Dr. Andy Galpin: Optimal Nutrition & Supplementation for Fitness | Huberman Lab Guest Series

[Music]

welcome to the huberman lab guest Series

where I and an expert guest discuss

science and science-based tools for

everyday life

I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and Ophthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine today's

episode marks the sixth and final of the

six episode series on fitness exercise

and performance and today's discussion

is all about nutrition and

supplementation to maximize your fitness

exercise and performance goals Dr Andy

Galpin I'm super excited to discuss

today's topic which is nutrition and

supplementation for performance and

recovery and I'm particularly excited

about this conversation because I've

been interested in supplementation and

nutrition for performance really since

my teens but also because in recent

years we've witnessed a massive

transformation in the general public in

terms of their view of supplementation

and nutrition first of all more people

are thinking about nutrition

what is good nutrition what is not a

very barbed wire topic as you know but

there are some truths in there that

we'll discuss but also supplementation

you know whereas 10 15 years ago I think

most people um would either be really

into supplements that was a small

percentage of people but the majority of

people were either told or were thinking

oh you know vitamins you mostly excrete

them they're just expensive urine

nowadays it seems that many people

including many of my colleagues and

Physicians all the way down to sports

performance experts

are taking and making recommendations

about certain supplements and so the way

that I like to think about supplements

is that they aren't necessarily just

supplements which makes it sound like

they are augmenting what should already

be there but you're not quite getting

enough of but indeed a lot of these

things we call supplements are very

potent compounds that can transform our

ability to perform in the short term to

recover from exercise and that can

really shape brain chemistry hormone

patterns acutely and when taken long

term so I'm very excited about today's

topic and to be able to try and sort

through this let's call it a cloud

hopefully not a storm but this cloud of

supplements that are out there because

indeed many of them are excellent and

can provide us a lot

some of them are terrible

and then some just don't do anything and

therefore are terrible because either

they have side effects or because

they're very expensive and they don't do

anything and then of course within the

realm of nutrition there's an equal

amount of of confusion but

that's why I'm talking to you because

you're going to put Clarity and

structure and definition on these

incredibly important topics you you

absolutely nailed it there one of the

major reasons supplements can work is

because you can consume nutrients in

extremely high concentrations such that

you would not get in nature through food

having said that

you really do want to focus on the basic

sleep nutrition hydration and I'm going

to get into very specific detail later

with some of those things that said

there are plenty of situations and

circumstances when supplementation can

do exactly what you said

also though because you are taking them

in such high concentrations

they can also be unproductive they can

be destructive or they can be

counterproductive so in case if you're

taking a couple of supplements over here

it may actually be counteracting the

benefits of some of the other

supplements over there so in the ideal

situation we would be able to work like

snipers here so we would be able to run

full biological testing so extensive

blood work and saliva and urine and

stool and have an in-depth analysis of

your gut microbiome and your stress

patterns and your time of day and your

cortisol curve and like all the things

that we do in our high performance folks

with that then we can get extremely high

Precision supplementation and and quite

honestly our philosophy is we only give

individuals exactly what they need so

even some of the standard uh generally

safe and effective supplements we don't

really necessarily use them if there's

no specific need we've talked about the

consequences of this with things like

antioxidants but even simple stuff like

stimulants and other tools that are

effective for Recovery we don't use them

unless we have a reason

that said that's not the reality for a

lot of people they're not going to be

able to do something like that or

somebody who can help them in that so

there are a handful of supplements that

I would consider to be in my my 80 20

rule which is sort of like the 20 of

supplements that are going to give you

80 of the benefit for the lowest cost

and so what I can actually do is just

sort of start there even though this

like burns my skin and my soul a little

bit I absolutely hate this I am the

context guy I'm the it it depends it's

high Precision guy but let's be real um

there are a number of supplements that

are fairly effective and fairly cheap

for a wide range of outcomes so this is

for general public this is for

people who want to do the three buckets

right you want to look a certain way so

supplements that could enhance muscle

growth and fat loss

non-hormonal based supplements of course

supplements that can improve energy or

physical performance again from

everything from you know squatting more

to feeling better in your yoga class to

having more energy throughout the day to

our third major bucket that we've been

talking about throughout this entire

series which are longevity so we can

cover those first if you'd like to start

there yes absolutely let's start there

oftentimes when we think of supplements

we immediately jump to High Sport

performance type of things or vigorous

workouts or muscle building though that

doesn't necessarily have to be the case

take for example creatine and I've

spoken about this at lengthens with

Darren kandow who's done a tremendous

amount of research I was just up at his

lab recently in Canada and he has

covered extensively in fact I think I

put up a post perhaps I could draw this

up um

where he laid out all the Myriad of

benefits of creatine this is taken in

the you know typically three to five

grams per day of dose of creatine

monohydrate which has the most research

behind it seems to be extremely low side

effects

in almost anyone and the benefits

including course things like muscle

performance and strength and things like

that and if you go back to our

discussion and our episode on metabolism

and endurance we talked about the

phosphoryl creatine system so you can

figure out kind of what this is going to

do in terms of effect that said there's

excellent information and data coming

out and all on the benefits of bone

mineral density and creatine there's a

ton of work looking at a host of

cognitive factors from memory executive

function

to effects potentially on even things

like depression

mood to alzheimer's Parkinson's uh

all forms of neurodegenerative disease

in fact it's it's pretty obvious the

brain loves creatine as a fuel and so

not only we sort of discussed in the

episode as being the fuel for skeletal

muscle contraction but the brain needs

to do that as well the astrocytes are on

the brain need to be able to provide

energy Etc so it's very clear that

metabolism in the brain is reduced with

things like TBI and potentially

concussions so

um now to be extremely clear

creatine does not prevent any of those

diseases it does not treat any of them

and the data are mixed but it's more and

more are coming some show a little bit

of benefits I'm showing you know maybe

none but I'm not aware of any research

in those areas that show it has any

downside

for the most part side effects are

extremely minimal if not null and then

potentially some benefit and depending

on the specific study so we could put up

a if you'd like a couple of links

directly to those meta-analyzes and

folks can go through those things one by

one so

um I only say that to again maybe expand

our understanding or thinking about what

these types of supplements can do it's

not just about growing muscle

or you know high performance it's

everything to again there's an

association with recovery so creatine is

fantastic for recovery for muscle for

muscle damage it helps and can

potentially Aid in fat loss and a whole

host of things so you can actually also

even look at websites like examine.com I

have you know no affiliation with them

whatsoever but if you want to just type

in something like creatine monohydrate

you can see a whole list and you're

going to see thousands of studies of the

potential benefits of creatine so that

is is always number one on my list I'm

relieved to hear that creatine sits at

the top of your supplementation list

because well first of all I started

taking it when I was in college at that

time I was taking it in this kind of

loading mode where you take it in um you

know anywhere from uh 15 to 25 grams per

day often causing some gastric distress

often combining with fruit juice to try

and shuttle it into the muscles sure and

then so-called maintenance phase of

reducing to 10 or 15 grams per day now

days I just take about five grams or so

although later I know you're gonna tell

me why I should probably be taking more

than five grams per day given my body

weight so I know we'll get into some of

those specifics a little bit later but

in addition to experiencing Direct

effects on muscle size and strength

which I did I don't know how it

contributed to my cognitive function or

if it does now because there's really no

way to tease that out with with standard

at home tests like a scale but

it is very clear to me based on the

literature that you described and some

of which we've covered on other episodes

of the podcast that the phospho creatine

system is vitally important for

forebrain function right the forebrain

of course being the the portion of brain

broadly speaking the portion of brain

just behind your forehead that is

responsible for planning action setting

rules and context so even as simple as

if you're going downfield in a game of

soccer or basketball and you're on

offense and then uh you make an attempt

on goal or basket and then it switches

and you go back now you're on defense

that being on defense is very different

than being on offense and that goal

excuse me that that rule switching is a

prefrontal cortical function as is every

context dependent way of thinking or

acting and so anything that can favor

function of the forebrain I think is

good for uh humans in general it

suppresses anxiety allows us to

interpret what's going on for us and so

I'm very

um relieved and gratified to hear that

creatine sits at the top of the list

also as I'm sure you'll point out again

later creatine is for the most part a

relatively affordable supplement for

most people so here we're not talking

about something that's really esoteric

or that you have to you know fly to some

remote location to get an infusion of

right um but although I apologize to all

you because I know the price has

skyrocketed recently really yeah why is

that I think it's just well nobody knows

but it's quote unquote Supply and uh

demand issue if you will so those prices

have gone up there's also of course been

shipping problems in the world and

things so uh every time I talk about

creatine right now people just flame me

for like oh my God it's so expensive now

I'm like I know I'm sorry but honestly

it's only so expensive because you're

used to being so cheap

so when you when you counter the fact

that you're like right yeah like

relative to the other stuff you're

probably taking relative to any other

number of purchases

um for the it still lands very high in

my Roi List my you know my 80 20 because

of that it's

um it can be taken any time of the day

it doesn't have to be in magical

combination you talked about

co-ingesting with carbohydrates that can

enhance uh how quickly you can get into

the system in fact it's it's going to

work on the exact same mechanisms will

probably potentially talk about

hydration but these things are shuttled

so anytime you bring in carbohydrate

that's going to

be shipped into tissue as quickly as it

can creatine then goes along super ride

and then it brings water into the right

that's how you enhance hydration that's

why it's important to have carbohydrates

when you're trying to hydrate so you're

just going to take it in there and

that's also why you get quote-unquote

cell swelling which is a good thing like

you're it's just enhancing hydration we

actually use it a ton in our post way in

protocols so and individuals that have

to cut water weight creatine is a great

thing to throw back in there it's going

to help you rehydrate it's also why when

you take 30 grams of it it can pull a

bunch of fluid in the intestines and and

there you go with your little bit of GI

distress so

um yeah there's a lot of fun things you

can talk about there I just had to flag

that because every time I've been

talking about it recently and I say it's

cheap people are killing me for it so I

apologize I don't know how to make it

any cheaper but it's still fairly fairly

affordable yeah I would say relatively

inexpensive compared to a lot of

supplements out there and when thinking

about the return on investment is um

it's quite good yeah so like actually

sorry it started to cut you out but I

was also thinking there's been a number

of studies on sleep deprivation as well

with creatine that can help so obviously

sleep deprivation will generally reduce

cognitive function and creatine can

ameliorate some of that drop so if you

think about it in that context I had a

crummy night of sleep well and if that

enables you to perform a little bit

better in your job then you would make

up the dollar or so whatever you paid

for that day's supply of creatine so it

is something kind of on that note

it's not going to work as an acute

response so it's not something you're

like I feel terrible let me throw some

creatine Down the Hatch I'll feel better

that's not going to work it's going to

take several weeks to have a noticeable

effect it needs to be stored in tissue

it needs to be built up before you can

actually do much of anything so it is

unlike some of the other things like

stimulants or caffeine that have an

acute you know response right now

and so if you're going to take it you

probably need to consume it consistently

if you can't do that then really there's

no point in doing it and the loading

phase you mentioned distance were here

is something you can do again if you

need to enhance the storage of it really

quickly so say for example

we've done this in some military cases

where it's like you get back to base and

you've only got a week and you got to go

back out we may actually have to do a

little bit of a loading phase then but

if that's not the case the loading phase

is unnecessary it's not really harmful

other than maybe GI stress and maybe

waste but you're going to have three or

four weeks it's going to reach full

saturation plenty of time to to be there

in that if you're in that three to seven

grams per day range I'm glad you

mentioned the slow accumulating positive

effects of creatine as compared to

so-called acute effects because the way

that I think of Health promoting and

performance enhancing protocols like

viewing morning sunlight or

um endurance exercise for that matter or

creatine

or sleep for instance is that while they

can have effects in the immediate term

you might feel a little bit or in the

case of a good night's sleep a lot

better it's really the accumulative

effect of raising your Baseline level of

functioning you know there's another way

to think about it is

um these

supplements or behaviors and quality

nutrition when done consistently over

time and that doesn't mean 100 of the

time but you know because probably 80 of

the time sure

lead to a sort of uh buoyancy in your

system that allows you to be more

resilient under conditions where

conditions aren't perfect right and if

conditions are made perfect or close to

perfect and you already have that

buoyancy that's when you really start to

see the ultra high performance effects

um that are so much fun but they have to

be established through consistent

supplementation consistent nutritional

intake so today I know we're going to

distinguish between uh normally they're

called chronic and acute effects but

that makes it sound like chronic illness

the moment people hear chronic well they

might think of other things but but in

the context of Health they typically

think of you know chronic illness and

we're not talking about that what we're

talking about is slow modulatory effects

in the body a lot of things in the body

take time to build up but once they've

built up they they clearly can benefit

us and then other things as you

mentioned you know a stimulant for

instance has a very acute effect that

it's going to occur with you know Peak

within 30 minutes and wear off within

you know four hours or so can also have

some chronic effects but typically it's

a short-lived effect so we just want to

frame up the the language that we'll be

using and I'm really excited to dive

into this topic and I think creatine is

a beautiful example of a supplement that

has positive chronic mental and physical

benefits down the road I can come back

and talk a little bit more about

creatine and we can cover some other

information regarding best practices for

for getting the most out of it as well

as we'll certainly dive into some of the

common side effects or at least a

thought of side effects while we're here

though I also could throw in a few other

of these high impact low-cost generally

safe things that are my 80 20 rule if

you will so the way I actually kind of

think about it is you want one from each

of three categories and these categories

are fuel

stimulants

and fatigue blockers so creatine is

actually in the fuel it's not a

stimulant as we talked about The Chronic

effect there so we've already knocked

that one off another one from the

fatigue blocker

is going to be anything like beta

alanine or sodium bicarbonate and then

from the stimulant yeast of course we

have anything like a beetroot juice to a

caffeine or something of the equivalent

so we can come back again and talk about

all those in more detail a little bit

later before we begin I'd like to

emphasize that this podcast is separate

from my teaching and research roles at

Stanford it is also separate from Dr

Andy galpin's teaching and research

roles at Cal State Fullerton it is

however part of our desire and effort to

bring zero cost to Consumer information

about science and science-related tools

to the general public in keeping with

that theme we'd like to thank the

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start off I want to ask you about

something that as soon as I say it some

people might roll their eyes or wonder

why are we even talking about that now

but that I have to believe is among the

more fundamental if not foundational

aspects of nutrition and supplementation

for performance and that's hydration

right I mean I think we hear hydration

it's like okay we have to drink six to

eight glasses of water every day our

urine should be relatively clear if it's

too dark yellow we're not doing a good

job of hydrating enough

how much of that is true

um is alkaline water worthwhile for

changing the alkalinity of my body I

learned when I was in college and

graduate school that the alkalinity of

the different tissues in your body is

very well controlled in order to keep

you alive and that you don't want it to

shift too much or you can enter pretty

horrible states of seizure vomiting and

even death so

tell me about hydration and woven into

that if you would

educate me on electrolytes and hydration

because I think most often when people

ingest electrolytes sure they could be

ingesting salt tablets

they're probably getting some

electrolytes by the way electrolyte

sodium magnesium potassium

through their food I think most people

think about drinking electrolytes so

water and electrolytes I think is a

vitally important topic to kick this off

with sure we can jump right into your

alkaline water while there's perhaps

much to say about this we can

maybe revisit this in another seven part

series all on its own uh I would just

say it this way

there's probably a few things you should

do before worrying about the alkalinity

of your water and I'll just leave it at

that

meaning the alkalinity of the water is

sort of irrelevant not that you won't go

that far is just it's probably remember

we started started off talking about 80

20. well this would be in my like 99 one

in terms of like if we're really at the

level of worrying about the pH of your

drinking fluid we have optimized so many

other things that then we can talk about

it but until we have nailed months and

years of work on other things this is

just not going to make much of an impact

great then perhaps you could tell us

about what volume of water we should be

drinking when we should be drinking that

water relative to training and just

generally and

um yeah and anything else relate to

water and electrolytes that can improve

mental Performance Physical performance

and offset any you know ill effects I

like the fact that you mentioned

physical and mental performance because

it's clear in both cases we hear that we

need to drink more water and I can give

you some numbers and I will in a second

what we also need to recognize is

there's this is hormesis we talked about

hormesis a few episodes ago and this is

the case right whether we talked about

food or hydration or I think I gave you

the example of cyanide

naturally occurring in your food hot

water is the same way so if you are

under hydrated or dehydrated then there

is a clear negative effect on your body

and as I increase the level or improve

the level of hydration things get better

whether this are physical performance or

whether this is mental performance in

fact we know that a body weight

reduction of as low as two percent via

dehydration so imagine you're doing a

bout of exercise and you're sweating and

you lose two percent of your body weight

that alone is enough to reduce accuracy

and performance so the classic study we

talk about here was in basketball

players so shooting accuracy so free

throw shooting I think is specifically

what they looked at

significant reduction in performance

with as little as two percent

dehydration that that level you also see

a significant increase in perception of

difficulty of exercise and so only right

at two percent

and again when I say two percent I mean

percent body weight lost right that's

what that means you start getting the

three four five percent dehydration you

start having a significant reduction in

blood volume and that's incredibly

important for endurance

um your blood becomes viscous it gets

hard to pump through

um and you're going to start having all

kinds of issues so being dehydrated is

again not only going to reduce

performance but because of the mental

aspect which we just walked through and

neuromuscular issue you're going to lose

accuracy you're going to lose total

endurance performance and you're going

to lose speed and power so we have the

Triad there no matter what you're

interested in it's going to be harmed by

being dehydrated that also is happening

then if you're starting your program

dehydrated so if you're already one

percent or so dehydrated maybe you're

like a little under hydrated and you

lose a little bit of sweat you've

already hit that two percent and so

we're starting to see reductions um in

performance there the same happens on

the other side of that hormetic curve so

if you are optimally hydrated in some

large window

but you start going past that we can

start running into equal problems

remember there's a there is a need for

an optimal concentration of sodium and

potassium and chloride between your cell

inside your cell and outside your cell

these are electrolytes this is what we

call osmolality and osmolarity is really

going to think of it like concentration

and osmosis if you remember those terms

so if we are trying to create a muscle

contraction that requires an electrical

gradient and so sodium and potassium

specifically in magnesium calcium are

positively charged and chloride is

negatively charged and we need to have a

certain amount inside the cell and

outside the cell so that the positives

and the negatives are balanced

appropriately so that when we move one

we change the voltage and we have in the

case of a muscle contraction

okay I just came through a whole lot of

physiology there to say if you then go

mess with fluid only and you say if I

were to give you a bolus of you know

three liters of pure water right now

you're going to dilute your blood and so

there's not going to be as many chemical

uh there won't be as many electrical

signals in there because you've taken

the same amount of sodium potassium Etc

and put it in a larger volume of pure

water so that gradient has now changed

that becomes a significant problem

for contraction I mean quite literally

it can kill you this is what we call

hyponatremia so notremia spelled n a

hypo being low

hyponatremia if you actually go to the

Periodic Chart n a is what we use for

sodium so hypernetes because the word is

natremia actually so that what that

literally means is low sodium and you

didn't get that from sweating out all

your sodium you actually get

hyponatremia from drinking in too much

water so it's not that the total amount

of sodium gets low it's the fact that

the concentration gets low from

excessive fluid intake so in the

Extremes in fact if you look at the

literature you'll see anywhere between

like two to fifteen percent of people

who finish endurance races are are into

hyponatremia now that varies wildly if

you're doing Iron Man and Kona versus

like you know the marathon in Denver in

in October right it's going to be

totally different depending on weather

conditions but these are all important

so while like death happens that is sort

of extreme if you back up just a little

bit you start seeing the same types of

performance sacraments in fact the

symptoms can be identical brain fog

confusion performance uh irritation a GI

distress and you think man these are

symptoms of dehydration so then you

drink more water and you're just

exacerbating the problem and I can

actually

um give you one little example of this

we had an executive actually female CEO

uh I'll say she's probably when I was in

her early 40s

and so she came to us and she thought

man for sure she has some sort of gut

problem going on because we hear a lot

about kind of like gut health and how it

affects everything and so she's just

like I have brain fog and I've done all

these things and I got blood work done

and everything's fine like nothing's

going on I think I must have some sort

of gut thinger going on or whatever and

it's okay and we just started going

through her stuff and uh she was I think

about 170 pounds plus or minus and she

was consuming like 250 to 60 ounces of

water a day

that's a ton of water and we were like

holy what are you doing this for

and she says like that's sort of like my

thing it was but she didn't realize it

was more of like a nervous tick than it

was anything else right she just like

sips of sip sip sip water I'm like man

how often do you go pee and she's like

yeah like every you know 30 minutes or

something I'm like fantastic sleep

problems focused and so she's smashing

caffeine she was at like eight cups of

coffee a day which is also going to add

to excretion of sodium

totally right

so it's like okay we don't really need

to come in and run a sleep study on you

we're just going to lower your water and

she was like what yeah we dropped her

down to like 180 so basically an ounce

per pound of body weight which is still

high because she did train 180 ounces

correct yeah she does work out so she

needed to replenish some stuff and we'll

cover these numbers in a second

instantaneously I mean like two days in

she's like oh my God I haven't slept six

to eight hours in years and then after

that it was like basically tears coming

back to us right my focus my brain fog

is gone because she's in a very high

pressure job

um it's like everything's coming back

like now she was down to three or so

cups off a day like the whole thing

digestion improved all of it she was

sick like to her only problem after all

the analyzes was she was just drinking

way way too much water and adding more

salt to her

would not have solved the problem

because she would have just had simply

way too much fluid in her system she was

having all kinds of ADH problems and

aldosterone like the whole thing and

then that that rolls into cortisol

the whole like system gets goes into

chaos so it is important that you pay

attention hydration even though as you

sort of mentioned people tend to just

kind of like roll their eyes around it

because if you're in the middle it's

fine but if you're anywhere past not

even the extreme extremes but just that

first standard deviation away you're

going to have problems and you might be

thinking adrenal fatigue you might be

thinking you're testing like you're

going to think all these things and you

simply just haven't actually dialed in

your hydration yeah uh I think people

sometimes roll their eyes at the

discussion of hydration because it just

doesn't sound very sexy it's not like

doesn't sound like a neurotransmitter or

a hormone it doesn't sound like

testosterone or estrogen or DHEA or

dopamine but it actually is all of those

things it sits at a level beneath all of

those but not beneath on a hierarchy

beneath in in terms of a foundation it's

actually the without

proper electrolyte balance and hydration

none of the cells of the body can

function and then I think people also

hear that oh you know we are 70 water

and somehow like it that statistic Alone

um or that fact alone doesn't seem to uh

stimulate any kind of action will take

away right it's like great you know uh

like gravity also you know keeps us you

know from jumping his eyes we like you

know what do I do and so I think

um it's it's important that people

understand that every cellular process

in the body critically relies on having

enough sodium magnesium potassium around

and the the way that it's concentrated

in fluid water is really the way that

you allow every cell in their body to

function as well as it possibly could

and respond to all the sorts of kind of

quote unquote High Performance Tools

that we're talking about the other thing

I've observed many times over is that if

people are ingesting too much water and

also drinking a lot of caffeine and

their electrolytes are low they get

shaky and they actually can have anxiety

like symptoms so when people come into

my lab to do studies on anxiety and fear

we ask a few questions and those

questions include how much water they've

had that day also a sort of bizarre fact

but one that I think is worth mentioning

is that when the bladder is full it

stimulates a sort of anxiety if you ever

had to urinate very badly and you're in

the car or you can't urinate and then

you get to the door like that's talk

about anxiety

um and that's because there's a direct

neural pathway from the bladder that

registers the mechanosensors how much

stretch there is on the bladder that

sends a signal to the brain stem

alertness

areas broadly speaking Locus ceruleus

and others that wake us up these are the

when we're awake it makes us more awake

and when we're asleep this is what wakes

us up to urinate in the middle of the

night yeah that's actually why you can

use uh night urination as a pretty good

diagnostic of sleep disorders

so if because of vasopressin right

almost exactly what you're talking about

if you're having sleep disorder issues

and you're staying awake and a

vasopressin gets taken off right an APN

goes straight to the kidneys your

kidneys are supposed to be dormant

basically at night you're not supposed

to be filtering a lot and producing a

lot of urine at night if that's

happening and say you you have any

number of apneas kicking on or anything

going on vasopressin keeps going keep

sending signal kidneys start filtering

so if you're waking up and peeing

multiple times a night that's called

nocturia that is a very very good sign

that either one of two things happen you

one you have some sort of sleep disorder

or two you're drinking outrageous

amounts of water and so that's actually

a bit of a backward cycle now right

because you're drinking way too much

water you're waking up and peeing all

night that's actually ruining your sleep

and so we have seen this a number of

times with our sleep company as we go in

and it's just like you don't need any of

this crap you just need to be properly

hydrated alternatively if your hydration

is sound and you're still waking up more

than one time a night to pee on average

then you almost well I shouldn't say

like that but there's a potential that

you actually have some sort of sleep

system or sleep condition going in so

the rule of thumb on that is so we're

here once or night once a night or so of

urination is fine if it is routinely or

consistently more than two you need to

make some adjustments start with

hydration it's the simplest way right

getting a full sleep study done just

figure out hydration we've had this

happen

a number of times where people want to

get more health conscious and they just

get they hear things like this and

they're like I gotta get on my water and

then they just start train wrecking

their sleep and then waking it up so if

you're waking up multiple times and

you're urinating and it is a large

amount of urine for you and it is clear

that's probably not sleep apne induced

noctria that's probably excessive

hydration if you're waking up a bunch of

times and it's fairly small amounts of

urine then it's probably not the fluid

issue it's probably the fact that the

vasopressin is kicking your kidneys into

gear so that's not a perfect criteria

but it's just like a quick little tool

you can sort of use that's actually one

of the reasons why we measure almost

always your body weight at night

as well as in the morning so that that's

like the combat sport in the UFC

fighters boxers we call that your float

so how much you floated overnight I like

to know that number because I want to

know as well your first morning void so

when you wake up then you went to bed at

200 pounds you woke up the next morning

at 195. it's like oh you floated five

pounds

did you pee last night yeah yeah three

times

interesting another case you woke up you

went to bed at 200 pounds you wake up at

199.5

okay you're dehydrated because you

should have a a certain amount of fluid

that you're just Whispering out as

you're breathing throughout your nose

throughout night ideally uh guaranteed

you're gonna wake up what was your urine

like oh yeah a little bit pretty dark

like shocker you're dehydrated so you

can kind of look at numbers like that a

general float is something like a pound

to two pounds for the 170 plus pound

person as you scale up that number then

go up a little bit but you can kind of

use these to triage a little bit about

what's going on

um with this kind of combination

everything is everything right so it's

like it's not just about one system so

you're gonna pay attention you can also

look uh well I don't if you don't jump

into it we can but there's a whole bunch

of ways I can teach you to diagnose

hydration and maybe we can start there

and then we can talk about hydration

numbers yes I'd love to talk about

diagnostics for hydration over hydration

dehydration

to start off would you be willing to

give us some numbers how much water

should we be drinking the classic rule

here and you're making me do what I hate

right I want to give all the caveats

first but I'll go straight to your

number half an ounce per pound of body

weight is a rough rule so if you weigh

again 200 pounds that would mean you

drink 100 ounces of water a day most

water bottles are like 12 to 20 ounces

something like that so you know you end

up drinking six of those or so a day

kind of like plus or minus which is not

that unreasonable

this does depend on a number of factors

which I could go over but that is a

rough starting place the only other

thing to add to that is that does not

account for exercise induced water loss

or sauna or anything like that so that's

assuming just like basal daily needs if

you are exercising or sweating at all

for any reasons or work related so folks

that work outside are in the Heat or

a human environment these numbers all

change and you can slide this scale up

but you generally want to drink about

125 percent

of the fluids you've lost during that

physical activity back and how much do

you lose per hour of exercise that

number ranges between one to five pounds

depending on the person it can even be

higher with some of our athletes like I

can think of a number of NFL players

right now it's not uncommon for those

guys to do eight or nine pounds even not

even like crazy circumstances if it's

August and we're in Jacksonville

it's not wild for us those guys go nine

ten pounds but what about the typical

person who goes to a air-conditioned gym

or goes out for a run on a day that is

somewhere between let's say 55 degrees

Fahrenheit and 85 degrees Fahrenheit

you're probably looking at like a pound

it's not extremely high if you are

totally soaked

might be like a pound and a half to two

pounds if you're like come back and like

your pits are a little sweaty and

there's a little bit of water kind of on

your neckline it's probably like a more

like a pound or so so in that case you

might drink back a pound and a half of

water okay so just to review these

numbers to make sure that I'm

on the correct page here

a half an ounce of fluid per pound of

body weight is a sort of a foundation

for hydration

and then

you want to replace a hundred and twenty

five percent of the fluid lost during

exercise and exercise

varies where exercise is done varies

whether or not people are wearing

uniforms or helmets is going to impact

how much fluid they lose Etc

in a very hot environment that the

amount of fluid lost can be anywhere

from you know one to five maybe even ten

pounds easy per hour of hard hard

exertion for most exercise done in

conditions of 55 degrees Fahrenheit to

72 excuse me 85 degrees Fahrenheit done

with some degree of effort one might

lose a pound or or two pounds of water

super easy way to find out all you have

to do is weigh yourself naked

go do your workout come back in dry off

weigh yourself naked that'll tell you

exactly what you lost so if you went in

you were 160 pounds you come back out

you wait you're 158 you lost two pounds

drink back two and a half pounds of

water you're good so that is uh is that

honestly it's like fairly gold standard

for identifying you can actually buy a

whole bunch of technology for this and

they are using the exact same equation

which is your body weight

when you were there now if you do that

though you do need to account for any

fluid you drink during the workout sure

because that then offsets it

simple but I think important question

we're talking about a half an ounce of

fluid per pound of body weight does that

include things like coffee tea soda

pre-workout drinks mid-workout drinks uh

mate matcha whatever the you know

there's a yerba mate there's a there are

a million things out there

um or just

water any fluid for the most part is

going to count

and is it true that fluids that contain

caffeine

generally cause us to secrete sodium

yeah

okay so do you recommend including

electrolyte powder or a small pinch of

sodium or any number of other supplement

type electrolytes that can replace that

sodium magnesium and potassium a couple

of things we have to pay attention to

accurately answer that question

well you also sort of asked about you

may have not even realize is does

caffeine actually enhance dehydration

which is not really what you asked but

it's probably a lot of people thought

that as well so caffeine can

but coffee doesn't necessarily do that

because remember you're co-ingesting

that with fluid and so uh we used to say

that all the time how coffee dehydrates

you it doesn't it might make your urine

yellow that certainly gives off a odor

in your urine but in general coffee will

not do that because you're just if you

were to now be taking caffeine pills

alone now there is a bit of a diuretic

effect there and so you're going to year

and how much

maybe not enough for you to be really

concerned with especially when you

balance that against the ergogenic

effects and benefits of caffeine it's

not something we are concerned about

second part of your question do you need

to then offset the loss

of sodium I'm not super concerned about

the amount of sodium lost to caffeine I

am more concerned about simply the

amount of sodium being correct

because of the bigger circumstances like

how much is actually in your system and

how much you lost

in the training session so it's not the

caffeine that I care about that much

relative to you know if you lost three

grams of sodium because of the training

and you added another few milligrams

because the caffeine I don't really care

or didn't I'm glad you brought up the

difference between a substance like

caffeine and the vehicle It's contained

in like coffee this is all really

important and it also raises a question

about individual differences in sweating

ability and I call it sweating ability

because I have a good friend I've known

for ages really

um actually work with him in my

laboratory as well and he's one of these

people that the moment he starts any

physical activity it's like a flood

warning right he just soaks through

clothing it's just the sweating

adaptation is is exceedingly robust in

him other people less so so is it true

that sweating in our ability to dump

heat through it by loss of water is

something that um we tend to vary on and

that also that we can build up that

capacity I know a number of people are

probably thinking ew gross why would I

want to sweat more but there's actually

a huge advantage to be able to dump body

heat during exertion because body heat

in some ways sets the cap for

performance a lot many many ways

including mental performance

is stay alert often is enhanced by being

cold and of course we all want to warm

up properly but

um in terms of loss of fluid through

sweating is there a way to easily bin

ourselves into kind of a low sweater

medium sweater heavy sweater that sounds

like an article of clothing but in any

case you know what I'm you know man

another a lot to say here we should wish

we had a whole series on this listen if

we have to go 17 hours we can do it just

everybody hydrate well I think we've

shown the listeners uh that is a real

threat

that's a very real threat podcasting to

failure you don't have to do every set

in the gym to failure but here we are

attempting a podcast failure in it in

all seriousness

um what what is the role of

sweating ability and is this something

that any of us should care about or

train for or pay attention to or is this

just kind of getting into the Arcane

number one you can train your ability to

sweat this is important for heat

acclimation and why that matters when

you sweat that actually is not what

regulates your temperature uh you what

you want to have happen is the fluid to

hit your skin and that to be evaporated

that's the actual mechanism so in fact

if you stop sweating and like you can

guarantee within a short amount of time

you're going to be done moving oh very

interesting I hope people heard that and

really are are highlighting that in

their mind that sweating is a process of

bringing fluid from your body onto the

surface of your skin and then the heat

dumping aspect of sweating is the

evaporation of that off off your body

which brings to mind all sorts of ideas

about how to dress during exercise Etc

but what you said is that if you are not

sweating enough you are limiting your

output capacity so it's not just about

having enough fluid to switch wet yeah

it's also about being able to sweat and

being uh

dressed appropriately to allow that

sweat to move to evaporate off your body

yep and heat acclimation training is as

simple as it sounds so just practice it

more so if you're going into a process

where you either need to be in a hot

environment or you need to improve your

sweat rate you just need to practice

sweating and your body will get compared

to that I practice the sauna practice a

Jacuzzi just get in those things and you

will improve your ability to do that now

there is a huge genetic component I have

one individual actually a UFC fighter

I've been working with and I don't mind

mentioning his name he'll give me full

permission Scott Holtzman many many

years

um

he's actually fighting right now

actually today he'll be going he is like

he he is like you described like buckets

and buckets and buckets of fluids come

off this guy when he's tying his shoes

like he just goes right like and we've

we've improved that I actually sweat too

much we worked on that a lot early in

his career and we got some improvements

down to get him to hold on to the fluids

better that being said I've worked at

the other individuals in his weight

category and it's the opposite right so

we can have them literally do the exact

same training session together and Scott

will dump six pounds and other folks at

his size will dump two two and a half so

there's a genetic component that is just

there and you don't need to worry about

it there

um so can you identify if you are

a heavy salt sweater or not well you

have a whole bunch of routes for this

number one is you can use the old free

cost free test of just looking at your

clothing and if you're seeing that white

residue all over it so you've you've all

have the friend who probably wears that

same baseball hat that they've had for

eight years if it is covered in the

white junk all over the place that's a

sign of a higher salt sweater if the

opposite happens and it's like you can

pull their clothing back and there's

just nothing there they are maybe a

little bit of a lower salt sweater you

can also

use any number of hydration tests I know

that there is some coming out in the

market very very soon that can give you

theoretically real time

measurements it's like a CGM would be

although I haven't seen any data on if

those are accurate or not I haven't used

one yet but there are a number that are

out super cheap you know 10 15 20 bucks

all the way up to a couple hundred

dollars you can buy these patches put

them on you and get a reasonably close

estimate and again if those things are 5

or 10 or 20 off I don't know I have to

see independent data come out first but

even if they are you're not worried

about the specific milligrams right

whether you sweat out you know 1250

milligrams in a workout or if it's 1340

it doesn't really matter you're trying

to look for big big numbers right are

you losing 500 milligrams using three

and a half grams while you're at so

those things will get you in a ballpark

to do exactly what you decide am I high

medium or low and there's a lot of them

that I've used in the past so

that that's another way to go about it

then what you want to do is probably

match your electrolyte intake to

something close to what you sweat that's

the ideal scenario you can get a lot of

information about hydration from blood

you can look at like acute markers of

dehydration like hemoglobin hematocrit

if you're like if your hemoglobin is

like 15 plus

it's funny we've talked about this in a

few episodes before but I see that and

I'm like man that dude's super fit

that's like a 15 uh for him would be

pretty high 14 or so would be pretty

good for a female that's also the exact

same thing as a sign of acute

dehydration

um so hematocrite same thing if you're

north of 50 you're probably dehydrated

so you can get a lot there are also

though a lot of biomarkers that can tell

you more about chronic dehydration so

you can run through those things as well

so good blood chemistry test can tell

you a lot and you can actually get some

insights in your sodium and potassium

albumin is another fantastic way to

measure longer term uh hydration status

now one of these amazing globulins that

we've sort of talked a lot about

so you can do all those things you can

also simply measure the body weight pre

and post and use a sweat patch or not

and use the the Freer version of your

clothing test and get a rough idea of

where you're getting it from so

those are good places to start

I want to go back though and make sure I

wasn't over terrifying the audience too

much on a server piece if you're

performing a type of training or

exercise or sport in which you're not

losing more than two percent of your

body weight you don't need to be overly

concerned about hydrating in the sport

and so we can actually get into

some equations for how much water to

drink during training right now but if

you if you're again losing less than

that it's not critical you can have some

fluids it like makes you feel better but

you're not going to be experiencing

tremendous amounts of performance

sacraments if you're you know again out

playing a baseball game and is 50

degrees out you're fine um you can drink

some water but that's not going to be

compromising performance or recovery so

we can actually then if you'd like I can

go through the three-step system for

optimizing hydration but those are I

want to make sure I planted that flag so

people aren't just terrified that they

got to be guzzling down water if they're

you know going to their physical

therapist for some stretching that's

probably not super important I'd like to

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special offer I would love for you to

tell us what I refer to as the Galpin

equation understanding of course that

you did not name it the Galpin equation

listen folks scientists can have things

named after them but in general it's not

reflective of healthy psychology if they

name things after themselves correct

sometimes yes neuroanatomists used to do

that but in any case Dr Andy Galpin did

not name the Galpin equation after

himself I named it after him and the

Galpin equation for how much fluid to

ingest during exercise is

you want to take your body weight in

pounds and divide that by 30 and you

want to consume that number which would

be in ounces about every 15 to 20

minutes so in the example of you being

200 pounds you would take 200 divided by

30 which is let's just call that number

seven to be close which means you would

consume about seven ounces of water

every 15 or 20 minutes or so okay now as

a little bit of a point while I also did

not name it I also didn't do the

research it's important to point out

that other scientists figured these

things out I just read their papers and

made that derivation of their equation

to make it a little bit easier for us

folks who do not work on the metric

system okay a couple of things first of

all I'm not 200 pounds but it doesn't

matter how much I weigh because the

point is that the listener

correct should take their body weight in

pounds divided by 30 in just that number

of ounces in fluid every 15 minutes and

then for those out there outside the US

that are accustomed to thinking in

milliliters and liters not ounces and

kilograms not pounds

what is the Galpin equation in the

metric system this would be two

milliliters per kilogram

which again if you were let's say 200

pounds that's going to be something

roughly like we'll call it 90 kilos

and so if you did two milliliters per

kilo you'd be something like 180

milliliters of fluid again every 15 or

20 minutes

great and how should people ingest that

fluid and of course I would imagine it's

through their mouth um I would hope I

hope there are other orifices that it

might suffice but let's not go there

they're drinking that water consistently

or is it every 15 minutes they Slug it

back does it matter okay yeah that's

very good a handful of things

in general when you talk hydration the

slower and steady you can go the better

in fact the reason these this two

milliliters per kilogram number came out

is because a number of Trials were run

when they looked at that every 15

minutes just one bolus of it you know

um in different derivations and it's

pretty clear that the slower Pace one

could do it the better so whether you're

doing it every 10 minutes or 15 or 20

minutes the reason we actually give that

Gap is because you have to be also

offset a little bit of GI distress in

fact like kind of the the four golden

rules of recovery if you will

um we use sort of three R's you need to

rebuild rehydrate and replenish what

that really means is you need to have a

continuous glucose stream

you need to have a continuous amino acid

stream you need to hydrate and you need

to do all one two and three without

disturbing your gut too much

and so in this particular case

it was sort of found that we can hit

that level in general

and be just fine for most people so I

mean a little bit of context the example

we gave there in both cases it's

something like six to seven ounces for

15 or 20 minutes if you think about that

there's 16 ounces in a pound

and most water bottles like if you go

buy a water bottle in a store here it's

they generally come in like 16 ounce

bottles ish so six or seven ounces is

really like a third

of a water bottle Maybe

every 15 or 20 or so minutes so it's not

some egregious amount of water that you

have to slam down now that is influenced

heavily by how hydrated you started the

session with so how high are you came in

external factors like heat humidity

temperature things like that but that

gives you a rough idea that again and

these are numbers that you would need to

consume to optimize performance

at the end of that then is when you

would look to see how much I lost like

we talked about earlier

and then add back that 125 percent

taking into account how much fluid you

ingested so if you're 200 pounds and you

drink a total of say a pound of water

during the training and you started off

at 200 and you finished at 198.

you actually lost three pounds

not two pounds because you lost three

you drank one during it so your final

net number is two so now you don't you

really need to drink back 125 of that

remaining two pounds

two and a half pounds something like

that these numbers especially that 125

are they're just rough guidelines some

actually papers suggest it's all the way

up to 150 percent

so it's just like an idea don't measure

out whether you need 5.5 ounces or 6.2

ounces like it just sort of gives you an

idea of where to start all right a few

sips every 15 or 20 minutes is close

enough

I've actually started using uh the

Galpin equation to determine how much

fluid I need for mental work given the

now robust data that are out there on

the relationship between hydration and

mental work it's

um been very effective for me and again

there are peer-reviewed studies that

that support the idea that hydration is

important for proper mental Clarity and

energy and focus and that even being

slightly dehydrated can disrupt that but

if one is drinking so much water that

they're frequently going to the restroom

and can't comfortably uh focus on the

work they're doing that's also an issue

so

um that's very helpful what are the

three most critical features of

hydration and then I'd like to move on

to

um some of the more particulars about

supplementation and nutrition three

parts start hydrated

maintain hydration throughout

part three is hydrate post to fix it

okay we gave you the half ounce per

pound of body weight equation so you

start the training hydrated we gave you

the

you know two milliliters per kilogram

slash body weight divided by 30.

to stay hydrated let me give you the 125

but I can actually just give you sort of

I'm giving you another list here I'm

sorry but it is my five-step cheater

guide

for optimizing hydration for performance

all right step number one drink a lot of

water first thing in the morning this

gets everything kickstarted get you

going it also saves you from having to

drink a bunch of water at night which is

then going to compromise your sleep

what's a lot depending on how big you

are the general thing I'll tell people

is like one of the very first things you

should do throughout your day you wake

up

go to the bathroom as you're consuming

your sunlight consume water this is

maybe chugging a full glass that's

honestly what I do it's not the best

route but I'll just get 16 ounces 16

ounces or so is great it's fine if

you're larger

um you know I'm 165 to 70 pounds

depending on what's going on maybe a

little higher sometimes if you're 225

pounds maybe that number is 30 ounces

okay so you just sort of scale up and

down and the only reason I say a lot is

it just depends on what you're doing and

I also should clarify I don't really

literally mean chug just like sips

because the faster you drink water the

faster it's going to expand blood volume

the faster it stands blood volume the

faster you get rid of it

um I don't think a lot of people will

know that yeah this is maybe this is

clarifying this is also we sort of

talked about earlier if you drink too

much water you'll dilute the system well

if you have a diluted system your body's

first reaction is to rid of water to

bring total blood volume down right

remember if you were to go to a doctor

and they look at your total blood volume

they're like man you're five and a half

liters you're gonna be like holy crap

you're going to be put on a diuretic

because you don't want to have a heart

attack blood pressure I wonder if people

are drinking a 16 ounce glass of water

or other fluid all at once before going

to sleep and that's why they're waking

up in the middle of the night totally

given what you just said probably a

better

um protocol would be to sip on a glass

of water in the final hour two hours

before sleep generally the number we say

is three hours in the three hours

proceeding sleep you want to basically

limit fluid intake to sipping as needed

I think that's I'm going to start that

tonight because I wake up generally once

per night to use the bathroom and I do

drink some fluids before I go to sleep

mostly because I'm pretty thirsty at

that time yeah

um but I'm gonna start sipping that

water in the uh three hours heading into

sleep yeah so you can actually pay

attention to his um

to go back this is actually I love doing

this stuff but if you're waking up at

night and you have a very dry mouth

not for me all right because it can be

one of two things you might actually be

dehydrated and so then what the mistake

people make is like man my mouth is so

dry I keep getting up to drink water at

night that makes you then pee too much

what that also indicates is probably

your mouth breathing so a lot of ways to

fix people waking up and urinating too

much at night is to tape your mouth and

or use a dilator over your nose and then

what happens is you don't feel like you

have a dry mouth so you don't get up to

consume any extra water throughout the

night so that actually reduces your your

fluid intake so you don't have the

problem of actually now having too much

fluid to do it and so it's another

reasons why mouth taping can really

really help and

if you are having those issues and or

snoring those are not benign that's a

really like you really should get some

work on those um something you're not

sleeping very well is the way I'll say

it it doesn't doesn't necessarily mean

something life-threatening but it's not

a good thing so you're going to run kind

of your triaging things back and forth

so if you're like I'm waking up to pee a

lot but my mouth isn't thirsty okay

great then you may actually have just a

water consumption issue if it is my

mouth is dry but I'm actually waking up

and I'm having these large urinations

then you're not actually dehydrated

you're just breathing through your mouth

if you're waking up and your mouth is

dry

and there's not a lot of pee there then

you actually might actually legitimately

be under hydrated so a little bit of a

game you can play there well that's

super informative I think that

um the point alone that

gulping a bunch of water all at once is

going to cause you to need to excrete

that water

soon after

um is a really important point also for

people that are going to I don't know

give a talk or um you don't want to have

to get up to use the restroom you have

to sit through a long meeting yeah um

clearly I'm violating all these rules up

until right now I've been you know not I

sort of followed the seagull approach to

uh to consuming fluids just in

um enormous volumes I'm going to start

sipping um fluids instead

um what are some of the other rules of

hydration so you're going to wake up

you're going to start your day and start

hydrated so you know you're consuming a

larger percentage of your water earlier

in the day then you get all the

performance enhancing effects of water

and you don't have to worry about it

compromising your sleep so that's step

number one also now you're gonna start

your session closer to hydration all

right great number two eat mostly real

Whole Foods

why

interesting what you may or not have

thought about is a huge determinant of

your hydration status is your food

choices if you look at different foods

for example most fruit watermelon

watermelon is like 95 plus percent water

fantastic Source also by the way since

we're here it is not extremely high in

carbohydrate it's not extremely high in

sugar it is by percentage but since it

is almost exclusively water you're

eating it is not something that is

extremely dangerous in terms of sugar I

there alone probably all the things

we've talked about in the six six

episodes uh that comment right there

will probably blow the internet to

pieces and I'll probably get hate mail

for life for it but from people

water throwing watermelons yeah yeah oh

my gosh well I don't think the point is

that sugar is necessarily bad I think

the point is that for most people

they're ingesting too much sugar most

people yeah um and it's interesting

oftentimes the people who are justifying

the ingestion of sugar are exactly the

kind of people that should not ingest so

much sugar so there's a little bit of a

well a user bias the point here is if

you're eating whole real food this is

like now we're kind of splitting hairs

about those things so

so morning hydration

yeah now important Point here

if you compare it to other Foods

um like actually meat is is a very high

percentage of fluid depending on how

well or long you've cooked it you just

remember you said earlier over 70 water

right so if you're eating meat you're

getting actually a big chunk of water as

you cook it of course you lose some of

that but meat can be like I wouldn't

call it a hydrating food item but it is

not as low as something like a biscuit

which can be actually like 10 water

that's why it's like dry and dense which

doesn't mean it's bad for you but there

if you're eating highly processed foods

almost by association that means they've

been dehydrated

or portionably right so you're just

getting less total fluid intake in

addition they have also been highly

salted

in general right so now we're in this

position where we're under hydrated and

highly salted bad spot if you now switch

over to mostly again just mostly whole

real food-ish whatever that means to you

then your hydration is going to

Skyrocket you're going to have a lot so

you're eating a ton of food in fact it

should be a large percentage of the

fluid intake you have actually should be

coming from your food you shouldn't have

to be smashing water bottles after a

water bottle all day in that case though

you do need to add salt back so we do

see this a lot with people who try to

make a transition from maybe a

sub-optimal Nutritional Lifestyle and

they give up a little bit of other

processed food and they come over and

they start having problems because

they're not actually consuming enough

salt

so add that back easy way to do that you

can use electrolytes and we could talk

about those numbers if you want if you

just salt your food that you're making

you know to taste that's going to get

most people in a pretty good spot so

start hydrated

consume hydrating Foods

step number two step number three

you want to pre-hydrate if you know

you're going to do a workout session

and it's going to be hot and long or one

of those things you want to look for

that half a pound a per body weight of

ounces so that's the number we're

looking for to start our hydration

session we do that we're pretty much

taken care of and then like I said

adjust depending on lifestyle humidity

and other factors like that you can use

what is called the what

system w-u-t I think Bob kennethick has

done a ton of research in this area if

you want to read more look up his

research it is simply weight

urine and thirst so in other words check

your body weight

look at your urine color and engage your

thirst and actually you can use through

those three things and those can

significantly predict actual hydration

status independent of actually measuring

osmolality or anything like that so

those three metrics alone are pretty

good indicator

of where you're at so you're going to

have that normal amount of water plus or

minus

if you miss that number for whatever

reason you get distracted the number we

typically tell people is like something

like 400 to 500 milliliters of water in

the hour proceeding the training all

right so that's like 13 to 20 ounces

so like you know you're gonna go work

out at three o'clock it's two o'clock

and you realize oh man I have not

drinking much water today

you don't need to go smash tons and tons

and tons just look for something like

that you know call it a bottle of water

if you will if that's not enough if

you're in a really tough spot you can do

more like uh five to eight ounces

15 or 20 minutes before exercise

you want to be really careful about

drinking a bunch of water like in the

seconds before exercise

because you're just going to feel a

whole bunch of water bouncing up and

down in your stomach and nobody likes

that so one to three hundred milliliters

15 or so 20 minutes before that assumes

you're in this like

185 pound range ish again if you're

talking people of much larger size you

may need to increase those values

accordingly if you do all that

then you use the Galpin equation for

your intra workout hydration and you're

in a pretty good spot

what you want to consume in that is what

I call Sweat

what I mean by that is you don't

actually want to necessarily consume

water only during a workout you want to

consume something that is ISO osmotic to

your blood

so something that is the same

concentration

that you lost in your sweat so if you've

done a sweat test you would then drink a

fluid that is of the same osmolality the

short version of that

something in the neighborhood of 200 to

400 milligrams of sodium most

electrolytes products are going to be

something like that now I know element

is is a thousand milligrams and it's a

lot higher but most products now that

you're going to find are 250 to 400

milligrams and they're typically in the

like two

to maybe up to three to one sodium to

potassium range right coconut water is

actually cool it's like basically the

opposite like a cup of coconut water I

think has something like 200 milligrams

of sodium but like 600 milligrams of

potassium so um like total spoiler alert

but will we use coconut water a lot of

hydration just add a little pinch of

salt because that'll bring the sodium

way back up yeah one note about sodium

um obviously people who have

pre-hypertension or hypertension want to

be careful with their sodium intake

um anytime I've suggested that people

might consider ingesting more sodium you

know it's sort of uh it's like it's like

putting a Target on your on your back

and yet the data are pretty good showing

that if people are not getting enough

sodium

their mental Clarity their focus their

mental stamina their physical stamina

really suffers

and then people argue well most of us

are getting too much salt that often is

true for people that are eating a lot of

processed foods and not training and not

training but for many uh people who are

already sort of health conscious who are

training they're largely consuming

or I should say they're consuming

largely non-processed or minimally

processed foods and especially for folks

who are not ingesting many carbohydrates

and are consuming caffeine totally you

know a lot of people don't know that

carbohydrates hold water and that makes

it sound bad it's not necessarily that

you know you're going to get

subcutaneous swelling of your body now

it's recovery it's it's bringing water

into your system and it holds water so

when you drop carbohydrate starches in

particular you urinate a lot more and

when you drink caffeine you also urinate

a lot more as as you pointed out earlier

so you start combining a few things like

slightly lower carbohydrate or low

carbohydrate eating really quote unquote

clean you're not getting a lot of salt

in your food and drinking caffeine and

then exercising and then pretty soon

those numbers that come along with um

you know a gram of sodium in your

electrolyte drink are not all that

outrageous and what you find is people

feel much much better when they're

getting enough sodium and of course I

should um say that there's no reason why

someone has to ingest a supplement like

element or something there are plenty of

other ways to bring sodium into your

system you use a pinch of pink salt or

Himalayan salt or sea salt or even just

table salt in water or just making sure

that you're salting your food enough and

I think that there too salt appetite and

salt taste is a pretty good guide if you

taste something and it tastes really

salty to you that's an indication that

either it's really salty or your salt

stores are kind of tapped off you're

okay whereas if you're craving salt and

you and you're thinking gosh I really

want to put salt on this already salty

thing

not necessarily but oftentimes that

means that you are salt efficient so

salt appetite is a pretty hardwired set

of neural circuits and hormones and I

think we would all be wise to learn to

tap into the our kind of intuition about

salt intake but of course also to

measure your blood pressure Etc yeah of

course if you think you have some sort

of contraindication there that work with

the medical specialist without without

question

um those situations you laid out though

are very real a lot of people are living

like that and so it's important for

those folks to understand if you are

going through symptoms fatigue

lack of focus cognitive function

performance isn't there then hey like

you may be under salted and again

actually a good amount of blood

chemistry work can unravel that a lot

and it can sort of tell you if you're

going out of whack there are a number of

folks who are

extremely sensitive to sodium in terms

of health risk and that that is a real

thing again work with your

um individual folks on that I don't work

with anyone for disease treatment or

management at all I've said that

probably four times I'll say it six more

times

um I only take people who are healthy

and try to make them perform at their

best possible level so it's actually

funny you mentioned that because I was

going to give people my recommendation

for sodium intake in general throughout

the day and then I decided I'm not going

to say that because all it's going to do

is make all the rest of the people who

aren't coming to come after me for the

watermelon comment come after me for

that so by the end of today's episode

the goal is that there everyone's coming

after you but also everyone has learned

something of value you've already given

us a tremendous insights and actionable

information on Creatine and hydration

and

along those lines I'd love for you to

tell us about some of the things that we

can do with supplementation in order to

enhance training by taking certain

things before we train and I also have

the question of how

long before training should we start

thinking about supplying nutrients and

supplements for the training session I'm

not sure I've actually finished my fiber

maybe I wasn't clear enough about the

last one so I just want to tie that that

bow and then we'll go to the next one

yeah no it was probably my fault so

that uh in addition to the

Galloping equation in terms of amount uh

I'm recording I recommended at you know

roughly three to one sodium to potassium

recommendation and I gave you some rough

numbers for things like that I actually

in all honesty use probably six to ten

different electrolyte companies

depending on the situation some of them

are really good in the case again like

element that's nice about that is

there's no carbohydrate however the

downside is there's no carbohydrate so

sometimes I want carbohydrates in the

training because as you mentioned

there's significant evidence going back

actually several decades on the benefit

of carbohydrate during exercise so if

you're in a situation uh where you're

trying to again maximize actual exercise

performance you especially if it is

either long duration so more than two

hours

or extremely high intensity and this has

to be well north of 100 of your VO2 max

in that situation as we talked about in

the endurance episode you can actually

start having a decrement performance

because of a drop of muscle glycogen uh

Global glycogen can start coming down if

that's the case augmenting with

carbohydrates during the training that

is going to enhance performance it's

going to do what we call spare the liver

and it's going to keep my second rule of

my four which is maintain a glucose

ingestion it's going to keep that going

in general what you're going to find is

the number is like a five to nine

percent glucose concentration in your

fluid which turns out to be like exactly

the number that most sports drinks have

as well as I think that's pretty much

exactly what a coconut water is the

downside of sports drinks since we're

here is they actually tend to be

undersalted and so that they don't

provide enough of them if you look at

the numbers they're going to say

something like 60 to 100 grams of

carbohydrate per hour

is the Target and now if you're using

the sort of Galloping equation and

you're splitting that up into 15

minute intervals it's something again

like 20 or so grams of carbs per 15 to

20 minutes

if you're doing again an hour long plus

training though so admittedly 100 grams

uh is a bit much for some folks

depending on your size so I would

recommend starting in that uh 60 gram or

so range again per hour total is what

you want to get to and only in the

situation in which muscle glycogen

depletion is becoming a limiting factor

to Performance so the other benefit of

that is as you mentioned that actually

drives water into the cell and so you're

going to be in that nice sweet spot of

you're actually keeping glucose going

which is going to enhance performance

and you're helping hydration at the same

time so the other little part that's

important to pay attention to here is

the type of carbohydrate matters so you

can use actually a whole combination of

things called resistant starches which I

will use for a long bouts of exercise

but in the middle of the workout you're

going to want to focus on glucose and

fructose mostly glucose typically at

least a two or three to one ratio of

glucose to fructose and the reason is

those actually get into tissue through

separate Transporters and so what

happens is once the glucose Transporters

get full you can't bring anything else

in however since fructose comes in a

separate route you can maximize total

carbohydrate intake by using two

different unique forms there's a lot of

ways you can do this but this is where

the momentous fuel product is is that

specifically has that exactly in it so

it's fantastic you can use food no

problem you can use the combination of

things like honey and different easily

absorbable and usable and things that

you can actually like maybe put in a

drink to get away with so there's lots

of routes for it but you want to look in

that that sort of combination of five to

nine percent roughly glucose for there

so you do need to train your gut so do

not do anything and there's a generally

A good rule do not do anything in your

competition

that you've never done in practice so

try these food items try these amounts

the carbohydrate numbers try the sodium

numbers try the total amount of water

start low

you can always increase what you don't

want to do is have to run out during the

middle of your spin class and Sprint to

the bathroom and hope nobody's in your

way which in the lab we've seen

we'll just say accidents like that occur

more than once so just be careful of

your stomach I'd like to take a brief

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tracker.com huberman to get 20 off I

realize I jumped the gun a little bit

asking about supplementation for before

during and after a workout

um because what I neglected to ask about

was training in the fasted State this is

something that we talked about in an

earlier episode but I think it's worth

highlighting now

um Sometimes the best way to supplement

if you will a workout or pre-workout is

ingesting nothing I'm one of these

people I actually prefer to do my weight

training somewhere between seven and

eight a.m each morning sometimes a

little earlier sometimes a little bit

later

I drink

fluid water and I do ingest caffeine

prior to those training days on days

when I don't train I do as I often

recommend uh people do delay my caffeine

intake 90 to 120 minutes after waking

but in any event

it's water and caffeine yerba mate or

coffee or some sort of stimulant for

weight training workouts

and generally not for cardiovascular

training workouts although sometimes yes

so I'm training fasted that said I'm

ingesting carbohydrate the night before

to make sure that my I have glycogen

stores that are topped off and uh so

it's fasted but with that caveat what

are your thoughts on training fasted and

what I just described is fasted

overnight but some people are training

in the afternoon and they may opt to not

eat anything in the you know two to four

hours prior to training or maybe even

longer I personally find that caffeine

hits my system a lot better when I'm

fasted better meaning it just seems to

have more of a potent effect there are

some reasons for that

um and of course we dissuade people from

ingesting caffeine too late in the day

because it'll disrupt sleep so I'm not

saying fast for three hours then drink

caffeine but who knows maybe that's in

your protocol the simple version of this

question is what are your thoughts on

training fasted and if people are going

to train fasted how should they modulate

their fluid intake if at all what

happens with exercise in the endurance

and Metabolism episode we walk through

and the fact that no matter what you're

using for fuel carbohydrates or fat or

even other potential sources the end

product of all of those is ATP CO2 and

water

right so you're trying to make ATP that

is the fuel for exercise now ATP is

adenosine triphosphate so one two three

phosphates on top of an adenosine well

what you may have not put together

is if you

hydrolyze ATP and you break off one of

those phosphates you now have ADP if you

do it again you have amp addressing

monophosphide if you do it one more time

now you just have adenosine

and if you have then therefore run

through a lot of exercise

burned a lot of energy you have

increased the amount of adenosine that's

floating around

now if you have a high concentration of

adenosine what's that going to make you

want to do

that's going to bind to certain

receptors and we know when those

receptors get bound to you fall asleep

bingo caffeine

will competitively bind to those

receptors therefore that's why caffeine

stops you

from feeling like you want to go to

sleep right so we have a very clear

relationship between exercise fuel in

fact if you look at the literature

there's a pretty clear relationship

between the more caloric expenditure in

different sports and the higher amount

of hours needed for sleep so there's a

nice tie between how hard you're

exercising how much energy you're

burning how much you need to sleep

stimulants which brings us all the way

back to your question of fueling

so do I need a fuel prior to my exercise

about if you're going to be limited in

your exercise bout buy fuel

then fueling is necessary one way or the

other if it is a type of training that

is not then it's not going to matter and

so the examples we gave if you're doing

if you're going to go do a 30-second

bout of maximal exertion and you're

going to do it one time

you don't need to worry about fueling at

all we're eating within your workout

because it's only 30 seconds yeah you

got 30 seconds you don't need to worry

about hydration post exercise you don't

need to worry about recovery total

energy expenditure was nothing if you're

going to go

um you know you're going to go practice

you're going to go to the driving range

and practice your golf swing you don't

need to worry about it the total amount

of energy expenditure is just not high

in fact in that case you might want to

keep it somewhat low because you want to

keep blood glucose fairly even and you

don't want to bring into the system you

certainly wouldn't want to use

stimulants right because you may get

over exerted inside

in all of these things we probably

should have started off our conversation

with this

in terms of macronutrients

the total amount throughout the day

is more important generally

than the timing of them which is why you

can do things like have a bunch of

carbohydrate at night not eat the next

morning and lift and be just fine it

doesn't matter that you didn't have them

in a few hours before your muscle

glycogen is topped off your liver is

glycogen is topped off you're absolutely

fine you have plenty of fuel even if

you're to wait a few more hours in fact

even if you were to do conditioning

you're probably fine I I have plenty of

athletes that prefer to do many of their

training sessions faster in the morning

for personal reasons not because it

enhances performance but if it doesn't

enhance or harm it then and it's a

personal preference thing fine

if you're going to go do a session

though where you're going to be really

concerned with muscle glycogen depletion

and again you can go back that episode

to learn of different types when those

thresholds hits and what you worry about

then a feeling would be important you

would either need to have something

before the session or consume it during

the session so one of the other things

we'd like to say here is recovery

starts

during the previous workout

right so if you're working out right now

and you optimize nutrition right now

even if you don't necessarily need it

for the current workout if you can get

ahead on recovery then you're going to

be fine the next day and the

differentiation here between

carbohydrate and protein is important so

the total amount of protein you ingest

throughout the day is probably a bigger

determinant for things like muscle

growth than the timing so the post

exercise anabolic window it doesn't

necessarily matter carbohydrate is

different the timing of that does matter

it needs to be around and available

you can maximize both hydration

and muscle glycogen resynthesis which is

restoring the muscle glycogen you burn

during exercise I also work with

athletes that train multiple times a day

so in those particular cases

a recovery window is half what you

normally have so if you're in a

situation where you have two or three

days before you work out again you don't

need to worry about getting carbohydrate

in before during or after Because by the

time you go to train again you will have

restored your muscle glycogen levels

easily however if you're training every

day or twice in a day then the timing of

carbohydrate really starts to matter in

that case I see no reason to not ingest

those nutrients either before during or

after you don't need to necessarily do

it but you can

the general rule of thumb I give is

something like this

if you're doing something where you're

trying to really work hard whether this

is hypertrophy training or a lot of

endurance energy expenditure is going to

be high potential muscle damage is high

and or energy

utilization is high

what you want to look for is a number

something in the area of like half a

gram of carbohydrate

per pound of body weight

so you weigh 200 pounds you want to make

sure that either pre-mid or post or

total

you bring in 100 grams of carbohydrate

it's just a very rough number to start

protein is about half of that

so it's about a quarter of your body

weight

right so those numbers would be if

you're 200 pounds make sure you have 100

grams of carbs and 50 grams of protein

and again it doesn't necessarily have to

be before or during or after

and you'll be in a good spot all you

need to do then

is Alter what I do I should say is Alter

the amount of carbohydrate

based on energy expenditure

so a lower energy and easier workout

instead of having 100 grams of carbs I

might tack that down to 75 or even 50

and be it a one to one carb protein

ratio if it was even harder more sun

hotter outside more fluid loss I might

go from 100 grams of carbs up to 150 or

200 and get closer to like a three to

one or four to one carbohydrate to

protein ratio so those are the numbers

that I generally go by well as I take a

sip of My Double Espresso Americano here

I'd love for you to tell us about

stimulants sure there's no shortage of

these in most of our lives and of course

you can cover the health benefits of it

later you maybe you have an episode yes

we have an episode on caffeine and it

does have certain health benefits

although one has to use caffeine

correctly in order to drive those yeah

so there's caffeine is the easy one to

start with and we won't belabor the

point here uh the evidence is strong it

has a negrogenic effect you can take it

at whatever dosage is reasonable for you

and of course there is a bit of a

learning curve there such that obviously

the more you take it the more you need

to take even though there's actually

some recent evidence showing even folks

who are acclimated to it will still see

an ergogenic benefit even though if they

don't feel a big boost of this so

typically that takes 30 to 45 minutes or

so but it's highly dependent upon the

person so some people can smell coffee

and immediately feel better and that's

probably working actually through a

different mechanism

of anticipation but you can take it

there the half-life of it is you know

four to six hours or something like that

it totally depends on the person so

don't let it ruin your sleep but if you

take it prior to Performance it has a

noticeable effect on particularly

endurance maximum strength may be less

well quite clearly less so in fact the

data are mixed there on whether it

actually does anything for Peak strength

although I think most people would

uh Rec would suggest that you know

you're going to take it prior to trying

to truly lift as high as trying to you

know lift a one repetition Max or

similar but most of the the documented

effects are on the the endurance based

activities yes so my read of the

literature uh in terms of performance

enhancing effects of caffeine are that

one to three milligrams I want to make

sure that people hear the units

correctly before people Blitz themselves

out with that caffeine one to three

milligrams per kilogram of body weight

about 30 minutes prior to exercise

has a definite performance enhancing

effect it also has a definite mental

performance enhancing effect especially

when people who are regular caffeine

users have abstained from caffeine for

anywhere from 2 to 15 days and and

that's an extremely rare circumstance

but even if they have not it appears

that one to three milligrams per

kilogram of body weight of caffeine

taken about again it's not super precise

as far as I can see now about 30 minutes

before the event starts

um

can really enhance reaction time and

power output and as well as as you

mentioned endurance when I was

researching the caffeine episode one

interesting caveat that

um I discovered was that if people are

not caffeine adapted they are not

regular users of caffeine the sudden

introduction of caffeine

can really degrade performance mostly

because people don't know how to operate

at that high level of autonomic arousal

have you ever observed that yeah 100 in

fact there's actually data going up as

high as 10 milligrams per kilogram of

body weight wow which is in fact once

you cross the five milligram per

kilogram threshold you will start seeing

performance decrements so there's

absolutely such a thing of ruining your

performance with too much caffeine so

most people listening to this if you're

thinking wow they said caffeine I'm all

in and then you just stop listening and

now you you know go for your quad

espresso shot before your every time you

go to work out you probably are passing

that threshold if you think about those

numbers one to three milligrams per

kilogram body weight if you weigh 100

kilograms that's 220 pounds that'd be

something like two to five hundred

milligrams of caffeine which is like a

pretty high amount but you know a coffee

is going to get you close and espresso

is going to get you somewhat in that

ballpark depending on source and stuff

um so you don't really need to go and

blister your brain with caffeine in fact

if you do is it's quite common and in

fact likely that you'll actually make

performance worse right yeah the amount

of caffeine in different

coffees and sodas Etc of course varies

one thing that people ought to know is

that the smallest of commercially

available

um coffees at the most popular

commercial vendor so

um

generally contain anywhere from 250 to

350 milligrams of caffeine what that

means is that the so-called medium and

the large contain as much as 500

milligrams or one gram of caffeine so

for you morning large coffee at a

commercial vendor

drinkers if you're wondering why you get

a headache if you're 30 minutes late on

that caffeine or

um if you can't access that caffeine at

all or even if you're drinking coffee

excuse me from another source you're

finding like oh it's really not doing it

for me it's because the amount of

caffeine in the now commercially sold uh

coffees is exceedingly high it's about

two or three times higher than the

standard lookup tables that you'll see

on the internet so I'm not saying that

to demonize caffeine we can pretty

quickly adapt to and form a tolerance to

caffeine some people never really can

get over the Jitters other people

um are just fine with even a thousand

milligrams of caffeine but only because

they've been drinking a lot of caffeine