat adapted and we’re burning primarily fat at rest most to the time all of us. It’s just that nuance of how dependent we are for energy on dietary carbohydrates.
Brad (22:16):
So if we’re poorly fat adapted because we don’t exercise much, or we exercise too hard, or we have a diet that’s high in processed carbohydrates, we’re gonna notice these glitches, these difficulties in the fat burning mechanisms, because we’re sitting around at 2:00 PM trying to concentrate on our computer screen and we’re tired and dragging, and we need some quick energy carbohydrates. So that’s a sign of being of having some fat burning insufficiencies. People with metabolic disease obesity and related can conditions. Um, also have, um, extreme difficulties with burning fat in a healthy manner, uh, thereby becoming highly dependent upon dietary carbohydrates. The cool thing about the MAF heart rate is it’s kind of testing your efficiency and your fitness capability while burning predominantly fat, but there is some individual variation in there, but the most variation is on the pace that can be sustained.
Brad (23:13):
So if you take someone who’s extremely unfit, morbidly obese, very poor at burning fat and put a heart rate monitor on them and say, okay, we’re going to do a workout that’s gonna stay under your maximum aerobic function, heart rate. That might be a slow walk. Then the beeper starts going off. So even so much as getting up from the couch and walking to the front door is going to be a challenge to emphasize fat burning. Then you have an elite athlete who can run along at five minutes and five seconds per mile. Galen Rupp did a famous workout before the Olympic trials where I think he ran 20 miles at a five minute pace at an aerobic heart rate. okay. That’s an aerobic machine right there. And what the maximum aerobic function heart rate stands for is a represents is that is the point, the estimated point of maximum fat oxidation per minute.
Brad (24:10):
So that is the heart rate at which you are burning the most fat. If you are very poor at burning fat, you may still be burning a certain higher percentage of carbohydrates at that MAF heart rate, but you’re still I, if you’re burning a 60 40, for, in the case of an unfit person going very slowly, but still requiring a lot of carbohydrates to burn that’s still gonna represent your maximum aerobic function, heart rate. And then there might be someone else who’s burning 90 10, and they can do that with gas exchange in the human performance, exercise physiology laboratory, and you get a value ranging from 0.70 to 1.0. And 1.0 would be burning completely carbohydrates. So if you’re sprinting or something, you’re gonna get a reading of 1.0 and the gas exchange or breathing into the mask.
Brad (25:01):
And if you’re at 0.7, you’re virtually entirely aerobic. So that would mean, um, uh, minimal amounts of glucose burning, but probably a little bit still going on, even if you’re going really slowly. And you’re good at burning fat. Interesting nuance as conveyed in many of Dr Maffetone’s books and sort of was a slap in the face for me that even a high level endurance athlete, a supremely conditioned athlete because of the nature of their training program can develop what’s called aerobic deficiency and consequently anaerobic excess to the extent that they can perform incredible feats, like go out there and ride four hours in the mountains, but be burning mostly glucose during that ride because they have aerobic deficiency and anaerobic excess because they train at too elevated of a heart rate routinely. So they’re going hard day after day after day, and they’re doing great endurance performances, but these performances are fueled by sugar.
Brad (26:04):
And you can tell if you’re that person, if you break down and get tired and burnt out a lot, or if you have a desperate need for an energy gel every 15 minutes as you do that four hour ride, or if you get home and or if you get home and feel like raiding every quick energy carbohydrate in sight. So you’re coming home and slamming a pint of ice cream and then going for the the pinwheel cookies and then making a peanut butters sandwich and so on. So we wanna get away from that. That’s extremely unhealthy. It brings about all kinds of overall health disease and breakdown risks, and get better at burning fat. And that is the pathway to true peak performance and going beyond whatever that fine tuning of your anaerobic engine, uh, can occur to where you have a, a decent and competent level of fitness, but you’ll never be anywhere near, uh, the elite level because you need to be good at burning fat to go on for hours and hours without slamming sugar constantly. Uh, does that make sense? Okay. That’s that’s great question. Thanks Ken.
Brad (26:59):
And now we go to Sue Simmons. Brad, thanks for the great shows. Dr. Ted Naman pointed out something very important about body fat loss. As you go further and further below 25% body fat, it gets harder and harder to mobilize enough fat quickly enough to fast comfortably for more than a day. I didn’t hear Ted say that directly, but if you say so, let’s continue. You have plenty of fat for several weeks of survival, but your metabolism has to slow down and you have to use gluconeogenesis resulting in muscle loss to stay alive. This would be a valid biological insight, but as we know from the research on the ketogenic diet, if you’re keto adapted, you can stave off that destructive gluconeogenesis and make ketones to meet your daily glucose requirements, as opposed to breaking down lean muscle tissue and converting it into glucose.
Brad (28:03):
That is what’s happening with gluconeogenesis. That’s the conversion of amino acids into glucose. Uh, sometimes that means it’s lean muscle mass. Sometimes it’s digested amino acids. Like when you consume sufficient protein or extra protein, you can meet some of your glucose needs by converting those aminos into glucose. So we don’t want to have this survival mechanism kick in where we’re eating our muscle mass as seen in extreme cases like the Biggest Loser television show, where they lost not only fat but they lost a lot of muscle mass too, because that will indeed slow your metabolism and have negative long term repercussions. Okay. Back to Sue’s note here, um, you have the fat, but you can’t mobilize a cookie enough. So what happens if a skinny person like my 73 year old husband decides to fast longer than 24 hours for auto G benefits, his metabolism has to slow down, even if he makes up for missing energy by the high stress cortisol mediated gluconeogenes since his glycogen is gonna be depleted.
Brad (29:06):
Is there, is there a way around it and Sue claims there is, and she calls it the butter fast. So the husband in question here, the, uh, the slender person that doesn’t have a lot of excess body fat will do the fasting protocol drinking plenty of fluids, water of, and then having three or four ounces of butter per day. This keeps his energy high, spares muscle, keeps cortisol low, and prevents unwanted weight loss, but does not interfere with autophagy. Pretty interesting, huh, people? He also eats whole food carbs in the evening before bed so that it will be stored and burned as fat. So in all the takeaway here is that one thing that comes to mind for me is that yeah, people that have healthy levels of body fat as is conveyed by this note are going to benefit less from these extended fasts and possibly bring in that risk factor of going into a metabolic slowdown, as we talked about with an earlier question or just, um, uh, getting the, um, the lean muscle mass, uh, converted into glucose.
Brad (30:17):
And that would be especially the case. If you’re not keto at adapted. If you are keto adapted, these things are going to be less relevant. But certainly this can, uh, bring some health benefits. The butter fast. That’s a new one. I haven’t heard that before, but you understand the situation here as he’s getting calories to burn while still trying for the maximum fits, especially keeping stress, hormones, low, keeping the carbohydrate intake low to prompt ketone production. This commentary reminds me of my great show a while back with Dr. Michael Platt author of Adrenaline Dominance. And he argues for getting up in the morning and taking a spoonful of MCT oil which will, uh, later help fuel ketone production and give your brain some fuel rather than a straight up fast, because this can help with the common problem of overproduction of stress hormones.
Brad (31:18):
So a less stressful way to fast, lots more, lots more commentary in that show. I think about it a lot. His book Adrenaline Dominance was excellent. So there’s a plug there to be thinking about a fast that includes, and again, misuse of the term fasting, I know, but a dietary restriction period that includes sufficient intake of fatty acids to provide for some energy needs.
Brad (31:45):
Okay. Bob Lockwood next writer in,.Hey, Brad, I love the podcast titled Lifestyle Mistakes that stall fat loss in how to correct them. I have a quick question regarding, uh, when you do these sprints that last around 80 meters or around 10 seconds, and then rest for a minute, that’s a six to one ratio before sprinting. And again. When you’re resting, are you walking or are you doing a slow jog? I’m just wondering how restful my rest should be. Keep up the great work and, writing in from beautiful Portland, Oregon.
Brad (32:19):
So when we’re talking in that context of high intensity repeat training, the rest wants to be very restful. Dr. Craig Marker. In his article on our podcast, he calls them luxurious rest intervals. The common practice in the endurance running community of doing jog recoveries sometimes, uh, a relatively fast moving jog recovery. We used to do workouts where we’d jog, we we’d run a quarter at high speed and then jog a half a lap at an eight minute per mile pace. So that’s not really a recovery jog. It becomes pretty difficult to maintain that pace before launching into a full speed 400 meters on the other side of the track. And so the whole entire set of work that you’re accomplishing there is pretty challenging because you’re not really stopping or having an extreme lowering or recalibration lowering the heart rate or recalibration of your energy during the recovery jog.
Brad (33:20):
And that is specifically to prepare for peak performance. So in this case, we’re going for the broad based fitness anti-aging health benefits of becoming competent at sprinting. And the idea, the argument here is that we want each sprint to be extremely explosive of powerful with impeccable technique, strong feeling, strong, not feeling worn down or broken down by the end of the workout. And so what I’m doing is basically walking around and taking it easy. And then right before it’s time to sprint again, sometimes you can do some neuromuscular preparatory behaviors, which would be like hopping up and down and resetting the central nervous system ready to explode. Again, I especially like to simulate coming out of the starting blocks when I do my sprints. I don’t recommend this for hardly anybody that’s not interested in track and field and sprinting because there’s a little bit of an increase injury risk from, you know, going from a standstill.
Brad (34:23):
So a lot of people will just walk or even trot into their sprint. So they’ll run a few stripes in the football field, and then when they hit the 20, they will take off from a running start and get into a nice sprint. So it’s much safer. And that would be the only part of your rest where, uh, you’re becoming active again, as you prepare for the next sprint. How does that sound? All right.
Brad (34:45):
And here writing in from Italy, it’s Alan. Hi, Brad. I’m a long time follower of yours, Mark Sisson, Phil Maffetone. And I’m a little bit puzzled about your concept of micro workouts or what Phil Maffetone calls slow weights. I understand the concept. It’s been implemented a long time ago. I’m a bus driver and when I have 20 minutes or so between my runs, the bus turns into my gym and I can do some cool exercises with some creativity.
Brad (35:12):
Oh man. I would love to see a YouTube video of Alan going after it in between times to depart again on the bus. I love that. Anyway, both of you talk about not needing to warm up in your last episode. You say, when you pass by the pullup bar, you do some pull ups or you pass by the deadlift bar in the backyard, as you’re heading out to the garbage can. Um, Phil has his weights on the way from the kitchen that he mentions. Now, if I do a deadlift or a pull up as my first exercise, I’m telling you that that is increasing risk of injury. And I’m curious about that, how you can recommend that. I like to do a couple of mini sets or something easy beforehand like elevated pushups to start to get the blood flowing.
Brad (35:55):
What are your thoughts? Greetings from the Dolemite Mountains in Italy. And he sent a link with some pictures of his region. Oh my gosh. So beautiful. So, oh, that’s a very, very good question. And I should make a better effort to disclaimer for people that I have, you know, competency and experience going over and lifting the deadlift bar outta nowhere. I’m also spending a lot of time fidgeting around the house, being in a stand up desk situation rather than sitting down for hours and hours on end. So I’m almost never sitting in a chair for hours on end. It might be the longest I’ll ever sit as 20 minutes and then I’ll stand for 15. Then I’ll sit for 20, then I’ll be doing something else. So I’m constantly active. Again, I have the experience and the preparation I have the technique that’s been honed over a long time of learning, how to deadlift correctly.
Brad (36:48):
Therefore I can go out there and lift a 200 pound bar, which for me is not super daunting and do six reps without any trouble. Same with hauling off a set of pull ups. But pull ups are considered, I would consider them a dangerous exercise. I know I aggravated my tennis elbow from doing pull ups and it’s no joke to hang off the bar and hoist your body weight over. And so I think on a big picture, we really have to reflect on the confines and the sedentary forces of modern life and how these obligate us to warm up just a little bit before we do almost anything would be the best recommendation, right? I talk about sprinting up one flight of stairs in my house as a rule. Every time I have to go upstairs. Well, that’s great for me, but if you have been sitting or you have joint problems in your past surgeries, uh, you’re not super fit yet, then you might want to you know, walk up the stairs, normally walk down the stairs, normally drift up the stairs at medium speed, walk back down, and then try and sprint up the stairs.
Brad (37:54):
Same with the dead lift bar. You might want to do a, a set of lifts with a PVC bar. That’s how teach people to deadlift correctly, lifting something that weighs five pounds, not even the empty bar, which weighs 45 pounds. So great point, everyone please. When you’re talking about micro workouts, let’s make sure that the blood is flowing and that you are well prepared to give whatever effort. And if the thought of hanging on to a pullup bar and doing a set is a little nerve wracking, and maybe you’ve strained a muscle trying something goofy like that from listening to a podcast and going out and taking it on. Um, let’s just back up a few steps and do something that’s super doable, right outta the gate. And again, reflect on what you’ve been doing for the past few hours.
Brad (38:41):
So if you’ve been sitting at a desk or in a long boring zoom meeting or whatever it is, and you want to get up and do a micro workout, maybe that micro workout should be a two minute walk down the hall or out the door to your mailbox, a walk by then maybe you can do some hops or some of the running drills that I show on YouTube and just ease into it. So, from the Dolomites back to you, Alan, thank you for that excellent point and warning for all of us. You know, what people? Those were some great questions. I appreciate you so much listening. I would love for you to be part of the conversation. Drop an email over to podcast@brad ventures.com. And if you can share this show, turn on other people to the fun and games that we’re having over here, the great insights, the great guests.
Brad (39:27):
I really appreciate you spreading the word. Leave a review on apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. I have a button on my Overcast podcast app where you if you like something, some part of the show, you hit the button and it will make a one minute 30 second recording or anything shorter than that. Uh, with one swoop, you just draw the sound bars to the segment that you want to cut, push another button, and you can send a text message to your friend or friends saying, listen to this clip. It’s a really good show. Go check it out. That would be my request for the day. I love when people share. And I love to, hear from new listeners that have been exposed. We can look at downloads and notice that people are going back into the old shows, cuz they’re there forever.
Brad (40:12):
And that’s, what’s so wonderful about podcasts is that everything we’ve ever recorded is right there with then reach, uh, click on some of those links that we painstakingly put together. Thank you, Gail Kearns. At the end of every show, online, you can see the landing page and go and consume more information along the same interest lines or reference points. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to the show. I love sharing the experience with you and greatly appreciate your support please. Email podcast@Brad ventures.com with feedback, suggestions and questions for the Q and A shows. Subscribe to our email list to Brad kearns.com for a weekly blast about the published episodes and a wonderful bimonthly new addition with informative articles and practical tips for all aspects of healthy living. You can also download several awesome free eBooks when you subscribe to the email list.
Brad (41:08):
And if you could go to the trouble to leave a five or five star review with apple podcast or wherever else, you listen to the shows that would be super incredible, incredibly awesome. It helps raise the profile of the B.rad podcast and attract new listeners. And did you know that you can share a show with a friend or loved one by just hitting a few buttons in your player and firing off a text message? My awesome podcast player called Overcast allows you to actually record a sound bite excerpt from the episode you’re listening to you and fire it off with a quick text message. Thank you so much for spreading the word and remember B.rad.
