Boundless Life

Every morning I start my day with what I call my "big-ass smoothie". In a moment, you're going to find out what this has to do with my guest in today's podcast, Richard Aiken, who is pictured above on his horse Teeko, which he used to race in Western "Ride & Tie" races, an endurance race up and down mountains for two people and a horse. Anyways, back to my smoothie. The smoothie begins with a huge bunch of greens. I prefer kale, but spinach, bok choy, mustard greens, etc. also do the trick, and lately I've been making a concerted effort to go out into the forest near my house and pick at least one or two "wild" plants to throw in too (such as plantain, nettle, wild mint, etc.) Next, I add some kind of herb. Cleansing herbs like parsley, cilantro or thyme are nice. Rather than opting for the old, dried, powdered versions you buy from the grocery store, I buy them fresh or pick them fresh from my garden. Next is half an avocado (or occasionally a whole avocado if it’s a high calorie day) along 2 teaspoons o

https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/325 July 22, 2015 Podcast: Can Marijuana Damage Your Brain and Liver, The Best Way To Train For MMA Fitness, Should You Avoid Iodine, and Benefits Of Fasted Workouts. Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right (or go to SpeakPipe), use the Contact button on the app, call 1-877-209-9439, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form at the bottom of this page. ----------------------------------------------------- News Flashes: You can receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield, Facebook.com/BGFitness and Google+. I totally disagree with the results of this “ice baths don’t work” study. Very interesting take on whether antioxidants really “blunt the training response”. Well…no surprise after I predicted this in my last article on CBD. ----------------------------------------------------- Special Announcements: This podcast is also brought to you by Harry's. Get an incredibly luxurious shaving kit at

Meet Wesley Chapman. He was abandoned at 1 by his father, then at 6 1/2 by his mother.  He tried to commit suicide 12 times before his 16th birthday. Wesley was on 25 meds a day for 10 years. His liver failed at age 16 and he was given a 20% chance to live. But for the past 19 years, Wesley has been studying health, the brain and alternative methods to failed treatments for depression, and today, we specifically discuss the shocking link between exercise and depression. -How Wesley detoxed off 25 different medications and healed his liver... -The little-known link between your colon and your brain... -How exercise can make you depressed, even if you're not "overtrained"... -Why pharmaceutical companies have been writing Wesley angry letters... -What types of physical activity and exercise can actually make you depressed... Resources from this episode: -"The Human Project" -Coffee enemas -Body Dysmorphic Disorder Do you have questions, comments or feedback about whether exercise causes depression? Leave your t

http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/324 July 15, 2015 Podcast: American Ninja Warrior Training Tips, Biohacking Mental Focus, 10K Training And Nutrition Tips, and Does Algae Work For Fat Loss? Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right (or go to SpeakPipe), use the Contact button on the app, call 1-877-209-9439, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form at the bottom of this page. ----------------------------------------------------- News Flashes: You can receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield, Facebook.com/BGFitness and Google+. Here’s a cool little (free) sleep hack. And a hamstring injury hack too. And a swim hack? Who out there has experimented with the “fish kick” to see if it’s really the fastest swim stroke? ----------------------------------------------------- Special Announcements: This podcast is also brought to you by Onnit. I just ordered a crapload of sandbags (they call them sandbells) from Onnit. I pile them

My guest in today's podcast, Shawn Wells, MPH, RD, CISSN, has probably forgotten more about supplements than most people will ever know. His brain contains an extremely unique blend of time spent in the science trenches and a formal education in the fields of performance nutrition and supplementation. Shawn attended UNC-Chapel Hill, earning a Master’s degree in Nutrition and minor in Exercise Science. His education also includes credentials of Registered Dietitian, Certified Sport Nutritionist (CISSN), and board member of the ISSN. His role as CEO of Zone Halo Research, a consulting group for supplement formulations, and CSO of Biotrust, along with extensive experience in formulating supplements for big companies (likely some of the ones you’ve tried in the past few years) distinguish him as an expert in sports nutrition and supplementation. If you’re into supplements, you will love this interview with Shawn Wells. We discuss: -How Shawn went from being a practicing Chief Clinical Dietitian to being in the th

http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/323 July 8, 2015 Podcast: Cross Country Running Tips, Should You Use Wraps, Sleeves And Belts For Weighttraining, Home Remedies For Hernias, and How Protein Spikes Insulin. Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right (or go to SpeakPipe), use the Contact button on the app, call 1-877-209-9439, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form at the bottom of this page. ----------------------------------------------------- News Flashes: You can receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield, Facebook.com/BGFitness and Google+. Science has spoken. That cold beer after a hot summer workout doesn’t do you any damage at all from a hydration standpoint. Think your whey protein offers any muscle building benefits over essential amino acids? Here’s a clue that it doesn’t. If you are  tempted to finish up a workout with an “extra” set of single joint bicep curls, leg extensions, etc….no need. -------------------

I recently read an article on Gakwer called The "Food Babe" Blogger Is Full of Shit. It was written by today's podcast guest: Yvette d'Entremont. Yvette, AKA "The Science Babe", has bachelor's degrees in theatre and chemistry along with a master's degree in forensic science. With a background working as an analytical chemist, she currently runs the Science Babe website full time. Her site is an interesting mix of debunking pseudoscience with humor and science. She lives in southern California with her stinky dog, Buddy (who makes a fun cameo in today's podcast).  During our controversial discussion, you'll discover: -Why Yvette thinks that chiropractic treatment is total BS... -Why Yvette, in her post on the "Bullshitproof Diet", calls Dave Asprey a Douchebag... -How Yvette thinks that the Food Babe's Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte was blown way out of proportion... -What Yvette thinks is the next most unproven, hyped up, dangerous or scientifically inaccurate trend or fad currently making it's way down the he

https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/322 July 1, 2015 Podcast: Does Ketosis Work For Crossfit, Raw Milk vs. Whey Protein, Measuring HRV During Exercise, and Should You Eat Before Bed? Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right (or go to SpeakPipe), use the Contact button on the app, call 1-877-209-9439, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form at the bottom of this page. ----------------------------------------------------- News Flashes: You can receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield, Facebook.com/BGFitness and Google+. You should read this if you want to really wrap your head around the concept of “starvation mode” with weight loss. Interesting analysis of which teas do best at certain temperatures. After a night of drinking, take some melatonin. It can protect the gut against alcohol’s damaging effects on the gut lining. ----------------------------------------------------- Special Announcements: This podcast is brought to

Twin brothers River and Terran discover a portal to a hidden forested world attacked by parasitic fungi, dark shamans, and serpents. Along with an assembled band of unlikely misfits that includes coyotes, whitetail deer, wood thrushes, and fox squirrels, they must unlock their unique powers to control the elements of earth, air, fire and water, and save the forest before the evil they've uncovered can spill back into their own world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last weekend, I competed at the TrainToHunt event in Northern Idaho.   And on the day this podcast is released, I'm competing at a second TrainToHunt event in Southern Idaho.   If you have absolutely no idea what a TrainToHunt event is, then I'd highly recommend you listen in to my previous TrainToHunt podcast with Kenton Clairmont. In it, Kenton and I discuss why bowhunting is probably the most appropriate example of ancestral athleticism and functional fitness that exists, and why I'm personally getting more and more into the bowhunting scene.   I also talk quite a bit about hunting fitness in the episode "How To Build Primal Fitness And Endurance By Hunting: An Interview With A Bowhunting Triathlete."   Today, I interview Will Bradley, fellow podcaster, TrainToHunt director and host of the Natural Born Hunter podcast.   In this episode, you'll discover:   -How a construction worker from upstate New York got into bowhunting...   -Why Will thinks sitting in a tree stand for your hunting still requires a fit

https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/321 June 24, 2015 Podcast: Is It Safe To Leave Metal Plates And Metal Screws In Your Body, Chicken Broth vs. Beef Broth, What's The Best Way To Do Home Altitude Training, and How To Recover From Overreaching. Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right (or go to SpeakPipe), use the Contact button on the app, call 1-877-209-9439, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form at the bottom of this page. ----------------------------------------------------- News Flashes: You can receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield, Facebook.com/BGFitness and Google+. Baking soda strikes again. Just make sure you take 4-6 “microdoses” of 0.4g/kg in the 90 minutes leading up to intense exercise. Turns out if you combine a crapola of recovery methods like antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, cold, etc. it actually WORKS (better than isolating one). Pretty cool ways to use light for enhancing mitochondrial function and muc

Twin brothers River and Terran discover a portal to a hidden forested world attacked by parasitic fungi, dark shamans, and serpents. Along with an assembled band of unlikely misfits that includes coyotes, whitetail deer, wood thrushes, and fox squirrels, they must unlock their unique powers to control the elements of earth, air, fire and water, and save the forest before the evil they've uncovered can spill back into their own world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I just finished reading what I consider to be one of the best books of 2015: Natural Born Heroes: How a Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance. In the book, best-selling author Christopher McDougall, today's podcast guest and a guy who you may recognize as the same author of Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen travels to the Mediterranean, where he discovers that the secrets of ancient Greek heroes are still alive and well in the razor-sharp mountains on the island of Crete - ready to be unleashed in the muscles and minds of casual athletes and aspiring heroes everywhere. In the story, Chris recreates an amazing true tale of a band of Resistance fighters in World War II who plotted the daring abduction of a German general from the heart of the Nazi occupation. He  makes his way to the island to experience firsthand the extreme physical challenges the Resistance fighters and their local allies faced, and on Crete, the bi

https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/320 June 17, 2015 Podcast: How To Do Your Workouts Using Biofeedback, Natural Remedies For Stomach Ulcers, How You Burn Ketones, Supplementing With Inositol, and How To Know If You're Getting Enough Micronutrients. Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right (or go to SpeakPipe), use the Contact button on the app, call 1-877-209-9439, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form at the bottom of this page. ----------------------------------------------------- News Flashes: You can receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield, Facebook.com/BGFitness and Google+. Kinda interesting that things like light diodes, infrared, vibration, etc. can warm you up pre exercise/pre race. Hyperbaric oxygen may not be a “cure all”, but a few different studies have shown it’s use for muscle fatigue/recovery. 7 old wives’ tales that *aren’t* utter nonsense. ----------------------------------------------------- Special

Australian HRV researcher Dr. James Heathers (pictured above) is one interesting dude. On a professional level, he is a Ph.D and an Endeavour Research Fellow in Electrocardiology at Poznan University of Medical Science, where his research revolves around measurement issues in heart rate and heart rate variability. On another level, he has an extremely interesting and thought-provoking blog, where he writes about health, science, medicine and bioethics, and has articles on topics such as medical sensors embedded in tattoos, how drinking affects sleep quality, how peptides are used for doping by professional athletes, and much more. In our discussion in this podcast, James and I take a deep dive into HRV, and our topics include: -How James went from being an experimental psychologist to instead being immersed in HRV research... -Very interesting ways to use HRV that tend to fly under the radar, including computer gaming and cognitive performance enhancement... -Whether HRV can really measure the things that the

http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/319 June 10, 2015 Podcast: How To Fix Golfer's Elbow / Climber's Elbow, How To Keep From Retaining Water With Creatine, Can Fascia Store Toxins, and Urinary Testing For Hormones. Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right (or go to SpeakPipe), use the Contact button on the app, call 1-877-209-9439, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form at the bottom of this page. ----------------------------------------------------- News Flashes: You can receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield, Facebook.com/BGFitness and Google+. Here’s a pretty cool little @flowerchecker app I’m now using to identify the native plants and wildlife on my property. Gluten intolerant? You may want to give this study a little golf clap…your problems may be fixed. This is the gluten digesting enzyme in the study above. Yet another reason to include “hypoxia” low oxygen workouts at some points in your exercise routine: fat l

A quick discussion at the starting line of a triathlon or other endurance race, a review of any forum devoted to endurance sports, or an article in any running, cycling or triathlon magazine tends to expose you to the same standard strength training advice over and over again... ...sport-specificity dictates that endurance athletes don't need to be lifting heavy stuff... ...do high reps, low resistance for endurance and low reps, high resistance for strength... ...strength training will make an endurance athlete bulky... ...there's no evidence that strength training makes you faster... ...show me one professional endurance athlete who lifts heavy weights and is successful... ...and a host of other comments that my podcast guests and I delve into on today's show. My first guest, Caleb Bazyler is one of the lead authors of the article Strength Training For Endurance Athletes: Theory To Practice. This up-to-date treatise of the latest, well, theories and practices, inspired me to get Caleb on the show, along wit

I'll always been a fan of gritty adventure, survival, wilderness exploring and even TV shows like Bear Grylls, Survivor Man, and yes, occasionally even Naked & Afraid. So after I returned from a week long wilderness survival immersion at Twin Eagles Wilderness School, I jumped at the chance to get adventurer Monty Halls on the podcast. Monty is a broadcaster, speaker, naturalist, formal Royal Marine, marine biologist, travel writer and leadership specialist with experience covering over two decades of leading teams in some of the most remote environments on earth for wildlife and adventure documentaries like Great Ocean Adventures and Lost Worlds (which is currently a new series on the Discovery Channel). He's also written adventure books like Dive: The Ultimate Guide to 60 of the World's Top Dive Locations (Ultimate Sports Guide), The Fisherman's Apprentice, Adventures On The Wild West Coast and Adventures On The Atlantic Coast. In today's episode you'll discover: -What Monty's life was like leading up t

A few months ago, I had a party at my house, and one of the guys in attendance - my friend James Sol Radina - handed me two capsules of something called "CBD", also known as cannabidiol. This was actually right before we left to go play a giant game of laser tag in America's largest laser tag arena, in which he and I came in first and second place.  But this podcast, in which I interview James, along with his Indian scientists sidekick Dr. Mewa about what CBD really is, isn't about how to get drugs at parties that help you win at laser tag. Instead, it's all about the science and the practical ways to use CBD, which is the completely legal extract of the cannabis plant that many, many people are now turning to for everything from enhanced focus, to decreased stress, to lower inflammation. So what is CBD exactly? CBD is an abbreviation for cannabidiol, a prominent naturally-occurring cannabinoid component found in cannabis that comprises up to 40% of the plant. After THC (Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol) – which is th

Today I present to you a guy who is no stranger to the BenGreenfieldFitness podcast: Tim Ferriss. Three years ago, Tim appeared on this show with Ray Cronise in the episode "Tim Ferriss and Ray Cronise Explain How To Manipulate Your Body’s Temperature To Burn More Fat". Two years ago, he returned with the "Tim Ferriss Cold Thermogenesis Episode". And now Tim is back, because believe it or not, he knows how to do more than just freeze his balls off. As a matter of fact, the relentless self-experimenter, author and now TV star has just launched the highly entertaining Tim Ferriss Experiment, which you can get now on iTunes. So far, I've watched the tactical shooting episode and the rock n' roll drumming episode, and I've queued up the urban escape and evasion episode next. But Tim is also up to other things. Like eating copious amounts of cheese. And that's where we start in this discussion with Tim, in which you'll discover: -Why Tim is experimenting with ketosis... -How Tim recently put on 15 pounds of muscle