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Class OverviewYour human body is capable of “superhuman” performance and recovery if you are given the proper user’s manual. Ben Greenfield is a renowned expert to help you REV: Recovery, Elevate, and Vitalize! (Check out the Top 10 Big Ideas from the class below!) Your ProfessorBen Greenfield is a coach, author, speaker, ex-bodybuilder and Ironman triathlete. His science-based approach to health and performance has revolutionized the way athletes and exercise enthusiasts live, train and eat.How to REV the Human Machine: Recover Your BodyAs you learned in last month’s “Top 10 Ways To Get Revved” class, whether your goal is to lost 20 pounds, run a 5K, get ripped, live as long as possible, complete an Ironman, do an adventure race or just breeze through life with absolute confidence in your body, being the best you can be is difficult when you’re held back by frustrating issues such as brain fog, body fat, an irritated gut or sore joints. As a result, most of us live our lives at just a fraction of our peak capacity, completely powerless to tap into our full potential or to our their goals as quickly as possible. The problem is that you can’t simply fix these issues by jumping into a harder workout, eating tons of healthy foods, or popping supplements or multivitamins willy-nilly. So today you’re going to learn exactly where to start by discovering how to “push the reboot button” on your body. This will allow your body to be prepared for the bigger moves ahead that will truly get you revved. The Top 10 Big Ideas1 Get A Baseline If you want to reboot your body, you need to somehow measure where your body is at. Are you inflamed? Are your hormones imbalanced? Is your immune system low? Are your adrenal glands fatigued? In this day and age, you can easily test every parameter you need to discover what parts of your body actually need fixing. The top 25 tests or things to measure that I highly recommend for getting a baseline are: -Resting Heart Rate -Heart Rate Variability -Body Weight -Sleep Quality -Oxygen Saturation -Hydration -Appetite -Muscle Soreness -Energy Level -Mood State -Well Being -Previous Day’s Performance -HS-CRP -TSH -Testosterone -DHEA -Cortisol -Liver Enzymes -Kidney Enzymes -Micronutrients Whew! I know that may seem like a big, intimidating list, but I get into more details here, and will also help you out during class to know where to start testing these parameters. Obviously, you could spend your entire day and waste all your precious time tracking everything you’ve just learned about. So, in an ideal scenario, what would be most important parameters for you to prioritize? Here it is, in three easy steps: 1) Daily: Use either Restwise or HRV measurements, or both. I mostly just do HRV, and encourage most of my clients to do a combination of both so I can “keep an eye” on them. 2) 2-4x/year: Lab test for inflammation, hormones and biomarkers. This particular Performance Test would cover most of your bases. 3) If you suspect overtraining or adrenal fatigue, do an Adrenal Stress Index (ideally). 2 Make A PlanUnless you write down your plan for rebooting your body, it’s simply not going to happen. I personally use a software called “Evernote” to write down my calendar for each day of the week, and to keep track of what I want to do on that day of the week. For example, during a typical reboot program, you’ll want to write down your daily protocol (e.g. waking up and tracking heart rate variability, taking specific cleansing supplements, drinking a green smoothie, doing deep breathing exercises, etc.) and also your protocol for a specific day (e.g. Monday is yoga and foam rolling). Of course, you don’t have to use Evernote. You can use a giant wall calendar, a phone app, Google Calendar, or anything else that works for you. The key is that you must write down what you want to accomplish. 3 Prepare Your Environment (e.g. throwing out junk, etc.) One of the big problems I tend to see, especially around the New Year, is that people make a resolution, but then delay or procrastinate on that resolution until they have, say, eating all the ice cream in the freezer, or finished off that last box of cereal, or downed the final carton of milk. That, or they avoid these items, and eventually – in a moment of stress – break down, go crazy, and eat as much as possible because these things are “in sight and in mind”. Instead, when you’re starting into a reboot protocol, it’s best to simply throw everything out or give everything away that you know is not going to serve your best needs for the next 4-12 weeks, including the big six: wheat, soy, dairy, eggs, caffeine, and alcohol. Remember – it’s not for the rest of your life, but during the reboot your body phase, you simply need to have all these items out of the house. 4 Cleanse The Gut As I hinted at in Big Idea #3, you need to make some dietary changes to cleanse your gut, which can often be a biological wasteland from years of eating improper, gut-damaging foods, such as gluten, soy, or commercial dairy. Since multiple food intolerances are quite common, it may be necessary for you to adopt a diet that is free from common food culprits, especially if you are an athlete who is eating thousands of calories each day to support training or competition. If you want an extremely clean “auto-immune diet” that eliminates just about every food sensitivity trigger out there, then check out the Autoimmune Paleo Guide. It’s what I use with many of my clients to push the reboot button on the gut. In conjunction with a clean eating plan like this, you’ll also want to introduce gut healing and gut building nutrients. My favorites are oil of oregano, probiotics, colostrum, slippery elm bark, and a full spectrum of digestive enzymes.5 Detox The Liver While your liver is certainly part of your digestive system, it’s a bit different than your gut, and needs a special treatment plan altogether, especially if you’ve ever exposed your body to pollution, toxins, alcohol, pharmaceuticals and other environmental offenders. To cleanse the liver, you need to support both the detox pathways in the liver, known as Phase 1 and Phase 2 pathways. There are specific supplements which I highly recommend including to enhance a detox and rapidly speed your body’s ability to remove harmful compounds from the liver. Granted, there are a ton of detox supplements on the market, but most give you diarrhea or are chock full of ingredients you’re already getting from eating clean food. The following supplements will support a clean diet by binding toxins and metals, supporting liver detoxification pathways, clearing the gut, and enhancing elimination of toxins via urine and stool – and they all come from very high quality sources: In morning take: -Liposomal Glutathione – 2-3 sprays under tongue and hold for 20-30 seconds. Once per day is fine. -metal Free Heavy metal Detoxification Formula    -Full spectrum antioxidant – I recommend either Lifeshotz for a low calorie solution or SuperBerry for a meal replacement blend. In evening take: -Oral magnesium in supplemental form before bedtime (around 400-600mg/day, or until you get loose stool). -Chlorella. I recommend either Capragreens or “RecoveryBits” from EnergyBits.com (10% discount code “ben”) – eat 20-30 bits in the morning and evening, or put into daily smoothie.  As a budget-friendly (but less nourishing) alternative to chlorella, you can use 2-4 daily capsules of activated charcoal (this stuff is actually useful to have around anyways to take prior to any meals that contain potential toxins, such as meat, animal products from unknown sources, foods that tend to give you gas, etc.) 6 Fix The Adrenals On top of each of your kidneys is a gland called the adrenal gland, which churns out compounds such as cortisol and adrenaline. The problem is that these glands become fatigued and “burnt out” when you’re constantly stressed (and who isn’t these days?). For this reason, a reboot program must also fix the adrenals. For example, a very “beat up” triathlete recently showed me the results of his saliva testing for hormones. Nearly all of his hormones were extremely low. Even cortisol was low. Cortisol is the stress-release hormone we churn out when exercising and living, and when that drops low, it’s a real warning sign that you’re so beat up that your adrenal glands simply can’t keep up with your extremely stressed lifestyle anymore. So in a situation of adrenal fatigue, what did I recommend to this triathlete to “take care of his body” and bounce back from overtraining and adrenal fatigue? 1. Eat a lot of lots of extremely nutrient dense foods. 2. Get rid of items that tend to aggravate the adrenal glands and make fatigue worse.   3. No caloric depletion, fasted workouts or intermittent fasting and going “hungry” during workouts. Instead, eat a big breakfast with lots of proteins and fats, and keep your energy levels topped off during the day. Definitely don’t try to lose weight or control body fat, which can be stressful to your body during a state of overtraining or adrenal fatigue. A good reboot program doesn’t even have many hard workouts at all! 4. During the entire 4-12 weeks of rebooting do only easy, aerobic workouts only (no hard intervals or big, long workouts), along with some kind of yoga, meditation, or very relaxing movement each morning.   5. Consider using the following adrenal supporting supplements: -Chinese adaptogenic herbs such as TianChi or InnerPeace, which can fine-tune your adrenals and help you to begin producing cortisol and adrenaline. -High electrolyte intake, preferably with liquid trace minerals or Himalayan sea salt, both of which can restore precious minerals that your body tends to lose when you’re low on cortisol. -High dose vitamin D at 35IU per pound of body weight and huge amounts of morning sun exposure to ensure that you produce the necessary building blocks to restore hormones. -2,000 to 5,000 milligrams of a whole foods Vitamin C source each day (or basically, as much vitamin C as you can take until you get lose bowels). Your adrenal glands are one of the #1 storage sources of Vitamin C in your body, and to become severely depleted in Vitamin C in a case of adrenal fatigue. -4-6g per day of a good fish oil that contains vitamin E with mixed tocopherols (I recommend SuperEssentials) to reduce inflammation and restore the health of the nervous system. -A B-complex supplement that is high in B6 and pantothenic acid, both of which tend to be severely depleted during adrenal fatigue (I recommend Lifeshotz for this). -Red ginseng at approximately 6g/day, which stimulates the body to begin producing cortisol again. -Licorice root extract at 200-400 mg, which reduces the half-life of cortisol and allows it to be broken down at a slower rate by the body. 7 Cool The Brain Yes, even your brain can benefit from a reboot program. Brain inflammation is a very real and serious issue facing many people in our modern, industrialized era, and can result from cell phone use, WiFi signals, wireless routers, a poor diet, low intake of anti-inflammatory compounds, pollution, herbicides, pesticides, stress and lack of sleep. So what can you do to cool your brain in a reboot program? Start with the following key steps: -Avoid holding your cell phone up to your ear. -Unplug your wireless router at night. -Get 7-9 hours of sleep per night. -Implement all the stress control strategies we discussed in the first class, such as yoga, meditation, and journaling. -Only purchase organic fruits and vegetables, and pasture-raised, wild or grass-fed meats -Implement lots of brain anti-inflammatory herbs and spices in your diet, particular ginger, garlic, turmeric, and curries. -Install a HEPA air filter in your home if you live in a polluted area or near a busy road. -Use only natural cleaning chemicals and natural personal care products. 8 Change Your Fuel Most of us are used to burning what I call “fast burning kindling” as a primary fuel source for our body – primarily from glucose, carbohydrates, sugars and starches. This is in stark contrast to the “slow burning log” – fat based fuels. The problem is that transitioning from lots of snacking and a high carbohydrate intake can be hard. You get brain fog, energy fluctuations and even get quite grumpy when your body isn’t exposed to those spikes in blood glucose that it’s so used to. It typically takes about 10-14 days of limiting sugars, starches and fast burning carbohydrates to get over this hump – but when you do, your body gradually begins to change the fuel it relies upon as a primary source of energy, allowing you to have much more stabilized energy levels during the day. So how can you start? Try: -Eating an avocado with sea salt and olive oil instead of a handful of crackers or a baked goodie. -Replace regular milk or soy milk with full-fat coconut milk. -Replace vegetable oils like canola oil with butter, ghee, olive oil, avocado oil and coconut oil. -When you’re eating out, substitute roasted vegetables for starches such as mashed potatoes, and ask your server not to bring bread or chips. -Use sparkling water and gum to keep yourself from constantly snacking during the day. 9 Build A Foundation As alluded to earlier, your workouts during a reboot phase should be based around restoring the body and allowing it to rest and recover. But this doesn’t mean you lie around on the couch all day. A typical foundation-building reboot workout program would look like this: -Mondays: Yoga -Tuesdays: Body Weight Workout and Easy Walk -Wednesdays: Yoga -Thursdays: Body Weight Workout and Easy Walk -Fridays: Yoga -Saturday: Super Slow Weight Training (e.g. 10 seconds up, 10 seconds down of dumbbell overhead press, pull-downs or pull-ups, dumbbell squats, and seated rows) -Sunday: Massage or Foam Roller 10 Transition Finally, you’re ready. Your body is cleaned up, strong, fresh, rested and restored. It’s time to transition to the next phase – elevating your body, your mind and your performance to the next level. That’s right: you don’t actually have to spend your entire life detoxing, cleansing, or avoiding what seems like every food on the face of the planet. It really only takes about 4-8 weeks (and a maximum of 12 weeks) to reboot the body and be ready for the next phase. But some people get caught in a never-ending cycle of juicing, enemas, yoga and pill-popping – which can actually be mentally stressful and physically depleting. Instead, once you’ve rebooted your body and the biomarkers and baselines discussed in Big Idea #1 are optimized, you’re ready to start expanding your diet, expanding your exercises and workout routine and transitioning to the next level.