Transcript of Podcast #6
Optimum Performance Training with James Fitzgerald
The Bulletproof Executive
Cool Facts
Dave Asprey: Today‟s cool fact of the day is that 80% of adults in the U.S. are deficient in
vitamin D. This is based on the Archives of Internal Medicine from the NIH. The only problem is
they used a 35 number as their lab test numbers and the anti-aging people I work with think
between 70 and 90 is important. If you use that metric, something like 95% of us are deficient in
vitamin D. Whether you‟re conservative or not, it doesn‟t matter. You‟re probably deficient if
you‟re not supplementing.
Overview
Dave Asprey: You are listening to episode six of Upgraded Self Radio. This is Dave and Armi
from the Bulletproof Executive Blog talking about how you can upgrade your mind, your body,
and your life to levels you never thought possible. Today‟s interview is more focused on the
fitness side of things than just general health. We‟ve got James Fitzgerald from Optimum
Performance Training to talk about best practices in all categories of fitness. James is one of the
highest regarded personal trainers in the world and is considered a great coach by experts like
Robb Wolf. He focuses a lot on high-intensity, CrossFit-like style workouts but he also doesn‟t
limit himself to just that approach. Whether you want to be an elite athlete or just stay fit in a few
minutes a week, you will want to know more about James Fitzgerald.
A lot of the people who listen to this podcast and go to the Bulletproof Executive blog, are
interested in that. How do I get the most benefit in the smallest amount of time and we‟re going
to cover some of that today.
Updates
Dave Asprey: In our biohacker report, we got news studies on how epigenetics can influence
your offspring, the neuroscience of decision making, and the real reason humans yawn. Last
week we announced that whichever person made the best tweet and cc‟d our twitter account
@bulletproofexec with the message that they would receive a free, one-on-one session with
Armi and me. Be sure to listen to the end of the podcast to see if you won.
If you‟d like to learn more about us, you can find us on Twitter on @bulletproofexec, you can
find us on Facebook or you can sign up for our email newsletter by going to bulletproofexec.com
So let‟s get started. Armi, tell us what biohacks you‟ve been working on this week.
Armi Legge: The biggest thing for me has been my sleep. I‟ve been sleeping like crazy, like a
koala, these last week or so and I got a ZQ of a 142 the night before last which is crazy. I slept
for eleven and a half hours so from an efficiency standpoint it‟s probably not the most amazing
thing in the word but it‟s still cool and I felt awesome. So I would call that pretty cool.
Dave Asprey: There‟s nothing wrong with using sleep for recovery and getting as much sleep as
you need or even, I guess I would call that hypersleeping if there‟s such a thing, but that‟s the
highest score I‟ve ever heard of on Zeo. So very cool.
Armi Legge: What about you?
Dave Asprey: Well, I‟ve been working on some of the typical things I normally do but one thing
that stands out this week is I got back from a back-to-back trip to Germany where I was flying
in-transit for twenty hours each way including stopovers. It was pretty stressful on the body and I
came back and rested a couple days and just worked from home. Then I said “You know, I‟m
going to make one of my amazing shakes”. It‟s essentially very rich ice cream made into a shake
and it has some raw eggs and raw egg yolks, and some butter, and some Lipton tea oil and what
not. So I made that and I had it later at night and I woke up the next morning and I felt like I had
worked out. This is a very classic Bulletproof Executive diet type of thing but I literally feel like
I gained an inch on my chest. I didn‟t go out and measure it but just the amount of lean muscle
mass, my whole body feels pumped like a huge workout without having done a workout. It‟s a
pretty neat trick.
Armi Legge: That‟s cool, man. So are you ready to get into some listener questions?
Dave Asprey: Yes.
Armi Legge: Actually, one thing I have to tell you. I guess we can sort of count it as a biohack
but my brother, he‟s taking a chemistry class right now, and his chemistry teacher, the reason
why I‟m saying this is because I‟ve heard almost every excuse for why you shouldn‟t eat
saturated fat. I‟ve heard the clogging your arteries, and making your platelets sticky and all that
but I heard a brand new one. It was because saturated fat is easier digested by the body than other
fats, it‟s bad for you. And that‟s why, because it‟s not a thermogenic supplement, that‟s why it‟s
by for you. That‟s what my brother‟s chemistry teacher was telling them. I thought that was
hilarious.
Dave Asprey: Wow, that‟s the different between chemistry and biology. So using the chemistry
teacher‟s logic, we should all eat rocks because rocks take a long time to digest.
Armi Legge: Exactly and then I took half an hour to explain to my brother. I had a talk about
MCT oils and how it‟s completely saturated and it actually is a thermogenic supplement
basically. Yeah, it was pretty funny. Okay, now we will get on with the listener Q&A.
Listener Q&A
Armi Legge: The first question is from Greg. “I am an air traffic controller in Vancouver,
British Columbia. I work a lot by choice and often feel fatigued when I get home after work.
How can I tell if I‟m on the right track to biohacking? Does it happen quickly or does it take
awhile to feel the effects? Also, we went to Four Barrel in San Francisco, I had the best cup of
coffee ever. We are going to roast our own now from Burman Coffee in Wisconsin.”
Dave Asprey: Well, this is one of those situations where you work a lot and you feel fatigued
when you get home after work and how do you know if you‟re on the right track? The short
answer is you can tell if you‟re on the right track because you feel better. Usually it happens
pretty quickly but it‟s less stable. If you‟re doing things right, you say “Oh wow. I had a good
day” but the next day you may feel tired again and that can be discouraging. As you‟re starting
the biohacking process and just upgrading yourself, it‟s not like you‟re going to flip a switch and
you‟re going to feel perfect all day every day. I don‟t even feel that way but I now know that if
I‟m not feeling perfect why did it most likely happen and what can I do to turn it around very
quickly. And you learn those skills over time but you should feel some effects pretty quickly. It‟s
also possible that if you‟re on the right track for up to three days or so, you may feel worse and
that‟s because as your body learns how to burn fat more efficiently and it flushes toxins out of
the system now that it‟s able to oxidize fats, you may get what‟s called an induction flu which
happens any time someone goes into ketosis who hasn‟t been in ketosis recently. This the body‟s
way of cleaning itself out but it can make you feel a little bit “blah”. Most people who are on this
program don‟t feel it. If they do feel it they can fix it with L-glutamine and activated charcoal.
Armi Legge: I think a lot of people seem to think that biohacking is kind of like plugging into a
computer, like loading a system on their internal hard drive, and all of a sudden it‟s going to
switch on everything. If you read the blog, we write about just about everything, there‟s all sorts
of stuff. There‟s a lot of different things that‟s going to go into that.
Dave Asprey: That‟s a really good point that you just made that and it goes like this. There are
things you can do where you plug in and you just feel better. For instance, if you are going to do
the emWave, that we talk about a lot, you do that and within a couple days usually you feel
noticeably better. In fact often times after one session people are like “Ah, I feel more relaxed.”
Then you do it for three days and I got an email and someone described it as “life-changing” and
they said “I can‟t imagine that every human being isn‟t given one of these just because they‟re
people.” You just feel like yourself more than ever but that‟s more like a software, firmware,
kind of upgrade. If you‟re going to upgrade you basic hardware, have a faster CPU to process
energy better and all that, it takes time for your underlying biochemistry to adjust to eating a high
nutrient diet and one that gives you what is most important for cognitive function and hormone
growth. But it‟s well worth it because when you do that, everything else you do is easier
including your brainhacking.
Armi Legge: Just to help Greg out, what do you think of Four Barrel in San Francisco or
Burman Coffee?
Dave Asprey: I don‟t know about Burman Coffee in Wisconsin but we‟ve definitely mentioned
Forebarrel on the blog. When I go to San Francisco that‟s the place I go. If you go there before
three in the afternoon, they‟ll do a single estate pour over in the front using your choice of
esoteric coffee making techniques. I highly recommend it. They‟re at Seventeenth and Valencia
or Sixteenth and Valencia in San Francisco in the Mission District. Well worth the visit.
Armi Legge: This next question is from Ron. “I was wondering if you guys could talk about
lowering blood pressure in one of your podcasts. I know a lot of people have this problem and
they would greatly benefit from it.”
Dave Asprey: You know, we definitely should do one of these. We can get one of the anti-aging
doctors who does this sort of thing. The short answer though, from my perspective and I have
very low blood pressure actually, maybe a little lower than I would like which is one of the
reasons that I eat more salt even though salt doesn‟t really cause high blood pressure. What you
need to do if you have high blood pressure, first and foremost, is supplement with absorbable
forms of magnesium and potassium taken at the same time taken in the evening. Natural calm is
a good thing to do but it doesn‟t have potassium in it. Magnesium and potassium need to be
taken together to get in the cells. High sodium doesn‟t cause high blood pressure. What causes
high blood pressure is the ratio of magnesium and potassium to sodium. When I say that, I‟m
saying that having done a lot of research and given a talk that I need to put up on the website
about the history of salt research and anti-hypertensive medications, diuretics. The bottom line is,
the affect salt has on blood pressure is within an error margin of a blood pressure cuff, it‟s
negligible and trying to get people to eat low salt is just like trying to get people to eat low fat.
Our bodies are designed to eat and crave healthy fats and healthy levels of salt. If you feel like
you need to eat salt, eat sea salt and eat as much of it as you need. Don‟t eat processed chemical
salt with aluminum stuff in it. That‟s not good for you. I eat 10 grams of salt each day and I have
for almost ten years now. My blood pressure is low, my numbers are really good on a blood
chemistry level.
Armi Legge: I think the salt debate is kind of like the fiber thing with foods and the US has
basically said “Oh, obesity isn‟t caused by eating whole grains and junk food like that. It‟s
caused by not eating enough fiber so you‟re fiber deficient. And it‟s not that whole grains are bad
for you it‟s just that you‟re eating too much sodium so now we‟re going to markets things as
low-sodium as healthy.”
Dave Asprey: Alright, next question that comes up here is from Brittany and she says “I‟ve been
running for awhile now and I‟ve recently discovered the Bulletproof Executive Blog. I see you
recommend high intensity training instead of easier workouts, but my theory has always been
that if your workout hurts, you‟re pushing too hard. Aren‟t you worried you‟re going to get
injured by this high-intensity?
Armi Legge: This is something I always find almost amusing. I don‟t want to sound too mean
but high-intensity workouts are much better in general than the super low, moderate intensity
ones that a lot of people tell you are best. I know Mark Sisson calls it chronic cardio when you‟re
in that 75-85% range of intensity of your maximum heart rate. There are some adaptions if you
haven‟t been training for awhile, you can get fitter by doing that kind of stuff. It takes awhile, it‟s
not going to be great for you in the long term, and it‟s not very efficient. So high-intensity
workouts are much better for a number of reasons. They reset your hormone profile so you‟re
going to build more muscle. They‟re more efficient, they‟re faster so you can get the same kind
of workout in twenty minutes or fifteen minutes as you would normally do in an hour or more.
They‟ve literally done studies where they have people who‟ve worked out a total of two and a
half hours a week, doing high-intensity cycling sprints versus those who trained ten to twelve
hours a week and they had the exact same benefits and I think, although it wasn‟t statistically
significant, the sprint group actually had slightly better results in the end.
In terms of the injuries, most injuries occur from chronic, repetitive motion training. Marathon
training, long distance cycling, things like that, that‟s usually where problems occur because
your body isn‟t made to do those same exact motions over and over and over like that at a
moderate intensity. What you‟re supposed to do is either walk around, I doubt anyone‟s ever
gotten an overuse injury from walking a reasonable amount, or sprinting. Now if you‟re
completely untrained and you‟re pretty weak, you could get injured from sprinting that‟s why
you do it smart and take it slow at first, you do very short sprints but most injuries are not caused
by sprinting. I think that‟s a common misconception. What do you think, Dave?
Dave Asprey: I think I agree with you.
Armi Legge: This next question is from Nils and she has several of them actually. “We hear
about the omega-3s and the omega-6s all the time and what the ratio should be, but where does
omega-9 fit into this equation?”
Dave Asprey: Omega-9s are not essential, in fact of lot of the omega-9s like mead acid are signs
that you have a fatty acid deficiency. They are not what you want to be putting into your body so
if you‟re starving then yeah you might want to do that and your body will do it naturally for you
but trying to include them in your diet doesn‟t make sense. Another example of a known omega9 is something called erucic acid. I‟ve only read studies about it. I‟ve never actually heard
anybody talk about it in any lecture I‟ve seen. This is an omega-9 that comes in rapeseed which
we also call canola oil, for our friends in Canada, Canada oil. Good marketing term. There‟s also
such thing as mustard seed and the problem is that this type of omega-9 oil is actually used as a
drying oil for paintings and coatings, it‟s an industrial oil. And when you pull some of that
omega-9 out of canola oil, that‟s how you get canola oil. So, generally, I don‟t believe that they
are necessary at all in the human diet and the fact that they are unsaturated fatty acids is a
significant problem because any unsaturated fatty acid can be oxidized easily when it‟s being
prepared or even inside the body. I don‟t think it‟s necessarily harmful to eat olive oil which has
a decent amount of omega-9 in it in the form of oleic acid but the other nine chain oils don‟t
seem particularly important to me in all the things I‟ve read. Essentially, omega-9s aren‟t
something I focus on in my diet but I do know I get some of them, they‟re not a focus for any of
the things that I do.
Armi Legge: Canola oil is just nasty stuff anyway.
Dave Asprey: Yeah, anyone on the bulletproof diet just shouldn‟t eat canola oil. In fact, anyone
who‟s a human should not eat canola oil but that‟s just me.
Armi Legge: Agreed. Her second question is “Why the hate on sucralose, Splenda? It‟s the most
natural-tasting, artificial sweetener out there and I have seen no reliable science that would make
me not want to use it. There are animal studies which use ridiculous amounts to obtain adverse
effects and there are some correlation studies which frankly don‟t prove a whole lot. I‟m not
convinced at almost anything at those levels would be toxic like sodium. If I recall, we are
talking the equivalent of 10,000 packets per day.”
Dave Asprey: It seems like the “I‟m not convinced part” is the crux here. If you‟re not
convinced, being a biohacker, I can tell you take a risk. If you think the risk of eating a heavily
chlorinated sugar molecule that doesn‟t occur in nature, that does absorb into the body,
something like 36% is not excreted but we‟re not entirely sure where it goes, something that does
not break down easily in the environment, something that‟s actually occurring in groundwater
because it doesn‟t break down that well. If you think that the nice sweet taste is worth it, go for
it, but I would have to say you need to take a course in risk management because the risk of
known sweeteners that are safe and healthy like Xylitol and Erythritol is much, much lower.
There is no reason to be putting this synthetic chemical into your body when there is a perfectly
safe, effective, and healthy substitute that doesn‟t have any of these problems.
Armi Legge: One of the other things about Splenda is that it‟s only generally sold if it‟s mixed
with maltodextrin and if you actually look at the ingredients often times the first or the second
ingredient is maltodextrin which is just sugar. You‟re basically eating a ton of sugar with your
Splenda and that‟s the way they make it cheaper and maltodextrin is just a corn sweetener, in this
case it‟s derived from corn. The other thing about Splenda is there‟s a Duke University study that
showed, and this hasn‟t been replicated in any studies but I bet it will be, that showed rats that
took Splenda reduced the good bacteria in their intestines by 50%. Most people don‟t think that‟s
a huge deal, “Oh, I don‟t care about my gut bacteria” but as we talked about last time that‟s
basically acting like an antibiotic and when you do that, antibiotics can permanently alter your
gut flora for life. This can cause some serious problems.
The next question is related. “Same with aspartame, I‟ve seen nothing convincing but I‟m
prepared to change my mind. Is aspartame really safe?”
Dave Asprey: It‟s a good thing that you‟re ready to change your mind because when you take
aspartame that‟s exactly what you‟re doing. Aspartame, which is known as NutraSweet, does all
sort of bad stuff to the point it‟s almost as if you‟ve seen nothing convincing, you aren‟t really
looking that hard. The number one source of complaints to the USFDA Food Safety Hotline
comes from NutraSweet. If you look at the history of how NutraSweet or aspartame was even
approved in the US, it was twice rejected by the USFDA‟s own scientists as being unsafe for
human consumption because it turns into formaldehyde as well as a couple other toxic
substances including wood alcohol. The way it got approved is that the head of the company that
manufactures this stuff, G. D. Searle, moved over to a management position in the FDA. He
vetoed the scientists‟ disapproval, forced it into production, then left the FDA a couple years
later. You might have heard of this guy, his name is Rumsfeld. I‟m not joking. This is not rumor
and conspiracy. This is well-documented fact. You can find it pretty much if you Google any of
those names and NutraSweet, G. D. Searle. Since then, the manufacturers of NutraSweet have
sold it off to some other company, but Searle is the one who took it to market.
The other thing it does is it‟s a excitatory neurotoxin and this drives me nuts because it causes
brain cells to start firing because there is so much aspartate in the neurotransmitter in the
synaptic junction, essentially the cells keep firing and firing and firing until they can‟t fire
anymore and they die. In Silicon Valley, the number one soft drink choice of most of the high
power executives I see is Diet Coke. It‟s an addiction. You got to a meeting, there‟s Diet Cokes
all over the place. If someone orders a soda, it‟s a Diet Coke. And it‟s actually sad because these
people need to have their brains turned on all the way, need to feel good, are drinking Diet Coke
which basically messes with your brain function. It actually does that even if you‟re not aware
that it‟s doing it. It is happening and in the same drink they could be drinking something that‟s
good for them or something that is not actively bad for them but I always hate seeing people who
are in positions of authority over other people doing things that are relatively addictive and make
them less effective at their jobs.
Armi Legge: If you want to see a cool movie about that, I believe it‟s called Sweet Misery. It
talks about a lot of the artificial sweeteners especially aspartame. And the girl who made it
actually ended up becoming diagnosed with multiple-sclerosis after drinking, I think, five or six
Diet Cokes a day for awhile and then she removed them and was asymptomatic after that. I‟ll
include a link with an interview for her too but that was scary.
The next question is “I‟ve also started buying raw cheese from the same farm. I assume raw
cheese is good as long as it doesn‟t have any damaged casein proteins. Or is there more to the
cheese making process than producing bad proteins? What about cottage cheese? Is it closer to
yogurt, although yogurt is also made through the fermentation process, so I‟m kind of confused
about the whole thing.”
Dave Asprey: Here‟s the deal, cheese of any flavor is not on the green part of the Bulletproof
diet and there‟s a reason for that. Raw cheese is going to be better for you than cooked cheese
which basically has casein in it and it has denatured casein in it which is inflammatory and is link
to certain forms of cancer. The other problem with cheese in general though is that toxins from
the food that cows eat gets particularly concentrated in the protein part of the milk not in the fat.
That‟s why I recommend using grass-fed butter rather grass-fed milk, or cream, or cheese. The
other thing that‟s happening though, the cheese making process, is bacterial and/or yeast based
fermentation. Each of those yeast and bacterial is actively making poisons to keep other yeasts
and other bacteria from getting its food supply and then you eat them. Most people haven‟t heard
of roquefortine yet but roquefortine is exactly the name of a toxin that is made by the roqueforti,
the blue cheese, fungus. It turns out that funguses in the world at large in the last twenty years
have been making a lot more toxins then they used to and this has to do with basically mutagenic
spraying we‟ve been doing to try to keep mold toxins down we‟ve created super strains of mold
that make more poisons. So eating something that‟s fermented out of protein is maybe not a good
idea because whatever you eat, you‟re made out of protein, and I don‟t think that‟s a smart move.
You can eat unfermented or fermented and filtered types of products that are safer than eating
raw cheese. Most raw cheeses are artisan which means they don‟t really know which bacteria,
which fungus, is involved in making it. They have a pretty good guess but they aren‟t using
genetic testing on the stuff. You can take a risk. If it tastes good you can eat it. If you don‟t feel
sick, don‟t gain weight, go for it but most people who eat cheese have bad skin over time and
they don‟t feel as good when they eat cheese but it‟s a subtle difference. Yogurt, I‟d say the same
things I just said about cheese, but not quite as bad because some yogurt has good cultures in it
but most of those cultures don‟t make it through the gut anyway. It‟s not a great way to get your
probiotics.
Armi Legge: Yes and we have new probiotic upgrade itself, don‟t we?
Dave Asprey: That‟s a good point. Might as well mention that. I recommended when people are
doing a probiotic that they get one that is carefully selected for the specific strain. It‟s not enough
to say “My yogurt has acidophilus” which is kind of like saying “My meal has fat or doesn‟t
have fat”. Well, what kind of fat? What I recommend is specific strains and the one that is the
most biohacker of them all is made from natto bacillus. Natto bacillus is type of bacteria, a
probiotic, that makes an enzyme that breaks down blood clots in your blood. By taking that type
of probiotic, you‟re actually helping with keeping your blood liquid which is particularly
healthy. You can actually buy supplements made of the enzymes that this type of bacteria makes.
It‟s a pretty neat little hack.
Armi Legge: Her next question, I thought, was kind of hilarious. “I love pork rinds, particularly
with lots of fat on them. I tell myself that it‟s collagen and fat, all good. Am I deluding myself?”
Dave Asprey: Well, you know, I love Twinkies and I tell myself they‟re made out of grass-fed
meat. Am I deluding myself? Here‟s the deal, extremely denatured collagen or any other protein
is not good for you, it‟s inflammatory. Fried anything is going to be oxidized fat, even if it‟s
fried animal fat or fried butter, it‟s not ideal. If you‟re going to be frying something, you can use
coconut oil or ghee and you can use it one time and then eat it. But if it‟s repeatedly fried in the
same oil over and over and over, like pork rinds, which are usually friend in some other oil like
canola, you‟re basically eating an inflammation bomb.
If you want pork rinds find a pastured pig, kill it, cut off its skin, and cook it in the oven until it‟s
crisp but not destroyed, then you‟re fine. Otherwise, it‟s not food.
Armi Legge: Agreed but something like pork rinds they just look kind of scary too.
Dave Asprey: I had some last night but I made them myself. They were delicious and yes they
look scary.
Armi Legge: Yes, and especially if they come in a bag. The next question is “A couple of times
I‟ve made Bulletproof coffee with virgin coconut oil and both times I‟ve felt nauseous
afterwards. Is this a coincidence or could there be a reason?”
Dave Asprey: There could definitely be a reason and maybe you‟re not good at digesting fats or
another reason could be your coffee had bad toxins in it so if you followed the rules for selecting
good coffee then you should have accounted for that. The other one is tons of virgin coconut oil
is made using very primitive fermentation techniques to separate out the fat so if it‟s traditional
style virgin like the stuff Tropical Tradition sells, they ferment it in the Philippines in kind of an
open pit or in a building somewhere but it‟s not a controlled process. Then they heat the oil to a
specific temperature like 180 degrees to kill any type of alpha-toxins or other things that might
have grown. The other problem is during that fermentation time you actually get those toxins that
aren‟t destroyed by heat so they won‟t keep forming in the oil but they might be present. I‟ve
found that I have to be very selective of the type of virgin coconut oil I have because several
brands contain enough toxics that I get, say, really deep pimples or I‟ll feel nauseous after I eat it
or get a headache. I switched to different brand and it goes away.
Armi Legge: Yes, I would agree especially about the fat digestion part. I remember when I
started eating a high fat diet, coconut oil was and is still is a large part of that and I definitely felt
a little nauseous after eating a bunch of coconut oil.
Dave Asprey: You can also take Betaine HCL which is a supplement that will help quite a bit
with fat digestion or lipase, an enzyme. These are things you can buy at your local vitamin store.
Not GNC, by the way, that barely counts as a vitamin store. What you‟ll get by doing that is
you‟ll help your body digest fats in a clean way and most people, I‟d say two-thirds of the people
I‟ve coached, find that for the first couple weeks when they switch to eating more than half their
calories from fat that they feel better and have more energy and things run more smoothly when
they do that. It‟s not required. It‟s just takes your body, especially your pancreas, to remember
“Oh, yeah. I can burn fat and this is the type of enzyme I need to do that.” Once you make that
switch metabolically, you feel better and you kick ass at work, you have more energy when you
come home. Your whole day just gets better when you do it and then you can actually, with no
guilt at all, put as much butter as you want on top of your steak. It‟s a pretty good life.
Armi Legge: Agreed. The next question is from Evan. “How do you block the mercury from
fish as a reference in you May 25th article. I love sushi, especially tuna, and I also like swordfish
and sea bass but I‟m worried about the mercury content.”
Dave Asprey: Basically, Evan, you should be worried about the mercury content even eating
sushi, especially swordfish. That‟s one of the worst, swordfish and shark. If you eat that even
once a week, it raises your levels of mercury very noticeably. I‟ve found just through the process
of elimination and biohacking that if I eat sushi or any sort of fish that is high in mercury, that
the next day I‟m unable to do one-legged yoga poses, I fall over. If I take something call
chlorella, and we have links to this on our website and in the show notes, chlorella is a fractured
cell wall, sea algae that is highly attractive to mercury. The mercury in your gut gets bound to
chlorella then you excrete it. This is something I do every time I have sushi. I take, probably,
twenty or thirty chlorella tablets. When I do that, I don‟t fall over the next day when I‟m doing
yoga. I‟ve tested it with a couple other people and it has the same effect. It‟s subtle but your
balance just isn‟t as good. And in my kids too, in fact, two and four [years old], I give them fish,
they love sushi, if I give them sushi, say with tuna in it, they both fall over more than the day
before then when I give it to them with chlorella, which I always do except that one time when I
didn‟t have any chlorella. They don‟t have that problem so I would definitely consider that a
safety issue and every sushi restaurant should have chlorella in a bowl next to the soy sauce.
Armi Legge: Sorry, I‟m just laughing imagining you making lunch for your kids then the next
day they‟re stumbling over themselves about the house. I know that‟s horrible.
Dave Asprey: It‟s not horrible. If you pay attention to your kids, you can totally see the effect of
nutrition and diet on how they behave. Kids are usually calm, well-mannered, and happy.
They‟re still kids, they still do things that kids do but there‟s less freaking out. And then you feed
them some junk food or some oxidized oils or sushi like that and their physical abilities change,
their ability to find words quickly changes, and their overall volatility goes way through the roof.
If you want a peaceful home, you feed your kinds a Bulletproof diet and they are happy.
Armi Legge: You‟ll save a lot more money by feeding them good food then you will on the cost
of counseling after you go crazy because your kids are making you insane. That‟s one way to
look at it. And I actually have a question about that. I know Chris Kresser has talked about how
the mercury issue in fish is a little overblown because selenium also acts as a chelating agent to
mercury and as long as the fish you are eating has equal amounts of selenium and mercury
you‟re okay. And he talks about, as you just mentioned, how swordfish, pilot whale meat, and
shark that had large amounts of mercury but not very much selenium. What‟s your take on that?
Dave Asprey: You know, if it was that simple, you would be able to take some selenium along
with your mercury and your fish and you should be just fine even if you‟re eating the other ones
but it‟s a little more complex than that. It has to do with the form of selenium. Selenomethionine,
which is bound to the amino acid methionine, would pretty darn important there and I actually
don‟t know what form of selenium, whether it‟s sodium selenite which is toxic even though it‟s
sold as a supplement or the healthy form, is present in fish but all of the researchers and all of the
health-focused, anti-aging people that I‟ve worked with in my nonprofit work, I think they‟re
pretty well united that the mercury in fish is a significant concern. It can be eaten safely, you just
need to know what you‟re doing.
Armi Legge: In the The 4-Hour Body, I know Tim Ferriss talks about how he ate three or four
pounds of tuna and swordfish before getting his mercury levels tested and I think it double them.
So don‟t do that.
Dave Asprey: Yeah, that‟s certainly something you can do but it‟s that fast. Literally, one meal
with a significant sized helping of tuna will noticeably raise your blood levels. I‟ve had mine
measured. I actually tested high for mercury and I went through full blood chelation with
intravenous and oral agents about eight years ago and it really helped my health. That was one of
the things affecting me.
Armi Legge: That‟s going to do it for the listener Q&A. If you have a question for the podcast,
you can contact us on Twitter @bulletproofexec, on Facebook, or on the contact form in the
show list of this episode on the website. We also pick through the comments to find good
questions so be sure to leave a comment on one of our articles and it will probably end up in the
podcast. And now we move on to our exclusive interview with James Fitzgerald from Optimum
Performance Training.
Interview
Armi Legge: Hey folks! It‟s Armi Legge here. I‟ve got James Fitzgerald from Optimum
Performance Training on the line. He is one of the absolute foremost experts in fitness and
nutrition in the country. So, James, thanks so much for coming on.
James Fitzgerald: Thank you for having me here.
Armi Legge: What is Optimum Performance Training?
James Fitzgerald: Optimum Performance Training is the business I run. It was started
approximately fifteen years ago without having that kind of name in place and probably ten years
ago incorporating that. It‟s basically an educational center. It‟s a place for individual
conditioning and it‟s a certification process for coaching.
Armi Legge: What makes it different from other kinds of workout programs like CrossFit or
these other kind of generic gyms?
James Fitzgerald: I guess the main thing that we do is individualized conditioning and there‟s a
little bit of a scientific approach to go along with some of the similarities of CrossFit and Black
Box. We have big beliefs in individualizing our programs and not having a one-trick pony for
everyone.
Armi Legge: So someone coming in to OPT wanting to get coached and work on their fitness.
Where would you start? What would your first steps be and how would you analyze them and
create a training plan for them?
James Fitzgerald: We‟d have a conversation first. We would want to talk about exactly, the big
picture, of what‟s going on within their life. What‟s the reason they showed up there. Why do
they need us? Why can‟t they do it themselves, and try to figure out what things are preventing
them from improving stuff and what good things are happening that they can pony on to help
them going forward. Something more organic in nature we would do a full assessment to figure
out exactly where they‟re coming from. That includes a lifestyle consultation as well as some
nutritional analysis. If there‟s some testing that needs to go a little deeper than that like
endocrinology work, any hematology testing or things like that we also have people in place that
can do that for us so we get a really good picture of what‟s going on before we make a
prescription in terms of exercise. So each person is treated that way but most times the initial
thing is a philosophical chat with me in terms of creating a direction of what where they want to
go with the fitness.
Armi Legge: Cool. I want to get into a little more detailed questions now. What are some of the
ways you would work to prevent injuries and accidents with your clients? I know that what of
the biggest fears people have about weight training. So what are some of the ways you prevent
those?
James Fitzgerald: We teach people correctly how to do the movements. We don‟t prescribed
anything we don‟t feel people should be doing so we‟re not bias on our training and not everyone
needs to power snatch, and clean and jerk, or snatch. A lot of people still get that. Not a lot of
people need to sprint and push a sled. Not a lot of people need to do band sprinting. The
prescription goes into people correctly so it keeps them from injury. That‟s the style of a good
training program. If you could set people up for success that doesn‟t set them outside their
limitations, that‟s fine. In order to reach epic potential for an athlete or an elite person, you are
going to get injured and you are sore a lot. You have to face that realization that people will get
injured and it‟s not your responsibility as a coach. You simply just fine tune what you‟re capable
of so for people starting out on fitness, you should actually never get injured. If you are, it‟s
either your own stupid mistake or it‟s incorrect programming and so what we do basically to
make sure that doesn‟t happen is that we assess people from the get-go and then never prescribe
things that are biases to our thinking that are not going to be helping them.
Armi Legge: So what‟s your opinion on variety in training? I know that‟s kind of a contentious
thing, a lot of people are very behind linear periodization, a lot of people say you should have
random all the time. What‟s your opinion on that?
James Fitzgerald: I think it‟s suitable for some people. You‟ll find a lot of my answers coming
back that way but for some people I think it‟s important to have variety. Let me give you an
example. For some people who just want to have an active lifestyle, maintain some good fitness,
that variation in training program all the time is okay because they can‟t dig deep into the
nervous system to which too much variety can cause some issues. So if someone has a very high
neuro-muscular ability and component, they‟ve been trained for quite awhile, and they hammer
variation all the time with different intensities, that‟s quite a load on the entire nervous system
and endrocrine system as well as their gut, muscles, etc. For some people variation can be quite
good. My belief is that over time, you‟re going to start to see more and more research and design
coming out because the people in the trenches are doing that in which variations protocols and
similar energy system training within each is going to come to the forefront in sports
performance and not this linear improvement in progression with the same kind of thing over and
over.
Non-variation stuff is very simple to coach and I think why there could be 50% of those coaches
are contentious about the variation is that they‟re lazy. They may not possibly want to create
constant variation within the program because it‟s the flow and the ebb that takes a magical art to
coach.
Armi Legge: So by training different energy systems, what do you mean by that? How can
people work on that?
James Fitzgerald: The energy systems should only be trained when you say to work on that is
specific to what you want to do. Energy system training, just think of it as bringing it to a
layman‟s approach so you can understand, is something on a cyclical nature that gets your heart
rate, respiration, HPA axis, thermoregulatory system, it gets everything flowing at a really high
intensity. Think about doing a 100 meter IM in your swim training and do it at 95% effort and
rest four minutes then repeat it six times. You‟re working on, assuming you can do it around one
minute, either ten seconds below or above, if you can do that at 95%, you‟re almost at your max
but you‟re not at your max so that‟s called lactate power or lactate endurance training. That
means that‟s the energy system that we‟re trying to train. We‟re trying to use that pathway in
terms of maximizing. Now for each person, they may not need to do that but at certain times of
the year there may be a necessity for people to do that. Energy system training for the layman is
pretty much interval based stuff of a high amount of work in a short amount of time and it‟s done
at a small percentage lower than the max. You create a recovery system then you repeat that so
that overtime it builds your potential.
Armi Legge: What do you think of recovery workouts? I know those are one of those kinds of
things, I remember some others like Brian MacKenzie, say they‟re worthless for all intensive
purposes. That recovery is best just to rest. I know there‟s a lot of people who say it‟s better to do
shorter workouts like a twenty to forty minute easy walk to help flush out your legs.
James Fitzgerald: I think recovery can be done multiple different ways. There‟s no one answer
to that. I do believe in recovery workouts. I think we‟ve seen it in mobility/very easy
cardiovascular work/skill based exercise sessions in which we‟ve had people do, for example, air
driving for a few minutes very easy then practice some muscle-ups, wall balls, and handstand
walking and then do some crawling on the ground, some gymnastic planks, then back on the air
drive. People do that for sixty minutes a couple times a week and it‟s actually improved one arm
lift and their ability to get into the lactate pathway because we‟ve measured that through
scientific methods. You can‟t say they‟re useless unless you test it to show that it‟s not
important. I think the scare that people have with saying they‟re going to do recovery workout is
they‟re afraid that they‟re going to go out for a run for thirty to sixty minutes at a very easy
tempo. Recovery can be dressed up in multiple different ways, I would look at what they‟re
selling if they‟re afraid of recovery workouts.
Armi Legge: That brings up a good question when you‟re talking about testing. What are some
of the ways people can test their own fitness, how do you test for their RPT, and why is it
important to keep testing?
James Fitzgerald: Testing is important relative to where you are in that fitness curve, to kind of
see what the trends at that period of time are in case you need to peak for an athlete or, if you just
want to see as a person progressing over time exactly where you are, so you can see if the
program is useless or effective. The reason why testing is not done within a lot of fitness
programs because people realize the coaching as well as the person within the program are not
improving. That‟s why there‟s issues with variation in programs, that there‟s so much different
shit all the time and after about a year and a half they see that there‟s no improvement so they
just throw a whole bunch of more different shit together, never really knowing if you‟re
improving or not. The testing that we do here can be as simple as getting someone to lunge then
do a pushup, to walk up and down steps with measurements of heart rate and perceived exertion
to advance methods of lactate-respiratory exchange ratio, heart rate variability, sex hormone
balance testing, adrenal stress index panels, cortisol curves, you name it. We can get very small
or very advance based upon how important it is for the person to go through that. We don‟t
believe there‟s one single test for each person. The retesting for a beginner should be more
frequent because they‟re going to see advancements and it creates a motivational curve for them.
Testing for an athlete over time should be very curved as well just to make sure you‟re on the
right path, you walk that fine line between rehabilitation as well as leap performance. I believe
it‟s very important to test and clients and fitness people should do that more often because they
get to see if the program is worth anything. If they‟re truly on a progressive curve over time to
improve things. I really like testing consistently even if they don‟t turn out to be that good
because we get to see trends meaning that the certain person could be in a certain phase of
training which we‟re trying to get things out of it but it creates some insights and aha moments
which allows us to create a prescription.
Armi Legge: Let‟s saying you‟re trying to peak someone for the CrossFit games or something
like that where there‟s lots of intensity and a lot of workload that goes into it. How often would
that person be testing during the weeks leading up to that and what kind of testing would they be
doing?
James Fitzgerald: It depends on the person but the weeks leading up to it, I basically will
probably only test the lactate endurance pathway and the CP pathway. I wouldn‟t test anything in
really large aerobic capacity states because I want to ensure that they would recover nervous
system-wise in order to lower that before they get into fight. The short time domain stuff which
is known in CrossFit at a really high power along with lactate measures to ensure that the lactate
scores are quite high, I want them high because I want people to be able to use that pathway and
keep it in the blood so when they get to the games they still have it in their systems and can use it
as a fuel. I also want to make sure their nervous system is in a good place so testing CP protocols
to ensure that they max out on a clean and jerk or a backsquat would be highly important because
it allows their brain to remember that so even within two weeks, they‟ll remember exactly how
to do it. The testing is a lot more observational within the sport of CrossFit and the reason being
is they do know exactly what they‟re training for so the testing has to be a little more
observational. You have to look at people and watch them workout that only a keen eye CrossFit
coach would see that but you have to watch them and go “Okay. I can tell that you‟re fast and
you have that little pop in that step, but we‟re a little slow here and your touch needs to be here,
and we need to fix your technique.” That‟s little more observational as opposed to a tri-athlete a
couple of weeks out we can do some simple measures of power, simple protocols on a run or a
bike, and figure out based upon those things exactly where they‟re supposed to be sitting because
of course we know the distance, we know the route, we know the course, we know the heat, we
know the fluid. All those kinds of things.
Armi Legge: How do you combine general strength and an endurance sport, like a triathlon?
Also, how do you convince people that strength is important? I know a lot of athlete friends who
don‟t do a lot of weight training, they just focus on that aerobic pathway all the time. So how do
you combine a strength program and an endurance program?
James Fitzgerald: I don‟t try to convince anyone, first of all, but I do create some education in
terms of performance. If I give them some protocols and say “Just buy into me for a couple of
weeks and we‟ll try a couple things then you tell me what you think after four weeks” because
after four weeks when they feel worse, who am I to tell them to make more changes on it. But
most times, I have to say with 80% of my endurance athletes, after four weeks they buy in and
say “I‟m recovering better, I have more pop in my hamstrings uphill, I can feel that torque on the
bike.” Things like that. I don‟t try to convince people of that because that means,
philosophically, I‟m just wasting my energy on trying to turn that over on them. But I‟m a big
believer in endurance training to ensure that nothing takes them away from the technical
efficiency that are needed for endurance training. So for endurance training, if we‟re talking from
an athletic front, I‟m a big believer in the specificity of the sport. I‟m not afraid of volume in the
sport, if it‟s done appropriately. I‟m a big believer in terms of weight relative to power output so
I‟m not looking to increase the lean mass of an athlete if it‟s not important. If you need to be a
fast runner and you‟re fifteen pounds overweight, I‟m going to tell you and also I‟m not going to
put you on a strength training program because there‟s a vice around that. If I know you
shouldn‟t be putting any weight on it and you need to be down fifteen pounds in order to run two
minutes faster on a 10K, let‟s say. I‟m a believer in giving that person an individual program
based upon what they need to be good at that in an endurance sport.
Armi Legge: Do you think weight training can prevent a lot of injuries in endurance sports, at
least moderate weight training?
James Fitzgerald: Yes.
Armi Legge: Good. So is it possible, for people trying to stay pretty muscular and also compete
in endurance sports, to gain lean mass while doing a lot of endurance training?
James Fitzgerald: It is possible. I can see if they jump into that pathway and there are some
nutritional things that need to be taken care of too but if they jump into that intensity pathway
enough I think it might be possible. If the training is done appropriately for the sport, I can see
people putting lean mass on and specifically when I have tested it because people may look
leaner and look like they‟re gaining lean mass but they‟re not gaining lean mass they just look
leaner so they look more big.
Armi Legge: Again, one of the things I think you‟ve mentioned before is that how endocrine
panels and endocrine testing. What are some of the ways you limit cortisol production or at least
overcortisol production, keep people from dipping into that over-trained state?
James Fitzgerald: Number one would be to create a routine daily. I think this is a missing link
in terms of balancing that circadian rhythm and cortisol curve. Correct training, staying away
from hyperinsulinemia throughout the day, staying away from any processed foods or cheap
things that may put them offsite. If that‟s one of the pathways. Divulging in lifestyle
consultations to get that shit out of the head that‟s preventing them from moving forward and
tapping into some of those emotional-psychological barriers. Correct training, as I‟ve mention
before, plays a big part with it. That‟s where this unknown, unknowable constant variation may
not be a good thing. We‟re seeing with a lot of people that we‟re taking care of on the back end
of it, it‟s put people on the wrong curve in terms of endocrinology terms.
Armi Legge: What about sleep? How important is sleep in your training plans and do you have
any examples of someone who has been in a sleep deprived state then has started sleeping again
and how their performance has improved?
James Fitzgerald: I can‟t give you names but there are hundreds of people who‟ve said they
tweaked some things in terms of sleep and they‟ve had acute responses. I read a person on our
blog who, a couple days ago, was complaining of overreaching and now he‟s written today that
he‟s had some good quality sleep the past few nights and he‟s fine. There is an acute story like
that, I have hundreds of stories like that, and there‟s of course specific protocols I help people in
that it‟s just life changing for a lot of folks. Some of the simple things around that is keeping all
kinds of electricity and wave stuff out of your room, no alarm clocks, preferably get on a routine
cycle so your body naturally wakes up so you can leave yourself some time before having to be
at work or having to give yourself certain protocols, or if your kids are going to come in and
wake you up, you can allow that to happen. Completely darkened room, don‟t do stimulatory
stuff about an hour before you sleep, don‟t do any watching of TVs, movies, computers, things
like that. Do a wind down time, reading a book, a nice chat, a relaxation technique, stretching, a
warm bath. Don‟t eat any large amounts of foods right before bed just based upon your liver
possibly having to work a little bit harder when it‟s detoxifying later on in the night. And of
course, clear your head. Write things down in a journal, get shit off your brain. Most of the time
why people can‟t get to sleep is that they‟re wired and tired at night because they can‟t shut the
brain off. Don‟t leave stuff till the end of the day. Get stuff done during the bulk of day when
you‟re creative and let the evening be a wind down state when we‟re supposed to be recovering.
Armi Legge: So what is your philosophy on diet and nutrition? Are you more into the paleo diet
or what?
James Fitzgerald: I‟m the same thing as in program design. I vary it quite a bit depending on
who I‟m working with so if a person is starting from a, I‟m not going to say toxic area, but
burgers and fries a few times a week, processed foods that are prettied up to being healthy,
alcohol misusage, imbalance of food sources that are lower in protein, I‟m not going to send
them across the desk with a paleo handout and tell them this is going to be the next coming. I
believe there‟s phases of intervention in how to change people over to that. I think that over time
we need to do a little more investigation in terms of that evolutionary perspective on foods
before we start knocking off the board grains, legumes, soy, dairy, and any of the things people
want to vilify though there is more and more research showing they could have some
implications. My theories are though that you have to look at the train of the individual, where
they come from, their ethnicity, their background, how they‟re feeling, their current profile, their
genetics which I think epigenetics is a big part to play within that now. I think the amount of
stress we induce on ourselves over the pass thirty to forty years with the increase in technology
and the speed of life I believe makes us weaker as humans and the inability to understand even
problems with a sprouted grain. I think that‟s an issue. The fact that we can‟t handle that shit. I
don‟t think sprouted grain is the issue. I think that the fact that humans can‟t adapt to that or that
even after seven generations of variations within the wheat, our bodies can‟t adapt to it. So that‟s
where I am on food. I don‟t make it emotional, I really don‟t make it dogma or religion, and I‟m
open to understanding a bunch of things. I can tell you this, Armi, that I‟ve also investigated a
shitload of athletes that don‟t do paleolithic profiles and they perform to extensively high levels.
You also have to look at the current state in order to figure things out before we can make
statements that are based upon more or the other.
Armi Legge: I think that‟s a perfect segway into some of your life coaching. I‟ve heard a lot of
people say, I think Robb Wolf has mentioned on his podcast speaking of paleo, about your life
coaching seminars and modules that you do that are part of your coaching certification program.
Could you talk about what you do in those?
James Fitzgerald: The life coaching piece has been a part of my individual consultations so if
you sat down with me years ago, that‟s probably the first thing we‟d do for the first little walks.
I‟m a big believer in trying to figure out exactly how to understand one another and also creating
awareness. Over the weekend, we teach coaches how to teach themselves first how to notice and
explain and then prescribe and then act. We do that through multiple different ways. If you‟ve
ever studied fundamental systematics or quantum theory stuff, it‟s kind of along those lines
meaning that we try to teach people how to create awarenesses within themselves to where
things around and of course we can create a prescription based upon what we see and going
forward. I think creating what we call a triangle of trust right from the get-go is very important
with people. If you create trust from the coach to the client, I think that programs, designs, and
businesses can become very powerful but that trust element is very important to build right away.
We also teach very different specific scenarios on how to coach groups and individuals and also
how to be coached, so it‟s a lot about in level one teaching you about who you are first and then
level two and level three it‟ll get more into the wisdom category so we can teach people how to
spread the news to reach larger audiences.
Armi Legge: What are some principals that people should follow if they were constructing their
own workout program, if they didn‟t hire a coach or work with someone life you, or an OBT,
and they wanted to be a self-coached athlete?
James Fitzgerald: I think do some reading. There‟s a shitload out there. Then allow yourself to
play around a little bit, see what resonates with you. I think that being self-coached you‟re going
to go after things that sit well with you, and I‟ve been lucky to have coached a lot of great
athletes that have moved on away from and I‟m happy that they do that because it tells me I have
taught them something about themselves that their innate sense are telling them where to go. I
think that if you are self-coached, truly stick to that meaning that you need to do the things that
resonate with you. I‟ll give you an example that could be close to home, I don‟t know what your
history is in turns of running but I was fascinated by this gentlemen named Sebastian Coe and his
dad and their background and it motivated me so much I want to compete in an 800 meter race in
the World Masters in Finland next year just because of that as one of my specific goals next year
or so. The reason why I enjoyed that so much is that he loved his dad coaching him because he
said his dad never coached anyone else and his dad knew nothing about coaching. I find that
fascinating that the athlete had no full biases in their training because the dad never knew what a
bias or control was. They were still self-coached in that the coach was self-coaching and he just
went by how he felt and if you are self-coaching go by that. Do some little day to day and
weekly experiments for your recovery, ensure that you‟re progressive long term, and set some
small and longer terms goals for where you want to see yourself and I think people can attain
some really high stuff.
Armi Legge: Great so what kind of stuff did you change for your race in Finland compared to
the CrossFit games?
James Fitzgerald: Well, mainly I had to just learn how to run again. I use to run competitively
in high school. I came second in the province which is like state for Canada for cross country
running. I was 3 to 5K distances. Then I went into the bodybuilding, strength conditioning route
then when I came out to Calgary, I won my age group in class for 5 Peak Series which is
mountain running which is basically one race every month for five months during the
summertime and racing in the Rocky Mountains. And that was a sports course, 4 to 6K distance.
I had done some distance road stuff. Then within CrossFit, I used to do intervals of running or
some running when I first started CrossFit because I was still preparing for the 5 Peaks, and I
haven‟t done none since. Since then, I have been running, running all with time and doing a
whole bunch of it and learning about breathing and touching the ground, getting some volume in,
getting that sense of where I need to be for speed development and also just falling in love again
with the sport. The big change has been I‟m doing a crapload of running, everyday, either with
my dog or by myself. It‟s been an adjustment down here in Phoenix. I‟ve had to run before 5 am,
because it‟s 90 degrees at that time of day and my thermoregulatory system makes my pulse
about fifteen beats higher per intensity so I‟ve basically been running a whole lot and still doing
every second day doing some conditioning to basically keep my strength relative to my
bodyweight. I‟ve lost ten or twelve pounds because in order to be competitive for that distance
and based upon my time and power that are needed, I need to be around 160 and I was probably
going around 175-178 all winter doing CrossFit style stuff and more conditioning based, but now
I need to have my bodyweight down so that the main changes.
Armi Legge: If someone wanted to learn more about OPT, where can they go? Do you have any
freebies on the website or anything like that?
James Fitzgerald: On the website, OPTexperience.com, we keep your email for all updates as
soon as you get the free article on getting stronger. You can look at the blog and take a look at
our training program we give for free every day and that‟s based upon balanced fitness and
there‟s three different levels on there. If you wanted to ask a question just go to contact on our
website and we do question and answer for anyone who‟s nonmembers or just wants some
information or just email me, or drop me a line, phone call.
Armi Legge: Thank you so much for coming on and talking. You are definitely one of the
people I look up to for all of this. Thank you so much.
James Fitzgerald: No problem, Armi. I look forward to spreading this information. If there‟s
anything in the future you need me to help you out and go forward on the path you‟re looking to
do, and who you‟re trying to reach, and the change you‟re trying to make, don‟t hesitate.
Armi Legge: Thanks.
Biohacker Report
Dave Asprey: It‟s time for the biohacker report section of our show and we have three really
interesting studies today. The first one comes from the Journal Science and it‟s titled “Our
Genes, Our Destiny? Scientist Discover „Hidden‟ Code in DNA Evolves More Rapidly Than
Genetic Code”. This is an awesome study, we have the link in the show notes but in my book
that‟s coming out probably early next year about epigentics and what to do to have a healthier
pregnancy, I‟ve been saying this for years your environment has a very large impact on your
genetics including your inheritable genetics so this is a nice study that actually found and proved
that there is something in DNA that evolves more rapidly than just genetic code. There‟s a whole
body of research around epigenetics but this is pretty important even if you‟re not looking to
have kids, if you‟re just looking to have healthy genes for your own selfish motives, you can
help influence your genetics by eating the right way and controlling your stress levels, say with
an emWave, and doing other things such as avoiding toxins, such as mercury in your fish. The
combination of these gives you healthier genes and should you reproduce, it gives your offspring
healthier genes. This study helps to understand how that happens.
The second study that was cool is around hedging your bets. This is a cognitive piece that came
out in the journal called Neuron and it‟s looking at how the brain makes decisions based on
related information. What this study shows is that rather than making a decision based on
expected outcome, which is how a lot of behaviorial conditioning is, it‟s how we get paid, how
we get our bonuses at work, how even kids or even teenagers will make decisions. It turns out
our brains don‟t really work that way. We make decisions based on correlations with similar
events so there‟s a whole correlation process that was missed and some of that correlation
process actually isn‟t cognitive, it‟s based on emotional awards that happened in previous
instances. This is a pretty neat study that is worth a quick read at least. It helps you understand
how to make decisions and I found that was really helpful for helping me look at how I make
business decisions.
And finally, and this is just a neat tidbit, they finally understood why we yawn. We know we
yawn when we‟re sleepy but it turns out that yawning can cool the brain. So after many years, a
hundred years, of people questioning this weird biological behavior it turns out that we‟re doing
the yawning in response to ambient temperatures in differential to brain temperature so it has a
cooling effect which may make your brain even run better. The next time you feel like you need
to yawn, go ahead and yawn and see if it‟s catching.
Closing
Dave Asprey: It‟s time to wrap up today‟s show. The winner of the Twitter contest from our last
week‟s Twitter show was Taylor Novak who tweets @TaylorNovak. Congratulations, Taylor.
You can find links to everything we talked about today in the show notes at bulletproofexec.com
along with a lot more blog posts we didn‟t talk about. All of them are focused on how you can
perform better and be more, not as an athlete and not as a business person, but as a human being
who may want to look like an athlete but not spend the time to be an athlete or someone who just
wants their brain to work better or be more present as a mother or a C.E.O. It doesn‟t matter. The
techniques we are talking about are fundamental to being a higher-performance, healthier, human
being.
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out our blog at the bulletproofexec.com.
Armi, take care. See you soon.
Armi Legge: See you soon. Bye.