with the trying times that we are in
that involve this pesky little
coronavirus i wanted to shoot this quick
video for you to give you
three things that you can do
to improve your overall wellness your
sanity and even your immunity as you
navigate this changing universe now i'm
not a doctor i don't want you to take
any of this as as medical advice but
these are just a few things that i think
are are prudent to do
so number one is many of us love to
exercise we love to beat ourselves up
but i would recommend that especially if
you're concerned about your immune
system or inflammation or possible
exposure that you shift to easier
restorative training versus
high intensity interval training
workouts or heavier weight training all
of these things produce a state of
inflammation which is great if you're
trying to get incredible shape but just
during this time it might be useful to
avoid things that contribute to the
inflammatory state that may mildly
suppress your immune system
and instead focus on deeply restorative
activities some of my favorites are
yoga and breath work in a sauna
meditation long walks in the sunshine
swimming hiking brief bouts of breath
work combined with cold immersion which
can actually improve the strength of
your immune system and even for weight
training or maintenance of muscle or
even building muscle
rather than very high intensity workouts
doing things like super slow training or
even using blood flow restriction bands
to do
body weight training and build or
maintain muscle without producing as
much inflammation so consider making
some slight alterations to your training
program and as research has shown is
also useful if you're in a sleep
deprived state instead of doing workouts
as one big long bout try to do little
mini workouts throughout the day which
is exactly what i've been doing i'm
throwing in little 20 to 30 minute
sunshine walks before lunch i'm starting
off the day with yoga in the sauna and a
quick cold plunge i'm finishing the day
with breath work and a little bit more
sauna and then throwing in some light
weight training or body weight training
in the afternoon over on my instagram
page this week at instagram.com ben
greenfield fitness i'm actually
revealing my entire weekly routine that
i'm using during this time so that's
number one is just be careful with the
hard workouts and make some alterations
to your training program
number two is to actually consider
including more of these so-called
compressed feeding windows or
intermittent fasting periods which can
help to clean up cellular junk within
your body via process called cellular
autophagy but may also help with the
immune system just like exercise
overdoing fasting or calorie restriction
can actually deleteriously impact the
immune system but brief bouts of fasting
meaning about 12 to 16 hours for you
fellas out there and around 10 to 12
hours for you ladies out there can
actually be really beneficial so two to
three square meals a day and then when
you quit eating at night try to wait
ladies about 10 to 12 hours before
eating again and guys about 12 to 16
hours and avoid lots of snacking in
between meals two things to ruthlessly
eliminate as you choose those meals to
really maintain yourself in a state of
low inflammation would be to be
incredibly cognizant of any exposure to
vegetable oils okay because these seed
oils can creep in they're highly
inflammatory they're not going to help
your immune system at all and then what
would be called acellular carbohydrates
which are carbohydrates have been
processed so a cellular carbohydrate
would be like sweet potato yam
millet amaranth quinoa etc whereas an
acellular carbohydrate would be
processed sugar uh something like a
white rice a very heavily packaged food
that has gone through a lot of
processing or milling or removal of some
of the nutrients from the actual
carbohydrate so choose whole food
carbohydrates and avoid vegetable oils
like the plague and combine that with
intermittent fasting windows that don't
involve a lot of snacking in between
meals i was actually reading a research
study today that shows that the ketone
bodies that are formed when you're not
snacking when you're not constantly face
stuffing can actually be helpful in
suppressing an inflammatory response and
assisting the immune system so that's
number two
and then number three even though the
research goes back and forth and there's
some controversy around the helpfulness
of something called ascorbic acid or
vitamin c on helping the immune system
it's not going to hurt you if you take a
vitamin c supplement or a large dose of
ascorbic acid it might cause some bowel
difficulties but it appears that vitamin
c has some pretty good antiviral
activity now
even if you're not using a high dose
vitamin c supplement i would actually
prioritize within your diet when you are
eating some very vitamin c rich foods
like i'm a huge fan of organic
cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and
cauliflower or broccoli sprouts for this
dark leafy greens like kale and spinach
within reason they're high in things
like oxalates etc but smaller doses of
those type of things
kiwis are amazing they can also help you
to sleep and improve melatonin and
another research study i was just going
through this afternoon shows the
combination of melatonin and vitamin c
is amazing as far as specifically
increasing your resistance to this
covid19 so kiwis have vitamin c in them
in really good amounts and also help you
to produce melatonins you could have for
example a couple of kiwis for dessert
after dinner and that'd be an amazing
little thing to throw into the mix a few
of the things to consider would be sweet
potatoes blueberries pomegranates
tomatoes and if you can get your hands
on some really vitamin packed versions
of animal meats particularly organ meats
like liver for example not only is that
giving you some immune boosting a and d
and e and some k but also a little bit
of vitamin c and some minerals as well
so to summarize make sure that you make
some adaptations to your training to
make it more deeply restorative make
sure you incorporate intermittent
fasting windows and avoid snacking
especially on sugars and vegetable oils
and then finally prioritize intake of
vitamin c rich foods so i hope this has
been helpful we're all in this together
and i also am of course available at
benggreenfieldfitness.com to help you my
book boundless is chock full especially
chapter 15 of tons more immune boosting
tips you can check that out at
boundlessbook.com and again i'm
releasing tons of tips workout ideas etc
over at instagram.com
ben greenfield fitness thanks for
watching and i hope this has been
helpful