B (40:11)

One of the most famous examples, of course, is Candace Owens, who has literally made an entire brand, complete with merch, out of the phrase we don't know. No, but we know you know.

A (40:22)

Here's a classic example from one of

B (40:24)

many times that she's employed the phrase quote.

A (40:27)

I do think it's very weird that

B (40:29)

he was miked after he sat down.

A (40:30)

I'll tell you that.

B (40:31)

That's never happened to me at a Turning Point event. They mic you backstage always.

A (40:36)

So yeah, I thought that was strange.

B (40:39)

Something's not right. I know it's not right. We don't know. No, but we know you know. That's a form of motivated reasoning, starting with the conclusion you want, admitting the evidence isn't there and then inviting the

A (40:51)

audience to adopt the conclusion anyway.

B (40:54)

She's never been miked on stage at a Turning Point event. She's always been miked backstage. That's it. That's the evidence. From that singular data point. Her personal experience at her own personal appearances.

A (41:07)

She concludes that this is how it always works for everyone all the time.

B (41:11)

That anything different is therefore suspicious, and that something's not right. And then, having constructed this extraordinary logical

A (41:19)

leap, she covers it with we don't

B (41:21)

know know, but we know you know. She's telling you out loud that she doesn't actually know. She's admitting it. And then in the same breath, she's converting that admitted non knowledge into collective certainty.

A (41:36)

We?

B (41:37)

No, not. I suspect not. It seems odd to me.

A (41:42)

We, all of us, we know. All right, very serious, Todd. We can't run a movement like this, folks. If we don't have a true north, we don't have a lodestar. If we have a compass, it's off. If we have a scale that doesn't actually measure weight, we don't have a movement. You may have a bot army, but you don't have a movement. I'm warning you about this because this is where why the left is so gullible and falls for ops themselves. There are ops being run on you every day from within the Maga tent. We've talked about it extensively. I don't go on and on every day about it because I think you get the point. You are not my army of followers and listeners out there in The Bongino Army. You guys are immune to this bullshit because you've seen it a thousand times. There are some people in our tent who aren't. I mean, I'm just going to be straight with you. I got a very close friend. I'm not going to say who. Who. I was in a restaurant a couple weeks ago and brought up one of these things, and I couldn't believe he thought it was true. I was like, where did you hear that? Well, random Joe guy on Twitter, I'm like, dude, does that even sound sane? Folks, we will have the strongest. We will longitudinally, over time movement we have ever built in the Republican Party with what we built with this MAGA infrastructure if we just stay anchored in reason and truth. I know you're like, well, of course we're going to. I understand that. That sounds all flowery. I'm not trying to write poetry, but I mean it. I'm seeing even, like, diehards and good friends, like, being pulled in this direction of, like, endless bullshit. Don't fall for this. Like, the left. The left. That's how the left got Joe Biden shoved down there. Dude, I just walked you through it step by step. And that's how you get things like this, too. Up in New York. Put up that tweet about the East Village. This is how you get. The left falls for absolute Mom Dan me's an op. Mamdani is a total phony. You know the East Village up in New York. Look at this. Twitter. The Persian Jewish on Twitter, over 70% of the East Village voted for Mom Dhumi. Now they're suing Mom Dani. Because he's planning to relocate Bellevue's homeless shelter to the East Village. What did you. Well, you got it. Had an OP run on you, too. You had a bunch of likely foreign accounts propping up a guy who hates the United States, hates the free market. You voted for him. 7 out of 10 people. Now he's locating a homeless shelter in your. Your village. Hey, he's just being nice and generous, right? And now you hate it. Now you're suing him. The left's propensity to fall for ops and media bullshit is what's destroying their party. To do not emulate this strategy. It will kill us in the long run. You doubt me, folks? The left is in a world of trouble, too. You think there's infighting on the right? Did you see this Wall Street Journal article? This Wall Street Journal article? Receipts matter. The left is in more trouble than we are. What do you mean? I'M just giving you the numbers. This is a Rove piece in the Wall Street Journal. Democrats in peril from Barcelona to Boise. So he notes the GOP has its problems, but the Dems are a mess, too. In September of 2018, before the Dems flipped 42 House seats, Gallup found that, listen to this, 44% of Americans approved of the Dems, while 52% disapprove. That was in 2018 when they did pretty well. Rove notes today, real clear average says only 36% of Dems approve of the party, while 56% disapprove. Now, the GOP is not doing great, but here's the kicker. We're doing better than them. For the GOP, 39% approve and 54% disapprove, while President Trump's numbers are 41% approval. I'm not telling you like if those numbers are even accurate that we should crack the Dom Perignon, you know, sort it off. I've always, whenever I see people do that by weird, I think someone's going to chop their thumb off. I'm just telling you like the doomers and the gloomers and the black pillars who are like cheering on the Iranian mullahs, cheering on economic collapse, ignoring GDP numbers, ignoring job growth, ignoring the ppi, ignoring the border numbers, ignoring the crime numbers. They're doing it because an OP is being run on you. Don't fall for it. The reason our numbers are better is our party is smarter. We actually believe in reason. That's why we're doing not great despite all the ops being run on us, but they're doing even worse. Do not fall for ops or you're going to get terrible candidates like this. You think 2020 was bad and Joe Biden was an opinion. What about Joe Biden who probably thought the establishment was going to back him? Because the OP I showed you at the beginning of the show was run by the establishment Democrat Party in conjunction with some of these groups to get Joe Biden in there on a false story about the Fine people hoax. That was a story that they used to push Joe Biden in and then the same establishment wiped him out and chose this person instead of folks. One thing people can't stand on both sides of the aisle is inauthenticity and phoniness. I got to tell you, I'm really hesitant to play this stuff, but we played it before the show and it's worth a good laugh. Here's Kamala Harris 1, Kamala Harris 2 Kamala Harris 3 and Kamala Harris 5. Why do I say that? Because I don't. You never know who's going to show up. She changes the way she talks about in front of every group. Which one is it? The answer is I don't know. Depends on the group. Check this out. Hello to all my divine nine brothers and sisters and my sorrow.

B (48:11)

I love you back.

A (48:12)

But joy cometh in the morning. The path may seem hard, the work may seem heavy, but joy cometh in the morning. And church morning is on its way. God bless you. God bless America. They've got a bushy. Bring me back a goat now. Cook it up. No. For the suffering of other people. Have you no sense of purpose? And you all helped us win in 2020.

B (48:50)

And we're gonna do it again in 2024.

A (48:54)

Yes, we will.

B (48:57)

Yes, we will.

A (49:00)

So let's get right down. So psalm and get. I'm gonna get into some business now. Okay.

B (49:10)

I'm gonna get into some business now.

A (49:12)

Hat tip. Ruben, report on that one. My favorite is Kamala Chat Patwa, man. What? What is going on? I only. I'm sorry to do that to you. We had a lot of mutlies in the chat. Tearing it up with the motleys out there. I always appreciate the Motley. Hat tip to the great Joe Armacos, God rest his soul. We love you, brother. You to Hasan Piker and others. I promise. Man, I disagree with you on things. I'm not actually your enemy. I'm your ideological opponent. I'm telling you that's a scam. You guys are being used by an establishment gop. Who gave you the person in that clip, Kamala Harris. And gave you Joe Biden. The up wasn't run on us. We don't vote in Democrat primaries. If they're not open, which is the large majority of them, we don't vote in those. You pick your own guys. And there's an up being run on you too. The up being run on you in the MAGA movement again is this faux mass outbreak of racism nonsense. This manufactured racism we've now seen through. This indictment and elsewhere. Again, I'm not telling you it doesn't exist. That'd be silly. I'm telling you that the overwhelming majority of what you hear from the left wing media about a white supremacist and Nazi around every corner. The Nazis now are Democrats. Look at his tweet. Receipts matter. I thought Donald Trump was struggling with the minority community. That's what you've been told, right? You've been told the story. The date this is April 23rd. I always met. What's the date? Is it 24. So it's yesterday. New generic poll of Hispanic voters, Republicans 49%. That can't be right. Justin, it says Democrats 45. Is that less than 49? I don't know, Josh. Is that less? It is, right? Folks in the chat. I'm not crazy, right? Echelon poll. I thought, I thought we were doing terrible with Hispanic vote. I thought we were doing bad. I did. I, I, I, I, I don't know. I was told we were doing really bad. It's kind of weird. Like Hispanic voters actually care about issues and not racial identity politics and race hoaxes and facing that fake narrator. It's kind of strange. It's, it's almost like they're part of the country too, and care about, like, what we care about. Shocker, man. Money, taxes, crime, security, healthcare, education. You know, like the stuff like you care about. So weird, folks, people hate inauthentic candidates. They cannot stand them. And I'm telling you, to the Democrats, to the Republicans, be careful of the inside the tent ops coming at you every day from people who want to divide us to the Democrats. You guys got work too. And I'm telling you this Hassan Piker and all this stuff people are promoting right now, get ready. Because the second they feel like these people get any momentum and can cost them their chosen established candidate 2028, they will absolutely throw you under the bus. Throw you off the boat with cement booties on 100% market in the chat. Remember this episode? Want to see authentic? I'll show you authentic. See, people, this is why, by the way, Trump continues to succeed with minority voters and elsewhere and is actually beating both the Republican Party and the Democrats in approval. I just showed you the data. You don't have to believe it. I'm just telling you what it is. Because he's authentic. You don't have to. You're not obligated to vote for him or like him or anything like that. But he chooses people around him in his Avengers group who are authentic, too. Did you see this clip by Mark Wayne Mullen on Fox? Take a second and stop what you're doing. I like Mark Wayne Mullen. I ran into him in Arizona one time. That was at Charlie Kirk's event. And he's a super nice guy. He's the new DHS secretary. Here is Mark Wade Mullen talking about Chuck Schumer because he needs money for the dhs, you know, to fund and pay people trying to keep the nation Safe. I mean, it's only called the Department of Homeland Security. Check this out, Schumer.

B (53:30)

No one respects you the definition of

A (53:32)

a lying scumbag politician. That is you. You would be the definition if you googled you right now. I mean, why don't you just come

B (53:38)

out and be honest with American people?

A (53:40)

He wants to have open borders. If you want to defund the Custom and Border Protection Agency, if you want

B (53:46)

to defund ice, who is in there

A (53:48)

arresting the criminals, that the laws were passed by you. You had time to change those during the Biden administration.

B (53:54)

You didn't.

A (53:55)

Because you're for open borders and you're

B (53:58)

for the criminals running amok in our cities.

A (54:01)

And for you to say that is so disrespectful to the law enforcement that that is out there protecting you because he has a detail with him. How about he walks around these city streets without a detail. I wonder how safe he would feel. I'm loving this guy already. I'm loving this guy already. That's exactly what I like. Our language don't bother me at all. I'm trying to keep it clean for the audience. It is tough. As Deanna Rumble said in the chat earlier, we got flags every. I'm telling you folks, people hate inauthenticity. They can't stand it. The Democrats love inauthenticity. They love fake phony frauds. They vote for them all the time. The Democrats have an op being run on them right now. Here's the great maze more again. Because the nations the Democrats right now do not want to fund the Department of Homeland Security because they want open borders back. They just do. However, because defund the police is not a popular position with working class like union Democrats. Here's the Democrats telling their own voters two completely separate messages and hoping you don't notice that they're lying to you. Watch yourself.

B (55:12)

I've not heard one Democrat say defund ice.

A (55:15)

Right now, Democrats have the power to defund and abolish ice. We should do it.

B (55:21)

It is beyond time to defund ice.

A (55:25)

An agency that does not care about the law, does not care what courts say, thinks it is accountable to no one except for the President of the United States. We can't fund that kind of agency. We would be violating our oath of office, all of us. To fund an agency that just doesn't care about the law. You see what happens when you don't have a true north under your compass and you believe in the feels rather than reason. What is reason and logic? Tell you there reason and logic tells you, wow, one of them has to be lying. Was that Patty Murray in the beginning? Democrat center. I don't know a single Democrat. We just played. Well, Maze, more great clip played. Three Democrats talking about defunding us, and they're not funding ICE right now. You've been, I'm sorry, you're just being lied to. Right. One of those stories has to be fake. And the answer is the story that's fake is that no Democrats talking about defunding ice. They just did it. They're defunding them right now. This is what happens when you lose your lodestar. When your compass doesn't measure north. You're out there in the wilderness. You wind up with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, and you become susceptible to anything. You'll fall for anything. I got a great interview coming up for you. I'm gonna kind of lay it out for you here in the beginning. I got a clip coming up first of another health educator. I hate that. Again, I hate the term influencer, because you need to be influenced. You're either educated or you're not. Wait, I want to play this clip, though, first, folks. I absolutely love these health hacks. I love them because I, I did. I did this interview with Hannity on his podcast, Hang out with Sean Hannity. I taped it. I think it's going to air Tuesday. It's Hang out with Sean Hannity, the podcast. I encourage you to check it out. It's like two hours long. We were supposed to do like an hour and 10 minutes, and we just. I looked up at the clock. I couldn't believe it. I got there at like 3:00'. Clock. I, I think I left at like 9:30. By the time we were done, Sean and I, we were hanging out for a while and. But he had asked me. It gets really emotional at times. He's asked me about, you know, the cancer thing, and that just came up. And, yeah, I don't talk about it because I let it. But, you know, it changed your life, man. And I take this health stuff really seriously. God gave you your one body, and it's your temple. And if there are easy ways to go out there where you can extend your life. I structured this interview with the guest coming up in a couple minutes, Dr. Rhonda Patrick, in a very specific way. I really, really love this. But the questions I ask are very deliberate. They're meant to give you the best bang for the buck and things you can do to dramatically change your life that aren't even going to cost you a lot of time. We cover everything from cold plunges to creatine to omega 3s to should I eat dinner late at night or early at night? Like, what's better? What's better for sleep? What's better for weight loss? We cover things like cold plunges. And does it work? Is it all hype is one of my favorites. I learned a ton out of it. One of the guys I also follow, you may know Dr. Andrew Huberman. I follow him a lot for health hacks too. Here's a great quick video about what not to do in the morning when you get up. We're gonna talk about the nighttime routine with Dr. Rhonda, but here's what not to do in the morning when you get up. And I vouch this is very bad. Check this out. If you were to design or if you were to instruct someone to do the worst possible things in the morning to set their day up for failure, what would they be? Wake up and stay in bed. Well, wait, there are good reasons to stay in bed in the morning, but once those are completed, then staying in bed. Curtains drawn? Yeah, curtains drawn. Just using your passively scrolling on social media, there are neurobiological data showing that when you are upright, you actually are stimulating this area of the brain called locus coeruleus, whereas when you recline, you actually are less alert. Literally, the position of your body dictates some of your levels of alertness. That's why you suggest people to not sit like this at their work desk, right? Yes. And if you're look, and if you're looking down while working, you're actually less alert than you could be if your eyes are averted slightly over most people that are on their phone, including me. And the postural stuff is really bad too. I mean, I'm getting. I'm trying to really combat that internal rotation, you know, that the C shaped human kind of thing, you know. Please, I'm asking you as a favor, please watch this entire interview coming up next with Dr. Ramda. It is. It will. I give you my word. Out of the what, 55,000 people here now, and the million plus will get a VOD? Someone's life will be saved by some of this advice. I'm 51, I've been through a lot and I'd be lost without it. So stay tuned. First, you know the moment when spring hits and suddenly you want to refresh everything in your house. You know, spring cleaning, everything else. Well, before you start reorganizing closets, buying new Plan Start with your sleep. Fix your sleep. It's the greatest life hack of all. Seriously, ditch the old mattress and fix the root of the problem. Your uncomfortable mattress, probably so uncomfortable. You probably got used to it. Don't get used to it if you're dealing with lower back pain or restless nights. Helix mattresses, that's the move for you. H E L I X. Paul and I upgraded to a Helix. It's made a real difference in our life. I used to wake up stiff and sore. We but Helix mattresses, I had one in DC too. Absolutely love it. All my kids have them. They're in the guest room and all. Everybody loves them. You'll wake up feeling rested and refreshed, unbelievably comfortable. Even my sleep tracker noticed I had great HRV numbers. And elsewhere. After I changed my mattress, my deep sleep numbers jumped which honestly felt like hitting the jackpot. It's like the health hack jackpot which sets Helix. What sets Helix apart is that they don't do a one size fits all mattress. They offer over 20 mattress models so you match to how you actually sleep. Sleep, side, sleeper, back sleeper and delivery couldn't be easier. It's really simple. Free shipping right to your door. A 120 night sleep trial. That's how confident they are about their product. A limited lifetime warranty and zero stress in the purchase. So do yourself a Favor, go to helixsleep.com dan for 20% off site wide. It's H E L I X. That's helixsleep.com dan get a new mattress today. Sleep and comfort. Get 20% off site wide. Make sure to enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you again the website. Helixsleep.com Dan. Folks, I am elated to welcome to the show someone I've become addicted to her clips. Dr. Rhonda Patrick. You ever, you know when I talk about exercise, snacks and all this stuff, I get it from Dr. Rhonda. It's not a Dan Bargina original. So Dr. Rhonda, welcome to the show. It's an honor to have you.

B (62:34)

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

A (62:37)

So you know, with this whole influencer title, I tell everyone you're not an influencer, you're an educator. I follow your clips, I spread them around and I can honestly say like you've made me a lot healthier. And one of the things you talked about that you really got me to up my game on was the sauna. I was an occasional sauna user. Honestly, it was Just one of those things. I used to relax after a while workout and when it got really hot, I would just walk out. But I watched one of your clips and you were talking about the longevity value and the value of these heat shock proteins. They're these like almost magical like compounds. Tell everybody about the sauna and what this can do for their lives.

B (63:14)

Well, the sauna is just one form of what I would call deliberate heat exposure. So you're exposing yourself to higher temperatures than normal. You know, we live in these very temperature controlled environments nowadays. If you live anywhere in the south or anywhere that gets hot in the summer, I mean you're always inside an air conditioning environment. And that isn't necessarily how humans evolved or how we've the types of environments that we have always been in. So actually exposing yourself to deliberate heat through a sauna, even through something like a hot tub, hot bath, jacuzzi, steam shower, for example, hot yoga, a lot of these things are very similar in their effects. And you'll notice if you've been in any of those, which I'm sure everyone has, you start to feel very similar as you do when you're doing a workout. And that is because the sauna mimics moderate intensity aerobic exercise. So a lot of the physiological changes that happen during a moderate intensity sort of aerobic workout, your heart rate goes up, you start to have your core body temperature elevate, you start to sweat to try to cool down. All those things are happening also in the sauna. And so it's a great way to improve cardiovascular health. In addition to exercise, it's also great for people that are unable to do certain types of exercise, aerobic exercise, like running or getting on like a stationary bike, disabled people, for example. There are a lot of studies coming out of Finland. Finland is the country where saunas are ubiquitous. Almost everyone has one in their homes. And for people that do not have one in their homes, they're pretty. There's a lot of communal saunas that are free and available to people. And so a lot of these large population studies, researchers like Dr. Yari Laukonen have found that for optimal longevity, people that use the sauna four to seven times per week, and this is about 174 degrees Fahrenheit to 194 degrees Fahrenheit. It's like the temperature range and they use that for 20 minutes each session, four to seven times per week. They have a 40% lower all cause mortality. They have a 63% lower risk of sudden cardiac death. They have a 50% lower cardiovascular related mortality. And this is very important because heart attacks are the number one killer, you know, in, in the United States and in many developed countries. So it has a very profound effect on cardiovascular health, cardiovascular protection, and it's really in a dose dependent manner. So if you do two to three sessions, not the four to seven, you still get some benefits, but they're not as robust. For example, I mentioned a 40% lower all cause mortality. That really means death from all sorts of non accidental causes of death, right? So you know, pneumonia, for example, upper respiratory tract infection, cardiovascular disease. So these are the things that I'm talking about. If you only do two to three sessions, then you have about a 24% lower, all cause mortality. So the more you do it, the more robust the effects. And that also goes for the duration that you stay in the sauna. So I mentioned 20 minutes is really the sweet spot to get the most robust effects. For individuals that stayed in this on up, let's say 19 minutes or fewer, they still got some benefits, but again, it wasn't as robust. And so really you want to try and get in the sauna 20 minutes minimum, at least 174 degree Fahrenheit and you want to do that at minimum twice per week if you want to at least get some effect. If you want the most robust effects, you want to do at least four, four times a week. And there's also really interesting data coming out on protection against neurodegenerative disease. So frequent sauna use, again four to seven times per week is associated with a 65 to 66% lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and dementia. And you mentioned heat shock proteins. And this is important because heat shock proteins are a part of what's called the Aden adaptive response to stress, particularly heat stress, as their name implies. Heat shock, right. You're, you're heating up your body. Well, you know, it turns out that, you know, these heat shock proteins play a very important role in preventing proteins from aggregating and forming plaques. These plaques can be in the cardiovascular system, but also in the brain. So you may have heard of something called Amyloid beta 42. This is the very common plaque that's formed in the brain of people with Alzheimer's disease. It forms outside of neurons where the synapses are forming. So synapses are the connections between neurons. It's the way that neurons communicate. And when you have these plaques, you know, forming where these synapses are connecting, it disrupts the synapses. And when that happens essentially. You're, you're not having communication between neurons. And not only are you not having communication, the neurons start to die because their sole purpose is like to communicate. And so you start to have, you know, your memory starts to go. So all that is to say, and there's more, I know I'm talking a lot, but you know, deliberate heat exposure from the sauna is very beneficial. It does mimic aerobic cardiovascular exercise. And you may say to me, well, Rhonda, I get enough cardiovascular exercise, why should I do the sauna? Well, it turns out there's also been research looking at exercise and then exercise plus sauna. So again, these studies have come out of Finland where a majority of the research, I would say the, the best research is coming out of Finland. Again, Dr. Yari Laukonen's lab has looked at individuals, put them in two groups. One group went on a stationary bike, you know, did their, their wattage. I don't remember what the wattage was, but um, it was moderate intensity exercise. And the other group did the same thing and then they went into the sauna for 15 minutes immediately after their cycling. And what that data showed is that doing the exercise plus the sauna improved cardio respiratory fitness better than, than exercise alone. Cardiorespiratory fitness is really measuring the capacity of your lungs and your muscles and your vascular system system to be able to do work. And it's often measured by V2 max, that's the maximal amount of oxygen that you can take in during maximal exercise. So that was improved even better if you added, if those individuals added the sauna after their workout. And VO2 Max is actually a marker of longevity. People that have a higher VO2 max, actually like the highest VO2 max, we're talking more like elite athletes. You know, they have an 80% lower all cause mortality compared to people with the lowest VO2 max or cardiorespiratory fitness. So you have every reason to want to improve your cardiorespiratory fitness. And the fact of the matter is sitting in the sauna for 15 minutes is really just extending your workout. Also, biomarkers for cardiovascular health were improved better in the group that also added the sauna. So I'm just trying to get at this point and that is, is the sauna, you know, deliberate heat exposure from the sauna is really, it's, it's, it's an additive effect to your workout. So you might go, well again, you know, I'm already working out. Yeah, but you can even do better by Adding this sauna on top of that. And that goes for muscular health too. Dan, this is so fascinating because, you know, these studies have coming are coming out, it's hard to keep up with them. But there's also studies showing this kind of started and originated from animal studies. And I remember 10 years ago talking about this and people giving me a lot of pushback, going, well, we're not mice. And you know, of course I was like, I know, but the mechanisms make sense. And finally, you know, human studies started to catch up and it turns out that the heat exposure and specifically activation of heat shock proteins, not only does it prevent the formation of plaques, it prevents the degradation of important proteins in skeletal muscle. And so people that do resistance training, workout, and then get into the sauna, again, a 15 minute sauna, right after the their training, they had higher levels of markers that are involved in muscle hypertrophy. So basically anabolic signaling, they didn't measure muscle mass directly or lean body mass directly. But really good evidence if you're having higher biomarkers of these anabolic signals, because that really is the precursor and what's required for muscle hypertrophy. And that was again, people that are doing resistance training. Two groups, the same training. One group added this on after. So I'll pause for a minute. I have more to say, but I did say a lot. And I do think that it's important here with protocols that the, the, the way I like to think about it is that I think that the biggest protocol here would be the 15 to 20 minutes. If you're doing it after a workout. 15, you can get, get away with 15 minutes at at least 174 degree Fahrenheit up to about 194. I wouldn't go above 200 degrees Fahrenheit. There's at least one study showing that if it's too hot, you know, your, your head is in the sauna. Especially if you're in a sauna, your head is hot and you don't want to, you don't want to mess around with that because one study showed that while there is protection against Alzheimer's disease and dementia, people that started getting in the 200 degree Fahrenheit and above range actually had the opposite effect where they had an increase risk. So stress, you don't want too much.

A (72:50)

Yeah, it's not a torture test. The idea is to elongate your life, not shorten it. Folks, this content is incredible. That's why you can and should check out Dr. Rhonda's podcast. Found my fitness. You, you won't get, you're not going to find a better so you see it on the screen right there. You're not going to find a better show out there. Her clips are all over X. She's on X. Rhonda R H O N D A Patrick Common spelling strongly, strongly encourage you to follow all those accounts. Dr. Rhonda I started with sauna for a reason. The, the introduction of that variable, the sauna has such a profound effect. The numbers you're throwing out there according to these studies are unreal. I mean 20 to 40% double digit, you know, intervention effects. You don't see that in the exercise fizz space a lot. Even with when creatine came out when I was a young 20 year old and phosphagen came out, I remember that was the first big product out there. People were going bananas over like I gained five pounds of muscle. Meanwhile most of it was probably water. I love creatine, it's fantastic. But to have an effect like that is so dramatic and I get it. To buy a home son is not cheap. But most gyms, now decent gyms will have one. The reason I brought it up first is because this is such an easy life hack. If you've got the 20 minutes to spare and you can attest this, you just don't see intervention effects like that in this space a lot.

B (74:17)

I agree. And you know Dan, now you know if you were to ask me 10 years ago when I really started talking about this publicly, I wasn't sure if hot baths or hot jacuzzis were applied the same, if it was the same. And now there's so much data coming out showing yes it actually, you can actually get in a hot bath. Now a hot bath is different than a, like a hot tub which is constantly refilling the hot water. So if you, if you don't have access to a sauna or a hot tub or you don't have easy access, you can actually buy one of those pool sort of thermometers that you get around like to float in the pool, put it in your bathtub and make sure the bathtub gets up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Stay in it with your shoulders submerged down for 20 minutes. And that really has similar effects in activating heat shock proteins protecting against some of the muscle disuse, atrophy for example. And I think also it applies to the cardiovascular health. You'll notice your heart rate goes up a lot of the same physiological effects that are happening in the sauna and also during moderate intensity activity. Physical activity is happening when you're in a hot bath as well. So I do think that. But it's nice to know that that also applies because again, not everyone does have a sauna. And you know, I agree. It's such a, it's such an easy thing to add on to your, your exercise and it's relaxing.

A (75:39)

It is. I mean the last five minutes, if you're doing 20, are not great. I'm not gonna lie to you. I mean, you know that I do it at 194, but the first 15 are in bed.

B (75:50)

Yeah. And you know what else is something that's interesting? That, you know, it's a, it's a idea I put out there again 10 years ago. It was, I called it hyperthermic conditioning. And I think that it's only continued to be proven true. Which is essentially you can use the sauna or, and, or hot bath, hot tub to train your body to adapt to hot environments. And this is going to help with your endurance training. So essentially when you are doing a race, for example, an endurance race, you know, your body's getting really hot and so you want to have these adaptations to cool you, cool it down more efficiently and effectively because that's going to affect your performance. Right. And now there's really studies showing that you can use the sauna. It used to be that runners would go out and run in like Texas in like the middle of the summer. And it was like they were acclimating themselves to heat. Right. But you can do this, use the sauna instead of having to do that and your body starts to adapt and so you start to sweat at a lower core body temperature and that helps cool you down faster. And that's going to improve performance. And that's been shown now in studies. And so that's another cool thing. Like I'm training for a Hyrox competition in December. And so the sauna is also a really important part of my training because I want to be able to have that thermoregulation where I'm able to cool myself down, have these mechanisms kick in where I'm not quite as hot so it doesn't affect my performance.

A (77:21)

Yeah, well, let's flip the script now. Let's go to the other end of the thermoregulatory mechanism here, the cold plunge. Well, I am not an expert in the space like you. However, I consume tons of, including many of your clips every day on X Health Hack content and health educators out there. I Bought a cold plunge years ago. I love it when I first heard about it. You know, obviously we have heat shock proteins. You also have cold shock proteins, which work by different mechanism, but released due to external stimuli and cold temperatures. And initially the cold plunge was sold as kind of almost like one of these cure alls. And that always makes me a little nervous. I still love it. I have a hard time candidly getting up in the morning without it. I jump in and it's 6am I 47 degrees, three minutes. I don't go crazy about four or five days a week. But I'm starting to see some, some of the other folks in the space, the health educator space, who are a little bit down on it. I was just wondering your kind of general take on it because there's been a lot of hype. I think we can both, and everybody agrees on sauna. There's almost no disputing that the plunge, it's up and down.

B (78:29)

Yes. I mean, so cold plunging is another type of thermal stress, right? We're either going really hot or we're going really cold. It is a type of stress on the body. And, and these types of stress are what are called good types of stress. Hormetic stress, like exercise is also one where your body, it's not like so strong and so chronic, you know, like constant, like psychological stress, for example, emotional stress, which is all day, slow drip, right. You know, these are brief bursts, they're intense. But as a response, your body adapts and goes, whoa, there's something going on here. I better like ramp up all this good stuff to deal with this stress. Right? So the cold plunge does have benefits. They're very different, I would say, than the benefits of the sauna. So like, you're not going to get the cardiovascular benefits that you get from a sauna. The sauna is very unique in that regards because it is mimicking moderate intensity aerobic exercise. Vasodilation is occurring. All the same sort of physiological responses that happen during exercise are happening with the sauna. The cold plunge is totally different. Right. You're getting in this really cold body of water and vasoconstriction is happening. So the opposite thing. And that can really be a benefit because the hormone and neurotransmitter that regulates vasoconstriction is called norepinephrine. And norepinephrine is a hormone, but it's also also a neurotransmitter. It's involved in mood, it's involved in focus and attention, alertness, awake you mentioned that you almost can't get up in the morning without the cold plunge. Well, you know what happens when you get in the cold is your body wakes up. You have that norepinephrine, your focus attention.

A (80:07)

Wow.

B (80:07)

Your body's like, I don't want to die. I better, like, I better put all my energy into like, making sure my brain's working because this is a stressful thing that's happening right now. And it's really one of the most consistent physiological responses to deliberate cold exposure. So I personally, the reason I like the cold plunge, I actually hate the cold plunge.

A (80:26)

I do it every. Everybody loves it, but hates it. I. That's universal. I agree.

B (80:32)

Whereas I love the sauna. I feel like I like. I don't hate it as much. You know, it's a lot easier to get into, like the warmth than the cold. But it's for that norepinephrine response where it wakes me up. I feel alert. It helps with focus attention, and it helps with mood anxiety as well. But there's also metabolic benefits and immune benefits to doing deliberate cold exposure through something like a cold plunge or even cryotherapy. In fact, I want to talk just for a minute about the cryotherapy because I was talking about mood. And so cryotherapy is different than a cold plunge. Cold plunge. You're getting in this, you know, cold body of water and you're. You're submerged under the water, right? Cryotherapy is cooling the air around you. It's almost like the sauna equivalent of, you know, so you've. The air is what's cooled and you're getting into this chamber and it's very, very cold. And there have been. There have been at least two studies that have looked at mood in people with major depressive disorder. So people with major depressive disorder get into this cryotherapy chamber or they get into a sham control, which is getting cold. You feel like you're probably getting the treatment because it's like really cold air, but it's not cold enough. And I don't remember off the top of my head what the cold enough is. I think it was like minus 200 and something degree Fahrenheit, pretty cold. They're in there for two minutes. And after a period of several weeks, those individuals had, you know, massive improvements in a battery of scores and tests that are done to measure depression versus the sham control, which would be the placebo. So that's really encouraging. Again, coming down to what I think is that norepinephrine response. Norepinephrine, by the way, is a target for depression. There are pharmaceutical drugs that will prevent the degradation of norepinephrine so that no more of it's around in people with depression now. So the cold plunge is kind of like a non pharmacological treatment for depression as well. Actually the sauna is too, but that's another topic that we can talk about if you want. But anyway, so back to, you know, some of the other benefits. There are some metabolic benefits from cold plunging and people are also very interested in that. Are you going to get them at three minutes a day? Probably not. Are you going to get them at three minutes a day, four or five times a week? Maybe a little bit. So what happens when you get into the cold is your body is adapting and it wants to make heat, right, because it doesn't want to freeze to death. And one of the ways it does that is by increasing the number of what are called mitochondria inside of your adipose tissue, your fat tissue. Mitochondria are the energy producing, they're called organelles inside of our cells. Just think of them as little powerhouses of energy. And they are, when you look at, when you look at a droplet of fat under a microscope, the more mitochondria that fat cell has, the more brown it looks because mitochondria are sort of dark in color. I spent like three years looking at mitochondria under electron microscopes and microscopes, you know, like my, like entire day. So I know a lot about that. So that's called the browning of fat because it makes it look brown. And you may have heard that, oh, I'm trying to brown my fat. And what that does is when you have more mitochondria and your adipose tissue, you're burning more energy and so you burn more fat. And it's, your metabolic health improves. So like glucose regulation, insulin sensitivity, you lose, lose weight, all those things happen. And so that's another sort of target and an area of interest, particularly researchers that are looking at how to pharmacologically brown fat in individuals with metabolic dysfunction. However, cold plunging is a nice little hack that we have to kind of hack into that system without needing, you know, to take any sort of pharmaceutical drugs. Right? So that's another, I would say, area that's very interesting, as well as the immune benefits of cold exposure. And so that's also something, there's been a lot of studies looking at, you know, doing regular cold plunging seems to increase certain Amounts of different types of immune cells that help reduce respiratory tract infections. You may have heard of like some of these, these polar, polar swims that people do. Like some of those individuals get fewer respiratory tract infections. And so, you know, it's obviously a correlation but there's also some other studies show showing that indeed cold exposure does affect immune cells. So that's another reason. And of course there's the inflammation, right. It's very well known for decreasing systemic inflammation.

A (84:56)

I have severe severe osteoarthritis in just about every joint. But graded. My left knee is worse. I needed a knee replacement probably five years ago from just a lot of contact sports. My X rays are not good. I have managed to hold off on that for five years using a combination of basically red light therapy and cold plunging. I mean when I jump in the cold plunge I will leave my. I have one of those lie down ones, not the verticals, so I can stand up after I get out in three minutes. And you know, my, it's no big deal to leave my knees in there for another minute. And I'm going to tell you that's the only real intervention that's any different. And my knee still hurts. It bothers me, but these things only last 15, 20 years. I'm only 51. I don't want to get one now. I just need to hold off as long as I can. And if it's placebo, great. I don't really care as long as I don't need a knee replacement. But the inflammation is what, what I do it for.

B (85:52)

That's really great. I mean I think it's. That is definitely one of the good benefits of deliberate cold exposure. You should add in some phytosomal curcumin so that would be called Mariva.

A (86:05)

I do take curcumin Phytosomal. I take with piperine just to stand. But what's the difference with the phytosomal.

B (86:14)

Phytosomal. Have you heard of liposomal?

A (86:17)

Yeah, that's like a fat.

B (86:19)

Yeah, it's like, it's like inside like a. Right. A lipid sort of droplet. Well, the phytosome is, it's very similar but the, the active molecules. So in this case the, the curcumin would be spread sort of uniformly throughout the lipos. Sorry the phytosome. And there's specific studies looking at oxygen, osteoarthritis and people given. I believe it's like 2 grams a day of this phytosomal curcumin. The brand name is called. It's like Mariva. It's like, that's the pat. I think that's the patent on it or something like that. And it really reduces inflammatory markers and it improves, like walking gait and all, whatever sort of test they do to test, like, function. And so that would be one thing. The other thing is there's a really good type of glucosamine chondroitin from a company called Nutramax. They make another supplement that I really like and take called Avocol. Nutrimax is actually. They're. They're predominantly a pet supplement company. They're sort of dominated the market. But they're very, very good, very good quality control. And their. Their supplements are used in a lot of clinical studies. They're human. They have two human supplements and they're both used in a lot of clinical studies. And so this. I started taking their glucosamine chondroitin. It's called cosamin. And I had rolled my ankle doing. Playing tennis. I was wearing the wrong shoes. And literally after two weeks, two weeks of taking this, it's like three capsules a day. So it's kind of annoying, I'm telling you. Like, it was like totally healed. So I would try that speaking my

A (87:51)

language now because this might be a true train.

B (87:54)

There's a lot of glucosamine chondroitin supplements that are just BS out there, like. And I think that's really tainted the whole field because quality matters, you know, Quality matters. And so that's. That's the other thing. And I know we went on a tangent here. I didn't get to the protocols of cold, but I think it's great. I think you can avoid. Have you. There's a guy on X, I still call it Twitter. I'm trying. I'm trying to make an effort so hard. He is a orthopedic surgeon. His name is Howard Lux.

A (88:27)

I follow him. I love that account. He's always talking about knee osteoarthritis. I love that account. He's fantastic. I read his stuff every day. Yeah, Pete basically is making some of the points you made that. Listen, there's some lifestyle management stuff you should be considering before you run under the darn nights to get your. I know it's a business to get knee replacement and thank God it's out there. Some people really do need it right now. But you shouldn't rush in there at 51 years old. You should really try to manage this thing first, is. That's final. Once they lop off the ends of your Tibia and fibia. There's no growing it back. That's it.

B (89:04)

Yeah. And then there's all sorts of problems. Like after, I mean you've got this titanium product inside of your body, like what's that doing? In fact, I, I just came across a study like last week where they did a controlled study in people with, I think it was knee replacements. And again, their curcumin seemed to help with the building of the bone, like around the, the knee, the knee replacement. I think they might have also done hip replacement and then lowered like the inflammation. I mean it was just very beneficial. Again, I am, I'm back on my, my phytosomal curcumin. You know, I, I kind of go in waves and I, you know, now I'm back on it. I just, I feel like it's doing a lot of great stuff. So that's important. But the cold is great. The cold is awesome. There's studies on that as well. I think that if you're doing three minutes, you know, 49, 47, 50 degree Fahrenheit, like that's been shown, I mean certainly only even like 2 minutes actually can increase norepinephrine by twofold. So I think that's like a good protocol. If you go even lower temp, you can get away with shorter time. So like for example, there's studies showing that 35 degree Fahrenheit water, you only need 20 seconds to get the same twofold increase in norepinephrine that you get from two minutes at 50 degree Fahrenheit. So it's like a trade off. Right. You know, duration for, for temperature. The one thing I do want to mention, Dan, is the, and this is probably what you're talking about in terms of flack, getting flack for, for cold expo, doing cold plunging. That is, it can blunt resistance training adaptations, particularly if it's done immediately after resistance training.

A (90:43)

That's important.

B (90:44)

It's not. Yes, I do.

A (90:45)

It's not the same burn every time. Yeah.

B (90:48)

How long do you.

A (90:48)

Oh, really? I don't. So my routine, my routine is really simple. Get up at 6, at 6:05. I have a home gym, I jet right next door. I don't drink any. I wait 90 minutes for the whole coffee routine. Jump in the cold, plunge 3 minutes 47 degrees. I pop out, I have one of those vibration boards. I get on that for about three, four minutes and I just kind of warm up and then I do my cardio, which is about 15 minutes. So it's probably 20, 25 minutes, which is not ideal before I start resistance training. You know, I do pretty standard split upper, lower body. Now that I'm 51, I don't get anything crazy. I probably should. Should wait a little bit longer. But the thing, Dr. Ronda, is I just don't have the time like you. You know, we're all kind of busy. Not whining about. I love being busy, but I just don't have time to, hey, let me screw around for another 15 minutes and watch, you know, the news in the morning. I gotta get going. So it's about 25 minutes. That's probably not ideal.

B (91:42)

It's not ideal, but let me give you my thoughts. You know, so for one, the studies that show blunting of anabolic signaling and in skeletal muscle after strength training, after resistance training, they're. They're. They're submerged in cold for a minimum of like 10 to 15 minutes. It's a lot longer of a period of time. Right, okay. So the other thing is, is that, you know, when you're getting in the cold, vasoconstriction is occurring. Part of the mechanism by which cold plunging can blunt some of these resistance training adaptations is because you're one, you're not allowing amino acids to get into muscle because everything's constricted and inflammation as well, and inflammatory molecules are important for anabolic signaling. And so the fact that you're. You're doing the cold, but then you're getting your. You're doing the aerobic exercise, you're. That's increasing blood flow. So you're kind of helping a little bit. In my opinion. That would kind of be a justification. I feel like, yes, it's probably not ideal, but it's not as bad as, like, what the studies are doing where it's really just. There's. They're totally blunting resistance training, and there's no, you know, endurance training in between the two or things like that.

A (92:50)

So, yeah, it's kind of funny. We're talking to Dr. Rhonda. You can find our podcast at Found my Punk. Her podcast, excuse me, is Found My Fitness. It is definitely worth your time. Jump on her newsletter if you want the best health hacks out there. You know, I'll tell stuff to my wife, Paula. I'll be like, hey, this is a really good supplement. I heard you should try it out. And she won't do. And then I send her a Dr. Rhonda Cliff. She's like, you know, we really should try that out. I said, I just told you that two weeks ago. So you've really done me a lot of favors for my whole family. If you had. Before we get into some specific supplements, if you know you're getting shipped to a desert island for six months and you've only got one small box of supplements, right. What is the Dr. Rhonda stack of say, non negotiables that people who are interested in the basics of health and fitness, longevity and quality of life. What's your recommendation? That of the staples that, that you can't basically live without.

B (93:42)

Okay, the staples. So we're talking a small box here. Small box, Top five, top five. Do you want me to just rattle them off and not say the why, or do you want me. Do you want me to say the why?

A (93:53)

Rattle them off and then give us the why? I think.

B (93:55)

Okay. Okay.

A (93:56)

Yeah. So they can write it down.

B (93:58)

All right, so here, here would be my staples, right? These are things that I'm not rotating in and out. Vitamin D, that would be at least 4,000 IUs a day. Omega 3, that would be around close to 2 grams. 1.6 to 2 grams a day. And this is Marine Omega 3s from, you know, marine sources. Not the, the vegan number three would be a multivitamin. Number four would be magnesium. Magnesium glycinate is my preferred source. Number five would be sulforaphane and that would be from Nutrax. That would be Avocol. Number six would be the creatine be, and it would actually be 10 grams a day. Number seven would be ubiquinol and number eight would be my phytosomal curcumin.

A (94:58)

I think the only one I don't take is the ubiquinol. But let's go to one of them I've heard you talk about endlessly and you've really got me into these. A really kind of heavy sustained doses of omega 3s. I'm very careful about the purity of it. Omega 3. Some people know it as, you know, fish oil. Back in the day it was like cod liver oil. Some people just can. You can eat sardines too, if you like sardines, you can get you omega 3s from there. But that's a.2 grams is a, is a really heavy dose. What can you expect after months and years of sustained use of omega 3s if you're living a relatively healthy lifestyle?

B (95:35)

I'm going to try to keep this short because I. We could definitely spend the entire hour, if not more talking about this. Most people are not, I mean, I would say 90% of the US population does not get enough omega 3. They're not meeting the requirements for omega 3 fatty acids. Acids. Why do I say close to 2 grams? The reason for that is because there's been studies out of Dr. Bill Harris's lab, he runs the fatty acid research Institute, has shown that in order to get your what's called the omega 3 index, it's the, it's a marker of your omega 3 fatty acid levels in red blood cells. That's a long term marker. In order to get that from a low omega 3 index, which is about 4,4%, up to a high omega 3 index which is considered to be about 8% or more, it takes about 1.6 to 2 grams of omega 3 fatty acids per day to get there. And why do you want to go from a low omega 3 index to a high omega 3 index? Well, studies have shown from Dr. Bill Harris and colleagues that people with a high omega 3 index have a 5 year increased life expectancy compared to people with a low omega 3 index. And if you think about comparing in the United States life expectancy to Japan, where they're eating a lot of seafood, they're eating a lot of Omega 3 just through dietary sources, there is a five year difference in life expectancy. Japanese people live on average five years longer than Americans and they have an omega 3 index of about 10% where Americans have an average omega 3 index of about 5%. So, so we're at the low omega 3 index range. And in addition to that five year increased life expectancy, that same study, this was a big Framingham cohort of people that were looked at. What Bill and his colleagues did was they took and they stratify, stratified what's called stratifying the data, looking at smokers versus non smokers and their omega 3 index. And this is where I wish I could put a visual graph on your screen and show you, because in the paper it's stunning. But if you look at their life expectancy, so these are graphs that are done over time, age and years of how you know how old they are, then how long they survive. People with a high omega 3 index that do not smoke have the longest life expectancy. People with a low omega 3 index and do smoke have the lowest life expectancy as you would imagine. But the thing that's so amazing is that people with a low omega 3 index and they smoke have the exact same life expectancy as people that smoke with a high omega 3 index. So in other words, low omega 3 index was like smoking in terms of Life expectancy. Of course, all the smokers out there are like, yes, I'm going to take fish oil. But that's not the way to look at it. Right. The way to look at it is, yeah, you're, you're not getting those omega 3s. And we know that smoking, one of the worst thing you can do for your heart. People think about, when they think about smoking, smoke, and they always gravitate towards cancer. That's like, yes, okay, it's a dose dependent effect. Eventually, you know, you can get lung cancer. But what happens immediately, immediately, an exponential increased risk in cardiovascular disease. Smoking is terrible for your vascular system, for your arteries, for your heart, for your blood vessels. And we know that Omega 3 is one of the best things you can do for cardiovascular health. There's randomized controlled trials showing that you give people a very high dose of omega 3. So we're talking 4 grams a day of like purified EPA, one of the marine types of omega 3 fatty acids. After five years, they have a 25% lower risk of cardiovascular events, including heart attacks and strokes, compared to people taking a placebo. I mean, this is a randomized controlled trial, Very strong data. Multiple other random, randomized controlled trials showing something similar, you know, where it's improving cardiovascular health, reducing, reducing heart attacks, reducing strokes. And there's also this new data coming out that omega 3 slows biological aging. Some of the first data came out was really just correlative data. They were just looking at people's, you know, omega 3 levels and then their epigenetic, you know, biological age. So biological age can be measured a variety of different ways, but essentially it's looking at your DNA and these patterns in your DNA, which are essentially kind of on top of your DNA. They're called methylation groups. And what we know from Dr. Steve Horbath, who really is a big pioneer in this field, is that these epigenetic, you know, methylation patterns in our DNA follow a specific pattern. They change over time, and it's really correlated with aging. And so you can, you can actually look at someone's DNA and look at the methylation pattern. And not only can you identify their age, but you can identify their biological age because, like, maybe their chronological age is much older than their biological age because they live a very healthy life, or the opposite is true. If they smoke a bunch of cigarettes and they drink and they're, you know, sedentary, don't exercise, they can actually look, their DNA can look much older than their actual chronological age. And so the new data that I'm excited about. Some of it's come out of Sweden. And this is more of a randomized trial where people were given about 1.1. I mean, actually the 1.1 grams was the threshold to see an effect. But they were given between 1 to 2 grams of omega 3 or a placebo. And it was their, their biological aging was looked at. And so it was shown that basically, like if you met, if you took at least 1.1 grams of Omega 3 a day, you started to slow your biological age over time. And for males, you know, it was happening even at a, at a, at a higher rate. And what's interesting is that the combination of other healthy lifestyle factors synergize. So if people were taking omega 3 and vitamin D and exercising, that was slowing their biological aging even more than just the Omega 3 alone. And so that is also, I would say, very exciting because again, if you're doing all these things, these healthy lifestyle factors, you're able to slow epigenetic age. And that epigenetic age wasn't necessarily. It also translated to functional parameters. So for example, the exercise plus vitamin D, plus omega 3, like those individuals, not only did they have about a four month reduction in their biological age, and you might go, well, four months, that's not a lot. That was over the course of this study, which was like, you know, a year. So imagine you keep doing that each year. It's gonna, yeah, it's gonna add up, right? Those individuals also, in addition to having that almost four month slowing in their epigenetic age, they also had reduced frailty by 40%. 40%. They had reduced invasive cancer by 60%. So this is like amazing, right? And it all comes back to the Omega 3 story. And I just think it's, it's, we have so much data, it's also beneficial for the brain. People have lower incidence, incidence of Alzheimer's disease as well. I mean, like I said, I'm trying to not go, go, go too long into this, but it's really like a 50% reduction. People with a high omega 3 index, that 8% range, have a 50% reduction of incidence of Alzheimer's disease compared to people with a low omega 3 index. Again, 1.6 to 2 grams. I take 2 grams a day. That's the rationale behind it. I'll stop talking there, even though I can go on and on because I think, you know, there's other things you want to get to. But Omega 3. Yeah, really important.

A (103:10)

No, I do, but that the reason I structured the interview, the Way I have is I want to give, you know, my audience. Obviously it's not a nutrition based show, we do a healthy hack segment, but I want to give them the most valuable, you know, therapeutic intervention effects up front and, you know. Why did you bring up sauna first? Well, when you heard Dr. Rhonda's numbers, now you see why. Why'd you bring up omega 3s when Dr. Rhonda listed out 6 or 8? Well, because omega 3s, I can tell you changed my life. I mean, I'm 51. You know, I survived stage one lymphoma five years ago, been through a lot of. I've had 19 orthopedic surgeries, my body's a train wreck. And I'm not going to tell you I feel fantastic like I did in my 20s, but for 51, I feel pretty damn good. And what you're saying about the additive effects of these items, which I take most of them, vitamin D and omega, the cold plunge, the sauna, all of it. I'll do anything to stay up four months, I'll do anything to stay alive a month longer. I mean, when you have that expiration date staring you in the face, it changes everything. One of the compounds you mentioned, though is an older compound. I mentioned it earlier. The show creatine. It's one of the phosphogens. Creatine's been around forever. You know, the, with the early, the hysterics about how creatine was going to kill you and dry out your kidneys and all the other nonsense. Thankfully we've moved past a lot of that. But Dr. Rhonda, I've seen a lot of your clips where you recommend a typically higher dose. The old way of thinking was loaded was about 20 grams and then 5 gram maintenance dose every day. The new thinking I've heard is 5 to 10, even more because there's some, which I hadn't heard early on, some cerebral effects of this. Everybody thinks creatine muscles, they don't think creatine brain. And when I heard that, I was pleasantly surprised. So your thoughts on that?

B (105:00)

I think, I think the next five years is we're gonna. The most interesting research coming out of the creatine world is going to be from the neck up. It's going to be on the, the, the brain. So yeah, five grams a day is really, it takes about four weeks or so for your muscles to saturate and you don't really need to do any loading of 20 grams before you do that, unless you're doing A competition. And you've not been taking 5 grams a day for a month. Right. The studies did loading because they were a short term study and most people weren't taking creatine before. And so it's, it's really just the 5 grams a day. That's really like once you get that level for about a month your muscles are saturated and you just keep replenishing them with that five grams. Your muscles are very greedy. Creatine, as you mentioned, phosphate creatine is an important precursor to make energy. And so your muscles, especially when you're working out are really, there's a high energetic demand and so the creatine really shines there because it helps to remake that energy quicker and so you can then increase your exercise volume. And that is how creatine can improve muscle mass and muscle strength because you're essentially working out more. Right. So it's not like creatine is anabolic in and of itself, kind of like amino acids are. It requires the work, but it does helps you work more. Right.

A (106:15)

Well it's dramatic, Dr. Rhonda. It's pretty dramatic. I log my workouts and if I go off creatine I say I'm doing a, you know, 10 RM and I get to 10, I'll drop to 8 the next week. Off creatine. Like it's pretty dramatic.

B (106:31)

Totally, yeah, I, I totally noticed the same thing. Like a 2 rep. No, I mean it's true, it's dramatic. Like for sure, I, I absolutely for the longest time I was doing five grams a day. And when, I mean the longest time when I started really taking resistance training seriously, which has been, you know, at least a couple of years. But then new data just started to come out, particularly out of Germany where actually the purest form of creatine is, is produced called kripure. German. There's a German study. It was a small study but it was looking at, you know, the brain is very, so the brain is resistant to a lot of things. We have the blood brain barrier. It doesn't just take up things easily and it particularly if your muscles are greedy, your muscles are consuming the creatine share. After 5 grams there's not much left spillover to get into the brain. But creatine does get transported across the blood brain barrier. It can get into the brain as long as your muscles aren't taking it all up. So when you start to get over that 5 grams and you go up to 10 grams, you double that amount. What this study out of Germany has shown is that different regions of the brain are now getting higher levels of creatine in them. Creatine is also important for your brain to make energy, right? So that's kind of where the rationale, my rationale for the 10 grams a day comes from. And then there have been studies looking at cognitive function at that higher dose of at least 10 grams. 10 grams a day seems to improve cognitive function in people with mild cognitive decline or mild cognitive impairment. So these are people with a stressed brain, people that are in some it. What's important to understand is that creatine, just like when you're working out, like you can't just take creatine and expect to have bigger muscles if you don't, if you don't work out right, you have to work out, you have to put in the work with the brain. The brain has to be a little more stressed in order for the creatine to really make a difference. Like if you're just fine, no problem, no neurodegenerative disease, no sleep deprivation, no chronic stress going on, then creatine doesn't really have much of an effect. So, so it's really in that background of stress sleep deprivation. Also it's been shown, I would say 10 grams a day minimum. But studies have shown that if you go up to 20 to, it depends on your body weight. So 20 grams, maybe 25 if you're really a big person, a lot of muscle mass, or hopefully not, but fat mass. So going up to that level if you are sleep deprived. So in this study it was actually pretty severe sleep deprivation. It was like a 24 hour sleep deprivation. Those individuals that were given that really high dose of creatine were able to perform cognitive tasks very well. And not only were they performing them very well, they were performing, performing them better than their well rested baseline levels, which is fascinating. And again, other studies coming out showing that there seems to be effects in the brain mostly in the context of stress resistance training. There's a study in women that were doing a lot of resistance training when they were supplementing with the creatine, 10 grams a day, it improved their sleep. So I do think there's a rationale to go up to 10 grams a day. I can tell you my anecdote and that is I, I feel like my brain's constantly under stress. I do a lot of learning, a lot of researching. There's a lot going on in my brain that is very stressful. It is a type of stress. Stress learning is a type of stress. And so when I moved up to 10 grams a day. What I noticed for me is that I have more mental endurance throughout the day. Like I wasn't getting that sort of afternoon slump a little. And it's night and day for me. If I miss that 10 grams and I only do my first 5 gram dose, I will, it'll come back. And so it could be placebo, as you mentioned. I'm okay with it. Creatine is safe. It's one of the most well studied sports nutrition supplements ever. And so I don't feel, you know, if it's a placebo. My rationale is if it's placebo and it's safe, I'm good. That's fine. It's a real effect. So that's, that's kind of where we're at with creatine. And there's a lot of, again, a lot of researchers are now getting into the brain. Even people that are doing muscle research, like exercise physiologists or are seeing the opportunity here because. Because it's so exciting.

A (110:51)

Yeah. One of the things in addition to omegas and sauna, I attribute exclusively to seeing your clips on Twitter and watching them and consuming them. You changed the sauna habits for me, Chad. You also got me taken to Sulforaphane, which I love, and you mentioned before because I'm terrified of pollutants in the body. But exercise snacks, this has become a thing. You got my whole studio, studio staff doing this. Now, I was under the mistaken belief for years and many of my friends I work out with were too, that, you know, you do your morning workout resistance train, you do your aerobic exercise, do some, maybe you throw some plyos and some flexibility work in there and you're good. Sit down all day at the desk. I have a desk job. I'm not out there digging graves anymore. I did it one time. That is not it. Sitting all day, even while exercising after exercising is probably a quick way to get six feet deep really fast. And we do not want to get six feet deep. So I heard you mention this idea of exercise snacks and I am now addicted to the 10 squats every. I do them every half an hour now. Ten air squats, unbelievable. Will totally change your life. I lost probably an additional 5 pounds. I wound up losing about 330 pounds after the whole cancer thing. I was just way too heavy in the joints and. But the thing about it, Dr. Rhonda, is it's sorry to go on here, but it's just so if you have functional. And your doctor says it's okay. Like it is so easy to do. And the changes to your body after time are, at least for me, are dramatic.

B (112:24)

Oh, you're preaching to the choir. I love that you're doing 10 bodyweight squats, like on the hour. So as you mentioned, being sedentary, like even if you're exercising, if you're, you know, we've created these, we've created these problems with modern day society. You know, it used to be that we were out digging graves and farming and doing agriculture and moving around all day as a part of our work, as a part of our lifestyle. Right. And now we have these, we've created this, this problem of we don't ever move. We're sitting down at our desk, at our cubicle, looking at a screen. We're not moving at all. And so we have to like do these weird things like going to the gym. I mean, imagine what like, like you know, 100 years ago, 150 years ago, like people would be like, what are you doing?

A (113:11)

The gym was the farm in the backyard. And they were probably pretty jacked.

B (113:17)

Totally, totally. So, you know, the idea here is that when you're sitting for, in fact it's six hours or more when you're sitting, sitting down for that length of time, you have an independent risk factor for some diseases, particularly cancer. So I know that you're very obviously very interested in cancer because you're a cancer survivor and, and we all should be interested in cancer because cancer is terrible to have to deal with it. Really the best thing you can do is try as much as you can to prevent it. And so exercise snacks are a great way to break up some sedentary time. And as you mentioned, they're so easy to do. What is an exercise snack? It has to be at least about a minute in, in, in length, in time. I would say now you're doing 10 body weight squats. Probably doesn't take you a minute. Probably more like 30, 30 seconds or something. Yeah, but traditionally it's about a minute, but you're doing them on the hour. And so they can be body weight squats, they can be like high knees, they can be jumping jacks, burpees, anything that's getting your heart rate up is, is the point. And there have been now a lot of studies on these exercise snacks. So what I just talked about was these structured kind of snacks that we do to help break up our sedentary time. Well, there's also what are called unstructured exercise snacks. They're also the name for them is A vilpa V I P L A vigorous intermittent lifestyle, physical activity and this kind of exercise snack is a situation where people are taking advantage of everyday life to kind of get their heart rate up. So they're going to take the stairs instead of the elevator, they're going to sprint up the stairs, they're going to walk to work or bike to work rather than take their car. They're going to, you know, they're running around sprinting with their kids or grandkids or their new puppy. Right. So you're taking these moments in life to just get your heart rate up, but you're just doing it as part of your life. It's not like a I'm going to do body weight squats sort of structured snack. Right. So these vilpa studies and there have been quite a few of them that have come out published in very high impact scientific journals, very high quality people are wearing these accelerometers around their wrists. So these accelerometers are measuring people's movement. It's, it's a empirical data rather than the old way of oh can, how much did you exercise the last week? And then you take that week and try to like expand, expand it for like years. It's like that doesn't really work well. So it's a, it's a, it's a much stronger source of data because you're measuring something. And so what has been found from multiple studies now is that people, I'm going to give you the robust numbers because they're so mind blowing people that are doing three minutes of this intense sort of exercise. So that would probably be more like they're sprinting up the stairs, you know, something that's going to take about three minutes and they do it three times a day. So a total of nine minutes a day of these sort of moments of getting your heart rate up, you know, throughout, throughout the day. Those individuals have a 40% lower cancer related mortality, 40% lower all cause mortality, 50% lower cardiovascular related mortality than people that are not doing those exercise snacks. And this is even in people that don't identify themselves as being exercisers because they don't go to the gym, they're like, no, I don't work out. But they don't realize that these moments that they're sprinting up the stairs or taking the stairs and they're walking, that counts, it counts. And so very, very robust data there. You can also get benefits with doing less than nine minutes. I like the three minute intervals three times a day, because, boy, 40, that's so robust, you know, I mean, that's a big, those are big numbers here. That's a big difference.

A (116:59)

And I think, Dr. Rhonda, the calorie burn. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. But the calorie burn, you know, you may say, like, oh, what is that burn? 10 extra calories? 15. That's not the point. Over the course of a year where a pound of fat is, what, 3,500 calories, am I right? You could burn two or three pounds of fat and you ever see two or three pounds of fat? I mean, these are real numbers over time for such an almost painless intervention.

B (117:25)

Yes. I'm so glad you brought this up, Dan, because there was just a recent study in the last six months or so that looked, you know, these exercise guidelines that we have. 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity exercise, 150 minutes to 300 minutes a week of moderate intensity exercise, or 75 minutes to 150 minutes of vigorous right. Exercise. This 2 to 1 ratio, it's like, okay, if you're going harder, you, you can half the amount of exercise you're doing. Do you ever wonder where that number, where that ratio came from? It came from calorie burn because you burn twice as many calories from doing more higher intensity exercise than you do for moderate intensity. That doesn't come from looking at outcomes like death from cancer, death from cardiovascular disease, you know, death from respiratory disease. That is important because this new study that came out, which actually measured, again, they used accelerometers and actually measured people's physical activities, and then they looked at outcomes, it turns out that these, these vigorous moments that you're doing and they add up are so much more powerful. So for every one minute of like, vigorous intensity exercise, I should define that because in this specific study, vigorous intensity exercise was really exercise that you had intention. So jogging or running, biking, swimming, that, those sprinting moments that we're talking about playing with your, your kids or your puppy, sprinting up the stairs, those moments were all vigorous. Moderate intensity would be walking, it would be maybe doing some housework. You know, you're not getting, you're getting, you're, you're getting your heart rate up a little bit, but not that much, right? So for every one minute of vigorous intensity exercise, you had to do four, four minutes of moderate intensity exercise to get the same mortality reduction in all cause mortality. For every one minute of vigorous intensity exercise, you had to do eight minutes of moderate intensity exercise to get the same reduction in cardiovascular related mortality and heart attacks and strokes. For every one minute of vigorous intensity exercise. You had to do 10 minutes of moderate intensity exercise to get the same effects on reducing type 2 diabetes in incidents. And this goes on and on, I think, you know, and then if you get to the light exercise, that was like a ridiculous, it's ridiculous. You had to do like, like 200 minutes. It's ridiculous for every one minute. So the point here is that, you know, I think that we're under appreciating the, you know, the, the health benefits of vigorous intensity exercise. And the, and the study also showed that it didn't have to be like 30 minutes straight. It could be, you know, a minute here, it could be three minutes there. It adds up and that you should be counting those moments. And I agree, like the exercise snacks, I also do them. I break up my day with them. I feel good. You're getting blood flow to the brain. I mean that like immediate. It's immediate mood booster. It's immediate. Like wake up. You're talking about the cold plunge. This also is another for me important lifestyle hack to just like help improve my mood, to help get me that energy. Like, it's like all you have to do is.

A (120:25)

I don't do anything out of them. I don't do anything with that. When I was at the FBI, I did not go into a single meeting before doing air squats. I don't think anybody, I've said that on the show before, but I don't do it. And it's interesting just to prove to you. I follow your clips everywhere. Even when you do guest hits on other people's shows. I don't know where I think you were on Diary of a CEO. Maybe it was, I'm not really sure. But the host had said to you, hey, I just saw you doing 10 air squats before you came on the air. And you're like, yeah, I, I don't do the show without it. I thought, wow, that's me. I do that too. Like, I stole that from you. And it totally works. It gets the, it gets your brain into like focus mode rather than like lollygag and, you know, kind of mode right away.

B (121:05)

For sure. Yeah, I do not. I, I absolutely have to do a workout no matter what. Even if it's only like a quick, you know, few minutes before I, before I need my brain to be on for a podcast or a presentation or anything. It's essential. I will. No compromises.

A (121:22)

You've been unbelievably generous with your time. Do you have time for one more question? I know you said an hour, but I know my audience is really enjoying all of this. These are really simple ones. And again, this is another thing. I think this is more for me as much as it is for the audience. I always go back and forth with this dinner time question. I don't want to eat late because I don't want the digestive problem process to interrupt my sleep. Let me just kind of put a little marker here. I'm a terrible sleeper. That's why this matters so much to me. And I really can't function on the show. I'm in a service space where I have to be able to provide this service and I have to think straight. I'm a bad sleeper. So I started eating really, really early, three o' clock dinner, wrapped it up and did kind of an intermittent fast, but not to fast more for sleep. The problem I was having is I was getting these massive cortisol spikes from extremely low drops in insulin at night and my sleep was off. So then I started eating a little later, hoping to get kind of a lowered insulin level and a more better baseline of glucose. But, you know, then I found myself like, with the digestive process. What is the sweet spot? People should be eating, like hours before bed where you can get good night's sleep, but also, you know, you're not going to be getting, you know, fat from processing calories overnight either, or starving.

B (122:47)

Yeah. So I mean, eating, stopping eating three at 3pm if you go to bed at 9, I mean, that's a long time.

A (122:55)

I was doing it every day.

B (122:57)

Yeah, that's, that's, that's hardcore. Hardcore. The sweet spot here would be about stopping eating three hours before bed. So it takes about, I would say on average, five hours from the moment you stop eating to like completely finish digestion. So you're still going to be digesting a little bit when you first, you know, get into bed and start like you're, you know, falling asleep. Digestion is activating the sympathetic nervous system. Right. That is not going to help you sleep. You want, you want the parasympathetic nervous system to be more active. So the sympathetic nervous system system for people, for people that are listening and watching, that is your fight or flight mode. Right. That's like, I'm on, I'm on. Right? That's the stuff that gets activated before you go on stage. You don't want that activated. Right. When you're trying to wind down and go to Sleep digestion is activating that, the system. So you don't want to be eating literally right before you go to bed, because that's switching on the part of your brain and nervous system that is not what you. That's for being alert and awake, not the calming down. Right. The rest and recover. So you want to make sure that you stop eating three hours before bed. It does help with sleep. There have now been multiple studies out there showing that people that do stop eating around three hours before they go to sleep, they sleep better. The other thing, there's two other things I want to point out that's really important. One is that if you are eating late in the evening, okay, so closer, you know, one hour before bed, maybe even, you know, two hours before bed, you are in your phase, your circadian phase of melatonin production. This is the, this is the phase you start to make. Actually, you start to make melatonin about three hours before your natural bedtime. That's when it starts to get a little bit higher. Your melatonin starts to go on. Right. Melatonin is a signal. It's made in the pineal gland. It's a signal for your brain to quiet down, calm down, get sleepy. We're going to rest now. Right. Well, melatonin is also, it's a hormone that affects other tissues, not just the brain. It's also affecting other tissues like the pancreas. And so what's been shown is that melatonin also, when that melatonin levels go up, it signals to the pancreas to stop making insulin. So the pancreas is what makes insulin. Insulin is very important to make sure glucose gets taken up into tissues and gets out of your, your system. And so there have been studies that have compared individuals that eat the exact same meal, the exact macronutrient composition, caloric intake, everything in the morning versus the afternoon versus the evening. And what has been shown is that people are less insulin sensitive in the evening. They are less able to properly regulate their blood glucose levels and take it, you know, have glucose being taken up into their tissues if they are eating later in the evening. And that is again because melatonin is signaling to the pancreas to stop making insulin. So you don't want to eat late at night just for metabolic health reasons as well. And the other thing, this is a very new study that came out a couple of months ago. Very, very important study. So individuals were wearing these continuous blood pressure monitors. They were actually measuring blood pressure, you know, like, like constantly. And first real first study to do this and look at the effect of late night eating on, on cardiovascular health. People that did not stop that, they kept eating and like, ate up until bedtime. They didn't have what is a very, very important cardiovascular reset for the heart that happens when you're sleeping. It's called a cardiovascular reset. Essentially, it's a very strong dip in blood pressure. Without getting into all the technical details, it's something called the baro reflex that resets and it's very important for cardiovascular health and preventing heart attacks. And so that wasn't happening as robustly if people were eating, you know, up until bedtime. In the individuals that stopped eating three hours before bed, it was a very pronounced cardiovascular dip, that blood pressure dip that's really needed to reset the heart, to reset the cardiovascular system. And you need that reset every night. And if you don't get that reset every night, you're really at risk for heart attacks decades later or even maybe even sooner, particularly if there's a family history of cardiovascular disease. So very important for metabolic health, very important for cardiovascular health, very important for sleep, which is important for both those things. They're all related. So I think a really good hack, or, you know, just an idea to have in your mind is, when do I go to bed normally? Stop eating your food about three hours before that time. Really? It's not that hard. I mean, it's not, it's not that hard, right? You go to bed at nine, you stop eating at six.

A (127:44)

I got used to the three o'. Clock. I mean, it got painful. Sometimes I'd see an ad for like a Burger King Whopper, which I remember, and I'd be like, oh my gosh, I'm so hungry at night. But I got used to it. But that solves it for me. Three hours. I'll do the simple math on that. Not complicated. I go to sleep at the same time every night. Dr. Rhonda, I gotta tell you, I was looking forward to this interview more than any other interview I've done in years. And you certainly did not disappoint. Dr. Rhonda. Patrick. R H O N D A for those of you who don't know, or you should. Patrick. Common spelling. You can find her on social media platforms, including X. Her podcast is foundmyfitness. She has an unbelievable newsletter where you can get all of these and more. We could, I mean, we could go on all day. You are obviously welcome back anytime, but I think the audience is going to get a lot out of this. You're probably going to wind up saving a lot of lives if they make these little small changes. So thank you so much for joining us. It was a really great honor. Thanks a lot.

B (128:36)

Thank you so much, Dan. Really, really enjoy the conversation. You're awesome. I had no idea. I love doing shows like this where there's good chemistry, there's genuine interest in health, and I really enjoyed it, so would be happy.

A (128:49)

I was afraid to ask you. And then I saw you on some other podcasts and I thought to myself, oh, okay. I mean, you know, we cover this stuff, lifestyle stuff as well. And I thought maybe she'll say yes. And then when the folks and your team agreed, I said to the guys, this is the only interview we've ever done, kind of inside baseball. We tape at the same time every single day because we're on a hard live stream. We live stream, so we don't have a choice. And they said, well, she's not on east coast time. I said, I don't care if she wants to do it two in the morning, I'll come into the damn studio and do it. Doesn't matter to me. I said, I'm doing this interview. So it was great. So thanks for your time. I really appreciate it.

B (129:26)

Well, thank you. Next time I'll try to make the live time.

A (129:30)

No worries. This was great. Thanks, doc. We'll see you soon. Thanks.

B (129:34)

Thank you folks.

A (129:36)

Thanks so much. I hope you enjoyed that. That is a. Please bookmark that episode and go back and watch that again. Because the stuff, the supplement stack, the sauna protocols, the cold plunge. I structured the show that way intentionally to give you easy, easy life hacks from an expert in this space. When you're not an expert, bring in experts and people who know more than you. I promise you, I implement this stuff in my life. It has made a huge difference. The difference the exercise snacks. So check that out. Be sure to check us out every day on Rumble live at 10am rumble.com bongino. You can also download the Rumble app. Please, please do that. Give us a follow. It is absolutely free. We'll be bringing you more great content like this going forward. Hope you have a great weekend and I'll see you all on Monday.

B (130:19)

Hey there.

A (130:19)

I'm Vince.

B (130:20)

I'm Haley Caradilla, host of Vince, Host of Scrolling with Haley.

A (130:23)

You can always catch my show right here.

B (130:25)

Right here on the Bongino Report live, 8am Eastern weekday mornings, weekdays at noon.

A (130:30)

If you miss it, no worries.

B (130:32)

The show will always be right here and anywhere you find a podcast Sam.