Articles

Golden Milk Immune-Boosting Tea

Golden Milk Immune-Boosting Tea

  • 1/2 can full-fat coconut milk
  • 1 tsp. dried turmeric
  • 1 tsp. bee pollen or raw honey
  • 1 tsp. freshly grated ginger (or dried)
  • 1 tsp. grass-fed collagen powder
  • Pinch of sea salt
  1. Combine in saucepan and stir until heated thoroughly.
  2. Enjoy!

Almond & Coconut Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

Almond & Coconut Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

  • ¾ cup almond flour or almond meal
  • ¼ cup coconut flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon fine grain pink Himalayan salt
  • Dash cinnamon (optional)
  • ½ cup butter or coconut oil, melted
  • ½ cup erythritol
  • 1 tsp stevia extract powder
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ½ – 1 cup stevia sweetened chocolate chips
  • ½ cup chopped nuts (optional)
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
  2. In a bowl mix all dry ingredients together. Add melted oil and mix.  Add eggs and vanilla and mix.  Add chocolate chips and nuts and mix.
  3. Scoop dough, one tablespoon at a time, in mounds onto the baking sheet, leaving a couple inches around each cookie.
  4. Bake for about 11 minutes, until golden brown. Let them cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes. I use a silicone baking sheet, so they slide off very easily.  When completely cooled off, they have the same texture as original cookies and have a crisp to them.

Cellular Healing TV Episodes 57-64

Transcripts for Cellular Healing TV Episodes 49-56 Now Available!
  • What's the perfect healthy bread swap?
  • Are unvaccinated kids a health threat?
  • What are my top 5 anti-aging strategies?
  • How does oral health affect immunity?
  • What is a “pooper”?
  • Why should we eat dirt?
  • How can we practice gratitude during the healing process?
  • What's the perfect high-fat snack?
Answers to these questions, and MUCH more, are offered in Cellular Healing TV episodes 57-64. These shows are jam-packed with radical research and 180 degree solution™ truths and strategies to help you live your best and healthiest life. More on the hot topics discussed in these episodes

Episode 57

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Vaccine Freedom
Mary Tocco, vaccine researcher, international speaker and public educator is interviewed. Included: vaccines as a human rights issue, the media’s role in vaccine perception using fear tactics, unvaccinated kids as a health threat, how vaccines suppress natural immunity, how the vaccinated can be the source of disease outbreaks, how to give back to support vaccine education.

Episode 58

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The Top 5 Anti-Aging Tips
This show topic was generated by one of my coaching clients who asked, “What are your top daily strategies to stay in great health?” I explain the most important tools and tricks I implement everyday to maintain excellent health. These strategies took many years to learn, and lots of trial and error, but are key to getting real results and remain techniques I utilize with every one of my clients to help them reach their health goals.

Episode 59

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Detox Myths
Common myths and misunderstandings around proper detox strategies are discussed. Included: why the “poopers” don’t provide real and lasting detox results, defining and explaining PompaCore Cellular Detox™ and how it’s different from every other detox on the market, applying the 5R’s of PompaCore Cellular Detox and Healing™ within the process of PompaCore Cellular Detox™, how to prepare the body for proper detox, helpful “downstream” detox supports, using CytoDetox™ drops for effective detox.

Episode 60

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Healthy Meals and Snacks Made Easy
I share my easy, real life healthy meal and snack ideas with guest co-host and health and fitness expert Phil Kaplan. Included: healthy food staples to have on hand, what to do when you don’t feel like cooking, how to make a “Tigger” smoothie drink for the kids, perfect meals for when you’re on the run, the best snacks high in good fat to stabilize blood sugar, my favorite healthy convenience food brands.

Episode 61

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Ancient Healing Strategies
I discuss the roots of my interest in ancient healing techniques and fasting and how I implement these strategies to guide coaching clients back to health. Included: water fasting and electrolyte balance, why a 4 day fast is my preferred minimum time frame for block fasting, proper caloric intake for successful intermittent fasting, why you should eat dirt, how our ancestors unknowingly practiced diet variation.

Episode 62

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Eat Fat to Lose Fat
Easy and delicious ideas for meals and snacks loaded with good fats to turn your brain on and shift your body into fat burning mode. Included: why food companies play clever games with fat, the best fats for fat burning and increased cognitive function, the low-fat diet and culture code, flipping the USDA food pyramid on it’s head for weight-loss success, the most dangerous fats to avoid, easy grain-free swaps for bread and pizza crust.

Episode 63

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How Amalgams Affect Your Health
The reason so many diseases start in our mouth. Included: how oral health affects immunity, why good dental hygiene isn’t enough to maintain health, the massive detrimental health implications of silver amalgam fillings, how many dental offices are ruining the environment, why heavy metals disrupt the Microbiome, understanding galvanism, how to find a biological dentist in your area.

Episode 64

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A Cellular Healing Journey
Special guest Dr. Brad Gorski, one of the amazing doctors I coach in our practitioner training program, shares his personal story of triumph over severe health challenges using the cellular healing method and philosophy. Included: the effects of living in a moldy home, what it was like to have a stroke at 27 and be diagnosed with autoimmune challenges, using intermittent and block fasting as a healing tool, the gut-brain connection, patience and gratitude in the process of getting well. Cellular Healing TV has a global mission to educate and change lives by providing uncommon health solutions to common problems. Our message is simple and we call it the 180° Solution™ lifestyle. We teach you to “go 180,” and do the opposite of the mainstream solutions marketed today. Weekly on Cellular Healing TV broadcasts we expose and demystify conventional myths on health and nutrition and provide you the 180° Solution™ truths. If you care about your health, we invite you to tune in to hear free nutrition, weight-loss, exercise, and wellness advice, including interviews with health experts from around the world. Each week we review cutting-edge research and information on today’s hottest health issues such as dieting, diabetes, weight loss resistance, heavy metal detoxification, thyroid conditions, Lyme disease, biotoxic illness, and much more. As self-experimenters, we also share personal secrets and tools to improve your life by increasing your health.

The Anti-Aging Lifestyle Commandments

The Anti-Aging Lifestyle Commandments

People often ask me, “What are the things you do to stay fit and looking young?” I do many things to support my health on a daily basis, but here are the top 5 strategies I personally implement and use with coaching clients to support them in reaching health goals which also decelerate the aging process. Without further ado, here are my best anti-aging secrets…

TIP #1: CONTROL GLUCOSE:

The number one key to an anti-aging lifestyle and preventing disease is controlling blood glucose. Most Americans, even people we consider healthy, have glucose spikes meaning blood sugar levels go up and down throughout the day. Now this is not just on the Standard American Diet; even people who are eating so-called healthy diets are getting glucose and insulin spikes, and this ages you at the cellular level.

In the morning, most people have a nice bowl of oatmeal with fruit or whole grain cereal or toast with jam. Even if the food is organic, we know this: eating one bowl of oatmeal or 2 pieces of whole grain toast is equivalent to drinking a 12-ounce can of soda in terms of blood sugar rise. After you finish these foods, you get a glucose spike an hour afterwards. Two hours later, glucose is still sailing up.

AGEs AGE YOU FASTER:

Even a “healthy” American diet often causes glucose spikes all day long. And those spikes drive the creation of AGEs, advanced glycation end products, which age you quickly because they damage collagen faster than should naturally occur. And that is what gives you wrinkles. Damage from AGEs also creates pain and inflammation in joints and skin and even autoimmune reactions.

TELOMERES: OUR BIOLOGICAL CLOCK

Worse yet, AGEs shorten something called telomeres, an essential part of human cells that affect how cells age. They are located the end of our chromosomes. Telomeres are the perfect biological clock: upon inspection, the shorter the telomeres the closer you are to death. We can observe cellular age versus actual age just by measuring telomeres. Therefore, you may be 45, but have the cellular age of a 65 year old based on the length of your telomeres. When glucose spikes, you are shortening telomeres rapidly and you are closer to death.

GOODBYE GRAINS, HELLO HEALTHY FAT

So how do we control glucose? For starters, get rid of grains in your diet, or at least limit intake. Every once in a while, I have some quinoa (technically a seed) or organic wild rice, but my intake is very limited. When I was sick, I had no grains in my diet for at least five years. Note: Many people consider gluten free bread, cookies, grains and desserts “safe” foods. But know that gluten-free is not a good option when you want to control glucose levels. This is because most gluten free products contain replacement flours like tapioca flour, cornstarch, etc. that can raise glucose even more than sugar. Beware.

We can also control glucose by increasing healthy fat intake. That includes saturated fats—link to eat fat article. Contrary to popular belief, healthy fats are integral to balance blood sugar and needed to regenerate an inflamed cellular membrane. Coconut oil, full of saturated fat, is an excellent natural blood sugar regulator, as is organic cinnamon. For an energy boost, I like to take a spoonful of coconut oil, and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sea salt (for electrolytes).

I also must note that we should be eating a moderate amount of protein to avoid blood sugar spikes via a process called gluconeogenesis (read more here). Too much protein can actually age you prematurely. For example, if you are 150 pounds, going over 100 grams of protein a day may be detrimental; between 50-75 grams is a reasonable and safe amount. Genetics play a role here as far as amounts tolerated, but moderate protein intake is best for anti-aging and optimal health.

TIP # 2: DIET VARIATION:

Tip number two for an anti-aging lifestyle is to practice diet variation (read the article here). Diet variation is just what it sounds like: regularly varying your diet. When we look at most primitive diets, before they started planting and growing grains, many were on a ketogenic diet (without knowing it). A ketogenic diet means that carbohydrate intake is so low that cells shift from burning glucose for energy to burning the body’s own fat stores for energy. When in ketosis the body utilizes most of its energy from dietary fat sources, so it’s crucial to consume plenty of healthy fats for success (read more on ketosis here–link to keto 1). When cells are burning glucose for energy, aka 99% of Americans, it creates many byproducts that age you prematurely and create more inflammation, the root of most modern disease (link R4). One of the things I do with very challenged and sick clients is use the ketogenic diet as a tool to shift them into a ketotic state. We drop their carbohydrate intake typically below 50 grams a day. That puts them in ketosis within 2-4 weeks and they become pure fat burners and their cells begin to self-repair.

Burning fat produces less toxic byproducts than burning sugar and, therefore, decelerates aging. An example I love to give: when a gas stove is lit, the flame has no smoke. That’s like ketosis, when ketones are burning, a kind of “energy fuel” burns clean. On the other hand, light a log in the fireplace, and you see smoke and need a chimney. That’s what happens when you burn glucose for energy. It causes dirty byproducts, just like the logs burning in your fireplace. Therefore, putting people into ketosis down-regulates inflammation and helps their cells to use cleaner fuel to function with less cellular waste. As the production of ketones increase (which are by products of fat metabolism, hence the name “ketogenic diet”), your brain and body uses them to heal its cells.

OUR ANCESTORS AND DIET VARIATION

If we look to ancient tribes, we realize that they were forced into diet variation. Why? They experienced seasonal changes, changes in their environment and, of course, the availability of certain foods was dependent on rain and weather conditions. In the wintertime, they didn’t have access to fresh fruits and the vegetables, so they relied almost exclusively on meats and fats. Their winter diet was very high in healthy fats, which kept them hardy and going strong through the season. Then, when summer came, they were able to start eating more vegetables and fruits again.

A great example of diet variation is the Hunza tribe of Pakistan, known for their longevity of 120 years. During the summer, they eat tons of fresh vegetables and fruit. When winter comes, they consume apricots, sheep’s milk and cheese. Then there is a time when the Hunza’s eat nothing: a period known as “starving spring”. It is said they go a week with no food, and then have a little food, and then repeat this pattern throughout the spring months. That is indeed diet variation, and I believe a key factor to their longevity.

HOW DO I VARY MY DIET?

Here’s the key to diet variation, learned from working with many very challenged clients. After being on the ketogenic diet for a few months, we change their diets from a ketogenic diet to a healthy higher carbohydrate diet, like my Cellular Healing Diet. During this time, clients increase daily carb intake from less than 50 grams per day, to up to 100-150 grams per day. The healthy carbs come from eating more organic starchy vegetables, small amounts of organic berries, perhaps a very small amount of organic non-glutenous grains, and more organic seeds and nuts. Then, after a few months, we move them back into a lower carbohydrate diet (like the ketogenic diet). The variation seems to work magic in regards to fixing a broken metabolism. People who are unable to lose weight notice increased weight loss. Diet variation really works. Similarly, we see the shift occur in exercise too. For example, when you do the same workout in the gym, day in and day out, you stop making gains. The same goes for diet. Something magical happens in our innate survival mechanism with diet variation as the body becomes more metabolically efficient. It’s an effective anti-aging strategy that simply mimics our ancestors’ natural way of life.

Implement diet variation: Every few months or so apply the basic principles of diet variation. And again, read my diet variation article to learn how to vary your diet wisely. I believe it will help your general health tremendously and slow down the aging process.

TIP #3: INTERMITTENT FASTING:

Another incredible anti-aging lifestyle tool is intermittent fasting, which I’ve written about in numerous articles and discussed on many CHTV shows (link). Here is the idea behind intermittent fasting. We know that eating revs up your metabolism, DNA, cells and ages you prematurely. But when you intermittent fast, this kind of calorie restriction counts. Why does this make a difference? Over time, intermittent fasting makes you a very efficient fat burner, and sugar and carb cravings slowly disappear. You don’t have to push food away, because your body simply doesn’t desire excess food.

Studies also show that fasting raises human growth hormone, the so-called “fountain of youth,” and the key hormone for anti-aging and looking young and vital. When you fast all night long, and continue fasting until late morning or the afternoon, your body is burning fat and cleaning up cellular debris in the body. Periodically, I have clients do a “block fast” for four consecutive days on probiotic whey water or bone stock only (see more on fasting here—chtv show links). With some of my more challenged clients, I have them fast for 4 days straight once or twice per month to accelerate cellular healing.

MY PERSONAL INTERMITENT FASTING ROUTINE

I practice intermittent fasting on a daily basis for general health, and the anti-aging benefits are a nice plus. When looking at studies regarding longevity, (how long healthy people live), caloric restriction is always at the forefront. But I am not talking about pushing food away or classic caloric restriction. For example, the Tibetans and Okinawans, people who often live to be nearly 100 years old, never turn away food. They just eat until they are full, but don’t gorge themselves. At the end of the day, they don’t feel deprived because they don’t have cravings nor feel hungry.

How exactly do I practice daily intermittent fasting? After dinner, I wait 16-18 hours to eat the next meal. That means that I don’t eat breakfast (I’m simply not hungry in the morning because my body’s glucose levels are perfectly regulated). I eat a small meal (consisting of fat and protein) typically around 2 o’clock in the afternoon. For example, I may have a whey protein shake (here’s my favorite whey) or a few lettuce wraps with grass-fed meat and cheese.

Then I eat a very big dinner. This is natural, as humans we are biologically designed to be nocturnal eaters. With a bigger dinner, the meal tells your parasympathetic nervous system (which calms you down) to kick in and help you relax. The large evening meal is key to insure a deep night’s sleep, which is another key to anti-aging. If you eat a small dinner, it turns on the sympathetic nervous system, which then increases energy and stimulation, one reason why it is difficult to fall asleep. Also, with a tiny dinner, your body will think it is starving and hang on to fat stores, not a good side effect. The big meal in the evening is very important for successful intermittent fasting and an everyday step you can take towards maintaining that youthful glow.

TIP #4: HIGH INTENSITY BURST TRAINING

As an an avid cyclist, I’m by no means against endurance training. Genetically, I’m built for it. However, when we look at studies on slowing down the aging process and weight loss, high intensity interval training (HIIT), or burst training as I like to call it, is far superior. High intensity burst training is the kind of exercise humans are meant to pursue, and incorporate into our ant-aging lifestyle. We were designed to chase down prey, to run and stop and then run again. High intensity interval training is about getting the heart rate high enough so it’s tough to breathe: then you rest and repeat.

Endurance and aerobic training has its benefits, but for weight loss and slowing aging, there are far greater gains with burst training. When someone does a lot of endurance training, anti-again growth hormone drops as do anabolic hormones. Conversely, when you do high intensity bursting, these hormones increase. Anabolic hormones and growth hormones are needed to lose weight, remain lean, heal the brain and stay young looking and vital.

To see my point, look at endurance athletes: they typically battle oxidative stress and premature aging. Many marathon runners look older than their age, and are often not lean but what I call “skinny fat.” They lose muscle because they’re in a catabolic state (breaking down molecules for energy). Excess endurance training is definitely not a healthy lifestyle and can make you look older than your years. My advice to endurance runners: stop the madness, stop the treadmill running for an hour, stop the lengthy aerobics classes, and do high intensity workouts.

Now if you are healthy enough to do endurance exercise, vary it. Do it in moderation while you are training for a marathon, and include burst training as well. Studies show that people who run miles and miles actually become weaker. When those folks start including high intensity training, they do much better. Resistance training, weight lifting, and yoga all put resistance on muscles, and are forms of burst training. Your heart rate goes up very high when lifting weights. There is also a form of exercise called skinning I love to do during wintertime in Utah: it’s high intensity training I perform while intermittent fasting (aka on an empty stomach) (see more about skinning here). After skinning, or any high intensity training, for the next 36 hours your body will burn its fat stores even more efficiently. Consequently, the double-whammy of fasting and burst training (tips #3 and #4) utilizes your fat to replace the glucose and raises growth hormone production. An amazing combination of strategies that work like magic for weight-loss and anti-aging.

TIP #5: PERIODIC POMPACORE CELLUAR DETOX™:

We are exposed every day to neurotoxins from flame-retardants in drapes and carpets, to GMOs in our foods, to pollutants in the air. We walk in and out of buildings that are loaded with chemical fragrances. And then there are heavy metals in our water and our mouths. The amount of toxins we are exposed to daily is astronomical and has a major impact on cellular health and rate at which we age.

Of course, we can’t avoid all of the toxins in our modern world. This is why PompaCore Cellular Detox™ is something that we must implement into our lifestyle on a regular basis. The detox approach involves three components and three phases. The three components include: 1. Addressing the 5R’s to fix the cell; 2. Opening and supporting detox pathways (lymph, gut, kidneys and liver); 3. Using true binders to remove toxins (learn more about a revolutionary new binding agent I’m using here–link to Cyto). The three phases include: 1. Preparatory 2. Body detox 3. Brain detox. For more information on PompaCore Cellular Detox™, how it works, and the true binder I’m using to get real detox results, please read my in-depth article here. When appropriate, I may also suggest heavy metal detox. I’ve written a three part series on proper metal detox called “When Detox is Dangerous.” Please read these articles to become more familiar with this topic: Part One, Part Two and Part 3.

THINK BEFORE YOU DETOX:

Although people have the best of intentions, most do not understand how to properly and safely detox the body. It’s not just about doing a colon cleanse, although that can help move toxins out. Detoxification needs to be much more far-reaching for real results. Most cleanses and detox products from the health food store remind me of the mechanical sweepers we used to see on the streets. For example, if you are driving behind a street sweeper, all you see is a big cloud of dust because the sweeper is moving that dust around. The dust goes up in the air and then resettles somewhere else. This is a helpful analogy for most detoxes: one of the reasons that most people don’t feel great after a single colon, kidney or liver cleanse is because the toxins are simply moving around the body and resettling in a new place. It is very important to understand that when you do an incomplete cleanse, you may inadvertently be creating more problems by moving toxins around but not properly removing them from your system.

When you do an inadequate detox, toxins start to accumulate in different places in the body which causes the cell membrane to become massively inflamed. And, as we know, inflammation is the cause of most every disease. When the cell membrane is inflamed, nutrients needed to feed the mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell) can’t get inside and toxic waste can’t get out. And then you have a “toxic soup” inside the cell, which sets the stage for disease to arise and, of course, accelerates aging. .

What about the brain? You need those nutrients to make energy inside the brain cells. But if you have cellular inflammation in the brain, that is a big problem. Many people complain that they have no energy and say, “My brain is not working!” But in actuality your brain cells are simply inflamed.

WHERE DO THE TOXINS GO?

When toxins migrate from the cell they make their way to the liver and kidneys. The liver processes the toxins and then they are dumped into the gut and intestines, and we only hope they go down the toilet. Unfortunately, many people are suffering from leaky gut—read more here, and the toxins then circulate right back into the system. From there, they cross the blood brain barrier and can cause many unwanted symptoms. Then toxins work their way back into the body where they are bound up in the bile. When you digest fat, you dump bile, and the toxins re-circulate again. This vicious cycle is called autointoxication, and is why a supplement called BIND (super activated charcoal) is so important to take during detox: it acts as a catching agent for those nasty toxins and helps to move them out of your system.

FIX THE CELL

After we start the process of binding toxins, we need to concentrate on fixing the cell membrane. This is where the Core Cellular products come into play. My concept called the 5R’s of PompaCore Cellular Detox and Healing™ is about healing the cell and PompaCore Cellular Detox™ is a key approach to helping people get their lives back from toxic illness. Please read those articles, because you must understand how vital it is to remove the source (R1) that is causing the trouble in the first place, and fix the cell membrane (R2) in order to move good things in and bad things out. In addition, you have to restore cellular energy (R3), reduce inflammation (R4) and reestablish methylation (R5). The cell must be fixed and proper detox must occur to realize optimal health and vitality.

AN ANTI-AGING DIET AND THE SILENT KILLERS

Of course, diet plays a significant role in looking young, successful detox, and generating cellular healing. I suggest following my Cellular Healing diet, in conjunction with practicing diet variation and experimenting with intermittent and block fasting, for decreasing inflammation, balancing hormones and promoting anti-aging. My diet cuts out grains, sugars, toxic fats and poor quality proteins to make you look and feel your best.

If you are eating conventional grains you are getting a massive exposure to a chemical called glyphosate found in GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Glyphosate puts holes in your gut and brain and is very dangerous. I wrote an article called, “It’s Not Just Gluten.” Please read the article and pass it on to those you care about. In it, I talk about the dangers of genetically modified foods. Please also see Cellular Healing TV episode 95 where I interviewed Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at MIT, on the dangers of GMOs to human and planetary health. It’s absolutely frightening what is happening to many of our food sources and consumer education on this issue is imperative.

Monsanto, the company behind Roundup Ready herbicide with the active ingredient glyphosate, has bamboozled the public with propaganda stating that GMOs are safe. Other countries are banning GMOs because they are loaded with glyphosate. The truth is, glyphosate is not safe in the human body. Right now, companies are using glyphosate on organic grains after they have been harvested. So we are being massively exposed. Once glyphosate gets into our cells, it starts to alter DNA. When this happens, we start expressing certain diseases as a result of these forced genetic weaknesses. When combined with vaccinations and other environmental toxins you have the perfect storm for a health disaster. And we wonder why our kids and friends are allergic to everything…

I hope that you do your own research, read my articles, watch Cellular Healing TV, and follow these tips for not just anti-aging but for reaching your peak state of health. There are many things in life we cannot control, but these 5 strategies are tools you can implement everyday to take back your health and your life. I wish for you a healthy, long life filled with well-being in mind, body and soul. This is how God intended us to exist: vital and vibrant all of our days on earth.

The Ketogenic Diet and Athletes: An Interview with Ben Greenfield

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Ben Greenfield. Ben is a superb athlete who is an ex-bodybuilder, Ironman triathlete, and Spartan racer. He is also a coach, speaker, and author of the New York Times best seller Beyond Training: Mastering Endurance, Health, and Life. In 2008, Ben was voted as NSCA's personal trainer of the year, and in 2013 and was named as one of the top 100 most influential people in health and fitness. What makes this interview so exciting is that Ben practices many of the philosophies that we have been preaching for years.

Conventional knowledge wants us to believe that athletes must eat a high carb diet in order to function at optimum levels. While many people believe this, nothing could be further from the truth. Ben Greenfield conducted extensive tests on himself to prove that it is possible to be a fat burning athlete, and that being a high carb athlete should be a thing of the past.

Ben’s analysis was very detailed and impressive: he had blood work, biopsies, urine and stool samples taken before the study began. He then walked on the treadmill for three hours and retook the blood work, biopsies the urine, and the stool samples, then analyzed the data. The study was called The Faster Study, and the data is available via PDF for those interested in looking at his findings and Ben’s write-up on the experience can be found here.

The Faster Study

When I asked Ben why he did the study, he said it was for his own selfish reasons. He said he was training for an Ironman triathlon at the time and wanted to go faster or at least maintain his speed for longer periods without experiencing the deleterious effects that chronically elevated blood sugar can cause. He also wanted to avoid the potentially unsettling effects that carbohydrates fermenting in your gut can cause.

Ben also had another incentive: he was diagnosed as having a 17% higher than normal risk for Type 2 diabetes. As a result, he needed to figure out a way to complete an Ironman triathlon without going the traditional route of fueling with gels, bars, and energy drinks.

I can attest that his theory works because I tried it myself: while on an 18 hour intermittent fast, I went on a 3 hour bike ride. By the time I got home, it was 22 or 23 hours before I'd eaten one bite of food, and to everyone’s surprise, I didn’t bonk. Everyone on the ride that day was a seasoned athlete and eating constantly. I was the only one not eating, yet had plenty of energy, even after 20 hours without food. Ben proved that in a laboratory and I successfully tested his hypothesis in a real life situation.

The Faster Diet

In preparation for his experiment, Ben followed a diet of 80 to 90% fat and 5 to 10% carbohydrates. His protein intake would vary depending on the day’s activities. For example, protein intake would be approximately 20% on days he’d run or do weight training. On average, the majority of his diet was fat based. He jokingly said he was banned from Italian restaurants during this time.

While on his high fat/low carb diet, Ben did two ironman triathlons that year (Ironman Canada and Ironman Hawaii.) He stresses that that a low carbohydrate diet does not mean a zero carbohydrate diet. Using Ironman triathlon as an example, participants may be out competing for ten or more hours. When passing someone the on the bike, a person may go from their normal race pace of 250 watts up to 400 watts for a few moments. This surge of energy being exerted can cause a pretty significant glycolytic shift, resulting in the body needing to burn through a high amount of carbohydrates.

Ben took in about a quarter of the amount of carbohydrates that he’d normally consume during the actual event, along with ample amounts of easy to digest proteins, amino acids, easy to digest fats, and medium chain triglycerides. After his triathlon season was completed, Ben added exogenous ketones to his diet in powder form to increase ketone levels. Ben admitted that he finds the ketones extremely beneficial and says he wish he’d known about them while training for previous triathlons. Personally, I have experimented with exogenous ketones in my own fat burning regime, after learning more about how they work during my interview with Dominic D’Agostino (watch the interview here.)

Study Findings

During that triathlon season, Ben conducted quite a few studies, with a few standing out in particular. In this test, a microbiome analysis was conducted to see how the gut differs between someone who follows a high-carbohydrate diet and someone who follows a high-fat diet.

Fat biopsies were taken both before and after exercise to see to see if his actual fat tissue make-up was any different. Tests were also conducted to see if there was any difference in the ability of his muscles to store carbohydrate and how quickly the muscle would burn through carbohydrates. A resting metabolic test was conducted, which is an analysis of how much fat and carbohydrate is burned at rest. And another measurement was taken to determine how many carbohydrates, fats, and calories are burned during exercise.

What makes these tests interesting is even though most physiology textbooks claim that the average person will burn about 1.0 grams of fat per minute during exercise, the athletes who followed a ketogenic or low-carbohydrate diet for close to 12 month were experiencing fat oxidation values of closer to 1.5 to 1.8 grams of fat per minute. This is significantly higher than what experts expected.

Not only is there a glycogen sparing effect that’s occurring, but there's also some pretty significant health implications: fewer free radicals are being created, there is less fermentation in the gut, and fluctuations in blood sugar are noticeably reduced.

Initially, there was some confusion pertaining to this study because it was called “ The Faster Study.” Critics would say Ben wasn’t going any faster on the high fat/low carb diet than those on the high carb diet. What they neglected to understand was the purpose of the study wasn’t to go faster than those on high carb diets. Instead, the goal was to maintain similar speeds while limiting (and possibly eliminating) the chronic fluctuations and elevations of blood sugar.

Ben’s thought process behind the study was simple: If he could go just as fast by eliminating sugars, why not do it? If he slowed down or felt his energy levels being depleted, he’d be forced to ask himself the following questions as an endurance athlete:

  • What kind of balance did he want between health and performance?
  • How many years of his life was he willing to sacrifice in exchange for going just a little bit faster?
  • How much pressure was he willing to put on his joints?
  • How much gut distress was he willing to endure?
  • As it turns out, Ben could go just as fast on a carbohydrate-limited diet.

  Go Just as Fast, Live Longer

While people are focused on getting faster, the ultimate goal should be to go just as fast and live longer doing it. Unfortunately, many high-carb athletes have a wide assortment of health problems, which can range from joint problems to life threatening emergencies such as heart attacks. Many of them are dying prematurely and don’t realize a contributing factor to their ailments is the high carb diet they had been following for years. Ironically, many athletes are thin but show evidence of degenerative disease indicating years of inflammation and oxidative stress caused by repeated glucose and insulin spikes. We know this damage is oxidative, is harmful to the cells, and causes premature aging.

There are many studies with research illustrating how endurance sports increase oxidation and aging, but I believe as more research is done this belief will change. Studies by Ben and others show that a fat-adapted endurance athlete does not have the same levels of oxidative stress as high carb endurance athletes. At age 50, I have 8% body fat and can exercise for hours without ingesting carbohydrates because, like Ben, I’m very efficient at fat burning.

I firmly believe Ben’s study proves that people who are efficient at fat burning can burn well over one gram of fat per minute of exercise, whereas before it was believed one gram (or less) was a more realistic number. It should be noted that in order to burn that much fat, a person has to be fat adapted. It’s impossible to accomplish this level of fat burning on a high-carbohydrate diet (read more on how to get fat-adapted here: Part 1 and Part 2.)

Fat Adaption: A trick to Accelerate the Process

Becoming an efficient fat burner takes time. Many of the athletes that Ben coaches have been on a high fat diet for twelve months or more. While the greatest benefits aren’t felt for several months, a person can experience lower blood sugar levels and less oxidation within a few short weeks of starting a high fat diet. However, in order to achieve the mitochondrial density necessary for producing a lot of ATP on a high-fat diet while exercising, a person will need to follow a high-fat diet for at least a year.

It can take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years for a person to become fully efficient at burning fat. While some may balk at how long it can take, it’s not long when compared to the time it may take to become proficient in a sport, learning to play a musical instrument, or getting a college degree.

Adjusting to a high fat diet takes time and patience. To accelerate the process, one can choose to eat within a compressed time window, a strategy known as intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasts can range from 14-24 hours with just liquids being consumed. Intermittent fasting can be a challenge for beginners as the body begins to adapt, but becomes easier with each subsequent fast. I intermittent fast daily and must say it’s been the great contributor to my overall cellular health.

Some side effects beginners may experience while intermittent fasting the first few times may include the following

  • Fatigue
  • Nausea
  • Vomiting
  • Diarrhea
  • Headaches
  • Lack of focus
  • Bad breath
  • Lethargy
  • Joint pain
  • Minor depression

These side effects are normal as the body eliminates various toxins. Drinking pure water helps to alleviate some side effects and quickly remove them from the body via urination. Staying focused on the long term is key when embarking on these changes.

Occasionally, I will receive emails from my clients or the doctors of my clients, telling me they are keto-adapted, but they’re not burning fat, they don’t notice any significant changes in their bodies, and they haven’t lost any weight. I explain how this is normal, and the body has to adjust. It takes time for the body to realize it is not starving and that it can begin to burn its own fat for energy. Using my wife as an example, it was almost a year before she was able to use her fat storage for energy. Now, she’s an efficient fat burner and finds it much easier to stay lean.

Not All Fat is the Same

An important aspect of being efficient at fat burning is the type of high fat diet you follow. A plant-rich, ketogenic diet not only limits oxidation and free radical production, but it also causes an increase in stable energy sources due to high fiber content. Having high levels of plant-based chlorophylls in the bloodstream also has the potential to increase ATP production beyond what we fully understand in nutrition science.

Ben encounters many people who follow the Bulletproof Coffee type of approach:

  • Three cups of coffee with grass-fed butter and MCT oil during the day
  • Coconut milk with some coconut flakes and some chocolate stevia
  • Fatty grass-fed steak for dinner
  • Macadamia nuts for a snack

The problem with this type of diet is there’s very little plant matter eaten, and plants are an integral part of a healthy high fat diet.

Ben Greenfield’s Diet

Ben eats an astonishing 20 to 25 servings of plants per day. He has an enormous backyard garden and eats kale, butter lettuce, bok choy, mustard greens, cilantro, parsley, and tomatoes daily. He says these foods do not count towards his total daily carbohydrate intake, and that eating a high-fat diet does not mean that you’re not eating plants. It’s the opposite. “I eat a lot of plants, a lot of fiber, and it makes a night-and-day difference.”

In order to get 20-25 servings Ben eats huge salads and drinks nutrient dense smoothies. He’ll drink one or two large smoothies a day, using a powerful blender that blends everything from the pit of an avocado to an entire bunch of kale. A sample smoothie includes the following ingredients:

  • Six to eight different plants (both wild plants and herbs)
  • Traditional plants like cucumbers or avocados
  • Coconut milk
  • Good fats
  • Seeds
  • Nuts

Lunch. Lunch is a salad in an enormous bowl filled exclusively with vegetables. Ben will spend 30 to 60 minutes chewing each bite 20 to 25 times and “eating lunch like a cow while I go through emails and things like that during lunch.

Dinner. Another big salad.

Snack. Snacks are normally smaller versions of the smoothie he had for breakfast.

He stresses that his salads are extremely large and he prefers thicker smoothies: “If you were to see the size of my salads and the size of my smoothies, you would be shocked. You’d think I would be morbidly obese, but if you dig in and you look at it, it’s really just mostly plant volume. That’s generally what I do, salads and smoothies. I make them so thick I need to eat them with a spoon because I really like to chew my food. Yeah, I’m a smoothie and a salad guy.”

He goes on to say “When I look over the blood and bile markers of people following a high-fat diet, a lot of times I see really high triglycerides and really low HDL, which is often what you’ll see in someone who is eating a ton of animal fats without many plants or without much fiber. I’ll see a lot of CO2 and really low chloride levels, an indicator of a net acidic state, and a lot of biomarkers that aren’t necessarily favorable and that can be a result of a high-fat diet done improperly. I think that’s one important thing to bear in mind, too, is that you don’t want to necessarily eschew plant intake and vegetable intake; you just want to ensure that those are accompanied primarily by healthy fats and oils rather than accompanied by high amounts of protein and starches.”

When it comes to good fats, Ben prefers the following:

  • Full-fat coconut milk
  • Avocados and avocado oil
  • Olives
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • Macadamia nuts
  • Almonds
  • Walnuts
  • Pumpkin seeds
  • Chia seeds
  • Bone broth
  • MCT oil (during exercise)
  • Coconut oil (added to smoothies)

Animal fats are eaten sparingly. He’ll eat a grass-fed steak and wild fish a couple of times a week. He also likes pemmican, which comes in a tube that he can snack on while flying or if he needs a quick snack on the go.

When Ben was a bodybuilder, he would aim for 200 grams of protein per day but now only consumes between 100 to 120 grams. Currently, he weighs about 180 pounds and consumes between 0.5 and .8 grams of protein per pound of body weight. He feels this is the amount is sufficient to avoid any loss of muscle.

Ben says he has excellent colonic health. Since he started the high fat diet four years ago, he doesn’t have the fermentation, gas, bloating, or constant gas that many endurance athletes have. He also believes the high fat diet offers a lower risk for things like small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) and fermentation in the gut.

Diet Variation

In addition to eating a variety of plant based foods, an important eating concept that I have written about is something I like to call “diet variation,” which is basically emulating what our ancestors have done: They were forced into different diet variations seasonally, and in some instances, weekly.

When we look at the Hunza people as an example, they were relying mostly on plant food in the summers to survive. During the cold winter months, vegetables and fruits were scarce or nonexistent, and as a result, they were forced to eat higher-fat foods (meats and animal fats). Over time we can see a pattern: there would be long stretches where their diet consisted mostly of vegetables (summer,) then extended periods of time where their diet was mainly meat products (winter.) This type of seasonal eating created a variation in their diet they had little control over. Today, we have the ability to vary our diet at all times, which can work for us and against us.

I go into ketosis every summer and eat more good fats and protein than I do in the winter, when I eat more healthy carbs. Like Ben, I’m very fat adapted, yet still able to stay in ketosis while eating a lot of plants in my diet. I intermittent fast in the morning and by the afternoon I’m burning high ketones.

One of the popular diet trends these days is the Paleo Diet, where a person is instructed to eat large amounts of protein. Quite frankly, I am not a fan of this diet. I have read many studies on high-protein diets and feel they are not healthy. Eating too much protein can cause weight gain, extra body fat, increased stress on the kidneys, dehydration and other health issues.

If you include the dangers of eating grain fed beef instead of the healthier grass fed beef, we can clearly see how the Paleo Diet could be a recipe for disaster. I tell people as a general rule, eating protein that is equivalent to half your body weight (considering that you’re not morbidly obese) is usually safe and practical. Athletes like Ben (and those who do a lot of strenuous physical exercise) can consume more protein than the average person and utilize it safely. These individuals may require 0.7 to 0.8 grams of protein per day, while the average person only needs .55 grams per day.

Fasting

Ben goes on a 24 hour fast once a month, just to “clean things out a little bit.” He will start the fast Saturday at lunchtime end it at lunchtime on Sunday. Or, he’ll skip dinner on Saturday night and won’t eat again until dinner on Sunday. He’ll drink water, coffee and tea primarily during the fast, and kombucha on occasion. He also goes on a 12-16-hour intermittent fast daily. The majority of the fast is overnight where he’ll finish dinner around 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. and eat breakfast sometime 9 and 10:30 a.m. During the daily fast, Ben will perform a few low-level exercises in the morning: yoga, foam rolling, or mobility work are exercises of choice.

In addition to daily intermittent fasting, Ben believes a likely factor that helps him to stay lean and maintain a low body fat percentage is taking cold showers. He likes to do one of the following daily:

  • Fast, perform a low intensity exercises then take cold shower or…
  • Fast, sit in a sauna for a few minutes, followed immediately with a cold shower.

  Ben’s Exercise Regimen

Ben is active all day, but in an unconventional way:

I generally am active all day long. Today, while I’m writing, doing consults, and reading emails, I’ll walk somewhere in the range of three to five miles at a low intensity like I am right now. When I get up in the morning, I’ll generally spend 20 to 30 minutes doing some deep-tissue work and some mobility work, some foam roller, and some band work for traction on my joints. By the time I get to the end of the day, I’ve been mildly physically active for six to eight hours at just very low-level intensity.

“At the end of the day, I’ll throw in 30 to 60 minutes of a hard workout. That might be a tennis match. It might be kickboxing or jujitsu. It might be some kind of an obstacle course workout with sandbags, and kettlebells, and things like that. It might be a swim. It varies quite a bit, but generally it’s 30 to 60 minutes of something hard in the afternoon to the early evening, then up until that point, low-level physical activity all day long. It’s just tough to quantify because I’m always moving. As far as a formal workout, it comes out to about 30 to 60 minutes a day. We’re talking about a workout where the average heart rate is very close to maximum heart rate, so like a puke-fest style workout. That’s pretty draining from an energy standpoint. Generally, for me to do daily—exceeding 16-hour fasts daily—that gets tough.

What’s Next for Ben?

Ben is an outdoorsman and wants to experiment with living on the land:

I’d like to look into more of an ancestral application, a more practical application. I would like to look a little bit more into persistence hunting, something closer to where I live where I’d be going after elk or moose or something like that, preferably in the snow where tracking is a little bit easier, but seeing if it’s doable.

“A five to eight day hunt is realistically what you’re looking at with a bow, or with a spear, or with a close-range weapon, and seeing if it’s possible to actually go and get your own food in the absence of food, just to begin to get people thinking about the state that we live in, the culture that we live in where food is just constantly readily available. What would happen if we didn’t have food but we had to figure out a way to feed ourselves?

Ben also shares the outdoor life with his children: One day week in the summers, they can only eat the plants they find outside in the garden until dinner. As part of their childhood, he wants them to learn how to take care of themselves. They can use the stove and the blender, stuff like that, but they can’t use ingredients from the pantry, or from the refrigerator. It’s all based on plants.

While many people may think this way of thinking and living is extreme, Ben believes more people can benefit from it if they stay open minded and give it a try:

I would like to get people more aware of that type of practice because it really goes quite handily with the things that we’ve talked about—fasting and ketosis, and denial of modern food sources and starches and instead just learning how to take care of yourself. I think that there’s a lot of lessons to be had from a health and survival standpoint, and so plant foraging, spreading our message, as well as the potential of seeing the persistence hunting in the absence of any significant sources of calories, to be able to take what allows one to, say, do an Ironman Triathlon with very little calorie intake and then turn that into a more practical level like going out and getting your own meat and stuff. Again, without carrying a bunch of power-bars out with you, I think that’d be a cool little adventure to embark upon.

A Life of Fitness

Ben believes fitness is a lifestyle, and everyone can incorporate fitness into their daily activities:

  • If you work in a traditional office setting, put a kettlebell underneath your desk.
  • Get one of these stools that you lean back on rather than sitting down.
  • Every time that you go to the bathroom have a rule that you’ve got to do 50 air squats.

Start to work in those little things throughout the day. You’d be surprise at how fit you can stay and how prepared you can be for a big event without necessarily neglecting your family, your friends, hobbies, or work.”

Ben Greenfield is an inspiration. His research on high fat diets is sure to revolutionize the way athletes view diet and endurance exercise as a whole.

Herb Roasted Coconut Chips

  • 6 oz. plain, organic coconut chips
  • 2 Tbsp. sage
  • 2 Tbsp. rosemary
  • 2 Tbsp. thyme
  • 1 Tbsp. sea salt
  1. Spread coconut chips onto baking sheet and toast at 350° F for 7-10 minutes or until golden brown.
  2. Place in bowl and mix with seasonings, adjusting amounts to taste.
  3. Garnish, serve and enjoy!