Order of Man - Biohack Your Way to Health ｜ BEN GREENFIELD

00:00:00.000 Making yourself healthy is one of the absolute best things that you can do for yourself and those

00:00:04.880 you are working to serve, but it's too bad that most of the information and the way that we choose

00:00:09.780 to live our lives is stacked against us. My guest today, the one and only Ben Greenfield joins me

00:00:14.860 for round two on the podcast to talk about how to take back control of our health and use it as fuel

00:00:20.900 to excel in our lives. We cover the fundamentals of course, but we also get into some fringe and

00:00:26.380 not so common ideas like utilizing infrared therapy to reduce inflammation, the distinction

00:00:32.200 between medicines and drugs, markers to improve circadian rhythm, and ultimately how to biohack

00:00:38.760 your way to health. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and

00:00:43.940 boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time

00:00:49.640 you are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:56.780 you are. This is who you will become at the end of the day. And after all is said and done, you can

00:01:02.660 call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler and I am the host

00:01:08.880 and the founder of this podcast and the movement, the revolution that is Order of Man. And I use the

00:01:13.860 term and the word revolution deliberately. And I say revolution because if you think about what this is,

00:01:19.640 and let me say this first, that that term is overused. But if you think about what the term

00:01:23.840 and the word revolution means, it's revolving, it's coming back to something. And ultimately my

00:01:29.720 goal and objective is to reclaim and restore traditional masculinity. And to that end,

00:01:35.240 we're having conversations on this podcast. We've got the blog, we've got our YouTube channel,

00:01:40.920 we've got all our social media channels, we've got our exclusive brotherhood, the Iron Council.

00:01:44.440 We've got so much going on all in an attempt to, again, reclaim and restore masculinity in a world

00:01:50.480 that seems to be moving further and further away from the idea that men are strong, that we're capable,

00:01:56.580 that we're rugged, that we're independent, that we're here to serve other people and lift people

00:02:00.640 up and ultimately become the best people that we can be so that we can adequately serve ourselves

00:02:06.720 and adequately serve those that we have an obligation for, a responsibility for,

00:02:11.220 and of course, those we love. So we're doing these interviews like the one today with the one and

00:02:16.860 only Ben Greenfield, but I've had other guys like Jocko Willink, Grant Cardone, Tim Kennedy,

00:02:23.040 Dakota Meyer, David Goggins, and so many more. So make sure if you're not already doing this,

00:02:28.520 that you subscribe. And if you would also, I don't ask for this a whole lot, make sure you leave a

00:02:32.880 rating and review. If you've listened to the Order of Man podcast for any amount of time,

00:02:36.820 please understand that ratings and reviews go such a long way in promoting the visibility and

00:02:41.120 really getting the message out to the masses that we are to reclaim and restore masculinity.

00:02:46.120 We've also got our Wednesday show, which is an Ask Me Anything with my co-host Kip Sorensen. And

00:02:51.000 then of course, your Friday Field Notes, which is just me and my thoughts and some of the things I've

00:02:55.140 been thinking about from throughout the week. Guys, before I get into the conversation today,

00:02:59.320 just a couple of very quick announcements. Number one is, and I've talked about this at length.

00:03:04.340 If you guys aren't familiar with my friends over at Origin, I highly, highly recommend that you check out

00:03:09.520 what these guys are doing and what they're all about. Specifically, I want to talk about their

00:03:13.440 nutritional lineup. It's their Joint Warfare. It's their Super Krill. It's their Discipline,

00:03:19.360 which is a pre-workout. And of course, Mulk, which is a protein supplement. It's all partnered

00:03:23.840 up with Jocko. And I use all of those products. Specifically, the one I want to mention to you is

00:03:28.520 Joint Warfare. This is so great for the joints. And as I get a little bit older and I push a little bit

00:03:34.400 harder with my workout regimen and jujitsu. And also, as we get into baseball season, my arms

00:03:40.220 hanging a little bit because I've been playing a lot of catch with my boys and I've been using that

00:03:44.000 Joint Warfare. And I got to tell you, it's really, really helped ease up some of the joints and just

00:03:48.800 make them feel a little bit better, not so painful and not so inflamed. So anyways, check it out.

00:03:53.820 They've got some amazing, amazing products, all 100% made in America. Good friends of mine.

00:03:58.580 They're out of Maine. If you head to originmaine.com, as in the state, maine.com.

00:04:03.740 And then if you end up using or picking up any products or merchandise over there,

00:04:07.660 use the code ORDER, O-R-D-E-R at checkout, and you'll get a 10% discount on anything that you

00:04:14.080 purchase, including their rash guards and their geese and their jujitsu apparel. Again,

00:04:19.560 it's originmaine.com and use the code ORDER at checkout. What else? In addition to that,

00:04:24.760 we are coming up on the Hoyt giveaway. I think we've got 3,000 entries nearly at this point. So

00:04:31.220 make sure that if you haven't already entered to win that Hoyt bow, it's a brand new Hoyt Helix

00:04:36.660 that we're giving away on April 1st. Make sure you get that done very, very quickly.

00:04:41.020 As of the release of this podcast, I think there's only what, three or four days left.

00:04:47.100 So if you haven't already registered, head to orderofman.com slash Hoyt, H-O-Y-T. Again, 1.00

00:04:54.080 orderofman.com slash Hoyt, follow the instructions. Very simple, very easy and get yourself entered for

00:04:59.480 the drawing of the brand new Hoyt Helix bow giveaway. That's it. That's all I have by a way

00:05:04.940 of announcements. Let's get into the discussion. I'm really excited to introduce you to my guest

00:05:09.380 today. He's a repeat guest and a friend of mine. In fact, I believe it was around this time last

00:05:15.100 year that we went on a hunt together in Hawaii, which was an incredible time. And I got to see how

00:05:19.280 this guy really works, not just his mind, but how he actually works and the type of life he actually

00:05:23.500 lives. His name is Ben Greenfield. And I know a lot of you guys don't need an introduction to this

00:05:28.920 man, but maybe for those of you who do, he's one of the world's leading experts on the subject of

00:05:33.920 health and fitness and nutrition, basically all things biohacking. And he's probably one of the

00:05:39.880 most fascinating individuals that I've had the opportunity of getting to know over the past couple

00:05:44.500 of years. He's got a master's degree in physiology and biomechanics, and he's full bore into the fitness

00:05:50.140 world. He tests new medical and health theories and really pushes himself as hard as just about

00:05:56.440 any other human I've met. He's trained with SEALs. He's worked with professional sports teams. He's

00:06:02.620 completed some of the most elite obstacle course races in the world. And today he joins us to talk

00:06:08.080 about the power of biohacking your way to health. Guys, if you don't already have it, get a notepad out.

00:06:13.600 You're going to want that and sit back and enjoy my conversation with Ben. Ben, what's going on,

00:06:19.800 man? Thanks for joining me back on the show today. I see what's going on. Monday morning and I'm

00:06:25.560 staring out at an icy landscape here in Spokane, Washington. Got a little sauna time in this morning.

00:06:32.200 Had a little brekkie and now I'm talking to you. Right on, man. You got a lot going on. It's not

00:06:36.000 just that. I mean, you make it sound like it's kind of comfortable just kind of hanging out, but I know

00:06:39.280 you've been on a busy schedule to say the least. Yeah, it's not too bad. I travel a lot, but

00:06:44.700 gosh, I've been traveling for years and years. When my wife met me shortly thereafter, I got into

00:06:52.880 triathlon. I guess I was maybe 21. I kind of got out of bodybuilding and into racing these Ironman

00:06:59.100 triathlons, but at that point just started traveling all over the world. So for the past 16 years,

00:07:05.620 I've been on an airplane at least once a month and these days about three or four times a month

00:07:10.420 traveling here and there. The nice part is though, I'm not traveling as much for racing and competition

00:07:14.880 anymore. So I don't have to like tear down a time trial bike and build it back up and pack all the

00:07:19.700 wetsuits and all the shoes and all the, you know, racing gear and nutrition and all that jazz. I just

00:07:24.540 got to go put a bunch of shit in a backpack and get in a plane. So it's actually easy compared to 1.00

00:07:29.400 traveling for something like Ironman triathlon. What do you take when you travel? And I know a little

00:07:34.080 bit because we were in Hawaii. What about, was it about this time last year? I think when we were

00:07:38.660 hunting. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you take with you specifically when you travel, whether it's

00:07:44.820 presenting or going on a hunt to keep yourself in shape and some of the exercise regimen you go

00:07:50.080 through? There's a big difference between presenting and going on a hunt, bro. I'm not talking about your

00:07:55.480 hunting gear. I'm talking about specifically like workout gear, but yes, you are correct. You're not

00:08:00.040 going to be hunting while you're presenting for sure. Yeah. I don't, I don't usually pack a bow and

00:08:04.180 broadheads and mosquito repellent and all that jazz. You're not wearing camo on the stage or anything

00:08:09.080 like that? No, I don't, I don't bring that to speak at a conference in Vegas or anything like that.

00:08:13.960 I like to replicate my morning when I travel, really just my daily routine, right? So for example,

00:08:19.860 you know, one thing that I do every single morning when I get up is I just find any body parts

00:08:24.340 that are kind of sore or knotted up or are tight. And, you know, I make love to them with a foam

00:08:30.600 roller. And, you know, I have all these little massage tools that, you know, like the vibrating

00:08:35.740 power drills and the car massage or the car buffers that are designed for human body massage and,

00:08:43.520 you know, the cross balls and, but I've also got many versions of those, right? Like I have,

00:08:48.060 I have smaller things like, you know, little body scrapers or, you know, small golf balls or,

00:08:53.340 you know, a couple of cross balls taped together. And, you know, I have this massage

00:08:56.940 gun called a hypervolt. I'll usually pack a few of those kinds of things. Cause I'll do the same

00:09:01.240 thing in my hotel room or Airbnb or wherever I am. I'll just spend 10 to 15 minutes every morning.

00:09:06.080 Cause I figure by the time the weekends, you know, that gives me a good 70 to 90 minutes of

00:09:11.140 pretty much simulating like deep tissue massage therapy. I've been doing that for a long time and it

00:09:16.260 just keeps my body put together. It's never the same. This morning I was, I was working on my knee a

00:09:21.420 little bit doing some voodoo flossing where you kind of tape below and above the joint with an

00:09:26.660 elastic band and kind of do some squats and move the joint through range of motion to decrease

00:09:31.060 inflammation or pull inflammatory byproducts out of a joint. You kind of get a rush of,

00:09:36.220 of synovial fluid and blood back into the joint when you remove the band. So I'll pack a few things

00:09:42.300 for doing some deep tissue work. I often use, and this is kind of a new thing in the past year or so,

00:09:47.240 but I've been using like near infrared therapy a lot. It's really good for the skin. There's some

00:09:53.380 really good studies now coming out on its ability to increase testosterone production. When you shine

00:09:57.800 it on your genitals, specifically your balls, increases the mitochondrial production. There, 1.00

00:10:02.940 there are devices that are really good for the head too, that increase your, uh, kind of your

00:10:07.500 awareness, your nitric oxide production and some of your neural tissue, your mitochondrial activity,

00:10:13.140 cardiovascular health, your blood flow, your nitric oxide production through the whole

00:10:17.000 body. And so in my office, I've got these big kind of unwieldy panels that'll turn on sometimes

00:10:22.360 when I'm standing at my desk, but I have like very, very small versions of those that I can take with

00:10:27.880 me when I travel. I was sitting around some guys two nights ago at dinner and we were chuckling about

00:10:33.240 this, but I always bring fiction wherever I go. Cause it helps me to turn my mind off at night.

00:10:37.720 You know, like right now I'm, I'm almost done with a Harry Potter series. I'll pop up in my book at night

00:10:42.700 and lay there in bed and tuck this little travel device. The one I use is called a Jew go. And I

00:10:47.940 just put it between my legs and shine on my balls for about 20 minutes while I'm laying in bed 0.99

00:10:51.860 reading. But it's also good for on your face. If you kind of put it next to the computer while 1.00

00:10:55.820 you're working in the morning, it kind of simulates sunlight. So I usually travel with something like

00:10:59.400 that too. Yeah. That's interesting. You were talking about light, even I don't remember when we

00:11:04.040 were together last is like light actually in your eardrums as well. Your ear canal, correct?

00:11:08.120 Oh yeah. Your whole body has photoreceptors and, and that's more like bright light, not red light.

00:11:13.200 Thanks for bringing that up. You know, there are these things called a zeitgeist. It's like a German 1.00

00:11:18.920 word for essentially what our circadian rhythm cues. Like there are certain things that tell our body

00:11:24.400 it's daytime and tell our bodies it's nighttime. And some of them are, are pretty simple like food,

00:11:30.920 you know, for example, timing your meals to take place at the same time as the people are eating

00:11:37.060 wherever you happen to travel to. So, you know, if I travel to Japan and I landed in Japan at say

00:11:42.080 2 PM and I'm starved, cause I usually fast when I'm on the airplane, it's just better for

00:11:45.840 lowering inflammation and you're sedentary anyways. So it's not that great.

00:11:50.140 Well, not to mention you can't get great food in the airport. That's going to be good for you.

00:11:53.600 Yeah. I mean, that's not an issue. You can travel with food.

00:11:56.060 Yeah, true. Yeah. Just if you're a little bit more intentional about it than most people are,

00:11:59.300 right?

00:11:59.680 You know, face stuffing on an airplane doesn't usually work out so well in terms of inflammation.

00:12:03.180 And it's just a chance to fast, you know, it's a chance to keep your circadian rhythms aligned by

00:12:08.000 not eating on the airplane. And then whenever you get to where you're going, you know, again,

00:12:11.820 let's say I get to Japan at like 2 PM, I'll wait until it's dinnertime there, right? Like even if

00:12:17.080 I'm starved coming off the plane, I'll wait till 7 PM to eat because food is one of your circadian

00:12:21.920 rhythm cues for a very, very long series of travel though. Let's say to, uh, I'm going to Dubai and

00:12:27.980 I've got a lot of connections. I'm going to be traveling for like 21, 22 hours. I'll pack some food,

00:12:32.620 but usually it's very kind of low glycemic index, more kind of like fatty, almost ketotic food.

00:12:37.640 So I'll, I'll take like elk jerky bars from on it, or I'll pack like a, into Ziploc bags,

00:12:43.620 some macadamia nuts, some chlorella and spirulina algae tablets, and a little bit of coconut flakes,

00:12:49.820 almost like a DIY trail mix. That's really low in sugar, you know, munch on that sometimes. And,

00:12:56.460 you know, I'll do that. I chew on gum a lot. So, you know, I just bring a lot of gum,

00:13:01.200 bring some homemade trail mix, bring a few good, clean bars that are less carbohydrate

00:13:06.040 based and more protein or fat based, you know, for a long series of travels, I'll use something

00:13:11.080 like that. With intermittent fasting, which I know you talk a little bit about, but actually

00:13:14.960 quite a length about, does that actually play into these circadian rhythms as well? Or basically

00:13:20.640 the benefit there is caloric deficit. Yeah. Intermittent fasting is actually a great way

00:13:25.220 to keep your circadian rhythm aligned because by timing your meals at specific times and Dr.

00:13:31.180 Sachin Ponda, he wrote a book, I think it's called the circadian code. I believe his name is his book.

00:13:36.500 He talks a lot about this, how having a 12 to 16 hour fast every day, you know, not eating late at

00:13:41.880 night, having a regularly timed breakfast, at least 12 hours after dinner, preferably 16 hours after

00:13:48.000 dinner, that really helps out with sleep architecture and sleep rhythms. So yes, that's important as well.

00:13:54.060 Now, food is one of your cues that even includes for people who normally skip breakfast. If you're

00:13:59.660 traveling across a lot of time zones, sometimes it actually is quite helpful when you get up in the

00:14:02.920 morning to eat breakfast at whatever, you know, time is the morning, wherever you happen to be.

00:14:08.920 Movement is another cue. Getting out and moving, you know, one of my favorite things to do because

00:14:14.160 usually you are kind of inflamed after you've been flying a lot or traveling a lot, getting outside,

00:14:19.520 preferably in bare feet, like going for a walk in the sunshine. Sometimes if I'm at a hotel,

00:14:23.920 I'll just find a grassy spot up behind the hotel and kind of go out my bare feet and,

00:14:27.360 you know, stretch around a little bit, do some arm swings and leg swings, maybe a few yoga moves,

00:14:32.460 any type of physical movement, preferably outdoors in the sunshine. The earth actually

00:14:37.160 emits this electromagnetic field. And I learned this from a guy who coaches a tour de front cyclists

00:14:43.100 and kind of helps them recover in between stages. And he always gets them outside barefoot or else

00:14:47.760 laying on, on these type of mats called earthing mats or grounding mats. My strategy is I'll just

00:14:54.580 go outside barefoot and go for a walk, walk out to a good sidewalk where it looks like there's not

00:14:59.060 like, you know, glass shards or anything like that in the ground. You got to be careful. Like if I'm

00:15:02.080 traveling to Bangkok, for example, I can't do this, but, but you get outside barefoot, preferably in the

00:15:07.000 sunshine. That's a big one too. So it's usually a barefoot walk out in the sunshine or some like

00:15:11.840 barefoot yoga on whatever grassy patch I can find or else water. Like if you can hunt down like a

00:15:17.160 really clean, good body of water, I'm not a huge fan of chlorine. I try and avoid it. It doesn't

00:15:22.440 really agree with me and dries out my skin. And you get these, what are called chlorogenic amines

00:15:26.860 that form on the surface of the water and heavily chlorinated pools. And those can just disrupt your

00:15:31.940 lungs a little bit and they're mildly carcinogenic. And I, I'm just careful with heavily chlorinated

00:15:36.720 pools, but if I've got access to like, they're aware of this and they're using more things like

00:15:40.800 minerals to clean their pools or going chlorine free. But if I can find a good body of water,

00:15:44.440 or even if I'm going to California or Florida or something like that, just like a clean lake or

00:15:48.480 river or ocean and oceans are especially nice because the minerals I'll get in water and I'll

00:15:53.220 just do my workout in the water, you know, go for a swim, do some underwater training, you know,

00:15:57.840 even just tread water a little bit, but water does a really, really good job as a form of movement too.

00:16:03.200 And those are two ways, food and movement, but then probably the biggest circadian rhythm Q is light

00:16:09.940 kind of coming full circle to what we were talking about. When you asked me that question about

00:16:13.580 bright light, I make it a point to get as much natural light as possible, especially when it's

00:16:18.260 morning, wherever I happen to have traveled to, you know, let's say I fly into Vegas, I get there at

00:16:22.640 8 PM. I'm presenting at, let's say 10 AM the next day. I've got no chance to go outside because,

00:16:28.020 you know, God knows it's freaking, they make it, they engineer Vegas to make it hard to get outside,

00:16:32.440 to get out of the casinos. Yeah. They wanted the same light wherever you are, whatever time.

00:16:36.300 Yeah. Sometimes it can add like 20 minutes to my morning routine to get out through the maze of

00:16:40.620 the casino, get outside, find a place where the sun isn't shielded by all the tall buildings. And so,

00:16:46.680 you know, a little biohacking comes in and I've got, like you mentioned, you know, this little device

00:16:50.640 called a human charger that just blasts your ears with light. There's another device called a re-timer.

00:16:56.540 It's like these glasses you can wear and blast your eyes with light. There are ways you can kind of

00:17:00.600 simulate sunlight to reset your circadian rhythm. And so, you know, returning to travel,

00:17:05.880 pack some of my mobility stuff, I pack a little tiny, you know, red light therapy. And then I'll

00:17:10.800 usually pack a couple of these devices that give me more bright light in the eyes or bright light in

00:17:15.800 the ears. I have a article on my website, bengreenfieldfitness.com called sunlight makes

00:17:21.820 you skinny, blue light makes you fat. And it's just the whole article is like how I light my home,

00:17:27.000 what kind of lighting I travel with, and just the importance of light in general is something like

00:17:32.420 that. And then for me, I mean, honestly, like sleep's one of the biggest things when I travel. It's

00:17:38.020 just, it can be hard to maintain your sleep rhythms when you're on the road a lot. So I just have little

00:17:42.560 tricks up my sleeve that I use. Like I have an app on my phone called sleep stream. It'll play these

00:17:48.380 things called binaural beats that kind of gently lull your brain into more relaxing brainwaves, less

00:17:54.140 stressful beta brainwaves, more delta and theta brainwaves. And I have like a good set of Sony

00:18:00.040 headphones, like noise blocking headphones, and use those during the night along with a good set

00:18:04.460 of foam earplugs. And that'll kind of lull me to sleep those sounds. I always have a really, really

00:18:09.740 good light blocking mask. I use one called the mind fold. It's kind of funny because it was developed

00:18:15.260 for people who go on psychedelic. I have an ayahuasca, but it is because it does such a great job blocking

00:18:20.200 out all other sensory stimuli. I'll put that on the eyes and you can just grab on Amazon. And so I

00:18:25.440 always have one of those. Just to interrupt real quick, have you ever experimented much with any of

00:18:30.720 these psychedelics? Yeah, I've used about every psychedelic known to man. What is your general

00:18:35.620 consensus? I mean, it seems to me that it does unlock some sort of maybe sensation or I don't

00:18:42.280 know, because I haven't experimented with it at all. So I'm just really curious on your thoughts about

00:18:45.420 that. That's a can of worms. I'll kind of derail us from the travel stuff, but I'll go down it for a

00:18:50.380 little bit if you want. Let's hit the travel stuff and then we'll circle back to it. All right, remind

00:18:53.840 me. We'll come back to it. So the sleep. So I've got like the sleep stream app and the headphones and

00:18:58.660 the light blocking mask. You know, I talked about earthing and grounding and the fact that the earth

00:19:03.920 emits these natural electromagnetic fields. Well, you can use those same fields to help lull your body

00:19:09.800 into sleep. And so there are different devices now you can buy. Like there's one called a flex pulse.

00:19:14.000 There's one called an earth pulse. There's another one called an ICS. And these are like tiny little

00:19:21.380 devices. You can kind of put them under your pillow or under your sheet. They basically simulate what

00:19:25.360 you get if you're camping outside. You know, you can use them like in a hotel room and it's this

00:19:29.980 natural electromagnetic frequency that also helps to lull your body into this sleep mode. And then I

00:19:37.180 always have like a little bit of CBD oil. I like, you know, compared to any other like sleep supplement,

00:19:42.100 it just, it burns clean for me and it helps to calm my racing thoughts. I'll take about 60 to 100

00:19:47.940 milligrams of CBD at night to help me get to sleep. So I usually have that in my travel bag,

00:19:53.280 some CBD oil or some CBD capsules. The thing I was going to mention about technology, one of the

00:19:59.660 things I wanted to mention was a lot of people don't know about this, but you have this vagus nerve.

00:20:04.820 It activates your parasympathetic nervous system, your rest and digest nervous system.

00:20:09.020 And they use this for a long time and kind of like psychiatry and mental therapy. But you can

00:20:15.420 get these devices called vagal nerve stimulators and they work like gangbusters. It's like an

00:20:19.580 electrode that goes on either side of your head. And I don't go to sleep with that. But if I want to

00:20:23.400 take a nap in the middle of the day when I'm traveling, or if I want to sleep on an airplane,

00:20:27.660 I put one of those on. There's one made by a company called Fisher Wallace called a circadia.

00:20:33.760 And then the other one that works really well is made by a company, New Calm and You Calm. And you

00:20:40.080 can just like toss these in your travel bag. And if you need to sleep in a situation where

00:20:43.980 there's a lot of thoughts racing, the reason I wouldn't wear it during a night of sleep is they

00:20:48.960 just kind of like fall off as you're in bed, you know, the electrodes and everything should fall

00:20:51.800 off your head. But if you just want to nap, you know, you lay on your back or, you know, sit back on

00:20:55.940 the airplane, those work really well.

00:20:57.740 And what does it do specifically?

00:20:59.160 It's actually like an electrical signal that you place over the nerve. Usually they'll go like

00:21:03.220 right behind the ears or right over the temporal lobe, like on either side of your eyes. It's

00:21:08.520 literally like an electrical signal, usually run by a little alkaline battery that stimulates your

00:21:13.000 vagus nerve.

00:21:14.040 Interesting.

00:21:14.540 Works really well.

00:21:15.020 How do you know what to experiment with? Because, you know, like the reason I enjoy talking with you

00:21:19.040 is because I think you and I are so opposite in our approach to this. Like I tend to be

00:21:22.880 extremely, well, I'm dolling it up, but minimalist, you know, when it comes to this stuff,

00:21:27.460 but really at the end of the day, it's just like not experimenting with this stuff. So I'm

00:21:30.380 wondering how, you know, what to try, what not to try and how it helps and whether it doesn't

00:21:36.440 help at all. Like, how do you do that?

00:21:38.380 Well, that's why I'm kind of privileged because a, it's kind of my job, right? Like I'm an

00:21:42.480 immersive journalist. People send me shit. They ask me questions. They hire me to test things. 1.00

00:21:47.180 I'll get like beta testing, you know, for devices. And I also do a great deal of self

00:21:52.020 quantification, right? Like I use this ring called the aura to track all my sleep cycles and,

00:21:56.740 and my nervous system activity. And I do blood tests literally like about once a month,

00:22:02.580 I'm doing some big comprehensive blood test, gut test. And, you know, that's, I don't think

00:22:08.120 everybody should do that, but that's the stuff that guys like me get paid to do. So you could

00:22:11.960 just, you know, go read up on whatever I write after I've tested all this stuff on my body. But

00:22:16.980 I mean, part of it is that's my job is to test out the stuff. And then part of it is too, like

00:22:21.740 my master's degrees in physiology and biomechanics. And, you know, I've been immersed in human

00:22:27.600 science for the past, uh, I mean, I graduated in 2005. So, you know, about 14 years I've, I've just

00:22:34.540 been, you know, applying this science to the human body, whether on the field of competition

00:22:38.320 or just in, in terms of sleep or mental performance or whatever. So I just combine what I've learned

00:22:45.480 and, you know, from my degrees and from my research. And, you know, I spend a good two hours

00:22:49.880 every day, just reading books and PubMed articles and, and science. And so, you know, I, again,

00:22:55.360 I'm not saying I think everybody should do that, but you know, that's my job is I test rigorously

00:23:00.460 and I research rigorously. And I also get access to a lot of kind of like the early versions of many

00:23:05.200 of these devices just to try them out and give companies feedback. And I'm often paid to advise

00:23:09.840 a lot of these companies in terms of their technologies, in terms of what I'd include,

00:23:15.040 what I wouldn't include, what should be tracked, what should be stimulated. So this is what I do.

00:23:19.560 It's my, it's, it's my shtick. It's my gig. So.

00:23:22.240 Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think it's good too, because quite honestly, guys like myself would

00:23:26.420 never on their own research to the degree that you have, which is why I think it's so powerful

00:23:31.460 that you take someone like you who's educated and not only that willing to implement this stuff and

00:23:36.140 then distill the most valuable information so that we can implement what's going to move the needle

00:23:41.380 the most in our own lives. Do you feel like any of the people that talk with you or have

00:23:46.200 conversations or follow what you're doing, use it in a way, I'm trying to think about how to word

00:23:51.720 this, but use it in as a way not to like secure the fundamentals, to secure the basics. Cause you

00:23:57.080 have that stuff locked down and this is all like supplemental to that.

00:24:00.280 Yeah, exactly. That kind of leads into your question about psychedelics, which I can comment

00:24:06.380 on, but yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people that kind of give this whole idea of biohacking.

00:24:11.480 They're like, Oh, I could inject, you know, Tessa Morlin peptides into my abs and stand on a

00:24:17.980 vibration platform and do my, my two minutes of high intensity interval training each day.

00:24:23.420 And I will magically grow six pack abs. And it's like, no bro, like you got to go lift heavy shit 0.99

00:24:30.380 and sweat lactic acid out your eyeballs. And you need to taste a little blood in your mouth every 1.00

00:24:36.120 now and again, build stamina sometimes not with some kind of electrical stimulation device that

00:24:41.000 you put on while you're on the couch watching Netflix, but maybe it involves, you know, whatever

00:24:45.240 like you and I did, Ryan, like go to Kona and hump for a week and walk 60 miles over five days.

00:24:51.200 And you have to get out and do the hard thing. I mean, that's what the human body responds to.

00:24:55.940 And there is this concept of hormesis, right? Like there are things that are good for you in small

00:24:59.840 amounts that will kill you in large amounts. I'm not saying, you know, if you decide you're going

00:25:03.620 to start doing like cold pools and underwater cold soaks to enhance your stress resilience,

00:25:09.480 that you should do that for like two hours a day, but you have to get out and do the hard thing.

00:25:14.620 I'm not on the same page as a lot of these guys. Like there are certain people in the fitness

00:25:19.280 world who have made a name for themselves by inspiring people to get up at 4am and to,

00:25:26.200 you know, to just crush themselves with these really, you know, hard workouts in the morning

00:25:31.420 and to, you know, sometimes short sleep and collapse in the bed, exhausted at the end of the day,

00:25:37.620 you know, so exhausted, maybe you can't sit back and read a good piece of fiction or whatever.

00:25:41.700 You can take it to the extremes. The body does need sleep. It needs rest. It needs recovery,

00:25:47.280 but you need to balance that with also any of this stuff, like the big photo biomodulation infrared

00:25:53.620 panel in your office. You have no business like buying one of those unless you're also getting

00:25:57.640 out into the sun every day, you know, or one of these fancy PMF devices I talked about that you

00:26:02.240 put underneath your mat, you should be prioritizing going outside, preferably barefoot first,

00:26:07.760 like a cryotherapy chamber, right? A cryotherapy chamber, you know, a lot of people step in those

00:26:12.320 three minutes of cryo. Well, anybody knows that if you go and like cut through the ice and jump

00:26:18.820 through the ice of a frozen lake, or even just like if you live in whatever Colorado or Washington

00:26:23.640 or Montana or any of these cold states or the Northeast, you know, take a five minute cold

00:26:28.200 shower. It's actually a lot harder than those fancy cryotherapy devices because there's something

00:26:32.380 about water that just makes it more difficult. I don't think better living through science is bad,

00:26:37.240 but I also think that you need to get out and do the more kind of natural ancestral self-made version

00:26:44.380 before you start to tap into the technology. And then honestly, the technology is very useful. It

00:26:50.140 can be the icing on the cake. It can be the thing where whatever, you know, like I mentioned, I'm in

00:26:54.020 Vegas. I can't get out in the sunshine. I'm not going to go walk around barefoot on the strip,

00:26:58.400 right? So I've got a PEMF device and some light producing little biohacks in my bedroom, but

00:27:04.920 do the work first, which returns to your question about psychedelics, right? So a lot of these

00:27:12.260 psychedelic journeys are becoming very popular these days. A lot of people, even in the fitness

00:27:17.180 and the health sector, it's become kind of a thing. And there are people on their 38th ayahuasca trip,

00:27:22.560 you know, trying to discover themselves and to dissolve their egos and have some kind of a personal

00:27:28.200 breakthrough or solve some kind of previous emotional trauma. And they want to use plants. They want to

00:27:34.400 use medicine. They want to use many of these herbs that God has scattered across the planet Earth to

00:27:38.920 do so, right? And I think everything was planted for a reason. I mean, you can pick St. John's wort

00:27:43.740 and use that for depression. And you can use, you know, mint to cure a tummy ache. You can use hemp or

00:27:50.680 marijuana to, you know, take a toke on that or use some of those leaves to help yourself calm down when

00:27:57.380 you're very stressed out. And in the same way, I mean, you could use, you know, an ayahuasca root and

00:28:02.700 vine to take yourself to a different place than you'd be able to get without it, to completely

00:28:08.240 dissolve your ego and merge the left and right hemispheres of your brain. And you discover things

00:28:14.220 that sometimes you wouldn't discover when you set your ego on the back burner and just open

00:28:19.380 yourself up to listening to the message that I believe that plants to send to you if you're in

00:28:25.200 the proper setting to do so. And some of them in smaller amounts can be used for extreme productivity,

00:28:29.120 like psilocybin enhances your sensory perception and can be used to enhance productivity on a busy

00:28:34.500 day or to do something like hunt better, right? You can see the veins of a leaf, you can smell better,

00:28:39.760 you can see farther. Many of these things have application even in smaller doses, you know,

00:28:44.200 whereas a larger dose of psilocybin would cause you to become very introspective and, you know,

00:28:49.300 and in a very supervised format, you know, sit with a journal and sit back and wait for the messages

00:28:54.560 that God would want to give to you. The problem is a lot of people use these things as an escape or

00:29:02.960 as a shortcut, meaning that we can make our own medicine. Like a lot of these things are causing

00:29:08.820 to produce serotonin and dopamine and DMT and many of these molecules in excess. Well, you can access

00:29:17.080 those same molecules through meditation, through breath work, through fasting, through prayer,

00:29:23.080 through solitude. And by combining a lot of those things, you look at like, you know, the Tibetan

00:29:28.280 monks, for example, they go to these same psychedelic places and they don't use any plant medicines at

00:29:33.320 all. You know, people who do holotropic breath work, you know, and I've done several sessions of

00:29:38.140 that. I mean, you see complete dissolving of the ego, but it takes a lot of work. I mean,

00:29:42.460 you're covered in sweat. It takes 90 minutes to get to that point and it's hard and your diaphragm is

00:29:47.100 sore for days after doing holotropic breath work and, you know, it's tough and you feel like you're

00:29:50.920 going to pass out. And I understand that a lot of people would rather just like sip on some tea and

00:29:55.360 sit back and, you know, wait for it to take over their brain or, you know, or eat a mushroom or

00:29:59.780 speed up that process, right? Speed up the process, take the shortcut. But you probably lose a lot of

00:30:04.640 the benefit when you do that as well. Part of the benefit is the journey, not just the destination.

00:30:08.840 I think in many cases, if you're just using psychedelic, you're skipping sometimes the journey

00:30:13.800 to a certain extent. Like some of it is hard. Like anybody who's done ayahuasca will often say it was

00:30:18.640 horrible. I was vomiting and, you know, and you have to fast before. So there's some self-control

00:30:23.140 there. I've personally never had a negative experience with any of these medicines, ayahuasca

00:30:28.500 or DMT or psilocybin or anything like that. Most of the stories people tell after something like that,

00:30:34.440 they're very dark, often demonic, like screaming, darkness, pain, vomiting, trauma. I think that's

00:30:42.900 because many of the people who are doing that are not in a good place spiritually. Poor relationships

00:30:48.100 or bitterness or anger or hatred deep down inside them. Many of them have no belief in salvation or

00:30:55.880 the hope that comes from prayer and the solid positive attitude that comes from worship or from

00:31:02.180 reading something positive or devotional. And so I think if you are spiritually sound and you also have

00:31:09.220 a good practice of the spiritual disciplines, fasting and solitude and silence and prayer and

00:31:13.840 meditation and study and devotion, well, in the same way that you probably do have business getting a

00:31:21.880 photobiomodulation panel once you've nailed a daily habit of getting out into the sunshine,

00:31:27.260 once you've gotten the spiritual disciplines really nailed down in your life and a big part of your life,

00:31:32.700 then you might be able to make a case for going out and trying these other things, this icing on the

00:31:37.920 cake. But I don't think it should be viewed as an escape or as a shortcut. It's something you do

00:31:42.740 after you've understood how to do the hard work and after you've made sure that you're in a very good

00:31:46.860 place spiritually. Otherwise, I think it just turns into what I see over and over again. People

00:31:51.280 constantly on a search. I'm going to go to Peru now. Okay, now I'm going to go to Costa Rica.

00:31:55.840 Okay, I got this other retreat. Now I'm going to have a shaman come over to my apartment.

00:31:58.980 But they never actually seem to progress. They're just always searching. I think that if you do the

00:32:04.300 hard work that you create an entirely different scenario. So for me, it's always been a positive

00:32:09.980 experience. And I might do something like that once maximum twice a year. It's very seldom and I

00:32:17.180 take it very seriously. And I always have a journal and I've always got one to two days afterwards to

00:32:22.300 just reflect and pray and write down what I've discovered. And I always come out with some very

00:32:27.540 good insight that occurs when I can completely shove my ego aside like that. But I also get that

00:32:33.820 kind of insight when I fast, when I pray, when I'm out in the wilderness, you know, when I'm camping,

00:32:38.540 when I'm by myself for long periods of time. And my wife, who doesn't really use

00:32:42.380 many of these medicines, you know, she journeyed with me one time with ketamine. It was very nice

00:32:47.840 for her. And she actually released a traumatic childhood experience and really became a slightly

00:32:53.680 different person based on releasing that trauma. And in this case, it was the fact that a lot of her

00:32:59.160 creativity had been quelled when she was a child. And, you know, she'd been kind of steered away from all

00:33:03.800 the artistic and creative talents that she wanted to foster and instead just forced to sit and learn to

00:33:08.220 read, even though she was dyslexic and learn to spell and, and do all this schoolwork that she

00:33:12.320 absolutely despised. And she almost kind of got art ripped out from underneath her. And after that

00:33:17.820 experience, after that journey, you know, she began painting again, she began making art again,

00:33:21.740 and she's doing a book now. And, you know, sometimes some cool things happen. When you introduce these

00:33:26.320 type of compounds, why would you do ayahuasca or DMT when you could just fast or do breath work or pray

00:33:32.320 or go be by yourself in the wilderness for a few days? My response to that is very similar to my

00:33:36.680 response to your other question. It's like, I actually like to try it all. Same reason I don't

00:33:41.800 eat a carnivore diet, for example. Like I kind of like the idea that we live in this wonderful world

00:33:47.560 full of all sorts of different plants and, and foods and compounds. And we live in a world where

00:33:53.200 we've got sunshine, but we've also got all these cool forms of technology that we're blessed to have

00:33:57.100 been able to build. And I'm just a curious guy. Like I like to explore it all. And unless something

00:34:02.380 absolutely violates my morals and my ethics, like let's say polyamory, right? Like that to me

00:34:09.360 violates my ethics and the promise that I gave to my wife that I would be faithful to her and that

00:34:14.700 she would be my woman for life. So for me, you know, experimenting with polyamory, even though

00:34:19.940 like I'll admit, like as a horny dude, I'm super curious about polyamory, right?

00:34:23.780 It's attractive, right? Of course, sure.

00:34:25.540 Yeah, it's super attractive. I won't deny that, but that violates my ethics. And, you know,

00:34:30.140 ayahuasca and DMT and things like that, those don't violate my ethics. Some people believe that

00:34:35.140 they are methods used by like the dark side or Satan or, or the devil to, you know, somehow use,

00:34:42.540 use plants to get into your head. And, and I think that could be the case, but at the same time,

00:34:47.220 I think that they can be used for a good purpose too. And that in the same way that, you know,

00:34:52.140 Satan or the devil could speak to us through these compounds, I think God can speak to us through

00:34:55.860 these compounds too. Gentlemen, let me just hit the pause button real quickly. I want to

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00:36:55.500 All right. Order of man.com slash iron council. You can do that after the show. Let's finish up

00:37:00.300 my conversation with Ben. One of the words that you keep using that I noticed is calling it medicine

00:37:06.920 versus what I think most people would call a drug, right? And just your deliberate and intentional use

00:37:13.360 of the word medicine versus drug makes me think that what you just said, that you look at it as a

00:37:18.380 potential positive, not something that's inherently bad or wrong or evil.

00:37:22.180 Yeah. And I don't have anything against drugs though. I mean, humans are smart creatures and

00:37:26.000 we managed to create some pretty damn cool synthetic molecules. I wrote an entire book of fiction,

00:37:31.200 you know, that's now thrilling my kids and my kids' friends and it's at their school library.

00:37:38.400 And I wrote that every Friday, microdose with LSD, because it helped me tap into my creativity

00:37:43.640 and it merged my right and left brain hemispheres. And, you know, I'm not talking about me being on

00:37:48.460 a trip, slobbering at the mouth, like, you know, but just a microdose, you know, just enough. And that's

00:37:53.760 a synthetic drug. Like I didn't go out and harvest that from a pine tree outside my house. That was made

00:37:58.200 in a lab. It's lisergimide, right? Like it's a synthetic molecule. And, you know, the same could be

00:38:04.020 said for if I'm sleep deprived, I've been traveling a ton and I come home and I need to be there for my

00:38:08.620 family and I'm operating on like four hours of sleep. I'll pop a modafinil. It'll keep me awake

00:38:13.380 for 12 hours. Hyperproductive. That's a drug. It's not a plant, but it works better than a cup

00:38:18.140 of coffee. I mean, but again, you got to be careful with drugs. They're processed by the liver. You can

00:38:22.340 become highly dependent on them. They can produce a lot of neurotransmitter imbalances. So I'm not

00:38:27.780 against drugs either if used responsibly. And there are certain drugs I'm just in most cases, not a fan

00:38:33.580 of like, you know, thimerosal and vaccinations or most antibiotics, unless there are some pretty 0.98

00:38:39.280 extreme cases. You know, I, I think some drugs really are pretty harmful across the board. And

00:38:44.420 I think others, if used responsibly are blessings. So is that how you distinguish then the difference

00:38:50.840 between medicine and drug is, is a drug is considered synthetic and then medicine would be

00:38:55.960 organic and natural. Is that the only distinction that you make there or how do you determine that?

00:38:59.700 Not necessarily. I mean, like a nootropic and a smart drug, a smart drug technically is a synthetic

00:39:04.780 molecule designed to enhance cognition, make you stay awake for a long period of time, enhance

00:39:08.860 productivity, et cetera. But it can result in some negative side effects because it has a relatively

00:39:13.980 unnatural effect on the human body in terms of a real intense surge in neurotransmitters and

00:39:19.960 serotonin and dopamine imbalances compared to something like say, uh, you know, ginkgo biloba or

00:39:27.660 yerba mate or coffee, which tend to be a little bit more clean in terms of the way they're processed

00:39:35.300 easier on the liver, et cetera. So one's a more natural substance, or you might say a natural

00:39:41.020 medicine. One is a less natural substance or more of a drug or a synthetic medicine. But there are ways

00:39:49.060 around this stuff. You look at like Tim Ferriss, for example, I know he's popular among a lot of our

00:39:53.560 circles. He just published on his commentary about a high MDMA therapy, very effective treatment for

00:39:59.300 PTA, for trauma, for war veterans, et cetera. Well, that's a synthetic lab based molecule. They're not

00:40:05.700 getting that from, you know, the dirt, but it causes this huge, huge release of serotonin. There are ways

00:40:14.220 around that. Like you can load up with amino acids prior to it. So you have a lot of serotonin precursors

00:40:19.360 in your system. And then after you've gone through like a high dose MDMA journey, you can buy like,

00:40:24.420 you know, five HTP off of Amazon and you can just resupplement with a whole bunch of five HTP to

00:40:29.740 restore all that HTP that you burnt through and mitigate a lot of the damage, right? In the same

00:40:35.000 way that you could take an antibiotic, but then afterwards, you know, drink a lot of bone broth,

00:40:38.900 take a lot of probiotics, use a lot of colostrum or glutamine and kind of heal the gut, right? So a lot

00:40:44.980 of the synthetics, they have their intended effect, but in many cases, you kind of have to fix some of the,

00:40:48.980 some of the side damage that can occur. Right. Well, it just seems like a lot of work to me.

00:40:53.060 I hear it. I'm like, Oh my goodness. Like I have to know all the intricacies and do all this

00:40:56.400 additional work in order to balance the potential harmful effects of that thing. It seems like it'd

00:41:00.320 be just better to, in a lot of cases, just avoid some of that. I don't know. Say the same thing

00:41:04.600 about squats, right? You go do German volume training. You can't walk out. Like you got to go

00:41:08.640 hit the ice bath later in the day and maybe say, take some turmeric and wear some compression pants

00:41:13.860 and do a walk afterwards and cool down and warm up. I mean, you can say that about anything.

00:41:18.360 Yeah. Good point. No, that's a good point. I guess it's just finding what's going to work best for

00:41:22.100 you, which is what I like most about what you do is this process of experimentation and really

00:41:26.020 trying to determine what's going to be best in your routine. So, which leads me to, to question,

00:41:31.700 how do you know what to potentially permanently adopt into your life? Like what type of results are

00:41:38.340 you looking for? How long are you giving these things an opportunity to show results in your life?

00:41:43.280 And how do you make those types of decisions?

00:41:45.040 Well, you test, you quantify. So, I pay attention to my sleep cycles. So, I wear this ring called an

00:41:50.100 aura ring. Some of my clients will wear like a wristband, like a Fitbit or a Whoop or an Apple

00:41:55.520 watch. And so, you pay attention to effects of certain things on sleep. Take a sleep supplement

00:42:00.940 and let's say you have a good night of sleep, but your deep sleep percentages drop to like 2%

00:42:06.200 showing that, yeah, you slept, but it was more like taking a sledgehammer to your head. It wasn't

00:42:10.680 real true sleep. Well, you wouldn't know that without quantifying, right? You just wake up

00:42:15.920 and be like, huh, I slept. But, you know, by quantifying, you can get a little bit better

00:42:19.800 insight. Or, you know, let's say I decide, okay, I want to try high dose fish oil. Well,

00:42:25.280 I'll go test my blood before and I'll look at how many omega-3 fatty acids I have. I'll look at my

00:42:31.100 inflammation. I'll look at some other things that could be impacted by that, like testosterone,

00:42:35.260 for example. I'll try it for four weeks and then, you know, walk back into the safe way that's a

00:42:41.440 couple of miles from my house and, you know, give them my blood again and wait a week for the results

00:42:46.280 to come back. And if everything looks good, let's say my testosterone goes up 200 points, my omega-3s

00:42:51.560 go way up and my inflammation drops. I'm like, oh, all right. I'm a high dose fish oil enthusiast,

00:42:56.580 you know? So, yeah, a big part of it is just quantifying.

00:43:00.800 Are you just introducing then one new variable or one new component? Or are you looking at multiple

00:43:08.000 variables that maybe just impact a certain aspect of your life? For example, inflammation and then

00:43:14.020 compartmentalizing testosterone production, for example.

00:43:17.580 Well, that's the tricky part, isn't it? Because when you look at, you know, whether or not something

00:43:22.240 is going to be accepted as respectable research, you know, published in a medical journal,

00:43:29.080 they often want to see one thing in isolation, double-blinded clinical research study that

00:43:36.340 shows that one item with no confounding variables. Problem is, we know, for example, if we look at

00:43:42.520 the work of Dr. Dale Bredesen in his book, The End of Alzheimer's and the hundreds of case studies

00:43:48.020 that he has published publicly on patients who he has cured of Alzheimer's, he's using fish oil,

00:43:55.860 ketones, high dose DHA, hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers, you know, photobiomodulation on the

00:44:02.920 head, huperzine, different types of neurofeedback, right? It's a complete multimodal approach.

00:44:09.820 Just imagine if you had to take each of those patients and spend eight weeks doing this,

00:44:13.460 then eight weeks, they'd be dead before he even, like, got halfway through. So, he just takes all

00:44:17.740 this stuff and puts it all together and lo and behold, it works, right? It's probably the same

00:44:22.140 reason that if you take a lycopene supplement, it's not as good for your prostate as eating the

00:44:26.800 whole tomato. For some reason, there's a whole bunch of other stuff in the whole tomato that

00:44:30.440 makes that lycopene work more effectively and we can't necessarily take every single one of those

00:44:34.980 thousands of molecules in a tomato and study them one by one to see what interacts best with lycopene

00:44:39.360 or at least if we could, it would be a very, very long study and frankly, I don't have, like,

00:44:45.180 10 years to study one supplement of my life. So, I basically combine a lot of things and I pay

00:44:51.720 attention whenever I introduce something significant, right? Like doing a daily red light

00:44:56.520 therapy or completely changing up my workout from endurance training to high intensity interval

00:45:02.340 training or something like that. But if I introduce, like, an extra 100 international units of vitamin D,

00:45:08.200 I'm not going to do a whole formal self-research study on that. Sometimes I'm just kind of paying

00:45:12.680 attention to how that seems to interact with the other things I'm doing. So, it's an art and a

00:45:16.340 science, you know? Sure. Well, it makes sense too because when you introduce new things to your body,

00:45:21.680 you're experiencing new things with your body. It's impacting multiple facets. You know, you look

00:45:25.060 at testosterone, for example, is impacting muscle growth and also sex drive and a thousand other

00:45:30.720 things that it could be impacting. We can't fully compartmentalize what's going on with our bodies.

00:45:35.900 Right. Speaking of muscle growth, I know that just over the past, what, maybe, I don't know,

00:45:41.760 a couple of months or so, you've really been working on muscle gain, more so maybe than you

00:45:46.540 have in the past prior to, I guess, going back to bodybuilding, of course. But tell me a little

00:45:51.100 bit about that process and what you're incorporating in your life right now to facilitate that muscle

00:45:56.980 growth. Muscle is not necessarily conducive to health and longevity. We could even say that large

00:46:03.600 amount of muscle mass cause excess strain on the heart. They cause the body to need to produce

00:46:08.200 more antioxidants. But at the same time, from a functional standpoint, it allows you to be able

00:46:15.260 to lift heavier objects or useful in physical situations and even harder to kill and more

00:46:22.320 resilient to cold. And after years of endurance racing at what I would consider to be about 10

00:46:27.540 pounds below my really normal, healthy body weight, I decided, well, you know, I'm done with,

00:46:31.660 you know, racing triathlons and stuff, at least competitively. I want to put on some muscle

00:46:35.640 and I want to do so in a far healthy way than I did when I was bodybuilding, which basically

00:46:39.260 involved, you know, protein shakes out of a can and five cans of tuna fish a night and

00:46:44.960 lifting for like three hours a day. So instead, what I'm doing now is from a fitness standpoint,

00:46:51.800 I'm simply lifting heavy three times a week, a full body training routine each five days a

00:46:57.800 week, like a chest press, shoulder press, some sort of pulling motion, pull up or pull down,

00:47:01.900 deadlift, squat, that type of thing. Right. Basic foundational stuff.

00:47:06.360 Yep. Along with a little bit of high intensity interval training, like a Tabata set at the

00:47:09.400 beginning and a Tabata set at the end of that strength training routine.

00:47:12.220 What would you include in those Tabatas then?

00:47:14.820 Like getting on an Airdyne or a Concept 2 rower and going 20 seconds hard, 10 seconds easy for

00:47:20.160 four minutes. Right.

00:47:21.340 Right. So just like a brief spur of high intensity.

00:47:23.680 20 seconds on an assault bike is not, sounds like it's not a big deal. It is a big deal if you're

00:47:28.740 going full speed. Yeah. Depends how hard you go. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. On the in-between days,

00:47:33.660 I'm doing a lot more functional stuff, like some core moves, some kettlebell swings,

00:47:37.000 a lot of walking, sauna, cold therapy, playing a little tennis, getting on the paddleboard or

00:47:44.540 hopping in the pool. So I'm like lifting heavy Monday, Wednesday, Friday with a little bit of

00:47:48.260 high intensity interval training. Then Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday is a lot more kind of like

00:47:52.100 body work, hot, cold work, active recovery stuff, but still stimulating muscle growth.

00:47:57.640 Sure. Weekends are kind of free, depending on how, how beat up my body feels. I'll go,

00:48:01.960 you know, play tennis with my wife and twin boys, which is super easy, but still kind of

00:48:05.840 moving or, or I'll go on a long hike or go play a sport, like, you know, go shoot some hoops or

00:48:10.860 something like that. But, you know, the, really the foundational is those three really hard,

00:48:15.460 you know, we're talking like a good hour and 10 minutes, you know, an hour of weightlifting and

00:48:19.920 at least 10 minutes of high intensity interval training. By the time we warmed up and cooled down,

00:48:22.980 like pretty significant work put into your body Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,

00:48:26.100 like a five by five or five by three type program. Is that what you're incorporating?

00:48:30.240 No, no. My body responds better to kind of like that eight to 12 rep range for putting on muscle,

00:48:35.820 right? Putting on strength. Yeah. I respond pretty well to like five to eight reps, but for muscle,

00:48:40.020 like more of a hypertrophic range, I'm trying to build muscle and maintain fat at the same time.

00:48:45.560 So thus far I've gone from one 74 to 184 pounds, but maintained 5% body fat through that entire

00:48:53.860 five weeks of putting on those 10 pounds of muscle. Interesting. Yeah. Wow.

00:48:58.420 I think the reason for that is the nutrition and also the movement. Like I walk a lot. I take all my

00:49:03.020 phone calls when I'm walking, walking isn't very catabolic, but it just kind of keeps you in mild

00:49:07.600 fat burning mode during the day. Like just while you and I have been talking, I've already walked almost

00:49:11.580 two miles on my treadmill right now as we're talking, you know, but it's kind of low level

00:49:15.320 physical activity. Right. And I didn't fully understand that until we spent a little time

00:49:19.320 together and just realized like how active you are. And it's not always intense, but it's always

00:49:25.260 moving. I remember, for example, we were, I can't remember where we were driving, but you've got those

00:49:29.800 little forearm muscle grip things that you were doing, you know, literally while we were in the car.

00:49:34.200 So it's about constant movement. It seems like for you. Yeah, exactly. From a nutritional standpoint,

00:49:39.440 I've kind of been doing a bastardized version of a carnivore diet, meaning I'm eating a lot of

00:49:44.500 meat, primarily a lot of ribeye steak and a lot of salmon, but I'm also including quite a bit of

00:49:50.000 organ meat to cover all the micronutrients I don't get from flesh, taking desiccated liver capsules or

00:49:55.500 eating liver, doing a head cheese, Braunschweiger, liverwurst, a lot of these cuts of meat, drinking a

00:50:02.740 lot of bone broth, even taking amino acids, which are very similar to collagen, except more highly

00:50:07.500 absorbed. And I'm lucky that I own a nutrition supplement company. And one of our top selling

00:50:11.920 products is our amino acids. So I've been doing like 40 grams of those a day, just because that's

00:50:16.400 easy for me to get my hands on those. I actually haven't been doing a lot of roughage or a lot of

00:50:20.180 vegetables because of the volume of, of food I'm eating, you know, close to about 5,000 calories a

00:50:25.360 day. Roughage is pretty tough on the digestion. So I've cut out like kale smoothies and big salads and

00:50:31.280 stuff like that. I'm trying to eat just meat. And then most of my other compounds are very,

00:50:36.100 very simple. Like I do a coconut yogurt for the probiotics that I just make at home with coconut

00:50:41.280 milk and some probiotics that I put in the food dehydrator. I'm doing a lot of like mashed sweet

00:50:46.100 potato and mashed pumpkin puree because that allows me to have some carbohydrates on board for those

00:50:51.780 harder workouts, but it just digests super easily. I'm doing a little bit of a raw honey and a little

00:50:58.040 bit of nut butter, but no like seeds, no nuts, no roughage. So I'm not getting gas and bloating and

00:51:03.760 intestinal issues. And I'm really absorbing very well, a lot of these calories that I'm eating.

00:51:08.640 So it's essentially like a carnivore diet with coconut yogurt for a little bit of added probiotic

00:51:14.680 effect, some bone broth and some organ meats for the added glycine and things that my tendons and

00:51:20.360 my cartilage needs. This isn't the carnivore diet, but still having a cup of coffee in the morning

00:51:24.560 and usually a glass of red wine at night just for enjoyment. I'm a pretty patient guy. I'll eat the

00:51:29.440 same thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If I have a specific goal, I told my wife who makes

00:51:33.480 these wonderful meals and these amazing salads and who makes sourdough bread and puts together

00:51:39.420 these really wonderful dishes at night. I just told her, I love your cooking, babe, but I've got a

00:51:44.560 goal in mind. So just bear with me. I'm going to make my own dinner and sit with you guys and have

00:51:47.380 family dinner. But so last night they sat down to like a tuna melt on sourdough bread that she had made

00:51:53.500 with a wonderful like spinach goat cheese beet salad. I had a ribeye and a little squash. So, you know,

00:51:59.740 I'm just kind of doing my own thing right now. Yeah. Well, that's good too. You have those lines

00:52:02.900 of communication and it's cool to, to see you and your kids like engaged in this whole lifestyle

00:52:09.420 together. You know, you're talking a lot about these little experiments and little biohacking

00:52:13.220 tricks that you're using, but then also I see you guys out on your property, you know, running. I think

00:52:18.400 you guys have, do you have an obstacle course or something like that on your property? Yeah. Yeah. So stuff like

00:52:23.320 that where you are all doing it together. I think that's so powerful. It's a good life. I actually

00:52:27.640 just sat my kids down and told them, Hey, look guys, they're in fifth grade right now and go to

00:52:32.660 this little local private school. If you guys are game, you don't need to start sixth grade. You can

00:52:37.800 just start staying home, writing down a list of all the things you love to do. You're passionate about

00:52:41.880 that you want to study in life. That'll support that. And he'll, he'll find ways for you to go and

00:52:45.480 live that life that you love travel where you want to travel, make a dream list for me of

00:52:49.660 different places around the world. You want to go to dream list of all the skills you

00:52:53.240 want to learn from building a tree fort to jujitsu, to soccer, to watercolor painting.

00:52:58.460 And I'll just create a life for you where you can learn that stuff. And so they both made

00:53:03.000 the decision to drop out of school. So they won't start sixth grade next year and we'll

00:53:06.640 just start traveling around with me and doing their own thing.

00:53:09.540 Interesting. How does that contrast with the way that you grew up? Because you were homeschooled,

00:53:13.760 correct?

00:53:14.480 I was homeschooled, but I was homeschooled with a curriculum. Whereas unschooling is just parents

00:53:19.880 and children and usually, you know, some tutors or extra help on board helping to identify a child's

00:53:25.220 passions in life and then use life as a teacher, right? So like, so their math curriculum over the

00:53:30.100 summer will be building a tree fort. Their tests, you know, to learn trigonometry and algebra and

00:53:35.560 math and measurements. And their, uh, test will be whether or not it gets blown over in the next

00:53:40.680 windstorm, right? Right. The tree fort blew down. So yeah, that's, that's the way we're going to be

00:53:44.860 schooling them from here on out.

00:53:46.080 No, I like that. Um, I just brought my son in to, uh, the organization in a way he's doing the

00:53:50.840 shipping for us. So he fulfills all of our orders and things. And man, just that little experience

00:53:55.240 over the past couple of weeks, I swear he's learned more about math and communication and

00:53:59.900 going the extra mile and communicating with other people and the organizational process than he ever

00:54:05.040 learned in the, you know, the past, whatever, six, seven years of schooling that he's gone through.

00:54:09.280 Cool. I dig it, man.

00:54:11.180 Yeah. Well, Ben, I know you got a hard stop, man. I want to be respectful and honor that time

00:54:15.140 commitment. Um, I really appreciate you coming on the show. I've enjoyed our friendship and

00:54:18.520 everything I've learned from you because again, it's a lot different than the way that I approach

00:54:22.460 my life. And so having this other side and this other perspective helps me balance out what I'm

00:54:28.280 doing. I want to ask you a couple of questions as we wind down. The first one is what does it mean

00:54:32.600 to be a man?

00:54:34.000 I like the whole idea of the three P's of manhood, right? Be a man is to, uh, to provide, to protect,

00:54:39.280 and to procreate. I think anybody who's jumping through those three hoops is, is going to find

00:54:44.700 their path to manhood.

00:54:46.240 Right on, man. Well, how do we connect with you? We didn't talk about your supplemental company and

00:54:50.160 organization Kion as well, but we can address that. Tell us how we connect with you and, uh,

00:54:54.420 let us know where we find you.

00:54:55.700 Well, my blog, my podcast is at bengreenfieldfitness.com and all the supplements that I formulate

00:55:02.340 for recovery or for muscle building or fat loss or whatever. Those are all over at Kion at

00:55:08.320 getkion.com, K-I-O-N.com, getkion.com.

00:55:12.540 Right on. We'll link it all up. All right, man, I'll let you get going. I appreciate you and all that

00:55:16.680 you bring to the conversation. Hopefully we get on another hunt here sometime soon, but, uh,

00:55:20.560 in the meantime, have a good one, Ben. Thanks.

00:55:22.500 Yes, sir. Thank you very much, bro.

00:55:25.480 Gentlemen, there it is. My conversation with the one and only Ben Greenfield. I told you this one

00:55:29.720 was going to be fascinating. I told you he was fascinating and I hope you're walking away with,

00:55:33.720 uh, some new ideas and some new insights and maybe even a new perspective into the way that you

00:55:38.780 approach health in your life. I know there was a lot here. There's a lot to digest,

00:55:43.560 but Ben's got a great podcast. He's got a great blog. He's got a great book. He's got so much

00:55:48.980 information out there. So if you want more, uh, certainly connect with him. And I know that as

00:55:53.480 I've incorporated some of his teachings into my life, some basics and some fundamentals,

00:55:58.520 and then some of the fringe stuff that we talked about today, um, I have improved in every aspect

00:56:03.220 of, of my life with regards to, to health guy knows what he's talking about. So connect with him

00:56:08.220 on social media, uh, connect with me on social media as well at Ryan Mickler. As I said earlier,

00:56:13.440 if you would please leave us a rating and review so we can get this conversation and this podcast

00:56:18.800 out to the masses, because this is a revolution that we're starting here, revolving, returning

00:56:23.440 back to the way of men. Uh, and that is reclaiming and restoring masculinity. And I'm glad that you're

00:56:29.480 on this journey with me while we're doing this. We could not do this without you. We've got to have

00:56:33.180 more men in this fight, more engaged fathers, husbands, business owners, community leaders,

00:56:37.500 and that's you. And I'm honored to be standing shoulder to shoulder with you in this revolution,

00:56:41.600 in this fight. So guys, that's it. That's all I've got for you today. Make sure again,

00:56:45.340 you connect with me specifically on Instagram and Twitter at Ryan Mickler, M I C H L E R. And let me

00:56:51.920 know what you thought about the show. Let me know what you think about the podcast. And if you have

00:56:54.680 any feedback or insights or how you're implementing some of the things that we're teaching, I would

00:56:58.240 love to hear that as well. So until tomorrow for our, ask me anything, go out there guys,

00:57:03.080 take action and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man

00:57:09.020 podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

00:57:13.780 We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - March 26, 2019

Biohack Your Way to Health ｜ BEN GREENFIELD

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