The habits that support performance today often protect healthspan over decades. In this conversation from the source, the useful thread is not novelty. It is agency: what the body can learn when the signal is clear and the dose is respected.
this is episode 57 with scientists researcher and found my fitness podcast host dr. Rhonda Patrick welcome to wild ideas worth living an adventure podcast presented by REI co-op we talked to experts who have taken a wild idea and made it a reality so you can too for people who have climbed the tallest peaks started thriving businesses and even broken records some of the wildest ideas can lead to the most rewarding adventures I'm your host Shelby Stanga and I hope you enjoy this show [Music] we've done a few podcasts on health fitness performance and longevity and they've all been really popular these are key components to living wildly which is why I'm so excited to have on dr. Rhonda Percival Patrick you might have heard her on Joe Rogan or Tim Ferriss his podcast or her own podcast found my fitness Ron has done extensive research on aging cancer and nutrition and she's been published in several peer-reviewed science journals Rhonda got her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of California and San Diego and her PhD in biomedical science from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis Tennessee as the hosts have found my fitness she interviews some of the top scientists in their field when it comes to things like breath work sauna training fasted and time restricted feeding to name a few Rhonda and I actually know each other because we taught surfing together at the surf tee of a surf school when we were in our 20s I came back across her because I randomly interviewed her while writing a science story for outside magazine and I was so glad to be back in touch I love how Rhonda takes complex scientific studies and puts them into plain English so all can understand it so in this episode we talk about everything from health hacks you can use to increase
health hacks you can use to increase performance in your own health as well as how Rhonda got the wild idea of combining her own love of research and science by doing a podcast and YouTube channel rather than going the traditional tenure track we also talk about things like what Sally apoptosis is how she got the attention of guys like Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan and so much more but before we begin disclaimer I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on my podcast Rhonda's in either so before trying anything we talked about please consult your doctor this is for informational purposes only I hope you enjoy the show this episode was brought to you by REI Cop a brand that's big on protecting where we play outside as stewards of the outdoors REI gives away 70% of all profits back to the doors since 1976 REI has invested more than 77 million dollars through partner nonprofits to create improve and sustain access for all to inspiring outdoor places they're also incredibly eco friendly REI uses a hundred percent renewable energy to operate and they built the first largest and most sustainable Net Zero Energy and led platinum distribution center in the country on top of that REI is partnered with over 66 brands in the outdoor industry to enhance the sustainability of their products their motto a life outdoors is a life well-lived is something I definitely stand by you can learn more take classes gone experiences find a store near you and get the gear you want to get outside at REI dot-com [Music] so Rhonda the audience now is really interested in adventure in performance and and I'd love to ask you since you've studied this so much you're such an expert on it one of the best health hacks for overall training and performance it's something that I've
performance it's something that I've sort of over the past couple of years been interested in and came across you know came across it's sort of in a weird roundabout way where he's like I was in graduate school and started using the sauna because I lived across the street from the YMCA and I was you know just started using it in the mornings before I would go into the lab and do work and what I noticed was that I started to feel really really good and my anxiety started to go down you know Brad school can be very stressful experiments don't work just lots of pressure you know publications and all that so I really became interested in using the sauna because of the effects it was having on my mood and which is a completely separate story there are a lot of actual there's a lot of science showing a positive effect on the mood because of various reasons endorphins is one of them but as I started to dig into the literature I started to find all this evidence on other things that were related to training so I was like oh well that's interesting because you know I've always been sort of a runner and that's you know an endurance type of training and there were multiple multiple studies showing that people that were using the sauna endurance athletes that used the sauna you know two to three times a week had in in performance enhancements in whether it was running or cycling and so I started to sort of dig into that and figure out why and lots of reasons for that one is I mean if you think about like heat acclamation a lot of athletes will like trained in the heat and one of the reasons for that is because when you do expose your body to heat which is very similar to when you're exercising cardiovascular exercise you you elevate your core body temperature one of the things that happens is that you have increased blood flow to the high and that allows your heart to basically
and that allows your heart to basically do less work for every but you know beat it's doing so you sort of like are pumping out blood easier and you know to basically giving all sorts of goodies to your muscle fatty acids glucose things like that so that that's one reason and the other reason is that you actually start to cool down at a lower core body temperature so you sweat earlier which helps you stay cooler so you can sort of go longer so those are two sort of acclamation that occur when you continually expose your body to heat so the sauna is one of those ways to do that and there interestingly a lot of other health benefits so I recently was in Finland about a year ago and in Finland like everyone has a sauna almost I mean it's just so ubiquitous very very like in their house like just just very ubiquitous and so one of the world's leading experts on using the sauna researchers is there and he happens to be someone who's a cardiologist but he also has a PhD so he's a scientist as well and he's doing all sorts of research on the sauna and he's found that people that use the sauna 3 you know three to four times a week or four to seven times a week have like anywhere between a 50 24% to a 50% lower cardiovascular disease risk depending on how frequent they use it Alzheimer's disease they have like a 60 percent lower risk so there's lots of broad health benefits for using the sauna in addition to this particular endurance performance enhancement it's just health benefits in general so that's like well you know saunas great so how many days a week do you use the sauna well since I recently had a baby about three and a half months ago I've stopped using the sauna basically when I found out it was pregnant but before that I think that if for someone if you're looking at the literature and you're looking for the endurance enhancements three times a week about twenty to thirty minutes anywhere
twenty to thirty minutes anywhere between a temperature between 170 to 190 Fahrenheit so hot Wow and so do you want to go into a cold shower after or do you want to stay heated question a lot of you know a lot of people in Finland actually do the cold shot they jump into like the cold Baltic you know or do a cold shower afterwards it's very very common there in Finland I've done it you know and if you feel great um so I think it really depends on you know the person and I've done it where I can go from a hot sauna into the cold shower or an ice bath and back into the hot sauna again and it sort of helps you get you know back into the heat again because you've cooled yourself down there are there there's not a lot of literature on the benefits of going from hot to cold the contrast therapy it's called but I do know that it from firsthand experience it I feel really good like my mood I sleep better so there's a lot of really great benefits in that respect however there is one caution I would say that people that have like a pre-existing heart condition or some sort of you know heart condition in general might want to be cautious by going from heat hot to cold just because it is you know you're the heat causes vasodilation your blood vessels are dilated you have an increased blood flow the opposite happens with cold you constrict your blood vessels and you so you know that's something to keep in mind if you have a heart condition but that's good to know we'd like to go surfing in winter which is pretty cold right now it's 60 degrees it's not that cold but 60 cold enough for me no wetsuit and then across the street there's a sauna we jump in nice you know we try to shower but yeah we go in salty it's great well a lot of gyms have have saunas a lot of people nowadays are getting their own saunas I would say that the the saunas I'm referring to are the traditional hot ones not the infrared ones which don't I think the highest temperature an infrared sauna it gets to is like a hundred and forty Fahrenheit so you'd have to stay in a lot longer but there
have to stay in a lot longer but there are there is literature showing that other other modalities of heat exposure like a hot bath Jacuzzi steam shower even hot yoga they all have very similar benefits the idea is to just heat stress your body and by heat stress in your body actually you're mimicking a lot of the effects of cardiovascular exercise your heart rate goes up to 150 beats per minute so you can mimic like moderate aerobic exercise and a way a lot of the mechanisms that are happening when you are doing aerobic exercise are as the consequence of elevated core body temperature so there's sort of like this tricking your body kind of thing where your body's sort of thinks it's exercising but it's not that makes any so yeah I like I call it like the lazy lazy man's workout I just go take a sauna and I'm like oh yeah well it's really cool because the it's it's you know a lot of people that are injured or you know just there's a lot of reasons when you're older you know using the sauna or any other sort of modality of heat exposure can be beneficial also because there's a lot of endocrine changes that happen when you're when you expose your body heat like the sauna one of them happens to be a robust increase in growth hormone which helps your muscles basically prevent your muscles from atrophying which is you know something that gets very important as you get older also when you're injured as well as it increases something called heat shock proteins as their name implies they're you increase them when you know there's elevated heat or temperature and they also protect protect your muscles from atrophying so great great little health hack for for staving off muscle atrophy as well generally speaking I think that's something good as you especially as you get older it's awesome what about any other health hacks that you can think of yeah so there's a couple of other ones there's one that's really interesting that I recently came across and I because I've become really interested in circadian rhythm which is basically you know our bodies day / night or light night sort of dark cycles so
or light night sort of dark cycles so you know humans are diurnal creatures were up in the morning we're active our metabolisms running and as the day goes progresses we become you know less active and we sleep when it's dark right so there's this it's called circadian rhythm well there's lots of things that are on a circadian rhythm not just our sleep schedule but our metabolism like we're most insulin sensitive in the morning and then least in the evening turns out peak performance is also on a circadian rhythm and what's really interesting is it's not like there's a standard time of day when your performance is at you perform your best athletically it all depends on when you wake up so there's been studies looking at people that are what are called early risers or intermediate risers or late risers so the early and intermediate risers are anywhere between 7 & 8 a. m. and the late risers are 9: 45 10: 00 a. m. you know onward and what studies have found is that the the early and intermediate risers their peak performance occurs anywhere between 5 to 6 hours after their waking time so typically it's it's around early afternoon whereas the and this is very interesting the late risers their peak performance is 11 hours later so it's a huge difference between the early and / or intermediate between those risers and the late risers their peak performance is like in the evening it's really kind of an interesting and we're talking like a 1 to 2 percent difference in performance which can be crucial if you're doing a race or if you're in the Olympics or something like that so it's kind of an interesting and new growing field where you know athletes may start to consider when their race time is when they're competing and sort of training their body to wake up you know at a certain time because there's also a lot of factors that play a role in when you wake up you know obviously your your work schedule your lifestyle all those things play a role but there's genetics as well you know so you know training
as well you know so you know training yourself you may not just it I wouldn't say like okay you have a race that's in the morning so you're gonna wake up at 3 a. m. you want to train yourself to do that like more than just once right because it's not like just a one-time thing so very interesting right yeah and that's like I said it's a really new and growing feel but it's something that I'm because I personally like working out in the morning me too I feel like yeah I get up 6: 00 a. m. I'm out great I'm well now that I'm a new mommy I'm feeding my son at 6 a. m. but after after that I take a high-intensity interval training cycling class and I take that at 9: 00 in the morning so so I'm waking up around 5: 00 and doing my my cycling class around 9: 00 so him close to my pay performance not you know it's great I want to talk about the high intensity training it was there any other health hacks you wanted to talk about real quick one more yeah so the other one would be basically time restricted eating which is kind of similar to if they're just there's a fasting component to it and it's also it has to do with the whole circadian rhythm which we were just talking about where basically you eat all of your meals within a very short designated time period anywhere between 8 to 12 hours well there's studies showing that at least in animals if the animals consume all of their food in 9 hours and they're fasting for 15 hours they have a really significant endurance enhancement again endurance endurance not not like strength training things like that and we know now from from human studies that it might have to do with the fact that your body goes into ketosis and you're producing something called ketone bodies and one of the major circling ketone bodies is beta hydroxy butyrate so we know now from from human studies that have been done both with fasting and also giving a human and exogenous beta
also giving a human and exogenous beta hydroxy butyrate like ketone ester as a drink that has been shown to confer endurance performance enhancements specifically endurance now we're going to talk about high-intensity interval training that's the kind of thing that actually it would not benefit in fact it may even dampen the performance on that and and that's because we can talk a little bit about this but the difference between when you're an endurance athlete you're aerobic exercise aerobic means you're using oxygen right and you're also using either fatty acids or glucose that's you know that you get from their diet to make energy and that requires something called mitochondria without getting too technical this isn't a biochemistry class however when you're doing something like an aerobic or high intensity when you're given that real push like a sprint you are you're going beyond the capacity of your body to take the oxygen in and use that energy that way and so you end up doing just using glucose only without your mitochondria and so the ketone bodies can't be used that way it can only be used by mitochondria so they wouldn't help with the the sprinting or the high-intensity sort of pushes that sort of exercise so if you're an endurance athlete you kind of want to you're starting to eat at eight you're done it five or yeah I mean exactly so you know depending on the person you you basically deplete your your liver glycogen stores you know you can anywhere between you know seven to thirty hours depending on who you are how much you eat how much you exercise once you deplete your liver like glycogen you start to basically take your adipose tissue fatty acids get released go to your liver and you start to make ketone bodies that way but you know so depending on how active you are it can be earlier like you could do it within seven at six or seven hours if you're a really active person and you're not and you don't eat so typically I'd say that for me at least
typically I'd say that for me at least I've noticed like when I eat within just within nine hours I absolutely have endurance enhancements on my long runs for sure like I can usually you know there's a certain point that I I'm I stopped running you know like it's like okay I've reached the four mile point and I'm like I'm spent you know and I'll just keep going like where I reached that point I'm like whoa I feel like I'm back at two miles here like you know so very clear and this is multiple times that I've done this also there's a new and this is like I have no affiliation with this company but I did get to beta test the product which was the ketone Esther beta hydroxy butyrate Esther the company is called human it but it's spelled like HV MN and they've already like you know gone public with this this ketone ester which is which will be available in February you can pre-order it now I've tried it I went from I measured my blood ketone levels I went from point 1 millimolar to four point five millimolar in 60 minutes which is deep ketosis which is the kind of thing you would get after three days fasting I went in like 60 minutes had a ton of energy and I went for a cycle and it was like it was pretty obvious that I that could you know my cycling was I could just keep going like I said though if I was doing like a major sprint or something that would be a little differently high-intensity so yeah that's another the ketone esters are really interesting and there are studies showing that they they help endurance but they do not help in fact it may even hinder the high-intensity like sprinting kind of push so let's talk a little bit faster because I just did a five-day water-only fast tried to run right after I started eating did not work I was still in ketosis I think like deep ketosis my tongue was still white it took me like a day and a half to of eating but then I went out and ran a 5k faster than I'd run a 5k in a really long time actually a couple days after
long time actually a couple days after eating I just felt so fast one I was lighter but two I just had so much endurance in fact I woke up at 1: 00 in the morning I couldn't sleep and and I'm the kind of person that just sleeps for eight hours I'm really lucky but I couldn't go back to sleep so I waited till 4: 30 a. m. and I ran really really far so the difference between long term water only fasting versus this time restricted eating and then intermittent fasting there's so much out there yeah that's first of all really super cool that you experience that and I can tell you almost with certainty if I were to make an educated guess I think I'd say it was because you probably had elevated ketone bodies in your your system you should get this little kit you can it's called precision extra and it's like $ 99 on Amazon and they have come little strips like the measures you can measure your blood glucose levels and your ketone levels and and you see a little finger prick of blood and do it and it's super like you can quantify things so now next time you do it you're fast you'll know anyways yes the great question about difference between like intermittent fasting time restricted eating prolonged fasting typically the the time restricted eating has an intermittent fasting component to it because you are eating within a certain time period you're also fasting for a certain time period and intermittent fasting can be anywhere between you know 10-12 hours - you know 24 hours it may be even 48 hours this sort of pushing the limits there so the time restricted eating has that intermittent fasting component to it particularly if you're doing all your food within nine to ten hours then you're fasting you know 14 or 15 hours so that's that's an inter minute fast the time restricted eating part additionally has you're eating the food within when your metabolism is the most active so eating it you know instead of waiting until and dispersing all your food within like 15 hours which
all your food within like 15 hours which by the way most Americans actually do you don't think they do studies have shown they they eat you know within a 15 hour period well I do I eat almost up until bed yeah and it's very common actually when and that's when your metabolism is like yeah crap it's like when you don't want it how do you not eat cookies or like sweets after dinner you know you get used to it once you first of all you should not eat cookies the sweets at all like that's the thing like vegan banana whole whole like yes okay but sometimes I cheat and they'll be sweetened with stevia but sometimes I'll have like even a banana or some fruit at night after dinner right I mean which is better than eating like refined sugar yeah there's notified sugar yeah well like whole family you know so but you do your body gets used to it and with the time restricted eating like I would say after two to three weeks it's like you don't even think about it it's it's just completely like like I stopped doing it I mean I was doing it I was trying my hardest to eat at least within two 12-hour I wonder what was pregnant it's really hard when I'm pregnant but I I pretty much for the most part did that before I got pregnant I was like I was doing nine to ten hours and now that I'm breastfeeding I'm I'm still within the 12 hours most the time I'm like 10 to 11 like I'm up all night feeding but I don't eat so so anyways you know I think that it really becomes easier as you do it more so if you just get past that like two to three week mark it's like things start to readjust and you know your brain also dopamine stuff all that you know those dopamine hits you're getting from the fruit sugar it sort of normalizes enough to do like yoga and handstands or something at night yeah dinner you know it's a go to the sauna I don't know something but it really does get easier okay and the prolonged fast is like what you're saying that you had recently done like a five-day water fast which is really extreme anywhere between four to five days in humans is like a prolonged fast
days in humans is like a prolonged fast and there's lots and lots of benefits with that you know that completely different from intermittent fasting like there's a lot of overlap between a prolonged fasts and intermittent fast but the prolonged fast has additional benefits as well so that's something that people can do you know once a quarter or depending on the person and like for me since I do time restricted eating people that are sort of doing this daily intermittent fasting probably don't have to think about doing a prolonged fast quite as often but there are a lot of really cool benefits that have to do with aging when it comes to a prolonged fast and like making more stem cells and clearing out damaged cells that you can't get to the same degree with an inter minute fast like a prolonged fast as you gotta you got to push over that threshold on one of your podcast uh who was it was dr. panda he said it was like you know a prolonged flat fasiq' you vacuum your carpet every day and that's like time restricted eating but once a quarter a year you gotta get the really heavy steam cleaner exactly that yeah was that was doctor Sachin Panda I like that yeah it's a great analogy thanks for remembering that yeah I forgot I liked your podcast so we're gonna talk about your podcast so before we get into that let's real quick talk about because I want to talk about how you got the wild idea to do what you do because it's so cool but really quickly aerobic endurance training versus strength training versus high-intensity interval training yes I'm not talking right we were kind of pushed we were kind of alluding to that you know a minute ago talking about the endurance versus the high intensity you know there's personally I like to try to get all all three types of exercise in my exercise routine because they all have there's overlapping benefits but they also have unique benefits so for example the endurance exercise run cycling you know things that are aerobic really has a lot of strong benefits for the brain like super super beneficial for the brain and this has been studied for four decades now and
been studied for four decades now and multiple multiple studies have shown this in animals and in humans that aerobic exercise increases what are called neuro trophic factors in the brain up to two fold like 30 minutes of exercise can can increase at two to three fold in in people so 30-minute hike to 40 minute hike the more intense the training the better okay so I would say like a jog would be better than a hike for example but yes y'all run trail run exactly and what these neuro traffic factors do is they actually cause your brain to make new neurons in parts in the brain that are involved in learning and memory called the hippocampus they also allow existing neurons to repair themselves if they're damaged and to survive longer you know so brain atrophy is something that we all sort of face and probably we're all terrified of particularly when it comes to things like dementia and Alzheimer's disease so so this type of aerobic exercise has been shown to stave that off and largely because it has a dramatic impact on growing more neurons in your brain and repairing damaged ones you know and and that has to do with the brain derived neurotrophic factor and and other things that are made like serotonin in the brain when you're doing aerobic exercise so personally I love doing aerobic exercise for my brain the high intensity interval training I just really recently started getting into and I loved it like I super love it it's amazing I've been doing like a spin class but it's a high intensity interval spin class so we it's got the aerobic component to it and the high intensity pushes so you know we'll do you know either anywhere from 20 seconds to to a three-minute push and then we'll have like you know aerobic time we're recovering and we'll do that like you know a few times and it's just it's so amazing I feel so great after the class so it really instigated me to start to look into some of the health benefits know when you're doing something I want to know more about it you're motivated especially especially me yeah so I started reading up on it and
started reading up on it and high-intensity interval training been shown to well there are effects on the brain at you actually increase the production of several different neurotransmitters that are involved in learning and memory so so it actually helps if you're like gonna do it you have a test or something this has been shown in human studies to like read what you're gonna do and then do the exercise and then take the test so you're like help you basically helps helps you remember and like the the recall both the short-term and long-term recall which is very interesting but the other thing that's interesting and what I'm super super interested in because it has to do with aging and I'm obsessed with it longevity and aging is that it causes you to make new mitochondria and replace like old damaged mitochondria and mitochondria are those little powerhouses we're talking about earlier in the podcasts that have to do with making energy they basically are important for like every single function like pretty much almost so if you can make new young mitochondria like do it it's the it's it's good so high-intensity interval training has been shown could do that up to like like in young people it's been shown like 30 percent growth and older people likes up to sixty percent growth like after a high-intensity interval drought right so super super cool is there a point where you know I'm really interested in like getting into ultra marathons is there a point though where it's like too much and you start damaging your cells or yeah I mean I think there's definitely something a component to overtraining on discouraging like you know yeah I mean I think that if it comes down to like an ultra marathoner versus like a sedentary obese American on the standard American diet I would say ultra marathoner is like way more healthy right yeah so I don't want to compare it to like that but there there is evidence that like you know overtraining can can cause too much inflammation and you can't recover from that inflammation so you start to break down muscle tissue you start to break down you know you're just gonna do one yeah that would be cool I mean to say you did it and try it and yeah but
say you did it and try it and yeah but yeah I mean maybe just not every year something like that you know what is exerting fall into this I mean surfing is largely I mean I think it's it's got both I think it's got the aerobic and the high-intensity part because there are points where you are your ass off right I mean like you got a set coming and you're like hey I gotta go you know so I would say that it seems scared and you're totally scared right oh yeah totally terrified I would say that there's there's definitely I think there's a component of aerobic and anaerobic both you know cuz they're I definitely have I know many different times have paddled so fast when I'm just like there's no I am absolutely anaerobic right now cuz I'm like paddling for my life you know I would love to know like what goes on in your head when you're paddling to catch a wave like scientifically you're like I'm in aerobic I'm an aerobic okay no I'm in my robe of a it's like I'm actually nervous no surgery is one of those things where I shut down that part of my brain and I'm like in most for the most part I'm like in the moment as long as the surfs not super big and I'm like really terrified at least you know I think now because I haven't been surfing quite as often as I used to you know even ten years ago I'm a little more scared just in general because you know it takes a while yeah but but just speaking from experience I mean surfing to me for a long long time was like leave it on the shore and I just loved being out there and hanging out with my fellow surfer friends and just like being on the ocean and it just it was amazing I wonder if you have you ever done it have you looked into all the research coming out about just being in nature and what does that does for the brain I've read a little bit like not a super like I'm not an expert on that but it there there are studies for example comparing people that have gone for a run in the city versus a run in like nature and and looking there was various parameters that were measured like in terms of psychological function and behavior and mood and the nature runs by
behavior and mood and the nature runs by far were like there was they scored better on like all these different parameters of like mood anxiety so they had less anxiety even though they're both exercising doing the same thing you know the same amount of time and all that so yeah I mean there's definitely something to being out in nature that is sort of I don't know it's like fundamental like there's something going on there I'm gonna send you this book called the nature fix it's she studies a lot about the science of made oh cool really cool so let's talk about you like lately you're on Joe Rogan's podcast Tim Ferriss podcast you're talking to Nobel laureates Salk research scientists you know how did you get the wild idea to do what you do it just essentially explained really important things like health aging nutrition but to the masses I mean you study really deep scientific things and you're able to explain them to everyday people like how did you get the wild idea to do what you do well first of all thank you for saying that I'm able to explain it to everyday people because I don't oftentimes oh I wonder you didn't even use the word cell opto - - ss I really want you to talk about eight five doses just once because it's like my favorite word at dinner parties to act smart oh that's so it's funny story I should totally answer your question but tell us when I first met my husband at the time I had just started graduate school and I it was like a Friday night I was in the lab it was like 9: 30 10 o'clock and my friend was like we're going to this bar this is ridiculous we're know you know we're gonna go have a beer didn't want to but she convinced me so we like go to this local bar we're all like the cool kids go you know in Tennessee in Memphis Tennessee I went there and my husband at the time was not my husband came up to our table and just started randomly like asking me questions he's like what do you think about this ring does it make me look like I'm married it's on the other hand and I was just like what is this going on so anyways a conversation started and and I told him I was a scientist and he asked me what I studied and at the time I studied apoptosis but I was trying to
I studied apoptosis but I was trying to dumb it down for him because I liked it too no way this guy knows what apoptosis is so I was like well I study how cells die or how they don't die and he goes you mean up you mean apoptosis and that was it I was like oh blue-eyes Plus he's smart and so apoptosis has a really special place in my heart so for me finding jaudy was just he could catch a wave really well and then then you talked about nutrition didn't help but for you as a publicist I loved it well anyways to get back to your question about like how I started started on this journey where I you know have have a platform where I basically you know explain the science behind health and nutrition and aging and performance to people and started actually in graduate school we I found myself constantly talking to people friends family I call it talking I think they perceived as lecturing where it was like you know I cuz I care about them and yeah and they're just doing these terrible things and I was trying to explain I'm like but you need to like eat this way and you need to make sure you're getting enough vitamin D and you know and so fish oil and just all this and it got to the point where people I think they're kind of fed up and they felt like I was lecturing them and like I was you know so so they they kind of pushed back and at that point I realized I was like well this is something I'm very passionate about both on a personal level because I'm interested in my own well-being and trying to improve my own performance and also improve the way I age I also like the people like I that I care about I want them to also like be healthy like I don't want my mom to get Alzheimer's I don't want my friends you know to come down with cancer earlier than they need to you know so like I started a blog and at the time I was doing writing articles and that sort of led me into doing some videos and as I graduated from from grad school I had gotten my PhD I was interviewing for postdoctoral a postdoctoral research lab
postdoctoral a postdoctoral research lab to do research and which is kind of like you you know your continued training after you graduate sort of equivalent to what like a residency would be for an MD well I had done some interviewing and in one of the top labs I went to the the professor there had googled my name and saw that I was doing I had a web presence and he was kind of not happy about that because he didn't want my time to be he wanted all of my time and he didn't want me to do this other thing that I was passionate about and not kind of upset me so I even though everyone was pressuring me to go to that lab because it was like really famous and I would have been like a career path in for a scientist like the academic yeah way to go is to basically land a tenure-track position and a university where you basically have a lab and you teach and and that's like the greatest thing and it's really competitive and hard to do so did to do that you go into the greatest poem you do the greatest postdoc you can and that like sort of helps you get there right well I ended up doing a really great postdoc with with someone else who loved what I was doing I was like this is great you're getting important information out there so I continued doing that throughout my postdoc and then I was you know through the help of just getting on getting some exposure through people like you mentioned which really helped help me get exposure it sort of took off and at that point I had a crossroads where I was actually offered a tenure-track faculty position at a pretty good university at a place that I'd probably like to live and you know they wanted me to teach fifty percent of the time and so you know I was like well geez I wouldn't have any time to do found my fitness my podcast make videos you know do everything that I'm doing now and it was like kind of like what do I do and well I sort of took a step back and
and well I sort of took a step back and looked at some of the metrics of like putting out a YouTube video or a podcast where you know it can get anywhere between twenty thousand to three hundred thousand views and anywhere between 10 to 12 percent watch the whole like even hour-long video all the way through it's like that's a pretty large classroom you know as opposed to like 155 to 100 I feel like I my reach is a much more profound doing doing what I'm doing with found my fitness so I kind of took the risk and decided to keep doing doing what I'm doing and I've never regretted it not once I love what I do it is still a risk I mean I think every day it's not I mean it's always easier when you secure a position where you know there's there's other people that are more stable and and providing funds for you and allowing you to do what you're doing whereas when you're doing something all on your own it's a lot of pressure because you're the one right as you know so I've gotten more gray hairs this year than here yeah it's it's but but it's also so rewarding you know I mean I love education I love first of all I love researching all the stuff I research because it's like it's my passion and then on top of that I love sharing what I find with other people who don't have the skillset to research what I'm researching but but are interested in it people like your your fiancee Johnny right you know so you know there's that aspect as well so plus my husband is also really into it and he works with me and it's like we work really well together so we're a great team and so it's just like I feel like it's just win-win and I feel so very fortunate to be able to do it well it's great we love it we're so lucky you guys can check out her podcast found my fitness all of links in the show notes you know I've been with you in public when you've been recognized it's it's pretty funny because you a podcast but you your podcast is getting I mean you really help people because it talks
really help people because it talks about you know you talk about an important that that saves people's lives like I talked about adventure but an adventure can save people's lives but this really saves people's lives um any funny stories about like getting recognized or funny questions people ask you funny questions for sure with this time restricted eating where you eat within like a nine or ten hours I probably in fact I just got this question like last night no the night before last I've gotten at at least 20 times like brushing my teeth can I brush my teeth outside of my eating window and that I just think that's really funny that people are so gung-ho about it that they're like the little bit of toothpaste I may swallow is that gonna affect my fast you know that's so that's and another one would be smoking people ask about that as well but the toothpaste I just I think it's really funny that a large percentage of people are really trying to follow this time restricted eating and they want to make sure that toothpaste isn't you know so I basically say are you eating the tube between a knot okay this is so funny I'm sure people ask about smoking alcohol coffee yeah coffee is another one yeah coffee to another but that's not that's a lot more understandable the toothpaste one is what I would say is really funny so there's so much information right now about health and nutrition and Armand's how do we decipher like what we should listen to or not because it can be pretty confusing yeah it definitely is confusing and you know I I can't I don't really have a good answer how you can decipher it that's what I'm I'm trying to do that I'm sure there's other people out there trying to do the same you know so you know find a reliable source you know if you can always try to look for references and make sure the references are scientific studies and not blogs you know because that's good a blog there's a blogger and and not not that there aren't really smart bloggers out there but if they're getting all their evidence from other blogs and just you know media as
other blogs and just you know media as opposed to actual science then it may not be right it may not be accurate and without like chasing the scientific study to who's funding it yeah I mean that's that can be an issue for sure I I would say you know from experience for example like I've I've done in my postdoc clinical research where we had a study that was funded by the blueberry blueberry Foundation and it was a blueberry trial involved you know giving people blueberries and I didn't have like all the positive benefits we thought it was gonna have and it's not like we fudged the day there anything I mean just we came to the blueberry people like sorry didn't know you know and they weren't really happy about it so you know it's not like if if a foundation like that like for example blueberries or the dairy industry or whatever it's not always the case where if if a study was funded by that industry that it's like a bad study good however definitely it happens like with the sugar industry for example you know there's like a lot of evidence coming out now that like studies back and you know 50 years ago where we're not published when it was you know was showing that that refined sugar causes heart disease and that was sort of like muted it was not allowed to be published so you know it definitely definitely is something that is something to look for but you know I think that generally speaking if there's scientific consensus like if there's multiple studies showing the same thing even if one of the studies is found it was fun by a you know a foundation that's involved in whatever the study is if there's multiple studies showing it probably likely that there's something real there so we've come to the quick and dirty round okay cool what food what do you recommend just to never eat refined sugar like cake cookies I mean I would say stay away from it and what's your favorite food to eat for just nutritional benefits overall health longevity drachmas yeah broccoli sprouts are my micronutrient smoothie because micro nutrients are essential vitamins
micro nutrients are essential vitamins minerals fatty acids things like that so important for so many different things for aging so I like to like put in some kale chard a carrot you know a tomato I like broad spectrum maybe some blueberries you know an apple for you know taste because the kale and all that stuff can be a little bitter and blend it up and and sometimes that you almond milk or water and drink that but yeah broccoli sprouts if you want to learn they're just just you know you can Google Rhonda Patrick Broughton sprouts I've got like a video 45-minute video just breaking all it down for you it's it's pretty awesome I love it what's what's typical morning routine for you well now I've got a son so I think you know my morning routine is a little different than it was before before I was a mommy but typically I I really like to to wake up and get a workout in thankfully my mother comes over and watches watches my boy where while I do my might work out and so I like to do that and then you know I try to get some work done and of course the work is now interspersed between playing with my and trying to like enrich him my son but yeah so and then I like to get the smoothie in or broccoli sprouts and coffees in there as well so I love it um any other podcast you listen to well these days because my time is like incredibly crunched I haven't been listening to podcasts but when I was listening to them I really like radio lab like yeah like they're really good yeah that's probably my favorite podcast I also listen to Tim Ferriss show and Joe Rogan experience um books that have have helped influence you that you love or that you gift most often so unfortunately and I'm sort of embarrassed to say this like I hardly ever read books it's always reading
ever read books it's always reading scientific literature anims it's like so what's your favorite scientific method I mean so a book that I do recommend to people would be the good gut by Justin Erica Sonnenberg and right now I'm reading a book that's gonna be released in January by dr. Valter Longo who I've interviewed in my podcast before he's like he does a lot of them fasting and prolonged fasting he's called a longevity diet and it's really good I write night like I'm halfway through the book right now but um I really think that's the one that I'll recommend perfect cuz this podcast is coming out in January um any favorite what's your favorite piece of adventure gear you own oh my goodness Adventure Gear I don't need other surfboard what's your surfboard so I have a surfboard that was made forever let go it's um it was made for I was like quote-unquote sponsored you know by a total local like shape or his name was dawn Laughlin and I don't even think he's shaping boards anymore but I love my board he made it for me like we you know it's like it's one of those long boards that I can take out on bigger waves just because like the rails are punched in and it's like it's got like a great yeah and so I've had that board forever and I just love it so firewire surfboards Rhonda needs new board favorite kitchen tool oh my Blendtec blender nobody makes Blendtec I've got both I like I prefer the Blendtec because well at least maybe now there's a newer I think there might be a newer Vitamix for version out that is calm comparable but I can like walk away and not have to like stand there and like have my hand on it which is no less awesome tie task yeah advice that you would give to your 15 year old self I think you had to you went to a good school I went all girls school I went to yes I went to Our Lady of Peace Academy real lady apiece in Diego let's see I think I would probably the advice I would give my 15 year old
the advice I would give my 15 year old self is to tell myself that I am capable of achieving whatever I want and and not to let my insecurities hold me back and not to let financial hardships hold me back because it's amazing what humans can do and what they're capable of if if they work hard at something even if they don't have you know all the advantages that other people could have to get them where they want to go if they really work hard and and are passionate about something and want to achieve it it's amazing you can actually do it so many people don't realize that and I think it holds them back from taking for example the risks that you and I take and doing a podcast or doing you know going going out and doing something on your own and being sort of in charge of sort of making your own path and I think that my husband really played a role in help helping me believe that because it's not something I've always known for sure yeah so I think I would definitely make sure that my 15 year old self knew that that's a great advice any advice on growing your following I mean you've managed to grow your falling so big how did I don't even know how team Ferriss or Joe Rogan found you interestingly I'll say this I have been very fortunate and I feel extremely thankful that that I've been able to have that kind of exposure but um I actually just reached out to them on Twitter and had you know I guess interesting material that caught their attention that's that's so I mean it's great again I think advice would be you know like if you're doing something quality and you you're actually passionate about it and you you put in the work people will notice it I love that any advice to those who want to live more wildly advice to those that want to live more wildly well I mean and I'm not exactly sure how to answer that question you know I think
answer that question you know I think that can mean a lot of things for different people you know for me it meant leaving the typical academic career path that I was gonna do like I feel like what I'm doing is a little more wild so my peer science I love it so um like again I would say you know follow your passion you know risks or I think risk are important to take I mean obviously like you don't want to like be be too careless but you also don't want to like hold yourself back so again I think it goes to the my advice to my 15 year old self is really just following following what in your heart and in you know that you love and and realizing that you just put in the work and things start to work out like sometimes it doesn't happen immediately like I mean I've been at this since graduate school it took a long time before I started to have a following but I just kept doing it I kept doing it on the side on weekends and evenings you know because I had a full-time job being a graduate student in postdoc I was in the lab you know eight to ten hours a day a decade you've been working on yeah and and at weekends I would go to the coffee shop and work on found my fitness instead of going on a surf trips and stuff like me like well I mean I once in a while did but but I just kept chipping away yeah you know I think that that that's a great to follow if you've got a wild dream you want to follow and you're scared I think that you know if it's something that you love love doing go for it and work hard and and things will happen Oh Rhonda it's been such a pleasure thank you so much thank you she'll be really enjoyed it [Music] thank you so much again to Rhonda for coming down and sharing so much great information we'll have to go surfing again soon and if you want you can check out her recent podcast with Joe Rogan she talks a lot about being a mom and health hacks - mommy life so definitely check that out if you're interested in fasting we've done a few shows about it you can also check out one with dr.
you can also check out one with dr. Walter vlog Oh on a recent Kevin Rose podcast I hope you enjoyed this show and I'd love to hear from you you can write me just go to wild ideas worth living com let me know what you think and if you want to help this show grow what really helps is if you write a rating preferably five star on iTunes or Apple podcast stitcher Spotify over ever Ustream podcasts thank you again so much for listening to this show and thank you again to REI for sponsoring it if you want to get the gear you want to get outside hey classes are gone adventures check out REI comm we have some great shows coming up we have an ultra runner a National Geographic photographer the CEO of one of the best snowboard companies ever and so many more coming on in a few weeks and if you're at the Outdoor Retailer show coming up in Denver come say hi I'll be on the show floor all day speaking podcasting and generally running around wherever you are listening don't forget some of the best adventures often happen when you follow your wildest ideas we'll see you next week [Music] you
Transcript auto-generated by YouTube. Verbatim — duplicates intentionally preserved.
Performance is not only speed, output, or endurance. It is evidence that systems are working: mitochondria producing energy, muscles responding to load, blood sugar staying flexible, and the nervous system recovering between efforts.
Strength and aerobic capacity are among the clearest investments in future function. Muscle stores glucose, protects joints, supports metabolism, and gives the body reserve. Cardiorespiratory fitness expands the capacity to do work without strain.
Protein, micronutrients, fiber, and food quality shape the terrain for adaptation. The body cannot recover from training, fasting, heat, or cold without raw materials.
Sleep, sauna, downshift time, and thoughtful cold exposure help determine whether effort becomes adaptation. The pause is part of the performance.
The body adapts best when the challenge is deliberate and the return to calm is protected.
Train for capacity: strength, aerobic fitness, mobility, and recovery.
Build meals around protein, plants, and nutrient density.
Use recovery rituals to convert effort into resilience.
