Primal Endurance Podcast

Lindsay Taylor—Goal Setting Starts With Sleep!

This show was intended to cover goal setting in various categories for a healthy, successful 2017. We started with sleep since sleep is #1 and never left that topic. Enjoy this fast moving show that issues up a challenge to you: Can you get your sleep handled? Don’t forget this strongly influences your success with weight loss (regulation of appetite and fat storage hormones), endurance performance, and cognitive performance. If you can’t prioritize sleep (typically this means sacrificing digital screen entertainment in the evenings), you are unlikely to succeed with your pursuit of other goals requiring discipline and sacrifice. Enjoy the show, but if it’s past your bedtime, then listen tomorrow!

How is it that she completed the Ironman in a better time than anticipated? [00:00:51] 

What are some of the considerations for preparing yourself for your busy life in this new year? [00:03:47] 

Why is sleep the most important consideration of all? [00:06:44] 

How does one monitor the goals they have set for themselves? [00:09:15] 

How can we learn to focus and prioritize sleep? [00:13:16]

Fine-tuning Fat Adaption to Prepare for a Keto Experiment 

On the heels of the numerous Interval shows on transitioning to Primal-style eating, host Brad Kearns discusses practical steps you can take to try a ketogenic eating period and experience the wide-ranging benefits. 

First, explore the edges of your fat adaptation abilities by delaying your first morning meals until WHEN - When Hunger Ensues Naturally. Next, try some fasted workouts to further your progress quickly. Remember, there is no reason to struggle or suffer like dieters do. Fat adaptation will happen naturally if you cultivate intuitive appetite strategies. To get going into keto, adhere to a dietary pattern of 50 grams of carbs per day or less, and don’t overdo protein either. Consider trying the new exogenous ketone supplements like Kegenix, KetoCaNa, Pruvit, Ketopia, InstaKetones, etc.  These supplements can be especially effective when used in the morning to kick-start ketone burning and help you fast, or before workouts as a clean burning energy source, or when you have energy lulls that might prompt sugar cravings. 

We talk about the best way to test for ketones (portable blood meter; forget about the urine strips) and the fact that sometimes highly fat-adapted athletes can deliver low readings because they are using the ketones they produce and because they don’t need that many. 

Host Brad Kearns tackles more interesting Q&A from Primal Endurance podcast listeners and book readers. Submit your questions at www.primalblueprint.com/endurance and they will get covered on the air. Some recurring themes are coming through with many questioners. In particular, the questioning how "180-age" aerobic maximum heart rate limit applies to real-life goals and the desire to open up the throttle now and then and get race ready. While the questions relate to the specific needs of the individual, the answers are presented in a manner that applies to a broad audience. Listen and enjoy learning about the challenges and successes of your endurance peers, and come away with plenty of practical tips to help improve your training and competitive results.

Wolfgang's question: Should I stick with my MAF heart rate even though aerobic threshold is different according to my lab reports? [00:01:28] 

How can I reconcile traditional training with Primal Endurance when I am coaching? [00:10:27] 

Jeff's question is about his previous mind set of judging others for their addictions as he now realizes he is in the same boat as the others. He needs to know what to do about his sugar addiction.  [00:15:28] 

Jenny's question: What is known about how one trains and its effects on the risk of heart disease? [00:20:26] 

Brad discusses the arbitrary distances of some races and questions the purpose of them. [00:23:23] 

Kevin's question: What should my fueling strategy be in distance racing? [00:29:28] 

Run For Your Life: But Not too Far and At a Slow Pace

Running on Empty

Zach Bitter

Ryan Hurst is the co-founder and action man behind the wildly popular GMB Fitness. A former martial artist and longtime resident of Japan, Ryan brings a gentle, evolved approach to fitness that is beautifully evident in this fascinating interview. Ryan shares how training strategies he developed through decades of competitive gymnastics and martial arts can help anyone not only reach their goals faster, but also prevent injuries and improve their performance in any activity—from powerlifting to endurance sports. Ask your body what it has to deliver each day and don't push beyond what you are capable of that day--patience and discipline will get you from wound tight to doing the splits in only a year.

In sharp contrast to a “get-shredded-at-all-costs” message that dominates much of the fitness world, the GMB method appeals to a broad audience of people who want to overcome the challenges of getting older, expand their mobility and prevent injury, and experience physical autonomy and freedom in their daily lives. Check out GMB’s free bodyweight exercise circuit to find out more about the featured ‘assessments’ in the interview -  like the Bear, Monkey, and Frogger. The interview concludes on some fun, interesting tangents like the cultural differences between USA and Japan. In conclusion, Ryan reminds us to move more each day, do little things to improve health, and strive to improve a bit each day instead of be a hero and crush occasional brutal workouts."

What is GMB Fitness and how did it get started? [00:01:01] 

How can people get help from you for improving what they can get from their bodies? [00:04:28] 

What are some fundamentals you start with for the regular guy who wants to stay fit? [00:09:07] 

Ryan is describing some of the things a person finds when starting the program?  [00:13:24] 

How is this program connected with gymnastics? [00:17:09] 

How does the Western cultural attitude about aging differ from Japanese? [00:23:45] 

If you can improve a little bit every day, you will have success and enjoy it on the way. [00:28:18] 

What kind of feedback has he received from his students about his program? [00:32:17] 

Resources:
- https://gmb.io/hip-mobility/
- https://gmb.io/resilience/
- gmb.io/get/bodyweight-training/

The Primal Endurance podcast Interval shows are published in between our full-length feature episodes published on Fridays. For the Interval episodes, podcast host Brad Kearns discusses various elements of the Primal Endurance approach, pulling from topics in the book/digital course and adding some candid and fresh insights. The Interval shows will keep you focused and purposeful with all of your workouts and lifestyle decisions.

Become bonk proof when you get your carb intake down low enough (50g/day or less) to produce ketones in place of glucose for your metabolic needs. Listen to the amazing laboratory validated exploits of Sami Inkinen (time to bonk improved from 5 hours to 86 hours!) and Peter Attia (went from burning 95% glucose and 5% fat at “all day pace”, to 22% glucose/78% fat after ketogenic eating experiment). Regale at the tale of Speedgolf world champion Rob Hogan violently recalibrated his appetite hormones thru not refueling during nor after a succession of depleting workouts to the extent that he crosses over to the dark side and became fat- and keto-adapted for ever more. And appreciate how Malibu yoga master and endurance machine Ted McDonald conquered the Inca trail with glucose in his fanny pack for psychological security, but not needing it due to radical fat adaptation. 

Enjoy this show about the cutting edge of fat and keto-adaptation, and be sure to go back and listen to each one to get fully enrolled in the Primal eating strategy. 

Lindsay Taylor - Psychology of the Endurance Athlete

Host Brad Kearns welcomes back Primal Blueprint Publishing’s own Lindsay Taylor, Ph.D. to discuss big picture items like trusting the process and cultivating an intuitive approach. Lindsay has fielded many questions from listeners/readers lately on social media, and “how do I know {slowing down} is working?” is a prominent one. Do you feel better and have an overall higher enjoyment of life? Then it’s working!

Lindsay explains that you should cost/benefit analyze every workout and mindfully recommit to your long term goals. This will help you couter the forces of peer pressure and the flawed prevailing approach that promotes chronic exercise patterns. 

The conversation continues into the hot topic of ketogenic endurance training. There may be some misinterpretations and hype out there due to the sudden popularity, so the best approach is to conduct a personal experiment (n=1) to see how you respond to dietary modification. When it comes to balancing the instant gratification goal of being happy with long-term lifestyle goals like goal races or weight loss, realize the fulfillment—having a purposeful and meaningful life—is more rewarding than the pursuit of fleeting happiness. It requires sacrifice to achieve great things and you can’t expect to always be happy. Enjoy this thoughtful program with Lindsay and send your own questions to primalblueprint.com/endurance

Why is it that so few people really trust the premise that if one can slow down in training it will help them go faster? [00:01:04] 

Why do so many focus on heart rates, distances, times...looking for numbers rather than: "How do I feel?"[00:02:46]

How do I know I am making the right decision today regarding my training schedule? [00:06:26] 

What is the rationale behind this type of approach of slowing down? [00:11:45] 

Why are people so fearful of trying ketosis and the primal/paleo lifestyle? [00:13:44] 

How hard is it to make new choices when making the commitment to change? Will it make me happy? [00:27:04] 

How can one maintain a positive outlook when these changes are so difficult? [00:32:55] 

Host Brad Kearns welcomes back Dr. Cate for part two of their meeting together. She has been hard at work preparing the launch of her revised and updated bestseller Deep Nutrition, originally published in 2008 and is relaunching a 512-page masterpiece in 2017. Cate gives you the straight scoop on her favorite topics, particularly the disastrous misinformation about dietary fats that has been entrenched in conventional wisdom for decades. Cate details why "natural fats" are so critical to human health, and how refined high polyunsaturated vegetable oils are directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of premature deaths annually. They disrupt normal cellular function immediately upon ingestion, increase oxidative stress throughout the body, and damage brain function in particular; this is the #1 disease catalyst in modern life, an underlying factor in every chronic disease study. 

Cate outs conventional wisdom as conducting a massive experiment to "feed modern humans the cheapest possible food and see what will happen." She outs researcher Ancel Keys as the dude who drove us toward bad fats and away from healthy fats ("he knew he was wrong too!" laments Cate). Speaking of losing weight, refined polyunsaturated vegetable oils are more likely to be stored and less likely to be burned than natural fats. In summary, here's how to save your life and optimize your health: Ditch refined high polyunsaturated vegetable oils (watch out when dining out; most restaurant food--fast food to fine dining--is soaked in these gnarly oils); eat more natural fats (eggs, meat, cheese, coconut products, olives/olive oil, avocados/avocado oil, etc.).

Cate also gets talking about carbs and says timing is important: breakfast carbs are muy mal noticias, while post-exercise carbs are okay to replenish glycogen and meet basic glucose needs of at least 30-60g/day. while 100g/day is a good max to observe. Also if you are going keto, note that both excess fat and protein are going to block ketone production.

What does sugar do that makes it so bad for us? [00:01:00]

What does it mean that 60-80 percent of our diet is sugars and vegetable oils, leaving only 20 percent for the nutritious food? [00:03:16] 

What are the four pillars of diet that Dr. Cate describes? [00:04:27] 

How does Dr. Cate describe fat burning, especially for the athlete? [00:06:44] 

How can we get some of that fat off when we want to? [00:11:26] 

After exercise is it okay to consume carbs? [00:13:17] 

What are her thoughts about the timing of the meals? [00:17:23] 

 So it is okay to eat carbs? [00:18:56]

What do they mean by "insulin bath?" [00:21:40] 

Does fasting help in becoming a fat burner? [00:24:54]

The Primal Endurance podcast Interval shows are published in between our full-length feature episodes published on Fridays. For the Interval episodes, podcast host Brad Kearns discusses various elements of the Primal Endurance approach, pulling from topics in the book/digital course and adding some candid and fresh insights. The Interval shows will keep you focused and purposeful with all of your workouts and lifestyle decisions.

How fat adapted are you? Well, try skipping breakfast and waiting till you are actually hungry. Then try fasted workouts - can you run 4 miles in the morning without food? or 8 miles? Or bike 25 or 50 miles? You can also get a glucometer and check fasting blood sugar with a simple prick of your finger - check it before and after a workout to see if you can stabilize.

In contrast, if you are stuck in carb dependency, your mood, appetite, energy level and performance fluctuate according to your meal habits. Don’t forget your body’s hard-wired genetic mechanism to avoid depletion and exhaustion, and consequently overeating. Watch out for commercial energy bars which are almost all high carbs. Don’t even get me started on the hassles of trying to slam down carbs during sustained endurance performance - 60% of Hawaii ironman people have stomach distress. 

Host Brad Kearns visits with legendary American marathon runner Meb Keflezghi, whose longevity and ability to peak for championship events is arguably unrivaled in the history of elite running. Meb has had a 20-year run as a world-class runner and is still going strong at age 41! Meb was the 2004 Olympic silver medalist in the marathon in Athens, and made the 2016 Olympic team in the marathon at age 41. This historic performance defied our normal perception of aging for world-class runners. Meb’s historic Boston Marathon victory in 2014, the year after the bombings and the first win by a US runner in decades, was hailed as one of the most dramatic victories ever in running.

Meb’s unique approach to distance running offers practical tips and inspiration for runners of all ability levels. Meb discusses following a 9-day training cycle instead of the typical 7-day (gives him more time to recover) and his attention to a holistic approach, where he emphasizes stretching, mobility work, cross training with his interesting ElliptoGo machine, and constant attention to recovery.  Meb claims that a one-hour run actually takes two hours, what with the preparation time, drills and perhaps driving to the most suitable location (such as grass instead of pavement). An interesting tidbit: if you are absent-mindedly feeling/rubbing a sore joint or muscle, your brain is telling you that you have an injury problem - pay attention! You can count on Meb to avoid injuries and peak for big events. Listen when he says it’s better to be at 85-95% fitness than 101% and invite injury and burnout

Meb is a guy who gives back to the running community and inspires young runners. Listen to the true story of how he befriended a young collegiate runner (a friend of Brad’s) after a chance meeting in Mammoth and invited him to his crib to watch track on TV--the very first day young Tommy moved to Mammoth to train with the best! 

If you don’t know Meb’s story about emigrating from Eritrea to San Diego with his large family, check out his books, Run to Overcome. Read Meb 4 Mortals for training guidance and inspiration. Enjoy this podcast with one of the true legends and great inspirations of running. 

How has he maintained his magnificent career for over twenty years? [00:03:39] 

What has your brother contributed to your career? [00:10:28] 

How did the U.S. evolve in the distance running sport? [00:12:38] 

How has Meb contributed to the youngsters in the sport? [00:15:58] 

How does one use goal-setting into success? [00:19:23] 

What is the ElliptoGo? [00:22:07] 

What does he mean about focusing on "the small things?"[00:24:24] 

Injuries in runners are prevalent. What does Meb say about this problem [00:27:09] 

What is his theory about the 9-day training cycle? [00:31:37] 

What is the future of this athlete and where is the sport headed? [00:33:57] 

Host Brad Kearns welcomes back one of the most popular guests from the old days! Dr. Cate has been hard at work preparing the launch of her revised and updated bestseller Deep Nutrition, originally published in 2008 and is relaunching a 512-page masterpiece in 2017. Cate gives you the straight scoop on her favorite topics, particularly the disastrous misinformation about dietary fats that has been entrenched in conventional wisdom for decades. Cate details why "natural fats" are so critical to human health, and how refined high polyunsaturated vegetable oils are directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of premature deaths annually. They disrupt normal cellular function immediately upon ingestion, increase oxidative stress throughout the body, and damage brain function in particular; this is the #1 disease catalyst in modern life, an underlying factor in every chronic disease study. 

Cate outs conventional wisdom as conducting a massive experiment to "feed modern humans the cheapest possible food and see what will happen." She outs researcher Ancel Keys as the dude who drove us toward bad fats and away from healthy fats ("he knew he was wrong too!" laments Cate). Speaking of losing weight, refined polyunsaturated vegetable oils are more likely to be stored and less likely to be burned than natural fats. In summary, here's how to save your life and optimize your health: Ditch refined high polyunsaturated vegetable oils (watch out when dining out; most restaurant food--fast food to fine dining--is soaked in these gnarly oils); eat more natural fats (eggs, meat, cheese, coconut products, olives/olive oil, avocados/avocado oil, etc.).

Cate also gets talking about carbs and says timing is important: breakfast carbs are muy mal noticias, while post-exercise carbs are okay to replenish glycogen and meet basic glucose needs of at least 30-60g/day. while 100g/day is a good max to observe. Also if you are going keto, note that both excess fat and protein are going to block ketone production.

What is some of the new information she came across when she worked on getting her best-selling book "Deep Nutrition" revised? [00:01:22] 

Since the 1950s Americans have been participating in an experiment to see what would happen by eating the cheapest possible food. [00:03:36] 

Somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of our calories are coming from the "bad" oils. [00:09:54] 

The fellow, Ancel Keys, who conducted these studies, found that the information they put out was wrong. [00:13:04] 

How are these vegetable oils damaging to brain function? [00:15:25] 

Why were the saturated fats suspected, in the first place, of being so damaging? [00:17:23] 

What do we know about lipoproteins? [00:21:14] 

Where do carbs come into the picture? What about lard? [00:22:50] 

Why are the liquid vegetable oils bad? [00:24:56] 

Forty percent of total calories from restaurants are from vegetable oils because of the methods of cooking even in the finest restaurants. [00:28:19] 

Dr. Cate Shanahan