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News topic du jour:
1. What Crashes Testosterone? [23:45]
Charlie says:
Recently got a blood test showing very low testosterone – about a third of what it’s been in the past few years. And I’ve been mopey and getting pudgier lately. Before I freak out and go to the doctor for shots, I want to figure out what I might’ve done to crash my T. Maybe you’ll have some ideas from experience with athletes…
In December I was on a vaguely paleo-like low calorie diet in solidarity with family. Starving through Christmas – not recommended! Didn’t even lose any body fat. Sucktastic.
New Years: Awesome late night party with lots of booze.
T test about a week into January. Previously I’d been tested at 8:30am, but this time it was 11:45. Testosterone level changes throughout the day, right? How much does it typically vary? Same lab provider as last year.
Are any of those plausible testosterone crashers? What other newbie mistakes do people make to make themselves less manly in the hormone department?
2. Tight Posterior Chain After Flag Football [28:23]
Max says:
Hi Robb and Nicky,
I play flag football once a week in the warmer months, and I’ve noticed that after I play, for 3-4 days afterward, my posterior chain, but especially my hamstrings, are very tight – so much so that I can’t do my usual gymnastic bodies stretching routines very well. And it’s a bit of a positive feedback loop where because I am not able to stretch out as effectively each week, I’m getting a bit tighter every week. During the game itself I feel great (side note, used to need some carbs on game day to feel explosive since I usually eat keto, but since you started talking about electrolytes, I just supplement with LMNT and don’t need the carbs, which is great).
Do you have any advice on things to try to get my body more flag football ready? I’m 5’10 150lbs, 29 years old, eaten paleo for 10+ years, keto for last year or so.
3. Fasting & Eating Windows [31:42]
Klaus says:
Hi Robb and Nicki,
Wanted to start off by thanking you for all the amazing content you put out every week. I’ve been following you since you did JRE.
A little backstory on me: I am 22y/o, 5’7, 172 lbs (16% body fat), been active since I was a little kid playing competitive sports (BJJ the past 2.5 yrs). I eat pretty low carb (very fat adapted) , but eat carbs around training time which is mainly at night (carbs at night has improved my sleep massively).
Anyways, I’ve been trying to get to 10-12% BF but have been struggling with it, lately (past 6mo) I’ve introduced eating whiting a window but it hasn’t worked for me as I somedays get home late from BJJ and feel like I have to eat. This has led me to have different eating windows the days I train. Would you say there is an negative impact if I have different eating windows from day to day, or would I still benefit from a 16 hr fast everyday regardless of the time I start and end eating? Is there another approach I can use to lean down besides this one?
Thanks for your time,
Klaus.
4. My Achy Body [38:26]
Keslie says:
Hello Robb and Nicki,
I just recently started listening to your podcast and I am loving it, thank you for doing what you do. Your generally.. somewhat.. neutral stance on things is a great middle ground to the extremes we hear all of the time. About my achy body… I am a 33 year old CrossFit hasbeen, I competed on a team in 2013 and 2015 and have since opened my own affiliate. As an ex-athlete I know how demanding a full on CrossFit routine can be on the body so at our gym we tend to lay back, enjoy the ride and take our time. This is important for you to know that when I say I “do CrossFit a couple of times a week” it doesn’t mean I DO CROSSFIT… I listen to my body, modify what I need to and do what I can. I am also 4 month postpartum with my first baby. Since having him my achy joints I have always lived with have seemed to get worse and worse to the point where they wake me up in the night more than my baby does. When I stand from sitting for any amount of time I have to limp for 10-20 steps so that my ankles and hips can catch up… I look as if I am 75+ when I get up off the ground! I eat a whole foods diet and enjoy “foods” like Rebel ice cream 2-3 times a week. The food I eat that comes in a package is usually things like sprouted flax breads some nut butters, maybe some lunch meat or chicken apple sausage. I don’t pay much attention to how much I eat since I am exclusively breastfeeding and want to make sure I am not restricting at all. I eat when I am hungry and stop when I am full. My meat comes from a local grass fed grass finished farm, my eggs come from my backyard chickens.. I’d say overall I choose the foods that are best for me and my babies development. So… what’s causing this achy body of mine??? My movement isn’t too much… maybe too little?? I really just started getting back into “working out” since having my little one. An occasional hike, spin class or CrosssFit day is what I do on a not so regular basis. Am I missing some nutrient?? Should I stretch more… what gives? I feel like I focus on my nutrition to keep me healthy and happy, but my body is acting otherwise. Any advice??????? Thanks again for what you do, more people need to hear this shit!
5. Having A Hard Time Getting In My Last Sleep Cycle. [53:48]
Alex says:
Healthy Rebel Leaders,
I keep waking up between 6 and 7 am after only sleeping 6.5 to 7 hours. I got to bed around 10:30pm-midnight, have no problems with sleep latency and sleeping throughout the night. I am familiar with many sleep protocols thanks to yourselves, Shawn Stevenson and others. This seems to be more common during the spring/summer months. I do have blackout curtains and keep the room cold. I’m 45 and I’m wondering if it has something to do with age, hormones, blood sugar dropping or if I should just try to go to bed earlier? I lose my edge and extra boost of physical/mental energy if I don’t get around 8 hours of sleep.
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Transcript:
Download a copy of this transcript here (PDF)
Nicki: It’s time to make your health an act of rebellion. We’re tackling personalized nutrition, metabolic flexibility, resilient aging, and answering your diet and lifestyle questions. This is the only show with a bold aim to help one million people liberate themselves from the sick-care system. You’re listening to The Healthy Rebellion Radio. The contents of this show are for entertainment and educational purposes only. Nothing in this podcast should be considered medical advice. Please consult your licensed and credentialed functional medicine practitioner before embarking on any health, dietary, or fitness change. Warning. When Robb gets passionate, he’s been known to use the occasional expletive. If foul language is not your thing, if it gets your britches in a bunch, well, there’s always Disney+.
Robb: Howdy, wife.
Nicki: Hubs.
Robb: How are you doing?
Nicki: I’m pretty good.
Robb: Ponytail is a little tight today.
Nicki: My ponytail is a little tight. I’ve been running around with my dad. He is up visiting from Reno and helping us build a little patio in the backyard. As I’m sure many people are experiencing in this post-COVID world, when you go to a hardware store or any type of place to get building supplies of any sort, they’re kind of hard to come by.
Robb: They are. And they’re expensive.
Nicki: They’re expensive and… Yeah, I feel bad for anybody building a house right now. We were trying to purchase pavers for this patio project and a woman came in and she’s in the middle of a… Her house is being built and she needs some stone for the front facing of it. And the guy was like, “Yeah, you’re liking at 10 to 12 weeks on the early side.” It’s crazy. Normally, a construction project takes a lot of time, but when you add in all of these individual components that each might have a lead time or a delay of weeks to months, how do you get anything done?
Robb: And when this thing needs to go in before that thing and… That can bugger those projects under the best of circumstances.
Nicki: It’s been an educational experience.
Robb: Fantastic.
Nicki: Yeah, so. That’s all. That’s why my ponytail is tight today. I’m a little harried.
Robb: I still can’t remember what movie that was. It was like Sandra Bullock or something.
Nicki: You say it to me all the time.
Robb: Yeah, I know.
Nicki: I didn’t even know it was from a movie. But whenever-
Robb: We watched it together.
Nicki: … I’m a little… What’s the word? Whenever I’m little pinched or harried or-
Robb: Harried is good.
Nicki: Harried. Robb’s like, “Why is your ponytail so tight? Loosen up that ponytail!” You even said to me when I had short hair and couldn’t wear a ponytail.
Robb: When a ponytail was but a theory.
Nicki: When I didn’t even have ponytails. Yep. Anyway, sorry we missed y’all last week. Again, Dad’s been in town and we’ve… Well, as Robb… If you’re on our email list, you probably got the email from Robb and also we’ve talked about this inside The Healthy Rebellion. That most recent… Well, actually, it’s not the most recent now.
Robb: Second back now maybe.
Nicki: I think it’s Dark House Podcast episode number 82. Kind of really had your head spinning.
Robb: It had my ponytail pretty tight.
Nicki: Your ponytail was.
Robb: You’ve really got to mine tight. So, yeah. We had some pretty phenomenal feedback and the story of COVID continues to evolve and the backstories and potential treatments and shenanigans. That’s actually our news topic du jour for today here in just a moment, but did you want to mention some of the other goodies we have cooking?
Nicki: I do. I just wanted to give some highlights for what’s coming up inside The Healthy Rebellion community. This week, we just kicked off our seven-day breath work challenge hosted by one of our rebels, Ashe Higgs. So, super excited for this. By the time-
Robb: Ash is kind of a renaissance man.
Nicki: He is.
Robb: Breath work, grip work. All kinds of stuff.
Nicki: He led our cold shower challenge earlier this year. Always good stuff with him. This Sunday, June 13th, one of our rebels, Matt Otto, will be leading us through a group guided meditation. He has a phenomenal background in meditation, so he offered to do this for our members. So excited for that. And then, next week on Monday, we’re starting our next book club. This one is going to be The Natural Navigator by Tristan Gooley and our rebel, Colin Walke, will be leading us through this one. And that one is really cool because it’s about learning to read the signs that nature provides to navigate.
Robb: And this is not like Madame Ruby, show up at fortune teller. This is actually like… Zoe was checking out something similar to this and I was looking at my weather app. I’m like, “Oh, it’s probably going to rain tomorrow.” And she was like, “Well, yeah, Dad. Of course. Those clouds were this serrated pattern and that means rain coming.” And I’m like, “Well, okay.”
Nicki: There’s a lot in the natural environment, a lot of clues that nature provides, that let us know not only directional things, but what’s happening weather pattern wise and all this stuff that most of us, all of us, damn near all of us, have completely lost any knowledge of this. Unless you are outdoors and working outside as a survival expert or in the military and doing-
Robb: Land ops or something like that.
Nicki: Land ops and stuff. So, yeah. Anyway. Super excited for this next book club. Again, all of these events are free with your Healthy Rebellion membership. We also have a lot of really fun stuff coming up later in the summer, too, which we will share in coming episodes. Let’s see. What else did I want to share? We did just wrap up our spring Rebel Reset and we had a lot of wonderful success stories and people sharing transformation stories and whatnot. I just picked one out that I wanted to share because I feel like the mindset component for any… for all of us when we are doing any kind of challenge or working towards body composition shift or anything like this, the mindset piece ends up being the thing that-
Robb: Makes or breaks.
Nicki: … kind of makes or breaks it. Yeah. Can kind of be the thing that hamstrings us. So, Sarah posted inside our Rebel Reset spring group and I just wanted to share this with y’all. She said, “So, when I started this reset, I thought it was my body comp that needed the most change. And don’t get me wrong. That did need attention. But the further along I got, the more I realized it was my mindset that needed the most work. I have done elimination diets before, so I’m no stranger to the protocol, but journaling with the workbook every day, I found that regardless of how awesome I was really doing, my brain was constantly telling me that I was screwing it all up. Even if a check-in indicated clear progress in the right direction, it was like some part of me refused to believe that I was really doing it. Really being successful.
Nicki: In the end, I’m happy with my results. I still have a long way to go to meet my big goals, but I’m seven pounds lighter and two inches smaller around my waist, plus 2.25 inches smaller around my hips. Everything fits better, including my tight pants, and the best part is I don’t just look I lost weight. I look firmer. I hesitate to say more muscular LOL as I’m really a long way from that, but even my mother-in-law noticed and commented on that. I have a lot of work to do on the other pillars, movement, community, and especially sleep, and I’m looking forward to the summer off from teaching to work on those.” She says, “I’m most grateful, though, for the mental work I have done this past 30 days. Teaching myself to be kind to myself is definitely a journey, but I feel like I’m taking steps down the right path. So, even though doing a hardcore reset during the last month of a very stressful and hectic school year seemed like a crazy thing to do, I am so glad I did.”
Robb: I don’t… Maybe I do want to belabor this a little bit. It’s interesting in that what we’ve put together here is kind of the condensation of working with people for 20 years. Like, we didn’t… There’s not a randomized controlled study that shows that this type of shit works. That this community-driven reset with an elimination thing and find your… It’s been these different challenges people face. When I first started off in this, it was like low-carb… the lower the carb, the better. For everybody, forever, for all time. And that worked for some people and it failed other folks. And so eventually, 10 years in, the seven-day carb test pops up and becomes part of this. And then it was like, man, people really need accountability. Well, what about some type of journaling.
Robb: So, this thing’s kind of evolved over time and I guess it’s kind of giving us a little bit of props on that. It’s not the only option out there in the world, but I’m just kind of tripping on the efficacy as this goes forward. And now that we have a bigger team, like Jess and Squatchy and Elizabeth and everybody, and the community itself provide input on where the failure points are on this thing and we can plug those little leaks. If we change the mindset on people, like fuck. What can’t they do? They’re off and running. And then people mainly stick around for the community, which is also very, very cool. A little accountability, but definitely the community and just having that like-minded group of people. But it’s pretty cool.
Nicki: Mm-hmm (affirmative). For sure. Our next Rebel Reset is coming up in September, so if-
Robb: You have some time to gear up for that.
Nicki: … that’s something that you want to do, that’s coming up.
Robb: And as you’ve said and to shamelessly promote, we have a ton of different week-long resets like this breath work and doing-
Nicki: I will dangle out there, too… Sarah and Grayson from Basis Health and Performance New York. They recently relocated to New York. But they will be leading us through another strength program here coming up in just a few weeks. Again, exclusive to the Healthy Rebellion community. Okay, let’s move on to our news topic. What do you have for us today?
Robb: It is a piece from Opinion India. OpIndia, which is interesting that you are only seeing stories like this from outside the United States and/or from, quote, right-wing media. But the title is US immunologist who had emailed Dr. Fauci that coronavirus “looked engineered” deletes Twitter account after his lies were exposed. This guy, Kristian Andersen, who is a researcher at the Scripps Institute, seems like a pretty decorated researcher. Seems like a legit scientist and everything. Early in this story around lab leak versus natural origin, he did some very hard lines in the sand, basically dismissing any possibility that this was of lab origin. Had a piece published in Nature to that effect. One of his co-authors was supposed to debate Bret Weinstein in an upcoming podcast that they were going to do and the guy just backed out. As this is recording, all this shit is kind of playing out. It was interesting. When the Freedom of Information Act request came out and people starting sifting through these mountains of emails, one of the emails that went to Dr. Fauci was from this Christian Anderson and basically suggesting that it looked like some… not a huge amount, but a very important section of the viral genome appeared to be modified.
Nicki: Potentially engineered, I think was the way he worded it.
Robb: And was not consistent with evolutionary processes, which I think is… This is the thing that Bret and Heather beat the… Fuck. I’ve got to give Bret some-
Nicki: I remember first reading this guy’s name… I probably had seen it earlier in the year in discussions of lab leak versus natural origin. But that Nicholas Wade piece quoted him. As him saying there’s absolutely no way this could have come from a lab.
Robb: Dismissing the-
Nicki: Dismissing the furin cleavage site and all of that. And then the funniest thing is when that Freedom of Act… When that email came out and it’s from him to Fauci talking about that it potentially looks like it could’ve been engineered, you went to his Twitter account and he said something like-
Robb: He said, “Wow. In a twist of the story, I’m now being heralded as a…”
Nicki: A hero.
Robb: “… a hero in this,” which I couldn’t make-
Nicki: Which was like… Robb read that to me and I’m like… This guy must be crazy. How would you feel like you’re a hero when you’re basically being-
Robb: And I said, “Please help me. I’m just a state-schooled bachelor’s degree, but how does this in any way make you a hero?” And that got deleted. Now, it looks like he pulled down his account. There was some discussion that maybe he had put something back up and now he’s trying to re-enter the fray, but he had initially deleted a number of the tweets that were specific to these claims that there was no… This is something that, again… Just to back this up, he wrote and emailed to Dr. Fauci saying that there was the potential that this had been engineered and then, subsequent to that, published a piece in Nature and-
Nicki: Saying there’s no way it could ever possibly come from a lab.
Robb: There’s clearly some sort of duplicity going on here. If that’s not duplicitous, I really don’t know what is. So, don’t know what the final story is on this, but these crazy conspiracy theories appear to be gaining some momentum.
Nicki: Well, not momentum. It’s actually looking like it’s not such a conspiracy theory after all.
Robb: Yes.
Nicki: I mean, momentum in a conspiracy theory makes me think that it’s still a conspiracy theory that a lot of people are buying into.
Robb: There’s still a shit load of people who think that the lab origin thing… And now it’s getting… It’s been fascinating to see… Now, it’s just becoming a story of, well, of course, they’ve changed their mind. That’s what science is. And this isn’t how this has been played at all. Again, just to give big props to Bret and Heather and I think we’ve done a half-decent job of this, which is here’s what our understanding is. Here’s the other understanding. It looks like this is probably the more robust thing, but here’s this other piece. If it were to gain some prominence, then here’s some things that we might see. There was none of that from him and from a host of people like that.
Nicki: As Bret and Heather have said repeatedly, when you do science, you lay all the hypotheses out on the table. And in the beginning, this wasn’t even… You could not even entertain this hypothesis without being canceled or labeled a kook. So, in the beginning-
Robb: Do we go down a little bit of the why of that?
Nicki: Do you want to?
Robb: Sure. Why not? So, the why on that is because President… then President Trump said that this was a lab origin. Now, there were a bunch of other things that got attached to that. That it’s a bio-weapon. That it was done purposefully. There was a bunch of other stuff. Like, each one of these claims needs another layer of support. But the fundamental thing… Even within big trenches of the media, they have said it was our responsibility to dismiss this because, gee, whiz, look at the source that it’s coming from. My only point to that… And this is something that… If you dig back… If somebody were to dig back through the totality of my Twitter interactions with people, you will never once see me, when I’m debating people, ask them, “What are your credentials?” I’ve never done that once. I don’t give two shits what the person’s credentials are. Sometimes it’s nice for a little bit of context, but I’m always mainly interested in what’s your position on a particular topic.
Robb: When we’re just dealing with information… One of the sharpest people I know in the world on biochemistry and metabolism is a guy, Mike Julian, whose main line of work is HVAC engineering type stuff. He has no formal education in any of this nutrition and metabolism stuff and that guy can tie me in knots on this. It’s just one of these straw man ridiculous things that people use to dismiss these things and… What the heck was my point to that? Thinking through-
Nicki: Well, it was dismissed because Orange Man-
Robb: Because Orange Man suggested it.
Nicki: … suggested that was a potential source and so then it couldn’t be that.
Robb: So, my pointer to that is if people consider themselves to be open-minded, progressive, whatever, you got to be really careful with dismissing something out of hand from any source. Certainly you can… There have been things from Alex Jones and stuff like that that I’m like, oh, that’s interesting but Alex is kind of crazy, so I don’t know. I don’t know if this is just a personality type difference of what, but I definitely have opinions on different things. Like, oh, this doesn’t really make sense.
Robb: At the very beginning of the pandemic, when people in, quote, the ancestral health community that were saying that COVID was broadcast by 5G, I was just like, oh, this is bullshit. But what I did instead of attacking… What I did is I looked at does this mechanistically make sense at all from a scientific perspective and I tackled it first from can you get a viral infection from 5G and unpack that. And then I went further and made the case that, from my understanding and from my dig into the physics and electromagnetic spectrum and everything, I don’t even see how this stuff is problematic at all. We have had internal discussions around this, where you’ve been more concerned about routers and stuff like that and I’m like, “I just don’t see the problem here.” I reserve the right to amend my position if other data comes later. But it’s bullshit to backtrack on this and say, “Well, because the source was questionable, we had to automatically question it.” No, you don’t. That’s simple-minded thinking.
Nicki: If you think it through and it’s a viable hypothesis, then that hypothesis deserves to be on the table with the rest of them.
Robb: Done.
Nicki: Let’s see. It’s time for our t-shirt review winner of this week. It goes to Water544 music note, music note, music note, emoji. I guess. She says, “Nothing but great. Superb health and wellness information without being dogmatic. I’m also glad that they continue to express opinions beyond that. It’s still America, after all. Keep up the great work. PS: LMNT mango chili is amazing.”
Robb: It is pretty darn good.
Nicki: It is. Let’s see here. Water544, thank you for your review. Send us an email to hello@robbwolf.com with your t-shirt size and your mailing address and we’ll send you a Healthy Rebellion Radio t-shirt. The Healthy Rebellion Radio is sponsored by our salty AF electrolyte company, LMNT. Today, I wanted to read an email that we received recently from one of our Healthy Rebellion Radio podcast listeners and also an LMNT customer. This is from Tamara. Tamara says, “Hi there. After many months of hearing you guys talk about the importance of electrolytes and how none of the products really have a meaningful amount, I finally broke down when you offered your sample pack. I’ve been a competitive athlete, runner… mountain bike and cyclocross racing and I feel like I’m pretty knowledgeable about nutrition. However, I’ve just not given enough credence to electrolytes. Since I mostly follow a low-carb lifestyle, I heard you. Okay, now to my feedback about your product. Holy cats! It’s freaking amazing!” That tells me that she’s been a follower of yours for-
Robb: For a while.
Nicki: … a long time. Because you haven’t said holy cats in like several years.
Robb: There hasn’t been anything holy cats worthy for a long time.
Nicki: Well, Tamara was around back in the early holy cats days. She says, “Our first sampling was before a ride and, afterwards, both me and my hubs were commenting on how great we felt. It was my second ride after COVID. Fortunately, a very mild case, but it still kicked my butt. And I was shocked at how good my legs were. We’ve tried all the flavors and love them all. I tell everyone about this stuff and share it with friends. I know you’ve heard it all before, but this stuff really is the best and I regret not buying it sooner. Thank you so much to all of you for creating this product and for being a guiding light for health, sensibility, and civility. Best of health to you.”
Robb: Thank you.
Nicki: That’s pretty darn cool. Thank you, Tamara. I also am going to… I’m going to let the cat out of the bag on our newest LMNT flavor.
Robb: I hope you know what you’re doing here.
Nicki: You don’t think I should?
Robb: I don’t know. Go for it. I mean-
Nicki: It officially releases on June-
Robb: We’re co-founders, so they can’t totally fire us.
Nicki: It officially releases on June 15th.
Robb: When does this go live?
Nicki: And this episode goes live on the 11th. So, they’re getting a four-day sneak preview of the flavor.
Robb: Okay. Fine by me.
Nicki: Yeah, it’s like a perk to being a listener.
Robb: Okay.
Nicki: All right. I’m going to let you know that this is my favorite flavor out of all the ones that we currently had. Have. We did chat about this in one of our Healthy Rebellion community chats. The one gal… They were guessing and I was giving a couple of hints. The girl that guessed, she goes, “I sure hope it’s not that flavor because that’s my least favorite flavor. I hate things that are flavored this flavor.” So, anyway. We’ll see if-
Robb: It happened so fast. I don’t even think anybody else noticed, but…
Nicki: All right. It’s great. It’s great by itself. It’s great with vodka. It is grapefruit.
Robb: And it’s pretty good. I’m not a grapefruit fan. One thing to note about grapefruit… It’s going to be the first of what will be-
Nicki: Limited edition flavors.
Robb: … limited seasonal flavors. It will come back again. It won’t be for probably a year. So, when it’s here, if you’re interested, you better grab it because it’s going to go fast.
Nicki: Yeah. So, that’s coming on June 15th. If you guys listen to this on the day this episode drops, you are definitely getting the early… You’re the early bird. So, get the worm.
Robb: Getting the grapefruit worm. So, tequila with this. Not vodka.
Nicki: Go to drinklmnt.com/robb and grab your LMNT electrolytes. You can build a value bundle. Purchase three boxes and get your fourth box free. Again, that’s drink L-M-N-T dot com slash R-O-B-B.
Robb: Do you know what’s going to happen now?
Nicki: What?
Robb: LMNT customer service is going to get a deluge of people saying, “I want the grapefruit!” And they’re going to be like, “How the fuck did this get out?”
Nicki: This is the pact with you guys as listeners. You know that it’s coming on June 15th, but you cannot harass people to get it earlier.
Robb: Our listeners are pretty smart, but somebody’s going to screw this up.
Nicki: No, they won’t. I have faith.
Robb: But if they do, I will know who it is.
Nicki: That’s right.
Robb: Because they’re going to ping customer service and then I’ll know.
Nicki: They won’t. They’re going to be patient and they’re going to be-
Robb: We’ll see.
Nicki: We’ll see. Okay, let’s move on to questions for today. We have one from Charlie on testosterone. He says, “I recently got a blood test showing very low testosterone. About a third of what it’s been in the past few years. And I’ve been mopey and getting pudgier lately. Before I freak out and go to the doctor for shots, I want to figure out what I might’ve done to crash my testosterone. Maybe you have some ideas from experience with athletes.” He says, “In December, I was on a vaguely Paleo-like low-calorie diet in solidarity with family. Starving through Christmas. Not recommended. Didn’t even lose any body fat. Sucktastic.” I like that. Sucktastic. “New Years. Awesome late night party with lots of booze. Testosterone test about a week into January. Previously, I’d been tested at 8:30 AM, but this time, it was 11:45 AM. Does testosterone levels change throughout the day? And how much does it typically vary? It was the same lab provider as last year. Are any of those plausible testosterone crashers? What other newbie mistakes do people make to make themselves less manly in the hormone department?”
Robb: Well, it can be less womanly too, but… I mean, sleep. Stress. Hypercaloric diet. Hypocaloric diets. Xenoestrogens. There’s a lot of different things that can affect things. Gaining body fat can negatively affect testosterone. Because as your fat mass goes up, then we tend to convert more testosterone into estrogen due to the aromatase in our fat mass. So, there are a lot of different angles on this. The bugger is that Charlie didn’t mention what his actual numbers were. Whether they were just looking at free or total testosterone. Sex-hormone binding protein and estradiol. This is one of the frustrating things about when people do lab testing in general. The general way that folks go about doing it is almost completely unhelpful.
Nicki: It’s giving one marker and not the suite that fills you in on what’s contributing to the other markers.
Robb: Yeah, and I’m not even super well-versed on this stuff compared to like Kirk Parsley and some people that are really deep down the rabbit hole on this. There’s just almost nothing that you can work with on this. A little bit, but this is where you almost have to go back 100% to the beginning. Okay, what’s the height? What’s the weight? What’s the body fat percentage? What time to bed? What time waking up? What’s the physical activity level? What circadian biology? Are you getting out in the sun? Sunlight has a really amazing effect on this stuff. A low-calorie diet can tank hormones, but it sounds… honestly, the way that this thing’s written… like there was some stuff brewing prior to that. So, Charlie, there’s not a lot I can do here other than-
Nicki: And we don’t know if this has been like one year difference between… He says it’s a third of what it’s been in the past few years, so I’m not sure if his previous test was two or three years ago or if he’s getting it annually and he noticed a really significant drop.
Robb: It doesn’t mention his current age. Like, if he’s 24 and we see it dropping by a third, then it’s kind of like a holy shit thing. If you’re 44, then oh okay. Still concerning, but… Again, someday, someway, somehow, somewhere, we will bring back some sort of a call-in show for things like that. Maybe what we do in the future is when we find questions like this, we just punt them. Ping the people back. What we should do is make them pay 100 bucks to answer their question online. And then if they actually show up at the time to do it, we give them 100 bucks back. But we need some accountability so that we’re not sitting there with crickets on the other end of the thing. They’ve got some skin in the game and we can dig into this stuff. If Charlie ends up listening to this episode, we need a really legit full hormone panel. Total testosterone, free testosterone, estrogen, estradiol, sex-hormone binding globulin. The time of the day can affect things a little bit, but it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. And it would be super helpful to know your body fat level, fitness level. Again, what time you go to bed.
Nicki: Age.
Robb: Age. Yeah. And I’m assuming… Well, yeah. He said the manly deal. Because Charlie could be a little bit like Chris. Could be a little gender nonspecific. But I think in this situation-
Nicki: No.
Robb: … Charlie is a guy.
Nicki: Charlie is a guy. Yep. Okay, this next one is from Max. He’s getting a tight posterior after playing flag football. “Hi, Robb and Nicki. I play flag football once a week in the warmer months and I’ve noticed that after I play, for three to four days afterwards, my posterior chain, especially my hamstrings, are very tight. So much so that I can’t do my usual gymnastics body stretching routines very well. And it’s a bit of a positive feedback loop where, because I am not able to stretch out as effectively each week, I’m getting a bit tighter every week. During the game itself, I feel great. Side note. I used to need some carbs on game day to feel explosive since I usually eat keto, but since you started talking about electrolytes, I just supplement with LMNT and I don’t need the carbs, which is great. Do you have any advice on things to try to get my body more flag football ready? I am 5’10”, 150 pounds, 29 years old, and I’ve eaten Paleo for 10+ years. Keto for the last year or so.”
Robb: Couple of thoughts on this. I noticed this. With jujitsu, I’ll be pretty sore after a frisky day and then attempting to do some sort of dedicated stretching is rough. I will say that going from just a dead stop is really, really hard. Doing some CARS. Then doing some DROM. The dynamic range of movement. Getting your body temperature up. Doing a hot bath. Hot shower. I think everybody notices that if their body temperature is high, if it’s pretty warm, they’re just much more stretchy. So, I would do more warm-up before the stretching. The gymnastics bodies, if he’s following the same stuff that I did years ago, has some weighted stretches in it. Some things like Jefferson curls and whatnot, which is a very long range of movement. Hamstring stretch.
Robb: But using weights as a stretching tool… Like basically getting into kind of a back extended, straight leg hamstring stretch, but using anything from a five pound plate to a dumbbell to assist in that… Sometimes you can get tight enough and you start getting old and decrepit like me and your muscles are more scar tissue than muscle. And so it takes… It’s kind of like cold taffy. You got to use some loading to stretch it out. But I would warm up better for the stretching. I would look at the stretching as a conditioning activity. When you’re young, you can just kind of plop down and stretch. I mean, 29 is pretty young, but clearly, there’s some stuff going on here. So, I would definitely do better warm-ups beforehand. If you’re not familiar with CARS-
Nicki: Learn the CARS routine. The controlled articular rotations that the Kinstretch and functional anatomy seminars folks put out.
Robb: You can find those on YouTube all over the place. C-A-R-S.
Nicki: We have a full program inside the Healthy Rebellion if you are a member there. You can access that. But yeah. That is just a game changer physically and should be something you do every day. It takes less than 10 minutes. And definitely before a game or before any kind of workout as well.
Robb: Cool. I was going to ask you if you had any other thoughts, but those were your additional thoughts.
Nicki: I just inserted them.
Robb: There you go. Good. Good.
Nicki: I didn’t need you to ask me. I just went forth.
Robb: Perfect. I like tight ponytail Nicki. You just get stuff done.
Nicki: All right. This next question is from Klaus on fasting and eating windows. “Hi, Robb and Nicki. I wanted to start off by thanking you for all the amazing content you put out every week. I’ve been following you since you did Joe Rogan Experience. A little backstory on me. I’m 22 years old, 5’7″, 172 pounds with 16% body fat. Been active since I was a little kid playing competitive sports and BJJ for the past two and a half years. I eat pretty low-carb and I’m very fat-adapted, but eat carbs around training time, which is mainly at night. Carbs at night has improved my sleep massively. Anyways, I’ve been trying to get to 10-12% body fat, but I’ve been struggling with it. Lately, in the past six months, I’ve introduced eating…” Eating…
Robb: Within a window.
Nicki: Okay. Got a typo here. “… introduced eating within a window, but it hasn’t worked for me as I some days get home late from BJJ and feel like I have to eat. This has led me to have different eating windows the days I train. Would you say there is a negative impact if I have different eating windows from day to day or would I still benefit from a 16 hour fast every day regardless of the time I start and end eating? Or is there another approach I can use to lean down besides this one?”
Robb: Man, I’m thinking a ton of things here. What’s our biggest thing that happens in the resets?
Nicki: Not eating enough protein.
Robb: Just not eating enough protein. And so this is where… Like he mentioned height, weight, percent body fat. That’s all super good. Super helpful. But absent some context about how much proteins, carbs, fat, we are getting… Klaus is getting in this situation makes it tough. I don’t see any problem with some variability on the eating windows from day to day. There shouldn’t be any real issue with that. But I think this is a situation where go back to that good old keto gains macro nutrient calculator. Be honest about your activity level. For many years, when I used it and other calorie calculators, I’m like, oh, I’m modestly active and it’s like, no, I’m not. Yeah, you can adjust up for your jujitsu days and whatnot, which can be a nontrivial amount of additional calories, but you just have to be really honest with that. And when you’re really honest with that, it ends up being a lot of protein and not many other calories. And that’s really like… The rubber just hits the road there.
Robb: The only real magic of these compressed feeding windows… other than some people with some gut-related issues. People with IBS and whatnot find that they do better with longer periods between eating. I tend to be that way. So long as the meals that I eat aren’t so big, they then cause problems. So, there’s kind of a balance on that. A one meal a day deal would not work for me in that I don’t think I could fuel activity. I couldn’t maintain muscle mass. Unless I ate so much that then I felt disgusting and ended up with GI problems from that. The compressed feeding windows… There’s some juice there, but it’s kind of icing on the cake. It’s not the cake.
Robb: The main thing is just being really diligent in establishing what your legit calorie needs are. What the macros are. Be honest about that. Err on the side of a little higher protein versus a little lower protein. Sounds like he’s fat-adapted, so he’s probably good to go on that. But even then, is he eating 100 grams of carbs a day or whatever? Whatever that is. But I think that this is still just a problem of too many calories. 2004 through… 1998 through 2007-8 Robb would’ve been all over the insulin part of this and then Matt Lalonde got ahold of me. Yes, insulin matters. Yes, feeding windows matter for a variety of reasons. But we just have to hit that protein so that we get the proper satiety to not overeat and to provide raw materials for our recovery, particularly with an active individual, maintain hormonal balance, and all that type of stuff. Yeah.
Nicki: Okay. So, Klaus, go to the keto gains macro nutrient calculator, put in your activity level, your height, your body fat percentage, all of that stuff, and you’ll get a protein-
Robb: And set it for like a 10% calorie deficit. And/or… No, just leave it at that. That’s good. One other thing that you can do… and this is mainly what I’ve done is I set myself up for maintenance. I just don’t really adjust eating all that much even on active days. Some days, I’m probably eating a little bit more than what I need and then on my training days, I’m eating a little less than I need, and it all kind of comes out in the wash. Like I’ve been at this long-term attractor of my weight being about 165 pounds and not much I do changes that one way or the other.
Nicki: Klaus, let us know how it goes. Tinker and report back. Okay, it’s time for The Healthy Rebellion Radio trivia.
Robb: You’re reading it now. For the first time.
Nicki: Robin sorted this question. Our Healthy Rebellion Radio sponsored drink LMNT is giving a box of LMNT recharge electrolytes to three lucky winners selected at random who answer the following question correctly. What will be the first berry we harvest this summer?
Robb: I’m thinking strawberries.
Nicki: So, yeah. We have a little garden that has strawberries that have overwintered from last year, so we didn’t plant them. And there are also raspberry bushes as well.
Robb: And around our house, there is a-
Nicki: I think they might be serviceberries or-
Robb: … profusion of blueberries, serviceberries, huckleberries.
Nicki: Well, we don’t know yet because they haven’t… They’re berries of some sort, but we don’t know the variety.
Robb: Berries of unknown variety.
Nicki: Yes. Berries of unknown variety. But for sure we have raspberries and strawberries. I agree with you. I think the strawberries. We already have lots of blossoms. Some of them are already forming green strawberries that have yet to turn to red. So, yes. I think strawberry will be the answer. To play, go to robbwolf.com/trivia and enter your answer and we’ll randomly select three people with the correct answer to win a box of electrolytes from Drink LMNT. The cutoff to answer this week’s trivia and be eligible to win is Thursday, June 17th at midnight. Winners will be notified via email and we’ll announce the winners on Instagram as well. This is open to residents of the US only. Fourth question this week is from Keslie. I think that’s Keslie. Unless there’s a typo and it should be Kelsey.
Robb: We’ll go with Keslie for now.
Nicki: We’ll go with Keslie. About her achy joints. “Hello, Robb and Nicki. I just recently started listening to your podcast and I’m loving it. Thank you for doing what you do. Your generally somewhat neutral stance on things is a great middle ground to the extremes we hear all the time. Anyway, about my achy body. I’m a 33 year old CrossFit has-been. I competed on a team in 2013 and 2015 and have since opened by own affiliate. As an ex-athlete, I know how demanding a full-on CrossFit routine can be on the body, so at our gym, we tend to lay back, enjoy the ride, and take our time. This is important for you to know that when I say I, quote, do CrossFit a couple of times a week, unquote, it doesn’t mean I do CrossFit. I listen to my body, modify what I need to, and do what I can. I’m also four months postpartum with my first baby. Since having him, my achy joints that I’ve always lived with have seemed to get worse and worse to the point where they wake me up in the night more than my baby does. When I stand from sitting for any amount of time, I have to limp for 10 to 20 steps so that my ankles and hips can catch up. I look as if I am 75 years old when I get up off the ground.
Nicki: I eat a whole foods diet and enjoy foods like Rebel ice cream two to three times a week. The food I eat that comes in a package is usually things like sprouted flax breads, some nut butters, maybe some lunch meat, or chicken apple sausage. I don’t pay much attention to how much I eat since I’m exclusively breast feeding and I want to make sure I’m not restricting at all. I eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full. My meat comes from a local grass finished farm and my eggs come from my backyard chickens. I’d say, overall, I choose the foods that are best for me and my baby’s development. So, what is causing this achy body of mine? My movement isn’t too much. It’s maybe even too little. I really just started getting back into working out since having my little one. An occasional hike, spin class, or CrossFit day is what I do on a not so regular basis. Am I missing some nutrient?” Sorry. Thought my phone was off. “Am I missing some nutrient? Should I stretch more? What gives? I feel like I focus on my nutrition to keep me healthy and happy, but my body is acting otherwise. Any advice? Thanks again for what you do. More people need to hear this shit.”
Robb: So, do you have any thoughts on that? One thing that pops into my head is… What is the hormone that’s released during pregnancy that causes-
Nicki: Oxytocin?
Robb: Is it oxytocin that causes… I should’ve-
Nicki: Oh, the joint-
Robb: Yeah, the joint loosening deal.
Nicki: No, it’s something else.
Robb: Well, that’s a possibility. But when she’s describing all of her activities, she’s definitely not mentioning any mobility work. And so, again, thinking about RFC, Kinstretch.
Nicki: Relaxing.
Robb: Relaxing. Okay. What was the thing that when you went to the Kinstretch certification, they mentioned that if you lose X amount of internal rotation, you will get a hip replacement?
Nicki: If your hip internal rotation is… Yeah, I don’t remember the exact metric, but-
Robb: A ton of people just have none.
Nicki: I’m on the border for that. I have terrible internal rotation in my hips. And a lot of people do because of how we sit so much and just modern life.
Robb: The things that you need to do to improve internal rotation, particularly if you’ve never worked on it before, sucks. It’s horrible. It’s like being put to the rack. So, yeah. Maybe two of our five answers are go check out Kinstretch and FRC. Join the rebellion and check out the Basis program or just reach out to the Basis people first. That is one of the first things that I would recommend is reach out to someone like Sarah Strange. She can do a movement assessment remotely. Just having you move. Checking the joint angles and whatnot. Because this is-
Nicki: Like when I was reading limping for 10 to 20 steps… It almost sounds like there could be something else going on, too. That’s excessively stiff.
Robb: It could be. But this is, again, where having a professional put some eyeballs on you would be really, really helpful. Is it both feet? Is it one foot? Is it mainly the hips? Is it the hips and knees? I would really look into that. On the CrossFit and the programming stuff, it’s tough if you are still in a mode where people get their name written down on the board. People say they go they easier, and they might go a little easier, but nobody ever goes the pace that they should go when their name is written down. This is where we ended up-
Nicki: I agree. I’m going to interrupt you, though. I agree, but I feel like she did a good job of explaining that she owns this affiliate but she’s enjoying the ride and taking her time and listening to her body.
Robb: I call bullshit.
Nicki: You’re calling bullshit?
Robb: I call bullshit.
Nicki: I don’t know.
Robb: Let me just finish my thought and then you can riposte all you want. But this is why we put together the LIFT program. The low intensity functional training program. Because we had people that were not appropriate for the group class. They legitimately couldn’t afford personal training. They wanted to be apart of the gym. But the psychological burden of having your name written on the board and coming in last or battling to not come in last was soul-crushing for people. And so we put together this class and it was all good, functional movements, but when we got to the, quote, metcon part, we didn’t write down people’s name. An example workout would be walk down to the end of the fence, which was maybe like 100 yards, jog in, and 60, 70% effort, do one assent up the rope. We would have six bars set up with dead lifts. Grab one that is an easy three reps and do that until we tell you to stop. And when we saw somebody starting to look a little gassed, a little winded, if they started getting any type of form breakdowns, then they stopped. And also prior to that, it was easy to coach people because they weren’t racing the clock. It was just getting work done and they got community and everything.
Robb: And I really… There’s parallels here with jujitsu and drilling. We just encouraged our coach, Travis Davidson at SPG Kalispell, we were like, “Hey, can we do some 10 minute rounds?” Which people might think… versus the normal five minute round… which five minute rounds are great if you’re training some specificity around competition because that’s where a lot of people… Their time indexing is five minute rounds. People go like bats out of fucking hell at the five minute round deal. Because they’ve just learned how hard they can go at the five minutes whereas at 10 minutes… We did this a couple of days. People were like, “Hey, can we do a little bit of drilling and then we’ll do some…” And all of a sudden, it was mellow. Nobody was trying to take scalps home with them and stuff like that.
Nicki: Because they knew that they can’t hang for 10 minutes at that pace.
Robb: Because you can’t just go fucking crazy for 10 minutes. And so I really… I strongly think that there’s something there.
Nicki: I’m going to push back only because she’s four months postpartum. She says, if anything, she’s going on a hike, a spin class, or a CrossFit workout on a not so regular basis. I just feel like… I’m not getting the spidey sense that she’s wrote all this but is really doing Fran and Fight Gone Bad four days a week. And she had achy joints previously. It just seems to be…
Robb: Which could be due to doing CrossFit type stuff in this format. I think doing circuits are wonderful, but when you start putting that competitive time index on it… Even myself. I see it with you. You’ll be like, “Oh, I’m going to get 10 rounds,” and I’m like-
Nicki: When? Not now.
Robb: It’s been a while, but you… and you are a more competitive athlete person than I am. You have a deeper history of competitive athletics and whatnot. And you will kind of rise to that occasion more whereas I’m, like, fuck that. I’m good. So, I’m hearing what you’re saying, but I really do think that there’s something to that. The magnitude of the dose… I’m just throwing that out there as a possibility.
Nicki: Okay. So, let’s take… Let’s just say, just for argument’s sake, that what she’s written is actually true. That she’s not doing crazy CrossFit workouts. She’s kind of doing what you’ve described. She goes and does 10 kettle ball dead lifts, walks over-
Robb: Has a smoke, cup of coffee.
Nicki: Does a body row or two. Has a sip of water. She’s not doing anything excessive here. But she has these achy joints.
Robb: Then, FRC. Kinstretch. Movement assessment.
Nicki: Actually, Kezley, the Kinstretch stuff… I’m hard-pressed to find people that don’t really, really like it because it has that intensity to it. It’s not easy. It’s not what you think of as yoga. It actually can be very demanding and challenging-
Robb: The funny thing-
Nicki: … and it’s so effective. It might be a really great thing to throw into your routine. You have a little one. When he’s napping, you can follow on a video online or sign up for a program.
Robb: You wouldn’t believe it, but stretching your hips or your shoulders properly can produce a similar white buffalo in the sky experience, where you’re like, oh my god, I’m glad that’s done.
Nicki: It can be like a max effort type of a thing. I guess that would be our number one thing would be to do some actual joint work. Joint mobility work.
Robb: And I would strongly… Two things that I would recommend. Investigate FRC/Kinstretch and I would really reevaluate the volume and the intensity and the way that the workouts are being approached. And I might consider doing something like this low intensity functional training, where you don’t record your time, you don’t put your name on the board, and you just accumulate.
Nicki: When you hear achy joint, do you think inflammation?
Robb: Maybe.
Nicki: Maybe?
Robb: Maybe. But the inflammation could come from a bunch of things. Nothing will inflame something worse than just beating the shit out of it. This is where Dr. Spina and other people in the FRC Kinstretch world… I so enjoy the way that they describe this. It’s like, okay, well, today’s workout of the day is that we’re going to do push presses overhead. And Dr. Spina may make the case, you don’t have a shoulder, so you don’t get to do overhead pressing.
Nicki: You get to do incline pressing.
Robb: You get to do incline pressing. And this is where this stuff may end up needing to be modified and it looks very, very different than the… When I look back at some of the people that we trained, one person in particular with horrible kyphosis, he should’ve never done a single goddamn thing overhead. We managed to… At the end of us working with him, I think… He was already reasonably tall despite some really gnarly kyphosis, but at the age of like 68, he ended up gaining an inch and a half of height. Because we would stick him on a foam roller, put two pound weights in his fingertips, and make him stay there until he was ready to poop his pants. It ended up helping and we chipped away at it over years.
Nicki: That guy also could hang from a bar longer than anybody else in the gym.
Robb: He was a professional glass blower.
Nicki: He had an amazing grip strength. We would do timed hangs from the pull-up bar and he… Yeah, it was impressive.
Robb: I have no idea how that’s germane here, but-
Nicki: I don’t know. It just made me think of it. Well, because that’s good for your shoulders, too.
Robb: That too. We made him hang a lot because that, too, is good for your shoulders. Anyway, there’s… I love CrossFit. CrossFit’s got some very laudable things to it, but the two big blind spots that I see with it are the movement assessment… and not just mobility wadding. Just like, well, today’s mobility thing is we’re going to do this. It’s like, are you? Did you assess that? Do you really know for sure that you’re… that is your need? So, getting some assessment. And what’s cool about even, say, Hunter Fitness is-
Nicki: Hunter Cook.
Robb: … Hunter Cook… his material… is that in his… and the guy is like a fucking Ph.D. class in anatomy. Every time you do one of his classes, it’s amazing. But he’s talking to you and, in the process of walking you through things, you understand how to self… He gives you the parameters to self-assess. Okay, well, if you can do this, then you’re good to go. If you can’t and you’re operating between this and this, then you do this.
Nicki: Then lean your arm out this far or you can move it out this far.
Robb: And that’s the type of scaling that people need. Because it’s actually moving that joint to a direction that you need to go.
Nicki: And actually, Kezley, I’m going to… Since you own a CrossFit gym… I have no desire to own a CrossFit gym again, but if I was still owning a CrossFit gym, I would get my FRC certification, I would Kinstretch certified, and I would offer Kinstretch classes. Because it is so valuable. The folks that we know that offer Kinstretch, they get their clients amazing results. It is literally magic. If you wanted to reach out to Sarah Strange from Basis Health and Performance New York, they offered it in Chico when they were there and I’m sure they’re offering it in New York.
Robb: And it was an absolute linchpin to their-
Nicki: They have so many stories of people who had different mobility issues. Shoulder issues. Didn’t have a shoulder. Didn’t have a hip. Didn’t have an ankle. And then with the proper programming and Kinstretch work, these people gain function in these joints. So, as an affiliate owner, this would… I think it’s the perfect adjunctive offering as a business owner that you can not only attract a different clientele that might not want to do CrossFit but would love and benefit greatly from the Kinstretch, but also I think it would be a really great add-on to your business.
Robb: Agreed.
Nicki: That was the longest answer to a question that we’ve had in a while.
Robb: I enjoyed it.
Nicki: And we went all over the map. Okay. Kezley, Kelsey. I hope that helps.
Robb: Let us know what you do.
Nicki: Yeah. I hope that helps. Okay, our last question this week is from Alex. He’s having a hard time getting in his last sleep cycle. “Hey, healthy rebel leaders. I keep waking up between 6:00 AM and 7:00 AM after only sleeping six and a half hours to seven hours. I go to bed between 10:30 PM and midnight each night and have no problems with sleep latency and sleeping throughout the night. I’m familiar with many sleep protocols thanks to yourselves, Shawn Stevenson, and others. This seems to be more common during the spring and summer months. I do have blackout curtains and keep the room cold. I’m 45 years old and I’m wondering if it has something to do with age, hormones, blood sugar dropping, or if I should just try to go to bed earlier. I lose my edge and extra boost of physical and mental energy if I don’t get around eight hours of sleep.”
Robb: Yeah. I mean, we are experiencing this. We are almost 50 degrees northern latitude, which I know people in Europe are. They’ve got that beat.
Nicki: It’s light here until like 10:00. 10:30 almost.
Robb: And when we hit the summer solstice, the sun will set at like 9:45 PM or something like that. So, it’s going to be sunny for quite late and then the sun comes up remarkably early. It’s tougher to go to bed, but we just turn off devices. Wind things down.
Nicki: Turn off the lights. Close the blackout curtains.
Robb: And I’ve noticed exactly the same thing. I will tend to stay up later. If I let it happen, I will stay up too late and then I will wake up at my normal, early-ish time and I am knackered the next day. And so I… Yes, there could be some hormones. Yes, there could be some age-related stuff. But even if all that is a factor, the main driver may be the later bedtime. So, I would implore you to be in bed by like-
Nicki: Really try that 10:00, 10:30 time. Don’t go past 10:30.
Robb: At the latest. Because there is a reality that, if we stay up long enough, we get a little bit of a… People will say I got my second wind. And you do. And then you’re really… Although he’s saying that he’s not experiencing sleep latency, so he’s not getting a problem falling back to sleep, but the alternative-
Nicki: Also, the hours of sleep that you get before midnight are far more valuable than the hours that you get after midnight. So, if you’re going to bed at midnight, you’re losing those pre-midnight, really good-
Robb: And our kids do bitch. They’re like, “Dad, we hardly ever stay up and see the stars.” Particularly in the summer. And I’m like, “Well-
Nicki: Sorry Charlie.
Robb: … you drew the short straw, having old parents, so that’s too bad.” So, yeah. Alex, I would just recommend first trying to go to bed earlier. I think that that is the lowest hanging fruit on this.
Nicki: That’s a wrap. Anything else you want to add to this here episode?
Robb: No. If folks enjoy it, share it, like it, write a review, all that good stuff. We still have some room in the rebellion, but we’re getting up there. Close to our max capacity. But we’d still like to see you.
Nicki: And check out our show’s sponsor, LMNT. Grab your summer electrolytes for all your hydration needs. All your outdoor activity needs. Hopefully you’ve got some fun plans for the summer. You can go to drinklmnt.com/robb. That’s drink L-M-N-T dot com slash R-O-B-B. And we’ll see you next week.
Robb: Bye, everybody.
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