Understanding Ancestral Diets

Energy is such a major piece to overall wellness—we don’t feel very motivated to practice self-care and pursue the things we love if we simply don’t have the energy. So what does it really look like to have great energy, and what can we do in our own lives to create more of it?

Today’s guest on The Doctor’s Farmacy is the perfect person to answer that. Ben Greenfield is a human performance consultant, speaker, and New York Times bestselling author of 13 books, including the wildly popular titles, Beyond Training and Boundless. A former collegiate tennis, water polo, and volleyball player, as well as a bodybuilder, 13-time Ironman triathlete, and professional obstacle course racer, Ben has been voted by the NSCA as America’s top Personal Trainer and by Greatist as one of the top 100 Most Influential People In Health and Fitness. Ben hosts the highly popular fitness, nutrition, and wellness website bengreenfieldfitness.com, a site with over a million monthly visitors, featuring articles, podcasts, and product reviews. His latest book, Boundless, is all about creating more energy to live the life of optimal health and happiness you deserve. This can happen through many different types of actions, so today Ben walks us through his extensive research and personal experience.

*For context, this episode was recorded in January 2020.

This episode is sponsored by Joovv and Athletic Greens.

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Here are more of the details from our interview: 

• Ben’s new book and why he chose to focus on how to have a boundless amount of energy throughout the day (6:33)

• Why doing Turkish Get-Up kettlebell exercises is one of Ben’s favorite workouts (10:21)

• Traditional gym culture vs taking “movement snacks” throughout the day (14:40)

• Using light therapy to reduce wrinkles, care for your skin, create energy, and more (17:13)

• The benefits of creating a bit of stress to the system to activate a healing response, such as employing hot/cold routines and sauna (21:33)

• Why the Carnivore and Paleo Diets were developed in response to plant’s built-in defense mechanisms (25:53)

• Anti-aging, NAD, sirtuin activating compounds, and sirtuin activating foods (29:41)

• Assessing what the best diet is for you, fasting, the pitfalls of eating while stressed, and why we should all avoid late night eating (46:12)

• Eating meat, MTOR activation, and how to avoid high amounts of leucine and methionine (54:46)

• Methods for optimal sleep (59:01)

Get Ben’s book, Boundless: Upgrade Your Brain, Optimize Your Body and Defy Aging at https://boundlessbook.com/

Find Ben online at bengreenfieldfitness.com and follow him on Facebook @BGFittness, on Twitter @bengreenfield, and on Instagram @bengreenfieldfitness