In the final part of this four-part series, we consider whether we have too much or too little stress in life. Indeed, some folks would benefit from eating less frequently, loading the muscles with resistance, moving more in daily life, and tackling challenging physical fitness goals. On the other hand, most of us endure too much of the wrong kinds of chronic stress.

This includes psychological stress with rumination, consuming nutrient-deficient food or causing metabolic disruption, consuming plant toxins causing gut and autoimmune issues, not moving or exercising enough, exercising too much, and having stressful work circumstances and interpersonal relationships. We’ll cover Dr. Hans Selye’s General Adaptation Theory of stress and learn that the fight or flight response is identical regardless of the nature of the stressor/stimulus. It goes like this: Alarm, Resistance, Exhaustion. Sound familiar?

We end with some reasonable insights to make sense of it all, including my off-line consult with #listentotheSisson to emphasize the importance of individuality and a careful calibration of all of your life stress factors. I relate my own scoreboard of stress factors and steps I’m taking to better manage (kinder, gentler approach to high intensity workouts), revelations from my recent blood test results, and how we all might optimize further with a strategic approach to exercise stress and careful attention to not stacking too many stress factors together. 

As Dr. Paul Saladino likes to say, what we are striving for here is to ascend from level 5 to level 7, or from level 7 to level 9. We must acknowledge that we don’t even know what level we’re at without exploring further and remaining constantly open-minded to new tweaks and revisions of our health practices. 

Click here to listen to part 1, part 2, and part 3 of this 4-part series.

TIMESTAMPS:

In recapping the previous shows, Brad talks about Jay Feldman’s premise that fasting causes stress hormones. [01:16]

Protein is not burned for energy except in dire starvation circumstances. [03:38]

We have been learning that too strict on the low carb intake, can lead to problems, so some of the least offensive plant foods like honey and fruit are good. [05:54]

Dr. Paul Saladino recommends one gram per pound of body weight in daily protein, and also one gram per pound of body weight in natural fats. [07:15]

The brain is believed to need around 50 grams of glucose every day. [09:06]

Be careful about stacking too many assorted stressors to metabolism and cellular function. [12:06]

What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger………or maybe not! [15:37]

Don’t forget the chronic stressors in our everyday life like our constant exposure to technology. [21:44]

After being in a chronic alarm stage, comes the resistance stage. After that is exhaustion. [24:51]

Take a gentle approach, if you are not very active, by vow to move more every day and eat more foods that are natural, and improve your sleep habits. [29:01]

Ask yourself how many stressors are in your life.  How can you remove or at least lessen them? [32:35]

Among elite athletes, there is very little incidents of extreme dieting or extreme biohacking. [35:41]

Now that Brad has changed his morning food intake, his hunger is more apparent.  When he was used to fasting, his body didn’t feel hungry. [41:33]

When looking at your bloodwork, the most important reading is the value of triglycerides to HDL ratio for heart disease risk factor. [46:10]

It is extremely dangerous to go into the extreme mode of biohacking, progressive health practices. Just because we can do it, doesn’t mean it’s healthy. [50:06]

For exercise, be kinder, gentler and avoid fatigue and injury. [54:24]

Doug McGruff’s suggestion to increase muscle strength is to go to the gym and perform five functional full-body exercises….a single set to failure. [59:38]

Cold exposure has so many benefits for your health and well-being. Also Sauna and, of course, sufficient sleep.  [01:01:53]

LINKS:

• Brad Kearns.com
• Brad’s Shopping page
• Podcast with Jay Feldman, no. 1
• Podcast with Jay Feldman, no. 2
• Brian Liver King Johnson
• Podcast with Dr. Ron Sinha
• HIIT vs. HIRT
• Lindsay Berra Podcast
• Podcast with Debbie Potts
• Metabolical
• RunningTechnique Drills on YouTube
• Brad Kearns’s Morning Routine
• Brad’s Morning Routine Course
• OsteoStrong
• Brad’s Cold Exposure
• Podcast with Dr. Lembke
• Energy Balance Podcast

LISTEN:

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B.Rad Podcast

Brad (00:01:16):
Welcome to part four on my series of reflections about the concept of energy balance inspired by my podcast guest, Jay Feldman, and his Energy Balance podcast. So a quick recap in part one, we pondered the compelling question, whether popular hormetic stressors like fasting and intense exercise carb restriction and the like could be too stressful. In many cases, I read a lot of juicy quotes from Jay, especially the one that’s been haunting me and that is, quote, fasting prompts, the production of stress hormones. And then I go and reflect whether I want to allocate stress hormones to fasting when I’m also allocating them to my sprinting and jumping workouts and the other forms of stress in hectic high stress, modern life. So that was a good, uh, opening for much more discussion, including talking about the other hormetic stressors, like cold exposure, heat exposure.

Brad (00:02:29):
And we went into part two where we covered some misconceptions about calorie balance, fat loss and longevity, and the important distinction beyond the flawed and oversimplified calories in calories out concept to understand that the phases of energy utilization are calories, consumed calories, burned for energy, the ability to burn calories and then calories stored. And so it’s not a linear relationship because that middle part is the key one. And that lends itself to mitochondrial health. The ability to efficiently burn energy in your cells. Many experts are asserting today that mitochondrial dysfunction represents the root cause of many, if not all disease in the body. And also the idea that a calorie’s sort of an arbitrary measurement, how much energy it takes to heat water, one degree Celsius and how all foods, while given a caloric value certainly act differently in the body.

Brad (00:03:38):
Quick example, protein is not burned for energy except in dire starvation circumstances. And then alcohol, of course, is has a caloric value, seven calories per, but it’s not really what we had in mind when we’re talking about consuming calories and burning them for energy. And so we embrace the new idea. This is still a recap of part two, that the true problem of a society that’s over fat, tired, sick accelerated aging, inflamed, and oxidized are first the poor choices for energy intake. Those are the toxic modern foods, especially the industrial seed oils that interfere with your body’s ability to burn fat. Second is poor energy burning, uh, poor mitochondrial health that can come from, um, the bad dietary choices. It can come from gut dysfunction, chronic inflammation, things like that. And then of course we have the obvious problem of excess energy storage as a consequence.

Brad (00:04:44):
So the life changing directive covered in part two is to first get healthy before you start thinking about ways to drop excess body fat. We also went deep into the concept of longevity and the contributory factors besides food choices. We talked about the wonderful example of the Japanese and Okinawa and their Ikigai, that having a strong life purpose and having strong social connections are great promoters of longevity. Then in part three, I pose the question, could eating more food and more carbs, more frequently unlock peak performance and minimize stress. And this is a point that’s hammered home on numerous episodes of the Energy Balance podcast. It’s extremely compelling, but I don’t want to look at it in black and white. And so I had some great consultations offline with some of the brilliant folks like Dr. Paul Saladino, Mark Sisson, and realizing that we’re talking about nuance here and continuums as well as one’s own ability to for example process energy efficiently and be highly fat adapted in Sisson’s case.

Brad (00:05:54):
He said that it’s no problem for him to fast. It does not inappropriately turn on stress hormones because he can do it easily. Now if someone’s struggling with recovery with, uh, maintaining stable energy mood appetite throughout the day, then you’re gonna wanna binge on some of Jay Feldman’s Energy Balance shows and think about the idea of nourishing yourself appropriately and being very careful not to overdo it on the stressors of exercise life and then, dietary intervention with dietary restriction and great example of this is Dr. Paul. Saladino how he’s evolved from promoting a strict carnivore diet to escape from the problems that many of us experience when consuming plant toxins, especially the health, the quote unquote healthy foods that can cause the biggest problems, the categories of roots, stems, seeds, and leaves, and Paul was achieving great results, but over time, experiencing adverse symptoms from having that prolonged extremely low carbohydrate intake diet, when you’re on an animal based strict carnivore diet, you’re not finding an opportunity to consume hardly any carbs.

Brad (00:07:15):
And so now he’s a huge proponent of consuming the least offensive plant foods, which would be honey and fruit and having sufficient carb intake in his diet. And I just heard Paul dispense some really simple and memorizable dietary macronutrient tips. He encourages us to get one gram per pound of body weight in daily protein. Also one gram per pound of daily body weight in natural nutritious fats. Of course, he recommending from animal sources. There’s also some rationale and support for getting the very best plant sources of fat like olive olives, avocados, high fat, uh, plants, natural of course, and avoiding the industrial seed oils at all costs, but pretty memorable, right? A gram per pound of protein gram per pound of body, weight and fat. And then with carbs, it would be appropriate adjustable per your level of activity, especially in the glycolytic workouts and seemingly widespread agreement that we wanna get a very sensible baseline intake of carbohydrates so that we don’t interfere with a thyroid function adrenal function and get away from unnecessary and potentially overly stressful activation of fight or flight mechanisms to convert protein into glucose via gluconeogenesis or convert fatty acids into glucose by splitting the glycerine molecules off of the triglycerides. Sort of an unnecessary and overly complex starvation mechanisms than just getting a nice baseline of natural nutritious carbs in the diet as Saladino will show you on his Instagram with his beautiful array of tropical fruits in his new home of Costa Rica.

Brad (00:09:06):
Okay. So, the brain is believed in need around 50 grams baseline of glucose every day. I believe that’s part of the reason why the ketogenic ceiling was put at 50 grams. So you’re allowed to eat 50 grams knowing that your brain’s gonna be good there and way back a decade ago, when we came out with the original Primal Blueprint, we talked about 150 grams per day of carbohydrate as a very sensible baseline average intake, and that’ll help the, the brain, the muscles, the liver. Everybody gets what they needs without going into those extremes, uh, that are often seen in the standard American diet. And speaking of Paul’s recommendation on protein, that’s significantly higher than has been widely touted by many experts and the historical recommendations. So if we look at The Keto Reset Diet, for example, we looked all around numerous respected resources and found that a recommendation of 0.7 grams per pound of lean body mass was a kind of an average of many people’s recommendations.

Brad (00:10:15):
So if you think one gram per pound of all body mass, except for obesity, where you wanna look at your goal weight rather than your actual weight, but still one gram per pound of total body weight can be a lot higher than 0.7 per pound of lean body mass. So that’s Paul, sticking his neck out recommending additional protein. And that’s been an interesting shift in the progressive health message in recent years. Robb Wolf has also banging this drum very loudly. Remember his epic quote that I repeat a lot, that he gave us on his interview, where he said, quote, if you want to live longer, lift more weights and eat more protein end quote, Dr. Tommy Wood, uh, echoing a similar insight about getting a sufficient amount amount of all the macronutrients. And these scares that we’ve heard about in years past about consuming too much protein and stressing the kidneys and the liver are now being widely acknowledged as being overblown.

Brad (00:11:10):
Your body can do just fine, especially with that imperative and prominent goal of maintaining lean muscle mass throughout life. And the realization that people in the older age groups become less efficient at synthesizing protein from the diet, and therefore have a higher requirement of protein. I know most of the way protein supplements are sold to bodybuilders, but we won’t wanna have grandma and grandson scooping out of the same jug. And in fact, isn’t that amazing. That’s what happens at the Kearn’s household in Los Angeles when grandma’s stock in protein, the very best kind from her son. And then grandson comes over and has his typical four or five scoops in the smoothie. And then we need to reorder. So there’s a increased need for protein for many health conscious eaters. And I appreciate that insight from Saladino that we can do better, trying to get more.

Brad (00:12:06):
It’s also a great way to reduce excess body fat because of the high satiety factor of protein. You’re eating these high protein meals. You’re not hungry. You’re getting nourished with the primary dietary requirement for survival that is protein, and maybe that’ll help you keep your caloric intake and balance as you strive to tighten up your diet and drop some excess body fat in the process after getting healthy. Remember, so the big reflection in part three, I offered up my personal example of, Hey, am I stacking too many assorted stressors to metabolism and cellular function being that I’m doing high intensity, explosive workouts, and perhaps not doing them perfectly and frequently over exerting myself,, also being in the 55 and overage group while doing said high intensity exercises, also playing around with dietary strategies that will prompt stress hormones to release energy from storage.

Brad (00:13:05):
This includes fasting, carb restriction, keto, and then also playing around with other hormetic stressors, like my beloved cold exposure sessions, sauna sessions, and then, stacking all of that on top of hectic high stress, modern life. Dr. Casey Means calls this redundant pathways. In other words, you’re going for the same hormetic effect through different channels. A sprint workout is akin to fasting in many ways. And I talked about some crash and burn experiences I had when I was deep into ketogenic diet experimentation in the process of writing the book and trying to do my sprint workouts. Then I called out my main man, Brian Liver, King Johnson. Who’s blowing up the internet with his sensational videos on his Instagram account. That’s less than a year old with a million and a half followers. And just living the ancestral lifestyle to the extreme, with his amazing fitness pursuits and workout regimen and the dietary strategies that include a five day fast every quarter extreme cold exposure, extreme everything.

Brad (00:14:13):
And I said, does he really need to do that to promote health? Does a guy who’s eating that cleanly, that much of a nutritious diet need to fast for five days every quarter? On a physical sense, probably not, but you have to appreciate the psychological benefits of putting yourself into difficulty, struggle, and challenge, and coming out of that a, a stronger, better person. And also having that opponent process reaction like Dr. Anna Lembke described where when we do put ourselves into struggle and difficulty cold exposure and so forth, we get a corresponding, surge of the pleasurable satisfaction, hormones and neurotransmitters afterwards. So a life of ease and instant gratification will kind of dig us further into this whole of dopamine triggers to the excess, to the extent that we feel empty and less capable of achieving joy and lasting satisfaction and contentment versus a wonderful balance of heading over to the gym and taking a difficult exercise class once in a while, jumping into the cold river and getting out and shrieking with joy for the amazing nature experience, instead of just looking out the window or looking at the TV and watching life go by without ever putting yourself onto the line and challenging yourself.

Brad (00:15:37):
Okay, that’s a pretty detailed summary of the first three episodes taking us to number four, and I’m calling this, what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger, right? Or maybe not. And it kind of flows right into the last thing I said of, uh, taking on these challenges, putting ourself out there, but making sure that we do it in a strategic manner rather than overdoing it. So if you reflect on the conversation that Ben Greenfield had with Jay Feldman and Mike Fave, he grilled them pretty good on this concept of hormesis, prompting, mitochondrial biogenesis. And that’s the party line of the biohackers, the progressive health community, where yes, you need to jump into that frozen hole in the ice and put your body under stress. Then you need to go into the hot sauna. Then you need to do a difficult, challenging workout. And all this stuff is great because it’s hormesis and it prompts mitochondrial biogenesis.

Brad (00:16:36):
That’s the making of new or improving the function of existing mitochondria. So you’re better at burning energy because you have challenged yourselves essentially by starving them of energy or putting them into difficulty with temperature or what have you. So we had a great spokesperson in Ben Greenfield because he is the king of biohacking and assorted hormetic stressors that he will tell you about with all his content and pushing the body to the extreme in the name of science and reporting back for all of us to see what happened when he does his total body stem cell injections and extreme cold exposure, and performing an iron man with no, uh, proper training, doing fasted workouts, all that stuff. So, um, this was Jay’s compelling response, uh, many common health recommendations like calorie restriction, exercise, intermittent, fasting, ketogenic, and low carb diets and cold exposure fall into this category of hormetic intervention.

Brad (00:17:37):
But in order for increasing exposure to hormetic factors, to be the answer for preventing or reversing degeneration, chronic disease and obesity. The people with these conditions would have to be experiencing too little stress end quote that’s from a blog article, not a quote from their interview. But you get what I’m saying here? We’re thinking that we need to go and stress the body. We’re watching the liver king videos and, uh, thinking we’re wimpy because we’re only in the cold water for two minutes instead of eight minutes. Like he and his wife and wondering, Hey, is more better now in many cases today, the answer is yes, many people are living a life that is not stressful enough in the realm of appropriate stressors that prompt, uh, are favorable genetic adaptations. And so we live 24 7 in indoor temperature controlled environments, actual research from Great Britain that we spend 86% of our time indoors and another other, uh, 7% in automobiles or transportation.

Brad (00:18:48):
So we’re over 90% of the time indoors in temperature controlled environments and great research. I talked about some of this on my show, uh, honoring the insights from Dr. Jack Kruse, how, when we lose that ability to adapt to temperature changes, it messes up our hormones. He painted a particularly compelling example of the need for postmenopausal women to become cold adapted, to optimize hormones and alleviate some of the complaints and symptoms that we experience with menopause. That was pretty wild stuff. And I don’t think there’s too many postmenopausal females raising their hands and signing up for a Liver King style, cold plunge. And so something to think about maybe turning that handle over to cold in the shower, once in a while, and eliciting a hormetic response by the body. Now it’s clear that we also have too much stress in the inappropriate, chronic, modern stressors, such as rumination my show with Dr.

Brad (00:19:49):
Ron Sinha talked about that at length and identified it as an actual medical condition. Our penchant for trafficking in rumination ,ruminating about the past generating depression and ruminating about the future generating anxiety. Dr. Craig Marker, who is a psychologist by trade, and also the kettlebell strength training expert who came up with that revolutionary concept of hit versus hurt. That’s high intensity interval training versus high intensity repeat training. He has a program for patients. It’s called the anti fragile self, where people who have had a sheltered experience in one way or another, and developed conditions like extreme anxiety, he takes ’em over to the grocery store and turns ’em loose, and they have an assignment to go and greet someone walking into the store. Hello, how are you doing today? And this is a huge breakthrough for people who are stuck at home.

Brad (00:20:42):
It’s especially relevant these days as we come out of quarantine or hopefully continue to emerge from quarantine. It’s really been a setback for many people, especially those who, uh, have difficulty in social situations anyway. And so Dr. Craig’s program, by putting them into these, appropriate, but still, uh, stressful situations, once you go up and say hi to someone walking into the grocery store, you have a breakthrough you’ve expanded your comfort zone, and it’s a wonderful but necessary experience and part of therapy. Uh, they call it exposure therapy when it comes to, O C D, and things like that. So we might widely acknowledge that for most of us, uh, we deserve less of the chronic destructive stress and possibly investigate the idea of whether we need to put our bodies under further stress in the realm of for example, explosive exercise or fasting, and restriction of macronutrients.

Brad (00:21:44):
If we are over fed and chronically over fed and have our glycogen stores full all the time and are carrying excess body fat and experiencing things like chronic inflammation. But we also wanna throw into this category, don’t forget all the chronic stressors that we have a very difficult time extricating from such as the constant exposure to unnatural EMFs from our wireless devices. The chemical insults that we experience from consumer products. I did a whole show with Melanie Avalon about all the crap that’s in mainstream skincare products. We’ve heard a commercial about Dry Farm Wines, where I’m talking about all the toxins and chemicals that are hidden in mainstream commercial wines. And so all this stuff that we’re bombarding our bodies with every single day. Plastic materials that are touching your food and drink and releasing estrogen compounds, endocrine disruptors into your system, it all adds up to quite a bit and therefore a compelling argument to try to minimize these deliberate stressors that we throw ourselves into and possibly to our detriment.

Brad (00:22:52):
And that obvious example would be like trying to perform as an athlete, following a strict ketogenic diet and being in the older age groups. And I talked about my crash and burn experiences at that time. So we have to remember that the fight or flight response in the body is identical regardless of the nature of the stress or more accurately the stimulus. So wonderful things can happen and still be highly stressful in that realm of Dr. Hans’s, original, research or publishing of the general adaptation syndrome in the human that was published in 1946, how the human responds to stress. And so we have those three, um, stages to create. What’s known as the stress response. We have the stimulus, we have the perception and we have the response.So remember that we have certain amount of control there in the perception category, that’s Victor Frankel, uh, man’s search for meaning, that’s the greatest freedom we have is the freedom to choose our attitude or freedom to choose, um, what we think of the stimulus.

Brad (00:24:01):
So, uh, when one person’s called randomly to speak in a public setting and has to come up to the front of the classroom or the conference room, they’re gonna have a massive stress response and feel negative fearful about it. While the person sitting next to them, uh, a seasoned public speaker, can’t wait to get up in front and is gonna be excited and positive about it, and probably have a better outcome and less physically destructive stress hormones, but you’re still gonna get a stress hormone burst from whatever you do, even if you love it. And it’s super fun. So the stimulus perception of that stimulus, and then the response in the body and in the stress response, the first stage response is alarm. The body sends a distressed signal to your brain. Your brain responds by sending message to the body releasing hormones called glucocorticoids and adrenaline.

Brad (00:24:51):
These are known as your fight or flight hormones. During the alarm reaction stage. You also experience elevated blood pressure and heart rate. So when it’s race morning or speed golf tournament, morning, this stuff is all wonderful. I’m gonna look at my heart rate and see that it’s elevated. I’m alert, I’m energized, I’m focused, and I’m ready to deliver a peak performance effort. Now, if you prolong the alarm stage, because every single day you get up to work and you head into the office and it’s a battle, or you have a dysfunctional personal circumstances where you’re in you know, high stress interpersonal relationship settings, or you are heading to the gym every morning because you love getting to the 6:00 AM spinning class and banging on those pedals for an hour. You are going to be in this alarm stage for a prolonged period of time.

Brad (00:25:47):
And we are not able to kind of recycle through, rebuild and come back stronger for the next alarm stage. Uh, so this chronic alarm stage, what happens is, um, we go into the next phase is called the resistance stage. This is after the stressor, the initial acute stressor has stopped. Your body tries to thwart the changes that occurred during the reaction stage or the alarm stage by employing the parasympathetic nervous system. So this is trying to come down after you had that traumatic argument, or you had that competitive event. And during this time in the resistance stage, you’re still able to plug along and perform at an adequate level. But things are taking its toll. You need a break from the stress you’re getting to Friday afternoon and the weekend is approaching, just in timst because you need to get back to homeostasis and bring in that parasympathetic rest and digest function.

Brad (00:26:48):
But the symptoms of being in the resistance stage are irritability, poor concentration frustration. So you’re on the edge. And then finally, if this stress is prolonged and not appropriately balanced with downtime, you experience the third phase of the general adaptation syndrome. We have alarm, we have resistance and then we have exhaustion. And that’s the point where your body starts to under produce even normal levels of the fight or flight hormones that are necessary for a basic day of productivity and alertness and mood and energy and appetite balance. This is where you can get into symptoms like exhaustion, anxiety, depression, and burnout. And so if you think about this story that was published in 1946, how a lot of times we are flip flopping between this alarm existence, where we’re going, going, going, and running on fumes and junk food.

Brad (00:27:47):
We’re still hitting the workouts, putting in the miles, lifting the plates in the weight room, but we are running on borrowed time, as I talked about in the shows about overtraining and that concept of overreaching, where you’re producing high amounts of the stress hormones in a chronic manner, and still getting through everything that you need to do. But you’re, you’re heading toward the exhaustion stage and anxiety, depression burnout. So, if you take a look at the stressors in your life and ask yourself, what can I do to produce the optimal level of appropriate fight or fight stressors and minimize the chronic stressors? I think you have discovered the secret to getting healthy. Okay. So, speaking to the athletic population, the highly motivated goal oriented driven type of person that’s setting goals and is locked into a very devoted exercise regimen. In many examples, many cases, uh, the suggestion is to tone things down a little bit, turn that dial down a little, remember the trade off between reproduction repair growth and locomotion a zero sum game.

Brad (00:29:01):
And so if you are locomoting like crazy, um, those other dials are getting fragile, repair and growth. Therefore you’re not adapting to your training appropriately, and you are in the category of chronic stressors. Now, if you’re in a different category, let’s say you’re in the inactive couch potato group. Then the instruction is to get up off the couch gently and move a little bit more throughout your day, put your body under resistance load start slowly and gradually and carefully so that you don’t flip flop the teeter-totter over into the high stress category. Uh, like we see on the biggest loser program, they show up onto the set and then they get torched and it has years and years of negative repercussions. So we wanna have a gentle approach to getting more active and putting our body under more stress.

Brad (00:29:51):
So we’re talking about, oh, cold exposure. It’s so awesome. Look at this video of Wim Hof. He packed his body in ice for two hours straight. He swam under, uh, Arctic region ocean and came up a hundred meters later through another hole to set a world record. Uh, that’s great. And in your case to tiptoe into that direction and give your body, uh, a little bit of cold stimulation, it’s as simple as cranking the handle in the shower and turning it over to cold. Now, um, as far as getting rid of the chronic stressors, we gotta look at our dietary habits, sleep habits, um, how we balance hyperconnectivity and constant potential for distraction with downtime away from devices. And then we’re gonna kind of drift over into this realm where we have great peak performance potential, uh, especially to do things like drop excess body fat.

Brad (00:30:44):
And I think the energy balance guys, uh, Mike Fave and Jay Feldman do a great job hammering this point, home that until we’re healthy and until we’re in stress, rest balance, this idea of exercising more and eating less is a big, huge fat disaster. And it will not work, because what all we’re doing is increasing our stress quotient. And that’s often happening when people are struggling to drop another five, 10 or 15 pounds through turning up the, pushing the gas pedal and doing harder workouts and cutting back on calories. Okay. So, this is a quote from Jay. When we have lack of sunlight, lack of sleep, lack of social interaction, and many other aspects of our modern lives. We inhibit our ability to produce energy and our capacity for handling increased energy demands is drastically reduced. It will not work to eat less food and exercise more.

Brad (00:31:42):
And so we wanna kind of open up the perspective a little bit, realize how important it’s to get out and walk. Not because you’re can counting the calories on your smart device, but just to achieve fresh air, open space, sunlight and cognitive downtime from a screen, um, minimizing your exposure to environmental affronts such as the chemicals that you put on your skin, on your body and in your food. And of course, trying to minimize the psychological stress that we traffic in with rumination and all the other ways. So it’s pretty simple. Mellow out, try to enjoy your life slow down and put into place the appropriate stressors. So let me formulate some concluding thoughts here that are gonna cover the things that were in all four episodes.

Brad (00:32:35):
First off, everything’s a matter of degree. So when we’re reflecting on the nature of our life stress, that’s gonna be an entirely personal discussion. For example, read the questions I asked. I’m gonna put myself right on that edge of over stress, with my athletics and my age group. So, I might be a person who wants to reign in any type of dietary stressor, like fasting and even cold plunging, because I’m already tiptoeing on the edge of the precipice due to the other factors that are in place. I mentioned on one of the shows where I had this really weird three times repeated experience where I did my sprint workout or sprinting jumping workout, as well as a devoted cold plunge on the same morning. I’m not saying back to back, but I put both those stressors into place. And three times I had a total bomb out in the afternoon where all of a sudden felt tired, achy, exhausted, and had to go down for a major nap.

Brad (00:33:42):
And that inspired me to reflect on whether I needed two major stressors in the same morning, and also whether I needed to continually to push the envelope and see how long I could adapt and increase my time in the cold tub or in the cold lake. And so I had, uh, worked my way up to being able to comfortably last for four to six minutes in water that was 38 degrees. No problem, no struggle, no complaints, right. It was just, I was getting better and better. And then I abruptly turned that back down to a one to two minute plunge such that it’s more therapeutic and there’s no reason for me to push the envelope there , especially when I might have pushed the envelope by doing six reps over at the track of 200 meters when I might have been better off doing three or four.

Brad (00:34:34):
And with all the reflections on diet and listening to the energy balance, uh, premise I’ve made a significant adjustment, which I feel like is very favorable, very sensible and will very likely stick long term. And that is to get a nice big bowl of fruit and a very powerful, super nutrition smoothie every morning instead of fasting or just not paying much attention, maybe having a couple squares of chocolate and going and going until near midday until I prepare, um, a lavish meal. And I like that for me personally. Jay talks about turning down stress hormones by waking up and putting fruit into your body right away and dampening that natural, uh, cortisol spike that we all tout as appropriate and favorable. Uh, but my total focus here is on minimizing, uh, the outside stress factors in my life outside of my, what I believe are the most beneficial, valuable, and enjoyable, and that would be my athletic training.

Brad (00:35:41):
So, um, the other goal is nourishing the body to the maximum checking blood work frequently because I do not want any of those dials turned down no way, man, not even for a second, not if I wanna make a triumphant return to the Olympics, to my hometown in Los Angeles in 2028, I’m only two feet off the world record in the high jump. So I’m holding out hope. And back to our show, uh, remember this too, um, among elite athletes, there is very little incidents of extreme dieting or extreme biohacking. And that’s an interesting takeaway. Lindsay Berra emphasized that in our show because she interviews athletes in a variety of sports about their dietary practices specifically. And there’s not a whole lot that going on amongst that select group of people who are pushing the envelopes of human performance, setting world records and getting paid millions of dollars to perform.

Brad (00:36:45):
And I think that’s a very interesting takeaway, especially when we can get bombarded and deeply confused with conflicting scientific studies asserting that this is the way to go. And that’s the way to go. And they’re in direct opposition and they’re both respected and you hear from different resources and you’re like, what am I to think? And so I always like to look toward the performances of the athletes because it’s irrefutable evidence that whatever they’re doing is working to the extent that they’re setting world records.For example, the sport of triathlon. You now see people doing the iron man way under the magical eight hour barrier. That one wondered would ever be broken, uh, decades ago when I was racing and the records were in the low eight hour, uh, level. Now guys are doing, I think seven hours and 20 or some crazy times, which essentially represents going really fast for a very long swim, a very long bike ride.

Brad (00:37:38):
And then a marathon run ran at a pace of six minute miles or better, and absolutely astonishing performance all day long, just running that engine at a high level. Same with my man Zack Bitter, the world record holder in the a hundred mile run where he’s clicking off six minutes and 46 seconds per mile for a hundred consecutive miles. If you have any reference point like running a three hour marathon, which is a sensational performance representing, uh, the top one or 2% of finishers in big races, like New York LA, that’s four in a row by Zack Bitter. And so athletes like these and those in the NBA who are not only playing hard in a sport that requires great endurance and explosiveness, but their travel schedule is ridiculous. There’s so much stress on those athletes. They are not indulging, they’re guarantee you, they’re not looking at the clock or looking at their portion sizes.

Brad (00:38:32):
Now we could also argue that elite athletes might be a little bit behind the curve and would benefit from paying more attention to their dietary choices. But in Lindsay’s interview, she talked about one common thread that they express was that they stay away from processed foods. My contention is from what little evidence I can gather, uh, that a lot of ’em could do much better with that. And I mentioned that in a previous show where I called out Lance Armstrong for opening up the packet of cookies from the mini bar on his plane. Nevertheless point is well taken that we see little to no extreme dieting amongst the world’s elite athletes. And back to my biomarkers, uh, I’ve reported this on some Instagram posts where I measure my testosterone frequently and my range in serum T over the past three years with maybe two dozen tests, put it this way.

Brad (00:39:27):
They know my name at the blood lab down the road. And when I ride my bike in, they allow me to park my bike inside I’m I’m like a regular. Okay. So the range of serum T has been between 562 to 1,008. For reference the general range for the population healthy males. Uh, they wanna see between 200 and a thousand. So when I hit that record breaking thousand eight, that represents the top 1% of even male in the, uh, the prime age groups of, uh, 20 to, to 30. And so that was an amazing number and 5 62 is also, uh, just fine or good. Uh, but I wanna be great all the time. I wanna be very good to great because, uh, our reference range is possibly kind of pathetic when we’re talking about the general population. And many experts have also agreed or asserted that too, that when you’re looking at something like testosterone, an adaptive hormone, you wanna be shooting for the, uh, the 75 80 90th percentile rather than being comfortable, uh, being in the mid-range.

Brad (00:40:36):
And so that span that range from 5 62 to 1,008, quite significant, I’d say, for the most part, I’m in the seven 50 range and, uh, a little tighter, but those, those extreme examples, uh, reveal I, in my opinion the variation in my stress levels in day to day life, most likely, um, the excessive training being the one that would knock me down and put me in the fine category instead of good or great. So my goal, which you, uh, might, might be strongly recommended is to keep those dials on and turn down, uh, stress hormones. Avoid that overproduction of stress hormones. So what a concept, a bowl of fruit in the morning, I don’t think it’s gonna hurt me and it could quite possibly help, especially when as you know, I’m coming off a 40 minute exercise routine, and then I enjoy my bowl of fruit and my big smoothie.

Brad (00:41:33):
So I’ve already done some activity to kind of earn those carbs as Liver King would say. Now I’m gonna describe this as a proactive strategy, because I’m generally not hungry. I don’t need to sit down and consume those calories in the morning. I’m so used to after 15 years of engaging in extended fasting. But I’m certainly open-minded and receptive to the idea that especially after a significant 40 minute exercise session, perhaps it can be helpful to nourish my body immediately. And guess what I’ve noticed in my brief experiment, admittedly, it’s been about a month where I’ve been hitting this fruit and smoothie every single morning, rather than fasting. I noticed that my hunger signals, uh, turn on a little bit more, uh, now, as we know, from the keto boiler plate commentary, uh, it’s been a widely touted benefit of a low carb or ketogenic diet that you’re never hungry anymore, and you feel great all day.

Brad (00:42:33):
So I’m actually reflecting on that and thinking that maybe the opposite is okay too. In other words, I’m turning on my hunger signals in the morning by consuming calories every morning. And we know this is part of your digestive circadian rhythm processes, where your brain, your body comes to expect food by 9:00 AM every morning, because you’re feeding it at 9:00 AM every morning. And yes, we are capable of transcending that with that low carb ketogenic diet, especially however, um, do I want to turn on those hunger hormones so that I will be prompted to, I ingest nutritious fuel and be able to keep those dials up all day long. Now, this is where I emphasize that it’s a matter of degree, because if you extend all the way out on that continuum, we’re talking about carb dependency, right? Where I feel terrible moody cranky by 10:00 AM because I haven’t eaten my dose of processed carbohydrates every morning in the great all American breakfast.

Brad (00:43:37):
So I’m gonna contend that I am not a risk factor to head in that direction. And so as I try to optimize everything and keep the dials up the hormones, the thyroid, the adrenals, the fight or flight response appropriately balanced with downtime and turning downs, stress hormones by fueling my body appropriately, which is that main message of energy balance. I’m really open to that concept and offline. I talked to Sisson about this at length, and he, uh, offers the, um, reflection that he’s so good at fasting that it’s really no stress for him to wait until 12 noon until he eats his first nutritious meal, staying away from processed foods that interfere with energy burning. He’s very good at burning body fat. He’s not gonna change his routine to copy Brad Kearns and have a bowl of fruit and a big smoothie. However, and we’ll discuss this further on our upcoming podcast together,

Brad (00:44:34):
he was relating a time period where he had, uh, overstressed his body with some amazing workouts, which the guy’s 69 years old. He still performs some pretty fantastic endurance feats and big stuff in the gym too. And that’s how you maintain, uh, the six pack and the physique, even as an old man Oh my gosh. I just called you an old man. Sorry, Mark. Well, he was talking about how he did this crazy bike ride, uh, fat tire bike in Miami on the sand. I’ve done the workout. It’s brutal. It is a brutal hour and a half workout in the heat. He did that. Uh, he, uh, flew on a jet the next day. So he got the jet travel stressor, went down to the Caribbean and took a long kite surfing lesson in the ocean that can turn cold after two hours, even though it’s 78 degrees, it’s lower than your body temperature.

Brad (00:45:23):
So he was tired. He was stressed. He was, had some travel in him and he had the previous days workout and he felt pretty wiped out. And then he related that, uh, over the ensuing hours days, he took a massive nap, which is unusual for him and consumed more calories. So, getting back into his personal balance after a bout of excess exercise stress. So back to my personal example, is the bowl of fruit and the big smoothie gonna be life changing and dramatically better than fasting. Probably not because I’m already starting from a, a good starting point, but again, if I’m looking for an edge, especially with peak performance goals, oh my gosh, I’m gonna put some importance on this and see it through as an experiment.

Brad (00:46:10):
And speaking of blood work, I talked about my testosterone. I also, turned in a recent report with triglycerides at 27, HDL 79 and insulin 2.3. So those values for triglycerides and insulin are very low pretty much under the norm by a significant amount, meaning that I have not the slightest concern with the prominent patterns of metabolic syndrome type two diabetes, heart disease, risk factors. And as we’ve heard from experts like Dr. Cate Shanahan, Dr. Ron Sinha, we want to focus on that triglycerides to H D L ratio as our number one analysis for heart disease risk factor. And the goal is to bring those to one to one. So you want your Trigs even with your HDL or lower, and mine is significantly lower than the ideal goal of one to one in contrast, most of us modern citizens, uh, consuming standard American diet, uh, the doctors are really asking you to get your triglycerides under 150, and we want the HDL over 40. So that’s a big difference from one to one.

Brad (00:47:23):
And so striving for that ideal one to one. Same with the insulin. The mainstream, uh, recommendation is to get it under 15. Um, Paul Saladino would like to see you under five as ideal and urgently under nine. And so if you’re dancing around with a fasting insulin of 10, or what have, you might get a thumbs up from a routine checkup, but the leaders like Peter Attia and Saladino would like to see you get that way down. And Saladino contends that this is the single most important blood value to track for your diabetes, heart disease, risk factor. And sadly, it’s not often ordered on mainstream tests and you have to ask and ask again, as I learned with getting my wife in for her annual checkup, and they said, why do you need to test insulin? And so I gave him the spiel that this is probably more important than anything else you see on the blood result.

Brad (00:48:17):
So it’s a really good value to track. And in my case with triglycerides and insulin that low,, as Chris Kelly talked about in our episode a long time ago, he called me out and said, you know what? That might even be too low. Maybe you should eat more sugar and get your triglycerides higher to have a better energy utilization. So, again, as a personal example, I’m asking you to go and get your own blood work done and evaluate these things and look deeper than the deeply flawed ideal of just cutting back on your portion sizes and exercising more. So for those of us with risk factors, that’s one category. Again, I see this whole other category of people, the devoted enthusiasts out there who are doing big time workouts, uh, they report not being hungry. They are doubling down on fasting and keto and so forth.

Brad (00:49:08):
And perhaps, turning a lot of those dials down, whether they have, uh, distinct complaints or not, maybe they’re in this medium stage of overreaching where they’re headed for trouble, even though they think that everything is optimized. And Saladino posed that great question in our show, I think our first show, and he says it all the time, like, we’re talking about going from, you know, level five to level eight or level seven to level nine. And the follow up question is how do you know if you’re at level seven or level eight or level nine or level five, we don’t have a lot of reference points to, um, you know to compare ourselves. And so I’m always open to the idea that I might be only at level seven and I aspire to get to level nine. And so that’s kind of the rationale for doing all manner of experimenting and tweaking is to try to rise up the rankings and especially don’t get blindsided.

Brad (00:50:06):
Listen to my podcast with Debbie Potts. She’s a 13 time iron man finisher, including six time finisher of the Hawaii iron man world championships, where you have to qualify. So she was one of the fastest ladies in the world in her age group. And boy, that general adaptation syndrome came out of the clouds and bit her hard. And she relates this tragic story of just crapping out on the side of the road in the middle of a 50 mile bike ride one day with her body in total exhaustion. And it really hit her as a blind side and it took her years to recover. So that was the end of her competitive iron man career. She was just pushing the edge so far in every direction. And so you can easily contend that it is truly dangerous to go into the extreme mode of biohacking, progressive health practices, to the extent that you might be feeling okay for a while with your sprinting and cold plunging and ketogenic eating and carb restriction and calorie restriction.

Brad (00:51:06):
But you’re working on borrowed time because you’re prompting stress hormones back to Jay Feldman’s, uh, epic quote that I, I keeps echoing in my mind. You know, fasting, ketogenic eating, carb restriction turns on stress hormones. Um, to what extent, probably not a lot for Sisson. For Debbie Potts, when she was training like crazy and possibly not nourishing herself optimally, she was just a ticking time bomb of stress hormones as represented by her complete collapse. Okay. So just because we can do it doesn’t mean it’s healthy. That includes being the regular participant at the 6:00 AM classes at the gym, because when we’re, uh, answering to that alarm before it’s light out and heading over to the pulsating music and the Pepe instructor and the social experience, yes, that’s all positive. It’s fun, it’s enjoyable. But you are tapping into stress hormones every time, especially if you come home and have a tiny little container of non-fat yogurt and then carry on, uh, or, or try to fast until 12 and piggyback that with a pre-dawn workout.

Brad (00:52:17):
Um, so, uh, J Feldman energy balance, somewhat controversial insights on diet, but not, uh, not too crazy. When you look at it from the big picture, he wants you to eat easily digestible foods with adequate nutrients, including sufficient calories and carbohydrates and protein and fat, a minimal amount of toxins. So he is on board with the, Paul Saladino message of avoiding these high risk categories of plant toxins. Um, so it’s kind of an animal based, fruit heavy. Uh, they’re also touting fruit juice as a sensible choice to give your body easily digestible energy. Um, so I’m also here in the very agreeable and non-controversial camp of promoting maximum nutrient density and a total elimination of highly processed, toxic, modern foods as the path to health. Anyone care to dispute that sign up and I’ll have you on as a guest on the podcast.

Brad (00:53:22):
So that is my landing point here after years of being deep into everything and listening to so many people. And some of those podcast highlights that’ll drive this point home Dr. Robert Lustig, author of Metabolical. You can’t get a more impeccable resource in terms of his body of work and his awards and his prestige in the mainstream medical community, as well as the progressive health. He says, as long as you just get rid of junk food, it’s virtually impossible to go and get fat and obese and have all these, uh, disease patterns, because when you think about turning over into a diet that emphasizes nutrient density, you’re gonna be full. You’re gonna be satisfied. You’re not gonna eat too many omelets and too many steaks and too many protein smoothies, uh, to go and get yourself sick and fat, uh, Tommy Wood, again, conveying to his fit clients, to consume as much healthy food as they can, until they add a pound of fat and then dial it back a little, how sensible can you get, okay.

Brad (00:54:24):
These are my tips and recommendations for exercise. For those of us in that category, please be very, very careful to adopt a kinder, gentler approach so that you avoid bouts of fatigue in the aftermath of your impressive workouts, so that you avoid recurrent muscle soreness, of course, avoiding injuries, and just honoring this example from the great elite athletes in every sport on the planet, where they’re training well within themselves at virtually every workout. They’re not puking on the side of the track like you see in the movies. I’m reflecting back in my days as an elite professional triathlete, and a lot of my cardiovascular training sessions on the bike are running were 20, 30, 40 or 50 beats below my maximum aerobic function, heart rate of 155. So I could jog and my fitness level was high. So everything’s relative, right? I could jog at a decent pace of perhaps eight or nine minute mile at 115 beats a minute.

Brad (00:55:28):
When my aerobic maximum was 155, I could pedal my bike, 16, 17 miles an hour on flat ground at a hundred beats per minute, 55 beats below my MAF heart rate. So I ask you and anyone else, uh, if this is relevant to you, why the heck at the age of 57, when I’m less fit and my bumping up against my maximum aerobic heart rate virtually every time I take an endurance training session, , It’s because I’m so slow. And so in my brain, I’m thinking, well, I should at least run nine minute miles, even though I’m right there at 125, 130 heart rate when I’m running that quote unquote fast. So, uh, by comparison to that old time triathlete who has the same name as I, but has a few other associations, that easy training session when I’m running along the path at 115 beats per minute and running nine minute mile today, that would represent a brisk walk.

Brad (00:56:24):
So I have to buck up, get the ego out of the way and deliver the appropriate training stimulus. Same with my high jump practices. I know from consultation and re reporting from elite athletes that a good high jumper has about a dozen full approach jumps in a single meet or practice session. That’s about all they’re good for. And after that technique will start to falter fatigue. Of course, it’s, strenuous to jump up and over a bar that’s nearly eight feet in the air, right? Or nearly seven feet for the females. And so why at a typical practice session, am I doing 20 full distance approach jumps? It’s because the 13th, 15th, 17th, I’m frustrated. I want to get that technique down. I think I can do it on the next rep and the next and the next, and then I pay the price later.

Brad (00:57:14):
So I’m learning to dial it back and workouts, and, and fighting that battle. I encourage you to do the same. Now in this kinder, gentler approach, one thing that you can do that really helps with your consistency and elevating your fitness base is to perform these micro workouts and then hone your technique during training sessions that are, uh, less strenuous. So I’m doing my sprinting drills that you can see on YouTube, running technique drills. I do those virtually every day, uh, for 10 seconds, 15 second stint here, another stint here, another stint here, and that is really helping me when it’s time to open up the throttle and perform a proper sprint workout. The morning routine, which I talk about so much, did a whole show on that recently, this is really the centerpiece for me of a sensible, kinder, gentler, and more consistent approach to my fitness goals.

Brad (00:58:13):
And because I’ve adapted to it over time, it’s not that difficult for me to perform. It’s sort of a easy to medium, to a few things at the end that could be considered medium to difficult every time I do them, like the mini band sequence or the dumbbell raises at the very end of the sequence. But look on Brad kearns.com, the morning routine page, since you’ve listened this long to the show, I’m gonna give you a discount code, Brad 10, when you want to enroll in that course. And it’s wonderful, and it has so many scalable ideas. So you can start easy, whatever fitness level you’re at. You can watch my whole, entire 40 minute routine in sequence in, in case you care to model that or pick and choose from that. But it represents a kinder, gentler, sensible approach because I’m so adapted to it that it’s not strenuous for me.

Brad (00:59:06):
And I was so, heartened to realized that it was hard for Rouse, my childhood friend. I took him through the paces and he was complaining of his abdomen burning early on into the sequence. And I realized, this guy is a, a fitness machine, one of the best tennis players in Southern California, at the 58 age group. And he was struggling because it was new to him. And so adapting to exercise stress to the extent that it doesn’t tax you. That’s the essence of getting fitter. Okay. Thanks for listening, Geoff, if you are listening.

Brad (00:59:38):
Now, the big five from Doug McGuff. I also put on this bulleted list here as a great exercise suggestion. And if you recall that episode, he contends that the way to increase muscle strength is that a little goes a very, very long way and doing too much will retard your progress. And so he wants you to go into the gym and perform five functional, full body exercises on the machines for safety and for wide inclusion of anybody. You don’t have to be messing around with free weights, but you do the seated row, the chest press the overhead, press the lap, pull down and the leg press, and you do very slow reps. So the muscle is under tension for a long time, and you do a single set to failure, and you do the workout once a week. So the workout literally takes around 12 minutes. You rest a little bit between stations. You go to the next one, you do a single set to failure. Next one, next one. And all you need to do is once a week to stimulate reliable strength gains without the risk of uh, injury, fatigue, regression in fitness regression, and strength that so many devoted strength trainers experience.

Brad (01:00:54):
The Osteostrong program, invented by Dr. John Jaquish, you can look at their website, they have special facilities, all over the country. They are catering to the crowd concerned with osteoporosis. So the protocols you go in and you perform to maximum, uh, muscle failure at four major, functional machines that recruit a lot of muscle groups. And that incre increases both bone density and muscle strength. My mom’s doing a great job starting in 2022. So she’s halfway through the year going once a week, pressing those handles or pulling or pushing whatever they ask to do, and you get your number and it exceeds your threshold for stimulating bone growth. And you go your Merry way in a very short duration workout. That’s doable for everybody. So putting your body under resistance load for very brief workouts can have a tremendous effect without that risk of that.

Brad (01:01:53):
You get from chronic exercise. I already mentioned my fondness for cold exposure. I still highly recommend it. It’s a wonderful psychological boost. It helps increase your focus, discipline and all those great adaptability distress of all forms throughout the day. And there’s no reason to try to be your hero. You expose your body to an appropriate level of stress, experience those breakthroughs and the hormonal boost, as well as the psychological boost and the same with the sauna. I’ve dabbled in some extreme sauna experiences where I’m in there, I’m sweating profusely and I stay 10 more minutes. And sometimes I felt goofy in the aftermath of the sauna because it was, it was hardcore. So now my rule is I get in there and as soon as I start sweating profusely, I get out immediately. And that represents an appropriate sauna experience.

Brad (01:02:47):
And as I’m wrapping this up with conclusion recommendations, we’re going in the category now of life stressors, of course, prioritizing sleep. We don’t need to, uh, prolong that point here, uh, but also wanna throw in a plug for downtime. So we know how important it is to sleep well, but also taking downtime away from the devices to just relax and recapture what it’s like to have space between your thoughts, all that great stuff. And because of all the temptation and the instant gratification potential, we need to build systems to withstand as discussed in the Dopamine Nation podcast withstand this age of indulgence. Otherwise we’re gonna succumb. We don’t have to, um, we shouldn’t tap into willpower all the time. We should just power down our phone. Um, I mentioned the example in my interview with Dr. Lembke, where, when the streaming episode is over and then over in the little corner of your screen, it says the next episode will begin in 10, 9, 8, 7.

Brad (01:03:46):
And I always jump up and grab that remote and put it on pause, have a consult with Mia Moore, whether we want to continue with another episode, but I don’t wanna be tempted and lured by the next episode playing because, of course, it’s gonna be interesting. And it’s gonna try to draw you in, uh, my interview a long time ago with the great Kelly Starrett, prominent fitness and physical therapy leader, but he spent a lot of time talking about how important it is to charge your phone outta your room, rather than his core area of expertise, because he feels like it’s that important. And my example of the morning routine, guess what, besides all the physical benefits,, it prevents me from getting sidetracked with my mobile technology or my lid of my laptop being flipped open because all that stuff must happen after the morning routine is complete.

Brad (01:04:36):
So at least I have that built in and then maybe we’ll see if I get sidetracked or not. Okay. That’s concluding with some advice that’s very sensible, not necessarily exciting or secret or magic, but we wanna tone down those sources of chronic stress. And especially when it comes to the self-inflicted stress of, uh, workout patterns and especially stacking of those stressors. As I talk about in my personal example, and when we make, uh, dietary choices, we wanna stay away from those nutrient deficient processed foods that have inflammatory autoimmune, uh, properties and have metabolic inhibitors as the energy balance guys like to say, and those are prominently the seed oils because they interfere with your ability to burn energy yourself. And in this category also, perhaps as Dr. Paul Saladino makes a compelling argument for, are the natural plant talkin that are widely touted as having fantastic health benefits and not enough discussion about how they might be messing you up, especially in the major categories of roots, stems, seeds, and leaves,

Brad (01:05:45):
less so in the least offensive plants like fruit and honey,. Of course we’d wanna dial in those ancestral aligned behaviors, like sleep, sun, socializing, sex, strolling, instead of sitting. And how many S words can I fit into the sentence for your listening pleasure? Oh, right. So tinker around and see what works for you. Be open to experimenting. I think that’s such a strong admonition right now because we are trafficking in, um, an era of information overload and it’s easy to get wrapped up in forming fixed and rigid beliefs to figure out what camp you live in. Um, former podcast guest, Dave Kobrine, deep health and fitness enthusiast went so far as to perform a 30 day strict carnivore eating experiment where I believe all he had was eggs, steak and salmon. And he took his blood values before and after.

Brad (01:06:44):
And so he has a very excellent reference point to fine tune his diet from there. Interestingly, speaking of energy balance, he reports that he felt great. He got cut up and, you know, even more prominent six pack than his, his baseline six pack. But interestingly on the blood report, his testosterone had dropped significantly. And so if we reported that to Jay Feldman and Mike fave, they might contend that he was turning down some of those other dials, and turning on the stress response because he was not getting his usual allotment of carbs. And he was most certainly burning carbs with his ever devoted workout regimen and epic morning routine. It would make sense that he felt great because in part of ramping up stress hormones, because in part due to reduction in carb intake, and luckily he ended his experiment at 30 days, because if it was 90 days or a year, maybe he would, you know, really experience the, the repercussions.

Brad (01:07:49):
And we know that stress hormones antagonize the adaptive hormones like testosterone. And so when you have high cortisol, high fight or flight chronic stimulation, you’re gonna see those numbers tank. Mark Bell does constant cycling through an assortment of diets, over the year and over the long term, always looking to optimize and, uh, remain open-minded. And please don’t say, Hey, this stuff seems ridiculous. It’s all about everything in moderation, even though I know what you mean. And I know when we’re talking about going to extremes, it can be trouble. But I really think that term is misappropriated more than it’s understood correctly. And it turns into a cop out phrase and I’m so lit up about that. I’m gonna do a whole show about it. So, um, listeners let’s keep blazing the trail together, huh? And let’s try to go from level seven to level nine or level five to level seven, wherever we’re at.

Brad (01:08:49):
And I do want to thank Jay Feldman and Mike Fave for pushing the dialogue forward with their great shows on the Energy Balance podcast that spurred this four part presentation on reflections, uh, of their great work. Thank you so much for listening and sharing this episode with others. My friends are now getting annoyed at me, cuz I text, uh, the link to the episode so many times and so many different people. I’m just pushing my thumbs and spreading the word. And if you can do that with this podcast, we appreciate it so much. It helps us gain more attention, rise up the rankings and don’t forget, uh, that quote I uttered somewhere toward the end of the show, Brad 10, B R A D 1 0,, and you can enroll in the morning routine, the ultimate guide to developing a morning exercise routine over@bradkearns.com. Thank you so much. You’re gonna enjoy that course and we have much more coming out soon.

Brad (01:09:47):
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@bradkearns.com for a weekly blast about the published episodes and a wonderful bimonthly newsletter edition 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. And if you could go to the trouble to leave a five or five star review with apple podcasts or wherever else, you listen to the shows that would be super, 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 soundbite excerpt from the episode you’re listening to and fire it off with a quick text message. Thank you so much for spreading the word and remember B.rad.

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